a href="#It’s Not Just Bush, It’s Capitalism As Millions March Against War">It"s Not Just Bush, It’s Capitalism As Millions March Against War

a href="#Bring PLP’s Politics To Marching Millions">"ring PLP’s Politics To Marching Millions

War Now Or Later?

Put The Line On The Line

a href="#Iraq’s Oil Has Imperialist Rivalry Boiling Over">"raq’s Oil Has Imperialist Rivalry Boiling Over

a href="#PLP At LA March: Not Just Bush, It’s the Whole System">"LP At LA March: Not Just Bush, It’s the Whole System

Billions For War, Unemployment For 20 Million

Unemployment - The Phony Figures

Billions For War, Bankruptcy For Pensions

Capitalist Crisis Running Amok

Venezuela: Fascist Lockout Failing; Workers Power Is Way To Go

Workers And Youth Celebrate Challenge

a href="#U.S. ‘Victory’ in Afghanistan Still A Mirage">U.". ‘Victory’ in Afghanistan Still A Mirage

a href="#Terrorizing Civilians: A ‘Long U.S. Tradition’">Te"rorizing Civilians: A ‘Long U.S. Tradition’

LETTERS

a href="#Workers’ Solidarity Is An International Language">"orkers’ Solidarity Is An International Language

a href="#Unite With GI’s">"nite With GI’s

a href="#Youth Says ‘Let Our Voices Be Heard’">Yo"th Says ‘Let Our Voices Be Heard’

Imperialists Fear Spirit of Unity

Gardener Has Red Thumb

Terror at Home: Unemployment, Low Wages

Capitalism Strikes Out

Peace Marches Mean We Got To Fight Back

---

a name="It’s Not Just Bush, It’s Capitalism As Millions March Against War"></">It"s Not Just Bush, It’s Capitalism As Millions March Against War

Millions of people across the world protested on the weekend of Feb. 15-16 against a U.S. war in Iraq — from Cape Town to Moscow to Buenos Aires to Tel Aviv to San Francisco to Berlin to Melbourne to Damascus. Two million marched in London and nearly that number in Barcelona, 400,000 in New York City, and so on. This occurred simultaneously with an oil workers’ strike in Nigeria against the super-exploitation by Chevron, Shell, and ExxonMobil; a mass rebellion erupting in Bolivia (even cops, usually the bosses’ fascist repressive arm, struck and 20 were killed by army troops); a strike by tens of thousands of teachers in Guatemala for higher wages and more money for public education entered its second month; massive protests in the Dominican Republic opposed price increases in gas and other goods.

Masses of workers, youth and their allies are fed up with a system that only breeds endless wars and mass poverty. Millions in the anti-war movement are not won to the pacifist line of supporting a UN-led war in Iraq. Nor do European protesters necessarily believe the leadership of the "lesser imperialists"— France and Germany — is any better than the U.S. rulers. This situation is actually quite different from a similar stage during the anti-war protests of the Vietnam era.

There is real anger at, and hatred of, U.S. imperialism, personified by Bush. While there is a serious danger in portraying Bush as representing the entire U.S. ruling class — that is, a misreading of the liberals — this worldwide reaction to Bush is nonetheless a new phenomenon. It caught the rulers by surprise. Until now, they seem to have worried mainly about the "Arab street" reaction. Now the "street" has expanded and they clearly have much more to worry about that they didn’t anticipate.

These events also demonstrate how quickly things can change and how opportunities can open up. Revolutionaries should mainly be encouraged by Feb. 15; it underscores the struggle that needs to be waged for the political leadership of this now significant movement. This doesn’t invalidate the point about the struggle against capitalism being a "long, hard" road, but something significant has happened here. It would be a bad mistake to take a hands-off approach.

Now, if Washington does launch this war — tomorrow, in March, in the Fall or whenever — they must face not only the problems they’re very likely to encounter in the Gulf and the Middle East, but also the potential for anti-U.S. rebellions globally, including the non-Arab, non-Muslim world. This significantly expands their liabilities. However, if they find themselves unable to launch their war because of these new circumstances, they will suffer another kind of setback, which will, over the not-so-long run, make them more desperate and render war even more important to them.

a name="Bring PLP’s Politics To Marching Millions">">"ring PLP’s Politics To Marching Millions

While the Bush gang was selling duct tape and plastic wrap, millions of people around the world took to the streets in huge anti-war demonstrations on Feb 15. This reflects the aspirations of millions of workers and youth to avoid war. It also points to a struggle within the U.S. ruling class over the timing and tactics for war as well as the growing isolation of the "world’s only super power" from the other major imperialists. The struggle within the U.S. ruling class is adding fuel to the fires of growing fascism. The contradictions among the imperialists are setting the course for yet another world war. By building a mass international PLP among workers, soldiers and youth, across all borders, we can set the course for communist revolution.

The day before the demonstrations Secretary of State Colin Powell was ambushed at the UN Security Council. What was supposed to be a major step towards war turned into another Valentine’s Day Massacre. Hans Blix reported that UN weapons inspectors were forcing concessions from Iraq, and that satellite pictures used by Powell in his Feb. 5 intelligence briefing of an Iraqi chemical decontamination truck were shot two weeks apart and could be "routine" movements.

The day after the demonstrations foreign ministers from 22 Arab nations meeting in Cairo called on all Arab countries to "refrain from offering any kind of assistance or facilities for any military action that leads to the threat of Iraq’s security, safety and territorial integrity." (New York Times, 2/17)

War Now Or Later?

Facing growing isolation at every turn, the Eastern Establishment, the main wing of the ruling class, may now prefer to wait until the Fall to launch their war, in order to carve out deals with the French and Russians. If these two principal rivals can be brought on board, the French and possibly the Russians might send troops to protect their share of the oil profit pie. But whether war starts next week, next month, or next Fall, any imperialist deals will end in blood.

According to Rachel Bronson, director of Middle East Studies at the main wing’s Council on Foreign Relations, "The problem is the calendar….This rigid timetable is of Washington’s own making….War rarely occurs on neat timelines, but the administration could get lucky. If not, a third option has always existed but has never been seized upon — to postpone an assault until next Fall.

"…America can afford to wait until next Fall for conditions to ripen. Iraq will inevitably play a cat-and-mouse game, which Washington can use to strengthen the case for war. Such a delay will also allow American planners to better think through how to reconstruct Iraq after the fighting." (NYT 11/10/02) This wing of the ruling class would like to use the anti-war movement to win public support for a U.S.-led war sanctioned by the UN.

One reason Bush and Cheney are hot to trot into Iraq may be that Halliburton, the top U.S. oilfield service company (which Cheney headed before becoming Vice-President), stands to turn the quickest profit from building and rebuilding Iraqi oil facilities. It also has billion-dollar Pentagon contracts to build and maintain U.S. bases overseas. Halliburton’s big shareholders have more immediate profit concerns than ExxonMobil and Chevron Texaco, who can afford to take a longer-range strategic view.

"The Wall Street Journal last week quoted oil industry officials saying that the Bush administration is eager to rehabilitate the Iraqi oil industry. According to the officials, Mr. Cheney’s staff held a meeting in October with ExxonMobil Corporation, ChevronTexaco Corporation, ConcocoPhilips, Halliburton, but both the U.S. administration and the companies deny it." (The Guardian, 1/23)

The current "debate" among the rulers isn’t war vs. peace. It’s about the timing, tactics and political conditions that most favor U.S. imperialism. The Bush gang wants a quick kill in order to make a quick killing. The liberals realize that occupying and rebuilding Iraq and then reconfiguring the entire Middle East-Persian Gulf will be a lengthy, expensive, and very bloody process — and that it must be done.

Put The Line On The Line

War is the inevitable result of imperialism. Without the development of a mass revolutionary communist movement, all the peace marches will be twisted to suit the interests of one or another of the bosses. Only communist revolution can defeat imperialism.

The drive to war is sharpening the contradictions within the ruling class, among the imperialists and between the capitalists and the international working class. This presents us with many opportunities to build the revolutionary communist movement in the factories, barracks, schools and communities.

Readers and distributors of CHALLENGE can help move workers and youth with the most advanced revolutionary understanding. What if transit workers in Washington, D.C., steelworkers in Gary, Indiana, and Boeing workers in Seattle walked off their jobs in opposition to the war? What if they went to neighboring mills and factories, and called on dockworkers and autoworkers to join them? While we may not be in position to do this now, it would have an electrifying effect on millions around the world and strike fear in the bosses. Many British workers are already talking about a general strike when war begins.

Fighting for these actions can help to recruit new members to PLP and have a profound revolutionary impact on the millions who oppose war. What’s more, it can help expose the pro-capitalist leadership of the mass movement, who will move heaven and earth to keep the masses from taking the road to revolution.

The "peace" movement has called for student strikes on March 5. We should organize walkouts, and where we can, march on major workplaces and encourage workers to join us. In our workplaces, we should prepare our co-workers to welcome and join the students.

We should begin organizing now for job actions and student strikes when war breaks out. We can show the potential of revolutionary communist leadership and win many to participate in bigger May Day activities this year.

a name="Iraq’s Oil Has Imperialist Rivalry Boiling Over">">"raq’s Oil Has Imperialist Rivalry Boiling Over

All the imperialists covet Iraq’s proven oil reserves of 112 billion barrels, of which 35 billion are immediately available for development. "Probable" reserves along the border with Saudi Arabia and Jordan may add another 60 to 200 billion barrels. Iraq needs $30-$40 billion to begin exploiting this potential, which explains its attempts to lure foreign investment, despite the current sanctions.

"The American military isn’t alone in preparing major maneuvers in Iraq.…ExxonMobil and Chevron Texaco are…all set to cross a border that has been sealed off until now. But these multinationals will have to reckon with vigorous competition, which, like its diplomatic counterpart, takes shape along the Paris-Moscow axis.

"According to information…through…the Iraqi Oil Ministry, forty or so oil companies had by 1998 established contact with the Iraqi authorities, with the outlook of exploiting that country’s immense resources…The Russians are in the lead, with six companies, followed by a galaxy of dealers from all over the world: Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria, Turkey, China, Vietnam, Japan, Australia, but also Italy, Spain, the U.K. and, of course, France…" (Le Monde, 2/12)

For the TotalFina Elf oil company and France, the issue is strategic. The Middle East contains 66% of the world’s oil reserves, and yet TotalFinaElf has only 18% of its own business there. French bosses want in. They feel British and U.S. bosses have been screwing them since 1927. German bosses want to build a German/French-led European Union as a super-power rival to the U.S. U.S. rulers see unchallenged control of Middle Eastern oil as the economic linchpin to ruling the world in the 21st Century. The Russians and Chinese have strategic oil needs of their own.

TotalFinaElf and Russia’s Lukoil hold options covering a quarter of this potential production. TotalFinaElf (whose "ancestor," the French Petroleum Company, has been in Iraq since 1927) is focused on two oilfields in the Basra region that supposedly contain up to 13 billion barrels. The unsigned contract has been ready since 1995. Russia’s Lukoil signed a contract in 1999 but never invested the $200 million it promised, so Saddam recently revoked the contract.

French bosses would prefer that Hussein remain in power, honor existing contracts and give TotalFinaElf the vast West Qurna field it had once promised to Russia. Plan B is to join in the U.S.-led butchery and claim a smaller share of the prize. But Germany is pushing France away from Washington in order to build a Franco-German alliance that can dominate Europe. No matter how the Iraq war materializes, the inter-imperialist rivalry will sharpen.

a name="PLP At LA March: Not Just Bush, It’s the Whole System">">"LP At LA March: Not Just Bush, It’s the Whole System

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 15 — An estimated 40,000 people marched here today against the coming invasion of Iraq, moving through Hollywood and ending at an army recruiting center. Cheers and applause greeted PLP’ers’ denunciation of the war as an imperialist bloodbath for control of oil and our attack on the Democrats as being equally responsible for the slaughter. Speakers called for communist revolution to destroy capitalist wars, crisis and oppression worldwide.

Several people in various contingents said the best thing about the march was PLP’s presence and that so many people are against the war and winnable to the understanding that the capitalist system, not just Bush, is the cause of wars for profit.

One college student said he was really impressed with "PLP’s revolutionary message." At a peace coalition meeting at his university he heard a PL member emphasize the importance of reaching out to workers and soldiers and organizing militant actions on campus. Now, at this march, frustrated by what he described as "pacifism" and a "lack of diversity," he appreciated more PL’s "political stance" and wanted to stay in touch with the Party.

Another demonstrator said she was "tired of all the empty slogans" at these protests and was interested in learning more about PLP. There were many more such conversations throughout the march.

A group of enthusiastic youth who handed out PLP flyers containing many of the above ideas plan to take this message to workers and youth who did not march. Without this struggle, many people will be misled to think that the Democrats represent a real alternative and not just a different tactic (see editorial). This would leave people defenseless as fascism deepens.

The liberal rulers are openly building and using these marches to organize for "patriotic" dissent and war on their terms. As has increasingly become the norm, Hollywood celebrities like Martin Sheen led the march and politicians like Maxine Waters chanted, "Give peace a chance!" That and "Impeach Bush," were among the main march slogans. One veteran marcher, seeing a big "impeach Bush" banner remarked, "What a big banner for such a little idea."

The rivalry between the U.S. and other imperialist powers over control of Iraqi oil is clearly sharpening. Last week European Union leaders openly defied the U.S., threatening the existence of the Atlantic alliance. But it’s a dangerous illusion to think there are any "good" capitalists or imperialists. Neither the U.S. nor the French or Germans represent any hope for the world’s workers.

We can’t stop the bosses from starting their murderous wars. But we can organize the PLP. Communist participation at anti-war events combined with building PLP in the shops and schools must become the passion of more and more workers and students who, on the eve of imperialist war, will be seeking an alternative to this horrid system. Let’s make sure the alternative becomes an international revolutionary communist movement.

Billions For War, Unemployment For 20 Million

"The worst hiring slump in almost 20 years" (New York Times, 2/6) has sent unemployment through the roof, approaching 20 million. Over two million jobs have been lost since the beginning of the recession in March 2001. During the 11-month "recovery," mass layoffs are the rule. According to the Times, manufacturers of durable goods have cut one of every nine jobs; airlines, brokerage firms, and the clothing/textile industry laid off one of every ten. Many states are slashing jobs to close budget deficits. The number of help wanted ads in newspapers is the lowest in 40 years. Almost two million workers have been unemployed for at least six months, triple the figure just two years ago.

"Waiting for war…weighs down the economy." (NYT, 1/26) Big Business holds back on investing in new factories; small businesses hesitate to hire more workers. And "the likelihood of war with Iraq…[affects] everything from oil prices and air travel to consumer confidence and international financial markets" (NYT, 1/26), all of which increases joblessness.

The Phony Figures

The government’s "official" unemployment rate rose from 3.9% to 6% in the last two years. But that is less than HALF the story. Well hidden in the government reports is something called the U-6 unemployment rate. This includes categories of joblessness not counted in the "official" 6% figure: "discouraged" workers who’ve given up looking for non-existent jobs; and those who want full-time jobs but must settle for part-time. (The government says if you work one hour a month you’re "employed!") U-6 says, "The unemployment rate jumped to 11% in January, from 9.6% the month before." (NY Post, 2/11)

Eleven percent of a 135-million workforce amounts to 15 million unemployed. Add two million in prison and the millions on welfare who would work if there were decent jobs and sufficient daycare. But that’s still not the whole story.

Comparing the 2000 Census figures to the 1990 totals, the Labor Dept. "discovered" that they’ve been undercounting the number of Latino workers in the workforce, who have an "empirically verifiable unemployment rate that is higher than…whites….The government expects this change…to worsen the unemployment data." (NY Post. 2/11) Underestimating Latino jobless figures for at least ten years means that total unemployment right now may well exceed 20 million.

What does it mean when the economists say "the economy as a whole is in decent shape" and growing while joblessness deepens? It means "businesses are finding more ways to get more production out of each current employee….The kind of growth that previously gave…rising employment…now gives us rising unemployment." (New York Times 1/26) Speed-up works!

The U.S. ruling class’s drive for maximum profits inevitably comes into conflict with rival capitalists, also governed by the drive for maximum profits, and leads to war. The only answer to these insoluble contradictions is destroying the profit system with communist revolution.

Billions For War, Bankruptcy For Pensions

The crisis of capitalism is turning the "American Dream" into a nightmare for 44 million holding private pensions. A combination of bankruptcies, declining stock prices and lower interest rates is threatening a "disastrous Savings-&-Loan-style collapse" (New York Times, 1/25) in the federal agency that insures pensions for tens of millions, the second largest source of income for retirees after Social Security. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) had its entire $8 billion surplus devoured in one year by bankruptcies at LTV Steel, USAirways, Bethlehem Steel, United Airlines, K-Mart and others.

Underfunding of these pension plans — the difference between what companies have promised to pay in pensions and the funds they’ve set aside to do so — has skyrocketed to $300 billion. The problem has a Catch-22 "solution": to prop up PBGC’s funding, companies could be asked to increase their payments to the agency; but this could impel some companies to stop offering pensions altogether.

For reserves to rise without increased payments, either a rising stock market or rising interests rates are required. Usually, when one goes up the other goes down. But for the first time since 1939-1941, a three-year bear market has coincided with falling interest rates.

The only thing that capitalism can guarantee is continuous and intensifying exploitation and insecurity for the working class. That’s reason enough to "retire" the whole damn profit system.

Capitalist Crisis Running Amok

The economic crisis of U.S. capitalism is reaching gargantuan levels, and will be intensified by the Bush administration’s budget proposals. When the budget went on sale in government bookstores, the London Financial Times (2/4) editorialized, "Too bad they do not have a fiction department to put it in."

U.S. imperialism hopes to solve their economic crisis the old fashioned capitalist way: war abroad and fascism at home. They hope to seize Iraq’s oil fields to control the Middle East (world’s largest energy source) and dominate the world. At the same time they are increasing repression of U.S. workers through the USA Patriot Act, dragnet arrests of thousands of immigrants, vast cuts in vital services, busting strikes and intensified racism against black and Latin workers.

The Bush budget uses Hitler’s Big Lie technique. It depicts a tax cut for the rich as a plan to "help the unemployed." It calls the sabotage of Medicare an "expansion and improvement of the healthcare system." The $307 billion deficit for 2004 was projected as a $262 billion surplus two years ago. That’s a $500 billion lie! And it doesn’t include a possible $200 billion debt from an invasion of Iraq.

The Financial Times says that even the 5-year cumulative $1.05 TRILLION deficit for 2004-2008 was achieved through "sleight of hand." Without the surpluses stolen from Social Security, the 5-year deficit more than doubles, to $2.1 TRILLION.

A deficit means the government is spending more than it is taking in. They "balance the books" by stealing the Social Security surplus, borrowing (which nets big interest payments to the banks and foreign investors) and slashing money to the states for social services. Then the states must cut these services and raise taxes to make up their own deficits. So the federal tax cuts for the rich are paid for by increased taxes on all workers.

But this is not strictly a "Bush operation." The Democrats voted for Bush’s tax cut for the wealthy, and for the last 20 years has approved the using of trillions of the Social Security surpluses for other purposes such as increasing the war budget. And every Democratic presidential candidate supports a war on Iraq, as they did the war on Afghanistan.

Financing the U.S. foreign debt of $2.8 trillion requires a flow of foreign capital into the U.S. of $2 billion a day. But with projected trillion-dollar deficits and the continuing recession/depression, at some point foreign financing of these debts could become too risky and investors might begin to pull their money out, leading to an even deeper crisis.

There are divisions among the rulers about how to handle this crisis. Full-page ads have appeared in leading newspapers sponsored by bankers and Democratic and Republican former government officials, criticizing the Bush policies. How these differences work themselves out remains to be seen. But all sections of the ruling class agree that the working class must pay for the bosses’ crisis.

There are nearly 20 million unemployed (see article this page). Two million U.S. jobs have disappeared in the last two years. Over 43 million live without health insurance. The racist double burden on black and Latin workers, the squeezing of Medicare, the raising of the retirement age for Social Security, the threat to the pensions of 44 million retirees — these are all effects of the crisis of a profit system controlled by ALL bosses and defended by BOTH their parties.

And the workers will pay in blood with the deaths of working-class soldiers and millions of innocent civilians in wars for oil. Such a system cannot be reformed. The only solution is communist revolution to eliminate profits and bosses and guarantee that those who produce all value will collectively reap the fruits of their labors.

Venezuela: Fascist Lockout Failing; Workers Power Is Way To Go

After 62 days of a bosses’ lockout (erroneously labeled a strike by their media), the old Venezuelan ruling class failed completely to oust President Chavez. The right-wing bosses and their allies in the Union Federation leadership, the church hierarchy, the high-paid technicians in the state-owned oil company and Cuban exiles in Miami, as well as some in the Bush administration, are now in disarray. This followed last April’s failure when a one-day coup briefly installed Pedro Carmona, head of the Chamber of Commerce, as President. Then in a few hours, the putschists tried to impose a Pinochet-style government, scaring away even many of its own supporters. Although U.S. bosses at first supported the coup, they changed their minds when they realized it wouldn’t help their plans to whack Iraq under the cover of "bringing democracy to the Middle East."

When tens of thousands of poor workers came out to oppose the coup, it unraveled and the military brought back Chavez. The putschists failed again in the fall, and then tried a third time with this 62-day lockout. But again, the support of most of the military and of poor and industrial workers who hate the old racist rulers, combined with the vacillations of U.S. imperialism, doomed this attempt.

Venezuela’s working class has played a key role in the struggle. Although Chavez, under pressure from the military high command, treated the lockout with kid gloves, belying the "dictator" label, support for the putschists remained mainly in the better-off neighborhoods of Caracas and a few other cities.

Industrial workers sabotaged the lockout, forcing big plants in the South to remain open. In the industrial city of Valencia, dissident unionists kept a vigilant 24-7 watch to stop the bosses from joining the lockout. In the oil refinery and petrochemical plants of Puerto La Cruz, 95% of the workers kept production going at a 60-70% level, despite most of the technicians and engineers joining the lockout. These workers are realizing that they’re key to running everything: "We shattered the myth that only a well-prepared elite can run the company.…We helped the Chavez government from falling." (Punto de Vista monthly magazine, Jan. 2003) Interestingly enough, Chavez had attacked many of these militant workers in the past because they opposed the partial privatization of Fenitro, a fertilizer company.

But the militancy of these workers and their hatred of the old rulers conflicts with an illusion that they can pressure Chavez to serve their interests, that nationalist and populist leaders like Chavez will liberate workers and their allies from the yoke of capitalism and imperialism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Chavez, despite his rhetoric, has accepted foreign investment in state-owned enterprises (Exxon and other big oil companies). He’s done very little to ease the poverty of most workers who support him.

Workers must learn they will achieve liberation only by ending a system based on production for the profits of a few and by fighting for one where production serves the needs of all workers: communism.

Workers And Youth Celebrate Challenge

The highlight of our CHALLENGE dinner, attended by 45 steelworkers, hospital workers, students and youth, was the following talk given by a new young comrade. The dinner shows we’re modestly taking advantage of the opportunities created by the bosses’ rush to fascism and war.

"On January 17, many comrades and myself endured a night-long bus ride in order to take our struggle against capitalist war for oil to the door of the racist bosses. Estimates of the rally range from 100,000 to 500,000. Regardless of the total number, PLP had an enormous presence among the liberal cries for peace.

"Red flags waved proudly. Chants for communist revolution and workers’ solidarity throughout the world were heard loud and clear. Many of us passed out literature calling for communist revolution, and spoke to people on the streets. We felt the immense power of our movement and the work we have before us.

"Being my first protest with the Party, I felt solidarity seldom experienced with any other group. I decided to join the Party as a full member. The actions at the march were important, yes, but our goal is to smash wars at their base, pull them out from the root. Only communist revolution will bring the capitalist murderers to their knees. Only communist revolution will free the working class.

"The bosses will try to smash our revolution and discourage us from fighting back, but we are stronger than that. We will not allow the murder of workers all over the world to continue. The bosses claim they want to liberate the people of Iraq, but we all know that the only liberation they’re concerned with is "liberating" Iraqi oil.

"People throughout the world realize this. However, they fail to understand that the system they hold so dear is the root of the problem. The bosses want oil for profits. The profit system is the enemy of the international working class. Iraq is the problem we face at the moment. But the more the bosses fight among themselves, there will be more wars and more workers will suffer.

"But there is hope. There is a massive communist revolution building right under the bosses’ feet. They have no idea how hard we are working and mobilizing to destroy their racist, fascist, oppressive system and educate the masses in the truth of Marxism. The plan has been laid before us. We all know our part. Organize in the community; speak to your friends and family about the realities of capitalism and the glorious liberating revolution that is ahead of us all.

"Together we can make a marvelous world for the proletariat and bring the bosses to their knees. Join the Party and fight for communist revolution. A better world is possible. We can liberate ourselves from the oppression of the bourgeoisie."

a name="U.S. ‘Victory’ in Afghanistan Still A Mirage"></">U.". ‘Victory’ in Afghanistan Still A Mirage

U.S. War Secy. Rumsfeld boasts that the U.S. military can make war on many fronts. Maybe, but meanwhile its "victory" in Afghanistan is increasingly becoming a mirage. Ahmed Rashid, author of a book on the Taliban, calls it "The Other Front"(Wall Street Journal, 2/11). "For the last few weeks, American B-1 heavy bombers and helicopter gunships have been fighting the largest force of Afghan rebels to have surfaced in nearly a year in southern Afghanistan."(WSJ)

U.S. Special Forces near the Pakistani border are being rocketed daily. Mines and rockets have exploded near U.S. army headquarters outside Kabul. In the city itself, U.S. and other foreign troops have been attacked constantly. Hundreds of anti-U.S. militants are mobilizing on the Pakistani border for a Spring offensive to coincide with a U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Who’s behind these attacks? Bin Laden? Saddam Hussein? No, it’s being coordinated by a U.S. "ally" — the Pakistani ISI (Intelligence Services)! This same ISI financed and coordinated the forces led by bin Laden fighting the Soviet army occupying Afghanistan in the 1980s, serving the CIA and Saudi Arabia. The current anti-U.S. forces "are receiving logistical and financial support from former or current members of Pakistan’s InterService Intelligence agency." (London Financial Times, Feb. 8-9) Many in Pakistani ruling circles now believe their country is the "next target in the U.S. line of fire. "(FT) Pakistan sent North Korea uranium-enriched technology in exchange for ballistic missile assistance. Bush ambassador Nancy Powell caused an uproar in Pakistan when she implied it continues to be a "platform for the spread of global terrorism." (FT)

What’s turned Pakistan from a "close ally" of the U.S., "against terror" to close to something approaching Bush’s "axis of evil"?

The Pakistani ruling class, like all bosses worldwide, is defending its own interests. While still claiming it’s hunting elements of Al Qaeda hiding in Pakistan, it’s simultaneously allowing ethnic Pashtun fundamentalists to attack the U.S. on the border. "Pakistan is extremely apprehensive of the increasing influence in Afghanistan of India and Russia, who are arming several non-Pashtun warlord armies as well as giving support to Afghanistan’s ethnic Tajik defense minister, Mohammeed Fahim, who has the largest factional army in Afghanistan and is regarded as an ally by the U.S." (WSJ)

The U.S. is asking Russia to cut off $100 million worth of weapons being supplied to Fahim’s personal army, a policy negating U.S. efforts to build a multi-ethnic national Afghan army loyal to the central government.

Since Pakistan sees the U.S., Russia, Iran and India — its worst enemy — arming different Afghan groups, it’s decided to do the same, arming the most extreme fundamentalist Pashtun groups on both sides of the border. Meanwhile, pro Taliaban-Al Qaeda anti-U.S. fundamentalist parties in Pakistan are gaining strength.

U.S. "war on terror" has brought this kind of mess to Southeast Asia. It will multiply itself in Iraq once Desert Storm 2 begins. The rulers of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, France and Germany, and whatever remains of the Saddam Hussein’s forces, will do the same to ensure U.S. occupation won’t be as smooth as Bush plans.

For workers, soldiers and others, imperialist and local capitalist rivalries, along with fundamentalism, is a recipe for endless wars. It’s time to rebuild the communist movement, with its long history of organizing workers and others — from Iraq to Afghanistan —.while learning from its past errors. The only way out of this imperialist hell is to fight for a society without any bosses: communism.

a name="Terrorizing Civilians: A ‘Long U.S. Tradition’"></">Te"rorizing Civilians: A ‘Long U.S. Tradition’

U.S. bosses want Iraqis and others worldwide to believe the U.S. military will be "the liberator and protector of an oppressed Iraq, not an enemy occupying force." (New York Times, 2/11) On Feb. 10, Bush denied U.S. forces will target civilians, saying they will follow a "long U.S. tradition" of respecting civilian lives.

But history and facts are stubborn. A long-held U.S. imperialist strategy is to target civilians directly, to terrorize whole populations into submission. The most recent example was the bombing of civilian targets — including hospitals, power and water plants, etc. — during the 1999 U.S.-led air massacre of the former Yugoslavia. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed during these air raids, while almost the entire Yugoslavian army in Kosovo escaped intact.

Bush, Sr. did the same in December, 1989, when he went after his "compadre," Manuel Noriega. (Bush Sr. was the godfather of one of Noriega’s children!). Over 5,000 civilians were slain when U.S. planes and ground forces attacked Panama City’s Chorrillo, a poor working-class neighborhood. They were buried in mass graves in an attempt to hide this war crime.

The U.S.-led UN sanctions against Iraq following Desert Storm I have caused hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, including a half million children who have died due to lack of food and health care. Untold thousands of civilians are also dying because of the after-affects of U.S. shells and bombs containing depleted uranium (a "tactical" nuclear weapon) during

Desert Storm 1 and will occur in Afghanistan as well.

According to Ret. Colonel David H. Hackworth, more than 161,000 U.S. Desert Storm I vets have been disabled, and almost 10,000 have died, from Gulf War illnesses which the U.S. government repeatedly claimed "were only in their heads." (Hackworth.com, 1/23).

Agent Orange: A Weapon Of Mass Destruction

Much has been said about the U.S. GI’s deformed and killed from exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. But little is reported about its Vietnamese civilian victims, from a war that ended three decades ago. "The Pediatrics Hall of Tu Du hospital in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) seems like a chamber of horrors. Dozens of children, many under 12…show some physical deformation. Vo is one of them, formed with his feet curved inwards. Similar scenes can be seen in pediatric wings all over the country." (EL MUNDO, Madrid, 2/9).

During the Vietnam War, the Pentagon waged chemical warfare against the Vietnamese people, using Agent Orange, a herbicide mixed with kerosene and diesel to burn the vegetations where Vietcong guerrillas were hiding. This Agent Orange contained TCDD, even today the most powerful poison known. It was spread from Hercules C-123 planes, helicopters, land vehicles, navy boats and even hoses handled by infantry soldiers. Agent Orange not only killed vegetation but also spread to rivers, grassland used by cattle and other animals. Even worse, it poisoned the maternal milk of pregnant women. Doctor Hoang Dinh said the dioxin in Agent Orange harms human DNA, affecting chromosomes for three generations.

U.K./U.S./Nazi Imperialists Learned from Each Other

Singling out Saddam Hussein for using poison gas against Kurdish civilians during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s exposes the hypocrisy of the imperialists. (Both Iran and Iraq used poison gas against each other, with chemicals supplied by U.S., Germany and other Western countries). But in fact, the first use of poison (mustard) gas against civilians was ordered by Winston Churchill in 1915 against what he called "the uncivilized Arab tribes" of Mesopotamia (Iraq) opposed to British imperialism. The Nazis learned from the British, attacking civilians during World War II, as well as partisan movements organized by communists and others in Nazi-occupied Eastern and Western Europe, again to terrorize entire populations into submission. Many Nazi officers who fought Soviet guerrillas during WWII were exempted from the Nuremberg War Crimes trial by U.S. and U.K. bosses.

One Nazi general lectured his U.S. captors on how to best fight guerrillas, using methods acquired while fighting what he called a "war against bandits." He said that if the Nazis had had nuclear weapons, they would have used them to oust the victorious Soviet guerrillas in the Pripjet swamps.

U.S. President Truman learned that lesson well, nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, massacring 250,000 civilians on the pretext of forcing Japan’s surrender. (Japan was already defeated.) Actually U.S. rulers used the A-Bomb to threaten the Soviet Union, whose Red Army had defeated the Nazis virtually by itself, as well as a good part of the Japanese army in Manchuria.

After WWII, the U.S. and British imperialists used the Nazis themselves and their techniques on many fronts: from developing the U.S. missile program to fighting the anti-imperialist movements worldwide, including in Vietnam.

When it comes to using weapons of mass destruction and murdering civilians, the U.S. bosses and their British allies are world champs.

Workers Of The World, Write!

LETTERS

a name="Workers’ Solidarity Is An International Language">">"orkers’ Solidarity Is An International Language

Recently I started working in a new garment factory and began making new friends. One was a worker just over from China who didn’t speak English — much less Spanish. The bosses were always shouting at him. One day, a boss called him "an idiot who didn’t understand anything." I stood up from my machine and shouted at the boss, "That’s no way to treat a worker! Because he can’t speak English, he can’t stick up for himself, and because he doesn’t understand you, you insult him more. Leave him alone."

Then I made signs to the worker showing him with my fist and the anger on my face, gritting my teeth, that he had to defend himself; that he had to shout back. All this surprised everybody, especially because he and I come from different ethnic backgrounds.

We’ve become friends, and although we can’t communicate much, we do laugh a lot and visit each other in our homes and at work.

This experience demonstrates that no matter where we come from or what language we speak, all the world’s workers have one common language: workers fighting the bosses’ abuses and the exploitation of our entire class.

We’ve shared the understanding not to wait for "divine justice," but instead to fight back; that we must break with our cultural and racial prejudices by recognizing that we are class brothers and sisters; and that only by uniting can we smash capitalism and its exploitative wage system. The road to communist revolution starts which this kind of unity. Let’s start building it today in our workplaces.

internationalist comrade

a name="Unite With GI’s">">"nite With GI’s

My collective noticed that in a few otherwise generally good articles in several recent CHALLENGES, there seemed to be a tendency by some who are against the coming war to cast members of the armed forces as the enemy of workers. One letter mentioned students who said they were too "smart" to join the armed forces. This portrayal is inaccurate and doesn’t help our efforts to reach out to those who find themselves in the armed forces. Many join up mainly looking for a way to pay for school or get a job, not to help Exxon Mobil or U.S. rulers.

In recent issues, it’s been clear we want to unite with the working class, on the job and in the barracks. That makes us confident we’re on the right road. As contradictions sharpen, many of the hundreds of thousands of working-class youth most affected by war will be open to the truth about it. We can learn from history and build a powerful movement that ultimately will defeat imperialism.

A comrade

a name="Youth Says ‘Let Our Voices Be Heard’"></">Yo"th Says ‘Let Our Voices Be Heard’

I look at problems in my high school and see how money rules the world. For example, my science teacher only gives out grades of 65-75, no matter what you actually earned. He doesn’t explain the work on the board and only a few students pass the regents. Yet, this teacher is still here. My school has only black and Latino students and it is situated in a black neighborhood. I know if my school’s population and location were different, that teacher would be gone.

Capitalism creates this problem. It will always be the rich over the poor, the "superior" over the "inferior" and the powerful over the powerless. Everybody should have a chance at equal opportunities no matter what ethnicity, nationality, economic status or color.

One of my peers started a petition, but hardly anybody signed it. They were afraid because they thought something would be done to the teacher. My peers were afraid of taking action and seeing the results.

For so long youths have been accustomed to sitting passively and doing nothing about things. Capitalist society considers change "wrong." So many youths don’t realize they can make a change. This is a call for all youth to stand up! Let your voice be heard! Next time you know you deserve a B+ rather than a B, confront your teacher. We youths need to empower ourselves with knowledge to survive in this capitalist world. We have a voice!

Brooklyn H.S. Student

Imperialists Fear Spirit of Unity

"What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!"

The crowd shouted, growing stronger and stronger. With their fists high, posters straight in the air and the look of change on their faces. I knew I would never forget this day, January 18, 2003.

Peace seems like a fantasy with these capitalist bosses raging our country into war. On every station you see "Mr. President" trying to convince us everything will be all right, while thousands of innocent children are getting bombed every day and another youth is shot in the ghetto.

As I marched, I met people from all over the U.S. They wore their hearts on their faces. They all came to Washington for one fight, to stop the imperialist power from striking again. There was no "I" that day, only "We." That’s the way we can put an end to this oil war. We the people can’t sit around anymore, but must come together.

"It’s your turn," my teacher said. Nervousness quickly ran though me. The question was, "Why was I attending this rally?" I quickly answered, "to make a change. I was tired of watching television and wanted to do something." "What kind of change?" I asked myself, and couldn’t find an answer, not knowing that by the end of the day I would find one.

As a youth growing up in a capitalist society, you feel you have no power. It all lies in the hands of the "established," the rich. You feel your voice is silent to many ears. Capitalism creates this barrier, the idea that the "superior" one will always win. But we the people can’t let this notion go on, can’t let things just go by. If that continues, we’ll always feel "inferior."

The need to make money — such as the prison business — breaks up families. Prisoners work for as little as 30 cents an hour. Anger grows in my blood when school budgets are cut, but yet they have the money to build more prisons. Issues like these show me that capitalism is not the way.

My nickname during the march was "energizer bunny." I kept shouting, talking and singing. I could not stop because the spirit there just moved me, the spirit of seeing strangers talking to one another like they were old friends, of seeing people not caring if you were black or white, young or old, short or tall. Seeing people come together was very uplifting.

Imperialist powers fear this spirit. They’re afraid of people uniting and breaking the barriers they set up. It was the spirit of change that held everybody together that day. Imperialists spend millions to try to control this spirit — not knowing it is inside everybody and in due time will be released.

Brooklyn H.S. Student

Gardener Has Red Thumb

I’m a gardener and work mostly for rich people. Recently I arrived at one of these mansions and was surprised to see some posters against the war. When I asked my boss what it meant, she replied, "I’m against Bush’s war and I participated in the last march in downtown LA."

I also had been in that march, but my objective was to attack the whole capitalist system, not just Bush. While I didn’t tell this to my boss, it felt weird to think my boss and I had been together fighting against the war. Later I realized it appeared we were united on that march, but in reality we were each there for our own interests.

Red Gardener

Terror at Home: Unemployment, Low Wages

I work in a garment factory. At lunchtime we have very heated discussions about the war. Most of these workers hate the war, but the majority only blame Bush.

Recently one worker said the war won’t affect him — it’s far away and bombs wouldn’t fall here. Another worker asked him, "Why do you think there isn’t much work, and we’re only earning $150 a week?" Then she explained how the economy and war go hand in hand. Another worker remarked that the attacks on immigrant workers were part of this campaign for an oil war in Iraq.

Although it may be difficult to move workers into political activities, there’s a big opportunity to discuss politics and advance their understanding of how the capitalist system works. This could lead to a united fight against the bosses.

Garment Worker

Capitalism Strikes Out

My wife and I went to the Feb. 15 antiwar march in New York City. It was her first. I’m sure she wasn’t the only first-time participant against these murderous U.S. imperialist policies. She gained insight into the role of the police, with their horses, helmets and clubs. Previously she mostly thought of cops as helpers of anyone in trouble. Now she may very well come to May Day, where the reasons for the brutal U.S. war drive would be better clarified.

A Reader

Peace Marches Mean We Got To Fight Back

A spirited PLP contingent joined the Chicago coalition on the Feb. 15 day of international protest. The march was more like the Mardi Gras of anti-war protests, with marching bands dressed as skeletons in Uncle Sam top hats playing, "When The Saints Go Marching In." The PLP group, in large part students from various campuses, gave speeches, chanted and distributed literature.

One friend from Malcolm X Community College, protesting for the first time ever, said that while "ideas are swirling around in my head, communism seems like the best way to go." This comrade distributed CHALLENGE on the train ride home and discussed our ideas with his mother. His participation and enthusiasm has inspired me, and I hope others here at school.

At the march I heard an interesting comment from one of the four pro-war knuckleheads, which really reinforced the idea that these anti-war protests are run by the liberal Democrats. He said, "Why are you protesting this war against Iraq and didn't against the war in Kosovo? What's the difference between Milosevic and Saddam?" I think this guy has a point. These protests don't condemn the Clinton administration or connect these Democrats to U.S. imperialism. Interestingly enough, besides PLP's analysis and actions, his comments were more profound than any of the peace groups.

Despite the low politics and high antics of the march, we were very well received. People listened to our speeches and asked for CHALLENGE. We distributed hundreds of flyers. Most importantly we brought our friends. Later that evening, students from various areas, meeting for the first time hung out and further discussed our ideas. This was especially good for two students from my school. One had argued about the ineffectiveness of peace marches before ever going to one, which of course he has a point. He experienced not only their weaknesses, but was also able to differentiate our politics and strategy from the other so-called left organizations. While the antiwar protests are not the center of our work, they are definitely organizing tools, not only for the workers there, but for those that we bring. "Peace Marches Mean We Got To Fight Back!"

Malcolm Red

a href="#U.S. Imperialists’ Plan: Endless Wars to Murder Millions">".S. Imperialists’ Plan: Endless Wars to Murder Millions

a href="#Kennedy/NY Times Liberals Want War — With UN Support">"ennedy/NY Times Liberals Want War — With UN Support

Columbia Shuttle: a Military Operation

Anti-War Means Fighting Capitalism

A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind

AFL-CIO Resolutions No Substitute For Class Struggle

Campus Marchers Link ROTC to Oil War

DuBois Praised Stalin the Revolutionary

a href="#Stalingrad: The Real ‘Mother of All Battles’">St"lingrad: The Real ‘Mother of All Battles’

a href="#NY TIMES: All Workers Are ‘Fit’ To Be Laid Off">NY"TIMES: All Workers Are ‘Fit’ To Be Laid Off

Capitalist Crisis and Nuclear Doctrine

a href="#Seizing Iraqi Oil — U.S. Learns From Japanese Fascists">"eizing Iraqi Oil — U.S. Learns From Japanese Fascists

Terrorist Bosses Kill Four In North Carolina

LETTERS

a href="#DESAFIO: ‘our best political tool . . .’">DE"AFIO: ‘our best political tool . . .’

Retirees Organize Labor Solidarity

Transit Rank & File Challenges Sellout

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

---

a name="U.S. Imperialists’ Plan: Endless Wars to Murder Millions">">".S. Imperialists’ Plan: Endless Wars to Murder Millions

The coming U.S.-led invasion of Iraq isn’t just about oil. It’s mainly about U.S. rulers using oil to defend their world dominance against all competitors. Oil threats and oil bribes based on a presumed U.S. victory in Iraq now play a key role in its grand strategy, preventing the rise of a rival superpower. But these schemes may prove fatally arrogant. U.S. rulers must first build support for the war, win it, and then face the outrage that will follow the slaughter.

Washington fears the emergence, over time, of an alliance between Russia and Western Europe that would surpass the U.S. economically and could catch up militarily. The French and Russian contracts with Saddam Hussein to develop Iraq’s vast oil fields would help them challenge U.S. supremacy. So U.S. rulers are warning Moscow and Paris to change sides now or face an Iraqi oil shut-off. "Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Russia and France ‘must be ready to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in any US-led military intervention’ if they want a share of Iraqi oil." (Oil and Gas International, 1/27).

France’s President Chirac appeared to give in to the U.S. by readying an aircraft carrier and 15,000 French troops for the U.S-led assault. "Then [German Chancellor] Schröder made...Chirac an offer he could not refuse: to permanently assert French-German dominance over the 23 other nations of Continental Europe." (New York Times, 1/24) Germany and France moved to change the rotating presidency of the European Council from one which now gives smaller nations influence to a system with a long-term French or German president. Double-crossing the U.S., Chirac paid Schröder back by promising a French UN Security Council veto on U.S. action in Iraq.

Russia’s oil bosses seem divided on whether to stick with Hussein or take the U.S. bribe. Iraq recently terminated the huge West Qurna oil production contract with Russia’s Lukoil because of "Lukoil’s behind-the-scenes attempts to get assurances that it would keep its contract after any regime change in Iraq." (Energy Intelligence Group,—EIG—1/21) Such assurances could have come only from the White House. But other Russian oil firms are bucking the U.S. "Proving it still held Moscow near and dear to its heart, however, Baghdad last week offered Russia a clutch of other oil deals." (EIG) This split helps account for Putin’s waffling on Iraq.

It’s hardly a coincidence that France and Russia, the objects of U.S. oil-deal enticements and extortions, have veto power in the UN Security Council. To help ensure long-term U.S. domination of the Middle East, liberal U.S. rulers seek the UN’s stamp of approval for the coming war. Complaining that Bush’s efforts at the UN were haphazard, the liberal New York Times (2/2) demanded, "Before moving toward invasion, the United States needs to win the widest possible Security Council backing." No doubt Colin Powell must promise France and Russia bigger cuts of post-war Iraqi oil.

The U.S. is likewise brandishing the oil weapon to compel temporary support from China, which also has a permanent seat on the Security Council. "Baghdad’s unilateral termination of Lukoil’s contract for the West Qurna field in December left China National Petroleum Corp [CNPC]. as the only oil company with a firm production-sharing contract in Iraq. [CNPC and other] Chinese companies are supposed to invest $1.3 billion." (EIG, 1/16) U.S. guarantees greased the transactions. "These companies wouldn’t be signing deals if they thought they would become worthless after a regime change." (EIG).

These deals serve the long-range strategy of U.S. rulers beyond aiding an attack on Iraq. China’s burgeoning economy is demanding increasing quantities of Persian Gulf oil. The U.S. wants Chinese oil firms operating in the Mideast to be junior partners dependent on Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco. "The Asian companies could seek to bring in oil majors as partners in a post-Saddam Iraq in order to reduce their risk and alleviate their financial burden." (EIG) But China’s bosses have other ideas. They are building a "blue-water" navy that could someday challenge the U.S. fleet for mastery of the oil routes.

a name="Kennedy/NY Times Liberals Want War — With UN Support">">"ennedy/NY Times Liberals Want War — With UN Support

It takes time to make these deals. Liberals, like Senator Kennedy who calls for a delay in the fighting until "convincing evidence" against Hussein is furnished, are merely buying time to iron out the post-war oil arrangements. "The international clamor of demands to give UN weapons inspectors more time may eventually prove to be just another bout of horse trading." (International Oil Daily, 1/28) Kennedy & Co., in fact, want to hit Iraq with as large and as deadly a coalition as possible. This is the stand taken by all the leading Democratic Party presidential candidates and the leadership of the anti-war movement.

To secure Iraqi oil and their top-dog status, U.S. rulers plan to kill hundreds of thousands of workers and children. We can’t stop them from starting this bloodbath. But war lays bare the murderous essence of the profit system and opens the door to communist organizing. We can and must build the Progressive Labor Party in this new period.

Columbia Shuttle: a Military Operation

By now it’s quite clear that the space shuttles are flying coffins, buried by capitalist budget cuts and maximum profits. Six scientists were dismissed from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel in March 2001 after repeatedly complaining about deficiencies in the operation of the shuttle program. Just a few months ago, the White House brushed off the accusations by Don Nelson, a retired mission planner and NASA supervisor. Nelson warned Bush last August that the astronauts faced imminent danger, citing many problems in the shuttles — hydrogen leaks, dented fuel lines, wiring and computer failures.

John Marburger, Bush’s chief science adviser, discussed Nelson’s letter with NASA officials and then "answered" Nelson by praising NASA’s safety record, concluding that there was no reason to stop the shuttle flights.

Why weren’t the shuttles grounded when it was clear they’re old and unsafe? Firstly, war contractors like Boeing and Lockheed reap huge profits from the space program. The United Space Alliance, a joint venture of these two companies, is extremely profitable since they get fees to manage the construction of space craft and also get paid to subcontract it — double dipping — both to themselves and to 20 other firms. The crisis of overproduction has led to less investment in commercial planes and more on satellite production.

Secondly, the space program is also important for U.S. imperialist military plans to control the world. Ninety percent of Columbia’s experiments were military in nature, as were the last 50 shuttle flights. That’s why most of the astronauts are military personnel. The Israeli astronaut killed on the Columbia not only participated in the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in the 1980s but also led the air attacks that killed thousands of civilians in Southern Lebanon during the Israeli occupation.

That’s the nature of capitalism in this day and age: everything is militarized for the endless wars the U.S. imperialists are planning in order to rule the world. The lives of millions — including the astronauts — mean nothing when it comes to protecting this obsolete, rotten system.

Anti-War Means Fighting Capitalism

(The following is taken from a PLP leaflet distributed at the Jan. 11 Los Angeles and Jan. 18 San Francisco anti-war marches.)

The imminent war with Iraq forces growing numbers of workers, youth and others involved in mass protests to ask a basic question:

Will the anti-war movement once again just deal with symptoms and leave a war’s root economic causes unopposed, or will it take on the actual causes of war itself — the profit system?

Despite a propaganda onslaught about weapons of mass destruction and counter -claims about election-year gimmickry and maintaining domestic oil supplies, this is an imperialist war. Only 14% of oil consumed in the U.S. comes from the Persian Gulf. U.S. capitalists are fighting for control over ALL the Persian Gulf oil, which goes mainly to their capitalist rivals. These petroleum reserves are vital to the profits of the giant U.S. oil companies, like ExxonMobil, as well as to U.S. strategic control of the Middle East. They use war to maintain their bottom line and in their drive for world domination.

• If the anti-war movement only opposes another U.S. attack on Iraq — while ignoring the war’s causes in the capitalist profit system — it sets the stage for a long cycle of oil wars and short-lived, pacifist, go-nowhere anti-war movements.

• If the anti-war movement makes common cause with those who only object to unilateral war, not to the shedding of workers’ blood for oil profits, the anti-war movement can become a pro-war movement overnight.

• If the anti-war movement only targets the Bush administration’s war preparations and absolves the Democrats, despite the latter’s fully-documented support of long-term military build-up and involvement in the Middle East, it allies itself with the U.S. government in future wars for profit and domination.

• If the anti-war movement fawns over liberal politicians and ignores soldiers and workers — and their amazing record of stopping the U.S. war machine in Vietnam — it will produce more wars and reactive, superficial anti-war movements.

If the anti-war movement downplays the combined fascist impacts of cutbacks, layoffs and Homeland Security on activists, immigrants, minorities and workers, it will ignore the main forces who are hurt by war and who can actually bring down the profit system. The anti-war movement will be vulnerable to racist divisions, fear, political repression and jail.

Only a communist-led international movement can address the war’s root causes in capitalism, imperialism and racism. We cannot afford to side with "lesser-evils"; treat the war as an isolated event; cave into anti-communism; or ignore the power of soldiers, workers and others to bring the war machine to its knees. In the long run, we need to take power through revolution to get rid of capitalism and its wars, building a true communist system where production will meet the needs of the working class, not the warmongers’ profits.

A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 3 — Teachers are organizing a campaign within the union here to strike against a war budget, demanding a moratorium on debt payments to banker-bond holders, and that money now financing war and "homeland security" be spent on schools, colleges, Medi-Cal and hospitals. A union committee sponsored a bus to the recent San Francisco anti-war march with an official banner declaring, "A war budget leaves every child behind."

The bosses’ war drive attacks workers in Iraq and worldwide but it also must attack the working class here, using our taxes for war instead of using them to bail out county and state budgets in crisis. In California, this crisis means huge Medi-Cal cuts, college tuition hikes, a freeze on school expenditures, class-size increases and teacher layoffs. Meanwhile the bankers take their cut off the top — the interest payments on debt is mandated untouchable under the bosses’ laws.

Still, there’s a surprising amount of resistance to a strike from union activists who seem to have more confidence in passing resolutions and working for "lesser-evil" Democrats than in the power of the working class — teachers and students — to shut it down. Nevertheless, some teachers are determined to circulate petitions for action against the cuts, to organize a fight in the union’s representative bodies.

The anti-war movement offers opportunities to win people to understanding that capitalism requires war, and that ending imperialist wars means ending the profit system. High school and college students attacked by these cuts helped the PLP contingent distribute literature blaming the war and the cuts on capitalism. While much PLP literature was enthusiastically distributed in the huge January marches, and should continue to reach the many honest people who participate, agitation alone won’t build a movement that can challenge the ruling class and lead to a fight for power.

Many unions have recently passed resolutions "opposing the Bush administration’s war on Iraq." Some have also blamed Bush for the budget cuts. Such resolutions can strengthen ties with forces opposing imperialist war. Fighting for them can lead to political struggle for an understanding that the problem is not just Bush — to be replaced by a Democrat — but is capitalist rivalry over control of maximum profits.

Yet such resolutions can also breed passivity, or worse. It can divert workers away from class struggle against the system. Blaming the whole crisis on Bush without any plan of action leads to reliance on the Democrats, the bosses’ other party of war and fascism.

A mass fight could lead to something the bosses’ media can’t turn on and off like a faucet. It’s part of creating a force among teachers, students and parents against the racist cuts and imperialist war. PLP’s influence can help build a movement that can organize a working-class fight, with communist leadership, against the whole system. Eventually it can destroy capitalism and wars for profit once and for all.

AFL-CIO Resolutions No Substitute For Class Struggle

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 4 — The AFL-CIO here seems in a dither now that the bosses’ war train is leaving the station. The web sites of the different Democratic Party and liberal anti-war groups were buzzing about the "anti-war, anti-Patriot Act resolution [passed] unanimously at a very well-attended delegate’s meeting."

Predictably, the LA Federation of Labor attacks the Bush administration’s war drive as a "Wag the Dog" distraction from the sinking economy, corporate corruption, and layoffs. But they don’t mention the imperialists’ desperate need to grab cheap Mid-East oil ahead of their rivals. The Federation forgets that "Wag the Dog" was a movie made during Clinton’s eight-year bombing of Iraq’s "no-fly" zones. Rather than a distraction from the sinking economy, this war is the bosses’ solution to the current crisis of overproduction (Republicans and Democrats alike).

But the AFL-CIO leadership’s most glaring shortcoming is its forsaking class struggle and workers’ solidarity. In 2001 there were one million layoffs in the US; in 2002 Boeing laid off 35,000, the Telecom industries eliminated double that number — all this with no fight or calls for unity with workers worldwide facing similar layoffs. But there was plenty of patriotism and support for the "war on terrorism." By year’s end, United Airlines mechanics and the West Coast dockworkers were both left to dangle in the wind. New York City transit workers, watching their union President hugging the top transit boss on TV, only voted in a sellout contract by a 60-40 margin.

Workers waiting for the real fighting labor movement should not be fooled that another resolution, even one against the war and Homeland Security, means the AFL-CIO is coming out swinging.

It’s one thing to "Resolve that the LA Federation…join other[s]…to actively promote and participate in activities opposing the Bush administration’s drive to war." But meanwhile they stand by passively while LA Transit stiffs the mechanics with a one-year, 1% wage-increase "offer." Since when did 1% a year become a "union contract"?

The company blames the state budget crisis and an economy flirting with recession. But these are the same things the LA Fed blames on the Bush war-drive and says it’s "resolved" to stand up against them. But there’s no united labor support for the transit workers, schoolteachers, county hospital workers and unorganized immigrant workers who have no health insurance.

The rank and file is prolonging its frustration and suffering by not organizing to take power into our own hands. A number of workers have heard the bell and said its time to come out of our defensive crouch. At the LA transit strike-vote meeting there were loud calls for a new union president and jeers against a short-term contract. There was a demand for a seriously prepared strike, instead of just a strike vote, to threaten the company and oppose the war budget.

One worker, commenting on the Columbia’s disintegration, said, "In LA the tiles are falling off the walls of the public school bathrooms because they don’t hire janitors and maintenance workers. Why should we be shocked if the thermal tiles fall off the Space Shuttle?"

U.S. tanks and armor are rolling up to Iraq’s border daily. In a figurative sense they’re also rolling up to the schools, hospital clinics and transit divisions throughout the U.S. But the "collateral damage" and death to the working people in Iraq and here will be all too real.

Workers are skeptical. But disbelief and thinking that George Bush and Colin Powell are liars and thieves isn’t enough. Rather than empty words of resolution without action, workers should organize against these attacks by all the bosses and for the long struggle of taking power into the hands of our class.

Campus Marchers Link ROTC to Oil War

Five hundred students, professors and community residents marched against the creation of a new ROTC on a California State University campus, chanting "1, 2, 3, 4, we don’t want your oil war, 5, 6, 7, 8, don’t recruit us for your hate."

An anti-war coalition planned every aspect of the march, building closer friendships through the strength of multi-racial unity. Several guerilla theater skits drew students’ attention to the struggle. PLP members helped build it, especially linking the upcoming imperialist war, the ROTC, the budget cuts and the capitalist system.

The march was positive but we must build solidarity between students and rank-and-file soldiers. Their class interests are the opposite of the ROTC officers who order them to risk their lives and kill other workers for the bosses’ oil profits and their racist system. We must also build solidarity between students and campus workers. Custodians are ordered to tear down all our flyers and not to speak to coalition members.

Despite anti-ROTC votes of both the Faculty Senate and the Associated Students years ago as well as a large anti-war coalition currently opposing it, the ROTC wants to recruit on campus, teach pro-imperialist lies as history courses, and conduct "adventure training." If refused access, they threatened using the 1996 Solomon Amendment to deny several million dollars in federal grants to the school. After hiding these facts and then orchestrating a deceptive campaign to build support for the ROTC, the university president signed an indefinite "partnership" with it, providing campus classrooms and office space. They will focus on recruiting Hispanic students (the Hispanic Access Initiative) with special access to their student records. Evidently, the Universities can’t recruit black and Latino students (Affirmative Action) but the Army certainly can.

The ROTC, forcing itself onto campus with Administration help, is another example of the dictatorship of the capitalist class. No matter what workers, students or teachers vote for, the bosses — to guarantee their class rule — mobilize the entire capitalist state, pass fascist laws and slash billions from health care, education and welfare in order to finance their imperialist wars. Meanwhile, their universities spread pro-capitalist, anti-worker ideas among the students and recruit working-class students to defend the bosses’ profits.

PLP members must build study groups that stress the similar class interests of workers, soldiers and students and the need to unite to destroy the capitalist system. Those who must sell their labor power to survive are members of the working class. PLP aims to sharpen the class struggle and organize all workers to fight for a communist world based on meeting the needs of the international working class. Join us!

DuBois Praised Stalin the Revolutionary

Black History Month is celebrated in Feb. in the U.S. One thing that is always ignored is the influence of the communist movement in the civil rights movement in the U.S. The great William E. B. Dubois was one of the leading fighters against racism in the 20th century. He founded the NAACP a century ago. After 50 years of anti-racist struggle, he joined the Communist Party in 1945, declaring that becoming a communist was "the logic of my life." That fact will be well-hidden by the hypocritical U.S. rulers as they "celebrate" Black History Month while preparing another racist war for oil in the Middle East. Even more hidden will be the homage DuBois — a true hero, beloved by the working class, black and white — paid to the communist world leader, Joseph Stalin, on the occasion of Stalin’s death in March, 1953, 50 years ago next month.

(From the National Guardian, March 16, 1953)

Josef Stalin was a great man; few other men of the twentieth century approach his stature. He was simple, calm and courageous. He seldom lost his poise; pondered his problems slowly, made his decisions clearly and firmly; never yielded to ostentation nor coyly refrained from holding his rightful place with dignity. He was the son of a serf, but stood calmly before the great without hesitation or nerves. But also — and this was the highest proof of his greatness — he knew the common man, felt his problems, followed his fate.

Stalin was not a man of conventional learning; he was much more than that; he was a man who thought deeply, read understandingly and listened to wisdom, no matter whence it came. He was attacked and slandered as few men of power have been; yet he seldom lost his courtesy and balance; nor did he let attack drive him from his convictions or induce him to surrender positions which he knew were correct. As one of the despised minorities of man, he first set Russia on the road to conquer race prejudice and make one nation out of its 140 groups without destroying their individuality.

His judgment of men was profound. He early saw through the flamboyance and exhibitionism of Trotsky, who fooled the world, and especially America. The whole ill-bread and insulting attitude of liberals in the U.S. today began with our naive acceptance of Trotsky’s magnificent lying propaganda, which he carried around the world. Against it, Stalin stood like a rock and moved neither right nor left, as he continued to advance toward a real socialism instead of the sham Trotsky offered.

Three great decisions faced Stalin in power and he met them magnificently; first, the problem of the peasants, then the West European attack, and last the Second World War. The poor Russian peasant was the lowest victim of tsarism, capitalism and the Orthodox Church. He surrendered the Little White Father [the Tsar] easily; he turned less readily but perceptibly from his icons; but his kulaks [rich peasants] clung tenaciously to capitalism and were near wrecking the revolution when Stalin risked a second revolution and drove out the rural bloodsuckers.

Then came intervention, the continuing threat of attack by all nations, halted by the Depression, only to be re-opened by Hitlerism. It was Stalin who steered the Soviet Union between Scylla and Charybdis;* Western Europe and the U.S. were willing to betray her to fascism, and then had to beg her aid in the Second World War. A lesser man than Stalin would have demanded vengeance for Munich, but he had the wisdom to ask only justice for his fatherland….The British Empire proposed first to save itself in Africa and southern Europe, while Hitler smashed the Soviets.

The Second Front dawdled, but Stalin pressed unfalteringly ahead. He risked the utter ruin of socialism in order to smash the dictatorship of Hitler and Mussolini. After Stalingrad the Western World did not know whether to weep or applaud. The cost of victory to the Soviet Union was frightful. To this day the outside world has no dream of the hurt, the loss and the sacrifices. For his calm, stern leadership here, if nowhere else, arises the deep worship of Stalin by the people of all the Russias.

Then came the problem of Peace. Hard as this was to Europe and America, it was far harder to Stalin and the Soviets. The conventional rulers of the world hated and feared them and would have been only too willing to see the utter failure of this attempt at socialism. At the same time the fear of Japan and Asia was also real. Diplomacy therefore took hold and Stalin was picked as the victim. He was called in conference with British Imperialism represented by its trained and well-fed aristocracy; and with the vast wealth and potential power of America represented by its most liberal leader in half a century.

Here Stalin showed his real greatness. He neither cringed nor strutted. He never presumed, he never surrendered....He asked neither adulation nor vengeance. He was reasonable and conciliatory. But on what he deemed essential, he was inflexible. He was willing to resurrect the League of Nations, which had insulted the Soviets. He was willing to fight Japan, even though Japan was then no menace to the Soviet Union, and might be death to the British Empire and to American trade. But on two points Stalin was adamant: Clemenceau’s "Cordon Sanitaire"** must be returned to the Soviets, whence it had been stolen as a threat. The Balkans were not to be left helpless before Western exploitation for the benefit of land monopoly….

Such was the man who lies dead, still the butt of noisy jackals and the ill-bred men of some parts of the distempered West. In life he suffered under continuous and studied insult; he was forced to make bitter decisions on his own lone responsibility. His reward comes as the common man stands in solemn acclaim.

W.E.B. Dubois, March 16, 1953

*From Greek mythology, caught between two monsters."

**Stalin insisted that the Balkans and Eastern Europe not be an imperialist launching pad for the West to invade the Soviet Union once again.

a name="Stalingrad: The Real ‘Mother of All Battles’"></">St"lingrad: The Real ‘Mother of All Battles’

February 2 marked the 60th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, the real "Mother of All Battles." It was the turning point of World War II, the beginning of the end of the Nazi regime.

On August 23, 1942, Luftwaffe planes, commanded by Baron Wolfram von Richtofen (who led the fascist onslaught on Guernica during the Spanish Civil War) launched the mass bombing that eventually destroyed Stalingrad. In the first week, 40,000 of the 600,000 inhabitants were killed. The "devastating attack moved Stalin to declare ‘Ni shag nasad’ (not one step backwards)." (El Mundo, Spain, 2/2/03).

In September, Field Marshall Paulus’ VI Wehrmacht army launched a series of successful attacks against the industrial center. But the Soviet 62nd Army, commanded by V. Chuikov, resisted. It was the beginning of what the Nazis called rattenkrieg (war of rats), or house-to-house combat. This prolonged the fighting until winter arrived. The commitment and courage of the Red Army and Stalingrad’s working class held off the Nazi juggernaut. Right in the middle of the fighting, the workers built tanks and other weapons for battles outside their plants.

After 170 days, the remaining 91,000 Nazi troops and 24 generals surrendered. Hundreds of thousands of Nazis died, along with over one million Soviet soldiers and civilians.

"Our Red Army was so powerful that…we would have not only reached Berlin but the Gulf of Vizcaya (Spain)," one veteran told El Mundo.

By mid-1944, Soviet tanks and infantry were rolling westward at 40 miles a day. Only when the U.S. and Britain realized the Red Army would defeat the bulk of the Nazi army by itself did they open the second front in France. Over 70% of the active Nazi war machine in Europe was tied up fighting the Soviets.

The capitalist implosion of the former Soviet Union achieved what the Nazis couldn’t. This was caused by the opportunism of the Soviet rulers and the weaknesses of socialism, retaining many capitalist practices like the wage system.

There are only 50,000 Red Army Stalingrad veterans still alive. They can hardly survive on a miserable pension of 3,000 rubles ($85). Even the name of their beloved city has been changed, to Volgograd. Putin has blocked a movement to change it back to Stalingrad.

Still, the lessons of the heroic Soviet workers and soldiers live on. As the world’s imperialists prepare for endless wars, the international working class will continue what the Red Army and Soviet workers achieved in Stalingrad. That’s the goal of the communist PLP.

For more information on the role played by the Red Army and the communist movement in defeating the Nazis see the CHALLENGE supplement: 50 Years Ago: Communist Red Army Defeated the Nazis, May 17, 1995

a name="NY TIMES: All Workers Are ‘Fit’ To Be Laid Off"></">NY"TIMES: All Workers Are ‘Fit’ To Be Laid Off

The hypocrisy of the New York Times’ "concern" for the unemployed that is sometimes expressed on its editorial page is completely exposed by its current drive to eliminate a "no layoff" clause in its coming contract with the Newspaper Guild. The Guild said Times’ bosses "made clear in its first bargaining session with the union that ‘no layoffs’ language must be eliminated." (N. Y. Daily News, 1/31)

The union has 1,500 members at the Times and the job security clause covers all workers on the payroll in 1997. This mouthpiece for the Eastern Establishment section of the ruling class characterized the "no layoff" clause as an "extreme provision."

While this billion-dollar media conglomerate often "criticizes" the Bush administration for being "heartless" towards the unemployed, when its own profits are concerned it acts like any boss under capitalism and has no qualms whatsoever about adding to the jobless rolls.

Capitalist Crisis and Nuclear Doctrine

(The following is excerpted from an article by Heinz Dieterich Steffan, an analyst on Latin American affairs, published in Rebelion.org. Translation from Spanish by the Challenge staff.)

Capitalism, incapable of solving the big problems facing humanity in a constructive way — through productive forces — has decided to do it through nuclear force, the most destructive possible path. Nuclear weapons have been adapted for use as conventional ones [depleted uranium bombs]. Similarly, the old nuclear doctrine has been adapted to the current situation. All this has been justified by Washington’s hypocrisy about international terrorism.

The U.S. is the only country to use nuclear weapons, against the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945. There was no military reason for these attacks. The Air Force generals had told President Harry Truman that conventional bombing would force Japan to surrender in a few weeks. But there was a strong political motive for this war crime — to warn Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that in the new post-World War II New World Order, the U.S. had overwhelming military superiority; therefore, the Soviet Union better not dare challenge U.S. imperialism.

In Washington’s view, to "contain" the Soviets was good, but to eliminate them was even better. Thus, the second phase of U.S. military doctrine: to execute a pre-emptive nuclear attack against the Soviet Union in the mid-1950s. But Soviet development of the A-bomb in 1949 and the hydrogen bomb in 1953 made such a first-strike project too risky for the U.S.

Therefore, Washington adopted a defensive nuclear doctrine: using nuclear bombs exclusively in case of an attack against the U.S. But in reality in at least 18 cases the U.S. threatened to nuke other countries, including China, Vietnam and Lebanon, among others.

After the implosion of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon redesigned its military strategy for the new globalized world in 1995 under the Clinton administration. Hitler’s Blitzkrieg doctrine, adapted by NATO under the concept Air Land Battle, was replaced by the "Global Reach," devised by the U.S. Air Force and first practiced in the wars against Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

The Pentagon also redefined its nuclear strategy with the "Nuclear Posture Review" (NPR). This went beyond merely counter-attacking with nuclear weapons if attacked, but also considered their use if any country tried to reach nuclear parity with the U.S. Based on NPR, Clinton threatened to "wipe North Korea from the face of the Earth" if that country was developing nuclear bombs.

Bush has merely extended this doctrine, preparing "preemptive annihilation" of anyone interfering with U.S. rulers’ aim of turning the world into a giant slave camp serving the new multi-national corporate masters.

This use of extraordinary brutality, always typical of capitalism, is hidden behind an ideological smokescreen clouding the consciousness of the exploited masses about the terminal crisis of capitalism: a) its failure as a modern production system to provide a decent life, and b) its obsolete parliamentary superstructure, becoming increasingly dysfunctional in controlling society.

The intellectual-metaphysical apologists of the system in this stage of fascist structural crisis range from Sam Huntington, a proponent of the U.S. massacre in Vietnam, who now espouses a chauvinist "clash of civilizations" to attack Islamic peoples in general; to Michael Hardt and Antoni Negri’s Empire, saying there are no more imperialist powers, to the post-mortem post-modernism of John Holloway, changing the world without taking state power.

This new world order brings us to the U.S.-British "liberation" of Afghanistan, which has restored banditry and heroin production, while the puppet regime of Karzai only has a presence in a couple of cities. Most of the country is controlled by warlords and Islamic fundamentalists.

CHALLENGE comments: One must add: rival imperialists won’t remain subservient to U.S. imperialism’s world order forever. France, Germany and others have already shown they are not too happy with Bush’s plan to take sole control of Iraq’s huge oil wealth. This rivalry will lead to many more wars, and eventually to another world war. The international working class has never played dead, no matter what the bosses do. The way to make sure the capitalist crisis becomes really terminal is to organize an international revolutionary communist movement.

a name="Seizing Iraqi Oil — U.S. Learns From Japanese Fascists">">"eizing Iraqi Oil — U.S. Learns From Japanese Fascists

Bush’s Jan.28 war speech omitted one key reason why U.S. imperialists need to attack Iraq: control of its oil, second largest reserve worldwide after Saudi Arabia. But while the White House tries to mask the real purpose for attacking Iraq, the Pentagon is planning to seize the oil fields as soon as Desert Storm II begins. There are some precedents limiting this:

"A tribunal after World War II found that Japan breached international law by aggressively exploiting occupied oil fields in the Dutch East Indies and using the oil to fuel its own war needs. Another widely cited precedent involves Israel’s operation of occupied oil fields in the Sinai after the 1967 Six-Day oil War. The State Department criticized Israel’s actions in that case…"(Wall Street Journal, 1/29).

Now that U.S. rulers want to do the same in Iraq, it’s doing the usual: ignoring, disobeying or skirting all international laws that limit them. "If you justify [actions] under the law of military occupation, you can justify just about anything," said one administration official familiar with the current debate among Pentagon and State Department lawyers. (WSJ).

Basically, the military commanders of the invading Army can do anything they want, even force civilians to work the oil fields. If workers struck, the generals could force them back with the bayonet, just as Saddam does. This is the kind of strike-breaking "democracy" Bush wants to install in Iraq, just like his administration’s threat to use troops against a dockworkers’ strike on the U.S. West Coast.

The U.S. imperialists resemble the Japanese fascist army that occupied the Indonesian oil fields during World War II, and maybe worse. (The CIA organized the fascist coup there in 1965, killing over one million communists, workers and peasants.) When fighting to be top-dog imperialist, and for its key ingredient — control of Middle-East oil — mass murder is the name of the game for the U.S. and all bosses.

Terrorist Bosses Kill Four In North Carolina

The Jan. 29 explosion at the West Pharmaceutical plant in Kinston, NC that killed four workers, injured 37 and wiped out the livelihood of 255 workers follows a carnage of terror that has produced 437 factory deaths in this state in the last two years.

The bosses’ media label these slaughters "accidents," but an inspector reported 22 serious safety violations in this very plant just this past October. He characterized them as "routine for the myriad plants that dot the Carolina countryside." (Christian Science Monitor, 2/1)

The South’s bosses and "pro-industry government continue to ‘wink and nod’ at hazardous manufacturing conditions." No wonder "It’s dangerous to go to work for most of the people in this state," says the director of the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Project, a state that is 96% non-union. (CSM) And, of course, there is a complete "lack of criminal prosecutions" for the bosses responsible for this butchery.

While investigators supposedly try to determine if clouds of rubber dust or a newly-installed gas line caused the explosion, the county commission rushed to give $600,000 to West’s owners to re-build the plant and a landlord offered the company’s executives free office space. There were no reports of funds being offered to the victims’ families or to the 255 workers who lost their jobs. Three cheers for the terrorists of free-market capitalism.

Workers Of The World Write!

LETTERS

a name="DESAFIO: ‘our best political tool . . .’"></">DE"AFIO: ‘our best political tool . . .’

I’ve been a PLP member for about a year and live in one of the many poor neighborhoods abandoned and depressed by the Colombian government. We see representatives of the bosses’ state on two occasions: when politicians come to ask for our votes and make promises they never carry out; the other when the cops conduct their almost daily raids "searching for "guerrillas or their collaborators." These same cops do nothing to stop the right-wing death squads which nightly terrorize workers and youth, charging us their own taxes and killing whoever they dislike.

With the help of DESAFIO-CHALLENGE, our best political tool, I’m organizing a PLP group with some friends and relatives. We study the Party literature and debate the real causes of our problems as workers. I also bring our communist politics to several neighborhood social groups.

Workers and youth must understand history and dialectics, to learn that the only way out of this capitalist hell is to fight for a society without bosses and their death squads: communism.

Red Comrade

Retirees Organize Labor Solidarity

I recently retired from my job. As a communist, I’d been an active shop steward for many years. After a recent retiree meeting which discussed the impact of contract negotiations of a major union, I suggested that our 25,000-member retiree association form a solidarity committee to organize support for struggles of other unions and community groups. I’m now co-chair of that committee.

The very next day we were called to a union hall to help in strike preparations. I’m meeting workers who’ve been activists in many union locals. In less than two months, over 40 retirees have signed up for this committee. One member expanded our notion of solidarity by suggesting we also focus on the needs of homebound retirees.

It’s heartening to see the idea of class solidarity so eagerly adopted by retired workers. I’m sure this committee will bump into plenty of pro-boss "united-we-stand" ideas but it will also lead me into many exciting opportunities to serve the working class and build our communist movement.

Keeping Young

Transit Rank & File Challenges Sellout

On Jan. 9, the Transport Workers (TWU) held a rally at Hunter College in a huge hall but only 60 people attended. Half were TWU staff. Union president Roger Toussaint tried to get workers’ approval of the contract his leadership had just negotiated with the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA).

The few rank-and-file workers present were mostly concerned about the new layoff clause. Toussaint’s spokesman rationalized that the old layoff clause didn’t protect jobs either, to which a worker replied, "Then why change it?"

Toussaint said we needn’t worry because the layoff clause was rarely used only when the City was in deep financial trouble. Another worker disputed that idea, saying that while Verizon reported recent profits in the billions they were laying off thousands. He said layoffs, speed-up and benefit cuts are the usual ways businesses exploit workers for more profit.

Since that rally, frustrated workers voted for the contract; 40 health workers servicing TWU members have been laid off; and hundreds more are facing layoffs as the MTA is closing 177 token booths and announcing cuts in bus service. More layoffs and threats are in the cards as the MTA seeks more concessions.

Toussaint and his staff tries to pass off the phony idea that his "leadership" is following in the footsteps of former TWU president "Red" Mike Quill. Although Quill was not a communist, he used them to help organize the union and learned enough from them to know that the only thing the bosses respect is workers’ power. He used this to win decent conditions and to smash the anti-strike law.

Quill was called "Red Mike" by the bosses’ media because he used communist ideas to inspire not only transit workers but many city and national unions with the idea that they could fight back and win against the bosses’ power. If transit workers don’t want to return to the sweatshop/company union days, they need to relearn communist ideas and organize their own leadership from the ranks.

Retired Transit Worker

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS THAT CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION:Abbreviations: NYT=New York Times, WG=Weekly Guardian

U.S. broke N.Korea agreements

In 1994, Kim Il Sung agreed to freeze the nuclear situation at Yongbyon and permit international inspectors to monitor the agreement. In return, the United States was to pledge that nuclear weapons would not be used against North Korea and that two modern light-water reactors would be built to replace the Yongbyon facility . . . .In the meantime, a monthly supply of fuel oil would help provide electrical power. . . the promised light-water reactors were not built. The Bush administration brought a change in relationship with both Koreas. . . the monthly shipments of fuel oil were terminated.

Washington Post 1-14

Europeans say no to U.S. war

European public opposition to a war appears to be hitting a new peak....32 percent in Britain, 76 percent in Germany and 77 percent in France — are against the military action even with the blessing of the United Nations.

The opposition reflects a deep uneasiness with America’s increasingly assertive role as the worlds only superpower.

NYT Jan 22

More workers lose insurance

Two-thirds of the states say they are cutting Medicaid benefits, increasing co-payments, restricting eligibility or removing poor people from the rolls because of soaring costs and plunging revenues.

. . . One million to two million low-income people would lose insurance coverage because of the cutbacks.

The Bush admistration has opposed any increase in the federal share of Medicaid, saying that the federal government has fiscal problems of its own.

NYT January 14

Loans backfire on students

. . .A lot of students are questioning whether they should have borrowed so much money . . .Family background plays a big role. 62 percent of low-income borrowers said they regretted taking out so much in loans. Similarly, only 54 percent of low-income students said the debt ultimately paid off in terms of their career goals. . . At Harvard, "We kept hearing, ‘I’m going to go work in industry for a few years, then I will return to what I care about.’ Frankly I’m not sure how many of them were able to make the return trip."

NYT January 28

Poll: War stems from U.S.

The European edition of Time magazine has been conducting a poll on its Web site: "Which country poses the greatest danger to world peace in 2003?" With 318,000 votes cast so far, the responses are North Korea, 7 percent; Iraq, 8 percent; the United States, 84 percent.

NYT January 31

Make job safe? Cheaper to kill

The regulatory system has often proven itself incapable of thwarting flagrant and continual safety and environmental violations by major corporations, according to a nine-month examination by The New York Times.

In plant after plant, year after year, workers have been maimed, burned, sickened and killed by the same safety and health failures. Flammable materials are mishandled; respirators are not provided; machines are missing safety guards; employees are not trained.

"The current law is inadequate to deal with serious violators, repetitive violators, situations where people are put at risk day after day, " said Charles N. Jeffress, who headed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the late 1990’s.

Indeed, under federal law, causing the dealth of a worker by willfully violating safety rules is a misdemeanor with a six month maximum prison term. . . . managers viewed the burden of regulatory fines as far less onerous than the cost of fully complying with safety and environmental rules.

NYT January 10

‘Amazingly’ soft on biz crime

The staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission plans to recommend that the agency soften proposed rules that would impose new obligations on lawyers and accountants. . . Some of the toughest proposals appear to be dead, watered down or postponed, S.E.C. officials said today. Critics attributed the shift to heavy lobbying. . . "We’ve had Enron, Tyco, Worldcom. And despite all of that, the commission is softening, rather than toughening, the rules in favor of the attorneys and auditors to the great detriment of investors. . .It’s just amazing."

NYT January 22

Poor pay a rich tax rate

"It doesn’t take a lot of income to start paying a lot of taxes," Professor Kotlikoff said. Over their lifetimes, "the superpoor don’t pay taxes but the poor do."

. . . .The total burden from nearly all forms of taxation — income, sales, property and excise taxes, and the Social Security payroll tax — was strikingly similar across the entire spectrum of incomes in 2001.

For individuals and families in the lowest fifth, with an average income of $7,946 (including just $25 in dividends), the cumulative tax rate was 18 percent. For the top fifth, with an average income of $116,666 (including $1,188 in dividends), the rate was 19 percent.

NYT January 21

French have their own $lant

In private, many French diplomats acknowledge that the war is inevitable. In public, they say war can be avoided. . . .The French are more interested perhaps in being guaranteed access to Iraq’s oil resources.

NYT January 24

U.S. backed Guatemala’s terror

Now that the United States has declared war on terrorism, it is useful to ask just what it is we are fighting.

What about stopping the governments that support the governments that terrorize their own people? Governments like ours, for instance? Oh, but that was in a good cause — fighting communism. Before El Salvador, before Chile, even before Vietnam, there was Guatemala.

. . . Let us listen to the old men and women, close to death now, whose parents worked in near slavery for those landowners, and who believed that when they elected the reformer Jacobo Arbenz in 1952, their lives would change for the better. Wilkinson shows us the documents that labeled Arbenz a communist and justified his U.S.-sponsored overthrow. . . He tells of the death threats he received as he was doing his research . . . . The terrorism continued for more than 50 years, with U.S. support and official silence. The result? "Guatemala was a place where terrorism did, in fact, win."

Washington Post December 22, Section X

Bush, Democrats: Warmakers, Inc.

a href="#No ‘Lesser Evil’ Bosses in Dogfight Over Iraq">No"‘Lesser Evil’ Bosses in Dogfight Over Iraq

Liberals, Democrats Delivering Anti-War Movement Into Hands of Imperialist Bosses

Capitalism Is the Cause of War

Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller, Soros Fund Pacifist Media

Black and White Unite vs. Nazi Attack on Somalis

a href="#Ford Profited From Worker’s Murder But Fight-Back Continues">"ord Profited From Worker’s Murder But Fight-Back Continues

a href="#Warmaker-Strike-Breaker — Smash GE!">"armaker-Strike-Breaker — Smash GE!

Cop Car Kills GE Striker

Boeing Sale No Triumph For Workers

a href="#The Rich Get Richer …Workers Get Evicted">"he Rich Get Richer …Workers Get Evicted

a href="#Capitalism and Workers’ Healthcare Don’t Mix">Me"ico - Capitalism and Workers’ Healthcare Don’t Mix

Racist War on Terrorism Hits All California Workers

Rely On The Workers To Fight Police Terror

Anthrax, Apartheid, And The FBI

Toussaint + Clinton = Layoffs for Transit Workers

Big Bucks For Banks, Workers Pay Through Nose

British Railworkers Refuse to Run Arms Train

LETTERS

Steelworkers Oppose Iraq War

a href="#‘U.S. Labor Against the War’">‘U"S. Labor Against the War’

Rebel vs. Factory Concentration Camps

---

Bush, Democrats: Warmakers, Inc.

The large anti-war marches on January 18 prove that many people oppose the mass butchery U.S. rulers are planning in Iraq. But peace and the profit system are incompatible. War is the normal state of affairs under capitalism. CHALLENGE can’t predict the immediate future. Perhaps Bush will intensify the air war over Iraq within the next couple of weeks and then launch a ground war by early March. Perhaps a coalition of European, Russian and Arab bosses opposed to U.S. policy can throw a monkey wrench into this scheme and force a temporary delay.

But war is the absolute certainty. U.S. imperialists cannot tolerate a challenge to their world supremacy. This supremacy depends upon the control of cheap oil to run the military, industry and war production. Iraq has the planet’s second-largest reserves and represents a strategic key to the command of the oil treasures in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait. The coming oil war in Iraq is a war to establish U.S. bosses’ world domination for the foreseeable future.

U.S. rulers have set the standard for mass murder. They alone have used nuclear weapons. Their arsenal includes "depleted uranium" bombs with a half-life of several billion years that create cancer epidemics. The workers and children of Iraq have tasted this atrocity since 1991, as did those of the former Yugoslavia during Clinton’s aerial bombardments of 1999. More recently Afghanistan received the same treatment. Now the bosses are about to outdo themselves.

The coming war heralds a new period of imperialist mayhem. U.S. imperialism will have to occupy Iraq in order to control its oilfields. It can then try to take over the entire Arabian Peninsula.

For the European rulers, U.S. power is already greater than they would like. Seizure of the Arabian Peninsula would be intolerable. For the Arab rulers, an Iraq completely dominated by Washington and Exxon Mobil-Chevron Texaco et al. would be equally unbearable. These are the raw materials of much wider armed conflict. The Russians and Chinese, who have a tremendous stake in the oil of the Persian Gulf, will eventually increase their own military commitments there. No peace marches can alter the basic laws of capitalism. The drive for maximum profit requires a parallel drive for world domination and always leads to war.

But within the horror of imperialist war lies revolutionary opportunities for the working class. As the rulers’ atrocities mount, millions of workers and others will seek explanations and solutions that only communist revolution can provide. Large numbers of body bags can eventually turn peace marches into rebellions, strikes, and uprisings, in the bosses’ military and throughout the U.S. Anti-U.S. rebellions throughout the Arab world are only a matter of time.

The spread of violent inter-imperialist rivalry will inevitably lead to sharpening class struggle. This can lead to an upsurge in revolutionary consciousness and the growth of revolutionary forces everywhere.

Communists in PLP are both realists and optimists. We are realists because we reject illusions about the nature of imperialism and the possibility that it can produce a peaceful, decent society. We know that war is the profit system’s Frankenstein. But we are optimists because history has proven that communist leadership can turn imperialist war into mass revolution to wipe out the war-makers and their monstrous system. This is the historical experience of the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions. It is also our own, having played an important role in launching and leading militant mass struggle against U.S. genocide in Vietnam.

Many anti-war demonstrators are looking for answers. We must struggle to win them to communist ideas. The response of workers, students, soldiers and others to our modest efforts in the factories, the military, the schools and the communities, proves that revolutionary optimism remains the order of the day. U.S. imperialists will start the next war. That is up to them, and we can’t prevent it. But collectively, communist-led workers, soldiers and youth can determine the outcome. However long it takes, the international working class will raise its fist in triumph.

a name="No ‘Lesser Evil’ Bosses in Dogfight Over Iraq"></">No"‘Lesser Evil’ Bosses in Dogfight Over Iraq

(From Stratfor Weekly, 1/14/03)

"Opponents of a war with Iraq, both European and Islamic, have tried to use the WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) issue and the United Nations apparatus to prevent a U.S. attack. It has become clear that this is not going to work….The motives of the anti-war nations are far from humanitarian. Many of the same countries that were agitating for war against Slobodan Milosevic suddenly find war with Iraq intolerable. Their real motivation is fear that the United States, once it occupies Iraq, will not only dominate the region, but use Iraq as a base from which to extend its control throughout the Arabian Peninsula….For…France, Germany, and Italy, an already unmanageable United States would swell in power.…For…Saudi Arabia and Iran…U.S. military power on their borders, based in an Iraq completely under U.S. control, is something they don’t want to think about. If Saddam Hussein’s regime was destroyed through war, this would be the outcome."

Liberals, Democrats Delivering Anti-War Movement Into Hands of Imperialist Bosses

WASHINGTON, D.C. January 18— Hundreds of thousands of workers and youth rallied and marched against the imminent war in Iraq today. PLP organized a rally at one corner where speakers condemned the profit system that motivates and causes imperialist wars. Some speakers exposed the anti-war movement’s call for peace through "lesser evil" Democrat politics. During the march, PLP lead a contingent in chants. Some marchers, led by liberal ‘misleaders’ started chanting "Impeach Bush, Impeach Bush!" PLP’ers were booed by SEIU hacks when leading chants against both Republicans AND Democrats as two sides of the same capitalist coin. During the day, PLP’ers handed out hundreds of CHALLENGES and thousands of the new pamphlet, "Control of Iraqi Oil: Key for U.S. Bosses’ Plan to Rule World: Organize to Smash Cause of War: Capitalism".

Capitalism Is the Cause of War

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 18 — Friends and comrades from around the West Coast brought the much-needed message of international communist revolution as the solution to imperialist war and fascism to the liberal-led march against war in Iraq. Our multi-racial contingent struggled to lead workers away from the dead-end politics of the liberals and Democratic Party politicians.

We underestimated the amount of literature we could distribute. Little more than half-way into the five-hour march we had already passed out all of it. Many were hungry for a communist perspective.

We said workers can never achieve peace by supporting the Democrats or any capitalist leader. Only a communist party organizing workers, soldiers and students to make a revolution will create a worker-run world based on the needs of the working class, not on bosses’ profits.

One comrade told a crowd at a rally we organized inside the march that GIs played a big role in helping defeat U.S. imperialism in Vietnam: "The secret the liberals will never tell you is that during the Vietnam War GIs refused to fight for U.S. imperialism. Soldiers are working-class people like you and me who are forced into the military because they don’t have jobs or money for school. Soldiers have minds and can fight for the working class, not the bosses’ profits. Workers can also stop production of military equipment like helicopters, planes and bombs."

Of course, a huge difference exists between the opposing forces in Vietnam as compared to the coming war in Iraq. It was the Vietnamese workers’ and peasants’ struggle that actually defeated U.S. imperialism and inspired millions here to support them. Currently Iraq is led by a murderous capitalist, Saddam Hussein, who’s fighting to continue oppressing Iraqi workers. The international working class must side with those workers and oppose both U.S. and Iraqi bosses.

Organizing against the bosses’ war will become more possible and necessary as the ruling class cuts all state and city budgets, eliminating vital social services to pay for their war and their internal police state.

The large task before us involves not only these big marches but especially our day-to-day work, entering a period in which PLP can grow if we fight the bosses’ attacks, shatter the illusions many have in liberal politicians and expose the opportunist "left" serving the Democratic Party.

We were much more organized today than in past marches.

Afterwards at a dinner, we talked about our experiences this day and the difference it made to have a more organized, larger PLP presence. It showed we have more opportunities to win workers and youth fed up with the liberals’ illusions. Everyone was invited to march for communism on May Day and join with workers worldwide.

Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller, Soros Fund Pacifist Media

LOS ANGELES, Jan 20 — On Jan. 11, 15,000 people marched and rallied here against the war in Iraq. PLP members participated holding a rally, selling CHALLENGE and distributing thousands of leaflets. Our exposure of the bosses’ politicians, from Bush to the Democrats, and of capitalism’s drive for maximum profits as the cause of war, and our call for communist revolution, were cheered by many workers and youth.

This is the opposite of what the leaders of the anti-war movement have in mind. At the end of the march, the master of ceremonies thanked Pacifica radio for building it so consistently. This symbolized the fact that this movement is being financed (and its leadership ideologically controlled) by liberal sections of the ruling class, including the Ford and Carnegie Foundations, part of the Rockefeller-led Eastern Establishment (see below). When Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters spoke against a unilateral war and against Bush, it implied that a UN-sponsored war is O.K. Meanwhile, the entire U.S. Congress is carrying out the capitalists’ drive to force workers to pay for imperialist war.

So far this anti-war movement is being built from the top, unlike the one against the Vietnam War, initially sparked by anti-imperialist and anti-racist actions on the campuses and in the factories and barracks. The Cultural Revolution in China and the 1968 general strike in France also inspired tens of millions to oppose imperialism.

The anti-war movement was given a tremendous boost by the anti-racist, anti-cop rebellions that shook most inner cities in the U.S. The 82nd Airborne Division, scheduled for duty in Vietnam, was pulled back by President Johnson in order to put down the 1967 Detroit rebellion.

Although many people respond out of anger about the coming war and growing fascism, the big marches have been publicized and supported by Pacifica Radio, the Nation/Nation Institute and liberal groups associated with them. The Jan. 18 marches were reported in the more mainstream media and drew praise from the New York Times. (Editorial, 1/20)

In 1951, Pacifica Foundation received a $150,000 grant from the Ford Foundation’s Fund for Education (whose first head was a president of Shell Oil). This was part of a Cold War CIA-Ford program to develop an anti-communist liberal "left." For a while Pacifica Radio (parent of KPFA, KPFK, WBAI and other stations) took a more independent financial course, but in the 1990s, its leadership sought and received large infusions of ruling class cash, from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Ford Foundation and multi-billionaire George Soros.

Amy Goodman used $100,000 from the Carnegie and Ford Foundations to organize "Democracy Now!" She’s also supported by Soros and by the J.M Kaplan Fund (Welch Grape Juice money), which backs the Nation Institute as well.

Ford and Carnegie are Eastern establishment strongholds, with close and long-standing ties to the Rockefeller-led ruling class through corporate interlocks and through their Council on Foreign Relations.

Soros is no "lone ranger" billionaire. His holdings have included large chunks of Boeing and Lockheed stock, tobacco investments, Wal-Mart, CBS and Warner Communications. Bill Moyers, a Rockefeller foundation trustee for 12 years and a director in his Council on Foreign Relations, serves on the board of Soros’ Open Society Institute and is President of the Schumann Foundation. The latter funds Alternet, Mother Jones, the Institute for Policy Analysis, and Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR).

These media are doing everything possible to build an anti-communist, liberal, pacifist anti-war movement loyal to capitalism with the active support from forces within the U.S. ruling class.

Workers and students must not rely on the bosses’ liberal media or their capitalist politicians who aim to contain our anger within the limits of their bloody system that inevitably creates war and mass misery. They want to win our hearts and minds to support U.S. "democracy" even as capitalist crisis drags us ever deeper into fascism.

The PLP is the only force capable of building a truly revolutionary movement to smash this vicious system of perpetual war, racism and fascist repression. Workers, soldiers and students are looking for answers to imperialist wars, but are being mis-led by the liberal politics of the anti-war movement leadership. We must spread PLP’s ideas, and lead actions against the bosses’ attacks, within liberal-led mass organizations and protests to counter the liberal misleaders.

Black and White Unite vs. Nazi Attack on Somalis

LEWISTON, MAINE, Jan. 11 — Today members and friends of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined with the working people of Maine to counter the appearance of the Nazis in the so-called World Church of the Creator (WCOC). Lewiston’s racist mayor had sent letters to everyone in the Somali community saying they were not welcome here. This was a blatant invitation for the Nazi WCOC to whip up racism and rally in this city. All told, nearly 5,000 people turned out at two anti-Nazi demonstrations, an astounding total in a predominantly white city of 36,000, proving once again there is mass anti-racist sentiment among all sections of the working class.

PLP has a long history of fighting fascism, including a street battle in Wakefield, MA, in which WCOC members fled under police protection. We also mobilized to stop the Nazis here. Meetings of anti-racists, with PLP present, were organized in Lewiston by the Somali community. Our organizing meetings in Boston were especially good as many Somalis there decided to confront the Nazis.

PLP proposed two picket lines, one against the racist mayor and another against the Nazis’ rally in a National Guard Armory. Another group, tied to the elected power structure, planned a so-called Many and One Rally at Bates College. PLP indicated that this only disarmed the anti-racists, leading people to believe the cops would protect us from the Nazis and that the elected officials cared about working people. PLP pointed out that cops only protect the Nazis and that an elected official initiated the racist attacks on the Somalis.

When the bus from Boston arrived, a picket line formed in front of Lewiston City Hall. Despite the cold weather, immediately more anti-racists joined, enlarging the line to nearly 100. Although the cops harassed us, we maintained our spirit and discipline. We called for the resignation of the mayor, who was vacationing in Florida.

Almost all the Lewiston residents who joined our rally at City Hall agreed to go to the armory to confront the WCOC Nazis. We all squeezed into the bus and vans. The police had erected roadblocks near the armory but 150 demonstrators marched right through them.

At the armory a chaotic crowd of 400 anti-racist demonstrators were held back by a line of cops. PLP established a picket line, allowing us to be visible as a group. We chanted "Hey, Nazis, you can’t hide! We charge you with genocide!" On our bullhorn speakers explained how capitalism spawned racism and fascism and why it needed to be overthrown. Some said racism was used to divide working people into accepting war for oil while we have no health care.

We then held an open mike. Most people advanced our anti-racist position, but a few people said Somalis and PLP were "outsiders," showing the need to intensify our anti-racist activity.

Amid 20 degree weather, we picketed for over three hours until we were sure the Nazis were gone. We were unable to confront them as we had in Wakefield, MA.

A PLP contingent went to the Bates rally and distributed hundreds of PLP flyers. The 5,000 people there were genuine anti-racists but misled into listening to Maine’s governor and senators. There was no open mike there, reflecting the political bosses’ fear of what working people might say.

On the return to Boston, the Somali people thanked PLP for standing up to racism and giving leadership to working people against the Nazis.

a name="Ford Profited From Worker’s Murder But Fight-Back Continues">">"ord Profited From Worker’s Murder But Fight-Back Continues

MÉXICO — Thirteen years ago on Jan. 8, Ford bosses and their Mexican Labor Federation (CTM) union hacks murdered foundry worker Cleto Urbina.

Ford workers were fighting to get rid of the corrupt and murderous Uriarte-led CTM leadership and were demanding payment of a year-end bonus.

At 5 A.M,, Ford brought in 200 goons armed with guns and chains and dressed in work uniforms to look like they worked at the Ford Cuautitlan plant. When the workers fought back with their tools, the cowardly goons ran like chickens. While fleeing, they shot at the workers, killing Cleto and injuring 10 others. Angry workers chased the goons, capturing several and seized the entire plant. The bosses fled with their goons and hacks.

The workers held the plant for one month, demanding the killers be punished. Workers donated food from all over the metropolitan area to feed them. After a month, hundreds of cops helped by helicopters, broke into the plant, ousted the workers, and returned the factory to Ford. But resistenace continued. The plant remained closed for over two months.

Ford and the CTM leaders were exonerated of any guilt. Only one goon went to jail. During this struggle, DESAFIO-CHALLENGE was circulated among the strikers, spreading the idea that only communist revolution will make the bosses and their goons pay for their crimes.

This battle and many others won Ford workers the respect of thousands of workers and instilled fear in the bosses. Many of us were blacklisted, making it extremely difficult to find new jobs.

In 2002, with support from the Labor Ministry, Ford used a proposed fascist bill still being debated in Congress to fire 1,500 workers before the bill even became law. This law would give bosses even more power to fire workers. Even more repressive conditions now exist at the plant, but workers’ resistance continues.

In many ways, Cuautitlan Ford workers have shown that industrial workers are the key force in the fight against capitalism. In this period of war, economic crisis and worldwide fascism, revolutionary leadership among workers is the bosses’ worst fear. Let’s make this a reality. Workers of the world, unite!

a name="Warmaker-Strike-Breaker — Smash GE!">">"armaker-StrikeBreaker — Smash GE!

On January 1, General Electric (GE) more than doubled health care expenses for nearly 145,000 workers and retirees by an average of $400 yearly. On January 14 and 15, about 20,000 GE workers in 23 states conducted their first national strike since 1969. This is just a warm-up for GE. It wants a 30% co-payment from workers once the current contract expires in June.

The strikers are members of the International Union of Electrical Workers/Communications Workers of America (IUE/CWA) and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). Since 1991, the percentage of unionized workers at GE’s U.S. operations has fallen from 39% to under 25%, or 38,000 workers.

GE is one of the world’s largest corporations, with 300,000 workers worldwide, and is a major war contractor. Last year its revenues totaled $125 billion, raking in a $16-billion profit. GE moans about rising health costs, but relative to profits their costs have actually declined. In 1989 the insurance bill was 13.6% of GE’s gross profits. In 2001, it fell to only 7%, a 48% decrease.

These health care changes could transfer $30 million from workers’ pockets to GE’s profits. That’s about the value of the various retirement homes GE has provided to former CEO Jack Welch (who continues to receive a $10 million-a-year pension). The increases will hit hardest when workers or their dependents are hospitalized, on multiple prescriptions, forced to see medical specialists, and are laid off, on sick leave, or retired.

Cop Car Kills GE Striker

Michelle Rogers, a single mother with three teenage daughters, was struck and killed by a police car while picketing the GE Appliance Park in Louisville, Kentucky, GE’s largest unionized facility in the U.S. Since the 1980’s, the Louisville workforce has been slashed from 18,000 to 3,000, as GE wiped out 150,000 jobs worldwide. Despite the company’s vow to continue production during the strike, the Louisville complex was shut tight. GE owns the NBC television network, which could explain the lack of coverage of Michelle’s death.

GE’s health cuts reflect the increased attacks on the working class in this period of growing war and fascism. The pro-capitalist union leaders are incapable of stopping them. In the name of "saving jobs" and "beating the foreign competition," they have collaborated with the bosses to cut costs and increase productivity. In the last national contract they reduced pay raises to preserve health benefits. Now IUE/CWA President Edward Fire says he wants to help GE lower health care costs, but the company won’t meet with him.

The 1969 strike occurred at the height of the Vietnam War. Nixon pleaded with the strikers to return to work because they were hurting the war effort. In Schenectady, NY, strikers on the picket lines chanted, "Screw the War Effort!" At a massive anti-war rally in Washington, D.C., PLP and the Worker-Student Alliance leadership of SDS led a breakaway march of over 10,000 people to the Department of Labor chanting, "Warmaker, Strike-breaker, Smash GE!"

A generation later, GE workers are fighting to keep what it took a lifetime to win, on the eve of more cutbacks and yet another imperialist invasion. Communist revolution is the only way off this endless treadmill of war and fascism.

The new face of basic industry:

Boeing Sale No Triumph For Workers

SPOKANE, WA., Jan. 6 — Today former Boeing workers accepted the new International Association of Machinists (IAM) contract with the new owner of the plant, Triumph Group, Inc. Boeing threatened to close the plant if the workers rejected it. The IAM leadership at Boeing called it "a very good first contract."

Last week, Triumph laid off all 320 production workers, permanently fired 35, and accepted applications for rehire from a little less than 90%. Seniority was ignored. Those that remain took 15% wage cuts and lost their sick leave accrued under the old contract. In exchange, union leaders "won" important job security language that says Triumph does not "intend" to lay anybody off.

Those already laid off under the old contract lost their automatic recall rights that were "guaranteed" for six years. Instead, they will be put on a "preferential hiring list" for three years. The Triumph workers are now under the IAM National Pension Plan, an option long rejected by Boeing workers. Those near retirement will lose money. Benefits from the old pension will be frozen at current levels so senior workers will not gain from future increases in the Boeing plan, which are multiplied over years of employment.

Finally, union leaders boast that the Spokane plant will be a model for "team" concepts in the Triumph Group. One job category will cover all production workers, allowing the company to force workers to perform any job on the production floor. This "flexibility" is unsafe and a proven job-killer. A future "gainsharing" regime is to be negotiated, the modern day equivalent of piecework with the added twist of getting workers on the floor to push speed-up.

Workers Know When They’re Being Sold A Bill Of Goods

Boeing workers aren’t falling for this "good news," particularly when learning that the same bosses who control Boeing will be reaping the profits from cheaper labor at the new Triumph plant (see adjoining article).

"Ever since 9/11, the big boys have been waving the flag and then screwing us," said one machinist. "What’s the difference between this and what Enron did?" asked another. "The same guys that say we have to fight an oil war in Iraq are the same ones playing this shell game that cuts our wages!" "They say only scoundrels and criminals are the ones that resort to patriotism," bitterly added a thoroughly disgusted bench mechanic. We also discussed how the bosses divert our anger, exemplified by the immigration arrests in California.

Restructuring Basic Industry

The Boeing sale to Triumph mirrors a pattern being repeated throughout basic industry. Manufacturers, especially auto and aerospace companies, are subcontracting whole sections of production. Soon these subcontractors will actually add their parts to the final product, eliminating even more jobs in the basic manufacturing firms.

The bosses and their labor lieutenants spread the illusion that these subcontractors are "mom-and-pop" entrepreneurs. Actually, they’re huge conglomerates financed by the same ruling-class banks that control basic industry today.

The AFL-CIO unions have failed to organize these subcontractors, leaving a gaping hole through which the bosses are now driving their profit machine. Many of these low-wage plants employ larger numbers of black, Latin and women workers, feasting on racist super-exploitation.

Today, basic industrial unions are holding on to union contracts at factories surrounded by non-union plants like Triumph Group. Essentially, the union "leadership" tries to "organize" by guaranteeing lower wages and more collaboration.

There are still millions of basic industrial workers in the U.S. More than 50% of autoworkers, steelworkers and coal miners have been shifted to these super-exploiting, subcontractor conglomerates. We must fight the demoralization caused by the "old-line" industrial unions’ inability to respond to this restructuring.

The present crisis lays out the contradictions of capitalism more clearly. The potential exists to win these super-exploited workers to communist revolution. Anti-racism an class-consciousness are good starting points from which to reinvigorate class struggle among industrial workers.

Keeping It In The (Ruling Class) Family

At the last series of union meetings our union told us Triumph is a new company looking to "grow the business." They assure us, "this means jobs."

Formed through a leveraged buyout in 1993, Triumph now operates in 42 locations, employing nearly 4,000 workers in Washington State, Chicago, San Diego and the Los Angeles area. It’s "growing" all right, approaching its first billion dollars in revenues in less than a decade. How?

The key player on Triumph’s Board is Joseph M. Silvestri. He’s Vice-President of Citicorp Venture Capital, Ltd., a subsidiary of Citigroup, one of the original Rockefeller banks. The Rockefellers and their Eastern money allies are the leading controlling group in the U.S. economy and already control Boeing. Now they’ve provided Triumph with the money, connections and political clout to buy up whole sections of the automotive and aviation fabrication industry.

A thread of interlocking directorates of big corporations and banks runs through and around Boeing, which has a long history of connections to Citigroup. Boeing Chairman Emeritus Frank Shrontz and director Rozanne Ridgeway were on the Board of Citicorp, the precursor of Citigroup. Ridgeway is also connected to Citigroup through membership in the Council on Foreign Relations, the premier U.S. foreign policy think-tank. She and Senior Boeing Vice-President for International Relations Thomas Pickering meet with Citigroup Board member and former CIA director John Deutch.

Boeing CEO and Chairman Phil Condit joins Verizon Vice-Chairman and President, Lawrence Babbio, Jr. on the Board of Hewlett-Packard. The other Verizon Vice-Chairman and President, Michael Masin, sits on the Citigroup Board.

Boeing director Kenneth Duberstein is on the ConocoPhillips Board along with William Rhodes, Senior Vice-Chairman Citgroup, Inc. and Citbank, Ltd.

Thus Boeing’s sale of its Spokane plant to Triumph represents a gigantic and very profitable shell game. The same ruling class controls both firms. The same parts still get manufactured, but with workers taking a 15% pay cut, if we’re lucky enough not to be one of the 35 who permanently lost their jobs. Triumph "grows the business" by slicing off chunks of basic industry and slashing wages and jobs of these workers.

a name="The Rich Get Richer …Workers Get Evicted">">"he Rich Get Richer …Workers Get Evicted

DETROIT, MI — On the morning of December 11, more than 100 residents were evicted from a city-owned apartment building at 71 West Willis. The residents were not behind in their rent. Democratic mayor Kwame Kilpartrick ordered the eviction in order to sell the building and convert it into luxury apartments.

The following day, Kilpatrick, Matt Cullen of General Motors and Kresge Foundation president John Marshall III announced plans for major investments by the corporations and the city, state and federal governments into the redevelopment of this area, which connects Wayne State University to Comerica Park and Ford Field, the new Compuware world headquarters now under construction and the new GM world headquarters.

A Vietnam veteran returned from the Veterans Administration hospital to find everything he owned, his discharge papers and personal possessions, piled into the gutter by Wayne County Sheriff’s Deputies. "The only thing I have left is what’s on my back," he said.

GM and Chrysler each received $500 million in tax abatements, financed by cuts in education, health care and city services. When GM moved its world headquarters to the Renaissance Center in 1998, the state pledged $140 million for freeway improvements and a park. The federal government will fund seawall improvements and a new Port Authority terminal. The city will pay $180 million for parking and other improvements.

Meanwhile, the Coalition on Temporary Shelter reports 5,800 homeless in Detroit, with only 3,700 emergency beds available. Poverty is increasing and thanks to Clinton’s budget cuts and Bush’s war budget, there is little or nothing left of public assistance for the people who wander the streets, huddle in abandoned buildings, or for those who will join them because of Mayor Kilpatrick’s eviction order.

a name="Capitalism and Workers’ Healthcare Don’t Mix"></">Ca"italism and Workers’ Healthcare Don’t Mix

MEXICO CITY, Jan.18 — The Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) provides health care to more than half the population of this country. Ruling-class plans for privatization mean that by 2005, IMSS might not exist. That means there will be no new hospitals or clinics, no maintenance for existing ones and no new diagnostic or treatment equipment. Millions of workers may wind up without health care, and those who can afford some will get lousy service.

Director Santiago Levy, faithful ruling-class servant, blames the workers for the IMSS bankruptcy. "The union contract is too generous…the IMSS employees are inefficient…the cost of health care for senior citizens is too high." He says workers’ wages are the main problem and is firing 5,000 while looking to fire more, with no opposition from the pro-boss union leaders.

Levy hypocritically attacks the workers, but upon taking office he increased salaries for himself and other corrupt officials. The bosses freeze hiring while firing pregnant women workers. Many are denied their 3-month leave to give birth because they "lack seniority." Levy says retirement pensions are a burden. Yet thousands of workers have given their best years to the IMSS. Never did this wolf in sheep’s clothing blame the corrupt public officials who fraudulently enriched themselves nor the bosses who never paid their Social Security fees.

The capitalists and politicians like Levy are the biggest burdens. We should follow the example of workers in El Salvador who struck for months to stop privatization there.

Capitalism and decent health care for workers don’t mix. Like everything else under this system, health care is a business. The lab owners producing the medications and the medical equipment, the companies providing medical units, the construction bosses who build medical centers, the big private hospital corporations and the corrupt health officials all profit from workers’ bad health. High infant and maternity mortality rates are rising while these mercenaries stuff their pockets.

Corruption will not end by replacing corrupt officials while retaining the capitalist profit system. We invite all IMSS workers and doctors to join and build a mass PLP to destroy this anti-worker system. Only communist revolution can resolve our problems, with a society based on workers’ needs. Unite to support the doctor’s struggles in Vera Cruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca.

Racist War on Terrorism Hits All California Workers

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 20 — "It’s not a question of comfort or discomfort, it’s a question of living or dying." (Los Angeles Times, 1/11).

That’s one worker’s reaction to Gov. Gray Davis’s "solution" to California’s budget crisis. He’s threatening $21 billion in budget cuts and tax hikes of $8.3 billion, all on the backs of the working class. Here is the racist war-on-workers scorecard:

•Cut $3.6 billion from Medi-cal, eliminating 570,000 recipients, ending adults’ physical therapy;

•Chop $1.6 billion from mass transit;

•Slash education by $4.6 billion, meaning layoffs and larger classes;

•Reduce welfare payments 6.2%, including SSI and aid to the blind;

•Lay off state workers and cut wages for those remaining;

•Double fees at community colleges;

•Increase of $400/year at Cal State Universities and $800 at the Univ. of California, leading to wholesale dropouts.

That’s for working-class families. At least 70 % of those most affected by the cuts in Medi-Cal and welfare are black and Latin. Among children the figure is higher. Racism is the cutting edge of these attacks on all workers. The only sector NOT cut? Prisons, maintaining a $5.3 billion budget, while building more. The flip side is enriching the wealthy: $2.9 billion in "debt service" to the banker-bondholders, paid by law before anything else. County governments owe these bankers $19 billion in interest and principal. The city of LA alone owes them $14.5 billion and another $1.5 billion to related "authorities." Meanwhile, there’s no law mandating Enron and Dynergy repay the $15 billion stolen from California taxpayers from the false energy shortage they created to jack up electricity prices

Corporate taxes in California are very low with no plans to increase them. In fact, when the dot.com bubble burst, California tax revenues dropped 25%. In the 1990s, billions were invested in speculative gambles rather than production, leading to the inevitable decline in profits when the bubble — not based on real value — burst.

Capitalism is based on profits for the few and wage slavery for the many. Vital public services come from taxing the value workers have created. But there’s no profit in using these taxes to lift the poor out of poverty. Since the bosses make super-profits from racist super-exploitation of black and Latin workers, these cuts affect them the sharpest. The bosses need all our money to pay off the bankers, prop up the bond and-stock markets and go to war for control of oil and U.S. imperialist world domination.

The Federal government is cutting money it sends to the states (which also comes primarily from workers’ taxes) to pay for a $400 billion war budget. Maintaining U.S. troops in the oil-rich Middle East costs $60 billion a year. A war in Iraq, in addition to killing hundreds of thousands of workers, will cost $1.9 trillion for a decade of U.S. occupation of that country.

Some union leaders "protest" Bush’s war plans but refuse to organize any serious challenge to the bosses’ war budget. In fact, the AFL-CIO proudly claimed credit for electing Davis Governor, the very Davis who’s waging a war on the workers and youth of California to bail out the bankers and war-makers. They build confidence in the capitalist system and its laws. Relying on these traitors is dangerous.

Workers and students throughout California need to organize a massive fight, including local and general strikes, against these cuts, the tax increases and to stop the billion-dollar payments to the banks. If the bosses claim such a moratorium would "ruin" California’s credit rating and cut off any further loans, that will simply expose this capitalist system as unworkable for workers, where maximum profits and wars for oil come at the expense of workers’ lives. We urge all workers, students and soldiers to join the fight to end the rule of profits by fighting for a communist society where all the value produced by the working class will be used to meet the needs of our class.

Rely On The Workers To Fight Police Terror

CAPITOL HEIGHTS, MD., Jan. 11 — Twenty members of the People’s Coalition for Police Accountability (PCPA) held a community rally here today, near the District of Columbia where cop Charles Ramsuer shot Desmond Ray in the back last December, paralyzing him for life. The police were conducting a raid on an alleged drug house when Ramsuer shot the unarmed, 22-year-old Ray as he walked towards his sister’s house. They were looking for someone who had not lived there for seven years.

Ramseur has again shown that cops are in the forefront of the bosses’ war to terrorize workers, particularly black and Latin. This was Ramseur’s fourth shooting! He was already on our "Dirty Dozen" cop list due to his last unjustified shooting. As we marched along Marlboro Pike and Southern Avenue, car horns blared in solidarity with our signs condemning police brutality and calling for Ramseur’s indictment. Then we marched through the neighborhood with Ray’s family, distributing flyers and getting over 130 signatures on petitions. The PCPA vowed to take the community rally strategy to Forestville next, where Ray lives.

This action energized the PCPA more than previous ones directed at county officials. By turning directly to the working class to build a base, the PCPA is embarking on a powerful strategy that can create a mass movement against racist police brutality, and shake the halls of power in Prince George’s County.

Anthrax, Apartheid, And The FBI

The FBI is hunting for evidence linking bio-warfare researcher Steven Hatfill to the anthrax attacks that followed 9/11. According to Attorney General Ashcroft, Hatfill is a "person of interest," not an official suspect. Whether or not he killed the five people who were exposed to mailed anthrax spores, he is definitely not "innocent." The investigation has uncovered his ties to the fascist Rhodesian and South African white supremacist regimes.

Soon after the 2001 anthrax attacks, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg of the Federation of American Scientists accused the FBI of "dragging its feet" in investigating obvious leads to defense research. She described how Hatfill had access to anthrax and the motive to use it. By early December 2001, genetic fingerprinting raised the possibility that the anthrax spores came from one of a handful of U.S. labs engaged in bio-weapons research but the FBI didn’t demand bacteria samples from the labs until March. All anthrax samples were the "Ames" strain, developed by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) at Ft. Detrick, MD., Hatfill’s former employer. The spores were "weaponized" — powdered to maximize their spread — by a secret process invented by Army scientists and requiring sophisticated equipment.

Hatfill joined the Army’s Institute for Military Assistance in the 1970’s. He moved to Ian Smith’s fascist Rhodesia (today’s Zimbabwe), where he obtained an M.D. From 1975-’78, while still in the U.S. military, Hatfill served as a mercenary with Rhodesia’s Special Air Squadron and the Selous Scouts, elite paramilitary forces engaged in "counter-insurgency" warfare against black guerrillas. Racist and anti-communist "dirty wars" backed by South Africa and the CIA killed 1.5 million people in the countries bordering South Africa, including Zimbabwe. The Selous Scouts carried out human experiments with chemical and biological agents. A now-declassified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report comments, "…a member of the Selous Scouts admitted in 1978 that they had tried both chemical and biological warfare techniques to kill terrorists."

At the peak of Zimbabwe’s civil war (1978-1980), the world’s biggest anthrax epidemic swept the "Tribal Trust Lands" (black "homelands"), affecting 10,738 black farmers and their cattle; 182 died. The region remains contaminated today. Meryl Nass of the Physicians for Social Responsibility charged the Rhodesian military with germ warfare. According to a former Rhodesian military officer, "the use of anthrax spoor to kill off the cattle of tribesmen…was carried out in conjunction with psychological suggestion…that their cattle were sick and dying because of disease introduced into Zimbabwe from Mozambique by the infiltrating guerillas."

According to Zimbabwe’s Daily Mirror, Hatfill owed his medical school admission to Dr. Robert Symington, father of Rhodesia’s bio-weapons program. In 1984, Hatfill moved to apartheid South Africa, where he joined the medical branch of the notorious South Africa Defense Force. Medical units of the SADF were linked to "Project Coast." Under Wouter Basson (aka "Dr. Death"), "Project Coast" was a massive bio-weapons operation, experimenting with plague, cholera and anthrax to assassinate African nationalists. The British New Statesman asks, "Were [Hatfill] to be publicly charged, might he have very damaging information to impart about U.S. assistance to the Rhodesian and South African regimes…about offensive biological warfare programs, even though the military insists it does defense research only? Might he not be a veritable landmine of dangerous, damaging and embarrassing information?"

Returning to the U.S. in the mid-90s, Hatfill worked at USAMRIID on Ebola and Marburg, two of the world’s deadliest viruses. In 1999 he joined SAIC, a defense contractor whose major client is the CIA. Hatfill never officially worked with anthrax but his USAMRIID mentor was Bill Patrick, the Army scientist who weaponized anthrax. Under a CIA commission to the SAIC, Patrick wrote a report on possible scenarios following an anthrax attack through the mail.

If Hatfill is the killer, his motives are murky. But it’s clear that the main beneficiary is the bio-defense industry, which is reaping a bonanza in the wake of the anthrax scare. According to David Franz, former Commander of USAMRIID, "I think a lot of good has come from it. From a biological or a medical standpoint, we’ve now five people who have died, but we’ve put about $6 billion in our budget into defending against bio-terrorism" (ABC News, 5/4/02)

This exposes U.S. hypocrisy in justifying war with Iraq over "weapons of mass destruction(WMD)." From Hiroshima to anthrax to depleted uranium, U.S. imperialism has been the major deployer of WMD since World War II. The current build-up in bio-defense research, along with plans for mass smallpox vaccination, goes beyond concern with an Iraqi military response. The rulers anticipate prolonged war in the Mid-East, against many potential enemies. Homeland Insecurity and bio-defense spending is preparing us for fascism and a perpetual state of war.

Sources: New York Times, 1/4/02; 7/2/02; 7/12/02; 7/19/02; 8/13/002; Science, 297: 1264-5; 23. M. Nass, PSR Quarterly, 1992, 2: 198-209. http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/zimbabwe.html; Hartford Courant, 3/4/02

http://www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm; Guardian, 5/21/02; P. Keim et al. (2000) J Bacteriol 2000 May;182(10):2928-36, Mangold and Goldberg (1999) Plague Wars; The Mirror (Harare), 10/19/2002.

Toussaint + Clinton = Layoffs for Transit Workers

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 17 — Before the vote is even counted, the bitter fruits of the latest Transit Workers Union (TWU) sellout contract are becoming evident. The Toussaint leadership gave away the no-layoff clause. Now the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is closing 177 token booths, which will slash 350 clerk jobs; is reducing 6-worker crews to 5; and is laying off 40 members of Local 153 who serve the workers’ and retirees’ Health Benefit Trust, which is being taken over by the MTA.

In addition, the merger of the Manhattan-Bronx bus lines with NYC Transit will force workers to take on added routes, cut more jobs and pit worker against worker by mixing seniority rosters. The absence of a no-layoff clause hands the bosses a weapon to threaten mass cutbacks if workers don’t knuckle under to more concessions.

This is what happens when social-fascist union leaders rely on liberal Democrats like Senator Hillary Clinton and Basil Patterson to ward off a strike. Clinton supports the fascist USA Patriot Act and war in Iraq. She called the strike breaking Taylor Law a "wise law. Public employees should not legally be allowed to strike."

In 1966, TWU president Mike Quill tore up the anti-strike injunction based on the previous law banning strikes and went to jail rather than order workers back to work. The TWU won more in that walkout than any other contract, and forced the State Legislature to pass a special amnesty bill exempting the strikers from any penalties mandated by law.

Big Bucks For Banks, Workers Pay Through Nose

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 17 — An analysis by the city’s Independent Budget Office (IBO) revealed how capitalism uses its state apparatus to funnel workers’ money into the coffers of Wall Street banks. The IBO stated that the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s (MTA) proposed fare increase to $2 was based on a budget deficit for the next two years that was overstated by 300%. But it cited a $25 billion "storm cloud on the horizon" in terms of a projected debt over the next few years that would "justify" the proposed fare hike and more to follow.

It seems Governor Pataki and the MTA bosses borrowed extensively for repairs and new equipment rather than use the budget surpluses of the late 1990s. The IBO says, "Debt service will…absorb a growing portion of fare and other revenues." (New York Times, 1/17) A lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign said that the MTA’s massive borrowing program is leading to a "debt that would explode and swallow up a huge chunk of the money that goes to operations."

The debt has currently climbed to $16 billion and "is projected to rise to $25 billion over the next few years, in large part…because direct state and city aid for capital projects has evaporated." (NYT) This could lead to a constant stream of fare hikes for the express purpose of assuring bond-rating agencies that the MTA’s "outstanding debt is backed by revenues."

In other words, while the bosses spend $400 billion a year to make oil wars in the Middle East and massacre hundreds of thousands, workers will pay higher fares to maintain increasing profits for the banks to the tune of hundreds of millions in interest.

British Railworkers Refuse to Run Arms Train

LONDON, Jan. 9 — Two rail workers opposed to a war on Iraq refused to move a freight train carrying ammunition for British troops deployed in the Persian Gulf. The train was headed from Glasgow to the Glen Douglas base on Scotland’s west coast, Europe’s largest NATO weapons depot. They are the only pair at the Motherwell freight depot trained on the route of the West Highland line.

Union officials, also against this war, have refused to ask the workers to change their position, risking legal action and fines for contempt of court.

The rail workers are following a long-held internationalist tradition here. In 1973, dockworkers went on strike rather than load British-made arms headed for Chile’s CIA-installed fascist dictator Pinochet after his assassination of Salvador Allende. In 1920 stevedores on London’s East India Docks refused to move guns onto a ship chartered to take weapons to British interventionist troops and counter-revolutionaries trying to smash the Russian Revolution.

These actions set an example for workers worldwide in standing up for our class. Without workers to manufacture and transport weapons, the bosses would find it far more difficult to conduct their imperialist wars. The next step is for the working class to use these very weapons to wipe out the bosses and their capitalist profit system altogether.

Workers Of The World Write!

LETTERS

Steelworkers Oppose Iraq War

USWA Local 1011 passed a resolution at their January meeting which stated, "We value the lives of our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters more than Bush’s oil profits. We have no quarrel with the people of Iraq who will suffer the most." The resolution passed without one dissenting vote. These are former LTV workers who now work for ISG. CHALLENGE readers will recall, LTV died a painful death, costing workers millions in wages, pensions and health care. Many are Vietnam vets. They have learned the hard way the "guarantees" of capitalism. Some workers are wearing anti-war buttons, and a small group attended the Jan. 11 anti-war rally in Chicago.

More and more workers are taking a stand against this blood for oil war that will kill Iraqi and US workers. Teachers, postal workers, AFSCME workers, steel workers and others have passed resolutions condemning Bush’s oil war.

These are all good first steps, but not nearly enough. It’s all been pretty easy. When the Bush murderers start the war, the stakes will rise. Thousands will die. Racist, right-wing patriotism will sky rocket. Those who oppose the war will be called traitors.

In the coming days, we must do everything we can to win workers to the anti-imperialist camp. A worker wearing a button that says "No blood for oil"; a worker who distributes CHALLENGE; a worker who backs up a comrade in a lunchroom discussion; these can all become bullets in the war against the bosses.

Some folks in the anti-war movement think demonstrations; vigils and liberals will stop the war. We have no such illusions. The US ruling class will kill millions to control the world’s oil supplies. They will have their war. But every worker who stands with us in this fight is a potential recruit to PLP.

Three Finger Slim

a name="‘U.S. Labor Against the War’"></">‘U"S. Labor Against the War’

On January 11, more than 100 trade union leaders and activists gathered at the Teamsters Local 705 hall in Chicago to launch U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW).

Local 705 is the country’s second largest Teamsters Local, composed mostly of UPS workers. They hosted the meeting after passing an anti-war resolution.

Dozens of unions have passed anti-war resolutions across the U.S. In the Chicago area, aside from Local 705, the Chicago Teachers Union voted to send a bus to the Jan. 18 march, and local unions of postal and steel workers passed anti-war resolutions with relative ease. PLP members have been involved in much of this activity.

A continuations committee, backed by $30 million from AFSCME and SEIU, was established to set up local chapters. There is already one in New York (NYCLAW). Has the AFL-CIA leopard changed its spots? Are anti-imperialist union leaders bombarding the AFL-CIO headquarters? Do you want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?

A few aspects appear to comprise this development. First and foremost is that the working class, including those in the military, is not won to supporting U.S. imperialism and the invasion of Iraq. There is a mass, undeveloped anti-imperialist sentiment. Also, many union leaders on many levels, whether they are organized into "leftist" parties or not, were influenced by the anti-Vietnam War and Civil Rights movements and/or Vietnam veterans. They reflect the mass anti-imperialist consciousness that affected tens of millions, a great deal of it due to the efforts of PLP.

The AFL-CIO leadership recognizes this sentiment and wants to get behind it to co-opt it in service of the liberal bosses. The Democratic Party sees the mass anti-war sentiment as a potential battering ram against Bush and the Republicans. Even the political hacks and errand boys on the Chicago City Council voted 45-1 against "Bush’s rush to war," the very same misleaders who sell out workers daily. The smorgasbord of opportunist "leftist" parties are all too eager to be the foot soldiers of the Democrats, who want war and control of oil but on their terms.

But what about PLP? What are our opportunities in the current period? We are also subject to opportunism and must wage a relentless struggle against it. There is a basis of unity with thousands of workers on our jobs and in our unions, against racism and war. We must use that unity to sharpen the ideological struggle, expose the opportunists, help the workers shed their illusions and win them to communist revolution and PLP. The main aspect of this struggle is to win more workers to read and distribute CHALLENGE.

We should investigate how to relate to Labor Against War, but the main opportunity is to build a mass base for PLP, concentrating in shops, the military and on campuses. Resolutions are only helpful if we use them to organize our co-workers into action. Regular readers and distributors of CHALLENGE will be the ones most open to supporting and organizing job actions and union battles. Short of that, all roads lead to the Democratic Party, and ultimately to war.

A Reader

Rebel vs. Factory Concentration Camps

The workers of Avellana/Outkeen here in Mexico are rebelling against layoffs. The bosses want to "do more with less," meaning cut costs by firing workers while increasing productivity. "Modernization" is turning the factories into concentration camps, where workers have no rights nor can they claim any by law.

If we believe the company line — "more productivity will win markets and secure our jobs" — we will lose. Under capitalism only the bosses win. If we unite with other workers to fight, we can build a movement of millions, not only to stop layoffs but to smash capitalism.

Workers produce everything. Why do we need the parasite bosses? They belong in the garbage can of history. We need communism. This is the only way we will be free and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Factory Red

1. Rulers' War on Terror Hits Unemployed
2. Control of Iraqi Oil Crucial to
   U.S. Bosses' Plan to Rule World
3. SADDAM IS NO `LESSER EVIL!'
4. Opposition Building vs. Fascist Round-Up of Immigrants
5. Never Again? It's Starting Here!
6. Multi-racial Unity FIghts Deportations
7. Racist Cuts Kill Babies from Harlem to Argentina
8. Union Leaders: Capitalist Tool
9. CEO's? No, Just Their Lieutenants
10. `Roger the Dodger' Taking Transit Workers for A Ride
11. MLA Academics Open to Left Leadership
12. Cops Kill Two Workers Protesting Against Rightwing `Strikers'
13. Untitled Response to War
14. WORKERS OF THE WORLD WRITE!
    LETTERS
    1. Colombian Union Hacks Dig Workers' Graves
    2. Heaven and Hell Are Right Here
    3. `Worth Every Nickel'
    4. When Soldiers
       Fraternize, Bosses Lose
15. RED EYE ON THE NEWS
    1. Mid-East oil gets more vital
    2. No Iraq answer can suit U.S.
    3. African women invade Chevron
    4. Mass civilian deaths not news?
    5. Dumas, descended from a slave, believed in armed struggle
    6. U.S. history overseas shows `democracy' is just rhetoric

---

Rulers' War on Terror Hits Unemployed

The U.S. bosses' "war on terror" is taking a toll on the unemployed. On Dec. 28, 800,000 laid-off workers had their jobless benefits cut off. Additionally Congress did absolutely nothing for another million who had already exhausted their extended emergency benefits. In effect, the racist rulers are paying hundreds of billions to wage imperialist war worldwide, in part, on the backs of the unemployed.

Still worse, 11 million of the 18 million unemployed are completely INeligible for any benefits at all, ever. This 38% eligibility rate is the lowest in the Western industrial world.

Racist unemployment means that black workers suffer twice the unemployment rate of white workers, and working for lower wages collect even smaller unemployment checks. "Last hired, first fired" continues to produce super-profits for the bosses. It leads to double rates of poverty, slum housing, infant mortality and more. Racist unemployment depresses conditions for ALL workers, as many "layoff-proof" white workers at Verizon are discovering.

Unemployment is built into capitalism. In its 500-year history, the profit system has NEVER produced full employment. All bosses are driven to beat their competitors and cut costs by laying off workers, especially in an economic crisis.

The U.S. Congress is saturated with millionaire representatives of the U.S. ruling class who couldn't care less about the suffering of jobless workers and their families.

Republicans and Democrats went home at the end of 2002 without passing even any stopgap measure to help unemployed workers who had exhausted their benefits. Blaming each other, both want to gain political advantage in next year's elections. One proposal would bar any extension of benefits in 24 states where the "official" (artificially low) unemployment rate is below 6% -- as if a laid-off worker in one state doesn't need benefits as much as one in another.

The Senate bill co-authored by NY Democrat Hillary Clinton and Oklahoma Republican Don Nickles would cost $5 billion and would only extend payments for 13 weeks for those who exhausted previous benefits, and would do nothing for the 11 million who are "ineligible."

The "war on terror" in Afghanistan is costing a billion dollars a month and has already cost $15 billion. The war plans for Iraq will cost between $200 billion and over $1.4 trillion if U.S. rulers occupy the oil fields for 10 years. The cost of maintaining the U.S. naval armada in the oil-rich Persian Gulf for one year - $50 billion - could take care of ALL 18 million unemployed in the U.S. at $300 a week for six months. But that's not the way capitalism works.

As Marx pointed out, capitalism requires a "reserve army of the unemployed" to drive down the wages of those still working. The only reason any unemployment insurance exists at all is because communists led millions of workers in the streets during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and forced U.S. rulers to fork over a tiny portion of the billions they steal from the working class. Communist revolution will eliminate unemployment. There will be a shortage of workers, not jobs, as we all work to produce as much as possible for the needs of the international working class.

Control of Iraqi Oil Crucial to
U.S. Bosses' Plan to Rule World

U.S. rulers have assembled the greatest, most destructive arsenal in world history. Since the middle of the Twentieth Century, from Hiroshima to Korea to Vietnam to Latin America, Africa and Kosovo, their bullets, bombs -- including nuclear devices -- and economic terrorism have far eclipsed Hitler in the murder of workers and children.

Now they are ready to unleash military havoc against the working class of Iraq in a gamble to dominate the world for the foreseeable future. This is the nature of capitalism-- the profit system.

The butchery of imperialist war reveals the nature of capitalism to masses of workers, students and soldiers. During the Vietnam war, when the U.S. military slaughtered over three million people, rebellions were a daily occurrence -- from Paris to Detroit to Mexico City to the GIs who "fragged" (killed) their own officers in Vietnam. Imperialist war opens the door to win many to PLP's communist politics of turning the war into a mass revolutionary struggle to sweep away the warmakers -- from the battlefronts to the factories, from schools to neighborhoods, from Washington to Baghdad.

The coming war isn't about "weapons of mass destruction (WMD)." Saddam has fewer WMD's now than he did when the 1991 Gulf War began. The U.S. supplied him with much of the chemical and biological weapons he does possess, for use during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when U.S. policymakers considered Iran their greatest threat in the Persian Gulf.

The "weapons inspections" are a hypocritical ploy designed to give Bush an excuse to launch a war that U.S. bosses consider a strategic necessity. At the heart of the matter lies the vast treasure of Iraqi oil -- proven reserves of 112 billion barrels, second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia. In addition, "as many as 220 billion barrels of resources are deemed probable." ("Guiding Principles for U.S. Post-Conflict Policy in Iraq," Council on Foreign Relations/Baker Institute for Public Policy, p. 18)

For modern capitalism, oil is not just another commodity. It is the lifeline to economic and political power, fueling the factories, the transportation systems and the engines of war. It remains crucial to the production of everything from pharmaceuticals to computer chips. Whoever controls the cheapest, most abundant supplies, can wield extraordinary power over its rivals.

For the U.S. ruling class, world domination is a matter of necessity, flowing from the character of the profit system. As Marx and Engels, the founders of scientific communism, understood 150 years ago, the capitalists require maximum profit.

Imperialism generates bloody capitalist rivalries while it impoverishes and slaughters the workers of the world. As Lenin wrote 100 years ago, this leads to an insatiable drive to invest abroad, to find larger pools of cheap labor, new markets and access to raw materials. U.S. bosses' competitors also clamor for maximum profits. This inter-imperialist rivalry inevitably leads to war. War in Iraq will drag us further into the bloodiest stage of imperialism in world history.

The international working class has a long, hard fight ahead. Over the next decade or so, U.S. bosses are likely to occupy the entire Persian Gulf. Their Chinese, European and Russian rivals will not sit still forever and hand them a free pass, as they are forced to do today. Over the long haul, another world war is in the cards, most likely between an isolated U.S. and a coalition of its foes.

This is merely the harsh truth of imperialism and the laws that govern it. But we don't have to accept this monstrous future. Communist revolution offers the one alternative to imperialist war. Despite the reversals of the first communist revolutions, history shows that communist parties can lead masses of workers and soldiers in opposing armies to turn imperialist war into its opposite. World War I produced the Russian Revolution. The Chinese Revolution was born out of World War II.

By building a mass communist movement, across all borders, out of each imperialist adventure, our revolutionary forces can grow stronger and ultimately make the next world war their last!

SADDAM IS NO `LESSER EVIL!'

Many in the liberal and phony "leftist" leadership of the anti-war movement spread the dangerous illusion that nationalists like Saddam Hussein "are not as bad as Bush." Make no mistake, Saddam is cut from the same cloth. We do the Iraqi workers no favors by supporting him. "The enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend."

U.S. sanctions have cut Iraq's oil income by two-thirds. But Saddam & Co. have made sure that the available money goes to the rich. In Baghdad's wealthy districts, you can find a brand new $42,000 Landcruiser, a top-of-the-line Mercedes Benz for $72,000, $2,500 U.S.-made refrigerators, Armani suits and Sony digital TVs.

While two million poor in the "Saddam City" part of Baghdad are "serviced" by one hospital that is falling apart. Saddam and his elite have an underused hospital better equipped than most in the U.S. While Iraqi government workers average less than $50 a month, soldiers make $15 a month and army pensioners live on $4 a month, Saddam's eldest son drives a new $200,000 Rolls-Royce Corniche. The Iraqi capitalists share the responsibility with U.S. imperialism for the deaths of 500,000 children from starvation and disease.

The U.S. helped install Saddam in power in the early 1960s when the CIA collaborated with Hussein's Ba'athist Party in a coup that overthrew Abdel Karim Kassem. The latter was seen as "too friendly with the Soviets and the Iraqi Communist Party." Then the Ba'athists murdered thousands of leftists, using lists provided by the CIA. Said Arburish's book, A Brutal Friendship, describes Saddam's rule:

"There were many ordinary people who were eliminated because they continued to resist...but there were also senior army officers, lawyers, professors, teachers, doctors and others....Pregnant women and old men...were tortured to death in the presence of their children. Saddam Hussein, who had rushed back from exile in Cairo to join the victors, was personally involved in the torture of leftists....The eliminations were done mainly on...house-to-house visits by hit squads who knew where their victims were and carried out on-the-spot executions. This explains the killing of seven of the 13-man Central Committee of the Iraqi Communist Party -- most after they were hideously tortured."

Iraqi newspapers regularly report people's tongues being cut out for criticizing Saddam. Army deserters are branded on the forehead and receive long prison terms. Saddam gassed thousands of innocent Kurdish civilians to death with the support of, and materials supplied by, U.S. rulers. Workers have every reason to hate both Saddam and Bush!

Saddam's crimes cannot be overlooked because he is at odds with U.S. imperialism. He is no "lesser evil." We should have no illusions about various nationalist bosses around the world who want to use the masses' hatred for U.S. imperialism to strengthen their own hand. The most dangerous enemies of the working class are those who mislead and divert us from communist revolution.

Some say war in Iraq may cause further instability throughout the Middle East. There is nothing good about the stability of capitalist rule. Capitalism is in a permanent state of war worldwide. The only way out of this hell on earth is to organize Iraqi, U.S., British and all workers, soldiers and students to destroy the cause of modern war; capitalism.

Opposition Building vs. Fascist Round-Up of Immigrants

Three thousand angry demonstrators protested the arrests of possibly 700 nationals from Iran and other Middle Eastern countries in Southern California last month. The men, some as young as 16, had voluntarily appeared at Immigration Service (INS) offices under a new law requiring nationals from those countries -- visitors and those with visas -- to register and be finger-printed. They were jailed for days, packed 30 to 40 in a cell, left without food sleeping on the floor, denied access to family or lawyers, and moved out of state because of overwhelming overcrowding. In Denver six students were imprisoned for failing to take enough classes as required by their student visas. Like the California detainees, they're not suspected of any crimes or links to terrorist groups.

Outrage is spreading among Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities in New York and New Jersey where registration is set to begin. Pakistanis -- now added to the list of those required to report -- form the largest group: 223,500 nationally, 16,000 in N.J. and 51,000 in N.Y.

In Pakistani areas of Brooklyn and Queens, protesters from the local communities turned out in significant numbers. Cab drivers, construction, office and restaurant workers have been living in fear there since 9/11. Hundreds have been arrested, jailed for months and deported. But fear is giving way to anger. Although the numbers are small, the fact that they appeared in public at all was an advance.

Weekly demonstrations have begun at the Manhattan INS office. A mass mobilization is planned for Jan. 10.

Campaigns challenging the laws are being organized. Some detainees have been released, some laws voided. Primarily the movement against the round-ups and the registrations aims at stopping the injustices. But a single-issue struggle without an anti-capitalist class perspective will not build a mass movement that can challenge the system. Leaders and masses alike have illusions they can reform the system with pressure on politicians and through the courts.

There have been attempts to unite with black, Latin and Asian groups, based on the common thread of racism, but without seeing the key role racism plays in capitalism. More positively, Jewish people and Japanese-Americans have become involved. At demonstrations, slogans like, "What's next? Concentration camps?" recognize that a fascist state is developing, although the word fascism is not used. Nor does the movement link fascism to war.

Blanket obligatory registering and finger-printing of workers and students because of their national origin is a qualitative step in the steady rise of fascism. It parallels events in Nazi Germany when Hitler started with the Jews, seized in their homes and arrested. Then came the trade unionists, communists and anyone opposing fascist terror. Nazi scapegoating of Jews for all Germany's problems resembles what is happening to Arabs, Muslims and South Asians today. Workers in Nazi Germany lost any rights; living standards fell as money went to war preparations; and then world war ensued, killing tens of millions.

The U.S. today mirrors that era: arrests without warrants of Arabs, Muslims and South Asians; their imprisonment without access to lawyers and family; secret courts; lawyers stopped from boarding planes; workers threatened with jail for striking (the West Coast dockworkers); and now the enforced registration of hundreds of thousands.

When the Nazis rounded up Jews, too few Germans opposed it. We must learn from that. The struggle to stop the arrests and deportations of our South Asian, Arab and Muslim brothers is the front line of the fight against fascism today -- and since the rulers need this police state apparatus to prevent opposition to war, this struggle must be linked to the fight against imperialist war with Iraq and other wars to follow.

Never Again? It's Starting Here!

When the Department of Justice ordered all male non-citizen immigrants above 16 from certain Muslim Middle Eastern and African countries to register and be interrogated by the Immigration Service (INS), our club first heard about it from a friend. He had seen a flyer put out by the International Student Affairs Office on his campus. Students there met and held a rally to denounce the "special registration" as racist and fascist.

We quickly distributed a leaflet on several campuses and it helped build anti-fascist ideas among our friends. It compared the INS move to the Nazis requiring Jews to wear stars on their clothing. It linked the anti-immigrant attacks to the impending war to control Iraq's oil as well as to layoffs and the current cuts in health care. We urged students, workers and soldiers to refuse to let the bosses murder and imprison our class brothers and sisters in order to solve their own crisis and said the working class needs communist revolution.

One comrade took the fight to a class on War and Diplomacy. The teacher was discussing the lessons of World War II, saying the holocaust was a test of our "humanity." He said unfortunately we failed that test because not enough was done to prevent the racist mass murder of Jews, communists and others. Our comrade raised his hand to say we were facing that very same test today with the INS forcing Arabs to register. He paralleled the development of U.S. fascism to its rise in Nazi Germany.

One student responded angrily that it was "insulting" to compare the U.S. to Nazi Germany. He claimed it was O.K. to force non-citizens to register. Another student countered that whether or not people are citizens, this special registration was racist. When the class ended, the comrade distributed many of the leaflets.

Another comrade was invited to a demonstration some local college friends had called against the war on Iraq. When passing out the leaflet, he was asked to take the mike to describe the racist INS detentions. He linked them to the war on Iraq. These same friends later invited us to a demonstration they called on both the detentions and the war. It was small but very spirited. We gave political leadership. We've attended many other demonstrations with CHALLENGES and leaflets. In many of them, the leadership has refused to discuss the relationship of the oil war to the war on immigrants.

Ultimately the communist PLP told the truth: that war and fascism are the ruling class's only alternative in a capitalist crisis, and that, in the long run, the capitalist beast has to be destroyed with communist revolution.

Multi-racial Unity FIghts Deportations

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 6 -- The day after the arrest of up to 700 Middle Eastern immigrants here several thousand people held an angry protest. Last Saturday, hundreds demonstrated at INS headquarters. Reflecting its multi-national, international character, the group chanted, "Arab, Asian, black, Latin, white -- against deportations we must unite." A lawyer said he couldn't tell his clients to register, knowing it was a "set-up." Others called for "fair registrations" to "protect immigrants," but this will only insure passivity in the face of fascism. Another speaker denounced the coming war in Iraq. A PLP leaflet was well received.

The INS threatens to register all immigrants, including those from Latin America and Asia, who form a much larger group than the 400,000 Iranians. Immigrant workers are a key part of the California economy. The rulers will use selective deportations to intimidate these historically militant workers while keeping the rest to super-exploit.

They want citizens to remain passive as Middle Eastern immigrants are harassed and deported, sending a message to all workers: don't fight back or strike against imperialist war, racist cutbacks or fascism.

Racist Cuts Kill Babies from Harlem to Argentina

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 3 -- "Central Harlem's infant mortality rate rose to 13.1 deaths per 1000 births last year -- more than double the city-wide level....Advocates and health care experts blamed the Harlem rate...on delays in getting funds and a large influx of immigrants who don't have ready access to health care." (New York Post, 12/30/02).

Racism is the real culprit. This city's capitalist-created budget crisis feeds Wall Street banks and bondholders over $3 billions in debt payments annually while social programs are slashed. "The city Health Department's Sandra Mullin acknowledged the delay in funds, saying, "We are in the midst of a budget crisis....The scopes and budget had to be worked out..." (NYP)

Anti-immigrant racism is another cause. "In Central Harlem, there are a lot of immigrants from Africa," explained Adam Aponte, chief of pediatrics at North General Hospital. Lack of health insurance and fear of immigration authorities distance these workers from health care.

Meanwhile, in Argentina in the Southern Cone of the Hemisphere, children are dying of malnutrition for the first time in modern history. On Dec. 29, Juan Manuel became the 18th child in the northern province of Tucuman to die of malnutrition in the last 60 days. Dr. Luis Albaca, who cared for Juan, said, "He was an innocent victim of poverty and the horrible policies of the national government....In Simoca [site of the death]....the rate of malnutrition and infant mortality is similar to that...in Africa and areas of India. The sad part is that nothing is done to counter this." (Pagina12, 12/30/02).

By year's end, two more Argentine children died of malnutrition in Chaco province. Thousands of children are suffering hunger throughout this country, one of the world's leading producers of meat and wheat.

Capitalism has been a failure for billions worldwide, particularly for workers' children. For their sake, let's organize to fight for a society where the wealth workers produce will be shared according to need. Children will be the first priority, eliminating the profit system and its bankers and agro-industry bosses.

Union Leaders: Capitalist Tool

At a recent union meeting, some UAW members were discussing Trent Lott's public support of segregation that cost him his leadership role in the Republican Party. One black woman said, "I'm not afraid of Trent Lott. I know where he stands. It's the enemy I can't see that worries me."

That, in a nutshell, describes the liberal and "socialist" union leaders and politicians, who out of patriotism and loyalty to the profit system inevitably lead the workers to fascism and war. Prior to World War II, with fascism on the rise around the world, the revolutionary communist movement (the 3rd International) referred to these "social democratic" union leaders as "social fascists." This is still true. Today, U.S. rulers are using the union leaders to get workers to support and pay hundreds of billions of dollars for the imperialist "War on Terror," war in Iraq and fascist "Homeland Defense."

Operating within the (bosses') laws of capitalism, fighting to defend "your" boss against the "foreign" competition and trying to bail the bosses out of their unending crises leads workers into the arms of the ruling class. "Union representatives on the board [of Directors] help the companies run. They are like management." So says the head of the U. of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business's Center for Human Resources (New York Times, 12/26/02), commenting on the workers' "ownership" of United Airlines.

At United Airlines, union leaders negotiated a powerless "employee stock ownership plan [that "gave"] workers a 55% stake in the company," in exchange for huge concessions. Now the stock is virtually worthless and the company has filed for bankruptcy. United is demanding $2.4 billion in immediate wage cuts, laying off thousands and threatening to void their union contracts.

Bankrupt USAIR gave the union three seats on the board of directors to secure $840 million in concessions. An airline spokesman said, "They will have representation...but certainly not control." (NYT) Those labor seats on the Board "helped USAirways secure the concessions."

Northwest Airlines has had three union representatives on its Board since 1993. Northwest's president says, "Our labor directors...are fully aware of the...obligations they have." Translation: they know which side their bread is buttered on.

Verizon is laying off thousands of workers, and the best the Communications Workers of America leadership can do is to spend millions on patriotic media ads citing the workers' role in repairing phone damage caused by 9/11. Mobilizing workers for an all-out strike was never a thought.

At the conclusion of contract talks between the TWU and the "poverty"-pleading MTA, the new "militant" Local 100 President Toussaint sealed the biggest sellout of NYC transit workers in recent history by hugging the MTA boss. Toussaint relied on Hillary Clinton, Basil Paterson and other Democratic Party hacks, as well as union sellouts like the teachers union's Randi Weingarten and even the heads of the racist Police Benevolent Association to push the MTA to make a deal and avoid a strike. The union agreed to a wage freeze in the first year and surrendered a no-layoff clause. (See article below)

TWU's Toussaint promised the workers militant, class struggle. Once in the saddle, he served the bosses better than the Old Guard he defeated. In a union with an overwhelming majority of black and Latino workers, he was just as guilty of enforcing the MTA's racism, which keeps these workers' conditions below those of the white workers on other MTA suburban lines. If white workers fail to unite with their black and Latin brothers and sisters, they too will fall victim to the bosses' racist attacks. That's what thousands of white Verizon workers are discovering. Racism oppresses ALL workers and paves the way for fascism.

The bosses need the union leaders more than ever in an era of intensifying fascism and war. These traitors have turned what is supposed to be a defensive weapon of workers into a tool of the capitalists. Nazi Germany had its Labor Front, which used its lieutenants to betray the workers. Mussolini had his fascist Corporate State, which "united" workers with bosses to serve the big capitalists. And Roosevelt was temporarily stopped from moving in that direction by the communist-led resistance of millions of workers during the crisis of the 1930s. Despite organizing millions of industrial workers into unions, winning the 8-hour day, unemployment insurance and Social Security, the communist movement succumbed to nationalism, abandoned revolution and was purged from the unions by the Cold War anti-communist onslaught. For at least 60 years the U.S. labor movement has been led by those most loyal to U.S. imperialism, whose hands are drenched in workers' blood.

PLP struggles against the bosses' attacks in order to provide workers with a school for communism. Capitalism can survive any economic crisis, any imperialist war. But it can't survive communist revolution. Only such a revolution can seize state power from the ruling class and the social fascist union leaders who defend their drive to fascism and war.

CEO's? No, Just Their Lieutenants

The following are the salaries paid to various union presidents in 2001:

Jay Mazur (garment workers)........................$498,554
Duane Worth (airline pilots)...........................439,296
John Bowers (East coast longshoremen)........358,554
Sandra Feldman (teachers).............................354,105
Doug McCarron (carpenters)...........................336,745
Doug Dority (Food & Commercial)..................305,032
Gerald McEntee (AFSCME)...............................281,634
John Wilhelm (hotel workers)........................273,120
Michael Monroe (painters)..............................258,500
[Source: Wall Street Journal, 12/24/02]

`Roger the Dodger' Taking Transit Workers for A Ride

The new transit contract is a big victory for Wall Street and the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). The precedent-setting first-year wage freeze perpetuates the myth that these billionaires are "broke" and that workers must sacrifice.

Much of the $1,000 lump-sum payment will be lost to taxes, and is excluded from a worker's base pay, negatively affecting vacation, sick time and future increases. The 3% raises for the second and third years barely match inflation. The MTA can now consolidate various transit lines into a Regional Bus Company, meaning layoffs and attacks on seniority and civil service status. Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 leaders agreed to increase productivity and "relax" work rules that workers fought and died to establish. This means more speed-up, less safety precautions, working out of title and more accidents, like the two workers killed last November because the MTA routinely disregards work-rules. The TWU dropped its demand to end Workfare, allowing unemployed workers on welfare to continue doing union work at slave labor pay.

When TWU president `Roger the Dodger' campaigned for office, he opposed most of these concessions that he is now urging workers to vote "Yes" on.

But the effects of this rotten contract will ripple far beyond transit workers. About 200,000 city workers are facing contract talks and now a wage freeze. Over 7.2 million daily riders will pay more because the TWU leadership dropped its demand for no-fare-increase. Hundreds of thousands more will be hit with a commuter tax.

The union "leadership" could have exposed the City bosses' "poverty" lies by publicizing the billions paid in interest to the banks, in bonuses to CEOs and in corporate stealing. Instead, they accepted the MTA's "hard times" BS, despite last year's $300 million surplus and their refusal to open the books.

The "leadership" never mobilized for a strike, which Toussaint described as a "catastrophe." Now transit workers are voting on the contract, but the militant rank and file, which overwhelmingly supported a strike at the Javits Center mass rally, is now unprepared to organize much resistance.

However, somewhat of a fight is occurring during the ratification period. Toussaint is touring locker-rooms urging a "yes" vote on the basis of safeguarding health benefits and the MTA's "promise" to overhaul the hated disciplinary system, which still leaves 10,000 cases. The mail ballots will be counted on Jan 21.

PLP's goal is to use this struggle as a school for transit workers to learn and organize for communist revolution. Capitalism feeds on wage slavery, war, racism and mass misery. The TWU's own history shows that only by breaking the bosses' laws have workers ever won anything of consequence, including the right to unionize. We fight for a communist society, where the working class rules and the wealth we create is distributed according to need.

A retired transit worker

MLA Academics Open to Left Leadership

NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 31 -- At the 2002 Convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA) here, many literary academics showed real openness to a leftist analysis of the current drive toward war and fascism, as well as of the brutal treatment of the non-tenure track faculty who teach about 60% of literature, language, and composition classes. Leaflets from both PLP (on communism as the solution to imperialist war) and the Radical Caucus (on inequalities in universities reflecting larger social inequalities) were warmly received.

Two of the three resolutions presented to the Delegate Assembly by the Radical Caucus were passed. One charged the University of California-Davis with abusing its non-tenure-track lecturers. The other ("guns versus butter") called for funding education, not war. A third appealed to academics to analyze and condemn the use of language to rationalize war. It just missed receiving the _ vote needed to come to the floor.

The Delegate Assembly Organizing Committee (DAOC) tried to block resolutions with demands for "documentation." This hypocrisy was exposed when they rejected the data presented to support the guns-versus-butter resolution. But the delegates followed the Radical Caucus's lead, twice overruling the DAOC.

For Left politics, the Radical Caucus was the only show in town. Its meeting overflowed the small hotel room. While the Graduate Student Caucus previously had led struggles against the super-exploitation of adjunct and graduate student labor, it was virtually invisible here. The Radical Caucus is continuing this fight, connecting with the part-time and non-tenure-track teachers who are the most class-conscious MLA members.

PLP members played a critical role at the convention, advancing Marxist class analyses of literary/cultural issues and the coming war. But we did not speak up boldly enough against red-baiting or defend the positive historical contributions of the world communist movement. Moreover, we presented fewer papers than in past, when we have emphasized topics like the centrality of communism to African-American literature, the bankruptcy of postmodernism and identity politics, the need to reject bourgeois notions of "literacy," and the importance of teaching proletarian literature. At the 2003 convention we will rectify these errors. Furthermore, we need to be more consistent in unmasking the capitalist nature of universities as "ideology factories." Many left-leaning academics persist in viewing them as "centers of enlightenment" even as they engage in brutal employment practices.

PLP has contributed significantly to making Marxist perspectives respectable in the MLA. But we need to go beyond merely anti-capitalist politics -- the basis of Radical Caucus unity -- and win many left-leaning MLA members to support, and join, the PLP and the movement for communism.

MARCHING WITH
BLINDERS ON

SEATTLE, WA -- On Jan. 14, thousands of angry education workers will descend upon the state capital in Olympia to rally and march against the devastating cutbacks already in place, and those about to come. We'll let the governor and legislature know we're furious at their refusal to give us a raise, despite voters having overwhelmingly approved one in the last election! We'll tell them again that many of our students will be unable to pass the WASL (state mandated assessment test) because many teachers have left the state, or the profession altogether, due to low pay, large class size and tremendous mounds of paperwork.

All these issues are very important; it's good that so many will participate. However, this demonstration is not addressing the most urgent matter workers, and especially students, are facing - the prospect of war in Iraq, which those cutbacks help pay for.

The very same students we teach and serve daily in our classrooms are confronted by a future of war, fascism, unemployment and racist violence. As educators and parents, we must unite with the youth who are increasingly taking to the streets to demonstrate against this imperialist war. For those students who are unaware, we must bring the issue to our classrooms. Our unions and associations are supporting Bush's war for oil by remaining silent. If we go along with this we surely will be marching with blinders on!

At Olympia, we must raise the war amongst our fellow workers, students and parents and distribute literature on the buses and at the rally itself. We should win people to join us at anti-war rallies on Jan. 18. We have to raise it in our unions, associations, classrooms, churches, etc. With people we already know, we must take it even further and talk about the need to get rid of a system that sacrifices workers and working-class students so that a few crooks can control oil profits. We must overcome our own fears and step forward to lead these workers, students, soldiers and sailors to communist revolution!

Anti-War Students Expose
U.S. Rulers' Hypocrisy

About 700 students on a Northeastern campus of 6,000 participated in a two-day teach-in on the U.S. war in Iraq. The activity inspired formation of a student anti-war group which called for an anti-war action on December 10, as part of a National Day of Action. The students heading the new group also helped lead a student roundtable discussion and small discussion groups at the teach-in.

One young woman speaker challenged the audience by asking, "Why is the U.S. government suddenly so worried about the lives of these Iraqi people, when it has been slaughtering them at will?" She explained that the U.S. didn't start a war when Hussein gassed his own people but now that the U.S. wants to control Iraqi oil, politicians are talking about being "concerned" for the very people the U.S. has been starving and bombing for ten years. She said that as far back as 1987, the U.S. funded Hussein with weapons to fight Iran because the U.S. didn't like Iran's policies.

Saying she attended the Oct. 26 march in Washington, D.C., against a war in Iraq because she wanted answers to her questions and was appalled to learn that U.S. military intervention is motivated by economic interests not humanitarian concerns and has caused millions of deaths of innocent people.

The student leadership here is important because until now, the faculty has been the main group leading activism against U.S. war plans abroad and repressive Homeland Security measures. More student-led events are needed to change students, just as the young woman above was transformed by the Oct. 26 march. Overcoming this pacifism will be even more important as the U.S. moves closer and closer towards war.

Cops Kill Two Workers Protesting Against Rightwing `Strikers'

CARACAS, Jan. 8--Two workers protesting against the rightwing "strikers"were killed by the Metropolitan police, controlled by the pro-coup mayor of Caracas. Workers from the poor neighborhoods all over Venezuela hate the pro "oil coup" forces, who are mostly racist and fascistic. But unfortunately, these anti-coup workers believe that President Chavez, representing nationalist bosses, is the answer. Workers must break with all capitalist factions and build a revolutionary communist movement.

Untitled Response to War

by Red MC

Lost life, a bit too hard to view,
especially through a focus too askewed,
who knew? Not me, not we, in fact not anyone,
well maybe some but only if their finger's on the gun
trigger, bigger, bigger you feel as you start to kill,
but damn you opinions and right to free will,
"our lives, our fourtunes, and our sacred honor
for the sake of freedom" defend the dollar.
The most common cause for war I've ever seen,
is to help the rich keep on getting their green.
Currently oil is the imperialist prize,
or at least the focus in Exxon-Mobile's eyes,
but will you, and I, and we, have to die,
to continue the constant Texas-T supply?
Well, yes. Because ain't you heard they need recruits,
if their gonna have a war then they have to have troops,
to kill and be perishable as cannon-fodder,
so let's raise our fists and not be head nodders,
to war without end, tear down the system from within,
we'll turn the guns around and be found to win!
How can we, you us and me, fight back?

WORKERS OF THE WORLD WRITE!
LETTERS

Colombian Union Hacks Dig Workers' Graves

Capitalism survives because workers are disorganized and weak. Today Marx's call, "Workers of the world, unite!" has more validity than ever. Trade unions have never really carried this out -- nor was that ever their purpose -- and have dug our graves with their pro-boss collaborationism. As 2003 begins, workers worldwide urgently need an international revolutionary Party as PLP envisions one.

But capitalists well understand the need to neutralize organizations workers use to fight for their interests. Here in Colombia, under the misleadership of sellout union hacks, the percentage of unionized workers is a lowly 3%, A clear example is Sinaltrabavaria, which represents workers in the Bavaria brewery.

Several years ago, workers there waged a militant 72-day strike, despite attacks by the bosses, cops and death squads. This action put the bosses on the defensive for a while, but the union leadership did everything possible to help the bosses reverse that. They've signed an agreement giving up many of the gains won in decades of workers' battles. Now workers are demoralized and weakened.

Today, 2,000 Bavaria workers are out of work because they refused to accept this sellout. The 1,800 who accepted are at the mercy of the company and their union lieutenants. Now there are only 500 unionized workers at Bavaria, trying to hold onto what is left of 70 years of struggle.

But besides the bosses' drive for maximum profits and the sellout union executive committee, workers' lack of class consciousness is also a culprit. This deadly evil has made workers at Bavaria and worldwide easy targets of the bosses and their agents.

We in PLP have tried to counter this trend among Bavaria workers, to bring our communist politics to the struggle. But the union leaders were in a better position to make workers bow to the bosses' pressures. However, all this -- including our job losses -- has made us see the need to double our efforts to bring our politics to the workers.

The circulation of DESAFIO-CHALLENGE inside the plants is crucial to this process. Our goal is still, workers of the world, unite to fight for a society without bosses and without union hacks: communism.

Red Worker

Heaven and Hell Are Right Here

For almost two years I've attended my friend's Presbyterian Church. I bring him CHALLENGE and other articles almost every Sunday, and try to bring him closer to a communist outlook. He, in turn, tries to bring me to Christianity.

The people in church are warm and friendly. They greet you with "The peace of the Lord be with you!" To those I know best, I reply "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!"

Many of our discussions come down to their idealist ideas versus our materialist ideas. They say, "You have to accept Jesus as your Savior if you want to go to heaven. Otherwise, you are going to hell!" But with mass starvation, and lack of decent health care, housing and jobs, for millions of workers worldwide, capitalism is truly hell.

Worker revolutions in Russia and China led to Socialism and reforms which were a step forward. Unfortunately, all that's been reversed, but providing lessons to be learned. A system based on communist principles will be an even greater step forward for the working class.

Church Red

`Worth Every Nickel'

Please find enclosed $10 donation to be used for the advancement of the Cause. CHALLENGE is worth every nickel. Keep up the good work.

West Virginia prisoner

When Soldiers
Fraternize, Bosses Lose

I appreciated the article in the last issue from the Chicago teachers. The debate in the union meeting and the struggle within the "Teachers Against the War" group, show we have a big opportunity to struggle with honest folks who don't agree with us on many things. The idea that we must trust the working class to see the big picture and not just put forward ideas most already agree with is a key point. Sometimes I censor myself instead of advancing ideas that will move a struggle to a higher level.

Activity among teachers has taken on greater importance because many working-class students will go into crucial industries or join the army, some immediately upon graduation and more after several years of racist unemployment and/or dead-end jobs. What youth understand about the big picture can be crucial during a period of imperialist war. Youth who understand they are part of the international working class can fight for their class and not for the bosses, whether in a factory or on a battlefield.

Last month a documentary shown on the History Channel about the World War I Christmas Truce in 1914 revealed some possibilities. British and German soldiers stopped fighting and exchanged gifts, took photographs together and even played soccer. While the History Channel tried to portray this as "the Christmas Spirit" or "19th Century fair play," they had to admit that the soldiers in the trenches understood they had more in common with each other than they did with their own officers. But the History Channel won't admit that during World War I, communists especially in Russia - struggled with workers and soldiers to reject patriotism and nationalism and see themselves as one international working class, whose interests lie in fighting for power for our class. It was that perspective that inspired the Christmas Truce and led Russian soldiers in 1917 to leave the front and join with workers and peasants to make a revolution.

As both a U.S. and World History teacher, it's gratifying to see students draw useful lessons. The students in my U.S. History class had read about the pro-war government propaganda during World War I, as well as the jailing of anti-war activists and speakers. I asked the class why, in their opinion, people weren't told the truth about the war. In a class 70% Latino and 30% black, a young black woman answered, "Because there are more of us than there are of them."

A Teacher

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS THAT CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION:Abbreviations: NYT=New York Times, WG=Weekly Guardian

Mid-East oil gets more vital

Washington, Dec. 25 -- As President Bush seeks to reduce American reliance on oil imported from the Persian Gulf, new government studies predict that in two decades the West will be even more dependent on oil from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern producers. [NYT, 12/26/02]

No Iraq answer can suit U.S.

Some scholars would say the task the world has assigned Iraq -- to prove it has no weapons of mass destruction -- is logically impossible....
The thing we're asking them to prove, whether you put it positively or negatively, is so extremely hard to prove that we're almost rigging the outcome by the way we put the question," said Laurence H. Tribe, the Harvard professor of constitutional law. [NYT, 12/15/02]

African women invade Chevron

ChevronTexaco...in the years ahead...will pump more of its oil in places where people live on "less than $1 a day...."
The Nigerian....women's occupation of the Escravos Terminal set off three other women-led protests against ChevronTexaco and one against Royal Dutch/Shell -- the first time women spearheaded demonstrations against the Western oil giants....
"The Americans who claim to be freedom fighters, the Americans who claim to want to better mankind -- for us they are the devil. They are worse than Lucifer. Can you tell me they are not worse than Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden? To me they are worse. I want to be clear. Americans are like terrorists to us. They come, take and leave without putting back.
"The only security is for them to improve the lot of the people. If they don't, Chevron is sitting on a powder keg." [NYT, 12/22/02]

Mass civilian deaths not news?

What are the likely human consequences of the impending war on Iraq? News media should be asking that question. But the American public remains in the dark....
The London-based Medact organization and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War...warned:
"....Credible estimates of the total possible deaths on all sides during the conflict and the following three months range from 48,000 to over 260,000. Civil war within Iraq could add another 20,000 deaths. Additional later deaths from post-war adverse health effects could reach 200,000."
And here's another conclusion from the report that major U.S. news outlets keep ignoring: "In all scenarios, the majority of casualties will be civilians." [Liberal Opinion Week, 12/16/02]

Dumas, descended from a slave, believed in armed struggle

The Dumas, those thoroughly French "giants..." were the son, grandson and great-grandson of an anonymous slave....A veil was long drawn over the fact that Alexander Dumas was descended from a black slave....The writer fired the imagination of generation after generation of readers with his tales of [The Three] musketeers, battles, fortresses and secret passages....Dumas suffered at the hands of racists....On November 30...the French republic was not just paying tribute to him, but repairing an injustice by admitting him to the Pantheon to rest side by side with Victor Hugo and Emile Zola....
But they were...different. Dumas was more physical. He was prepared to pick up a gun and attack a gunpowder factory in 1830, or join Garibaldi's forces in 1860. [Le Monde, 12/1-2/02]

U.S. history overseas shows `democracy' is just rhetoric

Whenever it has exerted power overseas, America...values stability -- which means not only political stability but also the steady, profitable flow of goods and raw materials -- more than it values its own rhetoric about democracy. Where the two sides have collided, American power has come down heavily on the side of stability, for example, toppling democratically elected leaders from Mossadegh in Iran to Allende in Chile. Iraq is yet another test of this choice. Next door in Iran, from the 1950s to the 1970s, America backed stability over democracy, propping up the autocratic rule of the shah, only to reap the whirlwind of an Islamic fundamentalist revolution in 1979 that delivered neither stability nor real democracy. Does the same fate await an American operation in Iraq?....
If America takes on Iraq, it takes on the reordering of the whole region. It will have to stick at it through many successive administrations. The burden of empire is of long duration. [NYT, 1/5/03]