Editorial: Terrrorism Helps U.S. Bosses Pave Way For Oil War and Police State

Capitalism Has Brought Centuries Of Mass Murder -- U.S. Bosses Lead By Far In The Body Count.

Liberal Rulers Bring Hart Rudman Blueprint for War and Fascism Out of the Closet and Into the Spotlight

• a href="#Media’s "Discovery" of Hart Rudman Can’t Be a Mere Coincidence">Me"ia’s "Discovery" of Hart Rudman Can’t Be a Mere Coincidence

Communists Must Never Again Pander to Nationalism

• The fox is guarding the chicken coop.

a href="#Osama bin Laden: the CIA’s Frankenstein">"ontrol of Saudi Oil Profits: Big Reason Behind Holy War; Osama bin Laden: the CIA’s Frankenstein

• CIA Trained bin Laden to Wage Anti-Communist Holy War

a href="#Religion Cloaks Bin Laden’s, Taliban’s Capitalist Core">Re"igion Cloaks Bin Laden’s, Taliban’s Capitalist Core

Racism: The More It Seems to Change the More It Remains the Same

War Industry Workers Debate Racist War Rhetoric

Airline Bosses Show Their Patriotism: Make Workers Pay with Mass Layoffs

a href="#Students Learn International Unity, Not Patriotism, Is Answer to Bosses’ Attacks">"tudents Learn International Unity, Not Patriotism, Is Answer to Bosses’ Attacks

Supporting Oil War and Racism Hurts ALL Workers and Youth

Students provide protection and solidarity for fellow Arab Students

March in Brooklyn Against Anti-Arab Racism

a href="#No More Workers’ and Soldiers’ Blood For Bosses’ Oil Profits">No M"re Workers’ and Soldiers’ Blood For Bosses’ Oil Profits

Fight for Knowledge In Capitalist Schools

a href="#When Communists and Anti-Racists Unite—KKK Runs and Hides">"hen Communists and Anti-Racists Unite—KKK Runs and Hides

Students Rally Against Racism and Death Threats

LETTERS

Workers in PA Against Bosses War

Churches and Temples Offer Discussions About War

Letter From the Barracks

a href="#Can’t Brand War & Fascism on Everyone in Texas">"an’t Brand War & Fascism on Everyone in Texas

PLP Reaches Mountains of Oaxaca

Building the PLP in The Caribbean

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Editorial: Terrrorism Helps U.S. Bosses Pave Way For Oil War and Police State

The horrendous murders of thousands of innocent workers on September 11 have given U.S. bosses the excuse they need to:

•Drum up a flag-waving frenzy for a war that will slaughter millions to protect Exxon Mobil’s Middle Eastern oil empire;

•Disguise this imperialist aggression as a humanitarian crusade against terrorism;

•Build political support within the military and society at large for the mass casualties their oil war will require;

•Blame terrorism for the economic recession their system faces and use the bombings as an excuse to eliminate more jobs, cut back on social services, and make workers and youth accept a police state;

•Wage a virulent racist campaign against Arab workers.

Communists must organize workers, soldiers and youth to smash anti-working class mass terrorism spawned by the profit system.

Regardless of the individual perpetrators’ identity, the horrific attacks that slaughtered thousands of black, white, Latino, Arab and Asian workers and others in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on September 11 are consistent with the lethal logic of capitalism.

These bombings mark an escalation of the contradictions that are hurling the world into fascism and war.The thousands who died in these attacks are war victims. But they are not the first. They join one million Iraqis killed over a decade of US bombing missions and economic sanctions. They join thousands of Palestinians, millions in Africa and Vietnam, and hundreds of thousands in Latin America.

All these casualties belong to our class, the workers of the world. As long as the bosses hold power, workers will continue to reap what the billionaire terrorist war makers have sown. Organizing against terrorists big and small, from Kabul to Washington, DC, and building a mass international PLP, are the order of the day.

Bush’s declaration of war is a challenge that revolutionary communists must answer everywhere. During imperialist war, communists must lead workers against their ruling class. Our job is to fight all the rulers, not to mobilize our class to choose sides among them. This is the task at hand, whether in the US, Afghanistan, Israel, Germany, Russia or Iraq. No worker should blindly follow any boss. We communists have the responsibility of uniting the workers of the world and marching forward on the road to communist revolution. This is necessary and achievable.

Millions of workers all over the world hate U.S. imperialism. At present, this hatred is particularly virulent in Moslem countries. But hatred of one imperialist gang alone can’t destroy imperialism. Hatred must be converted into pro-working class politics. It can serve workers only if it becomes infused with a revolutionary communist outlook. The twin poisons of nationalism and religious fanaticism serve only to unite workers with one gang of bosses or another.

As the "only super power," the U.S. rules an increasingly unstable world. This growing instability is evident in Osama bin Laden’s and Saddam Hussein’s history as former allies of the US, former contract employees of the CIA. Saddam was used by the US to attack Iran after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. Bin Laden is a former US "freedom fighter," who was employed to prevent the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan. (See article )

The U.S. rulers are using their mass media to whip up patriotism, nationalism, racism and war fever. They can reach many more people than we can, and will temporarily have mass support.

Many tests, including further deadly terror assaults on U.S. soil, lie ahead for the working class. A more emboldened openly right wing movement may emerge in the unions and on the campuses. Inter-imperialist rivalries will sharpen, and bosses on all sides will spill plenty of workers’ blood. U.S. rulers will use every weapon in their considerable arsenal to protect their profits, their political power, and their empire. Their anti-worker attacks will increase in viciousness. At some point they will single out our Party.

None of these obstacles should stop the PLP from growing. The communist movement has always managed to thrive under the direst conditions. The only answer to mass terror, regardless of the source, remains: Build the Party. Fight for communist revolution. Do whatever needs to be done, however long it takes and whatever the cost, to help move all the world’s workers together into a collective struggle against all the world’s bosses.

We must not be swayed or intimidated by the difficulty of our task. We must have confidence that we can win the working class to internationalism and revolution. Our confidence will grow as we wage an aggressive struggle in our shops and factories, schools and campuses, neighborhoods and barracks. A mass base for PLP and CHALLENGE can give political leadership to tens of thousands more. As you will see in these pages, our Party has answered the bell, and this process has made a modest beginning. "Workers of the World, Unite!"

Capitalism Has Brought Centuries Of Mass Murder -- U.S. Bosses Lead By Far In The Body Count.

Here is a brief, incomplete summary of the working class blood shed to feed the profit system in North America:

• Hundreds of millions of Native Americans wiped out through warfare or disease since 1492;
• Tens of millions of Africans brutalized and murdered in 400 years of slavery;
• Billions of workers devastated throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America by U.S. imperialism’s drive for maximum profit;
• A status quo of racist economic and police terror against black and Latin workers within the U.S.;
• The nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 when Japan was already going to surrender;
• A 45-year long "Cold War," in which U.S. rulers backed scores of fascist dictators in a worldwide anti-communist "crusade;"
• The CIA-backed slaughter of nearly a million Indonesian workers in 1965 as part of this crusade;
• A genocidal war in southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s that murdered at least three million Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians;
• Support for death squad regimes in Central and South America, whose CIA-trained thugs murdered hundreds of thousands in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, and Colombia.
• The butchery of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi workers in Bush Sr.’s 1991 "Desert Storm" to protect U.S. oil interests;
• The subsequent murder over the ensuing decade of a million more Iraqis—mostly children—by U.S.-imposed sanctions, a price Clinton’s Secretary of State Albright said she was "willing to pay" in defense of Exxon Mobil et al.;
• A campaign of nearly daily air bombing against Iraqi workers since 1998 by U.S. and British imperialists;
• An ongoing reign of terror against Palestinian workers by U.S.-backed Israeli bosses;
• A nearly three month-long campaign of "humanitarian" terror from the air over the former Yugoslavia in 1999 to make Caspian-related pipeline safe for U.S. and British energy giants.

Liberal Rulers Bring Hart Rudman Blueprint for War and Fascism Out of the Closet and Into the Spotlight

The U.S. ruling class is acutely aware that its armed forces continue to suffer from "Vietnam Syndrome"– the unwillingness of working class soldiers and sailors to spill their blood for imperialism. The bosses desperately need to solve this strategic problem. As the Hart-Rudman Commission on National Security in the 21^st Century wrote months before the World Trade Center attack, mustering "broad public support" for the "sacrifice [of] blood and treasure" remains key to the defense of U.S. imperialism over the next 25 years. Hart-Rudman virtually predicted the World Trade Center/Pentagon incidents, warning of a "hostile attack on our homeland…in which Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers." The Commission’s report compared such an event to Pearl Harbor and strongly implied that a disaster of this magnitude would be necessary to "galvanize" popular opinion against "a strategic culture that contains minimal tolerance for casualties."

When the Hart Rudman Commission released its findings over the 2000-01 winter, Challenge was the only newspaper to publicize and analyze them. In the midst of the dogfight over the Bush-Gore election, the PLP explained that despite serious tactical differences among the rulers, a deeper need for class unity would prevail. The Hart Rudman Commission embodies this need. Challenge summarized its key recommendations to militarize society and gear for a succession of oil wars, as well as wars with Russia and China as threats to U.S. superpower status. These included:

• Creating a National Homeland Security Agency as a giant umbrella;
• Putting Defense, Energy, the EPA, Energy, Transportation, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and other departments under one roof;
• Militarizing the economy by making the Secretary of the Treasury a member of the National Security Council;
• Requiring every member of Congress to participate in war games every two years;
• Shortening the nominating process for Cabinet appointments in order to avoid partisan bickering.

As the Commission’s co-chair, former Sen. Warren Rudman, admitted to Peter Jennings in a Sept. 14 ABC interview, Bush Vice-President Cheney has been given the job of organizing this centralization of state power. The ruling class didn’t wait for September 11 to start acting on Hart Rudman. It did, however, wait for an excuse to start publicizing the Commission’s recommendations. Within hours of the World Trade/Pentagon bombings, the Liberal Establishment’s leading mouthpieces had begun to trumpet the wonders of Hart Rudman. An important September 12 New York Times editorial complained that the Commission’s findings and recommendations had at first been "largely ignored." Another article in the same issue headlined whiningly about "Years of Unheeded Alarms" and then admiringly quoted Rudman repeating the Commission report’s comparison to Pearl Harbor, along with the idea that "everybody was galvanized." Rudman himself became a media star, shuttling between the commercial networks and PBS. Key Times columnist Anthony Lewis complained that at first "Nobody paid any attention" to Hart Rudman. Republican John McCain quoted Hart Rudman word for word about winning the population to sacrifice "American blood and American treasure."

The rulers started implementing the Hart Rudman plan for fascism and imperialist war the moment it was released. They were merely waiting for the right moment to publicize it.

a name="Media’s "Discovery" of Hart Rudman Can’t Be a Mere Coincidence"></">Me"ia’s "Discovery" of Hart Rudman Can’t Be a Mere Coincidence

Something’s fishy about the ruling class media’s quickness to embrace Hart Rudman after September 11. The first phase of the report clearly says that a catastrophe on U.S. soil that can blamed on U.S. enemies is the only way to mobilize the population to make the necessary "sacrifice." The report strongly suggests that the authors consider such an event a necessary price to pay for lining up mass political support behind the imperialists’ war plans. The rulers’ intelligence services must have known more than they let on. And although the rulers themselves may have gotten more than they had anticipated and although they can’t be happy about the financial consequences of September 11, they obviously anticipated some sort of important terrorist attack, did little or nothing to prevent it, and have rapidly found a way to fit it into their plans for far wider terror. Nothing is beneath the ruthless, cynical bosses.

Communists Must Never Again Pander to Nationalism

Among other things, the September 11 atrocities should serve as grim evidence that all types of nationalism are deadly to workers. The old communist movement temporarily liberated hundreds of millions of workers and others from the yoke of capitalism. It freed women from religious oppression in Central Asia, and China. It crushed the Nazis. But the communist movement of the 20^th Century’s first half failed to understand the deadly character of nationalism. Great communist leaders like Stalin and Mao took the position that the imperialists’ nationalism was reactionary, while the nationalism of the oppressed could be "progressive." That line helped lead to the reversal of workers’ power in both the former Soviet Union and China. The international working class continues to pay a terrible price for the mistake. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism and nationalism throughout the Arab world and in parts of Asia exposes the extent to which large numbers of the most oppressed workers anywhere have fallen victim to the trap of all-class unity behind a group of bosses. Our Party has a great responsibility for helping workers everywhere emerge from the wreckage of this fatal error. Sharpening the struggle against racism and nationalism in practice where we have a political base is an essential first step. Our local anti-racist, anti-nationalist actions of today can have worldwide repercussions tomorrow.

The fox is guarding the chicken coop.

On September 17 Bush, who has a long history of racism, surrounded himself with Muslim clerics and hypocritically condemed the growing racist attacks against Arabs.

We shouldn’t forget that Bush stole the 2000 election when his brother, the governor of Florida, used local and state police to prevent black workers from voting. Bush’s choice for Attorney general, John Ashcroft, is well known for catering to the Republican "right." As governor, Bush helped make Texas the death penalty capital of the world, executing a large majority of black victims. This helped feed the atmosphere that led to the KKK-style lynching of James Byrd, a black worker murdered by neo-nazis.

Now the liberal Democrats are praising his "leadership." That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Clinton’s record exposes the liberals as vicious racist budget-slashers, prison-builders, and warmakers.

Workers shouldn’t be fooled. Bush’s call for unity is based on the bosses’ need to recruit workers of every nationality, background, and religion for their next imperialist oil war. Our answer, as always, is to unite the working class for communism.

Control of Saudi Oil Profits: Big Reason Behind Holy War

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The New York Times (9/14) published an extensive article by Middle East expert Judith Miller, titled "Bin Laden: Child of Privilege Who Champions Holy War." While it is no secret that Bin Laden was a creature of the U.S. intelligence services, Ms. Miller merely smoothes it over by saying, "…the U.S. had worked ‘alongside’ him to help oust the Russians from Afghanistan…" The U.S. "work" poured in $2 billion!

If anyone is to blame for the terrorist activities of Bin Laden, it’s the CIA.

Why are bin Laden and the U.S. bosses now enemies? Although the present conflict is posed as a "holy war," it is basically for control of the oil wealth of Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden represents a section of the Saudi ruling class (from which he comes) that does not want to share this oil with Exxon-Mobil. U.S. bosses know if they lose Saudi Arabia after having lost Iraq, they won’t control the biggest oil producers of the cheapest oil in the world. Without it, U.S. imperialist supremacy is in serious question. Bush’s "holy war"for oil is likely to wind up with hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

CIA Trained bin Laden to Wage Anti-Communist Holy War

In 1979, bin Laden, who inherited a personal $300 million fortune from his father (a construction boss billionaire), decided to abandon his former life of luxury and dedicate himself to fight communism. When the Soviet army entered Afghanistan to support a pro-Moscow government there, bin Laden was recruited by the CIA to become the financier of the anti-Soviet "holy war." In 1986, William Casey, CIA chief under Reagan-Bush Sr., approved an old proposal by the Pakistani intelligence services to recruit Islamic fundamentalists worldwide to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

While the Pakistanis did the recruiting, Saudi Arabia provided money and the U.S. gave political support and "funneled more than $2 billion in guns and money…during the 1980s. It was the largest covert action program since World War II (Washington Post, 7/19/92). Soon, 35,000 fundamentalists came to fight alongside the Afghani holy warriors. Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo III (1988) was based on this CIA vision of the world: then the "good" guys were the bin Laden "holy warriors" types fighting the "evil communist" Soviet empire.

Bin Laden and his followers learned all their tricks from the master terrorists: the CIA. "It was the CIA which taught him how to be bold…It was also the CIA which taught him the tricks of a secret war: how to move money around using ghost companies and off shore fiscal paradises, how to prepare explosives, how to use coded messages to communicate with his agents and avoid detection, how to retreat into a safe base after a big blow to the enemy…"(El Pais, Madrid, 9/14).

Soon after the Soviet Army left Afghanistan and the Soviet Union itself imploded, the U.S. and its Pakistani allies began supporting the most backward of all the holy warriors, the Taliban. The Pakistani intelligence services financed all of this by smuggling opium and heroin from Afghanistan. In 1991, when the U.S. led an imperialist coalition against Iraq, and U.S. troops were stationed in the Moslem "holy land" of Saudi Arabia, the fundamentalists united against the new "evil empire," their old friends in the U.S. Bin Laden joined forces with other fundamentalist forces like Islamic Jihad of Egypt who had murdered Anwar Sadat, considered a lackey of the U.S. and Israel. These forces represent a section of the Middle Eastern ruling classes which use religion to cover their desire not to share the oil wealth with U.S, imperialism/Exxon-Mobil.

But even while bin Laden has become the number one bad guy on the U.S. hit list, some of his followers are still serving U.S. bosses. Last April, Secy. of State Colin Powell approved $43 million in "humanitarian" aid for the Taleban. Furthermore, many of the veterans of the Afghan "holy war" were fighting alongside the U.S.-supported Kosovo-Albanian "freedom fighters" during the 1999 air war against the former Yugoslavia. And more recently, some have fought with the Albanian forces against the government of Macedonia.

Again, when one talks about terrorism, don’t lose sight of the big ones: U.S. imperialism and its CIA. And don’t lose sight of what is behind the "holy war" between bin Laden and the U.S. bosses: control of oil profits.

a name="Religion Cloaks Bin Laden’s, Taliban’s Capitalist Core"></">Re"igion Cloaks Bin Laden’s, Taliban’s Capitalist Core

The media call Osama bin Laden a fanatical Islamic fundamentalist. But make no mistake. Far more than any religious belief, it is bin Laden’s struggle with U.S. bosses over profit sources that drives him. The same goes for the Koran-thumping Taliban.

Osama bin Laden came from a family which in the 1970s and 80s amassed billions building mosques and military bases for the Saudi government. But the royal family refused to cut bin Laden a share of the even more lucrative oil business, which it reserves for itself and the Exxon Mobil axis. So bin Laden, with the Saudi capitalist forces he represents, made a bid for state power. In 1990, after Iraq had invaded Kuwait, bin Laden tried to raise an army of his Afghan war veterans [see article on this page] to "safeguard" Saudi Arabia. But the Saudi royals, aided by a half a million U.S. troops, prevented the coup. Bin Laden was promptly stripped of Saudi citizenship for this act of treason and exiled to Sudan. There he began aiding Exxon Mobil’s rivals in the guise of a missionary. Bin Laden led an Islamic "anti-poverty" project that built a road from Khartoum to Port Sudan, literally paving the way for an oil export pipeline that the China National Oil Company and France’s Total soon exploited. Non-royal Saudi businessmen continue to fund bin Laden’s cause in Sudan.

From Sudan bin Laden jumped to Afghanistan, where the increasingly powerful fundamentalist Taliban had hopes of becoming energy barons. In the mid 1990s, Unocal and some non-U.S. firms were proposing pipelines that would carry gas and oil from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. "The Taliban’s control of the pipeline route made the pipeline possible," said the husband of Pakistan’s president Bhutto (Taliban : Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid ). But almost immediately the Taliban turned against the U.S. oil bosses and vice versa. First, Unocal unilaterally set the Taliban’s future cut at a miserable 15 cents per 1,000 cubic feet. "The Taliban were incensed because they were not consulted about the gas price, and they demanded a larger transit fee" (Rashid). Then in 1999, Clinton forced Unocal to drop the project entirely. U.S. rulers felt that the Taliban could not or would not guarantee a stable Afhghanistan, especially since Russian influence in the region was rising under the newly elected Putin. From now on, Washington would employ a "get tough" policy against the Taliban.

Racism: The More It Seems to Change the More It Remains the Same

The planners of the recent UN Conference against racism in Durban, South Africa, which included the Rockefeller Foundation, hoped it would win workers to the lie that the world’s governments can end racism They cannot and will not. Because these states are capitalist their rulers need racism, as much as they need war, to ensure their profits. War is the capitalists’ ultimate means for crushing their foreign rivals. With racism they seek both to divide and weaken their main internal enemy, the working class, and to stir it up to fight in their imperialist wars. Capitalists cannot survive without racism. The U.S. delegation to the meeting proved this reality by walking out, refusing to denounce Israel’s anti-Arab racism. Bush’s plans for war in the Mideast and Central Asia make crystal clear why Colin Powell & Co, took a hike.

From a working class perspective, the Durban gathering turned out to be a total farce. The UN had chosen Durban to showcase South Africa’s "anti-racist progress" since the end of apartheid. Black politicians, for the most part, run the country now. But let’s look at the facts. Workers have worse conditions than ever. Unemployment is soaring. According to the Christian Science Monitor (7/12/01), "35 percent of blacks are jobless and 61 percent of black families live below the poverty line, defined by the Department of Finance as 1,100 rand ($137) per month per household." The only democratization to have taken place has been the democratization of the working class’s impoverishment. Now many white workers are as poor as their black sisters and brothers. "Among whites, 6.8 percent were out of work in 1999 - as compared with 3.3 percent in 1994. The number of white families living under the poverty line rose in the same period of time from 1 percent to 2.7 percent." (CSM).

Once upon a time, the African National Congress, South Africa’s current ruling party, was allied to the old communist movement and tried to represent workers’ interests. But the ANC carried out the old movement’s fatally flawed line that national liberation would lead to workers power. Black capitalist rulers are every bit as deadly as white ones, and South Africa’s new rulers are surely capitalist. In 1997, the Oppenheimer cartel willingly sold a big chunk of its gold mining empire to a group of black financiers that included the wife of South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki. One hundred seventy five miners, virtually all black, died in South African gold mines last year.

Capitalists like Mbeki can no more end racism than end imperialist war. That takes organizing a mass communist-led working class movement to smash all forms of capitalism.

War Industry Workers Debate Racist War Rhetoric

The bosses and their labor lieutenants in the war industry are using the anti-working class terrorist bombings as an excuse to build public support for a possible oil war in the Middle East and fascist police state tactics at home. We may not be able to turn the tide nationally now, but as a week of struggle on the shop floor and at last week’s union meeting show, we can stake out a place to fight for the working class.

After some comments supporting President Bush, the union meeting focused on the upcoming contract. When it can time for the rank-and-file to comment, the local president rushed to the microphone to read a statement from International Association of Machinists (I.A.M.) President Thomas Buffenbarger, to be read at all union meetings. "The jets we make can carry troops…Our members can build fighter jets and bombers…Make no mistake about it, we don’t just want those responsible for these terrorist attacks. We want vengeance!"

Then it was our turn. Prepared somewhat by the debates on the shop floor, one worker started by condemning these attacks against the working class that have nothing to do with fighting imperialism. "Now Bush is talking about defending freedom," he continued. "Well, if he wants to defend freedom, he has to look no farther than the Charleston 5 in South Carolina."

He described the racist frame-up against these one white and four black dockworkers, who are on trial for defending their jobs (see last Challenge), and how racism hurts the whole working class. "If we really want to fight for freedom, we should start a defense committee for the Charleston 5," he concluded.

Another union member stepped forward and warned, "I condemn these attacks also, but we have to be careful what words we use. Already, there have been racist attacks on anybody that looks Arab. Look what we did during WWII with the Japanese concentration camps. We still haven’t lived that one down." After the applause, the meeting ended abruptly.

"The meeting wasn’t going the way they wanted," said another worker the next day. Neither did the "meeting after the meeting." A group stayed outside the union hall discussing how to build a campaign against racism in support of the Charleston 5. (The union leadership wants to give money to the defense fund and be done with it.)

But one local official got the point. He asked, "So what do you guys think is behind all this?" "Oil," we answered. "Damn right!" he shouted so all around could hear. "I’ve been having this debate with other union officers all week. If the U.S. military gets involved you can bet oil and money are the reasons why."

"You got to be careful about words like vengeance," we repeated again. "The bosses already have the Hart-Rudman report which says that only a ‘Pearl Harbor-like incident’ would get the population ready for ground war and a police state. Bush is using these attacks as an excuse to start an oil war." "Damn right!" he shouted, even louder this time.We should have no illusions. The bosses’ labor lieutenants will intensify their war campaign. If we take into account the particular circumstances and political history of our job sites and mass organizations, we can carefully map out a strategy to answer the bosses’ racist war plans.

Airline Bosses Show Their Patriotism: Make Workers Pay with Mass Layoffs

Airline analysts predict over 100,000 layoffs in the next month. Tens of thousands have already been announced; 12,000 at Continental, as many as 20,000 at United, thousands more at Northwest, American, ATA and others. Midway has gone out of business and others may soon follow.

Now comes the news that 30,000 Boeing workers, who build airplanes, will lose their jobs by the end of next year. Any worker who thought that war equaled job security had better think again. The terrorist attack provides political cover for the sharpening economic crisis and the bosses’ attacks on the working class. As we enter the contract season, we should not be fooled by the bosses’ call for unity and shared sacrifice. The billions Congress is approving for war will not go to relieving the misery of our fired and discarded fellow workers! You can bet on that!

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BINGHAMTON, NY September—News of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center spread feelings of sadness, sympathy and confusion on the SUNY Binghamton campus. The compassion people showed was amazing and within hours there were lines around the block of people wanting to donate blood and help in any way they could.

The University immediately called for a vigil, in which hundreds of students gathered to support one another. We quickly put together a leaflet, which condemned all acts of terrorism and invited students to a PLP forum. At the end of the vigil, many students expressed their reactions and concerns about the attacks. One PLPer spoke to all the participants of the sadness, disgust and anger she felt and called for multi-racial and inter-religious unity in combating not only this atrocity but the many other acts of terror against the working class.

We encouraged our base to help us write a leaflet, distribute them and organize the forum. We spoke in class and at our mass organizations that evening about the role of nationalism and patriotism and how the US will use them to gain support for war. Many of the students agreed with a lot of what we said but were wary of putting out these ideas in a mass way.

As we continued to plan for our forum, PLP members and friends saw the importance of discussing the causes of terrorism, building international, anti-racist working class unity and fighting imperialist war. We also wanted to discuss possible ways to reduce anti-Arab racism on campus.

However, as soon as the forum began, many super right-wing conservative students came to the meeting with the goal of disrupting it. They defended the need for patriotism and a "retaliation" by the US military. Our base in the meeting were shocked by the pro-ruling class views their fellow students had. We learned the important lesson that in this intense time of crisis, politics sharpen and there will be those that will viciously attack our line.

Friends at the meeting thought that at a time when emotions are so high and people are upset, we should not be handing out leaflets and attacking the US ruling class. They correctly observed that some people get angry when the actions of the US government are questioned. We must be sensitive and aware that this is a tough time for people, BUT we have to realize that the US ruling class is not wasting any time in preparing for war and riling up patriotism and anti-Arab racism.

A couple of days later, a PLPer had a good conversation with one of these friends who was disturbed by the events at the meeting. I told her about a woman I handed a leaflet to whose family member was killed by the attack. The woman thanked me for giving out leaflets opposing the terrorism and the US’s plans for war. In her time of distress she saw the need to unite with our working class brothers and sisters, not bomb them. This showed my friend the importance of strongly promoting international unity over patriotism and opposing the bombing of more working class lives.

Supporting Oil War and Racism Hurts ALL Workers and Youth

Los Angeles, CA—On Tuesday after hearing about the anti-worker terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we put out a leaflet condemning the terrorist attacks at several high schools and colleges as well as in factories.

On Saturday, a group selling CHALLENGE and passing out leaflets in South Central LA got a very good response. One woman said she would fight against her grandchildren being sent to defend Exxon’s oil profits. "We’ve seen this before," she said.

Party members and friends wore black arm bands, explaining that they stand for mourning the victims of terrorism in NYC, Washington, and Pennsylvania as well as the victims of terrorism in Iraq, Central America and Yugoslavia.

We attended several vigils. At one, after someone said "We’re all Americans. We have to get revenge", a party member explained that it’s always workers who are killed in the bosses’ wars for profits. She said that Bush would not be sending his two daughters to fight in the Middle East, but the sons and daughters of the working class, who have no interest in killing and dying for oil companies’ profits. A sharp discussion ensued and several people asked for CHALLENGE.

Another comrade went to an anti-war vigil where he put forward the need to fight imperialism rather than only demand "peace". The very nature of capitalism means competition and war for profit. He plans to continue to be active in the group.

Many friends asked for the party’s opinion and literature about the events. House meetings and dinners were hastily arranged to talk about the events.

At a local college, students passed out PLP leaflets on Wednesday, including in class. The discussion in class was good because many students saw that the racism and nationalism of the media is bad, as well as the racism and nationalism of some Israelis and Palestinians. The next day, they had a meeting of 15 students who discussed what happened in New York and Washington and the fight against imperialism and racism. A student in PLP pointed out that this was really a fight for profits and control of oil, not primarily a religious fight as the media says. The group agreed to keep meeting. Students plan to organize actions on campus against racism and imperialist war.

One worker is involved in contract negotiations with his union. The company has refused every demand, including to give the workers breaks, a wage increase, and to pay for health benefits. This comrade is asking his fellow workers, "where is the freedom and unity that Bush tells us we’re fighting for? When it comes to war, we’re all supposed to be united, but in these contract negotiations and in life, we’re enemies. What freedom? What unity?"

In another factory, the PLP leaflet led to a sharp struggle over who are the main terrorists—the US bosses or other workers. Many workers agreed the bosses and their system are the terrorists.

In many discussions, people expressed the desire to answer patriotism and racism with internationalism. This is a very good sign. Many have expressed confidence in our party because we warned about the Hart-Rudman report. We aim to turn this confidence into more action against racism and imperialism and more people joining PLP. That’s how to answer the fascists who are fighting to win masses of workers to fight for US imperialism.

These modest steps show us that we can and must step up our activity in the coming period to boldly organize in the schools, factories, unions and other organizations to fight against fascism and imperialism and build PLP.

Students provide protection and solidarity for Arab fellow Students

CHICAGO, IL September 18—At Chicago State University, Malcolm X College, University of Illinois Chicago and several other campuses, thousands of leaflets and scores of CHALLENGES were distributed, many by students who took bundles to pass out to their friends. There were serious discussions in class, and at one school we organized an escort program to provide anti-racist protection and solidarity for Middle Eastern students and faculty.

On another campus the university called a forum that attracted 250 students. Two professors, one a former State Department flunky, said that terrorism was bad. Several students spoke from the audience, some expressing concerns about a bigger war. When a professor spoke from the audience detailing how U.S. imperialism has killed many more than the terrorists, and created the circumstances that allow the terrorists to gain strength, dozens of students applauded. Two students agreed to be in a study group and one donated $100 "for the cause!"

On Saturday, we held a rally near where an Islamic mosque had been attacked. There was some hostility, but in general the response was positive! Hundreds of leaflets were distributed and we collected $50.00 for 110 CHALLENGES. A bullhorn rally in another neighborhood drew a similar response. Many workers expressed opposition to a U.S. war in Central Asia or the Middle East.

PLP workers spent the weekend making visits to steel workers, Cook County Hospital workers and V&V Supremo strikers and other immigrant workers. At the main Post Office, we distributed hundreds of fliers and sold CHALLENGE. Here workers are organizing worker-to-worker relief for the victims in NYC, while putting forward anti-racist and anti-imperialist politics.

At one church, 18 people participated in a political discussion, planned for a forum and will activate the racial justice committee to offer support and protection to an Islamic mosque in the neighborhood.

One teacher at a South Side high school said that she had never seen students read anything as enthusiastically and intensely as they read the PL literature. Some students were for "retaliation" but many spoke out against a war. At another school, an anti-racist student organization did a leaflet to oppose racism against Arabs. Reactions among the teachers are mixed. There is a lot of patriotism but also a lot of fear and confusion.

At one school, a teacher sharply criticized a PLP member. A couple of days later she thanked that same member for helping explain what was really going on. The principal called for everyone to gather in the hallway to sing a patriotic song, but several teachers called for a moment of silence for all the victims, including those who are victims of U.S. imperialism.

Many students and workers want to become active. What we do makes a difference, especially in those places where we have been working patiently, rooting ourselves in mass organizations and building strong, deep ties with people.

March in Brooklyn Against Anti-Arab Racism

BROOKLYN, NY, Sept. 17—Several thousand people marched last night in a vigil to call for unity and solidarity with the Arab community which became a victim of racism after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Several hundred Arab workers are among the thousands buried under the Twin Towers. Many marchers held up anti-war and anti-racist signs against jingoism and racist assaults against Arab workers. People from many different backgrounds, including Jews opposed to anti-Arab racism, participated. American flags were present, but not in great number.

PLP members handed out the Party’s leaflet condemning terrorism and exposing U.S. rulers as the biggest terrorists of all. Other PLP’ers held up signs attacking U.S. imperialist butchery in Kosovo, Rwanda, Iraq, and Vietnam, as well as the bosses’ fascist anti-worker assaults in New York City and Belfast. A group of young women next to two PLP members offered to hold the Party signs and did so for nearly two hours. The Party encountered minimal hostility—from a couple of Zionists and from a reporter of the rightwing NY POST, who then wrote a slanderous racist column about our well received leaflet.

On Sat. Sept. 15, PLPers rallied in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. "Thank you so much, I’m an Arab. Let me take some of those newspapers, too," said one woman who took our leaflet attacking all forms of terrorism and pointing out the terror perpetuated by the US ruling class.

The leaflet also called on workers and students to unite in an international movement instead of helping the ruling class attack Arab workers and students. We also marched on Flatbush Avenue chanting "Arab, Latin, black and white/Workers of the world unite." The response around us was enthusiastic.

Overall our efforts indicate that we can have confidence that the working class is winnable to our line, provided that we put it forward vigorously.

a name="No More Workers’ and Soldiers’ Blood For Bosses’ Oil Profits"></a>"o More Workers’ and Soldiers’ Blood For Bosses’ Oil Profits

As a former soldier, I am concerned with some comments many are making concerning the bosses’ plan to launch a war in the Middle East. Workers should realize that the bosses are using the terrorist attacks to their advantage. It is crucial to explain U.S. interests in the Middle East to those who are showing support for a U.S. invasion. When the situation is analyzed, they will realize that the essence of this fight is not between Arab and American, but between bosses. It has nothing to do with the interest of American soldiers and workers.

Working class soldiers will be sent overseas to carry out murderous acts and start something that can easily explode into a major war. U.S. bosses are rallying everyone into a patriotic frenzy to support their plans, but we should talk to soldiers and inform them that this has everything to do with oil in the Middle East. Nationalism only blinds us from what is really going on. What happened in New York is horrific, and must be condemned as an anti-working class massacre. But soldiers should not go astray and forget the terrible reputation that the U.S. has around the world. Soldiers should realize that the U.S. government has done many things to make people around the world hate them. Anti U.S. sentiment in the Middle East is high because of U.S. government support of Israelis against Palestinians and the sanctions against Iraq that have killed hundreds of thousands of children. Also the presence of U.S. imperialism is a threat to regional oil bosses.

As their fight between capitalists sharpens, we should carry out sharp discussions with soldiers and not let them fall into the trap that the bosses have set. Friends that have been reading CHALLENGE have commented on how accurate our analysis is of the situation. Small political discussions that seemed insignificant at the time, can now have a more serious impact.

When the bosses’ start war abroad, we should not respond with support for their oil interest. We should respond with the interest of the working class: WORKING CLASS SOLIDARITY, INTERNATIONALISM, and in the long run, COMMUNIST REVOLUTION.

A Former Red Soldier

Fight for Knowledge In Capitalist Schools

NEW YORK—On Tuesday, it was clear that capitalist schools are centers of ignorance. While other workers were glued to TV, radio, and Internet investigating the day’s events, in our school in the heart of the city, teachers and students were kept from knowledge of the tragedy, even lied to. When we returned to school on Thursday, our principal forbid us to conduct lessons on the attack. "This is a normal day," "The students don’t need it," "They come to stay away from the news." A PLP member rose-having prepared for this fight-and made the case that our working-class students have an absolute need to fight to understand the roots of this tragedy.

Teachers and students need to engage in scientific investigation (communist dialectical materialism) to arm themselves with the knowledge to understand and change the world.

Another teacher made the point that students need to educate themselves to prevent the anti-Arab racism that was already infecting the neighborhood. With the help of several other teachers we then organized a school-wide program that included the reading of anti-racist, anti-imperialist poems (including the one below by the German communist Brecht) and the writing of letters to families of victims and the many working-class volunteers who helped save lives.

General, your tank is a
Powerful vehicle
It smashes down forests and crushes a
hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.

General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more
than an elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.

General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.

When the last war came to an end
There were conquerors and conquered.
Among the conquered the common people
Starved. Among the conquerors
The common people starved too.

Bertholt Brecht, German Communist
(1898-1956)

a name="When Communists and Anti-Racists Unite—KKK Runs and Hides">">"hen Communists and Anti-Racists Unite—KKK Runs and Hides

LANCASTER, PA., Sept. 15. — On September 8, 15 PLP members and scores of supporting Lancaster workers and students succeeded in keeping the Ku Klux Klan out of this city.

In early July the KKK announced plans to rally on the steps of the Lancaster County courthouse. PLP members began weekly trips here and were welcomed by hundreds of workers and students. Many gave their names and numbers to be re-contacted. Because these and many more were waiting, ready to "kick ass," the Klan backed out, appearing unannounced in a small town 17 miles away.

During July and August, thousands of leaflets calling for "Death to the Klan" and many copies of CHALLENGE were distributed, introducing many to the Party. "Wanted For Racist Crimes" flyers flooded the working-class neighborhood of Klan leader Roy Frankhauser in nearby Reading.

This steady work gave a focus to workers’ and students’ anger and hatred of the Klan, producing positive results. When word spread that communists were organizing here, Lancaster liberals and politicians got nervous. (The mayor, showing his true colors, later told a reporter, "I knew the Klan itself wouldn’t have caused any damage. I was more concerned with the self-described anarchists and communists who did show up.") The ministers of the black churches also began to feel the heat. These misleaders decided to boycott the liberal-inspired Unity Day activities and instead gathered 150 men to occupy the courthouse steps for an all-male "nonviolent confrontation with the Klan." We’re sure that our communist organizing had much to do with their being there — they’re more afraid of what we say to Lancaster workers than they are of the Klan.

A troop of Anti-Racist Action youth, including anarchists, appeared at the courthouse to battle the Klan. They had done little or no organizing in Lancaster. As a result they stood separate from Lancaster workers and students, many of whom were with us.

One worker told a member of our group, "I’ve been looking ever since I came here for someone who thinks like I do. I’m really glad you came!" There are dozens more here who are ready for communist ideas.

We learned two important lessons in Lancaster: what you do really does matter; and a few people can make a big difference.

Students Rally Against Racism and Death Threats

STATE COLLEGE, PA, Sept. 16— As many as 1,000 students and workers came to a rally and conference against racism at Penn State this weekend. This gathering of anti-racist students was prompted by racist attacks. At least 10 Black students, including the Black Student Caucus (BSC) president, received multiple death threats in the past year. Many racist/fascist groups are present on campus and in the area. Many police, as well as some workers at the campus, have webbed tattoos, signifying membership in fascist groups and/or they have killed at least one person of color.

In response to these racist death threats a multiracial group of hundreds of students came together and took over the building that houses the African- American studies department, and thousands participated in rallies outside. Since the WTC and Pentagon bombing, Arab students have become targeted as well. Among other things, racists threw rocks at one Arab student.

PLP students participated in the discussions and workshops that followed the rally. Throughout the weekend, students expressed their opposition to racism and to the bosses’ war plans. All whom we spoke to, even those who lost family in the bombing, opposed any war. Most, if not all, of the students understood that the terrorism in NYC grew directly out of U.S. imperialist policies.

One comrade spoke of how the capitalists are our enemies, and that they are responsible for racism and racist terror, as well as unemployment. He drew a connection between the closing of mines and mills in places like PA and Binghamton, NY, and the rise of the KKK and other racist groups that serve to divert white workers’ anger away from the bosses and onto workers and students of color. He also made a friendly criticism of the emphasis on "spirituality," which many workers and students had in their speeches. He expressed the view that religion served to divide workers and students, rather than unite them, and thus was harmful to the antiracist struggle.

Throughout the conference, we distributed at least 40 Challenges, 100 leaflets opposing racism and the terrorists who bombed NYC/DC and US imperialists, and gained at least 25 contacts. Students welcomed our perspective that workers and students of all races and nationalities need to unite against racism and not with misleaders like Jesse Jackson, who never showed up for the conference.

As one comrade noted, the students’ ability to continue the rally without Jackson, demonstrated to all that our struggles depend on our own efforts, and that we don’t need misleaders like him. The Penn State students hatred of the Klan and of racism was clear throughout the conference and their commitment to fight against their racist administration is an example for all students to follow. If we follow up with those students who we met at the conference, it will mark one step on the long road to communist revolution, the only movement that can truly end racism.

Workers Of The World, Write

LETTERS

Workers in PA Against Bosses War

PLP members in this city have found a wide range of reactions to the bombings. A very small minority of people are so won to the bosses’ ideas that they are beyond reach. With most people there are tremendous opportunities to advance PLP’s criticisms of capitalism and the need for communist revolution.

Two days after the bombings PLP members leafleting one of the city’s major hospitals received an overwhelmingly positive response with very little hostility. Several workers took flyers to distribute inside.

At another hospital workers took stacks of flyers to distribute themselves. In spite of some strong disagreements our long history of organizing struggles against racism and the bosses caused even our most vocal critics to listen to our position despite their anger.

Some of us had dinner with some white workers who live in the suburbs. Dinner was interrupted when our host ran outside to participate in a candlelight vigil for the bombing victims. Everyone was sad and angry about the bombing. But then we discussed how the bosses use this incident to build a base for fascism and war to control Middle-East oil. No one wanted his children to die in such a war. These folks are not familiar with PLP’s ideas yet. But even in the suburbs people are very cynical about the government.

Over the next few weeks we will organize more meetings. Two Party members were just invited to a meeting of 30 –50 people organized by some old friends. Others will organize a meeting with the Lancaster PA workers who joined us recently in protesting against a KKK rally. We are also planning to work in our unions and other organizations in the relief efforts.

Pa. PLP’er

Churches and Temples Offer Discussions About War

On Tuesday I observed the Jewish New Year in New York, with a modern congregation that reserves a part of its service for open discussion. Of more than 20 people who spoke, only two bought into the cowboy vengeance being pushed by Junior Bush and the U.S. ruling class. One other person (and only one) said the attack had deepened her sympathies toward Israel, but even she characterized the Israeli government as "fascistic."

On the other hand, most speakers voiced skepticism or outright opposition to any broad-scale U.S. military retaliation. One woman noted that bin Laden was a creature of the CIA’s anti-Soviet operation in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Another said that she most feared the wave of knee-jerk flag-waving and where it might lead. A friend added that we cannot trust the U.S. government to wage a just war.

When I said that we must condemn ALL terror, and that the most murderous terrorism is state-sanctioned (as the U.S. demonstrated in Vietnam), several people made a point of approaching me later and voicing their agreement. All in all, the discussion suggested that support for the Bush "crusade" may not be as deep or wide as some polls suggest.

A Brooklyn Friend

My church had a special service on September 12th with about fifty people, including half a dozen guests from the local Islamic center. The minister set the tone with readings along the lines of "love and peace, not vengeance or retribution." He quoted Gandhi about "answering physical force with moral force." Two other church leaders said similar things. They warned against racist attacks on Arabic people. The hymn was about joining together with love and justice to build a nobler world.

During the "time for sharing," nearly everyone who spoke talked about the families and friends of the victims, about the heroes who were risking their lives in rescue efforts, and about their personal desire for peace. An Islamic woman related that many Islamic women were afraid to go out on the streets. She described an attack on a co-worker.

When I spoke, I mentioned another church member, stranded on vacation. Then I quoted the passage from the Apostle Paul ("as a man sows, so shall he reap") and listed some of the seeds that the US government has sown: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Indonesia, El Salvador, Vietnam, South Africa, the Iraq sanctions.

Afterwards, three church members and most of the visitors thanked me for what I’d said. One guest said she was about to say the same thing, and then decided I’d spoken for her already.

A few days later, five of us from church and two other friends, got together for dinner and discussion. We shared questions and stories, described the reactions of co-workers, pooled information about the history of U.S. imperialism and the bosses’ plans to put the U.S. on a war footing.

There seemed to be general agreement about the evils of U.S. imperialism and the dangers of nationalism (especially when combined with religion). There was some discussion about how we were going to individually fight anti-Arab racism. Everyone was glad we had gotten together. We will meet again, and invite more people.

The sharpest disagreement came when I started talking about revolution. Several people called it impossible because the bosses are too strong, saying we should use elections instead. But when I passed Challenge around, the person who had argued most strongly against revolution said, "Do you have more of these?" I gave him all I had, and promised to get him more.

A comrade

Letter From the Barracks

We got this letter from our son in the army just before the terrorist attacks.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Great news. Tonight I engaged at least 10 soldiers in a very sharp political discussion around the issue of race, class, the military, prisons, immigration, police and Bill Clinton as the "Black Pres."

At first it was me-vs.-everyone. But as it progressed, one guy was defending me and eventually most of the others were agreeing and making supporting comments.

One soldier said he is here because he lost his job to three "illegal" Mexican immigrants. Eventually, a few of us showed him that the boss was totally to blame.

We also struggled about racism and "white skin privilege." Some of the black soldiers thought that the white soldiers were here because they wanted to be. But after a survey, we learned that they were all here for money for school or job training. They see the army as their last option for a better life. None of the soldiers in my company are willing to fight or die.

One thing that I really enjoy about my company is that there are no racial barriers to keep us apart, or any barriers between urban and rural workers. Everyone from the North gets along really well with the soldiers from the South. One of the main reasons we all get along so well is because we all hate the drill sergeant.

With all my love,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

a name="Can’t Brand War & Fascism on Everyone in Texas">">"an’t Brand War & Fascism on Everyone in Texas

In Texas, workers, students, sailors, and university faculty are open to anti-racist and anti-imperialist ideas. In one restaurant, a 20-year old waitress wearing a red-white-and-blue ribbon said that she didn’t support war or patriotism. She said several of her friends agreed that youth should not be sent to invade the Middle East, and that her closest friend, who joined the Navy because of unemployment, was strongly opposed to Bush’s plans.

Young workers on many other jobs were equally skeptical of the government’s war plans. In fact, almost everyone wearing a red-white-and-blue ribbon is inviting a conversation about patriotism, imperialist war, and anti-racism. The terrorist murders of workers in New York and Washington are horrible, and there are many opportunities to show people the importance of PLP’s ideas.

This week some university students and faculty have actively opposed the whipping up of hatred toward Muslims, and called upon others in the classes to oppose racist attacks they have observed. At the University of Texas, many students spontaneously made anti-war and anti-racist signs and argued with would-be "patriots." At another university, discussions turned to the question, "Why is the U.S. hated?" Most students had no knowledge of the role of U.S. imperialism and were open to learning and considering this history. In one classroom, the discussion focused on the ethics of terrorists killing innocent people, and the difference between terrorism and mass working-class action against capitalism. Professors are beginning to analyze how E.O. Wilson’s racist theories of genetic/cultural determinism will be invoked to justify Bush’s war efforts. The struggle against these ideas can be linked to actions against imperialist war. These discussions are just a beginning, but they show the opportunities that are before us.

Texas Red

PLP Reaches Mountains of Oaxaca

I'm a new Party member in the mountains of Oaxaca. To build PLP into the mass party necessary for communist revolution we must understand the methods of recruitment and consolidation of new members. Class consciousness is crucial. It always led me to fight the system's repression.

I come from a very humble Mixteco-speaking farm family from an area between the Mixteca Region, the Central Valleys and the southern mountains of the state of Oaxaca. My mother speaks no Spanish and never went to school. I lived there through secondary school. My father always fought all kinds of exploitation, although without a well-defined communist ideology. My brothers and I, in the state capital to learn a trade, constantly went hungry. After finishing that course, I went to a northern state to study for an Agronomy license.

But like all education in Mexico's universities, agrarian education corresponds to the interests of the ruling class, not the reality of the countryside. So a group of us students organized demonstrations, strikes and building occupations to demand better education.

Our movement was progressive but had no defined ideology. Although a mass movement, it won no reforms. We became an independent student organization. Sympathy from the student community led to the error of thinking that by winning elections to the University's Board of Governors we could change the university. This was impossible, since the Board was a legalistic parliament designed to represent the interests of the rulers. Moreover, we were only 12 of 36 members within it. Once inside we forgot all about political agitation. However, our general character as an organization of struggle sparked contact with students in the General Strike Council of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Through them we attended an International Student Congress where we met various radical groups, including two comrades from PLP, one a brother of a member of our organization. TheParty's ideas and a conference on Marxism inspired study groups on Lenin's State and Revolution and Marx and Engel's Communist Manifesto. We began to understand how society functions and why the rulers act like they do. It gave our struggles a communist perspective.

From these basic readings and many meetings with Party members, we became increasingly convinced of the need for communist struggle. More importantly we were able to distinguish between the the old communist movement and the line of the PLP.

Although three of us quit school, we met with other comrades still at the University to plan joint struggles of students and ex-students. When two PLP'ers talked to us more deeply about the ideology and political line of the Party, we joined immediately. We realized it's the only group that really fights to smash capitalism, instead of trying to reform it.

Now living in southern Mexico I am part of a PLP group fighting capitalist repression and for communist revolution.

I believe we need to understand the diverse methods of recruitment, enabling us to fight for a new society, free of sexism, racism, individualism, exploitation and wage slavery. That's communism.

Comrade from the Mixteca Region

Building the PLP in The Caribbean

Last month PLP held two cadre schools, one in Haiti and the other in the Dominican Republic, to train comrades and friends in our communist politics. This took place amidst growing struggles by workers and their allies in both countries (which share the island of Hispaniola). We aim to win more and more workers and youth to join and build an international revolutionary party capable of channeling these struggles into a fight to smash capitalism/imperialism and build a society where production is based on workers' needs (communism).

Those at the school in Haiti felt very motivated and really liked CHALLENGE. They agreed to write articles about the situation in Haiti and their organizing efforts there.

In the school in the Dominican Republic we used many class struggles as points of discussion. Most participants were workers from the Free Trade Zone, where mass layoffs are occurring because of the U.S. recession (most of the production is exported to the U.S.). We discussed spreading CHALLENGE in the shops and building Party clubs and fractions there to strengthen PLP's ideas among these workers.

Both schools discussed how to bring our communist politics into the reformist struggles of workers and youth, how the Party must organize inside the mass movement to train ourselves in the heat of class struggles and build a mass communist party.

The schools decided to:

•Write political guidelines to avoid the trap of reformism and to bring communist politics to the class struggle.

•Increase CHALLENGE circulation in the shops, schools and fields where PLP is being built. Publish a local CHALLENGE newsletter reflecting our political work and use it to train comrades to write regularly for the international CHALLENGE.

•Reprint leaflets put out in Haiti and Dominican Republic for distribution inside the mass movement's fight-backs.

•Organize a Caribbean communist conference in the coming months to build our Party throughout the region.

•Consolidate the two dozen new comrades who've joined PLP since May Day into clubs and train them as Party organizers.

•Win some veteran comrades who have moved to build the Party in their new residences.

PLP in the Dominican Republic

1. Racism, Religion and Nationalism
   Deadly to All Workers
   1. U.S. Rulers, Plotting Their Own MidEast War, Try To Keep A Lid On
2. YEMEN PEACE PLOY BLOWS UP IN U.S. RULERS' FACES
3. Free the Charleston 5
4. On Durban Conference: Capitalism Created Racism
5. Red Leadership Needed To:
   Resist Transit Bosses' Growing Attacks
6. Stock Market slides-so does ATU Pension Plan
7. RACIST WAGE PROGRESSION AND PART-TIMING
   SINKS UNION BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION
8. Puebla VW Strike Ends--Struggle Must Go on
9. You Can Fight the Board of Ed
   PL Teachers Win Her Job Back
10. Leaflet Lights Fire Under Bosses
11. `I HATE the Klan . . . Let's kick their butts!'
12. Anti-Fascist Fighters Beat Racist Charges
13. Give Reading., Pa. KKKer the Boot!
14. KKK Stomped in St. Paul
15. Anti-Racists Shut Down Nazi Concert
16. Reinventing Race: Junk Science and `Jewish Genes"
17. Oil Patch's Koch : If You Can't Beat'em, Join'em
18. Workers of the World, Write!
    LETTERS
    1. Fight To Teach Students
    2. Bosses Back on Racist `Track' in Schools
    3. Workers and Youth Gather for `Never Again' in Tulia, Texas
19. OOPS..............

---

Editorial

Racism, Religion and Nationalism
Deadly to All Workers

The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict should teach workers that imperialism always leads to instability and war. We must never choose sides in dogfights between bosses. Our job remains to build a Party that can eventually turn bloodshed for maximum profit into a communist revolution that will end the profit system.

Taunting Israeli Assassins, Arafat Toys With Palestinian Workers' Lives

The tit-for-tat of Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli terror shows that every "solution" concocted by the big imperialists and their stooges eventually boomerangs against both them and us. In the immediate situation, Palestine Liberation Organization President Arafat seems to be making a cynical double bet. He's gambling that the suicide bombings will both rattle the Israeli public into clamoring for a deal and provoke the Israeli government into launching reprisals that will kill enough Palestinian civilians to tilt international opinion in favor of the PLO. In Arafat's scenario, an Israeli atrocity, such as the bombing of a Palestinian kindergarten or hospital, would incite the major imperialists to intervene and impose a settlement on terms favorable to his faction's interests. So far his wager isn't paying off. Israelis and Palestinians are dying, but, as the New York Times writes: "Israeli reprisals have not provoked a worldwide rally to Mr. Arafat, and...Israeli citizens have hardened, swinging to the right" (September 2).

The boomerang is also hitting the Israeli fascists. The latest Israeli assassination of a key Palestinian official helped bring together normally warring Palestinian factions "in a new spirit of anti-Israel unity" (NYT, Sept. 2). Far from terrorizing Palestinian youth into submission, each new assassination seems to bring forth many new young people ready to become suicide bombers for Palestinian nationalism and the Islamic religion. The Israelis are proving that one racist anti-working class policy doesn't necessarily destroy another.

U.S. Rulers, Plotting Their Own MidEast War, Try To Keep A Lid On

Israel-Palestine...

The biggest boomerang of all is the one the U.S. imperialists have made for themselves. The present fighting is a direct consequence of various previously U.S.-brokered "peace" deals. Unable to keep the Palestinians and Israelis from each other's throats, the Bush White House is now trying to contain the fighting within Israel and the occupied territories. The U.S. ruling class has bigger fish to fry. It still needs to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq and replace him with a regime friendly to Exxon Mobil. As Challenge has regularly pointed out, wishes aren't necessarily realities. The reign of terror conducted against Palestinian Arabs by Washington's closest pal in the Middle East doesn't help U.S. grand strategy in the region. A wider war pitting Israel against Syria and other Arab countries would further complicate U.S. plans.

Until now, the U.S. containment approach appears to be working. Its short-term success is related to the demise of the former Soviet Union, which had backed Israel's main regional foes, Syria and Egypt. The old USSR had acted as a counter-weight to the U.S. Russia today isn't yet in a position to do so. Egypt now depends on the U.S. for much of its trade and gets $2 billion a year in annual U.S. aid. Bush & Co. are dangling an offer of M1A1 tanks and a computerized mission planning system in front of the Egyptian military. Former Israeli opponent Jordan also depends on the U.S. for trade and aid. Other U.S. bribes to Arab countries include energy deals that would give Yemeni rulers a piece of the action in oil fields due to be exploited by Exxon Mobil.

...But Iraqi, Syrian, And Iranian Rivals Limit Washington's Options

Although the U.S. remains in the driver's seat for now, its ability to control the situation is limited, and the passengers are becoming more and more restless. Perennial Israeli enemy Syria isn't ready for war, but Syrian bosses have begun the groundwork for a military alliance with Iraq. Iranian rulers, who remain a thorn in U.S. bosses' side, are still a threat to upset the cart. U.S. imperialists may manage in the short run to forestall a wider Middle Eastern war in preparation for their own military adventure to seize Iraqi oil fields. However, as one usually accurate capitalist analyst points out: "...nothing guarantees that Israel's neighbors will be forever passive...(A)voiding a conflict today may only postpone it" (Stratfor, Aug. 28).

Additional clouds on the U.S. horizon include Russian and European bosses. The U.S. failure to topple Saddam Hussein in 1991 has given U.S. oil rivals a shot in the arm. The Putin government has a long-term plan to launch Russia as a world oil power. Challenge has frequently mentioned big energy deals Russian and French energy companies are pursuing in Iraq. The Germans have gotten into the act and are poised to become power brokers in the Middle East. Germany has become a major financial backer of Israel and has provided Israeli rulers all sorts of military hardware, including three submarines as nearly outright gifts.

Workers must never lose sight of the forest for the trees. We have to look beyond the shifting sands of tactical maneuvers between various gangs of bosses and grasp the essence of capitalist political economy. Imperialism can never bring peace. Revolutionary communist internationalism remains the working class's only hope for survival.

YEMEN PEACE PLOY BLOWS UP IN U.S. RULERS' FACES

Yemen can serve as another good example of imperialists picking up a rock only to drop it on their own feet. Unlike Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, Yemen doesn't border Israel. However, with its strategic location and its population of 17,000,000--many expelled from Saudi oil fields and highly loyal to Palestinian nationalism--it can make a lot of trouble for the U.S. The bombing of the U.S. ship Cole in Yemen last October proved that.

U.S. strategy seeks to cut Yemeni rulers a bigger slice of the oil action. Last year, "peacemaker" George Mitchell's Washington law firm represented the Yemeni government in a dispute with Saudi Arabia involving some important oil fields. Yemen won title to the fields and the privilege of having them exploited by U.S. oil companies, including Exxon Mobil. Previously, Yemen oil bosses had partnered with Russian and French oil firms. But the U.S. bribe was also accompanied by threats. The U.S. Navy began making calls at the Yemeni port of Aden during the treaty negotiations. As the Cole bombing showed, not all Yemenis welcomed the U.S. presence.

Editorial 2

Free the Charleston 5

CHICAGO, IL August 17--Tonight Ken Riley, the black president of International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) Local 1422 spoke at Teamster City to raise money and support for the Charleston 5. These five dockworkers were arrested while picketing a Danish ship being unloaded by scabs. The picket line was violently attacked by the racist cops (see picture left). Black and white workers defended themselves. These five brothers, charged with serious felonies, have been under house arrest for the past year, unable to leave their homes from dusk to dawn and unable to leave the state.

But this is more than a simple trade union issue. It is a fight against racist terror and a result of the sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry. Charleston, South Carolina has become the second most productive port in the world, next to Hong Kong. In the past 10 years subsidized by hundreds of millions in tax breaks the number of factories in this state has increased 10-fold.

Openly racist right-wing politicians who fought to keep the Confederate flag flying over the statehouse are welcoming Daimler, Bosch and Siemens, the same companies that used slave labor in Nazi Germany.

The local bosses and Republican Party politicians want to keep South Carolina a non-union, low-wage haven. They want to make an example of the mainly black local, and crush any thoughts of unionizing. (North and South Carolina are the two lowest "union density" states in the US). The AFL-CIO and Democratic Party, with the blessings of Ford and GM, are fighting to organize the South. They want to maintain the flow of union dues and have a political battering ram against the "new money" capitalists who are opening the gates to German and Japanese auto assembly plants all across the South.

Local 1422 is a very active local of 800 workers. The vast majority are black. In fact, given the racism and "color coding" of jobs, the docks are nearly all black (there are only two white dockworkers), while the office workers are all white. The local was very active in organizing to remove the Confederate flag and has been called on to support other organizing drives in the area.

Riley, who himself received 12 stitches in his head from the police riot, told of the local union's participation in helping to defeat a union decertification at a local factory. He said that many white workers at the factory would not talk to the black workers from 1422. He made the point that their own racism kept them oppressed and that the bosses use racism to attack all workers (a far cry from the "white skin privilege" mumbo-jumbo being pushed in the anti-globalization movement).

Even with all this, without a revolutionary perspective and strong anti-racist and anti-scab militancy this struggle will become a tool to elect Democrats to the state house and probably add Riley to the Board of Supervisors of the Charleston docks. On our jobs and in our unions, we must make the points about inter-imperialist rivalry, expose the AFL-CIO and Democratic Party misleaders, fight racism and show how only communist revolution will destroy these bosses and their racism. We urge all PLP workers to circulate the national petition to defend the Charleston 5. Raise resolutions for your union to participate in the International Day of Action when the trial opens. Use these discussions to increase the mass base for CHALLENGE.

On Durban Conference: Capitalism Created Racism

U.S. and Israeli official delegations quit the Durban, South Africa, World Conference against Racism, after Israel was attacked as a racist state. Indeed, racism is rampant in the U.S. and Israel, but it also exists in one way or another in every capitalist country in the world. The rising capitalist class created racism to justify the slave trade from Africa to the Americas. For the first time in history, people were separated into "races" and one race was deemed superior to other. The only way to eliminate racism is by destroying its cause: the profit system. That means fighting for a society without bosses and where workers' unity and needs are primary: communism.

Red Leadership Needed To:
Resist Transit Bosses' Growing Attacks

On the week of September 9, hundreds of transit workers from the U.S. and Canada will gather in Toronto for the international convention of the Amalgamated Transit Union. Even as the demand for mass transit is growing all across North America, the bosses' attacks are intensifying. Mass transit is an essential part of a profitable economy and the bosses are attempting to minimize the labor costs needed to operate these systems.

Over the last three decades, the bosses have taken steps to limit the power of transit workers. First they passed laws eliminating the right to strike. This has dramatically altered the balance of power between labor and management. Arbritration is no substitute for fighting back. The bosses are not going to give us the right to strike. We must take it.

Second, they have threatened privatization, and in some cases carried through on these threats. The union's response has been to lobby federal, state and local politicians, while granting concessions to reduce our wages and benefits so they can compete with private contractors. This will not defeat the bosses' plans for lowering labor costs, whether we work for a private company or a government agency.

Third, the bosses have used wage progression to divide and weaken the union, replacing "Equal pay for equal work," with "Screw the new guy so I can get more for me." This is also a racist attack, since many of the new workers are black and Latin. Local 689 in Washington, D.C. will introduce a resolution to make fighting wage progression a central focus of the union.

The convention can be an opportunity to change course and be more aggressive in fighting the bosses. This should begin in the Bay Area over the new BART contract. PLP has been active in the ATU and the TWU for many years and has fought many battles against the bosses and the union misleaders. We must organize to pressure the International Office to coordinate the activities of the ATU in the Bay Area and reach out to the TWU for their support. When BART goes out, every transportation local in the area should go with them and lead a general strike, reminiscent of the San Francisco general strike in the 1930's.

The convention will also consider a resolution to make May Day a union holiday (also from Local 689). May Day is celebrated in almost every country in the world, and was established after the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886, in the fight for the eight-hour day. Because of anti-communism and Cold War politics, the AFL-CIO separated itself from this holiday. Support for May Day is a statement of international working class solidarity against wage slavery and the profit system.

As long as the bosses hold power, we will never get off the endless treadmill of trying to keep from going under. We need revolutionary leadership, which can lead the fight to destroy capitalism. As the bosses' economy slips and they prepare for another war in the Middle East (using our children as cannon fodder), they are increasing racist terror. The struggle on the job and in the unions must lead to building the revolutionary struggle and a mass PLP, to destroy the profit system, and build a communist society.

Stock Market slides-so does ATU Pension Plan

Last month a CHALLENGE article about LTV steel workers, who got screwed when they agreed to job cuts to improve their pension, rang a bell about the situation here in Los Angeles transit.

In January, ATU 1277 members with little confidence, signed a contract which union president Silver promised would save the pension plan. Now there is a new crisis. Workers planning to retire after January 1, 2002 face a cut of up to $45,000 from their pension cash out. And a pension cash split the local 1277 union executive board. The ATU International union has done an investigation.

The reaction of the union membership has been mixed. Some workers think we have to choose sides in this Executive Board. Others say they should have worked their differences behind closed doors because the open conflict only helps management by exposing the union's weaknesses.

Another group of workers sought out a private pension attorney to advise them on legal action to stop the company and union from "adversely affecting any accrued rights". It is common to hear frustrated workers say they want to throw out the whole Executive Board and run a fresh slate for office in 2003.

A service attendant from a valley division who has become active said to a comrade, "It's hell of a thing when you realize that our enemy is not only the company but the union leadership too." Surely there are more workers like him that we can get Challenge to on a regular basis.

Whether or not ATU 1277 workers can stop the company and union in court, and maybe we will throw the bums out of union office, one thing is certain: these are not the last attacks we will face as the company demands cuts and the union leadership tries to sell them to us. The only guarantee is that the bosses will try to take more from us and give back less.

Each attack is an opportunity for workers to counter-attack and for CHALLENGE drive home the point that, for the working class, the only guarantee capitalism offers is to take more from us and to give back less.

A Transit Worker

RACIST WAGE PROGRESSION AND PART-TIMING
SINKS UNION BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION

OAKLAND, CA August 21- Over 60 years ago ATU Local 192 members established the Benevolent Association (BA) to provide a $1500 death/burial benefit to the families of former transit workers. Each working member paid $2 for each deceased member. Such benefits were historically among the first actions of early unions. Now the Benevolent Association (BA) has collapsed and the local union faces possible receivership.

As the demand for urban transit grew, union membership gradually increased to nearly 2,000 members. In the early 1980's, the BA benefit was raised to $3,500 and could be taken upon retirement as well. The BA was thriving and even had enough to purchase the old Carpenter's union hall. But the local leadership had already begun to sow the seeds of the BA's demise.

In the late 70's - after its defeat in Vietnam - the US economy weakened. Japan and Germany began to invade key auto markets and profits declined. The capitalists wanted cuts in taxes and social services - and the union leaders asked, "How much?" In 1977, local leaders convinced senior workers to allow a 30-month wage progression and a 30% cut in starting pay. In 1980 they agreed to a 10% part-time workforce. By 1986 it was 17% and hundreds of suburban jobs were lost to low-wage privatization. The conversion period to full-time went from months to years.

The growing number of super-exploited part-timers, barely able to feed their families, succeeded in making the BA a voluntary association. Most pulled out, leaving each $3500 payout to the remaining - and declining membership. Now there are only 665 members and 190 of those have paid their entire $3500. Each remaining member now pays over $6 for each retiree. With a debt burden of $2.3 million, practically no assets and the union hall worth less now than when it was bought, the pyramid is about to collapse - on the highest seniority workers.

Some workers are blaming Local President Christine Zook, who has neglected this crisis during nearly 8 years in office. While it's true the International told her to solve this problem in 1994, the racist and divisive wage progression, part timing and job cuts, all approved by the International as well as Zook, are what really caused the collapse. Ironically, current ATU International Secretary-Treasurer Oscar Owens was vice-president of Local 192 in 1980, and part of this all along!

At the upcoming Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) International convention, we will bring a resolution to make the ATU International pay off the remaining members of the Benevolent Association. We are also raising resolutions to fight racist wage progression schemes and eliminate mandatory part-time work. Another resolution would make May Day a union holiday. Whether or not any of these resolutions pass, fighting for them can help us to introduce many delegates to CHALLENGE and increase the Party's influence in the union. We are in a fight for the political leadership of the workers. This fight takes place primarily in the job, fighting the bosses. But conventions like this are surely part of this struggle.

Puebla VW Strike Ends--Struggle Must Go on

MEXICO CITY September 5-- As we go to press striking VW workers in Puebla reached an agreement with the company, giving them a 10.2% raise plus a few other benefits. Far less from the original union demand of 30% hike. VW, like other autoworkers in Mexico, still will make $20 to $30 a day, a fraction of what autoworkers make in Europe and the U.S. The following article was written the day before the strike ended.

On Sept. 4, phone workers driving their Telmex phone trucks -- along with many other workers -- snarled traffic for two hours downtown in support of the 12,500 striking Volkswagen strikers. Similar solidarity actions took place in five other cities.

Meanwhile, the VW strikers in Puebla (about 100 miles southeast of Mexico City) overwhelmingly rejected the company's latest offer of a 10.2 percent raise. The strike is in its third week. The Independent Union of VW workers (SITVW) has reduced its demands to 19 percent, down from 30 percent, but the bosses may be waiting for the strike to run out of steam.

The plant is the only one that produces the new Beetle model, along with Jettas, Golfs, Cabrios, and the classic Beetle. The workers build 1,500 cars and 2,000 engines a day. About 80 percent of the cars are exported, mainly to the U.S. The strike has cost Volkswagen $30m a day in lost sales.

The strike could affect thousands of workers at over 400 auto parts suppliers, who may be forced to shut down during the strike. Grupo Antolin SA, which sells nearly 70 percent of its car seat fabrics to the struck VW plant, forced 180 workers to take vacation last week. Antolin's head of sales said, "Sending everyone on vacation bought us time, but they begin to return this week."

The strike is being carried out in the midst of soaring unemployment due to the US economic slowdown and Mexico's economic recession. In January 2000, 231,000 workers were laid off. The following May, 400,000 workers lost their jobs, mainly due to Chrysler plant closings and layoffs at Volkswagen, DINA, Ford, and GM. This year in the border state of Chihuahua, 64,000 maquiladora workers lost their jobs. President Vincente Fox, who promised to create 1.35 million jobs a year, eliminated 40,000 federal jobs. According to one estimate, ten jobs have been destroyed for each one created.

At Ford's Cuautitlan assembly plant, workers are facing mass layoffs and increased productivity, the bosses' solution to the growing crisis of overproduction. This crisis, created by the bosses' thirst for maximum profit, affects the workers of the world. Ford, VW and all the bosses do the same thing. Their need to produce cheaper than their competitors is diametrically opposed to the needs of the workers to have a decent life. This contradiction gives us the opportunity to show that only communist revolution can meet the needs of the working class. If this idea grows among the workers in our strikes and struggles, we will advance.

We must fight back in every factory. A Ford worker complained, "We've been fighting for years and we never win anything." It's true; the trade union struggle is limited to the margins that the capitalists mark. The union leaders defend the bosses' solutions and set us up to compete against each other. They spread defeatism and demoralization and build patriotic nationalism so we will accept what the bosses dish out.

We must use our revolutionary outlook to fight for the political leadership of these struggles and spread them. Ford and VW workers can extend their reach around the globe. "Workers of the World, Unite," is a powerful weapon to defeat the bosses' attacks.

You Can Fight the Board of Ed
PL Teachers Win Her Job Back

Brooklyn, NY September 4--PLP member Joan Heymont, has been returned to Boys and Girls High School, as of the first day of school. When Joan was removed on April 27, 2001, for inviting students to march on May Day, the Party and our friends in New York City and elsewhere sprang into action.

Parents and students were called, a letter was distributed in the school, and petitions were circulated. Some teachers and students attended a rally outside the school, despite warnings and threats. We petitioned and picketed the UFT Delegate Assembly in May. Joan addressed that meeting and received a pledge of support from UFT president Randi Weingarten, based on the overwhelming support from rank-and-file delegates. Friends and comrades wrote letters to Joan's principal, and we hired a lawyer who has filed a Federal lawsuit against the Board of Ed and Joan's principal.

Teachers removed from their classrooms under suspicion of improper activity are usually sent to their district office. Sometimes they wait for years until they are charged and a hearing is held. Most teachers follow the union's leadership, file a grievance and wait. It is very unusual for teachers to make public their removal from their schools

But because of the pressure put on the Board of Ed., Joan spent only 1 month in her District Office, and another month at another school in a non-teaching job. We wanted to show people that we could fight the Board.

At the end of the school year, Joan was charged with violating the Chancellor's policies on school trips and collection of money and given an unsatisfactory rating for the year. She was offered a deal. The Board would remove the U rating if she agreed to teach in another school. Joan refused. She visited union headquarters to see if Weingarten's promise of support was real. Not only couldn't she see Weingarten, she couldn't even make an appointment without permission to make an appointment!

Meanwhile, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) passed a resolution supporting Joan and we brought another resolution to the floor of the National Education Association (NEA) Convention (see Challenge 8/1/01). Lo and behold, at a meeting with Weingarten lieutenant Papppas the following week Joan was told she'd be returned to Boys and Girls in September, and was asked how she managed to get her case on the floor at the NEA convention.

Joan won her job back because we fought for it. To the surprise of many, she will be returned to her school. While many people were intimidated, this victory shows that we can fight and by fighting, bring our friends closer to the Party. Joan thanks all of the comrades and friends who helped her in whatever way they could.

Leaflet Lights Fire Under Bosses

Last week, several Skyrotek Inc. (a plant outside Delano, Cal., which makes boxes to pack grapes) workers distributed a PLP leaflet which caused quite an uproar. The leaflet not only attacked the rotten conditions in the plant but also said the cause of these conditions is capitalism, a system based on profits for a few bosses. The leaflet called on workers to fight for a society which produces for their needs, communism.

In the last few years one worker was hospitalized after suffering back burns. Another lost several fingers and a third was killed when a machine smashed his head. Many workers suffer respiratory ailments because of the dust permeating the entire plant.

Almost all workers liked the leaflet. "It says the truth" many said. But the bosses and their stooges had an opposite reaction. The mechanics' supervisor got pretty angry when he saw his name in the leaflet. Boss Dale Arthur had an even worse reaction forcing one of the workers who gave out the leaflet to sign a warning because he "gave out literature on private property."

When workers learned about this, some said "what private property. All of this has come from unpaid labor."

Several workers took leaflets for their friends and relatives outside the plant. The leaflet has now turned up all over the area.

Fightback Committee of Skyrotek

`I HATE the Klan . . . Let's kick their butts!'

PL members have been going to Lancaster, PA to organize against a KKK rally at the Courthouse there on September 8th. Trips to Lancaster, and to West Chester and Reading as well, have been made weekly since the first one in July. Reception by the workers and students in these towns is enthusiastic. The PL group has given out thousands of leaflets calling for DEATH TO THE KLAN, along with many copies of CHALLENGE.

Spanish-speaking women workers from Lancaster joined this effort during August. And we listened better than before to what workers had to say to us.

Many of the hundreds of people spoken to gave their addresses and telephone numbers to be recontacted. One after another, they took the leaflets and said, "Yes, I'll be there! I HATE the Klan," and "Let's kick their butts!"

The City of Lancaster and various Lancaster liberals are urging everybody to avoid the Klan by attending a "Unity Day" elsewhere. But a group of black ministers is calling on all black men to go to the Courthouse and "Face the Klan with prayers and non-violence." And in a sexist move they ordered black women to stay home! Only the PLP is calling on all workers and students to unite and destroy the Klan, and is saying that women must lead this fight.

Meanwhile, other Plers distributed WANTED flyers in the Reading neighborhood of Klan leader Roy Frankhauser, the notorious racist slimeball behind the Lancaster rally (see related letter).

Read the next issue of Challenge for a report on the Lancaster anti-Klan rally.

A Philly Comrade

Anti-Fascist Fighters Beat Racist Charges

Morristown, NJ. July 25- "I really liked what you said in court. Thank you for coming to Morristown and doing what you did." That's what a woman worker, who happened to hear our case, said as she shook hands with the two anti-racist protesters who infiltrated Richard Barrett's July 4 fascist rally.

They were facing charges of criminal mischief, harassment and disorderly conduct for knocking out the fascists' sound system. Their action emboldened hundreds of chanting voices, pounding drums and stomping feet to shout down the fascists.

Supporters cheered as the defendants told the court, "Racist speech is violence and must be stopped!" Among them were several defendants facing felony charges from the protest against the same fascists one year ago, when the racist cops went wild to protect the fascists. These defendants stood in solidarity with their working class brothers. The steady determined movement to oppose the influence of fascism in this community has made us all stronger.

The prosecutor dropped two of the charges and the two pled guilty to disorderly conduct. When their lawyer pressed the court to drop all charges, the irate prosecutor said, "Look, I've already dropped two of the charges and reduced the remaining one. What do they want, a bouquet of flowers and a pat on the back?" The judge gave a speech about democracy and fined each defendant $600.

The heart of our line is our confidence in the working class. They will fight racism, welcome bold communist leadership and be won to wipe out racism by destroying capitalism.

Give Reading., Pa. KKKer the Boot!

Some time ago I watched a news show documenting a racist hatecrime in Reading, PA. A woman named Bonnie Jouhari, who worked for HUD (the federal housing agency), was harassed by a KKKer Roy Frankhauser to the point where she left the city. Mrs. Jouhari was a white woman whose daughter was black. She had used her government office to fight against racist discrimination in housing.

Frankhauser had terrorized her by sitting outside her office everyday on a bench. No one took any action against him. I was angry and depressed over this rotten passivity.

As part of Philadelphia PLP's organizing against the upcoming Klan rally in Lancaster, PA on Sept.8,we located this racist at his Reading "church" and paid him a visit. We distributed leaflets in his neighborhood describing his racist crimes.

He came out on the street to confront us. My blood was boiling as I found myself face to face with this ridiculous old man. My comrade had to caution me that we were not there for any individualist acts of violence.

We found it incredible that this racist dog could live right in the middle of a primarily black and Latin working class community. At first I

took a cynical attitude toward these workers. Why would they allow such a situation to continue?

Some people told me they were afraid of going to jail if they confronted him. Others asked if the city government and the police knew about him and couldn't do anything, then what could they do? After a while I changed my view. I learned that many workers hated this man's presence in their community. But no one has ever given them any leadership in trying to drive him out.

This situation helped me to understand the necessity of communist leadership. We have made some contacts with anti-racist workers in Reading and our collective will be discussing a plan to continue the struggle against racism and Klan terror there.

PA. Red

KKK Stomped in St. Paul

St. PAUL, MINNESOTA August 25--Over 1000 people attended an anti-KKK rally here. Members of Progressive Labor Party militantly led workers and youth to shout down the Klan. The liberal coalition `Can The Klan' had their flunkies within the crowd to control our militant stance, but we exposed and isolated these misleaders.

Later anti-racists spotted four Klansmen standing underneath a tree in the back of the protest. The anti-racists led an integrated group of about a dozen young workers from the neighborhood to smash the fascists. The Klansmen were beaten senseless as there were no KKKops to protect them. One young comrade spotted several teeth flying out of one of the Klansmen's mouths as he was stomped into the ground by the anti-racists.

PLP gave a lot of bold leadership to this protest and all told, about 3,500 leaflets, and hundreds of Challenges were distributed. Also 900 "SMASH THE KKK" stickers were handed out. Whenever these racists show their faces we will be there to counter their filth with workers' power!

Anti-Racists Shut Down Nazi Concert

ANAHEIM, California, Sept. 4. --Sixty anti-racists rallied in the middle of August to stop Neo-Nazis from holding a fundraising concert at the Shack in Anaheim and shut the show down.

PLP's arrival with red flags, anti-racist placards, and literature was greeted with an attack by the right-wing Jewish Defense League (JDL) who claimed to be there to help the protest. Irv Rubin, leader of the JDL, has attacked affirmative action and supported the KKK in the past by bringing a Klan robe to a speech by David Duke. When he saw us arrive he asked if the protesters would allow communists to join them. After they responded by welcoming us he quickly left.

We immediately started a picket line and led chants which we used to build multiracial and international unity. We chanted "Asian, Latin, Black and White, To smash racism we must unite." "Hitler rose, Hitler fell, Nazi punks go to Hell."

Though we kept the Nazis from having their show we were unable to stop them from driving by. The coward fascists drove by twice; the first time they had a Klan flag hanging out their window, but the second time their windows were rolled up tight. Each time they were faced with loud cries of "Death to the Fascists" and "Nazis go to Hell".

We talked to many of the protesters and sold 20 CHALLENGES. After the protest ended a fellow protester and friend joined PLP.

Keep Our Eyes and Ears Open

Flash: This past Sunday these racists came back and organized another concert. We were unable to organize people in time to get there. Suposedly, some 200 Nazis showed up. We have to be prepared for more concerts, rallys and demonstrations from these racists.

Reinventing Race: Junk Science and `Jewish Genes"

(This is the first of a series of articles about "race" and human genetics. In the next article,we'll go into the non-science of "race" in more depth)

"But Rappaport, you used to be a skinny man, now you're a fat man!" -- "I'm not Rappaport!" "But Rappaport, you used to be a tall man, now you're a short man!" -- "I'M NOT RAPPAPORT!" "And Rappaport! You've changed your name!"

In Walter Matthau's vaudeville routine, the joke is the geezer's stubborn preconception in the face of overwhelming evidence. Scientists are not supposed to think like that geezer. But science is not an open window on the world; it is a focusing lens. When distorted by profits, racism, and religion, science is more like a funhouse mirror. Nowhere is this more obvious than in debates about "race". Despite overwhelming evidence that should have killed off "race" within science, it is being revived by drug companies, forensic scientists, and by nationalists seeking to validate origin myths. Race is creeping back with the cutting-edge tools of the genome revolution.

Molecular genetics has discarded racial pigeonholing. Most human diversity is found within any population, not between populations. Population categories are arbitrary; there is nothing "natural" about a particular way of grouping people. We are genetically very similar because we are a young species. All humans alive today descend from a small population living in Africa around 140,000 years ago. People didn't leave Africa until about 70,000 years ago; all geographic differences must post-date that dispersal. Not enough time has elapsed for many differences to arise.

So what are we to make of the following announcement, in an Israeli magazine?

" New genetic research shows the vast majority of kohanim, the Jewish priestly class, to be descended from a single ancestor--scientific confirmation of an oral tradition passed down through 3,000 years ... If tradition is accurate, all the men reciting the priestly blessing and their counterparts across the Jewish world are direct descendants of Aaron, anointed the first high priest by his brother Moses...Kohen status is passed from father to son. Kohanim often have last names indicating their status, such as Cohen, Kahn, Kaplan, Rapaport, Katz"...

This startling claim for Biblical literalism was based on a 1998 paper in Nature, a prestigious science journal. The authors were looking at the Y chromosomes of Jewish males who claimed Cohen descent. Y chromosomes are good for tracing ancestry because they are handed down essentially unchanged from father to son. A haplotype is a specific combination of alleles (genetic variations) found on a single chromosome, a sort of genetic signature. The researchers found that a certain Y haplotype (the "Cohen modal haplotype") was more common in Jewish men who claimed descent from the Cohen priesthood, than in other Jewish males.

Used correctly, haplotype analysis is a powerful tool for studying human history. But the Cohen study was biased by sample selection: only Jewish men were compared, and the data were wildly over-stretched. The study was initiated by a Cohen priest who believed the Bible story. According to molecular anthropologist Jon Marks, "what they're doing is Mickey Mouse social science... there's no reason to think that there even was a priestly Aaron. It's an origin myth. To take at random something from the deep hoary past as if it's literally true and use that as your starting point, there's a problem with that. It's not science."

Nevertheless, the Cohen story was uncritically bought by most scientists and the media. In 1999, the plot took on a new twist. The Lemba are black southern Africans who claim ancient Jewish descent. Many Lemba men were found to have the "Cohen haplotype"; this was taken to vindicate the Lemba's oral tradition. This story seemingly softened the racist edge of "Jewish genes." But the use of DNA testing to underwrite an origin myth is a scary new trend with Nazi overtones.

Forward to 2000. Scientists finally look at the frequency of the "Cohen haplotype" in the non-Jewish Middle Eastern population, the information missing from previous studies. Turns out it's a common genetic pattern among Mediterranean men, including Arabs, Italians, Syrians, Turks, and Armenians. Palestinian Arabs and Jews are so close genetically as to be indistinguishable.

This debunks the biological specialness of being a Cohen, or a Jew. Somehow this story gets lost in the telling. According to the New York Times: "this analysis provides genetic witness that these communities have... retained their biological identity separate from their host (European) populations, evidence of relatively little intermarriage or conversion into Judaism over the centuries". Through spin control, the real story--evidence for the common gene pools of Middle Eastern people-- is downplayed in favor of claims for the ethnic purity of Jews!

These tales might seem like Mel Brooks material, except that they are, as sociologist Troy Duster has noted, "the edge of the wedge". Duster argues that DNA markers have become a 21st century proxy for race. Fuzzy science bolsters racist claims for the origin of Hindu upper castes in an "Aryan" invasion. A Korean company claims to be sequencing an "authentically Korean" genotype as a prelude to devising ethnically based pharmaceuticals. In 2001, a new drug, BiDil, was introduced specifically for black Americans; if profitable, other ethnically-targeted drugs are sure to follow.

In recent months the dominant wing of U.S. capitalists, judging by the New York Times, has been criticizing the concept of race. Does this mean that they are abandoning racism, capitalism's foremost weapon? Quite the opposite; racism is intensifying everywhere. But the rulers need flexibility. They can concede cruder forms of racism while re-introducing more sophisticated forms as needed. After all, racism doesn't require biology. No visible differences separate Jews from Arabs, or Ethiopians from Eritreans, yet racism and nationalism delude members of these groups into hating and killing each other. Although we should arm ourselves with science in order to fight racism, the best scientific knowledge in the world won't defeat racism until we get rid of capitalism.

1.Duster, T. Buried Alive! The Concept of Race in Science. in NIH Record 6/12/01 .

2. Nebel, A. et al. High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews. Hum Genet 107, 630-641 (2000)

3.Thomas, M.G. et al. Origins of Old Testament priests. Nature 394, 138-140 (1998).

Oil Patch's Koch : If You Can't Beat'em, Join'em

The Eastern establishment main wing of the U.S. ruling class has decisively put down the Oil Patch rebellion. This political and economic consolidation reflects the continuing development of fascism. CHALLENGE wrote at length about this conflict a few years ago when a rising faction centered on the domestic oil industry had gained substantial power in the Republican party. This gang backed Dole's 1996 bid for the White House. With profits derived mainly from within the U.S., this group had interests that differed sharply from those of the main Rockefeller wing of rulers.

The Oil Patch opposed the use of U.S troops overseas; the main wing needed a military that could ensure continued U.S. domination of the world, largely through control of the Middle East's oil. The upstarts demanded an end to the federal regulations by which the Establishment kept a handle on the domestic economy. Led by the Koch family, oil billionaires from Kansas, they organized a broad popular base that ranged from conservative Christians to the militia movement. But things change. In any struggle, one side must win out. The story of how the main wing prevailed over the chief Oil Patch leader, David Koch, by might and persuasion, offers many lessons in politics and dialectics.

Like ancient Roman emperors, U.S. rulers have a double-edged method for dealing with rivals. Some they seek to destroy; others they take on as junior partners. Koch had been Dole's top donor in 1996. After Dole's defeat, the main wing made Koch an offer he couldn't refuse. In 1998, Exxon Mobil began importing into the U.S. vast amounts of low-cost Iraqi crude, which sharply undercut the traditional domestic suppliers of Koch's refineries. Rather than take serious losses, Koch joined his old archrivals in buying from Iraq. In so doing, he bought into their need to retake control of Iraq's oilfields from Saddam Hussein and his French and Russian allies. Soon Koch Oil was acquiring refineries in Europe and Asia. The arch isolationist had abruptly turned imperialist. With the integrity typical of a capitalist, Koch held true to only one principle, profit maximization.

A similar fate befell Koch's gas business. In the 1990s, a massive regulatory restructuring of the U.S. electric power grid shifted control from hundreds of industrialists who provided fuel (like Koch) or generated electricity to a handful of financiers who peddled energy contracts. Enron began to behave more like a brokerage house than a gas producer. Goldman Sachs became a big energy trader. To play on this new field, Koch has recently formed a 50-50 partnership with Entergy, an old-line power company well connected to Establishment moneybags. JP Morgan Chase and Boston's blueblood Fidelity and Putnam own controlling shares in Entergy. The Koch-Entergy venture now trades energy throughout the U.S. and Western Europe.

Koch's strategic outlook has undergone considerable change as a result of his family firm's newfound internationalism. The Cato Institute, a think tank he founded and still funds, used to call for a U.S. withdrawal from the Persian Gulf and opening up Alaskan wildlife reserves to oil exploitation. Now it admits that the U.S. needs the Mideast's oil far more than Alaska's. "[G]overnment policies that restrict drilling on attractive public lands in Alaska and off America's coasts aren't primarily responsible for our heavy reliance on imported oil. This is: It costs between $5.00 -- $7.50 to produce a barrel of domestic oil versus about $1.50 to produce a barrel of Saudi crude. As long as the Persian Gulf nations have a lot of $1.50 a barrel oil laying around -- and they do -- they're going to dominate the world market whether we allow drilling in environmentally sensitive areas or not" (Cato, 9/00).

Koch has even climbed on board Hart-Rudman, a high-level government commission that has drawn up a fairly explicit blueprint for putting the U.S on a war footing, both for a near-term conflict in the Middle East and an eventual world war with Russia or China. Hart-Rudman reports detail the need for unifying the military with local police and for a Pearl Harbor-like incident on U.S. soil to mobilize a population beset with the "Vietnam Syndrome." (unwillingness to accept casualities) David Koch belongs to Business Executives for National Security, which embraces Hart-Rudman and has made Warren Rudman himself (a co-leader of the commission) head of its task force on the military and safeguarding U.S. infrastructure.

The Rockefeller and Koch factions have buried the hatchet. But in this case the bosses'domestic tranquillity aims at imperialist slaughter.

Next: In addition to these objective reasons, many subjective, personal factors account for Koch's conversion. We'll look at them in the next issue. Communists must take into account all aspects of an important process.

Workers of the World, Write!
LETTERS

Fight To Teach Students

I just returned from a union committee meeting where teachers discussed the resolution we brought to the NEA convention, condemning racist ideology, of both the biological determinist and the "culture of poverty" varieties.

Several teachers said they were glad this resolution had been brought up, and talked about how important it is to have high expectations for working class students. One said that the difference between a liberal and a progressive is that liberals see our kids as victims, while progressives fight for them to learn at a high level.

Another said that we must fight against the idea that kids who are learning English are "pobrecitos" (poor little things) who can't be taught at a high level, and should just be drilled on how to bubble in the answer sheets of standardized tests. Out of thirty-five teachers a dozen signed up to work with us in the ongoing fight within the NEA against racist ideology. It's clear, once again, that when we fight for a principled position, others will respond and follow our leadership.

Red teacher

Bosses Back on Racist `Track' in Schools

While most of the people in the movement against high-stakes tests see themselves as advocates for black, latino, and working class students, there is another side to the movement.

An article in the NY Times (June 17: Schools' Difficult Search for 'Just Right' Standards) reveals the hidden agenda of forces who, in fact, are using this movement to re-institute overt tracking in the schools. Tracking (also known as "ability" grouping) is actually segregation. It has nothing to do with actual ability, and everything to do with racial and class bias against non-white and working class children. And it has never really gone away.

For example, even when black students show potential that is equal to or above that of whites, they are 40% less likely to be placed in advanced or accelerated classes, according to the head of the College Board. Despite evidence of ability, blacks are 2.5 times more likely to be placed in remedial or low-track classes.

Precisely because tracking has been so widely exposed as racist (even the head of the College Board admits it) state and local boards of education have been reluctant to advocate overt tracking of students. However, parents in Scarsdale, N.Y., and other affluent communities who complain about standardized tests are actually calling for tracking. "Our kids are smarter than inner city kids," they cry. "One size doesn't really fit all!" In response, New York is creating higher tracks in math (than the Regents) for "high-achieving" students, as well as pushing to establish a separate test with a lower standard for vocational education students. And then we will have three tracks, correlated again, with students' race and social class.

Our Party's advocacy of the position that all students can learn at a high level is more important than ever. Capitalist education is racist to the core. The only way to even the score is with communist revolution.

A reader

Workers and Youth Gather for `Never Again' in Tulia, Texas

Over three hundred people came here on Sunday, July 22 to commemorate the 2nd anniversary of the racist Tulia drug raids which incarcerated 18% of the town's black population and 50% of the black men. The ACLU has recruited Tulia families to lobby the Texas state legislature for drug law reforms. Although there has been extensive regional and national attention focused on this small Texas Panhandle town, neither the national media nor the liberal nonprofit organizations have led to the release of any of the convicted.

Upon hearing of the Never Again rally in Tulia we in PL decided to take a couple of friends with us to the rally to distribute literature, talk with old friends, and meet new students and workers. At the rally, we distributed and sold 20 Challenge-Desafios and had many conversations with groups representing various regional and national affiliations.

Many of the students at the rally were a part of the "Freedom Rides" from Austin and represented many different leftist causes. Many were serious fighters against the War on Drugs and its effects on minority populations. Our paper and the communist anti-racist line of the party were well received at the rally. Several workers are now reading Challenge-Desafio regularly.

Texas Comrade

OOPS..............

The "Amnesty of the Century" article on page 4 of Challenge of Sept. 5 has several errors, which the Challenge staff did not intend and which need to be corrected:

In the second paragraph, one sentence reads, " Being seen as openly racist toward Mexican workers allows their rivals to become `lesser evil' imperialists and gain `sympathy' among workers there." Challenge does not want to imply in any way that the US bosses can stop being racist toward Mexican workers. The sentence should have read, "US bosses must try to camouflage their racism towards Mexican workers. Otherwise their rivals will more easily gain sympathy of workers in Latin America as the `lesser evil' imperialists."

In the 3rd paragraph from the end, beginning with "But other bosses, who see immigrants exclusively as cheap labor..." the sentence that states "But the Mexican government has insisted on a bracero/amnesty package deal" should be removed. It leads the reader to think that the Mexican government is actually looking out for the interests of Mexican workers. The Mexican Foreign Secretary actually stated that it was up to the US government if they wanted to allow immigrants to become citizens. If a package deal is adopted which includes braceros and limited amnesty, it will be because the US rulers think it's needed to win the loyalty of immigrant workers.

Finally, the following phrase "While such plans may aggravate rising US unemployment, " needs to be eliminated. This statement is untrue. Granting amnesty to people already living and working in the US will NOT cause unemployment to rise in the US.

Challenge apologizes for these errors.u

 

To Our Readers: This issue of CHALLENGE skips a week. Our next issue will go to press Sept. 5

Editorial: Capitalism + Layoffs: Two Sides of the Same Coin

• Unemployment Outpaces Government Figures
• a href="#A ‘Flexible’ Capitalism Means Profits Galore">A "Flexible’ Capitalism Means Profits Galore

a href="#Workers Drown in Bosses’ Profits Bloodbath">"orkers Drown in Bosses’ Profits Bloodbath

a href="#Clinton Moves to Harlem…There Goes the Neighborhood">"linton Moves to Harlem…There Goes the Neighborhood

• The Clinton Years
• a href="#Billionaire’s Dogfight">"illionaire’s Dogfight

Building PLP Crucial in D.C. Metro Contract Fight

a href="#Drunken Killer Cop Wields Car As Assassin’s Bullet">"runken Killer Cop Wields Car As Assassin’s Bullet

When it comes to death squads, Coke Is the Real Thing

a href="#PLP’ers Are Anti-Racist Force At ‘No-Sweats’ Conference">PLP’"rs Are Anti-Racist Force At ‘No-Sweats’ Conference

a href="#The ‘Amnesty’ of the Cemetery">Th" ‘Amnesty’ of the Cemetery

a href="#Bush’s Bracero Plan">"ush’s Bracero Plan

a href="#Communist Teachers Challenge ‘Culture Of Poverty’ Racism">Co"munist Teachers Challenge ‘Culture Of Poverty’ Racism

a href="#Newark ‘Zero Tolerance’ Fraud Is Violent Attack on Students">Ne"ark ‘Zero Tolerance’ Fraud Is Violent Attack on Students

a href="#U.S. Iraqi Policy Flops, So It’s Bomb, Bomb Bomb . . .">".S. Iraqi Policy Flops, So It’s Bomb, Bomb Bomb . . .

New World (Dis)Order Hits Israel-Palestine

a href="#‘Peace’ in Ireland Tied to U.S. War Plans">‘P"ace’ in Ireland Tied to U.S. War Plans

a href="#Hospital Workers Nix Bosses’ Patient (No)Care Policy">"ospital Workers Nix Bosses’ Patient (No)Care Policy

Serve The People To Break The Chains

LETTERS

Garment Workers Figure it Out

a href="#Capitalism ‘Steels’ Jobs">Ca"italism ‘Steels’ Jobs

Circuses Without Bread . . .

a href="#Thoughts on PLP’s Racism Pamphlet">"houghts on PLP’s Racism Pamphlet

OOPS! – Editorial correction

---

Capitalism + Layoffs: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Is this the best or worst of times? There appears to be a contradiction. On the one hand, millions of workers are living from paycheck to paycheck. Millions more are jobless, with dim prospects of getting another job. Over 43 million are without any health insurance.

At the same time, amid mass layoffs 442,000 new jobs were created in July. Many of these new jobs pay far less than the old ones. Job reduction and job creation are taking place side by side.

The ruling class uses the "up" side of this contradiction to push the illusion that "anyone can make it," especially in the high-tech sector. The existence of a relatively small but highly skilled, higher paid (but still exploited) labor aristocracy helps them maintain this fiction. This small higher-paid section also serves as a buffer between the rulers and the rest of the working class.

In a world of economic crises, U.S. bosses dominate their imperialist rivals. This gives them maneuverability and maintains the illusion of the "American Dream." The reality is poverty, mass unemployment, racism and imperialist wars. By patiently spreading communist ideas and action among workers and youth, in the shops, communities, military and schools, we can begin to tear down the illusions spread by the bosses. Red leadership can build workers’ unity and class-consciousness. Patient work and a long-term outlook must be linked to a sense of urgency.

Unemployment Outpaces Government Figures

Over 1.1 million workers were laid off by mid-July, double the job cuts for ALL of last year. These layoffs include the service sector, which accounts for four of every five jobs. Temporary jobholders, formerly the fastest growing section of the labor force, are now the fastest growing section of the unemployed. Job placement agencies report the biggest decline in ten years, with "the worst yet to come." (Reuters, 7/29) Many are accepting jobs at lower wages with little or no benefits. The burden of this downturn falls most heavily on black and Latin workers, victims of centuries of racism and capitalist oppression.

However, the government’s statistics lie about the extent of this job downturn. With a 42% increase in workers collecting jobless benefits, "unemployment is rising much more rapidly than…shown in…federal surveys and estimates." (N.Y. Post, 7/31) One economist told the Post that the unemployment figure of 4.5% should really be 5.2%. And if "discouraged" workers who have given up looking for jobs were counted, unemployment would more than double to nearly 10%.

These figures don’t include those working part-time, who want full-time jobs but can’t find them (According to the government, those who work one hour a week are counted as "employed"). They also don’t include those in the military because they can’t find jobs, those in prison for non-violent offenses who in virtually any other country would not be jailed, and those on welfare who would seek jobs if they had daycare for their children. That’s at least 16 million unemployed, not the six million reported by the government.

a name="A ‘Flexible’ Capitalism Means Profits Galore"></">A "Flexible’ Capitalism Means Profits Galore

"Wall Street loves layoffs that promise to raise profits by reducing labor costs." (NY Times, 8/5) Through the increased use of temporary and contract workers, and the cooperation of the AFL-CIO union leaders, the bosses developed a "just-in-time" workforce. Hire when needed, fire when not. This accounts for between 12% and 20% of the manpower needs of corporate America and allows the bosses to lay off in one area while hiring in another. This has given U.S. bosses a temporary edge on their competitors.

The ability of the working class to organize against rising unemployment is hampered by the new labor aristocracy. Flush with company stocks and filled with illusions of becoming millionaires, these high-tech workers "understand" the bosses’ need to lay them off because of declining profits (which also makes their stocks worthless). Blinded by extreme individualism, they do not look to a collective organization at the workplace.

These new features in the U.S. economy, the demise of the Soviet Union and U.S. imperialism’s dominant position in the world, give the rulers a cushion. So do the nationalist union leaders. Devoted to US imperialism and the Democratic Party (see Clinton editorial), they put the brakes on any serious fight back.

But every capitalist "solution" brings them more problems. Capitalism cannot provide a decent life for billions of workers. Inevitably, imperialist crises will lead to sending working class youth to kill and die in wars to make Iraq, Colombia, the Balkans, etc. safe for U.S. bosses.

We are on a long march to take power away from our exploiters. Objective conditions will change. Capitalism will not fall by itself. The experiences reported in CHALLENGE prove that we can win workers to fight to overthrow the inequality and exploitation of wage slavery. What we do now will lay the basis for the communist future so desperately needed by the workers of the world.

a name="Workers Drown in Bosses’ Profits Bloodbath">">"orkers Drown in Bosses’ Profits Bloodbath

Today, the bosses moan about "overcapacity" in virtually every industry. The auto bosses, already facing declining profits and market share, are worried about a flood of returned leased cars adding their unsold inventory.

Overcapacity comes alongside lower profit rates. Business Week (BW) called 2nd quarter U.S. corporate earnings a "bloodbath," as 900 companies on their corporate scorecard suffered a 52% drop in profits compared to a year ago. Profit margins fell from 7.2% last year to 3.2%, the largest quarterly decline ever.

The bosses try to "solve" their problems by attacking workers even more. They wiped out 350,000 jobs in the 2nd quarter, and increased the productivity of those still working, producing more with fewer workers.

By exposing such contradictions we can win workers to understand why capitalism inevitably must enrich the bosses at the expense of the world’s workers.

a name="Clinton Moves to Harlem…There Goes the Neighborhood">">"linton Moves to Harlem…There Goes the Neighborhood

Bill Clinton opened his Harlem offices and received a warm welcome from the media, bosses, preachers and politicians. He got an especially warm welcome from local real estate moguls who want to usher in gentrification and run working-class families out of Harlem. Unfortunately, he was also welcomed by thousands of black and Latin workers and youth. Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and Harlem communist leader Ben Davis must be spinning in their graves.

This is a reflection of the deadly illusions that characterize this difficult period and undermine the fight to smash racism with communist revolution. These illusions were fostered in part by the "booming" economy. The rise of a highly-paid layer of telecom and computer tech workers fed the illusion that the profit system can work for everyone. With the collapse of the old communist movement and no current mortal threat to the rulers, millions are at the mercy of the snake oil salesmen like Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and AFL-CIO honcho John Sweeney.

The Clinton Years

Clinton arrived in NYC after he and Senator Hillary tried to stuff everything that wasn’t nailed down into the White House moving van. Then he tried to move high above Carnegie Hall for about $800,000 a month. He figured he deserved it after "ending welfare as we know it" and saving the government billions off the backs of black, Latin and white working class women and children. But the Clinton-bashers would have none of it. So the ultimate politician made the ultimate political move.

Remarkably, Clinton has maintained a very high level of popularity despite one of the most racist, murderous reigns of terror. On his watch, U.S. sanctions on Iraq, and hundreds of bombing missions killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, mainly the elderly and the young. He added 100,000 racist killer cops while Abner Louima was being tortured in a Brooklyn station house and Bronx undercover cops fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo. Scores of black and Latin workers and youth were killed by racist cops, thousands were victimized by racial profiling and the prison population doubled to over two million (two-thirds black and Latin), the highest prison population in the world!

He ended welfare, forcing millions into low-paying jobs with no health insurance, and thousands more into slave labor "Workfare" jobs. Operation Gatekeeper at the U.S./Mexico border more than doubled the racist border patrol. More than 1,500 died and more than one million were arrested trying to cross the border on Clinton’s watch. So how does he maintain his popularity?

a name="Billionaire’s Dogfight">">"illionaire’s Dogfight

During the Clinton regime, the ruling class was locked in a fierce internal struggle. More openly racist upstart billionaires, centered on the domestic oil industry, launched a struggle for control of the Republican Party and the Congress. Openly racist and pro-fascist politicians like Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich led them. The battle flag of the 1994 "Republican Revolution" was the "Contract On America."

They unleashed a ruthless attack on Clinton (who was an easy target) that ultimately led to his impeachment. When Hillary announced "a vast rightwing conspiracy," the union and civil rights leaders fell in line. Sweeney, Jackson and others rallied to his defense and used their influence to line up workers and youth behind him. He became the most popular "lesser evil" since mass murderer Lyndon Johnson beat Barry Goldwater in 1964 (a forerunner of the current dogfight).

Black columnist Les Payne wrote in New York Newsday (8/5), "What separates Clinton from his predecessor presidents and the one who has followed is that…he connects with African Americans…Despite his resulting inability to do them much good, African Americans appreciate him all the more for his willingness to try."

That is the deadly illusion. And because workers were suckered into believing he was "willing to try," he was able to get away with murder. This makes him more dangerous than Nixon, Reagan and both Bushes. The liberals are the most dangerous. Clinton implemented the most right-wing social policies of anyone in recent history. Just beneath his charm and grin are bulging pockets and bloody hands.

To defeat these illusions and expose the liberals will take a combination of sharper class struggle, fighting for PLP’s outlook, deeper involvement in the mass movement and stronger personal/political ties. There are no shortcuts. Using CHALLENGE, and making it the property of many more, is vital to this process.

Building PLP Crucial in D.C. Metro Contract Fight

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 10 — Anger is growing among members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 as DC Metro management continues to drag its feet on contract negotiations. At the August union meeting several workers spoke about the need for greater militancy, and for striking, to win the union’s demands.

Ridership had increased dramatically over the last year, generating more than $28 million in additional revenue. This windfall comes from drivers carrying more people per trip. The union is insisting this money be used to end the wage progression system, which has created a large inequality in wages resulting in divisions within the union.

Management’s response is to warn workers strikes are illegal and to probe the leadership for weakness. Despite all their posturing, management fears a walkout. Defeating a strike of 6,500 workers is no easy task.

Preparing for a strike means: (1) Struggling by all Metro CHALLENGE readers with our co-workers about the need for a strike. No one should take it for granted that workers have a clear understanding of this; (2) Turning out thousands for the next union meeting, so the whole union can express opinions on the issue and unite around a plan of action; (3) Increasing the CHALLENGE readership, the only way for Metro workers to understand the racist nature of the bosses’ attack and the need for communist revolution to solve the long term needs of the working class.

If we don’t fight back the bosses will attack us even harder. But we must also understand that any short-term advance that might be achieved will eventually be taken back. This is the reality of living under the bosses’ class dictatorship and will be true as long as they hold political power. The 1978 strike achieved full escalation of wages in the face of brutal inflation. But the rank-and-file strike leaders were unable to consolidate their position. The old leadership, working with management, soon regained control of the union and the concessions began. The one victory they can’t take back is workers joining the PLP and the long march for communist revolution.

The growth of PLP is the key, not just for the long haul, but also for fighting for what we need today. We should see these struggles as a school where we learn to fight united and learn from our mistakes and achievements to fight for a society where workers’ needs are the only ones which matter: that is communism.

a name="Drunken Killer Cop Wields Car As Assassin’s Bullet">">"runken Killer Cop Wields Car As Assassin’s Bullet

BROOKLYN, NY, August 7—An angry crowd of over 2,000 people marched last night to the 72nd precinct here demanding jail for cop Joseph Gray, who ran over and killed an entire family of four. Gray had left work the night before but never went home, spending most of the next 12 hours drinking, starting in the precinct’s parking lot with other cops. He ended up in the Wild, Wild West strip joint (supposedly "off-limits" for cops). Sleepless and in a virtual drunken stupor, Gray then used his car as a weapon, driving through a red light and running over a 24-year old pregnant Dominican woman, her sister and her 4-year-old son, killing them all, including the unborn baby.

Instead of keeping him in jail, a judge set the killer cop free without any bail. According to the judge, being a cop is a "guarantee" he won’t run away — a privilege workers don’t have.

The demonstrators gathered at the scene of the crash at 46th St. and 3rd Ave. and then marched to Gray’s 72nd precinct chanting, "We Want justice." The march became a vigil but there were some scuffles. A cop and a photographer were hit by bottles.

"This community is fed up with the culture of the NYPD," declared one demonstrator. "Is it fair that he killed four Dominicans like garbage and they let him go the next day like he did nothing?" said a cousin of Maria Herrera, the dead pregnant woman.

Recently the cops and the pro-police daily newspapers have been complaining that they’re quitting the NYPD in droves because of "low pay" and because they’re disliked, particularly by black and Latin workers. The cops want more money to protect and serve the bosses. Yet even though they’re as brutal and racist as the bosses want them to be, the rulers need some kind of "community support" for their fascist goons, and drunken killers like Gray don’t help that cause. Even racist Mayor Giuliani, one of the most pro-cop mayors in recent history, said the judge shouldn’t have freed the murdering cop without bail. To appease popular anger, another judge set bail at $250,000.

PLP members participating in the march sold 110 CHALLENGES. We now must bring the family’s demand that cop Gray be tried for murder to unions, churches and other mass organizations, while organizing around the idea that no amount of reform or trials for the cops will change their role as goons of a racist system.

When it comes to death squads,

Coke Is the Real Thing

Clinton is not the only rotten boss to come to Harlem to try to clean his image. Recently Coca Cola became one of the biggest commercial sponsors of the Apollo Theater, a cultural icon in Harlem. Since Coca Cola just settled a multi-million dollar suit, growing out of blatant discrimination against black employees, its bosses need to clean up their racist act.

Coke is more than racist; it murders union organizers. Last month, Coke and its Colombian subsidiary, Pan American Beverages, Inc. (its main bottler in Latin America), were cited in Miami for supporting death squads to murder trade union organizers. In the last 10 years, 4,500 trade unionists have been killed by fascist paramilitary groups in Colombia.

The government always says these groups are independent. Just the opposite — they work hand-in-glove with the bosses and their government.

In Carepa, Antioquia, Coca Cola boss Richard Kirby threatened to murder workers trying to organize a union in the local bottling plant. A few days later, union organizer Isidoro S. Gil was murdered, followed by three more organizers.

Coca Cola bosses did the same in Guatemala. In 1996, Coca Cola workers there organized work stoppages against company attacks. Coke sued to collect $214,000 from the union for production losses. The union countersued. A judge ordered both parties to settle out of court and warned them to behave. Coke "behaved" in typical boss fashion: firing and suspending pro-union workers, while pushing a right-wing company union ("Solidarity"). Finally, in 1999 Coke was forced to sign a contract with the real union.

Before the ink dried, Coke was attacking again. It fired 10 unionized workers and stopped pro-union workers from entering the plant, while favoring those who joined "Solidarity."

Coke is indeed the "real thing" when it comes to murdering workers and busting unions.

a name="PLP’ers Are Anti-Racist Force At ‘No-Sweats’ Conference"></a>"LP’ers Are Anti-Racist Force At ‘No-Sweats’ Conference

CHICAGO, IL, AUGUST 9 — Over 300 students attended the USAS (United Students Against Sweatshops) National Convention at Loyola University this past weekend. A dozen PLP members, black, Latin and white, participated. Most are already involved in "no-sweats," living-wage and anti-globalization groups at their colleges. Our goal was to fight racism within USAS, develop class-consciousness among students and build a base for communist revolution.

USAS gets money from the AFL-CIO and has strong links to the steelworker (USWA) and garment worker (UNITE!) unions.

USAS members campaign for better conditions in sweatshops and link anti-prison labor, living-wage and no-sweats groups. They help union organizing campaigns and struggle to get their universities to cancel contracts with garment sweatshops. For example, they sent students to Mexico to help an "independent" union (SITEKIM) organize workers at the Kukdong factory (the "independent" unions in Mexico are also funded by the pro-imperialist AFL-CIA).

The convention opened with a "Challenging White Supremacy" workshop. It set the tone for the rest of the conference. USAS pushes the "White Skin Privilege" theory, which says white workers benefit from racism, capitalism is a system of white supremacy and that white people must sacrifice their privilege to "support" people of color in "their" struggle. This racist theory led to having segregated workshops at the mainly white conference, and USAS has virtually no base at black and Latin working-class schools.

We attacked this theory, pointing out that racism is an attack on all workers, created and perpetuated by capitalism, and that fighting racism is everyone’s responsibility. As Karl Marx said, "The workers in the white skin will never be free as long as the ones in the black skin are in chains." For the next three days, we carried the fight against racism to workshops, meals and social activities and made many friends.

For example, at the "Setting Priorities for USAS" workshop, a PLP member noticed that not only was fighting racism not a priority, it wasn’t even mentioned. This sparked a discussion between him and several USAS members that continued and grew over dinner. The group found this discussion more important than the scheduled panel of speakers and moved to the lobby, where more than 30 students talked about fighting racism.

Consequently, an Anti-Racist Caucus was formed and made a 3-point proposal to the USAS Coordinating Committee: (1) Make anti-racism a central struggle in USAS; (2) Recognize the fundamental relationship between racism and capitalism; and (3) Eliminate segregated "identity caucuses."

The next day we planned to finalize the proposal and go to the segregated caucuses as an integrated group. However, the USAS leadership was set on silencing us and changed the agenda. They used anti-communism to keep the proposal off the floor.

We struggled in our collective for the best way to get the proposal heard. We decided to break into two integrated groups and go to each caucus. The leadership of the "people of color" caucus didn’t welcome our integrated group. We were asked to leave because white people had entered their "safe space." One PL member stayed while the rest left, along with two black students who hadn’t come with us.

Despite mixed results in the "people of color" caucus, and despite some students being unsure we’d done the right thing, many responded well to our bold leadership on fighting racism. The USAS leadership was forced to concede and have an integrated "unity" caucus for all students after the segregated race caucuses. This was not in their original plan. Finally, at the conference’s closing session, we were allowed to read our anti-racist proposal.

We distributed nearly 100 CHALLENGES and made 50 contacts. We passed out several hundred leaflets on fighting racism, imperialism and the USWA’s nationalist "Stand Up for Steel" campaign. When the conference leaders changed the agenda, we were unable to have our scheduled steelworkers forum. We could have done better at linking the fight against racism with the fight against imperialism, and exposing the role of the universities.

This was a very valuable experience. Since then, we’ve been attacked constantly on the USAS web site. Even the fake-leftist Nation magazine saw a need to attack PLP. We take their racist lies and anti-communist attacks as a compliment. The fight for the political leadership of the emerging student movement is on.

a name="The ‘Amnesty’ of the Cemetery"></">Th" ‘Amnesty’ of the Cemetery

LOS ANGELES, CA. — "Who agrees to give up his children in exchange for amnesty?" asked a comrade in a garment workers’ study group. Though seemingly an unreal question, it sparked a very real discussion about the relation between the bosses’ plans for war and fascism and the amnesty debate. The bosses would allow some undocumented workers to gain amnesty (see box on Bush’s plan) to be able to draft their children into U.S. imperialist oil wars abroad.

U.S. bosses face a dilemma: what to do with the millions of undocumented workers who work here, the majority Mexican. These workers are a huge source of cheap labor and of cannon fodder for oil wars. The bosses want their loyalty. Meanwhile, they also need political stability in Mexico to safeguard their enormous investments there and to better answer the challenge from the European Union (EU) and other imperialist rivals to U.S. interests in Latin America. Being seen as openly racist toward Mexican workers allows their rivals to become "lesser evil" imperialists and gain "sympathy" among some workers there. This program might also serve as a safety valve for the powder keg created by the declining Mexican economy.

That’s why liberal U.S. bosses, represented by the Democratic Party, some Republicans, the AFL-CIO and the churches, are advocating amnesty for some immigrant workers. They also want the AFL-CIO to win Latin American workers to view the U.S. as "humanitarian." The AFL-CIO, which for decades accused immigrant workers of "stealing jobs" and lowering wages of citizens, now unites with the Mexican government to pressure Bush for an amnesty plan. That’s why Bush’s Attorney-General John Ashcroft and Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Canstañeda.

"Immigrant workers are in every kind of job in the U.S. and they won’t leave," declared John Wilhelm, President of the Hotel Workers’ Union. (New York Times, 7/18) "We have to make immigrants see that we’re on their side." He said, "The AFL-CIO’s new position on immigration…[can] mak[e] workers think that fundamental reforms can be possible." Ironically last month, 550 janitors here in SEIU Local 1877 were fired for not having legal documentation. The leadership of this "militant" union refused to organize protests or denounce this as an attack on these and all workers.

When Jorge Castañeda told the Hotel and Restaurant Workers international convention that immigrant workers’ "lack of legal status makes them vulnerable to the exploitation by employers who damage healthy competition," 400 union delegates gave him a standing ovation.

In January, Mexican President Fox met with AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, Teamster Union President James Hoffa and auto union President Stephen Yokich to discuss their support for the legalization plan. Fox and Castañeda both represent an exploiting, murderous ruling class sending Mexican workers into deepening poverty. This forces them to leave Mexico to find a way to survive. Now the rulers portray themselves as "defenders" of immigrants! Neither these capitalists nor the liberals in the AFL-CIO are the workers’ friends.

But other bosses, who see immigrants exclusively as cheap labor, advocate only a "bracero" program, not amnesty. They’re not concerned with filling the army with immigrants’ children to defend U.S. interests overseas, nor with competing with the EU for the loyalty of Latin-American workers. But the Mexican government has insisted on a bracero/amnesty package deal.

While such plans may aggravate rising U.S. unemployment, the top bosses’ main interest is loyalty to U.S. imperialism by workers and soldiers and the illusion that the U.S. is "humanitarian." Communists must oppose these bosses’ "solutions" and show that immigrants and citizens are all workers with the same class interests fighting capitalist exploitation.

The bosses’ liberal lackeys will use this amnesty campaign to win the workers to nationalism and U.S. patriotism. But PLP can expose the real plan — the "amnesty of the cemetery" — the bosses are preparing. This lays the basis for winning workers to see the need to destroy capitalism and build a world without borders or exploitation and bosses’ wars.

As one garment workers told a comrade during a PLP Summer Project visit, "Even though I haven’t seen you for a while, and I don’t live in the same place, every week I go back there to collect the CHALLENGE you send me." This kind of loyalty to the Party and its ideas must be multiplied a thousand-fold.

a name="Bush’s Bracero Plan">">"ush’s Bracero Plan

Enlarge the current small "bracero program" which provides temporary visas to farmworkers, to include "an expanded pool of new immigrants employed in service jobs like hotels and restaurants [who] could apply for temporary work permits with the possibility of earning permanent residency over time. [Secy. of State Powell] made it clear that some Mexicans living in this country illegally — those who have jobs, pay taxes and rear children who are American-born US citizens — would be included in an expanded temporary worker program." (New York Times, 8/10) These latter could also possibly qualify for legal residency over time.

a name="Communist Teachers Challenge ‘Culture Of Poverty’ Racism"></">Co"munist Teachers Challenge ‘Culture Of Poverty’ Racism

LOS ANGELES, August 14 — Ever since our struggle against racist ideology at the NEA convention, teachers in PLP have sharpened the fight against racism, taking it inside the anti-testing movement. Many in this movement see working-class students merely as victims. We see them as a potential revolutionary force. At the NEA convention here, we fought for a resolution opposing racist theories such as biologically-determined IQ and "culture of poverty" that justify the mis-education of the working-class. It says ALL working-class students can learn at a high level. This resolution was part of the fight against portraying students as victims, actually a form of liberal racism.

Many people in the anti-testing movement see themselves as advocates for black, Latino and working-class students. They would agree with Gary Orfield, co-director of Harvard’s Civil Rights Project, who found that U.S. schools grew more segregated in the 1990s: "These poorer schools…have more transient student bodies, fewer teachers qualified in their subject areas, parents lacking political power, more frequent health problems among students and lower test scores.…[E]fforts by the White House and Congress to toughen school accountability through annual testing [will] probably backfire, driving minority children in failing schools to repeat grades and eventually drop out." (NY Times, 7/20)

The movement we’re involved in fights for "Tests NO! Money for improved schools, Yes!" A dangerous, prevalent trend within this movement says that until the schools are improved, it isn’t possible to teach working-class students at a high level. This ideology not only infects the relatively few racist teachers who’ve given up on teaching altogether, but also liberal and militant reformers. But many working-class parents aren’t buying it. They expect their children to learn, and are unwilling to take excuses. Neither should we.

The following e-mail debate reflects the struggle within the anti-testing movement. One teacher, for example, said "None who consider themselves progressive would argue that African-American or Latino or Asian students are incapable of learning at a high level, given schools that meet the needs of kids coming from impoverished families. We do not have those schools… The tests are racist in intent because they do not take into account the inequality of the schools, or the fact that many kids speak English as a second language…We need the money to repair our schools, not tests to tell us what we already know, that our public school system has failed our kids. "

A PLP teacher responded, saying, "too many of us have allowed… institutional inequities to allow our expectations of student achievement to drift downward as we concentrate on fighting for (or despair of ever getting) the resources available to more affluent schools and students. That’s why the resolution on opposing racist theories was so important: because of the way a ‘culture of impoverished schools’ outlook leads us to think of our students as ‘victims’ instead of as achievers and fighters. I… believe that unequal education is a fundamental part of unequal (racist, exploitative) society and that a fully equal educational system will require …social revolution. A crucial part of making that revolution is to educate students as well, and on as high a level, as we possibly can, right now."

Another comrade added, "We can’t wait until we have proper conditions in the school because many working class students will never get them. Instead, we should learn the lessons of the literacy campaigns in Cuba, Russia, and China after their revolutions. They sent people out to teach reading to millions of others and they were successful." The young people there saw that what they were learning was crucial to building a new society. Ideology and motivation are more important than the material conditions of the schools.

We’re struggling within the anti-testing movement and the union to demand that racist ideology be fought. We must also teach the true history of racism, imperialism and class oppression. Racism is a deliberate mechanism to keep working people down and divided. Differences in achievement reflect systematic and deliberate racism and not innate biological inferiority, a "culture of poverty," or other racist lies invented to justify racist oppression and class rule.

When teachers, parents and students unite to fight against racism, imperialism and class oppression, students see their education as part of the fight to transform society. CHALLENGE is crucial in this process. As we use it to expose the racist lies claiming working-class students "can’t learn," then working-class youth — no longer victims — can become capitalism’s gravediggers.

a name="Newark ‘Zero Tolerance’ Fraud Is Violent Attack on Students"></">Ne"ark ‘Zero Tolerance’ Fraud Is Violent Attack on Students

NEWARK, NJ — "You’re criminalizing our students. Carrying a Swiss army knife is not a crime, but you’ve made it a crime," declared an angry parent to Newark’s school administrators at a June 19 meeting of the Newark School District Advisory Board. Parents from University High School (UHS) were challenging the effects of the Board’s "zero tolerance for violence" policy on students.

Several years ago Newark’s state-operated school district installed metal detectors in all high schools. Then Newark’s Board implemented a "zero tolerance" policy for drugs, weapons and violence. The policy sounded great to many parents, teachers and students who believed the media-created myth that our schools have become dangerous places to be. Who would argue that we should "tolerate" drugs, weapons and violence? But its implications are dangerous for the working class.

This past spring a UHS student came to school with a Swiss army knife in her pocket. She had put it there the night before when out with some friends after her father told her to carry something with her in case of trouble. The next day when she went through the metal detector, it went off. She immediately handed the knife to the security guard, explaining that she had simply forgotten to take it out of her pocket before coming to school. The security guard said she’d keep the knife until the end of the day and sent the student to class.

Later the student was called to the principal’s office. Knowing the student had accidentally brought the knife to school, the principal still called the cops. They handcuffed her and charged her with "possession of a dangerous weapon." The student was taken to juvenile detention and given a pregnancy/drug/STD test without her guardian’s permission. When her family called to bring her home, they were told she’d have to stay overnight because all the judges were away at a conference. She was then suspended from school for two weeks!

Shortly before this incident the Newark School District announced plans to install surveillance cameras in every Newark high school, claiming they would "prevent violence." There was lots of support for the idea, especially among teachers. But some UHS parents saw these cameras as part of a larger plan to criminalize the student population and get them to accept a more fascist atmosphere in their schools. They discussed it with other parents, students and teachers. A position paper opposing the cameras was distributed in the UHS Parent Teacher Student Organization.

Earlier in the spring, two eight-year old black students in Irvington, NJ, had been arrested and charged with "making terrorist threats" because they folded pieces of paper into the shape of guns and pointed them at each other in their classroom. Then one was arrested. Some parents who had been on the fence on the issue decided to voice their concerns at the Newark Board meeting. Now the struggle against "zero tolerance" will continue this fall.

The liberal section of the ruling class is pushing "zero tolerance" big time. They have lots of school psychologists, administrators, teachers and others convinced it’s needed.

Although "zero tolerance" exists in school districts throughout the country, its enforcement is racist to the core. With metal detectors, cameras and cops in the schools, working-class students are learning how it feels to be in prison.

Under capitalism, violence is a class question. Workers must never fall for the lie that the bosses, their police and their courts will "protect" us. The bottom line is that the rulers hold power at the point of a gun. Their system does violence to workers constantly through racism, sexism, mass layoffs, drug addiction, etc.

"Zero tolerance" and other liberal-backed policies are thinly-veiled building blocks for fascism in the schools. Communists must organize parents, teachers and students to resist this fascist menace, to see who’s really behind violence in this society and to fight for a system that does not turn its children into criminals.

a name="U.S. Iraqi Policy Flops, So It’s Bomb, Bomb Bomb . . .">">".S. Iraqi Policy Flops, So It’s Bomb, Bomb Bomb . . .

The week of August 6, U.S. and British warplanes conducted their heaviest bombing raids in six months over Iraq. The lame excuse for this stepped-up terror was Iraqi anti-aircraft’s near success in shooting down a U.S. spy plane. The real reason lies in an attempt by the Bush White House to continue its sabre-rattling against Saddam Hussein while at the same time scrambling to change its failed sanctions policy.

As CHALLENGE has reported, the sanctions have been a dismal flop. Iraqi oil is back on the market, with Exxon Mobil its biggest customer. Saddam Hussein still wields power. Exxon Mobil’s Russian and French energy rivals have managed to isolate the U.S. politically over Iraq policy.

The current fighting between Israelis and Palestinians further limits U.S. rulers’ maneuverability against Iraq because any increase in U.S. terror against an Arab country risks provoking mass outrage against U.S. imperialism throughout the Arab world. So the Bush White House is falling back on a tactic tried many times during the Clinton years: when in doubt, bomb. When in bigger doubt, bomb more.

Not really knowing what they can get away with, the Bush gang seems to be keeping open the two options the big bosses have been debating for some time. Forces around Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz appear to be arguing for a combination of heavier bombing and expanded support for a U.S. puppet government in Iraq that would somehow overthrow Saddam. Liberals in the Brookings Institution recognize the futility of trying to settle strategic issues from the air and also know that the so-called Iraqi "opposition" has no political or mass base and therefore no chance of success. The liberals, whose lead spokesman is the former chief of the UN weapons inspection team, Scott Ritter, want to build support for a ground invasion using "human rights" as a pretext. The liberals know this requires time to prepare. If the Arab-Israeli fighting ties the U.S.’s hands too much, both factions of the imperialists may be forced to back off temporarily. The recent bombing buys time, but it also tests the firmness of the U.S.’s Gulf allies.

Thomas Ricks, a military journalist with high-level Pentagon ties, sees the latest bombing as part of a plan to launch a series of deadlier bombing raids: "Some Pentagon officials contend that relatively limited strikes such as [those on August 7, —Ed.] are necessary … to make it easier to conduct larger bombing campaigns…. They contend that it is necessary every two years or so to bomb factories at which Hussein is suspected of building long-range missiles and developing chemical and biological weapons. The periodic raids against Iraqi air defenses keep the door open so the larger raids can attack weapons facilities directly, rather than first going after antiaircraft sites, which could give the Iraqi military time to move key gear from the weapons factories, the officials say." (Washington Post, 8/8)

Regardless of who wins in the present tactical squabble among U.S. rulers, the result will be a widening of the oil wars U.S. imperialism must continue to fight in order to stay on top. Workers must be organized to oppose everything the bosses do in this regard. It is particularly important to expose and smash the liberals’ plans to commit mass murder for Exxon Mobil et al., under a "humanitarian" cover.

New World (Dis)Order Hits Israel-Palestine

It was the beginning of the 1990s, the old Soviet Union was imploding and the U.S.-led imperialist alliance was "defeating" Saddam Hussein’s army in Desert Storm. Bush Sr. proclaimed his New World Order, based on "Pax Americana," to guarantee the U.S. control of Middle East oil wealth. Arafat, who sided with Saddam Hussein, was forced to sign the Oslo "peace" deal with Israel. Well, as the old saying goes, when the bosses talk peace, better get your helmet.

The Oslo accord led to the assassination of Israel’s leader Rabin, just as the Camp David accord many years before led to the assassination of Egypt’s ruler Anwar Sadat by Islamic fundamentalists.

Today, Israel’s Sharon has basically declared war on Arafat’s Palestinian Authority because Arafat cannot control the Hamas fundamentalist forces. If the Israeli army invades Palestinian territory, thousands more will be killed and all the contradictions will sharpen, with no end in sight to the conflict.

This doesn’t bode well for U.S. bosses’ interests in the region. Apparently Bush Jr.’s government cannot impose its political will on its most important client in the region, Israel. The latter could conceivably launch a pre-emptive attack against Iraq to force the U.S. to back the Israeli side even more forcefully in its fight with the Palestinians. But this would in the long run just further isolate the U.S. and could lead to the overthrow of its main ally in the Arab world, the Saudi ruling family.

All this fighting reveals capitalism’s basic nature: competition and the rivalry for maximum profit always leading to war.

a name="‘Peace’ in Ireland Tied to U.S. War Plans"></">‘P"ace’ in Ireland Tied to U.S. War Plans

Thirty-six hundred people, mostly working-class, have died in three decades of fighting between Irish nationalists and their pro-British foes. Now troubled "peace" talks, stemming from a U.S.-brokered accord, are taking place in Belfast. Both sides hesitate to fulfill their promises: the Irish Republican Army to lay down its arms, the unionists to give Catholics greater representation in Northern Ireland’s government. But the conflict has global dimensions, rooted in the U.S. rulers’ strategic requirements, going far beyond the local turf war between Catholics and Protestants. No matter how negotiations turn out, Ireland’s conflict will remain.

Geography makes Ireland crucial to the U.S. rulers’ long-term survival as imperialists. The island flanks Britain, which Washington needs to project military force onto the European continent. The Pentagon’s governing strategy, outlined in the early 1990’s by Paul Wolfowitz, now deputy defense secretary, gives highest priority to countering the rise of a rival superpower in Europe or Asia. The potential threat in Europe would come from a coalition of Russia with Germany or France or both. The U.S. cannot afford to have Britain hemmed in by a pro-European Ireland to the west and a hostile France to the south. U.S. policy, therefore, calls for continued British control of Northern Ireland. A Boston Globe editorial (8/4) proclaimed, "The IRA cannot...force the British Army or the Unionist people out of Northern Ireland."

Gerry Adams leads Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political arm. After a series of meetings with Clinton and Ted Kennedy throughout the 1990s, Adams announced that his party no longer sought an immediate end to British rule in Ulster. Clinton sent George Mitchell to Belfast to help hammer out the Good Friday agreement, which guarantees British rule of the North. Under it the British will leave only by a vote of the majority, highly unlikely in the heavily Protestant province. The Associated Press reported that Leslie Gelb, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, the leading U.S. imperialist think-tank, credited Mitchell for "using the power of the United States" to broker the deal.

But a paramilitary faction called the "Real IRA" hopes to force the British out with terrorism. Washington’s tactic here is to manipulate the terrorists, covertly supporting their atrocities, which are then used against them. A recent bombing in London by the IRA sparked calls for more British police and soldiers in Northern Ireland. Last May, David Rupert, a top Real IRA leader in charge of acquiring arms, was exposed as an FBI informant from Chicago. In the 1980s, Whitey Bulger, a Massachusetts gangster collaborating with the FBI, arranged a gun shipment from Boston to Ireland that was seized by Irish authorities. The U.S. is not alone. The Real IRA is becoming the pawn of both imperialist camps. The Guardian (4/5) reports the family of Radovan Karadzic, Bosnian Serb leader and Russian ally, has been shipping arms to the Real IRA through Croatia and Germany.

The U.S. also wields tremendous influence in the independent Republic of Ireland, where it accounts for 70% of foreign investment. And Washington has made great efforts lately to improve its strategic position there. In 1999, under U.S. pressure, Ireland became a "Partner for Peace" with NATO, virtually a junior member. Ireland now provides troops to the U.S.-led NATO mission in the Balkans and will conduct joint war games. Another victory for U.S. grand strategy came in June when Irish voters rejected the Treaty of Nice, which provided for enlarging the European Union and building a European "Rapid Reaction Force" entirely free of NATO control.

In Dublin, U.S. rulers claim to be enhancing the nation’s "security." In Belfast, they’re fostering "peace." But to capitalists, these words mean consolidating one’s position and preparing for the next war.

a name="Hospital Workers Nix Bosses’ Patient (No)Care Policy">">"ospital Workers Nix Bosses’ Patient (No)Care Policy

SEATTLE—"I don’t care if they keep that letter in my file forever: I will never agree to that!" retorted a University of Washington (UW) worker with 19 years seniority. Human Resources had offered to remove a letter of discipline from her file if she would agree never again to strike, support a work stoppage or slowdown, etc.

As CHALLENGE reported previously, the UW administration gave letters of discipline to about 70 workers in the Medical Center who participated in a one-day strike. Although the Strike Committee was ready to respond quickly, the union leadership dragged its feet, finally agreeing to ask rank-and-filers to distribute petitions of support.

In little more than two weeks, over 1,000 staff, faculty and students signed them.

About 35 of us surprised the Medical Center CEO at her office with the petitions. She was frightened, totally taken aback, responding to us by saying not to take it "personally," that it’s only about a job. One union member asked, "Who does she think fills that position? Platonian essence [not a flesh and blood person]?" While most of us had to wait outside her office, four grievants went in with their stories.

At the grievance hearing later that week, workers described how carefully they had planned coverage for emergencies involving patient care. It was clear these rank-and-filers had their patients uppermost in their minds. "We [struck] for our patients and our fellow workers. We need enough staff and for staff to stay and be well-trained," said one grievant.

The UW reps said the Human Resource sleazes made it clear they wanted "uninterrupted work flow" and were unconcerned about patient care. In fact, the workers had arranged for patient care coverage for the one-day strike. The University wouldn’t discuss that, saying it’s not something the union should have input on.

The bosses’ drive for "uninterrupted work flow" runs counter to patient care and adequate staffing and doesn’t address the generally poor and racist nature of medicine under capitalism.

Serve The People To Break The Chains

These workers’ concern for patients is actually fundamental to the communist idea of "serving the people." Our job is to build on this "kernel of class-consciousness," to draw out the communist lessons.

Yet, the grievance process dramatized the limits of trade union struggle — we are wage slaves, negotiating the length of our chains.

To help break those chains, we’ve started selling CHALLENGE weekly on the UW campus. These mass sales will help increase hand-to-hand sales. Struggling over Challenge with our co-workers every issue will help draw out the revolutionary implications of "serving the people."

These CHALLENGE networks, along with our increased union activity and the forging of tight personal friendships, will help recruit to the Party. Then we’ll be moving towards breaking those chains once and for all so we can provide truly excellent heath care for our class under communism. µOne in Ten Black Men 20-29 In State Prison

Racism’s running rampant in the U.S. prison system, largest on earth. With 50% of the prisoners black (and another 20% Latino), the "Justice" Department reports that one of every ten black men between the ages of 20 and 29 are in state prisons, compared to only one of 100 white men in that age group. While the states’ prison population supposedly declined in 2000 for the first time in 30 years, the overall total — federal, state, local jails, juvenile and immigration facilities — continued to rise, reaching 2,071,686 by the end of 2000. U.S. "human rights" marches on!

For more information on prison labor as a source of superprofits see the PLP pamphlet Prison Labor: Fascism U.S. Style

Workers of the World, Write!

LETTERS

Garment Workers Figure it Out

After four hours of hard work, several of us garment workers on lunch break were discussing the hunger and drought whipping across Central America.

"The poor workers and their families. Some weeks they’ve only eaten bananas and roots. And others not even that," said one worker.

"The problem is that sometimes they don’t think and don’t save," said another.

"If we make $5.75 an hour, and we can’t save a penny," remarked a comrade from PLP, "how can these mostly farm workers, when there is work, only make an average of $2 a day? The problem isn’t lack of saving. It’s capitalism with its wage slavery. The bosses grow or produce what makes them profits, not what the workers need to survive. If we lived under communism, growing basic products in the San Joaquin Valley in California would be sufficient to feed a huge part of the population."

The bosses’ press talks daily about the poverty and hunger in Central America. They blame the low price of coffee — due to overproduction of coffee worldwide — on droughts, earthquakes and hurricanes. They blame all of nature, but not capitalism and imperialism, based on the profit system.

Though hunger and poverty are nothing new for the international working class, this avalanche of unemployment and poverty from the coffee plantations of Managua, Nicaragua to the garment factories of Los Angeles is much more serious than it looks. U.S. workers, especially garment workers, aren’t excluded from this famine. In the last few months, unemployment has grown in the garment industry to a point where many workers don’t have money to pay the rent, let alone for a healthy diet.

These kinds of discussions among workers are very important because they can become a beacon to show the need to destroy the capitalist system and build a communist one where workers’ lives will be society’s main concern.

Garment Worker Comrade

a name="Capitalism ‘Steels’ Jobs"></">Ca"italism ‘Steels’ Jobs

In a recent matter-of-fact article, London’s Sunday Independent reported that, "Corus, Britain’s largest steel company, is to warn that five steelworks and up to 18,000 jobs are under threat from tough new proposals being drawn up by the US President, George W. Bush."

The article projected world steel production at 828 million tons and consumption at 763 million. It used these statistics to show that U.S. steel bosses — acting irresponsibly — had increased their production (by 19 million tons) in the last seven years while Europe, acting like a "model world citizen," had reduced theirs (by 3 million). Corus itself had laid off 12,000 workers in the last two years.

Such well timed news releases (issued the same week as the anti-G8 demonstrations in Italy) influence the demonstrators in Genoa to feel a greater European consciousness. It’s not capitalism, the article says, with its inevitable crises of overproduction that’s threatening British steel jobs, but George Bush and U.S. imperialism.

The U.S. Steelworkers Union plays a similar role on this side of the Atlantic. It’s not capitalism and its crisis, they say, but "foreign" workers and foreign steel companies that are causing the lay-offs.

It’s easy to see how a fight for steel jobs in Gary, Indiana, or in Llanwern, Wales, can develop into a nationalist crusade, pitting worker against worker. On the other hand, it’s not hard to see what a vital role communist internationalism — the call for workers of the world to unite — can play in these struggles. Applying those insights is one of the great challenges we face.

Bay Area Comrade

Circuses Without Bread . . .

Before the Pan American soccer championship (Copa America) in Colombia, a friend told me the rulers would guarantee that the host team would win the cup. He said the situation there was very hot and the bosses needed to distract the workers’ anger. They hoped Copa America and "national pride" would make workers forget the death squads, high unemployment and the local war.

He was right. On July 29, Colombia beat Mexico "and won the championship. As a matter of fact, Copa America almost did not take place. When a guerrilla group kidnapped a local soccer official, the international soccer federation cancelled the games saying Colombia was not safe. But pressure from Coca Cola and other local and international companies sponsoring the games, and begging by Colombia President Pastrana led to the release of the soccer official and the games continued.

This was not just a question of soccer and money. The bosses know well the old Roman emperors’ practice: circuses to distract the masses. For a few weeks, the mass media (including Univision TV which transmitted the games to the U.S.) pushed the "games-of-peace" theme. Supposedly Colombia would change because of soccer. Well, I don’t know whether the games were fixed as my friend implied. They were exciting, but things are now "normal." The death squads are back at work, and workers and others are again protesting. Just a week later taxi and bus drivers shut down Bogota, a city of five million, protesting the mayor’s restrictions on mass transportation. Also masses of peasants protested the U.S.-financed Plan Colombia’s use of poisonous pesticides to allegedly eradicate the source of cocaine and heroine.

So circuses without bread did not work too well for the bosses this time.

A comrade, NYC

a name="Thoughts on PLP’s Racism Pamphlet">">"houghts on PLP’s Racism Pamphlet

I recently read the PLP pamphlet Smash Racism with Communist Revolution for the first time. While it is well written and of excellent quality, it contains two serious scientific errors and an important political one. They should be corrected.

Firstly, on page 19, the pamphlet states, "If even something as simple as skin pigment cannot be genetically determined..." But skin pigment establishing skin color is mainly genetically determined. There is also, of course, some environmental influence such as exposure to the sun’s rays, but differences in skin color between large groups of people are inherited, dependent on gene make-up.

Secondly, on page 20, the pamphlet says, "There is no such thing as a race of humans." Try telling this to a black or even a Jewish person denied a job because of ethnicity or "race." True, there is no such biological category as separate races of human beings. Research has demonstrated much bigger proteinaceous and genetic differences between individuals within the same so-called races than exist between the averages for different "races." It’s impossible to even define a race on biological grounds.

Furthermore, "There is no gene known that is 100% of one form in one race and 100% of a different form in some other race. Reciprocally, some genes that are very variable from individual to individual show no average difference at all between major races." (Lewontin, Rose and Kamin: Not in Our Genes, p.122). But despite the absence of a legitimate category in biology that one could call race, there is a very real social construct called race which is specifically designed to divide the working class. So race does exist as a social concept with very real, material effects, despite it being only a concept.

Finally, PLP published a pamphlet on racism without even mentioning the Committee Against Racism (CAR) and its successor, the International Committee Against Racism (InCAR), and its contributions to the construction and day-to-day work of these organizations. This discards an important aspect of almost 20 years of our Party’s work. PLP played a crucial role in the fight against racism through its work in CAR and InCAR. CAR first identified the organized racist attack by Shockley, Herrnstein, Jensen and their various cronies within academia. It was through CAR that thousands of academics, students and workers were mobilized to mount a counterattack thoroughly exposing the racist and unscientific content of the ideology being advanced by these pigs. CAR made it impossible for the racists to speak unchallenged on any campus in the country.

InCAR involved masses of students, faculty and workers in a huge national struggle that led tens of thousands in militant battles to block the ruling class’s attempt to reconstitute the KKK as a mass open organization. It’s no accident that the KKK in Connecticut complained bitterly to the Hartford Courant that, "It’s because of those Commies in InCar and PLP that Klansmen are afraid to come out in public, wearing their hoods."

Furthermore, it was through InCAR that we fought and won the battle of the Boston Summer project against that city’s racists organized in ROAR ("Restore Our Alienated Rights"). Our impact was brought home to me when a prospective new faculty member from the Boston area was being interviewed for a position at the University of Connecticut, at that time. Someone asked her, "What’s new in Boston?" She replied, "InCAR is what’s new in Boston."

CAR/InCAR was — both in its leadership and membership — a coalition of communist and non-communist anti-racists committed to a joint struggle against racism in all its forms, organized on PLP’s initiative. Many InCAR members were won to join PLP.

An old-time InCAR organizer

OOPS!

The word "not" was inadvertently missing from the letter in our last issue entitled "Crisis of Overproduction." The omission tended to contradict the writer’s main point. In the part that said, "Crises are caused by overproduction which leads to decreased profits," the next sentence should have read, "They [crises] are NOT caused by underconsumption." We apologize!

1. Fight Mass Layoffs
   A System That Breeds Mass Poverty Must Be Buried
   1. MASS TELECOM LAYOFFS SPREADING
   2. OPPORTUNITIES GROWING
   3. WINNING INDUSTRIAL WORKERS CRUCIAL
2. Break Illusions on Lesser Evil Politicians
3. Ford Declares War on Workers
4. PLP health Workers and Professionals Meet
   `Serve the People'
5. Communism: The Best Medicine
6. Rulers' Agent Spills the Beans on Continuous Bombing of Iraq
7. Don't Stand Up for LTV--Nationalism Will Cut
   More Jobs Worldwide
8. Bosses' 24/7 Multiplies Profits, Subtracts Workers' Lives
9. Argentina: Workers Refuse to Starve to Pay Bosses' Debt to Vulture Bankers
10. SEIU Union Leaders Undermine Workers'Struggle
11. DC Protest Against Nazi Rally
12. Hit SF Racist Cop-Murderers
    Who Serve Bosses' System
13. Boeing Workers Read Between the Lies
14. G-8 Bosses Drive for Maximum Profits Breeds Mass Poverty Worldwide
15. Jamaica: Class Warfare Must Replace Gang Warfare
16. CIA Saved and Hired Thousands of Nazi War Criminals
17. Battle of Stalingrad: Turning Point of World War 2
    1. `Not one step back...'
    2. AFTERMATH
18. LETTERS
    WORKERS OF THE WORLD, WRITE!
    1. Hitler Danced to Wagner Racist Tune
    2. Stop KKK in Lancaster, Pa.
    3. `Churchmice' Multiply!
    4. Empire Is Apology for Imperialism
    5. Crisis of Overproduction
    6. Kids Book Doesn't Duck Revolution

---

Editorial:

Fight Mass Layoffs
A System That Breeds Mass Poverty Must Be Buried

U.S. imperialism remains the dominant force in the world. The Democrats and their labor lieutenants play their role of spreading illusions among the workers and fostering a relatively low level of class struggle. The rise of a new, highly-paid "labor aristocracy," mainly in telecommunications and information technology, has contributed to this. The communist movement is small and with hard work by revolutionaries still yields modest results.

At the same time, two billion workers worldwide live in dire poverty. About 830 million live on less than 1,800 calories a day. In Sub-Saharan Africa, over 17 million have died in a racist AIDS holocaust created by the rulers. In Colombia thousands of workers have been kidnapped and murdered by fascist death squads trained by U.S. imperialism. In the Middle East, a growing Israeli-Palestinian war increases the threat of a broader conflict. Racism and sexism are rampant throughout the world. Beyond the billions who are superexploited, many millions, including children, are enslaved.

U.S. bosses are riding high but capitalism still stinks. In the heartland of liberal "democracy," slave-labor/Workfare is spreading. More than two million prisoners comprise the largest prison population in the world. Two-thirds are black and Latin. Hundreds of thousands of them are forced into prison labor. Racist police terror has murdered thousands of black and Latin workers and youth.

MASS TELECOM LAYOFFS SPREADING

Even among the new labor "aristocrats," telecom service bosses and equipment makers have slashed 225,000 jobs since the beginning of the year, one-fifth of all U.S. job cuts. The worldwide economic slowdown has hit the high-tech sector hard with a sharp drop in capital spending. The telecom slump has become a major force undermining the global economy.

Only two years ago, Lucent Technologies, the largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, was considered a shining example of the vast profits to be made in that area. But one way or another, Lucent will have cut more than half of its 123,000 workers between January and December of this year.

Just a month ago Nortel, the world's largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, reported a $19.2 billion loss and the layoff of 10,000 workers, a total job-cut of 30,000 since January. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of layoffs were announced throughout the slumping international telecom industry, including France's Alcatel, which eliminated 10,000 jobs on top of the 5,800 cuts earlier this year.

OPPORTUNITIES GROWING

With all the setbacks caused by the collapse of the old communist movement, plus all the difficulties of facing a dominant ruling class, the Progressive Labor Party has its work cut out for it. But the opportunities for growth are enormous. Billions of workers around the world can be won to communist revolution, which remains their only way out.

The present economic downturn presents ever-increasing possibilities to promote communist ideas and build a bigger and tougher Party.

Despite serious indictments brought by local authorities, PLP -- while undergoing a court battle -- returned to Morristown, New Jersey on July 4, having organized to lead hundreds of anti-racists to fight the fascists there. New young comrades stepped forward and took leadership. Old and new members were bold and spirited. We made some progress in building for this action in our mass organizations. This was the result of a sharp internal struggle against fear and cynicism.

In New York City teachers have been without a contract for a year. State politicians are planning a racist budget that will rip off education. This is an opportunity for the Party to expose capitalist schooling and to organize parents, teachers and students around aspects of our line. Slowly but surely, we are becoming a more serious force in the schools and colleges.

WINNING INDUSTRIAL WORKERS CRUCIAL

Building a base and organizing class struggle through mass organizations is crucial. We are making slow, modest advances, from aerospace workers in Seattle (page 4) to steel workers in Indiana to auto workers in Mexico (page 3). We are slowly emerging as mass leaders among health care (page 5), and transit workers. Very hard work made these moderate gains. But these gains today, especially among industrial workers, will lead to mass revolutionary activity when objective conditions are more favorable. In fact, making these gains today will help change the objective conditions.

In every campaign and struggle a major goal must be to increase the number of workers, soldiers and youth reading, writing for, and distributing CHALLENGE. This struggle is pivotal in winning large numbers of workers and youth to act on and advance communist ideas. It is from these dozens and hundreds who become CHALLENGE distributors that we will reap the next wave of new recruits.

Every struggle teaches us over and over again to have confidence in the working class to take communist leadership. During the anti-racist rebellion against police terror in Cincinnati last April, the rebels warmly embraced our Party. Rebuilding the communist movement is a monumental task. PLP is the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. The road ahead will be difficult. Now more than ever, we are focused on a bright communist future.

Break Illusions on Lesser Evil Politicians

HARLEM, NY, July 30--Former President Bill Clinton got a hero welcome today during the official opening of his office at the State Building. The last "elected Presiden" or "our President" many called him. Most black workers hate President Bush so much that they now look back to the Clinton administration as the
"the good old days." This illusion that Clinton was "the only black President" is fomented by the union leaders and black politicians like Rep. Charles Rangel, former Mayor Dinkins, etc. This "lesser evil" idea is a deadly illusion. The record speaks for itself: Under Clinton the number of black workers and youth soared to record numbers under his crime "reform" bill which paid for over 100,000 more racist cops in cities all over the country. In a future article we will deal with this deadly illusion on lesser evil politics.

Ford Declares War on Workers

MEXICO CITY, July 31 -- "War Room" reads the sign on the door to the new office of the Ford Cuautitlan plant manager. Every day the bosses meet here to make plans to super-exploit the workers in order to compete in the global auto market. Of the world's top automakers, Toyota is rated #1 in quality and productivity. Ford is last. In order to win the war against Toyota, VW, GM and DaimlerChrysler, they must wage war against Ford workers. This includes lean production, sub-contracting and enforcing iron discipline in the factory.

More than 700 workers will be permanently laid off August 3. By the end of the year, Ford plans to toss 75% of the current workforce onto the street, more than 2,000 workers in all. They are not planning to close the factory. In fact, there is talk of building a luxury car here (imagine the rate of profit when workers making $4.00 an hour build a Lincoln!). They want to replace the workers. This is an older, high-seniority workforce that is more political and battle-tested. There have been many fights here, including the one over the company's inability to impose the "Ford Plan" for lean production.

Ford figures workers who are politically active must go -- four months ago the local Union Committee was fired. Workers who are 55 and older must go -- workers are being fired 10 years before retirement. The company will keep temporary workers who will be super-exploited and discarded when they are no longer needed. After the new year, Ford will try to hire a younger, less combative workforce.

This is a clear violation of the labor laws. The Secretary of Labor supported Ford's firing of the Union Committee and applauded the re-election of a committee loyal to the company. President Fox's government is trying to crush the class struggle to make Mexico a more productive industrial country at workers' expense, attractive to more imperialist investment.

The company is trying to provoke job actions that can be used to attack the workers. A few weeks ago, some reformers tried to stop production for a day. The company did nothing to stop them. But no one followed the job action; the reformers were fired. Some were charged with "sabotage" and face criminal charges. Many workers are intimidated.

The reformers are trying to legally challenge the CTM union leaders in the next election. This is more than six months away and won't bring back one fired worker. Others want a Defense Committee to fight the firings and save jobs through mass action and a legal challenge. Ford workers need to reach out to VW workers in Puebla, to the UNAM students who shut the university down in a ten-month strike and autoworkers throughout the region and the world.

More workers are realizing that what is good for the boss is bad for them. In a very difficult situation, PLP is spreading our revolutionary communist politics among the workers. Let's turn Ford's war against the workers into a war to put the working class on the road to communist revolution.

PLP health Workers and Professionals Meet
`Serve the People'

CHICAGO, July 23 -- Doctors and patients, nurses and hospital workers, all sat together. Before them were the Chinese characters for "Serve the People." This was not a scene from "Away With All Pests," Joshua Horn's wonderful book about the amazing accomplishments of the Chinese Communists bringing health care to the masses. It was a PLP meeting of healthcare workers and professionals.

Many more people should hear the reports from this meeting. One focused on some episodes from "Away With All Pests," and how capitalist medicine emphasizes technology and technique as the main way to fight illness and disease. But the experiences of the Chinese communists demonstrated that politics and relying on the masses are primary. One way to "Serve the People" is to bring communist politics into the mass organizations and the class struggle.

In Chicago, the old Cook County Hospital had 1,400 beds and was supposed to guarantee health care for all. PLP members organized many fights against the bosses' failure to do that. The shiny, new Cook County has only 400 beds, and no intention of providing health care for all. We discussed organizing a mass campaign against this attack on the working class. Doctors proposed bringing this issue to their professional organizations like the American Public Health Association. Cook County workers vowed to make this a mass issue in the upcoming SEIU contract negotiations.

Contracts will also expire for 100,000 members of the Local 1199 Hospital Workers Union in New York City. PLP members are involved in this fight. We discussed how we could "Serve the People" in this contract struggle. The union leaders serve the bosses by imprisoning workers in a narrow, selfish, trade union outlook. A few pennies more and phony no-layoff clauses don't meet the needs of the working class. We must use these negotiations to fight racist attacks in health care which can help develop a mass base for PLP.

PLP is also fighting the bosses' "Anti-Violence Initiative." Our members described how the rulers use racist ideas to experiment on and drug working-class children, especially black and Latin children, and then take them from their parents. This "campaign against violence" is a cover for the real source of violence: capitalism's failure to meet the needs of the working class.

Some comrades are leaders with great organizing potential. Fighting for political leadership in the class struggle and in mass organizations means making CHALLENGE more of a mass organizer. We can involve many more healthcare workers and professionals in producing, distributing and reading our paper, including writing more articles about health care as well as about struggles we're waging worldwide. A mass base for CHALLENGE will produce the next wave of new recruits to the Party. The enthusiastic and determined comrades expressed confidence that we can "Serve the People."

Communism: The Best Medicine

Capitalism is killing people by the millions with its poor sanitation, inadequate housing, lousy nutrition and polluted air and water. It produces unimaginable wealth alongside grinding poverty, illiteracy and inadequate health care and is the cause of diseases plaguing the world. Except for war, nowhere is the murderous nature of capitalism laid bare more than in health care.

Communism offers the working class the promise of life. Experiences of the last 150 years show that the promise is real. The Russian and Chinese revolutions ushered in the most dramatic improvements in health ever documented in human history. Even though these revolutions were later reversed, the fact remains that working-class power, under communist leadership, led to a great leap forward in the quality of workers' lives. Rapid and dramatic progress in nutrition, housing and education developed alongside sharp attacks on racism, sexism and other capitalist ideas and practices. Universal medical care was free for all.

Workers on every continent have benefited from "the specter of communism" Marx and Engels talked about in the Communist Manifesto. In Europe and the U.S., over 80% of the decrease in deaths from pneumonia and infectious diarrhea occurred before the discovery of penicillin in the mid-20th century. This happened through bitter struggle, which forced the bosses to concede reforms that lengthened workers' lives while reducing the threat of revolution.

But socialism -- which the Soviet and Chinese communists felt had to be built first -- did not lead to communism. Wages and money were never eliminated by these early revolutions. The effect of that not only maintained features of capitalist relations but insured the growth of capitalist class divisions inside the Soviet Union and China. Eventually workers lost power.

Leaving "a little bit of capitalism" after the revolution is like leaving a little piece of the cancer after surgery. It completely changes the long-term outcome. A recent headline in the New York Times read, "China's Leader Urges Acceptance Of Capitalists in Communist Party." (PL Magazine ran this story in 1971.)

Today's world is all about the market, buying and selling; it's not a pretty picture. Life expectancy in Africa has fallen to 42 years. Africa has 10% of the world's population and 75% of the people that are infected with HIV and AIDS. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 224 million workers live in poverty in that part of the world. In the streets of Brazil, orphaned and homeless children are hunted down and killed by the police. In the U.S., over 50 million lack health insurance and two million languish in prison, 70% of whom are black and Latin workers. For the working class life remains poor, nasty, brutish and short.

People all around us have their own stories of how the system is killing them and their loved ones. As workers fight against their increasingly brutal exploitation, liberals will blame the conservatives, and vice versa. Communists must reveal the truth. Communist revolution is the medicine to cure the disease of capitalism.

The Chinese communists advanced the slogan "Serve the People." We must serve the working class by dressing the wounds inflicted by the system. At the same time we must be active in the class struggle to strengthen the revolutionary movement and build a mass PLP. We must give the penicillin, change the sheets and recruit to the Party.

Rulers' Agent Spills the Beans on Continuous Bombing of Iraq

A BBC News report on July 19 confirmed much of what CHALLENGE has said about U.S. policy towards Iraq:

"A former United Nations weapons inspector has accused the U.S. of deliberately provoking confrontations with Iraq, which, he says, was fully disarmed by 1995. Scott Ritter says the U.S. undermined the work of UNSCOM, the United Nations weapons inspection team in Iraq, and used the issue to push Iraq towards conflict with the West....

"Ritter says his team was satisfied Iraq had destroyed 98% of its weapons by 1995. But, he says, the U.S. government deliberately set new standards of disarmament criteria to maintain UN sanctions against Baghdad and justify bombing raids....Ritter said UNSCOM chief Richard Butler told his inspectors: `You have to provoke a confrontation...so the U.S. can start bombing' before March `15, a Muslim holy period....

"Ritter, an ex-U.S. marine intelligence officer, said Iraq `did cooperate to a very significant degree with the UN inspection process' and he blamed the United States for the breakdown. `The U.S. orchestrated the events that led to the demise of inspections,' he said. Ritter called for an end to sanctions...saying he did not feel the country posed a danger any longer....

"During his time with UNSCOM, Iraq accused Ritter of carrying out espionage for America and Israel....Ritter claimed Washington used UNSCOM to spy on Iraq almost from the time inspections began."

CHALLENGE comment:

Ritter and Butler play for the same team, despite their war of words. Their difference is tactical. Butler calls for a U.S.-British strike against Iraq now, on somewhat flimsy grounds. Ritter has a longer view that involves rounding up far more allies in a "humanitarian" cause under UN cover. In 1999, Ritter spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations (a Rockefeller think-tank), which employs Butler as "resident diplomat." With Plan A failing, the main, Rockefeller wing of the ruling class must come up with an alternative.

Ritter is closely allied with Ramsey Clark, the Attorney-General-turned-peacenik who forms a "blue ribbon commission of inquiry" whenever the rulers commit a particularly heinous atrocity. On April 27, 1999, PBS devoted its "Frontline" program to Ritter and his criticisms of the U.S. inspection/sanctions/bombing policy against Iraq. PBS now features this segment in its "PBS for Teachers" series, which it provides to schools at low cost. Colin Campbell, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, is chairman of PBS. Sharon Percy Rockefeller serves as a PBS director. PBS lists Exxon Mobil and J.P. Morgan Chase in its highest category of supporters. Ritter serves a two-fold purpose: 1) help formulate a broader, more viable war plan for the main wing that embraces "humanitarianism" and more allies under the UN banner; and 2) help the Ramsey Clarks divert popular anger into an ineffective anti-war movement that relies on the rulers' courts and commissions.

Ritter also aids the main wing's campaign to discipline the FBI. He claims the Bureau got him fired from the inspections team on false suspicion of "spying for Israel." The bosses are attacking the FBI because it put its view of law enforcement ahead of the rulers' broader needs.

Don't Stand Up for LTV--Nationalism Will Cut
More Jobs Worldwide

GARY, IN, July 31 -- In 1999, LTV workers accepted a wage-freeze contract (2% a year) and continued job-cuts with the idea of improving pensions, even though nothing was done for current retirees. PLP warned of the growing crisis threatening steelworkers, saying the bosses would cut wages, jobs and benefits. Some said we were wrong. But here we are, two years later, facing job-cuts, speed-up, a wage freeze and job combinations.

LTV filed for bankruptcy in December and must cut $800 million a year for five years. After months of haggling, LTV and the USWA union reached a tentative settlement. The union agreed to defer the August 1st pay increase until Jan. 1, 2003. The settlement also "gives" union members 20% "ownership" of LTV, two seats on the Board of Directors and a profit-sharing plan! Want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?

The USWA leadership is cooperating with the bosses so as not to scare off potential buyers. France's Usinor, Japan's Nippon and Britain's Ispat all toured the mill during last week's "Open House." Union negotiators told LTV to cut 1,300 jobs, instead of the 500 they proposed. They want workers to participate in joint productivity committees to cut even more jobs. The logical conclusion of "Stand Up for Steel," is "Save LTV's Ass." There's a good chance that whoever buys the mill will shut down steel-making and buy slabs from Brazil, where a slab mill is being built just for export to the U.S.

Many workers feel our only choice is to accept a plan that will make the bosses richer, cost jobs and probably won't work anyway. We totally reject "Stand up for Steel." Foreign steel and "foreign steelworkers" are not our problem. The steel bosses and union leaders wrap themselves in red, white and blue to get us to support a trade war today, and a shooting war down the road. Meanwhile, US Steel buys a steel mill in Slovakia for $250 million and the steel bosses are the biggest importers of semi-finished steel.

Bethlehem Steel will cut 300 white-collar jobs by Aug. 31, more than double the 140 they announced in May. They will also cut 340 jobs by closing a coke plant in New York.

Last year they slashed 500 salaried jobs, and eliminated another 100 jobs by closing the Burns Harbor slab mill in November. All together, Bethlehem has slashed more than 1,400 jobs since the beginning of the year. National Steel Corp.'s second-quarter earnings fell $110 million, despite $54 million in layoffs, overtime reductions and other cuts.

Bethlehem Steel and USX have already asked for "wage deferrals," and a line of steel bosses is forming to the right. We're in a race to the bottom. An international, industry-wide general strike would be a giant step in the right direction. For us, the fight is here and now. VOTE NO ON THE CONTRACT!

PLP'ers have been trying to organize visits with and meetings of LTV workers around rejection of the sellout contract. We've distributed "Vote No!" leaflets, as we did to oppose the 1999 contract. We joined a Committee on the Steel Crisis to advocate our ideas. We also organized a committee to fight a racist firing of a black worker and won his job back, as well as winning some steelworkers to join an anti-KKK rally here.

We need the unity of steelworkers around the world to fight for communist revolution. As long as the capitalists maintain their class dictatorship, the only guarantees are booms and busts, racist terror, poverty and speed-up, wars and famine, and a constant fight for survival. Production for profit must be replaced by production for the needs of the international working class.

Bosses' 24/7 Multiplies Profits, Subtracts Workers' Lives

According to The Wall Street Journal (7/24), manufacturing is increasingly structured around machines rather than the people who run them. In this period of sharpening competition, overcapacity and sagging profits, the bosses' can't afford to have a costly plant sit idle, even for an hour.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the world's biggest tire maker, is running most of its factories around the clock, seven days a week. The whole tire industry is on this schedule. Goodyear, like an estimated 90% of the companies adopting nonstop schedules, is moving to 12-hour shifts. Industries such as steel and chemicals always run continuously since it is costly and hazardous to stop and restart them. But over the last ten years, there has been a massive conversion to "24/7," from plastics to toothpaste to paper mills.

Many workers have resisted continuous operations. Some have struck. Eventually, most have given in. The longer workday is far more grueling, Workers lose premium and overtime pay when Saturday and Sunday become regular workdays. The company holds out the "carrot" of more days off and more weekends. The "stick" is the real threat of plant closings and shipping the work elsewhere.

New, more automated plants are often designed to run nonstop. They are air-conditioned and climate-controlled. In the 1970's, when auto workers demanded air conditioning to counter the stifling heat, the bosses and union leaders said they were nuts. But when machines are involved, it's a different story. The new Delphi Automotive parts plant in Cortland, Ohio, maintains a temperature and humidity level that allows plastic injection-molding machines to work more smoothly, produce better parts and last longer between repairs.

However, longer shifts undermine workers' safety. In stating the obvious, Alertness Solutions, a consulting firm in Cupertino, Calif., found that, "Fatigue undermines every aspect of human capability -- from decision-making abilities to alertness," with the most dangerous period from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. They estimate that 15% to 20% of all accidents in transportation operations are related to fatigue. Any safety expert or physician worth a dime has found a link between worker fatigue and accidents. A 1998 German study found that accidents rise rapidly after nine hours on a job.

Production for profit -- wage slavery -- will never meet the needs of the workers. To the bosses we're an extension of the machines we operate. Under capitalism, new developments to increase productivity or quality never serve the working class They will only increase the bosses' profits. It's only when the working class runs society that everyone can share the increased production. And then, workers' safety and health will still come before production.

Argentina: Workers Refuse to Starve to Pay Bosses' Debt to Vulture Bankers

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, July 31--Thousands of unemployed workers blocked roads in over 50 places across the country protesting the government's economic austerity program. This followed a huge general strike in mid-July. Argentina has been hit hard by the international crisis of capitalism. As usual, the bosses are making workers pay for the $130 billion debt to the international banking vultures.For the first time in recent memory hunger stalks the working class.

The rulers are now threatening the "piqueteros" (the name given to unemployed workers who block roads) with massive repression if they continue their militant actions. A few weeks ago the jobless had a shootout with the cops in the Salta province.

The situation here shows how capitalism in all its forms (free market is the latest one) is incapable of meeting workers needs. The latest round of attacks against workers began under the populist Peronista President Menem (now under house arrest for some crooked arms deals). It is continuing under President de la Rua. The best lesson workers can draw from their struggles is to turn them into battles for communism, for workers' power.

SEIU Union Leaders Undermine Workers'Struggle

SEATTLE, WA., July 31-- Fifty workers at the University of Washington Medical Center received disciplinary letters after hundreds of workers walked out on a one-day strike. They were reprimanded for "being away from their desks without supervisory approval," and "endangering patients." This is a lie since each department had a plan for coverage. In addition, these charges are ludicrous, coming from the people who profit off the capitalist "health care" system. Due to recent benefit cutbacks, most Medical Center workers can't even afford to go there for their own health care!

The Strike Committee of SEIU Local 925 decided to fight the disciplinary letters and build on the enthusiasm generated by the job action. The Committee planned to file a mass grievance, e-mail the entire membership, circulate a petition and have a large group of workers present them to the personnel boss.

The union leaders barred this mass action. They decided we shouldn't e-mail the members because the information might scare them! Weeks later, after much arguing, they agreed to a plan similar to the Committee's initial proposal, but the momentum was lost; many workers were demoralized by the lack of a rapid response.

One worker's e-mail said, "Several hundred members took...action almost three weeks ago and paid for it with a day's salary. Now we'll pay again with these letters of reprimand. Justice isn't free, I know. What isn't clear is how CSA/SEIU is leveraging the investment members made in the state budget battle...I haven't heard a word...from my union since..."

Another wrote, "The University is counting on the inability or unwillingness of the union leadership to act decisively...But WITHOUT MEMBERSHIP ACTION THE UNION IS A PAPER TIGER. The administration knows this. They have assessed our weaknesses and decided they may be able to...take some ground."

The union leaders are not just holding us back. By supporting the Democratic Party and accepting Workfare, prison labor and wars around the world, they are a force for fascism. We need to serve the people. In hospitals and clinics, our demands must center not only on wages and working conditions, but put in the forefront the fight for better medical care for patients.

We're boosting CHALLENGE distribution to help workers learn that decent healthcare will never be ours as long as it's based on profit. Communism is the only answer to the bosses, union hacks and the lousy system they support.

DC Protest Against Nazi Rally

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 29 --Over 100 angry protesters attacked a row of 50 Nazis who were walking from their bus to assemble outside the German Embassy here. They bloodied the head of Billy Roper, the propaganda chief of the National Alliance. He was hospitalized but returned later to preach his racist filth. Two demonstrators were arrested and charged with assault on the word of this Nazi scum.

The Nazis included members of the National Alliance, a long-standing West Virginia-based Nazi organization which has tried to popularize the fascist Turner Diaries; Matthew Hale's World Church of the Creator, one of whose members conducted a racist murder rampage in Chicago a year ago; and the British National Front, which has recently provoked racist confrontations in several English cities.

Protesters chanted loudly, "Immigrants yes, Nazis no"; and "Death to the Nazis," drowning out the fascists. The Nazis had chosen a posh neighborhood far removed from the city's working class to hold their rally. In the past, when the fascists appeared near working-class communities, PLP has led thousands to smash them.

Their alleged purpose was to call for the release of Hendrik Möbus, a Nazi recently deported to Germany to serve a prison term for Nazi activity. But by creating a beachhead for their activity in a major city, the Nazis have made a significant advance. They will use it to strengthen their public movement, attacking immigrant and black and Latin workers as the "cause"of the current economic downturn.

Today's experience demonstrates that PLP's militant and revolutionary approach is needed to crush such emerging fascist movements. All the more reason to convince family, friends and co-workers to join our Party.

Meanwhile, two actions against police brutality were taken here in the last few days. Members of the Prince George's People's Coalition for Police Accountability and Amnesty International joined with PLP members in a protest rally against the murder by cop Stacey Davis of Tomas Flamenco. We also rallied at the federal courthouse on the opening day of the trial of cop Stephanie Mohr, who used her police dog to maim a homeless Latino man in Prince George's County. More on these struggles in coming issues.

Hit SF Racist Cop-Murderers
Who Serve Bosses' System

SAN FRANCISCO, July 30 -- On July 11th, 150 workers and students protested at the Hall of Justice here against the racist murder on June 13th of Idriss Stelley, a young black man. He was shot more than 20 times by four SF cops at the Metreon Theater. Stelley, who had been diagnosed as manic-depressive, was suffering through a mental breakdown at the theater. He had no history of violence. His family had expected the police to help him, not murder him.

PLP members active in Bay Area unions and PUEBLO (People United for a Better Oakland), a community-based organization, brought people to the demonstration and distributed CHALLENGE and a leaflet. The latter urged joint protest actions by SF unions as a step in the development of class consciousness needed to get this vicious capitalist system that murders workers like Stelley off our backs.

Following the July 11th protest, participants entered the Hall of Justice to speak at a SF Police Commission meeting. They demanded that a police report about the shooting be given to the Stelley family and an independent criminal investigation be conducted. Another protest around these demands and for mandatory crisis intervention training for SFPD officers has been called for the August 8th SF Police Commission meeting.

Workers should have no illusion about police commissions and civilian review boards. They're composed of political appointees, have no subpoena power, can only make "recommendations" about firing, suspension or removal of officers involved in police brutality cases, and have no means of disciplining the cops.

There should be no illusions about the cops. They're the special body of armed enforcers of the rule of the capitalist class. Their job is to smash any working-class struggles against that rule. The ruling class always uses violence against workers in order to maintain its power; the police and the entire capitalist state apparatus are their agents. The necessity for revolutionary violence is glaringly apparent and absolutely necessary to get rid of that system.

Bay Area PLP members are active in mass organizations to build revolutionary class consciousness. We engage in discussions and struggles around these ideas while participating in the ongoing protests like this one about the Stelley murder. We are continuing to call for joint union protests against this racist killing.

Boeing Workers Read Between the Lies

I know I shouldn't be, but I am always amazed at what CHALLENGE readers come up with. Reading the Party's newspaper issue after issue teaches us to look for the "big" questions behind events. Two recent discussions with co-workers illustrate my point. They quickly turned our normal workday conversations into ones about the "big" two: imperialism and racism.

A friend was visibly upset over the crackdown at the Genoa G8 meeting. (We both had been Union Marshals at a World Trade Organization meeting.) "This can't go on," he predicted. "Something big has to happen if this continues."

"It can go on for quite a while," I cautioned. "After all, the bosses have already murdered dozens of demonstrators against `globalization' in India, Africa and Latin America." Without being too arrogant I tried to make the point that what really matters is what kind of ideology the demonstrators -- and, by extension, the whole working class -- come away with.

This led to a longer discussion about obfuscation (smokescreens) by the bosses. (CHALLENGE also inspires us to broaden our vocabulary!) We talked about the new book Empire, which the New York Times wants to make the bible of the anti-globalization movement. Empire says there is no more imperialism, just global corporations that need to be taught about democracy by the demonstrators.

I contrasted that with the line coming out of Europe, which is much more likely to talk about imperialism, but only U.S. imperialism. So we saw that despite the best of intentions of the rank-and-file, the imperialists are working overtime to win us to support one or another side of the sharpening imperialist rivalry. My friend didn't consider any of this to be "out of left field"; by reading our paper he was already skilled in looking beneath the surface. We ran out of time so I invited him to our next Party club meeting to help us work out how our union figures in all this.

I thought I had done my political work for the day, but no such luck. Soon afterwards, another worker approached me, saying He was reviewing some of our literature during the last union election campaign -- particularly the part about fighting racism at Boeing.

"Racism really isn't a big issue at Boeing," he goaded me. Then a big grin broke across this white worker's face. "Like hell it isn't. It's more an issue now than ever!"

I agreed, but then he got to his real question. "How much does this racism really affect the big picture though?" he mused.

"It affects everything," I assured him. "You were in the army during the Vietnam War, right? When the bosses decide they are going to fight it out for markets and profits, don't they turn to us to do their killing and dying? How do they get us to kill and die for their imperialism? They use racism. Didn't they teach you to think of the Vietnamese as g--ks, as subhuman? They always use racism to get us to do the bosses' dirty work."

"I know exactly what you're getting at!" he reassured me.

I know these two discussions don't make a revolution. Nevertheless, I do think we sometimes underestimate the value of a network of CHALLENGE readers. Linking the fight against racism to the fight against imperialism is nothing to sneer at.

An industrial comrade

G-8 Bosses Drive for Maximum Profits Breeds Mass Poverty Worldwide

At the recent G-8 meeting of Western, Russian and Japanese imperialists in Genoa, Italy, police murdered Carlo Giuliani. He is not the first to die fighting imperialism. Tens of thousands have been murdered in Africa, Asia, and Latin America fighting the ravages of "globalization." The imperialist bosses are a murderous gang. Never in history have the workers of the world been so impoverished and exploited as they are today. More than one billion people subsist on less than $2 a day.

Japan, North America and the European Union make up 81% of world trade. Add coastal China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia and it's 94%. Far from "globalizing," this trend has intensified the competition between the U.S., Europe and Japan. These imperialists will spill the blood of millions to control markets, resources and cheap labor! It was just across the Adriatic Sea that NATO planes bombed Yugoslav factories, bridges, schools and the Chinese embassy to control oil pipelines going through Yugoslavia to the markets of Europe.

Last April in Cincinnati, black, Latin and white workers and youth erupted in mass rebellion after Timothy Thomas was murdered by a racist cop. Cops rioted against demonstrators in Barcelona just a month ago. When it comes to deadly violence and mayhem, capitalism is number one. Capitalist production for profit creates mass poverty. Imperialism makes war inevitable. The only solution is communist revolution.

When we reject the anarchists' anctics (infiltrated by the cops in Genoa and Barcelona), we also state that they, the union leaders and the liberal politicians are incapable of smashing imperialism. Demands for "democracy" and "sovereignty" build nationalism, which only serves the imperialists. But 60 years ago in cities like Genoa, the working class built a mass Communist Party that was decisive in helping to defeat the Hitler and Mussolini forces in Italy, eventually hanging the latter. The world communist movement, led by the Soviet Red Army, crushed the Nazi war machine.

However, the old communist movement failed because it maintained powerful capitalist conditions like wages, money and production for profit. Seeing this, we can overcome those errors and build on the strengths of a movement that, even with its weaknesses then, changed the course of human history. But PLP organizing and winning the working class is crucial to rebuilding the international communist movement. This is a long-term fight. In Russia, in China and in Vietnam, the communist movement proved that the imperialists could be defeated. Now it is our responsibility to finish the job and build a communist world, where we will plan and produce for the needs and health of the working class, not the profits and wars of the imperialists.

Jamaica: Class Warfare Must Replace Gang Warfare

KINGSTON, JAMAICA, July 30--This Caribbean island has a long history of fierce class struggle, from the maroons who led slave revolts to the trade union movement in the 1930's to the struggle for socialism in the 1970's. It is not surprising that the very political Bob Marley came out of Jamaica, writing and singing about oppression and standing up for people's rights.

During a short visit there recently, forms of class struggle were evident. The local news broadcast demonstrations against the closing of a neighborhood women's clinic and one against the sentencing of some residents for possession of miniscule amounts of marijuana. Just a few days before gun battle erupted between police and residents of Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston.

Heavily armed police backed by helicopters moved in on July 7 to search for guns in the Tivoli Gardens neighborhood, a stronghold of the opposition right-wing Jamaica Labor Party (JLP). The JLP, with ties to the wealthiest "old money" in Jamaica, financed the construction of housing in that area in exchange for political loyalty. In fact, it seemed clear that the JLP had provoked the street fighting and then sent former Prime Minister Edward Seaga (Ronald Reagan buddy) to the area to appear to "quell the violence." The police action set off days of street fighting involving civilians. Four more people were killed last week in the Kingston neighborhood of Denham Town, bringing total casualties to 69 since May.

Political violence is not new to Jamaica, More than 500 people were killed before the 1980 elections and dozens more died before national votes in 1993 and 1997. The change in recent years appears to be increased involvement in the drug trade. Some speculate Jamaica may even become another Colombia.

Along with drug trafficking, tourism is one of the major industries, mainly on the North Coast. As in the rest of the Caribbean, it has brought with it revenue and jobs while putting the country "up for sale." Jamaicans are treated as second class citizens when entering hotels and tourist sites. Although law states that all beaches are public property, many Jamaicans are waited on last or totally ignored while others are being served. In fact, some have used the term "apartheid Jamaica" to describe the disparities between the tourist world and the rest of Jamaica.

More than ever, Jamaica needs a revolutionary movement that will expropriate all the wealth that belongs to the people and replace gang violence with class struggle to end exploitation.

(Future issue: A review of Jamaica: Life & Debt, a film about the tourist industry)

CIA Saved and Hired Thousands of Nazi War Criminals

Recently-uncovered archives confirm even more so what has been known for decades: the CIA (and its predecessor, the OSS) recruited thousands of Nazis for its spy apparatus, helping them escape punishment, in order to wage Cold War against the once-Socialist USSR. Their actions violated the Yalta Treaty signed by Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin stipulating that all captured German officers involved in the Eastern Front during the war would be turned over to the Soviets to be tried for war crimes.

Emil Augsburg, who planned the Final Solution to exterminate all Jews and was wanted in Poland as a war criminal, was employed by the CIA in the late 1940s as an expert on Soviet affairs. Reinhard Gehlen, who oversaw Hitler's military intelligence in Eastern Europe and the USSR during World War II, was quickly spirited away by the CIA to Fort Hunt, Virginia, to organize sabotage in Eastern Europe and the USSR with his nest of spies.

Based near Munich, Gehlen enlisted thousands of former members of the Gestapo and the SS to work in the CIA operation, linking up with all the fascist scum that went underground in Eastern Europe after WW II. This included the above-mentioned Augsburg as well as the senior "administrators" of the Holocaust -- Adolf Eichmann's chief deputy Alois Brunner and Gestapo captain Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon." Barbie was among many who the CIA helped to later escape to Latin America where, as "security advisors," became some of the architects of the death squads. Barbie assisted a succession of military dictatorships in Bolivia, teaching soldiers Nazi torture techniques and helping to protect the flourishing cocaine trade in the late 1970s and early '80s.

This CIA wholesale recruiting of Nazi war criminals was a continuation of the U.S. and Western anti-Soviet campaign to crush the Bolshevik revolution begun in 1917. The Soviet working class defeated an initial 8-year invasion of the USSR by the U.S. and 16 other capitalist countries. Then the U.S., Britain and France helped build up Hitler and his ruling-class backers, expecting he would move East to destroy the world's first Socialist state.

This anti-Soviet campaign endured in various forms right through WW II, when the U.S. and the USSR were allies, and intensified in the post-war era when U.S. rulers launched the Cold War, using these thousands of Nazi war criminals. One of its architects was Allen Dulles who headed the CIA after WW II. Dulles had been an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazis before the war and had been identified as "an economic booster of the Axis" (the Germany-Italy-Japan alliance) by Time magazine in 1939.

"Never again"? Only by destroying capitalism,

Battle of Stalingrad: Turning Point of World War 2

Some months ago the movie "Enemy At the Gates" opened, continuing the anti-communist attempt to wipe out the monumental communist victory at Stalingrad. In the movie this most decisive battle of World War II degenerates into meaningless nonsense: the sniper who kills the most opponents wins the war! U.S. rulers, fearing the truth about the role of the Stalin leadership, the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet working class, ridicules this fantastic Soviet achievement.

Why the titanic fight at Stalingrad?

Hitler needed Stalingrad because it barred the fascists from seizing: (1) Soviet Black Sea naval bases to transport their military beyond the reach of Soviet attack; (2) the entire Caucuses region with its food, labor and resources; (3) most important of all, the Baku oil fields; and (4) Iranian oil. The Caucuses, bordering on Iran (with Iraq close by) had enough oil to fuel Germany's war machine for as long as needed. One reason the U.S. and Britain were able to defeat Hitler in the West was the Germans' lack of fuel for their tanks and new rocket planes. (But primarily, the Red Army tied up 80% of the entire German military.)

`Not one step back...'

The Soviets defended Stalingrad not only to thwart the above Hitler strategy, but also to be a massive pit of quicksand that would suck in and destroy the German armies. Thus Stalin's slogan, "Not one step back."

Incessant German bombing of Stalingrad destroyed virtually every building. The Soviets made what was left the war front itself, fighting for every floor, stairway, room and corner. Hand-to-hand fighting became the "normal" method of living or dying. Town hills and houses changed hands up to five times a day, yet 20 Soviet soldiers held one building for almost two months. The whole city was defended this way. Whatever factories existed continued to produce and repair all weapons. If one was attacked, the workers would fight alongside the soldiers to hold it. The women workers were full partners in this and in practically all phases of the war.

Such close-in fighting seriously weakened the power of Nazi tank superiority and provided much less protection for German troops. German aircraft became useless since they would kill their own soldiers. Such fighting killed, crippled or injured up to tens of thousands of soldiers, on both sides, every week!

General Von Paulus, commander of the 6th German Army, concentrated on providing all the reinforcements needed to capture Stalingrad; this was just what the Soviets intended (see below). The Soviets sent minimum reinforcements and only under the most desperate conditions. Ironically, this tactic eventually contributed greatly to the Soviet victory.

By the end of November 1942, the Germans had captured most of Stalingrad but could not dislodge even the minimum amount of Russian troops still holding a small area. During these battles, Stalin rejected advice to retreat, saying in part, "The most important thing is not to panic...have faith in our victory."

Then came the incredible turning point, the reason for fighting to the death for over five months for every yard, cellar, hallway and house, using dangerously meager Soviet reinforcements. From north and south of Stalingrad came the massive hidden Soviet armies, almost one million strong, hundreds of tanks and over 1,000 planes. Cannons, 15,000 stromg, opened fire, starting the trap.

The Germans were so concentrated into Stalingrad itself that they never thought the Soviets would or could mount such an attack. The Soviets surrounded the entire Germany army -- over 300,000 soldiers and seven armored divisions. For two months, the Germans could not break out. In January 1943, they surrendered. The five-month battle for Stalingrad became the acknowledged turning point of WW II.

AFTERMATH

Gen. Douglas MacArthur, one of the U.S. ruling class's best generals, most pro-capitalist defender and fiercest anti-communist, declared, "...The scale and grandeur of the Soviet effort mark it as the greatest military achievement in all history."

But military might is not necessarily the most crucial factor for victory. Nikita Khrushchev was the political commissar at Stalingrad and second-in-command of one of the three major Soviet armies fighting the fascists. He contributed toward victory and Stalin thought highly of him. Yet in 1953, ten years after Stalingrad, only eight years after WW II ended and less than a year after Stalin's death, Khrushchev became prime minister and denounced Stalin -- the man he often praised -- rejecting communist revolution as the way for communists to win power. He consciously steered the world communist movement towards revisionism, but remember, this trend started earlier under the incorrect goal of "Socialism first, then communism."

Politics, then, is always primary, no matter what the battle of the moment, in insuring communist victory. The enemy -- capitalism -- is still breaking through the gates and remains to be defeated.

LETTERS
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, WRITE!

Hitler Danced to Wagner Racist Tune

In Chicago, like elsewhere, people are debating what neo-racist Daniel Bernboim did. He recently played the music of Richard Wagner in Israel. The reason for the controversey? Wagner was Hitler's favorite composer. Those defending Bernboim say there's no connection between Wagner and Auschwitz. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

One of the major founders of modern racism was Arthur de Gobineau who wrote The Inequality of the Races. He proclaimed a white Aryan superior race, entitled to rule over blacks, Asians and Semites, with blacks at the bottom. His ideology was the basis of the De Gobineau Society, founded by Richard Wagner to promulgate racism in 19th century Germany.

Wagner expanded on the Semitic references, helping to change the question of Judaism from a religious one to a racial one. Prior to the rise of anti-Jewish racism, a Jew could convert to Christianity or simply declare him or herself an atheist and cease to be a Jew. But Wagner's De Gobineau society argued that Jews constituted a "race," one worse than black or yellow people because they looked white. Indeed, the most "dangerous" were the children of Christian converts like Mendelssohn.

In his viciously racist book, The Jew in Music (available at all of his Bayreuth performances), Wagner blames the Jew, and "his control of gold," for all the evils of society. In all his major operas, the evil characters are aspects of the "Jewish Menace," especially Albrecht the Dwarf in the Ring cycle.

The ideology of the De Gobineau Society directly influenced Nazis like Houston Stewart Chamberlain (Wagner's son-in-law and most devoted disciple), Alfred Rosenberg (a disciple of Chamberlain), and Adolf Hitler (a disciple of Rosenberg). Wagner's racist ideas were a major influence on SS leaders like Himmler, Heydrich and Karltenbrunner; they created the Nuremberg laws, which defined anyone with Jewish ancestry as worthy of persecution and extermination. Wagner was Hitler's favorite composer, for his corrupt music but mainly for his evil ideology, which German rulers would make the basis not only of the Holocaust but also of World War II, killing tens of millions, Jew and non-Jew alike. Had it not been for the courage, commitment and heroism of the Soviet Red Army, we now might be suffering under Wagner's ideology and music.

Fight for communist art! Down with fascist art, no matter how "beyootiful!"

Chicago comrade

Stop KKK in Lancaster, Pa.

The KKK is planning a September 8 rally at the Lancaster County Court House, 50 Duke Street, in Lancaster, PA. While not knowing anyone in that area, three of us went to Lancaster with leaflets and CHALLENGES that, (1) explained why PLP organizes against the Klan whenever and wherever they appear; and (2) encouraged people to turn out to oppose their racism and prevent them from having the rally altogether.

The reception we received was nothing short of terrific! Just about everyone we spoke with said they hated the Klan and wanted to do something to stop them. About 30 people gave us their names and telephone numbers and asked us to call them back. Only a few people were put off by our call for communism as the only way to get rid of groups like the KKK. No one objected to the leaflet's headlines: "Smash the Klan" and "Death to the Klan." We intend to follow up with the people we met and return to Lancaster weekly.

This was the first time one of our comrades had done anything like this. She sells a great many CHALLENGES on her job but is often hesitant to do new things. But she's changing. At the May Day march, she overcame her fear and spoke from the sound truck. Now she learned that talking to people you don't even know about so-called "controversial issues" is something she can do and do well.

However, we had no Spanish-speaking comrade, no Spanish version of the leaflet and no DESAFIOS. Also, we didn't ask enough questions by listening to the people we met, spending too much time telling them our ideas. We will correct these errors when we return.

Pennsylvania comrade

`Churchmice' Multiply!

Our PLP club studied this letter from "Two, Three, Many Red Churchmice" in the July 18 issue. It's an inspiring and instructive story of what six years of consistent communist work in a mass organization can accomplish. I suggest the Party study this letter in every club, with emphasis on how to apply it to work in other mass organizations. It started with one comrade participating in a soup kitchen in an inner-city church. Six years later that comrade and two new members brought almost 30 people to May Day. The church board unanimously passed a resolution supporting our comrades and friends who face felony charges for militantly opposing a racist organization and the church's 300-person mailing list was made available to enlist support.

The letter suggests that attack from church leaders and city politicians is likely, and that they intend to grow in the face of attack. When attacked they will have an opportunity to make communism the question throughout the city and their religious denomination. They'd be smart to take the offensive and spread their ideas and actions now.

Inspired by the Churchmice

Empire Is Apology for Imperialism

The Red Eye column quotes sources from mainstream capitalist media to expose how even the capitalist media sees problems with how capitalism functions. On occasion, however, it is sometimes confusing because it is unclear how closely PLP agrees with an item. In a recent Red Eye there is a review of the anti-communist, anti-Marxist book Empire, by Hardt and Negri. The "PLP comment" as reflected in the heading simply implies this is yet another piece of evidence capitalism is in trouble. In the absence of further comments, it implies major PLP agreement with the analysis in that review.

In fact, PLP's analysis is very different from Hardt and Negri. All kinds of bad political groups, from anarchists to liberals to conservatives to fascists, sometimes say the system's in trouble. If PLP quotes them, we should be very clear we don't agree with their analysis. Empire basically asserts the old capitalist line that "globalization" will bring modernization to the world and while increasing the power of the super-rich across nations, it will actually make the world more democratic. It pretends to be pro-Marxist by appearing to be based on a one-sided aspect of Marx's theory -- that capitalism has contradictions, and that it does modernize parts of the world in ways that create new problems for the capitalists.

We in PLP do believe the increasing internationalization of investments will create new problems for the capitalists and that the flow of workers across borders will open up new possibilities for international unity of workers. But we believe that the primary outcome of this internationalization will be increased competition and eventually major war. While there are certain "laws" (really processes) of capitalist development, specific capitalists will utilize politics, including war, when those processes put them at a disadvantage! They are not going to say: "Gee, I guess I lost out fair and square to the other capitalists."

Capitalists still need armies, and the nation-state with its political unity, is the main basis for those armies. PLP does support internationalism and does not give political support to the ideology of so-called "revolutionary nationalism," but PLP very strongly supports and participates in movements against imperialist exploitation. Unlike Hardt and Negri, we do not see "democracy" as the result of a so-called multi-national capitalist class. We see war, including increased nationalism as the backlash. We see it as a revolutionary responsibility to participate in and turn so-called national liberation struggles into, struggles for communist revolution.We also want to engage in other reform struggles for the same purpose.

Serious radical anti-capitalists worldwide are attacking Empire for its anti-revolutionary, pro-capitalist develop- ment theory. We don't want anyone to conclude that PLP agrees with its basic reactionary analysis.

Red Teacher

Crisis of Overproduction

The front-page article in the May Day issue contains political and economic errors. Firstly, in discussing the origin of capitalist crises in capitalist production, the article refers to the capitalists' "drive to obtain larger shares of the market at each other's expense" which "leads to tremendous overproduction in both the means of production and in the finished products." There is some unclarity here because "finished products" actually include means of production and military equipment, as well as consumer goods.

Secondly, and more important, the article then leaves a misimpression:

"Since workers are not paid the full value of what they produce, they cannot buy all the goods flooding the market. This insatiable and anarchic drive to reap maximum profits causes periodic crises -- depressions."

But since many "finished products" are not produced for individual workers to buy back, the cause of crises cannot be that workers are not paid enough; this leads to the revisionist argument that if workers were given higher wages, crises of overproduction could be avoided. Crises are caused by overproduction, which leads to decreased profits. They are caused by under- consumption. The source of overproduction lies in the inevitable planlessness -- anarchy -- of production which is based on a race for higher profits and not on producing what people and society need.

As capitalism matures, a larger and larger proportion of investment capital is poured into machinery and less is apportioned to workers' wages, since production becomes less and less labor intensive. But only workers' labor can produce the surplus value from which profits are taken, so this change of where each portion of capital goes tends to force the rate of profit down. Additional investment brings in less, not more profits and new investment slows and then ceases. Stocks and bonds are then dumped for sale. This ushers in a crisis.

A Reader

Kids Book Doesn't Duck Revolution

As an elementary school teacher, I am very interested in the political content of literature written for young and upper primary school children. In class, my students and I discuss many of these read-aloud stories, all of which carry the same political messages as adult literature. Most young children have made major decisions about race and gender relations by age 4, (sometimes earlier) and are influenced by the potent political messages in the books they read and hear.

While authors of children's literature have become very skillful in making sophisticated political ideas accessible to children, they do not often write about revolution. Not often is a children's book passed eagerly from hand to hand by marchers going to May Day. However, Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury is such a book.

Written for children of pre-school age and up, it tells the story of a fat, lazy farmer who lounges in bed all day eating chocolates while his exhausted duck does all the work. He not only serves the farmer, but also cares for all the animals and maintains the farm. The cows, sheep and hens, who love the duck, become enraged at the farmer's oppression of their friend and care-giver. They organize to throw the farmer out of his bed and off the farm. The book ends with everyone happily working together to run the farm.

While picture books are written for young children, they can serve a wider audience. Young primary school students can read the books independently

and to their parents.

Certainly teachers of young children can read it aloud and discuss it in class. The illustrations in Farmer Duck are hilarious, making it interesting to older students. A book that introduces young children to revolution is rare but essential -- a must read.

Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell, Candlewick Press, 1996, 1-56402-569=9, $4.99, is available in bookstores in children's sections/picture books. It can be ordered as well.

Red Teacher