a href="#Red-Led Working Class Must Fight U.S.Rulers’ Blueprint for Fascism">"ed-Led Working Class Must Fight U.S.Rulers’ Blueprint for Fascism

• a href="#U.S. Rulers: Terror R’ Us">".S. Rulers: Terror R’Us
• Exxon Aims for Iraqi Oil

Ecuador: Uprising Against 500 Years of Racism

a href="#Bogotá and Boeing: ‘Humanitarian’ Imperialism Won’t Work">Bogot" and Boeing: ‘Humanitarian’ Imperialism Won’t Work

Boeing Workers Back Bavaria Strikers

a href="#Bethlehem, American, LTV… Steel Bosses’ Profit Squeeze Kills!">Be"hlehem, American, LTV… Steel Bosses’ Profit Squeeze Kills!

British Steelworker Rebellion Brewing Over Huge Job Cuts

Overproduction, Corruption Slams Korean Autoworkers

LA Garment Workers Defiance of Bosses: Good Omen For May Day

a href="#SUNY PLP’ers Build Campus Worker-Student Alliance">"UNY PLP’ers Build Campus Worker-Student Alliance

a href="#‘Free Trade’—‘Internationalism’ For the Bosses">‘Free Tr"de’—‘Internationalism’ For the Bosses

May Day and the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the International Working Class

a href="#The Real Drug ‘Traffic’-ers: The Bosses, Banks, & Gov’t">The "eal Drug ‘Traffic’-ers: The Bosses, Banks, & Gov’t

LETTERS

Black Woman Pilot Flies For May Day

Put Dialectics in the Classroom

a href="#Math—Is Being ‘Drilled’, Being ‘Screwed’?">Math—Is "eing ‘Drilled’, Being ‘Screwed’?

Nationalism Fuels Auto Wars

a name="Red-Led Working Class Must Fight U.S.Rulers’ Blueprint for Fascism">">"ed-Led Working Class Must Fight U.S.Rulers’ Blueprint for Fascism

CHALLENGE has referred frequently in recent months to a ruling-class blueprint for the fascist reorganization of U.S. society, devised by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (also called the Hart-Rudman Commission). The third and final phase of this plan was published on January 31. It contains long-range strategic recommendations for maintaining U.S. imperialism’s world supremacy. This Commission contains high-ranking Republicans and Democrats. All major figures among the big bosses support its findings.

The report anticipates mass bloodshed on U.S. soil from "terrorist" attacks and calls for ruthless measures to prevent or counter them. The Commission says the rulers must prepare to launch ever-widening wars against rivals. It makes a series of suggestions for centralizing the state apparatus under one command and for militarizing society as a whole.

Workers must make a balanced, accurate assessment of this ruling-class plan. On the one hand, our class enemy has great tactical advantages and strengths, as well as a proven willingness to spill enormous amounts of working-class blood in defense of its profit interests. The rulers can probably carry out many aspects of the Hart-Rudman proposals. On the other hand they have a crucial weakness—they can no longer rule in the old way but must move increasingly to fascism to enforce their power. The growth of PLP and the spread of mass communist consciousness among workers and others can turn all the rulers’ power into its opposite. Fascism and war are inevitable. U.S. imperialism’s ability to rule the world forever is not. The crucial question remains: what will PLP do to grow under any and all circumstances?

The Commission’s key recommendations:

•Creating a National Homeland Security Agency (NHSA) to supervise all "homeland security" under one government umbrella;

•Transferring the Customs Service, the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard to NHSA;

•Converting the National Guard into a European-style internal security force;

•Putting under one roof the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Energy and Transportation, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency;

•Pushing math and science education for military purposes and target historically black colleges and universities as sources of recruitment;

Militarizing the economy by making the Secretary of the Treasury a member of the National Security Council;

Having every member of Congress participate in war games at least once every two years;

Streamlining the nomination process for Cabinet and other high-ranking posts to prevent partisan bickering.

This is obviously a very broad design to force discipline within the ruling class and support for the Eastern Establishment agenda of maintaining U.S. world domination. It’s also a scheme for terrorizing workers on the home front and stifling the inevitable class struggles sure to erupt as workers eventually rebel against economic oppression, racism and the horrors of bosses’ profit wars (see CHALLENGE, 2/14). As such, both "liberals" and "conservatives" have applauded the Commission’s recommendations. Democrat Lee Hamilton of Indiana, a Commissioner, urged Congress to support it. A key Bush ally, Texas Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry, gushed: "I think every conclusion is exactly right, and I think every recommendation that they’ve made needs to happen" ("Defense News," 1/15).

Thornberry is a revealing case. In his support of Bush vs. Gore, he was as partisan as they come. But his deep loyalty lies with U.S. imperialism. In 1999, he attended a national security conference sponsored by the Tufts University Fletcher School. His classmates included Hart-Rudman Commission co-chair Republican Warren Rudman, Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, and liberal Republican William Cohen, Clinton’s last defense secretary.

The conference’s final report reflects the rulers’ desperate worry that the U.S. working class will not willingly die to keep U.S. imperialism in the driver’s seat: "The…conflicting requirements of U.S. global strategy and the persistence of a strategic culture that contains minimal tolerance for casualties will produce a growing dilemma for the United States as a twenty-first century super-power. It will therefore be especially important for policy-makers to muster broad public support for U.S. national security policy."

In other words, the "Vietnam Syndrome" continues to plague the rulers. In 1991, Bush, Sr. blinked at the prospect of taking mass casualties on the road to Baghdad and left Saddam Hussein in power rather than risk them. In 1993, Clinton left Somalia with his tail between his legs after a handful of U.S. troops had died there. In 1999, fear of the political reaction to ground casualties led Clinton to announce at the very beginning that the U.S./NATO slaughter for oil pipelines in the former Yugoslavia would be limited to an air war.

Mustering "broad public support" for the "sacrifice [of] blood and treasure" (as the Commission’s Phase I report puts it) that will be required to defend U.S. imperialism in the next 25 years is a very tall order. The bosses may well find a way to discipline their own ranks. Many of the Commission’s recommendations for reorganizing state power are likely to be adopted in one form or another. But winning the working class is another matter altogether.

As conditions sharpen, the gap between the rulers’ need for willing cannon-fodder and the workers’ desire for an alternative to war and fascism can only increase. Our Party’s main job, now and for the foreseeable future, is to widen that gap and build the PLP in the process. Millions of young workers remain open to communism. We must find the ways to lead them to it.

a name="U.S. Rulers: Terror R’ Us">">".S. Rulers: Terror R’ Us

All three phases of the Hart-Rudman Commission report predict large loss of human life on U.S. soil from various terrorist attacks. Aside from the hypocrisy involved, any time the biggest terrorists in world history point the finger at someone else’s atrocities, this particular warning almost looks like a prayer that such attacks will happen. The rulers openly worry that they need to motivate workers inside and outside the military. Phase I of Hart-Rudman longs for a "Pearl Harbor" type of event to unite the country. Don’t put it past the bosses to orchestrate such an attack themselves. They’ve done it before, in Vietnam (in lying that the north Vietnamese attacked a U.S. warship in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964) and in Cuba (the Hearst-orchestrated sinking of the battleship Maine in 1898). And the stage is being set to identify a villain. Leading candidates are Saddam Hussein, whom the U.S. press calls a threat to the entire world, and Osama bin Laden, who’s been portrayed as worse than Hitler and Saddam combined. If terrorist threats didn’t exist, the bosses would have to invent them. The crudeness with which they’re going about it reflects their deep strategic weakness.

Exxon Aims for Iraqi Oil

The Feb. 14th CHALLENGE described the failure of U.S. imperialism’s Iraq policy. The NEW YORK TIMES (2/11 editorial) admits this failure and orders the Bush Adminisration to reverse it: "Thwarting…Hussein’s ambition to rebuild his military forces must remain the central goal of American policy." But this order is more easily given than carried out. As we’ve often reported, U.S. bosses’ French and Russian rivals have huge contracts for Iraqi oil. Sanctions don’t work when they aren’t unanimously enforced. All they do is kill lots of workers and children. U.S. imperialism is doing this daily without winning its goals, which include preventing Iraqi oil from competing with Exxon-Mobil. So right now the best Bush and his Secy. of State Powell can do is tread water while continuing to murder Iraqi kids.

Ground war remains the only strategic option for controlling Iraqi energy reserves. This means taking a huge risk with a U.S. military showing no sign of wanting an all-out fight for Exxon’s oily wealth. However, it’s a risk the rulers will ultimately have to take. The leadership given by PLP in the coming period can greatly influence how this contradiction plays out when ground war for Persian Gulf oil actually starts.

Ecuador: Uprising Against 500 Years of Racism

QUITO, ECUADOR, Feb. 13 — This country is the most recent clear example that capitalism is a failure for the masses and that the only way out of this hell is to fight for communism.

A Century’s Loss of Social Gains in One Year

According to UNICEF (UN agency for children), in the last year Ecuador has fallen back a century in social progress. Over one million people have emigrated in the last few years, fleeing from the misery caused by the profit system and its crooked politicians (who have stolen the oil wealth produced by workers here). Inflation is the highest on the continent. Racism against the indigenous population is rampant. And now the city of Manta is the site of a U.S. air base used to help the fascist army of neighboring Colombia in its war against the guerrillas there.

But workers are fighting back. Under the slogan of, "We’ve had enough with 500 years of slavery and racism," tens of thousands of indigenous people marched from their communities to Quito. Thousands seized highways and other areas. For several weeks they confronted the cops and the army.

Several protesters were slain in the Napo region. Angry demonstrators retaliated by burning down the local airport control tower to prevent more soldiers from reaching the region. This militant mass reaction forced the soldiers to withdraw to their bases.

This new mass movement offer great lessons to all those wanting to fight capitalism. Firstly, the masses conpletely isolated the traditional union hacks, taking the movement out of their control. The hacks tried to cover their faces by calling for a general strike a week after the mass uprising began. But their past treacheries and accommodations with the local bosses and with the imperialists’ International Monetary Fund are not being forgotten by the most militant workers and their allies.

Secondly, the reformist leadership of the indigenous people has also exposed itself, though it still controls much of the movement. Rank-and-file workers and youth took militant actions in spite of the leadership’s pacifism. When the angry indigenous workers came to take over Quito, the traitorous leadership did its job by holding the demonstrators in the Salesian University, instead of sending them to the working-class neighborhoods. They feared a full-blown insurrection. Realizing this, the leaders and the government reached a deal, offering the angry masses some crumbs.

But this won’t solve any basic problems. The contradictions are bound to sharpen: "President Noboa signed an agreement …with the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), ending a two-week national uprising by thousands of poor Indians…While Foreign Minister Heinz Moeller said the Noboa government barely had averted a civil war, implementing necessary economic reforms in the country will prove more difficult." (Stratfor.com, 2/12)

PLP Spreads Its Communist Politics

The PLP members in Quito participated in this uprising, bringing our communist ideas with hundreds of flyers and DESAFIO-CHALLENGES. Workers applauded our activities raising food and medicine for the indigenous workers entering Quito. We also participated in militant confrontations of indigenous women fighting the tear-gassing cops. Our comrades steeled themselves in these struggles, inspiring us even more to build our movement. We’ve won new friends for our Party, particularly in the mass organizations we’ve joined.

This is the path to growing and overcoming our weaknesses and showing that a communist society, which will destroy all bosses and their racism, is the only solution for all workers and their allies.

Racism and the Indigenous Population

Racism and capitalism are birds of a feather worldwide. In Ecuador, nearly half the population is indigenous, living mostly in rural areas. They lack most basic services. Over 45% lack running water and 48% lack draining systems. The infant mortality rate is at 35% in some areas.

Until recently large landowners treated indigenous people like slaves. No wonder, these workers are so angry and militant and are leading the class struggle here.

The old communist movement played an important role in the past organizing among the indigenous people. The movement’s first militant mass leaders were communists. We in PLP will do our best to build on this tradition while trying to avoid past errors. The future of the entire working class depends on that.

a name="Bogotá and Boeing: ‘Humanitarian’ Imperialism Won’t Work"></a>B"gotá and Boeing: ‘Humanitarian’ Imperialism Won’t Work

SEATTLE, WA., Feb. 12—Boeing workers heard a tale of two cities at last week’s union meeting. The first was of Bogotá, Colombia and the striking Bavaria workers. Many sat transfixed as we described the death squad killings of union leaders. Plan Colombia—U.S. imperialism’s billion-dollar package in support of the Colombian military, the de facto protector of these very same death squads—was discussed for the first time at a Boeing union meeting.

The second city was Tukwila, Washington, the home of Boeing’s corporate headquarters. Effective January 21, Thomas R. Pickering, former U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs, joined the company’s Executive Council. We briefly described Pickering’s history: illegal gun-running to the Nicaraguan Contras; the cover-up of the killing of U.S. nuns by the fascist El Salvadoran regime; the murder of millions of Iraqis through sanctions; the off-loading of tooling work to cheaper Russian factories; his role as a chief architect of Plan Colombia. We concluded by asking our union brothers and sisters where we should stand: with our boss Pickering or with the Bavaria workers striking for a little job security?

The meeting answered by authorizing rank-and-file workers to draft a union solidarity letter, to be sent to the Bavaria strikers.(See letter on right)

Castles Made Of Sand Slip Into The Sea…Eventually

Some in the leadership signaled for the local president to cut short this discussion, but the top leadership didn’t want to bring the issue to a head right now. Today even the AFL-CIO is looking for a way to put a humanitarian face on U.S. imperialism. In fact, it sponsored a trade unionist from Colombia recently at the local Labor Temple, speaking against Plan Colombia.

During the Cold War, U.S. bosses’ main worry in Latin America was USSR-backed guerrilla movements whose goal was national liberation. Today, the Social Democracy of the European Union (EU) represents the bigger threat. While the U.S. is spending more than a billion arming the fascist Colombian military and eradicating the crops of peasants, the EU is providing $800 million worth of roads, schools, infrastructure and agricultural aid. Exactly who do you suppose is winning the hearts and minds of workers in Colombia with programs like these? Of course, we should not be fooled: both U.S. and EU imperialism will ultimately prove deadly to millions of our co-workers.

Even winning U. S. workers—and especially largely black and Latin soldiers—to support U.S. imperialism is a problem for the bosses without a better humanitarian cover. U.S. rulers have the task of building a nationalist movement in support of U.S. imperialism that has the appearance of supporting workers around the world — a huge contradiction! Hence, the hesitancy of the union leadership at last week’s meeting, even though a junior partner of U.S. imperialism.

Strategically, the U.S. bosses and their labor lieutenants are in a weak position because of all the contradictions in building an imperialist movement that appears to have the interests of workers at heart. This opens up an opportunity for our Party to build a movement that really serves the working class. Job insecurity is caused by worldwide capitalism and its recurring crisis of overproduction. By exposing the labor lieutenants’ "Castles Made of Sand" and pointing the finger at the real enemy — capitalism —we can lay the groundwork for building a bigger revolutionary movement.

Boeing Workers Back Bavaria Strikers

We Boeing workers send you greetings of solidarity and support.

We remember your letter of international support for our strike against Boeing in 1995.

International solidarity among workers is even more important today. Our CEO, Phil Condit, recently told his capitalist buddies at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he plans to pit worker against worker all around the world, to find the best way to exploit us. Thomas Pickering, the infamous architect of Plan Colombia at the U. S. State Department, has recently been appointed to Boeing’s Executive Council. Faced with enemies like this, we workers must forge strong international unity.

Our jobs are never secure under this system. Your demand to abolish short-term renewable contracts is aimed at this abuse. Here, too, Boeing threatens our jobs under a plan of "asset reduction."

All these huge conglomerates like Boeing and the Santo Domingo group offer workers are layoffs, racism, nationalism and war. Your strike offers us an opportunity to build the international solidarity the working class needs to answer these bosses. Your struggle is our struggle. Please let us know any way we can help.

In Struggle, Boeing Workers

[Editor’s note: Boeing workers are collecting donations on the shop floor to send to the Bavaria strikers.]

a name="Bethlehem, American, LTV… Steel Bosses’ Profit Squeeze Kills!"></">Be"hlehem, American, LTV… Steel Bosses’ Profit Squeeze Kills!

GARY, IN February 13 — Dan Kado and Mike Davis were killed in an explosion at the Bethlehem Steel Burns Harbor plant. Dan was a white worker with 32 years seniority, about to retire this spring. Mike was a black worker and the son of a Bethlehem worker. On February 2, a fireball engulfed the two workers and seriously injured Jose Claudio during repairs to a coke gas line at the 160-inch plate mill. It was the second explosion in two weeks. Maybe this is what steel union staff rep. Tom Conway meant when he said the current steel crisis "is going to be a bloodbath" for steelworkers.

Since January, LTV filed for bankruptcy, American Steel announced it’s closing, and Bethlehem incinerated two workers. Bethlehem president and CEO Duane Dunham says, "the worldwide oversupply of steel…[requires] bold actions…to compete." He’s "committed to…any and all…actions…for [the] stockholders" (HAMMOND TIMES, 2/6). Bethlehem lost over $300 million the last two years. Its stock dropped by two-thirds. To keep from going under, Bethlehem threw health and safety overboard, murdering Kado and Davis.

A hole used to be punched in the coke gas lines to purge them of dangerous gas before opening and cleaning them. None of this was done so the moment the line was opened, gas escaped forming an arc from the line to a nearby space heater. It ignited at the heater and the flame formed an arc back to the line and exploded.

The Burns Harbor "Safety Team" of 200 workers and 10 safety coordinators has been gutted over the past two years. Bethlehem made a decision to cut safety. The USWA decided to let them. The workers decided to not fight back. This leads to death. One surviving worker said, "We just let it slide. We tried to hide. I tried to hide. And this is what happens."

Meanwhile, American Steel will throw 250 workers on the street this spring. The bosses are closing the Harbor Works foundry and moving the work to Monroe, North Carolina, where workers make $9.00/hour (about half the East Chicago wage). LTV could close in six months, possibly more profitable than selling it because reducing capacity (forcing layoffs) means higher prices.

The bosses are making more steel than they can sell at a profit, causing a general crisis of overproduction Competing capitalists are in a life-and-death fight for cheap labor, resources, and markets. They then cut excess capacity. The industry must consolidate. Jobs must be destroyed.

Workers Of The World, Unite!

Our contracts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. These union leaders then "Stand Up for Steel," not for the workers. Pushing very dangerous nationalism, they want us to stand up for the steel bosses and the lying slogan, "fight imports." Meanwhile, USX is shifting 25% of its production capacity to a giant mill in Slovakia, where workers make $2.00/hour!

Steelworkers in Latin America, Europe, Russia and Asia live on poverty wages and face mass unemployment. We should strike across all borders, build international solidarity and point the way forward for all workers. This will never happen with the pro-capitalist union leaders, who spread the bosses’ nationalism, acting as their lieutenants in the working class.

Today the crisis of overproduction destroys the mills. Eventually it will lead to war that destroys the workers. By fighting back, we can build a fighting, revolutionary PLP, expand the circulation of CHALLENGE and bring more steelworkers and their families to May Day. That’s how we can turn a bad thing into its opposite.

British Steelworker Rebellion Brewing Over Huge Job Cuts

GREAT BRITAIN, February 4 — "This is just the beginning," declared Tony McCarthy, a Corus hot mill worker at Llanwern, which is losing 1,340 jobs. "In two years time the remainder of the plant will be closed," he continued. "People feel very angry. There is a feeling of aggression at the plant, and aggression is very difficult to manage." McCarthy said workers feel betrayed because they’ve delivered huge productivity improvements. His son Craig, who’s worked at the mill for nine years, added, "I don’t know about violence, but if they press ahead there will be walkouts." (The OBSERVER, 2/4)

Corus, the Anglo-Dutch steel giant, announced last week it would cut 6,050 jobs. Corus was formed in 1999 when British Steel merged with Dutch steelmaker Hoogovens.

Rising workers’ anger threatens to become open confrontation at plants across Britain. The Iron and Steel Trades Confederation leadership predicts cuts at plants in Wales and the North East will lead to further closures over the next two years. They’re working on a "rescue package" to cut wages (some "rescue"!) to keep plants open.

These cuts are occurring along with auto plant closings here, and steel cutbacks worldwide. Capitalism is a global monster, where more than one billion live on $1 a day and every worker faces a future of instability, terror and war. The best way to support Corus workers is to spread CHALLENGE in the mills, fight our bosses and build for a mass May Day march.

Overproduction, Corruption Slams Korean Autoworkers

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA, Feb. 13 — The Daewoo automaker foiled a scheduled strike by 6,500 workers at its main plant at Bupyong, west of here, by permanently shutting some assembly lines. The workers were planning to strike against company plans to shed 5,500 jobs by February 16. Daewoo’s bosses need to improve terms of its possible sale to General Motors. GM is demanding 1,900 job cuts among Daewoo’s 12,844 employees. Yesterday Daewoo announced 127 job cuts at it West Sussex (England) technical center.

Daewoo’s plant closing here was not only directed against the planned strike but also reflects the overproduction problems facing automakers worldwide. As reported in CHALLENGE (Feb. 14), GM and DaimlerChrysler are also cutting production and laying off workers in Europe and the U.S. Daewoo annual sales declined from 945,000 in 1999 to 830,000 in 2000. January sales were 38,700 compared to 80,600 in January 2000.

Besides the crisis of overproduction blanketing the auto industry, Daewoo has been hit by corruption. A few weeks ago seven Daewoo CEOs were arrested for falsifying company books to exaggerate the net worth of Daewoo subsidiaries on order to obtain bank loans. Daewoo chief CEO Kin Woo-jopng has fled South Korea to avoid criminal punishment.

Daewoo workers have a long history of militancy, frequently striking against company attacks. Now they’ll face an even stronger and more oppressive enemy, GM, world’s biggest automaker. To fight such a warmaker during this capitalist crisis of overproduction, "Workers of the world, unite" must become the slogan guiding autoworkers from Seoul to Detroit to Sao Paulo. Joining the communist PLP is the best way to organize for this demand!

LA Garment Workers Defiance of Bosses: Good Omen For May Day

LOS ANGELES, CA. — In a garment factory, on a day like any other in the month of January, the following occurred. "What happened, Rosa? Why are you gathering your tools together?" asked Maria. "Because they fired me." "Why?" "Because some work came out wrong," answered Rosa, with tears in her eyes.

"We’re not going to let them fire you for something like that! Let’s talk to the manager" (the general supervisor), answered Maria.

When they confronted him, he said the decision was already made, her two checks were ready and she had to leave. "You’re not going to fire anybody," declared Maria. She explained to the rest of the workers that the reason Rosa was fired was NOT because of bad work but because the manager didn’t want to pay even the minimum wage to a worker who had been there for several years.

Other workers surrounded them, saying, "Don’t fire her." The owner arrived, exclaiming, "This is the manager’s decision; I won’t get involved."

"Clearly you’re involved," shot back Maria. "You’re the owner and you’re making this decision. But you’re not going to fire her," she declared. The owner yelled angrily, "Maybe you’re the owner of this factory."

Maria sensed the support of many workers around her. Her own class-consciousness told her an attack on one worker was an attack on all. She retorted, "We’re the ones who produce everything for a miserably tiny wage. And we say that this sister will not leave. I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but she won’t leave."

When the bosses saw the unity and strength of these workers, they were forced to give in. Rosa kept her job. After this confrontation, Dolores, who had helped greatly in the struggle, told Maria, "I was so angry at the bosses, it almost made me cry, but I held back. I’m really happy we won!"

This action, and many others like it, create the basis to organize garment workers to fight the racism and exploitation we suffer. We have a Committee of Struggle in this factory. We’re taking modest steps to increase the distribution of CHALLENGE here and in other garment factories, to be able to understand the connection between our problems and those of all workers.

Some of these workers have read CHALLENGE for several years. We will encourage them to become organizers for the West Coast May Day March here. Meanwhile, there’s a struggle to bring some of these workers into a larger campaign to fight exploitation in the garment industry overall, possibly including a fight for unionization.

The class struggle and CHALLENGE can form the rock solid basis to win many garment workers to understand that this capitalist system only offers us exploitation, layoffs, war and fascism. Our alternative is to develop the revolutionary communist movement, to fight for a society where there are no managers or bosses but only workers producing for the needs of one international working class.

a name="SUNY PLP’ers Build Campus Worker-Student Alliance">">"UNY PLP’ers Build Campus Worker-Student Alliance

BINGHAMTON, NY, Feb. 10 — PLP members at the State University of NY have been raising communist ideas on campus here, especially in the activities of the Political Action Coalition (PAC). Though most PAC members have many anti-capitalist ideas, they’re still very reformist with no unified political ideology. They’re interested in such issues as police brutality, political prisoners, the arming of university police and ending the bombing of Vieques. PAC’s major issues now are private prisons and the unionization of the campus dining hall workers.

A speaker from the Prison Moratorium Project (PMP) gave a presentation to PAC, including useful information on private prisons but ignored the more profound significance of public prisons and prison labor in general. PMP is building a campaign on college campuses narrowly aimed at attacking Sodexho Marriot (a multi-national food supplier) and its investments in Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison company. PAC has wholeheartedly embraced PMP’s campaign. PMP has convinced PAC that replacing Sodexho Marriot with another corporation is somehow a victory.

We’ve attempted to advance a class analysis of the entire prison system. The Democrats, Republicans and the bosses they serve have jailed two million workers, 70% black or Latin, and used many thousands as slave laborers. It’s no coincidence that, as their competitors like Germany and China grow stronger, U.S. capitalists must seek ever cheaper labor and more ways to control unemployed and alienated workers. Fighting Sodexho or any other particular company will not alter the course towards fascism. Through months of work in PAC, we’ve raised these points and will continue doing so.

Concerning the unionization of campus dining hall workers, students uniting with campus workers in such a campaign provides the opportunity to build class-consciousness and raise revolutionary communist politics. Within this struggle we recognized the contradiction between forming a union and creating a pro-working class movement.

Using a CHALLENGE article about Party work at Boeing, we led a discussion in PAC about the anti-working class leadership of unions. The PAC leadership’s reaction to our suggestion to invite the campus workers to our meetings to discuss politics exposed its anti-working class elitism and pro-union reformism. They attacked us for "presuming that workers would have any interest in discussing politics." This inverted logic sought to disguise their lack of confidence in workers caring about or grasping revolutionary ideas.

We’ll take an active role in both building the new union and winning the workers to understanding how capitalism works so that we may destroy it, even as we learn from the workers’ own experiences in class struggle. We have a tough task in winning PAC to understand that neither a union nor any reform will reconcile the opposing interests of the rulers and the working class.

a name="‘Free Trade’—‘Internationalism’ For the Bosses"></a>‘Fre" Trade’—‘Internationalism’ For the Bosses

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 13 — The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) would extend NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) to the whole hemisphere. U.S. bosses need FTAA to keep Latin America under U.S. domination, to fight the increasing penetration of European capital there. Now some of those pushing FTAA want to throw a bone to labor rights. Billionaire businessman George Soros told the world’s CEO’s at their annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that the anti-globalization movement is "right" in demanding more "guarantees" about environmental and workers’ rights in these trade deals.

Students groups and others are planning anti-FTAA demonstrations in April at the U.S.-Mexican and U.S.-Canadian borders. They’re reaching out to student and worker groups in Mexico, stressing NAFTA as being bad for both U.S. and Mexico’s workers. Some call for defeating FTAA. Others like AFL-CIO President Sweeney want more rules about the environment and workers’ rights — a "new internationalism."

Workers’ internationalism declares that workers of the world have the same class interests — elimination of exploitation, racism and the profit system. The phony "internationalism" of Soros and Sweeney is just the opposite — helping U.S. imperialism to continue oppressing the world’s workers and to defeat their rival imperialists who are fighting to become the number one oppressor.

Many honest, angry students and workers from Mexico and the U.S. favor border demonstrations. Millions hate the border and the fascist terror it represents. Rather than strengthening it, it’s in their interest to see the border abolished.

Recently NAFTA ruled that Mexican truckers could enter the U.S. Some opposing this say that "unsafe Mexican trucks on U.S. roads" endangers Americans. This nationalism pits Mexican and U.S. truckers against each other. The problem isn’t just NAFTA, it’s the capitalist crisis of overproduction, sharpening competition and pitting workers against each other while the bosses compete for market share. Workers need unity as a class to fight to get rid of all bosses!

US bosses have two contradictory needs. One is the need to build nationalism here, to get U.S. workers and soldiers to blame bosses and workers in other countries for layoffs, rather than blaming U.S. bosses and capitalism. But the other need is to prevent European bosses from appearing as the "lesser evil" imperialists. Therefore, U.S. rulers must build a movement advocating "human rights," from Latin America to China. Meanwhile, they and all imperialists are attacking workers worldwide. However, their primary need is to build nationalism, to try to win U.S. workers to defend their bloody empire.

"Humanitarian" imperialism and nationalist "internationalism" are policies based on smoke and mirrors. They need activists to support this charade. But these contradictions create opportunities for our Party. Small gains today lead to bigger ones tomorrow. We have confidence that when workers and students understand the real cause of the current crisis, they will see that capitalism and imperialism have nothing humanitarian about them — that "smash all borders" is the road to follow, not "strengthen all borders." Our activity in this movement will build workers’ internationalism.

PLP’s May Day March calls on workers to unite to fight for our class, against our bosses, and to ally with workers throughout the world. May Day champions the workers’ fight to smash exploitation, fascism and war with communist revolution. That’s a long, hard but sure road, as opposed to "guaranteeing" workers’ rights by uniting with class enemies like Soros and Sweeney.

May Day and the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the International Working Class

May Day has always had two sides: the one that demands reforms and the other side that organizes for revolution to destroy capitalism. May Day commemorates a massive strike wave in the U.S. and the particular battle in Chicago’s Haymarket Square in 1886. The leaders of this movement demanded an 8-hour day reform but also advocated the "abolition of the wage system."

Then and now the capitalists feared this revolutionary side to May Day. In 1848, Marx and Engels wrote in the "Communist Manifesto," "A specter is haunting Europe, the specter of Communism." By 1886, the rulers of Chicago saw this specter. "The newspapers and industrialists were increasingly declaring that May 1, 1886 was in reality the date for a Communist working class insurrection modeled on the Paris Commune. According to Melville E Stone, Head of the Chicago Daily News…a ‘repetition of the Paris Communal riots was freely predicted’ for May 1, 1886." (P. 90, Labor’s Untold Story, by Boyer and Morais)

In December 1886, San Francisco transit workers joined this strike wave. They were working up to 15 hours a day, 7 days a week. They wanted a 3-hour daily reduction in hours and a daily pay increase from $2.25 to $2.50. "Strike-breakers were hired, and there was a great deal of violence. Cars were damaged, strike-breakers were beaten, and one person was killed." Newspapers blamed eight instances of the use of dynamite on the striking workers. No doubt feeling threatened by the union and the worldwide strength and militancy of May Day, the Governor signed a bill in March 1887 "limiting gripmen, drivers, and conductors to a 12-hour day." ("Transit In San Francisco," published by SF MUNI R.R. Communications Department.)

By the 1920’s the now pro-capitalist AFL union leadership, fearing the growth of communist ideas in the working class, reversed its support for May Day and the latter’s openly declared communist ideas. Since then the AFL has collaborated with the U.S. government to subvert May Day and the revolutionary trend of workers here and abroad. At the 1928 AFL Convention, the Executive Council supported a Congressional resolution to make May 1 Child Health day. "May 1 will no longer be known as either strike day or communist labor day."

The revolutionary side of May Day dominated when the communist movement was strong. During the peak of the communist organizing of the CIO unions, May Day was celebrated in the U.S. But business unionism and anti-communism soon triumphed after World War II, with organized labor only recognizing Labor Day in September.

From the Haymarket battle in 1886, revolutionary workers spread May Day around the globe. But history is written by the conquerors. Many workers born here know nothing of the contribution the U.S. working class made to the development of this revolutionary holiday. Today it is the official Labor Day in most countries, but the leadership of these marches demands only reforms, and stresses the common goals of labor and capital.

PLP has learned both from the triumphs of the communist movement in the USSR and China, and from their failure to fight directly for communism. We too advocate "Abolish the Wage System" as part of changing the relationship of workers and work in a new communist society.

The abolition of money, of production for sale or profit and of the wage system is absolutely necessary to establish communism. When, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the international working class wins and holds control over all economic, political and cultural institutions of society, it will unleash a creative power that will propel the human race to its highest accomplishments in all fields of endeavor. Only a mass revolutionary communist party advocating and leading such a struggle can achieve this. Only such a party can defeat the fascism that capitalism will use to oppose it.

Long live the 1st of May, the revolutionary international working-class holiday! Fight for communism!

a name="The Real Drug ‘Traffic’-ers: The Bosses, Banks, & Gov’t"></a>"he Real Drug ‘Traffic’-ers: The Bosses, Banks, & Gov’t

RICHMOND, CA. January 24 — The movie "Traffic" completely blocks out the U.S. Government role in promoting the worldwide deadly drug trade. The modern drug trade began with the British East India Company selling opium to China. They were later joined by U.S. businessmen. However, by the mid-19th century the British government, an arm of that country’s ruling class, fought two successful wars to force the Chinese to accept opium imports. The modern drug trade relies on imperialist armies.

By 1900 China had some 13.5 million addicts who smoked 39,000 tons of opium every year. Misery and death to the Chinese people: profits to British and U.S. businessmen.

From Legal To Banned

In the U.S. in the early 1900s, opium, heroin and cocaine were legal. In one month in New York City, a single "dope" doctor wrote prescriptions for over 62,000 grains of heroin, 54,000 grains of morphine, and 30,000 grains of cocaine! By 1931, behind a movement to ban opium production, the League of Nations limited production strictly to medical needs. World output dropped by nearly 90%. World trade in drugs grows or shrinks depending on the needs of imperialist governments.

Gangsters And Governments

After 1931, the world drug trade was taken over by gangsters, with government cooperation. In the U.S. that cooperation was greatly expanded during and after World War II.

After liberating Sicily from the Nazis in 1943, the U.S. government had the power in Italy to push control of the country either to the Italian Communist Party, leader of the anti-Nazi resistance movement or to the pro-fascist Mafia. Surprise! It chose the Mafia.

In 1946, NY Govenor Dewey commuted the 30-year sentence of mafia mobster Lucky Luciano and "deported" him to Italy conveniently at the very moment the CIA was organizing against the growing Italian Communist Party. Luciano rebuilt a drug empire there and shipped heroin from the Mid-East via Marseilles, France, to New York City. Drug addiction grew in the USA and worldwide with the help of the U.S.-created capitalist governments, especially in France and Italy. The internal weaknesses of those country’s previously powerful Communist Parties—having become part of the bosses’ electoral systems—combined with attacks on them by the U.S.-directed AFL-CIA and Luciano’s Mafia, negated any opposition to these capitalist drug-runners.

After the communist revolution in China (which, incidently, wiped out drugs there), some pro-U.S. generals from the Nationalist Chinese Army seized land in the Burmese highlands. Supplied with weapons from the U.S., they began producing heroin in a region later named the "Golden Triangle," the source then of most of the world’s illegal heroin.

By the 1960s heroin production in the Highlands of Laos began to rival the Golden Triangle. Laotian troops organized by General Vang Pao fought the communists in North Vietnam while the general made huge profits from the heroin trade.

In the 1980s a group called the Mujaheddin began to fight the pro-Russian government in Afghanistan. They financed their operation by growing and exporting heroin to the U.S. and Europe.

Simultaneously, the US backed Contras, fighting the anti-U.S. Sandinistas in Nicaragua, made huge profits running cocaine from Colombia to the U.S.

Governments Are The Kingpins

The Mafia in Sicily; Nationalist Chinese generals in Burma; generals with private armies in Laos; the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan and the Contras in Central America—these are the main forces supplying the world with illegal narcotics since World War II. This dirty trade wrecks lives, kills people and disrupts whole communities. Not one of the drug-trading armies could exist without the support of the U.S. Government, through its CIA. It supplies these armies with guns, money and even aircraft to transport the heroin or cocaine. And the governments U.S. bosses help "elect" or install insure the continuation of the drug trade. In exchange, the drug-runners attack communist and left-wing movements.

Who Are The Real Gangsters?

In a ten-day period last month, three black teenagers were shot to death in their neighborhoods, but you’d hardly know it from the tame response of the local rulers. A local paper says none of these youths were involved in drugs but reported that, "Police and gang ‘experts’ suggest rival gangs in the area may be to blame for the surge in violence." Drug dealing lies behind most gangs and turf wars lie behind most drive-by shootings. Their solution? Send the cops’ anti-narcotics team into the area.

Yet the Richmond police won’t investigate the REAL drug dealers, those bringing the drugs into the country and into these communities. That’s a very elite group—top Government officials, airlines, bankers and the news media play a role.

The United Nations’ "World Drug Report" estimated that illegal drugs are now a $500-billion-a-year business. Most of that money is deposited in banks without being seized! And the news media turns a blind eye. When local reporter Gary Webb exposed the CIA’s role in the crack-cocaine epidemic, major papers like the NEW YORK TIMES attacked his articles and he lost his job.

David And Goliath

It’s easy to feel hopeless about the powerful forces behind drug dealing. But history is full of stories about "Davids" taking on and beating "Goliaths."

What kind of system puts greed and profits over the lives of so many innocent people like Richmond’s three black teenagers? A capitalist, imperialist one hell-bent on weakening, disrupting and pacifying potentially rebellious workers and youth worldwide. The history of the modern drug trade is another powerful argument for why we need communist revolution.

(Sources: The Politics of Heroin—CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade—Alfred McCoy; "The CIA/narcotics connection", Oakland Tribune, 4/3/89; The West County Times, December, 2000.

Letters

Black Woman Pilot Flies For May Day

On a recent visit to the Wright Brothers Museum in Kitty Hawk, NC, I saw a plaque on the wall telling the story of Bessie Coleman, a young black woman and daughter of a Texas sharecropper who wanted to become a pilot. Racism barred her from pilot schools. She went to France and received her international pilot’s license.

Returning to the U.S., she performed daredevil stunts on the barnstorming circuit. While practicing for an airshow for a May Day celebration in Jacksonville, Florida, she crashed and died, on April 30, 1926. The Negro Welfare League sponsored the May Day event. I’ve been unable to find any information on the Negro Welfare League or the demands of that May Day. Any clues would be appreciated.

West Coast Old-timer

Put Dialectics in the Classroom

The CHALLENGE article (Jan. 3) about the Modern Language Association (MLA) meeting shows we’re engaged in important struggles around exploitation of academic labor, racism and pro-capitalist ideology. I’d like to suggest a complementary but largely neglected struggle: a fight for explicit dialectical materialism in all academic disciplines.

Dialectical materialism is the fundamental communist science/philosophy of matter and motion. It’s the set of laws and categories that generally reflect how the objective world (and the human mind) works. It’s the science underlying the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and the basic worldview of our Party. History, anthropology, linguistics, physical sciences, and math are all special sciences within the more general science of dialectics.

It’s troubling that the MLA article never mentions dialectical materialism except indirectly (by criticizing bosses’ ideas about nonexistent objective truth and fixed human differences). Shouldn’t we be making a conscious, explicit fight for incorporating dialectical materialism into all the humanities, social and natural sciences?

We need to think through how dialectics relates to a number of academic disciplines. We’re probably more familiar with introducing dialectics in history and social sciences, e.g., fundamental contradiction of classes, and revolution as the resolution of this contradiction.

What about language? What are the dialectical principles that underlie the development of language, historically and in early childhood? What about the dialectics underlying grammatical structure? What dialectical principles are involved in learning (and teaching) a foreign language? What is the primary and secondary contradiction in foreign language learning/teaching? How and where does quantitative learning turn into quality? How might negation of the negation reflect this process, etc.?

Literature? The dialectical category of particular and general—how broad social and philosophical currents are reflected in the lives and characters of a few individuals—is central to all literature and art. Clearly the category of form and content—particularly the interdependence of these two concepts—is important in any analysis of literature. How are the three laws of dialectics embodied in a given novel or play? Isn’t "tragedy" a reflection of contradiction, negation of negation and other dialectical ideas?

This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive analysis. It’s simply a proposal that those of us involved in academia begin to make dialectical materialism an important part of our political activities. This means integrating dialectical principles in the classroom, perhaps introducing resolutions about dialectics in mass organizations. This would be something new for us. To neglect dialectical materialism in the academic arena is a grave mistake. I hope for comments on this proposal.

Reader

a name="Math—Is Being ‘Drilled’, Being ‘Screwed’?"></a>Math"Is Being ‘Drilled’, Being ‘Screwed’?

As a math teacher and a communist, I disagree strongly with the recent back-to-basics articles about a supposedly "communist" approach to math education. There is nothing communist about the approach, and the students won’t even learn much real mathematics from it. The author seems to think that learning math means acquiring mechanical skills, in particular, arithmetic and algebra. And he thinks the only way to get these skills is through lots of boring hard work.

I agree these skills are important. But the skills alone aren’t useful if the students don’t understand how they’re applied in practice. What’s the point of being able to add and multiply two numbers if you can’t figure out (in an actual situation) which numbers to combine, whether to add, multiply or divide, and what the result means in the context?

A simple example: suppose a truck driver travels 100 miles at 40 miles an hour, then 100 miles at 60 miles an hour. What was her average speed for the whole trip? Students can spend 18 hours a day memorizing arithmetic tables but it won’t help them see that adding 40 to 60 and dividing by 2 does not give the right answer!

Acquiring skills is not the same as learning mathematics. Students also need to be creative in finding solutions to problems, and to develop judgement (including intuition) in order to evaluate approaches and results. Furthermore, they need to be able to work in groups so they can share their creativity and their judgement, as well as their skills. In other words, math (in fact, all) education should be based on collective labor. As it was, for example, in the Soviet Union, when it was still communist.

Under capitalism, relatively few students manage to learn mathematics, and those who do are often self-taught. Apparently the bosses are worried that these few are now too few, and so once again they’re trying to "reform" math education. Nothing much will come of these reforms. The capitalist school system, organized like a giant factory, is incapable of treating most students as anything other than components on an assembly line.

For most students capitalist education will always be (in Marx’s words) "mere training to act as a machine." The back-to-basics author seems to accept this description as the defining principle of what mathematics education should be. Basically, he complains that the students are no longer being "machined" well enough, and that the answer is to "drill" them more thoroughly. He should remember that in the workshop, being drilled is usually preparation for being screwed!

E. Galois

Nationalism Fuels Auto Wars

Thanks for placing the two articles (2/14 issue) on auto cutbacks side by side. It made things very clear. Led by pro-capitalist union hacks, angry European workers protested cuts made by U.S. bosses (GM) while U.S. workers were being told by their union leaders to blame European bosses (Daimler) for the cutbacks here in the U.S.

Left unchallenged by a communist movement these union leaders will only build a dangerous nationalism ("U.S. jobs for U.S. workers"). Job cuts in the auto industry — whether GM cuts of European workers or Daimler-Chrysler cuts of U.S. workers—are attacks on auto workers internationally.

The cuts are not due to moves by individual U.S. or German capitalists, but by a worldwide crisis of overproduction. PLP has often written about this. Despite all the talk about a "new economy" solving its contradictions, overproduction still is inherent to capitalism. The bosses’ main way out of this crisis is to destroy the productive capacity of their rivals. Ultimately this always leads to war fueled by nationalism.

This does not mean war and depression will come tomorrow. It does mean communist leadership is desperately needed in the unions, not just to organize around internationalist slogans like "Workers of the World Unite," but to educate workers about the underlying nature of capitalism and the need to destroy it.

A comrade

1. BOSSES' WAR ON WORKERS
   `Boom' Boots 26,000 Jobs at Chrysler
2. `Vietnam Syndrome' Haunts Oil Bosses
3. U.S. Gestapo Sets Sights On Worker Rebellion
4. Bosses' Heats Up Over Arctic Oil
5. :Colombia Strikers Confront Bosses' Fascism
6. GM Workers in Europe Protest Massive Job Cuts
7. Slower U.S. demand To Idle Two GM plants in Mexico
8. Fight Bosses' Drugging of Children
9. LA Dinner Jump-Starts May Day, Linked to CHALLENGE Expansion
10. City Workers Take Up the CHALLENGE
11. Profit System Squeezes Steel;
    LTV Workers Must Choke Bosses' System
12. Postal Workers Plan to Stamp Out Speed Up
13. India Earthquake--Capitalism Is A Deadly Mass Murderer
14. Anarchy of `Free Market' Blows Fuse In California
    1. `Competition' Leads to Cartel Leads to Crisis
    2. THREE PROPOSALS REFLECT BOSSES' DOGFIGHT
    3. ENRON AND MAIN RULERS: UNITY AND
       CONFLICT WITHIN THE RULING CLASS
15. LETTERS
    1. India Earthquake: Rulers Fight
       While Workers Die
    2. Indigenous Oaxaca Youth Respond to PLP
    3. Mexico U.S.-Euro Rivalry Behind Peru's
       Electoral Circus
    4. Thou Shall March on May Day
    5. Biological Determinism: Workers' Enemy
    6. REVIEWER'S COMMENT

BOSSES' WAR ON WORKERS
`Boom' Boots 26,000 Jobs at Chrysler

DETROIT, MI, January 29 -- DaimlerChrysler will cut 26,000 jobs, about 20% of its North American workforce. Overall production capacity will be reduced by 15%. Three-quarters of the jobs will be eliminated by the end of the year. Six plants will close. Shifts will be eliminated at another six plants and two others will slow their lines to reduce production. Chrysler group president and chief executive Dieter Zetsche said, "These decisions are absolutely necessary to keep competitive and, in fact, to survive."

Less than two years ago, DaimlerChrysler and the United Auto Workers union (UAW) signed a contract that "banned" plant closings and "guaranteed" employment levels. The "plant-closing moratorium" says the company "will not close...sell, spin off...or otherwise dispose of ... any plant..." Unless of course, there are conditions "beyond the control of the corporation," such as, "act of God, catastrophic circumstances or significant economic decline."

This was considered a historic victory for the union. Chrysler was the only automaker to hire significant numbers of new workers in the 1990s, and is the single biggest private employer in Detroit. Sales of minivans, Ram pickups and Jeep sport-utility vehicles were surging. By signing a no-spinoff clause in the union contract and forcing this industry-wide pattern onto GM and Ford, Chrysler figured it could hurt the two bigger automakers, who were intending to spin off their Delphi and Visteon parts makers.

But the plan seems to have backfired (GM and Ford spun them off anyway). Daimler executives have replaced all the signers of that Chrysler contract. The company lost nearly $2 billion in the last six months of 2000. When Daimler-Benz "merged" with Chrysler in 1998, the latter had about 16% of the North American market. That has dropped to around 14% amid a declining U.S. auto market.

While union leaders denounce the cutbacks publicly, they have been discussing them with the bosses behind the scenes for weeks. According to the DETROIT FREE PRESS (1/29), "Privately they...understand." UAW President Steve Yokich is also a member of DaimlerChrysler's supervisory board. Less than a year after the hottest sales year in U.S. automotive history, UAW leaders will help Chrysler out of its current predicament. And GM and Ford will demand similar concessions, especially the plant-closing moratorium.

The bosses' "guarantees" aren't worth the paper they are written on. Despite their "booming" economy, the "world's only super-power" couldn't guarantee jobs for two years! About 20 years ago, Chrysler bought American Motors. They kept the profitable Jeep, and destroyed the rest. The same fate may await them at the hands of Daimler. The UAW and the media are trying to put the blame on "the Germans." If we fall for this, we'll soon be marching off to war for the rulers' profits. DaimlerChrysler workers from Cordoba, Argentina to Belvedere, Illinois, and from Stuttgard, Germany to Toluca Mexico, should strike across all borders against plant closings and layoffs. But more than that, we must build an international PLP, and fight for communism, where production will be based solely on the needs of the international working class.

`Vietnam Syndrome' Haunts Oil Bosses

Ten years after U.S. imperialism's murderous oil war against Iraqi workers, Saddam Hussein is starting to look like the real winner. He still holds power. Exxon rivals from Russia, France, and China are defying U.S. policy by flying regularly to Baghdad and discussing billion-dollar energy deals with him. Even Venezuela, a formerly secure U.S. vassal, is flirting with Iraqi oil executives.

The U.S. sanctions policy is a shambles. Iraqi oil is back on the market. Ironically, Exxon Mobil is its biggest customer. Hussein demanded and got authorization to be paid in euros rather than dollars, potentially threatening the dollar's supremacy as the currency of business in the Persian Gulf. A decade after Bush, Sr. launched the so-called "new world order" in torrents of Iraqi blood, his son has stolen the White House only to confront the "serious...crisis in the making" of Hussein's "burst out of isolation" (NEW YORK TIMES, 1/28).

U.S. imperialism, not the Iraqi ruler, is isolated. French, British, and Russian rulers openly defy its sanctions. Even the British bosses are sick of straining their military in daily air raids with the U.S. over Iraq. They are beginning to distance themselves from the mad bombers in Washington. The raids kill civilians and accomplish nothing else. In fact, U.S. imperialism's only real "achievement" in Iraq since 1991 has been the mounting death toll of workers and children. U.S. rulers continue to distinguish themselves in the art of mass butchery. But they know that their policy has failed and that they need a different strategy for controlling cheap Iraqi oil.

Their critical problem, according to a former CIA big-shot, is that "it is probably too late for the [new Bush] administration to effect genuine change at a price the United States is willing to pay" (NYT, 1/28). In other words, U.S. rulers know they can't install a pro-Exxon regime in Iraq without a large-scale ground invasion.

However, neither the workers in the U.S. military nor the U.S. working class as a whole want to die for Exxon's profits. The nightmare of "Vietnam Syndrome"--an army that won't fight--continues to haunt the imperialists. They face a basic contradiction. They can't win workers to pay the price for conquering Iraqi oil, and they can't allow anyone else to control it. At the moment, the Bush White House appears to want to punt. After an initial round of bluster and threats, Colin Powell, who helped Bush, Sr. kill 500,000 Iraqis in 1991, is now talking only about narrower sanctions restricted to military equipment. But this is a weak gimmick to buy time.

Sooner or later, U.S. rulers will have to launch another Middle Eastern oil war. Powell's tactic of targeting Iraqi military equipment appears to be a crude maneuver to set up a justification for it. We should anticipate a lot of hot air to come out of Washington in the coming period about Saddam Hussein's developing "weapons of mass destruction" as a threat to every country in the world and possibly even to life in outer space.

None of this lying by Powell, Bush or Cheney will improve the political morale of the U.S. military. This is a crucial weakness of which our Party can take growing advantage as conditions eventually sharpen. Whenever the next ground war for Persian Gulf starts, many U.S. soldiers and sailors will be more open to our Party's communist analysis and winnable to carry out its revolutionary tactics.

U.S. Gestapo Sets Sights On Worker Rebellion

A ruling class plan is on tap to deal with resistance from workers when the rulers step up their exploitation of the working class, intensify racism and launch wars to protect their profits, especially over oil. They also want more efficient means to discipline their own class when sections of it "get out of line."

The main contradiction in the world remains the inter-imperialist rivalry. Capitalists around the world are growing increasingly hostile to U.S. imperialism. The European Union is creating a joint military force separate from NATO and the US. Russia is no longer cooperating as it did under Yeltsin, and China is slowly but surely building a deepwater Navy to challenge the U.S. For the moment, no major imperialist poses an immediate direct threat to US imperialism, but the world has become much more unstable. The bombings of the World Trade Center and the Federal Building in Oklahoma City have prompted the bosses to look at the threats posed by what they call "rogue states" like Iraq, and "non-state players" (Osama bin Laden, drug cartels, etc.).

Over the past year, the CIA and the Hart-Rudman Commission have issued detailed reports calling for increasing the military/police repressive apparatus, and a "homeland defense": "While the likelihood of major conflict between powerful states will decrease [over the next 25 years], conflict itself will increase." (Hart-Rudman, "New World Coming," p.15).

According to the DEFENSE NEWS (1/15), the third Hart-Rudman report proposes a National Homeland Security Agency (NHSA). The report, due to be released soon, follows the "Gilmore Commission" (Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction), and the Center for Strategic and International Studies 2000 report on homeland defense.

This extraordinarily dangerous proposal reflects the rulers' determination to both repress any working-class rebellion and discipline sections of their own class who put their own interests ahead of the dominant wing's long-range interests. It is a recipe for full-blown fascism. NHSA would combine the Coast Guard, Border Patrol, Customs, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), with parts of the FBI and Commerce Department. It would place 75,000 men and women in uniform, under military discipline, with the power to arrest.

NHSA would be seven times the size of the FBI, and five times larger than the Migra (Immigration Service). It would be a police force--with a full military arsenal--larger than the NYC, LA, Detroit, Philadelphia and San Francisco police forces combined. They would be responsible for "protecting" critical infrastructure like the phone system and the Internet. This would allow them full access to both and the ability to use it. The NHSA would erase the distinction between the military and the police. Other military units could be assigned to work under it as needed. While the Coast Guard is already a military branch with arrest powers, it is assigned to highly specialized areas.

NHSA would be located in every major city to "respond to emergencies," like breaking strikes and putting down urban rebellions. Tens of thousands of these military police could be used in any city to enforce martial law. The NHSA proposal is unlikely to be accepted as is, partly because it may be "too much fascism too soon." But it would also dismantle many lucrative corruption and bureaucratic empires in existing agencies (the Migra and Customs are among the most corrupt).

Still, this kind of proposal from such a high-powered group shows the direction in which the main wing of the ruling class is headed.

Bosses' Heats Up Over Arctic Oil

The NEW YORK TIMES (1/30)--predictably--reports that Bush is using the California energy mess to promote his oil and gas agenda, particularly the commercial exploration of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The opposing bosses--led by the Rockefeller-owned Exxon Mobil, which wants to keep Alaskan oil ready to be primed but still in the ground in the event of "national emergency" (an oil war)--will surely fight back. Of course, new drilling there won't solve the problem of high electricity bills in California, but it could mean big profits for Halliburton, the world's largest oil services outfit--and V-P Cheney, that company's recent CEO, just happens to be the head of the new Bush energy task force.

So the vicious political infighting out of which Bush stole Florida makes sense here. This is one concrete demonstration of the way in which the presidency--control of the executive branch of state power--benefits the faction in charge. But when the bosses battle, it is never for the working class. Whoever wins this battle for energy billions, workers have no stake in backing either gang.

:Colombia Strikers Confront Bosses' Fascism

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA, January 30 -- The strike against Bavaria Brewery is now in its seventh week, affecting 18 plants nationally. It has become the country's most important recent labor struggle. When the company refused even to discuss the workers' demands, the 6,500 strikers were forced to walk out to protect the few gains they still have. The Santo Domingo family owns Bavaria. It is one of Colombia's biggest conglomerates, controlling over 150 businesses, from the brewery to TV, telecommunications, finances to one of the country's largest cellular phone services. It also owns businesses in Spain, Ecuador and Central America.

The workers rejected Bavaria's "offer" attacking working conditions and job security. The bosses want short-term renewable contracts for certain workers, which would virtually destroy job security. They are trying to bust the union, founded in 1927 and led by communists who, during the 1930s and '40s, organized militant sit-down strikes. But in the 1950s, as Bavaria grew and was bought by the Santo Domingo family, the union became more right-wing, rejecting communist ideas.

As Bavaria became the Santo Domingo family's leading company, it used the union to control the workers, and helped it -become a national force. For half a century the union was led by open company agents. But workers never stopped fighting the company and the union hacks.

As conditions get more fascistic in Colombia, as part of the current civil war, the attacks against the entire working class have increased. Many militant trade unionists have been murdered by death squads. The Santo Domingo family is a big supporter of these paramilitary forces. Now the bosses want to eliminate the union altogether, since it no longer can control the workers.

So this is more than a strike for higher wages and job security. It's a political struggle against one of Colombia's most powerful capitalists and possibly represents a revival of militant working-class struggles. A Solidarity Support Commitee was formed when the strike began, winning the backing of many other workers nationally and internationally. Strikers and their supporters have broken the news blackout by the mass media, on whom the Santo Domingo capitalists also has much influence. This strike differs somewhat from the last one in 1993, which lasted 32 days.

Today, the major capitalist groups have united to attack the workers, imposing the union busting Law 50. The strike has been a good political school for workers. They have shown great militancy against a fascist capitalist system. After a 50-year absence communist ideas are appearing again.

The workers are learning the relationship between their strike and Plan Colombia (the U.S. imperialist billionaire "aid" plan to help the army/paramilitary groups to wage war against the guerrillas and workers here) and the need for international solidarity. The workers' anthem, The Internationale, is being sung at the strike camps outside the Bavaria plants. The strikers are discussing many different political ideas, including PLP's. Many are reading DESAFIO and considering the concept that strikes ultimately won't defeat the bosses' attacks, particularly a vicious fascist monopoly like the Bavaria owners. They have threatened the strikers and are trying to create a provocation to give the police an excuse to attack the strikers' tents outside the plants.

The strikers take these threats very seriously--in Colombia workers' lives are worth very little to the bosses and their death squads. International support for these strikers is important, particularly to show the company that these workers are not alone in the struggle against these murderous bosses.

GM Workers in Europe Protest Massive Job Cuts

FRANKFURT, GERMANY, January 26 -- Over 30,000 GM workers, more than a third of GM's 90,000-strong European workforce, protested company plans to cut 5,000 jobs in a major "restructuring" project. More protests could follow. The walkouts cut GM's daily European output of 8,500 vehicles by 12%.

More than 15,000 workers rallied outside four Opel factories. About 8,500 stayed away from four British Vauxhall Motors plants to protest the closing of Vauxhall's Luton plant and the elimination of 2,000 jobs. Several dozen GM workers staged a sympathy strike at company offices in Zaragoza, Spain. Another 6,000 protested outside a plant in Antwerp, Belgium.

The job cuts are aimed at cutting excess production capacity in Europe. Aside from the 2,000 jobs at Luton, GM expects to eliminate another 3,000 jobs, including about 1,700 at Opel, within the next 17 months. Ford is shutting its assembly plant in Dagenham, East London. Meanwhile, the anarchy of capitalist production has Honda building sports utility vehicles for export to the U.S. The international solidarity expressed in the above protests shows that workers' struggles have no borders. We should do all we can to spread news of these actions to auto plants across North America.

But as long as the bosses hold power and workers produce for their profits, we will always be wage slaves with an uncertain future. Relying on spontaneity or the pro-capitalist union leaders will get us nowhere. While protesting plant closings and job cuts worldwide, we must fight for the political leadership of the workers by building a mass PLP and a communist-led workers' movement based on the slogan, "Workers of the World, Unite!"

Slower U.S. demand To Idle Two GM plants in Mexico

MEXICO CITY -- General Motors plans to shut two plants in northern Mexico in the face of a weakening U.S. economy. An engine plant and the Aztek assembly plant, both located in Ramos Arizpe, will close for 22 days and 18 days respectively. GM is the most recent to announce production cutbacks here. Ford closed one of its three plants in Hermosillo for a week in early January.

The plant makes Escort and Focus models. DaimlerChrysler AG is also slowing production at one of its three Mexican plants because of falling U.S. demand for pick-up trucks and auto parts.

Fight Bosses' Drugging of Children

NEW YORK CITY, January 28 -- The movement against the over-drugging of children gained steam today as picketers gathered outside Columbia/Presbyterian Medical Center, distributing 1,500 leaflets.

They were warning the predominantly Latino community about two new drug studies just starting in Manhattan. One concerns the effects of Ritalin in 3-5 year olds. When a medical journal published a paper last year revealing that 1.4% of toddlers in the U.S. are on psychotropic medications, the drug companies began frantically funding "research" in this age group, hoping to create a vast new market for their wares.

The National Institute of Mental Health then jumped in, giving millions for four national research centers. The second study, at New York University and Columbia, involves using multiple medications in 6-17 year olds, specifically Ritalin plus anti-depressants. It's becoming increasingly common to prescribe multiple medications, even to children. The leaflets warned parents not to participate in these studies, exposing the gross overdiagnosis and treatment of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) with Ritalin.

These "researchers" say children "need" Ritalin because of "brain defects," a totally unproven idea. While not condemning all psychiatric diagnosis and medication, the leaflet pointed out that when 10-20% of children are said to be "mentally ill," it's to sell more drugs and make children easier to control.

A local group is having increasing success reaching parents, teachers and other concerned health providers with its message. Members have spoken to, and been well-received by, the welfare workers union. They've been invited to the teachers union delegate assembly and to the school board near the hospital. In April this group will sponsor a half-day conference at a local church, hopefully with well-known speakers to educate the community about the issue and undertake further actions. However, several friendly scientists have declined invitations because they fear that doctors known to oppose the Ritalin trend stand to lose their funding.

Activists have also been involved in the defense of a woman being threatened with losing her children because she objected to giving her son prescribed medications, an increasingly common racist attack against black and Latino families.

The task of PLP members in this movement is to connect the Ritalin question to the general upsurge of biodeterminism. Children who fail to "align" themselves to current educational standards and testing will easily be found to be "biologically deficient." The capitalist system that can't serve the needs of our children doesn't deserve to exist.

LA Dinner Jump-Starts May Day, Linked to CHALLENGE Expansion

LOS ANGELES, January 28 -- PLP's May Day organizing got off to a good start here last night when about 85 workers and students attended a CHALLENGE/ May Day dinner as part of the struggle to make the newspaper central to our organizing for the March. A great skit performed by a teacher, young worker and students effectively showed how the bosses use racism to divide, exploit and super-exploit workers.

The play depicted the important role of CHALLENGE, portraying workers as all part of the same class. It concluded with black, white and Latino workers united in fighting the racist boss. One speaker eloquently described the history and significance of May Day, emphasizing that this year's March in downtown LA is most important in the long-term fight to build a revolutionary communist movement.

We will march through part of the city's garment center as well as past Parker Center, the LAPD headquarters. Another speaker detailed how the mounting layoffs in auto and many other industries as well as the California energy crisis all stem from the bosses fight for maximum profits.

A third speaker emphasized the necessity and importance of CHALLENGE. He highlighted the crucial role played by the Bolshevik paper Iskra in advancing the revolutionary practice and communist ideas so vital to one of the greatest victories in the history of the international working class--the Russian Revolution. CHALLENGE has the same historical role today, used by workers in the Harlem Rebellion and the LA transit strike and by students in their walkouts against California's bosses racist propositions.

CHALLENGE must lead us in the struggles in the schools, in mass organizations, and in the fight for a communist world. Our paper not only offers an analysis of the actual economic and political situation but explains how to destroy dog-eat-dog capitalist system. It reports on workers and students fighting back around the world and building a communist revolutionary movement.

Thirty people either bought CHALLENGE subscriptions or said they wanted to receive it. Several wanted more copies to sell to friends and many agreed to help build for the May Day March.

Another workers' May Day dinner also pledged to increase CHALLENGE sales. Here also workers agreed to distribute more papers and help build the March among their co-workers and families. At that dinner, a worker recited a poem he wrote about farmworkers who harvest the food for our tables as being the very ones the bosses attack the hardest. The future of the world's workers depends on them and their fellow workers being won to fight for a communist future for all workers.

City Workers Take Up the CHALLENGE

NEW YORK CITY -- Our city workers PLP club has been discussing the need to increase our CHALLENGE sales. Now we distribute 100-150 per issue. We expressed our ideas about the paper, its strengths and weaknesses. how we could use it in class struggle, in strengthening our political base and in the recruitment of new members.

Those selling a very modest number made plans to approach additional co-workers and friends. Two members who have wider sales planned to ask readers to take additional copies. In addition, we want to win more workers who buy the paper occasionally at meetings to become regular readers. To start, one member approached two readers who each agreed to take additional papers to distribute.

In addition, this member approached four more co-workers about taking CHALLENGE. These plans created a modest increase in sales. In the next few months, we will be linking CHALLENGE sales to building a mass May Day march.

We agreed that convincing our co-workers and friends to become CHALLENGE sellers and organizers for May Day is crucial to building the PLP.

Profit System Squeezes Steel;
LTV Workers Must Choke Bosses' System

EAST CHICAGO, IN, January 29 -- A few weeks before declaring bankruptcy, the LTV Steel Board of Directors kicked out CEO Peter Kelley. Despite leading the company into bankruptcy for the second time in ten years, he was given a multi-million dollar pension. New CEO Thomas Bricker has threatened to cut insurance benefits for active workers and retirees. LTV and Chase Manhattan (which holds close to a billion dollars of LTV debt) will try to squeeze concessions from both active and retired steelworkers. This is another example of capitalist hypocrisy. Kelley gets millions a year for "destroying LTV."

Workers who put in 25 or 30 years and made billions for their bosses may well see pensions halved and insurance plans wiped out. Many workers think the problem is bad management. "If we got rid of these bums, and got people who knew how to run a steel mill, we wouldn't be in this mess."

But what does it mean to "run a steel mill" when competing capitalists are in a life-and-death fight for cheap labor, resources and markets? In this general crisis of overproduction, steel bosses have created the capacity to make more steel than they can sell at a profit.

From the bosses' point of view, excess capacity must be cut. The industry must consolidate and jobs must be slashed. The strong survive. The weak go under. Charles Bradford, president of Bradford Research, Inc. in New York, told the HAMMOND TIMES that closing LTV would be better for the industry than selling it, because reducing capacity could mean higher domestic prices. "I would like to see that happen," he said.

Workers are angry, in no mood to accept concessions. But there are serious obstacles to fighting back. First, Local 1011 and LTV/Chase have set up a Crisis Reaction Task Force, which is "committed to working together" to "stabilize the workforce," and improve productivity and quality.

Steel union staff rep Tim Conway said that by not protecting the industry from imports, Washington may be "starving the industry into consolidation." Paul Gibson, president of USWA Local 6787 at Bethlehem Steel's Burns Harbor said the bosses will have to make "unpopular decisions," and consolidation may be the key to survival.

He said LTV and Wheeling-Pittsburgh could be out of business in six months. Conway added, "Hopefully it's not that fast, but it's not unrealistic." So it's not "bad management" or imported steel. It's the laws of capitalism! The fight for markets, which today destroys the mills and jobs will eventually lead to war that destroys the workers. The union leaders can't fight all-out against these attacks because they're loyal to the profit system. The only answer to this endless cycle of crises, layoffs, job- and pension-cuts is to build the revolutionary communist movement that can turn a fight-back into a fight for workers' power. We don't need "good" bosses. We don't need any bosses, period!

Postal Workers Plan to Stamp Out Speed Up

CHICAGO, January 29 -- A group of postal workers met today to organize a fight against the latest round of attacks. Bosses are on a rampage--"DO MORE WITH LESS" is their battle cry. Many workers are angry but the union and management have worked hard and long to convince us there's nothing we can do. We made plans to bring our fight to the union hall and the shop floor.

Flat Sort machines are understaffed every day, and the Bar Code Sorting machines are often short one or two workers. But the bosses want production no matter what. In order to compete with UPS, FedEx, etc., they must force us to toe the line. A whole new set of rules to enforce their "attendance policy" amounts to gutting the old contract and past practice, to fire scores of workers and terrorize the rest.

Changes include: (1) Instead of being allowed three call-in absences every 90 days, we'll now be allowed only three per year; (2) Workers must call in every day during a sickness, instead of once for the entire time; (3) Three latenesses used to count as one absence. Now each lateness becomes an absence; (4) Computers will automatically generate discipline, instead of the supervisor. These changes mean many workers will be suspended and fired. So far, the union hasn't uttered a peep in opposition.

We're building a bigger network of CHALLENGE readers and sellers to give political leadership to this fight, and to link it to the overall fight for communist revolution. We are also building a postal May Day Committee to win our co-workers, friends and family to march on the White House.

India Earthquake--Capitalism Is A Deadly Mass Murderer

Officials are predicting that the death toll from the earthquake that devastated the state of Gujarat in western India will climb past 100,000. The deaths are mainly due to the crushing poverty and greed of capitalism. India's strict building codes for earthquake safety, in houses, apartments, hospitals, factories and schools were flaunted. Urgently needed water, medicine and equipment to find and free victims arrived days after the quake.

Gujarat is India's most industrialized state, producing steel, petrochemicals and autos. Foreign investment has streamed in over the last 20 years. GM and Mitsubishi have factories in the area near the quake. It's also the site of BP and Euron refineries as well as The Lions Refinery, owned by India's richest rising capitalists, who have designs on Middle Eastern oil. None of these large industries lost a single brick! Clearly these bosses know how to build for earthquake safety to guarantee their profits.

"Government officials have admitted they were slow to react to the quake when it struck just as the Republic Day ceremonies were beginning across the country." "Quite frankly, there is no plan and that is why the delay," said Poonam Mendiratta, a spokeswoman for the Priya volunteer agency (Reuters, New Delhi, 1/30).

In Ahmedabad, an important diamond polishing center in the commercial center of Gujarat, 55 workers died after being crushed in stampedes because the gates to the units were locked. Scores of diamond polishers are routinely locked in their workplaces "to prevent them from stealing." Sunil Patni, an 18-year-old diamond-polisher said, "When the lights went off after the tremors began, there was a mad stampede for the stairs and I tripped and fell." Between 40 and 50 people collapsed on top of him. "If the gate had not been locked, we would not have met this fate. Nobody would have died. None of the buildings were harmed," he said. (HINDUSTAN TIMES, 1/30)

Mahatma Ghandi Hospital had to be closed because of fear of imminent collapse. "During the earthquake, chunks of slabs began to fall all over the hospital," said a rescue worker. "Within minutes, the entire hospital was evacuated and no one dared to enter this two-story, 120-bed hospital." Patients and others injured in the earthquake had to be treated in tents or in the open. One floor collapsed at another hospital. A doctor blamed years of neglect and the refusal to build safe hospitals. (HINDUSTAN TIMES, 1/28)

Parents of 400 children who died trapped in a collapsed school building denounced the authorities. They said that this building and many others which tumbled were built mainly of sand, with little or no steel to fortify them in the face of an earthquake.

The town of Bhuj, 12 miles from the quake's epicenter, once a city of 200,000, is mainly rubble. Some residents said they heard faint cries of help from crumbled buildings on Saturday, but nothing on Sunday, with no government rescue effort. One man said, "Had the government been prompt and brought in equipment like cranes immediately, my nephew and nieces could have been saved." An official conceded, "We had no cranes, no excavators, no bulldozers. But they have now started to arrive. So we hope to clear up the debris in a few days."

This terrible disaster shows that capitalism brings death and destruction--whether in war or the deadly oppression and poverty that led to this disaster. The competing imperialists will certainly use aid efforts to push for advantage here. But they all share responsibility for the deaths! We urge our readers to raise money to help the survivors. Send it to PLP and we will make sure it goes to the workers in India, not to the fascist government. Capitalism cannot meet the needs of workers. It must be smashed so the working class can build a communist world where the lives of workers come first.

Anarchy of `Free Market' Blows Fuse In California

As the current California power crisis starkly shows, the profit system's "free" market creates anarchy, not order. Four years ago, the state's leading capitalists united to deregulate the energy industry. They saw an opportunity for a windfall. They promised pie in the sky. Utility companies would no longer hold a monopoly on electricity production. They would sell off or close many of their power plants and buy power instead from a host of competing suppliers.

The open market set-up would shower everyone with untold bounty, the bosses vowed. Competition would make the suppliers super-efficient. Freed from the expense of keeping up old plants, utilities would get power at a lower cost. Consumers would pay lower rates. California's lawmakers passed the deregulation bill unanimously.

`Competition' Leads to Cartel Leads to Crisis

But capitalism's inexorable drive for maximum profits short-circuited this fairy tale. A handful of suppliers quickly dominated the market. Led by energy generators like Texas-based Enron and energy speculators like Wall Street's Goldman Sachs, an informal cartel of suppliers jacked up the WHOLESALE price of megawatt-hours almost ten-fold.

For these companies, boosting the bottom line overrode any concern for California's economy and the fate of its workers. On the other hand, fearing for the profits of California's industries, the state's government prevented the utilities from raising their RETAIL rates accordingly. When the biggest utilities--SoCal Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E)--could no longer pay the profiteering suppliers' bills, the suppliers pulled the plug. The utilities then resorted to rolling blackouts that have wrought economic havoc in the state.

Workers have been laid off by the thousands. With losses amounting to $12 billion, SoCal Edison and PG&E face possible bankruptcy. The power struggle in California has nationwide significance. The major U.S. bosses are using deregulation to consolidate industries of all kinds. They need "leaner and meaner," more tightly-controlled operations across the board for two reasons: to compete more effectively with their foreign economic rivals and, ultimately, to prepare for war.

CHALLENGE (see article page 2) has reported on the government's high-level Hart-Rudman commission, which is developing plans for a fascistic "integration" of the nation's infrastructure. The critical question for the ruling class becomes: "Who's in charge?" Until now, Enron has sat in the driver's seat in California. And it's no accident that Enron really began to flex its muscles there late last fall, when George Bush finally managed to steal the presidency. Enron's chairman, Kenneth Lay, was the largest single donor to Bush's campaign.

THREE PROPOSALS REFLECT BOSSES' DOGFIGHT

But the other major U.S. capitalists cannot afford to let the boss with the biggest checkbook in a given situation dictate economic policy. The various "solutions" being proposed in California reflect an attempt to unite the bosses in their common interest, but "under whom?" remains in dispute. State legislators presented a plan written by Crédit Suisse, a European financial house, for the state to float bonds to buy electricity.

However, European investors aren't likely to call the shots here. Governor Davis, advised by Goldman Sachs, wants the suppliers to offer long-term contracts directly to the state. A third proposal just coming to light would rescue the utilities by having the state acquire equity in them and by allowing them to raise rates.

This plan would safeguard the dominant Eastern Establishment's investment in the utilities. The largest shareholders in PG&E are banks in Boston and New York. Not surprisingly, the third plan is receiving favorable coverage in the Establishment press. The NEW YORK TIMES (1/27) just ran a glowing profile of S. David Freeman, one of this plan's main architects. A veteran of the Johnson and Carter administrations, he has headed the New York Power Authority and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Rockefeller-funded groups like the Urban League and National Wildlife Foundation have heaped awards on him.

Whoever wins this faction fight over the reorganization of California energy, workers will pay for the "solution." Any bailout of SoCal Edison and/or PG&E will involve a combination of bond issues and higher energy rates. And it will be the working class who will bear the brunt of these costs.

ENRON AND MAIN RULERS: UNITY AND
CONFLICT WITHIN THE RULING CLASS

But Enron's not about to go under. From the main wing's point of view, that company needs to be reined in, not rubbed out. Enron serves U.S. imperialism well on one front by competing with German and Russian gas barons in Europe. Enron's profiteering may have made things go haywire in California, but the anarchy resulting from its push for deregulation aids the big bosses' argument for streamlining and strengthening the nation's power grid. Until this process advances, Enron will obey the capitalist law of amassing maximum profit regardless of the consequences.

Ultimately, however, the Texas gas billionaires won't try to kill the goose that lays their golden eggs. They too are beginning to look kindly on a plan to give "the federal government more control over transmission lines" (NEW YORK TIMES, 6/30/00).

The current situation in California reflects the constant process of unity and conflict within the ruling class that CHALLENGE has described many times. We must never choose sides in these tactical fights among the rulers. They all oppress workers. Our job remains the same, regardless of the winner here. We must build our Party, sharpen the class struggle and keep our eye on the goal of communist revolution.

Picture Caption

Turmoil in Ecuador

Quito, Ecuador--Union and indigenous leaders are arrested over mass protests against government austerity squeeze. Mass communist PLP is crucial to turning these sparks into fire that would destroy capitalism.

LETTERS

India Earthquake: Rulers Fight
While Workers Die

Members of the RSS, an extremist Hindu theocratic outfit that spearheads India's fascist ruling party, and is hostile to other religions, has been trying to bar Christians from eaarthquake relief work in Ahmedabad, India. (WASHINGTON TIMES, 1/29) Incidentally, the Red Cross and all Western aid agencies happen to be Christian. But the Hindu fundamentalists want to hog the tragedy for electoral purposes.

Prime Minister Vajpeyi's visit aggravated the situation. The Bhuj District Administration got busy welcoming him, neglecting relief operations. World-wide aid is pouring in, but there's no coordinating mechanism yet in place. Defense Minister George Fernandes estimates the death toll at 100,000 (ITN/London, Jan. 30) but the Prime Minister cynically calls it Fernandes "personal view."

While the politicians jockey for position to make themselves look good, workers have taken the opposite stance. One hundred young Muslims in Ahmedabad donated blood repeatedly over three days to save the injured, mostly Hindu.

An Indian Immigrant

Indigenous Oaxaca Youth Respond to PLP

Racism against indigenous people in Mexico is widespread, causing incredible poverty. The caciques (landlords) and bosses use fascist groups to impose that racism. Therefore, a revolutionary communist movement must be based on fighting racism and building unity of all workers and peasants.

Towards that goal, PLP members organized a meeting on January 6 in the Mixe Sierra (Mountains) of Oaxaca. The young people who participated showed much interest in our communist politics. These youth, having formed an Indigenous group in Oaxaca, have heard about PLP and wanted to hear more. They thought their group needed a political focus. At the meeting we discussed the destructive role nationalism and regionalism plays under capitalism. We explained how these ideologies are used to divide us along national and cultural lines.

We also discussed many aspects of life among the different "etnias" (indigenous groups in the Oaxaca countryside) which are very positive, like "mano vuelta,"--a peasant grows or builds something for other people in the community with the understanding that the same favor will be returned. Another form is "tequio"--everyone contributes to building a school, health center, etc. However, while it is good to learn from these positive things, we shouldn't idealize them since there are also many social practices based on inequalities among men, women and children.

Also, many are so proud of being an indigenous person that it tends to limit how they look at the rest of the world. Many feel as a Mixe person they are superior to others. Our meeting helped clear up many doubts these young people had, although there is still much more to do to win them to PLP.

However, we've taken the first step. At the next meeting we hope to have more people. We are also planning a regular PLP study-action group to organize participation in the region's mass struggles.

Communists in the Mixe Mountains of Oaxaca,

Mexico U.S.-Euro Rivalry Behind Peru's
Electoral Circus

Now that ex-president/dictator Fujimori and his partner-in-crime, Vladimir Montesinos (long-time CIA operative here and drug-runner) have fled Peru, the interim ruler, Valentin Paniagua, is supposed to prepare an electoral spectacle to choose the new ruling capitalist lackey. To hide the fact that capitalism caused the corruption, repression and mass poverty suffered under ten years of Fujimori-Montensinos, the current rulers are putting on a big show "exposing" some very crooked politicians and generals from the old regime.

The U.S. State Department must be carefully organizing this sham, particularly since one of the leading candidates for President, Alejandro Toledo, is their man. First, it's no secret that Montesinos and Fujimori were dumped because they had outlived their usefulness to U.S. imperialism. Peru and Ecuador are key countries related to Plan Colombia, the war waged by the Colombia bosses and the U.S. against the Colombian guerrillas. The U.S. already has a huge air base in Manta, Ecuador to attack guerrillas in Colombia.

The U.S. also wants another base, in Peru's jungles, for that purpose. It is rumored that to justify U.S. intervention in the region, the CIA let Montesinos sell thousands of weapons (via Jordan) to the FARC (the main Colombian guerrilla group). Then they set up Montesinos, "exposing" his role in this sale. Why? Because the U.S. needed an excuse to expand its military operations in South America to counter plans by its European rivals to take over what the U.S. has always considered its "backyard."

But Montesinos and Fujimori were dumped also because Peru's bosses feared workers and others weren't about to take the misery imposed by these two much longer. Workers and students were becoming angrier, engaging in massive protests demanding the end of the Fujimori regime.

The union hacks and other sellouts are helping to cool these actions, hoping to get some posts in Congress. A leader of the labor federation (CGTP), who is also a leader of the fake leftist "Communist" Party, is actually one of the candidates for Vice-president (Peru has two VPs) for the National Unity Alliance, a right-wing party.

The two leading Presidential candidates are: * Former President Alan Garcia, another crook and murderer. As President in the 1980s, he ordered the massacre of 300 political prisoners, many from the Shining Path group, and the murder of peasants in the mountains. He's a social-democrat, linked mostly to German imperialism and to the national bourgesoisie which is losing out to competition from the big bosses and their multi-national corporate allies. * Alejandro Toledo, a former official of the World Bank, who returned from his job in Washington, D.C. to run. He is apparently the U.S. rulers' choice.

Meanwhile, the current crisis of world capitalism is hitting workers here. Many smaller bosses are going bankrupt because of the "unfair" competition from the big bosses and their import companies. This leaves thousands of workers jobless. The number of street vendors has risen sharply since it's the only job available for many. Some class-conscious workers are beginning to see that the April 8 elections won't solve their problems.

Our PLP group here is calling on workers to boycott the electoral farce and instead help us spread our communist politics, to raise the class consciousness of workers. Our aim is not to reform this rotten system but to destroy it and build a communist society where workers rule and produce for the needs of our class, not for a few parasites.

A comrade, Lima, Peru

Thou Shall March on May Day

The Sunday night before Martin Luther King Day I entertained our church soup kitchen volunteers at my family's annual hamburger soup-cheese grits feast (a tradition my mother and aunt started for winter Sundays decades ago back in Virginia). In addition to the volunteers, most of them black, unemployed and/or Workfare victims, I invited several white liberal anti-racists from a religious humanist congregation I used to lead.

As before, most of the "middle" class people congregated in the living room and most of the working-class people, in the dining room. Bad. But this time I was prepared! The "Village Voice," of all newspapers, had just published an article on the "leading struggles of 2000." I cut out the picture and descriptions of each struggle, taped each to a separate index card and numbered them so that different people could match the text and the picture, and then discuss how that class battle might inspire them to fight racism and imperialism in the coming year.

Most people participated and got into good, if brief discussions. Once we had become more of a community, we gathered around the piano and sang Civil Rights protest songs from the '50s and '60s. Most of these friends get CHALLENGE, at least occasionally. Many have marched at least once on May Day. A few don't know about the Party yet.

This evening set a good tone toward making May Day 2001 bigger and more spirited, and most of all provided a closer personal and political bonding experience among myself and some more friends. So the Party can grow! Loving those cheese grits,

Red Churchmouse

Biological Determinism: Workers' Enemy

A review of the movie "Billy Elliot" (CHALLENGE, 1/10) quoted uncritically one character's saying, "Well, how many potential Einsteins, in every kind of field, are never even discovered because they're living in the slums and never will get the opportunity to shine? There'll be a hundred, a million geniuses discovered after the revolution!--Jonas Salks, Charlie Chaplins, Orson Welleses, etc."

The reviewer makes a point here that's only partly correct. It's true that capitalism prevents people from developing their intellectual abilities. But it's false that "potential Einsteins" number only in the millions. In fact, ironically, the previous week CHALLENGE contained an article on math education directly contradicting that incorrect notion: "... math education in Japan assumes that ALL children can learn..." (Emphasis added)

There is a powerful need for us to purge all biological determinist notions from our thinking, such as limits on each individual's intellectual development. To suggest that only some, but not all, people--even if it's millions--are "potential Einsteins," is to advance the myth that Einsteins are "born" and not made, and that they achieve what they do as isolated individuals, rather than as part of a collective. This biological determinist notion misunderstands both what Einstein was and was not, which is equally true of all people.

To put it another way, Einstein was no "Einstein"--in the sense that "Einstein" embodies a far-reaching myth, one of superhuman heroes designed by the ruling class to convince the vast majority of the working class that they are in their current exploited condition because of some "lack of ability." Einstein achieved what he did in the field of physics because of, (1) early development of particular INTERESTS and the ongoing spread of those interests; (2) a lifetime of very HARD WORK AND STRUGGLE to understand physical aspects of the universe around us; (3) WORKING WITH hundreds of other physicists to develop these understandings; and (4) a time in history when CAPITALISM NEEDED development of this particular branch of science.

In the absence of this combination of elements, Einstein might have remained a postal clerk in Germany--at least until the Nazis would have murdered him. Consider that Einstein did not develop outstanding abilities in any other field--including, incidentally, math. The reason? This work takes time and focus. The biological structure of all human brains limits our ability to concentrate on several things at once, and, given a finite lifetime, this prevented him--as it would anyone--from excelling in more than a few areas.

Einstein's theoretical achievements stemmed not from what he was, but rather from what he did, and when and with whom he did it. There were hundreds of other major figures in the development of this area of science, but their names have not become household words, because if everyone is a hero, then no one is, and the bosses' myth falls apart. With the possible exception of a tiny percentage of people who have brain disorders, everyone, given the proper combination of circumstances, is capable of learning and working to develop theory, in any field, every bit as complex as Einstein's and then some.

In a communist society, it will be up to the former working class (i.e., the human race) to determine how many people are needed at any particular time to take part in the development of advancing science in any particular direction.

Of course, the ones to do that would rationally be collectively decided in part based on their interests, as they may have developed to that point. But we should never fall for or advance the bosses' myth that only some, and not all, people are capable of what is now considered to be extraordinary intellectual development. To do so is to prevent our liberating ourselves from the agonies of capitalism.

Red Doctor

REVIEWER'S COMMENT

I never disagreed that the theory of biological determinism is an invalid one and one that should be fought, but I don't think the review suggested that. However, the above letter refers to a previous article on the importance of math to revolutionary youth. I agree, based on my own experience concerning education without politics.

When I was a kid, I was terrible at math--until the seventh and eighth grades. My teacher was Miss McCann, a rigid, almost humorless person, but with one very special trait: she assumed we could and would all do our best. In those years my grades went from C's and D's to strong A's. Suddenly I was the best student in the class. Apart from Miss McCann's expectations, I had no idea why the transformation--until I read the recent article on the importance of math. (After those two years, I was never good at math again.)

The CHALLENGE article stated that young people with a communist ideology must understand that knowledge of math and science are necessary to the success of the revolution. As a kid in the 1950s, I had no Left-wing inclinations. I was more interested in fooling around, right to the point of being a delinquent. In fact I eventually was sent to a reform school. During the pre-Vietnam, Truman-McCarthy-Eisenhower era, we were encouraged to conform--until the Soviet Union sent "Sputnik," the first rocket, into orbit. Suddenly mathematicians and scientists were in demand. Had there been a communist understanding, as suggested in the recent mathematics article, and had I been influenced in the '50s as we all later were during the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war era, math and science would more clearly have been important to myself and others.

Many young people, then and now, drift into gangs and pointless rebellions (as in the '50s movie "Rebel Without a Cause") because they see no alternative to the phony grasping world of capitalism. In fact, they don't understand the class meaning of the system that oppresses them and the whole working class. It's up to us to teach the importance of intellectual growth, not for the benefit of the rich but for the working class.

Ex-Brooklynite

To Our Readers:

Starting with this issue CHALLENGE will be published biweekly. We want to make this a a temporary situation. But, we need the help of our readers to change it as soon as possible (for more details see article in this issue).

a href="#WHETHER CLINTON OR BUSH—SAME AGENDA, RACISM AND WAR">"ditorial: Whether Clinton Or Bush—Same Agenda, Racism And War

• Hart-Rudman Plan: Open Blueprint For Fascism And War

Fired Red Teacher Wins Round One

a href="#It’s Time to ‘Clock’ the Klan">It’s"Time to ‘Clock’ the Klan

Criminal Injustice System in Overdrive vs. Morristown Anti-Racists

Begin Millennium Organizing For Red May Day

Class War The Cure for Electoral Disease

Hospital Bosses Cut Jobs, Workers Bleed

The Bi-Weekly CHALLENGE: Spread Revolutionary Ideas In the Working Class

• Challenge Overcomes Cynicism
• What Must Be Done?

The 'New Economy': WWW.GONEBROKE.COM

a href="#Boeing’s New Boss: An Ambassador Of Death">"oeing’s New Boss: An Ambassador Of Death

Capitalism Turns Quake into Disaster for Workers

From Boom to Bloodbath

Reform and Revolution at the MLA

LETTERS

Ecuador to Spain: Same Enemy, Same Fight

a href="#Small Victory Over ‘Big Mac’">Sm"ll Victory Over ‘Big Mac’

EDITORIAL

a name="WHETHER CLINTON OR BUSH—SAME AGENDA, RACISM AND WAR">">"HETHER CLINTON OR BUSH—SAME AGENDA, RACISM AND WAR

Beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing! Thousands of workers and others planning to protest at the Bush-Cheney inauguration would do well to heed this ancient warning. The new Republican White House is obviously racist, anti-worker and pro-business to the core. Not so obvious is that the liberals leading the protests are just as bad as Bush & Co. We shouldn’t be misled by capitalist politicians parading as "lesser evils." The entire profit system is the evil we must destroy. Workers should march on Washington, but not to follow Democrats, who serve the same ruling class as the Republicans. We should march on May Day under the banners of the Progressive Labor Party for the goal of communist revolution.

The recent election exposed the bosses’ voting process as a hypocritical fraud. Gore won the popular vote and Bush stole Florida by preventing black workers from voting or refusing to count their votes. But suppose Gore had won. Would a Gore-Lieberman presidency have offered workers a better deal? Facts are stubborn things. The Clinton-Gore record proves that the struggle to control the executive branch is little more than a partisan brawl to decide which faction of rulers will get to reap the spoils of state power as they rule over and oppress us. A brief summary of Clinton-Gore’s "achievements" since 1993 shows an unbroken pattern of racist terror, social service cuts, fascist use of state power, environmental degradation and preparation for imperialist oil war:

•The Clinton-Gore welfare" reform" law threw millions of workers and children off public assistance and into a form of slave labor.

• The prison population doubled. Seventy percent of inmates are black and Latino, mostly jailed for non-violent crimes or framed outright.

•The so-called "Clinton boom" went primarily into the pockets of the wealthiest 5 %. One-fifth of all children live in poor households. This figure will mushroom now that the economy is slowing and tens of thousands more workers face layoffs.

•Clinton-Gore hired 100,000 new cops to brutalize workers and then made sure the "Justice" Department would obtain as few federal indictments as possible against police brutality (only 3 % of all cases referred to it by the FBI).

•As a result of Clinton-Gore IRS policy, taxpayers earning $25,000 or less now stand a better chance of facing an audit than people earning more than $100,000.

•Clinton-Gore paraded as champions of the environment. But their record was even worse than the Republican Reagan-Bush gang’s. Clinton-Gore’s pet North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a program for mass environmental pollution in Mexico and the Southern Hemisphere. On the home front, Clinton-Gore gave a virtual blank check for development to mining companies, real estate developers, the food and chemical industries and the pharmaceutical giants

•War, or preparation for it, was a daily menu item of all eight Clinton-Gore years. U.S. sanctions murdered over a million Iraqis—mostly children—without bringing Iraqi oil back under Exxon’s control. Under Clinton, U.S. imperialism played nuclear brinkmanship in North Korea, bombed Iraq regularly (and still does), carried out "humanitarian" aerial terror over the former Yugoslavia for the control of energy pipelines, and made "peace" moves that have once again turned the Middle East into a powderkeg.

A Democratic Gore presidency would clearly have pursued the same agenda. The Bush White House will not act in a fundamentally different way. Sure, there will be some differences. Bush owes the domestic Oil Patch bosses a favor. So he backs the pumping of Alaskan oil for commercial purposes. The Democrats oppose it, but not for the environmental reasons stated. They simply want the oil at the ready for emergency use if war disrupts the flow from the Persian Gulf.

Otherwise there won’t be much difference. In fact, Bush could hardly attack the working class more than Clinton-Gore. If racist John Ashcroft becomes Attorney General, he could hardly move the anti-working class policies already in place much further to the right. However, more severe fascist attacks are in the works such as the Hart-Rudman plan (see box).The only difference is that Ashcroft doesn’t bother to camouflage his racism. Bush’s main cabinet appointments—in State, Treasury, and Defense—all come from the same Establishment-friendly club that has always carried out a pro-ruling class agenda regardless of minor tactical differences.

Gore would have squeezed us economically, imprisoned us, terrorized us and tried eventually to march us off to a war in the desert for oil super-profits. Bush & Co. will do exactly the same.

We must break the vicious circle the liberals constantly put before us to chase after a "lesser evil." Even the more radical-sounding politicians from the so-called "left," like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, are completely controlled by the bosses. Jackson is a former Rockefeller Brothers "man of the year," and both he and Sharpton (an admitted FBI informer) fully backed the Clinton-Gore program, especially its focus on making Iraq safe for Exxon, which means war.

Our Party rejects choosing between the workers’ enemies. The capitalist system can’t be reformed. The bosses will always use their state power to guarantee maximum profits for the big financiers and industrialists. Accepting this dirty "choice" keeps us in the bosses’ control. Our class interest lies not in picking our own hangman but rather in fighting to build a Party that can lead one day to the seizure of power. Break away from liberal rulers and their politicians! Smash the Democratic and Republican bosses! Join with the Progressive Labor Party and march on May Day for communist revolution!

Hart-Rudman Plan: Open Blueprint For Fascism And War

Workers shouldn’t be fooled by all the partisan wrangling over Bush’s cabinet appointments. Genuine tactical differences divide the main rulers on certain questions, and the brawling may continue, perhaps throughout the Bush-Cheney presidency. But U.S. imperialism also faces mounting challenges over the next 20 years from European, Chinese and Russian rivals. To meet these threats, it will need internal unity. The bosses need self-discipline within their own ranks as well as against workers both at home and abroad.

The political form of the drive toward this discipline is the Hart-Rudman"U.S. Commission on National Security in the Twenty-First Century." It includes both liberal Democrats like Andrew Young and "conservative" Republicans like Newt Gingrich. Its chief goal is U.S. rulers’ survival as a superpower. One aim is to confront the growing strength of Russia and China. Another is to guarantee an "uninterrupted supply of oil from the Persian Gulf." This means war, sooner or later. But the Hart-Rudman panel understands that, in light of the "Vietnam Syndrome," the bosses will need a major effort to mobilize the working class inside and outside the military.

Hart-Rudman’s solution is to use the threat of a "hostile attack on our homeland," an assault "in which Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers." Then, the commission hopes, "the American people will be ready to sacrifice blood and treasure, and come together to do so."

This "National Security" panel also prescribes tightened control of the economy from the top down. Knowing that international economic rivalry eventually leads to armed conflict, Hart-Rudman wants an "integration of the Departments of State and Defense and the CIA with the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, Justice and Transportation."

Consolidating law enforcement plays a big role as well. The September 1999 installment of Hart-Rudman recommended "new organizational mechanisms to manage the increased blurring of lines among military, police, and legal jurisdictions, and among new forms of warfare." The Pentagon acted immediately by creating a joint task force to ensure military control of state and local police agencies in the event of an emergency.

The main implementation phase of the Hart-Rudman report will be published in February or March. This blueprint for fascism and war represents U.S. rulers’ plans for meeting their urgent class needs, regardless of the cost in workers’ lives. The Bush-Cheney White House will march to this tune. The Clinton-Gore team played the overture, and a Gore White House would have continued into the next act. The liberals are fully behind Hart-Rudman. Newly-elected New Jersey Democratic Senator John Corzine promised during his campaign to "hold off on any major new defense contracts…until the Hart Rudman Commission…finishes its report."

Our enemy is mobilizing to act as one class. We must do no less. Building the PLP as the working class’s general staff is the top strategic priority for workers. Nothing else can lead to victory.

Fired Red Teacher Wins Round One

CHICAGO, January 14 — Communist teacher Carol Caref is one step closer to winning her job back. On December 16, a hearing officer ruled that her firing was "without just or sufficient cause." The decision overwhelmingly favored Carol, rejecting every one of the Board’s arguments. The Board of Education can still overturn the finding at its February 27 meeting.

Carol was charged with "conduct unbecoming a teacher" because she encouraged students to attend an anti-KKK rally in 1997, and one of her students was arrested. In 1999, the Board, learning of this arrest, conducted a witchhunt "investigation" reminiscent of McCarthyism. Carol and another PLP teacher, Moises Bernal, were removed from their classrooms. Moises was later fired.

Students, parents and teachers supported PLP against racist schools’ CEO Paul Vallas. Many teachers contributed financial and moral support. Students and parents backed Carol at hearings, rallies and defense committee meetings. "Substance" newspaper—whose editor is himself a target of Mayor Daley’s School Board—published front-page accounts of Carol’s hearing and the recent decision.

Our forces presented a vigorous political defense against the Board’s attack with which the hearing officer agreed, stating, "Young people need to broaden their horizons by observing the world that they will soon be facing on their own. There is strong support for a white teacher who teaches in a primarily black school and protests racist activities. A teacher’s willingness to broaden their education by spending off-duty time is to be commended, not condemned."

However, to make this victory more meaningful, we must fight to win these supporters to become new members, CHALLENGE distributors and May Day organizers, and to advance our fight to serve the people.

The Board and Daley are committed to ideological control of the schools to serve the interests of their masters. They are still attacking all real and potential critics of their phony educational "miracle." This "miracle" has thrown thousands of students, mainly black and Latino, out of the high schools. It has used phony redesign plans to keep people in line and train a few for high-tech jobs in the military and their "new economy." The rest are tracked into prisons, cannon-fodder posts in the military and/or below-poverty wage jobs.

Communists fight to educate students, in and out of the classroom. Young people, in particular, need to learn as much about the world as possible, including math, science, history and language, so they can better lead the fight for communism. Our Party is committed to serving the needs of these working-class youth, in and out of school.

The Caref-Bernal Legal Defense Fund still needs contributions and donations to offset huge legal bills. Bernal’s case is being appealed. Send donations, and make checks or money orders payable, to the Caref-Bernal Legal Defense Fund, at 5431 South Harper, Chicago, IL 60615.

a name="It’s Time to ‘Clock’ the Klan"></a>"t’s Time to ‘Clock’ the Klan

GARY, IN, Jan. 17 — The racist Ku Klux Klan has announced plans to march in Gary. Mayor Scott King is putting on a publicity show about trying to "stop" them, but the racist system has been allowing this racist terror gang to spread its recruitment drive. Whatever may happen, we should organize thousands of people to oppose them and shut them down!

There can be no "free speech" for this murderous gang with a long history of brutalizing and killing thousands of black people. The same system that pretends to support "free speech" uses its cops to stop the free speech and "freedom of assembly" of young people in Gary and all over the U. S., harassing, beating, and jailing them often for the so-called crime of walking in public places. Workers on strike are ordered back to work. But when they want to protect the Klan, they chatter about "free speech."

Here in Northwest Indiana and throughout the U.S., the economy is starting to slide. The rich capitalists may pretend to oppose the violence of groups like the KKK, but they use these groups to try to get white working-class people to attack black workers, immigrants and anyone else who tries to unite the working class. It’s no accident that we are faced with more big layoffs in the steel industry and a decline in the economy while the capitalists simultaneously enable the KKK to try to create a war among black, Latino and white workers. Capitalism is killing millions of workers worldwide and the crisis is worsening. That’s why PLP fights for communism.

Anyone who thinks the KKK has the answers will have to answer to us! That means organizing on the job, in our unions, schools and communities to bring out thousands. The argument that, "They are only seeking attention and should be ignored." is dead wrong. They don’t want attention for the hell of it! They want to recruit to build a violently racist, anti-working class movement. That’s why we should shut them down and carry the anti-racist momentum into a broader, deeper effort to build a communist revolution to smash racist capitalism forever.

Criminal Injustice System in Overdrive vs. Morristown Anti-Racists

MORRISTOWN, NJ, January 12 — Recent developments in the cases of the eight anti-racists arrested here at an anti-fascist demonstration on July 4 show once again the importance of unity against a legal system where the cards are stacked against us. At a Jan. 10 court hearing, two judges, one for the adult case and one for the juvenile case, kicked the lawyer representing four of the adult defendants and one juvenile off the case completely. The judges completely disregarded the wishes of all five defendants and their so-called constitutional right to choose their own attorneys. They based their ruling on the elitist proposition that the legal system knows what is best for these defendants better than they do themselves!

Our legal defense committee fully expected that these judges would fire our lawyers. Our lawyer had been painstakingly fighting these cases, and had become a major thorn in the prosecutor’s side. The defendants have still not been charged by the grand jury, although that may change soon (see below). The prosecutor clearly wanted our lawyer off the case, and the judges were happy to cooperate. Far from demoralizing the anti-racists, however, this move has made them more determined to stick together and fight all the charges. Our defense team also has resolved to stay on the legal offensive against these attacks.

At the court hearing, the judge raised the spectre of the anti-racists facing up to five years in jail if convicted on more serious "third degree" riot charges. This was not part of the cops’ original charges. In his court papers, the prosecutor also raised the possibility of investigating a "conspiracy" among the defendants. In the latest development, the prosecutor is directly contacting witnesses for the anti-racists to persuade them to testify for the government. Grand jury subpoenas may follow soon. These threats show how seriously the local bosses take our July 4 actions. They also reflect the rapid growth of U.S. fascism.

From Seattle to Morristown, to the Republican and Democratic Conventions, the rulers’ police forces are increasingly being used to directly suppress mass demonstrations. A CNN report on the Washington, D.C. anti-Bush demonstration scheduled for this weekend’s inauguration reports that participants will go through TEN security check-points to reach the approved location. Clinton’s Hart-Rudman commission proposals will directly tie all federal government agencies to the military/national security apparatus (see page 2).

Communists do not underestimate the vicious lengths to which the ruling class will go to secure its power and profits. Imperialist war and fascism flow inevitably from the capitalist system. The entire legal system—laws, judges, prosecutors, grand juries, etc.—will be used to further these plans.

We in PLP must expose the latest Morristown developments. They are a "wake-up call" for the working class. They must lead to our building a large movement of workers and students to fight all the attacks on the anti-racists. In the long run, only a communist revolution can put an end to the bosses and their bought-and-paid-for legal system.

Fighting is Winning:

Begin Millennium Organizing For Red May Day

NEW YORK, January 16 — May Day is the most significant political activity of PLP. May Day 2001 will take place as inter-imperialist rivalry intensifies, amid a growing threat of war for control of Mid-East oil and increasingly fascist measures and layoffs as the bosses’ economy enters into another one of its periodic crisis. May Day will also take place as workers fight for their class interests, from strikes in Ecuador and Colombia to anti-racist protests in the U.S. and Southern Spain

Our Party continues the dogged fight for communism. We are digging deeper roots in the international working class and giving more leadership to the class struggle. There is every reason for revolutionary optimism, but no room for complacency. We can take nothing and no one for granted. Confidence is important. But we need more struggle, among our friends and against the enemy. Struggle among comrades and friends should be based on deep appreciation and respect for everyone’s potential to contribute to building the Party and serving the working class. Out of struggle grows real affection for and confidence in each other.

We must fight. Fight for mass numbers of May Day marchers. Fight to serve the working class. Fight for CHALLENGE distribution and fund-raising. Fight to organize May Day committees and activity, for recruitment to the Party, and the political development of our members and leaders. Fight to sharpen the class struggle. In short, fight to build a mass base for communist revolution and more quickly reverse the devastating impact of the defeat of the old communist movement. When we turn this around depends on many circumstances, both external and internal. But the goal is to wage this struggle.

We are in a continuous effort to increase the number of May Day marchers. But we understand that each new May Day marcher and organizer, each new CHALLENGE reader and distributor, every new committed sustainer, and each new member represents a qualitative change for that person and our Party clubs.

A long-time PLP member asked what could be done to re-gain his commitment for May Day organizing. A new leader concluded, "I think we need some kind of center where we can pursue our projects. We have an ESL class. We are beginning a new theater group for writing and performing political skits at various activities. Our factory workers project is a little slow at the moment, but we should re-vitalize it. And we’re more and more involved with parents and others in the struggle against racist studies and the use of drugs, like Ritalin, on our children."

Thinking about what we do, making plans and evaluations, are the nuts and bolts of our work. This is how we can understand and advance our political ideas. With a careful and planned struggle we can do better. We should review our plan for CHALLENGE distribution and fund-raising. Who do we know and what is the nature of our personal-political relationships? Who can we recruit to the Party? How can we improve Party education? What are our plans for work in the mass organizations, in mass struggles, for Party activities and for mass May Day organizing? In the fight to improve our work we welcome comradely criticism and self-criticism to overcome all obstacles.

Building May Day means being active in struggle on many fronts every day. Jump in. It is still true that the international working class has nothing to lose but its chains and a world to win.

Class War The Cure for Electoral Disease

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 14 — The Local 1199 hospital workers union leadership in the Service Employees International Union is misleading health care and service workers in their struggles against the bosses. The union leaders, Andrew Stein and Dennis Rivera, concentrate on mobilizing the union to elect the bosses’ candidates who, at best, can give us a few crumbs.

One worker at a Brooklyn hospital told us, "I’ve been voting for the past 20 years. Hospital conditions for patient care have deteriorated. Before, I took care of six patients. Now I have 15. What have the politicians done for patient care?"

The union leaders say the class struggle is over, that electing Democrats ("our friends") and defeating Republicans ("our enemies") is the only future for health care and service workers. But another Brooklyn hospital worker told us, "Workers cannot depend on the bosses’ politicians to improve their living standards. Workers have always had to fight very hard to gain better conditions." Or keep what little benefits we have, we might add.

Both parties are funded by the bosses and push the same policies for workers—racist mayhem, slave labor Workfare, doubling the prison population (70% black and Latino, mostly non-violent offenders or framed outright) and a dramatic increase in police terror and anti-immigrant attacks. They want the working class passive, loyal and divided, supporting the bosses’ ideas—racism, war and fascism.

In the last election, the 1199 leadership mobilized thousands of workers to elect Democrats around the country, including voter registration, citizenship programs and going door-to-door to get out the vote. Millions in union funds were spent to elect politicians who serve the bosses’ interests. The union leaders are performing a valuable service for the rulers, misleading oppressed black, Latin and white workers to the polling booths instead of fighting back against the profit system.

Ironically the politicians are always criticizing the health care system in the media. Yet it is their capitalist system that’s responsible for the health care crisis, producing increased misery for both patients and health care workers. Currently there are 45 million workers nationwide without health insurance.

The N.Y. State Legislature "expanded" the Health Care Reform Act, but still left over 2,000,000 people without health insurance. The hospital bosses are still laying off workers (see box on Mt. Sinai) and closing their doors. Why? The nature of capitalism is cutthroat competition, which impels these cost-cutting, profit-making layoffs, closings, mergers and consolidations, and battles among hospitals, drug and insurance companies for profits.

The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 cut $3 billion from Medicare for hospitals in NY State. The HMOs denied many hospital reimbursements, claiming services were "not medically necessary."

This is what we get from being misled into the polling booths. We must fight against a union leadership that defends the bosses’ system. Unite workers across all borders to wage war against capitalist exploitation.

Hospital Bosses Cut Jobs, Workers Bleed

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 10 — Hundreds of Local 1199 members picketed Mt. Sinai Hospital today, protesting a cut of 70 housekeeping jobs, "to reduce costs." Many of these 70 have been working here for 10 years or more.

"They claim to have economic troubles, but we don’t believe them," said Maria Boutim, losing her job after 12 years, "They pay very high salaries to hospital officials who do nothing" The head of the hospital’s Board of Directors announced last month that the hospital just collected $10 million from donors. Workers should have such "economic troubles."

The hospital’s "promise" to find new jobs for those being cut is an empty one since they claim they haven’t found anywhere to place them. But a Mt. Sinai shop steward reported that the 16-floor medical school on Madison Avenue has "300 offices and 85 labs that will be cleaned by only 8 people working only 4 hours a day each. It is impossible to clean them adequately in such a short time and with so few staff."

Health care is obviously run like any other capitalist business. The bottom line is profits. The lives of these 70 workers are of no concern to these bosses. Indeed, capitalist health care is dangerous to workers’ health.

The Bi-Weekly CHALLENGE:

Spread Revolutionary Ideas In the Working Class

With this issue, CHALLENGE- will be published every two weeks, primarily to use the extra week to enlarge the regular readership of the paper. As layoffs, racist terror and war loom even more in the future, and workers fight back, we can win new readers to become regular distributors of CHALLENGE. Through this process, we would hope to return to a weekly by next January, if not sooner, and retain the increased regular readership, as well as increase the financial base of our paper and Party.

Lenin, the leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution, declared, "Without revolutionary theory there is no revolution." In other words, to overthrow capitalism and build communism, the working class must understand why capitalism is its mortal enemy and why communism is the only solution. Otherwise, no matter how bad things get, workers will be sucked into following misleaders who claim they can reform capitalism. Ultimately these reformers inevitably lead workers into nationalism and wars against the workers of other countries.

Lenin’s party, the Bolsheviks, succeeded because, among other reasons, they brought their theory to workers, soldiers and sailors through their newspapers. They fought hard for years even though being caught with a copy of a communist newspaper could result in imprisonment or death. Bolshevik Party clubs made and consistently carried out detailed plans to bring their newspapers to workers. Often a single copy was passed around a factory and read by dozens of workers.

Largely because of the reversals of the workers’ revolutions in Russia and China, we are in a difficult historical period for building the communist movement. Many workers, students, and others are cynical about the chances of replacing capitalism—no matter how brutal it gets—with something better. Many have bought into the anti-communism constantly peddled by the bosses and their intellectual servants.

CHALLENGE OVERCOMES CYNICISM

CHALLENGE is a big part of the answer to the cynicism and anti-communism that cripples our class. CHALLENGE links the horror we all experience to the profoundly rotten nature of capitalism and shows why the profit system can never meet the needs of the working class. Every issue of CHALLENGE shows how real workers, students and soldiers in a number of countries are building the Progressive Labor Party by leading class struggle and recruiting new members.

But the circulation of CHALLENGE is too low compared to the task before us. Given our forces, there is no way—yet—that we can compete in terms of numbers with the capitalist mass media. But, by applying ourselves, we could significantly increase the circulation of CHALLENGE between now and May Day, and continue to do so thereafter. This will make a difference! CHALLENGE is infinitely more powerful than the mass media, because it tells the truth about capitalism rather than covering up its crimes. Every additional reader of CHALLENGE is a nail in the coffin of the capitalist class.

What Must Be Done?

A CHALLENGE article (Jan. 3) from a Philadelphia PLP club shows the way. It analyzes why some members excel at getting the paper out to their friends, and how others could learn from them. The club made plans for everybody to increase their CHALLENGE circulation and how to get the paper "read" by workers who can’t or don’t read, including a fight for a union-sponsored literacy campaign.

Every PLP club should make detailed plans to distribute more copies of CHALLENGE. A critical element involves increasing the number of people who distribute the paper. As readers come to understand the paper’s importance to the working class, they should become distributors. Struggling with family members, friends and co-workers to read CHALLENGE is difficult. Experienced Party members must provide guidance and support on how to overcome cynicism, anti-communism and other obstacles. Otherwise, readers can draw the incorrect conclusion that others are not interested. But winning struggles to bring CHALLENGE to others builds confidence in PLP and its ideas, and is a crucial part of the recruitment process. People become communists by winning others to communism.

If you’re reading this but do not meet with a PLP club, you too can help. The Party and the working class need your help. Think about who could be enlightened, as you are, by reading CHALLENGE. Make a list. Ask the person who gives you the paper to give you extra copies, and take them to the people on your list. Explain to them why they should read it. Show them articles you think will interest them. Want help? Just ask your Party contact.

Finally, PLP clubs and other readers should send in articles and letters about their efforts to increase the circulation of the paper, similar to the Philadelphia article. CHALLENGE is the organizing tool of the communist revolution. Let’s use it to learn from each other how to make our newspaper a stronger weapon in the hands of the working class.

Help bring back a weekly CHALLENGE by:

• Buying and selling more subscriptions,

• Contributing monthly sustainers and asking friends for donations.

The 'New Economy': WWW.GONEBROKE.COM

During last year’s Super Bowl Sunday, scores of expensive commercials (the costliest spots on U.S. TV) advertised Dot Com companies. Most of them won’t be seen during this year’s Super Bowl. They’re gone. What happened?

A year ago all the pundits were praising the "New Economy." Supposedly there was no end in sight to all these Dot Coms and the millionaires they were creating. Never mind that they produced nothing of value and were actually money-losing ventures—their stocks were going up and up, throwing reality out the window.

Well, reality is stubborn. The high-tech companies are going down faster than the Vikings bowed to the Giants. Just last December, 10,000 Internet jobs were lost nation-wide, almost half in New York’s "Silicon Alley" and on Long Island. Even the powerful N.Y. TIMES began the new millennium by firing 75 workers in its digital division. Job growth in the giant of the high-tech world, California’s Silicon Valley, fell to 3% in 2000 (from 3.8% in 1999 and 3.9% in 1998).

The fact is the so-called Internet revolution wasn’t such a revolution after all, not even in terms of capitalist development. Sure, it is useful to send e-mail to a friend or relative thousands of miles away—if they have access to a computer—but in terms of its supporters’ claims, it was nothing compared to, "The technological changes between 1880 and 1940 [which] exceeded, in both scope and intensity, all that has happened since," editorialized the London Financial Times (1/13) "Those changes included new sources of energy (electricity and petroleum), new industries (motor vehicles and pharmaceuticals) and new products (cars, washing machines, telephones, radio, penicillin. These profoundly affected what was produced and how. They also transformed the way people lived."( Financial Times editorial, Jan. 13).

Better yet, these industries developed a proletariat, millions of workers who, with communist leadership, will become the gravediggers of capitalism. The mass production industries developed by capitalism forced workers to work collectively and feel first hand what capitalism is all about—exploiting workers to net maximum profits.

But the high-tech industries, with their myths of "new working relations," developed "associates" (not workers). Individualism was raised to an all-time high with the promise of "sharing the wealth." But only Bill Gates and the other moguls really "shared" the wealth—among themselves. Most workers, even the higher paid ones, can’t even afford to live near their jobs because of sky-high housing costs and the relative low pay of many. Reports the New York Times (1/15): "An increasing number of employees [in Silicon Valley] cannot afford to live near their jobs and must commute from more rural and less expensive communities that may be several hours away."

Even in job creation, high-tech has not shined. The Bureau of Labor Statistics analyzed 4.1 million jobs created in the last decade in the U.S., and only one high-tech area was among the top 10 more important job-creating professions, only one belongs to high-tech (system analyst). High-tech lagged behind jobs in the traditional old economy (nursing, retail, office workers, etc.).

Worse yet, many countries and areas invested in helping attract high-tech companies at the expense of more important infrastructural investments in health care for the masses, education. running water, etc.

The more "progress" capitalism brings, the more workers and their allies suffer. The industrial advancement of the first half ot the 20th century sharpened the dogfight among the imperialists, producing World Wars I and II and helped create the Great Depression of the 1930s. The imperialism of that first World War also produced the Bolshevik revolution, which liberated one-sixth of the world’s surface from capitalist exploitation and then, in WW II, crushed the Nazi army, the mightiest military machine capitalism had produced.

Let’s make sure the new millennium brings about the best of the 20th century, communist revolution, and delete once and for all the virus of capitalism.

a name="Boeing’s New Boss: An Ambassador Of Death">">"oeing’s New Boss: An Ambassador Of Death

SEATTLE, January 14 — Boeing CEO Phil Condit recently announced the appointment of Thomas R Pickering, U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs, to the newly-created position of Boeing Senior Vice- President of International Relations. Pickering’s job will be strengthening the company’s relations with foreign governments and well-placed "movers-and-shakers" worldwide. He’ll serve on Boeing’s Executive Council, with the company’s top bosses.

Pickering’s record? He’s the Ambassador of Death!

Pickering was Reagan’s Ambassador to El Salvador from 1983 to 1985, during the height of the civil war. His predecessor having been fired for speaking too often about human rights violations of the pro-U.S. El Salvadorian government, Pickering set about ensuring his office fully supported U.S. imperialism:

• He dutifully squashed evidence of the El Salvador military’s involvement with the 1980 abduction, rape and murder of three U.S. Roman Catholic nuns and a lay worker. Classified documents revealed that in 1985 El Salvador’s defense minister General Jose Garcia had told Pickering one of his high-ranking officers ordered the executions. Pickering covered this up, thereby preserving U.S. military aid to the government of El Salvador. ("Facts on File World News Digest," 6/24/98)

• Pickering arranged for a secret donation of $1 million in arms to the Nicaraguan Contras when the U.S. government was prohibited by law from aiding these reactionary butchers. Testifying before Congressional committees investigating the Iran-contra scandal, Pickering admitted he hand-carried this million-dollar wish list to Washington for delivery to the White House basement where Marine Lt.-Col. Oliver North ran his covert operation.

No Dirty Deed Goes Unrewarded

Pickering’s reward for being a merchant of death came when President Bush appointed him UN ambassador where he:

• Engineered the political fig leaf Bush needed to carry out the Persian Gulf War. Serving his Exxon Mobil bosses as a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, Old Money’s foreign policy think-tank, Pickering molded the UN coalition against Iraq, providing the political cover for U.S. bosses’ Desert Slaughter to defend their oil empire.

• Led the post-war call for sanctions which have killed nearly a million Iraqians, half of whom are children.

• Launched a national speaking tour last year to build support for continued sanctions, only to be booed off the stage in city after city. "How dare you kill the kids of Iraq?" an unidentified man shouted at Pickering during one such speech. "What kind of human being are you?" (Florida Time-Union 6/10/00) Apparently the kind that suits U.S. imperialism just fine.

Clinton appointed Pickering Ambassador to Russia, during the crucial Yeltsin years where he uncovered opportunities for U.S. exploitation of cheap, skilled Russian labor. Expanding Boeing’s tool subcontracting in Russian will doubtless be a priority under the company’s plan to shrink in-house tooling.

Pickering: Friend Of Psychotic Torturers

Last March, Peruvian intelligence agent Leonor La Rosa Bustamante switched sides and planned to testify against fellow agent and psychotic torturer Tomas Anderson Kohatsu and his penchant for electric shock, rape, and beatings. But Pickering intervened, stopping the prosecution in the U.S. and assuring Anderson safe passage home to Peru. Another "victory" for human rights! [The Nation, 5/8/00]

Similarly, when Panama refused asylum to Anderson’s Peruvian boss, Vladimiro Montesinos, another psychotic torturer with long ties to the CIA, Pickering applied pressure through his office and the Organization of American States. Panama quickly reversed course. (New York Times, 9/24/00)

Pickering’s latest project is Plan Colombia, Washington’s imperialist intervention there under the guise of anti-drug interdiction. Colombia’s military, one of the most fascist in Latin America, gets most of the billions in "aid." It has close ties to the right-wing militias, many of whom are deeply involved in the drug trade. Asked about concerns that the Colombian military was discredited, Pickering responded:

"First, you can take it that I don’t agree with [these] judgments about the Colombian military forces. Secondly, as we’ve explained many times, there is continued very strong support for the Colombian national police…" (State Department news Briefing Regarding Undersecretary Pickering’s Trip to Colombia, 11/27/00) Pickering never met a death squad or torturer he didn’t like!

Obviously abetting torture, mass murder and gunrunning to fascist criminals in serving U.S. imperialism rewards and qualifies one to be a top Boeing boss. With communist revolution, the working class will remember to give ambassadors of death like Pickering their just rewards!

Capitalism Turns Quake into Disaster for Workers

EL SALVADOR, Jan. 16 — Thousands of working-class people are dead or have disappeared. Dozens of towns and thousands of homes have been destroyed. This desolation caused by the recent earthquake follows another recent attack on the working class, the dollarization of the economy. It is also added to the 150,000 killed by the death squads run by U.S. imperialism and the Salvadoran bosses in the 1980’s.

Natural phenomena can’t be prevented, but capitalism turns it into a major human disaster. From El Salvador and Mexico to Turkey and Hurricane Mitch in Honduras, these catastrophes were worsened by the extreme exploitation and poverty created by the bosses’ drive for maximum profits.

A clear example of how these bloodsuckers put their profits before workers’ lives are the hundreds of dead and thousands of homeless in the Town of Las Colinas de Santa Tecla. "The city government tried to prevent the ‘Posada Magaña’ construction company from building mansions on the top of the mountain, above the Colonia Las Colinas," declared Jose Torres, a worker in the Santa Tecla city hall. ( LA Times, 1/15) "The construction company took us to court and won a suit for $4.3 million dollars and now this is the result." That is, the deforestation and evacuations caused by this construction led directly to the mudslides and consequent deaths of hundreds of residents of this town located below the mansions. That’s why Salvadoran President Francisco Flores was booed by many residents when he went to the disaster site.

The world’s capitalist governments, especially the imperialists, are swooping in like vultures, offering "aid" to the homeless workers. These are the same bosses who have exploited and massacred these workers for centuries. This "aid" is conditional on keeping the chains of exploitation in place, whether controlled by the U.S. imperialists or the Europeans. Furthermore, this "aid" stays in the hands of the fascist rulers and their allies. These local bosses are rubbing their hands thinking of the millions of dollars ending up in their bank accounts.

In these moments of urgent need, the international working class should support our brothers and sisters in El Salvador. Los Angeles garment workers are collecting money to send directly to the workers. All workers should follow this example of solidarity. Dedicating our lives to destroying capitalism—the worst disaster and the root cause of the millions of deaths of workers worldwide—is the best help we can give.

From Boom to Bloodbath

GARY, IN, January 16 — Eighteen months ago everything seemed to be coming up roses for the steel bosses. Profits were rolling in. There were plans to expand production and buy up smaller companies. But like a two-by-four in the face, the realities of this insane, vicious capitalist system hit them and hit them hard. In the last two months, the U. S. steel industry has run into a brick wall of collapsing markets, higher energy prices and higher imports.

According to the HAMMOND TIMES, "Regional stalwart LTV Corp. could be gone. Others may follow. In the meantime, jobs are likely to be lost, and the local economy could buckle." United Steelworkers representative Tom Conway says, "It’s going to be a bloodbath."

LTV, the third largest steel producer in the U.S., has filed for bankruptcy and laid off everyone with two years service or less. They sold their tin division to USX, wiping out some 500 jobs in Aliquippa. Wheeling-Pitt and five other steel companies have gone bankrupt. Weirton Steel laid off thousands. Bethlehem Steel and USX have also cut production.

While the steel bosses and union leaders whine about foreign steel imports, it’s bigger than that. Energy costs are rising and steel prices are in a tailspin, cutting into profits. Worse yet, as fuel prices rise there is a cutback in auto production, mainly in steel-intensive light trucks and sport utility vehicles.

Steelworkers are facing a capitalist crisis of overproduction. In their lust for profits the bosses have increased production ten-fold and wiped out thousands of jobs. Remember when everyone’s Daddy, uncle or brother-in-law worked in one or another of the mills? Not anymore. Remember when everyone was buying new cars every couple years? Not anymore. The bosses have increased production and wiped out jobs to the extent that there are not enough people with the means to buy the stuff WE produce in THEIR mills. And the workers of Russia, Brazil, Korea, Taiwan or Slovakia make even less. Capitalism is a global monster.

The steel bosses and union leaders are always draping themselves in red-white-and-blue to get us to "Stand Up for Steel" and "fight imports." But USX just bought one of the largest steel mills in Europe, in the Slovak Republic. This mill will account for 25% of their global capacity. The steelworkers in this mill make about $2.00/hour. In their search for cheap steel and huge profits, the steel bosses will go anywhere and stoop to any hypocrisy.

However, this slump in steel presents a contradiction to U.S. rulers: while production here is being squeezed they must insure there is at least enough domestic supplies for war production. They can’t risk dependence on overseas steel which could be cut off by rivals abroad.

When the steel contract was signed 18 months ago, many workers thought things would be OK. Just cruise on to retirement, work a little OT and build up that nest egg. Many of us thought, "Everything will be all right." With so many people retiring, we thought there was no way there’d be layoffs. But capitalism is always in crisis somewhere.

Our answer must be more CHALLENGE readers and distributors, more May Day organizers and more struggles against the steel bosses. We must fight for international solidarity of all steelworkers. No cuts and no more sacrifices for the bosses. From Slovakia to Gary, Smash the Steel Bosses! Build a mass PLP!

Reform and Revolution at the MLA

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Occasional calls for revolution could be heard above the din of reformist activity at last month’s convention here of the Modern Language Association (MLA), the professional organization of college- and university-level teachers of literature and language. Members and friends of PLP had both positive and negative experiences there.

On the plus side: the Radical Caucus (RC) has emerged as a respected, effective fighter for various reform demands. The RC meeting attracted 30 people, many committed to anti-capitalist class analysis through RC activities. The RC distributed 5,000 leaflets and worked with the Graduate Student Caucus (GSC) to win passage of all its initiatives in the Delegate Assembly (DA).

These included: (1) a call for the MLA to support unionization, from teaching assistants and adjuncts to professors; (2) a permanent MLA committee to consider incidents of campus bigotry, and undertake a critique of racism as systemic, not merely a matter of "prejudice"; (3) MLA support for open admissions and free tuition throughout public higher education; and (4) reduction of part-time super-exploited teachers earning $1,500-$3,000 per semester course, with no benefits and a corresponding increase in full timers; establishing a minimum wage; and noninterference of trustee boards in curriculum decisions, especially at the City University of New York where interference is routine.

Even such modest reform victories would have been inconceivable a few years ago, when there was a monumental struggle to get DA support for striking Yale teaching assistants. The above reflects increased pro-union militancy of graduate students and adjuncts throughout North America and occurred partly because the GSC elected left-of-center representatives to the DA. This year’s successes stemmed from several years of steady organizing by the RC and GSC.

There was also the positive reception given to attempts by PLP members and friends to shift discussions to the left. Our critiques of universities as capitalist ideology factories, helping to reproduce inequality and the division of mental from manual labor, were warmly received. Over 1,000 PLP leaflets—exposing capitalism’s inability to deliver true education to the working class, and calling for communism—were distributed, along with 60+ CHALLENGES. From our steady work in the RC, a few friends have come closer to the Party, now take CHALLENGE regularly and attend a Party study group.

However, the successes of reform activities may have buried some of the Party’s ideas and led to "tailing the masses."

Given the openness of many MLA’ers to the communist critique of universities as spreading ruling-class consciousness, too few of us spoke up boldly and consistently on this. During the DA meeting, we failed to link sexism and racism to capitalism and to reveal the dangers to unionization of a narrow, reformist approach. While RC’s "bottom line" has been anti-capitalism, Party members didn’t consistently focus on the critique of capitalism throughout the convention.

While the Party leaflet exposed capitalist higher education as perpetrating social inequality, and unionization’s role in accepting the capitalist wage system, the leaflet was weak in explaining how the RC and GSC reform program builds dangerous illusions—that barring trustees from decisions on curriculum will somehow produce "truth in education"; or that open admissions and free tuition—which advances the lucky few—represent a "way out" for the working class.

By concentrating on working in the DA we largely abandoned the ideological struggle over what it means to do literary study. Past papers have challenged how most college literature teaching reinforces racism, sexism and nationalism, and other capitalist ideology. Criticism of postmodernism’s attack on Marxism was also absent as well as the "red line" in literary history. We won’t win college teachers to the Party without contesting the way bourgeois ideology influences their work in the classroom. We need to examine how college teachers of language and literature can serve the working class.

Too much of the work in the RC was carried out by PLP members and friends. Being "the best reformists on the block" ultimately abandons revolution, an error of the old CPUSA. If not corrected, this tendency could lead us down the same slippery slope.

The hard work and immersion of PLP members and friends in the MLA has produced wide respect. We must now urgently build communist consciousness among literature and language teachers. This will help construct a society without divisions of mental and manual labor, in which culture promotes rather than inhibits the development of fully-realized human beings within the working class and its allies.

LETTERS

Ecuador to Spain: Same Enemy, Same Fight

The Jan. 17 CHALLENGE article on the death in Southern Spain of 12 immigrant workers from Ecuador reveals an important aspect of the class struggle nowadays—the "globalization" of the working class.

On January 9, 1,500 immigrant farmworkers from Ecuador, supported by other immigrant workers in Spain’s Murcia region, marched for 50 miles demanding the government legalize their status. The march lasted from Tuesday evening to mid-Wednesday. The workers were protesting both the murders of 12 fellow workers and the region’s bosses’ refusal to hire any workers because of the arrest of the subcontractor boss who had hired the 12 dead workers. That boss has a long history of violating labor laws and paying workers below the minimum wage.

This long march refuted the idea that these immigrant workers, particularly those from Ecuador, were "good workers" (who work hard and don’t complain about being super-exploited). The racist exploitation of these immigrant workers makes the year-round agribusiness in Southern Spain very profitable.

Following the march, 100 immigrant workers from Ecuador took over a church in the town of Lorca, demanding that the government legalize their status. These workers are afraid of the new immigration law to take effect in a few weeks, which could lead to the deportation of thousands of undocumented workers. The law requires these workers to return to Ecuador or their country of origin and then apply for legal papers in the Spanish consulates there.

While these workers were marching and protesting in Southern Spain, the police in several Ecuadorian cities were attacking students who were protesting against the latest round of price hikes and austerity measures taken by President Noboa. A general strike is now planned early in February to protest these attacks. Workers and youth are also protesting the growing use of Ecuador by the U.S. military for its Plan Colombia (war against the guerrillas in neighboring Colombia).

So the class struggle and the crisis of capitalism has united workers and youth internationally (several of the 12 dead workers were children, as were many of the Murcia demonstrators). The immigrant workers in Southern Spain and those in Ecuador are both victims of a capitalism trying to force workers to pay even more for the crisis of the bosses’ system.

This opens the door for a "globalization" the capitalists fear—an international working class movement. Join us in PLP and make that movement a reality.

A Comrade

a name="Small Victory Over ‘Big Mac’"></" />"mall Victory Over ‘Big Mac’

"Can I have a copy of that leaflet?" asked a woman who’d approached me while I was distributing CHALLENGE at the Martin Luther King parade here in L.A. "It says what I’ve been saying to my friends for a while now," she continued "and they’ve been telling me I’m crazy."

She was pleased with our leaflet explaining that Bush and Gore are equally bad for the working class. While this woman was especially outgoing and articulate, many people at the parade expressed similar sentiments. Black workers know this system is fundamentally racist even though the bosses work overtime to convince them that capitalism is good and communism is terrible. We distributed 50 papers, 50 Vietnam flyers and 500 leaflets at the march.

The day before the parade an incident occurred which demonstrated this system’s racism and the bosses’ fear of the potential of black-Latin-white unity. I had gone with two of my students, both black, to a McDonald’s near their homes because they’d applied for jobs there and hadn’t been hired. Although this McDonald’s is in an integrated neighborhood, the vast majority of its workers are Latino. My students told me they’d met a few other black people who’d applied to work there five times—unsuccessfully. We went in and confronted the manager. My students told him they didn’t understand why no black workers were employed there. The manager said some black people DID work there—on other shifts.

He was becoming increasingly nervous. Everyone in the whole place was listening. It was obvious his response was pretty lame. I chimed in by explaining how excellent these students’ social skills are and how quickly they learn. The manager suggested my students return the next day. Both were hired.

Whenever I’ve described this incident to my co-workers and students, I’ve explained that the bosses use these hiring practices to pit black and Latin workers against each other. Everyone’s agreed.

Even this very small victory shows that whenever workers take a step towards multi-racial unity, we come out ahead.

An L. A. Teacher

1. Editorial:
2. Bosses' `Boom' Fizzling
   Time for Workers to Bust Back
   March on May Day, 2001!
   1. Profits Come Fom Exploiting Workers, Not from Dot.Coms
   2. Clinton-Gore Lowered Boom On Workers' Heads
   3. Under Capitalism Future Not Bright for World's Workers
   4. Fight for Society Without Bosses: On to May Day 2001
3. TAKE A BROAD VIEW OF PARTY-BUILDING
4. RULERS USE SLOWDOWN TO DISCIPLINE UPSTARTS WITHIN THEIR CLASS, GEAR ECONOMY FOR WAR
5. U.S. Bio-Warfare Poisons U.S.-European Imperialist `Alliance'
6. Russian Bosses Re-Enter the Imperialist `Big Game'
7. PLP Schools Conference: Education for Class Struggle
   1. Send Delegates to NEA Convention
8. Strike Needed Against Postal Bosses/Union Scheme
9. LA Transit Strike: Disagreement Can Be A Plus
10. While California Energy Bosses Fight-- Turn the Lights Out On Profit System
11. CHALLENGE Sparks Garment Workers' Debate
12. Ecuador: Can't Escape Capitalism, Gotta Kill It,
13. Why Is the NY TIMES Dancing with the Grey Wolves?
14. PL'ers Bring Class Savvy to Women's Rights Group
15. LETTERS
    1. They Shall Not Pass!
    2. Zionists Rode British Coattails
    3. Don't Shop Capitalism--STOP It!
    4. Evicted by Profit System
    5. The Real Racist Fraud
16. Movie Review
    TRAFFIC JAMS THE ROAD WITH FASCISM

Editorial:
Bosses' `Boom' Fizzling
Time for Workers to Bust Back
March on May Day, 2001!

The long U.S. economic boom has stopped--for now, at least. The bosses' economic gurus aren't debating whether or not the party's over, only what to call it: a "correction," a "slowdown" or a recession in the making.

While the "experts" haggle over words, the working class is paying the heaviest price for the profit system's downturn. Last month, employment in manufacturing went down by 62,000 jobs, for a total yearly loss of 178,000. These job cuts are just the beginning. In December alone U.S. companies announced future plans to chop another 134,000 workers, the largest monthly number since these figures have been compiled (1993). Big outfits are involved: General Motors, Whirlpool, Office Depot, not to mention LTV Steel, which has just gone bankrupt.

The slowdown has exploded the myth that the boom represented a so-called "new economy," based on the Internet and information technology. Since the NASDAQ (the technology-heavy sector of the stock market) tanked last spring, Internet company layoffs have mushroomed: 10,459 in December and 41,515 for the year 2000, with "more pain to come," says the head of a major job placement company.

Profits Come Fom Exploiting Workers, Not from Dot.Coms

There's no "new economy." The laws of capitalism still apply. The capitalists' profits come from their exploitation of workers' labor power. The capitalists have to seek maximum, not just average, profit. The scramble to beat out the other guy fuels a race to overproduce everything from pharmaceuticals and DVD players to cars. A speculative frenzy overtakes the stock markets until prices of shares insanely outpace the real value of companies. At a certain moment, the overproduction leads to factory closings and layoffs, and the speculative bubble bursts. All this is happening now.

Depending on their tactical point of view, the bosses offer various schemes for wriggling out of the slowdown. Federal Reserve head Greenspan just lowered interest rates. The Bush Republicans want a tax cut. Typically, the Democrats advocate government spending. None of these maneuvers alters the fundamental nature of capitalism: the anarchy of production for profit, or the instability of the boom-bust cycle.

Clinton-Gore Lowered Boom On Workers' Heads

But even the so-called booms are bad news for workers. During the Clinton years, the rulers loved to brag about the "longest economic expansion in history." It was--for them.

However, it was possible only because a succession of presidential administrations, beginning with Democratic President Carter, began wiping out or eroding every significant reform workers had won since the 1930s.

The Clinton Democrats delivered the crushing blow. Workers who voted for Gore as a "lesser evil" should review the Clinton-Gore White House's economic record: the racist mass imprisonment of unemployed workers and their use as slave labor, the elimination of welfare, and over 45 million people without health insurance. The U.S. ranks last among major western industrial countries in social services and basic labor protection. U.S. rulers' European rivals envy this "American model" and are trying to imitate it.

The rulers occasionally confess that capitalism requires these periodic downturns. Clinton's Labor Secretary calls this a "healthy slowdown." She's not about to file for unemployment insurance. George Friedman, head of Stratfor.com, a news-gathering service, praises the down market's opportunities to "wash out the amateurs and set the stage for wise guys [i.e., big money forces--Ed.] picking up bargains." However, the rulers may get more than they bargained for. They can find ways to take advantage of a slowdown, but they can't necessarily turn it off at will. In any event, the working class bears the brunt of these recurrent economic blood-lettings. The millions devastated during the bosses' "Clinton boom" will be ground down further as the full effect of recent and future layoffs materializes.

Under Capitalism Future Not Bright for World's Workers

Some of the rulers' pundits promise the present downturn will reverse itself soon. We can't predict that. Nor can we predict the opposite. The present crunch may become a full-fledged recession/depression. On the other hand, the rulers may find a gimmick to limit it. But sooner or later, the profit system always enters a period of crisis. War is eventually a universal aspect of that crisis. Even if this downturn ends before long, it will sharpen a number of important conflicts between the U.S. and its key competitors. The wounded U.S. market won't indefinitely absorb Asian products, and trade wars loom with China, Japan, Korea and other Asian countries. The U.S. has a huge trade deficit. Europe has an enormous surplus. The dollar probably can't survive indefinitely as the world's major currency under these conditions. Over the long haul, the new Euro could challenge it. The U.S. economic slowdown can only intensify the struggle for control of cheap energy and increase the likelihood of new oil war in the Persian Gulf. As we've said, both Democrats and Republicans are working together despite their differences to broaden and sharpen fascist terror against the working class here and reduce resistance to the rulers' plans.

Fight for Society Without Bosses: On to May Day 2001

The profit system can never bring workers anything other than its cycle of boom, bust and war. We shouldn't cling to illusions about capitalism's ability to reform itself or to create "new economy."

Capitalism will survive any crisis as long as it holds state power. The overthrow of the profit system is the only crisis bosses will not survive. The Progressive Labor Party's primary purpose is to organize the working class to destroy the profit system.

The first May Day of the new millennium, May Day 2001, represents an important challenge for workers and their allies, and for our Party, to take a big step forward for the long, hard fight ahead. We must bring the message to workers--in the unions, factories, churches, hospitals, neighborhoods-- to fight for communism, a society in which workers produce for the needs of our class, not for the profits of a few bloodsuckers.

(Information from NEW YORK TIMES, 1/6,7/01; Associate Press, 12/27/00; Stratfor.com, 1/5/01).

TAKE A BROAD VIEW OF PARTY-BUILDING

The new wave of economic attacks against workers should stimulate class struggle and provide fresh opportunity to build the PLP on the job. Recent CHALLENGE articles show that the process of sharpening fights against the boss is moving forward in key U.S. workplaces such as transit, aerospace, and health care, as well as in important industries throughout Latin America. This is all to the good and should continue!

But even when workers are not yet won to engage in militant confrontation with the boss, we can still build the Party and sow the seeds for future struggle. Under all conditions--whether the workers are anxious for a fight or temporarily passive--we can carry out aspects of our line. We should keep in the forefront the idea that communists stand for serving the working class. This approach enables us to function in all political environments.

Our comrades in the public schools have given good leadership by carrying out to some extent the slogan "Fight to Learn, Learn to Fight; Fight to Teach, Teach to Fight." We can do much more here, but our experiences so far should encourage other workers in PLP to follow suit.

We aren't missionaries. We aspire to become "tribunes of the people," in Lenin's phrase. When we teach a worker we know to read, when we help a friend of the Party obtain medical care for a sick child, when we find legal assistance for a worker with family problems, we are creating the basis for deepened personal-political relations that can lead to Party growth and sharper conflict with the enemy. We should absorb this lesson as the May Day effort kicks into high gear.

RULERS USE SLOWDOWN TO DISCIPLINE UPSTARTS WITHIN THEIR CLASS, GEAR ECONOMY FOR WAR

The current downturn started with the collapse of the NASDAQ technology stock market last spring. In part, the NASDAQ swoon was an inevitable result of wild speculation. In part, it represented a conscious attempt by the main rulers to cut small fry billionaires down to size. The most notable case is that of Bill Gates, the Microsoft mogul.

The Clinton Justice Department's monopoly suit against Microsoft is just one element of a three-prong attack. The NASDAQ collapse has slashed Gates's capital holdings by a third. So he no longer wields the financial clout he had a year ago. Even more importantly, the Eastern Establishment has begun twisting his arm to force important chunks of Microsoft money into key war-related heavy industries.

Last February, just as the dump-tech flood broke, Gates was "persuaded" to acquire a controlling 8% share in Newport News Shipbuilding, the U.S. Navy's only aircraft carrier builder and one of only two U.S. companies capable of building nuclear subs. In November, Gates bought a 5.15% share in Canadian National Railway Co., which owns the strategic Illinois Central and is trying to merge with Burlington North Santa Fe to become the U.S.'s largest railroad.

The war uses of Newport News Shipbuilding are obvious. Railroads continue to play a crucial role in the military-related domestic infrastructure. The bill for the boom in computer chips and software will sooner or later be paid in workers' blood.

(Information from "Canadian News Wire," 11/3/00; "Hoovers Online," Feb. 2000)

U.S. Bio-Warfare Poisons U.S.-European Imperialist `Alliance'

The 1999 NATO/U.S. air war against the former Yugoslavia has, 18 months later, widened the contradictions between the U.S. and its European "allies." The latest rift involves demands by several European countries that NATO investigate the effects of depleted-uranium bombs during the slaughter.

Fifty soldiers from Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Portugal and Switzerland developed leukemia. Eighteen have died of leukemia since the war, eight Italians and five Belgians. Beta, a Yugoslavian news agency, reported 400 Serbian soldiers dying from the "Balkan Syndrome" (as the disease is now being called) since the 1995 NATO bombing of Bosnia. Thousands have died in Iraq since the 1991 Desert Storm war from such bombs and missiles which contain depleted uranium..

This ammunition, first tested by the Pentagon in the 1980s over Vieques, the Navy training island in Puerto Rico, is used especially in weapons designed to destroy tanks. Some 31,000 of such uranium weapons were dropped during the 1999 NATO/U.S. air war. Interestingly enough, very few hit their targets. The Yugoslavian army left Kosovo basically intact.

Imperialist war is hell for soldiers and workers. Thousands of people in "liberated" Kosovo are now exposed to leukemia. But are the European countries accusing NATO (particularly the U.S., the main user of such weapons) of doing this because they care about the well-being of the masses? We don't think so. "With the background of a serious fight between Europe and the U.S., the European Union and NATO are meeting in Brussels today to study the known cases of the Balkan Syndrome." ("PAGINA12," Buenos Aires daily, Jan. 8)

What is this fight all about? The Balkan war was not about "freeing Kosovo from Satan Milosevic"; it was fought over control of oil pipelines and routes from the Caspian Sea to Western Europe. And the "unity" between the European and U.S. imperialists was very thin. As soon as the war ended, European bosses decided to form their own Rapid Deployment Force, to avoid relying on the U.S. to fight for their profits. They apparently learned from the 1999 air war, which revealed their weaknesses relative to the U.S. high-tech weapons monopoly, and are now taking counter-measures.

Russian Bosses Re-Enter the Imperialist `Big Game'

The Russians also saw the 1999 air war as a major wake-up call and ended the "good relationship" Yeltsin had developed with the U.S. after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Putin came to power to try to rebuild Russia's military might. On Jan. 3, Russian Chief of Staff General Anatoly Kyashin announced he will meet with the Yugoslav Defense Minister to renew old ties, prepare for future arms sales and discuss an expanded role for Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo. (Stratfor, Jan. 4) Stratfor also reports the U.S. is worried about burgeoning Europe-Russian relations and is taking measures to counter it.

War is the continuation of politics by other means. So the political games the big imperialists play against each other amount to preparations for future wars. We workers and soldiers should also organize our own preparations. Building a mass communist movement to smash all the warmakers must be our aim.

PLP Schools Conference: Education for Class Struggle

NEW YORK CITY, January 6 -- About 50 parents, teachers and students--members and friends of PLP-- gathered in a one-day conference called by the Party to review our situation in the schools and make plans to improve it. One immediate improvement emerged --six students and parents joined the Party. This significant advance will promptly increase the number of comrades committed to organizing class struggle in the schools, and--over the long haul--will add to the Party's influence in those areas where these new comrades can function: on their jobs (current and future) and in the military.

The day opened with words to inspire struggle: "The current period in which we live will bring more exploitation and oppression for the working class. We, as teachers and communists, must fight for our students to learn math, science, English and history based on class struggle. Capitalist education cannot and will not provide education for the working class. We must be involved in, and build class struggle in order to ensure that this happens. Only communism can guarantee this."

A veteran comrade sang and performed a rap about the class struggle which unites workers from many different parts of the world. A Wingate H.S. student described the triumph of removing a wretched principal and the need for an on-going fight for learning at that school.

Three workshops produced lively debates about the class nature of the schools, concluding that students, teachers and parents must unite against the rulers' Board of Education.

One group concentrated on the role of special education, learning disabilities and Attention Deficit Hyper-active Disorder (ADHD)--a so-called mental illness based on racist biological determinist "science" to discipline students with drugs. It's part of a ruling-class drive to gear the schools for their plans for fascism and war. This group concluded that special education was a capitalist creation bent on casting off groups of students. They agreed that everyone develops unevenly, learning in different ways and at different times.

A Bronx parent said her son was "classified" and discarded by the system. She's been told her child cannot learn and function in a "normal" setting. But what's "normal" about capitalism? She joined the Party and made a commitment to keep fighting. She, with other comrades in the Bronx, are building a campaign around special education, literacy and ADHD. They agreed to write a report of this discussion and planned to mount struggles in PTAs and community school boards to fight for services these students should be receiving.

Another group examined the work of parents and teachers together and planned social activities and political work in mass organizations. That workshop debated the role of discipline, its class nature, the role of class in determining the character of the schools, our students' anger and the role of the teachers union in destroying the students.

A third group considered the work of students and teachers in the classroom and made concrete plans for building upcoming events such as the protest against the Bush inauguration and a camping trip/cadre school. This workshop dealt with two main points: the importance of class consciousness among students and the role of schools under capitalism. They felt increased class consciousness would lead to fewer gangs, less superficial fashion pressure, more struggle and improved conditions in the schools.

One student participant who joined the Party said the function of the schools was to keep the working class distracted while the rich go about the business of ruling. The group then discussed how to spread class consciousness in the schools. One relatively new comrade agreed to build a debate team in order to become more involved in students' lives.

Two students described the fight in their school for repairs, against the lack of books and the sense that only because the students are black and working class is the school in such disrepair. On the other hand, many disagreed with the two students' apparent blaming of other students for their own failures.

Although we had worried about insufficient preparation, we learned an important lesson: the working class is starving for the ideas of communist revolution. The more effort we put into bringing these ideas to our class, the greater the response. What we do DOES count. What we have to offer is valuable to workers. When they hear it, they grasp our ideas, add to them and are willing to move forward around them.

(A future article will deal with vital questions confronting teachers, students and parents: the role of class relations in school and its effect on the ruling class ideologies taught there and how to deal with them, including especially racism and sexism as well as anti-communism, patriotism and individualism.)

Send Delegates to NEA Convention

This is a call to all PLP teachers and friends in elementary and secondary schools, higher education, educational support personnel (teacher's aides, bus drivers, clerks, etc.), and retired teachers.

Is your union local a National Education Association (NEA) affiliate? Are you an NEA member? If so, you should consider running for delegate to the NEA Representative Assembly (RA), to be held June 30 - July 7, 2001 in Los Angeles.

The RA is the NEA national convention. Up to 10,000 elected delegates attend from every state in the U.S. We should be at this mass convention of teachers raising our anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist, internationalist, revolutionary ideas related to the many issues that will emerge: high-stakes testing, school reform, violence in the schools and possible merger with the AFT, among others. In fact, all kinds of issues arise in "new business" items and resolutions. We can participate in their state delegations as well as various caucuses: Hispanic Caucus, Women's Caucus, Men's Caucus, Black Caucus, Peace and Justice Caucus, etc.

Check with your local affiliate and read your state association magazine about the deadlines for submitting your application to run for RA delegate. Several Party teachers in California will run. Let's organize a PLP presence at the Convention. Contact CHALLENGE for more information.

Bay Area Comrade/Teacher

Strike Needed Against Postal Bosses/Union Scheme

New York City -- Last month, contract negotiations broke down between the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and the American Postal Workers Union (APWU). The contract now goes to binding arbitration, the APWU leaderships' strategy all along. They did nothing to organize the potential strength of 300,000 clerks, maintenance and motor vehicle craft workers. Their "threat to go to arbitration" is obviously fine with the bosses.

In stark contrast, almost 600,000 postal workers struck in India, demanding pension benefits for 310,000 part-timers, wage increases for 60,000 lower-tier workers and promotions. The Army "replaced" striking workers. The workers then massed in front of parliament.

Here, the APWU asked for a meager 13.5% wage increase over three years. USPS offered no wage increase, elimination of the Cost Of Living Adjustment, reduction in health benefits and night differential and an end to job protection for all workers with under six years service.

The Board of Governors is crying "broke," but the USPS netted over $5-billion in profits during the past 5_ years. Postal workers' wage increases averaged less than 2% annually during the past decade. This past year managers got millions in bonuses (over $3.5 million in the NY Division alone).

A few years ago the bosses contracted out thousands of jobs to non-union Emery Air Freight. Now they're negotiating with FedEx and UPS to contract out more jobs. They aim to privatize USPS and increase use of prison labor. This will wipe out thousands of jobs. Hundreds of thousands of workers will be forced to do more for less. Furthermore, it appears many postal workers in the military reserves will again be sent to war in Iraq to protect Exxon-Mobil profits. That's what capitalism "offers."

We must organize militant struggles, from work-rule slowdowns to strikes. Such actions will build our unity and strength. As long as the bosses hold power, they will never surrender a penny without a struggle. Nor will they give up power voluntarily. We must use every struggle to learn how to fight the enemy, and to build a mass PLP. The fights we wage today can pave the road to communist revolution.

LA Transit Strike: Disagreement Can Be A Plus

LOS ANGELES -- During the recent transit strike here, our PLP club organized to bring people to the picket lines to support the strikers. In reviewing the results, one member said he had asked fellow workers to go with him, and that while they supported the strikers' goals, they saw no reason to make time for picketing. His co-workers make about $7 an hour. A few said the bus drivers made a lot more, "so why go to a lot of trouble to help them?"

Our comrade explained the need for unity against the bosses, but his fellow workers were not convinced enough to join the picket line. Our comrade was discouraged. We asked whether it was good or bad that his fellow workers disagreed? "Bad," he replied.
"Why?"
"Because they didn't go to the picket line."
"Do you think these workers understood the need to unite against the capitalist class before you asked them?"
"No, of course not."
"So it wasn't your asking them that caused them to disagree with our ideas? They already disagreed."
"Right."
"In fact, the transit strike became an opportunity to bring this disagreement to the surface so you could struggle with them over it."
"That's true."
"So if bringing out that disagreement is a step toward winning them closer to the Party, why are you feeling down about it?"
Our study of dialectical materialism taught us that contradictions are resolved only by intensification. This means attacking one pole of the contradiction, in this case the bosses' idea that we don't need to fight for the interests of the entire working class.
"I wasn't looking at it that way," he said. "I just wanted them to go to the picket line."
In fact, in an attempt to get quick results our comrade had relied mainly on liberal, trade unionist arguments for workers' unity--"If they don't win their strike, things will be harder for us." Possibly true, but not the main point. Unless workers seize every opportunity to unite as a class, we will be unable to make a revolution and overthrow capitalism. Seen this way, the transit strike was an opportunity for our comrade to talk to his fellow workers about the need to get rid of a system that pays people, most of whom are black and Hispanic, $7 an hour.

`Friends don't disagree....'

Another point emerged. Capitalist culture teaches that disagreeing with someone means attacking them; therefore disagreement should be avoided. Often people say, "Everyone's entitled to their opinion," regardless of whether the facts support that opinion. Or, "I never talk politics or religion because I don't want to lose friends."

If contradictions are resolved by intensification, anti-communist ideas must be attacked through ideological struggle. This doesn't mean attacking the person who believes those ideas. If "friends don't let friends drive drunk," why should friends allow their friends' anti-communist ideas go unchallenged? Workers who believe and act on pro-capitalist ideas hurt themselves and their class. They are basing their actions on false premises, and need communist ideas to understand and act on reality. Sure there are tactics--and tact--in carrying on that struggle, but the biggest and most common mistake is NOT carrying on the struggle at all.

Communist leadership is the opposite of papering over differences to create an impression of false unity. We have to build real unity, strong enough to take on the capitalist class. That can only be done by consistent ideological struggle, which means bringing disagreements to the surface rather than burying them.

Our comrade said next time he will welcome, rather than be discouraged by disagreement. It's up to our club to consistently encourage him and all of us in that direction.

While California Energy Bosses Fight-- Turn the Lights Out On Profit System

LOS ANGELES, January 9 -- Four years ago the California legislature voted unanimously to de-regulate electricity. The law lifted caps on wholesale energy prices and led to private utilities selling their power plants. Supposedly this would break up the monopolies of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and California Edison, making electricity delivery more competitive, better and cheaper. As one might expect under a capitalist profit system, the opposite happened.

Many workers' gas and electric bills have doubled or tripled. At a time when Silicon Valley and all other California industry are using more electricity, de-regulation has allowed utility companies to take their older, less profitable plants off line. One-third of the California plants are now unused. Enter power shortages and blackouts from Silicon Valley to Southern California. It has also enabled companies like Enron and others (many from Texas) to charge exhorbitant rates to the California market.

Now the NEW YORK TIMES and the LA TIMES are crying for re-instituting government regulation. The NY TIMES (1/5/01) says New York could face similar shortages this summer. Computers use lots of power and manufacturers now rely on electricity and natural gas, not coal, to power their factories, so electricity rates and availability are important to them. But without national regulation, they can't control utility profits. Government regulation would aim to get more reliable, manageable electricity and natural gas rates to manufacturers.

Utility profits would continue but not in such huge amounts, which cut into profits of outfits like Boeing, etc. Of course, Enron & Co. don't want regulation! However, California Governor Grey Davis is calling for State and Federal regulation of the power companies, government oversight in the construction of more power plants in California, and bailing out the near-bankrupt Edison and PG&E. He's also calling on consumers to cut electricity use by 10%. He says the state government would seize control of electricity producers during blackouts. A proposal for State of California bond issues to finance more power plants would make bondholders even richer and pass the cost on to consumers.

Groups such as the Greens and the Democrats push the idea that State (government) power is up for grabs, that with more government regulation "the people" will have a voice and protection from price-gouging corporations. While we don't know all the details of the California utility situation or Enron's exact role (Enron was a big Bush supporter), the fact remains that the biggest bosses control the State and use it to guarantee their class rule. The temporary "solution" to this crisis will mean from 7% to 15% higher rates for consumers over and above the recent increases, along with more state control of the production and distribution of electricity and gas.

Politicians will tell us the state is "on our side" against price-gouging, inefficient utility companies. Eastern Establishment think-tanks, as well as Clinton's Hart-Rudman Commission report, call for more government intervention and co-ordination of all aspects of the economy--from transportation to all security functions.

Government utility regulation will increase attacks on the working class, while guaranteeing more efficient delivery of power to industry. This is part of a national energy policy that includes war in the Middle East to control Iraq's cheap oil. Government control of industry strengthens state capitalism and helps it prepare for such wars.

There's a long history of government regulation and even take-over of key industries. During World War I the federal government actually seized the railroads to insure movement of goods for the war effort. A federal agency managed the railroad, kept the books and turned over the profits to the owners. When the war ended the railroads were returned to the owners. In the 1930's the federal government itself became a generator of electricity ( the Tennessee Valley Authority). During the Korean War, President Truman actually seized steel plants during a labor dispute. The dominant wing of the ruling class has always operated the State against individual capitalists in order to guarantee the overall interests of the capitalists' war efforts, one major element of fascism.

"Private" or "public," capitalism always secures profits for the biggest bosses at the expense of their competitors and of the workers. We can't cheer for any bosses. We must expose them all and fight to put State power in the hands of the working class which, under communism, will practice central planning to meet its needs.

CHALLENGE Sparks Garment Workers' Debate

LOS ANGELES, Ca.--I'm a PLP member working in the garment industry. Almost every day at lunchtime we talk politics among a group of workers. Generally the discussions occur after they've read a CHALLENGE or when someone raises a question or an idea. A recent one concerned the past presidential election.

Pedro said, "These are the most democratic elections I've seen since being in the U.S. I voted for Gore because he's the best choice for us Latinos."

Roberto, listening attentively, interrupted saying, "It's always the same b.s....even though I think we need someone to govern us. If not, there wouldn't be any control and everybody would do whatever they felt like."

I (Mario) commented, "Roberto's right in some respects. Both candidates represent the interests of the ruling class. At the same time each candidate also represents a sector of bosses fighting for control of the government, to be better able to exploit resources and labor of the working class, which means us."

Rodrigo, who always thinks Mario's too negative, said, "For you everything is bad. You only talk against whatever someone else says. If this doesn't work, how do YOU think we should elect our rulers?"

"Listen," Mario replied, "the thing that's wrong with all this is the capitalist system. It's based on the robbery of our labor, on racism, murders, wars, and so on. No matter who wins, the new president will continue to function under the capitalist laws of maximum exploitation of the workers. On the other hand, in a communist society, the leaders won't need elections because leaders will be determined by who is the most committed to serve the interests of our class. This society is divided into two classes--the workers and the bosses. Under communism, there will only be the working class."

Then Pedro said, "The problem will be the same because we'll always have somebody's boot over us."

I gave an example. "You know when there are natural catastrophes, some very dedicated people come forward to help do what's needed. The commitment of these people isn't based on looking for economic gain, but because they feel and see the need to help the other workers."

Replied Roberto, "Look, little brother, your ideas are good, but convincing so many people isn't easy and I don't think you'll achieve it. It's better to think about yourself and your children and stop going around talking about politics, because the bosses will mess with you and no one will thank you...."

"I admire your persistence," interrupted Pedro, "but you'd be better off using your intelligence for your own benefit, to progress."

When it was almost time to return to our machines. I said, "You all are tough. The way you are thinking now--that's how the bosses want us to think, divided, each one looking out for himself, not like one strong fist. When we think about resolving our problems together, in class terms, then the bosses will have serious problems. Because a working class with communist ideas means the end of this system of exploitation...Don't forget CHALLENGE. Don't leave it at your machines. Take it home to read and tomorrow we'll talk again."

Ecuador: Can't Escape Capitalism, Gotta Kill It,

QUITO, ECUADOR -- This country is an example of how nothing that capitalism does can help workers. A year ago the rulers "dollarized" the economy (the U.S. dollar became the national currency). This, along with the then rising price of oil (Ecuador is an OPEC member) was supposed to reverse the endless years of rampant inflation, mass unemployment, etc. Since then, 500,000 workers and their families have left the country (two million in the last few years). The unemployment rate is 75%. Inflation marches on. Racism against the Indigenous people continues unchecked.

On top of that, the Colombian civil war is now spilling across the border to Ecuador. The U.S. military has an air base in Manta,Ecuador, to carry out operations against the Colombian guerrillas.

Many jobless workers have emigrated to Europe, particularly Spain, seeking a better life. But it's hard to escape capitalism. In the first week of the new millenium, 12 Ecuadorian farmworkers (some of them children) were killed in Spain when a train hit a van transporting them to work for a contractor in the Murcia region. This area contains a year-round agribusiness based on greenhouses. This industry profits from the use of semi-slave workers, like the 12 dead immigrants, and child labor. They receive less than the minimum wage, with no benefits. Immigrant farm workers are also victims of racist cops and thugs in the region.

The contractor who hired the 12 dead workers had been accused of many labor law violations. But even if he's arrested, there are many more like him willing to make a buck at the expense of these immigrant workers.

The workers killed in Murcia come from the Oro province of Ecuador, one of the country's poorest. So many workers have left their families behind, that a poll among children about what they wanted for Christmas drew the response that "my dad and mom returns from Spain." One of five children in Ecuador are without their parents.

In Ecuador, Workers and youth are beginning to fight back in a mass way. Another round of protests and mass strikes have been called for the coming weeks. But as in the past, the usual gang of union hacks, sellout politicians and fake leftists are "demanding" some reforms. This rotten, murderous system can't be reformed. We in PLP are also involved in several of the struggles here, but our aim is to fight for a new society, one where workers produce to satisfy their needs, without wage slavery. That's communism.

Why Is the NY TIMES Dancing with the Grey Wolves?

On Dec. 19, Turkish cops attacked over 1,000 leftist prisoners on a hunger strike in 28 jails. They were protesting plans to move them to smaller cells and other jails where they could be easily tortured by the notorious Turkish prison guards. Scores were killed in the vicious attack. The cops claimed many prisoners burned themselves.

The Turkish rulers and their cops are among the most brutal in the world. Many cops belong to the fascist Grey Wolves, a paramilitary group linked to the ruling Nationalist Action Party. Thousands defied the fascist repression, protesting throughout Turkey against the murder of the prisoners.

But the NY TIMES, trying to clean up the image of the Turkish bosses (a key U.S. ally in the oil-rich Middle East), has gone all-out to justify the Dec. 19 massacre. The January 9th TIMES headlined an article, "Anxiety Is Rising in Turkey Over a Surge of Left-Wing Violence." It labeled as "terrorist" one leftist group whose members were murdered in the prison. But you can't blame these "terrorists" for the Turkish bosses having murdered tens of thousands of Turkish and Kurdish workers and youth in the last few years, all in the name of protecting U.S. Big Oil profits in the Middle East!

PL'ers Bring Class Savvy to Women's Rights Group

The recent Mid-west state conference of a major women's rights organization, focused on the theme of "The Many Faces of Violence and Racism," shows that communist theory and practice, joined with long-term base-building, can significantly impact upon the outlook of anti-sexist and anti-racist activists.

The organization is led by forces in the hip pocket of the Democratic Party. These misleaders channel much of the anger and frustration of working- and middle-class women into electoral politics, into calls for equal treatment of the sexes in the military and "glass ceiling" issues affecting wealthy and professional--mainly white--women. But several so-called "women's issues" are working-class issues--abortion rights and welfare "reform". And many working-class issues--police brutality, racist profiling, AIDS--vitally affect women, especially non-white women.

This conference showed that ten years of organizing by PLP members and friends, both in a state-wide anti-racist task force and in a local urban chapter, have had a strong anti-capitalist influence in our state's branch. A social worker and PLP member gave an eloquent and hard-hitting commentary on the brutality of welfare sanctions. His relating the welfare cuts to a larger analysis of the ruling-class assault upon the social wage was warmly received. Other PLP members and friends, speaking from the floor, raised a number of communist ideas, such as:

* Women's unpaid work in the home is a bonanza for the capitalists, providing them with free labor power to exploit now and in the future. Only in a society based upon meeting human need rather than generating profit can domestic labor be recognized and valued as the productive and socially necessary activity that it is;

* Racism has been used to stereotype welfare recipients, facilitating the removal of the welfare safety net, and is against the interest of the entire working class, employed and unemployed, white and non-white;

* Welfare "reform" and increased police racial profiling and brutality have occurred under the Clinton-Gore administrations, whose liberal facade has enabled them to pave the way for fascism more effectively than overt conservatives ever could have done.

The PLP forces and other activists in the organization have some sharp differences. Most of its members are fighting hard to reform capitalism, not abolish it. Many believe passionately in voting. But because the PLP'ers have shared many aspects of their communist politics with several of the long-time activists, and because we have a long history of principled opposition to racism, these debates are friendly, even humorous and teasing. It is widely acknowledged that it is the work of PLP'ers that has made our task force/chapter one of only two such multi-racial units nationally.

Without the Party's work, there would have been no multi-racial presence at the Conference, which drew together a loose coalition of some 50 additional protestors to an anti-fascist rally last summer at which several PLP members--not part of the organization's protest--were arrested. Seeing our comrades in action greatly increased some of the organization's members' respect for the Party.

The temptation to opportunism--that is, not raising communist perspectives, uniting with people on a merely reformist basis--continually faces the Party forces here. We often fall prey to this temptation. Only a few activists read CHALLENGE regularly. This must be changed. We also need to struggle harder to win certain fence-sitters to join the Party. Only one person has been recruited directly from these activities. But above all we need to be patient, recognizing that our ideas and actions are like seeds being dropped on the ground. The fertility of the soil and the amount of precipitation vary, but sooner or later there will be a large and rich harvest.

LETTERS

They Shall Not Pass!

Once again the collectivity of the Red Army defeats the "supermen" of the

Third Reich. The KKK rally in Skokie was an affront to the whole working class. Skokie is 40% Jewish with many holocaust survivors. While we couldn't directly attack the scum on the courthouse steps, the anti-racist crowd pummeled many supporters.

After the rally a small group of Party members and friends were walking back to our cars when we were confronted by a group of about eight young well-built and conditioned skinhead Nazis. Opposing them were about ten Reds, ranging from age 16-60. Our conditioning ranged from poor to not so poor.

At first glance it didn't look too good for the Red Army, but essence is primary over appearance. We had committed comrades with much experience in smashing Nazis. A 42-year old comrade took the lead and asked the lead Nazi, "Where do you think you're going?" He arrogantly replied, "To join our white brothers." His German accent suggested these were not the run-of-the-mill gutter scum who attend Klan gatherings.

They tried to pass our lines and for the next forty seconds, the Battle of Stalingrad was reenacted in microcosm. We were committed that these Nazis would not pass! Many hard blows were struck. Young and old comrades fought with ferocity. Individually we were no match for them. But collectively we gave them the whipping they deserved. The "master race" fled to their car like sheep from a pack of wolves, and were pummeled getting in. The windows of the car would need to be replaced when they returned to the cesspool from whence they came.

They had inflicted injuries on several comrades and they received injuries in kind. We can't expect to stop fascism without taking some losses, but with communist collectivity and commitment we can smash racism and all of its' vestiges. We must continue to build class-consciousness among our friends. All workers can understand the need to physically smash racism and build communist equality. We must teach the Party's history in smashing racism to our youth so they can take the lead.

Red Fighter

Zionists Rode British Coattails

I just eagerly read your analysis (CHALLENGE, Jan. 3)) of the current situation in Palestine/Israel and found it excellent and fully informed. I have always believed that the British used the divide-and-conquer strategy in order to destroy many civilizations around the world. As you stated, they instigated animosities between many different cultures and religious groups by playing to both sides' nationalism. They acted two-faced.

The Zionists rode the coat tails of the British in order to establish their state. These "communists" willingly disregarded the rights of the indigenous population, the Palestinian Arabs, in order to build a nation-state. I'm pretty sure Karl Marx disapproved of nation-state building. Sure, these Zionists built their farming collectives with a spirit of communist ideology, but they were inherently based in Jewish nationalism. Therefore, I wouldn't consider them "communists" or even "socialists."

Today, Israel remains a virtual theocracy. Much of its social policy is created and enforced by the Orthodox rabbinate. The very purpose of Israel's existence is to act as a "homeland" for the world's Jewish population. Their "right of return" states any Jew can immigrate to Israel and be granted immediate citizenship. If you're not Jewish, you must wait several years. That's like saying that only white émigrés to the U.S. can get immediate citizenship, but black émigrés must wait five years or more! It's purely and inherently racist! As a Jew, I am especially ashamed of this practice.

Secondly, obtaining a good job in Israel is largely based on service in the Israeli army. In fact, I was told that those who did not serve are stigmatized as being "emotionally insecure." And can't get a good job. Of course, Israeli Arabs are not allowed to serve in the army, thus automatically placing them in this second-class status along with dissenters or conscientious objectors. They won't get good jobs.

"Blame" should be placed on both the British AND the Zionists, since it was the Zionists who lobbied to obtain (via British imperialism) a nation-state of their own. Today, I would blame both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I don't condone or applaud violence and would hope that both sides stop their respective outbursts. Thanks again,

Reader from Philly

Don't Shop Capitalism--STOP It!

A radio news broadcast dramatized just how strange and sick capitalism is getting. It reported a psychiatric study among people who supposedly had a "shopping addiction." They can't control themselves when shopping! The study said 75% were better able to control their shopping urges after given a tranquilizer-type drug.

Communists would say there are real physical addictions--drugs, alcohol, etc. Then there are deeply-ingrained habits which the bosses call "psychological addictions." Capitalism creates intense feelings of alienation and powerlessness. Alienation can be defeated by destroying its root--class society. Fighting capitalist exploitation and especially building a communist movement is the best way to do this! The capitalists can't stomach that so they offer us various escapes so we'll think we have power over our lives. It can be a combination of physical and psychological addictions, such as drugs and alcohol. Or it can be compulsive gambling, eating, exercise, fighting, promiscuity or even compulsive shopping. One can feel they're not exploited and alienated by pretending to be masters of their own world.

So here it is. Capitalism exploits and alienates the working class (and even some capitalists!) Then it offers us escapism, encouraging compulsive shopping by telling us that our worth as human beings is measured by how many things we can buy. (We are taught to think of ourselves as consumers, not workers.) Then, if people get too extreme about shopping, the bosses will drug us if they're worried about not being paid because of the high rate of bankruptcies!

Communism is more than just economics or politics. It's a way of life. Understanding how capitalism affects all aspects of our lives, including psychological ones, will help us to become better communists and better able to explain communism to others.

Red Observer

Evicted by Profit System

A guy I used to work with recently moved to Brooklyn's Williamsburg section. He called me, sounding very upset. The city published a list of 100 buildings deemed "fire hazards," and his apartment house was on the list. All his friends were calling to ask what he was going to do. Naturally, I expressed sympathy for him, and suggested he call a friend of mine in Brooklyn and ask if he knew of any places to move, if this guy actually was evicted. He was very angry with fascist mayor Giuliani, and I agreed, but said if the buildings actually were dangerous, what else could be done?

But after I hung up, I thought more about it. When I was a kid in Brooklyn through my twenties over twenty years ago, Williamsburg was considered one of the most dangerous and dirty sections of New York. Probably some of that view was a racist one, but it did have some of the worst poverty in the country.

Then in the eighties, the Yuppie movement was in full swing, so working-class areas like the Upper West Side, the Lower East Side, and many parts of Harlem were viewed as potentially desirable neighborhoods. The landlords, through their government, started evicting people from these areas. (This situation was predicted in CHALLENGE as long ago as the late '60s.) People who had lived under terrible conditions in these neighborhoods now had to jam themselves into ever more crowded areas of the city. And the explosive growth continued, so places like Williamsburg also became "prime real estate."

I have another friend who shares an apartment on 123rd Street in Harlem costing $1,600 a month. That's when the roommate situation became pretty much manditory, and people even started renting their apartments out during the day for psychologists' offices, thereby kicking in toward the almost impossible-to-maintain rents, even with roommates.

After they squeezed long-time tenants out, landlords then fixed up the houses and charged ridiculous rents--controls by then were virtually non-existent. Or maybe they didn't quite "fix" the buildings up. Maybe the electric systems weren't really safe and people might die? But what does that matter, compared with making money? Now, it seems, capitalist chickens are coming home to roost--but as usual the rich don't pay a dime for their crimes.

As with so much of the profit system, people who think they're protected from the worst ravages of capitalist greed simply are a little further down the list. So now my friend, who has a good-paying job as a cook, may well find himself and his few belongings out on the street. He said, "What the hell's going on? How can this happen to me?"

The answer is, so long as capitalism rules the world, "it" can happen to anyone. An old Brooklynite

The Real Racist Fraud

The article "200 Years of Racist Elections Marches On" did a very good job exposing the racist nature of the capitalist system in the electoral arena. The article also correctly tied the 2000 presidential election to the racist history of the electoral college and the voting system. Prior to the bourgeois revolution in the American colonies, only adult white male property owners could vote. Historically, after extended struggles, the right to vote was only extended to others grudgingly by the rulers and the politicians representing their class.

However, the article could state more clearly the main frauds in capitalist elections. Massive vote theft and the "rising from the dead" of voters are a very small piece of the puzzle. They don't describe how the voting system covers up the bosses' class dictatorship. Before the election, a CNBC business show host said: "At least you'll get a capitalist whether you vote for Bush or Gore."

Beyond that, voting once every four years only gives workers the illusion they're "participating" in the government. In fact, con men, liars and big talkers dominate the political process for the billionaires they serve. Basically, workers are told to vote, shut up and go back to work. Beyond window dressing, there's no attempt to involve workers.

One reason PLP advocates democratic centralism as society's governing principle is to ensure the involvement of masses of workers in the process of building communism. Generally, the more workers and others involved in a meaningful and scientific way in this process, the better. The capitalists' vicious lies that "every vote counts" and that their democracy represents the "rule of the people" mask the reality of their absolute control of the political process.

Remember, the most far-sighted bosses are upset because fewer and fewer people vote each year. These bosses would love to have black workers rely on the voting system as their savior. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et. al., represent this aim for the liberal wing of the ruling class and are organizing a large anti-Bush demonstration in Washington on January 20 for this purpose. The revisionists (fake leftists) are tailing this rotten leadership. As we go to Washington with our mass organizations and friends, let's put forward the real solution while we expose the racism and bankruptcy of the capitalist electoral system.

NJ Comrade

Movie Review
TRAFFIC JAMS THE ROAD WITH FASCISM

"Traffic" was praised by critics and will probably be nominated for Oscars. The director, Steven Soderburgh, also did "Erin Brockovich" so I thought it might be interesting. Save your money. This is one rotten flick.

Supposedly it's an exposé of the War On Drugs. In reality it's a disgustingly racist melodrama, stupid and cynical even by Hollywood standards.

"Traffic" takes place on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, with lots of pretentious cinema verité tricks and subtitles. All the good guys are narcs or Republican politicians, mostly on the U.S. side. The Mexicans (mostly bad guys) include a crooked general, various crooked soldiers, coke smugglers and cops. Benicio del Toro plays a crooked Tijuana cop who reforms only after betraying his best friend and getting him killed. There are some rich crooks in San Diego but they are all Latino, work for Latinos or are mysteriously ethnic, like Catherine Zeta-Jones.

The story centers (of course) on an honest but troubled rich white family in the burbs. Dad (Michael Douglas) is the U.S. drug czar. In a major suspension of disbelief he actually wants to find out the facts. Mom is the stereotypical baby boomer ditz (How ditzy? She's aware her honor student daughter is freebasing for six months without worrying about it or taking any action). Daughter, meanwhile, is afflicted with the usual movie teenage angst, a terminal case because she doesn't produce a coherent word in the movie. She and her rich friends all freebase, in the only scenes that really could have benefited from subtitles. They get coke by cruising the inner city.

As Daughter gets hooked, she has sex with dealers to get her fix, and we get Gone With the Wind images that I thought were banned even from today's Hollywood--"pure white Southern womanhood" sullied by ultimate degradation: sex with black drug dealer in crack hotel, etc. Finally Dad rescues her in a scene too bizarrely Freudian to describe, family is reunited, goes to rehab together, Dad quits job because war on drugs is a war on our families, audience OD's on syrup, etc.

This. film attempts to absolve the U.S. of any wrong-doing in the drug trade. The Michael Douglas character is the embodiment of this lie.

Meanwhile the U.S. narcs learn that the Mexican general they've been working with is actually part of a rival drug gang, and massive cynicism invades this bunch, which has evidently just landed from Neptune.

The point of all this trash seems to be that the war on drugs is pointless because people will always want drugs and money, but these guys, especially cops, are American heroes anyway. War is hell. (Not incidentally, the movie makes drugs look so goddamn attractive that it might as well be sponsored by a cartel.) And Don Cheadle, my favorite movie actor, is wasted in another stinker!