Challenge Newspaper - Progressive Labor Party

As we go to press, the world’s "only superpower" is behaving more like a "stuporpower." The "recount" of the Florida votes reminds us of the 1960 elections when Kennedy beat Nixon in Illinois by some 6,000 votes, a margin created by the Daley machine (famous for "allowing" the dead to vote). Regardless of how this election turns out, workers should start planning what our class intends to do now. We live in a world of growing instability. Instability and war are built into the nature of capitalism. No politician or rulers’ policy change can alter this fact of life. We must carefully estimate events and trends, in order to better organize for the long-range fight of building our Party and winning communist revolution.

The science that guides communists in our thinking is dialectical materialism. It teaches us to look beyond appearances and try to grasp the complex essence of things as they are constantly changing. This election is a great lesson in dialectics. On the face of it, U.S. bosses lord it over the international scene. Their economy is dominant. No other military can challenge them on the battlefield. Their navy rules the sea-lanes. Their cultural domination of TV, movies and music helps them promote profit-making illusions among billions of young minds. And yet, all this overwhelming strength is accompanied by growing signs of weakness:

For all its firepower, U.S. imperialism can’t make Israeli and Palestinian bosses sign a deal. In fact, the NERW YORK TIMES warns: "The next war in the Middle East may already have started" (Nov. 5). U.S. bosses’ dream of pacifying their western flank in that area of the world so they can make oil war in the east Iraq) is turning sour in a hurry.

U.S. grand strategy is based on continuing to control cheap energy sources, particularly in the Persian Gulf. The Rockefeller-controlled Exxon Mobil-led Eastern Establishment is determined to oust U.S. oil rivals from power. Specifically, this means Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. But every move the U.S. makes solidifies a growing anti-U.S. coalition. Exxon Mobil’s Russian, French and Chinese competitors are flying to Baghdad, Iraq to make clear their opposition to U.S. policy. Even the Venezuelans, formerly under total U.S. control, have gotten into the act. When Washington launches its next oil war, it will face heavy international political, if not military, opposition.

Indonesia, in which the U.S. ruling class has a vital stake—its sea lanes command all the oil passing to Japan and Southeast Asia—could blow apart in a civil war.

The "nuclear club" is expanding, and the U.S. can’t necessarily dictate what countries like India or Pakistan will do. Nor can the U.S. determine what North Korean bosses will do with their own nuclear missiles. If they see a big profit or political advantage by peddling these deadly weapons to some U.S. rival, they may just grab it.

In the spring of 1999, Clinton and NATO waged a massive destructive air war in Yugoslavia. Beyond their humanitarian lies lay the truth of an international dogfight for control of pipelines to transport oil and gas from the Caspian region to Europe. Bombing the former Yugoslavia back to the stone age settled nothing. The oil rivalry is sharper than ever. And U.S. companies aren’t necessarily winning.

Another cornerstone of U.S. imperialism’s grand strategy is preventing the rise of Russia or China to super-power status. This plan may succeed over the short run. The Russian and Chinese rulers face many problems of their own and aren’t yet ready for a showdown with the U.S. However, these rivalries have a clear logic, and neither the Russians nor the Chinese can or will play second fiddle forever.

Much of U.S. strength is based on the current record economic boom. Even though in the "best of times," this racist society still forces tens of millions of U.S. workers to live in dire poverty, many others are relatively well off. A large middle class still exists. We’re not predicting the bottom will fall out of the economy soon, but things are bound to slow down at some time. Many signs already point to the conclusion that this high-profit paradise isn’t eternal. The stock market has stalled. The huge U.S. trade deficit isn’t lessening. If the stock market declines, foreign investment that subsidizes the deficit will probably look elsewhere for profits. The European Union rivals of U.S. corporations are grabbing market share because of their own low currency—and they have a huge trade surplus. Again, despite appearances, many giant U.S. companies, like AT&T, are in big trouble. U.S. auto companies’ inventories are so big—overproduction—that the car barons are planning to close eight of 55 plants for a week, with resulting mass layoffs.

So although U.S. rulers still sit atop their throne and may continue to do so for a while, they’re seated on increasingly uneasy ground. As the Texas-based intelligence-gathering agency Stratfor points out:" The trajectory is clear. Interests between the world’s great powers will diverge. Since each by itself is incapable of restraining the United States, many will band together, forming ad hoc and formal alliances as necessary" (November 6). This is what PLP has long identified as inter-imperialist rivalry leading to war.

Instability is inseparable from the universal capitalist scramble for maximum profit. Presently U.S. bosses are quickly finding out that it’s "lonely at the top." Their solution to this growing isolation will be a series of wars. Each is likely to kill more than the previous one. Have no illusions on that score.

As the next president prepares for the next oil war, we should ask: What can our class do to break this vicious cycle? The answer? Join the Progressive Labor Party. Become a communist. Fight for revolution. Nothing less will meet our needs.

Win Voters and Non-Voters Away from Capitalism!

The voting age population is 205,813,000. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, the total vote cast was slightly under 100 million (Gore, 48,566,000; Bush, 48,332,000; Nader, 2,653,000; Buchanan, 440,000)—about 48.6% of all those eligible to vote. This was an even lower percentage than in the ’96 presidential campaign. And this is after the bosses spent $3 billion on this election, the most in history.

As we've said, simply not voting won’t get us too far. While tens of millions are disgusted with the bosses’ electoral circus, 100 million DID vote, including tens of millions of workers and youth who wrongly think this is the way to change things for the better. Many of them are active in the very same unions and other mass organizations we’re in, and follow that leadership. These organizations’ influence goes far beyond their membership. We must win these working-class voters away from the entire capitalist electoral system and its rotten politicians, as well as winning the millions who didn’t vote, and organize all of them to take the only road that can really lead to a better world: a communist-led movement to destroy capitalism and its racism, poverty and imperialist war.

Winning Youth at Nader Group to Oppose Racism

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA—In early October, members of the Bay Area Youth PLP Club joined a mass organization—Students for Nader (SFN)—to spread revolutionary politics among youth seeking protest against the system. SFN comprises leftist students united in political dissatisfaction. It is led by the International "Socialist" Organization (ISO) and Green Party members.

Our goal was to contrast the Party’s ideas with Nader’s nationalist politics. We didn’t want to appear as "Nader haters" but we also didn’t want to blindly support Nader’s acceptance of capitalism. Life is a great teacher. We made our first mistake at the very first meeting by openly attacking Nader for cooperating with Roger Milliken (U.S. textile boss) and supporting capitalist "democracy." We were written off as "outsiders."

We then decided to build on points of unity and show support for the group’s members, without supporting Nader’s politics. These points of unity were: anger at a two-party "democracy"; knowing that capitalism puts profits over people; the belief that working people need health care and education; and fighting racism. Our point of struggle was opposing the idea that capitalism can be reformed into a kinder, gentler exploitation. Over the course of a month we leafleted, participated in teach-ins and developed friendships.

Once we felt more comfortable in the group, we "upped the ante" at the weekly meeting. We pointed out that the group was predominantly white, and that we should try to change this. We also heard racist undertones in comments from a few people. In explaining the overwhelmingly white Nader rally in predominantly black Oakland, one person said the $15 cost excluded "some people" (read: "black people"). In response, we proposed a prison labor forum highlighting racism which could attract more minority students. This turned any racist tone at the meeting into its opposite.

We invited any and all group members to help organize and plan the forum on the prison-industrial complex. Guest speakers from several campus groups were suggested, including PLP. An SFN flyer and an independent PLP flyer were distributed for the event. Our open criticism of Nader in the PLP flyer drew fire from the ISO leadership, who attempted to crucify us in front of the group for supposedly "masking" our politics and "deceiving" the group. However, those members who had helped plan the forum defended us, one saying our politics were not dishonest or hidden. To the disappointment of the ISO, the event went on.

The forum was successful, drawing 19 students and workers. Points of view and personal experiences with the prison system were exchanged and the Party’s ideas were presented in a positive way. The Party’s prison labor pamphlet proved an invaluable resource. Ten students signed up to receive more information on PLP meetings and events.

We have learned several important lessons: find the points of unity such as fighting racism and prison labor and then struggle to advance PLP’s line; be up front about where we’re coming from; try to use dialectical materialism to analyze the situation; and, most important, build close ties with those involved.

Proviso Teacher Strike Can Serve The Working Class

PROVISO TOWNSHIP, IL, November 6 ¾ Teachers at Proviso Township High Schools have been on strike since October 31. The main issues are teacher pay, higher insurance costs and a restructured school day.

Union meetings before the strike were very disorganized. The union leadership was plagued with in-fighting. They were very reluctant, unsure and contradictory. The Board seized on this and made its final offer worse than the previous one.

Most of the leadership told us they would vote against it, except for the President and another official. The President is very disliked and many union members are openly disgusted with him. At one meeting, a teacher told him to shut up because the teacher was fed up with how he was always blaming the students.

At the "emergency" Board meeting tonight, parents and students berated the Board for failing to negotiate an end to the strike. One parent also berated the teachers’ union for past racism.

Many rank-and-file teachers are dedicated to serving their students, but this is not reflected in the union demands, which represent only the teachers’ most immediate interests. This puts the teachers in a weak position to marshal support from parents and students, who are mainly black and Latino.

The pro-student teachers want to teach their students, even tutor them outside the schools during the strike, but a fight must be made to include strike demands that put the students first. Otherwise the narrow trade union demands can be seen as a racist attack on the students.

The bosses need the schools to train the next generation of workers to be passive wage slaves. They rely on the teachers for this. That’s exactly what most teachers were doing before the strike. In order to represent the mostly black and Latin working-class students, we must prepare them to understand the class forces in the world so they may change it. Presently it’s how the coming oil wars and a growing prison system threaten their very survival.

We are using the strike not only to benefit teachers, but more importantly to get to know our students and their parents better, vital to building a base in the working class. Tutoring will strengthen our ties and clearly identify us as their defenders and advocates. This will carry over after the strike.

Eventually our students, as workers, will lead a revolution. We must give them that opportunity. With state power in the hands of the working class and its Party, education will serve the working people. We can build that communist future now in the middle of class struggle.

Sterilize Racist Bosses, Not Poor Women! Oppose Racist C.R.A.C.K.

BOSTON, Mass. November 8 — Activists at the American Public Health Association (APHA) meetings here were scheduled to propose a resolution opposing C.R.A.C.K.—a fascist organization that is bribing drug-addicted women with $200 to submit to sterilization or use long-term birth control . Communists and anti-racists believe we need a society without drugs, where substance abuse is treated not promoted, and where education and jobs are open to all. It is the capitalist system which sells drugs and alcohol for huge profits and then attacks the addicts it creates.

Opposition to C.R.A.C.K. In the U.S.

Last November when Chicago community workers tore down C.R.A.C.K. campaign billboards. Healthcare workers introduced a statement condemning it to thousands of other health care workers at the APHA convention in Chicago. This July C.R.A.C.K. (Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity) posted ads in Washington, D.C. buses, bringing swift opposition. Unions at Metro (transit) and a large government agency passed resolutions demanding Metro remove the ads. People stated their disgust with its racist nature in calls to a local radio talk show where the C.R.A.C.K. founder Barbara Harris was speaking. The Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association voted to oppose the ads and raise issue at the current APHA meetings.

Follow-up meetings have broadened opposition to C.R.A.C.K.’s message from its narrow focus on reproductive rights to emphasize its racist ideology and discriminatory impact as well as its wrong approach to substance abuse. In Washington, D.C., an "Ad hoc Committee Against the C.R.A.C.K. campaign" has assembled a packet of information and sample resolutions for legislators, campus activists and professionals. This Committee is planning a workshop next Spring at the National Reproductive Rights Conference. (For packets, e-mail or call (301) 779-7432.) The Committee includes feminists, substance abuse activists, reproductive rights organizations, and communists in the Progressive Labor Party.

C.R.A.C.K. Is A Racist Attack on Poor Women

C.R.A.C.K. doesn’t care about women or helping them get off drugs. It exploits myths that babies born to drug-addicted mothers are seriously damaged and can never be productive human beings. This lures well-meaning people into their fascist ideology. There’s no scientific evidence proving that crack cocaine causes malformation in fetuses (Neuspiel, 1992, 1994; Hadeed, 1989). C.R.A.C.K. also exaggerates the impact of prenatal exposure to crack cocaine while ignoring the harmful effects of smoking (Nordentoft, 1996) and alcohol use (Streissguth, 1991) on the fetus.

Women’s health needs and reproductive rights are being dismissed. One billboard says, "Don’t Let Your Pregnancy Ruin Your Drug Habit"! They’re punishing addicted women for the "crime" of being poor—ignoring the fact that many low-income women have no health care coverage or cannot find or afford the substance abuse treatment programs they’re eager to enter.

The number of uninsured women rose from 14% in 1993 to 18% in 1998. (Commonwealth Fund 1999 survey) Women with incomes below $15,000 without private insurance coverage increased from 37% to 44%. Even women with private health insurance or Medicaid find drug treatment coverage extremely limited.

In fact, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which funds 40% of such services, has cut programs for women has by almost 40% since 1994. Federal funding for drug treatment programs for pregnant and postpartum women and their children has been slashed 90% since 1995.

Meanwhile, states are prosecuting pregnant women who use drugs, extending child abuse laws to cover "fetal abuse" or "transmission" of drugs to a third "person"—the fetus. They expect doctors and other health professionals to betray their patients’ trust to police and child protective services about the patients’ drug use. This counter-productive policy generates fear of prosecution, driving women away from the very prenatal care they need. C.R.A.C.K. and these states are attacking and addressing the reproductive capacity of poor women rather than their oppressive conditions. Poverty, racism and gender discrimination often lead women to use drugs to medicate their pain (Kearney, 1994; Rosenbaum, 1997).

Fascist Birth Control Policies Have a Long History

Various U.S. laws and movements have spawned eugenics—"purifying the race" Hitler style. In the 1920's, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger sought "to assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit." (Sanger, Margaret, The Birth Control Review, Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 11). C.R.A.C.K. aims to entrap low-income women of color and "eliminate their problem children." Offering cash bonuses to women who "agree to be sterilized" is similar to racist William Shockley’s proposal basing the amount of cash a woman could receive on so-called "scientific" estimates of disadvantageous hereditary factors such as heroin addiction, diabetes, epilepsy and low IQs. They both want to eliminate the disadvantaged rather than eradicating the social conditions causing disadvantage.

In the 1930's, 27 states enacted compulsory sterilization laws targeting the mentally and physically disabled and those who were convicted of committing crimes. An estimated 60,000 Native Americans, African Americans, mentally and physically disabled and poor persons were sterilized because of these laws, which were eventually annulled. By the 1940's private organizations and foundations drove the sterilization movement, including the American Eugenics Society, Hugo Moore (of Dixie Cup Corporation) and the Rockefeller Foundation.

By the 1970's an estimated 100,000 to 150, 000 low-income women were sterilized annually under federally-funded programs. Many women were coerced into accepting sterilization or their welfare benefits would be withdrawn. In 1974, the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia ruled that such practices must be ended (Relf v. Weinberger). It declared the "federally assisted...sterilizations are permissible only with the voluntary, knowing and uncoerced consent of individuals competent to give such consent." The court further noted that, "Even a fully informed individual cannot make a ‘voluntary’ decision concerning sterilization if he has been subjected to coercion."

However, no capitalist court ruling can eliminate forced sterilization, much less poverty, both spawned by the racist profit system. Only communist revolution can do that.

Partial List of References

Neuspiel DR. Cocaine-associated abnormalities may not be causally related. American Journal of Diseases of Children 1992;146:278-279.

Neuspiel DR. Behavior in cocaine exposed infants and children: association versus causality. Drug and Alcohol Dependency 1994;36:101-7.

Hadeed A.J., Siegel SR. Maternal cocaine use during pregnancy: effect on the newborn infant. Pediatrics 1989;84:205-21.

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). National Pregnancy and Health Survey: drug use among women delivering live births, 1992. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health publication 96-3819.

Nordentoft, M. et al. Intrauterine growth retardation and premature delivery: the influence of maternal smoking and psychosocial factors. AJPH. 1996;86:347-354.

Streissguth, A.P., et al. Fetal alcohol syndrome in adolescents and adults. JAMA 1991;265:1961-7.

Kearney, M.H., Murphy S., Rosenbaum M. Learning by losing: sex and fertility on crack cocaine. Qualitat Health Res 1994;4(2):147.

Rosenbaum, M. "Women : Research and Policy" in Lowinson, J.H., et al. Substance abuse, a comprehensive textbook, 3^rd edition. Baltimore, MD: Williams and Wilkins, 1997, pages 654-5 and at viewed on October 9, 2000.

Union Relies On Cops, Politicians

BOSTON, MASS, October 30 — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 285 led 150 people on a march to Family Services of Greater Boston (FSGB) where social workers are striking to save their jobs and to protect client care against fascist attacks.

FSGB director Randall Rucker is trying to fire all the social workers because they’re blocking his master plan to change the way social services are delivered. He’s demanding that social workers meet a weekly quota of "billable hours"—a quota of clients who can be billed, either those with medical insurance or those with a diagnosed mental illness for which Medicaid can be billed. This would force social workers to label their clients as mentally ill in order to receive services.

This fascist trend cuts services to the working class, turns professionals against the people they serve and blames society’s problems on peoples’ alleged brain or genetic "defects."

SEIU organized the EVENT as a funeral march, "mourning the death of family services." SEIU’s leaders rely primarily on politicians as advocates. They invited Micky Roach, a former police chief and city councilman, to speak at the rally. He thanked the cops for their "patience" with the strike. But the police are working as strikebreakers, clearing the strikers from the driveway every time a van full of scabs enters. Unfortunately, the strikers have been convinced they will lose if they don’t have "friends" like Mickey Roach.

Today’s march should have been a rallying cry to spread the strike among workers in other social service agencies. Instead, SEIU narrows the strike to a labor dispute at FSGB. It refuses to expose Rucker’s racism and war against clients, or draw parallels to what is happening in other social services and refuses to activate clients in support of the strike. Until workers see through this labor leadership strategy of limiting struggles, we will be fighting one losing battle after another.

PLP members sold CHALLENGE and distributed a leaflet exposing the role of such union leaders who consciously march their members into the arms of the enemy.

Some faculty from the Massachusetts Council of Community Colleges at Roxbury Community College (RCC) marched in solidarity with the striking social workers The strike and RCC’s Administration support of FSGB management (see CHALLENGE, 10/22) have given us a political opportunity. Now at RCC a small group of faculty is meeting with PLP, discussing articles in CHALLENGE and some immediate issues.

a name="CIA -- World’s Biggest Drug Cartel">">"IA -- World’s Biggest Drug Cartel

Swiss banks just froze $48 million in secret bank accounts of Vladimir Montesinos. How did Montesinos, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori’s Rasputin, get those millions? Apparently, by using his power as chief of Peruvian Intelligence Service and as the CIA’s top man in Peru to launder millions from the very drug cartels the CIA is allegedly trying to "stop."

To those who know the CIA’s history, this is not surprising.

During the Vietnam war, the CIA-run airlines which supplied the anti-North Vietnamese among the Hmong tribes and others, also flew opium for the warlords supporting the U.S. More recently. during the Reagan-Bush years, the CIA allied itself with the Medellin drug cartel to help finance the Contras who were waging war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

When journalist Gary Webb exposed the CIA-Contras-Drug Cartel connection in the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, major newspapers helped the CIA discredit the reports. Webb was forced out and the MERCURY NEWS even apologized for the articles.

Last year, secret Congressional hearings on the CIA-Contras-Drug Cartel connection revealed some important facts about the CIA, despite "clearing" it of all wrongdoings.

CIA inspector general Britt Snider told the hearings: "In the final account it seems that the goal of overthrowing the Sandinistas was primary over the adequate treatment of potentially serious accusations against those with whom the Agency was working." Duane Claridge, who oversaw the CIA’s secret aid to the Contras in the early years of the war against the Sandinistas, reported that "the anti-drug programs in Central America were not a priority for the CIA personnel at the beginning of the 1980s."

The Congressional Report exonerating the CIA is very revealing. For example, it concludes that "the CIA as an institution, did not approve the connections between the Contras and the drug dealers…" [The key word here is "institution."] Meanwhile, CIA operatives were allowing the drug cartels to transport drugs north into the U.S. in the very same planes the CIA used to carry guns south to the contras. Garry Webb blamed this CIA connection for the crack epidemic that hit inner cities throughout the U.S. during the 1980s. While Webb was fired and blacklisted, not a single CIA or Reagan-Bush official ever lost anything for this drug-dealing.

The CIA also performed a similar task during the 1980s in the war against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. It used the drug-running Pakistani Intelligence Services to smuggle opium out of Afghanistan while supplying the "Freedom Fighters" warring on the Soviets.(Osama Bin laden, the Saudi billionaire, was one of those CIA-financed "freedom fighters."). Last year, the CIA/Pentagon and NATO allied themselves with the drug-running Albanian mafia— linked to the Albanian Liberation Army—to fight Milosevic and the Serbian army).

Today, the same story is being repeated in Colombia. U.S. rulers have sent billions in aid to the drug-running Colombian army and death squads to "wage war" against drugs. Anyone who believes this is a sure customer to buy the Brooklyn bridge.

Building blocks for revolution at Purdue Calumet Univ.

Anti-Racist Forum Draws 250

HAMMOND, IN. — "The best thing about it was the unity!" These words were spoken again and again by students from all backgrounds about the forum against racism sponsored by the Black Student Union on Nov. 3. Although the university "forgot" to set up the microphones and students had to shout, that just added to the energy and enthusiasm! Even faculty who stopped by for a while were impressed at the energy and unity. In the past, there have been many cynical comments made about how students segregate themselves, especially in the lounge, but on this day, student after student got up and spoke about their grievances against the university. The strong sense of unity deepened as black, latin, and white students all spoke about their common problems and the need to fight back. Black students even brought up the need to keep anti-racist professors, including one white professor who is being terminated. The impact of seeing black students support white professors and white students criticize the racism of other professors did more to build solidarity and trust than all the phony "diversity" workshops the bosses set up. Some speakers also tied these abuses in to the ways that capitalism is based on racism and wars, including possible military action in the Middle East.

The incident that started this protest centered around Professor "Nicky" Jackson’s treatment of a black student, but the issues soon spread to critiques of other professors, (including one who continually comments that black students from Gary are involved in drugs) as well as other serious problems concerning the way that students are being driven out of the university. Remedial math courses are often poorly taught or with classes too large and there is a new rule being set up that will cut students off of financial aid if they have to drop a few classes. The professors who were criticized are apparently furious at leaflets and the Challenge article. Students are making plans to start a petition with numerous demands and keep the pressure on with more speak-outs. Whether or not the university takes action against Jackson, there are many more problems that need to be addressed. The BSU, including members of PLP, will continue to keep building the struggle. The responsibility for members of PLP is to broaden the struggle and help develop the understanding that racism and capitalism were born together and the only way to eliminate racism is to destroy capitalism. Additionally, we are building for November 18, the big 25^th anniversary dinner celebration of the "Boston ‘75" Project, when a hundred anti-racist youth spent the summer in Boston organizing against the racist anti-school integration (busing) movement. A big turnout for that dinner will help strengthen the unity and further help develop the revolutionary movement for the bigger battles to come!

LA Teachers Must Include Demands in Favor of Students

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 7 — "Mr. Chairman. I teach high school in South Central Los Angeles," said a PLP teacher and delegate on the floor of last week’s teachers union House of Representatives meeting. "My students ask me why we’re going on strike," she continued, "and why they should support us.

"If we want their support, we need to be committed to fighting in their interests. We need to make the fight against overcrowded, under-supplied, dirty and unsafe schools and for quality public education the lead demand. We must demand that new schools be built to relieve overcrowding and to reduce the number of students per teacher. We must demand that the school police—which targets working-class and minority young people on a regular basis—be disbanded, and that the money freed up be used to hire parents to guarantee the safety of the students, and that the military recruiters—who also target our young people to fight and die for oil profits in the Middle East—be denied access to our campuses.

"If we strike for these demands, we can expect students and parents to understand our commitment to them, and to support us in our struggle. Therefore, I ask the body to consider Special Order of Business #1."

The union president had been giving his usual lackluster report on the lack of progress in negotiations when our comrade rose to make the above motion. Teachers here have been working without a contract since July. Although negotiations have been on-going, the union’s timid reluctance to sharpen the struggle indicates they’ve really been marking time until the elections. The leadership is tied to the Democratic Party and a business unionism approach, relying on "changing" conditions through passing laws and electing "friends" among the bosses’ politicians rather than on organizing the power of teachers, students and parents through class struggle. Our motion reflects a continuing discussion among teachers and students about linking the fight against police terror and imperialist war to teacher and student demands for better education.

The main people being screwed in the schools are the students. Our demands, unlike the union leadership’s, reflect that reality, and our commitment to fight for the students and for quality public education. Many people agree with the first point, about making smaller classes, more schools, etc., the lead demand, ahead of demands for higher teacher salaries. We are in a coalition with other teachers for "educational justice" which advances these demands.

More controversial, however, has been the anti-racist demand to get the cops and courts out of the classroom. It takes more struggle to win teachers to support this. An incident after school demonstrated its importance. Two middle-aged communist women teachers tried to break up a fight, eventually stopped by two young male teachers in a big brotherly fashion. Afterwards, the cops drove up and arrested half a dozen kids who were on the outskirts of the fight. This showed more clearly what we should be fighting for—the kind of working-class security Progressive Labor Party organizes to guarantee May Day, a group of workers who are strong enough and committed enough to the working class to guarantee the march and isolate and deal appropriately with any attack.

When the working class runs society, for the workers, that’s what we’ll have. Cops—including the school cops—exist to protect private property and to serve the capitalist ruling class. Part of that job is to harass and attack working-class youth, especially black and Latin youth. At this point we feel we should demand parent and community patrols at our schools, responsive to and respectful of the community they serve.

All this was in our motion. Although it was ruled out of order, the vote to consider it showed at least 25 of the 120 or so delegates present in favor. After the comrade sat down, one of the members of the Bilingual Education committee, who had been active in fighting against Proposition 21’s attacks on young people, approached her. They had a long discussion about how the cops always target minority workers and how only communist revolution can eliminate police terror.

This resolution demonstrated how the Party can be active in the labor movement, and struggle for our ideas—showing that capitalism REQUIRES racist police terror and war—and at the same time fight to incorporate student interests into the union struggle. More consistent work can recruit some honest teacher activists to PLP.

Mid-East War Becoming More Urgent Question

We are raising the nature of imperialist oil war n the classroom and with our friends, but we were not very successful in getting this into the union meeting. At this time the question of racist police terror seems more urgent to our students also. The situation in the Middle East is heating up and can soon become very urgent for these students. The bosses will try to get teachers to win our students to support the U.S. in the coming wars for oil profits. We plan to raise this urgent question increasingly with students and teachers in this current struggle.

It Felt Like New Blood in my Body

(The following letter came from a comrade who met the Party in Mexico in the 1970s and was active with PLP for many years. He moved to another country and lost contact until now.)

I come from a peasant family. Capitalism keeps people in rural areas in extreme poverty and ignorance. Life was so hard that children were not just seen as new beings to be loved and cared for, but as additional help in doing farmwork.

To escape this hell I looked for work in a textile mill in a nearby city. For seven months I went daily to the plant looking for work, without much success. I saw the company giving jobs to friends and relatives of the union hacks, compensating them for their sellouts.

Finally one morning I got lucky. A foreman came looking for a mechanic. Though not a mechanic I was so desperate I said I was. My dream came through. I learned fast. Everything was wonderful, from the smell of the machinery oil to the colors of the tints used in the textiles. It amazed me to see workers running from place to place operating the machines.

But as time went by I began to see my dream was not that perfect. I saw the spinners eating their lunch standing up while working at the same time. The oil smell and tint colors began to change to me. I saw many workers coughing a lot because of the fumes and dust. Later, I discovered that 50% of those workers had TB.

Then that I met some young people selling CHALLENGE. At first I was not interested, but seeing them selling that paper every Saturday made me curious. I asked one young seller if he was paid for doing it. I couldn’t conceive of someone selling a paper, without pay, with so much commitment, even when it was raining. His answer amazed me: "We do it because the working class is the only one that can change the course of history, the only one capable of destroying capitalism."

I became more interested when he said the ideas of communism have been written for workers—when workers grasp them and understand their exploitation, they will change the world.

I was 18 years old and those were the sweetest and most beautiful words I’ve ever heard. That day I felt very important. A fire, hope was born inside me.

I then asked workers in the plant if they knew what being a communist meant. Some said communists were anti-god, wanted to burn churches, want to turn people into slaves. These answers made me think even more.

The next Saturday I asked the CHALLENGE sellers I asked what communists did who was financing the paper. I thought that would annoy them, but one young woman looked at me with the kind of tenderness I only had felt from my mother. She said communists were people like myself and the other workers in the plant. The difference is that "we have awakened."

"Awakened from what?" I asked. She replied that we see how world history has been the history of class struggle, of how the exploited masses fight against those few who exploit them, the have-nots against the have-everythings. She added that labor power is all workers have to sell to the bosses.

She then asked me if I ever saw a boss work for his/her money. I said no, but that is what they pay us workers for. She then explained how the bosses get surplus value from our labor, that the value of what they pay us is a small fraction of the value we produce.

It was then that I decided to read "The Communist Manifesto." Although I didn’t realize what was happening to me, it was like new blood flowing through my body. I began to see things differently. I began to understand what was happening around me. Then I discussed with some fellow workers, mainly with the lowest-paid, what I was learning. The older workers were afraid to talk because they were nearing retirement and feared losing their miserable pension.

After working with PLP for several years, I moved and lost contact. But finally, after two decades, I found the Party again, and know that the Party’s ideas are needed now more than ever. Whether under the name of globalization or free markets, capitalism continues to bring misery and wars to the world’s workers. I am glad PLP is still around and will do my best to help the fight for communism.

An old comrade somewhere in Latin America

Postal Union Leaders Treat Rank-and-File Workers as Second Class

NEW YORK, Nov. 8— Last week a shop steward of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) local here reported to dozens of co-workers at several lunch room meetings the latest news on shop steward elections, the current contract negotiations (Nov. 20 deadline) and the union’s October 26contract rally (see CHALLENGE, Nov. 8).

The steward spoke favorably of the rally’s rank-and-file solidarity and militancy, saying the greater the unity, the more can be achieved. He also emphasized his disgust at the dominance of national and regional union leaders as rally speakers. These mis-leaders came for exposure, hoping for votes in the 2001 national union elections. William Burrus, the lead candidate for APWU President, revealed his plan to "threaten" management by taking the contract to arbitration! Such "militancy" will lead to another rotten contract.

Union leaders gave little news at the rally about the negotiations, but outlined a few of management’s demands for give-backs affecting wages and job security. Many workers in the lunch rooms agreed with the steward that the union leaders should have been made to listen to more rank-and-file speakers rather than talk themselves.

The steward pointed to an APWU poster stating that less than 1/3 of postal revenues are used to pay for workers’ salaries and benefits —only 9¢ from each 33¢ stamp. Thus, postal workers deserve a raise. Well, that’s true. However, the union mis-leaders avoided a more fundamental truth: all postal revenues are earned by the collective labor of postal workers throughout the country, 33¢ of every 33¢ stamp. By grabbing 24¢ of each 33¢ stamp, USPS bosses steal hundreds of millions of dollars a year from postal workers’ labor. (The same is true for every public and private company.) It’s "The System" that makes this huge theft "legal" with their laws, protected by the U.S. government, the Supreme Court, the police, National Guard, etc.

Workers applauded when the steward said, "The millions in profits should not go to pay big salaries to managers, nor bonuses to ass-kissing supervisors." The shop steward made it clear it is his conviction "that the value produced by our work should be shared" according to need. Many nodded in agreement.

More than the usual 30 to 35 CHALLENGES were distributed this issue. This will be a vital addition to the postal workers’ understanding of the importance of a communist analysis and program.

LETTERS

Lessons in the Life of a New Teacher

I’ve been teaching in a Jersey City high school for almost two years. When I started, a district-wide teacher strike had just ended. The environment I entered was hostile and unstable. New or untenured teachers were being pitted against senior teachers. Many new teachers, like myself, were seen as puppets for the administration. If teachers stayed late or came to school earlier than the union contract stated, others would say new teachers were trying to "please" the administration.

As a communist, my role is to, (1) serve the working class; (2) unify teachers and students; (3) build and lead class struggle; and (4) build a base and recruit teachers and students to the Party. For example, I taught a class focused specifically on reading and writing skills. Students needed to pass this class in order to graduate. Unfortunately, many didn’t have the necessary skills to pass. I would come in early and stay late to help my students complete the assignments and improve their literacy skills.

Many teachers disagreed with this. "These students can’t do the assignments," said these teachers. "They’re not going to pass anyway. Why bother?"

I was disgusted and angered by these racist and anti-working class ideas. At first, I struggled with them and talked about things I was doing in my classroom, but many of them didn’t want to hear this. Soon I became cynical about these teachers. I didn’t realize I had fallen into the "new-teachers-vs.-the-senior-teachers" trap. In a nutshell, I stayed away from all but a few teachers.

I decided to concentrate on my students. I helped them complete the assignments required by the state in order to graduate. I also helped them improve their reading and writing skills. This meant I had to come in an hour earlier each day and stay at least 40 minutes after school. The administration does not want any seniors failing the class. Consequently, many teachers feel pressured to help students pass at any cost. In the past, some teachers would write the assignments for the students. This, they say, is "easier" for them. They do not have to actually TEACH or come in early or stay late.

I would discuss this situation with my students, about how racist and anti-working class these ideas are. Some mentioned other teachers who taught them and who respected them. I reached out to these teachers and shared teaching ideas with them. We are building a collective of new and senior teachers. This has helped eradicate my cynicism because I saw there were other teachers fighting to teach their students.

I am building close ties with my students. I have showed several CHALLENGE. Some have come to Party functions.

Jersey Teacher

History Channel Ignores Fact that Red Saved Jews During WW 2

It’s Nov. 7 and I’m bored to death with all the reports about the electoral circus that’s about to elect another bosses’ puppet to the White House. Suddenly, I get a fax from the History Channel (the War Channel, as some call it). It’s about a program to be aired Nov. 26. The first paragraph reads: "It is well known that over 6 million Jews were brutally murdered during the Holocaust, but few realize that 4 million Jews were saved!"

I begin to think; I get this fax on Nov. 7, the 83^rd anniversary of the most important event of the 20^th century, the Bolshevik revolution that for over three decades freed one-sixth of the world’s surface from capitalism. For sure, the History Channel will report how Stalin and the Red Army saved most of those 4 million Jews.

Wrong again. It’s another "Schindler’s List" (the movie about the Nazi boss who used 1,000 Jewish slave laborers to produce for the Nazi war machine and supposedly "saved" them). The program will depict four diplomats who used their posts to help save about 100,000 Jews from the death camps. Okay, they helped 100,000.

But what about the other 3.9 million Jews (millions more) who were freed from the Nazi butchers? Well, you won’t learn about it on the History Channel (and its very anti-communist coverage of World War II). Instead, read PLP’s special May 17, 1995 CHALLENGE supplement, "50 years Ago the Communist Red Army Defeated the Nazis").

A Comrade

a name="Battered Women—Another ‘Freedom’ Under Capitalism"></a>"attered Women—Another ‘Freedom’ Under Capitalism

A friend of ours volunteers her time at a battered women’s shelter, where women can take their families when men becomes physically abusive. Recently she was assigned to help cater a banquet honoring those who donate money for the shelter. Shelters aren’t free; nothing under capitalism is.

It would be a fine spread and she wasn’t much looking forward to it, except that she knew overall it was for a good cause. The banquet was being held at one of Chicago’s finest hotels and the honorees would be big-money people, the kind who own companies that need workers to run them.

You start thinking about these rich people, how they make their money, what they pay their workers—40 hours a week, $10 an hour, trying to support a family of five. That’s not easy. People with financial problems many times relieve the stress by trying to escape reality. That’s true with capitalism in general. Maybe we turn to drugs or alcohol. Maybe we take it out on our families. It’s a no-win route, not acceptable, one that should always be struggled against with our friends, family and comrades.

But it’s a funny circle. Working-class families under financial stress will inevitably experience more instances of domestic abuse. The mother will seek assistance at a battered women’s shelter. Lo and behold, the owner of the factory where the abuser works for subsistence wages finances the shelter!

This is not to say there will be no domestic violence problems under communism. There will be. But not nearly as many, and they will be handled differently. Capitalist exploitation causes the stress which leads to domestic violence and then builds a few shelters for a small number of the victims of their greed. We will attack the root cause of this violence, primarily the profit system that can’t provide for workers’ families. If domestic violence persists, we will continue to attack. There is no room in a communist society for abuse against women or men.

Chicago Reader

a name="On Actor’s Strike">">"n Actor’s Strike

The producers and the striking Screen Actors Guild have reached a deal. After a long walkout, the commercials contract will likely be ratified by the Guild’s membership, although with only minimal gains.

During the battle, the stars were more militant than the AFL-CIO leadership. For instance, when it became clear that the same financial barons who produce commercials own and control the TV and radio networks and therefore were not publicizing the strike, nor actors’ demands, principal players were brought to massive street rallies in major cities.

At several such mass protests the local union bosses tried, unsuccessfully, to squelch workers’ rising anger. One fine autumn day in New York, Paul Newman told a rally, "Even Charlton Heston, who is no friend of labor, said, regarding the strike, ‘They’ll have to take the smoking gun from my lifeless hand’ and the media still didn’t mention it." Others spoke of "going to jail too, with you."

The militancy shocked State union reps. The day Newman spoke, angry protestors tied up the city while thousands marched, despite directions to reassemble later. One striker told reporters she "followed a tradition a lot like the one you can see in the movie ‘Cradle Will Rock.’"

On the way we were embraced by groups of wildly sympathetic hard-hats, construction workers breaking for lunch. The strikers managed to encircle GM’s skyscraper headquarters. Some chants were changed. Instead of "Shame on GM," it became "Smash GM" and, in English and Spanish, "The workers, united, will never be defeated." These caught on, first among some jingle singers and from there the entire GM block.

A commercial contract giving performers needed residuals is fairly certain. The vast realm of the Internet was addressed superficially, with a flat rate payment. But gains should be weighed against the skyrocketing cost of living.

Typically, the union’s members were cynical. And no wonder. Aside from mass protests very little done to organize the strike. Non-union actors were used as informational pickets in exchange for the promise of union membership. This widened the gap between union and non-union even more. Reformist factions, misleaders and would-be hacks, rather than unite with other striking workers, such as the LA bus drivers, tried to vote each other out of union office. Rallies were only partially publicized or given wrong times and locations.

Of course, more needs to be done to win over actors and performing artists generally to communist ideas. Self-critically, more CHALLENGES could have been sold. Those such as the jingle singers, who expressed interest, might have been asked to get together around strike issues or, perhaps, anti-racism.

Some believe it’s far-fetched to expect anything from Hollywood or the performing arts under capitalism. A total revolution is needed to root out bourgeois notions, such as "art for art’s sake," but it’s clear that intellectual workers can indeed be won to communist ideas.

Red Delegate Blasts UFT Racism on Middle East Conflict

At a United Federation of Teachers (UFT) delegate assembly on November 1, PL members as usual distributed a communist leaflet. This one dealt with the presidential election and the coming Iraqi war. We weren’t planning to raise any new motions. However, the union leadership had placed a resolution on the agenda about the conflict in Israel/Palestine. Though the item appeared innocuous enough because it talked about the killing of Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, it primarily attacked the Palestinians: "Resolved, that the UFT condemn the crimes, atrocities, desecrations and acts of terrorism committed in the present strife."

In the bosses’ press, the only people called "terrorists" are Palestinians or other Arabs. The only "desecration" is the desecration of a Jewish temple. The only "atrocity" is the killing of two Israeli soldiers and a rabbi. Therefore, behind the apparent evenhandedness, this agenda item really subtly favored the Israeli rulers. It also said nothing about the role of capitalism/nationalism and imperialism as the cause of this conflict. One PL member (with only five minutes to prepare) called for an amendment to this resolution. He changed the leadership’s resolution to read: "Resolved, that the UFT condemn the killing of Arab, Jewish and Palestinian workers by whoever kills them." Clarifying his amendment, he explained that the current struggle stems from capitalism; working-class children are dying because of the imperialist drive for oil.

Four speakers attacked the amendment. The first said it was Marxist. The second said it "muddied the water." The third accused it of "being too one-sided" because it was "more supportive of Arabs being killed." All these speeches were anti-communist. Forty delegates voted for the amendment; most voted against it and some did not vote. Of the 800 members present, approximately 60% voted for the union leadership’s motion.

After the meeting several people stopped the comrade as he walked from the hall. One African-American woman took his hand and said, "Thank god you’re back in the assembly." Another person said, "That was very brave." Still another said, "It’s a good thing somebody spoke on the matter like that."

Outside the hall, another union member told him, "You were the one who raised the amendment? Thank you. I teach Palestinian children, and it’s been very hard." She also thanked him for pointing out the cause as capitalism.

We should have been more aware of the agenda so we could have prepared properly. It is an important part of building a communist movement. In this very critical period we must look very carefully at our actions as communists. We should be more serious about our work in this assembly.

A Red Delegate

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, November 8, 2000

Information: 08 November 2000 176 hits

Editorial: Fed Up with Bosses'Electoral Circus, Oil Wars
FIGHT FOR WORKERS' POWER!
Angry Students Charge the Justice Department
Purdue Students Organize to
STOP RACIST PROFESSORS
CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS GROWS IN BAY AREA TRANSIT STRUGGLES
1,000 POSTAL WORKERS PROTEST CONTRACT TALKS
TV Rules for Schools: Praise Principals, Slam Students
Bosses Lower `Boom' on Workers--7 Days a Week
Bosses'Hi Tech Tool to Cut Subway Clerks Crashes
Israeli Soldiers Refuse to Be `Good Nazis'
1. How the Israeli and U.S. Press Lie
2. What Should Revolutionary-Minded Workers and Youth Do in the Middle East?
NYC Jewish Youth Plans Actions Against Butchery by Israeli Army
Join the Bosses' Navies and See the (Under) World
Boston '75: A Summer of Struggle - A Lifetime Transformation
WEST COAST PLP
STUDENT CONFERENCE
LETTERS

Editorial: Fed Up with Bosses'Electoral Circus, Oil Wars
FIGHT FOR WORKERS' POWER!

Regardless of who wins the electoral beauty contest on November 7, the main wing of the U.S. ruling class will remain firmly in control of the White House. The presidency is very important to the big bosses. They need a strong executive branch--to run foreign policy, to impose discipline among themselves and to rule over and exploit workers. The Gore-Bush circus has exposed the rulers' weaknesses as well as their strengths. Our class must soberly assess both sides of this contradiction in order to define the tasks and opportunities that lie ahead.

As last week's CHALLENGE editorial pointed out, Gore and Bush are each Eastern Establishment loyalists. Some tactical differences separate them, but hese are minor. The big losers in the Clinton impeachment were the political forces opposed to the Eastern Establishment agenda--maintaining U.S. imperialist world domination through their control of Middle Eastern oil and preventing Russia's and China's re-emergence as threats to U.S. dominance. The ouster of Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich from the Republican shows that the main bosses have reasserted their control over the G.O.P. Despite some internal contradictions, such as differences with the AFL-CIO union chiefs over "globalization," the rulers also have a lock on the Democratic Party. All the big bosses agree on two things: to tighten the screws more at home and get ready for a long period of foreign wars, starting with the next Middle Eastern oil war.

So the bosses seem to have their own house pretty much in order. What they don't have is an enthusiastic base for their above agenda among broad masses of workers. This weakness shows up glaringly in the lack of voter participation. Sixty percent of the voting age population have participated in presidential elections only three times since 1960. In 1996, fewer than half the voting age population showed up at the polls. One hundred million people stayed home rather than vote for Clinton or Dole. The Bush-Gore "contest" is likely to produce an even lower voter turnout.

The Nader campaign also proves this weakness. Nader, a ruling class loyalist whose "Mr. Clean" act was supposed to get people to vote who otherwise wouldn't. He is now becoming a threat to Gore. This wasn't Nader's assignment or his intention, but Gore & Co. have been so dismal that the Nader vote may help determine the election's outcome. Voting is basically a middle-class phenomenon. As one pundit writes: "The working poor...are especially well represented among those who now abstain..." (Barbara Ehrenreich, NEW YORK TIMES op-ed, Oct. 26)

But low voter turnout by itself is no victory for workers. A president elected with barely one quarter of the voting age population's support, as with Clinton in 1996, can still help the bosses exercise their class dictatorship over us. Look at Clinton's record. On his watch, the minimum wage is still lower than the official poverty level. CEOs and other corporate executives make over 400 times more than the average wage-earning worker. Clinton-Gore continue to criminalize unemployment in the most racist way by imprisoning more young workers than any country in the world. The Clinton-Gore RACIST slave labor welfare "reform" plan throws single mothers and their children on the street while driving down the wages of unionized workers.

liberal Democrat Clinton has brought us these vicious attacks in his eight years. As his successor, Gore promises more of the same. Bush the Republican would grind workers down in slightly different ways, but the results wouldn't differ. Both Gore and Bush want to make war for oil. Voting doesn't change the process. And BY ITSELF, not voting accomplishes nothing.

What must be done? The answer is both simple and very difficult. The only road that can lead workers away from these many evils of the profit system is communist revolution. And the only road to communist revolution passes through the painstaking, consistent building of our Party, the PLP, in the daily crucible of class struggle.

Despite appearances, the rulers worry about workers' openness to revolutionary ideas and practice. The politicians can yap all they want about drawing lines in the sand which Saddam Hussein mustn't cross. The military brass know better. They know that with all its hardware, their military is ideologically weak All the media's hypocritical hand-wringing over the sailors recently killed in Yemen shows that the bosses remain very nervous over the willingness of their army and navy to sustain heavy casualties in defense of Exxon Mobil's profits. No less an authority than the retired commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf warns that the military "would have trouble mounting another major operation on the scale of the 1991 Persian Gulf War" (Marine General Anthony Zinni, quoted by CNN, August 10).

So the rulers of the "world's only remaining super power" have plenty to sweat about. They're nervous about the battle-readiness of their armed forces. All their best-laid plans to force a pro-U.S. "peace" arrangement in the western part of the Middle East are blowing up daily. Their Russian, French, and Chinese rivals are making deals that threaten the Rockefeller-conmtrolled Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco hammerlock on Persian Gulf oil wealth. The next U.S. president will have to send U.S. soldiers and sailors to fight another oil war, regardless of the military's political readiness.

Therein lies the growing opportunity for our Party and our class. Sharpening conditions will help us demonstrate that the system can't work for anyone other than the ruling class and its most committed toadies. The same capitalists who force unemployed black and Latin youth into jail demand that these youth take arms to kill and die for a handful of billionaires. People who don't vote understand this on some level. But vague understanding isn't enough to get the capitalist monkey off our backs. Something else is needed. We have no interest in the results of November 7. The only "vote" that can help the working class is the decision to join and fight with the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party.

Angry Students Charge the Justice Department

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 25 -- Today 500 students rallied on Howard University's campus and then boldly marched through the city to the U.S. Justice Department, protesting a racist decision by Virginia prosecutor Robert Horan. Horan refused to file charges against the cop who murdered Howard University student Prince Jones on September 1, saying the Maryland cops who tailed Prince into Virginia had "mistakenly" thought Prince was a suspect they were searching for. So when Prince banged into the unmarked cop car, the cop "reasonably feared for his life" and pumped six bullets into Prince's back!

This decision was not surprising since in over 30 years Horan has never indicted one cop for anything. It shows cops can kill with impunity as they carry out their intimidating, terrorist role of keeping the working class, especially black workers, subjugated by the bosses.

At the rally, the president of the Howard University Student Association called on the students to march then and there to the U.S. Justice Department to demand action against the cop. Over 200 students marched through the streets, attempting to enter the Justice Department en masse. A scuffle broke out as panicky security guards tried to block the door and push out those who had gotten into this (supposedly) "public" building. Heavy iron doors clanged shut while Department officials cowered in their fortress.

During the ensuing rally outside the Justice Department, students noted that the security guards, like the cop who killed Prince Jones, were also African-Americans. They correctly charged that this proved the problem was the system, not individuals or groups.

A student delegation did manage to meet with Bill Lee, head of the Civil Rights Division. Nevertheless, he arrogantly refused to address the student demonstrators but agreed to come to Howard University "at some future time" to discuss the case.

Angry students marched back to campus, seizing the streets and chanting for justice. Workers, residents and others along the street applauded them. Motorists, including those who were blocked and delayed by the students, honked and cheered in support. Many workers and students in this city are angry about this case. The struggle will continue on many fronts until the killer cop is indicted.

PLP distributed over 200 leaflets during this event, pointing out that capitalism inevitably breeds racist police brutality. It call on students to join the long-term revolutionary movement for communism to achieve justice. PL members are helping to build the militancy of the movement. We collected additional names and phone numbers for future meetings to strengthen and deepen this mass movement and lead it towards a long-range commitment to revolution against the capitalist system.

Purdue Students Organize to
STOP RACIST PROFESSORS

"It's bad enough that she wastes time in class bragging about her $25,000 landscaping job and her nanny to a class with students who are lucky to get $8.00/hour jobs, but when she abuses her power over minority students, that's just too much."

Those are some student opinions at Purdue University-Calumet about Professor "Nicky" Jackson. She teaches "Criminal Justice" and sociology, almost completely from the cops' point of view. She reportedly said that Rodney King looked like he had it coming to him, and also that after doing volunteer work "in the projects" she could never have "four children by different fathers." She offered no evidence that the sexual behavior of black women is any more promiscuous than that of other females, including even certain professors. Many faculty are very critical of her as well.

But it's her treatment of minority and female students that came to a crisis this semester. Jackson was rude to yet another black female student. Then used students from her other class to try to get that student kicked out of school by filing distorted charges against her with Vice-Chancellor Bryant, a black administrator hired as a token so the university could pretend it was opposed to racism. He refused to listen to this student's side of the story and threw her report back at her without even reading it. He said she was lucky he didn't kick her out of school right then. This was based only on hearing students sent by Jackson who weren't even witnesses. Jackson used members of the Criminal Justice Club to help her, perhaps believing that faking reports and filing false charges would be good training for them if they decide to become cops later.

Then, after the student switched classes, Jackson spent most of the next class attacking her, making false statements and then asking for a show of hands of students who would be witnesses on Jackson's behalf against the student if there was a hearing. Students feared Jackson might use her power as professor to damage their grades and careers if they didn't support her. Now that this extortion story exploded, some of Jackson's supporters have abandoned her. The Black Student Union, including PLP members, has called for a mass, public campus forum to discuss this incident and other complaints about racism. They include one involving Eisenstein, a political science teacher as well as reviewing the way students are flunked out of math courses. The bosses are worried about a lawsuit. Bryant has been almost begging the student not to tell anyone about his behavior towards her. Students are being inspired to build a broader struggle against racism on campus. Best of all, the movement is growing and one student has joined PLP.

Situations like this don't appear from nowhere. Racist abuse surrounds us. Our ability to act is based on consistently working together with others over the long term around common problems, building ties so that people will trust us when serious problems come up, maintaining political struggle and increasing distribution of CHALLENGE. And then being willing to act when these situations do emerge.

Our main job is to take the struggle and debate beyond this incident and tie it into capitalism's general racist war against the working class, especially raising how the capitalists, their media and their universities are preparing us to support another war in the Middle East. The struggle goes on!

FLASH: As we go to press, 250 students participated in a spirited forum to discuss how to fight racism at Purdue. More next issue.

CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS GROWS IN BAY AREA TRANSIT STRUGGLES

OAKLAND, CA., Oct. 31 -- "I'm happy for the new workers," said a 22-year veteran MUNI driver in the Transport Workers Union (TWU)."Their kids have to eat just like mine." He was referring to the recent MUNI contract settlement that eliminated mandatory part-timing and reduced wage progression without giving up important work rules. It may not seem like much, but this type of working-class consciousness is catching on. At AC Transit, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) leaders and management agreed to increase wage progression from 30 to 48 months and reduce the starting wage. But AC workers rejected this contract overwhelmingly, 940 to 299.

The choices are becoming clearer. The ATU leadership at AC Transit has collaborated with management to build divisions among workers. They promote ideas like, "That's just the way it is. Our wage progression is below the industry standard." "Those workers shouldn't complain. They knew the conditions before they took the job!"

On the other hand communist leadership is proving decisive in building unity among the workers and sharpening the class struggle. MUNI and AC drivers have come to each other's union meetings and have appeared jointly on community TV programs. A call for a Bay Area-wide week of No OverTime shook MUNI management. Negotiating in the shadow of the LA transit strike, SF Mayor Willie Brown told union reps, "We don't want another UTU here." [United Transportation Union bus drivers strike]

Union leaders are trying to divert workers away from direct class struggle and towards getting out the vote for the Democratic Party. A rank-and-file letter from AC drivers supporting the striking LA bus drivers called on ATU mechanics in LA to defy their union leaders and refuse to cross bus drivers' picket lines. This letter was passed at the ATU meeting here but was never sent.

ATU Local 192 President Zook is spending thousands of our dues dollars (without consent) to pay for the "campaign" of ex-driver Wanda Fuller for AC Transit Board of Directors. Fuller came to the October meeting with no program, literature or knowledge of the contract just rejected by 80% of us. The same leadership that tried to pass this garbage claims that electing "politically savvy" Fuller will give us "a voice at the table," and yes, "power to the workers!" Yea, right!

Meanwhile, the ATU leadership here is waiting for the expected passage of a _ cent transit sales tax that will add less than 10% revenue to AC Transit. Much of it will pay for added service, not wages and working conditions.

The Rank and File Action Committee is planning a Bay Area-wide "Labor Solidarity Rally" for November 19, to unite all workers against part-timing, wage progression and two-tier wage systems. PLP will be there to demand a strike that continues the battle begun by MUNI drivers. An AC strike will not be an isolated trade union battle but will be supported by transit and other workers. This could give a real taste of WORKERS' POWER!

1,000 POSTAL WORKERS PROTEST CONTRACT TALKS

NEW YORK CITY, October 26 -- Nearly 1,000 postal workers took to the streets today at Manhattan's main facility to protest the Postal Service's attempt to use the current contract negotiations to turn the Post Office into a low-wage, part-time sweatshop. The rank and file were militant and vocal as they marched, blowing whistles in rhythm to their chanting, producing a deafening sound.

The bosses are refusing to negotiate with the APWU (American Postal Workers Union) over wages, while proposing to eliminate job security language for all new employees. They also want to create a new, lower-wage category. Given that most of these workers are and will be black and Hispanic, and will be denied the opportunity for better-paying jobs, the bosses' assault becomes a real racist attack.

The contract expires November 20. This fight will test of how far the bosses can squeeze the workers to increase their profits and improve their competitiveness with southern-based UPS and FEDEX. It will also test the workers and PLP. Workers fighting back can gain confidence and realize what power they have. PLP's organizing and exposing the real enemy can lead to more workers reading CHALLENGE and wanting to join PLP.

These proposed cuts by the bosses are part of a broader attack against our standard of living and job security. However, the union is taking the narrow view, "Show us the money." The national leadership has issued "special contract solidarity stickers" proclaiming, "We Deserve a Raise" and "First Class Workers." They are bowing to the bosses' attempt to split us between older, higher-paid workers with job security, and younger, lower-paid workers with no job protection. We must build class solidarity among all workers. We must refuse to be bought, to settle for a little bigger piece of the pie, especially at the expense of lower-paid workers and workers' sons and daughters in general.

The leadership also pushed the idea that if we vote Democratic, the "good bosses" will take care of us. They didn't mention that under Clinton/Gore, the prison population doubled to over two million, most of welfare was wiped out and over 100,000 more killer cops are being let loose on the streets (Gore promises to add another 50,000). They also omitted the fact that more than 500,000 Iraqi workers and children have been murdered, through sanctions and bombings, as a prelude to a major ground war for control of Mid-East oil.

The new New York City local leadership organized the demonstration to put pressure on the postal bosses and the national union leadership. The latter, not wanting to be upstaged and needing support from the newly-elected local leadership--largest local in the country--felt compelled to attend because they need to look militant for the upcoming national union elections that follow this contract.

While it's good that there's a new fighting spirit among the local leadership, and among postal workers, that's not enough. Contract negotiations can never resolve the fundamental contradictions of capitalism. The U.S. empire is growing unstable, from the Middle East to Latin America. The bosses need to cut wages to meet the increased economic competition from their rivals here and abroad. Ultimately this competition is leading to war, impelling an increase in the military budget. To meet the needs of the working class, we need to get rid of this system once and for all, and build a communist society.

TV Rules for Schools: Praise Principals, Slam Students

Writer-producer David E. Kelley has struck again. All of his shows--"Chicago Hope," "The Practice," "Ally McBeal"--have been similar in their sensationalism, sexism and deep lack of touch with reality

Now comes "Boston Public" and the public school system. To some extent watching a Kelley soap opera about a school is similar to watching one about a law firm or a hospital. The bizarre situations and cartoonish characters are just as abundant. Aside from the general silliness, the show promotes a dangerous distortion of education under capitalism and a vicious attitude toward youth.

Boston Public is a world where students exist to manipulate and harass their hard-working, good-hearted teachers. In "the dungeon" where the "bad kids" are, the torture of teachers is blatant enough to cause them to threaten suicide and be forced by the principal to take psychotropic drugs. Meanwhile, "the good kids" and their parents put an awful lot of energy into driving teachers nuts as well. The football player and his father want the social studies teacher to pass the student even though he has learned no history. The straight-A student runs a web page devoted to mocking and insulting teachers.

The teachers all seem on the verge of self-destruction, although one does insist that she loves teaching. The only older teacher on the show is a stiff-necked codger who wants to dictate female students' underwear and who refuses to tell a black students about Thomas Jefferson's slaves because it will not be on the test. Another main character is sleeping with (and being blackmailed by) a female student. This same teacher brings a gun to class when forced to substitute in the "dungeon," because he can imagine no other way to force his students to learn.

The principal, naturally enough, is the hero. All the teachers seem to think he's the strong, fair-minded leader they need to get through their daily battles. He constantly calls himself their friend and they agree. In fact, he protects the gun-toting teacher because he is a friend. No one points out that the principal is responsible for the fear-inspiring "dungeon." Ironically, he defends a weak student from violence by throwing the bully up against the lockers and threatening him. Promotions for next week's show indicate he will stand up to the superintendent to defend these supposedly pro-student and pro-teacher actions.

The show paints an overall picture of a world where wild and devious students struggle hard not to learn and the noble principal stands at the side of his loyal teachers in their battle against the ignorance and barbarity of the youth. This stands the reality of the schools of working-class teachers and students on its head. Communist teachers and students know they're on the same side and the principal stands against them to serve the needs of the ruling class. We struggle with other teachers to fight for their students so they're able to learn and are not oppressed by the administration.

Bosses Lower `Boom' on Workers--7 Days a Week

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 28 -- "Working seven days a week! That's slavery!" declared a hospital union member. Leave it to the bosses to claim they're "helping" part-time workers by offering them full-time jobs that require seven-day work weeks!

Capitalism is based on wage slavery, bosses stealing their profits from the value created by our labor. In times of economic crisis and war the bosses will try to cut workers' wages and benefits to the bone while they send our children off to die in their imperialist profit adventures.

For example, in response to their continuing economic crisis and preparations for war, U.S. bosses cut the amounts paid to hospitals by Medicare and Medicaid. This forced the local hospital bosses to cut their own budgets. Jefferson Hospital bosses responded by breaking down full-time Housekeeping jobs into part-time jobs.

The result for patient care was dramatic. The bosses were flooded with complaints about a dirty hospital. The impact on the workers was also dramatic. Hundreds, mainly black, had worked part-time for years, hoping for a full-time job. The very few who got them often waited as long as ten years! On the other hand, many part-timers continue to work six or seven days a week because they don't have a full-time job.

Last Spring a group of members from 1199C, the Hospital Workers Union, began mobilizing co-workers to improve patient care by fighting for full-time jobs. One goal was to make this part of negotiations for the 1199C contract expiring last June. We involved hundreds of workers around this issue and forced the union leaders and the bosses to discuss it. But we weren't strong enough to win much. They created a do-nothing committee to "discuss" the issue.

Then, in October the Housekeeping bosses kindly created a "full-time" position: four hours a day Monday through Friday and eight hours a day on Saturday and Sunday--36 hours a week, seven days a week! The bosses actually claimed they were responding to our campaign for jobs and were "helping" the part-timers.

When a long-time-union delegate filed a grievance against these slave jobs, the bosses withdrew them. The department head even "apologized." She claimed a seven-day week was "not the intention"; she "didn't know" why the jobs were posted that way.

Yet for many of the world's workers such "slave" jobs are the rule, not the exception. Capitalism forces millions who can find jobs to work 12 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, while claiming the U.S. economy is "booming." Layoffs, speed-up, part-time jobs and increased productivity have all enabled the bosses to steal even more value from our labor. Now the big capitalists who control the U.S. are headed toward a war for oil that will take many workers' lives.

The fight to improve patient care at Jefferson by fighting for full-time jobs is just one of many problems the world's workers face under capitalism. This profit system will always mean slavery for the working class. Freedom will only come by overthrowing capitalism with communist revolution. Join PLP!

Bosses'Hi Tech Tool to Cut Subway Clerks Crashes

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 31 -- Replacing workers with machines is always one of the first orders of business under capitalism. New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) bosses are no exception. However, their efforts to replace token booth clerks with computerized MetroCard vending machines ran into its own "Y2K" when the 1,000 units suddenly went dead on Oct. 29 at 2:40 a.m. after the change of clocks to standard time. It took 28 hours before they were all back operating. Had their been no token clerks on duty, hundreds of thousands of subway riders would have been denied use of the trains.

The MTA bosses want to eventually rely entirely on these machines to dispense MetroCards and then eliminate all token clerks. This particular glitch demonstrated the kind of havoc that could be wreaked in the subway system if one occurred during a week-day rush-hour. Capitalism is constantly impelled to replace workers with automated machines to reap the vast profits from cutting labor costs and raising productivity. It thus doubly oppresses the workers-- those who use mass transit to get to work and those who service them.

The bottom line for the bosses is to squeeze the working class at every turn. The bottom line for the workers must be to squeeze the life out of the bosses and their profit system and replace it with one where mass transit is organized to serve the workers who use it and run it. That's communism.

Israeli Soldiers Refuse to Be `Good Nazis'

The recent violence in Palestine/Israel tends to overshadow the sharpening contradictions in Israeli society. The Israeli ruling class uses anti-Arab racism to hide them, but they are growing. The Israeli army itself is not the same as it was 20 years ago.

Firstly, one reason the Israeli army had to pull out of southern Lebanon recently stemmed from the growing refusal by many Israeli soldiers to fight and be killed by Hizbollah, the Islamic guerrilla group. For the first time in the history of the Israeli army growing numbers of soldiers are refusing to serve in combat.

Now, when the new Intifada erupted in the Occupied Territories, another Israeli soldier refused orders to go there, saying "the Occupied Territories are not my country." Noam Kuzar, a 19-year-old draftee in the Israeli Army, refused to get on the bus taking soldiers to attack the rebelling Palestinians. He said he could not in good conscience participate in such actions.

In the last few days, dozens of phone calls have been received by the Yesh Guval organization ("There Is A Border/There Is A Limit") from regular and reserve soldiers who think that if the confrontations continue, the number of soldiers that will refuse to take part in them will rise dramatically. These soldiers will not "follow orders" to massacre Palestinians. They will not be "good Nazis."

Kuzar was a specially trained soldier, highly respected by his fellow soldiers. He was quickly sentenced by a military court to a month in jail. His refusal did not receive wide coverage in the commercial press there. The Peace Now movement supported him and gave out thousands of leaflets about his case in areas where soldiers gather. On Oct. 21, several thousands Israeli Arabs and Jews gathered in Haifa, Israel, to demand that the Israeli army stop shooting at Palestinians.

How the Israeli and U.S. Press Lie

The distortion and self-censoring by the Israeli press (and the U.S. press, for that matter) are widespread. They only print that which serves the interests of the Israeli and U.S. bosses. For example, the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories have been growing continuously despite the Oslo "peace" deal reached by Israel and Arafat's Palestinian Authority. They were constructed in a way that isolates and separates the Palestinians (similar to the Bantustans separating blacks from whites under Apartheid in South Africa). Highways and roads were built to give the 200,000 Israeli settlers totally free movement while the three million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank live in Apartheid-like conditions.

An Israeli writer, Danny Rubenstein, wrote in Ha'aretz, Israel's most prestigious newspaper, that "the readers of the Israeli press are widely, although not completely, protected from these facts. It is more important to keep people in the U.S. in total ignorance, for the obvious reasons that Israel depends on U.S. military and economic aid. This aid to Israel is not very popular in `Middle America' and will be even less if it is known what the aid is used for."

To prove that point, the military analyst of Ha'aretz wrote on Oct. 3, after a week of the current Intifada, about "the biggest acquisition of helicopters by the Israel Air Force [IAF] in a decade." The IAF is buying 35 Blackhawk helicopters and replacement parts worth $525 million from the U.S. Not long before, the IAF had also received surveillance planes and Apache helicopters, "the most advanced multi-mission helicopters the U.S. has," according to the JERUSALEM POST. In the U.S., only one newspaper, in Raleigh, N.C., reported this transaction.

This increased instability poses a big problem for the U.S. bosses' plans to launch a war to seize the huge Iraqi oil fields. The U.S. bosses need a more stable situation in the west flank (Israel/Palestine) of the Persian Gulf. The brutal attacks by Israel against Palestinians have already led to a more favorable situation for Saddam Hussein: "...a growing number of Arab entertainers, intellectuals, politicians and business people have been flying off to Baghdad over the last two weeks, thumbing their noses at [U.S.-imposed] international sanctions and giving the Iraqi government a shower of publicity after its 10 years of near isolation."(NY TIMES, Nov. 1).

What Should Revolutionary-Minded Workers and Youth Do in the Middle East?

Workers, soldiers and youth fed up with the unending wars and repression in the Middle East must do their best to forge a unity between Arab and Jewish workers. The first step is to break the hold of liberals (like Peace Now) and fundamentalists (like Hamas) in the mass movement.

PLP's revolutionary communist line of "same enemy, same fight, workers of the world unite" is the road to building a movement to smash all the oppressors, from Barak to Sharon to Arafat and all the imperialists.

NYC Jewish Youth Plans Actions Against Butchery by Israeli Army

On the evening of Oct. 26 in New York City some 20 young people, and a few older ones, all Jewish, met to express anger at the murderous actions of the Israeli government toward Palestinians, and to organize active opposition to the Israeli occupation and terror.

All present were appalled at the racism and violent nationalism which propelled the Israeli assaults. Many at the meeting understood the role that Israel plays in securing the western flank of U.S. imperialism's drive to control all Middle Eastern oil.

Planning was begun to initiate street demonstrations, street theater, actions on college campuses (particularly targeting Jewish student organizations), leafleting at synagogues and other Jewish institutions.

This could be the start of an important campaign to organize against U.S. and Israeli imperialism and their plans for war in the Middle East.

NY Red

Join the Bosses' Navies and See the (Under) World

Capitalist armies are deadly not only for workers and youth worldwide, but also to the working class youth who serve in them.

On October 29, almost the entire population of the Russian city of Murmansk, gathered at Sea Square to honor the sailors who died when the nuclear submarine Kursk sank to the bottom of the sea on August 12. At that very moment, Russian and Norwegian divers were trying to get the sailors' bodies out of the sub.

During the ceremony four of the sailors removed from the sub were placed in coffins on top of armored vehicles.

The Sea Square has a statue honoring the sailors of the Red Navy who died fighting the Nazis during World War II. But Kursk sailors did not die like that. They died because of the negligence of the new Russian capitalist class.

A few weeks after the Kursk sank, 17 U.S. sailors also died needlessly, blown away by a bomb placed in a small boat. "Low-tech" almost sank a multi-million high-tech ship sent to the Persian Gulf to protect the oil profits of Exxon-Mobil.

At the time the Kursk sank, the British nuclear submarine Tireless had a leaking reactor while travelling from Malta to Gibraltar spilling 1% of its radioactive water into the Mediterranean. The leakage was so bad that the Royal Navy has taken all Tireless-type nuclear submarines out of service.

Organizing among these working class sailors and soldiers must be done now more than ever, as wars blanket the globe. Turning the guns around will not only help workers fighting their oppressors, but also save the lives of soldiers and sailors being sacrificed on the altar of capitalist profits.

Boston '75: A Summer of Struggle - A Lifetime Transformation

A call to action against the racist anti-busing group R.O.A.R

(Restore Our Alienated Rights) brought dozens of young anti-racists and communists to Boston in 1975. The racists vowed to kick us out of Boston. We promised to destroy R.O.A.R. and we did!

Join us in revisiting the 25th anniversary with the women and men who engaged in sharp struggle that summer. Hear how their lives changed and how they changed history. You don't want to miss this.

Saturday November 18, 2000, 6pm-10pm

Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

4840 S. Dorchester, Chicago, Illinois

Call Dawn for housing: (773) 233-8930

WEST COAST PLP
STUDENT CONFERENCE

On October 12 the USS Cole was bombed. The same day there was an Intifada--violent rebellion--by Palestinians against the fascist Israeli government.Iraq rallied thousands in support of the Palestinians while the BOSTON GLOBE blamed the bombing on Saddam Hussein.Are we going to war?

In LA there were mass demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention.

Later both the MTA drivers and County workers struck.The Federal government is cracking down on the LAPD.What's going on in LA?

Can Nader really help the garment workers here in LA?

Do elections ever work?

Can we change society?

Can any society meet everyone's needs?

Can we create a communist society?

Progressive Labor Party is having a conference on November 11 to

try to answer these questions. Come, take part in the struggle to understand

our world and to change it.

Time:9:30am-4:00pm

Place:California Institute of Technology, Thomas, rm. 306

Date: November 11, 2000

Why: To get organized, to understand and fight against a war in the Middle East.

For more info: (323) 778-5989 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Directions to Caltech:

From LA: Take 110N, continue until the end.Turn right on California Ave.

Turn left on Hill Ave.Turn left on San Pasqual.Turn right on Holliston Ave.Park in Structure on your right.

From North:Take 210E.Exit on Hill.Go South on Hill Ave.Turn right on San Pasqual.Turn right on Holliston Ave.Park in Structure on your right.

From East:Take 210W.Exit on Hill.Go South on Hill Ave.Turn right on San Pasqual.Turn right on Holliston Ave.Park in Structure on your right.

LETTERS

Bosses'War Plant Vs. Workers Unity

The factory where I work makes parts for the bosses' war machine, used in tanks and airplanes. We make the minimum wage and have really bad conditions, without benefits unionized workers receive in the same industry.

The majority of workers are immigrants from all over--Africa, India, Asia and Latin America. The bosses maintain a policy of separation. They build suspicion among the workers, push nationalism and take advantage of the fact that workers speak different languages.

Recently we formed a group of friends to exchange experiences and food. Many happily approve this socializing and are open to political discussions. Recently the supervisors checked to see whether the workers could produce more in less time. They claimed we could. Then they eliminated overtime--which we need because of our low wages--and increased the speed of the machines. This angered the workers and some made sharp comments against the bosses.

"The bosses invent anything and everything to make us work more for less," said one worker. "It's true," I answered. Another worker declared, "The bosses are very smart when it comes to exploiting us."

These discussions enabled me to explain that part of the profits they make from our sweat helps pay the cost of wars for oil in the Middle East. At the same time, this bosses' attack and our discussions have combined to unite us and inspire us to plan more and bigger social activities together.

These experiences are small steps in a key industry for the bosses and for the workers as well. The bosses face a very big contradiction here. They must depend on a super-exploited, angry labor force for their war production. We're aiming to resolve this contradiction in favor of the workers by winning them to struggle together against this speed-up and, in the long run, to fight to eliminate exploitation and wars for profit with communist revolution.

Red worker

Racism Discussion Sparks Student Club

I've been organizing in the Student Action club in my high school since last year. This year there's been a tremendous change in the club. The classroom's full, the discussions are lively, the people are ready for action.

Someone said he wasn't really interested in the major issues but rather in the "minor" day-to-day issues like racism and sexism. To think that the media and school have taught him those are the "minor" issues!

In going around the room virtually everyone said racism and sexism concerned them most. We got into a passionate discussion on racism, centering on the Ku Klux Klan. A few felt the KKK had the right to speak. Others said the KKK is not simply "a group with ideas"; they are terrorists who have killed thousands of black people, anti-racists and others. Some pointed out that the Klan is and has been protected by the cops while anti-racists in the '50s and '60s--the Black Panthers, communists--as well as demonstrators lately, at the million youth march in Harlem, have been attacked by the police. There is only free speech for the ruling class and for those who do its bidding.

It was such an exciting discussion that the meeting went on past the normal club time.

A point only lightly touched on was the cause of racism and who benefits from it. Someone argued against ignorance being the main cause of racism, saying there's a difference between white workers who ignorantly think their jobs are being taken by black workers or other minorities and someone who knowingly uses racism to enforce lower wages.

This is the heart of racism. It doesn't arise because of ignorance or from natural differences. It is created by the ruling class as a tool to exploit minorities by saying they are an "inferior race" and undeserving of "normal" exploitation. The ruling class used racism against the Indians to justify taking their land in order to develop railroads, commerce and industry. It was used against black people, at first to maintain slavery, later as a source of cheap labor and now, in addition, to justify the imprisonment of a growing number of black and Latin people and using them as prison labor.

Racism is created by the ruling class and used against any section of the working class for the acquisition of wealth, slave labor, lower wages and foreign lands. It is also used to divide the working class--as strike-breakers, mobilizing armies against "foreigners" for imperialist war or as scapegoats for loss of jobs. It provokes workers into fighting each other to solve the problems created by the ruling class.

We must spread this class understanding of racism to our friends.

RPSYF

Strikes: Schools for Revolution

A good friend who works at the University of Washington and is in an SEIU local told me that last spring, 84% of the graduate teaching assistants chose to be represented by the Graduate Students Employee Action Coalition (GSEAC), affiliated with the UAW. The university has refused to recognize them. The GSEAC members will be taking a strike vote in early November.

The union called a meeting of their strike committee, supposedly to figure out how the local could support the grads. However, instead of fighting to organize members' solidarity, the union emphasized was on the "danger" that members who refused to cross the picket line could be disciplined or fired. The union lawyer, whose role seemed to be to keep potential militancy "within the law," tried only to scare the workers away from strong action.

Our friend brought up some working-class history, highlighting the fact that for workers' strikes to win anything, they usually need to break the law. It's the unions, once led by communists, who are supposed to lead the way.

The union leadership agreed with this in theory, to avoid exposing its real position. However, their wishy-washy tactics, as described above, spell disaster for the workers. They kept stressing that what we do now might endanger our own contract struggle in two years. Well, they're certainly right about that! They want their members passive and fearful, so they won't be prepared to fight the bosses when it comes to their own contract.

After the meeting, a couple of workers talked to my friend about the union's right-wing position. These workers understood we can't win without a big fight. This meeting made it clear that the union leadership won't make that fight.

Although ultimately we can't truly win under capitalism, strikes offer a good opportunity to move workers to the left by exposing the system, making workers aware of their potential power, and identifying left-wing leadership. Strikes can be schools for revolution.

We're urging our friend to make a struggle within the union for militance, and to sell CHALLENGES to the left-leaning union members. She can win workers to fight the official union position and increasingly see the potential of communism.

Looking for a Red World

Reality Is Not in Your Mind

I am a student in Ecuador and recently attended my second meeting with PLP, where we talked about dialectics.

The discussion on idealism and materialism cleared up many doubts for me. It explained the difference between these two concepts, how idealism (what is in your mind is primary and as important as real life) is totally opposite from materialism (events independent of one's mind). This concept is very important to a young woman like myself. We must bring it to youth, who know little about it.

I have also begun to understand that communism is not only a physical struggle but also a continuous ideological struggle for our Party and its politics.

A Dialectical Youth, Ecuador

CHALLENGE 1
NY TIMES 0

I recently enrolled in an ESL school. At our second class, we read from the NEW YORK TIMES, a "very important newspaper" according to the teacher.

Surprisingly that same day the teacher suddenly distributed a reprint of an article about the Middle East and the current U.S. election. The article pointed out that both Gore and Bush have plans for "dealing" with Iraq, preparing for Desert Storm II and the threat of World War III. Even more surprising, the reprint was from CHALLENGE!

My fellow students, all workers, showed more interesting in reading the CHALLENGE reprint than the NY TIMES. As a matter of fact, when the teacher asked the class if they wanted to change the discussion from that CHALLENGE article, all said no.

An ESL Working-class Student

I Am Tired of Just Helping One at a Time

Recently I attended my church denomination's regional retreat for political activists. It focused on bringing better services to immigrants, ex-offenders and psychiatric patients. I was able to bring up the issue of imperialist war in the Middle East in several good conversations.

The main informal discussion centered on voting--Gore vs. Nader. Several people were very interested when I pointed out how Gore and Bush were both pledged to war for oil in Iraq, and that Nader had indulged in imperialist saber rattling about China and the World Trade Organization.

These church folks had been involved in actions exposing the embargo-murder of 500,000 Iraqi children and were open to an anti-imperialist analysis. They were also very aware of the apartheid-like conditions suffered by most Palestinians and Oriental and African Jews and were intrigued when I quoted a leading political scientist saying, "The nation state is no longer an agent of progressive reform."

I plan to send copies of my church journal with an article about these issues to six of the people I met. One said, "I'm tired of just helping people one at a time. I want to change the system," and another agreed. They're in a position to influence people in congregations in four different states in a region where we have active Party organization--all part of making it tougher and tougher for the bosses to sell imperialist war.

In struggle, Red Churchmouse

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, Nov. 1, 2000

Information: 01 November 2000 192 hits

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Ralph Nader: Another Dead End!

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LTV Steelworkers Fight Racist Firing And Arrest

Welfare Workers, Recipients Victims of Fascist Attacks

College Haven for Scabs

Apartheid Continues: AIDS and South African Capitalism

Gore Pimps For Pfizer

LETTERS

War Alert

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200 Bucks for a Passport?

Capitalism Drugs Our Children

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‘The Uncommitted’ Vs. The Most Committed

The U.S. Presidential elections should be the show of shows: "Democracy at the Dawn of the 21^st Century!" The "world’s only superpower" is enjoying an unprecedented economic boom, paid for in blood by the international working class. The profits are rolling in and the main wing of the ruling class is in control of the roost.

During the 1996 election there was a deep split in the ruling class focusing on the fight for control of the Republican Party. Domestic oil industry financial interests fueled the 1994 Republican "Revolution" and their "Contract On America." These splits led to Clinton’s impeachment in 1998.

Clinton and the main wing of the ruling class defeated the impeachment. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his successor were purged from Congress. Open Nazi Pat Buchanan, one of the ideologues behind the Gingrich Revolution, was purged from the Republican Party.

However, this year’s election reflects the long-term strategic weakness of the rulers. They have not won, and are not winning the masses of workers, soldiers and youth to enthusiastically support U.S. imperialism.

Capitali$t Democracy In Action

The rulers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in what is easily the most expensive electoral campaign in world history. As they approach the finish line, Gore and Bush are chasing around the country in search of "uncommitted voters."

"Uncommitted" is right! Less than half the people eligible to vote will show up on Election Day. Republican Senator John McCain worries that this election may yield the lowest voter turnout in history (MSNBC, 10/13).

Alan Wolfe, director of the Center for Religion and American Public Life cries, "Voters with no ideology are not self-reliant, but weightless…It is difficult to recall an election with less eloquence about our nation’s calling than this one." (NY TIMES, 10/22)

This doesn’t help the rulers as they face increasing instability around the world, especially in the Middle East. For ten years they have failed to eliminate Saddam Hussein and seize control of Iraqi oil. They may have to invade—and occupy—Iraq before the Russians, French and Chinese set up shop as a new center of power in the region. Time is running out. Many workers and soldiers appear unwilling to accept heavy casualties for an Exxon-Mobil "hoily" war. So far, this election has done little to reverse this.

Cynicism: A Two-Edged Sword

Capitalist democracy discourages mass participation. This, in part, is how the bosses exercise their class dictatorship. Every four years we are asked to vote in a political beauty contest, run by Madison Avenue ad agencies. We choose between the lash and the whip.

Tens of millions don’t vote because they are cynical about politics. According to the Federal Election Commission, the percentage of the voting age population that actually voted in Presidential elections has slipped from 63% in 1960, to 49% in 1996.

But this cynicism is a two-edge sword. While not a vote of confidence for the bosses, it leaves us stuck with the same rotten capitalist system. What’s more, cynicism is also fertile ground for fascism. The "uncommitted" are up for grabs. We can play a crucial role in defeating this cynicism by fighting for the political leadership of the workers in the context of waging daily class struggle. This is reflected in the pages of CHALLENGE.

Democratic Centralism: From The Masses To The Masses

Unlike the bosses, the international working class has no competing interests. We use the scientific process of trial and error, of criticism and self-criticism, to chart the long road to revolution. This process is Democratic Centralism. It requires the mass participation of everyone in developing our political line, testing it in practice, making a critical and self-critical evaluation, and further developing it. This process will not only lead the working class to power, but it will govern the new communist society.

Communist revolution is no more a popularity contest than is finding the cure for cancer. It won’t happen with hollow promises and fancy clichés. It cannot succeed without the active participation of millions of workers, soldiers, youth and others, leading tens of millions more, committed to a new way of life based on production to satisfy the needs of the working class; the dictatorship of the working class. A red future lies in the hands of the most committed, not the uncommitted.

Ralph Nader: Another Dead End!

This year's presidential electoral circus includes several candidates besides Gore and Bush. The Green Party's Ralph Nader and the Reform Party's Pat Buchanan are the best-known "other candidates." Buchanan is an open fascist whose campaign is based on attacking immigrant workers as the "cause" of many problems workers suffer here in the U.S. He has a well-deserved reputation of Führer-to-be whose base of support is mainly KKK'ers and other gutter racists.

Nader presents himself as a "real" alternative to "corporate control" of the system. He is seen by many progressive-minded workers, youth and intellectuals as the only alternative. Nader’s main job is to prevent those workers who are fed up with Bush and Gore from losing hope in the system

But, meanwhile Nader is hurting Gore in some areas. In response, the Gore people are organizing blitz campaigns against Nader on college campuses and among workers.

In previous articles we've exposed Nader as no alternative for those seeking real solutions to the problems caused by capitalism. Nader basically ignores racism and pushes nationalism in the campaign against the World Trade Organization (WTO), and openly spreads anti-communism in the campaign against China joining the WTO.

But Nader's main aim is the impossible dream of pushing the Democratic Party "to the left." "What do you think will happen if we're the difference in six states and we cost the Democrats the election" Mr. Nader asked rethorically. "The answer, he hopes," reported the Wall Street Journal (9/24) "is that the Democrats will shift left, away from the Clinton administration's centrist New Democratic policies."

The Democratic Party is one of the two main parties of the U.S. ruling class, containing the most warmongering bosses of modern times. Yet, union leaders and black and Latino politicians push the age-old, dead-end idea that the Democrats can also serve the workers. But it won’t work. A leopard can’t change its spots.

a name="‘Peace Process’ Swallowed by U.S. Bosses’ Drive for Control of Oil Profits"></a>"Peace Process’ Swallowed by U.S. Bosses’ Drive for Control of Oil Profits

Clinton’s attempts to force Arafat and Barak to reach a deal and end the current Intifada by Palestinian workers and youth have failed because U.S. foreign policy favors Israel above all. Israel is the biggest recipient in the world of U.S. military and economic aid—$3 billion a year. Congress has actually enacted a law mandating that the U.S. help Israel maintain strategic military superiority in the region against any force(s) hostile to Israel. Today, Israel is the only nuclear power in the Middle East, with enough of an arsenal to nuke all the major cities of its foes.

During the Cold War, Israel served U.S. bosses in the Middle East and beyond. It helped them maintains relations with South Africa’s apartheid regime and with various military dictatorships in Latin America (i.e., the Guatemala regimes that have murdered tens of thousands of Indians).

Why is Israel so important to U.S. rulers? Firstly, the Middle East is crucial because it contains close to 75% of the world’s known oil reserves (mainly in Saudi Arabia and Iraq). In the past the U.S. relied on the Shah of Iran and Israel to maintain control of this oil, fending off any other power’s Challenge to this supremacy. Once the Shah was overthrown by forces hostile to U.S. bosses, the latter had to rely increasingly on Israel since the other U.S. allies in the area are very unstable, due to forces, both internal and external, opposed to the U.S. The Arab rulers loyal to the U.S. are very shaky. DIE ZEIT, the German weekly edited by Social Democrat leader Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of the former West Germany, warned that the danger was not so much these regimes going to war against Israel but rather that it might lead to "an implosion of political relations, the collapse of the Arab regimes."

Hundreds of thousands have demonstrated in Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries having diplomatic relations with Israel. Mass unemployment and poverty are rampant in both countries. Saudi Arabia, whose parasitic royal family is supported by the U.S., has been labeled "the next Iran" by many. The U.S.’s current number one nemesis, Osama Bin laden, is an exile Saudi billionaire with lots of support among Saudi dissidents.

Phyllis Bennis, an expert on Middle East affairs for the Policy Studies Institute, says the U.S. doesn’t necessarily need Middle East oil for internal consumption, but does need to CONTROL this oil: "...The U.S. gets enough oil from Mexico, Venezuela and Nigeria. Germany and Japan, in particular, depend much more on the Middle East crude. Traditionally, the U.S. has maintained a good part of its global power acting as a guarantor of the access by these countries to the Persian Gulf oil." (La Jornada, Mexico City).

Bennis added that the real U.S. objective in the Middle East is not peace, but stability "which can only be achieved through a combination of brute force and promoting a process that promises something in the long run." That is why the basis of Clinton’s foreign policy during the current violence in Israel/Palestine has been to stop it and maintain some kind of stability. This won’t solve any of the region’s deep problems.

But this is not simply stability for its own sake. The U.S. bosses’ main objective is to try to seize Iraqi oil fields, which can only be secured by a ground invasion and occupation. Presently, French, Russian and Chinese oil companies have been making deals with Iraq. All the more reason for the U.S. to ensure stability in the rest of the Mid-East to topple Saddam Hussein.

Eventually, this war for oil is the only real alternative for U.S. rulers. That’s why Bush and Gore both stand for attacking Iraq. It will be a bloodier war than the 1991 Desert Storm. While these two Wall Street puppets are "debating" troops in or out of the Balkans, they’re 100% in agreement on Iraq, which the U.S.—under both Bush, Sr. and Clinton—have been bombing for years, mainly murdering civilians. Since the end of Desert Storm, 51 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the Middle East. (The latest group sacrificed on the altar of Exxon Mobil oil profits were the 17 young sailors of the SS COLE.) Compare that to the single U.S. soldier—and none in Kosovo—killed since U.S. bosses sent troops to Bosnia in 1995.

Indeed, imperialism and its thirst for maximum profits makes war inevitable. Let’s organize to smash all the warmakers..

Workers, Youth Rally Against Racist Killer Cops

LARGO, MD, October 18 — Today over 100 students and workers rallied at the Prince George’s (PG) County Government Center to protest the county cops racist brutality, the Blue Wall of Silence and the murder of Prince Jones (a Howard University student—see previous articles in Challenge). They also condemned the gross support of the cops’ behavior by Wayne Curry, County Executive, and his police chief.

Chanting, "no justice, no peace, no racist police!" and carrying signs calling the PG cops the "Klan in Blue," students from Banneker High School and Howard University, organized primarily by local chapters of Amnesty International, led the spirited rally. Some speakers condemned what they called "rogue cops," and argued that changing the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBOR) would help stop the brutality.

The mother of Archie Elliot, a youth murdered by the police, called on everyone to continue the fight for justice. Another speaker pointed out that the capitalist system causes racism and police brutality, and that the murderous PG cops were really fulfilling their role of intimidation and terror against the working class. He invited everyone to join the struggle to defeat capitalism in order to crush racism and brutality, from the U.S. to Palestine/Israel, where police brutality is grossly evident in the slaughter of over 100 Palestinians.

Almost everyone at the rally received a copy of Challenge, leading to some spirited discussions among the students on the return to Washington, D.C. about the best way to change the world.

BULLETIN

—We have just learned that the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Horan has decided not to press charges against cop Carlton Jones, who emptied his revolver into the back of Prince Jones. He claimed Prince’s death was an unfortunate case of mistaken identity and that the cop committed justifiable homicide because he feared for his life. He didn’t even try to concoct any kind of story—he just flat out supported the "right" of cops to murder young black men. There will be a response!

Misleaders Put The Brakes On La Transit Strike

LOS ANGELES, CA., Oct. 24 — Striking bus drivers walking in to last week’s ratification vote eagerly accepted PLP leaflets headlined, "Workers of the World Unite," in the face of the bombing of the USS Cole. The leaflets linked the MTA transit strike to the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the deaths of 17 U.S. sailors and scores of Palestinian youth.

Our picket sign read, "$1 billion a week to protect Exxon’s oil — Pennies for Public transit, Public schools and Public hospitals." Our flyer explained that mass transit relies on the use of part-time workers to free up money to pay for enormously expensive warships in the Middle East. Rockefeller/Exxon will fight to maintain their grip on oil, no matter the cost in dollars and workers’ blood.

Inside the Convention Center, it was another story. No mention of the world around us or the flames of the Middle East. Union President Williams coaxed the 1,400 drivers (out of 4,400) to chant, "We Won!" over and over. He told drivers, "We couldn’t have won without you." Then he got down to the real business of the meeting. The bosses’ labor lieutenants spent a solid hour congratulating each other, their friends, Democratic Party politicians and Jesse Jackson for showing magnificent [mis]leadership of the strike. The union, the LA Federation of Labor, Jackson and the LA TIMES called it a victory! Not the drivers (or mechanics and clerks who are working without a contract). The highest-paid union drivers got 9.3% over three years ($25 a week before taxes!). The lowest-paid part-timers will get half of that. The MTA won 350 new part-timers (they wanted 600). And drivers maintained "the right" to work 12- and 13-hour days with overtime pay, to make $50,000 per year. Such is "victory" in one of the most expensive urban areas of the U.S.

The case is different for the real winners of the strike, the AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party. This gang will almost certainly elect Antonio Villaraigosa mayor next April. As Jesse Jackson told the meeting, "Villaraigosa is the future of Los Angeles."

Jackson was paid $100,000 by the L.A. Federation of Labor to mislead black and Latin workers into the Democratic Party, and strengthen their community, labor, church and environmentalist coalition. The Democratic Party, the AFL-CIO and the LA TIMES will use this coalition to bring L.A.’s working class, especially its growing mass of Latin workers, into the fold, which includes a war for oil profits in the Middle East.

One of the drivers who helped organize a strike-support rally in the garment center invited two PLP members to a coffee shop after the contract vote at the Convention Center. By the time we arrived, two other drivers had already ordered the food. During this get-together, a driver put forward a plan for organizing the garment shop, using bus drivers whose routes run through the sweatshop districts that employ 150,000 workers. As we left, the drivers made a point of making sure we get together again soon. The friendship and initiative shown by these drivers is the most promising gain for transit workers and the whole working class.

a name="PLPer’s Resolution Links Rulers’ War Plans to Fight for City Workers Contract"></">PL"er’s Resolution Links Rulers’ War Plans to Fight for City Workers Contract

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 18 — The delegates of Social Services Employees Union (SSEU) Local 371 were given the opportunity to jump off the pro-boss election bandwagon. A long-time delegate and PLP'er presented a resolution attack the union leadership’s failure to fight for a contract that meets the needs of our members and the working people who seek our services. The resolution cited Bush’s and Gore’s campaign promises to increase military spending and linked it to the increasing likelihood of war in the Middle East. It also attacked the build-up of police and prisons throughout the U.S., pointing out how slave labor Workfare and prison labor were being used to undermine all workers’ pay scales. Finally, it called for strike preparations of our local and other city worker unions.

Union leaders, including those in SSEU, like to pose as fighters against war, police terror, Workfare and other issues facing the membership. But their allegiance to the bosses and their system is shown by their refusal to lead a fight that would eliminate funds for the imperialist war build-up and the increase in fascist police terror. Meanwhile they build patriotism and support for war and police terror as they mislead workers towards the bosses' Democratic Party.

Although this resolution was tabled for later discussion, it helped sharpen the differences between PLP’s communist ideas and the union leaders’ pro-boss ideas. After the meeting several delegates approached a PLP'er to discuss these issues. As was the case when PLP first raised the need to fight slave labor Workfare, we are confident we can unmask the warmakers, fascist police supporters and pro-boss politician union leaders during this struggle.

Workers need to fight back every day of their lives. When PLP leads and intensifies that class struggle, communist ideas are sharpened for all.

El Salvador: Cynicism Has No Place in Fight Against Attacks Suffered by Teachers

After years of struggle by teachers here, having won some economic gains with blood and sweat, the minister of Education Evelyn Yacir de Lovo now wants to eliminate them by decree. By enacting a law that would guarantee a minimum of only one year’s work, Yacir de Lovo threatens the job security of all teachers. This law would prevent teachers from joining the union and give school bosses more power over hiring and firing. The school bosses will give jobs to their friends and relatives—those loyal to them and the system—and will use the law to get rid of any militant teachers.

This week at my school all the teachers met about this situation. After presenting this government attack, a fellow teacher said, "I dream that one day teachers will have medical care, good housing, all the basic things we need. But this is a utopian dream." I then said, "It might be utopia, but the most important thing is to destroy this capitalist system. What you call utopia would be possible in a communist society."

Many teachers are frustrated over their lousy working and living conditions. Many are also cynical because of the sellouts by union leaders and fake leftists who have joined the system (like the former leaders of the FMLN guerrilla organization). During the Civil War that ravaged the country, many teachers and school workers were killed in front of their students, jailed and tortured.

That’s where we communist teachers come in. We must continue to expose the system and fight their attacks against teachers and our students. We must shatter the cynicism and hopelessness of many teachers and show them that fighting for communism is the only solution.

One liberal teacher reflected this cynicism, saying, "Ideology died when the Berlin Wall fell. Our former leaders are now making $40,000 a month giving conferences" (the income of former FMLN commander Joaquín Villalobos). This reminded me of something I learned at the PLP International Conference: we must pay a high price for the errors of the fake left. We plan to meet with this and other teachers to show them that communism is still alive and kicking in the PLP.

Red teacher, El Salvador

a name="LTV Steel Is Bleeding And There’s Sharks In The Water">">"TV Steel Is Bleeding And There’s Sharks In The Water

EAST CHICAGO, IN. Oct. 23 — Today LTV Steel announced that all workers with less than two years seniority are being laid off. All contractors are out and overtime will be cut 20%. Reduced operations will put steel production at about 65% capacity. LTV may be on the auction block. Orders are at an all-time low, and their market share has collapsed.

This announcement comes just after LTV’s sale of its tin division to USX. LTV's tin mill product plants are located here and in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. The 900 workers produce 600,000 tons of tin mill products annually, used primarily for food cans and other containers. U.S. Steel will close the Aliquippa plant, slashing about 400 jobs. More jobs will go as operations at Gary Sheet and Tin are combined with Harbor Tin.

U. S. Steel president Paul Wilhelm said the deal "will serve both our customers and our shareholders well…" He didn’t mention how it would "serve" the workers.

LTV will save about $30 million in annual operating expenses and reduced future investments. In addition, LTV's integrated steel segment will make profits of about $30 million per year, including a deal to supply U. S. Steel's tin mills with 2,250,000 tons of hot rolled steel over a five-year period.

LTV is desperately trying to increase profits and stay competitive in its core flat rolled steel business in the automotive, appliance and electrical equipment markets, steel service centers and converters. They are hoping the sale of the tin mills, and the previously announced plan to close their iron mining operations, will improve the bottom line by about $90 million per year.

It was just the summer of 1999 when the last round of steel contracts were settled with the steelworkers’ union. Everything appeared to be humming along and many workers thought they would cruise to retirement. Some thought PLP was exaggerating the threat to steel workers from the increasing international competition among the bosses. Now U.S. Steel has taken a bite out of LTV and the other sharks smell blood. It’s up to the PLP steel club to prepare the workers for the struggle ahead.

LTV Steelworkers Fight Racist Firing And Arrest

East Chicago, IN. October 17- Racist foreman Erickson accused Norman Malone of assault. Then he went to the cops who helped him cook up charges of felonious assault with a deadly weapon and criminal mischief.

Erickson claims that Norm, a black worker with more than 30 years at LTV steel, tried to run him down with a small, hand-operated forklift. He has been fired, and faces 11 years in prison on the criminal charges, on the unsupported statement of the foreman. Since the firing, more than twenty black and white workers have come forward with examples being harassed by boss Erickson.

Less than a year ago, another black worker accused Erickson of assault. He filed a grievance and went through the procedure. He dropped his grievance when the bosses promised to "improve worker-supervisor relations." The foreman never lost a day’s pay. LTV backed racist Erickson when he was accused of assault, but fired Norm.

Ed Kathkart, an electrician in Norm’s department, was killed a few months ago when he was fell into a trough of water rushing at 40 miles-per-hour. There was no grating. LTV and USWA Local 1011 had no problem with Ed working in these conditions. They are responsible for his death. No supervisor was charged, fired or suspended. LTV got off with a $5,000 fine to OSHA.

We can’t rely on LTV Steel, the union leaders, the cops or the courts. We have organized a small defense committee for Norm. We have attended his court hearings and we’re planning a fundraiser for his legal expenses. This struggle against racism can open the door to increased CHALLENGE sales, and more workers becoming part of the distribution network. In the steel mills, that’s political dynamite.

Welfare Workers, Recipients Victims of Fascist Attacks

BOSTON—Striking social workers at Family Services of Greater Boston (FSGB) have been threatened with permanent replacement. At issue is the way social services are being delivered to families. FSGB director Randall Rucker wants to impose a weekly quota of "billable hours" on the social workers. Clients are "billable" if they have medical insurance that can be billed, or if they (or someone in their families) have a diagnosed mental illness, so that Medicare can be billed. He’s forcing the social workers to chase the money, even if it means finding clinical depression, retardation, dementia, or Attention Deficit Disorder in their clients’ families.

This is part of the fascist trend to cut services for the working class. They justify this by criminalizing and pathologizing working class people as "defective" rather than blaming capitalism for creating the social conditions that attack our families. (For example the National Institute of Mental Health and nearly all mental health organizations now claim that 8 out of 50 million children in the U.S. are "mentally ill" during some part of their childhood.)

The FSGB social workers in SEIU Local 285 are blocking Rucker’s master plan. They refuse to treat clients like slaves on the auction block. Rucker wants to sweep them aside by breaking their union and firing them all. He forced them out on strike and then hired scabs to replace them and goons to protect the building and intimidate the strikers around the clock.

The SEIU’s strategy is top-heavy. They refuse to rally the power of workers in other social service agencies to spread the strike nor organize clients and their families to join the picket lines. Rather they are relying on legislators and other "big names" to pressure Rucker. Other SEIU locals will soon be negotiating their contracts. The outcome of this strike will have a profound effect on them. Workers need to break the law and build real solidarity. Otherwise the only thing "built" will be cynicism.

PLP is getting to know some of the social workers and bringing the message of the strike to students at nearby Roxbury Community College (RCC), presenting it not as a simple labor dispute but as part of the war on the working class.

College Haven for Scabs

The RCC Administration is letting Rucker of FSGB use its parking facilities to shuttle the scabs back and forth to their cars. The Massachusetts Community College Council at RCC passed a resolution demanding that RCC Pres. Brown immediately terminate its parking agreement with FSGB. Tonight the issue will be raised at the RCC Board of Trustees meeting. Much more than passing union resolutions must be done! The scabs are still being protected.

Apartheid Continues: AIDS and South African Capitalism

"That mother is going to die and that HIV-negative child will be an orphan. That child must be brought up. Who is going to bring the child up? It’s the state, the state. That’s resources, you see."—Parks Mankahlana, spokesperson for South African president Thabo Mbeki, explains why his government won’t provide nevirapine to prevent mother to child transmission of AIDS. The government would rather have the child die of AIDS than use state resources.

(This is the third of a series of articles on the global AIDS pandemic).

During the recent AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa (SA), Pres. Thabo Mbeki questioned whether HIV causes AIDS, and invited a group of crackpot "AIDS dissidents" from the U.S. to serve on an AIDS panel. The South African AIDS calamity is part of a general catastrophic failure to improve workers’ lives since the end of apartheid. International corporations and banks, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank, together with South Africa’s reconfigured post-apartheid black and white ruling class, have preserved the worst features of apartheid.

In 1991, a CIA document predicted 45 million HIV infections by 2000, the majority in Africa. (Present over 50 million people are believed to have been infected; 19 million have died.) Faced with these figures, the U.S. rulers cold-bloodedly debated whether it was "worth" it, from a military standpoint, to combat AIDS. One security official commented, "Oh, it [AIDS] will be good, because Africa is overpopulated anyway." This became the unofficial line of USAID, the State Department’s international "aid" agency, and of the World Bank. When it became obvious the U.S. didn’t face a runaway heterosexual epidemic, further action was shelved. The World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control and the UN all actively resisted paying for AIDS prevention.¹ People who believe HIV is a CIA plot are wrong about the facts, but they’re right that capitalists consider millions of African workers expendable.

Why has Mbeki lent an ear to HIV deniers? The initial quote above suggests he’s trying to save money by preventing the birth of HIV-negative orphans. Last year Mbeki’s government refused to spend nearly half of the money in its AIDS budget and blocked the purchase of relatively cheap drugs that prevent maternal transmission of AIDS. Or Mbeki, by appearing stubborn, may be jockeying for a better deal in international aid and drug prices. Either or both of these cynical motives would be consistent with Mbeki’s role in the "new" South Africa.

Liberals praise SA’s "peaceful transition" from apartheid, as though power had actually changed hands in 1994. Power never changed hands. The heroic struggle against apartheid was co-opted to smooth the re-entry of SA’s biggest bosses into global capitalism. By 1990, the more powerful, "forward-looking" wing of the SA capitalists were frustrated by a recession brought on by international sanctions. Led by Harry Oppenheimer (owner of de Beers diamonds and SA’s gold mines), they made a deal with leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) to dismantle the surface aspects of apartheid, while leaving its base in super-exploitation intact.² By assuring stability, Mandela and Mbeki made SA safer for capitalism.

Mandela, of course, was a hero to millions, and had spent 30 years in prison for defying a fascist court. Like Mandela, Mbeki was a leader of the ANC, then influenced by the SA Communist Party. In 1970 Mbeki visited the Soviet Union for military training. By the 1990s, Mbeki had morphed into a business technocrat. According to a pro-ANC commentator, "Mbeki had been the darling of South Africa’s business community for years, a champion of the type of neo-liberal economics that pleases cheerleaders for globalization. A close friend of the Clinton Administration, Mbeki was considered a man ‘we’ could work with."³

When Oppenheimer died this year, Mandela and Mbeki eulogized him in glowing terms. But Oppenheimer was apartheid’s biggest profiteer, notorious for racist wage differentials and appalling working conditions. Oppenheimer’s gold mines set the pattern for migrant industrial labor that first spread the AIDS pandemic. Men were recruited from all over SA to work in the mines and housed in single-sex hostels. Their wives had to stay behind in the so-called homelands. The bosses encouraged prostitution, and men who became infected with HIV took it home to their wives in remote rural areas.

Life for SA workers has become ever more desperate. Apartheid still rules in the townships, where red-lining (racist housing practices) and loan-sharking have deepened the housing crisis. As formal apartheid ended, South Africa was already in debt slavery to the IMF and World Bank. "Structural adjustment" programs forced dismantling of the public health system and provoked mass unemployment (and prostitution). As a good businessman, Mbeki cheerfully enforced the "belt-tightening."⁴

These actions fueled the skyrocketing AIDS epidemic. Despite warnings from SA physicians and scientists, Mandela ignored the growing HIV danger, scuttling even safe-sex messages when he was advised that it would be political suicide to mention AIDS. From 1990 to 1999, HIV infection increased from 0.8% to 22%, until today SA has over 10% of the world’s infections.⁵

Most drugs used to treat HIV are vastly over-priced and out of reach in the developing world. As an HIV-positive SA judge said recently, "On a continent in which 290 million Africans survive on less than one U.S. dollar a day, I can afford monthly medication costs of approximately $400 per month.…I am here because I can pay for life itself. To me this seems a shocking and monstrous iniquity."⁶

Gore Pimps For Pfizer

Pfizer’s fluconazole is used to treat cryptococcal meningitis, a brain infection in people whose immune system has been weakened by HIV. In 1997, South Africa tried to buy an equivalent drug from Thailand at 1/20^th the cost, challenging World Trade Organization patent rules. Al Gore acted as Pfizer’s pimp, threatening trade sanctions if SA didn’t respect patents. Recently, Clinton-Gore, drug companies and Mbeki have been performing a complicated dance. The U.S. has backed down somewhat, as Gore pretends to campaign against "big drug companies" in the election follies. Drug mult-inationals have started to offer South Africa special deals and give-aways, none of which has yet materialized.⁷

The decades-long struggle against South African apartheid, which was led by millions of SA workers and students, inspired the world. Many of the most committed leaders were black and white communists, but their goal was "black majority rule." They believed that fighting for socialism and then communism would have to come at a "later stage." This reformist and nationalist "stage theory" undermined the possibility of workers’ revolution and is now contributing to tens of millions of deaths. AIDS and poverty holocausts in South Africa and the rest of the world can only end with communist revolution.

1. Gellman, WASHINGTON POST, 7/5/2000, p. AO1

2. Patrick Bond (July 2000), "A Political Economy of South African AIDS" (http://www.zmag.org/AIDspage.htm)

3. Danny Schechter, "Mbeki’s Muddle.

4. Patrick Bond (2000) Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa

5. Jon Cohen (2000) SCIENCE, 288: 2168-2170

6. Speech by Edwin Cameron, Durban conference, 7/10/2000

7. Chirac, et al. 8/5/2000 — AIDS: patent rights versus patients’ rights, The Lancet, volume 356, number 9228

LETTERS

War Alert

My defense-related industrial plant was placed on alert after the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen. The bosses are worried that "terrorists" will move from symbolic to strategic targets outside and inside the U.S. These workers have close ties to the military, and many are suspicious regarding the attack on the Cole.

"It’s October in an election year; think about it," said one worker. "The Republicans or Democrats always create some incident before their elections to help themselves." When he was asked who he thought was behind the attack he asked, "Does it matter?" An operator at the plant thought that Israel might have arranged the bombing in order to divert attention away from its very public racism and brutality against Palestinian workers.

Whoever is behind the bombing of the USS Cole, workers at this Midwest factory are not responding in the manner the bosses need to ensure constant production and delivery of goods that makes their military threat possible. Drivers are being pushed far beyond the safe limit and operators are on rotating 12-hour shifts. They see that the end result of their grueling labor is the enrichment of the owners at great cost to the working class.

However, it is not sufficient that we have a general sense of our exploitation. We must overcome many obstacles and develop a class-consciousness that transforms our legitimate cynicism in a rotten capitalist system into revolutionary communist understanding and commitment.

Production workers and delivery drivers, like workers in other industries and soldiers themselves, are the backbone of the bosses’ murderous military machine. Winning these workers to PLP will be a body blow against the enemies of the international working class.

Turn the Guns Around:

a name="Yesterday’s ‘Freedom Fighter’ is Today’s ‘Terrorist’"></a>Yester"ay’s ‘Freedom Fighter’ is Today’s ‘Terrorist’

The recent articles on the Middle East situation have helped clarify what is apparently a very confusing situation. Behind the veils of religious and national conflicts lie the needs for different imperialists and bosses to control the biggest oil-producing countries in the world (Iraq and Saudi Arabia).

But another point should be made clear: the issue of terrorism. The U.S. and Israel bosses always call their current enemies "terrorists." But today’s "terrorists" were yesterday’s "freedom fighters" (pro-U.S.). For instance, Osama Bin laden, the Saudi billionaire is now the number one terrorist on the U.S. hit list. When the CIA, supported by the drug-running Pakistani Intelligence Services, sent billions worth of weapons to the Moslem "freedom fighters" fighting the Soviet Army and the Afghan government, Osama Bin laden was crucial in helping these anti-Soviet forces. The "blind Sheik," now in jail in the U.S. accused of masterminding the bombing of the Twin Towers in NYC, was also an ally of the CIA and Osama Bin Laden during the CIA-financed war in Afghanistan.

Another example: last week the Israeli government asked Yassir Arafat to once again imprison leaders of Hamas for encouraging a holy war against Israel. But as Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent of the London daily THE INDEPENDENT, wrote (Oct. 17): "Was it not Israel that encouraged Hamas in the 1980s as a rival to Arafat’s PLO? Did senior Israeli army officers not meet Hamas regularly when the organization seemed hostile to Mr. Arafat? And what of Sheik Yassin, the hoary old prelate who now demands Mr. Arafat leave Sharm el-Sheikh (where the now almost deceased cease-fire was worked out with Clinton, Barak Koffi Annan and Mubarak) and calls for the destruction of Israel? Was it not former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who let Yassin out of jail—as part of a deal to free two Mossad assassins who had tried to murder a Hamas operative in Amman? Alas, memories are short."

As CHALLENGE has written many times, when it comes to terrorism, no one can beat the U.S. bosses and their agents.

A NYC Comrade

200 Bucks for a Passport?

Last week, the NY TIMES ran a front-page article reporting what was already publicly known: the corruption of Bienvenido Pérez, the former consul of the Dominican Republic in New York City. Pérez, the former consul, left the consulate with a $20,000 credit card bill and then took off. He also hiked the already high prices for consular services. He created one of the most expensive consulates in the world. For example, a two-year passport costs over $200. The consulate made big bucks, over $600,000 a month, overcharging working-class Dominican workers in NYC who needed its services. It was a racket. The consul kept part of it and sent the rest back to the government in the Dominican Republic.

The new consul (nominated by the new administration in the Dominican Republic) has lowered prices of some services, but they’re still expensive, particularly for many Dominican workers who can barely make ends meet in NYC.

Many people are very cynical about any changes. After all, the previous consul represented a government that promised to "modernize" things. The Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), the one to which former consul Pérez belonged, used to call itself the only truly "national liberation" party in Latin America and claimed to be anti-imperialist. It borrowed a lot from the Marxist form of organizing and attracted former Marxists to its ranks.

When Leonel Fernández, the PLD candidate, was elected President in 1996, I had several arguments with NYC supporters of the PLD who read CHALLENGE. They were angry, saying I was wrong. But when Fernández took power, he "forgot" all about anti-imperialism and became a practitioner of free market capitalism. Corruption was rampant, similar to previous governments the PLD had criticized.

The system cannot be changed from within. Capitalism is set up to oppress workers, no matter who’s President. Those who claim they can do it from within always end up being corrupted by capitalism.

Others are saying it’s a "shame" that all the recent Dominican consuls in NYC were "not well-educated." Pérez was a hotel porter, his successor owned a chicken farm in the Dominican Republic and the current consul was a building superintendent. Again, that’s not the point. Whoever becomes consul is part of a capitalist government and can’t serve the interests of the huge Dominican population in NYC.

Luperón Red

Capitalism Drugs Our Children

The Coalition Against the Violence Initiative (CAVI) is continuing to fight against biodeterminism in the fields of mental health and education. The Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health states that 20% of children (and adults) suffer a mental health problem in any given year, and that the brain is the source of most of these problems. In other words, not only are millions of us mentally disturbed, but also the source of the problem is from inside our own heads to be remedied with psychotropic medications. About five million children are currently on the drug Ritalin for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Many others are being medicated for "Conduct Disorders" and depression, some as young as two years old. As schools deteriorate and poverty and police harassment worsen, children become more difficult to control. This society’s answer is to drug them into submission, all in the name of medical "progress."

Recently CAVI held one of several forums on this issue. New people who attended included a psychologist in the foster care system, some public health students and a high school student from rural Virginia who stated that over 50% of her classmates are on Ritalin. We agreed to continue our outreach to parents and to contact teachers and encourage them to refuse to recommend students for medication and instead to demand the resources to offer needed educational and psychological support. Several community organizations are interested in this issue and have invited us to speak, and we will continue to hold demonstrations and forums of our own.

There is a growing public awareness that not only are drug companies making millions off our children, but that the schools and health professions are being used to control our children and attribute social problems, such as crime, to their "defective" minds. Our answer is to win children and their parents to fight back against the violence aimed at them, from police brutality to war.

PLP health worker in CAVI

Poverty, Racism, Sexism Masks US AIDS Victims

CHALLENGE

’s piece on the origin of the AIDS epidemic in Africa was excellent. The same sorts of causes were behind the U.S. AIDS epidemic, although the latter is frequently portrayed as "different"—a disease of gay men, which only later spread to women and heterosexuals.

According to Chapter Two of Paul Farmer’s book, "Infections and Inequalities — The Modern Plagues," (University of California, 1999), when AIDS was first recognized among gay U.S. men in 1981, it also existed among poor and minority U.S. women, but because of poverty, racism, sexism and the accompanying lack of health care, their symptoms were considered "normal" for their groups and not recognized as signs of a new disease.

Farmer describes the late ’80s, where a computer search for "AIDS" yielded 100,000 references, whereas "AIDS and women" yielded only 2,000 references, and "AIDS, women, and poverty" yielded none. "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS" declared "most heterosexuals...have more to fear from bathtub drowning than from AIDS." Yet by this time millions of women whose partners were neither bisexual nor IV drug users were already infected with HIV. Figures from the Center for Disease Control show that by 1991, in 15 U.S. cities, AIDS was the leading cause of death among 25 to 44year-old black women and the third leading cause of death among Latina women.

Farmer shows that race-intensified poverty, drugs, prostitution, lack of medical treatment for disease or drug addiction, disruption of families, women’s dependence on men and acceptance of multiple sex partners for men all contributed to the AIDS epidemic.

In both Africa and the U.S., AIDS is indeed a disease of capitalism, but actually through racism, sexism and poverty, not through homosexuals. If one were to attribute the U.S. AIDS epidemic to gay men, it would let capitalism off the hook.

Bay Area reader

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, Oct. 25. 2000

Information: 25 October 2000 171 hits

Bush-Gore Prepare for War in Middle East
Oil Bosses' Suck Workers' Blood
Clinton-Barak-Arafat Cease Fire A Band Aid Ov er a Gaping Wound
1. OOPS
The Oil Equation: Chevron + Texaco = Mass Layoffs, War
Burning Desire? Put Out the Fire!
Garment Workers' Solidarity with MTA Workers
Strikers Hail Mechanics'Solidarity
GROWTH OF PLP IS TOP GAIN IN MUNI CONTRACT
Hacks Put (Sub)Contract Out on Workers' Jobs
Fight Against Bosses' Oil War Plans Inside Mass Organizations
Immigrants March Against Racism and Against Partial Amnesty
Class Struggle Union Campaign Moves Workers to the Left
Union Anti-Oil War Resolution
Vets Give Boot to Nazis Heel
LETTERS

Editorial

Bush-Gore Prepare for War in Middle East
Oil Bosses' Suck Workers' Blood

The ongoing violence in Israel and last week's suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in a Yemen port show that imperialist "peace" negotiations are always a step toward war. The profit system spawns war. The present conflict can only sharpen and widen. As it unfolds, the Progressive Labor Party will see increasing opportunity on many fronts to advance its revolutionary communist perspective, to intensify class struggle, and to win new recruits. Only the growth of our Party and its influence can set the stage for U.S. and international imperialism's eventual defeat.

Behind the religious struggle for shrines and the nationalist battle for turf lies the deadly rivalry among the world's biggest bosses to control Middle Eastern oil wealth. The fate of the USS Cole furnishes a case in point. The Cole was bombed in the Yemen port of Aden. Aden is one of the deepest natural ports in the world. Yemen itself is "the center of a vigorous competition between some of the world's major powers" (Stratfor, 10/13). At issue is domination of the world's major shipping lanes. The U.S., as the "world's only remaining superpower," is seeing its rule over these lanes challenged by the Chinese and Russian navies. For example, a powerful Chinese company with close ties to that country's military recently signed a deal to develop facilities in the Suez Canal. And Russian capitalists have inked a pact to co-operate with Yemen's military.

There's more. Many oil tankers carrying Middle Eastern crude float by Socotra, an island off the Yemeni coast. Socotra itself is strategically placed for monitoring sea lanes in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the increasingly important Indian Ocean.

So the USS Cole wasn't exactly on a "humanitarian" mission when it was bombed. Now Clinton has launched an interplanetary search to find the bombers. The bosses' media are having their usual field day at guessing the perpetrators' identity. Obviously, we have no idea who did it. But one thing is quite clear. The main wing of U.S. bosses is using this event as an excuse to mobilize public opinion in favor of the rulers' plans for a new oil war in the Persian Gulf, most probably against Iraq. CHALLENGE has regularly warned about this.

The BOSTON GLOBE, owned by the NEW YORK TIMES, was quick to accuse Saddam Hussein: "Since the USS Cole had come through the Suez Canal on its way to the Persian Gulf to help enforce the United Nations embargo on (the) regime in Iraq, the tyrant in Baghdad had a reason of state for commanding the crime as well as the characteristic motive for revenge" (editorial, 10/13).

The GLOBE'S owner is a leading ruling-class mouthpiece. This is another example of U.S. rulers concocting an excuse for war. This follows a long line of U.S. provocations, from the sinking of the battleship Maine in 1898, which "justified" the Spanish-American War, to the outright lying by then President Johnson to create the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin "incident," providing the pretext for U.S. escalation of the Vietnam War. U.S. imperialists will stop at nothing to keep a stranglehold on Persian Gulf oil and the waterways that transport it. It would be no surprise if the next U.S. president uses the attack against the Cole as a reason to discipline Saddam Hussein, once the results of the "investigation" are in. But if the Cole bombing can't be pinned on the Iraqis, U.S. rulers will come up with something else.

Another oil war is looming. Only the details remain in doubt. The outcome of the presidential election won't alter U.S. imperialism's need to rule the world's oil supplies and markets. Both Bush and Gore will heed their masters' voice.

The Cole bombing also once again reveals U.S. rulers' key strategic weakness, the political reliability of their armed forces. Why this outpouring of hypocritical "condolences" and "sympathy" for the dead U.S. sailors? The rulers worry that workers in the U.S. military won't enthusiastically bleed and spill other workers' blood for Exxon. They're right to worry! As the situation continues to sharpen, our Party can act boldly to win many workers and others to embrace revolutionary communism as the one road away from capitalism's inevitable wars.

Clinton-Barak-Arafat Cease Fire A Band Aid Ov er a Gaping Wound

When the rulers "speak of peace, the mobilization orders have already been written out." (Bertold Brecht)

The history of Clinton's "peace" deal for Israel and the Palestinians is being written in workers' blood. The whole point of last summer's Camp David attempted deal was to give U.S. bosses a peacefully secure western flank in the Middle East, to be able to wage oil war in the Persian Gulf. But this imperialist meddling has led only to more armed struggle, with no end in sight.

The Clinton-ordered emergency "summit" meeting in Egypt between Barak and Arafat has agreed to a temporary, shaky cease-fire, but a new, possibly much wider round of fighting may very well erupt soon. When U.S. rulers organized the Camp David summit last summer, they were gambling they could make Israeli and Palestinian bosses knuckle under to U.S. interests. But the gamble has boomeranged, since no amount of diplomatic arm-twisting or sabre-rattling by Clinton & Co. can resolve the sharp internal contradictions of this situation:

* Significant forces within the Israeli ruling class oppose any deal creating a Palestinian state. They feel a standing Palestinian army would threaten Israeli dominance in the region. The Barak government, which acted as Clinton's agent during the Camp David meetings of last summer, has a decreasing internal authority.

* Many Palestinian bosses also oppose a formal settlement, because they reason that a U.S.-brokered arrangement would turn them into an Israeli puppet and hamper their own regional profit ambitions.

* Within Israel itself more than a million Israeli Arabs, who live in dire poverty and under fascist repression, pose a constant threat to the status quo of Israeli bosses' domination. A major internal uprising would make it difficult if not impossible for Israel to defend itself against outside attack.

* The only way such an attack could materialize would be for the Egyptian military to lead it. Right now, Egypt and Israel have a peace treaty. But peace treaties between capitalists are made to be broken. Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president who agreed to terms with Israel, was assassinated by opponents within his own class. And Sadat's heir, current Egyptian president Mubarak, is on shaky ground himself. He faces armed opposition from a coalition of Islamic fundamentalist forces who want Egyptian capitalism to develop independent of U.S. control. So Mubarak might void the treaty. Otherwise he might not survive politically (or even personally).

By forcing the issue last summer, Clinton appears only to have sharpened every major conflict within the Middle East. This doesn't stem from Clinton's drive for his own historical legacy, or his own ineptness. The deeper truth lies in the nature of imperialism. The drive for maximum profits impels all the major powers to fight for supremacy over their rivals and to turn the second-raters into vassals or clients. Capitalism itself is inevitably unstable. It determines its pecking order, settles its major disputes and "solves" its severe unemployment problems all through war. It brokers "peace" deals only to make war. Communists must never tire of advancing this profound lesson to workers. We must act upon it by fighting constantly to build our forces and our Party.

OOPS

Last week's editorial asserted that "Israel sees U.S. support lessening." This isn't quite true. For the U.S. to risk losing the support of Israel in the Middle East would be a blow on a par with the loss of the Shah of Iran. For several decades, U.S. foreign policy has been based on using Israel (and Iran until 1979) as their enforcers in this oil-rich region. To withdraw support for Israel would mean major changes in the foreign and domestic policies of U.S. capitalism. This might very well include increased anti-semitism to attack pro-Israeli forces here.

Currently U.S. rulers prefer to deal with a group inside Israel seeking accomodations with the Arafat bunch. The Likud faction led by right-winger Ariel Sharon opposes any deal with Arafat. It was Sharon's presence in the Dome of the Rock (a Moslem holy place) protected by 1,000 Israeli soldiers, that sparked the current violence in the area, in alliance with right-wing religious groups. As we go to press, Sharon--opposing the Barak-Arafat cease-fire brokered by Clinton--has broken off negotiations for a "national unity" government with Barak.

The Oil Equation: Chevron + Texaco = Mass Layoffs, War

U.S. oil giant Chevron gobbled up its longtime partner Texaco this week just as the bosses' struggle over the world's oil supplies turned even more violent. Chevron's owners, who belong to the main wing of the U.S. ruling class, hope the consolidation will make them stronger competitors in an increasingly bloody international arena.

Cutting 4,000 jobs immediately is one part of Chevron Texaco's plan to boost its profit rate. Another part is greater clout against Russian oil bosses in the Caspian region. The combined company's grandest scheme, however, is to expand its already extensive access to Saudi Arabia's unparalleled oil wealth. Today Chevron Texaco and its ally Exxon Mobil buy up the lion's share of Saudi crude exports at below-market prices. An entire U.S. Navy fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf--costing $50 billion a year of U.S. workers' taxes--ensures this sweetheart deal. Saudi rulers, seeking modernization, are now considering reopening their oil fields to direct ownership by the major firms.

The Saudis want only the biggest companies, those that can guarantee maximum exploration, production, refining and sales. By acquiring Texaco, Chevron has leapfrogged ahead of France's Total Fina Elf in line for the Saudi bonanza. But Iraq, with growing Russian, French and Chinese support, threatens to derail the U.S.-Saudi gravy train. Both Bush and Gore have vowed to eliminate the Hussein regime by armed force.

The Chevron-Texaco union reflects a tightening of economic control by the Eastern Establishment. In 1996, Texaco came close to forming an alliance with Chevron's and Exxon's rival British Petroleum (now BP Amoco) to sell its Alaskan crude in Asia. Rockefeller stooge Jesse Jackson helped bring Texaco back in line by exposing racism at the firm. Texaco will not stray again. As they prepare for Desert Genocide II, the most powerful U.S. bosses cannot tolerate such deviations.

Burning Desire? Put Out the Fire!

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 16 -- You say death and taxes are the only sure things? Nah! If workers have a hot fight raging, you can bet your strike pay the old tried-and-paid-for fireman, Jesse Jackson, will show up to give workers a hosing.

As the strike of 4,300 transit workers entered its second month, local bosses were refusing to budge in their drive for hundreds of new part-time drivers at $10/hr. with no medical benefits. The LA Federation of Labor invited Jackson to twist the arms of the MTA. He said he was here "to save middle class jobs" (and the union leaders' asses), in transit and the troubled negotiations of 46,000 County workers.

Jackson is the U.S. government's unofficial troubleshooter with an office on Wall St. His main role is to put out the fires of class struggle, especially when black workers are involved, and steer it back into the Democratic Party. He goes where U.S. imperialism needs him, from Africa to Yugoslavia, from LA to Gary, Indiana, pulling the bosses' bacon out of the fire.

The AFL- CIO and the liberal establishment have a big problem. If they cannot preserve a few thousand higher-paying jobs it will be more difficult to win workers to a movement they view as weak. If the unions are to survive and organize for the Democrats, they have to grow. The AFL-CIO has targeted the huge pool of Latin and immigrant workers, and recently organized 75,000 California home health care workers. They are behind the amnesty movement. They are spending millions to elect Gore, and will try to line up workers to support the next oil war.

At Pasadena's liberal All Saints Episcopal Church Jackson said, "Workers deserve the dignity of [their] jobs. We've got to pay those bus drivers," and "Poor people have to get to work." What he didn't say is that the work they "get to" makes Los Angeles the sweatshop capital of the USA.

The rulers, and the unions are playing both sides of the street. They rely on terror to keep wages down and productivity high. But they also need a "labor aristocracy" of better paid, loyal workers that can be used as examples of Jackson's tired slogan, "Keep hope alive." But a communist-led working class will unite black, Latin, Asian and white, men and women, higher-paid and lower-paid, to break the nationalist grip of Jackson & Co. and march the road to revolution. Our efforts to lead actions and provide political leadership in the transit strike has moved us a little further down that long road.

Garment Workers' Solidarity with MTA Workers

LOS ANGELES, CA., Oct. 13 -- "From Palestine to Los Angeles, workers' struggles have no borders," chanted a garment worker through a bullhorn at a garment center rally calling for workers' support for striking bus drivers and mechanics. The rally also exposed the "peace" process and a looming war in the Middle East. The participants included garment workers, eight strikers and a group of high school and college students. Over 1,500 leaflets and 200 CHALLENGES were distributed.

A leaflet written by a striker who just joined PLP appealed "To garment and all workers.... We are workers...Supposedly slavery ended many years ago. But the truth is that we work like slaves."

Many garment workers viewing the rally welcomed the drivers and mechanics as class brothers, gladly taking their leaflets. Many in cars honked their horns in support. Others entered into lively discussions.

At first some of the drivers were somewhat reserved, fearing insults or attacks from garment workers, especially since many have been scrambling to find alternate transportation to get to work. But unity as one class prevailed.

A week ago, a group of garment workers and three strikers met to organize this rally. They discussed recent CHALLENGE articles entitled, "Are the union leaders friends of the workers?" and "The role of the LA Times." This led to an exchange of views about oil, war and the need for communist revolution. Then we discussed how we could help the strikers and also raise demands of garment workers, most of whom ride the bus to work.

One garment worker said, "We should collect money and food for the strikers." Another commented, "This is tough. Many garment workers, although supporting the strikers, are very much affected by the strike. What's more, what the drivers' union gives them as strike benefits is just about the full wage of many garment workers. But if that's what we need to do, we'll do it."

"I think that at this point," added a striking mechanic, "the best support is political and moral."

"Then why don't we have a protest in the middle of the garment center and invite other strikers to come," declared a garment worker. The new PLP member and transit striker, participating in such a meeting for the first time, said, "I want to write a leaflet explaining the struggle to garment workers." That was how the rally came about.

Many of these strikers have been friends of the Party for years. Some have been reading CHALLENGE, having political discussions and participating in social activities. All these actions can propel discussions in the factories and the bus divisions about the need to build a revolutionary communist movement uniting all workers.

Strikers Hail Mechanics'Solidarity

LOS ANGELES--Following the demonstration in the heart of the garment district in support of striking transit workers, a group of Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) mechanics and local students drove to the Convention Center. There striking drivers would reject MTA's final offer.

As the strikers streamed into the hall, the group met them with garment-worker leaflets supporting the strikers and blaming city and garment bosses for the conditions that created the strike. Workers grabbed the leaflets out of our hands. They especially liked our picket signs demanding all slave labor out of transit--part-timing, prison labor and workfare wages. When one driver saw the sign, he high-fived a mechanic so hard he almost knocked him over.

After passing out all our leaflets, we walked inside with our signs held high. One driver hugged us as we came up the escalator. Drivers gave us copies of the contract that was eventually rejected. During the meeting, union president Williams, knowing the workers' strong feelings against the contract, called on them to put their faith in sellouts Jesse Jackson and AFL-CIO hack Miguel Contreras to win the battle, rather them having faith in their class struggle instincts.

GROWTH OF PLP IS TOP GAIN IN MUNI CONTRACT

SAN FRANCISCO, CA., October 17 -- MUNI drivers are voting on a third contract proposal. The first two, backed by the Mayor, the bosses' press and the Transport Workers Union International, were overwhelmingly rejected. The new proposal rolls back wage progression from 31 to 18 months. We have temporarily cut into the amount MUNI can steal from new drivers. Drivers united--Asian, Latin, black and white, across seniority lines--to make this the central issue.

The 31-month wage progression slashed labor costs by $8 million a year. The money "saved" from the mainly minority workers is an example of the institutional racism that has reduced their wages for 20 years. Racist wage differentials add up to an extra $250 billion in profits off black and Latin workers in the USA.

In our 5-month contract fight, we met management's attacks on absenteeism with demands for full staffing and more flexibility for operators to schedule time off. To achieve full staffing, this contract allows all part-timers to become full-time. New hires will come in full-time.

We have set a precedent for reversing wage progression in the transit industry and we will make damn sure our comrades and co-workers in transit districts around the country know about it. PLP and CHALLENGE are the key links in this chain of developing unity and solidarity.

We owe a debt of thanks to our transit brothers and sisters in LA. Their month-long strike put fear in the hearts of the local bosses and pushed Mayor Willie Brown to force MUNI to make concessions.

But these reform victories are fleeting at best. The U.S. "peace plan" between Israel and the Palestinians has been shattered. Chevron (based in SF) has swallowed Texaco, to better compete for control of oil in Africa, the Caspian and the Middle East. And Exxon-Mobil is pushing for war to control Iraq's cheap oil reserves. The raises and improvement in wage progression will be more than wiped out when gas prices go to $3 a gallon and pale compared to the threat of another oil war.
Mass transit is part of the capitalist infrastructure needed for global competition. The Transportation Equity Act for the 21^st Century (1998) provided $215 billion for mass transit over the next six years, to advance "America's economic growth and competitiveness domestically and internationally through efficient and flexible transportation." (U.S. Dept. Of Transportation).
This is behind MUNI demands to expand rush hour service to commercial districts with no increase in the workforce. It fuels demands for "efficiency," wage progression and company changes in discipline, penalties for accidents and use of sick leave. As a leading economic force in SF, Chevron will continue attacking transit workers and grind down the whole working class.
A war economy demands patriotism, sacrifice and efficient production. So while we fight for a better contract, we must look at the bigger picture. Our children will be mobilized to fight an oil war to keep Exxon-Mobil and Chevron-Texaco rich and in control. We need a working class armed with CHALLENGE'S communist analysis. It's the profit system and inter-imperialist rivalry that is driving our quality of life into the dust. MUNI bosses merely carry out that agenda.

With war clouds hanging over the Middle East, the biggest victory has been the growth of PLP. More workers are reading and distributing CHALLENGE, and the Party is stronger due to the increased leadership of black workers. Many drivers fought the boss, built working-class unity, united with communists and rejected the union leadership's appeals to racism and nationalism. AC Transit and MUNI drivers are meeting together and have planned some joint actions. Change marches on.

Hacks Put (Sub)Contract Out on Workers' Jobs

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 17--Several hundred members of AFSCME Local 420 protested today in front of the Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC). They denounced HHC head Dr. Luis R. Marcos for planning to eliminate union jobs, subcontracting them out to non-union labor. Already the staff shortages are forcing many of these workers to work long hours. Federico Pérez, a Metropolitan Hospital housekeeping worker, charged that "we have to do the job of two and even three workers because of cutback in staff."

Marcos let the cat out of the bag when he denied HHC was intending to use more subcontractors, saying that "last time we did it with [union] consent, contracting out 50% of the laundry load HHC hospitals have, saving $50,000 a week."

So what's up with that? The AFSCME leadership organizes protests against using the very subcontractors it agreed to in the past. These sellouts have taken the labor movement to the garbage dump, allowing the bosses to get away with cutbacks, Workfare and everything else.

HHC workers have been without a contract since April. Local 420 president Butler, recently re-elected international vice-president, is very much in bed with the AFSCME leadership that has made no effort to fight for a contract meeting workers' needs. PLP has had a long history in exposing this "marriage," pointing out that these union hacks, in defending the bosses' system, must--be definition--attack the workers.

Fight Against Bosses' Oil War Plans Inside Mass Organizations

NEWARK, NJ -- PLP is making plans here in New Jersey to raise the issue of war on campus and inside three mass organizations. One has a statewide meeting this month on "Racism and Violence." This presents a good opportunity to link the violence of the imperialist fight over oil in the Mid East to the fight against police terror, racial profiling and slave labor Workfare here. In another organization, Party members will link the punishment of students who refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance to the bosses' need to build patriotism in order to carry out their war plans.

While PLP has begun to plant the seeds of a new international communist movement, we know we must be patient and have a long-range outlook. Entering mass organizations has enabled us to raise communist ideas in many different ways and from different vantage points. It also makes it harder for the bosses and their servants in these groups to isolate us.

But working in these organizations also carries a danger. We can't be "patient" in the face of greater opportunities to raise the political level of the workers and recruit to the Party. Otherwise, we risk bowing to the politics of the reform struggles which we are part of. With the crisis in the Mid-East, and the threat of oil war against Iraq, we must immediately relate the political nature of the crisis to the class struggles where we are.

To sum up, let's have a long-term approach, but let's fight extra hard for our ideas and for recruitment when the bosses' actions give us greater opportunities to grow.

Immigrants March Against Racism and Against Partial Amnesty

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 14--Today, several thousand immigrant workers, mostly from Latin America but also some from Eastern Europe and other areas, marched from Columbus Circle to the UN to demand unconditional amnesty for all undocumented immigrants. Many workers, particularly newly arrived immigrants from Mexico, are super-exploited, working six and seven days a week for less than the minimum wage. Many marchers made a big sacrifice coming to the march, foregoing a day's pay.

One positive feature, which some march organizers considered bad, was the absence of politicians national or local. Also, many realize the AFL-CIO is not a trusted ally. The union hacks are supporting a "partial" amnesty which will exclude 5.5 million undocumented immigrants!

Many chanted pro-working class internationalist chants like "Workers' Struggles Have No Borders." One speaker even said there is one working class worldwide and we should all unite and fight for our interests. Another speaker, a Brazilian immigrant, advocated not only fighting to get immigration documents, but also against imperialists like the International Monetary Fund, whose austerity programs attack workers throughout the world. He said that bosses open borders only for investment purposes. He added that the militant struggles of landless peasants in Brazil are very similar to those waged by undocumented workers here in the U.S., saying workers' struggles are the same worldwide.

PLP participated in the march, distributing a leaflet linking the recent racist attacks against immigrants in Farmingville, NY (where two Mexican laborers were brutally beaten by racists) to the situation in the Middle East--racist terror and imperialist war are part and parcel of capitalism. CHALLENGE and our red flags, as well as our chants, were well-received during the march.

Anti-immigrant racism is becoming increasingly bolder. The same day of the march, Sachem Quality of Life, a racist group near Farmingville invited a speaker from the ultra-racist California-based Voices of Citizens Together (VCT). On July 4, anti-racists, including PLP, attacked a VCT rally in Los Angeles.

The rulers are in a bind. On one hand, they will use immigrants as cannon fodder to wage their imperialist wars, but they also need to keep them working for peanuts. So they need racist terror to keep them in line. They cannot solve this contradiction.

PLP members made several promising contacts during the march. Joining the Party is the best response to the bosses' racism.

Class Struggle Union Campaign Moves Workers to the Left

"This article is really good!" said my friend, referring to the latest CHALLENGE editorial on the bosses' oil wars. It was the first CHALLENGE article he had ever read. I had just given him his first copy of our paper and he went right to the "meat"!

Come to think of it, there were a lot of firsts this month for my friend. The first time he had participated in a union election campaign; the first time he distributed leaflets at work calling for class struggle, anti-racist, multi-racial unity and international working-class solidarity to answer the bosses attacks; the first time he contributed to a collective discussion about our responsibility to the our class as workers in a "defense" industry; the first time he voted in a union election. This pattern was repeated a dozen times as we recruited new readers and new activists in the plant.

Many hundreds of rank-and-filers voted for us in this recent union election, not enough to overcome the scores of full-time organizers and many thousands of dollars available to the hacks, but enough to put us in the "top tier" of the opposition.

The campaign went beyond the sometimes legal, sometimes illegal, distribution of 5,000 class-struggle flyers throughout the company plants--not to mention the hundreds of additional leaflets distributed in other unions at the plant and among non-union workers in subcontractors throughout the country. Dozens of workers organized van pools and carloads to take rank-and-filers to the union halls, many for the first time. Multi-racial groups of workers jammed our union hall during the lunch hour. Workers reported seeing the union Business Agent almost choke on his cigarette when he saw the carloads emptying into the hall.

Some present union officials, who had fallen out of favor with the "machine", approached us about forming a full slate for the next election. "You guys are great leaders, but you've got to let us edit your leaflets. They are too radical," they warned. As it turned out, our "radical" candidate did better than they did.

More importantly, the activists around the Party immediately began to make plans the day after the election. Encouraged by the good showing, workers estimated how many more organizers we will need and how we are going to raise the thousands necessary to continue to challenge the present "leadership."

But, nobody's waiting around for the next election. One woman asked how our political history affected our work in the union. It was great she came to us instead of succumbing to the anti-communist rumor-mongering of the hacks. After talking with us, she decided the Party and its base were just the people her area needs to carry on the class struggle against the erosion of work rules and jobs. We aim to show her she's right!

Our base has grown and our influence has spread during the last month. More workers in the plant are reading the paper. The bosses--who declared us "illegal" for a while--and their labor lieutenants in the union leadership have also noted this development. We can expect more attacks. In order to sustain this growth, we will need more political and organizational leadership. We can succeed only if more of these new activists join the Party. For starters, we need to recruit more sellers so we can reach all our new readers. Dozens have experienced political "firsts" this last month. Selling CHALLENGE and joining the Progressive Labor Party are two more "firsts" to add to your list!

Mid-West Union Campaigner
PLP'ers Organize Against Oil Inside City Unions

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 16 -- " CHALLENGE is a beacon for the international working class," reported a worker at a recent PLP leadership meeting. "Articles about the conflicts between capitalists for control of oil production and markets and the absolute need of the Old Money section of U.S. imperialists to intervene militarily in the Middle East are visionary."

CHALLENGE reports that the U.S. rulers' weakest link is their difficulty in winning U.S. workers and youth to fight and massively support an oil war. Therein lies the Party's opportunity and task. How we prepare workers and youth now to go on the offensive against oil war will establish the conditions to build a much larger PLP capable of leading the working class. CHALLENGE is an integral part of this process.

The Party here has a significant concentration among teachers, students and parents. With the classroom as our base, teachers plan to stimulate student discussions and debates about the poison of racism and nationalism dividing the working class in occupied Palestinian areas and Israel. Youth can and must take the lead in the fight against the bosses' oil wars. High school student governments and youth clubs can call for school-wide forums and actions. Plans have been made in several high schools to show a documentary about U.S.-enforced sanctions in Iraq.

As young people prepare to march against police brutality on Oct. 22, we can link youth uniting multi-racially to fight racist police terror in the U.S. with the need for multi-racial unity against terror among workers and youth in the Middle East. Students and teachers can write for CHALLENGE about their impressions and activities. In turn, more youth will read and discuss CHALLENGE, learn about what's going on in the world, what communism is and how to join and build the PLP. The door is wide open.

Union Anti-Oil War Resolution

A PLP'er in an AFSCME local will introduce a resolution against oil war in the Middle East and war contracts in the U.S. Such contracts allow the bosses to cut the workforce and use Workfare and prison labor to depress all workers' wages. AFSCME's District Council 37 members have been without a contract since the spring. CHALLENGE readers can support the PLPer's resolution, holding anti-oil war meetings at their workplaces and calling for a strike vote.

A PLP hospital worker belongs to the largest union local in NY State, SEIU-1199. It is pulling out all stops to get its members to vote in next month's elections. Our comrade can call for a vote against a war for oil profits in the Mid-East and against an austerity war contract when the current one expires next year. CHALLENGE readers in his hospital can form discussion groups in the hospital cafeteria. More workers can be asked to set up CHALLENGE network distributions and to join PLP. With a determined plan, these goals are realizable. Our other PLP workers can follow these comrades' lead.

Our area leadership is making similar plans with other PLP members who are working in student groups on college campuses, in immigrant workers' organizations, women's and community groups and churches. Look for these reports in CHALLENGE.

In December our area will have its annual CHALLENGE support evening. The themes will be: CHALLENGE leads -- read and distribute CHALLENGE; PLP prepares workers and youth to fight imperialist oil war in the Middle East; Join PLP -- fight for communism, power to the workers.

The struggle is not easy. It requires courage, commitment to task and patience. But the Party has the opportunity to move on several fronts: to expand the limits and move forward in this period of crisis in the Middle East.

Vets Give Boot to Nazis Heel

MANVILLE, NJ, October 17--About 30 anti-racists and members of the Veterans of Foreign War (VFW) confronted John Kucek of the fascist Nationalist Movement today. Kucek was attempting to conduct an award ceremony for the racists who held a rally in Morristown on July 4th. PLP members and others were arrested at that demonstration for confronting these nazi scum.

Kucek, a VFW member, had rented the VFW hall without the vets realizing he would be holding an openly racist meeting. When the VFW members, mostly white workers (some of whom had fought Hitler in World War II), learned their hall was being used for a racist ceremony they decided to cancel the event and block any racists from entering the hall.

When the racists did turn up, they were confronted by a small band of anti- racists. Kucek, feeling pressure from the anti-racists, questioning reporters and VFW members, claimed he had "chest pains" and was taken away in an ambulance.

The intensification of inter-imperialist rivalry and the worsening conditions of the working class will make the racist, fascist ideas of groups like the Nationalist Movement attractive to sectors of our class. Workers and students must always confront and expose these nazis when they march, meet or rally. We must win workers to fight against racism and for workers power. We applaud the workers and youth who drove these racists back into their hole in the ground.

LETTERS

Bosses Need Vieques to Wage War

Our Party faces a huge task here in Puerto Rico. Conditions for the workers are so bad that many people have turned to religion to escape. We're in the midst of an election. The Puerto Rican ruling class has always cultivated fascism among the people. In the past, many have died during the elections.

As usual the campaign has been saturated with lies, mutual accusations, mutual absolving from responsibilities among government officials and a lack of political education for the people. Most people I talk to are dissatisfied with these officials. Despite this, some are very anti-communist due to the atrocious lies about our comrades in the past. Without communism, they fall back on colonial government and/or religion.

On October 1, there was a large protest in Vieques against the U.S. Navy training base, where a resident was killed last year. The protest was designed to revive the momentum of last year's movement.

Many of us had anticipated this march and planned to be there. The Navy and the colonial government knew about it also and prepared accordingly. Only two vessels were at the Fajardo Port, to go to Vieques. One could carry only a limited amount of people; the other was "unserviceable." Many locals denounced this customary government tactic to minimize the people's ability to demonstrate.

We were not allowed to go to Vieques despite several "negotiating committees" going back and forth between the people and the Port Authorities. The crowd was much more militant than these negotiators. In fact, many of these "leaders" are part of the pacifist trend that permeates the movement for removal of the Navy from Vieques.

After the Port Authorities refused to provide transportation for us, we picketed inside the Port Authority facility, extending out to the street. Up to 100 of us picketed for half an hour, chanting, "U.S. Navy Out of Vieques." Meanwhile, demonstrators were being arrested in Vieques. Then many decided to go to another U.S. base, Roosevelt Roads, to which the arrested protesters were being transported. A person I brought, new to the struggle, was impressed.

Many fake-radical political groups have been campaigning about Vieques. For example, the International Socialist Organization had the only newsletter that didn't endorse the electoral process, fasting, or pacifism. They called for organizing, but said nothing about what happens after the organizing starts and the repression begins. Further, these fakes pointed to Ralph Nader as a friend of the workers, and called him the lesser evil.

Many of the protesters do not understand the real causes of the U.S. Navy presence in Vieques: U.S. imperialism's need to train for oil war and for the suppression of popular movements in Latin America.

The marriage of the church and the state is shameful. At the Department of Motor Vehicles a huge sign quotes from the Bible, intending to offer "support" for the driving test.

We need communist revolution, not pacifism and religion.

Red Cololo

Revolution Has One Color--Red

Progressive Labor Party members and friends met to analyze U.S. imperialist aggression in America and around the world. The notorious Rockefeller-wing capitalists' ongoing manipulations of the cost of oil and their control over fascist governments will ultimately culminate in bombs over Baghdad and the continued genocidal extermination of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi workers, in the wanton pursuit of imperialist oil profits.

The facts are what the facts are. Comrades, if you listen closely, you can hear the return of the thunderous winds of war and the drums that play the death march for Iraq's victimized people. The realization of another Persian Gulf War orchestrated by imperialist warmongers and the continued and racist persecution of the people of Iraq are inevitable. The outcome of the forthcoming November elections will not change this disturbing tide of events. Be the winner George W. Bush or Al Gore, the U.S. government and the Presidency itself are nothing more than fascist tools of the dominant capitalist of the hour.

Nationalism vs. Communism. Recently, as tens of millions of people watched the Olympic Games in Australia, several overzealous and/or misled Gold medallist Olympians shamefully draped themselves in the U.S. imperialist banner of the red, white and blue, which monumentally symbolizes racism and oppression. In my opinion, the disgraceful Olympians paraded either unknowingly or unwittingly and desperately prostituted themselves in hopes of receiving the endorsement of a mega contract from the capitalist bosses. This they did on television in front of the masses of the entire world.

I am a black transit worker who recently joined the PLP. Far be it from me to put down the development of a black cultural identity. Without a doubt it is sorely needed. However on the one hand, no wise man in possession of the facts would buy into the propagandist tomfoolery of a known, sinister and unscrupulous FBI snitch, i. e., Al Sharpton. On the other hand, black nationalist Jessie Jackson's recent publication, "It's All About The Money"--which, by the way, features a picture of Mr. Jackson and his son on the cover--dispels all false "truths" and just where his loyalty lies, exposing him for the fascist puppet of the U. S. imperialist machine that he truly is.

In conclusion, the Revolution will not be black, it will not be white, it is and will be a Revolution of the Workers. Workers of the World Unite.

Forever Redd

Reforms of 1930s Going, Going, Gone

In the 1930s, workers suffering through the Great Depression fought for and won many reforms in a number of countries--the 8-hour day, public health care, unemployment insurance, pensions, welfare, etc. The rulers were forced to agree to these reforms for one reason: to ward off communist revolution.

The 1917 Russian Revolution had scared the hell out of capitalists worldwide. Millions stood on bread lines in the West. However, in the Soviet Union there was no unemployment and workers' lives improved dramatically. To prevent workers from embracing revolutionary ideas, politicians in the U.S. and Western Europe instituted "the modern welfare state."

Now the Russians and Chinese are not even pretending to be socialist. The old communist movement is dead, and all those reforms in capitalist countries are fast disappearing. Longer hours for less pay, abolishing welfare, closing public hospitals, privatizing public services, and so forth, the welfare state, no longer needed to prevent revolution, is being torn down.

Workers are well aware of these deteriorating conditions. Here's what one hospital worker had to say about conditions in Chicago's Cook County Hospital:

"Water floods the Material Management department. Walk in the storeroom: water. You might as well get a sailboat to move around there. Something falls on the floor and it just floats on down till it can't move anymore. This is not Lake Michigan!

"There's too much work in Material Management. Workers are stretched out because too much work is put on us. It's crazy, crazy. Hire more people and stop giving us three or four different jobs!"And what's up with the elevators? Always down every time you turn around. One elevator broke down and we have to go to the other, whichever is working. The freight elevator is broken for a long, long, long time. And the R3 elevator works once, then down again. We have work to do, too!"

This makes our lives as hospital workers more difficult and adds to the intense suffering of workers who come here as patients. But as the illusions are stripped away, each of us is confronted by the stark reality of this murderous, racist system. The need to get rid of capitalism becomes clearer by the minute. Rebuilding the international communist movement will not be easy, but we have no other choice. Let's get to work!

Mad as Hell at County

Chile's `Diversity'A Splitting Scheme

Grey winter is giving way to blooming flowers. Spring has come to this part of the world. But what doesn't change is the fact that life is hard for those "lucky" to have a job and even harder for the 10% unemployed (out of Chile's seven-million population).

The "socialist" government is now pushing a "new" concept for those of us here in the Southern Cone: "diversity." They tell us we are a "diverse" population with different ethnic groups and we must learn to live with each other. We all "have our own problems, our own ideas and to each his or her own" they tell us--this "diversity" is what "makes us stronger."

What's the purpose of all this? To help fight the racist oppression suffered by the Mapuche indigenous people here? No! On the contrary, this diversity" only divides us and builds more racism. They say a "united" Chile can become a developed capitalist country. Well, racism and oppression of workers are CAUSED by capitalism. The most developed capitalist countries like the USA or Germany are the biggest racists and oppressors of all.

The "socialist" government of President Lagos has also proven to be as rotten and corrupt as any previous government. Recently, some top government officials stand accused of corruption, appropriating public funds for their personal use. Their defense? "It was much worse in previous administrations!"

Next time these politicians tell us to vote for them, we should reject them all. There are no `lesser evils." All capitalists and their politicians are enemies of all workers.

A comrade, Chile

Is What You See What You Get?

In dialectics, "Appearance and Essence" are not always what they appear to be! A recent CHALLENGE article reported on a workers' study session on using dialectical reasoning to make more scientific judgments about building the revolutionary movement. In particular, the discussion of the opposing concepts of "appearance" and "essence" pointed out how we are sometimes one-sided and only look at the outer appearance of people, struggles and movements, not considering the inner forces at work. The article can help us all analyze and understand situations more accurately.

However, sometimes "appearance" is put forward in a one-sided way, as merely an illusion, saying we should look beyond appearance solely to the inner "essence." People say, "You can't tell a book by its cover." That's good advice, but it's important not to be one-sided the other way as well.

There is no "essence" separated from the physical make-up of a thing, a person, a movement or a struggle. In dialectics, the key to understanding "unity of opposites" is that BOTH sides of the contradiction must be considered, although one side may be more dominant than the other. In fact, the two sides of the contradiction help define each other. Understanding how they affect each other helps us see how the situation will develop. If we say that the "outer" is totally unimportant, and the "inner" is all-important, we risk making an idealist error that creates a kind of "spirit" separate from the material world. In other words, you can often tell something about a book from its cover, although of course the inner must also be investigated.

Here's another example: we all know people who act in selfish, anti-working class ways and hurt other people. Yet sometimes they say, "The person who is doing those bad things isn't the `real me.' The `real me' is actually a pretty nice person deep down inside." That is an example of someone trying to pretend to be looking deeper into a him/herself but is actually dodging the truth which is right in front of our eyes. If a person repeatedly hurts other working-class people, then at a certain point that bad behavior does describe that person.

As we learn to analyze situations more scientifically/dialectically, we should struggle both to avoid the one-sidedness of only focusing on the outer appearance, as well as also avoiding the one-sidedness of ignoring facts right in front of us while we imagine some kind of separate, spiritual inner "essence." The inner dynamics shape the outer, but the outer can also shape the inner, just as life experiences and struggle can help shape someone's consciousness.

To figure things out better we must be collective, ask others for their ideas and listen carefully. That's the best way to avoid being one-sided.

Midwest Reader

Expanding Sales A Real `Challenge'

I understand the Party has a goal of doubling the circulation of CHALLENGE by May Day 2001. That's important! CHALLENGE is the only paper correctly analyzing world events, especially the present inter-imperialist conflict in the Middle East.

I'm a CHALLENGE seller who regularly distributes about 30-35 papers an issue, but could sell a lot more. Sometimes I'm amazed at the way other Party members sell many papers. I would hope they'd share more of their experiences on the letters page. Some questions I've heard from CHALLENGE distributors:

I showed it to some friends, but they didn't like it. What now?

When I asked friends what they thought of the paper, they didn't say much, or said they didn't read it yet. Now what do I do?

I distribute CHALLENGE but I don't really know if people read it. What do I do?

I know people who would take the paper, but I can't get to all of them in one week. What do I do?

If we want people to sell more papers, it's not enough to tell them to do it; we need to TRAIN people. Letters from experienced sellers would be a great help. Also, could we have some lead articles about the importance of CHALLENGE? One comrade said today that CHALLENGE is a visionary paper of the working class. We have editorials about other important issues, Why not about the importance of our own newspaper?

For my part, I just began making a plan to expand my sales. I've mapped out my present readers, what day of the week I can get them the paper and begun a list of prospective readers I will approach. I'll also ask some present readers to take some papers for others. I also plan to call readers to whom I mail the paper and ask them to contribute money for the paper. I've been really bad about that!

I hope people in the Party share their experiences. This newspaper is the lifeblood of the international working class!

A CHALLENGE Reader

The Three R's--Reading, `Riting and Revolution

On Sept. 13, a group of us in the Party met for our first writing class. The purpose is three-fold: learning to write for general purposes; writing for CHALLENGE in particular; and most importantly, serving the class struggle. Our class began by reading excerpts from Lenin's "What Is To Be Done?" on the role of the party press, and Mao's "Selected Works" on opposing stereotyped writing.

We discussed how to use writing to win people to the Party and to write for CHALLENGE. The capitalist class keeps workers down through illiteracy. For the working class to change the world, workers must read and write.

A classmate and I were supposed to write a CHALLENGE article about our first class and submit it before the next class. Our assignment is late. We weren't able to get together to write this article--a possible "F" for effort. My writing partner co-led the first class and provided us with information on how to write with precision. His last words were, "Don't procrastinate. A sense of urgency gets lost when we do this. Write while the issue is hot and fresh on our minds."

I did take some notes to refresh my memory but writing has never been my strong suit. I definitely procrastinate when it comes to writing, for the paper or personally. My work schedule will cause me to miss the second class. Maybe my article can be used for discussion on the do's and don'ts of writing, and on how not to procrastinate!

Red Writer

Information: Print

CHALLENGE, Oct. 18, 2000

Information: 18 October 2000 168 hits

Editorial: Nationalism, Religion A Killer For Arab And Jewish Workers

Shut Down LA with a General Strike!

‘We’re here to support the strike, not to break it!’

Janitors-MTA Workers: Solidarity Forever

Wen Ho Lee Fiasco Reflects Fight Among Capitalist Factions

Yugoslavia: Fight for Oil Pipelines Behind Televised ‘Democratic Revolution’

Turn Strikes Into School for Communism

LA Times: Workers’ Ally Or Eastern Establishment Mouthpiece?

Big Bosses On the Offensive Against Competition

Union Leaders—Friends or Foes?

Workers Stand Up for Class Struggle Union Candidate

Nader Has Nada for Workers and Youth

LETTERS

Why I Was Won to PLP

PLP Has Answer for UNITE Organizers

Editorial

Nationalism, Religion A Killer For Arab And Jewish Workers

The renewed killing in Israel and the occupied territories shows that the peace brokered by imperialism is the peace of the tomb. It also exposes the utter bankruptcy of nationalism and the deadly role of all religion in sabotaging workers’ struggles for a decent life.

PLP members working in mass organizations should vigorously put forward these key lessons as the situation unfolds.

The Clinton White House set the stage for the present bloodshed when it orchestrated the 1994 Middle East "peace" agreement signed seven years ago in Oslo, Norway. This deal supposedly pledged an end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by 1999. The deadline wasn’t met, largely because U.S. bosses can’t control the internal politics of their own Israeli vassals.

Israel sees U.S. support lessening. Without it, their expansion as a capitalist power is virtually nil. The fact remains that the Israeli ruling class, as all capitalist ruling classes must maintain and extend its power. How to do this has become a conflict among Israeli rulers.

An important faction of Israeli bosses opposes the concessions promised by the Oslo agreement. The depth of this contradiction became clear with the 1995 assassination of Yitzak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister who had signed off on the Oslo deal.

Even if implemented, the agreement offers Palestinian workers little more than a vicious form of updated apartheid: "…a Palestinian state truncated by a massive system of bypass roads, encircled by Israeli settlement blocs, subject to closures and restrictions on freedom of movement and commerce, with no control of its borders or natural resources…" (Allegra Pacheco, an Israeli lawyer, NEW YORK TIMES op-ed page, 10/5).

Since Oslo, 800 Palestinian homes have been demolished in the West Bank and Gaza to make room for Israeli "settlers"; Palestinian joblessness has tripled; the Palestinian gross domestic product has declined by 21%; and 13,000 Palestinian workers have been jailed.

In the name of a Palestinian state, Yassir Arafat has brought the workers he rules nothing but misery, unemployment and exposure to terror from both Israeli cops and his own Palestinian Authority police force. No wonder they’re rebelling massively.

Arafat is clearly no longer in control of the situation. Even if he were willing to negotiate a cease-fire, there’s every reason to believe he couldn’t enforce it. His leadership faces a serious challenge by Hamas, the Islamic fundamentalist gang with a strong base in Gaza, where some of the deadliest battles have taken place. According to the TIMES (10/8), Arafat may not even control the militant Tanzim youth organization, which is supposedly under the banner of his Fatah organization.

But these internal conflicts among Palestinian nationalists don’t spell good news for workers either. The anti-Arafat revolt is taking place in the name of Palestinian nationalism and Islam. It leads straight into a capitalist trap. If Arafat falls, another boss will take his place.

Israeli became a state in 1948, when British imperialism—which had stood idly by while Hitler massacred six million Jews—decided its oil interests could best be served by a divide-and-conquer policy setting Jews against Arabs in the Middle East. After the 1967 Six-Day War, U.S. rulers hopped on this strategy for their own reasons. From the beginning of statehood, the Jewish nationalist-religious line led Israel to become a liberal fascist society—liberal in its internal politics and ruthlessly repressive toward the million Palestinian refugees Israeli independence had forced into exile.

The current fighting only widens this vicious circle. As we wrote last week, U.S. imperialism requires a pacified, stable western flank in the Middle East as it prepares for oil war in the Persian Gulf. But no treaty or back-room wheeling and dealing can smooth over the contradictions the profit system generates. And no amount of nationalist posturing or Jewish/Muslim sermonizing can settle rivalries among competing bosses or make capitalism serve the needs of Jewish and Arab workers.

Only communist revolution can put an end to this murderous scenario. Our Party can’t yet directly influence events in the Middle East. However, we can organize class struggle here around our revolutionary line at work, at school, in the mass movements and in the armed forces where GI’s can be won to understand that the bosses’ wars for oil are not in their class interests. As the situation sharpens throughout the Middle East, our political influence can grow as a function of the work we do now.

Shut Down LA with a General Strike!

LOS ANGELES, CA., Oct. 11 — As CHALLENGE went to press, 40,000 LA County workers went on strike today for a 15.5% wage increase over three years. A judge ordered about 5,000 nurses and lab technicians to remain at work. Workers need to defy the court injunction as part of learning how to smash the whole bosses’ dictatorship.

PLP workers, co-workers and students have been picketing with County workers and will continue to do so. CHALLENGE and PLP leaflets blaming capitalism have been received enthusiastically. Teachers at Manual Arts H.S. and other schools are picketing before school about their upcoming contract. Rank and filers in three unions are beginning to circulate petitions calling on the County Federation of Labor to organize a general strike.

The greedy County bosses would have workers’ families live on $22,000 a year while the capitalists enjoy more prosperity than ever. The rulers say there’s no money for health care or welfare, but they spend a billion dollars a WEEK to maintain a U.S. naval armada patrolling the Persian Gulf to defend Exxon’s oil empire! This strike can become a political battle against racism and exploitation.

‘We’re here to support the strike, not to break it!’

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 4— On Monday, Oct. 2, as soon as I heard that our union "leader" Neil Silver was calling on us mechanics to cross the MTA bus drivers’ picket line I asked some of my fellow workers what they thought about this back-stabbing. "We’re not going to work," they responded. "Instead we should go to the Division to show our solidarity with the striking drivers, to show them we’re not sellouts."

Early the next morning, several black, white and Latin mechanics met near the Division and began walking towards the drivers’ picket line. As we got close, a supervisor appeared to show us the door we could use to go to work "without being harassed by the drivers." We yelled, "We’re here to support the strike, not to break it!"

As we got closer to the drivers, mostly black and Latin, they began chanting against our union. We answered: "We’re here to continue the struggle, shoulder to shoulder with you guys. Any betrayal of you is a betrayal of ourselves." The pickets cheered, embracing us and shaking our hands. Indeed, working class solidarity won the day.

United we began marching towards a nearby corner where some County workers had begun the first day of their own strike. As we got close, the County workers crossed the street to join with us. We all rallied together against the rotten working conditions we all suffer. Motorists honked their horns to show their solidarity. It was indeed a joyous working-class celebration.

Later we had good discussions with the strikers, showing us that many of them are open to the communist politics we presented.

Janitors-MTA Workers: Solidarity Forever

The history of the relationship between LA transit workers and janitors goes back to the 1994 bus mechanics strike. A PL’er at Kaiser hospital was working with the janitors, who at that time were members of Local 399 in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). She brought a number of janitors to the picket lines at bus Division 1 where PLP was concentrating its support of the strikers and distributing leaflets and CHALLENGES. Through their efforts, striking mechanics and supporting drivers were asked to speak at a July ’94 Local 399 union meeting. We explained the strike and thanked the janitors for joining the picket lines despite the 100° heat.

A year later these janitors and hospital workers put together a potent challenge to the rotten leadership of Local 399. Their Multi-Racial Alliance slate won 21 of 24 seats on the Local’s executive board. Our Party and a transit comrade were active in this reform victory, voided immediately by the international, led by none other than John Sweeney, now AFL-CIO president!

A core of these janitors has held together all these years. They have withstood the attack of the current Mike Garcia leadership as well as the on-and-off courtship by several fake left Trotskyite groups. The fraudulent election last April by the Sweeney-installed Garcia leadership failed to disrupt them. Party members have remained active with the janitors, both socially and organizationally, including their current battle to recapture the Local union leadership in a new U.S. Department of Labor-supervised election this coming Oct. 27. One hundred and twenty of these janitors came to this year’s May Day march.

It was a pleasant surprise for a Party member—in the middle of a transit strikers’ meeting—to get a call from a janitors’ caucus leader asking where and when to bring down a group of janitors to support the striking bus drivers. Cynicism sown by the bosses and union leaders should never blind us from the eventual rewards to be won from relying on our fellow workers to fight for liberation from the rot of capitalism.

Wen Ho Lee Fiasco Reflects Fight Among Capitalist Factions

As reported in a previous issue, all sides agree Wen Ho Lee spied on other Chinese nuclear scientists for the FBI. Was Wen Ho Lee also a spy for China? Who knows? Who cares? China is now a capitalist country. Capitalist competition includes economic and military espionage. Under communism we will have no nations, corporations or capitalists. We’ll have cooperation, not espionage.

Despite all their posturing, U.S. bosses probably don’t really care either. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, sophisticated Soviet nuclear scientists have been roaming the world, waving resumés and "secrets." Furthermore, the investigation into the "leaking" of U.S. nuclear secrets began when it appeared that China had obtained the design of the U.S. W87 nuclear warhead. This warhead is useless without a MIRV (multiple independent re-entry vehicle) delivery system, in which one missile takes off with 10 warheads and then comes down on 10 different targets. But China’s whole nuclear arsenal contains two dozen single-warhead ICBMs (the U.S. has 8,000 nuclear warheads mounted on missiles). Nor is China spending the money necessary to develop MIRV. China's total annual military budget of $35 billion is approximately what the U.S. spends on nuclear weapons alone.

The Struggle For Power In Washington

The case against Wen Ho Lee began in the fall of 1998 with secret hearings of an U.S. House committee chaired by Christopher Cox. He and many other right-wing Republicans represent a faction of the U.S. ruling class unconcerned with guaranteeing access to cheap Mid-East oil. They want to use high-energy prices to profit from domestic oil and oil produced in Latin America and Asia. They also want to invest heavily in the aerospace industry, for strategic weapons, rather than on more and better-paid troops (as their Clinton/Rockefeller rivals believe is primary for an invasion of Iraq). Portraying China as an immediate nuclear threat fuels their goal.

This right-wing faction sees Clinton, a servant of Rockefeller/Big Oil, as its main internal enemy. They hated Clinton’s policy of improving relations with China and granting China permanent normal trade relations. They think increased trade with China will hurt domestic manufacturers who are also part of their political base.

In February, after the 1999 the impeachment of Clinton failed, the Cox Committee began leaking information about security failures in the Department of Energy (DOE) during Clinton’s administration. The Cox Committee’s star witness was DOE intelligence officer Notra Trulock. Trulock claimed Wen Ho Lee’s spying threatened the lives of "tens of millions of people." The DOE awarded Trulock its $10,000 Special Act Award as a payoff for pinning the blame for the DOE’s security lapses on Wen Ho Lee. The DOE had more leaks than a colander. There were over 500 laboratories and aerospace industry locations from which the Chinese (or anybody else) might have obtained the codes for the W87 warhead.

Trulock, however, betrayed his Clinton-Administration bosses. He participated in a right-wing web site calling for the impeachment of Clinton, DOE Chairman Elliot Richardson and Janet Reno. Eventually the Clinton administration disbanded Trulock’s office. He took his ten grand and went to work for TRW, a military contractor.

China Vs. The U.S.

Regardless of the failed Wen Ho Lee case, it seems clear the ruling class want to use trade relations, cultural exchanges and other tactics to avoid confrontation with China now. They recognize that China, with its huge population and resources, is a future threat. Ultimately they may have to go to war with China for control of Asia. But for now they want to avoid anything that will divert their military forces from concentrating on the Middle East and its oil. Their strategy is to consolidate control of the Persian Gulf before getting involved in a war with a major power like China. Our strategy is to expose their plans, unite against these spymasters and use every class struggle to win workers to fight for communism.

Yugoslavia: Fight for Oil Pipelines Behind Televised ‘Democratic Revolution’

He "storming" of the Parliament building in Belgrade, that put an end to the Milosevic regime, was carefully orchestrated by bourgeois forces which no longer found Slobo useful. Indeed, this "democratic revoluiion" was televised for the benefit of Skyplus, CNN, etc.

Behind the smoke-screen of media spin about this "democratic revolution" lies a tangled web of steadily sharpening inter-imperialist rivalries. The struggle to control oil and use it for world domination lies at the heart of them.

In 1999, U.S. rulers and their NATO pals conducted a 78-day reign-of-terror bombing over the former Yugoslavia. They pulled off this atrocity in the name of "human rights." The big gangsters in Washington, Paris, London and Berlin blew up factories, bridges, and school busses, supposedly to stop genocide in Kosovo and free Serbia from the Milosevic dictatorship. Milosevic had killed his share of workers, but he was a choirboy compared to Clinton and the other NATO heads of state. In their eyes, Milosevic’s real crime was an attempt to build a network of oil refineries and pipelines that would have made him a major regional energy player independent of U.S. and British oil firms in the scramble to market Caspian crude.

The election of Vojislav Kostunica doesn’t change the essence of this conflict. If anything, the deadly rivalries over oil have sharpened since the bombing ended in June 1999. Milosevic seems to have become the fall guy for his own faction. His downfall appears to have been engineered with the collusion of U.S., German, British and Russian bosses (see Stratfor.com, 10/9; EL PAIS, 10/7; and DER SPIEGEL, week of Oct. 9).

The in-fighting over Balkan oil routes among major U.S., European, and Russian energy companies is more intense than ever. Russia’s giant LUKoil has expressed an interest in buying up Serbia’s presently state-owned firm, NIS. When we reported the 1999 air war, we noted that Russian oil bosses were using Greek energy companies as an intermediary for the Balkan deal. No longer.

LUKoil is also making deals to rebuild the oil refineries at Novi Sad and Pancevo that NATO’s bombs destroyed. These plants form part of Milosevic’s grand scheme to become an oil baron—build a pipeline northward into Serbia from Skopje in Macedonia, which stands to be a hub for Caspian export pipelines. The oil, mainly Russian, would then flow westward through existing pipelines to the Adriatic and the western European market.

Another planned route, from Bulgaria through Skopje to Albania, has become the focus of intensified conflict since the air war. This line, known as the AMBO project (Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria Oil) was originally the brainchild of Exxon rival BP Amoco and the oil industry equipment giant, Halliburton. Now it’s become an open-season prize. Texaco, French giant Total Fina and LUKoil, have all entered the contest. Much more significantly, so have Exxon Mobil and Chevron. Both the U.S. government and the European Union (EU) rulers are competing fiercely to finance it. The EU, in blessing Kostunica, offered billions to rebuild Serbia. Clinton & Co. are planning similar "gifts."

The failure of the NATO bombing raids to settle the situation has forced the main wing of U.S. rulers to change its tactical line in the Balkans. Two years ago, former Bush Secretary of State James Baker said the U.S. had no interest in the struggles there. Baker happens to be an Exxon heir and leading mouthpiece. The U.S. rulers’ position remains that the Middle East holds the grand prize in the struggle to control world oil markets. But LUKoil’s Balkan moves show the Russian rulers still intend to use Balkan pipelines as a springboard to restore Russian imperialism to super-power status. The turning point in U.S. rulers’ thinking came when Russian troops spat in NATO’s face by seizing the Pristina airport just after the bombing had ended in June 1999. Now the influential Exxon-funded Brookings Institute says that the U.S. must maintain a permanent military presence in the Balkans.

U.S. rulers may have helped engineer Milosevic’s downfall and Kostunica’s rise to power. But they haven’t settled anything. Kostunica himself isn’t going to be a patsy for U.S. interests. He represents a faction of Serbian bosses who remain determined to get a big piece of the oil pipeline action. One indication showing that Kostunica has no intention of letting either Kosovo or Macedonia slip from Serbian control. "Further bloodshed over the issue, with NATO soldiers in the middle, can’t be ruled out." (Wall Street Journal, 10/9)

Imperialism makes further bloodshed inevitable. Russian and U.S. bosses have diametrically opposed interests in the Balkans. German and other European rulers have already created their own independent-of-NATO military top priority in the wake of the 1999 air war. Another armed conflict over Balkan oil routes is only a matter of time.

Turn Strikes Into School for Communism

After a long drought, there is a modest increase in the number of strikes. A tremendous revolutionary potential exists in this outburst of anger. Our Party is more seriously involved in strikes and contract battles, fighting for the political leadership of the workers.

These experiences bear out our strategy of being active in mass organizations. From inside the unions we are in class struggle against our bosses, the politicians and the law. New comrades have joined the Party as a result of our using communist politics to fight the bosses. Our communist analysis, leadership and long-term personal relations have made it clearer that we have to eliminate capitalism and build a mass PLP that fights for revolution and a communist society.

As pressure builds for another Middle East confrontation, the political stakes are very high. We’re in a life-and-death battle for the hearts and minds of the working class! The rising discontent among the workers and growing number of strikes is occurring during increasing tensions over oil in general, and Iraq in particular. The dominant wing of the ruling class is consolidating its political position while trying to win the masses to support a Mid-East ground war.

For nearly a month, workers waged a bitter strike against Raytheon, the country’s third largest war contractor that NETTED over $400 million in profits last year. Strikers were arrested on the picket lines. There were 10,000 Raytheon workers in 1990. There are 2,700 now. Jobs are moving to low-wage, non-union areas.

Bath Iron Works workers struck against the IAM union leadership. The workers rejected the contract twice because the proposed High Performance Work Organization would eliminate 500 jobs. In both strikes, the union leadership has wrapped itself in the bosses’ flag.

The rulers need to win the very workers they are attacking, to support their war plans. Auto, steel and aerospace workers and those in related industries produce the weapons used by the rulers to enforce poverty-level wages around the world and kill millions on behalf of Exxon’s oil empire. BUSINESS WEEK warns the bosses they must share some of their immense wealth with the workers if the bosses want them to support the "national interest" (i.e., the coming wars). Yet the rulers must continue their attacks to accumulate more profits than their competitors and the additional billions needed to keep capitalism in power. At the same time they are trying to win us to sacrifice our class’s sons and daughters in their wars.

We should respond to these strikes and potential strikes more vigorously. We must reject the trade union approach. We put the needs of the working class first. We build strike support and working class unity, nationally and internationally. We must win workers to see that any strike will "lose" if we aren’t prepared to break the law. After all, communist revolution is the ultimate breaking of the law.

We fight to make strikes "schools for communism." This means seizing this opportunity to train a new generation of communist leaders. Invaluable lessons will be learned by attempting to bring revolutionary communist ideas into the heat of class war.

LA Times: Workers’ Ally Or Eastern Establishment Mouthpiece?

Why is the LA TIMES giving favorable publicity to strikers, from janitors to actors to transit and County workers? Why has it continually attacked Mayor Riordan and the members of the County Board of Supervisors?

In every field, the Eastern Establishment/Rockefeller wing of the U.S. ruling class is attacking the old LA rulers. The LA TIMES has become a key weapon since the CHICAGO TRIBUNE bought it. The old TIMES favored increased U.S. military involvement in Colombia and ground troops in Kosovo and was critical of Clinton’s foreign policy in the Middle East. The new one exposes the mayor and police chief for hiding police corruption and the Board of Education for building a huge new high school for poor Latino youth on a toxic dump. Six years ago during the bus strike, the old TIMES condemned bus mechanics as "greedy." Now it says they’re not and deserve public support, along with the County workers. It appears the Federal government, the AFL-CIO and the LA TIMES are the "good guys" and the LA city government is the bad one.

In reality the dominant wing of the ruling class is engaged in a long-term fight to take control of the country’s second largest city. It has two aspects: either destroy—or bring into line—the politicians who do not toe the line, and win the working class to patriotism and allegiance to this main wing of rulers through the Democratic Party and the unions.

Big Bosses On the Offensive Against Competition

This fight has sharpened. The Eastern Establishment is on the offensive nationally to consolidate its power. It faces imperialist rivals increasingly asserting independence. It also must prepare for a coming oil-inspired ground invasion of Iraq. It needs a loyal working class willing to send its sons and daughters to war to defend these bosses’ oily profits, a working class that thinks capitalism is the best system.

The bosses remember the 1992 LA rebellion in which black and Latin workers, joined by white youth, rose against this racist system. These same workers ride the buses, go to County Hospitals and to the LA public schools. The LA TIMES wants to convince them that capitalism is "considerate" of the working class.

The coming city-wide elections will see Rockefeller puppet and pro-AFL-CIO Antonio Villaraigosa running for mayor of LA, with the TIMES playing its role. In light of this, how much more important is CHALLENGE to the cause of workers’ liberation?

Union Leaders—Friends or Foes?

LOS ANGELES, October 10 — The AFL-CIO is being touted as the workers’ "savior." But when transit union leader Neil Silver told transit mechanics to cross the drivers’ picket lines, workers said, "Kill the bastard!"

Transit unions, by stopping anti-worker transit zones and maintaining union wages, appear to be on the workers’ side. In reality, they’ve accepted prison labor to clean buses, replacing union workers making $12 hourly. They’ve allowed introduction of 2- and 3-tier wage levels. LA County will be forcing thousands of welfare recipients into transit and County jobs at the lowest wage tier. The union leaders are silent about this racist assault. PLP members and friends have attacked it.

Transit workers responded positively to PLP’s leadership during the current walkout, some asking to join PLP. Workers can and will fight for our own class interests and for workers’ power when given the opportunity.

• The mechanics who refused to cross the drivers’ picket lines and led their co-workers to march against their own leadership’s strike-breaking orders demonstrate this potential, as do those picketing with County workers, defying divisive union hacks to unite our whole class against racist 2-, 3- and 4-tier wage schemes.

• The drivers and mechanics meeting to plan further actions prove workers will act as a class.

• The youth and workers bringing food and money to transit picket lines see that the working class must rely on itself and its revolutionary communist party, not on any group of bosses.

• Striking workers, friends and members of PLP, have gone to college campuses to discuss the strike and the fight for worker-student unity and revolution. Similar discussions are occurring among janitors and garment workers. More is needed and possible—in factories, schools and barracks!

The unions’ main slogan is, "Give us our fair share." They don’t want workers to think as a class and fight racist, fascist Workfare, welfare cuts or racist attacks on students, much less on Iraqi or Palestinian workers! They want workers thinking, "Give me mine and Rockefeller can have his." That can lead to supporting wars to protect the big bosses’ empire.

Workers cannot fight for our "fair share"—leaving the bosses with their "share," super-profits! Workers produce all value; the bosses steal most of it. The only "fair share" for workers is the whole ball of wax.

Workers Stand Up for Class Struggle Union Candidate

"Do they really work here?" asked a skeptical candidate in the opposition when he saw the endorsements. A dozen workers came out in print endorsing our opposition candidate with comments like, "…One with an intrinsic knowledge of the power possessed by the working class," and "…addresses problems that worker face around the world and how they relate to us."

The political, class-conscious nature of these comments continued in testimonials of class struggle on the shop floor and in union meetings. A group of workers from a subcontractor added their voice: "May your fight and our fight grow in strength and unity!" they wrote, exposing poverty wages paid by this subcontractor to a mostly "minority" workforce.

"…It is refreshing to see a candidate still concerned about the effects of racism so rampant in the workplace," added a veteran with over 20 years seniority.

A shop steward from another union at the plant and a long-time activist from another local at the same company in a different state rounded out the picture. "There are only two sides," said the shop steward "workers’ power or bosses’ power." We "stand for working-class power."

"It’s kind of radical," protested still another candidate in the opposition. " I could never get anybody in my building to say things like that. I don’t think it’ll win you any votes. Of course, I believe it."

"Well, they say things like that in my building," answered our candidate.

"…And people are starting to think like that in my building, too," interrupted yet another member of the opposition.

"Give me a couple of hundred to pass out in my plant," added a fourth candidate, ending the debate.

Workers are listening to what we say. They are discussing it amongst themselves. Carrying on a principled, class-conscious, anti-racist, internationalist campaign is not only possible, but also means something. Our challenge now is to place this campaign in the context of the potential "strike-wave," and increasing preparations for war to take Baghdad for Exxon-Mobil.

We can bust the limits imposed by narrow, trade union politics. The same bosses willing to sacrifice our sons and daughters in the Mid-East eliminate our jobs and speed us up. Our campaign has taken dead aim at these twin attacks. Our battle cry must be, neither oil wars nor economic attacks at the point of production. As one of our shop floor organizers said, with some pride, "They’ve never seen a campaign like this before!"

Mid-West Union Campaigner:

Nader Has Nada for Workers and Youth

BOSTON, MASS, Oct. 3 — Thousands of students and workers protested the first presidential debate between Al Gore and George W. Bush here today. Many were appalled by the exclusion of Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader. PLP members distributed CHALLENGES and over 1,500 leaflets entitled: "No Matter Who’s Elected, Organize to Fight Next Oil War"; and, "Nader: Not a Real Alternative."

Thousands of people, mostly students, have turned to Nader as a leader because they’re fed up with mainstream political parties and the illusion of U.S. democracy. Nader says he represents the working class men and women of this country and wants to take the power out of the few who run the corporations and put it "back into the hands of the masses."

The previous Saturday, PLP members from Boston Univ. and Harvard attended a student-power conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where we raised the likelihood of war in Iraq and struggled against those who urged students to vote. Following one teacher’s statement on ROTC targeting working-class high school youth for recruitment, we made the call for soldiers to turn the guns around on their officers. During the day we met several students interested in PLP’s views. The next day we distributed over 1,000 leaflets at a Nader rally, exposing him as a servant of the biggest bosses.

The bosses’ main use for Nader is to try to encourage the disaffected and cynical youth to participate in the capitalist system. At the same time the rulers have to keep him somewhat isolated, so that masses of workers won’t be swayed from their main henchman, Al Gore. At some of the rallies supporting Nader, the AFL-CIO organized pro-Gore thugs to intimidate and sometimes physically attack Nader supporters at the rally. (Are they enemies? See box.) The AFL-CIO leadership clearly encouraged disunity among the protestors and divisions between workers and students instead of worker-student unity against the bosses and the cops.

During this week, we learned that many workers and students who support Nader are open to, and even support, PLP’s analysis of the failure of capitalism to meet the needs of workers and students. We also obtained a number of contacts interested in PLP’s organizing to oppose the next Mid-East oil war. Relying on the electoral system to choose between one oppressor over another oppressor is not the solution to the racist, sexist system of capitalism. We must try to win these workers and student to building a communist revolution.

The U.S. ruling class knows many workers and students are disenchanted with the two-party system, many realizing that the capitalist class controls both parties. Enter Nader. Rather than weaken the Gore candidacy or tilt the election one way or another, Nader’s job is to mobilize these disenchanted who might not vote at all and draw them back into the electoral system.

Instead of joining the presidential debate protestors, Nader tried to attend the debate itself, but was barred, only reinforcing the idea that Nader is "outside" the capitalist electoral process. Many on the left see him as a true pro-worker/student alternative to the Democrats/Republicans. Many "socialist" parties even endorse his candidacy. However, the liberal bosses know Nader is part of the "responsible" (read: loyal) opposition. Despite any tactical differences with Gore/Bush, Nader is building a pro-U.S. nationalist/patriotic movement. Nader doesn’t want to destroy capitalism. He only wants to reform it. (For more information on Nader’s links to the ruling class, see CHALLENGE, Sept. 20, page 4.)

This past spring, Nader and the AFL-CIO were united in opposing China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, waging a pro-U.S. imperialist campaign. Today, Nader is attacking Gore as a corporate stooge while the AFL-CIO supports Gore as pro-worker. Are they now enemies? Far from it!

Nader and the AFL-CIO continue to condemn super-exploited and forced labor in China, Latin America, Saipan and Southeast Asia but hypocritically do not expose and condemn these same atrocities here in the U.S. Nader’s Public Citizen Global Trade Watch (GTW) says on its website: "…China continues to ignore its 1992 Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. prohibiting trade in prison labor products." Yet, nothing is said about products made with prison labor in the U.S., both for export and domestic use! The U.S. has jailed more people (2/3 black and Latin) than any other nation, a half million more than China (which has nearly FIVE times the population of the U.S.).

The AFL-CIO even defends U.S. prison labor: "The AFL-CIO backs the idea of inmates working but wants it done ‘carefully.’" (Wall Street Journal, 6/29/99)

By ignoring racist prison labor in the U.S., the AFL-CIO and Nader’s GTW help support it. By not tracing the source of exploitation in the U.S. and in other countries to the capitalist system, they set us up to unite with U.S. capitalists in a patriotic nationalist movement, against workers abroad. The leadership of the organizations involved in anti-globalization, anti-Democrat/Republican protests—from the national unions to non-governmental organizations like Nader’s—are trying to channel the anger of honest, principled workers and students opposed to exploitation and oppression into supporting U.S. imperialism. The AFL-CIO has been the "point man" for U.S. imperialism for 50 years, working hand-in-glove with the CIA to crush rank-and-file worker rebellions worldwide. If trade wars turn into shooting wars, a patriotic nationalist movement will suck their followers into supporting such wars.

LETTERS

Why I Was Won to PLP

During the 1999 UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) strike there were a lot of difficult times, but the biggest struggle was with myself. To be apathetic is not very difficult in this country. "I have enough problems of my own without worrying about others" is something heard a lot. We become invididualistic and fall for stupid phrases like, "Even if I wanted to, there’s nothing I can do"; or, "Be happy with what you got," as if we had anything.

Today, I understand a lot I didn’t know before. The long student strike at UNAM not only taught me to hear people but to listen carefully to what they say. I saw how a worker, peasant or housewife can teach many more things than can be learned from a book. They might not know statistics, dates or who Lenin or Marx were, but they know what being exploited means. They know what it is to try to have a better life but cannot because it doesn’t depend on them. To them, a university is something they will never see from the inside.

I was not the only one to see things that way. Many other brothers and sisters did also. A fuse needed to be lit. Our Party tried to reach many of these people, although not enough. But through our study groups and personal conversations we helped light this fuse.

How did the Party do during the strike? Well, I was one of those won to the Party, which leads to an even more important question: WHY was I won? After knowing the Party for several months I realized the only way to change things was to fight for communism, for a society where racism and "races," religions and classes are things of the past.

We must forge ourselves to become red soldiers in the fight for a better world, and help light even more fuses. I know it’s not that easy but once that fuse is lit, your mind becomes free and nothing can change that. Once we unite with those communist ideas, there’s no government, no matter how fascist, capable of stopping us.

Red General Strike Council Activist, UNAM, Mexico

PLP Has Answer for UNITE Organizers

A series of collective struggles inside our Party group have helped us advance our political work. We can overcome many difficulties if we rely on the working class.

I carried these ideas to two friends who are organizers for UNITE, the garment workers union. They are always talking to me about the problems in unionizing. I pointed out to them that workers have always organized themselves, under the most difficult conditions, if they are given correct leadership. It’s difficult to do that with a sellout union—many UNITE members’ earnings barely reach the minimum wage and they have very little job security. So it’s important not to limit our talks with them to simply joining the union. Rather we should broaden our organizing to include fighting exploitation, wage differentials, racism, sexism and all the other divisions the bosses create among us. We must rely on workers, while helping them in on-the-job struggles.

Based on this, we win workers to understand what PLP advocates: that the only solution is to fight for a society where workers rule—communism.

A NYC Garment worker

More on ‘White’ Skin Privilege’

The LA comrade’s letter (9/27) says it seems ludicrous to say that some group of workers is privileged for having less surplus value stolen from them than the rest of working class because of the "white skin privilege" since they, too, need to work in factories and are endangered with layoffs also. But in capitalist society, this privilege is a fact of life. I think the majority of workers agree with the main liberals who say that white workers benefit from racism, since many people are saturated with ruling class ideology. Marx, Engels and Lenin expounded throughout their lives that communist theory cannot be learned from just working in factories, but only from a lifetime of practice and theory in the Party.

The fact is that most workers may know generally what profit is but are not aware of what surplus value is nor do they consider it stolen. In fact, most bosses and certainly their theorists don’t know what surplus value is either. They think it comes from the circulation process as well as the production process. As Marx discovered, "Surplus value and the rate of surplus value are, relatively, the invisible and unknown essence that needs investigating." Workers may feel "cheated" but that’s a far cry from knowing that they are not paid for most of their work—as a class—that value has been stolen from them, as the LA comrade puts it.

It may be "stolen" but they won’t know this until they understand the Marxist theory that explains it. It is not stolen in the sense that someone mugs you on the street. To understand that is not only to be a worker but to be immersed in Marxism-Leninism, within a communist party like the PLP.

NY comrade

In the Party, but Never Alone

I am a communist and a freshman student on a State University of NY campus. I’ve been in the Party for almost two years and very committed to the struggle against capitalism. At times, it has been hard to push the Party’s ideas and still be considered "cool" with my non-communist friends. However, I’ve always had my club’s support and still do. Nevertheless, due to distance it’s impossible for me to attend club meetings or speak to a Party member on a daily basis.

In the past I’ve attended Dialectical Materialism classes, joined in protests, helped organize a walkout and been active in many things, but was never alone. I always functioned in a collective. Now I’m the only Party member on my campus. It is difficult (but possible) to advance the Party’s ideas alone. I’ve met other college Party members who prepared me for this, telling me how to "be in it, to win it," how to form study groups—basically how to spread the Party’s ideas and build a base.

Knowing I have the support of my club and my Party has kept me focused. I feel more committed to PLP than ever before. I thank my comrades for mailing me CHALLENGE, for calling me to see how I’m doing, for sending me e-mails, for writing letters, helping me with school papers and visiting me. I truly appreciate it. As I tell my friend Neo, communism is not a figment of our imagination, it’s a way of life. It is possible. Keep selling CHALLENGES, recruiting members, spreading the Party’s ideas.

Red tig turned college Red

What Che Stood For

This past October 8 marked the 33rd anniversary of the murder of Ernesto "Che" Guevara by CIA-led commandos in Bolivia. Che was indeed one of the most interesting human beings in the revolutionary upsurge during the ’60s. A CHALLENGE supplement on Che, published at the time of the 20th anniversary of his murder, detailed his political error of relying on the "guerrilla foco." He believed that "a few good guerrillas"—not a mass-based revolutionary communist movement—could make a revolution.

That supplement also mentioned Che’s criticisms of Soviet-style socialism which are very close to those made by PLP. He saw the Soviet economy using capitalist methods and laws and said that no matter how small, these capitalist influences will overturn socialism. Che championed political—not material—incentives as the motivation for building a workers’ society.

Although Che is a national hero in Cuba, his criticisms could apply there today where the influence of capitalism is rampant.

We in PLP say that socialism itself carried too many remnants of capitalism (like the wage system). We believe that the road to workers’ liberation is to fight for the abolition of wage slavery and build a society where production corresponds to the needs of the entire working class: communism.

A NYC Reader

AIDS Not a Killer?

Although the article "King Leopold's legacy: Imperialism and the Origin of AIDS" (9/13) makes many good points, here is a counterpoint to the mainstream HIV/AIDS theory.

AIDS in Africa is diagnosed by four clinical symptoms: diarrhea, fever, persistent cough and weight loss of greater than 10% in two months. HIV antibodies are not required (World Health Organization-WHO-definition established 1985). Despite this loose definition, 99.95% of Africans do not have AIDS; 97% of HIV-positive Africans do not have AIDS. TB, malaria and measles far outnumber AIDS in Africa. AIDS is not the leading cause of illness or death in any African nation (WHO, November 1999 Weekly Epidemiological Record; Harvard University Global Burden of Disease Study, 1996; WHO, Geneva 1996 Fighting Disease, Fostering Development).

The article states, "HIV/AIDS will kill 67% of today's teenagers in some African countries." This seems to refer to a report by Robert Gallo that 67% of blood specimens collected in 1972/73 from 75 Ugandan children were HIV positive (Saxinger et al., 1985). Why, 22 years later, isn't Uganda depopulated?

UCSF researcher Tom Coates in Washington, D.C. on 7/28/99 revealed three AZT clinical trial studies being conducted on pregnant women in Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria. AZT is known to cause birth defects in pregnant women and was shelved in the late '60s as a possible cancer drug because it was found to be too toxic for human consumption. Now Glaxo-Wellcome, the pharmaceutical giant, has every intention of dumping AZT on the people of Africa.

For anyone who wants more information on AIDS dissent, e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for an information packet which will give you many sources from the Perth group in Australia to retrovirologist, Peter Duesberg, at Berkeley, etc.

CHALLENGE Reader

AIDS Denial Is a Killer

Since the AIDS epidemic began, a handful of "AIDS dissidents," led by the University of California-Berkeley's Peter Duesberg, have denied that HIV causes AIDS. Though scientifically discredited, Duesberg's monstrous hoax received new lifeblood when President Mbeki invited him to join a South African AIDS panel. However, evidence linking HIV and AIDS is as compelling in Africa as in the U.S. For instance, among Ugandans aged 25-34, HIV-positive people were 27 times more likely to die than HIV-negative people. Projections of the impact of AIDS on Africa's youth are not Gallo's, but were reported by UNAIDS in June 2000.

Currently, infection rates are based on many clinical studies, using highly accurate antibody and PCR tests. Early on, African doctors noted the alarming rise of ailments as exotic in Uganda as in Iowa: severe wasting in well-nourished young patients; cryptococcal meningitis, PCP, AIDS dementia. It is racist for Duesberg to suggest that African doctors can't distinguish between these and endemic diseases.

(Note: Reuters reported on Oct. 3 that South African doctors urged an end to a raging debate over President Thabo Mbeki's controversial AIDS views, saying it was confusing people who should be focusing on fighting the spread of the AIDS virus. The South African Medical Association (SAMA) said it was concerned at the growing number of people who were now questioning the existence of the AIDS precursor, the HIV virus, after Mbeki questioned the causal link between the two. "The point we want to raise is that at this point in time there shouldn't really be discussion about whether HIV causes AIDS," said SAMA chairman Zolile Mlisana. "Whether HIV causes AIDS or not is not a matter of speculation, it's a question of scientific fact.")

At present, malaria and TB kill more Africans than AIDS. But HIV has an 8-10 year incubation period, and has only recently arrived. Another decade will pass before millions of infected people die, during which countless others will be infected. Malaria and TB mainly kill the very young and old. AIDS will have a greater impact because it kills the young and middle-aged, those of child-bearing, family-supporting and teaching age.

Mbeki has said that the real cause of AIDS is poverty. He's right! Without imperialism's crimes, the pandemic would have never happened. But coming from the president, in bed with the International Monetary Fund and national bosses, this expresses the utmost cynicism. Picture an inner city high-rise in flames, while children jump from windows. On the sidelines stands the fire chief, shaking his head: "They're dying because they are poor, what can we do?"

Unlike harmless crackpot theories, AIDS denial has lethal consequences. It's as bad as holocaust denial, because it disarms the international working class from fighting against this holocaust.

[Sources: Nunn et al. (1997) BMJ 315:767; Durban declaration (2000), Nature 406: Cherry (2000) Nature 406:113; UNAIDS report, Geneva, 6/2000; Schwartzlander et al (2000) Science 289:64; Ackah et al. (1995) Lancet 345: 607. Evidence that HIV causes AIDS is convincingly summarized at www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm]

Red Scientist

Capitalism Can’t Conquer AIDS

The debate about the origins of AIDS in Africa seems to be missing a key element. Neither the scientific or political forces organized around Mbeke nor those organized by the UN and the imperialist AIDS establishment will never permanently conquer the disease. Some of the medical triumphs of the now failed revolution in China are very pertinent here.

A British surgeon, Dr. Joshua Horn, who practiced in revolutionary China, recorded his experiences in a fascinating book, "Away With All Pests." Chapter 9, The Conquest of Syphilis, should be read by anyone involved in the fight against AIDS.

As the communists saw it, the solution to abolishing any disease is not simply toi reduce it to its medical components. Medical treatment was not primarily a battle to find the right combination of drugs. The primary causes of syphilis were political. They were found in the invading and indigenous armies fighting in the service of exploiters; in poverty, drug addiction and sexism. In short in feudalism, capitalism and imperialism.

Magic bullets like Salvarsan, or later penicillin, while clinically effective, could not halt syphilis from spreading worldwide. But communist-led revolution did. In 1966, when there were less than 20 cases per hundred million in China, there were 46,561 NEW cases among U.S. troops alone in Vietnam!

Currently a vicious round of wars, all fought in the service of exploiters, are devastating Africa. There are now 12 million refugees shuttling from country to country and countless millions of internal refugees. All the imperialists, especially the French and the U.S., are up to their necks supporting one or another faction in these wars. Infrastructure or costs of drugs (as the AIDS Conference implied) are not the main problem under these circumstances.

I salute all those active in the fight against AIDS and believe that communists who launch an unremitting attack on the liberal-led AIDS establishment will be able to win many honest forces from both camps of the virus/no virus reform debate.

An Anti-imperialist

Page 763 of 770

CHALLENGE, Nov. 15, 2000

Editorial:

Whether Bush or Gore, Prepare for an Oil War!

Win Voters and Non-Voters Away from Capitalism!

Winning Youth at Nader Group to Oppose Racism

Proviso Teacher Strike Can Serve The Working Class

Sterilize Racist Bosses, Not Poor Women! Oppose Racist C.R.A.C.K.

Union Relies On Cops, Politicians

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Building blocks for revolution at Purdue Calumet Univ.

Anti-Racist Forum Draws 250

LA Teachers Must Include Demands in Favor of Students

Mid-East War Becoming More Urgent Question

It Felt Like New Blood in my Body

Postal Union Leaders Treat Rank-and-File Workers as Second Class

LETTERS

Lessons in the Life of a New Teacher

History Channel Ignores Fact that Red Saved Jews During WW 2

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Red Delegate Blasts UFT Racism on Middle East Conflict

CHALLENGE, November 8, 2000

Editorial: Fed Up with Bosses'Electoral Circus, Oil WarsFIGHT FOR WORKERS' POWER!

Angry Students Charge the Justice Department

Purdue Students Organize toSTOP RACIST PROFESSORS

CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS GROWS IN BAY AREA TRANSIT STRUGGLES

1,000 POSTAL WORKERS PROTEST CONTRACT TALKS

TV Rules for Schools: Praise Principals, Slam Students

Bosses Lower `Boom' on Workers--7 Days a Week

Bosses'Hi Tech Tool to Cut Subway Clerks Crashes

Israeli Soldiers Refuse to Be `Good Nazis'

How the Israeli and U.S. Press Lie

What Should Revolutionary-Minded Workers and Youth Do in the Middle East?

NYC Jewish Youth Plans Actions Against Butchery by Israeli Army

Join the Bosses' Navies and See the (Under) World

Boston '75: A Summer of Struggle - A Lifetime Transformation

WEST COAST PLPSTUDENT CONFERENCE

LETTERS

Bosses'War Plant Vs. Workers Unity

Racism Discussion Sparks Student Club

Strikes: Schools for Revolution

Reality Is Not in Your Mind

CHALLENGE 1NY TIMES 0

I Am Tired of Just Helping One at a Time

CHALLENGE, Nov. 1, 2000

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‘The Uncommitted’ Vs. The Most Committed

Capitali$t Democracy In Action

Cynicism: A Two-Edged Sword

Democratic Centralism: From The Masses To The Masses

Ralph Nader: Another Dead End!

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Workers, Youth Rally Against Racist Killer Cops

Misleaders Put The Brakes On La Transit Strike

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El Salvador: Cynicism Has No Place in Fight Against Attacks Suffered by Teachers

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LTV Steelworkers Fight Racist Firing And Arrest

Welfare Workers, Recipients Victims of Fascist Attacks

College Haven for Scabs

Apartheid Continues: AIDS and South African Capitalism

Gore Pimps For Pfizer

War Alert

Turn the Guns Around:

a name="Yesterday’s ‘Freedom Fighter’ is Today’s ‘Terrorist’"></a>Yester"ay’s ‘Freedom Fighter’ is Today’s ‘Terrorist’

200 Bucks for a Passport?

Capitalism Drugs Our Children

Poverty, Racism, Sexism Masks US AIDS Victims

CHALLENGE, Oct. 25. 2000

Bush-Gore Prepare for War in Middle EastOil Bosses' Suck Workers' Blood

Clinton-Barak-Arafat Cease Fire A Band Aid Ov er a Gaping Wound

OOPS

The Oil Equation: Chevron + Texaco = Mass Layoffs, War

Burning Desire? Put Out the Fire!

Garment Workers' Solidarity with MTA Workers

Strikers Hail Mechanics'Solidarity

GROWTH OF PLP IS TOP GAIN IN MUNI CONTRACT

Hacks Put (Sub)Contract Out on Workers' Jobs

Fight Against Bosses' Oil War Plans Inside Mass Organizations

Immigrants March Against Racism and Against Partial Amnesty

Editorial: Fed Up with Bosses'Electoral Circus, Oil Wars
FIGHT FOR WORKERS' POWER!

Purdue Students Organize to
STOP RACIST PROFESSORS

WEST COAST PLP
STUDENT CONFERENCE

CHALLENGE 1
NY TIMES 0

Bush-Gore Prepare for War in Middle East
Oil Bosses' Suck Workers' Blood