New York City, October 16 — Over 80 students and professors rallied in front of John Jay College, demanding that both David “Death Squad” Petraeus and ROTC be kicked out of CUNY, the city public university system. These students and professors are determined to not only throw the military off our campus, but to create an anti-imperialist movement within the CUNY system.
ROTC + Petraeus = War Preparations
Wanted posters of racist Petraeus were held up by PL’ers and friends. A PLP flyer was distributed explaining why ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) was being brought to CUNY: the military needs to expand and diversify in preparation for future wars in the Middle East and Asia, where the U.S. plans to challenge the growing power of its Chinese rival (see page 2). CHALLENGE featuring numerous articles about the struggles at CUNY was also distributed. Our literature explained that colleges exist to serve the labor and ideological needs of the bosses to build an imperialist empire — through war research, military recruitment, patriotism, and of course, ROTC, which provides 30 percent of the military’s officers.
The ruling class is seeking tighter control of their educational factories and is intensifying their recruitment tactics at universities. Youth are reluctant of joining the imperialist war machine, given what they’ve seen in the last twelve years:
General Petraeus is also part of the imperialist chokehold on campus. This mass murderer was the keynote speaker at a gala, where the minimum price for entry was $500. (Some were willing to pay up to $50,000 for a plate.) “Drones” Petraeus is heralded as an example for students to follow. A “warrior-scholar,” he embodies the ideal soldier: ruthless in his commitment to imperialism. As a top-ranking general in the U.S. military, Petraeus installed death squads against Shi’a populations in Afghanistan, dropped white phosphorus in Iraq and unleashed drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and more. Now Petraeus is spreading patriotism at CUNY. The Administration, in cahoots with the bosses’ need to feed its military machine with student bodies, happily supplies him with all the resources he needs to preach the ruling class’s murderous ideology.
But things haven’t worked out quite as planned. Since the semester began, racist Petraeus was driven from location to location by masses of angry students. In September, a video was released of Petraeus surrounded by protesters demanding his resignation, chanting “murderer!” to his face. The following week, six students from CUNY were brutally assaulted and arrested by the
kkkops. They now face trial in the bosses’ courts, prosecuted by the system of capitalism for daring to speak out.
The bosses’ attacks only emboldened the students. Instead of just targeting Petraeus, protesters demanded an end to imperialist war and to the militarization of CUNY. One student declared, “Militarization is when a child grows up idolizing the army and the police. It’s when that same child goes to school to be harassed by the police in their own school, which is a jail. It’s when recruiters come on to their campus and try to make them join the other side.” CUNY intends to increase its tuition yet again while forcing students into the military to cover the costs of their education. This vicious trap is being employed in one of the few colleges that working-class black and Latino students can afford.
Up the Anti-Imperialist Ante
We are building for our college conference on November 8 and 9. We need to organize against ROTC and Petraeus on every campus:
While the demonstration was overwhelmingly positive, there are missing aspects. Some spoke about revolution but avoided the word communism. PLP believes we need to be open in our struggle for communism.
The struggle for communism represents the hope for the working class to build a world free from exploitation, police terror and war! Communism means an end to the capitalist profit system, to all forms of class exploitation and inequality: racism, sexism, and nationalism.
Communism means giving birth to an egalitarian society, uniting mental and manual labor, where our books and education won’t be stamped with a price, our classroom will be the whole world and every worker a lifelong student, and every student furthers the development of our communist society. Come to the PLP College Conference to find out why we need, and how we can build, a communist revolution!
As communists, we are not pacifists. We do not argue against war. We wage war for our class. Our enemies — David Petraeus, the CUNY Administration, the bosses’ courts and police — are waging war for their class. It’s about time we fight back. We must build for revolution on every campus, workplace and military base. To build for revolution, we must attack our enemies, strengthen our base, and recruit people to PLP. Fight the bosses wherever they are!