The following speech was be given at an Education May Day in New York City.
The world under capitalism is failing and there are two emerging options—the bosses’ option is fascism. Fascism through increased surveillance and police, war over profits and power, destruction of health and education systems, and other crimes against us. Covid-19 has laid bare the lethal racist inequalities of the profit system. From the United States to Africa, from Latin America to South Asia, workers everywhere are suffering unnatural deaths from the disease of capitalism. The choice between capitalist decay and an international communist future has never been clearer.
For the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), our way is building a communist world where workers seize power and erect a society in the interest of the entire international working class.
Neighborhoods, churches, schools, prisons, hospitals, community centers, trains, and buses. These are some of the places where PLP is cultivating a culture of fightback and pro-communist ideas and practices. We are building a Party where all workers and lives are considered essential.
May Day is the celebration of class. Today, we bridge our demands together to fight for communism, a world where exploitation of workers by bosses is banned and racism and sexism is outlawed. The coronavirus is an opportunity for bosses to increase their power but also for workers to fight back and build a world worthy of us. With our responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, communists and friends of the party are already showing how a communist world where we rely on each other instead of bosses could be possible. Haiti. Mexico. Colombia. Chicago. Los Angeles. East Africa. All over the world, we are finding innovative ways to safeguard the health and fighting spirit of our class.
In the last year alone, we have many fightbacks to celebrate:
Meanwhile, how are the bosses responding? On one side, the Small Fascist domestic bosses are pushing to open businesses back up. See, no matter the way they go about it, the ruling class puts workers around the world last and the well being of their profits first! They are building a new world that will put us all in danger but Big Fasicst liberals like Cuomo in NY, Ras Baraka in Newark, AMLO in Mexico, Lori Lightfoot in Chicago are the main danger for workers today and moving forward after Covid-19. The Big Fascist liberals send their lackeys like NY Governor Cuomo to cry crocodile tears while still ripping out the vital resources. They smile in our face while planning ways to lock Black and Latin workers up, whether that’s in the prison system or in debt to the banks. With our chains attached, they’ll ship us to war against their biggest rivals, China and Russia but package the gift of joining their multiracial ranks as freedom from capitalism.
To be a communist means to step up in defense of the working class, now in crisis, and forever in struggle. The opportunities to serve our class will continue on even after Covid-19. It is only by the international working class uniting together to fight back against this racist, sexist system that we can put in real work to free us all.
Worldwide, capitalist infrastructure is crumbling. From our homes, schools, prisons, and the slaughterhouse-hospitals, workers lives matter as long as they create profit. It is our duty as members of the international working class to take responsibility for each other and lead the way toward a communist future. Power to the working class!