Biden’s reforms build for war
The House of Representatives, spearheaded by Democrats, servants of the liberal old money wing of U.S. imperialists, voted to include an immigration provision in Jim Crow Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill. Aside from the fact that the Congressional parliamentarian may exclude the provision, the debate in the Senate, whether the bill passes or not, will further intensify fear, repression, racist scapegoating and exploitation of immigrant workers. What does it all mean?
So-called Plan C will temporarily infuse the capitalist economy with “in chains” low wage workers to fill momentary job shortages, guarantee huge profits for businesses and aid in the liberal strategy to control inflation. The “immigration reform” will position young workers to serve as cannon fodder in the next war. Horrendous fascist conditions at the border will intensify. The provision in the bill is a big fascist attack on the working class, leaving immigrant workers vulnerable to deportation at the end of five to ten years.
The crumbs thrown by these liberal wolves in sheep’s clothing are sweet, but are certainly poisoned. Comrades participating in pro-immigrant groups, community groups, unions, schools, etc. need to step up the fight for amnesty as we fight inside the movement facing endless reforms to benefit the capitalists. It’s hard to do but we must do it as we sharpen the struggle to unite the working class, men, women, Black, Latin, Asian, white, immigrant, and workers of different backgrounds and sexual orientation. We must redouble our confidence in the working class as we fight against illusions in the bosses’ reforms and for the necessity to be in the protracted struggle for communist revolution and workers’ power.
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Party parents organize vaccination drive
Communists have the outlook of both organizing against capitalism and building ties in the working class. Many have written about building connections on the job, in unions, and at schools. Parents can also build these ties within the communities of their children by fighting against racism and making the personal political.
Recently Chicago Public Schools (CPS) had a “Vaccine Awareness Day” and school was closed so elementary age children could get vaccinated. But while several private schools on the North Side arranged to have mass vaccination events at their schools for children and parents, almost no Chicago public schools had similar events planned.
In fact, the Chicago Department of Health and Board of Education claimed that school vaccination events hadn’t worked in other places and purposely made no effort to create these opportunities.
However, one school that serves 80 percent working-class students and many Spanish-speaking students went ahead anyway under the leadership of a Progressive Labor Party (PLP) parent. We organized a pharmacy to come that day and vaccinate both children and adults. To answer questions and increase knowledge and confidence in the vaccine, we held a Q&A event with a bilingual physician during the week before the event. The day of the event, we brought banners, balloons, snacks, and even got news coverage.
Having this in the neighborhood worked out well—127 people were vaccinated including some neighbors whose children did not attend the public school. Meanwhile at a rich private school, 600 people were vaccinated in one day.
The disparity in Covid-19-related deaths has been well documented now and it appears that CPS and the Chicago Department of Health are more than happy to let that continue. PLP is organizing to change these racist decisions and to build multiracial community power so workers and parents can be in charge the next time and get everyone the care they need.