Letters of March 3

Gorman’s poem whitewashes U.S. history
I don't like poetry stuffed with cliches. And, as a communist, I detest the deeply hypocritical American Exceptionalist doctrine that the United States is the standard-bearer for freedom and justice around the world. So while the mass media have been swooning over Amanda Gorman's delivery of her poem "The Hill We Climb" at the January 20 Presidential inauguration, I have been gritting my teeth.
Advocate of liberal multiculturalism were overjoyed that this young Black woman proclaimed the U.S.  to be "benevolent but bold, fierce and free," and that the legacy of "our forefathers" who "first realized revolution" is one worth celebrating. But the poem's central metaphor of "the hill we climb" recalls the famous "City on the Hill" invoked by Puritan John Winthrop before the "settlement" of Boston in 1630 (and subsequent genocide of the indigenous inhabitants of Massachusetts).
This image of the U.S. as a glorious model for the rest of the world to look up to and worship has over the centuries figured as the supreme expression of American Exceptionalism. The "City on the Hill"  would be repeatedly invoked in the 1980s by none other than quintessentially racist and imperialist Ronald Reagan. The metaphor announced in the poem's title is hardly politically innocent.
The media's talking heads just *loved* Gorman's poem because it reaffirmed the false–but oh so consoling–belief that the U.S.  was not and is not based upon racist exploitation and oppression; that U.S. "democracy" is alive and well; that, in the wake of the Donald Trump years, "we" will "raise this wounded world into a wondrous one."
Gorman's delivery of the poem on the steps of the Capitol did the job "Hamilton” has done on Broadway over the past several years—namely, to whitewash U.S. history.
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Bosses’ forum admits the threat of world war
Both Russian and Chinese leaders, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, made statements at the Davos World Economic Forum that the growing threat of trade wars and conflicts points to a heightened likelihood of war on a global scale. From Syria and Iran to Afghanistan, from the South China Sea to Venezuela, from Africa to Haiti, political, economic, and military conflicts are taking on more ominous threats to humanity.
The pandemic and its ensuing economic crisis sharpened contradictions between the three great imperialist powers of today: the United States, Russia, and China. U.S. economic and military power, while still dominant, is quickly receding as its rival China expands its economic grip on world commerce. It has successfully extended its influence in Africa, Latin America, and Asia with its infamous ‘Belt and Road Initiative.’ As a result of this new pressure, U.S. imperialism is desperate to resort to military conflict while it still has the upper hand. The split in the ruling class between the imperialist finance capitalists and domestic capitalist rivals has yet to be resolved.
Progressive Labor Party says workers’ blood should not be shed in support of the power struggles, both internal and global, of these capitalist scum. Their interest is furthering the accumulation of profits through never-ending exploitation of workers, unsafe working conditions and ultimately, another global war that will threaten the lives of hundreds of millions of workers on six continents.
It is our responsibility to educate our working-class brothers and sisters of the serious nature of this real threat and share that the only real solution to our problems is a communist revolution led by the international Progressive Labor Party.
Concretely, this also means distributing and discussing the content of our Party newspaper CHALLENGE. We must increase party-led study groups to recruit many, more workers to build PLP into the mass leadership of our class. We must take off our blinders and realize opportunity and necessity have synthesized to build the mass party we have talked about for years. We cannot rest on our laurels. The rise of fascism, racism, and global war requires our total effort.
Ask each reader to join a party study group. Be creative. Write for CHALLENGE. No matter how “feeble” you think your skills are, write the articles. Your comrades are here to help. Recruit, Recruit, Recruit! Smash imperialist war with the communist revolution!

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Connection between Capitol Insurrection and Imperialist Tactics
The premises of the invasion of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6 were near reenactments of the false ideologies used to justify U.S. imperialist wars.
Much has been made, by the mass media of every stripe, of the violent and racist (Confederate flag laden) invasion of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6.  Thousands acted in a threatening manner toward anyone in their path, based on two elements:
First, repeated lies that led to their belief that the election had really been stolen and that Donald Trump had actually gotten more votes but that they had been deliberately miscounted by members of both the Democratic and the Republican parties, and
Second, they thought that something  they wanted, but which was not in their interest – namely Trump’s victory—was being threatened.
The Capitol insurrection is parallel to the following. First, mainly working-class soldiers are sent to invade other countries under the influence of their belief in the repeated lies that the U.S. is the world’s greatest democracy and the freest country, and it has the responsibility to deliver democracy to every other country in the world, and second, they believe that invading other countries is done in order to protect the homeland from invasion and to keep all of us in the U.S. safe.
This is the way that U.S. imperialism is able to convince our class, the working class, that it is in our interest to take part enthusiastically in their  “heroic” missions.
In reality, Trump lost the election, his victory (like that of any capitalist politician) would be against the interest of his supporters, and U.S. imperialist wars are not to defend the homeland and our families but rather for the purpose of making and keeping the world safe for U.S. capitalist profits. This is also against the interest of the working class everywhere in the world, including in the U.S.
Many participants in the invasion of the Capitol were trained by the U.S. military and believe in a mission that really is intended by its organizers to save U.S. profits and believe in the idea that Trump is their savior.
It is further the case that under an exploitative system that is capitalism is in place, no politician or political party—including the liberals and Democrats, not just Trump and the Republicans—can possibly act in the interests of the working class since they must all act to preserve the system. And that is always going to be against the interests of the victims of that exploitation that defines the essence of the capitalist system.