Letters ... June 21, 2023

Neither education bosses nor union misleaders care about students
There’s a reason why the club is the most important part of the Progressive Labor Party. It is the collective that we need in order to do the important work that we do. As soon as the teachers union in our city put out an email saying that they were having actions as a reaction to the Department of Education (DOE) putting out a calendar that stripped holidays away from kids and forced us into what almost amounts to a sixth class, we knew that the sellout was underway.

As soon as the email was sent, comrades in a club contacted each other. They discussed what was going on as far as the context of the DOE putting out a calendar with no regard for the negotiations with the union. This conversation then focused on answering the question of how this attack on the teachers was also an attack on students. Increasing the amount of time that students are in school, though it appears to be an improvement, is actually an attack on students by grinding them down with more work. Now, the fact that there would be a uniform starting time of 8 am would wreak havoc on bussing the neediest students. This is all a part of the need for the bosses to build fascism as they increase the workload their parents have.

The  bargaining pattern that the teacher’s union is following is the union that represents the hardest hit of the working class: laborers who are primarily women, Black, and Latin. They are jumping the gun and grabbing the deal the liberal bourgeoisie demands.

Conversations the next day with coworkers were sharp as the comrades were fresh from the collective discussion that focused them on how it was an attack on students and why the bosses were attacking now. One comrade sat down in the teachers center and wrote a chapter update with several teachers, struggling with each one to see the current issue within the context of class struggle and the union misleaders as servants of the bourgeoisie.

The rumors were that the contract was a done deal and that the whole fight the union was putting up was a smoke screen to help the teachers take a terrible deal and call it a victory. The union bosses are creating this whole façade to help them sell us a contract that will likely attack our students by speeding them up and increasing their hours; attack our healthcare because keeping us alive is too expensive; and give us an inflation-affected, pennies on the dollar raise.

It is the collective working together and sharing of understanding that allows the Party to be able to struggle with our coworkers and against the bosses. The next step is to continue to discuss this attack with our students, their parents, and continue to do so with teachers through Chapter Updates and any means we have at our disposal. And let’s not forget the fight for communism where workers will really be educated about how capitalism works and how to get rid of it with communist revolution.

In Atlanta, more than 100 people from all over the U.S. gave over 15 hours of public comment to the local City Council against a huge cop training facility, better known as Cop City. The Black, Asian, Muslim and nonbinary council members still voted yes to expanding police terror and fascism through the 90 million dollar project. This is what the Party means by liberal fascism.

The case of organizers fighting through the system and being denied is what it looks like. Placing liberals and marketing them as friendly faces in the highest offices is not enough for the ever growing masses of workers that are turning to militant fightback over the ballot boxes. The U.S. and worldwide infrastructure from schools to roadways are crumbling. The bosses need police to keep workers repressed, terrorized and focused on the ploy to blame themselves and each other for the circumstances brought on by a profit driven system.
*****

Cop city = liberal fascism
Cop City is in response to what was the largest mass antiracist protest that spurred from George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s vicious murders by kkkops. The fight around #STOPCOPCITY is one of the most critical struggles that we must not only keep our eyes on but expand in every city. Because there is a training ground for cops and military that’s being built or expanded in every city. And building up the capabilities of the police and military is the liberal ruling class’ plan as the system of capitalism becomes more unstable. Liberal politicians in Atlanta, Newark, L.A., Chicago, Mexico, Colombia are the ones side by side with the corporations funding the war and the police waging it. As communists in the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), use the case of organizers trying to stop Cop City as a reason for why revolution will never be on the ballot and must be enacted by communist fighters in one mass internationalist Party. Our class needs leadership, our friends are learning from us and our children are watching. Let’s fight for each other and fight together!
*****

poetry vs. alienation under capitalism
I wrote this poem with all the rage I had after being humiliated by the boss at my workplace for being gay. I was told that I had to censor myself to respond to the sensitivities of anti-gay sexism of people at the workplace. People in solidarity with me had to witness this.

Fatality
The leader who misunderstands his understanding
Of his own alliances
With the system that is making him a weapon against the ghost of his own better     
ideals
Long ago sold to his masters
Exposed and corroding

Tragedy
Not the worker who was made to choke
On the pride & joy of sharing how they    
exist
In response
To the attack, the shame, the guilt
Of others’ prejudice and bigotry

Pitiful
The liberal boss who says they seek justice
In equally protecting the right of people
With violent ideas
Of having double standards
   Not thinking twice of the intent
  Emanating from white bodies,
       or heterosexual bodies
 While being trained to fire the bullet of guilt without hesitation on bodies of darker skin, on feminine bodies
Fanning the flames of division and distrust
Within the working class to distract…
Better than any open fascist can
And retaining the power of their terror concealed

Misfortune
The educator who hides their own lack of confidence in the working class…behind
Respect for cultural populations whose bigoted ideas “unfortunately cannot be changed”
When in reality it is their own racist limitations that hold them hostage from fighting for what is better

Optimism
Those who surpassed a new limit
In the courage and action
They were willing to undertake
In standing side by side
With workers being attacked
For fighting to put all power
In the hands of the working class

Forward
The people whose solidarity with the working class has forever changed
When being pierced by being witness to the visceral pain of a fellow worker who has been attacked
   While the bosses seek the justice that serves      themselves
   In the spiritual lynchings they unleash              
On the spirit of the fighters ready to  expose their masters

Victory
To the communists
Who are lodging confidence
     Deeper and deeper
   within the working class
By turning painful attacks
Into fights
And never losing sight
Of what is the win
Up against the terror the bosses use
To have us see everything but that