Pakistan: cadre school builds internationalism

PAKISTAN, July 23—Thirty-three families participated in a Progressive Labor Party (PLP) Summer Cadre School in Pakistan for one week in July. Some of the topics that were discussed included: How establishing a classless society is the only way the working class can get rid of poverty and exploitation. How communism is the only way to make this world a prosperous and peaceful place to live without prejudices and slavery. How the bosses are making the working class emotionally enslaved by injecting religious and racial prejudices. How the bosses are spreading fundamentalism, nationalism, racism and sectarianism to keep the working class divided and fighting with each other. How to build the fight against ethnic and racial divisions that the bosses spread in the working class. How to build a communist party and movement for a workers led revolution. The school was held at a hilly station at the border of India and Pakistan.

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From Hawaii: Maui fires, a capitalist disaster

HAWAII, August 15—Real estate developers, bankers, and tourist billionaires were exploiting the natural beauty of Maui and the labor of local workers. Seventy thousand visitors were on the island on any given day. Everything was cool, right? In fact, there was plenty to worry about. An initial fire broke out on August 8 at 12.22 a.m. in Upcountry Maui. Another brush fire was reported near the Lahaina elementary school at 6:37 a.m. Subsequent fires started nearby. Horrific flames began tearing through the small town just after 5 p.m., lasting through the night. What seems like a disaster of nature is actually the result of the failure of capitalism to safeguard lives and the environment.

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Students, not suspects! Fight racist policing in schools

Prince George’s County, MD. August 12—There’s a new Black “sheriff” in Prince George’s County—Superintendent of PGC Schools, Millard House, who quickly outed himself as serving ruling-class interests. His first racist policy is putting metal detectors in county high schools and some middle schools and requiring clear backpacks for students. As if having cops in the schools wasn’t enough, he wants to perfect the racist school-to-prison pipeline! We reject our working-class students being treated like suspects and criminals! Progressive Labor Party (PLP) calls on all readers to join the fight to defeat the entire capitalist system which generates systemic racism like these policies, which are aimed at weakening our unity and terrorizing our class, the working class. Our class needs to take power through communist revolution, where we will determine educational policies that ensure the full development of each of us to better serve our class globally.

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Charge capitalist state with racism

BALTIMORE, August 3—The courts are institutionally racist, and serve the capitalist class; it’s their legal system, not ours, and it’s definitely not neutral. With this in mind, at last week’s West Wednesday rally, a member of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) explained his anger about the trial of a local squeegee worker, facing murder charges. Last summer, a young Black man was working informally to earn tips at an intersection, asking drivers if they’d like their windshield washed. On July 7, 2022 a white motorist, Timothy Reynolds, pulled over haphazardly amidst heavy traffic, and walked across about 10 lanes of traffic with a metal bat to attack the squeegee workers. He forcefully swung at them, an immediate and deadly threat. One of the squeegee workers, in defense of himself and others, shot Reynolds, who was pronounced dead at a hospital.

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The Soviet Union and the Comintern: Organizing the Dream of a Workers’ World

Marxist communism was an international movement from the moment Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto in 1848, “Working people of all countries, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.” Before that, the Haitian, French and American Revolutions had all included a strain of internationalism. This dream of a workers’ world built on smashing the capitalist institutions of borders and nation-states found its first organizational form in the International Workingmen’s Association, the “First International,” founded in London in 1864 with delegates from several European nations, who drafted Marx to write its program.

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Red Eye On The News...September 6, 2023

The fight for African resources sharpens BBC, 8/6–Niger has become the latest country in West Africa where the army has seized control, following Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, and Chad - all former French colonies. Since 1990, a striking 78% of the 27 coups in sub-Saharan Africa have occurred in Francophone states leading some commentators to ask whether France - or the legacy of French colonialism - is to blame? Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, who was named prime minister by the military junta in Mali in September 2022, launched a scathing attack on France. Criticising "neocolonialist, condescending, paternalist and vengeful policies"...

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Editorial: U.S. lap dog Israel moves toward fascism

In yet another blow to the crumbling U.S.-led imperialist world order, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s hard-right coalition passed a bill to strip the Supreme Court of much of its power to check the country’s moves toward open fascism. The U.S.—home of genocide, slavery, Jim Crow, and lynchings to this day by the capitalists’ kkkops—is sounding the alarm that its longtime ally is being “degraded” into “a corrupt and racist dictatorship.” Although workers in Israel erupted in protests, most are drinking the poison of liberal democracy and nationalism.

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Housing crisis: Demolish capitalism, build communism

CHICAGO, July 19—Chants rang out from working-class tenants and their supporters: “People’s needs over landlords’ greed!” Seventy-five pro-housing fighters gathered in front of their south side apartment protesting their eviction notice by the new owners, a property management company by the name of LeVav. Copies of CHALLENGE were distributed to arm our class with communist ideas to counter this racist attack against the mostly Black senior residents of the building. In a communist society, housing will no longer be a commodity, something to be bought and sold, it will be guaranteed for all working-class people. The notion of rent will be abolished completely. When we in Progressive Labor Party (PLP) say, “Fight for communism,” we mean an egalitarian society where housing justice is guaranteed!

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“I’m A Virgo”: captures capitalist crisis and Big Fascists

I’m a Virgo is a new TV series that depicts the coming-of-age story of a 13-foot tall 19-year-old Black giant named “Cootie.” Boots Riley, the series director, was raised in the Progressive Labor Party—in interviews, he often recounts how, in his teenage years, the Party took him on a summer project to organize farm workers in California. I’m a Virgo still retains and forwards elements of PLP’s line: the Big Fascists (liberal finance capitalists masquerading as friends of the working class, see Glossary, page 6) are the greatest threat to the working class and Black workers are key to revolution.

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Racist housing conditions = social murder

NEWARK, NJ, July 21—While liberal fascist Mayor Ras Baraka and Newark’s ruling class are preoccupied with portraying Newark as a model city, working people and students in Newark are left to reckon with social murder through police terror, decaying schools, displacement, high rent prices, deplorable living conditions and faux gestures of solidarity between wealthy developers, antiracist fighters and workers. Stephen Crane Village, one of the last housing projects in Newark, with a demographic of mostly poor and disabled, Black and Latin workers, made news when a horrible explosion leveled part of a building. Six people have been injured and one person is in critical condition. A total of 31 people are on the brink of homelessness, living in a hotel that they cannot afford and at the hands of Newark Housing Authority to provide access to the next crumbling complex. This is not a long term solution for working people and the longer we leave our futures in the hands of these crooked misleaders, the more members of our class will die.

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