Editorial: Canada wildfires - Capitalism the firestarter behind climate disaster

Toxic air plagued much of the U.S. in early June as wildfires raged throughout Canada. On June 6, New York City experienced the worst pollution on record, beyond the “emergency” level set by the Environmental Protection Agency and nearly four times the level considered “unhealthy.”. Hypocritical calls by liberal misleaders like New York Mayor Eric Adams, to “stay home if you can'' were too little too late, as smoke darkened orange-hued skies. Most workers couldn’t heed Adams’ call, since no work means no pay–and the capitalist bosses weren’t about to lose profits to protect workers. Black and Latin workers in the poorest neighborhoods suffered the most as the choking air caused emergency room visits to soar, especially for those with asthma and other respiratory illnesses (Gothamist, 6/12). The dirty air crisis piled on the already poisonous effects of living under capitalism.

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Justice for Hadi: SMASH RACIST SYSTEM & THEIR KKKOPS

OAK LAWN, ILLINOIS, June 7–The international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) once again joined forces with several community organizations tonight to protest at the monthly Oak Lawn Police & Fire Board meeting. We are keeping firm in our demand that the three KKKops who beat Arab teenager Hadi Abuatelah be fired and prosecuted for their vicious assault which resulted in his hospitalization and lingering trauma. One kkkop, Patrick O’Donnell, has been indicted, but we demand all three be fired and prosecuted for this racist attack.

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Smashing racism is a pillar of communism

Worldwide, the summer months have historically been a time of training for Progressive Labor Party (PLP). As we gear up for summer of learning, fightback, and recommitment to communism, it’s to reflect on one of PLP’s pillars from inception: the fight against racism is key to revolution. Join our international 2023 Summer Project in the NYC-NJ area from July 6 to July 12, and our Party Convention “Build the Party Under Sharpening War and Fascism” from July 14 to July 16. Contact your local PL’er for more information. In 1964, the young Progressive Labor Movement played a lead role in the historic Harlem Rebellion, the first Blackled urban uprising of the era against police terror. On July 16, an off-duty cop, Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan, shot and murdered James Powell, a 15-yearold, 122-pound ninth-grader, in cold blood. For six consecutive nights, the anger of the Black masses boiled over in open rebellion in central Harlem and then in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.

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Riot Fe$t is a community destroyer

CHICAGO, June 14 – Today dozens of workers and youth flooded the monthly Chicago Park District (CPD) board meeting in anticipation of the board’s decision on whether for-profit “megafests” would continue to be allowed in city parks. Unsurprisingly, the city bosses voted unanimously to permit the rock carnival Riot Fest to take over Douglass Park in the majority Black and Latin neighborhood of Lawndale yet again this September.

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Racist NYC Schools contract prove need for workers’ power

NEW YORK CITY, June 16—“Worker unity is stronger than any law!” This was one Progressive Labor Party (PLP) member’s message during a recent UFT (United Federation of Teachers) town hall about Union misleader Michael Mulgrew and KKKop-Mayor Eric Adams’ new tentative agreement (TA) contract for UFT members. A group of comrades joined other education workers to sharpen the criticism of the contract proposal and make plans to fight back. Capitalist education will never meet the needs of working-class educators or students. It is designed to train young people to be exploited in the workforce or serve as cannon fodder in the next imperialist war.

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Torch the capitalist arsons destroying the planet

Global warming causes intense wildfires and widespread Code Purple health alerts for smoke-based air pollution. The warming of the planet is the result of two centuries of capitalist production. It is caused by a rapid increase in greenhouse gasses (GHGs) in the atmosphere. These gases (mainly carbon dioxide and methane) have increased steadily since the rise of capitalism and the industrial revolution. Global capitalist development has been fueled by burning coal, oil, and natural gas to power production, consumption, and transportation. GHGs allow the sun’s radiation to reach the earth, but trap the heat in the atmosphere that radiates from the ground, creating a hotter planet and disrupting previous weather patterns. It is similar to how cars get hot in the summer when the windows are rolled up.

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DC Metro: Steer class struggle towards communist revolution

Last issue, a Washington DC Metro transit worker, a member of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 representing over 10,000 workers, shared her thoughts about building a revolutionary movement in her workplace as a communist, shop steward, and union executive board member for many years. This section concludes her story about the battle against the bosses and the union misleaders. Communist organizing at Metro Since the 1970s, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members have been militant organizers in Local 689. We led a week-long wildcat strike in 1978 that closed down the entire city. The issue that motivated the strike was the bosses’ refusal to pay cost-of-living raises required by the collective bargaining agreement.

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Letters...July 5, 2023

Contract pushers out themselves as anti-worker When all the union chapters under one high school campus united to discuss the new proposed contract (see page 3), my naive self didn’t expect the union leaders to attack rank-and-file workers for merely raising concerns. I also didn’t expect so much dissent, which goes to show how we should never underestimate the working class.

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RED EYE ON THE NEWS . . .July 5, 2023

French army prepares for coming war Economist, 6/18–In 2021, a year before Russia invaded Ukraine, General Thierry Burkhard told The Economist that the French army had to “harden” itself and prepare for “high-intensity war”, possibly on the European continent. One hypothetical adversary was Russia. Today, the former head of the army is France’s top soldier, in charge of all its armed forces…For 17 days in April and May General Burkhard led a full-scale division-level exercise in eastern France, on land that the great powers fought over more than a century ago. In his office in Paris, where a print featuring Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s most senior general, hangs opposite a portrait of Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, General Burkhard reflects on the lessons emerging from the exercise and from the war in Ukraine.

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Editorial: Turkey’s crisis at the crossroads of imperialist superpowers

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s hotly contested re-election highlights the country's internal crisis and its unstable position between imperialist super-powers. Erdogan's victory signifies a shift away from liberal democracy toward fascistic consolidation by Turkey’s ruling class. With Erdogan’s U.S.-backed opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, failing in the runoff, it also reflects waning U.S. influence in a critical geopolitical region. Runaway inflation (up to 84 percent last October), two devastating earthquakes, and a ballooning migrant crisis have put the Turkish economy on the brink of collapse. To contain workers’ anger, the Turkish capitalist bosses are using Erdogan—now entering his third decade in power—to impose tighter control over the media, the judiciary, and a mostly powerless Turkish parliament. Since surviving a 2016 coup attempt, Erdogan has seized more executive power, sidelined political opponents, purged large sections of the government and military, and arrested hundreds of protesters (Al Jazeera, 7/15/22).

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