Red Eye On The News ... June 21, 2023

Liberal bosses move further toward fascism in Atlanta The Intercept, 5/31–…a heavily armed Atlanta Police Department SWAT team raided a house in Atlanta and arrested three of its residents. Their crime? Organizing legal support and bail funds for protesters and activists who have faced indiscriminate arrest and overreaching charges in the struggle to stop the construction of a vast police training facility — dubbed Cop City — atop a forest in Atlanta. In a joint operation with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, or GBI, Atlanta cops charged Marlon Scott Kautz, Adele Maclean, and Savannah Patterson — all board members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund — with “money laundering” and “charity fraud.”

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Editorial: Biden’s ICE = gestapo Workers have no Borders!

While the Joe Biden administration has ended the use of Title 42, a public health law that was perverted to stop migrants from claiming asylum in the U.S., the criminal abuse of immigrant workers at the border with Mexico continues unabated. Liberal racist Biden is following in the lethal footsteps of open racist Donald Trump and deporter-in-chief Barack Obama. The crisis of capitalism that displaces workers from their homes is only getting worse. Whoever gets elected as the next capitalist stooge in the White House won’t change that hard reality. Only communism—a new society run by and for the working class—can end this mass misery.

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May day 2023: Colombia - Workers have no stake in bosses’ dogfighting

Here in Colombia the new government of Gustavo Petro has managed to curb the militancy of the workers, who are waiting for the campaign promises that will never be fulfilled. Our class must not fall for the illusions of change and postpone our revolutionary communist fight in favor of parliamentary and electoral illusions. Meanwhile, the movement behind former president Alvaro Uribe has not resigned itself to losing its power. It tries to channel the phony promises of the new government and the discontent over the measures that affect the workers into backing their faction. They make statements appealing to easing the cost of living, health and education. They even call for mobilization against the new government.

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May day 2023: Cambridge, MA - Smash Racist Police Terror from Cambridge to Ukraine!

Progressive Labor Party marched on May Day here in the city of Cambridge, where Sayed Faisal, a young Bangladeshi man was murdered by the police on January 4th. Sayed was having a mental illness episode, and his neighbor called the cops for help. Instead of helping, they shot him five times in the chest. Then, distorting the facts, the Cambridge PD claimed he was a threat to the community because he was carrying a knife, even though it was clear he was using the knife to harm himself. Furthermore, the city has put the killer cop on paid administrative leave and is refusing to release his name. That, plus the exceedingly long criminal investigation, stinks of a cover-up. This is yet another lethal example of how trigger-happy cops handle workers or students with mental health issues. The cops shoot first, blame the victim, and receive all the protection from the city government; meanwhile another member of the working class is murdered, and his family and community are traumatized.

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THE Chinese cultural REVOLUTION: UPRISING FOR WORKERS’ POWER

The following piece has been updated from its original publication in volume 48 no.25 dated December 21, 2016. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) was an historic uprising of the working class led by the most advanced communist ideas at the time. It was the first time the working class attempted to take state power back from a former communist party that had returned to capitalism.

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Abolition Conference: Need a party to smash bosses & their state

Washington, DC, May 6-8–PLers met with antiracist fighters from across the U.S. at The University of California Washington Center for a 3-day abolitionist conference. Conference organizers brought together theorists, students and organizers working to abolish police, prisons, ICE, racist child “protective” services, and other institutional structures that capitalism has built to attack and repress the working class.

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Workers need power, not crumbs

New York City, May 18–Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades joined 300 workers and students in a powerful march sponsored by Make the Road NY in Bushwick, Brooklyn. We were protesting against high rents, displacement and evictions in this rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Comrades connected with many friends in the march and on the streets. The demand of the organization and politicians who spoke was that the state legislature pass “Good Cause” legislation. “Good Cause,” if passed, would supposedly mean that landlords across New York state with buildings with less than six apartments can’t evict or raise rents dramatically without good cause.

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Modern Language Association: Democrats & Republicans, all enemies of the working class

It’s a tale of two governors: Florida’s racist Republican Ron DeSantis bans books, busts unions and ends tenure. New Jersey’s Democratic “friend-of-labor” Phil Murphy breaks the first-ever Rutgers University strike of 9,000 educators, by summoning union and management into his office to broker a deceptive deal. Two apparent opposites, both waging the current bosses’ war on higher education workers and students. Do their differences hide their sameness? Dialectical philosophy argues that apparent opposites are also interconnected—both share similarities and differences. In the end they are primarily same. Two sides of the same coin, representing the same rotten system.

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Rest in power: A red salute to Russell Phillips

In early January of this year Comrade Russell Phillips died. He was a longtime member of The Progressive Labor Party. Russell worked at Lenox Hill Hospital for about 5 years in the late 70’s to early 80’s. Along with other Party members he consistently fought the management of that hospital around racism. He also combined bread and butter issues (he worked in the engineering department) with broader international issues.

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Letters ... June 7, 2023

The work of Carolyn’s life speaks for her I met Carolyn in Tupelo, Mississippi in the summer of 1979. David Duke, leader of the KKK, had declared that Tupelo would become the national headquarters of the Klan. Progressive Labor Party and INCAR, an organization we were building at the time, refused to accept this and launched a campaign to make Tupelo the headquarters of antiracism and the fight for communism. Over 40 volunteers joined the Project at various times. Carolyn was there the entire summer.

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