Workers Blocking Bosses’ Lockout

ALTOONA, PA, December 21 — Over 100 unionized electrical workers here have been locked out for one month by the criminal corporate Penelec bosses. These workers, who’ve been walking the picket line every day, had voted down the latest contract and the bosses responded by locking them out.
The bosses have declared that the lockout will continue until the workers accept this contract. However, the workers are in a fighting mood and are refusing to back down to the profit-hungry bosses.
There’s been some community support for the workers but with the holidays upon us, it’s clear that the workers’ families will be facing tough sledding. It is another example of a class war being waged by many in the working class.
The local press has given these brave workers very little news coverage while they attempt to convince everyone that the only thing worth reporting is local crime. The same could be said for the bosses’ national media. It is the leadership of PLP that is needed to help workers break from bourgeois ideology and move in a revolutionary direction.
This struggle deserves the support of all working people.  Damn the Penelec bosses!

Worldwide Protests Halt Racist Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing

NEGEV, December 12 —  Massive protests both here and around the world forced Beni Begin (the Israeli government official in charge of “resolving” the Bedouin settlements in the Negev) and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel the racist Prawer-Begin Plan which would evict (read: ethnic cleansing) 40,000 Bedouin workers. This massive victory against apartheid was only made possible by international and multi-ethnic solidarity of workers against racism and fascism.

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China, U.S. Imperialists Heading for Armed Clash?

China is putting military muscle behind president Xi Jinpeng’s call for “a new type of great power relationship.”  World domination is, of course, the ultimate goal for all imperialist  powers. What is China’s strategic intent? That’s what U.S. intelligence analysts are considering in regard to China’s recent aggressive military moves in East Asia.  
Of course, pro-China commentators are asking the same question about U.S. (and Japanese) strategy. Spurred by inter-imperialist rivalry on a global scale, the arms race and military confrontations between China and the U.S. have reached a new level of intensity in the Western Pacific.
A dramatic new stage began Nov. 23 when China declared a new Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea. The declaration demands that anyone flying into the zone notify Chinese authorities and follow instructions from China’s air-traffic controllers. That’s a challenge to the U.S., Japan and South Korea because it claims control over an area that not only is very close to their territory but also includes an area that surveys indicate is rich in resources.

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Nelson Mandela, Traitor to Working Class

As U.S. rulers and international capitalism glorify Nelson Mandela, they have a hidden agenda: to conceal his collaboration with the murderous profit system that controls South Africa and the world. Mandela allied himself with the biggest U.S. and British bosses. Under the cloak of black nationalism, he “empowered” black capitalists and helped create a tiny class of black billionaires. Along with some of the biggest international capitalists, these black bosses continue to exploit workers in South Africa and hold them in abject poverty.
Unemployment today in South Africa is 40 percent, higher than it was under apartheid, the system of legalized segregation that preceded Mandela’s rise to power. According to the United Nations, one of four persons tries to survive on less than $1.25 a day. Millions live in miserable shacks without clean water, electricity or sanitation. In many respects, the country’s working class is worse off now than under the apartheid regime of the 1980s.  

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DC Transit Workers Applying The Brakes on Privatization

WASHINGTON, DC, December 9 — As communists, we must be involved in all aspects of the class struggle — on the job or in the community — always sharply struggling against the bosses’ tool of racism and advancing our vision of a future communist society run by the international working class. By sharpening the struggle against the bosses who oppress us, we hope to demonstrate the necessity of the longer-term struggle to permanently secure a better life for us and our children.

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Imperialist ‘War is Terror’ Forum Aims to Expand CUNY Fight

NEW YORK CITY, December 4 — A forum organized by professors and grad students called “The War Here & Abroad: CUNY and U.S. Empire” drew a packed audience of 60 in a room meant for 40 today, a sign that the fight against CUNY’s complicity with the imperialist war machine is on many people’s minds.  There were no communist panelists but many key points were raised and debated.  PLP’s ideas were summarized in a flyer.
Grad student/adjuncts, undergrads and some senior professors united in the desire to research CUNY’s involvement in “defense” research, to oppose any more ROTC chapters, and to challenge the hiring of war-criminal generals like David Petraeus.  Teachers asked how they could teach Arabic language or

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Wal-Mart Workers Protest

On November 29, “Black Friday,” one of the busiest shopping days in the U.S, masses of workers nation-wide protested and struck against Wal-Mart, the country’s largest retail store, second largest corporation and largest private employer, with over 1.4 million workers.
By pioneering tactics to cut labor costs and avert union organizing, using intimidation among suppliers, subcontractors and competitors across industries, Wal-Mart has reaped billions in profits and is hastening a transformation toward a future of low-wage, non-union jobs.
The Waltons comprise the richest family in the world, their wealth inherited from company founder Sam Walton. Collectively the Waltons own over 50% of the company and are worth a combined total of $150 billion.  In 2011, six members of the Walton family had the same net worth as the bottom 30% of U.S. families combined. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart workers’ wages are low enough to qualify them for public assistance.

PL’er Tells Conference: Need Party to Smash Racism

WASHINGTON, DC, November 20 — Over 100 students and workers from four local universities and many job sites jammed a Howard University conference room today to hear a panel discussion entitled “A Conversation on Racism and Capitalism.” The conference was organized in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Studies Association.
The panel was brought together by a sociology professor from the University of California. She initiated this conference because she was concerned that university discussions of racism had become disconnected from racism’s source: the capitalist exploitation of the working class. The seven panelists included historians, economists, political scientists and sociologists who discussed the many aspects of the indelible link between racism and the capitalist system.

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Youth Clash with Cops over Israeli Rulers’ ‘Ethnic Cleansing’

Negev, November 30 —Striking back against the Israeli government’s Prawer Plan for “ethnic cleansing” of Bedouins in the Negev, thousands of Palestinian-Bedouin workers and peasants, as well as Jews and Palestinians from the rest of the country, rallied near the poverty-stricken Bedouin town of Hura. The multi-ethnic protestors stood for two hours, facing heavily-armed cops and mounted police and demanded justice, as well as recognition of all Bedouin villages.

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‘Racist Israel, You can’t Hide, We Charge You With Genocide!’

I was on my way to our biweekly CHALLENGE sale when one of my comrades informed me about an event Hillel was having in conjunction with the Italian club. “Israeli ambassador on campus at 1pm. SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] is planning to disrupt.” He needn’t say more. Hillel, the largest Zionist campus organization in the world admitted, “Israel is at the heart of Hillel’s work.” It was bringing in an Israeli diplomat Gideon Meir to speak. I gathered my CHALLENGEs and met with SJP and other student organizers on campus. In a classroom of fifteen people, eight of us entered and sat in the back row. We were a group of , North African, Palestinian, brown and white students. While waiting for the racist Meir to arrive, I read the CHALLENGE article (11/27)  “Jews, Arabs, Africans Unite: Rip Israeli Rulers’ Racist Neglect, Segregation.” I then passed a stack of CHALLENGEs. “Turn to page five. Pass it down,” I said.

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