Battle CUNY Bosses Shut Down Student Center

NEW YORK CITY, October 30 — The Morales-Shakur Center at City College of New York (CCNY) was where students hung out, studied, and organized. Its door was painted red with a black fist. Above the couches, the words “this space was won thru struggle” was painted in red. On Sunday Oct. 20, the week of midterms, students came to school to find this center closed. Hundreds of students and community members rallied that Monday, followed by another protest on Thursday, leading to the sudden suspension of two student leaders on Oct. 28. PLP and friends participated in this struggle, and are building ties with these protesters.
While PLP forces continue to participate in this struggle at CCNY, we are stepping up our anti-war efforts at other CUNY campuses as well. Today, PLP students and friends occupied the lobby at Hunter college in solidarity with the struggle to seize the Morales-Shakur center. Wanted posters of Petraeus were hung and many were invited to our upcoming college conference. But we must step up our fight.

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Haiti: UN-caused Cholera Epidemic Killing Thousands

The 2010 earthquake in Haiti dealt a devastating blow that the country has not yet recovered from, and most likely never will under this current profit system. Not only did the earthquake destroy tens of thousands of homes, kill hundreds of thousands and displace many hundreds of thousands more, it also intensified another plague already afflicting the Haitian people: foreign “aid.” Hundreds of non-governmental organizations descended on the country, supposedly to help it rebuild, and United Nations “peacekeepers” intensified their deadly attacks on Haitian workers.

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Police State: Hazardous to Public Health

Los Angeles, October 26 —  Recently, nearly all of the healthcare providers of our HIV organization and dozens of our patients held our first public demonstration against the worsening “assembly line” working conditions in our clinics.  We are medical doctors, nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants. Additionally, we are threatening to strike to win union recognition.
We made a conscious effort to organize with our patients and had an integrated group of patients speak at our rally. Five of our patients gave powerful, heartfelt testimonies, moving many to tears. We distributed a
leaflet and CHALLENGE.

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Police State: Hazardous to Public Health

Los Angeles, October 26 —  Recently, nearly all of the healthcare providers of our HIV organization and dozens of our patients held our first public demonstration against the worsening “assembly line” working conditions in our clinics.  We are medical doctors, nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants. Additionally, we are threatening to strike to win union recognition.
We made a conscious effort to organize with our patients and had an integrated group of patients speak at our rally. Five of our patients gave powerful, heartfelt testimonies, moving many to tears. We distributed a
leaflet and CHALLENGE.

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Teachers Unite vs. Attacks on Schools

Los Angeles, October 17 — This week the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) House of Representatives passed a teacher’s motion to support healthcare workers fighting for union recognition at local clinics (see page 4). This effort is part of an ongoing struggle on a local high school campus to mobilize teachers, parents and students to fight against attacks on public education. These attacks represent some of the sharpest attacks on the working class as the ruling class continues to shove the crisis of capitalism onto workers who need education and healthcare.
Responding to these attacks is also an opportunity for our class to learn to fight collectively and to build class consciousness. Seeing how all workers are going through the same struggle is the first step to realizing that it’s the whole system of capitalism that’s the problem.

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Hitler Deja Vu? French Fascists Growing Amid Bosses’ Crisis

PARIS, October 27 — Vicious racism remains the hallmark of the National Front. The party’s candidate for the municipal election in Rethel, in the Ardennes, published a picture on her Facebook page comparing justice minister Christiane Taubira, a black woman, to a monkey, calling her a “savage.”
But this disgusting racism — which has always been used by the bosses to divide the working class — has not turned off many voters from the fascist party. The National Front won a recent by-election in Brignoles, in southern France, confirming the growing strength of the fascist party under Marine Le Pen, who succeeded her father as party leader in 2011.
Le Pen presents herself as the “French Reagan” and attacks “big government.” In 2012, she won 18% of the vote, the party’s best score ever in a presidential election.

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Big U.S. Bosses Backed Nazi Blitzkrieg and Holocaust

In a short 2009 book titled Nazi Nexus: America’s Corporate Connections to Hitler’s Holocaust, author Edwin Black describes how a number of bosses of major U.S. corporations, and their companies, collaborated with Hitler’s plans to conquer Europe and the Soviet Union in World War II (1936-1945). Indeed, Hitler himself admitted that without GM’s provision of trucks, the German army would never have been able to inflict the blitzkrieg (literally lightning war) against Czechoslovakia, Poland, and all the other countries in Europe that came under the thumb of the Nazi war machine.

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DeBlasio’s Job: Keep Workers in Check for the Bosses

Elections under capitalism are a hoax to keep workers worldwide dreaming of a change of conditions in their lives and New Yorkers are no different. The city’s municipal workers are without contracts and haven’t had raises in years. Hospitals are closing, leaving millions of workers without access to accessible healthcare. The NYPD continues to shoot black and Latin youth at will. Schools function as prisons for our mostly black and Latino student population. With more militaristic charter schools opening and so-called failing schools closing, students and staff are displaced. More and more workers are homeless. As the NY Times recently pointed out, many workers must work two or three jobs and still can’t afford the exorbitant rents. Many have no jobs at all.

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From Brooklyn to Providence: Fight Racist KKKops

BROOKLYN, NY, October 21 —“Justice for Kyam Livingston — killed in a Brooklyn cell” echoed outside the courthouse that holds the local Central Booking where Kyam Livingston was left to die in a jail cell. The crowd filled with anger demonstrated here, demanding justice and the names of the killer cops on duty who refused to help Kyam as she and other inmates cried for help.
The Justice for Kyam Livingston Committee will continue to be active and hold demonstrations on the 21st of each month — the day of the anniversary of her death. (More next issue.)

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PROVIDENCE, RI, October 29 — A multiracial crowd of anti-racist demonstrators booed the NYPD racist Police Commissioner Ray Kelly off the stage at Brown University here today, forcing the cancellation of his lecture on “Proactive Policing in America’s Biggest City.” Before his scheduled appearance, students and others marched outside the hall carrying signs that said “Stop police brutality” and “RAY [CIST] KELLY.” Inside the hall chants arose to “Stop stop-and-frisk,” alluding to the Mayor Bloomberg-Kelly racist policy of annually harassing hundreds of thousands black and Latino youth completely innocent of any wrongdoing.
“Residents of East Flatbush, Brownsville and East New York don’t feel safer than they did in 2001,” said Danny Echevarria, a Brown student from Brooklyn. “Instituting systematic racism in New York City is a disgrace,” another student chimed in. Another student rose to slam the NYPD and accused Kelly of discriminating against blacks and Muslims.”
Choi, a history major from the Maryland suburbs of Washington declared, “We do not at all support Ray Kelly’s stop-and-frisk policies and…want to stand in solidarity with communities the police have targeted.”Kelly had barely started speaking when chants filled the hall drowning him out. The protest continued for more than 20 minutes until Kelly fled the stage.

Shut Down Capitalism with Communist Revolution

The current impasse over the federal debt ceiling (and the resulting government shutdown) reflects a sharp disagreement on how — or whether —to pay the spiraling costs of broader wars. This argument reflects the bosses’ growing insecurity as their top-dog status is challenged by China, Russia, and other imperialist rivals. The coming mobilization for war has also triggered a controversial push for more centralized economic control, a key element of the Obamacare health reform.
But despite their serious differences, all wings of both the Democratic and Republican parties wholeheartedly agree on one thing: escalating their attacks on the working class. While $3.5 million in salaries were shelled out to members of Congress during the first 13 days of the shutdown, the impact on workers was devastating. While the media blathered on about re-opening the Statue of Liberty and the national parks, racist and sexist cuts hit the Women Infants and Children (WIC) food program. These subsidies help sustain life for millions of babies, cared for by predominantly black and Latino mothers. At the same time, cuts in food stamps made it that much harder for tens of millions of working-class families to put food on their tables.

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