France Moving to Open Fascism: Police State Technology

PARIS, September 16 — As in most Western “democracies,” French capitalists are using new technologies to reinforce the state’s police powers. The latest step is the organization of a Justice Ministry “national platform for court-ordered wiretaps,” to become operational this fall.

This 42-million-euro (53 million USD) centralized computer system will collect, manage and store massive amounts of information: who owns which cell phone, calls made and received, SMSes and e-mails, Internet pages that have been visited, on-line purchases and GPS information. Presently this information is scattered among 350 different police and gendarme stations and is managed by five or six different private companies.

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France Moving to Open Fascism: A New Racist Ploy

PARIS, September 28 — The phony expression “anti-white racism” has been getting endless media play in France following its use by Jean-François Copé, the general secretary of the right-wing UMP party. Copé is a candidate in the November election to choose a new president for the party. His rival, former Prime Minister François Fillon, hastened to say that anti-white racism is “a reality.”

By using an expression first circulated by Marine Le Pen, the leader of the fascist National Front party, both Copé and Fillon are currying favor with the far-right element in their party. But this is more than just a ploy in an internal party dogfight. First, it shows that the UMP is moving closer to an alliance with the National Front, making an openly fascist government here a real possibility.

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Thousands Cry ‘‘Resistance!’’ in March Against Bosses’ Austerity

PARIS, September 30 — Up to 80,000 demonstrators from across France marched here today, shouting “Resistance!” as they protested the European budget treaty forcing the French government to impose austerity measures. 

Workers were outraged at the attacks on their class. Many of the demonstrators were activists from trade unions, associations and political organizations.  “Hollande [Socialist Party president] promised to renegotiate the Merkozy treaty but not a comma has been changed,” said Jordi, a 26-year-old computer technician. [“Merkozy” is a combination of German Chancellor Merkel and former French president Sarkozy, the politicians who drafted the treaty]. The treaty is likely to “anchor austerity in all the countries of Europe,” he added.

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Imperialists’ Rivalry for Declining Resources Headed for War

In Michael Klare’s latest book, The Race for What’s Left, he discusses the intense investment and competition to find and exploit the world’s diminishing supply of oil, gas, minerals, rare earth metals and elements. Just as the international appetite for fuel and materials needed for technological development is bounding ahead, the easily recoverable supplies are rapidly being exhausted.

It is estimated that 13 percent of the undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the gas left on earth is above the Arctic Circle. Five countries have claims to the sea and land of this area: Russia, Canada, the U.S., Norway, Denmark, and Greenland (which is dependent on Denmark).

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Indonesia’s Bosses Electrocuting Slums’ Workers

The city of Jakarta, Indonesia, is one of the largest of the growing number of megaslums around the world. In Jakarta 28 million people live in tightly-packed slum housing consisting of unstable tenements and improvised shelters. Forty percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day and average wages are only $113 per month in a city where apartment rents hover around $500 per month (Reuters, 3/12/12). 

Workers in Indonesia now have a new hardship to worry about. Of the estimated 400,000 commuters riding Jakarta’s dilapidated public trains during peak hours, many are forced to hop the trains and ride on the roof. This practice, called “train surfing” in Jakarta, is a necessity in a city where wages are too low to cover rising train fares. 

The Indonesian government, eager to collect these fares, has long fought train surfing by greasing the roofs of train cars and hanging large concrete balls over the tracks to knock riders off. Now they are embarking on a plan to lower the power lines of the trains to electrocute those that risk a ride to work. This murderous plan is being implemented alongside a 40%  fare hike, guaranteeing that millions of workers will be forced to risk their lives to work in Indonesia’s sweatshop economy (BBC, 7/27/12). 

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Chicago Teachers Strike: Battle Racist Education

CHICAGO, September 18 — The strike of 26,000 rank-and-file teachers who broke the bosses’ law in fighting to defend their students was suspended today after a vote of 800 delegates in the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), pending a membership-wide vote over the next several weeks.

This was a strike for the students and their parents. The teachers’ fight is one which opposes the school bosses racist oppression of the students. The teachers are fighting for better learning conditions for students and better working conditions for themselves. Many were open to Progressive Labor Party’s ideas and leadership shown by over 2,000 CHALLENGES and tens of thousands of fliers were distributed, and several teachers’ agreed to work more closely and learn more about the PLP.

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Pickets Greet Communist Ideas

I continue to participate in my first strike as a worker and as a teacher. I have gone to show solidarity to other workers’ struggles in the past, but now I am in the midst of my own. The first day there was a sense of the unknown felt by others at my school.  People were posted in different locations around the building in five different groups.  Some were well acquainted while others had only seen each other in passing.  

As we spend more time on the picket line, we as a staff have grown closer. With the staff being split into two buildings, the time to bond is extremely limited, especially with the extended day. We have begun to exchange our feelings about everything on the line. Veteran teachers have shared some of their experiences from being in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) with new teachers.  

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Amid Anti-U.S. Protests Bosses Debate Iran War Plan

Protests and attacks across the Muslim world are undermining the gains made by U.S. imperialism from its bloody role in the Arab Spring. U.S. rulers were behind some of those reform movements, especially in Egypt (see CHALLENGE  2/16/11 and 3/2/11). Their goal was to channel mass grievances into U.S.-style “democracies” and sustain the reign of capitalism. But the Arab Spring didn’t begin to alleviate the exploitation of the working class. It did nothing to lift the region’s poverty-level wages or to reduce its huge numbers of unemployed.

So now U.S. bosses are reaping the unintended consequences of the Arab Spring. For the region’s workers and youth, the most recent flash point is a racist film made in the U.S. that defames Islam. But the underlying cause of the ongoing unrest is the chronic poverty that is integral to the profit system — and which the working class thought its new rulers would ameliorate. These workers have lived all their lives under horrific conditions imposed by fascist, U.S.-backed regimes responsible for numerous racist abuse and genocide from Abu Ghraib to drones. It’s only logical that the U.S. rulers, represented by their local embassies and consulates, become a leading target for the anger now erupting in more than 20 countries. 

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Mexico Summer Project: Lesson in Collective Class Action

MEXICO CITY — Amid an intense period of economic and political transition here, 40 comrades from all over Mexico and the U.S. participated in PLP’s two-week Summer Project. It was spread out over multiple regions, with work around industrial factories, community organizations and more.

In one location, 12 PL’ers and friends, more than half of whom were younger than 21, discussed the world situation and our role as communists in our day-to-day struggles. Many were struggling to understand and apply a dialectical (scientific) analysis to the recent  Mexican presidential election.

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Anti-Racist Fight vs. Murderous NYC Cops

BROOKLYN, September 15 — At the three-month mark of the murder of young Shantel Davis by kkkop Philip Atkins, the family and anti-racist supporters held a procession of twelve continuously-honking vehicles around Flatbush, a mainly black working-class neighborhood. 

Young people stood in car sunroofs, hung out of car windows chanting, raising fists, and waving signs against police murder and brutality. 

The community raised their fists in solidarity; drivers honked and some even joined our protest. We stopped in front of the murderous 67th Precinct, blocking traffic and honking. 

There is great potential in transforming these militant demonstrations and participants into fighters for a communist future.