Workers, Students Unite with Dockworkers; Fight Obama-Boss Gang-Up

NEW YORK CITY, January 23 — A steady winter rain couldn’t dampen the spirit of 75 workers and students as we picketed the federal building in lower Manhattan this evening in support of dockworkers in Longview, Washington. Representing a half-dozen unions and college campuses, the protesters challenged the Obama administration’s support of EGT, a union-busting grain consortium. The U.S. Coast Guard has deployed boats and helicopters to escort tankers making deliveries to EGT’s newly constructed grain terminal, which is being operated by scab labor.

EGT made $2.5 billion last year, but

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Obama Moves to Iran and S. Asia; U.S. Imperialists’ Endless Wars

Having spread death and destruction across much of the Middle East, U.S. imperialists now seek to expand their horror show to the Far East. Barack Obama is methodically preparing for eventual war on China. In December he initiated the deployment of 2,500 U.S. Marines in Australia. In January he issued a Pentagon decree entitled, “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense.” It states: “While the U.S. military will continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region [emphasis added].”

Host of Problems = Hard Time for Rulers to Re-elect Obama

But U.S. rulers face two major problems in gearing up for a clash with China. First, they have a growing need to wage wider Middle East oil wars, especially as tensions with Iran heighten. It’s a task made more difficult by a shortage of combat troops, which could necessitate a wildly unpopular military draft.

Second, while the ruling class sorely needs a war president, it may have a hard time retaining their invader-in-chief Obama’s services after November’s election. Millions of voters could be turned off by mass racist unemployment, continuing economic depression, millions of home foreclosures, deportation of nearly two million immigrants, a wage freeze on federal workers, and an administration run by bailed-out bankers who have reaped profit bonanzas during a Depression they helped create.

War Clouds Darken over Iran

Iran threatens more each day to become the next U.S. front for open warfare. Covert action, like CIA-Mossad [Israeli secret police] rubouts of Iranian nuclear scientists, has been raging for years. On January 13, two days after the latest assassination, Iran sentenced an ex-U.S. Marine to death for spying. And while Washington ramps up oil sanctions to discourage the building of nuclear bombs, Iran threatens to attack U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf.

The only question is whether the first air strikes on Iran will come from the U.S. or Israel. Obama is deceitfully trying to deflect blame onto the supposedly more belligerent Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu: “Inside the Israeli security establishment, a sort of good cop, bad cop routine, in which Israeli officials rattle sabers amid a U.S. scramble to restrain them, has assumed its own name: ‘Hold Me Back’” (Wall Street Journal, 1/14/12). The lie is that Israeli bosses, armed to the teeth with U.S. weapons, always act without influence from the White House. Sometimes they do, but there appears to be strategic unity regarding Iran. Says the Journal’s article:

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Remembering Quake Inspires Brooklyn Students; Solidarity with Workers in Haiti

BROOKLYN, January 11 — More than three hundred students at Clara Barton High School, along with about twenty-five staff members, attended an inspiring commemoration of the second anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti.  It was organized and led by students who belong to an after-school club that has been fighting attacks by the school administration against teachers and students for many years. Important ideas were raised about imperialism and the roots of Haiti’s poverty, and why students in the U.S. need to build solidarity with the working class in Haiti. Students and teachers grasped the communist ideas of solidarity with workers around the world, of multiracial unity, and of fighting for a better future than the bosses’ plan for wars, drastic cuts in social services, and increased racism.

There were speeches and performances, ranging from spoken word and debate to singing and step dancing. The program stressed unity, solidarity and the struggle for a better world.

One song was sung in both Creole and English, with many in the audience learning the Creole words for the first time. This was symbolically important because students from Haiti have endured a lack of adequate programs and services at the school. There was also delicious food donated by area restaurants, as well as by staff and parents. As many students and teachers commented afterwards, the whole program was “amazing.”

The preparation for the event was as significant as the commemoration itself. The multi-racial student organizers were from Africa, South Asia, China, the Caribbean and the U.S. They were clear from the start in their goal to send a strong message of unity and solidarity with the workers and students who struggle for a better life in Haiti, where 600,000 still live in tents. Their collective effort inspired more and more students and teachers to come forward and offer to help. Each day, more students joined committees and got involved in the planning. The enthusiasm spread.

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Racist Unemployment: A Vicious Circle Destroying Workers’ Lives

NEW YORK CITY, December 10 — More than forty people came together at a church here to discuss the devastating impact of unemployment on all workers, as well as the racist attacks on education and healthcare in immigrant communities.

A pediatrician reported that job losses in poor neighborhoods cause increases in homelessness, domestic violence, poor nutrition and obesity, along with higher rates of asthma and other chronic diseases. Children suffer from higher stress, anxiety and low self-esteem, which contribute to behavior problems and low grades in school.

Unemployment Cuts Workers’ Health

As unemployment worsens, more workers lose health coverage and are unable to pay for the high cost of private insurance. Due to the bosses’ financial crisis and an ever-growing war budget, massive cuts in public services and the safety net are forcing the closing of hospitals, layoffs of healthcare providers, and reduced access to wellness or prevention programs in working-class communities.

An immigrant worker pointed out that these problems are even more severe in immigrant communities because of racist laws and the scapegoating of undocumented workers. Some documented immigrants are blaming the undocumented for the loss of jobs, causing division when there needs to be unity to fight the bosses. More arrests and higher deportation rates are dividing families and making them more impoverished. The fear of deportation makes the undocumented easier targets for super-exploitation. They are working harder for even less pay, and are less likely to seek healthcare when ill.

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PLP Forging Ahead in Tanzania

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, January 7 — Recently, a group of CHALLENGE readers met here for a discussion about our Party and its ideas. First the group examined Obama’s war in Libya. When he was elected, many people in East Africa had mistakenly believed that his policies would help Africa rather than initiate invasions and assassinations of African leaders. However, this U.S.-backed invasion exposed the “First U.S. African President” as pursuing the same oil-driven imperialist foreign policy as George Bush. In the discussion, Party members debunked the lie of “humanitarian intervention” (i.e., protecting civilian lives) as nothing but a cover for U.S. imperialism. 

Next the group confronted the challenges of building the communist movement in Tanzania where widespread anger at the government’s corrupt collusion with foreign and local big business exists side-by-side with a culture of passivity and resignation. The Tanzanian public sector trade unions, for example, are big on talk but short on action, leaving government workers defenseless against layoffs and oppressive working conditions.

Spirit of Rebellion Growing

The opposition party, Chadema, is as corrupt as the ruling party, CCM (Party of the Revolution). Chadema is opportunistically trying to take advantage of widespread discontent — especially among unemployed youth — to gain power for itself. The Tanzanian comrades agreed that despite Chadema’s motives, its militant condemnation of CCM is inspiring workers to have the courage to speak out and fight back. PL’ers pointed out that this spirit of rebellion will be squandered unless it is organized and led by communists.

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Bosses’ ‘Security,’ Dress Code Turns High School into Jail

BROOKLYN, January 16 — The rising wave of fascism in the United States is apparent at Clara Barton High School. Under Principal Richard Forman, the administration is focused on order and discipline while neglecting students’ needs at every turn. A security system is turning the school into a jail. A dress code is imposed without any evidence that it benefits learning. Essential courses are not offered for all students who need them. Teachers who fight to do more for students are “excessed” and moved out.

Predictably, the school is failing. According to online data from the New York Times, only 43 percent of students earn state-exam diplomas, and less than half enroll in college after graduation. Forman has gotten rid of teachers to whom students went with problems at school or even at home. These teachers exposed students to the outside world instead of relentlessly pushing their heads into textbooks. They attempted to start new clubs and new Advanced Placement (AP) classes. But now they are gone.

A ‘Uniform’ Education

Forman’s racism is exposed every day. He and other school officials seem more concerned with students’ physical appearance than their education. They have done nothing to address the shortage of AP classes, with only one class available for each subject. Meanwhile, the principal’s allies on the Parent Teacher Association have pushed for all students to wear a uniform, but they never discuss how the school could provide all the courses students need. Students in grades nine to eleven are supposed to wear uniforms, while students in the twelfth grade “dress for success”: collared shirts and dressy pants. Jeans, t-shirts, dresses and sweaters are banned. When students are caught out of uniform, their ID cards are scanned for referrals for disciplinary action.

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Profit System Hazardous to Workers’ Health Protest; Racist Attacks on Brooklyn Hospitals

BROOKLYN, January 11 — Hundreds of angry hospital workers and supporters rallied loudly in front of the Brooklyn Marriott Hotel here this week as racist financier Stephen Berger, a darling of Governor Cuomo, announced his plan to “save” health care in the borough of Brooklyn. Workers who had never been at such a protest (or at least not for a long time) chanted as bosses from Downstate Hospital, Wall Street moguls and Berger himself entered the hotel for a fancy breakfast.

 Brooklyn is a borough of 2.5 million people.  One in five live below the poverty line and two in five are on Medicaid. An untold number are without any health insurance. In 1980, Brooklyn had 26 hospitals — now it has 15. There are now 41% fewer acute care beds, 2.3 beds per 1,000 residents, compared with Manhattan’s 4.7, the state’s 3.1 and the nation’s 2.6. Disparities in health by income and “race” are concentrated in certain New York City communities, including several in Brooklyn. In 2001, life expectancy in our poorest neighborhoods was eight years shorter than in its wealthiest; that is 4,000 extra premature deaths/year in the poorest communities.

Racism: The Worst Disease

The facts show the racist nature of the U.S. health care system. Brooklyn is 36% black and 20% Latino. Latino New Yorkers are twice as likely to have diabetes. Black New Yorkers are three times more likely to die of diabetes than white residents. Ninety-four percent of elevated blood levels in New York City are among African Americans, Latinos and Asians. If infant mortality rates were equalized, the lives of some 200 babies of these ethnic groups would be saved each year (NYC DOHMH “Health Disparities in NYC,” 2004).

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PL Salvador School: Fight and Mobilize for Communism

EL SALVADOR — In our November communist school here, many comrades participated in the political discussion about the reality workers this country and the rest of the world live in. We must destroy the brutal capitalist domination to have social equality. PL’s politics have motivated many young people. About 26 have participated with us in each school.

We must fight against the electoral parties of this capitalist machine. This dead-end strategy is used by the bosses to alienate us and to make us believe that their “democracy” works for the working class. As members of the Party, we have made the commitment to spread CHALLENGE widely, as a revolutionary weapon, to politicize and make our co-workers and neighbors aware. We have communist ideas, perseverance and the will to win workers to PLP.

Mobilize the Masses

Our young comrades from different parts of the country have developed a strong ideological ability and understanding of PL’s ideas. The main subject of this school was how to mobilize the masses for communism. It is clear that communist revolution is the only way to defeat and destroy capitalism; therefore, this must be the only goal of the revolutionary process. The participation of each one of the comrades was interesting. We discussed our friends’ understanding of the Party’s line, related to the ideological-political work with their communities.

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Winter Project Helps Build PLP in Palestine-Israel

ISRAEL/PALESTINE, January — We have returned from the winter project to the Middle East, with our minds once more agog at the racism, oppression and absurdity of the actions of the Israeli government. Not only did we see the horrors of the 45-year-old military occupation of Palestine, but also the discrimination against Israeli Arabs and the marked class distinctions among Jews. Those who were new to the area were in a constant state of shock and disbelief at the situations we encountered. We were buoyed, however, by participating in struggles and meeting new friends who were digesting our ideas.

The Israelis are continuing their policy of driving out Palestinians by actually demolishing their houses by the thousands or otherwise making their lives so miserable that they will emigrate. In the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, the weekly demonstrations continued against Jewish takeover of homes Palestinians have lived in for 60 years, having been driven out of West Jerusalem in 1948.

Israeli Attack-Dogs

We sat with a family there, half of whose home has been occupied by young Israeli men and their dogs, who attack members of the family. In two other East Jerusalem areas, we visited villages whose land is being confiscated by Israeli expansion.

To the south, in the Negev (desert), Bedouins who agreed to become citizens in ’48, live in “unrecognized” villages that receive no services. One, El Araqib, has been razed and rebuilt 33 times since July 2010 because the government, with the financial backing of an U.S. fundamentalist Christian organization, wishes to build a forest. We saw how houses for 500 people and 4,500 olive tress had been bulldozed into a sandy wasteland. The remaining residents are living in trucks and trailers in their cemetery.

Every week they, their neighbors and Israeli activists stand nearby at a busy intersection with banners, drums and speeches. They welcomed a talk about fighting racism by one of our young visitors.

In Tel Aviv, the massive tent cities and summer demonstrations for more social services and housing are gone, for they mostly involved middle-class people and lacked any political analysis. However, in a working-class area of Tel Aviv, Hatikvah, and in other places around the country, small encampments remain of those who have lost their homes even though most work. We marched in a militant demonstration of hundreds of workers and activists at which 43 people were arrested.  Our comrades participate regularly in all these actions and have a steady base of readers and friends.

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CHALLENGE a Winner at Young Workers’ Conference

MINNEAPOLIS, December 28 — Recently the AFL-CIO held its annual NEXT UP! Young Workers Conference. Despite the union hacks toeing the Obama/Democratic Party line, many young workers were not fooled and dozens eagerly took copies of CHALLENGE.
Many workshops provided opportunities to talk to young workers from throughout the U.S. about communism and PLP.

Those conducting the immigration workshop, while well-informed, refused to discuss the racist, fascist nature of deportations, E-verify or Secure Communities. They conveniently found no time for questions when a PLP’er fought to discuss this.

A session on starting a Labor Party led to heated debate over whether a new electoral party was needed or the Democrats were good enough. Several youth complained that any party operating within capitalist rules would be useless. Time to share another CHALLENGE!

A PLP’er took advantage of the “un-conference sessions,” where individuals could propose their own ideas before all 700 participants. He stressed the need for multiracial unity, making the anti-racist fight primary, and realizing that any capitalist “solution” would fail the workers. Obama, he said, had been a horrible option for workers, citing the legal lynching of Troy Davis in Georgia and the multiple bombing campaigns by U.S. imperialism abroad.

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