U.S. Bosses’ Tactical Split on Iran War, Army Loyalty

A fierce tactical debate is heating up within the U.S. imperialist camp. Confronting Iran’s nuclear-arming ayatollahs is becoming increasingly urgent for those bosses Obama is struggling to serve. An Iranian A-bomb, closer by the day, could effectively erase 60 years of a major cornerstone of U.S. imperialism: its domination of the oil-rich Mid-East. The stakes are high. It boils down to: U.S. (or Israeli) air strikes right now or a major invasion (with more allies) as soon as possible.

Imperialists Split on Iran Tactics: Strike Alone Today or With Allies Tomorrow

The dominant imperialists had leaned towards the latter course until recently. Their top think-tank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), published an article entitled “After Iran Gets the Bomb” in its Foreign Affairs journal (March-April 2010). It said Iran’s nuclearizing was unavoidable but would give the U.S. an excuse to spread its own nuclear umbrella over the region while it gathered allies for a massive invasion of Iran.  Now, however, the CFR, led by David Rockefeller who personifies its imperialist Exxon Mobil-JP Morgan Chase backing, entertains a shorter timetable.

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France: 3,000,000 Slam Pension Cuts; Strikes Exploding

PARIS, October 2 — Today nearly 3,000,000 people across France turned out for union-sponsored demonstrations against the government’s retirement “reform,” the third giant protest in a month. With opinion polls showing 70% of the population opposed to raising the retirement age, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s prediction that the movement “would run out of steam” has been proven wrong.

The government wants to increase the minimum age for retirement on a partial pension from 60 to 62, and the age for retirement on a full pension from 65 to 67. This attack on pensions is part of a general Europe-wide bosses’ assault on past social welfare gains in order to maintain and increase profits, forcing the workers to pay for the bosses’ general financial crisis.

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D.C. Rally: PL’s Red Line Antidote to Liberal Rulers’ Poison

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 3 — This past weekend the liberal wing of the ruling class tried their best to motivate its base to elect Democrats on November 2. The PLP joined thousands of other workers at the Lincoln Memorial to expose the dead-end politics of voting and to spread the revolutionary communist ideas crucial to fighting the endless attacks workers have been facing. On the buses going to and from the rally and at the rally itself, PL members distributed over 7000 issues of CHALLENGE while making many new friends.

The event, entitled, “One Nation Working Together,” was an attempt by the liberal rulers to rally their base. Through various unions — the UAW, CWA, AFSCME and SEIU 1199 — they had hoped, for a number of different reasons, to bring hundreds of thousands to Washington.

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The Fight’s On! GM Rebels Reject Bosses, Pols, Union Hacks

INDIANAPOLIS, IN October 3 — While UAW President Bob King was addressing the mass “rally for jobs and justice” in Washington, D.C. yesterday, he forgot to mention the ongoing struggle here by GM workers in UAW Local 23, who refuse to knuckle under to King and the UAW leadership, GM and JD Norman Industries, or the Governor of Indiana.  On September 27 they rejected a tentative agreement between the UAW and GM by a more than 10-1 margin that would have cut their wages so that GM could sell the plant.

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Ruling Factions Fight for Workers’ Loyalty, But: Capitalist Elections Are a Deadly Trap

Who wins — and who votes — in November’s elections are crucial questions for the imperialist, Rockefeller-led faction of U.S. capitalists served by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. The segment of the latter’s base — trade unions, environmentalists, civil libertarians, advocates of government regulation, etc., who might stay home out of disenchantment with Obama’s broken promises — have the latter worried over Tea Party candidates. They threaten the liberals’ agenda of widening war, war taxes, and wartime regulatory powers consolidated in the White House.

Rulers’ Push for Two-Party Voting a Dead End for Workers’ Anger

Electoral politics are the capitalist class’s ace-in-the-hole as their most effective weapon for stifling working-class rebellion against the imperialists’ genocidal warfare abroad and racist attacks at home. It clouds the need for workers’ revolution. “You can vote the good guys in and the bad guys out” runs the bosses’ deadly lie to workers.

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UAW Forces Mail Vote After Workers Chase Sellouts

INDIANAPOLIS, IN, September 18 — After being run out of the Local 23 union hall by hundreds of angry GM stamping plant workers last month (see CHALLENGE, 8/22), the International UAW is trying to ram through a new contract that would cut wages in half. Rather than directly confront the workers again, they’re imposing a mail ballot, something never done in a factory where votes occur either in the hall or in the shop. The ballots, going out this week, will be counted on September 27.

As part of Obama’s GM bailout and restructuring, this plant is to be closed. JD Norman Industries made an offer to buy the plant, and sign a UAW contract, if the union agreed to a 50% wage-cut. Last May, the workers voted 384-22 against reopening the contract, but the International UAW and Local 23 President Ray Kennedy continued negotiations, reaching a deal not one of the “negotiators” will have to live with.

‘Traitor Go Home!’

They had scheduled a ratification meeting for August 15, but hundreds of angry workers drowned them out with shouts of “Traitor,” and “Go Home,” forcing them to slip out the back door.

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Racist Attacks Spread As: PL’er Leads Sit-in Supporters to Defy Cops, Save School Center

CHICAGO, September 17 — Chanting “Si se puede” and “We want a library, we’re not criminals,” about 100 mostly Latino parents, elementary school children and supporters crossed the police line when a veteran comrade made the call to crash the police tape. They were supporting the dozen parents and children who were occupying the elementary school field house the Chicago Public School (CPS) bosses want to demolish.

Earlier, the protestors who had been occupying the field house for three days were rushed by the cops and threatened with arrests. Meanwhile, many supporters who were bringing in supplies were blocked from entry. The racist cops and ex-cop Michael Shields (a cousin of Michelle Obama), head of CPS security, taped off the entire block. The cops were preventing anyone who didn’t live on the block from entering.

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Need Int’l Working-Class Unity: Anti-Immigrant Racism Kills 72 Workers

TAMAULIPAS, MEXICO — Capitalism has murdered, through one of its criminal gangs, 72 immigrant workers. From the moment immigrant workers cross into Mexico they are harassed and extorted by the immigration authorities, criminal gangs, and the police. These criminals steal immigrant workers’ money or kidnap them to force their relatives in the U.S. to pay a ransom that can range from $1,500 to $5,000. Some are forced to work as slaves in clandestine factories, drug fields, prostitution, or as servants in criminals’ dens. Many who refuse are brutally murdered, as was the case here, or are killed while running away from immigration cops or gangs. It’s a true descent into hell.

The worldwide capitalist crisis has added seven million more to the number of the poor in Mexico alone. Modern capitalism concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer hands. The majority of the wealth of the world has become concentrated in a few countries, like the U.S., and that’s why many of our brothers and sisters, in spite of all the risks, are forced to migrate in search of jobs.

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Japan’s Workers Need to Smash Racist ‘Net’ Group

This last year has witnessed the rise of the wide-spread racist “Net Far Right” (Net Kyoku) that has coordinated attacks on “foreigners” in Japan.  As reported in the New York Times (8/28/10), they organize mostly through the internet in order to conceal their identity, are “loudly anti-foreign” and direct their attack on Korean and Chinese residents, Christian organizations, and even those who dress in Halloween costumes. 

Much like the U.S. Tea Party’s racist attacks against immigrant labor from the Global South, the “Net” blame foreigners for the financial crisis that has lingered in Japan for over ten years, for the rise in crime and homelessness in Western Japan, and for the decline in pro-Japanese sentiment, particularly by young Japanese.  The similarity between the Tea Party and the “Net” is clear in another respect: they are both convenient devices used by the ruling class for creating dissonance among workers from various cultural backgrounds who should be united in fighting the real enemy, the capitalist bosses.

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March on Washington, Oct. 2: Smash Racist Unemployment with Communist Revolution

The economic “recovery” from the greatest crisis since the Great Depression has left over 30 million U.S. workers and youth unemployed and underemployed and wages plummeting. “Recovery” means the bosses’ profits are rising, as there there are fewer workers who must work harder to increase the bosses’ productivity.

Billions have been handed over to the bankers and auto bosses while millions of families continue to lose their homes. And that’s as “good” as it’s going to get.

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