Racist Israeli Cops Destroy Bedouin Village for Real-Estate Tycoons

SOUTHERN ISRAEL, JULY 27 — Some 1,500 heavily-armed Israeli cops, backed by choppers and bulldozers, demolished the “unrecognized” Palestinian-Bedouin village of Al-Araqib in southern Israel (the Bedouin Arabs are former nomads who have established their villages in the desert), leaving 40 impoverished working-class families stranded in the desert without a roof over their heads. The villagers’ olive orchards, chicken coops and sheep pens, used to supplement their meager incomes, were also destroyed.

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Workers Act vs. Bosses’ Racist Healthcare Cuts

In New York the city administration is planning a 10% cut in the already under-funded public hospital system. In Chicago they already laid off hundreds of doctors, nurses and other frontline providers from the Cook County Hospital system and closed half of the County’s public clinics, with further cuts planned. In Los Angeles they downsized, then closed Martin Luther King Hospital, leaving thousands without care.

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‘Restrepo’ Movie: Afghan War is ‘Business-as-usual’

“We did our job and now we’re going home,” says a GI. This is the theme of “Restrepo,” a National Geographic documentary which describes the 15-month tour of duty of an Army platoon whose job was to secure a valley in a mountainous area of Afghanistan so that a road could be built there to “help” the people of the valley.

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Working-Class History: Multi-racial Unity Shut World’s Largest Shipbuilder

In July 1967, one of the most stirring struggles of multi-racial working-class unity occurred when 15,000 black and white workers struck the Newport News (Va.) Shipbuilding Co., the world’s largest shipbuilder. The walkout was initiated by mostly black workers in the transportation department and followed by virtually all the company’s black and white workers. It eventually turned into a full-scale rebellion — similar to the big-city black rebellions that were sweeping the U.S. — against the loan companies and pawn shops surrounding the shipyard, sleazy merchants who had been bleeding the workers dry for years.

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Arizona: A History of Racist Attacks and Workers’ Fight-back

The racism spewing forth from Arizona’s bosses and their politicians is not new. In order to drive down all workers’ wages and keep them fighting each other rather than uniting, capitalism has always singled out a section of the working class for greater oppression. With increasing fascism in Arizona and worldwide (see CHALLENGE, 8/4), it is helpful to review past history, during which every governor and president has been committed to enforcing capitalism and using racism to divide the working class. This emphasizes the working class’s one task: to unite and destroy capitalism and the racism on which it depends.

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As Obama Expands Anti-Immigrant Onslaught: Racist Arizona Law Attacks ALL Workers

On July 29, people across the country were scheduled to travel to Arizona to protest that state’s racist anti-immigrant law (SBI070) which would require local cops to stop individuals they “suspect” of being undocumented immigrants and turn them over to immigration authorities.

Recently, the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit to stop the law from taking effect. The Obama Administration’s stance against this law, and promotion of Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR), appears to oppose anti-immigrant racism. However, virtually simultaneously Obama also asked Congress for $500 million to add 1,000 agents to the Border Patrol and 160 to Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE). Additionally, two more aerial drones would be deployed to continue the militarization of the U.S./Mexico border. This expansion adds to the 1,200 National Guard troops Obama already plans to send to the border.

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U.S. Capitalists’ Dogfight: Small Fry Use Racist Tea Party to Snarl Big Bosses’ War Aims

A widening split within the U.S. ruling class is intensifying between two groups of capitalists. The dominant wing is led by the Rockefeller interests — which includes such giant corporations as Exxon-Mobil and JP Morgan Chase — and which champions the long-range interests of U.S. capitalism. They promote imperialist wars internationally, attempting to maintain U.S. top-dog status in their drive to control the world’s resources (especially oil and gas), markets and the ability to exploit impoverished workers. They must, sooner or later, mobilize the nation to confront rivals Iran, China and Russia which are bent on expanding their own access to these resources. China has now become the world’s number one energy user.

To accomplish this they must impose wartime discipline on a challenging anti-Rockefeller faction, basically capitalists more focused on immediate, short-range profits — the quarterly bottom line — than on the long-term needs of U.S. imperialism. It is these domestically-oriented bosses who have been bankrolling and organizing a mass, anti-tax, predominantly Republican faction known as the Tea Party (“Taxed Enough Already”).

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Angry Drivers Put Brakes on Hacks’ Loyalty to Bosses’ Laws

OAKLAND, CA, JULY 18 — Hundreds of East Bay Area transit workers streamed into the union hall yesterday for a special meeting amid a buzz of righteous anger over an unprecedented company attack: imposing a new contract and work schedules. Many arrived seeking a plan of action, but the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) leadership offered nothing. One driver declared, “Man, we walked in here mad…strong like some dark coffee, but they just kept watering it down until it was like some weak herbal tea…and they got us drinking it!”

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‘Jobs, Not Jails!’ — Jobless Youth Confront State Power

BALTIMORE, July 8 — Today, young people learned an important lesson about state power during an angry and well-organized rally against massive cuts in summer jobs. Last Monday, about 9,000 students, who had registered months earlier with YouthWorks, were supposed to start working at their sites. However, at the last minute, approximately 3,000 of these students were informed that they had no job at all!

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Teachers’ Convention: PL’ers Help Lead Fight vs. Union Machine’s Stomping on Students

SEATTLE, July 11 — Progressive Labor Party members played important roles in the biannual convention of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) ending here today. We helped lead a rally exposing the Obama Administration’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and a walkout and  rally against billionaire Bill Gates. We helped organize and spoke at three forums held by the AFT Peace and Justice Caucus, distributed 600 CHALLENGES, 300 Juneteenth Anti-Racism Supplements and 4,000 leaflets to delegates.

We helped the Peace and Justice Caucus recruit for forums on Haiti, on the fight-back against the racist, anti-working class Race to the Top competition and on Afghanistan and Gaza. They were attended by many rank-and-file delegates. The discussions there raised interesting questions about fights against the ruling class and built ties between delegates.

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