KKKapitalism killed Adam Toledo: Only solution— communist revolution

CHICAGO, IL, April 16–Almost 2,000 people gathered a few blocks from Chicago’s Democratic and Black Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s house to protest the police murder of 13-year-old Adam Toledo. The working-class anger against this latest police atrocity had been seething all week long (see CHALLENGE, 4/28). This mass demonstration was in response to the video released of the murder of young Adam, which clearly showed that he was murdered with his hands up. It was the biggest march in Chicago since last summer’s uprisings against the racist murder of George Floyd (see editorial, page 2).

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MAY DAY GREETINGS FROM HAITi

Greetings to the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) May Day marchers in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and around the world; greetings to the international working class:
Today, in Haiti and around the world, imperialism’s relentless march for profits and power is worsening the living conditions of our class. The coronavirus pandemic is only one of the horrors that show how the racist and sexist inequalities of capitalism increase our suffering and make the precariousness of our lives even more glaring. In fact, in addition to the restrictive laws which reinforce authoritarian and so-called democratic regimes alike, the working masses have seen their purchasing power considerably decrease and a large majority of them sink into unprecedented unemployment and misery. All the while, the bourgeoisie keeps accumulating wealth, stolen from our labor and dreams of schemes for world war—where we workers are supposed to fight and die—to enrich themselves further with the spoils.

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MAY DAY GREETINGS FROM MEXICO

The COVID-19 crisis has unmasked the inability of capitalism to ensure the health, work, well-being, and life of the working class. This system serves bosses’ profits, not workers, as evidenced by the following figures:
While big capitalists in Mexico increased their wealth by an average of 20 percent during the pandemic (Forbes, 4/6), 12 million people were left jobless and an estimated similar amount fell into poverty (Expansion, 2/28). As Morena-PT liberals and PRI-PAN-PRD conservatives blame each other, COVID-19-associated deaths through February reached 316,000 (Mexico Excess Mortality Report, 3/15).
Health authorities have presented population confinement as the most effective measure to control the pandemic, but they hide its class nature. Because the most unprotected sector of the working class live day by day, they can't stay at home and have to expose themselves to find a way to survive, resulting in increased contagion and deaths in the most marginalized areas of large cities. Industrial zones have not stopped regardless of the lives of the workers.

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NYC Transit: MTA & liberal union bosses = deadend for workers

NEW YORK CITY, April 15—The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) bosses are continuing their racist and life-threatening policies of creating an unsafe environment for both riders and workers of the NYC subway system. These attacks are about maintaining the profits of Wall Street banks and businesses. The MTA is  reducing train service, leading to crowded trains that will recklessly expose riders to the coronavirus and increase the wait times between trains.

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Evict the bosses, power to the tenants

IRVINE, CALIFORNIA, April 4—Once again, this capitalist system has left workers without basic necessities. In response to yet another eviction, a local tenants’ union and non-profit community organization took action today to support a  working-class family. The family is struggling to regain control of their home of 14 years from the clutches of a racist investment company which has bought up “distressed” properties in gentrifying Inglewood. As Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joins the fight for this one family we also fight for all workers to build for communism, a society in which housing would be available to all without the plague of profit.
This nearly five month battle, taking place in the midst of perhaps the largest homeless crisis in the history of California, has been inspiring. We plan to win this battle, but the massive amount of homeless workers rages on, and it’s worldwide. It’s part of this racist, exploitative capitalist system. For homelessness to end, this whole damn system has to go.

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College Crisis: Students & workers fight to learn & learn to fight

SAN FRANCISCO, April 11—Over 200 students and workers had a spirited march through San Francisco’s working-class and predominantly Latin Mission District, protesting the ongoing attacks on the City College of San Francisco (CCSF). Angry and sometimes tearful speakers described the plans to let go of over 600 full and part-time teachers and shut down entire programs. People were very open to our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) leaflet, which brought a vision of a communist education to the struggle.

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Letters of May 12

Police are bosses’ attack dogs
On May 25th, 2020, in Minneapolis, the world watched in horror as the terrorists known as the police did what they do best - murder. The focus was on the four individual officers who were involved in the murder of George Floyd - Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao.
The truth is the police, no matter the color of their skin, have the blood of the working class on their hands. They are all just attack dogs for the capitalist ruling class.

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Big Tech serves rulers’ state power

The ruling class rules over society through the state apparatus. Laws, government, cops and prisons exist to keep the bosses in control of society. Highly successful and powerful U.S. high tech companies Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft (GAFAM) for many years have operated in their own self-interest and at times to the detriment of the interests of the main wing finance capitalists. As the fighting between the Big Fascist and Small Fascist (see glossary p.6) wings of the capitalists has become increasingly volatile the Big Fascists are using their state power to bring the Big Tech firms into line.

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Red leadership needed: Women garment workers rise vs. Myanmar’s military dictators

MYANMAR—Of the 700,000 garment workers in Myanmar 90 percent are women. They are striking against the exploitation by the  garment industry bosses and also leading the uprising against the military dictatorship that is ruling the country. They should not be pleading with the garment industry capitalists and their politician flunkies for a better deal. There is no better deal under capitalism. Capitalism means profits for the bosses and exploitation for workers. These women leaders should fight for communism, working class power, where they help lead all of society.

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Imperialist rivalry fuels Biden’s Gestapo

As the Joe Biden administration jails thousands of immigrant children and plans to warehouse tens of thousands more in tent camps and army bases, the liberal bosses’ hypocrisy and blatant inhumanity is on full display. Last fall, millions of voters were misled into voting for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The candidates vowed to stop Donald Trump’s vicious war on immigrants and shed crocodile tears for the “kids in cages”—but that was then. As hundreds of thousands of workers flee capitalist-inspired violence and poverty in Central America, Biden’s Homeland Security chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, vowed to charge more of them with felonies—for the “crime” of crossing the bosses’ borders (Washington Times, 4/6). Mayorkas hailed the “noble mission” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a notorious nest of white nationalists, card-carrying Nazis, child abusers, and sexual predators (vice.com, 1/6/20; Los Angeles Times, 10/1/20). Then he promised to fill “gaps” in Trump’s pathetic border wall (New York Post, 4/6).
The next time anyone tells you that Democratic Party liberals are “lesser evils” next to gutter racists like Trump, don’t believe them. Evil, yes—lesser, no! All capitalist politicians—from Biden to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) —are loyal, first and last, to a profit system that feeds on racism, sexism, and inter-imperialist war.

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