school reopening, a lose-lose dilemma for students

After the experience last spring, students, parents, and teachers know that remote learning is a degraded and degrading replacement for in-person instruction. Students learn less. At the same time, the stubborn push by both wings of the U.S. ruling class to reopen schools is driven by their reckless drive for profits and need for social control. In New York City, the United Federation of Teachers, a union born in racism and anti-communism (see CHALLENGE, 3/27/14) has begun strike preparations while making no provisions to care for student instruction or counseling. It’s clear that the remote vs. in-person debate is a racist, lose-lose proposition for the working class.
Capitalist schooling trains us to treat the working class as expendable. We are taught that it is inevitable that some workers and youth will be homeless, unemployed, or incarcerated. Education workers are habituated to accept some dropouts, suspensions, and failure as unavoidable. As much as capitalist schools teach expendability, they also strive to teach patriotism and build loyalty to U.S. imperialism. If millions of youth are left without the grip of social control while the facade of stability crumbles around us, imperialists will have a harder time winning workers to fight a war with China.
That’s why we fight for communism, where no worker or child will be treated as expendable because we will eliminate the profit motive that drives all aspects of this society.

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Letters from NJ Summer Project

I was amazed that this existed

I learned about the Progressive Labor Party from a member who I met during a rally against the murder of George Floyd in Patterson, New Jersey. We first met in a signal chat that consisted of various organizers and activists so I did not know what organization this person was from, if any. I remember listening to the progressive politician Larry Hamm speak at the protest about how the police were out of control and there needed to be better relations between the community and police. I didn’t know Hamm too well but remarked to the person I came with that he seemed like a pretty good guy. They shrugged and responded that he was a politician and therefore trying to diffuse the anger in the community and push people toward using the electoral process as a solution for the police murdering black people in America. I was impressed and wasn’t expecting such

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A hot Red summer: the future is bright

In the span of two hot summer weeks, the red (communist) Project reached 50 multiracial and multigenerational women and men. Through the distribution of CHALLENGE, 1,500 people were exposed to communist literature. At its closing, four participants joined or recommitted to the Party, including Black and white students and teachers. Overall, a success in moving towards winning workers and students closer to a communist outlook! The Party has a bright future.

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Students, family, teachers expose liberal misleadership, demand safe schools

NEW YORK CITY, August 3—Hundreds of teachers, students, and parents protested the unsafe plans to reopen city schools. They demanded smaller class sizes and the removal of police from schools. High school youth led chants, showed a promising pro-student element of working-class solidarity in this protest that began outside the teachers’ union (UFT) headquarters and marched to City Hall. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) put forward communist ideas of building antiracist student-family-teacher unity with signs, a bullhorn, and CHALLENGE.

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Democrats: the party of war and fascism

At the Democratic National Convention (DNC) the imperialist Big Fascists put on display the political coalition that they hope can defeat Donald Trump and the Small Fascists that he represents. The Big Fascists are going all out, calling on their fake progressives, various military leaders, and anti-Trump Republican Party leaders to fight off the Small Fascists.
The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) maintains that these liberal politicians, representing the Big Fascists, are the greater threat to the working class. They want to build multiracial support for reforms that will feed their drive towards war against imperialist rivals, China and Russia. PLP says that workers from different countries have no interest in killing each other. The whole damn capitalist system has to go. Workers should run the world–that’s communism.

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A communist commune for struggling youth

I regard the collective as the supremely important form of educational work.
-Anton Semyonovich Makarenko

A pandemic rages. There is no cure. Countless are infected; hundreds of thousands have died. The U.S. accounts for only four percent of the world population but over 25 percent of Covid-19 cases. Clearly the capitalists don’t care about us; their only goal is profit. So, we

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Worcester: Defeating the bosses’ misleaders

Worcester, MA, August 25—Earlier this month our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) contingent in Worcester joined forces with members from Racism Free Worcester Public Schools, Defund Worcester Police, and Showing Up For Racial Justice to rally for working class students and demand that police be removed from the school system. An integrated and multi-racial group of nearly 75

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U.S., China lurch toward war

 As U.S. and Chinese bosses shut down each other’s consulates and jockey to create the first Covid-19 vaccine, the rivalry between the two capitalist superpowers is quickly accelerating toward armed conflict. The world is changing before our eyes. As U.S. rulers expose their disunity and decay in their chaotic response to Covid-19, Chinese rulers are growing bolder by the day—politically, economically, militarily. As modern history shows, a dramatic power shift among the biggest imperialists can be settled only by global war. It’s as inevitable—and unstoppable—as an earthquake.

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For Darius, smash kkkapitalism

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, IL—Cops are a weapon of the capitalist bosses, using deadly force to control and discipline the working class. It is this standard operation of terror that murdered 24-year-old Black home health aide worker Darius Washington on the night of July 18. During this time of widespread rebellions against capitalist racism, Darius’ family and friends are demanding answers and fighting back.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) knows  there is no justice for our class under this murderous system. Workers must fight back whenever and wherever we can, and our only freedom lies in a communist-led revolution and the overthrow of capitalism!

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Only communism can defeat fascism

The increasing threat of war between the U.S. and Chinese bosses is putting tremendous pressure on the U.S. ruling class to move rapidly towards fascism in the U.S (see Editorial, page 2). The use of federal police to attack protesters in Portland has brought the rise of fascism to the fore. Many people are hoping that electing presidential candidate Joe Biden and putting the liberal politicians at the helm of the Democratic Party back in control of the White House will stave off fascism. But the liberal bosses backing the Democrats are the biggest and most desperate section of a divided U.S. ruling class and will, themselves, move towards fascism as they become more desperate in the face of an increasingly volatile world situation. Electing Biden or the Democrats will not spare the working class. The only path forward as capitalism sinks deeper into crisis is the fight for communist revolution.

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