Red Politics At Home in Flatbush

Brooklyn, September 15—Communist politics featured prominently in the lead-up to a vigorous and multiracial march against racism, gentrification, and police violence. Organized by two neighborhood organizations, the Brooklyn Anti-Gentrification Network and Equality for Flatbush, the march was guided by a wishful liberal slogan: “Brooklyn is not for sale.” But a more militant note was struck by one of the event’s featured speakers, a Black woman who lost her sister to police violence. After experiencing capitalist state terror in this horrific fashion, she has developed into an important leader in anti-racist struggles.   
When this leader was invited to speak at the pre-march rally, she shared the microphone with a member of Progressive Labor Party. As CHALLENGE found its way into the hands of dozens of passersby, our comrade reminded the crowd that Brooklyn will always be for sale as long as we live under a system driven by profit. The capitalist world degrades any chance for meaningful neighborhood integration with racist gentrification. But we can create a better world!

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Haiti: PLP leads fight against capitalist corruption

HAITI, Sept. 7—The last several weeks have seen mass demonstrations throughout Haiti and the Haitian diaspora (e.g., in Brooklyn, NY during the massive Labor Day Carnival) against massive corruption in the PetroCaribe program. Workers have denounced the local bosses and their politicians, demanding an account of reports that between 1.7 to 3.8 billion dollars was stolen by previous regimes from funds destined for the development of the country. The actions follow up mass uprising in early July (Challenge 7/25).
Through the PetroCaribe contract signed in 2006, Venezuela sells gasoline and diesel fuel to Haiti and other countries in the region; 60% of the cost of the oil is due within 90 days and the balance is to be paid over 25 years at 1 percent interest. As of 2016, Haiti owes Venezuela over $80 billion (Haïti Liberté, 1/2). The money saved is supposed to be used for development projects. In Haiti, that turned it was misused by the bosses politicians. Examples of this corruption include a 10-mile road that was only 6.5 miles and unfinished housing for workers, etc., while bankers and politicians lined their own pockets (Miami Herald, 8/23).

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Student Resistance to Campus Goons: Bastion of the Fight Against Fascism

MEXICO, September 13—On September 3, a group of thugs on campus violently attacked students from CCH Azcapotzalco (a campus of the Autonomous University of Mexico—UNAM) in a cowardly and cunning manner.  The students and supporters from other UNAM campuses, were rallying in the courtyard of the campus rectory demanding: that more groups be allowed on campus, for improved security conditions, and the resignation of the president.The school president Enrique Graue admitted days later that he had witnessed the attack from the rectory’s tower, along with various other school authorities who were present.  No one did a thing while the students were attacked with rocks, sticks, pipes, Molotov cocktails, fireworks, and sharpened objects.  Two students were hospitalized with serious injuries and various others were wounded.  

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Chicago: hotel workers strike against sexist conditions

CHICAGO, September 13—A hotel workers’ strike here reached the seven-day mark today, with some 6,000 workers from over 20 major hotels represented in the struggle. Hundreds of these workers are actively participating on at least two dozen pickets.
Their contract with the bosses expired on August 30, and the demands of the strikers include year-round health benefits (workers have been made to go without when many are laid-off during the winter months) and higher wages. Comrades from Progressive Labor Party have joined in the picket, distributed CHALLENGE, supported chants, and talked with strikers.

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A new wave of student-worker movement

After a few years of relative political tranquility, China is starting to see a new wave of student movement and worker militancy. When several workers got fired and arrested in July as they tried to organize a local union in Jiashi Tech, a listed company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong, activists launched a small protest against the company and the local police.  The tension quickly escalated when the local police again arrested dozens of the protesters and charged several of them with criminal offenses.

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Turkish airport strike: Workers cause turbulence in bosses imperial ambitions

ISTANBUL, Turkey September 19 –“In the last couple of days, two of our friends fell from the roof. One of them is in surgery right now. Our working conditions are horrible!” That’s how one worker described the strike of 2,000 workers at Istanbul’s third airport. The strike began on September 14, after two shuttle buses crashed, injuring 17 workers.
Turkey is a key player in the rival U.S. and Russian imperialist ambitions in the Middle East. As this imperialist rivalry sharpens, workers in Turkey are being squeezed and exploited harder and harder.The striking workers are demanding greater workplace safety, fair and timely payment, and clean living conditions. While the striking workers are not, in this moment, calling for communist revolution, Turkey’s bosses clearly recognize the danger of a rebellious and militant working class.

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Fascists at war—U.S. bosses divisions cut deep

The main wing of the U.S. ruling class is on the offensive to contain President Donald Trump’s threat to the liberal world order—the military, political, and economic system that sustained the U.S. bosses’ dominance—and profits—since World War II. Whether or not Trump winds up getting impeached or indicted, the chaos surrounding the White House is a stark sign of the decline of the U.S. empire.
On August 21, special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller won convictions on eight counts of financial fraud against Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman. Minutes earlier, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty to bank and tax fraud and directly implicated Trump in a campaign finance violation. On September 5, the New York Times, the main wing’s leading mouthpiece, published an Op-Ed piece by an anonymous “senior official in the Trump administration.”

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Good riddance! John McCain, racist mass murderer

September 25-The racist war hawk is finally dead! The late Senator John McCain is being celebrated by the ruling class as a great “hero”—an elaborate display of self-serving hero-worship for their own benefit. But McCain was a determined enemy of the working class, in the U.S. and around the world – both as warmonger and lawmaker.

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Book Review U.S government engineered housing segregation

“Racial segregation in housing … was a nationwide project of the federal government … designed and implemented by its most liberal leaders … racially explicit policies of federal, state, and local governments defined where whites and African Americans should live ….The policy was so systematic and forceful that its effects endure to the present time.” These quotes are from the preface to The Color of Law, a new book by Richard Rothstein. The general ignorance of the history of de jure (by law) segregation is so profound that Chief Justice John Roberts could get away with saying that since residential segregation “is a product not of state action but of private choices, it does not have constitutional implications.” Rothstein also shows how racist housing laws contributed to segregated education, income differentials, the large differences in wealth between Blacks and whites, and stymied working class unity.

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Teachers beat back bosses’ pay cuts

LOS ANGELES—Base building and long-term struggle have laid the groundwork for big things to come at one high school in California. From the first day I started teaching at the school, I have put my politics in the forefront and built relationships with teachers and students that are centered on openly discussing the world situation.

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