From Flint to NYC Fight Racist Lead Crisis in Schools

BROOKLYN, NY, April 5—Once again, racist education bosses at the Department of Education (DOE) are showing their disregard for and neglect of Black and Latin working class children. In February, it was found that the water at more than half of all New York City public schools had lead present—an element so toxic to humans that there is no “safe” amount of it (WNYC News, 3/30). In some NYC schools, the levels are higher than were in Flint, Michigan at the height of the lead crisis there.
This recent round of testing is not the first, but previous testing was done after water was flushed through the systems, effectively making the test results inaccurate. It’s hard to know how long youth and education workers have been exposed to this poison. The DOE’s response to this crisis has been unacceptable and racist.

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‘Act for America, KKK, RACIST Nazis Go Away!’

TEXAS, March 23—A crowd of 100 protested the country’s largest anti-Muslim hate group, American Congress for Truth (A.C.T. for America), who was holding a panel at a church to discuss the prevention of Mosques from being built in the U.S.
Progressive Labor Party organized a small but highly important contingent including a friend to influence the passive and nationalist message of the liberal organizers. PLP distributed leaflets, which analyzed how necessary racism is for the bosses in maintaining racial divisions among the working class and calling for fight back with on the job organizing as the main strategy for fighting anti-Muslim racism.

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Teachers Rage Against Bosses’ Control

NEW YORK CITY, April 1—Our high school is getting a crash course in worker’s power and class-consciousness. The school bosses run the science department in the way that best suit ruling-class need. The students are heavily tracked to get into the elite courses, effectively dividing the future working class. A few teachers are given the least-performing students with the low ratings that accompany them. Then, they are served a heaping helping of abuse from the science Assistant Principal who regularly plays Christian music in her office while displaying a crucifix.

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No Free Speech for ‘Bell Curve’ Racist Charles Murray

HARLEM, April 1—Progressive Labor Party salutes the brave students and staff across U.S. college campuses who protested the presence of racist Charles Murray. From Middlebury, Duke, Columbia, New York University, to Notre Dame and Villanova University, they have upheld that there should be no free speech for racists!
Charles Murray, best known for the pseudoscientist racist book The Bell Curve, is touring college campuses on the premise of promoting his new equally racist book Coming Apart. The book has gained increased attention since Donald Trumps’ election. The revival of Murray is no surprise; when overt racist politics are unapologetic fought for in the highest spheres of government, that legitimacy trickles out to colleges and all other institutions. Legitimatizing  “scientific” racist ideas set the groundwork for intensifying racist actions. When they’re allowed to speak, they become emboldened. When they are emboldened, they grow. And when they grow, they put their words into actions—terrorizing and killing Black, Latin, Muslim, immigrant workers and youth.

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Bosses’ Divisions Play Out in Healthcare

The fight over repealing Obamacare exposes the growing infighting in the ruling class. Different factions are building political movements as they vie for power they try to leverage their movement against opposing groups of capitalists. The Tea party capitalists led by the Koch Brothers were able to mobilize the Freedom Caucus politicians to send a message that the ruling class has to take them into account.
The infighting is sharpening because the current situation of the U.S. bosses is extremely unstable and there are big fights coming as the bosses sort out their differences.
The differences that are playing out over health care range from the Freedom Caucus wanting to do away with virtually all government health care to the Bernie sanders/ Keith Ellison democrats fronting for the bosses who want to give more crumbs in the form of expanding Medicaid as big wars loom on the horizon.
The factions are somewhat fluid but here is an effort to give a description of the various factions.

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Students Debate Politics in Growing Sanctuary Struggle

QUEENS, NY, April 2—Following Trump’s election, LaGuardia Community College students, faculty, and staff began mobilizing to begin a Sanctuary movement. The Trump administration is increasing its’ racist and sexist attacks on the working class. They are bringing us ever closer to world war. We have to increase our efforts to organize a multiracial working class to fight back. A sanctuary movement is a good start. Let’s also make it a step on the road to a world run by the working class, communism.

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Workers in Haiti Need Reforestation and Revolution

NEW YORK CITY, April 5—The pianist hit the ivory and ebony keys. The singer used her voice, and the Haitian and church communities gathered together let out a whoop of excitement during our sixth annual fundraiser to benefit grassroots work in Haiti.  120 people attended on a miserably rainy evening in a church basement to raise funds for reforestation projects in Southeast Haiti.

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Paris Commune: World’s First Workers’ Dictatorship

As May Day, the international workers’ holiday, nears, a look at the world’s first success at workers’ power:
One hundred forty-six years ago, in 1871, armed workers ran the French bosses out of Paris and established the Paris Commune. France was a world superpower. Germany had a growing industrial base and its own super-power ambitions. "We, the members of the International Working Men's Association, know of no frontiers," declared the communists. But competition between French and German capitalists led to war in 1870. The French army was soon routed.

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Korean Peninsula: Flashpoint of China-U.S. Rivalry

Thousands of workers in South Korea protest against THAAD (U.S. missile system) and the capitalist warmakers’ willingness to sacrifice workers’ lives.North Korea’s latest ballistic missile tests have exposed growing tensions between the U.S. and Chinese ruling classes. On March 6, a week before U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson began his tour of Asia to build support in the region, North Korea launched four ballistic missiles that landed within 200 miles of Japan’s coastline. On March 19, North Korea announced the successful test of a new high-thrust rocket engine that “could help with the country’s development of ICBMs—intercontinental ballistic missiles” with the potential to reach targets in the United States (cnn.com, 3/19). Despite pledges to “cooperate” between Tillerson and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in containing North Korea’s military ambitions, recent developments show how these major powers are building toward war (New York Times, 3/19).

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Haiti: International Working Women’s Day and Class Struggle

Haiti, March 8—Progressive Labor Party organized a conference and cultural activities on the occasion of International Working Women’s Day in a city in Haiti. Despite driving in rain and flooded streets, several dozen people participated: high school students, women, men, children, and women from many local women’s organizations.
A worker at the Ministry of Women’s Rights and the Status of Women gave an overview of the situation and the struggle of women, pointing to both progress and limitations of women’s movements since 1950 when women in Haiti won voting rights and since 1986, with the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship.
One of the leaders of a women’s organization remarked several times how extraordinary it is for a non-feminist organization to organize such an activity to mark this date.

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