Smash Sexist State Violence

SAN JOSE, CA, September 2—“Same enemy same fight, to smash sexism we must unite,” PLP and other anti-sexists at the Santa Clara Hall of Justice where rapist Brock Turner was released.
Turner was convicted of three felonies for sexual assault against an unconscious woman and was sentenced to a mere six months in jail, only serving three. Progressive Labor Party gave leadership across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City to protest the special oppression of women (see LA report on page 3).

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Los Angeles Expose Sexist Profit Motive

LOS ANGELES, September 2—The Progressive Labor Party made an immediate coast to coast call to action when Stanford rapist Brock Turner was let out after a three-month jail sentence. Turner’s case is an example of the sexist culture and oppression that feeds on capitalism.

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INDIA: 180 M on Strike

One September 2, over 180 million workers went on a one-day strike in India. Workers from state-run factories, power stations, and banks, and at garment factories in Tamil Nadu, automobile factories in Karnataka, a major hospital in Delhi, transportation industries in Haryana, iron mines, to sanitation plants, all partcipated, making it the largest strike in history (Guardian 9/2)! This strike cost Indian bosses over $2.5 billion dollars. It is a victory for working-class consciousness.

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Haiti: Sketch of Comradeship

HAITI, Sept 7—Solidarity must be at the heart of what it means to be a communist. Communism is not only a political and economic system, it is also a way of life. Building an international revolutionary communist party means breaking the boundaries of racism, sexism, social division of labor and economic inequalities fueling the life of workers-all barriers created by capitalism to divide and alienate the working class.
Therefore, communists must develop our line through our everyday lives, along with developing trust between communists and the working class. This summer, PLP here continued to experience and develop that solidarity with North American communists and friends and relatives.

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Attica, Symbol of Working-Class Rebellion

…Not only are conditions worse today than they were during Attica,… Attica once again…. is synonymous with prisoner resistance.
—Heather Ann Thompson, history professor at the University of Michigan, (Jacobin, 9/9)

NEW YORK, September 9—Forty-five years ago, Black imprisoned workers led their white and Latin counterparts in a rebellion against the racist deplorable conditions at Attica prison in northwestern New York State. Today prisoners nationwide are organizing once again. Capitalism is a never-ending disaster.  For workers, students and prisoners worldwide only communism is a solution: a world without racism, sexism or imperialist wars.

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Phyllis Schlafly: Good Riddance!

Phyllis Schlafly, presidential candidate Donald Trump’s hero, a leading architect of conservatism in the twentieth century died in early September. Schlafly was a committed anti-communist, racist, and sexist. But, what she is known for the most is her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, an amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would have banned denial of rights due to sex. Schlafly campaigned against the ERA, and won many working women to join the fight, arguing a women’s place is in the house with the kids. Of course, this denies the reality of the millions of working class women who worked. However, it maintained the ruling class lie that working was optional for women, and helped them keep women’s pay low.

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No Honor Among Imperialists Widening War in Syria

Turkey’s August 24 assault on northern Syria, its first direct involvement in a five-year-old proxy war, points to even more instability in the Middle East—and U.S. imperialists’ precarious position there..
Turkey’s bosses, who are critical to U.S. control over the region’s vast oil reserves, have become unreliable allies. By sending tanks and troops into Syria and authorizing airstrikes over the border, Erdogan has “transformed this horrific war into a completely unpredictable battlefield” in which “the Russians would seem to have gained the most” (Der Spiegel, 8/26). The threat of a global conflict is closer to reality, as noted by the main-wing U.S. bosses’ mouthpiece of choice, the New York Times:

Because Syria has sucked in two of the world’s leading military powers, Russia and the United States, [the situation] could most likely be cleared only by a full-scale invasion. In the best case, this would require something akin to the yearslong American occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan. In the worst, invading a war zone where so many foreign adversaries are active could ignite a major regional war (NYT, 8/26).

For the millions of workers murdered and displaced in Syria, the horror of wider war is already a reality. Rival imperialists

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By Flood or by Bullets, RACISM KILLS

The flash flooding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, home to the July rebellion following the racist police murder of Alton Sterling, is a capitalist disaster. The floods expose both the bosses’ rotten profit system and the working class’s potential to run society without exploitation.
More than 7,000 have been made homeless and are trapped in over-crowded shelters. Thirteen have died and 100,000 homes were damaged. Altogether, 400,000 people were devastated by the floods. Every one of them is a victim of capitalism.
“Natural” Disasters are Preventable
Nature may create massive downpours, but capitalism—a system run by and for the bosses—creates the disasters. After a historic 1983 flood of the Baton Rouge area, the result of an improperly built highway bridge, politicians and government agencies made promises to prevent future problems. But since the capitalist bosses don’t view infrastructure for the working class as a lucrative source of profits, nothing happened.

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Baltimore Escalates Fight vs. KKKop Murders

BALTIMORE, MD, August 14—Members of the Progressive Labor Party, along with students and workers in Baltimore, are waging an aggressive fight against the police murder of Black and Latin lives and the capitalist system that generates such injustices.  Together with our friends, we have been part of the citywide protests against the police murder of Freddie Gray and the weekly Wednesday rallies for Tyrone West. On Saturday we joined a multiracial group of protesters that included the Baltimore Bloc, the City Bloc, and others, in marching through Artscape, the city’s arts festival. These protests have been militant in nature-with many arrests at the July 16 and today’s protests. We are showing that this racist system has to go and the working class will not stand by while the cops murder our sisters and brothers.

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In Memory of Ezell Ford, Healthcare Workers Fight KKKops

LOS ANGELES—Progressive Labor Party led 16 healthcare workers and friends from the community in a rally outside our clinic against racist police murder. The mother, grandmother, and three siblings of Ezell Ford, who was murdered by the police, also joined our small but spirited contingent.

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