Turkey: Battleground for U.S., Russian Bosses

The failed Turkish military coup, a doomed attempt to seize state power from President Recip Tayyip Erdogan, represents a win for Russian imperialism, a bitter defeat for U.S. rulers, and another sign of growing instability in the petroleum-rich Middle East.
Erdogan—once hailed as a model “democratic” leader—has jailed more than 10,000 people, including 42 teenaged schoolchildren accused of treason (dailymail.co.uk, 7/25). Thousands of schools and hospitals have been seized; tens of thousands of government workers, teachers, and university deans and professors have been fired. Turkey presents a clear case of rising fascism, a reign of state terror to smash internal factions and terrorize the working class.

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U.S. Elections: Racist Lies

The Republican and Democratic national conventions are designed to build a nationalist, racist consensus around the attacks in store for workers as U.S. capitalism spirals into a deepening crisis. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are two sides of the same ruling-class coin. One spews openly racism to divide the working class; the other makes empty appeals to “racial justice” while trying to hide a four-decade track record of racist, sexist, anti-worker advocacy and political misleadership.  

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RNC: In Memory of Tamir Rice—Fight Back!

CLEVELAND, July 21—“I agree with the communists,” said a retired worker at the Cudell Recreation Center, where 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and murdered by the Klan-in-blue in 2014. As part of our summer project during the Republican National Convention, a small and inexperienced but enthusiastic contingent of Progressive Labor Party focused on raising class-consciousness among families in Cleveland.
In both the counter-RNC protests and neighborhood organizing activities, PLP raised communist politics and revolution as the only alternative to the bosses’ electoral sham.

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PLP Disrupts Clinton, Exposes AFT as Bosses’ Union

ST. PAUL-MINNEAPOLIS, July 21— Setting a militant tone of fightback from the first hours of the American Federation of Teachers convention, the Progressive Labor Party disrupted an arch-enemy of the working class: Hillary Clinton. A multiracial group of PL’ers took positions in the convention hall with a concealed banner that urged, “DON’T VOTE, REVOLT.” When Clinton mentioned Philando Castile, the Black education worker murdered by a cop in a St. Paul suburb twelve days earlier, PL’ers started chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot! Fists up, fight back!” We unfurled the banner and marched toward the stage. As we chanted, “Democrats, Republicans, all the same; racist terror is the name of the game,” Clinton became visibly upset and raised her voice to try to be heard over us. We continued our demonstration through the hall until security and the U.S. Secret Service surrounded and escorted us outside.

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DNC: Baton Rouge to Philly—Build Multiracial Unity

PHILADELPHIA, July 25—“This was my first march with the Party and at first I felt nervous but after I got on the bullhorn and started chanting it just felt right,” said a young comrade during the Democratic National Convention (DNC). Over 60 members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) descended on the DNC here to show workers and students there is an alternative to the bosses’ politicians—communist revolution. Through our commitment to multiracial unity and our reliance on the working class, this summer project was a microcosm for the kind of world we are building towards.

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For Eric Garner, Rage vs. Racist Cops

Staten Island, NY, July 17—Over 250 people, including members of Progressive Labor Party, marched to and boldly denounced the 120th Precinct in Staten Island, the same precinct responsible for Eric Garner’s murder exactly two years ago.
This rally was organized by The Legacy Eric Garner Left Behind (named after his last daughter, Legacy) and supported by Staten Island Against Racism and Police Brutality (SiaraPB). Eric Garner’s family, friends, and working class brothers and sisters feel sorrow. We miss Eric Garner, known as a “gentle giant” and nicknamed Nice. Whether he sold cigarettes or not does not justify the racist murder. After trying to break up a fight between two other people, he was choked to death by one cop as several others held onto him.
The soundtrack after the choking of Eric saying “I can’t breathe” eleven times has echoed around the world. Once everyone arrived at the police station, the crowd broke up and attempted to surround the whole block around the police station. A dozen vans and forty cars showed up.

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U.S. Imperialism and ISIS: Big Terror vs. Little Terror

As U.S. bosses use state terror to murder Black workers in cold blood (see page 1) and send drones to massacre workers and children from Pakistan to Yemen, the same capitalists are hypocritically denouncing regional imperialist ISIS (also known as the Islamic State) for its latest wave of slaughters in Turkey, Bangladesh, and Iraq.
The ISIS misleaders are mass-murdering capitalists cloaked as religious fundamentalists, lashing out in a desperate attempt to hang on to the Middle East oilfields they have seized since 2013. Meanwhile, some of the world’s biggest terrorists—U.S. imperialists, their NATO allies, and rival imperialists in Russia—are intensifying their bombing of ISIS-controlled areas to regain control of those same oilfields.
Whoever controls the production and flow of oil in the Middle East, home to the largest reserves of cheaply extractable petroleum in the world, gains a huge advantage over its competition. The region’s workers are caught in the middle of a deadly imperialist chess game.

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Rebel Against Racism

The racist police murders of Pedro Villanueva, Delrawn Small, Alton Sterling, and Philando Castile—on four consecutive days in July—are not isolated incidents or the work of a few “bad cops.” They are all too typical atrocities that expose the true face of capitalism. And they show the working class a glimpse of the heightened racist violence and bigger imperialist wars coming our way.
Capitalism cannot be reformed, nor can it be stopped by a lone wolf sniper firing into a crowd. The Progressive Labor Party fights to eliminate cops and imperialism for all time by destroying capitalism with mass revolutionary violence—with communist revolution.

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Women Lead in Baton Rouge

BATON ROUGE, LA, JULY 10—After Alton Sterling was murdered by the kkkops, Black workers carried out nightly protests. When the Progressive Labor Party heard this, we mobilized a multiracial group mainly women to go to Baton Rouge. Women, among them mothers who left child-rearing duties with their husbands, led the PLP group. The goal was to learn from our working class sisters and brothers and instill revolutionary communist politics into the fightback.

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DNC, AFT, RNC Conventions: Capitalism in Crisis

Over two weeks in July three major U.S. ruling-class organizations are mounting watershed conventions: the American Federation of Teachers, the Republican National Committee, and the Democratic National Committee. Each represents a ruling-class effort to build a nationalist, racist consensus around the attacks in store for workers and their children in the months and years to come.
The rebels of Ferguson and Baltimore, and now Baton Rouge and St. Paul, have shown the international working class that we have better options than voting and passivity. Militant striking teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico, risking their lives to fight for schools their students deserve, point us to another way. Members of Progressive Labor Party are active in these struggles and more, and our call is clear: Workers of the world, unite and fight for communism!

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