Shantel Davis Four Years Later, No Justice Under Capitalism

BROOKLYN, June 14—Today marked four years since the day that the NYPD brutally shot down Shantel Davis. A multi-racial group of about 30 PLP members and friends and some other community organizers congregated with Shantel’s family on the street corner where she was killed to commemorate her life and our four years of fightback. With heavy faces and tear-stained eyes, our collective stood with a myriad of white balloons. In the wake of four years of fighting back against tragedy, one theme remained present throughout the night: Justice for Shantel and all victims of police brutality means nothing short of communist revolution.
The rally began with bullhorn speeches by PL members, the Davis family, and the families of other members of the working class who have been murdered by the kkkops, such as Ramarley Graham, Mohamed Bah, and Anthony Baez. Speeches were bolstered by chants from the crowd of “Racism means we got to fight back!” and “We will never forget Shantel! We will always fight for Shantel!” in between. We then blocked traffic in all four directions of the intersection as we formed a huge circle in the center. As traffic piled up, drivers were told why we were there and they stood in support. More remarks were made over the bullhorn as members of the neighborhood looked on and recorded the spectacle of a multiracial group of protesters on their phones.

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U.S. Bosses Debate Mideast Strategy, No Gains for Workers

U.S. imperialist terrorist-in-chief Obama’s current Middle East strategy prioritizes military action against ISIS. However, as Russia continues to challenge U.S. imperialist ambitions in oil-rich Syria and the Middle East as a whole, top U.S. State Department officials are calling for more aggressive military strategies to counter Russia’s increasing influence. As this rivalry intensifies the threat of even wider imperialist wars loom on the horizon.

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Reformist Betrayal in Brazil

Last month’s impeachment of Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, is a sharp reminder that capitalist reforms and sell-out politicians can never serve the needs of the international working class. The political coup against Rousseff and her fake-left, deceptively named “Workers’ Party” points to an escalation of the fight between two camps of Brazilian finance capitalists (see CHALLENGE, 4/16): the pro-China wing represented by Rousseff, and the pro-U.S. wing that orchestrated her ouster and installed her replacement, Michel Temer.
Regardless of the outcome of Rousseff’s trial in the country’s Senate, the workers of Brazil are sure to be the losers. Like arch-imperialist Hillary Clinton and gutter racist Donald Trump in the U.S., Rousseff and Temer are two sides of the ruling-class coin. Along with phony “socialists” like French President Francois Hollande or failed U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, these liberal reformers are all willing agents of the capitalist bosses. Until they are unmasked, our class will stay bound by the exploiters’ chains.

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The Rise and Fall of Muhammad Ali

When Muhammad Ali, arguably the greatest boxer of all time, died on June 3, he was praised as a great “American hero” by the bosses’ media, including many who’d once cheered on the U.S. government as it tried to destroy him. Ali’s great historical moment came in 1966, when he stood up against genocide, inspired the anti-Vietnam War movement, and refused induction into the U.S. military with the immortal words: “I ain’t got nothing against no Viet Cong [the communist guerrillas in South Vietnam). No Viet Cong never called me n-----.”
Later on, after the bosses

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Patient-Worker Solidarity HIV, Straight Outta Capitalism

LOS ANGELES, June 14—HIV treatment has become a multi-billion dollar industry that includes medication options as simple as one pill a day with very few side effects. Treatment and cure is limited to what is profitable for the bosses, not what is necessary for working-class health. Due to the inherent nature of capitalism, the benefits of any medical advances are countries where these drugs can be purchased at a profit. The bulk of the world’s workers most afflicted have no access to these medications.

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Letter: Walkout at Texas Bottling Factory

Back in December I wrote an article on “Base-Building and Resilience” based on work at my job, a bottling company. Today I write as an unemployed worker who coordinated a walkout.
After months of late nights and exhausted days, my coworkers and I had had enough of the lousy working conditions. We had won back being provided with free water and got the company to make minor repairs to our workplace, but many were still frustrated. Since December, many workers had been fired or had quit after finding “better” jobs. A workforce of 19 had dwindled to 9; only 4 of whom had been on the job 5 months before. This low amount of workers caused the bosses to panic. They started to speed up productivity using threats and lies and kept people on the job 12 to 16 hours a day to get the trucks loaded.

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Veteran’s Anti-Racist Politics Take Center Stage

NEW JERSEY, June 11—At the Veterans of Foreign Wars center in Irvington, New Jersey, my acting group and I performed the play, “A System of Profiling.” We portrayed the lives of the four men—Daniel Reyes, Leroy Grant, Rayshawn Brown and Keshon Lamonte—who were shot by kkkops on the New Jersey Turnpike in April 1998. The system unsurprisingly failed these Black and Latin men—within a year of finding the cops guilty, New Jersey prosecutors acquitted them of all charges. The play was meant to send the message that these men and countless others will never find justice under capitalism.

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Verizon Workers Won Reforms By Fighting, Struggle Continues

NEW YORK CITY, June 12—A red salute to the 40,000 brave Verizon workers whose six-week strike against the largest U.S. telecommunications company ended. The strikers’ militancy and unity cost the company over $200 million and gained widespread support despite a virtual total media blackout. The revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party salutes the Verizon workers for their militancy and determination.
In this period, the international working class faces capitalist attacks from all sides, from racist police terror, to millions of our sisters and brothers displaced as refugees worldwide, to the growing threat of wider imperialist wars. Amid all this, the Verizon workers dared to fight, and showed a glimpse of the working class’s potential to flex its muscle within a vital U.S. industry.

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Orlando Shooting: Result of Capitalist Alienation

Omar Mateen’s anti-gay sexist killing in Orlando fuels the anti-Muslim racism the ruling class uses to further divide the working class.
The 49 people dead and 53 wounded at the Pulse nightclub were targets of Mateen’s hatred, possibly self-loathing, of the gay and transgender working class.
This capitalist world’s nature is to exploit, alienate, terrorize, and murder—all for maintaining profit and imperialist domination. It is no surprise then that Mateen had internalized the inner logic of this system. Capitalism seeks to alienate and sicken the way we relate to members of our class. The attack was years in the making and is supported by ages of sexist oppression and violence against the gay and transgender working class.

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Juneteenth Perpetuates Racist Myths

Juneteenth has been pushed on the working class as a progressive holiday, perpetuating myths of democracy in is a holiday that’s been celebrated in Texas since 1867. The holiday grew from the fact that slaves in Texas were not told they had been emancipated until 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
This holiday echoes the elevation of Lincoln by Obama, who was sworn into office on the Lincoln Bible, in an effort to declare his election victory the antiracist culmination of a struggle to realize American “democracy” that began with the “great emancipator” and victor of the Civil War.
The push for Juneteenth serves to perpetuate two myths:

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