COPS MURDER TWICE IN WASHINGTON AREA IN TWO DAYS!

Following the racist tradition of police brutality in DC and Prince George’s County, cops have killed two unarmed suspects in two days. In Prince George’s County, the cops chased a man through woods and shot him as he tried to climb over a fence. The 7 year veteran of the police force claimed he feared for his life.  Of course!  No weapon was found at the scene—other than the cop’s gun.

In a gross display of brutal overkill, the Secret Service and the Capitol Police shot 17 times and killed an unarmed mentally ill young black woman who apparently tried to first crash the White House and then tried to crash the Capitol. The cops declared that there was “an active shooter incident”, but the only shooters were the trigger-happy cops. In fact, the chief of police boasted that the bollard barriers to both the White House and Capitol, put in place after 9/11, worked perfectly.  If that was the case, there was absolutely no reason to gun down the erratic driver. But in the Washington area, it seems that if you’re black, the cops shoot first and ask questions later.

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RACISM murdered Trayvon Martin; CAPITALISM let his killer go free!!

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U.S. racism led to the murder of 17 year old Trayvon Martin; from the police to the courts, the capitalist system continues to protect racist murders. 

In 2012 George Zimmerman gunned down Trayvon Martin because he was a Black youth in Amerikkka.  The capitalist system has protected Zimmerman ever since.  Masses of workers wanting “justice” protested to have Zimmerman tried for the racist murder of Trayvon Martin. 

Neither Trayvon nor any worker will ever get justice through the bosses court system.  Since the beginning of the trial the bosses have made it impossible to talk about the very essence of the case, racism.  At the very beginning the judge ruled that the topic of race would be “severely limited” and discussion of “racial profiling” would not be allowed.  Capitalism can never address the issue of racism.  Racism was created by the capitalist class and is the glue that holds their system together.

Bosses profit from Racism

Since Obama was elected in 2008 he has tried to convince us that Amerikkka has entered a “post racial” society.  The truth is that through Obama’s leadership, the most vicious racist attacks have occurred.  Obama has:

The only solution is Communist Revolution!!!

The working class must take the streets! We cannot allow the murder of another young Black man to go down in silence.  We must fight back against racism and the capitalist system that depends on it.  But “justice” for Trayvon and all the other victims of capitalism will only come with the overthrow of the system that creates these conditions.  Once the bosses’ system is smashed, the need to divide the workings class and super exploit some will no longer exist.  Only then will we be able to smash racism, sexism and all other anti-working class ideas.  This is the fight of the Progressive Labor Party.  Join us!  

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Big Terrorists and Small Terrorists The profit system is at the root of them all

Boston Bombing  Whoever planted the pipe bombs that killed three people at the Boston Marathon and injured more than 150 is a terrorist who committed a heinous act of murder.  We must understand that this tragedy is just one example of many in the world.  Everyday people in Iraq, Afghanistan, India and in several African countries, routinely experience urban bombings.   Even wealthy cities, such as London and Tel Aviv, have experienced urban bombings.  They have become part of life in our unequal, unjust world. 

Capitalism Kills  The root of terrorism worldwide is the anger and suffering generated by poverty and inequality.  Capitalism is a truly brutal system, causing massive war, starvation, and racist inequality throughout the world.  This deadly profit system causes horrific destruction and loss of life from Haiti to Greece.  The U.S. has the productive capacity to produce enough food to feed the whole planet.  However, 40 million people worldwide die every year due to starvation.  This, too is a kind of terrorism, where innocent lives are lost needlessly.  Even in the U.S. today, we experience economic terrorism in the form of huge cuts in workers’ wages and benefits and massive unemployment.

US Government is one of the biggest Terrorists    One of the biggest perpetrators of terrorism is the very person who claims to be our protector, President Obama.  Obama and the US government claim that “surgical” drone strikes, using unpiloted aircraft, avoid civilians.  They say that drones offer a low-cost, politically low-risk means of prosecuting their “war on terror” without engaging U.S. troops.  However, of the untold hundreds of innocent people killed so far by drones, nearly half are children, according to a recent study by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of mostly noncombatants have been killed by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan alone as it fights to control the most plentiful supplies of cheap oil in the world.  These are examples of state sponsored terrorism.

Bombing and Fascism   Since 9/11, the bosses have been monitoring all workers more closely.  Although they do this in the name of security neither the country nor the world is safer today.  Similarly, the Boston bombing tragedy, will be used to win people to accept more centralized government control over our lives.  Under Obama, Supermax prisons continue to lock up 1000s in complete isolation, driving many insane. Many of these prisoners are completely innocent. Under Obama, we have more racist cop terror.  Under Obama, we have drone surveillance inside the US.  Under Obama, we have more FBI wiretapping and more cameras watching us. As the manager of the US profit empire, Obama is leading us down the path of fascism (i.e. police state). 

The working class worldwide suffers from U.S. imperialism’s march to wider wars.  Our class’s answer remains to intensify class struggle against these murderous rulers and their poisonous profit system. We can see this happening in Pakistan’s mass strikes, and in workers’ mass protests in Greece and Spain. We see renewed struggle beginning to emerge in the U.S., with the fight -backs against racist cop terror and anti-Wall Street demonstrators in cities across the country.

The only solution is communist revolution  Progressive Labor Party is a revolutionary communist party dedicated to eliminating capitalism as the only way to end imperialism, fascism, racism, sexism, exploitation, poverty, and terrorism.  If we want peace in the world, we must eliminate the war-makers.  We are fighting for communism—a society run by workers where the wealth is distributed according to need not profit.

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What will stop the attacks on Gaza and the West Bank?

ONE STATE, TWO STATES or A COMMUNIST STATE?

Once again the Israeli Zionist rulers are launching a full-scale murderous military attack against the Palestinian civilians - men, women and children -  in Gaza, just as they did with the brutal Cast Lead massacre in 2008-2009. They claim that this is in retaliation for and to stop the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. This is a big lie! The current murders are simply the latest step in the constant fascist attempts to “ethnically cleanse all of Palestine.

*There is no doubt that the 2^nd attack on Gaza is a war crime and that the military occupation of Palestine by Israel is wrong and unsustainable. At 44 years, it is one of the longest occupations in history and violates every precept of international law. Not only are Palestinians reduced to living on 22% of their former land, but they have been deprived of much of their water, farmland, employment, and freedom of movement. Continuous warfare afflicts not only the region but fuels world conflict. No one demonstrating here today disagrees with any of this.

*The much more difficult question is what should we be fighting for? Is it enough to demand that siege of Gaza and the occupation end, the settlements be dismantled, or a “Palestinian state” be established? This issue cannot be addressed without considering the role of racism and nationalism in the history of Israel and the current struggle between Israel and Palestine.

The influx of Jews into Palestine was a response to their racist persecution in Europe and the nationalist impulses of the late 19^th century. The massive increase in immigration after the Holocaust also largely reflected the refusal of Western nations to accept Jewish refugees.  In addition, the US and Britain were glad to have an enclave of people with Western capitalist values and ties in the Middle East, which was rapidly gaining importance as the major source of oil.

Instead of going to “a land without people for a people without land”, the Jews arrived in a densely populated area. In 1948, the UN gave 55% of the land to the Jews, when they comprised only one third of the population and owned only 6% of the land. 750, 000 Palestinians, 6/7 of the population, were brutally expelled from their homes. In the 1967 war, Israel began the occupation of Palestinian land and took total control over 46% of the West Bank. Now the Wall, the checkpoints, the ban against Palestinians working in Israel and other indignities have reduced Palestinians to a state of desperation.

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Capitalism is a Racist Disaster

Storms don’t know skin color or class, but capitalism is built on inequalities rooted in both.  An event like Hurricane Sandy that seems to affect “everyone” the same turns out to strike hardest at those who have the fewest resources, the fewest choices, the fewest places to go.   

Like Katrina in 2005, or the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 this system’s response to disaster shows that what is natural under capitalism is RACISM.   Footage of ruined yachts and vacation homes dominated the early images of the bosses’ media coverage. More recently news coverage has centered around devastated white communities of the region to the exclusion of areas like Red Hook, the Lower East Side, Coney Island and Canarsie.  But there is nothing “natural” about who pays the highest price in these disasters.  Meanwhile the ruling class gets to practice fascist police state tactics of population transfer, curfew, military direction of civilian affairs under the name of “emergency management.”

• ·       Undocumented workers live in fear of deportation and so many will not come forward to seek the help they need (in the aftermath of 9/11 families of undocumented restaurant workers in the Twin Towers received nothing!)
• ·       Mostly black DC 37 city workers were forced back to the job while mostly white UFT members got paid days off.  On the whole salaried workers have much more income protection than hourly wage workers.  
• ·       Red Hook supermarkets with no power take no electronic food stamps: no cash, no food.

Yet workers all over New York have worked collectively to help each other out.  While Obama and Bloomberg cruise around in helicopters giving orders, it will be workers who rebuild the homes, roads, rails, ports and more destroyed in this storm.  Some put their lives on the line to rescue people stuck on roofs of their homes, others have turned their front yards into collection centers for food, water and clothes that they then hand out to their neighbors. Still others have pooled what little resources they have to help the elderly, disabled and children get meals. This is human nature! The bosses push the idea that everyone is “naturally” greedy and selfish, but in real times of need, those lies are uncovered.

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Education, not Imperialist War!

The strike of 30,000 school teachers and education workers in Chicago is the necessary response to the attacks that students, teachers and parents have been facing for years.  It’s significant that the strike is happening in Chicago, which is the Ground Zero for fascist “educational reform.” That has the full support of the democrats and AFT president Randi Weingarten.  The charter school movement, school closings, increased testing and “data driven” teaching, the new evaluation measures, and the budget cuts have all been forced on the mostly black and Latino school population. This is clearly racist. But the working class is pushing back against these attacks in a way that we haven’t seen in 25 years.

“School Reform” Is about Control, Not Education!

These endless changes forced down the throats of students and teachers nationwide are more about disciplining us than education.  Obama and Duncan’s Race to the Top and the drive towards standardized curriculum and testing is part of the bosses move to win the hearts and minds of our students to fight in their expanding imperialist wars.  School reform in Chicago has shown it’s racist nature from the mass firings of veteran black teachers from schools that our students never deserved, discipline policies that force our students out of school and the hiring of young white teachers into schools that are still setup for failure. 

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Chicago Teachers STRIKE against Apartheid Edcuation

STRIKE AGAINST CAPITALISM!!

The Chicago teachers’ strike is a fight back against the racist conditions (overcrowded classes, segregated schools, etc.) our children face every day.  Strikes allow workers to feel the power that we have as a class to stop the bosses in their tracks.  The liberal Democrats, Obama and Duncan are leading the racist attacks on students and teachers in the U.S. with their “Race to the Top”.  The anti-racist fight that 26,000 Chicago school workers are waging is an inspiration to workers around the world, like the striking Lonmin miners in Marikana, South Africa.

SAME ENEMY, SAME FIGHT! WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!!

For better wages, working and living conditions the black mine workers have shut down the world’s third largest platinum mine.  Our working class sisters and brothers in South Africa are waging a strike against the mine owners and the racist liberal African National Congress (ANC).  The response of the liberal black led ANC to these workers demands was the racist police massacre of 8 miners on August 8^th and 34 striking miners on August 16^th.

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Obama Moves to Iran and S. Asia; U.S. Imperialists’ Endless Wars

Having spread death and destruction across much of the Middle East, U.S. imperialists now seek to expand their horror show to the Far East. Barack Obama is methodically preparing for eventual war on China. In December he initiated the deployment of 2,500 U.S. Marines in Australia. In January he issued a Pentagon decree entitled, “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense.” It states: “While the U.S. military will continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region [emphasis added].”

Host of Problems = Hard Time for Rulers to Re-elect Obama

But U.S. rulers face two major problems in gearing up for a clash with China. First, they have a growing need to wage wider Middle East oil wars, especially as tensions with Iran heighten. It’s a task made more difficult by a shortage of combat troops, which could necessitate a wildly unpopular military draft.

Second, while the ruling class sorely needs a war president, it may have a hard time retaining their invader-in-chief Obama’s services after November’s election. Millions of voters could be turned off by mass racist unemployment, continuing economic depression, millions of home foreclosures, deportation of nearly two million immigrants, a wage freeze on federal workers, and an administration run by bailed-out bankers who have reaped profit bonanzas during a Depression they helped create.

War Clouds Darken over Iran

Iran threatens more each day to become the next U.S. front for open warfare. Covert action, like CIA-Mossad [Israeli secret police] rubouts of Iranian nuclear scientists, has been raging for years. On January 13, two days after the latest assassination, Iran sentenced an ex-U.S. Marine to death for spying. And while Washington ramps up oil sanctions to discourage the building of nuclear bombs, Iran threatens to attack U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf.

The only question is whether the first air strikes on Iran will come from the U.S. or Israel. Obama is deceitfully trying to deflect blame onto the supposedly more belligerent Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu: “Inside the Israeli security establishment, a sort of good cop, bad cop routine, in which Israeli officials rattle sabers amid a U.S. scramble to restrain them, has assumed its own name: ‘Hold Me Back’” (Wall Street Journal, 1/14/12). The lie is that Israeli bosses, armed to the teeth with U.S. weapons, always act without influence from the White House. Sometimes they do, but there appears to be strategic unity regarding Iran. Says the Journal’s article:

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Remembering Quake Inspires Brooklyn Students; Solidarity with Workers in Haiti

BROOKLYN, January 11 — More than three hundred students at Clara Barton High School, along with about twenty-five staff members, attended an inspiring commemoration of the second anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti.  It was organized and led by students who belong to an after-school club that has been fighting attacks by the school administration against teachers and students for many years. Important ideas were raised about imperialism and the roots of Haiti’s poverty, and why students in the U.S. need to build solidarity with the working class in Haiti. Students and teachers grasped the communist ideas of solidarity with workers around the world, of multiracial unity, and of fighting for a better future than the bosses’ plan for wars, drastic cuts in social services, and increased racism.

There were speeches and performances, ranging from spoken word and debate to singing and step dancing. The program stressed unity, solidarity and the struggle for a better world.

One song was sung in both Creole and English, with many in the audience learning the Creole words for the first time. This was symbolically important because students from Haiti have endured a lack of adequate programs and services at the school. There was also delicious food donated by area restaurants, as well as by staff and parents. As many students and teachers commented afterwards, the whole program was “amazing.”

The preparation for the event was as significant as the commemoration itself. The multi-racial student organizers were from Africa, South Asia, China, the Caribbean and the U.S. They were clear from the start in their goal to send a strong message of unity and solidarity with the workers and students who struggle for a better life in Haiti, where 600,000 still live in tents. Their collective effort inspired more and more students and teachers to come forward and offer to help. Each day, more students joined committees and got involved in the planning. The enthusiasm spread.

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Racist Unemployment: A Vicious Circle Destroying Workers’ Lives

NEW YORK CITY, December 10 — More than forty people came together at a church here to discuss the devastating impact of unemployment on all workers, as well as the racist attacks on education and healthcare in immigrant communities.

A pediatrician reported that job losses in poor neighborhoods cause increases in homelessness, domestic violence, poor nutrition and obesity, along with higher rates of asthma and other chronic diseases. Children suffer from higher stress, anxiety and low self-esteem, which contribute to behavior problems and low grades in school.

Unemployment Cuts Workers’ Health

As unemployment worsens, more workers lose health coverage and are unable to pay for the high cost of private insurance. Due to the bosses’ financial crisis and an ever-growing war budget, massive cuts in public services and the safety net are forcing the closing of hospitals, layoffs of healthcare providers, and reduced access to wellness or prevention programs in working-class communities.

An immigrant worker pointed out that these problems are even more severe in immigrant communities because of racist laws and the scapegoating of undocumented workers. Some documented immigrants are blaming the undocumented for the loss of jobs, causing division when there needs to be unity to fight the bosses. More arrests and higher deportation rates are dividing families and making them more impoverished. The fear of deportation makes the undocumented easier targets for super-exploitation. They are working harder for even less pay, and are less likely to seek healthcare when ill.

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