Imperialist War, Profit-System Poverty Are Worst Forms of Child Abuse

Obama Sheds Fake Tears  Over Penn State…

Hypocrisy drenches Barack Obama’s denunciation of “heartbreaking” child sex abuse at Penn State: “Our number-one priority has to be protecting our kids.” This phony concern comes from the commander of a United States war machine that routinely slaughters children and other civilians abroad, and whose system consigns millions of children in the U.S. to lives of poverty, hunger and premature death (see box).

What the U.S. president really seeks to protect is the far-flung sources of profit for his capitalist masters. Even as he calls for national “soul searching” over Penn State, Obama gives the go-ahead to atrocities against children in the oil-rich Middle East. While Yemen, for one example, is running out of oil, it borders Saudi Arabia’s unmatched reserves and harbors anti-U.S. Islamic movements — enough to make its people a target. As Salon.com reported, “Slightly more than two months after he was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama secretly ordered a cruise missile attack on Yemen, using cluster bombs, which killed 44 innocent civilians, including 14 women and 21 children, as well as 14 people alleged to be ‘militants’” (11/12/11).

…While U.S. Drones Kill Kids

Naturally, capitalist rulers don’t want us to know how many children they murder in their profit-driven wars. “We may never know how many,” the government-owned British Broadcasting Corporation reported last month in reference to civilian casualties in the U.S.-led Libyan oil grab that ousted dictator Qaddaffi. But some damning figures do emerge. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism at London’s City University “has identified 56 children reported killed in drone strikes during [Obama’s] presidency” (8/11/11). And these were in Pakistan, a U.S.-bankrolled “ally.”

Young people face even more horrific conditions in Obama & Co.’s declared war zones. UNICEF, the United Nations’ children’s agency, calculates that Afghanistan is the worst place in the world to be a child. One in five does not live to see a sixth birthday. (The death rate for young children there is 199 per thousand, as compared to 2.5 in Singapore.) Most of those deaths are from curable childhood diseases and malnutrition, compounded by war, which makes proper health care inaccessible.

Children, so dear to Obama, freeze and starve in Afghan gutters while well-fed U.S. contractors survey pipeline routes and mineral sources. UNICEF regional communications chief Sarah Crowe told CNN last January, “It is very hard to put a hard-and-fast figure to the number of children dying from hypothermia alone on Kabul’s streets.

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Public Health Workers Turn Up Heat vs. Bosses’ Racist ‘Care’

WASHINGTON,D.C., October 31 — Almost 200 public health workers, Occupy D.C. activists, and District of Columbia workers rallied and marched, attacking capitalism and racism and demanding jobs and health care for everyone now.  After leaving the American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting of more than 12,000 public health members, these workers surged onto the streets of Washington chanting, “Out of our silos, into the streets! Public health workers turn up the heat!”

They marched to the Verizon Center sports arena, where a Verizon worker attacked the company’s attempts to strip retiree health benefits from the contract and lay off thousands of workers as their CEO enjoyed record-breaking pay.  Stopping at the Clark construction site for the new City Center luxury development, a community activist blasted Clark for denying jobs to D.C. workers and called for unity among all workers to oppose capitalism.

This march attracted people out of a bold and growing anger at capitalism among public health workers. Speakers at today’s rally exposed the system’s racism, calling for a health care system that provided quality care for everyone regardless of immigration status. (Undocumented immigrants are not even allowed to buy health insurance from the new health insurance exchanges.)   Speakers attacked capitalism and racism, decrying both Obama and the Republican Party sideshow.  A Progressive Labor Party doctor called for the overthrow of capitalism and urged people to make revolution possible, saying, “You know you want it!”  PLPers distributed over 50 Challenge-Desafios. 

The rally was organized by the Health Disparities Committee of the Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association (MWPHA), with more than a dozen people planning its messages, speakers, and chants.  The committee called on public health workers to return to their roots of building a social movement to ensure healthy conditions for all.  It urged them to “reject capitalists and their politicians, who use cutbacks and racism to strengthen their profitability and competitive edge.  Build a worker-student-professional movement for change.”

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Gary: Unmask Profit System’s Inherent Flaws

GARY, INDIANA, October 29 — Today a multi-racial group of nearly 30 demonstrators gathered in downtown Gary, Indiana for the second week in a row to show solidarity with the growing Occupy movements that have been developing all over the world. In a city like Gary, that has suffered racist capitalist oppression and neglect for decades, such a turnout is definitely a step in the right direction.

Despite its political limitations, the Occupy movement has been useful because it allows workers to recognize their collective power. The crowd was multi-racial and included people of all ages. During both demonstrations, there were a number of younger activists involved, several of whom were experiencing their first exposure to working-class struggles. It was also encouraging that activists from other cities in Northwest Indiana attended the Gary rally, because racist stereotypes often keep workers away from Gary.

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Boston: ‘Occupy the World’

ROXBURY, MA, October 19 — The leaders of the Pizza and Politics student club at Roxbury Community College went down to Occupy Boston and were excited to see that people in the U.S. are waking up to the reality of class oppression. One sign at the encampment said so much: “They call it the american dream because you have to be asleep to believe it”. 

Too many of us have been asleep for too long. The students decided to make the next topic for the club discussion “Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Boston, Occupy the World.” They invited some activists from Occupy Boston to come and speak about the goals of the movement. The activists explained the collective way the encampment is being organized and how it sees itself as building a better world. PL’ers raised the idea that in order for that humane community to flourish and spread all over the world the working class needs to seize state power and make the decisions for the society. 

Otherwise OWS will either be smashed by the police or co-opted, like the rebel movement was in Egypt. The discussion moved from communism to consumerism to the role of education. It reflected the refreshing openness of the Occupy Wall Street movement, where big questions are being discussed and communist ideas are welcomed by many. However, everything changes, and the Occupy movement will either be won to the left or to the right. It will either become a tool of the Democratic Party or it will move the masses into class struggle — supporting strikes, confronting the police, and fighting foreclosures and evictions. By distributing our literature and raising our ideas,  PL’ers and friends of PL are trying to take full advantage of this opportunity to move OWS to the left.

Pakistan: Back Jailed Working-Class Leaders

FAISALABAD, PAKISTAN, November 11 — Workers here are calling for solidarity actions and support for six union leaders who have been sentenced to a total of 490 years in jail. They were arrested in July 2010 during a militant strike of power loom workers, and later charged under anti-terrorist laws. To date 13 union leaders are facing charges of “terrorism.”

The U.S.-backed fascist Pakistani government is increasingly using the threat of “terrorism” to try to silence the working class, hoping to crush the rising workers’ movement. But workers are fighting back, in the factories and fields, in the public and private sector (see CHALLENGE, 9/5).

Power loom workers here struck in 2010 after a break-down in negotiations with the bosses, demanding an increase in the minimum wage already announced in the government’s 2010-2011 budget. When government officials, factory owners, local politicians and the media labeled the strikers “terrorists,” it so angered other workers that they ignored a police ban on public gatherings and joined the picket lines.

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The Art of Working-Class Struggle: Teamsters Refuse to Buckle Under to Sotheby’s Attack

NEW YORK, November 9 — A deafening roar met the wealthy patrons as they stepped out of their limousines this evening and were escorted by nervous security guards into Sotheby’s, the famed art auction house on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Forty-three art handlers — the workers who protect and transport paintings and sculptures worth millions of dollars each — have been locked out by the company since July. Sotheby’s, which made a profit of $774 million last year and pays its CEO $70,000 a day, is demanding contract concessions from the workers. It wants to replace full-time workers with part-timers, reduce pensions and eliminate seniority in firing.

The workers are refusing to buckle. Tonight was the first evening auction of the season, with impressionist and modern art paintings on sale. About 150 workers and supporters stood behind metal barricades on each side of the entrance, with two giant inflatable rats nearby. Multiracial groups of Teamsters from several locals attended. They blew whistles and loudly chanted, “What’s disgusting? Union busting!”; “We Are the 99%” and “Shame, Shame!” at the rich collectors and dealers who scurried into Sotheby’s lobby.

Truthfully, none of the prosperous collectors seemed at all ashamed, only taken aback that people who work for a living might treat them so rudely and attempt to interfere with their evening of lavish spending. A wealthy collector paid $40.4 million tonight for a landscape painting by Gustav Klimt — more money than all the handlers together will earn in a lifetime! Sotheby’s receives a hefty commission for each artwork sold.

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Occupy DC: PL Teach-in Provokes Sharp Debate

WASHINGTON, November 12 — PL’ers held an Anti-Capitalism Teach-in at Occupy DC in order to sharpen the debate around the movement’s political analysis and strategies for change. Three long-term occupiers had attended a PLP study-action group and encouraged us to do this. Almost all of the fifty occupiers and friends at this event had previously received CHALLENGE.

Presenters stated that capitalism is based on exploitation and racism. They explained how its internal contradictions, due to the impoverishment of the workers by the ruthless drive for profit by the bosses, creates periodic depressions. They also argued that the state (the government) is a tool of the capitalist system. It must be smashed, not reformed.

Smash the State

Capitalism must be replaced, they continued, with a communist system where the international working class collectively runs society, planning production based on workers’ needs and liberating the creativity of the billions of wage slaves on the planet.  Presenters noted that communists work strategically in all kinds of mass organizations to bring these ideas to broad groups of people, but that special emphasis is put on industrial workers, like the transit workers in DC. The temporary shutdown of the Port of Oakland, for example, could not have happened without the longshore workers.

There are lots of different views among the occupiers, which came out in the discussion following the presentations. Some argued that campaign reform, especially a constitutional amendment to bar corporate contributions to campaigns, would let the elected representations genuinely represent the people. PL’ers responded that the state is part of the capitalist system and controlled by the bosses, and that no reform could change that fact.

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Raising the Red Flag At Occupy Baltimore

BALTIMORE, November 14 — A Progressive Labor Party tent is now part of Occupy Baltimore at McKeldin Square.  On our second night there, a red flag was mounted high on a light pole near PL’s tent.  Some of the occupiers, who have stayed at the square overnight for many weeks, inquired about the flag’s meaning.  PL members replied that it stands for communism.  They explained that red is the communist color, in honor of the thousands whose blood was spilled when the Paris Commune — the first time workers took power, in 1871 — was attacked and defeated by capitalists. 

The PL’ers pointed out that these Communards took bold steps toward equality. They made a rule, for example, that leaders could have no more resources than ordinary workers, and that leaders could be immediately recalled if they failed to serve the working class.  At the end of this conversation, the folks who asked about the red flag were respectful and pleased. They saw the flag as a worthy addition to the occupation.

‘When We Fought the Nazis, You Had Our Back!’

Earlier on, PL members had given three revolutionary communist speeches at various occupation events.  After one of those speeches, a listener approached a Party comrade, gave him a big hug, and said, “You may not remember, but ten years ago when we fought the Nazis, you had our back!”

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Los Angeles: PLP Exposes Rulers’ Racism

LOS ANGELES, November 5 — PL here helped plan a teach-in at Occupy LA titled “Building Working Class Unity – Racism and the Economic Crisis.” We discussed the racist nature of capitalism and argued that racism is the main ideological tool the U.S. ruling class uses to keep working-class people divided and unable to build enough power to fight back. If we are going to build a revolutionary movement to destroy capitalism, we are going to have to start by addressing racism.

We also provided examples of specific forms of racism, such as the recent rise of anti-immigrant policies like the Secure Communities program, which checks prison inmates’ legal status to increase deportation rates. Other examples included the media’s role in building anti-Arab racism and the historical nature of anti-black racism which was key to the birth of capitalism and continues to be critical to the survival of the system.

We held the teach-in at a space occupied by the People’s University Collective (PUC) which is organized by high school teachers in Los Angeles. Participation at the teach-in was good and led to sharp discussions over the racist nature of the system. The teach-in ended with many asking “What do we do next?” Several friends from our schools and workplaces attended the event, which impressed the PUC organizers who recently asked us to come back.

The teach-in on racism is a step forward in PL’s work at Occupy LA. The teach-in also took place a few days after PL helped initiate and lead a march against police brutality in solidarity with the students and workers in Oakland, California who have been under attack by the police (see CHALLENGE, 11/16). The next steps will be to figure out how we can better use our actions at Occupy LA to win students and workers to the idea that we need a Party organization like PL to lead our working-class sisters and brothers in the fight for communism.J

Rutgers: ‘Why should Wall Street exist at all?’

NEWARK, NJ — “Occupy Rutgers! Occupy Newark! Occupy the world!”  These words rang throughout the Rutgers University campus. This was the first rally as part of the Occupy movement that is sweeping across the U.S. and many parts of the globe. Students at this multiracial working-class campus have plenty of concerns. Tuition is high; student debt has skyrocketed; the financial aid office is poorly organized and abusive; graduating students face the worst job market in many years.

Some students just keep slogging on, not daring to think about the larger implications of the situation they face.  But the Occupy movement is attracting students who insist on seeing the big picture, and doing something about it.

The were a number of these new activist-students, a community organizer from the People’s Organization for Progress (POP), and a Marxist professor who described herself as an “unreconstructed 60s radical,” delighted to see students in motion once again.

There are real strengths of the Occupy movement that can be extended and deepened:

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