N.J. Demopublicans Agree: Serve the Bosses, Screw the Workers

TRENTON, N.J. June 23 — The New Jersey Assembly, with the Democratic leadership fully supporting the deadly proposals of their pal Governor Chris Christie, voted for the pension and health “reform” bill here tonight. About ten thousand workers turned out earlier to protest these severe attacks on the working class; at one point, thousands surrounded the statehouse and chanted,  “Kill the bill!” Hundreds of PLP flyers and scores of CHALLENGEs were received positively by the workers.

At the rally, the sorry union leadership held a mock funeral for “the soul of the Democratic Party.” Ironically, a person in blackface joined the New Orleans jazz band walking ahead of the coffin. (The union leadership was apparently ignorant of the racism behind this tradition.)

One after the other, the politicians and union hacks who spoke at the rally claimed to be “true” Democrats. Here is the solution posed by the “most radical” speaker: “Take back the party” in the November election. But these are the “friends” they put in office in the last election.

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Mexico: ‘Drug War’ Hides U.S. Slave Labor Empire

The recent revelation that 70% of the guns seized by police and the army in the Mexican drug war are in fact from the United States (Christian Science Monitor, 6/15) has infuriated people on both sides of the border. But for those who have followed the drug trade since the 1980s, the revelations of U.S. officials fueling the drug trade were nothing new.

The transfer of guns from the U.S. to Mexico was largely orchestrated by the U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agency in an operation codenamed “Fast and Furious.” Now that disgruntled ATF officials have leaked the story to the press, the Justice and State Departments have moved quickly to deny involvement and lay the blame at the feet of the ATF. However, in the wake of the ATF’s bungling of the 1994 Branch Davidian standoff, it is hard to believe that they would have undertaken such an operation without Bush and Obama administration support.

Indeed the U.S. ruling class has a long history of supporting the drug trade in Latin America. In 1982 the CIA linked up the Medellin Cartel in Colombia with the anti-communist death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua and built the cocaine pipeline between Colombia and the United States. The 38% increase in cocaine users in the United States and the ensuing crack epidemic covertly funded the anti-communist wars in Central America. Drugs flowed north from Colombia to El Salvador and Nicaragua and then through Mexico into the U.S. Southwest or over the Gulf into Florida. Then guns and money for the death squads flowed south through the same channels. (See Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series in the San Jose Mercury, 8/18-20/1996).

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Watch Your Garbage…. FBI Manual Aims At Anti-War, Pro-Labor Groups

The new edition of the FBI’s manual for domestic investigations grants agents extensive powers to search databases, go through household garbage and start surveillance on people or groups suspected of crimes. The new manual stresses that evidence of criminal activity is not a pre-requisite for opening investigations or beginning surveillance (NYT, 6/12).

The new rules are in fact only codifying behaviors that the FBI has engaged in since its inception and with increasing frequency since the 1970s. These surveillance powers, “justified” by the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror,” have been primarily used to monitor and harass anti-war, anti-capitalist, pro-labor and other Left-leaning groups.

One activist in the environmental movement was shocked recently when a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that he had been under intense surveillance since 2001. There had been at least five FBI informants in his various groups, and the FBI had collected 1,200 pages of documentation on him (Democracy Now, 6/14/11). Two years ago anarchists were dismayed to discover that Brandon Darby, a man who had run an anarchist collective in post-Katrina New Orleans, had been an FBI informant for years (This American Life, 5/22/2009). In 2007 it was revealed that the FBI had been abusing national security letters, presidential edicts that allowed surveillance without judge-issued warrants, to spy on people with no evidence of a crime (NYT, 3/10/2007).

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Billionaires Rule the Schools, but — REAL Education Comes from Class Struggle vs. Capitalism

As the economic crisis and wars abroad deepen, the U.S. ruling class has moved toward more direct control of the schools nationwide. In New York, billionaire mayor Mike Bloomberg runs the city’s school system on a corporate model, with lawyers and business people in top leadership roles while teachers and school staffers are downsized. This structure attacks the students, the working-class of the next generation.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed a new school board full of corporate “movers and shakers” like board chair David Vitale, the former vice-chairman and director of JPMorgan Chase, and Penny Pritzker of the Hyatt Hotel dynasty. John Veasy, the Los Angeles schools superintendent, worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and completed an executive training program funded by billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad.

In spite of rhetoric to the contrary, these billionaires and millionaires have no intention of creating policies to benefit students. Children who attend urban public schools are disproportionately black, Latino and low-income, the children of the same workers these bosses exploit. The racist segregation of housing and education in the U.S. makes poor black and Latino students the most likely victims of closed schools, empty test-prep curricula, and inexperienced teachers.

In this still-racist (not “post-racial”) country, children of the most exploited workers, including the unemployed, are the ones most likely to attend schools where rigid obedience is demanded and rote learning is the norm. The critical analysis skills that all students need are the last thing the rulers want most of them to learn.

The degraded conditions of these schools — and of an economic system that thrives on low-wage/no-wage workers — push nearly half of their students to leave without having graduated. The system needs only a handful of working-class students to be well-educated, for skills the bosses need and for use as misleaders of the mass of workers who are left behind by the school system.

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Racist School Bosses Use Anti-Communism to Mask Budget-Cutting Attacks

BROOKLYN, N.Y., June 22 — “At a time when political attacks are met with little response, what you all are doing there gives others the example needed to fight back!” This was the message sent from a teacher in New Jersey to those involved in the struggle at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn, and a reminder of how our political work can inspire other workers and students.

As reported in last week’s CHALLENGE (6/22), more than 150 students and staff demonstrated in front of Clara Barton to protest the investigation of two communist teachers who attended a union rally with students in Washington, DC, last fall. It’s no accident that communists are being targeted by the Department of Education (DoE). Communists build class struggle and class consciousness. We struggle to win our class to see its power so that we can build a mass party to fight for revolution. At this rally, the largest and most visible action at the school this year, we did begin to see our strength.

In our continuing efforts to build the Party, more than 500 copies of CHALLENGE were distributed at Clara Barton last week. Students greeted the paper with enthusiasm. They read it carefully, line by line. There was a lot of discussion about the cover story — why did CHALLENGE call principal Forman a racist pig? Some thought that we needed to provide a more thorough explanation of why we regard him as racist. The ensuing discussions both clarified that point (see below) and also addressed a broader one: that capitalist schools can never serve the needs of working-class students. Students also began to wear 700 buttons with the slogan: “SCHOOLS NOT JAILS”.

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PLP’ers Bare Union Hacks’ Sellout Racist Bosses Demand Cuts; Hospital Workers Say ‘FIGHT’!

“Run, Bruce, Run! You can run but you can’t hide!” sang hundreds of spirited Brookdale Hospital workers about CEO Bruce Flanz as they picketed outside of the hospital’s main entrance on June 15th. PLP brought support and CHALLENGEs to these workers, who lost their insurance coverage when Brookdale violated the labor contract and stopped paying into their insurance benefits fund six months ago. This forced the workers onto a more expensive plan under Blue Cross Blue Shield (see CHALLENGE, 6/22). More than that, their very jobs are at stake, as the workers face union decertification, bankruptcy and possible closure. Brookdale workers are mostly black and Latino, and all together over 1,000 workers picketed at some point during the day as workers came out in uniform on their lunch break from almost every department.

We distributed our CHALLENGEs quickly, and realized we had not brought nearly enough. At the same time, some hospital workers and members of the main hospital union 1199-SEIU (Service Employees International Union), distributed 400 leaflets that exposed the attack on Brookdale workers as a racist ploy to increase profits on the backs of the majority black and Latino workers that live in the Brookdale community. The anti-racist leaflet called on workers, patients and community residents to unite and called on the Brookdale bosses to pay up. Both CHALLENGE and the leaflets were greeted with positive responses from the workers. On a couple of occasions, PL’ers were asked for more copies of the paper. We made several contacts, and will bring more literature next time.

The conversations we had with workers described a hospital that has been sucked dry by the bosses for years. A nurse who worked there since 1982 told us: “We serve the poor but the bosses don’t give us anything! We never have supplies or nearly enough staff. We’re gonna have to take the hospital back!” Under-staffing was the unanimous complaint with every worker in every department, especially among the janitors and food and nutrition workers.

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Libya Invasion Exposes Obama’s Turn to Fascism, Dogfight in U.S. Ruling Class

Centralization of power — military, political and economic — is a hallmark of fascism, the deadly necessary tool capitalists employ when they can no longer hide behind the façade of “democracy.” Obama’s Libya power grab reflects desperate efforts by the dominant — but embattled — imperialist wing of U.S. bosses to retain its grip on foreign policy. One aim of fascism is for the dominant capitalists — who must protect the long-range survival of their system — to discipline those bosses who are only out for immediate profits and disregard how negatively that might impact the system in the long run.

But Obama’s masters have a big problem. The U.S. is a big country, made up of many competing capitalists with competing interests. All employ politicians in Washington. The biggest bosses, such as the Rockefeller-bloc — owners of imperialist firms like Exxon, JP Morgan and GE — require the U.S. war machine to guard and help expand their far-flung operations. Liberal Democrats, including Obama, as well as a number of interventionist Republicans, serve them.

War-maker Obama Must Skirt Polarized, Partisan Congress

Seeking to turn part of the Arab Spring into a Khadafy-free oil free-for-all on behalf of Big Oil, U.S.-led NATO has conducted over 4,300 air strikes so far in Libya. One, on June 17, killed seven civilians. Yet Obama insists this bloodshed does not amount to “hostilities” under the War Powers Act and thus needs no Congressional consent.

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Dallas Students Walk Out vs. Racist Cuts, Teacher Firing

DALLAS, June 15 — This year there has been an upswing in student and teacher activism against school cut-backs at a high school here. A combination of anger over the cuts plus talk with students about fighting back has sparked a militant spirit among many students and teachers, one absent for many years on this campus. The fact that these cuts affect a predominantly black and Latino student body reveals their racist nature.

The school bosses fired a veteran English teacher and, having no intention of hiring another teacher, rotated substitute teachers in and out of the class every day. With no curriculum, students created their own lesson plan: using the wasted time in class to make protest posters and organize a rally and walkout.

The following day, about 30 students walked out of class during 2nd period, the one used to calculate the average daily attendance. As students streamed out they chanted to bring back the fired teacher.

Students held their ground throughout the period and into the next one. Then 40 more students joined the rally. A few teachers, including a PL’er, stood nearby to show solidarity with the protest. As the rally grew, administrators became increasingly worried and sent cops to threaten students with $500 fines. Most students then returned to class.

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Racist Philly Cops Murder Unarmed Black Youth

PHILADELPHIA, June 15 — On May 9, a racist Philadelphia cop murdered a 19-year-old unarmed black worker, Albert D. “Audi” Purnell, Jr. This young man was shot in cold blood after he had followed police orders and raised his hands in the air and surrendered. He was shot in front of a number of witnesses. The KKKops claimed he had a gun and “fit the description” of a suspect they were searching for. The witnesses have all declared that the police murdered him.

Audi’s father, Albert Purnell, Sr., a hospital worker and friend of PLP, and his mother Tracey are demanding justice for their murdered son. Hahnemann hospital workers are mad as hell and supporting this struggle against the racist cops.

Audi had just graduated from high school and begun working in the mechanical engineering section of the Department of Welfare. He was the father of a young daughter whom he loved dearly. He was on his way to visit his fiancé and their daughter when he was killed. The police and district attorney are doing everything they can to cover up this racist murder, including arresting and trying to intimidate the witnesses and seizing any video surveillance cameras in the area. They’re refusing to reveal the names of the cops and other details of the investigation.

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Calif. Supermarket Workers Vote Strike; Union Sellouts say NO

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, June 13 —  Bravely refusing to buy into the rhetoric of “shared sacrifice,” 62,000 members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike against the three major Southern California supermarket chains: Ralph’s, Albertson’s, and Vons.

The workers’ contract expired in March, and a strike could start in June or early July. It is critical for workers throughout Southern California, the United States and the world to support this strike. Progressive Labor Party should take the lead in organizing support from workers in other unions and from non-unionized workers, from community organizations, churches, schools…everywhere.

The supermarket chains are out to take another bite out of workers’ health benefits and pensions, as they did in 2003. That was when they introduced a two-tier wage system, which divided workers and gave the bosses an incentive to get rid of better-paid veteran workers. The workers’ willingness to strike is especially noteworthy given the defeat they suffered in the five-month strike/lockout in 2003.

When members of our church talked to workers at a nearby supermarket, they were excited to hear that we wanted to support them on the picket line and serve meals to striking workers at the church. Activities such as these could build class solidarity and create an environment in which we can win workers to the need for communist revolution, which would be the most important outcome of this strike.

This outlook is the opposite of the approach of the UFCW leaders. The union helped elect Jerry Brown governor of California by donating members’ money — which should have gone into their strike fund — and by organizing telephone banks. Brown wants to shore up the declining capitalist economy by pushing “shared sacrifice,” meaning working people sacrifice while bosses take more and more. (The LA Times reported that UFCW Local 770 President Rick Icaza was paid $273,404 in 2002—the last year his salary was made public.) Furthermore, it looks like the UFCW leaders, along with the Los Angles County Federation of Labor, are ready to replay the strategy that led to the 2003 defeat:

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