Ruling Factions Fight for Workers’ Loyalty, But: Capitalist Elections Are a Deadly Trap

Who wins — and who votes — in November’s elections are crucial questions for the imperialist, Rockefeller-led faction of U.S. capitalists served by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. The segment of the latter’s base — trade unions, environmentalists, civil libertarians, advocates of government regulation, etc., who might stay home out of disenchantment with Obama’s broken promises — have the latter worried over Tea Party candidates. They threaten the liberals’ agenda of widening war, war taxes, and wartime regulatory powers consolidated in the White House.

Rulers’ Push for Two-Party Voting a Dead End for Workers’ Anger

Electoral politics are the capitalist class’s ace-in-the-hole as their most effective weapon for stifling working-class rebellion against the imperialists’ genocidal warfare abroad and racist attacks at home. It clouds the need for workers’ revolution. “You can vote the good guys in and the bad guys out” runs the bosses’ deadly lie to workers.

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UAW Forces Mail Vote After Workers Chase Sellouts

INDIANAPOLIS, IN, September 18 — After being run out of the Local 23 union hall by hundreds of angry GM stamping plant workers last month (see CHALLENGE, 8/22), the International UAW is trying to ram through a new contract that would cut wages in half. Rather than directly confront the workers again, they’re imposing a mail ballot, something never done in a factory where votes occur either in the hall or in the shop. The ballots, going out this week, will be counted on September 27.

As part of Obama’s GM bailout and restructuring, this plant is to be closed. JD Norman Industries made an offer to buy the plant, and sign a UAW contract, if the union agreed to a 50% wage-cut. Last May, the workers voted 384-22 against reopening the contract, but the International UAW and Local 23 President Ray Kennedy continued negotiations, reaching a deal not one of the “negotiators” will have to live with.

‘Traitor Go Home!’

They had scheduled a ratification meeting for August 15, but hundreds of angry workers drowned them out with shouts of “Traitor,” and “Go Home,” forcing them to slip out the back door.

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Racist Attacks Spread As: PL’er Leads Sit-in Supporters to Defy Cops, Save School Center

CHICAGO, September 17 — Chanting “Si se puede” and “We want a library, we’re not criminals,” about 100 mostly Latino parents, elementary school children and supporters crossed the police line when a veteran comrade made the call to crash the police tape. They were supporting the dozen parents and children who were occupying the elementary school field house the Chicago Public School (CPS) bosses want to demolish.

Earlier, the protestors who had been occupying the field house for three days were rushed by the cops and threatened with arrests. Meanwhile, many supporters who were bringing in supplies were blocked from entry. The racist cops and ex-cop Michael Shields (a cousin of Michelle Obama), head of CPS security, taped off the entire block. The cops were preventing anyone who didn’t live on the block from entering.

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Need Int’l Working-Class Unity: Anti-Immigrant Racism Kills 72 Workers

TAMAULIPAS, MEXICO — Capitalism has murdered, through one of its criminal gangs, 72 immigrant workers. From the moment immigrant workers cross into Mexico they are harassed and extorted by the immigration authorities, criminal gangs, and the police. These criminals steal immigrant workers’ money or kidnap them to force their relatives in the U.S. to pay a ransom that can range from $1,500 to $5,000. Some are forced to work as slaves in clandestine factories, drug fields, prostitution, or as servants in criminals’ dens. Many who refuse are brutally murdered, as was the case here, or are killed while running away from immigration cops or gangs. It’s a true descent into hell.

The worldwide capitalist crisis has added seven million more to the number of the poor in Mexico alone. Modern capitalism concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer hands. The majority of the wealth of the world has become concentrated in a few countries, like the U.S., and that’s why many of our brothers and sisters, in spite of all the risks, are forced to migrate in search of jobs.

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Japan’s Workers Need to Smash Racist ‘Net’ Group

This last year has witnessed the rise of the wide-spread racist “Net Far Right” (Net Kyoku) that has coordinated attacks on “foreigners” in Japan.  As reported in the New York Times (8/28/10), they organize mostly through the internet in order to conceal their identity, are “loudly anti-foreign” and direct their attack on Korean and Chinese residents, Christian organizations, and even those who dress in Halloween costumes. 

Much like the U.S. Tea Party’s racist attacks against immigrant labor from the Global South, the “Net” blame foreigners for the financial crisis that has lingered in Japan for over ten years, for the rise in crime and homelessness in Western Japan, and for the decline in pro-Japanese sentiment, particularly by young Japanese.  The similarity between the Tea Party and the “Net” is clear in another respect: they are both convenient devices used by the ruling class for creating dissonance among workers from various cultural backgrounds who should be united in fighting the real enemy, the capitalist bosses.

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Imperialists’ Battle for Mideast Oil Heats Up

The Daura oil refinery in Baghdad, Iraq.Given the continuing long-range threat posed by China’s and Russia’s bosses to U.S. rulers, now add the menace of these two rising powers to U.S. plans for control of Iraq’s oil wealth. Chinese and Russian companies scored big in mid-December’s second round of bidding for Iraqi oil fields. This opens yet a new front in the imperialists’ energy dogfight.

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2009 Marked by Capitalism’s Crisis, Workers’ Anger and Fight-Back

An Athens youth fghts back this past summer in Greece.The year 2009 started off with newly-inaugurated Barack Obama sending 21,000 troops to the war in Afghanistan, and caps off with him committing 30,000 more, plus 56,000 mercenaries. Obama dealt with this year’s crisis in time-honored capitalist traditions. He bailed out banks and auto-makers while calling on the working class to make sacrifices “for the greater good.” He proclaimed this year a ‘Year of Service’ while announcing these troop increases in Afghanistan, making clear why the ruling class needs our service.

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A Lifetime of Struggle for the International Working Class

El Salvador — This is the story of a comrade, an ex-commander in the FMLN guerilla army, who met the PLP through an old ex-fellow combatant with whom he shared many wartime experiences. His old friend related PLP’s communist ideas to him, how other workers internationally were organizing in the working class with PLP’s line. This gladdened him, but first he began reading CHALLENGE regularly before participating in discussions.

He was invited to several PLP club meetings but decided to take some time before actually joining due to all the experiences described below. Currently he attends meetings punctually. Initially he listened carefully to the analysis. His level of participation and responsibility in the armed struggle and his analysis of current events make him very prudent.

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Obama’s ‘Job’ Program: More Troops, More Wars

U.S. troops patrol the business district in Sar Hawza, Afghanistan.At West Point on December 1, Obama announced a major “jobs program.” He’s sending 30,000 more troops (and as many mercenaries) to “work” in Afghanistan. His coming force of over 200,000 (including “battlefield contractors”) must perform several critical tasks for U.S. imperialism. One is securing the ground for a gas pipeline planned to bypass both Iran and Russia (see below). Another involves spreading combat operations into neighboring Pakistan.

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Anti-Racist Strike Solidarity Needed vs. French Rulers

Undocumented Workers Deal Bosses Blow for Blow

Immigrant workers sit by the fire in a "jungle" encampment in Calais, France.PARIS, December 4 — The two-month strike of 5,500 undocumented workers fighting for immigrants’ rights has been a shining light in a depressed French labor movement. Consequently, the bosses and their government have concentrated their attacks on these workers, but the latter have been returning blow for blow.

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