Letters of February 29

Winds of Change Blow Fiercely As Workers Hug CHALLENGE

The wind was from the north, cold and sweeping. Our CHALLENGES fluttered in our attempt to keep them open to show the workers exiting Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, NY at the end of their shift and others entered to start their shift. 

“Is that the latest CHALLENGE?” asked one worker. “Thanks.” He said a few words and moved on to get out of the cold wind. A doctor in scrubs who walked up to me said “Thanks,” when I gave him a paper, shook my hand, and moved into the building. 

A tall worker came out of the hospital and asked, “What’s that?” The front page spoke of class war and we discussed it for a few minutes. He moved on to a group of friends standing by the car service drivers nearby. He showed them the paper. A lengthy conversation followed as the biting wind continued.

One after another, almost every individual who went in or came out of the hospital entrance took a CHALLENGE and had something nice to say. In some cases I was thanked over and over again, and my hand was shaken. 

The other person distributing the paper had similar experiences.  One woman, on seeing somebody refuse the paper told the other, “You should read that. It has good information.”  

It was not just the cold wind blowing or the icy sleet that started to fall, it was as if a great change was beginning to take place. Their hospital is under attack. Half of the large institution is slated to be closed down. Not because it doesn’t serve its purpose to the large population in the area, not because the hospital workers and medical staff are incapable, but because of the needs of war, fascism, and profit. 

Our distribution of CHALLENGE brought all of these views to the workers. For those taking the paper, it reflected their growing workers’ anger, not only at the fraud that removed millions of dollars from their pension funds, but at the racism that would close a hospital that serves mostly a black, Latino and immigrant population.

We have been back about three times in four weeks with three different editions of CHALLENGE. The first time, two of us brought 60 papers, and they went in about 15 minutes. 

The second time we brought 65 papers, and they disappeared in about 20 minutes during snow flurries. 

The third time we had three sellers and 100 papers that disappeared in about 18 minutes. People were eager for information about the system we’re living under and information on the hospital.

I got a sudden feeling that this is what it means to be serving the people. The bosses’ newspapers raise all of the terrible things that exist in our society. 

The only answer that’s ever put forward is incarcerating more of our youth or voting for one of the bosses’ politicians. We point out the need to struggle and fight back, no matter who the politician or boss is, that the way forward is to read and distribute CHALLENGE, struggle on the job, struggle with our friends and help people understand the true nature of this class society.

A CHALLENGE seller
 

‘I know capitalism isn’t working so I want to find out more…’

“I don’t know exactly what communism is, but I know capitalism isn’t working, so I want to find out more.”

These were the words of a teacher who had just attended his first PL study-action group. He is a fellow co-worker of a PL’er in a special-needs high school for emotionally disturbed youth. He’s intimately confronted with the racism, injustice, and inequality inherent in capitalism’s education system every day.   

Another first-time attendee was a college student who had spent virtually every night at Occupy Wall Street (OWS). He had a lot to say at our discussion based on the CHALLENGE (12/14) article “OWS Slogan Hides Class Nature of Profit System.” The article discussed how part of the 99% is also a part of the power structure that supports the capitalist system. We all read the article together and listened to each other’s understanding of it. As a recent PL’er struggled with the student, it was inspiring to watch her give leadership based on her understanding of the Party line. A greater understanding of communism occurred. 

A PL teacher had arrived a bit late because several high schools had walkouts against school closings earlier and some of her students had participated in it. Excited to see so many youth and so few phony leftists at the walkout, she took the opportunity to get out 50 CHALLENGES. She also had good political discussions with her students who’d walked out. She invited them to upcoming PLP events and congratulated them on taking part in such a sharp political action.

With another large study group and protests to look forward to, this PL club feels that growth is on the horizon.  Within the context of a deepening financial crisis, the police murder of an unarmed teen in the Bronx, and sharpening imperialist conflicts, it is inspiring to see so much work transform into potential growth. 

A Comrade

Palestine: Youth Know the Score and Fight Like Hell

As a college student in the U.S. on my first international trip, I was astounded by the situation in Palestine and at how blatantly the U.S. media manipulates reports on Israel and Palestine. The trip was at once infuriating and exhilarating. The great ugly gray walls penning Palestinians in their allotted lands, the widespread pattern of rubble where homes had once been, are now taken over by either Zionist Jewish settlers or the government itself. The situation is similar to what the U.S. did to the Native Americans when penned into reservations. 

What was exhilarating, however, was the spirit of fighting back that was as strong as their coffee. The women, children — both Palestinian and Jewish — and workers united to fight and demonstrate on a regular basis. In Sheik Jarah, the demonstrations are militant and frequent. They recognize that the fight is not between “races” or religions, but between classes. 

As a young student, the most inspiring thing to me was the force with which the children fought. Young children no more than nine years old were leading massive marches. 

Their political consciousness is something that we can aspire to in the U.S. They understand democracy does not exist in the U.S. any more than it exists in Israel, before they have even memorized their multiplication tables. 

But it is also sad because their consciousness comes from growing up with brothers and cousins tortured in prisons, watching as the elderly are thrown to the ground and their homes taken in front of their own eyes. They grow up living in tents, cemeteries, encampments and streets. 

They grow up in racism and fascism so blatant and unavoidable that they have no choice but to be militant fighters and organizers. It is deep-rooted into their growing process. We can learn from their militancy and awareness that the working class is expendable in this racist system. Join the fight for a communist revolution!

Young Red

March vs. Racist Cops: ‘Can’t stand living under capitalism’

When I first heard about the shooting of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham on February 2nd in the  Bronx, I instantly called bull****.

According to details (which are sketchy at best), police saw Graham adjusting his pants on a street corner and, since he was black, assumed he was taking out a gun. They then chased Graham to his home, where one of the cops cornered and fatally shot Graham in his own bathroom. No gun was found on him at all. Shocker.

I knew that I had to be at the protest against this grave injustice, which took place two days later in the Melrose area.

As I arrived with my communist friends I could feel a palpable anger in the air — the unrelenting fury and disgust towards the NYPD’s treatment of an innocent youth who was doing nothing wrong.

A young Latino man dressed in a red hat with matching sweater passionately read off the names of the officers involved. Community leaders became southern pastors in full sermon, asking in booming voices when will the violence be stopped.  

Mere yards away, an auxiliary band of pigs in blue watched the spectacle, supposedly there to “keep the peace.” My journalistic senses kicking in, I took out my camera, activated the video function, pressed “record” and let the Cyber-Shot tell the story.

We traveled from an apartment complex to the 42nd precinct, the location which produced this particular group of pigs. On the way, I made sure to spit on a police wagon for good measure. Outside the station-house, cries of “Jail those killer cops” and another listing of the guilty party reverberated loud and clear for the officers stationed inside and out.

Soon after, the march’s leaders led us down another street, blocking traffic on one side and encouraging people to join in.

I eventually found Graham’s siblings, one of whom thanked me for showing my support. A man even took the opportunity to shout himself out before my camera lens.

Overall, I was enthused to have been part of this. While I don’t consider myself a communist, I am a supporter and I do believe that a revolution can and will happen. 

I can’t stand living in a capitalist world where the police pit bulls are free to harass and kill black and Latino people, with Mayor Bloomberg holding their leashes. If this murder shows anything, it’s that we need to protect ourselves. After all, these cops sure won’t help us there.  In the word of the rap group NWA, “Eff Tha Police.”

Friend of PL

Letters of February 15

King Birthday: Media Hides How Racist Capitalism Maintains Slavery

On January 16, the U.S. government and media celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., and some months ago dedicated a new statue honoring him in Washington, D.C. All of the bosses’ media find something in King to praise. Even most right-wingers laud his non-violence, which was more a service to the capitalist ruling class than to the working class.

Some judged King a danger to the current power structure and assassinated him in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was supporting a workers’ struggle there for the right to organize unions and against racism as he saw it. But imagine if he had pointed out that no worker — black, white, Latino and anywhere worldwide — would be free of exploitation by the bosses, as long as capitalism exists. Then the media and the bosses would refer to him as an enemy of “freedom and democracy.”

Confining his approach to workers’ rights under capitalism, the ruling class viewed him as an ally. Though far from his intent, King’s limited outlook made him, in fact, a misleader of the working class, which needs desperately to overthrow capitalist rule with a communist-led revolution. Nothing else will ever succeed in eliminating racism.

The more liberal columnists claim “we have come a long way” since the days of segregation, lynchings and Jim Crow laws, but admit there’s still a long way to go. They imply there’s been a one-way direction in the history of racism, namely improvement.

This view completely ignores the changed forms racism has taken in the U.S. over the centuries since the first slaves were stolen from their homes in Africa. While the Civil War ended chattel slavery, it was replaced by its modern form — wage slavery.

A more accurate view is one of class struggle — a tug of war in which various forms of racism strengthen and weaken, as a result of extreme, and usually violent, working-class struggle against it, generally led by black workers.

“The New Jim Crow” (2010), a book by a black lawyer, Michelle Alexander, describes the huge upsurge in imprisonment of black workers that destroys lives of entire families. This upsurge has been part of a plan by all administrations since Nixon’s in the 1970s — including Obama’s — called “The War on Drugs”; more accurately it’s a war on black workers. Rather than having come “a long way” from Jim Crow laws, she recognizes that these laws are still present, and have merely changed form. 

Segregation in housing has changed little, and in some areas, due to a modest rise in the black professional class who can afford suburban housing. Ratios of black income to white income have fluctuated slightly but are still miserably low (around 60%), and ratios of black to white wealth (accumulations of income from year to year) are even lower (about 5% of white wealth several years ago).

Racism in hiring and layoffs is still the rule, despite laws that paper it over, a permanent feature due to the central role that racism plays in capitalist profits and maintenance of class power. For a detailed pamphlet see www.plp.org — “Smash Racism: A Fighter’s Manual.”

The forms of racism and its intensity may change from time to time as a result of class struggle, but only communism will end it. Only communism can eliminate the capitalist class, whose very existence depends vitally on racism for super profits and to keep the working class divided and too weak to overthrow capitalism. Leaders like King only serve to prolong our exploitation, even if it’s unintentional.

Saguaro Rojo

Diego Rivera Art Captures Revolutionary Class Struggle

The communist Diego Rivera was an influential and iconic artist who was also a great hero to the international working class. As part of an exhibition, his art has returned to New York City within the midst of an upsurge in working-class resistance to bourgeois rule. A poster of a Rivera mural, replete with red flags, striking workers, charging soldiers, and a mother holding an infant while pushing a soldier’s saber bearing arm away from killing her, is all over NYC subway stations. Ironically, the Metropolitan Transit Authority and museum bosses who put the posters up are helping more and more of the working class to see communist art. It is also telling that grafiti hasn’t marked up the posters of Rivera’s mural.

Man’s Crossroads was another mural that was too radically communist for Rockefeller because it positively depicted Lenin and a workers’ state. It was chipped off of the wall it was painted on before it could be completed. Today, humanity’s crossroads still lies between another barbaric,  imperialist war to enrich the bosses and the truly civilizing force of communism. It is an important understanding for the international working class to have. Diego Rivera’s art continues to be timeless because it captured the essence of revolutionary class struggle, and scientific communism versus barbaric capitalism.  

It is quite ironic that with the upsurge in class struggle, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) would choose to display Rivera. The capitalists are showing his art off as a trophy much like the Caesars would show off defeated kings. They want us workers to believe that the communist movement is dead irrelevant history. MoMA did intersperse some anti-Stalinism into the exhibit, but there was no way that they could hide the open adoration of Lenin that Rivera showed in his murals.

PL teachers should organize trips to see these murals and discuss them with our students. We should also discuss them with our friends. Rivera’s communist politics are a rich part of working-class history.

Red art admirer

OWS’ers Admire CHALLENGE, Hit Obama, Bush and Bloomberg

A member of a study group and I had long exchanges with four or five people at Zuccotti Park while getting out 500 papers.   Almost everyone, from tourists to people dressed in business attire, took the paper after only reading the headline (“Bosses Aim to Pacify Occupy Wall Street”), thoughtfully nodding.

  One young lady from Cuba, who said she’d been here since age 7, told us right away that she knew all about Marxism and that her parents had left Cuba without a backward glance because her father had been very outspoken against Castro. Her parents had warned her not to come to the park because it was full of terrorists.  She saw that they were not.   

 Another man was sweeping debris with his own broom and dustpan.  He looked to be of retirement age and told me he’d been a seaman and then a restaurant worker and came there every day for five to six hours to clean up. He said the only terrorists were Bush and Bloomberg.  The people the U.S. honored as heroes were hired killers, he said, and these people in the park were the real heroes.  He had trusted Obama but was now 100% disappointed and would tell him what he thought but couldn’t afford to discuss this over dinner with Obama at $10-20,000 in the same company that Bush had kept.

He was from Greece and said ancient Greece had called itself a democracy but had slaves; I said U.S. capitalism had the same kind of democracy and had been founded on slavery.  He went on to talk about when Greece had a man in the leadership who called himself a communist but only dictated orders.  I said how the communism we would fight for had to be understood by millions of people through struggle and discussion. 

  One of our last conversations was with a student who had been raised in Youngstown, Ohio.  He had just the night before told his friends that he felt he might have to give his life to fight for a better future for his children.  He did not believe in voting since politicians could be bought.  We met because he asked for a second paper and took ten more after our talk.  We will keep in touch.

Two visitors

Letters of February 1

Justice from Israeli Bosses? ‘Like asking cows to give wine, not milk’

I came to visit a Palestinian family from Ramle (a small town near the Ben-Gurion Airport) whose house was demolished. The town hall and the Israeli Rail company claim the family’s home stands in the way of constructing a new school for locomotive drivers. This is far from the truth.

Unfortunately, this is not the only case I saw. In all house demolitions: (a) the number of cops sent to demolish is enormous — they use a lot of violence, including against women and children; (b) the families face the risk of being charged for the expenses of the demolition; and (c) the official who signed the warrant always has second thoughts afterwards.

This is against both Palestinian and Jewish workers. Here is one incident among many: a family in the Hatikva tent city in southern Tel-Aviv received an eviction warrant. Activists sent protest letters to the Welfare and Social Services minister. Some got a reply saying that this issue was being taken care of and thus there is no need for letters. The minister demanded a representative to speak to him. We refused. If he needs a representative, he knows where to find the family in the Hatikva tent city!

I relate both of these examples to the protest during the summer in Israel-Palestine, similar to the Occupy Movement in the U.S. The people demand social justice from a capitalist government that can’t, and won’t, provide it. It’s like asking a cow to give wine instead of milk.

Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to lie. He promised to implement free education for children between the ages of three and six. Only a third of children in these ages have free kindergartens. There are not even enough kindergartens in existence to implement this law. The free kindergartens are open until 2 PM. Parents who work until 4 PM will have to pay 780 Shekkels (about $200) a month for extended daycare. Everyone knows that in Netanyahu’s government, one hand gives, the other takes. Takes indeed!

Capitalism can’t provide social solutions. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. You can see this in the wages. The tax cut was at a fixed percentage. So those with higher wages will see a lot more money than those with lower. Those, like me, who earn the minimum wage, get left behind. Meanwhile, city taxes and electricity prices increased.

More and more people are angry about the economy but this is not enough. More and more activists show solidarity but this is not enough. The only answer is to completely eradicate capitalism.

It’s intolerable that evicted families have to live in tents in the rainy winter or the searing summer. It’s intolerable that parents have to pay huge sums of money for their children’s education. It’s intolerable that the wealthy will have good healthcare while the poor will get healthcare at their deathbeds. It’s intolerable that the money goes to the military, the settlements and the bosses — not to the working class.

We, the workers, both Palestinians and Jews, must stop this. Voting for a capitalist prime minister will only make things worse. We must change the system from its root!

Housekeeping Worker from Tel-Aviv-Jaffa

Cops Help Bosses Steal Workers’ Overtime Pay

We chanted, “Workers United Will Never Be Defeated” and “This Fist You See Means Power to the Workers.” In NYC, about 25 workers led a militant picket in front of the office of a construction company in solidarity with workers whose exploitative boss had stolen their overtime pay along with other moneys.

After an hour, the boss and his relatives showed up. They took some photos and videos and tried to provoke a confrontation. They also called the police, who showed up when we were getting ready to leave. The boss interpreted this as fear on our part.

We then decided to stay longer and chant much louder because we wanted to show this boss and the cops that the working class is not afraid. We will fight to defend our rights and in a not-so-distant future, we will be fighting against the whole capitalist system.

When we left, we felt satisfied fulfilling our duty. We also realized, however, that the cops are accomplices to the bosses. These cops continued to talk to this exploitative boss and his family as if they were friends.

Workers of the world, unite to build a society that responds to the interest of our working class — a communist society.

A Red Fighter

El Salvador: The Party Comes First

On October 1, we held the second PLP communist school. We met up in a place close to the town council; they had invited us to a social celebration in honor of the month of children, but instead of going to the social activity we went to the Party school.

The presence of ten readers of CHALLENGE in the morning was very important because we analyzed the reality we workers of the fields live through in this exploitative system. As we listen to or read the news, we realize how workers in the world are exploited, killed by the bosses and their lackeys.

We analyzed the CHALLENGE editorial, about the hospital workers that are fighting racist attacks. It gives us more courage to get organized and fight to build a communist society. We have understood that sexism and racism are chains of capitalist exploitation that the bosses use to divide us, to better exploit us and to produce more profit for this disgusting system.

The capitalist system can only be defeated and destroyed if we destroy its profits. Then an organized working class will build a new society without these faults. The fight makes us stronger, it teaches us that we are not alone, that we can unite against the bosses and this homicidal system.

The PLP is the flag of the proletariat and its leadership. United, we will win.

Comrade from El Salvador

Turkish and Israeli Bosses Deny Armenian Holocaust

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire (whose heir is now Turkey) committed systematic genocide against the Armenian people. There were mass deportations and murder, including forced death marches. Between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians were murdered. Other ethnic groups, such as Assyrians and Greeks, were also attacked. This was part of the institutional racism of the Ottoman Empire, similar to the institutional racism of each and every class system regime.

In 1914, the Ottoman Empire passed a law requiring every man under the age of 45 to enlist in the army or pay a fine. The Armenians were conscripted as well. Their weapons were taken from them and they were divided into units to build roads and facilities under the harshest conditions imaginable. Compare this to the current Israeli government, which wants to pass a law requiring Palestinian workers to enlist in the Israeli army or in “civil service,” despite the fact that they have suffered oppression and racism for 64 years.

Because of the horrid conditions in the Ottoman army, some Armenians deserted. Some even crossed over to Ottoman’s opponent, the Tsarist Russian army. In early 1915, Armenian units of the Russian army began recruiting Armenians from inside the Ottoman Empire, which served as an excuse for the massacre.

The slaughter began on April 24, 1915, when the Ottoman army systemically uprooted thousands of Armenian families from their homes and forced them to march hundreds of kilometers without food or water towards the Syrian deserts. Ottoman soldiers tortured, raped, and slaughtered the Armenians with impunity. That night, 250 Armenian leaders were murdered in Istanbul at the order of the Ottoman government.

Today’s Turkey still does not recognize the Armenian genocide, claiming that it just was a tragic wartime event and refuses to take responsibility. This is how fascist governments get away with genocide. Most Armenians worldwide are descendants of the survivors of this massacre.

Twenty-two nations now recognize the Armenian genocide. Israel does not. It doesn’t want “to harm the relations with Turkey.” Why do relations between two racist capitalist countries (Israel oppressing the Palestinians and Turkey oppressing the Kurds and Armenians even today) come before human lives?

To add insult to injury, Zionist groups refuse to describe the Armenian Genocide as a Holocaust. They wish to reserve the word “Holocaust” for the Jewish genocide during World War II. In these grotesque cases, the blood of an Armenian peasant or worker is not different from the blood of any other worker, including a Jewish one.

As communists, we condemn all forms of racism and of racist terror. Under capitalism, wars serve a clear interest of the ruling class — the arms industry, soldiers and everything serve the bosses’ interest to profit off of workers. There’s no consideration to human lives lost, homes destroyed and people becoming refugees.

Billions of workers all over the world have suffered, and still suffer, from oppression, discrimination and racism. We must fight against capitalism and build a world with no borders, wars and nationalism — a world where the working class will take its destiny into its own hands!

Housekeeping Worker from Tel-Aviv-Jaffa

Letters of January 18

SEIU No Cure for Attacks on Hospital Workers

I have been working at a Chicago area hospital for the past two years. My department consists of workers from all over the world —India, Haiti, Nigeria, South America and Eastern Europe, as well as native-born blacks and whites. The unions encourage workers to be divided, instead of uniting against all layoffs. We fight to recognize that attacks on us are racist and sexist, and fight back against these divisions on a class basis.

One of the first agitations we organized was a meeting with our division boss about two supervisors who were disrespecting us. One co-worker helped organize people to the meeting. We wrote up grievances against the supervisors and struggled with workers to lend their names and support to the grievances. The director denied all the complaints, but several months later, the supervisors were fired. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of our troubles.

An ongoing struggle is to help a ventilator-dependent patient stay alive by preventing his transfer to a shoddy nursing home (see CHALLENGE 11/2/11). An entire shift picketed in front of the hospital supporting the patient, and protesting layoffs. The county bosses closed the hospital where twelve ventilator dependent patients lived for many years. All but two have died since being transferred to under-staffed nursing homes.

Most recently, workers confronted the bosses about impending layoffs, since the closing of another county hospital and reducing services at a third public hospital. The hospital bosses denied knowing about the layoffs, and said it was in the hands of the head of the human resources department, who used to be vice-president of a local in our SEIU union. The union leaders and politicians go together like hand in glove. It is the job of union leaders to steer workers to accept layoffs and cuts, and manipulate us into allying ourselves with politicians (see CHALLENGE 11/16/11).

Before we could confront the union misleaders, three workers were laid off. An outpouring of workers confronted the union president, who played dumb. In reality, the union facilitated the layoff by organizing the displacement of workers.

We were invited to a negotiations meeting later the same morning at which the bosses’ lawyer said they would “look into it.” SEIU has been negotiating for a new contract for three and a half years, and has failed to organize workers towards direct action, even after union members overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike. At the last union meeting, the president casually announced 100 layoffs.

The union local includes thousands of members who work for the government, schools, parks, and jails. It has the capacity to shut down a significant portion of the state, but is unwilling to lead any militant fight-back. In Wisconsin, the unions failed to shut down the state by not striking; instead they submitted to the destruction of collective bargaining for public employees. Negotiating with the bosses’ cronies is a dead-end road for workers. In fact, the union leaders are satisfied with hundreds of jobless workers.

The unions reproduce the exploitative worker-capitalist relationship. They have no interest in smashing the bosses’ and their state, because they reap benefits from it. What we need is communist leadership, fighting back as a worker, for a worker-run hospital and more. PLP strives to unite the workers against the layoffs, and to fight for communist revolution. Working-class unity, under communist leadership will defeat all bosses and their agents.

Hospital worker

CHALLENGE On the Mark for This Emerging Red

I write this after having been separated from PLP for many years. I was active in college, but fell away after graduating and later going to law school.

I used to read CHALLENGE regularly; I write this to say that your analysis of the global political-economic situation was at least ten years ahead of its time. In the wake of the September 11 attack in New York, CHALLENGE warned us that the government’s new focus on “homeland security” would lay the foundation for fascism if and when capitalism suffered its next crisis.

As it stands, Al Qaeda currently has fewer than a dozen active members (even by the CIA’s estimate). Our “democratic” president has dispatched Osama bin Laden. Yet Congress and the president are poised to legalize martial law. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012 declares U.S. soil to be a “battlefield.” Anyone suspected of terrorist activity can be detained indefinitely without trial (and no doubt subjected to “enhanced interrogation” during that time).

Let us not lose sight of the timing of this. Al Qaeda is less of a threat than ever. What does threaten the established order is the burgeoning class consciousness that materialized as the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. At least one leaked memorandum from London has attempted to link OWS members with “terrorist” organizations.

In the years since September 11, these same police organizations have received paramilitary training and equipment from the federal government — at least one city in Georgia has even received an amphibious tank. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has hosted 18-city conference calls to help coordinate the police response to the OWS protests. Armed and armored DHS police were present during a recent raid on Occupy San Francisco (photographs exist).

Now we can all see that both Republicans and Democrats agree on the issues that matter most to the ruling class (or “the 1%” as the OWS is calling it these days). Class-conscious working people are the threat, and fascism/war are the solutions.

In short: you were right. Here’s 50 bucks. Keep it up.

Turning Red Again

Thanks-for-Fighting-Racism Feast

The 26th annual Thanks-for-Fighting-Racism Feast in Washington, DC was a huge success. Fifty friends, comrades and workers participated in answer to the genocidal Thanksgiving Day. This potluck celebrates our multi-racial, international unity and discusses the anti-racist struggles going on locally and worldwide.

The first speaker recounted the history of PL’s fight against racism from Harlem to Prince Georges County. PL has been fighting policy brutality, racist courts, and the KKK. Next was a speech regarding the struggle against HIV and the racism which plagues those involved in this fight.

Then, an Occupier reported on the latest developments at Occupy DC, where the DC PL’ers facilitated teach-ins, joined actions and general assemblies, and sold CHALLENGE regularly at the site. The Occupy movement is being steered towards electoral politics, and it is important for PL’ers to continue building for communism at these movements.

Another comrade described the struggle at Metro Bus. Due to the union misleaders selling out to the bosses, the new contract gave puny raises, took back health care benefits and raided the pension fund. The black and Latino workers will suffer the most. We must point out no one is secure under capitalism. Lastly, a comrade gave stirring closing remarks about the personal experiences that led him to join PLP.

The Thanks-for-Fighting-Racism Feast was a big hit. We will continue inviting friends to this event so they can see what the long haul, militant, multi-racial struggle looks like. The revolution may not be a tea party, but it can start with a feast, as long as it is a Thanks-for-Fighting-Racism Feast!

DC comrade

Transit Workers Need Class War Leadership

The December 3rd NYC TWU (Transit Workers Union) general membership meeting left me feeling transit workers were being set up to lose. There were two hours of speeches about unions mobilizing politicians trying to roll back the bosses’ nation-wide war on workers’ rights and even media mention of charges of “class warfare” because the TWU had given some support to the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement.

That movement has changed the bosses’ nation-wide austerity message to one that capitalist exploitation by the rich bosses needs to be attacked. To the embarrassment of the union movement, workers everywhere are picking up on the class warfare idea that reflects their reality and are demanding leadership willing to take on their parasitic employers.

During the meeting, I heard nothing about mobilizing for a strike, which was never mentioned even though it would be overwhelmingly supported by transit workers if the MTA bosses insisted on a big give-back contract, which seems likely. Strikes are a vital weapon workers have historically used to win most of the benefits they have today, which are rapidly being lost. The decades-long decline of the labor movement and worker compensation can be traced both to union “leaders” who have life-styles more like politicians and CEOs and to workers who have allowed themselves to be used as powerless voters instead of the producers of all wealth. Workers must understand their power and return to organizing class warfare to secure their needs.

At the meeting, over 40 workers lined up behind two mikes for a very brief question-only session that ended after only six speakers because, I believe, the comments were becoming too hot to handle. One worker forced a resolution demanding re-hiring of all 1,000-plus workers laid off. It passed unanimously. Another worker asked how the union can begin negotiating the MTA’s three-year wage freeze and give-back proposals without counter demands and a no-contract-no-work deadline. The worker ahead of me on the mike line was told his question would end the session. He said he would give up his question to ask why all the other workers were not being allowed to speak.

Although I didn’t get to speak, I wanted to raise  the class warfare idea by asking why the TWU doesn’t demand that the bosses who benefit from mass transit be forced to pay for the system which provides access to their businesses, which in turn produces hundreds of billions in profits off transit workers’ labor. I listed the multi-trillion dollar real estate industry, tens of thousands of stores like Macy’s, the multi-billion-dollar tourist industry and the trillion-dollars-per-day Wall Street transactions that would lose more than half their value without workers’ and consumers’ access to mass transit produced by our work.

Actually, at one time the real estate, department store and business  interests used to pay most of the operating costs for mass transit. Now all costs are forced on riders and taxpayers.

I would have asked how bankers and bondholders get away with stealing two billion dollars every year in transit debt payments from MTA fares paid by millions of mostly black, Latino and immigrant workers every day.

Transit workers have a long history of class war against the bosses, from the Great Depression to the 1966 NYC strike that broke the nation-wide wage freeze (used to finance the Vietnam War), to the Civil Rights movement. Many organizing these struggles were communists and anti-racists who used class warfare — strikes, anti-racism and labor solidarity — because they understood that those actions supported all workers’ needs which capitalism could never provide.

The bosses can survive recessions, depressions and wars but their greatest fear is that the working class, armed with communist ideas, will unite and turn the bosses’ class war against workers into a war against the capitalist predatory profit system to create a communist society.

Transit worker

letters of January 4

Airport Cleaners Sweep Out Racist Bosses

For three months there has been some sharp class struggle against racist airport cleaning bosses at a Mid-West airport by a multiracial group of airport workers over the frame-up firing of a shop steward and serious allegations of racist extortion of money from immigrant cleaners.

Cleaning supervisors and managers were trying to instill fear in the workers by targeting and firing their coworker and union steward on fabricated misconduct charges. Shortly after he was fired it became apparent these bogus charges grew out of his leading workers in fighting these racist bosses.

The workers — immigrants and citizens — and the steward presented a signed petition to union officers on their fired coworker’s behalf, charging racist abuse by these bosses and demanding his re-hiring. Their outpouring of political and personal support has been inspiring. Many are CHALLENGE readers. Some immigrant women have shown great leadership in this struggle. No matter what the outcome their fight will not be forgotten.

To expose the extortion of immigrant workers’ money, the workers and the union set up a “sting” operation, filming these bosses taking money (with marked bills). The union pressed the higher-up cleaning bosses with this evidence and the managers and supervisors were fired! One manager was demoted. There may be more firings of other bosses involved in extortion.

Capitalism is legalized thievery. These racist cleaning bosses just took it to its “logical” conclusion. Based on this evidence workers are fighting to get the Steward’s job back. Another CHALLENGE article will report this ongoing struggle.

Capitalism is a system of outright robbery of the value created by workers’ labor. Its managers and supervisors are no better than street robbers. The international working class needs a communist revolution to get rid of all bosses and profits and ensure the working class reaps all the value it creates. The fight for a communist world continues through the Occupy workers at this airport.

Airport Red

Minnesota OWS’ers: ‘Reform capitalism’; PL’er: ‘Can’t be done’

After a demonstration of over 200 multiracial occupiers, Occupy Minnesota defied the county order and had a sleep-in. This winter will be a major test of the Occupiers’ political will, for Minnesota is known for its harsh weather. A PLP comrade has donated some winter wear, books, and CHALLENGEs to the Occupiers’ Peoples’ Library. Self-critically a better effort must be made to present PLP’s communist ideas. Although the Occupy Movement is good in showing workers’ will to fight back, it must also shed the illusions that reforms can make capitalism better.

Occupy Minnesota has had a PL’er participating in teach-ins and marches, trying to present PLP’s ideas. In a teach-in called “Reforming Democracy” I said that what the bosses call “democracy” is capitalism. It can’t be reformed because it has too many built-in contradictions like class, racism, and sexism.

The “Reforming Democracy” teach-in was reformist nonsense about how “voting can get the right people in office to end Wall Street greed.” I explained that you can’t reform democracy. History shows democracy depends on your class position. If you were a slave in the early 1800s there was no democracy in U.S. society. It was a fascist dictatorship oppressing black slaves. 

This teach-in had no class analysis as to why past reform struggles ultimately failed in the long term. One occupier thought just getting the “right people” in office to police Wall Street would help. I told him that you can have all the “right people,” but competition and the drive for maximum profits in capitalism will economically ruin society no matter which Democrat or Republican is in office. This young guy did take a CHALLENGE as did a few others.

Even if working-class people win a reform, the bosses can take it away when it suits them because they have state power — the police, courts, military. There are some good people involved in Occupy Minnesota at the County Government Plaza in Minneapolis. The county board told the occupiers “when 25 degrees hits they can’t sleep in the outdoor Plaza areas.” They use the temperature drop as an excuse to try to oust the occupiers. 

The bosses will only tolerate so much of the Occupiers, who need to stop believing the “cops are a part of the 99%.” This is a political mistake. Working-class history like in Chile in the 1973 fascist counter revolution, shows that this  illusion about cops is dangerous. The cops rounded up and executed thousands of Chilean communists, with the help of the CIA. Only PL’s communist class analysis can point out to honest workers that cops are the fascist bosses’ thugs. Workers from Occupy Minnesota to Tahir Square, Egypt need communism and revolution to end racist, sexist, capitalism and for a communist world led by the workers’ party, PLP!

Minnesota Red

PL Youth Organize Teach-in at Occupy DC

Young PL’ers in DC and Baltimore held a communist school that focused on nationalism as an obstacle to communist revolution. We followed it up with a teach-in at Occupy DC in McPherson Square on the intersection of capitalism, nationalism and racism. Young leaders described how the ruling class profits from these divisions in the working class. They demonstrated the need for increased international class consciousness to fight the oppression and exploitation of the working class worldwide. About 30 to 40 Occupiers attended the teach-in and about 15 CHALLENGEs were distributed. Contacts were made and plans to follow up.

At the morning discussion, young leaders presented a historical perspective on the development of nationalism, showing its origin in capitalism and how today there is a direct relationship among imperialism, capitalism and the spread of nationalist ideas. We discussed how nationalist movements are a frequent response of oppressed groups to imperialist powers.

But nationalist movements don’t liberate the masses, who often shed blood fighting for all-class cooperation. Instead, it leads to the creation of a local group of bosses usually linked to the original or to alternative imperialists. Nationalist movements lack true working-class consciousness and ignore the divisions inherent in nationalism.

Capitalism is a global system against which the working class, on the basis of proletarian internationalism, must act as a global class to defeat it. International solidarity based on class interest is a necessity to end the global exploitation of the working class. Nationalism and patriotism serve to obscure the common working-class interests that would otherwise threaten ruling-class power.

At the later teach-in, one Occupier asked us, “Can workers overcome nationalist ideas?” A comrade responded, saying “ideas that dominate any period are the ideas of the ruling class, and these can change as class power changes. For example, under feudalism, many peasants accepted the idea of kings by divine right. But bourgeois revolution changed those ideas. The struggle for communist revolution will similarly change workers’ ideas about nationalism.”

As living proof of the power of internationalism, our day was capped off by a dinner and forum that evening with a comrade from South Asia who shared stories of struggle, perseverance and solidarity. Efforts at building PL among women in that region and the development of younger leadership were highlighted.

Our comrade from South Asia had previously spoken to 45 students, staff, and faculty at a local university, and observed with pleasure an anti-racist demonstration organized by Occupy DC at a local bank against their financing of the prison-industrial complex.

Problems and difficulties for the working class are similar worldwide as a direct result of capitalism. As we continue to develop new leadership, we remain committed to our Party’s politics and work toward the only solution to the working class’s oppression — communist revolution!

DC Comrades