Letters of December 12

‘Why I joined PLP…’

My interest in politics began in 2008 when I entered college. I wanted to be a Criminal Justice major, but after taking my first political science course I was so intrigued by it that I switched my major.  As I took more courses and learned more about the U.S. government, I discovered all of the flaws, the racism and the evils that surround it.

I also began to look at the two major parties in the U.S..  The Republicans are a party of conservatives who look out for nothing more than themselves, who claim to be Christian but turn a blind eye to helping fellow citizens, and who invest time and money to increase their own wealth instead of fixing social ills. 

Next are the Democrats who have a reputation for helping workers, but who really do nothing but carry on the rulers’ agenda of more wars to control oil, more deportations and more unemployment and lower wages for those lucky enough to still have a job.

The presidential candidates finance their campaigns from Exxon, BP, JP Morgan, tobacco and alcohol companies, and so on. How can a president possibly fix the social ills that plague us if he or she is looking out first for the interests of corporations like JP Morgan? 

I had no party to affiliate myself with until I discovered Progressive Labor Party, one that wants the working class to excel to new heights, a party that will not accept money from corporations, a party that is incorruptible and has the potential to do so many things. A party that marches, protests and tries in every way possible to help comrades and workers.

This is why I joined PLP!

A New Comrade

I Taught in Red China, Red China Taught Me

The following is an interview with a teacher who taught in China, referred to as “comrade.”

PL’er: When and where did you teach in China?

Comrade: 1984 to 1988, in Hurbin in Northeastern China and Beijing (the capital).

PL’er: What was teaching there like?

Comrade: I had the best students I will ever expect to have!

PL’er: What was your average day like?

Comrade: I would teach my English class for four hours each morning, in the afternoon I would prepare my lessons and meet with students. We also had to go shopping everyday for fresh vegetables, and more. 

PL’er: What was life like there?

Comrade: It was a collective lifestyle. Everyone was part of a work unit. Everyone had a badge, the same clothing and more or less equal wages.  I was reading lots of historical literature about socialism and communism. At this time, when Deng Xiao Ping said, “Socialism needed to be reformed,” I could see things were beginning to change. It began in the countryside.

Farmers had two plots of land. One was the collective plot where all was sold to the state. The second plot they could grow anything they wanted and sell it to on the open market. And so Deng Xiao Ping sowed the seeds of capitalism!

Even though we were living and reading about socialism everybody knew change was coming.

Workers and students used to call each other tongzhi (comrade in Chinese), that fell out of favor! socialism was gradually disappeared.

Stockton Comrade

Editor’s note: Deng Xiao Ping was an enemy of the revolution, as all revisionists [anti-communists in red clothing] are, who led China backward to capitalism under the name of reforming socialism. Today, PLP understands that fighting for socialism as the transition from capitalism to communism is both dangerous and erroneous. Drawing from the lessons of the old movement, we fight directly for communism. Anything less means retaining elements of class society, the seeds of the profit system. 

Sandy’s Lesson: Capitalism’s Selfishness Not ‘Human Nature’

In the wake of “Superstorm” Sandy, millions of mostly working-class people were left in the dark throughout areas of New Jersey.  In Hoboken, some of the poorest areas, were hardest hit. These are predominantly black and Latino areas, and had been left to fester while the city developed super-expensive condos on higher ground. For years, these areas have flooded whenever there has been a flash thunderstorm.  

During this storm, workers gathered together to collect their resources and check on their neighbors to make sure they were safe and warm.  As the days went on, and food started going to waste, many collectively made dinners and rode out the nights waiting for the three to four feet of water to recede from the front of our buildings.  

After the waters receded, a city-wide electric blackout continued. Many of us put pressure on local government to make sure these areas of Hoboken wouldn’t be forgotten.  We knew that the rich areas in the uptown section of the city would get power first, big names like Eli Manning of the New York Giants live there. 

Also, after the waters receded many of the better-off residents of the city were able to leave to stay with family or friends or in hotels, while the residents of the city projects were left wondering when the power would come back on. 

Through this storm and destruction, we learned, as workers, that greed and selfishness, which the bosses push as “human nature,” aren’t in our genes. Our instincts are about working together to take care of our working-class brothers and sisters in the face of capitalist-created disaster.  More importantly, it reinforced the reasons for fighting against capitalism and ending it — because it continues its racist exploitation of workers and keeps them impoverished in wage slavery hell.

New Jersey Comrade