Letters of December 25

Annual Thanks-for-Fighting-Racism Feast
The 28th Annual Thanks-For-Fighting Racism Feast in the Washington, DC area started with a burst of energy from the younger comrades. Developing such young comrades into leaders is important for our Party to grow. They helped move furniture, mash potatoes (10 lbs) and carved turkeys (2).  Most of all they brought many friends.
Our program included a report from the struggles at the Boston meetings of the American Public Health Association against the racist stop-and-frisk policy in New York City and imperialism’s racist exploitation of workers in Haiti. A Metro transit worker told of the ongoing struggle against privatization and racist criminal background checks, supported by public housing residents at Stoddert Terrace in Northeast DC.  A leader of the Peoples Coalition of Prince George’s County gave a stirring account of the many struggles against racism carried out by that group over the past year, including the 20-year-old fight for justice for Archie Elliott III and the 10-mile-march denouncing the Zimmerman verdict.
The program also featured students from a Baltimore high school cultural club who sang and gave powerful spoken word against racism. Then a woman from the Peoples’ Coalition performed a dramatic piece about Trayvon Martin and the movement that grew up around his murder that brought tears to the eyes of many. A young comrade delivered a passionate speech about the need for a revolutionary party to defeat racism, sexism, and capitalism. She called on people to join the Progressive Labor Party to help smash the system.
A raffle was won by a woman involved in Stoddert Terrace which is fighting the racist criminal background checks at Metro.  Positioning a person at the door meant more consistent donations. We raised over $700 for the End Cholera in Haiti Organization (ECHO).  The Party has been working with them since the earthquake devastated the island nation. The comradely, multi-racial, multi-generational crowd bodes well for the future of our Party.
DC Red

Colonialism At City College
Students, community supporters and local residents took to the streets during a recent protest against the City College of New York (CCNY) administration’s stealing of the Assata Shakur-Guillermo Morales Student & Community Center in October.
But before the action began, students held an open mic session outside the school’s North Academic Center, where they gave the fascists in charge a well-deserved mouthful.
“It is pretty obvious that my college never cared about consent,” said Alyssia Osorio, the center’s director, referencing how the school took the space without consulting any student governments. They violated an agreement between Students For Educational Rights and CUNY that the center remain under autonomous student control.
“It’s a problem of colonialism, and neo-colonialism, when they can take what’s yours, what you deserve as a human being, and tell you that it’s for your own benefit, or not even give you an excuse at all,” said a speaker. “That’s colonialism!”
As I covered the march, I overheard Osorio revealing in an interview that the administration told her to pick up the property it stole from the center the Monday of the attack. That was reportedly her only chance to pick up the items.
Before long, the group began marching down Convent Avenue to spread word about the center. This drew a lone NYPD cruiser, but the group ignored the pigs’ demands to go on the sidewalk, a small example of working-class power! They eventually stopped outside the Adam Clayton Powell, Jr building, where they spoke out once more before dispersing. Though our turnout could’ve been better, it felt empowering. And when we take state power for the working class, it will only get better from there.
New PL’er

Free Speech Fights Are Necessary
The strong front-page article Dec. 11, “No Free Speech Under Capitalism,” is certainly correct that we live under capitalist dictatorship. The only rights we have under that rule are those we fight to get and keep through the power of the workers and students, and even then they will always be limited and often taken away by the state.
 “Free speech” in the sense of being able to put forward communist ideas without being beaten, prosecuted, and jailed is, however, necessary to our class and our Party, and “free speech fights” have been part of workers’ struggles and communist organizing from the get go.  A famous U.S. example was the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World) in the 1920s, fighting for public speaking rights as they organized miners and loggers.
At City University of New York (CUNY) the fight against the Administration’s and the NYPD’s crackdown on political organizing is a classic free speech fight and communists should be (as we are) front and center in that fight.  Fighting fascism is often fighting for the public space to speak freely for revolutionary ideas.  When they show their contempt for their own laws or change them to fit their needs (CUNY is now doing both), we have to fight that and expose the underlying dictatorship beneath their prattle about the rule of law.  
If we call it an attack on First Amendment rights, however, we fall into the liberal illusions about the rule of law.  But if we attack it as a crackdown by the capitalist ruling class to prevent anti-war, anti-imperialist organizing on the campus, this becomes a teachable moment and brings to our friends the class analysis of the state that there is No Free Speech Under Capitalism. The article also points out that these attacks on organizers hope to derail the struggle.  We should have been picketing ROTC offices all this time, as well as defending the students facing suspensions and criminal charges. Expanding the struggle has to accompany any free speech fight.
When 60% of all university research in electrical engineering in the country is funded by the Department of Defense, they have too much invested in the university as a war machine to tolerate effective organizing against them without a sharp reaction. If we want a chance to speak freely about this we will have to fight for it.  
CUNY Prof

College Bosses Clamp Down on Campus Protest
The City University of New York (CUNY) Board of Trustees is planning to vote on a
set of regulations to control “expressive activity” of students and faculty. On December 3, over 80 people attended a town hall meeting at my community college. They were quite upset to hear the CUNY Board of Trustees is planning to vote on these new regulations. The CUNY Board of Trustees plans to tell us when and where on campus we would be allowed to leaflet and demonstrate, assuming we applied for permission.
During the Question and Answer period, students wanted to know who are these “trustees” and can their decisions be overturned. One professor explained that on our campus we had a history of protesting about many issues, including tuition hikes, run down buildings, the preservation of adjunct health care, the war in Iraq, and the support of cafeteria workers. We had never asked for permission and we never will!
The only way to stop repression is to organize and break the laws.
A student from City College was a guest speaker and explained the militarization of CUNY that was taking place across the city. We promised to support him and other students who had been arrested for fighting back.  A number of CHALLENGES were distributed and plans are being made to step up the struggle next semester.
Professor Red