Letters of April 9

Plea Bargaining A Ploy in U.S. INjustice System
In the U.S. criminal injustice system, plea bargaining is far more common than convictions based on evidence.
Two articles in CHALLENGE (3/12) described struggles at Chicago Transit and DC Metro, respectively, against the firing of, or failure to hire drivers and mechanics who were convicted of a felony. The pretext given by the two transit systems is “protection of passengers.”  But PLP in both cities have exposed the falsehood of this claim by showing that there is no evidence that they pose any such danger.
PLP has also shown that the transit policies are extremely racist, since the number of people convicted of felonies among black and Latino workers is disproportionately higher than for white workers. This is due to the outrageous racism in the injustice system in which far more black and Latino workers are arrested and convicted of felonies than are white workers, though the same injustice also affects many white workers, and indeed others.
However, one vital point must be added to these otherwise excellent articles. The DC article stated, “...more black and Latino workers...are arrested and convicted at higher rates [emphasis added].” It is important to recognize that to be convicted of a crime does not mean one was found guilty by either a judge or a jury based on evidence presented in a trial. The technical legal definition of conviction includes plea bargaining, in which the accused is coerced into confessing to a crime of which they were actually innocent.
Some day the international working class, under communist leadership, will make this criminal system pay for their outrageous “crimes against humanity.”  But we should never assume that someone who has a record as a felon was ever convicted based on evidence in a trial — as they will be the first to tell you, and in most cases truthfully so. The odds are overwhelming that they were coerced into a confession — almost 20 or 30 to 1.
How does this coercion work? It arises from an indication by the prosecutor that the accused is going to be charged with an even greater crime that carries a much longer sentence, if not the death penalty. This is done frequently, even though the prosecutor knows fully well the person is innocent of this greater crime. This vicious ploy is used to force a confession to a lesser crime, in order get it over with quickly without the need for a time-and-money-consuming trial.
Of course, even in the course of a trial many innocent workers are convicted because of a combination of false evidence planted by police, prejudice on the part of judge and/or jury, and/or an incompetent or uncaring public defender or other defense lawyer, among other possible reasons.
Convictions by trial are, in fact, very rare in the making of felons, on both the federal and state levels. A majority of prisoners turned into felons are put in that position not on the basis of trials, but rather of plea bargains. In fact, an article in the Wall Street Journal (9/23/12), titled “Federal Guilty Pleas Soar As Bargains Trump Trials,” reports that in 2011, 97 percent of federal cases were resolved through plea bargains rather than trial convictions. The Bureau of Justice Assistance states the same approximate percentage applies at the state level.
Plea bargains are a trick used by prosecutors all over the U.S, who — with impunity and without fear of retaliation from the working class (in the absence of a revolution) — can accuse arrested workers of any crime they choose to invent, with punishments that involve many years in prison. When caught red-handed, they claim that they do this to unclog the overstressed court system in the face of huge numbers of arrests by cops. But they mainly use such methods to increase their numbers of convictions in order to advance their own political careers. They even use false accusations and plea bargaining against their political rivals for office. Civil rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate’s 2009 book Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, fully describes this unstoppable criminality by prosecutors.
We are well aware that cops plant evidence all the time in order to obtain convictions or, more often, to promote fear-inspired plea bargaining. Funding of police departments is proportional to the number of arrests and “convictions,” which is falsely taken as a measure of need — the more arrests the more money allotted. But the equally criminal behavior of prosecutors is less known publicly.
It is futile to expect justice from a racist system. The racist courts clearly do not function in the interest of the working class. There will come a day when the working class will demolish the bosses’ injustice system.
Saguaro Rojo

Bosses Stamp on Food for Workers
We have to be aware that the problem of food stamps has been cooking for some time now. The principle ingredients are government privatization and government politicians.
The end result is a stew in the form of reduction of resources for families of low income while, at the same time, the rich and their politicians line their pockets and fill bloated stomachs. They are not in our shoes and will never comprehend our necessities.
I believe that we shouldn’t wait any longer. We have to defend our rights day in and day out and support the less fortunate. We are people and not animals and that as part of the working class, we have the right to demand respect.
Enough with abuse of power: we want a real change, not the usual lies. We will not stumble over and over again with the same false promises. We are fighters and as fighters, we will continue to fight fascism here.
Red Cook

Get Off Rulers’ Treadmill
September 13 will forever be remembered as when Mexico’s corrupt parties such as the PRI, PAN, PRO and PT, the number one loyal servants of the capitalists, showed us once again the kind of politicians we have here. This is the future that awaits us and our children of the working class unless we rebel.
The teachers are not intimidated because they have confronted this problem with sharp struggle that has given them the force and courage to face this and raise their voices for their rights.
If we don’t fight to make a change we will continue on a treadmill  from one generation to the next. All of us exploited by capitalism need to leave as an inheritance to our children the defense of our rights in this country.
Let’s make a call to the working class worldwide to always unite in support of each other in the fight for social equality and for communism .
Where there is unity, there is a solution!
Internationalist

Forward to Clean Up the Garbage of Capitalism
Re: “The Mass Fight Against Public School Privatization in Mexico,” Oct. 16, 2013:
I am a mother involved in the fight for a better education for my kids and other students who have suffered from a mediocre education filled with obstacles keeping them from advancing.
The government complains about the reaction and protests from the teachers and community but because of their lack of respect they leave us no other option. They want to keep us as puppets and take away the right to our opinions. They defend privatization not just for the schools but for everything that affects the working class. Now is the moment to act and unite our forces.
We know that the political parties in Mexico are self-serving and corrupt. They ascend their throne without caring that the poorest and hardest workforce of their country should suffer from hunger and lack of medical attention while the bosses and their politicians enjoy the profits stolen from all the citizens.
I invite every person that is suffering all this — do not stay quiet! Everyone can raise their voice to be heard because there will always be someone to support you and together we can clean up all this garbage. Don’t surrender. Let’s continue forward.
Anticapitalist Reader

How Racism Spoils Baltimore Food Market
Recently, the Baltimore Sun has been writing about the Lexington Market, which is a large public marketplace that’s been there since 1782. The Sun’s recent coverage about the market has been one-sided, and borders on being racist. The reportage about the Market has focused almost exclusively on negative things, talking about “middle-income shoppers who abandoned” the Market, and “hoped-for” shoppers who currently avoid it “whether because of discomfort with the setting, dissatisfaction with the offerings or both.”
But that’s not how the Lexington Market seems to me and many of our friends.
I am a teacher at one of our city’s public high schools. Each year, for more than three decades, I have taken my English students to Central Pratt Library for a full day kicking off the work on their research papers. For many of those years, at lunchtime, we have walked to the market. Just last month, we conducted one of these scholarly field trips, with about 100 students, and, as usual, we had a really nice lunchtime experience. In fact, students from another school happened to be there at the same time, officially on stage, performing in honor of Black History Month. Many diners enthusiastically watched the performances from the second-floor seating area.
Of course, like all things, the Market could improve. It would be nice, for example, to be able to buy unsweetened iced tea, not just the sugary variety, as part of the delicious “half-and-half” beverages which are locally unique and mixed-to-order at one of the Market’s customer-friendly stalls.
I went to Lexington Market recently for lunch with a former teaching colleague, now retired.  While waiting for at a stall, I got into a conversation with the gentleman in front of me.  He recruits  at local high schools for Hampton University.  He joined us for lunch. The Market was bustling, and we had to look hard to find a table for three.
A young man passing by noticed our grey hair, tapped one of us on the shoulder and, with a sincere and respectful smile, said, “There’s a lot of wisdom at this table!”  It was quite a tribute. The young man was black; we three elders were a multi-racial group, two black and one white.
 It seems to me that what the recent Sun articles are really saying is not that too few people go to Lexington Market, but that too high a percentage of the diners and shoppers are black. It reminds me of the racial make-up of the teaching force in Baltimore City. When I began teaching in the 1970s, the vast majority of public-school educators in Baltimore were black, serving as great role models for our predominately black student population.
Now, however, utilizing large numbers of teachers from Teach-for-a-Minute (the program’s real name is Teach for America, but the nickname is more accurate) and by other means, the forces controlling our city have significantly reduced the percentage of black teachers, who have dwindled to being a minority of the staff.  This unfavorable transformation has been engendered purposely even though 84 percent of our students are black.
Are The Sun and its owners now seeking to racially transform Lexington Market? Is that what this is really all about? If not, why are stories like mine, about years of good experiences at the Market, largely absent from The Sun’s coverage?
Baltimore PL’er

Lack Valid Criticism on Syria
In the letter (3/26) entitled “Syria Editorial Misleading,” the two comrades seem to have overlooked or misunderstood most of the points made in the 2/12  Editorial.
First, the letter says that the word “capitalist” is not mentioned even once in the article when, in fact, it appears twice, and in the very first paragraph.
Second, in the next-to-last paragraph, the letter says the article is weak in pointing out how shifting imperialist alliances only aided the needs of the ruling classes. However, the article’s title, “Syria: Centuries of Repression, Division and Exploitation” and most of its content are devoted to how colonial and imperialist powers have done exactly that.
Finally, in the last paragraph, the letter says the article omits an explanation of internal class conflicts in Syria or any other Middle East country. On the other hand, the article discusses the role of the “Communist” Party in the internal politics of Syria and the region and how nationalist, religious and ethnic divisions have led to workers fighting other workers against their own class interests.
The letter makes a correct point that it would have been better if the article had said “The French rulers” instead of “The French,” but that doesn’t negate the lack of validity in most of the criticism. Our Party’s growth depends on our ability to promote criticism and self-criticism. More collective discussion by letter writers and editors is needed.
A Comrade

Letters of March 26

Need to Take a Stand Against Racism
At lunch recently, one of my coworkers related some of his experiences working in Saudi Arabia.  He said that he worked for a private employer who employed several hundred workers.  His boss would seize their passports and demanded to be paid whenever they needed their passports to travel to neighboring Dubai or to visit family in India, where many were from.  He said that he experienced many instances of racist discrimination because some Saudis disliked darker-skinned people who were non-Muslim. His brother, who still lives in Saudi Arabia, was in a minor car accident in which the other driver was a native.  The driver beat his brother and fled, and when the police arrived they did nothing to help.  It seems that immigrants are discriminated against all over the world.
This reminds me of another lunchtime conversation in which several coworkers were making disparaging comments about Middle Eastern and Arab immigrants to the U.S.
One said that they manipulate the system by getting LINK cards (gov’t. assistance) while driving expensive cars and owning businesses.  Another worker said she helped a neighbor from the Middle East do his tax return, and that his wife makes tax-free income by cleaning houses; while he is a truck driver.  She stated they were able to buy an expensive house because his employer, who is also from the Middle East, exaggerated his income.  I did not say much to this.
After conveying this discussion to my comrades, they suggested that I should have said that the same false ideas are pushed about black and other dark-skinned workers under capitalism. These racist ideas permeate the working class to keep us divided and to keep the rulers in power.  The main manipulators of the system are a small group of capitalists who profit from exploiting labor power throughout the world.  They are responsible for profiting while workers suffer from poverty, racism and constant wars for world domination. 
I was reminded that in order for the working class to make progress toward achieving a communist future, I should make a plan with my coworkers to take a stand against the racist conditions we face every day on the job, including understaffing, cutbacks and lack of equipment.  This letter represents a first step in that direction.
Red Worker
Seeger Went Only So Far in Opposing Rulers
I believe that the letter/eulogy in the March 12 issue of CHALLENGE is a “bit” too optimistic about Pete Seeger and his “contributions” to the struggle to destroy capitalism. In his late youth and early adulthood, Pete played an active role in many union-organizing campaigns. His overall approach was to “embarrass” the ruling class into seeing the “errors of their ways.” But this strategy has never worked and never will. It is to Seeger’s credit that he recognized the inhuman essence of “free” enterprise.
However, Seeger never went beyond this, even after being blacklisted by the entertainment industry and after the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) called him to “testify” at one of their circus “hearings.”
I, too, was a fan of Pete Seeger and it was very difficult and very sad when I realized that he had abandoned the fight that helped to inspire me to join the Progressive Labor Movement in 1963 and the Progressive Labor Party in 1965. To understand the depth to which Seeger had sunk, consider the letter in the NY Times shortly after his death.
The letter-writer recounted that Seeger had been invited to perform at the local high school and the right-wing elements in the community attempted to prevent his appearance based on his earlier support for workers and unions as well as his opposition to the War in Vietnam. As things turned out, the crude attempts to prevent Pete from showing up were soundly defeated. However, to the letter-writer’s delight, the evening began with Seeger singing The Star Bangled Banner. Clearly, he wanted to show that he was a “loyal American, just like you and me!”
J Red
CHALLENGE Must Expose Exploitation of White Workers Too
I must make a criticism with regards to something the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) in general and CHALLENGE “did not say” in regards to our sister and brother workers who are white. In the CHALLENGE editorial of February 12, 2014, the editorial says, “These conditions fall mostly on black, Latino, and Asian workers and youth because of the racism intrinsic to capitalism. Without racism, and the divisions and super-exploitation that stem from it, the profit system could not sustain itself.”  While we all can agree 100 percent that nonwhite workers are super-exploited and super-oppressed, what about white workers?
From reading this and other CHALLENGE articles, you would hardly know white workers had any problems under capitalism. This is only going to confuse readers because white workers are also oppressed —political economy clearly illustrates that white workers are oppressed in terms of relative exploitation, while in terms of absolutes nonwhite workers are super-exploited by the bosses. While black and Latino workers’ living standards have deteriorated, white workers standard of living has also fallen.
For example, now new autoworkers work for about $14-an-hour across the board, down from about $30-an hour. Racism has helped lower the wages of already exploited white workers. The Party, i.e CHALLENGE, needs to do a better job in pointing out the plight of white workers, as we want to win them to see fighting racism is crucial and to communist revolution along with our nonwhite sisters and brothers internationally.
As someone who has been living in Indianapolis for seven months, I have seen that whites too have many issues due to the horrors of capitalism. In downtown Indianapolis the majority of homeless workers are white. In many of the suburban schools where I work, white students are being sugarcoated the message “of serving in the military,” but not being told exactly WHO benefits,  (the U.S. bosses) and at what costs to these future soldiers.(Suicides, being maimed, homeless). 
To quote comrade Karl Marx, “Labor in the white skin can never free itself as long as labor in the black skin is branded.”
Indiana Red
CHALLENGE comment: Our comrade is absolutely correct in saying that white workers are exploited by capitalism. No worker is immune from capitalist
exploitation. However, we have repeatedly said in article after article involving workers’ struggles that white workers are hurt by the racist divisions in two ways: in cuts in wages, health insurance, mortgage, foreclosures, among other attacks. Secondly, we’ve always made the point that the racist super-exploitation of black, brown, and immigrant workers is used as a club to threaten white workers’ conditions and drag them down. In fact, we point out that racism divides and weakens the whole working class.
Syria Editorial is Misleading
Comments on the back-page article on Syria (2/12/14 issue)
This impressively sweeping article was very informative about the history of shifting rivalries among various imperialist nations over Syria and the Middle East in general.  The major imperialists (capitalist-ruled nations) were at first Britain and France in the early 20th century, and after World War II the US and the Soviet Union (later Russia, already becoming state capitalist by that time).
We would add, however, that the way of describing the various imperialist ruling classes is unintentionally inconsistent and misleading.  Sometimes the ruling classes are described as “rulers” or “imperialists,” but other times the name of the nation they rule is substituted.  For example, instead of saying (next to last paragraph, column 1), “The French were harsh colonial masters in Syria” this would be better stated as “The French rulers were harsh...”  After all, given that France was, and is, a capitalist society, the French working class was subject to that same harsh rule.
It is important for all readers to realize that such terms as “The French” instead of the “The French rulers” was nothing but a shorthand way of saying the same thing.  But unless it is stated as “rulers” or “imperialists,” or even “capitalists” (a word that doesn’t appear even once in the article), it risks reinforcing the idea – one that we are all taught from birth – that countries that call themselves “democracies” act as a unit.  This idea implies that the responsibility for the actions of any nation’s ruling capitalist class is placed squarely on the shoulders of the workers of that nation, along with those who rule our lives.  We cannot remind readers too often that all nations are divided into classes with opposing interests, even if doing so makes an article longer or more repetitive.
We would also emphasize explicitly a couple of other points that are only implicit in the article as written.  The first point concerns the way that alliances among various rival imperialist rulers of different nations are always temporary and keep shifting as the rulers find their circumstances changing.  Another way of putting it is that there is no honor among thieves, and all alliances are merely ways of satisfying the immediate goals of each capitalist ruling class.
A second point to be emphasized is that the article, perhaps to fit it on one page, omits explanation about the internal class conflicts in Syria or any other country in the Middle East.  What effect these internal class conflicts have had on the successes or failures of the rival imperialists in reaching their goals is left unexplored.  An even more likely reason for this omission is that we have yet to research this area enough, so our knowledge of it is still poor.  It is, however, a vital area to be explored in the future.  We all have a lot to learn.
Two Comrades
Racist Cover-up Proves Cops Murdered Kyam Livingston
Recently-revealed documents prove NYPD cops are lying about the death of Kyam Livingston in custody last July. Kyam Livingston was a Brooklyn mother arrested for allegedly arguing and becoming violent with her grandmother. She died after being held for many hours in a cell at Central Booking, despite suffering from intense stomach pains and diarrhea. Her family has been campaigning against the police cover-up ever since, and holds monthly demonstrations.
According to her fellow inmates, when they brought Livingston’s deteriorating condition to the cops’ attention, one approached the cell and said, “Shut the f**k up, or we’ll lose your papers.” Livingston curled over in intense pain for over seven hours.
The NYPD claims Livingston died in an ambulance en-route to Brooklyn Hospital Center on July 21st. But when the Livingston family’s lawyer wrote to the hospital asking to see the ambulance reports for her, they replied, “We are unable to comply with your request at this time for the following reason(s): We show no treatment at this facility for the dates of service you requested.”
No records? No treatment? If the hospital has no records for Livingston whatsoever, it proves the NYPD lied about getting her medical attention. It suggests the cops didn’t even bother placing any 911 calls, and that she virtually died at Central Booking.
But there’s more. Media reports keep referring to Kyam as a “drunken woman.” But officers first took her to Kings County Hospital after her arrest, and her chart there does not show any blood, urine or breathalyzer tests taken. The second page of that report also featured instructions to officers to “get prompt medical attention if any of the following [symptoms] occur.” The list included “increasing upper abdominal pain.” It is apparent the pigs in command ignored those instructions.
And if Kyam was truly drunk upon arrest, why is her toxicology report negative for all ethanol and basic drugs?
Overall, these reports show there is a massive cover-up going on. More importantly, it shows the racist, sexist mindset that permeates the Ideological State Apparatuses surrounding our lives. The media smeared this woman as drunk, despite no facts to back that up. And even if she was drunk that day, that will never justify how Livingston died. Police officers treated her as if she wasn’t even human, or even deserving of any medical care.
A black woman’s life under capitalism will always be undervalued! It’s about time we put a permanent stop to that, and all forms of exploitation people of color worldwide endure on a daily basis.

Red Journalist

Letters of March 12

Pete Seeger Inspired by Workers’ Struggles
In early January 2014, Pete Seeger, an icon of American folk music, passed away. He was known worldwide for his progressive music accessible to everyone from coal miners and factory workers to college students and professors. His years as a musician and political activist spanned need nearly seven decades reaching all generations.
In 1936 at age 17, Seeger joined the Young Communist League (YCL), then at the height of its popularity and influence. He attended Harvard College with the dream of being a journalist but lost his partial scholarship because he did so much political work in the YCL that his grades suffered. He left Harvard in 1938. In 1942 he became a member of the Communist Party (CPUSA) itself, but left in 1949.
In the 1950’s, he was a member of The Weavers. Many of their songs were controversial and they were banned and/or censored by most mainstream radio and television stations for years. Even today, You Tube clips with Pete trying to play controversial songs such as “The Big Muddy” on the TV show “The Smother Brothers” are cut out.
When not performing publically on networks he went to summer camps and performed for children. This may have planted the seeds in the minds of these very young children that contributed to the social rebellions of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Despite the setbacks and obstacles with television networks due to his socially radical ideas, Pete Seeger continued on and had a show called “Rainbow Quest” on CBS network out of New York in the 1960’s.
A number of progressive artists performed on the show. Tom Paxton sang  “Buy a Gun for Your Son,” a subtle and sarcastic song criticizing the patriotic war-supporting agenda of the far-right political agenda. Seeger also was closely associated with the 1960s Civil Rights movement and in 1963 helped organize a landmark Carnegie Hall concert, featuring the youthful Freedom Singers, as a benefit for the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. This event and Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in August of that year brought the Civil Rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” to wide audiences. A version of this song, submitted by Zilphia Horton of Highlander, had been published in Seeger’s People’s Songs Bulletin as early as in 1947.
On July 26, 1956, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) voted 373 to 9 to cite Pete Seeger and seven others (including playwright Arthur Miller) for contempt, as they refused to cooperate with HUAC in its attempts to investigate alleged subversives and communists (later PLP members would also refuse to cooperate with HUAC). Seeger testified before the HUAC in 1955. This was one of his darkest moments, when his personal freedom, his career, and his safety were in jeopardy. Seeger had an international following of millions of workers and progressive-minded intellectuals who were anti-war and pro-union and supported workers’ rights.
Even though Seeger was the product of the revisionism/reformism of the “old” communist movement, much of his music and lyrics about workers’ struggles are inspirational. By playing and sharing his music today, we may have a way to reach and politicize both young and old people alike. His music is a valuable tool to use with friends on our jobs and in other organizations if they are progressive enough to begin the conversation about fighting back and the problems of capitalism.
All that hear Seeger’s message can gain a historical context for the workers’ struggles against racism, too. By listening to his music, people learn the history of the struggles and tribulations of the working class as they started to organize collectively in the mid-to-late 20th century. In his “Songs of Struggle” album his music encourages workers to think for themselves with songs like “Which Side are You On?” and “Talking Union” written with Lee Hays and Millard Lampell. The last verse of “Talking Union,” written by Seeger, illustrates the potential to use his works in PL our own attempts to win workers struggling for their rights and to help students understand these struggles:
But out in Detroit here’s what they found,
And out in Frisco here’s what they found,
And out in Pittsburgh here’s what they found,
And down in Bethlehem here’s what they found,
That if you don’t let Red-baiting break you up,
If you don’t let stool pigeons break you up,
If you don’t let vigilantes break you up,
And if you don’t let race hatred break you up —
You’ll win. What I mean,
Take it easy — but take it!”
Pete Seeger is gone but his message lives on to empower the working class.
A comrade fan of Pete Seeger
Community Fighter Won to Communism
I am a person who since I became involved have learned what communism signifies. It gives me joy and confidence that a struggle exists that understands the necessities of all of us who are part of the working class and that we are not alone.
I would very much like to pass on the word to more people that because of fear they remain quiet and that like me, I have learned what the word communism means. Now it is our job to inform and transform everyone, that because of capitalism, we are all suffering the consequences of bad administraters of the country and as always, these politicians pass the guilt around, blaming each other, pretending to fill a well-intentioned agenda with a president on his way out and being replaced by another and finally never doing anything. That is why I think that the Progressive Labor Party should never disappear. With organization, intelligence and anger, we shall keep communism alive and not lose the hope that in the not-so-distant future, we can say we’ve gained more ground against capitalism.
First and foremost, I very much congratulate your Party for letting me get involved in your fight against the corruption of the world’s monster named capitalism.
Pro-communist fighter CIA-Owned U.S. Media
Comrades, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the media’s role in reproducing the superstructure continually oppressing us. Last August, we saw how privatized the news is when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post for $250 million. Some may think these purchases are relatively recent in history. However, subversion of the press leaves a trail extending back to the 1940s, draped in secrecy.
In 1948, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) created the Office of Police Coordination (OPC), a psychological and paramilitary action organization. OPC was specifically designed as the CIA’s covert action branch. Per its own secret charter, the department’s goal was spreading “propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world.”
To lead this department, the CIA enlisted Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner, who had strong hatred for the U.S.S.R. Later that year, Wisner created Operation Mockingbird, a program where the CIA bribed journalists from multiple media outlets to spread their propaganda.
Per Katherine The Great by Deborah Davis (which first exposed Mockingbird): “By the early 1950s, Wisner ‘owned’ respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles, plus stringers, four to six hundred in all, according to a former CIA analyst.”  
Mockingbird managed to influence at least 25 newspapers and wire services throughout the United States. The CIA even used it to influence 1949 elections in Italy, after Italian communists joined the race. Their efforts helped lead to the communists’ defeat.
It should come as no coincidence that this happened alongside the dawn of McCarthyism, where anyone who even looked different was suspected of being a communist.
The ‘50s saw Mockingbird take up one-third of the CIA’s covert operations budget; three-thousand salaried and contracted Agency workers eventually became involved in the propaganda efforts. Fast-forwarding to the present day, we see Mockingbird’s continuing effects. Mass media still presents stories from a racist and sexist perspective, routinely attacks students protesting fascist militarization on campuses and gives virtually no attention to government programs such as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) This act, signed by Obama, authorizes $662 billion in funding, among other things, “for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad.”
This only further proves that what we see, read and hear daily will never serve our class interests. The government has literally owned hundreds of journalists for decades now. It is important we learn this because many still believe in the lie of “unbiased” reporting the bosses’ love pushing on us. And when you believe their dangerous lies, you’ll be less likely to take up workers’ struggle.
This is also why it is so important that we all read and distribute CHALLENGE newspaper. Our revolutionary communist paper is the only paper that truly reports on, and represents the interests of, the international working class. We should all make or renew our commitment to distribute many more as this is our strongest weapon against our enemy, capitalism.
Red Journalist
‘Top Secret America’: NSA Exposed Before Snowden
In July of 2010, more than two years before Edward Snowden published his revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) and two years in the making, the Washington Post newspaper published three articles describing what it called “… an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight.” To be sure, the motives behind the Post stories were far from those of Mr. Snowden. On the contrary,  The Post was alarmed that the entire national security apparatus had become too large, too in-grown, and quite incapable of even performing a protective role.
The idea was not to expose any of the by-their-own-laws-illegal activities of the U.S. government. Rather, the Post saw itself as a totally patriotic organization alerting the country to severe problems that needed to be fixed so that the U.S. could continue as the world’s leading capitalist economy.
The Post saw nothing inherently wrong with what was going on; it only wanted to get rid of the vast waste and inefficiency that it believed was crippling “our” ability to defend “ourselves.” Moreover, the Post claimed that its “…online database of government organizations and private companies was built entirely on public records. The investigation focused on top-secret work because the amount classified at the secret level is too large to accurately track.”
It is noteworthy that the Post knew that the NSA (only a part of the national security apparatus) was collecting daily 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. In other words, the overall activities of the NSA that Snowden exposed were quite well-known. The Post mentioned this data collection to show how ludicrously immense it had become because even with their super-fast computers, the NSA couldn’t analyze the majority of the information it was gathering. Clearly, the facts that Snowden exposed were well-known to Washington insiders; the only ones who didn’t know were the so-called “American people.”
The articles make it clear that only very high-ranking individuals could afford to identify themselves when substantiating the articles’ claims. This thoroughly demolishes the idea that “Snowden should have and could have gone through the proper channels rather than publishing the information the way he did.”
The Post said that its online database is at www.washingtonpost.com/topsecretamerica but I couldn’t find it. Perhaps they took it down after Snowden’s exposures to perpetuate the fiction that “no one knew what was going on.”
A Reader

Letters of February 26

PL School: Microcosm of a Communist World

Communism — well, of course I agree with many of the ideas, but the main question is: will it work? Will communism really fix capitalism? I feel like it will replace capitalism with another “ism,” but I’m not sure if it will fix all the problems. What I am willing to do is fight the problems that I see, for example racism and sexism. So if I’m fighting with communists, that’s fine.
Student Fighter
★ ★ ★ ★
Overall, I think the retreat was good, and I liked the topics we talked about during the workshops because I learned about things I never knew before. I also liked how we related the topics to what’s happening in
everyone’s lives and how we saw that the things that are happening in our schools and community are the same. One question I have is: what will happen to the bosses after you guys plan on making everyone equal and the working class is in charge? What will you do if the bosses do not agree with your ideas?
Investigator
★ ★ ★ ★
These communist schools are always a great time. As I’ve spent more and more time in the Party, this group of people has become my family, a community I can rely on. Every time I go to a communist school, I am reminded of the potential we all have and the greatness of the communist future we are all fighting for. This school helped me become more of a leader, and I am dedicated to carrying on this fight to the younger generation. We will continue the fight for change, justice, equality and a communist future.  
Rededicated
★ ★ ★ ★
A little taste of real communism is what I experienced this weekend. Spending a weekend living together with others from different backgrounds and walks of life is not a usual part of everyday life. In the world we live in today, getting people who are different from each other to form a community is a hard thing to do. However, this weekend proved this notion to be untrue.
This weekend was about building community and building unity. This weekend was about learning and growing, not as one, but as all. The idea of communism has been tarnished for most of our lives, but this communist school is the rag that will be used to wipe down the dirt that has accumulated on the idea of communism for so many years.
I truly enjoyed my time this weekend, and it is an experience that will stay with me, but will not end with me. What I experienced this weekend will be what others will experience, if I can help it!
Student of Communism
★ ★ ★ ★
Another year, another great communist school! This year marks my first communist school since I officially joined PLP. Though I still have doubts about certain things, this weekend gave me more confidence that I made the right choice. Leading the workshops about dialectical materialism furthered my understanding of PL. Talking with senior comrades helped fill in the blanks about the lines on nationalism and privilege. And each group taking turns with various tasks (i.e. cooking, cleaning) was again a nice look into a communist future. It also made me think about how such tasks are unevenly directed towards women, with little to no male participation — the division of labor. This whole weekend CHALLENGED me and was a perfect departure from all the reformist crap I see in the outside world usually. Can’t wait for next year! Long live PL!
A Revolutionary
★ ★ ★ ★
Appearance and essence, actual vs. potential. Our perception about what we see, your thoughts and ideas can be different from the reality. What you are now and what you become, all these things have a huge impact on your own impressions about anything you encounter. My experience, throughout this retreat was very informative and further explained how racism exists in our daily lives and movements we can enforce in abolishing racism. Changing people’s misconceptions and illusions about our system is a step PLP is taking in working to demolish the capitalist ideas and support the struggle of uniting workers worldwide.
Each and every communist school is a joy to come to. At the beginning, they feel like a burden, a duty, a time to think about other things one can do on a three-day weekend. Instead, dialectically, through the unity of our opposites, working together and talking together, the negation of negation, they turn into the positive renewal of our lives and commitment to communism.
It happened again: more renewal, more joy, more people joining and becoming nails in the bosses’ coffins that we gravediggers will dig. Onward to the armed struggle- Onward!
 Red Teacher
★ ★ ★ ★
I always thought racism started with the family, but a light shined into my dark world and showed me that racism started within our society. The ruling class created all these laws so they can gain control and earn more profit. By creating all these laws they caused so much division in our society, which is still happening today. Being here taught me the importance of ending capitalism and fighting for change in today’s society.
Bajan Girl
★ ★ ★ ★
I enjoyed this trip. I found out a lot about the working class. I know the history of slavery and racism. This will not end in a capitalist society. Nothing lasts forever, and capitalism will not. Slavery was deliberate, not an accident. It feels good to be around people, young and old, who want change. Coming out to the weeds wasn’t my idea of how I wanted to spend my weekend but I truly enjoyed it. I met new people, saw old faces. I know we are going in the right direction.
Red Fun
★ ★ ★ ★
The past weekend I’ve learned to be more out-
spoken. I’ll use this technique to share more about PLP and communism with at least one friend. Using
CHALLENGE will be helpful. One topic that was helpful to me was appearance and essence. You have to investigate, because the first impression doesn’t always count. I also notice a pattern in slavery now and from hundreds of years ago. Communist is the way to equality and capitalism is trash. I also learned that you must always have a plan C,
because your actual isn’t easy to achieve. You have to keep pushing yourself, and surround yourself with people that will encourage you.
Inspired
★ ★ ★ ★
The PLP camping trip this year was just as great as the previous one,  but somewhat better. Everyone was mingling with each other, and new folks were enjoying 2.5 days of communist life. Appearance and essence, I believe, was the key topic we as communists elaborated on. It was very essential to explore this topic because we as communists have to pinpoint and study the appearance of capitalism and then apply dialectical materialism to figure the essence of it. But it’s no surprise what we tend to retrieve is that capitalists are full of crap.
Soy commnista toda la vida, y comunista he de morir. [I am a communist for all my life, and a
communist till death.]
Red Life
★ ★ ★ ★
This school gave me more confidence in my ability to build the Party. I’ve been involved in the reform movement for some time, and I haven’t been putting communist politics out front. Hanging out with comrades and spending our time collectively discussing politics and everyone making meals together has furthered my understanding of communist ideas, in addition to being a small example of the world we want to live in after capitalism is permanently overthrown.
I was also impressed with the political sophistication of many young people and that there were workers from all racial backgrounds. Communism doesn’t belong to any one group, it belongs to the working class. That’s why I’m glad PLP prioritizes anti-racism in our practice, and we have shown that workers can and will discard the bosses’ lies and work together with other workers of different backgrounds to fight back against the exploitation of the entire working class.
Proud to be Red
★ ★ ★ ★

I went to this retreat with some of my schoolmates and teachers. We learned about how racism started and why it started. We talked about ways we can fight racism in our school. We also talked about leadership and how we can be leaders. As the weekend progressed, we cleaned and cooked together. Also, we made s’mores and cookies. We played games. I met new people, and there were some old faces too. I really like communist schools, so I can’t wait till next year. When May Day comes, we are going to sing Bella Ciao and we are going to have our painted banner.
High school Student
★ ★ ★ ★
The communist school has become our winter tradition. It serves as an energy booster and see our PLP club grow in strength and number every year. We discussed the dialectical categories — contingency-necessity, appearance-essence, potential-actual, and used them to investigate the history and function of racism. More importantly, we built unity and new relationships. Two people joined the Party!
One strength included bringing back the high school students from last year. The teachers did a good job building and challenging our future communist leaders. We also made a lot of fight-back plans for our high schools. I look forward to putting them into action. In hindsight, one weakness was that we neglected to talk about sexism in our whole-group discussions. The school as mostly all young black women and we need to talk about how sexism is a sharp tool of capitalism and that we are fighting sexism by building female communist leaders. PLP does a good job in fighting sexism. Let’s acknowledge it and fight harder!
Comrade
★ ★ ★ ★
This is a good experience to participate in my second communist school. It was cool to meet and work with a group of people that had different races and backgrounds from me because it made me realize that there’s people from outside my community that are suffering the same issues.
I enjoyed the workshops that my group and I focused on, such as the category of potential and actual, on ending racism and fixing the working class. Before I got to the communist school, I always thought that there’s nothing to worry about. But then I started to understand the plan on how the capitalist system is being racist and having many workers work long hours with little pay. I
figured out it was all wrong and see how PLP is focused on problems that go on today such as stop-and-frisk.
I appreciate that I took in a lot of information on the system today, so when I get back home I can tell a lot of young kids like me how the system is functioning. It’s all wrong, but it can be changed by starting a revolution. The system focuses on having winners and losers but if everybody becomes equal then it will have everybody satisfied with less problems.
Youth
★ ★ ★ ★
My weekend in the communist school was one amazing experience. As soon as I walked in the doors, the warmth was so welcoming; everyone came to me and introduced themselves. Everyone had their sense of humor, which made it really enjoyable. Attending the first workshop, the core of our group was unbelievably united. Getting to know other people’s beliefs on their political views is interesting. I was enlightened by the way we explained communism. Before I came I thought communism was the bad guy, but now I’ve realized I had been learning a lie and it’s time to revolt and revolutionize our nation. Viewing the world as a communist, I could see people treated equally. That is our goal in this activist group. I loved my weekend here, learning about the flaws.
Everyone was amazing and inspirational. Thank you.
Batman Fighting for Justice
★ ★ ★ ★
To be honest I don’t even know where to start. We’ve gone from fun times to serious times. My brain feels so rejuvenated from all of our intense discussions regarding racism. We also discussed politics that changed my views. All of the gruesome details were exposed about racism and who’s really who they say they are. Before I came to the school, I was absolutely clueless about politics, dialectical materialism, etc.
Finally, I can see the light. The light is still dim for now, but I can still see it. I’m so thankful for everyone that helped me open my eyes and see what side the government is actually on. I definitely want to join PLP. Thank you, communist school!
A.B. <3
★ ★ ★ ★
Another successful communist school completed! My absolute favorite part of the trip is that we were able to bring six students from our school. Hearing them thinking about, disagreeing and questioning the Party’s politics gives me great confidence in a
communist future.
Red, Gorgeous Teacher
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Opposition to Racist Israeli Rulers Is Not Anti-Semitic
The following is a relatively complete excerpt from a contribution to a listserve of academic Marxists.  One contributor claims that to criticize Israel is anti-Semitic.  This is one of a number of contributed answers to that person, and is also addressed to all other subscribers to the listserve.  We think readers of CHALLENGE will be interested in this particular response as an example of Marxist reasoning. — Ed.
These are just some thoughts on this discussion that should ring true to Marxists, though I propose it to further the discussion and invite still more commentary. 
In order for us to evaluate the questions of anti-Semitism, Israel, and Zionism it seems to me that we have to be sure to maintain a class point of view.  Israel, like all nation states (i.e., the entire world today), is a class-divided society.  It is not a homogenized classless entity, about which one can make valid, or even meaningful, statements.  As such, Zionism can and should be separated from Jewishness, both conceptually and in fact.
Thus one can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic.  Zionism is the ideology and practice, and indeed essence, of the Israeli ruling class.  That a significant portion of the Israeli working class accepts a Zionist point of view is an example of the fact that the dominant ideology, dominant but not universal, in any society is that of the ruling class — except in those rare times of revolutionary ferment.  The ruling classes, after all, control all the institutions that develop and purvey that ideology, from the media to the schools and universities to the state.
I believe it is not enough to oppose the concept of the state in general [as the contributor in question has done — Ed.] but implicitly support it in particular in the case of Israel. The state is the primary expression of class rule, particularly under capitalism.  To attribute Zionism to the entire Israeli population, including both the capitalist and working classes, is to blame the victim (the Israeli working class), who are among the most exploited in the world — by their own Jewish rulers — as are the Palestinians. 
The Israeli working class, in the current absence of a major communist party there [though PLP is planting roots among Jewish and Palestinian workers there and is growing – Ed.], buys into the ideology of the ruling class to a certain extent, but it is against their interests to do so.  [The interests of the Jewish and Palestinian working classes] provide the basis for a growing communist party there to win workers away from Zionism and toward a communist outlook and motivation to overthrow Israeli capitalism.  This can only happen with unity between Jewish and Palestinian workers, as has [been brought about] in the past under communist leadership.
To label all Israelis as Zionist and label all anti-Zionism as anti-Semitic is a form of blaming the victim, similar to the blaming of all Americans [i.e., the working class — Ed.] for U.S. imperialism and its many racist and genocidal wars — regardless of the temporary and misled support of such wars on the part of a significant portion of the U.S. working class.
In short, I do not believe that opposing oppression by the Israeli ruling class is anti-Semitic.  Rather to support Zionism is anti-Semitic.
International Red

Solidarity Boosts Locked-Out Altoona Workers
CHALLENGE (1/29) contained an article on some 150 locked-out electrical workers in Altoona, Pa.  These workers had voted down the latest contract and the bosses responded by locking them out in mid-November. To this very day the workers continue to walk the picket line and their fighting spirit remains.
Then on February 1, over 400 workers from various unions throughout this small city gathered for a solidarity rally with the locked-out workers. The mood was militant. One of the electrical workers said he would remember that day for the rest of his life.
This solidarity is exactly what’s needed, and hopefully it will grow into something much bigger in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, unionized nurses at the Altoona Hospital are preparing to strike this month.  It seems that the class struggle is alive and well in this Republican Party-dominated town. In the past, Altoona has also been a hotspot for Nazi skinheads and the Klan.
With the right kind of leadership all of these workers can be won to communist politics. Winning them to read CHALLENGE would be a good start.
Red Coal

Letters of February 12

To Be A Communist, Advocate It!
On January 20, I attended a local NAACP meeting honoring the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It proved to be an enlightening and uplifting experience. I described the rise of racism and the racist prison-industrial complex.
Initially I hesitated to raise the question of communist revolution as the way to end racist oppression. Then I thought, “What’s the point of being a communist if you’re not going to advocate communism?”
I then explained that the only real way to eradicate racism was through a genuine communist revolution that would place the workers in power and attempt to create an egalitarian society. I made the case that it was the capitalist system which breeds racism to enrich the ruling elite and divide the workers.
I also pointed out that groups like the Klan and the Nazis would not be holding rallies in a communist society and that racism would be outlawed. Those who advocate it would be severely punished. Most seemed to agree with these sentiments.
None of those present, a good number being black workers, were shocked or turned off by my comments. I told them I would get them an issue of CHALLENGE, which I said did an excellent job making the case for a communist revolution and always took a strong stand against racism.
I realized that it’s necessary to have confidence in the workers — though they’re inundated with bourgeois ideology and anti-communism — to understand our communist views.
Of course, they wanted to know how this revolution would come about. I replied that there had been successful revolutions of this sort in the past, and that there could be in the future when millions were won to this perspective.
Some seemed skeptical but were open to hearing my viewpoint.
I realized that I would need to be more open about my communist politics. For me, this was a major step forward.
Red Coal
Internationalism Ignites Commitment
I have been involved in international work since I joined PLP. To be honest, it was the international work that brought me into the Party. I was at a May Day dinner and was listening to someone give an amazing speech over the work that was developing abroad. I was captivated and motivated by what I was hearing.  Within the next couple of months I found myself participating in an international Summer Project. I found myself more invested in the work but also it was a bit nerve-racking. There is so much potential for growth but also the constant threat of fascism that could cause everything to crumble, with many lives at stake.
Throughout my trips abroad, I developed strong relationships with the individuals who were just as invested as I was. They became my second family in my new home away from home. Our trust was built on the foundation of our decision to fight back against the bosses, in favor of the international working class. 
My commitment was not tested until the end of the last Summer Project. The day before we were to fly back home, we were assisting some comrades with a project at one of their universities. It started off as a normal day with nothing major planned. Around noon, we heard that there were some demonstrators in front of the university posing as students to agitate some soldiers.
The students on the campus we were visiting closed the gates and told everyone to remain inside to avoid being associated with what was happening. We heard shouting, drums, and the sound of tanks rolling down the street. An older comrade and I were in the courtyard chatting. Then we saw a student look over the tall fence and start running toward the building. There was much confusion. Then we heard from one of the students that we should get inside as soon as possible because the soldiers were heading to the university. 
But before we had a chance to ask why, we heard rubber bullets hitting the fence.  Students began running into the building at full speed. I made sure that the older comrade was in front of me so that she wouldn’t be left behind because she could not run as fast as the rest of us. I was also preparing myself in case I got hit. Luckily, we made it into the building without being hurt.  
This was a defining moment in the growth of my commitment. I thought to myself, “What if this happens again?” The older comrades — and even the younger ones — aren’t always going to be able to get away from danger so easily. This was when I knew I was in it for the long run. I have shared my commitment with my comrades here and abroad. It isn’t going to be easy, but is bringing us one step closer to getting the type of world that all workers deserve.
International red
Imperialist Rivalry Behind Ukraine Fight
The U.S. actions in the Ukraine are a continuation of a decades-long imperial dogfight over the strategically important states of Eastern Europe. Current efforts to topple the Ukrainian government, which U.S. imperialists deem to be too friendly to Russia, has resurrected some familiar themes in this struggle. In the U.S. press, Russia is depicted as an evil imperial force “bullying” the Ukraine into submission (NYT, 11/19/13). This is juxtaposed with the well-intentioned Americans and Western Europeans who only want to bring “democracy and prosperity” to the former Soviet bloc.
The fact that U.S. diplomats are in the Ukraine publicly calling for the overthrow of a democratically elected government in order to replace it with one more servile to Western interests does not seem to faze leading papers like the New York Times. The history of U.S. intervention in Eastern Europe toppling popularly elected regimes in Bulgaria and Albania is completely forgotten (The Communist, 2012).
Newspapers carefully avoid mentioning fascists such as the virulent Ukrainian anti-Semite Oleh Tyahnybok who paraded around with Sen. John McCain on his recent visit to the country (Counterspin, 12/20). Just as they forgot to mention former Nazi Laszlo Pasztor who became U.S. imperialists’ man in Bulgaria or Albanian fascist Sali Barisha, and so forth.
The current fiasco in the Ukraine is the latest effort by the U.S. imperialists’ to place “the vipers, the bloodsuckers, the middlemen” the people that “make our kind of country click” in charge of the country. These words were spoken by Bruce Gelb, a U.S. capitalist and diplomat, while plotting to undermine the collapsing Soviet republics as head of the U.S. Information Agency in 1990 — and they are as true today as they were then. Whatever happens in the Ukraine, one thing is clear: workers in Ukraine will lose.
Red Beard
The Kennedy Assassination: Conspiracy?
This is a response to the December 11 CHALLENGE editorial “Rulers Use JFK Assassination Anniversary to Fuel War Drive” which argues that the Kennedy assassination was the work of a conspiratorial group of domestic oil interests angry over Kennedy’s threat to end their oil depletion allowance (tax break).
This argument advocates a mechanical view of history that reduces the dynamics of class conflict and inter-imperialist rivalries to the choices of a small group of individuals.
CIA coups and secret meetings of think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations show that the bosses “conspire” on a regular basis. However, as Marx said, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please.”
The conspiratorial thinking pushed by the media teaches the working class that the bosses are all-powerful and that we are helpless to stop them. Marx’s dialectical approach teaches us to look at both the necessity of economic laws and the contingent role played by other forces. This helps us see the cracks in the capitalist system and gives the working class the tools to destroy it.
The oil depletion allowance was first introduced in 1926 to stimulate oil production in the U.S. Under this allowance, 27.5% of annual oil revenue was tax exempt. For almost 50 years, the oil industry — from oil industrialists like Rockefeller to newer oil bosses like H.L. Hunt — all profited from this tax break. The Kennedy family was also invested in “domestic” oil and in 1950 purchased Arctic Oil and later Kenoil and Mokeen, all of which drilled primarily in Texas and Louisiana.
Following World War II, there were multiple attempts, both by presidents and Congress, to reduce this oil allowance. In 1950, President Truman proposed to cut the allowance almost in half. None of these individuals were assassinated.
As President, Kennedy faced a balance of payments crisis — more dollars were leaving the U.S than coming in. This crisis was the product of economic attacks by U.S. imperialist rivals. So Kennedy pushed to expand U.S. exports with a more open “free-trade” policy.
Kennedy understood that in the context of the Cold War, “free-trade” was necessary to prevent developing nations from siding with U.S. rivals like Russia. Many in the oil industry favored trade restrictions, specifically on foreign oil imports. However, too many limits on imports might drive large oil-producing nations like Venezuela into the arms of U.S. rivals.
Following the Suez oil crisis, serious debate ensued within the ruling class over the national security implications of oil policy: whether to protect the domestic oil market by taxing imported oil or to encourage imports to preserve domestic reserves. The debate in this period was not split neatly between “domestic” oilmen and “international” finance, as the next example will show.
In 1962, Kennedy began pushing for new trade legislation and brokered a deal with Oklahoma oil magnate Senator Robert Kerr. Kerr is a prominent figure in much JFK conspiracy literature and rubbed shoulders with oil moguls who conspiracy theorists claim helped murder Kennedy. Unlike President Truman who ignored the demands of Texas oil bosses a decade earlier, Kennedy agreed to meet their demands and to increase restrictions on foreign oil imports.
In exchange, Senator Kerr agreed to drum up support for Kennedy’s Trade Expansion Act of 1962. It was this act that led to U.S. participation in the GATT international trade negotiations, allowing the U.S. to knock down global barriers to trade in the name of U.S. imperialist expansion. This Kennedy-Kerr deal demonstrates just how interconnected the interests of “domestic” oil were with broader international goals of U.S. imperialism.
In early 1963, Kennedy proposed a comprehensive tax plan to improve the unemployment rate and to help fix the U.S. balance of payments. His proposals promised to drastically lower corporate tax rates and to cut overall taxes by $13.6 billion. His plan also proposed complex changes that would effectively reduce the oil allowance by 5%. This was the first time as President that Kennedy had attempted to make any changes to the oil allowance.
There was some backlash among the oil lobbies and in the press. Much of the fighting was inside the Kennedy Administration itself, as Kennedy-appointed bureaucrats fought over changes in oil policy (“Note Reveals Split Over Oil Policy,” The Spokesman-Review, 3/14/1963). But his proposal did not “threaten to eliminate” the allowances and the issue died a few months later after Kennedy abandoned the tax proposal.
Facing economic recession, the oil allowance was cut for the first time in 1969 from 27.5% to 22%. And in 1974, the oil allowance was finally eliminated. No one involved in eliminating the oil depletion allowance was assassinated.
The idea that U.S. domestic oil interests assassinated Kennedy because he was going to eliminate their tax break both inaccurately describes the actual Kennedy administration’s policies and distorts the interpenetration of ruling-class interests within the U.S. around questions of inter-imperialist rivalries.
The Progressive Labor Party’s theory that inter-imperialist rivalries drive world events is a critical tool in understanding the development of the world situation. Conspiratorial thinking does not add to this understanding, but limits it in severe ways. We must always struggle to provide the best dialectical and historical understanding of the world to the working class.
A Challenge Reader

CHALLENGE Comment: In response to the criticism, the essence of the editorial was not “who killed Kennedy” but how the finance capital wing of the ruling class is using the anniversary of his assassination to promote the drive towards war. The first five paragraphs deal with this and revive JFK’s militaristic appeals for “sacrifice” and “service.” It details what “sacrifice” means for the working class but also says this “won’t solve all their [the ruling class’s] problems. For U.S. capitalism to survive, they know they must discipline their own ranks.”
The editorial notes this discipline relative to JPMorgan Chase, as it does later on in citing Kennedy’s disciplining U.S. Steel in the Sixties. Both these outfits are part of that main wing. While the ruling class holds state power, it is not monolithic. Overall the editorial pointed out that there is a split among sections of the capitalist class depending on where they make their main profits and who represents the longer-range interests of the survival of their system.
Then, in the sixth paragraph, it cites a similar split in the 1960s related to “JFK’s reported plans to revoke the oil depletion allowance.” Then it says, “According to one theory, Kennedy was killed by domestic oil interests who were unwilling to cut their profits for the imperialist cause.” We don’t say who killed JFK, just that he had many enemies who could have done it. There is plenty of evidence of how — in the weeks before the assassination — Texas oil interests led by H. L. Hunt engaged in a widespread campaign to attack Kennedy. An ad appeared in Dallas newspapers with Kennedy’s picture, saying “Wanted for Treason.” Maybe no one got killed over the oil depletion issue directly, but the Hunts were nearly bankrupted after their failed move to corner the silver market.
Let’s assume these forces were not behind the assassination. But the fact is, some forces were looking to kill him, unless one believes that Oswald — a patsy if there ever was one — did the deed by his lonesome. Later the editorial says, “The dominant wing of U.S. bosses wants to portray JFK’s murder as something other than a fight within the ruling class. Leading Wall Street banker and Warren Commission member John J. McCloy argued that it was ‘beneficial for domestic tranquility to conclude that Oswald acted alone’” (New York Times, 8/20/97). McCloy was a top member of the ruling class. He was picked to oversee U.S. actions in post-World War II Germany and was CEO of Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank. So his views certainly represented the rulers’ main wing.
Obviously McCloy (and at least some of his cohorts on the Commission) seemingly had concluded (or knew?) that some people other than Oswald had conspired to kill Kennedy. However, they didn’t want the general populace to understand that there were ruling forces who had cause to eliminate him, even if conflict over the oil depletion allowance was not a factor.
The editorial, in detailing all the divisions within the ruling class, then and now, and even divisions within the main wing itself, follows the letter-writer’s quote of Marx’s approach that, “Men make their own history but they do not make it just as they please.” It is difficult to get away from the fact that somebody or “bodies” did “conspire” to kill Kennedy. Various representatives of the ruling class conspire all the time, as the letter-writer points out.
The letter says that, “Conspiratorial thinking does not add to….understanding the development of the world situation” and conflicts with PLP’s “theory that inter-imperialist rivalries drive world events.” But the fact remains that various capitalist forces DO have cause to fight each other, and conspire to do so. If the ruling class wants to hide its own behind-the-scene machinations, it will use the notion of “conspiracy” in a way that stigmatizes that idea.
“Conspiracy” is not limited to “thinking” but represents actions by various forces. From a communist point of view, it is important that the working class understands that and uses it to both expose and oppose all capitalists who engage in our oppression. This counters the outlook that “the bosses are all-powerful and that we are helpless to stop them.” To the contrary, understanding that there are divisions among the rulers, and what’s behind those divisions, does “help us to see the cracks in the capitalist system and gives the working class the tools to destroy it.”