East Africa: revolutionary ideas hold water with new members
We held a Progressive Labor Party (PLP) meeting in a flooded area to discuss the progress of the committee of families affected by the flood and what they’ve learned from it. Most of them are brand new to PLP. I asked them, “What’s the difference between NGO’s and PLP?” They understood well that NGOs don’t exist to solve the problems the working class faces.
Most of the flood victims are homeless and their livelihoods disrupted. They have been left alone with these devastating circumstances. They need help to dig out of the hole, but as long as the system is in place, more devastation to them or others is a guarantee. Charitable help provides a necessary band aid but leaves the disease alive to strike again. We discussed how to use crises and suffering of the working class as opportunities to forge unity and attain the knowledge necessary to build our movement to destroy capitalism. This can only be accomplished through struggle, not just “education.”
The working class needs to organize to make demands from the government and capitalist entities. Then we talked about the obstacles to doing that. One comrade said the government is an agent of the ruling class and could just refuse—throw it in the trash. Or, they say “We shall do it” and then they don’t. “Then where are we?” The comrade was reflecting on the contradiction communists face when fighting for reforms.
One comrade talked about people in the government who are socialists and not as bad as others. He said they know what is right and care about workers. He thought they should talk to these leaders about the PLP. I shared how the Kenyan protesters refused to allow the Members of Parliament (MP) to join their movement unless they first quit being MPs. We concluded that the “better” leaders still belong to the system and first and foremost want to get reelected. They will have to continue playing the game and selling out workers unless they are willing to quit being politicians.
We discussed how the demands are best won when the pressure on the bosses is so great that it’s more advantageous for them to concede rather than resist. But, regardless of whether we win the reform demands, organizing class struggle is a crucial way our movement gets built. It is how workers best learn about the enemy and how to prepare ourselves for revolution. It is how class is steeled for the long haul. And it is how our communist Party grows.
We also discussed various class struggles they could wage around this flood: demand loan forgiveness from the banks. (Many families are paying the banks for homes that were destroyed). Demand land and services from the government. Demand transportation for students who can’t attend school after the flood forced their families to relocate.
They reported on the 100 percent successful distribution of needed items to nine affected families and how, in the process, they met six other families in even worse shape. We need to raise more money. We have a world to win!
*****
Retirees put labor fakers on notice
It has been over three years since NYC retirees began their fight to stop city bosses and the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC) from forcing us from traditional medicare and into inferior Medicare (Dis)advantage. This struggle has been characterized by street demonstrations, court challenges, state, local and federal level efforts to pass laws that would protect retiree rights and political struggles within unions that are part of the MLC coalition. All of this is taking place as the U.S. ruling class prepares for the possibility of war with their main challengers for control of the world’s wealth and the political development towards fascism in the U.S. Members of the Progressive Labor Party have been active in this struggle from its beginning taking part in the fightback as well as bringing our understanding that communist revolution is ultimately the only way to build a society where workers control how the wealth we produce is used to meet the needs of the working class.
Changes in the health care program for city retirees and changes likely to be made for the current workers and pre-Medicare age retirees are meant to shift costs to workers and to limit access to healthcare services. These changes affect the entire city workforce as well as retirees but will hit those with low income the hardest. This means Black and Latin workers as well as women workers will most affected as they are most represented in lower paid positions.
Currently, the proposed changes have been blocked by court orders. Most recently, the court lifted an order to stop the imposing of copays in addition to the deductibles we already shoulder. This would go into effect 1/1/2025. Our response is to keep on fighting.
The pro-boss labor leaders organized us to lead us into the arms of the bosses agents in the Democratic Party. They want us to believe that the Democrats will get us a decent life under capitalism. They have been saying that for decades but unions are weaker than ever and our lives and those of workers around the world are more than ever at risk. As we march in NYC’s Labor Day Parade, we will be serving notice to the highly paid labor fakers and the bosses they serve that their days are numbered.
*****
Mass reform work: be in it, not of it
I recently had the opportunity to travel downstate in Illinois on a bus full of healthcare workers. The trip was organized by our union, which represents workers from several different hospitals in the region. We went down to make statements at a state review board meeting that approves different projects for the healthcare systems, deciding which ones will get funding.
True to the capitalist bosses’ racist nature, the Advocate health system wants to invest millions of dollars in modernizing spaces at a hospital in a wealthier suburb. This while minimizing what they spend on the hospitals in their network in urban areas, which serve majority Black, Latin and Asian workers.
Although our handful of statements opposing Advocate’s plans may not be enough to stop their plans this time, the effort provided me with the opportunity to engage with other workers about the racist nature of the system. The union leaders will refer to this racism (sometimes) but will always stop far short of putting the entire blame where it deserves, on capitalism. But given the union’s position under the umbrella of the Democratic Party machine, this makes complete sense.
Notably, there were many workers on the trip who work for Loretto Hospital, who just made a year since their 11-day strike against their exploiting bosses (see CHALLENGE, 8/17/23). Based on conversations that I had with some of these workers, the working and staffing conditions were the same if not worse than when they began their strike!
This experience reinforced two important truths for me. The first is that these unions can be masterful about making a lot of noise and acting like they have a plan to better workers’ lives, but when the smoke clears, we see they barely move the needle in improving our material conditions. The second is that as communists we still need to be in these spaces, fighting for reform, because we can introduce the revolutionary alternative (the Party and revolution!) which will in fact create an existence worth fighting for.
It was good to reconnect with my fellow healthcare workers after supporting them on the picket line last year, and to be able to invite them to upcoming activities around the Democratic National Convention here in Chicago. Workers everywhere are open to more revolutionary ideas – let’s lead with antiracism and communist fightback!
*****
Condemn massacre of Gaza media workers
After meeting with Biden, Harris, Trump, in the U.S., Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu returned to Tel Aviv and went on an assassination spree, including killing the lead negotiator for Hamas in the cease-fire talks. Maybe less known among those murdered were Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and photographer Rami al-Rifi. They were killed while covering events in al-Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City. According to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS), this brings the total to at least 157 journalists killed in the Gaza war. These Palestinian media workers are the eyewitnesses to the massacre in Gaza, as international journalists are not allowed to enter unless embedded with the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF). These murders represent the most extreme form of retaliation faced by media workers around the world for coverage or speech that is critical of Israel and their U.S. masters.
My union, the National Writers Union (NWU), issued a statement condemning the assassinations of our comrades and urging all media outlets and their unions to denounce these gruesome assassinations. About a dozen young freelance media workers took part in the production and distribution of the statement. NWU is an affiliate of the International Federation of Journalists and a sister-union to the PJS.
The statement reads in part, “Israel’s war on Gaza has been the deadliest for journalists in modern history. These killings are a blatant violation of the international law that is meant to protect journalists and ensure our freedom of work and the public’s right to know… As a U.S.-based union, we have a duty to highlight that these continuing violations of international law would not be possible without billions of dollars in U.S.-supplied weapons and the support of U.S. political leaders in both parties…”
These young media workers and the millions like them who have demonstrated against the U.S. and Israeli slaughter of civilians will not go willingly to a future of war and fascism. Engaging our colleagues in our unions around antiracist and anti-imperialist struggles can serve to introduce more of them to Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and lay the foundation for turning this next world war into the last with communist revolution.
*****
Japan: workers protest genocide
On a near weekly basis, a group of mostly retired workers in Nagoya, Japan are rallying downtown against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. I had the opportunity to join them while visiting my family who live here, in Japan’s third largest city.
The small but spirited group gave speeches to passersby who were on their lunch breaks or leaving town for national holidays. Many of the protestors were pacifists and called attention to the hypocrisy of Japan’s so called “defense force” partnering with Israel’s.
During the protest, I asked to hold a Japanese sign that read “Israel, stop killing children! Stop the massacre in Gaza! Ceasefire now! America, stop sending weapons to Israel!” I also gave a short bilingual speech (in English and Japanese), pointing out our need to act as children in Gaza are being killed everyday. I highlighted the united struggle of workers in New York, Nagoya, and Gaza. Afterwards, I made contact with a local muslim woman worker and discussed doing multi-lingual chants with the group.
The group rallied for about an hour in front of the city’s busiest train station. Then the group moved to a nearby office building on a quiet street. This location was targeted by the protestors because it is home to a Japanese company that buys drones from an Israeli military contractor. The protest also called out a local government program that sends money to Israel. These connections point to the importance of internationalism and growing Progressive Labor Party (PLP) as a worldwide party.
Let’s continue to unite with workers around the world when we have a chance to go to other countries! This is part of how we are a party on five continents. I’m hoping to go to a larger protest next week with my family, at a time when more workers are off work and can participate.
*****
Define to fight it
Capitalists compete by any means necessary. Much like smaller criminal gangs, different groups of capitalists battle one another to secure territory, resources, and exploitable labor–the basis of their profits.They have created the state as a mechanism to manage and protect this ruthless profit-driven system. Through laws, police, prisons, elections, the military, schools, the media, and other institutions, the bosses have built a dictatorship to keep themselves in power—and keep the working class out of power.
Fascism is a stage of late capitalism in crisis where the liberal democratic veil peels away to reveal a rotting dictatorship. The bosses use state terror to discipline their own class and enforce compliance by the working class–both essential conditions for waging global war. Fascism is marked by more direct and centralized rule, with intensified racism, sexism, and nationalism.
The Big Fascists are the dominant finance capitalists, principally the multinational banks and oil companies (JPMorganChase, ExxonMobil). They’re trying to build a multiracial, patriotic coalition to back U.S. imperialism and protect their far-flung profits. This is the wing that plays the drums of World War III.
The Small Fascists are mostly domestically oriented capitalists, spearheaded by the Koch, Mercer, DeVos, and Coors families, along with Richard Mellon Scaife, Harry and Lynde Bradley, John Olin, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch and a cast of other billionaires. They want to cut taxes for short-term profits and are reluctant to invest in costly ground wars to defend the global U.S. empire. Their agenda includes a racist gutting of social services at home and a retreat from U.S. imperialist alliances, including NATO.
U.S.-Israeli forces prepare to battle Iran
Al Jazeera, 8/12–United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has ordered a guided missile submarine to the Middle East and the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to sail more quickly to the area…Austin “reiterated the United States’ commitment to take every possible step to defend Israel and noted the strengthening of U.S. military force posture and capabilities throughout the Middle East in light of escalating regional tensions”, the Pentagon said in a statement…
The Abraham Lincoln has been in the Asia Pacific, and had already been ordered to the Middle East to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier strike group, which is scheduled to begin heading home. Last week, Austin said it was expected to arrive in the area by the end of the month. The carrier has F-35 and F/A-18 fighter jets on board. The US military had already said it will deploy additional fighter aircraft and warships to the Middle East as Washington seeks to reinforce Israeli defenses from possible attack by Iran.
Imperialist competition for Africa continues
Reuters, 8/5–The United States military has completed its withdrawal from air base 201 in Niger, officials said on Monday, after Niger's ruling junta ordered nearly 1,000 U.S. military personnel to leave following a coup last year. Air base 201, a drone base near Agadez in central Niger that was built at a cost of $100 million, had provided crucial intelligence about Islamist militant groups before the coup. A joint statement from Niger's defense ministry and the U.S. military said personnel and equipment from the base had been withdrawn and coordination would continue over the coming weeks to make sure the pullout is complete. Niger's decision to ask for the removal of U.S. troops came after a meeting in Niamey in mid-March when senior U.S. officials raised concerns about issues such as the expected arrival of Russian forces and reports of Iran seeking raw materials in the country, including uranium. In April, Russia sent military trainers to Niger.
World War I analogy for U.S.-Chinese relations
Foreign Affairs, July/August–In The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914, the British historian Paul Kennedy explained how two traditionally friendly peoples ended up in a downward spiral of mutual hostility that led to World War I. Major structural forces drove the competition between Germany and Britain: economic imperatives, geography, and ideology… Like Germany and Britain before World War I, China and the United States seem to be locked in a downward spiral, one that may end in disaster for both countries and for the world at large. Similar to the situation a century ago, profound structural factors fuel the antagonism. Economic competition, geopolitical fears, and deep mistrust work to make conflict more likely…The United States, meanwhile, has been trying to develop a China policy that combines deterrence with limited cooperation, similar to what Britain did when developing policy toward Germany in the early twentieth century…In the British-German relationship, three main conditions led from rising antagonism to war…All these conditions now seem to be in place in the U.S.-Chinese relationship.
European war expands into Russia
The Guardian, 8/11–Ukrainian sources have indicated that thousands of troops have been committed to its incursion into Russia’s Kursk province, as Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations about a fire at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant 250 miles to the south...A Ukrainian security official told the Agence France-Presse that the aim of the incursion was to destabilise Russia and string out Russian forces with light, fast-moving attacks…Several Ukrainian brigades are said to be involved in the operation, according to a range of sources. Kyiv caught Russia off guard by striking at a lightly defended sector of the front that had seen no significant fighting since the spring of 2022 – and broke through limited border defences.
- Information
Editorial: Big rulers’ desperation leads to Big Facist Harris
- Information
- 02 August 2024 1148 hits
On July 21, the big money behind the Democratic Party finally dragged Genocide Joe Biden off the election stage. The Big Fascists of finance capital were forced to act after a disastrous debate performance made it undeniable that Donald Trump and the isolationist Small Fascists behind him were poised to steamroll Biden in the fall and possibly sweep both houses of Congress. A second term for Donald Trump poses a clear threat to the main wing rulers’ interests, from Ukraine and NATO to their project to draft a multiracial, patriotic military for the runup to World War III. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
With the clock ticking, the Big Fascists and their politician lackeys rallied around Vice President KKKamala Harris. But while the liberal bosses are trying to sell this 11th-hour switch as a fresh jolt of anti-Trump energy, and Harris has a better shot than the doddering old man she’s replacing, it won’t fundamentally change the dangers facing the international working class—or the opportunities to build a mass communist movement in this unstable period.
Regardless of which capitalist monster prevails in November, one thing is certain: Workers will lose. Trump has built his brand on white nationalism and racist grievance, while Harris has her own shameful history of virulent attacks against Black and Brown workers. The international crisis of capitalism will keep driving the world toward war and fascism. No election can change that. For workers, the only solution is communist revolution!
The failure of finance capital
The Big Fascist rulers are backed by the largest multinational banks—Chase, Bank of America, Citi—as well as the big auto and airline bosses, Wall Street powers like Goldman Sachs, and the largest tech bosses, including Google and Microsoft. Harris also has the lion’s share of U.S. billionaires on her side, including Melinda French Gates, Blackstone’s Jonathan Gray, and George Soros (Forbes, 7/30). For the last thirty years and more, this camp has overseen the decline of U.S. capitalism, a loss of control over the oil-rich Middle East, and the rise of the Chinese ruling class. In response, they have devastated workers in the U.S. and around the world.
The U.S. has decayed into a deindustrialized shell with the disgustingly ultra-wealthy on the one hand and low-wage workers with rotten health care and terrible education on the other. From Democrats like Biden and Obama to main wing Republicans like the Bushes, the presidents backed by finance capital have helped steer U.S. imperialism to the brink of collapse while killing millions in one failed war after the next. Bosses around the world are turning to protectionist tariffs and trade wars, exorbitant military buildups, and volatile shifting alliances. From the U.S. to Europe, hyper-nationalist Small Fascists are building openly fascist mass movements on the backs of the liberal bosses’ failed promises.
Kamala Harris: front woman for rising fascism
The fall of U.S. finance capital was inevitable. The die was cast when the rulers’ headlong pursuit of maximum profit led to massive deindustrialization, the loss of 30 million stable, decent-paying jobs, and extreme racist inequality. Hence the devastation of the U.S. working class, Trump’s isolationism and gutter racist scapegoating, and a violent split within the U.S. ruling class.
The Big Fascist bosses have punched back with intensified racism and their own appeals to U.S. nationalism, a precursor to war and fascist repression. As their loyal front woman, Harris has backed Israeli genocide in Gaza bomb by bomb. When mass murderer Benjamin Netanyahu came to address the U.S. Congress, Harris met with him personally while denouncing anti-war protesters. As Biden’s point person to brutally lock down the U.S. border with Mexico, she has worked to triple the number of jailed migrants and fuel the growth of a huge private prison industry. She may be less confused than Biden, but she is no less vicious.
Previously, as San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general, Harris bears direct responsibility for helping to fill the country’s overcrowded jails, protect kkkiller cops, and keep workers incarcerated with false evidence while denying parole to those held for minor crimes (Miami Herald, 10/28/2020). She concealed wrongdoing by prosecutors under her charge (New York Times, 1/17/2019). She has destroyed countless Black and Brown families whose husbands and fathers are wrongfully imprisoned. With her track record for thwarting independent investigations of police shootings, it may be no coincidence that the number of people killed by cops—disproportionately Black workers—has risen each year of the Biden-Harris administration (Statista.com).
The Harris legacy can be seen in the brutal July 6 police murder of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, in her own home in Illinois. We know what happened there only because of the cop’s body camera—another reform Harris fought against.
Don’t vote, revolt!
No matter what the Democrats say, the coming U.S. election isn’t a choice between fascism and liberal democracy, where the bosses’ dictatorship is veiled by “free” elections and other phony freedoms. No matter who wins, the future of U.S. capitalism is fascism—the bosses will have no choice. Whether it’s Trump or Harris, the next U.S. president will be up against the rising dominance of Chinese industry, the erosion of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, and a global debt bubble ready to pop. Possibly sooner than later, the bosses will decide they can no longer govern in the old way. The velvet glove will come off their iron fist.
For the working class, the real choice is between fascism and communist revolution. We know that both Democrats and Republicans will keep backing the slaughter in Gaza and the West Bank, and more genocides to come. Both will keep siccing their killer cops on Black workers and youth. There is no lesser evil on November’s ballot—only evil. Don’t vote, revolt! Fight for communism!
Information Box-Collapsing capitalist democracy: a symptom of rising fascism
One sign of growing fascism is the collapse of the backbone of liberal democracy: ruling class institutions. In fact, the finance capital Big Fascists have themselves wrecked these institutions. According to Wikileaks, they pushed for Trump to be the Republican nominee in 2016 because they saw him as the weakest opponent for Hillary Clinton—a strategy that backfired (The Observer, 10/10/2016). Then the Big Fascists denounced their own electoral system for having been rigged by the Russians. When Trump hijacked the Supreme Court with Small Fascist appointees, the main wing denounced the Court as corrupt. In two failed attempts to oust Trump as president, they denounced the presidency and impeached him. Then they denounced the head of the Senate for Trump’s acquittal; now they’ve denounced the leadership of the House. With finance capital’s chaos and decay opening the door to the Small Fascists fronted by Trump, the bosses’ institutions have credibility only for the side that runs them at the moment. Fascism is all that’s left to hold the rotten capitalist system together. Both Harris and Trump are ready and willing to help build it.
CHICAGO, July 27—Nearly a dozen Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends joined hundreds of other enraged workers and youth downtown today to protest the racist and sexist kkkop lynching of Black woman worker Sonya Massey. Our multiracial and multigenerational group distributed hundreds of flyers and copies of CHALLENGE newspaper as we openly called for communist revolution as the way to get justice for Sonya and too many others whose lives have been stolen by racist capitalism.
On July 6th, Sonya Massey called the kkkops to report suspicious activity outside her home in Springfield, Illinois. The Klan-in-Blue quickly escalated the situation by entering Sonya’s home and after a brief exchange, body-cam footage shows killer cop Sean Grayson fire three shots at the head of Sonya and kill her instantly.
Such a horrific display of racist police terror is rousing thousands of antiracist fighters to act in recent weeks, similarly to how the murder of Black worker George Floyd caught on video over four years ago ignited the world in militant multiracial rebellion. Like George before her, Sonya deserves to be alive today, surrounded by loving family, friends, and co-workers.
Capitalism needs racist and sexist terror to exist as much as a fish needs water. No reform – from body cameras to integrated police departments – can change this basic fact. All politicians, from Genocide Joe Biden to Top Cop Kamala Harris to gutter racist Donald Trump are going to back the role of the kkkops as fundamental in protecting the exploitation and inequality of the profit system.Those of us in PLP are calling for another system entirely: a worker-run communist society without profits, borders, or killer cops. We want to build an international movement of millions of workers, soldiers and youth to smash this rotten system for good! Capitalism murdered Sonya Massey – Let’s fight for communism to end capitalism!
Take the streets, shut it down for Sonya
After about an hour and a half of speeches in the downtown rally space, the organizers of the event lined up to march. Although there were some correct statements made by some reformist groups connecting Sonya’s murder to the imperialist slaughter in Gaza and the upcoming Democratic National Convention here next month, they failed to point out that racism and war are inevitable realities of capitalism. In this, PLP was alone in calling for the necessary violent overthrow of the system by the international working class.
Self-critically, our collective didn’t plan ahead to stay for the march and give more revolutionary and communist speeches and chants using our bullhorn within. Thankfully however, one comrade was able to stick around for the march and took the opportunity to speak once it was finished and share our political line:
“This police murder, that’s a problem of capitalism. So, if we want to end racism…that’s all a part of the same struggle. It’s an international struggle. When we see it like that, we’re much more powerful than we are when we just see ourselves as individuals struggling by ourselves. Because we’re not struggling by ourselves. We’re all struggling, whether we’re working together or not. So, if we’re going to struggle individually, we might as well just struggle together!
The reason why we say racism is so connected to capitalism is because the money that we need to survive distracts us from the fact that humans are wired to help one another. We’re wired to be in community with one another, and we need to understand that because our belief and our understanding that a better world is possible, is what MAKES a better world possible. Fight for communism! End capitalism and racism!”
PLP is the fighting alternative to this racist system
To honor the memory of Sonya, PLP pledges to sharpen the fight against this killer capitalist system. The bosses rushed to fire Grayson and charge him with first-degree murder, but the capitalist legal system gives no guarantee that he won’t beat the charges and either way kkkops are certain to strike again. Already, they’re dispatching their usual misleader suspects like Al Sharpton and Benjamin Crump to try and pacify more militant fightback.
The contradictions of the system are exploding out into the open, with rising fascism, threats of imperialist war, and devastating climate crisis worsening daily. The bosses’ usual toolkit of diverting working-class anger through elections and identity politics is faltering, but many of our class don’t yet see an alternative.
PLP is that fighting alternative to build a new collective society! Join us as we march, shout, and shut it down for Sonya and too many other working-class people taken from us by this rotten system. Communism means abolishing racism and sexism! Let’s fight for working-class power now!
- Information
Red project against RNC: TRUMP & BIDEN— RACIST TERROR IS THE NAME OF THEIR GAME
- Information
- 02 August 2024 482 hits
The Republican National Convention (RNC) has never been a welcoming place for communists. With Trump being shot two days prior to the start of the RNC, the stakes were even higher. During a tense time and an extremely hot day, 20 Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends were able to overcome a lot of fear and bring our line to the working class of Milwaukee. While navigating through a sea of revisionists and single issue groups, we reminded everyone around through our chants and our literature that communism is the only solution.
Planning a summer project in a city 30 minutes from where 17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse shot three workers - two fatally - for standing up against racism in August 2020 was no easy feat. Everyone involved felt fear particularly about the open carry status of Wisconsin and the potential for crazed MAGA supporters to show up. Through collective planning and action though, confidence took the place of fear and determination positioned us to provide leadership to the working class.
Local bosses, kkkops offer nothing but fascism
Milwaukee is historically one of the most segregated cities in the country. The working class there was left behind decades ago when bosses abandoned the city, moving their factories in the search for cheaper labor. Vacant lots, boarded up buildings, and encampments of unhoused workers just outside of the downtown area demonstrated the state in which the city has been left. The $200 million RNC bill after just four days could have certainly been put to better use for workers there.
A chunk of that huge bill went to showing workers of Milwaukee fascism up close and personal. 4500 cops were brought in from around the country in addition to the local city and state police, as well as the Secret Service. Concrete barricades were used well outside the perimeter of the convention to prevent residents from driving around downtown. Cages were set up ready to handle protests in the event of mass arrests.
There were dozens of security checkpoints. Cops used horses, bikes, and boats with M240 belt-fed machine guns to cover maximum ground.
Beating back revisionism
We bravely stared fascism in the face and carried out our plan to provide political leadership to the march. As revisionists and misleaders chanted “Si se puede'' and “Power to the people',” we interjected, “Trump and Biden, all the same, racist terror is the name of the game” and “Free, free Palestine, fight for communism, now’s the time.” Many marchers joined our chants. Even those affiliated with the revisionist parties commented on their appreciation for our chant’s revolutionary fervor.
One young woman stayed with us the entire route. We shared a CHALLENGE with her and asked her why she chose us out of all the groups there. She said we are communists and she is a communist. Although only 16, she came to these ideas on her own and identified them in us through our chanting. She shared her address to receive a subscription to the paper and said she will join our events and potentially our organization once she turns 18.
Another woman was driving and honking alongside the first lap of the march, so we got her a newspaper. She came back around the second lap of the march and held CHALLENGE out of her car and screamed enthusiastically about what she read.
Workers need a real solution!
At the end of the day, everyone in earshot of the march knew that there are choices beyond Trump or Biden. They may not be ready to make that choice yet, but they will certainly remember that whether they were there to protect abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, or something else, PLP was there to remind them that abolishing capitalism and setting up a communist world is the only way to actualize their vision. We will take this momentum and use it to prepare for bringing the same message to the DNC next month. The struggle continues!
