After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attacked civilians with chemical weapons, Donald Trump bombed a government airbase in Syria with 59 Tomahawk missiles. The U.S. imperialist rulers struck in the name of “humanitarianism,” but their real cause is something else again: a desperate push to maintain U.S. dominance over the Middle East and its vast oil reserves.
Humanitarian Imperialism
In what world does it make sense to bomb the very people you are claiming to defend? The U.S. air strike killed nine civilians, including four children, and will result only in more war, more refugees, more death. The real outrage is that the capitalist bosses have free rein to kill us, the working class, in their wars over profits and power. There are already 11 million Syrian refugees, half the country’s former population. More are created every day. The criminal Trump has the nerve to profess compassion for Syrian workers while doing all he can to ban desperate Syrian refugees from entering the U.S.
Bombing Without a Plan
If Trump didn’t bomb Syria to defend workers there, why did he do it? Why provoke Russia just as Trump and Putin seemed to be building an alliance? The answer lies in geography. Syria is important because its territory is needed for a pipeline to supply the European Union with oil and natural gas.
In 2009, Assad rejected a deal with Qatar that would have run a similar pipeline from Qatar through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey. Because of Qatar’s close relationship with U.S. capitalists, the pipeline would have meant billions in profits for U.S. bosses. It also would have threatened the capitalist interests of Russian bosses, the top supplier of natural gas to Europe.
After rejecting the proposal from Qatar, Assad made a $10 billion pipeline deal with Iran, a Russian ally, to supply Europe with gas. The deal was a blow to U.S. bosses, who are increasingly losing military, political, and economic control around the world to their main rivals in Russia and China. This is the real motive for U.S. involvement in Syria: a fight over imperialist spoils.
Workers in Syria have nothing to gain by the “targeted” U.S. attack on Assad’s airfield. U.S. workers must not be fooled by Trump’s fake tears and staged moral outrage over the chemical attack. In fact, Assad’s atrocity helped the U.S. bosses by giving them a pretext to clean up some of the messy infighting and political scandal impeding their ultimate goal: global war.
Syria Crisis Opportunity for U.S. Bosses
Trump’s show of force in Syria sends a message to U.S. allies and enemies alike. In recent years, allies have lost confidence in the U.S. as the world’s most powerful imperialist force. The U.S. military has been unable to win decisively since its debacle in Vietnam in the 1970s.,China’s growing economy offers more opportunities for trading partners than the weakening economy of the U.S. Russia has proven more decisive militarily, leading Turkey—a longtime strategic U.S. ally—to hedge its bets:,
This critical NATO ally [Turkey] has been allying itself with Russia, conducting joint exercises and, in a widely reported move, limiting its opposition to the Assad regime in exchange for being allowed to target Kurds inside Syria...Turkey recently threatened to forbid the United States from using its Incirlik airbase, which is the top staging ground for the war against ISIS (Foreign Affairs, 4/10).
To maintain their global profit flows, the U.S. bosses need a president who can follow orders. Trump campaigned as an independent “outsider,” but he’s now expected to be as loyal to the bosses’ agenda as Barack Obama and George W. Bush before him. The ongoing FBI investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign team is designed to pressure the new president into falling into line. So is the barrage of criticism from the capitalist media.
The attack on Assad’s airfield gave Trump an opportunity to show the U.S. ruling class that he can be their disciplined servant--to “change the perception of disarray in his administration” (New York Times, 4/7). The bosses won’t be satisfied with one limited attack on a Syrian air base. The Council on Foreign Relations, a leading main-wing capitalist think tank, criticized Trump for not going far enough—and for lacking a bigger plan for war.
Opportunities for Fightback
Although Trump appears to be responding to the bosses’ pressure, big problems remain for U.S. capitalism. As U.S. bosses get more desperate to retain control over Middle East oil and other resources, they will become even more vicious and make more mistakes. As members and friends of Progressive Labor Party, it is our job to use their weaknesses against them.
We must harness the rage we feel every time we see children terrorized in Syria, every time we see a Black or Latin worker murdered mercilessly by the police, every time we see families separated by heartless deportations. We must channel our working-class anger into organizing for a communist world. As the working class struggles through this dark night, we cannot lose confidence in our ability to win a world where drone strikes, famine, and police murder are distant memories. Progressive Labor Party fights for a communism, a system based on egalitarianism. That means destroying racism, sexism, nationalism, and the entire profit system. Communist revolution is the only way to destroy capitalism and all its horrors.
It’s clear that the capitalists have no loyalty to the working class, or even to each other as they fight over profits. All that unites them is their exploitation and oppression of the working class. The calamity in Syria is proof that they are willing to destroy anything and anyone standing in their way.
This May Day, we must unite under the red flag of the international working class. We must carry on the struggle of courageous working-class fighters to defend and liberate our class, once and for all!
Protesters at local airport try to stop the deportation of immigrant workersCHICAGO, IL April 5—Two buses transporting undocumented workers pulled up at the airport, and the crowd grew restless. A strong multiracial crowd of 50 from community groups protested the racist deportations taking place at a local airport.
Stop the Bus, Stop the Planes
Clergy, attempting to pray away our problems, initially dominated the rally. While some protest leaders tried to distract us with speeches, a group of workers made their way into the street to block the buses. The buses then dashed toward another entrance of the airport. Progressive Labor Party members and friends called for a march on the buses, and led the rally to confront the buses.
As we approached, we realized the kkkops were not prepared. A militant worker opened an unlocked gate and we went onto the tarmac. We were no longer about stopping the buses; we wanted to stop the planes. A group of workers militantly began to do so when some local clergy, openly “agreeing” with the police, called for protesters to come back.
This created mass confusion, which eventually led to people getting off the tarmac. Although the attempt to stop the airplanes was derailed by misleading clergy, it showed workers potential willingness to take bold action to defend the working class.
A member of PLP called out out the true enemy of working class people, capitalism, and said that Trump was actually continuing the policies of Obama. He also connected mass incarceration with mass deportations, since both Black and Latin workers are all super exploited by capitalism. Many people agreed, took
Challenge newspaper, and gave contact information.
Airport Serving its Racist Purpose
This airport is used to deport Black and Latin undocumented workers in the entire Chicagoland area. It was built decades ago, but under a 1995 contract it was never to conduct commercial flights. Its sole purpose has been the deportations of undocumented workers. For the past eleven years, every Friday morning, Homeland Security and ICE have used this airport to carry out the racist, capitalist deportation policies.
This rally was the result of a multiracial, multi-gender group that has begun organizing to halt these racist deportations. PL has been immersed in this, struggling to call for more militant actions and also to draw the connections between racist mass deportations and mass incarceration. We must understand that the fate of undocumented workers is our fate as well; no workers are safe under capitalism.
No Sanctuary under Capitalism
In a capitalist society where the rulers are bent on accumulating profit over everything else, the international working-class faces continual misery from poverty and miseducation to wars and refugee camps. Workers are used only for their ability to make money for the bosses who will trade their lives for just one more dollar. The discussions about establishing sanctuary and welcoming cities and campuses must include discussions about attacking the root of the problem, capitalism. And that means talking about revolution and communism.
Most members of our coalition believe in doing good works to help the most vulnerable people in this system. However, there is some unwillingness to relate these reforms to the long-term struggle for revolution. Some say that we need to establish safe or welcoming spaces for immigrants first, then make the links to capitalism and its’ profiteering wars. But it’s a long struggle and we must strengthen the working class for the many battles on the way to a communist revolution. Capitalism divides us by race and sex with the super exploitation of Black, Latin, immigrant and women workers. We fight to unite the working class to get rid of capitalism once and for all.
Only Communism Can Smash Fascists
Members of the PLP must be immersed in all these reformist class struggles. That’s how we learn to fight for a better world. But these reforms will not end the economic, political and social terror that capitalism inflicts on our everyday lives. Capitalism will not collapse on its’ own and become something better.
The only way to ensure a world free from murderous police and mass deportations is to uproot the entire profit system. Only by organizing an international revolution, led by a disciplined Progressive Labor Party can we build a communist society that the working class deserves. For a world without deportations, join the fight with PLP.
Newark, NJ, April 13—A multiracial group of some 30 people rallied here today at the Federal Building to oppose the Trump budget cuts and demand increased funding in certain programs that are on the chopping block. Chants of “No cuts, no way; we’re fighting back today” and “The war-makers say cut back, we say fight back” echoed through the streets. Scores of cars and many New Jersey transit bus drivers honked their horns enthusiastically in solidarity with our cause. The rally was organized by the War Against Poverty Coalition (WAPC) and endorsed by a number of other Newark-based groups. PLP joined and showed the continual stream of such policies clearly indicates the need for millions of organized workers to overthrow this system and establish a worker-run communist system in its place.
Trump’s budget eliminates the Home Energy Assistance (HEA) programs. HEA checks keep low wage and unemployed workers’ heat on in the winter, and their air conditioning on in the summer. Many other so-called discretionary programs are being eliminated as well, such as the Legal Services Corporation, which funds lawyers and other legal workers who represent low income people in evictions, foreclosures, benefits denials, domestic violence, veterans’ issues, etc. Other programs are being severely cut, including money authorized through the Violence Against Women law, Community Development block grants, and Section 8 vouchers to help low-income workers pay for housing.
Since Black and Latin employed and unemployed workers, and particularly single women, will be hit the hardest, these cuts are racist and sexist. But white workers, including many who voted for Trump, will suffer too – as is true of all racist and sexist policies. The Trump budget is crystal clear that the $54 billion cuts from “discretionary” funds will go straight into the war budget, which soaks up more than half the federal budget and will increase under Trump. This issue looms large, as the U.S. bosses’ military just announced their use of “the mother of all bombs” against ISIS in Afghanistan that day; they just bombed a Syrian airfield; and a U.S. “armada” is steaming toward the Korean peninsula to threaten the North Korean bosses with obliteration.
One speaker at the rally asked if the capitalist system, which can’t provide basic necessities for women who live in homeless shelters and forces low wage workers to rely on Food Stamps, deserves to exist. Another pointed out that while the bosses spend tens of millions a day in their imperialist wars for profit, they freeze and starve our families at home. That speaker pointed out how the hypocritical liberal media suddenly began praising fascist Trump’s actions as “presidential” when he rejected his own campaign rhetoric and ordered the Navy to launch missiles on Syria. A third speaker talked about how her grandson had been profiled by the cops, as she linked police brutality, war, and poverty to the whole racist profit system.
The 1960s saw widespread rebellions and an upsurge in workers’ struggles. Funding for many of the programs being cut now was won from the U.S. bosses’ government in that era. But like other reforms, they were used by the capitalist system to blunt mass anger against racism, sexism, poverty, and imperialist war, and lend a false appearance of justice for all. Now, in a period of diminished fight-back, these reforms are being taken back. Today, the winds of war are blowing harder. Whatever Trump said to get elected, the rulers of U.S. imperialism are moving ever closer to a military confrontation with rival Russian and Chinese bosses. Increased oppression of the working class is the inevitable consequence of a growing war budget.
PLP fights for communist revolution to eliminate capitalism – the root cause of both imperialist conflict and the increasing impoverishment of the working class. Today’s rally showed that, slowly but surely, the passivity of our class is beginning to change. The first small shoots of the class understanding and revolutionary anger that it will take to overthrow this bloody, profit-driven system are beginning to sprout. As we move on to May Day, let’s heat up the struggle and speed up that revolutionary process!
NEW JERSEY, April 2—Our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) group had a recent social event to build for May Day and to support the Anaheim protesters arrested for fighting back against the Ku Klux Klan in California. Members and friends discussed many issues from raising revolution while fighting for a reform to the role of violence in the revolutionary struggle. One comrade was encouraged to invite everyone in her organization to come to May Day. Another comrade was motivated to contact several students, and one came with her boyfriend. She was inspired to reach out to even more students in the future.
Stop the Klan With Mass, Militant, Multi-racial Action!
The Anaheim struggle sparked an important discussion about the role of “violence” in building a multi-racial, international mass working-class movement against racism and capitalism, especially given Trump’s encouragement of racist violence. Debates over the use of “violence” are timely today as protests against Trump grow. Both the mainstream media and anti-Trump liberals praise “free speech” and “peaceful protest” and are vocally critical of “troublemaking” protestors for their use of “violence.” So violence in the class struggle becomes a hot button issue for our members and friends. Students are particularly torn between wanting to stop racists but unsure about the ethics of using force. While communists oppose individualistic, terroristic violence, revolution is not a tea party. The ruling class has shown that they will murder millions to stay in power and keep their profits flowing. Mass revolutionary violence will be necessary to get rid of this capitalist scum.
Describing the Anaheim action, one comrade explained that the party organizes carefully and thoughtfully to stop racist groups. We are not anarchists. In the recent Anaheim case, a group of anarchists attacked the Klan without first organizing in the community. PLP members and friends who were there fought back when attacked by the Klan. When the police entered the fray, they attacked only the anti-racists. The kkkops did not arrest any Klan members, only three anti-racists. The lesson of Anaheim is clear: anti-racists cannot rely on the kkkops or the government. We must organize a mass, multiracial, anti-racist movement first to support the Anaheim 3, and eventually to get rid of this racist, sexist capitalist system, once and for all.
No Free Speech For Racists
Another anti-racist action further illustrated the political necessity of “using force” to build a mass anti-racist movement: Middlebury College students – led by a small but determined group of students of color – prevented racist academic Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) from speaking. Murray’s writings reflect ruling class efforts to revive “academic scientific racism,” not by promoting theories of “biological inferiority” but by arguing that the culture of poverty, unemployment, and crime resulting from decades of racism make people of color a threat to society (generating fear among “whites”). The militant students who shouted down Murray gave a signal to everyone that there should be no “free speech” for racists.
ICE and KKKops Off Campus; No Deportation!
After these discussions, a fairly new PLer, an immigrant, reported on her efforts to organize a Rapid Response Network (RRN) to fight against increased ICE deportations. The RRN began as an initiative of a new community organization in Newark that wanted to build an electoral response to Trump’s immigration policy. But the RRN organizers wanted a more direct action approach. To build anti-racist consciousness, the RRN proposed starting with a hotline open to non-citizens facing detainment by local police or ICE. Education/legal/political training would follow to address how all racism (anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-Muslim etc.) hurts the entire working class. The training would also expose the crucial role that the police, ICE, and even the military play in exploiting the working class. One Newark teacher suggested the RRN expand its base further by becoming part of the sanctuary movement being built by Newark teachers, who call for “police out of the schools” in Newark.
March on May Day
All these discussions lead us to May Day and the revolutionary communist struggle for a better world. One comrade said that EVERYTHING we demand in reform struggles is a compromise. We might win a few crumbs, but capitalist inequality, exploitation and imperialist wars continue. The working class needs an end to capitalism and a communist society in which workers make decisions and where all the resources go toward the needs of the people, not to profits. Let’s get the new RRN recruits to come to May Day and to share with them our larger goals: getting rid of capitalism and of establishing an anti-racist, anti-sexist communist society.
So comrades and friends, march on May Day. Get inspired for another year of struggle. Bring your friends so they can get inspired. From Haiti to Mexico, from Afghanistan to the United States, let’s give the working class a taste of communism!
Washington, DC, April 11—The management of the Metro transit system in the Washington, DC region, backed by the political leaders of the region, have launched a determined attack on transit workers and riders. It’s the biggest attack on the workers in over 30 years.
Workers are looking for leadership that is prepared to shut down the city until workers’ needs are met, but, unfortunately, the current union leadership is following a losing strategy to resist these attacks. Workers and riders who are serious about fighting back must develop an alternative, mass, communist, leadership that is willing to fight by any means necessary to defend our interests.
Many workers also understand that this attack is racist. The workforce is predominately African-American and many lines that Metro wants to cut affect primarily Black and Latin neighborhoods. The fight against racism is central to the fight for a good contract and against service cuts. In DC, there are protests almost every weekend against Trump’s policies, so workers at Metro feel the riding public will support us in a work action.
Union Misleaders
The bosses know that the weak union leadership has opened the way for them to attack the workers’ contract in the current negotiations. The bosses intend to prevail in their efforts to cut pension and health benefits, increase the firings and harassment of workers, and lay off hundreds of workers by eliminating routes and runs. If they don’t get these cuts through negotiations with the spineless leadership of the union, they will get them through the courts in arbitration.
The union has held several meetings about the contract to tell the membership what Metro is trying to do. Party members have spoken at these meetings to give the history of successful wildcat strike in 1978 that retained our cost-of-living escalator in the contract. They declared at these meetings that the rank-and-file must make the union strike ready, and were met with loud cheers and applause.
At one meeting, the union president tried to stop a Party member from speaking these militant words, but the workers in attendance chanted “Let him speak!” until the president had no choice but to let the party member finish his statement.
Workers support militant ideas. Consistent communist work at Metro has led to respect for those willing to fight.
The union’s strategy of half-baked plans for work actions have been met with a tepid response. The union president called on workers to stop working overtime to protest of Metro’s vicious attacks. She is just shadow boxing! Still, despite the lack of an organized plan for this work action, many workers at garages where party members worked did carry out the action.
The only thing standing between massive cuts in pension and health care benefits is the growth of Party membership at Metro. We need large numbers of workers—not just a handful—to understand the class nature of this struggle and the seriousness of the fight. Otherwise, Metro will succeed in manipulating and dividing us. As we fight these cuts, we must also prepare to eliminate the capitalist class altogether through revolution. The march on May Day points the way towards this communist revolution.
