When the bosses’ mad-dog cops murdered Michael Brown and Eric Garner, the cause of death was capitalism.
Brown was shot six times by racist cop Darren Wilson for walking while black on a street in Ferguson, Missouri. Garner was killed by a chokehold by racist cop Daniel Pantaleo after trying to break up a fight on Staten Island, New York City. These are just two of many murders of black and Latin workers and youth nationwide. There are at least 400 police killings per year that are reported to the FBI by local police. These racist executions represent the rise of fascism — capitalism in crisis, capitalism unmasked.
As the U.S. faces off against rising imperialist rivals like China, and moves inevitably toward a broader war, U.S. rulers need to intimidate U.S. workers. Wages and social services (education, health, housing) must be cut to divert more resources to the bosses’ military machine. The working class has a long history of rising up against capitalist oppression. Our class-conscious anger, when channeled and organized under communist leadership, is the greatest threat to the bosses’ brutal system and their imperialist plans. As we’ve seen in Missouri and New York, they respond with both sticks and carrots, with terror and reforms. 
In recent weeks, as multiracial masses of workers fight back in anti-racist rebellions and protests in 90 U.S. cities, the capitalists are doing all they can to divert blame from the profit system. Liberal politicians, editorial writers and academics cloud the issue by calling for police reform. But regardless of any superficial changes they make, the bosses will still hold state power. The cops and the courts will still serve them. A brutal and coercive state apparatus will keep the profits rolling in. With over two million people behind bars, and nearly another five million on probation or parole, the U.S. prison system is “by far the largest in the world” (National Research Council, 2014). The U.S. incarceration rate is 50 percent higher than Russia’s and six times the rate in China (International Centre for Prison Studies, 2013).
Racism is the brick and mortar of U.S. prisons and jails. Black and Latin people collectively make up about 30 percent of the general U.S. population, but close to 70 percent of the U.S. prison population — not because they commit more crimes, but because they are “differentially targeted and processed throughout the U.S. criminal justice system” (Psychology Today, 2/3/14).
Racism Oppresses ALL Workers
Bosses reap hundreds of billions of dollars in super-profits by keeping wages and living conditions for black, Latin and immigrant workers especially low. These racist differentials constitute a “race to the bottom.” Used as a club over white workers’ heads, they effectively drag down standards for all while boosting the capitalists’ bottom lines. In just one example, masses of white autoworkers were laid off after the auto bosses moved plants to lower-wage areas in the U.S. and to Latin America.
Cops help bosses break strikes. Segregation, racist terror, and the deportation of undocumented immigrants help perpetuate low pay, mass unemployment, and rotten schools and housing. The sexist oppression of women workers lowers wages even further. Meanwhile, the capitalists wage one imperialist oil war after the next, killing millions worldwide to protect their profits. The capitalists also need the cops to stifle anti-war dissent to keep the working class docile while they bang the drums of nationalism, a murderous anti-worker ideology.
Communism is the Answer
We need a communist revolution to destroy capitalism and racism once and for all. No ruling class has ever ceded its power peacefully. The bosses’ unceasing violence against the working class must be met with workers’ revolutionary violence. Workers’ power will eliminate the bosses and the profits stolen from the value produced by the working class. A communist society will be run by and for workers. That is the goal of Progressive Labor Party, which is organizing our class in more than twenty countries.
To forestall revolution and their ouster from power, the liberal bosses tell us the solution is to hire more black cops and elect more black officials. But those cops and officials will serve the same rotten ruling class.
Witness South Africa, where liberals ended apartheid in the 1990s. Today, most top government positions are held by black mouthpieces for the big bankers and industrialists. Unemployment is even higher now than under apartheid. Housing and health care are worse. Black bosses are enforcing the profit system to protect their piece of the profit pie. In 2012, a multi-racial police force massacred scores of striking black miners.
Or consider Israel, where the fascist rulers have established apartheid to oppress workers in Palestine. It is no coincidence that the Israeli bosses trained police in South Africa — along with the black police captain put in charge to cool down Ferguson. Racism is an international capitalist phenomenon.
Black Lackeys and Fascist Terror
From Obama on down, the U.S. bosses use a constellation of black lackeys, including FBI informer Al Sharpton, working hand-in-glove with the White House to divert the masses; Jesse Jackson, who was booed in Ferguson, and Attorney General Eric Holder, who allowed racist, murdering cops to roam free as chief of the force in Washington, DC (see Red Eye, page 7). Meanwhile, racist, fascist terror is mounting.
A master of deception, Obama tells us the main lesson of Ferguson is that police should not use Pentagon-supplied wartime weapons in U.S. neighborhoods. “President Obama has ordered a comprehensive review of the government’s decades-old strategy of outfitting local police departments with military-grade body armor, mine-resistant trucks, silencers and automatic rifles” (New York Times, 8/24/14).
In fact, Obama and the finance capitalists he serves aren’t worried about endangered workers. Police SWAT teams invade workers’ homes — sometimes killing innocents — an astounding 45,000 times a year (see “The War Comes Home,” page 8). But as Ferguson demonstrated, the rulers’ savage militarism can turn working-class protests more violent — a potential threat to profits. In any case, cutting back police firepower (for now) won’t change a thing. As servants of the class that holds state power, cops possess a license to kill. Cop Wilson gunned down Michael Brown with his standard service weapon. Cop Pantaleo strangled Eric Garner with his bare hands.
U.S. Racist Atrocities: Fuel for Foes
While U.S. bosses seem to have temporarily pacified angry workers in Missouri and New York, the racist murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner still give them cause for concern. With global conflict intensifying from Ukraine to Iraq and Syria, these outrages hinder the U.S. imperialists’ preparations for global wars. They desperately need support from their overseas allies. But as the rulers’ enemies grow bolder, this backing is proving elusive.
In “Ferguson From Afar” (8/21/14), Foreign Affairs, the leading finance-capital-funded policy journal in the U.S., noted: “Flagrant race discrimination … undermines U.S. efforts to appeal to the hearts and minds of peoples of the world.” The journal recalls how state-sponsored U.S. racism in the 1960s gave imperialist Russian rivals a huge advantage in Africa. Now U.S. foes in Russia, China and Iran — and even supposed friends in Saudi Arabia, Europe and South America — are using their mass media to highlight the latest racist atrocities and expose U.S. moralizing and hypocrisy. To much of the world, ISIS’s beheaders (see Red Eye, page 7) seem no worse than the U.S. rulers’ butcher cops.
Build Progressive Labor Party
Capitalists can occasionally muzzle their killer police in the name of reform. But to be free of racist cop terror, workers must rid the world of the profiteering class that creates it. This will happen only when the Progressive Labor Party is built into a mass working-class revolutionary party. It will happen only when we gather the strength to overthrow capitalism and establish communism: workers’ power. Join and build PLP now!
- Information
PL’ers Greet Rebels with Communism Ferguson — Workers Lead Antiracist Fight
- Information
- 04 September 2014 71 hits
Ferguson, MO, August 29 — During the recent rebellions here, a young multiracial team from Progressive Labor Party visited the area to support these antiracist actions and put forward the idea that communism is the only way to defeat racism and capitalism. Here is one account.
The bosses’ media keep spreading the lie that “outside agitators” aren’t wanted in Ferguson, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Hundreds of workers and students received CHALLENGE and a PL leaflet calling for more rebellion against racist police murders. They embraced communist ideas and calls for communist revolution. An older couple contributed to our lunch after a brief discussion on the history of racism in Ferguson and the U.S. and the lack of opportunities for working-class youth.
During our time here, we connected with a group of young freedom fighters that formed a new organization during the rebellion following Michael Brown’s murder. The group consists of youth who met night after night to battle the cops. Calling themselves The Lost Voices, they are dedicated to preventing racist police murder from becoming the norm.
The Lost Voices have camped out on Florissant Avenue, Ferguson’s main strip, where protests have persisted for two weeks. One leader of the group said tshey march daily so that workers in Ferguson and around the world know that “we out here.”
One of the most exciting developments was a PLP study group with these youth, where we discussed the Our Fight section in CHALLENGE. Beyond outright agreement with our antiracist stance, these young workers echoed our idea that the abolition of money will aid in creating a new, worker-led world.
Working-class support for the rebels of Ferguson is evident. Workers regularly pull up to the Lost Voices camp, deliver food and water, or take the protesters grocery shopping. Car horns blare constantly, with passing fists raised in solidarity.
The anger and hatred toward the police and the bosses they protect is still thick. A young worker who lives on Canfield Green, where Mike Brown was murdered, said, “If we didn’t fight back, nobody would have cared.” Other workers let us know that if Darren Wilson, the KKKop who murdered Michael, isn’t convicted, “We will burn down this entire state.”
On our last night, we had a rally of 50 through the streets of Ferguson. Workers responded by joining the march with their kids, holding signs from balconies, honking as we marched, and yelling out words of solidarity. It was a powerful experience. After a brief water break from the heat, we rallied again and received even more overwhelming support from local workers. People’s fightback spirit against police harassment and the murder of black people was unwavering and inspirational: “The whole system is guilty!” We heard this statement over and over during our time in Ferguson.
The ruling class and misleaders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson pushed for peace and more black cops and politicians, but the working class wasn’t falling for it. Jackson was confronted by workers and youth who asked him, “When are you going to stop selling us out?” They told him, “Get out — we don’t want you here!”
This trip to Ferguson has taught the young people who went a lesson on how to work among the masses. Two of them have joined PLP.
Chicago, August 29 — “I’ll go!” shouted a young woman near the end of tonight’s Fight Back Like Ferguson forum. She was responding to an appeal for volunteers to attend a rally in Ferguson, Missouri called for the next morning. The news of hundreds of workers violently fighting back against the racist police murder of a young black man in Ferguson has inspired millions of workers and youth, from St. Louis to Chicago to Palestine. As one speaker who had visited Ferguson shortly after the rebellion explained, “I’ve never been in a demonstration before where people were willing to die.” This fearless commitment to fighting racism deeply moved those who went to Ferguson. By the end of the forum, a new team of four volunteers was preparing to head out early in the morning.
Featured at the forum were reports from two PLP-led organizing teams that recently returned from Ferguson. One of these PL’ers began the forum by leading the audience in chants brought back from Ferguson. Immediately the political discussion was sharpened with the chant “Who do we want?” “Darren Wilson!” “How do we want him?” “Dead!”
An irate woman in the audience objected to the chant about killing. Others objected to the use of violence. The discussion that followed eventually led to the need for revolutionary violence to destroy this racist system, which uses police killings of young black men to terrorize workers into submitting to capitalist rule. We were told about PLP study groups being formed among young workers who are willing to die rather than go back to the way of life that was Ferguson before the protests began.
We saw many photos and videos that showed Ferguson workers standing up to the kkkops and their rifles and bearcats (armored personnel carriers). We heard many stories of how community members welcomed the support of the PLP volunteers, despite the hype in the media about how “outsiders” weren’t wanted in Ferguson. They accepted and read over 400 copies of CHALLENGE. These workers adapted a PLP chant to say “What has to go?” “ The whole system.”
More than 60 people attended the forum proof of the tremendous support for the antiracist fighters of Ferguson. More than half of the audience came from our friends in the community where the forum was held: CHALLENGE readers and others from Chicago State University, Southsiders For Peace, and Unity in Diversity.
One speaker summed up the current situation by saying that the local cops, the state police and the National Guard couldn’t defeat the power of the workers. It is only the ideas of racism and nationalism which hold our class back. By winning workers to antiracism, internationalism and communist equality, we will smash the hold the bosses have on the working class.
- Information
Demand Racist Cops Pay for Murdering Tyrone West
- Information
- 04 September 2014 81 hits
Baltimore, MD, August 27 — Supporters of justice for Tyrone West — 44-year-old black worker beaten to death while in police custody in July, 2013 — chanted, “Can’t stop! Won’t stop! Till killer cops are in cell blocks!” They also expressed anger about the police murder of Michael Brown. Solidarity was strongly voiced in support of the struggle for justice in Ferguson. There were frequent chants of “Hands up! Don’t shoot!”
Every week since Tyrone’s murder, family members and supporters have rallied, demanding prosecution of the Baltimore City police and Morgan State University police who took the life of another black man after what began as a traffic stop.
Tyrone’s sister Towanda, who spoke at this week’s powerful rally, had previously explained, in accord with reports by eye witnesses: “My brother was dragged out of the car by his dreadlocks, and was called the ‘N’ word on several different occasions.”
Witness Ayesha Rucker said that it started when both plainclothes cops arresting Mr. West began punching him at the same time, as he stood waiting to be arrested. Ms. Rucker then explained that he was sprayed with mace or pepper spray as he screamed for help and attempted to escape. When about 10 officers arrived for backup, she said, they tackled Mr. West, and an officer kicked him in the face.
Another witness, Shawanda Wilson, said that after Mr. West tried to escape from the initial beating and spray, and ran a short distance to an alley, officers caught up with him and started beating him with batons on his head and back. Wilson further explained that numerous officers, some from Morgan State University, arrived and also began to beat the man.
Yet another witness, Duane Bond — a rising sophomore at University of Baltimore at the time, and a class representative — said he was at a relative’s house and had gone outside when he heard women screaming. Bond said he “vividly remembers” one of the officers “cocking his arm all the way back, and laying a haymaker [forceful blow] on the man. At this point, he [Mr. West] was already definitely down, and I didn’t see any movement.”
Witness Shawanda Wilson further explained that the officers backed away and a policeman could be seen performing CPR on the man. She said West was bleeding from his mouth.
At this week’s rally and march, one participant was Abdul Salaam. He is a survivor of a beating — barely weeks earlier — by the same exact cops who initiated the beating that led to Tyrone’s murder.
State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein has decided NOT to pursue charges against any of the cops involved. This is not an isolated incident. Bernstein has never prosecuted any officer for killing workers. In fact, over 100 people have been shot by Baltimore police since 2005. None of those officers have ever been taken to court, let alone found guilty.
Tyrone West was unarmed, just like most other people who are killed by the police. He didn’t deserve to die.
For over twenty years, the city required youth to be home during summer nights. Last week, it launched a more fascistic curfew requiring all youth under 14 to be indoors by 9 pm (those under 16 by 10 pm).
Among many other powerful speeches at this week’s rally, a member of Progressive Labor Party spoke. He pointed out that a black woman, man or child is killed somewhere in the United States approximately once every 36 hours by police, by security guards, or by self-appointed law enforcers, like George Zimmerman, the racist killer of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012.
The PL’er said that this murderous racism exists because the capitalist system needs racism to justify paying very low wages to a large part of the working class. In fact, about a third of corporate profits are a direct result of this system using millions of black workers as cheap labor. Keeping racism alive is a life-and-death necessity for capitalism. For us, the opposite is true. Defeating capitalism and defeating racism is a matter of life and death for our class, the working class! Communist revolution is what we need!
- Information
Marchers Indict Racist NYPD Murderers of Eric Garner
- Information
- 04 September 2014 94 hits
STATEN ISLAND, NY August 23 — The ripple effect of the 10-day Ferguson rebellion over the murder of Michael Brown reached Staten Island today, both in good ways and bad. In fact, it was more like there were two rallies today, one inspired by the rebellion, and the other determined to make sure the rebellion will not be repeated.
The vast majority of the 4,000 workers, students and youth, women and men of all colors came inspired by, and in solidarity with the Ferguson rebellion. This was evident as thousands put their hands in the air and chanted, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” the rallying cry of Ferguson.
They came because racist police terror is out of control across the U.S., as the bosses try to terrorize black and Latin youth into accepting a future of poverty and war. Reacting to the NYPD’s racist murder of black worker Eric Garner, PL’ers were able to lead chants such as “How do you spell racist? N.Y.P.D.; How do you spell murderer? N.Y.P.D.”
The bodies are piling up while the prisons, police precincts and unemployment offices are overflowing. Young unarmed black men were murdered by the police in St. Louis and Los Angeles while the Ferguson rebellion was still raging.
Marchers came from unions and schools, churches and community organizations, in cars and buses and by the Staten Island ferry. In true sellout mode, Sharpton negotiated with the cops and transit bosses to stop all local S.I. buses from going to the rally site, in the hopes of keeping the most angry and militant workers and youth away from the march. A marshal from 1199 SEIU said his union brought 30 buses to the rally (the mothers of murder victims Sean Bell and Ramarley Graham are both members of 1199), and there was a notable turnout of transit workers (Eric Garner’s sister is a bus operator) in spite of the fact that the Transport Workers Union and Amalgamated Transit Union leadership did not mobilize for the rally. PLP tried to mobilize our co-workers and students from around the city and distributed more than 1,200 CHALLENGES and several thousand flyers, reflecting mass support for the Ferguson rebellion.
But as much as the majority of marchers embraced the rebellion, that’s how much the bosses fear it. So they called out their chief ambulance chaser, MSNBC talk show host and FBI informant Al Sharpton to put out the fire.
Surrounded by a rogues’ gallery of preachers and pastors, imams and union hacks, with the Nation of Islam providing security (for the cops and Sharpton), the message from the stage was clear. “We are not against the police, we are for the police! We want to get rid of the bad apples,” Sharpton said. He spent more time attacking the idea of fighting back than he did police terror. “If you’re not for non-violence, organize your own march! This one is mine! Don’t piss in my pot,” he said. And the union leaders backed him up. SEIU had many signs that read “Support NYPD — Stop Police Brutality.”
The point they were making was that they know how to keep a lid on things. And the fact is one thing that made Ferguson possible was that there was no established mis-leadership in place to snuff out the rebellion.
We will continue to dig in where we are and build a mass base for revolutionary violence against racist terror, and for communist revolution. Our strategy is to answer racist cop killings with walkouts at schools and campuses and bus barns and hospitals. When masses of workers and students walk out and converge on police headquarters under the leadership of PLP, those hundreds will begin to lead tens of thousands. Then the lid will be off and the struggle for state power will be on.
