Los Angeles, CA — Weeks after the racist NYPD cops choked Eric Garner to death, their equally racist west coast buddies the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) beat to death Latin worker Omar Abrego, and killed 25-year-old black youth Ezell Ford here. Abrego was a 37-year-old shipping worker for OnTrac. Hundreds have protested and marched every day in front of the police station where cops shot Ezell Ford. Ezell’s brother said he was “shot in the back and murdered like an animal!” The cops claimed he made “suspicious” movements.
For decades, the U.S. ruling class has intensified it’s attack on mostly black and Latin youth with the so-called “War on Drugs”, incarcerating over two million workers, mainly black and Latin, leading to the largest prison population in the world! That population doubled under President Clinton and President Obama has deported over 2 million of our undocumented brothers and sisters, more than all presidents in the U.S. for the last 100 years combined! 
From our immigrant brothers and sisters being held in concentration camps, to our black youth targeted by the police, these racist attacks are part of a much larger attack on the entire working class!
Workers of the World Unite 
We need more rebellions because they are not just against the racist police murders.  The justified anger beneath these protests is also directed at the racist unemployment, poor quality of education, and health care that black, Latin and all workers face. Meanwhile, trillions of profits that our class produced are spent on oil wars in the Middle East!
Rebellions alone are not enough.  The root cause of this oppression and murder is an international capitalist system that needs racism to divide our class and keep us separated by terrorizing some with assassinations on the streets and others with deportations in order to maximize their profits. Remember, the same U.S.-made weapons that the cops carry are the same that the Israeli troops carry to murder our Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters in Gaza.
We need to turn antiracist rebellions of mostly black youth into breeding grounds for communist revolutionaries. This could inspire the whole working class into fighting for a communist future: without money, profits or any need for racism, nationalism, sexism or imperialist world wars.
Join PLP as we unite with all workers oppressed by capitalism, and fight for a new system that really works for the working class: communism!
Start by joining us as we march in solidarity with the families of Ezell Ford and Omar Abrego on September 13 at 7 pm on 65th and Broadway in Los Angeles, CA.

Washington, DC — Since the racist murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri by racist killer cop Darren Wilson, workers and students in Washington have been on the move. Three hundred people, black and white, from many organizations attended a vigil on Thursday, August 14 at Malcolm X Park.
The PLP distributed dozens of CHALLENGES and over 150 flyers calling for a rally on Saturday to reach out further to the community to mobilize. The flyer was based on the lead article in CHALLENGE attacking racist police murders from Ferguson to New York City and noted that the murder of Miriam Carey in D.C. one year ago had not led to justice but to the exoneration of the police who killed her.
A PLP organizer at the rally reported that many participants were glad PLP was there. She told many people there how PLP cut its teeth on the Harlem Rebellion in 1964 against the killer cop, including distributing widely a Wanted for Murder — Gilligan the Cop flyer. People were impressed with the Party’s 50 years of fighting racism, capitalism and police brutality. One young man who is Latin and black talked about how he views things differently from someone who is only black. He has relatives in Mexico near the El Paso border. He thinks he might never see them again because of the border crackdown.
Meanwhile, over 300 students at Howard University held a vigil of their own, pledging to continue the struggle against police brutality.
On Saturday, August 16, the PLP organized leafleting and petitioning at the Columbia Heights Metro Station and at the Stoddert Terrace public housing development, gaining almost 100 signatures on a petition demanding the firing and indictment of cop Darren Wilson and the release without charges of all protesters arrested in Ferguson. Meanwhile, a friend of the Party in the Stoddert Terrace community posted a similar online petition that received over 5,000 signatures in a matter of hours. Community residents continue to circulate the petition at rallies and in the housing development.
The murder sparked discussion on jobs and schools throughout the area, including a vigorous discussion with new medical residents, who mainly come from countries other than the U.S., at Prince George’s Community Hospital about the overall history of police brutality, the recent murder of Miriam Carey, and the vicious Ferguson murder.
On Thursday, August 21, a Howard University student organized a rally of several hundred students at the Columbia Heights Metro Station. At the same time, 120 students gathered on campus with the student government leadership to develop longer-term plans for a movement using economic power to force changes in federal policy. A PL’er was invited as a guest speaker to describe the Boycott Wells Fargo campaign. He linked the murder of Mike Brown to the New Jim Crow described in Michelle Alexander’s book of the same name, pointing out that Wells Fargo profits enormously from its investments in private prisons like GEO corporation. They lobby for mandatory minimum sentences and 3-strike laws with life without parole to ensure a profitable flow of prisoners to their facilities. Racism is central to the entire capitalist system, and requires revolutionary, militant action to stop. During that meeting, 100 students signed the Justice for Mike Brown petition.
The Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association Disparities Committee had a meeting on August 21 at which Ferguson was discussed. A recent graduate of the University of Maryland who attended the meeting declared that she now really understood her African American History class! It all came together — the socioeconomics, the divisions created by racism and the need for militancy. 
On Saturday, August 23, at 7 pm, several hundred students and workers gathered at Mt. Vernon Square and marched to Gallery Place Metro Station at the Verizon Center, closing streets in this busy commercial area, and pledging to continue protesting until justice is achieved. PLP distributed dozens of CHALLENGES to participants at this event. The need for class analysis of society was quite clear, though, as one speaker declared that, among the police, there were “officers” who keep the community safe and there were “occupiers” who oppress the black population.
PLP knows, however, that the role of the police in a capitalist society is to enforce racist and anti-working class oppression, and that applies to them all —there is no “Officer Friendly”! Nevertheless, the tone of the demonstration was militant. Many young protestors now see what their parents and grandparents meant when they confronted the cops in the struggle for civil rights, in strikes, and in anti-war protests. The chant: “Michael Brown, Emmet Till, How many black boys will you kill?” at the rally showed this historical consciousness. While the pacifist, defeatist slogan “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” was still the most frequent chant, protestors are beginning to reverse this slogan to “Fists up, shoot back,” a slogan on a PL’ers sign.

The racist murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, is no accident. It is part of what an American Civil Liberties Union report, “The War Comes Home,” labels “The militarization of American policing….policies, practices, and weaponry [which]…have turned…many…neighborhoods into war zones” (Report, page 3). And it is racist to the core. The battleground is “disproportionately… in [black and Latin] communities” (p. 2). “The majority — 79 percent — of SWAT deployments…studied were for…executing a search warrant, most commonly in drug investigations.” And 61 percent of all people subjected to these SWAT raids were black and Latin (p. 31, p. 36).  The Report depicts a typical scenario:
You are at home with your family, sleeping soundly in the early morning hours. You awaken suddenly to a loud explosion and the sound of glass shattering. A bright light blinds you and there is a terrible ringing in your ears. You cannot see anything, but…you hear the harrowing sound of your front door being broken down as your children begin to scream….You look outside your window and see what appears to be a tank in your driveway. Suddenly people…break through your bedroom door….They are wearing black and carrying assault rifles, and their faces are masked. You hear people yelling at you and your partner to get on the floor and put your hands behind your back. Your children are still screaming in the next room and your dog is barking….The people lead you…into the living room, pointing rifles at you….Someone quickly handcuffs you to the chair. More people then bring your partner and your children into the living room at gunpoint. Your dog is still barking and one of the people shoots it, killing it instantly….They proceed to ransack your home, breaking down doors and shattering windows….The explosion you heard earlier came from a grenade….They hold you and your family at gunpoint for the next several hours, refusing to answer any questions about why they are there and what they are looking for. Once they have finally left, you find your home in shambles. Broken glass litters the floor….Your dog lies breathless in a pool of its own blood. Tables are overturned, papers are strewn about, and electronic equipment had been ripped from the walls….Your partner is desperately trying to calm your hysterical children.
…This is not a scene from an action movie and did not happen during…a…battle in an overseas war. This is the militarization of…state and local police, and events like this are happening every day in homes throughout America (p. 12).
U.S. Death Squads
“Across the country, heavily armed …SWAT teams are forcing their way into people’s homes in the middle of the night…deploying explosive devices such as flashbang grenades to temporarily blind and deafen residents, simply to serve a search warrant on the suspicion…of a small amount of drugs.
“American policing has become…dangerously militarized…through federal programs that have armed state and local…agencies with the weapons and tactics of war….Using federal funds…have amassed military arsenals purportedly to wage the failed War on Drugs (p. 2).
“SWAT raids are…violent events…20 or more officers armed with assault rifles and grenades approach a home, break down doors and windows.…using battering rams….and scream for the people inside to get on the floor…pointing their guns at them….often…use Armored Personnel Carriers….deployed when there were children present…which the SWAT team knew in advance….” (p. 3).
The ACLU estimates there are 45,000 such SWAT raids every year, an average of 124 every day!
U.S. Ruling Class’s Blueprint for Fascism
In the 1990s prior to 9/11, the Clinton administration created the Hart-Rudman Commission whose report outlined a plan to concentrate all government branches concerned with policing the U.S. population into one overall agency: the Department of Homeland Security. CHALLENGE marked this event as a step towards full-blown fascism and noted that racism was its cutting edge. The racist militarization described above is the result — a Gestapo to terrorize workers from rebelling against the effects of a declining capitalism that is completely impoverishing our class — as well as to keep in line those bosses whose short-term profit outlook the ruling finance capitalists view as threatening the long-range existence of their system.
Actually “SWAT teams [were] created to deal with emergency scenarios such as hostage or barricade situations” but with the emergence of the “War on Drugs” in the 1980s, their “use to execute search warrants in drug investigations has become commonplace….[It] essentially amounts to the use of paramilitary tactics to conduct domestic drug investigations in people’s homes…. The majority (79 percent) of SWAT deployments the ACLU studied was for…executing search warrant, most commonly in drug investigations” (p. 31). And 61 percent of those SWAT raids were against black and Latin people (p. 36).
The militarization of U.S. policing “has occurred as a direct result of federal programs that use equipment transfers and funding to encourage aggressive enforcement of the War on Drugs by state and local police agencies” (p. 16).
“The Department of Defense operates the 1033 Program…whose motto is ‘from warfighter to crimefighter….’ The program has transferred $4.3 billion worth of property through the 1033 Program. Today the 1033 Program includes more than 17,000 federal and state law enforcement agencies from all U.S. states and territories” (p. 24).
In 2007, “the U.S. spent $50 billion to produce 27,000 MRAPs [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles] and deploy them in Iraq and Afghanistan….MRAPs have made their way into local communities….through the 1033 program.” These programs “create incentives for state and local police to use…aggressive weapons and tactics designed for the battlefield” (p. 6, p. 22). “Agencies…received funding from….Federal Department of Homeland Security Grant Programs…[and] State Homeland Security Grant Programs” (p. 10). In Arizona alone this weaponry included:
1034 guns, of which 712 are rifles
64 armored vehicles
17 helicopters
42 forced entry tools, such as battering rams
32 bomb suits
830 units of surveillance and reconnaissance equipment
13,409 personal protective equipment and/or uniforms
704 units of night vision equipment
120 utility trucks
21,211 other types of military equipment

It is with these kinds of battlefield armaments that the police could appear on the streets of even small cities like Ferguson to enforce the rulers’ racist attacks in the 17,000 police agencies in the 50 states and territories mentioned above.
Historically — particularly in World War II — it has been communists who have led the fight to smash fascism. It was the Red Armies of the Soviet Union and China and the partisan and resistance movements in Europe and Asia that smashed Hitler’s Nazis and the Japanese fascists. It is from these heroic fighters that Progressive Labor Party is inspired to build a revolutionary communist movement to topple today’s fascists — whether they be in the White House, in Israel, in Beijing, in the European Union or Moscow. Out of a class war against the world’s capitalists communists can lead the struggle to erect a society run by and for the working class and rid the earth of the evils created by the profit system — unemployment, poverty, racism, sexism and imperialist war.

The anti-racist rebellion in Ferguson, sparked by the cold-blooded murder of 18-year old Michael Brown, shows that when push comes to shove, the racist police are no match for a united fighting working class. Led mostly by unemployed youth, the rebels have basically routed the Ferguson and St. Louis County police and the black State Police Captain, broke the curfew and forced the Governor to call in the National Guard. And they are still fighting back.

PLP members were warmly welcomed by the rebels, with about 250 of them receiving CHALLENGE newspaper. We are in touch with dozens of fighters, and sending more comrades to the scene.

Despite the racist news coverage, there has been almost no looting, with the rebels’ anger focused like a laser on the cops. And the more they fight back the rebels are receiving overwhelming support here and internationally.

So now the FBI, State Police, Highway Patrol and National Guard troops are swarming this town of 21,000 people that no one much cared about two weeks ago. But not only have they stood up to the armed force of the racist capitalist class, they have also defied the ruler’s snake-oil salesmen, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who rushed there to put out the fire. And they have defied the pleas of Obama to “protest peacefully.”

Michael Brown would have been another in that long line of racist police killings, except this time the youth exploded in anti-racist rebellion, showing us all what’s possible. The racist billionaires and their government can’t teach our kids to read and can’t create jobs for young people. But when the people rebel, there’s no limit to what they will spend in military equipment and personnel and racist media coverage to try to stamp it out.

The anger in Ferguson is more than justified. And whatever violence has taken place has been fueled by the viciousness of the cops and the system they protect. The murder of Michael Brown is not an isolated event. This is not going to stop, until we stop it, by overthrowing the racist rulers with armed communist revolution. The cops are killing us because they need to terrorize us into accepting that the racist profit system that has nothing to offer but a future of poverty and war. We don’t accept it, and neither do the Ferguson rebels and their countless supporters.

We call on everyone to build support for the rebellion at school, at work, in your church or union. Participate in mass rallies and marches and get your union or community group to join in. But most of all join and build the revolutionary communist PLP. Let’s build a world based on equality, where racist terror is outlawed and the racist billionaires buried.