This is my first political action since moving to Indianapolis from Minnesota. I went to the Indianapolis celebration of the historic March on Washington. This “celebration” was a farce since in it was tightly controlled by open supporters and flunkies of the local bosses (Al Sharpton’s National Action Indiana chapter officiated) along with Mayor Greg Ballard who just came back from meeting President Obama. Ballard gave us capitalism’s idea of “antiracism,” saying,  “when I went to see President Obama there were mayors of other races there too and it showed how far America had come.”
This is the same Mayor whose cops were hassling black homeless workers in the park. Also, Ballard walked into the event with an entourage of city and county cops to let everyone know the Indianapolis bosses were in “control” of this gathering.
I did not give out CHALLENGE but I met an organization that I can get involved in to raise the Party’s communist ideas. They are needed now more than ever as the international working class is under increasing racist attack. From Indiana to Syria communist revolution lead by PLP!
Indiana Red

CHICAGO — This September marks the third anniversary of the 49-day sit-in to hold onto La Casita. For years there had been an on-going struggle between Whittier Elementary School parents and the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education (CPS) to have a library.
The struggle came to a head when, by accident, some members of Whittier’s Local School Council (LSC) found a work order to demolish La Casita. A sit-in began on September 15.  On its second day, police cordoned off the entire block, trapping mothers and supporters inside and keeping the rest of us out. The police threatened to arrest and even deport the moms if they didn’t vacate La Casita.  There was no food or water inside.
The sit-in would have ended there had it not been for a Progressive Labor Party member, a mother as well, who shouted that the moms inside LA CASITA were fighting for all of us, and that they needed support.  She called for everyone to follow her and they did!   The multitude of parents and kids marched under the yellow police tape.  They jumped over the front fence and headed straight to La Casita.  We all held our ground and the police were forced to end their threats of jail and deportation. Working-class solidarity made its presence known in the city of Chicago!
 Since then, there were a few meetings with CPS and the existing parent group, La Casita Parent Youth Center.  The parents’ pleas for the renovation of La Casita fell on deaf ears, and there ended communication with CPS.  Three leadership bodies came and left. The few parents remaining were left to fend for themselves.  The PLP mom stayed with La Casita’s parents all this time.
But CPS had the power to shut down La Casita anytime, and so they did, this August 16. Parents and neighbors responded with anger, and there were three arrests that night.  The PLP mom organized supporters to form a chain around the paddy wagon holding the arrested, chanting, “Let them go!” But we had to step aside or be run down.  The following day, a few supporters were able to get inside the grounds to form a human chain to keep the bulldozers at bay.  Some were moms but they were pulled out and finally seven more supporters were arrested.   La Casita was demolished. CPS and Chicago’s politicians won out that weekend.
There are lots of divisions among workers here.   Some neighbors, Whittier School parents included, wanted to be rid of La Casita because it was an “eyesore.”  But the fact is that all the poor working-class areas in Chicago are “eyesores” to the city politicians and the banks they serve.
There are many lessons to be learned from that Saturday morning, particularly the question of state power under capitalism.  Who do the cops defend?   And what is the role of the courts? (This will be exposed more clearly September 9, when 10 of the arrested go to court.)
For Progressive Labor Party, the crucial element is that ten parents get CHALLENGE. While some communist politics surfaced at the weekly La Casita meetings, and some parents have come to May Day and other PLP events, they have yet to join a PL study group. What has been lacking is a collective plan to win these parents and many more to joining the Party and becoming communists.
Breaking traditional sexist roles is one key obstacle.  The parents’ trust in liberal politicians’ promises is another one. The mothers and fathers are struggling to make ends meet. Many lack documents and fear reprisals from La Migra, the immigration polices.  Now, more than ever, our Party must win these friends to join PLP and fight for communism, an undertaking worth every breath we take.

BROOKLYN, NY, August 31 — Another black woman has been murdered by racist New York City cops in the ruling class’s continuing terror campaign against black and Latino working-class people.
On July 22, reports circulated in the bosses’ media about Kyam Livingston, a 37-year-old African American woman who died while in police custody. According to the NYPD, Kyam had violated an order of protection by “attacking her grandmother in a drunken rage.” They claimed they were “rescuing” the grandmother by whisking the alcoholic and physically violent Kyam in handcuffs off to the 70th Precinct and then to Brooklyn Central Bookings Jail. While awaiting arraignment, they say, Kyam suffered from “sudden seizures” and was immediately rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
But anyone who has dealt with the NYPD knows there’s another side to this story. According to the family of the deceased security guard, Kyam was arrested on July 20, being accused of violating a limited order of protection issued by the Kings County Family Court on behalf of her grandmother. The order stated that Kyam could not be intoxicated or argue with her grandmother in the home they shared.
Although there was no physical violence and Kyam had just left the shower when police arrived, the cops claimed she “smelled of alcohol” and took her into custody. Shortly afterwards, Kyam was taken to the hospital but instead of being held for a 24-hour detox, she was released after only a few hours. Police then took her to the 70th Precinct for processing, and then held her at Brooklyn Central Bookings Jail.
According to witnesses who’ve come forward to the news media and to the family’s lawyer, Kyam began to complain of suffering severe stomach pain and diarrhea shortly after her arrival in the jail. Over a period of 20 hours she repeatedly begged for medical attention.
Others in the cell with Kyam saw that she was very ill and cleared a bench for her so she could lie down, tied her hair back and tended to her, while continuing to plead with the guards for medical help. The guards threatened to “lose the paperwork” of those who were complaining, stating that Kyam was an “alcoholic” and therefore her condition was not serious enough for a call to the medical team, which was right downstairs.
Finally, Kyam went into convulsions. Her cellmates began banging on the bars to demand that the cell attendant bring a doctor. The cop in charge came to the cell, observed Kyam convulsing on the bench, and said that everyone should “just let it play out,” saying her grandson also suffered from seizures.
By the morning of July 21, Kyam was dead. She was blue and had been dead for at least 20 minutes before EMS arrived. Rather than being rushed to the hospital as the police claimed happened, witnesses with her at the time say she was taken from Brooklyn Central Booking Jail in a body bag. Her case had been ready for calling several hours before her death, but the paperwork (as threatened) was “temporarily misplaced.”
The police and the mainstream media did their work of covering up their murder by smearing the character of Kyam and her family. As if having a dispute with a family member somehow means that Kyam deserved to die, covered with vomit and feces, in a filthy holding cell prior to even being arraigned by a judge.
This is the reality of being a working-class person in New York. The police can stop and frisk you at any time, for any reason, just because you “look suspicious” or pull on your waistband or are engaging in what they define as “furtive movements.” They can plant something on you or arrest you for the smallest infraction and then lock you up in a filthy, unsanitary, unbearably hot, overcrowded cell full of rodents and waterbugs, serving you spoiled food and drink, for at least 24 hours. And this is before a judge has even heard your story and made a decision as to whether you’ve even committed a crime.
Nobody’s immune. Something as simple as forgetting to pay a parking ticket could land you in Central Booking Jail and suffer such treatment.
But that’s not the end of this story. Kyam Livingston’s family is organizing for systemic change. At 6:00 p.m. on August 21 they were joined by their friends and neighbors at a Vigil and Rally in front of Brooklyn Central Booking, where they remembered Kyam, mourned her loss and demanded justice. The family is asking that the cops responsible for Kyam’s death be held fully accountable and that conditions at the prison be improved immediately. They’re demanding that the NYPD hand over the video surveillance tapes from the night of Kyam’s death (which the City claim’s doesn’t exist), and that they divulge the names of the cops on duty responsible for Kyam’s murder.
Kyam’s mother has vowed that there will be an action every month until justice is served. The next one will be on Saturday, September 21, at 1 p.m. on the corner of Church Avenue and East 18th Street, where Kyam Livingston grew up. All those outraged by her murder and are tired of the cruel treatment meted out on the community by fascist cops should join these actions to raise our voices and demand the indictment of the NYPD.
But we must also understand that a society based on profits and racism can never realize full justice for workers. Capitalism reaps huge profits from the super-exploitation of black and Latino workers, which drags down, and divides, the whole working class. This hellish system must be destroyed.

Escalating conflict between the beleaguered U.S. and resurgent Russian empires led President Barack Obama to cancel a planned September summit meeting with President Vladimir Putin. The “emerging differences” (as Obama calls them) behind the snub run far deeper than Putin’s granting asylum to National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden. It’s all about the unceasing fight for profits under capitalism.
Hostile blocs of capitalists, represented by Obama and Putin, are more and more at odds in their inter-imperialist competition for the world’s resources, markets, and labor. Those bosses who control global energy supplies gain political and economic advantages over their rivals. Each major power needs armed force — including nuclear weapons — to enforce its domination. It’s no surprise, then, that oil, gas, and missiles top the list of grievances between Obama and Putin. At the same time, both the U.S. and Russia are tailoring their tactics toward building coalitions for a wider confrontation down the road, one that may involve emerging superpower China.
The cost of this competition bears heavily on the world’s working class. As the imperialist rivals prepare for war, their austerity policies devastate the living standards of the international working class. Several billion workers now live on less than two dollars a day. There is mass unemployment in Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Mexico, South America, China, the U.S., and elsewhere. Millions have been laid off during world capitalism’s latest economic crisis. Hazardous working conditions kill thousands in the fire-prone factories of Bangladesh. Miners are openly murdered by Nelson Mandela’s political heirs in South Africa. Millions more are suffering and dying from lack of healthcare.
Above and beyond these capitalist horrors, imperialist confrontations kill tens of millions in wars over resources in Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and in Obama’s terror drone attacks over Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.
Rulers’ Racism Runs Wild
Finally, there is the racism built against Arab and Muslim workers by the U.S. rulers’ closing of their embassies in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. This trumped-up panic move demonizes these workers as enemies who can be killed with impunity. Racism is wielded as well by the U.S. rulers’ cops as they murder black and Latino youth across the country. And by the prosecutors and judges who incarcerate millions in prisons on frame-ups or petty, non-violent violations of the bosses’ laws.
These horrors will end only when this capitalist hell is destroyed by a communist revolution. Only by building a mass, revolutionary Progressive Labor Party can the world eliminate the bosses and their profit system. Only then can we create a society run by and for workers, one without wars, racism, sexism, unemployment and poverty.
Syria, the Bosses’ Latest Battlefront
The U.S. dispute with Russia has killed more than 100,000 workers in Syria over the last two years. Russia maintains a naval base there, backs the anti-U.S. Assad regime, and fosters its alliance with potential nuclear power Iran. Obama’s Russian-Syrian problem centers on the need for continued flow of Middle East oil under Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and other allied brands. A Russian-assisted Assad victory will strengthen Iran’s anti-U.S. rulers, who are threatening to shut off U.S. and British firms’ oil exports through the critical Strait of Hormuz. On the other hand, Obama has been reluctant to support anti-Assad Islamists after al Qaeda forces gained dominance within their camp. The success of this opposition could imperil the slave-state monarchy of Saudi Arabia, Exxon Mobil’s biggest partner.
A less publicized U.S.-Russian battle is raging for supremacy in the crucial European gas arena. New production technology, known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” has for the first time made U.S. gas a globally significant commodity.
Fracking extracts natural gas from wells far below the earth’s surface by shooting water mixed with sand and chemicals at high pressure into shale deposits that contain oil and gas, bringing them cheaply to the surface. It also contaminates ground water and drinking water, forces gases and chemicals to the surface, and has been known to sicken animals and people and cause cancer. But geostrategic and profit considerations have quickly overcome the environmental opposition.
Fracking the Working Class
The racist U.S. ruling class, which murdered millions of Native Americans in the 19th century, has renewed its genocide by fracking on reservations in North Dakota and other Western states. Residents are forced to boil drinking water while they suffer from air pollution caused by huge fires that erupt as natural gas burns off over the prairies.
Two years ago, the rulers’ New York Times published a series called “Drilling Down” on the evils of fracking. Its headlines warned of “toxic materials,” “tainted water,” and “polluted air.” By 2012, however, the Times did an about-face with articles headlined “Revisiting the Facts on Fracking,” and “Rethinking Opposition to Fracking.” The U.S. ruling class has closed ranks to break Moscow’s energy stranglehold on Germany and other European Union countries, which have had to rely on Russian gas.
Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. imperialists’ leading think tank (which counts Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Citicorp, and JP Morgan among its “founders) told Congress on April 23:
U.S. LNG [liquefied natural gas] exports would also help Europe maintain leverage vis-à-vis Russia — even if, as appears likely, little U.S. natural gas is actually shipped to Europe. In the wake of the U.S. shale gas boom, Middle Eastern and North African suppliers have turned to Europe to sell their surplus natural gas, creating intense competition in the European market and increasingly forcing Russia to sell its natural gas on transparent, market-based terms rather than through opaque, politically charged contracts. Even the possibility of significant U.S. natural gas exports will help sustain pressure on Russia to sell natural gas on these [cheaper] market-based European terms.
Flaunting the Nuclear Threat
While Washington and Moscow wield their energy resources as a means of control, they are clashing over the nuclear weapons that protect their respective empires. “In October, Putin let it be known that he would not renew America’s Cooperative Threat Reduction [CTR] program, which has safeguarded nuclear stockpiles in former Soviet countries since the 1990s” (Boston Globe, 8/11/13). In 1992, a severely weakened Russia had agreed to CTR, under which the U.S. oversaw the dismantling of warheads in Russia’s traditional stronghold, Eastern Europe and the old Soviet Union. But today Putin calls the nuclear shots there, and Russia is flaunting its nuclear threat in these former Soviet republics and satellites. Georgia, which Russia invaded in 2008 to suppress its opening to the West, is making similar noises today — and getting a harsh response from its old master. As Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanshvili wrote in the Wall Street Journal on August 5:
Georgia is already a key byway for Caspian energy....               [W]ith four key oil pipelines running through Georgia, our government has declared its intent to join the [European Union-run] Energy Community. We intend to make the country an example of a stable democracy and a reliable partner for Europe and the U.S., as well.... Georgia has already moved closer to NATO [the U.S-controlled North Atlantic Treaty Organization].
The next day, Moscow went literally ballistic. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev appeared on Georgian television to declare:
We do not welcome Georgia’s membership in NATO, to put it mildly....Russia is a very large country with a huge nuclear arsenal.... If there’s a state which is a member of another military-political alliance whose nuclear missiles are aimed at targets located on the Russian territory, we cannot welcome this....you [Georgia] would become a member of a big military political alliance which...is a potential enemy if certain situations arise.
Medvedev is referring to a potential world war. Like U.S. rulers, the Putin regime has two priorities: bolstering its territorial sphere of influence (including Georgia and the rest of Eastern Europe), and cementing grand alliances. This summer saw large-scale military and naval exercises between Russia and China.
Significantly, it was the Atlantic Council think tank that plastered Medvedev’s menacing speech on the front page of its website (8/7/13). The Council, funded both by U.S. capitalist “philanthropies” and the Pentagon, is at the front of the line in applauding NATO’s expansion. More aggressively, it pounds the drums for the formation of a U.S.-led axis to confront its imperialist rivals. In his last act as Atlantic Council boss, before he became Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel published a report outlining a pro-U.S. “dream team” of strategically located allies: India, Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey. All four could potentially mobilize massive armies to help fight the enemies of U.S. capitalism.
Capitalism, No — Revolution, Yes!
In the wake of the Obama-Putin flare-up, U.S. politicians and pundits are debating whether the mid-century Cold War between Russia and the U.S. is back. In fact, much worse lies in store for our class. But as always, the working class is fighting back, from rebellions in South Africa to garment strikes in Bangladesh, from anti-austerity demonstrations in southern Europe to street protests against police murders of black youth in New York City.
But we must go beyond protests and demonstrations. Workers must turn the capitalists’ attacks against us into class war. Led by the Progressive Labor Party, we can overthrow them with communist revolution. Join us and help lead our class along that road.