Recently at work we learned that one of our maintenance workers was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. His doctor gave him only six months to live. Those closest to him began to take up a collection to send him on one last trip to fulfill a dream of his, watching a NASCAR race in Daytona, FL. Our machine shop pays the lowest wages in the area, with most workers making between $10 and $15 per hour in one of the most expensive areas in the country to live. But the workers in the shop stepped up, donating what they could. They raised the needed funds in less than two weeks.

Even though this was a modest dream and this maintenance worker had given more than five years of his life to this company the bosses could not find it in themselves to donate a single penny for this man’s last vacation. After initially claiming that they would allow workers to donate through paycheck deductions (something that would help people who live paycheck to paycheck) the company went back on that, claiming that it simply wouldn’t be possible.

Meanwhile you can buy merchandise from the company store and hockey tickets via paycheck deductions, but the cost of having the payroll department process these donations would just be too taxing for the bosses. The most they could find themselves moved to give was to simply allow the collection to be taken up during all shifts.  

This is, of course, nothing new. When the current depression hit in 2008, food banks emptied and charitable organizations that aid the poor and homeless were hit hard as donations declined. The decline revealed a startling truth, that despite overly publicized charitable donations from the capitalist class, it is in fact the working class who make the overwhelming amount of donations to organizations that aid the poor.

A recent study in August by the Chronicle of Philanthropy confirmed that the vast majority of aid to the poor is collected from working-class neighborhoods. The capitalist media tries to portray the wealthy as our benevolent caretakers, but as recent events at my shop have demonstrated, the capitalists are only interested in bleeding the working class dry.

As a final indignity for this maintenance worker he gets to spend his final months not with his friends and family, but at work. Without going to work he loses the meager health care that our job offers, something that would surely bankrupt his family as they tried to pay for his care. Besides, the company would not want to set any bad precedents by keeping him on payroll while he stayed home. This is not a world fit for the working class to live in.

Red Beard

Much has been made by the capitalist media and their politicians of the looming “fiscal cliff.” This is occurring amid intensifying imperialist rivalry causing the bosses to impose more fascist austerity measures to force workers to pay for unending wars.

In a political move described as “kicking the can down the road,” the fiscal cliff date was arbitrarily set by lawmakers two years ago as a time bomb to guarantee creation of a new crisis if draconian cuts were not made. On that date the Bush tax cuts would expire, amid sweeping spending cuts threatening to cause a massive retraction of the economy. We’re told that without massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and other benefits, an economic doomsday is inevitable.

The rulers’ solution for the crisis, with its fiscal cliff, is economic blackmail designed to force through wildly unpopular austerity measures. The U.S. ruling class has for decades fought to roll back gains won by U.S. workers in the first half of the 20th century. These gains made it more difficult for U.S. corporations to compete with many countries with cheaper labor as well as those that had built up more modern and efficient industries. All this time U.S. bosses were spending trillions on a huge military at the expense of upgrading their industries.

But the bosses have to deal with U.S. workers’ massive opposition to austerity policies. In election-night polling by Hart Research Associates, people rejected using cuts in Social Security, Medicare and federal unemployment insurance to bring down the deficit by varying rates of from 70 to 84 percent; 68 percent opposed raising the Medicare eligibility age. Meanwhile, 64 percent supported addressing the deficit by increasing taxes on the rich. (Findings confirmed by a recent Washington Post poll, The Nation.)  

‘Fix the Debt’?

So despite workers decisively rejecting these austerity measures, they are still the preferred ruling-class club to beat the working class into submission. As such it is a top priority of both Republicans and Democrats.

A recent New York Magazine article (11/30) reveals this ruling-class effort to force austerity measures down workers’ throats. The article describes a coalition called Fix the Debt, comprising leading U.S. capitalists, organized around neo-liberal economist Peter Peterson, Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles who headed Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and the heads of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup among others.

Fix the Debt pushes the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan: massive cuts to social programs to pay for a deficit created by imperialist wars and bank bailouts.

The borrowing of $16 trillion for decades of wars — to pay for over 1,100 military bases in 130 countries — has been robbing the U.S. of resources and destroying the living standards of U.S. workers. The latter face a future of austerity and one of fighting and dying in these wars.

The Fix the Debt group has launched an all-out media offensive featured on all the major news networks and newspapers. They’ve also created “CEO tools” that help employers pitch their platform to their workforce, including sample letters to give to workers and power-point presentations.

Fix the Debt is the latest front group in a 70-year ideological struggle by U.S. rulers to replace working-class consciousness with a pro-business consciousness, centered on shifting the tax burden from the bosses to the workers: deregulation, union-busting and destruction of any social safety net.

Austerity is Class War

Austerity measures will not help the economy as Fix the Debt claims. Rather they lead to reduced growth and greater debt according to the research of many noted economists including Paul Krugman and Ha-Joon Chang (see “The Return of Depression Economics” and “Bad Samaritans”). Austerity attacks “dangerous” political ideas, like the one that the capitalist state should make even the smallest effort to alleviate the worst effects of capitalism. The bosses don’t want to be obligated to give the slightest consideration to workplace safety, pollution or the deteriorating condition of their exploited workforce.

A major reason capitalists push austerity is to try to prevent an economic depression. But all the austerity and infrastructure programs over the decade of the 1930s couldn’t get U.S. capitalism out of the Great Depression. It was only World War II and putting 14 million workers into the military that solved their economic and unemployment problems.

Austerity also is used to break the back of the working class. But U.S. workers have resisted these efforts. In Wisconsin tens of thousands marched on the state capital to oppose a union-busting law that was shoved through under the guise of “solving” the state budget crisis. Similar attacks in Indiana and Ohio were met with massive street protests.

It took a serious effort by the Democratic Party to either co-opt these working-class movements or destroy them, only to have another nation-wide movement pop up opposing austerity measures — Occupy Wall Street. It ultimately had to be put down by a series of coordinated police raids organized by a conference of big-city mayors and launched out of the Obama White House and a relentless media blitz slandering the movement. (“Truthout,” 3/20; “CounterPunch,” 5/14) To overcome this mass resistance to austerity measures, the ruling class is using the debt crisis as a cover to shove through these unpopular policies.

The battle over austerity measures proves that any reform won by workers under capitalism will face constant ruling-class attack until it is ultimately driven into the ground. This attack is relentless. The bosses will demand total domination, both physical and ideological, of the working class.

But it also demonstrates that despite the mass propaganda campaigns, workers are highly skeptical of capitalism’s trickle-down economics and its maxim of “All for capital and nothing for the working class.” Workers are willing to fight this class war. What is needed is a revolutionary communist party — PLP — to develop their politics and lead the struggle to smash capitalist exploitation forever.

Additional Sources: Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, and Harvey’s A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Fones-Wolf’s Selling Free Enterprise, Carey’s Taking the Risk Out of Democracy.

For eight straight days, U.S.-armed Israel bombed Palestinian civilians in what the New York Times called a “practice run for any future armed confrontation with Iran” (11/23/12). Meanwhile, President Barack Obama was on a Southeast Asia road trip to round up allies for any potential conflict with China.

These actions underscore the fundamental dilemma facing U.S. capitalists. They are desperate to maintain their global top-dog status, but they’re not quite ready for the regional and world wars that inevitably loom as imperialist rivalries intensify. Obama stands ready to expand U.S. military adventures beyond Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, but has failed to build the domestic unity and patriotism that his ruling-class backers need. At the same time, the U.S. bosses lack international support to secure Iraqi oil and Afghan gas routes against Islamist militias.

Factional fighting has destabilized Iraq and limited Exxon Mobil’s ability to extract barely half its goal for oil production there. The Taliban and Islamic militias have prevented construction of the gas pipeline extending through Afghanistan from central Asia. As they struggle in these smaller arenas, U.S. imperialists know it will be far more difficult to confront the militaries in Iran and China.

Complicating the bosses’ move toward wider wars is their need to impose even more fascist discipline on U.S. workers, who are ripe for rebellion. These workers are suffering unchecked racist unemployment, widespread poverty (with 46 million people under the poverty line), and the massive, racist incarceration of 1.7 million black and Latino workers and youth. All of these attacks drag down wages and conditions for white workers, as well.

Clash Among U.S. Rulers

U.S. rulers are in disarray. Major U.S. capitalists are clashing over how to mobilize for war and the best way to wage it. Behind the scenes, their dispute shaped the supposedly tax-focused elections and the scandal involving former CIA head David Petraeus (See page 7). The less powerful Tea Party bosses, who question the need for overseas war under any circumstances, found themselves shunted to the side in the electoral circus.

There is a basic disagreement between the views put forward by Obama backer Colin Powell and the approach favored by the George W. Bush administration, as espoused by former Vice President Richard Cheney and War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Powell Doctrine requires the long-term build-up of overwhelming U.S. forces in a broad international coalition. The Cheney-Rumsfeld faction prefers on-the-cheap, high-tech warfare with limited ground troops. Having Israel lay the groundwork via missle warfare in Gaza serves these latter forces. Beyond these internal divisions within the U.S.  dominant finance capitalist wing, their international allies have interests that don’t always coincide. 

Israel is a case in point. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees a nuclear-capable Iran as an immediate threat to Israel’s existence. He sent a warning to Iran by dropping huge bunker-buster bombs (supplied by the U.S.) on Gaza. This attack horrified the Exxon Mobil-JPMorgan Chase ruling-class faction, which is ill-prepared for the long and costly war that could ensue. But it warmed the heart of the neo-conservative supporter Sheldon Adelson. Owning newspapers in Israel (along with casinos in China, the United States’ main imperialist rival), Adelson pledged $100 million to Team Romney. He was counting on a Romney administration to give the go-ahead to Netanyahu while also reducing tax revenues — a clear threat to the long-term war plans of the finance capitalists.

Wider Conflict in Near-Term War

As reported by the Huffington Post (11/20/12), Anthony Cordesman, a prominent strategist at the Rockefeller-bankrolled Center for Strategic and International Studies, warns of a near-term “wider conflict — one that could see Iranian missiles targeting American troops in Afghanistan, Hezbollah rocket and guerrilla attacks into Northern Israel from Lebanon, U.S. warships fighting through minefields to re-open the strait of Hormuz [the conduit for huge supplies of oil] and smoke billowing from wrecked tankers and oil facilities along the Persian Gulf.”

Cordesman spoke of Netanyahu’s planned Israeli air strikes on Iran, which Obama succeeded in postponing until after his election but seemed more imminent after the Gaza foray. To forestall such hasty action, Obama diverted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from her anti-China, alliance-building Asian tour and sent her to Cairo and Tel Aviv to craft a deal on Gaza.

That short-circuited Netanyahu’s Iran plan for the moment. But in a further demonstration of the weakness of U.S. diplomacy, Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, representing the Muslim Brotherhood, parlayed his role as the Hamas-Israel power broker into a grab for a pro-Islamist, anti-U.S. dictatorship.

Even as war raged in Gaza and Syria, however, Obama stuck to his task by meeting with Vietnamese and Cambodian rulers at the recent pro-U.S. Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. His focus was a testament to the prime importance of the imperialist competition between the U.S. and China. But despite Obama’s best efforts, these regional alliances remain uncertain.

Will millions of working-class Vietnamese and Cambodians fight for the same U.S. rulers who massacred five million of their family members in the 1960s and ‘70s? The racism that propelled those genocidal attacks reflects just how cheaply U.S. bosses view Asian workers. It is also an extension of how they view black, Latino and Asian workers and youth within the U.S.

Emerging Class Struggle

In counterpoint to the U.S. rulers’ war needs is the rise of class struggle worldwide. Millions of textile workers have struck in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Millions more have marched against European bosses’ poverty-imposed austerity. Anti-racist and student-teacher struggle is sweeping Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of miners in South Africa have squared off against the U.S.- and British-backed corporate owners of the mining riches there. Protests against racist cop murderers have erupted in various U.S. cities. For the first time, multi-billion-dollar Walmart has been confronted by strikes within the U.S. against their poverty wages and exploitative working conditions.

Progressive Labor Party members and friends have been active in many of these fight-backs. We have supported and sometimes led these workers’ struggles while spreading our communist outlook. These ideas point the way to the solution to capitalist exploitation: revolution to overthrow the racist, sexist profit system and establish workers’ rule. Join us!

PORT-AU-PRINCE, November 13 — Up to 15,000 students and striking teachers marched through the capital today, their battle cry, “The  only solution is revolution”  filling the streets.

The march stopped at over a dozen public and private schools, with students and teachers swelling the ranks at each one. At many schools, large metal gates locked by administrators to keep students inside and marchers out were forced open by persistent students banging on and climbing the gates, signaling to the students and teachers inside that the strike was here to pick them up. Soon the gates were flung open and a flood of students poured out into the march. The demonstration was carried along on the energy and vitality of students chanting: “Schoolchildren today, university students tomorrow.”

Strike Spreads

In the militant march, tires were set afire and eventually the police shot into the crowd, essentially made up of schoolchildren, while the UN force MINUSTAH lobbed tear gas into the march for hours, including at the public hospital. Several students were arrested, several hospitalized for tear gas inhalation, and one injured when the police shot into the crowd. Strikes and walkouts also took place in other cities — St. Marc (where 2,000 marched), Gonaïves, Jeremie and elsewhere. 

This mass mobilization in Haiti, in the tradition of the only slave revolt ever to end slavery in the western hemisphere and establish a state, was called by UNNOH, a union of many public school teachers who struck against the horrendous conditions in the schools.

Three days before the strike university student Damaël D’Haïti was murdered by an off-duty cop (see CHALLENGE, 11/28,) and the rage of an entire community fueled the march, swelling the numbers of youth. UNNOH denounced the murder and took on the struggle of the youth as its own.

A multiracial group of PLP communists and friends participated and gave crucial leadership to the militant demonstration. Hundreds of copies of DEFI (the local edition of CHALLENGE) and an independent PLP flyer analyzing the limits of reformism and calling for communist revolution were distributed. More students stepped forward to provide leadership. Several will become DEFI readers and will be asked to join a Party study-action group.  

Capitalism Can’t Be Reformed

Before the march some students discussed the strike movement with PL’ers. The students were rightfully disillusioned by how often unions and reform movements fail, and by the fact that even when they succeed in extracting a few crumbs from the bosses’ table their success is often short-lived. As long as the system which profits from the exploitation of working people still exists, these ills will persist and reform struggles will continue endlessly. PL’ers spelled out the need to destroy the very capitalist system that’s responsible. A Party flyer explained how strikes can become schools for revolution, when PLP can lead our class to take state power. 

 As CHALLENGE has indicated previously, amid capitalism’s global crisis, workers’ living conditions in Haiti are worse than the already intolerable conditions of workers in the U.S., France and other imperialist countries. In Haiti, the imperialists control half the national budget. They are, in fact, responsible for the 70% unemployment rate; for the mere 10% of schools being publicly funded; for the classrooms crowded with up to 250 students; and for the pittance teachers receive as salary.

The international bosses’ plans are for war, not for alleviating the suffering of millions of workers in Haiti and worldwide.  The racist violence against the working class in Haiti, the UN troops in MINUSTAH, killer cops, union-busting and the cholera epidemic are all only a taste of the ugly reality that capitalism offers our entire class. Reform is not on their agenda. Meanwhile, imperialist “aid” organizations pour workers’ donations into luxury hotels like the one built by the Red Cross.

The Potential of United Workers

The strike and mobilization did succeed, however, in forcing the government’s Minister of Education to negotiate with the teachers’ unions, with talks scheduled to open November 23. Still, no demands have been granted. UNNOH vowed to maintain the pressure and put teachers on the alert if the talks did not quickly produce real results. Their two-day strike, supported by student and worker groups, showed what potential workers have when they’re united.

Demands include a living wage of $1,250 a month (they now average about $150, while rent for a small apartment in Port-au-Prince exceeds $100 a month); back pay (some teachers are unpaid for years and only come to work because of their dedication to their students); better conditions for students; hot meals for students and teachers; vaccination against cholera in all schools and colleges; and repeal of the 2% supplementary tax levied only on workers’ income, not on the bosses’.

Greater efforts are needed to spread such militant demands and strike action to other groups of workers in Haiti who unfortunately did not appear in large numbers to support the UNNOH strike.  That includes workers in the sub-contractor textile plants in free-trade zones like the one being built in Caracol in Haiti’s north. These zones are hailed by Hillary and Bill Clinton and the Haitian ruling class, but in reality use aid funds for the profits of the factory owners.

International Support

This strike had an international dimension. UNNOH thanked other teacher unions and their members from North America who supported the strike by sending letters, funds and organizers to Haiti. PLP members and friends helped build this support.  The international delegation on the march was protected from the police and MINUSTAH by comrades and friends.

Workers and students crossed borders during the months of organizing together, going from school to school throughout the country in recent weeks, building strike committees and winning student support. Workers’ struggles transcend all borders. Rebuilding international solidarity, in the great tradition of the communist movement, is an important step towards communist revolution. These modest efforts demonstrate that as we build internationalism in workers’ mass organizations, PLP is truly becoming an international Party.