BROOKLYN, January 11 — More than three hundred students at Clara Barton High School, along with about twenty-five staff members, attended an inspiring commemoration of the second anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti.  It was organized and led by students who belong to an after-school club that has been fighting attacks by the school administration against teachers and students for many years. Important ideas were raised about imperialism and the roots of Haiti’s poverty, and why students in the U.S. need to build solidarity with the working class in Haiti. Students and teachers grasped the communist ideas of solidarity with workers around the world, of multiracial unity, and of fighting for a better future than the bosses’ plan for wars, drastic cuts in social services, and increased racism.

There were speeches and performances, ranging from spoken word and debate to singing and step dancing. The program stressed unity, solidarity and the struggle for a better world.

One song was sung in both Creole and English, with many in the audience learning the Creole words for the first time. This was symbolically important because students from Haiti have endured a lack of adequate programs and services at the school. There was also delicious food donated by area restaurants, as well as by staff and parents. As many students and teachers commented afterwards, the whole program was “amazing.”

The preparation for the event was as significant as the commemoration itself. The multi-racial student organizers were from Africa, South Asia, China, the Caribbean and the U.S. They were clear from the start in their goal to send a strong message of unity and solidarity with the workers and students who struggle for a better life in Haiti, where 600,000 still live in tents. Their collective effort inspired more and more students and teachers to come forward and offer to help. Each day, more students joined committees and got involved in the planning. The enthusiasm spread.

The fighting spirit at Clara Barton comes out of a long and vibrant history of activism. Students went to New Orleans to help after Hurricane Katrina, organized anti-racist mass assemblies, and marched in New York and in Washington against imperialist war and budget cuts.  More than 300 CHALLENGEs are distributed outside the school. Members of Progressive Labor Party have defended the rights of both students and teachers against attacks by the school administration, which regularly harasses teachers with accusations and investigations. PL members and friends have withstood these attacks and continue to fight for what is in the best interests of students and staff.

Although the Bloomberg administration has built fear and passivity in many schools in New York, the fighting spirit at Clara Barton has not wavered. To sustain and spread the resistance to more friends and other schools, many more people need to be recruited to commit to a lifelong struggle to build a communist world. Join the Progressive Labor Party!

NEW YORK CITY, December 10 — More than forty people came together at a church here to discuss the devastating impact of unemployment on all workers, as well as the racist attacks on education and healthcare in immigrant communities.

A pediatrician reported that job losses in poor neighborhoods cause increases in homelessness, domestic violence, poor nutrition and obesity, along with higher rates of asthma and other chronic diseases. Children suffer from higher stress, anxiety and low self-esteem, which contribute to behavior problems and low grades in school.

Unemployment Cuts Workers’ Health

As unemployment worsens, more workers lose health coverage and are unable to pay for the high cost of private insurance. Due to the bosses’ financial crisis and an ever-growing war budget, massive cuts in public services and the safety net are forcing the closing of hospitals, layoffs of healthcare providers, and reduced access to wellness or prevention programs in working-class communities.

An immigrant worker pointed out that these problems are even more severe in immigrant communities because of racist laws and the scapegoating of undocumented workers. Some documented immigrants are blaming the undocumented for the loss of jobs, causing division when there needs to be unity to fight the bosses. More arrests and higher deportation rates are dividing families and making them more impoverished. The fear of deportation makes the undocumented easier targets for super-exploitation. They are working harder for even less pay, and are less likely to seek healthcare when ill.

With the U.S. economy’s loss of millions of “living-wage” jobs in the manufacturing sector, many working-class students are forced to defer entry into the job market. As college tuition costs rise and cuts are made in traditional scholarship grants and lower-cost government loans, these students are at the mercy of the private-sector student loan racket, which exploits them with high interest rates. With few good-paying jobs available after they graduate, they may never get out of debt.

Bosses Say: ‘No Job? Join the Army’

The major reason for all of these cutbacks is the huge outlay the bosses need to defend the U.S. oil empire. As rising military spending destroys the ability of all workers to make a decent living, the capitalist war-makers recruit working-class children into the army with promises of teaching them useful skills, getting them into college and paying off their student loans. They will say anything to get young workers to fight and kill other working-class youth around the world for the imperialist needs of the ruling class.

After the panel presentation, we broke into groups to come up with actions and fight-back opportunities to take to our communities. We all agreed that we can’t rely on the government to help us. Our working-class communities must come together to resolve these issues.

In a joint action with Occupy Wall Street, we are planning to co-sponsor a press conference and rally outside a hotel that is hosting a power breakfast of financiers, politicians and other capitalists. Their topic: how to “solve” the hospital crisis in Brooklyn (see page 4). At $75 a plate, you can be sure the interests of the working class will not be on the menu.

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA, January 7 — Recently, a group of CHALLENGE readers met here for a discussion about our Party and its ideas. First the group examined Obama’s war in Libya. When he was elected, many people in East Africa had mistakenly believed that his policies would help Africa rather than initiate invasions and assassinations of African leaders. However, this U.S.-backed invasion exposed the “First U.S. African President” as pursuing the same oil-driven imperialist foreign policy as George Bush. In the discussion, Party members debunked the lie of “humanitarian intervention” (i.e., protecting civilian lives) as nothing but a cover for U.S. imperialism. 

Next the group confronted the challenges of building the communist movement in Tanzania where widespread anger at the government’s corrupt collusion with foreign and local big business exists side-by-side with a culture of passivity and resignation. The Tanzanian public sector trade unions, for example, are big on talk but short on action, leaving government workers defenseless against layoffs and oppressive working conditions.

Spirit of Rebellion Growing

The opposition party, Chadema, is as corrupt as the ruling party, CCM (Party of the Revolution). Chadema is opportunistically trying to take advantage of widespread discontent — especially among unemployed youth — to gain power for itself. The Tanzanian comrades agreed that despite Chadema’s motives, its militant condemnation of CCM is inspiring workers to have the courage to speak out and fight back. PL’ers pointed out that this spirit of rebellion will be squandered unless it is organized and led by communists.

A comrade from U.S. explained how the liberalism trap works in the U.S. where the Democrats are trying to co-opt the Occupy movement in order to help Obama’s election campaign and keep its supporters focused on reform rather than revolution. In Tanzania, as everywhere else in the world, the electoral system is used to control the working class rather than serve its needs. History has shown that only communists will lead an uncompromising fight on behalf of the working class.

Plenty of Graduates — But No Jobs

Destroying capitalism and replacing it with communism seemed like a far-away dream to some of our comrades in Tanzania until the discussion moved to the deep crisis facing global capitalism, which is opening up opportunities for our movement internationally. For example, In Tanzania, secondary schools and universities are cranking out tens of thousands of graduates with credentials and high expectations for a better life but with almost no chance of employment. These youth are a natural base for the international communist movement we’re building.

Another example is the 40 people in Dar es Salaam who died needlessly from flooding just before Christmas. Last fall, CCM used helicopters to win people to vote for them in the elections, but they couldn’t produce one helicopter to save the lives of stranded people.

PL’s line of “one international working class, one party” is a winner because it helps us learn and gain strength from struggles in other countries, like Pakistan, where the class struggle is more advanced. CHALLENGE readers in Tanzania need to take heart. Things don’t stay the same, and the subterranean fire produced by capitalism’s wars, poverty and inequality is burning in cities and villages worldwide.

BROOKLYN, January 16 — The rising wave of fascism in the United States is apparent at Clara Barton High School. Under Principal Richard Forman, the administration is focused on order and discipline while neglecting students’ needs at every turn. A security system is turning the school into a jail. A dress code is imposed without any evidence that it benefits learning. Essential courses are not offered for all students who need them. Teachers who fight to do more for students are “excessed” and moved out.

Predictably, the school is failing. According to online data from the New York Times, only 43 percent of students earn state-exam diplomas, and less than half enroll in college after graduation. Forman has gotten rid of teachers to whom students went with problems at school or even at home. These teachers exposed students to the outside world instead of relentlessly pushing their heads into textbooks. They attempted to start new clubs and new Advanced Placement (AP) classes. But now they are gone.

A ‘Uniform’ Education

Forman’s racism is exposed every day. He and other school officials seem more concerned with students’ physical appearance than their education. They have done nothing to address the shortage of AP classes, with only one class available for each subject. Meanwhile, the principal’s allies on the Parent Teacher Association have pushed for all students to wear a uniform, but they never discuss how the school could provide all the courses students need. Students in grades nine to eleven are supposed to wear uniforms, while students in the twelfth grade “dress for success”: collared shirts and dressy pants. Jeans, t-shirts, dresses and sweaters are banned. When students are caught out of uniform, their ID cards are scanned for referrals for disciplinary action.

Furthermore, promoting the dress code over a better education is time-consuming and leads to unfair punishment. Students must stop at the door each morning to show their collared shirts, a delay that leads many of them to get lower grades because they are late for class.

Even worse, students are criminalized by being forced to undergo scanning before entering the school. They are harassed each day by security guards and school officials. One student was asked to take off her hijab (the traditional head covering for Muslim women and girls) to show her collared shirt. After she walked away, she was called back twice to show her shirt again. When asked about the incident, she said, “What surprised me the most is that Dr. Forman stood right there and did not say a word.” The principal uses this racism to intimidate and divide students and to keep the Department of Education’s oppressive system in place.

Clara Barton is far from the only school dealing with budget cuts and rising fascism. The “elite” Brooklyn Technological High School has similar problems, including a lack of paper, teachers, and even books. Virtually all public schools in New York reflect the inequalities of capitalism, a system where the working class suffers while the rich rule. Meanwhile, there is no shortage of money for the U.S. rulers to compete with China and to fight to protect their oil interests in the Middle East.

Clara Barton has a long history of students fighting back, from protests against restrictions on students bringing in water to anti-racist assemblies and anti-budget-cut rallies. All students need to be more active in building this movement to fight for a worker-run world.