The New York Times (NYT) reported on May 31st that housing prices fell for the eighth straight month and hit the lowest level since the current depression began. According to ShadowStats, the actual unemployment rate has crept back up to 22.3%, despite a brief dip down to 22% in March as seasonal employment began to pick back up. Consumer spending has remained flat as wages continue to fall, despite a small spike due to rising gas and food prices.

The April index of pending deals (a measurement of anticipated home sales) dropped well below a predicted 1% dip to a collapse of 11.6%. With continuing high unemployment and mass wage-cuts, workers are in no position to buy a house in a market flooded with foreclosed homes.

According to the NYT (5/22), banks currently own 872,000 foreclosed properties and in are in the process of foreclosing on one million more. As long as this massive shadow inventory of homes exists, housing prices will continue to fall.

In his blog, economist and NYT columnist Paul Krugman (5/25) proposed that the U.S. is entering a third great depression, less like the Great Depression of the 1930s and more like the Long Depression that dragged on for four decades, from 1873 to the start of World War One. Workers should be warned that both the Long Depression and the Great Depression were worldwide crises in the capitalist imperialist economic system, and that they were “alleviated “ only by world wars.

A blogger writing on the continuing depression comments, “Congress just doesn’t seem to ‘get it.’ They don’t understand what people are going through” (Mike Whitney, Counterpunch, 5/27). Yet the facts are so obvious and the government’s effort to confuse it is so thorough that one would be hard-pressed to conclude that the capitalist class and their political minions don’t “get it.”

Capitalists Use Crisis to
Attack Workers

Capitalists are predictably using this crisis as an excuse to launch an attack on workers in the U.S. that is unprecedented in the modern era. Using national and state debt as an excuse, legislators have begun to undo the last vestiges of the social safety net that capitalists reluctantly put into place under the New Deal. These 1930s reforms were aimed to deflect the anger of workers who were organizing mass protests and industrial unions with Communist Party leadership.

Unemployment and welfare benefits are being cut when they are needed most. The recent attacks on government workers’ unions have largely finished off what remained of the right of workers to organize. At the same time, banks have been granted unprecedented power over workers’ financial livelihoods and bosses given huge leeway in their right and ability to abuse and exploit their workers.Capitalism survives on workers’ blood. This parasitic system will continue to breed sexism, racism, poverty and imperialist wars.

The working class can only combat this blatant capitalist attack by organizing for a class war of our own. Multi-billionaire Warren Buffet was correct when he said, “There’s class warfare, alright, but it’s my class that’s making war, and we’re winning” (NYT 11/26/06).

PLP urges workers to join with us in organizing a mass, revolutionary communist party. Only such a party, with a communist analysis of the capitalist system, can lead the fight to smash capitalist exploitation once and for all.

A recently released report from the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (Every Thirty Minutes, 2011) revealed that farmers in India are committing suicide at a rate of one every thirty minutes. During the past sixteen years, more than a quarter of a million farmers in India have committed suicide: a tragedy due to the ever-growing cycle of debt that U.S. agro-companies like Monsanto force on Indian farmers.

The IMF and World Bank, institutions controlled by U.S. and European imperialists, have forced market liberalization on India which means the elimination of government subsidies and government-backed loans to farmers. The introduction of U.S. agribusiness, particularly Monsanto, into the region has strong-armed many farmers to being dependent on seeds and fertilizers that are far more expensive than local varieties.

This economic imperialism has thrown agriculture in India into crushing poverty with most farmers making only $250 for an entire year of labor. Many of those who have committed suicide have done so by consuming the very pesticides that put them into so much debt. These victims of capitalism have left heart-wrenching suicide notes addressed to the Indian Prime Minister begging for assistance.

History of Imperialism

But as all capitalists are loyal only to profits, the Indian government has continued to pursue these murderous reforms. This story mirrors the history of Western imperialism in India that is soaked in the blood of the working class.

When British imperialists first visited India in the 18th century they commented on the country’s immense wealth. In 1757 one Briton described Dacca in Bengal as being as “extensive, populous, and rich as the city of London.” Another observer described the region as “a wonderful land, whose richness and abundance neither war, pestilence, nor oppression could destroy.” A 1918 report of the British Royal Industrial Commission remarked that “the industries of India were far more advanced than those of the West up to the advent of the industrial revolution.”

With Britain’s official declaration of dominance over India in 1793, all that changed. Indian industry was systematically destroyed, much of it carted off back to Britain. By 1840 the population of Dacca had fallen from 150,000 to 30,000. Writing in 1835 a British official wrote of India, “The misery hardly finds a parallel in the history of commerce. The bones of the cotton-weavers are bleaching the plains of India.” In the final years of British imperial control conditions worsened. Between 1881 and 1939 life expectancy dropped in India from 30 years to a mere 23 years.

This history of imperialist murder has called out for workers there to join the communist movement and indeed many great communist leaders such as Rajani Palme Dutt came from India.

Workers in India have a great legacy of fighting imperialism, but if they ever hope to smash the imperialist menace that has haunted them for more than 200 years they need to link arms with the international revolutionary communist party, PLP. Only workers uniting together under the banner of communism can smash capitalism and its racist murderous imperial system once and for all.

Members of the recently-reorganized Culture Committee of PL continue to struggle over ideas for presentations to counter the bourgeois culture that surrounds us with the hatreds and anti-working-class propaganda of the ruling class and their mass media.  Our discussion reviewed the pre-May Day event we organized in April. 

We conceived of the idea of a No Borders event to counter the vicious attacks upon undocumented immigrants called “illegal” or “alien” by the bosses’ press. As was pointed out at a demonstration in Staten Island, “How could anyone from the Earth be an alien?”  If anyone is alien, it’s the bosses who don’t care if workers live or die. They use us like pawns, an important cultural understanding. We produced the show, touching on the many facets of anti-immigrant propaganda that are becoming prevalent through media outlets and popular culture in the United States.

We opened the show with a little musical presentation that spoke to the need to smash all borders. Our poetry and song reflected the common humanity of ordinary people struggling in the face of the enormous obstacles that the rulers create to stop us from uniting. The show went on with excerpts from Paul Robeson’s speech made at the Peace Bridge on the Canadian border because Robeson was not allowed to leave the U.S. 

There was a great rendition of the Langston Hughes poem “Good Morning Revolution,” spoken by many voices from the audience.  An original poem from Haiti was read in both Kreyol and English.  Our historical PL photo exhibit was also on display.  The evening was a resounding success.

Next Event: The Fight Against Sexism

We are now moving on to organize another event with a theme of anti-sexism, and want to expand the committee to reflect the diversity of the Party. We are also developing a youth chorus to perform popular and revolutionary songs.

We are all positive about the possibility of developing the cultural work in the Progressive Labor Party. The tasks ahead are not easy, but the joy that the No Borders evening brought to the audience, the performers, and the organizers was evident. Since our reorganization, the committee has presented a variety music show as a fundraiser against racist police violence. It included a photographic exhibition of historical PL, anti-racist, and pro-communist struggle, along with a revue of song and poetry on the theme of No Borders.

Join with us to develop the youth chorus and expand the cultural work that can inspire workers to smash the racist, sexist, and individualistic culture that capitalist rulers try to use to keep workers divided and passive.  Our communist voices will be heard!J (Anyone interested in joining the committee should contact us through plp.org.)

PAKISTAN, May 13 — Sanitation workers are the most exploited workers in Pakistan. They live in miserable conditions with slave wages, no security, no pension and no benefits. Parents and children live together in small mud-made dwellings covered with leaves, with one room consisting of a kitchen, living and bedroom. Sanitation workers also suffer special prejudices — they are prohibited from eating or drinking with other people if they do not bring their own cups and dishes. Strikes have begun against these conditions.

They start work early morning and labor for 18 hours for slave wages, without proper equipment like gloves or boots. Permanent workers are paid only 5,000 Pakistani Rupees (PKR) (59 US$) per month; temporary workers get PKR 4,000 (47 US$). If they have an on-the-job accident, they cannot get medical treatment and can be fired anytime. Female domestic workers face violence and sexual attacks. There are no weekends or holidays in their lives —they live just to serve.

Many sanitation workers thus suffer from health problems produced by working conditions. Some suffer from blindness. Skin and breathing problems are very common but there is no free medical treatment or any other benefit. When sick they cannot remain in their small dwellings; if they do not work they cannot eat.

The sanitation workers are labeled “minorities.” Their “representatives” in parliament are the wealthy who never visit their dwellings. The religious institutions are also silent about these workers’ wretched exploitation. Both the politicians and religious officials just protect the interests of the rich bosses.

Organizing A Union to Fight Back

A small Pakistani town contains 220 families (about 2,000 people). Many have been attacked by landowners, chasing them from temporary living areas. About five years ago, the workers formed the Sanitation Workers Association (SWA). They began organizing strikes and sit-ins to get a piece of land on which to live. Despite brutal torture and starvation they maintained these strikes and won a 15x15-yard piece of land for each family. However, this land is about 1.6 miles away from the town and has no electricity, water or road, making it difficult to reach the town where they work. Of course, without water and electricity they cannot live there. They demanded infrastructure but the administration refused, saying the government has no money. We must organize strikes and militant actions against this special type of fascism.

After the October 2005 earthquake, the SWA won an allotment of 57 houses but these houses cannot resist severe weather, another example of the corruption of the politicians and authorities. Workers are organizing a strike against the district administration which is controlled by corrupt politicians.

PLP is struggling with these workers to understand that without smashing the exploitative capitalist system, workers cannot rid our class of this poverty and homelessness. A comrade and a few friends of the Party have distributed a leaflet linking this misery facing these sanitation workers to the need for a communist revolution to change the situation.

Such an international communist revolution is no easy task; it needs the firm commitment of workers to an international communist party, PLP.J