Axle Strikers Put Brake on Auto Bosses

• a href="#Iraqi Desertions Show Bribes Won’t Win U.S. Oil War">"raqi Desertions Show Bribes Won’t Win U.S. Oil War
• As Iran’s Oil Bosses Gain Clout In Iraq, Scope of U.S. Oil War Widens
• Obama, Clinton and McCain All Want You (or Your Children) for War

March on May Day with Millions of Workers Worldwide

Students Mark War Anniversary with Anti-Imperialist Politics

a href="#Striker Vows: ‘We’ll help spread the Progressive Labor Party’">Stri"er Vows: ‘We’ll help spread the Progressive Labor Party’

Black, Caribbean, White Hospital Workers Fight Racism

Dinners Serve Much Food for Red Thought

a href="#‘Reducating’ Chicago Campuses">‘R"ducating’ Chicago Campuses

Cal Pols Impose Racist Cuts, Liberal LA Mayor Wants More Cops

a href="#LA Mayor’s Plan: Sack Workers, Hire Racist Cops">"A Mayor’s Plan: Sack Workers, Hire Racist Cops

a href="#‘If Communism Was Good, Why Was The USSR Destroyed?’">‘I" Communism Was Good, Why Was The USSR Destroyed?’

Rising Food Prices Trigger Haiti Rebellion

a href="#Ethanol Hoax ‘Sustains’ Bosses’ Profits, Oil Wars">Etha"ol Hoax ‘Sustains’ Bosses’ Profits, Oil Wars

• Focus on China and Ethanol Hides Imperialist Plans in Mid-East
• Top Agri-business and Al Gore Behind Anti-working-class Ethanol Sham

Workers Will Be Stewards of Environment

Who really pollutes the environment?

LETTERS

Minister Praises Capitalism, Church Members Disagree

Racist Education and Racist Professors

a href="#ID Cards Become New Report-to-Gov’t Cards">"D Cards Become New Report-to-Gov’t Cards

Veteran of El Salvador War Joins PLP

a href="#‘Winter Soldier’: Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan">‘W"nter Soldier’: Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan

a href="#Candidates Reap Million$, Workers ‘Reap’ Unemployment">Ca"didates Reap Million$, Workers ‘Reap’ Unemployment

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

• U.S. helped in Croatia war crime
• Wall St. Big For Barack And Hilary
• Workplace, killer for prostitutes
• It’s the free market, stupid...
• The Web makes spying easy

• ---

Axle Strikers Put Brake on Auto Bosses

DETROIT, MI, April 6 — As the strike of 3,600 UAW members against American Axle (AAM) moves through its second month, this main labor struggle in the U.S. is emerging as more than one about money. The highly-profitable AAM, which won a two-tier wage system in the 2004 contract, wants to chop wages in half, cut medical benefits, freeze pensions and replace them with a 401(k). AAM also aims to move work to non-union operations in Oxford, MI. (less than $10-an-hour) and Saltillo, Mexico (70 cents/hr), close two forges covered by the contract and eliminate 1,000 jobs.

As CHALLENGE has reported during the strike, with mass racist unemployment and poverty wages crashing down on cities like Detroit and Buffalo, more and more mouths depend on each auto industry paycheck. That point was underlined when a black woman striker who is six months pregnant told a PLP cultural event (see page 3), "I’m very worried, but I’m going to be strong!"

Over the last two years, there’s been a major restructuring of the domestic U.S. auto industry, wiping out more than 100,000 jobs at GM, Ford, Chrysler and Delphi, and cutting starting wages to about $14/hr. In addition there was a major shakeout of parts suppliers, with Delphi, Tower, Lear and others going bankrupt. The bosses and the UAW leadership carried out these devastating attacks with little organized resistance.

The bosses here are under siege from European and Asian auto billionaires, while more and more production is shifting to China and India, creating even more downward pressure on wages and living conditions for auto workers worldwide.

The endless struggle among the world’s bosses for markets, resources and cheap labor will ultimately be resolved through world war. The bosses bomb their rivals’ factories and kill the workers. The U.S. industrial unions are already beating the anti-China war drums for the bosses. Iraq is a warm-up. Today the bosses eliminate jobs. In the future, as in Iraq, they will eliminate workers.

The strike has put a chokehold on GM, canceling production of 100,000 vehicles and forcing the closing of 30 plants affecting over 20,000 workers. It has also rippled through many parts suppliers, affecting another 5,000 workers. Standard & Poor’s is considering cutting the credit ratings of AAM, GM, Lear and Tenneco because of the strike.

This is the power of the working class. That’s why a mass revolutionary communist PLP leading millions of workers is needed to ultimately put the final chokehold on the whole racist profit system of wage slavery.

The strike exposes the hoax behind the UAW’s strategy of using its "leverage" with GM, Ford and Chrysler to pressure the parts suppliers. In theory, by "partnering" with the major auto bosses, the union could count on them to pressure the suppliers to agree to contracts and/or card checks for organizing.

But GM, the UAW and AAM all agree wages should be cut in half, as negotiated for the major auto makers this past September. Now they’re discussing only how much money to throw at AAM workers in buy-outs and buy-downs (lump-sum payments in return for permanent pay-cuts) to get them to cut their own pay.

As for GM, they have little interest in pressuring AAM. They started March with a 129-day supply of Silverado pick-ups and expect sales to drop 15% from a year ago. So far, they’ve been able to ride it out, without plans to make up the lost production.

With the recent shut-down of the Detroit-Hamtramck plant, the strike will begin affecting passenger-car production. In addition, AAM strikers have inspired other workers. Ten-day strike notification has been given at five GM plants over local contract issues.

PLP members and friends have joined hundreds, even thousands, of other workers picketing with the strikers. Workers from GM and Chrysler, AAM’s main two customers, as well as Ford, Delphi, Detroit teachers, various churches and many more have brought food and money to the strikers. Cars honk in support as they pass the 12 picket lines around the 7-plant complex in Detroit. Visiting workers often bring BBQ pits and cook for the strikers. The very integrated picket lines are staffed 24 hours a day.

Some strikers are reading CHALLENGE and many more will be introduced to it at the big April 18 Solidarity rally. We’ll make our presence felt that day, and follow it with a group of AAM workers at May Day.

a name="Iraqi Desertions Show Bribes Won’t Win U.S. Oil War">">"raqi Desertions Show Bribes Won’t Win U.S. Oil War

"More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against Shiite militias in Basra last week." (NY Times, 4/4/08) These included dozens of officers and two senior field commanders.

The mass desertion at Basra, Iraq’s oil hub, shows that U.S. rulers can’t depend on hired colonial armies. Even with unemployment near 60%, military paychecks can’t motivate Iraqis to risk their lives for Exxon Mobil. The Pentagon clearly must deploy more and more U.S. troops to secure the Mid-East and its energy supplies for U.S. capitalists in their fight with their imperialist rivals. The next president’s number one job will be vastly expanding U.S. armed forces, with either a draft or some militaristic "national service" scheme.

In addition to exposing the Iraqi army’s fundamental unreliability, Basra widens the Iranian front in the war. In U.S. rulers’ fight for Iraqi oil — one they can’t afford to lose — they now must confront Teheran head on. Washington’s plan for Basra was to have its puppet prime minister Maliki wage an "historic and decisive" battle against the Iran-influenced anti-U.S. Sadr militias controlling the city. But when Maliki’s men deserted, U.S. and British forces began strafing and shelling, slaughtering 300 people, many civilians.

"When the going got tough, top Iraqi Shiite officials rushed to the holy city of Qom in Iran to get help mediating a Basra cease-fire with Sadr." (Philadelphia Inquirer, (4/6/08) They beseeched the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. "Iran now holds the key to stability in Iraq." (Inquirer article) According to retired Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar:

"What has happened is essentially that Iran has frustrated the joint U.S.-British objective of gaining control of Basra, without which the strategy of establishing control over the fabulous oil fields of southern Iraq will not work. Control of Basra is a pre-requisite before American oil majors make their multi-billion dollar investments to kick start large-scale oil production in Iraq. Iraq’s Southern Oil Company is headquartered in Basra. Highly strategic installations are concentrated in the region, such as pipeline networks, pumping stations, refineries and loading terminals." (Global Research, 4/4/08)

Thus, Iran’s oil barons, cloaked in ayatollahs’ robes, join a host of Iraqi factions preventing Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP from realizing the six-million-barrel a day bonanza for which U.S. rulers invaded in the first place. Current production stagnates around 2,000,000 barrels.

As Iran’s Oil Bosses Gain Clout In Iraq, Scope of U.S. Oil War Widens

Retired general William Odom understands both the ineffectiveness of bribes and U.S. rulers’ need for much broader military action in the Persian Gulf. Speaking of shaky pro-U.S. anti-al Qaeda fighters in western Iraq, Odom said:

Let me emphasize that our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty. I have heard, for example, a rough estimate that the cost in one area of about 100 square kilometers is $250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their fees are increased....Remember, we do not own these people. We merely rent them. And they can break the lease at any moment. (Harvard University’s Nieman Watchdog, 4/2/08)

As a White House military advisor in 1979, Odom helped formulate the Carter Doctrine, which demanded direct and permanent U.S. military domination of the Mid-East and its oil following the Iranian Revolution. Today he calls for "realignment and reassertion of U.S. forces" in the region (Nieman article).

Obama, Clinton and McCain All Want You (or Your Children) for War

With constantly re-deployed U.S. troops stretched to the breaking point, reasserting U.S. might in the Mid-East requires the bosses to rally masses of young people to their war machine. Worried about mental health, morale, and rebellion (a word they dare not utter) in the armed forces they currently have, U.S. rulers plan to shorten war-zone deployments from 15 to 12 months. (Arch-imperialist liberal senator Jay Rockefeller led this effort.) For the rulers, the current presidential race revolves around who can most effectively win the fresh recruits for their wars. Obama seems the rulers’ favorite, with his lies about "moral obligation" for "humanitarian" action from Darfur to Iraq mobilizing millions of military-age youth to the electoral system and thus to supporting U.S. imperialism. But they could also live with Clinton’s "national service" calls and determination to regulate any maverick Wall Street bankers who challenge the Rockefeller Exxon-Mobil forces or even with McCain’s more traditional flag-waving patriotism. The liberal New York Times ran a front-page story (4/6/08) praising generations of McCain’s selfless, exemplary service to the nation, centered on McCain’s relationship with his son, a Marine veteran of Iraq.

Basra re-teaches the important lesson that material incentives will never inspire a will to fight. As the Mid-East war widens and global conflict looms, we must strive harder to make workers aware of their class interests, to expose the futile electoral system, and prove that revolution for a communist, worker-run society is the only goal worth fighting for.

March on May Day with Millions of Workers Worldwide

May Day (May 1st) is the working class’s international holiday celebrated by tens of millions of workers worldwide. It was born out of — and honors — the Chicago workers’ historic struggle for the 8-hour day on May 1, 1886, a general strike that spread to 350,000 workers across the country. It’s a day when workers around the globe march for their common demands, signifying international working-class solidarity.

In 1884, the AFL passed a resolution to make eight hours "a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886." Workers were forced to labor "from sun-up to sundown," up to 14 hours a day. The Chicago Central Labor Council then called for a general strike on May 1, 1886, to institute the 8-hour day.

On that day, Chicago stood still as "Tens of thousands downed their tools and moved into the streets. No smoke curled from the tall chimneys of the factories and mills," reported one paper.

On May 3, the cops murdered six strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works. The next day thousands marched in protest into Chicago’s Haymarket Square. A police agent threw a bomb, and four workers were killed, seven cops died and 200 workers wounded in what became known as the Haymarket Massacre.

Nine demonstration leaders were framed for "instigating a riot." Four were hung. A mass protest movement forced the Governor to free those still alive when the government admitted the frame-up.

The tens of thousands who won the 8-hour day saw it eroded, so another general strike was called for May 1, 1890. At the July 1889 meeting of the International Workers Association, organized and led by Karl Marx, the U.S. delegate reported on the struggle.

May 1st was adopted as the day when the world’s working class "holds a review of its forces, mobilized for the first time as One army, [under] One flag...[to] make the capitalists and landowners of all lands realize that today the proletarians of all lands are, in very truth, united."

Ever since, with communist leadership, it has symbolized workers’ demands and class interests, united in the fight against capitalism. But by the 1950’s, most "communist" parties had abandoned these principles. Union leaders became lieutenants of the bosses, and either renounced May Day or stripped it of its revolutionary character.

The Progressive Labor Party, formed in the 1960’s, picked up the red banners of May Day in 1971 in the U.S. It has organized May Day marches and activities in many areas of the world for over 35 years, to unite workers around the universal demands of all workers, regardless of capitalist-created borders. These include: against imperialist war, against racism and the special oppression of women, for unity of immigrant and citizen workers, against wage slavery, against fascist police terror and for the only solution to all these attacks facing the international working class — communist revolution.

Everything we do now to win more of our class sisters and brothers to our ideas will bear fruit later, when the working class flexes its muscles once again. Imperialism has blanketed the globe and has nowhere left to go, except constant wars to re-divide markets and control super-exploited workers. This is a period of widening war, increasing police-state fascist repression and mounting economic misery. Despite appearances and regardless of obstacles, our class has only its chains to lose.

The long, difficult period ahead must not deter us. Making a commitment to serve the working class for a lifetime of revolutionary struggle remains the best choice one can make this May Day.

Join and build the Progressive Labor Party and help lay the foundation that is putting millions of workers and youth on the road to revolution. In particular this means deepening our influence and bringing communist ideas to the factories, campuses, the military, and the mass movements; sharpening the class struggle and creating a mass base of readers and distributors for CHALLENGE.

How prophetic were the last words of Haymarket martyr August Spies as the hangman’s noose was tied around his neck and he declared, "There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!" Join us on May Day. Fight for Communism!

Students Mark War Anniversary with Anti-Imperialist Politics

LOS ANGELES, March 15 — "The coalition showed we can do a lot when we unite against racism and imperialism," said one student organizer, describing a multi-racial group of campus organizations that planned a week’s events marking the five-year anniversary of the Iraq War.

Many student participants are long-time CHALLENGE readers, agreeing with recent editorials and articles on the presidential elections, seeing that both Republican and Democratic politicians serve the most powerful U.S. bosses. They strongly support PLP’s anti-racist and anti-imperialist internationalist politics. Some now understand how communist revolution can solve the problems facing the international working class. The well-attended events showed that fighting identity politics, patriotism and reformism with PLP’s politics helps build the Party.

The students championed campus events bringing to more students and workers this analysis of capitalism and the war, fighting to expose their imperialist nature. They linked racist cutbacks to the permanent war budget, the electoral fraud and the exploitative role of sexism, nationalism and racism. They also wanted events expressing grassroots worker-student-soldier solidarity — explaining the importance of politicizing soldiers and supporting rebellions within the military — and that advanced multi-racial unity against anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant racism.

With collective struggle, amid such solidarity, various campus groups organized eight events — forums, teach-ins, documentary screenings, campus speak-outs and an election debate including college Republicans and Democrats. Large crowds turned out, surprisingly capturing the attention of the school newspaper (usually very conservative and tight-lipped about anti-war events). Many students were open to PLP’s analysis and to the events’ more general anti-imperialist politics.

In one panel, Iraq vets related their wartime experiences, noting the growing number of soldiers organizing against the war. Answering a question on how students could help, friends advocated building solidarity between students and soldiers, and supporting soldiers’ rebellions in the military. "Visiting military bases and reaching out to veterans on campus can build this unity," said one panelist.

Agreement about the wars’ imperialist roots was strong overall, but many students still see the Democrats — especially Obama — as a step forward. The debate exposed media lies about Obama and the Democratic Party. The College Democrats’ president agreed with the Republican club on nearly everything but admitted that all politicians have "blood on their hands."

Agreeing, a student warned that politicians only defend ruling-class interests — more wars and racist cutbacks, higher tuition and eventually a "national service" draft. Students were surprised about Obama’s overall pro-war stance, despite his criticisms of Bush and the Iraq War. We must work harder to expose the ruling class’s electoral circus, and to link the communist future the working class will build to the local, concrete anti-imperialist organizing needed to guarantee that future.

Most important, though, was the political leadership taken by PLP’s friends and the confidence they showed in communist ideas. Because of these political struggles, over 15 students joined PL’ers from other campuses at the city-wide anti-war march in Hollywood.

Student groups are now planning campus May Day events, organizing a multi-racial worker-student-alliance contingent to join other workers in the immigrants’ rights march May 1. Liberal groups backing Obama and Clinton, pushing patriotism, loyalty to imperialism and the Dream Act are organizing that demonstration, making it crucial to fight for anti-imperialist and communist politics at the march!

Long-term consistent struggle around these ideas, especially increasing CHALLENGE readers and networks, have created a modest but strong base supporting PLP’s fight for revolution. The battle for such ideas within mass organizations may be slow and difficult, but it’s crucial to developing communist consciousness among students, workers and soldiers.

a name="Striker Vows: ‘We’ll help spread the Progressive Labor Party’"></a>"triker Vows: ‘We’ll help spread the Progressive Labor Party’

CHICAGO, IL, April 5 — "We won’t give up. We can’t. I’m six months pregnant, and I’m worried, very worried about how I‘m going to be able to take care of my baby. Life is very hard in Detroit, you just don’t know," declared one of three striking American Axle workers who attended our evening of international anti-racist culture tonight. "But I’m going to be strong and we’re not going to give up. You all do what you can to support us, and we’ll bring as many people as we can to May Day!"

Her husband followed, inviting the 90 workers and youth to Detroit for an April 18 strike-support rally. "We will help you spread the Progressive Labor Party," he said. We passed the hat for the striking workers and sent them back to the struggle with almost $900!

The crowd was already in the mood, having heard a series of poems and a PLP leader inviting them to march on May Day, take May Day Dinner tickets and join the campaign to increase the circulation of CHALLENGE newspaper. These strikers captured that revolutionary communist, anti-racist mood.

Then came the main event, a performance by Echoes of Southern Africa, a group of singers and dancers from numerous African countries. We met them through a Ford worker who was active in the Jena 6 struggle, sparking his UAW Local 551 to send a delegation and $500 check for that case, while involving hundreds of Ford workers in a plant-gate collection. He told the crowd he was honored to be here with his striking brothers and sisters from Detroit, in a room "full of revolutionary workers."

The singers and dancers performed for over an hour. Their high energy, wonderful voices and graceful movements held the crowd’s attention from beginning to end. Overall it was a successful evening, but should have been much larger. That’s our challenge as we head into May Day. We hope to hold these cultural events every three months. As we become organizers, they will get bigger.

Black, Caribbean, White Hospital Workers Fight Racism

On the surface it looked very ordinary: two hospital custodial workers were cleaning a patient’s room. But the conversation between the two workers was anything but ordinary. "I need to learn more from you about fighting the bosses," said John. "Well," said Bill, "the main guidance I get comes from being a communist." "Tell me again," said John, "what is communism?"

Later, three custodial workers were debating the tactics used in a union fight against a racist boss. Al and Ed believed that some of Bill’s ideas were too incendiary, harsh and confrontational. Al, a union delegate, said that he tries to handle his differences with the bosses in a "professional" manner. Bill, also a union delegate, explained that he was trying to think beyond the fight against the bosses. "We have to energize the union members for the contract fight this summer," argued Bill. "You guys know I’m a communist," Bill continued, "we’re always trying to think about the big picture." But Ed, a newer union member interrupted, "You’re a communist! What exactly does that mean?"

The PLP organizing at this hospital should include more experiences like these. We’ve been active in the union here for quite some time. We’re viewed as part of the union leadership for the entire hospital. We are asked to join, lead, or contribute to a constant flood of reform fights, big and small, as well as assist many workers with personal problems.

At this stage of the game, it’s very easy for us to get into high gear with the union reform activity. But it’s still a constant struggle to shift the communist organizing into high gear at the same time. Too often we still make reform primary over revolution. This error does not mean that communists shouldn’t work in mass organizations like unions. This error does mean that inner Party ideological struggle is crucial.

A number of the workers understand the merry-go-round of reform fights all too well. "It’s corporate America," argued James, a supply worker. "Even if we strike in July and win the fight to protect our pension, in 10 years we’ll be fighting the same fight." PLP’s participation in the union helps introduce us to workers like James. But making communist revolution primary means that we get CHALLENGE to James, follow up with him and invite him to a Party study-action group.

Marie, a worker from the Caribbean, was just suspended. In our union, there are deep divisions between the black workers from the Caribbean and the black workers born in the U.S. Nonetheless, several U.S.-born black workers told Bill, a union delegate, that they wanted to support Marie. "That could be any one of us," they declared. At lunch time a group of black and white workers, including black workers from both the U.S. and the Caribbean, hammered out a petition that blames the bosses for the short-staffing and the dirty patient rooms and demanded that Marie get her money back. A few days later, at a union solidarity event organized by the rank and file to build our contact fight in July, workers from all over the hospital lined up to sign Marie’s petition.

But of all the activity around fighting Marie’s suspension, the most important was the struggle with the workers, and an old Party friend from the Caribbean in particular, to understand that the racism against the Caribbean workers comes from capitalism, not the workers who may express it. We may or may not win the fight against Marie’s suspension, but our main fight is to overthrow capitalism and its racism.

We are struggling with the workers quoted in this article as well as the others in our base to join us on May Day. If we bring more workers, increase our CHALLENGE distribution and recruit to Party study-action groups, then we’ve scored a modest victory to make communist revolution primary over reform.

Dinners Serve Much Food for Red Thought

LOS ANGELES — A number of CHALLENGE dinners, with over 160 people in all took place recently. Industrial workers and youth pledged to raise the readership of the newspaper by taking more to their jobs and schools. At one dinner, with high school and college students we raised over $150 in subscription money. Several people joined the Party from our events.

Each dinner discussed the current state of world capitalism: sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry leading to World War III, increasing attacks on the working class, and the current expensive election campaign to try to win workers, soldiers and youth to loyalty to the ruthless racist U.S. rulers. CHALLENGE shows the source of these attacks is capitalist competition for maximum profit and the solution is fighting to turn the coming imperialist wars into communist revolution.

One dinner was combined with a retirement party for a comrade. A fellow worker and comrade in the same company talked about the good communist leadership the retiring comrade has given. He called on the others to step up to increase the readership of the paper and the revolutionary movement, especially as workers face growing attacks. Then other workers spoke about how much the comrade had helped to build unity among all the workers. One black worker said that our comrade had helped him a lot in confrontations with management. "Then he started bringing me CHALLENGE," he said. "At first I thought it was a little ‘out there’ but CHALLENGE has opened my eyes to how to see the world."

These dinners show there’s great potential to build CHALLENGE networks and PLP. While the collapse of the old communist movement presents our class with serious challenges, PLP squarely faces the errors by calling for fighting directly for communism rather than the "halfway house" of socialism with its concessions to the capitalist system of wage slavery. It’s up to communists today to take those lessons to the heart of the working class. As our class faces crisis, cutbacks, layoffs, foreclosures and war, we’ll increase the circulation of CHALLENGE, reader by reader.

a name="‘Reducating’ Chicago Campuses"></">‘R"ducating’ Chicago Campuses

Campus activity in Chicago is heating up as we build for this year’s May Day activities. In recent weeks, PLP members have organized or participated in four campus forums involving over 150 people. Topics ranged from the elections to Martin Luther King to black-white-Latino relations to the struggle against racist cutbacks in health care. Members and friends put forward communist ideas, pointing out that McCain, Obama and Clinton are supported by many of the same rich corporations. Also we said that budget cutbacks are an inevitable part of capitalist processes and that the working class needs the revolutionary destruction of capitalism to guarantee good health care. Other points included the role of revolutionary violence in the 1960’s, the reality that life for the whole working class, especially black workers, has gotten worse even with the Civil Rights legislation because capitalism, with or without its regular crisis, needs racism to make superprofits. We advocated the need for members of all so-called "racial-ethnic groups" to support our common struggles against all forms of anti-working-class oppression.

Equally important with the comments made at the forums is the fact that these activities were organized by PLP members together with many non-party friends. The discussions, debates and struggles that we have with those who do not agree with us lay the basis for involving many more people in future activities. We are making a strong effort to bring young people to the May 1 immigration march and PLP May Day activities. A few more young people have joined PLP. We live in a very unstable world that is getting more dangerous every day. By working in the class struggle with those who don’t agree with all our ideas and struggling to win them to communist revolution, the possibilities for building a stronger, larger revolutionary communist movement are real and growing.

Chicago comrade

Cal Pols Impose Racist Cuts, Liberal LA Mayor Wants More Cops

LOS ANGELES —The proposed California state budget — with massive education cutbacks — reflects capitalism’s crisis. State revenues have plummeted from the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. Rising unemployment and the decline in workers’ real wages reduces state tax revenues. Federal funds to states shrink as war costs soar.

The bosses are making workers pay for this crisis. Our children are being mis-educated under worse conditions than ever. California businesses, including aerospace subcontracting and health care, can’t find enough workers with the skills they need. They want workers’ taxes to pay for "workforce development" so they can compete effectively and meet the imperialists’ need for war production. Right now, students don’t even get the education the bosses need for them.

Of all 50 states, California ranks third from the bottom in spending per student, 22% less than 40 years ago. The proposed budget cuts another $750 per student, forcing school districts to lay off teachers, librarians and counselors while increasing class size and slashing special programs. Meanwhile, 170,000 people are behind bars — disproportionately black and Latino young men — costing nearly $4 billion annually.

Now they want to increase the highly regressive sales tax and vehicle license fees. The latter could suck $6 billion more from California workers who need cars to get to work.

a name="LA Mayor’s Plan: Sack Workers, Hire Racist Cops">">"A Mayor’s Plan: Sack Workers, Hire Racist Cops

In Los Angeles itself, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Democratic Party darling, ordered layoffs and cutbacks beginning July 1, for all city departments, while hiring more cops (LA Times, 3/13). Amid a budget crisis, he needs more racist cops to repress potential rebellions against these cutbacks.

He also wants to lift a restriction on dismissals for the current fiscal year. It’s been over 15 years since LA laid off and demoted workers because of a budget crisis. Waves of hiring freezes followed that.

Local officials, nearly all Democrats, support the Mayor. They even agreed with his absurd rationale for firing workers in order to hire more cops: it’s "absolutely necessary for LA’s economic development"!

Union leaders are backing the Mayor in two ways. The SEIU and AFSCME leadership — hardcore Democrats — are helping the Mayor’s staff achieve cost savings and new revenue sources, such as unpaid furloughs and a garbage-collection fee to help pay for new cops. Meanwhile, other unions tell their members "not to worry" because Civil Service rules are "too complicated" to implement layoffs. Plus, the City will simply offer a buyout program to older workers to save jobs for new hires.

Obviously City workers need the truth, not trained-dog "leadership." We don’t need more racist anti-worker cops to harass those who fight cutbacks. Meanwhile, conditions in schools and for roads, electricity and water supply deteriorate.

These layoffs are a part of similar layoffs and cutbacks itting counties, school districts, state agencies and other cities.

LA’s budget crunch is not merely a by-product of the real estate slump. It results from enormous tax breaks City, state and federal government have given businesses and investors, plus enormous expenses for California prisons and for the Iraq and Afghan Wars.

California rulers may make the capitalists themselves pay higher corporate property taxes to discipline the ruling class to pay for coming wider wars, which would tie in with politicians’ pleas that "we’re all in this together." We must not ally with our class enemies but rather with students and parents and the growth of a revolutionary movement that will break the chains that tie us to them.

Workers must see that LA Democrats charging ahead with cutbacks to hire more cops are no different than their Washington buddies. The real reason for the police hiring spree is "homeland security," not business promotion. Fifteen years ago LA had one of the country’s largest urban rebellions since the Civil War. It could happen again. With U.S. troops — including the National Guard — spread thin worldwide, the burden of repression will fall to the cops. A militarized economy that gouges wages, benefits, public services and overall living conditions, needs cops to quell rebellions.

California’s workers need CHALLENGE and its communist analysis. They need to fight these cuts, the tip of the iceberg in a system set up to make workers pay for the problems caused by the bankers, speculators and imperialist war-makers. Ultimately, the solution to these attacks lies in the growth of CHALLENGE and of the PLP to build a movement to destroy the profit system, which is increasingly incapable of meeting workers’ needs as it organizes a police state and widening wars for profit.

a name="‘If Communism Was Good, Why Was The USSR Destroyed?’"></">‘I" Communism Was Good, Why Was The USSR Destroyed?’

SPAIN — In a meeting with friends, we took up very important topics including communism, and the capitalist crisis of overproduction, but especially the fight against revisionism (capitalist ideas disguised as communist ideas). A comrade mentioned that, "In Peru you hear communist ideas a lot in the communities (for example, in the city of Ayacucho)." She mentioned that "in years past the group Sendero Luminoso organized university students and farm workers against the exploiters." She had been a member of the group.

But the following question arose, "Why, if communism is good, was the USSR destroyed? Is it because people can’t have higher political understanding?" I answered, "At this time, capitalism has many weapons to divide the working class and to push the lie that communism was a disaster, but that’s not true and we communists in the PLP know it. Socialism failed in the USSR, not communism." I explained that when a group fights for reforms (like Sendero Luminoso, the FMLN, FSLN, and other revisionist groups in Latin America that fight for national liberation and socialism) they’ll never achieve communism because they keep capitalist ideas and practices. So she responded, "but then you want to tell me that in order for there to be communism, we need an armed revolution?" "Exactly," I said.

In the study of dialectical materialism we know that the way to solve a contradiction is to intensify it. "So that water can become steam, the temperature has to rise high enough to a certain point, at which water is converted into something else –– steam," I explained to my friends. "It’s the same with the struggle to destroy capitalism in order to build communism."

I explained that we have to understand the law of the unity and struggle of opposites. I showed them that if we have one pencil, we can break it easily, but that if we put 20 pencils together, it’s much harder to break them. In the same way, we have to build the Party to unite the working class with communist ideas. She said I was right and that we needed to continue the discussion.

Another youth who is influenced by capitalist ideas continued to insist that communism is in the past and was simply a failure. I talked about the many good things that happened in the Soviet Union in education, health care, housing , etc. The workers lived better than they ever did under under capitalism! And they united to defeat Hitler’s fascism.

At the end, my Peruvian friend was very emotional because the discussion cleared up many questions and she wanted to keep talking. The other youth said he didn’t understand how any society could exist without money. I limited my remarks to the fact that a capitalist economy and a communist economy were completely different, opposites, and that to be able to understand this he first had to understand dialectical materialism and put it into practice. All of this was very useful, because we were able to show that we can fight for and build a communist system even though we’re contaminated with all these capitalist ideas.

Now I need more Party material to study and to distribute among friends in this part of the world. Now I see that there are many people interested in the communist ideas of the Progressive Labor Party and, in addition to the interesting articles in CHALLENGE, I need to give them material to use to study dialectical materialism. We must massively spread these ideas to establish a real communist system in which workers hold the reins of society.

Rising Food Prices Trigger Haiti Rebellion

HAITI, April 8 — Rising food prices worldwide have triggered rebellions in many countries. Southern Haiti is the latest. Five people have been killed and many injured after several days of protests by thousands, including attacks against local cops, businesses and the MINUSTAH (the U.N. multi-national occupation force here led by the Brazilian army). Over the weekend protesters looted the MINUSTAH office in Cayes, taking weapons and other materials.

Today, UN forces shot rubber bullets and tear gas at thousands of workers and university students marching on the national palace in Port-au-Prince, the capital city, backing the rebellion and shouting, "We’re hungry!"

The U.N. occupation, which began after the U.S., France and Canada invaded the country several years ago and sent President Jean Bertrand Aristide into forced exile, has only brought more misery, drug gangs and hunger to the Haitian masses. One of every four children here is malnourished. People have resorted to eating "dirt cookies," made from salt, oil and clay and baked in the sun. A system that has brought billions worldwide to such extremes must be destroyed.

a name="Ethanol Hoax ‘Sustains’ Bosses’ Profits, Oil Wars"></a>"thanol Hoax ‘Sustains’ Bosses’ Profits, Oil Wars

The push for "sustainable energy" and "alternative fuels" is increasing. Politicians and companies appear united in calling for changes in how society is fueled. It appears that the ruling class is concerned about the environment. Communist analysis, however, reveals the essence of this "green" movement. First, the bosses are creating part of the ideology to support a potential future war against their imperialist rivals. Economic and political threats from China, for example, continue to present problems for U.S. rulers. As the rivalry intensifies, they’re caught in a bind. They must seize control of Mid-East energy reserves in order to cut their rivals’ access to it. They must also win the working class to support future wars against these rivals in order to maintain their world position. The promotion of ethanol as an "alternative fuel" is part of this plan.

Secondly, and more importantly, they’re winning workers to think that individuals, not capitalism, causes environmental destruction. They say a better environment can only be achieved by buying "green" products and consuming our way to a healthier world. In reality, only by destroying capitalism and replacing it with communism can the conditions that poison the enviroment be eradicated.

Focus on China and Ethanol Hides Imperialist Plans in Mid-East

Led by liberals like Al Gore, the capitalists are ramping up anti-Chinese rhetoric, namely by pointing to environmental issues such as contaminated products, air pollution and the catastrophe at the Three Gorges Hydroelectric Dam (where 1.4 million workers were displaced, and environmental destruction is occurring upstream from the dam). They need to convince workers that the Chinese are a direct threat to them and to a healthy Earth.

This is blatant hypocrisy, however, because for hundreds of years U.S. bosses have been killing the very workers they’re trying to win by polluting the places in which we live and work, along with the environment. (See box) Suddenly, when imperialism demands it, they’ve become interested in "protecting workers and ‘our’ environment."

The ethanol campaign is also being used to disguise the absolute necessity for the U.S. ruling class to control Mid-East oil through imperialist war. They say ethanol will "achieve energy security, reduce oil imports, and decrease our dependency on Middle-Eastern oil." Actually, of the top 15 countries from which the U.S. imports oil for consumption, only three, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait are from the Mid-East. Canada is by far the largest exporter of oil to the U.S. (Energy Information Administration, 2/15/08) The oil bosses don’t want control of Mid-East oil to power our SUVs but rather to control their rivals’ access to this life-blood of capitalism. The top oil companies like BP, ExxonMobil-Chevron are even putting hundreds of millions of dollars (a tiny amount compared to their profits) into researching "sustainable energy sources" as a way to mask their deadly designs on Mid-East oil.

Top Agri-business and Al Gore Behind Anti-working-class Ethanol Sham

Because it grows well in many climates, corn is used to make ethanol in the U.S. Currently, the federal government shells out $8 to $10 billion annually to Midwest corn growers. These subsidies are often framed as protecting America’s "ma and pa farmers." In reality, large corporate farmers such as Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill receive about 80% of these subsidies. Also, seed suppliers like Pioneer Hi-Bred (DuPont) and Monsanto are making a killing with the inflated corn markets created by the ethanol craze. Pioneer’s profits increased 13% over the past year. Al Gore, the darling of the liberal environmental movement, has recently joined the board of a venture capitalist firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who have more than $76 million invested in "green" technology. He is also a high-ranking official at Generation Asset Management, which invests in "solutions to climate change."

Meanwhile, the increased demand for corn for ethanol has led to even greater suffering for the working class. Agreements like NAFTA allow subsidized U.S. corn to under-cut local production in Mexico, causing corn tortilla prices there to soar 60%, triggering workers’ protests nation-wide. Workers are starving, yet the same amount of corn needed to fill an SUV tank with ethanol once would feed a worker for an entire year.

Making fuel from corn makes no sense for the environment either. If all the inputs are calculated (the cost, in energy terms, of getting and planting the seed, growing the corn, harvesting it, transporting it to the ethanol plant, etc.), there is a net energy loss! The environmental damage from this capitalist charade is also clear if the increased conversion of forest into farmland and the increased use of fertilizers (which, incidentally, are made from fossil fuels) and pesticides are considered. This is the reality of this "green consciousness" they want to win us to — business as usual under capitalism where profits come before scientific common sense and the well-being of our class and our environment.

Workers Will Be Stewards of Environment

Finally, there’s one truth the capitalists ignore. Workers have always been, and will always be, the best caretakers of the land and environment. Organic farming, where workers understand the land, respond to its needs, and replenish it for the future, was the norm during early communal agricultural societies. Capitalism, which makes food into a commodity to be bought and sold, replaced this mode with food production for profit. Modern communism, in turn, will discard the commodity nature of food, while retaining any technological advances.

As workers, we have no interest in profit-making disguised as "green living," nor in preserving the power of the U.S. ruling class (or any ruling class for that matter) through patriotism and war in the name of environmentalism. Our interests lie in maintaining and preserving the environment because we work its land, we breathe its air, and we enjoy its beauty.

Ultimately, only the working class can create a better and healthier world. With scientific reason, dialectical analysis, and revolutionary ideology, the working class must begin the process of building workers’ power. Communism is the embodiment of that power. Together, as a class, we can counteract the damage of capitalism.

LETTERS

Minister Praises Capitalism, Church Members Disagree

A minister’s recent service bemoaned the Iraq war, saying "we" should focus on what’s happening "at home," that it is "more patriotic" to take care of Americans. This is nationalist selfishness, not anti-imperialism!

The minister admitted to knowing little about economics but went on to say that many are sick of the "old economy," focused on maximizing profit and accumulating stuff. They want a "new economy." That sounded good, until she declared that corporations are "not the problem." She said that "corporate executives are good people, just like us" and to achieve a "new economy" we all just have to be less greedy. She didn’t mention the tens of millions in the U.S., and billions around the world, who don’t even have the basic necessities of life.

Afterward I said to a friend that maximizing profits by exploiting workers was a law of capitalism. She agreed: "It’s like saying that a poisonous snake wouldn’t be dangerous if you could just keep it from biting." This new CHALLENGE reader said, "a lot of the ideas we need are in that paper."

I asked her opinion of the articles about Obama. She is enthusiastically for Obama even though he "has to say things that will get him elected." I reminded her that top advisors of all three candidates are meeting with the Brookings Institute to develop a foreign policy to present to the next president. I summarized the unfolding inter-imperialist rivalries that are leading U.S. capitalists to wider war. I said Obama is the candidate best able to win the U.S. working class to sacrifice our standard of living and our youth to that war. Because she has been reading the paper, she was already familiar with this argument.

"When you put it like that," she said, "it’s really very clear. I wish I hadn’t spoken to you today," she added half-seriously, "because this really upsets me." She doesn’t want her daughter and son to be drafted. I pointed out that CHALLENGE also shows the positive side: how we can win workers and soldiers to a revolutionary movement fighting for a truly new communist economy.

As we left church she said again, "You make it all so clear, like a lens that focuses everything." I replied that the "lens" is the collective insight of our Party. Then she asked when she could stop by to get the new CHALLENGE.

While the minister was preaching, I felt like walking out of church for good, but the conversation afterward reminded me why I stay. It’s not mainly to unite with others in the congregation to go on anti-war marches or fight budget cuts, but to build relationships based on sharp struggle on this ideological "front-line."

Church-going Red

Racist Education and Racist Professors

Recently, fellow students and I went to a "practical-experience" school activity in Southern Mexico to "analyze" how low-income people "can make their projects work and compete in the market to improve their lives." Those of us from small towns and of indigenous background experienced blatant racism.

The professors heading the trip always told others along the way to "excuse them because they’re indigenous students." One professor kept telling those in charge in the places we visited that we "couldn’t communicate or express ourselves correctly because of our ethnic origin." In Oaxaca, some women in our group complained about being bitten by ants. Our own teacher, who claimed she wasn’t racist, later told us not to complain about this since we’re from small towns and "girls from well-to-do families never complain so much about some little ants."

The racism became even worse. Our teachers said, "You should all be grateful for this opportunity to do this high-level research in places you won’t be able to ever visit again — they charge 1,000 pesos (about $100) a day). Only students from the ‘best colleges’ can afford them without scholarships."

These attitudes reflect the racism of the rich bosses who run this capitalist society, reminding us poor working-class people: "You’re poor and don’t even aspire to come back to these fancy places."

PLP members and some students concluded how, in a communist society, there won’t be "different kind of opportunities" since there won’t be class differences. We will all share society’s benefits and responsibilities. Since racism is a universal aspect of capitalism, from Oaxaca to Los Angeles to Madrid, PLP organizes an international party to fight for this communist goal.

A Red Militant Student

a name="ID Cards Become New Report-to-Gov’t Cards">">"D Cards Become New Report-to-Gov’t Cards

My school recently instituted a program in the computer science department that researches how to track people using ID cards. These barcode-like tracking devices are already being used in new U.S. passports. The study uses radio frequency ID patches which are worn on clothing and can be tracked by computers within the computer science building. The program is supposed to study how the government can track people while still protecting their privacy, a seemingly oxymoronic goal. The professors in charge of the research claim that they want to protect people’s privacy, but if this were truly the case, why are they actively perfecting such invasive measures as the ID card tracker?

Such programs as these are not only a sign of fascist control of the working class and an attempt to put a friendly face on it, but academia’s willingness to spread it. In Nazi Germany, it was college professors who were the first to acquiesce to fascism and it was college students who created the Hitler Youth. Universities are no bastion of left politics and to see it as such is idealism at its worst. The university can only be a place of communist politics if we make it so.

We must join mass organizations, as I recently did, and we must build CHALLENGE networks amongst our base in these groups. We must expose the fascist agenda of U.S. imperialism and the universities’ role in it. We must build strong friendships with our base, something I am trying to do now. As communists, we must give our base alternatives to the dead-end liberalism of the university by inviting them to May Day and the summer projects. Through discussion and action we can show them that true leftist politics come from only one place, the working class, and that in order to make real change we must put our faith in the working class and fight for communism.

Red College Student

Veteran of El Salvador War Joins PLP

(This is a letter from a new member of Progressive Labor Party written at a communist school in El Salvador, a sign of the political/ideological development of our members and also the deepening of the internal struggle to fight the reformism taught by the revisionist, the phoney leftist, groups, and the fight for Communist Revolution.)

I want to give you a small fragment of the history of the past revolutionary process in which I participated in the organizations that formed the FMLN in the eastern part of the country, that were called the ERP (Revolutionary Peoples’ Army).

I was 12 years old when the El Salvadoran government’s army carried out one of its bloodiest attacks against the civil population. In all these years there were big operations by the armed forces that left many people massacred. This happened in different places like El Mozote, in the mountains of Morazán, where more than a thousand people were killed. It was here that four members of my family were tortured and killed: my mother, my Grandmother, and my two aunts, leaving me alone at a young age.

Days after this vile massacre by the Salvadoran government against my family, friends and neighbors in the community, and in the face of these huge injustices, thinking that we needed to change everything, I joined the armed struggle. I asked a friend to go with me to walk outside of town with the idea of looking for my father who was already in the guerilla army . As I neared the campsite where he was, I told my friend that I would not return to town.

I spent the whole war fighting against our class enemies, thinking that I was doing the right thing, but 16 years after the peace accords were signed and the FMLN has turned into an electoral party, I see that there weren’t any changes for the Salvadoran working class.

One day a comrade gave me CHALLENGE and since then I have been a reader. Later, they invited me to an international communist school in another country where I learned how we can fight for and build a better world for all workers. This can be accomplished through building the Progressive Labor Party and the direct fight for Communism. For the moment, I have four CHALLENGE readers in a Party club and I hope that we continue growing as well as throughout the whole world.

To all the members and sympathizers of the Progressive Labor Party internationally, to the workers organized in different countries, from El Salvador, also known as the little finger of America, I send revolutionary greetings and at the same time invite you to continue to strengthen the Party’s work even more

New Fighter for Communism

a name="‘Winter Soldier’: Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan"></">‘W"nter Soldier’: Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan

The Winter Soldier Hearings in Maryland were amazing! In preparation, our PLP club showed the original Winter Soldier (see CHALLENGE, 4/9). Friends, including an army reservist, said that although the testimony was depressing and a bit vivid, it was a great learning experience. All felt that many comparisons could be made between the war in Vietnam and those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After attending the Winter Soldier this past week, it was obvious that the same pattern of racism and imperialist domination was being used, only in a different part of the world. Many told stories about how the racist term "hadji" was used, but that it came from the top down, not from the bottom up. This goes to show that racism doesn’t begin with the working class, but is fomented by the ruling class. They use this racism to divide workers and soldiers, as well as the workers in the country to be conquered. One soldier had a particularly sharp analysis of the whole situation. Instead of giving a testimony to the acts he was forced to commit, he spoke of imperialism, racism and how the rich never went to war, only the poor working class.

At the Winter Soldier hearings one really got a great sense of what was going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the accounts were heartbreaking, it was refreshing to hear the truth, as opposed to the propaganda we workers are so accustomed to being bombarded with by the ruling-class media. After listening to the testimony I felt even more energized and angry. This energy and anger must be used to work even harder to build the Party and struggle for communism. Hopefully more workers can view and hear the testimony of these brave soldiers.

D.C. Comrade

a name="Candidates Reap Million$, Workers ‘Reap’ Unemployment"></">Ca"didates Reap Million$, Workers ‘Reap’ Unemployment

The two lead stories on the April 5 NY Times front page present a clear picture of capitalism as an exploitative class system. One says, "80,000 JOBS LOST" (in March). Adjoining that is, "Clintons made $109 million In Last 8 Years."

A single Clinton speaking engagement rakes in "upwards of $250,000," (NYT) more than the median family yearly income of five working-class families, in just one "lecture"! Seems talk is not exactly cheap, especially in the top one-hundredth of one percent of U.S. incomes.

Not that Obama or McCain are exactly poor. The Obama family income exceeded one million bucks in just one year (2006). (NYT) And the McCain family assets, including the fact that his wife is "an heiress to a beer distributorship fortune, are worth tens of millions of dollars." (NYT)

These are the millionaire politicians who have never helped workers and who defend and enforce their capitalist system which has launched massive attacks on the working class: wage-cuts, huge layoffs, more racist cops to terrorize workers and youth, big talk about healthcare while the uninsured approach 50 million. And yet the union misleaders and reformers tell us the "solution" is to vote for Obama or Clinton, pouring our dues money into their campaigns. What crap!

PLP has always advocated, "Don’t vote, organize!" to answer these attacks.

Meanwhile, the monthly jobless increase was actually 222,000 since "the government added 142, 000 make-believe jobs to the count" (John Crudele, NYPost, 4-8), the highest in five years, rising for the third consecutive month. It’s across the board, covering both industry and service areas. But, of course — as CHALLENGE has consistently reported — the 5.1% unemployment rate is a fraud. That figure, representing 7.8 million jobless, excludes "discouraged" workers who’ve given up searching for non-existent jobs and those working part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs. That’s another 9.4 million workers, a total unemployment of 17.2 million — a 12.5% jobless rate.

This still doesn’t include people on welfare who can’t find jobs, nor those youth whose joblessness drove them to join the military. Nor the two-thirds of the 2.4 million in prison for non-violent, mostly drug-possession convictions who could ordinarily be at home or in rehab, also seeking non-existent jobs. All told, U.S. unemployment is probably somewhere around 20 million.

Because of racist discrimination, unemployment for black workers is twice that of whites. The "official" figure is black 9%, white 4.5%. But the true figure for black workers is about 25%, double the actual nationwide rate of 12.5%.

The liberal Democrat’s "solution" is to extend unemployment benefits, a goal rarely reached in this one-class-rules-all "two-party" system. And that excludes more than half of U.S. workers who are ineligible for any benefits (including millions of undocumented immigrants), something Obama and Clinton never mention when shedding crocodile tears for jobless workers. McCain’s hair-brained "solution" is more tax cuts for the rich and less regulation of the Wall Street investment houses making out like bandits.

Unemployment is an integral feature of the profit system and always will be as long as capitalism exists, driving for maximum profits by stealing the value that workers create and stuffing it into the pockets of the bankers, oil companies and Big Business. They go to war to protect their fortunes over workers’ dead bodies, much as they war on the working class at home. They will continue to do so until workers destroy their system and enable our class to share all the wealth we create among working people, according to need.

One big step towards that goal is to march on May Day, uniting black, Latino, Asian and white, immigrant and native-born, women and men, building PLP as the party to lead the working class against the ravages of capitalism. J

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

U.S. helped in Croatia war crime

A popular Croatian general who led a brutal operation that drove the Serbs out...went on trial in The Hague on Tuesday for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

[The] crimes included knowingly shelling civilian targets, allowing their forces to go on violent rampages during and after the campaign, terrorizing civilians, and looting and burning Serbian homes.

United States military advisers, among them retired and active personnel, helped plan the operation, and Americans directed drone aircraft over the battle zone to gain real-time intelligence for Croatian forces. (NYT, 3/12)

Wall St. Big For Barack And Hilary

Last week Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary...put it clearly: If Wall Street companies can count on being rescued like banks, then they need to be regulated like banks.

But will that logic prevail politically? So far, neither [campaign] has made a clear commitment...

The securities and investment industry is pouring money into both Mr. Obama’s and Mrs. Clinton’s coffers. And these donors surely believe that they’re buying something in return. (NYT, 3/24)

Workplace, killer for prostitutes

"Women engaged in prostitution face the most dangerous occupational environment in the United States..."

The American Journal of Epidemiology published a meticulous study finding that the "workplace homicide rate for prostitutes" is 51 times that of the next most dangerous occupation for women, working in a liquor store. The average age of death of prostitutes in the study was 34. (NYT, 3/16)

Voters said no, but Dems fund it

Since the Democrats took over both houses of Congress, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the budget committee, boasted... "We have the identical amount in our budget for defense and the war as the president had in his budget –– identical, not a dime of difference."

So there you have it... Whether this allocation of scarce resources is actually in the public interest does not enter into it. (Washington Post, 3/13)

It’s the free market, stupid...

To the Editor:

Re "What Created This Monster?" (March 23), which looked at the run-up to the current financial market mess:

Why should we be surprised that a socio-economic system founded on greed, selfishness and competition, and fueled by Pollyannaism and willful blindness, might be less than optimal?

Perhaps when the smoke clears, Americans will no longer worship at the altar of a mythical "free market" that is inherently unfree, skewed and subject to massive abuse. Perhaps Americans will finally choose to stop living in an economic Wild West and at last reject the boom-and-bust cycle of turbocharged hypercapitalism in favor of a more humane, livable society. (NYT, 3/20)

The Web makes spying easy

It’s not paranoia: they really are spying on you.

...Tech companies can keep track of when a particular Internet user looks up Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, visits adult Web sites, buys cancer drugs online or participates in anti-government discussion groups....

There is no need for neighborhood informants and paper dossiers if the government can see citizens’ every Web site visit, e-mail and text message.

1. Bankers' Fight, Bears Down On Working Class
   1. Capitalists Always Seek
      Maximum Profits
   2. Bosses, Bankers Run the Government
2. Obama's `All-Class Unity' Spurs War Draft
   MASKS RULERS' RACISM
   1. `National Service' High Priority
   2. Serve Your Class: Fight for
      Communism
3. 40 Years After King Killing, Racism Still Riding High
4. GIs, Vets Must Fight Imperialism, Cause of Bosses' War Crimes
5. Students Lead Parents to Oppose NYC Budget Cuts
6. Axle Strikers Battling UAW's Blatant Sellout
7. More Racist Profiling:
   `Black While Shopping'
8. Red Flags, PL Youth Draw Acclaim at LA Anti-War March
9. Unionists Defy Funeral Mood at NYC Anti-War `Protest'
10. Tibet's CIA-Backed Feudal Monks Fight China's Bosses
11. Angry Workers' Mass Strikes Pose Problem for Greek Rulers
12. `Socialist' Chavez's Cops Assault Steel Strikers
13. LETTERS LETTER LETTERS
    1. Bosses' Media Covers Up
       Colombia's Death Squads
    2. Students See Through
       Sugar-coated History
    3. What's Deadlier in Paraguay?
       Yellow Fever or Election Fever?
    4. The Real Prostitutes
    5. Rulers `Turn Around' Schools
       by Closing Them
14. REDEYE
    1. Obama rejects anti-imperialism
    2. Better life, if market didn't rule
    3. Army sees more, longer Iraqs
    4. Law leads schools to dump kids
    5. Prison profiteers love long
       lock-ups
15. The Battle That Helped Crush South Africa's Apartheid
16. Russian Rulers' Rebound Rivals U.S. Imperialist Supremacy

---

Bankers' Fight, Bears Down On Working Class

J.P. Morgan's recent hostile seizure of Bear Stearns marks a big step in the growth of fascism in the U.S. Here, just as in pre-World War II Nazi Germany, dominant financiers with global interest, increasingly use state power to concentrate capital into their own hands and to tighten their regulatory grip on investment. They do so in order to compete better -- economically and militarily -- with rising foreign rivals and to enforce wartime discipline on smaller domestic bosses.

Despite serious and sustained efforts by U.S. rulers to contain it, the fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis continues to spread to the broader capitalist economy. Every week seems to bring a new debacle for the bankers and Henry Paulson, their government partner in the U.S. Treasury Department, to deal with. The takeover of Bear Stearns ("Bear"), one of the biggest "independent" investment banks, by JP Morgan Chase (JPMC), has much to teach the working class about the nature of the capitalist system, and the direction it is moving in for the foreseeable future. JPMC -- the Rockefeller oil empire's chief bank -- confiscated Bear mainly because its owners hinder the developing police state the ruling class's main wing's war agenda requires. Iraq and Afghanistan already wear a $3-trillion price tag. For far costlier conflicts with Iran and China, U.S. rulers are ramping up compulsory "shared sacrifice" on Wall Street.

Until the takeover, Bear's largest shareholder was Wilmington Trust, an investment arm of the DuPont family, which vehemently opposes state controls on capital. JPMC also torpedoed China's CITIC, which "has decided to terminate its planned strategic cooperation with Bear Stearns, including a $1 billion investment in the U.S. bank" (Reuters, 3/19/08). CITIC is wholly owned by a government gearing up to challenge U.S. military domination of the Mideast and its oil. No wonder JPMC targeted Bear rather than more imperialist-oriented Lehman Brothers or Morgan Stanley. Lehman counts war criminal James R. Schlesinger, defense secretary during the U.S.'s Vietnam genocide, as a "senior advisor." Blue-blooded State Street Bank of Boston and Saudi Arabia's Olayan family own major chunks of Morgan Stanley.

Capitalists Always Seek
Maximum Profits

As CHALLENGE has pointed out before, capitalists and the financiers who back them constantly search for a place to invest their stolen billions. Capitalism dictates that each investment, whether it be in the production of real value or not, must seek a maximum return. At the dawn of capitalism, that meant a massive investment in the brutal enslavement of human beings. With that blood-stained start-up money, the early industrialists bought the power of human labor and made more than they could dream from the wage slavery of workers in that hell of sweatshops and factories. What was fundamental to capitalism then is still today: "there will be blood" on the path to riches for a few.

Sometimes the blood is that of members of their own class. Modern capitalism is ruled by the big banks, which are able to use their gigantic accumulation of funds to control industrial and other capitalists (for more information about this, read "Who Rules the United States" in PLP's The Communist magazine, Spring 2005). One of the biggest banks is JPMC. It represents the merger of three of the major banks in U.S. history -- JP Morgan and the Rockefeller-owned Chase Manhattan and Chemical banks. The other major player in the Bear Stearns takeover, the U.S. Federal Reserve ("the Fed"), is basically a committee that represents the interests of the big banks and the capitalist system.

Bear, on the other hand, was known as "an outsider that defied its mainstream rivals" (NY Times 3/17/08, A1). When the Fed "cajoled all the large Wall Street firms" to bail out an important hedge fund "to avert a global financial meltdown," only one, Bear, "refused to participate" (Washington Post, 3/15/08, A4). But, unfortunately for Bear, the biggest thieves have long memories. True to its "anti-establishment" veneer, Bear specialized in high-risk investments. Unlike its bigger investment bank rival, Goldman Sachs, Bear could not recover from its huge losses in mortgage-backed securities. Its stock price, which as late as last year was $172 per share, plummeted 96% by March 14.

Bosses, Bankers Run the Government

Communists constantly point out how the government serves the needs of the capitalist bosses and bankers. Nowhere is there a more striking example than the "takedown" of Bear. JPMC, with the help of the Fed and Paulson, former Goldman Sachs chairman, acquired Bear at the fire-sale price of $2 per share ("raised" as of March 23 to $10). The Fed loaned JPMC $30 billion to finance this, and although Bear's true value is in question, the Fed insulated JPMC from future asset losses to the tune of $30 billion. This sweet deal for Rockefeller and Morgan interests will be subsidized by U.S. workers' taxes should Bear's real worth prove to be lower.

Even though JPMC made out like a bandit, the fact is that the biggest bankers were forced to act quickly to protect the long-term interests of the capitalist system. "In normal times, they would be inclined to let capitalism do its work . . . But markets are so jittery that . . . [t]he stock market could have experienced a collapse of 1987 proportions and untold damage may have been done to the U.S. economy" (Washington Post, 3/15/08). As far as these top dogs are concerned, the "free market" is expendable when their needs dictate it. Using their government to bring into line or destroy smaller players who don't go along with the program is classic fascism.

We cannot predict if capitalism's financial wizards will be able to arrest the "credit crisis" in time to prevent a deep and prolonged recession. We do understand the lessons of history. The bosses' current fear and mistrust of each other will have no good end for the working class, short of a communist revolution that stops them from once again preserving their system by stepping harder on our necks and shedding our blood.

Russia, China, and other rival imperialists are gaining ground on U.S. rulers. The spirit of "sacrifice" that the Democrats, in particular, call for is just what the doctor ordered. As the capitalists try to convince workers that "we are all in this together" in order to prepare us for bigger wars, they will force their own class into line as well. The New York Times made its lead front-page story on March 23 "In Washington, a Split Over Regulation of Wall Street." "Democratic lawmakers are drafting bills that would create a powerful new regulator...to oversee practices across the entire array of commercial banks, Wall Street firms, hedge funds and non-bank financial companies." On the other side, "President Bush and [treasury secretary] Paulson...remain philosophically opposed to restrictions and requirements that might hamper economic activity." New York's disgraced ex-governor and attorney general Eliot Spitzer fell victim as much to the Bushite foes of regulation, as to his own perverted ego. Liberal crusader Spitzer had subjected Wall Street firms to strict scrutiny and prosecution for the imperialists' benefit. It was a combination of HSBC, a British-owned bank investigated by Spitzer and closely tied to China's rulers, and the Bush-controlled IRS and FBI that exposed his penchant for prostitutes.

The Bush gang puts quarterly bottom lines ahead of the main capitalists' long-term war needs. Liberals Obama and Clinton hope to reverse this trend. In calling for "cleaning up" Wall Street, they seek a militarization of society that includes both state control of finance and the enlistment, by one means or another, of millions of working-class soldiers. Obama and Clinton, in fact, serve the openly imperialist wing of U.S. capitalists, hungrier for global war than even Bush and McCain, and potentially deadlier because of their broader liberal, Democratic appeal, especially to young people.

Capitalism's seemingly endless "booms and busts" will only be a relic of history if millions of workers reject the bosses' fear, racism, and patriotism, and join a mass communist party to turn things around. Communism will abolish a system that gives a few speculators so much money to play with that they inevitably bring hundreds of millions to ruin. Revolutionary actions under the leadership of PLP can put an end to the rule of the financiers and let real history begin for the working class.

Obama's `All-Class Unity' Spurs War Draft
MASKS RULERS' RACISM

As the primary election season in the United States winds down, statistics are showing more and more enthusiasm for the elections than in past years. Young people turned out at nearly triple the rate they did in the 2000 election (thepewtrust.org), with most voting for Democrats. Many are drawn to messages like those of Obama and Clinton, who are attempting to convince young people that they will make life better for them. Obama in particular, in his recent speech on race, pushes the lie that "we", meaning all Americans, need to unify to face "our" problems, like racism, corporate greed and terrorism. This all-class unity is a deadly error for workers, because we have one primary problem: capitalism. This system, built on the exploitation of our labor and the continual degradation of our living conditions, can never meet the needs of the working class.

`National Service' High Priority

The liberal politicians can't fix this main problem. In fact, they are completely dedicated to the long-term plan of the U.S. ruling class: more war and fascism. The U.S. needs to position itself for future inter-imperialist rivalries against rising capitalist countries like Russia and China. This requires ideological unity between the millions of workers and the few bosses.

To achieve this "unity," liberal rulers are relentlessly promoting a program of "national service" which requires service in the military or government-sponsored programs. They are trying to copy many countries around the world like Israel, Mexico, Germany, etc., which have compulsory national or military service. The liberals realize one of their key weaknesses is the apathy and cynicism youth have, as illustrated in declining figures in military recruitment. This apathy, along with the Bush Administration's general failure to generate nationalist feeling, makes it much more difficult for the U.S. bosses to convince young workers to fight for them domestically and internationally. In particular, events that unmask the racist nature of the capitalist system, like Hurricane Katrina, the assassinations of Sean Bell in New York and Aaron Harrison in Chicago, and the Jena 6, make recruitment of black and Latino youth that much more difficult. National service is intended to reverse this trend.

Barack Obama has led the liberal bosses' call, recently heralded by Democrats Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed in their book "The Plan: Big Ideas for America." The book lays the foundations for much of Obama's version of John F. Kennedy's "what you can do for your country" speech. "The Plan" states, "It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us," and then proposes a mandatory period of three months national service for all Americans under 25. This plan includes:

*Expanding AmeriCorps from its current 75,000 positions to 250,000, with new
units to deal with education, clean energy, health care and homeland security.

*Expanding service programs involving retired individuals and those over age 55.

*Doubling the size of the Peace Corps from its current 7,800 volunteers to 16,000 by its 50th anniversary in 2012.

* Setting goals for middle-school and high-school students to serve 50 hours a year of public service, and for college students to serve 100 hours a year. (AP,
12/07)

The authors have to emphatically state that this is "not a draft," but nothing could be further from the truth. The bosses want to use workers' desire to serve their own class and help their fellow workers and transform it into nationalist feeling. Their hope is that these nationalist feelings can then be turned into mass military recruitment to fight their imperialist wars. This is the program that Obama and Clinton are pushing. National service especially could be very attractive to black and Latin working-class youth who will not be able to afford college, who do not want to go directly into the military and who can look forward only to a dead-end minimum-wage job.

Serve Your Class: Fight for
Communism

We can see the desire for workers to serve their class even under capitalism: after 9/11, thousands of volunteers were eager to help; assistance poured into New Orleans from around the country after Hurricane Katrina; and thousands marched in Jena, Louisiana in support of the young men railroaded by the racist justice system. The bosses want to turn these feelings into nationalism and a willingness to kill and be killed for profit. PLP, on the other hand, has a different vision of the future: by exposing the bosses' lies, fighting for the working class in our daily lives, and winning masses of workers to PLP, we can transform the earnest desire of workers to help our brothers and sisters into the only way to truly secure our liberation: communist revolution.

40 Years After King Killing, Racism Still Riding High

Forty years ago, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where 1,600 sanitation workers were striking for union recognition, higher wages and an end to racist practices. King had gone there supposedly to support the strikers but the latter's militancy ran far ahead of King. When he led a march through the heart of the city, the workers and their youthful supporters began a mini-rebellion against the exploitative merchants, battling the cops along the route of the march. King was quickly ushered away in a limousine.

Later, while standing on a motel balcony, a sniper cut him down.

In the context of worldwide mass struggle against the U.S. imperialist war in Vietnam and racist police terror and for revolution (the Red Guards in China), immediately rebellions erupted in black communities across the U.S. The National Guard was called out to quell the uprisings.

Racism had cut deep wounds among black workers. Their unemployment rates were double the national average. Their family incomes were far below white workers'. They were using the King assassination to protest the savagery that the rulers' racism had visited on their families for centuries.

Today, politicians like Barack Obama, while not denying some racism still exists, cite the "progress" black workers have made. He and others are calling for black and white people to "unite." Unite for what? To get behind U.S. capitalism's drive to advance its bosses' interests through imperialist war. (See article above)

But 40 years later black workers' unemployment is still twice that of white workers.
Black family income is still less than 70% that of white family income.
Black workers and youth comprise 50% of the 2.4 million in capitalism's prisons -- nearly ten times what it was 40 years ago -- although only 12% of the population as a whole is black.
Black and Latino workers will be paid $10 an hour in Alabama plants to build the U.S. rulers' oil-war tanker aircraft, while mostly white workers in Boeing's Seattle plants, earning $27 an hour, will be laid off. Thus, the bosses still use racism against black and Latino workers to drag down the conditions of white workers as well.

King had a "Dream." But for millions of black and Latino workers, that "dream" is more a nightmare and it is fast turning into one for tens of millions of white workers also suffering mass layoffs, wage-cuts and home foreclosures.

The only way to turn dreams of a decent life into reality is to fight the bosses' racism used to divide ALL workers and crush class consciousness. Then a red-led united working class can destroy the racist bosses' profit system through communist revolution.

GIs, Vets Must Fight Imperialism, Cause of Bosses' War Crimes

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 18 -- At the Winter Soldier Investigation (see CHALLENGE, 3/26) organized by the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), over 200 Marine, Army and Navy veterans of the wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan testified about atrocities and war crimes they had witnessed, and sometimes had committed. Iraqi civilians testified via video and in person about their experience of abuse and terror by U.S. troops. (Testimony can be read and heard at the website <IVAW.org>) The event coincided with the 5th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. PLP'ers at this event pointed out that the root cause of these atrocities is capitalism and imperialism.

The brass employs racism and the "Rules of Engagement" policy of using force to encourage abusing and killing civilians, detaining innocents and torturing prisoners. Vets said these "Rules" had become so loose that officers were telling soldiers virtually anyone could be considered a threat. Holding a cell phone, walking across the street or wearing a green headband were all "capital offenses." A War Department memo denies rape kits for troops in combat zones.

Several vets testified being routinely ordered to carry "throw-down" weapons and shovels to plant on civilians they murdered in order to claim they were "insurgents" -- the same tactic cops use in the U.S. Others described the racism inculcated by the brass and officers who constantly use a racist slur, in referring to all Iraqis, making the entire population the "enemy." This dehumanizes all Iraqis, making it "easier" to kill them like animals, just as the U.S. Army did when using racist terms against the Vietnamese during that war.

Some vets tearfully apologized to the Iraqi people for not having stopped civilian murders, and sometimes for murdering civilians themselves. One vet angrily threw his medals into the audience, declaring "Eat the apple -- F--- the [Marine] Corps."

More troops need to follow the example of these testifiers and resist killing and dying for U.S. imperialism. Troops and vets also must recognize the root of the problem is capitalism. Ending imperialism, racism and sexism requires building a mass communist party to overthrow capitalism, building a revolutionary communist society, not just more anti-war organizing to "pressure" the government to stop the war and "reform" the military.

One veteran declared that U.S. service members and workers had far more in common with the average Iraqi than with the rich capitalists and oil barons who run the U.S., who launched this war for their profits and power. This is the kind of internationalism and anti-racism we need.

Imperial occupations must brutalize civilian populations to stop popular resistance. But how different a revolutionary war is! Given that the capitalists think nothing of slaughtering a million Iraqis and three million Vietnamese, when the working class fights, it must ruthlessly kill these capitalist enemies, any traitors to our class, as well as any military forces that cannot be won to mutiny against the imperialists. The vets' exposure of brutality against civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan proves that this is a racist war against the interests of the working class of Iraq, Afghanistan and the world.

What now for IVAW? The PLP "GI Voices" newsletter, circulated widely at the event, raised this question, calling for internationalism, anti-racism and communist revolution as the way forward for the veterans' and GI movement. One vet said that each action IVAW took was moving the group in a more radical direction. But the bosses' foundations and liberal capitalists are funding and supporting IVAW. Its leaders mainly focus on a media strategy rather than organizing active-duty personnel to fight racism and war in their units and on their bases.

During the conference, IVAW "messaging" framed vets' testimony as serving "our" country." Reformists like those who lead IVAW co-opt and mislead honest fighters. Some attendees raised the danger of relying on liberal patriotic politics to fight imperialism. Honest veteran activists were frustrated with the group for dropping a panel on racism within the military, not taking civilian testimony seriously and not adequately addressing Afghanistan.

Expanding the distribution of CHALLENGE, asking friends to help do this and to participate in Party activities like the upcoming May Day must become the order of the day. PLP veterans, GIs and others should intensify their efforts to win IVAW members and friends to the long-range view of revolution.

Students Lead Parents to Oppose NYC Budget Cuts

NEW YORK CITY, March 24 -- Several students new to PLP took leadership in our high school to fight the budget cuts after being inspired by a Brooklyn school's Student Government that organized a protest at City Hall (CHALLENGE, 3/12). Battling these cuts requires parent-student-teacher unity. On a Monday, a PL teacher noted that the school's PTA would be meeting on the coming Wednesday.

When the PL students, the Writing Club and the teacher met on Tuesday, they understood that struggle was necessary to defeat these cuts. Many students in this club read CHALLENGE, some for years. They recognized the bosses need budget cuts, squeezing the working class in order to finance their oil wars. Two students volunteered to speak at the PTA meeting.

After some initial discussion, the PL'ers changed the tone of the PTA meeting. The teacher spoke first, saying the budget cuts affected the school and a fight-back was needed. The PTA agreed, and then asked students in the Writing Club to write a letter attacking the cuts, and that the PTA would sign it and mail it in. Then one PL student spoke, describing how the budget cuts would affect her and her desire to learn. Another PL student said the bosses "are trying to take the books out of my hand, and give me a gun." The parents agreed with PLP's communist analysis of the budget cuts, and told us to make sure the letter was "very political."

The parents decided that if the politicians don't respond to the letter, then they would organize protests and more. The militant parents recognized that the letter was only the first step, and that more struggles lay ahead. However, even these struggles, in and of themselves, won't stop the racist, anti-working-class cuts because they're a necessary part of the capitalist system. A mass campaign can intensify the class struggle but can only produce reforms, which the ruling class can eventually reverse. Only communism can fulfill the needs of the working class, ending the profit-driven budgets that exploit the needs of children.

The school administrator supported the students' and PTA's letter, noting how the budget was cut overnight. She went to work the next day, checked her computer and saw that the money was already taken out. The corporate-style restructuring of the school system enabled this attack on the schools, paving the way for increased ruling-class fascist control over education.

The next day PLP'ers enthusiastically spread the news about students giving leadership to parents. At the Thursday Writing Club meeting, students unable to attend the PTA meeting were excited to help draft the letter. Congratulations to these new comrades and CHALLENGE readers for stepping forward. We want them to meet regularly with the Party. This modest victory itself isn't enough if it doesn't help build PLP, in order to destroy a system that steals books from students in order to give them guns to kill and be killed in endless profit wars.

Axle Strikers Battling UAW's Blatant Sellout

DETROIT, MI, March 24 - Today GM and Chrysler workers, idled by the month-long strike at American Axle (AAM), joined the picket lines in a show of unity. Many auto workers who've suffered a blatant UAW sellout are backing these valiant strikers who are fighting a similar betrayal.

The Solidarity rally occurred ten days after three strikers were arrested for blocking scab trucks moving work out of the plant. Meanwhile, the International UAW sent the local bargainers home and took over contract negotiations to duplicate the auto sellouts.

The 3,600 strikers are battling company demands to cut pay from $28/hr to $11.50-$14.50/hr. The integrated workforce at the Detroit plant shows how racism hurts all workers. These black and white workers are struggling to survive in a city ravaged by racism, with soaring unemployment and the country's highest foreclosure rate. More mouths than ever depend on each and every paycheck.

The company also wants to replace pensions with
401(k)s, end retirees' health care, cut medical coverage drastically, move work to low-wage non-union plants (done during the strike) and eliminate about 1,000 jobs.

This latest restructuring of the U.S. auto industry -- GM, Ford and Chrysler cut starting wages in half while eliminating over 80,000 jobs -- results from sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry that has the world's auto billionaires fighting for markets, resources and cheap labor.

AAM supplies GM's pick-up truck and SUV production. Those vehicles typically use about 400 direct suppliers, with hundreds of others selling to those companies.

The strike has forced GM to shut or cut production at 29 plants, involving over 37,000 workers. This has also affected many supplier plants. Magna, Lear and Delphi have laid off 3,140. The strike is also rippling through the railroads and food service providers. These shutdowns and layoffs have added to a 6% rise in weekly unemployment claims last week, one of the highest this year.

The strike has cost GM 100,000 lost vehicles that won't be produced. But due to a weakening economy, soaring gas prices and a big backlog of unsold SUVs and pick-ups, the bosses can stand the lost production.

As the strike drags on, AAM's CEO Richard Dauch's income rose to $10.2 million in 2007; the company reported $37 million in profits. Dauch is one of the auto industry's highest-paid executives, raking in $68 million from 2003-2007. AAM executives are being rewarded for halving the workforce, closing the Buffalo plant and moving production to low-wage plants. The workers, who produce all wealth, will be "rewarded" with wage-cuts and lost jobs.

From Delphi to GM, and Ford to Chrysler, the handwriting is on the wall. The bosses offer a future of poverty, strike-breaking, racist terror and war. But by taking a stand and striking, AAM strikers are leading the way. We support them and hope to win some workers closer to the Party. Having the strikers represented at May Day would be a big step in rebuilding PLP in Detroit.

More Racist Profiling:
`Black While Shopping'

CHICAGO, March 20 -- "No justice, no peace! No racist police!" chanted over 100 demonstrators, catching the attention of shoppers hurrying into Southlake Mall. A few weeks after the winter holidays, high school students, ministers, moms and PLP members were protesting the racist practices of Southlake Mall security, particularly the charging of a young black woman with "criminal trespass" and "disorderly conduct" during that shopping period.

She is an A student at a charter school. All know her as a bright, caring, energetic and strong young lady, active in her church. But mall security saw her only as someone who fit their racist stereotype -- black while shopping in a "white mall."

When she stopped to talk for a bit, security told her to "keep moving." She did, though not understanding why, and continued shopping, stopping at some more stores before finding her nephew. Then the police surrounded her entire group, herding them like cattle, shouting "YOU WERE ALREADY TOLD YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE! YOU'RE GONNA NEED TO COME WITH US NOW!"

One cop grabbed her, charging her with "criminal trespassing," and tried to shove her down a dark isolated hallway. She refused to go anywhere without her mom, requesting they find her. The cops forced her into the hallway but she continued to resist, fearing what might happen to a young girl behind a closed door with an angry racist cop. She was then handcuffed and charged with "disorderly conduct."

Clearly, there was no charge of shoplifting or any real offense. She was accused of "criminal trespassing" for just being black in a "white" mall, shopping and talking. We must fight the continued harassment of our youth.

At the demonstration, after half an hour, security forced the protesters off mall property. Church representatives thanked security, stating they "understood the rules needed to be enforced." (But the only "rules" enforced were the cops' racism.) They then addressed the protesters, saying not to lose faith -- the next fight will be the "right way," implying with the bosses' permission.

Communists know the workers will never win a fight by following the bosses' rules. A Party member quickly reminded the crowd that the bosses will never allow effective protest; we need to struggle by our own rules.

The young lady is awaiting trial and still looking for the people's support. The community has united to support her, but the Party's ideas are needed during this struggle. We must point out, as in every racist attack, that racial division is the bosses' favorite weapon. Racism is alive and well, despite what presidential politicians may say and will be here as long as its cause -- capitalism -- exists.

We must unite as a class. Together we are stronger than the bosses and TOGETHER WE WILL WIN.

Red Flags, PL Youth Draw Acclaim at LA Anti-War March

LOS ANGELES, March 15 -- "Elections will not end imperialist war. Fight for communism!" said the banner in English and Spanish that was carried by PLP students in the anti-war march to mark the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Many marchers took pictures of the banner. A multi-racial and loud PLP contingent of high school and college students and a few teachers marched down the streets of Hollywood. With the red flag raised high they chanted "Democrats, Republicans are one and the same, war and fascism is the name of their game"; "Oaxaca, Baghdad, New Orleans, smash the racist war machine." We distributed over 400 CHALLENGES and 1,500 PLP leaflets.

Before starting the march we made speeches that not only denounced U.S. imperialism but also attacked Democratic candidates, Clinton and Obama and the Republican McCain, showing that none of them would end the war in Iraq. The world powers are in a new "Cold War" where the battle is over the control of oil. The Chinese, Russian, and European imperialists are not only fighting for this control in Iraq but in Africa and South America. All of this in preparation to sustain bigger and wider wars that will ultimately reach world scale. The only solution to end these imperialist wars is to organize a movement of workers, students and soldiers united in revolution against capitalism and fighting for a communist world.

At this time, L.A. is planning to cut back on all the city departments except one: the LAPD. Mayor Villaraigosa has announced that he will add 3,500 cops by 2009. The addition of cops, while cutting jobs, wages, healthcare and education, shows that capitalism has nothing for us except racist attacks, fascism and war.

Many of those that were listening nodded approval. During the day there seemed to be a lot more youth than previous marches. There was a different atmosphere and many eagerly took our leaflets and CHALLENGE. When approaching a group of youth and telling them "this is about revolution," over and over they would answer "thank you very much. Can we ALL get it." We were surprised that even some people carrying Obama signs wanted CHALLENGE with its front page attacking him. Three different groups of high school students gave their names and contact information to the PLP youth, interested in talking to them about starting clubs at their schools to fight racism and imperialism. One of these groups told us, "I like communism."

The youth in our contingent were very excited and committed themselves to organizing for May Day.

We are building for a May Day Dinner, which will not only commemorate the historic day with speeches, poetry, and good food, but also to prepare ideologically and logistically our contingent that will bring PLP's communist politics to the big May Day March sponsored by the immigration rights groups. A PLP May Day presence will help build for a strong summer project to reach out to workers students and soldiers with communist politics in the lead.

Unionists Defy Funeral Mood at NYC Anti-War `Protest'

The March 22 anti-war "River-to-River" protest organized by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) across New York City's14th Street was rather disappointing, reflecting the weaknesses of the anti-war movement. Not only was it was mostly white, but there was no major participation by college youth.

Spanning the distance between avenues requires about 500 people. So for the demonstration to have stretched from river to river would have required at least 6,000 demonstrators. I thought there were maybe half that, obviously much less than 6,000. Many blocks had big gaps with no protestors.

The demonstration was a new low for UFPJ. Besides the poor turnout the entire event was thoroughly depoliticized -- a weak call for "peace," no emphasis on demanding immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. troops (and therefore no criticism of the Democrats who don't support a complete withdrawal), no speakers (just singing, five minutes of silence and taps). The whole thing had -- and was intended to have -- the somber feeling of a funeral.

The best part was the rally at one corner by a union in which PLP members and friends are active. Over 200 people listened to speakers describe the war and occupation in class terms. They called for defeating imperialism, not just "war," and for organizing solidarity events uniting with West Coast longshoremen who are set to strike against the war on May 1. Ten members of one Party-led readers group participated and led militant left-wing chants in our section of the march, in contrast to liberal "give-peace-a-chance" chants of the UFPJ leadership.

NYC Red Anti-War Marcher

Tibet's CIA-Backed Feudal Monks Fight China's Bosses

Recent events in Tibet are more related to geopolitics than religion. With the Olympics looming, protests in Lhasa and elsewhere were organized to embarrass the Beijing rulers. Tsewang Rigzin, head of the major Tibetan group the Tibetan Youth Congress, told the Chicago Tribune (3/15): "With the spotlight on [the Chinese government] with the Olympics, we want to test them....to show their true colors. That's why we're pushing this."

It was an organized violent protest targeting ethnic Chinese Hans and Muslims in Tibet. "Tourists arriving in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, from the closed city of Lhasa...told how they saw angry mobs of Tibetans attacking ethnic Chinese." (London Telegraph, 3/20)

Tibet's economy has actually "grown at more than 12% for seven years and hit 14% last year -- higher even than the national rate." (London Times, 3/23). But this growth is based on capitalism, creating inequalities, favoring a small group of merchants and entrepreneurs, similar to the rest of capitalist China.

Tibet's anti-Chinese forces want more inequality, resurrecting the rule of the Lamas, led by the CIA-financed Dalai Lama (See "The CIA's Secret War in Tibet," 2002, Kansas University Press; by Kenneth Conboy of the Heritage Foundation and James Morrison, Army veteran trainer for the CIA), now exiled in India, and darling of the mysticism-loving Richard Gere and Hollywood crowd. It's a myth that Buddhism, contrary to other religions, is less about theology and more a path towards "inner harmony," ignoring one's egotistical pursuits "for connections with all things and people." The Dalai Lama claims to be non-violent. Not quite.

Tibet under the Lamas was no Shangri-La. It was a violent feudal society where the Lamas ruled and 95% of the population served them as serfs or even slaves. Most worked 16-18 hours a day, forced to give 70% of their crops to their feudal lords (who did not work). Serfs who dared touch anything belonging to their masters suffered lashings.

Women were considered "talking animals." The term kimen (woman) means born inferior. They had to pray to leave this "woman body" and be reborn male. A woman bearing twins was considered evil and generally killed, as were their twins. In Lhasa, children could be bought and sold. In 1950, the infant mortality rate was 43%, life expectancy only 35 years.

Diseases were rampant. The only "cure" was to pray and pay money to the monks. In 1951, 95% of the population was illiterate. Reading and writing were only useful for religious purpose.

For over 200 years, Tibet was considered part of China or a Chinese vassal state. The ruling Lamas always had good relations with Chinese rulers. But when the communist-led revolution liberated China in 1949, conditions changed. The communist movement being very weak in Tibet, there was no major peasant uprising against the Lamas and feudal lords. But Red China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) acted to prevent Tibet from becoming a base for imperialism against liberated China.

In October 1950, the PLA reached the Tibetan plains and easily defeated the feudal Tibetan rulers' army. However, the PLA didn't completely free Tibet, allowing Tibet's rulers to maintain power, but overseen by the new people's central government in Beijing. On October 26, 1951, the PLA marched into Lhasa.

Historically, the PLA mistakingly permitted the feudal lords to remain partially in power, not immediately smashing them completely. Then, when the communists began giving rights to serfs and to liberate women from the extreme oppression of religion and feudalism, the Lamas started organizing a counter-revolution, with CIA assistance. The "non-violent" Dalai Lama allowed the CIA to train anti-Chinese guerrillas to wage war against Beijing.

Today, as the contradictions between rising imperialist China and the U.S. sharpen, the Dalai Lama and his feudal mysticism again become useful to U.S. bosses. Congressional leader Nancy Pelosi visits the Dalai Lama at his Indian headquarters, and many U.S. liberals and conservatives advocate boycotting the Beijing Olympics.

Workers and youth should not back the feudal Tibetan movement, nor should we support China's new imperialist rulers, whose system has brought a different kind of hell to all of China's working class: capitalism.

Angry Workers' Mass Strikes Pose Problem for Greek Rulers

ATHENS, GREECE, March 20 -- Millions participated in a massive general strike on March 19 which shut down this country, protesting Prime Minister Karamanlis' right-wing government's new social security plan, which would eliminate early retirements, merge pension funds and cap auxiliary pensions.

Despite this action, today Parliament passed the pension reform bill, but tens of thousands of workers continued striking, shutting down the Athens subway, the suburban railway and the tram system. TV and radio journalists, engineers, teachers and lawyers, as well as workers at the main power company, and municipal refuse cleaners struck.

It was the third mass strike in three months, called by the Greek Confederation of Workers and the main union of the Public Sector Workers. Huge rallies spread across the country, including two in Athens with over 100,000 participating. The BBC reported that most people in Greece supported the strikers.

Even given the passage of this "reform," the working class' militancy and anger will continue and may very well intensify. This might impel the Greek bosses to try "plan B," bringing the social-democratic PASOK party into a coalition government with Karamanlis' New Democracy party, to try to pacify the workers. And the union leaders actually gave the government breathing room with over a month's "period of peace" between the Feb. 13 strike and this one. Workers must break with all these reformist schemers.

Worldwide capitalism is in a period of profound economic crisis and sharpening imperialist rivalry leading to more and more wars. Greece is not exempt from this. Eventually, the bosses here must try to force workers to pay for the crisis.

The workers must break with all the reformists trying to use their anger and militancy to get elected. The key lesson to be drawn from this struggle is to develop a revolutionary communist leadership to fight all the bosses.

`Socialist' Chavez's Cops Assault Steel Strikers

CARACAS, VENEZUELA, March 19 -- While Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez was making peace and shaking hands with Uribe, Colombia's death-squad President, Chavez's government and cops were making war on 12,000 steel workers in the United Steel Workers Union (SUTISS), on strike against the Ternium Sidor plant in Ciudad Cuayana, in southwest Venezuela. On March 14, 200 National Guard and police agents viciously attacked protesting workers with tear gas and rubber bullets, wounding two and hospitalizing three others. The attackers also smashed 50 strikers' vehicles blocking the road. Fifty strikers were arrested, handcuffed like criminals, while demonstrators chanted "Where is the government's socialism?" Workers have stopped production five times this year.

Sidor is one of Latin America's largest steel-makers, producing 4.8 million tons of liquid steel annually. The Italian-Argentine Techint group owns a 60% controlling share of Sidor; 20% belongs to the Venezuelan state-owned CVG and 20% belongs to the workers. The company claims the strike action has cost more than $50 million.

The strikers not only blame the Sidor bosses and Rangel Gómez, governor of the state of Bolívar (where the plant is located), for ordering the attack, but also the Ministry of Labor in Caracas. The latter has been trying to force the workers to end their year-long struggle for a new contract by accepting a deal favorable to the company. Sidor's final offer is a $20-a-day hike; the workers are demanding $24. Sidor workers are the country's lowest-paid steelworkers.

A March 16 mass mobilization of Sidor workers, relatives of the arrested and workers from other plants freed the 50 arrested strikers. The workers then held a general assembly at the plant's main gate and decided to end their 3-day walkout, but to continue to fight for their demand, using future work stoppages and other actions.

The National Guard attacks, under national government orders, and the pro-company attitude of the Minister of Labor, again exposes the Chávez government's "Bolivarian socialism" -- defending capitalist exploitation of workers. Last year, the government also repressed workers who had seized the Maracay bathroom-parts plant abandoned by its bosses. Potentially all these workers want to end all forms of capitalism.

Chávez talks a lot about "fighting imperialism" (only the U.S. type, while making deals with Chinese, Russian and India's bosses). Meanwhile, his government shakes hands with the U.S.'s main lackey in the region, war-maker Uribe; lets the right-wing CIA-financed "opposition" do whatever it wants; and then attacks class-conscious militant workers to make sure they don't think "Bolivarian socialism" means revolutionary workers' power.

We in PLP support the Sidor workers and all others fighting back. We demand punishment for the Commander of the National Guard and the governor who ordered the attacks, and also of the Ministry of Labor. But we have no illusions this will happen under "Chávez socialism." Workers need to turn their struggles into a school for communism and build the kind of leadership that will unite them with their working-class brothers and sisters in Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina and throughout the continent. That's the only road for real working-class liberation, for communism.

LETTERS LETTER LETTERS

Bosses' Media Covers Up
Colombia's Death Squads

As CHALLENGE (3/26) reported, although an oil war was averted between Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador -- after Colombia's army, with U.S. aid, massacred a FARC guerrilla leader and others in a camp inside Ecuador -- the contradictions behind this crisis remain. Reading the Colombian bosses' media (and lots of U.S media), one would conclude the real culprits are the governments of Venezuela and Ecuador for protecting the FARC group, labeling them narco-guerrillas, kidnappers, common criminals, etc. But all this propaganda is a smokescreen to cover the mass crimes committed by Colombia's rulers, their army and paramilitary death squads. Colombia's President Uribe, lapdog of the U.S. bosses in the region, has increased armed attacks against workers and peasants throughout Colombia. Even the AFL-CIO, which usually supports U.S. foreign policy, declared that just this March death squads have murdered four trade unionists. Forty leaders of mass organizations who led the March 6 mass marches here against the death-squad murders have had their lives threatened, The Uribe government's policies are based on mass terror, rapes of peasant women, turning hundreds of indigenous people into refugees from their lands and giving million-dollar bribes to those perpetrating these murders.

These bosses' media now labeling the FARC terrorists haven't said much about the 30,000 workers and youth killed and the four million displaced from their homes in recent years here. The media has also wondered what four Mexican students and an Ecuadorian worker were doing in the FARC. They just can't understand how many young people and workers worldwide are looking for ways to fight capitalism.

The big criminals are the rulers and their politicians. Some 40 Senators linked to Uribe are under investigation about connections to paramilitary groups, drug gangs and illicit wealth. And of course, Uribe is very good friend with today's number one terrorist, President Bush, as well as with Sarkozy and Zapatero (rulers of France and Spain), whose governments super-exploit and terrorize immigrant workers.

We must fight all the bosses. We in PLP here are uniting workers and youth using DESAFIO, struggling to win them to our communist politics as the only real way to fight capitalism. We aim to destroy the bosses' nationalism and wage slavery, to create a new world without bosses: communism.

A Comrade in Colombia

Students See Through
Sugar-coated History

How should a teacher expose capitalism when openly distributing CHALLENGE in the classroom is not possible? I'm a high school teacher at a large urban school. This year I'm teaching American History, although I am actually a science and math teacher. I decided that one good way to help my students understand what really happened in U.S. history from colonial times to the present would be to: (1) present a class analysis of each aspect of this history, and (2) ask my students to compare my presentation with what they read in their textbook.

Virtually all my students have said many times that the textbook sugar-coats events and that my analyses are much more meaningful than what's in their textbook. This is certainly good, but there are still many contradictions in my students' minds. Their biggest illusion is the incorrect conclusion that voting for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton can lead to meaningful change. To counter this, I asked each student to choose a presidential hopeful and present a summary of that candidate's program to the class. I hoped that after examining what the candidates actually say in print, my students would realize that all of them are making the same empty promises or actually have different programs from what the students thought they had.

It didn't take long for most students to see that both Obama and Clinton are saying/promising the same things with absolutely no specific plan to accomplish their so-called "goals." In one class, a student reporting on Obama said just that: "Gee, that's the same thing Hillary says." This led to a good discussion but it also showed that illusions die hard. A sizeable majority still feel Obama is better than Clinton (and MOST DEFINITELY both better than McCain). Fortunately, most of my students will still be here next year. I'm hopeful they will re-think things as the ruling class prepares for more and larger oil wars.

Pennsylvania Teacher

What's Deadlier in Paraguay?
Yellow Fever or Election Fever?

A yellow fever epidemic has erupted in Paraguay, just before national elections. Both disease and election illusions are deadly products of capitalism. The mosquito may bite workers in Paraguay, but capitalism kills them. It will take a PLP-led workers' revolution to stop the carnage of both!

The government has belatedly declared a "national emergency," but its mass vaccination effort has become chaotic. Hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses have been flown in from Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Peru to forestall an epidemic but they're barely reaching the people. Paraguayan capitalists have worried only about their profits, not about people's health. None of the revenue from Yacyreta and Itaipu, two of the region's largest hydroelectric plants, has been allocated for public health and disease prevention. The bosses here are turning this epidemic into an excuse for mobilizing the police and army to do a house-to-house "elimination of mosquito breeding grounds."

Amid this health crisis, Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte Frutos reported a supposed assassination attempt on his life, while saying he was "immortal." The opposition parties are trying to oust Nicanor's Colorado Party which has ruled for over 60 years. But the "opposition" Liberal Party and Fatherland Party put workers' needs last as well. The "Rosca Mafia" -- the corrupt capitalists exploiting the workers -- are not just Colorado party members. All these bosses' politicians and their parties are accomplices in the destruction and misery in Paraguay.

Some rank-and-file members of PMAS (followers of Chávez's "Bolivarian socialism" here in Paraguay) say they're for the workers. But the solution to health problems, poverty, high bus fares and oppression of indigenous communities won't come from supporting ex-bishop Fernando Lugo and his Liberal Party vice-presidential candidate. Instead, we must organize workers to attack the entire capitalist political apparatus, and point the way for violent revolution against the bosses and towards the building of communism. Workers from Paraguay, whether in that country, in the U.S. or in Spain, should join this fight for a society that eliminates profits, putting workers first.

Red Guaraní

The Real Prostitutes

Reporters asked Lt. Governor David Paterson, who replaced Eliot Spitzer as NY Governor, if he ever had relations with a prostitute. Paterson quipped, "Only with lobbyists," and got a big laugh from the audience. But it is lobbyists representing big business and the war industries who are paying billions to politicians for their "services." So who are the prostitutes? Like Karl Marx said, capitalism stands reality on its head.

Diogenes

Rulers `Turn Around' Schools
by Closing Them

In January, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Arne Duncan announced that 11 schools would be closed and 8 would be classified as "turnaround schools." The eight schools are all in black neighborhoods with average incomes below $23,000 a year. The 11 are schools with low enrollment and closing them will slash $100 million from the school system next year.

Duncan piously talks about the "moral obligation to do something for these children" but if the children were the system's main concern CPS would lower class sizes in the primary grades instead of closing and reorganizing schools. The truth is working-class black and Latino communities have never been served by the school system, nor can they be. We live under capitalism, inseparable from racism, where the wealthy few feed off the low-paid many. The system cannot allow everyone to become college-educated because who would work in the factories, collect the trash, or deliver the mail?

Capitalism must educate the majority to learn just enough to work the machines or read manuals but not enough to qualify them for higher paid jobs. The bosses purposely miseducate the majority and then blame students, parents, and teachers for the system's failures.

The eight "turnaround" schools will fire all their 200 teachers and all but one principal. Although there is absolutely no evidence that such a drastic measure will make the schools better (one study of such "turnaround" couldn't find any successful examples), CPS insists on carrying out the current "flavor of the month." Just five years ago, one of the turnaround schools, Orr, was divided into three small schools as part of that year's reformation plan. Now they will be recombined back into one school. The eight turnaround schools will be run by the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL), founded by venture capitalist Martin J. Koldyke. Bill and Melinda Gates have given AUSL an additional $10.3 million to help with the turnarounds.

Most CPS schools have at least the contractual limit of 29 students per classroom in grades K-3 and many classes are way over even this large number. The Tennessee class size study, which is well known by educators, proved conclusively that class sizes of 13 to 17 students in the lower grades led to increased academic performance, which continued through high school, particularly for black children. CPS is only interested in providing black children with a good education to the extent that doing so coincides with preparing them for the military, industry, or prison.

The Teacher's Union is doing virtually nothing to stop the firing of teachers, the direct takeover of schools by venture capitalists, or the overcrowded classrooms and school closings. As long as the union is led by pro-capitalist ideology, this will be the case. The Progressive Labor Party is taking the fight against the racist closing into the union and schools. Our goal now is to raise class consciousness and build a multi-racial communist movement that unites students, parents, and teachers to fight against the racist bosses and their system. When communist revolution destroys the profit system once and for all, then poverty and racism will be eliminated and education will maximize all children's potential, allowing them to contribute fully to the making of a better world.

Chicago Comrades

REDEYE

Obama rejects anti-imperialism

On Friday, Mr. Obama called a grab bag of statements by his longtime minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., "inflammatory and appalling."

"I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue," he wrote...

One of the statements that have been most replayed this week comes from the sermon Mr. Wright delivered following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards," he said. "America's chickens are coming home to roost."

...Before it got "holier than thou," he said, the nation should have considered how its own policies had led to the events of that day." (NYT, 3/15)

Better life, if market didn't rule

...These days, even Bill Gates says capitalism's work is "unsatisfactory" for one-third of humanity. [This book,] Predictably Irrational...tells us than "life with fewer market norms and more social norms would be more satisfying, creative, fulfilling and fun."

"Predictably Irrational" is a far more revolutionary book than its unthreatening manner lets on. It's a concise summary of why today's social science increasingly treats the markets-know-best model as a fairy tale. (NYT, 3/16)

Army sees more, longer Iraqs

This week, the Army released a new version of FM 3-0, the Army Field Manual on Operations. It offers what the Army...calls "a revolutionary departure from past doctrine." For more than 200 years, the Army has had two "core missions": offense and defense. FM 3-0 adds a third: "stability operations," better (if more controversially), known to the public as nation building.

But here's the rub. Successful stability operations take a lot of time.

Maybe not McCain's 100 years, but if the United States is serious about seeing stability operations as part of the Army's core mission, we'll need a larger Army, and we'll be looking at extended deployments in trouble spots around the globe. You can defeat an enemy army in a month, but truly "stabilizing" a society is something that will happen -- if it happens -- over 10 or 20 years, not 10 or 20 weeks. (LAT, 3/1)

Law leads schools to dump kids

Most troublesome to some experts was the way the No Child law's mandate to bring students to proficiency on tests, coupled with its lack of a requirement that they graduate, created a perverse incentive to push students to drop out. If low-achieving students leave school early, a school's performance can rise.

...Experts say they believe many low-scoring students are prodded to leave school, often by school officials urging them to seek an equivalency certificate known as a General Educational Development diploma.

"They get them out so they don't have them taking those tests..."( NYT, 3/20)

Prison profiteers love long
lock-ups

To the editor: ... Tough sentences but 1% of U.S. adults in jail... [T]he prison population works, for minimum wage or way less, without benefits or capacity to strike, for many prominent corporations. Even maquiladora operations have transferred their operations in order to use prison labour, and we read of state officials lobbying corporations to repatriate manufacturing from third-world nations so as to benefit from the local "competitive labour scene".

The inherent logic of this situation provides for a major profit incentive to lock people up for long periods for trivial offences: they provide a major source of private profit..." (GW)

The Battle That Helped Crush South Africa's Apartheid

Part VII of Africa Series

On March 25, the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, was celebrated in Cuba by Raúl Castro and government representatives from Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Although the battle is mired in propaganda over whether the South African apartheid army really lost or the Cuban Army-led forces won, it marked the beginning of the end of the hated South African apartheid regime and the myth of its army's invincibility in Southern Africa.

It has been called "Africa's largest land battle since World War II," occurring amid the Cold War between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. A brutal, bloody civil war gripped oil-rich Angola after it won independence from Portugal in 1975. Angola's MPLA government was pro-Soviet. So the CIA, the apartheid South African regime, Congo's corrupt dictator Mobutu and Israel armed, financed and trained UNITA, a guerrilla movement that had also fought Portugal's colonial army. UNITA and its backers outgunned the MPLA, so the latter sought aid from Cuba, which sent thousands of soldiers to fight alongside the MPLA. The South African army also wanted UNITA to control Angola's southern border to stop the liberation movement (SWAPO) fighting for Namibian independence from South African control.

The border war's final battle occurred in the city of Cuito Cuanavale, in early 1988. It involved hundreds of tanks, artillery, planes and 50,000 Cuban-army-led soldiers against the UNITA-South African army attempt to capture the city. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. The apartheid regime claimed it wasn't defeated.

But as von Clausewitz said, "war is the continuation of politics by other means." That battle crushed the myth of invincibility of the racist apartheid regime and its army. Several years later, apartheid was dismantled in South Africa.

Unfortunately, this defeat of the hated apartheid regime didn't include a revolutionary struggle against the root of racism: capitalism. Today, the rulers of South Africa, Angola and Namibia (all former leaders of those liberation movements) are in bed with capitalism and imperialism. Cuba looks to be turning towards the "China" road of free-market capitalism. And a new imperialist battle for Africa's oil and other vital resources is developing, now between the U.S. and Chinese imperialists. A luta continua (the struggle continues).

Russian Rulers' Rebound Rivals U.S. Imperialist Supremacy

After the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the U.S. bosses were euphoric believing their hegemony would last well into the 21st century. But this was wishful thinking. As an article published in The New York Times Magazine (Waving Goodbye to Hegemony, 1/26/08) points out, "At best, America's unipolar moment lasted through the 1990s.... So now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing -- and losing -- in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world's other superpowers: the European Union and China."

U.S. imperialists face three strategic challenges: 1) The rise of China as the factory of the world and the eventual shifting of the world's financial center to the East; (2) the rise of Russia as the world's main energy distributor; and (3) the emergence of the euro as a credible challenger to the dollar's economic dominance. Each of these by itself has the potential to fatally wound the U.S. bosses' dream of projecting their world domination well into this century.

But, the article accepts that, "Despite the `mirage of immortality' that afflicts global empires, the only reliable rule of history is its cycles of imperial rise and decline, and as [British historian] Arnold Toynbee also pithily noted, the only direction to go from the apogee of power is down."

Nevertheless, the article pushes the idea that the fall of U.S. imperialism can be peaceful, stating that the high cost of maintaining U. S. hegemony "...isn't worth it, and history promises the effort will fail. It already has." Furthermore, it and another article by John Ikenberry's in the current Foreign Affairs Magazine adds that 21st century's geopolitics will be mainly defined by the U.S,, China and the European Union working together.

This picture is reinforced by omitting Russia's rise as a major owner-distributor of energy worldwide, playing a pivotal role in Central Asia, the Caucuses and the EU, as well as forging a growing energy and military alliance with China, Iran and Venezuela and extending its influence to Japan, South Korea, the Middle East and Africa.

Although, the Times article claims that Russia is "nothing but Gazprom INC," a nuclear-armed Russia controlling vast energy resources is nothing to sneer at. In fact, it pits Russia against the U.S. bosses' efforts to prolong their world hegemony by perpetuating their control of the oil-rich Middle East.

This collision will eventually explode in global war, which is rapidly unfolding with the intensification of the U.S.-Russian battle over control of energy resources and pipelines in Central Asia, the Caucuses and Eastern Europe. A battle with many ups and downs, but one that Russia has been wining.

Make no mistake; the peace of capitalism is that of the cemetery. Since World War 2, tens of millions have been butchered in imperialist-caused wars (Korea, Vietnam, Central America, the Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia, etc.) Our duty and our strength is to win the working class to understand the criminal nature of capitalism's competition for maximum profits that makes imperialist wars inevitable and to prepare it for the long-range struggle to smash the bosses' dictatorship with communist revolution. For this our Party must be steeled to work under any and all conditions, build a mass base for our line and recruit massively among all sectors of the working class -- especially among industrial workers and soldiers. We face this task with revolutionary optimism based on historical facts: workers in Russia and China led by communists took power during the previous two World Wars.

 

a href="#Mis-leading Workers and Youth: Obama Spurs Rulers’ War Agenda">"is-leading Workers and Youth: Obama Spurs Rulers’ War Agenda

• For Liberal Imperialists: Obama Best Asset In 50 Years
• Harvard Prof Backing Obama Gives Thanks For 9/11 Slaughter
• ‘Barracks’ Obama Fires Aide Who Leaked War Plans
• Obama’s Phony ‘Anti-War’ Roots

Spitzer Falls; Some Rejoice but Empire Will Strike Back

Vets Must See Imperialism Can Only Bring War

The Origin of Winter Soldier

Capitalism Kills: 72,000 Gi Casualties; Million Iraqi Deaths

a href="#Teachers’ Strike On Hold, Fight ‘Rat’ Rivera">Teac"ers’ Strike On Hold, Fight ‘Rat’ Rivera

a href="#CUNY Faculty Union Supports Puerto Rico’s Strikers">"UNY Faculty Union Supports Puerto Rico’s Strikers

a href="#‘Need Bloodshed to Bring Changes’">‘N"ed Bloodshed to Bring Changes’

a href="#Deal Averts South American Oil War….For Now">"eal Averts South American Oil War….For Now

Africa Series Part VI: Rich Become Billionaires, Workers Rebel for Food

a href="#Ron Paul: Appearance, ‘Revolution’; Essence, Fascism">Ro" Paul: Appearance, ‘Revolution’; Essence, Fascism

Axle Strikers Battle 50% Pay-Cut, Slash GM Production

a href="#Capitalism’s Twin Crises Flatten Wages, Jobs">"apitalism’s Twin Crises Flatten Wages, Jobs

Racist Super-Exploitation Behind Air Force War Tanker Deal

a href="#Class War Answer to Bosses’ Flag-waving">"lass War Answer to Bosses’ Flag-waving

Pro-War AFL-CIA Steel Hacks Serve Racist Bosses

a href="#Campus PL’ers Expose Racist Cuts, Link to War, Prison System">"ampus PL’ers Expose Racist Cuts, Link to War, Prison System

a href="#There will be bloodied capitalists….">"here will be bloodied capitalists….

a href="#Sorry We Can’t Spit on Fraser’s Grave">So"ry We Can’t Spit on Fraser’s Grave

LETTERS

Challenging Anti-Immigrant Ordinances

No Matter Who Wins El Salvador Elections,Workers Lose

Attacks Federal Bureau of Intimidation

REDEYE on the NEWS

• Crisis = US imperialism’s decline
• The ‘we’ pundits cite ain’t us
• Immigrant crime rate very low
• Poverty can poison brain-power
• Iraqi women’s lives worse now

---

a name="Mis-leading Workers and Youth: Obama Spurs Rulers’ War Agenda">">"is-leading Workers and Youth: Obama Spurs Rulers’ War Agenda

Swelling support for Barack Obama is a two-sided phenomenon. On one hand, it reflects the sincere but misdirected anti-war, anti-racist aspirations of millions of people. On the other, it marks a concerted ruling-class effort to win these millions to the electoral system and thus to implicitly back U.S. imperialism. Communists should work among these masses to turn this around.

So whom does Obama serve, and what’s his agenda? A big hint comes from arch-imperialist Paul Volcker’s recent endorsement of Obama. Chief economist at Chase bank, director of the Rockefeller-led Trilateral Commission, Federal Reserve chairman who put millions out of work by jacking up interest rates to 20% to bail out bankers in the 1980s, Volcker hopes Obama’s "leadership...can restore confidence in our vision, our strength, and our purposes right around the world." (Wall Street Journal, 1/31/08)

For Liberal Imperialists: Obama Best Asset In 50 Years

Volcker exemplifies U.S. rulers who — facing inevitable clashes with regional rivals like Iran and global ones like China and Russia — need to mobilize and militarize millions of people. Obama, with his broad appeal to young students and workers, is giving the war-makers invaluable help. Robert Putnam, from Harvard’s Kennedy School, a top imperialist policy factory, writes, "Primaries and caucuses...in the last two months have evinced the sharpest increase in civic engagement among American youth in at least a half-century, portending a remarkable revitalization of American democracy." (Boston Globe, 3/2/08) He could have said more honestly, "of the U.S. war machine."

Crediting, both the "extraordinary" Obama campaign and 9/11 for the upturn, Putnam calls the new crop of voters a second "Greatest Generation." He likens them to the tens of millions who, whether enlisted or drafted, fought fascism in World War II. The capitalists Putnam represents (the Ford, Getty, Carnegie, and Rockefeller foundations bankroll his "civic engagement" program at Harvard) hope voting will boost patriotism and, ultimately, troop strength.

Harvard Prof Backing Obama Gives Thanks For 9/11 Slaughter

Near the end of, and after, the Vietnam War, the rulers tried several tactics to control youth. They dropped the voting age to 18 in 1972. Some bought it. That year 52% of 18- to 24-year-olds voted, while millions received a steady diet of drugs and other aspects of a dead-end "do-your-own-thing" culture. In fact, with war out of the way temporarily, youth apathy pleased the bosses. Youth rates of voting in presidential elections fell steadily throughout the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, reaching barely 36% in 2000. But by then China had emerged, and Russia reemerged, as serious U.S. foes. U.S. bosses now needed major sources of cannon fodder.

As Putnam notes, "Then came the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001... a tragedy, but also the sort of opportunity for civic revival that comes along once or twice a century.... In the 2004 and 2006 elections, turnout among young people began at last to climb after decades of decline." Like the rulers’ pre-9/11 Hart-Rudman Commission reports, Putnam welcomes terrorist mass murder as an aid in "galvanizing" the U.S. for global war. But, as motivators, 9/11s and Pearl Harbors, however useful, wane over time. They must be sustained by a Roosevelt-style, media-fueled charisma that mis-leads workers into voting booths, against their class interest.

‘Barracks’ Obama Fires Aide Who Leaked War Plans

Putnam’s — and U.S. imperialism’s — reputed savior, Obama has a long history of luring people of military age into the system. His "Project Vote" in Chicago in the 1990s registered over 100,000 young first-time voters. Obama, who promises to add 92,000 soldiers to the Army immediately, has participated in the Seminar on Civic Engagement that Putnam leads at Harvard.

Pretending to be the "Out-of-Iraq" peace candidate, Obama supports the war agenda just as much as Clinton and McCain do. He recently fired a foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, for letting that cat out of the bag. (Power, another Kennedy School guru, specializes in disguising military invasions as "humanitarian interventions.") On March 6, a BBC reporter asked her: "So what the American public thinks is a commitment to get combat forces out in 16 months isn’t a commitment?" Power’s answer: "You can’t make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009."

Yes, Obama’s voting numbers present us an opportunity because they show that young people are now less cynical and more open to "talking politics." But just what politics is crucial. The highly politicized Hitler Youth weren’t cynical. Many earnestly hoped for the better world Nazi imperialism claimed to offer. And Hitler, after all, professing "socialism," was able to rally many well-meaning people seeking change to support German industrialists’ deadly schemes for territorial expansion.

Unless we actively participate in Obama’s campaign and expose his true purposes, any Obama success at the polls will prove deadly to the working class. The fatally deceptive optimism he sells masks imperialist objectives that are the exact opposite of PLP’s working-class program. Our long-term goals are waging a revolution to destroy the profit system and its endless wars and making a communist-led working class the rulers of society.

Obama’s Phony ‘Anti-War’ Roots

Obama mirrors both the rulers’ phony anti-war candidates McCarthy (1968) and McGovern (1972) as well as that era’s pro-capitalist, pacifist civil rights misleaders. McCarthy drew thousands of youth into his "anti-Vietnam War" campaign and actually forced the rulers to dump incumbent Lyndon Johnson. But the war went on. In 1972, McGovern again brought thousands of young people around his "anti-war" candidacy, but that effort didn’t end the war either.

When masses were in motion then, demanding change, PLP exposed the imperialist political content of those movements. Politics are primary.

Spitzer Falls; Some Rejoice but Empire Will Strike Back

NEW YORK, March 11 —The fiasco that cost New York governor Eliot Spitzer his job has far more to do with politics than prostitution. Decadent behavior is rampant and rarely punished within the exploiting class. What really fuels the scandal is bitter infighting over the direction of U.S. capitalism during a period of widening imperialist war. Spitzer represented the dominant faction of U.S. rulers seeking to subordinate the economy to their war needs. His task was to impose police-state discipline on Wall Street by reining in speculative investment and exorbitant salaries and steering policy and profits in the direction U.S. imperialism required.

Up until now, Spitzer was doing an effective, if heavy-handed, job for the bosses. As state attorney-general and governor he brought down insurance giant AIG, which was too cozy with China’s bosses. He hammered Wall Street’s biggest firms with fines totaling over $1 billion for shady deals, like Enron, that drained capital from the war effort.

Details will emerge later. But it seems clear that the faction of capitalists opposed to regulation has scored a big hit in attacking Spitzer. The anti-regulation New York Post today spoke of corks popping on Wall Street. The liberal New York Times, however, lamented the loss of a leader for the "reformist agenda." The fight is hardly over. The forces backing empire must and will strike back. The beneficiaries of U.S. control of Mid-East oil have far more at stake than the individual capitalists’ mansions and fancy cars. We can expect blood to follow the champagne flowing down the gutters of Wall Street.

Vets Must See Imperialism Can Only Bring War

The Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) are holding a Winter Soldier’s Conference, presenting vets’ and Iraqi and Afghan workers’ testimony of U.S. imperialism’s war atrocities. It is modeled after testimony of U.S. war crimes in Vietnam presented by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in 1971. ("Winter Soldier" is drawn from the mutiny of "poorly-clothed, badly-fed, and worse-paid" soldiers, many re-deployed, at Valley Forge in the winter of 1776. They demanded and won full pardon, money, food and supplies and discharges for the re-deployed.)

While many activists want to re-invigorate the U.S. anti-war movement, some IVAW leaders want to use Winter Soldier — stressing voting, lobbying and direct action — to pressure politicians "to think twice" about launching "unjust" wars. But Vietnam vets’ testimony in 1971 couldn’t prevent virtually non-stop wars afterwards, in Latin America, Africa, the Mid-East and Europe. U.S. rulers spent billions to wage proxy and direct wars to compete with Soviet, European and Asian rivals.

Blaming "bad policy" and politicians just paves a path for wider wars. Fighting imperialism requires attacking its root — capitalism — with its violent competition amongst the bosses driving to maximize power and profits. Eventually ending such wars requires building a mass international communist party and a red army to smash the bosses’ state power with workers’ power — a world without profits.

During World War I, the Russian communist Bolsheviks organized soldiers on the frontlines and led workers, students and soldiers to turn imperialist war into class war. Instead of "pressuring" the Russian rulers to stop fighting, the Bolsheviks organized millions, including soldiers on the front lines, to throw out the imperialist war-makers and build a workers’ state. Organizing working-class troops into a red army is crucial to ultimately smashing the imperialist warmakers.

Winter Soldier has the potential to encourage anti-war organizing amongst troops. IVAW’s leader has called on soldiers to withdraw their support for the Iraq war. But much more is needed. PLP says we must fight to destroy the cause of these endless imperialist wars: that means organizing for communism.

In Vietnam, troops participated in mass protests, mutinied and "fragged" (killed) their officers in opposing the war and racism. Now, 35 years later, comes another Winter Soldier testimony to hold the rulers "accountable" again! Organizing conscientious objectors, refusing missions and counter-recruitment actions can be useful, but which class’s politics are in command — the workers’ or the bosses’ — is primary.

To "save GIs’ lives," U.S. officers in Iraq lead "search and avoid" missions to minimize risking U.S. troops’ lives while patrolling — but instead favor leveling whole cities and everyone in them! Opposing the war only because it’s "dangerous for troops" is a racist and sexist attack on Iraqi workers and encourages genocide. Iraqi women and children are disproportionately killed by air strikes; military-age Iraqi males are targeted for detention and execution.

Today, some U.S. soldiers, influenced by communist politics, are leading fight-backs against the command’s orders, but also struggle to win fellow troops to the need for communist revolution, anti-racism and anti-sexism. Troops may resist war, but unless their resistance is part of the struggle for communism the bosses will use their grip on state power to reverse any gains we may achieve.

"Patriotic concern for the troops" still leaves us under imperialist leadership. Winter Soldier’s panel on how the occupation of Iraq "hurts the military" echoes the complaints of one faction of the U.S. ruling class. U.S. generals and Democrats complain of a "broken force," worrying about keeping the military ready for other, larger, future wars. Some veterans and troops are upset about multiple rotations into combat and call for "sharing the burden" among the U.S. population, a position Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both support, with calls for "national service" and increased troop numbers.

These liberal Democrats are preparing for wider wars. Their job is to defend the U.S. ruling class against workers and rival bosses. Both Obama and Clinton support the Democrat Carter Doctrine: using military force to guarantee U.S. access to, control of, and profit from Persian Gulf oil. Obama says he’s "open" to keeping troops in Iraq for years, if necessary. While the NY Times reports the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan is "alarmingly high,"

Obama promises to redeploy more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. The recently-announced increase in U.S. covert operations in Pakistan will continue, no matter who’s president.

Liberal U.S. anti-war leaders want us to believe that the problem is just Bush, the neo-cons and McCain. With "democracy" and the Constitution, people can vote, lobby or "protest their way to peace." PLP will work in Winter Soldier to expose the ruthlessness of capitalism.

As U.S. rulers contemplate their self-described "long war," PLP is organizing troops, vets and military families for the long struggle for communism. Our class needs more fight-backs that build anti-racist, anti-sexist and international working-class unity to smash the bosses’ dictatorship, not patriotic peace movements for a "more humane" capitalist/imperialist-run country. Fight for communism!

The Origin of Winter Soldier

Veteran proponents of the Winter Soldier Investigation see themselves as the soldiers who fought in Valley Forge during the winter of 1776. Tom Paine wrote that "the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country." In other words, the winter soldier is the true patriot. But behind patriotic myth lies a history of class struggle.

On January 1, 1781, over half of the 2,500-strong Pennsylvania Line mutinied. After five years of war with no end in sight, these "poorly-clothed, badly-fed and worse-paid soldiers" demanded a year’s back pay and supplies to endure another winter’s fighting. Many demanded release from duty because involuntary "re-deployment" exceeded their original three-year enlistment contracts.

While officers gathered for "an elegant regimental dinner," the troops mutinied and marched to Princeton to address Congress. The latter granted a full pardon, money, food and supplies to the troops (who they called "insurgents"), along with discharges to those "involuntarily extended."

Two weeks later, 200 soldiers mutinied at Pompton, N.J., with similar demands. But now Washington sent troops with orders to "compel the mutineers’…unconditional submission and [to] execute on the spot…the principal incendiaries." Two mutiny leaders were shot by a firing squad.

We should learn from these soldiers and fight for our class, not "our" bosses.

Capitalism Kills: 72,000 Gi Casualties; Million Iraqi Deaths

The GI casualty figure is the latest lie uncovered about the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon reports the number of wounded somewhere in the teens (including nearly 4,000 dead in Iraq). But Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) says the Defense Department only releases one category of battlefield casualty, those "wounded in action" by a bullet, shrapnel or knife.

"A GI who cracks his head on the windshield of his Humvee in a crash, though he may have suffered brain damage and had to be evacuated…is considered ‘injured,’ not ‘wounded,’" says VCS head Paul Sullivan, a Gulf War I vet. Government figures released to the media don’t include such casualties. Sullivan’s Freedom of Information Act request revealed that through January 5, 2008, U.S. battlefield casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan totaled 72,000.

A GI suffering a heart attack or severe emotional collapse is considered "ill," not "wounded," never entering the official casualty count.

Sullivan, a former Veterans Administration (VA) project manager, blew the whistle on inadequate vets’ health care long before the Washington Post "broke" the story. The VCS reports that "VA hospitals and clinics have already treated 263,909 ‘unplanned’ patients" and 245,034 "unanticipated" disability claims from veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Sullivan expects an eventual 700,000 patient claims.

Meanwhile, a leading British polling group, the Opinion Research Business, recently reported 1.03 million Iraqi deaths. (Reuters, 1/30/08) That figure omits three of Iraq’s 18 provinces, two of which are among the country’s most volatile, Kerbala and Anbar. But U.S. rulers completely ignore Iraqi deaths.

Such is the destruction of human lives wrought by U.S. imperialism in its drive to control oil supplies and other resources and maintain profits, battling its capitalist rivals.

a name="Teachers’ Strike On Hold, Fight ‘Rat’ Rivera"></a>"eachers’ Strike On Hold, Fight ‘Rat’ Rivera

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO, March 5 — After a 10-day militant strike, 10,000 teachers held a mass meeting at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum and agreed to the proposal of Rafael Feliciano, president of the FMPR (Federation of Teachers of Puerto Rico) for a temporary suspension of the strike in order to evaluate the weaknesses and strengths of their struggle without surrendering the right to strike again.

The strike included many mass actions, street marches of thousands, militant picket lines, battling vicious attacks by riot cops and confronting the gang-up of the Dept. of Education (DOE) bosses, governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá and a court order to decertify the union for violating the anti-strike Law 45.

The strikers also had to deal with backstabbing by international union hacks like Dennis Rivera, vice-president of the SEIU "Change to Win" Federation and former president of NYS Local 1199 of the Hospital Workers Union. He lunched with Governor Vilá to urge decertification of the FMPR in favor of an SEIU union. During a mass rally, when a speaker called Rivera a "vulture," striking teachers repeatedly chanted, "He’s a rat."

The strikers did win a $150-a-month wage hike on top of a $100 monthly increase agreed upon last year. While the cost of living here is much higher than in the U.S., teachers’ starting pay here is $19,200-a-year, much lower than any U.S. school district. The DOE agreed not to punish any striking teachers "except those involved in criminal activities" (it was the cops who criminally attacked strikers) and to put on hold the privatization of many public schools (the DOE’s plan to make the 500,000 public school students and their working-class parents pay even more for the rotten conditions).

The strikers received support from other workers and students here, many of whom joined the marches and other activities during the struggle. A mass student meeting at the Univ. of Puerto Rico Río Piedras campus organized a 24-hour strike to support the teachers. Scabbing "dissidents" had little mass support among the teachers but got a lot of coverage in the bosses’ media. And the opportunist leadership of the National Hostos Independence Movement issued a press release backing the bosses.

In the U.S., the strikers won support from both college and public school teachers. (See adjacent article on support from the City University of NY Professional Staff Congress union). The March 5 Delegate Assembly of the NYC United Federation of Teachers (UFT), with 92,000 members, also unanimously passed a solidarity resolution "to support the Puerto Rican teachers in their struggle to be treated with dignity." But the UFT leadership gave no real support to the strikers.

On March 4, the Puerto Rican Federal Affairs Agency in Manhattan was picketed, backing the strikers. PLP teachers participated in these support actions, and distributed a PLP leaflet in NYC and L.A. supporting them.

The strike was more than a trade union struggle; it was a political fight-back against the rulers’ strike-breaking Law 45 (similar to the U.S. Taft-Hartley and NY State Taylor Laws which forbid public workers’ strikes). It also fought the colonial-master politics of the Change to Win and AFL-CIO hacks, as well as the brutal repression by the "shock police."

The strike demonstrated that, despite all the odds, these teachers dared to fight back in a day and age when so many workers accept the bosses’ attacks that make us pay for their economic crisis and endless wars (the death rate of soldiers from Puerto Rico in the Iraq war is very high). But it also showed the limitations of reform struggles.

Workers must turn these battles into schools for communism, learning how to forge a revolutionary internationalist movement to carry on the long-range fight-back for a world without vicious cops, union traitors and capitalist-imperialist oppressors. That’s the goal of workers’ power — communism — that PLP fights for. Join us!

a name="CUNY Faculty Union Supports Puerto Rico’s Strikers">">"UNY Faculty Union Supports Puerto Rico’s Strikers

NEW YORK CITY, March 6 — The February 25 Delegate Assembly of the City University’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC) voted unanimously to "participate in strike support and solidarity efforts on behalf of the striking teachers of the FMPR [Puerto Rico’s teachers’ union]." Delegates contributed $700 on the spot, and quickly organized a network for strike support on the campuses. Fifty PSC’ers took 7,000 flyers and petitions to union colleagues and students on at least half of CUNY’s 20 campuses. Another $900 was raised by PSC leaders at a board meeting of the state teachers’ union body.

Class unity across borders is essential for teachers and all workers, so PL members and friends in the PSC took the lead organizing strike support on the campuses. Exclusive focus on economic gains for a single union’s members is a loser for all workers because it isolates us from each other. We need to combine struggle for our own demands with equal efforts to build international working-class unity and class consciousness, to win workers to PLP.

This struggle will remain a significant political one among PSC leaders and activists for some time. While all are sympathetic to the striking teachers, there is disagreement about priorities: amid a tough PSC contract campaign and an uphill battle for more State funding, should we spend time and resources on FMPR strike support?

PLP members and friends and other PSC’ers answered that question with a mass approach, working hard on the campuses to persuade our colleagues and students how vital it is to support our fellow teachers in a bitter struggle. We were not deterred by comments like, "I wish you’d spend this kind of energy on the contract campaign!" Some were anxious about relations with other unions "if we got too far out front" supporting the FMPR, which disaffiliated from our national union, and is being raided by SEIU VP Dennis Rivera. But we persisted, getting a warm response from CUNY students, especially those entering teaching and those from Latin America.

One cafeteria worker urged others to sign the petition, exclaiming, "This is to liberate my people!" And all workers, we told him. One signer was a union chapter leader in his high school.

We used different tactics: tabling, roving the cafeteria, faculty distributing flyers to their classes, getting signatures and donations in department meetings. We proved that relying on the masses of PSC’ers and students to express their international solidarity with the strikers was the way for revolutionaries to work in reform struggles, not as some sectarian groups do, saying some apparently "correct" things but building no base among the mass of workers.

Self-critically, comrades in the PSC know we must intensify our efforts amid these kinds of struggles to build the Party itself at CUNY. The Party is the essential weapon to win, not reform demands to be reversed by capitalists’ state power, but win all workers’ liberation — communism.

We’ve recently had two CUNY PLP forums, one on racism and another on immigration, each attracting 30 or more faculty and students. We’ve also expanded CHALLENGE readership and study groups, have collected $800 worth of new subscriptions. We’re planning a Party newsletter at CUNY, and winning some friends closer to joining, but we have more to do. Time presses: the whole world is a tinder box leading to a major imperialist war. Teachers in Oaxaca and Puerto Rico have taught us a good lesson in fighting capitalism: "¡Lucha sí! ¡Entrega no!" Struggle yes, surrender no! J

a name="‘Need Bloodshed to Bring Changes’"></">‘N"ed Bloodshed to Bring Changes’

CHICAGO, IL February 29 ––"Why are all these people clapping? This isn’t a victory! It’s an assassination of the working class. It’s going to take bloodshed to get the kind of changes we need!" That’s what a black worker with 30 years at the County hospital said about the new funding "compromise" reached by the Cook County Board of Commissioners. They agreed to raise the sales tax in return of giving up control of the Bureau of Health services to an "independent," more professional Board of Directors.

The applause she was referring was coming from the SEIU, AFSCME and NNOC (Nursing) union leaders, and the Medical Staff (doctors), who fell in line behind the racist budget cutters Stroger and Simon, and claim to have saved the County healthcare system! The County hasn’t been "saved." It is more than half-closed. All the school-based clinics are closed, Provident is downsized and Oak Forest decimated. Patients wait in the ER for more than 24 hours for a bed on the overcrowded wards while inpatient beds are closed because the bosses cut more than 2,000 jobs. The Stroger pharmacy is down to one shift, patients aren’t getting discharge medications, and poor mostly black and Latin women wait months to get urgently needed tests after abnormal Pap smears.

Patient visits dropped by more than 100,000 after last years’ cuts, and there are more than 1.2 million uninsured in Cook County. The County patient population is 82% black and Latin. Like home foreclosures, lay-offs, rotten schools and overcrowded jails, black, Latin and immigrant workers are taking the bulk of these racist health care cuts. The $2 billion-a-week war economy is balanced on the backs of the poorest, most vulnerable populations.

And all the talk about a "more professional Board" running the County "more efficiently" is the new language of fascist healthcare. We should find no satisfaction that the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, the Chicago Federation of Labor or liberals from the Health and Medicine Research Group are going to be governing the Health Bureau. The only reform coming our way is increasing and expanding wars, racism and fascist terror.

The "independent governing board" was called for by the Northwestern University report issued about three years ago. The authors reflected the dominant ruling class outlook and included Michelle Obama, who pulls in $300,000 sitting on the Board of University of Chicago Hospitals. Cook County workers and patients are about to get perhaps a taste of what Obama’s healthcare plan really is.

We can’t reform the racist profit system. We need communist revolution to, as the worker said, get what we need! No interim governing board of bosses and union hacks, or Democratic Party candidates can bring about that kind of "change." PLP has been the only force exposing this "compromise" charade, moving some workers into action and standing up to the bosses and union hacks. CHALLENGE is reaching a few more eager hands and we are gearing up to bring workers and patients to May Day.

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A March 7 Latin-American presidential summit meeting temporarily settled the crisis caused by Colombia’s bombing and subsequent murder by Colombian commandos of Raúl Reyes, a leader of the Colombian FARC guerrilla movement, and others, sleeping inside Ecuador territory. The Presidents of Venezuela (Chávez), Colombia (Uribe) and Ecuador (Correa) shook hands on a deal which Uribe was forced to make (for now) because his attack isolated his government in Latin America (only Bush, McCain, Obama and Hillary Clinton supported this aggression). But the deal didn’t solve the contradictions bringing the three countries to the verge of regional war.

The $5 billion in U.S. aid under Plan Colombia/Patriot (begun under Clinton and continued by Bush) has armed Uribe and the Colombian Army to the teeth. It’s now second to Brazil as the most powerful military in South America. Hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. and Israeli military and intelligence advisors, and private Pentagon mercenaries, are involved. U.S. electronic snooping operating from three bases inside Colombia guided the murder of the FARC guerrillas.

Uribe has become the U.S. rulers’ main ally in the region. While U.S. aid was supposed to fight the drug cartels, Colombia has basically become a narco-death squad state. Dozens from Uribe’s own party are either accused of, or in jail for, their link to the drug-dealing paramilitary death squads. On March 6, marches were held in many Colombian cities, and in other countries, protesting these murderous paramilitary forces.

Colombia is the most dangerous place worldwide for union members. Thousands of workers and others have been killed for trying to organize workers, peasants and youth. U.S. companies — Chiquita Brands, Coca-Cola, Occidental Petroleum, Drummond Mining — have paid these death squads to kill union activists.

Washington’s aid to the Colombian government is basically part of U.S. imperialism’s global war for control of oil supplies. Venezuela is the main target because, along with Mexico, it’s the key Western Hemisphere oil supplier to the U.S. (Ecuador is also an important oil producer, with investments from Chevron-Texaco and Brazil’s Petrobras).

Guillermo Almeyra reported (La Jornada, Mexico, 3/9) Shell Oil’s expectation that oil production by PEMEX (Mexico’s state-owned monopoly) will diminish, so Venezuela’s oil becomes even more important for the U.S. But Chávez is dealing with Russia, China, Iran and India. Exxon Mobil is suing Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA in an international court for not paying enough for its lost Venezuelan oil holdings. This makes Chávez a target for the U.S. oil-war strategy.

Uribe and his U.S. masters don’t like Chávez’s positive international image after he mediated FARC’s release of high-profile hostages. Interestingly enough, France’s president Sarkozy was even planning to meet with the murdered FARC leader in Ecuador to work out the release of Colombia’s former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, a French citizen. Colombia’s government warned Sarkozy to stay away.

The whole crisis caused much debate in Colombia itself. The bosses and their press pushed nationalism to support war-maker Uribe’s government. PLP members and friends were out advancing our Party’s internationalist revolutionary politics, attacking both Uribe-Bush and the entire capitalist system, describing how the rulers worldwide spill the blood of workers and youth to fight for their oil profits and imperialist allies.

Many believe Chávez and Correa are the best friends workers can have. But Chávez and Correa, after "denouncing" Uribe as a murderer, shook hands with him at the summit meeting.

Preceding this crisis, Chávez attacked "ultra-leftists" in Venezuela who don’t support his policies 100%. One example: workers at Sidor, the country’s biggest steel producer (controlled by Technit, an Argentine company) have been fighting for a contract for over a year, demanding better benefits and wages (they’re among the lowest-paid steel workers in Venezuela). Chávez’s Labor Minister is siding with Sidor bosses as a union-buster and strike-breaker, even though four workers’ general assemblies rejected the Minister’s intervention in their struggle.

PLP must intensify its political activity, offering the communist alternative, the only way out of the capitalist-imperialist hell of oil war, strike-breaking and death squads.

Africa Series Part VI

Rich Become Billionaires, Workers Rebel for Food

In the 19th century, Karl Marx said, "The rich get richer and the poor poorer." Capitalism sure proves it.

Forbes Magazine just announced its latest list of billionaires. This year’s worldwide crop of 1,215 is worth $4.4 trillion, up 26% from last year.

Meanwhile, food rebellions erupted in several African countries (Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Morocco, Mauritania, Mozambique, Guinea) as well as in Yemen and Indonesia. Hundreds were killed in Mauritania.

In Cameroon, a cabbies’ strike on February 25 protesting high fuel prices sparked the rebellion. It spread across the country. Over 100 were killed and over 1,600 arrested. The government was forced to grant some wage hikes and other reforms. But Simon Nkwenti of the Teachers’ Union Federation said, "For us, these are just cosmetic measures and a non-event. What we want is the restoration of salaries to their pre-1993 levels." (Reuters, 3/8)

Cameroon was once one of sub-Sahara Africa’s most successful capitalist countries, but the collapse of its export prices destroyed the economy. In 1993, an International Monetary Fund-imposed austerity package slashed wages 70%. A year later, the CFA (French backed currency) was devalued 50%.

Ironically, today’s food crisis is caused by the rising prices of many commodities, including corn used for biofuel. The amount of crops for human or animal consumption has increased up to 7% since 2000, but for biofuel it’s 25%. (El País, Madrid, 3/8) The price of wheat, milk and butter has tripled since 2000, chicken, rice and corn cost twice as much.

A system like capitalism and imperialism which cannot feed the hungry while a few live in obscene luxury must be destroyed and replaced with a society based on production for need: communism.

(A future CHALLENGE article will examine biofuel and rise of world hunger.)

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Although McCain is the Republican presidential nominee, Ron Paul still has support among some youth. Signs of "Ron Paul for President" appear in some anti-war activities. Paul was googled and seen on Youth Tube more than any other GOP candidate. The so-called Ron Paul "Revolution" attracted some working-class white youth because he opposed the Iraq war, globalization and a national ID system. But the real essence of Paul’s program is fascism and racism.

Alex Jones, an Austin, Texas, radio host, Minuteman supporter and leader of the "9/11 Truth Movement" has won some youth to Paul. The Truth Movement argues that 9/11 was an "inside job" perpetrated by Bush to justify war in the Middle-East and impose a police state at home.

But this is just a hook to attract people to Jones and others who spread the anti-Semitic filth of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a 1903 fakery circulated by the Czarist secret police. Henry Ford and Hitler also used the Protocols and racism to deflect working-class anger away from the real enemy, capitalism. Unfortunately, even some fake left-wingers in Latin America and elsewhere have spread the Protocols to give a false explanation of finance capital. (For more on Jones see the current issue of The Communist Magazine.)

Anti-immigrant racism is the real essence of Jones. He says immigration from Mexico is a "globalist" trick to erect a "Communist military dictatorship" in the U.S. Similarly, while Paul rails against a national ID card for citizens, he demands more racist police repression of the inner cities (asserting in 1996 that 95% of black men in Washington, D.C. were "criminals"). On immigration, he calls for a militarized border, intensified efforts to round up the undocumented and new rules to deny citizenship to their U.S.-born children.

At a minimum, the Paul campaign, like Obama’s and Clinton’s, brings anti-war youth into the electoral system and fascism. Beyond this, they divert youth from an understanding of capitalist exploitation and imperialist rivalries — the basis of all modern wars — into a traditional Nazi ideology that blames elite "conspirators" for the problems capitalism generates.

In 1902, Lenin warned communists not to rely on spontaneity. Workers tend to rebel spontaneously against the ravages of capitalism. But on their own, these struggles won’t create the political class consciousness needed to destroy capitalism.

Communists in PLP show that only knowing the historical role of the working class can transform spontaneous anger into the communist class consciousness necessary for revolutionary change. We must become involved with those youth mis-led by Ron Paul, Obama and Clinton, and use CHALLENGE as our ideological weapon to expose these politicians as tools of the racist capitalist war-making system.

Axle Strikers Battle 50% Pay-Cut, Slash GM Production

DETROIT, MI March 11 – The strike by 3,600 UAW workers at five American Axle Manufacturing (AAM) plants is into its third week. This is the latest aftershock in the restructuring of the U.S. auto industry, which has seen starting wages cut in half at GM, Ford and Chrysler at the same time that they have eliminated over 80,000 jobs. This is the result of the sharpening competition between the world’s auto billionaires for markets, resources and cheap labor. The U.S. market is under siege by Asian and European auto bosses. U.S. bosses, with the UAW in their pocket, are slashing wages and benefits which took workers 70 years to win.

Actually, it’s more like two strikes. The workers are striking against the bosses’ demands to cut wages in half, cut health care, and end pensions. The UAW leadership is striking over how much it will cost AAM in buyouts, "buy-downs" (lump-sum payments in return for permanent pay cuts) and other schemes, to get what they want.

"How are we supposed to live like this? Is gas going to be cut in half, or groceries, or our house and car notes? And the company’s making profits. They are attacking us to ‘stay competitive.’" That’s how two black strikers with 15 years at AAM saw it.

The mostly black workforce at the Detroit plant is already struggling to survive in a city ravaged by racism. With soaring unemployment and the highest foreclosure rate in the country, more mouths than ever depend on each and every paycheck. Cutting them in half is devastating.

Meanwhile at Solidarity House, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said, "Our members cannot be expected to make the extreme sacrifices American Axle is asking for with nothing in return."

AAM wants to cut wages in half, increase co-pays for prescription drugs, eliminate vision coverage and freeze pension benefits, replacing them with a 401(k) plan. This would lower overall compensation from $65 an hour to $27, costing AAM workers $200 million a year. It would cut wages to $11.50-$14.50 an hour, matching what the UAW negotiated at Delphi, GM, Ford and Chrysler.

AAM also wants to close some union factories and move the work to non-union plants in the U.S. paying $10.00/hour, and a plant in Mexico paying 70 cents/hour.

As of today, the strike has forced GM to shut or cut production at 29 plants, involving over 37,000 workers. This has had a ripple effect closing many supplier plants. Unfortunately, the effects of this have been blunted because GM has a 90-day backlog of unsold cars and sales are even slower at this time of year.

Nevertheless, this shows the potential power we have in our hands. A small number of determined workers can shut down a significant part of the industry with ripple effects that go far beyond. If these workers were led by a revolutionary vision of class war, with their eyes on the prize of abolishing wage slavery with communist revolution, this could be the "spark that starts a prairie fire," and the stakes could quickly rise.

But without that revolutionary vision, this strike will be just one more speed bump on the road to fascism, racist terror, poverty and war. PLP is introducing and re-introducing CHALLENGE to some new and old friends on the picket line. We will try to win them to march with us on May Day. This strike is not going to have a happy ending. The good guys are not going to win. The deck is stacked. But by building a base for PLP, we will have a chance to turn a bad thing into its opposite.J

Racist Super-Exploitation Behind Air Force War Tanker Deal

Recently the Pentagon gave the $40 billion Air Force tanker contract to the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS)/Northrop Grumman partnership over American rival Boeing. EADS the parent company of Airbus will provide sections of their A330 aircraft to be assembled in a new plant to be built in Mobile, Al. This award gives the consortium an inside track on follow-up contracts worth over $100 billion. This surprise decision is intended to slash aerospace workers’ salaries; thereby cutting the costs of a vast array of new weapons the Pentagon needs to confront emerging imperialist competitors.

The new Northrop Grumman factory in Mobile will be the first non-union, low-wage major aerospace assembly plant in the U.S. It will employ upwards of 2,000 workers with a network of U.S. suppliers to reach 20,000. Eventually, it will assemble commercial A330 airplanes, which will drive down the wages and cut jobs of French and British Airbus workers. Wages in Alabama are about half those in Boeing’s Washington State plants where the 767 is assembled (see plp.org for chart). Meanwhile, "Northrop will subcontract tanker work to 40 Los Angeles plants representing 7,500 workers" (LA Times, 3/8), at the lowest salaries yet--$8-$10/hour. This sets the stage for a two-tier contract at Boeing this summer. Such is the bitter fruit of the long history of racism. (see below)

This Mobile plant advances a long-held Pentagon goal. The generals have blamed high aerospace wages for the huge costs of new weapons systems for some time. Eight years ago, the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board proposed that "competitive outsourcing could be the answer" to the bosses’ military funding problems (Aerospace Daily, 2/3/2000). With the costs of two wars and emerging imperialists banging at the door, the Pentagon had to up the ante. This contract goes beyond "competitive outsourcing" (re: low-wage, non-union labor) of parts production to low-wage assembly plants.

In this regard, Pentagon officials are in alliance with foreign policy experts from the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR). They admit "if the defining struggle of the twenty-first century is between China and the U.S., China will have the advantage. Their answer is "a revived Western system." (Foreign Affairs, Jan./Feb. 2008) They couldn’t be too happy Airbus set up a Chinese A330 assembly line. They want to more closely tie Europe’s economy to the U.S. Where countries in Europe will finally line up as the imperialist contradictions sharpen is anybody’s guess.

a name="Class War Answer to Bosses’ Flag-waving">">"lass War Answer to Bosses’ Flag-waving

From the new assembly plant in Mobile, to the hundreds of thousands of mostly Latin workers slaving away in Southern Californian aerospace subcontractors, the Pentagon and aerospace bosses are using racist super-exploitation to rebuild U.S. imperialism’s industrial might. As in auto, it will be used to drive down wages and benefits in the traditional union plants. The Boeing union’s happy talk about how we can get a "good contract" without striking in September flies in the face of this reality.

Major sections of the 767-based Boeing tanker are also made overseas. The fuselage comes from Japan, the tail from Italy and other pieces from Britain. This hasn’t stopped the union from mounting a nationalist campaign. IAM International president Buffenbarger appeared on racist Lou Dobbs –– followed closely by IAM-endorsed Washington Senator Murray –– to wave the flag. Clinton and Obama soon joined the jingoistic frenzy.

So the choice becomes clear. Wave the flag and ally with the same Pentagon and aerospace bosses that are slashing our wages and benefits or build an anti-racist alliance with super-exploited subcontractor workers –– and now assembly workers. As one Boeing Machinist said discussing the above points, "If they want a war, we’ll give them a class war!"

Pro-War AFL-CIA Steel Hacks Serve Racist Bosses

CHICAGO, IL, March 5 — Recently the United Steelworkers union (USWA) sponsored a "free dinner" at the Museum of Science and Industry here. Their flyer pushed "fair trade" for U.S. companies; obviously the union "leaders" had more on tap than chicken wings and potato salad.

USWA President Leo Gerard and some of the biggest steelmakers have formed the "Alliance for American Manufacturing" (AAM), supposedly to "keep American jobs in America." But the event was an all-out China-bashing affair. Amid questionable statistics, were reactionary comments such as, "When [U.S. companies] go under, you’re not going to see the name of the Chinese factory on your kids’ Little League uniform."

Even more menacing was, "These technologies support our military, particularly our soldiers fighting overseas…We simply cannot risk being held hostage to the interests of other countries, especially when they may run counter to our own." Current and former steelworkers were bused in to hear this pro-war, anti-China propaganda. Many such events were held nation-wide.

The AAM website (AmericanManufacturing.org) sounds like a CIA-front — full of anti-China rhetoric with a few words thrown in about health care and pensions to keep it "union." The Executive Director is Scott Paul, a former AFL-CIO lobbyist who degrees in Foreign Service, International Politics and Security Studies from Penn State and Georgetown. Deputy Director Horace Cooper is a former Deputy Director of the CIA-run "Voice of America." Several top leaders sit on Congress’s U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which reports annually on the "national security implications of…trade…between the U.S. and China."

Afterwards, a steelworker commented, "Why do these guys think anyone would stop doing business with China, when they have the cheapest labor and prices? That’s what the bosses are always looking for." He’s right. Capitalists are forever seeking maximum profits. But globally there’s a fierce rivalry among imperialists fighting each other for profits. Chinese capitalists are growing stronger while U.S. capitalists are starting to lose their grip. Ultimately, imperialism leads to war.

As humble servants for the racist bosses, Gerard and the rest of the union hacks are trying to win workers to see China as "the enemy," much as they did with Japan in the ’70s and ’80s. Bringing in busloads of workers to hear tales about U.S. imperialism’s "good old days," and contrasting that with stories about the "evil Chinese" and their unsafe pet food and toys, only serves to build a racist base for war against China. As the U.S. economy weakens and factories close, the drums are beating louder, especially from the major industrial unions in auto, steel and aerospace which handle war production.

We must counter these pro-war AFL-CIA hacks by building a mass base for PLP and communist revolution. This means winning more CHALLENGE readers and sellers among industrial workers, confronting the pro-war union leaders and building for May Day. This will help bring these workers into the Party.

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"These cutbacks on education are racist to the core," a PLP member stated during a campus meeting against the cuts. California has proposed a 10% budget cut to both the California State University (CSU) and UC systems, leaving them $312.9 and $417 million short, respectively. Student fees are projected to rise 10% for the upcoming Fall Quarter in the CSU system. This system has large African-American, Latino, and immigrant populations (many of whom don’t qualify for financial aid because of their immigration status). The cuts, a racist attack on these students in particular and all working-class students generally, are part of a series of racist attacks such as the closing of healthcare facilities like King-Drew hospital. Students should unite with workers because we’re all bearing the brunt of a society hell-bent on waging profit wars.

Many students are eager to connect campus struggles to the fight against the exploitation of the whole working-class. PLP encourages all students to participate and to push for more mass-actions on and off campuses against the cuts, the war and the prison system. We are struggling to unite students, faculty and staff for system-wide strikes against these attacks. After all it’s not just Governor Schwarzenegger and a few administrators; we’re up against the capitalist system. This fight could help many see that joining and building a mass communist party is the best way to fight for workers’ power in an era marked by fascism and wider imperialist wars.

We’re exposing the role of the university under capitalism. While the CSU produces teachers, nurses, and engineers, it also builds false, capitalist ideology. While the educational system teaches students skills, it instills ideas that divide the working-class and disarm us politically, telling us we can escape the ills of capitalism by graduating from the university and "making it."

While the CSU produces 87% of all of California’s teachers, it also creates a booming 89% of all of Criminal Justice graduates. The CSU system helps the bosses mobilize students to serve as agents of repression in law-enforcement careers. CSU San Bernardino works with the Department of Defense to commercialize technologies geared towards homeland security. CSULA recently opened a $100 million Crime Lab built in conjunction with the Los Angeles Police and the Sheriff Department. The rulers want to use the CSU system for repression, which most students and faculty oppose.

Some student organizers call for a tax on the rich, as do Obama and Clinton. The liberal ruling class sees that they must direct more profits into war programs and homeland security. They are willing to attack minor bosses’ profits to wage more war in defense of imperialism. Without communists putting forward the party’s ideas, the bosses and their misleaders can channel the anger of working-class students into illusions in the liberal imperialists while doing nothing to stop the cuts.

Many students who earnestly want to fight against these cuts are being told that the budget cuts are the result of the greed of a few administrators and Governor Schwarzenegger (who certainly are willing servants of the system!), and that just by delivering petitions to Sacramento we can win this fight. With the elections approaching, the misleaders will attempt to mobilize angry working-class students to support Obama or Hillary. Both of these candidates support expanded wars which can’t take place without cuts on wages and social services such as education and health care.

By expanding our hand to hand CHALLENGE distributions, we aim to politically equip our friends to see that in the long run, workers and students need to build a movement to destroy capitalism and create a Communist society, free from profit wars, racism, and sexism. CHALLENGE-based study action groups can connect what may seem as an isolated struggle to a capitalist society becoming more ruthless.

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The Academy-award nominated film, "There Will Be Blood," with a spectacular performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, who won Best Actor, is said to be based on Upton Sinclair’s 1926 novel, "Oil!" Unfortunately, it is not. The director, Paul Thomas Anderson, borrowed only three aspects of the novel – the setting (southern California), the industry (oil) and the time period (first quarter of the 20th century). He omitted the heart of Sinclair’s wonderful book: an exciting and insightful description of the struggle between labor and capital, and the way in which the owners control government, Hollywood and the press for their own ends. It’s an unintended and welcome consequence of the film’s success that many people are reading ‘Oil!"

A terrific novel, it follows two main characters – J. Arnold Ross, a self-made, hard-driving owner of several oil fields, a millionaire who only has two interests. One is getting oil out of the ground and making money, and the second is the well-being of his son, affectionately called "Bunny." Father and son care deeply for each other. But as "Bunny" grows up and becomes more socially aware, he becomes close friends with Paul Watkins, a young carpenter who works for Ross Sr. Paul helps lead a strike in the oil fields and is radicalized by left-wing organizers. Bunny is sympathetic to the strikers and begins to listen carefully to Paul’s socialist ideas.

During WWI, the newspapers were filled with crude anti-Bolshevik propaganda, believed by most people. But not by Paul, who sees things clearly from the point of view of the workers:

"Bunny," he said, "do you remember our oil-strike, and what we read about it in the papers? Suppose you have never been to Paradise [an oil field], and didn’t know the strikers, but had got all your impressions from the Angel City newspapers! Well, that’s the way it seems to me about Russia; this is the biggest strike in history, and the strikers have won, and seized the oil-wells."

Paul, drafted into the U.S. army, is sent to Vladivostok in the Russian far east, part of an intervention by a dozen imperialist armies aimed at helping the Russian aristocracy, the White Army, overthrow the new workers government. His friend comes back in poor health and when Bunny asks what had been the purpose of his expedition, Paul replies:

"I’ve told you – to break the strike. The biggest strike in all history – the Russian workers against the landlords and the bankers; and we were to put the workers down, and the landlords and bankers up! . . . .[T]hey would get together and call themselves a government, and it was our job to rush them supplies, and they would print money, and hire some adventurers, and grab a bunch of peasants and ‘conscript’ them, and that would be an army, and we’d move them on the railroad, and they’d overthrow another Soviet government, and slaughter a few more hundreds or thousands of workingmen. That’s been my job for the past year and half; do you wonder I’m sick."

Bunny begins to question the capitalist system that was the source of his father’s and his own wealth. He comes to realize that there is a war going on every day in the factories and the fields. Describing one oil field and the accidents that occurred there as the men raced to produce more oil and more profits, Sinclair writes:

… of all the thousands of men who had worked here, seventy-three out of every hundred had been killed or seriously injured during the few years of the field’s life! It was literally true that capitalist industry was a world war going on all the time, unheeded by the newspapers.

His friend Paul becomes an organizer for the Communist Party, which tells the workers that capitalism needs to be overthrown with revolution. One of Bunny’s college friends, Rachel, is a member of the Socialist Party, which tells the workers that capitalism can be peacefully voted out through elections. Although Sinclair gives Paul all the best arguments, Bunny’s temperament – which is to avoid conflict – leads him to side with the Socialists, as did Sinclair himself. Yet Sinclair is respectful of the politics and accomplishments of the international communist movement.

This review only touches the surface of this powerful and thoughtful novel, which ends with both personal tragedy and a hope for the future.

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DETROIT — Former UAW President Doug Fraser died on February 23 at 91. Fraser’s major "contribution" to the labor movement was initiating the period of huge concessions to bail out the bosses. In 1979 he brokered the massive bailout to help Chrysler avoid bankruptcy.

Before that, in 1973, Fraser was the UAW-VP responsible for Chrysler when PLP and the Workers Action Movement led the Mack Ave. Sit-Down Strike. That summer, three wildcats rocked Chrysler, at Detroit Forge, Jefferson Assembly and Mack Stamping. All three involved thousands of black, Latin, Arab and white workers in anti-racist rebellion.

But Mack Stamping was communist-led. It lasted a week, defeating Chrysler security and the Detroit police. Workers and youth from around the city picketed the plant, passing food over the gates to the strikers. A group of workers demanded that UAW Local 212 support the strike and when they refused, workers swept the union hall like a tornado, flattening everyone in their path.

Fraser and the UAW leadership organized a 1,000-man goon squad, armed with baseball bats, to retake the plant. Every man on the UAW payroll in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, including many known KKK members as well as many black staffers hired by the union after 1967, was organized to violently evict the strikers. After the plant was reopened, Fraser directed union reps to walk up and down the aisles with management, fingering any striker for immediate firing.

Having smashed the rebellion, Chrysler was made the target for the 1973 contract talks and a new agreement was ratified with little opposition. This led to Fraser’s rise to president in 1977.

He headed the union for six years, when U.S. imperialism was feeling the aftershocks of its defeat in Vietnam. Rising fuel prices and a flood of Japanese imported cars (built in Japan), rocked GM, Ford and Chrysler. As the weakest of the three, Chrysler faced possible bankruptcy.

Fraser came to his masters’ aid by inducing Democrat President Jimmy Carter to pass legislation providing $1.2 billion in federally-guaranteed loans for Chrysler. In return, Fraser had Chrysler workers sacrifice $1.2 billion in wage and benefit concessions, including a $3-an-hour wage-cut.

Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca nominated Fraser to the company’s Board of Directors, who hailed Iacocca as a corporate "hero." But with $3.5 billion in cash, and Fraser and the UAW’s help in closing half of Chrysler’s plants and eliminating 50,000 jobs, Homer Simpson could have "saved" Chrysler.

Fraser was an "old school" anti-communist his whole union career. He was no novice when he purged PLP after the Mack Sit-Down strike. As administrative assistant to UAW President Walter Reuther in 1951, he helped expel communists from the union throughout the Cold War. Whatever gains he "won" in various contracts are now being stripped away by the wage-cutting, pro-capitalist, patriotic, pro-boss UAW leadership that arose under his command. That’s his legacy.

Fraser’s body was donated to the Wayne State Medical School. Too bad. Now we won’t be able to spit on his grave.

LETTERS

Challenging Anti-Immigrant Ordinances

PLP calls for unity among workers of all nationalities and immigration statuses. We denounce all borders as capitalist inventions to mark rulers’ territory against their rivals and as hindrances to workers’ international unity. PLP’ers have been active in demonstrations against anti-immigrant laws in the Washington, D.C. area, and most recently testified in support of a pro-immigrant ordinance in Mt. Rainier, Md.

The bosses have been pushing anti-immigrant sentiment, mainly towards Latino workers. Their goal is not elimination of Latino workers, but to isolate them from black and white workers, exposing them to legal repression because of their status, and making them generally vulnerable to the bosses’ most vicious exploitation. That explains the bosses’ toleration and even support for groups like the Minutemen.

Nearby Washington, anti-immigration measures have passed in Virginia in the towns of Herndon and Manassas and in Loudon and Prince William Counties. Recently, the latter reported they had spent almost their entire "rainy-day fund" (a surplus fund from tax collections) on added police enforcement of anti-immigrant measures!

While there has been some anti-immigrant activity in Maryland, Takoma Park passed an ordinance last October making the town a sanctuary city where police and other municipal employees are forbidden to enforce federal immigration laws. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp/dyn/content/article/2007/10/29/AR2007102902241.html)

Similarly, two Mt. Rainier town council members recently introduced an ordinance to welcome immigrants to the town and to bar local police from inquiring about residents’ immigration status. PLP members spoke on this ordinance at a hearing of over 100 people, denouncing anti-immigrant sentiment as thinly-veiled racism towards Latino workers and urging passage of the resolution to build anti-racist sentiment in Mt. Rainier. Only five of the 45 town residents who spoke opposed the measure. One supporter talked passionately about the fear that the anti-immigrant movement had instilled in her — and she is a naturalized citizen! Another noted that the term "illegal immigrant" was misleading, since being undocumented was not a criminal offense, but rather an administrative matter.

It was heartening to see the outpouring of support for the immigrants in our community. And the Minutemen, after threatening to attend, stayed away.

The proposed ordinance certainly didn’t contain communist content. It emphasized that immigrants would be "more willing to cooperate with police" if they knew their immigration status would not be an issue. But the police are never workers’ friends. Supporting closer relations with them is another route towards fascism.

Ultimately, the resolution was tabled because two members of the town council (including the mayor) opposed it and the fifth member ducked. The Washington Post blatantly misrepresented Mt. Rainier sentiment, calling the tabling a "victory" for the anti-immigrant movement rather than being due to the racism of two town council members and the mayor. Nevertheless, the struggle over this small-town ordinance has helped us make some new friends in the broader struggle against racism, not only in our town but in the region as well.

Mt. Rainier Reds

No Matter Who Wins El Salvador Elections,Workers Lose

"It’s the same to me whoever wins the 2009 elections. Anyway, we workers will end up in the same conditions," said a teacher analyzing what workers face here and internationally. The candidates spend millions to bombard workers through the media with lies and false promises.

The Progressive Labor Party organizes workers and youth to understand that our class loses no matter which faction of the ruling class wins this rulers’ dogfight for control of state power.

Rodrigo Avila, former National Police chief, is aiming to become the presidential candidate of the fascist ruling Arena Party. Avila, who individually employs more cops than the state police, said on TV that the right-wing must be more "humane" and "share the wealth." He mainly wants us to share the bosses’ "cultural and spiritual wealth," maybe giving workers small wage hikes. Some politicians even talk of a kind of "social revolution."

At a March 5 breakfast meeting at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce branch here, U.S. ambassador Charles Glazer called on local bosses and the government to fight crime and judicial corruption, since they affect capitalist investments. Behind this call there is a very harsh hidden agenda for more repression in the guise of "fighting crime."

The ex-guerrilla, but now electoral, FMLN offers no real alternative, just reforms to win a bigger share of capitalism’s profits for its bourgeois faction. Chano Guevara, ex-guerrilla leader and now FMLN politician, said, "What this country needs is a Salvadoran model of democracy. Socialism is a utopia that perhaps will never be achieved here." Armando Cortez, another FMLN honcho who was a member of the now extinct Communist Party, said that the elections can produce an "alternative to the neo-liberal capitalist model,…not…seek the destruction of capitalism." Both are leaders of the FMLN veterans of the civil war, even though most vets, now victims of the capitalist "peace" signed years ago, don’t agree with these opportunist electoral statements.

The ideas of a real social revolution, for which thousands of workers died, are not "old" and "outdated" as these FMLN hacks say. PLP has always criticized revisionists (fake leftists) for essentially fighting for some form of capitalism from which they grab a share of the exploitation of workers. The FMLN leaders’ actions have confirmed this scientific communist analysis of our Party.

In this era of growing capitalist economic meltdown and endless imperialist wars — from the borders of Colombia-Ecuador-Venezuela to Iraq (El Salvador is the only Latin American country with troops supporting the U.S. war in Iraq) — reformist schemes á la FMLN or Bolivarian state capitalism are dead-ends for workers. PLP says don’t vote; organize to fight for communism, for workers’ power!

A Comrade in El Salvador

Attacks Federal Bureau of Intimidation

Recently, the "non-profit" organization InfraGard organized an all-day conference at our college. InfraGard is a program the FBI developed in 1996 to increase civilian participation in surveillance. It’s "an association of businesses, academic institutions, state and law enforcement agencies, and other participants dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States." (See www.infragard.net).

The U.S. government acknowledges that private businesses and schools are the backbone of U.S. capitalism’s infrastructure. They’re asking these institutions to provide information about "disgruntled employees" and any other "rabble-rousers."

Schools and businesses clearly have a vested interest in sharing information with the FBI to help prevent union struggles, strikes and student activism. From schools and employers, the FBI gains not only a higher quality of surveillance (our bosses know us better than the FBI), but also a storehouse of information free of charge. This is an obvious example of the U.S. government revving up for repression and fascism.

Some students from my school organized to confront these all-day workshops. We produced a leaflet on short notice. A small group distributed them before classes in trying to raise awareness.

A majority of the people on the street were white-collar workers who wouldn’t take our leaflet or listen to us speak. Many of the students got discouraged. They had criticisms of the last-minute leaflet (rightly so), and were intimidated to be part of such a small group. However, I left with a lot of confidence. Here’s why.

I’ve been reading CHALLENGE for five years. I enjoy the Letters section, learning about the day-to-day struggles and victories of my class brothers and sisters worldwide. They help sustain my own class-consciousness and prevent discouragement after a tough day at school or work. It can be very alienating to understand capitalism in a way my fellow students and co-workers do not so it’s very easy to become discouraged.

Even though only a few of us demonstrated against the FBI’s event, it was the right thing to do. Politically, the right things to do are not always popular. Neither the ACLU nor any other organization confronted the FBI that morning. But PLP was there, and knew that this FBI attack on workers needed to be confronted and exposed.

After I left that morning, I talked to my co-workers and classmates about it and even made an announcement in class. I also gave CHALLENGE to a co-worker for the first time. Despite the fact that our event was not perfect, I feel confident knowing that I am working with an organization that has the right politics and is not afraid to stand up to fascism when others fear doing so. The working class worldwide will recognize this, and there will be a day where handfuls of students will be joined by hundreds of workers.

A Student In the Struggle

REDEYE on the NEWS

Crisis = US imperialism’s decline

[The economy’s crisis] heralds a major reduction in the global economic and political influence of the U.S. Fundamental systemic crises are often associated with the decline of the dominant imperial power and its increasing inability to sustain the system over which it had presided....

How perceptions of the U.S. have changed: a country living beyond its means, dependent on Asian credit, characterised by huge inequalities, its financial institutions guilty of huge folly. And we are only at the beginning of the biggest geopolitical shift since the dawn of the industrial era. (GW, 2/22)

The ‘we’ pundits cite ain’t us

Whadda you mean "we," Mr. TV Pundit? When you say "we" are doing better in Iraq or, even more absurd, that "we" were right to invade that country in the first place, are you putting Joe Blow American in the same bag as the top officers of Exxon, which made $40.6 billion in profit last year thanks to the turmoil in the energy markets? That royal "we" is good for the royals who control our government, but its persistent use embodies a pernicious lie...

Ever since "we" invaded Iraq, most of us have gotten nothing to show for it other than an enormously increased national debt that we will be paying off for decades to come...

Clearly what’s good for big oil is not good for most Americans...

We have been conned since early childhood to look with dark suspicion upon anyone who points a finger of accountability at the robber barons of the corporate world...The U.S.-based oil giants strut with the full confidence that Uncle Sam will back them up.

But who will back up Uncle Sam except ordinary American soldiers and taxpayers who sacrifice to fight and fund battles that have nothing to do with their...interest? (Creators Syndicate, 2/12)

Immigrant crime rate very low

California immigrants, about 35 percent of adults, are far less likely than native-born Americans to commit crimes, according to a study.... Among men ages 18 to 40, native-born Americans were 10 times more likely than immigrants to be incarcerated for crimes in California prisons and jails. The study included both legal and illegal immigrants. (NYT, 2/26)

Poverty can poison brain-power

"Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain."

...Neuroscientists have found that "many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development." The effect is to impair language development and memory - and hence the ability to escape poverty - for the rest of the child’s life. (NYT, 2/18)

Iraqi women’s lives worse now

In March 2004 George Bush said that "the advance of freedom in the Middle East has given new rights and new hopes to women...the systemic use of rape by Saddam’s former regime to dishonour families has ended." This may have given some people the impression that the American and British invasion of Iraq had helped to improve the lives of its women. But this is far from the case.

Even under Saddam, women in Iraq - including in semi-autonomous Kurdistan - were widely recognised as among the most liberated in the Middle East. They held important positions in business, education and the public sector and their rights were protected by a statutory family law that was the envy of women’s activists in neighbouring countries. But since the 2003 invasion, advances that took 50 years to establish are crumbling away.

In much of the country women can only now move around with a male escort. Rape is committed habitually by all the main armed groups, including those linked to the government. Women are being murdered throughout Iraq in unprecedented numbers...

The Iraqi penal code prescribes leniency for those who commit such crimes for "honourable motives..." (GW, 2/22)