1. IRAQ WORSE THAN VIETNAM?
   U.S. Rulers' `Answer': WIDER WAR, KILL THOUSANDS MORE
2. Insurance Co./Gov't Gang-up Soaks Hurricane Victims
3. RUSSIAN AND U.S. RULERS: RIVALS IN
   IMPERIALIST RUTHLESSNESS
4. War Economy, Racism Hits Hospital Workers, Patients
   1. THE `DEFICIT' SCAM
5. Protestors Slam Hillary Clinton on Iraq war, asthma and racist unemployment
6. PLP Union Campaign Exposes Pro-Boss Hacks
7. Imperialist War Budget Attacks LA Hotel Workers
8. `Uncovered' Film Covers Up Democrats' Role As War Party
9. Don't `Rock the Vote': ROCK CAPITALISM!
10. Chavez's `Anti-Imperialism' Hides Links to Exxon and Big Oil
11. Thailand's Youth Forced Into Sex Slavery in Trillion $ Industry
12. LETTERS
    1. Airport Workers' Unity Fires Racist
    2. Youth Thirsting For Red Ideas
    3. French CP Fair Hosted by War Merchants
    4. Salvador Sends Poor Soldiers to Iraq
    5. Mid-East Youth Head for Iraq
    6. FBI Cointelpro Had Wide Reach
    7. Can World War III Be Prevented?
    8. Cosby Always Served Bosses
    9. It's Not Bush or Kerry; It's Capitalism
13. RED EYE ON THE NEWS
    1. Abu Ghraib methods here
    2. Low pay is real stress
    3. Exec's only job is profit
    4. Big US co. poisons Asians
    5. US trains killers of workers
    6. Trying to spin Iraq
    7. Unsafe -- but profitable!
14. State Power -- Part III
    1. A CALL FOR ALL-OUT WAR
    2. THE CARTER DOCTRINE: WAR FOR OIL
    3. TRAVELING THE NAZI ROUTE
15. Auto workers strike
    American Axle this year.

---

IRAQ WORSE THAN VIETNAM?
U.S. Rulers' `Answer': WIDER WAR, KILL THOUSANDS MORE

"Most senior U.S. military officers how believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale." (Sidney Blumenthal -- former Clinton advisor and Washington bureau chief of Salon.com -- in The British Guardian, 9/16)

It's now quite clear the U.S. military was unprepared for urban guerrilla warfare in Iraq. Bush himself finally admitted it in an article in the N.Y. Times in August. The "transfer of power" to U.S. lackeys has not changed the military situation. The "new" Iraqi army and police either refuse to fight the insurgents or actually joined them as in the last uprising by Sadr in Najaf. The Marines had to destroy most of Najaf, alienating the Iraqi population even more. But many Pentagon officials and war supporters still gloat about the resounding success of U.S.-led forces last year in the major combat phase of the war -- Operation "Iraqi Freedom."

In 21 days the U.S. defeated the Iraqi military, overthrew Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime, and seemingly proved the wisdom of transforming the U.S. military into one that was lighter, swifter and laden with advanced technology. But now it appears this "transformation" has enabled a guerrilla insurgency to inflict over 1,000 deaths on U.S. soldiers and wound over 27,000. It recaptured the cities of Ramadi, Samarra, Baquba, among many others, and Sadr City in the heart of Baghdad.

Bush boasted to the National Guard convention that, "Our strategy is succeeding." And Kerry promises as President he'll have the U.S. out of Iraq in four years! "But," says Blumenthal, "according to the U.S. military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost."

* Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency told Blumenthal, "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al Qaeda, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too....Right now...we're achieving bin Laden's ends.... [as CHALLENGE predicted before the war began]. This is far graver than Vietnam.... We're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."

* Retired general Joseph Hoare, former Marine commandant and head of U.S. Central Command, told Blumenthal, "The idea this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world...." Hoare believes that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it -- after the elections.... You could flatten it. US military force would prevail, casualties would be high,...their leadership would escape and civilians would be caught in the middle....And they talked about dancing in the street, a beacon for democracy."

* Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said, "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true."

* Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic studies institute and the top expert on Iraq there, said, "I don't think you can kill the insurgency....[It] is expanding and becoming more capable as a consequence of US policy.... We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-generate....There are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the US presence. The more we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."

General Odom told Blumenthal the tension between the Bush administration and the senior military officers was worse than any he has ever seen with any previous government, including Vietnam....There's a significant majority [of the military] believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaeda." And these forces, as well as the leadership of the insurgency, are enemies of workers worldwide, including Muslim workers.

These former generals and military strategists don't represent the interests of Iraqi and U.S. workers and soldiers. They want a wider and more successful war which will kill many more tens of thousands. For U.S. rulers it's crucial to remain the top-dog imperialist, to control Iraqi oil and establish military bases in the heart of the Middle East. Whether Bush or Kerry is in the White House, the ruling class cannot afford to give up control of the region's oil. They might try to expand the war regionally, possibly attacking Iran, which they're already blaming for backing the Iraqi insurgency.

It is the task of communists to win workers and soldiers to oppose this murderous ruling class and the religious and nationalist leaders of the insurgency, expose their profit system as the killer it is, and fight to turn their imperialist wars into class war for communism.

Insurance Co./Gov't Gang-up Soaks Hurricane Victims

Natural disasters always expose capitalism in many ways. The island of Grenada -- the very same one Reagan invaded in 1983 to "save U.S. medical students from communism," (Cuban construction workers were helping to build an airport there) -- was devastated by hurricane Ivan "the Terrible." It destroyed over 90% of all houses there. All these hurricanes have killed hundreds in Grenada, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and throughout the Southern and Eastern U.S. Meanwhile, the people of Florida -- who suffered so much destruction from Charley, Frances and Ivan -- are now seeing even worse destroyers: the insurance companies and their government servants.

"As Floridians begin picking up the pieces...many are also discovering the full effects of a decade of maneuvering from the insurance companies and state officials that has dramatically reduced the obligations of private insurers to pay for the impact of catastrophic storms."(Wall Street Journal, 9/7)

In 1992, hurricane Andrew slammed southeastern Florida, inflicting $15.5 billion in insured damages, "wiping out every cent of profit insurance companies had ever generated on property policies in the state." (WSJ) The losses forced 11 insurers out of business.

So the insurance industry and the state authorities responded by revamping the entire insurance system.

"Big players like Allstate Corp. agreed not to abandon a combined 1.2 million policyholders in Florida only after state officials began cooperating in a legislative and regulatory effort to shift from insurance companies to consumers the burden for paying hundreds of millions of future storm-related losses." (WSJ) After all, under capitalism bosses are not really in the business of insurance; they're in the business of making profits.

Now hundreds of thousands of homeowners, many of whom thought they were paying for "full" property insurance, "now find themselves holding the bag for a much bigger portion of the estimated $10 billion to $15 billion in insured damage from Frances and Charley than they would have a decade ago." (WSJ)

Florida's government allowed insurers to raise premiums as much as 400% in some cases and to add hefty new deductibles.

While Florida is the most affected by these changes, a similar situation has occurred across the country. In California, residents who face the threat of storms or wildfires must choose between bare-bones coverage or high-priced policies offered by specialist insurers like Lloyd's of London.

Now with Ivan hitting, and with experts predicting many more years of hurricanes, capitalism will probably force policyholders to pay still more. While natural disasters occur, the profit system makes them worse. Capitalism is the biggest disaster.

RUSSIAN AND U.S. RULERS: RIVALS IN
IMPERIALIST RUTHLESSNESS

Russian President Putin recently sent the world a dire message written in the blood of children: Russia's rulers will stop at nothing to restore its imperial status. When Putin had his hit men storm the besieged Beslan school, he deliberately and needlessly wasted the lives of hundreds of students in order to wipe out a few dozen Chechen separatist murderers (see CHALLENGE, 9/22 on how the Chechen terrorists serve anti-Putin oil bosses). Putin had shown the same disregard for human life two years ago, when he ordered troops to retake a Moscow theater using poison gas, killing four times as many hostages as Chechen hostage-takers. Now, in response to the Beslan crisis, Putin has suspended the popular election of governors in Russia's 89 regions, lest any other separatists gain power. From now on the Kremlin will hand-pick governors.

Putin claims he's taking a hard line against terrorism. But he's really trying to rebuild an empire that can compete with the U.S. And oil and gas are keys to his strategy, just as they are for U.S. bosses. Russia's rulers plan to exert influence beyond its borders by becoming the dominant supplier of energy to Europe and China. But this requires constructing and controlling a network of pipelines across a vast territory. Putin will not brook interference from breakaway states like Chechnya, which sits astride an important export route for Caspian oil. The day after he ended elections, Putin announced the merger of gas giant Gazprom with oil producer Rosneft. The new firm will have nine times the reserves of Exxon Mobil. And, with the state owning a majority share, Gazprom-Rosneft will become a political weapon for the Kremlin. It will "spearhead whatever the government policy may be," said a London-based oil analyst (Bloomberg, 9/15). Putin had already forcibly wrested Yukos, which pumps as much crude as Iraq, from pro-U.S. ex-billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky. When Yukos's chief met with Exxon Mobil bosses last year to discuss selling them a big share of Yukos, Putin surrounded his house with armed soldiers. The deal fell through. Khodorkovsky now rots in a Moscow jail.

Putin's heavy-handed plan for Russian "greatness" goes beyond slaughtering schoolchildren, abolishing voting rights and seizing the energy industry. He wants to turn the clock back to the 1960s and 1970s, when the state capitalist Soviet Union supplied military equipment to virtually every nation or rebel group that claimed to oppose U.S. imperialism. Boasting in a September 17th speech that Russian arms sales had shot up 15% from 2002 to 2003, Putin said. "We must broaden the geographic scope of these sales and involve new partners in our sphere of cooperation." (Le Monde, 9/17) Currently the biggest buyers are India and China, which U.S. rulers view as potential military threats in the decades to come.

These aren't the actions of an "evil madman," as the U.S. media likes to portray Putin. They reflect the needs of the Russian capitalist class. U.S. rulers, with similar imperialist designs, are implementing their agenda of war and fascism with a ruthlessness equal to Putin's. When profits are at stake, workers' lives mean nothing to capitalists. Nationalist and religious uprisings in Iraq are preventing U.S. oil barons from realizing their six-million-barrel-a-day dream. So down comes the iron fist of indiscriminate butchery. In April, Bush sent the Marines into Fallujah, "pulverizing neighborhoods and killing at least 800 people, most of them women and children," according to an eyewitness. Journalist Nir Rosen wrote in the October issue of The Atlantic, "I saw hospitals riddled with bullets and shells; I met ambulance drivers who had been wounded by snipers; I saw children missing limbs from Marine bullets and shells." Air raids that kill noncombatants are standard operating procedure. "The U.S. Air Force has stepped up its policy of trying to assault insurgents from the air while the army avoids ground attacks that could lead to heavy U.S. casualties....The truth about who is being killed by the US air strikes is difficult to ascertain exactly....But, where the casualties can be checked, many of those who die or are injured have proved to be innocent civilians." (The Independent, 9/18) This is the course Kerry promises to "stay" if he's elected in November.

On the home front, U.S. rulers are trying to forge a unified intelligence service on the model of the notorious KGB (where Putin got his start). With the Enron, Adelphia, Martha Stewart and other trials, U.S. rulers' jailing of wayward business executives matches the Kremlin's. But for the incarceration of the working class, not even Russia comes close to U.S. prisons, which now include Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and stateside detention centers for "suspected terrorists" -- that is, people with Arabic names.

The profit system is merciless. It deserves to be terminated, mercilessly, by the working class in a communist revolution.

War Economy, Racism Hits Hospital Workers, Patients

MIAMI, Sept. 17 -- A hurricane-like blast is hitting hospital workers and patients here. Jackson Memorial Hospital, the city's main public healthcare institution, will be laying off or re-assigning at lower pay up to 500 workers in order to save $26 million. Jackson is among a growing number of U.S. public hospitals that are cutting workers and patient services. This is a direct result of a half-trillion dollar war budget paid for by shrinking federal and state reimbursements to Medicare and Medicaid and thereby increasing public hospital "deficit," all of which have a distinct racist character. (As we go to press, Miami-Dade County announced it's granting the hospital a $76 million "relief package" but the bosses are still proceeding with the job cuts, exposing their determination to lay off these workers no matter what.)

Instead of launching a fight against the cuts, the unions -- Local 1363 of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) -- is content to help the bosses: "Hospital and union leaders will meet in coming weeks to start choosing specific jobs to be cut." (Miami Herald, 9/16) The best Local 1363 president Vivienne Dixon-Shim can say is, "I'm very disappointed." [!] And the SEIU is the very same union that's threatening to leave the AFL-CIO because the latter is "not aggressive enough." Such is the state of class collaboration in the U.S. labor movement these days.

Public hospital systems in Los Angeles, Denver, Las Vegas, New York's Westchester County and Dallas are among those who have made similar cuts in recent years, on a list that's "expected to grow." (Herald) Alameda County, Calif., plans to cut 300 jobs at Oakland's Highland Hospital and had already cut two clinics.

All these public hospitals serve poor, working-class patients, including a large proportion of black, Latin and immigrant families. These groups are doubly victimized: because of racist wage and unemployment rates they cannot obtain services at the richer private hospitals, nor the health insurance plans that would pay for them. And now, their only source of what passes for "health care" -- public hospitals -- are cutting back on workers and services. In addition, a high proportion of the laid-off hospital workers themselves are black and Latin. Thus, racism is a central feature of these cuts.

THE `DEFICIT' SCAM

The hospital bosses claim that increasing drug costs and declining federal and state reimbursements are creating a deficit and forcing these layoffs and service cuts. (Jackson expects an even larger "shortfall" next year.) However, their premise for the "deficit" is that workers must pay for the need of capitalism to make profit -- especially the pharmaceutical companies -- and for the bosses' need to finance endless imperialist wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere to protect that profit system (a system that had GI's wounded in Iraq paying for their meals in VA government hospitals!). "Deficits" are just another way for capitalism to exploit the working class. In this case, it shoves the cost of health care on the backs of the workers so that the bosses can pursue maximum profits.

If the working class, as healthcare workers and as patients, were the first priority, as they would be in a profit-free system -- communism -- there would be no "deficit." There would only be the collective desire of the working class as a whole to use the social value we produce to take care of the health of all those workers who need it. It's up to a communist-led working class to abolish all "deficits" by abolishing capitalism. That's the only way to guarantee the health of our class.

Protestors Slam Hillary Clinton on Iraq war, asthma and racist unemployment

Last month my church provided a major photo-op for one of the ruling class's most dangerous agents, Senator Hillary Clinton, a possible Democratic nominee for President in 2008. She still maintains lots of support from black working people despite pushing welfare "reform" and supporting every imperialist war since 1991. This church appearance was to focus on the asthma epidemic that's killed over 50,000 working people in the last ten years and was the sole anti-racist issue John Kerry raised in his "bigger and better imperialism" acceptance speech, a cynical effort to hang onto the Democratic inner-city base. Clinton promised to get lots of HUD money for public housing health renovation if we elect Kerry.

The event was stage-managed by the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), a leading old money financial movement to mislead church and community groups into suicidal reformism. True to form the sweltering hundreds packing the church were anaesthetized by bureaucratic report after report and then awakened by the Senator's lively, "You're-right-and-I'm-going-to-fix-it" speech. No question and answer period permitted.

As she finished I yelled out a "prayer" to "remember the 50,000 killed in the U.S. by asthma and the hundreds of thousands killed by sanctions and bombs in Iraq." But the chair drowned me out by closing the meeting with applause for the Senator.

Our club, plus four allies from a neighboring church, raised the Party's line by distributing over 300 leaflets linking imperialism and racism, along with posters lining the Senator's exit path. One comrade's poster read, "My son-in-law enlisted to study engineering, not to kill Iraqi civilians." Another decried the 48% unemployment in our ghetto community. I shouted, "How many Iraqi children did your sanctions kill?" as the Senator ducked into a police van. At least this sharp action prepared us to go to the Republican Convention on the offensive. It will lead to sharper struggle about the church's involvement in IAF illusion-building in the future.

Sick on rancid, reformist roquefort, Red Churchmouse

PLP Union Campaign Exposes Pro-Boss Hacks

The unionized industrial workforce in the U.S. has been decimated in the past 10 years. From the steel and auto industries to aerospace, relatively good-paying jobs with benefits and a pension are fast becoming extinct. At one industrial local where a comrade is running for a position on the union's governing body, tens of thousands of jobs have been lost due to layoffs and there is a transformation of the industrial working class into a non-unionized workforce composed largely of immigrant workers employed by subcontractors.

The ruling class has decided it's just too expensive to pay workers decent wages and pensions when there are wars to fight to secure oil profits and global domination. Peter Peterson, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations -- a ruling-class policy-making group -- wrote recently that the U.S. must choose "between retirement security and national security." Essentially he was saying that "entitlement programs" (i.e., Social Security, pension plans, Medicare, etc.) must be eliminated, or at least reined in substantially, to be able to afford the "stunningly" expensive wars necessary to secure U.S. global domination. ("Riding for a Fall," Foreign Affairs, 9/1/04)

Although our comrade has little chance of winning the election itself, due to the current leadership's mafia-style hold on power, he has influenced the tone of the debates surrounding the elections. We have distributed thousands of leaflets throughout the plants linking the attacks on industrial workers to the war in Iraq, opening up hundreds of discussions. A long-term conflict like the one in Iraq essentially requires a "war economy." The incredible expenses involved with making war, upwards of $200 billion, requires a grinding down of the working class, squeezing as much value for as few dollars as possible and diverting the surplus towards the war effort.

Faced with incredible odds, what are industrial workers to do? From where can we draw strength? The unions offer coalitions with the companies and politicians, staking workers' futures with those of the company and of U.S. capitalism. We say stake our future on the strength of the working class and the fight for communism. Only a mass communist party engaged in struggle for revolution offers any hope for workers' survival. We either fall into line with the fascist grinding down of the working class and take what we can get (nothing at this rate), or we organize to build PLP, to build a communist party that fights for workers' power.

The local leadership refuses to link attacks on workers to the war in Iraq. After a speech to shop stewards outlining the problems with the Pension Guarantee Corporation -- a federal agency -- and its inability to actually cover pensions abandoned by corporations, and linking those problems to the costs of the war, a union business rep told our comrade those problems were "just economic," unrelated to the war.

Meanwhile, some shop stewards, risking their positions and even their jobs, took leaflets and volunteered to support our comrade's election bid. Not only are these workers pissed, but they're motivated enough by the politics to act despite risks to their own economic well-being.

Since the union has staked its future with the rulers, it cannot afford to attack the ruling class for its assaults on workers. The union leaders are agents of the ruling class. We are NOT. We represent workers' interests and offer the only real alternative, a long hard struggle for communist revolution, for workers' power.

Imperialist War Budget Attacks LA Hotel Workers

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20 -- Union leaders say it's "illegal" for hotel workers to picket while union and management are in mediation, but it seems perfectly legal for the Wilshire Grand Hotel to replace 17 union laundry workers with scabs!

On September 13, thousands of hotel workers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. authorized a strike. Three days later, the laundry workers arrived at the downtown luxury hotel where some have worked for 38 years, only to discover that non-union "replacement workers" held their jobs. They were told they could return to work only by accepting the bosses' demands.

At a press conference in front of the hotel the next day, the laundry workers chanted, "The workers, united, will never be defeated." Meanwhile, HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees) president Maria Elena Durazo explained to reporters that the union was doing everything possible to avoid a strike or lockout.

The last thing Durazo wants is to unleash the power of a united working class. Instead, she's telling workers to rely on politicians, the clergy and the same federal mediator who presided over the stunning defeat of last winter's grocery workers' strike. The union is filing a lawsuit challenging the lockout of the laundry workers, but refuses to allow any picketing because "we agreed not to protest during mediation."

HERE leaders are organizing an electoral campaign among their members and supporters for a healthcare insurance initiative (Proposition 72) on the November ballot. They're building the illusion that "we can make the system work," using financial backing from the liberal capitalist Liberty Hill foundation. Corporations like GM complain that healthcare costs, especially for retirees, make them less competitive with their Japanese and German rivals. They want a minimal national health plan, with taxpayers covering the costs and saving GM's profits. Prop. 72 is a California version of that plan. In the current expanding war economy this means health rationing, an attack pushed as a "reform."

LA's liberal leaders and their ruling-class backers don't want workers to see this struggle as "a tale of two cities -- one rich, one poor." Instead, they want super-exploited latino/a workers to believe the fairy-tale that they're part of "One LA." This appeal for class collaboration never mentions racism or imperialism and has no relation to bettering workers' conditions. It aims at winning workers to fascism and war.

After the press conference, workers listened intently to two representatives of liberal church groups offering their support. "It's easy to feel isolated and discouraged when you're in a situation like this and the law seems to be stacked against you," said one who represented an inter-religious peace and justice coalition, "but workers in many churches around the city stand with you, and there is no power greater than the working class when it is organized and fighting for its class interests."

Laundry workers were nodding as she continued: "You're in this situation today because we're living in a system based on profits and war. We must struggle for a society based on justice and peace. We're fighting not only for ourselves but for our children and grandchildren. " This was the only speaker citing the growing war, the reason for the attacks on the hotel workers.

If workers strike the nine LA hotels, all workers and students should join their picket lines. We should encourage a strike against the attacks on the workers, the war budget and the war in Iraq, with the message that the latter is costly to workers' health and benefits everywhere (See Deficit Scam on Page 3). Building the alliance between all workers and students can become the basis of a fight to destroy this racist, imperialist capitalist system. We can't allow the union leaders to divorce the attack on workers here from the Iraq war.

Workers' power with communist revolution can end these deepening attacks. Capitalism means exploitation and wars for profits. Workers can run society in our own interests, based on production for the needs of our class, eliminating profits and warmongers. We will take this message to the hotel workers.

`Uncovered' Film Covers Up Democrats' Role As War Party

I'm a member of a campus anti-war group which organized a forum on the war in Iraq, screening Robert Greenwald's Moveon.org-backed film "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War." A critique of the film was distributed afterwards and a speaker exposed it as a campaign tool for the Democratic Party. He said we must abandon the lesser-evil politics of phony leftists, that real change can never be achieved through the ballot box; it will require a strong, revolutionary, anti-imperialist movement led by communists and communist ideology.

Greenwald's film has become a favorite of liberal-leftists and the "anybody-but-Bush" crowd for its penetrating criticisms of the Bush administration's lies about Iraq's WMD stockpiles and capabilities. While it does expose many lies and deceptions used by Bush & Co. to initially justify the war, it fails to offer a broader analysis of the real reasons why the U.S. ruling class was so eager to invade Iraq: oil profits and increasing inter-imperialist rivalry.

Even more damaging, "Uncovered" -- much like Michael Moore's recent "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- never mentions the Democratic Party's similar lies about, and decade-long history of, violence against Iraqi workers. The film hides the parallel imperialist agendas of Democrats and Republicans and the U.S. ruling class's imperialist and fascist plans.

Victimized by the spontaneity and lesser-evilism of the current anti-war movement, many in the audience initially attacked the criticisms of the film and of electoral politics by myself and the speaker, labeling our position "impractical" and "unrealistic." One woman paraphrased Arianna Huffington, saying, "When the house is burning, you don't talk about rebuilding -- you talk about putting out the fire."

We made clear the inevitability of capitalist crises and imperialist wars and explained that the Democrats can only represent the interests of the ruling class. To end wars for profit and fascist attacks at home, the working class must destroy the profit system that breeds and lives off these and many more brutal injustices and organize for communist revolution.

Soon a number of people began to defend PL's line on lesser-evilism and on the need to fight imperialism and capitalism directly. Some agreed that the struggle against imperialism should not focus on one administration or one political party, but on the capitalist system as a whole. Others cited the atrocities committed by the Clinton administration.

Ultimately many in the audience realized how "impractical" and "unrealistic" it was to pin their hopes on the Democratic Party, the electoral process and lesser-evil politics, and that both parties serve the interests of monopoly capital. Both are equally hawkish in their implementing the imperialist agenda. The endless lesser-evil game of playing pin the donkey's tale on the elephant's ass was exposed as opportunist lies used to draw workers away from communism, the only practical and realistic path toward emancipating the working class.

The forum brought some of my friends in the group closer to PL and to the idea that a communist revolution led by workers, students, and soldiers under the banner of a revolutionary communist party is the only solution to capitalism's evils. A number of contacts were made. This struggle revealed a great potential for sharpening the fight against imperialist war and building PLP.

Don't `Rock the Vote': ROCK CAPITALISM!

My college campus recently had a "Rock the Vote" rally. A good friend and regular CHALLENGE reader encouraged me to attend and struggle to get on stage. Through friendships I made in an anti-war coalition, I was able to get to speak, and did so about the need for revolution.

I began by saying, "Most people who will speak today will say that the most important thing you can do to change the world is to vote on November 2. I disagree." No one booed. I explained that voting will never bring the social change necessary to end the war and create peace. History proves that such change only happens through massive social movements of organized people who have no interest in maintaining a system that is killing them.

I said whoever's elected will not only continue the war, but also the massive racist cuts to education and healthcare, because they serve the capitalist system which needs inequality and war. They will cut these services to finance ever-widening war. I said I don't believe peace and capitalism can ever co-exist. Capitalism breeds terrorism.

I reminded people that the county government recently closed another hospital in our city, and is threatening to close a trauma center, built after a black rebellion, which treats predominantly black and Latin workers. "Every one of us will know someone who dies because of that closure. Closing hospitals is an act of racist terrorism." The audience, especially black and Latin students, loudly cheered and clapped in agreement.

My friends thanked me and I made sure they all received a copy of CHALLENGE. I told them that's where I learn how the working class fights back.

Later, a man I didn't know thanked me, saying, "You actually talked about something real. Everyone else was just saying the same empty things." I gave him the paper.

PLP's line contrasts sharply with some famous "anti-war" intellectuals, who are madly trying to convince many honest people that "anybody but Bush" will be better. The Democrats' record of vicious imperialist war mirrors the Republicans. Kerry promises to manage the war better than Bush, not to end it. In 1964 some urged voting for Democrat Johnson during the Vietnam War because Republican Goldwater "would bomb Vietnam into the Stone Age." Johnson was elected and proceeded to bomb Vietnam unmercifully.

The most recent example of this mis-leadership is Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn supporting Kerry with the petition "Vote to Stop Bush": "For people seeking progressive social change in the United States, removing George W. Bush from office should be the top priority." Marxist scholars like Michael Parenti ignore their own understanding of imperialism and openly back Kerry.

Communists' main job is to serve the workers. That means being the first to speak up when the working class is being misled. Fear of isolation should not stop us. My experience at the Rock the Vote rally showed this.

PLP will not compromise our principles. Especially when there is such a vacuum, we must keep raising our anti-imperialist line and actions. Even if our friends don't agree with us now, they'll respect us, and when our analysis proves correct, will move closer to PL. My main error, which I will correct, was not to fight for action against the war and the war budget. As U.S. rulers prepare for greater attacks on workers in Iraq and in the local hospital closing, we must fight for leadership by organizing against them, presenting the alternative to capitalism. Fight for Communism; we have a world to win!

Chavez's `Anti-Imperialism' Hides Links to Exxon and Big Oil

For years, CHALLENGE has warned many who support Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez as their "savior" from the old crooked ruling class are making a big political mistake. The "anti-imperialist" rhetoric of such nationalist leaders hides their drive for a bigger profit share from their senior partners. Only organizing a mass revolutionary communist party can free workers from these exploiters.

While Chavez "denounces" U.S. bosses, he allows major U.S. companies to operate freely in Venezuela. Some are linked to the Bush gang. The country's state-owned oil company (PDVSA) has strategic relations with over 200 foreign corporations, including Exxon, Enron, Amoco, Conoco and Chevron-Texaco, among the world's richest imperialists.

Venezuela is the world's fifth largest crude oil exporter; 15% of the oil consumed in the U.S. (150,000 barrels daily) comes from Venezuela. This cozy relationship remains under the Chavez government. ExxonMobil, Enron, Amoco and Conoco are exploring for natural gas throughout the country.

In 1993, PDVSA opened up to what became $2 billion worth of foreign investments, producing an additional 260,000 barrels of crude oil daily. Conoco, Exxon-Mobil, France's Totalfinaelf, Statoil, Chevron-Texaco and Phillips divided up the Orinoco strip. Three of the four blocs in the Delta platform are already assigned for the exploration and exploitation of natural gas -- with an estimated 38 billion cubic feet of gas -- and the 4th is probably slated for Texaco-Chevron and Statoil. They already share operations with PDVSA.

PDVSA is also well-established in the U.S., controlling Oklahoma-based CITGO. Its refineries handle one million barrels daily in eight cities in six states. CITGO is the 5th largest gasoline distributor in the U.S. (10% of the market), with 13,000 gasoline stations here and in Puerto Rico. It's also the 4th largest distributor of airplane fuel and is first in other distilled products.

Chavez maintains he won't halt exports to the U.S. PDVSA made that clear in ads in the Venezuelan press just before the August 15 referendum (won by Chavez), which also highlighted PDVSA's good relations with Exxon, Chevron and Conoco-Phillips. After all, 60% of all PDVSA exports of crude goes to the U.S. Chavez admitted the U.S. has 85% of all foreign investments in Venezuela.

"The presence of Chevron-Texaco in Venezuela," says Chavez, "indicates that our relationship with the U.S. is historical and deep. We aspire to have the same dynamism in our political, social and all other relations as we have in the commercial ones."

There's a legal dispute between INTESA, a mixed company set up by PDVSA, and SAIC (Science Applications International Corp) to give support and maintenance to PDVSA. Chavez threatened to seize total control of INTESA because SAIC participated in a general strike to topple Chavez, threatening oil production. SAIC claims total control of INTESA based on U.S. laws and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Alí Rodríguez Araque, PDVSA President, countered by saying: "The fact that there are a lot of companies investing in Venezuela's oil industry, totaling over $25 billion so far, is a clear demonstration that we are dedicated to the highest levels of legal and commercial standards."

Two journalists, Alexander Foster and Tulio Monsalve, exposed who's behind SAIC: J.R. Beyster, its President, is a member of the Security Advisory Committee on Telecommunications for the Bush administration. SAIC's Board of Directors includes Melvin Laird and William Perry, former Secretaries of Defense; John Deutch and Robert Gates, former CIA directors; retired General Max Thurman, who led the U.S. invasion of Panama; Donald Hicks, former Pentagon chief of investigation; Wayne Downing, former chief of Special Forces; Gen. Jaspers Welch, former coordinator of the National Security Agency; and Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, former CIA and NSA director.

SAIC has won important Pentagon contracts designing aerospace military security systems, as well as the Defense Department's information program. It also works with the world's key oil companies like BP-Amoco, PDVSA'S leading international competitor. (All information from Proceso magazine, Mexico City, 8/22/04.)

Not surprisingly, the world's biggest oil companies were happy Chavez won (see CHALLENGE, 9/8) because he guarantees stability for now. Losing to the old bosses would have sparked mass rebellions by the workers -- mostly dark-skinned -- who hate the old racist ruling class. Carlos Andres Perez, the Social-Democrat former Venezuelan President and current opposition leader now exiled in Miami and the Dominican Rep., sent troops in 1989 to crush a mass workers' rebellion (known as El Caracazo), murdering over 1,000 workers and youth. While U.S. bosses would prefer a more pliable pro-U.S. government in Venezuela, they must accept Chavez for now, despite his populist rhetoric and flirting with Fidel Castro. Meanwhile, the Bush gang still supports the anti-Chavez forces led by the racist old bosses to use when they need them.

Although Chavez has used the recent oil bonanza to give workers some crumbs, this won't alleviate the extreme poverty and super-exploitation suffered by most. PLP fights to win Venezuela's militant anti-racist workers to build a revolutionary communist movement and fight for control of the oil wealth, to share according to workers' needs.

Thailand's Youth Forced Into Sex Slavery in Trillion $ Industry

Chiang Mai, Thailand -- Cruel and unrelenting, the laws of supply and demand force thousands of men and women into the streets here each evening searching for work. Throughout Thailand, over 300,000 dispossessed working-class youth have been transformed into sex slaves for wealthy tourists from Europe, Australia and the U.S.

Thailand's infamous sex tourism is a trillion-dollar-a-year-industry. Although most "sex workers" say they began working to avoid a life of poverty, a host of fake intellectuals and profit-grubbing bosses routinely defend prostitution as "consensual sex." This treacherously denies the gross economic, legal and educational inequalities that exist between buyer and seller. It implies that the sale of one's body for sex is a "freely-made economic choice." The human reality is otherwise.

As one sex worker explained, "In my home I could catch fish with my hands, hunt birds in the forest, herd cows on horseback, plant rice and make my own clothes. I only needed money to buy sauce for cooking." At eleven, her mother died, and she was sent to Bangkok to clean hotel rooms. Denied citizenship, identity, education and legal employment, she found herself forced into prostitution, made to drink alcohol by her boss, displayed naked for the amusement of clients and pimped to the highest bidder. Many sex workers become addicted to alcohol after using it for years to overcome their aversion to this life.

A bizarre debate between liberal reformers and the Thai government seeks to redefine the rules for this dehumanizing sex trade. In the past, the government in the past played the role of pimp by registering prostitutes under the Venereal Disease Control Act of 1909 and the Sex Trade Control Act of 1928. Then in 1960 the former dictator, Sarit Thanarat, officially outlawed prostitution. Nevertheless the sex trade increased dramatically during the next decades, spurred by the presence of U.S. soldiers on leave from the Vietnam War and later by international tourism.

In 2003, liberal NGOs, advocating on behalf of sex workers, demanded decriminalization and the enforcement of occupational health and safety standards like those in other industries. Then the Thai government seized an opportunity to profit from the trafficking of women and children by proposing "legalization" instead, allowing authorities to tax and profit from sex work without insuring such basic securities as sick leave, maximum working hours or emergency fire exits in brothels. Neither side questions the economic and political system that drives young workers into this activity in the first place.

Illegal and unsafe abortions are common, performed by untrained personnel and sometimes by the women themselves. Many women die from complications. From a sample of 4,588 women admitted to Thailand hospitals for symptoms related to induced abortions, nearly half had serious complications such as severe bleeding or infection. In many cases there were perforations of the uterus. Five women in this group died. The World Health Organization estimates that unsafe abortions cause between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths per year worldwide.

Some sex workers buy the liberal line, resisting the idea that they're victims of a system that exploits women. Instead they view prostitution as "women setting limits, gaining in economic strength, and acquiring a detailed knowledge of male sexuality and emotional needs," comparing their work to other high-risk occupations such as psychiatric nurses, soldiers, taxi drivers or liquor store attendants.

Sex worker advocates insist that rather than view these women as passive and misguided, society should regard them as "rebelling inside a patriarchal structure, turning the situation to [their] own social and economic advantage." While this seems less oppressive than the religious ideas used to justify the super-exploitation of sex workers ("The sinners deserve their fate!"), in reality the liberals are defending a brutal, exploitative system. It's the legal and economic inequalities of capitalism that enable sex tourism to exist in the first place.

Rampant prostitution disappeared from both Russia and China in the years after communist-led revolutions when workers ran those countries. Once every young person was guaranteed education and employment in the Soviet Union of the 1920s, the sex trade disappeared. For decades after the 1949 Chinese socialist revolution, prostitution vanished. Thirty years after the revolution, venereal diseases had become so rare that routine prenatal screening for syphilis was abandoned -- the tests were never positive! Sadly, as capitalism was restored to those countries, prostitution -- along with many other ills of capitalist society, like racism -- returned to ruin lives of the new generation.

Tragically, in Thailand where Buddhism is practiced by over 95% of the population, many sex workers see their salvation in religion, spending quantities of emotional energy, time and money praying to exclusively male monks, dead ancestors and hundreds of statues encrusted with jewels and gold. Nearly as disheartening is the slavish devotion most residents show to their monarchy, even though the government is run by telecommunications multi-millionaire Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party that control an absolute two-two-thirds majority in Parliament.

The recipe for sexual exploitation, Thai style, is the same recipe followed in other capitalist dictatorships. Start with stale economic opportunities that compel young people to abandon their culture and values. Add just enough laws so you can lock up anyone, at any time, for any reason. Mix with a religion that promises perfection "in the next world" and season with plenty of alcohol to enslave their minds and make their bodies compliant. Bake until the ambitions of working-class youth are nothing but ashes.

No deaf gods or aloof monarchy can save young people in Thailand. Only a communist revolution of the heart and mind that spills into the streets will do the job.

LETTERS

Airport Workers' Unity Fires Racist

There's been lots of class struggle at my airport job. Workers are angry over racist, sexist and anti-worker mistreatment. Many are immigrant workers from Mexico, El Salvador, Laos, Ethiopia and Somalia (and are also CHALLENGE readers). The company's two-tier system divides workers even more, using two part-time workers for every full-timer. The part-timers receive no health benefits and are overworked. However, a series of racist incidents united the workers to try to get a fascist boss fired.

When this boss first took over, he called an African-American worker "boy." Then when a Mexican worker's child was accidentally injured at home, this boss initially refused to let this worker go to her child in the hospital. Shortly afterwards she was threatened with suspension and termination for attending to her child. The union shop steward (a PLP member) intervened and urged the union to stop the racist boss.

The final straws saw the boss refusing to allow a worker having an allergic reaction to a chemical at work to go to the hospital, and then yelling at an Ethiopian worker to bring her to the verge of tears.

The workers then united and demanded the union -- the SEIU -- get this racist boss fired immediately. It worked!

This is a significant victory on the shop floor, but we live in a capitalist society that's racist against workers at home and imperialist abroad, as in Iraq. The system can replace one racist boss with another, but they need to maximize profits from exploiting both immigrants and non-immigrants. Only destroying this system altogether can eliminate racism.

Airport comrade

Youth Thirsting For Red Ideas

"Dad, when is there going to be another cadre school?" "What do you think philosophy is? Tell me. Explain it to me so I can see if we agree on it." "What is your main contradiction?" Questions like these abound in my house these days.

My children, one a university student and the other in high school, attended the youth cadre school and returned very emotional about it. My wife and I are Party members and feel very proud that our children are part of the struggle to learn the Party's ideas and are willing to join.

At first I thought it was risky to send my children to this school, given the repression surrounding us, but my class consciousness won out. My children are part of the working class and need to learn how to survive in this rotten system and to fight to destroy it and create a system that meets workers' needs -- communism.

"And what about me?" protested our youngest child. "When am I going to a school like this? They got to go and I didn't."

"Your time will come," my wife replied. "It's a process and you're part of it."

Let's go forward, comrades. Sometimes the march is slow, but the march continues.

A comrade father

French CP Fair Hosted by War Merchants

The French "Communist" Party newspaper L'Humanité held its annual fair in early September. One can get a lot of material at such fairs, and usually a big plastic bag to put them in. Of course, there was lots of political stuff. But, according to journalist Michael Collon (rebellion.org), the bag was "courtesy of Dassault, the French defense industry giant, an official sponsor of the fair." Monsieur Dassault, the company's CEO, is one of the richest men in France. His latest acquisitions include the mass media, imposing an iron-like censorship on whatever he controls.

That wasn't all. L'Humanité has an ad by EADS, a European multi-national arms manufacturer, on the first page of its official program brochure. It lists all the deadly weapons the world's bosses use to kill workers: its combat helicopter Eurocopter, the Eurofighter jet, the Gladio spy satellite system, its Meteor missile and its Airbus A400M, capable of transporting hundreds of soldiers to Central Africa to enable French bosses to continue to super-exploit workers and steal the region's resources.

But this is not surprising. The French "C"P long ago abandoned any revolutionary principles. It helped General Charles DeGaulle crush the 1968 worker-student rebellion that threatened French capitalism. It now sides with French and European imperialism in their rivalry with U.S. imperialism. L'Humanité has become just another voice of Europe's imperialist war-makers.

Monsieur Rouge

Salvador Sends Poor Soldiers to Iraq

"My grandfather told me things never go well for those who put their noses in other peoples' business," joked a worker. "They only send the children of the poor to be soldiers," a young worker pointed out. "Why don't they send the children of the rich to fight on the other side of the world?"

Recently, Islamic terrorist groups have threatened three times to launch attacks in El Salvador if more Salvadoran troops were sent to Iraq. El Salvador is the only Latin American country with troops there. In August 2003, the first 360 soldiers left for Iraq. Last February, they were replaced by 380 others. Despite the current Salvadoran leadership agreeing initially to one year's duty, they bowed to their U.S. masters to continue the troop presence for at least another six months.

Salvadoran President Saca has been lying about this since he took office. Bush sabotaged his plans when he took the U.S. imperialist position about the immigration policy and the Free Trade Agreement "negotiated" between the U.S. and Central America. Bush never helped Saca with any of this in exchange for dispatching Salvadoran troops to Iraq.

The Islamic group warned that, "The sending of Salvadoran troops will be a declaration of war against the Muslims in Iraq, which will force us to launch a war against you and to take the conflict to El Salvador. No citizen," they continued, "will have security in El Salvador when the soldiers get to Iraq.... We are not responsible for spilling blood in El Salvador because we've warned you against this decision." Of course, since these are terrorists -- not class conscious anti-imperialists -- fighting for their "own" nationalist bosses, they threaten to randomly attack Salvadoran workers, not the bosses who force the troops to go to El Salvador.

The warnings started when one terrorist group (Mohammed Atta Brigade-Al Qaeda Jihad) published a threat on its web page to begin attacks inside El Salvador. Despite this, Saca is sending a third contingent. "We have a duty to fight international terrorism and to help the people of Iraq rebuild," said Saca. "Our troops will march in the middle of August."

The Salvadoran working class doesn't believe these stories about "reconstruction," since only troops for war, not engineers or construction workers, were sent. The military has trained the soldiers for patrols, capturing people and manning check-points, not for repairing houses. However, these U.S.-trained Special Forces were instructed in jungle combat, not in desert fighting.

The Salvadoran government serves the capitalist system, specifically U.S. imperialism, in its "negotiations" of the Free Trade Agreement, and its fascist plans like Puebla Panama (a free trade zone from southern Mexico to Panama). The Salvadoran capitalists don't care about right-wing al Qaeda terrorists massacring workers in El Salvador. On the contrary, they hope it will happen.

No imperialist or capitalist offers us an end to exploitation, racism or imperialism. We must fight to destroy capitalism and replace it with a communist system that smashes all borders and unites workers internationally, based on mutual respect, solidarity and class interest.

A Comrade

Mid-East Youth Head for Iraq

The ruling class is going full steam ahead to increase fascism worldwide. A recent trip to a Mid-East country showed me how the term fighting terrorism is being used to attack the working class and crack down on dissent.

Many of my friends in this country cautioned me to be careful while visiting Internet cafés there because the government's undercover agents spy on people who frequent them and check on what websites they visit. BBC News reported that a young man from that country was sentenced to 20 years for visiting an "illegal" website. When human rights groups questioned this action, the government simply claimed it was fighting terrorism and silenced all opposition.

My friends are fearful of being sent political material over the Internet. But I thought it was important to discuss how we had to organize and fight this increasing fascism worldwide. Although my friends were somewhat skeptical about opposing the rulers, they did agree with much of PLP's communist line.

They also told me some young people here have gone to Iraq and joined the fight against the U.S. It seems anyone who's willing to fight the U.S. is considered a hero in the eyes of those workers who are facing the sharpest blows of capitalism's fascism.

In fact, Osama bin Laden is achieving hero status in the Arab world. Many newborn children are named after him. One of my friend's cousins is nicknamed "bin Laden" as a show of respect. Bin Laden is perceived as a fighter against the U.S. and Israel. Similarly, the so-called insurgents in Iraq are also given this same respect. When I pointed out bin Laden's involvement with the CIA in Afghanistan and his oil interests, it was met with some reservation, but it opened the door for more dialogue. Fake "militants" like bin Laden and Muslim clerics are additional barriers to communist revolution.

Communists know that fascist attacks on workers anywhere on earth are fascist attacks on all workers. We must dispel the illusion that fascism is "in the future" and figure out how to overcome the obstacles the ruling class uses to prevent us from uniting locally and internationally. Although presently many in the U.S. think fascism doesn't exist, workers throughout the world have fewer illusions. They're living under increasing fascism and understand it's here now and spreading!

Red Teacher

FBI Cointelpro Had Wide Reach

I've periodically seen CHALLENGE make corrections and/or additions to various commentaries. In the article (9/22) listing Democratic administration attacks on the working class, there's a reference to "Cointelpro" as an operation against anti-Vietnam War activists.

It's true this program targeted those opposing that war but Cointelpro had a much wider reach, attacking any and all elements considered "a threat to the internal security of the United States." This included

the American Indian, Black Nationalist and radical women's movements.

A major goal was to prevent the rise of a so-called "Black Messiah" that could unite the Civil Rights/Black Power movement here with the struggle of independence movements in Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere.

J. Edgar Hoover named such threats, stating that Malcolm X could have been such a messiah but had become a martyr of the movement; that Elijah Muhammad of the Nation Of Islam was "too old"; that Martin Luther King could be a potential threat if he were to abandon his reliance on so-called white liberal doctrine; and that Stokley Carmichael was a real threat to be such a messiah.

The program eventually listed the Black Panther Party as the greatest threat to U.S. internal security. It had a five-point program to stop the Panthers, one being to stop the massive recruitment of youth. Another used counter-intelligence to build distrust among the Panthers.

The point is that Cointelpro was not limited to Vietnam protesters.

It included the entire "People's Movement" at that time. It was not a program born of an individual (Hoover) or a separate entity (FBI). It was created by the capitalist state that feared the rising tide of the working class and its possible unification against the ruling class.

Onward, A Reader

Can World War III Be Prevented?

I applaud the comrades in Pakistan for building the PLP and spreading our internationalist, revolutionary communist politics there. It's encouraging to see us proving wrong the world bourgeoisie's "death of communism" wish.

Adding to the CHALLENGE response (9/22) about the point in the Pakistani comrades' letter that World War III could be "averted" if we win enough people to our ideas: unfortunately, as long as there is capitalism and imperialism, there will be wars for profits. World War III can't be averted. For instance, even though communists led the Soviet Union -- 1/6 of the world's surface -- in the 1930s and '40s, the Nazis, at first backed by U.S., British and French bosses, began WWII in great part to roll back the Bolshevik Revolution. We've learned from such history that the only way to end imperialist war is to smash capitalism throughout the world with communist revolution. World War III would present workers, soldiers and youth the opportunity to turn that imperialist war into revolution, either during or after that war.

 A communist analysis of imperialism shows that another large-scale war between opposing imperialists is not only possible, probable, and certain, but is actually necessary because of the drive for maximum profits.

Our task as communists is to prepare and organize the masses to ensure that WWIII will be the bosses' last war.

Young Red Reader

Cosby Always Served Bosses

CHALLENGE'S comment (8/4) on Uncle Bill Cosby's racist attacks on young black people wasn't the whole history. He wasn't any "typical" sellout. He peddled his ass from the start.

Cosby started as a comic in the early sixties, but his career leapt when he played a CIA type on the TV show "I Spy." There weren't a whole lot of dark-skinned CIA agents in real life in those days, and that was a good thing for black people generally.

Cosby was shoveling out the phony "pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps" crap for decades. His comedy routines and TV shows weren't done just for laughs. They portrayed black youth in very negative stereotypes. And it's not much of a stretch to charge him with having lent a major propaganda hand in the attacks on black people in general. (A good comparison might be made with Richard Pryor's early material: very pro-working class, though certainly not revolutionary.)

A daughter from outside marriage sued him for support, and Cosby ridiculed her from the witness stand. No doubt this incident reinforced his hatred for working-class youth and mothers, and even prompted the reactionary New Yorker magazine to criticize Cosby. He didn't care.

Cosby made his pile of money and that's what counts most to these pro-fascists. People like Jesse Jackson, Sharpton, Mary J. Blige, Kweisi Mfume have become a cheering squad for this racist.

North Country Red

It's Not Bush or Kerry; It's Capitalism

The article in your last issue (9/22) showed that the Republicans' claim of "job creation" is just a mirage. As reported in a recent N.Y. Post John Crudele column, "the unemployment rate is...a numbing 9.5% when you count people who are out of work and too discouraged to keep looking." As CHALLENGE has consistently reported, it's even worse when counting millions working part-time who seek but can't find full-time jobs.

So the Republicans' claim about "growing employment" is an outright lie. But the Democrats are just as bankrupt. Kerry says in the month remaining before the election "there is no chance [the Bush administration] can make up for 1.6 million private-sector jobs lost since January 2001." But what would Kerry do? Turn capitalism upside-down? The fact is the profit system has mass unemployment built into it. There has never been a time every worker had a job, and there never will be as long as capitalism exists.

Both Bush and Kerry represent a system that thrives on what Karl Marx called "the reserve army of the unemployed." Voting for either one is voting to continue a system that breeds joblessness. Only organizing for revolution that eliminates profits can end unemployment (as happened in the Soviet Union of the 1930s and '40s.

Old-time Red

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Abu Ghraib methods here

"I do not view the sexual abuse, torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers as an isolated event," says Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist who has often testified about human rights abuses in U.S. prisons. "The plight of prisoners in the USA is strikingly similar to the plight of the Iraqis who were abused by American GIs. Prisoners are maced, raped, beaten, starved, left naked in freezing cold cells and otherwise abused in too many American prisons, as substantiated by findings in many courts that prisoners' constitutional rights to remain free of cruel and unusual punishment are being violated.

(Creators Syndicate, 8/8)

Low pay is real stress

It is noteworthy that in news media coverage of job stress, the emphasis is usually on educated middle-class professionals who, in fact have many choices -- including a lower-pressure job or simply working less. All this hand-wringing over the suffering of the relatively fortunate only distracts us from the plight of Americans whose work lives are really stressful: those who are paid $7 or $8 an hour don't have health insurance and lack the skills to education to better their lot.

Life for these workers is a tightrope act without a net.... (NYT, 9/19)

Exec's only job is profit

Peter F. Drucker, the preeminent student of American management: "If you find an executive who wants to take on social responsibility, fire him fast." (NYT, 9/19)

Big US co. poisons Asians

BUYAT BAY BEACH, Indonesia -- First the fish began to disappear. Then villagers began developing strange rashes and bumps. Finally in January, Masna Stirman, aided by a $1.50 wet nurse, gave birth to a tiny, shriveled girl with small lumps and wrinkled skin....

The infant's death came after years of complaints by local fishermen about waste dumped in the ocean by the owner of a nearby gold mine, the Newmont Mining Corporation, the world's biggest gold producer, based in Denver....

Environmental groups and, increasingly, government officials charge that it employs practices not tolerated at home....

About 120 villagers were waiting to be examined in June....Thirty of the villagers had tumor-like growths, said one of the doctors, Jane Pangemanan....

"I was shocked by what I saw," she said.... About 80 percent showed symptoms of poisoning by mercury and arsenic. (NYT, 9/8)

US trains killers of workers

Since 2002, American military trainers have been instructing Colombian soldiers there in counterguerrilla techniques....

The attorney general's office said late Monday that Colombian soldiers assassinated three union leaders last month, an account that contrasts sharply with the army's earlier contention that the three men were Marxist rebels killed in a firefight.

The attorney general's announcement vindicated union leaders in Colombia and Europe who said the army had killed three defenseless union activists and then tried to cover the matter up.

Colombia is by far the world's most dangerous country for union members, with 94 killed last year and 47 slain by Aug. 25 this year... (NYT, 9/8)

Trying to spin Iraq

"There are areas where difficulties remain," (the response by Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, to a question about Iraq). (NYT, 9/19)

Bring this lesson to class?

"If con is the opposite of pro,"... then isn't Congress the opposite of progress?" Be prepared to discuss this... (NYT, 9/16)

Unsafe -- but profitable!

... the Food and Drug Administration....and seven drug makers had failed for years to warn doctors and patients that most antidepressants have not proved effective in treating depression in children and that some studies suggest they may cause some children to become acutely suicidal. In 2002, nearly 11 million prescriptions for the drugs were given to children, 2.7 million of them to children under 12.

Seven top executives from drug giants like Pfizer, Wyeth and GlaxoSmithkline were sharply questioned about why the companies had collectively failed to publish or publicize results of studies showing that their drugs had not proved effective in Treating teenagers and children. (NYT, 9/10)

State Power -- Part III

(The first article in this series on state power dealt with the government as the key instrument of the bosses' dictatorship. The second described the complex relationship between official and unofficial arms of the state apparatus and the process that turns racist ideology into racist policy. This one traces the parallel trail that leads from imperialist ideology to imperialist foreign policy and the role the state plays in the process.)

The long, shameful career of Samuel P. Huntington illustrates the close link between the government, major universities and the think-tanks and foundations that define and justify U.S. bosses wars to maintain their world domination.

Huntington is the Weatherhead University Professor at Harvard, where he directs the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and chairs the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. The Olin Foundation reflects the views of the more openly right-wing section of U.S. bosses, but it still camps under the tent of the dominant liberal establishment. Every member of the Harvard Corporation belongs to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) or the Brookings Institution, both leading liberal think-tanks.

Huntington considers himself an "old-fashioned" Democrat. He plans to vote for Kerry and was "dead-set" against Bush, Jr.'s Iraq adventure. (New York Times Magazine, 5/2/04)

Although Huntington may disapprove of the current White House tactics for securing Persian Gulf oil, nonetheless he's a leader among academics who rationalize U.S rulers' goals and the racist lies that disguise them in order to validate the wars needed to carry them out. In 1993, he published an article in the CFR's magazine Foreign Affairs, entitled "The Clash of Civilizations." The phrase caught fire. Actually, Huntington didn't invent it; he stole it from a fascist British professor named Bernard Lewis, who had coined it in 1964.

A CALL FOR ALL-OUT WAR

In Huntington's version of this pseudo-theory, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the class struggle is now dead. Ideology is dying. In the future, "the great divisions among humankind will be cultural...the United States must forge alliances with similar cultures....With alien civilizations, the West must be accommodating if possible, but confrontational if necessary." (Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993)

Huntington adds the usual academic disclaimers and pleas for tolerance, but his message is clear: get ready for all-out war between the "civilized" West and the "barbarians" in the Muslim and Arab world.

After 9/11, the "Clash of Civilizations" took on a life of its own, launching a jingoistic anti-Arab witch-hunt and paving the way for the U.S. military's wanton slaughter of Iraqi civilians, including thousands of children. Huntington's racist notion of "alien civilizations" had already helped dehumanize Arab people in the minds of U.S. workers, helping the liberal Democrat Clinton to carry out regular bombing raids over Iraq and a deadly sanctions policy that led directly to more than a million Iraqi deaths between 1992 and 2000, most of them young children.

The Hitlerite ravings of this prominent professor are used to mask inter-imperialist oil rivalry as a "conflict among cultures," first to the limited audience of think-tank and university specialists and then to the mass media. After Huntington had published his Foreign Affairs article, the process almost duplicated the popularization in the late 1960s and early '70s of Arthur Jensen's racist claims about the "genetic inferiority" of black workers. (See CHALLENGE, 9/22)

The article became a book, entitled "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order." More importantly, the networks and print media launched a mass campaign to spread Huntington's thesis. The usual "loyal opposition" debates took place, during which various liberal opponents had their chance to take issue with Huntington over details. However, in the end the deck had been stacked, and the norm had become -- and remains today -- the overwhelmingly racist characterization of Arab and Muslim peoples that fills the airwaves and the press. All this started in the pages of the Liberal Establishment's leading foreign policy journal.

THE CARTER DOCTRINE: WAR FOR OIL

Huntington has also worked directly with the official state apparatus, always for Democratic administrations. Under Jimmy Carter, he was Coordinator of Security Planning at the National Security Council, serving under Zbigniew Brzezinski, another academic (Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins), whose recent "The Grand Chessboard" gave U.S. bosses their current blueprint for continuing world domination. Huntington and Brzezinski therefore played a key role in helping elaborate the "Carter Doctrine," announced in 1980, which commits the U.S. to wage war to prevent any "hostile power" from seizing Persian Gulf oil. This grand strategy continues today, as presidential policy from Bush, Sr. through Bush, Jr. demonstrates.

Huntington's contribution to U.S. imperialism's genocidal wars goes back to his 1957 book, "The Soldier and the State," complaining that U.S. society wasn't sufficiently militarized. He called for the U.S. to establish a global empire similar to the pre-Civil War Southern slavocracy. Within a few years, Huntington was tapped as a consultant to the U.S. State Department under President Lyndon Johnson. At the height of the Vietnam War, he reported that the only way to pacify Vietnam was a strong Vietnamese police force -- i.e., homegrown fascism. It didn't work, and Huntington complained later that his advice hadn't been followed. The U.S. military adventure ended in a fiasco, but Huntington hasn't stopped trying -- and the bosses haven't stopped listening. His 1968 "Political Order in Changing Societies," another rant about the need for social order, still appears on college reading lists as a "classic" theory of "nation-building." His 1975 opus, "The Crisis of Democracy," which laments the dangers of "excess" democracy, objectively paved the way for the Hart-Rudman commission's current strategy for turning the U.S. into a police state.

TRAVELING THE NAZI ROUTE

Huntington has recently broadened his "clash of civilizations" poison to include an attack on immigrants within the U.S., particularly Hispanic workers. His new book, "Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity," blames Hispanic immigrants for "undermining" the greatness of the United States.

If this sounds familiar, it should. Huntington has invented nothing new here. The notion of "outsiders" and "aliens," from hostile "foreign" cultures and civilizations who "pollute" the supposed purity of a society follows the well-worn road traveled by Hitler and his Nazi gangsters. Huntington is merely their successor wrapped in red, white and blue.

But, as we have shown, he's hardly a lone fascist working in isolation. He occupies a place of honor in the most prestigious U.S. university. He publishes in U.S. imperialism's most influential foreign policy journal. He shuttles back and forth between his Ivy League ivory tower and the halls of government. The insidious message of his racist poison is packaged for mass consumption. He could not exist in this capacity without the full support of the rulers' state apparatus, which promotes him because he serves its most essential needs.

Huntington is a valuable case in point for communists to study and explain, because he is typical of the relationship among intellectuals, ideology, policy and the state under the profit system. Many others, including his pal Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger (Brzezinski's Republican Tweedle-dum), could have served the purpose. Our task here is twofold. First, we must expose their lies and show how these lies serve the bosses' class agenda. Second, we must deepen our understanding of their relationship to the state and work to arm millions with this understanding. In the process, we will advance our ability to build a Party that can organize workers to smash this state and the ruling class that will wield it as a weapon against us until we do so.

(Next: How the rulers use the state apparatus as an instrument of internal struggle among themselves.)

Auto workers strike
American Axle this year.

DETROIT -- Black and white workers at the American Axle plant denounced what appeared to be two hangman's nooses hanging on a vehicle here, signing a mass grievance attacking the racist symbols. UAW Local president Wendy Thompson said the group protest showed the racists "did not have the support of the white workers," and partly blamed the company for "promoting a hostile work environment." She said further that the UAW, as an organization, was not doing enough to challenge racist attitudes in workplaces.

The fact is not only did the International union grant billions in give-backs to the auto companies, resulting in layoffs of hundreds of thousands of last-hired black workers, but the union itself mobilized 1,000 Klan members and sympathizers to break a sit-down strike led by PLP in 1973 at the Chrysler Mack Avenue plant. Fighting racism in the UAW will have to be organized by anti-racist rank-and-filers and led by communists, the latter having organized the UAW 70 years ago.

 

Hundreds Of Thousands Protest Bush But Democrats Are No Lesser Evil

a href="#Democrats’ War Crimes">"emocrats’ War Crimes ; ahref="#Democrats’ Domestic Crimes">"emocrats' Domestic Crimes

a href="#PLP’s Red Politics Exposes ‘Anyone but Bush’ Illusion">PLP’" Red Politics Exposes ‘Anyone but Bush’ Illusion

a href="#Racist Ideology A Bosses’ Crucial Weapon To Hold State Power">"acist Ideology A Bosses’ Crucial Weapon To Hold State Power

a href="#‘Exxon-Mobil, Texaco-we won’t fight for you no more!’">‘Exx"n-Mobil, Texaco-we won’t fight for you no more!’

a href="#AFL-CIO Can’t Censor Rank & File Sign:">"FL-CIO Can’t Censor Rank & File Sign

Turning Base For Red Prez Into Mass Base For Communism

a href="#UAW Refuses to Strike While CAT Chews Up Workers’ Contract">"AW Refuses to Strike While CAT Chews Up Workers’ Contract

Detroit City Workers Wildcat vs. Democrats Racist Cuts, Layoffs

Job Creation: A Capitalist Mirage

Chicago Democrats Protect Police Torturers

Peru: Angry Masses Show Racism is Tarnished Path

LETTERS

a href="#Politics of ‘Selling’ Challenge at Anti-Bushites Protests">Po"itics of ‘Selling’ Challenge at Anti-Bushites Protests

Fighting for Communist Politics in Pakistan

• Challenge Responds

Collective Struggle Helped Us During SEIU Convention

Felt Great in First Activity Against Racist Cross-burning

CIA-Trained Terrorists Freed in Panama

Winning Workers in Oakland Community Organization

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

• A Kerry vote helps $ystem
• Army recruiters never mention war
• TV helps drag kids down
• Leaving the child behind
• Exploiting Iraq’s economy

Caspian Oil Profits Behind Massacre of Workers and Children

Learning From Class Struggle and Communist Politics

---

Hundreds Of Thousands Protest Bush But Democrats Are No Lesser Evil

On August 29, about 500,000 people marched in New York against Bush and his wars. Spirited demonstrators took on the NYPD in clashes throughout the Republican convention. They represented millions who reject Bush’s wasting of human lives for oil and his pandering to greedy corporations. While the protests are encouraging, the rulers are hoping to direct these protests into the voting booths for the equally deadly Democrat Kerry. Bush and Kerry both serve the capitalist class that requires expanding imperialist wars and tightening control over the workers. They appeal to different voting bases and have some serious tactical differences over how to maintain U.S. world domination. But their essence is the same.

Democrats and Republicans support U.S. imperialism’s strategic objectives, including an all-powerful U.S. military and control of the Middle East. In July 2003, the Senate voted 95-0 to support President Bush’s $368 billion military appropriation. In July 2004 they voted 96-0 for a $425 billion military appropriation. Like the resolution authorizing the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, not one Democratic Senator stood in opposition.

Democrats and Republicans share U.S. military policy in the Middle East, including annually voting to award Israel $3 billion to oppress Palestinian workers, threaten surrounding countries, and maintain an enormous arsenal of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons to act as U.S. imperialism’s hired gun protecting the oil-rich region’s western flank.

The Democrats supported the Iraq war from build-up to actual attack. Those who conditioned their support on multilateral approval through the United Nations dropped their reservations like a hot potato once the war began. Most Democrats unconditionally supported the war, and as with Vietnam, began to ask questions only when the mission began to falter. Now they want to capitalize on mass opposition to the war to win the election.

Imperialist war is not result of the bad policies of diabolical politicians that we can vote out of office. It is the nature of the capitalist beast. Wars for oil and other resources, for access to markets and cheap labor, and for depriving other capitalists of these things are inevitable as long as capitalism exists. Elections and mass reform movements cannot end imperialism since they just provide a band-aid solution to a deadly cancer.

Only a mass communist movement can organize workers, soldiers and students to wipe out the imperialist warmakers and replace their dictatorship with the revolutionary dictatorship of the working class, abolishing their racist profit system. The bosses won’t give up their profits peacefully, That is why the most important thing we can do is to build a mass international PLP as a way to wage the long and difficult struggle to put an end to the hell of capitalism.

Armed with communist politics, we can turn the horrors of the capitalists’ wars against them. The torture and murder of prisoners at Abu Ghraib disgusted millions. On the job, barracks and schools, in the unions and mass organizations, we could have responded with more demonstrations, forums, and literature. We have the opportunity to transform widespread outrage at these atrocities into a mass movement against the capitalist dictatorship that commits them, at home and around the world.

The enemy isn’t far to seek. On the job, we can attack war profiteering corporations and union bosses who try to sell us out to the imperialist Democrats. The schools and universities are crawling with military recruiters and ROTC programs. We can expose the universities’ role in military research and in shaping the racist, fascistic ideology that leads U.S. imperialism. In the community, we can target politicians who dismantle social programs to fund the war effort. But we can never think that an end to imperialist war will come before the working class, led by a mass international PLP, seizes power with communist revolution.

a name="Democrats’ War Crimes">">"emocrats’ War Crimes

Wilson led the U.S. into World War I, making it a full-fledged imperialist power.

Roosevelt and Truman directed the unnecessary murders of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Tokyo, Dresden, Frankfurt, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki during World War II.

In the Cold War, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter armed and funded pro-U.S. dictators and insurgencies around the world.

Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson wasted millions of workers’ lives trying to defend U.S. imperialism in Korea and Vietnam.

Kennedy invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

Johnson invaded the Dominican Republic.

Carter, who today goes around "overseeing democratic elections," praised Somoza, the Nicaraguan dictator, for his "progress in human rights," just a year or so before he was forced to flee by a mass insurrection. It was also Carter, preaching his "Blood for Oil Profits" Doctrine, who began the U.S. military build-up in the Middle East.

Clinton dropped more bombs on Yugoslavia than his predecessors did on Vietnam.

Clinton enforced U.S. sanctions and "no-fly" zones, starving, bombing and killing over 500,000 Iraqis.

 

a name="Democrats’ Domestic Crimes">">"emocrats’ Domestic Crimes

Wilson used the Sedition Acts during WWI and imprisoned thousands for opposing the war and the draft.

After the war, Wilson launched the notorious Palmer Raids jailing and deporting thousands of leftist immigrant workers.

Wilson’s racist Immigration Act of 1917 kept out Asians.

Roosevelt herded Japanese-Americans into concentration camps.

Truman approved the anti-Communist legislation and purges of the McCarthy era.

Johnson diverted troops of the 82nd Airborne from going to Vietnam to brutally put down rebelling workers in Detroit in 1967.

In Operation Cointelpro, Johnson unleashed the FBI on anti-Vietnam War activists.

Clinton signed "anti-terrorist" legislation that sharply curtails workers’ civil liberties.

Under Clinton, the prison population doubled to over 2 million, the highest in the world, especially among black workers.

Gary Hart helped create the imperialist, fascist manifesto known as the Hart-Rudman reports.

Virtually all Democrats in Congress voted for the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security.

a name="PLP’s Red Politics Exposes ‘Anyone but Bush’ Illusion"></a>"LP’s Red Politics Exposes ‘Anyone but Bush’ Illusion

NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 2—Hundreds of thousands turned out to protest against the Republican Convention in spite of the police state conditions imposed by billionaire Mayor Bloomberg and his NYPD storm troopers. PLP was there to raise our revolutionary line. While challenging Bush and all he stands for is important, the most crucial thing we could do was to criticize the equally-evil Democrats and call on our fellow demonstrators to fight for communism. No politician can solve the problems facing workers.

We began by holding a protest at a neighborhood recruiting center. We called out all politicians as servants to the ruling-class bent on imperialist domination. We especially attacked the "lesser-evil" Kerry for calling for mandatory national service from High School students and his role in preparing our class brothers and sisters to fight in more imperialist wars. We explained to many workers, as well as people who just registered to go into the military, how an "economic draft" is already being conducted. The workers in the neighborhood accepted us warmly, and the recruiters had shock on their faces as we chanted, "Solders, Turn Your Guns Around - Shoot the Profit System Down!"

Our next stop was the massive anti-Bush march that brought out over 500,000 people despite the bosses’ media attempts to discourage people from attending. Our multi-racial contingent found it discouraging at times to fight for our line "Kerry/Bush - No Solution! Fight for Communist Revolution!" At first many were upset with us for denouncing elections, but when we explained our point of view, they were open and took CHALLENGE.

Today and during the other protest we distributed over 6,400 Challenges, 14,000 leaflets and countless buttons. The overall political theme of the march was "Anybody But Bush," but as marchers passed by the PLP banner, we offered them a communist solution.

We did a good job of getting our line out to workers and students, but we should not fail to recognize our weaknesses and limits. In general, we need to give better leadership and involve more people in the Party activities. We need to grow! The rotten propaganda of the liberals and opportunist left is widespread. We must redouble our efforts to bring to the masses he antidote of communist politics.. After a very successful project at the Democratic Convention in Boston in July, it was impossible to recreate the same energy and numbers for this project. We fought hard to remain objective and carry out the necessary work of our Party. As capitalism slips into crisis we must intensify our political work and step up our efforts. Every party member and reader of the paper should consider what he or she could contribute to help the party grow.

What PLP did at the RNC had an undeniably positive effect. We pushed revolutionary politics forward and challenged people to think differently. Our actions helped to build class-consciousness and strengthen our organization. Pushing workers, students and soldiers to think about the long-term and how the working-class can get rid of capitalism is one of the most useful things to do with our lives. We need to ensure the Party grows as we and our children face fascism and imperialist wars. Fight for communism! Power to the workers!

a name="Racist Ideology A Bosses’ Crucial Weapon To Hold State Power">">"acist Ideology A Bosses’ Crucial Weapon To Hold State Power

The first article in this series discussed the state apparatus as the tool that allows the capitalists to exercise their dictatorship over the working class, regardless of the political party in power. This article will deal with the state apparatus and its relationship to capitalist ideology.

Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong wrote, "Political power flows from the barrel of a gun." He was referring to the relationship between political authority and violence in class society. But the bosses cannot rule through violence alone. They also need a system of ideas and beliefs to support their oppressive system. The exercise of naked force is a last resort, and they use it ruthlessly when they need it. But they prefer to govern through the force of persuasion, by convincing workers and others that the profit system represents the best of all possible worlds and that revolution is impossible.

The bosses’ ideology is tightly bonded to their state apparatus. The state extends far beyond the official organs of government, like the presidency, the Congress, the military, the courts, the cops, etc. It also includes major foundations, universities, media chains, etc., all linked to the rulers’ various factions. The processes involved are far too numerous and complex for us to describe in one article. They are easier to understand if we examine specific examples. Here we will offer one related to racism.

Racism is the rulers’ bread and butter. It ensures the super-profits their economic system demands. But they also need a body of ideas and beliefs to justify these super-profits. Over the last several decades, the major universities, foundations, think tanks, and the government have all collaborated to transform racist ideology into policy. Here are a few examples:

•In 1969, Harvard’s Review of Education published an article by Arthur Jensen, a professor of educational psychology. Relying on long discredited "evidence," he argued that the federal government should stop funding educational programs in school districts with large numbers of black children, because black people in general had fewer "intelligence genes" than whites, and no amount of social engineering could alter the supposedly biological nature of intelligence. Anyone could see that this racist filth was no different from Nazi eugenics. Nonetheless, every establishment publication, including the New York Times, trumpeted Jensen’s "research" as though it were a groundbreaking discovery. Republican President Nixon used it to justify drastic education budget cuts, which helped fund U.S. imperialism’s raging war of genocide in Vietnam.

•Another Harvard professor, Daniel P. Moynihan, who later became the liberal Democratic Senator from NY, commented that the "winds of Jensen [were] gusting with gale force" in Washington. Already established as a prominent racist theorist, he argued that the problems of the poorest black workers were not due to racist oppression, but to the "matriarchal" structure of the black family. Moynihan supported Nixon’s budget cuts, including a wage freeze in the early 1970s.

•Jensen inspired a host of imitators. Richard Herrnstein, who chaired the Harvard Psychology Department, weighed in with a series of articles and books claiming that "socioeconomic status" was genetically determined. These lies helped Nixon’s successors, both Democrat and Republican, slash social services and wages. Before his death, Herrnstein teamed up with still another Harvard storm trooper, Charles Murray, to publish The Bell Curve, which launched another salvo of racist genetic venom.

•From 1975 until today, a Harvard entomologist (i.e. ant specialist) named E.O. Wilson has made a fortune with his theory of "Sociobiology." He says that all of society and all human behavior, from financial success to wars of conquest, is in the genes. When Sociobiology was first published, Wilson received vast media coverage, including cover stories in all the big weeklies, TV appearances, favorable New York Times reviews and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

The practical consequences of the policies that flowed from Jensen-Herrnstein-Murray-Wilson & Co., is racist misery for tens of millions of workers. The most tangible are the ongoing effects of social programs wiped out by the liberal Democrat Clinton. In one stroke, Clinton erased welfare, a process begun by Reagan, and replaced it with a racist scheme of slave-labor scabbing known as "Workfare." Workfare replaced masses of laid-off, unionized municipal workers with unemployed workers on welfare. They were forced to accept their welfare checks for jobs that once paid union wages and benefits. This served to grind down even further the wages, benefits, and working conditions of the entire working class. Bush has just stepped up those attacks.

We can draw several important conclusions about the nature of the rulers’ state apparatus and the ideology that supports its dictatorship over workers:

Regardless of the party in the White House, the bosses’ social and economic policies are racist to the core.

An onslaught of racist theorizing paves the way for racist policies

The "theorists" are often linked to Harvard or other elite universities, and usually begins in the comfort of a research lab, seminar room, or the halls of a think-tank like the Brookings Institution.

The big guns of the capitalist media arsenal popularize racist theories by blasting them into newspapers and magazines and over the airwaves.

Understanding the class nature of the state requires that we also understand the class nature of all the major institutions in society and the complex relationship between them and the government.

Communists must expose this relationship and the racist, anti-working class ideas and policies the bosses need to maintain political power and maximum profits. PLP’s goal is to lead hundreds of millions of workers to smash the boss’s state and replace it with the revolutionary, communist dictatorship of the working class. Clarifying the class nature of the state can become an unbeatable weapon once it has been grasped by the working class.

Next: The bosses’ state, ideology, foreign policy, and the case of Samuel P. Huntington.

a name="‘Exxon-Mobil, Texaco-we won’t fight for you no more!’"></a>"Exxon-Mobil, Texaco-we won’t fight for you no more!’

New York City, Sept. 2 — August 31 was a busy day. Scores of different groups staged protests from Wall St. to 50th St. in Manhattan, marching towards Madison Square Garden and the RNC. PLP members were well represented in the protest organized by a social justice coalition and members from other groups we’re in. The coalition planned the protest in early summer, to focus on the issues of imperialism and oil wars, fascist repression under the Patriot Act and Homeland Security, and the need for the working class to unite and fight back against the war budget.

Sandwiched in by cops, we started our picket line in front of the Exxon building which houses a Chase-Manhattan bank branch on the ground floor. As we chanted, "Exxon-Mobil, Texaco-we won’t fight for you no more," passersby took anti-imperialist leaflets, some nodding their approval. Several young people and others joined the line.

Claiming there was a "threat" to the building, the cops arrested three youth. One was simply an observer. As young legal observers got two released and info on the third, a man from an anti-police brutality group chanted, "Stop police brutality." Others added, "Black Latin, Asian, white, to defeat fascism we must unite." The cops arrested over 1100 protestors that day, profiling youth.

As we started to march toward Madison Square Garden many young people joined in, more than doubling our numbers. We chanted, "Jobs-Yes, Occupations-No, Imperialist Oil Wars Have Got To Go," and "US Troops Out of Iraq, End the War Now," as many people stopped to watch, take pictures and show support. We ended our march at 34th St. to avoid being caught in the cops’ orange nets.

In building for this protest a number of PLP members successfully raised our ideas in several organizations and got endorsements for the action. This will help sharpen the ideological struggle inside these groups during this election period and encourage our friends to read Challenge, join PLP study groups and the Party.

a name="AFL-CIO Can’t Censor Rank & File Sign:">">"FL-CIO Can’t Censor Rank & File Sign:

‘War Budget Leaves Every Worker Behind’

NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 1—Contrary to Sunday’s mammoth march against Bush and the Republican National Convention, today’s union rally was very integrated and mainly working class. Some 10,000 workers and others rallied near Madison Square Garden, while Dick Cheney was about to speak. The rally followed a symbolic unemployment line of thousands, stretching 40 blocks from Wall Street to Madison Square Garden with signs reading, "The next pink slip might be yours." The city’s Central Labor Council organized these two activities in place of the traditional Labor Day Parade.

The main speakers were a rogue’s gallery of NYC union leaders; Dennis Rivera, head of 1199/SEIU, Lillian Roberts, chief of the city’s AFSCME union, Roger Toussaint, head of TWU Local 100, and Randi Weingarten, of the teachers’ union. All these "labor leaders" are loyal to capitalism and have sold out their membership in negotiations with the city bosses.

They talk about "regime change," but they mean electing Kerry and the Democrats. Never mind that it was Clinton-Gore that signed NAFTA, brought China into the WTO, failed to make good on striker replacement legislation, and launched racist attacks on welfare and other social services, all things the union leaders blame on the Republicans!

Jorge Rondón, an immigrant janitor said, "[The Republicans] are always talking about the cops and firefighters, but we are the true heroes. We cleaned from the beginning the asbestos in Ground Zero. We are the forgotten heroes." Many of these cleaning workers have suffered from respiratory diseases without getting any help at all.

The AFL-CIO leadership tried to exert tight control over the slogans printed on signs carried by union members. They wanted a scripted "mainstream" message that they could use in the so-called battle ground states in the Kerry campaign. But a struggle took place inside the planning meetings for this demonstration, which resulted in signs that read, "A war budget leaves every worker behind" finding their way into one union contingent. Many workers said they supported this anti-Iraqi war sentiment!

The only real answers workers and other anti-Bush demonstrators got during the many days of protest was the one brought by PLP. With many thousands of leaflets, buttons that read, "It’s not just Bush, It’s Capitalism," and some 6400 CHALLENGES distributed all week, our communist message was clear: illusions on the Democrats are deadly for workers and youth, and union hacks are in the bosses’ pockets. The only way out is to organize a mass communist-led anti-racist revolutionary movement to get rid of capitalism once and for all.

Turning Base For Red Prez Into Mass Base For Communism

WASHINGTON, DC September 1 – The election of PLP member Mike Golash as president of ATU Local 689 is a very significant political development, full of dangers and opportunities. Two thousand members of this mainly black local of 9,000 voted for a known communist, in the shadow of the White House, in the midst of the war in Iraq and growing Homeland Security fascism.

The union’s Committee on Political Education (COPE) is organizing a conference on October 16 at the union hall to begin a discussion of the issues that the union must deal with in the near future.  All of these issues (racism, cost of health insurance, women’s rights, the war in Iraq and homeland security, and cuts in spending on mass transit) are related to the ongoing crisis of modern imperialism. We hope many workers will participate, and as a result, win many new CHALLENGE readers and distributors.

Through the two election campaigns, a Party study group was pulled together and dozens of workers participated in Mike’s campaign. During the campaign, CHALLENGE sales, which are way too low, increased a little. After Mike lost the first election and went back to driving a bus, they increased a little more. But since winning office, CHALLENGE sales have slumped again. Mike has been trying to get the local union up and running, and too few workers are distributing CHALLENGE.

A contract fight is brewing, and coming off the election, workers’ expectations are high. There may be a red president, but it’s still the same union. In order to battle the bosses, we need to change the political outlook of the workers and the organizational strength of the union. We’re waging a struggle to build unity and equality in our ranks, and either suffer, or move forward together. We will not accept a contract that divides the workers or plays one group against the other. The right arguments and knowledge aren’t enough. Workers’ commitment to the class struggle is what makes the difference, and at its core must be a stronger, bigger base for PLP.

A young driver reports that the mood in his garage is changing. More workers are standing up and looking out for each other, even though many are afraid. This is a long-term struggle and things are not going to change overnight. We need to involve many more workers in giving political leadership, or many more will get cynical.

At a recent Party meeting, one veteran Metro worker said that the election fell in our lap because the old president went crazy. "If anyone else had run against Mike, they would have won...The workers voted for Mike, not PLP. And if they stop Mike, this enterprise is over."

Maybe. But luck is when opportunity meets preparation. If you haven’t done the work, and proven yourself to the workers, having won their trust and confidence and you having confidence in them, then you can’t take advantage of opportunities when they arise. Over 28 years, Mike has done the work, built the ties, engaged in the struggle and built a base for PLP. As another worker at the meeting said, "It’s more than political. We’ve been friends for over 25 years." Our challenge now is to turn a mass base for a communist into a mass base for communism.

a name="UAW Refuses to Strike While CAT Chews Up Workers’ Contract">">"AW Refuses to Strike While CAT Chews Up Workers’ Contract

PEORIA, IL August 15 — For the second time in four months, 9,200 Caterpillar workers rejected the "last, best and final offer" of the world’s largest manufacturer of heavy equipment. Seven UAW locals in four states defeated the contract proposal. Workers are currently working without a contract, and UAW bargaining chairman Bill Scott said that a strike is not even under consideration, despite overwhelming strike votes by the workers.

The latest proposal would give workers a signing bonus, cost-of-living increases and lump-sum payments instead of a raise. It would also create a two-tier wage system for new-hires that would lower top wages by $7 an hour and replace the pension with a 401(k) plan. The company also wants current and future workers and 20,000 retirees to begin paying some of their health costs.

If an agreement isn’t reached by September, retirees will have premiums taken out of their monthly pension checks, ranging from $130 for an individual not on Medicare to a high of $280 for a retiree and spouse both on Medicare. The premiums will increase on Jan. 1, 2005.

The UAW is trying to hold on to what little remains of a contract that was the result of a 6 ½-year dispute that ended in defeat in 1998. The union says the company can afford a better deal based on soaring profits over the last several years. CAT says this contract is not about affordability, but competitiveness in the global market. CAT saw record profits and sales in the last quarter, and expect a 25 percent boost in sales and revenues for 2004, along with an "80 percent increase in profits" over last year. (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 8/17)

CAT is fighting to free itself from 40 years of union contracts. In 1998, the company was able for the first time to hire temporary workers at lower wages. It also swept aside the tradition of annual pay hikes. What’s more, CAT is confident that they have taken the strike weapon out of the UAW’s hands. During the strike in 1994-95, CAT ran its factories with scabs, shipped work to its overseas facilities, and made then-record profits.

A decade later, the union is much weaker than it was then. Since 1998, the union has lost about 3,000 members at CAT, and is one-fifth of what they were 25 years ago. Also, about 70 percent of the aging workforce will be eligible to retire within the next six years.

UAW leaders, blinded by nationalism and shackled by obedience to the bosses’ laws, are no match for CAT’s attacks. In this period of sharpened inter-imperialist rivalry they will sacrifice current and future workers’ living standards to keep the bosses "competitive in the global market" and pay for their imperialist wars. Building a mass international PLP among industrial workers is the only way to eventually end these fascist attacks with communist revolution.

Detroit City Workers Wildcat vs. Democrats Racist Cuts, Layoffs

DETROIT, MI — Democratic mayor Kwame Kilpatrick laid off nearly 400 city workers this summer. Kilpatrick, the bankers and auto bosses are targeting city services to close a $333 million budget deficit.

These layoffs follow the layoffs of 3,200 custodians, engineers, bus drivers, repairmen and other school workers, including 900 teachers from the Detroit public schools. Ninety percent of Detroit’s 151,000 public school students are black, and more than 7 out of 10 come from families living below the official poverty level.

The cuts include shutting at least three schools, in addition to the 16 closed or consolidated last year, and renegotiating the contract with the Detroit Federation of Teachers to reduce or eliminate 3-4 percent annual raises. The budget for supplies and purchased services was cut by more than one-third, $50 million, and funding for playground improvements were slashed from $1 million to $250,000.

Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act removes federal funds if districts fail to achieve specific academic goals. These budget cuts, layoffs and school closings ensure future failures and even more budget cuts.

"The conditions are already unbearable," said a school bus driver. "Buildings are falling apart, there is no toilet paper or soap in the bathrooms, the classrooms are overcrowded and the teachers are spending money out of their own pockets...With the casinos downtown making millions and CEOs raking it in, how can they say there is no money for schools?"

Last June, a rank-and-file group called the DPS United Workers Coalition Committee organized wildcat strikes against the job cuts. Workers’ anger erupted when pink slips went out on June 11, eliminating whole departments and taking the jobs and benefits of older workers near retirement. On June 17, School Board President Bill Brooks cancelled the regularly scheduled meeting when more than 700 people showed up to protest the layoffs. He said there was not enough security to protect the board from the angry workers.

The wildcats were aimed at Democratic Party politicians, who control the city on behalf of the auto bosses and bankers, and the pro-capitalist union leaders who have no plan to fight back.

At the east side bus terminal, Teamsters leaders worked with the police to open the gates and told the drivers if they didn’t work they would lose their jobs. They even tried to get bus drivers to crawl through a hole in the fence. None of the drivers crossed the line. Citywide, only three out of 300 buses left the terminals.

On the second day, despite seven arrests on the east side, drivers refused to drive their buses out of the yard. On the west side, all the workers were forced to drive or lose their jobs. The drivers took their buses to the schools and parked them, rather than picking up students for summer school. Two other picketers were arrested at the west side depot.

Workers expressed outrage that city money is used for casinos and sports stadiums but it is not available for education. "They are spending $130 billion on the war in Iraq. You mean to tell me that they don’t have money for schools here at home?" said one worker. Another said, "I call it union-busting...Two years ago they laid off 210 people, now they want to lay off 3,200. Where does it stop?"

Under capitalism it never stops. The struggle between bosses and workers is constant and never ending. And in this period, imperialist wars and Homeland Security fascism are being financed by racist attacks on the international working class. Building a mass PLP for communist revolution is the only way off of this treadmill. And judging by Detroit’s school workers, the opportunities are growing.

Job Creation: A Capitalist Mirage

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate fell slightly from 5.5 percent in July to 5.4 percent. But the unemployment rate for black workers is almost twice the national average, 10.4 percent, and for teenagers is 17 percent. The drop in the official unemployment rate comes mainly from 152,000 people leaving the workforce. While 144,000 new jobs were reported in August, 8 million people are still officially unemployed, and for the 23rd month in a row, more than 20 percent have been unemployed for more than six months. The average duration of unemployment increased to 19 weeks.

In addition to the 8 million "officially" unemployed, another 1.6 million are considered "marginally attached to the labor force," meaning they looked for work some time in the past 12 months, but not in the four weeks preceding the survey. Those who have given up looking are not counted at all.

Manufacturing jobs increased by 22,000, but "this increase mostly reflected auto workers returning to work from the larger-than-usual annual retooling shutdowns in July." Retail trade lost 11,000 jobs in August, and 25,000 over the past two months. Information service employment declined by 10,000 in August and 550,000 since March 2001.

"The relationship between economic growth and job creation has changed in important ways," reports the New York Times (8/9). "The economy is spinning its wheels," says Richard Yamarone, chief economist at Argus Research in New York. "Corporate America is reluctant to hire anyone above the bare minimum." (NYT)

The pundits had forecast 240,000 new jobs for July, but the Department of Labor (DOL) reports there were barely 32,000. In fact, the DOL revised the May and June figures downward by 61,000. There are a million fewer jobs today than there were in late 2000, when the economy was supposedly emerging from the last recession and after nearly three years of economic growth! And according to the new Census report, there were 1.3 million more people in poverty in 2003, mostly women and children.

The soaring cost of — and profits from — healthcare is another brake on job creation. Companies are "reluctant" to hire new workers and take on added health insurance costs. Paying overtime is less costly than hiring new workers, especially since Bush’s new regulations exempt six million workers from overtime pay! And now the bosses are either forcing workers to pay part or all of their health insurance or just eliminating it all together.

"Since employment peaked," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, "we’ve lost many more higher-paying jobs than lower-paying jobs. In recovery, we’ve created more lower-paying jobs than higher-paying jobs." In fact, new jobs are averaging $9,000 less per year than the ones lost. (NYT, 8/9) And more high paying jobs will be lost.

On September 1, Ford and GM reported plans to cut production of cars and trucks by 165,000 in the last quarter of 2004 from a year ago. According to the Detroit Free Press, Ford’s market share of 19.7 percent is their lowest since the 1930s. Ford will build fewer vehicles in the fourth quarter than it has since the recession of 1991. GM will cut production to its lowest level since the attacks on September 11, 2001.

The laws of capitalism dictate that most of the value produced by workers fills the coffers of the bosses who own the means of production. Communists must turn the fight against the profit system into a struggle to abolish wage slavery with communist revolution.µ

Chicago Democrats Protect Police Torturers

CHICAGO, IL September 1 — Today former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge took the 5th Amendment scores of times when asked if he or detectives under his command tortured suspects in the Area 2 and Area 3 police stations. Burge even took the 5th when asked the color of his hair or whether he was ever a detective in Area 2, before becoming a commander in Area 3.

Burge and detectives working for him are accused of torturing 108 black and Latin suspects between August 1972 and September 1991, long before anyone here ever heard of Abu Grahib. They are accused of using electric shock, Russian roulette, attempted suffocation with typewriter covers and beatings to extract confessions.

Police torture was city policy, not the work of some "bad apples," and spanned the administrations of at least five Democratic mayors, including Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington. Democratic Mayor Richard Daley was Cook County state’s attorney (chief prosecutor) from 1980–1989, and prosecuted many of the victims of Burge’s torture chamber. The city fired Burge in 1993 while a federal lawsuit alleging torture by Burge was pending in court. Yet the city continues to spend workers’ tax dollars to pay his civil legal fees and those of the police-torturers who worked under him.

Current Cook County State’s Atty. Richard Devine, another Democrat, worked under Daley when he was state’s attorney. When he was in private practice, his law firm represented Burge in a civil suit, and he worked on the case. Devine has refused to seek charges against Burge, claiming a three-year statute of limitations.

Two attorneys representing four freed death row inmates and another current inmate said they want Daley and several former police superintendents to be deposed to "…prove a widespread conspiracy, a code of silence." (Chicago Tribune 9/2)

Racist police terror and torture are the norm under capitalism, and the Democrats are as guilty as the Bush gang. From Attica to Chicago, from Vietnam to Iraq, U.S. bosses have proven over and over again that they are the most ruthless rulers on the planet. Building a mass international PLP is the only sure way to eventually smash their torture chambers, and destroy their system that thrives on them.

Peru: Angry Masses Show Racism is Tarnished Path

Racism is a universal aspect of capitalism. The bosses make super profits from the super exploitation of a group of workers, while at the same time using racism as a political weapon to divide the working class. In Peru, civil rights organizations have begun a campaign against the blatant racism suffered by indigenous, blacks and dark-skinned Peruvians in general. Their plan is to collect a symbolic 10,000 signatures in a petition against racism to be presented to the authorities on December 10, International Human Rights Day.

They say that racism has become a national disease in Peru, and that it has grown in the midst of the indifference of the politicians and rulers.

Jorge Jordán, of the National Human Rights Coordinating Group—a coalition of several human rights groups—said the purpose of the campaign is to create consciousness among the people of the never ending problem of racism. He claims that the problem can be seen from job discrimination to lack of dark faces in advertising and discrimination in admission to public places. Thousands of indigenous people were killed (mainly by the army and cops) during the recent guerrilla war waged by the Shining Path group.

This petition is a good beginning but there is a better way to fight racism. Some months ago, thousands of mainly indigenous residents of the city of Ilave rebelled against the lack of services by the government. The angry masses lynched the crooked local mayor. The government had to send the army to quell the protests. Also, just a couple of months ago, a general strike shut down the main cities protesting against President Toledo’s anti-working class policies. Interesting enough, the Mayor of Ilave was indigenous, and Toledo is a dark-skinned mestizo.

Workers and youth realize that it is not a matter of the color of the skin of the rulers, but which class they represent. Toledo was brought directly from his job at the World Bank in Washington to rule Peru after the dictator Fujimori fled to Tokyo and his security chief Montesinos, was jailed.

In the final analysis, the racism suffered by the mostly indigenous, mestizo and black population won’t be ended by petitions to the bosses, but by fighting for a communist society, where racism is abolished and anyone committing it is punished.

LETTERS

a name="Politics of ‘Selling’ Challenge at Anti-Bushites Protests"></">Po"itics of ‘Selling’ Challenge at Anti-Bushites Protests

I had an exciting experience last week participating in activities during the Republican Convention. At the main demonstration on August 29, I distributed Challenge to the enormous crowds. For almost two hours I stood at a key intersection announcing our line to the marchers. "It’s not just Bush, It’s Capitalism; Elections Won’t Solve Our Problems; The Day After the Elections, the Same People Will Be Running Our Society No Matter Who Wins: They’re the Capitalists, That’s Why It’s Called Capitalism. We Need Revolution."

I must have announced these and other lines to over 10,000 marchers during that time. And people were listening. Many would give me knowing looks even as they passed (unfortunately, it wasn’t easy for them to stop). And quite a few people actually stopped, turned around, and came back weaving through the crowd to get a paper after hearing what I was saying. They were asking for the paper. I engaged many people in conversation about the election and the necessity to build a mass movement against capitalism. I was impressed once again at how many people do not agree that we need to vote for Kerry, the idea overwhelmingly pushed by the liberal leadership of these marches.

There were obviously many who will vote, but there were many others who felt strongly that voting will not do it, and is a distraction from the real work of building a movement to confront capitalism.

Some people were suspicious that I was simply "selling" something. People are used to people "selling" ideas in the capitalist way, and many see it as opportunist. Indeed, this demonstration brought out all manner of hawkers, selling all kinds of merchandise, much of it creative but with a lousy political line. In contrast, I told people we encourage donations, but the main thing was to read the paper and become involved in the struggle. Many softened their defensiveness (and anti-communism) with this approach, and then gave money anyway! I collected a good amount of money and showed people that it’s politics that is primary, not profits.

Our party has to become better at raising money among the working class, and that is a political task. At these mass demonstrations, we want to get our ideas into the hands of as many people as possible. As we raise money to conduct our political activities, I think flexibility and approachability yield far better results than hard-line "selling."

I also participated in several cultural activities. There are great opportunities for our Party to become involved in the cultural-political renaissance taking place in many quarters, particularly among young people, and use this as a method of party recruitment. I read at a poetry reading, where I was able to criticize bourgeois elections and introduce a class analysis of society. My poems exposed how working-class soldiers from both sides of the war suffer for the profits of the bosses, and how workers’ indestructible dreams of a better world are the worst nightmares of the ruling class. The poems were hard-hitting and caused a strong reaction among the crowd. Several people came up to me afterwards, impressed by our politics.

All in all, it was an inspiring experience to spend the week spreading PLP’s ideas of communist revolution among the workers and youth of NYC. I look forward to building on that experience in the months ahead.

NYC Red Teacher

Fighting for Communist Politics in Pakistan

Congratulation on a successful, impressive and bold Boston summer project. Only PLP is doing great job for a communist revolution. Others are fake, pro- capitalists and nationalists. We believe that only communism will solve the problems of the poor working class. Through communist revolution we can get rid of exploitation, slavery and wars. The profit system is creating wars. In these wars and in the coming World War III, millions of poor people will die. So it is our first and foremost duty to fight against capitalism throughout the world to avert the World War III. Internationalism is the weapon of the working class to fight against capitalist evils. Our party— PLP— is an international Communist organization that strives for equality, justice, liberty and knowledge.

We are trying to make our party strong and capable of mobilizing masses against capitalist oppression, exploitation, layoffs, racism and nationalism. We started our work in 1990 and face many hurdles in organizing our Party. We fight some agents of capitalism within our party. We fight against selfishness and opportunism around us. With criticism and self-criticism, Democratic Centralism and internationalism, we have progressed. First we organized in study groups, then party clubs. Now we have some active members working in different parts of Pakistan.

We are very active in the unions and mass organizations. Our comrades fight for communism among textile, steel and telecommunication workers, among teachers and medical workers, among peasants and students intellectuals, in several cities. The fake leftists are very disappointing. Some have courage to fight against exploitation, so we are trying to give them real leadership.

The so-called elected Premier of Pakistan is a person of imperialism, who will try to strengthen capitalism in this region. Things will only get worse for the working class as privatization brings low wages, unemployment, no services and no security. Shoukat Aziz is a capitalist economist whose policies will strengthen the capitalist economy on the backs of the working class. He cannot eradicate terrorism, political harassment, torture, exploitation, and wage slavery.

We are doing our best to build the Party. We have to publish some articles in Urdu. Some of our friends published Road to Revolution 4 in Sindhi. Please send us more CHALLENGES, The Communist, and the "Revolt-Don’t Vote!" T – Shirt.

Pay our Communist Greetings to all the Comrades!

A Comrade from Pakistan

Challenge Responds: Thanks for your letter. We will send you more CHALLENGES and T-Shirts and The Communist magazine. Indeed, the building of an international revolutionary communist movement is key to fight a capitalist system on route to endless wars, and eventually World War 3. History has proven that as long as there is capitalism and class society there will be war. Our task is to prepare the world’s working class for the long struggle to organize workers, soldiers, youth and peasants to turn the endless wars of capitalism (and eventually another World War) into a mass revolutionary struggle to smash the warmakers and build communism, a society without capitalists-imperialists.

Collective Struggle Helped Us During SEIU Convention

Several party members brought a communist message to thousands of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) members at their International Convention held in San Francisco last June. Bay Area comrades joined with out-of-town delegates, made a plan and carried it through. Without the support of the collective, none of the plan would have happened. Working together, new and experienced comrades all grew in understanding and morale.

When the out of town delegates arrived, we met with the comrades from San Francisco and reviewed the convention schedule. We also did some sightseeing and bonding. The next day, at the big March for National Health Care across the Golden Gate Bridge, a contingent of Party youth held a banner that stated, "Capitalism never has and never will provide health care to all the workers." Thousands of good and honest people pledged to fight until the health care system is "fixed." But while we fight for decent health care, we don’t want to become burned out and frustrated trying to fix a system that can’t be fixed. That’s why the banner was good and a lot of CHALLENGES were sold.

We also bonded with our delegate group and discussed the resolutions up for a vote. We wanted to make a statement from the convention floor that supporting Kerry was not the answer.

A few of us attended a Labor Against War forum, hosted by an SEIU local. This group, led by revisionists and fake leftists, was sponsoring some anti-war resolutions, focusing on supporting Iraqi workers’ right to unionize and voting Bush out. But they shied away from attacking Kerry and the Democrats who support the war. It was interesting to hear various comments of people on the "left," and even more interesting that they refused to let a PLP member speak, going out of their way to ignore his raised hand. After that, we spent a lot of time discussing the political struggle against these fakers, and making a plan to speak from the floor the following day.

The next day, I went to the mike to speak in support of the resolution. I emphasized that the war was about oil profits, and that the unions need to organize workers to use their ultimate weapon, withholding our labor power, instead of supporting politicians. I did not directly attack Kerry, but did raise some key points that several people said they agreed with. It’s very intimidating to stand up and disagree with the union leadership and their base at these conventions. I did not say everything the Party wanted me too, but if it weren’t for the collective struggle, I probably wouldn’t have said anything at all. This was definitely some on-the-job training.

The next day, Kerry came to speak and the Party had a flyer calling him the "slicker" of the two evils, and calling for communist revolution. We had to stand in line for several hours going through the Secret Service checkpoint, and I was able to have three very in-depth conversations with three of my co-workers. I had an additional three more conversations during the trip and I did get literature out to them. I have followed up with one fairly regularly since then.

The comrades from the Bay Area did a great job, fighting to guarantee the Party both inside and outside the convention. Their help and hospitality were invaluable. We also met some other West Coast comrades, and it was a big boost to my confidence.

Struggling Delegate

Felt Great in First Activity Against Racist Cross-burning

A 12-foot cross was burned into the lawn of a black Howard County public school official, who was accused of conspiring with another black high school principal to tamper with her daughter’s grade. She was suspended, and then reinstated after an appeal to the new school superintendent. At a heated public meeting, a group of whites left feeling the school officials "got over." In response to such racist pressure, she has now resigned. And yet our movement advanced in this setting.

Howard County, in the suburbs of Washington, DC is rapidly changing from rural farmland to a suburban bedroom of the region, and is becoming racially diverse. A black co-worker and CD reader lives in Columbia, the planned city in Howard County. Her husband was a substitute teacher in Howard County this past year. She was furious about the cross burning, so we agreed to distribute a flyer talking about the need to stop these racists before they grow, emphasizing the need for multiracial unity and trust in the community. She had never done a leaflet before and was nervous about approaching her neighbors, but she and her husband agreed to pass out the flyers at the shopping center. The flyer pointed out that the KKK uses cross burnings as an organizing tool, something she and her friends had never thought of quite that way.

My neighbor, another Challenge reader, read the flyer and agreed to join us, including the couple’s kids, to leaflet in Columbia. We passed out almost 200 leaflets in 1 1/2 hours! Overwhelmingly, the black, Latin, Asian and white shoppers were friendly and appreciated us being there.

My co-worker grew bolder and initiated conversations. She saw some people she knew and talked with them. My neighbor surprised both of us. She gave out the most flyers and was very dynamic in talking about the ideas and trying to reach every person who passed by. My co-worker felt much better after this and made sure to call another co-worker to tell her how well it went.

She said, "I was nervous before we went out to leaflet. I had never done anything like it before. I was surprised at how many people didn’t know about the cross burning incident. I’d say 98% of the response was positive. There was really no difference in the level of interest between blacks, whites, male, female, younger, older. I decided to go out and do it because people have died fighting for rights, justice, equality, etc. I can spend 2 hours trying to help make people more aware about what’s going on in their community, since I’ve derived so many benefits from the those who fought in the Civil Rights movement."

What we do counts! This small action got two new people active, moved a third person to mass activity, and created an awareness among hundreds of working people that multi-racial, anti-racist boldness must become part of their daily lives. Getting CD out regularly laid the foundation for this modest advance.

DC Comrade

CIA-Trained Terrorists Freed in Panama

Bush and Kerry are calling each other champions of the war against terrorism. Everyone who opposes U.S. imperialism’s plans for global domination is a "terrorist." Well, when it comes to terrorism, the U.S. is still number one. Everyone knows that Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda were trained, armed and financed by the CIA and its allies, from the Saudi oil sheiks to the drug-dealing Pakistani army, during the war against the Soviet army in Afghanistan.

On August 26, another famous CIA-trained terrorist made the news. Mireya Moscoso, the rightwing outgoing President of Panama, ordered the release of Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, Guillermo Novo Sampoll and Pedro Remón Rodríguez.

Carriles, 76 years old, was a CIA-trained mercenary in the 60s who took part in JFK’s failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. When he was released by Cuba, he got more training to carry out sabotage against the Cuban government. In 1976 he placed a bomb in a Cubana Airlines flight, killing 73 people, including the entire Cuban fencing team returning from an international tournament. He was jailed in Venezuela but escaped. In 1997 he took part in a series of bombings against hotels in Havana, killing Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo and injuring many others.

He was arrested in Panama along with his three accomplices in Nov. 2000, after he tried to assassinate Fidel Castro by placing a bomb in the University of Panama during a Latin American Presidents summit meeting.

His accomplices are also terrorists who helped bomb embassies and hotels in Cuba. Guillermo Novo Sampoll worked for the DINA, Pinochet’s Gestapo, and was involved in the murder of Orlando Letelier, Allende’s former Foreign Minister, in Washington, DC. Pedro Ramón Rodriguez was involved in the murder of Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez and another Cuban in NYC on Sept. 11 1980.

As soon as these guys were freed, three of them fled to Florida. Carriles is hiding somewhere in Central America. They are all protected and financed by local death squads and the Cuban-American Foundation, well connected to the Bush administration.

Again, when it comes to terrorism, the U.S. ruling class and its goons are number one.

A Reader

Winning Workers in Oakland Community Organization

"What about Racism, fascism, war and capitalism?" I said. "What about reform and the dismantling of the system," the facilitator replied. "What about Reform and Revolution?" I said. This discussion took place at an all-day retreat of "Education not Incarceration ...a mass-based community group in Oakland, California.

The facilitator of the retreat talked about "moving people to the left." We in PLP talked to several people about joining a discussion group on "Who Rules the US?" We also distributed CHALLENGES.

We have proposed working on an "Anti-Violence Initiative" for the November election, involving PLP members in a mass campaign, helping us bring other workers and youth closer to the ideas of PLP. Figuring out how to relate reform and revolution (i.e. bringing communist politics to this reform struggle) is quite a challenge.

West Coast Comrades

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

A Kerry vote helps $ystem

Kerry’s ability to raise almost as much money as the Republicans is seen as a triumph for American democracy; but his corporate backers are funding him not because they believe in democracy, but because they believe that he will do what they want. And they are unlikely to be wrong. When Kerry gets his orders, he reports for duty.

The idea that this frightened, flinching man would oversee the necessary democratic revolution is preposterous. He has made the system work for him by working for the system. He knows that, as soon as he turns against it, it will destroy him.… A vote for Kerry is not just a vote against George Bush. It is a vote for the survival of the system that made Bush happen. (GW, 9/2)

Army recruiters never mention war

A recruiting brochure arrived at our house from the U.S. Army…. It says nothing about needing to train individuals to kill or be killed in Iraq…. Here’s what the Army offers: "The chance to qualify for 150 careers; guaranteed training in your chosen career;…up to $50,000 for college after you serve…."

Now that’s some bait [for]….a young man or woman who can’t go to college because it’s unaffordable and who can’t get a job because the economy is not producing enough jobs. There is no mention of patriotism or valor in the brochure. There is no mention of war. Instead, the brochure suggests the Army is training a force of medical specialists, chefs and journalists. (Baltimore Sun, 8/11)

TV helps drag kids down

Studies have found that children who watch 10 or more hours of TV a week have lower reading scores and perform less well academically than comparable youngsters who spend less time watching television…. The more TV watched by toddlers aged 1 to 3, the greater their risk of attention problems at age 7. For each hour watched a day, the risk of developing attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder increased by nearly 10 percent….

Many parents of children diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder found the difficulty markedly improved after they took away television viewing privileges….

[Also,] "TV reduction appears to be the most effective measure in reducing weight gain," said Dr. William H. Dietz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (NYT, 8/3)

Leaving the child behind

[The] No Child Left Behind….law gives schools dozens of ways to fail, but does little to help them tackle the causes of low achievement among poor, minority and disabled children…. The right to transfer was not real… There aren’t enough good schools to go to….

Many states have also found ways to transform No Child Left Behind into something closer to Some Children Left Behind, particularly for disabled children and immigrants…. These students...are frequently excluded from accountability systems. (NYT, 8/18)

Exploiting Iraq’s economy

Officially, the U.S. occupation of Iraq ended on June 28, 2004. But in reality, the United States is still in charge: Not only do 138,000 troops remain to control the streets, but the "100 Orders" of L. Paul Bremer III remain to control the economy….

They lock in sweeping advantages to American firms, ensuring long-term U.S. economic advantage.

A sampling of the most important orders demonstrates the economic imprint left by the Bush administration: Order No. 39 allows for: (1) privatization of Iraq’s 200 state-owned enterprises; (2) 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3) "national treatment" — which means no preferences for local over foreign businesses; (4) unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all profits and other funds; and (5) 40-year ownership licenses.

Thus, it forbids Iraqis from receiving preference in the reconstruction while allowing foreign corporations — Halliburton and Bechtel, for example — to buy up Iraqi businesses, do all of the work and send all of their money home. (L.A. Times, 8/10)

Diamond Exploiters Enslave 5-year olds

"Diamonds are forever" say the jewelry industry ads. But for the bosses of the diamond business, children are not forever. In the run-down houses of the Idagh neighborhood of Jaipur, India, amid garbage and rats, children as young as five years old toil in darkened rooms up to 12 hours a day polishing diamonds and other precious stones that soon will be sold for small fortunes in the jewelry stores of the world.

Beginning at dawn each day, they must work at least two years as slaves before getting "paid" 12¢ for each finished diamond or ruby. They suffer deformed fingers because of constantly touching the metal of the round wheel, and respiratory problems caused by chemical fumes used to shine the stones. (Reported in Madrid’s "El Mundo," 8/15.)

Twenty thousand such children, mostly from the lower castes and other minorities, are enslaved in the Indian cities of Surat and Jaipur alone, according to the International Labor Organization, all to cut the cost of producing these stones by 5% to 10%. This is the dirty little secret of the world’s diamond business, but it’s no secret who controls this profit-making operation: the international fine stones bosses — 90% of all diamonds, 95% of emeralds, 85% of rubies and 65% of sapphires are cut and polished in India by these slave children basically working for food.

Much has been said about child soldiers in the Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone and other African countries used to fight the "diamond wars" waged by local warlords to control the diamonds which are sold to the international diamond bosses. But India’s child slaves are well hidden.

El Mundo reports that Mohamed Sussain and Javea have the two qualities making them candidates to become diamond slaves: little fingers and empty stomachs. Four other children work with them in the small shop, beginning at dawn, melting the stones in little bamboo bars before polishing them and giving them final shape using a manual wheel. "If I work two more years," says Javea without taking his eyes from the small ruby he’s shaping, "I will begin to get paid."

In Idgah, a Moslem neighborhood, almost all the houses have been turned in small clandestine shops. The owners divide the workers into small units of five to ten children to avoid detection. No one knows or says where the stones come from. They are brought in the morning and picked up polished later in the day.

The fine stones originate mostly in Africa, Russia or Australia; are classified into 14,000 categories based on their size, quality and color in labs in Antwerp, New York, Bombay and Tel Aviv; and are then shipped for polishing and shaping by India’s child slaves before ending up in the jewelry stores of the centers of world capitalism. The bosses save enough from using this child labor to make it worth the stones’ long round-trip to India.

Some local pro-children activists have given India’s government detailed locations of these shops, but nothing’s been done. "There is no such thing as child labor here," a Jaipur Labor Dept. official told El Mundo.

The precious stones business is monopolized by De Beers — the South African mining giant owns 50% of the industry, with yearly sales of $60 billion — and the Lev Leviev Group, which controls a large part of the polishing and cutting of the stones. De Beers and a few others hold 10 sale meetings a year with wholesale buyers, at non-negotiable prices, kept high by a distribution system limiting supplies. The huge demand expected in the next few years from Asia and the Near East will further enrich these bosses.

Because of worldwide pressure, the industry has slightly adjusted their purchases from warlords in Africa, just as a publicity stunt. But for the children of India, nothing has changed. And consumers will still pay high prices. The industry’s bosses are the only ones benefiting from this slave labor. And when prices for precious stones began declining because of the Iraq war and the world capitalist crisis, the bosses in India did their part to save money by hiring many more children and intensifying their exploitation. No matter how horrible capitalism gets, it can always top itself.

A system like this indeed doesn’t deserve to exist. For the love of the world’s children, it’s time to smash it forever. Then, under communism, children will be the only precious ones society will polish and nurture.

Caspian Oil Profits Behind Massacre of Workers and Children

Russian workers and their children are paying the price of the implosion of the former Soviet Union caused by its many internal contradictions and the state capitalist policies of Krushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev. The latest victims are hundreds of children and teachers massacred in a crossfire in a Beslan school. This followed the mid-air blowing up of two passenger planes and a bomb blast in the Moscow subway, murdering several riders.

Tens of thousands have died in the civil wars in Chechnya, Georgia, North Ossetia, Dagestan and other former Soviet regions in the North Caucasus. Chechnya once had the most important oil and gas pipelines there. Grozny had a huge oil refinery which produced 20 million barrels annually. By 1993 it had declined to three million. The refinery is now destroyed.

By the summer of 1991, former Soviet Air Force General Dudaiev took control of Chechnya, surrounding the local Soviet parliament in Grozny, and literally threw its leader out the window. Dudaiev’s blatant anti-communism combined Chechen nationalism with Islamic fundamentalism to grab the oil and gas profits away from Moscow.

Yeltsin sent the Russian army to crush the secession. After years of war, with tens of thousands dead and Grozny destroyed by the Russian Air Force, the demoralized Russian army lost the war. But the rising Russian bourgeoisie wasn’t about to lose this key region. Dudaiev was killed by a Russian guided missile. He was succeeded by Defense Minister Mas0khdov, who disillusioned Chechens expecting a change when he did nothing to oppose the growing Islamic fundamentalists, warlords and criminal gangs running the country. (London Financial Times, 9/7)

As soon as Putin replaced the drunken Yeltsin, the war erupted again. Russian generals and the FSB (the ex-KGB) used Russian soldiers as the private army of corrupt generals and officers. These were young workers who couldn’t afford a bribe to avoid military service, along with orphans (to avoid the protest of angry parents). Neo-Nazi mercenaries were hired to become death squads and kill "blacks" (dark-skinned people from the Caucasus). Workers from Chechnya and Russia were paying in blood for what had become a turf war between local warlords and crooked Russian generals.

It’s probably no accident that the latest rash of terrorist attacks occurs while Putin is trying to wrest control of Russia’s oil giants from billionaires whose interests run contrary to those of the overall Russian ruling class. Oil mogul Mikhail Khodorskosvky has been jailed. Another oil billionaire, Boris Berzosky is now exiled in London. Both are suspected of financing Shamil Basayev, head of the Chechen terrorists. (Pravda, 3/6/04). Basayev forces operate from Georgia, where many of his Chechen fighters are in exile. Last year international speculator George Soros (a friend of Berezovsky and Kissinger), helped Mikhail Saakashvili take power in Georgia after a "peaceful democratic coup" overthrew Shevernadze. Amid the terrorist wave across Russia, Georgia threatened to recapture the province of Abkhazia by force. The Russian Army protects its ruler. U.S. and UK oil companies have plans for a huge Baku-Ceyhan pipeline to transport Caspian oil through Georgia, by-passing Russian territory. "From the American point of view, Russian failure in Chechnya is welcome, as long as it does not get to the point that Chechnya becomes a base for Islamic revolution worldwide." (www.pinr.com, 9/8 report)

Again, as big and little terrorist capitalists fight for control of the oil profits and re-divide the world, workers, soldiers and their children are being massacred. The only escape from this hell is to build a revolutionary movement to fight for a communist world. That’s PLP’s goal.

Learning From Class Struggle and Communist Politics

More than 20 youth participated in a communist school recently in a Latin American country. It was a red dawn, a new hope for the working class, among the youth who will guarantee the continuity and advance of red ideas. We began with an international report and then analyzed the situation in the country, including the effect of the war.

Then the discussion about reform and revolution got very exciting. "We’ve participated in struggles for reforms," said some students, who days before had marched through the streets demanding a rollback in a bus fare increase. Youth had thrown eggs and rocks at drivers. "Now that I think about it," one said, "with everything we’ve talked about here, the driver is a worker. The guilty ones are the bosses, not the workers. Now I’m clearer on how to take advantage of these struggles to fight for the PLP’s line."

This was said after some students were beaten, arrested and jailed by the fascist cops. But these attacks only raised their spirits and their openness to communist ideas. After their analysis about this, you could feel their enthusiasm and hope, working and learning to give revolutionary leadership.

Another youth said, "I’ve read and distributed CHALLENGE for about five years and even spoken at the local radio station about articles in the paper. But I knew that something like this school was missing, to be able to share experiences with other youth and learn from each other, and it’s made me very happy. Youth here are beginning to fight back. The doubts about the system are becoming clearer. Now communism makes sense to me. I’m here in this meeting because it’s what I want. These cadre schools are necessary so we can build a mass party for communism, the PLP."

In one group a youth said that living under capitalism is necessary to continue to explain communism. This pushed us as a Party to continue motivating and teaching the youth, to maintain their enthusiasm.

In the evening, we held workshops in which everyone participated. At a plenary session afterwards, everyone evaluated the school and gave very useful suggestions about how to deepen and broaden PLP’s work among youth. "We need to have these schools more frequently. This is where I want to be, learning more, to recruit more youths into PLP."

The work among youth is bearing fruit. They’re the guarantee we’ll achieve a communist society. Long live the working class! Long live communism!

To our readers: this is a 3-week issue of Challenge. We will return to our biweekly schedule on Sept. Meanwhile, we urge our internet readers to help us with our funds and sub campaign. You can buy a yearly sub to the printed paper (only 15 dollars a year), or send us a contribution. All checks and money orders should be made out to Challenge Periodicals and mailed to PLP GPO Box 808, Brooklyn, NY 11202.

1. No Matter Who Wins the Elections, USA.
   RACIST BOSSES STILL CONTROL STATE POWER
2. Kerry, the other Pro-War Candidate
3. Why Is Big Oil Happy Over Chavez's Victory?
4. GIs Headed for Iraq Ripe for Red Leadership
5. Navy PL'er Striving to Unite Black, Latin, White Soldiers
6. Stand Up Against Steel Bosses, Union Servants
7. Workers' Power Is Only Answer to Capitalism's New Business Model
   1. The New Factory Arrives in the U.S.
   2. Racist Pay Differentials or Revolutionary Class Consciousness
   3. Need Workers' Internationalism to Fight `New' Subcontracting
8. Chicago Bosses Use Racist Attacks on Workers in Projects To Enrich Developers
9. Home Attendants Eager For Struggle, PLP's Ideas
10. Attica Means Fight Back!
11. Doctors Must Fight U.S. Nazi Torture
12. Organize vs. Bosses' Nationalism, Racism,
    Basis of Subcontracting Profits
13. Protest Ten Years of Racist Cop Killings
14. Hotel Women Workers Wildcat vs. Bosses' Attacks, Union Sellouts
15. BOOK REVIEW:
    U.S. GOV'T ANTI-COMMUNISM CREATES TERRORISM, DRUG EPIDEMIC
    1. SOUTHEAST ASIA
    2. U.S. BACKS DRUG LORDS AFTER WWII
    3. AFRICA
    4. ROLLBACK: LATIN AMERICA
    5. Afghanistan
    6. REAL WARS ON TERROR AND DRUGS = COMMUNIST REVOLUTION
16. `Fahrenheit 451': A Bosses' Tool That Can Bury Them
17. NEW T-SHIRT!
    1. Revolt! Don't Vote
18. RED EYE ON THE NEWS
    1. At last, truth from Bush!
    2. A wide, poisonous dragnet
    3. After election, a draft?
    4. Big-biz media bury issues
    5. US writers ignore workers
    6. Scaring ill immigrants
19. LETTERS
    1. Renew my Sub for 2 Years
    2. Fired for Refusing To Betray Ideals; Sends $100
    3. Profits Fuel Fire,
       Kill 400 in Paraguay
    4. Which Side is Moore On?
    5. Is this Fascism?
    6. `Project changed my life forever!'
    7. Project Developed
       Youth Leadership
    8. Bosses Are Always Snakes
    9. Nixes Racist Dixie Flag
    10. Liberal Think-Tanks Tied to G.O.P. & Dems
    11. PLP's Ideas
        Re-Printed in Pakistan

---

No Matter Who Wins the Elections, USA.
RACIST BOSSES STILL CONTROL STATE POWER

No matter who wins the 2004 electoral circus, the United States is and will remain a class dictatorship. Under the profit system, political parties exist for two primary reasons: first, to serve individual groups of bosses pursuing their particular profit goals; and second, to mislead workers into backing these profit goals with the illusion that the right to cast a ballot makes the U.S. a democracy.

Many people correctly saw through the crude, racist swindle that enabled Bush, Jr. to steal the White House in 2000 by denying black workers the right to vote in Florida. But this isn't the main reason the present government is a dictatorship. Swindles and voting fraud are as American as apple pie. In 1960, the Democrat John Kennedy beat Nixon because Chicago's Democratic political machine handed him the Illinois electoral vote by counting the votes of dead people.

The main lesson for workers in this election is the nature of state power in a class society. By "state," communists mean the entire government apparatus that enables the bosses to rule at the federal, state and local level. It includes all three so-called "branches" of government on each level. Every elected official, from Bush to the mayor of the tiniest town, every legislative body, from the U.S. Senate down to the smallest state legislature all belong to it. So do all four branches of the military and every cop, judge and immigration officer.

The capitalist state apparatus exists to prolong and protect the profit system, regardless of the party in power at any given moment. The state in this sense was born long ago, as a product of society's first historical division into antagonistic social classes. Under slavery, the state existed to protect the privileges of the slave-owning class. Under feudalism, it served kings and lords, helping them rule over serfs and bondsmen. Now, under capitalism, it protects the profits and private property of the wealthiest bosses, primarily against the working class, but also against real and potential rivals to U.S. imperialism.

The capitalist state therefore reflects the essential class violence of the system itself. This is perhaps less obvious today in a temporary period of relatively low class struggle, but even under present conditions, we see the class role of the police, for example in their systematic racist war of terror against workers living in the most oppressed sections of U.S. cities. The moment class struggle sharpens, the role of the police becomes crystal clear, as they protect bosses' interests at gunpoint, shooting workers, protecting scabs and enforcing back-to-work court injunctions.

A classic recent example of the state's role in class struggle was the decision by the Republican president Reagan to fire striking air traffic controllers in 1981. This fascistic action set the tone for the increasingly virulent anti-worker policies the bosses have been implementing ever since. The Democrat Clinton followed suit with his racist "welfare reform," which was a thinly disguised union-busting, slave labor scheme.

The entire ruling class now agrees with the need to cloak its post-9/11 moves toward a police state in the form of "anti-terror" measures. Anti-Bush squawking from the Democrats reflects their discontent over Ashcroft's clumsy, inept tactics rather than over goals. The real purpose of these measures is to discipline our class, preparing it for the sacrifice in blood and living conditions that the rulers' long-range war plans will require. All the rulers agree on this question.

In foreign policy, none of the big bosses in any significant section of the Republican or Democratic parties disputes the U.S. imperialism's need to rule the world by force, to control the flow and pricing of all major sources of petroleum, particularly in the Persian Gulf, or to prevent the rise of serious imperialist rivals in Asia or Europe. The rulers differ only on methods and approach (see article on page 1 on the tactical differences between Kerry and Bush).

The post-World War II history of U.S. Middle Eastern policy reflects the consistency of the class role the bosses' state apparatus has played on this issue.

Immediately after World War II, key U.S. advisor George Kennan warned the Democratic Truman administration that control of Middle Eastern oil must become and remain an absolute priority for Washington and Wall Street.

The Republican Eisenhower organized a coup to overthrow a nationalist government in oil-rich Iran and replace it with the nazi-loving, pro-U.S. Shah. Eisenhower also forced British, French and Israeli bosses to back down when their 1956 invasion of the Suez Canal threatened potential U.S. hegemony in the Middle East.

After the Israeli fascists proved the strength of their military in the 1967 Six Day War, every U.S. president from Johnson through Bush Jr. has armed Israel to the teeth and given it the assignment of serving as U.S. imperialism's local gunslinger.

In 1979, when a nationalist-Islamic fundamentalist uprising overthrew the Shah, Democrat Jimmy Carter announced the "Carter Doctrine," which stated that the U.S. would consider any attempt to wrest control of Persian Gulf oil from U.S. companies as a cause for war. Every U.S. president since then has followed this strategic line. The cost in human life has been staggering. The U.S. cynically backed both sides in the murderous 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Bush, Sr.'s 1991 Desert Storm in Iraq slaughtered hundreds of thousands. A million people, mostly young Iraqi children, died in the wake of Clinton's brutal sanctions and bombings. And now the Bush-Cheney war is adding to the toll.

As CHALLENGE has often said, the biggest mistake workers can make is to choose among supposed "lesser evils" under capitalism. Understanding the class nature of the state helps avoid this error. As long as classes exist, a state apparatus will exist, and its role will be to keep one class in power to rule over the class that directly antagonizes and threatens it.

Communists have an alternative to the bosses' dictatorship: the Dictatorship of the Working Class (or Dictatorship of the Proletariat). But the working class cannot seize political power by voting for it. Only a prolonged, violent revolution supported by communist workers and led by a communist party can achieve this goal. History shows that even when the first stage of the goal is achieved, keeping power and building communism are even harder than the seizure of power. Nonetheless, the future of humanity and the survival of the working class demand nothing less.

These are the goals our Party expects to win, regardless of all obstacles and of the time needed to win them. As the rulers' presidential circus unfolds, workers can take an important step in the right direction by shedding their illusions about capitalist elections and the capitalist state and by joining with the PLP to sharpen the class struggle and carry our class forward on the long, violent and inevitably victorious road to revolution.

(Another article will explore the ideological arms of the capitalist state apparatus and how the working class and PLP can fight them.)

Kerry, the other Pro-War Candidate

Just days before George Bush took office in 2001, the Hart-Rudman Commission handed him its final, 148-page report. This document outlined the measures the U.S. ruling class deemed necessary for maintaining U.S. capitalism's worldwide dominance for the next quarter century. It proposed expanding the military, launching oil wars in the Middle East, creating a police state at home, centralizing the state apparatus and linking business more closely with government. Carrying out Hart-Rudman's provisions became job Number One for the U.S. president. Bush's failures and shortcomings in this regard, and Kerry's shaky promise, are--for the rulers -- central issues in the coming election.

Hart-Rudman said a terrorist attack on the U.S. would provide an invaluable recruiting tool for the military. Bush squandered that opportunity, was forced to send inadequate forces to Iraq, and now faces the rulers' wrath for the quagmire there. Hart-Rudman said the National Guard should serve as a homeland police force. Bush sent the Guard to Iraq to bolster the overstretched regular army. Hart-Rudman called for a sweeping restructuring of federal agencies. Bush set up the Homeland Defense Department only grudgingly and is balking at revamping intelligence services. Sen. Jay Rockefeller called Bush's recent appointment of Porter Goss as CIA boss a "big mistake." Instead of merely filling a vacancy, Bush should be uniting the CIA, FBI, NSA, and defense intelligence under an overall czar, according to Hart-Rudman and the follow-on 9/11 Commission.

Hart-Rudman urges that leaders prepare citizens to give up "blood and treasure" in the cause of U.S. imperialism. Bush has spilled the blood of a thousand working-class GIs and many thousands of Iraqis but hasn't managed, or even tried, to shift capitalists' profits from their pockets to the war effort. His tax cuts, while fattening the bottom lines of companies and investors, send the wrong ideological message, in the rulers' eyes. For them, it's "there's a war on," not Bush's "business as usual."

John Kerry, on the other hand, allies himself with Hart-Rudman's war-and-fascism evangelists. He works closely with a group called Business Executives for National Security (BENS), having spoken at its meetings and won praise from its chief Denis Bovin, vice-chairman of Bear Stearns, a New York financial firm. The directors of BENS wrote in the Wall Street Journal (6/15/04), "We hadn't fully anticipated the extent to which 9/11 and the security regime that followed has affected the job of a business leader. But blind faith in markets, ignorance of the ways of Washington, and a desire to avoid any unnecessary involvement with federal authorities are insufficient approaches to today's challenges -- and tomorrow's." Kerry's campaign advisors include Gary Hart, co-chairman of the Hart-Rudman commission, and Leslie Gelb, one of its 12 members. Kerry wants 40,000 more soldiers immediately and a national service program to provide cannon fodder for the long term.

The New York Times, the rulers' leading media outlet, expressed delight that "Mr. Kerry instantly embraced every recommendation of the 9/11 Commission" (8/15/04). But the same edition worried about Kerry's "opportunistic" flip-flopping, "Mr. Kerry, who voted against the first Persian Gulf War, tailored his positions on this one to his presidential ambitions. He was more hawkish when the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination seemed to be Richard Gephardt, and more dovish when Howard Dean picked up momentum. At the height of the Dean insurgency, both Mr. Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, decided to oppose spending $87 billion to underwrite the occupation of Iraq that they both voted to authorize."

The rulers are having trouble producing a leader as galvanizing as an FDR or a Hitler. But that doesn't lessen their need to destroy foreign rivals or crack down on workers at home. Iraq, Afghanistan and the Patriot Act show that the capitalists' war-making and fascism are deadly under inept leadership. If a President Kerry should prove more capable than Bush, the working class would suffer even more.

The alternative? Destroying the capitalist system that drives these endless wars. Joining PLP and fighting for communism can ultimately emancipate our class.

Why Is Big Oil Happy Over Chavez's Victory?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's victory in the Aug. 15 referendum that kept him in office brought relief to the world's oil markets. Jimmy Carter and the OAS (Organization of American States) led by former Colombian President Gaviria (a Washington lackey) declared Chavez the victor in the teeth of the rantings of the local right-wing capitalist opposition, showing that despite everything, Chavez was the "lesser of two evils" for U.S. rulers, at least for now. A NY Times (8/18) editorial said it all when it told the opposition claiming fraud to "shut up" and accept that they lost badly.

Chavez was also the candidate of U.S., European and Chinese oil companies operating in Venezuela.

Why? According to the Internet intelligence service Stratfor (8/17): "The threat of destabilization should he have lost was too great a risk. Venezuela is a main source of oil, and Chavez's victory assured that supply."

Stratfor added that, "Hidden behind is another reality. The United States needed Chavez to win because his victory was the greatest guarantor of stability, and the United States does not have enough forces available to intervene in Venezuela should chaos break out. The lack of sufficient troops is now shaping U.S. policy. Washington is rooting for political opponents because it has no real capacity for intervention should instability result."

Stratfor wrote this amid the latest White House announcement to shift 70,000 troops out of Germany, Japan and other countries. This follows the Rumsfeld strategy to re-shape the U.S. Armed Forces. But this strategy contradicts the fact that U.S. bosses' primary need now is not a "hi-tech" army. Stratfor says Bush's speech announcing the troop reduction overseas indicates the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq still have not penetrated Pentagon planners.

This is exactly why so many elements in the U.S. ruling class prefer Kerry to Bush (see page 1). Workers in Venezuela who hate the old rulers unfortunately think Chavez is their savior (a line pushed by many in the pseudo-left worldwide). But Chavez just represents a different section of the capitalist class, willing to make deals with the devil as long as their interests are served. (Venezuela's state-owned PDVSA oil company owns CITGO, one of the largest gas-station chains in the U.S.). Chavez has used the oil profits to dole out a few crumbs (some bikes, sewing machines, cheap medical care courtesy of the thousands of doctors sent by Cuba in exchange for oil). But still, Venezuela's income gap is one of the highest in Latin America, and the poverty rate has not diminished much under Chavez.

Revolutionary-minded workers in Venezuela's "Bolivarian mass movement" should heed the lesson that only a communist-led workers' revolution can serve their interests. Their task should be to win workers and other exploited masses in the country's mass organizations to build the long fight for communism.

GIs Headed for Iraq Ripe for Red Leadership

I'm in the National Guard. Recently our unit was put on "alert," headed for Iraq. CHALLENGE has often shown that certain areas of work and historical times are particularly ripe for communist leadership and Party growth. I've never experienced this more clearly or personally now that my friends and I face going to war.

The Army will give our unit months of training before sending us to Iraq. They've extended the activation period to 18 months, to turn the military's cheap "civilian" soldiers into better fighting machines. This has created problems for those having lives outside the military. Unlike regular Army soldiers, National Guardsmen are totally unprepared for duty abroad.

Besides "skills training," we've had "indoctrination" sessions by higher officers. Before this I had struggled with one soldier-buddy who agreed with the Party's analysis, but said he'd resolved his internal conflict by hoping he could do some good for the Iraqi people -- providing medical care, building schools, etc. He said it was better that he represent America than somebody else, who might shoot the first Iraqi he sees.

However, we were briefed repeatedly not to trust any Iraqi, not even to give candy or food to begging children because they might be providing a distraction for the enemy. Furthermore, we're not to trust reporters, neighbors or even family members. Why? Because "the information we give them might wind up in enemy hands." They gave an example of a CIA agent working for the Russians without his co-workers knowing. They said "terrorist organizations" include even environmental and abortion rights groups!

The commanders try to imbed paranoia and fear into us, while also winning us to "humanitarianism." They feed us the lie that the average soldier is privy to top-secret information. Meanwhile, we don't even know exactly when we're going to Iraq, or to what part.

The underlying assumption is: trust your superiors -- they're the only ones you CAN trust! This creates the illusion that in the military we're all "part of the same team," that we must separate our purpose from the rest of society.

I immediately asked one of my close friends what she thought of all this, and how she now viewed me. Since then she said it would be good for her to try to raise awareness among the soldiers.

One officer asked his audience of hundreds of soldiers: "Who's afraid of going?" More than half raised our hands. Then we were shown a clip from the movie "Band of Brothers": a soldier who admits he's afraid is told that it's because he still hopes he'll make it out alive. The movie says, essentially, "toughen up," realize you're a soldier, and you might die. The officer stopped the film here and used this to tell those of us who are afraid that we're still clinging to the hope we might not go. His response was: get over it, you're going!

Many soldiers talked afterwards about how they feel worse, not motivated, after these sessions. There is nothing like hearing it for yourself, what Party members have been saying all along. Now if you ask most soldiers, "Why go to Iraq?" they'll say that, since they have no other choice, they go "for each other," to relieve the soldiers already there.

The rulers may be able to exploit people's good intentions for now, but their callousness creates a very thin commitment to their overall mission of profiteering. In wartime, what it takes to preserve capitalism is really exposed.

Instead of causing me despair, this situation gives me hope. I use these opportunities to show my friends something really worth fighting for. The bosses have created a situation in which the working class is willing to sacrifice the little they have now for what they believe will protect their families and each other. Imagine the lengths to which they will go for communism!

A PLP soldier in the National Guard

Navy PL'er Striving to Unite Black, Latin, White Soldiers

Much has been made of presidential candidate John Kerry's role in Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) during the early 1970s. The liberal media portrays him as a hero because he inquired of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" I, too, was in VVAW around this time. My view of Kerry, and I think I speak for most in that organization, was decidedly more negative.

Kerry always wanted to save U.S. imperialism. He thought continuing the war in Vietnam would undermine the army and the whole U.S. Empire. "I don't see any other system other than democracy [i.e. capitalism]," Kerry told the Senate hearing, "but [it] has to remain responsive. When it does not, you create the possibilities of all kinds of other systems to supplant it, and that very possibility, I think, is beginning to exist in this country." He concluded continued fighting was a mistake. Eventually, a majority in the ruling class shared his opinion.

By the early '70s, large numbers of soldiers and veterans realized that the Vietnam War was no "mistake," but rather the logical extension of U.S. imperialism. Many in and out of the armed forces took anti-racist, anti-imperialist positions in the struggle against the brass and the ruling class. General Westmoreland, overall commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, pleaded in White House meetings to speed-up the withdrawal before the bosses "lost the army."

Kerry's pro-imperialist politics led to his desire to keep VVAW a relatively small organization of combat veterans, who would testify before Congress and make symbolic gestures like throwing away medals. Those with anti-imperialist, anti-racist politics wanted VVAW to become a mass, fighting organization of all soldiers and veterans, led by enlisted GIs, not officers.

Some active duty chapters, led by our Party, actually organized GI rebellions against the brass and the bosses' genocidal war. The New York Times (11/18/72) reported: "...organized servicemen, blacks and whites, have moved from a `position of conciliation to revolutionary, defensive and violent stands.'" Our Party's multi-racial, anti-imperialist, revolutionary line was more in tune with the consciousness of the majority in VVAW.

Kerry saw the handwriting on the wall. He could never launch his career as a ruling-class politician linked to an organization with such rank-and-file fervor. He quit.

New "resistance" organizations are springing up around the military and their families. One even updates the VVAW name, calling itself the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). Today's soldiers and their family members would do well to heed the lessons of the Vietnam War. Symbolic gestures that don't threaten U.S. imperialism will not get the job done. We must build on the work of those soldiers who attempted to mold a revolutionary force in the army during the Vietnam War.

Red Veteran

Stand Up Against Steel Bosses, Union Servants

EAST CHICAGO, IN, August 9 --

"Last time we were out here, we were WITH the company, in our partnership to get tariffs passed for the steel industry," said Jim Robinson, Director of United Steel Workers Union (USWA) District 7 to a crowd of 500 workers surrounding the headquarters of Ispat-Inland Steel. They were protesting the company's decision to cancel the meager $62.50/month supplemental benefit paid to widows of Inland workers who retired before 1989. Many of their pensions only amount to $200/month. The contract with Local 1010 expired on August 1, and the bosses are holding these elderly steel widows as hostages in the negotiations.

Several workers made their own signs attacking the union's partnership with the steel bosses. "NO PARTNERSHIP," and "OUR PARTNER = OUR TERRORIST" conveyed the truth about the union leadership's traitorous alliance with the steel bosses. Workers were furious that Ispat owner Milat was cutting off these measly benefits while having just bought a $125 million mansion, and thrown his daughter an $85 million wedding at the Palace of Versailles!

The union's infamous "STAND UP FOR STEEL [BOSSES]" campaign has led to mill closings, mass layoffs, attacks on pensions and healthcare and government-imposed tariffs; the latter were later overturned by the World Trade Organization. The destruction of excess domestic production capacity and the scrapping of work rules, job classifications and pension and healthcare "legacy" costs have led to record profits for the industry and even more attacks on the workers. This unity with the bosses is bringing fascism to the workplace and ultimately leading the working class to another world war to defend the bosses' profits.

There are bosses and workers; you can't serve both. The pro-capitalist union leaders have no plan to fight these attacks. Not one dared mention "strike." Instead, they paraded a line of Democratic Party politicians, and ultimately washed their hands of any responsibility by sending the contract to binding arbitration.

First they tell us you can't strike when the bosses are losing money and under attack from "foreign" competition. Now they tell us you can't strike when the bosses are pocketing billions! The fact is the flag-waving union hacks are committed to defending the bosses' profits; even militant trade unionism won't change the fundamental laws of capitalism. PLP is stepping up our efforts to build a base among steel workers for communist revolution, to destroy the profit system and their "partners" in union jackets.

Workers' Power Is Only Answer to Capitalism's New Business Model

SEATTLE, WA -- "Are they talking about workers' power?" asked a hopeful Boeing machinist. He was referring to the Machinists' union Journal's cover story entitled "IAM North American Might." After detailing all the key places Machinists worked in the civilian and war economy the article posed, "Imagine for a second all those Machinists stopped what they were doing -- for a minute, an hour, a day or a week -- and you will get a sense what absolutely indispensable really means."

The next paragraph brought us back to reality, assuring the bosses: "Such a massive work stoppage cannot and will not occur, at least not by the unilateral decision of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers."

After bemoaning "unpatriotic" foreign off-shoring, the article concluded, "There will come a day when doing what's right means doing nothing at all." What's a worker to make of this flip flop?

The New Factory Arrives in the U.S.

Perhaps part of the answer can be found in Toledo, Ohio at the new DaimlerChrysler plant. Several years ago, our Party brought revolutionary communist politics to General Motors workers during their strike against the "Brazilian Model," (superexploiting workers there) where subcontractors actually bring in their own employees to assemble the final car. Since then the "Brazilian Model" has migrated to Europe and is now reaching the U.S. with this new Chrysler factory.

DaimlerChrysler is welcoming suppliers from the "Kuka Group and Durr of Germany and Hyundai Mobis from South Korea, each [of whom] will own and run a major operation -- the body shop, the paint shop and the manufacturing line for chassis, respectively." (LA Times, 8/8) "The setup has the potential to forever change the way American car companies finance their factories and develop their products," says J. Ferrer, senior analyst at PriceWaterhouseCoopers' automotive consulting practice.

The UAW has endorsed this "modification of the business model," signing contracts with independent parts suppliers at substantially lower wages and benefits, creating greater racist and nationalist wage differentials! News of this new kind of factory has sparked much discussion and debate on the shop floor and in union meetings.

IAM District President Mark Blondin brags about the $3.2 billion the union helped win for the company to locate the new 7E7 assembly line in Everett. But he omits the racist cuts in unemployment compensation -- targeted at farm workers, but affecting even laid-off Boeing workers -- that helped pay for that bribe. Meanwhile, the company is selling off whole sections of the fabrication division (parts-making), and once again the union is institutionalizing racist and nationalist pay differentials by agreeing to lower wages and benefits at the sold plants. Workers are confronting the union leaders about this "new business model." The District may have sold out to get a new plant in Everett, WA. that in the long run won't even employ Boeing workers.

Racist Pay Differentials or Revolutionary Class Consciousness

Blondin's take on lower wage contracts for subcontracting workers is, "What can you do? It's either that or you're out." That's a far cry from the "absolutely indispensable" power of workers.

The rise of international competitors and the need to finance increasingly expensive wars for oil and imperialist dominance has forced the bosses to adopt a "new industrial business model." The traditional trade union model is no longer viable. Preparing for the necessary all-out class fight "...is not a weapon that the IAM has ever wielded," admits the IAM Journal. What little militancy the union proposes is for the sole purpose of becoming junior partners in this new business model of racist pay differentials to pay for imperialist wars.

The IAM is not talking about workers' power. Yes, industrial workers are "absolutely indispensable" to society. It's the bosses who can be dispensed with. Only PLP's revolutionary communist politics can offer the "proletarian model,"uniting workers from Sao Paulo to Seattle to fight for workers' power.. The times demand nothing less.

Need Workers' Internationalism to Fight `New' Subcontracting

By 1995, the world's industries employed 500 million workers. While the world's population had doubled since 1950, its industrial working class had grown 3_ times as much.

Today, capitalism is bigger than ever. So, too, is its potential gravedigger, the international working class. Yet, at the moment it is capitalists, not communists, who are organizing the world's workers.

On the one hand, the employment, experience and working conditions of workers internationally are increasingly similar. But the capitalists are presenting workers with many flags to wave, political parties to join or lifestyles to uphold. Racism, nationalism, sexism, and even religious divisions may be bigger than ever. Thus, the ruling classes are "internationalizing" the working class at the same time that they push nationalism to try to set one nation's workers against all the others. So the world is moving in opposite directions at the same time.

It's doubtful there's a corner of the world that monopoly capitalism hasn't reached in some form. For example, in 1996 Volkswagen built its latest "dream" factory in Brazil -- not in the Sao Paulo area, the industrial heart of Brazil, but in the poorer inland city of Resende. Of its 1,000 workers, only 200 work for Volkswagen. The other 800 production workers are subcontracted out to work on the line in the same plant, earning about 1/3 less than workers in the Sao Paulo area. This method -- known as fractal production -- had been pioneered some years earlier when Volkswagen had bought the Skoda factories in what was then Czechoslovakia.

The Resende plant's success has turned subcontracting out into subcontracting in! But the story doesn't end there. Within the year Fiat had copied Volkswagen's "success" in its new plant in Mirafiori, Italy. The capitalists in the Czech Republic, Brazil or Italy may wave flags whose colors differ, but for subcontracted autoworkers the bitter taste of super-exploitation is exactly the same!

What's true in auto is also true in electronics, optical manufacturing, the iron and steel industry and so on. Increasingly this one world (market) has created one working class with almost identical experiences. It's already a gigantic working class and it's still growing. Every worker in each and every one of these plants has the same class interests. Our job is to win our class to realize that it needs just one flag -- the red flag -- around which to organize one revolutionary communist party, the PLP.

(It's easy to imagine this movement of production at Boeing. First, subcontract OUT to prisons, China, but mainly to Southern California, Texas and the south. Then hire another subcontractor INSIDE the Boeing plant.)

Chicago Bosses Use Racist Attacks on Workers in Projects To Enrich Developers

The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) is the latest example of the neo-racist, "liberal" fascism going down here. Since the 1980's, racist articles in the media about gang violence, crime and drugs have depicted the horrors of public housing, with a focus on major housing projects like Cabrini-Green and the big Federal St. Projects. More racist articles about the "culture of poverty" in the projects have accompanied them, lamenting how living in public housing was destroying one generation after another. Of course, the drug-dealing cops and gang-bangers, more often in cooperation than conflict, added more than an ounce of truth to these racist depictions.

But despite the racist propaganda, a large number of those using public housing were workers whose apartments were clean, well-kept, working class homes. Nothing was written about the CHA being a cash cow for Democratic Party politicians who doled out million-dollar contracts to favored financial backers in return for substandard services, elevator problems, poor trash pick-up and general deteriorating conditions. Nothing about how some of Chicago's biggest banks, like First National, made millions from storing CHA federal funds for municipal use.

Eventually, the bankers, real estate developers and politicians used this ideological offensive to seek to eliminate all major CHA housing in the city to make way for million-dollar townhouses and condominiums. CHA tenants would be "resettled" in "mixed-income areas" with Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers to subsidize their new homes. Daley-controlled tenant councils, City Aldermen, and Civil Rights leaders like Jesse Jackson covered up the poison with the taste of Kool-Aid.

And so, led by the neo-racist Daleycrats, the plan was launched. Three major units were blown up near Lake Shore Drive to the cheers of the real estate developers and kick-back artists in the Hyde Park-Kenwood area. The Cabrini-Green and Ida B. Wells Housing Projects are targeted for full-scale reconstruction. The row of housing projects along the Dan Ryan Expressway is also slated for destruction.

And what about the promised housing vouchers to the displaced, mostly unemployed or low-paid black women who are the heads of the households? The CHA has introduced new rules that perpetuate the racist myth that working-class tenants destroyed public housing, and are designed to prevent large numbers of former public housing tenants from getting new subsidized housing.

The applicant and their entire family must take a urine drug test. The applicants must have a clean record of lease compliancy -- which means that if at any time, for any reason you had a problem paying rent or utilities, you'll be denied the voucher. There can be no record of a felony arrest or a conviction. Even if you had charges dismissed, you're still ineligible for the voucher. Most of all, one must be employed.

Under communism, housing the international working class will be among our highest priorities. But today we live in the new Dark Ages, where tens of millions of men, women and children are either homeless, or live with no roof and/or plumbing. But there will be a reckoning and woe to all these bosses and their lackeys when communist revolution, led by PLP, comes roaring down the tracks of history. When that day comes, the whole earth will be our home.

Red Rev

Home Attendants Eager For Struggle, PLP's Ideas

NEW YORK CITY, Aug. 9 --

Last week a group of comrades and home attendants working in a Social Justice Summer Project went to a homecare agency to get signatures on a petition addressed to NY State Attorney General Elliott Spitzer and 1199-SEIU President Dennis Rivera. The petition demands overtime (time and one-half pay) after 40 hours for all homecare workers, part of the 123,000-member Homecare Division of 1199-SEIU here.

The majority of agencies in NYC pay no overtime or barely a dollar above base pay. Workers on 24-hour shifts are paid for 12 hours with a $17 night differential. The agencies' rationale? The workers don't work at night!

Many agencies refuse placement to workers who don't accept 24 hours. Those on a 5-day week, 24-hour day (some work 6 days) work 120 hours; 80 hours should be paid at time and a half!

We went to the agency on payday when workers get their checks. We were immediately surrounded by the women workers who eagerly signed the petition. Two workers grabbed the clipboards and began collecting signatures themselves.

The union organizer, who always sits inside the agency -- supposedly to address workers' problems -- then emerged and demanded to know what we were doing. Seeing the petition he asked, "Don't you people know that the workers `like' working 24 hours?" "Yeah, that's why they're all signing the petition," we answered. "Well, this isn't the union's priority!" he said. "We know the union's priority is to get Kerry elected, not to fight for the workers," we shot back "It's to get a $10 wage for home health aides by 2007 when the money will be worth about 80 cents after cost of living and taxes." Soon an administrator arrived. "Do they know you're here?" she asked, clearly meaning the union.

We now have 200 signatures, a mailing list of 60 workers and an active group of eight women. A network of workers is taking almost 50 Challenges every issue for friends and family members. Furthermore, a comrade has organized a PLP study group for these active workers. One has joined the Party. She and two other comrades will start a new Party club.

Our friends respond to PLP in various ways, from interest and openness to wariness, to "I don't know anything about politics" to open anti-communism. We must be patient and maintain both unity and ideological struggle with them in this time of both difficulty and opportunity.

We're confident that as our struggle heats up and we talk more about capitalism, imperialism and war, the fascist Homeland Security measures and communist revolution in our study group, we'll recruit more workers to the Party. They can lead our class from every fight-back on to communist revolution, however long it takes!

A comrade

Attica Means Fight Back!

NEW YORK CITY, July 31 --

Frank Smith, known as Big Black, participated in the Attica prison uprising in September 1971. He died of kidney cancer today at 71. He lived in Brooklyn and Queens for many years before moving to Kinston, N.C. last year. He was tortured by police and prison guards after the rebellion, and spent the next quarter century fighting for legal damages.

Thirty-three years before Abu Grahib, the Attica Correctional Facility, 30 miles east of Buffalo, was a racist concentration camp. The prison was severely overcrowded, racist police brutality was commonplace, the food was inedible and inmates were given one roll of toilet paper a month. Many inmates were Vietnam veterans, and most had been deeply influenced by the war and the ghetto rebellions of the 1960's.

Frank was working at his 30-cent-a-day job in the laundry when the prison erupted. As coach of the prison football team, he was chosen by other inmates to be chief of security.

New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered state troopers to storm the prison. Rockefeller's troopers killed 32 inmates and 11 guards held as hostages. Frank was subjected to brutal reprisals. Police repeatedly struck him in the testicles with their nightsticks and dropped lighted cigarettes and hot shell casings on his chest. The guards repeatedly told him they would castrate him.

He spent the rest of his life keeping the memory of Attica alive, largely through legal proceedings that began in 1974, which charged that 1,200 prisoners had been beaten, tortured or denied medical care. In 2000, inmates won a $12 million settlement.

During the case, Frank arranged bus transportation and box lunches, from New York to Rochester so the former inmates could testify. He also volunteered as a substance abuse counselor and in suicide prevention, and often took mentally ill people into his own home.

Frank was born as his mother, the daughter of a former slave, picked cotton near Bennettsville, S.C., on Sept. 11, 1933. She balanced her newborn baby in her sack and finished the day's work. She moved to Brooklyn when Frank was five years old.

Though the Attica prison uprising was brutally crushed, it electrified U.S. workers and youth and inspired millions worldwide. Attica shows that the racist rulers are old hands at prison torture and humiliation and compared to Rockefeller's crew, the Abu Grahib prison guards were amateurs. The chant of the day, coined by PLP was, "ATTICA MEANS FIGHT BACK!" That's still true today.

Long live Frank Smith and the Attica Uprising!

Doctors Must Fight U.S. Nazi Torture

Doctors under capitalism can be viewed as agents of the bosses in maintaining social order by everyday rules such as providing excuses for work missed due to illness, evaluating on the job injuries, providing vaccinations for certain jobs and triaging injury on the battlefield as well as deciding who returns to battle and who goes home. Company and military docs are always suspect since their allegiances to the bosses and brass may override their responsibility to the patient.

The rise of HMOs intensified the contradictions for doctors, who face loss of revenue if they order too many tests in a "capitation system" or if they treat too many sick patients and risk being dropped from an insurer.

Reimbursement issues also keep most physicians from treating the uninsured and Medicaid populations. Thus patients and physicians are frequently in conflict in a society where profit drives the rules. This is nowhere more dramatic than under fascist conditions where state-sponsored murder and torture become routine.

In the New England Journal of Medicine (7/29), Robert Jay Lifton writes about physicians in the military and in settings of torture. The author of "Nazi Doctors," Lifton addresses the physicians' role at Abu Ghraib prison. Doctors, nurses and medics all witnessed some of the now infamous torture scenes without effecting change or reporting this as criminal. Lifton says the use of medical records to direct effective torture and the alteration of these records to conceal causes of death are current issues which have not been fully revealed. The same issue includes an article "In the Name of Public Health - Nazi Racial Hygiene" by Susan Bachrach, related to the current special exhibit at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

The role of faculty and programs that train physicians to include study of these topics was recently discussed by program directors in internal medicine. While some supported the idea and the need for doctors to refuse to participate in torture, many others did not. Individual physicians may often take heroic stands against fascism, but as Lipton's book and article and this recent discussion illustrate, most continue to support the capitalist government. Physicians for Human Rights recently stated that "torture can also compromise the integrity of health professionals".

(www.aclu.org/news/NewsPrint.cfm?ID=13965&c=36)

Physicians and nurses fought back recently against the smallpox vaccination campaign, building solidarity through e-mail contacts, unions and professional organizational contacts such as local public health associations. The leadership of PLP members was helpful in this struggle. Exposing this as a war propaganda tactic was uniquely raised by our Party. (Others opposed vaccinations primarily because of safety concerns as well as a mistrust of the government's rationale.) In wartime we must raise these issues among the students and residents we teach as well as among our friends and colleagues. In Iraq, many surgeons refused to collaborate with the state by binding up wounds of amputees punished for political deviations. Other international examples beyond the Nazi experience can probably be learned from our many international medical graduates.

Red Doc

Organize vs. Bosses' Nationalism, Racism,
Basis of Subcontracting Profits

I worked for a subcontractor for a big aerospace company as described in CHALLENGE 8/4), "Playing the Cards Your Dealt," about industrial manufacturing work being moved from highly-paid union factories into low-paid non-union subcontractors.

Right out of high school, I began working for a West Coast aerospace subcontractor employing 70-80% young Mexican and Filipino workers. Many came directly from super-exploitative jobs in the fields or other low-paying service jobs. Unlike union jobs with good wages and benefits, this sub-contractor pays only $3.00/hr above minimum wage for assembly-line jobs with limited benefits.

Many white workers in the machinist and engineering jobs came from large unionized aerospace factories that closed during the recession in the early 1990's. They said their union did nothing to fight for their jobs. Now they saw their wages cut by more than half and their pension shot to hell. White and non-white workers had many structural reasons to unite and fight for better wages, benefits and conditions, but racism, nationalism and fear is used to divide them.

Mexican and Filipino workers were separated on different production lines and prodded to compete with each other based on nationalism. The Mexican foreman would say, "Do you want those dirty Filipinos to out-work you today." The Filipino foreman would counter with, "Let's send those Mexicans back to the fields today." For a time, at day's end, whichever production line produced the most saw their country's flag raised on the wall.

White workers rarely toiled on the assembly line, working mostly office and technical repair jobs. They were constantly told, "At least you don't work on the assembly floor, your bathrooms are clean and you have air conditioning." While I was there, these workers were never involved in a major accident. Only the most advanced felt any connection beyond liberal pity to those injured on the line.

White workers were constantly told not to complain. Many non-white workers lived in over-crowded houses while many white workers were in the process of losing homes bought before losing their last union job -- they could no longer pay their mortgages. Yet, because of the bosses' nationalist and racist campaigns, very few white and non-white workers teamed up to improve their living situations.

There are no work-rules and no grievance system. Conditions are dangerous, with only loose adherence to occupational safety codes. Accidents causing serious injury occurred every year. There were also continuous minor accidents due to the lack of proper safety equipment, like thick gloves or heat-resistant safety glasses. Workers were constantly pushed to "avoid" accidents because of the rising cost of workmen's comp insurance, leaving many accidents unreported. Every single injury, every lack of a work-rule offers a chance to organize.

There are also other difficulties organizing non-union sub-contractors. Many workers start out as temporary agency employees. If you cause "trouble" they fire you simply by telling the agency to stop sending you out. Even after you're permanent, talk about organizing is grounds for firing.

Winning workers requires building deep ties with them. There are countless opportunities to become close to the workers in these non-union jobs. Organizing dinners, baby-sitting, English tutoring, homework tutoring for children, collectively buying work-gloves and shoes to obtain lower prices all were ways we bonded at the factory.

Lastly, many sub-contractors still effectively maintain a kind of "family" paternalism. They laid a thick line on us about how we're all "one big family," and because the owner still walks around talking to many of the workers, some may fall for this lie. The truth is that he owns time-share vacation condos in 12 different countries, wears European suits, buys a new Cadillac every year, and lives far away from the slums "housing" his workers.

The workers at this plant make key parts for airplanes and can be won to see that our fight is for workers' power, not for any bosses' flag. PLP's internationalist, anti-racist communist politics can and will break the divisions the bosses have created in the working class. Workers' unity will prevail against the ruling class if we in PLP and class conscious workers are bold, patient and creative in organizing these subcontracted factories.

Protest Ten Years of Racist Cop Killings

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MD., July 31 --

Recently, in memory of the 11th anniversary of the brutal police slaying of Archie Elliott III, a young black man, by this county's Police Department, a grassroots organization held a rally and vigil. The rally was at police headquarters and the vigil at the site of the merciless police shooting.

The rally involved a picket line and speakers, each one calling for a specific action -- the indictment and prosecution of the two cops who killed Archie, and the prosecution of all PG County cops responsible for at least 47 deaths in ten years. One speaker linked police brutality, racism, and the system that makes it all possible -- capitalism. They cheered this connection. Neighborhood residents came out to listen to the speeches and cars stopped to take leaflets explaining the protest. Two mothers of other police victims participated, expressing their outrage with a "justice" system that continues to mete out injustice to county minorities. The murdered young man's mother spoke passionately about her son, the tragic circumstances surrounding his death, and the "justice" system that let her and her family down. She urged the crowd to action, calling on us to speak out immediately after an incident of police brutality and to become active in organizations opposing police violence. After her eleven-year battle and fighting tears, she ended with the battle cry, "No justice, No peace."

At the vigil, victim's names and the cops responsible for their deaths were read, showing that this was not an isolated incident but a systemic technique used against working-class county residents. Speakers again decried the enormous injustices meted out by the "justice system" and this system's impotence when it's time to prosecute cops. Here, once again, cars stopped and took leaflets, and neighborhood residents watched and/or joined the vigil. Many remembered the shooting quite vividly, even after eleven years.

To guarantee the event's success, there was a prior leafleting in the neighborhood where the young man was killed, at a nearby Metro stop used by many working-class county residents, and at a local university. Calls were made to the media, letters and e-mails sent out, and an information campaign organized. Over 1,500 leaflets were distributed and 30 contacts made.

This rally and vigil differed from most because it didn't call for system reform, a new police chief or a new county executive, but for accountability under the current laws. As communists we know there's no reform for a system dependent upon increasing violence and fascism to operate. Participating in organizations, these rallies and vigils gives us a chance to expose the futility of attempting to fix, reform, or revise a system which has no fix. For every case of police brutality that receives attention, another three atrocities are committed with impunity. This action allows us to identify the root cause of these attacks -- capitalism -- and gives our working-class comrades the opportunity to present the solution: communism.

Hotel Women Workers Wildcat vs. Bosses' Attacks, Union Sellouts

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 13 --

Over 100 hotel workers, mostly women, defied their racist bosses and held a one-day wildcat strike here yesterday. "I was never political before," said a rank-and-file leader, "but the managers show us no respect. I had to get involved."

Workers in nine unionized LA luxury hotels have been working without a contract since April. The LA bosses are trying to enforce their "last, best" offer: escalating worker contributions to healthcare, denying pay increases, and intensifying workload.

Century Plaza Hotel workers confronted the manager when supporting a sick co-worker whose HMO turned her away. They protested having to pay nine weeks retroactive contributions.

When the manager threw them out, they blanketed the hotel recruiting other workers to leave with them. They phoned activists at Century City's other major hotel, who also walked out and joined their picket lines.

"I never thought we could get the workers from two different hotels to come together like this," a housekeeping worker said, "but we did!" Leaders of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE-UNITE) hurriedly told workers "not to provoke a lockout" while also "praising" them for "taking initiative." This mixed message typifies a union trying to win workers' loyalty to a capitalist system that's beating them down.

HERE Local 11 has organized committees in each hotel, held meetings and rallies, and had solicited churches to begin stockpiling basic food and household necessities.

The union is calling for hiring black workers, who were mostly fired years ago and replaced with mainly Latino/a immigrants. Multi-racial unity could be a big step towards sharper class consciousness and anti-racist struggle -- with communist leadership -- but without it the result could build multi-racial support for Democratic Party warmongers.

HERE officials like liberal darling Maria Elena Durazo oppose relying on the working class's mass strength to fight for power for our entire class. Instead, by begging the multi-nationals that control 75% of the hotel business to be "good corporate citizens," she builds the illusion that workers can get a "fair share" under capitalism by working within the bosses' deepening fascist system, praying that they'll have "a change of heart."

Hotel workers are in a tough spot. They suffered massive layoffs when tourism plummeted after 9/11. Now hotel occupancy is higher than three years ago, but few workers have been recalled. Workloads have tripled. The defeat of the grocery strike last winter was another blow. The same Federal mediator who engineered that attack is "mediating" the hotel workers' struggle. He's as "neutral" as the rest of the Federal government in this capitalist class dictatorship.

HERE works with liberal groups like LAANE (LA Alliance for A New Economy) and CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice), pushing workers to depend on mediators, ministers, lawyers and the media to gain immediate reforms, while relying on the same government who's sending these workers' children to die in Iraq for the bosses' oil profits.

The day after the wildcat, HERE staged a media event in which a housekeeper was arrested making beds in the middle of a busy downtown intersection. They appeal to the media, and fear workers' power at the point of production. Such power can teach workers their potential to fight for class power.

Nearly one-third of all LA families are "working poor," including tens of thousands in manufacturing jobs, many in war-related industries. Youth from these families fill the ranks of the bosses' military. HERE leadership reflects the liberal imperialists' need to win the loyalty of these same workers being attacked by the corporations' drive for maximum profits.

The face of a new organizer lit up as she said, "We were so united and together. I was surprised that we could do it." We can seize such an opportunity to cement ties with these workers through which PLP can be built.

PLP members and friends will intensify our support of the hotel workers, using our red politics and long-term commitment to building a revolutionary communist movement of the working class.

BOOK REVIEW:
U.S. GOV'T ANTI-COMMUNISM CREATES TERRORISM, DRUG EPIDEMIC

A new book, "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror," by Mahmood Mamdani, provides valuable information about the rise of political Islam and U.S. imperialism's "Cold War" strategy after World War II, to contain the Soviet Union and defeat revolutionary movements around the world. Terrorism, financed in part by the drug trade, lay at the heart of this anti-communist strategy.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Starting in 1964, U.S. imperialism sent hundreds of thousands of troops to Vietnam. Massive bombing killed millions of Vietnamese. The U.S. used mass terror, like the "strategic hamlet" program, search-and-destroy missions to maximize the "body count" of Vietnamese and the CIA-inspired Operation Phoenix, designed to destroy the Viet Cong political apparatus in the villages. Nevertheless, by 1975 the Vietnamese had militarily defeated the U.S.

The U.S. also attacked Laos to stop the flow of troops and supplies from North Vietnam to the south. The bomb tonnage dropped on small, impoverished Laos equaled that dropped on Germany and Japan during World War II. Local Hmong mercenaries were recruited to wage a secret war against communist guerillas in the mountains of northern Laos, removed from any scrutiny. The use of local death-squads and militias, combined with ferocious aerial bombing, became the basis for U.S. imperialism's worldwide anti-communist strategy.

U.S. BACKS DRUG LORDS AFTER WWII

Drugs played a big part in financing post-World War II anti-communism. From 1948-50, the CIA worked with the Mafia in Italy and France, particularly with the Corsican underworld, in the struggle against the French Communist Party for control of the strategic Mediterranean port of Marseille. The Mafia used this port to export heroin to the U.S. for the next quarter century.

In 1950, the CIA ran covert operations along the Burma-China border with anti-communist Chinese forces that helped form the Golden Triangle heroin complex. These operations were designed to create an anti-communist force capable of mounting an invasion of mainland communist China. The invasion never happened, but Burma's Shan states became the world's largest opium producer.

Later the CIA helped develop a massive opium trade, supplying airplanes and landing strips. This is where the infamous Air America and Air Opium "airlines" originated. The money from this trade helped finance the Hmong mercenaries.

AFRICA

In the 1960's, the CIA engineered the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, an anti-U.S. nationalist leader who received aid from the Soviet Union, and provided money and logistical support for a pro-U.S. mercenary group to crush a rebellion in the Congo.

U.S. rulers also financed anti-Soviet movements like UNITA in Angola, which engaged in direct attacks, kidnapping, and planting land mines on paths used by farmers. In the early 1970's, some sections of the ruling class backed the terrorist group Renamo in Mozambique, created by the fascist Rhodesian army (now Zimbabwe), and backed by apartheid South Africa.

ROLLBACK: LATIN AMERICA

During the Reagan administration, U.S. policy shifted from "containment," to an aggressive effort to "rollback" defeats in Asia, Latin America and Africa. The policy now targeted nationalist, anti-U.S., pro-Soviet governments, like those in Nicaragua and Afghanistan.

Again, U.S. rulers used terrorism and the drug trade to accomplish their anti-communist, imperialist objectives. In Nicaragua the CIA organized the anti-Sandinista "Contras," who soon established a reputation for cruelty and brutality, engaging in sabotage (blowing up bridges, oil tanks, port facilities), kidnappings, torture, and mass murder. The CIA delivered planeloads of weapons and materials to the Contras, and returned to the U.S. loaded with cocaine. Mamdani says that the point of the terror in Latin America and Africa was to bleed and discredit the existing governments.

Afghanistan

Mamdani shows how the U.S. government helped create the Mujahideen movement that toppled the pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan. Around 1980, the U.S. ruling class began to view political Islam as an ally in the struggle against the Soviet Union and militant anti-U.S. nationalism, and poured millions into training and financing right-wing Islamists, including "jihadists," who saw the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan as part of a holy war that would later be turned on the U.S. This effort involved alliances with opium-producing warlords in Afghanistan that reinvigorated the opium and heroin trade in the region. U.S. rulers armed and trained the most extreme adherents of political Islam, including Osama bin Laden, who represents a section of the Saudi ruling class which doesn't want to share the oil bonanza with Exxon-Mobil & Co.

REAL WARS ON TERROR AND DRUGS = COMMUNIST REVOLUTION

Mamdani's book does not have a communist outlook. He concludes that nationalist movements can be progressive and that the wealthy powers in the world need to be more tolerant of such nationalism. PLP rejects this outlook and views all forms of nationalism as a dead end that promotes capitalism. Only communist revolution and the elimination of capitalism and imperialism worldwide will end terror and drugs. Nevertheless, this book provides useful information on the history of religious fundamentalism (Christian as well as Islamic) and various ideological tendencies within Islam. Linking terror and drugs to U.S. anti-communist policy over the past half-century is especially sobering.

`Fahrenheit 451': A Bosses' Tool That Can Bury Them

Amid all the hoopla about "Fahrenheit 9/11," I decided to teach Ray Bradbury's classic "Fahrenheit 451" to my summer high school seniors. Though the political weaknesses abound in this opus against censorship, I feel I've made some great political advances with my seniors and deepened my own commitment to PLP.

The fascist government and ruling class in Bradbury's dreadful hypothetical future world uses television and the destruction of all books to totally control the minds of the working class and keep them in complete subjugation.

When the protagonist, a "fireman" who specializes in burning books, escapes from the city, he encounters the intellectual elite out in the wilderness. They are all educated liberals, entirely removed from the working masses in the city. They turn up their noses at the brainwashed workers and blame them for the state they're in.

When the protagonist asks Granger, one of the snotty "scholars," how many of them there are, Granger says "thousands." Think about what our Party could do with thousands and thousands of cadre dedicated to organizing revolution!

The novel concludes with the murderous military regime atomizing every city in a nuclear war. The genocidal murder of billions of the world's workers is part of Bradbury's "solution" to capitalism -- brainwashing. Bradbury realized that the sick society had to be destroyed, but fails to provide real solutions.

Ironically, the intellectuals insist they have no answers, but then organize themselves into a cashless, classless, collective society dedicated to smashing individualism in favor of society's needs! The intellectuals were looking to the past, to the sky, to old dusty books for answers existing all around them in their own reality.

My students were able to apply this book to present society, due to the ruling class's increasing fascism and wars. I advanced our political line and criticized capitalism via criticizing Bradbury's "future society." The students learned class struggle, political economy, the needs of the ruling class and dialectical materialism as I discussed the appearance and the essence of the world depicted in the bosses' media.

I concluded my lesson by assigning them to write their concept of the perfect society. They constructed a cashless, classless, egalitarian society based on "from each according to ability and to each according to need." Questions such as "Why do we even need money?" abounded and their class consciousness increased dramatically.

Using "Fahrenheit 451" in this way gave my whole class a better understanding of why capitalism can't meet the working class's needs, why conditions are the way they are, and what needs to be done. I used Bob Marley's phrase, "Free yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our mind," indicating that the working class, not a superhero leader, must free us from the bosses' deadly ideology in order to build a communist revolution.

The novel deepened my commitment to that goal, showing me what could happen to the working class if we were to separate ourselves and wander in the wilderness. We are the defenders of our class brethren, the future of our class, and each of our students is a potential communist leader. Four of the class had already been reading CHALLENGE. Now I'll ensure they all have the opportunity to read our revolutionary ideas.

A Red Teacher

SEIU Backs Kerry, Masking Support for Bosses' Wars

I attended some of the recent SEIU convention in San Francisco and found it very interesting from a communist perspective. Before I arrived, SEIU president Andrew Stern had given a speech attacking the AFL-CIO, challenging it to become a strong, united, international organization or the SEIU -- the country's largest union -- would secede. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney spoke the next day, calling for more "diversity" in the union leadership, so that minority and immigrant workers would be represented.

What kind of analysis can communists make of this? On the surface, a strong, global, multi-racial union sounds like a good thing. But through many struggles we've had within this union, we know it's not fighting for the workers. It is blatantly anti-communist and reformist. So what's with the rhetoric?

As worldwide inter-imperialist rivalry grows, it is crucial for the bosses that they keep the workers in line. The unions are one way in which this can be done. With a big, strong, centralized, global union controlled by the ruling class, whether through the Democratic Party or some NGO, the ruling class can more easily repress workers' wages and benefits, and even monitor their activities. Currently the SEIU is making a major push for amnesty and citizenship for undocumented workers, in the hopes of organizing them. What a grand way for the ruling class to be able to mislead the workers! If they expect these workers to send their sons and daughters to die in Iraq and elsewhere, they must at least get workers to believe they're in line for the "rights of citizenship."

Even though the delegates passed a resolution calling for an end to the Iraq war and bringing the troops home, they were very supportive of John Kerry, who spoke there. Kerry believes the U.S. needs at least 40,000 more troops in the military. Many will be the children and spouses of the newly-organized immigrant workers, who will be fed a liberal line about their "rights" in this "democracy."

Although we cannot predict exactly when or where the bosses will launch their next war, we do know that as inter-imperialist rivalry intensifies, they will attempt to "solve" their problems on the backs of the working class. We've already seen large numbers of job losses, pensions disappearing, and young men and women being killed in U.S. capitalism's drive for oil and profit.

To allow the unions and their leadership to be uncontested players in this deadly farce betrays the workers. Because we have a communist awareness, we have the tools to analyze the ruling class's attacks and how workers must respond. We need to get these tools -- CHALLENGE being a major one among them -- to the workers, so we can fight back with all our strength for the success of our class.

Comrade in SEIU

NEW T-SHIRT!

Put forward a revolutionary line this summer at the Democratic and Republican Conventions with Progressive Labor Party's white T-Shirt that reads:

Revolt! Don't Vote

sizes: M, L, XL. Send $10 plus $1 for shipping and handling.
Check or Money Order to:CHALLENGE PERIODICALS
PO Box 808 Brooklyn, NY 11202

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPERS THAT CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION:Abbreviations: NYT=New York Times, GW=Guardian Weekly (UK)

At last, truth from Bush!

President Bush...unveiled a bold new strategy on pre-emption. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," he said. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." (NYT)

A wide, poisonous dragnet

Attorney General John Ashcroft recently went to Congress to herald another record year of fighting terrorism, showcasing numbers showing 310 defendants charged as evidence that "the Patriot Act is al-Qaeda's worst nightmare."

Few would argue about the nightmare part, but.... To a large degree, Ashcroft has used antiterrorism laws against citizens with no ties to al-Qaeda or even terrorism....

Prosecutors are pursuing artists, protesters and academics....

The most bizarre example was Ashcroft's prosecution of the organization Greenpeace.... Ashcroft wanted Greenpeace criminally convicted for boarding a ship allegedly carrying illegal mahogany....

In one case Ashcroft secured the curious victory of convicting three nuns who staged a protest by writing on the cap of a nuclear silo and praying until they were arrested. They were sent to prison for years and added to the pile of "national security threats" brought to justice under Ashcroft....

At the moment, the Justice Department seems to naturally gravitate to political critics, protesters and Muslims as the usual suspects for its body counts. (Baltimore Sun, 7/26)

Not just terrorists hate US

Since April 2002...favorable attitudes toward the United States have plummeted in Jordan from 34% to 15%, in Morocco from 38% to 11%, in Egypt from 15% to 2%, and in Saudi Arabia from 12% to 4%....

Do not even ask about policy. In Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and the UAE, support for the U.S. policy in Iraq is a 1 to 4%. Support for U.S. policy toward Arabs is between 4 and 8%. Support for U.S. policy toward Palestinians is between 3 to 9%. The strongest support for any U.S. policy in the region is for the war on terrorism, but even that ranges from 3% in Saudi Arabia to 21% in Jordan.

What you have is a collapse of trust...." (Boston Globe, 7/26)

After election, a draft?

Army re-enlistments are dropping; new enlistments in fiscal 2005 (beginning in October) are expected to fall 10% short of the total needed. If the United States means to keep 140,000 troops in Iraq for the next five years, there will be no alternative to reinstating conscription after the presidential inauguration in January. (Int'l Herald Tribune, 7/23)

Big-biz media bury issues

Concentration of media sources leaves most Americans with a very narrow range of news awareness and an almost complete lack of competing opinions.

Important questions that impact most Americans are generally ignored. Why are 45 million Americans without health care? Why is poverty increasing in the U.S.? What happened to the safety net of social programs for the disadvantaged? What are the underlying reasons -- other than oil -- for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan?....

Where have all the living wage jobs gone? Why is the minimum wage now 60% of its value in 1968?....The corporate media choose not to address these important issues in any significant way.

Instead, they are keeping on top of...the Michael Jackson trial and the threat of new terror attacks....

The corporate agenda of maximizing profits undermines the public purpose of a free press. (MinutemanMedia.org, 7/28)

US writers ignore workers

You can't really write about characters' lives without writing about their work....The office (or factory or restaurant) is where people find adventures, camaraderie, meaning....

Incorporating work into fiction "opens possibilities, introduces complications, [and] gets characters into revelatory conflict...."

Where are all the novels about working? Freud supposedly said all that matters in life is love and work, but as David Gates observes in the introduction to a new anthology, "Labor Days," it's remarkable how often fiction writers "prefer not to look at the significant portions of their imaginary people's lives that must...be spent at work." (NYT, 8/8/)

Scaring ill immigrants

The Department of Health and Human Services wants hospitals seeking reimbursement to ask patients these questions, among others:

* "Are you a United States citizen?

* "Are you a lawful permanent resident?....

In many immigrant households, at least one parent is undocumented, but the children, having been born in the United States, are citizens.

When such families hear about the questions asked by hospital employees...it's likely that the undocumented immigrant parents will be terrified to seek care for their children, let alone themselves."

LETTERS

Renew my Sub for 2 Years

"Your newspaper helps me cope with the deluge of doublespeak and Bush-Fascism. Keep up the good work and please renew me for two years."

--NK

Fired for Refusing To Betray Ideals; Sends $100

I received the PLP fund-request letter to help expand the many Party activities. My financial situation is not that strong. I'm a teacher in a South American country and only work part-time. The little I make is used to cover my basic expenses during the summer (January, February and part of April in the Southern hemisphere). I had free access to the internet in the local college I worked in, but now I'm no longer there and must pay for it.

My students and other teachers considered me an excellent teacher, but the administration gave me a bad rating, trying to pressure me to leave or else change my teaching methods and how I see education in general. I couldn't betray my ideals. It would be denying my whole life, based on being a human being, not a liar, racist, crook, ass-licker and careerist. These terms describe those who supposedly are my colleagues, who then stabbed me in the back, giving me the bad rating.

I found another job, although with less pay. But my conscience and attitude towards life are now stronger than ever.

Part of being a comrade is in essence to be "friends" and "compa�eros," which is why I am telling you all of this now. Anyway, I will send $100 to help our organization and will try to send some money every month,

For one world, one working class, one Party.

A Comrade in South America

Profits Fuel Fire,
Kill 400 in Paraguay

A fire caused by a possible gas leak killed over 400 shoppers in the crowded Ycua Bolanos Supermarket in Asuncion, Paraguay. The death toll is still rising. Over 150 bodies have yet to be identified. Several hundred escaped.

The son of the owner allegedly ordered the security guards to lock all doors, in order to "prevent robbery" by the customers who were fleeing for their lives from the deadly blaze.

The fire began on the first floor of the three-story supermarket complex, on a Sunday packed with families and small children. Many bodies were found huddled together embracing in their final moments of life, burned to death.

If the owner had not locked the doors and allowed the people to flee, the loss of life would have been greatly minimized. But the owner was more concerned about profits and less about the working-class families who frequented his store. The owner and his son have been charged with manslaughter. Their maximum sentence is 20 years in prison.

This tragedy shows us more and more that in order to combat capitalist greed and individualist thinking, we need a revolution by the international working class led by the communist PLP.

A South American Reader

Which Side is Moore On?

Recently a letter appeared (7/21) from a friend of PL's, questioning hostility shown to Michael Moore, creator of "Fahrenheit 9/11." Moore has a lot of interesting contradictions, and that's not a bad argument in his favor.The movie is certainly worth seeing. But it's also proper to ask which side Moore is really on, especially now, when "Fahrenheit" has grossed over $100 million with no end in sight. And a major part of that is headed right into Moore's pocket since he owns just about the whole, non-studio rights to the movie. Well, the night that $100 million figure was first mentioned, Moore appeared on the Jay Leno Show, leading Leno in singing "God Bless America," gesturing for the audience to join in. This asskissing is not ambiguous -- he's come down on the side of John Kerry, though the love affair is stated in coy terms.

I wish, along with the reader, that there were stars in Hollywood and in other arts that had the guts to stand up for the fight for a decent society -- a fight which is necessarily anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist. In the past there were thousands like Paul Robeson, Bertolt Brecht, Charlie Chaplin, Pablo Picasso, Pablo Neruda, Diego Rivera -- that's right, these people all were communists or friends of communism.

Don't expect non-communists or anti-communists to fight very hard to destroy the oppressing class system which rewards them with riches the rest of us have no shot at.

Red from Brooklyn

Is this Fascism?

These are some thoughts from discussions I've had with a few CHALLENGE readers.

For some time now, PLP has said we've been moving into a period of fascism. Recent articles have talked about the accelerating creation of a "fascist police state." The Patriot Act has set up a new legal infrastructure for snooping on and locking up "terrorists," and it wouldn't take much to label anti-war protestors, strikers, and communists (who, after all, advocate violent revolution) as terrorists.

Politicians and the media are doing their best to create a climate of fear. The surveillance satellites, linked computerized databases and facial recognition programs available for spying and tracking are increasing at a rapid rate. Big Brother has become acceptable. We have "cookies" on our computers, RFID (radio frequency identification) devices on the sweaters we buy and surveillance cameras lining our streets.

All this high-tech instrumentation could be used for good. Keeping track of hikers in the wilderness, adults with Alzheimer's disease or grazing animals can be beneficial. Satellites can track the movements of political activists, but can also reveal areas at risk for forest fires and tornadoes. It's not the technology itself that's good or bad; it's how those in power use it.

The 9/11 Commission is calling for a National Counter-Terrorism Center that would set new precedents in allowing the intelligence agencies and the military to work together. If one aspect of fascism is preparation for war, it seems that the ruling class is getting ready, including disciplining their own, and trying to prepare us for years and years of global wars.

PLP has been very clear that this fascism comes from the ruling class as a whole, led by the main "liberal" wing of the capitalist class. We reject the idea that fascism represents only the policies of the most reactionary, nationalistic elements of the capitalist class.

But the international communist movement suffered a grave defeat with the rise of capitalism in the Soviet Union and China. The U.S. union movement is in dreadful shape, with something like 10% of workers currently unionized. Both internationally and domestically, working-class resistance to increased war, terror, and economic attacks is at a low level.

In the current period, the bosses don't seem to be facing a serious threat from the working class or some rival imperialist that would warrant fascism as a kind of emergency rule by the bosses. Yet they're changing the rules and putting in place more and more repressive policies. Why? Because they can!

In the absence of serious resistance, the bosses will move to crack down as much as possible to strengthen their political control and increase profits. In the past we've said that the capitalists prefer liberal democracy and move to fascism reluctantly when there's a crisis. Maybe in the 21st Century, at least for a while, the norm will be a hyper-repressive society, greased by high-tech gadgets. This makes for untold pain and danger for the working class. And it increases the challenges to, and responsibilities of our Party. But if it's not a life-or-death crisis, is it fascism? What do you think?

A Reader

`Project changed my life forever!'

I love Boston. No, no! I love the Summer Project! This was one of the greatest youth-oriented projects I've ever been involved in. This week has been definitely worth our 20-hour drive from Chicago.

One protest that really opened my eyes occurred where Jesse Jackson and Dennis Kucinich were speaking. It showed me how phony the liberals are. The Kucinich people organized the forum. Speeches addressed gay rights, women's rights and a call to all workers to put heat on the Democratic Party that has continued to ignore universal health care, a living wage, education, civil liberties and civil rights. The speakers called on all to mobilize for the October Million Worker March in D.C. However, no speaker indicted capitalism as the cause of all these problems. That was PLP's job and that's what we did.

Two PL teams of volunteers leafleted and sold CHALLENGE. There was a circus of different groups: libertarians, Larouchies, Christians for Peace; you name it, they were there. But when PL presented our line with confidence, enthusiasm and a boldness that could not be ignored, it was all over for those phonies.

Then out of nowhere a black limo drove up and out popped Jesse Jackson, looking large and in charge (so he thought). Well, we soon set him straight. An alert PL team immediately started to boo him and call him the sellout he is. This "reception" really caught him off guard. So much so, he ran into the church with news cameras chasing him. That's all we needed to see because what goes in must come out.

We made a plan for his departure, starting a picket line chanting, "Kucinich-Jackson you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!"

When Jackson came out, PLP was the one that was large and in charge.

We gave him everything we had, short of armed revolution. Workers on the streets of Boston watched and asked for CHALLENGE, to see what we were about. A high school student gave us her name and phone number and said she would tell her Dad about our group because we were so impressive. It was a great day!

I joined PLP! The whole project has changed my life forever.

 Chicago comrade

Project Developed
Youth Leadership

Participating in a PLP Summer Project can be one of the best experiences in one's life. The recent Project in Boston was no exception. The comrades there were well-prepared for our arrival and had organized a very educational, entertaining and fun summer project that also helped the young people develop their leadership potential. We're thankful to everyone who helped in this organizing project.

The workshops at UMASS as well as the ones PLP organized led to burning discussions with valuable information. We were glad to see and be part of an organization that got out there on Boston's streets to fight for the international working class, the human race, against racism, fascism and the imperialists worldwide with demonstrations and agitations.

LA Volunteer

Bosses Are Always Snakes

Sometimes government workers get confused about what snakes their bosses are. I work at a large public-sector agency whose mission supposedly is protecting workers. Some incidents expose the bosses and remind us that only a fight for communism is going to change things for real.

My best friend -- just been elected head steward -- and I were having lunch in the cafeteria when the agency head and her aides sat down at a table next to us. My friend wanted to introduce herself, but I was leery because this boss had just barred a Latino man from the building after a "vigorous" lunchtime conversation. (Only the intervention of the union's Civil Rights Committee got him back at work.)

But we went over anyway. The conversation started out politely, but escalated when the boss said she'd heard it was hard to get jobs at this Agency. I blurted out, "That's because there are so many contractors working here." (The government is saving money by contracting out much of its work to slave-labor agencies). The agency head replied, "There are no contractors here." My friend and I contradicted her. Then she backpedaled, saying only information technology jobs were held by contractors -- another lie! I finally said that, although the union does not want contractors here, at least the ones hired should receive benefits! "Isn't it the mission of this agency to protect workers?"

Well, I had stepped over the line. A boss's aide quickly ended the conversation.

The story of this confrontation spread. It showed the boss's duplicity -- she baldly lies to workers even when the workers know the real deal! The incident showed how workers' boldness is necessary here, how callous the bosses are, and it engendered good discussion throughout the agency about the nature of the system.

But maybe the bosses' would help out in an emergency? Think again -- looking out for #1 is their mantra. During a recent evacuation, I realized that a 250-lb. co-worker with breathing problems, who uses a wheelchair, needed help exiting the building. I asked a co-worker to help and requested that the boss -- the official "zone monitor" responsible for workers with disabilities to get out safely -- assist us. The boss left his office, looked down the hall at us, and walked the other way! We had to navigate our co-worker down a steep ramp to the street. I injured my back doing this, and went out on worker's comp.

Make no mistake. Simply because you work with them every day and they appear friendly, their essential nature is evil and inhumane. Workers will dispose of such enemies sooner rather than later!

A Reader

Nixes Racist Dixie Flag

This anecdote illustrates why boldness is essential in any struggle. My husband and I were eating at a "Potbelly Sandwich" place in College Park, Maryland. He had eaten at one down in Leesburg, Virginia. The d�cor is that of an old-time, rural general store with pictures and artifacts from the late 1800's.

After we sat down, my husband noticed a confederate flag emblazoned on a picture or book on top of a bookshelf. I groaned to myself and vowed not to eat there again. My husband, however, investigated and discovered it was on the cover of a book. He took it down and went to the manager demanding it be removed. He said this restaurant catered to a multi-racial clientele and this was inappropriate.

The manager, very young, was surprised to see the book, agreed with my husband and quickly took it. Others have eaten there since and reported the flag book has not reappeared.

As a veteran of the anti-racist struggle for 30 years, I felt defeated by seeing this flag. But my husband, who usually doesn't involve himself, decided enough was enough! We need to realize that any anti-racist action, no matter how small, does sow seeds.

An Anti-Racist Reader

Liberal Think-Tanks Tied to G.O.P. & Dems

The Brookings Institution is a ruling-class organization that develops policies to help the big capitalists stay in power. This liberal think-tank has important ties to key politicians in both parties, to finance capital and to two other think-tanks: the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. For example, Brookings member Kenneth Duberstein is on the board of directors of Boeing, Conoco Oil and Fannie Mae. Brookings specializes in the relationship between foreign and domestic policies. Kerry and his wife are both members, He has adopted its programs

Right now, they're working on reinstituting the draft, to supply the U.S. military for the continuous wars many are predicting. Last year, they published a collection of essays entitled, "United We Serve," on community service and the draft.

One of this collection's editors is E. J. Dionne, a senior fellow at Brookings. He authored an essay in the SF Chronicle (7/6/04), calling for a "Sacrifice From All." He quotes Rep. Charles Rangel (Dem,-NY, another contributor to "United We Serve") who pointed out that the stop-loss order (which prevents soldiers from leaving military service even after their time is up) and the recall of the Ready Reserve are actually a type of draft because service is no longer voluntary.

Dionne is a critic of: (1) the tax break for the rich because it siphons money needed for the military; (2) the politicians who ignored military leaders' estimates on the need for more soldiers; (3) the apparent lack of willingness of the leaders "to ask themselves and other privileged Americans to risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." (One essay in "United We Serve" maintains citizens will not accept combat deaths until they see the privileged on the front lines as well, a point reinforced in "Fahrenheit 9/11" when it asks Congressmen to send their children to fight.)

Both Kerry and Bush represent the ruling class. They differ only on how to conduct the "war on terrorism," really a war to maintain U.S. dominance worldwide. Voting for either is a mistake. The only real alternative is to organize for revolution to overthrow the system promoted by these politicians and their think-tanks.

A Comrade

PLP's Ideas
Re-Printed in Pakistan

Dear Comrades,

Through CHALLENGE we have learned many revolutionary ideas from PLP on nationalism, sexism, fascism, religion and especially the wage slavery system and state borders which are enemies of the international working class. We have also learned to reject categorically the two-stage theory (first socialism, then communism). Collective leadership is the best leadership. All powers belong to the Party (PLP) only, not to a single individual.

PLP criticizes the old communist movement (fake left) publicly. Their weaknesses ravaged many countries, e.g., Indonesia, Spain, Iran, India and Vietnam among many around the world. That's why today the working class is chained and oppressed by capitalism globally.

In Pakistan, the "Communist" Party split into many parts due to its individualistic leadership since birth. CHALLENGE is the one revolutionary paper in the world which opposes the whole capitalist system, without concessions.

For 12 years, we saw very few names of comrades in CHALLENGE. Organization should be confidential, but the Party is open to the entire working class.

No other party talks about a third world war except PLP. It is a dialectical analysis of a world perspective. What is the membership policy for non-U.S. areas?

Comrades in Pakistan

(CHALLENGE postscript: Arriving with the above letter were two pamphlets, one a translation of Road to Revolution IV into the Sindh language.our Partyis international. We are opento all those in agreement with our internationa communist politics and willing to build our movement.)

U.S. Vs. Asian Bosses:The Next Really Big War

a href="#PLP Summer Project Cracks Kerry’s Pro-War Festival">"LP Summer Project Cracks Kerry’s Pro-War Festival

a href="#Obama: Liberals’ New Hero ‘Forgot’ About Racism">Obam": Liberals’ New Hero ‘Forgot’ About Racism

Boston Summer Project!

a href="#Kerry Hand-shaking Can’t Hide Pro-War Stance">"erry Hand-shaking Can’t Hide Pro-War Stance

Project Created New Young Leaders

DC Transit Workers Applaud Red Prez For No Sell-Out Pledge

International Solidarity Needed in Fight vs. DaimlerChrysler

Ford Profits Mask Sharpening Contradictions

a href="#Union Hacks’ Nationalism A Loser As Mitsubishi Plans Firing of 1200">"nion Hacks’ Nationalism A Loser As Mitsubishi Plans Firing of 1200

Bosses Terrorize NYC Workers: Fares Up, Wages Down

a href="#Hacks’ Betrayal of Grocery Strike Becoming Model For School Sellout">"acks’ Betrayal of Grocery Strike Becoming Model For School Sellout

a href="#PLP’s Ideas Spark Discussion of Revolution">"LP’s Ideas Spark Discussion of Revolution

a href="#Workers Fight Bosses’ Flow of Profits from Privatizing Water">"orkers Fight Bosses’ Flow of Profits from Privatizing Water

Studying Imperialism Crucial to Fighting vs. Bosses Wars

Is Sudan Crisis About Oil?

LETTERS

a href="#Inspired by PL’ers ‘on the front lines’">Insp"red by PL’ers ‘on the front lines’

Turning Attack into Fight vs. Fascism in NYC Schools

a href="#AIDS Conference Hides Bosses’ Rule">"IDS Conference Hides Bosses’ Rule

Workers in Germany Need PLP

a href="#PLP Study Group Moves GI’s To Want To Be Involved">"LP Study Group Moves GI’s To Want To Be Involved

Red Eye On The News

• From commune to cutthroat
• Voting doesn’t work for us
• Why U.S. wants army to stay
• War profits = family losses
• US: 7 million criminalized
• Children slave for "Coke"

---

U.S. Vs. Asian Bosses:The Next Really Big War

With its endless parade of generals, admirals, and veterans, countless pro-war speeches, and mindless flag-waving, the Democratic convention looked like a Nuremberg Rally. In the 1930’s, the Nazis staged wildly patriotic rallies every year at Nuremberg as part of a broad campaign to win the German people to fascism and war. Today’s U.S. rulers have long-range war aims that reach far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. They, like their Nazi predecessors, know that dominating the world inevitably entails fighting major military rivals. They, like the Nazis, know that eventually they must fully militarize the nation. Kerry’s war-fest in Boston was a significant, early step in mobilizing for a global confrontation.

Even as they rake in billions by exploiting cheap labor in Asia, U.S. rulers’ fears focus on the growing might of that region. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the leading U.S. policy-setting group, represents the Exxon Mobil-JP Morgan Chase-Rockefeller wing of U.S. capital. In its July/August issue, James F. Hoge, editor of the CFR’s "Foreign Affairs," drew ominous parallels to the run-up to World War II, "This time, the populous states of Asia are the aspirants seeking to play a greater role. Like Japan and Germany back then, these rising powers are nationalistic, seek redress of past grievances, and want to claim their place in the sun. Asia’s growing economic power is translating into greater political and military power, thus increasing the potential damage of conflicts."

And it’s not just China, Hoge warns. "India and other Asian states now boast growth rates that could outstrip those of major Western countries for decades to come. China’s economy is growing at more than nine percent annually, India’s at eight percent, and the Southeast Asian ‘tigers’ have recovered from the 1997 financial crisis and resumed their march forward. China’s economy is expected to be double the size of Germany’s by 2010 and to overtake Japan’s, currently the world’s second largest, by 2020. If India sustains a six percent growth rate for 50 years, as some financial analysts think possible, it will equal or overtake China in that time."

Hoge measures the approach of the crisis in decades, but cautions that war might not follow such a neat timeline, "the flash points for hostilities — Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, and divided Kashmir — have defied peaceful resolution. Any of them could explode into large-scale warfare that would make the current Middle East confrontations seem like police operations. In short, the stakes in Asia are huge."

To counter emerging rivals, the Pentagon is undertaking "the most extensive realignment of U.S. power in half a century. Part of this realignment is the opening of a second front in Asia. No longer is the United States poised with several large, toehold bases on the Pacific rim of the Asian continent; today, it has made significant moves into the heart of Asia itself, building a network of smaller, jumping-off bases in Central Asia" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 7/26, citing Andy Hoehn, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense). Pentagon insiders conclude that the main rationale for these bases is not the war on terrorism but "containment of China." U.S. strategists plan to "position forces along an ‘arc of instability’ that runs through the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia and southern Asia. It is in these parts of the world — generally poor, insular and unstable — that military planners see the major future threats to U.S. interests" (Post-Gazette). Since the days of Jimmy Carter, "interests" has been a code word for oil. The proposed arc of troop deployment coincides with the chief export routes for Mideast, Caspian, Russian and West African crude.

China’s capitalist rulers, hardly sitting on their hands, are "modernizing [their] military forces, both to improve [their] ability to win a conflict over Taiwan and to deter U.S. aggression. Chinese military doctrine now focuses on countering U.S. high-tech capabilities — information networks, stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, and precision-guided bombs." (Post-Gazette) China is creating a blue-water navy that can someday challenge the U.S. for control of oil shipping routes. Naval experts predict that China will become the world’s biggest shipbuilder by 2015.

While China looms in the future, U.S. rulers have no shortage of present enemies. Another CFR guru, Walter Russell Mead, wrote in the Los Angeles Times (7/25), "The U.S. may wind up facing in Iran the choice our intelligence agencies told us we faced in Iraq: between military action against a rogue regime or allowing that regime to assemble an arsenal of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction....The U.S. is closer than many think to what could well be the biggest and most difficult crisis in the war on terror yet."

The rulers have their own long- and short-term battle plans. We have ours. One day, we or our successors will make a communist revolution that will put an end to capitalism and its wars for profit. In the meantime, to reach that seemingly distant but inevitable goal, we must build the PLP. The pages of CHALLENGE offer the lessons of ideological and class struggles needed for that process, including showing that capitalism (either led by Kerry or Bush in the case of the U.S) makes war inevitable.

(A future article will deal with how the demise of the old communist movement created both new areas of exploitation for U.S. , Western European and Japanese imperialism as well as new competing capitalist powers.)

a name="PLP Summer Project Cracks Kerry’s Pro-War Festival">">"LP Summer Project Cracks Kerry’s Pro-War Festival

BOSTON, July 30 — Seventy members and friends of PLP just completed a very successful Summer Project at the Democratic National Convention (DNC). The week was packed with agitation, workshops, forums, demonstrations, socializing and comradeship. It was a very positive, intense experience for everyone. At least a dozen people joined PLP. Many workers and youth responded positively to our anti-fascist, anti-imperialist, anti-Democratic Party message. We distributed over 3,500 CHALLENGES and 10,000 leaflets.

We continually attacked Kerry and Democratic (as well as Republican) politicians as war-making enemies of the working class. We told anti-war people who plan to vote for Kerry that he calls for staying the course in Iraq and says as President he would enlarge the military by 40,000. The rulers need Kerry to build popular support for their profit wars abroad and police state at home. (See editorials in recent CHALLENGES)

We attended the Boston Social Forum (BSF) where we had a PLP table and three PLP-sponsored workshops on oil and imperialism, the truth about democracy, and nationalism, racism and war. About 50 BSF participants attended our workshops. Many stopped at our table and we made a number of contacts.

On July 25, about 50 of us held a bold, unannounced multi-racial march and demonstration at a hotel reception for Bill and Hilary Clinton. Encircled by cops, we chanted: "Bill Clinton you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide." We pointed out that the Clinton-Gore administration — with Kerry’s support —murdered over a million Iraqis, mostly children, with U.S.-led sanctions and bombing as part of a desperate attempt to bring Iraqi oil back under Exxon-Mobil’s control.

Our bold, disciplined anti-Clinton/anti-Democrat march inspired everyone and set a militant, anti- fascist, anti-war tone for the week. We divided into six teams of young and old, black, Latin and white, from all regions of the country and carried out anti-DNC agitation in working-class neighborhoods and at DNC-sponsored and psuedo left-led forums and protests. We distributed about 4,500 PLP leaflets attacking Kerry and the Democrats as the party of war and fascism and no better than Bush. During the week, PLP led two more spirited demonstrations and marches attacking the Democrats, Harvard University as a bastion of racism and imperialism and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).

MBTA cops conducted "random" baggage searches and ID checks of commuters. We distributed about 5,500 PLP leaflets city-wide at subway stations and led a militant picket line against this MBTA fascist plan right inside one of the city’s busiest, working class subway stations. Many workers, professionals and youth were opposed to the MBTA plan. Another team distributed 500 anti-MBTA leaflets and 100 DESAFIOS to workers in a Latino working-class area.

Another team led a march in one of Boston’s working-class housing projects to protest racist police brutality and murder. Residents eagerly took about 150 copies of CHALLENGE. Later the same team leafleted and distributed 270 copies of CHALLENEGE to workers and patients at a large local hospital.

We also went on the ideological offensive against so-called left Democrats like Dennis Kucinich and Jesse Jackson, exposing their role keeping workers and students inside the Democratic Party. Two teams picketed at a church where Jackson spoke and confronted him when he left (see letter page 3).

We met many people angered by the Democrats and opposed to war and fascism. We made over 50 new contacts. The project culminated with a banquet of 100 which included communist raps and songs and speeches about the fight against racism in Boston 1975, building a worker-student alliance and the difficult but important task of building for communist revolution.

We also organized PLP workshops on industrial organizing; unions and communist base-building; imperialist war, military work and communist revolution; elections, war and fascism; and the dictatorship of the proletariat and the revolutionary process.

One of the Project’s strengths was the willingness of the leaders and participants to try to correct the mistakes made during the project and then move forward. The project developed a whole new set of leaders and encouraged the political development of many others. (For more details see page 3).

The Project gave us more confidence in the Party’s ability to organize workers and students around communist politics.

a name="Obama: Liberals’ New Hero ‘Forgot’ About Racism"></a>"bama: Liberals’ New Hero ‘Forgot’ About Racism

Barak Obama, the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention and next Senator from Illinois, is the rising star of the Democratic Party and the Rockefeller wing of the U.S. ruling class. Groomed and educated at Harvard Law School, the first black editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, and on the faculty of the University of Chicago (UC), Obama has "the face, voice and manner of a practiced anchorman. His style was not…old school…but rather it was made for the television screen…" (Chicago Tribune, 7/28)

His Boston speech attacked crime and welfare, but never mentioned the word "racism." He joined the Bill Cosby chorus and put the burden of education on black workers instead of the government and society. Right after the convention, he addressed the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations where he toed the party line, attacking Bush for mishandling the Iraq occupation, and calling for more troops and a long stay.

During the Senate primary race I volunteered at his South Side office. He took black voters there for granted, attending churches and other middle class black venues. The only mass rally was on the night before the primary election at Liberty Baptist church. But even then, he showed up rather late and basically made a sermon, rather than a political speech about what he intended to do. Outside the rally a group of unemployed black youth protested against him. One told me Obama was just another politician.

He reached a major stage in his political rise when elected one of the youngest state senators. He ran against Jesse Jackson Jr. in 1998, gaining some important political experience and exposure, and leading to an ongoing feud between the two liberals, only healed at the Democratic Convention. Both Jesse Jr. and Senior refused to endorse Obama during his primary run.

He returned to the State legislature and kept his UC job. During the first phase of the primary campaign in 2003, much work was needed to get him known among the black working-class community. Many had never heard of him.

He organized a multi-racial base for the South Side, bringing on board Hyde Park liberals and UC students. He also developed a specific cadre to deal with major events on college campuses, especially Chicago area’s black colleges. He aggressively sought southern Illinois Democratic voters, and won key endorsements from the AFL-CIO, especially SEIU.

Obama is emerging as a major player in the consolidation of liberal fascism in this country. In future articles we’ll try to uncover his specific ties to the Rockefeller wing of the ruling class. We’ll also look at how communists working in his campaign must deal with the contradiction of "being in it to win it,"(one has to be among the masses to win them to PL’s politics) while exposing the ruthless core of liberal fascism as the great danger to the working class. There must be a real powerhouse behind him to account for the sudden rise for which his training has prepared him.

Chicago Reader

Boston Summer Project!

The 2004 PLP Boston Summer Project, my first, was more than I could’ve expected – a truly life-altering experience. As one comrade said, "I’m a different person today than when I arrived." Everyone experienced a qualitative change, both individually and as a member of PLP, and of a larger revolutionary communist movement.

For many, it was the first time they worked with other PL members from around the country and the world. Each comrade grew substantially as a communist and as a future leader of PL, forced daily to struggle with their own personal limitations and contradictions as well as with those of the collective.

The Summer Project Banquet revealed the fruits of the week’s political struggles: a number of friends of PL and project first-timers enthusiastically joined the Party, vowing to fight to smash capitalism.

The week in Democrat-occupied Boston was largely spent exposing that party’s imperialist and fascist foundations, and struggling to win workers and students to communist ideas, to the fight against capitalism, and to join PLP. Comrades attended workshops and discussion groups at the Boston Social Forum (the local counterpart of the World Social Forum held last year in Porto Alegre, Brazil) and struggled against the "Anybody-but-Bush" lesser-evil arguments and reformist strategies put forth by many anti-war activists and left liberals. At mass demonstrations we distributed thousands of PL leaflets and CHALLENGES as comrades marched through downtown Boston chanting, "Same Enemy, Same Fight, Workers of the World Unite!"; "Hitler Rose, Hitler Fell, Bush And Kerry Go To Hell!"; and, "The Workers, United, Will Never Be Defeated, Obreros, Unidos, Jamás Serán Vencido!"

A highlight was a chant exposing the blatantly fascist scene when a group of Pro-Lifers carrying posters of aborted fetuses were being escorted by the State Police in full riot gear — in other words, fascists protecting fascists! We yelled: "Tell Me What Fascism Looks Like — This Is What Fascism Looks Like!" Some comrades picketed and sold CHALLENGE at the hotel housing the Clintons and Madeline Albright. Others confronted Jesse Jackson, surrounding his limousine and chanting, "Jesse Jackson You Can’t Hide; We Charge You With Genocide!"

The most important political work, however, occurred in Boston’s racially segregated, working-class neighborhoods. A PLP-led demonstration against police terror was organized in a predominantly African-American and Latina/o working-class community. Leaflets denouncing the recent police murder of a 56-year-old mentally-ill Latino man were distributed. Over 150 CHALLENGES were sold, leading to a number of contacts. Workers gathered at corners, stood on porches or leaned out of windows listening to comrades’ speeches linking fascist police terror at home to imperialist wars abroad, capitalist exploitation to racism and sexism, and the fight against all of capitalism’s evils to the struggle for communist revolution.

The majority of workers agreed that both Democrats and Republicans serve the bosses and that elections don’t fix, let alone address, the most crucial problems facing our class. Overall, workers proved highly receptive to communist ideas, realizing that the bosses’ scam elections will never bring about the much-needed changes all workers so desperately desire.

Amid all the crass revisionism (phony leftism), reformism and liberal misleadership surrounding the Democratic Convention, the Summer Project demonstrated how workers can be won to PLP. It also revealed to many young comrades how vital PL’s role truly is in the fight for communist revolution.

West Coast Comrade

a name="Kerry Hand-shaking Can’t Hide Pro-War Stance">">"erry Hand-shaking Can’t Hide Pro-War Stance

I met a woman in Boston at the Democratic Convention who had two tickets to meet John Kerry. We became friends and decided to enliven the meeting with two anti-war posters. (Both of us worked with the Dennis Kucinich campaign, which had a strong, vocal opposition to the war in Iraq.)

We were unsure about being able to carry the placards — the security where we were to meet Kerry was overwhelming. But we swallowed our apprehension and, emboldened by the week’s lively political activities, stuck to our plan. (I had witnessed unbelievable crowd energy at the Boston Social Forum.)

It almost didn’t happen though. The security at the Boston Harbor was insane! The police presence was massive and depressing. Signs were barred — either the approved Kerry signs or homemade ones. But we decided to try anyway. At worst they would throw them away.

The security guard looked at our signs reading, "End the War in Iraq Now!" and smiled. He said he had no problem with them and let us through. We were ecstatic. People around us carrying Kerry/Edwards signs had to leave them outside, but not us.

As we waited for Kerry, I talked with my new friend about the war in Iraq, about empire and imperialism, about how both Kerry and Bush were for sending and maintaining troops in the Mid-East. Kerry is no friend of students or working people in the U.S. or anywhere else. When he arrived, the crowd cheered and shouted support for Kerry and Edwards — all except us who boldly held up our anti-war signs and shouted for Kerry to end the war in Iraq.

The people around us were unhappy. A few told us to take our signs down, that this wasn’t the time or place — "too divisive." One said we were helping to elect Bush. This reaction was NOT what my friend was expecting. We had been repeatedly told all week that most Democrats don’t support the war.

My friend was angry with the crowd; we held our signs higher and screamed louder against the war. When Kerry went around shaking hands, my friend grasped his hand and told him to end the war and withdraw the troops. His response was, "I’m working on it." Afterwards, to my pleasant surprise, my friend said she was not impressed with Kerry and was upset with him and the crowd for their position about our signs. After his Thursday speech, she was even more upset at his pro-war stance. Since she lives near me, we intend to keep in touch.

I think that she and many others are winnable to PLP’s ideas. All this has shown me we can have experiences like this, meet people, make friends, and make our politics count! This will help me be bolder at my job and in my own city.

All throughout the week, I met people who were both committed to changing the current administration and disgusted with the Kerry campaign, people who are receptive to PLP’s ideas. One young man told me, "Those PLP people are hard core. I respect that they’re militant, principled, young and multi-racial." This is a very good sign.

A comrade

Project Created New Young Leaders

Many different organizations participated in the Boston Social Forum and the demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention. Although PLP participated in the Forum and met many potential comrades within its ranks, we stand apart. We’re the only Party calling for communist revolution while working within mass organizations. We’re not trying to reform capitalism, because we know, at best, that only happens on a small, temporary scale, which the bosses ultimately reverse. We don’t waffle on Democrats vs. Republicans, not choosing between evils. We advocate fighting for a communist world free of capitalist exploitation, led by the working class which produces all value. We’re not led astray by Ralph Nader’s promises of a "kinder, gentler" capitalism.

Our organization mirrors the kind of world we envision. We’re black, Latin, white and Asian; young and older, workers and students. We don’t have "stars" who give every speech and lead every meeting. Virtually every PLP Summer Project participant spoke or led chants at one of the demonstrations or meetings. There were many firsts for individual participants, including selling CHALLENGE, speaking on the bullhorn, asking a potential recruit for contact information and for donations, and speaking out at meetings. Comrades under 30 led the teams, planned the activities, figured out the logistics and guaranteed security.

The Summer Project proved that our future is in good hands. While we have a long way to go to make communism a reality on a large scale, the Boston Summer Project showed it is possible and played a big role in developing the leadership which will create communism.

Mid-West Comrade

DC Transit Workers Applaud Red Prez For No Sell-Out Pledge

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 31 — Over 300 transit workers from Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 greeted PLP’er Mike Golash at the first union meeting following his election as president. Mike thanked the predominantly black workers for the confidence they showed in him, a white anti-racist communist, saying his membership in PLP would ensure his wholehearted commitment to black, Latin and white workers’ struggles, both immediate and long-term. Mike declared the union must never surrender the strike weapon. He received a rousing ovation for this "maiden speech."

Mike then warned of a tough upcoming contract fight because of the unprecedented $40 million payment the bosses were required to make to the pension fund. Management had conned the previous president into approving accounting tricks to avoid this payment and thus jeopardize the pension fund. Mike vowed to lead the workers in fighting such a deal. He asserted that any gains won in the upcoming contract would be used to foster greater equality among union members, to strengthen the basic solidarity of the union.

Thus, a new chapter of class struggle began with communist leadership of a major industrial union local, out of which many new members can be won to PLP.

International Solidarity Needed in Fight vs. DaimlerChrysler

Frankfurt, Germany, July 23 — "We found a good solution for DaimlerChrysler as well as for Germany," said DaimlerChrysler CEO Jürgen Schrempp. "These… agreements are helping to improve cost competitiveness, making companies more productive…We’re going to see more of this," said Elga Bartsch, an economist at Morgan Stanley in Frankfurt. "There are difficult conditions for the company, and we’ve come up with a fair agreement," said Erich Klemm, chief workers’ representative and deputy chairman of the company’s supervisory board.

The auto boss, the Wall St. banker and the union hack were referring to the new contract between DaimlerChrysler and the metalworkers’ union IG Metall that will gradually increase the work-week to 40 hours, and cut wages by 2.79% in 2006. Other pay increases will be capped at 1.5%. This contract will reduce costs by $613 million a year, and follows an agreement by 4,000 Siemens workers who produce mobile telephones, to extend their work-week after the company threatened to wipe out 2,000 jobs and shift production to Hungary. Germany’s largest car and truck builders, Volkswagen and MAN, and a whole series of factories and service companies will follow the example of Siemens and DaimlerChrysler.

If you listen closely, you can hear the Nazi jackboots goose-stepping across Germany again. The economy is weak, the official unemployment rate is 9.8%, up from 7.6% at the end of 2000, and union membership has dropped by more than one-third since Germany’s reunification in 1991. These are the fruits of the inter-imperialist rivalry, and the collapse of the old communist movement.

The company had threatened to cut 6,000 jobs at the company’s largest Mercedes plant, in Sindelfingen, and shift some of the new C-class Mercedes production to plants in Bremen and East London, South Africa.

On July 15, workers participated in a range of strikes and other actions, stopping production of at least 2,800 cars. (See CHALLENGE, 8/4) However, we need more than strikes and protests to end these attacks.

These concessions are just the beginning. The downward spiral will accelerate. Just ask U.S. Chrysler workers. DaimlerChrysler, with 360,000 workers and factories worldwide, is locked in an intense struggle with U.S. and Asian auto bosses for cheap labor, markets and resources. Not only must they compete against GM and Toyota, but Daimler plants in Europe, the U.S., Asia and Africa are played off against each other as well. After wages and working conditions have been driven down in Germany, the downward spiral will continue at plants in the U.S., South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, India and China.

‘Conflict Of Principles’

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said that he was very worried about the DaimlerChrysler struggle, and warned of a "conflict of principles." In the "Financial Times Deutschland," he said, "Those who create ideological battle lines in this question can only unsettle people and harm the economy." But a conflict of political principles is exactly what’s needed.

The struggle against the bosses’ attacks is a political one. The sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry and the capitalist crisis of overproduction are behind the worldwide attacks on autoworkers. This is compounded by the transnational character of the auto giants of the U.S., Europe and Asia. Nationalist union leaders, loyal to their bosses, attack the workers to accept wage cuts, longer hours and the dismantling of social reforms to prevent production from being shifted elsewhere.

This rivalry among billionaires is creating more poverty than cars, and will ultimately be resolved through war. Only a mass, international PLP, based among industrial workers, soldiers and youth that recognize no borders, can lead the international working class out of this horror, with communist revolution. With communist leadership, autoworkers can take advantage of working in transnational companies to expose the nationalist/patriotic union leaders, unite with workers around the world, and build a mass international base for communist revolution.

The capitalists organize their operations on a global scale, and the working class must respond in kind. There is no quick or easy short cut. Autoworkers must prepare for a long, hard political struggle, fighting the billionaire war-makers every step of the way, and out of each battle building the revolutionary communist PLP.

Ford Profits Mask Sharpening Contradictions

DETROIT, July 20 — Ford Motor Company reported a $1.2 billion second-quarter profit today, nearly tripling its earnings from a year ago. But Ford Credit, the company’s finance division, contributed $897 million, more than doubling last year, while the company lost $57 million building cars and trucks. Ford and General Motors have high inventories and are losing market share in the U.S.

Merrill Lynch analyst John Casesa wrote, "The overwhelming concentration of earnings in financial services will likely give investors reasons for pause," especially since the Federal Reserve has begun raising interest rates.

Ford’s Jaguar division, part of the Premier Automotive Group, a collection of European luxury brands owned by Ford, is also struggling. Ford hoped Premier, which includes Land Rover, Aston Martin and Volvo, would be a major source of profits after the company lost $5.5 billion in 2001. Instead Premier lost $362 million for the quarter, in part due to the strength of the euro, which makes it more expensive for European automakers to export to the United States. Jaguar sales have been weak, and along with Land Rover, are not meeting "cost-cutting targets."

Ford is cutting production in the U.S. for the third straight quarter, while Toyota, the profitable Japanese automaker, is increasing production by 10%.

Ford To Build New Auto Plant in China

Meanwhile, Ford plans to build a third factory in China with an annual capacity of 200,000 units, part of a $1.5 billion expansion of its 50-50 joint venture with Changan Automobile Group. The project also involves Japan’s Mazda Motor Corp. Ford owns one-third of Mazda. About 100,000 units will be a Mazda subcompact, the rest an unidentified Ford model. Production will begin in 2007.

Ford was a latecomer to China, beginning auto production in 1997. It’s trying to catch up with U.S., German and Japanese rivals, who are also expanding their China operations.

Volkswagen plans to invest up to 5.3 billion euros ($6.5 billion) in China by 2008 and GM is investing another $3 billion over the next three years.

Ford builds Mondeo and Fiesta sedans at a plant in Chongqing, in western China, and Ford Transit light trucks in Jiangxi province with Jiangling Motors Co., a Chinese light truck and van maker in which Ford has a 30% stake. The Mazda 6, Mazda 323 and Premacy are made in China in a venture with China FAW Group Corp., one of China’s largest carmakers.

The international battle for cheap labor, markets and resources is at the heart of the inter-imperialist rivalry that is shaping world events. Production cuts, investment in China and "cost-cutting targets" in Europe all signal increased attacks on autoworkers worldwide. And saddled with nationalist, pro-capitalist union leaders, each out to make "their" bosses #1, workers are caught in a whirlpool, squeezing their living standards lower and lower. Ultimately, this increased imperialist rivalry, and more patriotic/nationalist "leadership," will head the working class into bigger and more deadly wars for profit.

Even so, these attacks are not all going down smoothly. From the recent Daimler strikes in Germany, to much smaller actions, workers are showing a willingness to fight back. At one here, workers returned from the summer shutdown to find all the escalators in their sprawling plant inoperable. This meant much longer walks to and from their work assignments. Mysteriously, the air conditioning in the bosses’ offices was also shut down until the escalators were running again.

Current conditions cry out for revolutionary communist leadership. Every attack, including the UAW leadership’s China-bashing and support for Kerry the war-maker, offers us a chance to fight for communist politics and build a base for PLP. This is not only possible, but is happening.

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NORMAL, IL, July 22 — Mitsubishi Motors North America will fire up to 1,200 workers at its assembly plant here, dropping to one shift in October, cutting its capacity in half. The plant employs 3,150 workers and can produce 240,000 vehicles annually.

Mitsubishi, the second-largest employer in this area, sold a record 345,000 vehicles in the U.S. in 2002, but sales sank 26% last year and are down 27% this year. Mitsubishi Motors of Japan piled up $9 billion in debt before announcing a reorganization that includes plant closings in Japan and cutting 20% of its global workforce. In Japan, Mitsubishi has been losing money and was forced to recall vehicles after covering up defects for years.

The Normal plant will continue to produce four Mitsubishi models. The plant’s production of the Dodge Stratus and Chrysler Sebring coupes, under a contract with the Chrysler Group, will end in April. DaimlerChrysler, the Chrysler Group’s parent, owned a 37% stake in Mitsubishi but declined to bail out its Japanese partner, forcing Mitsubishi to reorganize.

The 1,200 workers here are the latest victims of the worldwide capitalist crisis of too much production capacity and too many companies fighting for market share. Stephen Girsky, a Morgan-Stanley auto analyst, said, "Mitsubishi’s problem is compounded by the fact they also have a lot of debt. Ford and General Motors have overcapacity problems, too, but they have the finances to weather the storm," casting doubt on Mitsubishi’s ability to survive in the U.S.

United Auto Workers Local 2488, representing 2,700 workers, is reduced to ensuring the cuts are "based heavily on seniority." They and the Detroit UAW leadership have no plan or vision to build an international fight-back because they’re wedded to the profit system and blinded by nationalism. All their China-bashing is a big distraction. Even if Kerry is elected in November, it will not alter the laws of capitalism one bit. Increased poverty, unemployment and union-busting are just the prelude to more wars and a fascist Homeland Security police state. Building a base for CHALLENGE and PLP among basic industrial workers is the key to building a mass revolutionary communist movement, the only answer to endless capitalist crises.

Bosses Terrorize NYC Workers: Fares Up, Wages Down

NEW YORK CITY, July 31 — This city and state’s bosses and bankers have hit the working class with a one-two punch and we don’t mean another fake Code Orange "terror alert": they’re raising subway and bus fares, which amounts to a wage-cut, and applauding Governor Pataki’s veto of an increase in the minimum wage for 700,000 workers. All this is happening with the electoral circus in full swing. But sure as hell the workers don’t get to vote on transit fares or minimum wages. Under capitalism, those "choices" are reserved only for the bosses.

Both moves stem directly out of U.S. capitalism’s drive to place the cost of their imperialist moves for world domination squarely on the backs of the working class. Washington’s allotment of hundreds of billions to prosecute their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and thereby cutting Federal aid to states and cities — produces "deficits" in local budgets. The politicians then cover these "deficits" out of workers’ paychecks, to pay off the bankers while giving low-wage bosses a free ride.

The Fare Hike Fraud

Raising fares for all workers — while cutting bus service for night workers — shows how capitalism operates to reap maximum profits for the banker-bosses. Mass transit is a vital service without which the city couldn’t function — very few people could get to work, and very few bosses could make any profit.

Until the late 1940’s, all transit costs — as all vital services — were paid from the general city treasury Then, in 1948, the Transit Authority was established (now the Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA). It mandated payment of all operating costs, including workers’ wages and benefits, from fare revenue. This created a built-in division in the working class: whenever transit workers needed a raise to cover the rising cost of living, the fare would automatically increase. Then the bosses’ media would loudly proclaim that transit workers were taking money from the rider-worker’s pockets.

Meanwhile, the MTA paid for capital improvements by borrowing from the big banks, producing a huge debt and hundreds of millions in interest being funneled to these bondholders. So huge "deficits" were created, which would impel even more borrowing and more interest, and on and on.

In 1999, the MTA, taking it one step further, "borrowed unprecedented amounts" for a five-year capital budget program. The "payments on that debt is the primary driver of the authority’s current problems."(N.Y. Times, 7/29) How to pay off these bankers? According to State Controller Carl McCall, the "debt really had to be paid from the fare box." (NYT) So it’s the banks that really own the transit system, and the working class that pays for it, to keep capitalism functioning.

Minimum Wage = Poverty Wages

The second blow delivered to the poorest workers was Pataki’s veto of a proposed increase in the minimum wage, from the current $5.15/hr to $7.15 — by 2007! — a move which Pataki says "would damage New York’s business climate." (NY Daily News, 7/30) Capitalism’s priority is always bosses’ profits. The damage to workers of poverty-level wages is never a factor.

But even if the State Legislature should override Pataki’s veto, $7.15 an hour is still way below the government’s own poverty-line figures. So the politicians and the labor misleaders who cry crocodile tears over Pataki’s veto are not exactly worried about how families will make ends meet on $7.15 an hour — BEFORE taxes — an amount they wouldn’t reach until 2007.

Both the fare hike and the poverty wages hit the poorest workers the hardest, overwhelmingly black and Latin in this city, still another way that capitalism’s racism super-exploits these workers and hits white workers in the pocketbook as well. Racism hurts ALL workers.

The answer? While fighting back against these attacks, we must recognize none of these problems will be solved under a profits-first, workers-last system. Communist revolution would destroy capitalism and its wage system. Abolition of that system is the only road to eliminating exploitation, racism and poverty. Joining PLP is the surest way to guarantee that future.

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My friend is one of the grocery store workers, members of the UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) who struck Von’s in California last October. She organized other workers to support the picket lines, returning to work in March, after the vote to accept a new contract.

Although an active striker, she was very critical of the union leadership and is disgusted with the terms of the new, three-year agreement. From my own experience in talking to workers on the picket line and from reading the CHALLENGE articles (3/17/4), I believe there are many grocery workers besides my friend who agree that workers can run the world much better than capitalist bosses and their class lieutenants, the union hacks, and to benefit the working class, not to enrich the bosses. My friend and I need to talk more about the answers that communism has for the world’s workers. Here are some of her observations on the strike.

Q. What were the main issues leading to the strike?

A. The owners wanted to charge us more for medical co-payments; to pay new workers less; and make it more difficult for all of us to reach the highest salary range. They said they needed lower wages and concessions in order to compete with mega-stores like Wal-Mart.

Q. Did the new contract provide any relief from these demands?

A. NO! We actually have worse working conditions now than before the strike. Besides winning the cutbacks they wanted, the grocery bosses, at least here at Von’s, have demoted workers from checkers to baggers, reducing their pay from $17.90 to $6.75 per hour.

Q. What could the union leaders have done to make the strike successful?

A. For one thing, they could have kept the picket lines going at Ralph’s [The union agreed to let Ralph’s — which locked out workers when the UFCW struck — re-open after a few weeks, claiming workers had nowhere else to buy food.] They also could have organized more unions to help us picket, and insisted that the local Labor Council and the AFL-CIO provide more support. Many grocery workers were very militant on the picket lines at their home stores, but the local union leadership transferred those workers to other stores to "calm them down." The union wasn’t willing to go all the way for us.

Grocery workers are not alone in facing such attacks. Gov. Schwarzenegger has made it a priority to broaden the use of contract labor in non-teaching jobs in California schools. The unions are supposedly "fighting back" with a letter-writing campaign and rallies in Sacramento, but have no plans for local or state-wide mobilizations. Their weakness should not surprise us. Their stand has always been to use the Democratic Party to win concessions from the State, not to organize school workers to strike for better conditions and end contract labor, much less to use such actions to realize our potential power to unite as a class against the bosses’ fascist attacks and their war.

Communists in PLP can make the key difference in organizing the working class, no matter where they work. We need my friend and others to join the Party and move the working class forward, beyond strikes and toward the fight for workers’ power through communist revolution.

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"What I see is that soon we’re going to be in the streets protesting. Things can’t continue like this. The only road that’s left to us is revolution."

So spoke an older worker during a political discussion on my job. These days the word "revolution" doesn’t draw the same surprise it did a few years ago when the workers would view you as a little "far out," or as a good person who was dreaming.

This discussion was provoked by a PLP leaflet about health-benefit cuts, and about how we’re under attack, losing a little more every contract period. For example, we got an "increase" of 50¢ an hour per year but lost more than $5 an hour in health and other benefits.

This is besides the fact that the purchasing power of our wages is decreasing while the cost of gasoline, housing, food and clothing is all rising — we’re going backwards like a crab. The current union leaders play a game with the bosses, trying to prevent real class struggle.

Either we fight back and defy the bosses’ laws or we prepare to live on the streets — that’s how things are going. But when we do fight, the biggest victory is realizing the potential power of a united working class able to eliminate this rotten, racist capitalist system.

A few days later there was an opinion piece in the daily newspaper about an upcoming U.S. "military exercise" with seven carrier groups off the coast of China to warn that country "not to touch Taiwan." The writer said the purpose of such a huge U.S. force was to make China fearful of ever challenging the U.S. This writer said the exercise would have the opposite effect — causing China to accelerate its plans for a deep-water Navy that could eventually challenge the U.S.

I showed this article to my friends at work. Sometimes they think I’m exaggerating when I say capitalism makes wars and world war inevitable. But after reading this article, they said I was right about world war being inevitable.

We must take advantage of every opportunity to show workers that capitalism means wars for profit and that the only way out is to fight for a revolution and a communist system that meets our needs.

‘Better to be a red than a rat…’

An example of how workers respond to PLP leaflets happened recently with the one mentioned in the adjoining article. The workers posted it everywhere so their co-workers could read it. In one of the areas someone wrote "communist propaganda" on it. But it still stayed up for a while. Then someone threw it on the floor. Soon another worker picked it up and posted it in an even more visible spot and wrote on it that it was "better to be a red than a rat"!

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What in the capitalist system drives corporations to get into the private water business?

Fortune Magazine partly answers that question in an article entitled, "Water, And Water Everywhere" (5/15/2000): "Water promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th century: the precious commodity that determines the wealth of nations…. From Buenos Aires to Atlanta to Jakarta, the liquid everybody needs — and will need a lot more of in the future — is going private, creating one of the world’s great business opportunities. The dollars at stake are huge. Supplying water to people and companies is a $400-billion-a-year industry. That’s 40% of the size of the oil sector and one-third larger than global pharmaceuticals."

The French corporations Vivendi and Suez and the German corporation RWE control over 70% of existing privatized water services (www. blueplanetproject.net click on resources). Profit from the sale of water has helped catapult these companies into the top-100 list of largest global corporations, with combined revenues of over $100 billion (Global Fortune 500 list).

Not to be outdone in this imperialist dogfight, U.S. Bechtel has jumped into the water privatization game and joined forces with UK’s United Utilities to privatize Latin America’s water.

Corporations are driven by the cold logic of capitalism: the never-ending accumulation of capital. Each capitalist must constantly gain more profit, maximum profit, or die. This inexorably puts corporations, and ultimately their governments, in competition with one another.

The unprecedented profits being made from the sale of water create furious competition for water contracts, and results in the increased suffering of the world’s poor. Once the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund put a struggling country’s water services onto the open market to pay for a loan, corporations fight each other over how profitable they can make their investment, not who can best serve the people in need of water. Fortune magazine (5-15-2000) says foreign water service contracts are risky, but "Suez [the largest water company] is an expert at pricing deals to reflect that risk and at protecting its future profits." This means raising water bills dramatically and not providing promised repairs or adequate sanitation service (N.Y. Times, 8/26/2002, 5/29/2003).

From South Africa to Bolivia to Central America the working class is fighting back. Municipal workers in South Africa are joining with community activists to illegally re-connect water and electricity to poor people who have been shut off. In Bolivia, hundreds of thousands of workers took to the streets and militantly drove Bechtel out of their country. Throughout Central America community organizations are joining with workers and indigenous groups to fight privatization. (The Nation, 9/2/2002).

In southern Mexico, the indigenous population of Chiapas is preparing to fight Coca Cola over control of Chiapas water reserves which supplies 30% of the country’s sweet water. Coca Cola is pressuring local governments to use zoning laws to increase private control of water supplies. (http://www.argenpress.info/nota.asp?num=012724)

On July 27, 3,000 Indigenous workers and peasants seized the center of the city of Cuenca, Ecuador, to stop passage of a water privatization bill. "There will be deaths and blood in the streets if the bill is passed," said one protest leader. Unions are threatening to join the movement, which could become nationwide. (Xinhua news)

It’s our job as communists to turn the economic fight for the control of water into a political fight for workers’ power. Water is the fundamental resource for human life. Under capitalism it’s a commodity that becomes private property, diverted from those who need it, polluted and sold for profit. If we don’t own resources collectively, if we allow some corporation or its capitalist government — only interested in profits — to own our water, then we’ll always be at the mercy of heartless profiteers and will see endless wars between the capitalists for control of those resources.

Already some activists such as Rigoberta Menchú argue that a future world war will be fought over water. It’s up to PLP to fight for the solution to these wars for profit. Whether it’s oil or water, the world’s working class must fight to control our resources for the benefit of our class, not for the profit of the greedy bosses. Join PLP and help fight for a communist revolution to end this resource-raping capitalist system.

Unquoted Resources:

"Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World’s Water," by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke.

"Thirst for Control," by Shrybman, Steven. http://www.blueplanetproject.net/cms_publications/TFC_E.pdf

Studying Imperialism Crucial to Fighting vs. Bosses Wars

People active in the anti-war movement, or considering it, must understand imperialism in order to fight it better. Following are important sources for study groups or for individual reading.

Although almost 90 years old, Lenin’s book "Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism," is essential and an easy read and available free on the Internet. Chapter 10 is a summary; chapter 3, on the domination of finance capital (the big banks) over the capitalist economy, and Chapter 7, on the inevitability of imperialist war under capitalism, are especially good. Lenin’s analysis is made current in Chapter VI of the PLP pamphlet "Political Economy: A Communist Critique of the Wage System," and in the "Oil War" pamphlet (applied to Iraq), as well as recent issues of CHALLENGE.

"Behind The Invasion Of Iraq," (Monthly Review Press, 2003) gives a clear account of the history of imperialism in Iraq and the reasons for the U.S invasion. The authors, the Research Unit for Political Economy (from India), summarize the long struggle of U.S. and British imperialism to dominate the Persian Gulf. They spell out U.S. plans to control oil and dominate Europe and China, as well as the dollar’s role as a reserve currency in maintaining the U.S. empire.

A useful source from a liberal, anti-imperialist viewpoint is Chalmers Johnson’s "Sorrows of Empire, Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic" (Holt, Reinhart, 2004). Johnson defines imperialism, and recognizes that both Democrats and Republicans are imperialist, but thinks Clinton was a "smarter imperialist" than Bush. He describes the far-flung system of 725 U. S. military installations worldwide and reviews the extent and destructiveness of U.S. imperialism, which impoverishes billions, creating enemies of the U.S., while destroying institutions within the U.S.

Rather naively, Johnson claims the "military-industrial complex" runs the government. He doesn’t identify the capitalist system itself as the problem. He even argues that imperialism is not an inevitable result of capitalism, suggesting that if citizens would "take the country back," imperialist policies could be reversed. While Johnson’s conclusions are mistaken, the book is a valuable description of the scope of U.S. imperialism, and may especially help those new to the concept of imperialism.

An older, but still very worthwhile book is "The Prize: The Epic Quest For Oil, Money & Power" (Free Press; 1993), by Daniel Yergin. Although not really an anti-imperialist book, it makes a convincing case that a fundamental contradiction among the imperialists is the drive to control oil. It’s a well-documented history of the oil business, from its beginnings, as a source of kerosene for lighting homes, to having become the most important commodity in the capitalist world. Yergin depicts the struggle for oil in World Wars I and II, creating a perfect context for the current war in Iraq. It clarifies why the U.S. ruling class has no choice but to commit hundreds of thousands of troops and billions in borrowed dollars to control the Middle East militarily. Whoever controls this region’s oil has power over the economies and military capability of the entire world — the "prize" is control of oil.

It’s also important to study the capitalists’ pro-imperialist theories. The Hart-Rudman Commission’s "Report on a U.S. National Security: Strategy for the 21st Century" (2000) argues that it’s a "critical national interest" of the U. S. that no hostile power or coalition dominate "in any of the globe’s major regions."

Multi-lateral cooperation between the U. S. and other imperialist powers is the theme of Charles Kupchan’s "The End of the American Era: U. S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century" (Knopf, 2002). It was commissioned by the Council on Foreign Relations, the U. S. capitalists’ main organization for developing their foreign policy. Since the U.S. can’t be top dog forever, Kupchan argues, it must seek a "soft landing," a more nearly equal relationship with other imperialist powers, a "new equilibrium" with them. Kupchan is critical of unilateral imperialists who want to squash all rivals everywhere, arguing that this will inevitably lead to over-reaching and defeat.

The study of imperialism and its theories are important but must be combined with joining the cutting edge of the struggle against imperialism — participating in PLP activities like its summer projects for students, and learning how to destroy imperialism by ending the capitalist system through organizing for communist revolution.

Is Sudan Crisis About Oil?

From The Guardian, 8/2

Asked about the crisis in Sudan, Mr. [Tony] Blair replied: "I believe we have a moral responsibility to deal with this and to deal with it by any means that we can." This last phrase means that troops might be sent — as General Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of the general staff, immediately confirmed….

The absence of anti-war skepticism about the prospect of sending troops into Sudan is especially odd in view of the fact that Darfur has oil…. There are huge untapped reserves in both southern Sudan and southern Darfur. As oil pipelines continue to be blown up in Iraq, the west not only has a clear motive for establishing control over alternative sources of energy, it has also officially adopted the policy that our armies should be used to do precisely this. Oddly enough, the oil concession in southern Darfur is currently in the hands of the China National Petroleum Company. China is Sudan’s biggest foreign investor.

We ought, therefore, to treat with skepticism the U.S. Congress declaration of genocide in the region.

LETTERS

a name="Inspired by PL’ers ‘on the front lines’"></a>"nspired by PL’ers ‘on the front lines’

The experience in the Boston Summer Project with the most impact on me occurred in the daily workshops. There comrades discussed serious issues of fascism, imperialism, and the need for comrades to work in the military and industry. Although broad topics, each discussion was focused, in depth and detailed. In both the industrial working class and military workshops, we heard from comrades on the front lines. It was inspiring to see these comrades very literally dedicating their lives to the death of capitalism via base-building in these crucial areas. All of us were inspired to redouble our efforts and rededicate ourselves to finding work in these key areas or supporting those who are there.

The workshops also presented good historical background, with speakers giving critical analysis of important past events that can shape our current fight. Hearing about current workers’ struggles from LA to NY was also inspiring and a learning experience.

As a first-time Summer Project participant, I was impressed at how all workers’ opinions, younger and older, were respected, always emphasizing the dialectal process. The workshops, in combination with all the activities, served to better equip all comrades to smash capitalism and fight for communism.

D.C Comrade

We ARE Making A Difference

The Boston Summer Project taught me that we are not alone in the fight for communism, that working as a collective we can deal with all problems.

Before getting there, I was very excited about how it would change me and my team. Although we experienced some miscommunications and lack of planning, our internal struggles helped us understand our limits and contradictions and clarify our line as a Party, enabling us to address these issues and become stronger and more committed comrades.

As a collective we were able to make decisions and overcome last-minute change of plans. During the Boston Social Forum, we chose workshops that were best for making contacts to build a base in Boston. We expanded our numbers and sharpened our arguments against liberalism and for communism. Although very hectic, it pushed us to have nightly discussions on what we had done and to plan for each day.

Our team attended a conference on Haiti where activists from many countries shared their struggles in organizing the working class, emphasizing overthrowing capitalism through revolution. One comrade explained our work among LA garment and transit workers and the need for the working class to fight the bosses. He indicated that we must take it in our own hands, not rely on politicians to reform the system. To overthrow capitalism we must also organize among the military.

A Haitian woman activist conveyed the necessity of organizing workers even under the most oppressive conditions. Many commented and shared their own experiences in organizing the working class. The role of women was discussed, declaring that without women there cannot be a revolution, that it is imperative we struggle against the sexism that still persists in our organizations.

The speakers' successes and struggles reinforced my feelings about our work within the working class to fight for communism. We ARE making a difference. It further strengthened my commitment to PLP. When the four-hour conference ended, everyone's experiences inspired us to fight harder.

We also organized a demonstration in a working class neighborhood against police brutality and the killing of Luis Gonzalez. We showed them CHALLENGE which presented an alternative to Bush or Kerry. This was the first time that some in our group had ever sold the paper publicly. It was a huge moment. CHALLENGE helped initiate many discussions with residents. They left their apartments and asked for it and listened intently to our message. They had been waiting for people to give them an alternative to a capitalist system that oppresses them daily.

We also distributed leaflets and sold CHALLENGE at a hospital, where I sold my first paper to someone I didn't know. This helped shed fears I had and by this practice I was able to see the reality of communist politics.

The PLP workshops and banquet brought a sense of comradeship and energy that we all needed. We met comrades from all across the U.S. and around the world who are struggling for the same goals. It felt very comfortable to seek advice from the leadership about our problems. PLP is not divided into "leaders" and "followers," but rather into experienced members helping everyone to become leaders. In return, veteran members learn from newer ones. This relationship strengthens the Party.

The Boston Project brought us a more dialectical understanding about our flaws and our successes as a group. Learning from the mistakes, we became better organizers and better comrades. Despite emotional and physical stresses, as a team we made qualitative changes and experienced growth that solidified our commitment to PLP and our goal of a communist revolution.

A Summer Project comrade

Turning Attack into Fight vs. Fascism in NYC Schools

Since June I’ve been sitting in a New York City Dept. of Education office with four others who’ve been removed from their schools, just sitting. I’m one of over 1,000 NYC educational staff being punished in this way. Ninety-nine percent have done nothing to harm children, but are only "guilty" of standing up for their students, fellow workers or themselves. This punishment creates a chilling effect, not only on the targeted people, but on the entire school staff. One might think I like it just sitting here taking it easy and earning a good paycheck, but I’d much rather be working with my former students.

This all started in 2000 when I was working in a high school. I organized the staff in my department, helping unite people to oppose administrative harassment, and served as liaison to the school’s union representative. The relentless attacks on me forced me to transfer to another school, but the administration there made it clear I wasn’t welcome. They gave me very little work to do in my role as counselor. When my passion and enthusiasm led me to work with many students sorely in need of service, I wasn’t given a place to meet with them and was told "not to enter classrooms to drum up business," something I’d never done. After five months, the principal told me to ignore my job description, trying to stop me from performing needed work, even interrupting a session with a student and her parent without any explanation to tell them not to see me again.

The next day I was given a letter advising me I was barred from the building, for "unprofessional behavior." I had no idea why and have still not been told of any charges against me five months later. The union contract allows the administration six months before issuing charges against accused workers, a provision unknown to many school staff. Some have been sitting in limbo for years.

This system intimidates school staff from fighting back. Many of the accused are also older and pressured into accepting retirement rather than fighting their case, forcing out experienced, higher-paid senior staff. Most importantly, it’s one more example of fascism within the schools, where students are treated like criminals. They must pass through metal detectors, are harassed by armed cops in the halls, and arrested and handcuffed for minor infractions. Military recruiters are everywhere.

While I’m in detention with other school workers, we’re discussing the nature of the system and how to bring this situation to the attention of our union delegates, parents and students. Being banished together, we’ll use this opportunity to learn why capitalism needs fascism and how to become more effective fighters on our jobs.

Red Teacher

a name="AIDS Conference Hides Bosses’ Rule">">"IDS Conference Hides Bosses’ Rule

While delegates to the XV International HIV/AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand debated the causes and remedies of the HIV epidemic behind a double layer of police security in a climate-controlled convention center, the sexual exploitation of men and women proceeded apace just meters away. The theme for this year’s conference, "Access for All," drew criticism from some of the 20,000 participants, who argued that stigmatization and gender inequality have rendered this slogan meaningless.

HIV-positive individuals accused the Gilead drug company of not making antiretroviral drugs cheap and available. Activists shouted down U.S. Ambassador Randall Tobias, former V.P. of AT&T and former CEO of the Lily Drug Co., exposing him as a liar who gutted the global fund.

Much of this hatred seemed misdirected. Protesters didn’t lay bare the economic and social conditions that allow states, drug companies and healthcare super-monopolies to reap profits from phony attempts to alleviate HIV. Workshops concentrated on assisting "sex workers," encouraging abstinence and voluntary testing and ending AIDS stigma. Buzzwords like "empowering," "capacity-building" and "social justice" seemed to be everywhere. Yet their analysis ended with lame discussions on A,B,C’s (Abstinence, Being faithful, using Condoms), and changing local customs, culture and morality. The failure to challenge the fundamental social relationships that determine who gets sick and who stays healthy makes these forces complicit in this multi-national corporate smokescreen.

Thailand is manufacturing its own generic versions of the antiretroviral drugs made by U.S. and European companies and is distributing them cheaply to Thai citizens, but thousands of HIV-infected immigrant workers must pay much more for the same drugs. The Thai government’s effort to legalize prostitution, already an institution there, fueled by the decades-old presence of U.S military personnel and, more recently, Western tourism, is a thinly-veiled attempt to tax and profit from this trillion-dollar-a-year industry.

The Thai government has insisted on legalizing, rather than simply decriminalizing prostitution, thereby excluding it from occupational safety and health standards. Thailand has the highest number of internally-displaced persons (IDP’s) in Southeast Asia. While these IDP’s are already a huge source of revenue for profiteers, the government denies them freedom of movement, access to medicine, education and legal work.

A Conference participant

CHALLENGE Comment: Thanks for writing. We urge you and all readers to read the report on this conference in the last issue of CHALLENGE (8/4), which focuses on capitalism’s role in the AIDS plague that is killing tens of millions, especially in Africa and Asia.

When writing about "sex workers" and prostitution, the writer refers to "fundamental social relationships" that "determine who gets sick and who stays healthy," but doesn’t explain this is the profit system, capitalism.

When writing about denying "sex workers" safety/health standards, he seems to imply that prostitution is some legitimate "industry" rather than capitalism forcing women and children into this degrading way of staying alive, fueled by capitalism turning sex into a commodity. Capitalism is the source of the AIDS epidemic, prostitution and drug profiteering. Communist revolution will end the "sex trade" overnight, by abolishing wage slavery and building a society based on meeting the needs of the international working class, including restoring the dignity of, and respect for, women.

Workers in Germany Need PLP

Schröder's Social-Democratic government, in alliance with the Green Party, is "reforming" the pension and retirement laws, to increase the years workers will need to retire. This "reform" will force workers to pay to cover the German bosses' deficit and help corporations become more competitive in the world market. The cuts will also help finance a European military machinery. Airbus is already building a new plane useful for both civilian and military transportation. Germany, France, Spain and Britain are collaborating in this project, to compete with Boeing.

Similarly, German bosses are also imposing "health reforms," forcing workers to pay more for their health care. Beginning in January, workers, including the unemployed, will no longer have free doctor or dental visits.

A recently-hospitalized school worker had to pay 10 Euros ($12.50) a day, something unimaginable in the past. European bosses want to turn the clock back on workers' rights and conditions to catch up with the USA, where 44 million lack health insurance.

Unemployed workers now fear losing their benefits entirely. Soon the government will cut 200 euros ($250) a month from jobless benefits. Since last January, an unemployed person whose spouse works will also receive less benefits. Seasonal workers will have to report three months in advance before they stop working, so the Arebitzamt (local Labor Dept.) can find him/her a job and avoid paying jobless benefits.

Meanwhile, the DaimlerChrysler workers struck on July 14-15 (see page 4). The auto bosses plan to save 500 million Euros ($625 million), threatening to move to South Africa. As usual, the IG Metall union hacks did their dirty work, betraying the workers.

Workers lack an alternative to this massive bosses' attack. They need PLP's revolutionary communist politics. Some of us are already trying to build a PLP group here, contacting immigrant and other workers.

Throughout Europe, bosses are taking away benefits won by workers through decades of struggle. Reforms won under capitalism are only temporary; workers have only one option: destroy it and its laws, and fight for communism, a society without wage slavery, without "markets" and currencies, where workers organize themselves to satisfy the needs of their class.

An Immigrant worker in Germany

a name="PLP Study Group Moves GI’s To Want To Be Involved">">"LP Study Group Moves GI’s To Want To Be Involved

(The previous three articles in this series reported on the involvement of sailors and marines in some practical work, on their participation in a May Day event and on a dinner at a May Day marcher’s house in which the GI’s debated nationalism, God, drugs, Bush/Kerry and capitalism.)

All our previous activities led to the first study group to discuss our Party, its line, history and goals. A veteran comrade, mentor and friend agreed to chair it. Another comrade attended, to offer perspective and history.

Five people attended, three sailors and two marines. I thanked everyone for coming and turned it over to the veteran comrade. He gave good overview of the Party and what we fight for, stressing the struggle against racism as central to our work; the fight against sexism; all forms of nationalism; and the ultimate goal of establishing the dictatorship of the working class.

It started well, with questions and dialogue: How could a society function without religion? Do we respect culture in our fight against nationalism? Is it possible to have egalitarianism/equality within capitalism? Must we do away with the entire capitalist system? Does destroying the capitalist system automatically destroy oppressive ideologies?

The discussion was intense, good for our first meeting. I answered the last question on destroying oppressive ideologies by saying that eventually, they would wither away — after much class struggle — because they’d no longer have any justification/backing from the state. I stressed that it’s the capitalist state that continues to manufacture these oppressive thought systems. I cited former Alabama Governor George Wallace, reasoning that it wasn’t just his individual racist thought that empowered him to deny black students entry to the University of Alabama, but the power granted to him by the state. In a communist society, there would be no free speech for racism, which would be punished by the workers’ state.

Overall our first meeting was successful. We’re currently planning our next one to dig deeper into the issues that were highlighted.

After class my two new marine friends had some interesting questions. Firstly, why did I join the Navy? One asked why I would join the enlisted ranks if I already have a college degree. Why not apply for Officers Candidate School and become an officer?

I said first and foremost, I’m a political organizer and was searching for the best place to organize for the Party. I felt the Navy offered me a great opportunity. I also thought I could pass the Navy fitness standards more easily than the Marines or the Army.

On not being an officer, I told them we look to organize those most affected by the system, those who have the greatest revolutionary potential. Clearly, that’s much more present among the enlisted ranks, those who do the dirty work but do not receive much credit, than in the officer ranks.

My friends were very intrigued by all this and wanted to know how they could help. I replied they were already helping by attending meetings and asking me questions.

We then discussed the causes of the Iraq war, the fight for oil and the U.S. ruler’s aim to maintain global supremacy. We talked about Halliburton and Vice-President Cheney’s connection to it. We lunched at a local park where I shared CHALLENGE with them as we continued to discuss the Party’s ideas. I was very impressed with my new friends’ political knowledge, especially on Cheney’s connection to Halliburton. They give me hope that our class will win one day, hopefully in my lifetime!

Navy Red

(Next: the conclusion — a "field trip" and the need for unity with white GIs.)

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

From commune to cutthroat

If his gruesome death was shocking, the life of this peasant boy in the rolling hills of northern Sichuan Province is repeated a million fold across the Chinese countryside. Peasants like Qingming were once the core constituency of the Communist Party. Now, they are being left behind in the money-centered, cutthroat society that has replaced socialist China.

China has the world’s fastest-growing economy but is one of its most unequal societies….The income divide between the urban rich and the rural poor has widened so sharply that some studies now compare China’s social cleavage unfavorably with Africa’s poorest nations.

The skewed distribution of wealth has already begun to alienate the country’s 750 million peasants….The countryside simmers with unrest….Even in a country that ruthlessly punishes dissent, some three million people took part in protests last year.

…In the days of Mao Zedong’s radical egalitarian ideology…Farmers had a semblance of collective welfare when they lived in communes, though standards were lower. (NYT 8/1)

Voting doesn’t work for us

You can forget the chatter about an exit strategy for American troops. There isn’t one.

Employment here in America is another topic on which the presidential candidates will not tell the voters the cold, hard truth. There are not nearly enough jobs available…Families are being squeezed like Florida oranges as good jobs with good benefits — health insurance, paid vacations and retirement security — are going.

It may well be that candidates can’t tell voters the truth and still win. If that’s so then democracy American-style may be a lot more dysfunctional than even the last four years has indicated. (NYT 8/2)

Why U.S. wants army to stay

Perhaps the most sobering assessment of what lies ahead has come from recently retired Col. Douglas MacGregor, one of the military’s leading intellectuals and a harsh critic of the outcome of our invasion of Iraq.

"We must face facts," MacGregor told congress last week. "Saudi Arabia may be reaching the end of its fragile existence. Iran is in the race to develop and field nuclear warheads for its already impressive arsenal of theater ballistic missiles and cruise missiles in the hope that it will be positioned to pick up the pieces if we just leave. A nuclear armed Pakistan could lurch openly into the Islamist camp on very short notice. Back off now, Iraq will ulcerate and regional order will eventually disintegrate. The oil may well stop flowing from the Persian Gulf and chaos could infect the whole region, producing a global economic disaster." (Atlanta Journal – Constitution 7/22)

War profits = family losses

Economist Doug Henwood estimates that this war, if the U.S. military stays there for three more years, will cost U.S. households an average of $3,415. (Minutemanmedia.org 7/21)

US: 7 million criminalized

The number of Americans under the control of the criminal justice system grew by 130,700 last year to reach a new high of nearly 6.9 million, according to a Justice Department report released today.

The total includes people in jail and prison as well as those on probation and parole. (NYT 7/26)

Children slave for "Coke"

For more than half of his young life, he has spent long days cutting sugar cane. He has the machete scars to prove it, and so do his four brothers and sisters, aged nine to 19.

…Across Latin America, more than 17 million children between the ages of five and 14 are working….Child labor perpetuates poverty by drawing the younger generation into the same low –wage manual jobs as their parents, often at the expense of education…widespread child labor helps depress wages.

"I like it because I get to be with my father," said Miguel Angel Orellano, 9.

Human rights fault the...companies that ultimately purchase refined sugar, among them the Coca-Cola. (GW, 8/5)