a href="#U.S. Bosses’ Plans to Whack Saddam Hussein Derailed for Now">"IL FEEDS FLAMES OF BOSSES’ WAR IN MID-EAST: U.S. Bosses’ Plans to Whack Saddam Hussein Derailed for Now

• Pro-U.S. Mubarak, Saudi Royal Parasites Remember the Shah of Iran
• European Imperialists Want Independence from ExxonMobil
• Liberals Want U.S. Troops In Middle East
• Arabs and Jews unite against Israeli onslaught

3000 March in New York City

• Protest in Ramallah

NY Teachers, Parents Talk Up Strike vs. Racist School Mess

a href="#Muni Bosses’ ‘Schedule’: Break Workers’ Backs">Muni B"sses’ ‘Schedule’: Break Workers’ Backs

a href="#A Debate: Reform Union Leaders: ‘Friendly Debate’ or Sharp Criticism?">A "ebate: Reform Union Leaders: ‘Friendly Debate’ or Sharp Criticism?

• CHALLENGE RESPONDS

L.A. Airport March Hits Immigration Terror Tactics

Working-Class Unity Sparks May Day Celebration in SSEU Local 371

Recovery? Tell It to the Jobless

a href="#Bosses’ Oil Wars Deepen Poverty in Somalia">"osses’ Oil Wars Deepen Poverty in Somalia

a href="#Bosses’ Dogfight Over Oil Spawns Endless Conflicts">"osses’ Dogfight Over Oil Spawns Endless Conflicts

Iraq: a Strategic Partner of Russian Rulers

a href="#Anti-Stalin Lies a Cover for Imperialists’ Mass Murder">"nti-Stalin Lies a Cover for Imperialists’ Mass Murder

LETTERS

Why Compare Israeli Rulers to Nazis?

An Apple For The Principal

a href="#Globalization and Imperialism—Same Garbage">"lobalization and Imperialism—Same Garbage

Oscar Movies Cover for Racism

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a name="U.S. Bosses’ Plans to Whack Saddam Hussein Derailed for Now">">".S. Bosses’ Plans to Whack Saddam Hussein Derailed for Now

The conflict raging in the Middle East has dealt U.S. rulers a major tactical setback. The bosses could care less about the number of Israeli civilians who die in suicide bombings or the wholesale murder of Palestinian workers by the Israeli military. Despite Bush’s fake humanitarian posturing about dead teenagers, the real issue for U.S. imperialism is the control of oil.

The domination of world energy supplies keeps the U.S. in the driver’s seat internationally. Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq remains an important threat to this domination. Hussein’s a thug, sure, but the real reason the U.S. hates him is his plan for oil deals with the European, Chinese, and Russian rivals of Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco and other Establishment energy firms. The U.S. ruling class has set a priority on replacing him with a docile, pro-Exxon government in Baghdad. When Bush Jr. took office, the big bosses had all agreed on launching a new war against Iraq. They thought they had only the details to settle. They figured they could afford to ignore the growing armed struggle between the Israeli fascists and Palestinian nationalists.

Ironically, their blunder is playing into the hands of the bin Laden gang, who want to use mass outrage in the Arab-Muslim world as a wedge to drive the U.S. out of the key Persian Gulf oil producing countries. Every Palestinian killed by the Israeli military fans the flames and increases the risks the U.S. would incur by launching a war against Iraq at this time.

Pro-U.S. Mubarak, Saudi Royal Parasites Remember the Shah of Iran

Millions throughout the Arab-Muslim countries are taking to the streets to protest a U.S.-equipped Israeli army that is terrorizing thousands of Palestinians. This growing instability could threaten pro-U.S. governments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, especially if the U.S. invades Iraq and slaughters thousands of Iraqi workers. This danger is far greater now than during Bush Sr.’s Desert Storm I in 1991.

Mass anti-U.S. nationalist uprisings could potentially topple the Egyptian and Saudi governments. They remember how in 1979 the Shah of Iran, the former U.S. goon in the Persian Gulf, was toppled. Egyptian President Mubarak faces mounting pressure to revoke the "peace" treaty with Israel. The Saudi rulers may have to appease the irate Saudi working class with some sort of anti-U.S. gesture. Oil prices are already rising because of the struggle in the Middle East, and a temporary anti-U.S. oil embargo would push them further upward, with unfavorable consequences for a U.S. economy that’s not out of the woods.

European Imperialists Want Independence from ExxonMobil

Further complicating the picture is mounting opposition from the major western European countries. They all have energy ambitions of their own. Most would like to conduct their oil business in Iraq and Iran independently of ExxonMobil. The only partial exception is Britain, but even they are wavering. More than 130 members of Parliament, including current and former cabinet ministers, oppose Blair’s Iraq policy.

Workers can learn an important lesson from U.S. imperialism’s predicament. On the one hand, the U.S. appears all-powerful. It’s richer and better armed than any country in the world. Yet the threat of mass uprisings in areas of vital strategic interest seriously undermines its tactical maneuverability. This is exactly what the bin Laden-al Qaeda bosses hoped to exploit. So far, they have made a good bet. Despite appearances, U.S. bosses face limits.

U.S imperialism can still bribe and threaten with more authority than anyone. This is what U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will do on his Middle East tour. However, every "solution" will lead to more problems. The profit rivalry that pits Israeli and Palestinian bosses against each other won’t go away even if Powell manages to make them sign a truce. Far more likely is a deal that would include some sort of U.S. "peacekeeping" force.

U.S. troops patrolling the Middle East will not bring peace. One way or another, U.S. imperialism must attempt to settle its Iraq problem by force. Perhaps a wider war isn’t immediately in the cards. But the dogfight for the world’s main oil supplies will go on, and it will always lead to war. The Arab and Muslim masses have shown their hatred of U.S. imperialism and their willingness to die to defeat it. But it does no good to replace one capitalist with another.

The task of workers, youth and soldiers, who are dying and will continue to die in the oil bloodbaths, is to break with all our oppressors and smash the profit system that causes war and racist-fascist terror. This requires fighting for communism, a society without any bosses. This will be our Party’s slogan on May Day 2002 and throughout the years ahead

Liberals Want U.S. Troops In Middle East

A growing number of voices within the U.S Establishment are demanding U.S. military intervention The liberal New York Times’ foreign affairs pundit Thomas Friedman has been plugging it for the last few weeks. His April 3 column quotes a Middle East expert calling for U.S. troops to "supervise the gradual emergence of a Palestinian state" as "the only solution." And Times columnist Bill Keller warns: "The tighter America clings to…Sharon, the more the Arab rank-and-file is aroused against America, the more the anti-terror alliance is strained, and the more Saddam becomes a folk hero" (April 6). Latest to weigh in is former Carter National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski: "The United States should…indicate its willingness to deploy, with the consent both of Israel and of Palestine, a peacekeeping force to enhance security for both parties" (New York Times, April 7 op-ed). Brzezinski speaks with the voice of authority. His 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, outlined the strategy U.S. imperialism is now pursuing in its bloody drive to rule the world for the next 50 years.

Arabs and Jews Unite against Israeli Onslaught

LOS ANGELES, CA, April 5 — Over the past two weeks there has been a series of rallies and demonstrations against the Israeli government’s invasion of the West Bank. One primarily Israeli-American Jewish group held a spirited rally at the Israeli consulate, involving Jews, Arabs, and other opponents of the Israeli fascists. Among the chants were "Sharon, Sharon you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide." Signs calling for Arab-Jewish unity against the occupation were well received.

At the Westwood Federal Building, the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and other Arab-American organizations sponsored two spirited rallies and marches. The official theme was the nationalist slogan "Free Palestine." Most of the participants were Arab-Americans.

Most of the criticism was directed at President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Sharon. Missing was any mention of the Israeli Labor Party, which is part of Sharon’s government. Israel’s foreign minister and Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, is on the verge of having his Nobel Peace Prize rescinded due to his role in this invasion. On the American side, the Democrats escaped any criticism, even though they are solid supporters of the U.S. "war on terrorism" and the Israeli war on the West Bank. The former, which was the target of other rallies at this site, was not linked to the current Israeli invasion.

But there were also glimmers of internationalism and anti-imperialism. Many signs called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and to prosecute Israeli officials as war criminals. Others called for unity of Arabs and Jews. One group of American Jews and Israelis carried banners and picket signs that opposed the invasion, occupation, and illegal settlements. While the politics of these events was clearly nationalist, there was absolutely no animosity between Arabs and Jews. In fact, many people in the march were elated to see this group, offered to carry their signs, and engaged them in friendly conversation.

Many of those who marched were way ahead of the leadership on the question of nationalism. They rejected the concept of an exclusive Palestinian nationalism and were openly sympathetic to international unity and anti-imperialism. The idea of Jews and Palestinians overcoming their differences through personal contacts, and joining together in social, cultural and political events, was well received.

As the Israeli invasion continues, we can expect rallies and marches in city after city. And when the U.S. invades Iraq, these actions could swell even further and merge with opposition to the "war on terrorism." Our role is to steer people in an anti-imperialist and internationalist, revolutionary direction.

We need to come with signs and slogans that oppose all forms of nationalism and imperialism, not just a few hawkish politicians in Israel and the U.S. We also need to focus on the role of the U.S. and other imperialists in the Middle East, and oppose the oppressive regimes propped up by the U.S., like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

This political challenge is as hard as it is important. These protest actions are growing. But Palestinian nationalism, replacing one set of exploiters for another, will never lead to international unity of the working class, and the killing will never end. The Israeli-Palestinian war is a product of imperialism, linked to the "war on terrorism" and the need to control the oil and gas reserves of this region. The angry and militant workers and youth of the entire region need communist politics now more than ever, so that their struggle can grow into an international revolutionary storm to sweep away the cause of war and fascist terror: capitalism. That is what the communist PLP is fighting for. Join Us!

3000 March in New York City

NEW YORK CITY, April 6—As part of an international day of protest, 3,000 Arabs, Jews and others marched against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the imperialist oppression of Palestinians. Starting from Brooklyn’s Borough Hall they streamed across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan’s City Hall.

The demonstration followed Zionist death threats against the family of Adam Shapiro. Adam and his Palestinian-American fiancé live in Ramallah where they have been doing humanitarian relief work among the Palestinian resisters. For that he was called a "traitor" (he is Jewish) by right-wingers like the New York Post and the fascist Jewish Defense Organization.

Many Arabs at the demonstration made a point of seeking out the Jews to thank them for coming to the march. This is significant since the media is trying to push the idea that all Jews support Sharon, particularly in the U.S. However, opposing Israeli fascism is in the interest of workers worldwide. Arabs and Jews in many different countries united against the Israeli bosses’ slaughter of Palestinians.

Other marches opposing the Israeli butchers occurred around the world — Buenos Aires, London, Beirut and In Morocco where 300,000 marched. In Israel itself, 15,000 demonstrated against Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, calling for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza.

Protest in Ramallah

RAMALLAH, PALESTINE, April 3 — Today 6,000 unified Arabs and Jews marched to the Calandia checkpoint here to try to break the Israeli cordon around the city and bring urgently needed food and medicine to Palestinians trapped by invading Israeli troops. They were also protesting the curfew and occupation as well as the U.S. open support for the Israeli assault on the West Bank. The aid got through but the soldiers and cops engaged in running battles with the protesters, beating them and throwing tear gas bombs each time they regrouped and re-started their chants. Thirty were injured.

NY Teachers, Parents Talk Up Strike vs. Racist School Mess

NEW YORK CITY, April 2 — A group of teachers and parents met today to map out plans to lead education workers in the event of a school strike. New York schools are a mess. Working-class students, mostly black and Latin, aren’t being taught the skills they need—reading, math, test-taking — while facing tightened security and racism and increasingly patriotic propaganda. The pledge of allegiance and the national anthem are being forced on students in many schools.

The rulers might try to use this patriotism to accuse teachers of being "unpatriotic," or "striking during wartime." The union leadership has already adopted a pro-war position, setting us up for such an attack. We must expose the nature of the war as anti-working class, conducted on behalf of U.S. bosses to control the world’s supply of oil. Striking during an imperialist war, and exposing its true nature, can raise the level of class struggle and give leadership to the whole working class.

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT), representing 80,000 education workers, has been working without a contract for the last 17 months. The union leadership, relying on politician after politician, has begun floating rumors that we might be forced to strike. There have been repeated calls from the floor of the monthly Delegate Assembly for union members to take action. Passivity won’t work against the city’s unwillingness to negotiate with the union.

Does that mean the union will lead us to fight for better conditions for students and teachers? Does it mean they will demand that the Board of Education act on our belief that "all students can learn?" Never!

Therefore, we’ve made plans to organize strike committees at all schools. We want to win our colleagues to strike against the coming budget cuts and to organize parents and students to join a struggle for better conditions. In the middle of this struggle, it is imperative that we recruit teachers, students and parents to the Party.

We’ll bring co-workers, students and friends to the citywide UFT meeting that will call for a strike authorization vote. We’ll bring students to our April 15 citywide informational picket lines despite the UFT leadership’s ban on students from picketing.

Today’s meeting is the beginning in some schools, and the continuation in others, of the struggle for the rank and file, Party members and others, to become the actual leadership.

a name="Muni Bosses’ ‘Schedule’: Break Workers’ Backs"></a>Mu"i Bosses’ ‘Schedule’: Break Workers’ Backs

SAN FRANCISCO, CA April 7 — MUNI RR Management attempted to balance the budget by changing our work schedules to save $4 million and reduce our take-home pay. We beat back some of the changes and won a temporary victory. Everyone is waiting for the next attack when the summer schedules come out.

Workers are always in conflict with the profit drive. This conflict is getting sharper now as the bosses push their pro-war patriotism. Anyone who fights back exposes their Big Lie war cry, "United We Stand."

Drivers at all 7 Muni Divisions agreed that if one Division did not sign up for the schedules, no one would. This new level of class unity grew out of the last contract fight, which reduced wage progression from 31 months to 18 months. This put more money in new workers’ pockets for a moment, but was management’s first attempt to get it back. The real victory from the contract fight was a new level of class-consciousness and unity among older and newer drivers.

But this battle left us with the same old 12-hour day, OT built into our daily schedules, unsafe running times and the planning of our workday in the hands of management, whose main goal is increasing productivity. We asked our coworkers, "Why are we forced to work long hours so that the OT ends up killing us with high blood pressure and physical breakdown after 10 years of working at MUNI?"

Many workers hate the long hours and OT but don’t see any alternative to meeting the very high cost of living in the Bay Area. Many seek an "individual solution." Doing battle with management changes this outlook, but we have to be there to point out the contradictions of capitalism.

We want to build unity among riders and drivers, and a transit system that serves the working class. In the union, we raise the need to impose and collect a bigger transit fee on the Downtown Business corridor rather than raising fares, cutting service, or reducing labor costs. "Make the bosses pay" is a popular demand, while MUNI cuts service to community lines or off peak hours before rush hour service.

A transit assessment fee passed in 1981 as a compromise between Bechtel, Bank of America, Chevron and the then Mayor Feinstein. In return for doubling the fare from 25 to 50 cents, new developers would pay $5\sq foot of each new building into a Transit Impact Development Fund (TIDF), which they passed on as part of their costs. Old established businesses did not have to pay this.

Under Mayor Willie Brown, a loophole to "exempt" the developers from the TIDF created a budget deficit and Muni management is attacking transit workers to balance the budget. Our union leadership opposes collecting this fee because they don’t want to challenge the Democratic Party and Mayor Brown. Relying on the electoral process as their only strategy has contributed to the steady erosion of wages and benefits over the past 20 years. Unfortunately, this continues to have credibility with some drivers.

The union leaders don’t want to "make the bosses pay." They argue that if you challenge their profits, big business will leave San Francisco, leading to job cuts and unemployment. They believe the workers won’t fight, and the bosses are too strong.

We aim to show workers that without our labor, the bosses are nothing. We don’t need any bosses. We needed a communist society where everything that we produce serves the needs of workers.

a name="A Debate: Reform Union Leaders: ‘Friendly Debate’ or Sharp Criticism?"></">A "ebate: Reform Union Leaders: ‘Friendly Debate’ or Sharp Criticism?

The article "Bus Strikers’ Choice: Rely on Politicians or Rank & File Strength," concerning the recent struggle in Queens, attempts to address some hard questions about bringing up the need for a revolution while fighting for reforms on the job. Resolving this contradiction has plagued the communist movement and is a work in progress at MUNI.

The title asks the key question, but the article is confusing. It seems to make militant action the measure of a successful fight ("Stay out until we get what we want"). But that is a tactical question, which is hard to judge from outside the struggle.

The rest of the article correctly emphasizes that the development of workers’ political consciousness is most important. Challenge should expose why fighting for reforms without trying to develop revolutionary consciousness is a dead end while acknowledging that this is difficult in today’s work place.

We should investigate how struggle affects the working class. What political lessons do the workers draw? Do they gain a better understanding that we will always be on the defensive treadmill under capitalism? Does the struggle help chip away the cynicism and anger that many of our coworkers have towards other workers and passengers?

Communists see the potential of uniting workers and passengers to fight the big corporations. But we also recognize that many of our coworkers think this is impossible. Building this alliance requires changing a lot of workers’ understanding of the world and of the role of unions. Many drivers support a fare increase to help deal with budget shortfalls. Often drivers don’t take a class point of view.

To its credit, the reform leadership of Local 100 is trying to develop this unity with community outreach and opposing service cuts. This is the opposite of the collaboration with management and the Democrats that the old leadership of Local 100, and our International Leadership, did for 20 years.

As Bolshevik organizer Piatnitsky wrote in 1932, "Instead of taking every little fact of treachery [and]…relating just how and when the…reformist leaders…betrayed the interests of the working class…our comrades keep repeating: Social-Fascists and trade union bureaucrats, and that is all. And they think that having said [that]…all the workers must understand just what is meant by these terms…and believe that the…reformist leaders deserved them. This only has the effect of repelling the honest workers who belong to the…reformist trade unions, since they do not regard themselves either as Social Fascists or trade union bureaucrats."

Challenge should emphasize the hold that capitalism has on the minds of the workers, which makes revolution and a communist society seem to be a "pipe dream." There are reform leaders who are honest, want basic change in society, fight for the working class, but don’t see that building a revolutionary movement is possible among today’s working class. We hope to influence them with a friendly debate, not attack them.

Since we are more familiar with the ins and outs of the transit industry our input might have helped the balance in the article. However, the fact that the article did come out makes us confront our own problems with reform and revolution.

MUNI PLP Club

CHALLENGE RESPONDS

Thanks for sharpening the struggle around reform and revolution. While you may be "more familiar with the ins and outs of the transit industry," as the old Bob Dylan song goes, "You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing." The article you refer to was far from perfect, and written from the "outside." But we attempt to draw lessons from many struggles we are not directly involved in, like the war in Afghanistan or the Middle East.

The heart of your criticism is that we mistakenly criticized the leadership of Local 100, either in form or substance, or both. You point to their opposing service cuts and criticize the article for making "militant action the measure of a successful fight." You imply that we are calling names rather than explaining how the reformist leaders "betrayed the interests of the working class," and "repelling honest workers." You say that the struggle to defeat reformism will be won through "friendly debate, not attack[ing]" the reformist leaders.

Without going over the article line by line, the New Directions leadership was criticized for not organizing support among the MTA transit workers and said, "As long as the ‘public’ and ‘private’ transit workers fight separately, they will drag each other down…" Local 100 President Toussaint was quoted and criticized for "trying to ‘force local politicians to take a stand,’ and telling "1,400 workers that a ‘long strike’ would turn the ‘public" against them.’" (NY Daily News, 2/28) It was at this meeting that a militant driver challenged Toussaint saying, "Now that we’re out, we should stay out till we get what we want."

Should the driver not have challenged Toussaint? Should we not have reported it? How exactly should we carry out the "friendly debate?"

But even more to the point, the "reform leaders who are honest…but don’t see that building a revolutionary movement is possible," are the very ones who have a "hold…on the minds of the workers." In California, SEIU organized thousands of home healthcare workers by making a deal to support governor Grey Davis. In New York, over 200,000 SEIU hospital workers got raises in their contracts in return for the union’s backing of Governor Pataki. Toussaint and New Directions won the leadership of Local 100 promising to organize thousands of Workfare slave laborers, who clean subways for poverty wages, into the union. They have done very little to fulfill that promise. "What political lessons [did] the workers draw? [Did] they gain a better understanding that we will always be on the defensive treadmill under capitalism? [Did] the struggle help chip away the cynicism…?" Of course not.

Let’s not kid ourselves. The vast majority of union leaders, even the reformers, will never be won to the PLP and communist revolution. Those that are will come around as the Party develops a mass political base. This means fighting the reformers for the political leadership of the workers. This is a very difficult and complicated process, especially in these political "Dark Ages." We must take a hard line and use flexible tactics, and not be mechanical. But if we don’t fight tooth and nail to expose the reformist traps, we won’t be doing anyone any favors.

L.A. Airport March Hits Immigration Terror Tactics

LOS ANGELES, CA, April 8 — Over 500 workers, students and others marched around LA international airport to protest the recent terror raids by the hated INS (Immigration Department). Community organizations, unions (including SEIU) and churches organized the demonstration. In the last weeks, hundreds of people have been arrested at the airport while traveling to other U.S. cities. Airport workers with years at the airport have also been deported. Simultaneously, the INS has raided the garment industry and other industrial areas.

While the march’s leadership focused on writing Bush, telling him to stop the raids and deportations, many workers angrily chanted more advanced political slogans like, "Workers struggles have no borders"; "The workers, united, will never be defeated"; and "Migra, listen we’re fighting back!"

These raids coincide with the U.S. Supreme Court decision that a worker fired for union organizing has no right to back pay if he’s undocumented. This intensifies exploitation and open robbery by the bosses. An immigrant airport worker, and U.S. citizen, was fired when a 20-year-old arrest for marijuana showed up on his record! The bosses and their government use racism to terrorize all workers.

The attacks and racist raids against Arabs and Muslims after Sept. 11 showed what the bosses have in store for all workers — immigrant and citizen. At the time, the leadership of these organizations sat on their hands. Now, with sharpening attacks against Latino immigrants, these leaders call on Latinos to organize against them, ignoring Arab and Muslim immigrants, even boasting, "Latinos are patriotic Americans." They divide workers and build the big bosses’ pro-U.S. patriotism.

But these attacks are creating another contradiction for the bosses in their drive towards war. Many children and relatives of these deported workers are in the armed forces. The ruling class needs them to kill and die to protect the bosses’ control of oil in the Middle East. These youth can’t be too enthusiastic about that role while seeing their families deported, jailed and super-exploited.

Such contradictions expose the capitalist system and its lies about "democracy, justice and equality." We can turn these racist attacks and deportations around, fighting to build a communist society based on meeting the needs of the international working class, not the bosses’ profits.

By participating with many workers in the activities of these mass organizations, unions and churches, we can win workers to break our capitalist chains. With persistence and boldness, we can lead workers to the profound understanding that the "working class has no borders," and build international solidarity and the fight for communism. Bringing workers to May Day 2002 is an important step in this fight.

Working-Class Unity Sparks May Day Celebration in SSEU Local 371

NEW YORK CITY, April 8 — The bosses use divide-and-conquer as one of their main strategies. Throughout capitalist societies, so-called identity politics prevails. Workers, students and others are taught to identify themselves based on the color of their skin, their country of birth or their religion.

In AFSCME’s SSEU Local 371, we have celebrated Black history night as well as Caribbean, Latino, Jewish and Italian Heritage nights. This year, based on a resolution from the Local’s Delegate Assembly, our class unity will be celebrated on May 7 in our Local’s first ever May Day event.

In previous years, the Local voted to encourage members’ participation in PLP May Day events outside the union. This year May Day is being brought into the Local. At the first organizing committee meeting we discussed the nuts and bolts of the program as well as the history of May Day and of union organizing. It was a new way to learn and teach the lessons of the past and their applications to the future.

Meanwhile, workers can carry the May Day spirit even futher by marching with PLP in Brooklyn on May 4th.

Recovery? Tell It to the Jobless

"It’s all over!" claim the experts. "Recovery’s on the way." But don’t tell that to the millions who lost, and are still losing their jobs. The millions who were thrown on the street will never recover their losses, in wages and benefits. Even when and if rehired, the jobs usually pay lower and pay less benefits.

The new "recovery" is cutting jobs like crazy. According to the Wall Street Journal (4/1):

• After 43 consecutive years of profit growth, Emerson Electric’s streak ended in this recession. With profits down 27%, it’s closing 50 plants in the U.S. and moving much of its production to Mexico and China.

• By 2004, tool manufacturer Black & Decker will shut 25% of its productive capacity and shift operations to Mexico, China and the Czech Republic.

• Albertson’s, the country’s second largest supermarket chain, closed 165 stores. During the "recovery," another 116 will close.

• Fifty percent of employers polled by the Business Council said they will continue to cut jobs or, at best, maintain current employment.

The Wall Street Journal reports that this recession saw one of the worst profit declines since World War II. Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index reports after-tax income fell by 50%. Meanwhile, from 1995 to 2000 corporate debt rose $2.5 trillion!

Corporations are in a squeeze due to "excess capacity in factories" and "intense global competition." "Companies…address the problem by eliminating jobs." (WSJ, 4/1)

A capitalist "full recovery" requires increased corporate spending, which requires strong profits. So far that hasn’t happened. A "recovery" that cuts jobs certainly won’t help workers. With all the talk about "social safety nets," only 38% of the jobless are eligible for unemployment insurance. That represented 7 million workers last year, meaning over 18 million experienced some period of joblessness. How can workers ever recover those losses?

In five previous recessions, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted, then expanded, and then fell again. So it’s entirely possible this "recovery" may be short-lived. Either way, millions of jobs will have permanently disappeared.

On top of this, the rulers’ imperialist "war on terrorism" is being used to brand striking workers as "unpatriotic," further contributing to a decline in conditions for the working class.

"Excess capacity" — overproduction of the means of production — is built into capitalism’s "intense competition." The only solution is abolishing the wage slavery system with its money, profits and bosses. Communist revolution is achievable only by the working class seizing state power, and with it the control over production for the social good.

a name="Bosses’ Oil Wars Deepen Poverty in Somalia">">"osses’ Oil Wars Deepen Poverty in Somalia

Somalia is in the news again, not only because of the racist movie "Black Hawk Down," but also because the U.S. bosses have made it a key part of their oil wars under the guise of "fighting terrorism." In 1992, the U.S. sent troops to Somalia in a UN "humanitarian" mission to allegedly deal with famine there. The humanitarian cover disappeared when the troops’ real role emerged: protection of the region’s oil shipping routes and to make the country safe for Conoco’s oil exploration.

Opposition to the intervention grew. In 1993 the Black Hawk Down incident revealed that U.S Rangers had attacked civilians in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, massacring hundreds. Several Rangers were killed by the enraged populace and their helicopters shot down. The angry crowd dragged some Rangers through the streets to avenge the slaughter. This forced Clinton to pull the troops out.

Today they’re back as part of the "war against terrorism." On March 19, CIA chief George Tenet testified to the Senate Armed Forces Committee that Somalia is "an environment [where] groups sympathetic to al-Qaeda have offered terrorists an operational base and potential haven."

The U.S. media, as usual, danced to the warmakers’ tune, saying that a handheld Global Positioning Device found by U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan had belonged to a U.S. soldier killed in Somalia in 1993. "Though the press first reported this discovery as a link between Somalia and al-Qaeda, subsequent investigation had reported that a different soldier lost the device in the heat of [Afghanistan’s] Operation Anaconda in early March." (Middle East Report, 3/22).

The importance of the Horn of Africa—Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Djibouti — was signified by the visit to the area of General Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. U.S. ships now patrol the Red Sea while German planes patrol the skies over Somalia 10 hours a day.

The U.S. seeks to make Somalia one of its "anchor states" in Africa (along with Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia). The masses of all those countries suffer extreme poverty and political repression. Now Somalians suffer still more since the Bush administration’s "war against terror" closed the al-Barakat money transfer offices through which Somalis overseas send cash home to relatives.

That’s the nature of capitalism. While millions starve in Africa, the bosses’ oil war turns a calamity into a holocaust. Workers and their allies worldwide need to carry out their own war against the real terrorists, the imperialist bosses.

a name="Bosses’ Dogfight Over Oil Spawns Endless Conflicts">">"osses’ Dogfight Over Oil Spawns Endless Conflicts

Although seemingly almighty, U.S. rulers are actually fighting for survival in Afghanistan and Iraq. Without control of Middle Eastern oil, especially Saudi Arabia’s huge reserves, U.S. imperialism would lose its main economic weapon. Led by Exxon Mobil, U.S. oil companies exert tremendous leverage over the countries they sell to by regulating the flow of capitalism’s lifeblood. But billionaire Osama bin Laden’s forces are trying to foment an Islamic rebellion that will wrest Saudi oil from the hands of the royal family and its pals at Exxon Mobil. And Saddam Hussein is uniting with Russian and French oil bosses in his own bid to grab a bigger share of Persian Gulf crude. U.S. bosses have already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan workers, and scores of GIs, to protect their vast but shaky oil empire. They are sure to spill more blood as threats increase.

The operations of the U.S.’s flagship oil company, Exxon Mobil, and its allies show just how high the stakes are. Every day, Exxon Mobil pumps 2.6 million barrels of oil out of the earth and sells 8 million barrels of petroleum products, 5.6 million barrels of it to countries other than the U.S. The secret to this wizardry is Saudi Arabia, which sells the lion’s share of its 8-million-barrel a day production to Exxon Mobil at cut-rate prices. Fellow Rockefeller firm Chevron Texaco is also in on the Saudi deal. So is Shell, an Anglo-Dutch business competitor but strategic ally of Exxon Mobil. The Saudi connection enables Exxon, Chevron, and Shell to command 45% of the non-U.S. world market for refined oil exports. Add in BP, which has similar deals with both the Saudis and Kuwaitis, and the U.S.-British share jumps to 59%. As an oil power, France trails a distant third, with TotalFinaElf’s meager 11%. But that could change as French and Russian bosses join to exploit Russia’s and Iran’s production. And BP may yet slip from the fold. It has had sharp strategic differences lately with the main U.S. rulers over Russia, the Balkans and Alaska.

Persian Gulf crude, crucial to U.S. rulers now, will become even more so in the near future. The Middle East hold two thirds of the world’s proven oil reserves. Saudi Arabia alone has a quarter. The U.S. Government predicts that by 2020, Persian Gulf will account for 42% of world oil production, up from today’s 27%. At the same time, oil shipments from the Middle East to Asia will rise from four to 19 million barrels a day. China alone will see a 1700% increase to 6.9 million barrels.

U.S. rulers’ supremacy depends greatly on their ability to dominate petroleum sources and markets. That’s why they brutally counter every threat to their oily racket. Afghanistan is only the tip of the iceberg. U.S. bosses are dead set on deploying a massive ground force to invade Iraq and seize its oilfields. They only disagree about the timing and whether to go it alone or with allies. Potential conflicts with far more powerful foes lie down the road. Washington is taking advantage of Russia’s temporary disarray to set up military bases in the heart of the old Soviet Union, right along oil routes that a resurgent Moscow would seek to control. U.S. troops are back in the Philippines, facing shipping routes to China, while China builds a deep-water navy to safeguard its future oil imports. The profit system generates oil wars without end.

(Sources: The Oil Navigator; The Oil Daily; U.S. Energy Information Administration; company reports)

Iraq: a Strategic Partner of Russian Rulers

U.S. rulers’ plans to whack Saddam Hussein face many hurdles. Exxon Mobil needs to control the Iraqi oil reserve, the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia. A war against Iraq will heighten even more the rivalry among the world’s capitalists and could lead to wider war. The following from Gasandoil.com and Itar-Tass news reveals Russian oil bosses have a lot to lose from a U.S. war against Iraq.

Russia’s energy minister said in his opening remarks to a session of the Russian-Iraqi Commission for Trade, Economic and Scientific Cooperation that Iraq was Russia’s main strategic partner in the region. Russia "makes political and diplomatic efforts in the UN Security Council with an aim to settle the Iraqi problem and seeks to find mutually acceptable solutions with other countries, first of all with the USA," Energy Minister Igor Yusufov said.

Yusufov said that if the economic embargo was lifted from Iraq, "that would create a basis for full-scale cooperation between Russia and Iraq." According to the minister, Russia will continue efforts in that direction. Yusufov believes that positive changes in the Russian economy were a stimulus for the development of economic ties between Moscow and Baghdad.

He said new technological developments by Russia, in particular to increase the production of oil wells, "could be of great interest for Iraq." The minister said Russian companies had received major contracts to build Iraqi facilities, citing among them the Eastern Al Jazira irrigation complex worth $70 billion.

a name="Anti-Stalin Lies a Cover for Imperialists’ Mass Murder">">"nti-Stalin Lies a Cover for Imperialists’ Mass Murder

The bosses’ media often refers to "innocent millions murdered by Stalin..." This is Cold War nonsense, plain and simple. The demographers Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver, ("Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR," Slavic Review, 44, No. 3, 1985) estimate that "excess deaths" — defined as any "unusually large number of deaths" between 1926 and 1939 "among people who were alive" in 1926 — were probably between 3.2 and 5.5 million for the entire USSR. This is from all causes, including famine, disease, the entire collectivization process, executions and one significant war, against Japan in Mongolia.

We criticize Stalin and the Bolsheviks for the things they actually did, not for things they never did, but are falsely accused of, and which are widely believed by those who repeat the lies of Cold War historians, many originating with the Nazis. The Nazis had an "anti-Comintern" organization that specialized in this stuff, similar to the Harvard Soviet Studies program, or the Hoover Institution.

Yet none of Stalin-bashers report on "the innocent millions murdered by Winston Churchill." What about the Bengal Famine in India? In contrast to the Ukraine in 1932-33, the Bengal famine really was "man made." Capitalist historians say around four million died. Then there’s the Belgian imperialist, King Leopold, supported by British and U.S. bosses, slaughtering 15 million in the Congo, while cutting off the limbs of millions more. Not to mention the genocide perpetrated by U.S. rulers on hundreds of thousands of Native Americans in this country. And the 13 million black African slaves who died on their forced "trip" to the "New World."

What about the famine in the French colony of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) in 1931? Also "man-made." One recent scholar said: "...mortality in this famine, partly due to French taxation policies that were more rigid than Soviet procurement policies in 1932, was in proportional terms considerably greater than in the Soviet famine..."

These are but a few of the horrors of the "free world." We are all getting an overdose of this kind of "freedom" in the new and rapidly expanding American invasion of Afghanistan.

Unlike the communists around the world, with all their great weaknesses and failures in trying to build communism through socialism, Churchill, the myriad French governments, Roosevelt, Canada’s MacKenzie King and the other "leaders of the West" never were on the side of workers, farmers and others organizing against exploitation and murder. To say nothing of the fascists who ran the governments of pre-war Poland: Pilsudski, Bor-Komarowski, and the rest.

These "leaders of the Free World" did not fight colonialism and imperialism, as the communist movement did. Quite the contrary; these "Free Worlders" were the imperialist mass murderers.

Workers of the World, Write!

LETTERS

Why Compare Israeli Rulers to Nazis?

My liberal pro-Israel friend, a little mad and puzzled, asked me: "Why does the left always attack Israel, even calling it fascist? Aren’t the Arab governments more brutal and fascist than Israel? Israel is just defending itself from those who want to destroy it."

Indeed, the Arab rulers are brutal and fascist. Most care little about their own people or the Palestinians. After all, the more pro-U.S. Arab bosses, like the royal leeches ruling Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, used Palestinians as cheap labor in the oil fields until Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. Then most Palestinians sympathized with Saddam because of their hatred towards those rulers — and their U.S. imperialist allies — exploiting them. Other pro-U.S. rulers like Egypt’s Mubarak have kept their people super-exploited and politically repressed.

The more anti-U.S. rulers like those in Syria and Saddam himself have combined heavy political repression with some benefits from the oil wealth to part of the population (at least before Desert Storm, and the subsequent embargo of Iraq).

But the Israeli ruling class is also fascist, even though it hides behind parliamentary bourgeois democracy. Israel was founded after World War II based on expelling millions of Palestinians from their homeland. It has brutally exploited Palestinian labor and turned the Occupied Territories (seized by Israel after the 1967 six day war) into an Apartheid-like Bantustan. The Israeli army and police treat Palestinians like "sub-humans" (the way the Nazis treated Jews, Russians, etc.). The recent Israeli army invasion of the West Bank has launched fascist attacks on thousands of civilians.

Many in the U.S. know little about this because the U.S. media is very pro-Israel. When one Israeli civilian or youth is murdered by a suicide bomber, it’s big news, but when Palestinian children or youth are murdered by the Israeli army, it’s hardly reported. Robert Fisk in London Independent (2/24) quoted an Israeli official saying, "We should study what the German army did in the Warsaw ghetto." This kind of attitude prevails among Israel’s rulers, not only Sharon but also many in the so-called Labor Party. After all, some of Israel’s founders were part of the Judenrat which helped the Nazis carry out the holocaust by trying to stop revolts by Jews in Europe.

There are Jewish soldiers, workers and youth who are refusing inside and outside Israel to be part of the Israeli rulers’ onslaught against Palestinians instead of the fascist Sharon and all the Zionist butchers. They should be applauded and supported, not the fascist gang of Sharon and all other Zionists.

A comrade

An Apple For The Principal

I’m a high school student in in California. The harassment and insults against the students by the administration is constant. The students are sick and tired of the situation. The following example shows how the students feel.

A few days ago as hundreds of students were eating in the over-packed lunchrooms a fight started between two students. The principal and her goon squad (security squad)ran over to separate the students and arrest them. All the students stood on the tables and started throwing apples at the principal. Some hit her on the head, others on the back. The security guards also got their deserved apples. The principal had to leave the area immediately amid whistles and shouts of joy by the students. Many students congratulated each other that they had rebelled, even though temporarily, against the bosses’ oppression, in this case the administration.

A Happy Student

a name="Globalization and Imperialism—Same Garbage">">"lobalization and Imperialism—Same Garbage

I’m a garment worker. I had to present a paper to other garment workers on "What is Globalization?" Even though I’ve read Challenge for years and participated in discussions, I didn’t know how or where to start. But I decided to look at my own life and use that experience.

I wrote the following:

I began my day at 6:45 am when my alarm clock went off. It was made in China. I got up and bathed with soap made in Mexico. I dried myself with a towel made in India. My underwear was made in Taiwan and my Levis pants were made in El Salvador. My shoes are of leather made in Brazil and my belt was made in Thailand. Now that I was dressed, I blended a drink with bananas from Honduras. My blender was made in Mexico. Then I drank Colombian coffee. I went to work in my old car made in Japan. My boss, who is from Taiwan, was waiting for me. Don’t you think that the international working class makes everything?

Fortunately or unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of work to do. That gave me time to think and I remembered that several years ago I heard talk of a "Free Trade Agreement" among three countries who were neighbors, supposedly "brothers." At that time, I thought that the Free Trade Treaty (NAFTA) would benefit our brothers and sisters, the Mexican farm workers and urban workers. But then I found out I was wrong. Before NAFTA, my boss paid me 20 cents for each piece I sewed. Afterwards, she lowered it to 12 cents. We stopped production. But we achieved little since the boss threatened that if we didn’t do the work, she’d send it to Mexico where they would do it for much less. Other workers in Mexico or China were not to blame. The blame was on the system of capitalism and imperialism, which force workers to work for poverty wages.

In conclusion what I understand by globalization is super-exploitation of the workers by the bosses in the richest countries all over the world. The name has changed, but the exploitation is the same. And the solution is the same: smash globalization or imperialism with communist revolution.

With this introduction, I started our discussion and our plans to mobilize workers for the May Day march.

Communist Internationalist Garment Worker

Oscar Movies Cover for Racism

The Front page article in the last CHALLENGE (4/10), "Oscars Mask Racism," was pretty accurate in describing how the sweep of the best actor and best actress by Denzel Washington and Halle Berry plus the lifetime award given to Sidney Poitier, don’t mean Hollywood has become a bastion of anti-racism or that racism is not rampant all over the U.S.

Of course, these black artists are very talented. But there is another side to the prizes they got this year: the movies they won them for. Denzel Washington in "Training Days," plays a disgusting cop in the LAPD. His character is a Ramparts division type of crooked, vicious and vile cop, even more than a regular policeman. Indeed, all cops no matter the color of their skin are enforcers of the bosses’ racist system. The movie shows that politicians are behind the vicious cop Denzel plays, but there is still the meaning that while there are bad cops of all colors, in general most cops aren’t like that.

That meaning is even more direct in the role played by Halle Berry in "Monster’s Ball." She played the role of Leticia, a woman facing the racism of a small Louisiana town and dealing with a husband on death row and a son dealing with an obesity problem. Berry ends up having a love affair with Hank (played by Billy Bob Thornton), a second-generation racist prison guard. Berry basically looks to a racist to save her from her rotten life, even though Hank changes his racist ways after his own son dies. This vicious racist "repents" and becomes "anti-racist." The fact that Leticia falls in love with this guy is like making a movie where a Jewish woman falls in love with a Nazi camp guard who after all his crimes, changes his mind.

Dr. Asa Hilliard III, professor of education at Georgia State Univ., said that when looking at the symbolism of these and other Oscars won by black artists: "More often than not, you will find some form of negative portrayal. None of these roles have really been powerful roles that touch on our most heroic people, not individually, but as a people." (Daily Challenge, NY, April 3).

Of course, if movies were really anti-racist, then Hollywood wouldn’t be the cesspool it is now.

Rex Red

1. Oscars Mask Racism
   1. HOMELESS KIDS GET NO OSCARS
2. Arab and Jewish Workers Needs Unity
   Capitalism and Peace Can Never Co-Exist
3. Pipelines to War
   1. "War against terrorism? Not really. Reminder: it's all about oil.
4. Wall Street Banker: Founded on Slavery, Built on Prisons
5. Arab and Jewish Workers: Unite Against All Bosses
6. Terrorists Can't Sidetrack million marchers in Italy
7. Pakistan: Steelworkers Occupy Mills
8. Volkswagen: Fight Against Layoffs Needed
9. Students Back Workers vs. Million $ Univ Pres.
10. Fascist Round-Up of Immigrants is Attack on All Workers
11. Mt. Sinai Cutbacks Are Health Careless
12. Central America:
    Feast For Bosses, Famine For Workers
13. Fight For May Day Now Builds the Future
14. !,000 Students March Against Firings of Counselors
15. LETTERS
    Workers of the World, Write
    1. Why No Campaign Against U.S. Army Pedophiles?
    2. Learning Through Practice
    3. Make the Bosses
       Mop the Floor
    4. Researchers Lie For Drug Dollars
    5. The Law of
       Class Struggle
    6. No Honesty
       Among Fascists

---

Oscars Mask Racism

The billion people watching the Oscars were given the message that racism was on the way out in the U.S. Hosted by Whoopie Goldberg, Denzel Washington won best actor, Halle Berry won best actress, and Sidney Poitier received a lifetime achievement award. For the first time in history, a black actor and black actress swept the lead acting awards.

To be sure, these and many more black actors are as "talented" as any. And the treatment of black people in the motion picture industry is a history of racist exclusion and stereotypes. But as with the emergence of extremely talented black sports "superstars," the rulers use the few high profile black "success" stories to mask their racist terror against the masses.

The U.S. has the largest prison population in world history, with 70% black and Latin. Hundreds of thousands are forced into prison labor "earning" a few cents an hour. Black workers suffer double the unemployment rates and one-third less family income than white workers. More black youth are in jail than in college. Black infant mortality rates rival those of the world's poorest countries. No Oscars there.

In U.S. wars, black and Latino youth make up 40% of the front-line combat troops defending the Rockefeller oil billionaires. U.S. rulers are ready to throw a few more crumbs to black superstars to try to win the allegiance of black workers, the very group they oppress and fear the most. The perfume of multi-millionaire "artists" in $20,000 gowns and Armani suits cannot cover this foul odor.

HOMELESS KIDS GET NO OSCARS

One way to judge a society is how it treats its children. While U.S. rulers spend ONE BILLION DOLLARS PER WEEK to maintain their naval armada protecting Big Oil in the Persian Gulf, consider the following:

* 1.4 million children are homeless in any given year. They make up 40% of the nation's homeless, have more health, hospital and developmental problems than non-homeless kids, and are more likely to be homeless as adults.

* In Chicago there are 6,000 shelter beds for a nightly homeless population of 20,000, half of them families with children. The majority sleeps in cars or abandoned buildings.

* In New York City, 13,000 children slept in homeless shelters or temporary apartments this winter. Families comprise 75% of the city's 32,000 homeless (nightly average), up 23% in one year, the largest one-year increase in the city's history.

* Seventy percent of homeless children suffer chronic illnesses like asthma and anemia.

* Almost half of all school-age homeless children suffer emotional problems like anxiety and depression.

* Currently there are 4.5 million more "extremely low income families" in need of housing than units available. (In 1970 there was a surplus of 300,000 units.)

* From the late 1970s to the late 1990s, New York City's poorest 20% saw their income decline 33%.

* In 1999, more than 25% of New Yorkers paid more than half their income for rent.

[All above information from the Sunday New York Times Magazine (3/24) "The Hidden Lives of Homeless Children" by Jennifer Egan]

This is the "American Way of Life" the ruling class is spreading with its "daisy cutter" bombs. The devastation of generations of children is directly caused by a capitalist profit system that keeps cutting wages and jobs, and waging wars big and small. Its real estate interests reap fortunes from throwing working-class families out on the street to gentrify neighborhoods with luxury housing for the likes of the Oscar crowd.

Arab and Jewish Workers Needs Unity
Capitalism and Peace Can Never Co-Exist

Escalating violence in the Middle East has become a huge stumbling block for U.S. rulers' plan to attack Saddam Hussein. Decades of their backing of Israeli fascists -- supplying them with $3 billion annually, including the weapons with which to slaughter the Palestinians -- has enraged Arab workers in the region and, in turn, impelled criticism from Arab rulers (see below).

The Bush gang wrongly thought it could afford to launch the next phase of its latest oil war while ignoring the increasingly murderous struggle between Palestinian and Israeli bosses. Workers will pay a huge price in blood for the imperialists' miscalculations. We can also turn their quandary to our class's advantage by drawing proper conclusions and acting on them to build our Party.

Peace and imperialism can never co-exist. The Bush crowd has taken the politics of the absurd to a new level, by shamelessly admitting that they need to stop the fighting in the Middle East only to make war in the Persian Gulf. As one Bush administration underling told the New York Times (3/24): "...the key to dealing with the United States' strategic interests, the key to dealing with Iraq is through the peace process." So, according to the White House's twisted capitalist logic, peace equals war. But this is nothing new. Since the Carter administration, U.S. rulers have been trying to force a settlement down the throats of Israeli fascists and Palestinian nationalists. Every one of these deals has exploded in their faces.

The failure of U.S. arm-twisting in the Middle East isn't due to the rulers' incompetence but rather to the profit system's essential nature. The rivalry between Israeli and Palestinian capitalists is a miniature version of the inter-imperialist conflicts that pit the U.S. ruling class against the rest of the world. Israeli moneybags want to be the top dogs in the Middle East. Arafat & Co. wants a bigger piece of the pie for themselves. Within both the Israeli ruling class and the Arafat crew there are also internal contradictions, splits over market share, and divisions over tactics. All this fighting and infighting leads to a mountain of working-class corpses.

Pipelines to War

(The following excerpts of an article written by Pepe Escobar and published in the January 25 OnLine Asia Times confirm CHALLENGE's estimate that U.S. rulers' so-called "War on Terror" is really a cover for their attempt to forge a worldwide energy monopoly.)

"War against terrorism? Not really. Reminder: it's all about oil.

"A quick look at the map is all it takes. It's no coincidence that the map of terror in the Middle East and Central Asia is practically interchangeable with the map of oil. There's Infinite Justice, Enduring Freedom--and Everlasting Profits to be made: not only by the American industrial-military complex, but especially by American and European oil giants...

"Afghanistan...is ultra-strategic: positioned between the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia, between Turkmenistan and the avid markets of the Indian subcontinent, China and Japan, Afghanistan is at the core of Pipelineistan...

"It's enlightening that all countries or regions which happen to be an impediment to Pipelineistan routes towards the west have been subjected either to a direct interference or to all-out war: Chechnya, Georgia, Kurdistan, Yugoslavia and Macedonia. To the east, the key problems are the Uighurs of China's far-western Xinjiang and, until recently, Afghanistan...

"Central Asia ia crucial to Washington's worldwide petro-strategy. So is a `friendly' government in Afghanistan...

"As for U.S. corporate-controlled media--from TV networks to daily newspapers--they just exercise self-censorship and remain mute about all of these connections."

Wall Street Banker: Founded on Slavery, Built on Prisons

NEW YORK CITY, March 21 -- Bearing a larger-than-life puppet of the biblical Egyptian slave-owning Pharaoh (with a strong resemblance to board member Henry Kaufman), about 50 militant activists picketed Lehman Brothers Investment Bankers' corporate headquarters. They were protesting Lehman's profiteering from racist private prisons.

The demonstrators carried a banner reading "Lehman Brothers: Born on Slavery, Built on Prisons." The company was founded in 1850 in Alabama as a cotton brokerage house profiting from slavery. The family owned slaves and sided with the Confederacy in the Civil War.

Currently Lehman is the lead underwriter of the country's largest private prison deal, refinancing Correction Corporation of America's $1.1 billion debt. It also financed Cornell Corp's $42 million stock offering to finish building a private immigration jail in rural Mississippi. Cornell CEO Steve Logan said, "There are over 900,000 undocumented individuals of Middle Eastern descent [in the U.S.]. That's [equal to] half our entire prison population...The federal business is the best business for us. It's the most consistent business and the events since 9/11 [are] increasing that business."

The U.S. ruling class is using 9/11 to intensify racism against Muslims from the Mid-East and South Asia based on the big lie that they are all tied to the attack on the World Trade Center. Thousands have been detained without charges for minor violations of immigration law, and the government plans to jail thousands more. Lehman Bros. and the private prison industry are making a killing building prisons for immigrants.

We should have no illusions about how the bosses will use anti-immigrant racism and anti-communism to enhance their profit system. In 1920, the infamous Palmer Raids attacked and deported thousands of immigrant workers. This and other government racist actions led immediately to the resurrection and huge growth of the Ku Klux Klan. During World War II, hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans were interned, their land given to the growing West Coast agribusiness. In both cases, it was easier for the ruling class to get away with it because many workers were won to the racist lies, and communist leadership was not strong enough to win workers to fight this attack. Today's incarceration of immigrants based solely on national origin carries on this fascist tradition.

We in PLP must step up our fight to win workers to multi-racial and international unity to defeat this fascist onslaught. We will only eliminate private prisons and the profits from them when we destroy capitalism.

Arab and Jewish Workers: Unite Against All Bosses

NEW YORK CITY, March 5 -- Over 200 Palestinian, Jewish and other workers and students protested the scheduled appearance of Ehud Olmert, mayor of Jerusalem, and former NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani at Cooper Union. Chanting "Jews and Arabs Unite, End the Occupation," "Giuliani, Olmert, You Can't Hide, We Charge You with Genocide," and carrying a huge puppet of Olmert as the "Butcher of Jerusalem," the demonstrators showed their fierce opposition to the terror against Palestinian refugees, both in the occupied territories and in Israel.

Both mayors were there to share their "fight against terrorism." In reality, they are the terrorists. Olmert supports "ethnic cleansing" in Jerusalem to rid it of all Arabs. Giuliani, whose own racist police force ran amok during his reign, has been a firm supporter of Israel's war of genocide.

Neither Olmert nor Giuliani showed up. Olmert stayed in Israel because suspected Jewish terrorists set off a bomb in a Palestinian grade school in East Jerusalem.

A few militant anti-racists stood up in the audience to reveal T-shirts reading, "We are all Palestinians" in Hebrew, English and Arabic. The ultra-right-wing Zionists weren't able to stop them as they marched out of the hall. Today's militant action followed a conference of over 100 activists concerned about the lack of a unified response here to the Israeli government's collective punishment of Palestinians, demolishing homes, bombing civilians, etc.

Israeli rulers super-exploit Arabs and target Jews of color: Ethiopians, Mizrachim (Arab) and Sephardim (Mediterranean). They have reduced their dependence on Palestinian workers by importing tens of thousands of "guest workers" from Africa and Asia who toil under the most oppressive conditions in the fields and factories. This has created a permanent class of unemployed Palestinian workers in the occupied territories.

Today 5.5 million Palestinian refugees live in overcrowded and deteriorating camps, including 1.4 million living in Israel as second-class citizens. Israeli settlers have taken their homes and land and the Israeli army has destroyed their crops. Over 370 Israeli reservists have refused to participate in this slaughter.

The demand for "right of return" -- the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to the homes (and homeland) they were forced to evacuate in 1948 and 1967, means Arabs and Jews would have to share the land that was once historic Palestine. When Jewish, Palestinian and Arab friends advance this demand, we must take a revolutionary outlook and fight for the unity of Arab and Jewish workers against all capitalist oppressors. We have a big stake in winning workers to reject a nationalist view by putting forward communist ideas and spreading them to our brothers and sisters in the Middle East.

Palestinian and Israeli workers are natural allies, because their common enemy is racism, capitalism and imperialism.

There will be no peace in the Middle East until we unite as one working class and fight to smash all the local and imperialist warmakers. Then, we can build a society where we all share what we produce according to needs. The building of a mass revolutionary communist Party uniting all workers and soldiers in the Middle East is the way to achieve this. That's what we in PLP fight for.

Terrorists Can't Sidetrack million marchers in Italy

Brigate Rose (Red Brigades) has taken responsibility for the March 19 assassination of Marco Biagi in Bologna, Italy. Biagi was an adviser to the Labor Ministry working on a plan to make the labor laws more favorable for the bosses and easier to fire workers. The Red Brigades label Biagi a "representative of the ideas and even the dreams of Cofindustria," the bosses' association representing Italy's main capitalist wing. But does this assassination help the working class or its enemies? It came suspiciously four days before a scheduled mass workers' protest against the right-wing Berlusconi government and his anti-working class policies.

The "Red Brigades for the Construction of a Fighting Communist Party" (the group's official name) was active in the 1970s, kidnapping and murdering Prime Minister Aldo Moro. Many of its leaders were arrested and the movement appeared disbanded.

Ever since the police murdered young Carlo Giuliani during the anti-globalization protests in Genoa last July, the mood of the masses has changed:

* Three hundred thousand turned out for a mass demonstration on July 21, just a few days after that killing (the first murder of a protester in Italy in 25 years), Many were rank-and-file workers.

* On July 24 and 25, about 500,000 protested in 100 towns throughout Italy against Berlusconi and the police.

* Last Nov. 9, to counter a "USA Day" called by Berlusconi backing the U.S. war against Afghanistan, 100,000 demonstrated against the war (compared to 40,000 who turned out for "USA Day").

* A week later, during a nationwide auto and steel workers strike, 150,000 strikers rallied in Rome.

* On Dec. 20, 50,000 students protested in Rome against the so-called educational reforms (an attack on students).

* On January 19, 100,000 demonstrated -- half of them immigrant workers -- against the government's new racist immigration laws.

* Since the beginning of the year there have been several strikes by teachers, airport workers, transport workers, etc., and 80,000 workers rallied in Rome on Feb. 15, organized mainly by Cobas (a dissident "rank-and-file" unionist group).

Shortly after the Biagi murder, the mass march planned for Rome took place. Two million workers and others from all over Italy protested the government plan to suspend Article 18 (which gives workers some protection from unfair firings). The march, the biggest here in recent history, is a build-up for a nationwide general strike scheduled for April 5, also opposed terrorism.

Many workers see the "rebirth" of the Red Brigades serving as provocateurs to deflect the budding mass movement of workers. Three months ago, the government removed bodyguards protecting Biagi and other officials, even though Panorama (a magazine owned by media billionaire Berlusconi) leaked a secret police report warning of possible terrorist attacks against the suspension of Article 18.

Individual acts of terrorism can never replace the mass struggle of workers and their allies. As in this case, they try to hinder those struggles. So even if Red Brigades is not a creation of the government's dirty tricks, it is objectively helping it.

These fake left terrorist groups also sabotage the building of a real fighting communist movement. They give more credibility among the workers to the union reformists and the electoral socialist and fake-communist parties that want a more "humane" capitalism as an alternative to right-wingers like Berlusconi.

Pakistan: Steelworkers Occupy Mills

KARACHI, PAKISTAN--On March 8, production in the Pakistan Steel Mills ceased when workers took control of all the gates, allowing no one in or out. The shocked bosses called the cops, but they couldn't get in either as the workers maintained control of the mill.

The bosses insisted the action was politically motivated, accusing some political parties of joining together to "disturb the industrial peace." They had a point. Pakistan is ruled by a military dictatorship supporting the U.S. oil war in Afghanistan and such open defiance undoubtedly has political implications.

For over two decades, Pakistan Steel bosses have successfully divided the unions and workers along ethnic, nationalist and religious lines. Militant union leaders were systematically fired and barred from entering the mills. But workers' anger grew. Resistance has been building for a long time. On March 8 the volcano erupted.

The workers moved into action without warning. They demanded the immediate firing of company chairman Colonel Afzal -- a corrupt army colonel who put the workers' jobs and safety at risk. They also demanded an investigation into last June's industrial "accident" that left nine workers dead and two crippled for life.

The workers organized with military precision, forming themselves into several battalions to seize the mills. They held clandestine meetings, using numbers instead of names. Different sections of workers picketed and took control of the mills' ten entrances while workers inside occupied their work areas.

The workers who began work the night before had to remain and the morning shift workers were not allowed in. The top bosses, including Afzal, were physically prevented from entering. The managing director and the general manager (both top-ranking military officers) finally got inside but a strike organizer asked their chauffeurs to park on the side and invited them to walk to their offices, where they were immediately locked in. Then 15,000 workers poured out of the main gates and onto the national highway, blocking it for several hours.

The workers charged that the bosses' failure to carry out the required safety maintenance led to even more accidents after the June 2001 disaster. The money saved was being shown as profit. The authorities, clearly rattled by these events, conceded most of the demands and the workers agreed to re-open the national highway and end the siege.

This struggle shows the potential power of the industrial working class. It also shows how the oil war in neighboring Afghanistan is sharpening all contradictions. From Karachi to Rome, from Puebla to S. Korea, industrial workers are beginning to stir. Mass marches, strikes and general strikes are part of the spontaneous upsurge caused by the sharpening contradictions of imperialism.

But neither spontaneity nor reformism will ever defeat imperialism. Only a communist-led working class, consciously fighting for a communist world without borders or bosses, can do that. If that seems a long way off, it may be. But it can only be achieved through the conscious efforts of an international PLP with a mass base among the workers. What we do, or don't do, will play a major role in determining just how far off it is.

Volkswagen: Fight Against Layoffs Needed

PUEBLA, MEXICO, March 22 -- On the same day that Bush, Fox and other "world leaders" were meeting in Monterrey "to help the world's poor," Volkswagen began eliminating 250 jobs here. This followed workers' refusal to accept a wage-cut.

The plant produces 400,000 units annually, mainly for the U.S. market. VW will cut production by 20,000 to 50,000 this year because of low sales, particularly in the U.S. They will also reduce production by closing the plant for periods of time, another way to cut labor costs.

The first out the door are "eventual" (temporary) workers. More than 1,550 eventuals were let go between 2000-2002, while only 130 ever achieved permanent status.

But Eduardo Sotomayor, chief of VW labor relations, warns that the company will gradually eliminate permanent jobs, 1,350 of the 11,500 union jobs at the plant.

VW promises to recall fired workers and restore wage cuts when sales improve. José L. Rodriguez, head of the VW Independent Workers Union is basically supporting VW's claims. But capitalism is based on extracting maximum surplus value from workers, so low wages and increased productivity will likely remain. The sharpening inter-imperialist fight for auto market share is slashing autoworkers' jobs.

The hypocrisy of capitalism knows no bounds. The way to fight poverty and unemployment is to fight the cause: capitalism. A VW strike for jobs, supported by VW workers from Wolfsburg to Sao Paulo, as well as by autoworkers worldwide, is a good beginning. It would inspire all autoworkers who face layoffs and plant closings. The building of a mass revolutionary communist movement among autoworkers is the best victory this struggle can produce.

Students Back Workers vs. Million $ Univ Pres.

TOWSON, MD, March 15 -- Towson University pays its janitors (through its Aramark subcontractor) an average of $6.10 an hour. But this is what it forked over for its new President, Mark L. Perkins:

*$56,000 on his recent inauguration ceremony;

*$1.4 million for renovations on a mansion for him in Guilford, Maryland;

*$25,000 for a new home stereo system;

*$30,000 rugs to adorn the mansion's floors; and,

*An average yearly salary of $208,000.

Meanwhile, students graduate from universities every year with an average debt of $17,000.

The Student Worker Alliance of Towson (SWAT) -- a subdivision of Towson Action Group-- has grown steadily over the past few months, fighting for a higher wage ($8.50/hr) for campus workers, particularly those contracted through Aramark. SWAT visits workers at shift changes, pushes living-wage petitions three days a week (signed recently by more than 1,100 students) and tries to maintain pressure on the administration.

On March 8,, it demonstrated outside the Towson Center, holding signs and banners as faculty, alumni and nearby Maryland governmental representatives filed in. Later SWAT performed street theatre and chanted near their Auburn House reception. This action was broadcast on two Baltimore TV news programs and made several local papers, including the Baltimore Sun.

A letter to the Sun from three SWAT members asked. "Whether this behavior [the inauguration and the mansion] demonstrates maturity or simply a selfish concern for appearances."

"We're against spending for indulgences when workers on campus are living in poverty," a sophomore from Silver Spring told the Sun during the protest.

The cops threatened "to cart us all off to jail," saying they "had a bus ready" if we didn't follow their directives. When we moved, they backed off. The bosses don't feel threatened much by a living-wage campaign. They would from an anti-capitalist, pro-communist action, such as Towson Action Group's September 25th street theatre action which condemned U.S. imperialism's actions following 9/11. Hundreds of right-wing students chanting "U-S-A" threw rocks and spat on us.

Some SWAT members understand reform organizational activities are only minimally effective. We are advancing the idea that communism is the only thing that can emancipate the working class from capitalism's horrors.

SWAT's actions at the inauguration were intended to jumpstart our living-wage campaign, an effort to not only win higher wages for campus workers but also to spread pro-worker sentiment throughout the community.

The potential exists for a community-wide response to our actions. The more we sharpen the struggle, the more our message will spread to the wider Towson and Baltimore areas.

Fascist Round-Up of Immigrants is Attack on All Workers

We were discussing our plans to build May Day. "Fascism?" asked Elmer. "How can you call it fascism? It's not like we're being rounded up and sent off to concentration camps like in Nazi Germany!"

Harold had just said that with the war in Afghanistan, the plans for invasion of Iraq and the Patriot Act, we're in a period of war and fascism and May Day is more important than ever.

"Listen, " Elmer continued, "don't get me wrong. I'm inviting my friends to May Day. But I don't really see how you can call it fascism when we're not being rounded up."

"Well, maybe you and I haven't been rounded up," said Anita, "but they've rounded up a couple of thousand Arab and Muslim young men, and are planning to detain more. They were picked up based on their ethnicity and religion. What do you call that?"

"That's really true," said Hector, getting into the conversation. "It reminds me of the quote in the latest CHALLENGE: "First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew...when they came for me, there was nobody left to speak up for me." If we don't fight it when they come for Muslims and Arabs, then next they'll attack all immigrants. And if they get away with that, they'll attack citizens."

"They've already moved on to attacking other immigrants," said Anita, who is active in an immigrants rights organization. "They've used 9/11 as an excuse to put anyone with a deportation order who hasn't reported to the INS on the FBI's wanted list. And those people were mostly Mexicans, Caribbeans, and Central Americans."

"And teachers who went on strike in New Jersey were called unpatriotic and put in jail," added Harold.

"And the cops who sodomized Abner Louima were let off," said Latrice. "Since 9/11 even the rappers aren't saying anything bad about the cops."

"Well, I see what you mean," said Elmer. "I didn't say things were great! All I said is that they haven't started rounding us up yet."

"Who do you mean by us?" asked Latrice. "OK, they haven't rounded up anybody in this room. But aren't Arab workers and students just as much a part of our class as Central American immigrants or N.J. schoolteachers or Abner Louima? Aren't we one international working class?

"That's how they win workers to accept fascism and soldiers to fight their wars. They want us to think that "we" and "us" are words that apply to citizens of one country or people of one ethnicity. But communists understand that "we" refers to the working class.

"Those kids that are dying in Palestine? That's us! Those Afghan civilians without medical treatment? That's us! The hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have died because of the U.S. embargo on medicines? That's us! The soldiers on both sides of their oil wars? US! Our class! Our brothers and sisters! The bosses and their wars and fascism are murdering us around the world. That's why we have to stop them. And they have plans to force more youth from here into the military--sooner than we may think."

"OK," said Elmer. "I get it. We are under attack -- because we're all part of the same class. And I see that we have to take May Day more seriously than ever this year."

"Exactly," said Latrice and Harold together.

"Who's having the next house party?" "Who can we get to help with the leaflets, to bring them to their friends?" "Who can help bring other people as they see the seriousness of the situation?"

Mt. Sinai Cutbacks Are Health Careless

NEW YORK CITY, March 20 -- Over 200 members of the health care workers union (Local 1199, SEIU) protested outside Mount Sinai Hospital, charging that budget cuts and a planned layoff of 300 are why care has been going downhill at this East Harlem institution.

The State Health Department is investigating 17 liver transplants at Mount Sinai following the death of journalist Mike Hurewitz. He died from a bacterial infection Jan. 13, just three days after surgeons successfully transplanted part of his liver into his sick brother. When Hurewitz died (choking on his own blood), an inexperienced doctor-in-training had been left in charge of 34 patients. Only now, after the deaths of five transplant patients at the hospital over the last two years, has the State Health Department been forced to widen their probe.

Mount Sinai spokeswoman Joan Lebow said personnel cuts have not affected the quality of care, claiming they had "minimal impact on bedside care."

But the workers told a different story. They say the problems are absolutely due to personnel cuts and the planned 300 layoffs will just make it worse.

The day before the protest, union head Dennis Rivera officially endorsed Republican Governor Pataki for re-election, breaking ranks with fellow union leaders who usually support the Democratic Party candidate. Rivera himself has long been a big shot in the NY State Democratic Party machine. In January, Rivera made a deal with Pataki, providing a 13% wage increase for Local 1199 members. But, of course, like all deals with politicians and bosses, this doesn't protect patients from lousy health care nor workers from layoffs like those at Mt. Sinai, affecting mostly black and Latin workers.

Rivera and all union leaders have proven able at supporting politicians in exchange for a few crumbs (which usually disappear quickly). But when it comes to fighting for workers' best interests (including opposition to oil wars and fascist attacks), these hacks are mostly on the wrong side -- outright agents of the bosses.

Rulers' War on Terror Murdering Colombian UnionistsCOLOMBIA -- To be a union activist here is to put your life at risk. In 2001, 1,500 were murdered. On March 20, another unionist joined the death list. Rafael Jaimes, treasurer of the USO (the oil workers union) in the refinery at Puerto Petrolero was murdered in Barrancabermeja by the fascist paramilitary death squad AUC, linked to the Army. He was slain a few feet from his house when two men on a high-speed motorcycle drove up to his car and shot him without saying a word. Almost simultaneously two other fascist killers shot at the USO office in the same city.

When workers at the oil refinery heard of the murder they immediately stopped working in protest. The bosses of Ecopetrol (the state-owned oil company) were hard-pressed to keep the refinery operating. Army and police units were sent to the refinery entrance to ward off acts of sabotage by the angry workers.

On March 8, while the USO was negotiating with the government to end a strike protesting the death-squad kidnapping of another union activist, Gilberto Martínez, the union also denounced death-squad threats against other trade unionists. Of course, the government well knows who these murderers are, since they're mostly controlled by the Army, so nothing was done. This is the same government and Army the U.S. is supplying with billions in military aid to expand Bush's misnamed "war against terrorism" (actually terrorism against workers). Ninety-eight million of that aid will go to protect Occidental Petroleum's pipeline here.

We must encourage workers worldwide to show solidarity with our working-class brothers and sisters in Colombia, and oppose U.S. bosses' imperialist war by building a mass communist movement to turn these wars into revolutionary struggle to smash capitalism once and for all.

Central America:
Feast For Bosses, Famine For Workers

Famine has gripped Central America. President Bush visited El Salvador and pushed U.S.-controlled free trade as the answer to this desperate situation. But his proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement is hardly going to remedy the worsening disaster in rural Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. The capitalist market (regulated or unregulated) and resulting crisis of overproduction is leading to starvation for 700,000 Central Americans while another million suffer serious food shortages.

Hardest hit are coffee plantation workers and maize farmers. Coffee prices have spiraled downward since the 1989 collapse of the International Coffee Agreement, which assigned countries production quotas. In recent years prices plummeted further with a surge in exports from Vietnam and Indonesia, where the World Bank encouraged expansion of coffee acreage. With the market glutted, many coffee farmers didn't even bother to harvest this year, causing evictions from plantation housing, increased migration to teeming city slums and severe hunger among the unemployed. (LA Times, 3/22)

Maize farmers, too, have felt the capitalist squeeze. Since 1992, Central America has had intra-regional free trade in grains and almost no tariff protection against low-cost imports. Forced to compete with highly subsidized U.S. farmers, many Central American farmers have abandoned food production, gone bankrupt and lost their land.

Some of Central America's most conservative figures -- Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo and Nicaraguan Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo -- acknowledge that the intensity and suddenness of the food emergency create outright famine, worse than the region's characteristic hunger.

Famine is always rooted in economic policies and political decisions. Washington spent billions of dollars and waged three proxy wars killing hundreds of thousands during the 1980s to guarantee that Central American rulers remained loyal to U.S. imperialism and tied to its World Bank and capitalist market.

Apparently the gap between rulers and ruled in the four affected countries is so large that policymakers feel little pressure to address the crisis. Right now, tens of thousands of Central Americans are heading north. In contrast to the 1980s and early '90s, most are not escaping war and repression. Many are abandoning farms that failed because of capitalist market policies and the dumping of U.S. grain. Others are trying to escape life in the free trade zones, where factory owners enjoy huge public subsidies and workers face immense exploitation.

Central American land could produce decent living standards for all who live there, if they had irrigation systems, shelter from the ravages of global capitalist market forces and distribution according to need. But this requires an anti-capitalist revolution and the building of a society in which workers will be in power: communism. Workers in Central America fought hard for what they believed would be an end to capitalism. Their leadership (Sandinistas, FMLN, etc.) refused to use this tremendous hatred of exploitation and commitment to make an all out-fight for workers' power. Today workers in Central America are paying a terrible price for this failure. We in PLP are trying to win workers to fight to break their chains of oppression. Slowly but sure workers will do it. The future is ours--join us!

Fight For May Day Now Builds the Future

Some of us in our PLP section involved in mass organizations clearly see opportunities for communists to give political leadership to the ideological and class struggle. There are also opportunist dangers, like failing to build a base for communism. May Day always reminds us that there's nothing spontaneous about building our Party. Working together politically with workers and youth and answering their many serious questions requires time and thought.

On the one hand, the U.S. rulers' war for global supremacy is expanding while unchecked racism and fascist rules dominate domestically. The collapse of the old communist movement has left the working class generally rudderless, cynical and passive. On the other hand, below the surface, the working class continues seeking answers on how to move forward. Sooner or later it will absorb the historical lessons about the strengths and weaknesses of socialism and rebuild the movement for working-class power and communism, the only way to eventually destroy imperialism.

Given this outlook, building for May Day 2002 will require a more resolute and positive effort than ever. Hard work may bring only modest results at this time. But this is laying the foundation for younger and newer comrades to fight bigger battles in the future. So we should be more determined to overcome obstacles and struggle against sluggishness and pessimism.

This said, our section has mailed 560 people invitations to this year's May Day march. Two hundred others will receive personal invitations to May Day activities. They will be asked to invite their family, friends and co-workers, as the invitation says, "to advance the cause of the working class around the world for communism...to show our commitment to a world free of imperialist wars, free of racist police states, unemployment, profits for the few and misery for the many..."

We will turn Party club meetings, study groups, brunches, dinners and other gatherings into May Day forums and organizing meetings. We can talk about the history of May Day on our jobs, in our classrooms and organizations. Bringing friends from these organizations can advance our political work and leadership. May Day provides the opportunity to talk more about the Party's analysis of the world situation and our strategy, especially with friends, co-workers and students with whom we haven't had these discussions in depth.

As these efforts unfold we'll rely more on newer comrades and new workers and students we know to help circulate CHALLENGE and build for May Day. Their participation and confidence can help re-invigorate others. In turn we will ask these new friends to commit themselves at a higher level to the working class and join the PLP. The results may be small right now, but the effort must be big!

!,000 Students March Against Firings of Counselors

CHICAGO, IL March 25 -- Last week nearly 1,000 students and faculty from the seven City Colleges, black, Latin, Asian, Native American and white, held walkouts and marched on City Hall chanting, "They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back!" The protest was a show of solidarity against the firing of the Chicago City Colleges system's entire counseling service, it was the second protest in two weeks.

The first on March 7 was at the meeting where the Board voted to fire the 19 counselors and replace them with untrained, part-time, non-union "registration specialists." Most CCC students are underpaid workers of color; many are single parents. This attack on public education and union workers began last year, when the board "privatized" CCC business offices. It is threatening similar action against the janitors and librarians.

Due to poor organization, our participation from Malcolm X was minimal as compared to the busloads from other schools such as Daley, Wright and Harold Washington. In one-on-one conversations, PLP members linked these firings to the mass layoffs of LTV steelworkers and the funding of the oil war in Afghanistan and the Middle East. We also raised the need to fight for communism and march on May Day.

This struggle, in a period of growing war and fascism, shows the potential for workers and students to struggle around the mass layoffs caused by the crisis of capitalism and imperialist war. It also shows the potential for building a mass PLP. However, the struggle at Malcolm X must be deepened and intensified.u

LETTERS
Workers of the World, Write

Why No Campaign Against U.S. Army Pedophiles?

The sexual abuse of children is not limited to the Catholic Church. On March 22, a child protection agency (Casa Alianza) in Honduras, Central America, denounced the victimization of children in prostitution, pornography and sexual tourism. The agency reported "sexual exploitation of children by members of the U.S. armed forces" in the 1980s.

Since then 400 U.S. soldiers have been stationed in the Palmerola military base 50 miles north of Tegucigalpa, Honduras' capital city. Casa Alianza says the use of boys and girls as prostitutes serving those soldiers continues today.

Why no big campaign against this type of child abuse? Besides the obvious reasons -- perpetrated by the military on poor children in a poor country -- it doesn't serve the interests of U.S. imperialism and its mass media to expose this. Which raises another question: why is the U.S. Catholic Church being attacked for the same perversion committed by U.S. soldiers in Honduras?

CHALLENGE (3/13) says the Boston Globe and the New York Times started the campaign for church reform against the pedophile priests because the main wing of the U.S. ruling class wants to win 64 million U.S. Catholics to the "liberal" cause (primarily, war in the Middle East).

Has the Pope Joined bin Laden on U.S. Rulers' Enemy List?

In addition, the Pope -- on his last legs -- has turned increasingly against U.S. imperialism since the implosion of the former Soviet Union. The same Pope -- who, during the 1980s, worked with Reagan and the CIA to topple the pro-Soviet regime in Poland and even the Soviet regime itself -- is supporting the interests of European imperialists against those of the U.S. The Pope, like Cardinal Egan and other top U.S. church leaders, belongs to the fascist Opus Dei group, begun under Franco's Spain. Its conservative ideas are not compatible with the liberal agenda of the main wing of the U.S. ruling class.

So the Pope et al has sort of become like Osama bin Laden, while during the Cold War they were CIA assets, now they have joined the "enemy camp" as far as U.S. imperialism is concerned

Red and Former Catholic

Learning Through Practice

On March 22, our PLP club held our May Day potluck dinner. We watched and discussed the inspiring Party videos about the Farmworkers' Summer Project and May Day and described past May Days. The turnout was small. I was disappointed, feeling cynical and subjective. After the dinner, my father, a more experienced Party member, said I'll just have to visit people and show them the video at their house. Then I became more self-critical and optimistic.

The small turnout reflects the motto of these times, "Hard Work, Modest Results; Little Work, No Results." Although I struggled with a handful of students in my classes, our friendships are still too superficial. I need deeper ties with them.

One problem is I participate in functions held by groups but haven't seen people outside of school. I haven't become a true friend.

In addition, I haven't guaranteed mass CHALLENGE sales this semester and my hand-to-hand distribution is minimal. However, this morning a student phoned to ask about the dinner and apologized for not coming. I'm sure that by building deeper friendships outside of school, and using CHALLENGE, he and others will come to Party functions and bring their friends.

The potential for building the Party exists. The 1,000 student protesters are one example.[See article next page-Ed] However, the struggle at Malcolm X must be intensified. We're on Spring Break this week and I will be making phone calls and visits. Hopefully, through this struggle many will stand side by side with the inspirational comrades who fought racism at Morristown, march on May Day and eventually join in building a communist world.

More Committed

Make the Bosses
Mop the Floor

Our friend and co-worker Vera has the impossible job of trying to single-handedly keep a 50-bed newborn intensive care unit clean. The other day, there were a bunch of men and women in suits in room 3008 -- always a bad sign in a hospital. They were an inspection team from Vera's department, fingering the tops of shelves looking for dust and the like. This unit used to have two environmental service workers assigned to it, but now one worker must do it alone. Vera furiously tried to scrub some ancient stain off the linoleum, while another supervisor was asking her where her mop was. "Oh," she said, momentarily abandoning the scrubbing, "Just tell me where the problem is. I can get it." She was literally sweating as the bosses poked around looking for more imperfections in her work.

A few minutes later there was a commotion in front of the clerk's desk. I saw Vera on a stretcher. A doctor was starting an I.V. in her arm. She had collapsed right in front of the elevator. Several of us stood there talking under our breath, staring angrily at the suits. What business did they have coming to our unit, harassing our friend until she fell out? If looks could kill, not one of those bosses would have made it off the floor alive.

Later there was a steady stream of workers to Vera's hospital bedside. She was in better spirits by the next day. At one point the meanest boss in housekeeping, Mrs. Hall, came by to "check" on her. After harassing Vera to the point of collapse, now she acted all concerned. What a hypocrite! Posing as a friend and protector for the woman she had pretended to not even know when part of the Gestapo inspection team! These bosses have no shame.

Forget it, Mrs. Hall. The big bosses in Washington say cut Medicaid to pay for their oil war. The state bosses in Springfield make the cuts. Then the county bosses downtown cut the staff, so no more housekeepers can be hired. They tell the little bosses like Mrs. Hall, "Work the ones you've got till they drop." And she does, without batting an eye.

Fortunately for Vera, all the workers and professionals on our unit, one of the biggest in the hospital, love her. If the bosses want to help, they should resign so their fat salaries could be used to hire more people who actually do the work, people like Vera.

When communists ran the hospitals in China 40 years ago, all managers had to spend at least one day a week doing real work, like mopping floors and cleaning toilets. Communists realize that working people create everything of value. Respect for that fact -- and for the working class -- led to their policy of managers wielding mops. Maybe we should try that in our hospital.

A Reader

Researchers Lie For Drug Dollars

Free-market capitalism is promoted as giving the greatest advantage to the greatest number of people. One more arena in which this is clearly false is health care.

The Nation magazine ran a story (1/28) on how big drug companies fund most medical research in the U.S. and keep medical journals alive through their drug advertising. For researchers to maintain this major source of their income, they often publish articles in medical journals that include only those aspects of their research that make the drug appear to be more effective and/or safer than other competing drugs, omitting any information leading to the opposite conclusion, that would tend to undermine drug company profits. In other words, they lie about their data.

This lying has become scandalous enough for the editors of some leading medical journals in the U.S. and England to publicly declare they would deal with this lying (they called it "bias") in their journals. Their plan was to require researchers to disclose their sources of funding and to affirm that the drug companies did not prevent the disclosure of information damaging to their profits. Big deal. Since thousands of researchers have already shown that their research funding takes precedence over honesty, this new policy will make no real difference.

As long as the drug monopolies control billions of dollars, they will be able to control both researchers and journals. If researchers or journals damage drug company profits, they won't survive. Under capitalism being slaves to corporations is a simple matter of life and death. That's how the free market works. It's even more so for the hundreds of millions of people whose doctors prescribe unsafe or ineffective drugs, based on understanding doctors receive from reading medical journals.

The liberals' solution for this problem -- more government funding of research and of medical journals -- masks the fact that government politicians depend just as much on funding from big corporations as do researchers and journals.

No, there's only one escape from free-market capitalism's assault on health: a system based on public need, not private profit, as the determining factor in health care, and in everything else. Then the working class would fund the research and would punish any researchers who lied. It would no longer be to anyone's advantage to pay for lies. On the contrary, it would only be to our advantage for researchers to stick to the truth. Of course, that's true now, but there's nothing we can do about it because the power to control research is not in our hands--yet.

A Doctor in the Dark (at least about some things)

The Law of
Class Struggle

I attended a public seminar on Organized Labor and New York City Politics recently that featured spokespersons for unions representing over 600,000 workers. The speakers debated the merits of traditional Democratic Party-supporting unions endorsing Republicans to gain economic benefits for workers, and whether this fragmented NYC labor, reducing its power to win concessions from employers.

The panel seemed to agree that unions were individual businesses providing benefits for their own members which required making such deals. Some panelists even protested that they were being coerced by labor traditions to support the city's general labor interests -- i.e., health, welfare, housing, community, immigrants, etc. -- when they felt their only responsibility was to their own workers' jobs and paychecks. One panelist felt a union can protest workers' suffering all it wants but if it can't persuade politicians to pass legislation benefiting their union, they're out of business.

When the floor was open, I said I was in the 1966 NYC transit strike which not only won long-denied benefits for transit workers but broke President Johnson's national wage freeze and led the way for other unions to fight back. I said that all the Democrat, Liberal and Republican politicians (who supported the Vietnam War-related wage freeze) turned their backs on our union's needs. But we stayed united and won our demands because we showed the bosses who really produces all the profits and runs the City. Then the City bosses demanded huge fines against our union for breaking the no-strike law. We said we would only return to work if the bosses legislated an exemption for us from the no-strike law. The bosses' politicians all screamed that we had a gun to their heads. We said, "That's right; the gun of organized labor."

So, by staying united and facing jail we won our strike, encouraged other unions to fight back and, most importantly, demonstrated how to win labor legislation without turning our backs on the rest of the working class. I also said that racism, like that exhibited in the Green-Ferer Democratic primary, has always hurt labor while anti-racist struggles like supporting Abner Louima and civil rights have united labor.

Listening to some of today's most influential labor "leaders," I couldn't help feeling they sounded like wage-slavers who are selling off our lives to the highest bidder. Most of labor's gains have been won through mass struggles. But by themselves, they haven't provided justice for workers because we haven't made the real fight, the one against the bosses' "right" to exploit us and use the profits from our labor to build their state power (cops, courts, military) to suppress our needs.

I feel fortunate that workers have a communist party like the PLP to give us political insight and a newspaper like CHALLENGE to get our messages to the working class.

Retired Transit Worker

No Honesty
Among Fascists

A letter (CHALLENGE, 3/27) titled, "What Next? Sainthood for Hitler?" concerning anti-Semitic fascist evangelist Billy Graham, included a line: "Supposedly Graham was more ecumenical than gutter fascists like...Jimmy (I love prostitutes) Swaggart."

A recent funny yet pointed book called The Bush Dyslexicon correctly says it's not a good idea to take George Bush's stupidity as a weakness, since he seems shrewd enough to be getting every fascist policy quickly O.K.'ed by all the Democratic "opposition."

Author Mark Crispin has an interesting insight into the Swaggart story. (Jimmy Swaggart, if you don't recall, suddenly appeared in front of his deceived congregation and cried about how sorry he was for his weaknesses, which turned out to be his going to motels with prostitutes.)

Crispin writes that this latest George Bush "persuaded Dad [George H.W. Bush] to go along with the strategic smear of Jimmy Swaggart just two weeks before the South Carolina primary [in 1988], where Swaggart's man Pat Robertson was threatening Bush's chances; and so Bush/Atwater leaked word of Swaggart's motel assignations to the local press -- a covert op that saved the state for Bush, Sr." Showing, of course, that fascists can't even trust each other.

Interestingly, Crispin goes on to say, "And, crucially, it was W. [the current meathead in the White House] who ensured that the notorious -- and effective -- Willie Horton ads could be blamed plausibly on mavericks unaffiliated with the Bush campaign." These were the infamous racist ads that Bush, Sr. used to win his election over Mike Dukakis.

Lefty

 

a href="#Editorial: From the Middle East to Afghanistan, Workers Must Organize Against Rulers’ Oil Wars">"ditorial: From the Middle East to Afghanistan, Workers Must Organize Against Rulers’ Oil Wars

• People, Not Technology, Determine the Outcome of Warfare

Pentagon Targets the Whole World with Nuclear Weapons

All Not Going Well for U.S. Hi Tech War

• With Afghan "allies" retreating, 1,000 U.S. troops were deployed,

Machinists Strike Lockheed War Plant

Queens NY Bus Drivers Must Rely on Workers, Not on Politicians

a href="#Colombia: Don’t Let Union Hacks Do Bavaria Bosses’ Dirty Work">Co"ombia: Don’t Let Union Hacks Do Bavaria Bosses’ Dirty Work

a href="#The Gestapo Would Have Been Jealous…">"he Gestapo Would Have Been Jealous…

a href="#Bush Expands Clinton’s Slave Labor Workfare Program">"ush Expands Clinton’s Slave Labor Workfare Program

a href="#Judge O.K. Cops’ Torture of Black Workers">"udge O.K. Cops’ Torture of Black Workers

Billions for War, Nothing for Steelworkers

Labor Hacks’ Role in Developing Fascism

Anti-War Conference Avoids Real Cause of War

In Memoriam: Comrade Philip Williams

LETTERS
Workers of the World, Write!

Night School Students Lead the Way for Struggle

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a href="#Guess Who’s Using Bio-Tech Warfare? The U.S.">"uess Who’s Using Bio-Tech Warfare? The U.S.

Lessons Learned Trying to Build the Party

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a name="Editorial: From the Middle East to Afghanistan, Workers Must Organize Against Rulers’ Oil Wars">">"ditorial: From the Middle East to Afghanistan, Workers Must Organize Against Rulers’ Oil Wars

GENERAL, YOUR TANK IS A POWERFUL VEHICLE
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.

General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an
elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.

General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.

—Bertolt Brecht, German Communist Poet

U.S. rulers’ failure so far to stop the escalating violence in the Middle East has become a serious threat to their plans for a broadened oil war in the Persian Gulf. The imperialists took a big gamble by launching their Afghanistan adventure amid sharpened Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The Bush White House bet that young Arab workers’ hatred of Israeli fascism wouldn’t turn into mass uprisings throughout the Arab world directly confronting U.S. interests. With each passing day, that bet is beginning to look like a loser.

When the rulers used 9/11 as an excuse to launch the first round of their new oil war in Afghanistan, they figured their main military problems would be the Taliban and, eventually, the potential willingness of the Iraqi army to put up a better fight than it had in Bush Sr.’s 1991 Desert Storm. They miscalculated the potentially explosive political effect of combining the U.S. military’s slaughter of Muslim civilians in Afghanistan with Israeli military butchery of Palestinian workers, men, women, and children.

Thomas Friedman, the liberal New York Times’ main foreign policy analyst, understands this threat to the big bosses’ most vital interests: "…the most heated anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiments that I’ve ever felt [are] dangerous. The notion is taking hold that with a combination of…a baby boom and terrorism, the Arabs can actually destroy Israel. Some…even fantasize that they can undermine America." (Times, 3/10)

This was precisely the bin Laden-al Qaeda strategy: organize acts of terrorist provocation that would force the U.S. and Israeli bosses into retaliating with military atrocities that would in turn stimulate anti-U.S. rebellion throughout Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia.

Such rebellion is far from unthinkable. It could help precipitate the fall of the present pro-U.S. Saudi regime and its replacement by a gang of rulers who would try to kick out U.S. oil companies. This is bin Laden & Co.’s primary goal.

The forces loyal to bin Laden represent a significant wing of Saudi capitalists, who want to capture the lion’s share of oil wealth for themselves. These bosses use religion and nationalism to fan the anti-U.S., anti-Israel hatred of millions of oppressed Arab and Muslim workers. They are allied with local capitalists with comparable aspirations in every country where the U.S. has extended its "war against terrorism" — Indonesia, the Philippines, Georgia, etc. But the eye of the storm remains the Middle East and Persian Gulf.

One nightmare scenario for U.S. imperialists would be a mass-based alliance against them among the bin Laden-supported Saudi bosses, the Egyptian ruling class and Iraqi rulers. Other combinations are possible. The Syrians and/or Iranians could get into the act as well, together or separately. We can’t predict whether or how such events might materialize. But the longer the fighting continues in the Middle East and the more widespread it becomes, the more such liabilities increase for U.S. imperialism.

Furthermore, U.S. rulers are playing a very dangerous game in Iraq. They all agree that the Saddam Hussein regime must be replaced with a pro-U.S. puppet government. But getting the job done won’t be a pushover. Some "experts" in the Bush camp (led by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz) push for immediate action, believing that any show of force by a small U.S. contingent would "immediately trigger a revolt against Saddam within Iraq, and that it would quickly expand." (Seymour Hersh, "The Debate Within," New Yorker, 3/11) Liberals in the State Department and the military, led by Colin Powell, know this is a pipe-dream. Hersh quotes a top retired officer who contemptuously dismisses the Perle-Wolfowitz scenario and warns of the potential for mass revolt: "We’ve got a bunch of people who think it’s going to be easy. We’re set up for a big surprise." Another former U.S. ambassador to the Middle East told Hersh: "If we have to have three months of bombing, with civilian casualties, we’ll have real problems with the Arab world."

The liberals know that any serious effort to dislodge Saddam Hussein would need between 200,000 and 300,000 troops, plus supporting units and 700 to 1,000 aircraft, as well as one to five carrier battle groups (Hersh). And that’s just for Iraq alone. The military intervention required to stem uprisings in, say, Saudi Arabia — particularly if they were supported materially by al Qaeda-type troops from other countries — could rapidly produce a scenario that might dwarf even the immense, long, and bloody U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

People, Not Technology, Determine the Outcome of Warfare

Perhaps this scenario won’t unfold at all. Perhaps it will, but not for a long time. Yet it cannot be excluded as a possibility. That alone should give workers reason to think about what our class should fight for during these bosses’ oil wars. We can draw three important lessons from these rapidly sharpening contradictions:

First, imperialism always leads to war, because it is a system based on the ruthless scramble for maximum profit. Competition among bosses inevitably ends with armed struggle. They cannot resolve such major differences by any other method.

Second, despite appearances, the best-equipped, most technologically advanced army doesn’t necessarily always win. People, not technology, decide the outcome of warfare. As the Vietnam War glaringly proved, armies win or lose based on the political and ideological commitment of their troops and the populations involved. The present battles in Afghanistan and the Middle East confirm this. The religiously and nationalistically motivated forces opposing U.S. and Israeli imperialism are putting up an impressive fight despite the enormous disparity in hardware. And the fight has just begun.

Bad ideas can inspire people to act heroically. This is the case in the Middle East and on the other fronts of the present war. The German fascist army fought to the bitter end against the Soviet Red Army. Workers and youth armed with little more than rifles and stones are giving the U.S. and Israeli military machines a run for their money. But religion and nationalism are deadly, self-defeating traps. Even if al Qaeda’s forces win, Arab and Muslim workers would continue to suffer the horrors of life under capitalism. Changing from one capitalist oppressor to another won’t help. Military heroism isn’t sufficient by itself. It must be wedded to the goal of communist revolution. No other political ideology will serve the needs of the international working class.

In the past, workers have fought gallantly for aspects of communism, against terrible odds. They will do so again and can avoid the mistakes that finished off the old communist movement. The job is hard and long — but the goal can be achieved. Learning to achieve it is our Party’s mission and commitment. A successful May Day 2002 will serve as an important positive step in this vital process.

Pentagon Targets the Whole World with Nuclear Weapons

The Bush Administration’s "new" nuclear proposals would nuke anyone who they decide is their enemy. Previously they alleged they would use nuclear bombs only against a country that used them against the U.S. (Of course, that didn’t include Japan, where they slaughtered 250,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — equal to the deaths of 80 World Trade Centers — when Japan was about to surrender.) They allegedly opposed proliferation of atomic weapons, as long as they could maintain their own stockpile.

Initially "only" Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Libya are targeted. Then it was extended to include "potential adversaries," Russia and China. But it doesn’t end there. They finally say that the U.S. must be prepared for any contingency. "Contingencies can be categorized as immediate, potential or unexpected." "Unexpected" covers the whole world!

This latest pronouncement has liberals and their leading mouthpiece, The New York Times, furious. The Times (editorial, 3/12) said such a policy would make the U.S. "a rogue state," breaking nuclear treaties (non-proliferation and test-bans), excluding "allies," and ignoring the uproar such a policy would provoke internationally, especially in the Muslim world. These liberals, and the main wing of the ruling class they represent, see the Wolfowitz/Perle group putting this forward as blowing the U.S.’s cover in its drive for world domination. These are the same forces who think they can go it alone in seizing Iraq using hi-tech weapons and very few U.S. troops. (See adjoining editorial.) The liberals don’t oppose U.S. nuclear supremacy or nuclear blackmail but maintain it must be employed without, if possible, provoking more problems than U.S. rulers can handle.

The proposed policy coincides with the intention to conduct a "war on terrorism" in 40 countries for 50 years or as long as it takes. The USA Patriot Law is the fascist corollary of this imperialist policy — to squash any rising domestic resistance to this mass murder of the international working class.

This intention to prepare to pulverize any opponent of U.S. imperialism demonstrates the futility of "persuading" the rulers to agree not to use nuclear bombs. For years groups like SANE campaigned for a ban on testing atomic weapons. The "test-ban" treaty was hailed as the answer to nuclear war. Now the desperate U.S. ruling class has shown how much such treaties among imperialists are worth. Imperialism means war. It always has and always will.

The rulers would have us believe that atomic war means "the end of the world." They figure that threat can scare anyone opposed to them to knuckle under to their demands. But remember, World War I produced the Russian Revolution. World War II brought the Chinese Revolution. Nuclear blackmail is just as likely to lead to the beginning of the end for world imperialism.

Yes, the world’s bosses can very well kill millions, even hundreds of millions of workers (nearly 200 million in 20th century wars alone). U.S. bosses have been the vanguard killer for two centuries, from Native Americans to enslavement of black people to Hiroshima to Vietnam to Afghanistan. But they cannot kill the international working class, nor the ideas of communism that will lead our class to turn their imperialist atomic blackmail into class war for workers power, no matter how long it takes or what the obstacles. All the more reason to build for May Day and build a communist movement to lead the working class to crush these mass murders and their capitalist system.

All Not Going Well for U.S. Hi Tech War

The U.S. military is touting its latest battle with Taliban forces in Afghanistan’s Paktia province as a huge victory and has announced withdrawal of its attacking soldiers. However, as is true with much of the Pentagon’s "disinformation" campaign, there is appearance and essence.

A March 8 analysis from the Stratfor.com intelligence newsletter summarizes Operation Anaconda as "a new phase" of the U.S. intervention, showing that, "The U.S. has yet to find an effective response on the ground to guerrilla warfare. Dominant air power…might not be enough to win the war." Its analysis reveals that "only a few dozen militants have been killed…and U.S. losses have been significantly higher than the eight dead and 40 wounded officials have acknowledged."

"Stratfor says this battle "signals the beginning of a protracted guerrilla war that will allow Afghanistan to continue to serve as sanctuary for al Qaeda."

The U.S. found that, "Enemy forces in the area were actually much larger" than they estimated….Most…were Taliban forces….fighters… with several years of guerrilla experience and intimate familiarity with the region, [that] launched surprise attacks….The first [was an] ambush of about 100 U.S. troops" and another one that killed six U.S. soldiers.

With Afghan "allies" retreating, 1,000 U.S. troops were deployed,

"But this option has not worked well:…ground forces have come under heavy fire and suffered losses and helicopters also proved vulnerable." That’s when they began using high-altitude B-52 bombers to escape the Taliban’s small arms fire.

The Taliban is using "a classic guerrilla tactic: Dozens of militants draw the attention of U.S. units while guerrilla groups in the rear of the attackers stage hit-and-run operations….Taliban forces have…outwitt[ed] allied forces [before]," abandoning Afghanistan’s cities with almost no losses only to regroup in the countryside and prepare for future battles. These weathered warriors are too skillful to simply lie still and wait for U.S. air power to destroy their main forces."

Last year the U.S. claimed "hundreds of enemies were killed during the bombing of Tora Bora…but fewer than 10 prisoners were taken and few corpses were found."

In their quest to control the oil routes from Central Asia, U.S. imperialism has allied itself with dope-smuggling warlords and massacred thousands of innocent civilians. This has turned the masses against the U.S. and its puppets, the same masses they claimed to have come to save from the Taliban. Again, this proves the old adage that "it’s easy to start an imperialist war but not so easy to know how it will end." (See front-editorial for analysis of how U.S. oil wars aren’t going according to plan).

Machinists Strike Lockheed War Plant

MARIETTA, GA, March 12 — "I can stay out the rest of the year if I have to," said Sid Parker, 57, an F-22 jet technician who began working at Lockheed in 1963. "Four weeks or four months don’t matter to me."

Lockheed Martin workers, members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local 709, rejected the company’s contract offer by nearly 4-1 March 10, sparking the first strike at the plant in 25 years. Lockheed is the world’s largest war contractor, building the F-22 fighter jet and the C-130 transport plane. They recently won the largest war contract in history, $200 billion to build F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. Workers at two California Lockheed plants ratified new contracts.

Lockheed said it would "implement contingency plans to support our business commitments," and called the rejected contract their "best and final offer." The strike involves about 2,700 of the plant’s 7,000 workers, the rest being white-collar workers.

Objectively, a strike against a major war-maker, in time of war, in a period of rising unemployment, after decades of consolidations and concessions, has immense potential for showing international solidarity and building class-consciousness. But the cynical, patriotic union leaders are fighting for the outlook that war is good business for aerospace workers. They have led workers to give concessions in the past, to save Lockheed. Now they want to share some of the billion-dollar contracts being signed.

Lockheed’s Marietta IAM workforce is 53.5 years old on average, with 21 years at the plant. They have valuable skills, and many jobs require special security clearances. Most workers are near the top of their pay scales, making the plant’s operating costs relatively high.

The main strike issues are job security, pensions and retirement benefits. "Each year, they want to take away, take away and take away," said Mike Turner, an aircraft mechanic on the C-130J, F-10 and F-22 fighter jets. "It’s all about take-aways." He has kids and aging parents to look after, and his wife was recently diagnosed with cancer.

Sharon and her husband Bob have 37 years at Lockheed Martin between them. Sharon has been laid off nine times in her 16 years there. Every time, she’s had to dip into her savings to meet family expenses."I’m sitting up on a bubble right now," she said."Bob planned to retire this year, but can’t afford to now."

This strike shows the hypocrisy of the bosses’ war cry, "United We Stand." Between bosses and workers, there is no "we." The fact is, without these workers, U.S. imperialism would not have the weapons to make war. With all the touting of high-tech, the support — or at least the passivity — of industrial workers is crucial to the existence of capitalism. All the more reason to win these workers to rebel on behalf of their international class interests.

The strikers must reject the union leaders’ outlook of "sharing" in the billion dollar war contracts. We have a larger obligation to strike against the bosses’ wars and to build international solidarity. Communist leadership among the workers is needed to make this a reality.

Queens NY Bus Drivers Must Rely on Workers, Not on Politicians

QUEENS, NEW YORK, March 1 — Here in the land of "ground zero," the class struggle is raging. About 1,400 drivers and mechanics struck three privately owned commuter bus lines here as part of a series of two-day walkouts for a new contract. The bosses’ war hype of "United We Stand," doesn’t include these drivers and mechanics.

The "reform" leadership of Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 is trying to "force local politicians to take a stand." (NY Daily News, 2/28). The newly elected "militant" president Toussaint told the 1,400 workers that a "long strike" would turn the "public" against them.

The latest action followed a one-day strike on January 7. One driver challenged Toussaint by saying, "Now that we’re out [this time], we should stay out till we get what we want." (News)

He was told to "have patience," but the driver shot back, "Patient? I’ve been working for this company for 15 months and we haven’t got a contract since I got here."

The city and state subsidize these private bus lines with workers’ tax money. Former-mayor Giuliani proposed competitive bidding for current and future private bus routes (rubber-stamped by current mayor Bloomberg), as a direct attack on the 32,000 Local 100 members who work for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). This gives private bus operators the incentive to offer low bids with the expectation of hiring non-union, low-wage drivers (they pay $2.50 an hour less in wages than MTA, not counting benefits). The word is out that the workers’ main concern is job security, and all TWU jobs are at stake.

But the "militant reform" New Directions leadership is not organizing support among the MTA transit workers. In Dec. 1999, Giuliani threatened MTA workers with jail and fines, while his cops chased them off street corners to prevent them from even talking about a strike. As long as the "public" and "private" transit workers fight separately, they will drag each other down, forced to accept cuts to keep their respective bosses "competitive."

The rulers are spending over $400 billion at home and abroad for the "War on Terrorism," a war supported by most union hacks, including the TWU International leadership. The bosses want the working class to pay for their wars, plus carry them through this latest recession, a permanent feature of capitalism. All this helps create budget "deficits" running into the billions. So "everyone" must tighten their belts — except the profiteering bosses.

The first payoff made from the city treasury (out of workers’ taxes) is the $4 billion given to the Wall Street bankers as their profit from interest on loans to the city (no wonder there’s a "deficit"). Mass transit is a vital social service, bringing millions of workers to their jobs daily and to shop in the big department stores. Furthermore, the buses and subways raise the value of real estate because of its access to mass transit. This enables the bosses and the landlords to reap huge profits. Why shouldn’t they pay for a decent contract? Why should profits be made on the backs of transit workers, without whose labor the city, business and the banks couldn’t function?

The millions of workers who use mass transit can be won to support the drivers in an all-out strike against the bankers and bosses. The question is, will the union rely on these millions of workers or on bosses’ politicians? Will they take aim at all mass transit or play by the bosses’ rules of "public" and "private?"

This struggle can show how capitalism functions solely to make profits for bosses. As the struggle sharpens, more and more workers will see that the pro-war patriotic and "united-we-stand" propaganda pushed by the bosses and their media don’t apply to workers fighting for their class interests. The ideas of PLP will then be grasped by blocs of workers who will see that a new society is possible where transit workers and those they serve function together for the greater good of the entire working class. That’s communism.

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COLOMBIA, March 4 — Last year, the 72-day strike by Bavarian brewery workers shook the powerful Santodomingo capitalist group, Colombia’s leading monopoly and its first real multi-national corporation. The striking workers were united, militant and class conscious, and supported by many other workers and their families. They not only confronted the company but also the state repression by the bosses’ henchmen, the cops. This was particularly heroic in a country where paramilitary death squads kill militant trade unionists by the thousands. So why do these same workers feel so demoralized a year later?

Besides the company’s post-strike attacks lies the role of the Bavarian workers’ union leadership. They’ve done little to fight the many bosses’ attacks, which include disciplining workers for "infractions" like talking on the job. Aiming to slash the workforce and avoid another strike, the bosses want to divide workers and attack us group by group.

Instead of building on the militancy, unity and consciousness developed during the strike, the union hacks spread passivity, relying on the bosses’ laws to "answer" these attacks (as if these laws didn’t serve the company). They are also pushing the upcoming national elections as another "solution." But the recent attacks by the Colombian army against the guerrilla-controlled region of Caguán, backed by U.S. military aid, advisers and intelligence, expose these elections as a dead-end for workers.

The union has demoralized workers. Some have accepted the company’s "early retirement" plan and joined the ranks of Colombia’s 10 million unemployed. Others have left the union altogether. But abandoning the struggle is not the answer.

The solution is to intensify the ideological struggle with our fellow workers, and confront the bosses and the treacherous union hacks. We must trace these attacks back to the capitalist system’s drive for maximum profits. The strike’s most militant workers must be reactivated to re-join the fight. These militant workers can provide leadership for the rest of the Bavarian workers.

PLP calls on these workers to learn from both the victories and setbacks of this struggle. Capitalism will never satisfy the needs of the working class. The only answer is to build a Party that fights for communism, where production satisfies the needs of our class, not the bosses’ profits.

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In Nazi Germany, the Gestapo relied on a vast network of informers whose job was to rat on suspected enemies of the Reich. The U.S. Patriot Act — a joint Republican-Democrat effort — has given birth to a Gestapo clone called TIPS (Terrorism Information Prevention System). Under TIPS, run by the Justice Department, people in jobs that allow them easy access to homes, businesses and mass transit, will be recruited to spy on terrorists. Mail and package deliverers will be among the potential spies.

A pilot program is planned for August in ten cities with a population of 24 million. In its first phase, the goal is to recruit one million stoolpigeons, or 4% of that 24 million.

Reports from this nest of spies will be entered into a police database. The spied-on person might never know he/she is being watched. Already the Patriot Act allows for installing listening and other devices in someone’s house without much evidence of the person being a "terrorist." This is a more vast and fascistic version of the FBI’s old Cointelpro program, which spied on, and kept secret files of, millions involved in the anti-war and anti-racist civil rights movement of the 1960s-’70s.

TIPS will be coordinated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), created under Reagan to carry out a mass invasion of Nicaragua in the 1980s when the Sandinistas ran that country. FEMA had the cover of coordinating actions taken during natural disasters, but it also has the same responsibilities during rebellions and "terrorist acts." It now has an additional job of confining in concentration camps anyone considered to be a "danger to national security."

Just like FEMA, Bush’s recently announced Shadow Government was a creature of the Reagan administration. It will have powers to suspend the Constitution, declare martial law and give the President and FEMA control of the country, by-passing Congress.

These fascist spy programs are aimed at the entire working class. If workers in any industry, for instance auto or steel, struck "against the national interest," these fascist measures could be used to stop, jail and even kill them.

But Hitler’s Nazi regime and its murderous concentration camps, spy agencies, torture chambers and invasions ended 988 years short of its planned 1,000-year reign, mainly by the Red Army and the communist-led resistance movement. Our job today is to learn from the heroic feats of these ant-fascist fighters, as well as their mistakes, and build a massive communist-led movement to make sure the U.S. bosses’ plan for a new fascist Reich will meet a similar fate.

Workers and youth should well remember the famous statement by the German pastor, Rev. Martin Niemoller in 1945: "First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak."

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NEWARK, NJ, March 8 — More slave labor. That’s the sum total of the Bush administration’s recent welfare "reform" proposals that build on the 1996 Clinton law which Bush lauded as "a good start."

Clinton’s fascist law forced all adult recipients who were not disabled and could not find jobs to "work off" their welfare benefits and food stamps in the dead-end of Workfare. This worked out to a "wage" that could go as low as $1.66 an hour (CHALLENGE, 1/16/02), with no right to join a union. This is truly slave labor. At its peak in New York City under former mayor Giuliani, Workfare slave laborers in transit, sanitation and other city agencies reached 40,000.

Now Bush and his bosses want to force all people on Workfare to work 40 hours per week instead of the previous 30, for the same benefits pushing the hourly "wage" even lower. It would also require all states to force 70% of all recipients into jobs or "work activities" by 2007. (Previously states could reduce the number of Workfare equal to the number of recipients dropped from the rolls.) And any recession at that time would make life even more repressive for the jobless.

Rep. Cardin of Maryland told the New York Times (2/27) that this would force states "to put people in unpaid Workfare positions…rather than providing the skills necessary for a person to be successful in a wage-earning job." Still more slave labor.

Workfare, like prison labor, is part of the ruling classes’ worldwide drive to lower wages and bust unions. Capitalism’s iron law drives each boss to strive for maximum profits or lose out to the competition. New Jersey has contrived the latest twist to this low-wage drive. When welfare recipients call a toll-free number to report problems with their benefit cards, the phone is answered not by workers in Green Bay, Wisconsin who formerly performed this work for $12/hr. but by workers in Bombay, India, earning $3 an hour!

So far, Workfare can only be used by non-profit or government agencies. But as U.S. wars for oil expand beyond Afghanistan, don’t be surprised if bosses here begin using slave laborers in war production (a la Nazi Germany), or in "homeland defense" jobs.

The law keeps the racist, anti-immigrant restrictions on benefits. Bush also attacked unemployed fathers, implying they’re all irresponsible and don’t care about their kids. In reality it’s the bosses and their White House servants who are attacking children. The vast majority of those affected by these new laws are children. And they follow a 60% cut of those receiving welfare benefits, with additional cuts coming when recipients reach their cut-off dates, attacking still more children. Whether it’s sanctions and bombings killing working people in Iraq and Afghanistan or welfare cutbacks here, U.S. bosses are responsible for genocide.

Under communism, there would be no unemployment, and therefore no need for welfare. Decent lives for working people, especially children, would be the number one priority.

We must fight these attacks started by Clinton and expanded by Bush. Welfare Repeal is all part of the rulers’ fascist drive, which includes mass round-ups of Muslim and Arab immigrants and the legalization of police torture and terror, all to control any working-class resistance to the expanding imperialist oil wars.

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BROOKLYN, NY March 9 — PLP members rallied today against the February 23 Federal court decision to throw out the convictions of three cops involved in the torture of Abner Louima. The workers and youth in the mostly black working-class neighborhood of Flatbush are very angry with the bosses freeing these racist, sadistic torturers. We distributed over 2,500 communist leaflets and sold many CHALLENGES.

The rulers are throwing another bone to the racist cops, telling them it’s O.K. to be Nazi storm troopers. For those workers and youth who believe the bosses and their media propaganda that "United We Stand," this should remind us once again: cops are not our "heroes."

Meanwhile opportunists like Democratic Party hack Al Sharpton can only "demand" that the freed cops are not reinstated into the NYPD and that they should be tried again. Sharpton, who supports Bush’s "war on terrorism," doesn’t want to rock the boat with the mass demonstrations of the Giuliani era. Such actions like those protesting the NYPD torture of Louima and murders of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond, shot in cold blood, are not now on the agenda of black politicians. One way or another, they’re all helping the bosses’ war plans.

Workers and students should never forget that the cops are the front-line killers for the ruling class. The cops’ main role during this period of war and fascism is to quell dissention and instill fear in the working class such as their refusal to tolerate any kind of militant demonstrations at the World Economic Forum. Given all this, we must organize our fellow students and workers to continue to fight for our class against these cops.

Billions for War, Nothing for Steelworkers

EAST CHICAGO, IN — "That’s right! They come up with billions of dollars for their wars," declared an LTV worker, "but they don’t want to give up anything for us!" He was among 30,000 steelworkers who traveled from Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C., February 28, to fight for their jobs, pensions and health care.

But union leaders had no intention of fighting for these displaced workers. Instead they organized a pro-war rally and demanded 40% tariffs on imported steel. The depths to which the union bosses have sunk were revealed in their ban on signs attacking Bush. It was to be all USA, all red-white-and-blue.

Steel War

The rally opened with chants of "USA! USA!" Tom Usher, U.S. Steel’s CEO, gave the opening speech and called himself an American steelworker. Nobody mentioned that this flag-waving hypocrite bought a plant in Slovakia where the workers are paid $2 an hour. USWA President Leo Gerard called on the government to save the steel bosses so U.S. rulers can wage war on workers around the world. Gerard and all his "personal friends" from Congress rattled on about 40% tariffs. All this patriotic hogwash left no room for organizing workers to fight back.

On March 6, Bush imposed tariffs as high as 30% on most steel imports from Asia and Europe. The Wall Street Journal (3/7) called this, "perhaps the most dramatically protectionist step of any president in decades." The WSJ didn’t mention that the U.S. ruling class needs a minimum steel industry to guarantee steel for war production.

The European Union could retaliate by imposing sanctions on U.S. exports. It’s early yet, but a steel war could be the start of the slippery slope towards a full-scale trade war and ultimately a shooting war. In 1930, the notorious U.S. Smoot-Hawley tariff Act spawned a round of retaliations from other nations that collapsed the level of world trade to a fraction of what it had been in the late 1920s. This contributed to the Great Depression and the start of World War II.

Protesting steelworkers were told to unite with the steel bosses against foreign steel and support the U.S. bosses’ "war on terror." In short, unite with anybody BUT other workers. This nationalist poison will only isolate U.S. steelworkers and lead to support for imperialist wars against workers everywhere.

Workers want more. Many are open to the PLP. Hundreds took our leaflet that said, "Billions for War—Nothing for Steelworkers." With better planning we could have distributed thousands, and many CHALLENGES. Also, we should have made a banner with the leaflet’s slogan, as we had planned. One Party friend saw the leaflet and said, "Damn, that would have made a great banner!"

New bosses are going to reopen the shattered hulk of what was LTV. They are just front men for the bankers who ran LTV, and who collected their "secured debts" while we lost pensions and health care. They will cut jobs and benefits, and may try to keep out older workers, "troublemakers" or those with health problems.

We are fed up with the bosses walking away with million-dollar bonuses, while retired steelworkers die because they can’t get health insurance. We are tired of fighting to keep the crumbs we had already won.

The oil war in Afghanistan is spreading, along with more fascist attacks against the working class. The steel bosses and politicians cannot wage war without the support of industrial workers. Steel production to serve the international working class will be at the center of a communist world. Participating on May Day, and building an international PLP, is the order of the day.

Same Enemy-Same Fight!

World steel production has taken a dramatic nose-dive. World steel capacity is around one billion tons per year, but final steel production for 2001 was around 830 million tons. On Dec. 19, officials from the world’s biggest steel producers met in Paris to discuss how to cut capacity and raise prices.

US steel production is down and about 30 steel companies have declared bankruptcy since 1998. U.S. Steel is considering buying several ailing competitors, including Bethlehem, Wheeling-Pittsburgh and National Steel, but wants a government bailout of $13 billion to cover legacy costs for pensions and health care.

The merger of NKK and Kawasaki Steel, Japan’s second and third biggest producers, will form the world’s second biggest steel company. In February, a merger of Arbed, Usinor of France and Aceralia of Spain formed Luxembourg-based Arcelor, with capacity exceeding 45 million tons.

Corus (the merger of the British Steel Corporation and Dutch steel maker Hoogovens) recently announced a year-long pay freeze for steelworkers because the company is losing $1.6 million a day. This follows the announcement of plant closings and 6,000 job cuts by next year.

Steelworkers around the world have the same enemy, and the same fight! Nationalism can only serve the bosses. International solidarity and strikes are what steelworkers need. A measure of our success will be winning steelworkers to join us on May Day!

Labor Hacks’ Role in Developing Fascism

The development of fascism in the U.S. did not start with the fascistic Patriot Act imposed after 9/11. The FBI’s mass spying on individuals began during the Democratic Roosevelt Administration under J. Edgar Hoover who invigorated it with the Cointelpro program during the Vietnam War and civil rights struggle. Since the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, preparations for fascism accelerated. Then came the total collapse of the labor movement in every major struggle by workers against the bosses’ attacks. These included:

• In August 1973, the UAW organized 1,000 union goons, including Klansmen, to crush the Mack Avenue sit-down strike, the first in auto since the 1930s. Led by Workers’ Action Movement and PLP, the workers occupied the Chrysler plant to protest unsafe conditions. The hacks not only attacked the demands of the workers, but like low-life scabs, attacked the workers with baseball bats. The UAW leadership smashed the strike after Chrysler and the Detroit police had failed. In 1979, UAW president Fraser (who organized the assault to take back Mack Ave. for the bosses), was added to Chrysler’s Board of Directors in exchange for massive concessions in wages and benefits, and over 500,000 jobs to Chrysler, Ford, and GM.

• When Reagan smashed the 1981 air controllers’ strike and busted the PATCO union with 10,000 scabs, the AFL-CIO and their Democratic friends did nothing. This set the stage for sellouts of militant strikes at Eastern Airlines, Greyhound, Hormel meatpackers, Caterpillar, among coal miners — the list goes on and on.

• Just as the AFL-CIO leadership, staunch backers of the Democratic Party, supported the U.S. invasion of Vietnam, it has supported every major imperialist adventure since, from Desert Storm, to the 1999 Balkan air war to the current "war against terrorism."

The fascist measures now suffered by many workers and youth under the Patriot Act have long been in the planning stage, as outlined in Clinton’s Hart-Rudman Commission report (exposed in CHALLENGE over the last year). The bosses needed a pretext to impose such draconian domestic measures. They got it on Sept. 11.

Anti-War Conference Avoids Real Cause of War

NEW YORK CITY, Feb. 24 — College students, professors and workers convened at Columbia University for the first national anti-war conference since Bush & Co. began its imperialist invasion last fall. Over 25 colleges and universities as well as various political organizations were represented, including PLP.

Workshops dealt with imperialism, the role of oil and the function of workers in the bosses’ war. At the "New York City Labor Against the War" workshop, a union leader explained how he had been working with other union heads to organize workers against the war.

During the Q&A period one PL member suggested clarifying to the workers that this is an imperialist war about oil. The union leader categorized this as unusable "leftist jargon." Such excuses are part of the reason why workers in general are so passive against the war, mass layoffs, fascist terror, etc. It is clear that this message must by-pass these bosses’ lieutenants and brought directly to the rank and file.

At another workshop, "The Politics of Oil," the group discussed the role of oil in the Middle East. PL members pointed out that the working class will not benefit from the war and that the capitalist group bin Laden represents is mainly fighting to control Saudi Arabia’s oil, something workshop leaders ignored. One member said Clinton’s Hart-Rudman Report had predicted the 9/11 events and outlined the government’s fascist response. Workshop participants asked for further resources on these issues and took CHALLENGES.

In a larger gathering, two proposals on "points of unity" were to be debated (so we thought). A Peace group from Columbia Univ. (heavily influenced by the ISO — International Socialist Organization) put forward one while students from SUNY-Binghamton — including PL’ers — advanced the other. The latter linked the role of U.S. imperialism to the cause of the war; exposed the universities as institutions that support and promote war and fascism; and put forth the crucial idea that control of oil is behind the conflicts in the Middle East.

The ISO and other liberal reformers revealed their true opportunist colors when they said that, although they agreed with the SUNY points, those proposals were "setting the bar too high" for other students and workers to become involved in the anti-war movement. (!) They then railroaded the discussion, using the tactics of structural and procedural questions to monopolize the discussion. Some rank-and-file students who came for the discussion left because it became so convoluted. The liberal points were adopted, sidestepping the views about war, capitalism and exploitation.

The opportunists leading the conference think they’re fighting against the war but by ignoring the relationship of capitalism and imperialism to the war are allying themselves with the Democratic Party liberals who support it.

PLP students and friends will continue to work, and build the Party, in these anti-war conferences. We need to overcome the opportunists like the ISO and their liberal friends who have no confidence that workers can understand that capitalism is the cause of war and fascism. Students need to realize that the only solution is communist revolution.

In Memoriam

CHICAGO, March 11 — Tonight members and friends of PL here bid farewell to one of our best. A memorial service was held for Philip Williams who recently passed away at 52 after a brave and courageous battle with cancer.

Phillip, a Jamaican immigrant, had been a member of our Party for almost 20 years. The many stories told at this service revealed his reputation as a fighter for the working class. PLP says racism must be smashed. Philip put that idea into practice, helping to organize against the Nazis and KKK throughout Chicago and Illinois. As a Chicago Housing Authority painter, he was a leader in fighting for his co-workers. But he also demanded that his fellow workers do a good job painting the apartments for the working-class tenants. Anger at the boss was no excuse for a bad paint job. He loved painting, and brought to it an artistic flair and love of color.

Philip’s comrades and friends related how he always said what was on his mind. If he agreed or disagreed with a political point, you knew it. Many of us can learn from this quality. For communism to work we must have everyone’s open and honest insights and opinions, not gossip behind closed doors.

Testimonies made it clear Philip had genuine love and commitment for his friends family. He went the extra mile to help friends with painting and construction projects. He protected, encouraged and defended his and other children, while helping them meet the challenges of life head on and strive for excellence and independence. And he loved to cook for the many social gatherings given by himself and his wife Kathy.

At home and at work, Philip defended the equality of women, taking the lead in standing up to sexism on the job and participating equally in housework at home. He was a hard worker and deeply thoughtful man, who put the needs of his family and friends before his own.

Philip remained optimistic and positive throughout his illness, never succumbing to fear or despondency. This enabled him to live a full year longer than expected, living fully and happily until the end. Throughout, his great love for his wife deepened. He became an even more affectionate and thoughtful father.

Philip would want us, and especially the youth among us, to live honestly and respectfully, in a way to deserve and command respect; to stand up for our rights; to love and honor people, not money; to be one’s self and do what’s right. And, as he said in his last message to his daughter Kaya, "Have fun."

As a human being and a communist, Philip Williams will continue in our hearts. We shall miss him dearly. He leaves behind a loving family, friends who are honored to have known him and a legacy of multi-racial and international unity.

LETTERS

Workers of the World, Write!

Night School Students Lead the Way for Struggle

I’ve been taking an English class in an adult school for six months and have made some friendships. Among the five closest friends, we’ve had many discussions about how the ruling class uses nationalism to manipulate workers in their wars for control of the wealth. We used the events of September 11 and those following it as an example. I gave them newspaper articles and some liberal magazines that reviewed the problem more profoundly. Later I showed them CHALLENGE. They now read it regularly.

I’ve also made friends with the teacher. She is very open. When she frequently questions the attitude of the police and the kind of people they protect, I then present aspects of communist ideas to the class. Privately, using what English I’ve learned, I have more political discussions with her, from a working-class point of view. She has also started reading CHALLENGE.

One night she said that we need to unite the teachers and the students because the Governor wants to end night English classes in the high schools, transferring them to college campuses, making them inaccessible to most students. This provoked a lively discussion. I proposed formation of a school-wide student committee to fight this. The teacher said, "That’s a very good idea, but the other teachers aren’t discussing this problem." "O.K.," another student said, "but we can talk about it." Everyone got very excited. My closest friends and I spoke in two other classes and then wrote a leaflet informing the students about the problem.

Later the teacher attended a meeting with all the night school English teachers in the County. They discussed the leaflet. It was criticized because no one had taken responsibility for writing it. But now we plan to have our first formal meeting to plan a student committee.

Many of these students work in the garment and other basic industries. We’re linking the problems in the factories to the budget cuts in social services all due to the U.S. bosses’ war economy. These struggles are creating the opportunity to build a base for CHALLENGE, for May Day and for communist revolution.

A worker learning about English and the class struggle

Money for Cover-ups, Not For Schools

Here’s an addition to the excellent articles on the pedophile priests (CHALLENGE, 3/13) and the role of religion. It’s since been revealed that the Catholic Church has paid even more millions to settle suits against pedophile priests, and that the bishop of Palm Beach, Florida who himself replaced another pedophile priest, resigned because he’s a pedophile. Now, this same church that has spent untold millions to cover up the sins of its priests and bishops refused to grant a decent contract to Catholic High School teachers in New York when they struck three months ago. More evidence of the anti-working class nature of the church hierarchy.

A Reader

What Next: Sainthood for Hitler?

What Do Billy Graham and Queen Isabella have in common?

The Nixon tapes keep on exposing this rotten capitalist system. They recently revealed Reverend Billy Graham talking anti-Semitic trash with Nixon. Graham’s attacks on what he labels "the Jew-controlled media" were so blatant that even Tricky Dick himself had to tell him "you can’t say that in public." This is the same Graham who publicly was palsy walsy with Jewish religious leaders.

This also shows that all these religious holly rollers are essentially the same. Supposedly Graham was more ecumenical and respectable than gutter fascists like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or Jimmy (I love prostitutes) Swaggart. Well, what else can you expect from a man who blessed U.S. imperialism’s war against Vietnam.

Another famous racist and anti-Semite now in the news is Queen Isabella "the Catholic" from 16th century Spain. It was under the reign of Isabella and her husband Ferdinand that Jews and Arabs were expelled from Spain and under whom the Inquisition began. Isabella sent Columbus to the New World to begin the colonization and genocide of the Native population, as well as to expand the holocaust-slave trade of Africans begun by the Portuguese colonialists.

But now the push to make Queen Isabella a saint of the Catholic Church has taken a big step forward. This idea started under fascist Franco, but has been dormant since his death in the 1970s. The defenders of sainthood for Isabella claim she expelled the Jews and the Arabs not because of anti-Semitism (since "some members of her court were Jews"), but because they were "foreigners," not citizens of Spain. Her big "achievement"? She united Spain as a Catholic country.

What next, Torquemada the Inquisitor, Hitler, Chester the Molester for sainthood?

Former Catholic, Current Red

Hare Hell for Krishna Kids

The articles in CHALLENGE (3/17) about the pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church were very useful. As one said, abusing children is not unique to the Catholic Church. It’s now well-known that it occurred in the group Beatle George Harrison made famous, the Hare Krishna.

NY Newsday reports (3/3) that, "Thirty-six years after the religious group’s first U.S. temple opened in lower Manhattan, Melody Gedeon and 90 other former Krishna children, including seven in New York State, are suing the organization for what they say were years of physical and mental abuse in the schools known as gurukulas. The suit…seeks $400 million in damages from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or Iskcon, as the movement is known.…In the heyday of the Krishna movement, from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, thousands of followers put their children in gurukulas to indoctrinate them into the faith."

The complaint outlines gruesome acts said to have been carried out by adult devotees, allegedly with the encouragement of movement leaders seeking to crush resistance to their beliefs. The lawsuit originated when ex-pupils began commiserating about their experiences. It charges that children were regularly raped and sexually molested, deprived of food and sleep, forced to eat moldy or insect-ridden food, and made to eat their vomit when they threw up. They were locked in dark, rodent-infested rooms, denied adequate medical care, barred from parental contact and beaten until their bones broke.

"The kids were always being abused. It was hellish," said Uddhava Samanich, a college student in Utopia, Queens. As a child, he spent several months at the upstate Lake Huntington gurukula, where he said brutal beatings — including some with hot carrots — were common for infractions such as talking to children of the opposite sex, missing the pre-dawn wake up calls, or simply skipping stones in a lake.

For Ms. Gedeon, who entered a boarding school at 7, problems began when she was 8 and was molested by a male devotee. "I went to a teacher and told her this guy had put his hand up my sari and into my underwear. She told me it was my fault, that something inside me must have incited him," Gedeon said. When she was 9, Gedeon said church elders said she should prepare for marriage because she was growing breasts. She was never married off, but she said she was raped for the first time at 13 by a 27-year-old married devotee.

"When everyone found out this married man was taking me, they immediately came to me and said ‘How dare you! You broke up their marriage!’" said Gedeon, who now lives in Miami Beach, Fla. "Nobody asked me if I was OK, not even my mother. The brainwashing was so deep, you just didn’t question anything."

Even the pupils who were spared sexual abuse say they lived with day-to-day physical and mental battery that included wake-up calls as early as 2:30 a.m. to recite hours of prayers, rules that banned most music, books, television, newspapers, socializing with other children and brutal beatings for those who violated the codes. Lessons consisted primarily of memorizing Krishna’s teachings. History and geography were virtually ignored, they said.

If there were a hell, these religious child abusers will surely go directly there. As for the parents of the abused children, many of whom sought to escape the anti-war and anti-racist struggles of the ’60s and ’70s with mysticism crap, you shouldn’t have listened to guru Harrison.

A Teo

a name="Guess Who’s Using Bio-Tech Warfare? The U.S.">">"uess Who’s Using Bio-Tech Warfare? The U.S.

When U.S. rulers decided to go to war in Afghanistan, the New York Times carried a front-page interview with a Russian general who had experienced such a war. He said the U.S. could not defeat troops who retreated to caves, unless it used poison gas inside these caves.

Now the U.S. has proudly announced the use of "hyperbaric bombs." This bomb converts the atmosphere of the cave into a mixture of gases which, when breathed, cannot sustain life. In effect, those inside are suffocated.

There is no difference between this weapon and poison gas, except that the U.S. can piously claim it doesn’t use poison gas.

Ancient Red

Lessons Learned Trying to Build the Party

For seven years I’ve tried to advance PLP’s ideas in an old-line right-led organization with several million members here and scores of millions worldwide. With the Party’s help, I’ve learned some lessons and firmed up some views I’d like to share. Criticism, of course, is welcome.

Join or create a sub-structure that can lead and expand class struggle indefinitely. Of course, no bosses’ organization is designed to conduct real class struggle. Our local chapter has long entertained anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-war causes, but has never had a standing "social action" committee. Because of this, the few comrades we’ve recruited there lurch along from issue to issue without me providing an effectively coherent focus. So the chapter leader (who’s aware of my Party activity) and I planned to approach the Board with a proposal to collectively concentrate long-term on our own Congressperson and her staff.

We’re developing "advocates" and "annoyers" who will visit her office regularly on issues that we slowly shape into demands, then follow up when the old Pol fails to "deliver." Of course, meanwhile we’re working to explain to our larger base why she both won’t and can’t deliver quality results for the whole working class. This will much sharply define our theoretical work within the Party club and provide a better way to introduce and evaluate possible new comrades. We can also begin to expose and somewhat limit the maneuverability of one of the rulers’ main agents in the community. (Our chapter leader does not now understand this goal, but I think — with struggle — she will be increasingly open to it.)

Always tie local anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-fascist issues to other somewhat comparable issues that expose U.S. imperialism. Over the thirty years I’ve worked with, and in, the Party we’ve usually tried to sharply link the particular object of struggle to the general picture of developing U.S. imperialism. However, in practice most comrades and myself have usually focused on one primary struggle at a time, while also guaranteeing CHALLENGE distribution for a fuller presentation of our ideas. This will likely continue. But the post 9/11 consciousness of the U.S. as the world power makes it clearer that a link-up of the local-global is essential wherever possible. At every opportunity we’ve related "the dying children of Baghdad, the frightened children of Bethlehem, and the homeless children of our own city."

The Party club will highlight these points in our work with the congressional staff. The chief federal official in our community surely has responsibility to defend or oppose U.S. foreign policy oppression as well as to scrutinize how much federal money the city gets for homeless relief and how it’s used. Hence, it’s easy to link the global with the local in every meeting, and eventually to expose this representative as the bosses’ lackey she is.

If we’re expanding the writing for, and reading of, CHALLENGE within the organization during the "struggle with/struggle against" the politician, recruiting to PLP at higher and higher levels of practice and understanding should become more routine, not just in our local chapter, but more broadly. This process means survival and then victory for our class!

A Comrade

1. `Victory' in Afghanistan Leads to Continuous Oil Wars
2. Laws Favoring Big Oil Sharpen In-fighting Among Saudi Bosses
3. U.S. Afghan Victory Sinking Into Civil War
4. Israeli Rulers Ponder Nazi
   `Final Solution' For Palestine
5. Mexico: Industrial Workers Lead Fight Against Plant Closings, for Jobs
6. Arrogant Bosses' Profit Schemes Are No Accident
   1. The Bosses' Arrogance Knows No Bounds
7. Opposing U.S. Government Attacks on Arab, Moslem Immigrants
8. Garment Bosses Can't Sew Up Capitalist Crisis
9. Remedial Education Cuts
   Attack All Workers
10. Rulers to Pedophile Priests: Make War, Not Sex
11. Memoirs of an Altar Boy
    1. THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT
12. Challenge Goes to the Movies
    John Q Arouses Anger But Covers For the Real Bad Guys
13. 1946 Revolt in Philippines:
    GIs Wanted to Go Home, Not Fight Red-Led Guerrillas
14. U.S. Bosses Want Peace--a Piece of Colombia, a Piece of Venezuela
15. LETTERS
    Workers of the World, Write!
    1. Building PLP
       Step By Step
    2. Africa's AIDS Orphans Is Real Terror
    3. Beware Liberal Reformers Jailing Anti-War Protesters
    4. Salvador Layoffs Expose Wage Slavery

---

`Victory' in Afghanistan Leads to Continuous Oil Wars

If appearances were everything, U.S. rulers would seem to be winning their oil war against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda hands down. The U.S. military suffered very few casualties in routing the Taliban from Afghanistan. U.S. might is virtually unchallenged. U.S. maneuverability outstrips all rivals. The U.S. empire and war machine are the most extensive and strongest in world history. U.S. "defense" spending accounts for 40% of all military expenditures globally. U.S. imperialism enjoys a vast network of military bases, from which it can intervene virtually anywhere at will.

But appearances never tell the whole story. In fact, although the situation remains very complicated, certain developments suggest that U.S. imperialism may not be winning at all strategically in this war against the al Qaeda oil upstarts:

* Despite Bush's arrogant promises to "smoke out the evildoers," bin Laden has managed to stay alive. This is a major embarrassment for the bosses. Even if they succeed in killing him, "[al Qaeda]...can carry on. The head might be cut off, but the body is already too extensive to die with it." (London Financial Times, 2/20) The defeated Taliban may have the potential to regroup and conduct guerrilla war in an Afghanistan that the U.S. hasn't come close to pacifying.

* The al Qaeda strategy depends on provoking the U.S. into a bloody war of retaliation that would lead to massive anti-U.S. uprisings throughout the Muslim world. Al Qaeda's key goal remains driving the U.S. out of Saudi Arabia and ending Exxon Mobil's chokehold on Saudi oil profits. This strategy hasn't succeeded so far. However, it can't yet be called a failure either. Bush & Co.'s murderous actions since September 11 have intensified anti-U.S. hatred throughout Muslim countries. From Indonesia and the Philippines to Saudi Arabia, religious and nationalist resentment against U.S. imperialism is building, particularly among youth.

* The rulers of Saudi Arabia are tilting towards a demand that the U.S. end its military occupation of their country and hand over the key Prince Sultan air base there. Bin Laden represents a faction of Saudi bosses that wants to end U.S. control over Saudi oil wealth. The presence of 5,000 U.S. troops in the nation that has Islam's holiest sites -- helping to keep alive anti-U.S. sentiment -- is a tremendous political liability for the Saudi royal family and an organizing tool for the bin Laden upstarts. U.S. rulers are damned if they do and damned if they don't. They remember how nationalism and religion drove them from Iran in 1979 and understand that a similar uprising in the Saudi oilfields could lead to a defeat of even greater magnitude. Yet U.S. supremacy throughout the Persian Gulf may well depend on keeping its military in Saudi Arabia. According to Anthony Cordesman, a veteran U.S. imperialist policy-maker: ""We need [Prince Sultan Air Base] if we go to war with Iran or Iraq. You don't deter from `over the horizon' the way you can from the ground." (Washington Post, 1/18)

* Saddam Hussein remains a terrible problem for the imperialists, who haven't yet figured out how to get rid of him, much less how to replace him and with whom.

* Every major imperialist power, including a goodly section of British bosses, opposes a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Most of these rulers also have widening differences with the U.S.'s unilateral conduct of the "war against terrorism."

* The Middle East remains a key strategic weak spot for U.S. rulers. Every U.S.-backed "peace" plan since the Carter Administration has boomeranged into a bloody fiasco. For all of its military might, U.S. imperialism can neither quell the latest uprising by Palestinian nationalists nor tone down the brutality of its Israeli junior partners. Continuing U.S. support for Israel "is breeding greater resentment" throughout the Arab world (Financial Times). This resentment can only intensify if the U.S. attacks a major oil-producing country in the Persian Gulf. Here again, the al Qaeda strategy could still triumph. Sustained anti-U.S. uprisings in several major Muslim countries -- for example, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq -- would dwarf the military and political problems U.S. imperialism failed to solve in its Vietnam debacle.

U.S. rulers' technological and military superiority are undeniable, for the time being. But technology and military hardware don't determine the ultimate course of history. History is made by human beings and by their participation in class struggle. Massive battles between U.S. imperialism and its many oil rivals are brewing constantly. This is the long-term political reality behind today's seeming U.S. cakewalks in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Imperialism and the struggle for world supremacy and maximum profit always lead to war. At the moment, events are being determined primarily by inter-imperialist rivalry, rather than class struggle between bosses and communist-led workers.

We're still paying a heavy price for collapse of the old communist movement. The road ahead will be uphill for a long time to come. But our side can win. Keeping the spark of communism alive is the most important job in the world today. Progressive Labor Party has taken on this responsibility. We believe workers everywhere can learn to reject nationalism and religion and to replace them with a revolutionary communist outlook.

Laws Favoring Big Oil Sharpen In-fighting Among Saudi Bosses

Recently-discovered facts confirm that internal squabbles among Saudi rulers over oil are at the core of the 9/11 attacks.

To prop up their sagging economy, the main wing of Saudi bosses decided in 1998 to "globalize" their oil industry by giving non-Saudi companies access to the exploration and development of both existing and new gas and oil. Since 1975, the Saudi oil industry has been nationalized; foreign investors have been allowed to participate only in so-called "downstream" operations, such as refining.

Under a new law, which includes a major tax break, foreign corporations will now have the right to own land, sponsor their own employees and benefit from sweetheart loans previously available only to Saudi companies.

Last May, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell and eight other non-Saudi companies took on a $25 billion natural gas project in Saudi Arabia. The money involved is relatively small, but this deal "is part of a long-term ploy of the oil companies, [which] ultimately want to get access to Saudi crude" (L.A. Times, 5/19/01).

Granting these concessions to foreign oil bosses represents a big gamble for Saudi rulers. The House of Saud had based its security on the ability to create cushy jobs and incomes for the majority of Saudi citizens while relying on very cheap imported slave labor to run the country and its energy industry. However, the declining Saudi economy has upset all this. Unemployment is growing. Gross National Product is plummeting. Disaffection from the ruling clique is spreading, both among the bosses themselves and among the population at large. The bin Laden/al Qaeda phenomenon reflects these developments.

The Saudi rulers are betting that a new dose of foreign investment will prop up their economy and enable them to buy off the growing anger of the population once again. But granting property rights to foreigners and importing a large number of European and U.S. expatriates to live in Saudi Arabia will also create conditions that the bin Laden gang can exploit.

In view of the new Saudi legislation, the 9/11 attacks appear more closely connected than ever to the dogfight over control of Saudi oil riches. The working class should always bear in mind that it has nothing to gain by supporting any faction of capitalists. Our class interest remains in destroying them all.

U.S. Afghan Victory Sinking Into Civil War

Talk about fleeting "victories" -- Afghanistan is again on the verge of a civil war; bin Laden and Mullah Omar have not been found; and the U.S.-imposed government of Hamid Karzai has little support. The recent murder of Civil Aviation-Tourism Minister Abdul Rahman in the Kabul airport, first blamed on Muslim pilgrims headed for Mecca, was actually carried out by other Karzai government ministers. Rahman, linked to the former King (a Nazi supporter) exiled in Rome, was beaten to death when he refused to sign a resignation. He is a Pashtun. His murderers are all from the Tadjik ethnic group. They included, the head of the secret service, a vice-minister of Defense and national security chief General Pankhsiri.

Meanwhile, in the northern cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz, forces of Rashid Dostum, the Uzbekian warlord, have had many armed confrontations with those of Atta Mohammed, a Tadjik warlord. U.S. aircraft bombed the outskirts of Khost, in the South, to squash a conflict among different tribal groups.

Several provinces have governors who are not recognized by President Karzai. Other provinces have self-imposed governors hated by the local population.

Simultaneously, banditry, drug-dealing and warlords seizing young boys as lovers are rampant. Selling Arab prisoners -- not wanted by the U.S. because they're not linked to Al Qaeda -- is becoming a booming business. Ransoms vary, asking up to $50,000 for an imprisoned Saudi Arabian.

"Bordering countries, in spite of their official line," reports the Mexican newspaper La Jorneda (2/22) "have their own plans for the future of Afghanistan, a country crucial to future oil pipelines across the region. These countries are doing everything possible to promote their interests, or at least, to counter arrangements advanced by the U.S. They say they support Karzai, but in deeds...these countries finance and arm their protégés....All this has turned Karzai into a hostage of foreign troops. They are his only supporters. This is a dangerous trap since the bigger the foreign military presence, the bigger the discontent among the local population, who, influenced by the local mullahs, have never accepted domination by `infidels'....

"Meanwhile, what about the Taliban? It's still an enigma why they abandoned the main cities in November. Very few Afghans have surrendered their weapons. Several days ago, former Taliban Interior Minister, mullah Abdul Razzak, spoke from his refuge in the mountains of Spin Boldak: `Soon the people will ask for our return to power. For now, we are following the situation very closely.'"

Israeli Rulers Ponder Nazi
`Final Solution' For Palestine

It seems that none other than Hitler's Nazi Germany is becoming THE model for the ruling class's worldwide "war on terror." First it was Bush's Secy. of War Donald Rumsfeld telling Public Television's Jim Lehrer (Feb. 4) that U.S. could change its military the way "The Germans transformed their armed forces into the Blitzkrieg." (CHALLENGE, 2/27)

Now along come the Israelis using the Nazis as models in dealing with the Palestinian Intifada uprising. Columnist Robert Fisk reports the following in the British Independent (2/24): "An Israeli officer tells his colleagues, according to the Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz, that they must `study how the German Army operated in the Warsaw Ghetto.' Needless to say, the latter report is not published in the U.S." [Until now -- Ed.]

And how did the Nazis "operate" in the left-led Warsaw Ghetto insurrection? By slaughtering the 20,000 to 30,000 still there -- every man, woman and child.

In World War II, the Nazis created their "final solution" for six million Jews -- extermination. Fascism is a product of capitalism. It is a ruling class attack on the working class. While hiding behind religion or nationality, as always class is the determining factor.

Ironically, Israeli rulers may very well be adopting the Nazis' "final solution" for the Palestinians. Another case of Nazis "studying" Nazis....

Mexico: Industrial Workers Lead Fight Against Plant Closings, for Jobs

MEXICO, Feb. 25 -- Ford was wrong. They thought the firing of militant workers would ensure "labor peace." With the support of those still working and of other unions, the Ford workers are fighting for their rehiring. Since early this year, they've continued protests at the plant. Workers circulate leaflets on the assembly lines.

Early this month the Ford workers united with hundreds of tire workers who lost their jobs when the German-owned Continental Tire Co. closed its Euskadi plant, demonstrating along with machete-wielding residents of the town of Atenco. For three months, the latter have resisted eviction from their homes which Mexico's President wants to replace with a new airport. These residents have seized and maintained control of the City Hall and dug ditches and erected barricades throughout the town to fight the evictions.

During the rally, a fired Ford worker explained that Euskadi, Ford and all Mexican bosses, including those behind the evictions, represent the essence of capitalism and imperialism, which bleed the whole working class through poverty, unemployment and wars for profits. Other speakers called for unity of all workers.

The next day community residents carrying their machetes joined the protest of the fired Ford workers at the company offices. The building was painted with slogans demanding the fired workers' rehiring. The terrorized bosses called their cops. Speakers condemned the firings and the factory closings by the profit-hungry bosses.

This was followed on Feb. 6 by a march of over 3,000 protesters through downtown Mexico City to the main plaza in the center of the city, including workers from a dozen unions either on strike or resisting factory closings. "Ford, fascist, imperialist criminal," shouted the workers, with the same chant against Fox and Euskadi. "Luchar, vencer, obreros al poder" ("Fight, win, workers to power") rang throughout the massive rally.

The Euzkadi workers were concluding a five-day, cross-country march from Jalisco, joining together with the Ford, DINA truck manufacturing and National Casting foundry workers. TheNewsMexico.com reported that workers "spoke bitterly of a government that allowed factories to close `without regard for workers.'"

"Today is just the match that lights the fuse," exclaimed a Euskadi trade unionist to the news agency.

Ford is continuing its attacks. They've limited use of water fountains, affecting the workers' health; cut the workers' transportation and are trying to impose 10-hour shifts. Their announcement barring new projects for the factory marks an uncertain future for Ford's workers. "We won't allow the bosses to continue to decide for us," declared a leaflet circulated hand-to-hand along every assembly line. "We'll defend our future and that of our families!"

Ford is submerged in a crisis of overproduction, losing market share and profits. To avoid a debacle, they're closing four plants in the U.S. and one in Canada, laying off 35,000 workers in the next three years, in addition to the thousands let go this year. The war for auto markets is sharpening, causing unemployment for millions. Eventually this war for markets will be transformed into another imperialist war for control of the world. "Workers of the World, Unite!" is a powerful slogan that can put the working class on the offensive. Join the communist PLP to organize an end to this capitalist nightmare.

Arrogant Bosses' Profit Schemes Are No Accident

"How could he be so arrogant?" asked a fellow machinist at a West Coast industrial plant, referring to the speech given by the divisional boss at the funeral of our co-worker killed in a preventable accident last week. "They [the family] asked for close friends and family. He [the boss] didn't even know the guy!"

The big boss was forced to quote from a line boss and regular workers who actually knew the deceased. Sandwiched between company propaganda about customer satisfaction and other lean/team jargon offered by the line boss, was a revealing, heart-felt testimonial from a fellow worker. This co-worker simply remembered our friend as the "salt of the earth."

"Salt Of The Earth" was the title of a famous movie made during the 1950's McCarthy anti-communist witch-hunts. In one scene, after a miner is killed in a preventable accident, the boss tells the rest to get back to work. "Yes," says the union leader, confronting his oppressor, "the job of the company is to get the ore out of the ground. The job of the union is get the miner out of the ground!" The workers struck.

We all agreed the divisional boss would never have relayed these simple words of respect had he been aware of their significance.

The Bosses' Arrogance Knows No Bounds

Our friend was barely laid to rest before the company held mass meetings to harass us about taking too much time on workers' compensation. Quickly following these mandatory meetings, the bosses published their accident investigation, a disgusting cover-up.

At one of these meetings, involving hundreds of workers, a third were shouting back at the boss, another third were snoring and the rest walked out -- not something you see every day at mandatory meetings. The floodgates were opened when one worker asked a seemingly ridiculous question: "Do we have to report leaving work after an accident even if we're unconscious?" You see, the last person any of us had seen unconscious was our recently killed co-worker.

The company's accident report said our friend was a skilled worker. It then dished out some mumbo-jumbo about making sure we're familiar with safety procedures. The bosses say their only responsibility is to certify we know what we're doing.

"It's a whitewash," screamed a Lead worker at the union meeting. "The company says [our friend's] death was his own fault!"

He knew the real story. For three years he had been pressing the company to adequately train us in new job combinations, the company's latest scheme to increase profits. When they combine jobs, we're forced to handle unfamiliar machinery. For years, nothing was done even though the Lead had filed safety incident reports and protests to management and union Business Representatives. Three workers had already died since this latest scheme to increase profits was introduced. Our friend was working on just such a combined task when he was killed.

"Some of these machines can take out a whole building," the Lead warned.

The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall

"I have to wonder why these bosses are so arrogant. They even have the nerve to spout their company propaganda at the funeral. What is going through their minds? Are they just stupid?" asked a friend of the Party.

These bosses are big and powerful. They've been able to get away with this kind of industrial murder for years. Big and powerful leads to arrogance. You can even confuse power with intelligence and righteousness.

"Just look at what the bosses are doing around the world." continued our comrade. "They are prosecuting their imperialist oil war to the far corners of the globe, spreading chaos and death, all the while shouting to the skies how righteous they are."

Yet the fact remains, the bosses kill us by the thousands to secure their profits -- be it in imperialist wars or industrial "accidents." We can and should use their own arrogance to further expose their system.

A few of us met after the funeral. We knew we were facing an uphill battle against an increasingly fascistic system. One worker said it all when he pledged us to the struggle, "We're going to have to be in this for the long haul. No matter what it takes we can no longer let them get away with this -- and we're the ones that have the experience to organize to end it."

Opposing U.S. Government Attacks on Arab, Moslem Immigrants

On the very evening of Sept. 11, many of us in community- and church-based groups began organizing against the racist attacks that were sure to follow against Arabs and Muslims. Forums brought communities together, countering the suspicion and fear long-time neighbors had of each other. Arab, South Asian and Muslim workers lost their jobs because of their national origins. They stayed home, fearing physical attacks on the streets. They were picked up by the FBI and INS (Immigration Service) on the flimsiest of evidence -- or, it seemed, no evidence at all, then held for weeks without their families being informed of their whereabouts or without access to lawyers.

As the magnitude of the government sweeps emerged, demonstrations were held outside detention centers and INS offices. Initially our numbers were small but grew gradually. On Feb. 20, around 800 people participated in a National Day of Solidarity with Arabs, Muslims and South Asians, initiating a multi-racial fight-back. Groups previously separated by religious, language and nationality "differences" are uniting, recognizing our common enemy. Students facing increased tuition fees -- higher for resident immigrants than citizens -- are getting involved.

Right now the focus is on the detainees, probably exceeding 1,200. The demands are mild: to know who and where they are, not to free them. So far, the movement hasn't linked the attacks to the racist nature of capitalism, nor to the growing war and fascism. But it is a beginning and many in the movement are open to our ideas. It's up to us to find them.

Garment Bosses Can't Sew Up Capitalist Crisis

"If next week, your tickets don't add up to the minimum wage, you're fired," shouted a California garment boss to one worker. On returning to her sewing machine, she fainted. Several co-workers ran to help her.

When the boss ran to see about the commotion, another worker lashed out at her: "It's your fault; your greediness has no limit. In 20 years you haven't raised the piecework prices. When the minimum wage goes up we have to work faster for our tickets to add up to the new minimum wage."

"You don't understand," replied the boss, "We're in a crisis. I have no money."

"With the profits from our labor you bought this building," the worker shot back. "It's worth millions. You can sell it and you'll be rich. But what can we sell?"

This attack on workers is a small example of the havoc the worldwide capitalist crisis is wreaking on the working class. Last year a million U.S. workers lost their jobs. This year's forecast is for another 1.6 million layoffs. Thousands of working families, many being evicted in the dead of winter, are joining the ranks of millions of homeless nationally.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government is planning huge cuts in education, health and welfare to pay for the bosses' imperialist oil war in Afghanistan and its expansion elsewhere. In preparation, they're proposing mandatory 6-month military training for all men 18 to 22.

The rulers blame the 9/11 events instead of their capitalist system for the present economic downturn. Eventually, who controls the market is decided on the battlefield. While 9/11 contributed to the economic decline, such events are inevitable products of bosses fighting each other. The profit system has always produced these boom-bust cycles in which millions of workers lose their livelihoods. Only a system without profits, run by workers, can end these cycles and free the working class from the ravages of capitalist exploitation.

Remedial Education Cuts
Attack All Workers

The debate over the future of California's remedial education has heated up. Four years ago, conservatives pressured the State University (CSU) system to eliminate remdial education because "it lowers the status of the university and it costs too much". Chancellor Charles Reed issued Executive Order (EO) 665 requiring all incoming freshmen who fail English or Math proficiency exams to complete several within one year or be kicked out. These courses don't count towards graduation. This leaves struggling students with absolutely no room for error. Last year, 2,200 students (mostly black and Latin) were kicked out of the CSU system because they couldn't pass their remedial courses during the one-year time limit.

It is clear EO 665 is a racist attack on the working class. Even with the dedicated effort of many good teachers, black, Latino and many white students don't receive even a basic education in high school. Now the ruling class will deny it to them in college. Currently, over 50% of incoming CSU freshman fail the Math and English proficiency exams. In urban areas, it jumps to 86%. High schools in urban areas are predominantly black and Latino. Such schools suffer from racist mismanagement, under-funding and apartheid segregation; 81% of Latino freshmen and 69% of black freshmen entering Cal State Los Angeles require reading and math remediation (http://www.asd.calstate.edu/).

These students have the potential to learn everything, contrary to what the bosses want us to believe. Urban students suffer from an apartheid educational system created by the bosses to eliminate any chance of a decent education. The bosses use racism to split the class solidarity among exploited workers. Only the bosses benefit from racism. Similarly, only the bosses gain from cutting remedial education. A poor education hurts the working class's ability to read, especially communist ideas in CHALLENGE, write articles, make speeches and discuss politics with their fellow workers. It also robs the working class of the scientific knowledge of dialectical materialism and the history of class struggle. This hurts (but obviously doesn't destroy) the working class's ability to lead such struggle.

The bosses use and exploit part-time and graduate student labor who teach remedial courses, paying them a fraction of a full-time professor's salary, denying them benefits, pensions, job security and an office to meet their students and offer extra help. This forces many part timers to teach at several campuses. Many say they're so busy just trying to earn enough money to live on, they feel they can't give their students the attention needed to overcome a racist high school education. The bosses pit part-time exploited workers against full-time exploited workers to divide and frustrate class struggle.

It's important for all workers to view the current attack on remedial education as an attack on the entire working class. Many high school and college PLP members are fighting to not only save but to improve remedial education. We have attended forums and distributed CHALLENGE, joined mass organizations and raised revolutionary ideas while struggling with students in our classrooms and in PLP study groups. We're also exposing the capitalist lies used to defend this racist, murderous profit system.

The bosses' attack on remedial education resembles their other attacks on the working class -- Welfare "Reform," the fascist Patriot Act, mass layoffs, the racist round-up of Middle Eastern and Muslim workers and the racist bombing of Afghanistan. During imperialist war, under-funding urban high schools and cutting college remedial education helps the bosses build their imperialist army. They give urban students two choices: take a miserable super-exploitative job or join the army and become cannon fodder to secure the bosses' oil profits.

This will end only with a communist society where we cut the bosses out. Join PLP and fight for workers' needs, not for profit.

Rulers to Pedophile Priests: Make War, Not Sex

Revelations that Catholic priests, protected by church leaders, molested hundreds of boys in New England over decades should shock no one. Decadence, corruption and hypocrisy have been the church's hallmarks for most of its existence. Now suddenly there's a big push from the liberal Eastern Establishment to clean up the church. With its war efforts expanding, the main wing of U.S. rulers needs to bring the nation's 60 million Catholics more closely into line ideologically and politically.

It was the liberal Boston Globe's continuing "Spotlight" exposé that spurred the unprecedented conviction of Father John Geoghan. The Globe also showed that Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law routinely reassigned Geoghan and other predators without punishment. Along with demands for Law's resignation, the Globe and, its parent, the New York Times, have called on the church to reform its all-male power structure and to ease up on abortion. The church's abortion stance can seriously undermine the main wing's war making. In 1995, the Christian Coalition, led by anti-Rockefeller forces in the domestic oil industry, set up the Catholic Alliance. Focusing on Boston, it organized millions of Catholics to vote for "pro-life" politicians, who also opposed U.S. military action in the Middle East.

Without mentioning war, a Globe editorial (2/21) stated that the main issue was winning hearts and minds to the liberal cause: "...the widening scandal of child sex abuse is a concern not only for Boston-area Catholics but also for the civic and political leaders who work closely with Law to advance important matters of public policy." The church must show an "activist commitment to social justice," the Globe demanded. So, it's no surprise that Boston's ruling elite have dispatched a team of prominent Catholics to advise Law on handling the fiasco. Its leaders serve the heavyweights of U.S. imperialism. Banker John Hamill is a director of the Fletcher School at Tufts, which, since 1991, has been demanding the U.S. invade Iraq. Tom O'Neill, son of JFK lackey Tip, lobbies for Raytheon and Bechtel. Jack Connors owns a big slice of Interpublic Group, Exxon Mobil's top PR firm.

The main wing's drive to consolidate public opinion is progressing quickly. Before the New York Times bought it from the aristocratic but provincial Taylor family in 1993, the Globe never uttered an unkind word about Boston's Holy Trinity: the church, Harvard University, and the Kennedy family. Today, the main wing needs to win workers to its war aims, so if any one of these three tarnishes the "knight-in-shining-armor" image, the Globe rakes it over hot coals. Rapes and murders committed by the Kennedy clan no longer get swept under the Globe's rug, nor does the president of Harvard's openly racist treatment of some professors. Now the church faces the "get-with-the-program" treatment. All this liberal muckraking serves the U.S. military's genocide.

Unconcerned about the children it damages, the Vatican currently enforces celibacy for priests, which contributes to pedophilia, as a loyalty test. But when Christianity began as an egalitarian rebellion against the slave system of ancient Rome, celibacy was not an issue.

Christianity soon turned into its opposite, however, as self-serving bishops, literally "overseers," arose and sided with Roman emperors, class enemies of the poor. Then the church formally forbade priests from marrying in the 12th century in order to protect its vast and growing wealth. Celibacy ensured that there would be no children of clergy around to inherit church property. The greed of popes almost a millennium ago has led to centuries of perversity.

In criticizing the church, liberals like the Globe must walk a fine line. They don't want an exodus from organized religions. "The Catholic Church is central to many lives and should remain so" (Globe editorial, 2/21). One of the rulers' worst fears is that workers will seek a more rational way of viewing the world, one that can some day change it.

Memoirs of an Altar Boy

In the 1950s, as an altar boy at Catholic schools, I heard a running joke from the older boys: if you want to make a few dollars, have a "private confession" with Father X. I was too young to understand this "joke." I was also lucky that may parents transferred me to public school since they couldn't afford Catholic school tuition. Unfortunately, for many other young boys this was no joke.

Cardinal Bernard Law, the maximum leader of the Catholic Church in the U.S., chief of the 300 U.S. bishops and the person responsible for recommending candidates to bishops and canonization to the Pope, is now the center of probably the biggest scandal facing the church in this country. Even though he's accused of tolerating and covering up the sexual abuse of many children by 80 priests, Cardinal Law refuses to quit his post.

Most of the child-molestor priests are retired or no longer active in the church. One, John Geogham, is accused of having sexually molested 130 children in 30 years. Another priest is suspected of molesting 100 children. Cardinal Law tried to cover up these cases, even when some of the victims sued and were indemnified. Worst of all, Law let some of these accused priests remain in their posts.

Recently the New Hampshire diocese published the names of 14 priests accused of molesting children. One is still active, Six are either sick or retired but still provide religious services.

This is not isolated behavior. It's believed the church has spent over a billion dollars settling sexual abuse cases in the last few years. In 1997, a Dallas court ordered the church to pay $119 million to 10 men who accused a priest of molesting them for 15 years when they were altar boys. In 1996, the Florida church had to pay $13 million to settle a similar case. Cardinal Law and the Boston diocese face a similar legal suit.

There are already several support groups and organizations to help victims of such abuses. One group, Suvivors of Abuses by the Clergy, believe 3% to 10% of all clergy are involved in different kind of abuses, including sexual ones.

Many trace the causes of such abuses to the church celibacy rule which bans marriage and sexual intercourse for priests and nuns. Maybe so, but the fact is there's rampant sexual abuse in all branches of organized religion. Churches, mosques, temples, etc., are powerful forces in society, and they don't escape the sins of capitalism which treats sex and all forms of personal relations like commodities. This facilitates such behavior among the clergy. How can one preach equality among men and women and the brotherhood of humanity when capitalism's rulers do the opposite: wars, class exploitation, racist and sexist discrimination, etc.

That's a contradiction inducing many religious people who see their centers of prayer as contrary to the outside world join the fight for a better world. That's the route I've chosen.

Former (Not Sexually Abused) Altar Boy

THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT

P.S. It was just reported that a cantor at the biggest synagogue in New York, Temple Emanu-El, was arrested for molesting his nephew. Others have now said he abused them as well. Also, the NY Times (2/21) reported how many "holy warriors" warlords in Afghanistan are pedophiles. I guess the 11th Commandment, "Thou shalt molest," cuts across all religions.

Challenge Goes to the Movies
John Q Arouses Anger But Covers For the Real Bad Guys

John Q is a hard movie to attack -- though the capitalist media almost uniformly called it preachy, sanctimonious and "politically correct." (The term "politically correct" starts from a racist premise and expands in vicious circles to attack anything questioning the day-to-day horrors of capitalism -- which, ironically, are the politically correct and acceptable rules prescribed by the government, big business and the media. As the movie ends, the host of ABC-TV's "Politically Incorrect," Bill Maher, fraudulently attacks "us [the people], for not voting funds for health care.")

The premise of John Q (the hero's name and middle initial, suggesting the term "John Q. Public," meaning the average person) is that a black factory worker--whose work-week has been cut from 40 to 20 hours -- has a pre-teen son who needs a heart transplant right away or he will die. A hospital medical worker says the boy's problem had been missed because of the very casual exams demanded by HMOs. A hospital administrator coldly advises the family to take the boy home and make his few remaining days comfortable. But the head cardiologist acknowledges that if it were his child, he would go for the heart transplant. As John, Denzel Washington says that's what he and his wife choose to do.

But without John's knowledge, his employer has switched to a cheaper HMO, which will approve only a fraction of the $250,000 needed for the procedure.

One of the movie's strengths is that the desperate family has an integrated group of friends, and their church is multi-racial too. (This implicit anti-racism infuriates the "politically incorrect" crowd, who don't give a damn about the troubles of the poor.) Friends and neighbors donate money while John sells the family's meager possessions: a color TV for a few bucks; his truck, which leaves the couple without transportation to and from work. (His wife's car had earlier been repossessed.) Even though he pays the hospital tens of thousands, they inform the family they must take the boy home, to die a certain death.

The wife angrily -- and reasonably -- demands that John "do something." Desperate, he promises to pay every cent if the cardiologist will operate. Refused, he pulls a gun, shuts the emergency ward with locks and chains and demands his son be "put on the list" for a transplant.

The police immediately label his acts "terrorist." Certainly this is no revolutionary action. It's an individualistic reaction, though certainly understandable. But it's hardly a "solution" for the countless problems inflicted upon the working class, which can only be resolved with unified, revolutionary, mass action.

Still, the people in the integrated working class audience were yelling at the screen, deeply involved in the story, angered by the family's horrible problem. The crowds that surround the hospital in the movie clearly support and identify with John's anger. But one relatively positive review I read still called the movie "rabble-rousing," a nasty term which, as here, can refer to people who understand that their class interests are being discussed. Almost all movies want us to identify with the rich, or the military, the cops and the courts -- all protectors and reflections of the bosses' interests, not ours.

John Q's act reflects the anger and desperation of a nation where almost half the people have no health insurance whatsoever, and those who have any are frequently and routinely denied benefits by HMOs. Millions of workers now are denied many heart and cancer procedures which used to be regular and mandatory, not just for the wealthy.

The movie's focus on the HMOs is a lie. The "bad guys" of the movie (including the cops who try to kill John) come to recognize they are wrong. When John's wife attacks the hospital administrator for her decision to throw the boy out of the hospital, thus forcing John's rebellion, the administrator suddenly becomes a good guy. In fact she was previously "only following orders," as do the cops, the courts, foremen and others who control so much of our lives...though of course they choose to.

Focussing on the letters "HMO" as the force to fight, is misleading, especially here, where many people see the legitimacy of John's anger.

Being Hollywood, don't expect John Q to indict the whole rotten capitalist system which keeps most of the world impoverished, underfed, unhealthy, uneducated, homeless. Paraphrasing President Eisenhower's attack on socialism: The essence of capitalism is to keep us in a state of "cradle to the grave insecurity."

Terrorism, joining gangs, individual acts of rebellion, by definition can never change the system. Only when industrial workers like John join hospital, service and millions of other workers to build a mass revolutionary communist Party, can we then build a world without Enrons, HMOs or imperialist wars. That's the goal of PLP. Join us!

1946 Revolt in Philippines:
GIs Wanted to Go Home, Not Fight Red-Led Guerrillas

For U.S. imperialism to rule the world, it must have a loyal army. There have been several major examples of soldiers -- especially those who were drafted -- rebelling against their orders. In Vietnam, mass desertions, rebellions, sabotage and shootings of officers helped force an end to U.S. aggression. Another example occurred during the U.S. Siberian invasion of the fledgling Soviet Union in 1918 (the subject of a future article). Still another occurred following the end of World War II.

The war in the Pacific ended on August 14, 1945. The GI's who helped defeat Japanese fascism had done their job and were ready to return to their families and resume normal lives. But the rulers had other plans.

In 1942, a ruling-class strategy meeting sponsored by the National Industrial Conference Board began mapping plans for the post-war world. U.S. rulers wanted to establish themselves as the dominant force in Asia and exploit the colonies of the former Dutch and French imperialists, from Indonesia to Indo-China, with all their cheap labor, oil, rubber and other valuable resources.

China, led by Mao Tse-Tung's Chinese Communist Party, was the major challenge to U.S. hegemony and inspired billions of oppressed workers and peasants throughout Asia. The bosses plotted to encircle China by controlling Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines (a U.S. colony since 1898) down to Vietnam. Many of these areas contained potential nationalist and/or communist challenges.

In the Philippines, the People's Anti-Japanese Army (a communist-led peasant guerrilla army known as the "Huks"), had cleared central Luzon (the largest of the Philippine islands) of the Japanese invaders and threatened to become the dominant force in the country. U.S. GI's were grateful to the Huks. Their defeat of the Japanese occupiers saved thousands of GIs' lives, leaving U.S. soldiers very little to do militarily.

With the war over and U.S. soldiers ready to go home, they were told there "weren't enough boats" to transport them, as if boats could only sail in one direction. Pressured by the GI's about being forced to remain after the defeat of the enemy, an Army Colonel blurted out that they were staying to put down the Huks!

A GI on the U.S. Armed Forces newspaper managed to get this story past the censors and into the paper. In early January 1946, United Press International (UPI) published the story worldwide. At that very time, Truman's Secy. of War Porter, holding an unrelated press conference, was asked if the story was true. Unprepared for such a question, Porter spilled the beans -- the troops would stay according to the point system established for them during the war. (Only by acquiring enough points could soldiers be sent home.)

When that news reached the Philippine capital of Manila, "democracy's army" filled the bars, dejected at being forced to stay long after the war's end. The following morning thousands entered Manila carrying their weapons. Their mood was ugly. The MPs disappeared and the brass vanished. The GI's formed two huge columns and snaked their way through the city. That evening some soldiers met and published a leaflet, exposing the government and sending friendly greetings to the Huks. The next morning, 15,000 met in a big field in the city and selected a leadership committee. They then called up General Stier, the Commanding Officer in the Western Pacific, who quickly agreed to meet with a committee of five.

The 15,000 GI's formed a column led by the five-soldier committee, and crossed the Pasay River, moving towards military headquarters. The committee was ushered into a room full of generals, who urged them to call off the scheduled evening meeting. The committee made it clear that could not happen.

That evening 35,000 GI's showed up for a mass "go home" demonstration. The soldiers applauded when an enlisted lieutenant read greetings to the Huk guerrilla force.

By the end of the week, GI delegates came from all over the Philippines to an abandoned theatre on the outskirts of Manila and formed a committee of about 100. They represented tens of thousands of GI's whose backgrounds cut across all lines, from cities all over the U.S., with but one goal in mind: to go home.

The next day the brass flew the five-man committee back to the U.S. and gave them immediate honorable discharges. Soon the needed transport ships were "found" and the troops were sent home.

The "go-home" movement spread throughout Asia and Europe. The GIs' refusal to obey orders was a major blow and set-back to U.S. imperialism's timetable. It demonstrated once again that if the rulers cannot maintain the loyalty of the troops, they can't wage their imperialist wars.

U.S. Bosses Want Peace--a Piece of Colombia, a Piece of Venezuela

COLOMBIA, Feb. 27 -- When President Pastrana came to power here in 1998, he promised "peace," an end to the half-century of civil war which began with "La Violencia" (1948 peasant rebellion) and continued with the rise of guerrillas, drug gangs and paramilitary death squads. Pastrana initiated negotiations with the two major guerrilla forces, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a "peace process" forced on Colombia's rulers by the growing guerrilla movement and the mass discontent of the rural population. This was particularly true in the countryside, racked with poverty, death squads, unemployment, etc. Pastrana was forced to grant the FARC 16,000 square miles in the Caguan region (an area the size of Switzerland).

But while Pastrana was talking peace, his government and U.S. imperialism were preparing for more war. Clinton's Plan Colombia granted $1.6 billion to the Pastrana government, mainly for military purposes. Hundreds of U.S. military "advisers" were sent to Colombia to train the Army and strengthen its paramilitary death squads, which were committing most of the mass murders.

Then came Bush and his "war against world terrorism." He asked for another $100 million for training Colombian soldiers to protect an Occidental Petroleum pipeline, bombed 170 times and out of commission for 266 days last year. Now instead of Occidental paying $1 per barrel of oil produced here to the Colombian army to protect its pipeline, the U.S. government will start to pay for it.

Right after Bush asked for this money, President Pastrana ordered the Colombian army to attack the FARC-controlled area, using Black Hawk helicopters and other U.S. weapons, intelligence satellites, planes and U.S. "advisers." Soon after the invasion began, and the FARC guerrillas' retreat from a town they'd held for several years, Pastrana was flown there in a U.S. embassy plane accompanied by uniformed U.S. military personnel.

The escalated war in Colombia is occurring alongside a stepped-up campaign to overthrow President Chavez of neighboring Venezuela. The corrupt, old-line bourgeoisie of Venezuela had shared power until Chavez became President in the late 1990s. They had stolen billions from the oil bonanza while the masses of people sank deeper into poverty. Chavez, like the FARC, represents the nationalist bosses of South America, who are tired of allowing U.S. imperialism to dominate the wealth and exploitation of the working class. These nationalist forces are allying with European imperialism against U.S. bosses.

The working class is caught in the middle of this intensifying inter-capitalist war. Some workers believe one group is better than another. Some believe Chavez or the FARC are the solution. Others actually believe a return to the old corrupt bosses and their U.S. masters (in Venezuela) or U.S. intervention (in Colombia) will end their misery and/or the civil war. All these ideas are deadly mistakes, basically due to the lack of a mass revolutionary communist movement pointing to the only solution: a fight against all bosses and establishment of a society without any exploiters: communism.

LETTERS
Workers of the World, Write!

Building PLP
Step By Step

I'm a college student with friends and classmates from many parts of the world. In the last year, we've had lots of discussions about racism, the war in Afghanistan and about May Day and communism.

I've given CHALLENGE and discussed communist ideas with several of them. When I first showed the paper to a classmate from Russia, he told me his father was a Bolshevik, and that despite the break-up of the old Soviet Union, his father felt proud to still be a communist. Another friend, from China, said she wasn't born yet when Mao Tze-Tung was alive, but that if there were more people like him, the world would be a much better place. Other classmates from El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico have also welcomed CHALLENGE.

Some of us have formed close friendships. With that has come more profound political discussions. Recently we had a party at a friend's home. It looked like an international meeting -- students from Colombia, Mexico, Japan, El Salvador, Turkey and Armenia. A discussion started about communism. Everyone generally agreed that communism sounds good, that it would be great to live in such a society, but at the same time many said it was an impossible dream. The discussion also revealed passivity and fear among many of the students. The bosses' fascism, their laws attacking immigrants and the rabidly patriotic atmosphere has been having an effect.

In this area, there is much potential to build PLP and a broad base among the students. It's not easy since many take classes for a short time and then leave. But others stay much longer. I will concentrate on some and together participate in community organizations and study groups to build long-term ties with them. I feel very happy to be building the Party step by step, and to see positive responses from my friends. These experiences have made me confident that we're on the right road, that in the long run the working class will destroy this capitalist profit system and its imperialist wars.

Young Communist

Africa's AIDS Orphans Is Real Terror

On an HBO TV special (Feb. 23), comedian Jamie Foxx referred to his trip to Africa during the filming of the movie Ali (in which he acted), and noted the masses of people with AIDS on that continent. Well, the AIDS crisis in Africa is no joke; it is killing millions. Of 36 milllion with AIDS worldwide, 25 million are in Africa. Recently, Ethiopia's Ministry of Health reported that AIDS has orphaned one million children. Hundreds of thousands of them are homeless because there are no funds to care for them.

According to the World Health Organization, 18 million people have died worldwide because of the AIDS virus. Four million are children. There are 16 countries where 10% of the adult population 15-49 years of age are infected by the HIV virus. In five of those countries, in the southern part of Africa, one of five adults has the virus. In Botswana, 35% of all adults are infected. The 4,000,000 with HIV in South Africa comprise the largest group of any nation in the world.

Before the AIDS epidemic, 2% of all children in the world's poorest countries were orphans. At the 12th World Aids Congress, in Durban, South Africa, two years ago, the U.S. Agency for International Development estimated that in 10 years Africa would have 28 million children orphaned by AIDS. According to UNICEF (the UN's children's organization), these AIDS orphans are exposed to higher risks of malnutrition, sexual and other forms of exploitation and all types of diseases.

What can be done about this AIDS epidemic? To handle its most urgent aspects, Africa will need $3 billion (a fraction -- 1/16th -- of the military budget hike Bush is demanding "to fight terrorism"). The multi-national drug companies could be pressed to lower their extremely expensive prices for the AIDS treatment drugs. Cultural aspects can be fought: the sexual abuse of children, the belief among men in Africa that intercourse with a virgin can cure AIDS, or that the use of detergents, herbs or cotton before intercourse can prevent the virus. Then there's the Catholic Church's opposition to the use of condoms.

But the main problem is rooted in a society based on the exploitation of human beings as commodities, a society where a few imperialist companies super-exploit the entire world. A society where wars for profits are murdering millions worldwide. The solution is to fight for a world free of the most deadly disease humanity has ever known: capitalism and its many derivatives -- like nationalism, racism, sexism, etc.

A Reader

Beware Liberal Reformers Jailing Anti-War Protesters

Have you noticed the excitement over changing the drug laws and the "three-strikes-and-you're-out" laws (three convictions equals a life sentence)? For almost thirty years, possession of even a small amount of marijuana has meant enormously long jail terms. People convicted several times even for victimless crimes (including stealing food) get life.

In many cases, a tiny amount of marijuana found in a car or a home has "justified" taking away the house or car--to be sold for the benefit of the local police!--a practice that feeds on itself and constantly grows. The "impartial" Supreme Court has approved these fascistic tactics.

But now, with possibly the most openly fascistic presidency in history, we're suddenly hearing sanctimonious weeping about "reforming" these awful laws and releasing prisoners who were so harshly treated. A lot of liberals are ecstatic over this talk. The Nation magazine, for one, welcomes this "thawing" of icy, inflexible laws.

But politics doesn't happen in a vacuum, and liberals tend not to dig too deep for answers.

These critics have described the U.S. as nation of new and expanding prisons to house all these people who committed trivial crimes.

Why this sudden apparently "lenient" tone for people who even a year ago were called the source of most of the crime problems in the country? (This is an honor that more justly should be given to police departments, who protect the flow of all illegal drugs.)

It seems obvious that a by-product of any change in the marijuana and three-strikes laws will be empty cells, useless jails.

With all the anti-terrorist, "homeland-security" bullshit, is it unreasonable to wonder what politician will ask, "Gee, what will we do with all these empty cells? Wouldn't it be terrible to lay off all those guards and prison personnel?"

This great idea of releasing minor league potheads will leave plenty of room to imprison protesters. Especially since, as Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft and gang insist -- who needs proof? The odds are that behind any such change there will be a coalition of liberals and conservatives, if there is still any real distinction to be found among them.

Lefty

Salvador Layoffs Expose Wage Slavery

Workers in the Sanitation Workers Union in Santa Ana are angry because their union leader, José Santos A., is collaborating with the bosses to privatize their jobs.

Four private trucks have already been hired from ACAPSA, in which the mayor and some council members have investments. These politician/bosses rely on our union leader to win us to this privatization scheme. Full privatization will kill all our jobs.

This is a political lesson for those who voted for these politicians to "serve the people." The case of the union leader is even worse. During the civil war when he was a mid-level leader in the FMLN (the former guerrilla organization, now the second major electoral party here), he used to say he was "fighting for the poor."

We workers must understand we don't need these "leaders." We must take control of our unions while fighting for our immediate interests. But above all, we must use participation in this immediate struggle to win workers to the idea that abolition of the wage slavery system of capitalism is the only solution to our problems.

Comrade in El Salvador