a href="#Editorial: Not Voting Is Not Enough: Fight Against Racism and Bosses’ Oil War!">"ditorial: Not Voting Is Not Enough: Fight Against Racism and Bosses’ Oil War!

Ralph Nader: Another Dead End!

a href="#‘Peace Process’ Swallowed by U.S. Bosses’ Drive for Control of Oil Profits">‘Pea"e Process’ Swallowed by U.S. Bosses’ Drive for Control of Oil Profits

Workers, Youth Rally Against Racist Killer Cops

Misleaders Put The Brakes On La Transit Strike

a href="#PLPer’s Resolution Links Rulers’ War Plans to Fight for City Workers Contract">PL"er’s Resolution Links Rulers’ War Plans to Fight for City Workers Contract

El Salvador: Cynicism Has No Place in Fight Against Attacks Suffered by Teachers

a href="#LTV Steel Is Bleeding And There’s Sharks In The Water">"TV Steel Is Bleeding And There’s Sharks In The Water

LTV Steelworkers Fight Racist Firing And Arrest

Welfare Workers, Recipients Victims of Fascist Attacks

• College Haven for Scabs

Apartheid Continues: AIDS and South African Capitalism

• Gore Pimps For Pfizer

LETTERS

War Alert

a href="#Yesterday’s ‘Freedom Fighter’ is Today’s ‘Terrorist’">Yesterday’" ‘Freedom Fighter’ is Today’s ‘Terrorist’

200 Bucks for a Passport?

Capitalism Drugs Our Children

Poverty, Racism, Sexism Masks US AIDS Victims

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a name="Editorial: Not Voting Is Not Enough: Fight Against Racism and Bosses’ Oil War!">">"ditorial: Not Voting Is Not Enough: Fight Against Racism and Bosses’ Oil War!

‘The Uncommitted’ Vs. The Most Committed

The U.S. Presidential elections should be the show of shows: "Democracy at the Dawn of the 21^st Century!" The "world’s only superpower" is enjoying an unprecedented economic boom, paid for in blood by the international working class. The profits are rolling in and the main wing of the ruling class is in control of the roost.

During the 1996 election there was a deep split in the ruling class focusing on the fight for control of the Republican Party. Domestic oil industry financial interests fueled the 1994 Republican "Revolution" and their "Contract On America." These splits led to Clinton’s impeachment in 1998.

Clinton and the main wing of the ruling class defeated the impeachment. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his successor were purged from Congress. Open Nazi Pat Buchanan, one of the ideologues behind the Gingrich Revolution, was purged from the Republican Party.

However, this year’s election reflects the long-term strategic weakness of the rulers. They have not won, and are not winning the masses of workers, soldiers and youth to enthusiastically support U.S. imperialism.

Capitali$t Democracy In Action

The rulers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in what is easily the most expensive electoral campaign in world history. As they approach the finish line, Gore and Bush are chasing around the country in search of "uncommitted voters."

"Uncommitted" is right! Less than half the people eligible to vote will show up on Election Day. Republican Senator John McCain worries that this election may yield the lowest voter turnout in history (MSNBC, 10/13).

Alan Wolfe, director of the Center for Religion and American Public Life cries, "Voters with no ideology are not self-reliant, but weightless…It is difficult to recall an election with less eloquence about our nation’s calling than this one." (NY TIMES, 10/22)

This doesn’t help the rulers as they face increasing instability around the world, especially in the Middle East. For ten years they have failed to eliminate Saddam Hussein and seize control of Iraqi oil. They may have to invade—and occupy—Iraq before the Russians, French and Chinese set up shop as a new center of power in the region. Time is running out. Many workers and soldiers appear unwilling to accept heavy casualties for an Exxon-Mobil "hoily" war. So far, this election has done little to reverse this.

Cynicism: A Two-Edged Sword

Capitalist democracy discourages mass participation. This, in part, is how the bosses exercise their class dictatorship. Every four years we are asked to vote in a political beauty contest, run by Madison Avenue ad agencies. We choose between the lash and the whip.

Tens of millions don’t vote because they are cynical about politics. According to the Federal Election Commission, the percentage of the voting age population that actually voted in Presidential elections has slipped from 63% in 1960, to 49% in 1996.

But this cynicism is a two-edge sword. While not a vote of confidence for the bosses, it leaves us stuck with the same rotten capitalist system. What’s more, cynicism is also fertile ground for fascism. The "uncommitted" are up for grabs. We can play a crucial role in defeating this cynicism by fighting for the political leadership of the workers in the context of waging daily class struggle. This is reflected in the pages of CHALLENGE.

Democratic Centralism: From The Masses To The Masses

Unlike the bosses, the international working class has no competing interests. We use the scientific process of trial and error, of criticism and self-criticism, to chart the long road to revolution. This process is Democratic Centralism. It requires the mass participation of everyone in developing our political line, testing it in practice, making a critical and self-critical evaluation, and further developing it. This process will not only lead the working class to power, but it will govern the new communist society.

Communist revolution is no more a popularity contest than is finding the cure for cancer. It won’t happen with hollow promises and fancy clichés. It cannot succeed without the active participation of millions of workers, soldiers, youth and others, leading tens of millions more, committed to a new way of life based on production to satisfy the needs of the working class; the dictatorship of the working class. A red future lies in the hands of the most committed, not the uncommitted.

Ralph Nader: Another Dead End!

This year's presidential electoral circus includes several candidates besides Gore and Bush. The Green Party's Ralph Nader and the Reform Party's Pat Buchanan are the best-known "other candidates." Buchanan is an open fascist whose campaign is based on attacking immigrant workers as the "cause" of many problems workers suffer here in the U.S. He has a well-deserved reputation of Führer-to-be whose base of support is mainly KKK'ers and other gutter racists.

Nader presents himself as a "real" alternative to "corporate control" of the system. He is seen by many progressive-minded workers, youth and intellectuals as the only alternative. Nader’s main job is to prevent those workers who are fed up with Bush and Gore from losing hope in the system

But, meanwhile Nader is hurting Gore in some areas. In response, the Gore people are organizing blitz campaigns against Nader on college campuses and among workers.

In previous articles we've exposed Nader as no alternative for those seeking real solutions to the problems caused by capitalism. Nader basically ignores racism and pushes nationalism in the campaign against the World Trade Organization (WTO), and openly spreads anti-communism in the campaign against China joining the WTO.

But Nader's main aim is the impossible dream of pushing the Democratic Party "to the left." "What do you think will happen if we're the difference in six states and we cost the Democrats the election" Mr. Nader asked rethorically. "The answer, he hopes," reported the Wall Street Journal (9/24) "is that the Democrats will shift left, away from the Clinton administration's centrist New Democratic policies."

The Democratic Party is one of the two main parties of the U.S. ruling class, containing the most warmongering bosses of modern times. Yet, union leaders and black and Latino politicians push the age-old, dead-end idea that the Democrats can also serve the workers. But it won’t work. A leopard can’t change its spots.

a name="‘Peace Process’ Swallowed by U.S. Bosses’ Drive for Control of Oil Profits"></a>"Peace Process’ Swallowed by U.S. Bosses’ Drive for Control of Oil Profits

Clinton’s attempts to force Arafat and Barak to reach a deal and end the current Intifada by Palestinian workers and youth have failed because U.S. foreign policy favors Israel above all. Israel is the biggest recipient in the world of U.S. military and economic aid—$3 billion a year. Congress has actually enacted a law mandating that the U.S. help Israel maintain strategic military superiority in the region against any force(s) hostile to Israel. Today, Israel is the only nuclear power in the Middle East, with enough of an arsenal to nuke all the major cities of its foes.

During the Cold War, Israel served U.S. bosses in the Middle East and beyond. It helped them maintains relations with South Africa’s apartheid regime and with various military dictatorships in Latin America (i.e., the Guatemala regimes that have murdered tens of thousands of Indians).

Why is Israel so important to U.S. rulers? Firstly, the Middle East is crucial because it contains close to 75% of the world’s known oil reserves (mainly in Saudi Arabia and Iraq). In the past the U.S. relied on the Shah of Iran and Israel to maintain control of this oil, fending off any other power’s Challenge to this supremacy. Once the Shah was overthrown by forces hostile to U.S. bosses, the latter had to rely increasingly on Israel since the other U.S. allies in the area are very unstable, due to forces, both internal and external, opposed to the U.S. The Arab rulers loyal to the U.S. are very shaky. DIE ZEIT, the German weekly edited by Social Democrat leader Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of the former West Germany, warned that the danger was not so much these regimes going to war against Israel but rather that it might lead to "an implosion of political relations, the collapse of the Arab regimes."

Hundreds of thousands have demonstrated in Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries having diplomatic relations with Israel. Mass unemployment and poverty are rampant in both countries. Saudi Arabia, whose parasitic royal family is supported by the U.S., has been labeled "the next Iran" by many. The U.S.’s current number one nemesis, Osama Bin laden, is an exile Saudi billionaire with lots of support among Saudi dissidents.

Phyllis Bennis, an expert on Middle East affairs for the Policy Studies Institute, says the U.S. doesn’t necessarily need Middle East oil for internal consumption, but does need to CONTROL this oil: "...The U.S. gets enough oil from Mexico, Venezuela and Nigeria. Germany and Japan, in particular, depend much more on the Middle East crude. Traditionally, the U.S. has maintained a good part of its global power acting as a guarantor of the access by these countries to the Persian Gulf oil." (La Jornada, Mexico City).

Bennis added that the real U.S. objective in the Middle East is not peace, but stability "which can only be achieved through a combination of brute force and promoting a process that promises something in the long run." That is why the basis of Clinton’s foreign policy during the current violence in Israel/Palestine has been to stop it and maintain some kind of stability. This won’t solve any of the region’s deep problems.

But this is not simply stability for its own sake. The U.S. bosses’ main objective is to try to seize Iraqi oil fields, which can only be secured by a ground invasion and occupation. Presently, French, Russian and Chinese oil companies have been making deals with Iraq. All the more reason for the U.S. to ensure stability in the rest of the Mid-East to topple Saddam Hussein.

Eventually, this war for oil is the only real alternative for U.S. rulers. That’s why Bush and Gore both stand for attacking Iraq. It will be a bloodier war than the 1991 Desert Storm. While these two Wall Street puppets are "debating" troops in or out of the Balkans, they’re 100% in agreement on Iraq, which the U.S.—under both Bush, Sr. and Clinton—have been bombing for years, mainly murdering civilians. Since the end of Desert Storm, 51 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the Middle East. (The latest group sacrificed on the altar of Exxon Mobil oil profits were the 17 young sailors of the SS COLE.) Compare that to the single U.S. soldier—and none in Kosovo—killed since U.S. bosses sent troops to Bosnia in 1995.

Indeed, imperialism and its thirst for maximum profits makes war inevitable. Let’s organize to smash all the warmakers..

Workers, Youth Rally Against Racist Killer Cops

LARGO, MD, October 18 — Today over 100 students and workers rallied at the Prince George’s (PG) County Government Center to protest the county cops racist brutality, the Blue Wall of Silence and the murder of Prince Jones (a Howard University student—see previous articles in Challenge). They also condemned the gross support of the cops’ behavior by Wayne Curry, County Executive, and his police chief.

Chanting, "no justice, no peace, no racist police!" and carrying signs calling the PG cops the "Klan in Blue," students from Banneker High School and Howard University, organized primarily by local chapters of Amnesty International, led the spirited rally. Some speakers condemned what they called "rogue cops," and argued that changing the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBOR) would help stop the brutality.

The mother of Archie Elliot, a youth murdered by the police, called on everyone to continue the fight for justice. Another speaker pointed out that the capitalist system causes racism and police brutality, and that the murderous PG cops were really fulfilling their role of intimidation and terror against the working class. He invited everyone to join the struggle to defeat capitalism in order to crush racism and brutality, from the U.S. to Palestine/Israel, where police brutality is grossly evident in the slaughter of over 100 Palestinians.

Almost everyone at the rally received a copy of Challenge, leading to some spirited discussions among the students on the return to Washington, D.C. about the best way to change the world.

BULLETIN

—We have just learned that the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Horan has decided not to press charges against cop Carlton Jones, who emptied his revolver into the back of Prince Jones. He claimed Prince’s death was an unfortunate case of mistaken identity and that the cop committed justifiable homicide because he feared for his life. He didn’t even try to concoct any kind of story—he just flat out supported the "right" of cops to murder young black men. There will be a response!

Misleaders Put The Brakes On La Transit Strike

LOS ANGELES, CA., Oct. 24 — Striking bus drivers walking in to last week’s ratification vote eagerly accepted PLP leaflets headlined, "Workers of the World Unite," in the face of the bombing of the USS Cole. The leaflets linked the MTA transit strike to the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the deaths of 17 U.S. sailors and scores of Palestinian youth.

Our picket sign read, "$1 billion a week to protect Exxon’s oil — Pennies for Public transit, Public schools and Public hospitals." Our flyer explained that mass transit relies on the use of part-time workers to free up money to pay for enormously expensive warships in the Middle East. Rockefeller/Exxon will fight to maintain their grip on oil, no matter the cost in dollars and workers’ blood.

Inside the Convention Center, it was another story. No mention of the world around us or the flames of the Middle East. Union President Williams coaxed the 1,400 drivers (out of 4,400) to chant, "We Won!" over and over. He told drivers, "We couldn’t have won without you." Then he got down to the real business of the meeting. The bosses’ labor lieutenants spent a solid hour congratulating each other, their friends, Democratic Party politicians and Jesse Jackson for showing magnificent [mis]leadership of the strike. The union, the LA Federation of Labor, Jackson and the LA TIMES called it a victory! Not the drivers (or mechanics and clerks who are working without a contract). The highest-paid union drivers got 9.3% over three years ($25 a week before taxes!). The lowest-paid part-timers will get half of that. The MTA won 350 new part-timers (they wanted 600). And drivers maintained "the right" to work 12- and 13-hour days with overtime pay, to make $50,000 per year. Such is "victory" in one of the most expensive urban areas of the U.S.

The case is different for the real winners of the strike, the AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party. This gang will almost certainly elect Antonio Villaraigosa mayor next April. As Jesse Jackson told the meeting, "Villaraigosa is the future of Los Angeles."

Jackson was paid $100,000 by the L.A. Federation of Labor to mislead black and Latin workers into the Democratic Party, and strengthen their community, labor, church and environmentalist coalition. The Democratic Party, the AFL-CIO and the LA TIMES will use this coalition to bring L.A.’s working class, especially its growing mass of Latin workers, into the fold, which includes a war for oil profits in the Middle East.

One of the drivers who helped organize a strike-support rally in the garment center invited two PLP members to a coffee shop after the contract vote at the Convention Center. By the time we arrived, two other drivers had already ordered the food. During this get-together, a driver put forward a plan for organizing the garment shop, using bus drivers whose routes run through the sweatshop districts that employ 150,000 workers. As we left, the drivers made a point of making sure we get together again soon. The friendship and initiative shown by these drivers is the most promising gain for transit workers and the whole working class.

a name="PLPer’s Resolution Links Rulers’ War Plans to Fight for City Workers Contract"></">PL"er’s Resolution Links Rulers’ War Plans to Fight for City Workers Contract

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 18 — The delegates of Social Services Employees Union (SSEU) Local 371 were given the opportunity to jump off the pro-boss election bandwagon. A long-time delegate and PLP'er presented a resolution attack the union leadership’s failure to fight for a contract that meets the needs of our members and the working people who seek our services. The resolution cited Bush’s and Gore’s campaign promises to increase military spending and linked it to the increasing likelihood of war in the Middle East. It also attacked the build-up of police and prisons throughout the U.S., pointing out how slave labor Workfare and prison labor were being used to undermine all workers’ pay scales. Finally, it called for strike preparations of our local and other city worker unions.

Union leaders, including those in SSEU, like to pose as fighters against war, police terror, Workfare and other issues facing the membership. But their allegiance to the bosses and their system is shown by their refusal to lead a fight that would eliminate funds for the imperialist war build-up and the increase in fascist police terror. Meanwhile they build patriotism and support for war and police terror as they mislead workers towards the bosses' Democratic Party.

Although this resolution was tabled for later discussion, it helped sharpen the differences between PLP’s communist ideas and the union leaders’ pro-boss ideas. After the meeting several delegates approached a PLP'er to discuss these issues. As was the case when PLP first raised the need to fight slave labor Workfare, we are confident we can unmask the warmakers, fascist police supporters and pro-boss politician union leaders during this struggle.

Workers need to fight back every day of their lives. When PLP leads and intensifies that class struggle, communist ideas are sharpened for all.

El Salvador: Cynicism Has No Place in Fight Against Attacks Suffered by Teachers

After years of struggle by teachers here, having won some economic gains with blood and sweat, the minister of Education Evelyn Yacir de Lovo now wants to eliminate them by decree. By enacting a law that would guarantee a minimum of only one year’s work, Yacir de Lovo threatens the job security of all teachers. This law would prevent teachers from joining the union and give school bosses more power over hiring and firing. The school bosses will give jobs to their friends and relatives—those loyal to them and the system—and will use the law to get rid of any militant teachers.

This week at my school all the teachers met about this situation. After presenting this government attack, a fellow teacher said, "I dream that one day teachers will have medical care, good housing, all the basic things we need. But this is a utopian dream." I then said, "It might be utopia, but the most important thing is to destroy this capitalist system. What you call utopia would be possible in a communist society."

Many teachers are frustrated over their lousy working and living conditions. Many are also cynical because of the sellouts by union leaders and fake leftists who have joined the system (like the former leaders of the FMLN guerrilla organization). During the Civil War that ravaged the country, many teachers and school workers were killed in front of their students, jailed and tortured.

That’s where we communist teachers come in. We must continue to expose the system and fight their attacks against teachers and our students. We must shatter the cynicism and hopelessness of many teachers and show them that fighting for communism is the only solution.

One liberal teacher reflected this cynicism, saying, "Ideology died when the Berlin Wall fell. Our former leaders are now making $40,000 a month giving conferences" (the income of former FMLN commander Joaquín Villalobos). This reminded me of something I learned at the PLP International Conference: we must pay a high price for the errors of the fake left. We plan to meet with this and other teachers to show them that communism is still alive and kicking in the PLP.

Red teacher, El Salvador

a name="LTV Steel Is Bleeding And There’s Sharks In The Water">">"TV Steel Is Bleeding And There’s Sharks In The Water

EAST CHICAGO, IN. Oct. 23 — Today LTV Steel announced that all workers with less than two years seniority are being laid off. All contractors are out and overtime will be cut 20%. Reduced operations will put steel production at about 65% capacity. LTV may be on the auction block. Orders are at an all-time low, and their market share has collapsed.

This announcement comes just after LTV’s sale of its tin division to USX. LTV's tin mill product plants are located here and in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. The 900 workers produce 600,000 tons of tin mill products annually, used primarily for food cans and other containers. U.S. Steel will close the Aliquippa plant, slashing about 400 jobs. More jobs will go as operations at Gary Sheet and Tin are combined with Harbor Tin.

U. S. Steel president Paul Wilhelm said the deal "will serve both our customers and our shareholders well…" He didn’t mention how it would "serve" the workers.

LTV will save about $30 million in annual operating expenses and reduced future investments. In addition, LTV's integrated steel segment will make profits of about $30 million per year, including a deal to supply U. S. Steel's tin mills with 2,250,000 tons of hot rolled steel over a five-year period.

LTV is desperately trying to increase profits and stay competitive in its core flat rolled steel business in the automotive, appliance and electrical equipment markets, steel service centers and converters. They are hoping the sale of the tin mills, and the previously announced plan to close their iron mining operations, will improve the bottom line by about $90 million per year.

It was just the summer of 1999 when the last round of steel contracts were settled with the steelworkers’ union. Everything appeared to be humming along and many workers thought they would cruise to retirement. Some thought PLP was exaggerating the threat to steel workers from the increasing international competition among the bosses. Now U.S. Steel has taken a bite out of LTV and the other sharks smell blood. It’s up to the PLP steel club to prepare the workers for the struggle ahead.

LTV Steelworkers Fight Racist Firing And Arrest

East Chicago, IN. October 17- Racist foreman Erickson accused Norman Malone of assault. Then he went to the cops who helped him cook up charges of felonious assault with a deadly weapon and criminal mischief.

Erickson claims that Norm, a black worker with more than 30 years at LTV steel, tried to run him down with a small, hand-operated forklift. He has been fired, and faces 11 years in prison on the criminal charges, on the unsupported statement of the foreman. Since the firing, more than twenty black and white workers have come forward with examples being harassed by boss Erickson.

Less than a year ago, another black worker accused Erickson of assault. He filed a grievance and went through the procedure. He dropped his grievance when the bosses promised to "improve worker-supervisor relations." The foreman never lost a day’s pay. LTV backed racist Erickson when he was accused of assault, but fired Norm.

Ed Kathkart, an electrician in Norm’s department, was killed a few months ago when he was fell into a trough of water rushing at 40 miles-per-hour. There was no grating. LTV and USWA Local 1011 had no problem with Ed working in these conditions. They are responsible for his death. No supervisor was charged, fired or suspended. LTV got off with a $5,000 fine to OSHA.

We can’t rely on LTV Steel, the union leaders, the cops or the courts. We have organized a small defense committee for Norm. We have attended his court hearings and we’re planning a fundraiser for his legal expenses. This struggle against racism can open the door to increased CHALLENGE sales, and more workers becoming part of the distribution network. In the steel mills, that’s political dynamite.

Welfare Workers, Recipients Victims of Fascist Attacks

BOSTON—Striking social workers at Family Services of Greater Boston (FSGB) have been threatened with permanent replacement. At issue is the way social services are being delivered to families. FSGB director Randall Rucker wants to impose a weekly quota of "billable hours" on the social workers. Clients are "billable" if they have medical insurance that can be billed, or if they (or someone in their families) have a diagnosed mental illness, so that Medicare can be billed. He’s forcing the social workers to chase the money, even if it means finding clinical depression, retardation, dementia, or Attention Deficit Disorder in their clients’ families.

This is part of the fascist trend to cut services for the working class. They justify this by criminalizing and pathologizing working class people as "defective" rather than blaming capitalism for creating the social conditions that attack our families. (For example the National Institute of Mental Health and nearly all mental health organizations now claim that 8 out of 50 million children in the U.S. are "mentally ill" during some part of their childhood.)

The FSGB social workers in SEIU Local 285 are blocking Rucker’s master plan. They refuse to treat clients like slaves on the auction block. Rucker wants to sweep them aside by breaking their union and firing them all. He forced them out on strike and then hired scabs to replace them and goons to protect the building and intimidate the strikers around the clock.

The SEIU’s strategy is top-heavy. They refuse to rally the power of workers in other social service agencies to spread the strike nor organize clients and their families to join the picket lines. Rather they are relying on legislators and other "big names" to pressure Rucker. Other SEIU locals will soon be negotiating their contracts. The outcome of this strike will have a profound effect on them. Workers need to break the law and build real solidarity. Otherwise the only thing "built" will be cynicism.

PLP is getting to know some of the social workers and bringing the message of the strike to students at nearby Roxbury Community College (RCC), presenting it not as a simple labor dispute but as part of the war on the working class.

College Haven for Scabs

The RCC Administration is letting Rucker of FSGB use its parking facilities to shuttle the scabs back and forth to their cars. The Massachusetts Community College Council at RCC passed a resolution demanding that RCC Pres. Brown immediately terminate its parking agreement with FSGB. Tonight the issue will be raised at the RCC Board of Trustees meeting. Much more than passing union resolutions must be done! The scabs are still being protected.

Apartheid Continues: AIDS and South African Capitalism

"That mother is going to die and that HIV-negative child will be an orphan. That child must be brought up. Who is going to bring the child up? It’s the state, the state. That’s resources, you see."—Parks Mankahlana, spokesperson for South African president Thabo Mbeki, explains why his government won’t provide nevirapine to prevent mother to child transmission of AIDS. The government would rather have the child die of AIDS than use state resources.

(This is the third of a series of articles on the global AIDS pandemic).

During the recent AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa (SA), Pres. Thabo Mbeki questioned whether HIV causes AIDS, and invited a group of crackpot "AIDS dissidents" from the U.S. to serve on an AIDS panel. The South African AIDS calamity is part of a general catastrophic failure to improve workers’ lives since the end of apartheid. International corporations and banks, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank, together with South Africa’s reconfigured post-apartheid black and white ruling class, have preserved the worst features of apartheid.

In 1991, a CIA document predicted 45 million HIV infections by 2000, the majority in Africa. (Present over 50 million people are believed to have been infected; 19 million have died.) Faced with these figures, the U.S. rulers cold-bloodedly debated whether it was "worth" it, from a military standpoint, to combat AIDS. One security official commented, "Oh, it [AIDS] will be good, because Africa is overpopulated anyway." This became the unofficial line of USAID, the State Department’s international "aid" agency, and of the World Bank. When it became obvious the U.S. didn’t face a runaway heterosexual epidemic, further action was shelved. The World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control and the UN all actively resisted paying for AIDS prevention.¹ People who believe HIV is a CIA plot are wrong about the facts, but they’re right that capitalists consider millions of African workers expendable.

Why has Mbeki lent an ear to HIV deniers? The initial quote above suggests he’s trying to save money by preventing the birth of HIV-negative orphans. Last year Mbeki’s government refused to spend nearly half of the money in its AIDS budget and blocked the purchase of relatively cheap drugs that prevent maternal transmission of AIDS. Or Mbeki, by appearing stubborn, may be jockeying for a better deal in international aid and drug prices. Either or both of these cynical motives would be consistent with Mbeki’s role in the "new" South Africa.

Liberals praise SA’s "peaceful transition" from apartheid, as though power had actually changed hands in 1994. Power never changed hands. The heroic struggle against apartheid was co-opted to smooth the re-entry of SA’s biggest bosses into global capitalism. By 1990, the more powerful, "forward-looking" wing of the SA capitalists were frustrated by a recession brought on by international sanctions. Led by Harry Oppenheimer (owner of de Beers diamonds and SA’s gold mines), they made a deal with leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) to dismantle the surface aspects of apartheid, while leaving its base in super-exploitation intact.² By assuring stability, Mandela and Mbeki made SA safer for capitalism.

Mandela, of course, was a hero to millions, and had spent 30 years in prison for defying a fascist court. Like Mandela, Mbeki was a leader of the ANC, then influenced by the SA Communist Party. In 1970 Mbeki visited the Soviet Union for military training. By the 1990s, Mbeki had morphed into a business technocrat. According to a pro-ANC commentator, "Mbeki had been the darling of South Africa’s business community for years, a champion of the type of neo-liberal economics that pleases cheerleaders for globalization. A close friend of the Clinton Administration, Mbeki was considered a man ‘we’ could work with."³

When Oppenheimer died this year, Mandela and Mbeki eulogized him in glowing terms. But Oppenheimer was apartheid’s biggest profiteer, notorious for racist wage differentials and appalling working conditions. Oppenheimer’s gold mines set the pattern for migrant industrial labor that first spread the AIDS pandemic. Men were recruited from all over SA to work in the mines and housed in single-sex hostels. Their wives had to stay behind in the so-called homelands. The bosses encouraged prostitution, and men who became infected with HIV took it home to their wives in remote rural areas.

Life for SA workers has become ever more desperate. Apartheid still rules in the townships, where red-lining (racist housing practices) and loan-sharking have deepened the housing crisis. As formal apartheid ended, South Africa was already in debt slavery to the IMF and World Bank. "Structural adjustment" programs forced dismantling of the public health system and provoked mass unemployment (and prostitution). As a good businessman, Mbeki cheerfully enforced the "belt-tightening."⁴

These actions fueled the skyrocketing AIDS epidemic. Despite warnings from SA physicians and scientists, Mandela ignored the growing HIV danger, scuttling even safe-sex messages when he was advised that it would be political suicide to mention AIDS. From 1990 to 1999, HIV infection increased from 0.8% to 22%, until today SA has over 10% of the world’s infections.⁵

Most drugs used to treat HIV are vastly over-priced and out of reach in the developing world. As an HIV-positive SA judge said recently, "On a continent in which 290 million Africans survive on less than one U.S. dollar a day, I can afford monthly medication costs of approximately $400 per month.…I am here because I can pay for life itself. To me this seems a shocking and monstrous iniquity."⁶

Gore Pimps For Pfizer

Pfizer’s fluconazole is used to treat cryptococcal meningitis, a brain infection in people whose immune system has been weakened by HIV. In 1997, South Africa tried to buy an equivalent drug from Thailand at 1/20^th the cost, challenging World Trade Organization patent rules. Al Gore acted as Pfizer’s pimp, threatening trade sanctions if SA didn’t respect patents. Recently, Clinton-Gore, drug companies and Mbeki have been performing a complicated dance. The U.S. has backed down somewhat, as Gore pretends to campaign against "big drug companies" in the election follies. Drug mult-inationals have started to offer South Africa special deals and give-aways, none of which has yet materialized.⁷

The decades-long struggle against South African apartheid, which was led by millions of SA workers and students, inspired the world. Many of the most committed leaders were black and white communists, but their goal was "black majority rule." They believed that fighting for socialism and then communism would have to come at a "later stage." This reformist and nationalist "stage theory" undermined the possibility of workers’ revolution and is now contributing to tens of millions of deaths. AIDS and poverty holocausts in South Africa and the rest of the world can only end with communist revolution.

1. Gellman, WASHINGTON POST, 7/5/2000, p. AO1

2. Patrick Bond (July 2000), "A Political Economy of South African AIDS" (http://www.zmag.org/AIDspage.htm)

3. Danny Schechter, "Mbeki’s Muddle.

4. Patrick Bond (2000) Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa

5. Jon Cohen (2000) SCIENCE, 288: 2168-2170

6. Speech by Edwin Cameron, Durban conference, 7/10/2000

7. Chirac, et al. 8/5/2000 — AIDS: patent rights versus patients’ rights, The Lancet, volume 356, number 9228

 

LETTERS

War Alert

My defense-related industrial plant was placed on alert after the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen. The bosses are worried that "terrorists" will move from symbolic to strategic targets outside and inside the U.S. These workers have close ties to the military, and many are suspicious regarding the attack on the Cole.

"It’s October in an election year; think about it," said one worker. "The Republicans or Democrats always create some incident before their elections to help themselves." When he was asked who he thought was behind the attack he asked, "Does it matter?" An operator at the plant thought that Israel might have arranged the bombing in order to divert attention away from its very public racism and brutality against Palestinian workers.

Whoever is behind the bombing of the USS Cole, workers at this Midwest factory are not responding in the manner the bosses need to ensure constant production and delivery of goods that makes their military threat possible. Drivers are being pushed far beyond the safe limit and operators are on rotating 12-hour shifts. They see that the end result of their grueling labor is the enrichment of the owners at great cost to the working class.

However, it is not sufficient that we have a general sense of our exploitation. We must overcome many obstacles and develop a class-consciousness that transforms our legitimate cynicism in a rotten capitalist system into revolutionary communist understanding and commitment.

Production workers and delivery drivers, like workers in other industries and soldiers themselves, are the backbone of the bosses’ murderous military machine. Winning these workers to PLP will be a body blow against the enemies of the international working class.

Turn the Guns Around:

a name="Yesterday’s ‘Freedom Fighter’ is Today’s ‘Terrorist’"></a>Yester"ay’s ‘Freedom Fighter’ is Today’s ‘Terrorist’

The recent articles on the Middle East situation have helped clarify what is apparently a very confusing situation. Behind the veils of religious and national conflicts lie the needs for different imperialists and bosses to control the biggest oil-producing countries in the world (Iraq and Saudi Arabia).

But another point should be made clear: the issue of terrorism. The U.S. and Israel bosses always call their current enemies "terrorists." But today’s "terrorists" were yesterday’s "freedom fighters" (pro-U.S.). For instance, Osama Bin laden, the Saudi billionaire is now the number one terrorist on the U.S. hit list. When the CIA, supported by the drug-running Pakistani Intelligence Services, sent billions worth of weapons to the Moslem "freedom fighters" fighting the Soviet Army and the Afghan government, Osama Bin laden was crucial in helping these anti-Soviet forces. The "blind Sheik," now in jail in the U.S. accused of masterminding the bombing of the Twin Towers in NYC, was also an ally of the CIA and Osama Bin Laden during the CIA-financed war in Afghanistan.

Another example: last week the Israeli government asked Yassir Arafat to once again imprison leaders of Hamas for encouraging a holy war against Israel. But as Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent of the London daily THE INDEPENDENT, wrote (Oct. 17): "Was it not Israel that encouraged Hamas in the 1980s as a rival to Arafat’s PLO? Did senior Israeli army officers not meet Hamas regularly when the organization seemed hostile to Mr. Arafat? And what of Sheik Yassin, the hoary old prelate who now demands Mr. Arafat leave Sharm el-Sheikh (where the now almost deceased cease-fire was worked out with Clinton, Barak Koffi Annan and Mubarak) and calls for the destruction of Israel? Was it not former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who let Yassin out of jail—as part of a deal to free two Mossad assassins who had tried to murder a Hamas operative in Amman? Alas, memories are short."

As CHALLENGE has written many times, when it comes to terrorism, no one can beat the U.S. bosses and their agents.

A NYC Comrade

200 Bucks for a Passport?

Last week, the NY TIMES ran a front-page article reporting what was already publicly known: the corruption of Bienvenido Pérez, the former consul of the Dominican Republic in New York City. Pérez, the former consul, left the consulate with a $20,000 credit card bill and then took off. He also hiked the already high prices for consular services. He created one of the most expensive consulates in the world. For example, a two-year passport costs over $200. The consulate made big bucks, over $600,000 a month, overcharging working-class Dominican workers in NYC who needed its services. It was a racket. The consul kept part of it and sent the rest back to the government in the Dominican Republic.

The new consul (nominated by the new administration in the Dominican Republic) has lowered prices of some services, but they’re still expensive, particularly for many Dominican workers who can barely make ends meet in NYC.

Many people are very cynical about any changes. After all, the previous consul represented a government that promised to "modernize" things. The Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), the one to which former consul Pérez belonged, used to call itself the only truly "national liberation" party in Latin America and claimed to be anti-imperialist. It borrowed a lot from the Marxist form of organizing and attracted former Marxists to its ranks.

When Leonel Fernández, the PLD candidate, was elected President in 1996, I had several arguments with NYC supporters of the PLD who read CHALLENGE. They were angry, saying I was wrong. But when Fernández took power, he "forgot" all about anti-imperialism and became a practitioner of free market capitalism. Corruption was rampant, similar to previous governments the PLD had criticized.

The system cannot be changed from within. Capitalism is set up to oppress workers, no matter who’s President. Those who claim they can do it from within always end up being corrupted by capitalism.

Others are saying it’s a "shame" that all the recent Dominican consuls in NYC were "not well-educated." Pérez was a hotel porter, his successor owned a chicken farm in the Dominican Republic and the current consul was a building superintendent. Again, that’s not the point. Whoever becomes consul is part of a capitalist government and can’t serve the interests of the huge Dominican population in NYC.

Luperón Red

Capitalism Drugs Our Children

The Coalition Against the Violence Initiative (CAVI) is continuing to fight against biodeterminism in the fields of mental health and education. The Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health states that 20% of children (and adults) suffer a mental health problem in any given year, and that the brain is the source of most of these problems. In other words, not only are millions of us mentally disturbed, but also the source of the problem is from inside our own heads to be remedied with psychotropic medications. About five million children are currently on the drug Ritalin for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Many others are being medicated for "Conduct Disorders" and depression, some as young as two years old. As schools deteriorate and poverty and police harassment worsen, children become more difficult to control. This society’s answer is to drug them into submission, all in the name of medical "progress."

Recently CAVI held one of several forums on this issue. New people who attended included a psychologist in the foster care system, some public health students and a high school student from rural Virginia who stated that over 50% of her classmates are on Ritalin. We agreed to continue our outreach to parents and to contact teachers and encourage them to refuse to recommend students for medication and instead to demand the resources to offer needed educational and psychological support. Several community organizations are interested in this issue and have invited us to speak, and we will continue to hold demonstrations and forums of our own.

There is a growing public awareness that not only are drug companies making millions off our children, but that the schools and health professions are being used to control our children and attribute social problems, such as crime, to their "defective" minds. Our answer is to win children and their parents to fight back against the violence aimed at them, from police brutality to war.

PLP health worker in CAVI

Poverty, Racism, Sexism Masks US AIDS Victims

CHALLENGE

’s piece on the origin of the AIDS epidemic in Africa was excellent. The same sorts of causes were behind the U.S. AIDS epidemic, although the latter is frequently portrayed as "different"—a disease of gay men, which only later spread to women and heterosexuals.

According to Chapter Two of Paul Farmer’s book, "Infections and Inequalities — The Modern Plagues," (University of California, 1999), when AIDS was first recognized among gay U.S. men in 1981, it also existed among poor and minority U.S. women, but because of poverty, racism, sexism and the accompanying lack of health care, their symptoms were considered "normal" for their groups and not recognized as signs of a new disease.

Farmer describes the late ’80s, where a computer search for "AIDS" yielded 100,000 references, whereas "AIDS and women" yielded only 2,000 references, and "AIDS, women, and poverty" yielded none. "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS" declared "most heterosexuals...have more to fear from bathtub drowning than from AIDS." Yet by this time millions of women whose partners were neither bisexual nor IV drug users were already infected with HIV. Figures from the Center for Disease Control show that by 1991, in 15 U.S. cities, AIDS was the leading cause of death among 25 to 44year-old black women and the third leading cause of death among Latina women.

Farmer shows that race-intensified poverty, drugs, prostitution, lack of medical treatment for disease or drug addiction, disruption of families, women’s dependence on men and acceptance of multiple sex partners for men all contributed to the AIDS epidemic.

In both Africa and the U.S., AIDS is indeed a disease of capitalism, but actually through racism, sexism and poverty, not through homosexuals. If one were to attribute the U.S. AIDS epidemic to gay men, it would let capitalism off the hook.

Bay Area reader

1. Bush-Gore Prepare for War in Middle East
   Oil Bosses' Suck Workers' Blood
2. Clinton-Barak-Arafat Cease Fire A Band Aid Ov er a Gaping Wound
   1. OOPS
3. The Oil Equation: Chevron + Texaco = Mass Layoffs, War
4. Burning Desire? Put Out the Fire!
5. Garment Workers' Solidarity with MTA Workers
6. Strikers Hail Mechanics'Solidarity
7. GROWTH OF PLP IS TOP GAIN IN MUNI CONTRACT
8. Hacks Put (Sub)Contract Out on Workers' Jobs
9. Fight Against Bosses' Oil War Plans Inside Mass Organizations
10. Immigrants March Against Racism and Against Partial Amnesty
11. Class Struggle Union Campaign Moves Workers to the Left
12. Union Anti-Oil War Resolution
13. Vets Give Boot to Nazis Heel
14. LETTERS
    1. Bosses Need Vieques to Wage War
    2. Revolution Has One Color--Red
    3. Reforms of 1930s Going, Going, Gone
    4. Chile's `Diversity'A Splitting Scheme
    5. Is What You See What You Get?
    6. Expanding Sales A Real `Challenge'
    7. The Three R's--Reading, `Riting and Revolution

---

Editorial

Bush-Gore Prepare for War in Middle East
Oil Bosses' Suck Workers' Blood

The ongoing violence in Israel and last week's suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in a Yemen port show that imperialist "peace" negotiations are always a step toward war. The profit system spawns war. The present conflict can only sharpen and widen. As it unfolds, the Progressive Labor Party will see increasing opportunity on many fronts to advance its revolutionary communist perspective, to intensify class struggle, and to win new recruits. Only the growth of our Party and its influence can set the stage for U.S. and international imperialism's eventual defeat.

Behind the religious struggle for shrines and the nationalist battle for turf lies the deadly rivalry among the world's biggest bosses to control Middle Eastern oil wealth. The fate of the USS Cole furnishes a case in point. The Cole was bombed in the Yemen port of Aden. Aden is one of the deepest natural ports in the world. Yemen itself is "the center of a vigorous competition between some of the world's major powers" (Stratfor, 10/13). At issue is domination of the world's major shipping lanes. The U.S., as the "world's only remaining superpower," is seeing its rule over these lanes challenged by the Chinese and Russian navies. For example, a powerful Chinese company with close ties to that country's military recently signed a deal to develop facilities in the Suez Canal. And Russian capitalists have inked a pact to co-operate with Yemen's military.

There's more. Many oil tankers carrying Middle Eastern crude float by Socotra, an island off the Yemeni coast. Socotra itself is strategically placed for monitoring sea lanes in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the increasingly important Indian Ocean.

So the USS Cole wasn't exactly on a "humanitarian" mission when it was bombed. Now Clinton has launched an interplanetary search to find the bombers. The bosses' media are having their usual field day at guessing the perpetrators' identity. Obviously, we have no idea who did it. But one thing is quite clear. The main wing of U.S. bosses is using this event as an excuse to mobilize public opinion in favor of the rulers' plans for a new oil war in the Persian Gulf, most probably against Iraq. CHALLENGE has regularly warned about this.

The BOSTON GLOBE, owned by the NEW YORK TIMES, was quick to accuse Saddam Hussein: "Since the USS Cole had come through the Suez Canal on its way to the Persian Gulf to help enforce the United Nations embargo on (the) regime in Iraq, the tyrant in Baghdad had a reason of state for commanding the crime as well as the characteristic motive for revenge" (editorial, 10/13).

The GLOBE'S owner is a leading ruling-class mouthpiece. This is another example of U.S. rulers concocting an excuse for war. This follows a long line of U.S. provocations, from the sinking of the battleship Maine in 1898, which "justified" the Spanish-American War, to the outright lying by then President Johnson to create the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin "incident," providing the pretext for U.S. escalation of the Vietnam War. U.S. imperialists will stop at nothing to keep a stranglehold on Persian Gulf oil and the waterways that transport it. It would be no surprise if the next U.S. president uses the attack against the Cole as a reason to discipline Saddam Hussein, once the results of the "investigation" are in. But if the Cole bombing can't be pinned on the Iraqis, U.S. rulers will come up with something else.

Another oil war is looming. Only the details remain in doubt. The outcome of the presidential election won't alter U.S. imperialism's need to rule the world's oil supplies and markets. Both Bush and Gore will heed their masters' voice.

The Cole bombing also once again reveals U.S. rulers' key strategic weakness, the political reliability of their armed forces. Why this outpouring of hypocritical "condolences" and "sympathy" for the dead U.S. sailors? The rulers worry that workers in the U.S. military won't enthusiastically bleed and spill other workers' blood for Exxon. They're right to worry! As the situation continues to sharpen, our Party can act boldly to win many workers and others to embrace revolutionary communism as the one road away from capitalism's inevitable wars.

Clinton-Barak-Arafat Cease Fire A Band Aid Ov er a Gaping Wound

When the rulers "speak of peace, the mobilization orders have already been written out." (Bertold Brecht)

The history of Clinton's "peace" deal for Israel and the Palestinians is being written in workers' blood. The whole point of last summer's Camp David attempted deal was to give U.S. bosses a peacefully secure western flank in the Middle East, to be able to wage oil war in the Persian Gulf. But this imperialist meddling has led only to more armed struggle, with no end in sight.

The Clinton-ordered emergency "summit" meeting in Egypt between Barak and Arafat has agreed to a temporary, shaky cease-fire, but a new, possibly much wider round of fighting may very well erupt soon. When U.S. rulers organized the Camp David summit last summer, they were gambling they could make Israeli and Palestinian bosses knuckle under to U.S. interests. But the gamble has boomeranged, since no amount of diplomatic arm-twisting or sabre-rattling by Clinton & Co. can resolve the sharp internal contradictions of this situation:

* Significant forces within the Israeli ruling class oppose any deal creating a Palestinian state. They feel a standing Palestinian army would threaten Israeli dominance in the region. The Barak government, which acted as Clinton's agent during the Camp David meetings of last summer, has a decreasing internal authority.

* Many Palestinian bosses also oppose a formal settlement, because they reason that a U.S.-brokered arrangement would turn them into an Israeli puppet and hamper their own regional profit ambitions.

* Within Israel itself more than a million Israeli Arabs, who live in dire poverty and under fascist repression, pose a constant threat to the status quo of Israeli bosses' domination. A major internal uprising would make it difficult if not impossible for Israel to defend itself against outside attack.

* The only way such an attack could materialize would be for the Egyptian military to lead it. Right now, Egypt and Israel have a peace treaty. But peace treaties between capitalists are made to be broken. Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president who agreed to terms with Israel, was assassinated by opponents within his own class. And Sadat's heir, current Egyptian president Mubarak, is on shaky ground himself. He faces armed opposition from a coalition of Islamic fundamentalist forces who want Egyptian capitalism to develop independent of U.S. control. So Mubarak might void the treaty. Otherwise he might not survive politically (or even personally).

By forcing the issue last summer, Clinton appears only to have sharpened every major conflict within the Middle East. This doesn't stem from Clinton's drive for his own historical legacy, or his own ineptness. The deeper truth lies in the nature of imperialism. The drive for maximum profits impels all the major powers to fight for supremacy over their rivals and to turn the second-raters into vassals or clients. Capitalism itself is inevitably unstable. It determines its pecking order, settles its major disputes and "solves" its severe unemployment problems all through war. It brokers "peace" deals only to make war. Communists must never tire of advancing this profound lesson to workers. We must act upon it by fighting constantly to build our forces and our Party.

OOPS

Last week's editorial asserted that "Israel sees U.S. support lessening." This isn't quite true. For the U.S. to risk losing the support of Israel in the Middle East would be a blow on a par with the loss of the Shah of Iran. For several decades, U.S. foreign policy has been based on using Israel (and Iran until 1979) as their enforcers in this oil-rich region. To withdraw support for Israel would mean major changes in the foreign and domestic policies of U.S. capitalism. This might very well include increased anti-semitism to attack pro-Israeli forces here.

Currently U.S. rulers prefer to deal with a group inside Israel seeking accomodations with the Arafat bunch. The Likud faction led by right-winger Ariel Sharon opposes any deal with Arafat. It was Sharon's presence in the Dome of the Rock (a Moslem holy place) protected by 1,000 Israeli soldiers, that sparked the current violence in the area, in alliance with right-wing religious groups. As we go to press, Sharon--opposing the Barak-Arafat cease-fire brokered by Clinton--has broken off negotiations for a "national unity" government with Barak.

The Oil Equation: Chevron + Texaco = Mass Layoffs, War

U.S. oil giant Chevron gobbled up its longtime partner Texaco this week just as the bosses' struggle over the world's oil supplies turned even more violent. Chevron's owners, who belong to the main wing of the U.S. ruling class, hope the consolidation will make them stronger competitors in an increasingly bloody international arena.

Cutting 4,000 jobs immediately is one part of Chevron Texaco's plan to boost its profit rate. Another part is greater clout against Russian oil bosses in the Caspian region. The combined company's grandest scheme, however, is to expand its already extensive access to Saudi Arabia's unparalleled oil wealth. Today Chevron Texaco and its ally Exxon Mobil buy up the lion's share of Saudi crude exports at below-market prices. An entire U.S. Navy fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf--costing $50 billion a year of U.S. workers' taxes--ensures this sweetheart deal. Saudi rulers, seeking modernization, are now considering reopening their oil fields to direct ownership by the major firms.

The Saudis want only the biggest companies, those that can guarantee maximum exploration, production, refining and sales. By acquiring Texaco, Chevron has leapfrogged ahead of France's Total Fina Elf in line for the Saudi bonanza. But Iraq, with growing Russian, French and Chinese support, threatens to derail the U.S.-Saudi gravy train. Both Bush and Gore have vowed to eliminate the Hussein regime by armed force.

The Chevron-Texaco union reflects a tightening of economic control by the Eastern Establishment. In 1996, Texaco came close to forming an alliance with Chevron's and Exxon's rival British Petroleum (now BP Amoco) to sell its Alaskan crude in Asia. Rockefeller stooge Jesse Jackson helped bring Texaco back in line by exposing racism at the firm. Texaco will not stray again. As they prepare for Desert Genocide II, the most powerful U.S. bosses cannot tolerate such deviations.

Burning Desire? Put Out the Fire!

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 16 -- You say death and taxes are the only sure things? Nah! If workers have a hot fight raging, you can bet your strike pay the old tried-and-paid-for fireman, Jesse Jackson, will show up to give workers a hosing.

As the strike of 4,300 transit workers entered its second month, local bosses were refusing to budge in their drive for hundreds of new part-time drivers at $10/hr. with no medical benefits. The LA Federation of Labor invited Jackson to twist the arms of the MTA. He said he was here "to save middle class jobs" (and the union leaders' asses), in transit and the troubled negotiations of 46,000 County workers.

Jackson is the U.S. government's unofficial troubleshooter with an office on Wall St. His main role is to put out the fires of class struggle, especially when black workers are involved, and steer it back into the Democratic Party. He goes where U.S. imperialism needs him, from Africa to Yugoslavia, from LA to Gary, Indiana, pulling the bosses' bacon out of the fire.

The AFL- CIO and the liberal establishment have a big problem. If they cannot preserve a few thousand higher-paying jobs it will be more difficult to win workers to a movement they view as weak. If the unions are to survive and organize for the Democrats, they have to grow. The AFL-CIO has targeted the huge pool of Latin and immigrant workers, and recently organized 75,000 California home health care workers. They are behind the amnesty movement. They are spending millions to elect Gore, and will try to line up workers to support the next oil war.

At Pasadena's liberal All Saints Episcopal Church Jackson said, "Workers deserve the dignity of [their] jobs. We've got to pay those bus drivers," and "Poor people have to get to work." What he didn't say is that the work they "get to" makes Los Angeles the sweatshop capital of the USA.

The rulers, and the unions are playing both sides of the street. They rely on terror to keep wages down and productivity high. But they also need a "labor aristocracy" of better paid, loyal workers that can be used as examples of Jackson's tired slogan, "Keep hope alive." But a communist-led working class will unite black, Latin, Asian and white, men and women, higher-paid and lower-paid, to break the nationalist grip of Jackson & Co. and march the road to revolution. Our efforts to lead actions and provide political leadership in the transit strike has moved us a little further down that long road.

Garment Workers' Solidarity with MTA Workers

LOS ANGELES, CA., Oct. 13 -- "From Palestine to Los Angeles, workers' struggles have no borders," chanted a garment worker through a bullhorn at a garment center rally calling for workers' support for striking bus drivers and mechanics. The rally also exposed the "peace" process and a looming war in the Middle East. The participants included garment workers, eight strikers and a group of high school and college students. Over 1,500 leaflets and 200 CHALLENGES were distributed.

A leaflet written by a striker who just joined PLP appealed "To garment and all workers.... We are workers...Supposedly slavery ended many years ago. But the truth is that we work like slaves."

Many garment workers viewing the rally welcomed the drivers and mechanics as class brothers, gladly taking their leaflets. Many in cars honked their horns in support. Others entered into lively discussions.

At first some of the drivers were somewhat reserved, fearing insults or attacks from garment workers, especially since many have been scrambling to find alternate transportation to get to work. But unity as one class prevailed.

A week ago, a group of garment workers and three strikers met to organize this rally. They discussed recent CHALLENGE articles entitled, "Are the union leaders friends of the workers?" and "The role of the LA Times." This led to an exchange of views about oil, war and the need for communist revolution. Then we discussed how we could help the strikers and also raise demands of garment workers, most of whom ride the bus to work.

One garment worker said, "We should collect money and food for the strikers." Another commented, "This is tough. Many garment workers, although supporting the strikers, are very much affected by the strike. What's more, what the drivers' union gives them as strike benefits is just about the full wage of many garment workers. But if that's what we need to do, we'll do it."

"I think that at this point," added a striking mechanic, "the best support is political and moral."

"Then why don't we have a protest in the middle of the garment center and invite other strikers to come," declared a garment worker. The new PLP member and transit striker, participating in such a meeting for the first time, said, "I want to write a leaflet explaining the struggle to garment workers." That was how the rally came about.

Many of these strikers have been friends of the Party for years. Some have been reading CHALLENGE, having political discussions and participating in social activities. All these actions can propel discussions in the factories and the bus divisions about the need to build a revolutionary communist movement uniting all workers.

Strikers Hail Mechanics'Solidarity

LOS ANGELES--Following the demonstration in the heart of the garment district in support of striking transit workers, a group of Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) mechanics and local students drove to the Convention Center. There striking drivers would reject MTA's final offer.

As the strikers streamed into the hall, the group met them with garment-worker leaflets supporting the strikers and blaming city and garment bosses for the conditions that created the strike. Workers grabbed the leaflets out of our hands. They especially liked our picket signs demanding all slave labor out of transit--part-timing, prison labor and workfare wages. When one driver saw the sign, he high-fived a mechanic so hard he almost knocked him over.

After passing out all our leaflets, we walked inside with our signs held high. One driver hugged us as we came up the escalator. Drivers gave us copies of the contract that was eventually rejected. During the meeting, union president Williams, knowing the workers' strong feelings against the contract, called on them to put their faith in sellouts Jesse Jackson and AFL-CIO hack Miguel Contreras to win the battle, rather them having faith in their class struggle instincts.

GROWTH OF PLP IS TOP GAIN IN MUNI CONTRACT

SAN FRANCISCO, CA., October 17 -- MUNI drivers are voting on a third contract proposal. The first two, backed by the Mayor, the bosses' press and the Transport Workers Union International, were overwhelmingly rejected. The new proposal rolls back wage progression from 31 to 18 months. We have temporarily cut into the amount MUNI can steal from new drivers. Drivers united--Asian, Latin, black and white, across seniority lines--to make this the central issue.

The 31-month wage progression slashed labor costs by $8 million a year. The money "saved" from the mainly minority workers is an example of the institutional racism that has reduced their wages for 20 years. Racist wage differentials add up to an extra $250 billion in profits off black and Latin workers in the USA.

In our 5-month contract fight, we met management's attacks on absenteeism with demands for full staffing and more flexibility for operators to schedule time off. To achieve full staffing, this contract allows all part-timers to become full-time. New hires will come in full-time.

We have set a precedent for reversing wage progression in the transit industry and we will make damn sure our comrades and co-workers in transit districts around the country know about it. PLP and CHALLENGE are the key links in this chain of developing unity and solidarity.

We owe a debt of thanks to our transit brothers and sisters in LA. Their month-long strike put fear in the hearts of the local bosses and pushed Mayor Willie Brown to force MUNI to make concessions.

But these reform victories are fleeting at best. The U.S. "peace plan" between Israel and the Palestinians has been shattered. Chevron (based in SF) has swallowed Texaco, to better compete for control of oil in Africa, the Caspian and the Middle East. And Exxon-Mobil is pushing for war to control Iraq's cheap oil reserves. The raises and improvement in wage progression will be more than wiped out when gas prices go to $3 a gallon and pale compared to the threat of another oil war.
Mass transit is part of the capitalist infrastructure needed for global competition. The Transportation Equity Act for the 21^st Century (1998) provided $215 billion for mass transit over the next six years, to advance "America's economic growth and competitiveness domestically and internationally through efficient and flexible transportation." (U.S. Dept. Of Transportation).
This is behind MUNI demands to expand rush hour service to commercial districts with no increase in the workforce. It fuels demands for "efficiency," wage progression and company changes in discipline, penalties for accidents and use of sick leave. As a leading economic force in SF, Chevron will continue attacking transit workers and grind down the whole working class.
A war economy demands patriotism, sacrifice and efficient production. So while we fight for a better contract, we must look at the bigger picture. Our children will be mobilized to fight an oil war to keep Exxon-Mobil and Chevron-Texaco rich and in control. We need a working class armed with CHALLENGE'S communist analysis. It's the profit system and inter-imperialist rivalry that is driving our quality of life into the dust. MUNI bosses merely carry out that agenda.

With war clouds hanging over the Middle East, the biggest victory has been the growth of PLP. More workers are reading and distributing CHALLENGE, and the Party is stronger due to the increased leadership of black workers. Many drivers fought the boss, built working-class unity, united with communists and rejected the union leadership's appeals to racism and nationalism. AC Transit and MUNI drivers are meeting together and have planned some joint actions. Change marches on.

Hacks Put (Sub)Contract Out on Workers' Jobs

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 17--Several hundred members of AFSCME Local 420 protested today in front of the Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC). They denounced HHC head Dr. Luis R. Marcos for planning to eliminate union jobs, subcontracting them out to non-union labor. Already the staff shortages are forcing many of these workers to work long hours. Federico Pérez, a Metropolitan Hospital housekeeping worker, charged that "we have to do the job of two and even three workers because of cutback in staff."

Marcos let the cat out of the bag when he denied HHC was intending to use more subcontractors, saying that "last time we did it with [union] consent, contracting out 50% of the laundry load HHC hospitals have, saving $50,000 a week."

So what's up with that? The AFSCME leadership organizes protests against using the very subcontractors it agreed to in the past. These sellouts have taken the labor movement to the garbage dump, allowing the bosses to get away with cutbacks, Workfare and everything else.

HHC workers have been without a contract since April. Local 420 president Butler, recently re-elected international vice-president, is very much in bed with the AFSCME leadership that has made no effort to fight for a contract meeting workers' needs. PLP has had a long history in exposing this "marriage," pointing out that these union hacks, in defending the bosses' system, must--be definition--attack the workers.

Fight Against Bosses' Oil War Plans Inside Mass Organizations

NEWARK, NJ -- PLP is making plans here in New Jersey to raise the issue of war on campus and inside three mass organizations. One has a statewide meeting this month on "Racism and Violence." This presents a good opportunity to link the violence of the imperialist fight over oil in the Mid East to the fight against police terror, racial profiling and slave labor Workfare here. In another organization, Party members will link the punishment of students who refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance to the bosses' need to build patriotism in order to carry out their war plans.

While PLP has begun to plant the seeds of a new international communist movement, we know we must be patient and have a long-range outlook. Entering mass organizations has enabled us to raise communist ideas in many different ways and from different vantage points. It also makes it harder for the bosses and their servants in these groups to isolate us.

But working in these organizations also carries a danger. We can't be "patient" in the face of greater opportunities to raise the political level of the workers and recruit to the Party. Otherwise, we risk bowing to the politics of the reform struggles which we are part of. With the crisis in the Mid-East, and the threat of oil war against Iraq, we must immediately relate the political nature of the crisis to the class struggles where we are.

To sum up, let's have a long-term approach, but let's fight extra hard for our ideas and for recruitment when the bosses' actions give us greater opportunities to grow.

Immigrants March Against Racism and Against Partial Amnesty

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 14--Today, several thousand immigrant workers, mostly from Latin America but also some from Eastern Europe and other areas, marched from Columbus Circle to the UN to demand unconditional amnesty for all undocumented immigrants. Many workers, particularly newly arrived immigrants from Mexico, are super-exploited, working six and seven days a week for less than the minimum wage. Many marchers made a big sacrifice coming to the march, foregoing a day's pay.

One positive feature, which some march organizers considered bad, was the absence of politicians national or local. Also, many realize the AFL-CIO is not a trusted ally. The union hacks are supporting a "partial" amnesty which will exclude 5.5 million undocumented immigrants!

Many chanted pro-working class internationalist chants like "Workers' Struggles Have No Borders." One speaker even said there is one working class worldwide and we should all unite and fight for our interests. Another speaker, a Brazilian immigrant, advocated not only fighting to get immigration documents, but also against imperialists like the International Monetary Fund, whose austerity programs attack workers throughout the world. He said that bosses open borders only for investment purposes. He added that the militant struggles of landless peasants in Brazil are very similar to those waged by undocumented workers here in the U.S., saying workers' struggles are the same worldwide.

PLP participated in the march, distributing a leaflet linking the recent racist attacks against immigrants in Farmingville, NY (where two Mexican laborers were brutally beaten by racists) to the situation in the Middle East--racist terror and imperialist war are part and parcel of capitalism. CHALLENGE and our red flags, as well as our chants, were well-received during the march.

Anti-immigrant racism is becoming increasingly bolder. The same day of the march, Sachem Quality of Life, a racist group near Farmingville invited a speaker from the ultra-racist California-based Voices of Citizens Together (VCT). On July 4, anti-racists, including PLP, attacked a VCT rally in Los Angeles.

The rulers are in a bind. On one hand, they will use immigrants as cannon fodder to wage their imperialist wars, but they also need to keep them working for peanuts. So they need racist terror to keep them in line. They cannot solve this contradiction.

PLP members made several promising contacts during the march. Joining the Party is the best response to the bosses' racism.

Class Struggle Union Campaign Moves Workers to the Left

"This article is really good!" said my friend, referring to the latest CHALLENGE editorial on the bosses' oil wars. It was the first CHALLENGE article he had ever read. I had just given him his first copy of our paper and he went right to the "meat"!

Come to think of it, there were a lot of firsts this month for my friend. The first time he had participated in a union election campaign; the first time he distributed leaflets at work calling for class struggle, anti-racist, multi-racial unity and international working-class solidarity to answer the bosses attacks; the first time he contributed to a collective discussion about our responsibility to the our class as workers in a "defense" industry; the first time he voted in a union election. This pattern was repeated a dozen times as we recruited new readers and new activists in the plant.

Many hundreds of rank-and-filers voted for us in this recent union election, not enough to overcome the scores of full-time organizers and many thousands of dollars available to the hacks, but enough to put us in the "top tier" of the opposition.

The campaign went beyond the sometimes legal, sometimes illegal, distribution of 5,000 class-struggle flyers throughout the company plants--not to mention the hundreds of additional leaflets distributed in other unions at the plant and among non-union workers in subcontractors throughout the country. Dozens of workers organized van pools and carloads to take rank-and-filers to the union halls, many for the first time. Multi-racial groups of workers jammed our union hall during the lunch hour. Workers reported seeing the union Business Agent almost choke on his cigarette when he saw the carloads emptying into the hall.

Some present union officials, who had fallen out of favor with the "machine", approached us about forming a full slate for the next election. "You guys are great leaders, but you've got to let us edit your leaflets. They are too radical," they warned. As it turned out, our "radical" candidate did better than they did.

More importantly, the activists around the Party immediately began to make plans the day after the election. Encouraged by the good showing, workers estimated how many more organizers we will need and how we are going to raise the thousands necessary to continue to challenge the present "leadership."

But, nobody's waiting around for the next election. One woman asked how our political history affected our work in the union. It was great she came to us instead of succumbing to the anti-communist rumor-mongering of the hacks. After talking with us, she decided the Party and its base were just the people her area needs to carry on the class struggle against the erosion of work rules and jobs. We aim to show her she's right!

Our base has grown and our influence has spread during the last month. More workers in the plant are reading the paper. The bosses--who declared us "illegal" for a while--and their labor lieutenants in the union leadership have also noted this development. We can expect more attacks. In order to sustain this growth, we will need more political and organizational leadership. We can succeed only if more of these new activists join the Party. For starters, we need to recruit more sellers so we can reach all our new readers. Dozens have experienced political "firsts" this last month. Selling CHALLENGE and joining the Progressive Labor Party are two more "firsts" to add to your list!

Mid-West Union Campaigner
PLP'ers Organize Against Oil Inside City Unions

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 16 -- " CHALLENGE is a beacon for the international working class," reported a worker at a recent PLP leadership meeting. "Articles about the conflicts between capitalists for control of oil production and markets and the absolute need of the Old Money section of U.S. imperialists to intervene militarily in the Middle East are visionary."

CHALLENGE reports that the U.S. rulers' weakest link is their difficulty in winning U.S. workers and youth to fight and massively support an oil war. Therein lies the Party's opportunity and task. How we prepare workers and youth now to go on the offensive against oil war will establish the conditions to build a much larger PLP capable of leading the working class. CHALLENGE is an integral part of this process.

The Party here has a significant concentration among teachers, students and parents. With the classroom as our base, teachers plan to stimulate student discussions and debates about the poison of racism and nationalism dividing the working class in occupied Palestinian areas and Israel. Youth can and must take the lead in the fight against the bosses' oil wars. High school student governments and youth clubs can call for school-wide forums and actions. Plans have been made in several high schools to show a documentary about U.S.-enforced sanctions in Iraq.

As young people prepare to march against police brutality on Oct. 22, we can link youth uniting multi-racially to fight racist police terror in the U.S. with the need for multi-racial unity against terror among workers and youth in the Middle East. Students and teachers can write for CHALLENGE about their impressions and activities. In turn, more youth will read and discuss CHALLENGE, learn about what's going on in the world, what communism is and how to join and build the PLP. The door is wide open.

Union Anti-Oil War Resolution

A PLP'er in an AFSCME local will introduce a resolution against oil war in the Middle East and war contracts in the U.S. Such contracts allow the bosses to cut the workforce and use Workfare and prison labor to depress all workers' wages. AFSCME's District Council 37 members have been without a contract since the spring. CHALLENGE readers can support the PLPer's resolution, holding anti-oil war meetings at their workplaces and calling for a strike vote.

A PLP hospital worker belongs to the largest union local in NY State, SEIU-1199. It is pulling out all stops to get its members to vote in next month's elections. Our comrade can call for a vote against a war for oil profits in the Mid-East and against an austerity war contract when the current one expires next year. CHALLENGE readers in his hospital can form discussion groups in the hospital cafeteria. More workers can be asked to set up CHALLENGE network distributions and to join PLP. With a determined plan, these goals are realizable. Our other PLP workers can follow these comrades' lead.

Our area leadership is making similar plans with other PLP members who are working in student groups on college campuses, in immigrant workers' organizations, women's and community groups and churches. Look for these reports in CHALLENGE.

In December our area will have its annual CHALLENGE support evening. The themes will be: CHALLENGE leads -- read and distribute CHALLENGE; PLP prepares workers and youth to fight imperialist oil war in the Middle East; Join PLP -- fight for communism, power to the workers.

The struggle is not easy. It requires courage, commitment to task and patience. But the Party has the opportunity to move on several fronts: to expand the limits and move forward in this period of crisis in the Middle East.

Vets Give Boot to Nazis Heel

MANVILLE, NJ, October 17--About 30 anti-racists and members of the Veterans of Foreign War (VFW) confronted John Kucek of the fascist Nationalist Movement today. Kucek was attempting to conduct an award ceremony for the racists who held a rally in Morristown on July 4th. PLP members and others were arrested at that demonstration for confronting these nazi scum.

Kucek, a VFW member, had rented the VFW hall without the vets realizing he would be holding an openly racist meeting. When the VFW members, mostly white workers (some of whom had fought Hitler in World War II), learned their hall was being used for a racist ceremony they decided to cancel the event and block any racists from entering the hall.

When the racists did turn up, they were confronted by a small band of anti- racists. Kucek, feeling pressure from the anti-racists, questioning reporters and VFW members, claimed he had "chest pains" and was taken away in an ambulance.

The intensification of inter-imperialist rivalry and the worsening conditions of the working class will make the racist, fascist ideas of groups like the Nationalist Movement attractive to sectors of our class. Workers and students must always confront and expose these nazis when they march, meet or rally. We must win workers to fight against racism and for workers power. We applaud the workers and youth who drove these racists back into their hole in the ground.

LETTERS

Bosses Need Vieques to Wage War

Our Party faces a huge task here in Puerto Rico. Conditions for the workers are so bad that many people have turned to religion to escape. We're in the midst of an election. The Puerto Rican ruling class has always cultivated fascism among the people. In the past, many have died during the elections.

As usual the campaign has been saturated with lies, mutual accusations, mutual absolving from responsibilities among government officials and a lack of political education for the people. Most people I talk to are dissatisfied with these officials. Despite this, some are very anti-communist due to the atrocious lies about our comrades in the past. Without communism, they fall back on colonial government and/or religion.

On October 1, there was a large protest in Vieques against the U.S. Navy training base, where a resident was killed last year. The protest was designed to revive the momentum of last year's movement.

Many of us had anticipated this march and planned to be there. The Navy and the colonial government knew about it also and prepared accordingly. Only two vessels were at the Fajardo Port, to go to Vieques. One could carry only a limited amount of people; the other was "unserviceable." Many locals denounced this customary government tactic to minimize the people's ability to demonstrate.

We were not allowed to go to Vieques despite several "negotiating committees" going back and forth between the people and the Port Authorities. The crowd was much more militant than these negotiators. In fact, many of these "leaders" are part of the pacifist trend that permeates the movement for removal of the Navy from Vieques.

After the Port Authorities refused to provide transportation for us, we picketed inside the Port Authority facility, extending out to the street. Up to 100 of us picketed for half an hour, chanting, "U.S. Navy Out of Vieques." Meanwhile, demonstrators were being arrested in Vieques. Then many decided to go to another U.S. base, Roosevelt Roads, to which the arrested protesters were being transported. A person I brought, new to the struggle, was impressed.

Many fake-radical political groups have been campaigning about Vieques. For example, the International Socialist Organization had the only newsletter that didn't endorse the electoral process, fasting, or pacifism. They called for organizing, but said nothing about what happens after the organizing starts and the repression begins. Further, these fakes pointed to Ralph Nader as a friend of the workers, and called him the lesser evil.

Many of the protesters do not understand the real causes of the U.S. Navy presence in Vieques: U.S. imperialism's need to train for oil war and for the suppression of popular movements in Latin America.

The marriage of the church and the state is shameful. At the Department of Motor Vehicles a huge sign quotes from the Bible, intending to offer "support" for the driving test.

We need communist revolution, not pacifism and religion.

Red Cololo

Revolution Has One Color--Red

Progressive Labor Party members and friends met to analyze U.S. imperialist aggression in America and around the world. The notorious Rockefeller-wing capitalists' ongoing manipulations of the cost of oil and their control over fascist governments will ultimately culminate in bombs over Baghdad and the continued genocidal extermination of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi workers, in the wanton pursuit of imperialist oil profits.

The facts are what the facts are. Comrades, if you listen closely, you can hear the return of the thunderous winds of war and the drums that play the death march for Iraq's victimized people. The realization of another Persian Gulf War orchestrated by imperialist warmongers and the continued and racist persecution of the people of Iraq are inevitable. The outcome of the forthcoming November elections will not change this disturbing tide of events. Be the winner George W. Bush or Al Gore, the U.S. government and the Presidency itself are nothing more than fascist tools of the dominant capitalist of the hour.

Nationalism vs. Communism. Recently, as tens of millions of people watched the Olympic Games in Australia, several overzealous and/or misled Gold medallist Olympians shamefully draped themselves in the U.S. imperialist banner of the red, white and blue, which monumentally symbolizes racism and oppression. In my opinion, the disgraceful Olympians paraded either unknowingly or unwittingly and desperately prostituted themselves in hopes of receiving the endorsement of a mega contract from the capitalist bosses. This they did on television in front of the masses of the entire world.

I am a black transit worker who recently joined the PLP. Far be it from me to put down the development of a black cultural identity. Without a doubt it is sorely needed. However on the one hand, no wise man in possession of the facts would buy into the propagandist tomfoolery of a known, sinister and unscrupulous FBI snitch, i. e., Al Sharpton. On the other hand, black nationalist Jessie Jackson's recent publication, "It's All About The Money"--which, by the way, features a picture of Mr. Jackson and his son on the cover--dispels all false "truths" and just where his loyalty lies, exposing him for the fascist puppet of the U. S. imperialist machine that he truly is.

In conclusion, the Revolution will not be black, it will not be white, it is and will be a Revolution of the Workers. Workers of the World Unite.

Forever Redd

Reforms of 1930s Going, Going, Gone

In the 1930s, workers suffering through the Great Depression fought for and won many reforms in a number of countries--the 8-hour day, public health care, unemployment insurance, pensions, welfare, etc. The rulers were forced to agree to these reforms for one reason: to ward off communist revolution.

The 1917 Russian Revolution had scared the hell out of capitalists worldwide. Millions stood on bread lines in the West. However, in the Soviet Union there was no unemployment and workers' lives improved dramatically. To prevent workers from embracing revolutionary ideas, politicians in the U.S. and Western Europe instituted "the modern welfare state."

Now the Russians and Chinese are not even pretending to be socialist. The old communist movement is dead, and all those reforms in capitalist countries are fast disappearing. Longer hours for less pay, abolishing welfare, closing public hospitals, privatizing public services, and so forth, the welfare state, no longer needed to prevent revolution, is being torn down.

Workers are well aware of these deteriorating conditions. Here's what one hospital worker had to say about conditions in Chicago's Cook County Hospital:

"Water floods the Material Management department. Walk in the storeroom: water. You might as well get a sailboat to move around there. Something falls on the floor and it just floats on down till it can't move anymore. This is not Lake Michigan!

"There's too much work in Material Management. Workers are stretched out because too much work is put on us. It's crazy, crazy. Hire more people and stop giving us three or four different jobs!"And what's up with the elevators? Always down every time you turn around. One elevator broke down and we have to go to the other, whichever is working. The freight elevator is broken for a long, long, long time. And the R3 elevator works once, then down again. We have work to do, too!"

This makes our lives as hospital workers more difficult and adds to the intense suffering of workers who come here as patients. But as the illusions are stripped away, each of us is confronted by the stark reality of this murderous, racist system. The need to get rid of capitalism becomes clearer by the minute. Rebuilding the international communist movement will not be easy, but we have no other choice. Let's get to work!

Mad as Hell at County

Chile's `Diversity'A Splitting Scheme

Grey winter is giving way to blooming flowers. Spring has come to this part of the world. But what doesn't change is the fact that life is hard for those "lucky" to have a job and even harder for the 10% unemployed (out of Chile's seven-million population).

The "socialist" government is now pushing a "new" concept for those of us here in the Southern Cone: "diversity." They tell us we are a "diverse" population with different ethnic groups and we must learn to live with each other. We all "have our own problems, our own ideas and to each his or her own" they tell us--this "diversity" is what "makes us stronger."

What's the purpose of all this? To help fight the racist oppression suffered by the Mapuche indigenous people here? No! On the contrary, this diversity" only divides us and builds more racism. They say a "united" Chile can become a developed capitalist country. Well, racism and oppression of workers are CAUSED by capitalism. The most developed capitalist countries like the USA or Germany are the biggest racists and oppressors of all.

The "socialist" government of President Lagos has also proven to be as rotten and corrupt as any previous government. Recently, some top government officials stand accused of corruption, appropriating public funds for their personal use. Their defense? "It was much worse in previous administrations!"

Next time these politicians tell us to vote for them, we should reject them all. There are no `lesser evils." All capitalists and their politicians are enemies of all workers.

A comrade, Chile

Is What You See What You Get?

In dialectics, "Appearance and Essence" are not always what they appear to be! A recent CHALLENGE article reported on a workers' study session on using dialectical reasoning to make more scientific judgments about building the revolutionary movement. In particular, the discussion of the opposing concepts of "appearance" and "essence" pointed out how we are sometimes one-sided and only look at the outer appearance of people, struggles and movements, not considering the inner forces at work. The article can help us all analyze and understand situations more accurately.

However, sometimes "appearance" is put forward in a one-sided way, as merely an illusion, saying we should look beyond appearance solely to the inner "essence." People say, "You can't tell a book by its cover." That's good advice, but it's important not to be one-sided the other way as well.

There is no "essence" separated from the physical make-up of a thing, a person, a movement or a struggle. In dialectics, the key to understanding "unity of opposites" is that BOTH sides of the contradiction must be considered, although one side may be more dominant than the other. In fact, the two sides of the contradiction help define each other. Understanding how they affect each other helps us see how the situation will develop. If we say that the "outer" is totally unimportant, and the "inner" is all-important, we risk making an idealist error that creates a kind of "spirit" separate from the material world. In other words, you can often tell something about a book from its cover, although of course the inner must also be investigated.

Here's another example: we all know people who act in selfish, anti-working class ways and hurt other people. Yet sometimes they say, "The person who is doing those bad things isn't the `real me.' The `real me' is actually a pretty nice person deep down inside." That is an example of someone trying to pretend to be looking deeper into a him/herself but is actually dodging the truth which is right in front of our eyes. If a person repeatedly hurts other working-class people, then at a certain point that bad behavior does describe that person.

As we learn to analyze situations more scientifically/dialectically, we should struggle both to avoid the one-sidedness of only focusing on the outer appearance, as well as also avoiding the one-sidedness of ignoring facts right in front of us while we imagine some kind of separate, spiritual inner "essence." The inner dynamics shape the outer, but the outer can also shape the inner, just as life experiences and struggle can help shape someone's consciousness.

To figure things out better we must be collective, ask others for their ideas and listen carefully. That's the best way to avoid being one-sided.

Midwest Reader

Expanding Sales A Real `Challenge'

I understand the Party has a goal of doubling the circulation of CHALLENGE by May Day 2001. That's important! CHALLENGE is the only paper correctly analyzing world events, especially the present inter-imperialist conflict in the Middle East.

I'm a CHALLENGE seller who regularly distributes about 30-35 papers an issue, but could sell a lot more. Sometimes I'm amazed at the way other Party members sell many papers. I would hope they'd share more of their experiences on the letters page. Some questions I've heard from CHALLENGE distributors:

I showed it to some friends, but they didn't like it. What now?

When I asked friends what they thought of the paper, they didn't say much, or said they didn't read it yet. Now what do I do?

I distribute CHALLENGE but I don't really know if people read it. What do I do?

I know people who would take the paper, but I can't get to all of them in one week. What do I do?

If we want people to sell more papers, it's not enough to tell them to do it; we need to TRAIN people. Letters from experienced sellers would be a great help. Also, could we have some lead articles about the importance of CHALLENGE? One comrade said today that CHALLENGE is a visionary paper of the working class. We have editorials about other important issues, Why not about the importance of our own newspaper?

For my part, I just began making a plan to expand my sales. I've mapped out my present readers, what day of the week I can get them the paper and begun a list of prospective readers I will approach. I'll also ask some present readers to take some papers for others. I also plan to call readers to whom I mail the paper and ask them to contribute money for the paper. I've been really bad about that!

I hope people in the Party share their experiences. This newspaper is the lifeblood of the international working class!

A CHALLENGE Reader

The Three R's--Reading, `Riting and Revolution

On Sept. 13, a group of us in the Party met for our first writing class. The purpose is three-fold: learning to write for general purposes; writing for CHALLENGE in particular; and most importantly, serving the class struggle. Our class began by reading excerpts from Lenin's "What Is To Be Done?" on the role of the party press, and Mao's "Selected Works" on opposing stereotyped writing.

We discussed how to use writing to win people to the Party and to write for CHALLENGE. The capitalist class keeps workers down through illiteracy. For the working class to change the world, workers must read and write.

A classmate and I were supposed to write a CHALLENGE article about our first class and submit it before the next class. Our assignment is late. We weren't able to get together to write this article--a possible "F" for effort. My writing partner co-led the first class and provided us with information on how to write with precision. His last words were, "Don't procrastinate. A sense of urgency gets lost when we do this. Write while the issue is hot and fresh on our minds."

I did take some notes to refresh my memory but writing has never been my strong suit. I definitely procrastinate when it comes to writing, for the paper or personally. My work schedule will cause me to miss the second class. Maybe my article can be used for discussion on the do's and don'ts of writing, and on how not to procrastinate!

Red Writer

 

Editorial: Nationalism, Religion A Killer For Arab And Jewish Workers

Shut Down LA with a General Strike!

‘We’re here to support the strike, not to break it!’

Janitors-MTA Workers: Solidarity Forever

Wen Ho Lee Fiasco Reflects Fight Among Capitalist Factions

Yugoslavia: Fight for Oil Pipelines Behind Televised ‘Democratic Revolution’

Turn Strikes Into School for Communism

LA Times: Workers’ Ally Or Eastern Establishment Mouthpiece?

• Big Bosses On the Offensive Against Competition

Union Leaders—Friends or Foes?

Workers Stand Up for Class Struggle Union Candidate

Nader Has Nada for Workers and Youth

LETTERS

Why I Was Won to PLP

PLP Has Answer for UNITE Organizers

More on ‘White’ Skin Privilege’

In the Party, but Never Alone

What Che Stood For

AIDS Not a Killer?

AIDS Denial Is a Killer

Capitalism Can’t Conquer AIDS

---

Editorial

Nationalism, Religion A Killer For Arab And Jewish Workers

The renewed killing in Israel and the occupied territories shows that the peace brokered by imperialism is the peace of the tomb. It also exposes the utter bankruptcy of nationalism and the deadly role of all religion in sabotaging workers’ struggles for a decent life.

PLP members working in mass organizations should vigorously put forward these key lessons as the situation unfolds.

The Clinton White House set the stage for the present bloodshed when it orchestrated the 1994 Middle East "peace" agreement signed seven years ago in Oslo, Norway. This deal supposedly pledged an end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by 1999. The deadline wasn’t met, largely because U.S. bosses can’t control the internal politics of their own Israeli vassals.

Israel sees U.S. support lessening. Without it, their expansion as a capitalist power is virtually nil. The fact remains that the Israeli ruling class, as all capitalist ruling classes must maintain and extend its power. How to do this has become a conflict among Israeli rulers.

An important faction of Israeli bosses opposes the concessions promised by the Oslo agreement. The depth of this contradiction became clear with the 1995 assassination of Yitzak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister who had signed off on the Oslo deal.

Even if implemented, the agreement offers Palestinian workers little more than a vicious form of updated apartheid: "…a Palestinian state truncated by a massive system of bypass roads, encircled by Israeli settlement blocs, subject to closures and restrictions on freedom of movement and commerce, with no control of its borders or natural resources…" (Allegra Pacheco, an Israeli lawyer, NEW YORK TIMES op-ed page, 10/5).

Since Oslo, 800 Palestinian homes have been demolished in the West Bank and Gaza to make room for Israeli "settlers"; Palestinian joblessness has tripled; the Palestinian gross domestic product has declined by 21%; and 13,000 Palestinian workers have been jailed.

In the name of a Palestinian state, Yassir Arafat has brought the workers he rules nothing but misery, unemployment and exposure to terror from both Israeli cops and his own Palestinian Authority police force. No wonder they’re rebelling massively.

Arafat is clearly no longer in control of the situation. Even if he were willing to negotiate a cease-fire, there’s every reason to believe he couldn’t enforce it. His leadership faces a serious challenge by Hamas, the Islamic fundamentalist gang with a strong base in Gaza, where some of the deadliest battles have taken place. According to the TIMES (10/8), Arafat may not even control the militant Tanzim youth organization, which is supposedly under the banner of his Fatah organization.

But these internal conflicts among Palestinian nationalists don’t spell good news for workers either. The anti-Arafat revolt is taking place in the name of Palestinian nationalism and Islam. It leads straight into a capitalist trap. If Arafat falls, another boss will take his place.

Israeli became a state in 1948, when British imperialism—which had stood idly by while Hitler massacred six million Jews—decided its oil interests could best be served by a divide-and-conquer policy setting Jews against Arabs in the Middle East. After the 1967 Six-Day War, U.S. rulers hopped on this strategy for their own reasons. From the beginning of statehood, the Jewish nationalist-religious line led Israel to become a liberal fascist society—liberal in its internal politics and ruthlessly repressive toward the million Palestinian refugees Israeli independence had forced into exile.

The current fighting only widens this vicious circle. As we wrote last week, U.S. imperialism requires a pacified, stable western flank in the Middle East as it prepares for oil war in the Persian Gulf. But no treaty or back-room wheeling and dealing can smooth over the contradictions the profit system generates. And no amount of nationalist posturing or Jewish/Muslim sermonizing can settle rivalries among competing bosses or make capitalism serve the needs of Jewish and Arab workers.

Only communist revolution can put an end to this murderous scenario. Our Party can’t yet directly influence events in the Middle East. However, we can organize class struggle here around our revolutionary line at work, at school, in the mass movements and in the armed forces where GI’s can be won to understand that the bosses’ wars for oil are not in their class interests. As the situation sharpens throughout the Middle East, our political influence can grow as a function of the work we do now.

Shut Down LA with a General Strike!

LOS ANGELES, CA., Oct. 11 — As CHALLENGE went to press, 40,000 LA County workers went on strike today for a 15.5% wage increase over three years. A judge ordered about 5,000 nurses and lab technicians to remain at work. Workers need to defy the court injunction as part of learning how to smash the whole bosses’ dictatorship.

PLP workers, co-workers and students have been picketing with County workers and will continue to do so. CHALLENGE and PLP leaflets blaming capitalism have been received enthusiastically. Teachers at Manual Arts H.S. and other schools are picketing before school about their upcoming contract. Rank and filers in three unions are beginning to circulate petitions calling on the County Federation of Labor to organize a general strike.

The greedy County bosses would have workers’ families live on $22,000 a year while the capitalists enjoy more prosperity than ever. The rulers say there’s no money for health care or welfare, but they spend a billion dollars a WEEK to maintain a U.S. naval armada patrolling the Persian Gulf to defend Exxon’s oil empire! This strike can become a political battle against racism and exploitation.

‘We’re here to support the strike, not to break it!’

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 4— On Monday, Oct. 2, as soon as I heard that our union "leader" Neil Silver was calling on us mechanics to cross the MTA bus drivers’ picket line I asked some of my fellow workers what they thought about this back-stabbing. "We’re not going to work," they responded. "Instead we should go to the Division to show our solidarity with the striking drivers, to show them we’re not sellouts."

Early the next morning, several black, white and Latin mechanics met near the Division and began walking towards the drivers’ picket line. As we got close, a supervisor appeared to show us the door we could use to go to work "without being harassed by the drivers." We yelled, "We’re here to support the strike, not to break it!"

As we got closer to the drivers, mostly black and Latin, they began chanting against our union. We answered: "We’re here to continue the struggle, shoulder to shoulder with you guys. Any betrayal of you is a betrayal of ourselves." The pickets cheered, embracing us and shaking our hands. Indeed, working class solidarity won the day.

United we began marching towards a nearby corner where some County workers had begun the first day of their own strike. As we got close, the County workers crossed the street to join with us. We all rallied together against the rotten working conditions we all suffer. Motorists honked their horns to show their solidarity. It was indeed a joyous working-class celebration.

Later we had good discussions with the strikers, showing us that many of them are open to the communist politics we presented.

Janitors-MTA Workers: Solidarity Forever

The history of the relationship between LA transit workers and janitors goes back to the 1994 bus mechanics strike. A PL’er at Kaiser hospital was working with the janitors, who at that time were members of Local 399 in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). She brought a number of janitors to the picket lines at bus Division 1 where PLP was concentrating its support of the strikers and distributing leaflets and CHALLENGES. Through their efforts, striking mechanics and supporting drivers were asked to speak at a July ’94 Local 399 union meeting. We explained the strike and thanked the janitors for joining the picket lines despite the 100° heat.

A year later these janitors and hospital workers put together a potent challenge to the rotten leadership of Local 399. Their Multi-Racial Alliance slate won 21 of 24 seats on the Local’s executive board. Our Party and a transit comrade were active in this reform victory, voided immediately by the international, led by none other than John Sweeney, now AFL-CIO president!

A core of these janitors has held together all these years. They have withstood the attack of the current Mike Garcia leadership as well as the on-and-off courtship by several fake left Trotskyite groups. The fraudulent election last April by the Sweeney-installed Garcia leadership failed to disrupt them. Party members have remained active with the janitors, both socially and organizationally, including their current battle to recapture the Local union leadership in a new U.S. Department of Labor-supervised election this coming Oct. 27. One hundred and twenty of these janitors came to this year’s May Day march.

It was a pleasant surprise for a Party member—in the middle of a transit strikers’ meeting—to get a call from a janitors’ caucus leader asking where and when to bring down a group of janitors to support the striking bus drivers. Cynicism sown by the bosses and union leaders should never blind us from the eventual rewards to be won from relying on our fellow workers to fight for liberation from the rot of capitalism.

Wen Ho Lee Fiasco Reflects Fight Among Capitalist Factions

As reported in a previous issue, all sides agree Wen Ho Lee spied on other Chinese nuclear scientists for the FBI. Was Wen Ho Lee also a spy for China? Who knows? Who cares? China is now a capitalist country. Capitalist competition includes economic and military espionage. Under communism we will have no nations, corporations or capitalists. We’ll have cooperation, not espionage.

Despite all their posturing, U.S. bosses probably don’t really care either. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, sophisticated Soviet nuclear scientists have been roaming the world, waving resumés and "secrets." Furthermore, the investigation into the "leaking" of U.S. nuclear secrets began when it appeared that China had obtained the design of the U.S. W87 nuclear warhead. This warhead is useless without a MIRV (multiple independent re-entry vehicle) delivery system, in which one missile takes off with 10 warheads and then comes down on 10 different targets. But China’s whole nuclear arsenal contains two dozen single-warhead ICBMs (the U.S. has 8,000 nuclear warheads mounted on missiles). Nor is China spending the money necessary to develop MIRV. China's total annual military budget of $35 billion is approximately what the U.S. spends on nuclear weapons alone.

The Struggle For Power In Washington

The case against Wen Ho Lee began in the fall of 1998 with secret hearings of an U.S. House committee chaired by Christopher Cox. He and many other right-wing Republicans represent a faction of the U.S. ruling class unconcerned with guaranteeing access to cheap Mid-East oil. They want to use high-energy prices to profit from domestic oil and oil produced in Latin America and Asia. They also want to invest heavily in the aerospace industry, for strategic weapons, rather than on more and better-paid troops (as their Clinton/Rockefeller rivals believe is primary for an invasion of Iraq). Portraying China as an immediate nuclear threat fuels their goal.

This right-wing faction sees Clinton, a servant of Rockefeller/Big Oil, as its main internal enemy. They hated Clinton’s policy of improving relations with China and granting China permanent normal trade relations. They think increased trade with China will hurt domestic manufacturers who are also part of their political base.

In February, after the 1999 the impeachment of Clinton failed, the Cox Committee began leaking information about security failures in the Department of Energy (DOE) during Clinton’s administration. The Cox Committee’s star witness was DOE intelligence officer Notra Trulock. Trulock claimed Wen Ho Lee’s spying threatened the lives of "tens of millions of people." The DOE awarded Trulock its $10,000 Special Act Award as a payoff for pinning the blame for the DOE’s security lapses on Wen Ho Lee. The DOE had more leaks than a colander. There were over 500 laboratories and aerospace industry locations from which the Chinese (or anybody else) might have obtained the codes for the W87 warhead.

Trulock, however, betrayed his Clinton-Administration bosses. He participated in a right-wing web site calling for the impeachment of Clinton, DOE Chairman Elliot Richardson and Janet Reno. Eventually the Clinton administration disbanded Trulock’s office. He took his ten grand and went to work for TRW, a military contractor.

China Vs. The U.S.

Regardless of the failed Wen Ho Lee case, it seems clear the ruling class want to use trade relations, cultural exchanges and other tactics to avoid confrontation with China now. They recognize that China, with its huge population and resources, is a future threat. Ultimately they may have to go to war with China for control of Asia. But for now they want to avoid anything that will divert their military forces from concentrating on the Middle East and its oil. Their strategy is to consolidate control of the Persian Gulf before getting involved in a war with a major power like China. Our strategy is to expose their plans, unite against these spymasters and use every class struggle to win workers to fight for communism.

Yugoslavia: Fight for Oil Pipelines Behind Televised ‘Democratic Revolution’

He "storming" of the Parliament building in Belgrade, that put an end to the Milosevic regime, was carefully orchestrated by bourgeois forces which no longer found Slobo useful. Indeed, this "democratic revoluiion" was televised for the benefit of Skyplus, CNN, etc.

Behind the smoke-screen of media spin about this "democratic revolution" lies a tangled web of steadily sharpening inter-imperialist rivalries. The struggle to control oil and use it for world domination lies at the heart of them.

In 1999, U.S. rulers and their NATO pals conducted a 78-day reign-of-terror bombing over the former Yugoslavia. They pulled off this atrocity in the name of "human rights." The big gangsters in Washington, Paris, London and Berlin blew up factories, bridges, and school busses, supposedly to stop genocide in Kosovo and free Serbia from the Milosevic dictatorship. Milosevic had killed his share of workers, but he was a choirboy compared to Clinton and the other NATO heads of state. In their eyes, Milosevic’s real crime was an attempt to build a network of oil refineries and pipelines that would have made him a major regional energy player independent of U.S. and British oil firms in the scramble to market Caspian crude.

The election of Vojislav Kostunica doesn’t change the essence of this conflict. If anything, the deadly rivalries over oil have sharpened since the bombing ended in June 1999. Milosevic seems to have become the fall guy for his own faction. His downfall appears to have been engineered with the collusion of U.S., German, British and Russian bosses (see Stratfor.com, 10/9; EL PAIS, 10/7; and DER SPIEGEL, week of Oct. 9).

The in-fighting over Balkan oil routes among major U.S., European, and Russian energy companies is more intense than ever. Russia’s giant LUKoil has expressed an interest in buying up Serbia’s presently state-owned firm, NIS. When we reported the 1999 air war, we noted that Russian oil bosses were using Greek energy companies as an intermediary for the Balkan deal. No longer.

LUKoil is also making deals to rebuild the oil refineries at Novi Sad and Pancevo that NATO’s bombs destroyed. These plants form part of Milosevic’s grand scheme to become an oil baron—build a pipeline northward into Serbia from Skopje in Macedonia, which stands to be a hub for Caspian export pipelines. The oil, mainly Russian, would then flow westward through existing pipelines to the Adriatic and the western European market.

Another planned route, from Bulgaria through Skopje to Albania, has become the focus of intensified conflict since the air war. This line, known as the AMBO project (Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria Oil) was originally the brainchild of Exxon rival BP Amoco and the oil industry equipment giant, Halliburton. Now it’s become an open-season prize. Texaco, French giant Total Fina and LUKoil, have all entered the contest. Much more significantly, so have Exxon Mobil and Chevron. Both the U.S. government and the European Union (EU) rulers are competing fiercely to finance it. The EU, in blessing Kostunica, offered billions to rebuild Serbia. Clinton & Co. are planning similar "gifts."

The failure of the NATO bombing raids to settle the situation has forced the main wing of U.S. rulers to change its tactical line in the Balkans. Two years ago, former Bush Secretary of State James Baker said the U.S. had no interest in the struggles there. Baker happens to be an Exxon heir and leading mouthpiece. The U.S. rulers’ position remains that the Middle East holds the grand prize in the struggle to control world oil markets. But LUKoil’s Balkan moves show the Russian rulers still intend to use Balkan pipelines as a springboard to restore Russian imperialism to super-power status. The turning point in U.S. rulers’ thinking came when Russian troops spat in NATO’s face by seizing the Pristina airport just after the bombing had ended in June 1999. Now the influential Exxon-funded Brookings Institute says that the U.S. must maintain a permanent military presence in the Balkans.

U.S. rulers may have helped engineer Milosevic’s downfall and Kostunica’s rise to power. But they haven’t settled anything. Kostunica himself isn’t going to be a patsy for U.S. interests. He represents a faction of Serbian bosses who remain determined to get a big piece of the oil pipeline action. One indication showing that Kostunica has no intention of letting either Kosovo or Macedonia slip from Serbian control. "Further bloodshed over the issue, with NATO soldiers in the middle, can’t be ruled out." (Wall Street Journal, 10/9)

Imperialism makes further bloodshed inevitable. Russian and U.S. bosses have diametrically opposed interests in the Balkans. German and other European rulers have already created their own independent-of-NATO military top priority in the wake of the 1999 air war. Another armed conflict over Balkan oil routes is only a matter of time.

Turn Strikes Into School for Communism

After a long drought, there is a modest increase in the number of strikes. A tremendous revolutionary potential exists in this outburst of anger. Our Party is more seriously involved in strikes and contract battles, fighting for the political leadership of the workers.

These experiences bear out our strategy of being active in mass organizations. From inside the unions we are in class struggle against our bosses, the politicians and the law. New comrades have joined the Party as a result of our using communist politics to fight the bosses. Our communist analysis, leadership and long-term personal relations have made it clearer that we have to eliminate capitalism and build a mass PLP that fights for revolution and a communist society.

As pressure builds for another Middle East confrontation, the political stakes are very high. We’re in a life-and-death battle for the hearts and minds of the working class! The rising discontent among the workers and growing number of strikes is occurring during increasing tensions over oil in general, and Iraq in particular. The dominant wing of the ruling class is consolidating its political position while trying to win the masses to support a Mid-East ground war.

For nearly a month, workers waged a bitter strike against Raytheon, the country’s third largest war contractor that NETTED over $400 million in profits last year. Strikers were arrested on the picket lines. There were 10,000 Raytheon workers in 1990. There are 2,700 now. Jobs are moving to low-wage, non-union areas.

Bath Iron Works workers struck against the IAM union leadership. The workers rejected the contract twice because the proposed High Performance Work Organization would eliminate 500 jobs. In both strikes, the union leadership has wrapped itself in the bosses’ flag.

The rulers need to win the very workers they are attacking, to support their war plans. Auto, steel and aerospace workers and those in related industries produce the weapons used by the rulers to enforce poverty-level wages around the world and kill millions on behalf of Exxon’s oil empire. BUSINESS WEEK warns the bosses they must share some of their immense wealth with the workers if the bosses want them to support the "national interest" (i.e., the coming wars). Yet the rulers must continue their attacks to accumulate more profits than their competitors and the additional billions needed to keep capitalism in power. At the same time they are trying to win us to sacrifice our class’s sons and daughters in their wars.

We should respond to these strikes and potential strikes more vigorously. We must reject the trade union approach. We put the needs of the working class first. We build strike support and working class unity, nationally and internationally. We must win workers to see that any strike will "lose" if we aren’t prepared to break the law. After all, communist revolution is the ultimate breaking of the law.

We fight to make strikes "schools for communism." This means seizing this opportunity to train a new generation of communist leaders. Invaluable lessons will be learned by attempting to bring revolutionary communist ideas into the heat of class war.

LA Times: Workers’ Ally Or Eastern Establishment Mouthpiece?

Why is the LA TIMES giving favorable publicity to strikers, from janitors to actors to transit and County workers? Why has it continually attacked Mayor Riordan and the members of the County Board of Supervisors?

In every field, the Eastern Establishment/Rockefeller wing of the U.S. ruling class is attacking the old LA rulers. The LA TIMES has become a key weapon since the CHICAGO TRIBUNE bought it. The old TIMES favored increased U.S. military involvement in Colombia and ground troops in Kosovo and was critical of Clinton’s foreign policy in the Middle East. The new one exposes the mayor and police chief for hiding police corruption and the Board of Education for building a huge new high school for poor Latino youth on a toxic dump. Six years ago during the bus strike, the old TIMES condemned bus mechanics as "greedy." Now it says they’re not and deserve public support, along with the County workers. It appears the Federal government, the AFL-CIO and the LA TIMES are the "good guys" and the LA city government is the bad one.

In reality the dominant wing of the ruling class is engaged in a long-term fight to take control of the country’s second largest city. It has two aspects: either destroy—or bring into line—the politicians who do not toe the line, and win the working class to patriotism and allegiance to this main wing of rulers through the Democratic Party and the unions.

Big Bosses On the Offensive Against Competition

This fight has sharpened. The Eastern Establishment is on the offensive nationally to consolidate its power. It faces imperialist rivals increasingly asserting independence. It also must prepare for a coming oil-inspired ground invasion of Iraq. It needs a loyal working class willing to send its sons and daughters to war to defend these bosses’ oily profits, a working class that thinks capitalism is the best system.

The bosses remember the 1992 LA rebellion in which black and Latin workers, joined by white youth, rose against this racist system. These same workers ride the buses, go to County Hospitals and to the LA public schools. The LA TIMES wants to convince them that capitalism is "considerate" of the working class.

The coming city-wide elections will see Rockefeller puppet and pro-AFL-CIO Antonio Villaraigosa running for mayor of LA, with the TIMES playing its role. In light of this, how much more important is CHALLENGE to the cause of workers’ liberation?

Union Leaders—Friends or Foes?

LOS ANGELES, October 10 — The AFL-CIO is being touted as the workers’ "savior." But when transit union leader Neil Silver told transit mechanics to cross the drivers’ picket lines, workers said, "Kill the bastard!"

Transit unions, by stopping anti-worker transit zones and maintaining union wages, appear to be on the workers’ side. In reality, they’ve accepted prison labor to clean buses, replacing union workers making $12 hourly. They’ve allowed introduction of 2- and 3-tier wage levels. LA County will be forcing thousands of welfare recipients into transit and County jobs at the lowest wage tier. The union leaders are silent about this racist assault. PLP members and friends have attacked it.

Transit workers responded positively to PLP’s leadership during the current walkout, some asking to join PLP. Workers can and will fight for our own class interests and for workers’ power when given the opportunity.

• The mechanics who refused to cross the drivers’ picket lines and led their co-workers to march against their own leadership’s strike-breaking orders demonstrate this potential, as do those picketing with County workers, defying divisive union hacks to unite our whole class against racist 2-, 3- and 4-tier wage schemes.

• The drivers and mechanics meeting to plan further actions prove workers will act as a class.

• The youth and workers bringing food and money to transit picket lines see that the working class must rely on itself and its revolutionary communist party, not on any group of bosses.

• Striking workers, friends and members of PLP, have gone to college campuses to discuss the strike and the fight for worker-student unity and revolution. Similar discussions are occurring among janitors and garment workers. More is needed and possible—in factories, schools and barracks!

The unions’ main slogan is, "Give us our fair share." They don’t want workers to think as a class and fight racist, fascist Workfare, welfare cuts or racist attacks on students, much less on Iraqi or Palestinian workers! They want workers thinking, "Give me mine and Rockefeller can have his." That can lead to supporting wars to protect the big bosses’ empire.

Workers cannot fight for our "fair share"—leaving the bosses with their "share," super-profits! Workers produce all value; the bosses steal most of it. The only "fair share" for workers is the whole ball of wax.

Workers Stand Up for Class Struggle Union Candidate

"Do they really work here?" asked a skeptical candidate in the opposition when he saw the endorsements. A dozen workers came out in print endorsing our opposition candidate with comments like, "…One with an intrinsic knowledge of the power possessed by the working class," and "…addresses problems that worker face around the world and how they relate to us."

The political, class-conscious nature of these comments continued in testimonials of class struggle on the shop floor and in union meetings. A group of workers from a subcontractor added their voice: "May your fight and our fight grow in strength and unity!" they wrote, exposing poverty wages paid by this subcontractor to a mostly "minority" workforce.

"…It is refreshing to see a candidate still concerned about the effects of racism so rampant in the workplace," added a veteran with over 20 years seniority.

A shop steward from another union at the plant and a long-time activist from another local at the same company in a different state rounded out the picture. "There are only two sides," said the shop steward "workers’ power or bosses’ power." We "stand for working-class power."

"It’s kind of radical," protested still another candidate in the opposition. " I could never get anybody in my building to say things like that. I don’t think it’ll win you any votes. Of course, I believe it."

"Well, they say things like that in my building," answered our candidate.

"…And people are starting to think like that in my building, too," interrupted yet another member of the opposition.

"Give me a couple of hundred to pass out in my plant," added a fourth candidate, ending the debate.

Workers are listening to what we say. They are discussing it amongst themselves. Carrying on a principled, class-conscious, anti-racist, internationalist campaign is not only possible, but also means something. Our challenge now is to place this campaign in the context of the potential "strike-wave," and increasing preparations for war to take Baghdad for Exxon-Mobil.

We can bust the limits imposed by narrow, trade union politics. The same bosses willing to sacrifice our sons and daughters in the Mid-East eliminate our jobs and speed us up. Our campaign has taken dead aim at these twin attacks. Our battle cry must be, neither oil wars nor economic attacks at the point of production. As one of our shop floor organizers said, with some pride, "They’ve never seen a campaign like this before!"

Mid-West Union Campaigner:

Nader Has Nada for Workers and Youth

BOSTON, MASS, Oct. 3 — Thousands of students and workers protested the first presidential debate between Al Gore and George W. Bush here today. Many were appalled by the exclusion of Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader. PLP members distributed CHALLENGES and over 1,500 leaflets entitled: "No Matter Who’s Elected, Organize to Fight Next Oil War"; and, "Nader: Not a Real Alternative."

Thousands of people, mostly students, have turned to Nader as a leader because they’re fed up with mainstream political parties and the illusion of U.S. democracy. Nader says he represents the working class men and women of this country and wants to take the power out of the few who run the corporations and put it "back into the hands of the masses."

The previous Saturday, PLP members from Boston Univ. and Harvard attended a student-power conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where we raised the likelihood of war in Iraq and struggled against those who urged students to vote. Following one teacher’s statement on ROTC targeting working-class high school youth for recruitment, we made the call for soldiers to turn the guns around on their officers. During the day we met several students interested in PLP’s views. The next day we distributed over 1,000 leaflets at a Nader rally, exposing him as a servant of the biggest bosses.

The bosses’ main use for Nader is to try to encourage the disaffected and cynical youth to participate in the capitalist system. At the same time the rulers have to keep him somewhat isolated, so that masses of workers won’t be swayed from their main henchman, Al Gore. At some of the rallies supporting Nader, the AFL-CIO organized pro-Gore thugs to intimidate and sometimes physically attack Nader supporters at the rally. (Are they enemies? See box.) The AFL-CIO leadership clearly encouraged disunity among the protestors and divisions between workers and students instead of worker-student unity against the bosses and the cops.

During this week, we learned that many workers and students who support Nader are open to, and even support, PLP’s analysis of the failure of capitalism to meet the needs of workers and students. We also obtained a number of contacts interested in PLP’s organizing to oppose the next Mid-East oil war. Relying on the electoral system to choose between one oppressor over another oppressor is not the solution to the racist, sexist system of capitalism. We must try to win these workers and student to building a communist revolution.

The U.S. ruling class knows many workers and students are disenchanted with the two-party system, many realizing that the capitalist class controls both parties. Enter Nader. Rather than weaken the Gore candidacy or tilt the election one way or another, Nader’s job is to mobilize these disenchanted who might not vote at all and draw them back into the electoral system.

Instead of joining the presidential debate protestors, Nader tried to attend the debate itself, but was barred, only reinforcing the idea that Nader is "outside" the capitalist electoral process. Many on the left see him as a true pro-worker/student alternative to the Democrats/Republicans. Many "socialist" parties even endorse his candidacy. However, the liberal bosses know Nader is part of the "responsible" (read: loyal) opposition. Despite any tactical differences with Gore/Bush, Nader is building a pro-U.S. nationalist/patriotic movement. Nader doesn’t want to destroy capitalism. He only wants to reform it. (For more information on Nader’s links to the ruling class, see CHALLENGE, Sept. 20, page 4.)

This past spring, Nader and the AFL-CIO were united in opposing China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, waging a pro-U.S. imperialist campaign. Today, Nader is attacking Gore as a corporate stooge while the AFL-CIO supports Gore as pro-worker. Are they now enemies? Far from it!

Nader and the AFL-CIO continue to condemn super-exploited and forced labor in China, Latin America, Saipan and Southeast Asia but hypocritically do not expose and condemn these same atrocities here in the U.S. Nader’s Public Citizen Global Trade Watch (GTW) says on its website: "…China continues to ignore its 1992 Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. prohibiting trade in prison labor products." Yet, nothing is said about products made with prison labor in the U.S., both for export and domestic use! The U.S. has jailed more people (2/3 black and Latin) than any other nation, a half million more than China (which has nearly FIVE times the population of the U.S.).

The AFL-CIO even defends U.S. prison labor: "The AFL-CIO backs the idea of inmates working but wants it done ‘carefully.’" (Wall Street Journal, 6/29/99)

By ignoring racist prison labor in the U.S., the AFL-CIO and Nader’s GTW help support it. By not tracing the source of exploitation in the U.S. and in other countries to the capitalist system, they set us up to unite with U.S. capitalists in a patriotic nationalist movement, against workers abroad. The leadership of the organizations involved in anti-globalization, anti-Democrat/Republican protests—from the national unions to non-governmental organizations like Nader’s—are trying to channel the anger of honest, principled workers and students opposed to exploitation and oppression into supporting U.S. imperialism. The AFL-CIO has been the "point man" for U.S. imperialism for 50 years, working hand-in-glove with the CIA to crush rank-and-file worker rebellions worldwide. If trade wars turn into shooting wars, a patriotic nationalist movement will suck their followers into supporting such wars.

LETTERS

Why I Was Won to PLP

During the 1999 UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) strike there were a lot of difficult times, but the biggest struggle was with myself. To be apathetic is not very difficult in this country. "I have enough problems of my own without worrying about others" is something heard a lot. We become invididualistic and fall for stupid phrases like, "Even if I wanted to, there’s nothing I can do"; or, "Be happy with what you got," as if we had anything.

Today, I understand a lot I didn’t know before. The long student strike at UNAM not only taught me to hear people but to listen carefully to what they say. I saw how a worker, peasant or housewife can teach many more things than can be learned from a book. They might not know statistics, dates or who Lenin or Marx were, but they know what being exploited means. They know what it is to try to have a better life but cannot because it doesn’t depend on them. To them, a university is something they will never see from the inside.

I was not the only one to see things that way. Many other brothers and sisters did also. A fuse needed to be lit. Our Party tried to reach many of these people, although not enough. But through our study groups and personal conversations we helped light this fuse.

How did the Party do during the strike? Well, I was one of those won to the Party, which leads to an even more important question: WHY was I won? After knowing the Party for several months I realized the only way to change things was to fight for communism, for a society where racism and "races," religions and classes are things of the past.

We must forge ourselves to become red soldiers in the fight for a better world, and help light even more fuses. I know it’s not that easy but once that fuse is lit, your mind becomes free and nothing can change that. Once we unite with those communist ideas, there’s no government, no matter how fascist, capable of stopping us.

Red General Strike Council Activist, UNAM, Mexico

PLP Has Answer for UNITE Organizers

A series of collective struggles inside our Party group have helped us advance our political work. We can overcome many difficulties if we rely on the working class.

I carried these ideas to two friends who are organizers for UNITE, the garment workers union. They are always talking to me about the problems in unionizing. I pointed out to them that workers have always organized themselves, under the most difficult conditions, if they are given correct leadership. It’s difficult to do that with a sellout union—many UNITE members’ earnings barely reach the minimum wage and they have very little job security. So it’s important not to limit our talks with them to simply joining the union. Rather we should broaden our organizing to include fighting exploitation, wage differentials, racism, sexism and all the other divisions the bosses create among us. We must rely on workers, while helping them in on-the-job struggles.

Based on this, we win workers to understand what PLP advocates: that the only solution is to fight for a society where workers rule—communism.

A NYC Garment worker

More on ‘White’ Skin Privilege’

The LA comrade’s letter (9/27) says it seems ludicrous to say that some group of workers is privileged for having less surplus value stolen from them than the rest of working class because of the "white skin privilege" since they, too, need to work in factories and are endangered with layoffs also. But in capitalist society, this privilege is a fact of life. I think the majority of workers agree with the main liberals who say that white workers benefit from racism, since many people are saturated with ruling class ideology. Marx, Engels and Lenin expounded throughout their lives that communist theory cannot be learned from just working in factories, but only from a lifetime of practice and theory in the Party.

The fact is that most workers may know generally what profit is but are not aware of what surplus value is nor do they consider it stolen. In fact, most bosses and certainly their theorists don’t know what surplus value is either. They think it comes from the circulation process as well as the production process. As Marx discovered, "Surplus value and the rate of surplus value are, relatively, the invisible and unknown essence that needs investigating." Workers may feel "cheated" but that’s a far cry from knowing that they are not paid for most of their work—as a class—that value has been stolen from them, as the LA comrade puts it.

It may be "stolen" but they won’t know this until they understand the Marxist theory that explains it. It is not stolen in the sense that someone mugs you on the street. To understand that is not only to be a worker but to be immersed in Marxism-Leninism, within a communist party like the PLP.

NY comrade

In the Party, but Never Alone

I am a communist and a freshman student on a State University of NY campus. I’ve been in the Party for almost two years and very committed to the struggle against capitalism. At times, it has been hard to push the Party’s ideas and still be considered "cool" with my non-communist friends. However, I’ve always had my club’s support and still do. Nevertheless, due to distance it’s impossible for me to attend club meetings or speak to a Party member on a daily basis.

In the past I’ve attended Dialectical Materialism classes, joined in protests, helped organize a walkout and been active in many things, but was never alone. I always functioned in a collective. Now I’m the only Party member on my campus. It is difficult (but possible) to advance the Party’s ideas alone. I’ve met other college Party members who prepared me for this, telling me how to "be in it, to win it," how to form study groups—basically how to spread the Party’s ideas and build a base.

Knowing I have the support of my club and my Party has kept me focused. I feel more committed to PLP than ever before. I thank my comrades for mailing me CHALLENGE, for calling me to see how I’m doing, for sending me e-mails, for writing letters, helping me with school papers and visiting me. I truly appreciate it. As I tell my friend Neo, communism is not a figment of our imagination, it’s a way of life. It is possible. Keep selling CHALLENGES, recruiting members, spreading the Party’s ideas.

Red tig turned college Red

What Che Stood For

This past October 8 marked the 33rd anniversary of the murder of Ernesto "Che" Guevara by CIA-led commandos in Bolivia. Che was indeed one of the most interesting human beings in the revolutionary upsurge during the ’60s. A CHALLENGE supplement on Che, published at the time of the 20th anniversary of his murder, detailed his political error of relying on the "guerrilla foco." He believed that "a few good guerrillas"—not a mass-based revolutionary communist movement—could make a revolution.

That supplement also mentioned Che’s criticisms of Soviet-style socialism which are very close to those made by PLP. He saw the Soviet economy using capitalist methods and laws and said that no matter how small, these capitalist influences will overturn socialism. Che championed political—not material—incentives as the motivation for building a workers’ society.

Although Che is a national hero in Cuba, his criticisms could apply there today where the influence of capitalism is rampant.

We in PLP say that socialism itself carried too many remnants of capitalism (like the wage system). We believe that the road to workers’ liberation is to fight for the abolition of wage slavery and build a society where production corresponds to the needs of the entire working class: communism.

A NYC Reader

AIDS Not a Killer?

Although the article "King Leopold's legacy: Imperialism and the Origin of AIDS" (9/13) makes many good points, here is a counterpoint to the mainstream HIV/AIDS theory.

AIDS in Africa is diagnosed by four clinical symptoms: diarrhea, fever, persistent cough and weight loss of greater than 10% in two months. HIV antibodies are not required (World Health Organization-WHO-definition established 1985). Despite this loose definition, 99.95% of Africans do not have AIDS; 97% of HIV-positive Africans do not have AIDS. TB, malaria and measles far outnumber AIDS in Africa. AIDS is not the leading cause of illness or death in any African nation (WHO, November 1999 Weekly Epidemiological Record; Harvard University Global Burden of Disease Study, 1996; WHO, Geneva 1996 Fighting Disease, Fostering Development).

The article states, "HIV/AIDS will kill 67% of today's teenagers in some African countries." This seems to refer to a report by Robert Gallo that 67% of blood specimens collected in 1972/73 from 75 Ugandan children were HIV positive (Saxinger et al., 1985). Why, 22 years later, isn't Uganda depopulated?

UCSF researcher Tom Coates in Washington, D.C. on 7/28/99 revealed three AZT clinical trial studies being conducted on pregnant women in Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria. AZT is known to cause birth defects in pregnant women and was shelved in the late '60s as a possible cancer drug because it was found to be too toxic for human consumption. Now Glaxo-Wellcome, the pharmaceutical giant, has every intention of dumping AZT on the people of Africa.

For anyone who wants more information on AIDS dissent, e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for an information packet which will give you many sources from the Perth group in Australia to retrovirologist, Peter Duesberg, at Berkeley, etc.

CHALLENGE Reader

AIDS Denial Is a Killer

Since the AIDS epidemic began, a handful of "AIDS dissidents," led by the University of California-Berkeley's Peter Duesberg, have denied that HIV causes AIDS. Though scientifically discredited, Duesberg's monstrous hoax received new lifeblood when President Mbeki invited him to join a South African AIDS panel. However, evidence linking HIV and AIDS is as compelling in Africa as in the U.S. For instance, among Ugandans aged 25-34, HIV-positive people were 27 times more likely to die than HIV-negative people. Projections of the impact of AIDS on Africa's youth are not Gallo's, but were reported by UNAIDS in June 2000.

Currently, infection rates are based on many clinical studies, using highly accurate antibody and PCR tests. Early on, African doctors noted the alarming rise of ailments as exotic in Uganda as in Iowa: severe wasting in well-nourished young patients; cryptococcal meningitis, PCP, AIDS dementia. It is racist for Duesberg to suggest that African doctors can't distinguish between these and endemic diseases.

(Note: Reuters reported on Oct. 3 that South African doctors urged an end to a raging debate over President Thabo Mbeki's controversial AIDS views, saying it was confusing people who should be focusing on fighting the spread of the AIDS virus. The South African Medical Association (SAMA) said it was concerned at the growing number of people who were now questioning the existence of the AIDS precursor, the HIV virus, after Mbeki questioned the causal link between the two. "The point we want to raise is that at this point in time there shouldn't really be discussion about whether HIV causes AIDS," said SAMA chairman Zolile Mlisana. "Whether HIV causes AIDS or not is not a matter of speculation, it's a question of scientific fact.")

At present, malaria and TB kill more Africans than AIDS. But HIV has an 8-10 year incubation period, and has only recently arrived. Another decade will pass before millions of infected people die, during which countless others will be infected. Malaria and TB mainly kill the very young and old. AIDS will have a greater impact because it kills the young and middle-aged, those of child-bearing, family-supporting and teaching age.

Mbeki has said that the real cause of AIDS is poverty. He's right! Without imperialism's crimes, the pandemic would have never happened. But coming from the president, in bed with the International Monetary Fund and national bosses, this expresses the utmost cynicism. Picture an inner city high-rise in flames, while children jump from windows. On the sidelines stands the fire chief, shaking his head: "They're dying because they are poor, what can we do?"

Unlike harmless crackpot theories, AIDS denial has lethal consequences. It's as bad as holocaust denial, because it disarms the international working class from fighting against this holocaust.

[Sources: Nunn et al. (1997) BMJ 315:767; Durban declaration (2000), Nature 406: Cherry (2000) Nature 406:113; UNAIDS report, Geneva, 6/2000; Schwartzlander et al (2000) Science 289:64; Ackah et al. (1995) Lancet 345: 607. Evidence that HIV causes AIDS is convincingly summarized at www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm]

Red Scientist

Capitalism Can’t Conquer AIDS

The debate about the origins of AIDS in Africa seems to be missing a key element. Neither the scientific or political forces organized around Mbeke nor those organized by the UN and the imperialist AIDS establishment will never permanently conquer the disease. Some of the medical triumphs of the now failed revolution in China are very pertinent here.

A British surgeon, Dr. Joshua Horn, who practiced in revolutionary China, recorded his experiences in a fascinating book, "Away With All Pests." Chapter 9, The Conquest of Syphilis, should be read by anyone involved in the fight against AIDS.

As the communists saw it, the solution to abolishing any disease is not simply toi reduce it to its medical components. Medical treatment was not primarily a battle to find the right combination of drugs. The primary causes of syphilis were political. They were found in the invading and indigenous armies fighting in the service of exploiters; in poverty, drug addiction and sexism. In short in feudalism, capitalism and imperialism.

Magic bullets like Salvarsan, or later penicillin, while clinically effective, could not halt syphilis from spreading worldwide. But communist-led revolution did. In 1966, when there were less than 20 cases per hundred million in China, there were 46,561 NEW cases among U.S. troops alone in Vietnam!

Currently a vicious round of wars, all fought in the service of exploiters, are devastating Africa. There are now 12 million refugees shuttling from country to country and countless millions of internal refugees. All the imperialists, especially the French and the U.S., are up to their necks supporting one or another faction in these wars. Infrastructure or costs of drugs (as the AIDS Conference implied) are not the main problem under these circumstances.

I salute all those active in the fight against AIDS and believe that communists who launch an unremitting attack on the liberal-led AIDS establishment will be able to win many honest forces from both camps of the virus/no virus reform debate.

An Anti-imperialist

Editorial: Black Workers Are Still The Key Force For Revolution

• Fighting Racism:A Hallmark of PL
• The Collapse of the Old Communist Movement and Rise of Nationalism
• Defeat the Twin Evils – Racism and Nationalism!

Dump All Bosses and Union Hacks, Strike! Strike! Strike!

LA County Workers Flexing Strike Muscle

AC Transit Workers Champion Solidarity

Students, Faculty, Workers Rip Racist Police Terror

Protest Scares Principal And Cops At Bogus Bogan HS

a href="#Police Terror Against Youth = Chicago Bosses’ School Reform">"olice Terror Against Youth = Chicago Bosses’ School Reform

a href="#Workers’ Poverty Grows Among Bosses’ Economic Boom">Wo"kers’ Poverty Grows Among Bosses’ Economic Boom

a href="#Columbus Day: Celebrate Or Protest — You Be The Judge">"olumbus Day: Celebrate Or Protest — You Be The Judge

a href="#Clinton-Barak-Arafat’s ‘Peace Process’ Kills More Workers">Clin"on-Barak-Arafat’s ‘Peace Process’ Kills More Workers

a href="#Alaskan Oil: Another Oil Bosses’ Battleground">"laskan Oil: Another Oil Bosses’ Battleground

• Exxon: The 800 Pound Gorilla

The Communist Fight for Literacy and Knowledge (conclusion)

• Literacy, For What?

LETTERS

Workers of the World, Write! AFL-CIO Betrays Immigrants Again

a href="#Waiting for Lefty’ Sparks Strike Call">"aiting for Lefty’ Sparks Strike Call

Fujimori May Go But Fascism Stays

Dialectics Inspires Workers

A Communist Who Was Not a Communist

---

Editorial:

Black Workers Are Still The Key Force For Revolution

Racism is the main weapon U.S. bosses use to rule. Racism produces billions and billions in extra profits from workers. It is also used to divide workers and keep white workers from uniting with black and Latino workers to fight the system that oppresses us all: capitalism.

(The following is based on a report and discussion on Fighting Racism and Nationalism from a PLP Workers’ Section meeting Sept. 30-Oct.1.)

"Without patience I wouldn’t be here today." A black worker from Detroit told how for 15 years his close friend kept him around the Party through CHALLENGE and on-the-job struggle. He remembered the first time he saw CHALLENGE, and how at first he didn’t read it. After reporting on his experiences in a recent union election he said, "That’s why I’m here; to join the Party!"

Right now we’re fighting for the political leadership of MUNI, AC Transit and striking MTA transit workers in California. These mostly black, Latin and Asian workers, with a lot on the line, are defending the Party and standing up to the bosses and union hacks. They are a key part of the infrastructure that makes the economy function. A black worker described how stepping forward in this struggle was related to developing stronger personal ties with Party organizers. The transit report benefited from the comments of transit workers from five cities. One worker joined PLP during the discussion. Another had recently joined.

In the Jefferson Hospital contract fight in Philadelphia, the union president sarcastically referred to a leading PLP member as "believing in the revolution no one else believes in." The 400 mostly black and Latin workers at the meeting stunned the union hack by giving PLP a standing ovation.

These experiences bear out our strategy that the fight against racism is primary in building the revolutionary movement, and that black workers are the key force for communist revolution. Super-exploited black workers and youth are concentrated in basic industry, the military and the major urban centers, the main pillars of our revolutionary strategy.

Fighting Racism:A Hallmark of PL

The 1964 Harlem Rebellion was the first of many that swept the U.S. in the 1960’s. PL "Wanted For Murder" Posters against "Racist Gilligan The Cop" were everywhere. CHALLENGE became the flag of Harlem’s rebels. The rulers accused PL of initiating the rebellion and jailed our members. We did not initiate it, but are proud to have played an important role in this rebellion against racist unemployment and police terror.

Over the next 35 years, we established a record and culture of anti-racism from which there is no turning back. From the 1970’s to the current fight in Morristown, NJ, we have led tens of thousands in confronting the Nazis, the KKK and their police protectors. In the 1990’s we gave leadership in fighting the wave of racist police terror in many major cities. Black workers and youth have always warmly embraced the Party. Yet we continue to face obstacles to recruitment and consolidation of black workers.

The Collapse of the Old Communist Movement and Rise of Nationalism

In July 1967, the Detroit Rebellion exploded. Within 72 hours, an armed working class spontaneously defeated the racist cops and the Michigan National Guard. President Lyndon Johnson was forced to use troops on their way to Vietnam to retake Detroit. The Chinese (then) Communist Party proclaimed its support for the rebellion before the entire world.

But those days are long gone. The rebellion was put down, the Chinese revolution was reversed and there is a new Ford assembly plant in Vietnam. Nationalism helped kill the old communist movement and has spread like a cancer.

Now we have to contend with nationalist misleaders like FBI informant Al Sharpton, The Jackson Two (Jesse Sr.& Jr.), and a host of black politicians, preachers and union leaders. Jesse & Son are all smiles on the cover of their new book, IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY. A parade of black Olympic athletes, especially the NBA "Dream" Team, wrapped themselves in the bosses’ flag of racism and genocide to get fat endorsement contracts and set black workers up to support Gore and another Mideast oil war.

The collapse of the old communist movement has slowed every aspect of the revolutionary process. The racist rulers have been given a second wind that workers are paying for with millions of casualties.

Defeat the Twin Evils!

We have the ability to overcome the twin evils of racism and nationalism. Some of our greatest resources are the black workers and youth currently in the Party, like those at the Workers’ Section meeting. We must rely on these comrades and win them to take more leadership and responsibility for the Party.

Hardly a week goes by without black youths being killed by the police. Two million people are in prison; half are black and Latin. By every measure—infant mortality, wages, longevity and health care—super-exploited black workers face the brunt of the bosses’ attacks.

Every area can initiate a more aggressive plan for recruitment, consolidation, and development of black workers. Part of this is winning more CHALLENGE readers, writers and distributors, which will improve the quality of our paper and make it a more effective weapon.

The bosses have long feared the revolutionary potential of black workers, and their ability to lead the whole working class. Let’s give them plenty to worry about. Black workers are more open to the Party, but weigh their decision carefully. Although we’ve got a long a ways to go, this meeting showed were making important strides to guarantee black workers will lead the way to communist revolution.

Dump All Bosses and Union Hacks, Strike! Strike! Strike!

LOS ANGELES, October 4 — "I was wrong. You were right; we can’t trust the company or the union leadership," declared a higher-paid, senior mechanic to a PLP member. He had just heard Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1277 President Neil Silver and the ATU board say union mechanics were "free" to cross the picket line of striking drivers in the United Transportation Union.

Silver’s treacherous dealmaking with Democratic governor Gray Davis shocked this city’s entire working class. The union leaders promised Davis to get workers to cross the picket lines if he signed a bill covering possible privatized transit zones in which cuts in wages and benefits would be barred for four years. After that it’s bosses’ heaven.

Even as Silver was spilling his guts on TV, friends and members of PL were writing a leaflet denouncing the sellout and making plans to deliver the message to the striking drivers that the only ATU member crossing the line would be Silver.

‘Kill the Bastards’

As these leaflets arrived on the picket lines, the strikers cheered when told that the union leaders were the only scabs. "Kill the bastards" was the sentiment on the lines at division after division, reacting to the flyers and promises of unity. At one downtown division a group of about 20 drivers nearly hoisted a mechanic on their shoulders when he brought the flyers. Others told a Party member that ATU back-stabbing made them stronger.This is the spirit the union hacks fear and are trying to ignore. PLP is tapping this strong burst of workers’ solidarity and class sentiment by building the unity to counter the misleaders’ attempts to weaken the strike. "I was afraid to go down to RRC (Repair Center) this morning," said one worker. "I thought so many of these guys who are hurting would take it as an excuse to cross." He shook his head; "God, I was so glad so many showed up, so the ones who came to cross were ashamed or afraid to do it."

It is impossible not to run into workers during this strike that are not open to the ideas of CHALLENGE and of militant and revolutionary leadership.

Strike! Condemn The Union Hacks!

This strike should be spread. The fact is, the mechanics’ contract is also expiring. We are advancing the idea that mechanics should walk out as well and make it a really mass transit strike.

We must get CHALLENGE into the hands of as many of our old readers as possible. And we will reach workers who have lately awakened to how close to the edge we live, even though many of us are comparatively well-paid. Whatever "comforts" we’ve had are slipping away. More workers must be won to realize that instability and insecurity are growing in—and are built into—this capitalist system.

LA County Workers Flexing Strike Muscle

LOS ANGELES, October 4 — A possible general strike of 90,000 County workers was shaping up here, which, if combined with the bus drivers already on the picket lines and a possible walkout of 40,000 teachers, would make for one of the largest strikes in the city’s history.

The 47,000 County workers in Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 660 were scheduled to go out on Oct. 10. They are demanding a 15.5% wage increase over three years, after having gotten peanuts for most of the 1990s. The County bosses are "offering" slightly more than half of that, while corporate profits and CEO incomes are out of sight. Many rank and filers are opposing the 2-tier wage scheme which would use Workfare to bring in low-wage workers.

Meanwhile, the bosses here have reduced workers’ health care to a new low and are scheming to throw thousands of workers off of welfare. They will then be forced into Workfare where they will "earn" poverty level "wages" and replace unionized jobs, lowering wage levels for the whole working class. Plans for privatizing welfare would worsen this situation even further.

Workers must demand: (1) an end to Workfare and these welfare cuts; (2) abolition of the 2-, 3- and 4-tier wage systems; (3) smashing of the racist cop terror that tries to keep the super-exploited black and Latin workers "in line"; and (4) an end to racist wage differentials.

The other 43,000 County workers and the teachers should join Local 660 and the striking transit workers to build a general strike that unites all workers across all lines, uniting black, Latin, Asian and white workers in one mighty wave to set the bosses back on their heels. This could stop LA dead and would demonstrate it is the workers who produce everything of value but it’s the bosses and bankers who grab most of it in their drive for maximum profits.

Workers must be wary of bosses and union leaders who try to appear as our supporters in an effort to use us for their own purposes. The fight by the Rockefeller interests for control of LA involves these top bosses trying to build a mass popular movement—working through the sellout leaders of the AFL-CIO and those in the black and Latin communities—to get workers on their side as they prepare for an oil war in the Mid-East. That’s why their ruling class media, like the LA TIMES, publishes apparently favorable reports about the strikers and potential strikes.

We can’t rely on any boss, nor on their lieutenants in the AFL-CIO or whoever they install in the White House. There is no "lesser evil" under the profit system—only absolute evil. Capitalism is anti-worker and racist to the core. No matter who runs it, it is set up to make the bosses rich by attacking the workers and making us fight their wars for control of the world. We say dump it!

AC Transit Workers Champion Solidarity

OAKLAND, CA., October 2—Transit workers in Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192 here took a solidarity stand with their striking brothers and sisters in LA today while endorsing a transit unity rally in the Bay Area along with a work action of their own to put pressure on their bosses during a contract struggle. They voted to:

•Send a letter of solidarity to their fellow transit workers in LA opposing any crossing of picket lines and declaring that no union member in the transit locals in LA return to work until the contract fight is decided;

•Call for a Bay Area Transit Unity Rally of workers at MUNI (in the Transport Workers Union) and at AC Transit here to support each others' demands in their contract fights;

•Refuse to work overtime for at least one week, which could cripple the company since it refuses to hire additional drivers (it's running with 55 drivers short) and depends on overtime to meet schedules

Students, Faculty, Workers Rip Racist Police Terror

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 3— Students and workers are fighting hard to avenge the murder of Howard University student Prince Jones by the Prince George's County Police Department. Over 2,000 signatures have been gathered on a petition demanding the racist cop be indicted for first degree murder. Howard University students and staff rallied at the office of the Virginia prosecutor, putting Fairfax County on notice that nothing short of the murder indictment would be tolerated.

Over 150 residents attended hearings in Prince George's County, held by a government-appointed Task Force on Police Accountability. They condemned the police and the county government for brutality and racist murder. Those who testified included the leaders of the Howard University Alumni Association, Howard University students and faculty, and members of the newly formed Prince George's County People's Coalition for Police Accountability. A representative of the transit workers' union Local 689 testified. The Local 689 executive board voted to condemn the killing. Many victims of the police told stories that moved many to tears and determination to fight back.

In each of these activities, PLP played an important role mobilizing in our mass organizations to build a militant, multi-racial movement against police brutality and racial profiling.

Many critical strategic political questions are being debated. Should we fight for a more independent civilian review board? Should we focus on changing the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBOR), which shields killer cops from scrutiny? Should we focus on getting elected officials to come to our side?

PLP argues that only a sustained, militant, working-class movement can limit police murders in any way. Legislative solutions are dead-ends. The capitalists will evade them since they need to have a brutal police force to keep the private property system strong for the rich. The movement must mobilize workers, students and others to lead the struggle to punish the cop and the politicians. We will participate in an anti-police brutality demonstration on October 14 at the Capitol and aggressively petition at the Million Family March on October 16. But only communist revolution can stop the capitalist system that generates racist police brutality.

Protest Scares Principal And Cops At Bogus Bogan HS

CHICAGO, IL, October 2 — "Look, I could have arrested him for felony mob action. He had 200 students trying to get back into the school. Our lives were in danger." Yeah, right! Their "lives were in danger." Two cops with guns against students with notebooks.

On Friday, September 29, two students were arrested at Bogan H.S. We were both charged with disorderly conduct. The young woman was also charged with trespassing. It had been a really spectacular day for students because we staged the first ever, real protest in front of our principal’s office. At Bogan, all students must wear a white shirt, black pants and black shoes. But seniors normally get out of wearing their uniform on picture day.

Our principal decided to change that and demanded we come to school in our uniform, change into our picture clothes and change back into our uniforms after we take our senior pictures. This pissed off the entire senior class and we even got support from some teachers.

Anger was so deep and widespread that almost the entire senior class marched to the principal’s office demanding that she change her policy. Students were really hyped about having such a large group fighting for the same cause. We felt that with the right leadership we could get almost anything we wanted. The designated leader made a devastating mistake by letting the principal talk him into a private meeting. He then told everyone to go home and he would personally handle it on Monday.

As we were all leaving, the security guards and cops started hassling everyone for their ID’s and forcing us to leave our school. Outside, we were discussing our protest and criticizing the leader. Someone yelled out that someone was being arrested in the school.

I ran into the school to find two kkkops on top of a young woman, handcuffed and in a headlock. I asked them, "Why are you arresting her?" They told me "Get the f--k out of here! This is none of your business." I said, "This is my business! She’s a fellow student." They told me, "Get the f--k out of here before we arrest you too." I refused to leave the 16-year-old girl in a headlock with the two cops, so they arrested me for "Disorderly Conduct."

A student who reads CHALLENGE got on his bike and tried to organize students to block the police car. He also circulated a petition demanding that I not be suspended. Others circulated petitions against wearing our uniforms on picture day.

As long as the bosses have state power the laws, cops and courts will always be anti-working class. Many Bogan students understand that things are only getting worse and more restrictive. This week I am making more of an effort to get CHALLENGE into their hands. This will help their political development.

Fascism is developing rapidly in the Chicago public schools. Under the disguise of Zero Tolerance, thousands of students have been suspended and expelled and hundreds of teachers have been fired. Education under capitalism is only for the bosses’ profits. Under communism, it will be for the use and development of the entire working-class.

a name="Police Terror Against Youth = Chicago Bosses’ School Reform">">"olice Terror Against Youth = Chicago Bosses’ School Reform

CHICAGO, IL, October 2 — "You crooks got away this time, but sooner or later I’m going to get you." This threat to four 14-year-olds came as they were leaving Juvenile Court, from the cop who had arrested them. Armed robbery charges against them had just been dropped. However, being innocent means little under capitalism and even less under racist Chicago school reform.

Mona is an active parent at her children’s schools. On Saturday, May 13, she saw her son and three classmates being put into cop Whitehead’s police car. Whitehead is stationed inside Dixon Elementary School. The four eighth graders had been playing ball in their Southside neighborhood. Whitehead claimed to be looking for a gun, a pair of gym shoes and a silver chain.

Later that evening, Whitehead called Mona to say the four youth were being charged with aggravated robbery. Mona asked, "Was a weapon or the stolen property found on the boys?" "No!" squealed Whitehead.

The next day Mona’s neighbor told her that her seven-year-old son was offered a chain by an 18-year-old youth with a criminal reputation in the neighborhood. Mona went to talk to this youth and found he also had the gym shoes. She reported this to the police but nothing happened. On Monday the boys had a preliminary hearing and were put on house arrest. They could only go to school and back home.

Under racist Mayor Daley’s school reform, there is a reciprocal reporting system between the school district and the police department. It says that any time a student is arrested on drug, weapons, or forcible felony charges, the schools must be contacted. Even though cop Whitehead and Dixon Principal Cristler knew these boys had no prior record, they wasted no time handing down ten-day suspensions and barred the boys from attending their 8th-grade graduation activities.

The boys did graduate and started high school. But their story is far from over. Even though the charges were dropped, the racist Board of Education has ordered the students and parents to appear at expulsion hearings on October 11. Mona said, "The board has three sets of rules; the ones they make up as they go along, the ones they have to protect principals, and the ones they use against parents that give leadership in the schools."

Clinton/Gore have used Chicago as their national model for "School Reform." Modest increases in test scores have been paid for by unprecedented fascist attacks on students, parents, teachers and school workers. Since 1997, 42,255 Kindergarten through 8th-grade students and 33,887 high school students have been suspended. Only 1% were suspended for weapons: only 3% for drugs. In the same period 1,537 students have been expelled; 1,128 are black, only 69 are white. Black students are 54% of the student body, but 72 % of all expulsions. (All figures from Chicago Public Schools, End of Year Reports to Illinois State Board of Education.) Over 200 teachers have been fired, including PLP members Moises Bernal and Carol Caref. School workers have lost their health care coverage.

PLP fights to "Put Students First." We will demonstrate with Mona and the other parents, at the Board of Education, at the expulsion hearings. Our PTA is forming a committee to investigate the number of students affected by the record-sharing between the schools and the cops. This fight for our children exposes capitalism as the children’s oppressor. Smashing this system stops this. Building communism buries it.

a name="Workers’ Poverty Grows Among Bosses’ Economic Boom"></">Wo"kers’ Poverty Grows Among Bosses’ Economic Boom

Last month, the Census Bureau reported poverty rates fell to 11.8% in the U.S., the lowest level since 1979. The Clinton administration quickly took credit for this. It will surely help Gore’s candidacy.

But amid this economic "good news," there’s a lot of old-fashioned bad news for black and women workers. "Median income for women declined last year even as men earned more money. As a result, women’s earnings are only 72.2% that of men, down from the peak of 74.2% in 1997. Economists said the decline in median income for women reflects an influx of poorer women into the market. "(WALL STREET JOURNAL, 9/27).

So in the middle of this capitalist "boom," the oppression of women grows. But when one group of workers is super-exploited, the rest of the working class suffers. Bob Greenspan, the director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said, "women entered the work force at a rate four times faster than men did, pulling the median income level down." (WSJ).

The Census Bureau report wasn’t good news for black workers either. Even though median income for black families hit a record $27,010". "that is significantly lower than the $42,504 the average white household takes home" (WSJ).

The fact is in the "best of its economic times" capitalism can’t solve the problems of sexism, racism and inequality. Larry Mishel, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said: "Inequality is stubbornly high and not declining as one would expect in a strong recovery. It’s historically high, and still higher compared to other countries." Mishel also noted that over the past 10 years, the average middle-class family works 279 more hours a year. He added: "This is why you could have prosperous times where people are going to talk about the stress of balancing work and family."

The Census report doesn’t register the full magnitude of capitalism’s inequality "since it fails to factor in all income for the top earners, capping it at $1 million. Nor does it include capital gains income, which has risen significantly in recent years as stock options and investing have become more popular." (WSJ).

When it comes to children, capitalism is an even bigger failure. While children represents 26% of the overall population, they make up 38% of those living in poverty. And even though the Bureau considers the poverty rate lower now, it is still higher than it was in 1973.

Thus, capitalism in "the best of its times" cannot serve the interests of millions of workers and their families. This is because those bosses and companies who made huge profits, and gave stock options and capital gains to a few investors and CEOs, made these profits "the old-fashioned way": exploiting all workers, and super-exploiting black and women workers.

We in PLP have a better choice: fight to destroy capitalism and its racist-sexist oppression and build a society where workers produce to satisfy the needs of the entire working class, not those of a few bosses and their lackeys. That’s communism.

a name="Columbus Day: Celebrate Or Protest — You Be The Judge">">"olumbus Day: Celebrate Or Protest — You Be The Judge

The official history books tell how Columbus "sailed the blue in 1492". Thus, began the "glorious" history of the European "civilization" of the Americas, leading to the establishment of the U.S.A. less than 300 years later. For years the U.S. has celebrated Columbus Day. Like this writer, many workers get Columbus Day as a paid holiday and millions of students are off from school. However, should this be a day of celebration or of protest?

Columbus had persuaded Spain’s king and queen to finance an expedition to the East Indies and Asia, seeking gold, spices and other valuables. Spain had recently become a nation. Most Spaniards were poor peasants who worked for the nobility. The nobles were 2% of the population but owned 95% of the land. Thus, Columbus was helping to fulfill the greedy goals of Spanish royalty.

During Columbus’ first voyage to the "New World," the first crew member to sight land was supposed to get a large lifetime pension. In the early morning of October 12, 1492, an ordinary sailor named Rodrigo called out when he saw the white sands of an island (in the Bahamas). Columbus lied, claimed he had seen land the evening before and later received the reward. So much for Columbus’ honesty!

Columbus was known as an expert sailor. He chose to sail west to find a shorter, more economical route to Asia. Instead he "discovered" the Bahamas and other Caribbean islands. Never mind that there were already several well-developed civilizations in the Americas, including (but not limited to) the Arawak, Inca, Mayan and Iroquois. Some were relatively peaceful, some were warlike; some were led by men, some by women; some had rigid class structures, some were collectively organized. Upon returning to Spain after his first expedition, Columbus insisted he had reached Asia (it was Cuba) and an island off the coast of China (actually Hispaniola, later called Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

Columbus recorded his first observations of the Bahaman Arawaks in his ship’s log (diary): "...They willingly traded everything they owned....They do not bear arms (weapons)....They would make fine servants....With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."

European observers noted how the Arawaks, like many of the "Indians" on the mainland, were remarkable for their hospitality and their belief in sharing. However, these honorable traits were abused by the European merchants (early capitalists) of the Renaissance, consumed as they were by the religion of the popes, the government of kings and the frenzy for money (gold, raw materials, markets) that marked Western civilization’s elite and their first emissary to the Americas, Christopher Columbus. After finding little gold, Columbus wrote: "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."

A significant source of information on Columbus is the multi-volume "History of the Indies" by Bartolome de las Casas, a Catholic priest, who also transcribed Columbus’ journal. (Las Casas had participated in the conquest of Cuba. For a time he had a plantation with Indian slaves, and later suggested replacing Indians with African slaves until the cruelties he saw turned him into a critic.) Las Casas wrote that when he arrived in Hispaniola in 1508, "there were 60,000 people living on the island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery and the mines...I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it..."

The noted historian Howard Zinn wrote: "What Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas, Cortes did to the Aztecs of Mexico, Pizarro to the Incas of Peru, and the English settlers of Virginia and Massachusetts to the Powhatans and the Pequots." Over the centuries that followed, millions of Indians and African slaves perished in the holocaust of the Americas. The legacy of Columbus is nothing less than genocide, a product of a system based on money, profits, class exploitation and oppression.

[Source: A People’s History Of The United States, by Howard Zinn, published by Harper Collins, 1999.]

a name="Clinton-Barak-Arafat’s ‘Peace Process’ Kills More Workers"></a>"linton-Barak-Arafat’s ‘Peace Process’ Kills More Workers

The renewed fighting in Israel and the occupied territories is another example of U.S. imperialism’s peace-making skills. It was touched off by a provocation from openly fascist Israeli politician Ariel Sharon, who last week held a public rally at the Dome of the Rock, a shrine sacred to Arab muslims.

Sharon dislikes the deal Clinton & Co. are hoping to force on Israel. He thinks his faction of bosses can get more than Clinton is offering, and so he’s trying to sabotage it. The Palestinian boss Arafat heads a shaky coalition of capitalist wannabes, many of whom disagree with concessions he has OK’ed in talks with Israeli and U.S. rulers. The Sharon provocation merely set a spark on powder that was already very dry.

U.S. imperialism wants to stabilize the situation between Israeli and Palestinian bosses in order to guarantee its western flank in the Middle East, as it prepares to launch its next oil war in the Persian Gulf. But the western flank doesn’t seem to want to be stabilized. Even if Clinton & Co. can get a few politicians like Barak and Arafat to go along, the latest fighting shows the entire region torn by conflicts that can’t be suppressed by signing a piece of paper.

Now Clinton’s Secy. of State Albright is calling a meeting of Arafat and Barak, presumably to force them into line. The big gangster wants the little punks to obey, but the little punks can’t or won’t knuckle under. No deal can satisfy all the different factions of bosses, because any deal will come at the expense of one or another. More importantly, no deal can meet the needs of Arab and Jewish workers, whose deepest class interests require the leadership of a party that fights for revolutionary communism. The militancy of Palestinian working-class youth in the current struggle is admirable. But under the leadership of nationalist thugs like Arafat, it is a dead-end that will keep the Palestinian working class imprisoned in the profit system’s misery.

Imperialism can never solve the problems it creates. In the words of an ancient Roman historian, "It creates a wasteland and calls it peace." The current fighting in Israel may temporarily subside. But eventually, it will be followed by much wider and more deadly war.

a name="Alaskan Oil: Another Oil Bosses’ Battleground">">"laskan Oil: Another Oil Bosses’ Battleground

As the liberal rulers continue to lay the groundwork for their next oil war in the Persian Gulf, Alaskan oil is emerging as a significant issue in the presidential campaign. Iraq and Alaska are related. Although it’s a very complicated situation, we should understand its main points, to be able to see through the baloney tossed at us by the candidates.

Bush has promised to open up the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) for oil exploration. Partly he’s tossing bone to the domestic Oil Patch gang, BP Amoco and energy equipment giants like Halliburton. These forces form part of the Republican base, but the Rockefeller forces have been adamant about denying ANWR access to the domestic oil industry. However, the latter needs to be brought into line if the Rockefeller interests are to forge any class unity around their plans for Middle Eastern oil war.

But BP (British Petroleum) Amoco is another story. If Bush can induce BP Amoco, Halliburton, et al. into supporting the Rockefeller Persian Gulf war agenda, he may yet be a future president. Halliburton stands to reap billions from any deal to make and install the equipment that would bring in ANWR oil. BP Amoco is at present the main producer of Alaska crude, with 70%.

The Rockefeller wing has opposed opening up the ANWR right now, for its own reasons. In the long run, releasing these vast reserves benefits Exxon Mobil, which will need large increases in domestic production as a hedge against disruption of Persian Gulf supplies by a major war. In fact, the main wing of the big bosses has always viewed Alaskan crude largely as a strategic military reserve. But this oil is useless until it can be brought to the pump. Even if Bush & Co. were to win the White House and open up the ANWR, the first drop wouldn’t be brought on line for five or ten years.

The issue is less whether to open ANWR than who should open it and for what purpose. BP Amoco and the domestic Oil Patch, rivals of the Rockefeller camp, wants to sell it for profit on the world market. Cinton/Gore want it mainly for use in war. Two years ago, Clinton opened up a quarter of the former Naval Oil Reserve in Alaska.

But Clinton/Gore/Rockefeller also want BP Amoco to jump on the Middle East war bandwagon. So bribery becomes necessary. In addition to Alaskan profit-sharing, they may offer BP Amoco a cut of the action in Iraq or possibly Iran, both of which BP once dominated—provided the U.S. can seize them back. The U.S. rulers figure this would be enough of a bone for BP Amoco to tone down its alliances with Russian and Chinese oil companies and BP’s attempts to re-enter Iraq or Iran without the U.S. stamp of approval. However, BP has its own desperate need for new oil sources, as last year's NATO butchery in Yugoslavia for Caspian oil pipelines showed. It might not easily knuckle under to the Rockefeller trade-off.

This is another significant aspect of the inner class contradictions of state power. The U.S. federal government is absolutely the creature of the dominant capitalists. Whether Bush or Gore becomes president, the ANWR will be used primarily to meet Exxon Mobil's goals. In a pinch, this state power will be used ruthlessly against "friendly" rivals like BP Amoco. In the event of a "national emergency," the main wing would immediately sieze these reserves and what could BP Amoco do about it? How many British divisions can strike Alaska on BP Amoco’s behalf? Exxon Mobil has already prepared for such an eventuality. When BP Amoco took over ARCO and its huge undeveloped Alaskan holdings, Exxon Mobil claimed "rights of first use" over oil from these tracts, dating back to 1964, and then vowed to enforce these "rights" if exploration or production ever started. Exxon Mobil also maintains significant operations in Alaska.

For now the Rockefellers are content to let BP Amoco and other Exxon rivals do the bulk of the hard, very expensive work of getting crude from the frozen earth. This is a basic capitalist tactic: let your competitors take the biggest risks and then elbow them aside to grab the reward.

Meanwhile, the war drums are beating harder for another U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf. U.S. stooge Kuwait is the latest to fall in line asking for U.N. protection against Iraqi threats. U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright came up with a list of "red lines" Iraq mustn’t cross and threatened war if it disobeyed.

So, with increasing rapidity, the stage is being set for the next oil war. The jockeying on the home front for the upper hand in Alaska must be viewed as part of this process. Our Party will continue to expose U.S. imperialism’s war plans and to organize against them on every front where we have forces.

Step on Rulers’ Achilles Heel!

U.S. rulers face a major obstacle as they gear up for their next Persian Gulf oil war. Their class interests require preventing French and Russian oil companies from gaining a foothold in Iraq that would Challenge Exxon’s world energy dominance. Ultimately, this goal can’t be achieved without war. But oil war demands a large U.S. army of committed ground forces, and the U.S. ruling class continues to be haunted by the so-called "Vietnam syndrome"—a military whose troops won’t willingly fight and die for the rulers’ aims.

The latest warning about this dilemma comes from former Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, who until last summer had been head of the U.S. military’s Persian Gulf Central Command. On Sept. 27, Zinni warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that the "political will to take military action" against Iraq is still absent (Reuters). He cautioned against launching another oil war without public support.

The bosses know they have a problem. They haven’t won working-class soldiers and sailors to their agenda. We must carefully evaluate this contradiction. We must avoid leaping to the wishful-thinking conclusion that therefore they will not go to war. That would be a deadly error. On the other hand, we should see that their political weakness is an Achilles heel that our class can turn to its advantage. Our communist forces can grow in the midst of these blood-lettings for oil profit. Nothing is going to be handed to us, but if we put forth our line and organize around it under all circumstances, we can plant the seeds for turning imperialist war and fascism into their opposite—communist revolution.

Exxon: The 800 Pound Gorilla

From the OIL DAILY, April 5, 2000, on Exxon's tiff with BP Amoco over legal claim to Arco's oil tracts. "While Exxon has a reputation for vigorously protecting its contractual rights, the Dallas-based giant may have also been teaching its expansionist British rival a lesson: ‘Exxon wanted to remind BP who the 800-pound gorilla is,’ one industry source said."

The Communist Fight for Literacy and Knowledge

(Conclusion of three-part series.)

Any bosses’ education initiatives face a basic contradiction of capitalism: while they have a life-and-death need to mask the truth, objective reality refuses to be ignored. The more they try to shove their lies down our throats, the more they will expose themselves as liars. The bosses’ version of reality simply doesn’t fit the daily experience of working-class families.

Workers will not reach these conclusions automatically. Seeing through bosses’ lies doesn’t necessarily lead to communism.

But communist teachers are in the middle of these education wars, IN the schools! There we can: (1) engage in class struggle for working-class literacy, both inside and outside the classroom; and (2) thereby sharpen our ideas on educating the working class to take power.

The bosses force teachers to spend years studying capitalist teaching techniques, to learn how to teach their ideas. In contrast, many of us are really just starting to develop a communist approach to teaching, and in capitalist-controlled schools at that. Our individual experiences may be rich in lessons beneficial to the working class, but we still lack truly comprehensive knowledge.

We need to become true experts in the fight for literacy. It is the fight for knowledge, the fight for revolution, which, Marx said, is a fight to change the society, but also to change OURSELVES. We should involve ourselves deeply in the bosses’ reform programs to learn how to wage struggles for educational practices serving the working class, especially how to apply our scientific philosophy—the principles of dialectical materialism. All this can become springboards for initiating class struggle at all levels of the school and community. Knowledge gained from this practice adds to future action.

Teachers should collectively make plans and report our progress and problems in CHALLENGE to encourage debate and development (like the recent exchange on rap music).

The bosses are raising the stakes in education, sharpening their attacks on the working class. They want to train workers and soldiers to serve fascism and capitalist war. To answer them, we must train workers now to serve their class and to prepare themselves to take power.

Literacy, For What?

Ruling Class Purpose:

· Train workers to be more useful tools of capital by teaching them certain skills necessary for capitalist production.

· Train workers in capitalist ideology so they can better serve the needs of the capitalists preparing for war against their economic rivals.

Workers who can’t read are generally unreliable for the bosses, both on the job and the battlefield. They are almost certainly disenchanted with the system, angry and bitter. Jails to control "unmanageable" workers and youth are only one part of the rulers’ strategy. They need loyal workers who will fight and die for capitalism. As NEW YORK TIMES columnist and ruling class spokesman Thomas Friedman says (8/8), in complaining about popular resistance to war, "Americans don’t want to die for virtually anything." Workers and youth are still seen as "inferior." Truly high levels of literacy will continue to exist for only a small percentage of the population.

Communist Purpose:

For communists, literacy is a weapon for understanding and changing the world. Workers need to analyze events and understand and apply dialectical materialism, to understand the Party’s ideas better so as to develop their commitment to communism. This creates determined revolutionary members and leaders, vital to move the working class to power and successfully construct the first truly communist society.

High Communist Standards for the Working Class

In every subject area, we can plan lessons that critique aspects of capitalism. For example, when a local hospital was conducting biodeterminist experiments to "prove" black and Latin youth were "violent by nature," a ninth grade English teacher developed a unit in "controversial issues." By investigating issues from all sides (a principal of dialectical materialism), students unmasked the racist nature of these experiments and wrote letters to a mass organization fighting the experiments. Through this they learned: (1) literacy strategies for reading difficult material; (2) how to evaluate sources; (3) the perfect form for business letters; and (4) appropriate vocabulary (like "fascism" and "pseudo-science"). They later attended and spoke at a scientific forum condemning the experiments. Later, after a local police murder, these students could make the connection between the racist experiments racist police terror. More could have been done to link the classroom learning to class struggle against capitalism, but several youth were recruited to the Party out of this work.

LETTERS

Workers of the World, Write! AFL-CIO Betrays Immigrants Again

On Oct.2, the AFL-CIO presented its proposal for amnesty for undocumented immigrant workers at a mid-town Manhattan press conference. Local 1199 president Dennis Rivera welcomed other hacks and politicians, including Central Labor Council head Brian McLaughin who announced the AFL-CIO endorsement of the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act of 2000 (LIFA).

This is the second recent change in the AFL-CIO’s position, In the past, the union leadership had been leading attacks against immigrants, but a couple of years ago they began supporting immigrant workers’ rights because (1) the need of many U.S. bosses for cheap labor; and (2) to build Latino support for the Democratic Party. Now it supports LIFA, which provides limited amnesty, affecting less than 500,000 undocumented immigrants.

Monica Santana, organizer of many mass marches for unconditional amnesty, was at the press conference to protest the AFL-CIO’s support for LIFA since "it excludes 5.5 million other undocumented immigrants." She also said the AFL-CIO "took advantage of the mass mobilizations organized by immigrant groups like hers, to betray it [by] pushing for a partial amnesty." Several groups active in this fight also protested, calling it a stab at their movement.

Indeed, we in PLP participated in many of these mobilizations but warned workers not to trust the AFL-CIO or the Democratic Party, that they were just using workers to push their own political aims. They serve the interests of the liberal section of the ruling class, the Exxon-Mobil-Rockefeller bosses who are preparing for another oil war in the Middle East. They need such workers both for support and as soldiers.

The moral? Never trust such union hacks or politicians—they all serve and defend the profit system.

A Red Immigrant

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Recently a friend organized twelve of us to see the play "Waiting for Lefty." We had a great time. Written by Clifford Odets in the 1930s about a New York taxi strike, this stirring work shows drivers struggling against their own fears and against the union leadership to fight for their class. It depicts the many ways capitalism corrupts and destroys everything, from personal relationships to science to medicine. It sharply attacks anti-communism, recognizes the militancy of working-class women and ends with the workers chanting "Strike! Strike!"

The cast even restored a scene from the original production that the author had cut from the published version because he feared it was too openly Left. In this scene, which exposes the commercialism of Broadway theater, the producer’s receptionist offers a starving actor a copy of the Communist Manifesto.

As a prologue, the theater company enacted a short play of its own about the current strike of TV commercial actors. They dramatized both the reasons for the strike and the struggle involved in trying to win entertainment industry workers to solidarity with the strike. It was clear that the reality of workers’ struggles today had inspired this company of artists.

It sparked our group to discuss the growing strike wave in Los Angeles. Besides the actors and the recent janitors’ strike, MTA workers are now out, city workers are about to start a series of "rolling strikes" and 95% of LA’s teachers voted to authorize a strike.

"It’s interesting how the LA TIMES is portraying these strikes so favorably," one person remarked.

"That’s true," said another. "This is the first time I’ve ever seen TV news and the papers interview riders who supported the strike."

"The CHICAGO TRIBUNE—which recently took over the TIMES—never gave transit workers such favorable publicity there either, she continued. "I guess it’s true that [as CHALLENGE has reported] it’s not so much pro-union as anti-Riordan and pro-Rockefeller. The Eastern Establishment is using the strikes as a way to attack Mayor Riordan and his group of real-estate developers and entrepreneurs."

"They’re going after his law firm too. And don’t some of his relatives own big stakes in some of the smaller regional bus companies that would benefit from the breakup of MTA?"

"We should call for a general strike," said a young worker. "That would really up the ante in this struggle. It would give workers a taste of power."

"You’re right! We should call for a general strike—and point out that the enemy is capitalism. Of course, however badly the Rockefeller forces want to go after Riordan’s crowd, I don’t think they’d go that far!"

Workers’ struggles can inspire art, and good art can inspire struggle. We were all sorry we hadn’t known about this production sooner, so we could have gotten more of our friends to come with us.

LA Comrade

Fujimori May Go But Fascism Stays

After 10 years in power, Peru’s fascist dictator Fujimori is calling for new elections and is dismantling the hated Intelligence Service (SIN), exiling its head, Vladimiro Montesinos, to Panama.

After the last electoral farce on July 28, Fujimori declared "victory" even though everyone knew it was a huge fraud. Since Fujimori’s Peru 2000 Party did not win a majority in Congress, Montesinos began buying some opposition congressmen. He was such a sleaze bag that he videotaped every act of corruption to blackmail those he corrupted, just in case. This video was made public and now the almighty Montesinos is in exile and the Fujimori regime is collapsing.

Indeed, behind this power struggle among different bosses, there was CIA pressure on Fujimori to dump Montesinos, who had become a hindrance for the CIA he had served so well for so many years. In addition, mass protests against the Fujimori-Montesinos cabal mushroomed. The mass discontent made this deadly duo expendable for U.S. imperialism and the local capitalists.

Even though the CIA and the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) claimed Peru did a lot to fight drugs during the 10-year Fujimori regime (the DEA-CIA has two military bases in Peru), still Montesinos’ connection with the drug mafias was well-known. In the 1980s, Montesinos was a lawyer for some of the biggest drug bosses here.

Under Fujimori the old comprador [native bosses agents] rulers were replaced by a new set of bosses. So in the July elections, these old bosses supported the presidential candidacy of Alejandro Toledo, a World Bank official. After the July electoral fraud, this set of bosses organized the mass protests against Fujimori.

But the fact remains Peru’s economic crisis is so big and poverty has increased so much, any new government will have to follow the same fascist shock measures Fujimori used against workers for the last decade. Fifteen of the 25 million here earn less than $50 a month, and five million earn less than $25 a month!

This has provoked many people to discuss what to do about the widespread corruption and vast poverty. They won’t find the solution among the many different groups of bosses and reformists who, unfortunately, are leading the protests. There’s a good opportunity to build a PLP group here to fight for the only true liberation for workers: the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Some comrades in Peru

Dialectics Inspires Workers

Although I have been around the Party for a few years, I just recently really began analyzing things dialectically. The international Dialectical Materialism (DM) school the Party organized in July helped me become a better Party member. Since this revolutionary philosophy gives us more confidence in fighting the capitalist system, a group of workers in Upper Manhattan, NYC, have begun DM classes to better defend ourselves against the many bosses’ attacks in a country claiming to be the most "humanitarian" in the world.

In our first discussion we discussed how many people think philosophy is something very complicated, but in practice we deal with it every day. It is the profound study of every process, and the universality [all things are connected] of everything. We studied how things appear externally (appearance) and internally (essence).

All of us gave simple examples and applied them to our workplaces. One person said the factories where we work look very nice and neat from the outside (appearance), but inside we are exploited and labor under very unsafe conditions (essence). It was a good beginning for our classes.

I also attended the first day of the Workers’ Section meeting last weekend. We discussed international events, particularly the threat of another oil war against Iraq by U.S. imperialism. We also heard some interesting reports from the LA transit strikers, who thanked the Party and CHALLENGE for their support. They all agreed the best part of the struggle was meeting PLP. An autoworker from Germany attended and was very happy seeing us united under the red flag of communism.

An Upper Manhattan Worker

A Communist Who Was Not a Communist

A former fellow worker of mine just died suddenly of an unsuspected aneurysm (bulge) of her aorta (the main artery from the heart to the rest of the body). The aneurysm started to leak, with catastrophic results. She was 71 but acted, spoke and moved like a 50-year-old. She had been a former supervisor of mine, but was more like a beloved mother to all those whom she supervised.

She was born in China, one of seven children of an international banker, all of whom moved to the U.S. before the 1949 revolution. She was alone among her brothers and sisters in getting a graduate degree and becoming a professional scientist.

Primarily as a result of her background she was staunchly anti-communist, but despite her professed class outlook, her relationships with those around her and her attitudes toward other people set an example that communists would do well to emulate.

She always made you, never herself, the center of interest in any conversation. Whenever she would call the house to speak to me, and my wife answered the phone, the conversation always began with an inquiry as to how my wife was doing, how her job was coming along, how the children were doing and so on. Then, and only then, would she ask to speak to me. She never regarded it as a waste of her precious time to greet my wife by name and chat with her for a few minutes. She never simply asked to speak to me without even identifying herself, as so many people do.

She made everyone—whether building-maintenance workers or secretaries or fellow scientists—feel equally important. She also made you feel you were capable of doing anything, particularly when you went to her to express self-doubts. Instead of parading her own accomplishments, she built peoples’ self-esteem and self-confidence.

It was clear from her attitude that, as far as she was concerned, everyone was equally capable if she/he put her/his mind to the task at hand. She always gave you the feeling you made a difference in the world.

If she disagreed with a point you were making, she would first compliment you on your insight and thoughtfulness. Then she would add tiny adjustments to it, that you would be able to agree with, until it turned out to be somewhat different from your original point and sometimes closer to her own thoughts on the issue.

With her ready wit and winning smile, she brightened up the entire office. Rather than a boss, she was a leader.

So ironically, while in her own mind she was a staunch anti-communist, in practice she was, in many ways, a far better communist than I. But I was not afraid to learn from her.

An Eager Student of the People