1. "ONE PARTY, ONE WORLD, ONE WORKING CLASS!"
   1. At PLP Conference: Planting the Red Seeds of Communist Revolution
   2. `ALL OF US HERE ARE LEADERS OF PLP'
2. WAR CRIMINAL CHENEY RETURNS TO THE FOLD
3. Politics of Millionaire Nader Leads Us to Big Bosses' War Plans
4. SUMMER Project: Big Step forward, Workers, YOUTh Fight NAZIS
5. Judge cannot silence anti-fascists
6. PLP IS KEY INGREDIENT AS MUNI CONTRACT REBELLION BOILS OVER!
7. MASSACHUSETTS COMMUNITY COLLEGES FACULTY LEARN THE HARD WAY
8. Slavery: The Primitive Accumulation of Capital that Built Modern Capitalism
   1. Nazis Almost Broke Slavery Record in A Few Years
9. `Plan Colombia': Chemical Warfare Against Farmworkers
10. LETTERS
    1. `Struggle Can Transform Us'
    2. `ROAR Changed Robes'
    3. The Few Days that Shook Our World
    4. WHO'S SURROUNDING WHO?
    5. CHALLENGE DELIVERS FOR POSTAL WORKERS
    6. AUTOWORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!
    7. ` Redeem the Dream' Smashing Racist Capitalism

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"ONE PARTY, ONE WORLD, ONE WORKING CLASS!"

August 1 -- While thousands of rich and racist delegates were arriving at the Republican Party Convention to prepare for Gulf War 2, hundreds of workers, soldiers, students and youth were meeting in the PLP International Communist Conference to plan how to build the movement capable of smashing all the warmakers. Participants from dozens of countries came to build an international PLP under the slogan, "One Party, One World, One Working Class!"

Groups of comrades attended from the U.S. and several Latin American countries. Workers came from auto factories, the maquiladoras, garment shops, the military, aerospace and many more. They were college and high school teachers and students. They were leaders of mass struggles of workers and students north and south of the Río Grande. They were women and men; black, Latin, Asian, and white; young and old; communists all!

The PLP Chairperson and a leader of the Party in a "defense" industry both spoke at the opening session (see page 2 Editorial). Then everyone took part in workshops to share experiences and discuss the obstacles to, and opportunities for, building an international PLP.

A "Standing Room Only" crowd of hundreds attended a dinner on Saturday night. Revolutionary greetings were delivered from Ethiopia, Turkey, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, El Salvador and India to name a few. Every part of the conference helped renew our confidence in the Party and the working class. A stirring "Thank You" to one of the Party's founding leader swept everyone to their feet, with hardly a dry eye in the room. The singing of the Internationale sounded as though it would lift the roof off the building.

On the closing day we resumed our workshops and continued our struggle--how to begin to overcome the collapse of the old communist movement; how to deepen and expand the base for PLP in the mass movement; how to lead sharper class struggle against the enemy; how to organize our lives around those we are trying to win.

At the closing Plenary, a young worker making $6.00 an hour in basic industry again brought the comrades to their feet. She spoke of helping to bring 120 striking janitors to the SF Bay Area May Day march, and the need for every member to be a leader. Her enthusiasm and revolutionary fervor swept the auditorium. Others spoke as well, and groups of comrades sang revolutionary songs from around the world. A comrade dedicated the conference to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and all those workers and youth who have fought to smash capitalism. Two of the founding members of PLP, who have passed away, were also honored. The conference closed with spirits soaring in the singing of the Internationale.

To be sure, we are on a long march. But it is the life we choose: to serve the working class and fight for communist revolution. It is an honor and a privilege, not a sacrifice. This weekend was a blow to cynicism and defeatism. It was a small but significant step on the Road to Revolution. Indeed, we are standing on the shoulders of millions who fought for a communist world without bosses, from the Paris Commune to the Bolsbevik Revolution to the Chinese Red Army's Long March to the Battle of Stalingrad, which crushed the Nazi war machine in the turning point of World War II..

At PLP Conference: Planting the Red Seeds of Communist Revolution

[The following speech opened PLP's International Communist Conference the last weekend of July.]

I saw a children's movie this week called "Chicken Run." This film, about a chicken revolution, had two important lessons. First, the leader of the chickens was repeatedly put in solitary confinement. Each time she came out, the other chickens would gather around her and ask, "What's the plan?" Second, the chicken revolution couldn't succeed until it could visualize a world without the farmer--a world where they would find their own food and be responsible for one another.

Without a plan, we'll be running around in circles. Without knowing what we're fighting for, we can't make the lifetime commitment that revolution requires.

I want to compare our event this weekend with the Camp David talks. U.S. imperialism wants to impose "Pax Americana" so it can make strategic plans to defend its oil empire. Arafat wants a deal that allows his gang of local bosses to get rich off the labor power of Palestinian workers. Barak & Co. want a deal that allows Israeli rulers to build an empire in their corner of the Middle East. There's no principle here except the scramble for maximum profits. Even if they cook up an agreement, it will only lead to more war in Iraq and throughout the region. As long as the imperialists hold power, there will be wars. That is the profit system's iron law.

Capitalism invented nations. Only a Communist Party can smash them.

What we are doing today stands in stark contrast to the bosses' cynical peace charade. On the face of it, this conference might not seem like much: a few hundred people getting together to discuss the building of one international communist party. Some say, "You're good people, but you're wasting your time. The obstacles are too great. You will never build one international communist movement." Will we?

It's true there are great obstacles now and greater difficulties to come. The defeat of the old communist movement from within was a tremendous blow. We were slow to recognize the magnitude and long-range impact of this defeat. Every process has been affected. This is the real dark ages. This is the period when we must understand the importance of every step we take--and that every step has its own contradictions. We're selling a few CHALLENGES, on the road to selling many more. We have discussions on our jobs with a handful of workers, but at the same time we are marching into the bosses' mass organizations to put ourselves in position to influence thousands.

Our demonstrations against the fascist attacks on workers; our pickets against police terror; our recruitment of the ones and twos--all of these lay the basis for the inevitable recruitment of the hundreds of thousands to come.

This is a "dot.com," instant gratification culture. We must fight the illusion that victory will come quickly. But the other side of the coin is another illusion: that we are on a fool's quest. We need to understand that even in the darkest period, the Party can make qualitative leaps and affect the class struggle. We must not stand still waiting for the next period to come. We must fight harder now in order to be able to change the objective conditions.

What has the so-called death of communism enabled the world's bosses to do for the working class? Hundreds of millions "live" on less than $2 per day. Racism and the degradation of women and children have intensified. The ruling classes of the world have sought to imprison the entire working class in ignorance and superficiality through their rotten culture and their rotten schools. There is non-stop war throughout the world. Is this the best the profit system can offer? YES! This is the only way it can operate.

The working class and we can do better. Mao said a very profound thing: "How different is the logic of the imperialists from that of the people! Make trouble, fail, make trouble again, fail again...until their doom. That is the logic of the imperialists and all reactionaries the world over in dealing with the people's cause, and they will never go against this logic. This is a Marxist law.

"...Fight, fail, fight again, fail again, fight again...till their victory. That is the logic of the people, and they too will never go against this logic. This is another Marxist law. The Russian people's revolution followed this law, and so has the Chinese people's revolution.

"Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years. To interpret history from this viewpoint is historical materialism; standing in opposition to this viewpoint is historical idealism." ("Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle," 1949)

This was written just as the Chinese revolution was seizing power. We know it didn't work out because Mao and the Chinese Communist Party had a line that ultimately turned a good thing into a bad thing. But the ideas he expressed here remain true today.

The old movement's demise was the worst defeat in the history of the world's working class and its struggle to advance humanity. Now we are beginning to grasp its significance. But even the worst defeat carries the elements of its opposite. We are here to build on those.

Let's not be fooled by appearances. A few hundred workers from several dozen countries can't seize power today. But we represent the future of the working class. We are sowing the seeds for a great red harvest. We have picked up the red flag that the traitors have trampled and we are proudly waving it. Our efforts this weekend can lead to Party growth.

Don't think for a moment that what we are doing here is insignificant. Every great revolution began with small numbers. The Bolsheviks were small once, and the Chinese as well. In our own history, we have seen our Party's ability to influence masses far beyond our immediate numbers.

The Harlem rebellion, where we played a very modest role, had the NYC bosses quaking in their boots when thousands of black workers held up CHALLENGE as their symbol of rebellion. In the anti-Vietnam War movement, the Party influenced thousands of young people through its caucus in SDS, the Worker-Student Aliance. In Boston, l975, the Party organized students to go door to door to win the support of white and black workers for integration, and confronted the gutter racists of ROAR on the Boston streets. There have been the many fights against the Klan and Nazis, where we have led hundreds of thousands in hand-to-hand combat against the racists.

In recent history, the Party has led hundreds in Mexico in the UNAM strike, in the Dominican Republic and El Salvador against the maquiladoras. More recently, among unionized workers in Philadelphia hospitals and in Bay Area transit, we are showing our willingness to confront the dangerous misleaders in the mass organizations and fight them for leadership of the working class.

We have many weaknesses to overcome. That is what we are here to do: to discuss the work in the spirit of comradely criticism/self-criticism; to figure out how we can help each other improve the Party everywhere, so that it can become the leadership of the international working class. We are here to begin to turn the potential into the actual.

"Casting away illusions" means both facing hard truths and understanding the tremendous importance of everything we do, even if it's just learning from our errors. This may be a hard period, but by joining, leading, and building the Party, we have still made the best possible choice for our lives. With great difficulty and in the face of many obstacles--internal as well as external--we are slowly creating the conditions that will eventually enable our successors to seize power.

We don't deny reality. We don't shrink from difficulty. We don't believe complex problems can be solved with mechanical slogans. Our response to the present period is hard work, base-building, confidence in the working class. Our response to this period is to build the Progressive Labor Party.

Lenin said, "Truth is always concrete." Today and tomorrow, discuss the work, the problems in the work, the contradictions at every level of our practice: among the rulers, between the workers and the bosses, among the workers, within the Party, within each of us. We can leave here stronger--with a more united, determined organization, with a deeper understanding of reality and what we must do to change it, and with renewed confidence in the Party, each other and ourselves.

As long as the Party is still in the field, still fighting for our communist line, we are winning. We are building One World, One Class, One Flag, One Communist Party, One Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

`ALL OF US HERE ARE LEADERS OF PLP'

[A Latin industrial worker gave the following short speech at the closing plenary of the PLP International Communist Conference. The words in print don't do justice to actually hearing her inspiring presentation.]

Comrades, I have been with the Party for a year and a half and I am very happy to have found it. Being in the Party, I helped to bring some of the janitors you met and heard at this meeting. These janitors helped us mobilize 120 of their fellow workers and relatives to the communist PLP May Day march in the [San Francisco] Bay Area.

It is my first participation in this kind of Party conference. I am here to learn from all the participants how to motivate myself to continue giving communist leadership. All of us here are leaders of PLP because the Party wants leaders, not followers.

In my workshop one comrade said he felt burnt out. But I know how much good political work he has done in the past and I know that he and I came out of this conference fired up. We can now go out and organize and develop other leaders of the working class.

I know the political work is hard. It has given me many sleepless nights. But I know it is key work for the Party. I want to distribute more CHALLENGES in my shop. But not only that, I want to build a base for our Party. Comrades, long live communism!

WAR CRIMINAL CHENEY RETURNS TO THE FOLD

As George Bush senior's "defense" secretary in 1991, Dick Cheney was a key man in the Desert Storm massacre of 500,000 Iraqis. Many Iraqi civilians, including one million children, have died and more are still dying because of the U.S.-imposed embargo for the benefits of Exxon's profits. Now George W. has chosen this war criminal as his running mate. And to top it off, Cheney's partner in the Gulf War butchery, General Colin Powell, was the keynote speaker at the GOP war bash, giving it a "pro-affirmative action" cover which is needed to win black soldiers to become cannon fodder in Gulf War 2.

All of this shows that, after years of turmoil, the Republican Party now rests solidly in the grip of the dominant Rockefeller wing of U.S. capital. The Democrats have served Rockefeller oil interests loyally for decades. Gulf War II to secure Mideast oil now tops the agendas of both parties.

Following his selection, the NY TIMES-owned BOSTON GLOBE (7/27) praised Cheney's 1991 firing of Air Force General Michael Dugan for "telling reporters that air power alone would defeat Saddam Hussein." Cheney kept his eyes on the oily prize, the GLOBE said, when he forced General Powell to retake Kuwait's oil fields, instead of simply defending Saudi Arabia's, as Powell had suggested. The GLOBE said Cheney's only regret was not continuing the fight to Baghdad and eliminating the Hussein regime. That's the goal of Desert Storm II.

A classic hired gun, Cheney has never hesitated to spill workers' blood for the benefit of oil bosses of any stripe, even Rockefeller foes. He heads Halliburton, the world's largest oil field service company. It does work for any firm that comes up with the cash. Last year, Halliburton was helping BP Amoco (an Exxon rival) build a pipeline that would carry Caspian crude through Macedonia, within shooting range of the Kosovo border. To protect the operation, Halliburton "signed a $180 million-a-year contract to provide full logistic services to U.S. forces stationed in the Balkans" (ABC News, 5/6/99). With Cheney's aid, those forces and their NATO allies rained bombs on Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, killing tens of thousands of civilians. But as BP Amoco's political clout wanes in the U.S., Cheney has returned to the Rockefeller fold.

Another Bush advisor pounding the war drums is Condoleezza Rice, a foreign policy expert at Stanford University. Rice leaves no room for doubt. "Iraq is an outlaw state," she told the FINANCIAL TIMES (7/25). "The U.S. has to rebuild some elements of the Gulf War coalition" she said. Like Cheney, Rice favors a land invasion over Clinton's haphazard, but continuing, air strikes. "If you ever get a chance, you have to act decisively and not in a pinprick fashion. It has been `fire a few Cruise missiles.' I don't think it was a serious military effort," Rice complained. Rice said she regrets that Saddam has survived this long.

A protégé of the conservative Hoover Institution, Rice has become a star among the dominant wing's policy makers. A director of Rockefeller's Chevron, she also advises J.P. Morgan, Exxon's lead overseas bank. These bosses need to control Persian Gulf crude by force. They also need to expand public support for their oil war. Exxon, Chevron & Co. hope that Rice's battle cries, coming from a black woman, will help.

Their next adventure in the Middle East may yield a wider war than the U.S. imperialists are now planning. Far more than even Iraq or Kuwait is at risk this time. Backed to the hilt by the U.S., the royal family's brutal dictatorship in Saudi Arabia is causing deep unrest there. BUSINESS WEEK (7/24) warns that because so much of the world's oil production is concentrated in Saudi Arabia, "instability could require U.S. intervention."

Some people say that the Bush/Gore "race" is meaningless because the two parties hardly differ. In a sense, they're right. But it would be a deadly mistake to ignore both sides' plans to ship workers off to kill and die for the rulers' Mideast oil wealth. Our Party must prepare the working class to mobilize against this imperialist butchery.

(Next: GORE'S WAR AIMS)

Politics of Millionaire Nader Leads Us to Big Bosses' War Plans

PHILADELPHIA, July 31--Today thousands marched to protest the Republican Convention which is nominating murderers George Bush (137 executions and counting!) and Dick Cheney (former Secretary of "Defense") for President and Vice-President. Many protesters correctly attacked both the Republicans and Democrats as parties of the capitalists. Most were youthful opponents of racism and sexism.

A large number, including followers of the opportunist ISO, etc., support the candidacy of Ralph Nader as an alternative to the bosses' main two parties, Some, like Direct Action Network, has no clear alternative to capitalism; As PLP has shown, Nader is himself a multi-millionaire with ties to capitalism, including reactionaries in the Buchanan camp. Behind his progressive sounding platform, Nader remains firmly tied to capitalism, and, if elected, would be bound to enforce its "laws of development"--i.e., maximum profits for the bosses and a subsistence level for most workers. Also, under the cover of "fighting globalization," Nader is pushing a nationalist line (the same pushed by many union leaders) that will lead us into the arms of the Bush/Cheney-Gore candidacies' plans for another oil war.

Several PLP members attended the march, selling over 50 CHALLENGES and making a dozen contacts with marchers interested in revolutionary politics. These contacts had no illusions about Nader or any other electoral candidate. The path of revolution thus made some progress at this mass march.

SUMMER Project: Big Step forward, Workers, YOUTh Fight NAZIS

BROOKLYN, N.Y., July 31--About one hundred students, teachers and workers gathered at PLP's Brooklyn office for a dinner culminating our East Coast Summer Project. Highlights were cited and Party youth called it our best project in years.

We began the evening by showing news clippings from the anti-fascist fight on July 4^th in Morristown, NJ, where we smashed the Nazi Richard Barrett and his handful of followers. Everyone cheered and clapped as they saw different comrades giving speeches and leading attacks against the Nazis.

Another comrade spoke about the Boston `75 Summer Project Reunion. We learned about how PLP and the Committee Against Racism (CAR) led an offensive against a racist anti-busing movement, destroying the racist ROAR (Restore Our Alienated Rights) organization and defeating the bosses' hopes for building a mass fascist movement in America's cities.

We also saw a clipping from the beginnings of a documentary on communist culture. This project was led mainly by youth with the help of a Baltimore comrade. Although we were not able to complete the original movie plan, we decided it would be best to make the film a documentary on communist culture.

The Project distributed over 1,000 CHALLENGES; held weekly protests at the Morristown courthouse whenever our comrades who were arrested on July 4th had court appearances; continued a teachers' study group; and organized a BBQ with immigrant workers in Morristown. The police have harassed these same workers constantly this summer. Despite threats of deportation they came to the anti-Nazi demonstration.

Perhaps the Project's most significant accomplishment was the consolidation of some Brooklyn youth into PLP. Many took great steps forward this summer, helping to lead the Project and taking their membership in PLP more seriously. The main lesson from the Summer Project was that a small group of "ordinary" people with communist and anti-racist ideas can rise to the occasion and change history. This Project increased the participants' confidence in the working class and renewed their commitment to destroy capitalism with communist revolution!

Judge cannot silence anti-fascists

On July 24th those arrested in Morristown, NJ, had to appear in county court for an intake hearing. PLP organized about 30 students and teachers to support the comrades and friends. A judge ordered the cops to shut down our bullhorn because it was blaring into his "precious" courtroom. However, we continued with our demonstration, even louder without the bullhorn.

Later, one of comrades was handed a leaflet from a fascist crazy enough to show up. A number of our comrades confronted him, forcing the cops to protect him. We chanted, "The cops protect the fascists! The cops protect the fascists!" as they led him away. After the incident, we were louder than ever until our comrades were finished with their appearances.

We'll continue demonstrating at the courthouse until all charges are dismissed. And we'll be here whenever these fascists rear their ugly heads again!

PLP IS KEY INGREDIENT AS MUNI CONTRACT REBELLION BOILS OVER!

SAN FRANCISCO, August 1--"You still don't get it. We voted the contract down and you're still saying, `It's a good contract.' You told the newspapers the membership doesn't understand. It's you that don't understand." That's how a MUNI bus driver told off the TWU Local 250A sellouts. The 4-1 "NO" vote on the contract shows the potential for workers to take matters into our own hands.

At the last mass membership meeting, the isolated leadership used threats, trickery and manipulation to stop us from taking a strike vote. The union president reversed his stand that, "Our no-strike clause expired with the contract." Now he says the City Charter makes it illegal for us to strike and threatens, "We will all be fired." The Local's leaders stand with the bosses' Committee on Jobs, the CHRONICLE-EXAMINER and the Mayor, in maintaining the rulers' class dictatorship.

One driver asked, "What's the point of going back into negotiations without a strike vote." Members spoke passionately about ending wage progression (31-month wait for full salary) and part-time labor, and instructed the negotiating team to "eliminate wage progression." Workers debated a strike and other job actions and the need to take on the City Charter, Downtown Business, city politicians and MUNI management.

For the last 20 years, the ruling class has had "a hidden agenda" of reducing labor costs. We are being driven down and our young people are left with a hopeless future. By standing up against the contract and demanding an end to wage progression, MUNI operators are making it possible to expose fascism and encourage many more angry workers to do the same.

The contract is up at Alameda County Transit and management wants to extend wage progression. AC drivers have been to several MUNI union meetings and have taken proposals for joint actions back to their co-workers. As more workers become active in this fight, we are gaining confidence in each other. Many new and younger drivers are taking initiative to lead this contract battle.

Drivers defeated the bosses at a Citizens Advisory Council meeting. MUNI claimed that driver work rules were the main obstacle to improving service. Drivers spoke about terrible schedules, lack of bathroom facilities, broken equipment and incompetent management. The Council recommended that the contract include provisions for improvement of facilities (restrooms), schedules, staffing and other working conditions to reduce stress in order to improve performance.

The presence of PLP on the job and in the union is the key ingredient that transformed this situation from cynical passivity to mass rebellion. We have over a quarter of a century of class struggle, political analysis and CHALLENGE distribution at MUNI. Communists are dedicated to the working class and not limited by the bosses' rules. As the potential becomes the actual, we are ready to lead the battle to the next level.

U.S. capitalists face stiffening competition in the global economy. The Committee on Jobs (COJ) has targeted MUNI since 1994, demanding reliable service while cutting operating costs. In this fight, our ammunition is the knowledge of who our enemies are and why they treat us as they do. Our near-term victory will be to expose them to the light of day and defeat them by building a mass base for PLP. Our long-term victory is communist revolution. Then the only agenda will be meeting the needs of the international working class.

MASSACHUSETTS COMMUNITY COLLEGES FACULTY LEARN THE HARD WAY

BOSTON--On May 31, faculty and professional staff from the Massachusetts Community College system voted for a sellout contract that increases our workload, erodes tenure, attacks quality of education, sets up part-timers for layoffs and increases management's power to divide us with merit pay. All this for a pay increase we may never see (it has to be passed by the Massachusetts Legislature).

Years ago, the union leadership said we could get a big pay increase by proving to the Governor and State Legislature how underpaid we are compared to other community colleges. They led us to believe that we could win by moral persuasion rather than job actions. They ignored the membership when we told them that a fifth course (20% increase in workload) wasn't negotiable. They refused to hold general membership meetings and stymied communication between campuses.

In the end, they dangled a pay hike in front of us as they caved in to the state's main demands. The fifth course and tenure review were conceded without a fight. They said, "This is the best we could get." Just a week after the new contract was signed, Roxbury Community College RCC) provost Tossie Taylor fired the opening shots in this contract war by denying tenure to two unit members.

A significant minority opposed this betrayal and a few campuses voted it down. Several members of the negotiating team resigned a few days before the sellout was finalized. Significant factions opposed the contract on other campuses. The ground is more fertile than ever for communist consciousness to be built among this beleaguered group of professionals.

The contract negotiations revealed that the sellout union leaders think the members can't be motivated beyond their immediate self-interest. They refuse to rally members to fight, and rely on the courts and politicians. The lions' share of our union dues goes to supporting "pro-education" candidates. They give lip service to the horrendous super-exploitation of part-time faculty, and will never demand full-time jobs. This reliance on part-time labor in higher education is management's most powerful weapon for dividing and weakening us. Our union leaders don't make six-figure salaries; many members think they're doing the best they can. But their honest image only disarms the membership.

During this statewide contract battle, PLP led the fight at RCC against the fifth course and the whole sellout, and we built ties on other campuses. Now that the contract has passed we must fight like hell to defend job security, fight for full-time jobs, for better conditions for campus workers and for quality eduction for our students. We must activate the membership to defend the two unit members denied tenure. In order for this to happen, we need to build a regular CHALLENGE readership, so that more faculty, workers and students can learn from other workers' struggles, gain a deeper understanding of how capitalism works, and gain confidence in the need to build a mass communist PLP.

Slavery: The Primitive Accumulation of Capital that Built Modern Capitalism

Racism against black people, the descendants of African slaves, was crucial to the development of capitalism. In a mid-July series of courses in Extremadura, Spain, dealing with blacks in the Americas, anthropologist Jesús Guanche from the Fernando Ortiz Foundation (Havana. Cuba), declared that although slavery was abolished in the 19th century, it is still practiced in the year 2000 "not only in the developing countries but also in the developed countries." As an example he cites the fact that 250 million children are super-exploited worldwide. A recent report in the WASHINGTON POST corroborates this, reporting that thousands of 13- to 16-years old work 70 to 80 hours a week in farms all over the U.S. Besides being paid slave-labor wages they are exposed to pesticides and other dangerous working conditions. A 1938 law permits bosses to hire children as young as 12 to work on U.S. farms.

Guanche also added that the double work performed by women, at their regular jobs and at home as unpaid domestic laborers, has produced "particular forms of slavery that leads to violent behavior" towards them.Guanche estimated that from the mid-15th century to the end of the 19th, more than 13 million Africans were exported to the Americas. Some were killed during their capture and up to 20% died during the trip from Africa. The rest were enslaved on plantations picking cotton, coffee, cocoa beans or cutting sugar cane, or were used to fish for pearls, "one of the most dangerous jobs, with a life expectancy of...four years.

The first slaves were brought by Holland, France and England to work in their colonies in the New World. Brazil, according to Guanche, was the biggest recipient of slaves, 5.7 million across three centuries. The Spanish colonies imported 2.5 million and the British Caribbean colonies 2.1 millions. The majority of some countries' populations were slaves (Haiti 89%). Guanche added that the slave system and slave work on the plantations accumulated the capital that developed capitalism, especially in France and England (India was a big factor for the latter).

Nazis Almost Broke Slavery Record in A Few Years

It took the Nazis just a few short years to almost break that genocidal record. Between 1942 and 1944 alone, the Nazi army deported more than 2.5 million people--20,000 per week--from the former Soviet Union. "The nazis Auslandereinsatz (deployment of foreigners) between 1939 and 1945...represents the largest case of the mass use of forced foreign labor in history since the end of slavery in the 19th century. In the late summer of 1944, 7.6 million foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war were officially said to be employed within the territory of the `Great German Reich,' who had largely been forcefully put to work in the Reich." (Barwig/Saathof/Weyder, "Compensation for Nazi forced laborers," Baden, 1998, p. 18).

The Catholic Church played a leading role in this genocide in the Spanish colonies (similar to the Protestant church in the British colonies). In some countries, especially in the Caribbean, the Indian population was being decimated. By the first half of the 16th century, most of the native population of Hispaniola--Haiti and the Dominican Republic--had died because of hard labor, massacres and the diseases brought by Columbus and his gang. The so-called "Emancipator of the Indians," Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, asked the Spanish crown to bring in Africans to do the hard work that was killing the Indians.

`Plan Colombia': Chemical Warfare Against Farmworkers

When it comes to "agrarian reform," U.S. imperialism goes chemical. The $1.6 billion "Plan Colombia," the Clinton administration program to fight anti-government guerrillas in Colombia, includes the use of the chemical "Agent Green" to damage coca, poppy and marihuana crops in Colombia (also to be used in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia). But this chemical (the fungi Fusarium Oxyspporum and Pleospora Papaveraceae) will damage other crops besides the targeted ones. In Bolivia and Peru, coca leaves are chewed and used in many other ways by many people, so it's also a danger to humans. The last time U.S. used such a defoliant ("Agent Orange) was during the Vietnam War, affecting wide regions and tens of thousands of people, including U.S. soldiers.

Basically, Plan Colombia aims to expel 250,000 peasants from their lands. Most of these peasants are considered allies of the FARC (the main guerrilla group). This plan also puts the new "Anti-Drug" battalions of the Colombian Army--trained, armed and led by the U.S.--in control of the lands from which the peasants would be expelled.

LETTERS

`Struggle Can Transform Us'

In 1975 I was new to the Party and full of hope for the working class when I volunteered to come to the Boston Summer Project. For months we had been told stories of Boston's gutter racists. I felt morally revolted by their violent attacks on innocent black people, especially school children.

When we arrived, I was sitting in the back seat of a car next to an open window. A bus was passing us and I happened to look up in time to see the surly face of a young white punk in the bus window just as a large collection of saliva landed on my thigh. This became a very personal symbol of the depraved ignorance we'd be up against. It also fueled my paranoia about being in Boston.

I was assigned to the South Boston Committee. Using the petition as an organizing tool, we set out to find the anti-racists among the terrorized white people in the D Street Projects. Doors were slammed in our faces fairly often. People refused to talk to us. But also, time and again we met people who knew racism was wrong and wanted to do something about it. It wasn't long before my confidence in the working class replaced my paranoia.

One South Boston memory stands out in my mind. It was 4:00 A.M. on the corner of the D Street Project. Our "Fly By Night" team was spray-painting anti-racist slogans on the makeshift walls of an old construction site to boldly challenge the racists on their own turf. I was on security. Our car and driver were sitting around the corner with the engine running. Two of us were stationed on the adjacent blocks as lookouts. We were to whistle to alert the driver if we saw any group of thugs approaching. I carried a lead pipe wrapped in newspaper. I wasn't sure I could use it effectively, never having fought before, but I was willing to try.

It was very quiet and peaceful and soon I relaxed enough to take stock of myself in these surroundings. I remember thinking, "What's a nice Jewish girl from New York doing in a place like this?" I told myself to lock this moment in my memory.

What was the answer to this question? And what does that mean to me 25 years later? It means that struggle transforms us. Struggle made me willing to do whatever was necessary, even if it was hard or dangerous. Years of struggle have made me able to relate to people who I never thought I could understand. Struggle has made me able to take a stand on my job when I know I have to speak, even when my heart is pounding hard and my tongue feels like a spool of thread. Struggle makes me stretch my brain and study hard every day to be informed. Struggle makes me remember the suffering of the working class even when it would be easier to forget.

Yes, struggle transforms us. And then we can launch struggles that transform society. It's how revolutions get made! Join the PLP Summer Project of 2001!

Someone who stayed in Boston

`ROAR Changed Robes'

A misleading headline weakens the otherwise inspiring and valuable article in the August 2 issue about the 25^th anniversary reunion of the PLP-led Boston '75 summer project against racism.

The article correctly places that important struggle in the perspective of its long-term effect on our Party's development. It talks about the crucial role that a small, determined group of anti-racists and communists can play under certain circumstances. It doesn't in any way suggest that the working class has won its historic struggle against racism and fascism.

Unfortunately, the headline ("In Boston '75, the Racists Did Not Survive...But We Did!") implies that this is the case. The racist ROAR organization didn't survive, as the article shows, mainly because of the Party's leadership. But racism still poisons the lives of Boston's workers. The city is as segregated as ever. James Kelley, a gutter fascist who earned his swastika in ROAR and later headed the South Boston Marshall storm troopers, has become a respectable politician and now heads the Boston City Council. In too many ways to count, Harvard University continues to provide a liberal academic cover for the vilest forms of racism. Greater Boston has become a laboratory for "community policing," the bosses' latest scheme to build a mass base for fascist terror against workers.

Racism and racists have indeed survived in Boston and throughout the world, because capitalism still holds state power everywhere. Our press shouldn't imply the contrary. Confusing our desires with reality both distorts the tremendous importance of our Party's contributions to the class struggle--such as Boston '75--and unintentionally helps build illusions about the magnitude of the tasks before us.

Boston '75 proved that we can win. We haven't won yet.

An Old Party Hand

The Few Days that Shook Our World

Like many others who have been around the left movement since the '60s, I thought nothing much could impress me any more. Well, this past weekend the PLP International Communist Conference proved me wrong. For me, and for many others there, it was the few days that shook our world.

In our workshop we had a good mix, mainly janitors and garment, hospital and poultry workers. We heard reports about the situation in Ecuador, Colombia, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. We also discusssed specific workers' struggles.

The janitors impressed all of us with their militancy and their hatred of the bosses, their racist exploitation and their union hacks. They had come from Los Angeles in large numbers to our San Francisco May Day march and are new to our movement. They said they were checking out our Party because it fights for the workers. They told us about their militant strike and how the union hacks sold them out.

A nurse from Chicago said she just returned from the SEIU convention in Philadelphia where the head of its LA janitors' local was hailed as a hero by the union brass. This nurse said the janitors at the workshop exposed how much the union sellouts lie and betray all workers. One of the janitors said this union head had "won" the strike, all right; he gets $125,000 a year and she and her brother and sister janitors would be lucky to get their 70cents!

A poultry worker reported how he organized workers in his factory to fight back after one fellow worker fell and died at the shop and the bosses initially lied about what had happened. This worker, with the Party's help, made some buttons with the slogan, "We came to work, not to die." Everyone at the shop wore it, even some small-time supervisors afraid of the rest of the workers.

This was followed by a report about the Zona Franca (maquiladoras) in the Caribbean. A comrade related a story similar to the poultry worker's. One woman came to work sick with asthma and told the boss she only showed up so they wouldn't fire her; she wanted to see a doctor. The boss refused her request and sent her to work. Two hours later she had to be taken to the hospital where she died.

At first, the boss lied about it. Then one PLP member went to all the sewing machine operators in his area and organized a work stoppage, demanding to see the sick woman. The boss, still denying she had died, allowed a delegation of workers to go to the hospital. When the workers got there they were sent to the morgue to see her dead body.

LA Garment workers reported how super-exploitation, sexism and racism are also rampant in their shops. They revealed how conditions for garment workers worldwide are more similar than different, from the Caribbean to California to New York.

A plan was made to coordinate contacts among these workers, and to use CHALLENGE more, as a tool to organize international solidarity.

We agreed it is one important key to turning PLP into the international fighting communist party for which our conference was organized.

And Oldie but Goodie Red

WHO'S SURROUNDING WHO?

A group of us leafletted a New Jersey factory last week to protest layoffs. We were not on company property, but company security guards tried to stop us, claiming we were "trespassing." They also yelled at workers to refuse our literature. Workers did the opposite, asking for more. Then the security guards and bosses surrounded our car with four of theirs so we couldn't leave until the cops arrived.

But when the cops came they couldn't do anything since we had the support of a lot of workers. We had reached many of the 3,000 workers at the shop that day and decided to leave while the cops and bosses talked to each other. Their only retort was, "Don't come back."

This action helped some of the shop's fired workers who came to give out the leaflets. They saw that when workers do something united, the bosses and their cops are not all powerful as they want to appear. Now we need to turn this small victory into winning some of these workers to our Party and build a mass PLP. That's what our oppressors fear the most.

A Comrade

CHALLENGE DELIVERS FOR POSTAL WORKERS

"I really liked that paper! I read it, then gave it to two of my friends who wanted to read it." So said a fellow postal worker reading CHALLENGE for the first time. She's now taking three papers every week and struggling with another friend, a discouraged Party member, to get more involved.
The campaign to double the circulation of CHALLENGE by May Day 2001 is right on time. The struggle to do this has helped win me to make a plan to approach many more workers, opening up the opportunity to wage the struggle for communist ideas much more broadly. Some old readers are getting the paper again. I have established a Saturday CHALLENGE route, bringing the paper to the homes of workers I might not see every week. Three workers are now distributing papers to their friends. These workers may very well be the next recruits to PLP. This past week, 80 workers got the paper.
We don't have to wait until May Day 2001 to double the circulation. Many of us can do it now. Then we must struggle to maintain that higher level. We are surrounded by workers who are struggling with life under capitalism. Many are open to our line of communist revolution. We have to get it to them.

Red Postman

AUTOWORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

As part of the growing worldwide competition among the big automakers, FIAT has united with GM, even though DaimlerChrysler offered much more. FIAT plans to expand production in Eastern Europe and exploit the cheap labor there. FIAT CEO Agnelli believes U.S. imperialism is a better option for his capitalist interests than the German-owned DaimlerChrysler.

FIAT workers must understand that the merger is part and parcel of the growing competition among the world's bosses for markets and cheap labor. In the long run, capitalists resolve their competition by war. Autoworkers in Germany, the U.S. and Eastern Europe can best serve their interests by uniting across all borders.

FIAT workers will lose jobs as FIAT-GM moves its operations to Eastern Europe where labor is cheaper. Opel workers (GM's Germany subsidiary) will also suffer job losses. We must not fall for nationalist divisions and blame workers in Eastern Europe. Our response should be, "Same Enemy, Same Fight, Autoworkers of the World, Unite!" This should be the basis of a call for an international general strike against job losses.

Workers need this kind of international unity, now more than ever, to fight the bosses' growing competition, fascist attacks, more wars and more racist/nationalist divisions.

An Italian Immigrant Worker Living in Germany

` Redeem the Dream' Smashing Racist Capitalism

We are organizing members of our church to attend the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) "Redeem the Dream" rally against racial profiling on August 26 in Washington, D.C. This issue has created opportunities to meet people and have good discussions. We brought a resolution to our denomination's convention three weeks ago and the general assembly endorsed the rally. This could widen our sphere of influence. For example the Washington church will be having a service before the rally. We are trying to get them to march to the Lincoln Memorial since the official plans do not call for a march.
We leafleted and petitioned the four or five thousand people at the convention, and carried out a struggle against the "white-skin privilege" theory of racism, which was running rampant in the "anti-racist" workshops. They went so far as to divide the youth into black and white groups for their "anti-racist" training, arguing that it was too uncomfortable for them to talk about racism together. Many youth boycotted these sessions. The leadership got pissed. We met a number of people who became really demoralized by being blamed for racism.
We hope to have more Party-led forces at next summer's convention. We know other comrades are involved in this denomination, because we met your ministers. We offered CHALLENGE to many people and sometimes got the response, "Oh, [so-and-so] gives me that paper in church."
Martin Luther King, Jr. founded the SCLC, and Martin Luther King III leads it. To reduce potential militancy, they are focusing the rally very narrowly on racial profiling. However, they may have difficulty maintaining this stance in light of the current wave of racist police terror. Al Sharpton will be one of the main speakers. One of our main tasks will be to expose this FBI informer's role as a misleader.

Red Choir

 

Muni Drivers Reject Sellout Contract And Anti-Communism

Editorial: Liberal Campaign Against Death Penalty: Cover for Big Bosses’ Oil War

Liberal-Flunky Smokescreen Can’t Hide Profit System’s Deadly Racism

Morristown Anti-Nazi Battle Spurs Summer Project Anti-Racist Activities

LA Sweatshops, Prison Labor: Two Sides of Bo$$e$ Coin

Rally And March On Thursday, August 17 At 4 P.M. — 8th And Santee

In Boston ’75, The Racists Did Not Survive…But We Did!

May Day ‘75 Launched ‘Death To Fascists’ Fight Against Boston Racists

Nazi Torture: The Racist Beasts Of Clinton Prison

AFSCME Dances To Bosses’ Tune; Not A Hit With Workers

A Taste of Communism Under The Red Tent

Thousands Protest Racist Killing

LETTERS

Revolt in Iran

BOSTON ‘75 Revisited

Fighting Racism = Best Medicine

‘Who Wants to Be A Communist?’

Workers’Anger Brews in Colombia’s Bavaria Beer

‘What is Truth?’

Prayer Won’t Get Us There

Mexico: Beware of Fox Baring Fangs to Devour Working Class

El Salvador: ‘The System Works’ . . . For the Bosses

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Muni Drivers Reject Sellout Contract And Anti-Communism

SAN FRANCISCO, CA. JULY 15 — TWU Local 250A union officials used anti-communism to try to pass their sellout contract by saying PLP member John Murray, a 26-year veteran bus driver and Executive Board member, "has a hidden agenda." At one heated barn meeting of MUNI bus drivers a worker rose and warned, "You say he has a ‘hidden agenda.’ Well, you better find that agenda, because that’s the agenda we want!" Drivers applauded.

Anti-communism wasn’t the only thing defeated in this contract fight. As we go to press, the workers have rejected the tentative agreement by nearly 4 to 1—1175 voted NO, with only 308 in favor.

At these barn meetings, pro-boss Executive Board members were trying to sell the now defeated contract. They wanted to ward off the growing mass rebellion against the union leadership, the new transit authority and the downtown ruling class they serve.

All hell has broken loose. At six barn meetings, the contract was discussed and then attacked. "Why do we always have to lose something to get something?" was a common sentiment. "When are we going to fight instead of giving things up?" In a high seniority barn a driver with close to 30 years service attacked the leadership for bringing back "a contract with work incentive programs which will save MUNI millions but give drivers chump change." He is retiring in a year and declared, "We have to do something for the newer drivers and this contact doesn’t do that."

At each barn meeting, the PLP member on the negotiating team broke the code of silence the union leadership imposes to keep Executive Board members in line. He told and retold how the contract was negotiated and how the membership was sold out. This opened a floodgate and the membership came pouring through demanding, "We want the truth!"

At meeting after meeting workers are asking, "What can we do if we turn this contract down?" Conversations range from "Can we strike?," to how to organize ourselves, to how to change the negotiating team, and how to "take back our union." At each barn the younger drivers, men and women, Latin, Asian and black, have emerged as a leading force.

While the anti-communist attacks on PLP have failed miserably, there’s a contradiction here. Workers respect PLP based on decades of militant struggle at MUNI, and defend our "right" to be communists. On the other hand, there is agreement and disagreement with communist ideas. As one driver said, "I’ll ride with you on some ideas and others I won’t." More drivers understand that this contract is the agenda of the downtown corporations. They see that this is no longer civil service, but corporate service.

Our political analysis that capitalism is booming by busting workers is growing. This is reflected in the distribution of 192 CHALLENGES by active and retired drivers and their friends. As we expose the system of wage slavery, the actual attacks by capitalism will convince our fellow workers of the truth of these ideas. Eventually people will see a need for a mass PLP to deal with this system once and for all. This is a long journey and like any long journey, we’re going to have to get to know each other very well.

Editorial:

Liberal Campaign Against Death Penalty: Cover for Big Bosses’ Oil War

The liberal Rockefeller forces—the dominant wing of U.S. bosses—are mounting a campaign against the death penalty on the grounds that it discriminates by "race." This is a sickening exercise in hypocrisy. Under Rockefeller rule, U.S. imperialism has used racism to murder more workers at home and abroad than Hitler ever did. These bosses have no intention of abandoning the trillion-dollar superprofits they rake in from racism. Attacking unfair death sentencing turns out to be little more than a public relations ploy by the bigger capitalists. It also helps them tighten their grip on state power as they prepare for a major military action. So, once again, the wolf is disguising himself in sheep’s clothing.

The Rockefeller wing has launched this phony crusade for two reasons. First, it needs to appear more "humanitarian." U.S. capitalism is by far the world champion of capital punishment. The high percentage of black people among those executed has earned the rulers an international reputation for racist barbarity. This doesn’t exactly enhance the Rockefeller strategy of giving a "human rights" cover to U.S. imperialism’s future oil wars and other military adventures against its rivals. Nor does it alleviate the "Vietnam Syndrome."

The Vietnam War opened many workers’ eyes to the fundamental racism of the U.S. war machine. Since then, the bosses have been unable to field a massive military force that is loyal and united. As part of a lengthy series entitled "How Race Is Lived in America," the NEW YORK TIMES warned of a "racial divide" within a U.S. tank battalion. The next invasion of Iraq will require a committed multi-racial military. Weighing this need against a desire to look "tough on crime," Clinton has postponed the upcoming federal execution of a Latino prisoner.

It’s even more urgent for George W. Bush to shed his well-deserved image as a racist butcher. He must show the Rockefellers he can lead U.S. troops, especially the high proportion of black and Latin soldiers, into Exxon’s next ground war for Persian Gulf oil. Bush’s Texas carries out more executions than any other state. Bush blithely signs the death warrants because he, like his father, politically plays both sides, courting both the Rockefeller wing and its ultra-conservative competitors. But, also like his father, Bush ultimately sides with the Eastern Establishment.

With Desert Storm II looming, the main wing wants Bush to distance himself from the openly racist ideology of his anti-Rockefeller backers. The TIMES issued him marching orders the day after Gary Graham’s execution, when it ran an editorial criticizing the governor’s hard-heartedness. A news story on another page blasted Bush for taking donations from oil barons, including the Hunt and Koch interests—large domestic oil competitors of Rocky/Exxon—who have nothing to gain from forcibly securing Exxon’s access to Mideast crude. Bush’s attempt to appease both camps explains his reluctance to hop on the anti-execution bandwagon.

The second reason for the Rockefellers’ current preaching against the death penalty has to do with their long-term effort to erode the individual strength of the 50 states and concentrate control in the federal government. The Rockefeller-funded Brookings Institution recently published a study called "Last Rites for States Rights?" which said, "Centralization has been the prevailing trend since the end of World War II, as federal policies have continued to preempt a widening range of state and local responsibilities." Brookings says the bigger bosses need this streamlining to gain an edge over their foreign rivals. To implement their program of "friendly" fascism and imperialist war, the main rulers are bringing the smaller bosses into line by robbing them of their local power structures. Denying or hindering the states’ ability to execute whomever they want marks a step toward political, economic and ideological unity.

But the crocodile tears over capital punishment don’t mean the rulers want to diminish state terror against the working class. Just the opposite. Curtailing the official death penalty will do nothing to end the summary execution of workers by racist cops across the nation or the skyrocketing imprisonment of millions of black, Latin and white workers. Expanding the prison population and sharpening mass terror against workers with a cover of "community policing," similar to Nazi Germany’s use of local informers, are integral parts of the Rockefeller strategy for fascism.

The Rockefellers also want to maintain a form of official capital punishment. Most of those on death row now are workers accused of killing other workers. The main wing doesn’t care if these prisoners live or die, because they don’t threaten its control of the government apparatus. However, the Feds jealously guard the license to put to death those they consider political criminals. The leaders of the anti-death penalty movement aren’t raising a hue and cry over the "human rights" of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber. "Traitors," "terrorists," and "assassins" will still face lethal injection. Clinton pawn Janet Reno recently authorized federal prosecutors in New York to seek the execution of two men charged with the 1998 bombing of a U.S. embassy in Tanzania.

The big bosses will always use the death penalty when they need it. Its main strategic purpose is counter-revolutionary. Ultimately, as the class struggle sharpens over a long period of time it will target, as it always has, revolutionaries who threaten the system’s political survival. Capital punishment is primarily a class weapon the bosses need to continue holding power.

Under Communism…

When the time comes, communists will also make use of the death penalty. Winning and keeping state power is a war, and the working class, led by its Party, will know how to deal with its enemies, the mass murderers in the ruling class, as well as their lieutenants and flunkeys.

Liberal-Flunky Smokescreen Can’t Hide Profit System’s Deadly Racism The circus organized around the recent execution in Texas of Gary Graham provides some insight into the politics of this charade. Rockefeller stooges were present at every stage of the "protests." Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton went to Huntsville as witnesses. Steven Hawkins, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, is a Next Generation Leadership Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation. The current outcry over capital punishment began with muckraking investigations led by David Protess, a Northwestern University journalism professor. Protess has received an "excellence in teaching" award from the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which is funded by Exxon and the Rockefellers. The CHICAGO TRIBUNE and then the NEW YORK TIMES and the rest of the liberal media made Protess’s exposé top news. Amnesty International, another big voice decrying the death penalty, also takes direction from Exxon’s owners. In January, Amnesty took part in a planning session, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, for the upcoming World Conference Against Racism. The participants, which included the notoriously racist World Bank, hammered out a plan to build up U.S. imperialism behind a false front of anti-racism. The Rockefeller "solution" to racism boils down to concentrating state power in the hands of—you guessed it—the Rockefellers and their allies.

Morristown Anti-Nazi Battle Spurs Summer Project Anti-Racist Activities

NEW YORK CITY, July 18 – This year’s East Coast Summer Project is our strongest in several years. We launched it with a battle against the fascists on July 4th in Morristown, NJ (see CHALLENGE, July 19). This has broadened our Project, opening many opportunities in New Jersey to pursue, as well as advancing our original plan to struggle in our local schools and mass organizations.

We face the wonderful problem of having too much to do. Urgency impels careful political analysis of all our plans. For example, the nine comrades and friends arrested in Morristown have had several court dates already. We felt it was crucial to organize demonstrations at the courthouse for every appearance. With consistent struggle we have involved many new teachers and youth in these events. Several defendants were NJ protesters from other organizations. We guaranteed that all defendants got out of jail. We have organized legal defense and fund-raising teams, which include everyone. We have taken on the Morristown courts as a united force. Each demonstration has affected Morristown’s residents, our comrades and the progress of the case. We are shaking up this town as we win people to our ideas.

Meanwhile, we have struggled to not lose our original focus—the bosses’ summer schools and organizations. This year, for the first time, we agreed teachers should volunteer to teach in summer school where there are over 250,000 students. We realized that if our teacher and student friends were in school, our Project should be too. Teachers are using CHALLENGE in the classroom, struggling around conditions in the summer schools and bringing youth to our other events. In our club meetings we are making progress struggling with the youth to follow that lead and do the same.

One elementary school teacher is working on a gardening class with his students. He has built strong ties with many parents and has formed a weekly communist study group with them. He has responded to the parents’ request to tutor their older children who face tests at the end of summer school to advance to the next grade. Many of these parents have joined us for other activities.

Finally, we have started a film collective. Although the other demands of the Project have slowed this effort, we are building a youth group interested in criticizing capitalist culture and working on producing some communist film and music. It is certainly a positive step forward. It is hard to believe the Project is only two weeks old! It feels like a year’s worth of work. That vigor and excitement shows the power we can feel when we are on the offensive and engaged in mass struggle.

LA Sweatshops, Prison Labor: Two Sides of Bo$$e$ Coin

LOS ANGELES, CA.— The competition among bosses to make maximum profits leads them to unimaginable lengths. In San Diego, CTM Blues has its factory inside the Richard J. Donovan Maximum Security State Prison. This company, like others in prisons throughout the U.S., are using more than 8,000 prisoners to manufacture clothing for outfits like Victoria’s Secret, No Fear, Lee Jeans, Mecca, Seattle Cotton Works and others. They join companies like Boeing, TWA, DELL computers and others in exploiting prison slave labor. The Washington TeleMarketing Group employs prisoners to sell all kinds of products from prison. Many of these prison laborers/workers are paid as little as 23¢ an hour.

These companies look for cheap labor not only in Mexico, Central America and Asia, but right here in U.S. prisons as well! Array Corporation uses Oregon State prisoners to produce Prison Blue jeans, which are then sold in the U.S., Europe and Japan.

The label "Made in the USA" could come from a U.S. prison. Two workers from CTM Blues were punished for saying they were forced to change the label on clothes from "Made in Honduras" to "Made in the USA."

Despite the fact that the big bosses say the economy is doing "great" while they are reaping huge profits, the majority of LA’s 150,000 garment workers must work over 40 hours a week to make the minimum wage. They have no health insurance, vacations, pensions, etc.

While Democratic Party politicians say they want to unionize the workers and defend the rights of immigrant workers, less than 1% of garment workers here are unionized. Their conditions are similar to those of prison laborers and sweatshops worldwide. Cristina Vasquez, vice president of UNITE (the union representing U.S. garment workers) says, "How can you organize people in prison?" Good grief! If this union is unwilling to organize the 150,000 garment workers in the sweatshops of Los Angeles, they’ll never organize prisoners.

We call on all garment workers and workers in general to form factory struggle committees. We need such committees in mass organizations and churches. We must build a movement of thousands of garment workers to fight against exploitation and racism, and for general amnesty for all workers and their families. In this struggle, we ask for support of other workers and students of all ethnic backgrounds.

These factory and neighborhood struggles will demonstrate that when workers unite, we are powerful. Using prison slave labor is part of the growth of fascism and the preparation for capitalist war. We can take on the capitalist system, with its oppression and exploitation. The more profits the bosses make, the more poverty they create for workers. We must build a mass movement to fight for a system based on meeting the needs of the workers, not the bosses’ profits.

The bosses and politicians, Democrats and Republicans, are only interested in profits, not workers’ well-being! That’s why PLP calls on workers to organize for revolution, join PLP and build a communist system.

Rally And March On Thursday, August 17 At 4 P.M. — 8th And Santee Students Against Sweatshops and other groups are organizing a rally and march in the garment center against sweatshops during the Democratic National Convention. It will converge on the Staples Center to demand an end to sweatshops here and worldwide. We will fight to unite garment workers here with garment workers internationally, as well as with other workers. We call on workers in the factories to fight against slave labor conditions, and for students to support that fight. Students Against Sweatshops and other groups are organizing a rally and march in the garment center against sweatshops during the Democratic National Convention. It will converge on the Staples Center to demand an end to sweatshops here and worldwide. We will fight to unite garment workers here with garment workers internationally, as well as with other workers. We call on workers in the factories to fight against slave labor conditions, and for students to support that fight.

In Boston ’75, The Racists Did Not Survive…But We Did!

BOSTON, July 15 — Several dozen veterans of the Boston ’75 Summer Project returned here today from throughout the country to commemorate the 25th anniversary of that heroic anti-racist struggle. The Boston Summer Project grew out of the need to confront the openly fascist movement instigated by Boston’s ruling class and led by the gutter racists in ROAR (Restore Our Alienated Rights) over the issue of school desegregation (see article below).

In the morning, we gathered for breakfast at Roxbury Community College. Many were moved to tears as we hugged comrades and friends whom we hadn’t seen for 25 years. We then heard a political and historical analysis of that summer’s actions and the impact they had on Boston, the country and on the Progressive Labor Party. A comrade explained an important lesson from that summer, that in certain periods, when you are determined to fight racism from a class perspective, even a relatively small group of people can make history. We cannot control whether the ruling class builds fascism. But we can control whether the fascist movement they build receives strong support from the working class (as happened in Nazi Germany), or very little support (as in Italy during the same period).

During the 1974-75 school year, fascist mobs in Boston terrorized black people and intimidated white people from opposing the violent racist attacks. The Project volunteers, organized by PLP and the Committee Against Racism, were the first people to physically confront the racists on their own turf. Three months of rallies, marches, door-to-door canvassing, a summer school for children in Roxbury, an anti-racist petition drive that collected 35,000 signatures, and numerous street fights with ROAR broke the back of the fascist movement. These efforts forced the ruling class to rely less on building an openly fascist movement and more on advancing it in more subtle ways.

After the initial presentation, three comrades spoke about how racism in education and the economic and legal systems differs from 25 years ago and what needs to be done to combat it today. In the afternoon, we toured Boston to visit the sites of major events in the Project.

At a banquet that evening, Project participants related their memories of that summer and about the impact it had on their lives. The necessity of relying on the working class was the main theme. Volunteers told many stories about courageously fighting the racists and being helped out of dangerous situations by community residents who didn’t know them, but were glad someone was standing up to ROAR. People spoke movingly about their fears and the ability to overcome those fears by their desire and determination to do the right thing and by relying on one another.

Several recalled the door-to-door canvassing in the white neighborhoods of South Boston and Hyde Park, and how encouraged and inspired they felt upon learning that many of the white workers there were anti-racist. They were glad we were fighting ROAR but were afraid to say so publicly because the racists had threatened themselves and their children with physical harm.

Repeatedly it was shown that "ordinary" people can do extraordinary things, can actually change the course of history, when given support and leadership by a disciplined communist party. Had we not defeated ROAR, it is very possible the ruling class could have built a stronger mass base for fascism in Boston, which then could have joined with other Klan and neo-Nazi groups around the country. Clearly, what you do counts!

The Boston Summer Project had a hugely positive impact on our Party as well. It taught the volunteers what fascism looks like, and what it means to fight it and win. Their experience in Boston steeled many comrades, who then went on to lead militant battles against the Klan and Nazis in places such as Illinois, Mississippi, California, Connecticut and Ohio in the years that followed.

Some of the people who participated in Boston ’75 are no longer politically active in our movement. Yet that experience and the desire to see old friends motivated them to attend the reunion. From their reaction at the banquet and throughout the weekend, it is clear that a political spark still burns within them. We hope this weekend’s activities will inspire them to renew their commitment.

The reunion was also attended by many high school and college students and young adults, who learned a history that has been ignored and distorted. They were impressed by the age of the Boston ’75 volunteers. Most were between 18 and 25, proving that young people can play a crucial and leading role in the fight against fascism and in the struggle for a communist future. Indeed, some of the teenagers attending the reunion had been active in the fight against the Nazi Nationalist Movement in Morristown, New Jersey two weeks ago.

Just as we will never forget what we accomplished in Boston 25 years ago, we will remember this celebration of that victory. We urge everyone who attended to write letters to CHALLENGE describing their experience and its impact on their lives.

May Day ‘75 Launched ‘Death To Fascists’ Fight Against Boston Racists The militant struggle led by Progressive Labor Party in Boston against racism during the spring and summer of 1975 counts among our Party’s most important accomplishments in its history. The liberal Massachusetts ruling class was floating the anti-busing movement as a trial balloon for mass-based fascism. This was a set-up from the start. Kennedy pal Judge Arthur Garrity had concocted a "busing-for-integration" plan that was guaranteed to provoke a violent racist reaction. Racists, led by an organization called ROAR ("Restore Our Alienated Rights") ran amok throughout the city, fully earning the title "Racists On A Rampage." The cops not only turned the other way; they actually gave ROAR open support, in the form of financial contributions by the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association. Kennedy ally Mayor Kevin White mouthed a few platitudes about non-violence and then allowed ROAR to carry out its racist terror. Few, if any, ROAR members were ever arrested. Assaults against African-American schoolchildren became commonplace. Several prominent Boston politicians, led by Louise Day Hicks, publicly affiliated with ROAR. "Pixie" Palladino, a ROAR School Committee member from East Boston, bragged about the bust of Mussolini she kept on her mantle piece. Only PLP stepped forward to challenge these fascists with militancy and a plan for relying on Greater Boston’s working class. We estimated, correctly, that the vast majority of Boston’s workers didn’t like Hicks or ROAR & Co. ROAR could mobilize a few thousand anti-busing demonstrators to yell for an hour or so and, at most, a few hundred thugs to commit acts of racist bullying. The PLP believed that the racists couldn’t withstand a determined challenge with a mass base of support. We were right. May Day 1975 launched the struggle. The PLP organized several thousand May Day marchers in Boston, around the slogan "Death to Fascists." The fascists attacked. PLP marshals repelled them. Cops arrested some PLP’ers and left the ROAR goons alone. The march took place, despite an initial volley of rocks thrown by ROAR punks. The word was out: communists, as they always have, were mustering working-class forces to smash the fascists. From June until September, PLP and its allies in the Committee Against Racism (CAR) recruited hundreds of young people throughout the U.S. to come to Boston to fight ROAR. The war raged on many fronts. It involved large and small demonstrations, bullhorn rallies throughout the metropolitan area, street fights, a pitched battle in August at Carson Beach against ROAR and the cops, a "freedom school" in Roxbury, appeals to Boston trade unionists and a massive canvassing effort to reveal the true sentiments of Boston’s workers. Over 36,000 workers, professionals, students and others signed a CAR petition calling for improved conditions in all Boston public schools and for the criminal indictment of Hicks and other ROAR fascists. The police made hundreds of arrests—virtually all among CAR and PLP volunteers. Many anti-racists were arrested several times. By summer’s end, two important developments had occurred. The liberal ruling class, led by Mayor White and Ted Kennedy, had to slither out from under its rock, and reveal the extent to which it was supporting the racists financially and politically. The PLP had succeeded in exposing the fascist wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing. Second, the ROAR organization as such had suffered a blow from which it would never recover. It, too, had been exposed as nothing more than a pack of vile gutter racists. Soon afterwards, Hicks had to retire from politics in disgrace, when her own son turned out to be a drug-running gangster. These were important victories for workers and anti-racists everywhere. They proved the crucial importance of boldness, reliance on the working class, and communist leadership. But the war is far from over. ROAR may be gone, but fascism is growing, in Boston and throughout the U.S. The main enemy is the same liberal ruling class that made ROAR possible in the first place. As CHALLENGE has pointed out in several recent articles, greater Boston has become a laboratory for the big bosses’ latest scheme to terrorize workers with racist cop brutality, so-called community policing. This is part of a plan to militarize U.S. society and prepare for a long period of imperialist war. The lessons learned on Boston’s hot streets 25 years ago can serve us well today. Communist leadership and boldness are still decisive. Racism is still the enemy of all workers, and most can be won to see this. Scratch a liberal boss and you still find a fascist. The only solution to fascism and imperialist war is still communist revolution. The urgency and determination with which Boston 75’s valiant volunteers applied these ideas should inspire us today, as we dig in for the long struggle to win a communist world.

Nazi Torture: The Racist Beasts Of Clinton Prison

NEW YORK CITY, July 11 — A vanload of family and friends of Felix Jorge, including several PLP’ers, traveled to Clinton Prison in Plattsburgh, New York to monitor the wrongful death suit against the State of New York. Felix was "found" dead in his cell, with wet tissue stuffed in his nose and throat on July 27, 1994. PLP members have known the Jorge family since 1985 when Felix and his sisters and brothers first marched with us on May Day in Washington, D.C.

After an all-night trip, we arrived at the Clinton County Government Center, 50 miles from the U.S.-Canadian border. Twelve miles to the west are a growing number of maximum-security prisons and boot camps, housing thousands of inmates. There are 72,000 prisoners in N.Y. State.

The inmates are overwhelmingly black and Latin, many from the NYC area. The prison staff is largely white, local residents. Racism seeps out of the pores of the prisons like the pus of a long-standing virulent infection. The trial offered glimpses of standard state and federal prison policy; racism, brutality and torture.

Felix was brain damaged at birth in the Dominican Republic. His mother fought for some level of psychiatric care for her son. He immigrated to NYC in 1983, and his life spiraled downward. He was in and out of five hospitals, variously diagnosed with epilepsy and paranoid schizophrenia. He was on and off medication. Eventually he succumbed to alcohol and drugs, which he overcame in time. He was arrested for attempted robbery with a toy pistol and sentenced to six years.

At Rikers Island prison he was placed in the general prison population. After a struggle by his mother, he was moved to a mental health unit. Following stints at two other NY prisons, he ended up at Clinton where he spent a year and three months before his death at the age of 25.

During the trial we learned that his medical records weren’t transferred with him to Clinton. Two psychologists and a nurse from the NY State Office of Mental Health, who work at Clinton, testified they were never told, or bothered to find out about Felix’s medical history. A psychologist testified that when Felix made a 13-foot rope out of bed sheets, he was "more concerned with escape than suicide." The judge declared a suicide attempt where Felix took 150 Tylenol pills as "unfounded."

One of the prison psychiatrists was a former Nazi doctor. At one point in his deposition, the Nazi doctor referred to inmates as "slime."

In all likelihood, Felix was in and out of a delusionary state at the time of his death. He was being "disciplined for behavioral adjustment." He was on "dietary restriction," a 5-day "loaf diet" (made of cabbage and bread), followed by two days of a "normal diet." Dietary restriction was the final level of disciplinary action against Felix, after denial of phone calls, packages, television earphones and any communication with other inmates.

Felix was a paranoid schizophrenic whose records were lost, whose illness was ignored and for which he was tortured. The family lawyer, whose mother-in-law had been in a concentration camp, was horrified by what happened to Felix, but was boxed in by his faith in the legal system and respect for the rules. The State’s Assistant D.A. argued that Felix received treatment, refused medication and the State was not liable. The family’s lawyer "won" the case and a small amount of money. The judge has a reputation for exposing problems and offering little or no money. He serves the system by opening the valve to let off a little steam.

Two powerful videos, required in "forced-cell extractions," were partially shown. The first video showed that even though Felix was on a suicide watch every five minutes, no one passed his cell for 50 minutes before he was "discovered" dead. There was no sound, and the video had been turned off for 2½ minutes. The second video shows at least five guards in riot gear brutally beating Felix in a "forced cell extraction." Moaning "Aye, aye...," Felix says his name and ID number and, "They’re going to kill me," over and over. He is carried by his cuffed hands and feet with his face dragging on the floor and placed face down on the ground. This torture of a mentally ill patient/inmate resembled a Nazi experiment to test when he would crack.

Guard Perry was in charge at that time. He was given a one-month suspension, and returned to work.

PLP members are working in a Prisoner Rights group at a local church. We will urge them to organize a loud, public protest at the Clinton jail. PLP was instrumental in helping the family prepare for the trial and in getting transportation to Clinton Prison. One family member was critical of us as communists. However, others defended our outlook. Felix’s stepfather said, "Where would we be without them in our lives?"

AFSCME Dances To Bosses’ Tune; Not A Hit With Workers

PHILADELPHIA, PA — From June 26-30, 6,000 delegates, alternates and guests packed the Convention Center here for the 1.3 million member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) convention. Imagine if they had come together to lead a massive fight-back against racist slave labor Workfare, welfare cutbacks, prison labor and out-sourcing to non-union contractors. But that’s not what AFSCME is about. Instead they beat the drum to get out the vote for the Democratic Party. They’re after a base in the working class for imperialist war and growing fascism.

As a guest, invited to attend just days before the convention, how could I raise aspects of PLP’s ideas and sharpen the ideological fight over AFSCME’s program? I participated with members of my local in the call for "one member, one vote." This was a protest against the entrenched bureaucratic union bosses of AFSCME’s District Council 37 and the vote-rigging in the last city worker contract.

In NYC, 40,000 Workfare slave labor workers now fill thousands of former union jobs and prison labor is growing rapidly. At a caucus of NYC delegates, D.C. 37 administrator Lee Saunders was challenged to explain why there were no workshops organized to discuss these issues. After a second member of my local rose to ask about "one member, one vote," the D.C. 37 caucus was adjourned.

During a demonstration to support Philadelphia city and hospital workers engaged in contract fights, members of my local carried a large banner reading, "Smash Slave Labor Workfare." It received lots of attention. Many members took pictures and help chant anti-Workfare slogans. Later in the week at a Social Service workers meeting, a PLP member pointed out that the AFSCME leadership made no mention of slave labor Workfare or prison labor because it was under Clinton and Gore’s leadership that these fascist attacks had been carried out.

During the week-long convention, 200 PLP pamphlets on Workfare, prison labor and the anti-globalization movement were distributed along with 20 copies of THE COMMUNIST and 20 CHALLENGES. During breaks, over meals and on the bus ride to and from Philadelphia, discussion and debate raged over the role of unions and of our Party in the world we live in today. Acquaintances became friendships and friendships deepened.

The ruling class and its ideas lead the mass organizations which workers are part of. In our day-to-day work, we must fight against the bosses and their ideas. Mainly we do this in our schools, on the job, in our communities and at meetings of our local organizations. The modest effort at the AFSCME convention was positive in many ways and shows we can challenge the bosses and their lackeys at every turn.

A Taste of Communism Under The Red Tent

Recently our Party’s schools section organized a camping trip/cadre school as a good post-May Day activity to have some fun and to consolidate some of the young activists who had come to the march.

Our plan included three discussions of dialectical materialism, led by young comrades who had themselves just completed a study group. They were learning how to analyze various situations and how to be Party leaders.

The available cabins and kitchens were too expensive so we opted for tents. One adult expressed reservations, but all the young people were eager to go; most had never camped before.

We collected 7-8 tents, borrowed or rented extra vans and organized a food committee. Friday afternoon everyone went into action from various points in the city. One van went early and secured five nice campsites close together. Amazingly most of us arrived within an hour of each other.

Everyone helped and we quickly erected the tents. Several were almost brand new but the "penthouse," a large tent over 35 years old, was unused for 15 years. It became a favorite. (One rented one was missing a piece—capitalism is everywhere).

With our excellent food committee, dinner was ready even before the tents were up. Still in daylight our organizing meeting arranged housing and the schedule for the weekend.

Thinking about it now, it was a little taste of communism. The young people who had never camped in tents before were the ones who had wanted to "go for it." It was their collective efforts that got us off to a great start.

As the weekend progressed, it became increasingly obvious that this was a communist trip. Essentially we all thought about everyone instead of just ourselves. For example: many of the teenagers said they wanted to do their own thing. In one case, the right thing was not to go out after 10 PM nor off the campground. After discussing it, everyone did the right thing for the whole group. This was a great lesson for those who thought communist ideas could not work.

A highlight was the three discussions about dialectics led by three young comrades. They had prepared beforehand and showed a profound understanding of dialectics, considering how briefly they had studied it. On the other hand, young people totally new to this philosophy were eager to learn and quickly grasped various aspects. The student discussion-leaders were well read and serious. The discussions continued after the formal meetings.

This really showed how important dialectical materialism is. It will enable us to lead the working class to communism. It is essential to organize a lifetime of study and action based on dialectical materialism.

Communism really does have a tremendous appeal to young working-class people. It is our future and young people grasp this very quickly.

This trip was a step forward, leading into the Summer Project. We’re planning on spreading communist ideas far and wide in some big reform organizations. We’re going to "get in it and win it."

Thousands Protest Racist Killing

DETROIT, MI. JULY 17—Over 8,000 workers, students and youth have participated in two rallies against the racist murder of Frederick Finley. Lord and Taylor security guards, who suspected his daughter of shoplifting a $4.00 bracelet, choked Fredrick to death on June 22 at the Fairlane mall. Al Sharpton, Dick Gegory, John Con yers, and a host of Democratic Party hacks are trying to channel the anger of workers into demanding a federal investigation by Clinton's Justice Department. They are also talking about buying stock in Lord and Taylor!

Finley's murder is another in a long string of racist murders and beatings in every major U.S. city. After today's rally, PLP rallied in Kennedy Square and sold over 100 CHALLENGES in about an hour. Workers in and around the Party have taken part in these rallies, including GM workers, teachers, and State Mental Health workers. We will bring this fight into our unions and churches in order to build a base for the Party. The only solution is communist revolution.

LETTERS

Revolt in Iran

[The following is taken from a letter sent by a veteran Iranian communist.]

Today, July 8, is a day of revolt for Iranian workers and revolutionary students. A bloody working class revolt broke out in four Iranian cities this past week. The military is on alert in all cities. The workers destroyed government buildings and the cops killed 19 workers in Abadan, the country’s oil center, where PLP has some friends. Last night I received a FAX from a comrade there. The city was bombed during the Iran-Iraq war and has not had safe water or electrical services for eleven years. Many workers are still jobless. The government bought its weapons from the U.S. and Israel. They are all united against the Iranian workers even though they sometimes criticize the Iranian government.

In Mashaad students have also protested. They have taken to the streets, joined by the workers. Rebellions are spreading to other cities. Meanwhile protestors throughout Europe plan to demonstrate against pro-U.S. President Khatami when he visits Berlin. The German government is checking the highways and buses to keep out protestors, but we have plans to be there with leaflets. The protests will involve thousands, showing that the opposition is not just from reactionary religious groups.

The European and U.S. press only talk about the pro-U.S. student opposition, but there is a large revolutionary student movement that opposes both the fascist religious government mullahs as well as the pro-US student opposition. This movement is gaining strength among workers and students.

The pro-U.S. faction and the reactionary religious faction attack left-wing students and workers, but that movement continues to grow. Please stay in contact.

Iranian Comrade

BOSTON ‘75 Revisited

This past weekend in Boston comrades and friends celebrated the 25-year reunion of the 1975 intense political Summer Project. For the 35 youth and adults who came from NYC and NJ, it was not only inspirational but also educational and historical.

On Saturday morning, comrades involved in the Project spoke about fighting the police, developing the freedom school, smashing a racist group called ROAR (Restore Our Alienated Rights), mistakes they made, and lessons learned, such as trusting and relying on the working class. Talks about law and racism showed how society was different back then but still connects to the present.

Towards the afternoon, friends and comrades toured the Project’s "hot spots"—Carson Beach, the Committee Against Racism office, Columbia Point, etc. The younger comrades and I found the most interesting part in the evening. Older comrades spoke about their experiences and dedication to the Party. Their commitment was essential to shut down the racist anti-busing movement (ROAR). The reunion inspired me, as a member of PLP, to follow the footsteps of the older and more experienced comrades. Hopefully in 25 years my comrades and I will have experiences like these to share with future comrades and the working class.

Red For Life

This weekend [July 15-16] was the 25-year reunion of the Boston ’75 anti-racist Summer Project and I think this was the best thing I have done in a long time. Coming here helped me gain an understanding of what a lot of people struggle with in a racist society that would actually try to keep children from getting a proper education. The stories were vivid and I felt like I was almost there with them fighting. Unfortunately I wasn’t but it helped me realize that the struggle still continues today. It is up to me, with the help of others, to help change things. I was so happy that we had a victory. It inspires me to fight harder so we can win today’s war and communism can take charge. That’s why I love PLP and I will continue forward.

C.A.

Fighting Racism = Best Medicine

July 4, 2000 is a date I will remember for a long time. My political friends and I were scheduled to confront Nazis in Morristown, New Jersey. However, the night before I had broken up with my girlfriend and I was pretty upset about it. I called up two of my friends in the Party and they strongly encouraged me to come, not only for the cause, but because they both thought it would be the best thing for my emotions. How right they were!

By the end of the day, I had such a sense of what my life was really about—ending racism and this rotten system that upholds it—that my own trouble, while important as it reflected the personal commitment I had to the relationship, paled as I put my values on the line. I learned a truly important lesson. Perhaps it will serve you, the reader, also.

Brooklyn comrade

‘Who Wants to Be A Communist?’

I’m 15 years old. I used to live in South America but now live in Chicago. I recently participated in a camping trip with Party members. I liked the discussions we had about the fight between the workers and bosses. I also liked the integration. The place was nice. I especially liked the late night discussions among only young people (away from "oldies").

We also played a game called "who wants to be a communist." We changed the game from millionaire to communist. I wish more people would participate in these kinds of camping trips, and of course I personally want more.

A Future Comrade

Workers’Anger Brews in Colombia’s Bavaria Beer

Colombia’s bloody civil war and the U.S. bosses’ support of its death squad army and government has been in the news worldwide. But there’s another war receiving a lot less notice—the class war between bosses and workers. The Bavaria corporate group is controlled by Julio M. Santodomingo, who is also a big backer of the war against the guerrillas. In 1999, Bavaria Brewers netted $192 million. These profits come from paying poverty wages to its workers. Now, to intensify the exploitation of those workers, Bavaria is promoting a new scab union, led by Luis A. Pedraza. For 15 years he led the union representing Bavaria’s workers (Sinaltrabavaria), until workers dumped him three years ago.

Even though Sinaltrabavaria was not exactly a fighting union, a lot of rank-and-file workers, including PLP members, were very militant. Company plans included downsizing and consolidating its operation (fewer workers and more production), so it needs a totally loyal "union." Bavaria has already downsized its overseas plants: In its Andalusia, Spain facility, 60 workers were fired. This also happened in its Pilsener plant in Ecuador. Bavaria’s Tropical beer plant workers here in Cartagena, have been on strike for 80 days trying to stop the company from grabbing their few past gains.

We in PLP are trying to bring political understanding to these struggles, showing that it is not only sellouts like Pedraza or bosses like Santodomingo, but also the whole system which is our enemy. We are now circulating CHALLENGE in three Bavaria plants. Workers are reading about the politics needed to eliminate the increasing misery capitalism and imperialism has brought to Colombia.

A Comrade, Colombia

‘What is Truth?’

I am helping to lead a young workers’ club. Two weeks ago we had our first study group about Dialectical Materialism, the scientific communist philosophy. We know that the ruling class doesn’t want us to understand these ideas because they guide the masses to build a communist movement capable of gaining state power, destroying capitalism and building communism throughout the world. That’s why we must study it.

One of the main questions raised at the meeting was "What is truth?" Can different people have different truths?" Quoting the book we’re reading, "Truth is an accurate reflection of consciousness on the features of the object reflected." That is, we are able to see things as they truly are, not just as we feel about them or as they appear at any particular moment in time. This is materialism’s cardinal proposition, that there is an objective reality, apart from what one thinks or feels.

In looking for reality, you must include the inner and outer aspects of a thing, the inner being the truth, the outer being the appearance. These two aspects can be in sharp discord. Have you ever bought a used car from a dealer? He may have repainted it and polished the chrome, so it looks great, but if the engine is on its last legs, you wouldn’t want it. The outer aspect does not accurately tell the story.

To accurately predict something (in this case, how well the car will run), there must be a profound correspondence between our understanding of an object, process, etc. and the objective reality, as known by knowledge of laws and investigation. We test this through practice.

Back to the car analogy. The more you know about cars, the more likely you will choose one which will live up to expectations. The used car salesman will tell you what a great car is in front of you, but you are not likely to base your purchase on what he says or the way the car looks. Rather, you will want its repair history, test drive it, have it checked by a reliable mechanic, etc. Once you’ve purchased the car, practice will tell you whether or not you made a good choice. Did it die two weeks later? Is it still running after 200,000 miles? Or something in between?

We should not confuse feelings, which are subjective, with truth, which is objective. You may still love that car when it dies at 200,000 miles, but it is still dead. Idealism would have us change our real, objective chains that exist outside ourselves into mere ideal, subjective chains, existing only in ourselves. This would change real struggles to merely struggles of thought. As materialists, we know the truth is that those chains are real, physical chains, and that it will take a revolution to smash them!

Becoming Better Red in Seattle

Prayer Won’t Get Us There

I attended the latest rally on July 5 at Gary’s Methodist Hospital where members of SEIU Local 73 have been striking for more than a month. Workers are familiar with PLP and our fight for communist revolution because we’ve been standing on the picket line with our class, attending rallies and talking communist politics. Workers who gathered in the park after the march were eager to take our latest flier. "Hey, give me one of those! I want one for my sister. Thanks." One worker asked me for a handful. "The people on the street should see these," she said and went back to pass them out. I ran out of fliers right away and had to grab another handful to meet the demand!

Workers in the area should support SEIU Local 73 for taking a stand against a lousy hospital administrator who reportedly makes around $200,000 a year while these workers do the real work of taking care of patients for less than $10 an hour! Jesse Jackson spoke to the workers and the hospital bosses, but didn’t have any solution except "prayer."

It will take more than prayers to win this fight. Capitalism is a system designed to keep workers passive and waiting for something or someone else to save their jobs. Capitalism has nothing to do with God. The bosses worship profits over human life. They built this capitalist hell on the sweat and blood of the working class. It will take the organized solidarity of workers building a movement for communist revolution to tear down the bosses’ society and rebuild a communist world where workers share all benefits and burdens equally.

Gary Comrade

[Since this letter was written, the Methodist Hospital strike has ended. Full article in the next CHALLENGE.]

Mexico: Beware of Fox Baring Fangs to Devour Working Class

MEXICO CITY, July 17 — "Seventy years of the PRI were bad, but this transition agreement is the same thing," chanted students demonstrating their anger at the PAN Party’s victory here. This election of Vicente Fox as President deceived many workers. It gave the appearance of an electoral system functioning for all, but only the capitalists fought for their class interests. A section of the middle class that resents the crisis moved to the right, taking many workers with them. The voters jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The anger created by the PRI provoked its rejection, blinding people to the fascist consequences of Fox’s presidency. The ruling class will never give up its class position or privilege through elections. Now they’re selling us the idea that we already achieved change through voting. But a glimpse of Fox’s friends and their interests suggests that the worst is yet to come for the working class. Workers need to organize through the communist PLP to make war on the bosses and destroy their power to exploit us by creating a new communist society that eliminates exploitation.

"A worker can live with two minimum salaries. If that’s not enough, let him ask for charity!" exclaimed Fox’s friend Alberto Fernandez Garza, president of COPARMEX, the bosses’ confederation that supports the PAN party. Fox promised "a little house, a little car and a TV" for all the poor. Remember Hitler’s similar promises in the 1930’s? In Chihuahua a 14-year-old girl was raped and became pregnant. The PAN State government barred her from having an abortion. Fox supported this fascist rule, telling the TV news it was better to "teach this young woman to love her child." PAN leads the bosses’ efforts to reintroduce religious mysticism into the schools. This is the fascist profile of "populist" Fox and the rulers he represents.

Vicente Fox will complete the second generation of vital reforms for a sector of the bosses. Schools will strictly serve the market, making capitalist education even more reactionary. He will complete the dismantling of social programs. Fox will impose "labor flexibility," enabling bosses to contract out and lay off at will, eliminating hard won rights and "guarantees." All this "to make Mexico more productive," says Fox. His supporters use workers’ disgust with the pro-PRI union traitors in the CTM to push open collaboration between workers and bosses.

The bosses want to cheapen the cost of labor even more to attract investments and compete successfully now that they have expanded their trade deals in Europe and Central America. Fox recognizes that his macroeconomic policy will be the same as Zedillo and Salinas. Luis Dervez, ex-functionary of the World Bank, will lead Fox’s economic cabinet. Only the destruction of the wage system will free workers from exploitation, not the changing of faces on top.

With PAN’s victory, a sector of bosses from Nuevo Leon (Monterrey) is replacing those from the states of Mexico, Puebla, Veracruz and Tabasco as the dominant wing. The battle is just beginning. These bosses are allying with different imperialist to strengthen themselves. They will try to win the workers to defend each boss’s competing interests. The working class must be alert not to fall into another trap, believing elections will solve its problems. Joining together with the workers of the world is the winning strategy to confront our oppressors and to destroy them with communist revolution.

El Salvador: ‘The System Works’ . . . For the Bosses

SAN SALVADOR, July 17 — The new Supreme Court of Justice, led by the pro-US wing of the FMLN, ordered the rehiring of 221 Social Security workers fired during the recent strike. They said the bosses had violated collective bargaining contract clauses prohibiting massive layoffs and were given ten days to reinstate the fired workers. This demonstration of "justice" enables the politicians to declare, "The system works."

PLP stands in solidarity with these workers. We must not allow ourselves to be taken in by political opportunists who used our strike to win votes for their parties. The struggle had the solid support of the working class and made the bosses tremble. Liberal and conservative bosses met secretly as they faced growing unity of workers in the countryside, the city, among students and others. The FMLN and the ARENA party met to figure out how to slow down the growing wave of working-class discontent reflected in this strike.

Tiny "victories" like this will be all we can expect until workers build a mass PLP, which unites the workers of the world for communist revolution to eliminate the ruling class. As long as bosses exist, we will have to struggle against them. We must not give them a moment’s peace, or be fooled into supporting a "lesser of two evils." With friends like the liberal apologists for capitalism, who needs enemies?

"What happened with that [CHALLENGE] newspaper you gave me during the strike?" asked an energetic Social Security worker. "It said a lot of good things."

Remarks like that show that these workers are thirsty for communist ideas. We must not lose the valuable opportunities that arise during periods of great class struggle. This week we’re taking CHALLENGE to that worker. Eventually we’ll reap the fruits of our labor. Organize CHALLENGE study groups and join PLP to achieve a world without bosses, layoffs or demotions. Fight for communism.

1. From West Coast to East Coast
   1. RACISTS ATTACKED!
   2. Anti-Immigrant Racists Attacked
2. All Politicians Are Enemies of Workers and Youth
3. Piecards' Red-baiting Boomerangs:
   HUNDREDS GIVE PLP STANDING OVATION IN PHILLY CONTRACT FIGHT!
   1. `Red Undies:' :Latest Style in Philly
4. WORKERS CHEER RED LEADERSHIP IN MUNI CONTRACT FIGHT
5. Workers Blast Hacks' Defense of Boeing
   1. The Meaning Of Patriotism
6. Ecuador Teachers' Strike: Learn to Fight, Fight to Learn
7. Red Teacher Sticks It to Nazi
8. Change of President Won't Lessen Super-Exploitation of Workers
9. Debasing DNA: How Capitalism Corrupts Science
10. Jesse Jackson: Talk is Cheap...
    METHODIST STRIKERS HOLD THE LINE!
11. The Patriot Pledges Allegiance to Racism
12. Big Oil Bosses' Dogfight Turns Going to Gas Stations Into Highway Robbery
13. Elections 2000: Drive for Oil War 2
14. LETTERS
    1. DEADLY TOMATOES
    2. Reading, Marching Lead to Joining
    3. Capitalism Is the Bitterest Pill
    4. Jobs Are for Profit

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From West Coast to East Coast

RASCISTS ATTACKED!

MORRISTOWN, NJ, July 4 -- Hundreds of workers and youth demonstrated here today against the fascist Richard Barrett and his Nationalist Movement organization. PLP organized local workers from Morristown, and students and teachers from New York and New Jersey to confront this Nazi filth.

Barrett and his racist followers called their Fourth of July Rally "Independence from Affirmative Action" day and urged support for the former head of the fascist New Jersey State Police, Carl Williams. Williams is the racist who admitted cops use racial profiling to stop Latin and black motorists.

Morristown's liberal bosses and religious leaders successfully extinguished much of the local anger by organizing a candlelight vigil the night before the march, urging everyone to stay home. We leafleted the vigil, struggling with residents to come. Many did show up at the protest. Many immigrant workers, documented and undocumented, came to protest Barrett's fascist and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Yesterday cops drove through Morristown's Latino threatening workers with arrest and deportation if they showed up today. But this didn't work, one worker saying, "We have to be here in mass numbers to fight against these racists."

When the fascists finally appeared at the Morris County Courthouse, we chanted, "Death, Death, Death to the Fascists!" and "Racist Barrett you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!" We drowned out the fascists and gained support from the anti-racist crowd. People clearly saw how the cops in riot gear protected the Nazis and let them march around the courthouse spreading their fascist message. The crowd gained momentum and chanted, "They march, We march!"

Angered by the racists, workers and youths broke through the police barricades. The fascists in blue stopped us with pepper spray and horses. Several people were arrested as the hundreds of anti-racists chanted, "Let them go! Let them go!"

PLP organized a group of sixty to march to the precinct, completely shutting down the busy downtown South Street. The cops were caught off guard and rushed to control the situation, but they failed to stop the march. As we strode down the streets, we chanted "Fascism means, fight back!" and encouraged people from the community to join us.

Bail money was raised to free those arrested. The students and teachers who participated were militant and committed to fight the battle against fascism. When we charged the barricades, they were ready to go with us to smash the racists. They joined the chant of, "Asian, Latin, black and white, workers of the world unite!" and distributed CHALLENGE and thousands of leaflets to workers.

After the protest, workers and students refused to leave until our comrades were released from jail. This showed unity and their support for the Party and the working class. A Newark friend said, "I have a profound respect for PLP. I was impressed by the youth, the leadership, and the planning that went into the action. PLP doesn't just talk, but puts actions behind those words." We need dozens, hundreds and thousands of workers and youth like this to make sure next time the neo-Nazis show up their faces, it will be very very hard for their buddies in blue to protect them.

The Fight Against Racist Terrorists from Coast to Coast needs $

Many comrades were arrested on July 4 fighting racism. It cost thousands for bail and legal expenses. We need your help. Send contributions to CHALLENGE Periodicals, 150 West 28th St. room 301, NYC 10001, USA

Anti-Immigrant Racists Attacked

LOS ANGELES, CA., July 4 -- Two hundred anti racists confronted about 150 racist thugs and their supporters at the Federal Building in Westwood. The cops defended the racists and had to call in reinforcements to try to keep the anti-racists away from them. Glen Spencer, head of VCT (Voices of Citizens Together) and Roger Barnett, the vigilante killer who brags about shooting immigrants at the border, were featured speakers. But Spencer doubled over in pain when he was hit in the stomach with a full soda can. A cop defending the racists was hit in the face. PLP youth led the action, in which many other youth and workers gave leadership.

Spencer whined to his supporters, "They're terrorizing people, scaring people from joining us."

When we arrived we set up a picket line as close to the racists as possible. The cops tried to move us off the corner, but more people joined us. Several minor skirmishes broke out when racists tried to walk near our group. The cops moved them further away. The crowd became angrier and tried to break through the police to get to the racists. Other groups had set up a rally across Wilshire Blvd, directly in front of the racists. This included anarchists and members of MECHA (a Chicano student group).

Our rally marched across the street to join them. We led chants against the racists: "Death to the fascists, power to the workers"; "Same enemy, same fight, workers of the world unite"; "Este puno si se ve, los obreros al poder." And we joined their chant, "VCT-KKK."

Then a group of youths went into busy Wilshire Blvd, running toward the racists who were protected by police lines. Much of the crowd followed them. They threw cans of soda at the racists. A couple made it through the police lines to punch the racists before being arrested. Others skirmished with the cops. One cop, hit by a soda can, fell to the ground.

The cops attacked the anti-racist fighters with pepper spray. Then more cops came, pushing the demonstrators back onto the sidewalk, where we continued to rally. We denounced VCT, Clinton and Gore and their "Operation Gatekeeper." We condemned the capitalist system as the cause of forced immigration for jobs and the source of racist attacks on the working class.

Many people eagerly took CHALLENGE and PLP leaflets. A group of workers carried huge pictures of the dead worker found on the land Barnett leases from the Federal Government in Arizona. Some youth from other groups asked when our next meeting was. Several gave their names to work with the Party. Others in these groups who we already know said they'd like to attend Party meetings. We plan to ask them to join a PLP study group. We'll also approach some whom we're already working with to join the long-term fight for communist revolution, to get rid of borders, racist vigilantes and the system that thrives on exploitation and terror.

One teacher, opposed to racism and US. Imperialism for many years, said (after washing off the pepper spray) that he was really proud of the role he played. "I read a lot," he said, "but there comes a point when reading isn't enough. You have to act." This event showed this teacher and others who've been reading CHALLENGE and discussing it with us that they can be part of a movement committed to fighting the fascists--big and little.

The hypocrisy of the bosses' media knows no bounds. They "expose" Barnett's racism, but protect him as he spews his filth and organizes death squads at the border. Glen Spencer attacks immigrants on a weekly radio show. It should be closed down.

On the other hand, Operation Gatekeeper, administered by Clinton and Gore, doubled the border patrol at major border crossings. This forces undocumented immigrants desperate for work to cross the border far from cities and risk the death squads of the likes of Roger Barnett. Clearly PLP must grow so that we can involve more workers and youth in the battle against fascism and to crush it with communist revolution.

All Politicians Are Enemies of Workers and Youth

The Direct Action Network (DAN) and D2K (planning mass protests at the Democratic Convention) are pushing pacifist civil disobedience in the upcoming protests against that Convention. They refuse to criticize the Democrats for their real crimes, like putting 100,000 more racist killer cops on the streets, and bombing Yugoslavia for 78 days. But the anti-VCT actions demonstrated that many respond to leadership that rejects pacifism and fights to unite workers of the world against racism and imperialism.

The new D2K leaflets will feature the Statue of Liberty. They are building a patriotic, pacifist reform movement, geared to win youth to support the next imperialist blood bath with a humanitarian cover. The Party-led actions against the fascists, as well as against the liberal bosses who organized Operation Gatekeeper, and who are planning the next oil war, stands in sharp contrast to the latter's patriotic pacifism. There's a lot of potential for the Party to grow.

Piecards' Red-baiting Boomerangs:
HUNDREDS GIVE PLP STANDING OVATION IN PHILLY CONTRACT FIGHT!

PHILADELPHIA, PA. July 1 -- The contract signed yesterday between Jefferson Hospital and Local 1199C of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees represents one more sellout of the working class. At the same time, there was a victory for the working class. The revolutionary communist PLP has moved forward, especially symbolized by mass applause at the contract ratification meeting for PLP's leadership in this struggle.

Our plan for this contract struggle--formulated months ago--centered on spreading PLP's ideas, increasing the CHALLENGE readership and recruiting new members. The good news is that CHALLENGE readership increased modestly and at least one new CHALLENGE readers group was formed. We are working on recruiting several new members. We deepened our participation in the union, helping lead hundreds of workers in various struggles. The need for communism was put forward even at the contract negotiation table.

Earlier in the week, mainly due to the hard work of two comrades, we distributed 1,000 PLP flyers and all the CHALLENGES we had at a march of thousands of hospital workers, city workers and delegates.

To advance our plan, we made the fight for jobs the main issue, with us in the leadership. We emphasized full-time jobs for super-exploited part-timers. This would be a unifying demand. It contrasted with the union leadership's focus on the issue of workers paying for their health benefits. Our battle cry in this struggle became, "Strike for Jobs and No Co-Pay!"

In the end, the union leaders saddled us with a five-year contract. Our annual 3% "raise" over the first three years will be eaten up paying for our health benefits; $4.00 a week for the first year, and $10.00 a week for the remaining four years. There is a wage "re-opener" after three years. Several issues affecting scheduling and wage upgrades were lost.

`Red Undies:' :Latest Style in Philly

We worked with several groups of union activists to organize a strike. There were countless meetings filled with political struggle among one group of union delegates. Several delegates were questioned about their close relationship with a known PLP member. This forced us to tackle anti-communism head-on in our meetings. It worked: other delegates began working closer than ever with PLP. One worker asked a delegate if he wore "red underwear," meaning was he a secret communist. He stood up to this anti-communism so strongly that later we gave him a gift of real red undies!

Groups of rank and file activists were organized to lead the struggle, especially younger, part-time workers. These "wage slaves on demand" are desperate to work more hours. The bosses use them to fill in the scheduling gaps caused by the short staffing. Some work seven days a week just to get a 40-hour paycheck.

By working with, and introducing CHALLENGE to, different groups of workers, we were able to involve hundreds in several "Solidarity Lunches" as a show of force. Most were held in the hospital cafeteria, breaking the bosses' rules. But they never moved against us.

At the "Solidarity Lunch" during the last week of the contract, workers lined up in the cafeteria to receive "STRIKE" buttons from our table! Security prowled around the perimeter and the terrified bosses very politely informed workers we could not wear them on hospital property. But when the bosses left, one of them was sporting a "STRIKE" button on the back of his white shirt!

At the last negotiation session several of us fought hard to make full-time jobs for part-timers the main issue. After four hours of going round and round with the union leaders and the bosses, the best we could get was "a committee to investigate the problem." So much for trying to talk and negotiate with the bosses. To offset this, we're organizing part-timers to lead a campaign for full-time jobs.

Over 400 Jefferson workers attended the contract ratification vote. In what was meant to be a slap at PLP, 1199C President Nicholas referred to our efforts to fight for the workers. He said he "respected" us for continuing to "fight for the revolution that no one else believes in." To Nicholas' surprise, the entire room of 400 workers rose and cheered thunderously. We were also stunned. The workers cheered because we are a fighting communist party and the workers want to fight. Our goal is to lead that fight toward communist revolution!

WORKERS CHEER RED LEADERSHIP IN MUNI CONTRACT FIGHT

SAN FRANCISCO, JULY 3 -- "This man has been against everything this union has stood for ever since he's been here. People really don't know what he stands for." That's how the union vice-president attacked the PLP member on the Executive Board during a heated contract meeting at the bus barn.

The PL member shot back: "It's true I've opposed the union's give-aways for 26 years. I am proud that I have fought against every sellout. Everyone knows my politics. I'm a Communist! That's the reason I fought against part-timing, wage progression and for full-time jobs for part-timers. That's one aspect of what it means to be a communist. You always fight for the working class." The bus barn burst into applause. But that's just the beginning of the story.

Two weeks ago, negotiations between MUNI management and TWU Local 250-A were stalled. After they resumed, it took only two days for MUNI bosses to get what they wanted, mainly a weakened grievance procedure. General Manager Burns said that disciplinary action can now be taken faster, and it will be easier to discipline drivers involved in serious accidents. (SF CHRONICLE, 6/30).

All hell broke loose at the first barn meeting where the union leadership tried to sell the contract. The July 5th CHALLENGE article had been reprinted and distributed throughout the room. The local President tried to lull the 150 members to sleep by reading from a 9-page contract summary. After the third point, a member interrupted.

"Let's cut to the chase. Why did you negotiate on the grievance procedure when we passed a resolution saying it was non-negotiable?" The president tried to explain his position. After he finished, the PL member on the board asked if workers wanted to hear another version. The majority roared, "Yes," breaking the long-standing gag order that no one on the Executive Board could speak against a tentative contract. The leadership had lost control of the meeting.

The PLP'er explained how the proposed changes weakened the grievance procedure. This was the main issue that divided the board, and why five board members refused to sign it. He reminded everyone that the president had called the grievance procedure, "the soul of the union." He said they had sold a piece of that soul, and would sell more next time.

The more people asked the president why he did this, the more he refused to answer. Workers began yelling and demanded a new person chair the meeting. A chief steward said he was, "fed up with a no-fighting leadership." The meeting ended with another driver calling on everyone to sign a petition for a mass general membership meeting.

This was more than just a spontaneous rebellion. Many workers gave leadership and took initiative to prepare this meeting, speak from the floor and prepare and distribute literature. This emerging leadership requires more formal organization. If this contract is turned down, the forces of the Downtown Corporations, the City government and the International Union will unite to stop us. The SF CHRONICLE and the local TV media will lead this attack, to isolate drivers from the riding public. On our side we have CHALLENGE, 100% for the working class. CHALLENGE must be a vital part of this struggle.

We need an organized leadership to pass a strike authorization vote, make strike preparations and send a new negotiating team back to the table from a position of power. We deliver 850,000 people a day to work and shop for those corporations. We can turn Downtown into a ghost town.

Win, lose or draw in the contract, we will get stronger as the PLP grows among drivers and mechanics. The recent modest upturn in the circulation of CHALLENGE, and years of communist organizing, are opening the door to many workers. But we have a long way to go. We cannot get "dizzy with success." Capitalism is the class dictatorship of the bosses. They will soon remind us of this. For every driver that cheered the PLP member, and the many more that have or will, we invite you all to join PLP. This is your Party. And it will lead the working class to power, no matter how long it takes!

Workers Blast Hacks' Defense of Boeing

AUBURN, WA., JUNE 19 --"I understand where you are coming from," pleaded IAM District president Bill Johnson to a stream of angry workers at a series of union meetings today. As the day wore on, he began to understand all too well as his attempts to silence the thousands that turned out failed miserably.

Boeing had just announced it would sell its St. Louis military fabrication division, involving 1,700 workers. The company is studying options to sell its larger commercial fabrication divisions in Auburn and Spokane here.

The Meaning Of Patriotism

Boeing is following the recommendations of the new Pentagon task force on maintaining the "health and competitiveness of the U.S. defense industry." U.S. aerospace firms have been losing market share to the Europeans, Russians and even the Chinese. The answer according to Phillip Odeen, the chair of this new task force, is "competitive outsourcing" and focusing on "core competences." In other words, slash our wages and benefits.

We would do well, this July 4^th, to remember that this is the real meaning of patriotism.

Knowing that this attack would not go over well, the company, in an unprecedented move, gave us time off with pay to attend union meetings on company property. "Things are better now," began union president Johnson launching into his "stump" speech. "We are working with the company. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes we have to educate them, but we have a working relationship since the last contract." That's about as far as he got as worker after worker peppered him with hostile questions and gave speeches of their own. The same scene was repeated in meeting after meeting the whole day through.

Johnson should have known what was coming. A few days before, he received a call from an old "friend" who let him have it. "How come we have to circulate a petition to get a Business Representative (BR) down to the shop?" his "friend" asked angrily. Nearly every machine operator on all shifts signed a petition protesting the company's plan to break the work rules. The company hopes the threat of the sale will get us to accept this speed-up.

At the on-site meeting, one BR even tried to convince us that if we bend the work rules the company might stay. "That's the company line," shot back the workers, "but it's not the history of how these things work. The more `flexible' the workforce, the more inviting the target for sale." The BR shut up, but he still hasn't set up the meetings with us that he promised.

"The whole point of those [on-site union] meetings was to demoralize us," concluded one CHALLENGE reader. She could be right. Historically, these pro-capitalist union leaders have tried to make the working class feel helpless--especially in times of crisis.

But there is an answer to this company-government-union gang-up. It was no accident that CHALLENGE readers were prominent among the more vocal opponents of the union leaderships' collaboration. Our long-range strategy of communist revolution gives us the edge in the day-to-day battles against Capital. Even as we organize groups to fight this latest attack, we must all remember to get CHALLENGE into the hands of many more workers.

Ecuador Teachers' Strike: Learn to Fight, Fight to Learn

QUITO, ECUADOR, June 22 -- Teachers are now six weeks into a militant strike closing all public schools. Capitalism pays lousy wages which can't cover basic needs and forces teachers to work under rotten conditions. Students are packed concentration-camp style into decrepit, poorly-lighted rooms and filthy buildings. Now the bosses are trying to privatize public education, making parents pay for their children's rotten education. The strikers are demanding higher wages and no privatization.

The situation is worsened by union leaders who play by the bosses' rules. The rulers violate their own constitution, which calls for 30% of the state budget to be allotted to public education, but its down to 8%.

In the last few years, the entire working class's standard of living has declined even more. Inflation is above 100%, probably the highest in Latin America. These attacks have sparked many mass, militant struggles, forcing two presidents to quit in just three years. But the rulers, with the help of sellouts and opportunists, have managed to derail these struggles.

PLP teachers and CHALLENGE readers among teachers must spread the paper's ideas to other workers and youth. Our best education comes from fighting for a society without bosses, without racist capitalism. "Learn to fight, and fight to learn" is our slogan to turn our strikes and all our struggles into schools for communism. In the process we learn there is no lesser evil among politicians or bosses. Capitalism in all its forms is a dictatorship of the bosses over workers. Join PLP and fight for a society where production and education serve the needs of workers and their allies.

Red Teacher Sticks It to Nazi

BROOKLYN, NY--A PL'er had just been elected union delegate at Harry Van Arsdale Vocational High School. Teachers vary in their outlooks on life. One teacher, Joe, had often made racist and anti-Semitic remarks in the teachers' lounge. He's a 6'5" ex-cop, so people rarely argued with him. During regents week (state-wide tests), Joe started again attacking black and Hispanic students. This time, however, a PL member was present. The following ensued:

Joe: "Yeah, Hitler had a good way of dealing with students that caused trouble."

PL'er: "What are you talking about?"

Joe: "Well, these Hitler Youth had caused problems, and Hitler took them down to a stadium. He also brought the parents. He had the students shot down in front of the parents. He really knew how to deal with problems."

PL'er: "Why would you tell us this thing unless you're a Nazi? Our children need love and attention, caring and thought. Need more money spent on them, not being shot down! You're a Nazi."

Joe (screaming) "How dare you call me a Nazi in front of my colleagues? I fought under the stars and stripes."

PL'er: "People have done terrible things hiding behind the stars and stripes. You can't cover yourself with the stars and stripes. If you spread poison, it's poison."

Joe (getting angrier by the minute): "I'm not a Nazi, I'm an American. I'm not a Nazi, I'm an American. I'm not a Nazi, I'm an American."

PL'er: "You were a cop for 15 years. There are many Ku Klux Klanners amongst the police. Then you're a Ku Klux Klanner." (At this Joe jumped up and ran around the table. The 5'8" PL'er stood up and folded his arms. Joe came no closer than 12 inches. He looked down at the PL'er and cursed him.)

PL'er (looking up at Joe): "I'll go as far as you want to go--whatever you want to do, I'll do."

Joe: "I'm not a Nazi. I'm not a Klanner."(more cursing)

PL'er (arms still folded): "I'm not frightened, let's go. Do it."

Joe still kept cursing. At this point, Al, who was watching but saying nothing, moved between both teachers, facing Joe. He didn't say a word. Joe turned around and sat down, still shouting and cursing.

PL'er: "It's very good, we now know you're a Nazi so you can't hide. Be honest, it's good that you're honest and we know you're a Nazi."

A few minutes later the PL'er left the teachers' lounge to proctor an exam. About two hours later one witness to the argument, an Afro-Caribbean minister whose church the PL'er had attended, put his arm on the PL'er's shoulder and said, "God sent you to this school to uphold the truth and to fight against terrible ideas." (The following week this minister told this story to his congregation in his Sunday sermon.)

About 15 minutes later Al told the PL'er, "You were unbending and unyielding. You stood up against him. He's probably never had that ever before. He'll probably shut up now." About half an hour later another teacher (who hadn't witnessed the argument) approached the PL'er and said, "I think there's a Nazi on the fourth floor."

That evening the PL'er and many of his friends were at the faculty end-term party, a wonderful affair with music, dancing and good food. During the party the Principal stopped the PL'er's wife and said, "In the middle of October I was down in Atlanta at a symposium. I was watching CNN and there I saw the man I had hired a week before being dragged off by the police shouting, "Death to the Klan." The Assistant Principal of Organization, sitting close by, said, "We learned something about the Board of Education from your case. That there is one kind of person you can hit and not lose your job--a Ku Klux Klanner!"

Two people from this school are coming to a PL teachers' study group. And because of the anti-Nazi incident, and the news that spread through the building, the PL'er was also voted onto the school leadership committee by the staff.

By what we do are we known. What we do makes a difference.

Change of President Won't Lessen Super-Exploitation of Workers

MEXICO CITY, July 5 -- The capitalist class achieved a long-cherished wish in this presidential election with the victory of the PAN party and the greater participation by the population in the electoral process. The bosses took advantage of the masses' anger at and rejection of the PRI (the party in power for 71 years) to strengthen their system of exploitation. Many workers were deceived into thinking they could vote for a "change" that would help them. Soon it will be apparent that the victor Fox will only attack them more.

For the first time the bosses staged "debates" to show that their electoral system "works." But poverty and exploitation of workers will increase. All parties, mainly the PRI, PAN and PRD, represent ruling-class interests, both local and foreign. The lack of a mass, revolutionary communist alternative among the workers has allowed millions to fall into this capitalist electoral trap.

The U.S. imperialists brag about democracy flourishing in Mexico. But these elections only trap our class into thinking they can chose a "good" ruler in this murderous capitalist system.

In this fight for power, a section of bosses in Monterrey and the COPARMEX (an association of Mexican businessmen) pushed the PAN party and were able to confuse many people using populist-fascist language like "law and order" and "zero tolerance to end crime." These ideas retain political and economic strength, aided by NAFTA and foreign capital.

During the election campaign, the Europeans made significant gains when a Spanish bank merged with Bancomer, owned by Monterrey bosses, creating the country's largest financial institution. Billionaire Carlos Slim supported this merger. He does business with Bill Gates and has investments in Europe. Some Mexican bosses more markedly associate with European imperialists. U.S. bosses won't sit idle while this happens but will sharpen their fight for control in Mexico. That is why the NEW YORK TIMES praised Fox, calling him "Clintonesque." The Rockefeller bosses seem to glow over Fox and PAN's victory over the PRI.

Manipulation, trickery, corruption, fraud and expense characterized the presidential election. Billions of pesos were wasted to pay for this circus, while 60% of the population lives in poverty. The TV stations raked in the loot, manipulating the politicians' shows. None of the candidates' proposals can solve the murderous poverty and unemployment.

It was evident that the capitalist elite was waging a dirty war over who would wield state power. There was a fierce fight over markets. The crisis of overproduction was sharpening. PAN's triumph will guarantee more of the same.

As the July 4th LA TIMES reported, "What may startle Mexicans the most is what does not change, the deepening gap between the rich and the poor..." What is more, the TIMES predicts it will get worse as president-elect Fox, an international business executive and cattle rancher, "accelerates the trend" of privatization started by outgoing president Zedillo who "sold or closed more than a thousand state-owned companies." This will spell more hardship for millions of workers in Mexico and huge profits for Mexico's bosses and their imperialist masters.

Thousands of students, including PLP members, attacked Cuauhtemoc Cardenas when he tried to enter UNAM (the university), yelling "fascist repressor of students, sellout of the strike." His speech lasted only 15 minutes; he left under heavy security. The PRD retained Mexico City's mayoralty as a prize for its capitalist role.

To gain votes the bosses resorted to bribery, lies, threats and promises of miserable government programs. People were ferried daily by the tens of thousands, forced to participate in rallies or face losing their jobs. Besides spending public money, the companies and banks that contributed to the campaign had previously been rescued from bankruptcy with public funds. It is this circus that the capitalists and their apologists have called a "shining example of democracy at work."

We communists expose the bosses' electoral circus as a dogfight between them and their imperialist masters. Capitalist democracy only legalizes the oppression of, and means more war for, the working class. Workers shouldn't take sides in the fight between the bosses over who will exploit us. Each group of bosses is fighting for its own interests, at the expense of the working class. As long as capitalism exists it will be based on exploiting the working class.

To solve its problems, the working class needs to fight for a communist system where workers decide what to produce and how to share the wealth to satisfy their needs. It is vital that we massively build the communist alternative, PLP. Join us!

Debasing DNA: How Capitalism Corrupts Science

Scientists have just announced completion of the "rough draft" of the human genome. An exciting milestone in biology, the genome is receiving nearly as much attention as the first walk on the moon. Its importance to the ruling class was highlighted by Clinton serving as referee between rival groups. But the scramble to the finish line, and the embarrassing bickering which accompanied it, reveal more about the rot of decaying capitalism than about human biology. During the decade of the Genome Initiative, genetic research was transformed into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the pharmaceutical industry.

The "genome" is a string of three billion letters (A, G, C, T) in the DNA code, which spell out instructions for making some 80,000 proteins, the cell's working molecules. As a living record of human evolution, it's a wonderful resource for medicine and basic science. But an inventory of genes and proteins is just a first step in explaining how life works.

When the Genome Initiative began in 1990, it was hyped as a crystal ball that would reveal human nature and destiny. Now that it obviously hasn't, the deterministic rhetoric has been toned down, or at least deferred until the structure and function of all these proteins is known (the "proteome"). While the subtle ideological function of claiming genes cause everything is still important to capitalism, it has been superseded by raw greed in the era of globalization.

At its onset the Genome Initiative was publicly funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Department of Energy, later joined by the British Wellcome Trust. Mapping proceeded slowly while new technology was being developed. Meanwhile biotech venture capitalists became impatient with the glacial pace of gene discovery. Craig Venter, then at NIH, and already an arrogant profit-seeker, began trying to patent random bits of human genes, in case they ever led to profitable drugs. The gene grab continues, as thousands of applications for gene patents wind through the courts. (Someday historians will marvel at this monument to greed--mining our common biological heritage for profit.)

Venter, now a biotech boss, began large-scale sequencing of bacterial genomes. In 1998, with high-tech industry backing he founded Celera and began racing to sequence the human genome. This is unprecedented. It's as though the Manhattan atom bomb project had been trumped by Boeing, which then proceeded to build and deploy its own nuclear weapons. Celera outspent the government, streamlined the technology, and won the race. Of course, it had the benefit of pirating the sequence done by the public genome centers, which is placed on the Internet daily.

Venter, it turned out, did not intend to make his sequence accessible. Timid criticism of this policy in a joint statement by Clinton and British Prime Minister Blair caused the high-tech stock market to plummet. At the last moment Clinton forced the NIH's Francis Collins (who, like most genome scientists, hates Venter's guts) to negotiate with Venter. They issued a joint announcement, which barely saved face for the government project.

What's at stake here? In a worldwide crisis of overproduction, high-tech novelties are the only products with unlimited growth potential. The pharmaceutical industry is targeting concerns of the affluent and elderly: obesity, baldness, impotence, wrinkles, anxiety, as well as cancer, heart disease and diabetes. The world's major killers--infectious diseases--receive short shrift. DNA information can be used for profitable drug design, tailored to (wealthy) individuals. Venter & Co. are gathering and selling information on human genetic diversity, the 0.1% of DNA letters in which we differ from each other.

Young people enter science because they are curious about nature, or hope to alleviate misery. Of course, there never was a golden age in which bosses were nice and science was pure. Government funding steers science into pathways useful to the bosses. But it was once possible to get a job in basic research where you had fun, could support a family and didn't do too much harm. All this is rapidly changing. Elite universities have become research parks for Novartis and Pharmacia/Monsanto, and most young scientists will be employed by biotech, if at all. The only way to combat the resulting cynicism and anti-science backlash will be to recruit scientists to "science for the working class"--as communist revolutionaries.

Jesse Jackson: Talk is Cheap...
METHODIST STRIKERS HOLD THE LINE!

As the strike enters it's second month, Methodist Hospital bosses are still demanding low wages and a three-tier pay scale. Most of the 650 striking workers, who took a long time to decide to go out, make under $10/hour after 10 and 20 years of service. The strike has crippled the hospital and involved many workers in a variety of activities such as strike captains, rallies and the hardship fund. So far this collectivity has kept strikers from crossing the picket lines. One surgical technician said that the instrument tray is so dirty, the surgeon wants to cancel all surgeries.

Support for the strike is high. Workers from Cook County Hospital, many who have never actually seen a hospital strike, showed their class-consciousness by marching and picketing with the strikers.

SEIU Local 73 leaders are hoping to stop scabs and strikebreakers by obeying the bosses' laws. The strikers have turned around many delivery trucks using their legal five minutes (in some cases sympathetic security guards have given them up to 40 minutes). They also mass picketed a temporary agency and used community support to discourage scabbing.

The bosses unleashed their fascist cops. A Gary cop on the hospital payroll waded into a rally at Northlake, grabbed a striker around the neck and pulled his gun on the crowd. Three strikers were arrested for trespassing. When the angry strikers remained unified and refused to back down, the Gary police were banned from working for hospital security. At Southlake, company-hired rent-a-cop thugs attacked workers for trying to talk a trucker out of crossing their line. They came off hospital property onto "public" property to asault sevral strikers.

Instead of mass picketing, Local 73 leaders took about 200 strikers and supporters to see #1 sellout Jesse Jackson. On June 24, an impressive sea of purple union T-shirts filed the Rainbow Push meeting hall. But the "strike support rally" turned into a five-minute speech by the union president. No strikers spoke. Jackson said, "Help is on the way," but never offered a dime to help the strikers who are living on $75 a week.

Instead he took up a collection for RainbowPush memberships, and the strikers gave generously. The union wrote a $500 check to Rainbow Push and the president added another $100. The union leaders hope that for a small fee, Jackson will come out to the picket line. But celebrity support won't win anything for workers. Mass solidarity and militant action is needed.

PLP is organizing steel, postal and other workers and youth to walk the lines, give money and sign letters of support. Our communist politics have been eagerly received as hundreds of strikers have been introduced to CHALLENGE. The bosses are showing their teeth as they call out the cops, hire $1,000-a-week strike-breakers and endanger patients' lives to keep wages low and profits high. We can learn many valuable lessons from this strike, the main one being the need for the working class to build PLP and a communist movement for the seizure of power.

Send money and letters of support to: Workers Strike Fund, C/O Local 73, SEIU, 1165 N. Clark Street, Suite 500, Chicago, Illinois 60610

The Patriot Pledges Allegiance to Racism

With "Independence Day" here and gone, the new movie "The Patriot" reminded me of Frederick Douglas's famous speech about why black people have no reason to celebrate the Fourth of July. According to Brandeis University historian David Hackett Fischer, in a NEW YORK TIMES op-ed column (July 1), the film's hero, played by Mel Gibson, owns a "Gone With the Wind" South Carolina plantation and "a work-force of free and happy Black Folk who toil in his fields as volunteers."

"The Patriot" is one of two blockbuster movies released for the Fourth of July, one of the biggest movie-going, profit-making weekends of the year. Beyond the obvious attempt to make money and push patriotism, Hollywood is advancing an amazingly racist view of U.S. history. Moreover, to have the hero hail from South Carolina, which has stood out so prominently this past year as a bastion of the most blatant racism, waving the Confederate flag, is to go out of one's way to maximize the racist insult of this movie. After all, the majority of South Carolina's population was enslaved at the time of the Revolutionary War.

What will Hollywood think of next? Will some director like Stephen Spielberg make a movie about a Nazi-era German industrialist who is a hero for the Jewish workers he exploits? What does it say about the U.S. that such a movie is released to celebrate "Independence Day"?

An article in the July 2nd NEW YORK TIMES offers further revealing information about this movie. It turns out that the plot was given to officials at the Smithsonian Institution (the national museum in Washington, D.C.) who gave it its "factual seal of approval. "Why?. Because there supposedly were up-country planters in South Carolina who had non-slave labor, unlike low-country planters whose plantations were based on slave labor. This made the movie "true." However, it was not a planter from South Carolina but one from Virginia named George Washington who led the secessionist fight against the British. And Washington's Mount Vernon plantation was based on slave labor. In fact, Washington was just about the biggest slaveholder in the British colonies. "In 1781, the same year that George Washington led French and colonial troops to victory at Yorktown, seventeen of Washington's slaves scrambled to freedom by boarding the HMS Savage [a British ship in the Chesapeake Bay]. Five were recaptured." (Information from an African American history exhibit at The Mariners' Museum in Newport News, VA.) All told, the British freed about 3,000 slaves during that war and another 4,000 in the War of 1812. (Some resettled in Nova Scotia and others in Barbados.) Thus, "during the American Revolution, the British offered a better chance for freedom than the colonists did" for African-American slaves. (Not that the British were anti-slavery or anti-racist. They were just trying to weaken the colonists. They were leaders in the slave trade and in African colonialism.)

So the movie, endorsed by the Smithsonian, portrays the "American Revolution" as led by a non-slaveholding hero from South Carolina. But the real history is that the U.S. secessionist fight was led by a slaveholder whose slaves attempted to run away during the war. It is unlikely Hollywood will be making a movie about how George Washington's slaves escaped from his plantation while he was fighting the British, any more than Stephen Spielberg is likely to make a movie about how half a million Jews fought in the Soviet Red Army which saved nearly all of Europe's Jews who survived Nazism during World War II. However, since both Al Gore and George Dubya want to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein, in order to take direct control of Iraqi oil fields, maybe the patriotism of this movie is another attempt to convince people to support a ground war during the next presidential administration.

Big Oil Bosses' Dogfight Turns Going to Gas Stations Into Highway Robbery

Workers are paying through the nose for gasoline these days. A host of factors, all rooted in the rotten profit system, has made a fill-up more like a hold-up. Gas prices rise and fall because the world's capitalists fight ceaselessly over control of oil. The drive for maximum profits by Exxon-Mobil and its rivals are behind this. Sooner or later, workers will be paying for the bosses' oil with their blood.

Early last year, the big oil exporting countries were pumping vast amounts of crude as they battled one another to gain market share. This overproduction, along with an economic depression in Asia, kept oil under $10 a barrel and gas under a dollar a gallon. But in the Spring of 1999 the major producers, led by Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico, agreed to cut back in order to raise prices and squeeze more profit out of their customers.

A number of developments boosted rising prices even higher. Industry picked up in parts of Asia, particularly in China, which is building a deep water navy to challenge the U.S. for access to Mideast crude. Warring among local and imperialist bosses prevented the oil wealth of the Caspian and Central Asia from coming on stream. The U.S.-led NATO air war over Kosovo failed to guarantee a BP Amoco-Halliburton pipeline through the Balkans.

In the U.S. Midwest, a bosses' dogfight is driving gas through the two-dollar threshold. Refining there is dominated by Rockefeller/Exxon rivals, mainly BP Amoco and Koch Oil. They comply with federal clean air regulations by blending their gasoline with more expensive corn alcohol (ethanol), which they make themselves or buy from another Rockefeller enemy, Archer Daniel Midland (ADM). The feds have been on ADM's back lately for market rigging and improper campaign contributions. On June 22, Exxon devoted its weekly ad on the NEW YORK TIMES op-ed page to blaming the high cost of gas on ethanol. Four days later the TIMES ran a news story with exactly the same message.

On top of everything else, a fire at a Kuwaiti refinery is now depriving the world market of some 440,000 barrels of fuel a day (STRATFOR, 6/27). But the situation in Kuwait reveals an underlying worldwide overcapacity in oil. To keep up revenues, Kuwait is exporting a like amount of unrefined oil. Crude prices are gradually dropping, and oil firms see a trend. A spokesman for French oil giant Total said, "We're a long-term business. We cannot believe that prices will stay at these high levels. Exploration and production budgets are thus still based on a barrel costing between 15 and 17 dollars" (LA TRIBUNE, 6/26).

No less an insider than former Saudi oil minister Ahmed Yamani foresees a crash in oil within the next five years. "It is coming because oil companies who generated a huge profit from this price of oil are spending so much on exploration and developments" (REUTERS, 6/24). More ominously, Yamani warned of the return of Iraqi crude to the market. The U.S. Navy has assembled a fleet of invasion ships in and near the Persian Gulf. Its mission is to make sure that Iraqi oil does not come back under the control of Saddam Hussein or his French, Russian and Chinese allies. To retain their dominance, Exxon & Co. need access to the Mid-East's cheap sources. So do their enemies. The general glut in oil, which today's prices temporarily mask, puts the world's oil bosses on a collision course that is leading straight to Desert Storm II.

We are not in the commodity futures business. We cannot tell when oil prices will come down or by how much. It is our job, however, to prepare the working class for the capitalists' next deadly oil war.

Elections 2000: Drive for Oil War 2

As the article above indicates, control over oil is behind the U.S. rulers' war drive towards Desert Storm II. This will push their imperialist competitors, especially those with an interest in making deals with Iraq over its oil, onto a collision course with the U.S. Both U.S. presidential candidates are committed to plotting a ground invasion of Iraq. The WALL STREET JOURNAL (6/30) reports that "Saddam Hussein....next year will face a new American president who is publicly committed to get rid of him."

Gore has "reaffirmed the administration's strong commitment to...removing Saddam Hussein from power." He has just met with the leaders of the Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella organization of Saddam's enemies, for the purpose of "working with the opposition to drive him out." Gore's plan, says the WSJ, is "to persuade Iraq's neighbors to let the opposition operate from their territory" and then "to precipitate a crisis that creates an opening" for U.S. troops to "back up" this opposition with a ground war.

Bush is no less committed. Hiding behind the "missile threat," Bush says he would "hit Iraq hard if he saw any clear sign that it is building weapons of mass destruction."

As if on cue, the lead story in the July 1st NEW YORK TIMES reports that "Iraq has resumed a missile program," flight-testing short-range ballistic missiles (within permissible UN "guidelines") which are adaptable to the construction of long-range missiles.

Bush will be holding his own meeting with the Iraqi "opposition" soon. His lead foreign-policy advisor, Condoleezza Rice, warns that, "Regime change is necessary." Richard Perle, another Bush advisor and former senior Pentagon aide, proposes to help the "opposition" (read U.S. puppet government) "re-establish control over some piece of territory" inside Iraq. This will force Saddam to counter-attack militarily, providing the perfect pretext for a U.S. invasion.

Robert Zoellick, a former top aide to Bush's father, is even more specific, saying the present "no-fly" zones should be turned into "no-move" zones, blocking Iraqi troop movements on the ground inside Iraq. That "would open the way," reports the WSJ, "for the opposition to occupy a piece of the country," to be "protected by U.S. forces."

Either way, Bush or Gore, the Rockefeller/Exxon forces, the dominant wing of the U.S. ruling class, will have their way--a ground invasion to set up a puppet government and secure control of Iraqi oil.

So we can see, election 2000 is just another way to prepare for Gulf War II to defend the imperialist profits of Exxon-Mobil/Rockefeller. That's what capitalist democracy is all about.

LETTERS

DEADLY TOMATOES

I write you from a modern-day slave camp in the southern United States. Here we live in the misery capitalism creates.

I arrived here in debt up to my bones, trying to figure out how I could survive and save on $5.50 an hour. The work is hard and unhealthy: construction, cold rooms, lifting heavy loads and waiting for the elusive opportunity for decent work. I accepted the "marvels" that the agricultural packing houses offer: "no rent nor transportation and work under the roof." But when I arrived the reality was a lot worse. The rent is tripled, they don't pay you for all the hours and the work schedules are crazy because they leave you in a room until the tomatoes arrive or they take you to the packing house and you have to wait 1 or 2 hours to start.

If there aren't enough local workers we, the slaves, must speed up. The illusion of a good life persists because your mind converts dollars into pesos or lempiras. The few dollars we make are enough to solve problems our families back home still face. Therefore little by little and without realizing it we become zombies or robots, exhausted from working 14 or 18 hours.

Capitalism does its job perfectly, squeezing the little energy we have left to sustain the profits of its parasitic class. My family, the doubts of my trip and fortunately communism echoes through my head. We in PLP have the promise to keep it very much alive.

One communist packing tomatoes amongst farmers, workers, the unemployed and the displaced from all over Latin America, is like an itch in the body all day. Why? Because we can clarify many doubts, organize study groups, club meetings, recreation and in that way fight for communism.

The happiest day in this concentration camp was when a fellow worker came to me during work and said, "Comrade, when can we talk about the "Big Bang" theory you were discussing last night in your room?" With great delight I told her let's discuss it one of these days.

A roommate of mine who believed in Adam and Eve already discusses evolution with his friends. But in the end the most important thing we learn is that we are not "brutes" like the decadent ruling class would have us believe We are unemployed, displaced, exploited and maybe even crazy, because capitalism is a curse, the plague, the enemy to destroy.

We talk about how the bosses treat us with their cynicism of Messiah. We only have one bathroom for forty men. We discuss the fact that our shifts last 14 to 18 hours because the company owns the bus that transports us and decides when we should return. If we don't go to work because of exhaustion or sickness, we are charged $25 for a hotel and are in trouble because if a work-week ends without us working they fire us and pay us nothing. Our lunch is eaten cold because the poor capitalists don't have enough to buy microwave ovens. These damn bosses pit Mexicans against other workers or against themselves, while using their police and nationalism to break our unity and destroy our solidarity...but there still remains the COMMUNIST ITCH.

A Comrade

Reading, Marching Lead to Joining

I have been reading PLP literature, observing its political actions and attended an amazing May Day march just two months ago, and I feel my political sympathies lie with your Party. (I am "Red Rocker's" stepson.)

I recently read an article in your magazine THE COMMUNIST about professors attempting to organize on college campuses. This hits home for me. I just graduated from high school and enter the University of Pittsburgh in the fall. I have been in contact with the so-called socialist groups on campus there and have found them reformist and practically inactive. I would rather like to form a PLP student group at my university if that is at all possible. I realize this is a very difficult task.

Your article mentioned professors but are any students organizing on campus? Is there a certain way to go about this? I realize that it is the workers who must lead a communist revolution. However, PLP student groups on campuses could bring future workers to PLP's communist politics. I would love to know what I could do. Thanks.

In Solidarity, W.J.

Capitalism Is the Bitterest Pill

A patient brings her empty bottle of Pepcid 20mg tablets (for ulcers) to my pharmacy window. The bottle says no more refill so I ask her to wait while I double check her computer profile to see if she is due more medication. It says she has used up all her refills. I tell her to go to the doctor on duty and get a new prescription. She says it's not her regular doctor. I reply that if you're sick you need to see the doctor even though it's not your regular one (who was not scheduled for today). She says the Illinois Department of Public Aid does not want her to visit the doctor too often. Surprised, I tell her if she's ill she should get medical attention even if the government says otherwise. She refuses to see the doctor. I end up giving her a five-day supply. I also give her a printout of her medications, costing nearly $500 a month. I tell her to show her medication expense to the caseworker. I also tell her if the caseworker is not convinced, please give her my phone number.

Meanwhile, in Washington the U.S. Senate approves a 1.2 billion "aid" package for Colombia. The Senators say it's to combat drugs there. Yet the U.S. government itself has been a promoter of drug smuggling in Central America and Southeast Asia.

Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia and to a certain extent Peru are major oil producers. Turmoil reigns in this region. The bosses in Venezuela, a major oil producer, are trying to cut a better deal for themselves. They have kicked out the corrupt pro-U.S. politicians. Colombia's economy is in shambles. The workers are suffering while groups of guerrillas with pro European social-democrat backers survive the attacks by the U.S.-supported army and fascists bands. In Ecuador, the economy is also going to pot. That government can't last very long.

This region is right in the U.S. backyard. Will Europe and Japan reduce U.S. influence? Will BP AMOCO and EXXON keep control of this oil? The U.S. is not exactly an innocent bystander. It's meddling in other countries' oil turf (the Caspian Sea and the Middle East).

Why should the big oil companies get oodles of money? Why should we health workers see health benefits whittled ? Should we or our children sacrifice for the big oil companies?

We should build PLP. We should increase CHALLENGE distribution and get workers to discuss the articles. We should not fight for BP Amoco or EXXON. We should fight for communism!

Angry Red

Jobs Are for Profit

Even if it's true that the Zona Franca (maquiladoras, or free zone enterprises) has created jobs around Santiago, Dominican Republic, they pay rotten wages with the worst working conditions.

Thousands of women and men work in these factories suffering constant physical and verbal abuse. The bosses withhold money from our paychecks for various "reasons," but we never get anything back. Most workers eat their lunch under trailers, trees and the hot Caribbean sun.

In one shop with some 500 workers there are only eight toilets. People must wait on line during lunchtime to use them. The bosses play very loud music all day so workers cannot even talk to each other, even when real close. We are also forced to work overtime, from 8 A.M. to 9 P.M., with only a sandwich and juice from the boss for dinner.

Unions are banned. The bosses spy system ensures that workers fired for union activities in one shop are blacklisted in all the other shops, even if this violates the labor laws here.

As you can see, when capitalism creates jobs, it's only to reap more profits from intense exploitation of the working class.

A Young Worker, Dominican Republic

Attention to our Readers: In July and August CHALLENGE Is Bi-Weekly. We Will Return to Our Weekly Schedule in Sept. Don’t Miss the Latest Issue of THE COMMUNIST, PLP’s theoretical magazine, Only 2 dollars. Send money order for $3 to include shipping and handling to GPO Box 808, Brooklyn, NY 11202

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Editorial: Bo$$es$ ‘ Culture Breeds Vile Sexist Acts

Cops Are the Worst Racist and Sexist Scum

Wars for Oil, Diamonds: That Is Imperialism!

LA Cops Provoke Youth

Factory Workers Must Become Mass Leaders for Communism

Scabs Must Be Stopped

‘We Need, One, Two, Three, Many Carmens’

Stomp Racist Anti-Immigrant VCT!

Make MUNI Contract Fight School For Communism

Workers Vs. Bosses: The Way It Should Be

Black and White Unite Against Racism

‘There Are No Good Bosses’

Using Philosophy To Understand the World

European, Russian and Chinese Rulers Challenge U.S. ‘Superpower’ Role

Racism Murders Immigrants Worldwide

LETTERS

CHALLENGE Is Key

Nationalism Divides Workers

Reform and Revolution

Workers Organize Against Super-Exploiters

Hostile Take Over of LA Articles Was Mechanical

• California Editor’s Comment

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Editorial

Bo$$es$ ‘ Culture Breeds Vile Sexist Acts

On June 11, over 50 women were sexually attacked in New York City’s Central Park. Throngs of young men sprayed them with water and pushed, groped and molested them for almost an hour. All this was captured on videotape. The cops did absolutely nothing to stop these sexist assaults.

Then the media and politicians, from Mayor Giuliani to Al Sharpton created a racist lynch mob atmosphere. The TV and newspapers have continuously displayed the faces of suspected attackers who are primarily black and Latin. What these young men did is inexcusable, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Sexism, like racism, is part and parcel of the capitalist system.

Why did these men act in such a vicious way towards these women? On a daily basis, the working class is fed hourly dosages of sexist culture. The hypocritical, liberal media that calls for the arrest of these youth are the same ones that treat women as sexual objects and commodities on television and in the press, in billboard ads and in movies.

The bosses net billions from this sexploitation, which degrades, divides and therefore weakens the ENTIRE working class. It enables them to treat women as "inferior" to men and then pay women a lot less than men for the same work, netting them super-profits.

Jim O’Dwyer, a NY DAILY NEWS columnist, wrote that the actions of these men aren’t much different from those of mostly white youths who participate in Spring Break or New Orleans Mardi Gras events where women are openly encouraged to display and expose themselves like cattle. MTV has made millions promoting these drunken orgies and videos that display half-naked women (Currently one of the biggest hits is "THONG Song" by Sisco!).

Last year, scores of women were attacked and raped at the Woodstock Music Festival with the cops involved. In fact, a few years ago, some of these same, mostly white NYC cops went on a similar sexist rampage. Similarly there was the Tailhook Convention where an elite group of white Navy fighter pilots did exactly the same thing. None of these attacks received anywhere near the kind of exposure as Central Park.

Given all this, one can see how the bosses are using last week’s attacks in a blatantly racist way. In the Tailhook incident, no one ever suggested the pilots’ activities reflected on their "race." No one called them animals. The papers even debated whether or not this was a case of sexual harassment or just a party with a playful bunch of fellows that "got a little out of hand." The idea of it being a criminal attack on women was not even part of the discussion. Nobody was turned into the cops, locked up, had to post bail or ever went to jail.

The sexual assault that happened in Central Park is wrong. PLP has always opposed and fought against such boss-inspired violence. Our outlook is to struggle to win youth to fight sexism and racism. This we do in the process of building the working-class movement and political struggle.

It is impossible to separate what those young men did from the sexist culture of the profit system. The sexist and racist acts committed by these weakened and corrupted youth and their rotten ideas are an extension of the politics promoted by capitalism. It doesn’t excuse them. But primarily the ideas that promoted them to do it and their source must be indicted and eventually ovethrown. It isn’t because of some inherent "maleness." Hundreds of thousands of men who were at the parade that day had nothing to do with the attacks and many helped the victims.

Vile sexist acts under capitalism are a political question. If one takes high school students to a May Day march that fights racism and sexism and demands that workers receive their share of society’s wealth and you might get fired or thrown in jail. But Spring Break and sexism get corporate sponsorship and hours of TV coverage that kids can watch any time and become increasingly impelled to participate. The capitalists need to divert young people from asking too many questions or fighting to change society or building communist relations that will strengthen the working-class movement. Those who perpetrate and profit from this kind of society are the biggest criminals.

This summer PLP youth will hold summer projects in NYC, LA and Chicago, training them to become communist organizers. Young men and women, black, Latin, Asian and white, will join together to agitate, organize and socialize. CHALLENGE will be our ideological weapon. We will be fighting the coming fascist neo-Nazis rally in Morristown, NJ, and the anti-immigrant fascist Voices of Citizens Together rally in LA on the July 4th weekend. We will also be organizing against police terror. Through this, we will train youth to fight for a communist society, where men and women workers and youth will share according to need what they produce.

Cops Are the Worst Racist and Sexist Scum

There have been a lot of complaints about cops ignoring many young women who asked them to do something about the sexist attacks in Central Park on July 11. Some say that cops "have their hands tied," that after the rash of mass protests against police brutality in New York City, cops are being told to "hold back." Some in the media, and even some honest workers, are now saying cops need to be given free reign to stop the "wilding" in Central Park from occurring again.

To ask cops to protect victims of sexist violence is like using Clinton as a counselor at girl scout camp. Even female cops complain constantly about sexual abuses from male cops. Cases of domestic violence in a family where a cop is the father exceed those in civilian society.

The cops are part and parcel of the bosses’ state apparatus, used to enforce the profit system for the bosses. It’s an illusion to ask these very enforcers of capitalism to protect workers from the system’s worst abuses.

Wars for Oil, Diamonds: That Is Imperialism!

Last week, the World Bank reported what CHALLENGE readers already know, that the real cause of many of the wars in Africa is the fight to control the very lucrative diamond mines. In Sierra Leone and in the Eastern Congo the fight for diamonds is behind the civil wars. But naturally the World Bank does not report that the competition for this wealth reflects the highest stage of capitalism, imperialism.

In Angola, not only diamonds but, more important, oil is the big prize. During the Cold War, after Portuguese colonialism was ousted from Angola in 1975, the pro-Soviet group MPLA took power. But a right-wing guerrilla group, UNITA, financed by the CIA and South Africa’s Apartheid regime continued a bloody civil war, costing over a million casualties.

The UNITA group controlled the diamond mines while the MPLA government, aided by Cuban troops, protected Gulf Oil’s holdings in Cabinda province. When the Cold War ended, as well as the Apartheid regime, the MPLA became "born-again free market capitalists," now supported by the U.S., France and South Africa. UNITA found itself alone, but diamonds kept it afloat, selling to French and Ukrainian diamond traders.

Angola is not the only country where "oil (and diamonds) are a curse," as many are now saying. According to the WALL STREET JOURNAL (6/19), proven oil reserves in Sub-Sahara Africa (everything south of the Sahara desert) jumped 50% between 1978 and 1998, to 32.9 billion barrels. Total African oil reserves jumped 30% during the same period. This oil trade has netted huge profits for local bosses, politicians and the imperialist oil companies. For example, former Nigerian dictator Abacha stole some $2 billion while in power. Meanwhile, the new "democratic" government of Nigeria raised fuel prices, sparking a general strike. Many bosses in Nigeria make big bucks supplying the Nigerian-controlled military force occupying Sierra Leone.

But while the World Bank "denounces" wars for diamonds and oil, that didn’t stop it from granting a $193 million loan to the capo di tuti capo of the oil business, Exxon-Mobil. This loan, backed by the Clinton administration, is to help finance a pipeline through Chad and Cameroon. The loan is to supposedly help the poor people of those two countries. Chad is so poor that, according to the WSJ, the World Bank’s Washington headquarters uses as much electricity as Chad’s seven million people!

The bank knows that the loan is a roll of the dice, but still Exxon-Mobil wants its pipeline (to be the one to "help the poor"?). Otherwise ElfAquitaine (the French oil mogul), or even worse, BP Amoco, Exxon’s current big competitor, might build it. Some might call that imperialism.

LA Cops Provoke Youth

LOS ANGELES, CA., June 19 —Hundreds of youth danced around a burning police patrol car. "Don’t you love LA?" asked a reporter. "Yes, I love it, but I hate the police," came the reply.

Thousands of youth celebrated the Lakers’ victory over the Indiana Pacers in the basketball championship and took advantage of the moment to show their hatred of the LAPD.

The police provoked the incident when motorcycle cops tried to force thousands of fans to walk jammed together on narrow sidewalks. People responded by throwing bottles, sticks, and rocks, dishing out minor injuries to 40 cops. The police responded with rubber bullets and nightsticks. The crowd’s anger grew. That’s when two police cars and two TV camera vans were burned and destroyed. People threw rocks at the limousines and even at Shaquille O’Neal’s luxurious car. Shaq donated money to buy the cops two new patrol cars.

The bosses and LA politicians were worried that the rebellion would escalate, so they tried to avoid an even more violent confrontation. The Fire Chief said, "I have orders from the police that only in case a human life is in danger should we enter the action." Two months before the Democratic National Convention, where appealing to Latinos is on the agenda, the bosses don’t want to show that LA is a battleground, especially between Latinos and the cops.

The bosses want to put military weapons in the hands of these same youth, who’ve been exploited and oppressed by the racist police. Add revolutionary ideas to this already dangerous mixture and it could explode in the rulers’ faces. CHALLENGE must become the spark for this anti-racist, anti-capitalist mixture. Only a mass PLP can turn these spontaneous fightbacks into a actions with deeper political meaning.

Factory Workers Must Become Mass Leaders for Communism

NEW JERSEY—Three dozen PLP members and friends participated in a cadre school here, discussing how to improve our political work in factories and mass organizations, particular given the growing fascist-like attacks workers suffer. Some workers complained of the bosses’ constant cheating on their vacation pay and taking money from their checks for medical insurance without ever getting any benefits. These workers also denounced the union, which only takes their dues and does absolutely nothing to fight for the membership.

One worker said they’re not being fooled by the union leaders, that workers at his factory have seen with their own eyes how these hacks are in cahoots with the bosses. He added that even though he just met PLP. he wants to dedicate his life to it because the Party has shown him in a short time it is fighting for the best interests of workers and against the bloodsucking bosses.

Another worker from the same shop reported he has received many calls from other shops where workers are suffering the same problems with their bosses and union leaders. He declared that a united fight-back of the 3,000 workers in their northern N.J. shops would show the way to thousands of other workers in the area to confront their tormentors.

Still another worker from that same shop explained how the bosses replace documented workers with undocumented immigrants, paying the latter still less than the already low wages paid to the "legal" immigrants. He also said that the same company owns the buses bringing workers from Upper Manhattan to the New Jersey shop, charging them $5 a day for transportation. The shop lays off workers every two or three months, usually cheating them of a week’s pay which they must give to the contractors used by the bosses to get hired and rehired.

The school made an ambitious plan to develop hundreds of workers, who in turn could win thousands more from all over the NY-NJ metropolitan area. We will fight every boss’s attack, on and off the job. This way our Party can win masses of workers to become communist organizers, turning their struggles into what we call schools for communism: learning how to fight the capitalist class as a united working class with communist politics as our guide.

In the process we will expose the union leaders’ role as bosses’ agents inside our ranks. We will show that without workers bosses cannot produce anything, and that the bosses’ "democracy" is just a dictatorship of the capitalists over workers. Building a mass PLP of workers will enable us to wage a real fight for workers’ power, a society without bosses and where workers produce for their needs—communism.

All rose at the end with fists high to sing the Internationale, the working-class anthem.

Scabs Must Be Stopped

GARY, IN., June 21- The strike by 650 workers against Methodist Hospital is entering a critical stage. SEIU leaders are putting on the best show the bosses will allow. The overwhelming support of workers in the area has not been tapped. Instead of calling out thousands of workers to shut down the hospital, various union leaders are called on to pledge their support and deliver a few checks. When one worker was asked about the threat of a court injunction he said, "We ain’t done nothing yet."

The hospital is open and garbage and medical waste are being picked up. Strike rallies take place at visitor entrances while nurses, supervisors, and scabs are allowed to cross the lines. A few strikers have reportedly returned to work.

Morale is generally high, but workers are starting to feel the heat. At a rally at the Southlake campus last Thursday, a black worker said that after 17 years he makes $10.35 an hour. A white woman standing next to him said after 20 years she’s making $9.50. These two spoke for many when they said, "We have nothing to lose."

PLP is organizing strike support among postal, steel, and Cook County Hospital workers. But strikers need to take leadership away from the sellouts. This is the best way to learn how to fight for political power. The hospital must be shut tight and the patients moved. Let someone else collect the insurance money. The $1,000/week strikebreakers must be sent packing. Roving groups of strikers going to the mills and Cook County Hospital could draw on thousands of workers to strengthen the picket lines. The enthusiastic response of the strikers to CHALLENGE and PLP is a good sign for the future of the revolutionary communist movement.

‘We Need, One, Two, Three, Many Carmens’

San Salvador — Carmen works in a maquiladora called AMITEX. For five years she has put up with enormous exploitation from her bosses. She was a member of the Federation of National Unions of Salvadorian Workers (FENASTRAS) and attended meetings with other workers from the factory. She was a very active union member, helping other workers and leading strikes. She has seen the bosses’ insatiable greed and always wanted to fight for the interests of the working class.

The bosses decided to give the workers a "holiday gift." It was a watch with a message saying, "Now you have no excuse to oversleep." One angry worker responded, "These sons of dogs think we are dumb and don’t know how they exploit us."

Carmen began to see more closely that the union was selling out the workers. It became so apparent that she could not continue this game and decided to leave the union.

Carmen was greatly criticized because she did not take part in workers’ struggles. The sellout union leaders try to make her life in the factory impossible by controlling when she can go to the bathroom and when she can arrive at work. In this factory, they charge you 60 cents for every minute you are late. If you are late twice they send you home without pay and you lose your seventh day pay.

The union leaders see Carmen as an enemy because she won’t sell out. They have tried to drive her crazy so she’ll quit and not expose their dirty work. We have struggled with her for years not to waste her energy with the garbage union leaders throw at her. Instead she should join PLP and organize factory workers for communist revolution. For now she is a CHALLENGE reader.

There are millions of Carmens with similar stories. They need PLP, and we need them to direct the anger of workers into revolutionary struggle against capitalism. This is how we will inspire workers around the world to fight for communism and win the life we desire, without bosses and profits.

Stomp Racist Anti-Immigrant VCT!

LOS ANGELES, June 19 — On his weekly radio program, Glen Spencer, head of VCT (Voice of Citizens Together) spews racist filth against immigrants to divide the working class. On a recent show he attacked PLP for stopping their rally several years ago. He also attacked us for making calls at the amnesty rally here to smash all borders.

VCT is planning a rally on July Fourth at the Federal Building in Westwood. They brag that featured speakers include Roger Barnett, the Arizona rancher who has shot immigrant workers trying to cross the border. These workers have been forced to areas like Barnett’s ranch because Clinton’s "Operation Gatekeeper" has nearly doubled the number of border patrol agents at major border crossings like San Ysidro (San Diego) and El Paso.

Several immigrants’ rights groups plan to bring members to the rally to oppose VCT. PLP is encouraging workers and students to come to the Federal Building in Westwood at 9:30 am (the racist rally is scheduled for 10 A.M.). We’re calling on our friends and co-workers to help stop the racists, and to show that Barnett, Spencer, Clinton and Gore are all racist killers. Capitalism produces big and small racists to keep the profit system in power. The unity and militancy we need to stop VCT will help us organize the long-term fight to end racism and capitalist-created borders with communist revolution.

Make MUNI Contract Fight School For Communism

SAN FRANCISCO, June 21 — MUNI contract negotiations have stalled. "The biggest obstacle we have is motivating the workforce," said MUNI boss Michael Burns (SF CHRONICLE, 6/13).

They were motivated all right last Monday night when Burns and his sidekicks showed up at MUNI’s Metro (trains) Green Division. Workers gave them hell. They’re furious over 16 drivers being removed from the second car of two-car trains come September. Concern for safety and human life is being ignored to serve the needs of the Downtown Corridor.

Last week a teenager fell between two MUNI trains. Only the presence of the driver in the second car applying the ER brake saved this youth from certain death. Burns characterized one driver’s concern for the life of this teenager as "ridiculous!" Drivers left the meeting clearly understanding Burns would ignore their concerns. What’s worse, at the MTA (transit authority) meeting the next day, the union leadership ignored the issue. Their silence was deafening.

Many drivers ask, "Why can't we negotiate until we get what we want." Others have proposals for action. "I think we should strike!" "How about stopping the busses for an hour during rush hour?" Resolutions passed at union meetings declared, "We have nothing to give up," and some things are "non-negotiable."

Many drivers are sick of giving up something to get something. They want to fight and reject wage progression. They hope the PLP member on the union bargaining team will keep things honest. We appreciate their confidence, but we must arm the workers politically to activate many more.

Pro-boss think-tanks like SPUR and the Committee On Jobs (the 36 biggest CEO's in town), are using the MTA to press their demands for on-time, rush hour service, "efficient and cost-conscious work rules," control of absenteeism and more service to commercial areas. This is happening because big business faces global competition from capitalists in Europe and Asia. To keep the economy "booming," they must reverse any modest gains won in earlier battles.

Through the contract fight, PLP wants to help workers understand the political and economic world we live in. Reading and distributing CHALLENGE is central to this process. As long as the bosses hold power, they will resolve their problems on workers’ backs. As fights against the bosses intensify, millions can be won to understand this system will never work for us. It must be destroyed. Society must be reorganized so that we replace working for an individual wage with a system where we produce for the needs of our fellow workers—communism.

Workers Vs. Bosses: The Way It Should Be

Workers and bosses have irreconcilable differences. Yet the AFL-CIO accepts capitalism and the exploitation of workers as the necessary motor of society. Workers are forced to sell our labor power, and owners profit from paying us a fraction of the value we produce. In contract negotiations workers try to take back part of the value the bosses steal from us (Marx called this "surplus value").

When communists led the early Transport Workers Union (TWU), workers rejected the idea we must suffer so the rich can profit. They knew that the rich own the government and dictate laws to keep themselves in control. If you followed the bosses’ laws, you would never win anything.

In 1937, communist-led workers in NYC seized and occupied the Kent Ave. power plant, the source of all power for Brooklyn trolleys, to protest the firing of three TWU organizers. Communists from other jobs mobilized hundreds of workers to surround the plant and defend it from the police. After three days, the bosses rehired the fired workers and recognized the union.

In 1966, 33,000 NYC transit workers struck in defiance of the law outlawing strikes by city workers. The union demanded amnesty for all strikers and refused to negotiate until the City agreed not to fire anyone. This boldness was possible because masses of black and white workers united to break the laws to fight for their demands.

But with all these apparent victories, the bosses still hold state power. They still have the power to erode whatever we have gained. And so they have, with two-tier pensions, part-time labor, wage progression, use of slave-labor Workfare programs, layoffs and more.

Black and White Unite Against Racism

On Sunday May 28, I received an urgent call from a friend, asking me to meet him at the Beverly Woods Condominiums. A majority of the condominium owners are black.

Across the entrance someone had printed, "Ghetto Ass Woods." Although no one saw who did it, a neighborhood resident saw three cars of white youths speeding through the alley the night before.

My friend introduced me to some of the residents as a member of Unity in Diversity (UD), a local anti-racist group. They were angry over the graffiti and a tire-slashing incident in the parking lot two weeks earlier. Some expressed fear for themselves and their children. This is not what they anticipated when they moved here.

Beverly and Morgan Park make up one of the few racially mixed areas of heavily segregated Chicago. Along with mainly white Mt. Greenwood, they make up the 19th Ward. This area is economically stable, with low unemployment and a low high school dropout rate. It gives the appearance of an integrated community, but racial tensions are increasing. Groups like the skinheads operate freely while liberal Democratic Party politicians try to protect property values by covering up the problem. Many city workers and cops live here, and the Democratic Party machine doles out a generous share of city services. Yet it has one of the highest rates of reported hate crimes in the city.

UD was organized here in l996, following a similar incident of racist graffiti. I joined two years ago and currently chair the group. With only a dozen or so active members, we have responded to other racist attacks by supporting victimized families, canvassing their neighbors and publicly raising the issue in community meetings. As a result our monthly meetings have attracted many new people and are much more integrated.

The police and State’s Attorney appear to be investigating these crimes, but they make very few arrests and resist designating them as hate crimes. Many white cops live in Mt. Greenwood, specifically because there are hardly any black residents.

While it may appear that people are passive about fighting racism, they enthusiastically respond to anti-racist leadership. We sponsored an integrated contingent of 40 adults and 20 children in the local Memorial Day parade. We prepared a flyer describing the racist graffiti incident, and three members canvassed the surrounding neighborhood. One resident volunteered to distribute the flyer to all the others, and an anti-racist white teenager told us that neighborhood kids had slashed the tires. "I stay as far away from them as I can," he said. Neighbors were encouraged to raise this issue at an upcoming community-policing meeting, and to attend the next UD monthly meeting.

My Party club discussed a plan to help me build the PLP. It includes introducing more of my friends in UD to CHALLENGE and developing a distribution route. It also includes starting a readers’ group from among the CHALLENGE regulars.

When workers call on us for help, we should be prepared to make the most of these opportunities to build PLP. It may appear that organizing the community to pressure police and politicians to prosecute racists can solve these problems. In reality it is their job to protect the racists and maintain racist divisions, making it easier for them to control and exploit us. We can only be free of racism by eliminating the capitalist class with communist revolution.

UD Red

‘There Are No Good Bosses’

LOS ANGELES, June 18 — The Democratic National Convention of 2000, or D2K as it’s been tagged, is coming here this summer and the struggle has started.

Recently PLP members attended a UCLA teach-in on the convention. After a speech about the farmworkers movement under Chavez, a PLP member declared that capitalism can't be reformed, that we need a society based on production for need, not for profit—communism. This contradicts the slogan of Cesar Chavez, late pacifist leader of the farm workers, "Si se puede," meaning, "Yes, we can" (reform capitalism).

By attacking militant farm workers, pushing pacifism and excluding "illegals" from the union, Chavez showed he was on the bosses’ side. That's why liberal politicians here are calling for a state holiday in his honor. The newly-named Cesar Chavez Ave. runs through East LA, the same neighborhood where LA County Sheriffs murdered Ricardo Close a year ago and Richard Garcia three weeks ago, both in cold blood.

The next speaker at the teach-in described the organization Direct Action Network (DAN), saying it was "non hierarchical" and "non authoritarian" and "has no leaders."(!) A movement with no leaders is like a car without a steering wheel, a family without a parent, a classroom without a teacher. Leaders are important. Progressive Labor Party believes workers and youth must lead our movement. One of the most important tasks of a leader is helping others learn to lead.

There could be no more hierarchical system than capitalism. We want to bring revolutionary ideas to the members of DAN, about a society organized based on communist centralism.

Some are calling for a march during the convention that will start downtown and conclude at a "corporate target" like the GAP since they advance the idea that there are "good" companies and "bad" ones like the GAP. But we know that all capitalists exploit workers and support wars for profit and all pay workers as little as possible. That’s what capitalism is based on.

If we march on the GAP, we will point this out. But we think we should be seen by the workers who sweat every day to make the clothes for ALL garment companies. We should march through the downtown garment district where over 150,000 immigrant workers earn poverty wages. We should march there to support these workers and win them to fight for workers’ power. This will also show students the power of workers, that it is workers who make everything of value and should run society. It will reveal more about the nature of capitalism.

Our work in DAN and other mass organizations is crucial. Most of the membership honestly wants to fight racism and oppression and are open to PLP’s ideas. Instead of staged arrests against "corporate targets," designed to show some bosses are "better" than others and capitalism can be reformed, we must build strikes, walkouts and marches that forge working-class solidarity.

When the working class is united, the contradiction between workers and bosses will become the primary one. Instead of the rivalry between stronger and weaker bosses, the class struggle will determine which way the wind blows.

Every gain in building for revolution is a blow to the other side, and is important. As night gives way to day when the side of light is strong enough, so a communist day will dawn when the side of the working class is strong enough.

Strengthen the side of the working class!

Using Philosophy To Understand the World

Everything in the world is composed of contradictions in the dialectical sense: a pair of opposites that are in constant struggle against each other.

The main contradictions that determine how society moves and changes are:

• Working class vs. ruling class;

• Rival sections of bosses within the U.S. ruling class;

• Inter-imperialist rivalry, between the bosses of different nations fighting over control of resources, markets and labor.

These are the main contradictions. The liberals would have us believe that black vs. white, citizen vs. immigrant or undocumented, U.S. bosses and workers vs. Chinese bosses and workers and Democrat vs. Republican are the main contradictions. While there are conflicts among these groups, they are not the main ones but rather antagonisms under capitalism both created and intensified by the ruling class.

Racism and immigrant-bashing exist because, in the contradiction between workers and bosses, the bosses are dominant. The electoral struggle between different politicians to win office or determine foreign policy with China exist because of the contradiction between U.S. bosses, and also between the imperialist powers. Today, the strongest section of the ruling class—in the conflict between rival bosses—determines whose policy dominates in the U.S. and in relation to workers here and around the world.

European, Russian and Chinese Rulers Challenge U.S. ‘Superpower’ Role

In mid June Clinton tried to sell U.S. plans for a limited missile shield to Russia’s President Putin. After Clinton left, Putin flew to Germany to sell his own proposal for a Trans-European missile defense built with Russian technology and German money. At his meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Putin proclaimed, "Germany is Russia’s leading partner in Europe and the world." (Josef Joffe, co-editor of the German weekly DIE ZEIT, in a NEW YORK TIMES op-ed piece, 6/20) To which the Chancellor cooed back, "Germany is interested in developing a strategic partnership with Russia." (WASHINGTON POST, 6/16) The TIMES reported, "Germany appeared closer to Russia than the United States on the question of missile defense." (6/17)

How could this have happened in a world with "only one remaining superpower?" An examination of the world’s aerospace industry provides some clues.

Based largely on aerospace sales to India and China, Russia has come roaring back to become the second largest exporter of military hardware behind the U.S., with plans to increase exports another 20-30% this year. (REUTERS, 3/7) China is also advancing in missile and aerospace expertise. Clinton’s national security advisor Samuel R. Burger fears that if the U.S. goes ahead with its limited missile defense plan, China will quickly expand and modernize its offensive missile arsenal. (NEW YORK TIMES, 5/28)

U.S. rulers view Russia and China as long-term strategic enemies. The rivalry is particularly sharp around Caspian and Iraqi/Iranian oil reserves. Control of Mid-East oil is central to Exxon Mobil and Rockefeller’s oil empire.

U.S. rulers want to prevent an alliance between Russia and China. This was the main impetus for granting Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PTNR) to China. At the same time, they are tightening restrictions on exports to China even remotely related to military production.

Profits from foreign military, civilian aircraft and space sales, which helps finance the U.S. war machine, have taken a beating at the hands of the Europeans. Since 1985, the US share of global aerospace sales fell from 72 to 56 percent, mainly due to competition from Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturer. (FINANCIAL TIMES, 5/22) Exports of U.S. satellites have dropped 40%. Airbus has out-sold Boeing in civilian aircraft for the last year and a half. Orders are piling up for the new Airbus Jumbo Jet, challenging Boeing’s 30-year monopoly in large aircraft and the company’s cash cow. (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 5/24)

On the other end of the product line, the Iranian government has offered Russia financial support for a small twinjet that would sell for half the price of the Boeing 717 (AVIATION WEEK AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY, 1/10). Brazil’s aircraft manufacturer Embrear just received an infusion of French cash. (AEROSPACE DAILY. 10/27/99)

The U.S. responded to this challenge by merging manufacturers under the leadership of Rockefeller Eastern Money. Boeing was the chief beneficiary of this consolidation. They set out to set back Airbus, as well as European military aerospace manufacturing. It failed spectacularly.

The European Union responded by merging German, French, Spanish and Italian civilian and military producers into the European Aeronautics, Defense and Space Corporation (EADS). About the size of Lockheed Martin (America’s second largest aerospace company), EADS is designing and producing new missiles for the Eurofighter and a new large military transport. EADS beat out Raytheon despite heavy lobbying by Clinton. In response to the U.S. lead in air power during the Kosovo war, these same governments decided to form a purely European rapid-reaction force. (DOW JONES, 4/20)

The success of EADS and the new European Security and Defense Initiative (ESDI) changed the U.S. direction in midstream. Boeing accepted a minor part in the European missile initiative. Lockheed Martin chairman Vance Coffman pleaded with Washington to remove export restrictions on the vital technology transfers to "boost transatlantic collaboration on defense programs" (FINANCIAL TIMES, 5/5) and thereby enhance U.S. corporations’ competitive position.

In the past, the State Department supported these restrictions, to keep U.S. bosses technically superior. But the emergence of Russia and China, and the development of "rival fortresses on both sides of the Atlantic," has forced a drastic change (INTERNATIONAL DEFENSE REVIEW, 5/26).

Unable to crush the competition, the U.S. is hoping to bribe some European players. The Pentagon has led the way, hoping companies will "build the political constituencies required" to maintain the transatlantic alliance (DEFENSE DAILY INTERNATIONAL, 5/23). Britain and Australia will become the first countries granted limited exemptions from export licenses for sensitive technologies. A key goal of this new initiative is to split Britain’s BAe, the company with the most extensive ties to Boeing, from the continent. Yet, even here, the response has been less than wholehearted.

Europe is plotting a more independent course as the strategic rivalry between the U.S. and Russia (and possibly China) develops. Europe’s own economic interests often put it and the U.S. on opposite sides of the imperialist battle.

Workers have no interest in taking sides in this bosses’ battle. The sharpening imperialist rivalry means both economic and political attacks on our class. The 20^th Century showed that the bosses need to be top dogs and eliminate or control the competition, Their needs for maximum profits force them to do this. And just like mobsters need to eliminate the enemy before it whacks them, capitalists need to bury or control their competition. This is what makes imperialist wars inevitable. Ultimately the bosses will use their weapons, go to war and kill workers to secure their profits. Workers must organize themselves NOW to fight their way out of this death spiral of imperialism. The long, hard struggle to build a mass communist PLP is the only way out of this hellhole.

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FLASH — As we go to press, Boeing has announced it’s negotiating sale of the St. Louis fabrication division involving 1,700 workers. The company will be studying options to sell its bigger fabrication divisions in Auburn and Spokane in Washington State. Boeing is following a Pentagon task force recommendation to maintain the "health and competitiveness of the U.S. defense industry." (AEROSPACE DAILY, 2/3) In addition the company allowed Auburn workers time off with pay to attend on-site union meetings to discuss this issue.

Auburn workers have already resisted this company-government-union gang-up, turning the union meetings into sharp confrontations. Many have argued that Boeing is using the threat of the sale to break all the work rules, making the Auburn division an even more inviting target for sale. The full story of our fight-back in the union meetings and on the shop floor, confronting business agents and bosses, will appear in the next issue.

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Racism Murders Immigrants Worldwide

LA PLP is planning to protest against the racist anti-immigrant VCT (Voices of Citizens Together) on July 4. Racism against immigrants is growing internationally. On June 19, 58 Chinese workers being smuggled into Britain died of suffocation in a container attached to a truck. The day before a military patrol murdered six Haitian immigrants and a Dominican driver returning from Haiti to their construction and domestic service jobs in Gurabo, Dominican Republic. The super-exploitation and smuggling of undocumented immigrants is a billion-dollar business worldwide. In Europe, it nets more profit than drug trading and other illicit activities. Gangs of Russian and Albanian smugglers work in cahoots with custom officials and bosses who super-exploit these workers.

LETTERS

CHALLENGE Is Key

No sooner did "Another Veteran Comrade" (AVC) write CHALLENGE, June 21) that he was glad to see the editorial calling for doubling the paper’s distribution, he then proceeded to say that, "The issue is more than distribution." AVC claims the editorial puts "a straw man up and knocks him down," and doesn’t present "the whole argument" of someone who "has a different take on the situation." I think this reflects disagreements with the need for a campaign to mobilize the Party and the workers to double the circulation of CHALLENGE.

Distribution may not be the only issue, but it is THE issue. There is no revolution without the Party, and there is no Party without CHALLENGE. Every time we let up on distribution, circulation slips. As we continue to make modest advances marching into the enemy’s camp, the distribution of CHALLENGE becomes a more urgent task.

A Party-wide campaign and commitment is required, involving dozens and hundreds of workers, soldiers and youth in creating a mass base for CHALLENGE. This is possible but far from automatic. It requires leadership. It requires political struggle and motivation. It also requires organization. In the small pamphlet, "On Organization," communist leader Josef Stalin wrote, "After the correct political line has been laid down, organization is everything, including the fate of the political line itself…"

While AVC correctly points to the need for more writers, we don’t need more people writing for a paper with a shrinking circulation. More writers and more time spent with co-workers, neighbors and friends won’t lead to much if it doesn’t lead to more CHALLENGE readers and distributors. At a recent cadre school attended by 30 workers here, six workers signed up for a CHALLENGE writer’s class. A big part of this class will be to see how the participants use, or don’t use the paper, on the job and in the class struggle. SPREADING CHALLENGE IS A CRUCIAL PART OF BUILDING A COMMUNIST BASE.

We are a small communist party in a capitalist chamber of horrors. We have many tasks. Of all these tasks, we must decide which is the most important, and mobilize the Party around it. Every club, section and city committee should map out plans for this battle and set optimistic goals.

Midwest Reader

Nationalism Divides Workers

A worker told him his nationalism was bad and dangerous. The nationalist got upset, stood up and started arguing with another worker who told him that the working class is one class and that it doesn’t matter what color the bosses are because their class interest impels them to exploit the working class. This experience showed that when Party members struggle for our communist political line it makes an impact among workers.

Some Party members have been active in this group for about a year—and before that other comrades were active—and we can see the results. Once workers understand the dangers of capitalist ideas, they are ready to confront these nationalists and racists. Although at times it seems workers don’t understand PLP’s political ideas, everything we say or do counts and sticks in their minds. It prepares them to challenge dangerous nationalists and racists as they did to this man who, objectively, is a representative of the bosses. Some workers decided to go to the amnesty rally next week and invite other workers to confront the VCT (Voices of Citizens Together) racists on July 4^th. Surely some will agree that Clinton and Gore are just as racist!

A comrade

Reform and Revolution

Recent CHALLENGES have dealt with the issue of reform versus revolution. Articles pointed out that the recent move to grant amnesty to immigrants is an attempt to sweep them into the arms of the Democratic Party and patriotism.

During the Great Depression of the 1930's, the segment of the ruling class led by Roosevelt realized it was necessary to grant concessions to the working class to pacify it and save the capitalist system. Although a weaker wing of the ruling class was adamantly opposed to the New Deal, it was clear to the main bosses that the class war of this period and the move to the left led by the Communist Party necessitated gaining the workers’ allegiance through reforms in capitalism for which workers would be asked to die in the coming World War.

Today there are many moves by the most powerful segment of the ruling class to clean up capitalism's act by putting on a new, less intimidating mask to win the hearts and minds of the masses to the system and prevent protest movements from moving toward an anti-capitalist outlook. One such reform movement is the attempt to abolish the death penalty. Even a pro-death penalty governor, Illinois’ George Ryan, placed a moratorium on executions. Capitalist papers like the NEW YORK TIMES and the CHICAGO TRIBUNE have featured front-page articles and editorials about the racist nature of capital punishment, as if that was some great discovery.

Executions are becoming an embarrassment to U.S. bosses. Other industrialized nations without it use this issue as a weapon in their competition with U.S. capitalism. For the U.S. to improve its "humanitarian" image, it must portray itself as willing to listen to numerous protest movements fighting against things like the death penalty and anti-immigrant policies. Its goal, as CHALLENGE has shown, is to channel all protest and the working-class movement into the arms of the Democratic Party and into a patriotic mindset.

So it is necessary to work in reform movements, but primarily to rip that mask from capitalism and show its true face: imperialist war, racism, sexism, exploitation, filthy rich parasites, alienation, prison labor, sweatshops, etc. Their magicians are at work here and hope to create illusions for the masses. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Those attempting to protest these issues can become easy targets for the magician if they lack a communist outlook. Many do, and fall for the bosses’ anti-communist China bashing campaign, which blasts its cheap labor capitalism while using prison slave labor right here in the USA. Liberalism is the puppet master here, and the strings are attached to people who claim to be anti-capitalist.

The International Socialists have called on their members to flood George W. Bush with phone calls to stop executing people. What will be next? Phoning all capitalists and telling them to stop exploiting workers? Or phoning the military and telling them to stop meting out capital punishment to the Iraqi people?

This endless tactic plays the bosses’ game on their stage with their rules. Winning people to prevent a few "legal" executions while allowing ever-more millions to be slaughtered and led to early deaths through wars and poverty is no victory for the working class. The role of communists has nothing in common with this pointless method. We must win people away from the impossible goal of reforming capitalism and must develop tactics to build communist consciousness.

In the final analysis, the task facing communists is recognizing and exposing these capitalist-directed reforms to drag out the killer behind the mask.

Red Rocker

Workers Organize Against Super-Exploiters

A group of 25 workers from Upper Manhattan, NYC, but mainly working in New Jersey, met to plan a workers’ committee. The plan includes ESL classes to help immigrant workers learn English. We will also study political questions, like dialectical materialism, to help us fight to transform society.

We began by thanking the family who provided their apartment for the meeting. Then workers reported abuses they’ve suffered at their workplaces. Many workers, particularly immigrants, are usually surprised to find that this type of super-exploitation is so rampant in what the bosses’ propaganda describes as "this wonderful country."

Some said they are usually harassed and humiliated like animals if they cannot keep up with the assembly line speed-up. Many workers felt helpless to fight this situation and "solved" it by quitting their jobs. But once we discussed organizing to fight back against these attacks, many felt that as united workers they have the strength to do something about it.

Everyone felt satisfied with this opportunity to be heard and to be able to organize a movement to fight these capitalist oppressors.

A Worker, Always in Struggle

'Hostile Take Over of LA' Article Was Mechanical

I could be wrong, but last week’s article on the "Hostile Takeover of LA" raised as many questions as it answered. I’d like to focus on a couple. It says that one of LA’s elite used his home for the transfer of Chinese money to the Democratic Party. So did Clinton and Gore. Are they anti-Rockefeller forces?

The article also mentions Boeing’s takeover of McDonnell-Douglas. M-D was a major imperialist "defense" contractor for the U.S. ruling class. Simply being taken over doesn’t make you "anti-Rockefeller." Consolidations and mergers are part of the general period as the bosses sharpen their swords for intensifying global competition. Big fish are eating little ones in all factions of the ruling class.

The third point is dividing ruling class factions based on their outlooks towards the unions. While there is some truth in this, we should not be mechanical. The coal and steel industries are now less than 50% unionized. The auto industry is less than two-thirds unionized. These are some of the most significant drops in union membership, and it’s not the Hunt brothers who are responsible. In fact, union membership is at an all-time low nationally.

Even in NYC, the seat of Eastern Money, union membership has been under attack. The garment industry has shrunk to less than 40,000 workers while the financial district has exploded to over 400,000, all of it non-union. Workfare and slave-labor sweatshops are more abundant here than anywhere. All ruling class factions seem to agree, to one extent or another, on the advantages of dealing with unorganized workers.

I agree 100 percent that the main wing of the ruling class is consolidating its grip and disciplining its enemies in LA and everywhere. The article makes some convincing points. But that is not the same as saying that forces hostile to the main wing of the ruling class control the second biggest city in the U.S. We should guard against being mechanical.

A Reader

CALIFORNIA EDITOR’S COMMENT

It’s true we should guard against being mechanical. The domestic "Oil Patch" bosses and Rockefeller are not the only two divisions within the U.S. ruling class. BP Amoco-Arco has both united with and divided from the Rockefeller Exxon forces. They agreed to bomb Yugoslavia to defend oil pipelines. But BP and the LA TIMES wanted ground troops while Exxon and the NEW YORK TIMES didn’t. These oil barons also differ on policy in Colombia and the Middle East.

It’s also true that McDonnell Douglas (MD), along with other "defense" manufacturers which World War II generated in southern California are not mere upstarts. On the other hand, they didn’t have the same policy goals as Rockefeller—especially in the Middle East and China. MD had developed the best plans for the joint strike fighter. Boeing tried to take over MD before Clinton’s election. It failed. After Clinton took office, the defense department rejected MD’s joint strike fighter plans. Then Boeing was able to take over a weakened MD. The NEW YORK TIMES cited MD’s willingness to transfer technology to the Chinese as part of the reason for this take-over. Big fish are eating smaller fish, but the U.S. defense department policy helped guarantee MD becoming a smaller fish. When MD tried to borrow money from Taiwan to prevent the Boeing take-over, Laura D’Andrea Tyson, head of Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, said it would weaken Boeing. MD never saw that money.

As part of the concentration and centralization of capital, the Rockefeller forces are guaranteeing the fight for their empire. In the past, the LA TIMES was the only newspaper besides the NY TIMES and WASHINGTON POST to have its own foreign bureau, giving it a certain measure of independence. It often printed stories differing with Eastern Establishment papers. But now the LA TIMES is being taken over by the CHICAGO TRIBUNE.

The main wing of the ruling class is urgently concerned with controlling workers in the heavy war industries—aerospace, auto, steel and coal. That’s why they need the unions in these industries, even though outsourcing may mean a drop in membership. Jay Rockefeller harps on the need for unions in the war industries.

These bosses need the AFL-CIO to win workers to active loyalty to their rotten system. That’s why the janitors’ strike received such favorable nightly publicity on LA TV. The AFL-CIO is sponsoring big rallies for amnesty and union contracts in LA, although it hasn’t made a move to organize LA’s 150,000 garment workers.

The bosses know this is a two-edged sword. They do need to pay lower wages. But if they can allow some unions to organize and still pay low wages, fine. This would give the AFL-CIO a little standing, the better to be able to control the workers and maintain loyalty to U.S. capitalism. Our Party can grow in fights for unions, if we put forward our ideas. But we should recognize that the unions play a key political role for the Rockefeller rulers.

The letter makes a good point that both Eli Broad and Clinton/Gore took money from the Chinese government. Clinton and Gore caught hell in the Rockefeller-controlled press for dealing with Chinese fund-raisers.

Southern California has its think-tanks and universities supporting the interests of some of the LA rulers, including Occidental Petroleum. Ken Starr was offered a post at LA’s Pepperdine University as a reward for his attack on Clinton. We need to know much more about the LA think-tanks to expose them to CHALLENGE readers. We’re working on it.