1. WORKERS' FURY EXPLODES AGAINST COP TERROR!
   BEWARE OF COMMUNITY POLICING, LIBERALS ROAD TO FASCISM
   1. PLP Role In the Struggle
   2. The Masses Are Heroes
   3. LESSONS FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE
   4. Mass Work Crucial
   5. COMMUNITY POLICING LIBERALS' ROAD TO FASCISM
2. DEMOCRATS' CURE A KILLER
3. ERIN BROCKOVICH: THE BOSSES' MESSAGE IS LOUD AND CLEAR
4. PAUL ROBESON: INSPIRING INT'L WORKING CLASS
5. MAY DAY: `WHAT EVERYONE DOES COUNTS...'
   1. THINK BIG--EVERYONE COUNTS
6. POSTAL WORKERS MUST STAMP OUT BOSSES' PROFIT DRIVE
   1. Union Election Near
7. LA DINNER: TEN JOIN PLP...AND COUNTING
8. `I've Seen'
9. UNAM STRIKEBREAKERS CAN'T CLOSE SCHOOL FOR COMMUNISM
   UNAM Strike Shows Need for a Mass PLP
   1. Capitalist State Is The Enemy
   2. Strikers Search For Alternative To Capitalism
   3. Mexican Bosses Just As Much The Enemy As U.S. Bosses
   4. The Working Class Is Crucial In The Fight For Communism
10. PUTIN: HOT FOR A NEW COLD WAR
11. HOW FAR RIGHT (AND WRONG) CAN FRENCH `C.' P.
12. LETTERS
    1. PROTEST NYPD OCCUPATIION OF BRONX
       LEAVE US ALONE
    2. BUILDING PLP AMID ELECTORAL CIRCUS
    3. LINK GIULIANI ATTACK ON CABBIES TO POLICE TERROR
    4. YOUTH SET FOR MAY DAY
    5. LA YOUTH TALKS ABOUT MAY DAY MARCH IN SF, 1999
    6. PRISON LABOR & CONFEDERATE FLAG
    7. ARE ALL COPS BAD?

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WORKERS' FURY EXPLODES AGAINST COP TERROR!
BEWARE OF COMMUNITY POLICING, LIBERALS ROAD TO FASCISM

BROOKLYN, N.Y., March 25 --The pent-up anger of workers and youth exploded today in a clash against the cops. After years of racist terror by the NYPD and Mayor Giuliani, today's tactics by the cops became the provocation for thousands of workers attending the demonstration at the funeral for Patrick Dorismond, the most recent unarmed black man murdered by the fascist NYPD. The protesters were especially enraged at the Mayor's racist attack on this latest victim of that terror.

Patrick Dorismond was approached on his way home from work by undercover cops who asked to buy drugs from him. The cops attacked and killed him with one shot through the chest. "A young man was killed for saying no to drugs," screamed one protester.

Workers gathered in front of the Holy Cross Church in Flatbush where the funeral was to be held, while others gathered at the funeral home to march with the hearse to the church. Today's events were organized and attended by Brooklyn's Haitian and Caribbean community.

PLP Role In the Struggle

Some PLP members marched with the funeral procession but the main group went straight to an area in front of the church. Our banner, "Destroy Police Terror with Communist Revolution," was passed through the crowd to be displayed at the barricades directly in front of the cops. We distributed thousands of leaflets, over 800 CHALLENGES, May Day stickers and red cards inviting people to march on May Day. We ran out of literature long before the funeral was over. We even had comrades searching their car trunks for back issues of the paper, all snatched up as quickly as we got them out.

By the time the groups converged at the church there were over 7,000 people present. The NYPD, with 1,000 cops assigned to the area, had barricades everywhere trying to contain these masses of workers onto the narrow sidewalks. We used our bullhorn, the only sound system around, throughout the morning, creating an open mike that became the voice of many protesters.

The Masses Are Heroes

As this sea of angry workers saw Patrick Dorismond's casket being passed into the church, a roar of rage filled the air. The masses surged forward and tore the barricades down. The cops retreated. The crowd was emboldened. Drums pounded, workers screamed with anger. Our banner remained at the front and people continued to speak on our bullhorn. This continued for nearly two hours as the funeral service went on in the church.

When the service ended, the casket and mourners were escorted out to a side street, which also led to the 67th precinct one block away. Again the workers surged forward, some to follow the casket and some responding to chants from our bullhorn to march to the 67th precinct. Then the fighting began. The cops had no intention of allowing such a mass of angry workers near their station.

A tug of war between the protesters and the cops went on for some time. Meanwhile, a string of liberals, like the ACLU's Norman Siegel, were negotiating with the cops to allow some kind of march but Giuliani and Safir (the police chief) were having none of it. Unknown to them, the protesters were getting fed up too. Finally one pocket of them broke through a barricade.

A genuine street battle ensued. Bottles and batteries started to rain down on the cops. The cops fought back swinging into the crowd with clubs and pepper spray. The youth didn't back down and led the way. They threw everything they could find at the cops, then retreated quickly for half a block. The cops would find only empty streets. Then the youth would launch another round and the events would be repeated.

Bringing in the cavalry, two lines of cops on horseback galloped down the street. This action enraged the workers. They leapt into the streets after the horses passed and dragged out every remaining barricade. They flipped them over and crisscrossed them so that one entire block became an obstacle course for the horses. Buying time this way, the workers raced to the next intersection and blended once again into the crowd.

After a few more such skirmishes the day ended, although tension was high all night. Flatbush remained under heavy police presence. On the other hand, any empty cop vehicle had its windows smashed and tires slashed. These workers are not finished, nor is their rage calmed.

Our task now, as we bring this issue to our jobs and schools, is to link it sharply with May Day. Every contact, every new member, every angry worker needs to become an organizer for May Day. The first step is bringing all these new and old friends to our May Day dinner, Sunday April 9.

LESSONS FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE

Our primary responsibility as communists is to recognize and seize opportunities to advance class struggle and build a mass revolutionary PLP. This can be very difficult. In this period, when the main aspect of fascism is the bosses winning workers to passivity and fear, it takes skill and practice to recognize opportunity.

As our recent experiences around the Diallo verdict and the school walk-outs reveal, and the battle of Flatbush confirms, there are enormous opportunities for our Party to lead and participate in working-class struggle, especially when fascism is advancing. What have we learned from these recent developments?

First of all, it takes a long- term outlook. Our Party, for example, has been building work in Flatbush for many years. Ten years ago we responded to the racist attack blaming Haitians for the AIDS epidemic when all the liberals turned their backs on the issue. Our work in many of the community organizations has been sporadic over the years. Our weakness was that we could not fully understand where this kind of work could lead because at that time we could not see big results. But we continued to build a modest base with many students and young workers.

The anger of the masses exploded on Saturday because of many reasons. While Sharpton appeared at the head of the procession from the funeral parlor to the church, and his call for "federal supervision" of the NYPD may have influenced many, there were other thousands who saw the only answer to racist attacks by the cops was to fight back. They reacted to Mayor Giuliani's racist remarks attacking Patrick Dorismond as a criminal.

The spontaneous voice of these workers and youth was especially angry when the cops, acting in their usual racist brutal way, began pushing people around. Barricades went down, bottles were thrown at the cops, and 27 cops were hurt.

Mass Work Crucial

Our Party's many years of work within the community, particularly among high school students in the area gave us a lot of opportunities at the rally. Many students and young workers who have known us over the years found our banner and participated with us throughout the day. It takes steady, consistent work to be in position to take advantage of these opportunities. Mass distribution of literature, printing stickers, attending meetings, selling CHALLENGES--all the day-to-day organizational work that will allow a small group to have a mass effect.

But all these things won't amount to too much if we don't work consistently in these mass organizations and develop and solidify closer and deep ties with as many workers and youth as possible, leading them to march on May Day and join PLP. Had we worked in these mass organizations more intensively for the past ten years, we would have been in a better position, with a larger mass base, to lead this action, politically and organizationally.

As we do this work, we not only can lead sharper mass struggle against police terror but also can expose the role of ALL cops as racist goons of the bosses. At the same time we can better expose the liberals like Sharpton-Siegel-Hillary Clinton. Their gimmicks of community policing and federal supervision of the NYPD are "cures" that are worse than the current disease. We need sharp internal struggle to guarantee these things. It reflects our overall aim to be leaders of our class.

When we do manage to pull these lessons together we develop politically. We become seasoned communists ready for the exciting yet difficult road to revolution.

The specter of mass working class rebellion against killer cops is haunting New York City's bosses. All the leading Democrats and other liberals are now blaming the rise of militant protest and anti-cop violence on Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his police commissioner, Howard Safir.

Giuliani and Safir are obvious racist thugs, who have given the cops a license to shoot first and lie later. But rehashing what we already know, or fighting only the Giuliani-Safir forces won't help workers build the struggle for communist revolution, the only way to end cop terror. Under the profit system, the police will always serve as the rulers' front line of defense against our class. But sometimes the plan isn't so clear. We have to look beyond the obvious and identify the enemies who parade as our friends so that we can fight harder and better.

COMMUNITY POLICING LIBERALS' ROAD TO FASCISM

Understanding the liberals and their strategy holds the key to this puzzle. They aren't mad at Giuliani because his NYPD shoots unarmed black workers. After all, as Giuliani himself loves to point out, his cops killed "only" 11 people last year, compared to 41 in 1990 under the liberal Democrat Dinkins. So Giuliani has no monopoly on terror.

But the issue goes beyond these statistics. At the heart of the argument among the big bosses is what strategy to use to turn U.S. society into an effective police state as the main, Rockefeller liberal wing of the ruling class prepares to develop fascism at home and to wage imperialist wars abroad. These liberals have a plan: "community policing." Their leading spokesman in New York is William Bratton, Giuliani's first police commissioner. Bratton & Co. understand that terror can't be effective unless the cops have a wide base of support among the very workers they're terrorizing. This is the role of "community policing." The liberals want to dump Giuliani because he and Safir haven't bought this program.

Community policing is a deadly, racist trap. Bratton first carried out this strategy in the late 1980s in Boston, where he had been police commissioner before coming to New York. He had cops infiltrate churches and schools in black, Asian, and working-class white neighborhoods. Working with police-friendly collaborators, they fingered "criminals." The Boston courts are now jailing workers in record numbers, mostly for non-violent offenses.

But Bratton was just a figurehead for his real employers, the liberal bankers and industrialists who run Massachusetts and have close ties to the Rockefeller Establishment. Helped by a hand-picked gang of academics and union leaders, they created a think-tank called the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC). This crew devised the criminal justice master plan that included Boston's "community policing." MassINC's sponsors include Fleet Bank, Bell Atlantic, Mellon Bank, Boston Edison, IBM, the AFL-CIO and the Massachusetts Teachers' Association. No fewer than six Harvard professors serve as advisers or directors. Other support for this scheme comes from the Boston Coalition, which is funded by Joe Kennedy and the State Street Bank, among others.

In 1996, MassINC published its first recommendations. They left little to the imagination. The report began with a call to "build more prison cells and fill them." To keep the prison pipeline flowing, the bosses urged, "maintain the momentum toward community policing." They underscored the need to hire more black cops and make "changes in recruitment, training, and promotion practices." The report praised police "collaboration with community groups" and encouraged more police work in "schools, welfare, housing and health care."

With help from their Harvard henchmen and the AFL-CIO, Boston's captains of finance are realizing their dream. MassINC boasts that the population doubled in state prisons and quadrupled in county jails between 1985 and 1999. Never mind that more than half are in for non-violent violations like drugs and petty theft. Many are doing time for first offenses.

First the Massachusetts bosses demonize and lock up one segment of the working class. They do this in the name of "protecting" everyone else. Meanwhile, this Big Lie is supposed to create a climate of opinion favorable to the rulers' grand strategy for war and the militarization of society. By promoting respect for government authority, "community policing" tries to advance patriotic class collaboration. One of MassINC's leaders is Ira Jackson, a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School and a former Bank of Boston executive. He also helps direct Harvard's International Security Program (ISP). This ISP works closely with the Rockefeller-run Brookings Institution and Council on Foreign Relations in formulating U.S. imperialism's increasingly hawkish foreign policy. As the bosses gird for war, the ISP worries about the growing alienation between civilians and the military in the U.S. MassINC's goal is to close a similar gap between civilians and the police.

Boston is one of the cities to which the liberals point with pride as a successful example of policing. They would love to clone it elsewhere. The Boston Coalition has a ten-point "Operation 2006" plan, which is intended as a model for other cities like Chester, PA, Gary, IN, Louisville, KY, Tampa, FL and, most importantly, Los Angeles. Bratton & Co. have already made clear that Giuliani's main sin is his refusal to consider the "community policing" model for New York. It is already being implemented across the river in Newark. Bratton's pal, Rutgers' professor George Kelling, a Harvard Kennedy Fellow at the influential School of Criminal Justice, is responsible for the ideological backbone for this program.

So it's only a matter of time before New York, LA and other major U.S. cities get on board with the liberal program for mass imprisonment that has so well served the bosses in laboratory cities like Boston, Newark and San Diego. There can be just one big hitch. Workers don't have to fall for it. The most militant section of the working class doesn't have to line up behind Al Sharpton and welcome racist terror under the guise of "community policing." If our Party continues to develop in influence and boldness, it will have a lot to say about the direction in which workers head as the rulers attempt to carry out this deadly plan. The PLP has done a bold, effective job of helping galvanize mass anger against Giuliani & Co. We must now redouble our determination and skill to bring our ideas into the struggles that will inevitably erupt against even deadlier liberal-sponsored terror.

DEMOCRATS' CURE A KILLER

BRONX, N.Y., March 28 -- Democratic Party politicians organized a town meeting last night in the Soundview section, responding to the recent racist murders by the NYPD. This meeting took place just blocks away from where Amadou Diallo and Matthew Ferguson were killed and two days after the clash between cops and angry demonstrators during the funeral of Patrick Dorismond.

These Democratic misleaders are using the anger of many workers and youth against racist police terror to call for a "cure"--community policing--that is even worse than the current Giuliani-Safir disease (see editorial). We must fight tooth and nail against this liberal "solution."

Community policing tries to recruit workers to become cops against other workers. In Boston, where community policing was implemented several years ago, black and Latin youth have been complaining of "routine mistreatment" by the police. These same youth co-operated with the police in setting up their neighborhood policing tactics. A recent survey of 300 youths reports that 210 had been stopped and questioned "without reasons." (Boston Globe, 3/28)

Workers and youth must not be won to build the bosses' community policing. The only way to destroy fascist police terror is to smash capitalism and build a communist society.

ERIN BROCKOVICH: THE BOSSES' MESSAGE IS LOUD AND CLEAR

Not surprisingly, the movie "Erin Brockovich" has been widely promoted in the bosses' media, unlike, for example, "Cradle Will Rock." It is entertaining in a perverse sense, but its underlying message is obvious and dangerous.

Based on a "true story," the movie, tells the story of Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts), an apparently working-class woman "down on her luck" whose tireless research proves deliberate pollution by Pacfic Gas & Electric (PG&E) in California, causing poisonings and deaths. She is motivated by a desire to obtain compensation for workers and others who've been poisoned.

Brockovich achieves the respect and admiration she feels has escaped her. She relates to, and cares about the workers. She mouths off to anyone in her way, mostly lawyers and bosses' representatives.

The obvious sexism--flaunting her breasts and wearing short skirts--is portrayed as helping to attain her goal (of compensation for the workers), but apparently it did not entice workers to sign on to the case.

PG&E representatives, while bumbling and inept, are clearly violent against the workers in the toll of death and disease inflicted on them from the polluted water. The message is that PG&E, a major corporation, can be brought to its knees by the right combination of lawyers, legal assistants and people willing to sign their names. Crusading legal assistants can triumph!

It's a win-win situation for capitalism. The bosses admit some blatant excesses, workers can win in the courts and the do-gooder lawyers get their "just rewards" (millions in legal fees).

The workers are also portrayed as ignorant and naïve victims, largely focused on getting their individual piece of the pie. The message of this and many "fight-back-against-the-rich" movies: don't kill capitalism, just call your lawyer!

PAUL ROBESON: INSPIRING INT'L WORKING CLASS

(The following are excerpts from remarks made in a presentation at the University of Connecticut, Waterbury Campus, on Paul Robeson, the world famous actor, singer, first black All-American football player, and pro-communist champion of the international working class.)

Beginning in the early 1930's, Paul Robeson made a unique contribution through his artistry: he put his art in the service of the international working class, especially in the fight against racism. While never proclaiming himself a member of the Communist Party, Robeson was a communist in his every word and deed.

Why was it logical for him to become a communist? As he looked around at the world during the Great Depression, the only white people he saw with black friends were communists. The only group who made a central issue of racism against black people at that time were the communists. He saw communists fighting the evictions of workers, putting their furniture back into their homes when they couldn't pay the rent. He saw communists fighting for integration in housing and in the unions. He saw communists always being on the side of the working class. It was natural for him, a passionate integrationist, to gravitate to communism.

When he went to the Soviet Union to see for himself this great working class achievement, he discovered the only country in the world that actually declared racism to be against the law. As a black man growing up in the United States, the grandson of a slave, it was the first time in his life he felt he could walk around freely without experiencing racism. In fact, the named a mountain after him.

Despite the anti-communist and racist attacks by the government and by black "leaders," despite attacks by segments of the white working class, at Peekskill and elsewhere, he still maintained his principles defending unity of black and white, of communism and of the Soviet Union. He stood with others who were open communists, like Ben Davis, the first black communist councilman from New York City. He refused to back down in his support of communists when they were jailed by the government.

It was for all these reasons, and for his commitment to use his art to serve the working class, that during his lifetime Robeson was never promoted in black history month, why the ruling class buried his history. People who came to appreciate Paul Robeson came to appreciate communism as well.

This is why he was not only banned from traveling abroad (they feared his message) but from speaking in the U.S. as well. Interestingly enough, when I participated in an attack on the Ku Klux Klan recently in New York City, we were criticized for violating the Klan's right of "free speech." Yet while the police were mobilized to defend the Klan, they were also used to stop Robeson from speaking-which shows you how meaningless that concept is.

We should learn a very important principle from Robeson's life, one free of any ego thing, that fighting back against oppression is the best thing we can do with our lives. If we are not involved in fighting back, our lives are not worth that much. It is not enough to "get an education," and "get a better job." We must learn from Paul Robeson that we must become involved in the fight for the kind of world he was fighting for.

To all this, the audience of approximately 100 working-class students, mostly white college students and about 25 mostly black and Latin high school students were enthralled. They "lit up" and clapped when they heard about the action against the Klan in New York City. Afterwards many of them came up to talk and asked what they could read about Robeson. Three white professors confided that the fact that he was a communist was what they wanted to hear.

A black minister who grew up in Arkansas said he didn't know much about Robeson but given what he had just heard, Robeson had to have been a tremendous source of inspiration and pride and had to have been respected greatly by black people.

A letter received afterwards from the teacher who had invited us thanked us for "bringing this powerful message of commitment and courage through the example of Paul Robeson's remarkable life....I have heard nothing but praise from faculty and students for your presentation."

MAY DAY: `WHAT EVERYONE DOES COUNTS...'

NEW YORK, N.Y., March 27 -- May Day is the most important working class holiday of the year. It is the day when workers of the world unite and marshal our forces to express our aspirations and goals for the future. May Day is always the time when our Party has an influx of new members. May Day is born out of the class struggle and has always been led by communists. The Progressive Labor Party upholds that tradition.

In the past year there has been a noticeable upsurge in the class struggle in the U.S. A mass multi-racial protest against the flying of the Confederate flag over the South Carolina Statehouse. A militant, multi-racial strike against scabbing by dockworkers in that same state. A six-week strike by 19,000 SPEEA engineers against Boeing supported by large numbers of mechanics in the International Association of Machinists. Large, angry and combative protests against the KKK and racist police murders of four black men in the last 13 months in New York City. Multi-racial youth protests against fascist Proposition 21 in Los Angeles.

In some of these actions PLP has given political leadership based on the Party's past and on-going organizing among workers and students and inside mass organizations. It is significant that some number of workers and students, both members and friends of PLP, will come to May Day directly from thesre front lines of struggle. This development enables the Party to grow and deepen and spread communist political leadership in the mass movement.

THINK BIG--EVERYONE COUNTS

But our May Day mobilizing doesn't stop there. We have to look at the whole Party and its base. Everyone is important--every PLP member, less active members, former members. CHALLENGE readers and distributors. Regular May Day marchers and organizers. Families, close friends, not-so-close friends, families, contacts, acquaintances. Those who participated in recent strikes, walkouts and protests and those who sympathized. Those who can't or won't go to May Day but will contribute money so others can go.

Who can march on May Day? You can! Those who are PLP members or not. Those who agree with all of the Party's ideas and objectives and those who agree with some. Those who identify with particular fightbacks, against racist police terror, against exploitation in the factories, against Workfare and prison slave labor. Those in solidarity with the jailed UNAM strikers in Mexico, those for working class international solidarity, for workers power, to destroy racism, war and fascism. All march on May Day to feel the strength of the working class, to enjoy the comradeship of old and new friends on the buses, at the march and picnic that follows.

Who are May Day leaders? Anyone who wants to be! We lead the fight to mobilize May Day marchers, to explain the Party's ideas on the buses, to solicit new Party members and Challenge readers, to have a disciplined and secure march.

Sounds good! But May Day doesn't organize itself simply because we want it to. It requires detailed plans and hard work.

(In our next issue, we will outline the detailed, six-point plan to organize 600 May Day marchers from Upper Manhattan in NYC.)

POSTAL WORKERS MUST STAMP OUT BOSSES' PROFIT DRIVE

NEW YORK, NY March 28 -- The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has netted between hundreds of millions and over a billion dollars profit in each of the past five years. Where did this wealth come from? Why is "privatization" a more serious threat now than years ago?

During the past two weeks a PLP member, who is a candidate in the NY Metro Area Postal Union (NY-MAPU) election, focused on these questions while speaking to groups of workers in the swing (lunch) rooms of four large postal facilities in Manhattan.

Postal management wants postal workers to be grateful that we have a job, claiming we get "good" wages and benefits, etc. However, what little we get are not "gifts" from management. The simple truth--something not taught in school or in the media--is that every penny of postal revenue is earned by the labor of postal workers, not by management.

People pay 33cents to send a letter. Collectively, postal workers get the letter to its destination.

However, the money is "legally stolen" from us by postal management (they get the revenues). Postal workers get back only some of it in wages and benefits. The rest of the value our labor creates pays for operating expenses (gas for trucks, electricity, labels, etc.), bonuses for supervisors, new technology (machines which are used to eliminate jobs) and PROFITS. The same is true in all other companies. Most workers in the swing rooms nodded their heads in understanding this practical explanation of the "labor theory of value."

Although Congress has not yet privatized the USPS, partial privatization is already here in the form of "contracting out": ten Priority Mail centers, postage on the internet, small contract post offices, etc. With five straight years of huge profits, wealthy private corporations want a piece of the profit pie.

The new Postmaster General (PMG) William Henderson told mailing industry leaders at the National Postal Forum: "Cost cutting alone won't secure our future. We must create new business models...Call it deregulation, privatization or liberalization...." Can't be clearer than that.

Privatization puts profits into the bosses' hands. It doesn't help workers. The current mediocre salaries and benefits of postal workers will be dramatically reduced once private companies acquire more of the action using non-union labor, including many part-time workers. Fighting this threat is the responsibility of every worker.

Union Election Near

With the April 6 ballot deadline approaching, other election campaigning has focused on handing out "Candidates For Change" (CFC) leaflets. The PLP member has discussed many ideas contained in CHALLENGE with co-workers and with other members of the CFC slate who have been reading it.0

In the election campaign the PLP member has met several former co-workers with whom he has had little or no contact for over 20 years. After hugs & kisses, updates on grown children, sharing of memories, and talk of the union election, many of these old friends asked: "Are you still active with radical politics?" The answer was: "Yes. Would you like the latest copy of CHALLENGE?" Their answers? "Yes."

LA DINNER: TEN JOIN PLP...AND COUNTING

LOS ANGELES, March 25 -- Tonight over 80 enthusiastic youth and workers took part in a PLP May Day dinner to discuss and organize for the May Day march in San Francisco. "We aren't just fighting for ourselves. We are fighting for our parents and all working people who are suffering from fascist attacks," said a high school student who helped lead a walkout against Proposition 21 and police terror. Students from Washington and Manual Arts High Schools spoke proudly of their actions and leadership in these walkouts and their desire to build the May Day March.

A friend of Jason Rodriguez, who was murdered by the Montebello police, described how after the cop shot Jason, the whole Montebello police department conspired to keep this knowledge from his family for five days. Finally, relatives located Jason at a hospital 20 miles away. Jason's friend called on everyone to build the March on April 1st at the Rampart Police station and said we can't be passive in the face of these attacks.

Two communist poets read angry poems about the need to fight the bosses and to end racism and capitalism with communist revolution, building a society where we all share what we produce, without the cops' club and pistol in our faces.

Another speaker reported on the clash of cops and demonstrators in Brooklyn protesting the latest NYPD murder. The speaker said the bosses have a big problem: the very youth they're terrorizing are the ones they're relying on to defend their empire. These same youth and workers will be their gravediggers, especially when more youth go into the bosses' army and factories to fight to build PLP and lay the basis for the long-term fight for workers' power. Finally. a speaker asked all those who wanted to join PLP to raise their hands. Ten young organizers did just that!

There is still a lot of excitement about the school walkouts and the coming march on the Rampart police station. We're building a movement and what each one of us does counts--every CHALLENGE read and distributed, every discussion exposing capitalism, every walkout and protest against police terror that we're involved in--it all develops us as leaders of our class that will ultimately destroy this racist, capitalist system.

We need to more clearly lay bare the plans of the liberal rulers who are "exposing" the LAPD the better to control them for their own purposes. They want community policing, where the cops enjoy the support of community leaders in putting more youth in prison.

In order to combine theory with practice, we are having a series of classes on building the fight against liberal fascism, building May Day and the PLP--and then go out and do it!

`I've Seen'

I've seen the mighty blow of a united group of soldiers; the cops were surrounded and couldn't carry out their orders. The sign was ripped off. The pigs' head was cracked.

The ambulance took him away.

They took us downtown. The hat passed around We got bailed out the next day.

I've seen the idled gang of Local 433

bring the superintendent down to his knee.

I've seen angry youth fighting the state,

chanting in unison and burning the symbols of the culture they hate. I've seen campesinos for the first time read Marx, internal explosions ignited by strategic sparks. I've seen workers build a society, argue political economy, and feel truly free.

I've seen in struggle where people unite. I predict a sunrise.

In this darkness we must fight.

Capital will crumble as their skyscrapers fall.

Workers and peasants will control it all.

UNAM STRIKEBREAKERS CAN'T CLOSE SCHOOL FOR COMMUNISM
UNAM Strike Shows Need for a Mass PLP

Our Party was involved in the ten-month strike at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) from the beginning. We fought hard and made many deep friendships. We are learning from our strengths and weaknesses, drawing important lessons from this mass struggle.

A 1987 CHALLENGE article described another strike at UNAM. It exposed the strike leadership's reformism and pro-capitalist electoral line. It predicted these leaders would become a new electoral party to mislead masses of angry workers and students. That's exactly what happened. The PRD was born, the party that constantly attacked the militant strikers. Fighting for our ideas is a long-term proposition, which will win the respect and participation of the most serious class-conscious youth and workers.

Capitalist State Is The Enemy

The strikers challenged the capitalist state's control of the schools, demanding "scientific education for all." The occupied buildings were used to build this movement. The strikers ate in the cafeterias. The copy machines never stopped producing literature. Strikers used the classrooms and auditoriums for assemblies.

When the strikers refused to accept the rulers' proposals, the capitalists used their cops, courts and jails to re-establish control of the campuses. They arrested 1,000 students, our young comrades among them. Most have been released from jail. Some still face serious charges.

This exposed the whole fascist bureaucracy controlling UNAM, and unmasked the liberals and intellectuals who helped the authorities smash the strike. The Catholic Church and all the electoral parties were exposed as servants of capitalism. Thousands of students learned that capitalist education only meets the needs of the market. The needs of the working class will only be met when the workers' red army smashes the bosses' state power, abolishes private property, and seizes the factories, farms and schools, which rightfully belong to us.

Strikers Search For Alternative To Capitalism

"We're convinced that capitalism doesn't work. We don't know what to replace it with." That's how one student in a PLP study group summarized the feelings of thousands who see through the electoral parties, yet don't understand the need for a mass communist party to destroy capitalism.

We answered, "Destroy production for profit. Establish communist relations based on the needs of the working class." We tried to use the strike as a "school for communism." This means that the main measure of victory is winning strikers to "serve the working class" by joining PLP and the long-term fight for communism. We exposed "free market" capitalism (neo-liberalism) and nationalism as two sides of the same capitalist coin. We influenced many students and workers. Some joined the Party and study groups.

Many will become cynical, trapped in anarchism, or will join the guerillas and end up fighting for another set of bosses. Che Guevara was revived as a popular hero of the strike, while the fact was buried that the Communist Party had led the workers to power in Russia and China. We must continue to confront growing fascism with mass organizing.

Mexican Bosses Just As Much The Enemy As U.S. Bosses

The strike leadership and the majority of students think the fight was between two types of universities: one to serve the imperialists and the other the interests of Mexico. They believe this will be resolved with a Democratic Congress. They attack the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) as the only sources of the attacks on education, without showing that the capitalist system itself is responsible.

The rulers are dismantling UNAM because of the deepening crisis of overproduction and the sharpening rivalry between U.S. and European imperialists. Mexico is a major battlefield in this struggle for markets and cheap labor. The local capitalists as well as the imperialists are all responsible. Their competition is leading to fascism and war. Fascists like Burgoa and Carranca used Brigido Navarrete's goon squads to impose academic business-as-usual at the point of a gun.

The Working Class Is Crucial In The Fight For Communism

We need to build a mass communist-led worker-student alliance. The strikers tried to win the support of the electricians and other workers but mistakenly concentrated on the union leaders, not the rank and file. The pro-capitalist union leaders only pass resolutions. We need to spread communist politics directly to the workers.

PLP is rebuilding the international communist movement. This is not an easy task and requires a long-term outlook. CHALLENGE is crucial to this process, our main ideological weapon in the fight for the political leadership of the masses. We plan to write more for the paper and distribute thousands of copies in the coming weeks. Most important, we can have many more youth marching on May Day under the red flag of communist revolution.

PUTIN: HOT FOR A NEW COLD WAR

The military celebrated Putin's electoral victory "warning the world of Russian power by launching three nuclear missiles from submarines." (El País, March 28).

Putin's consolidation of power represents a victory for those Russian bosses out to revive the country as a superpower. Russia, with all its problems, still has the military power to challenge the U.S. The missile launching sent exactly that message.

Putin will establish a sort of "national-socialist" government (state capitalism/fascism). Guy Hermet, a French expert on Russia, was interviewed by Pagina12 (a Buenos Aires daily) and described what Putin will do: "Putin, in my opinion, will follow a `national-Bolshevik' line. This means that even though he is not a communist, even though the Zyuganov Party ["communist"] opposes him...there are certain similarities. Putin represents the desire to restore the power and dignity of Russia. You can clearly see this in the Chechenya war. Therefore, Putin will follow a different orientation than that of Yeltsin. Russia is entering a more nationalist stage....Putin doesn't have the image of a man who dismantled communism, like Yeltsin. He is a sort of symbol of reconciliation between the present and the past."

Stratfor, the Internet intelligence service associated with the Baker oil interests, more or less agrees with Hermet. Its March 27 bulletin says: "Western leaders appear befuddled over just who this man is, what he wants and what he is likely to do. Indeed, the curious notion that Putin is pro-Western has taken hold in some sectors. This is whistling past the graveyard. With the election now behind him, Russia's president is likely to grab hold of the economy by taking control of Russia's oligarchs. And he is equally likely to challenge the U.S. on its plans for a national missile defense. Such a Russian challenge will threaten to split America from its allies in Europe."

As we reported in last week's CHALLENGE, many Washington hawks, like Brzezinski (former President Carter's National Security Adviser) and current Secretary of State Madeleine

Albright, are warning about a new Cold War, with Russia and China in mind as U.S. enemies (one reason for Clinton's India

visit was to use that country to counter China in Asia).

Even though bosses' mouthpieces like the Wall Street Journal report that "peace is breaking out" all over the world, the facts point otherwise. The Soviet communist leader Lenin wrote a century ago that capitalism and imperialism inevitably lead to war. It's still true.

There's no crystal ball to predict when "Cold war II" would become another world war, but that's the general direction. As Bertolt Brecht, the German communist poet-playwright, once said: "When the bosses talk peace, better get your helmet."

HOW FAR RIGHT (AND WRONG) CAN FRENCH `C.' P.

The "Communist" Party of France (PCF) just completed its 30^th congress. In an effort to revive this once powerful organization, the PCF leadership turned more to the right than it already had been for several decades. Once one of the stronger parties in Western Europe, with 600,000 members in the 1980s, it has declined to about 200,000. Its electoral vote has fallen tremendously. This occurred not only because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also due to the PCF's past nationalist, anti-immigrant actions. Many of its voters have sided with the openly fascist and racist party led by J.M. LePen (a neo-Nazi) or have simply abandoned it altogether.

In the recent congress, the PCF "modernized" itself by embracing capitalism more openly, breaking totally with the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Meanwhile, outside the PCF congress near Marseilles, several dozens dissidents protested, carrying red flags and portraits of Lenin and chanting, "We are Communists and want to stay that way." But the PCF hasn't been communist for decades. It helped French President Charles DeGaulle crush the massive May 1968 general strike that threatened French capitalism in May 1968. Millions of workers and students paralyzed France. DeGaulle used the PCF, which was hated by the most militant workers and youth for years of betraying to their struggle, attacked the strikers. DeGaulle, fearing soldiers in the French army would join the strikers, also called on the West German army to help crush the strikers.

Real communists must forget about the PCF and begin the hard task of building a new revolutionary communist movement. It must be based on fighting all forms of capitalism and winning workers and youth to fight for a communist society, where production can then serve the needs of the working class and not that of a few bosses.

Ouvrier Rouge

LETTERS

PROTEST NYPD OCCUPATIION OF BRONX
LEAVE US ALONE

All around the Soundview area of the Bronx police are coming around in their patrol cars stopping anyone that looks "funny" to them. The cops in the 43^rd precinct have been under a lot of fire lately. During the past year they have killed two unarmed people. One was an African immigrant named Amadou Diallo. He was known in his building as a peaceful man. One night he was gunned down in front of his building by plainclothes police. They fired 41 shots at him. When the people in Soundview heard about this shooting, we protested this police murder.

On February 18, the four cops who shot Amadou Diallo were found "not guilty" by a jury in Albany. That same week Malcolm Ferguson, a 23-year-old African-American, also unarmed, was gunned down on the second floor of his building by the police.

The cops were scared. When they killed this second unarmed man just three blocks away, there was another demonstration. The same night we took to the streets. This time we went all the way to the 43^rd precinct. The police put up barricades and put on their riot gear.

I had the pleasure of being at this protest. It was very exhilarating. We made signs that said, "Shoot me, I have a wallet" and "come and get me, I'm a protester." The demonstration lasted about two hours. Now every time someone calls the police they come with two cars and a van full of cops.

Everyone is afraid to call the police because they're afraid they'll get beat up or killed! So the whole Soundview area continues to fight, wait and hope the police are made to pay for their crimes.

As the recent murder of Patrick Dorismond in midtown Manhattan demonstrates, this is not just the problem of a few "bad" policemen but a systemic problem with the entire racist criminal justice system. The policemen who killed Maynard Ferguson and Patrick Dorismond were Hispanic so simply recruiting more minority police officers is not the solution.

East Harlem HS student

BUILDING PLP AMID ELECTORAL CIRCUS

Building PLP in Midst of Electoral Circus

Elections are that part of capitalist democracy used to legitimize the power the bosses use to oppress the working class. The rulers use it as a tool to channel workers' anger into believing they change things choosing their next oppressor. Elections also serve to settle disputes among the different capitalist factions. When elections don't do the trick, the rulers of any country quickly turn to open dictatorship over workers and their enemies within the ruling class.

On May 16, elections will take place here in the Dominican Republic, among several bourgeois forces and revisionists (fake leftists). PLP members and friends met to discuss what to do in this electoral circus. We agreed it's not enough just to tell workers "don't vote" in the electoral farce. Hundreds of thousands of workers and youth are mobilized by the different electoral parties through mass rallies and other activities. We must use this opportunity to bring them our politics, using CHALLENGE, showing them the failure of the capitalist system and winning them to see PLP as the only alternative.

To accomplish that we must increase our efforts, particularly among young workers and teachers. Many of them are very disillusioned with elections, seeing that, once in power, the winning candidate always forgets his promises.

Our activities during this period will include a May Day march attacking the electoral circus as a fraud and calling on workers and youth to help us build a mass PLP. To organize for the march we will distribute several leaflets to workers in the free-trade zones and in several schools. We will also reproduce PLP's pamphlet on elections to discuss it at PLP dinners among comrades and friends in order to better understand the nature of the bosses' elections. Finally we will print 1,000 copies of a local CHALLENGE to bring our communist politics to workers.

PLP Leadership Collective, Dominican Republic,

LINK GIULIANI ATTACK ON CABBIES TO POLICE TERROR

Recently I participated in a dinner meeting of taxi drivers and families to organize for the year 2000. It was called by a taxi organization very well known in NYC. There were about 50 people present, including two I know from other PLP activities. We discussed the attack on taxi drivers by Mayor Giuliani and his police department; sexism and a health plan. As expected from a group led by phony "leftists," we were told we need to rely on liberal politicians and the in-justice system to solve our problems.

The participants were very angry at how cops treat taxi drivers and felt that something must be done to confront those attacks. Although the meeting's organizers said many things, they never made the connection between the police harassment of taxi drivers, the police killing workers and the racist nature of the system. I then brought up the issue of Amadou Diallo, the African worker killed by the NYPD only because he was black. I said we can't trust the justice system. As taxi drivers we have to show our anger at the system that allows these thing to happen. Then many people also came up with different ideas on what action we should take. One driver from Egypt said we should organize a taxi caravan protest to the site where Amadou was killed. Other drivers had other suggestions.

This forced the organizer to put it on the agenda for a meeting of the taxi coalition. However, I am meeting with some taxi drivers and we're planning an April caravan to protest police terror.

Red Driver

YOUTH SET FOR MAY DAY

On March 19, I attended a meeting about May Day with people from my high school in East Harlem, N.Y.

We found that the May Day march will be on May 6th in Washington D.C. and that the Progressive Labor Party, a revolutionary political party, sponsors the demonstration.

We watched a good video on last years' May Day march, discussed the issue of police brutality and thought about some ideas that we can use to raise money to get buses. We decided to do fundraisers such as bake sales, and have a dinner party. Some of us will ask friends to donate money.

May Day shows people all over the world that we all care about our rights and that we are all going to fight to get them. If you care about fighting for your rights, I think it is a good idea to hop on the bus to Washington on May 6th, 2000.

Ideal Student

LA YOUTH TALKS ABOUT MAY DAY MARCH IN SF, 1999

What motivated you to participate in last year's May Day March?

My friend was going and I was expecting to see public speakers that would catch my attention as regards to the ideas and actually learn more about communism.

What was your reaction as hundreds of marchers marched with red flags and communist banners?

I was surprised because of the type of government that we have. I did not know there where so many communists in this country. I was shocked because I saw a big group of communists.

What did you like most of the May Day March last year?

Some of the chants and some of the speeches.

How will you help make this year's May Day March a bigger march than ever?

Try to make more people come up to it and explain some of the ideas to them, teach people about what the march is for, and explain what we want to accomplish from this march. Organize people and give them an orientation before they leave to the march. Finally, what I want to tell people is to "think about it and if you're down for the struggle, then you should participate in the march because it's a good experience."

PRISON LABOR & CONFEDERATE FLAG

I was pleased to see the article on the struggle to remove the confederate flag in South Carolina, covering the January 8th racist pro-flag march and the 46,000-strong anti-racist demonstration in Charleston on January 17.

Four days later there was a pitched battle there between 600 cops and 600 black and white longshoremen. The cops were protecting 20 scabs trying to lower the living standards of the organized longshoremen. The stevedore companies are pushing the longshoremen toward slavery. The continuing battle between capital and labor is the real fight around this racist symbol of the confederate flag.

The 13th amendment did not abolish slavery; the slavemasters left themselves a grand loophole. Slavery is not "illegal" when it is used as a punishment for crime. In the South there were increased arrests of young black men around harvest time and they were contracted out to the growers to work in the fields and on the roads--thus the old "Chain Gangs."

The fight against racist slavery needs to continue right here in Stockton, Calif. The Northern California Women's Facility on East Arch Road plans to enslave 75 more women for the profit of Golden State Lumber Company of Petaluma, CA. According to the January 27th Stockton Record, this company proposes to spend up to $2 million to build a facility in that women's prison. The prison already has a joint venture contract with American Moulding and Millwork.

The prisons say they pay inmates the minimum wage. However after deducting federal and state taxes an inmate's paycheck is divided into five parts, of which she receives one-fifth. [For more information on this see article page????, and PLP's pamphlet on prison labor, Ed.]

The racist confederate flag must come down! Racist prison slavery must end!

A Stockton Comrade

ARE ALL COPS BAD?

Friends in Struggle:

Your pamphlet on Prison Labor is devastating and your documentation makes it irrefutable and unanswerable. And that latter fact induced me to subscribe to CHALLENGE. I hope that your newspaper also documents all its statements.

I read one statement that is most questionable. It said that ALL cops are bad-like the Ramparts rats here in L.A. Can you prove that?

Yours in struggle for a better world and yours for truth instead of exaggeration.

FG

CHALLENGE Comments: Thank you for your comments on the pamphlet. For proof that all cops serve and protect the racist rulers, see front page article and the editorial in this issue.

 

a href="#Electing Hillary Won’t Reform Racist NYPD">"ulers’ Racist Death Squads Strike Again: Electing Hillary Won’t Reform Racist NYPD

LA HS Youth Walk Out Against Racist LAPD, Prop 21

Editorial: Oil And Control Of Middle East Behind Rockefeller Aim To Split Iran From U.S. Rivals

Washington War Hawks Launch New Cold War

A Look Inside A PLP Auto Club

Auto Workers In A Fighting Mood

One Year After The Ford Blast

Growing Class Unity Makes Government End Boeing Strikel

Workers Lose, Rulers/FMLN Win in Electoral Farce

Fascism: a Monster with Many Faces

a href="#Liberals Won’t End LAPD Terror">"iberals Won’t End LAPD Terror

Movie Review: Life Is Not So Rosy Under Capitalism

Oops

Rulers Do Guarantee You a Job: In Jail!

LETTERS

Are NYPD Cops Civil Rights Workers?

What do we do about all this police brutality and killing of innocent workers?

Bradley Campaign Feared Grass Roots

a href="#‘Board the Revolution Bus’">‘B"ard the Revolution Bus’

The Struggle Continues At Lasalle Steel

a href="#‘Boom’: A Leaky Boat in Penn. Coalfields">‘B"om’: A Leaky Boat in Penn. Coalfields

Three Workers Killed

---

Rulers’ Racist Death Squads Strike Again

a name="Electing Hillary Won’t Reform Racist NYPD">">"lecting Hillary Won’t Reform Racist NYPD

BROOKLYN, N.Y., March 20 — "We must shut this city down, block by block, union by union. We must attack all the politicians, including the Clinton hypocrites."

So spoke an angry member of the Haitian community at a neighborhood meeting this past weekend, called to organize protests against the latest NYPD murder of a black man. Patrick Dorismond, a young Haitian worker, was gunned down near his workplace in Manhattan last Thursday.

Patrick and a friend were hailing a cab when undercover cops approached him. One of them, not identifying himself as a cop, asked if he had any drugs to sell. Indignant, Patrick told him "No!" in no uncertain terms. The cop persisted anyway. Patrick was angered by the "dealer’s" insistence. When Patrick tried to wave him off, the cop punched him. Patrick defended himself, and the next thing his friend saw was Patrick, shot by one of the cops, lying on the street in pool of blood, gasping for air. He died soon after.

Patrick Dorismond may be the first person killed for saying "No" to drugs! Fascism in New York City in the year 2000 has become an innocent black man hailing a cab and being murdered for refusing a drug offer from a cop.

Immediately, Mayor Giuliani and his puppet police commissioner Safir—after warning the public "not to rush to judgement"—proceeded to do exactly that. They tried to paint Patrick as some "violent criminal" with a "record," as if that, even if true, justified murdering him in cold blood!

It turned out that Patrick had been issued summonses for "disorderly conduct." But it also turned out that the cop Ghouliani praised as a "hero"—Anthony Vasquez—had drawn his gun in a bar fight in 1997, had shot a neighbor’s dog and had domestic abuse complaints lodged against him. So much for "reforming" the NYPD by hiring more black and Latin cops.

This is the third innocent black man gunned down by the racist NYPD in the last 13 months, going back to the slaying of Amadou Diallo in February 1999, and the second in the last two weeks.

This weekend, a large and very militant demonstration was held in front of Patrick's workplace and was attended by many rank-and-file community groups. The protesters tore down barricades and the police were asked not to "escort" the marchers. While politicians and misleaders tried to run the show, calling for a federal investigation, the mood of the protesters was clearly different. People were very receptive to Progressive Labor Party literature and CHALLENGE and some speakers talked about the need to close down Wall Street and the city's business districts.

The political leadership of the anti-police brutality movement, however, is part of the problem. The demands put forward by Sharpton and others include voting for Hillary Clinton and defeating Giuliani for Senator, as well as calling for federal intervention against the NYPD. They are doing this because many workers see the system for what it is, a murderously racist one, especially after the verdict that cleared the killer cops of murdering Diallo. It is the Clinton ruling class that has blood on its hands—from paying for 100,000 additional cops on the streets to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq to tens of thousands in Kosovo. Calling on them to keep their storm troopers in check is ludicrous.

It is the capitalist system that trains the cops to shoot to kill, especially in black and Latin neighborhoods. It is an illusion to think that getting rid of Giuliani will solve the problem. In fact, the intensive growth of the police and "community policing" started under the administration of Dinkins, a black Mayor. Hillary Clinton and the liberal Democrats want to "reform" the NYPD when they know that the role of the cops under their profit system is to control working-class resistance to that system and to its murderous police.

Yesterday, PLP members and friends attended a community meeting and put forward the need to link high school student walkouts to other planned protests. High school teachers and students are planning a weekend of protest, including participating in the funeral demonstration on Saturday and a town hall meeting on Sunday. Within our schools, we are calling for teach-ins and speak-outs, wearing black armbands and organizing a larger citywide protest that would close all the schools for a day. PLP members in the teachers union are raising a resolution calling for job actions and work stoppages.

This year, with the courage and political commitment of so many new members, both teachers and students, to draw on, PLP’s May Day march in Washington, D.C., May 6, looks very bright indeed! It is only communist revolution, the clarion call of May Day, that can bury the profit system which spawns these racist police murderers.

LA HS Youth Walk Out Against Racist LAPD, Prop 21

LOS ANGELES, March 22--Over 500 angry black and Latin students rallied and walked out of Manual Arts High School today against Proposition 21 and racist police terror. Chanting "Governor Davis, tell the truth, Prop 21 is a war on Youth!; Schools, yes, Jails no, Prop 21 has got to go!; Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Police Terror has got to go!" they marched around the school and through this South Central LA neighborhood, drawing a great response from passersby. Students marched to a freeway overpass and held up their signs and banners. They made up many other chants like "You'all didn't need to kill Margaret Mitchell," and "Take our youth out of jail or you racist cops are gonna rot in hell!"

The students who organized the walkout wanted to march to the police station, but not everyone agreed. Instead they returned to school to have a brief open forum in the auditorium. Several students said this fight must continue. Another student invited everyone students to march on the Rampart Police Station on Saturday, April 1st and to come to the May Day dinner this Saturday and the May Day march in San Francisco. The Black Student Union sponsor, one of several who march participants said he believed in democracy and that the students who marched were exercising their democratic rights. He also said he had nothing against students reading CHALLENGE. He just wanted to make sure they saw both sides. He also encouraged students to demonstrate on April 1st.

A teacher in Progressive Labor Party said that students all over the world have been part of the revolutionary struggle, and to really end racism and police terror we need communist revolution. She invited everyone to March on May Day.

Editorial:

Oil And Control Of Middle East Behind Rockefeller Aim To Split Iran From U.S. Rivals

A year ago, Clinton was bombing Yugoslavia back to the Stone Age. Now he’s launching a "peace" initiative in Iran. Workers shouldn’t be fooled by it. Madeline Albright’s "caviar-and-pistachio" diplomacy overtures to Teheran’s holy rollers are just a tactic in a long-range strategy to prevent U.S. imperialism’s rivals from uniting as one bloc. More war is the only logical outcome of this wheeling and dealing.

For over 50 years Iran has played a key role in U.S. bosses’ plans. Iranian oil is a rich prize in itself. But Iran holds further strategic interest for every imperialist who wants to influence events in the Middle East. During the Cold War, it was crucial to the U.S. anti-communist strategy of containing the old Soviet Union. In 1953, the CIA engineered the overthrow of an insufficiently pro-U.S. Iranian government and replaced it with the fascist Shah, who served Washington well for nearly 30 years. During this period, Israel and Iran operated as U.S. client states, forming a pincer to safeguard Rockefeller interests in the western and eastern flanks of the Middle East.

But this couldn’t last. The Shah made a lot of internal enemies and found himself bounced by an equally fascist gang of Islamic fundamentalist bosses with profit interests of their own. Coupled with their defeat in Vietnam, the loss of Iran was one of U.S. rulers’ worst post-World War II fiascoes. They long to reverse it. Their cynical "dual containment" strategy of helping Iranian and Iraqi bosses fight wars with each other during the Reagan-Bush years helped kill over a million young workers in both countries but failed to unseat the anti-U.S. governments there.

Now the U.S. imperialists think they have a chance in Iran. With a weak economy and millions of youth entering the workforce, Iran’s bosses want to attract foreign investment. Washington’s policymakers also figure they can take advantage of splits within the Iranian ruling class.

But none of this maneuvering will lead to peace. Despite the reasons they may have to flirt temporarily with each other, Iranian and U.S. bosses have divergent interests. The Iranians want to become the Middle East’s dominant power. U.S. imperialists don’t want to share power with any of that region’s bosses. This isn’t a recipe for a long, happy marriage. Furthermore, current policy in Washington seems to be in the hands of "hawks," who view war preparations as the only way to maintain U.S. supremacy. They are led by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former Carter Administration National Security Advisor with a résumé that includes rivers of workers’ blood spilled in Vietnam.

Today, Brzezinski holds no official post but his strategic thinking, as spelled out in a 1997 book called The Grand Chessboard, is an almost word-for-word prescription for Clinton-Gore’s foreign policy. Brzezinski, who was Madeline Albright’s Ph.D thesis advisor at Columbia, also has close ties to other hawkish Clinton-Gore foreign policy gurus, like Richard Holbrooke and Strobe Talbot.

As CHALLENGE has pointed out frequently in the last several years, the goal of the U.S. bosses’ main wing, for whom Brzezinski speaks, is, in his own words, to "maintain global primacy." This implies a classic "divide-and-rule" strategy geared toward preventing "the emergence of a hostile coalition." Brzesinski’s primary fears are a "grand coalition of Russia, China and, perhaps, Iran," and "either German-Russian collusion or a Franco-Russian alliance."

Russian rulers want Iran on their side, as they prepare to restore their own fragmented empire. They and the Iranians have inked a ten-year "peace and friendship" treaty. In 1995, they cemented this love-making with a contract to have the Russians rebuild Iranian nuclear reactors. Russian and Iran rulers have common interests regarding the exploitation and transport of Caspian energy. Their plans conflict with U.S. bosses’ scenarios. French oil companies are also involved with the Russians in Iran. France’s Total, now merged with Elf, signed a 1997 deal with the Russian Gazprom and Malaysian Petras to develop Iran’s huge South Pars gas field.

Until now, the U.S. policy of boycotting Iran has only helped the Russians and French at Exxon-Mobil’s expense. So the Clinton-Gore diplomatic sweet-talk is aimed in part at reversing a profit drain. But the goal is also to nip the Russia-France-Iran alliance in the bud. A further goal is to neutralize the Iranians while U.S. imperialism gears for another war against Iraq. The Russians and French also have major contracts for cheap Iraqi oil. U.S. imperialism can’t tolerate this trend. The U.S. ruling class has defined unseating Saddam Hussein and replacing him with a pro-U.S. government in Baghdad as priorities for the next presidential administration, regardless of who wins the Gore-Bush beauty pageant.

When U.S. rulers go to war, as they did in 1991 against Iraq and again in 1999 against Yugoslavia, the result is only more war. When they pretend to make peace, as they are now doing in Iran, the result will also be calculated in workers’ blood. This is the nature of capitalism.

Brzezinski and the government hawks he advises plan for wars not because of some personal or mental flaw, but rather because the profit system inevitably produces war to protect and maximize their profits. "Caviar-and-pistachio" diplomacy will soon turn into gunboat diplomacy.

As we build for May Day 2000’s mass marches, our Party will continue to expose the rulers’ true intentions behind the lies about "peace." And we will continue trying to sharpen the class struggle with our ideas in the vanguard. This is the best way for workers, soldiers and students to learn that nothing short of communist revolution can get this deadly monkey off the collective back of our class.

Washington War Hawks Launch New Cold War

Clinton’s diplomatic maneuvering over Iran must be viewed as part of a much larger strategic gamble by U.S. imperialism. The Brzezinski hawks, who have the upper hand in the bosses’ foreign policy debates, consider "Eurasia" the main area the U.S. must continue to control in its drive to remain top dog. Iran is obviously an important piece of the puzzle.

But the bigger question concerns NATO. When the old Soviet Union collapsed, a split arose within the U.S. Establishment over the approach it should take toward Russia. The "doves" wanted to reduce tensions with Russia and bring it into the Western market economy. They advised against expanding NATO to include former Soviet client states. The "hawks," led from the sides by Brzezinski and directly by Albright, Holbrooke, Talbott and Anthony Lake, wanted to kick Russian bosses while they were down. They argued for the "fast track" expansion of NATO.

The hawks won out. NATO now includes Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. No less an authority than George Kennan, the main architect of U.S. Cold War foreign policy, called this decision "the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era" (New York Times, 2/5/97).

Communists don’t believe that imperialist wars begin because of "errors" by bosses’ policymakers. War is part of capitalism. But every consequence predicted by Kennan has come true so far. He warned of a rise in "nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion." The rise to power of Putin, the war in Chechnya, and the Russian Duma’s refusal to ratify the START II nuclear agreements confirm this estimate. All these developments are direct responses to the Clinton/NATO 1999 air war over Yugoslavia, which aimed directly at boxing in Russian imperialism. Putin & Co. are ruthlessly suppressing the Chechen nationalists to make the point that NATO expansion will not succeed in breaking up Russia.

In other words, less than ten years after the so-called "New World Order," the Brzezinski "doctrine" has launched a new Cold War. But imperialist wars don’t stay "cold" for long. Unlike the old Cold War, which allowed anti-communist unity to exist among the U.S. and its European capitalist rivals, this one is all about inter-imperialist rivalry. As the Kosovo war proved, NATO isn’t much of an alliance. The Europeans have indicated that they intend to go their own way, independently of the U.S. So the Brzezinski "hawk" position is likely to produce the very anti-U.S. coalitions it identifies as the main danger to prevent. Once again, capitalism produces nothing but instability and war.

A Look Inside A PLP Auto Club

(Despite all the hoopla about the "hi-tech" economy, the bosses understand that manufacturing workers, especially those in basic industries—auto, steel, electrical, etc.—are the foundation stones of capitalism. They add the real value in production, without which the bosses’ system could not exist. They also are the source of all armaments, without which imperialists could not wage war. No wonder the bosses’ fear of communists is greatest among basic industrial workers. As the following article shows, PLP is being built in the "belly of the beast.")

The Party members are mass leaders in this auto assembly plant of thousands. They are leaders on and off the job, and have learned from each other and from their collective experience. One has taught the other about how to lead the workers in class struggle. In turn, the "teacher" has learned the importance of starting every day reading the papers so he can talk to workers about current events and open up possibilities for raising the Party's ideas. He feels he's making progress with one worker.

The comrades have been a major obstacle to the bosses and union hacks. One worker says we need to be more aggressive in putting forward the Party and asks whether we should also be more aggressive in the union. Workers want us to lead. He's concerned that if we don't fight to lead the union, workers will think we're not serious. But he's also worried that leading the union will distract us from Party-building, our main task and the toughest of them all. He knows that the bosses are going to keep attacking, with job cuts and increased productivity, and that "the union can't deliver." He's worried that if we become union leaders and can't stop the attacks, the workers will look at us as "sellouts, just like the rest."

One comrade meets with 8-10 workers on and off the job. His brother and their friend, both new Party members, do the same. He had his wife's family over to the house for dinner, and told them all about PLP, May Day and the need for communist revolution. At work he thinks he's too confrontational with the bosses, and not political enough with the workers.

The club leader says we need to increase the distribution of CHALLENGE through hand-to-hand sales and networks that aren't visible to the company or the union. Another agrees, saying we must open up to more workers. We need to be less fearful and have more confidence in the workers. A third talks about a worker who came and asked him for CHALLENGE. He didn't have any with him at the time, so he carried one in his jacket for a week, looking for him. He distributes most of his CHALLENGES off the job. Inside the plant he finds it very difficult.

One way to make CHALLENGE more central to our organizing, is to write for it more. "That's right," says a comrade. "We have to write more, and learn to write. We have to become complete leaders."

We are taking the long-term view for building the Party and making revolution. We aren't looking for get-rich-quick schemes. Given the tremendous defeat of the old communist movement, the very presence of the Party inside this factory is a significant development. We have worked very hard to get to our current very modest level. We will need more hands, working harder, to advance. But the Party collective is internally stronger than ever, and we're ready to advance.

Auto Workers In A Fighting Mood

"We're living in a crisis," said the boss. "WE’RE not in crisis, YOU are!" answered a worker. This was the scene two weeks ago, at a series of special training sessions in our factory. The boss said, "People are our main concern. We're very concerned about your safety and security." Then he explained why we have to be responsible for production, repairs, cleaning our areas and keeping them safe.

He pointed to a world map, locating all the auto factories. He explained the crisis of overproduction in the auto industry, and how factories were being closed to reduce capacity. He said that over the past ten years, bigger auto companies have gobbled up smaller ones. In the future, only six will survive. "This is the world," he said. "If you want to survive, you have to be one of those six."

The boss complained about poor quality and low production in one department. Workers said, "You always talk about making improvements but it never happens. You're looking to blame us, not solve the problem." Many workers were laughing at the boss. He asked one worker, "You seem very happy. What's you're name?" He gave the name of his favorite baseball player.

The boss said, "Everyone has the responsibility to improve production and quality to survive." He never said the company was in danger, but he threatened our plant. "Another factory builds the same cars as you do. If you don't improve, you'll be on the streets."

A worker responded, "The main trouble with the dashboards is that you contracted out the work to pay low wages. That's the problem. Another fact: from their desks the Engineering Department is planning how to cut back on workers. They don't know what it’s like on the shop floor. You want one worker to do the work of three, in three minutes. Put more workers there." He gave other examples. Then he said, "You talk about safety, but you speed up the line. You talk about quality, but what you really mean is more production. You show us a tape of how Japanese workers produce high quality cars, but we don't have time to go to the bathroom. It's your responsibility, not ours."

At first there was silence. Then the workers let loose with a barrage of complaints, turning the meeting into an attack on the boss. The big boss called in various supervisors to take the heat. He then told the workers to "read up" on how to improve, and ended the meeting.

The next day there was a safety meeting. The boss went on and on about their "concern" for us. Five months ago, an electrician was killed and another lost both legs in an "accident." A worker said, "You're the expert. What happened?" He abruptly ended the meeting. The workers left grumbling, "They have no answers!"

In another department, the workforce has shrunk from 500 to 200 over the past two years.

The bosses are trying to institute the "team concept," to increase productivity. The supervisor tried to lure one worker into being the "team leader." He yelled, "I told you, I don't want to participate!" When he tried to quietly apply more pressure, the worker yelled even louder, "I told you, I don't want to participate!!" Another worker said, "You complain about this department. But you got rid of half the workers and increased the workload. We don't want any part of it!"

The boss is right. The increased competition between the bosses will lead to more plant closings and massive unemployment from Korea to Brazil to Detroit. Today they destroy the factories. Next they will destroy the workers. But the workers are also right. The bosses "have no answers," to increased exploitation and oppression, to fascism and war. We are leading more struggles, but we must increase the regular readership of CHALLENGE. We look forward to a successful May Day and have confidence that we can win the political leadership of the workers.

One Year After The Ford Blast

DEARBORN, MI, March 16 — On February 1, 1999, the No. 6 boiler at the Ford Rouge power plant exploded. Six Ford workers were killed and dozens of others injured in the deadliest explosion in the history of the U.S. auto industry. Last year Ford pocketed $7.2 billion, the highest profits ever recorded by an auto company. Three of the six men killed had filed health and safety grievances, including pipe fitter John Arseneau, who cited leaking valves on Boiler No. 6.

On the first anniversary of the explosion, workers at Ford and Rouge Steel held two minutes of silence for their murdered comrades. Hundreds of workers attended a memorial held at the union hall, only to hear UAW Local 600 President Jerry Sullivan join Ford CEO Jack Nasser to claim this was an "unavoidable accident." In reality, Ford bosses knew of the potential for disaster, but decided not to spend the money to improve safety. UAW officials ignored safety grievances filed by powerhouse workers complaining of dangerous equipment.

The Detroit News (1/28) reported that Ford and Rouge Steel rejected the advice of independent auditors over a 12-year period to install new safety equipment, including replacing the boiler controls at a cost of $10.2 million. A Ford memo warned: "Once the boilers are upgraded, the 'grandfather clause' will no longer be applicable and all present safety standards will have to be met." In other words, if it upgraded the boilers, Ford would have had to spend tens of millions of dollars improving safety equipment throughout the plant. Powerhouse workers also pointed to the inches-thick coal dust that coated beams, ledges and machinery, the result of years of cutbacks in the number of cleaners. This coal dust caused a large secondary explosion and fireball.

Ford agreed to pay a $7 million settlement. In exchange, they admit no fault and avoid a criminal investigation. The UAW got more than $1 million hush money to set up a Ford-UAW scholarship fund. Over the past 20 years, the UAW has helped Ford eliminate tens of thousands of jobs, shut scores of plants and increase productivity in their relentless drive for maximum profits. Uniting with "our" bosses to "beat the competition," is building increased fascism at work, and leading workers to war. PLP is uniting industrial workers of the world in the struggle for communist revolution.

Growing Class Unity Makes Government End Boeing Strikel

SEATTLE, WA, March 20 — Today, the union of Boeing engineers and technical workers (SPEEA) ended the largest ever white-collar strike against a U.S. corporation. The company sweetened the pie by eliminating medical cutbacks, offering a higher wage increase and giving some modest bonuses over the next year. Seventy percent of the workers voted to accept the deal, thus ending the 40-day walkout by 19,000 engineers and technicians.

Large numbers of strikers—even some disheartened souls who eventually voted to accept—thought the company was "on the ropes" and accused union misleaders of "selling them short."

"Joe Weber, a technical worker for 21 years, said SPEEA leaders rushed the balloting to prey on the financial hardships workers and their families were enduring," reported the Seattle Times (3/20).

IAM Leaders Tried To Isolate Strikers

In reality, Joe and his fellow strikers faced even more formidable enemies than the SPEEA leadership. Despite publicly supporting the strike, the leadership of the largest union at Boeing, the International Association of Machinists (IAM), did everything it its power to isolate the strikers. Hundreds of Machinists, either organized by our Party or on their own, joined the strikers on the picket line. Dozens of these activists got Local C to pass a resolution for a "Day of Solidarity." When it came time for the District Council—the governing body of the four Locals in the Puget Sound region—to pick a day, the hacks refused to even allow a vote. They adjourned the meeting before the resolution could be discussed.

IAM chief Thomas Buffenbarger brags that he called Boeing officials to stress that the company’s most powerful union "stood firmly behind the strikers." (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3/18) More likely, he stood firmly gripping a knife behind the backs of the strikers. We Boeing workers will judge the union leadership by what they DID, not by what they said. In this case, public platitudes only hid secret agendas.

The Power Of The State Forced The Deal

The treachery of the IAM leadership stems from the threat this strike posed specifically to a new military aircraft, the Joint Strike Fighter, and to Boeing generally in its competition with the European Airbus. The strike—and, to some extent, our Party’s influence among sections of workers—raised the specter of a Boeing workforce that understood the meaning of class. "There was definitely a class division," Martin Banel, a 21-year Boeing veteran engineer, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "We are all workers now."

The ruling class could not tolerate these developments. "This thing was about to escalate," warned Richard Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO. Williams Dickens, a senior fellow at the Rockefeller-run Brookings Institution, was also raising alarms, saying this "new-found solidarity at Boeing and elsewhere could be a harbinger" of the future. These bosses’ top think-tanks are less than pleased with this increase in white-collar worker class consciousness.

The ruling class, the same set of Old Money financiers and industrialists that sit on the Boeing Board, used the power of their state to force a deal. Richard Barnes, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, convened a secret meeting in Washington, D.C., last week. Present were Boeing’s chief negotiator, himself the past director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, other company and union officials and—you guessed it—Trumka. He "played a key role in brokering the agreement in Washington, D.C." according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Just two weeks ago, Trumka gave a seemingly militant speech to SPEEA strikers concluding with praise for the virtues of partnership. The new contract creates a joint "Leadership Council" to "promote partnership." Boeing CEO Phil Condit and Paul Almeida, president of SPEEA’s parent, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, will co-chair the panel. "We need to mend the disconnect that has occurred between the workers and the leaders at Boeing," said Almeida. In other words, we’ve got to erase this new-found class consciousness and replace it with loyalty to the bosses.

Smash The Bosses’ State; Build The Party

The bosses’ schools and press love to go on about how the State—including the government, its laws and agencies—is neutral. In fact, the State is the key organ of the bosses’ control. The law, the Federal Mediation Service and even the AFL-CIO are all used to force the will of a small clique of capitalists on the vast majority of workers.

Make no mistake about it, our class cannot be victorious until we smash the bosses’ state. The AFL-CIO spreads the illusion we can elect a government that can serve the interests of workers, while its leaders sabotage class struggle. We must smash these secret meetings and secret agendas that thwart the will of the working class.

Instead of this impotent labor "movement," with its reliance on electing one or another of the bosses’ servants, we need a general staff to organize and lead the assault on the bosses’ state. We need a revolutionary communist Party. The real victory for Joe and his fellow strikers will be the growth of the Progressive Labor Party, the general staff of the working class.

Our Party aims to replace the bosses’ state, its laws and agencies, with the rule of the working class, communism. This is a long, hard road to travel, but it is the only road to victory for our class. Join us this May Day as we continue the long march to workers’ power.

Workers Lose, Rulers/FMLN Win in Electoral Farce

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, March 13 — "Elections? No, thanks!", said a 25-year-old worker, Margarita Guerrero. "I’m fed up with the same thing," said Luis Aguilar who preferred to go to the beach with his family. This was the principal message workers sent the political parties. The indifference and incredulity of the working class toward politicians competing in the March 12 elections was more than obvious.

Approximately 70% of the 3.2 million people who are eligible to vote did not go to the polls. Workers saw through this electoral show, sponsored by the imperialists of Europe and the U.S. Basically both imperialist groups sponsor their own set of politicians to vie for control of the country.

The winners in the elections were the "born-again" capitalists of the former guerrilla group FMLN. It is now claiming to be the only Latin American "left-wing" force with a "legislative majority." It now praises bourgeois democracy to the skies.

But bourgeois democracy is nothing but one face of the dictatorship of the ruling class. The FMLN will only be useful to the bosses and the imperialists (whether from Europe or the U.S.) as long as it keeps workers under control.

It is up to workers, and we in PLP, to make sure that the FMLN and the various competing bosses don’t get away with their plans to control us to serve their interests. Workers did well by not going to the polls, but that is not enough. We cannot go to the beach and think that this is of no interest to us. We must take action by organizing ourselves. Join us in the PLP this May Day and take a step towards spoiling the rulers’ plans by marching for communism, the only solution.

Fascism: a Monster with Many Faces

What do you think when you see the word fascism? Jack-booted thugs leading helpless victims to their deaths in concentration camps? Yes, but it’s also: (1) a method used by capitalism to maintain power when threatened by revolution, (2) an intensification of the capitalist dictatorship (and racist terror), (3) a limitation and repression of the working class struggle and an increase in class collaboration, (4) a decline of bourgeois democracy, (5) a massive merging of industry and finance, and (6) the concentration of each national ruling class into one group that dominates all internal rivals, enabling them to "solve" any problems by uniting their own class to go to war against competing ruling classes. ("Fascism and Social Revolution," by R. Palme Dutte.)

Fascism is also a process of development, an intensification of the exploitation workers face all the time under capitalism and an ideology justifying the attack on the working class, as well as radical changes in laws and practices institutionalizing these changes.

In the 1930s for example, as fascism grew in Germany, "real net wage rates…declined by 13% during a period of rapidly increasing business activity-a unique departure from conditions and trends as observed throughout the whole history of capitalism!" (From "Germany, Economic and Labor Conditions Under Fascism," by Jurgen Kuyczynski.)

Today, in the U.S., "One can argue about the exact percentages, but something on the order of 80% of the workforce is now experiencing falling real wages.…At the same time, real per capita gross domestic product has risen by a third.…Probably no country has ever had as large a shift in the distribution of earnings without having gone through a revolution or losing a major war." ("Reclaiming America," by Lester Thurow.) Between 1978-80 and 1996-98, the poorest 20% lost $900 in average yearly real dollar income…while the richest 20% gained $34,370 (NY Times 1/19).

In NYC alone, the racist Clinton/Gingrich welfare "reform" law forced 500,000 people off public assistance rolls while 40,000 others are forced to work for nothing more than their pitifully small welfare allotments replacing 20,000 unionized city workers. Throughout the U.S., hundreds of thousands of prison laborers produce everything from clothing, eyewear, furniture, aircraft parts, computer circuit boards to mattresses for as little as 20 cents a day.

Meanwhile tens of thousands of formerly union-wage manufacturing jobs, in aerospace, auto, etc., have been offloaded to subcontractors paying a fraction of union-wage rates. For the millions of workers affected by these policies, fascism is here.

The bosses want and need to build fascism. That doesn’t mean workers and PLP, must sit back and just watch. The Italian Communist Party, in its fight against fascism, had a saying: "they killed and killed and killed us until we grew to where there were two million of us."

PLP cut its teeth in the fight against fascism. In the 1960s, PLP founders were called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as part of the latter’s anti-communist witchhunt. PLP boldly turned the hearings into an indictment of racist, warmongering U.S. imperialism, forcing HUAC to end the hearings and eventually disband. In the 1970s, PLP led tens of thousands of anti-racists in stomping the KKK wherever it showed up. Similarly, PLP and its anti-racist supporters crushed ROAR, the violent anti-busing movement in Boston. We also fought the ideologues of racism, from Harvard’s Herrnstein in the 1960s to Kelling in Rutgers today, the key to the rulers winning workers to support fascism.

As slave labor Workfare, prison labor and subcontracting developed, PLP organized the fight against them within unions, churches and other mass organizations. Fighting the bosses’ ideas within these groups enables us to lead workers against these fascist developments.

In fighting against "sanctioning" (removing otherwise eligible people from welfare rolls), against the dumping of the homeless out of shelters back to the streets, or helping welfare recipients who run afoul of some bureaucratic rule, we are combating the rise of fascist ideology.

When we bring issues like racist police murders into unions, churches and other organizations we are leading a struggle over how society as a whole is run and for whom.

Communism is the solution! If we dare to struggle, we will win!

a name="Liberals Won’t End LAPD Terror">">"iberals Won’t End LAPD Terror

LOS ANGELES, March 15 — Over 200 spirited protestors gathered downtown as part of an International Day of Protest Against Police Brutality. We assembled at the Civic Center’s Criminal Courts Building and marched one block to rally at LAPD Parker Center. People came from as far as Riverside and San Diego to demand an end to racist police murders. Chants of "No justice, no peace! No racist police" were greeted with honks of approval from passing cars. Absolutely no taunts or jeers were heard except from one professional LAPD agent-provocateur who went through the crowd trying to start arguments.

Police wore black Nazi-style helmets and used batons to knock back anyone who merely stepped onto the grass in front of the building, but we refused to be intimidated by any more police violence.

Many organizations were represented but few working-class people were there. The poorly-publicized rally happened at rush hour on a Wednesday. Clearly the people who led this event did not organize the poor. Working-class Californians who are the ones being harassed, arrested and murdered by the police. The reformers would rather appeal to the Mayor than to workers.

Their protests are not much different than the scandal-raking of the TV stations and big business newspapers. They call for a civilian review board and "community control of the police." Police violence won't be ended this way. The cops’ job is to control and terrorize workers, especially black and Latin workers and youth, in order to continue to exploit all workers, pay low wages and keep power in the hands of the bosses.

In addition, as in the case of the Rampart cops, the police push gangs and encourage gang violence because they know that youth rebel against this racist system and, from South Africa to Nicaragua, have been in the forefront of anti-racist mass struggles. They would rather have youth join gangs and fight each other for drug profits and turf than unite into a force for revolution. Then they have an excuse to pass laws like Proposition 21 and put more youth in prison.

The best part of this rally was that several of the demonstrators who are friends of PLP members and who came to protest cop terror helped PLP members distribute CHALLENGE and leaflets which invited people to May Day. They gladly carried a sign that blamed D.A. Garcetti, Police Chief Parks, Mayor Riordan, the cops, the judges and capitalism for police terror and racist jailings.

Police terror and corruption won't be ended without overthrowing the government and its police departments. To stop police violence forever, join the PLP and organize the long-term fight for workers' revolution!

MOVIE REVIEW

Life Is Not So Rosy Under Capitalism

American Beauty is one of the rare cases where I would recommend a movie nominated for several Oscars.

As a city dweller, I am partially biased against suburbia, but that’s not the reason I liked this movie. Although it’s supposed to be an exposé of life in the "burbs," mainly it lays bare the alienation, consumerism and dysfunctional families under modern capitalism.

It’s true that not all families in suburbia are "dysfunctional" like Lester (Kevin Spacey), his wife (Annette Benning) and their teenage daughter, but suburban conditions don’t make family life any easier. Most workers are forced to work long hours just to make ends meet. But others, like those portrayed in the movie, work long hours to afford all the goodies capitalism says they need to "succeed." This, plus the long commute to work and the general lack of any real meaning in their lives except to consume more, are the norms of life under capitalism for tens of millions. This film follows in the footsteps of recent films like Happiness and The Ice Storm in which the families depicted have achieved the "American Dream" and find it’s really a nightmare.

The scene I liked best showed Lester trying to make love to his wife, after years without any. She stops him, worried about spilling beer on an expensive Italian couch. He responds, "It’s just a couch."

Most of the characters in the movie are pretty repugnant. Even more screwed up are the new neighbors. The retired Marine colonel, trying to use military discipline to free his son from all the "filth," turns out to be a Nazi and a repressed homosexual. His son is a drug dealer and his wife resembles a zombie, abused by the colonel, something not uncommon among military families. Maybe the moviemaker is trying to attack the "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy of the military towards gays. The only "normal couple" in the movie is a gay doctor and lawyer.

Lester, the movie’s "good character," redeems himself at the end when he refuses to commit statutory rape, just before he is shot.

Of course, watch this movie with a critical eye. Don’t expect real solutions to the problems of alienation, but among the crap coming from Hollywood, this one stinks less.

Rex Red

OOPS

The article on NY postal workers in our March 22 issue (page 4) should have read that the US Postal Service "netted" [not "needed"] hundreds of millions in profits....Also, the order of the second and third paragraphs should be reversed. Sorry about that....

Rulers Do Guarantee You a Job: In Jail!

When inmates in U.S. jails and prisons hit the two million mark last month, there was a spate of publicity about this gigantic figure, constituting one-fourth of all the prisoners in the world! Liberals were lamenting the fact that "maybe we’ve gone too far," especially when reports began revealing that hundreds of thousands (not 80,000 as a recent NY Times article reported) are engaged in slave labor jobs working for pennies an hour.

Actually, two-thirds of these two million are non-violent offenders and, under Western European capitalist standards, shouldn’t even be in jail in the first place. In fact, when the U.S. gloated over its "low" jobless figures as compared to Europe’s, the French shot back that the U.S. has "jailed its unemployment problem." (The U.S. does not count prisoners in its unemployment statistics.)

The proponents of prison labor claim: (1) putting prisoners to work will help "rehabilitate" them, "teach them a skill, responsibility and prepare them for a job upon release"; and, (2) the prisoners themselves "want to work" while in prison.

Firstly, if the rulers are so concerned about "teaching the prisoners," why not pay them the going rate in their industry? Because that would eradicate one of the bosses’ main advantages for exploiting them: the tremendous super-profits extracted from 23¢-an-hour "wages" without any benefits or any right to strike Then they wouldn’t be so interested in "reforming" them. And could it be that prisoners who are being paid such slave wages might—when they get out—look at a $5.75-an-hour, minimum-wage poverty-level job as an "upgrade"?

Secondly, if they’re so concerned about "teaching skills" to help prisoners get jobs when released, why do corporations seek prisoners with long-term and life sentences to learn these skills? Because they don’t want to "waste" their investment in skilled workers on prison laborers getting out in a couple of years.

Thirdly, what jobs will workers get using these "skills" when they leave prison? A sweatshop job, if they’re lucky to get any job at all. Perhaps they wouldn’t be fodder for imprisonment if the system hadn’t presented them with such a dead-end life in the first place.

Fourth, if they’re so concerned about "rehabilitation," why are only 5% of all prisoners with drug problems getting any treatment at all? Most of the one and one-quarter million non-violent offenders are in prison because of a drug problem. But funds for drug treatment in prisons, such as it is under capitalism, keep getting cut and cut and cut. How much good is a "skill" if one still has a drug problem, which U.S. capitalism imprisoned you for originally.

Finally, if as they claim, there are now "only" 4% unemployed (a sizeable underestimate), that’s still about five million jobless in a workforce of 120 million. If the 1.25 million non-violent offenders were released tomorrow, they would surely join the jobless millions, adding to capitalism’s unemployment figures. No, the "rehabilitation" rationale is simply a transparent attempt to put a "humanitarian" mask on a brutal slave labor operation.

As for many inmates on "waiting lists for prison jobs," this is precisely what hundreds of thousands of these prisoners wanted all along, BEFORE capitalism jailed them—A JOB! If they had had decent-paying jobs, they might not be in jail in the first place. And if these prisoners were offered jobs at $12 or $15 an hour, watch those "waiting lists" swell. But at those rates no boss would offer any jobs.

While U.S. bosses attack prison labor in China, they’re throwing those stones from their own gigantic "glass house." The U.S. has 500,000 more prisoners than China, and with only one-fifth the population! Now U.S. competitors around the world are exposing this "human rights" hypocrisy. So the U.S. may seek "damage control," ways to reduce or slow down the increasing prison population.

One partial "solution" may be to offer youthful non-violent offenders a "chance" to join the military and "wipe their slate clean." Two-thirds of all prisoners in the U.S. are black and Latin, the most racist "criminal justice" system in the world As the Army and Navy find it increasingly difficult to fill their enlistment quotas, the predominantly black and Latin youth in prison could be a new source of cannon fodder to fight the bosses’ wars.

Capitalism creates and expands its prison system to exercise social control over a potentially rebellious section of the working class. Its criminal racist injustice system is a crucial element in the development of fascism. It can be abolished only by destroying the profit system itself, with communist revolution.

(For a fuller examination of this question, see PLP’s pamphlet, "Prison Labor, Fascism U.S. Style.")

LETTERS

Are NYPD Cops Civil Rights Workers?

In a recent address to a class of police academy recruits, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani drew an analogy between the New York Police Department (NYPD) and civil rights workers. He said everyone in the city has a right to feel safe, whether on the street or returning home at night. Since the right to safety is a civil right, the NYPD are "civil rights workers," according to Giuliani.

Let us examine two high profile cases. A Bronx family is having a friendly game of touch football. Did they have a right to safety? NYPD arrives. An illegal choke-hold is administered and one member of the family is dead. Were the NYPD protecting civil rights? No. On this night they were involved in murder. A young, innocent, African immigrant returns home from an errand at night. Did he have a right to safety? The NYPD (street crimes unit) arrives. A barrage of gunfire is released. Forty-one bullets are spent. Where were the "civil right rights" workers? They were involved in murder.

Most people involved in the civil rights struggle believed in equality. Capitalism is based on inequality. Those in the civil rights struggle are unpaid, receiving benefit from the desire to fight racism and poverty. The civil rights struggle mainly employed non-violence, passive resistance and peaceful protest. The police are paid to "protect and serve" those that have and control capital. They are issued guns, rifles, Billy-clubs and protective armor. Their struggle, if it is a struggle, is an armed one.

The long history of the civil rights struggle has been besmirched by this leap of illogical thought by an uncaring, uninformed Mayor. Civil rights workers, indeed! Murderers!

What can be done to combat this reality? Fight for communism. Throw off the shackles of capitalism. Let the chains of capitalism be broken by the power of the collective. Learn more about how a society based on equality can work. Attend May Day 2000!

A NYC Worker

"What do we do about all this police brutality and killing of innocent workers?"

"March on May Day" was the answer of night school physiology students at Chicago State University (CSU). Outraged by the freeing of the killer cops who murdered Amadou Diallo, students broke into a spontaneous classroom discussion about why these things occur and what to do about it.

The instructor invited the students to a May Day dinner at his home on March 4. There the students met with others who wanted to "do something." The discussion included comments like, "Why can’t everyone benefit from our society?" and "I was thoroughly impressed by the idea of coming together to create a better working class." Fifteen students left with books of bus tickets for the march.

At a second dinner, more of the CSU physiology students and others came, many ideas were discussed, but the tone was different. One of the main student organizers said she wanted to become a lawyer to fight the increased police terror. After a splendid dinner, out came the checkbooks and cash as deposits for May Day tickets. Six students paid for their bus tickets, four from the physiology class, and made plans to bring others.

Students organizing students is an exciting development on the CSU campus! We aim to build stronger relationships with these students and help their organizing efforts and political development. We must draw on their excitement, and develop them as revolutionary leaders.

All power to the working class!

Chicago Red

Bradley Campaign Feared Grass Roots

In his failed bid for the Democratic Party nomination, Bill Bradley posed as the anti-racist who aimed to inspire the masses with his calls for greater equity and heightened "social" (patriotic) consciousness. Although he and Gore differed little on any significant issue, scores of grass roots activists volunteered in his campaign, including youth never before involved in electoral politics. Others had been active decades ago in the McGovern campaign.

Gore emphasized his endorsements by a variety of social fascists, like the AFL-CIO, the pro-abortion group NARAL, and the Congressional Black Caucus. How, he asked, could workers, women, black people do anything but follow their lead and support him? His "sweep" signals the key role of these mass organizations tieing to capitalism, and underlines the importance for us to struggle sharply inside those organizations.

Maybe Bradley was doomed from the outset by McCain’s competition for disaffected voters and media attention. But some analysts and supporters, including Bradley’s wife, complained he wouldn’t "use his elbows"—attack Gore. There was no full-time volunteer coordinator. Staff members and volunteers pleaded to have materials available at the January pre-primary caucuses but this didn’t happen. Convention delegate candidates were never called together for a meeting. Instead of a "grass-roots campaign," this was a "media campaign." Bradley had plenty of money, and volunteer-coordinators would have come cheap. They could have done both. I think it was a political issue.

A grass-roots campaign would have brought out much sharper attacks on Gore and the Democratic Party establishment. Bradley understood just how vulnerable the Democratic Party is on issues like racism, education, health care and campaign finance reform. His goal was to strengthen the Democratic Party and widen its base of support, not expose its attacks on the working class.

But many of his volunteers, and even some of his paid field organizers, hated the Gore-Clinton policies. The broader the campaign, the harder it would have been to control. It was safe to put up a website, but not safe to put a lot of volunteers out in the community.

Informational materials about the criminal injustice system had been circulating around Bradley’s Los Angeles office for a few weeks before the California primary. At campaign meetings and public events, people spoke about the fascist Proposition 21 extending "three strikes" and attacking youth. Gore supporter Gray Davis endorsed it. Bradley was "on record" against "three strikes," but refused to address the issue in a mass way. At one district caucus meeting, nearly everyone signed a petition to put a rollback of "three strikes" on the November ballot. Just days before the primary, Bradley staffers and volunteers attended rallies against Proposition 21.

Bradley and his Wall Street/Silicon Valley financial backers must have known they had to be careful not to unleash the anti-racist anger of the masses, even as they pushed "anti-racism" to get votes. Bradley didn’t keep his elbows to himself in order to keep the campaign "clean," but trather from fear of opening up the Democrats to attacks from "below." I think this was a direct consequence of one of the more serious contradictions facing the ruling class: their need to super-exploit and oppress black and Latin workers and youth, and at the same time win them to serve in the next war.

West Coast Reader

a name="‘Board the Revolution Bus’"></">‘B"ard the Revolution Bus’

Two weeks ago my son and I were vacationing in Guatemala. Every day articles appeared in the local press reminding people about the nearly 200,000 mostly indigenous (Mayan speaking) peoples butchered by the fascist death squads. They operated under Christian evangelist and former president General Rios Mont. Presently, a more liberal president rules the country, but the General is still President of the Congress.

There are still soldiers and blocked streets. Unemployment is up at 70%, there is almost no drinkable water, everywhere people drink bottled water, the children of the indigenous people suffer from an appalling death rate and work either in the fields or selling souvenirs to tourists.

People travel via overcrowded buses packed in like sardines (I know because my son and I traveled on them). People hang onto handrails. I read of at least one death from someone who, like me, was hanging on the handrail with the bus door open. While on one of these buses returning from the mostly Mayan town of Quiche someone asked me where I was from. We began talking and he reminisced about his time living and working in New York City. When I asked him about the Guatemalan government and the terrible conditions so many people lived under, he asked me why I was so interested in these things. I explained I had spent many years fighting capitalism and imperialism. I told him about the Party and he asked me to mail him CHALLENGE.

Working people of all lands unite; get on board the revolution bus!

East Harlem Red

The Struggle Continues At Lasalle Steel

Lasalle has given the union a list of 28 workers they will not call back, even though they were not fired, reprimanded nor have given up their seniority rights. What's the problem with these 28 workers? Many were active during the 1998 strike. They led the union and their fellow workers in numerous other struggles. They fought to make the union strong, stood up to attacks, and organized support for the strike. Is boss Scharf & Co. afraid of these workers? Do they think they have everything going their way since the contract was rammed down our throats? Do they want to keep these union activists from upsetting their apple cart?

If the bosses are allowed to get away with this attack on the "28," they will be even more vicious and arrogant. The company was able to cut wages, benefits and jobs after the strike. But we've learned over the years, the Scharfs of this world are never satisfied. They want more and more cuts so they can keep up with other bosses in the race to wipe out jobs and raise profits. If the "28" are abandoned, Scharf will knock us over like ducks in a shooting gallery. Those of us who remain are facing increased harassment, murderous overtime and lower wages for many. Without a fight-back it will get worse. It is time to demand answers from the union. Bring back the "LaSalle 28!"

La Salle Striker

a name="‘Boom’: A Leaky Boat in Penn. Coalfields"></">‘B"om’: A Leaky Boat in Penn. Coalfields

In the coalfields of Pennsylvania, the so-called "Economic Boom" is like a ship on the water that has a You’re O.K. if you’re on the part of the ship that’s not leaking, but if you’re on the part that’s sinking, you’re in bad shape. And there are few life preservers left.

In the past week, the JA Corporation announced it will be laying off 900 workers at its steel mill in Johnstown, Pa. sometime in July. This is one of the last remaining mills in Johnstown, once a thriving steel town. Even the conservative local paper editorialized about the psychic damage this was causing for workers living in uncertainty for their future in an area with the highest jobless rate in the state.

Also, this past week it was announced that one of the last remaining union coal mines will close on May 14; 196 jobs will be lost. This is in the town of Marion Center, Indiana County, southeast of Pittsburgh. Most mines and mills in this region have already closed. The main employers remaining are the service sector, Wal-Mart, fast food, etc.

Finally, the shooting of some white people by a deranged black man in Pittsburgh, gave the media a field day. The man was charged with a Hate Crime. He targeted only white people. Also, anti-white, anti-Semitic, and anti-Asian writings were allegedly found in his apartment.

It began when three maintenance men, two white and one black, came to fix his door and he went berserk. He killed one white worker. The black worker carried his fellow worker from the building to get help. He told the other white worker to hide somewhere in the building, until the gunman fled outside. The press downplayed all this. Of course, the KKK jumped right on the bandwagon, passing out "White Power" leaflets throughout the area, including in front of one of the victim’s home.

The black man who did the shooting was mentally ill, living in poverty in Wilkensburg, a mostly black and very poor neighborhood. His neighbors claimed he talked very little, and was probably simmering for some time about his predicament in this life in racist capitalist America. Capitalism and racism, not hate, are the culprits that drove this guy over the edge. Certainly though, he took out his rage on the wrong people, as many do. This is the tragedy.

Red Rocker

Three Workers Killed

On March 5, an explosion at an auto parts plant killed three workers in Adford, VA. The blast at New River Castings (NRC) blew a hole the size of a football field in the center of the plant, and threw clouds of soot over a wide area. About 100 workers were in the plant at the time of the blast. Six were hospitalized, with two still in serious condition. Intermet Corp., of Troy, Michigan, owns NRC and a related parts plant, Radford Foundry. Like the dead and injured at the Ford explosion last year, workers are being killed in the bosses' drive for cheap labor and maximum profits. Communist revolution will have many scores to settle.

A Reader

1. WORKERS MUST FIGHT RACIST RULERS
   BUSH AND GORE: MORE TERROR AND WAR
2. TRUTH ABOUT BROOKLY WALKOUTS FOUND ONLY IN CHALLENGE
3. STUDENTS FIND ALTERNATIVE TO FIGHT AGAINST COP TERROR
4. Explanation of Profit System Wins the Day:
   Philly Hospital Workers Defy `Leaders,' Demand Strike!
   1. Surplus Value Explanation Strikes A Chord
5. BOEING MACHINISTS ACT TO HONOR PICKET LINES
   1. Honoring Picket Lines Is Top Priority In Contract Negotiations
   2. Revolutionary Outlook Requires Class Consciousness
   3. GOLDEN RULE: BOSSES' GOLD MAKES THE RULES
6. CAMPUSES RALLY VS. RACIST DIALLO VERDICT
   QUEENS: STUDENTS HURDLE ADMINISTRATION ROADBLOCK FIGHT RACIST POLICE TERROR
7. RUTGERS: PLP GETS BALL ROLLING TO RALLY AGAINST KOPS, KELLING AND KOURTS
8. LAPD: NOT JUST A FEW BAD APPLES...
9. FLINT SHOOTING: BLOOD ON THE BOSSES' HANDS!
10. POSTAL WORKERS TO MARCH AGAINST POLICE TERROR
11. NY Metro Area Postal Union Election
    Shows Workers Open to PLP
12. CHURCH SAYS WE KILLED MILLIONS, SORRY ABOUT THAT
    HOLOCAUST BEGAN 2,000 YEARS AGO
13. STUDENT DENOUNCES SYSTEM, CALLS FOR ACTION AT MASS PROTEST
14. LETTERS
    1. CAPITALISM SOURCE OF WOMEN'S OPPRESSION
    2. LA DINNER SPURS MAY DAY BUILDING
    3. PROPOSITION 21 FOLLOWS NAZI MODEL
    4. WE NEED WORK GLOVES AND COMMUNISM!
    5. Iranian Workers Reject Fascist Election Circus
    6. DEFEAT KKK WITH MILITANT ACTION
    7. NOTE FROM A STEEL WORKER

---

WORKERS MUST FIGHT RACIST RULERS
BUSH AND GORE: MORE TERROR AND WAR

The beauty contest passing itself off as a presidential campaign proves once again that workers have everything to lose by supporting capitalist politicians. In 1996, the bosses were divided, and the fight over control of the Republican Party reflected this split. Now, the dominant, Rockefeller wing firmly controls both parties.

Whether the rulers are divided amongst themselves or more or less together, we must not line up behind any of them. Our job remains the same, regardless of the clique the profit system puts in the White House. We must build our own forces and fight for communist revolution, no matter how long it takes. At the moment, this means organizing successful, mass May Day 2000 marches, sharpening the class struggle on as many fronts as possible, and winning fresh recruits into the Progressive Labor Party.

The bosses' media all recognize that no fundamental distinction separates Bush from Gore. One leading pundit, the New York Times's Frank Rich, says that they're about as "different...as J. Crew and Banana Republic" (March 11). He refers to both parties as bastions of "Rockefeller Republicanism" and takes a few shots at the non-issues raised in the primary campaigns. It's easy to laugh at Bush, who governs the country's most polluted state, when he tries to parade as an environmentalist. Or at Gore, who has pocketed all kinds of funny money, when he starts posing as a champion of campaign finance reform.

But for our class, these insults to our intelligence cover the bosses' real plans, and this reality is no laughing matter. Let's look at two key questions: the rulers' long-range preparations for war and the rise of fascist terror at home.

Neither Gore nor Bush is going to change U.S. foreign policy much. The Rockefeller interests are determined to keep U.S. imperialism on top. They need to continue dictating the flow and pricing of Middle Eastern oil. Every one of their rivals needs to break free of this yoke. The fight to control the cheapest energy sources, which lie in Iraq, can only sharpen. For several years, CHALLENGE has predicted another Persian Gulf oil war. We're sticking to that estimate. President Gore or Bush may well be the one to start it. Workers have absolutely no interest in killing and dying for Exxon Mobil.

But the Rockefellers' long-range interests go beyond the question of oil. Staying on top in a world driven by the violent scramble for maximum profit also means preventing the rise of a rival "super-power." The collapse of the old communist movement and the temporary break-up of the Soviet empire cut U.S. rulers some slack, but only temporarily. Their primary strategy is still geared against the re-emergence of Russia and the rise of Chinese imperialism. Trends in the U.S. military budget make this goal crystal-clear.

Right now, U.S. military expenses are greater than China's, Russia's, Great Britain's, and Germany's COMBINED. The 1997 budget represented 85 percent of the average military budgets at the height of the Cold War. "The supposedly `centrist' Clinton administration is therefore looking to stabilize military expenses at a full-fledged Cold War level into the first years of the 21^st century" (Gilbert Achcar, The New Cold War, translation ours, ed.).

U.S. imperialism will probably invade the Middle Easter oil fields again. But this amount of firepower far outstrips the muscle necessary to take on the two-bit military machines of countries like Iraq or even North Korea. The ultimate targets of this buildup remain Russia and China. U.S. imperialism is orienting its entire foreign policy toward the eventuality of a third world war. We aren't crying: "Wolf!" here. This process may take years to unfold. But its general direction is clear, and both Bush and Gore will keep it going.

However, plans for world war require more than military hardware. The political mobilization of the home front is also key. As CHALLENGE has often written, the liberals, who parade as friends of the working class, tell more dangerous, less obvious lies than the more openly right wing Republicans. Gore's support from Sweeney and other labor union bosses is more deceptive than Bush's ridiculous "compassionate conservatism." However, once again, facts are stubborn things.

We still live in an economic boom. For the time being, many workers don't yet have it so bad. But look at the 40+ million who have no health insurance. Look at the millions thrown off welfare and forced into slave labor conditions on "Workfare." Look at the rise in police terror, since the liberal Clinton, with Gore as his vice-president, put 100,000 more racist killer cops on the streets. Look at the growth of the "prison-industrial complex," which combines police state social control tactics with windfall billion-dollar profits made off prison labor." Look at the drastic rise in racist oppression due to all of the above. Black people make up only 12 percent of the United States population, but nearly half of all inmates are black.

As Governor of Texas, Bush is a champion of capital punishment. Gore is a clone of cop-lover Clinton. As president, either one will help sharpen the trend toward all types of racist terror against our class, as well as the long-range drift toward world war.

This isn't a matter of personality or choice. The profit system makes war and fascism inevitable. As the process developing both intensifies, our Party will have a lot to say about the direction in which the working class decides to head. The bosses can't choose whether or not they want to fight each other or conduct reigns of terror against us. But we can choose communist revolution as the only way out of the capitalist nightmare. The last few weeks have seen a healthy upsurge in militant Party activity around racist police terror. We have seen thousands of workers respond positively to our direct leadership and our press. Continuing to sharpen the struggle, organizing large May Day actions, and recruiting to the PLP are the best answers to the murdering lies of Gore-Bush and their billionaire puppet-masters.

TRUTH ABOUT BROOKLY WALKOUTS FOUND ONLY IN CHALLENGE

BROOKLYN, NY -- On March 8, a couple of hundred students walked out of Clara Barton, Brooklyn Tech and Prospect Heights high schools, protesting the not guilty verdict in the Diallo case.

The youth were inspired by the March 3 walkouts and protest by 1,000 students from other high schools all across the city. PLP youth played a leading role in those walkouts and participated on March 8. Hundreds of CHALLENGES were sold at both protests.

At both walkouts, youth first marched and protested in downtown Brooklyn, then streamed across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall. On March 8 an undercover cop used a bullhorn to try to persuade students to end their protest. Militant youth took the bullhorn away from her.

The March 3 protests received lots of publicity in the bosses' press, the NY Times tried to depict it as a civil libertarian action led by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). But only CHALLENGE covered the March 8.

To many youth activists this was an eye-opening experience. They saw first-hand how the bosses' press operates. They try their best to censure or distort any actions led by forces not in their hip pockets, especially where communists in the PLP are involved.

That's why CHALLENGE is a key weapon for workers and youth fighting the ruling racist bosses. CHALLENGE, the communist newspaper, reports events from the working-class point of view. Reading, studying and distributing CHALLENGE is the best antidote to the lies of the NY Times and all the bosses' media.

STUDENTS FIND ALTERNATIVE TO FIGHT AGAINST COP TERROR

NEW YORK, March 15 -- On Monday, March 6, students at the alternative high school I teach in returned to school disappointed. Hundreds of their peers marched Friday, March 3 against the Diallo verdict. At our school we only talked about police brutality.

I meet with about 15 students for an hour each day in an Advisory. On Monday, I placed a leaflet on the board and two articles about the Friday demonstrations. "What is to be done here," I asked. "What can we do?" was the reply. Many agreed that the problems of racism and police brutality are not easily mended. We discussed the role of police in a class society and the need to fight to change the kind of society we live in. "But what can we do?" they continued.

The idea came from some corner of the room that we should all wear black armbands on Wednesday. The next day, with a contribution of black cloth from my wife, eight students made 200 armbands in about 10 minutes. "Not enough!" students said. The next morning six students arrived early and finished the next 200. Hesitant at first, these students passed out the armbands to friends who also passed out armbands. By second period, with the exception of late students who made their way to my classroom to get more, nearly every student and staff member had them on.

Everyone was very excited. More importantly, during Wednesday's Advisory we discussed how people can change things, themselves and others by organizing--a lesson we all need to remind each other about throughout the rest of the term and our lives.

East Harlem Red

Explanation of Profit System Wins the Day:
Philly Hospital Workers Defy `Leaders,' Demand Strike!

PHILADELPHIA, PA, March 11 -- Today the Philadelphia local of the National Hospital Workers Union (1199C) held a "leadership summit" on the impact of rising healthcare costs on the June 2000 contract negotiations. Fortunately the leadership emerging from this summit was not totally what the union leadership wanted.

The 1199C leaders called the meeting of over 100 union delegates because the current capitalist crisis has squeezed Philadelphia's major hospitals, leaving the union's citywide health plan $10 million short. Hundreds have been laid off. Only one hospital has declared a profit. The bosses want 1199C members to pay into the health plan for the first time. The 1199C leaders claim Jefferson bosses won't even start negotiations until we agree to pay $10 weekly toward the health plan.

The 1199C leaders' plan was to bombard us with numbers that clearly showed we had no choice but to surrender $10 million worth of health benefits. The delegates would then tell the union leaders what benefits to cut. Then the delegates could be used as a buffer to protect the union leaders because it would look like the delegates were responsible for the cuts, not the leaders.

Obviously $10 million can only be saved by significantly cutting the benefits of the mainly black union members who have greater health problems due to the racism of capitalism. One of the union delegates later agreed that the 1199C leaders wanted us to play the same role as the "Judenrat" in Nazi Germany. Just as these "Jewish Rats" sold out their brothers and sisters by aiding the Nazis, so the 1199C leaders want the union delegates to serve the bosses by helping to cut the health benefits of the workers we're supposed to represent.

Surplus Value Explanation Strikes A Chord

Just before the delegate body broke up into smaller groups, a Jefferson hospital delegate took the floor and pointed out that actually the hospital bosses were NOT paying for our health benefits. Those benefits and our wages came from the value that all the hospital workers produced. Those benefits and wages are only part of the total value that we produce because the bosses steal the rest as profit. If we start paying toward our health benefits or agree to any cuts, the bosses are actually increasing the amount they steal from the value we produce. The delegate said these cuts would have a terrible racist impact on our membership and must be met with serious organizing for a strike.

A wave of agreement swept through the delegates on the floor. Union President Nicholas shot the Executive Vice-president an angry look and then launched into a 45-minute tirade. He said workers weren't ready to fight, almost all the hospitals are "losing" money, so we have no choice but to agree to give-backs. He then dismissed us into smaller groups to figure out what benefits we should give up.

But at the table where the Jefferson delegates sat, the talk was not of give-backs but rather of the need to organize a strike. The 1199C Organizer assigned to our table did her best to steer the conversation toward cutting benefits. Yet the majority of the Jefferson delegates always returned the discussion to the need to strike against givebacks.

Each table had posterboard on which to write our suggestions to show the rest of the delegates. The Organizer at our table finally gave in and wrote in large letters on our posterboard: "STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!" When each table showed the rest of the delegates their ideas, our call for a strike received loud applause and cheers.

But just as interesting was that over half the other tables of union delegates also called for a strike against the givebacks. The tables that actually proposed particular cutbacks were roundly booed. It got so fierce that delegates who had followed the President's call to find cuts became very defensive and would apologize or beg for us to give them a chance to finish before they were booed.

After each table finished their presentation, President Nicholas lamented that the union leaders actually had not received the kinds of suggestions they wanted from the union delegates. He finished by challenging us to take up the task of organizing the workers to strike, adding that this challenge might make one of the Jefferson delegates "stop wishing for the revolution." What he fears is that struggles like today, to intensify the class struggle, can become a school for communism, building PLP and changing the "wish for revolution" to reality.

BOEING MACHINISTS ACT TO HONOR PICKET LINES

SEATTLE, WA, March 9 -- At tonight's union meeting International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local 751C passed a resolution, seconded by 25 Boeing workers, calling for a "Day of Solidarity" with striking Boeing Engineers and Technical workers. "I want to thank you for raising that resolution," said one shop steward from another building to the member who introduced it. "Call on me and we'll join your building on the picket lines."

This comment reflects the widespread distrust of the IAM leadership. They have organized next to nothing in support of the SPEEA (Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace) strike. Nevertheless, hundreds of Machinists have joined the picket lines and organized material support on their own. In fact, our Party and friends organized 35 workers on each shift in just one building to join the lines at lunch-time in answer to SPEEA's invitation the same day. These same workers wrote, introduced and seconded the "Day of Solidarity" resolution.

No sooner was the resolution passed then the leadership tried to "clarify" it. They began pushing to hold the "Day of Solidarity" on a weekend in order not to violate Article 18--the no-strike clause in our contract. Rules are rules, they say. As usual, as soon as the Local president mentioned Article 18, members shouted, "Get rid of it!"

The resolution will now be kicked upstairs to the District Council to be voted on March 14. Rank and filers are organizing to make sure our "Day of Solidarity" is held during the workweek. Our aim is to "get hundreds, if not more, of our members to the picket lines," as stated in the passed resolution.

Honoring Picket Lines Is Top Priority In Contract Negotiations

Negotiations began Tuesday between Boeing and Teamster Local 174, which represents hundreds of truck, bus and taxi drivers at the company. The contract expires March 31. Under organized pressure from the rank and file and shop stewards, the union president vowed a "top-priority bargaining item" would be the removal of a clause forbidding Teamsters from honoring the picket lines.

"Good luck," said an IAM spokesman, who asked the local papers not to identify him. He said he'd be surprised if the company would agree to such a change. So we must organize to force that agreement.

The union leadership has been hiding behind the "no-strike" clause for too long. Honoring picket lines is a key test of working-class solidarity. That's become all the more important now that the mergers have multiplied many fold the number of contracts and unions at Boeing. Are we going to allow the company to pick us off one at a time?

Revolutionary Outlook Requires Class Consciousness

Changing the history whereby each union "goes alone" at Boeing will not be easy. We will have to start thinking as a class. Our Party has proved indispensable in this effort.

The Party and our friends can do more around the country. Expressions of solidarity from other unions and professional organizations will help highlight the class nature of the demands of the day. When we fight racism, fascist police terror and imperialist wars, we always emphasize it is the working class--conscious of itself and its historic mission--that will put an end to these capitalist evils with communist revolution. This strike gives us another avenue to fight for that revolutionary class perspective.

GOLDEN RULE: BOSSES' GOLD MAKES THE RULES

So this is their democracy where "majority rules"! Take a poll of Boeing Machinists. They'd vote in the thousands to walk the lines in solidarity with the engineers. It's in their class interests to support the strike. But the law says they can't!

The law rides roughshod over the wishes of the vast majority and defends the class interests of industrialists and bankers who sit on Boeing's Board of Directors. The majority doesn't rule; the majority is ruled! That's why communists call capitalism a class dictatorship.

And that's why thousands of Boeing Machinists feel frustrated. Seven thousand non-union engineers have joined the strike, but tens of thousands of union machinists have been held back.

Don't talk about democracy! The law is even-handed all right; it even hands the bosses everything they want! But when it comes to "hands," workers have thousands and thousands of them. And on any day they're quite capable of "taking the law into their own hands!"

CAMPUSES RALLY VS. RACIST DIALLO VERDICT
QUEENS: STUDENTS HURDLE ADMINISTRATION ROADBLOCK FIGHT RACIST POLICE TERROR

QUEENS, NY, March 12 -- Approximately 30 students participated in a rally protesting the murder of Amadou Diallo and the not-guilty verdict of four NYPD killers. It was a great turnout and many students passing by joined in. Others stood at a distance but listened to what we had to say.

It all started a few weeks ago right before the verdict. Although people were angry at the blatantly racist murder, they were not angry enough to begin organizing a rally the day of the murder. Many students had confidence in the courts and believed they would provide "justice" for Amadou and his family. Many good discussions took place about the nature of this racist system and its need for the cops to terrorize black and Latino youth.

After the verdict was announced, the Party once again tried to organize a rally and this time students were ready. With another Queens College student, we began the process: we wrote leaflets, talked to other campus student organizations and had heated discussions with other students about the importance of fighting back against attacks on the working class.

After looking back we realize we made one big mistake--going through the administration. Since other students thought it would be best to do things the "right way," we asked permission for our rally. The administration really jerked us around. Different administrators told us to do different things, and very conveniently "forgot" conversations they had with us about the rally.

Because we waited for their go-ahead, we did not distribute our leaflets until the last moment, two days before the rally. We, and many other students, learned a good lesson. They saw the way the administration protects its system.

Despite these few setbacks it was a good rally. Students angrily attacked this racist murder. After having read PLP's new pamphlet, one student tied it to the growing prison labor. CHALLENGES, leaflets and more prison labor pamphlets were distributed. But, most important, we were able to get to know many more students and struggle sharply over the inherent necessity for racism under capitalism and its only solution, communism! This won't be the last fight at Queens College. Many students are now excited about organizing another rally.

RUTGERS: PLP GETS BALL ROLLING TO RALLY AGAINST KOPS, KELLING AND KOURTS

NEWARK, NJ March 8 -- About 150 students at Rutgers-Newark University (RNU) rallied in opposition to the racist murder of Amadou Diallo and the acquittal of the killer cops. Students were serious, listening attentively to the speakers. The latter expressed outrage at the murder and the verdict and held serious doubts about, and criticisms of, the criminal injustice system.

PLP comrades played a key role in organizing the rally. Some groups probably would not have taken participated in such a mass event if PLP members had not raised it in mass organizations.

Once the ball got rolling, many students actively helped make the event happen. Initially, two organizations dropped out because they refused to take a position on the verdict. They only wanted an "open-ended" discussion. One student organizer responded, "If they won't be against this verdict we don't need them. Cross their name off the list!" By the week of the rally at least four other student clubs stood up to take their place.

The rally was sponsored by a multi-racial group of students and clubs. However, most of the clubs and rally participants were black. During the rally, a petition against the verdict and police brutality was circulated. In addition, about 30 students signed a contact sheet indicating their interests in helping to organize further mass demonstrations around this issue. One Party member, along with a close friend, distributed about 20 CHALLENGES toward the end of the rally.

One Party speaker described the general trend toward fascism shown by the rise of police murders of working-class youth. While presenting a general class analysis of racism and the police, the Party speaker also encouraged further class struggle by calling for more organizing. At the end the comrade strongly everyone to oppose all capitalist exploitation by marching on May Day in Washington D.C., May 6.

A RNU professor spoke more specifically about the fascist professor George Kelling. Students were shown the implications of having their university participate in the development of fascist ideology and policy designed to oppress and further exploit the working class. The method of police terror called "community policing" is largely the brainchild of this ivory tower fascist, Kelling. This professor held up Kelling's book Fixing Broken Windows and urged everyone to read and expose it, particularly where Kelling refers to black youths as "predators."

The racist murder of Amadou Diallo must be taken up by the Party to expose the true fascist nature of the capitalist system. We can turn it against the bosses. With the acquittal of the four murdering cops the bosses have thrown down the gauntlet and are daring the working class to strike back. Let's give them the shock of their new millennium and organize our class to take up their challenge with the red gauntlet of communism.

LAPD: NOT JUST A FEW BAD APPLES...

LOS ANGELES, CA.--The Rampart police division has again exposed the corrupt, racist and murderous U.S. justice system, as well as the role played by the capitalist politicians, in this case the Latino elected officials here.

"I don't want to attack the agents who protect my wife and my children, just because there are a few rotten apples in the LAPD," said U.S. Congressman Javier Becerra. "No one asked me anything until now," said Antonio Villaraigosa, State Assemblyman and Speaker of the California House. Other Latino politicians remaining silent are: Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, Assemblywoman Gloria Romero, U.S. Senator Richard Polanco, and Board of Supervisors member Gloria Molina.

Even though most of these "leaders" are liberals, and call for FBI and Federal investigation of the LAPD, they live in LA where the LAPD has powerful friends who retaliate against any and all criticism. These politicians have no principles. They side with whoever pays them. The power struggle over policing strategy and how to hoodwink the masses is coming out into the open. At a City Hall press conference, Mayor Riorden presented the LAPD's report on "cleaning up its own house." He supported it. Councilwomen Rita Walters and Jackie Goldberg tried to attend the press conference to attack the report and call for civilian over-site of the LAPD, but Riorden ordered City Hall security guards to keep them locked in their offices.

Walters and Goldberg are reading from the script of the Rockefeller Eastern establishment which wants civilian review of the LAPD. They want politicians who denounce the supposedly few "rotten apples" and call for police reform. The LA ruling class has traditionally demanded that black and Latino politicians support the cops, but this adds to a huge cynicism and mistrust of all politicians. It was the absence of such a buffer of "trusted" polliticians which allowed the 1992 rebellion to erupt here after the acquittal of the cops who beat Rodney King.

One reason these up-and-coming capitalist politicians haven't spoken out is that the community which the Rampart police terrorize isn't powerful and doesn't vote. Many are not citizens and many see no point in voting. These same politicians view the terrorist LA Police Association as a force capable of deciding the next LA mayorality. "When the theme is police brutality, the reaction of the City Hall is to hide," said LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

Rather than defending the workers, these Latino politicians are opportunist defenders of capitalism. They do the bosses' bidding. Who needs leaders like this?

The LAPD history has always been filled with racism, terror, murder, fomenting gang violence and corruption, directed mainly against black and Latin workers and youth. What's new is the publicity the bosses' media has given these cases. The biggest bosses, controlled by Rockefeller, are using these events to try to discipline and control the LA cops. They worry about controlling the workers and winning them to have confidence in a system that attacks workers every day. Their problem is how to terrorize workers but simultaneously win them to be loyal to their system and plans for war. The racism and corruption of the LAPD inspire the opposite. That's why they need politicians who call for getting rid of a "few bad apples." But it's not a few bad apples. The whole system is rotten.

Both the police and these politicians are enemies of the workers. PLP is supporting a mass demonstration against the Rampart police called by community organizations on Saturday, April 1^st at noon. It's very important to show unity against these fascists.

The best way to answer the Rampart police scandal is organizing in the factories, schools, churches and neighborhoods to expose the role of the bosses, their cops and politicians. CHALLENGE newspaper is crucial. That's how thousands of youth and workers will see that the best way to "clean up" the police is by destroying the profit system--based on exploitation and terror--with communist revolution. The key answer to the Rampart scandal is to March on May Day and join the long-term fight to end the rule of the racist bosses.

Becerra and Villaraigosa remained silent on Proposition 21, which targets youth, especially Latino and black youth, for prison. On the other hand, Henry Cisneros, Director of Univision and Clinton's ex-Secretary of Housing, used his TV station to rabidly back Prop 21. Cisneros attacks youth as gang bangers, but fails to say that the cops foment gang violence and attack those who work for gang truces. These politicians help the bosses build fascism.

FLINT SHOOTING: BLOOD ON THE BOSSES' HANDS!

(Most of this letter is reprinted from Michael Moore's [`Roger and Me,' and `The Big One'] Web page)

Isn't it enough that tens of thousands of lives in Flint have been wrecked, destroyed by the greed of General Motors? Isn't it enough that tens of thousands of others had to leave Flint in the past 20 years to find work far from family and friends? Isn't it enough that Flint suffers the highest or near-highest per capita rates of murder, rape and theft in the nation?

What else must the people of Flint go through while the evening news proclaims, "This is the best economy ever!" Yesterday, a 6-year old boy brought a semi-automatic gun to Buell Elementary school and killed 6-year old Kayla Rolland in their first grade classroom. Six years old!

That's about the only thing the national media got right about the story. Twenty satellite trucks ring the school, but all that technology cannot find the truth. The local officials hide from the responsibility they share in Flint's destruction.

You have probably heard that this school shooting took place in "Mount Morris Township," a "suburb somewhere near Flint." There is no such place. Buell Elementary is in the Flint Beecher school district, the poorest in Genesee County, and perhaps the poorest in Michigan. According to the federal government, 82% of its children live below the "official" poverty level (meaning the number of kids in total poverty is even higher).

The family of the little boy who killed the girl had been evicted from their home just last week. Homeless and fatherless (his dad is in jail as 30% of all black men in the U.S. will be at some point in their lives), the boy was staying at his uncle's. In the house were guns, as there are in every home in this devastated and desperate area. The media shows the school sitting in the middle of a bombed-out neighborhood and says, "This is the youngest child to kill another child in a school shooting."

Beecher is 60% black, 40% white. No municipality in Genesee County wants to govern it, so it exists as a No Man's Land on Flint's northern city limits. It covers a small portion of two different townships. But when you hear the word "township" used in the case of Beecher, they mean it in the way the word was used in South Africa. Buell Elementary has a Flint address and a Flint phone number, but the black city officials in bed with General Motors claim, "This school really isn't in Flint!"

Let's do something about the poverty in which so many kids still dwell. What are we waiting for? This tragedy took place in a township that no town will claim and was followed by a gun nut near Pittsburgh entering a McDonald's or Burger King on the same day. Fried or flame-broiled, it's our unique American Hell.

A Reader

POSTAL WORKERS TO MARCH AGAINST POLICE TERROR

CHICAGO, IL, March 13 -- "We did all the right things. We worked hard. We moved to a good neighborhood in the suburbs. We put Bobby in a good school. We got him into one of the best colleges [Northwestern], so that he could live a good life. But all of that didn't matter. Two weeks before he was to graduate, the police bumped him off the road, got him out of his car, put him on his knees, and killed him. Why? Because he was a young black man." These were the opening comments of Vera Love, a retired postal worker and the mother of Robert Russ, who was murdered by the police last June.

There was silence as she spoke but enthusiastic applause when she finished her talk to the monthly meeting of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) Chicago Local. A fellow postal worker had invited her, to bring the fight against racist police terror to the union.

The Local vice-president chairing the meeting said, "We have to take this issue of police brutality seriously. I was picking up someone at the union hall a few weeks ago, waiting out front. A squad car pulled up and two cops jumped out with guns drawn, demanding to know what was I doing there. All I could think was that they could kill me right here."

The worker who invited Ms. Love spoke from the floor saying, "The bosses need cops like these because they have no future for young black and Latin workers. There are two Americas being built by the bosses. One consists of millionaires and billionaires getting rich off the stock market. The other consists of two million mainly minority workers locked up in prison. We need to take a stand. I move that our local union endorse the April 4 march against police brutality and the massive growth of the prison population, and that we organize workers to march behind our union banner." The motion was seconded several times and passed unanimously.

The growing hatred of the cops, fueled by the racist acquittal of the four NYC cops that killed Amadou Diallo, is a good opportunity to build the Party at work and in the union. The hard work begins now. Many postal workers know about PLP and have read CHALLENGE. We are building a committee to win workers to participate in the April 4 march, called by Jesse Jackson and PUSH.

We are deepening our involvement in the union, while at the same time showing how it is led by the bosses' ideology. This is true of every mass organization. Workers are fighting against unsafe conditions on the job. When management moved most of the manual flat cases to make room for the latest automated sorting machines, they put the cases directly under the overhead belts, which move the tubs and trays of mail around the building. There is a constant danger of being hit on the head by falling grease, debris and whole trays of mail.

After weeks of complaining, several workers wrote up a petition demanding that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) force the U.S. Postal Service to correct this situation. The petition explains how the bosses' need for increased profits through automation drives all of their decisions. They have no concern for our safety. They use prison labor to repair all postal mail sacks, and want to replace as many career employees as possible with low-paid, temporary workers. Two workers got almost 40 signatures in their area, and we will bring them, "Priority Mail," to OSHA.

To build the revolutionary movement, we must fight for the political leadership of millions of workers who are being mis-led by organizations like the APWU and PUSH. By winning workers to participate in the PUSH march under our leadership, we can change the political climate at work, in the union, and set the stage for our best May Day yet.

NY Metro Area Postal Union Election
Shows Workers Open to PLP

NEW YORK CITY, March 13 -- Supervisors often unjustly discipline postal workers. The experience of so many delayed and/or lost grievances proves that the grievance procedure gives little hope for justice. Referring to some problem or supervisor's direct order, postal workers often ask, "Can they really make me do that?" Frequently the answer is, "Yes, because the contract says..."

The contract and the Employee and Labor Relations Manual were not designed to be fair. They were written to control, and get the greatest productivity out of, postal workers. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has not received any government funding for decades. In fact, they neeted between hundreds of millions and over a billion dollars in profits in each of the past five years!

Isn't the same true of the so-called "justice system?" We need look no further than the acquittal of the four racist NYC cops who murdered Amadou Diallo. If a defendant is wealthy, or is a cop, they get away with murder. If a person is poor, especially black or Latin, forget it!

There are some capitalists (UPS, FedEx, etc.) who want to grab some of those profits for themselves. The threat to privatize the USPS is not idle talk. There are others who want to keep the booty out of their competitors' hands, and have so far successfully had their hand-picked politicians vote against privatization in Congress. The fact is, public or private, no workers will benefit from these bosses.

The only long-term solution is for workers to seize power from the bosses with communist revolution, and take control of all of society. We must establish workers' power through the dictatorship of the working class, led by a PLP of millions. By acting in our own best interest, including eliminating profits and money, postal workers and all workers can achieve a meaningful level of security.

There are several slates of candidates running in the NY Metro Area Postal Union election. The "Candidates For Change" (CFC) slogan is, "Members First." They have made union meetings more accessible to differing points of view, cut the salaries of full-time union officers, and refused to allow two increases in union dues as mandated by the national union (APWU). These new union leaders invited others to join their slate, including some experienced shop stewards (among them a PLP member).

The other slates are led by one or another former union leader who claim they are "experienced" at filing grievances. For years they helped run the union with unquestioned loyalty to Josie McMillian, the long-time President who was defeated last April. They want to regain control of the union.

While focusing on the corruption of the old leaders, the CFC slate has sounded the alarm about the threat of privatization. However, explaining the threat of capitalism, and the need to destroy it, is the responsibility of PLP. The hand-to-hand distribution of CHALLENGE has more than doubled over the past three issues, from an average of 25-30 copies during the past couple of years. Several of the 32 members of the CFC slate have begun to read and discuss CHALLENGE for the first time.

CHURCH SAYS WE KILLED MILLIONS, SORRY ABOUT THAT
HOLOCAUST BEGAN 2,000 YEARS AGO

The anti-Semitism for which the Pope is asking "repentance" began simultaneously with the birth of Christianity, when Jews were accused of "murdering Christ." The first known Church pogrom exploded in the year 388, when a bishop led hundreds of Christians in the main city of Byzantine, Mesopotamia to burn synagogues and kill Jews. Word of this pogrom spread and synagogues were burned in Italy and North Africa, and many more Jews were murdered. The Church then criticized Roman Emperor Theodosious for trying to keep the peace in the empire by rebuilding the synagogues. The Church won and by 438 a Roman imperial law branded Jews as an "evil sect."

From then on anti-Semitism reigned supreme. In the years 556 and 600 there were rebellions by Jews in Caesarea and Antioch, followed by mass reprisals. When the Persians invaded Jerusalem, Jews welcomed Islam, which was much more tolerant of Jews. In Arab-dominated Southern Spain, Jews were welcome. In the year 1096 the first Crusade was organized, supposedly to "liberate" Jerusalem. On the way to Jerusalem, the crusaders murdered and pillaged in the name of the Cross. The massacres that followed reached a level never seen before, mainly in France and Germany where one-fourth to one-third of all Jews were slaughtered in less than six months, many burned inside synagogues.

Four centuries later, the Spanish Catholic kings kicked out the Arabs and the Church launched the Inquisition, which murdered thousands of Jews and Arabs. The Inquisition spread to the "New World", as Columbus and the Conquerors murdered millions of indigenous people and African slaves with the Church's blessing. Britain, Portugal, France, and later the U.S. took part in this mass murder, probably the biggest holocaust ever.

When scientific advances made many of the old feudal anti-Semitic beliefs outdated (for example, bad crops had been blamed on the "evil magic" of the Talmud), a new form of anti-Semitism developed, based more on physical features than religion. The Nazis transformed the old religious anti-Semitism into its new, more deadly form, mixing it with anti-communism and blaming Jews for the Bolshevik revolution. This led to the holocaust during World War II. While the Vatican kept silent and even helped the Third Reich, the communist-led Soviet Red Army smashed the Nazis murderers and their fascist allies.

The Vatican is still a pillar of capitalism and fascism all over the world.

STUDENT DENOUNCES SYSTEM, CALLS FOR ACTION AT MASS PROTEST

LOS ANGELES, CA, March 9 -- More than 1,000 students from the Evans adult school marched to the Board of Education offices to protest its plan to move students to another school to make room for the Belmont students. These students have no school after the banks, construction companies and Board of Ed. spent $100 million to build one that can't be used because it was built over a toxic dump. During the protest, one speaker said, "The bosses spend billions of dollars on their wars to protect markets and oil. They spent billions to build Twin Towers Prison, the city will spend $2 billion for the Rampart scandal, yet they don't have a single dollar to spare to build schools."

Some teachers furiously criticized the student speaker for attacking the police, stating the police had "protected" the march and that if the bosses want to spend lots of money on their wars, it's no business of ours. Other teachers and students defended the student, shouting that what the speaker said was true: "She said what a lot of us wanted to say."

A black worker hugged the student, saying, "What you said about the police is true. I have family members who have been attacked by the police. I really feel badly that some of the teachers have attacked you. Thanks for helping."

The truth is, the police were not there to protect the students, but to protect the School Board FROM the students. They built the useless Belmont school. Now they are using the adult students as guinea pigs to avoid building a good school for them.

Many students and teachers applauded when the speaker stressed the need to join together to demand the construction of a new school. Unlike the other speeches, limited to begging on bended knee, the student who created the firestorm sparked heated discussions about the true nature of the problem. What we say and do counts. Now we are inviting our classmates to come to the April 1 march on the Rampart police station and to march on May Day. When we are attacked by the enemy, it is because we are advancing.

LETTERS

CAPITALISM SOURCE OF WOMEN'S OPPRESSION

March 8 was International Women's Day. Here in the Dominican Republic each year more and more women are victims of domestic violence, many time at the hands of their spouses our boy friends. But this is just one form of violence women suffer under capitalism. As many more women sell their labor power as wage slaves in the free-trade zones and other workplaces, rotten working conditions maim thousands and kill many, sometimes little by little, but kill them anyway.

For example, chemicals poison many women who work in cigarette factories and warehouses. Horrendous working conditions in the free trade zones' garment shops are another cause of death.

Over 60% of the workforce in this Caribbean country are female; 35% of them are heads of households. Working hours run to 60 hours a week. Wages, although low for both genders, are even still lower for women. On top of that, many bosses make women pass pregnancy and infertility tests before hiring them.

Prostitution is another major form of exploitation, particularly in the tourist zones. Poverty forces thousands of Dominican women to travel to Europe and other countries to sell their bodies. Just a few weeks ago, a Spanish newspaper exposed a ring led by Spanish mobsters and a Dominican Army intelligence officer, that charges thousands to bars in Spain to smuggle young Dominican women into that country. The tourist zone hotels hire many women as temporary workers to do cleaning work. They are fired after three months, making them ineligible for benefits due permanent workers.

Women organized in the PLP know that only capitalism is capable of creating so much death and division among the working class. PLP plans to increase CHALLENGE circulation in the free trade zones, cigarette factories and hotels, and win more women and men workers to fight together to end this living hell of capitalism.

PLP Comrades, Dominican Republic

LA DINNER SPURS MAY DAY BUILDING

"Who wants tickets for the march?" asked a PLP member and many hands shot up as people said, "Give me five"; "I'll take ten"; and, "I think you should take 15." This was part of a pre-May Day dinner of workers who had braved a driving rain to attend.

There was a warm atmosphere of struggle, helped along by the PLP video, "Red Flag." This was followed by speeches about the history and importance of May Day and the need for building a new communist movement.

New members spoke about the impact of growing fascism in the U.S. One of these young workers recited a dramatic poem called "Bitter Truths," with revolutionary changes to the original. Others reported on the struggle at UNAM in Mexico, a coming demonstration in front of the LA Ramparts police station on April 1^st and the need to fight fascism every day and build the revolutionary movement to destroy it.

The inspiring speeches, the delicious food, and the personal discussions spurred the unity and struggle to build the May Day March on Saturday, April 29 in San Francisco.

LA Comrades

PROPOSITION 21 FOLLOWS NAZI MODEL

Last week I attended a forum on California's Proposition 21 here at the University of California's Davis campus and was inspired by the students' response to the call for action against this fascist attack on the working class. There were three speakers: an assistant to a California Assembly person, a former prison guard-turned-teacher, and a UC Davis student who had been in the custody of the California Youth Authority several times since age 14. As recently as three weeks ago, police in his hometown of Richmond had threatened him, apparently ready to plant stuff on him if he didn't cooperate with them.

The room was packed with black, Asian, white, Latino and Middle-Eastern students-every section of the working class. It was the most diverse crowd at any political event I've been to on this campus. The mood quickly moved towards expressions of anger as we listened to the speakers' experiences with the "injustice" system.

The best part was the dialogue created by the assemblyperson assistant. He gave a really well analyzed description of what this law meant for the working class. He made comparisons of this proposition to laws targeting Jews in Nazi Germany before things got really nasty. Some questioned his comments about fascism. Through those questions the speaker and the audience agreed that this was a move toward fascism. It really brought a feeling of solidarity to the forum.

Even people who favored the Proposition engaged in the kind of good debate that sharpened the distinction between the ruling class' desires and the well being of the working class. I distributed several copies of the new PLP pamphlet on fighting prison labor in the U.S. and made several contacts. A fellow student said, "I'm glad to see you guys are here and putting out these information packets!"

The most satisfying thing about this whole event was the unity of a diverse group of students, representing how the working class could be united against attacks on our fellow workers. There was a common goal, a common ideal and a common anger toward this attack on our class. This unity can be built, and from what I saw that night the task is not as hard to accomplish as it can seem to be.

In solidarity, A Comrade in Davis

WE NEED WORK GLOVES AND COMMUNISM!

A recent departmental meeting on my job had a couple of sharp exchanges between the workers and our head supervisor. He said, "I've been telling you guys for years that if you don't work hard, they're going to give our work away." An alert worker quickly responded, "Oh, so you're saying that if work real hard, you're going to hire more people?" "Well, of course not," he stammered in reply. "That's what we thought," the worker angrily pointed out.

Then this same supervisor passed an ugly ultimatum to us from the district head. If any one of us was seen wearing work gloves from the line department, they will be confiscated! Several people jumped on this. Only linemen are supposed to have them, but for a while we have also been able to get them out of the storeroom. We are wearing old ones that we found or saved, and a couple of beaten-up gloves were provided as evidence.

This glove issue really insulted us. You would think if the boss knew that we liked the gloves, and need them for our work, that he would make sure we all had them! But oh, no! We are thieves that had to be watched and threatened. This reminded me of an incident just before the Bolshevik Revolution where the workers in a factory demanded Ventilation and Socialism.

I have been getting more involved in the union over the past year, and I'm running for union office. I must distribute more CHALLENGES, and see more of my co-workers off the job. This will give me the opportunity to raise the Party's ideas. More to follow.

Red Gloves

Iranian Workers Reject Fascist Election Circus

Ten days after the election in Iran, the situation is still confused. Twelve million working class people did not even vote. Many groups, including the revolutionary communists, do not accept the "Islamic Republic of Iran." The Iranian working class must take power; this is the alternative to the election.

The liberal-fascist parties have split into two groups. One supports the religious-fascist mullahs (priests) and their leader Rafsanjdany, who is more nationalist and allied with Iranian capitalists. The other group is allied with the monopoly capitalists and wants closer ties with the imperialists from Europe and North America. They support more liberal cultural regulations but also support the fascist oppression of the working class.

This fascist circus must now come to an end! Iranian workers will destroy this system! We are not like the moderate pro-imperialist social-democrats and we are not like the "Euro-revisionists" who pretend to be Marxists! The only "election" we support is the revolutionary war to destroy the capitalist system and build a communist society! We are the only alternative to the liberals playing their games.

Long live communism! Power to the Workers! Fight alongside the PLP!

Iranian Comrade

DEFEAT KKK WITH MILITANT ACTION

A high school counselor in my town was recently arrested for assaulting a KKK member during a rally. This led to a lot of discussion in the high school and local newspaper. Both a newspaper editorial and an opinion piece by the head of the Board of Education attacked the counselor for "flying off at the handle" and setting a "bad example" for students. But many students supported this action, knowing the difference between uncontrolled rage and planned, militant, anti-racist action.

I wrote a letter to the newspaper, responding to their attacks on this anti-racist. I pointed out that sometimes violence is justifiable and necessary to combat racists. The history of anti-racist struggle is filled with effective, violent actions, including slave rebellions, the Civil War, World War II and more recent struggles.

Several people responded positively to this letter, including a teacher in my daughter's middle school and some of my fellow church members. However, my church minister said he never disagreed so strongly with one of his members. He offered to debate violent vs. non-violent methods in fighting racism. I agreed. This debate will open more people 's eyes to the nature of racism , the role of the government and newspapers in siding with the KKK against anti-racists; and the need for both violent and non-violent tactics in fighting racists.

Suburban Church Member

NOTE FROM A STEEL WORKER

Hello. How are you again? This is L., the one that works at Inland ISPAT Co. I want to thank you for sending me the revolutionary CHALLENGE newspaper. I read it, and share them with my co-workers. They look forward to getting them, and are involved in fighting for workers' rights. Please continue to send them. Send them more often. I thank you so much for being involved from your heart. Keep up the good work. I am very much involved! I look forward to much more.

Red Steel Worker

1. NEW YORK, LA:
   YOUTH SLAM RACIST COP TERROR
   1. RED-LED YOUTH WALKOUTS RIP RACIST COPS
      1. WINGATE HIGH SCHOOL
      2. MURROW HIGH SCHOOL
      3. JOHN JAY HIGH SCHOOL
      4. PAUL ROBESON HIGH SCHOOL
      5. ERASMUS HIGH-SCHOOL
      6. HUNTER COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL
      7. CLARA BARTON
   2. MORE WALKOUTS....and Over the Bridge
      1. TAKE AWAY COP'S BULLHORN
   3. `A COMMUNIST SPARK CAN START A REVOLUTIONARY FIRE...'
2. WELFARE, HOSPITAL WORKERS MARCH AGAINST KILLER KOPS
3. High School Students Become Communist Leaders
4. Students walk out against Proposition 21
5. COP MURDERS BELIE NY TIMES' SAN DIEGO `PARADISE'
6. PROP. 21: VOTING CAN'T DEFEAT LIBERALS' FASCISM
7. All Cops Are Like the Ramparts Thugs
8. POLICE KILL YOUTH TRYING TO STOP NOSE-BLEED
9. OPPOSE BOEING BRIBE TO SCAB
10. PHILLY HOSPITAL WORKERS BATTLE BENEFIT CUTBACK
11. ANTI-RACIST OUTRAGE AT B'KLYN HOSPITAL
12. DIALLO MURDER ECHOES IN OAKLAND TRANSIT FIGHT-BACK
13. WORKERS' UNITY ANSWER TO COP TERROR
14. OIL GLUT LEADS TO WAR
15. MEXICO: BOSSES `TEACH' ILLITERACY; WORKERS LEARN VIA CLASS STRUGGLE
16. SALVADORAN WORKERS WIELD MACHETES TO ROUT COPS
17. LETTERS
    1. To Re-Enlist or Not to Re-enlist?
    2. Diallo Verdict Inspires Anger and Action
    3. Attacking the KKK is an Example to Follow
    4. Capitalism Kills A Kent Coal Miner
    5. Struggle in the Classroom

---

NEW YORK, LA:
YOUTH SLAM RACIST COP TERROR

If you read the New York newspapers' lies, you might get the impression that the New York Civil Liberties Union led mainly white students from top high schools to walk out in protest of the Amadou Diallo verdict. In reality, PLP students from several working class schools organized and led an angry multi-racial protest of masses of students.

Students from Murrow, Wingate, Robeson, John Jay, Erasmus and other schools went into their classrooms and mass organizations on Monday with a plan for action. We were inspired by a weekend cadre school in February where we read Mao's "On Practice." During the week, we distributed stickers ("Who's next? Stop legal lynching") and flyers calling for a walkout. We got our teachers to discuss the case in class. We talked to everyone we knew and got friends to help plan.

By Friday, many of us had been attacked by our school administrators, which only increased the militancy of our friends. In every school hundreds of students gathered. Some were stopped by the NYPD, some walked out. Over 1,000 students made it to the demonstration in downtown Brooklyn. We struggled with liberal leadership from a few schools to keep the speeches and chants to the left, with the support of our friends.

The key to our success was the strength of the Party's communist politics. We worked not as individuals, but as part of a collective. We worked with the masses of youth at our schools, building strong ties with our friends for weeks and even years before the action. Walkout organizers drew on the experience of Party leadership, their own work and the experiences of other members of the Party collective.

Finally, it was the Party's correct estimate of the importance of the case and the political climate of the city that allowed us to move quickly when we needed to. At the end of the demonstration, one PLP student on the bullhorn called for the students to continue the walkouts. Names and numbers of the main organizers from each school were collected and plans are already being made for these students to meet to plan further actions. Many students from the walkouts came the next day to our demonstration in Flatbush.

RED-LED YOUTH WALKOUTS RIP RACIST COPS

LEARNING TO FIGHT

WINGATE HIGH SCHOOL

The school day began when a student got to the PA system and announced to the whole school, "You know what to do!" Hundreds of students rallied for almost two hours in front of Wingate. What began as a group of 20 students giving speeches about the racist Diallo verdict grew to about 300 as students left school and joined the protest. The hundreds who participated made a very important decision that day. Many were warned there would be serious consequences if they participated. But they stood their ground, even though administrators wanted them to either leave the school premises or stay inside. However, the numbers kept growing as students cheered everyone who crossed the street to join.

MURROW HIGH SCHOOL

Over 150 students gathered in the Music Hall at the time we planned to walk out. School security cops and the NYPD lined up to try to stop us. When they saw our numbers they switched tactics, saying they would let us leave if we agreed not to rally outside and go straight to the subway station. After discussion among the leaders, we agreed. We had spread the plans for the walkout to Stuyvesant and Beacon High Schools so we felt it was important to meet up with the other schools downtown.

As we flooded to the subway we grew in size. The cops opened the subway gates and sent us all off for free. By the time we joined the other schools downtown there were over 300 of us.

JOHN JAY HIGH SCHOOL

Our day started with an announcement from the principal reminding us that it was a regular school day. He "understood our concerns" but we should "make the right decision" and stay in school. At 10:00 A.M. it seemed like the whole school got up at once and left their classrooms. Hundreds of students started for the stairwells.

We quickly discovered that the principal and the NYPD had made the decision for us. Every exit and stairwell was blocked by cops. Some chased students back into classrooms. One cop told a student, "if you get up again I'm going to handcuff you to the desk". It was like a prison lockdown.

We felt really bad to miss the rally downtown and not to be able to join the other schools. But we discussed how important it is to see that what we did was a victory not a defeat.

PAUL ROBESON HIGH SCHOOL

As soon as we got to school that morning we started distributing flyers calling for the walkout, and announcing the time. Word spread and the students were really excited. When we started to leave, school security and cops were there but it seemed they couldn't decide what to do. We just kept marching out. Over 350 left with us.

When we got to the subway the cops opened the gates for us but we soon realized it was a plot to stop us. They let us onto the subway platform but then the train ran through the station without stopping. Most of us were stuck there for quite awhile. Some students who were arriving and saw what was happening went back upstairs and got on the bus. So even though it wasn't a big number Robeson made it downtown! We were glad to join the other schools and had a great day.

ERASMUS HIGH-SCHOOL

Several of us took leaflets into school in our backpacks that morning announcing the exact time of the walkout. So even though one student had literature confiscated others were able to get it out. There was a lot of excitement but also some uncertainty about whether we could actually have a walkout.

When the time came there was a dedicated core of leaders who marched out even though very few students followed us. We felt determined to meet up with our comrades downtown and knew it was right to go no matter how small the group. We felt it was no time to back down when we had been struggling all week with other students to come through and participate. When we made it downtown we were thrilled to see 40 other Erasmus students had joined us! We felt part of a much larger movement.

HUNTER COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL

One hundred and twenty students along with eight faculty members, marched from Hunter College H.S. at 94^th St. and Park Ave. to 59^th St. and 5^th Ave., where an hour-long rally was held protested the acquittal of four cops in the killing of Amadou Diallo. Students had organized for this event all week, holding daily discussions in the schoolyard, putting up posters in the hallways, distributing leaflets in front of the school and signing up students in their classes to march. They also obtained a police permit themselves, made up chant sheets and prepared speeches.

Everyone was thrilled by the turnout and the enthusiasm of our group of black, Asian, Latino, and white students and faculty as we marched down 5^th Avenue chanting, "They say `Let Em Go,' We Say Hell No!" At the rally, students gave impassioned speeches denouncing the racist brutality of NYC cops.

The large turnout for this march is partly the result of two years of political activity in the school, including forums and film showings on prison labor, sweatshops, and the racist criminal justice system. This week one organizer is distributing copies of PLP's Prison Labor pamphlet to the marchers.

CLARA BARTON

The Diallo trial had started many discussions and some activity. Before the verdict many students and a few teachers wore black armbands. The not guilty verdict surprised many and inspired lots of anger. The Student Security Council planned to extend the idea of wearing armbands and also decided to write some letters. The March 3^rd walkouts sparked renewed activity at our school. A walkout flyer appeared Monday morning (March 6) calling for a walkout Wednesday (March 8) after period #7. Many students and some teachers really liked this idea. Talk about the walkout spread everywhere. Everyone had to decide what to do. Students were going to make some history, instead of just reading about it. [As we can see below, they did it! --Ed.]

MORE WALKOUTS....and Over the Bridge

FLASH: BROOKLYN, NY, March 8 -- Continuing last Friday's actions, hundreds of students walked out of Brooklyn Tech, Clara Barton, Science Skills and Prospect Heights High Schools to rally at Fulton Mall in downtown Brooklyn, protesting the freeing of Diallo's killers. The demonstration was organized and led by students.

The cops responded with a massive presence and attempted to divide them into small groups. But students persevered, chanting and rallying. In outmaneuvering the cops, over 100 students marched over the Brooklyn Bridge to have another rally in City Hall.

TAKE AWAY COP'S BULLHORN

A "student" at the Fulton Mall began speaking over a bullhorn, trying to pacify the demonstrators. But that exposed her as a plainclothes cop, shut her up and grabbed the bullhorn. When a black cop approached some black students and began spewing his bosses' divisive nationalist ideas, the black students grouped with white fellow students told him off, saying "we're all together."

PLP members and friends distributed 150 CHALLENGES and hundreds of leaflets. Some students said it was great and will be even better next time.

`A COMMUNIST SPARK CAN START A REVOLUTIONARY FIRE...'

Everything Progressive Labor Party does to carry out our ideas has both immediate and long-range consequences. Everything done by the Party counts. Our recent efforts around racist police terror in New York provide a valuable case in point.

When the mock trial of Amadou Diallo's murderers began, the Party leadership called on every club to make plans for responding to the verdict. When the verdict was announced the Party was able to take action on a number of fronts. Of course, we raised our ideas in demonstrations called by various liberal misleaders. We were also able to stimulate small but significant actions on our own. We led student walkouts in a number of high schools. We raised our ideas about the police on the job. We organized a work stoppage at a welfare center to discuss the verdict and then led welfare and hospital workers in a lunch-hour march and rally in downtown Brooklyn. We led an action at the Rutgers U. headquarters of community policing guru Kelling and raised the issue on other campuses, in the community and in several mass movements.

Each of these activities by themselves or all of them together didn't give us the leverage to alter the relationship of forces. But what we did around the Diallo murder has tremendous importance nonetheless. Without us the ruling class would have been in total control of the situation. The mass anger would have had no outlet other than impotent spontaneity or self-destructive tailing after the Sharpton gang: either aimless, apolitical rage or else the dead-end of the "justice" system and electoral politics.

Only PLP offered a real alternative. Only PLP exposed the class role of the cops and the liberal fascists. Only PLP pointed toward the working class as the key force to mobilize. Only PLP singled out capitalism as the enemy. The bosses' media can lie to make it appear as though liberal lawyers provided the key political leadership for the hundreds of high school students who marched against police terror over the Brooklyn Bridge on March 3. But the students from Wingate, LaGuardia, Murrow, Stuyvesant and Beacon high schools know better. And we see them every day.

Currently, PLP's influence over important events remains limited. The international working class is still recovering from the collapse of the old communist movement, the worst defeat in our history. The road leading to favorable conditions for revolution and the seizure of power will be long and difficult. So in one important sense, you could say we're building for the future. But the future will be determined by the actions and struggles of the present.

What we did around the Diallo case creates the potential to do much more in the future. Thousands witnessed and applauded these actions. Workers and others are influenced through our actions and our press. The potential exists to sharpen the struggle against police terror, to increase our participation in the mass movement, to build a bigger May Day, and most importantly, to win new PLP recruits. In the words of the Party leader who organized the walkout from his welfare center: "Before this, we were planning to fill one bus for May Day. Nothing's in the bag, but I think we can now double that."

How would the political landscape have appeared around the Diallo case if there were no PLP or if we hadn't functioned? The same could be said about our presence and activity everywhere throughout our history. Imagine the anti-Vietnam war upsurge and the ghetto rebellions 35 years ago without PLP. We were decisive in setting back the fascist anti-busing movement in Boston during the mid-1970s. The rising KKK in the 1970s and 1980s publicly stated PLP was its fiercest opponent. Our mass fight against racist attacks by the Migra in California in the same years still continues. At last October's KKK rally in New York, only PLP smashed the fascists and exposed their alliance with the police and the liberal bosses. Imagine the L.A. rebellion of 1992, the Gulf War and the Kosovo war, the Clinton impeachment circus, or the WTO conference in Seattle without our Party and its press helping workers make sense of a world that often seems incoherent, absurd or hopeless? Who else will keep the flame of communism alive and pick up the red flag that was thrown in the mud and hoist it high under any and all conditions?

We live in a difficult, grim period. It won't last forever. We don't deny the reality of objective conditions. But we can still act to build the Party and sharpen the struggle. Everything we do now, no matter how apparently insignificant, creates the potential to do more and eventually to turn the character of the period into its opposite. At the height of revolutionary struggle in China, the communist leader Mao Zedong wrote a pamphlet entitled: "A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire." Our prairie fire may take some time to erupt. But we have to keep setting as many sparks as we can. Our struggles will set the stage for eventual victory.

These are the main lessons our Party and friends can draw from our important, positive activity around the Diallo murder case. This is the spirit in which we should organize for May Day 2000. Communists fight for a glorious future. But the future is now as well.

WELFARE, HOSPITAL WORKERS MARCH AGAINST KILLER KOPS

BROOKLYN, NY, March 2 -- Approximately 75 workers participated in a march through the downtown Brooklyn shopping area protesting the acquittal of cops Murphy, Carroll, Boss and McMellon for the murder of Amadou Diallo. About one-third of the marchers came from a child support (welfare) office where the demonstration had initially been planned during a work-stoppage earlier this week.

As the welfare workers began the march, they were joined by workers from a nearby Brooklyn hospital. We chanted, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, racist cops have got to go! Racism means...fight back! Amadou means...fight back!" While we counted out the 41 shots by which these racist butchers had murdered this unarmed and totally innocent young African immigrant worker, hundreds of shoppers and workers on their lunch-hour greeted us with tremendous enthusiasm.

"That was great, what are we going to do next?" was the reaction of more than a few of the workers who took part. A PLP organizer suggested marching in PLP's May Day demonstration. Several workers who had never been to PLP's May Day said they would march this year.

Clearly, our response to the Diallo verdict has borne fruit, counteracting passivity and pessimism. Members of two AFSCME unions built this march together with per-diem office temps and Workfare workers. This active response to a racist outrage builds confidence in, and the potential for, working-class unity. This increased class struggle can become a school for communism.

High School Students Become Communist Leaders

NEW YORK CITY, March 6 -- Progressive Labor Party has been developing a better understanding of the role of schools under capitalism and the role of communists in those schools. As a result we developed a slogan: "Learn To Fight, Fight To Learn." This reflects the dual tasks of learning to lead day-to-day struggles against the current fascist character of schools while struggling to understand the importance of teaching and learning within those same capitalist schools. It's complicated.

The wave of walkouts from NY and NJ high schools last week (see accompanying articles) reflect these ideas and our efforts to understand them and put them into practice. An important event before the walkouts was a Youth Cadre School/Camping Trip the weekend of February 12^th. Organizing for it was an important part of our activities for several months before that. We struggled with youth and teachers to see the need for political study. We also organized the weekend as an experience of life under communism where we all share responsibilities and fun.

Fifty students and more than a dozen teachers and parents met to read and study Mao's "On Practice." This important piece of communist literature emphasizes that practice, doing and acting in the real world, is primary--the groundwork for real learning--and that theory--which is organizing our practice into a comprehensive understanding of the laws of the real world--can only grow as our practice grows. The workshops that studied this document were remarkable. We also saw how learning is a collective process that succeeds best when everyone participates.

During the Weekend Cadre School we discussed the Diallo case and the upcoming verdict. We understood we had to prepare to lead struggles at our schools when the bosses finally release their verdict (which we also understood would not provide justice for a black worker).

Ten people joined the Party that weekend. Those ten, and the many others who attended, were the main organizers of the walkouts in their high schools. Every step of the process to plan, organize and carry out the events of this past week were aspects of "the practice" they had discussed just three weeks before.

As others see the fruits of this process, the exhilarating news of mass walkouts organized and led by our Party, it is important to understand the steps that helped bring it about. We are truly "Learning to fight, fighting to learn"!

Students walk out against Proposition 21

LOS ANGELES, March 3 -- Students at George Washington Prep H.S. walked out against Proposition 21. "It was great," said one student at the walkout. Students felt strong, finding themselves fighting for what they believe in.

Today, there are more teenagers being imprisoned for minor crimes, more young people involved in what the rulers call "gang-related" situations--but why? Because of the "big plan" thrown at us by racists who run this whole system of inequality. We're under attack from those who deny us our "rights." Prop 21 was recently put down on paper to allow racism and a corrupt system to continue growing around our community. This is where we come in.

The march circled the school campus and went down three main streets. Students felt good. We need people to start standing up for what they believe in and showing that they care, that they don't want to live frustrated and beaten by the system that is forced upon them. They need to show these people who are controlling them that they can take control in a fight for a better world.

Some people got intimidated by Asst. Principal Jones. He threatened to suspend and expel the students involved. He also threatened to give students $1,000 "tickets" for participating in the walkout. He was screaming on his bullhorn that the communists were using us because we were easily brainwashed and didn't really know the issues involved in Prop 21.

But we all really knew exactly what we were doing and why we were there. Jones went back inside after two people told him he didn't know what he was talking about and was supporting fascism. The police followed us through the walkout as if we were criminals. A lot of people supported us by honking their horns. None of us were suspended or expelled.

COP MURDERS BELIE NY TIMES' SAN DIEGO `PARADISE'

SAN DIEGO. March 7 -- In the wake of the police murders in New York and the scandals in Los Angeles, the ruling class is looking for strategies to deal with workers' hatred of the cops. A New York Times article (March 4) outlined one of their ideas for "enhancing public confidence in the agencies of justice." It praised the "less confrontational law enforcement measures" supposedly practiced in Boston and San Diego. It particularly praised the strategy of "consulting with black ministers to win their cooperation."

That the San Diego cops are "less confrontational" would come as a big surprise to the families and friends of those murdered here by the cops. A few recent cases:

* Demetrious DuBose, a former Notre Dame and NFL football player, was shot to death by two San Diego cops on a sidewalk in Mission Beach, July 24, 1999. Mr. DuBose, unarmed, was shot 12 times, five times in the back.

* Federico Adame, III, 27, died on Nov. 10, 1999 after being

beaten, kicked, maced and batoned by five San Diego County Sheriffs. Adame had refused to leave a yard party.

* On February 8, William Anthony Miller, Jr., a 42-year-old mentally ill homeless man, reportedly hit someone with a thin tree branch. Five cops and a police dog were "unable" to handle one guy with a stick, so they killed him with seven shots.

* Sonserra Holloway, 20, was murdered February 3 by a Border Patrol agent working with the San Diego Police. Holloway had been arrested on a drug charge and was handcuffed in a police cruiser. Police said she "tried to escape."

There have been many protests about these and others recently killed by police. The protests illustrate, however, the other part of the Times' strategy: getting black ministers either to say the shootings were justified, or to say "it's just a few bad cops." After the District Attorney said the DuBose killing was justified, City Councilman George Stevens, a prominent black minister, endorsed his statement. He did say, however, that the cops should not have shot DuBose so many times! (Kill him quicker?)

Other black ministers and businessmen had already started a group to protest the Dubose shooting. They were not allowed to say that the murdering cops should go to jail, although most wanted to say so. The ministers, the main speakers at the group's one large demonstration, did not say it was wrong to kill Dubose. Instead they concentrated on soothing peoples' anger and preventing a militant demonstration like one in nearby Riverside, where cops murdered a young black woman, Tyisha Miller. Meanwhile, activists formed the Committee Against Police Brutality, which organized protests about the above cases.

Experience in San Diego shows clearly what the bosses want from making junior partners of black ministers: criticize the cops just enough to make it sound like a movement against the police. In reality they will take the line that only a few cops or a few police policies are bad, adding that the federal cops or the Department of Justice are the good guys who can prosecute the "few bad cops." That's Al Sharpton's line in New York. In San Diego the marshals at the DuBose demonstration were actually "trained" by Department of Justice officials.

The stakes are big. U. S capitalists, worried about workers' increasing lack of confidence in the cops, need the ministers to push the idea that the "the Feds are good." The bosses must mold a U. S. population that would support the next oil war. They can't stomach workers and soldiers, especially black and Latin, looking at the system with hatred or cynicism.

Our job is to help people understand that intimidation, brutality and murder is the cops' main job in capitalist society, federal or local. The capitalists can't rule without them, so they call in the ministers to cover their crimes.

PROP. 21: VOTING CAN'T DEFEAT LIBERALS' FASCISM

LOS ANGELES, March 7 -- Youth in and around PLP led a walkout at Washington H.S. against Proposition 21, the murderous Ramparts cops and the Diallo verdict. They did this in the face of threats of suspension and red baiting. (SEE ARTICLE PAGE 3) The liberals told the youth not to walk out, but to urge people to vote against Prop 21. PLP members have participated in the anti-Prop 21 marches and rallies led by the liberals. We have sold many copies of the new PLP prison labor pamphlet. Our ideas have been welcomed at these activities.

Prop 21 is a dangerous fascist measure, which will increase the number of youth in prison. California already has more prisoners than Britain, France, Germany, Holland and Japan combined, and they have eleven times the population of California! One of the main reasons the rulers launched the Prop 21 campaign was to spread the racist lie among millions of adult voters, that youth, especially all black and Latin youth, are in violent gangs and threaten public safety in California. Yet it's the police who have fomented gang warfare. Then time and again they have targeted honest black and now Latino residents who have worked to end gang fighting, and provide alternatives for youth.

The Ramparts cops physically attacked, arrested and deported those who were bringing small numbers of different gang members together. Prop 21 scapegoats youth and increasingly targets black and Latin youth for prison, making it a crime for three or more "suspected" gang members to even walk together.

But just as dangerous is the liberal leadership and line of the anti-Prop 21 movement. They refuse to mention the Ramparts police scandal, the Diallo case or the Three Strikes law in their activities. Of course they don't point to the source of all this racism-the capitalist system and its crisis. They attack PLP for saying this and try to prevent us from speaking. They push a fantasy world: defeat Prop 21 and then we can all go to college, get good jobs and be part of the "American dream."

They don't want the youth to know about the two million people in prison; about the racist injustice system, beginning with the Federal government; about the bosses planning a ground war in Iraq with some "humanitarian" pretext to fight for Exxon's oil profits.

They welcome the Federal "clean-up" of the LAPD. We've shown that the Feds want cosmetic changes and more Al Sharptons in LA to mislead workers into trusting reform, the Federal government and community policing. It was Clinton who financed the addition of 100,000 more killer cops on the streets.

These fascist propositions appear to be enacted through the "democratic process." This is a hoax. Several years ago Prop 103-to lower insurance rates-was passed as a reform measure. It was never implemented because the insurance companies took it to court where the bosses' judges ruled in their favor. Whatever the vote, Prop 21 will be implemented if the rulers decide it will help build terror and also get more youth, especially imprisoned black and Latin youth into the army. If not, they'll rule parts of Prop 21 illegal.

Many honest activists fighting Prop. 21 know the problem goes beyond what the liberals say. Our fight has to grow and deepen. No reform will stop fascism. PLP invites them to March on May Day to help build the movement that will win the working class to crush fascism with communist revolution.

All Cops Are Like the Ramparts Thugs

As one speaker pointed out at the March 4^th rally, all cops are like the Ramparts division. They are the ones who framed, beat and sometimes murdered an untold number of innocent youth and workers while stealing and dealing in drugs themselves. The latest revelation is that DA Gil Garcetti knew that Rafael Perez, the Ramparts cop who stole and sold cocaine, was crooked when Garcetti accepted his testimony and put Mr. Olvando in jail for years. The real criminals are Garcetti, Riorden, Parks, the LAPD, the FBI and the INS.

Part of the fight against Prop 21 is to win workers and students to march on the Ramparts police station Sat., April 1^st, to expose Ramparts, all the cops, the DA, the Police Chief and Mayor Riorden as racist defenders of police terror and prison slave labor. {They all worked together to frame, jail, and deport community members who were trying to bring about gang truces.} We urge unions and student groups to take up this fight with mass actions, walkouts and strikes, rather than trust the liberals to "reform" the cops.

POLICE KILL YOUTH TRYING TO STOP NOSE-BLEED

MONTEBELLO, CA, March 7 -- On February 12, the racist Police Department here executed 20 year-old Jason Rodriguez like an animal. Jason had entered a 7-11 to use the bathroom to stop a bleeding nose. The clerk refused the request and pressed the silent alarm summoning the cops. Jason walked out to explain to the cop what was happening. Before he could utter a word, without any warning, a female cop fired a shotgun into his head.

The cops then kept his ID, stripped him naked and turned over the still breathing but brain-dead body to St. Francis Medical Center, about 20 miles away. They told the staff Jason was "homeless." Doctors questioned this, saying, "He looks like a well-nourished, clean-cut young man who must have a family." For five days the staff called the Montebello cops for Jason's ID. The cops said they couldn't locate the family and insisted he be taken off the life-support machine! Five days later, Jason was located by friends who in turn notified his parents.

They came to the hospital, asked that their brain-dead son be taken off life support, and then buried him.

Jason had lots of friends who loved him and cared for him. He had recently taken up boxing, which was why his nose bled unexpectedly. His friends and family organized a demonstration at the Montebello Police Station and are planning another one this Saturday (March 11) at noon to demand the cops be tried for murder.

LA Times' exposés of the cops are not making a dent in police terror. As the Diallo verdict in New York showed, there is no justice for workers under capitalism. Justice will come only when we bury these murderers, the rich they serve and this rotten, racist capitalist system with communist revolution.

OPPOSE BOEING BRIBE TO SCAB

SEATTLE, March 6 -- Today the Boeing Company--after declaring an impasse in negotiations--unilaterally put into effect the salaries of their last contract offer. They did not implement other conditions they were demanding, like the medical cutbacks. In essence Boeing is trying to bribe those who would get the bigger wage increases into scabbing.

This "bribe to scab" not only incensed SPEEA (engineers) members, who came out in force to picket on Monday morning, but also many blue-collar IAM (machinists) members as well. We're now organizing to demand the IAM give more than token support.

Meanwhile, the SPEEA leadership continues to gamble on "friends" in high places, like Gore and Sweeney. ALF-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Trumka is scheduled to speak March 7^th. But it is precisely these "friends" who are beholden to the Boeing Board. For example, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney dutifully signed a letter, along with Boeing Director Lewis Platt, supporting "U.S. objectives" at the recent WTO fiasco. They both served on Clinton's Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. With friends like this who needs enemies!

Our real friends are the workers of the world. Join us this May Day to show and build real workers' power!

PHILLY HOSPITAL WORKERS BATTLE BENEFIT CUTBACK

PHILADELPHIA, March 3 - Many workers at Jefferson hospital here are asking, "Could there be a change in the air?"

In February the contract for 100 maintenance workers in the Teamsters expired. To the surprise of the bosses, the contract was overwhelmingly rejected. The bosses' demanded that the Teamsters nearly triple their payments to their health plan, from $260/yr to $676/yr. This pushed many Teamster members over the edge. They are continuing to work under their old contract, but many are hoping to time their strike to the June 30^th expiration of the 1,100 members of Local 1199C.

At a recent 1199C membership meeting the mood of was also surprising. Again the union leadership is not allowing the union delegates enough time to develop a larger turnout. Yet many workers who did attend declared they would rather strike than pay anything toward their health benefits. (Presently 1199C members are the only workers in the hospital who pay nothing toward their health benefits. The bosses say they won't even begin contract negotiations until the union agrees that the workers begin paying $10.00 weekly toward their benefits.

The workers' reaction is mixed. At the union meetings it was the veteran workers who were the vocal militants. They remember the days before the union, and several workers gave impassioned speeches calling on everyone to refuse to give anything back or to pay for their health benefits. But a larger group of workers doesn't see how we can fight and win, "when everyone else is paying for their health benefits."

PLP members have been meeting with groups of 1199C members to build a strike movement. We're proposing we strike around two main issues: (1) more full-time jobs to improve patient care; and, (2) pay nothing toward our health benefits.

We are meeting with several groups of part-timers to develop a rank-and-file collective to lead a fight for jobs. Many of these workers are eager to try to build some kind of fight. "A lot of us are scared, or out for ourselves or kiss up to the supervisor for extra work hours," she reported, but she's willing to contribute to the organizing.

At another meeting a full-time worker declared, "You know, even if we do win a fight for jobs, Jefferson's gonna come back at us to take some stuff back". "You're right", replied a PLP member, "That's why we need communist revolution!" Later those same two workers were discussing how long PLP has been organizing for that goal. "The fight for communism is gonna be a long hard fight," said the PLP'er. "Yeah," said the worker, "but if they keep cutting jobs and do more things like when the cops killed that guy in New York, you can see how it might happen."

ANTI-RACIST OUTRAGE AT B'KLYN HOSPITAL

BROOKLYN, NY, March 3 -- A large block of workers met at a Brooklyn hospital during their dinner break to discuss the trial of the four cops who were acquitted of murdering Amadou Diallo last year . Several joined the March 2 protest rally and march of AFSCME welfare workers in downtown Brooklyn.

Many workers were outraged at the verdict. Workers felt the trial should have been in the Bronx, with jurors coming from the community, and thought the prosecutors made a weak case. They felt the issue of racism should have been the main point. Four white cops would not have fired 41 shots at a white man standing in front of his building.

Another worker said these remarks may be true but the fact is under the capitalist system the four cops would never get the death penalty they deserve. Still another worker pointed out that cops of any nationality are the armed servants of the bosses' state, the chief instruments of the bosses' state power. Their job is to keep the working class in submission whenever workers are fighting back. The cops terrorize black and Hispanic working-class communities , frame and arrest thousands, overcrowding the prisons with our brothers and sisters.

Capitalism's greatest crime is the exploitation of workers as wage slaves. This creates billionaires on the backs of the working class . Our anger must help build an army of workers to fight back against racist police terror.

Many CHALLENGES were distributed after the meeting. Many workers said they wanted to participate in the May Day march in Washington, D.C., May 6.

DIALLO MURDER ECHOES IN OAKLAND TRANSIT FIGHT-BACK

OAKLAND, CA., March 6 -- Enraged by the acquittal of the four racist NYC cops who murdered Amadou Diallo, over 100 AC transit workers are now wearing "Justice 4 Diallo" ribbons on their uniforms.

"The Amadou Diallo case? Yes, I'm mad. I'm still mad at the Tyisha Miller case!" this single mother of four said as she pinned the "Justice 4 Diallo" black ribbon to her uniform.

"It was last February that the cops killed Amadou," said another driver. "And this February they acquitted his murderers. This is how they celebrate Black History Month?"

Forty-one "democratic" bullets fired at the unarmed immigrant worker; 21 at Tyisha and 37 at Ricardo Close, a Southern California truck mechanic whose murder by the cops had also been condemned by ATU Local 192 members.

At the morning union meeting workers voted unanimously to: (1) send a letter of condolence to the family condemning the acquittal; (2) support the charges that the cops violated Diallo's civil rights; and (3) organize a day of protest against racist cop killings.

We hope to bring this struggle to other unions and community groups. " We have to take a stand!" said one of the activist drivers, a father of a large family, all of them threatened by this climate of police terror. Up and down the West Coast, LA transit workers, students and Boeing workers in Seattle are wearing similar ribbons.

The reception to these efforts shows an enthusiasm for political action. Another parent echoed the feelings of almost all the members: "I'm afraid every time I leave my house. I tell my kids to always keep their hands up when stopped by a cop and to tell the cops in advance where their ID is." This is everyday life in world's leading capitalist country. Everybody agrees that the predominantly black and Latin communities are becoming more of a police state, victims of rampant racism.

This has led to some deep political discussions. Some workers think not all cops are racist and that these killings could stop if more cops had "better attitudes." They hope the federal government will help. But it was the Clinton administration that put 100,000 more cops on the street and coordinated programs like the Street Crimes Unit.

Another driver said that racist cop units like NYC's are connected with the needs of the capitalist class for more racist slave labor in prison. He feels there's an effort to "criminalize everything" to jail more people. He said more black and Latin cops will not help.

We are struggling with such workers to understand that only a revolution will stop racist killings. Some argue revolution will not be necessary--"the Federal Courts will correct the verdict." We argue US imperialism has always spoken with a "forked tongue!" The Bush-Clinton "Federal government" has killed millions in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and scored of other countries.

Thirteen months ago 41 fascist bullets were fired. The sound of those shots is still echoing all around the country in the political anger that is sparking a response. Winning more workers to read and distribute CHALLENGE and to march on May Day are the next steps in this direction.

WORKERS' UNITY ANSWER TO COP TERROR

CHICAGO, March 7 -- "We are all at risk. The lives of black and Latin people are worth nothing in this country. That's how they got away with murdering my son. That's the lesson of the Diallo `not guilty' verdict. And if the cops can get away with murder just because they `feel threatened,' then white people are in danger too." So declared Vera Love, a retired postal worker whose son Robert Russ was murdered this past June by a Chicago cop. He was two weeks away from graduating Northwestern University. The cop received a 15-day suspension.

This was the high point of the March 1 forum on Racism and Social Policy at Chicago State University (CSU). Initiated by PLP and sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the forum involved dozens in the planning and presentations to the nearly 700 students, faculty and staff who participated. This could lead to a growing anti-racist movement here, and a large CSU contingent marching on May Day.

Following Vera's presentation, a black woman cop, like the one who killed Latanya Haggerty last June ("mistaking" her cell phone for a gun), said, "We're not all like that," and told how "dangerous" it is to be a cop. Vera and her daughter Brandy would have none of it. The audience was outraged. A CSU student in PLP told of her experience last May Day as a bus captain and marcher. She urged everyone to march this May Day, and to organize a CSU protest rally against police racism.

Another young comrade said, "I don't identify myself as a `black man.' I'm more than that. I'm a revolutionary communist in PLP. Since getting involved in the movement, I'm not afraid anymore." Then he looked the cop in the eye and said, "I'm not afraid of you!"

A white postal worker, who met Vera and organized support in his union for her when Robert was killed, took the floor and asked the young black students, "What would happen if the next time the cops kill someone, thousands of workers walked off their jobs?" The students burst into applause. He and Vera hugged as he invited her to speak at his next union meeting. This showed the potential power of a united working class and dealt a blow to the black nationalist undercurrent in the auditorium.

The all-day forum included sessions on "Zero Tolerance" in the schools, the federal "Violence Initiative" and the fascist Levitt-Donohue report linking the drop in crime to increased abortions and "fewer criminals being born."

The sharpest debate occurred in the panel discussing a program offering $200 to crack addicts to be sterilized. Two speakers from the Black Student Union bought into the myth of the "crack baby," and used the increased enrollment in "Special Ed." classes as proof. They said that "crack sterilization" was part of genocide aimed at the "Black Race," and called on black people to drive the drug dealers out of "our" community. Others argued that all workers need to unite against racism.

The debate continued the next day in a class on race and society. Finally one student said that now was the time for action. Another student proposed a plan to petition the CSU President, demanding cancellation of classes for a day in order to go to City Hall to protest police racism. Another proposed a protest against CSU's failure to come up with financial aid. A student spoke of how her uncle had been unjustly imprisoned for 20 years on a police frame-up. Then most of the class exchanged phone numbers to work on the City Hall plan.

On March 4, about 25 students attended a May Day Dinner, enjoying good food, sharp discussion and the May Day video. Fifteen students left with books of May Day bus tickets in hand. We must link the struggle against police terror to the need to smash capitalism, which creates and protects racist cops. The road ahead is difficult but full of promise. Communist revolution will end the brutalities of capitalism.

LOS ANGELES -- "Who wants tickets for the march?" asked a PLP member and many hands shot up as people said, "Give me five"; "I'll take ten"; and, "I think you should take 15." This was part of a pre-May Day dinner of workers who had braved a driving rain to attend.

There was a warm atmosphere of struggle, helped along by the PLP video, "Red Flag." This was followed by speeches about the history and importance of May Day and the need for building a new communist movement.

New members spoke about the impact of growing fascism in the U.S. One of these young workers recited a dramatic poem called "Bitter Truths," with revolutionary changes to the original. Others reported on the struggle at UNAM in Mexico, a coming demonstration in front of the LA Ramparts police station on April 1^st and the need to fight fascism everyday and build the revolutionary movement to destroy it.

The inspiring speeches, the delicious food, and the personal discussions spurred the unity and struggle to build the May Day March on Saturday, April 29^th in San Francisco.

OIL GLUT LEADS TO WAR

"Contrary to much received wisdom, the energy problem looming in the early 21^st century is neither skyrocketing prices nor shortages that heralds the beginning of the end of the oil age. Instead, the danger is precisely the opposite; long-term trends point to a prolonged oil surplus and low oil prices over the next two decades." (Amy Jaffe of the James A. Baker Institute and Robert Manning of the Council on Foreign Relations in Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000)

Advances in exploration and drilling techniques have led to a sevenfold increase in the amount of producible crude. In 1972, analysts thought only 550 billion barrels lay under ground. But today, "the International Energy Agency says that there are 2.3 trillion barrels in ultimate recoverable reserves." (Foreign Affairs)

Oil industry insiders assume that prices will fall dramatically. Contracts for oil to be delivered in January 2001 are trading at $24 a barrel, well below the current $32 price tag. Later contracts dip to $19. Thierry Desmarest, president of French oil giant TotalFina Elf, said, "We invest only in projects that will be profitable with oil at $13 a barrel and break even at $10." (La Tribune, 2/16/00)

Overcapacity and the need to maximize profits force oil companies to compete for the cheapest sources. A barrel of North American oil costs as much as $5 to pump from the ground. Russian production costs run about $2. But "crude oil in Saudi Arabia costs no more than 50 cents a barrel to produce, sometimes as little as 20 cents." (Reuters, 11/26/99) Similar conditions prevail in Iraq.

The rush for cheap oil rivets the imperialists' attention on the Middle East. "Persian Gulf oil's share of the current world market, now at 24%, will rise to 32% by 2010." (Foreign Affairs)

The key question is: who will control these super-profits? The Rockefeller oil companies are trying to cut deals with Saudi and Kuwaiti rulers for greater access to their 20-cent-a barrel bonanza. Rockefeller's competitors--French, Russian, and Chinese oil barons--have contracts to double Iraqi production.

Whoever controls oil supplies controls the industrial world and the profits resulting from it. Ultimately, competing imperialists have only one way to solve this fight between each other--war. That was the reason for the Gulf War and for the continual U.S. bombing of, and sanctions against, Iraq (to limit Iraqi oil exports until the U.S. can launch a ground war to control them.)

Only the destruction of capitalism by communist revolution can end these oil wars which kill millions of workers.

MEXICO: BOSSES `TEACH' ILLITERACY; WORKERS LEARN VIA CLASS STRUGGLE

OAXACA, Mexico, March 6 -- Last month members of the teachers union in the Televised Learning High Schools met here to discuss the fight to improve their living and working conditions and a strategy for "better education" for the outlying, poorest communities in the state of Oaxaca.

The televised learning high school is an education practice through which the PRI government has cut costs in secondary education, especially among the poorest students, since the majority of schools using televised instruction only have three teachers. On the other hand, the lack of teachers and materials in these schools shows how little the poor and oppressed count for the rulers. For the bosses, even a low-quality education is spending too much on the indigenous people.

In the state of Oaxaca, more than 60% of the people over 15 years old can't read or write. This figure increases annually. As if this weren't bad enough, the Zedillo government has announced a $120 million cutback in this year's education budget. This racist and unjust capitalist education system only benefits a small rich group while deepening the poverty and illiteracy of the great majority. This month we have begun to carry out the conference's plan of actions to fight for our demands.

Despite the teachers' militancy and dedication to the struggle, this movement lacks class consciousness and a revolutionary communist perspective. Its reformist view creates many illusions among the workers. It approves and legitimizes racist and divisive policies like the Teaching Career, which only benefit a minority, instead of fighting to improve the living conditions of all workers. The most blatant sellouts use the movement as a trampoline to leap into government positions, or to become deputies or senators of the various ruling class parties. Corruption is spreading. The mis-leaders betray the workers by making deals with the government and isolating the movement from other popular struggles, like the UNAM strike, the class war in Mexe, Hidalgo, among the miners of Canenea, etc. PLP participates in this struggle while presenting communism to the workers and students as the solution to the problems created by capitalism.

We distributed over 80 CHALLENGES at this conference. Several workers were very interested in our Party. We try to make it clear to the workers that our oppressed and exploited class will only get true education and a life of dignity when we take power and build communism. That's our goal. Join us!

SALVADORAN WORKERS WIELD MACHETES TO ROUT COPS

SAN SALVADOR, March 6 -- Machete-wielding farmworkers and city workers with rocks and sticks routed strike-breaking police here, forcing them to flee the scene of their crimes, while striking workers and doctors closed the western entrance to the capital. The workers' counter-attack was a reaction to an assault by the fascist National Civil Police on striking workers and doctors from the Medical Surgery Hospital and the Social Security Rosales Hospital.

The cowardly cops had no qualms about shooting tear gas grenades and bullets at defenseless children, the elderly, or pregnant women in these hospitals. This was the bosses' answer to the union leaders' pleas to the government for a dialogue. There were unconfirmed reports that two workers were killed and a journalist injured when he was covering this savage attack on the working class.

Once these defenders of capitalism had felled patients with tear gas, workers and doctors from the two hospitals, joined by street vendors and by many other angry workers around the hospital, pelted these fascist dogs with rocks and sticks. Near-by this battle there happened to be hundreds of farmworkers who had fought with the guerrilla movement. These workers, also victimized by the same profit system, and seeing their class brothers and sisters under attack, waded into the police with sticks and machetes.

The cops suddenly saw themselves between two fires: on the one side city workers, on the other side, farmworkers. The fascists fled, with local television stations filming their cowardly retreat, defeated by the unity of the working class.

At the same time that striking workers and doctors from the San Rafael Hospital of Santa Tecla had sealed the western entrance to the capital city, resident doctors, nurses, and administration workers of San Juan de Dios Hospital in San Miguel were on a protest march in the eastern part of the country.

These militant working-class actions provide a great opportunity to bring the ideas of PLP to the workers and to recruit new members to fight for communist revolution. We need to be bolder in giving this leadership. The workers' example of armed action against the bosses' police shows the potential for the communist idea of working-class seizure of state power.

LETTERS

To Re-Enlist or Not to Re-enlist?

Today about 15 the soldiers nearing the end of their active duty military time were gathered together and asked to re-enlist. The battery commander and First Sergeant were present.

The soldiers' gripes and complaints were overwhelming. There were the Commander and First Sergeant trying to convince soldiers to re-enlist. Of the 15, only one was sure he would stay. All the others, including myself, complained about what's wrong with the military and why the morale and motivation are very low in my unit.

There are three main reasons why soldiers will not re-enlist. Three weaknesses of the army that play an important role in how a soldier feels. Firstly, and the most widespread among soldiers, is low pay. The Army's budget hurts soldiers financially. It's one thing for the Army to say it guarantees a paycheck every month. But just how much is that paycheck? There are soldiers who work on the weekends and make more money than they do all week in the military. A second job to keep up with bills is very common. Recently pay raises may increase earnings 15% in a couple of years. But there's : other benefit programs will be cut dramatically, such as BAQ benefits, which are offered to married soldiers.

Secondly, (which I brought up) the Army is short of personnel. One reason is increased military deployments in the last 10 years, more than any other period of history. So from the beginning there is more hesitation to join the military. In turn this shortage of enlistees creates a heavy workload for every soldier. This explains the hardships for cooks and mechanics. There is simply too much work and not enough soldiers. Therefore, active soldiers are overworked, stressed out and demoralized, preventing them from re-enlisting. This continuing cycle makes it difficult for the Army to maintain a stable number of soldiers on active duty.

Thirdly, is how the Army works. Putting it nicely, soldiers experience a variety of "leadership." Officers vary from being a real "good friend" and work-partner type to a total asshole. The strict military conduct the Army requires of soldiers does not give us leadership skills but rather the skills of a slave who only has the "right" to follow orders.

A soldier made an interesting comparison to a civilian job. He explained how a soldier couldn't speak up to a higher-ranking (non-commissioned officer (NCO) or commissioned officer without facing the egotistic power trip most of them develop throughout their careers. The re-enlisting NCO replied that the same thing happens in civilian jobs. But then I made it clear if a boss made me put my feet on a chair and perform repetitious push-ups until he felt like stopping me, I'd punch him in his face. It's also clear we should organize as a whole against any injustice in the Army.

The Army is set up to make soldiers fight, kill and be killed so that U.S. rulers can maintain control over the resources and profits made by the world's workers.

I've been talking to many friends about the Party and intend to invite them to May Day. Seven have been reading CHALLENGE. I don't know for sure if I want to re-enlist. To understand the above problems is easy. It seems that the Army is automatically driving itself into a hole, setting itself up for failure.

Nevertheless, things will change and the ruling class will find ways to win the hearts, minds and lives of many soldiers. There's no doubt that current conditions in the military make it easier to introduce our ideas to soldiers, although it's a struggle to have soldiers accept and follow them. If I do not re-enlist in the active component, I will definitely join the Reserves. Meanwhile, I'll invite fellow soldiers to march on May Day.

Red Soldier

Diallo Verdict Inspires Anger and Action

"What are people doing? I'm going. I'll bring my other son;" "Thanks for telling me. I'll meet you there." Those were some of the reactions of parents of high school students after hearing the Amadou Diallo verdict last Friday Feb. 25. Several people who hadn't participated in demonstrations before (and one student who had) stepped forward to march for four hours throughout the Manhattan streets

One exciting moment came when protesters spontaneously took over the streets in Greenwich Village. The area was packed on a Saturday night and it seemed as if the entire world united with us as we marched by. We marched for blocks in angry defiance, roaring our righteous indignation. Several marchers marched holding up the CHALLENGE headline: "Cops, Courts, Capitalism: GUILTY of Racist Murder!"

The police were obviously not in favor of us openly taking over streets. At one point, they used a clever trick, running their little motorcars in a diagonal line to run us onto the sidewalk. Yeah, right! The crowd started chanting, "Whose streets? Our streets!" and took the street again. The cops continued to try to cut off the march, setting up roadblocks, but the marchers continued taking detours down side streets to elude them. It was thrilling to see the potential power of the working class.

As a result of the work done to get people out for the march, there is renewed interest among the youth (and their parents) in the Party and communism. We are planning meetings and activities around the Diallo case, increasing our distribution of CHALLENGE and more work to prepare for a larger May Day than last year. There are scores of students in our base who need to get themselves involved in the class struggle. We will need to keep up consistent work to accomplish our goals, but the Diallo verdict is a school to teach young people that they and communism are our future.

Red Prof

Attacking the KKK is an Example to Follow

A high school counselor in my town was recently arrested for assaulting a KKK member during a rally. This led to a lot of discussion in the high school and local newspaper. Both a newspaper editorial and an opinion piece by the head of the Board of Education attacked the counselor for "flying off at the handle" and setting a "bad example" for students. But many students supported this action, knowing the difference between uncontrolled rage and planned, militant, anti-racist action.

I wrote a letter to the newspaper, responding to their attacks on this anti-racist. I pointed out that sometimes violence is justifiable and necessary to combat racists. The history of anti-racist struggle is filled with effective, violent actions, including slave rebellions, the Civil War, World War II and more recent struggles.

Several people responded positively to this letter, including a teacher in my daughter's middle school and some of my fellow church members. However, my church minister said he never disagreed so strongly with one of his members. He offered to debate violent vs. non-violent methods in fighting racism. I agreed. This debate will open more people 's eyes to the nature of racism , the role of the government and newspapers in siding with the KKK against anti-racists; and the need for both violent and non-violent tactics in fighting racists.

Suburban Church Member

Capitalism Kills A Kent Coal Miner

"Terry French, 49, of Celtic Road was found dead in a river in Amster near Amsterdam. He had been shot in the head twice."(East Kent Mercury, an English newspaper)

On a number of occasions during the 1984-85 British coal miners strike, I went to England to bring the strikers our PLP political literature and money our Party had collected from workers all over the U.S. The miners fought a heroic strike against the ruling class and its then political leader, Margaret Thatcher. All the miners, from Scotland to Kent, were heroic. But more by accident than anything else, we came to develop a relationship with the miners of Kent.

I first met Terry French at Maidstone jail where he was serving five years for his struggles during the strike. He, along with many other brave lads, was arrested for sitting-in at the Betteshanger colliery (coal mine). He and others were also arrested for attacking scabs, and harassing the cops' attempts to break the strike. At Orgreve in Yorkshire in July 1984, thousands of miners fought a pitched battle against the police for two days and almost brought down the British government.

During that year and later, we met many fine, heroic Kent miners and members of the Women's Support Group: Liz French, Peter Holden, Margaret Holden, Hazel Hatser, Chris Tazey, Mark Best, Emlyn Davies, Ken Ridyard, Ken Evans, Brian Day, Garry Newell, Jimmy Waddell, John O'Conner. There were others whose names I apologize for missing.

Some Kent miners helped us organize farmworkers in California and sang at our May Day March in Washington. Their story is well-documented.

Although this was not a strike to build a movement towards communism, it was a titanic class struggle. The miners were fighting to save their livelihood and the livelihood of future miners because the mines were being closed down. When the strike started, there were 160,000 coal miners in the United Kingdom. A year later, there were 30,000. Today there are under 11,000. (PLP Magazine articles have documented the reasons why the ruling class went from a coal-burning economy to an oil-burning one.)

When I visited Terry at Maidstone jail, he fervently asked me to send him some Motown tapes. He talked a little bit about the strike and seemed like a modest and brave worker. I had met his wife Elizabeth, a working-class Scotswoman and an important strike leader. She brought us the wonderful ballad "We are Women, We are Strong." Over the years, as the mines were closed one after another, we tried to stay in contact with the Kent miners. It was hard for Terry and the other lads to get other jobs--they were marked men. But like workers everywhere, they survived.

Much later, apparently Terry got involved with the drug trade. According to articles and gossip, he became a courier. This is a bad development for the working class. We cannot support someone involved in this kind of activity. It's a poison that destroys the working class. But Terry, 20 years a coal miner, had been a hero, one of the brave workers whose life had been torn to shreds by capitalism. Unfortunately we had never been able to win him to PLP, which would have helped him to better understand the world.

The drug scum who killed Terry French were finishing off the work that Margaret Thatcher's government started in 1984. For myself, I will try to recruit one friend to PLP in honor of this good and brave worker who was brought down by the sickness that is capitalism. In conclusion, here are some lines from a poem written by a miner during the 1984-85 strike:

"Come all ye jolly miner lads and listen to my tales,

About the brave flying pickets from Yorkshire, Kent and Wales."

A Friend of the Kent Miners

Struggle in the Classroom

This past week we had discussions in all my college classes about the murder of Amadou Diallo by New York City cops. Many students were furious. Not just angry, but furious! Nearly all of them had heard about the case. Nobody took the side of the cops. One student raised a point in a confused way. He was not justifying the cops' behavior, but he said he didn't think it was racist because he didn't think that those cops planned to kill a black man just because he was black. People who raise this point don't understand that the system as a whole is racist and the cops are the enforcers of that racist system. That's why, for example, a black cop can commit a racist act against a black worker.

When the student raised this, other students just blew up! One young white woman was especially furious. "How can you say it wasn't racist?" she shouted. In my other classes the reaction was the same. When I asked: "What about the argument that the cops were protecting themselves?" students shouted, "They shot him forty-one times!" Interestingly, the great majority of white students were very angry about the killings and saw it was a racist attack.

This contradicts the common falsehood that, "All white people are racist." The overwhelming majority was very upset and quite ready to describe the cops' actions as racist. The white students, like the black and Latino students, are mainly from blue-collar working-class families. Many have had bad experiences with cops. The class discussions brought out these experiences.

The racist attacks against black and Latino working-class people are just part of the general attack against the whole working class, although it is especially vicious against black and Latino youth. Understanding this builds genuine working-class unity against racism, and it is this kind of unity that builds a solid working class struggle, rather than the phony unity of the liberals who preach "pity and pacifism."

Many workers and youth see more clearly the fascist terror that lies under the surface of phony "U.S. democracy." It is up to us to build deep ties with them and organize struggles against this racist, capitalist system. It is through action, on a personal basis and in direct conflict against the system, that the best lessons are learned and the strongest movement can be built. Organizing in our classes is a good first step-getting out leaflets, CHALLENGES, building for May Day, and especially developing long-term relationships with other students to expose anything in the course that promotes racist or other anti-working-class ideas!

Midwest Teacher