Communist politics best self-care
Coming to the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) [over the past three months] was a new type of experience that I hadn’t had before, really.  Since I was young, I had been relatively politically involved, but primarily focused on women’s and LGBTQ issues; mostly I was involved in online debate.  Several times my mom brought me to political events, though there was not really historical discussion at these events (marches, getting people to vote in local elections, etc.)

I was pretty surprised when I came to the PLP meeting.  My first and most preeminent observation was that the meeting was set up almost like a classroom and almost like a group therapy meeting.  That structure was definitely reflected in the dynamic and in my experience; the goal was to educate people on history but PLP inadvertently (or not) created a space that allowed people to let out their feelings and analysis of the world and our system.  The way that it imitated professional group therapy can definitely be connected to a topic we dealt with in one of my classes - that resistance itself can be a form of self-care.  

I decided to come with a friend the first time for a few reasons - 1) I spend the majority of my time with this friend, 2) it was the closest thing to coming alone and 3) coming with this person provided me with more expansive analysis after the meeting ended.  Only after the first meeting did I decide to bring more friends.  I was hesitant to bring one friend, but did so.  

The discussions were interesting because they were composed of people who were educated and familiar with the content and people who came because they were curious.  I think that I was better equipped to respond to that same curiosity back at school.

In all honesty I don’t really know what is next.  I guess I could continue to just try to discuss the world and educate those around me but that also does not feel effective or impactful.  I’ll be coming back to the PLP meetings and continuing to try to self educate and share my findings, but I struggle to construct a plan that is satisfactory. 

Editorial note: A plan to get to know the family and recruit this student to PLP is in place.

*****
Talking about a (communist) revolution
“Based on what you are saying, reform can have the opposite effect. It could keep people away from revolutionary ideas.” “Exactly.”

My response of “exactly” ended a two hour lunch conversation with friends and leaders of one of the strongest more militant reform unions in Chicago. All of them are committed, and tireless fighters against racism, and committed to fighting injustice, and fighting for equality for their members. The lunch I discovered is a customary send off for those workers who retire from the union.

We started lunch talking about the contentious Chicago mayoral election taking place between the two runoff candidates: Brandon Johnson (Black) a County Commissioner, former middle school teacher, and former union leader that has been endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union.  Johnson is running against Paul Vallas (white), former Chief Operating Officer at Chicago Public Schools, proponent of charters, vouchers, and balancing education budgets off the backs of teachers’ pensions. The Fraternal Order of Police has endorsed Vallas.

My friend said that the spirit of racism will always be here in reference to the election and the unions’ effort to build a union that fights for the “common good” and that history is cyclical racism. I immediately responded to both her statements and said that racism is rooted in the economic system of capitalism and it’s far from a spirit or a belief. It has a material base in capitalism and that history is not cyclical because there are times in history where race did not exist.  

Well, my friend immediately disagreed with me and I was totally taken back when two other friends said that they agreed with me. W-H-A-T! That had never openly happened before in department meetings. I acknowledged that my experience working in this union was both rewarding and inspiring.

However, if we don’t take advantage of the opportunities of pointing out the limits and the contradictions of fighting for reforms our class will get cynical and be won over to bad ideas.  My friend said to the whole table after packing up and paying the bill, “We should have more discussions like this.”

The conversation helped me realize that we must have these conversations with everyone. Going into the lunch I was feeling one-sided about my friends/leaders in terms of them even wanting to talk about revolution and reform. I also was not clear if they would be the liberals that would lead us into fascism. As I left the restaurant, I was humbled by the contradictions and the period that we are in as we build for communist revolution. I’m more confident in the Party’s line and confident that our class will win.

*****
Capitalism = bosses' dictatorship
Most people I speak to believe the government is a democracy where capitalists and workers decide issues, but capitalism has always been a dictatorship of the capitalist class. Some examples include, the majority of the French National Assembly just voted to defeat an anti-worker raise of the retirement age only to have their votes ignored by the capitalist rulers.

The U.S. railroad capitalists ignored government regulations on safety and maintenance that have greatly increased the number of train wrecks and have subjected communities to poisonous air and water pollution in Ohio and elsewhere.

Many U.S. banks ignored liquidity obligations and used low government interest rates, meant to create jobs, to provide loans to capitalists who used the money to buy back their own stocks to raise their profits and CEO’s salaries. The result so far has been worldwide bank failures and a possible recession requiring bailouts by taxpayers while the bankers retain their wealth.

The U.S. has been involved in endless wars but I can’t remember the government asking workers to vote for those wars. The wars in Korea and Vietnam that I remember offered only jail time for war resisters.

Capitalist dictatorships have been a disaster for billions of workers worldwide and now threaten a nuclear war from which the world may not recover unless workers, soldiers and youth join PLP and the revolutionary movement for communism. Read CHALLENGE.

*****
To expose bosses: keep writing simple
The article “Fight Imperialist Warmongers” in the March 15 issue of CHALLENGE, reporting on a Libertarian Party led rally at the DC Lincoln Memorial had some good points.  However, the sentences were convoluted and probably not intelligible to the regular worker.  I almost thought that it was attacking the left, but after reading it twice, I realized that it was referring to the “left and right-wing media,” which is offered as a ruling class alternative to the true left, which is Progressive Labor Party.  Simplification is the solution to most problems in all, and  especially expository writing.

The fight for Hadi, a nail on the bosses’ coffin
Last summer a teenager, Hadi Abuatelah of the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, was riding in a car stopped by the kkkops who said they smelled marijuana. Hadi ran in fear of the cop who tackled him and beat him around the head and body very severely. As a result, he had a brain bleed and injuries to his body. To this date, Hadi still has difficulty walking.

Watching the video, it is amazing that he survived this vicious attack! Initially, the three cops involved were going to get off. Since last summer, a multiracial group of dozens of workers and youth have attended the monthly Oak Lawn police and fire board meetings to demand the cops be brought up on charges. Finally, only one of the three cops has been charged.

Hadi, his family, and the majority of the leading organizers of the coalition are from Palestine. One can’t help but note the parallels of racist attacks here in Oak Lawn with the fascist Zionist regime of Israel.

A recent board meeting tried to impose a more fascist approach to the proceedings now that one of the officers is facing indictment. Several kkkop thugs and their buddies attempted to monopolize the meeting and build support by showing videos depicting violence against the police. After a few minutes of this “copaganda,” the multiracial coalition supporting Hadi started chanting to stop the video. The klan-in-blue was again forced to back down.

The struggle in Oak Lawn continues. Clearly, it’s not a question of “a few bad apples.” Police exist to instill terror against the working class and guarantee that the capitalist system continues its quest for maximum profits. The fight back to support Hadi is like a nail in the bosses’ coffin. Building an egalitarian communist society requires struggles like these to ultimately succeed.

*****
Nature of union leaders and confidence in workers
The January 18th article “Lessons From Historic Nursing Strike in a Time of Growing Fascism” was very poignant in pointing out the contradictions of the St. Vincent Hospital nurses strike against Tenet. However, I took issue with the subtitle that was added to the article entitled: “Union sells workers down the river.”Although there were strengths and weaknesses in the strike, I don’t believe your statement to be a true characterization of the union. Here are some reasons why:  The union fought for the nurses, and none of them went back to work unless they all went back. They were out for a year in wind, rain, snow and heat. Rank and file nurses who worked in the hospital, not just those on the union payroll, were on the bargaining team. After the strike ended, they had to reapply for their jobs and fight the state about paying back their unemployment insurance. They beat back the Right to Work Foundation, which tried to decertify their union, and they won! Now this is not to say that the role of the unions is not pro-capitalist and continues to rely on the Democratic Party and their politicians. However, as someone who was able to work with one of the nurses on the bargaining committee, your subtitle was disheartening.

There are limits working within the trade union movement and our role is to push past these limits, and politicize the rank and file, and fight ideologically for communist leadership of the unions, as much as possible. We apply theory and practice, as is the case in all of our struggles. Strikes are difficult to organize and sustain. Would it have been possible for the MNA leadership to organize the entire nation-wide membership of National Nurses United (NNU) to strike in solidarity with St. Vincent’s nurses and organize health care workers in all of Tenet’s facilities across the country? That would have been a historic feat. The fight for safe staffing which saves lives is the same fight as the nurses in the recent New York City nurses’ strike. However, the nurses in Worcester were up against Tenet, a nationwide for- profit Healthcare chain.

All in all, I thought this important to share with you because the subtitle that the editorial staff added put a real damper on my willingness to show this great article to the nurses, and others who organized and helped to support the strike. Many workers and other nurses across the country were inspired by the St. Vincent nurses strike. After recently speaking with our leadership collective, I have since distributed this issue to our base, to get their feedback and to my surprise several folks said they found the article to be inspiring and did not notice the subtitle. The role of the pro-capitalist nature of the union leadership is clearly explained in the article. I think they clearly agreed with that.

La lucha continua!

*****
Avatar: the problem with ‘purpose’ of art
In the March 1, 2023 issue of CHALLENGE, there is an astute review of the blockbuster film “Avatar 2.” The review acknowledges how the film plays to a romantic notion of classless utopia but, in fact, ends up reinforcing racist notions of species difference and divesting ordinary people of the power to change the world. It is at once aspirational and defeatist.  The review’s analysis is a dialectical and thoughtful piece of Marxist cultural criticism, a welcome presence in the pages of the paper.

The argument is weakened, however, by the proposition that “the purpose of art under capitalism is to reinforce the ideas that help the rulers to maintain their power while degrading the working class, so that we believe we are powerless and incapable of transforming or running society.”  There are two problems here.  (1) How can this square with the laudatory commentaries in this series on the writings of Langston Hughes, who is praised for his commitment to producing literary works calling for a revolution? Wasn’t he creating “art under capitalism?” (2) More importantly, this formulation confuses "function" with "purpose."  "Purpose" implies conscious intentionality, meaning that writers and screenwriters try their best to mislead working-class readers and audiences, turning them into passive recipients of ruling-class ideology. 

"Function" would be a clearer formulation, suggesting that the objective effect of most literature and film produced under capitalism is to confirm dominant ideologies, without the writer/screenwriter necessarily or consciously intending this effect. 

Asserting "purpose" rather than "function" actually weakens a communist analysis of how life under capitalism spontaneously gives rise to ideas and attitudes supportive of the status quo. At times there is conscious ruling-class intervention in the propagation of dominant ideologies, as is shown by current attempts by Florida Governor DeSantis to outlaw the teaching of antiracism.  But more often capitalism’s ability to reproduce dominant ideologies as "common sense"—what we all just know to be true--is far more toxic.  As Karl Marx noted, “The dominant ideas in any age are the ideas of the ruling class.” This “dominance” is achieved not primarily through intentional brainwashing, but through passing along—through art and literature, as well as everyday life—unquestioned and seemingly natural assumptions about what it means to be a social being. Common sense is much harder to combat than conscious ideological conspiracy. In its criticisms of cultural works, CHALLENGE should not make these issues seem to be simpler than they are.
*****

Chinese imperialists work on empire building
New York Times, 3/11–Finally, there is a peace deal of sorts in the Middle East…between Saudi Arabia and Iran…brokered...by China…Alliances and rivalries that have governed diplomacy for generations have…been upended. The Americans, who have been the central actors in the Middle East for the past three-quarters of a century, almost always the ones in the room where it happened, now find themselves on the sidelines during a moment of significant change. The Chinese, who for years played only a secondary role in the region, have suddenly transformed themselves into the new power player. And the Israelis, who have been courting the Saudis against their mutual adversaries in Tehran, now wonder where it leaves them. “There is no way around it — this is a big deal,” said Amy Hawthorne, deputy director for research at the Project on Middle East Democracy, a nonprofit group in Washington.

“Yes,the United States could not have brokered such a deal right now with Iran specifically, since we have no relations. But in a larger sense, China’s prestigious accomplishment vaults it into a new league diplomatically and outshines anything the U.S. has been able to achieve in the region since Biden came to office.”

Israeli bosses continue expansion into West Bank
France24, 3/12–Israeli soldiers shot dead three Palestinian gunmen after they fired at troops in the occupied northern West Bank near Nablus, the army said on Sunday, as violence in the region continued…The soldiers, members of the elite infantry Golani reconnaissance unit, grabbed three M-16 rifles and a pistol used by the Palestinians, the army said…Violence intensified last year, but has worsened in the West Bank since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to office in December in a governing coalition with ultra-Orthodox Jewish and extreme-right allies…Netanyahu…has vowed to continue the expansion of West Bank settlements…Since the start of the year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 81 Palestinian adults and children, including militants and civilians. Twelve Israeli civilians, including three children and one policeman, as well as one Ukrainian civilian have been killed over the same period…

China bosses aspire to run the world
Al Jazeera, 3/13–President Xi Jinping…thanked the delegates for giving him a third term and promised to “take the needs of the country as my mission, and the interests of the people as my yardstick”, according to the AFP news agency. “Security is the bedrock of development, while stability is a prerequisite for prosperity. “We must fully promote the modernisation of national defence and the armed forces, and build the people’s armed forces into a Great Wall of steel that effectively safeguards national sovereignty, security and development interests.The trust of the people is the greatest driving force pushing me forward, and also a heavy responsibility on my shoulders,” he said. “The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has entered an irreversible historical process.”...and reiterated that Taiwan was part of China.

The Great Game is on …in DR Congo
Der Spiegel, 2/9–In the faded Grande Salle of Manono, a small town in the Democratic Republic of Congo located a two-day drive from the nearest big city, the focus is on global politics. The question is: Who should be allowed access to the minerals of the future located in the earth below their feet? "The Chinese," or "the people from the West?"...According to geologists, though, the earth beneath Manono contains what might be the largest lithium deposit in the world. Completely untouched…Some have even said that control of Manono will translate to control over the global market price of lithium…the Congolese government does, in fact, have ambitious plans and has even established a battery research center at a university in the country. For now, though the focus continues to be on who holds sway over the world’s largest lithium deposits.

Recently, a Kurdish comrade from Turkey came to our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) club meeting to report on the devastating earthquake that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of Turkish, Kurdish and Syrian workers, youth and children. He is a member of the CUNY Professional Staff Congress, the National Writers Union, and the Labor Party of Turkey (EMEP).

On February 6th, back-to-back 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes hit eleven provinces, home to 13.5 million people. Thousands of buildings collapsed. As of February 24, the official death toll is more than 44,000, and this only reflects reports from hospital morgues. Thousands of people are still missing, and authorities say that more than two million people have been displaced.

The bosses fear the masses and don’t want to mobilize workers and youth into a mass rescue and rebuilding effort. Communism would do exactly the opposite, we mobilize our class to provide aid and help to rebuild areas affected by natural disasters.  

While earthquakes may be a natural event, death, and destruction are not! They are a result of the greed of the profit system. All the ruined buildings were built by construction companies and monopolies using cheap and low-quality construction material. Safety was never a concern for them, even as Turkey sits on fault lines that cause earthquakes. In 1999, there was another big earthquake. Like now, the government did not send proper aid to the disaster zone. Instead, workers, socialists, trade unions, and mass organizations brought aid to Düzce and set up camps. The government sent riot police to attack the aid tents and then sent “aid.” Since then, communists and organizers have continued to fight back.

After 1999, the state passed an “earthquake” tax to prepare for future disasters. The amount of money collected in the last 24 years would save thousands of lives today. But the bosses used it for their ends.

Turkish President Erdogan’s first response was not to rush aid to the victims but to declare a state of emergency. There was no government relief effort for days, especially in the provinces of Hatay and Antakya.While people under the rubble were still tweeting their addresses, the government blocked Twitter to suppress live feeds of the devastation and opposition voices. After a public outburst, Twitter was unblocked, and almost 20,000 troops were deployed, but even then, soldiers were not directly involved in clearing the rubble and rescuing victims. Due to this capitalist incompetence, many victims died from hypothermia since the region experienced a harsh winter. Many people could not even find shroud cloths to cover their dead.

The state of emergency is aimed at attacking left-wing and progressive, mass organizations who rushed to set up relief efforts and camps for the victims. The government wants to counter class rage and solidarity. When working people act in solidarity, it boosts class confidence .”

We say NO to fascist provocations, and YES to the unity of Turkish, Kurdish and Syrian workers! We stand with workers and youth in Syria, fighting against racism and lynching that have been organized by fascist and counter-insurgency organizations. Racism is poisonous to our class. The working class has one option in confronting capitalist barbarism: our unity!

We will win. We will win with the understanding that working people do  not deserve this. We will clean this blood and dust together. And we will hold the bosses accountable for this destructive capitalist massacre. We know who the murderers are. The day is coming when the racist rulers will be buried under the rubble of their system as the workers come to power.