The two imperialist superpowers are accelerating toward World War III, with more brazen provocations by the day. Since shooting down an apparent Chinese spy balloon on February 4, the U.S. military has downed three unidentified flying objects over Alaska and Canada that “might turn out to be harmless commercial or research efforts that posed no real threat to the United States” (New York Times, 2/14). The Joe Biden administration blacklisted five Chinese companies accused of links to military surveillance programs—barely a week after the U.S. expanded its footprint on military bases in the Philippines less than 200 miles south of Taiwan.
As rulers in both the U.S. and China promote an orgy of patriotism, we need to remember that capitalism is a system based on theft from workers and the violent elimination of any and all competition. As Lenin pointed out in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, war between rival imperialist powers is inevitable. Driven by their relentless pursuit of maximum profits, the capitalist bosses continuously seek to redivide the world’s markets and resources. The lethal, racist U.S. ruling class is ramping up nationalism and anti-China rhetoric to prepare for the next global war. China’s vicious, racist bosses have been whipping up mass fervor to recover “lost” territories for years. Neither side can afford to lose; neither can settle to be “number two.”
The coming imperialist war between the U.S. and China will likely dwarf World War II’s death toll of 70 million and poison much of the planet. But the international working class has no side in this fight. Only a communist revolution to overthrow the warmakers and smash their murderous plans can save our class and eliminate the root of these conflicts: the capitalist system itself. In Russia and China, in the wake of both World War I and World War II, the old communist movement turned imperialist wars into revolutionary wars, seized state power, and established workers’ dictatorships. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has a long and proud history of organizing against imperialist war and for revolution for communism.
China preps for imperialist slaughter
One year ago, shortly before the start of the war in Ukraine, China declared a “no-limits” partnership with Russia. Despite pressure from the U.S., they have not backed down. While not directly involved in the fighting, China is now Russia’s biggest customer for oil. China’s bosses are also studying the Russian playbook for lessons to apply to their planned takeover of Taiwan. According to a leaked internal memo, U.S. Air Force General Michael Minihan is predicting war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan in 2025 (South China Morning Post, 02/09). China has repeatedly warned the U.S. to stay away from Taiwan, and conducted live military exercises after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the contested island last year.
Joint naval drills by China, Russia, and South Africa were scheduled to begin on February 17. China’s rulers have steadily increased military spending, to the point where their navy is now larger than that of the U.S. (CNN, 02/03). Their ships are also more capable of navigating shallow waters in the South China Sea—another potential flashpoint.
Even as the U.S. attempts to improve its military foothold in East Asia, China is strengthening its military and economic ties in its home region. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a free trade pact that includes Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and Vietnam, gives China a clear advantage in writing the rules for business for 30 percent of the world’s population. Despite an aging population and slowing economic growth, China has one other big edge over the divided U.S. bosses: a united ruling class that is further along the path to full-blown fascism.
U.S. bosses out for blood
The main wing of the U.S. ruling class, representing finance capital, is mounting an aggressive strategy to contain China. Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, is demanding a “forceful” response if China moves on Taiwan (Foreign Affairs, September-October 2022). He’s calling for a massive 27 percent increase in the Pentagon’s budget, to more than $1 trillion. Haas is demanding the “promotion of order” over “democracy and human rights”—not that U.S. foreign policy ever shied away from murdering workers en masse when money was at stake.
The proposed military buildup aligns with recent U.S. maneuvering in the Pacific. Last year’s U.S.-British agreement to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia was just the beginning of a plan to surround China with a ring of fire. The U.S. has bludgeoned Japan into buying hundreds of U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles and to approve a “more lethal” deployment of U.S. Marines in Okinawa, a Japanese island less than 400 miles from Taiwan and barely 500 miles from Shanghai, China’s largest city (NYT, 1/11). The new U.S.-Philippines deal was equally ominous. According to a former Biden adviser, the bases in the Philippines “would be critical launch and resupply points in a war with China” (NYT, 2/3).
The U.S.-China trade war, declared by ex-president Donald Trump, has evolved into permanent tariffs on $350 billion of Chinese exports. China has retaliated with tariffs on U.S. exports. Economic tensions escalated last October, when the U.S. banned sales to China of semiconductors and the machines that build them, and even barred U.S. citizens from working on them. The objective: “strangling with an intent to kill” China’s technology industry, particularly corporations “closely allied with China’s military” (NYT, 10/20/22).
More recently, days after the spy balloon humiliation, Biden issued an executive order to restrict U.S. investment in China in “advanced technologies that could be used in war.” The order targeted U.S. hedge funds and equity firms trying to make a quick buck at the expense of the broader needs of the U.S. ruling class. Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, a reliable stooge for finance capital, complained about those “funding adversarial actions of the Chinese government” (NYT, 2/9).
The biggest problem for the warmakers is their need to win reluctant workers to fight and die for their profits. Because capitalism feeds off racism like rats on garbage, institutions like the U.S. military are racist to the core. But to create a larger “multiracial” military, the rulers desperately need to recruit Black and Latin students into the officer corps—the logic behind mandatory enrollment programs for Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps in urban high schools (NYT, 12/11/22).
We’ve got to fight back
As bosses in both the U.S. and China up the ante in preparing for war, it’s time for PLP members and friends around the world to go on the offensive by exposing the imperialists’ motivation and strategy. We can connect these war plans to every struggle we’re immersed in, from the fightback against racist cop terror to strikes to struggles for decent healthcare. We can expose university and corporate connections to the war buildup and move masses into action against these pro-imperialist institutions. The only solution to capitalist butchery is to turn the guns around—to fight to transform imperialist wars into revolutionary wars for communism. Join PLP!

Recently our club joined  with 20 other demonstrators to demand justice for Tyre Nichols and other victims of murders by cops.  We met at the 50th precinct in the Bronx. This station is the home of cops who refused to investigate nooses hung in Van Cortland Park. These kkkops had the nerve to say they were hung there to suspend piñatas for a party, but there had been no party in the park.The 50th is also home to the cop who pummeled young Alfred Burns twelve times. The precinct captain, when challenged about this abuse, cheerfully said: “This boy  is a scourge on the Bronx and the next time he doesn’t comply we’ll have to shoot him!”

The group included a number of students and faculty from Manhattan College who are excited to be working more closely with us.  Others came from our Racial Justice coalition.  We aimed our poster at the cop station, chanted loudly, and then shared accounts of other  racist murders  like Deborah Danner and Ramarley Graham. The action was covered by TV12 and we were interviewed by a local paper. We vowed to keep up the fight and to keep the pressure up on our local cops to make them back off  their racist policing.

Oppose Biden’s eugenic covid policies
The Biden Administration announced it will end the emergency provisions for Covid-19 on May 11, 2023. This has ominous implications for millions of people in the U.S. It means an end to free medications like Paxlovid, which will now cost $100-130 per dose, masks, and tests. An end to expanded Medicaid will leave millions uninsured. An end to access to food stamps for millions and an end to eviction prevention funds will increase hunger and homelessness. Medicare funded telehealth for seniors will end in 2024. This will imperil more people with Covid-19 especially as the more communicable variants of the virus arise.
At this date, 400 people are dying each day as people surrender their masks and have inadequate ventilation. Why? The capitalists are eager to get people back to the workplace to keep their crisis ridden system afloat.
Once again capitalism reveals its disgustingly racist and sexist disregard for, poor, Black, brown, disabled, elderly, retired, and indigenous workers.
Once you’re too old or sick to work and are not producing profit, you’re worthless and marginalized. Public health activists around the U.S. are circulating this petition and writing articles to alert the public. Please share this petition with your friends and organizations: “Oppose Ending the National and Public Health Emergency Declarations; https://tinyurl.com/prwuzf2s. And join the Progressive Labor Party to end the rule of the rich.

*****

My first MTA union meeting
In January, I attended the TWU Local 100 mass membership meeting for New York CIty Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) workers. This was our first such meeting since the Covid-19 pandemic; it was my first ever. With our contract being up in May, many of my colleagues were no doubt looking to the union heads to show strong leadership in our imminent fight against management.
But, of course, the meeting instead exemplified how much in bed Local 100 is with the racist MTA bosses.
After the meeting’s initial meet and greet with separate departments, we were directed to a larger hall, where we sat and listened to these phonies tell us how they will bring a fight, while their actions have shown otherwise.
I also took note that the rank and file did not get a Q & A session to hold their feet to the fire…a clear harbinger of what was to come.
John Samuelsen, former Local 100 President and current TWU International president, began his speech with platitudes of his Brooklyn upbringing and history as a track worker, saying he will support us fully. But “Sleepy John,” as others have called him, soon echoed the TA’s contract time lies about having budget problems, which we all roundly booed. He also mentioned pushing for an amendment that would allow us to strike in lieu of the fascist Taylor Law.
Imagine asking the bosses for permission to withhold our labor-HA! Samuelsen also conveniently forgot to mention that he denounced our 2005 strike and gave us absolutely no support then.
Local 100 President Ritchie Davis also didn’t leave much to the idea that he will stand up to management. When a section of the crowd began chanting “Hazard Pay!” as he discussed our contract, he noticeably didn’t return their enthusiasm.
KKKop Mayor Eric Adams made a cameo appearance as well. He stood up and lied that his fascist initiative to clear out homeless encampments and the emotionally challenged in the subways with the pigs “leads with mental health professionals” and that “everyone is trying to distort what we are doing.”
Adams’ plan has been to flood the trains and station platforms with racist cops underground to attack special needs people, and forcing the unhoused to accept dangerous shelter conditions aboveground! That’s not a distortion at all!
While the talking heads proved disappointing, there were signs of hope. When one of the speakers said, “This is a militant union,” an audience member loudly said, “No it’s not!” in response.
Many of my co-workers aren’t confident the union will get them a good contract. Truth is, no union under capitalism will get any worker what they truly need and deserve. And that’s where the Party comes in, to present the only alternative: a communist world.
To that end, I was able to have a discussion with two train operators during the meeting. One criticized the fact that the union leadership made no mention at all about Tyre Nichols’ racist murder.
He noted how, as a Black union, that was a glaring omission. He also repeated the party’s line on having to fight anti-Black racism! Luckily, I had a spare CHALLENGE on hand to give them. I exchanged contacts with them and plan on choosing to work at the same line locations they do to keep meeting with them as much as I can. I hope to continue meeting other workers receptive to our line and will keep my best foot forward in doing so!

*****

No kinder kkkapitalism
Liberals and progressives often point out that citizens of some countries, especially Scandinavian countries, enjoy more access to social services than those in the U.S. Other places like Canada and the U.K. pride themselves on providing a better quality of life because they have universal healthcare.
However, this is largely theoretical, especially when we look more closely at Canada. Yes, all Canadians are entitled to free health care, but it is difficult for many Canadians to take advantage of their benefits. There are serious shortages of doctors in sparsely populated areas. Specialists are almost nonexistent except in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal or other major cities. People make long drives, sometimes days, for cancer care.
In a possible future communist society, we might assign doctors and other medical staff to underserved areas. That seems like infringing on an individual’s rights to our “democratic” minds, right? The difference is this – the physician would not be working for a wage.  He/she wouldn’t be tied to a large metropolitan area in order to maintain a certain lifestyle. His/her lifestyle would not be any different from a bus driver, an electrician or a teacher.
Historically, British citizens  have been very proud of their NHS (National Health Service). While they generally fare better than folks in the U.S., right wing politicians are continually trying to impose “austerity measures'' that would reduce access to health care. In Canada, federal and provincial politicians like Doug Ford are currently passing legislation to privatize parts of the healthcare system in response to governmental failure during the pandemic. Failing the public as an excuse to hand workers’ health over to the capitalist bosses is the name of this game, and it is one liberal politicians in countries with universal healthcare will keep playing so long as we allow it.
In short, reforms under capitalism are usually short lived or sometimes a complete smoke screen. Only under communism will all people have access to the care they need and deserve.

Avatar 2: The Way of Water, James Cameron’s highly anticipated follow-up to his 2010 film, the highest-grossing film of all time, has already earned 2.2 billion dollars. Clocking in at three and a half hours, what makes Avatar 2 a worthy watch is not its visually arresting graphics or the universal acclaim it received from the bosses' media. The film contains some important themes that will spark political discussions where we can counter the bosses' ideology with pro-worker and communist ideas. Make no mistake, the purpose of all art under capitalism is to reinforce the ideas that help the rulers maintain their power while degrading the working class, so that we believe we are powerless and incapable of transforming or running society. If we peel away its fantastical veneer of “radicalism” we find that Avatar 2 is a liberal anticommunist film.

Like the film’s predecessor, Avatar 2 vividly showcases the evils of imperialism as seen through the Resources Development Administration’s (RDA) violent plunder of Pandora, a habitable moon on Alpha Centauri, to extract unobtanium, a rare earth compound  found there. The second installment of Avatar kicks off more than a decade after Jake joins the Na’vi and leads the war against the RDA (sky people). Jake and Neytiri are now husband and wife with four children. After turning earth into a barren planet the RDA returns to Pandora in an effort to colonize it for human settlement. Jake and Neytiri’s idyllic family life in the Pandoran paradise is uprooted by RDA’s attack on their clan, and they’re forced to flee– much like the international working class around the world does everyday to escape the deadly grip of U.S. imperialism.
Alienating class conflict
While the film does a good job of making us hate imperialism and its disastrous consequences such as genocide and environmental destruction, it promotes harmful, racist, anti-worker ideas. The most damaging aspect of Avatar 2 is that it is devoid of class analysis.  Although it depicts the colonization of Pandora by the RDA and we clearly see that the Tulkan hunters are capitalists driven by the profit motive, the central conflict is not between workers and bosses, but between natives and settlers. This is clear in its one-dimensional representation of the antagonists and protagonists. In the film, most if not all humans are rotten capitalists from the imperialist RDA, to the violent military recruits, and the Tulkun hunting capitalists who wish to kill these enormous manatee-like animals to extract highly profitable age-defying serum out of their brains.
The only humans who are depicted as “good” are those who surrender to nature like Jake who goes native and Spider, the villainous general Quatrich’s son, who rejects his militaristic human father and is loyal to the Na’vi. The working class is virtually non-existent in this fanciful tale. This perpetuates the myth that workers are responsible for climate change. The does not make a distinction between workers and capitalists and lays the blame on all humanity for environmental destruction and imperialist violence. By contrast, the film relies on the racist myth of the noble savage to depict the Na’vi as pure people in communion with nature who are powerless against the forces of progress. It never shows technology being developed by the native population except for bows and arrows. It keeps them entirely ensconced within the archetype of the noble primitive. By keeping them in an Eden, the film enables the audience to identify and even sympathize with the Na'vi while still being able to disassociate themselves from them as fellow workers.
At best Avatar 2 promotes nationalistic indigenous decolonial struggles as opposed to revolutionary class struggle. In the film's climax, we witness the positive character development of the Metkayina Clan, an oceanic Na’vi species who later abandon their pacifism after captain Miles Quatrich teams up with poachers who kill a Tulkuln to draw out Jake Sully. The Metkayina join forces with the Sullys and a fierce Tulkun and defeat the RDA and the poachers. While this demonstrates an overt rejection of pacifism in favor of armed struggle there is no political ideology grounding the Na’vi’s struggle. Instead, what is waged is a moralistic war against good and evil fueled by a kind of tribal nationalism, spirituality, familial protection
Cameron builds a liberal Eden
So, why did James Cameron spend an obscene amount of money, making a movie about the wageless, moneyless, primitive communism of a population being plundered? And what message does a film made by one of the wealthiest and most celebrated directors have for workers? Though the film does communicate the need for violence against imperialist exploitation, it never creates a moment where the working class can see themselves as revolutionary agents. By making the protagonists a different species, living on another planet in the distant future, Cameron is telling the modern proletariat that they are ill-equipped to smash capitalism. They should adapt to climate change embrace eco capitalism and live in harmony with nature like the Na’vi.
Far from promoting a revolutionary message, Cameron believes that a kinder greener capitalism is possible. A self-professed environmentalist and vegan, Cameron' Avatar films promote his liberal politics, championing individualism and romanticizing primitive communism. For Cameron all worker’s need to do is be in tune with nature and live a “responsible” green capitalist lifestyle. Still, Avatar 2 is worth watching if only for the opportunities it creates to counter the myth that only a morally superior alien species is powerful enough to smash imperialism with real-life historical examples of revolutionary working-class heroism from the Soviet Union to China.

 

ATLANTA, GA, February 15–Rejecting much of the bosses’ liberalism over the past year, the working class has taken direct action against the building of Cop City, destroying vehicles, damaging banks, and erecting a tent city to try to stop the construction of this urban warfare  training center. Within the context of 19 protesters being arrested and charged with terrorism,  the Atlanta Police Department (APD) murdered Latin worker Manuel “Tortugita'' Teran during a raid to clear the encampment.

After weeks of militant multiracial fightback led by Black and Latin workers, the APD released body camera footage of the killing. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Atlanta’s killer kkkops, and politicians claim that Tort shot cops first, and thus, “deserved” to die. However, Tort’s family in Panama and friends in Atlanta called it: the police shot each other first and used it as ammunition to shoot at workers occupying the forest and killed Tort with 13 shots in the crossfire.
For the last two years, working-class fighters have occupied the Atlanta forest in protest of what fighters call ‘Cop City,’ a 85-acre $90 million police training facility through an Atlanta forest. Police forces from Atlanta to Israel will learn how to squelch working-class rebellion, especially any fightback led by communist fighters like Progressive Labor Party (PLP).
With bosses in the U.S, China, and Russia ramping up for World War III, and the U.S. bosses sinking deeper into crisis the last thing they need is militant multiracial working class rebellion in the urban centers.
The desperate rulers will need fascism to discipline the working class and will need to build more kkkop cities to keep workers in check as they spend trillions oiling their war machine while workers are pushed into starvation and homelessness. Black liberal mayors across the U.S. are proving they are the best candidates for the job.
Black-led city attacks Black workers
Georgia is a key state in the battle to win workers to pledge allegiance to the U.S. The bosses plan to build Cop City in “South River Forest,” called the Weelaunee Forest, “one of Atlanta’s largest remaining green spaces, a prime example of environmental racism. The forest encompasses a three-hundred-acre, city-owned tract of land that sits in a poor and predominantly Black” part of Atlanta (New Yorker, 8/3/22).
After the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, Atlanta workers responded with mass antiracist protest, marching toward and smashing the headquarters of U.S. liberal news media– the CNN building.
Keisha Lance Bottoms— former mayor of Atlanta and now part of  the Jim Crow Biden administration—supports Cop City and openly shamed the protestors’ militancy and left her position to make way for liberal misleaders like Mayor Andre Dickens, Senator Reverend Warnock and Stacey Abrams.
“Most of the residents in neighborhoods around the forest are Black and municipal planning has neglected the area for decades. The plans to preserve the forest and make it a historic public amenity were adopted in 2017 as part of Atlanta’s city charter, or constitution. But the Atlanta city council wound up approving the training center anyway…” (The Guardian, 1/23)
The bosses want to ensure that they have a militarized and functioning force to attack the working class. The U.S. ruling class and bosses all over the world want to be prepared for the international uprisings that will spring up in the wake racist police murders.
Liberal politics and police murder
PLP stands with the protests against Cop City. With Cop City now being green-lighted, it is more urgent than ever that PLers connect the struggle to what’s happening locally and internationally. Antiracist leaders are calling protests the week of February 19-26.
For our class to smash racist police terror, workers around the world must commit to building a Party that will organize and shape struggle, galvanize it and focus it, and push for communist revolution.