MilThe Republican budget laws just passed in the House and Senate represent the biggest attack on the U.S. working class in modern history. Almost one trillion dollars will be cut from the budget over a period of eight years! Most of the cuts are in Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, social security, school lunches, and day care.
The Children's Defense Fund estimates that over 15 million children will lose eligibility for at least one program because of the cuts. These bosses' laws will eventually kill thousands because of lack of medical care and malnutrition.
Anyone who thinks Clinton is going to "save the children" by vetoing the bills is living in a dream world. First of all, because of racism, Clinton and the Democrats won't veto the welfare cuts. Already, the Democrats voted overwhelmingly in support of the Republican's welfare reform law in the Senate; their only disagreement with the Republicans is how much to cut. Soon after Clinton vetoes these cuts, the wheelers and dealers in Congress will work out a "compromise." Then, the budget ax will start chopping what's left of the social programs.
Private and government bosses can then replace current workers with CWEP workers as long as they do it indirectly ( "downsize" this month based on the budget, and hire next month based on an "improved business climate").
Medicaid and Medicare were enacted in the 1960s after mass urban rebellions frightened the bosses. Now their cuts will be more than $400 billion over the next seven years. Worse, most states are adopting "managed care" Medicaid plans run by HMOs whose only concern is "cutting costs" -- denying medical care if it hurts profits. Specialized medical care will require approval by the primary doctor or the HMO.
Already, New York City has plenty of horror stories about these profit-driven health plans. The bosses are ripping up what's left of the reforms won by the communist-led workers' movement of the 1930s. They are turning the clock back over 60 years. The Democrats, the AFL-CIO sellouts, the so-called civil rights organizations, etc., are all blowing lots of hot air over how bad the Republicans are. But they ignore their role in helping to create the climate of fascism that allows the bosses to hit us so hard.
The old communist movement made the mistake of allying with these pro-boss forces during the depression. That movement also accepted reform over revolutionary change. We cannot afford to let the capitalist system have another chance to work mayhem on the working class.
Workers: let's not wait a minute longer. We can't rely on any of these pro-capitalist leaders. We can only rely on ourselves, and today's communist leadership, the Progressive Labor Party.
Every moment we waste is another worker at risk, another child's life at stake. Let's build a mass fight-back for jobs and against the cuts today. Let's organize for a communist revolution; a system where the working class will never suffer hunger, medical neglect, slave labor, or the curse of unemployment.
Imperialists awarded Rabin the Nobel Peace Prize last year because his vision of peace was the peace of capital. He wanted Israeli companies to be able to peacefully import and export investment capital, goods, services, and workers who would be superexploited and accept this peacefully. Thomas Friedman summed it up in a column he wrote before Rabin's assassination (Los Angeles Jewish Journal, November 3, 1995). Friedman pointed out that in the last several years, since peace treaties with Jordan and the PLO, the Israeli economy has had a energetic 6.8% growth rate, making fantastic profits for Israeli bosses.
The peace of capital, however, offers no peace for Israeli workers, especially Israeli Arabs and "Eastern" Jews (those who come from Islamic countries.) Peace means having their jobs exported by Israeli companies in search of cheap labor. For Palestinians on the West Bank, peace means near starvation wage levels, high unemployment, low levels of public services, and Palestinian policemen who take the place of Israeli soldiers on the streets and in the jails.
Rabin was the General in charge of the 1967 war whose party made the decision to place settlements in occupied territories resulting from that war. When these settlements expanded the Labor party continued to support them. And, it has been the Israeli government which armed and trained the settlers. Further, as the Intifada (Palestinian rebellion) grew, Rabin not only gave his well known orders to break bones and use torture against prisoners, but he sanctioned the Israeli secret services to form death squads.
Rabin allowed the open arming of the settlers, who can now be seen armed with pistols in their belts or automatic rifles on their shoulders in all major Israeli cities. These fascist thugs can go anywhere they want, with impunity. At their anti-government demonstrations, or anyone else's demonstrations, they are armed. When fascists groups are given the green light, many things can happen!
The only peace for the workers of the Middle East will be through the building of a united communist party capable of defeating nationalism and capitalism with communist revolution. The present crisis will lead to greater instability and greater opportunity to build PLP.
On Nov. 12, the IAM is staging a "Boeing Support Rally" in Everett. It has more to do with ending the strike, than winning it. They are bringing in the big guns. John "We-Need-To-Be-Full-Partners-With-Our-Employers" Sweeney, and UMW president Rich Trumka (the lawyer in camaflouge fatigues). What they want is to organize a back-to-work movement, wrapped in red, white, and blue. What they want is to silence the Rolling Thunder in the fog of nationalism.
As a prelude to this contract battle, Boeing announced 12,000 layoffs. This included the closing of the blanket shop, shipping the work to Mexico to super-exploit workers for pennies a day. It included closing the wire shop, shipping the work to Foley, Alabama where workers are making $7 an hour. It meant 50,000 layoffs over five years, while Boeing made $6.6 BILLION profit. Last April, PLP and others initiated the call for a Solidarity Day with laid-off Boeing workers. The IAM leaders reluctantly agreed. When push came to shove, they reneged.
At the same time, the union kept pushing Boeing's plan for a High Performance workplace. PLP organized against it. This newspaper, and those that read and circulate it, became the center for many debates among the workers. These debates and struggles had a ripple effect, indirectly influencing thousands of workers. The bosses, and their would-be partners in the IAM leadership, started losing control of team meetings. We reached out to Mexican and British aerospace workers. A storm was brewing. At various union meetings, we were told, "There will be no strike. I promise you I'll get you a good contract." Many workers saw through this lie. At the Kingdome strike sanction meeting, thousands of workers took rank and file strike bulletins, and more than 100 bought CHALLENGE.
Soon after, came the ROLLING THUNDER! Thousands of workers banging hammers on steel, running the bosses off the floor, taking control of the factories we built and run. Then the march from the Sheet Metal Center to four other plants, greeted by Rolling Thunder, and beating the arrival of Seattle's riot police. We, the workers, forced this strike. The union called us out to disperse us, and lead us back to their flag-waving, "American Dream," make-me-a-partner-with-the-boss world view. They wrap themselves in the bosses' flag and brag about saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Nothing concrete about the layoffs or the fight for more jobs. They call out the cops to harass and intimidate strikers. Now the rally in Everett.
We need to bring the Rolling Thunder to Everett. We need to bring the fight for jobs and solidarity with laid-off Boeing workers, too. We need to bring hammers and steel. We will certainly bring CHALLENGE newspaper and the fight for a communist future. The Boeing bosses and their IAM lieutenants know that under communism there would be no billions in profits for a tiny ruling class; no exploitation; no pitting of Seattle workers against Alabama workers against Mexican workers; and no union sellouts. The working class would be in control and reap the full fruits of our collective labor in a society of equality and sharing, without bosses and wage slavery.
They attack PLP and spread anti-communism, because they fear the workers. Let's give them plenty to worry about.
This seamy alliance of the bosses, their servants in City Hall and the Feldman leadership all defend the capitalist educational system. Its role is to teach the values of the profit system and win the students to serve it, either by joining the army for lack of a job or by resigning themselves to minimum wage jobs or no job at all. The ruling class wants to use its educational system to make black and latin and poorer white workers the lowest-wage section of the global economy.
This contract, if approved by the rank and file, will put the UFT in the forefront of the bosses' drive to squeeze the working class to the wall and enforce racism as the guiding "light" of a bankrupt educational system. It will mean that the 80% of the 1.1 million students who are non-white will sink further and further into the hell of prison-like schools, with the minority of white students not far behind.
Ultimately it is only communism that will ever educate children in their own class interests. Only communism can teach the values of sharing, of equality, of smashing racism, of serving one's class--the working class--not serving the bosses' class interests of profits, exploitation and war.
This contract commits the UFT to the bankers' budget cuts, agreeing to chop $200 million from "special education," the group of students who are already absolutely on the bottom of the pile. It guarantees larger and larger classes, keeps kids sitting on window sills, in closets and standing up. It provides no money for supplies and books. It maintains conditions in which schools are falling apart. It intensifies the prison-like atmosphere under which students are forced to "learn." All this continues to prepare students for a "choice" of unemployment, the military or minimum-wage jobs.
Teachers "win" a wage freeze for two years; a 5% CUT for all new teachers for their first four years, adding up to $5,740 out of their pockets (millions more to funnel to the bankers). Teachers will "waive" $300 million of city payments into the pension fund and will give up another $175 million for the union's health fund, reducing benefits and/or raising premiums. Benefits for all those working less than 20 hours a week will be eliminated. While the contract supposedly "guarantees" no layoffs for three years, who knows what new "crisis" will bring "necessary emergency layoffs"?
One of the more racist features of the contract awards the highest-paid, predominantly white teachers (with over 25 years) an increase of top pay from the current $60,000 to $70,000. Meanwhile, those at the lower end (where there is a higher proportion of non-white teachers) not only get less of an increase, but all new teachers get a 5% wage CUT for the first four years! Talk about racist differentials and divisive provisions!
"Great for the teachers and kids," say Giuliani and Feldman. "Disappointing," says the N.Y. Times, because they wanted more squeezed out of the workers and students. A shell game played by all concerned. The rulers' main aim is to screw the working class, in this case the students and their families, and push the teachers into doing the bosses' dirty work for them. The Feldman UFT leadership keeps giving in to the bosses while putting up a facade of "helping the kids."
The bosses, Giuliani and Feldman all defend capitalism's educational system with their racist, fascist contract. The only way to fight them is to unite students, parents and teachers under communist leadership to stop profits cold with a general strike of all workers in the city, especially the government workers who will be twisted into the pattern being set by Feldman. By intensifying the class struggle, workers will receive the best education of all--why we must wipe out the profit system and establish a workers' system: communism.
Contact the Progressive Labor Party at 212-255-3959
The APHA is an organization of some 30,000 public health workers, students, and professionals. More than 10,000 people attended the annual meeting, which is devoted to scientific sessions and resolutions on government policy. This picket line represented a significant change in mood among the membership.
The communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) was the first to propose a demonstration, in a leaflet handed out at the opening session. The previous day, a homeless black man had been brutally murdered just a few miles from the Convention Center. He was shot to death by four racist San Diego cops after he stabbed their police dog. (News reports stated that the dog was doing well!) The PLP leaflet called for a 5:00 rally linking this racist attack to the health and social cutbacks that will murder millions of people.
PLPers raised the idea of the demonstration in business meetings of various APHA sections and caucuses. The Section on Medical Care took up the idea... but dropped the issue of the racist police murder. A number of the leaders of this section are revisionists (fake communists) and they called for a noon rally to pre-empt the one called by PLP.
So PLP comrades built for both rallies. We helped to lead militant anti-racist chants at the larger demonstration, and brought about 20 people to the politically sharper late-afternoon rally.
PLPers were active at the APHA convention in many other ways. We helped organize a session exposing the racist ideology of genetic determinism, and put forward a communist analysis of capitalism as the root cause of racism. We staffed a literature table, where we talked to hundreds of people and made over a hundred contacts. We took part in policy discussions over Prop. 187 and unemployment. We have been doing this work for a number of years, and it is beginning to bear fruit -- as the demonstrations showed.
Our main task now is to become more active in local affiliates of the APHA so that we can continue this work on a year-round basis. We must also develop our ability to explain why communism will be the solution to the problems of public health. We urge all Challenge readers who work in fields related to public health to join us in this effort.
The U.S. bosses, being shoved around by their German and Japanese competitors, must exploit more U.S. workers. Fascism is on the agenda in health care.
The U.S. Congress wants to eliminate even the little bit of health care they do offer to the working class by slashing billions from Medicare and Medicaid. This new plan will benefit doctors and hospital bosses. Doctors will be allowed to set higher prices for their patients and to compete with large insurance companies and corporate and managed-care entities. (N.Y. Times, Oct. 31)
This will drive up the cost of health care on the backs of the working class. Thousands of jobs will be lost, and health care will worsen.
In response to the budget debate in Congress, a coalition of labor unions joined hands with Democratic politicians and NYC medical bosses to call for a rally on Nov. 2. Thousands of angry black, white and latin workers marched chanting their disgust with the entire health care system. However, thousands more health care workers were kept away from the rally because of late notification and the unions' refusal to call for a general walkout.
At one Brooklyn hospital, the word was that we could use our vacation or holiday time for the rally. We signed up over 200 workers. Then the bosses here said it was up to individual department supervisors to decide whether or not workers could go.
Since the hospital is short staffed due to the bosses' cut backs already, many workers were not allowed to come. We walked through the hospital encouraging workers to leave. We did manage to fill one and one-half busses. This goes to show that the bosses would never simply allow workers to unite to fight back against these massive cuts. Alliance with the bosses or their political stooges is a sure loser.
At the rally, the main speakers were the Democratic politicians and union leaders. They blamed the Republicans for their plans to cut Medicare and Medicaid. They stated that thousands will no longer be able to get nursing home care, thousands of patients would become ineligible for home health care and at least 30,000 health care jobs would be wiped out.
The workers should never trust this cesspool of misleaders. These politicians, both Democrat and Republican, have done nothing to help the patients and health care workers. They have closed hospitals. They have passed laws barring workers from striking. They have increased profits for hospital bosses by giving them tax breaks and benefits from Medicare and Medicaid.
The immediate answer to the deteriorating health care industry is for patients and workers to unite in a mass movement to not only stop the cuts but to increase health care benefits out of the profits of the health care industry. The most important, and more fundamental, answer is to join our party, PLP, in large numbers and fight for a communist revolution. Workers could take over hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other health care services. These vital services would be run based upon the needs of the workers, not on the profits stolen by the bosses.
J.C.G is a chicken processing plant of 350 mainly latino workers. After the union pushed workers into accepting a contract that gave them nothing, the workers went on a Monday morning wildcat strike demanding 50 cents an hour and health insurance. Over 300 workers held the plant for a day and a half. Then 100 of the workers continued the strike for 3 more days after the police forced them out of the plant.
The union declared the strike illegal and refused to support it. To fight for insurance and a small raise they faced arrest and firing. These workers had to take on the boss, the union, the cops, and the lawyers.
When the strikers went to get help from some latino community groups, they were offered lawyers. First the lawyers told the workers there was hope for a legal case. The next day after conspiring with the union, they told the workers "sorry, you're strike is illegal, there is nothing we can do. Go back to the union." On Friday the battle at J.C.G. ended. Some of the fired workers met with the union to try to get their jobs back, others walked out of the meeting saying they would rather look for other jobs.
J.C.G. was raided by immigration cops in April. A hundred workers were arrested, many deported to Mexico. But this raid didn't stop these workers from fighting. These workers are used to difficulty. Their jobs are tough. They work in a freezing cold processing rooms deboneing 4 chicken breasts per minute. The raid made them angrier and tougher. After the raid they fought to bring in the union and when the union sold them out they fought the boss and the union at the same time.
The resolve of the mainly women workers was tremendous. They organized the strike, they took over the plant, and they stayed on the picket line in the cold and rain. The workers didn't win the strike. However, more importantly, for any wage slave, they enriched their knowledge about the unfairness of the system, its' brutality and what it takes to win. "Next time we will organize earlier and not wait for the union to fight for us," one worker said of her strike experience. Or as another young striker put it, "I want to be a revolutionary."
The union, UNITE, the Mexican press and community groups are all now attacking the PLP, saying we manipulated the workers. They can't believe that these women workers were able to organize and fight. Of course these workers went to the Party for help. Who else would they go to? Some of these workers are now interested in working with the Party.
If the laws are against us, why do we need the lawyers? If the union is against us why do we need the union? If the cops protect the boss why do we need the cops? The company, the union, the cops, the lawyers. These are all the institutions of capitalism. So if capitalism depends on institutions like these why do we need capitalism? Besides fighting for 50 cents an hour and health insurance we should make the more significant fight for a system that is run by the workers, in the interest of workers. We must fight to smash capitalism with communist revolution.
The U.S. presidency is like the rest of U.S. capitalism. It's in deep trouble.
The Clinton White House is ridiculed for changing foreign and domestic policy the way you change your clothes. But it's not just Clinton's problem. It's a problem for the whole capitalist ruling class he represents. That class looked to Powell as their potential savior.
Look at the last thirty years. JFK was bumped off in a power struggle between the Eastern establishment and the new-money boys. Black working-class rebellions and protests against the Vietnam war drove LBJ out of office. Nixon got canned in the billionaires' dogfight known as "Watergate." His successor, Ford, couldn't win an election. Carter lasted just one term. Reagan made it through two, but barely. Bush was another one-term president. It's a pretty sorry record.
But then, how good a job can anyone do as captain of the "Titanic"?
That was why many bosses wanted Powell to run. Because he's black, the cynical bosses figure that he would have encouraged millions of disillusioned black workers to vote again. "In this era of political disaffection, General Powell could restore faith in the system" (New York Times Week in Review, November 5, 1995).
Recently this "eastern establishment" has seen its traditional hold over the Republican Party challenged by the likes of Buchanan and the so-called "religious right." These pipsqueak fascists love capitalism, but they are tied to local capitalists who don't always have the same short-term interests as Wall Street. A capitalist system in a crisis of overproduction can't afford such squabbles for long. The Wall Streeters will move to squash them as they develop a form of fascist state capitalism.. A Powell candidacy could have represented a new stage in this process.
Fascism goes hand in hand with war, and Powell is a general. U.S. imperialism is increasingly desperate and isolated. It will be forced into one military adventure after another to fight its rivals for control over markets and raw materials. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Bush's "Desert Storm" oil war, already has the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi workers on his hands.
The bosses call Powell an all-American ``success story." Here is a working-class black youth of immigrant parents, who rose through the ranks to become a superstar. In this fairy tale, the fascist U.S. military becomes the supposedly ``most democratic institution in the United States.'' In truth, these bosses have been grooming Powell for a long time.
In 1968 Powell was deputy chief of staff for operations at Americal Division in Chu Lai, Vietnam. There he helped cover up the infamous My Lai massacre.
U.S. lieutenant William Calley, the Mark Fuhrman of his day, had led his troops in butchering hundreds of Vietnamese villagers. When his crimes came to light, people everywhere began to understand that he was the rule, not the exception. The wholesale slaughter of civilians was part of U.S. bosses' Vietnam strategy.
A soldier, Tom Glen wrote a letter exposing the massacre that came to Powell. Powell sidetracked the letter and wrote a report criticizing Glen, not Calley. Powell concluded with a lie worthy of Hitler's generals: "...relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent" (Boston Globe, September 17, 1995).
And what does Powell say about Vietnam now? In his book he defends anti-civilian terror: "We tried to solve the problem by making the whole (country) uninhabitable. In the hard logic of war, what difference did it make if you shot your enemy or starved him to death?" He also defends the Reagan-Bush policy of mass terror in Central America and praises the fascist contras, whose military strategy consisted of butchering civilians.
Ironically, Sam himself helped bring about this latest attack by trying to be a good union delegate. He was recently elected delegate after 20 years on the job. He threw himself into his union duties by filing grievances on many issues, including speed-up and racism. But in this period of intense capitalist competition, the rulers can't afford any concessions. The Jefferson bosses wrote Sam up. Sam got the PLP delegate to represent him in the grievance and they forced the bosses to rescind the write-up.
But the capitalists must always try to take back any reform victories won by the workers. In late October, Sam was suspended for insubordination. When Sam contacted the union leaders, they tried to blame him and said that he was the only worker having problems--a lie of course! Sam then called the PLP delegate who was at home on vacation. The PLP delegate and his wife immediately met Sam and arranged a meeting with other Jefferson workers. A leaflet was quickly written.
The leaflet itself was too mild and unfortunately did not call for communist solutions. It pointed out that Sam was the second new delegate to be suspended just for filing grievances and called on the workers to oppose these attacks. At 5:30 A.M. the next day the leaflet was passed out at the hospital.
The workers eagerly took stacks of leaflets to distribute. To Sam's surprise, the workers in his department, previously crippled with passivity, rushed to his defense. On their own they called the bosses to demand that Sam be returned to work. A white worker took the initiative to write a petition and get signatures demanding Sam's return. Sam is black. This multi-racial unity is significant, given the divisions that exist amongst the union workers.
Most of the Jefferson workers thought these developments were good. But instead of applauding these efforts by the members to protect a union delegate, the 1199C leaders were angry. They are so racist and anti-worker that they can't believe Sam and other Jefferson workers gave leadership to this little campaign. They think Sam and the others are stupid, and manipulated by the PLP delegate.
The union leaders are angry because even this little burst of militant multi-racial unity threatens the union's relationship with the bosses. Under capitalism the union serves the bosses by keeping the workers locked to the system. "We have procedures you have to follow!'" the 1199C organizer scolded Sam. Never mind that these procedures have not stopped unemployment, speed-up, racism, union-busting or arbitrary attacks like the one against Sam! In fact these procedures help continue the bosses' fascist attacks by keeping workers from organizing for militant multi-racial unity and communist revolution. These "procedures" enforce their profit system.
Sam is correct. PLP communists do have a different agenda. We do want to overthrow capitalism with communist revolution. Sam called the PLP delegate for assistance because, despite Sam's disagreements with communism, he likes what he has seen us do to organize workers. Sam wants to believe that these good things are not connected to communist revolution. But our friend Sam is wrong. PLP members organize workers to do these "good" things precisely because our goal is communist revolution.
These "good" things not only up the ante of class struggle against the bosses; more importantly, they open the opportunity for workers to learn that no matter how hard we fight for reforms, as long as the bosses' "procedures" exist -- their system of capitalism -- workers will always be behind the eight-ball.
Our struggle with Sam and the other workers will continue.
This year, one of the main goals of our PL youth club on the east coast has been to increase our distribution of C/D inside our school. In one class in particular, career ed., our C/D circulation has been particularly successful. One of our nightly homework assignments from our teacher is to look through any newspaper, and find articles which discuss fields that we want to work in as adults. So, the PL members in the class use Challenge, saying that we want to be nurses (particularly among those at LA County during their strike), or factory workers ( maybe at some plant like Boeing, so that we too can participate in and organize mass strikes like theirs).
Soon afterwards, many other youth in the class began using C/D as well for their homework assignments, some saying they wanted to be public defenders for welfare recipients who could not meet their payments, others not even using the paper because they wanted to find an interesting occupation, but simply because they liked the articles! Using C/D in this way has had several effects.
It has given the comrades in this class, and many others, the opportunity to openly discuss and debate with our peers how this system of capitalism really works, who it benefits, and whether or not communism is the solution. They see us as not "isolating" ourselves from the working class, but struggling with members of it, and realizing that this helps to smash their own anti communist attitudes.
It has given us an opportunity to show the paper to many more teachers, because many of the topics we address, such as unemployment, welfare cutbacks, and violence, relate to their lives just as directly as they relate to our lives.
Students are now coming up to us and asking for issues of the paper! This is all merely to point out how small steps, like openly debating topics such as the Million Man March, and leading small mass actions such as last year's walkout against substandard physical conditions of the schools, can make our work progress.
While most students are not in full agreement with the Party on many issues, many still identify the PL youth and our base as leaders--fighters, which makes them more open than ever to communism. Using Challenge in the classroom can help to provide the basis for the sharp ideological and class struggle that is necessary for us to succeed in building a communist world.
NJ HS PL'er
Half a dozen black students confronted the student government (SGA) president at Purdue University Calumet and forced him to remove a racist poster that he had put up on the wall of the student government office. An anti-racist professor had discovered the poster and brought it to the attention of students, who were enraged at the poster. The poster has a deceptive title, calling for an end to apartheid and racism on campus. But the poster only consists of attacks against programs for black and Latin students!
SGA president Thomas Moffitt, a leader of the College Republicans, was elected to SGA office running with no opposition and with fewer than 4% of the students voting. Since he took office, he has acted like he is the king of racism. First, he was involved in excluding two anti-racists from being able to become student senators. Then he tried to take away the office of the Black Students Union on a technicality, while making sure that his much smaller group, the Republicans, enjoy comfortable office facilities. Then a black student who applied for a paid job as student government secretary was told by Moffitt that her grades were too low. When she proved to him that her grades exceeded the requirements (and probably his grades), Moffitt then decided that he would not hire anyone! A classic example of pure racism. It was during this incident that the group, led by militant black women, surrounded Moffitt. A whining, trembling Moffitt insisted that it was his free speech right, but the students insisted that he did not have the right to present his racist views as those of the whole student body. After a period of heated confrontation, Moffitt took down the poster, complaining the whole time.
Students and workers are not going to take racist oppression lying down! This action has proven to be a spark inspiring students from different groups, including the BSU and Los Latinos, to take united action against other forms of racism. A petition against Moffitt's racist propaganda is already being circulated and a campaign against the high priced, no-credit GNS courses is also underway. The students who led the action against the racist poster did more to teach the campus how to fight against racism than a hundred books, speeches, or lectures. And this has opened the way to building a stronger, united movement against racism on and off campus here in the Gary-Hammond area.
Purdue Anti-Racists
Party line, party line, party line! These are the three most important steps to follow to do effective communist campus organizing.
At Haverford College, Pa, the Party has been working with H.A.C., the Haverford Activist Collective, and in La Casa, one of the Latino groups on campus. The Party has needed to work in these two groups because students are divided along racial lines. This division has made it hard for student activism.
Nevertheless, because of PL's involvement in these mass organizations we were able to take a multi-racial group of students from both La Casa and HAC (and from the BSL, the Black Students' League) to the Howard Conference. As a result of our participation at Howard, Haverford students from these two organizations are now holding a "Speak Out! On Racism, Sexism, and Government Budget Priorities". This Speak Out! has integrated a multi-racial group students on concrete issues that affects working people.
This "Speak Out!" demonstrates real improvement in the development of student activism at Haverford. Haverford, a Quaker college, has won students to reactionary pacifism. Students here are "non-confrontational" and only debate in "non-argumentative" manners. The "Speak Out!" should break with these bosses' ideas. Students will see that confrontation with the racists and fascists that back budget cuts is progressive for the struggle. They will also see the effectiveness of multi-racial unity after the event.
People ask questions about the Party, communism, and other aspects of the line as the Party works with honest activists in the mass organizations. These discussions build the Party because communism is brought into the center of politics. Activists in mass organizations will find our ideas somewhat attractive and interesting. They will also fundamentally disagree with other aspects of our line. It is important to understand that these disagreements will dissolve or sharpen with our practice. Those people who pledge allegiance to the bosses will break with us-- those who love the working class will remain with us and may even join the Party. However, such discussions do not start if we are being opportunist -- Challenge must be present in every meeting we go, in every event we build.
The Party line on mass organizations seems to give good results if one is consistent with the political work. Ideological struggle is necessary. Agitation is even more important. Challenge and communist ideas must permeate all discussions and events of the mass organizations. As we can see with the modest gains made by the Party at Haverford, we can prove to the masses the need for communism as we advance them to the left, both with action and ideological struggle.
A Red Student
One evening I went to visit my mother, who lives in the neighborhood where I grew up. I noted police lights blazing. The car they had pulled over belonged to my niece who also had her 7 year old daughter in the car. One cop was talking to my niece. His partner, a female cop stood behind the car with her hand on her gun. I walked up and said "Excuse me, that's my niece in the car, I just wanted to make sure that she's OK." The female officer became outraged and demanded that I "Get back in the Car". I stated that "This is my neighborhood, I am not intruding nor am I a criminal". This power hungry female cop proceeded to push me against the car, handcuffing me, stating that I was "interfering with a police investigation." My niece's daughter started crying, I explained to her that this was something that she "would have to face, being black in America." That racist cops will view her as a criminal, regardless of whether the cops involved are black (as these cops were), white, or Latino." This female cop, who I later learned was L. Lewis (out of the 83rd & Vincennes precinct), became irritated. While handcuffing me the cop started telling my niece "that's not true." In the squad car, this cop started telling me how I "shouldn't tell this young child (the truth) about cops because she would have a negative attitude towards them. She stated that they were "just doing their jobs" and "it had nothing to do with race." You can't tell me that if I had been a white woman that I would have been arrested for refusing to get back in my car. For daring not to take directives from the "OFFICERS OF THE LAW". In poor, black, Latino communities we're not supposed to have a voice, how dare we speak out. It's scary to know that I was lucky, how many brothers, sisters, men, women, kids, have gotten "accidentally" shot or beaten by these very cops.
So, what do we do? We must join together and continuously work to fight racism. We must join organizations that are fighting racism, if not PLP then the organization of your choice. We must continue to stand up for what we believe and refuse to be victims of this oppressive system.
Midwest Comrade
In the 1930s, the Consolidated Gold Drering Ltd, began to mine gold in the region of Zaragoza, Antioquia, Colombia. For over 50 years, these imperialists, along with local bosses, have superexploited miners and destroyed the environment. The bosses even formed a worker's union in the 1940s to keep miners under control. But 20 years ago, workers broke the control of the bosses and began to organize for better conditions. Today, the area is full of death squads used by the bosses to kill and intimidate miners and other workers.
In spite of those fascist conditions, 480 miners in El Bagre, began a strike on Sept. 4 after the bosses refused to negotiate a new contract. As a matter of fact, the bosses want to eliminate some of the benefits won in the past, like medical insurance. The bosses want to close the hospital serving people in the region.
We ask Challenge to inform other workers about our strike, since the world's workers are suffering the same problems. International working class solidarity is a key ingredient in fighting the bosses' fascist attacks.
A Striking miner