After World War II, Yugoslavia was touted as the good, pro-capitalist, socialist country living in peace and prosperity. Tito, Yugoslavia's socialist president, was built up as the opposition to Russia. Banks in the U.S. were willing to extend credit to Yugoslavia. Tito was happy to take as much money from the West as the banks would lend.
Although Yugoslavia remained poorer than most of the countries of the industrialized West, the more equitable distribution of wealth carried much of the country out of poverty. Of course, dependence on the banks -- the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank -- meant that Yugoslavia had a growing trade deficit and a weakening currency. With worldwide capitalist crisis developing, by the early 1980s, the IMF pressured Yugoslavia to devalue its currency, privatize business and government institutions, and slash social spending. The Cold War ended and Yugoslavia was no longer needed as a "showcase" for capitalism. This led to severe economic crisis in Yugoslavia by the end of the decade.
The workers responded to the IMF reforms with mass strikes. Wage cuts were met with mass resistance, workers burned their union cards to protest union hacks, went on strike, occupied roads, in effect paralyzed the country. Union leaders tried to get workers to accept the national government attempts to close "unprofitable enterprises" in 1986. The workers en mass refused to go along with this, and initiated a national strike wave. In Croatia, miners struck and won a 40% increase. The strikes spread, with demands to "expropriate property from the state and the ruling party." Workers began calling for dismissal of town councils. By 1988, there were violent clashes between workers and the police.
In September, 1989, 10,000 workers demonstrated in Belgrade and demanded to be paid in Deustchmarks. In December of that same year, 650,000 workers from Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia went on strike demanding a 100% wage increase. These strikes had their effect. In 1989, the rate of inflation was officially 1,256% . The workers won wage increases of 1,595%, an increase in real wages of 25%!
Nationalism was a key part of this fatal weakness! "Each nationality should have their own capitalist state" was the line the bosses pushed. Even though workers of all groups struck against the government's attacks, there was no open attack on nationalism/capitalism. There was no call for the workers to unite and, instead of being won or forced to begin shooting at each other, to shoot the bosses instead. There was no call that workers have no country, "race," or "region," that all workers must unite to get rid of capitalism.
The crisis in Yugoslavia was a product of the imperialist banks. These same imperialists took advantage of the weakness of the Yugoslav government and of the workers' movement to pull Yugoslavia apart. Germany, the largest foreign investor in Eastern Europe, fought for Croatia to become independent. Germany encouraged Croatia to secede in order to take not only Croatia, but also Slovenia away from control of the U.S. imperialists.
Each nationalist leader wanted a bigger piece for himself. And each imperialist figured how to use this division to further his own imperialist aim in Europe. Despite anti-war marches and protests, despite tens of thousands refusing conscription, thousands of workers have been won to or forced to kill other workers.
Even if the peace accords succeed in temporarily dividing Bosnia among the imperialists, this military adventure will sharpen the contradictions between the imperialists and the workers. As the bosses tell us "there will be casualties," this war will lead to more war, more cuts, unemployment, devaluation, privatization and crisis for the working class.
The workers have no interest in which group of imperialists or local fascists win. In capitalist wars, all workers suffer for the bosses' profits. The only way out of this crisis is to turn a very bad thing into a very good thing. Turn the bosses' war into a war for communist revolution. The capitalists are all planning to spill the blood of more of the world's workers for their vicious profit system. This will anger many. We have the opportunity to fight to build PLP into a mass communist party to smash capitalism. Communism and only communism will liberate the working class from the horrors of capitalist war and bring lasting unity and peace.
A child's death is always a tragedy. But as you listen to handwringing news anchors pouring out their saccharine sympathy, remember that Elisa's death is not an isolated tragedy. Think about how many more Elisas there will be when "welfare reform" throws a million more children and their families into abject poverty.
A half million children have died in Iraq as a direct result of the Gulf war! Think about these children and the hundreds of thousands of others worldwide who die each year from starvation and preventable disease.
A system that murders children by the millions must be destroyed.
When the communists took power in China in 1948-49, they wiped out the opium drug trade built up by the British imperialists a century earlier. They started by throwing all imperialists out of China and shooting the big drug dealers.
More importantly, they began to dismantle a profit system based on the exploitation of workers. The Chinese masses embraced the communist idea of working together for the collective good. Within a very few years, the communists eliminated most crime and gave former drug addicts the opportunity to lead constructive lives.
Now that free-market capitalism has returned to China, the drug trade and drug addiction have returned, too. Capitalism promotes drugs. Drugs create crazed killers. Capitalism killed Elisa.
But the policy of neglect didn't start with this supervisor. New York, like just about every other city in the world, has cut and cut and cut the budget for health, education, and social services. The reason is not simply that Giuliani is a racist and an enemy of the working class. Of course he is both, but the Wall Streeters (finance capitalists) are using him to do their hatchet work.
These capitalists need every penny they can squeeze out of the working class to boost their profits to internationally competitive levels. When the capitalist class is in trouble, the trouble doesn't "trickle down" to the working class. It pours. No wonder there are so many families in crisis, so many children in danger.
The crisis of capitalism killed Elisa Izquierdo.
U.S./NATO intervention in Bosnia is just a small taste of what's to come. What good are lawsuits against New York City in the face of the current crisis? What good will come of begging Clinton to think of the children? What do the hand-wringing news anchors have to offer?
Pity and piety won't save our children. We must organize our class, the working class, to turn the bosses' economic crisis into a battlefield of the class war. We must prepare to turn the bosses' imperialist wars for profit into a revolutionary war for communism.
Then children like Elisa will be able to live and flourish. They will grow up to create a communist world of equality, collectivity, and creativity that we can barely imagine today.
Per capita income has dropped 33% in the last 6 months. At least 2.4 million people have lost their jobs since January. Two out of every five workers are unemployed and 24 million others have incomes less than the minimum wage. Mexican officials promise an upturn, but everything suggests that next year will be even worse for the working class.
Workers have mobilized against these attacks. Recently, there have been several mass workers'marches in Mexico City, including one by over 25,000 angry teachers demanding 100% wage hike, and thousands of fired bus drivers fighting for their jobs. But marches and struggles for reforms won't lead workers out of this crisis, whether or not the reforms are won. The only solution to a crisis caused by capitalism is to smash capitalism and build communism..
Also, the Mexican capitalists. According to the International Monetary Fund, Mexican investors started the stampede away from the peso a year ago, taking more than 12 billion dollars out of Mexico in less than 2 days. Rumors of an imminent coup d'etat, which pushed the peso into its latest nose dive, started in Mexico, not in the Wall Street Journal (as many originally thought).
According to the US Department of Commerce, there was a $10 billion surplus in the balance of trade favorable to Mexico in the first part of 1995. But the main part of the foreign currency generated by these exports never got to Mexico. Instead, a total of 48 of the most powerful Mexican capitalists -- who also control the banks and currency exchanges -- exchange the foreign currency. For this great "effort", they make a 10% profit. Its only this 10% they returned to Mexico, depositing the rest in US banks. These rich parasites manipulate currency and stock transactions in order to multiply their wealth at the expense of Mexican workers' lives.
Meanwhile, the Mexican bosses owe some $180 billion to international banks. "The central problem is the debt service," said a former US Federal Reserve official. He predicts that Mexico will have to borrow still more money, at high rates, just to pay the interest on this debt. This will mean squeezing the workers even harder.
The capitalists are also preparing the openly fascist party PAN to win the presidential election in the year 2000. PAN is gaining support by blaming the ruling party, PRI, for the economic crisis even though PAN defends the capitalist system that created the crisis. PAN already governs a large part of the country. It pushes a religious fundamentalist offensive, which includes persecution of women, the death penalty for 16 year olds, religious education in the public schools, and changes in the federal labor law to legalize brutal working conditions.
The PRD (liberal opposition party) considers the electoral victories of PAN as an advance of democracy . Some so-called "intellectuals" call it the only "democratic party." Even Zapatista leader Marcos considers it to be a real alternative to PRI, while his EZLN talks endlessly with the government. There can be no doubt that the liberals, democrats and fake revolutionaries open the door to fascism.
These bosses enrich themselves at the cost of exploitation, poverty, and death of millions of workers and their families. We must destroy their brutal system.
In a communist society, there will be no bosses, bankers, or money. Workers and their families will share the wealth they produce, according to need. The "failure of communism" that the bosses constantly talk about was really the failure of socialism. Socialism, because of its many concessions to capitalism. led to state capitalism. Capitalism, in any form, is incapable of taking the working class to its liberation. Only communism can liberate us from wage slavery and capitalist exploitation.
The workers of the world are one class and we need only one party, the Progresive Labor Party (PLP). The PLP represents the vanguard of the international working class. Fascism will not stop us. Exploitation and capitalist dictatorship will not last forever. The workers will bury the Mexican and US bosses together with communist revolution.
These cutbacks, to balance the bosses' budget at the expense of workers and students, are being imposed, under pressure from the German capitalists so that the Deutschmark and the Franc lead the way to form a European currency. This is part of the strategy of these bosses to better compete with the U.S. and Japanese bosses.
Cutbacks in France will put tens of thousands of workers on the street without jobs. The cuts to close a $65 billion budget deficit will force older workers to stay on the job years longer before they can retire, increase taxes and eliminate job openings for younger workers. France already has an official unemployment rate of almost 12%, one the highest rates in Europe.
Tremendous anger has erupted against the cuts. Workers' demonstrations have shut down the country. Postal service, utilities, and public transportation have all been disrupted by strikes. Students and workers at privately held companies have now joined the massive demonstrations on Dec. 5.
To try to cool down the situation, the government has offered a deal that would let the union help "manage the cutbacks." Already, the head of the social democratic CFDT union federation has accepted the deal and has called for an end to the strikes and protests. The other two union federations, the rightwing Force Ouvriere (FO) and the fake-leftist CGT have not yet accepted the deal, mainly under pressure of their members. But the FO and CGT hacks are not about to threaten the system. They have now backed down from the threat of calling for a general strike, in spite of the massive support these protests have (a poll indicated that a majority of the population support the workers and students).
The protests in France have shown the power workers have in shutting down an imperialist country. But this is not enough. The capitalists of the world must impose more and more cutbacks to make workers pay for the never-ending crisis of their system.
In 1968, a massive general strike threatened the entire system. Then President DeGaulle called on the French and German Armies to attack the strikers. This, along with the betrayal of the reformist union leaders and the fake "Communist" Party, sabotaged that struggle. Today, 27 years later workers are still paying for that betrayal.
The key element missing here is a revolutionary communist movement to show workers that they don't need capitalism and reformist union hacks and fake leftists, that they need to destroy the system and replace it with workers' power (communism). Communism will eliminate the bankers, their budget, and the bosses, the reasons for the cutbacks.
As the poet said a few generations back, "When the leaders speak of peace, better prepare for war." So when they went back and forth with those "peace" talks in Ohio, and then ended up announcing an agreement, my stomach turned over.
Immediately after the "peace" was agreed on, the politicians started talking about "acceptable" numbers of casualties. They started showing pictures of GIs getting ready to go from Germany to Bosnia. They started "reassuring" us that American troops would be "allowed" to defend themselves. (All this as a result of "peace," remember!)
American workers, myself included, don't want our youth sent over to the "peace" in Bosnia. Why not? Well, put it like this: do you trust somebody whose word for war is "peace?"
Do you believe the government when they say they are sending troops wherever to protect "our" interests? Have you noticed they always use the word "our" when they talk about war? "Our boys," "our interests," "our country?"
If "peace" means "war," what does "our" mean? "Their," of course means them, the capitalist class. That is what the war in Bosnia is all about -- their interests; their money; their power and influence in Europe. It's all got to do with the fact that there are two classes in the world: us and them -- the working class and the capitalist class. It's us against them, when you boil it all down. That's why they call it "our," trying to blind us to reality.
I'm sure you know that when it comes to sending "our" boys over there, their definition of "our" gets a little narrower -- it doesn't include the bosses' kids! They think they can use our kids like pieces in a chess game, like canon fodder. (After all, the Serb, Croat and Muslim bosses in Bosnia have been doing that successfully for four years now. Sending working class youth to kill each other so "their" bosses can get territory they want.)
Bosses forever have always been willing to shed workers' blood to improve their profit margin. Well, I'll tell you one thing: this parent doesn't plan on tying any yellow ribbons around any trees! My message to the troops is this: remember what class you come from; remember who is "us" and who is "them;" organize your unit to refuse orders to Bosnia; organize to turn your guns around and make revolution against our real enemy -- "our" own bosses!
When the bosses told three workers who put belt loops on pants, that their piece rate would be lowered, the workers stopped work. The boss threatened them, giving them five minutes to return to work or go home. They stayed at their machines for two hours.
Other workers encouraged them not to back down. A worker in another section wrote a note on the back of a small card telling workers to stop production in support of the three workers. The card was passed from machine to machine, and went through the factory.
When the bell rang to go back to work after lunch, no one went. The entire factory stopped. The boss was shocked, and tried to convince the workers to go back to work. But they insisted that until the three workers had their pay restored, there would be no work. By the end of the day, the boss gave up.
This action, and the political struggle around it, show that collectivity, not individualism, is key for our survival. We are one class. An attack against one is an attack against all. United, we are capable of stopping wage cuts, and the wage system itself. We can fight for power and run society without bosses, wages, or borders. In this factory, workers from different countries united to defend their class interests as workers. Workers throughout the world have the same interests.
In actions like this, workers get a taste of power. They were in control. The strong collective leadership given by the workers convinced a those few who were not won to stop working. Workers discussed how the capitalist system was the problem and has to be destroyed. Others said that actions like this will help us organize committees to fight the bosses and their abusive foremen.
Communists must use these battles to expose capitalism. This victory is temporary. The boss always attacks. We'll win some struggles and lose others. The root of the problem is that the boss and his class have state power. They pay us a small fraction of the value we produce and keep the rest. This robbery goes on day in and day out. Why should we fight over how much the boss will steal from us? The problem is the wage system itself. We must organize ourselves into a powerful army to smash wage slavery. The biggest victory is to win workers out of this circle of exploitation, and to communist revolution. Capitalism cannot serve the workers. Our goal is a new communist society, with the working class in power, producing what we need to live, with no profits and no bosses.
The power of the bosses' state was evident as the cops, security guards and supervisors took video pictures. Despite this display of the muscle of the ruling class, workers turned two lane highways into slow moving one lane roads. Strikers dented scab cars, and spit on scabs foolish enough to roll down their windows. The strikers disrupted traffic with firecrackers, lights and horns, and dismantled parts of scab cars that drove recklessly close to the picket lines. The white collar workers' union, SPEEA, refused to strike on Dec. 1, when their contract ended. Our next step is to break the law and shut down the gates completely.
Strikers are beginning to test these bosses' laws. In Auburn, one cop tried to arrest a striker for hitting a scab car. Twenty workers surrounded the cop, and demanded he arrest the scab for trying to "hit the picket." The cop backed down. Picket captains will have a hard time saying that the "cops are our friends" after these mass pickets.
Something new is in the air. This militancy is fueled by a general belief that decent jobs are becoming impossible to attain under capitalism. The captains of industry, like Boeing President Phil Condit, say workers must face the "reality of the global economy." This is only temporary, says Condit and his ruling class pundits. Daniel Chirot, a professor at the University of Washington international studies and sociology department which is heavily funded by Boeing, promises, "New industries...that translate into new opportunities."
The reformers and union hacks also say this is temporary. "The partisan social policy which reflects the wealth and privileged sectors is temporary. It's always been temporary, it's always been overcome," said Noam Chomsky, a well-known reformer. "Boeing executives earned their bonuses, we just want our fair share," said District 751 president Bill Johnson. "We need to be full partners with our employers," said the new AFL-CIO president John Sweeney. Chomsky, Johnson, and Sweeney all believe this is just a temporary dislocation of capitalism that can be fixed with a little reform.
But the impoverishment of the working class is the absolute trend of capitalism. Any relief from that trend is temporary. Any reforms we win by spilling our blood in class struggle (like the fight for unions and a shorter work-week to create jobs) are quickly taken back by the bosses. This means two tasks must be primary is any struggle -- including this strike. We must increase the circulation of Challenge-Desafío and we must guarantee the growth of our Party. The revolutionary ideas in Challenge-Desafío and PLP are the tools for building communist revolution, the only way to end the impoverishment of our class.
With these priorities it is clear that capitalists see a bleak future for the majority of Oakland's kids, and for two days last week teachers staged an announced walkout against overcrowded classes and a five year wage freeze. Teachers went back to work, and now the union is asking the School Board to reopen negotiations, using the demand of class size to win parents to support a teacher pay raise.
In the 1980s, the richest 1% saw their incomes skyrocket by 102%. The poorest 60%, certainly the families of Oakland students, saw theirs drop by 8%. Yet the richest 1% hold state power and look after the Raiders while telling our kids to get lost.
PLP forces spoke to teachers about revolution and working class power and found the teachers more open to such ideas than they have been in a number of years.
Now the Quebec bosses are saying that the Canadian government forced them to make these cuts, as the government itself has been making large cutbacks and plans to make deeper slashes in the budget next year. But the real reason for the cuts is the world capitalist crisis of overproduction, which is affecting all bosses, including those in Quebec. This crisis is caused by commodity production (production for profit). Only communism can solve this crisis. Communism, a system in which production is based on the needs of the working class not the profits of the bosses.
To push through these cuts, the Quebec bosses are using nationalism and racism. We the Quebecois workers must sacrifice ourselves and tighten our belts so that the Quebec bosses can get through the hard times ahead.
However, when we hear declarations from the Ontario bosses and their politicians in Ottawa and Toronto about the racism of Quebec nationalists, we can only laugh. Canada's Indian Act of the 1880s, still valid, is an explicitly racist piece of legislation that was the model for South Africa's recently repealed 1948 apartheid laws. And it now costs a non-refundable $1,475 just to apply for permanent residence to Canada.
The impetus for this accumulation has been Hydro-Quebec, one of the world's largest utility companies, whose dams of rivers flowing into James Bay form the world's largest construction project. At the same time, a number of reserves of capital has been built up since the 1960s, including the Desjardins movement, officially a network of credit unions but in fact a major bank, the Quebec pension plan and the Solidarity fund of the FTQ, the most rightwing of the union centrals. Yes, you got it right, in Quebec one of the largest bosses is a union!
At the same time, the rate of exploitation has always been higher in Quebec than in other parts of Canada. Salaries are lower, taxes are higher and unemployment is higher. For this reason, there have been times when the Quebec working class has been very militant, such as in the early 1970s, but since no lasting, fighting unity has ever been forged between anglophone and francophone workers, it has been relatively easy for the bosses to divide us along linguistic lines.
At the same time, Ontario's industrial base has collapsed due to the NAFTA agreements. The relative balance between Ontario and Quebec has dramatically changed. As a result, the Ontario bosses are eyeing with greed the assets of the Quebec bosses, such as the dams in the North and some of the high-tech industry in Montreal, including telecommunications, aerospace and computer software. The Quebec bosses are not allowing the Ontario bosses to just walk in and take over. They're fighting back. To make sure that they have workers ready to fight for them, they're using nationalism and racism. The Ontario bosses are doing the same thing. The day after the referendum, the Ottawa Sun published a cartoon in which Lucien Bouchard, (who wears an artificial leg) has it gnawed off by a Canadian beaver (a Canadian national symbol).
The only reason that we should be concerned about the squabbles between bosses is that these spats create the conditions for getting rid of the bosses entirely. We must fight against the cutbacks, and unite anglophone, francophone, native and immigrant workers against the bosses, no matter what language they speak. We must fight against both the nationalists and the racists, for they seek to divide us, the working class. We must fight for an egalitarian society, with no bosses, racism or nationalism, under the red flag of communism.
As in the first strike, the union was more concerned with policing the strikers and keeping them outside the plant than they were with stopping scabs and shutting production. Many strikers became demoralized, watching scabs take their jobs. Hundreds of strikers also crossed the lines. The UAW raised strike pay to $300 a week, and provided full medical benefits, to maintain the appearance of a strike. To save face, the union orchestrated a rejection of the company's final offer and then "suspended" the strike. Workers must now wait for Caterpillar to call them back to work.
The UAW is in steep decline. Its sinking fortunes reflect the decline of the profit system they are wedded to. One-third of the domestic auto industry is non-union, including 83% of the Independent Parts Suppliers. Caterpillar, the "GM" of earth moving equipment, told the UAW--twice! -- it is prepared to get along without them. The billions of dollars in concessions in wages, benefits and work rules over the last 15 years has not secured one job or stopped the slide of U.S. capitalism. Increasing productivity, accepting layoffs and sub-contracting, and "team concepts" to make U.S. bosses more "globally competitive," has meant more fascist terror for the working class.
The union leaders want to be partners with the bosses and help determine the shape of fascism in the USA. The desperate bosses are not looking for partners. They are telling the UAW, and the whole AFL-CIO, "You can work for us, but you can't be partners with us. If you won't accept your role, disciplining the workers, we'll do it without you."
Even at it's "healthiest," it took mass violence and class war to win anything from the murderous bosses. Now their system is in crisis and they are like rabid dogs. Everything we won over the past 60 years is being taken back, and more, because we have allowed the bosses to remain in power. We must get off the endless treadmill of trying to win a decent life while the bosses rule. Their system is in crisis, but it will not die a natural death. Only armed communist revolution can put the working class in power, where we will control all that we produce. And all that we produce will be for the benefit of our class, not the profit-hungry monsters who rule today.
Willie Brown has a lot of political smarts and is very liberal. As State Assembly Speaker for 15 years, he brought big bucks to S.F. What does this mean for the working class, the many City workers and those who depend on City services, many of whom worked to get Willie Brown elected?
While the campaign of Willie Brown for Mayor has been staffed by labor and community activists, it has been bankrolled by some of the biggest money in the City, such as the Shorenstiens, who own 25% of downtown. Which of these two groups will Brown serve? Can he, as he proposes, serve both? Do class and money matter? Can Willie Brown serve the worker behind the wheel as well as the big wheel behind the desk?
Willie Brown promised not to raise taxes until City government is more efficient. In the State Assembly, he sponsored a bill he says save jobs by preventing the City from taxing stock transfers at the Pacific Stock Exchange which had threatened to move if taxed.
Brown, in his talks to unions, says he needs their help to make City government efficient. He wants the unions and their members to team up with him to finger inefficiency. His first area of waste will most likely be management, but they have stood in the way of every previous reformer`s attempts. This will do a lot to protect jobs and improve services, right? Wrong.
Their system is based on severe competition, make more profits or die. Is there anywhere in the country or the world, that business is creating decent jobs? Have the workers at Boeing or Caterpillar or General Motors or Pacific Telesis or PG & E, where workers and their leaders bought into this team/competitive model, gained more job security and a better job environment? Is there any place where cooperating with big business has produced jobs or job security? More like the opposite is true. Is Willie Brown so gifted and connected that he will reverse the whole trend of capitalism? He hasn`t gotten where he is by being stupid. We workers cannot buy into the team plan and win. We must face the very difficult reality that there is no room for workers' needs in this top down system of competition.
Every year big businesses get huge tax breaks and pay proportionately less taxes. In the last year, PLP has done a lot in pointing to the capitalists downtown to blame for discontent at poor services and jobs. This idea was picked up by many activists. Downtown businesses see Willie Brown as the person to take growing anger and organization which has been aimed at downtown and their old puppet, Mayor Jordan, and redirect it within the working class to cut the cost of jobs and services.
How can Willie Brown serve both classes as mayor? He won`t. The danger is that the many rank-and-file activists who hate business downtown and want to make a statement by unseating Jordan, will also want to make their jobs and services more secure by following the new mayor and his cooperative plan. The money and competitive insanity of capitalism ravages our lives and it must be fought. But electing Willie Brown as mayor is not fighting back and waiting for him to lead once he is mayor will mean greater weakness. We need to cooperate and be a team in order to be strong. But the leadership of any team is crucial to success. We mean to show our many friends, who have been supporting Brown, that organizing in and with PLP will produce the leadership the working class so desperately needs.
On November 20th almost 1,000 people rallied in Trenton, NJ against the federal government's budget cuts. PLP members participated in the rally, selling 40 Challenge-Desafío, and distributing 200 copies of the recent editorial on welfare reform. We also distributed about 40 papers and leaflets on the return bus trip.
Many people who oppose the budget cuts think the government is our friend because it "provides for people." The Democrats at the rally pushed the idea that the Republican attack on "big government" is really a cover for an attack on working people and the poor. But the recent federal government "shutdown" proves whose side the government is really on (whether Democratic or Republican). Robert Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury (and straight from Wall Street), made sure to protect the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. government. What is that? It is the government's promise to -- by law -- guarantee interest (profit) to all holders of government bonds, mainly bankers and other parasites.
While Social Security, VA offices, and national parks were shut down, the bondholders got theirs. And how much is "theirs"? The national debt is almost $5 trillion. Even at 5% annual interest (probably less than what they get) that's $250 billion a year.
Over eight years that's $2 trillion, which is more than twice the amount of the budget cuts over the same period of time. So the government could cancel the cuts and still pay the bondholders half the interest they're "due." But the government cannot do that because under capitalist dictatorship, it is run by and for the bankers and bondholders.
In order to spread PLP's communist ideas, and broaden our approach to the struggle against the budget cuts, we are planning a forum to debate the strategy for fighting the budget cuts. We will try to involve all of our friends and many of the new people we met in Trenton.
NJ red
On November 27, 20 tenants of the "Rosa Vista" community in McFarland, CA, got together to discuss how to protect Ms. Olivia Garza, who is threatened with eviction, accused of fraud. By fraud, we're probably talking about $30 to $60.
At the meeting, the council president resigned, denouncing the Public Housing Authority as a bunch of liars. "I'm tired of all these initiatives to improve the community being sabotaged by the Authority that is supposedly here to help us," he said.
A PLP leader, and veteran of the famous strike that shook the ranchers, was invited to speak. He said, among other things, that "rights like decent housing for people with low incomes, had been won in the past through great struggles led by communists, and if we want to save these rights now we have to go on fighting for them." He ended by saying, "The fight will only be over when we have changed this system of lies and exploitation into a society of harmony... that society is called communism".
It was agreed at the meeting to organize another session which will include tenants from other communities. The idea is to broaden our efforts to make it possible to form a large-scale public protest against the hypocritical policy of "persecuting poor people for fraud." We recognize that the true agenda of that policy is to lay the groundwork for wholesale destruction of, "the right to a decent way of life for people with low incomes."
Several tenants volunteered to distribute fliers in other neighborhoods.
A red farmworker
On Nov. 19, two members of PLP participated in a "Grassroots Organizing Weekend (GROW)," at University of California, Riverside.
After five minutes the intentions of this conference were made very clear; that "our [students] main source of power was to get out the militant vote." This immediately sparked arguments from myself and others.
From the beginning you could see that the leaders were disorganized because as soon as there was opposition, or comments from the floor they lost control. The first day the discussion turned into a heated debate about whether voting was the answer. But,on the second day the organizers took control -- probably after reevaluating their strategy. They began to make us state our name and school before speaking. At first, it was difficult to tell whether they simply wanted to know our names or were purposely interrupting us. This gave the discussion leader more power to choose who could speak and when. It all became a ridiculous joke as a woman repeated her name ten different times in about one hour.
We said, "We don't think we can actually reform the system by voting `our' people into power;" and that we never get to vote for things such as increases in tuition or cuts in financial aid, or even mass layoffs. This gave us a chance to see who our allies were.
We talked about how voting is a waste of energy because when a proposition is defeated, they always come back with the same idea only worded differently. You could spend the rest of your life "fighting for crumbs" as a comrade once put it; or you could fight back with militant action which is where our real power lies.
Later we had dinner with some of the students in the debate and talked about how the only solution is communist revolution. Many of these were students who have been active on their campuses in the fight against budget cuts. We talked about how getting out the vote is like urging people to believe in a system that does not work. No matter who or what policies you vote for, it will never be the answer to the workers' or students' problems. This conversation was very constructive as we got names and phone numbers of several students who were interested in the Party. Then one of the conference organizers came over and sat with us, obviously afraid of us raising communist ideas with the students.
During the conference this organizer talked about power: how to show it, how to get it, etc. And by his behavior in trying to stop us you could see that my comrade and I had a lot of power. I think we did well in presenting PLP ideas, we met a lot of friends and definitely got our point across but we still could have done better, in selling Challenge-Desafío. We should fight harder to bring the communist alternative into the student movement.
Bakersfield student comrade
The latest issues of Challenge-Desafío have had several articles on the reactionary role played by union leaders at Boeing, at the JCG chicken plant in Chicago, at maquiladoras in El Salvador, in supporting anti-worker social pact of the government of Colombia, among teachers in New York, LA and Chicago, etc. The role of teachers' union leaders as supporters of capitalism is very important for the rulers of the world.
On Sept. 3, the Japan Teachers Union (JTU) held its 80th annual convention. It adopted a new action policy which regarded the Ministry of Education as a "partner." The JTU leadership abandoned the tradition of considering the teachers' boss, the Ministry, as an enemy. In spite of opposition from many rank-and-file teachers, the JTU hacks did not state clear opposition to the patriotic "national flag Hinomaru" and "national anthem Kimigayo" policies which build patriotism among students.
This is the way the "leftist" bulletin The People's Star (10/95 English edition) reported the treachery by the hacks: "The JTU draft policy describes the traditional fight over education between the JTU and the Ministry as `fruitless ideological confrontation and a cause of children's decadence'....It describes the education guidelines of the Ministry as principles of its own outline program....Today, the monopoly bourgeoisie has no alternative but to follow the road of intensified exploitation and aggressive war, in order to survive. Therefore, it needs a young generation who can actively accept this road."
A former NYC teacher
About 100 feet from the 8th Ave. subway stop of Jay St./Boro Hall is a store called "BOOKS," at 54 Willoughby St. It's one of the very few surviving used book stores, most having been wiped out by high rents and high taxes. This store has some good and interesting aspects.
It not only sells Challenge-Desafío, but Bob the owner, displays it prominently outside.
Bob doesn't charge for it, "I don't pay for it so why should I charge." It's not that he agrees with the paper but he thinks it should be seen and read. He even volunteered to put an ad in. "We don't take ads," I told him, "but I'll try and get a word in."
Often as not you may hear an argument type discussion (loud) about politics. Communism (pro and con) is a common issue; how doctors, lawyers, mechanics, etc. may hurt or rob you more often than help is another. The many weird people, past and present, who sell books (but not Bob, of course) but don't give a damn what's inside the book as long as it can bring bigger dollars, and on and on.
There's a few thousand used books there (history, economics, Marxism [not enough], science, sports, fact and fiction etc.) If there's one you've been wanting, give him a call (with luck you'll get his wife Mayla) at 718-855-7813. Going down and bringing a coffee gets you a smile, bringing a cappuccino gets you a bargain.
NYC reader-Brooklyn deliverer
When the bosses told three workers who put belt loops on pants, that their piece rate would be lowered, the workers stopped work. The boss threatened them, giving them five minutes to return to work or go home. They stayed at their machines for two hours.
Other workers encouraged them not to back down. A worker in another section wrote a note on the back of a small card telling workers to stop production in support of the three workers. The card was passed from machine to machine, and went through the factory.
When the bell rang to go back to work after lunch, no one went. The entire factory stopped. The boss was shocked, and tried to convince the workers to go back to work. But they insisted that until the three workers had their pay restored, there would be no work. By the end of the day, the boss gave up.
This action, and the political struggle around it, show that collectivity, not individualism, is key for our survival. We are one class. An attack against one is an attack against all. United, we are capable of stopping wage cuts, and the wage system itself. We can fight for power and run society without bosses, wages, or borders. In this factory, workers from different countries united to defend their class interests as workers. Workers throughout the world have the same interests.
In actions like this, workers get a taste of power. They were in control. The strong collective leadership given by the workers convinced those few who were not won to stop working. Workers discussed how the capitalist system was the problem and has to be destroyed. Others said that actions like this will help us organize committees to fight the bosses and their abusive foremen.
Communists must use these battles to expose capitalism. This victory is temporary. The boss always attacks. We'll win some struggles and lose others. The root of the problem is that the boss and his class have state power. They pay us a small fraction of the value we produce and keep the rest. This robbery goes on day in and day out. Why should we fight over how much the boss will steal from us? The problem is the wage system itself. We must organize ourselves into a powerful army to smash wage slavery. The biggest victory is to win workers out of this circle of exploitation, and to communist revolution. Capitalism cannot serve the workers. Our goal is a new communist society, with the working class in power, producing what we need to live, with no profits and no bosses.