This was one of the lowest voter turnouts in US history for a presidential election. In Chicago, where even the dead vote, it was the lowest ever. It is estimated that 90 million eligible voters didn't vote. This, despite preachers of all stripes using the churches, the union fat cats using the union halls, and over $600 million being spent on both campaigns. What's more, an NBC News poll among likely voters, said that 60% didn't think it made a difference who won.
While capitalist elections are just a shell game played against the workers, they do reflect differences between different economic interests within the ruling class. This was especially clear in the way the ruling class swatted down Perot and Buchanan. Four years ago, both were major players. Perot actually cost Bush the election.
Buchanan was sent into exile after the Republican convention, and Perot was reduced to an insignificant pip-squeak. Both represent the smaller billionaires, who are fighting for their lives against the multinational giants that run US finance capital and industry. They are down, but they are not out.
The infighting among the rulers will intensify. The upstarts will be back. Nixon won in the biggest landslide in history, only to be driven from power two years later. One sign of the development of fascism, is the ruling class disciplining itself. Forcing Buchanon and Perot to the sidelines is an example of this. These elections mean more fascist attacks for the working class, and for our Party. We don't fear fascism. It is a sign of weakness among the rulers. The stage is being set for communist revolution. But 90 million people just staying home won't destroy the bosses' system. If you are fed up with voting, join PLP
Editorial 2:
Texaco treasurer Robert Ulrich was conferring with Richard A. Lundwall, senior coordination of personnel services in the Texaco finance department, and J. David Keough, senior assistant treasurer. Their problem: a lawsuit brought in early 1994 on behalf of 1,500 workers accusing the company of racism in promotions. Their solution: shred the incriminating documents.
And then they started talking about black workers, calling them "black jelly beans" and "n----rs." All on tape.
"This diversity thing, you know how all the black jelly beans agree," said Ulrich. "I'm still having trouble with Hanukkah," he added, "Now we have Kwanzaa." So, typically, in addition to their racism aimed at black workers, these bosses are anti-semitic.
One of those who brought the lawsuit told the New York Times after hearing the tape, "Nobody seemed to object to what everybody was saying."
Ulrich has conveniently retired, Keough is running a Texaco subsidiary in Bermuda, and Lundwall -- who was fired as a fall guy -- revealed the tapes to save his own skin. Of course, the chairman of Texaco, Inc. has issued a statement denying that racism is company policy. He had to -- Texaco stock had dropped 2.6 percent the day after the scandal was disclosed.
Maybe you thought the top executives of a $25 billion company with 32,000 workers were a cut above the filthiest gutter racists. The popular myth is that in the US, racism stems from white "people," especially the poorest, least educated white workers. And that the wealthy and educated are above racism. This is a slur on white workers, part of the racist effort to keep white, black and latin workers victims of the old divide and rule. The words of Texaco's Klansmen expose where racism really comes from -- the boardrooms of the ruling class. The rulers of USA, the Fortune 500, are the prime movers of racism. For once their words escaped the executive suites.
Racism starts at the top. It starts with the capitalist system which must have workers divided. A system that makes billions in super-profits from exploiting black and latin workers. A system that insults and degrades working people. A system that does not work and blames, oppresses, and jails millions to prevent workers from organizing to overthrow it. The Nazis in blue suits direct the Nazis in police uniforms and those in hoods and brown shirts.
The election campaigns revealed the extent of how billions from corporate bosses buy and control politicians. This includes Texaco, Inc. The racism of Texaco is the racism of Bill Clinton and the U.S. government. And racism helped to justify the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to protect the oil profits of Texaco and other oil companies in the 1991 Gulf War.
Texaco used to have a commercial to sell gasoline that had the jingle, "You can trust your car to the man who wears the star..." The only thing that workers can trust will come from the ruling class is racism and war. Can we trust in a system that rewards racists with top positions? Can we continue to live under their rule? Workers have to do a lot more than file lawsuits against these boardroom fascists. Burn them in their oil with communist revolution.
Then, about a year ago, came the communists from PLP. Little by little they started to politicize the workers, using, Challenge , and in political discussions. Little by little they were forging the working class unity to fight against the bosses. The side of the see saw that the workers were on started to rise. The boss wants to push it down. He's competing with other bosses. The boss attacks: he lowers the piece rate for a particular section. The communists call a work stoppage. Its the first attempt at a work stoppage in the factory in more than 10 years. There's doubt and uncertainty in the ranks of the workers, but they respond to the call and the factory is completely paralyzed. The workers' side of the see saw goes up.
But a few days afterward, the boss counter attacks, trying to push the see saw his way. He lowers the piece rate for another section. Another work stoppage. The boss has to retreat. The see saw is maintained with the workers' side high, especially because the weekly distribution of Challenge among workers reaches 30 per issue and communist ideas are discussed more widely.
But the boss never gives up. His position as a member of the privileged class depends on his position of exploiting the workers. If the communist side grows, not only will his hands be tied, but his whole existence would be threatened. He counter attacks again. He starts to prohibit the distribution of Challenge inside the factory and to harass workers who read it. In addition, he fired one of the PLP'ers. The workers respond and the boss has to retreat. But not before he forces the comrade to sign a paper saying he won't distribute Challenge . He also hires a security guard to watch and intimidate the workers and to stop the distribution of Challenge .
Challenge distribution goes down. So do political discussions. The communists are affected by the negative impact that the boss' anti-communism has among the workers. The boss' side of the see saw goes up. The boss attacks again. He fires a worker. Again, the workers respond to the attack. Their unity forces the boss to give the worker her job back. The workers' side of the see saw goes back up.
But the boss will inevitably counter attack. The swing of the see saw of class struggle under capitalism is inevitable. The rise and fall of the see saw is the limits of reform struggles. Only by destroying capitalism can we destroy the see saw. Only communist revolution can guarantee this and PLP is our main weapon. Right after the boss prohibited workers from reading Challenge , a worker said "I want you to keep bringing me Challenge , even though the boss doesn't want it." That worker told us a lot. He's reflecting the needs of all the workers!
Under capitalism, class society is justified by bourgeois ideology. Children are taught in school that those on top are there because they are smarter, work harder, and therefore deserve more. Those on the bottom have only themselves to blame. Fascism is the most extreme form of capitalism. The rulers use extreme forms of capitalist ideas to justify fascism's intensified exploitation and violent racism and sexism.
The slave labor workfare program for welfare recipients and all the cuts that go with it have their own ideological justification. The "underclass" theory has been mercilessly pushed by the bosses for many years. This theory has laid the groundwork for slave labor in the minds of millions. The underclass theory is the U.S. version of the Nazi big lie of "Untermenschen"(inferior peoples).
For at least 30 years, ideologists who serve the U.S. boss have been trying to convince the working class and others that welfare recipients are part of an underclass. This underclass has supposedly broken away from "mainstream" U.S. working class family life. According to these racist apologists for capitalism, this separation has taken place because of genetic or cultural inferiority. They claim a "culture of poverty" has been spawned by cycle upon cycle of "dependency," "illegitimacy," and other "irresponsibility's."
How did the underclass theory become mainstream? As in pre-Nazi Germany, the universities served as the base of operations for many racist professors and social scientists. Harvard professor (now Senator) Moynihan called the black family a "tangle of pathology" in 1965. Other racists, including Harvard professor Edward Banfield, "discovered a culture of poverty" and claimed that poor people enjoyed living in slums.
In the 1980s the press and politicians got into the act. Against the backdrop of racist, anti-welfare politicians like Ed Koch and Ronald Reagan, Ken Auletta wrote a series in the New Yorker magazine reviving the underclass myth. Auletta linked this "underclass" to crime and welfare. In 1992, a black Assemblyman from New Jersey named Wayne Bryant proposed a law to exclude newborns from welfare. The Violence Initiative and Harvard professor Charles Murray's book, Bell Curve linked the "underclass" to crime and intelligence genes.
Today, the concept of underclass is as American as apple pie. It is the constant subject of talk radio and TV talk shows. It is thrown around all the time by Clinton, Dole, and Perot. It is the main justification in the minds of millions for the "workfare" slave labor programs that have been set up.
It is the job of communists to expose fascist ideas as well as win millions to fight fascist practices. In the course of this life and death struggle for the working class, millions can and will be won to communism. Slave labor can only be defeated by the abolition of wage slavery and the destruction of class society. Under a workers' dictatorship, spreading racist ideas will not be permitted. Join PLP's campaign to smash racist slave labor with communist revolution.
This week is the anniversary of the arrival of the International Brigade to join the Spanish Civil War, the first battle in Europe of World War II. The Spanish fascists, led by General Francisco Franco, marched on Madrid to overthrow the duly elected liberal Spanish government. These "Insurgents" were backed by most of the Spanish ruling class. They were armed and trained by the German Nazis and the Italian Fascists.
The "Loyalists" were a mixed bag of regular and irregular troops who fought on the side of the Spanish government. They included Communists, Trotskyists, and assorted liberals. Their goal was to restore a liberal, capitalist democracy to Spain.
The Loyalists received arms and some training from the fledgling Soviet Union, itself struggling to prepare for the coming Nazi invasion. More important, communists organized young men and women to go to Spain from all over the world to fight alongside the Loyalists against fascism. The volunteers were organized into the International Brigade: for example, US volunteers in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, German volunteers in the Thaelmann Battalion, and Canadians in the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion.
These young workers fought well and bravely. Their courage was memorialized in great anti-fascist songs and stories, songs like Freiheit, The Four Insurgent Generals, and Bella Ciao. These anti-fascist heroes have inspired the generations who followed them. They proved on battlefield after bloody battlefield that thousands of young workers will fight to the death against fascism.
The Loyalists lost the war. They were out-gunned, internally divided, and weakened by anti-communism. Franco's iron fist ruled Spain for the capitalists for nearly forty years But the biggest lesson of this initial anti-fascist war is that only communism can defeat fascism.
The communist movement did not understand this sixty years ago. Its strategy was to build an anti-fascist "Popular Front" that would pressure liberal capitalists such as US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to come to the aid of the Spanish government. But the US and British governments, and even the Socialist government in France, insisted they were "neutral." The Roosevelt administration imposed an embargo to cut off support to the Loyalists from the US, while looking the other way as GM, Texaco, and other US companies funneled trucks and gasoline to the fascists. (Try to find a US-made movie called "Embargo," starring Henry Fonda, which shows clearly the pro-fascist action of the US bosses.)
"Now we are leaving Spain," concluded a popular song of the time, "To keep on fighting on other fronts." The anti-fascist front today encircles the globe. Worldwide, the fight to finally destroy fascism must be a fight for communism.
Sam Russell was the only survivor of the British Brigade which defended the University City of Madrid against the fascist shock troops of Franco. Russell was preparing to go to Cairo to finish his studies on Ancient Egypt, when he decided to fight in Spain. Why did he change his mind and went to fight fascism? "All governments were very permissive towards Hitler's and Mussolini's aggressions. Those of us who had certain values couldn't remain with our arms crossed against fascism."
Another volunteer, Trudi Vanreesmst, a Dutch Jewish woman who served in Spanish Civil War as a nurse, felt this was her contribution to the fight against the growing fascist hordes. After the Civil War she and her husband joined the anti-Nazi Resistance in Holland. Her only son was born in December 1941, while she was fighting in the Resistance. Vanreesmst was arrested and sent to a Nazi concentration camp and never saw her son. In spite of all of that she said: "I will do it again because I knew I was fighting for the future of my child and the children of all other mothers."
Mikel Economides, now 86 years old, fought along with 40 others Cypriot volunteers in the XV Brigade. He says "We are the not the ones who deserve to be honored. It is the people of Spain who deserve it because they were the only ones, when fascism seemed unbeatable, who showed that common folks could fight fascism."
The International Brigades were 40,000 strong coming from 52 countries Some 16.000 gave their lives fighting fascism. The largest contingents came from France, 10,000; Germany, 5,000; Poland, 4,000; Italy, 3,500; U.S. and Britain, 2,500 each; Belgium, 1700, Czechoslovakia, 1,500, Yugoslavia, 1,200; Latin America, 1,000; Canada, 1,000; Hungary, 1,000; Scandinavia, 1,000; Holland, 600; Switzerland, 400.
60% of them were communists, 20% more became communists during the Civil War.
During the rise of fascism in the 1930s, civil servants were won to supporting an array of anti-working class racist activities. An overwhelming vote tonight showed that these delegates of Local 371 are opting for a different path--one of struggle against this bosses' attack. They rejected the policy of Stan Hill, the executive director of the 130,000-member DC 37, who wants to cooperate and negotiate the expansion of racist slave labor workfare.
When PLP began its campaign against "welfare reform" slave labor workfare 4 years ago, the delegates of this local were deeply divided. Some clapped when we spoke of the then candidate Clinton's proposals for ending "welfare as we know it." As one friend told us, "When you used to get up people sitting around me would moan, `Here he goes again.' Now they listen." The sale of Challenge has increased from 15-20 then to 35 per meeting now. As our politics have sharpened and our persistence and patience have increased there has been a growth of interest in the Party and our leadership around the fight against slave labor workfare.
We are planning a series of demonstrations led by the Party at welfare offices and workfare sites. We have a pledge card/petition calling on our co-workers to demonstrate with PLP at City Hall in March, 1997. We plan to ask rank-and-file delegates to help circulate this pledge.
Many workers don't like doing this. But it doesn't matter to patients whether you like the cuts or you don't, if you're going ahead and carrying them out. What matters is destroying this racist profit system that cannot provide for the workers' basic needs.
* A pregnant woman was one week overdue and needed induced labor. Nursing bosses said there was no bed for her in the "Labor Line" (obstetrics ward) where she belonged. Actually there were beds, but the labor line was slated to be cut down from twenty beds to six the next week. The doctor on duty went along with the "downsize" plan and transferred the patient to a regular ward. The nurses had a better attitude. They struggled with the doctor to take her back. This patient was transferred back and delivered safely, but the beds are still due to be closed.
* A doctor discovered that service B doctors had planned to send a homeless man with diabetes and bad leg ulcers back out into the street where the ulcers would never heal. They told her, "we're just trying to save the County money, it's not our fault he's homeless." She cancelled the discharge order. "Our job is to take care of patients, not save the County money," she told them.
* The bosses plan to close Nursery 7, where up to twenty babies are observed right after birth. They will move the newborns away from their mothers because beds are empty in another section of the hospital. "We don't want to move them over there," one pediatrician objected. "Their mothers will never get to see them. If we leave them with their mothers, sooner or later, somebody's going to end up with a dead baby!"
* A patient came to the clinic for colostomy bags. The pharmacy had her in tears because they gave her only one month's worth, instead of the usual six months. She ran out and could not get an appoitment soon enough to get refills. She couldn't go out or have company because of the smell from the old bags. She was humiliated. "I didn't do anything wrong to have to suffer like this," she said, "I worked my whole life and paid taxes and still can't get what I need."
Capitalism cannot provide the health care workers need because it's not profitable for the bosses. "Cost-containment is the trend," the bosses say, but we say this trend is fascism. Now is the time to draw our line in the sand and say NO to early discharges, NO to cuts in beds or services, NO to layoffs, NO to downsizing, and NO to capitalism.
It's hard to stand up to the bosses' attacks alone, but the PLP club at Cook County Hospital is organizing a campaign to resist these fascist cuts together. We will circulate petitions and pledge cards for our co-workers to sign, saying, "We won't be good nazis!" Together we can refuse, resist, and sabotage their plans. We can build the PLP into a force that will one day lead workers to stand up as a class and say NO to the bosses' system by launching communist revolution.
Arthur Quern was a boss. Last week he was killed on a business trip when his Gulfstream jet slammed into an embankment. He was chairman of the trustees of UCH, one of the faceless millionaires who makes our lives miserable.
Mrs. Parks gave her life to the UCH bosses. She literally served the people, working from the serving line, to cleaning tables and putting out napkins and silverware. Over the years, she had looked into the faces of just about every worker and thousands of patients and visitors. She didn't always have the best disposition, but who could blame her. She was one of ours. The bosses treated her like a dog her whole life, especially the last years, under the latest crew of racist kitchen bosses. The bosses never acknowledged her life or her death. They never batted an eye. She just created a minor scheduling problem. Thirty years.
Arthur Quern was ruling class all the way. He cut his teeth serving Nelson Rockefeller, the butcher of Attica, in New York. When Rockefeller became Ford's Vice President, he took Quern with him. He then served as Ford's deputy assistant for domestic affairs, where he gained his skills as a racist budget slasher on a national level. In 1977 he went to work for Illinois governor Thompson as the director of public aid. Thousands of unemployed workers on welfare, and their kids, spent many long, cold, hungry nights under his leadership. In 1980 he made him chief of staff.
In 1983, he left state government, and eventually became senior vice president of Aon Corporation, and chairman of Aon Risk Services, a multinational insurance brokerage and risk management concern. He was an architect of, and profited from, the health care downsizing and cutbacks that are wasting lives and costing jobs. In 1991, racist governor Edgar made him chairman of the Illinois Board of Higher Education, so he could oversee the training of those who carry out racist cutbacks. In short, he was a pig. Good riddance!
But when Quern died, black draped signs appeared in every lobby, mourning the passing of "our dear friend." A memorial service was held at Rockefeller chapel. Mrs. Parks was nothing, Arthur Quern was a "great man." We don't think so.
This is what we're up against. Not just a rotten boss, but a class of racist rulers. If you make money for them, you're "great." If you are a worker, you're nothing but a wage slave. Our lives mean nothing, as long as the bosses have power.
The wage slaves won't take power away from the rulers by negotiating a contract. Power must be seized, by armed communist revolution, where we will abolish wage slavery, money, and the bosses. To prepare to take power, and build a world based on sharing and collectivity, workers must join PLP. The sooner, the better.
Unfortunately for the bosses, this crazy change in tactics has fallen on deaf ears. "I don't care what they give away, I still ain't working no more overtime," said one worker echoing the feelings of many of us.
This sudden change of heart may have something to do with our ridiculing management when they have the nerve to ask us to volunteer for tons of overtime.
The bosses fine themselves in a bind with new orders. They spent all there energy planning how to eliminate jobs. They never prepared for the increased needs of greater production. Now they want use to bail them out.
Also, the Boeing bosses plan never to hire as many workers as they had in 1990 (see accompanying graph). Instead, they want us to work longer hours. Come to think of it, excessive overtime is just as much a part of lean as eliminating jobs.
Red `n Ed
Ed: Politicians. They're sleazeballs. Clinton, Dole, the whole bunch. Why can't we get somebody decent in public office for a change?
Red: The `character issue', huh.
Ed: Yeah. Clinton's a crook and an adulterer. He'd take money from anybody and say anything for a vote.
Red: Uh, huh.
Ed: And the Republicans aren't any better. Dole walked out on his first wife. Attacks immigrants just to get more votes. Gets his big bucks from banks, tobacco and oil companies, and his own crew of foreign bagmen.
Red: Are you sure it's possible to have big-time politicians who are honest and decent?
Ed: Why not?
Red: Because the government's not on our side. Every capitalist government is controlled by the bosses--and they use it to keep us workers in line.
Ed: What's that have to do with character?
Red: Plenty. First off, you take any big political office, lying is built right into the job. Politicians all have to make like they're serving you when they're really screwing you--and serving the bosses.
Ed: Hmm.
Red: They lie to get your vote and they lie after they're in office. They talk about how closing hospitals and throwing people off welfare are really good for us. Or, "gee, I feel your pain, but there's no money and my hands are tied."
Ed: Sounds familiar.
Red: Then there's the money. Corporations buy influence. That's the nature of the system. Sometimes the biggest bosses shell out to both parties.
Ed: Yeah, but you don't have to take the money.
Red: You do if you want to get elected. Capitalist politics is an expensive business. It takes many millions to buy air time and mount a winning campaign.
Ed: So if you're not already a zillionaire boss like Perot or Forbes, you get your money from corporations. I guess you learn fast which side your bread is buttered on.
Red: Exactly.
Ed: But what about the sex scandals and all that?
Red: What do you expect? Bosses make a bundle by paying women less. Everywhere you look women are shown as sex objects. That's the system these politicians buy into. How surprising is it that some of `em sleep around?
Ed: Great, so our political leaders will always be creeps.
Red: That's capitalist politicians. Communist leaders are a different matter.
Ed: Yeah, why would they be any better? Look at the politicians in Russia today. They're all self-serving weasels. How do you explain that?
Red: The Soviet communist leaders started out a whole lot better. They earned the respect of the workers. They risked their lives to get rid of the bosses and bring their party to power. Later they led the fight to destroy the Nazis. They proved they weren't just out for themselves.
Ed: So what happened?
Red: They made a big mistake. They never got rid of capitalism completely. They kept money and wages and businesses. All this capitalism created a climate of selfishness. Eventually a bunch of capitalist-oriented politicians emerged and took over.
Ed: So we have to get rid of capitalism once and for all to get leaders we trust and respect. Well, when I see `em, I'll believe it.
Red: That's just what Progressive Labor Party doesn't want.
Ed: Huh?
Red: We don't want you waiting around for some good guys to ride up on white horses. You can do it. And millions like you. That's why we want you to join the party now.
Ed: So I can be a leader?
Red: Why not? You've got a good head on your shoulders. People respect you. You're responsible and stable. Hey, we'll learn to be leaders together. In the party. And you're already off to a good start: you know a sleazeball when you see one.
The stakes are very high. This war might extend as far as Zambia to the south, Angola to the southwest, and Uganda and Tanzania to the east. Zaire is the second largest country in Africa--rich in diamonds, copper, cobalt and uranium. In fact, the first U.S. atomic bomb was made with uranium from Zaire, then called the Belgian Congo. Whoever controls Zaire controls equatorial Africa and all its wealth.
U.S. and French Imperialists Arm Local Nationalists
The current Rwandan government is led by General Paul Kagame, who received military training in the U.S. He formed the guerrilla force which was armed by Uganda and the U.S., and which overthrew the French-armed Hutu rulers and its army after the 1994 massacre.
Even though Zaire dictator Sese Seke Mobutu is now in Switzerland getting treatment for prostate cancer, he is not completely finished as a servant of whatever imperialist power keeps him in control. According to the London's Financial Times (11/2): "Mr. Mobutu's last hope may be France, always more indulgent to his excesses. But rumors that Paris, still hurting from its loss of influence in Rwanda, is preparing covert action to support him, have so far been hotly denied." We'll see.
From Yugoslavia to Zaire, we can see that the only way for workers to free themselves from the nationalist and imperialist mass murderers is to unite and smash them all with communist revolution.
"You made the right choice by not risking passenger safety," the boss said at the appeal hearing, "but being sick is an 'absence' and the discipline should stand." Discipline! this woman is a social hero and should be given an award.
A similar hearing last week brought a 20 year driver to tears. She had spent the last 4 months caring for her nephew at home who was dying horribly from AIDS. Like a child she was told, "Bring in a note!" She vowed never again to subject herself to such insulting treatment.
Insults in place of compassion. Dicipline instead of acclaim, we are punished for doing the most selfless acts, the ones that make us feel the most needed - the most human. Some days it looks like our capacity to take these constant put downs is unlimited. It's not. They make our blood boil. They make us angry. For the last eight weeks, at the rate of at least one a week, drivers at AC have enlisted in the camapign to spread Challenge and its communist message. Each management `discipline' becomes an argument for revolutionary change. The insult that brings tears to eyes of one driver, clenches the fist and steels the resolve of another. Capitalism is a heartless system, but workers are not helpless victims.
November 14--Sergei Eisenstein's Potemkin, a revolutionary filmmaking
classic which details a rebellion aboard a Russian naval vessel.
December 12--Forum on Workfare, one of the newest and most dangerous
assaults that Capitalism has launched against the working class.
January 9--The Good Fight, which chronicles the involvement of Americans
in the resistance movement against Franco during the Spanish Civil War.
February 13--Forum (TBA)
March 13--Charlie Chaplin Double Feature
* Modern Times--One of Chaplin's strongest statements against Capitalism
* The Immigrant--A short film which exposes the U.S. Government's
treatment of immigrants in the early 20th century.
April 10--Forum (TBA)
All events will be held at the Cambridge Public Library, 45 Pearl St., Cambridge. MA
Not much respect is given to the manual workers,
Those who labor with their entire body not just their minds.
Shaving and carving wood as they inhale the dust,
Clutching the hammer or saw or drill.
Greasy fingers slide across a frictionless surface,
While the mechanic tries to perform surgery.
A manipulator of soil, water, and light
Gives birth to the life source of humans.
Collectively, assembly line workers build,
Adding piece after piece until the job is complete.
The creators of this world do not deal with paper,
Nor do they lounge around gabbing of irrelevant issues.
They contribute their blood, sweat, and tears
To items that are too often taken for granted.
Who sews our clothes and assembles our shelters?
Not the fat cats on capitol hill
Nor the exploiter, shouting "work faster!"
Life would be hell without these laborers;
Yet they have a hell of a time living.
The highly paid emperor of corrupt cash
I could survive without.
When you have to choose, which are you going to pick?
Most students booed and shouted him down. The parent of a student who attended the assembly was outraged. "He should have been dragged off the stage," she told reporters. One black student came close to hitting Downey, but held back because of confusion about free speech and the nature of elections.
But the Democratic Party candidate, Luanne Green, said, "Let it go." Vice-principal Barbara Pope agreed. "I happen to not agree with the Republican platform, but does that mean we're not going to invite them to our forum?" she said. "This was really democracy at its best."
So there you have it: fascist recruiting speeches are the best capitalist democracy has to offer!
Opportunities to build the Party exist every day on the job. A good example was at a Chicago Post Office last week. The bosses called a meeting of the station's 70 workers where the carrier supervisor gave an Academy Award performance about how we had to get better as a team. "We represent Ravenswood station out there, you all need to come in here with a willing attitude to work. We will get the job done." "What about hiring some new people to help?" shouted someone from the crowd, with no response.
The Post Office needs a work force to move more mail with less people. They don't want people calling in sick, refusing overtime, or walking around and talking. That's their team, assuring profits for the companies that use the Postal Service.
Our team is PLP. But what did we do to win to these workers to their Party? Not enough. We made a plan with 2 other workers to call a break time meeting for the next day, which didn't happen. A flyer responding to the speech was distributed in the station the next day. But that wasn't enough. We should have called on people to join the Party immediately after, and during, this slave master's 20 minute sermon.
Everyone was angry. We know that working hard for "the team," keeps them from hiring more people. It causes physical and mental breakdowns, and for what? Making someone rich or saving some stupidvisor's job? People have died on that job, and workers go home exhausted every night.
Then they have the audacity to insult us, belittle us, and say we're not working hard enough. Capitalism requires more, and more, and more. I, the PLP leader on the job, or one of the other 15 Challenge readers, should have jumped up on the desk and said, "No, this isn't our team and this isn't our system. We refuse to go back to work with our heads down, shut up, and face the case. Slave master Tate wants his slaves to pick more cotton, but what do we want?" That type of response would have helped build the Party. It would have given workers confidence. When the bosses threaten us, we need to respond with a clear and concise alternative to this system. That's what builds Party.
Red Letter Carrier
This last Thursday, the proto-fascist "Michigan Militia" held a mass rally at the Michigan State capitol. For what may have been the first time, the armed rightists faced some vocal, radical opposition.
Three of us intervened there and got in there faces as open communists. We went over to the rally with a red hammer-and-sickle flag and anti-patriotic signs, and chanting slogans into a bullhorn as they spewed their reactionary garbage from the Capitol steps.
About a dozen of the uniformed stormtroopers came over to threaten us ("goddamned faggots, I'll break yer neck!") and forced us over to the sidewalk, where one over-grown storm trooper tried to push us into the busy street.
A bourgeois cop came over and threatened one of us about his ski mask, ignoring the physical intimidation of us from the proto-fascists. At one point the militia tried to videotape us as we protested. Still, we took a stand against these despicable scumbags, and let them know that there's an opposition to them in the streets.
We taunted them ("Wanna-be Klansmen!", etc.) and roared "SEEYA NEXT YEAR, NAZIS!" as we left, attracting one hell of a lot of attention from both the Militia and the business men on the street, who turned around with them.
"K. Liebknecht" and "The Chairman"
We writing from East-Europe, Hungary. We have heard a little about you and have seen two issues of your publication Challenge. We found it very interesting, because in one hand we have no information about class struggle movement from the States, on the other hand many of your positions seems to be close to that of ours. In such a counter-revolutionary time as we live now it is extremely important for us to know that we are not alone in our attempt to destroy the system of wage-slavery, and build a society based upon the re-appropriation of human beings: Communism. Being in very bad financial situation we are unfortunately not able to pay for the papers (the US prices are really extremely expensive for us...).
Here in Hungary, we have a tiny class struggle organization. We are enclosing our program. We run a little communist book shop, too--the only one in Hungary. We can send you information about the situation in East Europe, and our publications too, though they are mostly written in Hungarian, but sometimes in English, German and Esperanto as well. Just write us, if you need such materials.
Class solidarity in Hungary
Haverford PLP recently printed "Student Challenge" and mailed it to all 1,100 students at our college. We denounced the collaboration of Haverford bosses in the murder of workers in Indonesia, the US, and Iraq, all for profits. An avalanche of angry students mobilized in favor of or against our allegations.
Our Challenge Readers group has attracted students who are willing to fight and learn about making radical change. We have proposed a "Student Action Forum" to discuss the facts of the ruling class at Haverford and propose a plan of action. Our plan includes collecting hundreds of signatures on protest letters to the Haverford bosses. It also includes getting more people into Challenge Readers groups and the Progressive Labor Party.
Universities and colleges separate students and teachers from the working class. They feed us anti-worker ideas like pacifism that maintain workers and students in capitalist chains. The main ones to blame are the rich CEOs and other bosses who control the college. It's the A.C. Johnson's with oil investments in fascist Indonesia, and the Council of Foreign Relation members like Whitehead and Hurford, who make sure the college pushes capitalist ideas.
Students are awakening, looking for answers, wanting to build a better world. Distribution of Challenge and other literature is increasing. More people are either siding with us, or fighting us, because communist ideas are at the forefront of the struggle.
Red Students
The article in the last CD, "Transit Workers Split Over Workfare," raises many questions. First of all, while it attacks workfare as "slavery," and "a racist attack on all workers," it doesn't point out what communist ideas the Party is attempting to win transit workers to, to compel them to join the Party. Communist ideas can be mass ideas, and we can organize mass campaigns that lead workers to draw revolutionary conclusions, but the article doesn't reflect that.
It also isn't clear if the union meeting was of the whole local, or just one bus barn. If it was a meeting of the whole local, it must have been very lively and heated. Maybe we sold 60 CD's out of 1,000 workers, which is fine. But if it was a meeting of one bus barn, the one worker mentioned must have been one of only a few to speak out against the union hacks, and maybe we sold 60 papers to 100 workers. This would be even more revealing, especially since bus drivers voted overwhelmingly to endorse the contract. This would indicate that in spite of the vote, many bus drivers are open to the Party.
It also doesn't describe the role of the misleaders in the New Directions caucus, which led the fight to reject the contract, and our relation to them. With union elections a year off, workfare, and the mis-leaders, will continue to be major issues.
The comrades doing this work are in a good situation. They can accomplish a lot, and teach us all how to wage mass communist campaigns among the workers. This is not easy, and requires a lot of thought and attention. If we are going to use Challenge as a mass organizer for winning workers to the Party, the struggle articles must do better.
Red Teamster
Capitalism has led a new movement in this country. It is called the Neo-Nazi movement. A group of white youth who believe the lies the media tells them and believe in bringing terror to Latinos, blacks and other minorities. And this is how my story goes: In my high school skinheads have been causing trouble. The always try to beat up minorities but fail. My freshman year 3 skinheads tried to cause trouble and were crushed by more than 30 Latinos. My sophomore year they called my friend a wetback. We had minor fighting and most of the skinheads wimped out. Then last year they tried to cause trouble with black students and lost. Then this year was the most serious. A skinhead and his skinhead girlfriend were trying to start something with six Latinos, me being one. So one of my friends stood up to him and pushed him and his brother socked him and we all jumped him. Luckily no teacher saw since everybody else was in class. He finally ran away. The next day we were all interrogated and they threatened us, but it didn't work. The funny thing is the school is and always will be on the skinheads' side. But in the end, we'll win.
Red youth