Why was the election of a president in a tiny country half way around the world such a big issue? Because Israel is in the middle east and mid east oil drives the engines of world capitalism. The U.S. has controlled the bulk of this oil for close to half a century. But it has been 50 years filled with war.
And another war is surely on the way because capitalism can never bring peace to the middle east. The factories, cars and armies of the capitalists depend on oil. The bosses of the world seek it out like vampires looking for blood. To control oil means power and profits. The capitalists who lack it are at the mercy of their enemies.
The U.S. imperialists have been king of the hill when it comes to the Mideast, and they want to keep it that way. That was the point of the "peace process." Peace with the U.S. bosses on top.
U.S. rulers got Israel to begin to withdraw troops from Palestinian territories they had occupied. In return, The Palestinian boss,Yasir Arafat promised to keep angry Palestinian workers and youth from rebelling against the racist Israeli bosses.
The Iranian capitalists, the second power in the region, want to push the U.S. bosses off their throne and claim the top of the hill for their own. So Hamas, a front group for Iran, launched a terrorist campaign against Israel.
At the same time, Israeli economic development has increasingly polarized Israeli society. The Israeli economy has grown rapidly over the last three years, relative to the rest of the world
Money has been pouring in, but mainly benefitting one group of Israeli capitalists. Most workers in Israel -- including nearly all palestinians, Israeli arabs, and poor jews -- are falling behind. The election winner Netenayahu represented another group of Israeli capitalists who wanted more of the new money for themselves. Like an Israeli version of Ross Perot, Netanyahu used the dissatisfaction many people are feeling to garner votes.
These two developments -- economic polarization within Israel, and the terrorist campaign - - have created a very unstable situation and brought down the U.S. backed Labor Party.
A year or so ago the Labor Party, headed by a guy named Yitzak Rabin and also backed by the U.S., seemed a shoo-in to win the Israeli elections. Since then Rabin was assasinated by anti-Arafat jews, terrorists backed by Iran have bombed the hell out of Israel and now the U.S.'s other guy, Shimon Peres, lost the election. Not a good year for the U.S.
Instead of using Arafat to control the Palestinian workers, Netanyahu's Likud Party may take a different tack. It wants Israel to dominate the regional economy directly and could tell Arafat to take a walk. Without Arafat the U.S. is scared that Palestinian workers will flock to the Iranian backed Hamas group. This would create an Iranian army on Israeli soil.
Clinton and the U.S. ruling class are also worried that they'll be less able to control Netanyahu in the next Gulf War. He might shoot back without waiting for orders from the U.S. when the Iranians fire missiles, turning the war into a free-for-all bloodbath.
The capitalists'wars are an opportunityto destroy their murderous system. The bosses can't fight without putting guns in the hands of millions of workers.During times of war the capitalists are at their weakest nand the system's brutality os clear for all to see.
How things will play out in the middle east is not exactly clear, but what is certain is that waiting for the bosses to make peace is like waiting for Santa Claus to show up on Halloween, it's not gonna happen. We can either hide under our beds and hope for the best, or prepare for revolution.
front page article
On May 28, two days after the near-death beating of a young black man in Long Island by a drunken off-duty police detective, Kwame Felix experienced a double-dose of racism and police brutality in Brooklyn.
In the Long Island attack, Shane Daniels, a black student was beaten into a coma with the steel "club" anti-theft device. Other cops held the young man's friends at bay with drawn revolvers while the beating continued. Mayor Giuliani may have prayed with Shane Daniels' family, but beating black people is Standard Operating Procedure for the cops. The beating at the bar in Long Island was embarrassing to Giuliani because the cops were off duty and drunk. So now he's just doing damage control.
While biking with friends, Kwame Felix was attacked by a group of racist punks on the outskirts of predominantly white Marine Park neighborhood in Brooklyn. A few carloads pulled up saying, "There's too many n----- in this neighborhood." He was able to escape with the help of some witnesses who took him to a neighboring police station. There, the racist vermin in blue took the side of the white punks and arrested him, and sent him to Rikers Island for two days on the lies of the racist who said that he had stolen one of their bikes!
The rulers are terrified of black youth and have let the cops loose to attack and kill. The police, filled with racist hatred, are like rabid animals, foaming at the mouth.
The rally at the 63rd precinct was called on one day's notice after PLP learned of the attack in Marine Park. The pigs came out of their sty only to see a multi-racial group of youth and workers attacking their system. They asked neighbors if we were bothering them in order to have an excuse to get rid of us. But the neighbors showed their support by telling the cops that they were not being bothered and by buying 170 Challenge-Desafíos. Some neighborhood young people took our leaflets headlined, "Cops Are The Enemy" and put them on and inside all the cop cars.
Only when we destroy capitalism with a communist revolution will there be real punishment for racists. If racist incidents such as the one that occurred in Marine Park happen after the revolution, the job of the working class will be to pursue and punish the racists. We will use the power of the workers' militias and a Red Army to suppress all racists who refuse to see the need for working class unity. Meanwhile, we will be teaching generations of children the fact that race itself is a myth, and that skin color is unimportant. In this way we will defeat racism once and for all.
Kwame Felix joined the Party on May Day, as did many other youth from this neighborhood. It is becoming clearer that this rotten system has nothing to offer him or his friends. Our high school PLP club has made plans to organize around his case, raising money for his lawyers, setting up defense committees with students and teachers, and planning rallies linking his case to other cases of increased police terror. This is an important opportunity for our newer and younger comrades to take the leadership in fighting this case head on and in building a communist Party to respond to these continual vicious attacks on black youth.
This week's Mark Fuhrman Fascist Award goes to KKKop Chronis and his gang of racist thugs who attacked Shane Daniels early Sunday morning on May 26th in Westhampton Beach L.I., walking away and leaving him for dead. However, Daniels is still in a coma.
A group of Daniels' friends tried to come to his rescue, but the racist swine pointed guns at his friends.
Under this capitalist system the racist cops are terrorizing black and latin communities. Millions of black and latin youth are unable to find jobs, and are ending up in prisons. The PLP is building a revolutionary communist Party to smash this racist capitalist system.
Join The Progressive Labor Party.
Anti-working class terror and racism go with the badge. If you have a candidate for the Fuhrman award send it to us.
These new mid-level managers began by saying that the old management team hadn't been completely honest with the workers. They promised they would "do better."
First, they admitted that the new plan to combine job titles in tooling and to implement other aspects of lean manufacturing would reduce the head count (meaning less jobs).
"We're still going to get screwed," said one shop steward, "but, at least, this new management is an improvement." The new management is not an improvement, just a change in tactics.
The old tooling MBU management group was associated with partying around Lake Tapps where all sorts of unsavory and sexist incidents were alleged to occur. Whether the Lake Tapps crowd or the new Ivy league crowd is in power, the company is always managed to produce maximum profits.
In boom times, Boeing can overlook the peccadilloes of mid-level managers. In this global crisis, the company plans to cut more severely. The company needs committed first-line managers (those who directly deal with workers) to push through these unpopular cuts. So, the top executives cast off the old guard at the MBU level--whom many first-line supervisors resented.
U.S. President Clinton and Labor Secretary Reich have been pushing this "corporate morality" fantasy. While preaching corporate responsibility, Reich fired his assistant who had the nerve to question Hewlett-Packard about the anti-union tactics of one of the firm's contractors. Clinton is using "corporate morality" as an excuse to give million$ in tax breaks to corporations that provide minimal job retraining (but no new jobs).
We should expose and fight every racist and sexist supervisor, but we should not have any illusion that changing management can improve our lives. Our goal remains the same: smash the system that manages for profits; replace it with a system that organizes for the needs of the working class.
Communism will eliminate management as we know it. A whole group of useless ruling class lackeys will be abolished. In its place, our Party will recruit millions of working class leaders dedicated to the victory of our class. Production for need will replace boss/employee relations with communist collective relations. We can start now by recruiting thousands to Progressive Labor Party. We truly have a world to win.
At issue is the continued outsourcing of jobs, the transfer of work to non-union plants in Mesa, Ariz. and Macon, Ga. and the combining and eliminating of jobs. After striking for 69 days, Boeing workers got a contract in which the bosses allow us to have jobs when work is "available." Meanwhile, the bosses are doing everything to make sure work is not available.
President Zedillo was forced to fire the Mexico City chief of police, putting another thug in his place. Meanwhile, the protests have not been able to win any of the teachers' demands. In this period of deep crisis of capitalism, this system cannot give workers even the slightest crumbs. Teachers who are in PLP must show their fellow workers that militancy and anger against the bosses and their system cannot win. They must take the road of fighting to end capitalism once and for all, instead of just begging for crumbs.
This was the message of the PLP rally at 38 St. and 8 Ave. in the middle of the garment center. The rally was directed against Kathy Lee Gifford, SEO Fashions and all the bosses. Workers took 1,000 leaflets and bought 60 Challenges.
Several garment workers at the rally told Challenge about the capitalists' standard operating procedure. For instance, at the Red Rose factory at 333 W. 39 St., 6th floor, Mero sewing machine operators make $4.25 an hour and work from 8:00am. to 6:00pm every day with no overtime.
Bosses Roy Green and Noel of Prisma Pleating Corp. at 335 W. 35 St., 10 floor, and 340 W. 39 St., 4 floor, pay piece workers pennies for 12-hour days, 7 days a week. Workers get less than 3 minutes in the bathroom and one 20-minute break for lunch.
Sweatshop queen Kathy Lee Gifford, speaking at a news conference with New York State's budget-slashing Governor Pataki, called for a "watchdog" group to "monitor" sweatshops. She said, "We're looking to shed light on the cockroaches." Workers don't need light on the cockroach bosses, we need to exterminate them. (If Gifford is really concerned about ending her sweatshops, why doesn't she just give the workers the $10 million profit she stole from their labor? But, of course, that's impossible since the definition of a boss is one who steals the value produced by workers, which is what creates sweatshops in the first place.)
U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich and the AFL-CIO's new corporate-campaigner leadership have called for "laws to regulate sweatshops." Liberals have called for "independent watchdog groups." But there are no independent groups in the fight for survival of the working class against international capitalism. The working class cannot afford to have any illusions about watchdog groups and government agencies formed by our exploiters. These watchdogs will turn around and bite us.
Terror and immigration raids will continue to increase as the bosses from various countries compete with each other ever more intensely for the profits they make from super-exploiting the workers. To the extent that immigrant workers, with or without papers, put their trust in laws or so-called independent watchdogs, they will be disarmed.
The working class needs power. We need to abolish wage slavery. We don't need bosses and this capitalist system. We need communism, a society where workers will produce what we need and will distribute according to need. We need to build the Progressive Labor Party around the world.
Three of the five newly-formed PLP club/study groups in Upper Manhattan met last week. We have a long-range plan to involve the many workers who joined the Party on May Day, and many others, in circulating Challenge-Desafío, studying our Party's ideas and building PLP and communist class struggle, especially in the factories. The road to communist revolution and workers' power is long, but the future belongs to those who fight for it.
The workers in this LA garment shop, A&A Fashions, had gone to the boss to demand that he raise the piece rate on an operation. The workers demanded the increased rate after the boss changed the operation to make it take longer. Making the piece the new way at the old rate means that workers were barely making $4.25 an hour.
They were discussing what to do next when the boss came out of his office to tell them, "Keep doing the work the way you were doing it before, but this is the last time you can do it this way. Next time, you'll do it like I want you to!" The boss didn't change his mind because he has a soft heart, but simply because he was afraid that all the workers would stop work.
A member of PLP came to them and asked "How are you doing?" "We're getting screwed!" they answered. One of the four workers added, "The old man says that if we don't do the work like he wants, the company that gives the work to him will take it away. Let them take it! How do we benefit if there's a lot of work if we barely make the minimum wage. We can make the minimum anyplace." Another worker said angrily, "We have to shoot all the bosses!"
Three months ago, after a work stoppage led by members of PLP in this factory against price cuts, this same worker participated in a Party meeting. At that time, he said, "I thought that this was something small, only for higher wages in this factory. But you are something bigger. You all talk about revolution." And he didn't return to the group.
He's now radically changing his thinking, thanks to persistence in continuing to give him Challenge-Desafío, discussing communist ideas with him in the factory, and because a worker's life under capitalism is getting harder all the time.
The PLP member answered him, "You're right! We have to shoot the bosses. We have more than 500 years fighting the bosses for crumbs. It's time we changed this. Today we need to build the Party." We're going to organize a strike when the next job comes and the boss tries to impose his conditions.
That whole day the workers talked about wages and wage slavery. One of the discussions was about the minimum wage. A worker said, "The 90cents increase will mean more exploitation for those that work for piece rate. We'll have to kill ourselves to produce more pieces to make the minimum. The bosses won't raise the piece rate. They'll keep trying to cut it."
Another worker said, "It's not just those who work for piece rate who will be attacked. The bosses will also demand more work from those who work by the hour." Another worker added, "This increase is a joke. What they `give' us with one hand, they take with the other, since they'll raise the price of everything!"
Another member of PLP in the factory said, "This increase in the minimum wage was never planned for the well-being of the workers, but for the interests of the biggest bosses. They know the discontent that exists among us and they fear that we'll react violently. That's why they want to fool us by giving us crumbs--to hide the fact that they rob us daily by paying us a bare survival wage while putting most of the value we produce in their pockets . This exploitation and production for sale are the fundamental basis of capitalism. Only we workers are capable of destroying this system that has us enslaved.
One group is signing up workers to decertify the union and get a new one. Others say no, we should stick to this one and give the new leadership a chance. But no union can win a decent life for workers. They all defend the murderous profit system. Under capitalism unions just negotiate the terms of our exploitation.
"Kaiser wants a wage cut or a freeze," a worker explained. "We already haven't had a wage increase for six years. They'd have to give me an increase of about $7/hour for me to be where I was in the '80s. Besides, even if they did give us a big wage increase, everything else would go up and we'd be in the same place. You can't win with this system."
Absolutely! This system is wage slavery and it can never be negotiated away by a contract.
To compete with the other HMOs, Kaiser is slashing our jobs and risking patients' lives. Thousands of Kaiser workers have already gotten the shaft through layoffs, firings, having their hours cut and increased work loads, without the union lifting a finger. More attacks are sure to follow.
In the best of times, unions could win nickels and dimes. Now Kaiser wants to take the nickels and dimes away in the name of staying competitive. "Competition means demolition for employees and patients," a Kaiser worker told Challenge. "In this fight there can only be one survivor and that is Kaiser's profits."
For two months Local 399 spouted hot air about "Stopping Kaiser Cuts" and "Saving Quality Care." Now the bosses are on the attack, and the unions are trying to accommodate them. "Quality care should be called `home remedy care' the way people are being sent home to fend for themselves," a worker declared. All the union leaders are aiming for is a wage freeze instead of a wage cut, and more bumping rights--laying off newer workers to keep the seniority of older workers.
"After the last contract when we got those bonuses they right away cut hours in Dietary, Respiratory, Materials Management," commented another worker. "What good is a wage increase or bonus anyway when they can cut our hours or contract out our work? I had a supervisor say to me, `You know, 1/2 hour for lunch doesn't mean you have to sit down for the whole 1/2 hour.' I'm on my feet for eight hours often without breaks or going to the bathroom and they want me to give up my 1/2 hour lunch? It's crazy!"
It sure is. From the workers' point of view, capitalism makes no sense at all.
HHC runs the city's hospitals. Ironically, many of those getting laid off are in supervisory capacities. Their reward for allegiance to HHC management? Termination!
The layoffs at HHC are part of the city's plan to cut health care costs. Health care expenditure has been increasing faster than inflation. This has not translated into better health care for workers, just higher profits for health care bosses. In 1994 a study showed that only 46% of U.S. white children and 34% of black children had received the most basic immunizations by the age of eight months. The number of workers without insurance has increased to 40 million.
The seven nurses will be joined on the unemployment line by 2,700 other city health care workers later this month. When 13% of the Gross National Product goes to health care, the bosses call it a crisis because a large amount of that is employer-paid health coverage, which reduces their profits.
Capitalists, often insurance company capitalists, are taking over and running larger and larger chunks of the health care industry. These managed care companies are saving money overall by edging out groups that have lived off health care dollars up to now: hospitals, doctors, drug and equipment companies, etc. Now they are pushing out workers like Registered Nurses who won modest salary increases throughout the '80s.
While poor people receive lousy care, health industry bosses are doing great. HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) stocks, as a group, rose 32.7% while Standard and Poor's index of 500 companies fell 1.5%. That same year, cash and stock awards to the chiefs of the seven biggest for-profit HMOs averaged $7 million, among the highest in any industry.
At the same time hospitals are downsizing and closing. As many as 15 hospitals in New York City will be forced to close by the year 2000. Demonstrations where held this week protesting the threatened closings of Interfaith and Kingsboro Hospitals in Brooklyn. They are forcing patients out of hospitals into their homes with minimal care from the HMO; more and more burden is placed on self and families.
Health care under capitalism is a commodity. Something to be bought and sold. As prices go up fewer and fewer people can afford the services. So nurses are laid off and hospitals closed while people lay sick in bed in their homes.
Yet these workers, almost all black, are the most brutally treated. Already greatly understaffed, the workers are facing racist and sexual assaults that are pushing them to the brink. The bosses are from Morrison, an outside contractor. They are mostly white, racist and young. If they aren't in the KKK, they should be.
* Between 10-15 full-time jobs are being eliminated, making a bad situation worse. Affected workers are being offered the "choice" of layoffs or part-time work at 20 hours a week!
* The bosses talk to black women workers--many having worked longer than the bosses have been alive--like they are dogs. Women workers are harassed and sent home for "not smiling enough!"
* One woman, Dorothy Owens, was suspended for almost three months, from April 30 to June 3, for allegedly making a racist remark to a white supervisor she was waiting on. In five weeks, the bosses never produced a victim or a witness. Dorothy with more than 20 years on the job, is one of the more outspoken workers, and is known and respected by everyone who uses the cafeteria.
* A black woman, whose daughter had been admitted to the hospital, was grabbed by two white supervisors and threatened with arrest for eating a package of crackers she hadn't paid for. Food service workers came to her defense, paid the boss the 15cents (which he put in his pocket), and complained about all the food that was being thrown away which could be given to poor people. Meanwhile, doctors and administrators regularly eat their food before reaching the cash register and walk out.
* Four suspended workers who showed up for a grievance hearing, which was canceled without their knowledge, were escorted out of the building by security guards.
* Relief workers, who are supposed to receive permanent full-time status, including regular pay and benefits after 90 days, have been ignored.
* The bosses' answer to short-staffing is to work the tray line, serving line, and cash registers themselves rather than call in more workers.
* The Teamster Local 743 leadership, only concerned with getting themselves elected and collecting dues, has been worse than useless to the workers.
While confidence in the bosses and the union is being shattered, confidence in the communist PLP is growing. Numerous discussions about the nature of capitalism some minor confrontations with the bosses, and the use of Challenge are all leading the workers to consider revolutionary solutions to their problems.
Some workers have taken their first stabs at distributing Challenge to their co-workers. The struggle to consistently use the paper among their co-workers, to advance, defend, and explain communist ideas, will put these workers on the fast track for recruitment into the PLP. When revolutionary leadership from the workers replaces business mis-leadership from the union hall, the end of racism, sex discrimination, and wage slavery will be that much closer.
Red: What did you think of the last Challenge newspaper?
Ed: I really only read the article about the kitchen. I haven't read the rest of it yet.
Red: Well what did you think of that article?
Ed: I thought it was great. It gave us some recognition. No one else does. You never see the union giving us anything like that.
Red: What about any questions or disagreements about communism or revolution? You know that's what we're all about.
Ed: I know. But, so far, I really don't have any.
A long, uncomfortable, pause.
Ed: How does that paper get distributed?
Red: By workers just like us. It gets sold mainly in factories and on the job , in schools and communities, by workers and students in, or friendly to, the Party. We used to sell it for a quarter, but now we ask for donations.
Ed: But how does it get distributed? If someone wanted to get some, where would he go?
Red: Our office is downtown. But if you want to try to get some around, I can bring them to you.
Ed: Yea, that's what I mean.
Red: Well, how many do you think you can get out?
Ed: (He stops and thinks, like he's making a list of friends ) About twenty.
Red: Twenty???
Ed: Yea, probably more. But I think I can start with twenty.
Red: You'll have them tomorrow morning. I've got to go punch in.
Wages are the price of labor. More exactly, wages are the price of labor power: the mental and physical abilities that enable a person to produce something useful.
Under capitalism, labor power is a commodity, bought and sold. Workers sell it, capitalists buy it.
In a way, buying labor power is like buying anything else. Once the bosses buy it, it belongs to them. Anything you produce on company time belongs to them, too. They sell the products of your labor, and keep the proceeds for themselves.
But in truth buying labor power is different from buying anything else. The bosses sell the products of your labor for way, way more than they pay you in wages--even taking into account the cost of the raw materials, overhead expenses, etc. That's exactly where their profits come from. Without exploitation, there would be no wages.
So what's fair? In capitalist society, only the market decides what price is fair. A "fair wage" can only mean the going rate--the lowest rate the bosses can force on the working class.
As the communist leader Karl Marx wrote long ago, "A forcing up of wages would be nothing but better payment for the slave, and would not conquer either for the worker or for labor their human status and dignity."
It doesn't have to be this way though. There is a way out of this mess--communism. We can start now by building PLP with the vision of a communist future.
The Postal Service's structure is similar to most other capitalist enterprises. The folks at the top "do the thinking" and we do the work. There is a Postmaster General who answers directly to Congress. Then you have your local Postmasters and heads of distribution centers, your immediate supervisors, and finally us, the workers. We are distribution clerks, window clerks, truck drivers, etc. I'm a letter carrier, also known as a "stepper", "camel", or "U-haul." Letter carriers take mail, sort it by delivery sequence, and then deliver it to homes or apartments, supposedly "serving the customer."
Most mail we deliver guarantees profits for the multi-million dollar companies who use this government agency. We carry three times as much mail as carriers did 10-15 years ago, with no increase in the number of routes. We don't see customers out rallying for more catalogs, advertisements, letters from politicians or bills. No, the international capitalists are pushing these things. They use the Postal service to sell us things, get us to vote or collect our money.
Gene Del Politio, president of the Advertising Mail Marketing Association puts it best when he says companies "will do what is in their economic interest." That means keep the cost of mailing down or we'll take our business elsewhere.
The Postal Service must deliver massive amounts of mail at low rates. Otherwise it won't serve the needs of the capitalists. So they increase the exploitation of the workers. That's why if you're a substitute carrier they constantly change your days off, making you work from dawn to dusk some days, and asking you to punch out early other days. That's why the carrier foreman comes by almost daily with a stupid grin and asks us, "You think you can pump in another tray?".
And it is getting worse. Even though the Postal Service made record profits in 1995, the Postmaster General is still calling for further reductions in wages and more privatization of Postal operations. There's no such thing as job security under capitalism.
This situation presents us Postal workers with a challenge. Do we have the confidence in ourselves and our co-workers it takes to build PLP clubs on the job? These clubs would have the responsibility of leading our co-workers in the struggle for communism, building a world where we work to serve our class.
The Letter Carriers' union has another option. They are planning conferences and rallies based on the themes of "saving the Postal Service," and "dragging the Postal Service kicking and screaming into the 21 century." Do we really want to receive leadership from these cynics who want to save jobs we hate in a dying system? Postal workers, fight for communism! Hand deliver copies of this newspaper to your families, friends and co-workers.
Ed: Did you hear about Maria? Her daughter's pregnant. They don't like the idea of an abortion. But the girl's only 16, the father's out of the picture, and they don't have a whole lot of money. They feel stuck.
Red: What do you think about abortion?
Ed: Sometimes I think I'm pro-life. I hate the idea of destroying an innocent human life, even a fetus with no brain to speak of. Other times I feel pro-choice. If Maria's daughter and her family feel they need to go the abortion route, who am I to stand in their way.
Red: Did you ever think that maybe this whole abortion debate is a lose-lose proposition for workers. Under capitalism, when bosses are on top, every moral debate gets twisted so that both sides are bad for workers.
Ed: How so?
Red: Well, on the one hand, there's nothing pretty or easy about destroying human fetuses. I agree that human life is precious and we should do everything we can to preserve it. Abortion is not like wart-removal.
Ed: So you're pro-life?
Red: No. The so-called "pro-life" movement is really pro-boss. It claims to be for children but supports every cutback in child care services.
Ed: You know, I never did like that term, "pro-life." If Maria and her daughter should decide on an abortion, what does that make them, pro-death?
Red: Exactly. The reality of capitalism is that some pregnant women are so bad off they can't make it with another child. Good childcare has always been hard to come by. Now politicians are throwing women and kids off welfare.
Ed: So you don't particularly like abortion. But you're in favor of women having the right to have one. Sounds to me like you're pro-choice.
Red: No, again. The so-called "pro-choice" movement is also pro-boss. It claims to be for women but ignores how the system wrecks the lives of women workers and their families. It pushes selfishness--the idea that everything will be all right if you can just do what you want. Pro-choice leaders may be liberals or feminists but they all support capitalism.
Ed: So your answer to pro-life or pro-choice is none of the above. Great. What are workers supposed to do, then?
Red: If both sides of a moral debate are pro-boss, then the solution
is simple. Get rid of the bosses.
Ed: Communism is the answer. That's what you always say. But how will that resolve the abortion debate?
Red: When workers are in power, every moral debate has a completely different twist. Communism will make abortion unnecessary.
Ed: And how will it do that?
Red: First off, you share all the wealth in this world and eliminate
poverty. Plus you set up good child care in every workplace and neighborhood. So the main hassles that drive women to abortion in the first place are gone.
Ed: And you won't have unplanned pregnancies?
Red: Far fewer. The bosses have spent almost nothing on birth control research. Under communism we'll devote far more to coming up with new and better forms of birth control.
Ed: What about birth defects. Some women get abortions because they find out they're carrying a fetus with some horrendous defect.
Red: Medical research will flower under communism. We'll figure out the causes of birth defects--like smoking or pollution--and have the power to eliminate them.
Ed: But what if a woman's life is threatened by pregnancy?
Red: We'll eventually solve those medical problems, too. In the meantime, if a woman needs an abortion, she'll get it safely and quickly.
Ed: Hmm, never thought of it this way before. So one way to solve a so-called moral dilemma is to get rid of the system that created it in the first place.
CBS recently aired the latest pity-the-poor nazi tale called, "Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy." The only tragedy was that all of the racist slime involved, the FBI agents and the Weaver bunch, weren't killed by an army of PLP members leading the challenge for state power with communist revolution.
The events at Ruby Ridge are told from the Weaver family's perspective. They stock up on food and weapons in a cabin in the mountain of Idaho--where there is a budding fascist movement. These people are afraid that big capitalists will ruin their way of life. Their philosophy is a blend of U.S. patriotism, Christian fanaticism, racism, defense of small business persons' right to profit. Throw in some anti-Semitism--they endlessly refer to the U.S. government as ZOG--the Zionist Occupied Government and you've got the heroes of the story.
The movie depicts the FBI agents as the villains. This appeals to the hatred many workers have for the government. Cynical TV producers (who make millions on these programs) do not expose the fact that the government serves billionaire network owners and their sponsors. All law enforcement under capitalism enforces the bosses' right to exploit the working class.
Instead the agents are depicted as overreacting and pointlessly killing Vicky Weaver and her son. Thus the movie builds sympathy for the Weavers and their nazi ideology.
After 70 days, the current standoff against the Freemen in Montana is not being pursued by the government explicitly because of the nationwide sympathy that was brought about by events like the firebombing in Waco, Texas. The ruling class is reluctant to attack groups that hold beliefs that are very similar to their own. They need these racist patriots to carry out their plans in the case of civil war.
Liberals protest that TV is "a vast wasteland". That's not quite true. Television land is well-cultivated with capitalist culture and fertilized with fascist ideology. There are no " politically neutral" forms of entertainment. They all have a class outlook. We have to be willing to struggle with friends about this and win them to analyze and criticize capitalist media. The bankruptcy of capitalist culture is another reason to build the party. We are working to win the support of the masses of workers. With that we can overthrow the capitalists and their government.
It's way past time for PLP to take the forefront in telling the truth about what's happening. We are working to explain it more creatively and profoundly. The workers will fight in their own interests but they have to figure out what that means. That's the whole point of the newspaper you are holding in your hands. Share it with friends. Make a date to spend two hours making plans to change the world with communist revolution. Let the TV rest for a while.
The miners' union opposed the strike. But the fledgling PLM got behind the miners 100 percent.We stood outside supermarkets and went door-to-door to workers collecting food and winter clothing to ship down to the miners by the trailer-load. We organized a rally in New York City to raise money for the strikers. Over 800 people turned out in zero degree weather.
The campaign sparked national publicity for the miners' cause. Our challenge to the coal bosses was greeted with an 8-column headline in the pro-boss Hazard Herald: "Communism Comes To The Mountains of East Kentucky."
PLP Truly Stands for Children
Some comrades from Washington, DC, Norfolk, Virginia, New York City sold 224 copies of Challenge-Desafio at the Stand for Children event. We passed out 3,000 leaflets containing the Challenge editorial and a few dozen of the Road to Revolution 4 pamphlet.
There were many good people there with their organizations en masse. The groups that came, including Girl and Boy Scouts, Headstart groups, and recreation groups, would not have come if the event was formally partisan. Had it been explicitly political, the crowd would have been much smaller, probably under 100,000.
The tactic of making it "non-political" and "non-partisan" was actually a way to make it possible for these government-related (and similar) groups to come with their clients and members without jeopardizing their funding and/or non-profit status. It was a clever crowd builder, very much hooked into the way these Democratic Party-related groupings have become part of the state apparatus.
The right-wing critique of the event was that it was a sneaky way of promoting expanded government programs, liberalism, and the Democratic Party. In a sense, this is correct.
The event tried to reduce any independent political role these movements might have, distancing them from the politics of protest--even in a liberal sense--let alone the politics of communist revolution against the capitalist state.
The front page story in Challenge (6/5) really hit the nail on the head. People would turn around when they saw or heard our headline and story about how capitalism can never stand for children. They came back to take our leaflets and newspapers. In fact, we were able to make a few contacts at the event and on the buses on the way back home. This was with few PLP forces, imagine what we could have done if a large number of us had gone.
DC comrade
Enclosed please find $100 for a subscription and a contribution. It was a great May Day issue, truly inspiring!
I particularly loved the picture of the hammer and sickle being painted on the faces of the young people in Barcelona.
NYC friend
Last Saturday five of us sold 103 Challenge-Desafíos in an hour and a half on a Chicago street corner. Well, I shouldn't say "sold". Since the paper is now "priceless," we offer the paper to people and ask for donations.
This helps get across the message that Challenge-Desafío is not a commodity, to be bought and sold, but a tool for the workers to use in making revolution. In spite of the low level of class struggle and the continuing barrage of anti-communist attacks from the bosses, many workers are interested in the idea of communism.
While not enough have decided to be active members today, that is starting to change. As capitalism speeds up its destruction of workers' lives, more will look our way for answers.
Many people gave $1 for the paper. We collected an average of 50cents per copy, even though some people were unable to donate anything. Going to the workers and asking them to support Challenge is in keeping with our strategy of building a mass Party. On our next Saturday distribution, we're also going to give interested workers copies of Road to Revolution 4 to distribute.
Division St. Reds
I was walking by the Saturn of Chicago dealership at Irving Park Rd. and Central at 4:00pm. There was a group of people outside protesting that they were not getting paid as regular union mechanics. They were from Automotive Mechanics Union Local 701 (IAM&AW).
They told me that they were giving away free calculators inside the dealership so I went in and got one. Then I stood there and broke it up in front of the dealers. I did it to show that I support the mechanics.
They are not making enough money. They can't even afford insurance. The company is charging the same labor rates as the other places but they are keeping it for themselves.
This is unfair and I think people should go and support the mechanics if possible. HS students are the workers of the future so we need to support workers. We don't want low wage jobs in the future where we can't even afford health insurance.
A student at Foreman HS
I'd like to expand on a point mentioned in the coverage of our action against the KKK in Portage, Indiana. I think the level of police protection for the fascists was unprecedented.
An army of 400 cops had the town under martial law. All traffic had to pass in single file through a checkpoint, and then we had to walk through two more checkpoints, where cops, dressed in camouflage fatigues and ski masks, held pump shot guns and automatic rifles. As if we were already under arrest, they wanted us to remove everything but our shoelaces and belts, before entering a huge holding cell, surrounded by cops inside and out. We correctly refused to willingly walk into their cell and call it a demonstration.
This show of force was meant to intimidate anti-fascist fighters and guarantee a KKK sound-byte on the 6:00 news. While it may have been frustrating and aggravating, it was mainly a compliment. We have forced the rulers' hand. We have made them go to extreme measures to take their fascist dogs for a walk.
Over the past 20 years, from New England to Southern California, we have led hundreds of thousands in violent attacks against the fascists and the cops. Some have been pitched battles. Not only have these been our most violent activities, they have been around the line "Death to the Fascists--Power to the Workers!" This has inspired many more actions by anti-racist workers and youth where there is no PLP. Nazis, Klansmen, and cops have all felt the blows of PLP. Before every fascist rally, the first question the cops and fascists ask is, "What about PL?" Now the rulers have upped the ante. The challenge is now on us to see them, and raise them.
The main response must be building a mass PLP. The 300 recruits who joined on May Day is a good start. In the future, we should view every attack on the fascists as opportunities for mass recruitment. Also, if the cops are now ready to go all out to protect their hooded cousins, we will have to develop new forms of combat, as every army must do when up against superior firepower.
We must continue to make it a costly proposition for the Nazis and KKK to have a mass open presence. We must continue to attack. Only communist revolution, over a protracted period of armed struggle, will destroy fascism and the fascists. But meeting the challenge of the day is part of the process that will get us there.
My friend Antonio called me up Sunday night to tell me how disgusted he was and started babbling something about politicians are worse than the "Chupacabras" (the infamous "Goatsucker," an animal talked about but never seen from Puerto Rico to Florida to Mexico).
I told he was not making any sense. Then he slowed down and started talking about what he just saw in the news: Joaquin Balaguer, the reactionary President of the Dominican Republic, together with his old enemy, former President Juan Bosch, was forming a "Patriotic Front" to support Leonel Fernández, the presidential candidate of Juan Bosch's Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).
Leonel Fernandez is running in the second round of the Presidential elections against Francisco Peña Gómez, of the social-democratic Revolutionary Dominican Party (PRD). Peña Gómez won 48% of the votes in the first round, Fernández won 38% and Jacinto Peynado, the candidate of Balaguer's own party, came a distant third.
I explained to my friend that he wouldn't be so surprised if he had been reading Challenge-Desafío. The PLD, which has called itself a "national liberation leftist" party, is nothing but a capitalist party, doing only what is beneficial to the section of the capitalist class it represents. Therefore the differences it had with Bosch's old enemy, Balaguer, were tactical--about how to best exploit the workers. Besides, like all capitalist parties, it uses racism. The alliance with Balaguer is also based on racism against Peña Gómez, who is black and of Haitian origin.
Elections are indeed a farce for workers. The ruling class covers its internal fight about which section is going to screw workers by using words like democracy, the people's mandate, etc. Whichever candidate wins, either Fernández or Peña Gómez (who is favored by the U.S.), workers lose: mass unemployment, hunger, blackouts will continue.
The only solution for workers is the one put forward by the PLP group in the Dominican Republic--unite workers from the Dominican Republic and Haiti to build a revolutionary communist movement to get rid of capitalism once and for all
A NYC comrade
The other day I had my usual conversation with my friend from India about revolution. He likes PLP's line, but still believe that in India and other poorer country the revolution has to be organized by stages.
He believes that the Chinese model is the one to follow ("new democracy;" a peasant-based revolutionary army will surround the cities, etc.) in what he calls semi-feudal countries like India, etc. Why are they semi-feudal? According to my friend, and the Maoist line, because capitalism has not developed fully in the countryside and the population is mostly in the countryside.
I argue with him that capitalism is the main form of production worldwide, that one has to look at the trend of the world and not just some areas which might still have feudal remnants. Next time I see him I will have some ammunition which will be hard to refute.
Within 10 years, more than half the planet's population will be squeezed into cities for the first time. The bulk of this growth will come in the less-developed countries, the UN Population Fund predicted in its annual World Population Report. By 2015, the report projects that 3.2 billion of the world's then 4.1 billion urban dwellers will be in cities like Bombay, Karachi, Lagos, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Jakarta, Mexico City. In fact, by the year 2015, Tokyo, which is projected to retain its No. 1 ranking, will be the only city in the imperialist world to make the top ten.
Of course, capitalism makes these mega-cities living hells. So the UN predicts "urban violence, social breakdown and environmental degradation."
We communists must see these mega-cities, from Bombay to New York, as golden opportunities to turn them into fortresses for communist revolution
A revolutionary urbanite
We finally had a mass Challenge-Desafío sale outside our high school this morning. There were six of us who went out with 30 Challenge-Desafíos to sell.
Quickly we saw we were down to fewer than ten papers. So one of us went to get more from the house. He came back with 36 more (all that we had in the house) and two of our friends, who read Challenge, joined us in the sale.
We sold all 66 Challenges in an hour. We greatly underestimated the interest of high school students. We have opened up an opportunity to do a lot in the last few weeks of school. We are going to try to have a study group with anyone who is interested in Challenge and PLP. We are also going to continue to have a weekly morning sale until school ends and set up a weekly Challenge-Desafío sale in a busy area here in Queens.
We are learning through practice what kind of political work we want to do on the college campus next year.
Queens HS students
The debate about the revolutionary role of black workers in the Letters section of Challenge-Desafío was helpful in our collective. We work in a job that has been one backbone for black employment in the Bay Area since the '60s and is under heavy attack.
Our club discussion led us to recognize that communist agitation could lead to tremendous change among our co-workers. It spurred us to regularize our plans for Challenge-Desafío sales, mass distribution of communist leaflets, and intensify our recruitment. Club members had different views about what creates the potential and importance of black workers as a leading force in the fight for revolution.
One member felt that racist attacks by themselves do not produce revolutionary consciousness. He faced racist attacks his whole life but his class consciousness developed through contact with left wing ideology in the '60s, then long term interaction with PLP, and most importantly a study group on political economy which discussed how labor is a commodity.
He felt that the anger and hatred caused by racist conditions could be easily misled into election of black politicians, into anger at immigrants, or general anger at all whites unless a class understanding of society was present.
Another member reported on his own revolutionary activity and study with the Panthers in the '60s in Detroit. Then, the ruling class (represented by J. Edgar Hoover) looked at organized black workers as "the biggest threat to the internal security of the United States." In his experience, many black workers have become communists .
One member pointed out that many young black workers were in the military, which means it's crucial for PLP to influence and recruit among black youth in order to have a base of support among soldiers.
Two other members expanded on the Editors' response with examples from our current situation. The Business section in the local newspaper rated San Francisco the fourth likeliest city to "riot" due to high rates of black worker unemployment and low level of home ownership. We discussed how the potential for rebellion is politicized. The article about the 1970 Postal Wildcat in the following Challenge showed us concretely how rebellions and workers organized on the job are connected.
We want to criticize one aspect of the Editors' response because this tone has appeared recently in other issues of Challenge. The comment "perhaps NJ comrade is too young and too uninformed to know..." comes off as arrogant and detracts from the rest of the letter which was a thoughtful presentation of PL's position.
What purpose do these remarks serve? Comments like this put the writer down individually and don't help to argue out the ideological points. If Challenge readers think: "I had better be absolutely right or phrase things just right, or I might get jumped on"--the results would be that most people won't write.
Basically sarcasm and belittling people who are not enemies in the pages of Challenge is not a communist approach. Capitalist criticism is design to make people feel bad, communist criticism is design to help develop people.
If the editors felt that this letter contained an attack on the Party as opposed to a criticism, then state that we consider this letter an attack and that is why our answer takes this form.
SF Muni Transit Club
Communists who are fighters and who also fight against the capitalist ideas that divert us. This inevitably leads to disagreements and struggle. Sometime the disagreements are sharp. Good! That is what can lead to change.
We don't think that the reply was arrogant. Not perfect, to be sure. Still, as you indicate from your club meeting, it made its point. So, what's the point of contention? A phrase that was a minor part of the reply. There was no insult intended. We're sorry if offense was taken.
The phrase you object to pointed out that many, especially young people who have no personal experience, are unaware of the black-led rebellions and strikes and the lessons of those struggles. The bosses have robbed us of our history along with everything else they steal from us. Even if the phrase was bad, to seize on that as a criticism is narrow and undermines the main point.
As to whether comrades have to be absolutely sure they are right and need to have a perfectly worded article or letter before writing for this paper--well, that's never stopped us. And it shouldn't stop you. In fact, you are demanding the editors be perfect but you don't expect that in others. We should be held accountable, but it is a two-way street.
There is a bad slant in your letter that could be called thin-skinned. The purpose of this paper, as the name says, is to challenge wrong ideas to struggle to win workers to the Party. This is an imperfect process. And sometimes it gets rough. And as for your comment that sarcasm is not a communist approach, try reading anything by Marx or Lenin and we think you'll find otherwise.