Challenge, Oct. 22, 1997
INDEX
Editorial: Police "Reform" = More
fascism
Dual Containment Policy Flops, Will Another Oil
War Follow?
If Amtrak workers strike, Don’t Scab!
NYPD, Gangs Out of Schools!
Anti-Gang Hysteria Built by LA Times
‘They are intimidators’
Dr. Rothman not alone, all bosses racist and sexist
Anti-Immigrant Racism Aims to Lower Labor Cost Even
More
Little Dictators and Big Dictators
Racist Terror/Racist Murder = Fascism
International Briefs
Clinton Business Trip to South America
Workers in China protest downsizing and defy riot cops
Capitalism Is the Real Disaster for Workers
LETTERS
Challenge in the hands of GI’s
turns them into fists
UPS strike: fight among bosses for workers’
Church Welcomes $$$ From Drug Czar's Pension
What happens without the PLP?
Moving troops in the Friendly Skies of UAL
Hugo BoSS Was a Nazi Boss
Brooklyn South—Who do cops
‘Serve and Protect’?
THE FULL MONTY - (or, The Dictatorship of Unemployment)
Village
Voice notes PLP Web Page
Editorial: Police "Reform" = More
fascism
Cops Are Rulers’ Goons—Communists Must Lead Workers to
Smash Them
The U.S. Justice Department, headed by Janet Reno, has opened an investigation of the Chicago police. A torrent of cop brutality cases had embarrassed local black politicians and preachers into making the appeal. Now, these fakers are hailing Reno’s decision as a victory for workers. Not so fast. Herr Reno isn’t out to stop the reign of terror against black workers. The biggest bosses, whom she represents, need more of it than ever. A hundred years of police department corruption and brutality scandals, including the appointment of Theodore Roosevelt as NYC police commissioner to clean up the NYPD in the 1890’s, prove that the cops cannot be reformed. The police force exists for one reason: to protect bosses’ profits and property. This is their class role. Racist brutality is their stock-in-trade.
The case that set off the calls for the federal government’s investigation was the beating of a black youth, 18-year-old Jeremiah Mearday a few weeks ago. Two uniformed cops stopped Mearday and two friends, who were walking to a pharmacy to get allergy medicine. The police beat Jerry on the street, in full view of witnesses. They hit him with their long-handled metal flashlights. They busted his jaw, knocked out his teeth, and lacerated his scalp. This violence was intentional. It was delivered as a message to working class black youth and to workers in general.
Harassment, intimidation and beatings like the one suffered by Jeremiah Mearday are daily events throughout the U.S. This particular beating comes in the midst of the rulers’ relentless drive to fascism. The present needs of this class force them to step up the ferocity of their attacks against the working class. The U.S. has the largest prison population of any country in the world. On average, one black youth in four will be victimized by the bosses’ criminal "justice" system. And the police remain ever faithful to their traditional role as strikebreakers. For example, during the recent UPS strike, the cops protected the scabs and terrorized the workers, as usual.
Bosses’ Goal = A More Brutal Gestapo
Our Party had the honor to be singled out for Reno-style police
terrorism when the cops attacked a PLP demonstration against
Clinton’s racist slave-labor welfare "reform"
scheme at last years’ Democratic Party convention. Federal
officials on the scene supervised the attack, during which the
cops arrested 22 demonstrators, beating many repeatedly. Six PLP
members still face an upcoming trial on felony charges.
Police brutality and corruption are nothing new. They are key to the strategy of protecting a brutal and corrupt capitalist system. In this age of economic crisis, fascism and war, the rulers need, more than ever, a ruthless and fearsome police force—a modern SS with stars and stripes to intimidate or smash workers who dare to rebel against slave labor, scabbing, downsizing, massive cutbacks and preparations for an oil war in the Persian Gulf. Cops who do this dirty work to the rulers’ satisfaction get to line their own pockets as a reward for a job well done.
Clinton Anti-Terrorism Law Means More Police Terror
Clinton, representing the Old Money "liberal" bosses,
is doing his part to increase the cops’ efficiency in
defending capitalism. His new anti-terrorism law provides $50
million to educate the cops in the bosses’ politics. The
rulers have launched a political campaign—Clinton’s
radio message this past Saturday kicked it off—to encourage
workers to respect, even help cops. Programs like community
policing, beat meetings and the like, are concerted efforts by
the Old Money bosses to win workers, who fear crime and want to
eliminate it, to look to fascist police as allies. But it
won’t work. This crude cosmetic job can’t make the cops
look good, because every time the bosses’ mouthpieces try to
pull the wool over our eyes, another beating or worse takes place
around the corner.
No matter how many investigations or commissions the system sets up, the cops cannot and will not be reformed to serve workers. The cops exist to terrorize the working class. Since the Louima case, when Brooklyn cops tortured a Haitian worker last August, police violence in New York City, has increased dramatically, against all workers, black, latin, and white. Police are imposing racist curfews for youth throughout the city of Los Angeles. They routinely arrest black and latin youth for walking with more than two people. The Nazi-like methods of U.S. cops that have been taught to the death squads in El Salvador and the fascist Savak under the Shah of Iran in defense of U.S. investments abroad, are now being imposed in the U.S. The New York Times, which fronts for the Eastern Establishment bosses, is squarely behind this domestic reign of terror. Its October 14th editorial sings praise for racist NYC Mayor Giuliani’s "better policing…(and) law enforcement strategy." The Times editors are applauding Giuliani’s cops for turning New York’s working class neighborhoods into concentration camps.
Capitalism holds power at gunpoint. The cops defend the bosses’ dictatorship over the working class. Only communist revolution will end this dictatorship and the police terror it requires. The Progressive Labor Party is out to build a red, workers’ army that will lead a revolution to do this.
PLP Must Become a Mass Party to Fight Fascist Terror
To end police terror, our Party must grow—in the heat of
battle. PLP has often responded to police attacks by
demonstrating against them and handing out leaflets denouncing
them. That’s positive, but it’s not nearly enough! The
situation requires more. We have to be committed to organizing
the mass anger that workers feel at growing police terror. On our
jobs, we must expose and organize against the fundamental role of
the police in protecting the bosses’ profit system. We must
fight for job actions and raise the idea of taking workers from
the job, from the union, from the church, from community
organizations to police stations and other centers of power to
denounce the bosses’ savagery. We should raise the political
idea that our class must use its power to organize strikes
against police torture. As workers see our strength and numbers
grow, our confidence that the working class can take power and
destroy the bosses’ fascism will grow to become an
unbeatable force.
Dual Containment Policy Flops, Will Another Oil War Follow?
The Clinton gang has taken a major step toward its next imperialist bloodbath for oil profits in the Middle East. On October 12, the US aircraft carrier Nimitz entered the Persian Gulf along with a battle group of six other warships. Clinton’s saber-rattling reflects the collapse of US bosses’ "dual containment" policy against Iranian and Iraqi rulers. The defeat leaves Rockefeller & Co. little choice other than military escalation to defend their tottering empire.
The policy threatened to punish any of US imperialism’s competitors who invested more than $20 million in Iran or who helped Iraqi bosses get around economic sanctions imposed since the 1991 Gulf War. It has been a total flop. The more Clinton & Co. threaten, the more their rivals invest with Rockefeller enemies. As Challenge reported last week, a French-Russian-Malaysian group recently put together a $2 billion gas deal in Iran. On October 12, the Washington Post announced that Rockefeller rival Royal Dutch Shell had contracted to build a $2.5 billion pipeline across northern Iran. And Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and European energy companies are further sticking out their tongues at Clinton/Rockefeller by lining up post-sanction deals in Iraq.
The latest brainstorm from the White House foreign policy pinheads seems to favor junking the "dual containment" fiasco and concentrating instead on another attack against Iraq. The October 13 Financial Times quotes State Department officials as saying that the Nimitz’s purpose is to increase flights over Iraq, not to provoke Iran. This may be their intention, but anything could happen. The Nimitz’s arrival just happened to coincide with Iranian naval maneuvers involving 120 warships and 200,000 troops and sailors. An Iranian newspaper that acts as a mouthpiece for the foreign ministry said: "Iranian naval exercises are covering a wide area of the Persian Gulf where…US spy ships are crowding the waterway and increasing the risk of collisions…with dire consequences, putting the entire waterway at risk" (Reuter, October 14).
So, despite "the best-laid plans," the Nimitz could provoke an unintended confrontation with Iran and its new strategic ally, Russia. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how quickly that could escalate.
However, US imperialism’s "best-laid" plans are bad enough as they stand. Challenge has pointed out regularly for the last year that Rockefeller, Inc. recognize the failure of "dual containment." Their Plan B is to continue forcing Iraqi oil off the market. On October 16, a major UN showdown will occur over scrapping or maintaining US-imposed sanctions against Iraq. US bosses want to keep and increase them. Russian, French, and Chinese rulers’ profit needs require getting rid of them. So Clinton-Rockefeller are basically between a rock and a hard place.
Clinton may very well find an excuse to have the Nimitz launch air raids over Iraq within the next few days, as a warning to Iraqi rulers and their European, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese imperialist chums. Even if the Nimitz doesn’t become directly involved in fighting this time around, the handwriting is clearly on the wall. The US ruling class can’t tolerate the further erosion of its Middle Eastern oil dominance. Another Persian Gulf ground war looms on the very near horizon, probably in Iraq.
What can we do about it? Plenty! We can’t stop the bosses’ next war from breaking out or from widening, but we can mobilize our shopmates, neighbors, and schoolmates now to begin taking revolutionary action against it. To date, we have been far too slow and passive to recognize and struggle against the growing threat of imperialist war. Our Party has a long tradition of standing in the vanguard of militant anti-imperialist activity. We organized the first action against US bosses’ genocide in Vietnam. We say, correctly, that only communist revolution will smash profit wars. This is a long-range goal. However, what we do in the immediate and near future to carry out our line can have a profound effect on this process.
If Amtrak workers strike, Don’t Scab!
NEW YORK CITY—On Oct. 22nd, 2,300 Amtrak workers might go on strike following the 60-day cooling off period (strikebreaking) order of Clinton. If they do go on strike (if Clinton and the hacks don’t stop it again), train stations all over the country, like NYC Penn Station, will be affected since the tracks are maintained by Amtrak workers.
Already, LIRR and NJ Transit are making plans to scab on these strikers. NJ Transit is planning to run extra buses. LIRR is planning to send commuters to the Flatbush, Brooklyn, train stations instead of Penn stations. NJ Transit and NYC MTA workers should support Amtrak strikers and refuse to scab on them.
PLP Transit workers must use this struggle to build our Party and to show fellow workers how the government, the cops and union hacks are their enemies.
NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 13 — "You know, I didn’t think about it this way until you opened my eyes," commented a young woman at a PLP dinner about police terror, "but it’s true that the cops are making us all hysterical about gangs when the cops have been doing all the brutality. I’ve been afraid to wear my red coat since red is the ‘Bloods’ color. But we have to educate everyone to the truth!"
The discussion, involving teachers and youth from many schools, continued with plans to expose how this gang fever is a ploy by the bosses to make the cops look good.
The NYPD invaded dozens of schools terrifying thousands of students, teachers and parents. According to the New York Times, they were responding to "‘rumors of gang violence’" as they swept through the buildings and maintained a massive presence outside. It felt like an occupying army. Edward Stancik, top investigator for the Board of Education, insists, "‘That gangs are a serious presence in New York City schools is accepted as fact by the Police Department, from its police officers...to its gang experts.’" Yet, as the Times continued, "there is little evidence to indicate that gang-related violence is on the rise."
So if there is so little evidence of the rise of gangs, why the hysteria? First of all, the cops want to take direct control of the School Security division. Second, cops are more discredited than ever. Following the torture of the Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, which led to massive protests of tens of thousands, 33rd precinct cops beat up Norman Batista, a Dominican immigrant, who suffered seven broken ribs, now Arcadio Guerrero was shot and killed as he was caught in a cop shootout while working in Washington Heights.
So the cops and the city bosses have generated this wave of "gang hysteria" to make the cops look good. They are urging workers to turn to the most vicious thugs in the city, the NYPD, to protect them from the petty thugs. This is a dangerous illusion that will hurt all workers.
Yes, there are some youth who are so alienated by the rulers’ racism, unemployment, rotten education and drugs that they join gangs and terrorize other youths. But this latest round of publicity will help the gangs grow and gain respect. That’s just what the bosses want. They build the criminal gangs to promote divisions among youth. The existence of the little thugs always makes the big thugs look good. The solution is not more cops but more communists.
The fear and chaos around us today lead workers to search for something secure. That’s the irony of the cops, the point men for building fascist terror, now tricking us into turning to them for protection. For example, a group of parents at PS40 in Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn held a demonstration against the transfer of a 10-year-old student into their school because he claimed to be in a gang. To attack a 10-year-old child rather than capitalism and their KKKlan in blue is a disaster for workers.
Our Party is on the move citywide within the schools. We are calling emergency meetings, urging students, teachers and parents to unite against fascist terror. We are building for our Nov. 15th March Against Police Terror. We can and will lead workers away from gangs and capitalism, and towards communism We must be leaders in this campaign in order to offer to workers and youth, in practice, a realistic alternative—joining the Progressive Labor Party.
Anti-Gang Hysteria Built by LA Times
The fascist injunction against the 18th street gang in Los Angeles is being spread to other parts of LA. Youth in more and more neighborhoods face curfews and arrests for violating them, for walking with more than one friend if you look like a "suspected gang member" and for carrying a pager. Now City Councilman Richard Alarcon is calling for $1.1 million to expand the injunction program citywide, starting with a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. Youth in Compton, CA. and parts of Inglewood now face the same curfew.
This attack on black and latin youth is spreading fascist terror. It is justified by article after article in the LA Times, that build hysteria about gangs. The cops and CIA push drugs and gangs and then use them to justify racist police terror. The real purpose is to terrorize youth to try to prevent rebellion—especially as the U.S. prepares for war in the Middle East and possible military intervention in Mexico.
PLP is urging workers and youth to oppose this injunction, to denounce the attacks on youth and workers in the schools and in the mass organizations, and to join PLP.
CHICAGO, Oct. 8 ¾ Seven women are talking in a living room near the corner where 25th District cops brutally beat Jeremiah Mearday. Everyone has stories to tell about how those cops terrorize the community:
"My 13-year-old son stepped out to go to my sister’s house, and the cops picked him up. They drove him around for 45 minutes, then stopped by the house. I asked whether he was charged with anything and they said no, but he was a suspect in a robbery. When I asked why, the cop stepped on the gas and took off with my son. An hour later they called and said he was charged with disorderly conduct. At the station, I wanted to complain to the commanding officer but they told me, ‘We don’t play that here.’ "
"My son was standing in front of our building. They took him to jail and jumped on him hard. I complained to the supervisor and to OPS [the Police Department Office of Professional Standards] but they just went back and told the police. He treated me like I was nothing, he said don’t ask no questions—like I had no feelings."
"I went to the corner store to buy milk around 8:30 one evening. The cops stopped me right outside the store and searched me for drugs."
"They were driving a new police van down Harding Street, playing with the headlights and zigzagging from side to side. They almost ran over a cat, then they aimed the van at some 14-year old kids. They were pretending to hit people. They think it’s a joke."
Chicago Cops ‘Serve and Protect’ ¾ Who?
"Down at Springfield and Division, you can’t even wait
for the bus because they come right up to you and try to sell you
drugs. The police are always down at that corner, but you
don’t see them jumping on people."
"My house was broken into and they took everything. When the cops came they said, ‘You know who did this, don’t you?’ When I said I didn’t, they walked out. They did nothing. Another time, some things were stolen and my son saw them and knew who it was. The cops said, ‘Those are just a kid’s words.’ We had to go and get the things back ourselves."
"I’ve seen drunk police officers in the liquor store getting drunker. In uniform and on duty. And one white cop went hollering at a black woman, saying, ‘Come here baby.’ "
"If they see children dressed nicely, they assume they’re gangbangers."
"The black kids especially," said a Puerto Rican woman.
"My boyfriend lost some weight and his pants were sagging. The police stopped him, grabbed his butt, and asked him if he was on drugs. They had no probable cause to do this. He’s a hard-working man."
"Really, they don’t respect you unless you’re wearing a business suit."
"Why do you think they do this," a PLP comrade asked.
"It’s abuse of power," someone responded. "They ‘serve’ themselves and ‘protect’ their own pocketbooks. They should be serving and protecting us. That’s their job."
"I agree they’re abusing us, but I don’t think it’s just for themselves," the PLP’er replied. "They serve the bosses, the capitalist rulers. They protect them from us, the working class. That’s their real job. The bosses seem strong, but they are more afraid of us than we are of them. That’s why they need the cops to terrorize us."
"Then they are not police," another woman said decisively. "They are intimidators."
"How do we even begin to fight to help ourselves?" someone asked thoughtfully.
"We are beginning right here," the PLP’er answered, "getting together and trying to understand why things are happening. Getting people to stick up for each other. But we also need to talk more about where we are going. About why we need communist revolution if we want to get rid of these nazi cops who are occupying this neighborhood. And about how revolution is possible."
"Let’s meet next week," someone suggested. "We can get more people to come to a block club meeting. The young people, too."
Dr. Rothman not alone, all bosses racist and sexist
PHILADELPHIA — Like The auto industry, the crisis of overproduction is hitting the health care industry. To compete, hospitals are merging and consolidating. Four hospital chains in Philadelphia now control all the hospital beds in the region.
In addition to consolidating, hospital chains are also buying up doctors and their practices. Actually the competition is so combative, that each chain is "raiding" doctors in the same way that competing unions sometimes "raid" another's members.
At the beginning of 1997, Jefferson Hospital bosses announced that they had "won" Dr. Dick Rothman away from Pennsylvania Hospital. Rothman has a practice worth millions. Rothman's arrival was trumpeted as if he were going to lead Jefferson to the holy land of profits. Massive renovations were begun and his name was on everyone's tongue.
By September, Rothman’s name was especially on the tongues of many of Jefferson’s black workers. They had discovered an article on Rothman in Philadelphia Magazine, a magazine directed at white middle class yuppies. The article reported that four years ago Rothman gave a speech declaring that the quality of medical care was falling mainly due to the increasing numbers of women and minority doctors. It also quoted Rothman as arguing that "women and non-whites" were not high achievers and therefore not qualified to be doctors.
A black worker told her 1199C union Delegate about the article. For PLP members, the big question was how do we get involved with this in a manner that deepens our mass organization work, puts the Party’s ideas forward, and moves people closer to joining PLP. We wanted to avoid our past mistakes, which would end with few significant results for the Party. This time we wanted to do it differently.
Members and friends of PLP had many discussions with workers about why racism was such an important tool of fascism, and what we should do about it. For the first time we approached doctors and doctors-in-training to get them to raise the question of Rothman’s racism in their organizations at the hospital. At the monthly citywide 1199C union Delegate meeting, a Jefferson Delegate raised the issue and demanded that the union do something.
Many workers were outraged and thought Rothman should apologize or be fired. Others, including the black worker who first mentioned this to her union Delegate, felt that Jefferson has always been racist and we couldn’t change it. Other workers felt we couldn’t do anything because the money Rothman brought in "was keeping us employed." These talks allowed PLP members to discuss with many workers that the only solution to racism was the elimination of capitalism with communism.
The doctors agreed Rothman’s statements were terrible, but wouldn’t take any action; but they wanted to be kept informed. The doctors-in-training, however, told us that the women and minority medical residents under Rothman had approached him with the article and he denied making the racist and sexist statements. They suggested that we contact the Hospital’s Public Relations Office to see if Rothman or the Hospital had issued any statement.
1199C union president Henry Nicholas declared that the union would send a letter to the hospital and make sure that the Jefferson Delegates receive a copy of the bosses’ response. But Nicholas also said that Jefferson wasn’t the only hospital with racist attitudes. "You’d have to fight all the hospitals if you wanted to fight racism in health care," he cynically added. This prompted one non-Party Jefferson Delegate to jokingly tell another, "Hey, he sounds like us, we have to get rid of the system!"
Last week two union Delegates spoke with someone from Jefferson’s Public Relations (PR) office. The PR hack claimed that Rothman never made those remarks and that the article was a frame-up by Rothman’s former bosses at Pennsylvania Hospital! She reported nonetheless that there was an open meeting about the article in Rothman’s Orthopedic Department so those doctors would know Rothman was not racist or sexist.
The union Delegates from the Laundry and Housekeeping Departments asked why there weren’t any meetings for the workers in the service departments, especially since that’s where most of the women and black and latin workers are. This led to an argument by both the Delegates that "we are just as important to patient care as the famous Dr. Rothman." The Laundry Delegate in particular let the PR hack know that workers were very angry about the racist remarks. The Delegates argued that if Rothman didn’t make the statements, Jefferson should hold meetings with the staff, or at least issue a statement to all the workers. The PR hack asked for a few days to respond.
This struggle gives us an opportunity to correct our past errors of concentrating on job and economic issues. We are also learning how to work better in mass organizations. We’re making mistakes, sure, but we’re discussing communist politics with more people than ever.
Smash All Borders: Anti-Immigrant Racism Aims to Lower Labor Cost Even More
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 12 — PLP members participated in the 1,000 strong march for Amnesty for Immigrants in East and Central LA. Our banner read "Smash All Borders and Slave Labor with Communist Revolution." We sold over 300 Challenges to demonstrators and workers on the street.
When we showed Challenge-Desafío to one marcher and talked to him about the bosses’ drive towards another oil war, he responded: "They are already sending our children to war." He then asked other workers in his contingent to buy "this important newspaper."
The march was organized by liberals and nationalists linked to the Democratic Party. Their role is to build more illusions among workers that capitalism can be reformed for their benefit if we rely on some "pro-immigrant" politicians. They never mention anything about war, the growth of fascism and patriotism, and their relationship to the attacks against immigrants.
"We have no oil wells, why send our children to die?" said another woman worker who bought Challenge-Desafío and took the communist flyer explaining why Clinton was sending the Nimitz to the Persian Gulf to protect Exxon, Mobil, etc. profits.
Bosses attack immigrants to build nationalism and patriotism to prepare for war. The bosses are increasing fascist deportations. Another reason why bosses are terrorizing immigrants even more is the growing need to lower wages among all workers. A few days before the march, Alan Greenspan, head of the Federal Reserve, warned that the cheap labor bosses like McDonald’s are paying a few cents more above the minimum wage and could threaten the whole bosses’ economy.
On the other hand, we in PLP need to do much more to mobilize workers to fight these attacks. We have to organize in the factories and in the mass organizations that workers belong, to confront and denounce INS raids, racist cops and racist cheap labor garment bosses, etc. Our motto must be that a system that needs fascist terror, wars and slave labor must be destroyed with communist revolution.
Little Dictators and Big Dictators
NEW JERSEY, Oct. 14 — Last week, a young Mt. Vernon student was accidentally injured by an 8-year-old student with a razor blade. The students were in the playground with several others, with no adult supervision. Frank Perez, principal of Mt. Vernon, called the Newark cops. The cops came and took the 8-year-old away in handcuffs! When Perez was confronted over this incident, he attempted to shift the blame onto the school nurse. He claimed she had reported to him that the injured child was "slashed". This was a lie!
Perez has used racism to try and divide the staff, threatened and harassed teachers who speak out, transferred the Mt. Vernon shop steward to retaliate for her opposition to him, and tried to shift the blame for all his dirty deeds to others. But Frank Perez, the little dictator, is not an accident. He is both the product of, and a cheerleader for, an increasingly vicious capitalist system that is, more and more, using terror to rule.
The 8-year-old who was led away in handcuffs by the cops is just one more youth being placed on a track leading to prison. How many of our youth have been turned off by a racist educational system? How many of our youth have been swept up by the cops in Newark and other cities? The police campaign to improve the "quality of life" has been used to justify unleashing police terror. Certainly this was behind the murder of Danette Daniels in the South Ward. (See Editorial on Police Terror)
We must fight against Perez and every attack on the working class. But if that is all we do, we leave in place the rulers’ system that is behind racism, police terror and war. Join PLP to destroy this rulers’ system, capitalism, that is killing us all.
Racist Terror/Racist Murder = Fascism
NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 11 —Racist terror is the way of life under fascism—a capitalist system in decay. The primary target is the working class, but not forever. We won’t allow it.
The criminals are the capitalist rulers and their agents: their cops, courts, institutions and organizations.
Every day we see how the life of the working class is cheap to these criminals:
56-year-old Arcadio Guerrero, a porter at 602 W. 137 St. in Washington Heights, was killed on October 13th at 7:45am in a shootout between cops Troy Broron and Kevin Alanis from the 30th Precinct and a suspect. One bystander said, "The cops should find some other way to deal with this." But what the cops did is what they always do, especially in black and latin neighborhoods. Shoot to kill and terrorize, no matter what the circumstances. That’s their job under the capitalist system.
Marsha Motispersad, a 50-year-old woman died of a heart attack during her lunch break from her slave labor workfare assignment. Ms. Motispersad was examined by the H.S. Systems on West 45 St. in Manhattan and cleared for work even though she had a heart condition. Mikhail Fridman suffered a heart attack while working off his workfare assignment at the Sanitation Dept. He was out for 30 minutes until the ambulance arrived. H.S. Systems cleared Mr. Fridman for work even though he was being treated for hypertension.
Health Services Systems is a private for-profit clinic and the only one NYC officials use to "evaluate" welfare recipients for slave labor workfare. The city pays H.S. Systems $6 million a year to process 700 people a day for slave labor and potential death. Sounds like Hitler and the Nazis!
The aircraft carrier Nimitz is in the Persian Gulf in the Middle East to protect billions of dollars in oil interests of big U.S. capitalists like Exxon, Mobil, Citibank and Chase Manhattan Bank. Thousands of U.S. working class soldiers were injured, sickened or killed by chemical weapons in the Desert Storm War. Half a million Iraqi working class soldiers and men, women, and children perished in the war and its aftermath. Now Clinton and Secretary of State Albright are preparing another war for their billionaire bosses. They’ll sacrifice the youth of the working class in such a war between themselves and their competitors in other countries for control of the world’s labor, resources and markets. Police terror, workfare terror, immigration terror, and war mongering become outright mass murder.
Even though the rulers try to cover themselves with "impartial" investigations, exposés in the so-called "free" press and elections to promise reform. They cannot and won’t be able to disguise their rapid move to fascism and war.
The working class will not remain their tools and targets. We and our children demand a future, a world that we control, without rich and poor, without bosses and war makers, without wage slavery and terror. We will produce what we need in our factories and schools and distribute according to need. We will wipe racism, fascism, and war from the face of the earth. Our system is communism.
Can it be done? Yes! But to do it, we have to know what we need and how to fight for it. We have to join and build the PLP. Then we will target the capitalist rulers and their murderous system for extinction through revolution for workers’ power.
Clinton Business Trip to South America
Clinton’s second visit to Latin America is literally a
business trip for his masters, the Old Money capitalists who run
the U.S. His first stop was Venezuela, the number one supplier of
oil to the U.S., surpassing Saudi Arabia. Clinton wants to make
sure European companies like France’s Elf and Germany’s
Veva Oel don’t take over this oil bonanza. Then he went to
Brazil and Argentina.
His "main goal is to open new markets and to prevent that the European Union puts a brake on the U.S. investments and exports to a region of huge economic possibilities" (El País, Madrid, 10/13).
His trip is also an attempt to convince President Cardoso of Brazil to accept the U.S. plan to expand NAFTA to include all of South America. The rulers of Brazil firmly oppose the Latin America Free Trade Agreement (LAFTA), because it will mean the end of Mercosur, a free trade agreement involving Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Even though U.S. trade with countries like Brazil has increased, trade between Mercosur and the European Union has also gotten larger and is growing faster than with the U.S. Also, Japan is increasing its investments and trade with Latin America.
Clinton was not the only one taking a business trip. President Zedillo of Mexico (one of the three members of NAFTA) was visiting Europe, making deals with European countries and paving the way for a Mexico-European Union free trade agreement planned for 1998.
But the European bosses want concessions for their support to Zedillo and his allies. As soon as Zedillo arrived in Paris, Amnesty International accused Mexico of violating human rights. Although Zedillo gave it little importance, the European bosses are using this to pressure the Mexican bosses allied with the U.S. to give more opportunities to pro-European, anti-U.S. capitalists.
The U.S. bosses are not taking this sitting down. The militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border has more to do with protecting U.S. interests in Mexico from its rivals than stopping immigrants and drugs.
From the Middle East to Mexico and Caracas, contradictions among the world’s imperialist sharpen. These trade wars will lead to more wars. PLP must grow to turn the contradictions among the imperialists and their local allies into a mighty stream for revolution.
Workers in China protest downsizing and defy riot cops
CHINA—Several hundred angry workers fought riot cops on Oct. 10th in Zigong, a city of three million in the province of Szechuan. Workers at the No. 2 Transistor factory have been on strike for some time against low wages and the irregular way they used to be paid.
China’s President Jiang Zemin had announced mass downsizing in the state-owned industries and the No. 2 Transistor plant was put on the list of plants to be closed. 300 workers went into the street to protest, and were joined by hundreds of others.
The closing of a state-owned plant in China not only means the loss of a job, but also means the loss of the remnants of China being Red. As these workers lose their jobs they also lose company-subsidized housing, medical services and even state-company subsidized education. The plant closure also means joining the ranks of millions of unemployed throughout China, like the 150,000 workers from Aviation Industries of China who will lose their jobs also because of downsizing.
There is a lot of anger among workers. During the summer, several demonstrations took place in Szechuan. This anger at the system needs to turn toward ending this system and building a revolutionary communist movement to crush the capitalists in power and developing a truly communist society, where workers rule.
Capitalism Is the Real Disaster for Workers
MEXICO — Hundreds of workers and their families have died or disappeared because of hurricane Pauline. Seven thousand homes were destroyed and 29,000 were badly damaged from Oaxaca to Acapulco. But the real cause of this tragedy is capitalism.
The UN reports that Mexico has 60 million people living in poverty, and the poorest of the poorest are the workers of Oaxaca and Guerrero (where Acapulco is located). Nevertheless, President Zedillo has openly declared that he "will continue with his current economic policies" which have made life even more of a living hell for all these workers while a handful of local bosses and imperialists make billions.
In addition, the corruption and inefficiency of the government make things worse. The Weather Service in Mexico and the Miami Center for Hurricanes had issued a warning 12 hours before about the dangers of Pauline and nothing effective was done. Even when the army was mobilized after the hurricane, it was mainly sent to help out in the tourist sections of Acapulco, leaving most workers without any aid.
Finally, workers are trying to help each other, making collections in LA, Chicago, New York, Houston, etc. Unfortunately, as always happens, most of the aid will end up in the hands of the bosses and corrupt bureaucrats. Very little will filter down to the workers hurt and left homeless by the hurricane.
Capitalism impoverishes and kills millions of workers, while the bosses protect their profits. Under communism, the working class will plan and organize society. The wealth we produce will be used to guarantee workers’ security. Building decent homes, using technology to help workers when disasters hit and mobilizing the Red Army to help workers when they need it will minimize the damage caused by hurricanes and other disasters.
LETTERS
Challenge in the hands of GI’s turns them into fists
Dear Challenge:
In times like these, when we raise our line in a consistent way,
news can travel fast. It turns out that a friend of a friend is
on a ship headed for the Persian Gulf. Sailors and marines on the
ship aren’t getting any sleep because they’re on
24-hour alert, as if preparing for war, and they don’t know why.
But they are not happy about it! The friends of
this GI will try to explain why. The latest issue of Challenge
was especially useful for this purpose.
Another friend of a friend reported that his unit was sent to Italy for regular exercises. They were supposed to be back in the U.S. by December, but the rumor is that instead they’re going to be deployed to Kuwait. Soldiers in this unit are saying they want to be home for Christmas, not in Kuwait.
Young workers in the military are not super-motivated to fight for the blood-soaked profits of the big oil companies. Many GI’s can be won to fighting the war makers and joining and building PLP.
Challenge needs to get into the hands of more GI’s—the sooner the better!
A Fighting Red
UPS strike: fight among bosses for workers’ pensions
Dear Challenge:
The lessons of the three-week UPS strike are starting to hit home
for workers. Many are angry and are voting "No"
to the new contract, negotiated separately by the Chicago local
union, and are similar to the national contract. It offers
workers a one-dollar raise for part-timers, but it’s over
five years, amounting really to a 20¢ raise.
The media has pushed the lie that the strike was about workers fighting the bosses. It was not! It was really a fight among the bosses for control over the $60 billion pension fund.
The Teamsters had the support of Clinton and his wing of the ruling class, which we call Old Money or the Eastern Establishment. On the other hand, the UPS bosses represent Southern New Money capitalists. These two sides are now battling over control of the Teamster Union, with Carey representing Clinton’s group and Hoffa representing the New Money forces.
The Teamsters don’t fight for us. Sure they threw us a little wage increase and an offer of a few more full time jobs, but we didn’t win. The Teamsters and Clinton’s government won the fight. The only way workers can win is if it’s a fight for communism. The unions are capitalist institutions, as are all governments of the world.
The result of this strike is a continuation of UPS profit-making. Part-time work, the basis for the UPS multi-million dollar empire, will continue along with the speed-up and the low wages that come with it. The Teamsters will also benefit, because with more part-time workers, they are able to collect more money in union dues. In return, they do their part in controlling the workforce, helping UPS make money.
Only the PLP can lead the fight between the workers and the bosses. The fight for communism is the fight to end exploitation, wage slavery, and the other basis of capitalist society.
The needs of workers at UPS weren’t even negotiable during the strike. The way UPS is run isn’t going to change. There will continue to be over 100,000 UPS workers putting in three or four hours a day of high-speed, dangerous, backbreaking labor. And as UPS wears out those workers, they bring in a new batch of laborers to start the next part time shift. These working conditions are not what the union organized a strike about. These are conditions that UPS needs in order to survive and they are not up for negotiation by the capitalist Teamster union.
Masses of UPS workers who voted ‘No’ to the contract were right. Say no to capitalism by joining PLP to fight for the real needs of the working class.
UPS Worker
Church Welcomes $$$ From Drug Czars
Dear Challenge:
"The money [from drugs and prostitution] is gotten in an
immoral manner, but this doesn’t mean that the donation is
illegal," said Manuel Talamas, Archbishop Emeritus of Ciudad
Juarez, Mexico to a reporter from Proceso magazine.
These donations came into public view at the end of September when Raul Soto Vazquez, the vicar of the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, told parishioners that some drug traffickers contributed large sums of money to the Church after the earthquake in 1985. He added that the "drug dealers are human beings who do many good things and also commit terrible mistakes."
Benjamin Olivas, the priest who was the "spiritual advisor" to the late drug traffic leader, Amado Carrillo of Ciudad Juarez, said that Carrillo had contributed generously to the Catholic Church. "He always helped. Why do you think he was called the ‘gentleman of the heavens?’ " asked Olivas in an interview in Reforma, the Mexico City newspaper.
We should use these cases to show our friends and co-workers the relationship between of the church, religion, and drugs. As Marx said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." The bosses use drugs and religion to divert the working class from the struggle for liberation, for a society free of money, racism, drugs and exploitation. To end exploitation, racism and drugs, we need a communist revolution.
PL Friend in Mexico
Dear Challenge:
The obituary of Herbert X. Blyden, a former Attica prisoner,
which describes him as a man "who spent last 26 years
fighting for damages for the torture and beatings prisoners
endured after the 1971 uprising…." shows how the defeat
of the valiant uprising of Attica’s inmates can be
tragically compounded.
The leader, Herbert X. Blyden, falls back on the very institutions he organized and revolted against. Why is this?
One potent obvious reason is that there was no organization he could reach out to that would and could carry on the revolt he led to a logical and necessary end—revolution.
There are virtually hundreds to thousands of people just as bravely fighting—and losing—who become disillusioned or delivered to mysticism.
That can be changed. But only by a living and growing revolutionary movement. That’s us. What we do is indispensable as to what road people will take. Road to Revolution is the signpost. Let’s become indispensable.
Friend of PLP
Moving troops in the Friendly Skies of UAL
Dear Challenge:
You can’t fight a modern war without the cooperation of a
civilian population, even a small war. A friend of mine has a
girlfriend who is a flight attendant, knowing his interest in
politics, she asked him, "Why was it that United flight
attendants are being asked to volunteer for overtime to fly
secret missions for the military."
SF Traffic controller
OOPS!
In last week’s Challenge (10/15), the article, "Sweatshops—Fruit of Capitalism" had an incorrect sentence in the third paragraph. The sentence should read: "The AFL-CIO (of which UNITE is part) is trying to organize students and workers in a movement to support the biggest bosses in their fight against New Money bosses and in their plans for another oil war."
The letter in the same issue titled. "Fight for international communist standards" The letter writer did, indeed, attend a conference, but it was not teachers’ conference.
"Dressed to Triumph" reads the ad for Boss clothing in the Who’s Who book for European business and industry. Boss clothing, if you can afford them, can make you seem like a "winner" in the capitalist world. What wasn’t said about Hugo Boss, the founder of this company is that he was a tailor for another group of bosses—the Nazis.
This Nazi past was kept well hidden by his descendants, until a few weeks ago when Nazi accounts in Swiss banks were revealed. The Nazis set up one of those accounts for Boss.
But Hugo Boss was not just a plain Nazi member; he made uniforms for the SS and when he needed more workers, the SS gave him Polish prisoners to work as slave labor. Boss founded his small tailor shop in 1923 and things did go well. In 1930, his shop went bankrupt. In 1931 he joined the Nazi Party, and when Hitler came to power in 1933 things began to change. His ads included a note that he was an authorized supplier of uniforms for the SS and the SA.
Albert Fischer, is an 83-year-old communist who still lives in Metzingen, where Hugo Boss began his shop. Proud of still being Red, he says: "I am not one of those who changed his jacket." He spent seven years in concentration camps, including Buchenwald, for being an anti-Nazi. He knew Hugo Boss. He also remembers the Herold family, Jews who owned a textile business in the town. "They were bourgeois. Mr. Herold had won the Iron Cross during World War I." Fischer remembers how Boss was a friend with Mr. Herold, until Nazism came and "he dropped the Herold like a hot potato." In Nov. 1938, after Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass, when the Nazis attacked Jewish storeowners), the Herolds fled when their business was burned by the Nazi hordes. They fled to Holland. When the Nazis invaded Holland, they were murdered.
Hugo Boss died in 1948 without paying for his crimes. Today, his business employs 2,147 workers and is worth billions. The moral of this story is that Nazis and fascists will continue to profit as long as there is capitalism. Now, 59 years after Kristallnacht, we should honor those who fought the Nazis, not its tailors, by joining the PLP and fighting for communism, a society without any bosses or tailors for fascism.
Brooklyn South—Who do cops ‘Serve and Protect’?
Brooklyn South is pure pro-cop propaganda. If we believe people like Steve Bochco, creator of this show and Hill Street Blues, cops are just like you and me, trying to get through life under tough conditions. Dealing with "bad guys," how can they be blamed if they sometimes lose control and beat someone up? By this logic, police brutality is something we have to understand and accept. It’s the price of improving the "quality of life," as racist NYC Mayor Giuliani puts it.
This is the ideology of Brooklyn South promoted in the cultural war being waged to defend fascism. It denies the reality of who the cops work for. Cops are the first line of defense for the State. The State is that group of agents, the government, the army, the police, who keep the rich—the ruling class—in power. And so, it doesn’t really matter if a cop is honest and not brutal. Are there demonstrations against cutbacks? Call in the police to "restore order." Is there an outright rebellion, like those against racism and the war in Vietnam during the sixties? Call in the army to "protect the property"—of the rich.
The purpose of shows like Brooklyn South is to make the cops look good as they fight the "bad guys," even if they have to be brutal about it. The show tries divert our anger against the cops towards loyalty to the State. They want us to identify with people who claim to be protecting us—the cops, the FBI—but who are actually our enemy. But, let’s get real: Brooklyn cop goons recently carried out a savage attack on Abner Louima, a Haitian-born Brooklyn worker, from which he’ll never fully recover. So much for protection!
The first episode of Brooklyn South showed a "bad [black] guy," angry that cops had harassed his mother, going to the local police station and shooting up a bunch of cops. In broad daylight! We get the idea: What choice did the poor overworked cops have? Here’s a guy bent on killing them—and directly or indirectly, but conveniently, killing a young black child. The cops kill him. His mother comes to the station and apologizes for her son. But her militant daughter drags the old woman off, and threatens the cops. In subsequent episodes it’s the cops, not the family of this murdered worker who are portrayed sympathetically. The militant black activists are portrayed as opportunist jerks. There are no good workers in the show except those loyal to the cops.
Brooklyn South has been a controversial piece of police propaganda. Some liberals like commentators on All Things Considered on National Public Radio, oppose its open defense of brutality and violence. They prefer the illusion that "good" cops don’t behave that way. But, as Challenge has pointed out, there’s always going to be police atrocities like this one in New York.
Back in the sixties, when Southern sheriffs and police were beating and murdering black and white Civil Rights fighters, suddenly The Andy Griffith Show appeared. The hero? A Southern sheriff. Cute as a button.
Coincidentally, the same night that Brooklyn South was first shown TV cable station A&E ran a show about Frank Serpico, the real New York cop who apparently tried to stay honest. For his trouble he was set up and almost assassinated by fellow cops. (Serpico recently said the police brutality in Brooklyn was typical, not some freakish incident.)
But whether or not Serpico was an honest cop is unimportant. The fact is, he always had insisted he had no trouble with other cops being crooks and violent—he just didn’t want to get involved. In the Hollywood movie about him, it’s clear that he would not have done anything about the dirty cops he worked with if only they left him alone.
Serpico obviously doesn’t understand the answer to the question asked at the top of this review: Who do cops work for? I have known cops who were decent and honest people, who genuinely wanted to do good. But eventually they ran up against the reality of capitalism.
The truth is that major crime is fully protected by the police themselves. There would be no infestation of narcotics without cops’ cooperation—and, in fact, dealing. But consider this: there can be no capitalism without cops, in all their various forms. And so, we need to destroy all cops and the bosses’ system they protect and replace their system with a workers’ state—communism.
"The Full Monty"- (or, The Dictatorship of Unemployment)
"The Full Monty" is a British expression that means going all the way. In the case of this film, going all the way means stripping down completely. The film is being sold as a comedy and does have some very funny moments, but basically this is a very sad little film about the subject of unemployment and desperation. The setting is Sheffield, a town in northern England which produced the finest steel for hundreds of years, 6 months after all the steel mills have closed. A large section of the population of previously well-paid steel workers are now scrounging for a living and living miserable impoverished lives.
The story follows a small group of friends who spend their time mostly hanging around the "job centre" (combination unemployment office and job training center), and pilfering small items from empty mill buildings and retail shops. The leader (idea man) of the group is given an ultimatum by his ex-wife, either pay the 700 pounds he owes in child support or lose the right to see his son. There is no anger shown at anyone for this economic state, only petty bickering between the group and their ex-foreman who is also job hunting.
British steel workers (and all British workers) have a long history of class struggle. The film is passive and shows almost no class consciousness. Any fight-back against conditions is done on an individual, petty, and short-term basis. There are no organizations visible - no unions, political parties, churches - no groups of any sort to help the working class. We first meet one of the characters while he is attempting to commit suicide, and even this horror is treated as semi-comic. After seeing how the local women go crazy over a troupe of male strippers, the friends hatch the plan of forming a male stripper group of their own - just to make some real cash. None of them can dance or is particularly good looking, but there are simply no other prospects of making a quick windfall. They enlist their ex-foreman (now humbled by unemployment and possibly the most pathetic of all) to choreograph their routine.
This British film is attracting a much larger audience than most foreign films, probably because the premise sounds suggestive and naughty. But the premise is actually much more depressing - now that ex-steel workers can no longer sell their labor power to create a product, they must sell their bodies in semi-lewd displays for only short-term rewards. The big suspense in the story that makes us want to watch the ending is the question, "Will they or won’t they go all the way?"
Well the producers of this small-budget film went all the way - all the way to the bank. They obviously think very little of the working class, and since the film actually ends by mooning the audience, they probably think very little of us for watching it. Workers, employed and unemployed, should go all the way—all the way to communist revolution to get rid of all the bosses who in reality moon us all.
"The Spin: This, the Progressive Labor Party’s official Web site, appears to be Communism central. The history and basic principles of Communism, plus recent issues of the PLP’s weekly pub Challenge, are presented in six languages, with an additional article or two featuring the Communist slant on selected current events. Right now there’s some scathing commentary on not only the Di-death frenzy, but—watch out—the suspected ulterior motives of Mother Teresa. Interesting reading for sure. But be warned: theatrical propaganda tactics aside, given the current state of American capitalism, this stuff’s kinda seductive. www.plp.org/ index.html (Holly McWorter)"