We often ask how Germans could have "not known" about the concentration camps, and why they went along with them. Let's turn the spotlight on the camps growing in the U.S. today. Unless we unite the working class against U.S. fascism and organize to destroy the capitalist system at its roots, we will be as guilty of "looking the other way" as German workers were.
"We have a captive labor force. That makes the whole business profitable," chortles the owner of San Francisco-based DPAS Corp., a data processing outfit which moved from a maquiladora in Tecate, Mexico, to California's San Quentin prison. "We have better control and quicker turn-around time." DPAS services Chevron, Bank of America and Macy's.
*Prisoners in 30 states make plastics, military uniforms, underwear, custom limousines, and even El Salvadoran license plates. Prisoners here get less than workers in El Salvador.
*An Oregon prison official urged Nike to move production from Indonesia to Oregon because he can "offer competitive prison labor."
*The LTL company fired 150 workers and set up shop in a private prison in Lockhart, Texas, where prisoners make circuit boards for IBM and Texas Instruments.
*The Exmark company has 135 prisoners wrapping software for Microsoft and Nintendo in Monroe, Washington.
*In California, Folsom prisoners slave away for recyclers and plastic manufacturers. A hog slaughterhouse has been set up in Aveala prison.
It's an illusion that prisoners receive the federal minimum wage. In Tennessee and elsewhere, the maximum hourly wage is 50cents. AT&T pays its Colorado prison telemarketers $2/hour. They pay no health benefits, no sick pay, or vacations. California prisoners lose 80% of their wages in taxes and prison costs like "room and board," winding up with $1/hour. Oregon prisoners pay $6,000/year rent for their cells.
In New York, an inmate who refuses a work assignment gets solitary confinement 23 hours a day. Said Luis Talemantez, who attempted to organize in San Quentin, "If you don't work you can count on violent retaliation. I struck and was thrown in the hole. You can't unionize under conditions like that."
Prison labor breaks strikes. When TWA flight attendants struck in the 1980s, the airline set up a reservations operation inside the South Ventura Youth Facility, paying young prisoners less than one-third of the union wage. TWA then used reservation agents to replace and defeat the strikers.
"Tough on crime" propaganda is not just politicians' rhetoric. U.S. bosses face stiffer competition abroad. They need capital investment to wage war to protect their oil and other holdings. This dictates their move to fascism, including transforming U.S. prisons into forced-labor concentration camps, and expanding Workfare. The bosses use racism to push disproportionate numbers of black workers and youth into these camps, although latin and white workers are also pressed into their slave labor force.
Winning workers to May Day means not "looking the other way."
The new liberal Director of Transportation Emilio Cruz, has decided to administer by decree, to make changes demanded by Downtown Corporations. Angry workers see increased instability as things change suddenly. Cruz decreed that transit operators doing desk jobs go back to driving. Some of these positions were favors, like the daughter-in-law of a Commissioner and the wife of the former union president. But others were doing useful, necessary work.
The "yard starter," who assigns coaches to leave the yard in a certain order and assists with minor problems, was eliminated. Without a yard starter, there is no way to know if the coach in front will pull out in time, if it is assigned to anyone, or even if it is in good working condition.
At 5:45 am on Tuesday, with management and the union nowhere in sight, chaos reigned, tempers flared. Some workers took bold leadership, and said, "If management can't do its job, we will wait right here `till they do." More than 40 coaches did not pull out during the height of the rush hour. At 7 am, the Division manager made it to work and he assigned all the busses. The mass exodus blew the power to the overhead wires (these are electric busses) and resulted in another hour's delay. Passengers were cold and late, other drivers overloaded. The next day, Yard Starters were back.
A PLP member said that the action was an appropriate response to Emilio Cruz, Mayor Willie Brown, and the Corporate attacks on labor. She suggested writing a flyer explaining why there were no busses, and how we were leading a fight for the needs of both passengers and other drivers.
There was disagreement about the passengers. Many drivers expressed frustration that schedules, equipment, and management do not allow them to do a good job. Some expressed hostility towards passengers. Others felt it was important to counter the bad press, but didn't know how. The next night, when the Spanish Language TV showed up, most drivers where very eager to get the message of unity out to the passengers.
The union campaign exposed how racism is used to divide the working class and keep workers as wage slaves. This is why capitalism pushes racism -- to expand profits by driving down wages and conditions of ALL workers, black and white. In the final analysis, only destroying capitalism and establishing communism can smash racism. United anti-racist struggle helps lay the basis for working-class revolution.
The union lost at BG&E for many reasons, the key one being racism. BG&E is racist in its hiring practices, job assignments and promotions. The work-force is 95% white. With the exception of the Baltimore city area, integrated work-forces do not exist. There are no black linemen lead mechanics on their system. At PEPCO, Local 1900 is integrated.
During the IBEW's organizing drive, the racism issue was not dealt with seriously. The IBEW did not develop multi-racial organizing teams. PLP members and friends did bring multi-racial groups to organizing meetings but not with the consistency and with a large enough base to influence the election.
Multi-racial organizing teams actively campaigning at BG&E would have laid the groundwork for fighting segregation there. This segregation led to several racist incidents when BG&E and PEPCO crews were forced to work together. BG&E crews (all white) refused to deal with the PEPCO's black supervisors or black workers. One BG&E crew hung a black doll in a lynching mode from its truck rear-view mirror and refused to remove it. Angry PEPCO workers tried to get the company and Local 1900 to deal with this issue, but it was dropped.
With the merger, a minimum of 1,200 workers will be laid off. At PEPCO in the Washington, D.C. area, many black unionized workers may be the ones to lose jobs. With the union defeat at BG&E, not only will these racist attacks make it harder to organize a union in the future, but when the Local 1900-PEPCO contract expires (after the merger), the entire merged company might turn non-union.
The trend of deregulation in the utility industries is the backdrop to these recent developments. Instead of creating competition, as the bosses say, deregulation in the utility industry will develop more monopolies through mergers. These mergers will intensify attacks against all workers. Communists must continue to lead workers' struggles against capitalism. But we must show that the contracting out of jobs, the union-busting and wage cut-backs are part of growing fascism and the drive towards imperialist wars. The abolition of wages, multi-racial unity and working-class internationalism pave the road to power for the working class.
But now this process is unfolding in Boston as the entire 1000 bus, 50 train system is being privatized into 5 separate operations. The bosses plan to fire from 10-25% of the workforce and cut the top drivers' wage from $20.62/hr to as low as $12.75/hr. Has the regional AFL-CIO planned a general strike? No, they've assessed the ATU 589 members $300 each to "fight" a legal battle in the bosses' backyard -- the courts.
Recently New York City transit bosses threatened to privatize 2600 bus and subway cleaner jobs. TWU Local 100 then agreed to re-open the contract to allow the MTA to -- by attrition -- replace 586 $16.62 union jobs with sub-minimum wage welfare recipients forced to work for their crummy benefits. In San Francisco, the SEIU is being paid bonuses to be overseers of prison and General Assistance laborers working at former union jobs at MUNI, SF General Hosp, street cleaning, etc.
As evident in the AFL-CIO's $35 million investment in Democrats in the last election, the unions are firmly in the camp of the old money, liberal section of the US ruling class. These rulers will use the unions as long as they will legitimize lower wages and keep workers quiet. The unions have earned the bosses' trust to "Organize the Unorganized." Since l987 the ATU's fastest growing business in the Bay Area has been collecting dues from $9.00/hr bus drivers -- like the BART Express contract that once was part of AC Transit now paying $18.01. This scenario has been repeated for Grosvenor (SAMTRANS), Western, Central, and Eastern Contra Costa Transit and others. As AC Transit lurches closer to bankruptcy pro-capitalist team players like the ATU will continue to "go along to get along" with the fascists.
For a week, the police force surrounding the Ambassador's home stepped up its harassment, playing loud military music, conducting mock attacks of the residence home and even having a shoot out with the MRTA forces inside. The cops were imitating what the U.S. army did to Noriega when he took refuge in the Vatican's diplomatic site in Panama after the 1989 invasion.
Well, the Japanese government did not like this at all, fearing that a military solution of the hostage situation would lead to a massacre of the MRTA forces and the 74 hostages still inside. Japan's Prime Minister Hashimoto summoned Peru's President Fujimori to Canada for a special meeting. "It was basically Tokyo `pulling Fujimori by the ears' to put an end to the pressure by Peruvian military hawks to solve the hostage situation militarily" (Agence France Press article published in NYC's El Diario, Sun. 2/2).
The U.S. immediately responded in the same way it has since the Monroe Doctrine of 1824-- more military intervention. After the meeting with Hashimoto in Canada, Fujimori flew to Washington and met with retired General Barry McCaffrey, Clinton's drug czar, where he was told that the Defense Dept. was planning a "major new military aid program for Peru" (NY Times, 2/3) for the so-called war against drugs. Scores of Navy Seals and Green Berets will be sent regularly to Peru, along with 100 patrol boats and much more military hardware to help the Peruvian cops and army to "interdict drug shipments." There are already hundreds of U.S. operatives, including CIA and DEA agents, along with Awacs planes and two radar tracking station doing the same thing.
This military intervention by the U.S. has very little to do with drugs. After all, the Peruvian military has been the best ally of the drug mafias in Peru. Until he was arrested last year, "El Vaticano" (Peru's leading drug gangster) was bribing CIA agent ,Vladimir Montesinos, a former army officer and Fujimori's head of intelligence.
U.S. military intervention has been used in the past mainly to fight The Shining Path guerrillas. But now, it is mainly to fight the growing influence of Japanese imperialism in Peru and Latin America.
As the imperialists of the world turn to more military "solutions" in their rivalry, workers must prepare to take advantage of this dogfight to smash them all with communist
The other purpose the trial served was to create more racist hysteria and divisions among workers. All of us have someone close to us on workfare, in prison, jobless, or at best, struggling to live day to day. But, both these trials spawned a multi-million dollar barrage of racism from books to talk show jokes not to mention the daily newspaper articles. For those who didn't think this trial was important to the bosses, it upstaged Clinton's State of the Union address in TV and newspapers.
Clinton made a big deal about a dozen or so people being hired off welfare when in reality millions are put on the streets to starve to death. He talked about the benefits of diversity while racist cops roam the streets of every city. He talked about the U.S. having no enemies, while rulers around the world have their sights set on the U.S. empire. The bosses lie until they're blue in the face. Remember: "When they talk of peace, grab your helmet and get ready for war.
The benefit was organized because Ann, a laundry worker at Jefferson Hospital for 17 years and a long time member of PLP, was diagnosed with colon cancer a year ago. After 6 months on disability, in the middle of her chemotherapy, she was told that her health benefits were cut off. She has to pay $300 per month to continue her insurance.
Ann's friends and co-workers were outraged at this vicious attack by the bosses. It has made the Party's arguments about racist health care cuts, workfare, and the rise of fascism in the U.S. very real and personal. We members of the Party at Jefferson, on the other hand, realized that we have underestimated the will and commitment of our co-workers once they are won to something. A series of events to pay Ann's health costs, and keep our comrade going, have taught all of us the power of the collective and the potential of our class to lead society.
The first fundraising effort was a raffle suggested by Ann's friends in the laundry. The Party leader printed 750 tickets and worried that we wouldn't sell enough to pay for the prizes. By the night of the benefit over 2,000 were sold! One housekeeper raised over $500. For weeks she carried a cup with a photo of Ann taped to it on her housekeeping cart. As she worked she told people to put in money because one of our sisters needed it. The money flowed in.
Then some workers, friends from outside the hospital, offered to hold a benefit. Once word got around the hospital, offers for performers flooded in. From the transit worker who brought his 8 piece rhythm and blues band to the R&B singers who would put the Temptations to shame, the night swelled with the music and joy of the working class helping their own. Over $600 more was raised Saturday night.
These recent events have had a profound effect on all of us at Jefferson. We have renewed our confidence in communism. We have recognized the need for many more of us to give leadership. Now as we organize for May Day we will carry forward in the spirit in which we have worked these past months. And, despite the doctors complete bafflement, comrade Ann is still in there with us fighting for communism.
This attack and ones like it around the area are merely skirmishes in the all-out war being waged by the ruling class on health care. Major employers and their government don't want to pay workers' health benefits. Insurance companies, including HMOs, are demanding cheaper services from hospitals so they can maximize their profits. Health care workers and patients are being squeezed more than ever in the name of the almighty buck.
The writing was on the wall when the LICH bosses bared their fascist teeth late last year. Out of the blue they fired 30 RNs, supposedly because they had taken educational leave days in 1996 "without submitting proof" that they had actually attended seminars. These firings were not about educational leave! They were about getting rid of RNs to save money. An article in the 1/25/97 New York Times details a rash of firings of RNs over petty infractions at northeastern hospitals that are downsizing. Now LICH bosses say they will search the 1995 educational day records.
Under capitalism we will always face arbitrary firings and layoffs as the bosses scramble for cheaper labor. Some bosses move their plants to areas of the world with starvation wages. Some downsize and restructure. How many workers will they fire and lay off when workfare makes slave labor available to them at less than half the minimum wage? It's not enough to just make sure workers are laid off in seniority order. It's not enough to postpone layoffs or even prevent a few. Until we wrest power from the wealthy with communist revolution, our livelihoods--indeed our lives--are at the bosses' mercy.
We should resist the bosses' attacks on our jobs and on health care. (For example, doctors, nurses and others at Cook County Hospital signed a pledge to fight the bosses' attempts to close most of the prenatal labor rooms and treat actively laboring women on the general units.) But remember, slaves did not try to reform slavery--they fought to destroy it.
Join Progressive Labor Party in the fight to destroy wage slavery and capitalism. Some LICH workers march with us on May Day every year. We will work with them to re-establish a LICH Challenge readership and bring an even larger contingent to May Day, 1997.
Some students in our club are hesitant to talk to their friends about communism because they are unsure about how to do it. But, one member of our club has begun to take the lead. He attends the Bronx HS of Science. He started by raising communist ideas in his classes. In doing this, a number of students became interested in the Party's ideas.
One student asked how she could get involved. She was invited to the next club meeting and brought 13 members of an organization that she was involved with at the school -- Students Organized For Social Justice (SOSJ). SOSJ is a group that is currently involved in a struggle against NYC's planned use of MetroCards, which will limit the number of times a student can use the transit system.
We had an exciting discussion that introduced communism and the PLP. This young comrade has joined SOSJ and attends all of their meetings. In addition, he distributes Challenge and the Party's pamphlet on Workfare. Since SOSJ is a group that fights around public issues, we thought the campaign against Workfare would interest them.
A comrade that works in a NYC welfare office and a former Workfare worker were invited to speak at a forum organized by SOSJ. At the forum, attended by 18 students, the PLP speaker said, "Winning people to support welfare cutbacks and slave labor Workfare is part of the process of trying to win the working class into supporting growing fascism." Most students were outraged that such a program exists and wanted to know what they could do.
The speaker from the Party explained that communist revolution is the only way to end fascist programs such as Workfare. They were encouraged to build for the demonstration against Workfare on March 6th in Manhattan and for May Day. These first steps by our comrade have helped everyone in the club. We now see that struggle in the classroom opens opportunities for spreading communist ideas, and we are making plans to expand this organizing.
While this is an exciting opportunity it is also a weighty responsibility. The section meeting itself has new difficulties because of its size and the number of leaders that need to be developed. It was attended by 11 high school students who we are struggling with to quickly develop as fast as possible into club leaders. One conclusion drawn from the meeting is that we need an extended plan for political study.
We decided that each club would take a particular aspect of the political period and prepare a report for the Section to discuss. For example: scenarios for revolution; understanding both the danger and the opportunity that emerge with fascism; etc. Each club will discuss the report in the Section. This way, the widest number of people can be involved in the preparation and development of our political understanding.
At the same time we recognized the need to advance our practice. We reviewed plans at several high schools to organize Teach-Ins against Workfare and fascism. We specifically reviewed the various organizations that students and teachers belong to and how we can mobilize within them for communist ideas. We emphasized the need to build for May Day through both agitation and basebuilding within these organizations.
We agreed to organize regular Saturday mobilizations that would include a Challenge sale and visiting so that we can keep up with the contacts that we make and consolidate more of our supporters into regular members. We reconfirmed our commitment to producing a "High School Challenge" that could be used citywide to link local struggles to our overall campaigns against Workfare and fascism.
The HS Challenge committee includes members from each club. Challenge sales are generally strong, the section is selling between 1,500-1, 600 papers each issue. The main weakness is that not enough Challenges are being used by students in their classes. Too many are distributed at agitational sales. Our aim is to increase Challenge distribution through our classrooms and student organizations.
Our goal is to bring 1,000 people to May Day. It is a number that many of us find overwhelming--yet, it is probably too low! We have a great deal to do but we have great potential as well. This is a period that truly offers danger and opportunity. As we concluded at our cadre school, "We must learn to lead, and lead to learn."
For years, Kaiser has been trying to get rid of Parking, and replace it with low wage, non-union Empire, a parking and shuttle bus contractor. Three years ago, Kaiser bosses fired 6 for stealing. All but one were reinstated. Now Empire is everywhere, and Kaiser and its new "partner" St. Vincent's, want to finish the job.
For ten years, Caesar Coons filed piles of grievances and distributed thousands of leaflets, about unsafe working conditions and racism at Woodland Hills. One day, while on his break, he disagreed with a white female doctor, about her taste in art. She called him "ignorant," and complained to his supervisor. Caesar's efforts to defend himself resulted in his being fired for "defaming Kaiser." Black, Latin and Filipino workers are interrogated by armed security who find nothing yet suspend them anyway. A black worker is fired for not appreciating the "art" of a racist doctor. Is this Nazi Germany? Workers are accused, convicted, and sentenced with little evidence, part of the increasing terror against all workers.
The unions have openly thrown in with the bosses. The suspended parking attendants and others, are casualties in Kaiser's war with its competition. Workers wrote a petition, demanding no layoffs or wage cuts, reinstatement of all fired or suspended workers, and full lump sum retirements. We need to fight to defend our co-workers' jobs, but any victories will be temporary. Unions and reform fights can't stop the cut throat competition, the racist firings, and wage cuts.
To end these fascist attacks, we need a communist revolution to take power from the bosses. We need a mass PLP.We must wage a sharp struggle with our co-workers to have confidence in our class, in communism, and in our Party. What will give them that confidence? A clear understanding that capitalism is in crisis, and out of weakness, rushing towards fascism and war. This crisis, and the inevitable war, is opening the door to communist revolution. When more of our friends begin to see this and raise the Party's ideas with other workers, distributing Challenge, they gain more confidence.
NYC Comrade wrote a letter criticizing the Korea editorial (1/22). The main aspect of the letter was to expose the dead end of reformism, and the reformist weaknesses of the old communist movement. These points are correct, and have been stated repeatedly in the pages of Challenge for many years. But the letter concludes, "The only proofs of workers' strength--and of our strength as a Party--are the quality of our political commitment to proletarian dictatorship, communism, and the PLP, and our numbers."
Communist ideas, and a mass communist party based in the factories, the military, and among the youth, are absolutely decisive in the struggle for power. Without them, there is no revolution. But communist ideas do little good tucked away on a library shelf. They only come to life in the heat of class struggle. The working class has its contributions to make. While the base of the Party is it's primary strength, there are other "proofs of workers' strength." We are not the only ones that bring something to the table.
All strikes have a "fatal flaw." Are we against strikes, walkouts, rebellions, and mutinies? No! They provide the best atmosphere for building the Party. Are the workers, and the Party, better off if the working class is passive, patriotic, and terrorized? No! The workers have many strengths. That's why we spend so much time trying to win them to join and lead our Party, and rule society. But only a mass communist PLP can let the genie out of the bottle.
A Comrade
Challenge is our most powerful weapon in creating a mass base for communist ideas. It is the main voice of our Party, and is the only way tens of thousands of workers can understand the capitalist crisis, the rise of fascism, the threat of war, and most importantly, the opportunities for communist revolution. It's a light in a sea of darkness. Because of its unique role as a mass Party organizer, we must pay attention to its form, as well as its content.
I think recently, some articles are over-written and too long. I think this is true of most of our editorials as well. I suggest that we try to keep our editorials short and to the point, and run them in a larger type-face so they are more easily read and understood. Then we can run longer articles, more fully explaining the topic of the editorial on another page. The Boeing articles are a good example of how to write very politically, in 500 words.I also think the front page of Clinton giving the Nazi salute was very good. We should use large, front page pictures as often as possible.
Chicago Comrade
During the discussion, one comrade stated that Huntington had helped to plan the slaughter of tens of thousands of GIs and a million Vietnamese in the Vietnam war. He asked whether Huntington would support a Mideast ground war if U.S. oil profits were threatened by, say, an Islamic fundamentalist coup in Saudi Arabia. Huntington declared angrily that it was "inappropriate" to bring up Vietnam, but answered the question with a definite "yes."
A ripple ran through the startled audience.Afterward, we handed out 80 copies of the Challenge editorial, "Fight Over Oil Profits Leading to Mideast Bloodbath." A dozen people stopped for friendly conversations. "I'm glad you brought that up," one said. Several of our friends have been members of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. The ruling class does not have all these people in their hip pocket. And if we can raise our line in a place like this, imagine how much impact we can have on campuses and amongst workers.
Chicago Comrades
It is two years since I joined the Party. Since then, I have become better informed about communist politics. At the same time I am better able to explain and struggle with people on issues regarding communism. Most of my ideology growing up revolved around patriotism and racism. I can't believe that I actually bought into that crap. But living in a society where racism is etched on our minds, it is no accident that I adopted racist beliefs.
Many of my friends still hold to racist, sexist, individualist, and anti-working class attitudes. It is clear to see how easily anyone can fall victim to these notions when one is not equipped with a communist analysis of society. I am struggling like hell with my friends to win them. Because of time constraints, it is not easy to see them on a regular basis. But with one friend I have begun the process of challenging his different ideologies. I am getting somewhere because recently he said he would like to go to the next study group! He also admitted that he has begun to see things very differently.
Here is a person who was raised in a household where you could not escape racism. As a result, I know that anyone from the working class is capable of transforming his/her bankrupt capitalist notions and attitudes into a communist understanding. I must admit that at times I lack confidence in whether my friends will take communism and the Party seriously. They perceive communism as some sort of intellectual product that belongs not to them but to those who have advanced college degrees (also, all the anti-communism they've been fed their whole lives makes them more wary).
But these friends of mine are people we need. So, my job is to continue struggling and interact with them more. This does not mean every time we meet we discuss communism. No, we talk about the Yankees, the upcoming softball game, relationships, etc. When comrades find themselves in a similar situation with friends when they are not talking about communism they must nevertheless always listen to that inner voice which should be saying, "Build The Party!"
Proud NJ Communist
A PLP member participated in the third international convention organized by the Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy, which was held in Calcutta last December. Challenge, both in Hindi and English, were distributed, and contacts were made. There is the ever-present threat of war, including nuclear war, between India and Pakistan.
The conflict is rooted in the divisions established by the British imperialists systematically dividing the people of the Subcontinent along ethnic lines. The Hindu-Muslim conflict is based on control of the state of Kashmir, whose majority Muslim population is now ruled by the Hindu bosses of India. Both the Indian and Pakistani ruling classes do everything possible to whip up anti-Kashmir nationalist feeling. Neither set of fascist bosses has the slightest regard for the needs of the working class of Kashmir, which is now an inferno of hunger, unemployment, and terror.
War hysteria is cynically used by the bosses to divert attention from capitalist exploitation. The objectives of the People's Forum are to establish "peace in the Subcontinent and true democracy." "True democracy" is described as a system "in which every individual, without distinction of gender, religion, class, caste and creed, shall be able to live with dignity, without fear of exploitation, hunger, and violence."
This may sound like a movement for communism, since only the destruction of capitalism and the building of a communist system will end hunger and exploitation, but of course it is not. As the capitalist system continues to deteriorate worldwide, there will be an increased number of organizations calling for peace and democracy. Adopting resolutions such as arms reduction, resolving bilateral issues without war, and dialogue to resolve the Kashmir question, and carrying them out is two different things.
The rulers of the two countries and imperialism have created this strained relation. Local and foreign bosses gain because the wrath of the working class against the system of exploitation is diverted into national chauvinism. In fact, Rockefeller's old money policy-makers in the Council of Foreign Relations have called for selling arms to both India and Pakistan, covering all bases to stay in control of the oil there. The problems of the people of both countries are rooted in the same system of capitalist exploitation, and the solution is the same--communist revolution.
Calcutta Comrade
I think the analysis of the world situation in Challenge (1/15), titled, "War Brewing as Mideast Oil Slips from U.S. Hands," is a very significant document." War Brewing..." can be used in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, India, everywhere, because it is a really global view of the world and the moves towards another war.
It's not limited to the U.S., even though a lot of it is devoted to analyzing internal contradictions in the U.S. ruling class. It should allow you to reach many different groups and formations, because its starting point is the way the world is, not the way we want the world to be. For example, pacifists might appreciate the way you reject allying with any of these factions.
What's really striking about War Brewing is that you show that there really are fundamental differences between the different groups of bosses, and that these differences are leading to war. But at the same time, in spite of these differences, your attitude is still "a pox on both [their] houses". I think it would be very useful if you could describe how you used materialist dialectics to arrive at your conclusions.
In particular, it seems to me that the dialectics you've used goes well beyond what's in the Jailbreak pamphlet. For example, Jailbreak doesn't have much to say about the notion of "principle contradiction," which is central to the War Brewing analysis. An article on "The making of War Brewing" would compensate for another weakness in Jailbreak, namely the lack of realistic case studies.
Jailbreak has the usual stock of toy examples--such as water boiling. They illustrate but they don't really illuminate. In reality, we learn dialectics by doing it. I'm sorry to sound negative about Jailbreak, because it's good as far as it goes, and I recommend it to my friends. It's just that War Brewing goes so much farther. War Brewing helps us understand the world--but what we really want is to change it. For that we need dialectics.
Regular Reader in Canada
The other strategy is to organize and seize the factories and stop production all together. This is putting the reform struggle ahead of revolution. In the 1930's the old communists fought for reforms. They seized factories and got wage increases, 40 hours work weeks, benefits, and so forth. At that time the factories were not moving out and since capitalism was in its development it compromised and granted these reform demands.
But now where are the reforms that took place in the 1930's? They're gone. Capitalism is in crisis and now fascism is developing. Fascism means taking away the last crumbs the workers fought for. Thousands of garment workers should ask how to organize and destroy the system, not what kind of a system is it that feels compelled to seek the lowest wages.
The solution to capitalist exploitation is to organize PLP internationally and fight these parasites everywhere and make revolution to destroy the system once and for all. Only then when the working class seizes state power will there be nowhere for these exploiters to go and exploit. Only then the working class will be the human race.
LA Comrade
This morning a premature baby died in newborn intensive care at Cook County Hospital. In many ways it was like other tragic outcomes that happen every day, but in other ways it was different. This baby was a victim of downsizing.
For months a battle has been going on over a little ward here called Nursery 7. The County administration wants it eliminated, but many of the pediatricians and nurses have objected strongly. We take sick babies to Nursery 7 right across the hall from the delivery room to stabilize them before moving them to intensive care in another building.
At times lifesaving procedures are carried out right there in Nursery 7, rather than waiting 30-60 minutes for transport to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The County bosses don't care about these advantages but just want the unit closed to save money. Ms. Woodridge, a nurse administrator, is spearheading the downsizing, hoping to win points with her superiors.
Some misguided staff nurses have sided with her. Friday a group was working on a 1 lb. preemie in Nursery 7, trying to make sure his brain was getting enough oxygen while keeping his lungs from rupturing under the pressure of a respirator. The baby was only one hour old and the medical situation was very dangerous. One of the nurses kept making hostile comments like, "This baby shouldn't even be here. He belongs in NICU." Another administration spy poked her head in the door to see why the baby hadn't been moved yet. "Why don't you just leave us alone so we can take care of the patients?" one of the staff nurses asked sharply. The room was electric with tension. It was hard to concentrate on the sick baby.
Most of the staff worked together despite the irritating comments from the "downsizing faction." The baby was finally moved to the NICU after 3 hours of emergency treatment. When the patient got to the other unit his body temperature was found to be under 900 (normal is 98.6o ). During the fussing at the bedside in Nursery 7, all of the staff (including me) had failed to notice the overhead radiant warmer on the baby's bed was not functioning. The child was exposed to a severe cold stress. He died three days later.
Maybe he would have died anyway. Maybe not. Important details are overlooked even when people aren't distracted by harassing administrators. But as far as I'm concerned, it's another example of how downsizing equals murder. The big administrators, the politicians and the bankers shake their heads and say, "You should be more careful." Secretly, they chuckle to themselves, thinking these crimes can never be traced to them. They count the millions they save by closing wards and eliminating staff positions.Well, don't assume too much, Mr. Big Capitalist. Don't smile too soon, all you political errand boys and eager careerists. The working class is watching you as you kill our babies. We know who is really to blame. Your days are numbered.
Communist Hospital Worker
The company paper, The Boeing News, reaches over 100,000 aerospace workers. In the last five years it has won awards. Style changes have made it much slicker but the crucial changes are in content. The Boeing News has made a conscious effort to be an ideological mouthpiece.It aims to win defense workers to Boeing's (and U.S. imperialism's) world outlook. To this end the paper has a number of new sections--an opinion section to conduct controlled debates, an international aerospace news section to identify rivals and an "Open Forum" which features ideological propaganda from Rockefeller Inc.'s leading spokespersons.
According to the latest Boeing News, communism is dead and capitalism will make us happy. OOPS! That's not quite right. It's not what Boeing News says but what Congressional advisor William Bryant says. He says that some foolish people are worried about "unemployment, unsustainable growth and environmental degradation." Who knows why they think that because, the data says otherwise." According to this data, unemployment is decreasing, manufacturing jobs are being created in the hundreds of thousands and trade related jobs pay "between 15 and 17 percent more" than non-trade jobs.
And what is the source of this data? Apparently, the Open Forum column of the Boeing News! Not only that, "the facts document that pollution and poverty dwell, not in the belly of free trade, but in the inefficiencies of closed economies." So not only are the data saying otherwise but the facts are documenting it!
It's hard to argue with facts and data, but what's that dwelling down in Mexico? Sure looks like poverty and pollution. Yet Mexico's economy is one of the most open in the world. But never mind such details, Bryant has got a profound point to make: anti-communism. "Foolish people" shouldn't worry because its communism, not capitalism, that was unstable. Capitalism is the best system, communism is very bad and dead.
Supposedly the communist economies were closed, inefficient, polluted their environments and exploited their workers. He spends a lot of ink to kill something that's dead. Is he afraid workers will join the revolutionary communist PLP when they come face to face with the realities of capitalism in crisis? In the end both socialist Russia and China exploited their workers and polluted the environment, but that was because the leaders adopted full capitalist or "free market" economies and eventually had to learn some basic rules of capitalist "prosperity:" what goes up must come down. Hard.
Forget Bryant's bogus facts and data. Capitalism is the most unstable economic system ever. It is a system of booms and crashes, wage raises and unemployment, wars of conquest and subjugation, mass migrations from slave trades to civilian refugees. It's a sick system. Malaria kills more people per capita today than it did 100 years ago. And the same is true for tuberculosis, not to mention new infections like AIDS. And it doesn't stop there.
As capitalist crisis deepens and markets shrink the biggest bosses fight each other harder over what is left. Eventually they destroy their rivals in the old fashioned way, by blowing them up. Trade wars become World Wars.We need revolution for communism. Communism, not the socialism of earlier times, will bring stability because it will produce solely for human needs, not the profits of the few. OOPS! There we go being fool
Sexism is a vital aspect of the fascist direction of U.S. society. But it would be a deadly mistake to side with liberal capitalists who are trying to get their military in shape for more bloody profit wars. Male bonding in the officer corps, and male-supremacist ideologies, have long fueled U.S. war efforts.
Ruling class propaganda in the first imperialist World War called upon male workers to fight the "Huns" (racist term for Germans) who were said to rape nuns and bayonet babies. World War II movies pushed the image of the "good girl back home," and pin-ups of film star Betty Grable even decorated the sides of airplanes.
Traditionalists don't want women in the armed forces, much less in leadership positions, as ground war in the Mideast approaches. If men see women as equals, they reason, they may not accept self-sacrifice in imperialist war as their heroic male role. Traditionalists push the idea that men and women can't bond as "buddies" to perform dangerous deeds and put their lives on the line defending the bosses' interests.
The traditionalists have plenty of company in promoting male supremacist ideology. The Christian Coalition advocates bombing abortion clinics, and consigns women to being "helpmeets" of men. The Promise Keepers hold immense rallies calling on men to assume their "proper" family leadership role. The Farrakhanites preach male superiority and practice sexual segregation.
The cagier bosses setting military policy want officer-training programs open to women. Clinton's new Defense Secretary Cohen has vowed an end to "hazing" at the Citadel. These liberals know that making the military more attractive to women will bring in lots of qualified recruits. They hope that workers will be hoodwinked into thinking the U.S. is more "democratic" (and the U.S. bosses worth fighting for) if they end open sexist discrimination.
But the bosses who criticize the Citadel are just as bad as the traditionalists--in fact, worse. Bourgeois feminist leaders actively promote the cause of female Citadel students. Shannon Faulkner, the first woman to enroll at the Citadel, was the guest of honor at the 1995 convention of the National Organization for Women (NOW).
NOW and similar organizations aren't opposed to imperialist war. They seem to think it's just fine if the U.S. goes to war in Iran or Iraq, as long as women are among the officers ordering the bombs dropped and the troops into battle. If tens of thousands of women and men die as a result of this feminist "triumph," tough luck! NOW leaders sign their letters "For Equality," but they're only for women having "equal access" to the plums that bourgeois society offers a few at the top.
Promoting women as leaders of imperialist slaughter will worsen, not cure, the real problems women workers face worldwide. Clinton and the liberal bosses are leading the charge in the sexist, racist assault on women receiving welfare, just as they are leading the drive toward war. Only the abolition of the capitalist system of wage-slavery will eradicate the sexist oppression that is experienced by so many working class women, and that hurts the entire working class.