Challenge February 4 1998

U.S. bosses are on the verge of launching their next slaughter for Middle Eastern oil profits. Thousands of Iraqi workers will soon die under bombs dropped to prevent Iraqi oil from coming under control of Exxon & Co.’s Middle Eastern, Russian, and Western European rivals. Talking about weapons of mass destruction, Clinton just approved the use of tactical nuclear weapons if they are needed against Iraq.

But Clinton’s initial bombing attacks will serve as a mere appetizer for the mass murders that lie ahead. As influential New York Times writer William Safire pointed out on February 2nd, the whole process may drag on for a while. The U.S. may pause, to see if Saddam Hussein blinks. He isn’t likely to do so. He is just as ruthless as Rockefeller and just as determined to control the oil. He is prepared to see many thousands of Iraqi workers die for this goal. He also believes, with much logic, that U.S. imperialism is strategically weak, and that time is on his side.

More intensive bombing will probably follow any pause after the first wave. The story about Saddam Hussein’s "weapons of mass destruction" will be exposed as a Big Lie, when U.S. planes soon target oil and industrial facilities. Despite Clinton’s cynical threat that Saddam Hussein may poison all of New York City and half the rest of the world, the Iraqi ruler’s main military strength lies in his ability to hold power internally. He’s not really a serious military threat beyond his own borders—at least not for the time being.Remember: this is really all about keeping Iraqi oil off the market. That cat is already out of the bag.

The UN’s Richard Butler, a transparent lackey for Rockefeller, now sounds just like Madeline Albright. On January 31st, he told the Washington Post that "sealing off" (i.e. blasting to rubble) the Iraqi oil port of Basra may soon become necessary.However, the U.S. rulers have learned something from previous defeats. They know that the main value of air assaults is to spread terror among a population and, at best, temporarily knock out parts of the infrastructure.

But as "People’s War" proved in Vietnam, workers can learn to fight back against terror, and installations can always be rebuilt. Air power can’t ultimately determine a military conflict. Wars are won and lost on the ground. Oil doesn’t get pumped from the air and air power can’t prevent pumping it. Therefore, as Challenge has warned for several years, U.S. imperialism will be forced to launch another invasion of Iraq.

This isn’t going to be easy, and the bosses know it. In the first place, the puny paper coalition that Bush put together in 1990-91 for Desert Oil Storm is dead and buried. U.S. pals, like the Saudi sheiks, are nervously distancing themselves from Exxon. The Saudis won’t allow Clinton to use their air space this time. The Russians have rapidly emerged as the U.S.’s main international opponent over Iraq policy. Clinton managed a small tactical victory when Albright succeeded in bribing or threatening the French into temporarily toning down their objections to the imminent bombing.

So, other than symbolic support from British bosses, U.S. imperialism will have to go it alone this time. But bombing raids and invasion against a country Iraq’s size are two different things. An invasion will require hundreds of thousands of troops. This is a huge logistical task. Five months were needed to send 500,000 U.S. troops to fight in Iraq seven years ago. Most importantly, such an undertaking is a major political commitment. From Rockefeller’s point of view, failure to undertake it has been Clinton’s main weakness. The current Clinton sex scandals must be interpreted both as punishment for this failure and arm-twisting calculated to force rapid change. "If it comes to [an invasion]," writes Safire, "are we ready? No; the ground troops are not in place, and the will to send ground troops is not yet in the Clinton administration."

However, the key words here are : "not yet." Clinton is getting the message from all sides. Republican Nazi Newt Gingrich spelled it out loud and clear on February 1st in a speech to an international meeting of corporate executives in Switzerland. Gingrich called for removing Saddam Hussein. Safire calls for "trying Saddam as a war criminal and showing Iraqis how to hold elections." This can mean only an extensive land war followed by a lengthy U.S. occupation. Safire understands that this won’t be a cakewalk. He demands that Clinton "prepare Americans for sacrifices." The entire U.S. Establishment is rallying behind the invasion. The only significant opposition comes, as one would expect, from the Oil Patch billionaires, who want to increase domestic production for their own greedy reasons, and from the Buchanan isolationist wing of the Republican Party.

A secondary but important aspect of these developments is the U.S. bosses’ failure to force a peace deal between their Israeli clients and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Both Netanyahu and Arafat are stalling, to see what Clinton does in Iraq. Palestinian workers hate U.S. imperialism, but this justifiable hatred is distorted by nationalism. For this reason, the murderer Hussein has emerged as somewhat of a hero within the Arab world, particularly among Palestinians, because he has successfully defied U.S. imperialism. When the bombs start falling, Arafat & Co. will therefore have a reduced incentive to put the finishing touches on any arrangement with the U.S. and Rockefeller’s Israeli vassals.

As for the Israeli bosses, Bush twisted their arms in 1991 to keep them out of Desert Storm. Clinton doesn’t have the same luxury. He had to give Netanyahu a green light to take independent military action if Saddam fires some Scud missiles over to Israel. Anything the Israelis do will be outside U.S. authority and can lead to unforeseen developments, like a wider escalation of the war. Yeltsin warned Clinton that the bombing of Iraq "could provoke a world war." (Associated Press and Reuters, Feb. 4).

The death-knell has sounded for U.S. imperialism’s Middle East policy of the last ten years. It was known as "dual containment," a scheme to squelch both Iranian and Iraqi bosses. Obviously, it has failed. Now Rockefeller, Inc. have to snuggle up to the Iranian oil barons in order to gain some maneuvering room against Saddam. This is why Clinton sent a love letter to the Iranian ruling class last week, calling for "good relations with Iran." He needs to buy time to attack Iraq. But the long-range oil interests of Iranian and U.S. bosses remain fundamentally opposed.

What Can Workers Do About Gulf War II

Workers must understand why Clinton plans to bomb Iraq so that we can plan our response as a class. The response must be both immediate and long-term, and it must be revolutionary. War for profit and empire is part and parcel of the international capitalist system. It is unavoidable. Competition among bosses leads to economic crisis, and crisis leads to small wars, bigger wars and, eventually, world war. This scenario is playing out before us today. Our immediate response, therefore, must be to organize on the job, in the mass movements, on the campuses, and in the imperialist military against the next round of genocide for oil. We can hold meetings and rallies, organize marches, demonstrations and sit-ins, etc.

But all this activity must have only one political goal. We aren’t for peace. We aren’t for reform. We aren’t for turning bombs into plowshares. We aren’t for building alliances with "lesser-evil" bosses who prove to be more vicious than the more obviously fascistic ones. We’re for communist revolution and for building the PLP.The imminent bombing of Iraq is a sure step along the road to World War III. It is also an opportunity to build the biggest May Day in years and advance along the road to communist revolution. Taking that step is within our power. The stakes are increasing every day.

Clinton’s Zippergate: Cover Up for Bosses’ Dogfight Over Oil and Crisis of Overproduction

Clinton has once again been exposed as a sleazy, lying lecher. And the White House staff has again been shown to be a gang of crooked spin doctors. This is nothing new. U.S. presidential history shows adultery and out-of-control womanizing as part of the job description. JFK, now being lionized, had sexual escapades that make Clinton look like a boy scout.

The working class mustn’t get tricked into evaluating this latest scandal as the bosses’ media present it. Something deadly serious is going on here. It’s important that we understand the real class issues involved. We have to look beyond appearances. The gossip about the Clinton presidency’s fate essentially reflects a qualitative deepening of the worldwide capitalist overproduction crisis and a fight among the biggest U.S. bosses over how to prepare for major war abroad and for fascism at home.

The most urgent matter for Rockefeller & Co. is Clinton’s bungling of the execution of their Middle Eastern policy. As Challenge has often pointed out, control over the flow and price of oil is a cornerstone of U.S. imperialist strategy. Crucial to this strategy is now the need to continue keeping Iraqi oil off the world’s markets. Despite internal differences over other issues, the Rockefeller crew all agree on this one.

Iraqi capitalists have signed multi-billion dollar contracts with Rockefeller’s French, Russian, and Chinese rivals. The barons of Exxon are determined to squelch these deals. Last fall’s weapons’ inspection scam was invented to justify massive U.S. bombing raids that would knock out Iraq’s oil production facilities for the foreseeable future. Clinton waved a big stick, ordered a huge armada to the Persian Gulf, had it train its guns on Iraq—and then did nothing. This vacillation infuriated his masters. The newest sex follies are in part a punishment for this inaction. Clinton is being cut down to size and told to launch a large-scale air-sea operation in a hurry.

Unlike the scenario of a current Hollywood movie about presidential sex scandals, the tail isn’t wagging the dog here. The ruling class is wagging Clinton. "The U.S. is very likely going to have to bomb Saddam Hussein again, and probably without allies," writes influential New York Times scribbler Thomas Friedman (1/24/98). The Times’ editorial (1/25) leaves little to the imagination: "Iraq...is the most urgent issue, and the one that could most easily be misplayed" (1/25). Even Times columnist William Safire, no particular admirer of Clinton’s, told "Meet the Press" on January 25th that Clinton can be completely trusted to serve the "national interest" by bombing Iraq.

The collapse of the Asian financial markets is directly linked to U.S. imperialism’s increasingly desperate requirement for military intervention in the Middle East. As Challenge has written, the Asian crisis is also part of the global overproduction crisis. It has brought a rapid slowdown in production, along with massive layoffs, decreased energy consumption, lower demand for oil, and therefore a drastic decline in world oil prices. The Rockefeller gang wants relatively cheap oil, but they don’t want a free fall in its price. If large quantities of Iraqi oil return to market in the midst of the expanded glut, the price decline will worsen. So Clinton is now being ordered to stop loitering and get to work quickly murdering Iraqi workers and children for this greedy goal. The timetable has been reduced to weeks. The January 26th New York Times predicts the attack could come as early as mid-February. Also on January 26th, Republicans Lott and Gingrich said the sex scandals shouldn’t stand in the way of foreign policy and threw their full support behind bombing Iraq.

But waffling on Iraq is only one of the sins for which the rulers have decided to punish Clinton. He has also fumbled badly on the $100 billion-plus Asian bailout. His strategy, developed by the Treasury Secretary "Wall Streeter" Robert Rubin, involves business as usual when others in the ruling class see their ship in danger of sinking. Rubin’s chief goal is to guarantee that U.S. banks and investment houses don’t bite the bullet for bad Asian loans. His main tactic is to keep rolling over bad loans through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an approach that can lead only to another debt meltdown soon. This narrow concern for next quarter’s bottom line at the expense of the long term displeases the more far-sighted imperialists, who understand the depth of their crisis and know that they must impose discipline within their own ranks in order to force fascism on the working class and prepare for the world war that lies ahead.

They understand that this discipline may require some sacrifices. When Friedman at the Times calls on Rubin "to hurt somebody fast" and suggests as targets Rubin’s Wall Street partners at Goldman Sachs or Citibank or J.P. Morgan, (1/17), he’s talking about the need for raising the level of class consciousness within the Eastern Establishment. Friedman is hardly an enemy of the Rockefellers. He says that Clinton has "failed miserably" on Asia. Rockefeller tool Henry Kissinger explained recently to the Seattle World Affairs Council that the IMF attacks on Asian workers have to be perceived as taking their toll on the New York investment houses—or risk growing nationalism in Asia and class anger among workers in the U.S. This line echoes the hawkish Brookings Institution, which is one of the main think-tanks behind Clinton challenger Richard Gephardt. The Gephardt forces’ blueprint for the future is a 1992 Carnegie/Brookings publication called, Changing Our Ways. It is basically a call for state capitalism, for winning workers to the idea that the U.S. must remain number one, and for war preparations against "a major hostile power...in Europe or Asia."

The entire Clinton presidency has reflected a tug of war between the Rubin types and the Brookings crowd. Both cliques are Eastern Establishment loyalists. Now, as the worldwide crisis deepens and U.S. imperialism’s isolation increases, the Brookings argument for fascism, self-discipline among the rulers, and full-scale war preparations seem to be winning the day. A telltale sign was the defeat of the "Fast Track" trade bill that Clinton tried to pass last fall. This defeat was organized by the Brookings crew, by the Economic Policy Institute (E.P.I.), by Gephardt, and by the leaders of the biggest AFL-CIO industrial unions. This crowd is out to trick the U.S. working class into supporting its fascist plans.

The struggle is now coming to a head. From the standpoint of the Brookings/E.P.I. gang, Clinton carried out only half the assignment of his presidency. He pleased his masters by imposing drastic economic cuts on the working class. He made them happy when he launched racist slave labor "Workfare." He scored points by continuing the Eastern Establishment’s fight to keep the New Money upstarts of the Oil Patch in their place. But Clinton hasn’t found a way to bring the union bosses on board; he hasn’t become a magnet to mislead the working class into fascism; he has stumbled badly on the Middle East; and his economic policy hasn’t kept pace with the deepening crisis of overproduction. For all these sins, his masters have decided to swat him down or, at the very least, keep him on a short leash.

Whether he goes or stays is of no consequence to workers, and we aren’t going to predict his fate. The only fate that matters is the fate of the working class, and we hold it in our hands. Understanding the political realities of the current Washington sex carnival can help us plan what we must do. The bosses are planning to bomb Iraq. The bombing will eventually be followed by a land invasion for oil. Sharpening contradictions among the imperialists will lead to a military showdown—a third world war. Domestically, the bosses will keep grinding us down with racism, economic attacks, and many forms of fascist terror. The dispute within the Eastern Establishment concerns only how best to carry out this scheme. All the bosses are our enemies. There is no "lesser evil." Their entire class must be crushed

What can we do about it? A lot! We can start by explaining our revolutionary communist politics to workers on the job, to fellow students, to friends within the mass movement, and to soldiers and sailors. We can move large numbers to take action against all the bosses’ attacks, particularly the latest Middle East war plans. As we become involved in this activity, we can make revolutionary communist ideas and our Party the property of thousands and then millions of workers. Above all, in the immediate future, we can build for a mass May Day and a mass PLP. The bosses’ class consciousness is limited to greed and the maintenance of this sick, perverted system. Communist class consciousness can and will change the world.

Who Is SuperStarr Really Playing For?

A lot is being made in the liberal press about a conspiracy to "get" Clinton. Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor who has been following the Whitewater scandal and is now in charge of the Clinton Peep Show, is portrayed as a "tool of the far right." Starr’s a right-winger for sure, because he’s a capitalist agent, but his masters aren’t the Oil Patch/Christian Coalition open fascists. These forces may be chuckling "We told you so" at Clinton’s predicament and may be trying to take advantage of the situation for their own greedy purposes, but there can be no doubt about who’s calling the shots here. Starr dances to the tune of the bosses’ main wing, the Eastern Establishment:

• Starr’s Washington law firm, Kirkland and Ellis, represents AMOCO, a Rockefeller oil giant.

• Starr continues to work for Kirkland and Ellis even while pursuing his "special prosecutor" functions. His main client there is General Motors. GM heir Stuart Mott is one of the Gephardt think-tank E.P.I.’s three main funders, along with the Russell Sage Foundation and the Cabot Trust.

• Starr has awaiting him a fully-funded tenured law professorship at Pepperdine University. The funding comes from Richard Scaife, an heir to the Mellon billions. The Mellons are linked to Gulf Oil and U.S. Steel (now USX). Their fortune is still one of the ten largest in the U.S.

Not co-incidentally, Henry Hyde, the Republican congressman from Illinois, chairs the House Judiciary Committee and would legally be in charge of starting Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, if things should reach that point. Hyde isn’t exactly an Oil Patch Republican. He voted in 1996 to hike the minimum wage (a crumb long recommended by the E.P.I.). In 1995 he voted against limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory authority—a slap in the face to the Oil Patch. Most significantly, he led a move in the 104^th Congress to repeal restrictions the 1973 War Powers Act had imposed on the President.

Why is Saddam defying the U.S. imperialists?

Saddam long ago refused to play puppet for U.S. imperialism by turning control of Iraq’s oil over to the Exxon and Company. He and the Iraqi ruling class are waging a protracted struggle to become top imperialist oil brokers in the Middle East. He sees an opening now, as Russia, France and China line up to defeat U.S.-imposed sanctions, which keep them from getting access to Middle Eastern oil independently of the U.S.

What does Saddam have to lose? He doesn’t care any more about sacrificing Iraqi workers’ lives for oil profits than Clinton and Co. care about sacrificing the lives of U.S. and Arab workers. His goal is oil profits and control. His Russian, Chinese and French imperialist supporters are encouraging his cat-and-mouse game with the UN inspection team. Saddam figures his actions are helping to unite the competitors of U.S. imperialists in their campaign to end the U.S. stranglehold on Middle Eastern oil.

Saddam knows too that the crisis in Asia has caused a glut of oil on the market. Bloodthirsty capitalist competition drives him to fight to maximize his market share. Saddam is a butcher who has slaughtered thousands of Iraqi, Iranian, and Kurdish workers to maintain power. He won’t bat an eye at more slaughter. He’s counting on the fact that many more people in the world hate U.S. imperialism more than they hate him, because U.S. bosses have far outdone him in mass murder to maintain their tottering empire. Workers of the world have nothing in common with either group of bloodthirsty profiteers. Our fight must be to get rid of them all, and the entire capitalist-imperialist system, with communist revolution!

Clinton’s Sleaziness Exposes Interpenetrations of Rulers’ Contradictions

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 23 — "How the hell can Clinton lead the country if he’s screwing every secretary he sees?" asked a maintenance worker. From worker to ruler, this question about the ruling class’ ability to rule is on the lips of millions.

Some workers don’t see what the big deal is. "Why is everyone upset about this?" asked Fred, a housekeeper, "Everyone should know those guys do that all the time!".

"Yeah, but what else is happening at the same time?" Bill replied, "Because of overproduction in the world’s oil supply, one section of the ruling class desperately wants to control the Iraqi oil fields. They need U.S. troops to physically seize those oil wells. If you were a soldier, would you put your life on the line while the President is back home screwing every woman he sees?"

"Sh--, I’m not putting my life on the line for them whether the President screws around or not!"

"Yeah but that’s exactly the problem a lot of the big capitalists are worried about. The Old Money bosses tied to Middle East oil know that many of the soldiers and much of the population are skeptical about capitalist politics and the government. The Old Money bosses know that they will have to win a lot more confidence among the troops and the working class if they intend to fight an oil war that will kill many American workers. Some of the big capitalists know they need the liberals and the union leaders to win U.S. workers to support increasing fascism and world war. But it’s going to be hard to for Clinton to inspire such loyalty when his ‘zipper problem’ seems to be the main thing on his mind."

As Fred thinks this over, the section of Old Money bosses that direct Clinton are frantically seeking some damage control.

Clinton’s penis problem shows the interpenetration of the many serious contradictions facing the U.S. ruling class. From the split between Old Money and New Money to conflict within the Old Money group itself, Clinton’s sexual cravings don’t make it any easier for the U.S. bosses to deal with the worldwide crisis of overproduction. Fascism and war are the only way they can deal with this crisis. But that can be hard to do if they haven’t won the "hearts and minds" of the working class, a problem the ruling class remembers from the many rebellions in the US military and massive opposition at home during the Vietnam War.

PLP can add another problem for the ruling class. We can win workers and soldiers to turn the coming war into revolution for communism. If we’re skeptical about our potential to win, maybe we should keep in mind this army intelligence report on morale among Russian troops at the front in October, 1917, during World War I:

"The situation in the army has not changed and may be described as a complete lack of confidence in the officers and the higher commanding personnel. The belief is growing among the soldiers that they cannot be punished for what they do....The influence of Bolshevik ideas is spreading very rapidly....Apart from the Bolsheviks not a single [political] movement has any popularity." (from The Russian Revolutions of 1917 by John S. Curtiss)

Which Is The Hospital? Which Is The Jail?

CHICAGO, January 15 — "Now we’re prison guards, not nurses anymore." That’s how a newborn intensive care nurse at Cook County Hospital summed up the bosses’ latest racist offensive, treating everyone who enters the building as "suspects." They are trying to enlist the nurses, clerks and doctors to police the visitors, treating our mostly black and latin patient population as if they were all criminals. But we’re not going along with this racist plan.

Two weeks ago a troubled 14-year-old visitor to the newborn intensive care unit walked out of the hospital with somebody else’s baby. All the elevators and the door to the stairs are right across from the clerk’s desk, so the flow of traffic can be monitored by ward staff. But the bosses have "downsized," so we rarely have two clerks on the evening shift and the desk is vacant when the one person on duty attends to other work. Maybe that’s how the young woman got off the ward unchallenged.

Even though the infant was returned unharmed, the story hit the news and the bosses looked for a scapegoat to blame. A nurse was suspended and bosses were all over the place for a few days. They even had two clerks assigned to PM shift—for about two days. Then back to short staff. Meanwhile a virtual police state was imposed on the pediatrics building.

"It’s like a damned lock-down," one worker complained. "Yeah," another replied. "Cook County Jail." A visiting parent has to show a picture ID to three different people and sign in, in two places, to even get on the elevator! In an admission of gross understaffing, the hospital bosses changed the visitation policy. Relatives and friends are no longer allowed to visit.

This is typical of how the bosses respond to any threat in this period of economic crisis and decay. Everything they touch turns to fascism. To "fight crime," they sweep the high schools and attack all youth. To "fight drugs," they lock up hundreds of thousands of young black and Latin men. When a plane crashes from faulty design, or a military exercise gone wrong, we all end up showing picture ID at the airport.

A petition supporting the nurse was signed by 75 nurses, doctors, clerks and other workers in 24 hours. A delegation of eight from the unit, led by a very soft spoken co-worker of the suspended nurse, delivered the petition to the Director of Nursing. This tyrant was visibly shaken when she looked around the corner and saw how many of us were there. She said she couldn’t talk with us, and spouted bureaucratic nonsense about how she was protecting the accused nurse. The nurses held their ground. The Director became increasingly insulting and rude. Finally we retreated and held a brief meeting.

We had obviously struck a nerve. The boss was visibly upset by our active support for the nurse. We talked about the boss’s tactics and her insulting style. We discussed how the bosses have an agenda of social cutbacks, including hospitals, which is driven by a global economic crisis. The working class patients, and the nurses and other hospital staff who want to care for them, have a different agenda: health care for those who need it. These two objectives inevitably come into conflict.

The suspended nurse has her hearing in a few days. We are taking our fight into the Illinois Nurses Association (INA). Nurses at a neighboring hospital have collected 50 signatures on a support petition, and the INA business agent and local president are supposed to be present at the hearing (unheard of attention!). Dozens of nurses are eager to testify in defense of their co-worker.

One nurse who participated in the confrontation pointed out a weakness in our delegation: all the staff nurses were from Thailand. At a meeting held this weekend, nurses from Korea and the Philippines also attended. We have to win black nurses to help lead this struggle, knocking down whatever racist or nationalist divisions exist. Integration and internationalism are key in this case. The unity between the staff (about 90% Asian) and the patients (mostly black and latin) is at the heart of the struggle. Besides, the Director of Nursing is black and her first lieutenant, the Pediatric Nursing Director, is Filipino, so attempts to split workers along ethnic lines are an inevitable trick up the bosses’ sleeve. We must build iron-clad unity of hospital workers—and patients—or our efforts will fail.

The atmosphere on our unit has rarely been this good for talking about communism. The themes already mentioned—the class nature of the struggle, the administration’s building of fascism, the key role of multi-racial unity—are just the start. This fight brings up many more issues. If health care workers understand staffing needs best, why should some boss call the shots? Whose hospital is it, anyway? Challenge newspaper is finding its way into the hands of new readers as the struggle unfolds, and May Day is gaining momentum.

The night before the confrontation, a nurse in a PLP study group said, "You can learn a lot by talking, but you really learn when there’s a struggle." Class is now in session.

Who’s In Charge Here?

A newborn intensive care nurse took her patient and the baby’s mother to the hospital entrance on the day of discharge. She knew the mother, but still, as is always done for discharged infants, she checked the mother’s picture ID before putting the baby into his car seat and leaving the unit. When they stepped off the elevator on the first floor, they were stopped by hospital police who wanted the mother to show her ID again. The nurse said that she was accompanying the mother and baby to their car and had already taken care of the security check. The cop dismissed her like she didn’t count, insulting both worker and patient. The nurse was furious, but what could she do? The cop had the authority of the hospital bosses behind him, and wears a gun.

Why does a police uniform command more respect in a hospital than a nurse’s scrubs? Because this hospital is not here to serve the needs of the people. The hospital’s main reason for existing is to pacify and intimidate the working class, both patients and health workers. When the emphasis shifts from pacify to intimidate, we get a clear look at the face of fascism, the bosses’ Nazi-style police state. More and more aspects of our lives are looking into that face.

Communist Politics Raised In the Fight Against Fascist Workfare

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 26 — A coalition of churches and other organizations is mobilizing against the most obvious horrors of New York City’s slave labor Work "Experience" Program (WEP). In particular, they have called for a demonstration against the death clinic that "classifies" welfare recipients as "fit" for workfare exploitation after a brief and inadequate "examination."

On February 12th at 8:00 A.M. the Urban Justice Center Organizing Project will "send a message" to Health Services Systems (HSS), 322 W. 45^th St., the clinic which cleared Marsha Montipersad as "employable" despite a long history of heart disease. This was a death sentence for the worker who subsequently died of a heart attack while performing janitorial duties at Coney Island last June. Many people are angry and ready to fight back.

The role of PLP and our base in these organizations is to fully expose the network of neo-Auschwitz’s in our midst, as well as the fascist nature of workfare, and offer the only viable alternative, communist revolution.

At the same time, PLP’ers must struggle against dangerous illusions in the movement, such as the outlook that real jobs for all is possible under capitalism, so let’s just fix it. A liberal organizer correctly called this demonstration "a time for active resistance against evil." At the same time he calls for tax-supported job creation as the solution to forced-labor workfare. His model is federal legislation 60 years ago which "supposedly" ended the Great Depression.

Communists must patiently and persistently lay bare the historical facts. No capitalist economy has ever, or could ever, provide jobs for all at living wages and benefits. The initiatives of the "New Deal" were based on the forced labor, militarization models developed by the first European fascist states. Whatever job security and social safety-net provisions that were subsequently enacted by the Roosevelt-led ruling class were designed to contain and control millions of militant U.S. workers led by the old (then honest) Communist Party.

In fact the goal of programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps was "to get idle people off the streets" (where they had been demonstrating in support of the great strikes that built the CIO throughout American industry). The goal was to prepare them for the regimented life required to build the armies the U.S. rulers needed to take over the imperial possessions of the British Empire as it crumbled in the next war. This is very much like today’s "boot camps" that militarize youth.

The liberal’s "solutions" to overt slave-labor will never guarantee a decent material life for the working class. Believing this illusion allows the ruling class to win the allegiance of the working class while preparing it to kill and be killed in the coming oil war in the Middle East, a war designed to preserve the imperial power of the Old Money Eastern establishment capitalists.

PLP’ers must clearly and forcefully counter these illusions. The rulers and their apologists want to channel the most winnable workers both into the cynical dead end of unwinnable reform struggles, as well as into building the Old Money ruling class’ form of liberal fascism for the next period of time.

Beware of sophisticated Old Money apologists such as the pastor of a large Rockefeller-backed church here. While praying for "his friend" President (for now) Clinton and U.S. capitalism he has jumped on the anti-workfare bandwagon. We must not be taken in by his "Emancipation from Poverty" program. It is carefully confined to illusory reform, based on skillfully blurring class contradictions and thus quenching the revolutionary aspirations of the working class and its allies. As capitalism unravels and fascism consolidates itself, make no mistake the "Emancipation from Poverty" program will accomplish nothing but its opposite—the re-enslavement of the whole working class into a multi-tiered, social fascist, internecine nightmare of wage slavery that would gladden the hearts of the Hitler-Mussolini-Roosevelt axis that created the original model over seventy years ago. For the working class the way out of capitalism—war and fascism—is to prepare for revolution for communism. That is PLP’s task.

The demonstration at HSS offers communists in PLP the opportunity to raise our ideas within mass organizations. For example, in one large AFCSME local in New York City, which has endorsed the protest, there was a struggle over our characterization of HS Systems doctors as being like Dr. Mengele—a Nazi who conducted human experimentation in the concentration camps in Germany in the 1930s and 40’s. Similar struggles are being carried out by PLPers in several organizations and churches. PLP must continue and strengthen our involvement in the anti-workfare struggle. We must expose the bosses’ ideas within it. We will recruit and consolidate many more communists in the process. The very lives of the working class are at stake here.

LA Garment Workers Discuss: The Pope Did Not Go to Cuba to Support Workers

LOS ANGELES, CA — During the Pope’s week-long visit to Cuba, the U.S. bosses’ media launched an orgy of anti-communism. Every day they attacked Castro and communism for taking Cuban workers away from Catholicism. Thousands of LA garment workers heard these radio broadcasts on their "walkmans." They listen to them while they work, as a way to reduce boredom and stress caused by bosses’ exploitation. Most of their bosses are Catholics.

At the lunch break in the garment factory where I work, a worker said, "It was good that the guerrillas didn’t win in El Salvador, because if they had, it would be like Cuba." A PLP member commented, "Yes, in EL Salvador the leaders of the guerrillas "won"; but the FLMN leaders are in the government, where they wanted to be—they are not communists. Real communism is the only salvation for the working class. There’s no communism in Cuba—it’s a capitalist country like all the others."

If the Pope’s visit and the Catholic religion, helped the working class, there’d be no poverty, nor hunger, nor unemployment, nor wars around the world. The Pope has visited almost all the areas of the world, including Mexico, Central America, Africa and other places where the Catholic religion is open and supported by the government. Racism, police terror, deportations, unemployment, hunger, poverty and war are caused by capitalism. The Catholic Church supports capitalism all the way.

The Catholic religion in Cuba has never had a mass following, since it was the last religion to continue supporting slavery there and defending the big slave-owners. Most Cubans practice the Santería religion, a mixture of religion from Africa and Catholicism. The Pope’s aim in Cuba was mainly to guarantee that the exploitation of Cuban workers continues—but with greater participation of the European bosses, challenging the policies of the U.S. bosses. Castro’s opportunism has paved the way for this development.

The garment bosses and the bankers and the bosses who control the media want to, and need to, keep workers as far from communism as possible. As the crisis of the capitalist system deepens, they fear workers will embrace the communist alternative to this capitalist hell and end their exploitation and wars for profit against the same working class.

Shop discussions have been heated, but good. We don’t attack our co-workers for their religious beliefs, but demonstrate to them that the bosses use all religions to maintain exploitation of, and passivity among the masses. The only way we workers can live decently is to fight for communism. To build this fight, we must start organizing today for the May Day March!

PTA parents learn who the bosses use their laws against

CHICAGO, Jan. 23 — My PLP club’s plan for organizing was for me to get involved at my son’s high school, so I joined the PTA. There are just a handful of active parents in the group. I found out that the president who is very active, had just retired from Cook County Hospital. She was familiar with the Party, because she had been written up in the INCAR newsletter as a "brown-nose" several times. (She told me she saved the copies!) She asked me what organization I was with. When I told her PLP and that I was a communist, there was what you would call a "slight pause."

During the third month of the semester, the school went through this routine fascist police search. It was occupied by cops. Students were lined up like prisoners and herded through metal detectors. I brought the matter up to the president and she hated it, too. She had tried to fight it last year when her granddaughter got arrested for having a pager. I explained that we as parents have to challenge the principal’s and the school board’s systematic attack on the students. Another parent who is a district president of the PTA has a daughter who goes to this school and feels the same way. In the short time that I’ve known them, they both have positive attitudes toward the students and a critical attitude toward the school system.

These parents agreed to organize the December general meeting of the PTA as a "Voice Your Concern" meeting. They invited members of the LSC ( Local School Council ) to address questions from the PTA. The first hour and a half of the meeting dealt with the topic of police searches inside the schools. The LSC members pretty much supported the searches as a way of "making the schools safe." However, when the point was made that most of the students who were arrested were charged with carrying beepers, that argument was clearly shot down.

The discussion then elevated to the question of law. "It is against the law to have beepers on school property," a Chicago police sergeant who is a LSC member replied. "Where, why and when was this turned into a law, and why do we have to accept it?" I asked. The sergeant then told us it was to catch drug dealers in the school. "Although, we understand that drug dealers no longer use beepers as their telecommunication of choice, cell phones are what they prefer." A parent then interrupted to say that her daughter carries a beeper so she can keep in touch with her. Then the sergeant said, "Look my daughter has a pager, too. With so much happening in the streets today parents need to be in contact with their children." "But, it’s the law, there are a lot of laws out there. Listen whatever you’re doing there’s a law that I could arrest you for. So I have to choose what laws to enforce."

A parent (another Cook County Hospital worker) jumped in "So you’re saying these laws are based on your personal feelings. What makes you decide to enforce the one for beepers?" The sergeant then shifted the responsibility to the principal.

The upshot of the discussion was mixed. Parents did not entirely go along with the Party’s line on the role of the police inside the schools. However, raising questions about the law presented an opportunity to have a deeper discussion with some of the parents, students and teachers about the nature of capitalism and its laws. Who the bosses use there laws against. How they maintain state power and build fascism with their laws and win the working class to support them.

I invited some of the parents to come to a Party forum we had on the raid that recently happened at Foreman High School. What encouraged me most was the discussion with both Cook County workers. The PTA president who we had written about in our InCAR newsletter, because of our role in this struggle, now wants to be kept in touch with about May Day plans because, "that sounds like something I would like to be part of." Part of that plan is going to use Challenge more at those meetings on the particular issues that come up in the school to explain the general attacks on the students. It is the students who face the real horrors of capitalism—war and fascism. Build for a mass May Day on all fronts!

LETTERS

Students learn reality of racist ‘justice’ system

Dear Challenge:

On Friday Jan. 23rd, 40-50 students who were arrested during the police raid on Foreman HS in Chicago went to court. Seven students and teachers held a rally against police terror outside the police station and greeted our friends and their families as they arrived. Practically everybody stopped to talk, take a leaflet or buy Challenge.

By the time court began, the room was packed. After an hour of waiting the state’s attorney began to call groups of students into the hall. He "offered" all the students who were charged with having pagers in school, the chance to plead guilty and receive three months supervision. Students charged with having a knife were "offered" six months’-supervision.

Most of the students were shocked. They thought the charges would be dropped. Instead, everyone was faced with accepting supervision or paying a lawyer to come back for trial. Adding insult to injury the state informed everyone that all the pagers were confiscated and destroyed!

As we all waited through three court recesses and several rounds of meetings with the state’s attorney we discussed what to do:

"Man, they get you coming and going. If you don’t take the deal you gotta pay a lawyer and you still might lose. But three months supervision’s not so good either. The cops stop us all the time for nothing. Man, f--- this sh--!"

"They don’t even want to hear our side. We gotta wait around here all day just to plead guilty!"

PL members supported our friends by rallying, arguing with the state’s attorney, helping to figure out the legal details and confronting a representative of the Board of Education. We discussed the PLP leaflet and the Challenge article about the raid by the cops at Foreman. We invited all people there to march with us on May Day.

By the end of the day all but two students decided to take the deal.

After spending four hours in a crowded angry courtroom, one student who refused the deal walked slowly to the door. A PLP member hugged her and said, "Well, we won something today!" The student answered with a confused glance and said, "But they made us out to be criminals. The whole experience was humiliating. It all makes me so mad!"

"These courts are their playing field. They have state power. When they force us to play by their rules we often lose. But how many students are going back to school on Monday to tell their friends that the system works? The court, the Board of Ed. and the cops were all here to attack the students. But the Party was here to support the students and to keep building a movement that will fight for working class power. Friends who we have been struggling with for a long time could see that more clearly today. It’s good that you want to keep fighting! We do, too. When we say we need a revolution, we mean it. And we need you to join us."

"I’m thinking about it."

So are many more students. As we continue to fight back against fascist attacks and build for this year’s May Day we can turn frustration and anger into revolutionary determination.

PL Teachers and Students

New comrade explains how to distribute Challenge

A new member has been distributing 15 Challenge hand-to-hand to her family, neighbors and at her school. Two months ago she was fired from her job after a fight against harassment.

Like many others she became desperate to support herself and her children. I have been helping her find a job. She now has some work to tide her over and the possibility of an evening factory job (where she would be a dynamic organizer for PLP).

Last night she said to me, "You’re helping me not because you’re my family or because you want personal gain, but because we are class sisters and brothers. That’s the way it is and will be with communism when workers have power."

She has begun to respond to our Party Section’s call to expand the distribution of Challenge and to invite people to our May Day Dinner.

Motivated by deep hatred of capitalism and boundless confidence in the working class’ ability to understand and act on communist ideas and goals she has gotten new distributors of Challenge. A neighbor agreed to take three, a fellow student, seven and a student in the Student Government agreed to take ten to place in the student office. With a careful plan and attention these efforts and more will lead to new members of PLP and a mass May Day.

As the Party digs deep roots in the working class and works with thousands, then millions of workers, youth and others on many different levels of commitment and development, we will uncover example after example of the huge potential, strength and capacity of the working class. This is our sustenance and our future.

NYC Comrade

It’s right to rebel! Youth need communism

Dear Challenge:

There’s trouble brewing at our school here in New York, and that’s good. Resisting an openly fascist administration which uses Gestapo police tactics to control and silence students and teachers, students are beginning to feel their burning anger. They want to fight back!

The principal of the school is an open fascist. In case after case over his three years as principal, he has systematically attacked all opposition to his military-style dictatorship. The principal is part of a wave of fascism which has engulfed schools in U.S. cities.

Every day we see in our high school police-style interrogations, dozens of roving security guards with walkie-talkies, strict rules and regulations and a sharp increase in racism.

Many want to dump the principal, seeing this as the solution. But, although he is an enemy of workers and youth, and he deserves to be kicked out, PLP says that this won’t end the increased police terror, slave labor and imperialist war capitalism has in store for us.

The principal, although a fascist, is not the main problem. Somebody hired him and has promoted and protected him up until now. We must not be fooled: whether the principal is mean or nice, they all preside over a capitalist institution, the school. A "nicer principal" will still impose the rotten capitalist education our children have to endure. As the Chinese communist Mao Zedong once said, "the sweeter the taste, the deadlier the poison."

PLP is a revolutionary communist Party. We don’t want students to believe that if they follow the rules they can make it in this society. It’s not true! A system which relies on maximum profits to survive will never serve the needs of the working class. A major war to defend oil profits in the Middle East is on the horizon, and the vicious racist and fascist attacks will get much worse as capitalism desperately tries to prop up its dying system. Young people, and the working class in general, can’t afford to wait!

PLP believes youth will play a critical leadership role in the fight for communism. We are training youth for leadership now. They are reading and distributing this revolutionary communist paper, Challenge. They are writing letters and articles about their struggles: their ideas and their problems. They are planning struggles against the class enemy. This is real education, because it’s changing the world.

Our school is hot for rebellion. The administration cannot rule in the old way. The ruling class always resorts to fascist violence because it is weak. They are increasingly forced to use more violent and repressive measures to control staff and students to the point that virtually the entire school sees the administration as their enemy. Despite widespread fear on the surface, increasingly pockets of open hostility are breaking out among students. Students are deciding that they cannot live in the old way; they refuse to accept fascism! What’s needed now is communist leadership. Collectively, armed with communist ideas and fierce allegiance to the interests of the working class, we can rid the world of all fascists. Students and workers, feel your power. Fight back! Fight for communism!

NYC Teacher

Yes, there is a crisis of overproduction

Dear Challenge:

Yes, "Old Economist," there is a crisis of overproduction. Two recent articles from the Business Section of the New York Times underline the crisis, from the horses’ mouths.

The first ran on January 24th, concerning Chrysler’s fourth quarter profits. The article read, "Analysts are also concerned that Chrysler and the other Detroit giants—the General Motors Corporation and the Ford Motor Company—face a stagnant domestic market with falling prices and falling demand.

"‘When you have an industry that’s flat and you’ve got excess capacity and everyone fighting for market share, it’s going to be tough,’ said Wendy Beale Needham, an analyst with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette."

The second article ran on January 21st, dealing with GM’s prospects for buying into the Asian auto industry to take advantage of the economic collapse there. The article said, "By buying into these Asian automakers, the Big Three could stem production and prevent them from depressing prices worldwide. ‘What you basically should do if you’re GM or Ford is you buy a plant and then you blow it up just to make a statement about all the excess capacity there,’ Mr. Phillippi said."

Mr. Phillippi is an auto-analyst for Lehman Brothers. His statement brings to mind R. Palme Dutt’s book, Fascism and Social Revolution, describing the crisis leading to World War II. In it he said something like, "Today the bosses are destroying the factories. Tomorrow they will destroy the workers."

Midwest Reader

Anti-terrorist law attacks all workers

Dear Challenge:

As we have said many times, this period of economic and political crisis, instability, and growing fascism is filled with dangers and even greater opportunities. The growing splits within the ruling class could lead to civil war. The rulers are using the current threat of terrorism, from the fundamentalist Moslems and militias, to consolidate their police forces and sharpen their "internal security" apparatus.

The New York Times (1/18/98), in an article about combating terrorism, said, "While law enforcement officials say they still do not have the money, laws or resources to track the anti-Government groups properly, the FBI recently received money from Congress to set up a domestic counter-terrorism center. The FBI hopes to use the center to step up the fight against the groups by strengthening the Bureau’s ties with other law enforcement agencies on the Federal, state and local levels."

The article continued, saying that according to The Anti-terrorism Act of 1996, threats against all Federal officials are considered Federal crimes; and that the Justice Department is trying to get a law passed that would allow them to tap all the telephones used by a suspect—called "roving wiretaps."

At the same time, there is a growth of fascist death-squad style militias. According to a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are 380 armed paramilitary groups in the U.S. "While casual adherents have abandoned the cause, new groups have been formed to take their place. What remains are true believers who are isolated from the political mainstream and committed to an extreme anti-Government agenda."

There is an illusion within our movement that says we won’t be seriously attacked until we pose more of a threat to the ruling class. As we can see, both the cops and the militias are gearing up. We have no friends on either side. What’s more, we have already earned the hatred of both. We should wear it proudly. But we should be very careful not to underestimate the life and death struggle we are engaged in. The best way to deal with the dangers, is to take full advantage of the opportunities. We can build a mass PLP and mass May Day. There’s not a moment to lose.

A Reader

Experience shows need for HS students to rebel against cop terror

Dear Challenge:

I was once again reading and enjoying your publication. Once again, another article caught my attention. This time, it was the one about the illegal search (clear violation of the 4th Amendment) in Chicago. When I was in high school, the pigs—I mean, cops—and the ROTC would all get together and perform a search. I clearly remember the way they went about doing it. They had military vehicles (is this the U.S. or Beirut?) along with police cruisers, and even the paddywagon outside just waiting to be filled with innocent youth. The school "administration" (and I use that term loosely) had all the "teachers" (another one) hold us in homeroom. Hell, no one was even able to use the bathroom!

One time, I did not submit to the search. I had been told by many lawyers that I have the "right" to refuse search and seizure, especially if I was carrying nothing on me. Well, so much for idealism. I was dragged forcibly outside the building and yelled at until I finally submitted to their fascist search. After getting a headache from them, I said, "F--- it—go ahead and search me." There was a TI-85 scientific calculator in my pocket and the Death Squad thought it was a weapon. They pulled weapons on me for that one.

After the Nazi-Klan left, I complained to all my teachers and do you know what their response was? "Don’t give me any of that fourth amendment sh--!" I could not believe it.

This sad story took place just over four years ago, and I can now see that it has become worse. It seems to me that all the laws passed these days are for the benefit of the pigs! Something has got to happen to empower the people and disempower the pigs! Today’s youth should rise up and revolt against these pigs. Certainly, however, they will face "correct action" from their respective "school administrators," but hey, you’ve got to start somewhere, right?

Minneapolis Sympathizer

Capitalist bosses and lawyers never freed the slaves

Dear Challenge:

There has been much debate over Steven Spielberg’s latest film, Amistad, the story of the 1839 rebellion aboard a slave ship en route from Cuba to the U.S. Many question the "victory" of the story, pointing out that slavery continued to be legal in the U.S. for another 26 years after former President John Quincy Adams gave his speech against slavery and the Supreme Court’s decision ordering the Amistad slaves "freed."

The fact is that neither the former nor current President nor the U.S. judicial system got rid of slavery in 1839. What freed this particular boat full of slaves was their decision to rebel against the system of slavery. The lesson to be learned is that the system that enslaves us will never free us. We can celebrate the legacy of Amistad by getting the entire working-class (present-day wage-slaves) to rebel against and destroy once and for all this racist, sexist, oppressive, capitalist class system. It is time for Communist Revolution!

Chicago Red

Crisis Of Overproduction Opens Door to Communist Revolution

Below is an excerpt from the British business magazine The Economist (May 10th, 1997). It disguises key phrases of Marxist political economy—overproduction becomes "over-capacity," falling rate of profit becomes "return on sales." And the anarchy of production, the irrational nature of capitalist production, gets explained away as "old fashioned unrealistic expectations." While an article in such a publication offers us many facts, it will never explain that the only alternative for the working class is to smash capitalism and to fight for communist revolution.

The Coming Car Crash: Global Pile-up

"Just as cities from Bangkok to Sao Paulo are blighted by monster traffic jams, so the companies that put all those vehicles on the road are facing their own snarl up, and for the same reason: too many autos....The over-capacity cannot last forever.

"Whatever the nature of the shake-up it will have big implications because auto making looms so large in manufacturing, employment and political sensitivities....Of the top 50 manufacturers, no fewer than 13 are motor companies, employing 2.5m people. Three times as many are employed in garages and in the industries that supply the car assemblers with parts."

Bumper to Bumper

"If all the auto companies in the world ran flat out, they could produce 68m cars a year. In 1996, they actually made 50m - 73% of capacity. It is worse in some places than others.

"For the companies this is bad news. Auto companies are accustomed to making really big bucks when operating at over 80% capacity. Time was that whenever the American utilization rate went over 70% (as it is now), the return on sales of the big three car firms was at least 8%. Now, though, such returns at GM and Ford are below 5% (Chrysler’s is a little higher), even though all are reporting healthy earnings. This is not a glitch. The return on assets of big firms around the world has been in decline for more than ten years, come rain or shine. That suggests that companies cannot simply count on being rescued when the two big economies now growing slowly—Japan and continental Europe—pick up again..."

"By manufacturing around the world, auto manufacturers have been able to push profits higher than they would otherwise have been. The trouble is that the big trend in the industry has been to ‘build where you sell,’ first exemplified by the surge of Japanese transplant factories in America. The resulting rush to build plants all over the place has merely added to the capacity mountain.

"To some extent, firms are responding to the artificial incentives offered by trade barriers....

"But old-fashioned unrealistic expectations have also played a role. With markets stagnant in Europe and Japan and growing slowly in America, auto makers have been expanding capacity in emerging markets faster than those markets can bear. The Asia-Pacific region is a good example. Already the world’s biggest producer of cars, making half a million more than North America’s 15m last year, it is seeing new plants being built that will add 6m cars a year in the next five years. Autofacts, an American consultancy firm, reckons that capacity in the region (including Japan) will soon outstrip sales by 9m vehicles—and that is after allowing big increases in local demand and exports.

"Expectations can become unrealistic because companies tend to double their bets when things get tough....Firms are reluctant to be the first to close a factory lest it should lead to lower market share, or the first to forgo an investment in a growing market....

"The tendency of car firms to think the problems are everyone else’s fault is likely to mean that things will get worse before they get better....By 2000, overcapacity will have risen from 18m to 22m units—equivalent to 80 of the world’s 630 car assembly factories standing idle. Looked at another way every factory in North America could close—and there would still be excess capacity...."

Some Communist Conclusions

First we should understand the scale of the destruction. It is doubtful that World War II, with all its bombing, destroyed more than 40 auto plants. Yet the projections here are for 80 plants to be wiped out in the next three years (this is not counting the scores that have already been eliminated).

For communist organizers, the crisis of overproduction raises a key challenge. Let us suppose we have a comrade working in Daihatsu in Asia, one in VW in Europe and a third at GM in North America.

Suddenly plant closures are announced. Co-workers suggest a fight against them. Our comrades agree, but insist on the slogans: "To hell with capitalism and its instability, fascism and wars! Workers of the World, Unite! Fight for Communism!" Our friends argue why not make it simple—why not just say "Fight for Jobs. A shorter workweek with no loss in pay!" In Europe, the unions even raise this demand. Instead we insist on our original slogans.

Wiping out 80 auto plants is a necessity for capitalism. But that won’t solve the problem. Next, wiping out the productive capacity of its rivals (war) will be a necessity. The crisis of overproduction is relentless.

Just as the crisis forces the hands of the capitalists, it forces the hands of the leaders of the international working class, the PLP. It forces us to explain in a mass way that only communist revolution will solve our problems.

In all sorts of situations—from overtime bans to mass demonstrations—patient yet urgent agitation must accompany our explanation of capitalism, its crisis, fascism and wars. We have to fight for a mass agreement with the need for communist revolution.

And it’s not an academic matter! "Fight for Jobs" will open the doors to nationalism! For our three comrades, the reality of a fight for jobs actually means jobs at GM, VW or Daihatsu. In reality, the slogan silently ties us to "our" bosses.

Given the crisis, The Economist article has described—a crisis of overproduction with three competitive production blocs of Europe, Asia and North America— being silently tied to "our" boss is hardly a revolutionary situation! Eighty plants are to be wiped out. VW plans to survive the destruction—as do GM and Daihatsu. But survive at whose expense? The "Fight for Jobs" slogan sidesteps one of the main contradictions of capitalism itself—the crisis of overproduction.

Clearly we will not build a revolutionary communist Party by sidestepping the main contradictions of capitalism. As the crisis emerges, capitalists devalue their rivals—through mergers and other means— and as it deepens, they destroy them, and as it further deepens, they eliminate the competition through war as the way to get out of their economic crisis. A Party that understands this, and organizes workers, soldiers and youth to meet the challenge, can turn the coming war into its opposite: communist revolution!