Our comrades have used the school bosses' attacks as opportunities to advance under fire. In Chicago, a PLP teacher was suspended for talking to students about communism, distributing Challenge, and encouraging students to challenge authorities. The PLP club at her school organized dozens of students, parents, and teachers to defend the Party by speaking out at a meeting of the Local School Council, writing and signing letters and petitions, and producing and distributing PLP leaflets. Their bold response provoked the Chicago Sun Times to call for the firing of all three communist teachers for "indoctrinating" students. Within days, the Party organized over 100 students to sign postcards protesting this witchhunt, in addition to a demonstration.
The comrade in LA, whose principal threatened him and the students if they continued to organize against fascist Proposition 227 didn't fall for the intimidation. He sharpened the ideological struggle against anti-communism, exposing it as an assault on all working class students. The Party also expanded their organizing efforts against 227. In April, the principal of a Bronx (NY) high school put an anti-communist student up to attacking PLP in the school newspaper. Party teachers turned this slander into an indictment of the administration's complicity in anti-student racism. The principal sent one PLP'er a threatening letter. The Party used this threat as an opportunity to build support among students and faculty and to recruit a new member and begin a study group. A comrade in a Brooklyn HS got a letter of reprimand from her principal for organizing students for communist activities. She continued to organize.
This sharpened campaign of anti-communism against us should come as no surprise. It is the fruit of an extended struggle against right opportunist errors within our own ranks. It shows that we are making some progress. When we carry out our line, we shouldn't expect the bosses to give us medals for good behavior. The comrades involved have set examples of their political commitment and skill.
It's no accident that the bosses have focused their current anti-PLP activity on the schools. The schools are crucial to U.S. imperialism for two reasons. First, competing capitalist factions need them to win working class youth to their own brand of fascism. Second, the schools are recruiting grounds for the imperialist military, and the bosses are beginning to notice that we have gotten serious about organizing to "turn the guns around" for communism in the armed forces.
The more we do, the more we should anticipate attacks against us on all fronts. This is the period of war and fascism. As history shows, anti-communism is fascism's cutting edge. Shortly after the Bolshevik revolution had seized power and established the Soviet Union, the imperialists of every major country--including bitter enemies in World War I--invaded the USSR. Their goal: "to strangle the infant in its cradle," as the imperialist Winston Churchill put it. The invaders slaughtered seven million Soviet workers between 1919 and 1921, but the baby survived and thrived. The imperialist bosses rearmed Germany after World War I and allowed Hitler to come to power, mainly so that he could re-invade and crush Soviet socialism. Everybody knows the story. The Nazis murdered 20 million Soviet workers, but at the end, Hitler was dead in his bunker, and the Red flag flew over Berlin in 1945. As the Italian communist underground used to say, "Mussolini killed and killed us, until there were two million of us."
In its 35-year history, our Party has acquired valuable experience in advancing under bosses' attacks. We supported anti-racist rebellions. We broke fascist travel bans. We organized many militant struggles against the war of genocide in Vietnam. We led fights against racist professors on university campuses. We organized mass violence against the Ku Klux Klan. We broke the back of a fascist anti-busing movement in Boston. More recently, we have been in the forefront of mass activity against fascist police terror and slave labor. All of this has been accompanied by arrests, jail sentences, firings, threats, and attempts at intimidation. We don't welcome casualties, but every struggle has them, and as fascism intensifies, there will be more. We can turn them all into their opposites by recruiting workers, soldiers, and students.
Terror didn't destroy the old communist movement. On the contrary. As the experiences of the Bolshevik revolution and World War II showed, the international working class made its greatest strides during the darkest night of fascism. The old communist movement was destroyed by its own internal weakness, its political opportunism, and its reformism. The internal is primary. The class enemy can't beat us. We can only beat ourselves.
The recent attacks against PLP and our comrades' vigorous replies are both a sign of the times and a cause for revolutionary optimism. As the going gets tough, communists will get tougher. The bosses have nothing but money, anti-communist filth, and weapons of mass destruction. We have a revolutionary line and the working class of an entire world to win.
Editorial 2
In Cuautitlán, Mexico, Ford closed the foundry and motor buildings. They also closed two health care clinics that treat workers hurt on the job. In the parts department, the number of workers will be cut by 50%. Ford is pressuring workers older than 50 to quit now. Five years ago Ford had 5,000 workers. Now we have 3,200 who produce more than the 5,000 did. If Ford wins, we lose. If Toyota wins, we lose. Under capitalism, workers never win. "We'll close plants and cut inventories because they don't produce added value," says Ford. Reality teaches us that the bosses are the ones who don't produce any useful value for society. They're the ones who must be eliminated.
In the current international crisis of overproduction and the growing threat of war, PLP members are carrying out the vital work of fighting for our communist politics, while leading Ford workers to confront the company's fascist policies.
During contract talks in March, workers broke the fascist ban on demonstrating inside the factory compound. Dozens of workers called for a strike if the company did not raise wages higher than inflation. "Ford's refusal is a consequence of the capitalist crisis of overproduction that's impoverishing us and all workers everywhere," said an anti-fascist worker. The bosses went crazy, threatening the workers on the assembly lines. The union mobilized a goon squad brought in from the outside. Police surveillance even extended to the home of one of the workers. To avoid a strike, Ford offered a 23% wage increase.
Days later, the head of the union, J.J. Sosa ("Nostra"), ordered all shop stewards to mobilize the workers for a National Congress of CTM (the old labor federation). "It's a fascist, corrupt and traitorous federation. For over 50 years, it has punished militant workers with firings, jail, blood and bullets. I'm not going to mislead my fellow workers," responded one of the shop stewards. With the support of more workers, the word got out in the whole department to "refuse to participate in the corrupt congress." No worker in this department went to the fascist event. In response, the union leadership cut this shop steward's wages in half. Workers are fighting to turn this attack around. The majority of the shop stewards are supporting this steward and telling the national leadership to stop their attack on him.
The CTM and the Congress of Work led the fascist May Day march in support of the government's economic and political policies. Sosa and his lackeys tried to mobilize Ford workers to participate in the grotesque event. The delegate openly defied the fascist leaders. He invited workers to demonstrate on May Day against the bosses and their union gangsters. A group of workers participated with PLP on May Day calling on workers to fight for communism. In this political battle carried out in the heat of class struggle, dozens of workers have become interested in knowing more about the Party and communism. The key to the advancing the Party and the working class is to take advantage of these workers' openness to communist politics.
We are not only fighting the company and its union thugs but also waging a political struggle against the "reformers" and "democrats" trying to take over the union leadership. "The Party is an obstacle to democracy," they say. They complain because PLP arms the workers with a world view, and has confidence in workers' ability to grasp communist ideas. This approach exposes the myth of "union democracy." The union of IMSS (Social Security workers--the national health care system) is a clear example. It is part of the new "democratic" labor federation, championed by U.S. AFL-CIO boss Sweeney. These leaders are allowing layoffs of workers and contracting out work, and are collaborating with the government to destroy social security for all workers. Democrats and fascists are capitalist birds of a feather!
Ruthless competition for markets leads to military war that will bring more exploitation and genocide. This is the nature of capitalism. Five companies dominate the worlds' 65 million auto market. They've accumulated an immense fortune from our labor, and now they threaten us with killer speed-up, unemployment, and war. To hell with these Big 5 and all bosses! Communist revolution will wipe them out!
"You all can't do whatever you want. This plant is private property!" yelled one of the Ford bosses. This is our CHALLENGE, to build a mass PLP to smash the bosses' state apparatus, and wipe out exploitation with communism!
On a mountain in El Salvador on May 30th and 31st, the members of the PLP leadership here had a meeting with a new group of Challenge readers. In all we were 27 people. It was very emotional for all of us to see the red sunset on May 30th and to be discussing the struggles the Party is involved in around the world and talking about the need for the majority of workers to become mass organizers for the Party.
Later, we met under the light of the moon. For security reasons, we didn't light any lanterns. There is no electricity where we were meeting. As we watched the lights of the city from afar, every member of the Party was inspired to be on this mountain with our new friends. We tried our best to explain to the readers and friends who were with us in this school about the urgent need to build a revolutionary communist party. Marcial asked, "Why have so many people talked about revolution? And why have the FMLN and the rest of the revisionist groups around the world not been able to build a true communist state?"
We explained that all that glitters is not gold. Anyone can call themselves revolutionary, but our practice has shown that only PLP fights for a true communist revolution, and not for alliances with the enemy as the FMLN has done. With respect to the second question, we answered that the groups which fought for national liberation don't do more than to fight for pieces of the land in what they call their country. They aren't interested in doing away with all exploitation of all workers of the world. PLP fights for revolution all over the world, so that there won't be anyplace in the world where the capitalists can hide. Thousands of lightening bugs gave us light at midnight as the discussion continued. For us, it was an historic night in the building of PLP in El Salvador.
We awoke the next morning and ate breakfast with great comradeship and continued the discussion. We read Challenge. The people were very enthusiastic about reading read it, especially since there was an article that they had written, and it seemed incredible to them that something they had written was in the paper, and had even been translated into English to be read by workers around the world. With this we showed them that they are part of the international working class and that Challenge is the way they can communicate with workers around the world.
Then we divided into two groups to talk about how to build the Party in this area of the country and advance the communist ideas of the Party. Chiquil had prepared a motion that we should meet with a group of 12 other readers of Challenge, that he has organized together with his brother to lead the work of a group of 65 youth. He has gotten ahead of us in the tasks that we were going to recommend to him and this was truly inspiring. The other comrades agreed that these ideas for the immediate growth of the Party were correct and should be carried out soon.
At the end of the meeting, after the last debate about each participant's idea of communism, 14 readers took the great step of joining the PLP, promising to fight, including with their life, for the goal of communist revolution. We should like to make special mention of Jose, who is only 12 years old. He was our lookout while we had our nighttime meeting and who, at the meeting on the 31st, was completely interested in the discussion and joined the Party.
In May, PLP led hundreds of youth and workers in "the Battle of Ann Arbor, Michigan," against a KKK group which was rallying there, under the cops' protection. A group of liberals, under the guise of respecting the Klan's "freedom of speech," also wanted to thwart the anger of the anti-racist forces. Again, these liberals are on the wrong side of the fence.
As capitalism prepares for war and fascism, it will need more racist terror. We must raise in our jobs, schools, unions, churches the need to protest this latest case of racist terror. The best way to avenge the murder of James Byrd and all the other victims of racist terror is to build a mass revolutionary movement against the hands that pull the triggers of these killers: capitalism. That is the goal of the communist PLP.
No language or worker should be illegal--Smash racism with communist revolution
U.S. bosses must use schools to push Patriotism--to prepare for war.
An opinion piece in the LA Times (6/4) by James Pinkerton from Georgetown University quotes John J. Miller, author of The Unmaking of Americans: How Multiculturalism Has Undermined America's Assimilation Ethic.
"Miller maintains that, unlike most countries, there are no mystical blood ties of ethnicity or religion to bind the U.S. together naturally. So the social glue must come from civic institutions, notably the schools. Miller ...warns against the fractious and disastrous consequences if, for example, school-based bilingualism disrupts the process of Americanization."
Angry students walked out in several LA high schools. Students see Prop. 227 as a racist attack against them, to hold back their learning of English, and a way of saying that English is superior to Spanish. Communists say that there is no "superior" language. We are all one working class. No language--or worker--should be illegal! In a communist society we will encourage bilingualism--or trilingualism--to unite our class all over the world.
Prop. 227 is a vicious and divisive attack on students, and teachers, encouraging parents to sue teachers if they use any language other than English to help students learn. (It also appears to include a ban on too much native language support by teacher's aides). Approximately 1.4 million of California's students come to school speaking a language other than English. Thousands of teachers have vowed to defy the law, and continue to help students in their native language as they learn English. The day after the election, a suit was filed in federal court to block its implementation--and radio talk shows in English and in Spanish continue to debate bilingual education.
A significant number of immigrant parents supported Prop. 227. They were won to the idea that bilingual education kept students from learning English and other subjects, and that if schools eliminated bilingual education and concentrated on teaching English, the children of immigrants would have a greater chance of success and "making it" in the American mainstream. Proponents of bilingual education said that going back to the days of "English Only" instruction would push immigrant students to the back of the class, deny them the tools necessary for academic success, and keep them from "making it" in the American mainstream. Many remember when LA students had their mouths washed out with soap for speaking Spanish in school.
Both sides of the debate have assumed that if only the schools did their job right, immigrant students would "make it." Both sides deny the racist nature of capitalism, especially as it lunges deeper into fascism and towards war. Racism against immigrants is a source of enormous superprofits in garment and agriculture--two key industries in California. Whether immigrants learn English or not, capitalism still requires somebody to work for low wages. Knowing English hasn't kept blacks from being the target of brutal racism for the last 400 years. Capitalism requires racism because the bosses must divide the working class, make superprofits from racist wage differences, and shift the blame for low wages, unemployment, poverty and crime off themselves and onto black and latin workers.
The rich backers of 227 see the urgent need to establish an "American" identity for all youth so that they will identify only with, and be won to defend, the U.S. bosses and the U.S. flag. Within the pro-bilingual movement are many people who promote identification with the Mexican, or El Salvadoran flags. Youth need to identify as members of the international working class. Our future depends on unity and fighting for the red flag of communism, not for any capitalist.
With or without bilingual education, capitalism has no future for the vast majority of youth today--no future except low wage jobs, prisons, and war. Just trying to be one of the few who "make it" isn't a winning strategy for our class. We are organizing against this racist attack among students, teachers and parents. It's an illusion to think that if only we could get bilingual education back, immigrant students can live happily ever after in a capitalist paradise. Capitalism is going to hell. It isn't going to get any better.
The students who are involved in these walkouts, the parents and teachers who are involved in this debate, and in defying the racist law must see that the only way to end racism is to fight for communism. Then, and only then, will we be able to work together to design educational programs that meet the needs of the working class. Then we can learn to speak each other's languages as we work together to build a communist world--and what will be illegal will be the bosses, and their racist, fascist profit system.
SEPTA got their court to issue an injunction against mass picketing, and is threatening to use managers and scabs to run the subways. They say their main concern is rider safety, but they are also worried about their own safety. The strikers, many of whom are military veterans with combat experience, have a history of strike violence. There were numerous reports of gunfire during the last strike.
SEPTA wants to bring in part-time workers, sub-contract out more services, and to install a "Management Rights" clause to tighten control over workers and production. These fascist attacks are the result of enormous cuts in funding for mass transit, like those that are taking place all over the country. These cuts are needed by the rulers to help pay for their war preparations in the Middle East. They have already significantly worsened the working and living conditions for thousands of hospital and nursing home workers in the 1199C Hospital Workers Union.
The capitalist crisis of over-production is destroying jobs, cutting wages, and propelling the world towards war. Recent events in India and Pakistan point out that the coming war will be a nuclear war. In this period of growing fascism and the threat of war, a strike is no longer "just a strike." The stakes are higher, and militancy alone can't "win." Workers are confronted by a worldwide capitalist crisis, where the rulers are fighting among themselves as they attack us. The class hatred of the SEPTA strikers, and their willingness to use violence against the bosses can be a very good thing, if our main goal is building a mass, communist-led anti-fascist movement with the goal of taking power from the fascist war makers. Because the rulers are desperate, and the AFL-CIO is committed to their survival, at best we can only slow down their relentless attacks on our class. But even if we "win" some reforms, that won't stop the overall trend of war and fascism. Only communist revolution can do that.
The main danger is that the Old Money bosses who control the unions will use the strike to tighten their political control over us while intensifying their fascist attacks. For example, the UPS strike was hailed as a big "victory" last summer. But as only Challenge pointed out, Old Money bosses used the strike to keep control of the multi-billion dollar Teamsters' pension funds out of the hands of their New Money rivals.
PLP members are struggling with strikers about these ideas. We are also waging this struggle in our mass organizations, so we can involve larger numbers of workers in higher forms of class struggle around the TWU strike. We need to make these ideas mass ideas among the workers in whatever actions develop. The real victory in this strike will be loosening the boss' hold on workers, and winning them closer to communism and PLP.
This group of workers concluded that you can't make a dent against racism because the bosses are building fascism to prepare for war. The form of racism may change, or even the temporary targets, but capitalism must intensify racist oppression--particularly, in this period. The only way to get rid of racism is to get rid of capitalism with communist revolution. This shop-floor debate was more on target than previous discussions on racism, in motivating our base to revolutionary participation in the class struggle.
The lawsuit charges, among other things, that senior Boeing management knew about racist practices, tolerated a racist environment, and blacks and latinos were kept at lower paying jobs. All true! The Party has a long history at Boeing of fighting around just these issues. Add to this list of charges, management favoritism, if not outright nepotism, and you could hear many white workers saying, "They [the plaintiffs] have a point here!"
This lawsuit can be used by Old Money to discipline Boeing if management puts its immediate profit above the strategic interest of Rockefeller & Co., always a possibility with defense contractors. That may explain the company's skittish response to the suit. The company even donated $50,000 to the anti-Initiative 200 (I-200) campaign a couple of days before the suit was filed.
I-200 is an anti-affirmative action initiative on the November ballot literally imported from California. Boeing's donation was more than a cynical attempt to get some good publicity. Old Money firms, like Boeing, find affirmative action a useful cover for their more virulent racist agenda. Boeing could use a few more black or latino managers as they attack black and latino workers more and produce weapons for genocidal wars in the Middle East or Latin America.
"But, we can't get caught short-handed. We have to be in every anti-racist battle bringing our understanding to the fight."
Many future leaders of our Party are involved in this lawsuit and the anti-I-200 campaign committees in the unions and communities. Many in our base closely follow these issues. Most have little illusion that affirmative action or the lawsuit will bring decisive benefits. At best, some hope for minor relief--way in the future. No doubt, the ruling class will do their best to win these fighters to liberalism, but our revolutionary answers are--now more than ever--far superior.
Unfortunately, fascism marches on as testified to by the poster distributed at the Auburn plant, which depicts the Boeing bosses as Nazis. Our historic responsibility is to mobilize the working class to defeat fascism.
Already, some comrades and friends are rising to the challenge--entering and forming anti I-200 committees. Inter-imperialist rivalry insures a climate of increased racism. The only way to change that climate is to end the system that begets imperialism. Communist revolution is the answer that every anti-racist fighter needs.
The Flint Metal Center makes metal parts for most of GM's full-size light trucks and some cars, and supplies 16 GM assembly plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. As we go to press, the strike has closed six plants, sending 17,000 workers home. If it continues, it will close all of GM's North American operations. The union charges that GM has not spent the $300 million it promised to upgrade the plant, and plans to cut 191 jobs. The strike could cost GM about $300 million a week.
GM is taking a hard line against the union. Two years ago they sustained a 22-day strike at an engine plant that closed down every assembly plant in North America. This time, GM forced the strike by moving dies out of the plant over Memorial Day weekend. The dies, for the new GM pick-ups which are to begin production this week, were moved to another GM in plant in Ohio. It is highly unlikely that GM would move the dies without the prior knowledge of the UAW International leadership. (Ironically, this is the place, and the issue which launched the communist-led Great Flint Sit-Down Strike in 1937 which organized GM.) GM was stopped from removing some parts racks, when more than 100 workers blocked the exits.
They are attacking the workers because they are in a life and death struggle with Asian and European auto bosses for markets and cheap labor. As in any war, they expect the troops to take the hits and make the sacrifices. As in the U.S. army, the troops are not willing.
The other event was a PLP plant gate rally at Chrysler's Mound Rd. Stamping Plant. PLP distributed an open letter from German Daimler-Benz workers to the Chrysler workers, building international solidarity. A PLP statement on the other side of the letter put the crisis in auto in the context of coming war and fascism, and called for auto workers around the world to lead the struggle for communist revolution. Hundreds of letters were distributed and 40 Challenges were sold. One worker took three papers and gave a $5 donation. About a dozen more workers distributed hundreds of letters inside their plants.
Recently the blossoming PLP base at our school surged into action when the administration expelled a student for bringing small paper-cutting scissors to school. Students and teachers were stunned that this student was expelled for something so innocent. Many teachers said similar incidents have happened before but that nothing could be done.
In many discussions with both students and teachers, we explained that not only could we do something, but that it was our responsibility to. We encouraged the expelled student to approach various community organizations to fight back. Students in our base wrote up a statement supporting him and attacking the administration. One student made a clever drawing depicting the fascist conditions at the school and demanded that the administration stop attacking students.
At a PLP club meeting we related this case to the development of fascism and war. The students agreed that the recent schoolwide student searches after the Oregon killing were fascist, anti-student attacks, but they also admitted that they thought the searches might protect them from other violent students. They saw the military as a dead-end for workers and youth. "They train you to be like serial killers. They brainwash you and fill you with false promises." When a youth in our group, who is planning to join the Army, was asked why, he replied matter-of-factly, "No choice." "This is the problem for the bosses," said a PLP member. "The bosses need the military to fight their wars for profit in the Middle East and Latin America. However, the soldiers come from the working class. They have very little loyalty to the money-and-oil-hungry capitalist bosses. PLP wants to train young people to enlist to help organize soldiers to turn the guns around on the bosses and make communist revolution." "That would take a lot of work," said one thoughtful youth. That's right, but it's been done before.
We went on to explain the experiences of the Russian and Chinese communists in organizing millions of soldiers to fight for revolution. These young people were impressed. Now, we were talking about workers' power! It became clear that the bosses are our enemies and cannot be trusted to ever protect us. We added that this strategy for organizing in the military is a model for what we can do in organizations like student government and community groups.
We discussed the case of the expelled student. A young worker suggested we write a petition. He and a friend volunteered to come and distribute our leaflet. During that week, we collected hundreds of signatures in the school and had discussions with many teachers. When our friends leafleted our school, the student's case became the talk of the school. The next day, the expulsion had been reversed and the student was back in school.
Even though there were other pressures that led to the reversal of the expulsion, only PLP alerted students and teachers to this case of fascist terror and said that it was our responsibility to fight it. Now students and faculty have more respect for the Party and our communist base has been strengthened.
Our next step is to further expand Challenge among students and teachers. We want to win youth to participate in the Summer Project because, even though we won this time, the move toward fascism and war is growing fast. We need more communists!
As reported last week, a work stoppage was organized. Three developments brought it about: increased fascist attacks on the workers in the form of harassment, speed up, and intimidation; the development of a regular readership of Challenge and a PLP group in the plant; and increased class struggle led by Party members and other workers.
In the last year, a new plant and new machinery have tripled production as the bosses try to get back their investment. While starting pay is still about minimum wage, cameras are on every line to watch people as they're working. Workers have to ask for permission to go to the bathroom, where there is another camera to see who goes in and out.
Over the same period, 16 workers have become regular Challenge readers, with others reading it on occasion. A group of workers met several times to organize for May Day and two workers joined PLP. Since the work stoppage, another worker has joined the Party and a fourth has agreed to be in a PLP study group.
Much of the interest in the PLP came about because we have tried to raise the Party's political line while fighting fascist conditions in the plant and within the union. We have tried to rely on the workers, putting the responsibility for building our movement into their hands. For instance, the company demanded mandatory overtime due to increased competition in the industry. We got people to oppose it in company meetings, and explained how the crisis of overproduction was leading to increased attacks on workers and war in the Middle East. We were able to do a similar thing in a union meeting after the cameras where installed. We have also fought against speed-up and work rules.
We had some success in winning workers to see that we are all in this fight against fascism together, and that we have to build a revolutionary communist movement to defeat it. This has led to many debates among the workers about whether it is right to talk about war and fascism when we are fighting against speed-up or for a raise. Whatever we did was planned with people both in and outside the Party, so more workers fought for the Party's line when others criticized it.
Another thing that was modestly successful was building ties between people outside of work. There are not a lot of relationships outside the plant. One reason is that people don't have much money to go bowling, etc. Another reason is that people need the overtime to survive, then they go home and take care their families. We developed a group that went to each other's homes and went out for tacos after work once in a while. Seeing each other outside the plant has helped build more mutual trust and confidence, which is very important when we are attacked by the boss.
For instance, one worker was interested in PLP. But she stopped taking Challenge because she said she "only wanted to worry about what was going on inside the plant." In several discussions at her house, she raised a lot of her fears. There we have been able to talk about the consequences for the whole working class if we don't overcome our fears. Since the workers have been fired, she has started taking the paper again, and has been one of the leaders in the fight to win their jobs back in spite of being scared about getting fired herself.
There is still a lot of fear. More people have been fired over the last few weeks for what previously would have been minor infractions. Others have been called into the office and threatened with losing their jobs if they fight for the others. We have been able to win more workers to take Challenge into the plant, organized workers to confront the union, and have a PLP group that will build the Party by making the fight for the fired workers a part of the coming contract fight.
Prison labor, already legalized in 40 states, is a step toward fascism. The U.S. corporations, in their fierce struggle to beat out the global competition, are using prisoners and welfare recipients as sources of slave labor. Even more importantly, these vulnerable sections of the working class are being used to set new standards for wages and working conditions for the whole working class. And racism, as in Nazi Germany, is masking the real motives of the bosses. Most of the prison population are young black and latino males, in jail for non-violent crimes. They have been railroaded by racist anti-drug laws in a racist court system, and have been criminalized by the media.
Our demonstration involved some new friends and provoked good discussion with our base. One of the speakers condemned the passivity of the German working class in pre-war Germany and congratulated the demonstrators for "taking an open stand against a fascist law." The job of communists in the PLP is to involve many more workers and students in the fight against growing fascism and win them to see that fascism can only be defeated with communist revolution.
In the U.S. hunger, poverty, deportation, discrimination, etc., are parts of many workers' households. Many workers and students know that there is only one alternative to this genocidal capitalism. They know that by joining the PLP and organizing the revolutionary communist movement we can build a new communist world in the future.
But others believe that it's impossible to destroy the capitalist monster; that it's dangerous to talk about communism, that we must only say that we are "progressive" people. Well, we think we should call bread, bread, and the wine, wine.
A society where everything is done collectively, where each person receives according to need, where there is no exploitation, where life is based on collectively, such a society has a name: communism.
Other good friends say they like the Party very much, but they don't need to become members. But, how can we build the Party if we're not members? How can we convince others to join the Party if we haven't joined?
The truth is that if a great many sympathizers and friends of the Party join now, many more will follow them in taking this important step. So the workers and students who understand the need for a change of systems shouldn't hesitate in joining the Party. They should join now.
Many say they'll join the Party soon, but they show a certain lack of confidence. If they're sure that the Party's line is correct, there's no justification for this lack of confidence. Being outside the Party only shows they have more confidence in the bosses and put their future and that of their friends in the hands of those who massacre millions of workers all over the world. Obviously, that's not what they want to do, but objectively that's what they are doing.
Others say it's dangerous to join the Party. But the millions of poor workers who are starving, unemployed, or homeless are in great danger without joining the Party. The hundreds of thousands who have died in imperialist wars were also not members of the Party. The millions of undocumented workers being harassed and persecuted by the Migra, the police and the border patrol also go around in constant danger and are not members of the Party. It's true that they run some risk by joining the fight against capitalism, but the much greater danger is to be passive and allow capitalism to continue freely exploiting and massacring the working class.
The rotten capitalists always try to fool the workers, giving them a bad image of the communists because they know well that communists are the ones who fight for the working class, and who oppose the genocide that they cause with their exploitation and wars all over the world.
That's why communism is the future of the international working class. We must not shrink from the opportunity to build a better world and save millions of lives that the capitalist assassins plan to take. Isn't it true that it's worth it to organize a revolutionary movement and join the Progressive Labor Party right now?
Farmworker Member of PLP
The recent Challenge review of the movie, Bulworth, is wrong on some counts. One of the main aspects of Bulworth is its unrelenting attack on both political parties especially the Democrats. Another useful point made by the movie is that the media and the politicians are all in bed with the bosses, in their pay.
The Challenge review makes the point that "the message is we need good politicians like the Kennedys were. We need big government, not small government. We need government to regulate the insurance companies." The review goes on to say that we need a presidential candidate that captures the imagination of black youth, and all youth. Gephardt's name even came up in the movie.
While a number of politicos' names came up in the movie, the movie is critical of the bosses' politicians. It does not make a pitch for liberals or big government. The review makes the point that: how can a movie that's anti-racist, expose corporations and their politicos with "so much energy" not be good? Well, as they say in French, "Don't be afraid to look a gift horse in the mouth." What the review fails to point out is that Senator Bulworth, for all his change of heart from bad to good is assassinated at the end of the movie by the lobbyist for the insurance industry.
While the review makes many good points, like "big government is not on the side of workers." This is true! But it has little or nothing to do with the movie.
Yes, this is a flawed movie. But not necessarily the way the review portrays it. The movie tries to show that youth won to drugs and the drug culture can be won away and turned around. This is clumsily done and does not show the need and possible influence of a mass communist movement.
Near the end of the movie Bulworth and a young black woman become infatuated with each other. She is portrayed as basically a bright, aggressive person, not a stereotypical character. She and Bulworth lovingly embrace and kiss passionately in publicly. This is done to symbolize the need for black and white unity. It's worthwhile to point out that the young black woman is part of the plot to assassinate Bulworth, but is turned around by his sharp anti-racist stand.
Without trying to go into all the ins and outs of the plot of Bulworth, suffice it to say that Bulworth is a good, though imperfect movie. Once in a long while something halfway decent slips through this rotten culture. This could be called an "accident of history;" but more likely within the framework of the capitalist movie industry, it showed some guts by Warren Beatty. Beatty wrote, directed, produced and possibly helped finance the film. Generally, the Challenge review makes the point that all good things in the movie are just tricks to suck workers and others into the system, but this movie can only open up workers to communist politics and alienate them from this system.
Interestingly, Newsday (6/7), a liberal NYC daily, ran a review of Bulworth by the heavy duty anti-communist Ronald Radosh. Radosh never reviews movies. Radosh has written a book saying that the execution of the Rosenbergs by the bosses was more than justified. In Radosh's review of Bulworth, he compares Bulworth to Wag the Dog and Primary Colors. He says, "Yes, these cinematic parables pale next to the ideological fury of Bulworth." Tut, tut.
Obviously, scurvy Radosh believes that Bulworth has gone too far. Among other points, Bulworth calls for socialism, says something to the effect that middle class whites have more in common with blacks than they do with the rich. Maybe Beatty has gone beyond what he intended. Bulworth despite its warts and Beatty's intentions, stands on its own two legs.
Red Movie Goer
I am writing to note an error in an otherwise great letter about an action protesting the ACLU. The communist leader expelled by the ACLU was Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a woman who had been a radical leader since her girlhood when she joined the IWW. Helen Gurley Brown, whose name was given in the letter, was the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. Quite a different person!
The history of the ACLU as a defender of fascists and opponents of workers goes back to before WWII. As early as 1939/40, some leftist lawyers began leaving the ACLU in protest because of its willingness to defend strikebreakers and fascist, anti-union employers like Henry Ford. In the case of strikebreakers, the ACLU called for police protection of them and their right to work. During the McCarthy period, the ACLU was even reluctant to defend the lawyers who were disbarred because they appeared as defense lawyers for the Communist Party leaders indicted under the Smith Act. It is interesting to note that the most pro-"free speech" decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court have come in defense of the rights of fascists to speak, never on the "right" of communists to speak, giving the lie to the existence of free speech in the U.S.
Reader With A Point Of Information
The paper often talks about the crisis of capitalism, sometimes in abstract ways that are difficult for many people to relate to. Yesterday, I read in a daily newspaper that the fate of the U.S. Navy's nuclear garbage (and a look at the working class' future if we don't change things soon) is almost decided. "The tiny west Texas town of Andrews is courting the [napalm] cargo, considering it a surefire economic boon...[Napalm] was used to defoliate [destroy] dense jungles during the Vietnam War....Pictures of screaming [Vietnamese] children soaked with it galvanized the U.S. antiwar movement....But in Andrews, napalm symbolizes jobs," (Wall Street Journal, 5/18).
Talk about the crisis of capitalism! After years of producing nuclear weapons of mass destruction and using them to secure U.S. capitalism in Asian markets, U.S. bosses have nothing better or less productive to offer workers than a shipload of nuclear waste. How degenerate is capitalist society? Capitalism is nuclear waste! It's time that we, the working class, nuke capitalism. We don't need nuclear weapons or waste, we need Communist Revolution!
Chicago Red
The New York Times (5/29) reported the deaths by starvation of two week-old black babies and the arrests of their young mothers for criminally negligent homicide. Both mothers were turned away from routine checkups for the infants at clinics--one because she had no health insurance and the other because she had forgotten her Medicaid card and did not have the $25 to pay. Both were breast-feeding only, and although the families were concerned that the infants were not growing, no one suspected starvation. Even though the authorities said that the deaths were not intentional, they arrested the mothers for being "negligent for failing to seek help for obvious signs or trouble."
When I read this article, I asked myself if these were examples of "creeping fascism," as health care workers follow procedures that lead to workers' deaths. My initial answer was no, the clinic staff may not have realized the babies' conditions, and what happened is standard operating procedure. If you cannot pay for health care, you do not get it, except in overcrowded, understaffed hospital emergency rooms. If your child gets sick, injured, or dies because you could not afford a doctor, or know-how to fight through bureaucratic barriers to get help, or had to leave your child alone while you went to work, you, the victim, gets blamed and sometimes arrested.
Then I began to reflect. As a caseworker in child welfare in NYC, what have I observed recently? Fifteen years ago there was a "placement crisis" in NYC child welfare. So called "boarder" babies, many of them from crack-addicted mothers, languished in hospitals for weeks because of a shortage of foster home beds; teenagers slept on cots in the Emergency Children's Services' (ECS) office because there were not enough facilities for them. Eventually, partly due to publicity resulting from workers' activities through the union, the "crisis" was resolved. Some additional teenage facilities opened; foster mothers got a financial incentive to take in "boarder" babies; and the kinship program where relatives receive foster-care money to care for children in their families was expanded.
In 1997, the "placement crisis" returned. Night after night, teenagers and younger children were, and many still are, sleeping at ECS. This time there has been limited publicity and no union demonstrations. Many group homes for teens have been closed by the private agencies contracted to run them because they were losing money. No new ones have been opened, nor are there plans to open any soon. Instead, the head of Administration for Children's Services (ACS) blames the victims, claiming that many of these children are "mentally disturbed" and should be placed in State mental health facilities, in which there are also no vacancies.
Nicholas Scoppetta, the ACS Commissioner, is a former prosecuting attorney. One of his "innovations" is using "Instant Response Teams," caseworkers and police responding together to child-neglect allegations. Police help the caseworkers remove the children if necessary, and to arrest the parents. Another requires advanced educational requirements for hiring and promotion, enabling the bosses to bypass civil service and further weaken the union. A third is to open foster care contracts to competitive bidding to lower costs.
A hallmark of fascism is intensified racism So I added everything up--poor black mothers turned away from clinics and then arrested. Black and latin children denied services and branded as mentally disturbed. Recruiting "professionals," "competent" in English, to replace current child welfare workers, many of whom are immigrants. "Professionals," in partnership with the police, remove black and latin children and arrest their parents. Child care, now at fixed rates, going to the lowest bidder, means further reductions in services. A union mostly concerned with keeping as many dues-paying members as possible, that does little or nothing to fight these racist attacks on its members and their clients.
At some point, as dialectics teaches us quantity turns into quality. Fascism has more than a foothold in health care and child welfare in NYC. Recognition of this has inspired this letter, but it must also result in an end to a business as usual attitude, and a rededication to spreading communist ideas to co-workers and in the union. In Ten Days That Shook The World, the American communist, John Reed, wrote of a soldier's reply to an intellectual's attempts to confuse him: "There are only two classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and whoever is not on the one side is on the other." We must make this clear to workers, win them away from fascism, towards communism and into PLP.
NYC Child Welfare Comrade
This could be a major catastrophe for U.S. capitalism; Ethiopia is of extreme geopolitical importance. With over 70 million people, it is the second most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa. It borders Somalia, where the U.S. is at odds with political fundamentalist Islamic groups; it borders the Sudan, where the U.S. is backing a group of political Christian rebels in a long, bloody civil war against another political fundamentalist Islamic group; the Southern edge of Ethiopia reaches into Central Africa, where imperialists have killed a half million people in the past year in fighting over important mineral deposits. Ethiopia is a short trip by truck to the coast, where sea routes of vital military importance are vulnerable to attack, and Ethiopia is a short plane ride to most of the major oil deposits in the Middle East. So, the U.S. bosses have much to lose if their enemies come out winning.
In the early 1990's, when the Soviet Union imploded, the fascist government of Colonel Mengistu lost the military support from Moscow. Some members of a minority "ethnic group" from the North--Tigray, which is near Eritrea--played a leadership role in a civil war against Mengistu, with help from members of all "ethnic groups."
After the TPLF (Tigray People's Liberation Front) took power, they immediately granted independence to their good friends in Eritrea. Then TPLF set up another fascist government in Ethiopia based on "ethnic cleansing." They divided the country into regions and appointed different "ethnic" puppet representatives to run those regions. This meant that if a member of the Amhara group lived in an area run by members of a different group, they could suffer severe discrimination. Many Amharas were also fired from their jobs. Newspapers and trade unions have been shut down. Professors and teachers were fired, the militant Ethiopian Teachers Union was disbanded, the president imprisoned and his replacement was gunned down in the street by police. Tens of thousands of people remain in prison, and there are armed uprisings going on in many areas.
Ethiopia has not been one of those countries where ethnic rivalry has been massively violent, but the TPLF government has tried to create ethnic hostility by its policies. Ethiopia is 40% Islamic, although there has not been conflict between Muslims and Christians in Ethiopia. While the Amhara group has been dominant, there has been much intermingling among the people and many, if not most Ethiopians have relatives in various ethnic groups. But these TPFL policies are trying to divide people. The opportunists are trying to take advantage, including some German capitalists who are allying with some Oromos in the South while other capitalists are exploring for oil in the East near Somalia. This problem has been worsened by the policies of the International Monetary Fund, which has forced the Ethiopian government to severely reduce the standards of living for most Ethiopians in the past few years.
This is the basis for a war that began when the Eritrean rulers issued their own currency and decided to stop using the Ethiopian currency. Eritrea then sent troops to claim a border area which they claimed belonged to them. Ethiopia sent troops to protect that land. Now this could turn into a major war that could have repercussions from the Mideast oil wells to the Central African mineral deposits. The U.S. bosses will be the biggest losers because they are despised by everyone, while the winners might be the German bosses, maybe the Iranians, the Chinese, or whoever else might move in to ally with the winners.
All over the world, capitalism bounces from crisis to crisis, and they are piling on top of each other faster and faster--economic crises turning into political crises turning into military crises from South Asia to the Horn of Africa, from Kosovo to Colombia. The working class needs a revolutionary communist leadership to face this dangerous situation. A working class led by the communist PLP could unite all ethnic groups and turn the capitalist war into a revolutionary war. Many in Ethiopia/Eritrea don't like the word "communism" because it was used by the fascist Dergue government to cover up their murder and corruption. Many are blinded by nationalism, either ethnic nationalism or general Ethiopian nationalism. Both lead to more capitalism with its ethnic wars, border wars, starvation, and fascist dictatorship.
The lessons are clear. Few would have predicted that close friends in Ethiopia and Eritrea would go to war. But capitalism does not stand still. Small wars become bigger wars, and new wars break out even among friends. This will continue and intensify from Africa to Asia to Europe to the Americas. Communists must build for communism on the job, in the community, among the youth, and in the military to take capitalism's wars and turn them into communist revolution!
When Selassie was in power, the U.S. bosses controlled him, while the Soviets and Cubans gave military aid to the Eritreans in the name of "self-determination." When the pro-Soviet Dergue overthrew Selassie, the U.S. switched sides, and supported the Eritreans' right of so-called "self-determination" because the Soviets and Cubans were aiding the Dergue in its war against the Eritreans. This shows the dishonesty of all the rhetoric about nationalism and self-determination.
According to an article in The Nation (June 15-22, 1998). U.S. "subcritical" testing is part of a massive Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) that includes new tests, new facilities, giant lasers and super-computers devoted to research and development of nuclear weapons. With projected costs of $45 billion over the next ten years, the U.S. is actually now spending more annually in real dollars on its nuclear arsenal than during the cold war.
The CTBT was not intended to stop any of the big imperialist powers from carrying out nuclear tests. The U.S. and other imperialists are fully and unalterably committed to preparation for nuclear war, and they will not give it up. Arms control and the CTBT are frauds intended to justify efforts to prevent rival states from developing nuclear arsenals and to lull us into believing that there will not be a nuclear war.
As the global crisis of capitalism spreads and deepens, as imperialist rivals move from economic to military competition, as they attempt to mobilize people with nationalist fascist movements, as they form rival blocs to fight for a re-division of the world, they will use the nuclear weapons they are currently spending billions to improve. We have a responsibility to explain the big picture to all those around us. To take nuclear weapons and state power out of the hands of the imperialist bosses, we must build a mass revolutionary movement of workers, including the working class youth in the military. When the imperialists begin this nuclear slaughter, we will rid the earth not only of nuclear weapons but of the capitalist classes that have developed them.