Index:
Bold PLP Leadership Shows Big Bosses Pull The Trigger Of Their Killer Cops -- Build A Mass Communist Movement To Smash Police Terror!
Answer The Ford Rouge Blast And UAW Hacks With Strikes, May Day March
Steel Workers Plan Contract Fight¾ Reject Uswa Nationalism
Jesse And Wall St. Won’t End Boeing’s Discrimination… March On May Day-Strike Against Prison Labor
Fighting For Communism In The Reform Movement
Baseball, Death In The Mona Channel And Mass Strikes
Death Of Old Communist Movement Source Of Capitalist Maneuverability -- New Powerful Communist Movement Needed!
Coming Soon From Hollyood: The Revival Of A Fink -- Protest At The Oscars: No Award For Rat Kazan
They Rejected Robeson In Life, Claim Him In Death: Bourgeoisie Rewrites History: Lies, Lies, Lies
LETTERS
Parents Attack Racist Research
Help Students Understand The World To Change It
Truman Show Rejects Concept Of God
Workers Revolution, Not Y2k, Will Crash System
Crush Racist
Police Terror! March On May Day!
Bold Plp Leadership Shows Big Bosses Pull The Trigger
Of Their Killer Cops
The NY Times claims it wasn’t clear why the cops opened fire on this young man, "without any criminal record." But it’s very clear to us. The cops have been given a green light to hunt down black and Latin workers and youth by Clinton’s new police initiatives and by NYC Mayor Giuliani and police chief Safir. These cops have been involved in gunning down workers before. One of them Kenneth Boss shot a teenager in Brooklyn in 1997 named Patrick Bailey. Bailey was shot 7 times by Boss, left for dead in his basement and bled to death. All charges against Boss had been dropped.
They want to terrorize workers from rebelling. This murder occurred only six blocks from where Jose Luis Zarate was slain last August. Because of our struggle around that murder, the Party already has a history in that community.
While the liberal rulers’ representative Al Sharpton was meeting and courting the media and planning a Sunday vigil to misdirect the anger of the workers, the PLP was on the street organizing the first demonstration against this fascist murder. Friday morning we learned that the people cooking for our Flatbush neighborhood May Day Dinner knew members of the Diallo family. Friday afternoon we were visiting cousins of the family in Brooklyn to express our outrage at this murder.
Meanwhile, on Friday evening in the Bronx, we visited the friends and family of Amadou carrying Challenges and leaflets. While some of the PLP members were inside talking with family and friends of Amadou, others were leafleting and organizing for a demonstration the next day.
On Saturday, Party members and friends had a demonstration that began small. As we expressed our anger towards the on-going slaughter of our brothers and sisters, fellow workers and students began to participate. Several joined our picket line, and others spoke on our bullhorn. People passing on the street stopped, asked for flyers and Challenges, and stayed to join our chants and hear the speeches. Some of them remembered us from the struggle around Jose Luis’ murder. The Zarate family was outraged enough by this murder to join us on the picket line. Dozens of cops surrounded the line, but rather than intimidating the people in and around the demonstration, they added to everybody’s anger.
At first we felt unsure of ourselves because of the small numbers, but as people joined, we felt stronger and more confident in our ability to lead the struggle. When the demonstration ended, 60 people marched with us to Amadou’s home. People interested in continuing the fight lined up to give us their phone numbers. We obtained many contacts, distributed 450 Challenges and 500 leaflets that day. We also collected over $100 in donations for the Diallo family. Three comrades delivered the money to the family and received a warm thank you as we gave them Challenges and leaflets. They asked us to come to a vigil against police brutality the next day, organized by Al Sharpton and other groups.
On Sunday, we attended the vigil of 2,500 workers and students. We distributed all the 500 Challenges we brought and 600 leaflets in 30 minutes. We used our bullhorn to lead more class conscious and militant chants. All of us marched into the crowd chanting, "The Cops Mean—Fight Back! Racism Means—Fight Back! Fascism Means—Fight Back!"
The subdued crowd became fired up by our enthusiastic chants and class hatred towards the cops. Fists shot up in the air as we moved into the center of the demonstration. The three comrades in charge of the bullhorn were pushed up to the front of the demonstration by enthusiastic chanters. The vigil organizers did not bring very powerful sound equipment. They wanted our bullhorn. We made it clear we would not simply hand it over.
When Sharpton saw this was the case, he signaled for the PLP chanter to come up with the bullhorn. This wasn’t so easy. A few nationalists did not want any white person to speak. They were preventing the comrade from approaching. Friends and family of Amadou stepped in front of the nationalists and pushed the comrade through. He stepped in front of Sharpton and declared:
"On behalf of the Progressive Labor Party, we would like to send our deepest sympathies and condolences to the friends and family of Amadou Diallo. This murder is an outrage! All of these police murders are an outrage and we must fight back! When they kill a black worker, they are guilty! When they kill a white worker, they are guilty! When they kill a Latin worker they are guilty! Together we will [the crowd chants] ‘Fight Back! Black and Latin, ‘Fight Back!’ Asian and White, ‘Fight Back!’ Fight Back! ‘Fight Back!’ "
Afterwards, the comrade was greeted with hugs and handshakes from many workers around him. A leader of a Muslim group gave him his phone number and a brother of Amadou guaranteed that we got our bullhorn back in one piece. While this was happening, other comrades were continuing to lead chants and talk with demonstrators.
We are learning important lessons. One of the main strengths of this struggle was our almost immediate response, which established us as fighters against fascism. Our previous work in this community only strengthened this new fight. Everything we do counts. We must answer every racist and fascist attack. This is the way PLP is becoming a revolutionary communist alternative to the bosses’ growing racist/fascist terror.
This is also the way we can counter the nationalist and racist forces which try to divide our class and exonerate capitalism from being the main force behind racist killings. We boldly and militantly, with our leaflets, signs and banners made clear that only communist revolution would stop these fascist attacks. We did this while allowing people with other points of view on the bullhorn, expressing outrage towards the cops.
As we immerse ourselves in class struggle, we are evaluating our strengths and weaknesses, to improve our ability to win fellow workers and students in our unions, schools, churches, neighborhoods, workplaces, etc. to join with us in this fight. In the midst of struggles like this, we learn how to better put forward our communist politics and build a mass fighting red PLP. May Day promises to be a real militant show of anti-racist, anti-capitalist and communist show of force of the working class and its allies.
Build A Mass Communist Movement To Smash Police Terror!
Words cannot describe the brutal, cold-blooded racist murder of 22-year-old Amadou Diallo by four NYC cops. They gunned him down on February 4th in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building, after he had worked a 12-hour day. He was unarmed. He had no criminal record. He died in a hail of 41 bullets. Two of the four murderers emptied their clips at him. Three of the killers are back on the streets, armed and dangerous.
Capitalism is in the business of mass murder and racist terror. It’s not an accident. It’s the law of class society. The cops are the hired guns of the racist rulers, and as long as they hold power, the bodies will continue to pile up. Their mounting crisis forces them to rule through increasing fascist terror here and around the world. Only communist revolution, which leads millions of workers, soldiers, and youth to rip power from the hands of racist billionaires, will end racism and fascist terror. Only building a mass PLP can bring about this revolution.
Liberal Politicians Are The Main Enemy Of Workers And Of Revolution
Racist NYC Mayor Giuliani’s shoot-to-kill policy gave Amadou Diallo’s butchers their orders. He has put a target on the back of every black and Latin worker and youth, unleashing the cops like rabid dogs. The squeegee men and homeless are out of eye sight, replaced by an army of 35,000 WEP slave laborers, doing city jobs for their welfare checks.
Behind Giuliani’s rein of mass terror is George Kelling, a Rutgers professor with Harvard Kennedy School ties. What the liberals, and Kelling, really want is for us to welcome our own oppression. Kelling calls it, "community policing." He wants "new forms of collaboration among police organizations, criminal justice agencies, other government agencies, service agencies, the private sector, and religious communities (From his speech in Washington, DC 12/2/97)." In other words, a police state.
But these are not just Giuliani’s cops. They are Clinton’s cops. They are Jesse Jackson’s cops. They are the NAACP’s cops. And, according to Clinton’s State of the Union speech, there are 50,000 more on the way. The same "horrified" liberal politicians calling for a Federal investigation into Amadou’s murder, are the ones who just put 100,000 killer cops on the streets. They wiped out welfare. They carry out mass deportations of immigrant workers. They have turned the schools into jails and filled the prisons. They are launching daily bombing raids and provocations in preparation for a probable massive ground war against Iraq.
We can’t be fooled by the liberal politicians, media and mass leaders, who are attacking Giuliani and the four killer cops. They will once again call for "police reform." But the bosses’ cops can’t be reformed. A boss is a boss, and a cop is a cop. They are the main enemy of the revolutionary movement. Their job is to stifle mass militancy and to keep workers and youth away from PLP.
From Iraq, to the Bronx, to the Ford plant in Detroit, the fascist rulers can get away with murder because there is currently no mass revolutionary communist movement to Challenge them. Thirty years ago, things were quite different.
When the Vietnamese were grinding the U.S. military into the mud, they inspired strikes, rebellions, and armed struggle around the world. In 1967, when thousands of black workers took up guns in Detroit against racist unemployment and police terror, Mao and the Chinese Communist Party issued a statement heard around the world, "We Support Your Struggle!" When LBJ tried to stop striking GE workers, claiming they were hurting the war effort and the national interest, the banners on the picket lines read, "Screw the National Interest!"
Fearing the masses and their openness to communist revolution, the rulers hired 100,000 black workers into the auto industry, created massive anti-poverty programs, opened up the universities, and created a cadre of black politicians and cops to retake control of the cities. But internal political weaknesses turned the old communist movement into its opposite and created mass cynicism among the world’s workers. At the same time, world capitalism has been gripped by a global crisis that has the whole economic and political order hanging by a thread. As the rulers prepare for another world war, they can attack the workers with their entire arsenal, including mass terror, without any significant response. Now all they have to worry about is former police snitch Al Sharpton looking for votes.
The revolutionary communist movement has, and will again, inspire millions to mass heroism and the seizure of power. We can’t wring our hands because the old movement is dead. We must embrace its contributions, and reject its mistakes. The main mistake was not having enough confidence in the workers to embrace communism and fight for it.
PLP was first in the streets to respond to Amadou’s murder [See article this issue]. We are organizing our coworkers and students to raise calls for action in the unions and mass organizations, against racist police terror. By taking this fight into the mass organizations, we can make communist ideas mass ideas. What would it mean to have students and workers shut down their jobs and schools, move into the streets, and march on City Hall or police headquarters? That would not just be a bold response to racist terror; it would be a rehearsal for revolution.
Out of all this activity, we are building the forces for communist revolution. Everyone who participates with us, is a potential May Day organizer. A mass May Day, and a stronger, bolder PLP, brings us closer to the day when the racist murderers face workers’ justice!
May Day Dinner: Making Flatbush A Red Zone
Flatbush May Day Dinner A Big Victory!
BROOKLYN, NY, Feb. 8 ¾ The Flatbush, Brooklyn, area PLP held a successful May Day kick-off dinner over the weekend, attended by over 70 people. Parents, teachers, students and other school staff were enthusiastic about the need to make May Day a mass event in our area and to continue giving leadership in the schools to the fight against police terror.
The spirit of the evening was high as we heard reports about the Party’s immediate response to the savage murder of a West African worker, Amadou Diallo, gunned down by the NYPD. We talked about the necessity of linking the increased role of the police in the schools with this latest murder. A security guard explained how the NYPD was training them to go along with "the blue wall of silence," and agreed to help organize for May Day. One student spoke about the campaign in the schools to oppose the cops and why we must continue that campaign even more now! Another speaker talked about the crisis of capitalism worldwide and the necessity for us to build PLP¾ everyone took lots of May Day tickets and Challenges.
The dinner was inspirational for many reasons. It showed the readiness of many high school students to organize events that will help insure the growth of the Party. It was an event that really represented the community, with students from many local high schools. Flatbush is truly becoming an area where our Party has a tremendous base and influence. Through organizing the dinner as well as the protests with the Daillo family in the Bronx, young PLP comrades have shown that the revolutionary spirit of the working class is alive and well in Brooklyn!
150 Attend Forum Debunking Racist Violence Initiative
NEW YORK CITY, Feb. 7 ¾ 150 students and community residents attended a forum last Sunday sponsored by a group called the Coalition Against Violence Initiative. The forum debunked the phony science coming from the psychiatry department at Columbia University, where they are attempting to "prove" that violence comes from biological defects in the brains of black and Latin children. A panel of anti-racist scientists and clinicians presented a well-rounded attack on the racist psychiatrists, who had refused an invitation to participate in the discussion. The Coalition is to be commended for presenting a view of fascism and how to fight it.
The speakers pointed out that millions of children are misdiagnosed with ill-defined "diseases", such as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and conduct disorders. Although the criteria for these disorders describe behavior which almost every child exhibits at some time and which is usually explainable by environmental stresses, 3% or more of American children are medicated, usually with Ritalin, which "calms them down" rather than solving their problems. The next speaker pointed out that it is cortex, the thinking part of the brain, which determines behavior, not the neurotransmitters, or messenger chemicals, which are released from the primitive areas of the brain. The Columbia "scientists" claim that a single measurement of the level of one such transmitter can explain and predict complex behavior like violence.
A pediatrician exposed the unethical nature of experimentation on young children, which does them no good, may be harmful and is forbidden by every code of medical ethics. Lastly, a genetic historian traced the long history of bio-determinism, the "science" of blaming society’s problems on the "defects" of its weakest members, be they immigrants, the poor, or members of minority groups. For the last one hundred years, various bio-deterministic theories have flourished in the U.S. The Nazis relied on American "science" in this area to justify their policies of racial superiority and genocide. In fact, it was the psychiatrists in Germany who led the way, by killing thousands of disabled children and adults long before the concentration camps came to be.
It is this same fascist mentality which is growing in the U.S. today, again fueled by economic decline and the need for war to maintain the bosses’ profits. Racist terror runs rampant. The forum participants were urged to protest the police murder of Amadou Diallo. As wages fall, unemployment grows, social services are cut, and more manpower is needed to fight wars for oil, social problems must once again be blamed on the must vulnerable members of society. Once the black and Latin children have been labeled as the cause of the problem, there is no need for more schools or jobs, only more prisons, cops, and controlling drugs. So blind are the perpetrators of this fascist science to the ability of workers to criticize and resist their "science" that several dared to speak from the audience about the inadequacy of the panelists. Rather than defend their ideas, they accused the Coalition of attacking their cars! Dr. Shaffer, Chief of Child Psychiatry Research, was "shocked" that his fellow academics could "sink so low" as to compare his work to that of the Nazis. A black scientist defended research intervention for "her people." This idea, whether deliberately or naively advocated, is very dangerous. It leads to delivering black and Latin workers and youth into the jaws of fascism. History has taught us the example of the Judenrat in Nazi Germany. " The Judenrat were a group of Jews who delivered their fellow Jews to the killing machine. The audience wisely rejected this call for fascism.
Many were inspired to organize more parents and students to resist this racist bio-determinist "anti-science" in the words of one panelist. Moreover, the weakness and confusion of the adversary was apparent, although we should not underestimate the determination of powerful institutions like Columbia and the NY State Psychiatric establishment to oppose and intimidate us. Even if the group does succeed in ending research like this in New York City, it is going on all over the country in prominent medical institutions because it is necessary to the ruling class in the midst of a turn to fascism. With our friends, PLP’ers will probe the history of fascism and its root causes in capitalist crises. Over time today’s anti-fascists will see the historical necessity to build a mass communist Party to destroy fascism by making revolution for workers’ power.
Answer The Ford Rouge Blast And UAW Hacks With Strikes, May Day March
DETROIT, Feb. 8 — The Oklahoma City bombers have nothing on Ford and the UAW. The explosion that ripped through Ford’s Rouge power plant on Feb. 1st, killed two and injured about 30 workers, 14 critically. Some have burns over 90% of their bodies. Others have severe lung damage. Those who survive will require multiple surgeries and painful skin grafts. By the time you read this, the death toll may have increased. The only thing worse has been the response of the UAW.
While hundreds of Ford workers, their families and friends crammed into UAW Local 600’s union hall to donate blood, UAW leaders at Solidarity House praised Ford for its "commitment to health and safety," even before state inspectors could determine the cause of the blast! To add insult to injury, the scab Detroit News (which pulled out all stops to crush the Detroit newspaper strike, hiring scabs and firing and arresting strikers) applauded the UAW for its praise of Ford.
State inspectors determined that the "furnace explosion" was caused by a gas build-up in a boiler built in 1965, one of the newer ones in the 80-year-old power plant. Some date back to the 1930’s. The blast split open the 60-foot boiler, setting off a series of explosions and sending super-heated water and debris crashing through the third floor. Besides killing and injuring those working on the boiler, the blast critically injured workers in the control room, lunch room and other areas. Many questions still remain, including what caused the gas build-up.
The UAW has no choice but to cover for Ford. It is as responsible for the rotten and dangerous conditions as the boss. For the past 20 years, the UAW and Ford have teamed up to slash jobs, destroy work rules and speed up production. The Ford workforce is about half of what it was in 1980, production is skyrocketing and Ford’s profits have soared through the roof. Last year alone, Ford cut $2.2 billion in operating costs and wiped out 9,000 jobs. Through it all, the UAW made sure that every cutback and shop-floor attack went smoothly. Beyond the shop floor, Ford has given millions to politicians, like Michigan Governor Engler, who have slashed federal and state Occupational Safety and Health agencies to little more than offices with letterheads.
They have used their billions in profits to increase automation, build highly-automated plants in Mexico, in other low-wage havens, and buy up all or part of Nissan, Mazda, Jaguar, and Lamborghini. They just spent $6.5 billion buying Volvo, and are trying to gobble up BMW. How much have they spent on health and safety? On new boilers? If the union attacked Ford for the power plant disaster, it would have to confess its own responsibility. Never happen.
What can we expect from a union leadership that applauds the bosses while our brothers and sisters are carried out in body bags? What does this mean for the contract next September? The bodies are piling up as the bosses and their union frontmen struggle to survive the deepening global crisis of overproduction. Although not on the same scale, Dearborn is another place where the bosses are killing workers, like in Kosovo, Iraq, Rwanda, and other places. The bosses are getting away with murdering workers because there is no mass revolutionary movement to Challenge them. Building PLP and a mass May Day will help change this situation. The Rouge blast will not be forgotten. May Day and the September contract offers us a way to respond.
Steel Workers Plan Contract Fight¾ Reject Uswa Nationalism
Dear Challenge:
Rank-and-file steelworkers are starting to stir, and organize for the coming contract talks. The steel contracts expire next August. Workers in the mills keep asking each other, "What have you heard about the contract? What are they going to do?" At a recent meeting of steel workers, one brother said, "It’s not what are they going to do, it’s what are we going to do?"
Workers had a very spirited meeting, with discussions that ranged from two-tier wage and benefit contracts, to the "warning strikes" of 220,000 auto and steelworkers in Germany last week. One worker said that the contract would probably include early retirements, a two-tier wage system and no job security clause. A two-tier benefit system already exists in the mills in the form of different pensions and vacation time. This is an example of how the bosses plan to get more for less, the main trend in all basic industry. Someone said that older workers don’t seem to be concerned about this inequality and that this same attitude exists about overtime. We all realized that "I’ve got mine" maybe good for the bosses, but bad for workers.
We talked about the recent explosion at the Ford plant in Detroit, and how steel injuries and fatalities were at an all time high. This is because the steel bosses are cutting costs and increasing productivity to survive the crisis of overproduction. The black, Latin, and white workers were concerned about their futures and the global crisis that has gripped the steel industry.
There was some discussion about the USW’s (United SteelWorkers) "Stand Up for Steel" campaign. While the union and industry demand limits on steel imports to "protect American jobs," the bosses are buying foreign flat-rolled unfinished steel, and finishing it out in area mills. One worker reported that the president of the Korean steel union was sentenced to two years in prison for organizing a two-day strike. He said, "We ought to be uniting with these Korean workers, not marching for the steel bosses."
Another "Stand Up" rally is being held in Washington, DC, this week, but the union brings workers "by invitation only." Most workers know nothing about the planned rallies, where we might be able to confront the union leaders and struggle with the workers to reject the bosses’ patriotic crap. One worker reported that at his mill, the union got the company to agree to supply a bus to Washington, which they canceled just days before the rally. We will do more investigating and get more involved in the campaign.
The main struggle occurred over the question of "What can we do?" While one worker said we should run candidates for union office, most felt that the union was a dead-end right now. One said, "You don’t go to the union by yourself, you go with about 200 and then say what you have to say." We all agreed that organizing our co-workers was the main task facing us. We agreed to get out a newsletter that deals with issues in the mills, but also broadens the workers’ outlook, with reports from steel workers around the world, building international solidarity, and prepares for a strike next August. Regular meetings and a regular newsletter will give us a voice to speak to and mobilize thousands of steelworkers.
While we try to lead workers into sharper struggle against the bosses and union leadership, we have our sights set on bringing a steel contingent to May Day at the White House, and to establishing more PLP steel clubs in the mills.
Red Steel Worker
Jesse And Wall St. Won’t End Boeing’s Discrimination… March On May Day-Strike Against Prison Labor
SEATTLE, Feb. 5 ¾ Two weeks ago, Jesse Jackson and Boeing CEO Phil Condit announced a $15 million settlement of two discrimination lawsuits. The 264 named plaintiffs will share $3.8 million; $3.5 million will go to about 20,000 past and present black employees. The rest of the settlement will go to lawyers, diversity training (which the company already pays for) and other settlement-related costs. Texaco paid $176 million to settle their anti-discrimination suit because they stepped on the toes of Rockefeller and Co., the very people that run Boeing’s Board of Directors. Boeing got off cheap considering the billions they make off of racism. Condit and Co. hope to buy "labor peace," for the cheapest price possible, as auto, steel and aerospace contracts expire next Fall.
In the settlement, Boeing denies "any pattern or practice of racial discrimination." and admits no wrong-doing. "That tells you right there, we can expect more racism in the future," said a Boeing veteran of many anti-racist fights. The NY Times reported, "[Jackson] was eager to go beyond the case to other issues, such as getting Boeing to appoint a ‘person of color’ to its board of directors." The last "person of color" on the Boeing Board was Franklin Raines, who left to become Clinton’s budget director and led the racist attack on welfare, creating a huge pool of slave labor. With friends like these, who needs enemies?!
Sucking-Up To Wall Street
The week before the settlement, Jackson hosted his second Wall Street Project conference in New York City, sponsored by Wall Street’s biggest, including a generous donation by Boeing. "Sharecroppers are becoming shareholders," babbled Jackson. "We are taking our battle from the picket line to the board room." Richard Grasso, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, told Jesse’s pal Clinton, "Dr. King was surely smiling down on this gathering (of racist billionaires)."
When thousands of black workers, along with tens of thousands of other Boeing workers get laid off this year, will Jackson tell us to buy Boeing stock? When thousands of black auto workers were laid off during the early years of Operation PUSH, Jackson told these workers to buy shares in the auto companies. Jackson said at the time, "Blacks need trade, not aid," a phrase he resurrected for the Wall Street conference. Maybe Boeing’s prison laborers at the Washington State Reformatory can go from "slave laborers to share holders," too!
Communist Revolution: Only Way To End Racism
The U.S. imperialist empire rests on the super-profits made from racism. In the 1984, U.S. corporations made about $240 billion off racist pay differentials¾ making up about one-third of corporate profits. When you add the $94 billion per year from the super-exploitation of workers in other countries and the downward pressure on all wages caused by these sources of lower-cost labor, racism becomes decisive, particularly in this time of crisis and increased competition. The $15 million settlement is just the "cost of doing business."
Racism will intensify as long as we live under capitalism, a system that exists to make maximum profits. More importantly, racism is crucial politically as the worldwide crisis of capitalism forces the bosses to fascism, at home, and racist war, abroad. But the rulers’ need for increased racism may well be their Achilles’ heel.
To get rid of racism, we have to get rid of the system that invented the race. Communism will smash wage slavery. Workers power requires the defeat of racism-the ultimate divide and conquer strategy. Fighting racism is necessary to prepare to seize power.
Back To the Picket Line; On To The Revolution!
We are mobilizing for a strike when our contract expires next September, helping to circulate a petition to make Boeing’s racist use of prison labor a key contract demand. This petition demands Jesse Jackson confront the Boeing Board about using slave labor while they lay off 48,000 workers. We are also sending a delegation of Boeing workers to May Day in San Francisco. Strikes, May Day, and anti-racist struggle: the things that build the revolutionary movement!
Fighting For Communism In The Reform Movement
EL SALVADOR ¾ "Whoever takes power in 1999, whether on the left or the right, has to make his priority cutting the public sector, at whatever cost," said the president of the World Bank, Enrique Iglesias. The government, led by the political party, Arena, following the strategy of the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, intends to lay off 100,000 government workers. If we include the workers’ families, this means leaving 600,000 workers without any means of existence.
Arena’s government is putting public services into private hands, thus denying social welfare services to the working class. Only those who can pay for these services would be able to get them. This means that if workers can’t pay for health care, the government says, "let them die;" if they don’t have money to pay for his children’s’ education, "let them be illiterate."
The government has announced that these austerity measures will begin in the first half of 1999. To implement this, the World Bank, representing the capitalists of the world, has given the Arena government $360 million, $70 million of which will be given in advance, for the creation of the Executive committee for this project.
The working class, organized in the Movement of Integrated Labor Organizations, began a campaign to expose this plan for the different state offices in the Western part of the country. The goal was to unify the workers to fight against these attacks and against the rotten capitalist system. But we also wanted them to feel that, united, we can confront murderous capitalism. We also want to show that none of the candidates for president represent the interests of the working class.
Capitalism has never guaranteed the needs of the working class. That’s why we who work are the only ones who can guarantee a decent, honorable life free of poverty. We can only achieve this in a society where power is in the hands of the working class and not in the hands of the capitalists. This society is communism. Under communism, there will be no exploitation. We will all share the abundance or the scarcity produced by our own hands. It will be the opposite of way things are today, where we workers produce everything, but nothing is ours. Everything belongs to the capitalist bosses¾ these same people who are denying us health, education, housing, etc., putting rotten money as the obstacle.
Under communism, there won’t be the need for money. We will all have our needs met, because we the workers will control what we produce and for whom we produce, but for certain there won’t be any profits for the rotten bosses because they won’t exist under communism. There will only be the dictatorship of the working class.
Baseball, Death In The Mona Channel And Mass Strikes
SANTO DOMINGO, Feb. 8 — What could have been a day of celebration, because of the victory of the local Licey Tigers against the Mayagüez Indians of Puerto Rico in the deciding game of the Caribbean Baseball Series championship, turned into a day of sadness on this baseball-loving island. Today, a Filipino cargo ship rescued the 22 survivors of a marooned boat taking 37 people to Puerto Rico. Fourteen others died of dehydration as the engine of the small boat went dead in the middle of what is usually a short but dangerous trip crossing the Mona channel separating Dominican Republic from Puerto Rico. Many of the survivors are on the critical list.
In the last decade or so, hundreds, if not thousands, have died on the same trip. Sometimes they are thrown overboard by greedy smugglers; other times their small boats are so full they capsize. Most of those who make it (if they are not caught by the vicious INS) continue their trip to New York to end up being super-exploited there.
Three years ago, many people in the Dominican Republic thought their lot would improve, saying give the new "young" social-democratic President, Leonel Fernández, a chance to build the "modern" society his party promised in the elections. Three years later very little has changed. Even one of the government reforms, a free breakfast program for students, turned into its opposite when hundreds of children got food poisoning last month because of contaminated milk.
The same day this boat tragedy happened, nationwide strikes by doctors and teachers demanding higher wages shut down all the public health facilities and schools. Mass protests were also organized against the government. Some are led by other capitalist parties as a way of winning mass support for themselves for the 2000 elections, but most reflect the anger and frustrations workers and youth feel about the misery and mass unemployment that force so many thousands to risk their lives crossing the Mona Channel.
From Washington to Santo Domingo, the worldwide crisis of capitalism has sharpened the dogfight among bosses over the "right" to be the main exploiters of workers. The latest fight is over the control of the Municipal League, which controls the country’s mayoralties. This caused a shootout between different supporters of the leading capitalist parties; the Merengue singer, Johnny Ventura, now Mayor of Santo Domingo, and a member of the opposition PRD party, was beaten up.
Although the PLP grouping here is immersed in many working-class struggles, we need to be more involved, to grow and become a mass revolutionary alternative to the decay and murder that capitalism represents.
Death Of Old Communist Movement Source Of Capitalist Maneuverability -- New Powerful Communist Movement Needed!
In the February 10th Challenge editorial there was a reference to the "maneuverability" of U. S capitalism. It is worthwhile to briefly examine the main source of this "maneuverability." The rulers and their Clinton gang love referring to this period as the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. Some go even further, claiming the rulers have eliminated the "bust" aspect of the (correct) "boom-and-bust" description of capitalism.
This is probably one of the better economic periods—for the bosses. However, the "boom-and-bust" process is still the prevailing mode of capitalism. It’s no coincidence that this "up" period—for the bosses—occurs alongside the total collapse of the Soviet Union and the death of communist leadership in China. These self-inflicted political defeats fully returned capitalism to the Soviet Union and China. These defeats temporarily closed the door on the international communist movement. This is the prime source of the "maneuverability" of capitalism.
The following are some of the benefits for the imperialists growing out of the demise of the old communist movement:
· The U.S. rulers and other bosses have used this development to spread enormous cynicism and defeatism along all workers and others. Their claim that "communism doesn’t work" has gained momentary acceptance. The parallel claim that capitalism is the best of all possible worlds is stridently bellowed from the heavens.
· While, as the last Challenge editorial indicated, the death of the old communist movement has spawned a new one, the betrayers of communism have momentarily robbed the international working class of powerful inspiration, allies, goals and leadership. This enables the ruling class to more easily oppress the workers. It translates into enormous profits for the bosses. A recent Challenge article describes how, in this period, the rulers can extract more surplus value (unpaid labor) from the backs of the workers.
· The collapse of the Soviet Union and end of communist leadership in China has reopened vast areas for plunder by the U.S. bosses and other capitalists. Since the end of World War II, the former Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent China, were in sharp competition with the U.S. all over the world, especially in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. This competition usually included military, economic and political influence or outright Soviet control. In today’s world, the U.S. has "open sesame," even in Vietnam, where Nike/Michael Jordan super-exploit tens of thousands of workers.
· German and U.S. imperialists are now having an investment and profit field day in Eastern Europe, which used to be the private preserve of the Soviet Union. China is no longer the inspiration and model for various revolutionary movements. There is no question that both China and the Soviets were part of the impetus for many National Liberation movements and wars as in Vietnam and many countries in Africa. These wars were weak politically, but were extremely costly to U.S. imperialism. Soviet military and economic investments in the Middle East helped force many U.S concessions to a host of Mideast countries. Soviet influence and military and support in that region resulted in local nationalists getting a larger share of the oil revenue.
· Soviet and U.S. competition led to a huge, costly arms race. This has basically ended in the former Soviet Union. The once powerful Soviet military force couldn't get out of its own way in Afghanistan and later in Chechnya. During the past decade the U.S, has cut back its enormous military. It’s only in the latest proposed Clinton budget that, for the first time in some years, there is a very small increase in the arms budget.
These things and some others have given the U.S. more leeway in the economic and political arena. This has led to a slowdown in the revolutionary process as well as in the U.S. capitalist "Boom-and-Bust" development.
So for a relatively short time contradictions in the U.S economic system have been blunted. But this period is drawing to a close. AS the last Challenge editorial stated, the current capitalist crisis of overproduction will sooner rather than later take its full toll on the U.S economy. But we can't simply rely on that. Capitalism is vulnerable. It won’t collapse of its own weight. Scores of opportunities are present. Many more will open up as U.S. economic contradictions hit home. Building a mass fighting communist PLP is the best way to speed that process.
Coming Soon From Hollyood: The Revival Of A Fink -- Protest At The Oscars: No Award For Rat Kazan
This year, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences will give a "life time achievement award" to Elia Kazan, a spineless screenwriter who turned in fellow members of the Communist Party to HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee) and then called on others to do the same. Thus Kazan helped the government ruin the careers of many. As last week’s Challenge explained, Kazan’s most famous movie, On the Waterfront makes the slimy informer into a hero.
The attack on the communists and communist sympathizers in Hollywood was part of the U.S. rulers’ attack on the international communist movement, and their fight to become the number one imperialist power in the world. They attacked anti-racists and the unions, kicking out militant communists and communist sympathizers. This prepared the way for the Cold War and for the slaughter of millions of workers in Latin America, Africa and Asia by U.S. imperialism.
According to the book Film in the Battle of Ideas, by John Howard Lawson, in 1947, HUAC defined evidence of communist ideology in films as: "portraying a rich person as the villain, criticizing members of Congress, or showing a discharged soldier dissatisfied with his prospects." (p. 12). Many of the movies communists were involved in put forward an anti-racist position. Movies in 1947 needed to conform to U.S. foreign policy. It was especially important to the bosses that soldiers (in those years, soldiers going to the Korean war) be won to fighting for them.
Why is Kazan getting this award in 1999? It’s not that the blacklisted have forgotten. They have not. The U.S. bosses today need movies that build patriotism, and win soldiers and others to defend their interests from the Middle East to Bosnia to New York City. As in banking and the oil business, the top bosses are consolidating their hold on the "ideology" business. They need their film industry to push racism, cynicism and anti-communism, as the Nazi’s used their film industry.
The "rethinking of McCarthyism" is combined with increasing racist police terror, fascist experimentation on black and Latin youth, attacks on immigrants, plans for a ground war in the Middle East, layoffs and prison labor. It comes with the passage of the 1996 Anti-Terrorism bill, making it a crime to support anti-fascist movements around the world. It comes as the Academy is making more movies which glorify U.S. imperialism. Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan made a white history teacher into a hero in world War II. This movie did not prettify war, but it showed that the honorable thing to do, once you’re in the a war, is to carry out orders, with your fellow soldiers. The movie says there’s no point in thinking about the big picture (why they are there). The best one can do is defend your buddies and hope to get out alive. The bosses plan to have their lackeys in Hollywood make more movies justifying fighting for their empire.
A number of groups are planning a protest at the Oscars on March 21st against giving an award to fink Kazan, to protest the Anti-Terrorism bill, the revival of McCarthyism, and the jailing of black youth. PLP will be there, calling on workers to build the movement for communist revolution to destroy the bosses’ racism, fascism and wars. How can a filmmaker, a worker or a schoolteacher be free to say the truth openly as long as the entire wealth of the world is in the hands of a few greedy bloodsuckers who steal and murder legally? Only the dictatorship of the proletariat¾ communism¾ can bring real freedom to the majority of the world’s population, building a society based on our needs without any racist rulers and their goons and snitches.
This May Day, PLP will march promising the working class and their allies a lifetime of struggle against capitalism to build a new world. Join us from San Francisco to Washington, DC to Mexico City to El Salvador.
They Rejected Robeson In Life, Claim Him In Death: Bourgeoisie Rewrites History: Lies, Lies, Lies
Paul Robeson must be rolling over in his grave. Tributes to him at Carnegie Hall and Columbia Law School recently have both tried to hide Robeson’s communist past. These events must serve as reminders to all workers and students the number one rule when the bourgeoisie writes history: LIE, LIE, LIE.
At both events the PLP was there to remind the attendees of the truth. First Nelson Rockefeller organizes a tribute to him at Carnegie Hall which we leafleted. Columbia Law School invited Cornell West to open a yearly lecture series under Paul Robeson’s name.
West is the ultimate post-modern speaker: there is no clear analysis of anything given, but the mumbo-jumbo about "the soul" and "society" have great form. Still, his service to the ruling class was crystal clear when he called Robeson’s allegiance to Stalin and the Soviet Union a "mistake." Near the end of his talk Cornell West said that, like Robeson, he was disappointed that racism and exploitation still exist in America and that maybe he had been duped, but that he still believed in reform. A voice shouted out that he had been duped, and that what we needed was revolution.
PLP carried out a modest offensive during the question/answer period, with the first question being a demand that West retract his anti-communist statements. He accepted criticism for "overlooking" Robeson’s role in the anti-fascist movement. We pointed out that it was the Soviet Union, which West said it was "a mistake" for Robeson to ally with, that crushed the Nazis. He refused to retract his anti-communist statements, of course, but his grip on the audience was weakened a bit. Next a non-PLP speaker very sharply asked West how he reconciled working for imperialist Harvard with his "struggle" rhetoric. Other PLP speakers went on to remind West and the audience that Robeson’s life should not be remembered by his later years, but rather for his vibrant and strong period of leadership. West was focusing on Robeson and all oppressed people dealing with "death." Finally, a third PLP speaker reminded West and the audience that at Robeson’s funeral he was eulogized by Ossie Davis as "our socialist man" and that his commitment to communism was in fact central to who Robeson was. This speaker also made the point that West spent more time describing the repression in Stalin’s Russia than the McCarthyite repression Robeson and others faced here in the U.S. The real legacy of Paul Robeson is his fighting spirit and lifetime unchanging support for the international working class in their struggle against oppression.
Although the organization of our actions could have been better (there was no leaflet) it was a good fight. Two old friends of the Party approached us afterwards asking to stay in contact, one of whom donated $10 to the Party.
LETTERS
Parents Attack Racist Research
Dear Challenge:
A number of my friends and I attended an excellent forum attacking racist Violence Initiative research. Two of them had the life-long experience of oppression as mothers who struggled to raise families on welfare and to fight for their children’s education and health care. At the end of the forum both were willing to speak, but there was time for only one.
She passionately attacked the two research professors who had defended drugging young Latin and black boys in order to discover their allegedly higher potential for violence. She also decried the widening use of the drug Ritalin to control the behavior of children who naturally rebel at the decaying conditions of ghetto schools: "Why should any drug dealer be arrested for pushing the same stuff that doctors and drug companies are making millions of dollars on. They are the ones who should be arrested!"
These two friends are among many who represent the future of the working class. They have agreed to meet with others from my church to begin discussion of the ideas in Challenge-Desafio and to plan to bring as many people as possible to May Day—especially from our soup kitchen which serves over 300 families. The future is bright!
Red Churchmouse
Help Students Understand The World To Change It
Dear Challenge:
I’ve been teaching high school English for 21 years, and the article from Chicago about the fight against the CASE test was very inspiring to me. I also agree with the LA teacher’s letter in the following issue except for the point that since the 50’s education has been "dumbed down." The skills in writing and reading that my students have today don’t seem very different to me from those of my students in 1978. Also, from what I can remember about my high school years in the 50’s and early 60’s, most of my peers disliked reading and writing about as much as h. s. students do today. I believe it’s possible that their skills didn’t differ much from those of current students. Current students’ test scores may be lower than those of the 50’s, but the rise in the students’ hatred and contempt for tests isn’t surprising, given the rise in the fascist way they’re treated both in school and outside it. (I don’t mean to imply that the LA teacher gives credence to school tests.)
The bosses have been portraying youth as having pitiful academic skills for the last decade, and this portrayal fits right into their campaign to criminalize today’s youth. We shouldn’t accept any of the bosses’ lies about youth today. Their rebelliousness shows that they "understand the world," to use the LA teacher’s words, and are eager to "change it."
Veteran teacher
Dear Challenge:
Challenge needs to stop using ruling class terminology. I’m speaking of the term dumbing down, which the bosses use to describe the decline in educational standards. Who is being made dumb? Challenge should not be calling students dumb, no matter how poor a job the ruling class schools do. I don’t care how you justify it, the implication of that term is students are dumber than they used to be. This is insulting and wrong. Students show their intelligence in many ways, every day. They show it when they stand up to injustice and racism. They show it when they maneuver around the drugs and gangs that surround them. They show it when they come to PLP meetings to learn more about how the world works. They show it when they figure out how to help a friend with a serious problem. Just because they are alienated from school doesn’t mean they’re dumb.
The other thing I disagree with is the idea that the educational reform movements are to blame for the fact that students don’t appear to be learning as much in school. There are many more significant reasons for this. Fascism has taken its toll on most families: Many more families rely on low-paid jobs with long hours or several part time jobs to keep them afloat. Television has permeated our lives. Families move around a lot. There is more stress, due to racism and financial worries. Educational reform movements have impacted very few students and play a minor role, if any, in the decline of education.
Red Teacher
Dear Challenge:
Just last week I caught a show on the PBS station called Frontline. It was an exposé on the genocide in Rwanda. I watched in horror as the killing fields appeared on my screen. Bodies of children, old people, men and women, hacked to death by machetes. They tried to seek asylum in churches and shelters, but no one escaped.
At the end of the 100 days of killing (of the Tutsi minority by the Hutu majority) over 800,000 were dead. Some accounts say it was closer to a million!
The exposé was well done, I thought, in a liberal capitalist way. It kept pointing its finger at the UN Security Council for refusing to call the situation in Rwanda genocide. The ambassador from Rwanda was never even questioned about it. They went on to make Clinton look particularly bad , as he washed his bloody hands of the whole thing. A most disgusting scene took place when Clinton went to Africa and told some lies to the families of the dead about how sorry he was for their losses. The documentary pointed out that he never left the airport and the engines of his jet were never even shut off.
However, the real political causes of this massive display of "ethnic cleansing" were never explained. The film did explain briefly that the Hutus hated the Tutsis because when the Belgians held power in Rwanda, they made the Tutsis overseers of the Hutu peasants. Right now I am reading some history of the struggle in that part of Africa sent to me by some helpful comrades. I would like to see more on the African situation in Challenge, because I feel that it is a very important area. After talking to some black and anti-racist white co-workers and friends, it seems that what happened in Rwanda is putting Clinton in a new light….and it’s not a good one.
I would like to hear from other Challenge readers who are having similar discussions in their areas. We in Seattle are having a showing of the video on February, 27th. We will be more knowledgeable about Rwanda by then, and discuss how it ties in with the worldwide crises of capitalism. We will encourage people to carry their anger and outrage with them to the May Day march in San Francisco. We must avenge the Rwandan holocaust by smashing the bloody racist system of capitalism permanently!
You can order the video from PBS by calling 800-328-7271. The title is The Triumph of Evil, # 1710. Or contact PLP in Seattle and we will let you borrow it after February 27th.
A Seattle Comrade
Truman Show Rejects Concept Of God
Dear Challenge:
Red Rocker’s letter in the January 27th Challenge is interesting but misses a major point of The Truman Show. The headline for the letter, "The Truman Show: From Paradise to Capitalist Society For No Real Reason," almost hits the bullseye.
The television show whose subject is the 24-hour-a-day life of Truman Burbanks is the brainchild of a man named Christof. Truman attempts to escape and is engulfed by a vicious storm created by Christof¾ almost an "act of god"¾ that could possibly kill him. When Truman finally realizes the truth of his exploitation, Christof tells him (unseen, from a hidden speaker), "I am the creator" (pause) "of a television show." The man "of Christ," in a smooth voice almost reeking of the pulpit, attempts to convince Truman that, although he’s now aware of his situation, he should come back to the safety of the life he has led. He doesn’t have to think, doesn’t have to struggle, and doesn’t have to face all the problems people face. Everything is charted out for him, and there is no need to do anything outside the show’s "script." He should just accept his fate. Truman considers the offer and, with an angry smile, escapes into a dark unknown void. (There’s nothing in the movie to suggest he escapes to a "good capitalism," and, of course, it capitalism which has put him in his sorry state¾ though this isn’t dwelt on.)
The movie is a rejection of the concept of god. (In a recent New Yorker article, the author of the script said he was trying to write about a man rejecting the Garden of Eden.) This is a rare subject for Hollywood.
While this certainly is no revolutionary movie, it’s more than intriguing¾ and in my opinion the film is definitely worth seeing and discussing.
Not Waiting for Godot
Dear Challenge:
In Challenge (2/10), Chicago Reader criticizes an earlier economic article and says that it is wrong to say, "capitalist profit is based on stealing." On the contrary, profit comes from the larger balance of the workday when workers are forced to labor for free putting money into the capitalists’ pockets. This is theft pure and simple. Bosses try to hide the theft by claiming they are paying for the whole day’s work. You work 40 hours, you get 40 hour pay, right? The bosses try to present the relationship as a fair exchange between human beings who are more or less equal. It is made to look like a square deal but in reality you may work 40 hours but you get paid only the smallest portion of those hours. The wage system is a tremendous con game that hides the capitalists’ daily theft of surplus value from the working class. This is the dirty, not so little secret of capitalism, which explains how great wealth co-exists with great poverty.
Chicago Reader makes a good point that we don’t want justice, we want communism and I’m sure most of the comrades around PLP agree with and practice that line among their base. However, I do not think that saying capitalism is stealing and theft is "opportunist rhetoric." What I do think is opportunist rhetoric is describing capitalism ahistorically and saying that it’s just a society playing fairly by its own rules. I would suggest that Chicago Reader check out PLP’s new pamphlet, Political Economy, which instead of taking capitalism as a given, examines the history and conditions which led to its birth and class society in general. I’m sure that a brief look at the section on the history of capitalist primitive accumulation (which still occurs) would show that the millions of workers who died of overwork in the sweatshops of the Industrial Revolution, the nazi "work camps" and the millions of African farmers who are perishing from starvation were not purchased at their value nor paid a sum to sustain themselves and their families. The rise of capitalism has always been the result of direct robbery, cheating, mass slavery, war and genocide and is the reason why currently more than half the world’s population lives in wretched poverty.
A Victim of Theft
Workers Revolution, Not Y2k, Will Crash System
Dear Challenge:
The bosses’ press talks about the possibility of a big crisis at the century’s end, caused by the fact that computers were made without taking into account the end of the millennium. Some of them may go "crazy" and return to the beginning, as if they were starting the 20th century. And since the economy is globalized, this would create so much chaos that it would affect the stock market, and air traffic control towers. Hospitals would have problems that could cause the death of many patients. Checks from Social Security, unemployment, etc., wouldn’t come on time; hungry groups of people would rob stores and homes. All of this would create great chaos that could be compared to a civil war. Racist militia groups are predicting this and would be willing to take up arms to take over the U.S. government.
The Red Cross has said that the population should prepare as for a large earthquake, with water, food, and cash in case something inopportune happens. My question: is the Party doing anything about this? Are we preparing our cadre for an emergency of this type? Not to prepare with water and food, etc., but to give leadership to the extent possible. I remember what happened some years ago during the trial of the cops who beat Rodney King in LA in 1992. At that time, I asked the leadership of the Party if we should prepare in case something happened, and the answer was that they thought nothing would happen. At the end of the trial when the police were found not guilty, and the rebellion began, we were caught unprepared.
I saw what appeared to be a common reaction in several people. One was a factory worker at Paper Mate, who was very proud that the company had been working and almost had the computers ready to continue producing with no problem in the next millennium. But she also will take the money she has invested out of the stock market, which includes a "reserve bonus" in the Paper Mate company, which supposedly is one of the strongest in the stock market. My suggestion is that we should prepare and always be ready for any contingency. We know that we don’t have the necessary forces, but its better to have something than nothing, and knowing how to act in the situation would be the best that we could do. I imagine that many members, friends of the Party, and Challenge readers will have ideas. Without putting aside our immediate goal of building for May Day, and work in the concentrations, raising ideas so that we could collectively prepare wouldn’t be bad.
A Reader
The media talks about the y2k problem in a very mystical way reminding us of the way the ruling establishment and religious acolytes got hysterical at the end of the last millennium. They use this to turn people’s attention away from the economic and political crisis.
We don’t know if there will be major delays caused by computers. But we do have a plan to respond to any bosses’ attack. The Party’s strategy is to work inside mass organizations to build a base for revolution led by our Party. In this way we can respond in a mass way involving our friends to racist murders, mass deportations, layoffs and war, even if the y2k problem causes an end to the delivery of water and food. Build for May Day and crash the capitalist system.