Challenge March 3, 1999, Vol. 35, No. 27

Index:

Don’t Rely on Union Leaders or Liberals: Organize A General Strike Against Rulers’ Racist Killers!

The U.S. Is At War With Iraq

When Bosses Talk Peace, Better Get Your Helmet

Kosovo

Students Fight Against Racist Brutality

Chicago Teachers Have A World To Win In The Face Of Budget Cuts

The Challenge Of Winning Workers To PLP In Central America

Sharpton: A Snake Emerges From The Weeds Of Old Money

The Ghost Of Unemployment Present Stalks The Valley Of Johnstown

Enthusiasm Was High At L.A. May Day Dinner

Nothing Funny About Racist Depiction Of Black Workers: Tv Review : The Pj’s

Reform And Revolution In Music

• Another Reader's View

Students Reach High Working Class Standards

Bosses Try To Defeat ‘Vietnam Syndrome’ With Anti-Communist Thugs

Communist Revolution Will End Imperialist Genocide In Rwanda!

LETTERS

CSU Students Send Solidarity To Diallo Family

PLP Leads Fight Against Police Terror to Crush Capitalism

A Few Questions Before I Join PLP - and Challenge Responds

Stand Up For Russian Strikers

Bosses’ Wars Require Fascist Labor-Management Collaboration

Destroy Fascism In Turkey With Communist Revolution

Bribing The Cops Won’t Stop The Killer Cops System

Don’t Rely on Union Leaders or Liberals: Organize A General Strike Against Rulers’ Racist Killers!

New York City, Feb. 16—Tonight delegates of AFSCME Local 371 voted unanimously to take part in a March 3rd rally protesting the racist police murder of Amadou Diallo. Prior to the delegates’ meeting, many workers called the union president, suggesting the Local take a public stand against this latest atrocity.

PLP played an important role in organizing this 15,000-member Local to take action against racist police terror. We mobilized many of our friends, co-workers, Challenge readers, workers who have marched on May Day, delegates friendly to our activities in the Local, and others. These forces gave leadership to even more members.

A delegate who is in PLP spoke about the power workers have in the fight against racist police murders. What would happen if the next time a black or Latin youth was shot by the cops, workers in this Local, and workers throughout the 125,000-member District Council 37, hospital workers in Local 1199, and others walked off our jobs and surrounded City Hall and/or police headquarters in a political strike against the bosses’ racist terror? This kind of action would expose the nature of the profit system and open the door to mass recruitment to PLP. It would make clear that even if the rulers dumped a few killer cops, the system can’t reform its police forces.

The police exist to protect the profit system; they are a major prop of the capitalist system. Racist brutality is a significant part of their job. This kind of strike would raise the ante for the bosses who would then face a growing political strike movement of workers against racist terror.

The PLP delegate pointed out how the fascist New York State Taylor Law, which prohibits government workers from striking, holds us back and must be smashed. Finally, he attacked the DC 37 proposal for replacing WEP (Workfare) with a "transitional jobs program." He called for hiring unemployed workers on welfare at union wages, not a new second-, third- or fourth-tier system.

The unions and the government are not neutral in the class struggle. Many workers understand the bosses’ government uses its laws and its cops to control us. Not as clear is the way unions protect the profit system by limiting the scope of class struggle, telling us to rely on "lesser-evil" liberal politicians like Al Sharpton to fight the racist system and its killer cops.

The other view of class struggle was expressed tonight by Lee Saunders, the AFSCME trustee now running DC 37 after the old leadership was forced out for corruption. Saunders said we should "forget the past" and "look to the future." He wants us to ignore the contract vote fraud that gave the NYC bankers and their hack, Giuliani, the wage-freeze, even when workers were itching to fight the lousy settlement. Saunders said he would "fight" Workfare in court, and wanted us to forget DC 37’s 20 years of deals that allowed the growth and institutionalization of the slave labor system. He said he was "willing" to fight, but wanted to know if "we were willing to follow."

In other words, it’s the membership’s fault, not the leadership’s decades of corruption and class collaboration. What hypocrisy! Unfortunately, had we been able to organize to stop following the leadership, we’d be in a much better position to fight the bosses today.

We’re learning from our past mistakes. If we did not have a plan to give leadership in this struggle, our Local wouldn’t have responded as it did to the murder of Amadou Diallo. We are confident workers want to fight back, and will demand action. We will continue to explain that only communist revolution can eliminate killer cops, by destroying the system that creates them—capitalism. We will fight to build a mass May Day March (which the Local endorsed last month), and make communist ideas mass ideas.

Clinton’s December bombing of Iraqi military installations and oil fields got major press coverage. Much less noted is the far more destructive daily bombing campaign U.S. and British forces have been conducting for the last six weeks. More than 80 air strikes have killed many civilians.

In part, they are aimed at provoking a coup against Saddam. Also, they are aimed at weakening Iraq’s air force and emboldening the Shiites in the South, and the Kurds in the North, to rise up and overthrow Saddam. The assassination of Ayatollah Mohammed Adiq al-Sader and his two sons have provoked fighting between the Shiite Muslims and Iraqi security forces. Hundreds have been killed and arrested. If all else fails, the U.S. will invade and occupy Iraq, to make the world safe for Exxon-Mobil.

Economic sanctions, in place since Bush’s 1991 Desert Slaughter, murder 8,000 people a month (Dennis Halliday, "In Iraq, Sanctions That Kill," Le Monde Diplomatique, 2/99). Who knows how many more are dying under the bombs? Despite this, Saddam Hussein continues to defy U.S. imperialism, and has reinforced his troop concentrations around oil-rich Basra. Adding fuel to an already explosive situation, Russia is selling weapons to Iraq as fast as U.S. bombing raids can blow them up. Russia, France and China are campaigning to lift U.S.-backed sanctions, to get a foothold in the Middle East at Exxon’s expense.

The Saudi rulers know what is coming. To protect their oil during the next oil war, the Saudi Press Agency announced on February 23rd a $2 billion project for strategic storage facilities, including "huge caverns for…petroleum products, with a capacity…which will satisfy the kingdom’s needs in emergency situations and in war time."

Now there are two more pieces to add to an already complicated situation. First is the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan. He was caught by Turkish commandos last week at the Greek embassy in Kenya, fingered by U.S. intelligence in payment for Turkey allowing the U.S. use its air bases to launch bombing raids into Iraq. Ocalan’s Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) has been at war with the fascist Turkish government for the past 14 years, using Northern Iraq as a staging ground for attacks into Turkey. Turkey has launched bombing raids and military strikes into Northern Iraq against the PKK. Ocalan’s capture sparked mass, militant demonstrations across Europe, and in the Middle East.

Saddam Hussein has provided a safe haven for the PKK, while at the same time ruthlessly attacking Kurds who rebelled against him. The U.S. has been trying to form a pro-U.S. opposition among the Kurds to overthrow Hussein, while supporting Turkey in their war with the PKK. Ocalan’s capture and trial will sharpen the contradictions in the region, as Saddam supports the PKK and the U.S. backs the Turkish fascists.

The other development is former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter’s admission that the UNSCOM inspection teams were loaded with CIA agents since 1992, as Saddam Hussein claimed. Ritter says that in June 1996, nine "CIA paramilitary covert operators" were on an UNSCOM team that provoked a major confrontation with Iraq. That same month, an attempted coup against Saddam failed. Henry Kissinger has embraced Ritter for his repeated criticisms of Clinton and Albright, for failing to topple the Iraqi leadership.

The ongoing battle between U.S. imperialism and Iraq, in the midst of a worldwide crisis of overproduction, is sharpening all other contradictions. It is deepening the split between U.S. and European imperialists, and within the U.S. ruling class. Workers’ blood is on all their hands. And larger wars are on the way. The crisis and chaos of capitalism has the smell of death everywhere. The only solution is building a mass, international PLP to organize to seize power with communist revolution.

The profit system is truly the scourge of the earth. It creates crises it can’t solve except through periodic mass bloodletting. War is imperialism’s monster offspring. Only communist revolution can end it. As we build for this year’s May Day Marches, we must keep in mind that the stakes involved in building our Party are literally the life or death of hundreds of millions of workers all over the world.

In Kosovo, U.S. and European rulers are too weak and too divided to impose their will on local nationalist rivals. The current fighting between the Albanians and Serbs is driven by the rival needs of German and U.S. imperialism, and the sharpening worldwide capitalist crisis.

The U.S. wants to commit 28,000 NATO troops to the region, on top of the 30,000 U.S. troops already stationed in Bosnia. The Pentagon estimates that the "peace keeping" mission could last 15 years, with heavy U.S. casualties.

French, German, and Russian bosses all have strategic and economic interests in the Balkans that conflict sharply with U.S. imperialism, in addition, a growing movement in Europe wants to build a military-industrial complex independent of the U.S. For 20 years the Germans have attempted to fragment Yugoslavia, while the U.S. has tried to hold it together. Germany’s main route to the oil fields of the Mideast lies through Serbia, the main province of Yugoslavia.

Serb rulers intend to hold onto the rich Trepca mines, valued at over $4 billion in gold, lead, zinc and cadmium. The Albanian Kosovars covet the mines as well, and seek independence. Unemployment in Kosovo is about 80 percent. The infant mortality rate is among the highest in the world. As we go to press, the "peace talks" were suspended until March 15th, just as they were about to blow up in Albright’s face. The Albanians "partially accepted" the U.S.-backed deal, ironically giving the Serb rulers some breathing space. Initial reports indicate that the Serbs may be preparing to confront NATO troops, with "ominous" troop movements, and the mining of a major bridge.

In the continuing fallout from the Clinton impeachment, U.S. rulers are unable to unite on foreign policy. The current issue of Foreign Affairs has an article calling for more U.S. "protectorates" à la Bosnia, and The Wall Street Journal (2/23) urges Clinton to "Stop Kosovo’s Killers..." On the other hand, Henry Kissinger just took Clinton to task for intervening in Bosnia and Kosovo, instead of concentrating on North Korea and Iraq.

The vacuum left by the collapse of the old Communist movement is being filled by nationalist and racist genocide, from Europe to Africa. Imperialism is slaughtering workers every day, from Kosovo to Turkey to Iraq. The level of bloodshed is unparalleled in human history. This is the "victory" of world capitalism. And the worst is yet to come. Local wars are expanding to regional wars; regional wars to continental wars. Bigger ground wars, involving tens of thousands of U.S. troops, are on the horizon. To end these imperialist holocausts, our Party must organize workers and soldiers to turn the guns around and fight for communist revolution.

LOS ANGELES ¾ A teacher assaulted Victor Martinez, a black student at Washington High School. The teacher tried to choke him and socked him in the face, busting his lip. A few days later, a Latin student, Felix Vargas, was handcuffed and, as they were taking him to the school police, the security guard punched the handcuffed student in the face. This was too much for the students to take.

Students who are friends of both of these students met and wrote up a petition that denounced these two incidents. The headline on the petition was "Stop Racist Brutality Against Students." There was a discussion about why these incidents were racist since the teacher and security guard were black. Some said that it was racist because the students at the school are all black and Latin and that this wouldn’t be happening at other schools. Others said that these were not isolated incidents but that the same thing was going on in high schools around the country. They said that the rulers want to make the schools more like jails, with uniforms, dress codes, metal detectors, and standards to prepare students for war. They said that the police killings around the country like the killing of Tyesha Miller in Riverside, California, were part of the same fascist attack. Well, over 300 students and some parents signed the petition.

Students who wrote the petition have gotten together and discussed the Challenge articles about how the Party organized and led the fight-back against the Amadou Diallo’s murder by the racist NYPD. During this discussion, there was a debate about communism and capitalism. Many came out of this discussion with a better understanding of communism.

Some of the students took copies of the petitions to the South Central Youth Coalition at Washington. At the meeting, there was a discussion about what happened to Victor and Felix. Some said that the teacher should be fired, and that there should be a walkout. The leaders of the Coalition advised the students that they should really be careful about organizing a walkout. The principal and the assistant principal were present at the meeting, but this didn’t stop the students from talking about the racist incidents. The principal attacked the students about the petitions at the meeting, saying that all they ever did was complain. The principal and her assistant didn’t realize that most of the students at the meeting signed the petition and wanted action against these attacks.

After the meeting, the principal summoned one of the outspoken students to her office. The student was surprised to see the teacher who had assaulted Victor in the office with the principal. She interrogated the student and asked him to tell her about the incidents. She said that the teacher was acting in "self defense" and that she did not believe him about the security guard socking Felix in the face. Besides, she said, "look at all the teacher has done for us." The student responded, "What’s wrong is wrong and I am going to continue getting students to sign the petition." The principal threatened the student by saying, "make sure this does not get in the way of your education."

This principal has a history of dividing black and Latin students. But the students are united against this attack. These students are determined to fight against racist brutality against all youth. They are planning further actions including distributing a sticker that protests racist brutality. Out of this fight back, with struggle and leadership, many of these students will help organize a mass May Day March. More of them will see the need to destroy this racist capitalist system that can no longer rule without growing racist brutality, police terror, prison slave labor and wars for profits. The future for working class youth is in making a lifelong commitment to organizing for a revolution that will ultimately destroy this system that’s destroying our loved ones and tries to destroy us.

CHICAGO, Feb. 17 ¾ Barbara L. had been a Chicago Public Schools teacher for almost 30 years. Last month she was fired, and today she and 136 other teachers were told by Judge Zagel to forget about ever getting their jobs back.

It used to be that experienced teachers could work until they wanted to retire. Those days are gone. The School Board and politicians say they are getting rid of "incompetent teachers." But this has nothing to do with making the schools better for the students, and everything to do with the schools coming under tighter control of the ruling class.

While Local School Boards have always served their capitalist masters, they haven’t always done such a good job. Chicago and other cities are known for cronyism, kickbacks, and revolving-door superintendents. They failed to produce obedient, docile workers, who could also do a little reading and arithmetic.

In 1995 the Illinois State Legislature gave Chicago’s Mayor Daley direct control of the schools. Daley immediately appointed CEO Paul Vallas to get the schools to "shape up." He adopted an employee discipline code, giving principals the right to suspend teachers for minor "infractions." Principals were given hiring rights, allowing them to bypass seniority. The leadership of the teachers’ union went along and even promoted for "school reform." Students were held back because they didn’t pass the Iowa or TAP test.

Barbara L. was a computer teacher, active on the Local School Council and a thorn in the principal’s side. As soon as the opportunity arose, the principal did away with her position. She’s been trying to get a job, but principals won’t hire older teachers removed from other schools. Even though many schools need computer teachers, Barbara is out of work and doesn’t know how she will pay her bills.

Many more teachers will lose their jobs in the months to come. The Chicago Teachers Union recently signed a new contract without even bothering to protect teachers’ jobs. Their only effort was the lawsuit, which Judge Zagel denied today. PACT (ProActive Chicago Teachers), a caucus organized to oppose the sellout union leaders, is organizing teachers to fight these firings by rallying at the school board meeting, and publicizing the issue in other ways. PLP members are working in this caucus and helping to organize the fight.

Teachers disagree over whether or not these attacks are fascist. PLP members have argued that the economy is in crisis. In order to face intense competition in a worldwide crisis of overproduction, the capitalists need workers who can produce more for less. This means training young workers to handle the more high tech requirements of many production jobs. It also means having a workforce that is cynical about their ability to fight back, is divided by racism, and rejects communism as the way to take power from the bosses. The schools will play an important role in this process. Firing teachers makes others, especially new teachers, afraid to oppose their principals or School Board policies.

The other reason for tighter control of the schools is that the U.S. will have to go to war, especially to defend Middle East oil profits. They can’t tolerate opposition, like during the Vietnam War. They still have visions of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam deserting, killing their officers, refusing orders, and undermining the war effort. Today’s students are tomorrow’s soldiers, and they want to make sure their heads are filled with pro-capitalist, patriotic ideas. That’s why they’re tightening up the curriculum with scripted lessons and Board-mandated subject-area tests (CASE) that students must pass to get into 11th grade. Teachers who oppose the Board’s plans, including PLP members, are finding their jobs are on the line.

In a communist society, no worker will be thrown out on their ass, homeless and hungry. We’ll see schools like we’ve never seen before, dedicated to mobilizing every young person to learn and contribute to society. We’ll smash the mind-numbing indoctrination that passes for education today. Students will explore, experience, question, learn from others, and be part of a society that values their humanity rather than their value as future wage-slaves.

In time, teachers, parents and students will see that our only hope lies in fighting for communist revolution. That’s what we fight for every day. We are growing and in the end, we will win. We are fighting for the largest May Day contingent of students, parents and teachers that we have had in years. As Karl Marx said, "We have a world to win."

SAN SALVADOR ¾ The Washington Post commented in one of its an editorials last week that the U.S. government aid¾ a $956 million drop of water in this sea of poverty¾ to the countries affected by Hurricane Mitch is a good investment. The Post admitted that this aid couldn’t resolve the economic problems of the region. But, the imperialists can never resolve the problems of any part of the world. On the contrary, they compound the problems of workers because of their inter-imperialist rivalries based on the overproduction of commodities and the fight to death for markets and cheap labor.

This newspaper, representing U.S. imperialism, affirms that the aid to Central American countries at this time of pain¾ with about 10,000 dead, 3 million homeless and economic losses over $10 billion¾ is done in the interests of the U.S. government. The article states that the people whose lives were destroyed by Mitch will take many years to even reach the level of poverty they had before this tragedy. They said that that U.S. aid represented only 17 percent of the worldwide financial aid promised to these areas. Most of this aid is being given because the only thing that interests these capitalists is that we survive so that they can use our labor power.

The U.S. is responding to the European Economic Community (EEC) which has decided to pardon the debt of Nicaragua and Honduras. The Europeans have also given more than $500 million to these Central American countries.

Added to this scene of spreading crumbs around is the fact that the Japanese imperialists, who don’t want to be left out, announced this week in Honduras that they will increase their presence in the region, donating $200 million for reconstruction in the areas destroyed by Mitch.

The workers organizing with PLP know that these maneuvers by the U.S., Japan and the EEC have never been based on helping the working class. They are trying to keep some of us alive to continue exploiting us, while each set of bosses fights to control us for their own profits.

The communists of PLP have the Challenge of winning the workers of Central America and the whole world to see that the bosses never give anything without wanting a lot more in return. Capitalists do not think about "humanitarian aid"¾ but about slave labor and imperialist domination. They see all these donations as short-term investments. The imperialists, no matter where they are from, want to guarantee a return on their investments with interest!

Join the PLP and let’s fight together against these parasites who exist by exploiting the labor of the working class. March with us on May Day and help make May Day give a strong message of the unity of the international working class and our determination to do away with all the imperialists.

In the wake of various racist atrocities committed by the New York cops, the Reverend Al Sharpton has emerged as the liberal rulers’ mass misleader of choice. From a shady start as a maverick nationalist who at one time informed for the FBI, Sharpton has turned into the Establishment’s anointed New York alternative to revolutionary working class struggle. Rev. Al’s link to the Rockefeller interests is becoming clearer by the day.

When Jesse Jackson (the Rockefeller Brothers’ " Man of the Year" in 1978) showed up on Wall Street recently for a business conference between Operation PUSH/Rainbow Coalition and the big bosses’ main financial houses, Sharpton was at his side. Last December, when Jackson led a demonstration in Washington to oppose the impeachment of Clinton and to support U.S. imperialism’s murderous bombing raids in Iraq, the Rev. Al stood next to him shouting "Right On!"

In 1996, when open racists firebombed a number of Southern churches, Jackson and Sharpton headed a fund-raising campaign to rebuild them. The main donors: the Walter Annanberg, Ford, Kellogg and MacArthur Foundations, as well as the Charles Stewart Mott and the Pew Charitable Trusts—in other words, a Who’s Who of the liberal bosses.

Sharpton is serving his masters well as their police impose a reign of racist terror on New York’s working class. They’ve set him up as the "go-to" guy after each incident. Rev. Al makes a few militant-sounding statements about the police, barges in to "advise" the victim’s family, links the family up with a team of hot-shot lawyers, and organizes demonstrations just big enough to look respectable without threatening the status quo. He is also leading the liberals’ move to "reform" the police, by promoting the recruitment of more black and Latin cops and the policy of "community policing." His strategy: keep the anti-cop struggle as far away as possible from the working class at the shop floor and revolutionary communist politics.

As Challenge has pointed out many times before, a boss is a boss, and a cop is a cop. Like the profit system itself, the rulers’ cops can never do anything but serve the capitalist class. Fake-radical politicians like Sharpton pose a far greater danger to the workers than obvious racists like Giuliani. Exposing and smashing Sharpton & Co., as well as his liberal bank-rollers, is a major Challenge for our Party and our class.

Dear Challenge:

The Ghost of Unemployment Present stalks the valley of Johnstown, Pa. Historically speaking, Johnstown may be remembered for the 1889 flood which killed over 2,000 people when a dam at a Hunting and Fishing Club owned by wealthy capitalists such as Carnegie and Frick burst and flooded the valley. The club had been told that the dam was unsafe, but did nothing to rectify it.

Recently, Sani-Dairy, which has been well-known local supplier of dairy products for decades, closed its doors, leaving more than 200 workers, members of United Steel Workers (USWA), without jobs. An out-of-state company called Dean Foods Inc had taken over the company in the recent past. Two years ago, there was a bitter strike at the plant and on one evening, strikers battled police to prevent scab-driven trucks from leaving the premises. The entire incident was videotaped.

A policeman punched a woman striker in the face, breaking her jaw. The policeman was let go. But the woman and her husband were put on trial for assaulting a police officer and for interfering with the scab-driven trucks. Fortunately, the first charge was dropped as it could have meant 10 years in jail, but the second charge was not dropped. The woman was forced to spend one month under house arrest and was fined. Her husband was also fined.

The local hospital, Lee Hospital, which had large layoffs to "keep competitive" terminated its contract with a local laundry and will now have its laundry done by a Pittsburgh company. The local laundry announced that it would now lay off workers.

On January 28th, 75 members of USWA had a militant protest at Lee Hospital, and union leader, Ernie Esposito, claimed that he was going to fill the main street of Johnstown with people to protest the continuing layoffs and unemployment, but that remains to be seen.

Then on February 14th, the local paper headline read, "Imports Cause Steel Plants to Layoff 100." At one time, Johnstown had been a thriving steel town, but during the ’80s, with the de-industrialization of American capitalism and the flight of capital to low-wage countries, almost all of the plants shut down. The interesting point about the recent layoffs is that the bosses are attempting to scapegoat foreign workers as the cause of the layoffs. Of course, this attempt to utilize nationalism to dupe the workers and nationalism of this sort is a common fascist tactic. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is high, and the black population of the city is segregated in ghettos with no future to speak of, except a cell in the newly constructed Cambria County Jail, where all of the guards are white and most of the prisoners black. Downtown Johnstown looks like a bombed out city, and most of the jobs are in the service sector with little job security, low pay, and few benefits.

A town once ravaged by floodwaters and now being ravaged by the decay of capitalism in the move towards fascism, is another good argument for the need for a revolutionary Party to reach workers with the message that only proletarian revolution can end this dark night.

LOS ANGELES, CA., Feb. 20 ¾ About 50 garment workers and their friends met together today to enjoy a delicious meal and speeches denouncing capitalism and calling for organizing May Day and fighting for communist revolution.

A worker spoke about how the manufacturers are moving their production to other countries where they pay poverty wages and are leaving thousands of garment workers without work. He talked about organizing a campaign against sweatshops here in Los Angeles. A worker talked about the history of May Day and the role of communists in this era of crisis of overproduction, fascism and war.

Everyone got Challenges, leaflets and ticket books so they can invite their friends, co-workers, and families to march on May Day in San Francisco. Several people had questions related to the March. Many said they would bring groups of workers to March. At the end we sang several songs, including The Internationale. A new friend sang a protest song that he had written. Spirits were high and the evening ended with a lively dance.

Multi-millionaire Eddie Murphy has sunk to a new low in his animated "comedy" (mockery, that is) about life in the projects. The show first aired by Fox TV on January 10^th and actually was the second most-watched series premiere ever. However, it has also been boycotted by a number of black organizations claiming it makes light of drug and alcohol abuse. It is the second TV satire to come under fire recently¾ the first was UPN’s Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, which attempted to find humor in slavery and the Civil War and was quickly canceled. The Fox series has been attacked by everyone. Even Spike Lee who’s movies are filled with racist stereotypes, called it "really hateful and demeaning". New York Daily News critic Richard Huff-in his review said, "The PJ’s does the wrong thing."(1/19)

The show focuses on a bumbling but dedicated superintendent, Thurgood Stubbs, who works in an inner city project. The racist stereotypes of workers we meet each week include his wife, his buddies who drink oversized bottles of beer, crack addicts, elderly tenants who eat dog food and women who look like prostitutes. There is never a character who is hardworking, educated or dignified¾ only racist caricatures that would lead the viewer to believe that the people who live in the projects deserve whatever they get.

We must ask what is so funny about showing poor people eating dog food? Why are people shown as buffoons? Why are people in the black community portrayed as misfits and losers? And what could Eddie Murphy know about how poor people live?

In one episode, the residents of the projects are looking for the will of someone who died. They are depicted as loud, goofy and cheating. They will stop at nothing to get the vacant apartment. Eventually Thurgood and his wife mastermind a way to get the apartment and start to live better than the other tenants. They trade insults with the tenants, saying, "What’s wrong with you? Raised in a whorehouse or something?" The message is that the people in the projects are greedy and unscrupulous.

In another episode, Thurgood starts a neighborhood watch against crime. His wife ends up catching a burglar, but he takes all the credit. In fact, a burglary takes place in front of him but he doesn’t realize it. The cynicism of the show is evident when Thurgood says, "Let’s find a secret password that won’t draw attention to ourselves. Like help." The neighborhood characters are shown as completely demented and stupid. They can’t figure anything out by themselves. The show is full of really nasty insults like congratulating one of the men who learns that a baby is not really his.

The PJ’s is the logical outgrowth of a series of shows that are reminiscent of the minstrel characters that were popularized during slavery. In fact, the creator of the first sitcoms to poke fun at black family life and racism was Norman Lear, a liberal director and founder of People for the American Way, part of the liberal section of the Democratic Party. Good Times, a sitcom about life in Chicago’s projects, started the trend of shows about how funny it was to be poor or black. While it hosted a very talented cast, including the late Esther Rolle and John Amos, it eventually was dominated by J.J. Walker, who played the wisecracking, buffoonish son.

The shows that poke fun at black workers, mainly on UPN are not funny. Like the PJ’s, they get the viewer to laugh at the characters, in a way that is demeaning and degrading. The fact that black directors are feeding us this type of trash should not make it any more palatable.

Dear Challenge:

I am writing in regard to the letter in Challenge (2/3) Challenge titled, "Anti-Fascist Music vs. Rancid Culture." The author correctly points out that people like Marilyn Manson (who uses the Nazi SS lightning bolt symbol and comparable lyrics) is an outright fascist who should be exposed and isolated. However, the author also states (or implies) that groups such as Rancid, Bad Religion, and Rage Against the Machine are groups whose music is revolutionary.

I believe that this is a serious error. In today’s world, the only revolutionaries are those who are actively organizing the working class for communism. If you are not doing this, then you are supporting capitalism. There is no middle ground. And it is very clear that none of these performers are in the least way involved in any meaningful organizing. In fact, the continued existence of these so-called "radical" or "revolutionary" artists aids the bosses in several ways:

• It gives the illusion that the bosses allow criticism of their system;

• It gives the outright fascists a fake-left group to attack; such groups are easy targets because they don’t offer a principled counter attack and the fascists get a lot of publicity;

• It gives youth who see through the hypocrisy of capitalism, a meaningless, individualistic, and safe way to "rebel"; a way which the bosses can easily handle.

Dialectics is a wonderful tool for analyzing the world but it does NOT provide easy answers; it "only" provides a method. It is all too easy to latch onto the appearance of something and fail to understand its (inner) content. If any of these groups became seriously involved in communist politics, you can be sure that they would be blacklisted off the air immediately. While Marilyn Manson is an open fascist, the other groups are just as dangerous and should be condemned in the same way that the PLP condemns so-called liberals like Jesse Jackson, Ted Kennedy, and Bill Clinton.

I sympathize with the comrade’s desire to find something uplifting in the cesspool of capitalist "culture." I did the same thing when I listened to Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan. But I don’t think that it is accidental that both Seeger and Dylan are recognized today as classic sellouts!! As Challenge has said many times: "Evil Yes, Lesser No"!!

Dear Challenge:

Long Island Red makes the correct estimate that none of the recording artists mentioned above fights for communism. This said, however, doesn’t mean that we should be left-sectarian and throw the baby out with the bath water. Some or all of the bands mentioned above are seriously anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, and anti-sexist. Some like Rage Against the Machine are even involved in class struggle—especially in California against the slave-like conditions of garment workers, albeit in a reformist and right opportunist way.

The contradiction between reform and revolution is a profound one. How workers and students get developed through this process to be won to our side is going to vary. Many young working class youth listen to these groups because they are very political in nature: these are exactly the kind of people we want to win. Dialectics shows us that not only do we have to see things for their essence but also for their whole, i.e. their totality. Sure these bands don’t give the complete answer but they expose on one level or another that there something wrong with capitalism and we need to do something about it. Giving our communist solution and winning millions to it is our job.

Dear Challenge:

A group of my ninth grade students participated in a public forum last Sunday denouncing the racist/fascist violence initiative experiments. These youth inspired those who attended with their poise, courage and militancy. Their active participation (three of them spoke in spite of their nervousness) was a slap in the face of the racist lies we hear every day that black and Latin youth "don’t want to learn," or "all these kids care about is gangs, drugs, and ‘gansta rap.’ "

The forum was composed of complicated scientific presentations, so I sat next to my students, asking them questions to gauge their understanding. It was so interesting to see them sit attentively for two-and-a-half hours straight, studying the presentations and trying to make sense of the information. What they had learned came out the next day when some of them gave reports to their classes. The ruling class calls these youth "dangerous," "wild," "ignorant," but they proved just the opposite. It’s amazing how disciplined students can be when they participate in something meaningful and serious (as opposed to much of the garbage they are forced to learn in school).

Many of these same students are considered "rejects" by the capitalist school system. These are the students who haven’t met the capitalist "standards." Some have already gotten used to struggling in or failing their classes in capitalist schools. Some are languishing in large, lower-tracked classes with inadequate resources to meet their needs. Yet many in the audience were impressed by their attentiveness, their militant comments, and observant questions. Some thought they were "advanced" students. THEY ARE!!! Participating in class struggle exposes the phony categories which capitalism uses to imprison students and kill their natural desire and need to learn. It is capitalism which has told them they are stupid, inadequate and powerless. Communists, on the other hand, see the potential of these working class youth to lead society.

This year in class we have taken some time to analyze certain current events from a working-class perspective. These racist experiments and the recent racist murder of Amadou Diallo are inspiring students to learn about their world. Here, homework becomes important because we communists connect it to something of value: young people learning to understand, and change, their world. Their parents are also grateful to see them participating in positive activities related to the real world. As communists, we combine study with action (working-class struggle against capitalism). This is the exact opposite of capitalist education, which seeks to imprison young people in their classrooms like passive objects.

Last week’s trip to the forum shows that when we have confidence in the youth as leaders, they will reach these high working-class standards. The next step is to win these youth to form a solid PLP youth club and a May Day committee to ensure a large turnout for the May Day March in Washington.

WESTMINSTER, ORANGE COUNTY, CA, Feb. 21 ¾ For the past month, right-wing thugs claiming to represent the local Vietnamese community have attacked video store owner Truong Van Tran, beating him up twice. Every day there have been hundreds demonstrating against Mr. Tran. He is being attacked because he put up a picture of Ho Chi Minh and a Vietnamese flag in his store, and because he advocates reconciliation between the U.S. and Vietnam. Despite a court order, the cops have done essentially nothing to protect him. They even told him they would arrest him if he came back to the store. Those organizing the attacks and demonstrations are ex-South Vietnamese Army members and their friends.

These incidents are the latest in a series that extend back 15 years, including the murders of the editor of a Vietnamese language newspaper and of a college professor who taught about the Vietnam War. But now extensive local and some national media coverage quote the right-wingers’ claims that Ho Chi Minh was a mass murderer who caused great suffering to the relatives of those who attacked Mr. Tran.

Publicizing this incident helps the capitalist media spread lies about the bloody history of the U. S. in Vietnam, and the communist-led movement that defeated U. S. conquest there. The cause of mass death and misery in Vietnam in the ’60s and ’70s was not Ho Chi Minh, but the U. S. government and its puppet army, the ARVN. Here are a few of the murderous policies of the U. S. :

• Massive bombing campaigns for nearly 10 years in North and South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. These campaigns destroyed schools, hospitals, and villages, as well as soldiers fighting against the U. S.

• Extensive "free-fire" zones in South Vietnam, where anything that moved was shot at.

• Concentration camps called "strategic hamlets" to control the rural population.

• Systematic destruction of villages, and massacres of civilians, like that at My Lai.

• Large-scale murder, torture, and imprisonment of those who fought the U. S., including over 20,000 assassinated by the CIA’s Operation Phoenix.

• Campaigns by 500,000 U. S. troops, plus the U.S.-run ARVN in Vietnam and private armies and air force in Laos.

The US government killed over 3 million Vietnamese. Over 57,000 U.S. soldiers were also killed in this war which was meant to stop the spread of communism, and guarantee U.S. domination of Southeast Asia. Many Vietnamese refugees now in the U.S. did suffer in the war, of course, but it is the U.S. and its corrupt flunkies who ran things in Saigon, they should blame, including the people who are leading attacks on Mr. Tran.

Despite all those it killed, the U. S. military was ultimately defeated, as the French had been before, by the mass movement that Ho Chi Minh led. The majority of the Vietnamese had a deep commitment to fight to destroy imperialism. This commitment influenced anti-imperialists all over the world, including in the growth of PLP. PLP started the anti-imperialist movement in the U.S. to oppose the war in Vietnam. Thousands followed PLP’s lead in opposing the bosses’ genocide in Vietnam. This movement spread into the U.S. military, where thousands of soldiers refused orders to fight. There were rebellions on most military bases against the war and fraggings in Vietnam against officers who ordered the troops into dangerous missions. Black soldiers played a leading role in these rebellions. Ultimately, the U.S. army became unreliable in Vietnam.

Despite its victory over the U.S., however, the National Liberation Front did not fight to defeat capitalism in Vietnam. Instead of fighting for communism, Vietnamese communists compromised with capitalism, and the result is that now Nike is exploiting workers of Vietnam, and other giant companies are looking for workers that have to accept low wages.

The thugs demonstrating in Westminster are being encouraged by tremendous media coverage. The bosses are deathly afraid of the "Vietnam Syndrome" and are using this incident to try to re-write the history of the Vietnam War to try to win young people to fighting the next war in Iraq or Kosovo.

The long, determined, and heroic struggle of the communist-led workers and peasants of Vietnam to drive out the U.S. armed forces should be both an inspiration and a lesson to the workers, students and soldiers in the U. S. The armies of imperialism can be defeated, but without communism, imperialism will return. Our answer to the bosses’ fascist lies must be the growth of a mass PLP to turn their wars into a mass battle for communism.

"Rwandans often speak of a million deaths, and they may be right. The dead of Rwanda accumulated at nearly three times the rate of Jewish dead during the Holocaust. It was the most efficient mass killings since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." (Frontline TV Show)

"When the rulers talk of peace," the playwright Bertolt Brecht once said, "Prepare for war." After watching the recent Frontline documentary on Rwanda, we could paraphrase him: "When the rulers expose genocide, prepare for a holocaust!" Imperialist domination and intervention is the problem in Africa. The vicious rivalry between U.S. and French imperialism fuels the mayhem, while all the major imperialist powers fight to grab land, mineral rights, and cheap labor. African capitalists, nationalism, and racism have set up millions of African workers for the kill.

At the beginning of the Clinton Administration in 1992, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown said, "From now on, the U.S. is not going to give way on African markets to the old colonial powers." Based in Uganda, the U.S.-trained Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took Rwanda. Together with Ugandan forces, they allied with Kabila to take the Congo. On the same day the RPF invaded the Congo, pro-U.S. forces led by John Garang penetrated the Sudan from their base in Uganda.

In his recent State of the Union address, Clinton announced his NAFTA for Africa plan. This followed a series of "African-American Economic Forums" in Washington and Africa, designed to compete with the Summits of French-speaking African countries regularly held in Paris.

France, with 5,000 troops on the ground, does not intend to give way either. No longer confined to its former colonies, Nigeria and South Africa are now its main trading partners in sub-Saharan Africa. The French company Elf-Aquitane has captured the rights to the biggest oil field off the coast of Angola.

The genocide was in Rwanda, but the prize was the Congo with all its minerals. Today the armies of 12 different countries are fighting there. Troops from Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and Chad are lined up against forces from Rwanda and Uganda. This is no longer a regional war, but it is a continental war!

According to the Clinton crew, the mass murder of the Hutu wasn’t genocide, but "acts of genocide!" Why these word games? Genocide automatically triggers the UN Convention on Genocide, which calls for immediate UN intervention to stop the killing. In this case, the French military would have been the first on the scene, which the U.S. found unacceptable, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of lives. Imperialism is a holocaust waiting to happen. Mass May Day marches will go a long way to building a mass movement to end imperialist slaughter with communist revolution.

Dear Challenge:

To The Family of Amadou Diallo:

On behalf of the Chicago State University students, we send our deepest condolences and support to your family. We support your fight against the racist crime that was committed against your loved one.

Please accept this letter of sympathy and a small love offering.

Sincerely,

Students of Philosophy 205

To Mr. And Mrs. Diallo and the entire Diallo family and friends:

We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere condolences and sadness at the tragic loss of your loved one, Amadou Diallo.

Please be aware that, we as well as other individuals do feel a great sadness by the circumstances that surrounds this matter which suddenly took the life of your beloved family member.

May you stay strong and be of great encouragement that you are not alone at this most grievous time.

Sincerely,

Dear Challenge:

Generally, the stories of PLP activities against the police murders, particularly the murder of Amadou Diallo, have been good. But there still is some fuzziness about the vital role played by the police (bodies of "armed men"), enabling the ruling class to hold power.

Two examples are: (1) the front-page headline in Challenge (2/24), "PLP Leads Workers To Fight Killer Cops," and (2) the previous week’s headline, "Crush Racist Police Terror: March On May Day." These headlines are not sharp enough politically.

With the recent killing of Diallo, it has become popular to strongly criticize the police. Everyone from Sharpton and various nationalists to liberals and others condemn the police murder. What distinguishes PLP from them? We call for destroying capitalism—the system—and establishing the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Only PLP says that when the police terrorize workers, they are performing the task laid out for them by their capitalist bosses. It is only PLP that advances the idea that the police CANNOT BE REFORMED AND THAT IT IS CAPITALISM THAT MUST BE CRUSHED.

Perhaps we take this for granted, but workers and others who read our paper do not! They must be won to revolution, not reform. The police intimidate and terrorize workers to insure that the rulers hold power to make profits. They can’t be reformed under capitalism.

Dear Challenge:

I’m a college student at Chicago State University (CSU) where one of my teachers is a very active member of your Party. He has appealed to me greatly through his arguments in class. I am just now opening my eyes and viewing the world as you see it. It is very likely that the capitalists will soon turn the working class into the "severely oppressed." I don’t want my rights, the few that I claim, to be violated. I want to support the communist party and fight to make the world a racist-free, wage-free, and equality based society.

Even though I am just making this decision to join PLP, for personal satisfaction, I have a few questions that may completely put me at ease. For one, how can I guarantee that if I help fight, for your reasons and my reasons, that the communist party won’t turn on me and take over? Secondly, with a large amount of supporters, how can we be sure to maintain control once the government has been overturned? Lastly, what will the March on May Day prove besides our recognition? It was to my understanding that our goals must remain secretive, from the government at least.

These are the few questions I have in my head. Please don’t take them offensively. I feel that they are reasonable upon joining a party. I would like the Progressive Labor Party to know that presently, I completely agree with your determination to put a stop to the terrible conditions in which we live. Soon life will be so much easier.

The only guarantee that the working class has to prevent the return to capitalism after the communist revolution is to recruit more people like you who will guard and fight for the working class dictatorship.

May Day means more than recognition. It is the only workers’ holiday, the day black, Latin, white and Asian workers and youth march under the red flags of revolution for a world without racist bosses, without imperialist wars, without mass hunger, mass unemployment, a communist world. I am sure you will agree when you join thousands of us this May Day.

Dear Challenge:

On February 22, special police forces were sent to the Yasnogorsk machine-building plant to prevent workers from holding their general meeting. The new court appointed plant director issued an order prohibiting all activities by workers' committee and trade-union, demanding the end of the strike, and threatening to fire all those who disobey. At a joint meeting of the trade-union and workers committee, it was decided that no one will return to work unless all the workers are paid, a new collective agreement is signed, and the administration is dismissed.

At the morning general meeting outside the plant, workers expressed their support of these decisions. "We have nothing to lose. If you want blood, there will be fighting," respond hungry and angry workers to the threats by the new director and police. A leaflet was printed, and meetings were held in every department. It was decided that the workers' guard will continue night-watching.

The second general meeting of the workers took place on the same day on plant grounds. Police failed to stop workers, and the new director had to attend the gathering. He called for the workers to start working and was hissed off.

Last week, the workers’ committee of YMZ issued an appeal to the workers of the Tula region, calling on them to support their strike. Misery is tremendous in Yasnogorsk and Tula. The population is starving. Last Monday two workers of YMZ fainted at their work places during the meetings, and were brought to hospitals. Every day one or more workers has to be attended by doctors. "I have a country house," said one of Yasnogorsk workers. "Last month burglars broke the door and entered the house. When they looked around, they took nothing, left me a bottle of vodka and a massage saying: ‘It is impossible to live this way!’ We have nothing except for potatoes we grow."

The workers committee has got financial assistance from trade-unions and some other organizations. Money is distributed among the poorest, those who don't have even potatoes any more. The committee expresses its gratitude to everyone who supports the struggle. But people are still starving. Any kind of further financial assistance is highly appreciated. Solidarity and support that's what Yasnogorsk workers now need.

Dear Challenge:

I would like to add a few comments to the Challenge article (2/25) about the Illinois State history exam. The rulers need to weaken young workers’ class-consciousness in order to build all-class unity. This is an important part of their war preparation.

Here are the lies and half-truths that Illinois students are supposed to repeat about workers and unions, followed the real truth:

• Trade unions are like medieval guilds.

• Collective bargaining is when labor and management meet to come to a written agreement.

• New machines help both labor and management by increasing workers’ productivity.

• Steelworkers’ unions and the steel bosses agree on the need to limit steel imports.

Completely absent from the Illinois history test is any notion that workers’ interests and bosses’ interests are directly in conflict. Many students don’t even know what a strike is, and the rulers want to keep it that way. Communist students (as well as teachers) must take responsibility for educating other students about the true political economy of capitalism, inside and outside the classroom.

Dear Challenge:

The fascists who run Turkey have captured a leader of the Kurdish PKK, a group that has been battling the Turkish government for years. The Turkish government has severely oppressed the Kurdish people. The U.S. capitalists support the Turkish government because the U.S. does not want anyone else controlling the oil that lies in that region. Communist revolutionaries must support the destruction of the Turkish fascist government. We must demand the withdrawal of the Turkish military from the Kurdish region. And communists must demand the release of political prisoners from Turkish fascist government.

But revolutionaries must demand communism for the Kurds, NOT nationalism. We do not need another Ben Bella or Khomeni or Kenyatta or other nationalist government. These governments start out with a call for nationalism and maybe even socialism or communism, but then the nationalism becomes the primary aspect, and then the "workers’ power" rhetoric is replaced with capitalism, and we have a new bourgeois capitalist state that oppresses the working class.

Look at Vietnam, the most militant, sharpest, most massive struggle, led by nationalist Ho Chi Minh. He was not a bourgeois nationalist; he called for socialism. BUT EVEN THAT STRUGGLE HAS TURNED INTO CAPITALISM! Today, 90% of the property in Vietnam is in private hands, and the imperialist corporations are oppressing the people of Vietnam with neo-imperialism. PLP does not spit on the graves of the heroic Vietnamese working class when we criticize the strategy of "national liberation without communism." It is the Communist Party of Vietnam which spits on the graves of the heroic Vietnamese people by bringing back capitalism. We do not want the same tragedy to happen to the Kurdish people!

But we must do more than "demand." We must organize the working class to build a mass movement to destroy the Turkish capitalist government, which oppresses the Kurdish working class and the Turkish working class! PLP does more than just demonstrate and issue paper statements of support¾ PLP is organizing demonstrations and strikes and worker/youth groups for rebellion and revolution. PLP organizes its youth to join the military in order to organize rebellions against imperialism and for communism inside the capitalist military. This demonstrates PLP’s commitment to smashing imperialism far more than just issuing paper statements about "self-determination."

Challenge Reader

Dear Challenge:

An interesting thing happened at the union meeting tonight. From the podium the Local’s Secretary Treasurer made a motion that we members approve a $100 donation to a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department community program. He stated that it would "grease the skids" with the police so they would be less likely to harass us on picket lines.

This gave members the opportunity to speak on the floor. A worker stood up to "support" the motion in order to sharpen the point that under capitalism we must pay the police for protection from the police! They didn’t attempt to shut him down, so he continued, saying that it is pathetic and disgusting that many of our members and even more, many members of the communities where we live have justifiable fear of the police. He said that the motion under consideration is a demonstration of where we are in this system. He pointed out one last time that we were voting on whether to pay money to the police to protect us from the police and waited for the response. The motion passed unanimously, and many workers were clearly in agreement with his position against the police. But paying $100 to the Sheriffs will not stop them from attacking us, especially if the boss calls them to come when workers organize a picket line or rally against layoffs. Cops are the paid thugs of the bosses.

The other day I saw three police cars banked into a curb in the opposite direction of traffic in what had clearly been an effort to corner someone. Then I realized that the police had three young black kids, one about 8 years old and the other two, 10 or 11, off their bikes and seated on the sidewalk being interrogated. Every day, the police are exposing this fascist system for what it is, even to eight-year-olds.

The contradictions within this system are obvious for many but giving voice to them, such as in union meetings, gives us the opportunity to win workers to act against them and to bring more workers to revolutionary communism.