EDITORIAL
"Did Johnson really allow him to call him a boss?" commented an amazed worker back at the shop.
Despite these direct attempts at intimidation, one worker shot up to question Johnson after he gave his report. "Why did you say in this Seattle Post Intelligencer Op-Ed piece that `The resurgence of American auto production is an example of the kind of adaptive thinking needed at the Boeing Co.?' Don't you realize that we've lost 750,000 jobs in auto; that the industry is more than one-third non-union, the highest percentage since the organizing drive of the `30s; that the auto industry decimated Detroit and is doing the same to Flint?!"
"I know what I meant. You don't know what I meant," Johnson interrupted. "I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the return to productivity and profitability of an American industry with American workers."
"Sure GM and Ford are productive and profitable," the worker answered. They've become wildly profitable on the back of hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers they pay next to nothing. One of the most productive and profitable GM plants in the world is in Ciudad Jaurez, where the auto bosses employ mostly teenage girls, who are burnt out by their twenties with industrial injuries like carpal tunnel. "No, No! That's not what I want, but it's a good question," he stammered, fleeing the podium.
"It's important that we know what we are fighting for as this contract battle approaches. We're fighting layoffs and subcontracting. We all know the economic consequences of these twin evils, but it behooves us to examine the full import of our battle."
He then recounted the shooting of Ricardo Close. Ricardo was depressed because he had been laid off from his mechanic's job at Vecta trucking. He threatened suicide. His wife called 911, seeking help. He emerged from his front door with the knife he had threatened to kill himself with, but quickly flung it aimlessly away. The LA sheriffs--who never entered the front yard and who were never in any danger--pumped 38 bullets into unarmed Ricardo as he stood on his front porch. At virtually the same time at the job, Ricardo's co-workers--the truck drivers that depended on him to make their vehicles safe--were demanding he be rehired. Ultimately, they won his job, but not his life.
The speaker continued talking about the Tosco Refinery in Contra Costa County, CA. In order to increase profitability, the Tosco bosses laid off a good part of the workforce--substituting cheaper, less experienced subcontractors. When one worker complained about the safety problems this created, he was reprimanded. When he complained again, he was escorted out the gate. So he didn't complain again. The plant blew up a couple of weeks ago--killing four.
"We can never accept a system that tells us layoffs are a fact of life," concluded the speaker to rousing applause. "We will never accept layoffs as a fact of life!"
Lenin said communists must be "tribunes of the people." We must "fight on all fronts." We made a good start at the union meeting, but we have a long way to go. The workers' response at that meeting shows we could have publicly invited all 250 in attendance to join with the Vecta drivers at PLP's May Day March in San Francisco.
Strike, a film by the great Soviet director Sergei Eisenstien, recreates a work stoppage organized by the communist party in Tsarist Russia. The Bolsheviks were not able to move these factory workers to action after many years of difficult secret organizing. One day, the boss wrongfully accused a lathe operator of stealing a micrometer. Despondent, he hangs himself. This tragedy makes the meaning of capitalism--that the communists had been so patiently explaining--crystal clear to these workers. The strike was on!
Capitalism kills workers in many ways. The more we are tribunes of the people, and organize our base to fight against each and every murderous attack by the bosses, the more we will understand the wisdom contained in the words of that older shop steward.
At the meeting the youth were angry. They knew this murder was racist. "I hate cops," one said immediately and emphatically. But still lacking a communist outlook, several of the youth began echoing the bosses' lying explanations of the killing: "Not all cops are bad--many are nice," "It's only white cops who are bad," "The cops' job is to protect us."
But the Party people present were prepared for this. We presented a class analysis of the murder. We want young people to make a scientific analysis of the society. We asked a series of provocative questions (for example: "Who runs the society?" "Why are there rich and poor?" "Where does crime come from?"). We presented different points of view (the bosses' and the workers'). As a result, the young people concluded that there is a small, rich group of people which rules the society (the ruling class) and which stays rich by controlling the large majority of us (the working class). This type of discussion allowed us to present the bosses' fascist prescriptions for societal problems (like the fascist George Kelling's policing ideas) as alternatives, so the youth could refute them.
"Who do the police really protect?" We used the example of a strike. These 13-15 year-olds easily understood that in a strike the police always protect the bosses and their businesses. They never help the workers; instead, they attack them. By the end of the meeting, youth were saying, "Yeah, they want to pay us as little as possible so they can make more money for themselves."
"How does the ruling class control people?" Students' answers were fascinating. As a result of our discussion, they could list several ways the bosses control us: by lying (school, the media); by drugging us (legal and illegal drugs, medical experiments); by using physical control (school security, bars on windows, metal detectors, kept in classrooms, police); by scaring/threatening/harassing (security, police, etc.); by imprisoning us or putting us in mental hospitals; and by killing us (like Amadou Diallo). Throughout the discussion, we kept going back to the point that there is a ruling class and a working class. "But who is the majority?" "The workers!"
Going to the demonstration was invigorating. Because these students are so young, at first we weren't sure if they would understand the importance of protesting. They did. We also got a phone call from a parent who was anxious to know when there was a protest because she wanted to go. She came with us. Students were shy about making signs at first, but with a little prodding, they started to make some excellent signs, some of which read, "Police are criminals and we have to notice that." Our artwork and messages were noticed by many in the crowd. Our sign, "NYPD: Hitler would be proud" attracted a lot of attention, proving that the working class sees the fascist nature of the police. Many people were clearly happy to see these enthusiastic, anti-fascist youth and came up to congratulate them.
We have many discussions and many actions to go, but we have an enthusiastic start. We have already participated in a community forum and plan to do more. Several students have commented, "We love talking about and studying the real world!" When we bring out the excitement and importance of class struggle, youth cannot help but get excited too. They are hungry for communist leadership. They want a different society. We are now developing a student Challenge network inside the school. Our youth May Day committee is also making plans to bring many students to May Day 1999! Youth, forward to communism!
During the U.S. government anti-Communist orgy of the 1950's, "Ratzan" turned in fellow members of the Communist Party to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to save his slimy career, ruining the careers of many. He helped the U.S. bosses launch the Cold War, to try to crush the Soviet Union and bury communism.
The old communist movement, with its errors, represents the BEST of the working class! Communists led workers to power in Russia and China, freeing the workers from capitalist inequality, poverty, disease, and misery. Communists, led by the Red Army under Josef Stalin, crushed the Nazis. We owe them our lives! Communists in the U.S. fought Jim Crow racism and police terror, to build and integrate industrial unions. Led by communists, the Vietnamese defeated ruthless U.S. aggression. The old communist movement inspired workers in every corner of the globe to fight against capitalism.
But Socialism failed to lead to communism, making too many concessions to the capitalist wage system. Now capitalism has returned with a vengeance to Russia and China, and workers again face growing fascism and wars around the globe. Hollywood is again being used as the willing propaganda arm of U.S. imperialism.
This award comes at a time when the liberal Hollywood establishment is fronting for the U.S. rulers as they fight to keep their declining empire in the midst of a worldwide capitalist crisis. Like his On the Waterfront, Ratzan's Oscar turns a snitch into a hero. Kazan's politics and art are inseparable. When he groveled before HUAC, he pointed out that his movie Viva Zapata portrayed the revolutionary as evil. Today, As U.S. imperialism prepares for war, Saving Private Ryan glorifies "fighting for the flag." The liberal U.S. bosses are trying to destroy the Vietnam Syndrome, when U.S. GI's refused orders to fight for the imperialists, and instead fragged their officers. The film industry is needed to make more movies that glorify fighting for the U.S. bosses.
In 1848, Marx and Engels said, "A specter is haunting Europe--the specter of communism." The bosses say communism is dead, but they push anti-communism more every day, while they unleash racist police terror, imprison black and Latin youth, and build slave labor/workfare. They attack communism to rob workers and youth of the vision of life without racism and exploitation. They use anti-communist lies, like those of Robert Conquest in a recent Wall Street Journal, to try to kill class-consciousness, the understanding that workers have the power to crush the profit system.
Its capitalism, not communism, that has failed the workers. The answer to police terror, mass layoffs, and fascist anti-terrorism bills is not capitalism democracy! The First Amendment is not the answer to the blacklist. This is a deadly illusion. Capitalism cannot be made to be fair and just. The answer to growing fascism is to build a mass Party whose goal is to eliminate racism, exploitation, fascism and war with communist revolution. Under communism those who produce everything will build a society based on meeting the needs of the workers, not the billionaires' profits. The rulers' greatest fear is that workers will learn from the past and again take up the red flag of revolution. The specter of communism continues to haunt the bosses. Mass May Day marches will give them and their pet rat Kazan plenty to worry about.
What a change from last Spring! Then, a sharp anti-communist attack had our friends confused and scared. The Chicago Sun-Times attacked the Foreman PLP teachers. Bonnie Blustein was suspended for giving students communist literature and encouraging them to fight back. Some anti-communist teachers signed a letter to get rid of the PLP teachers. The principal removed Bonnie from her position as Student Council advisor. The Board of Education hand-delivered a "warning resolution" to Bonnie's house, threatening to fire her if she stepped out of line.
When school reopened, our Party collective knew that we couldn't function as openly as we had in the past. "I kept worrying about all the things we weren't doing any more," one comrade recalled. "I felt we were moving backward. It took a lot of struggle before I understood that you can retreat tactically while advancing politically. Sometimes you have to."
A major advance was seeing that the discussion was essentially about organizing to seize power in the midst of intensifying fascism. We were not sharp enough on this point, but it was helpful to discuss this within the Party and among non-Party friends.
So we made tactical retreats, such as not distributing Challenge inside or around the school. But 25-30 teachers, students and parents get Challenge through hand-to-hand networks outside school. A sharper focus on basebuilding has encouraged Party members to become more involved with teachers and students in mass organizations and activities.
Through the union, we grieved Bonnie's suspension. After a sharp struggle at the hearing, the Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU) field representative took the case to arbitration on "due process" grounds. "It's a matter of principle," she said. "We're taking the case even though it will cost us more to arbitrate than you can recover in back pay."
Arbitration will likely take six months. Inside the teachers' union, we will use this case to expose and fight the Board's fascist "Employee Discipline Code." Suspensions are becoming routine, and dozens of teachers (including a PLP'er) have been removed from their jobs. Union activist George Schmidt is being fired for publishing the Board's bogus CASE tests in the Substance newspaper. The union leadership believes the Board can fire whomever they want. CTU president Reece just sacrificed the jobs of 137 teachers without a fight, and more are on the chopping-block.
With a lawyer's help, we got the Board to admit that it could not restrict Bonnie's "distribution of unauthorized materials" to students and teachers outside of school. Further challenges to the warning resolution lie ahead.
We must not have illusions about grievance procedures, arbitration, or lawsuits. Any PLP'er can be fired, as were the 137 teachers, none of them Party members. We can't stop the rise of fascism. We will have to destroy it with communist revolution. Working within the CTU to fight the Board's fascist attacks puts us in closer relationships with many more people who will, sooner or later, join our revolutionary Party.
"We're winning," Party leaders told the Foreman comrades toward the end of 1998. But some of us still didn't get it. "I was discouraged when the cops raided the school again in December and it seemed that we couldn't do anything about it," admitted a Party teacher.
Other comrades helped her see this as a short-sighted, mechanical comparison to last year. The objective situation has changed for the worse: fascism has intensified. But Party work has changed for the better: stronger ties, sharper line. Students and teachers are responding well. We are slowly but surely reversing a major anti-communist attack, though none of us is out of danger.
We are fighting to do better this May Day than we have in recent years. This, too, comes from sharp comradely inner-Party debate. The first draft of this Challenge article, written two weeks ago, said that "we expect to bring pretty much the same numbers as in recent years." In the past this mistaken view might have been let slide, but the Party is stronger now and the error was quickly exposed.
Patience, hard work, and a broad strategic outlook have already made a difference. It's up to the Foreman comrades to turn this good situation into more May Day organizers and marchers.
Photos in the Urban Warrior's strategic documents portray targets like Seattle, Miami, San Diego, New York City, and San Francisco. One of the things the military has learned from the invasions of Grenada, Panama and Somalia is that "the squalor and highly inflammable nature of building materials within many non-Western urban areas--coupled with the wide use of propane...creates a risk of catastrophic fire."
Similar exercises have recently been conducted in Texas, Chicago, Florida, South Carolina and Pittsburgh. According to the NY Times (1/28), "The Pentagon has decided to ask President Clinton for the power to appoint a military leader for the continental U.S. because of what it sees as a growing threat of major terrorist strikes on U.S. soil." Major General Scales, writing in Armed Forces Journal International says, "Day to day existence for most of the urban poor will be balanced tenuously on the edge of collapse. With social conditions ripe for exploitation, the smallest tilt of unfavorable circumstance might be enough to instigate starvation, disease, social foment, cultural unrest, or other forms of urban violence." This picture of capitalism's future means martial law in time of crisis.
These developments continue the militarization of U.S. daily life. Police forces across the country increasingly use military weapons, military training, and military-style operations like the "war on drugs." The military is increasingly involved in patrolling the Mexican border. Urban Warrior gives the police and military a chance to learn how to coordinate their operations, a fact that they make no attempt to hide.
Ultra-liberal Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown approved Operation Urban Warrior. Environmentalists, pacifists and others are learning that it's the liberal rulers that usher in fascism. "Lesser evil" politicians are the most dangerous, spreading illusions that lull people into a false sense of security. Capitalism in crisis means fascist terror and martial law, no matter which set of politicians holds power. They speak for different groups of capitalists as they fight over who will survive the crisis. They all present themselves as saviors as the situation grows more desperate. It is the job of communists to expose these opportunist class enemies for the snakes they are and more importantly, to build a mass PLP that is capable of seizing power and making a communist world.
We'll be there to "greet" the Marines when they land in Oakland. And we will be agitating among the working class of Oakland. No doubt there are many future revolutionaries among both groups who are willing to fight on the same side for a society that doesn't need to feed off their mutual destruction. That society is communism.
A speaker discussed the present capitalist crisis and growing fascism. The speaker said that all present have the skill and the responsibility and needed to be organizers to fight the system that is destroying our loved ones as it tries to destroy us. While the bosses develop fascism and attack us even more, we will always defend ourselves as we did in the Ricardo Close case when he was murdered by the cops, and the case at Washington HS when a teacher attacked a student. In these fights, we have to question the type of system that makes these things happen and bring to light the need for a communist system directed by the working class to satisfy workers' needs.
A key part of this struggle is to guarantee a mass May Day March and a mass PLP. Another speech presented the difference between reform and revolution. Part of the defeat of the past movements has been because reform has been primary. We finished the dinner by singing The Internationale in Spanish and English. Everyone left the dinner enthusiastic and anxious to build and be part of the March, taking plenty of stickers to put up.
For several years we marched along with unions and nationalists and fake-leftists. We raised our politics there, distributing Challenge-Desafío, waving high our PLP red flags, etc. But Party members mainly participated without much mass support from workers in our base or workers in general.
In 1997 we did march on our own as a Party, only 300 meters away from the May Day mach of the trade unions. Some workers came with us from the free trade zones in the Northern part of the country where we are organizing. But our numbers were very small. It was good to do this as a Party, separate from the opportunist forces, but in 1998 we decided to join the trade union May Day activities since about 1,000 workers were there.
This has influenced our decision to join the trade union May Day march this year but we are organizing to bring our own large independent red contingent, so that workers are not left to the reformists and other opportunists. Our new plan is called Operation 5x3. Each member of the Party has taken the responsibility of organizing a group of five workers to help organize for the PLP contingent. And each one of those workers will be struggled with to win three other workers to join our group. These groups will meet every week until May Day to discuss how to build for the march. These groups will discuss articles in Challenge-Desafío to learn from the different experiences of workers and youth all over the world.
We expect to reach hundreds of workers and youth in this way, and will give us an opportunity to bring 350 to our May Day contingent. This will strengthen our base and will help us win many workers to become communist organizers. The revolutionary spirit of the comrades here in the Dominican Republic is very high. May Day indeed will be red here.
Workers abstain in mass from the bosses' electoral circus because they are fed up with all the politicians, even with the so-called leftists FMLN (the former guerrilla group now turned into a electoral party). It was no secret. PLP members see this in the daily political work we do. The many different polls taken before the elections reported that the most common comment by people was "I don't feel like voting since I am fed up with the politicians promises which are never kept."
It is good that workers see through the rulers' electoral fraud but it is not enough. Although the bosses would like as many workers and other to vote as possible to give credibility to their bourgeois democratic system, they could live with low vote turnout. Among the big imperialist countries, the U.S. has one of the lowest vote turnout. What the bourgeois elections are becoming more and more worldwide is a way of bosses fighting over which group is going to control state power; in the case of countries like El Salvador, it is which imperialist power are they going to serve. As reported in previous Challenges, the leading candidates here (representing the FMLN and ARENA) were flirting with U.S. and European imperialism.
We in PLP have ahead of us a big task, to win those workers fed up with the bosses and their politicians to revolutionary communism. Lenin used to say that the bosses and their politicians try to intimidate workers from fighting back saying there are no solutions to the many problems humanity faces, and that communists have the opposite outlook: "we never say that there are insoluble social problems." We say that the solution to the social problems is to destroy the cause: capitalism.
The new ARENA government promises to make life even more miserable for workers. A drunk member of ARENA openly declared himself a follower of Hitler and said that he will kill many communists. But as Mao also said, "when the enemy attacks you, it means you are doing something right." On May first, we in PLP will give the capitalists even more reasons to attack us. We are doing something right--a red May Day!
Amazingly enough, this war is being led by the nationalist rulers of both countries, who used to be allies fighting together against the old pro-Soviet Mengistu regime (See adjoining box).
Eritrea has also become a rising star in the African economy, welcoming foreign investors and privatizing. The U.S. has a 6% share of the Eritrean market and U.S. exports to Eritrea totaled $14 million in 1996. Development experts say the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is rising at an annual rate of more than 10%. Presently 28 U.S. firms are operating there. According to an article prepared by the Commerce Department's Office of Africa, Eritrea is the new place to invest.
The border war that has dragged on in the Horn of Africa is an example of just how deadly nationalism and imperialism are. We call on Ethiopian and Eritrean urban and rural workers, soldiers and youth to unite as class brothers and sisters and turn the border war into a mass revolutionary war to bury the nationalist rulers in Asmara and Addis Ababa.
Tenet Healthcare is a large medical conglomerate which purchased the bankrupt Allegheny Health System this past year. After Tenet took over they plastered the hospitals with the slogan, "Let the healing begin." Soon after this Tenet announced that they would not honor the accumulated sick time of union or non-union workers. Workers sick time was cut from as much as 80 hours to 40 hours. Workers sarcastically changed the slogan to "Let the stealing begin."
At Hahnemann there has been much talk among the workers about stealing. Allegheny bosses led by Sharif Abdelhak are under investigation for allegedly stealing money from charitable endowments. Tenet bosses have now stolen over 40 million in accumulated sick time from the workers. Now Tenet is legally stealing the livelihood and medical care from laid-off and downgraded workers.
Communists at Hahnemann are pointing out to workers that the entire Capitalist system is based on stealing. This stealing is disguised by the wage system. Workers are told that they receive a "fair days pay for a fair days work." But the truth is that workers produce enough value to pay for the support of themselves and their families in only a small part of the workday. All value that workers produce after this (called surplus value) is stolen by the bosses in the form of profit.
The 1199C union leadership has taken Tenet to arbitration for the stealing of accumulated sick time. We are not sure yet what their response will be to the layoffs. Some workers are hoping for a struggle against Tenet during the July 2000 contract negotiation. PLP members will be working to organize this struggle. But we must realize that even if workers win back everything that Tenet has taken, the legal stealing under Capitalists wage slavery would still continue. Only Communist revolution can create a society in which the wealth produced by the working class can be used for the good of the working class. If Hahnemann workers really want to put an end to the stealing they should join the PLP and fight for Communism!
In January, Clinton bragged to the Detroit Economic Club about "a rising tide that is lifting all boats." But this is the profit system. What's good for bosses can't also be good for all workers. A look beyond the appearance of general prosperity confirms this law of class struggle. [See adjoining box]
The racist component of "the state of working America" is even worse than the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) lets on. For example, the current low unemployment rate hides 1.8 million people currently in U.S. state and federal jails and prisons. The percentages would increase by 1.3% for white workers and by 9.7% for black workers (Left Business Observer, 2/25). Given U.S. rulers' policy of increasing racist terror, this trend can only rise. As Challenge pointed out last week, a newborn black baby has better than one chance in four of going to prison.
So the current "boom" is indeed a tale of two classes. In subsequent articles, we will examine the reasons for which the boom can't last indefinitely, even from the bosses' viewpoint. And we'll show that "globalization" is just another name for sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry, which constantly lead to small, medium-sized and then large wars. But we can already draw some key conclusions from the facts in the EPI report.
First, a rising capitalist tide is bad news for most workers. When the rulers profit, they do so at our expense. The more they profit, the more most workers are exploited.
Second, their ability to keep the boom going in the midst of a worldwide overproduction crisis comes from our class's current political weakness, particularly the relative isolation and small size of the PLP, and the very low level of worldwide revolutionary class struggle. The U.S. imperialists have many rivals for markets and labor power. But, they don't yet have a mortal class enemy in the form of a mass communist movement with the goal of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Despite their many economic and political contradictions, this advantage gives them tremendous room to maneuver against competitors anywhere, continue oppressing us and come out victoriously from several economic setbacks, including major depressions.
Third, the "all pain, no gain" scenario described by the EPI isn't inflicted on the working class just once in a while. It's the normal state of affairs under capitalism. It rarely improves and then only for short periods. Nothing can improve it. Therefore, although the EPI's facts may help us understand reality, we must vigilantly avoid the fool's gold of liberal reformism. The EPI represents the most powerful wing of the U.S. ruling class. This is the Rockefeller gang, which plans to mobilize the working class for the coming period of war and fascism and which needs a base-including a pro-imperialist labor movement-to do so. The EPI is backing all sorts of schemes to impose government control on the economy and trying to sucker us with lying promises like raising workers' living standards and fighting racism. Hitler called himself a "socialist; his party was the National Socialism Party." The liberal bosses and their political mouthpieces remain our class's deadliest enemies. Watch out for their attempts to sucker us in upcoming elections.
Remember, as Challenge has pointed out many times, although booms may turn into their opposite for the rulers, capitalism won't destroy itself. It can recover from anything-except communist revolution. The rulers have many weapons at their disposal, and we won't drive them from the stage of history soon. But we have the elements of the weapon that will ultimately smash them, however long it takes. We have a Party that champions the working class's most fundamental interests. Our recent experiences in class struggles, particularly in raising our line of fighting for communism, while mobilizing workers to act show that the PLP can continue to grow under all conditions. This is the outlook we should bring with us to the 1999 May Day marches.
* Real wages may have risen 2.6% since 1996. However, two years don't make a trend. A median worker's inflation-adjusted 1997 wages were still 3.1% lower than in 1989. Young workers and entry-level workers are the hardest hit.
* A typical U.S. married couple had to work 247 hours (over six weeks) more per year in 1996 than in 1989, despite an 8% rise in the economy's productive capacity. In other words, The U.S. working class is working longer for less. The U.S. has the longest work year of all major industrial countries.
* Income inequality grew rapidly in the 1990's. Between 1989 and 1997, the richest 1% got richer, while everyone else, including the middle class, got poorer. The stock market boom widened the gap, because almost 60% of all U.S. households own no stock at all, including pension plans. Nearly 86% of the stock market's growth since 1989 has gone straight to the richest 10% of the population.
* Unemployment may look low, but the figures are very soft. The jobs generated by the "new economy" are mostly in the low-paying service sector. The massive layoff trend in manufacturing continues. On average, laid-off industrial workers who do find new jobs earn 13% less than on their previous jobs. More than one in four are re-hired with no health insurance.
* Almost 30% of all employed workers did not have regular full-time jobs in 1997.
* The average U.S. worker is paying about the same tax rate today as in 1980. However, the richest 1% of families are actually paying $36,710 less.
* Poverty rates have increased in the 1990s. Over 20% of children were officially "poor" in 1996, up a percentage point from 1989 and more than 4% since 1979. Poverty rates for black and Hispanic children hover around 40%. The U.S. has the highest overall poverty rate of the world's 16 most advanced industrial economies. "In fact," says the EPI report, "U.S. inequality is so severe that low-income families in the United States are worse off than low-income families in the 12 other advanced economies for which comparable data exist..."
* The "information age" has hardly been a bonanza for better-paid workers. Just the opposite. The middle class and college-educated are becoming proletarianized. "...White collar workers' experiences in the 1990s-wage losses, displacement, and job instability-mirror the experiences of blue collar workers in the 1980's."
The EPI report concludes: "For the vast majority, the slogan for the last two decades might be: "all pain, no gain."
Well, bananas seem to have undone the civility of the WTO. While neither Europe nor the U.S. produces bananas, the economies they control through imperialism do. U.S. companies control production from Central and South America; and the European companies likewise control production in their former colonies in the Caribbean and Africa. The European Union has protected its banana distributors with special import rules. This is a violation of WTO's `rules' the imperialists had agreed to. The U.S. called on the WTO to make a ruling. The WTO found in favor of the U.S. The U.S. wanted $520 million of penalties imposed on the Europeans, who didn't come up with the cash. The U.S. companies retaliated by having President Clinton activate the "Super 301." This trade weapon allows the president, on his own, to impose punishing tariffs on what another country exports to the U.S. In effect, the U.S. said to hell with the civilized legalities of the WTO--we call the shots. Europe reacted with further delays and the U.S. responded by getting a 100% tariff on some $520 million luxury European goods that were imported into the U.S. At present, the tariff is delayed pending high level talks involving Secretary of State , Madelaine Albright, (while importers still must put up a costly bond as proof of ability to pay.)
This conflict was just what the legal framework of the WTO was created to prevent. This is much more than a fight over bananas--it is another fight in the escalating battles between imperialist blocks for profits and markets caused by the crisis of overproduction. These imperialists willing go bananas shows the severity of the crisis they face and the ruthlessness they are ready, in a heartbeat, to go to the mat for. The same ruthless drive for markets and maximum profits which they have used on the world's workers and smaller capitalists now threatens to overwhelm them and their WTO. And as if to scare themselves back from the brink, they openly worry over the possibility of a trade war.
But the history of this capitalism shows what really happens--that trade wars lead to real wars, some sooner than others--that's how winners and losers are ultimately decided.
Capitalism gone bananas is not a bad movie title but imperialism in crisis. To stop imperialism's nightmarish sequels is to organize for communism and the revolution to give it birth.
On Friday March 19th, I'm going to Boston on a school trip with three chaperones besides myself and 57 students. It's the biggest bus we could get. This is an annual trip for our club. It's meant to celebrate Black History Month and to promote student unity. Just three weeks before the trip I had gotten a little nervous. Only two or three had shown up at a meeting of the club officers. Several very active officers were busy. About 20 people had definitely committed to the trip and most of them had not put down any money. I asked whether we should delay the trip by one week.
With a great deal of confidence, the two student leaders who were present took over. They divided up all the names of the club members to call that night. They told everyone to get themselves going and to start signing up their friends. The next day the money started coming in and it has not stopped. By the deadline, which was one week before the trip, 69 students have paid, 65 have paid the full $30. We have a waiting list and will probably have to turn some student away.
But lately my thoughts have been confused because May Day is coming. About 30 students have signed up for this march, not only club members, but others. When the NYPD murdered Amadou Diallo, our club wrote and circulated a petition condemning the killing and offering condolences to the family. We got 500 signatures in a few days. Many were interested in doing more. Some planned on coming to the May Day March.
We've also organized a student action committee for the club. It's going to deal with some issues like making bathrooms with soap more available, improving cafeteria food and organizing some activities about the Diallo killing. Several members of this committee are also interested in marching on May Day. But recently everything has been overshadowed by the work necessary to organize the Boston trip. A recent meeting of the student action committee ended up discussing the details for Boston. But communism brings all this together.
Well, it turns out that meetings with lots of people can't replace a good personal visit. I remembered how discussing with just those two club leaders ad led to turning a potentially negative situation into a very positive one. I contacted some students and their parents. One parent was immediately very interested in coming to the May Day March. I left some booklets of tickets.
But it's not only May Day that's coming. A city-wide organization called Global Kids is sponsoring a conference on human rights on March 24th. Many students from our school belong and are going. There is a march on Washington about police brutality and some activities are being planned about the case of Mumia abu Jamal. Also, during the bus ride to Boston, we're planning on showing Glory and some parts of Eyes on the Prize, I am preparing some fliers about some of this history.
NYC Teacher
I was 16 years old, standing with a group of friends, talking, having a good time, when the cops came. They wanted to know what we were doing there, if we had drugs, and were going to arrest us. But they let us go threatening to arrest us next time if they ever caught us on the street again. Sounds familiar? No this was not Flatbush, Brooklyn or South Central, LA, this was El Salvador in the mid-70s.
I remembered this experience recently at an educational forum where concerned parents and teachers raised the issue of police in the NYC Public Schools. What I see in schools and around me today is a reflection of what happened then.
During the '70s the Salvadoran Government cut back school hours and changed the curriculum, lowering the level of all subjects. I remember feeling that maybe I was not capable of learning. After graduating students felt unprepared for life outside school. Teenagers, alone or in groups were constantly harassed without any reason.
At the same time the living standards were getting worse. When teachers began to protest the conditions in the schools they became a target of police harassment. The attacks spread to factories, vendors on the streets, peasants, journalists, and anyone else who criticized the government or demanded better conditions. Youth in the countryside were forced to serve in the military. Control and terrorizing led to death squad assassinations and open fascism, which resulted in a civil war that lasted for 12 years.
These memories came back to me when I saw cops sweeping students away from the front gates of a high school in Brooklyn. Police brutality and the murders by the cops of black and latin students sounds so familiar. Some teachers are protesting, yet many, even though they fear that with cops in the schools shootings could occur in the corridors, are afraid of losing their jobs--never mind about their lives--if they say or do anything political.
A school administrator at the forum advocated "taking back control of the schools from the students." This is the position imposed by capitalism and its lovers at the Board of Education, specifically the Chancellor. They want to keep full control in the schools and will use any means to do so. As in El Salvador in the '70s fascism is starting to show its true color in NYC by terrorizing students. If we don't stop it, it will spread to control workers. It is the nature of capitalism--to fear the workers who are organizing for a communist society.
A Reader
The title of this letter might read, "Fasicm and The Assault On The Humanities". In essence, the capitalists are continuously whining about the failures of the public education system, but in reality, with fascism on the rise and most jobs in the service sector, they really are not interested in providing people with a solid education.
I heard a ad on the radio the other night from the Military. It went something like this. "There are plenty of people with college degrees in English Literature who are working tables and selling shoes for peanuts. But ROTC is interested in preparing you for a real job without worrying about reading all the useless books."
In essence, the ruling class does not want people learning literature, sociology, philosophy, or history. Out here in the coal fields, colleges are becoming like technical schools where you go to get what you need to get a good paying job, not an education. Of course, there are few good paying jobs, but the local colleges push this line to the young and the older unemployed because they want the money. These colleges are nothing but businesses.
In reality, the ruling class finds the humanities dangerous, since they might actually cause a person to think, and if there is one thing the ruling class fears, it is an enlightened people. Ignorance is the back bone of the fascist beast and they know it.
They give their little lectures about how communists base their society on brainwashing and that nobody can think critically about anything. This from the mouths of people who want us to learn critical thinking from cheap TV commercials and nauseating Talk Shows.
At a local school, a liberal left-leaning English teacher was denied the right to have her students read Native Son, the novel by Richard Wright, the black American author. Now there may be some problems with the novel, but it does deal with the issue of racism and communism. Wright had been a member of the U.S. Communist Party at one time, but later changed his mind. Still, this novel could open discussion of racism and communism.
Instead, another teacher had the students read a '50s propaganda novel, Alas, Babylon, which is the story of "courageous" Americans who struggle to survive after the Soviet Union bombed the good ole USA. The students were even taken on a field trip to see a bomb shelter. In 1999!
Recently, a man who teaches Drama at a local college said to me that he thought that after he retired the school might cancel Theatre. He sadly stated that the Arts and Humanities are no longer deemed important.
Hopefully, under communism, humanity will be able to get a truly well rounded education without worrying about spending one's life as a wage-slave clone.
RED Rocker
DiMaggio is dead. Bob Herbert of the NY Times (3/10) wrote about it. He called Joe's 56-game-hitting-streak as his greatest accomplishment. Herbert adds that the same day the streak ended the Nazis started their second furious offense along the entire Russian front employing 9 million men and taking the key city of Smolensk which led to Moscow.
What was the weakness of Herbert's article? That the hero was Di Maggio. Not Zhukhov marshalling his forces, not the Soviet Communist Party led by Stalin; not Stalin making the strategic decisions and knowing when to let the generals lead; not seeing how the Soviets had built themselves up with the five year industrialization plans and collectivization which had so developed the fighting capacity of the Russian men, women and youth. And all this was accomplished only because this was the dictatorship of the proletariat in action. Within four years, the Nazi Third Reich would be annihilated'.
When heroes are written about one needs perspective and to know what to say. DiMaggio was a great ballplayer, my favorite as a kid when strong feelings are formed. To me he surpasses just about all the players today in running, covering ground, knowing how to win, hitting, throwing and consistency. But these bourgeois journalists, like Herbert, are playing in a political league where they can't compete in when they put the Russian Red armies of WWII led by Stalin and the Party in the same class with the death of DiMaggio.
A Former Player with the White Sox and Pirate organizations