Challenge, October 6, 1999, Vol. 36, No. 2

The 2000 presidential campaign is moving into high gear early. It was not even a year ago that Clinton’s impeachment proved the big bosses are locked in a major dogfight over political power, profits and foreign policy. The presidency is crucial to all of them. The faction of rulers that controls state power holds a major advantage over its rivals.

The working class has no interest in supporting any of these factions or the politicians who front for them. Our interest remains the long, hard fight to smash all bosses and replace their murderous profit system with communism. But the politicians try to disguise their true class loyalties. They all parade as workers’ friends. Sometimes the reality behind the mask isn’t so obvious. That’s why Challenge regularly exposes all the politicians as billionaires’ mouthpieces. None of these liars is a "lesser evil" for the working class. Let’s look at the leading Republican candidates. (The Democrats are no better. We’ll deal with them next week.)

Buchanan: Hitler Clone Who Proves How Openly Fascist The U.S. Has Become

The millionaire journalist hack Pat Buchanan raised a lot of eyebrows recently when he talked about quitting the Republican Party to join the so-called "Reform" Party of former World Wrestling clown Jesse Ventura and billionaire Ross Perot. Buchanan is the most straightforwardly fascistic of all the presidential candidates. He frequently makes vile racist remarks about super-exploited immigrant workers, whom he accuses of "stealing" jobs from U.S. citizens. He’s also an unapologetic anti-Semite. Now, in a sharp departure from other "leaders," his new book asserts that the U.S. didn’t have to bother fighting Hitler in World War II since Hitler and fascism "posed no threat to America."

Like Hitler, Buchanan parades as the workers’ pal. His ultra-nationalistic pose covers his real agenda: to defend the profit interests of U.S.-based businessmen unable to compete successfully on the world market. Chief among these gangsters is the South Carolina-based textile baron, Roger Milliken. The Buchanan-Milliken interests may decide to link up with Perot. If they do, the move will reflect sharpening struggle among the rulers for control of the Republican Party. But the Buchanan phenomenon also reveals how far and how fast all U.S. capitalist politics have moved toward open fascism. "Polls indicate …Buchanan could get as much as ten percent of the national vote…as the Reform candidate" (London Financial Times, Sept. 27). That could mean six million votes for a klansman who wears a suit instead of a hood.

Republicans Beg Nazi Buchanan To Stay

One might naively think that the so-called "party of Lincoln" would say "good riddance" to Buchanan. Not exactly. House Speaker Hastert, the former wrestling coach, urged Buchanan to stay in the name of preserving "divergent views" (FT). In other words, Hastert, who holds one of the most important offices in the country, considers Buchanan’s racism legitimate. Even more significantly, Republican front-runner George W. Bush practically begged Buchanan not to leave, saying that he needed "every vote [he] could get" to win the nomination. Translation: the leading Republican candidate can’t do without the now openly pro-fascist base of the most prominent nazi on the U.S. political scene.

Buchanan also helps even his biggest enemies among the rulers in one important way. He acts as a foil for their overall drive toward fascism, and his open fascism allows all the rest of them to masquerade as "lesser-evils."

Bush: Mouthpiece For Energy Construction Giants

Bush would appear to be in the midst of a juggling act among all the rulers’ factions. He hasn’t quite decided his relationship to the Eastern Establishment. He has ties to Texas oil and the giant oil equipment industry. A major backer is former Defense Secretary Dick Cheyney, now CEO of Halliburton, the world’s largest manufacturer of oil industry equipment. As Challenge showed during Clinton’s "humanitarian" aerial genocide in Yugoslavia, the Halliburton company had a huge stake in Balkan energy pipelines and is anxious to make billion-dollar deals with anyone, even Exxon rivals.

Bush’s other backers include Wall Street—Henry Kravis, a founding partner of Kohnberg-Kravis-Roberts (Business Week, April 29); the lucrative high-tech and leisure fields—James Barksdale, former CEO of the internet bonanza Netscape, and J.W. Marriott, Jr., CEO of the Marriott hotel chain; and Kenneth Lay, CEO of Texas-based energy giant Enron.

Meanwhile, he’s throwing an olive branch to Buchanan. And still unclear is his ability to walk the tightrope between the Halliburton-BP Amoco gang and the Rockefeller oil interests, which continue to have sharp differences over all aspects of capitalist policy. So Bush would appear to be trying to keep a foot in the camp of all the rulers’ factions.

McCain: Mass Murderer Turned Spokesman for Oil and Wall Street Billionaires

The other leading Republican is John McCain. McCain began as a Navy pilot responsible for murdering thousands of Vietnamese workers during U.S. imperialism’s war of aggression there. He poses as a war hero because of the years he spent in a North Vietnamese prison. During the Clinton-NATO Kosovo war, he demanded ground troops, to permanently secure Kosovo. No wonder; his biggest backers include BP-Amoco, the oil giant that had the most to lose from a disruption of Balkan pipeline projects.

McCain’s candidacy reflects some of the most significant in-fighting within the main wing of U.S. finance capitalists. His fundraising chair is Henry Paulson, the CEO of Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs. Another Goldman director, John Thain, is on the McCain committee. Two other Goldman directors are also directors of BP Amoco. A major battle for corporate power took place in the Goldman boardroom earlier this year. Paulson & Co. ousted pro-Rockefeller CEO John Corzine. Corzine wanted to pull the plug on loans to Russian bosses, whom the Rockefellers now view as their major potential opponent, along with China. Paulson, Thain & Co. wanted to keep making all the interest-bearing deals they could, regardless of political consequences. Corzine is now running for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey as a liberal democrat.

McCain also backs campaign finance reform. This is a move aimed at keeping the major political offices in the hands of the biggest financial houses and corporations, mainly benefiting Eastern Establishment forces. It has nothing to do with representing workers’ interests in the House or Senate. The Goldman Sachs squabble shows that the old line billionaires can’t cover up certain differences among themselves. But they want to prevent upstarts from gaining political advantage. This happened during the so-called "Gingrich revolution" of 1994, when their rivals, domestic oil mogul Koch and others, bought their way into Congress. McCain may speak for one wing of the Establishment, but he can’t be too far away from the other. Rockefeller pal Henry Kissinger sponsored McCain’s recent book launch in New York.

The bosses’ dogfight for control of the Republican Party is far from over. It will probably sharpen considerably before the nomination is decided. No matter who wins, workers mustn’t fall for any of these candidates. Our job is to see through them all and smash the class they defend. Building the Progressive Labor Party is the weapon to do it.

(Next week: Gore and Bradley, standard-bearers for Exxon, Chase Manhattan and Oil War.)

Protesters Tie Up I-95, Slam Killer Cops

MIAMI, Sept. 28 — There are many faces to Miami, the country’s so-called "Sun Capital." There is the tourist Miami/Miami Beach, with shopping malls, plenty of beaches, the Parrot Jungle, South Beach and its fancy restaurants, discos and Versace’s mansion. And then there is the "other" Miami—the city of banks which launder billions in drugs, and the Miami International Airport, world’s biggest crack house, where just last month over 50 airline and airport workers, including INS and FAA officials, were arrested for smuggling drugs. This is the Miami run by crooked politicians (many of them anti-communist Cuban exiles).

The other Miami includes workers getting paid very low wages for working in the hotels, shopping malls, restaurants and tourist attractions—making it the fourth poorest city in the U.S. These super-exploited workers are kept under control the old-fashioned way—police terror.

In late August, the cops murdered a homeless Latin man in Little Havana (S.W. 8th St.), shooting him several times. Their excuse? In the streets he was called "El Loco" (the Crazy One) and he was "carrying a gun" (which turned out to be a plastic toy gun).

A few weeks later, the cops killed again. This time, Sgt. Juan Mendez shot an unarmed 19-year-old black youth, Antonio Butler. Mendez has a long history of brutality since he became a cop in 1984. There are 45 complaints against him, including the fatal shootings of three other suspects. Butler, a car theft suspect, was shot as he fled the cops.

Yesterday, during Butler’s funeral, hundreds of protesters in cars, motorcycles and four symbolic hearses moved slowly down Interstate 95, tying up traffic on the main link between Miami and Fort Lauderdale. They gathered in front of the Miami police headquarters, chanting "No Justice, no peace." The demonstrators demanded the firings of cop Mendez and police chief William O’Brien, whom they accused of covering up an internal investigation into the shooting.

To demand that Janet Reno and the Justice Dept. investigate the Butler shooting, as U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek is asking, is like demanding that the fox protect the chickens.

Police terror is not an accident; it is part and parcel of the way capitalism operates. Cops serve and protect the bosses, and enforce racism, which give bosses hundreds of billions a year in extra profits. Building a mass anti-racist communist movement to fight the bosses and their cops is the best response to these racist killings.

DC 37 Hacks Use Workers’ Due To Divert ‘U.S. Out Of Vieques’ Movement

NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 28 — AFSCME’s District Council 37, representing municipal workers here, celebrated "Hispanic Week" by donating $1,000 to support the demand of the people of Vieques, Puerto Rico that the U.S. Navy stop using part of the island for target practice. DC37 President Victor Guadalupe and Lee Saunders—the international representative overseeing the union in the aftermath of the previous leadership’s ouster for defrauding the membership—are planning to bring the Vieques issue to the AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles next week.

What’s going on here? Has the labor movement leadership suddenly become an opponent of U.S. imperialism? When such elements as the right-wing governor Rosello of Puerto Rico and liberal Jesse Jackson urge the Navy to leave Vieques, a closer analysis is needed.

Firstly, DC 37’s membership has changed over the years, now made up of a large number of Latin workers. The top union bosses realize they must deal with issues concerning these workers, to be in a better position to divert them from revolutionary politics. Many Latin workers here have ties with workers in Puerto Rico and other Latin American countries.

During the Vietnam War, many politicians, and even some unions, joined the U.S.-Out-of-Vietnam drive when it became a mass movement, and (when it became clear the U.S. would lose the war), to divert the masses away from the revolutionary politics PLP was bringing to it. That’s precisely the role of these labor hacks now, as "lieutenants of the capitalist class."

Secondly, AFSCME has launched an organizing drive in Puerto Rico to increase its dues-paying membership. They figure by "contributing" on the Vieques issue, they can get on the "good side" of workers on that island.

The Vieques issue has galvanized Puerto Ricans on the island and in the U.S., particularly since a few months ago the Navy "accidentally" bombed a security shack manned by civilians employed by the Navy. A local security guard was killed. This, plus the fact that the cancer rate in Vieques is much higher than in the rest of Puerto Rico because of the continuous bombardments, has mobilized tens of thousands of demonstrators in Puerto Rico demanding the Navy get out. Even in the recent Trinidad-de la Hoya boxing match, the Trinidad group carried a sign seen worldwide calling for the "Navy out of Vieques."

These actions could lead to a mass movement opposing U.S. imperialism in Puerto Rico. It could threaten not only the Navy presence in Vieques, but the whole use of Puerto Rico as a strategic military base for the U.S. bosses’ interests in Colombia and all over Latin America.

This base is important for U.S. imperialism. European rivals are making big inroads in what the U.S. calls its "backyard." Twenty-eight percent of all crude oil imported by the U.S. now comes from Latin America, mainly from Venezuela (bordering Colombia) and Mexico.

Just a few weeks ago, the Pentagon’s Southern Command, which runs U.S. military operations throughout the Caribbean and South America, was moved to Puerto Rico from the Panama Canal Zone. Instead of calling for its ouster, Gov. Rosello welcomed it. That U.S. Command is now training Colombian troops in Puerto Rico to fight the anti-U.S. guerrillas in Colombia.

Clinton is supposed to decide in a few months whether the Navy should remain in Vieques (the Navy claims Vieques is important to test weapons). Whatever Clinton does, Puerto Rico will continue to be used as a military base for U.S. imperialism. Those involved in the Navy-Out-of-Vieques movement should reject the union hacks and politicians trying to divert them from an anti-imperialist direction. Developing PLP is main the ingredient to overcome this diversion.

Stealing Millions, Doling Out Pennies

DC 37 thinks a "donation" of $1,000 to the anti-U.S. Navy movement in Puerto Rico will make them "look good." Compare that thousand bucks to the millions stolen from workers’ dues money by the now-discredited Gotbaum leadership.

Even worse is the contract that the old leadership jammed through by literally fixing the vote. There was absolutely no wage increase for the first two years of that phony agreement. Had the workers received just a measly one percent increase over that entire two years, and given that the DC 37 contract sets a pattern for all the other city unions, all city workers would have seen an additional half billion dollars in their paychecks!

A thousand bucks is not even pocket change to the swindlers that run the union and City Hall.

Workers In Chiapas: Fight For Workers’ Power Not For Any Oil Bosses’ Profits

MEXICO, Sept. 21 — Two weeks ago, thousands of indigenous people, supported by striking UNAM students, temporarily stopped the advance of the army in the community of Amador Hernandez, Chiapas. The current Army actions in Chiapas are a prelude to building a network of roads that would quickly allow the army and its equipment to penetrate into the heart of the Lancandona Forest and guarantee the exploitation of the oil reserves in the area.

The "peace of the cemetery" is the peace that the government wants to impose on the people of Chiapas. The Zapatista leadership insists that their struggle is to free the indigenous communities from racist oppression and the neoliberalism of the government. The hidden truth behind their claims is the fight between the capitalists for the oil wealth in the area and to modify the model of capitalist development that keeps the Mexican capitalists hostage to the U.S. imperialists.

The ruling capitalists know that the gigantic Cantarel oil deposit in Campeche will not last forever. It has begun to decline in output. Specialists calculate that it will only last for 12 more years. They need the oil deposits in Chiapas, which are rumored to be vast. The U.S. imperialists also want this oil. They want 80% of it for their strategic reserves.

The Zapatista leadership, headed by Sub Commander Marcos, has converted the legitimate aspirations of the indigenous people for freedom from racist oppression into support for an opposing capitalist strategy. He is fighting against neoliberalism and to legitimize the electoral process, to give more credibility to capitalism. He pushes the goal of capitalist democracy. These policies strengthen the nationalist aspirations of that part of the Mexican ruling class which wants the crude oil refined in Mexico and then sold so that it generates more profits. They also want to diversify its sale to competing bosses from the U.S., Europe and Japan. They want a bigger cut of the profits and to stop being hostages of U.S. imperialism.

The European imperialists hypocritically say they are worried about the violation of human rights and the poverty of the indigenous people. The ambassador of the European Union came to Chiapas to supervise the distribution of 4 million euros to the poor. But at the same time, their negotiators have continually stated that the conflict in Chiapas will not be an obstacle to settling a trade agreement between the European Union and the same Mexican bosses who sent the army against the people of Chiapas. Their presence in Chiapas is to strengthen the political position of Marcos and to increase their competition with the US bosses for the markets, labor and oil.

The Accords of Andres, which include a new indigenous law, the supposed "autonomy" of the communities and their customs and rituals, will not resolve the racism, discrimination, oppression and poverty in the indigenous communities. The indigenous people will continue to be victims of the fighting between the different bosses in the region, as well of racism and religious oppression. The indigenous communities shouldn’t support any imperialist, whether it’s the U.S., the Europeans, Japan or their Mexican capitalist buddies. All of them are our enemy! The indigenous people need to unite and fight together with the rest of the working class of Mexico and the world to destroy all the capitalists and imperialists, to build a new communist society. This is the only way the indigenous people and the whole working class can liberate ourselves from exploitation and oppression. The PLP is building this communist alternative. We call on the indigenous peoples, workers and students to join us.

We call on the troops sent to Chiapas to refuse to follow orders to defend the bosses and instead to join the side of the oppressed. We also fight for the strategy of winning workers in the factories who produce all the wealth of society to communist ideas. These sections are crucial to smashing the capitalists and their hired goons. Any other road means illusions, which will prolong capitalist exploitation.

The students striking at UNAM shouldn’t support the nationalist, pro European politics of the EZLN leadership. Instead they need to embrace communist politics and fight on the side of the oppressed and exploited, bringing this understanding to the indigenous communities, and to the soldiers. That’s the only way we’ll get rid of the "caciques," landowners, fascist goon squads, religious mysticism, U.S. and European imperialists, and their Mexican business partners.

Workers Flooded By Capitalist Cutbacks

BOUND BROOK, NJ, Sept. 27 — The destruction wrought by tropical storm Floyd in this predominantly working-class community was—like most disasters under capitalism—completely avoidable. As is now revealed, since 1973 (when six workers died in a flash flood) the Army Corps of Engineers had been planning a vast construction project to tame the rivers and streams that traverse Bound Brook and a dozen nearby communities. Yet nothing was done for 26 years! Why?

Work was delayed over and over by Federal budget cuts, by drastic changes demanded by Congress, by the Corps’ bureaucracy and by political fights over how to apportion the costs and benefits of the $330 million flood-control plan. The latest budget cut was the slashing of Federal spending on flood control projects by the Clinton Administration.

Again, as always with capitalism, it comes down to money and profits.

"That project could have been done now and Bound Brook wouldn’t have been flooded," said Clark Gilman, 60, the chief of flood-plain management for the New Jersey Department of Environment Protection. Gilman has worked on the plan for 25 of the 30 years he has held that position. "It’s real sad," he said. "Nero fiddled and now Rome’s burned."

The proposed project would have protected against floods at a level three feet higher than the crest of the current one. But when it comes to saving workers’ lives and houses, that’s the last thing capitalism is concerned with. This profit system in crisis is not about to spend money that won’t increase its "bottom line."

All this is in sharp contrast to the accomplishments of the Chinese communist revolution. Millions of workers volunteered their labor to tame the Yangtze River, whose floods had ravaged tens of millions for centuries. It took a profit-free society to attain that goal. Unfortunately the return of capitalism to China has ended such achievements.

China: 50 Years After Liberation:

Capitalism Brings Back All Forms Of Exploitation

On October 1, China celebrates the 50^th anniversary of the communist-led revolution that shook the world and changed China. What did the revolution accomplish and how did the capitalist counter-revolution change that?

Led by Mao Zedong, the communists and their Red Army defeated the fascist Japanese army which had invaded China since the 1930s. The Soviet Red Army, after destroying Hitler’s Nazi war machine in Europe, joined forces with their Chinese brothers and sisters to smash the Japanese fascist army in Manchuria.

But the end of World War II did not mean the end of the civil war in China. The United States armed Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist Kuomintang army, which had spent the whole war fighting the communists instead of the Japanese fascists. Finally, after four bloody years, Chiang and the Nationalists fled to Taiwan. By October 1949, the communists had liberated and unified China, putting an end to a century of civil war and imperialist domination.

The communists extended liberation to all sections of the population. Women were emancipated from the yoke of extreme oppression (symbolized by banning the binding of their feet). Workers and peasants were freed from capitalist and feudal oppression. Mass starvation ended. Drug addiction, prostitution, illiteracy and other social evils were wiped out.

During the 1960s, China experienced another revolution, fighting those who wanted to take the capitalist road. After several yeas of what became known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the right- wing won because of mistakes made by Mao and his allies. When Mao died in 1976, the capitalist roaders took over and Deng Xiaoping initiated the biggest robbery in modern history, destroying the commune system and many of the gains workers and peasants had won.

Today, China is a full-blown capitalist country. Shanghai, Beijing and other cities have huge shopping centers, skycrapers, the world’s largest McDonalds, but this is just the appearance:

"…Millions are not sharing in the prosperity. Millions of workers suddenly found themselves without government-provided housing, jobs, education and health services that the State used to guarantee until their death….Peasants have moved to the cities in search of jobs….But [they] must leave their wives behind in the countryside to take care of their children and their crops. The young woman that go to the cities work in factories [at starvation wages—Ed.] or as maids. Prostitution, drug addiction, kidnappings, delinquency and religious sects, evils suppressed by Mao…now are coming back." (Associated Press news item, Sept. 25).

The current crisis of capitalism has slowed the economy. Almost 10% are unemployed (80 million). The rulers are trying to control the growing chaos with the slogan, "Without the Communist Party, there wouldn’t be a new China." But few workers and peasants believe their rulers are real communists. A new revolution is indeed needed, to destroy those who today try to hide behind the red flag while drowning the working class in capitalism mud.

Students, Professors Denounce Sham Exit Exam

NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 27 — Students and faculty protested during the meeting of City University (CUNY) Board of Directors against the Exit exam. The Board approved this exam which will force community college students who took remedial courses to pass a special test in order to enter 4-year colleges. Previously, these students could enter 4-year colleges as juniors upon graduation from the 2-year community colleges. Herman Badillo, head of the CUNY Board, was booed by the protesters when he called for the vote in favor of the Exit exam. They were also protesting Badillo’s racist remarks made last week during a meeting of public school principals that Mexican and Dominican students "don’t have history of education in their cultures." (See Letters, page 6)

Movie Review: Arlington Road

The film "Arlington Road" has been at theaters for the past month, but, unlike such over-rated movies as "The Blair Witch Project" and "Stigmata," it has received little attention.

To begin with, "Arlington Road" is an excellent political thriller, dealing with a real issue, far right-wing extremist terrorists in the U.S. It stars Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins, both doing excellent acting jobs.

Bridges is a college professor who teaches a course in right-wing extremism in the U.S. today. He shows his students films of the Oklahoma City bombing (not named as such). He is convinced the man who was arrested for the bombing could not have acted alone and was part of a much larger network. Bridges’ wife had been an FBI agent who was killed at a Ruby Ridge-type situation due to FBI "mistakes."

One day, Bridges finds a seriously-wounded young boy and takes him to the hospital. It turns out the boy was injured playing with explosives. The boy’s father (Tim Robbins) thanks Bridges and develops a friendship with him. Their sons become friends and Bridges’ son later joins a youth group organized by Robbins, which turns out to be more than the Boy Scouts.

Bridges discovers his neighbor is not who he claimed to be and had changed his name some time ago. Bridges checks and finds that Robbins, at 16, attempted to carry out a bombing to avenge his father’s suicide, caused by the government allegedly screwing him over. Robbins catches Bridges in the investigation and goes into a manipulative story about how he just screwed up as a kid. ("We all make mistakes.")

The film intensifies as Bridges’ live-in woman friend is killed in an auto crash and his son is kidnapped. Bridges knows these events aren’t accidents. He now knows too much. The ending is the "Big Surprise."

Of course, the film doesn’t relate this activity to the developing fascism and the numerous fascist outfits (the Klan, the Aryan Nations, the Far Right militias, etc.) who aim to use terrorism to destabilize society and eventually set up a "Fourth Reich." Hardly touched by the government, they are probably funded by the New Money segment of the ruling class.

Meanwhile, Clinton (representing the Rockefeller wing of the ruling class) uses domestic terrorism as an excuse to institute more and more police state measures. The government has always been more concerned with repressing and terrorizing communists and all others fighting for some justice and not Nazi and fascist scum.

Nonetheless, "Arlington Road" does deal with a disturbing and dangerous trend in the U.S., right-wing terrorism. They don’t really target the Big Shots but kill workers and children in these bombings, rationalizing that "this is a great patriotic movement and the innocent die in war." It will take a workers’ revolution to put these fascist thugs and their backers six feet under.

Red Rocker

Principle That Should Guide Our Mass Work

Communist Politics Are Primary; More Info Needed

Dear Challenge:

The Challenge editorial (9/22) about the UNAM strike has inspired me and my fellow workers. It has also again raised the question: "Can communists work in the mass movement with the full line of the Progressive Labor Party or must we water it down?" Can we be active in a strike while criticizing the leadership and their demands? My admittedly limited experience leads me to answer, "Yes!"

First, I want to make clear I am not advocating acting like a "bull in a china shop." We don’t want to be revolutionary martyrs—just throw out our ideas from the sidelines and let the chips fall where they may. We want to organize to win, using our base-building skills and political struggle. Even so, our best efforts may not initially be the most popular.

The line, as expressed in the editorial, will probably bring into question our leadership in the reform movement. We may lose leadership positions, either formal or informal, because we’ve sharpened our analysis. If my experience is any guide, we most certainly will make enemies of some of the present leadership. Even some of our friends may disagree. But leadership of the reform movement is not our goal. Our goal is to organize and recruit to the Party. Sometimes giving political leadership means you have to sacrifice positions of leadership in the reform struggle.

We are not like the fake leftists (revisionists) that view keeping their reform leadership positions as primary. I remember when I first got my job, a friend (who, by the way, now distributes 50 Challenges) introduced me to a "real" communist. This revisionist’s only advice was: "the most important thing is to save your job." I didn’t know much back then, but I still knew better than that!

I’m not saying, "Good, we got kicked out of leadership and we are being attacked by the mass leaders!" But, I am saying we can’t be wedded to the dynamics of the reform struggle.

One recent example of taking a seemingly unpopular, but principled position was when our club decided, after hours of debate, to organize to reject the contract negotiated by the union and the company. We thought about finessing the issue; talking mainly about how the class struggle will continue after the contract is accepted, rather than waging a fight to "the end."

We chose what turned out to be a more difficult route—initially. Every one of the comrades had some friend "go off" on them. Usually, the friend was in debt and didn’t want to face a strike to fight for laid-off workers. We managed to organize a minority to vote "No," but this was in areas where previously the vast majority followed us into battle with the bosses.

For our efforts, the bosses "rewarded" us by threatening to fire us. But one shop steward showed us it was all worth it. He asked, "How can you get job security in a market-driven society?"

"You can’t," we answered, "that’s why we’re communist revolutionaries. But we have to fight for every job …and as we learn to fight as a class, we can help to prepare ourselves to make that revolution." Debates like that made our "Vote No" campaign worth it.

Now we face a dangerous situation in a basic (war) industry. The bosses and the union leaders have "bought labor peace" in industry after industry in the U.S. They have given some chump change to senior employees in exchange for a free reign to lay off thousands. What are we to do?

Self-critically, we should focus more of our fire on the union leadership. We should do a better job of exposing the union movement’s demands for job security—which inevitably translates into job security for fewer and fewer remaining workers. Even more ominous, the union equates job security with becoming junior partners in U.S. imperialism’s war plans. We must show how the above points to the limits of trade unionism and hence, the indispensable necessity of building our revolutionary communist Party. All this, while being more active in the union!

How is this possible? In brief, by waging the fight for political leadership anchored on the shop floor where we can be like fish in the sea. This means building collectives responsible for the Party’s work—beginning and ending with the circulation of our paper.

I’m sure others will add more ideas about how to work in the mass movement to build the Party. Our inspiring efforts in the UNAM strike, and our on-going evaluation of them, can help us all move forward.

A Comrade

Letters

Limits Of Technology

Dear Challenge:

Last week’s Hurricane Floyd swept through the New York area causing massive flooding. Northern New Jersey was especially hard hit. The floods caused the overflow of the Raritan River. Situated along its banks are two major computer centers—one that controls all phone service for northern Jersey (including access to e-mail, internet, and cell phones), and another that controls access to 8,000 ATM machines nationwide. In each building the crucial computer equipment was in the basement! It was all ruined.

I must confess I was amused because Bergen County, one of the most affluent counties in the nation, found itself without any electronic access at all. These rich yuppies couldn’t use any of their plastic—their ATM’s were out, grocery store cash registers wouldn’t function, their bank records could not be retrieved so they couldn’t even make a manual withdrawal, their credit cards did not operate, and their phones and electricity were gone.

So much for the revolution technology is supposed to bring to our lives. Two flooded basements wiped it out in a few minutes. And it took nearly a week for full service to be restored—in the heart of the most affluent region in New Jersey! The limit of technology remains that it is still run by and for the capitalists in the pursuit of profit. It is useful, when it works, but it is not revolutionary. It has not fundamentally changed anything except make the system more vulnerable to collapse.

A columnist for the New York Times, who lives in Westchester County, NY, another affluent area hit by the storm, wrote an entire column about having "discovered" the heroes of his town. He got help from the volunteer fire dept, primarily working class men who’ve lived there since before the area was gentrified. He was stunned, simply stunned, to meet people who rolled up their sleeves and pitched in to help all their neighbors.

That also hasn’t changed—workers will pitch in together in an emergency. Let the yuppies scramble to find a place where their plastic is still accepted. What a good reminder Hurricane Floyd gave us of the limits of technology and the potential of the working class. Only workers, led by communists, are revolutionary.

Brooklyn Teacher

Behind Badillo’s Racism Against Mexican, Dominican Immigrants

Dear Challenge:

Last week, Herman Badillo, former Democratic Congressman, Deputy Mayor under Koch, now turned Republican and President of City University (CUNY), caused quite a stir. He was quoted by the NY Post (9/23) as saying that Mexican and Dominican youth are filling school space and learning nothing. According to Badillo, the reason they learn nothing, according to Badillo is because they are mostly from the mountains and rural areas and, in the case of Mexicans, mostly Indians, "with no history of education." This idiot even said the Mexicans are mostly Mayan and Incas (who, of course, lived in Peru not Mexico).

Badillo went on to say he did not recognize East Harlem because, instead of Puerto Ricans, many parts of that neighborhoods are now mainly Mexican. Many reacted angrily and demanded that Badillo resign from his CUNY post and his job as advisor to Mayor Giuliani in educational matters.

This is not the first time that Badillo has been so virulently racist. He got his big start as a racist politician back in the ’60s when he was Housing Commissioner and presided over the eviction of a mostly Puerto Rican population in Mid-Manhattan to make room for what is now the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts. Recently, he has used his job in CUNY to attack black and Latin students, by cutting remedial courses for those students who need them because of the rotten education they got before entering CUNY.

Badillo now aspires to become the Republican Party nominee for Mayor to succeed Giuliani. So he has to show the racist politicians of the GOP that he is as racist as any of them.

The sad part is that some honest people actually believe the racism Badillo pushes about immigrants. And I am talking about other immigrants. "Kids today don’t care about schools"; "kids today are lazy"; etc. This is some of the racist crap I have heard from some immigrants supporting Badillo. Lost in all this is the fact that capitalism is racist to the core, that the educational system has been a total failure for most students, that the money and resources allocated to teach black and Latin students have been cut constantly by all politicians. And most of the school reforms imposed by the liberals have made education even worse.

Blaming the victim has always been the norm under capitalism. Parents, teachers and youth who want to fight this racist school system must join and build the PLP. The best education we can give our children is to fight for a society without any Badillos, Giulianis or Clintons and without any liberal reformers or capitalists. That is communism.

NYC Comrade

The Peace Farce In Colombia

Dear Challenge:

President Pastrana of Colombia went to the UN in NYC, at the same time meeting with his U.S. imperialist masters to talk about the $3 billion in IMF loans and $1 billion in military aid to "fight drugs." The truth is that this has nothing to do with drugs, but with imperialist rivalry. Most of the guerrilla groups in Colombia are anti-U.S., but that doesn’t mean that they are real anti-imperialists since they don’t consider the Europeans or Japanese imperialists. Many anti-U.S. groups, like the NGO’s (Non-Government Organizations) in Colombia, human rights organizations and other mass groups get money from Europe. Many of these groups support the guerrillas. Meanwhile, the guerrillas are still demanding that the government sit down to talk peace. They even demand that big capitalists in Colombia, like those of the Santodomingo group, join the peace talks. These are the same big capitalists who finance the death squads killing innocent workers and youth.

These fake revolutionaries in the guerrilla groups are very dangerous for workers; they try to mislead us into believing that the solution to capitalist oppression lies in supporting them. The recent history of Latin America is full of groups like FARC and ELN (the two leading guerrilla armies in Colombia) which waged armed struggle and then ended up joining the bosses and imperialists in exploiting workers. The FMLN in El Salvador, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua (even Navarro Wolf and Anibal Palacio, heads of guerrilla groups) surrendered their weapons last decade and are now part of the ruling class in Colombia.

We can’t have peace under capitalism. Yes, we do want to end the bloodshed killing tens of thousands in Colombia, but the politics of the guerrillas won’t end this nightmare. Capitalism was born dripping workers’ blood and can only survive murdering and exploiting workers. In this day and age of growing imperialist rivalry that breeds wars all over the globe, and of capitalist crisis of overproduction, the only way to stop the violence is to destroy the system which creates it. PLP has a lot of potential to grow in Colombia, and all over the continent, if we win workers and youth to these ideas, in struggle against their oppressor.

A Comrade, Colombia

Sterilization Of Crack Addicts Smacks Of Nazism

Dear Challenge:

For the bosses to achieve fascism, they must win large segments of the working class to call for it. This is the case of Barbara Harris founder of C.R.A.C.K. (Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity). Ms. Harris is a liberal southern California woman that adopted six children of a crack-addicted women. Fed up with the woman’s irresponsibility, in 1996 Ms. Harris proposed a law that would make it a crime for drug addicts to give birth. When this bill was rejected, Ms. Harris expanded her sterilization program. Her organization offers $200 to crack addicts to be sterilized.

This program is sexist, racist and fascist. It’s sexist because it blames females for the problem of drug addiction and unplanned pregnancies. Even though the sterilization program is offered to males, none have taken up the call. The program is racist because it targets the black and Latin community with billboard advertising. It also uses the picture of a white women holding all of these "non-white" children as her burden. This brings to mind the huge lie of the "White Man’s Burden." There is no mention of the fact that drug intervention programs have been drastically reduced.

It also doesn’t address the fact that people can change. Under communist leadership these drug-addicted workers can be made useful contributors to society. Ultimately this program is part of ushering in the later phases of fascism where the state can sterilize and perhaps destroy individuals who use too much of a society’s resources. What’s next sterilization of overeaters? In their drive towards war, the bosses want it both ways. They want to pacify the militant working class with drugs, and then terrorize them with sterilization.

At Chicago State we’ve taken up the call to fight against this aspect of fascism. We are distributing leaflets and having weekly meetings to develop strategies to expose the fascist nature of these types of programs. We will make this a city-wide campaign since a social-worker professor at Governors State University has taken on the role of local organizer for this fascist group.

We will keep Challenge updated with our progress. Sterilize the bosses’ drive for war!

Chicago Comrade

Thanks For Exposing NOI Racism

Dear Challenge:

I just finished reading the article in your Communist magazine about fascism and the Nation Of Islam (NOI). While I agreed with almost everything that you said, I saw a glaring omission. The NOI, LaRouche and most of the Rockefeller clan, were and still are violent and virulently anti-Semitic. They advocate not only hatred towards Jews, but go so far as to directly imply that their followers should harm Jews for the betterment of the world.

As someone who was born Jewish (although I don’t believe in Judaism anymore) and as someone who accepts many of the precepts and principles of communism, I was very attracted to reading this particular article. I’ve always felt that too many so-called "socialist" and/or "communist" groups pandered too much to the NOI, mainly in fear of looking racist, even though opposing the NOI implies opposing bitter and blatant racism. I felt alienated from this so-called swamp Left. It is refreshing to read a true, 100% anti-racist, anti-hatred perspective in which true Leftists do not concede their principles to pander to hate-mongers.

I’ve actually talked with a "socialist" organization while I attended college. One of its most active members basically told me that while she disagreed with the NOI, she’d join them in a rally if the rally’s purpose was progressive. I thought this was pandering. She thought that not supporting the NOI during certain struggles would make others view this "socialist" party as a bit racist and not truly caring about black issues.

I am just sick and tired of this Left Wing fear of being labeled "racist" by actual racists. It’s time that we ALL stopped this nonsense and realize that whites as well as blacks as well as Jews as well as Arabs as well as Latins as well as Native Americans as well as Asians can ALL be racist. This nonsense that blacks can’t, by definition, be racist because they don’t have any political power is pure crap. Racism is racism is racism. Let’s stop the nonsense now!

Thanks for a great article,

A Philly Red

More Information Needed On UNAM Strike

Dear Challenge:

Recently our study group read the Challenge article (9/22) on the UNAM strike. While we thought it was very good in putting forward a necessary and strong line against educational reform under capitalism and against the severe pitfalls of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, we also thought the article could have provided a better explanation of the how the IMF and other organizations, such as the Cato Institute, function within the framework of ever-sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry. In order to equip ourselves with the necessary tools to be better communists, we need to arm ourselves with clear understanding.

As a student I know that both these topics are hot on campuses worldwide: Do we support the Zapatistas in a world where organized resistance against imperialism is rare? And what should we do about the situation in UNAM? These are the burning questions on the minds of many students. We must understand that the struggle around these issues is not easy and we must be wary of falling into either robot-like sectarianism, on the one hand, and opportunism on the other. Our conversations with others around these issues should emphasize the various points of unity as well as our criticisms. In order to build, we must not shy away from our ideas or be so uncompromising that we become brittle.

Let us compassionately place our ideas in the forefront because we must; because we have a historical necessity. The stakes are too high! Please help us continue the struggle on our campuses.

LA Student Comrade