FIGHT FOR WORKER POWER
REBEL AGAINST CLINTON’S OIL WAR!
No matter what workers voted for in the recent election, war is what we’re getting. No sooner have the votes been counted than a deadly armada of ships, planes, missiles and troops is being assembled to attack Iraq. Behind all the hysteria about "weapons of mass destruction," the US is launching a protracted air assault, and eventual ground war to occupy Baghdad, to protect their oil interests in the Middle East.
The ongoing war against Iraq is the result of the world-wide capitalist crisis of over-production. A glut of oil on world markets has been made worse by the collapse of the Asian and Russian economies. With factories and mills shut down from Moscow to Tokyo, oil supplies are building and prices are dropping. The US must keep Iraqi oil off the market in an effort to keep prices from dropping further. US imperialism killed 500,000 Iraqis in the 6-week Desert Slaughter in 1991, most were civilians and troops that refused to fight. Since then, US-backed economic sanctions have killed millions more, mainly young children and the elderly. They are now drooling at the prospect of killing many more to protect their profits. This is how the rulers resolve their crises.
CIA, Pentagon, and White House mouthpieces, plus major media like the New York Times and Washington Post, are all saying that US objectives cannot be accomplished from the air. Ground war is on the horizon, and could begin now, that will involve hundreds of thousands of US troops for a prolonged and deadly occupation of Iraq. Crisis and war are very dangerous propositions. But they also open the door for workers and soldiers to build the revolutionary communist movement, turn the guns around, and prepare to seize power from the war makers and strike breakers. This must be our response to the threat to the lives of workers and youth around the world!
The crisis over over-production is not limited to oil. Steel, auto, and aerospace workers are facing mass poverty and unemployment as factories and mills can’t sell what they produce. Last week, United Steel Workers union president Becker said, "The crisis is here and now. The industry is on the verge of a catastrophe that will almost certainly dwarf the steel disasters of the '80s." (Over 350,000 steel workers lost their jobs.) All the major auto steel and aerospace contracts expire next year. Becker, like the auto and aerospace union leaders, is uniting with the bosses against the "foreign competition." The looming Middle East oil war is where this unity leads. PLP is uniting workers around the world, to bury all the bosses and their wars with communist revolution!
We don’t welcome war, but we don’t fear it! We must seize the opportunity to turn the rulers’ war against them, and build the forces for communist revolution. On campuses and high schools, we should organize student strikes, teach-ins, and militant actions against the oil war. On the job, we should organize strikes and job actions where we can, and turn every union meeting into a political struggle over war, exposing the union leaders and their support for Clinton and the rulers. In the armed forces, we must organize the troops to oppose the war. A fighting PLP can grow dramatically in this period. As the Chinese Communists used to say, "Start your war. We’ll finish it!"
PROGRESSIVE LABOR PARTY
1 800 330-9953