1. Sharpening Imperialist Dogfight Means WAR, WAR, WAR
   1. `AN OPEC WITH BOMBS'
   2. U.S. Rulers Furious At Bush & Co.'s Incompetence
2. New Orleans: Workers Fight Bosses' Racism in Rebuilding Their Lives
3. Trailer `Parks' or Concentration Camps?
4. Bush and Liberals Both Guilty of Imperialist Atrocities
5. Red Ideas Reach Gitmo
6. Teachers Reject Anti-Communism, Elect PLP'er to Union Post
7. GI's Learning Bosses' Oil War Is Not In Their Class Interest
8. Joint Worker-Student Struggle Reveals Importance of Red Politics
9. Boot Racism Out of Football's World Cup
10. Working-Class Internationalism BBQ's Nationalism at PLP Cook-out
11. NSA SQUABBLE EXPOSES BOSSES' CLASS DICTATORSHIP
12. GI Movement Stirs from Its Slumber
13. LETTERS
    1. U.S. War on Mexico Caused Emigration
    2. Airport Workers Fight Sexist, Racist Attacks
    3. Today's Navy Mirrors Old Jim Crow Racism!
    4. Won't Learn History From U.S. Rulers
    5. Racism Runs Riot on French TV
    6. Vision of Future Key to Overcoming Obstacles
    7. Baghdad Comes to New Orleans
14. College Students, Faculty Confront Racist Minutemen
15. Redeye on the News
    1. New Orleans is again `designed to fail'
    2. US job security is now a fairytale
    3. Kids define a sentence: 5 to 10 years
    4. Still widespread, trafficking = slavery
    5. Afghanistan `success' looks a lot like Iraq
    6. Imperialist US was never `beloved'
16. Imperialism, Not `Human Nature' Makes War Inevitable
17. Capitalism is the REAL `Inconvenient Truth'
18. Forward to communism
    1. Fatal Errors in Soviet Union's Early Years -- Part 3

Sharpening Imperialist Dogfight Means WAR, WAR, WAR

"It shocked me that the country was not mobilized for war." -- U.S. Army General John Batiste, on the period between 9/11 and the Iraq invasion (NY Times, 6/4/06)

Challenges to U.S. imperialism are mounting. U.S. rulers will ultimately have to answer them with violence unseen since World War II. China is modernizing its military forces and plans to project them far beyond its borders. A new alliance, reaching from China through Central Asia to Russia, is about to embrace Iran. And in deals hostile to U.S. interests, Russia and Europe are consolidating their strategic industries.

U.S. rulers understand that maintaining their top-dog status will some day require them to fully mobilize society for war against major enemies. Under Bush, however, they've made little progress. They can't even field enough troops today to secure Iraq or wipe out al Qaeda. But we shouldn't let the Bush team's incompetence mask the rulers' objective needs. They will respond ruthlessly to threats to their survival. As the rivalry intensifies, we should expect, expose and combat the bosses' efforts to militarize the nation.

Until recently, Pentagon planners thought they had decades to prepare for a clash with China's vast forces. But a May 23 Department Of Defense (DOD) report to Congress warns, "Several aspects of China's military development have surprised U.S. analysts, including the pace and scope of its strategic forces modernization." Consequently, the DOD presses for a more urgent focus on China, which "has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States." The report notes that China's growing oil thirst is hastening prospects of war in many places:

"Beijing has pursued stronger relations with Angola, Central Asia, Indonesia, states in the Middle East (including Iran), Russia, Sudan, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe to secure long-term resource supply agreements. Some of these countries are also recipients of Chinese military technology. China has also strengthened ties to countries located astride key maritime transit routes (e.g., the Strait of Malacca). Evidence suggests that China is investing in maritime surface and sub-surface weapons systems that could serve as the basis for a force capable of power projection to secure vital sea lines of communication and/or key geo-strategic terrain."

`AN OPEC WITH BOMBS'

China's rulers are rapidly building an anti-U.S. coalition. "Bringing together Russia, China and a number of Central Asian states, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization [SCO] is evolving into a security and political bloc that could become a key global player with the clout to challenge NATO." (Toronto Star, 6/2/06) "Last year, more than 10,000 troops from SCO member countries participated in the group's first joint military exercises and another set of war games are planned for next year." Iran wants to join the club. President Ahmadiejad is expected to attend the June 13 SCO summit in Shanghai. According to David Wall, a professor at Cambridge University's East Asia Institute, "An expanded SCO would control a large part of the world's oil and gas reserves and nuclear arsenal. It would essentially be an OPEC with bombs." (Toronto Star)

Meanwhile, European bosses are exercising an anti-U.S. economic strategy. They seek to hand over a huge chunk of their steel industry -- essential in war -- to a company with close ties to the Kremlin. Mittal Steel, backed by U.S.- and British-based investors, had hoped to gobble up Europe's Arcelor and thereby become the world's biggest producer. But Arcelor is trying to derail the merger by selling a controlling share of itself to Russia's Severstal, which is run by "friends of Putin."

Arcelor CEO Guy Dolle emphasized the tilt away from Washington towards Moscow: "The links between Russia and Europe are very strong from an economic point of view, and there is no political problem." (Market Watch, 5/28/06). The links are strong indeed. Earlier this year, Germany's ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder became a top executive of Russian energy giant Gazprom.

U.S. Rulers Furious At Bush & Co.'s Incompetence

But the actions of the Bush White House have failed to match the scope and pace of the sharpening rivalry. The U.S. ruling class is furious at Bush for not militarizing the masses or demanding wartime economic sacrifice. As a sign of their concern, the rulers have appointed one of their own, Henry Paulson, as Treasury Secretary to baby-sit the Bush gang for the rest of its tenure. Liberal Business Week magazine (6/13/06) hopes Paulson can curb Bush's penchant for debt and deficits and forestall a "financial meltdown" before a new president can whip the U.S. into imperialist shape. The conservative Wall Street Journal (6/1/06) insists that Paulson focus on "hardening the wartime dollar."

Facts are stubborn things. Even though Bush & Co. seem to ignore the inevitability of global conflict among the world's imperialists, we must not. Amid world war's horrors, history shows, lie the conditions for the working class's seizure of power. Building PLP is the most important weapon our class will have in achieving that goal.

New Orleans: Workers Fight Bosses' Racism in Rebuilding Their Lives

NEW ORLEANS, LA. -- A group of PLP college students kicked off our extended Summer Project here (see CHALLENGE, 6/7). We went to serve our class in the Gulf Region, where the crisis-ridden U.S. capitalist system -- and its pillar of racism -- is again exposed as one that cannot fulfill the needs of the working class. Ten months after Hurricane Katrina, residents, especially black workers, are still struggling to move back home and/or to get the vital help they need to survive.

We began by touring the levees near the French Quarter. They are supposed to protect the city during hurricanes or floods. The French Quarter, the business and garden districts and some other wealthy neighborhoods were all relatively vibrant, with no sign of hurricane damage.

The levees protecting these neighborhoods were well-built with primary and secondary levees to protect the French Quarter and the business district. Hotels and shopping centers are built atop these levees. Many working-class people who survived went to the nearby Convention Center, only to find no drinkable water there. But in the wealthier residential neighborhoods, life has returned to normal.

The racism built into the levee system hits you when you enter the working-class neighborhoods, where houses are no longer on foundations or where Katrina had moved them blocks away from their original sites. Every working-class neighborhood we saw had severe damage. The levees in these neighborhoods are merely walls compared to the system in the business and wealthy neighborhoods. There's no back-up system should the initial levees fail. Most workers' houses are right next to these "levees" that are supposed to protect them. During the early mornings, people who used to live there are working on the houses in these neighborhoods, but in the evenings they're ghost towns.

We attended a Memorial service and walk for residents who lost their lives in the predominately black 9th ward. The newly constructed levee, about three feet higher than the previous one, will still only withstand a Level Three hurricane. (Katrina was a Level Four.) This memorial was quite somber as they read the names of people who died. Rarely was there a family with only one name on the list.

Each morning during the week we shared our experiences and thoughts of the previous day and then analyzed how to do better in the coming day. Decisions were based on discussion, not on voting. Everyone was given equal time and encouraged to share their views on our activities.

Our grass roots organizing involved going door-to-door and/or telephoning survivors, listening and talking to them about their struggles and encouraging them to get active in rebuilding or helping out in their neighborhoods. Many survivors invited us into their homes and were very appreciative of us being there. One aim of the group we worked with was to build Survivor Councils. Everyone participated in the discussion but only survivors could make decisions on the course of action.

One Council proposal was to move residents back into a housing project. This was the focus of our organizing. Previously there were protests against bulldozing peoples' property without their knowledge. In these actions, residents were prepared to conduct citizen's arrests of the bulldozer drivers, and succeeded in stopping the bulldozing. The Council has already organized the taking back of an elementary school. They are planning to open it in August, without government help. Most of the Council's activities involve militant reform.

Our task, as always, is to fight alongside workers and help them learn that only communism will solve their problems. We joined survivors and volunteers to clean up the housing projects, enabling residents to move back home. As the day progressed, many other survivors came to help and wanted to get involved in fighting to rebuild their communities. We began developing ties with these volunteers with whom we shared CHALLENGE and discussed the need for workers to run society.

Our modest activity in organizing among our class and building a base for communist revolution caused some volunteers to look to us for political leadership. This helped provoke a discussion in the mass organization around the racism directed against immigrant workers coming here and the need to unite all workers against all forms of racism. (See front-page CHALLENGE editorial, 6/7.)

Many illusions held by workers in New Orleans were shredded by the racist nature of capitalism, but they still hold on to many others. Some workers still believe that the government will help them, while others lack faith that it will and instead are being won to the nationalist outlook that only black people united can win reforms from the system. In addition, the good work done by relief organizations is simultaneously building illusions that capitalism is fine; " it's just Bush and his cronies who are the problem." For the limited time we were in New Orleans, we strengthened our commitment to the fight for communism and started to lay the foundation for future struggles in winning workers to our Party, both survivors and volunteers. We all plan to return in greater numbers, to further our service to our class, train ourselves, learn from the workers in New Orleans and win more to our movement.

Trailer `Parks' or Concentration Camps?

In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, many residents from New Orleans were displaced around the country; some were moved to trailer parks along the Gulf Coast. On our recent trip there we visited some of these communities which resembled concentration camps rather than homes.

These "parks" are fenced in with armed guards constantly patrolling the grounds. Everyone entering must show ID and give the name and address of the person whom they wish to see. The people living there are the same victims who were left on their roofs for days, experienced the racist horror at the Convention Center, and had cops shoot at them or prevent them from crossing into other neighborhoods to seek safety. As one person said, these are the people left to die but since that didn't succeed, now there's no plan for them.

A survivor inside such a camp and who is pregnant with twins told us that people haven't received one bit of help from anywhere, aside from other workers. She described rapes, police brutality and blatant disrespect from the guards. When these workers meet to discuss the problems inside the camp and the lack of government help in moving them back home, the armed guards are always present.

The racism these workers faced before, during and after the storm mirrors the nature of capitalism. Fighting for these workers to return home isn't enough. We must also struggle against the racism that filled their lives before the hurricane and continues today.

Bush and Liberals Both Guilty of Imperialist Atrocities

Once again, the words "atrocity" and "war crimes" are becoming lead stories in the bosses' media coverage of the Iraq war. The murderous rulers and their flunkies in the liberal press are pretending to be scandalized over the brutal slaying of two dozen Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines last November in Haditha and the U.S. military's more recent slaughter of two women, one pregnant.

CHALLENGE doesn't doubt that these atrocities happened. Everyone involved deserves the severest punishment: the Marines who pulled the trigger, the officers who ordered them or allowed them to do it, the commanders who gave these officers the green light, and, most of all, the politicians and their imperialist bosses, whose foul profit system makes war and the atrocities that accompany it inevitable.

The most conspicuous hand-wringing and the loudest cries of hypocritical outrage come from the same rulers who continue to plan for a future of endless, widening war to prevent Chinese, European, or Russian bosses from gaining a choke-hold on Persian Gulf oil. True, Bush has a lot of blood on his hands. But the liberals who are using Haditha to discredit him make him look like a novice in the murder department.

Facts, as the great communist revolutionary Lenin said nearly 100 years ago, are stubborn things. In Iraq alone, the liberal Clinton presidency's shameful record in piling up corpses far surpasses the current Bush administration's accomplishments. True, Bush, Sr. set the scene in the 1991 Gulf War. The bombing in that war "...devastated Iraq's civilian infrastructure, destroying 18 of 20 electricity-generating plants and disabling vital water-pumping and sanitation systems. Untreated sewage flowed into rivers used for drinking water, resulting in a rapid spread of infectious disease." (The Nation, 12/3/01) Tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of civilians died then. But the U.S. murder machine was just warming up. Under Clinton, eight years of economic "sanctions" added "new horrors of hunger and malnutrition" (Nation) and led to hundreds of thousands of additional civilian deaths, the majority of them children.

When an interviewer pointed out to Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that the 500,000 Iraqi children dead because of U.S. sanctions far exceeded the number of people killed by the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, Albright replied: "...this is a very hard choice. But the price, we think, is worth it."

Albright's cynical but honest answer reflects the rulers' true attitude. To keep U.S. imperialism on top, they will pay any price in workers' blood. They've proved this time and again. Usually, it is the liberals who achieve the highest body counts. Clinton didn't stop in Iraq. He also bombed the former Yugoslavia back to the Stone Age, polluting the rivers and destroying the infrastructure there, with the same terrible consequences for civilians as in Iraq. The liberal Kennedy and Johnson administrations killed at least three million Vietnamese and another two million Laotians and Cambodians, in their ruthless drive to smash anti-U.S. forces in Southeast Asia. The liberal Democrat Truman ordered the atomic incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Between civilians, workers and soldiers whom U.S. imperialism has murdered outright in its wars; workers and others worldwide who've been killed, jailed, or otherwise terrorized by pro-U.S. dictatorships; and people who've succumbed to starvation or preventable disease because of the immense, global poverty that imperialism generates -- for all these horrors the U.S. ruling class deserves first prize in the mass murderers' hall of shame, far outstripping even Hitler & Co.

Haditha should outrage us and stimulate us to organize militant action. But we should identify and attack the real enemy. One atrocity should not prevent us from seeing the forest from the trees. Haditha is not an exception, or an "aberration," as the bosses would love us to think. Atrocity and imperialism go hand in hand. In fact, imperialism is the real atrocity.

The liberal media are trying to manipulate mass anger at Haditha into a move to discredit Bush. Sure, Bush is a racist killer. But his real crime, in the liberals' eyes, is a failure to plan for an effective invasion of Iraq and his colossal inability to mobilize the U.S. population for this and future wars. (See editorial, front page)

These wars will make Bush's current crimes in Iraq look like misdemeanors. In part, the liberals are using Haditha to tell us: "Get used to it." But we must pursue the exact opposite of what their class wants, building the Progressive Labor Party and spreading its outlook that the only war worth fighting is class war to destroy imperialism.

That's why it's crucial to win soldiers to that outlook -- away from being used as perpetrators of the ruling class's atrocities against our brother and sister workers worldwide. Clearly the only road to accomplish that goal is winning GI's to fight for communist revolution, the road that truly represents the interests of the international working class.

Red Ideas Reach Gitmo

I hope the following account can help show that a communist analysis of the world can be spread even under the most difficult circumstances.

A friend of PLP was in Kabul, Afghanistan, when the U.S. Army captured it. He's a small businessman who regularly travels between Kabul and Pakistan to trade commodities. He also wears a full beard and mustache (he thinks they make him look like Frederich Engels). He regularly attends the mosque because he thinks that if we communists aren't there, those who have faith in religious practices cannot be reached with true communist ideas.

Imperialism uses the term "atheist" to isolate revolutionary people from those dominated by religious mullahs. Our friend is a skillful communicator of communist ideas among religious people and has made many good friends.

Because, like many in the Taliban, he wears a beard he was seized by U.S. imperialist forces in Kabul and sent to the U.S.-run prison at Mazar Sharif and then to Guantanamo Bay. While in both camps, our friend discussed communist politics with the other prisoners. He explained how imperialism created the Taliban and served to protect it in the region. He pointed out that Osama bin Laden, Umar, Zawari and others were not engaged in a "sacred mission" but had followed CIA instructions when they acted against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He also said that Afghanistan's pro-Soviet government had not been truly communist but was run by nationalist opportunists. To eliminate imperialism, he argued, one must join a party that is really struggling against oppression, exploitation, war, illiteracy, poverty, nationalism, fundamentalism and racism.

In his time in Mazar Sharif and Guantanamo, he found that some of his fellow prisoners were totally brainwashed and eager to die for religion, as taught to them by Osama & Co. They hated our friend's ideas because they were unable to think with their own minds. Others, however, were open to communist ideas. By pointing out that those who were now denouncing the U.S. had originally taken pay-offs from the CIA, he was able to expose the true essence of capitalism to sympathetic fellow prisoners.

After a year in Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. government decided that our friend was not a Taliban but merely a trader who regularly traveled to Kabul for business purposes. They transferred him but he suffered two more months of detention, interrogation, torture and sickness, before finally being released. Despite all this, he told us that his detention had been a good experience because of his discussions of communist ideas with other prisoners. He made some good friends who sympathize with his ideas and is still in contact with them.

International Red

Teachers Reject Anti-Communism, Elect PLP'er to Union Post

BROOKLYN, NY, May 31 -- "My hope is not that you vote for me despite the fact that I'm a communist but, in some small way because I'm a communist," declared a PLP teacher running for union delegate at a central Brooklyn high school. The red-baiting incumbant then asked the teachers to, "Vote for a democratic process not a communist." Defying the incumbent's last-minute and openly anti-communist campaign, the rank and file gave the PL'er 60% of the votes, 38 to 25.

PLP has a long tradition of bringing anti-imperialist, pro-student and anti-fascist resolutions to the floor of the United Federation of Teachers monthly Delegate Assembly (DA) meetings. Adding new forces to the DA and making students a more regular presence there will inject new life into this important work.

Most crucially, a strong teacher collective is being built at this mainly black high school. Students are under increasing attack and teachers want to defend them. Each day students show up and "assume the position" for scanning and body searches. Every day most teachers show up with a smile and a solid lesson plan. But frustration sets in as each teacher fights his or her individual battles against illiteracy and arbitrary administrative intrusions on valuable time.

Teachers must see through the thick haze of racism and the sometime misplaced anger of young people who suffer a life where words like "future" and "opportunity" amount to little more than cruel jokes. We must unite with these students, their parents and teachers who will join us in being angry at such conditions.

Yet no union or reform will save us. Struggle will. The sooner we win more teachers and students to conclude that these racist conditions are an integral feature of capitalism, the closer our world will be to ending these conditions under communism.

GI's Learning Bosses' Oil War Is Not In Their Class Interest

For soldiers, struggles in the U.S. are initiated across military bases and armories. When imperialists send us soldiers to war, the struggle is intensified. From this I gained invaluable political experience in Iraq.

My first reaction to being deployed to an unjustified war was anger and devastation because it meant saying good-bye to family and friends, exactly what every soldier was feeling. Therefore, it wasn't difficult to find friends who thought like me. I discovered that soldiers' anger existed prior to being deployed, just as my hatred of imperialism seemed to have existed since first learning how capitalism worked. Our "job" as soldiers was to "defend democracy," a notion spread by the media. Fortunately, many disagreed with it.

Serious conversations with soldiers occurred, involving important issues about this war. The word imperialism was commonly discussed among my friends. One buddy completely agreed that this war was for oil. He even surprised me when speaking about the goal of "democracy" in Iraq. When I explained that democracy doesn't even work in the U.S., he interrupted me with the question, "Phil, you know what the ideal system is?" I paused, since I had only known this guy for a couple of weeks. "Communism!" he declared.

I was astonished, thinking perhaps I wasn't too far from home. This same thing happened with another person as well. This motivated me to develop more buddies among these soldiers.

When I settled into my unit, I made new friends. Early on, most soldiers truly believed this deployment was a humanitarian effort. By the end, this attitude changed drastically. Soldiers experienced two elections in Iraq that exposed democracy as a farce. Clearly what was being established in Iraq wouldn't change the wretched living conditions of Iraqi workers.

For example, a 15-year-old Iraqi the Army employed inside a base to dispose of waste was only "paid" with a hot lunch and a take-home dinner. His two Iraqi supervisors earned a mere $8 a day. I told my buddies this "democracy" can't improve the well-being of the average Iraqi worker. When we cruised around the city playing cop, targets for IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices), it was apparent that this war and its justification was a complete sham.

As we prepared to return home, the Army tried to scare us before we got back, lecturing us on "political etiquette." We were told that demonstrating against the U.S. government, either verbally or physically, can get soldiers in trouble. They showed us pictures of anti-war demonstrators, labeling them "unpatriotic." A friend of mine, who had read CHALLENGE, told those around him that by all means he was guilty of being unpatriotic. Afterwards a soldier told me he was planning to join the Veterans Against the War organization.

These experiences teach many lessons that soldiers and workers worldwide can grasp. The bottom line is that imperialist wars are against the interest of the working class. Developments in Iraq reveal the empty promises of capitalism and its "democracy." Soldiers return home hating the war, just as Iraqi and U.S. workers are becoming disenchanted with capitalism, our common enemy. And we have a common goal to rid us of this enemy -- communism.

Bush's announcement that the National Guard will patrol the U.S.-Mexico border provoked some pretty interesting and angry discussions in my unit. Most people thought they wouldn't dare send our unit or others there. One friend said, "If they send me to patrol the border, they'll have a million more immigrants marching because that's how many I'll help to come in."u

Red Soldier

Joint Worker-Student Struggle Reveals Importance of Red Politics

"Management and politicians don't care about us... they only help themselves when they pretend to help us," a worker told a recent meeting of campus groundskeepers, students and union organizers. The meeting was called by a coalition of workers and students organized earlier in the year to end subcontracting on campus. A discussion over tactics erupted into sharp political struggle, which helped expose many shortcomings of reformism in -- and the importance of communist politics to -- the class struggle.

Union leaders claimed they had made closed-door deals with certain legislators to add money for the workers to next year's budget. Yet, the precondition was that workers and students would cancel their scheduled actions on campus and patiently wait for a final decision.

Many workers argued against waiting on these politicians. One worker warned that, "Politicians are hypocrites, and only look out for themselves. If it wasn't an election year, and if we weren't embarrassing the Chancellor, they wouldn't even address us at all."

A student added, "We can't put our fate in the hands of politicians -- our strength is in our own hands." Other students pointed out that the movement's success so far stemmed from the unity between workers and students, not from pleading with politicians and administrators. Although it was finally decided to postpone actions for the week, the sharp debate and struggle helped strengthen the political consciousness and confidence of many workers and students. It became clear to some that workers need to organize to put power in their own hands, not count on the bosses and politicians to give them a few more crumbs from the capitalist table.

The year-long fight to end subcontracting on campus has been an intense and immensely difficult struggle. Rallying students to stand by workers in fighting exploitation proved challenging at first. Yet, in using the slogans "The workers' struggle is the students' struggle," and "An injury to one is an injury to all," many students began making the connections.

Facing higher tuition fees, cuts in services and financial aid, and military recruitment on campus, students realized that the workers' slave wages, lack of healthcare and pensions, and the terrible working conditions of subcontracted labor stem from the same root as the attacks on them: the profit system and imperialist wars to dominate capitalist competitors.

Among the students, much struggle emerged throughout the year on reformist vs. revolutionary politics. Some argued that being "practical" and "focused" on the issue at hand was important. They suggested that the coalition's message should omit political points not immediately apparent. But others emphasized the importance of exposing the racism against immigrant (mostly Latino) and black workers used to justify outsourcing and of linking the so-called "budget crisis" to U.S. imperialist wars for profit and domination. They stressed the importance of viewing this particular struggle as one front in the larger fight between workers and bosses worldwide.

Leaflets were distributed linking the campus struggle to the disaster in New Orleans and the brutal and racist nature of capitalism that Katrina so clearly revealed, as well as to the racist attacks on immigrant workers. Teach-ins and actions exposed many students to the racist and oppressive realities of capitalist exploitation and imperialist war.

Hopefully the summer will provide the time to strengthen many of the political relationships begun throughout the year, among both students and workers. Several students are now reading CHALLENGE and will be invited to participate in PLP's Summer Projects. We will continue to build communist politics on an individual level, while expanding CHALLENGE networks and recruiting to the Party. Out of this struggle, which has exposed the racist, anti-worker nature of capitalism, more students and workers need to join PLP and commit to the long-term fight to end this system of racism and imperialism with communist revolution.

Boot Racism Out of Football's World Cup

On June 9, the World Cup of Soccer began in Germany. It is the world's largest sporting event, watched by billions around the globe. Ideologically, it promotes nationalism by rooting for the team from your "home" country, although ironically the European professional teams recruit black and Latino players from some of the world's poorest regions. Inevitably racism rears its ugly head in countries like the Netherlands and England where neo-Nazis organize racist acts.

During this World Cup, fascist organizations are upping the ante. The New York Times reported (6/4) a recent influx of African and Latin American players -- now signed by European teams -- have become the target of racist attacks. On March 25, in Hamburg, Germany, Adebowale Ogungbure, a native of Nigeria, was verbally assaulted with "racial remarks and mocked with monkey noises." Ogungbure responded by signaling to those fans that they really are Nazis.

In a February 25th game in Zaragoza, Spain, choruses of racist chants attacked Barcelona's Samuel Eto, one of the most vocal opponents of racism, provoking Eto to threaten to walk off the field. Similar attacks have been aimed at other players throughout Europe. FIFA, the World Cup's governing body, says it wants to minimize such incidents at this year's event. (Of course, the Times is quick to point out such racism abroad while downplaying the racism permeating U.S. society, using terms like "biased, bigoted, or prejudice" to describe blatant racism here.)

Racism has been rising in Europe where the bosses have been using immigrant workers from around the world as cheap labor. In the same Times' article, Piara Powar, an anti-racist activist, said the underlying reasons for these racist attacks are "poverty [and] unemployment.... Often newcomers bear the brunt of the blame" for these problems.

Workers worldwide should shoot down the bosses' nationalism with internationalism -- the idea that workers everywhere have the same class interest in opposing the world's bosses, no matter what their origin. Capitalism causes the poverty and unemployment from which the bosses reap maximum profits and control global markets to exploit workers internationally. Ultimately, workers face the most murderous expression of capitalism when the ruling classes use workers and youth to fight their imperialist wars. The workers' real goal worth shooting for is communism.

Working-Class Internationalism BBQ's Nationalism at PLP Cook-out

BROOKLYN, NY, May 29 -- There's a long communist tradition in Brooklyn of reversing the bosses Memorial Day orgy of patriotism with our big May Day cookout in Prospect Park. This year's event exceeded expectations with groups of teenagers materializing throughout the day. New friends manned the grill, organized sports and volunteered to travel out to Suffolk County, Long Island in late June for an important trial of PLP members arrested last summer while confronting anti-immigrant scum in Farmingville.

The day's highlight was a pick-up soccer game involving our group and a neighboring Mexican family. We shared DESAFIO with these workers. They immediately agreed to mix the teams -- "no discrimination, we don't like that crap" was the talk around the grill afterwards.

The "natural" thing would have been for our group to play their group, for black to play Mexican. History's most racist ruling class shapes mass consciousness in the U.S. today. Communist ideas bucked that nationalism. Just as the bosses seem to have an infinite number of ways to attack us, we have an equally infinite number of ways to fight back.

Several comrades were leaving for New Orleans the following day to open a summer of political organizing there. This is the same New Orleans where the minimum wage has been suspended and Latino immigrants working on reconstruction "jobs" are kept in what amounts to concentration camps on the heels of what honest observers can only call an attempted genocide against that city's black population. Our experience in Prospect Park should remind them, and us all, that working-class internationalism lies just beneath the surface in our neighbors and remains the unspoken aspiration of the world's toiling masses.

NSA SQUABBLE EXPOSES BOSSES' CLASS DICTATORSHIP

Three phone companies have given tens of millions of customer phone records to the National Security Administration (NSA). So what else is new, you ask? It's absolutely true that fascism is growing in the U.S. But there's more to these media exposés than meets the eye.

In the 1970's, the Nixon Administration spied on anti-war activists and other political opponents, including the Democrats. When Nixon was dumped, the FBI was temporarily put on a leash, partly to ensure it wasn't used against ruling-class agents again. A modified surveillance system, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), was established under President Carter. FISA set up a secret court, initially to be used mainly to investigate Soviet and other spies stationed in the U.S. After the Soviet Union's collapse, the bosses changed the focus of their spying.

U.S. rulers had already decided they couldn't allow other imperialists to control Mid-East oil. Meanwhile, al Qaeda and others openly declared their intentions to drive the U.S. out. Clinton & Co. used the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to justify more spying on Muslim immigrants. A 1996 law signed by Clinton allowed the FBI to apply to the FISA court for authorization to spy on those supposedly connected to "Foreign Terrorist Organizations."

Government applications for warrants soared. The secret court almost never turned down an application. But the FBI and their cohorts were just warming up. After 9/11, the USA Patriot Act gave the bosses' government new powers to spy on immigrants and citizens, even if little was related to "foreign terrorism." The FISA secret court tried to limit this power, but its ruling was overturned by FISA's secret appeals court.

This still was not enough for Bush & Co. They wanted to have their own surveillance, independent of the secret court. This is a no-no for liberal rulers, who remember what happened under Nixon, and who want no "loose-cannon" operations. These liberal bosses want everything to go through their FISA. The rulers want to ensure there's enough support amongst the population for spying programs, before they "reluctantly" permit "necessary measures to protect the public."

Even the "exposure" of the NSA program by USA Today has two sides. While everyone now knows about the surveillance -- and the Democrats have criticized "infringements on our civil liberties" -- still, many Senators, including key Democrats, had had knowledge of, and approved, the spying. While they attack the NSA's national database, they hypocritically support a national data-base of all workers as part of the immigration bills now being debated. Unfortunately, there's been little protest by workers and others. The connection between attacks on immigrants and citizens should be made clearer to more workers.

Members and friends of PLP should see these latest developments as a new challenge. We must organize our friends and co-workers, with a greater sense of urgency. The process of defeating passive acceptance of fascism will be slow. However, the bosses' in-fighting gives us more ammunition.

Lenin said the state machinery is a tool in the hands of the exploiters. As the fog of U.S. bourgeois democracy lifts, its system is more exposed as a dictatorship of the capitalist class. We must mobilize working-class anger wherever it exists. Small rivers of class struggle can become streams of communist-led working class resistance.

GI Movement Stirs from Its Slumber

Sixty people organized by a local Amnesty International Chapter and Veterans for Peace, including almost a dozen active-duty military personnel, met to discuss the lessons of the Vietnam-era GI movement and to plan strategy for the current emerging GI movement. David Cortright, author of "Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War" (recently republished by Haymarket Books), and himself a GI activist in the late 1960's, gave the keynote address. Vietnam-era GI newspapers were displayed, along with current GI and veterans' literature. Approximately 30 attendees took CHALLENGE.

Cortright presented a compelling case for a vigorous, outspoken movement of active-duty soldiers, sailors and marines. He told numerous stories about resistance during the Vietnam War, ranging from anti-war petitions to "fraggings" (killing by a fragmentation grenade) of officers by their "own" men in Nam. He also described the militant anti-racist uprisings back then, concluding by calling on civilians and soldiers to join together to fight against U.S. imperialism.

The audience vigorously applauded Cortright, and questioned him from many perspectives. One participant noted that racism towards the Vietnamese then (and towards Iraqis now) strengthens the racism within the armed forces against African Americans and Latinos. Another called on active-duty personnel and veterans to join with anti-war public health workers next year in Boston in fighting the do-nothing leadership of the American Public Health Association, noting that Iraq Veterans against the War led the heckling of war criminal John Kerry at last year's convention.

Several audience members worried that GI's would face severe repression for speaking out, wondering what could be done. Cortright argued that only a substantial group, built over an extended period, should "go public" opposing the brass and the government, and even then should be prepared with lawyers and a civilian publicity base to make the biggest splash possible to limit the repression.

A member of Iraq Veterans against the War cautioned that it was critical for GI activists to build a clandestine network within the military in preparation for future struggles, as well as have certain open actions, since the government would try to crush any activism, just as it did in Vietnam.

Another questioner earnestly asked Cortright for his strategic views on how the broader anti-war and GI movement could actually change things, like stopping the war, instead of just "taking a stand." He said the Congressional election in November, which the Republicans might well lose, would help, as well as the presidential election in 2008, although he quickly noted that Democrats hadn't been much better than Republicans. He did feel, however, that the declining popularity of the war and of Bush provides an opening for more vigorous activity by people in and out of the service in opposing the war.

At this point, a PLP'er who had been part of the GI movement during the Vietnam War rose to speak about imperialism as not simply a Bush or neocon policy, but a necessity for the entire U.S. ruling class. The Iraq war, he continued, was just the beginning of many and larger wars which inevitably grow out of sharpening rivalry among imperialists like China, the European Union and the U.S. for control of the world's oil reserves and for overall economic and political dominance. The PL'er said that the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), a leading force in the Democratic Party (including Hilary Clinton), had just published a book calling for an imperial strategy in the Middle East more thoroughgoing than the Bush neo-conservatives had advocated. He concluded that the best road for the GI movement was building towards revolution through political education and daily struggle against the brass at whatever level could be achieved, and rejecting the electoral strategy.

An active-duty soldier then asked if the many reforms that Cortright had argued for in his book, such as a formal ombudsman for grievances, had done any good, since he hadn't seen any evidence of them, and that perhaps a revolutionary approach might make sense. Cortright responded that, in fact, almost none of the reforms temporarily won during the Vietnam GI movement had really stuck. He said that both reform and revolution were necessary to end imperialism.

While the meeting ended on that note, the "meeting after the meeting" then began, with the active duty personnel, Cortright, veterans, and a PLP'er. They discussed what could be done at their base to launch a GI movement. Many ideas were floated, including launching a clandestine newsletter, holding study groups on revolution, and urging more people to apply for conscientious objector status. The PLP'er noted that it had been over 30 years since he had seen this kind of active-duty gathering, including African American, Latino and white soldiers united in figuring out how to rebuild the GI movement, and that this group had great potential power to confront U.S. imperialism. So stay tuned for the re-birth of the GI movement!

LETTERS

U.S. War on Mexico Caused Emigration

A May 10 CHALLENGE article sharply criticized patriotic Los Angeles radio announcers for urging immigrant workers to be grateful to the "great country that has given you everything." The article correctly pointed out that the bosses never give; they just take.

It reminded me of a "taking" rarely noted in the bosses' media or history classes: in 1846, the U.S. Army under President James Polk, a slave-holder from Tennessee, invaded Mexico on a flimsy pretext, murdering tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians on the way to Mexico City. They looted and destroyed the countryside as they went.

After Mexico's surrender, the U.S. imperialists annexed (stole) from the Mexicans all of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah, and parts of Colorado, Oregon, Wyoming and Idaho -- 1.2 million square miles in all!

Apologists for this conquest have always liked to call it "Manifest Destiny," the idea that the U.S. was "entitled" to rule as much of the continent as it could acquire by stealing it. In fact, it was an early example of vicious U.S. imperialism.

Much of the impoverishment of Mexico's people can be traced to this bloody theft. And after all, poverty has always been one of the leading causes of emigration.

A Reader

Airport Workers Fight Sexist, Racist Attacks

There's been a sharp fight by airport workers in our SEIU local against sexual harassment of immigrant workers. It started when eight women workers from Mexico and Central America filed a class action suit against ABM, a major contractor for Northwest Airlines. Now more than 20 workers have come forward to say that, to keep their jobs, they were harassed, touched or coerced into having sex with their supervisors. The union was not involved before the suit and has done little since.

Workers also distributed union fliers condemning sexual harassment and calling for a meeting to discuss this racist and sexist attack. CHALLENGE readers and distributors circulated a PLP leaflet. The bosses have failed to intimidate workers from fighting back.

At a meeting before work, which included U.S.-born and immigrant workers from Central America and Africa, one worker explained that sexism is a political weapon the bosses use to super-exploit women workers and attack us all. We discussed how these were racist attacks, singling out women from Latin America. A PLP member pointed out that the union is also a bosses' tool and that communist revolution is needed to destroy capitalism, the source of racism and sexism.

Red Airport Worker

Today's Navy Mirrors Old Jim Crow Racism!

My parents were both born in the South before 1950. Segregation was everywhere. Blacks had to ride the back of the bus and sit in the "colored only" section of eateries. In certain parts of South Carolina, blacks couldn't even smile in public. The racist system had an instrument known as "laughing barrels" for blacks to put their head in to laugh so that when they came up in the face of whites, they wouldn't be smiling. This was the apartheid south from the end of Reconstruction all the way up to the 1960's and beyond.

I was born in the South in the post-Civil Rights era and never experienced much of this culture, partly because I was raised in a 70% black city. But the Navy is a time machine -- I'm experiencing what my parents did.

There are enlisted barbershops and officer barbershops, ladder wells for officers and ladder wells for enlisted. Even more extreme, the ship's captain and executive officer (#2 in command) each has his own personal separate ladder well! There's a mess hall for enlisted and a wardroom (eatery) for officers. They even have a mess hall for first class Petty Officers (E6) to separate them from the E1-E5 enlisted personnel and separate sleeping facilities for lower enlisted, crammed into small bunks, middle enlisted getting a bigger bunk and officers getting their own rooms.

I recently had the duty of cleaning senior officers' rooms, making their beds, vacuuming their floors and taking their dirty uniforms to the laundry. Our boss, a first class (E6), would allow us to eat the officers' food, but only in a small room off to the side, while acting invisible.

I finally can feel first-hand what my grandparents in South Carolina and Georgia endured before the Civil Rights movement. I refused the officers' food and preferred eating with the enlisted. I won some of my shipmates to join me rather than be treated as second-class sailors.

The segregation on the ship mirrors the segregation in U.S. capitalist society, still segregated today by class and, in practice, by skin color as well. Class, one's relationship to the means of production, determines housing, education and a person's way of life. This segregation will continue until we can organize workers to develop the same mass anger towards class segregation as the generation before had towards Jim Crow/racial segregation.

Build the Party. We have a world to win!

Navy Red

Won't Learn History From U.S. Rulers

According to news reports, immigrant workers will be required to learn U.S. history. Actually, many in the U.S. need to learn about capitalism's real history here. Capitalist culture works overtime to keep people ignorant of history, as well as of most things.

The PLP pamphlet "Jailbreak" explains that capitalism teaches us to think in a superficial fashion or not at all. It's frightening that our consciousness is somewhat shaped by TV commercials, which bombard us daily with mindless consumerism. No doubt the PL pamphlet should be read by as many workers as possible, as a first step in learning how to combat the ignorance the ruling class shoves down our throats.

Certainly immigrants, as well as all workers, should learn history -- the history of oppressed people fighting back against capitalism, that is. Such history can help us understand what's needed in the fight to overthrow the profit system and to learn real critical thinking skills.

That's not what the bosses' politicians have in mind when they say immigrants should study U.S. history. Their idea is aimed at turning immigrants into "good citizens" who will be "thankful" to be living and working in U.S. capitalist society, one that does, in fact, foster ignorance of not only history as a process but also of everything else.

I can only shake my head in disgust at this call by the oppressors for immigrants to study history. In reality, it's up to communists to bring our real history to workers, as we struggle to make history. So perhaps CHALLENGE could have some articles on U.S. history, such as ones on the lives of Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglas or on labor struggles.

There's definitely a need right now for the red leadership that PL is battling to provide in the immigrants rights movement.

Red Coal

CHALLENGE Comment: Your points are well taken. Thanks for the suggestion. We might add that we have printed several articles on major strikes and labor rebellions as well as short biographies on figures like Paul Robeson and other working-class heroes. We will try to publish more.

Racism Runs Riot on French TV

On May 29, the state-run French TV network A2 depicted rioting in Kabul, Afghanistan, as having been caused by "a run-of-the-mill traffic accident" involving U.S. troops in a Humvee. Obviously, there's nothing "run-of-the-mill" about a heavy, armored Humvee racing at high speed, squashing cars and causing numerous deaths and injuries. So how come French TV misrepresented these events?

It's probably because of the racism -- conscious or unconscious -- of French TV news reporters who have a stereotype in their heads of Muslims as being "excitable" and "emotional." This racist garbage gets broadcast on TV and pollutes millions of minds. It makes Afghans seem "unreasonable" and tends to let the U.S. military off the hook -- another case of blaming the victim.

This is just one small example of what runs rampant in the world every day. It shows that racism is a worldwide phenomenon because capitalism produces racist ideas. The only way to get rid of racism is to get rid of capitalism.

A friend in France

Vision of Future Key to Overcoming Obstacles

I like the name change of the "Under Communism" column to "Forward to Communism." I assume it's a response to the critique in the April 26 issue.

I agreed with much of the critique, although I felt it didn't give enough weight to the importance of having a vision to fight for. That is, while it's very relevant that there are tremendous obstacles to achieving the type of society we aspire to, it's more relevant that it's worth aspiring to a communist egalitarian society in the first place. It seems poor motivation to fight simply to endure decades of death and destruction (regardless of the fact that it is inevitable). It is clear that predicting bliss in "less than 20 years" (my childhood memory) was wrong and counter-productive. But the opposite prediction, that conditions will inevitably be miserable for decades after the event, seems equally unproductive.

The reality is that history only provides an educated guess as to what the future holds. We have only a general idea of what it holds and should be prepared to take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself.

In our analysis, one of the biggest mistakes in the past was that communist parties in Russia and China were overly pessimistic about the ability of the masses to fight directly for communism without the intermediate step of socialism. They held back advances because of this pessimistic estimate. Why set ourselves up again to fail?

To me, keeping one's eye on the ball is the only way to hit a home run. The ball, of course, is the kind of society we want to build, not the obstacles to doing it. If, as is predicted, there are decades of misery and pain to endure, only a vision will hold us to the task of maintaining the struggle. I don't foresee everyone suddenly saying, "Oh man, this is jive. You told me it would be easy. I quit."

Still, I think the name change is good, and there's nothing wrong with including a balanced discussion of how the struggle might proceed, including some more optimistic scenarios.

A Comrade

Baghdad Comes to New Orleans

On a recent trip to New Orleans I drove through the 9th ward. At 5 PM the neighborhood is deserted. Nine months after hurricane Katrina devastated the city's primarily black working-class neighborhoods, the 9th ward looks more like a war zone than a place where people could live. (Indeed, someone had scrawled "Baghdad" on the side of an abandoned home.)

Many houses were blown off their foundations when the flood hit; some were flung hundreds of feet. Those homes near the levee when it broke were wiped out entirely. When standing next to the new levee and looking out across the surrounding area, one sees miles of devastation.

Two days later a hurricane survivor took me and several other volunteers to where her parents' home once stood. Though the house was nowhere to be seen, her memories described a vibrant working-class community. Being exposed to the human effect of the levee breech made clear to me the genocidal nature of this disaster. Whether the New Orleans ruling class dynamited the levee or simply built it so poorly that it was destined to break, they intentionally wiped out the 9th ward and killed thousands. Many who escaped death now live in concentration camp-style trailer "parks." (See box, page 3.)

The survivor, several other volunteers and I talked with other residents about how the working class can fight these racist attacks. For now, survivors are struggling to reclaim their communities. It's up to PLP to show that ultimately only armed struggle against capitalism can prevent further genocides like this one.

Red Volunteer

College Students, Faculty Confront Racist Minutemen

A multi-racial group of 60 college students and faculty confronted eleven Minutemen -- protected by campus cops -- as they attempted to disrupt an outdoor teach-in on this campus. The anti-racists chanted "Smash racists, Smash all borders!" and "Down, down with the MinuteKlan... Up, up with the workers!"

Many students passing by joined the chanting crowd, visibly upset by the presence of open racists on their campus, while others verbally challenged the Minutemen. One speaker called for physically stopping the racists. While this didn't happen, it led many students to discuss how best to deal with them.

The teach-in was organized to support the struggle against racism. Unable to intimidate students with their racist signs and flag-waving, the Minutemen resorted to yelling at speakers and distributing leaflets, which passers-by immediately crumpled and threw away. They were clearly unwelcome. However, the crowd eagerly accepted the anti-racist students' leaflets which exposed the fascism of the Minutemen/gutter racists backing the Sensenbrenner bill, as well as the liberal racist McCain-Kennedy phony "alternative." The Minutemen and their cop protectors finally gave up and left while the students continued their meeting.

The anti-racist leaflets advocated citizen-immigrant unity against the attacks on all workers. They explained how the ruling class uses racism and nationalism to try to divide and weaken workers' struggles, enabling them to exploit us in factories and sweatshops while urging us to fight and die for their imperialist profit wars.

A black student who took the leaflet compared the racist Minutemen to the Klan in the Jim Crow South, linking anti-immigrant racism to anti-black racism. This connection is important; it's no accident the bosses are spreading racism against immigrants to divide the potentially most militant and revolutionary sections of the U.S. working class: super-exploited black and Latino workers. Racism is the lifeblood of capitalism, but also its main weakness. All workers and students must oppose racism against immigrant and black workers in order to strengthen the unity and power of the entire working class.

Several of the student speakers emphasized that the only way to fight racism and imperialism is by building a multi-racial, international fighting movement of workers, students and soldiers. A Latino student tied the bosses' cops and courts to the fascist Minutemen they protect. He said anti-immigrant racism is an attack on all workers, used to lower wages and cut pensions in all industries. An Asian-American student noted how racist police terror affected all working-class communities, including his. A Muslim student exposed the hypocrisy of labeling immigrant workers "illegal" given the global criminal actions perpetrated by U.S. imperialism. Another student attacked the liberal McCain-Kennedy bill and the bosses' plan to use immigrant "guest workers" as slave labor in the fields and factories and immigrant youth as cannon fodder. She called the Minutemen's U.S. flags a symbol of racism, imperialism and exploitation, and argued that workers and students should fight to smash all borders.

Afterward, many students discussed how best to fight racism and growing fascism. While many mentioned pacifism and non-violent tactics, others advanced the idea of physically preventing the fascists from marching and speaking on our streets, communities and campuses. It's up to workers and students to stop these racists from spewing their hate-mongering lies and terror.

Several students received CHALLENGE for the first time and were open to its communist politics. Hopefully, these continuing campus struggles will help move them and others to read CHALLENGE regularly, and to fight alongside PLP for communist revolution to destroy the source of racism -- the profit system.

Redeye on the News

New Orleans is again `designed to fail'

...The Army Corps of Engineers has all but completed its repairs to this city's ruined levee system....

But even though all sides agree that the corps has largely achieved its goal, independent engineers say it is the goal that is the real problem. New Orleans is still very much at risk, they say, because the level of protection the corps has reached is still not as strong as the city needs....

"Some of these things were poorly designed and were almost pre-ordained to fail,"....

Professor Seed and other experts who have studied the crazy quilt of levees, flood walls, pumps and gates that have been in the process of being built for more than 40 years now say that they were never adequate to protect hundreds of thousands of people in an urban setting and that the levees themselves are now known to be fundamentally flawed....

Maj. Gen. Don T. Riley, the director of civil works for the corps, said he could not guarantee that the system would not fail again....

Gen. Robert Crear, the head of the Mississippi Valley Division of the corps, said "We know Katrina was not the worst possible case." (NYT, 4/25)

US job security is now a fairytale

For an unnecessarily large number of Americans, the workplace has become a hub of anxiety and fear...in which you might be shown the door at any moment....

Since 1984, when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started monitoring "worker displacement," at least 30 million full-time workers have been "permanently separated from their jobs and their paychecks against their wishes."

At the heart of the layoff phenomenon is the myth, endlessly repeated by corporate leaders and politicians of both parties, that workers who are thrown out of their jobs can save themselves, can latch onto spiffy new jobs by becoming better educated and acquiring new skills....

That is just not so....The reality is that there are not enough good jobs currently available.... (NYT, 5/25)

Kids define a sentence: 5 to 10 years

Go to schools and ask youngsters for a show of hands if they have a father, mother, brother, uncle or anyone close to them in prison. In many cities and suburbs, most kids' hands go up. And small wonder: more than 2 million Americans are behind bars, the most -- in absolute numbers, and share of the population -- of any nation on earth.

Or ask kids: "What's a sentence?" Ideally, they'd reply it's a group of words with a subject and predicate. But no, in many schools the reply is quite different: "Five to Ten years. (Washington Post, 5/21)

Still widespread, trafficking = slavery

...The demand for prostitutes (here in New York and elsewhere) is much greater than the supply of women who want to be prostitutes. So trafficking, the coercion of women and young girls into the sex trade, is a flourishing industry.

The toll that trafficking takes is often horrific. In addition to the forced prostitution, the women and children who are the victims of trafficking become part of a landscape in which drug addiction, disease, mental health problems, beatings and violent death are commonplace....

...Trafficking...is really about humans being bought and sold as commodities -- not just in the commercial sex trade, but also in exploitative labor situations on farms and in factories and sweatshops.

Trafficking is much more widespread than most people realize. As the advocacy group Sanctuary for Families has pointed out, "In our backyards and communities, a slave trade is flourishing that makes a mockery our belief in civil and human rights." (NYT, 6/1)

Afghanistan `success' looks a lot like Iraq

Something has gone alarmingly wrong in Afghanistan, previously touted as the Bush administration's one quasi-successful venture in nation building....

The warning signs go well beyond last week's deadly outbreak of anti-American rioting in Kabul -- the worst violence there since the Taliban were evicted from Afghanistan's capital in 2001. And Kabul is widely acknowledged to be the most secure place in Afghanistan.

The past few months have also seen a stronger than expected Taliban military revival (with open help from supporters in Pakistan)....

Armed militia commanders still rule many areas. Some provincial cities and villages are back under the control of the same corrupt officials the Taliban won cheers for chasing out a decade ago. Farmers have fallen victim to a poppy eradication program accompanied by no realistic plans for alternative economic development...

What Washington needs to do is fight a lot smarter.... (NYT, 6/1)

Imperialist US was never `beloved'

To the editor:

While I thought the article on Helen Thomas was good...I do have one question. She said: "We are despised when we were once beloved." I would like to know when in the history of the United States that was, exactly. In her own experience it was not during the 60s and 70s because of Vietnam. It wasn't during the 80s because the US did business with South Africa during apartheid. Nor was it during the 50s with South American countries and notably Cuba. As for the 40s, the US took its time in entering the war, and how many of us are going to remember that? Especially if one reads John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath where men were executed as Commies merely for seeking five cents extra for harvesting oranges.

If anyone can tell me when the US was beloved rather than despised, I look forward to the debate. (GW, 6/1)

Imperialism, Not `Human Nature' Makes War Inevitable

"The Human Potential for Peace," by Douglas P. Fry; Oxford University Press, New York, 2006.

This is an anthropological tour through hundreds of different societies, past and present, showing the many ways conflicts are resolved. Fry is a researcher and professor of developmental psychology, as well as anthropology. His book shows that, contrary to the generally accepted belief, war -- as one of many means of conflict resolution -- is an exception among human societies.

Fry grants that conflict among and between humans, as well as other animals, is present in all societies. But the key issue is how people deal with conflict.

Fry describes the evolution of societies from simple nomadic hunter/gatherer bands, to tribes that have leaders who command respect but are not permitted to command people, to chiefdoms in which leaders are permitted to command people, to states in which classes have conflicting relationships to the means of production and to each other and in which governments routinely command people. These four types of social formations range in size, complexity and in basic economic activity from hunting/gathering to agriculture and breeding animals to manufacture.

Fry draws on mountains of evidence from archeologists, who investigate past societies through their artifacts, and from other anthropologists, who live for years with the peoples in present-day societies and write ethnographies to describe their customs and relationships. He and many other anthropologists find that throughout 99% of the million years of existence of hominids (humans and our human-like predecessors), people have been organized into nomadic hunter/gatherer bands. War, although not conflict, is absent from these societies, both in the past and currently.

It's only in the last several thousand years, less than 1% of hominid existence, that more complex societies have arisen. Along with them war has often -- though not always -- been used to resolve conflicts.

The main lesson is that, while conflict may be part of all animal life (including human), war is not. Conflict resolution that does not resort to war, or even necessarily to violence, is the rule throughout human existence. War is the more recent exception, though in today's world that may be hard to believe.

The main weakness of Fry's book is his failure to examine the causes of war in modern capitalist society, namely imperialist competition for theft of resources, for command over the labor of others and for control of markets. So while he correctly concludes that it's possible to abolish war, he fails to show how capitalism prevents that abolition.

It's easy to see why capitalists pay handsomely for academics to corrupt their research and write millions of pages claiming that "war is inevitable" wherever there are people, regardless of social system. Those who toe this line get job security, promotions, research grants, publishing outlets and widespread publicity for their books and articles. Meanwhile those who oppose it are used to "prove" that there's "free speech" under capitalism. There is no winning in this arena, as long as a ruthless capitalist ruling class determines the prevailing ideology, defining what is conventional wisdom and painting everything else as delusional wishful thinking.

Despite its weaknesses, however, Fry's book is very useful to help counter the big "war-is-human-nature" lie. It helps show that humans can indeed abolish war but, contrary to Fry, can do so only a lengthy period after capitalism is abolished and replaced by communism. And, as CHALLENGE always notes, that transition will require revolutionary means -- a war of a particular sort, in which the world's working class eliminates the world's capitalists and their mercenaries.

Capitalism is the REAL `Inconvenient Truth'

"An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's film presents a frightening scenario about the effects of global warming - the process of the sun's rays and heat trapped within earth's atmosphere, thereby raising the temperature of the earth, melting the polar ice caps and raising the sea levels around the world. The science is clearly explained and the graphics are well done. No matter how much you think you already know, the shots of large ice masses melting in 35-day periods and depictions of the consequences of rising sea levels are startling.

As an interesting note: A positive aspect of the movie is that it clearly points to the science presented for the future of the earth's enviroment, debunking religious rationalizations that are put forward when catastrophes occur (ie, the result of an angry god.)

The movie also makes clear that the science predicting global warming has been around for decades, but has been suppressed. Also documented is the major contribution of the U.S. to the problem and its resistance to change.

But nowhere does Gore address the causes of this inaction. Neither industry nor profits nor greed nor capitalism is ever mentioned. We get no clue why the Kyoto treaty, designed to decrease global warming, was signed by every country except the U.S. and Australia. There is no discussion of why cars still run on gasoline when they could use ethanol made from corn. There's no mention of why industry has not cleaned up its act. Gore says only that legislators are "slow to change their minds."

It's clear this is a film to promote Al Gore and the liberal bosses. He is on camera the whole time, does not interview others and spends about 30 minutes on personal stories taken straight from his campaign ads. The movie opportunistically uses the examples of Hurricane Katrina as an example of disaster to gain support among black workers.

The Democrats have a big problem. Although the Republicans are in deep trouble, the Dems either don't disagree with them or want to do worse -- build a bigger army to prepare for wider war with China (see editorial, page 1); preserve U.S. control of world energy resources; increase police powers and control of the civilian population. Both parties voted for the Iraq war and the Patriot Act. But the environment, there's an issue where they can at least appear to differ from the Republicans. Moreover, the party is desperate to find a candidate other than Hillary. Maybe a rehabilitated Gore will do.

Some facts in this movie are good to know and discuss. In the end, "An Inconvenient Truth" suggests that we are all culprits causing global warming. Individuals are told to plant trees, write letters, pray and engage in other personal activities.

But as long as capitalism exists and is bound to maximize profits, there's no hope for any effective long-range planning to save the environment. U.S. imperialism poses the greatest danger to the world, both by its contamination of the environment and its commitment to controlling the world's resources for profit. Al Gore's election won't change this.

Forward to communism

Fatal Errors in Soviet Union's Early Years -- Part 3

Contradictions sharpened in the Moscow of 1922, where U.S. communist Anna Louise Strong returned to resume her journalism. In her book, "I Change Worlds," she explains, "The Moscow to which I returned as Hearst correspondent in the late spring seemed to have changed in my three months' absence, from a city of comrades living on rations to a city of profiteers charging fantastic prices. The latter world was by far more conspicuous; the earlier world of comrades creating [amidst] chaos had to be looked for and was hard to find. The surface of life was ruthless competition and limitless profit-grabbing."

How could this happen? At that time, the Soviet Communist Party leadership believed that the struggle toward communism meant developing first a socialist society. They believed that money, profits and incentive wage scales would maximize production and eventually lead to a surplus. They thought communism could not be built without the production of this surplus. The problem was that this approach was characteristic of capitalism, the very system they were trying to escape.

One of Strong's first interviews was with Krasnoschekoff, a leader of guerilla forces during the war of capitalist intervention (1918-1921). He later became Assistant Commissar of Finance in Moscow. "Tell me," she asked, "how am I supposed to regard all these shops that are opening? To me each seems a step of defeat...must one be glad of this?"

He explained, "When by extreme revolutionary spirit, workers managed to produce without first being fed, in the hope of giving goods to the peasant and getting bread, their goods went not to the peasant but to the war. If, under interest or compulsion the peasants gave us food and trusted to later returns, that food went not into production but into the army. Then we had two years of drought ending in famine."

Neither Krasnoschekoff nor Strong advanced the political understanding that should have been developed during these years of extreme scarcity: Instead of explaining how the workers in the fields (peasants) and the workers in the factories had the same interests, the Party appealed on one basis to the factory workers (bread and money), and on another to the farm workers ("Peace, Land and Bread").

Krasnoschekoff continued, "We must say frankly to the people, `Your government cannot feed all and produce goods for all. We shall run the most necessary industries and feed the workers in those industries. The rest of you must feed yourselves in any way you can.' This means we must allow private trade and private workshops; it is well if they succeed enough to feed those people who work in them, since no one else can feed them. Later, as state industries produce a surplus, these will expand and drive out private trade."

Strong says, "In fact, state industries as were able to do so profiteered even more shamelessly than the private capitalists, since they had less to fear. Were such state trusts, I wondered, really socialistic?"

She was also disturbed by "American businessmen [who] came to negotiate for concessions. They were chiefly of a flashy type, adventuring into the wild lands of Russia in hope of quick gain." These greed-driven profit-seekers were in extreme contrast to the U.S. workers she met, many of them communists, who came to the USSR not to profit but to help build the new society.

(Next: the dedication of these U.S. workers and some of the monumental obstacles to building the kind of society they desired.)

Working Class Must:Unite Against Rulers' Anti-Immigrant Racism

Multi-racial Protesters Blast Fascist Minutemen

Liberal Rulers Gain Upper Hand with New CIA Boss

Transit Workers Protest D.C. Metro’s Negligent Homicide

May Day Organizing 'Liberates' Workers, Now Meeting with PLP

Colombia Workers Greet PLP's Communist Politics

Boston Students Rally vs. Anti-Immigrant Racism

Profit System Murders Five More Miners

Rank-and-File Solidarity Moves Beyond Pro-Boss Union Hacks

PLP Summer Project Will Bring Red Ideas to New Orleans

Workers’ Rebellion Defies Mexican Cops’ Attacks

• CHALLENGE comment

LETTERS

'Lives not worth risking for a war that's not their's'

Nature of Workers’ Collective Self-Interest

Evangelicals Also Oppose Iraq War

Lemon Meringue Pie and Workers' Unity

GM Article Needs More Explanation

Red students Impressed with PLP Role at LA March

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

• US has long used law to exploit Mexicans
• Immigrants pay plenty of taxes
• Tax Cuts: $20 for you, $42,000 for rich
• Muslims see US push for ‘democracy’ as a lie
• Free Labor market deepens child-labor trap
• Pfizer used African kids as guinea pigs
• NY cops send spies to live among Muslims

Review of ‘Soldiers Speak Out!’

Fighting Racism on Deployment to Iraq

Overcoming Famine and Disease in the Soviet Union

Working Class Must:Unite Against Rulers' Anti-Immigrant Racism

Throughout the rulers’ debate about immigration, the U.S. ruling class has bee fearing the unity of black and Latin workers, the two most exploited and potentially revolutionary groups of workers. Both are targeted for military service in expanding Middle East wars. This is why the rulers are feeding them lies that immigrant, mostly Latino workers are "stealing black workers’ jobs." These rulers fear the militant leadership that both groups united can give to the whole working class, including tens of millions of exploited white workers.

Workfare, mass imprisonment, racist layoffs and hiring practices have meant a soaring rate of unemployment for black youth, all because of capitalism’s inherent drive for maximum profits. Immigrants are victims of imperialism which exports the same racist conditions — working in the lowest-paying jobs in factories, the fields and service industries and creating unemployment, which forces them to emigrate to the U.S. where they also receive the lowest wages and are victims of mass unemployment.

The rulers use racist segregation in hiring to try to pit the two most exploited groups of workers against each other. They use the BIG LIE technique, trying to blame black unemployment on immigrant workers, rather than on the racist bosses and the capitalist system. The latter impoverishes the whole working class by creating a "reserve army of the unemployed," which the bosses use as a club over the heads of all workers, including white workers.

Congress’ proposals on immigration are racist and fascist to the core. The McCain-Kennedy version attacks all workers. It calls for a biometric ID card to be used as a "tamper proof" national ID for the entire population, not just for immigrants. This fits in with the Hart-Rudman plan for fascist Homeland security to control citizen and immigrant workers alike (see CIA editorial, page 2).

In a TV interview, Ted Kennedy bragged that his plan would require military service for immigrants. The liberals plan to beef up the border and build patriotism while painting themselves as the "saviors" of immigrants. They want immigrants to answer the racist Minutemen by showing they can be "good Americans" by joining the military. Both parties agree to install 370 miles of fencing along the Mexico/U.S. Border and cap off the guest worker programs at 200, 000 a year (Wall Street Journal, 5/23). The New York Times attacked the Minutemen in order to hide the liberals' fascist agenda. The liberal rulers are the main danger in the fight against racism and the system that spawns it because they build illusions that capitalism can be fixed.

Communists in PLP state that all workers have the same class interests in opposing racism, which weakens us as a class. Fighting racism against immigrants and against black workers strengthens our whole class in the fight to destroy capitalism with communist revolution.

Multi-racial Protesters Blast Fascist Minutemen

LOS ANGELES, May 21 — Chanting, "Asian, Latin, black and white, Workers of the world unite!" over 300 anti-racist demonstrators confronted a racist group of Minutemen, SOS ("Save Our State") and Ted Hayes, a supposed "homeless advocate." The racists were constantly protected by hundreds of cops in riot gear.

PLP’ers, especially youth, gave militant leadership to a multi-racial group trying to stop the racist march. The police repeatedly threatened to arrest those leading chants and giving speeches attacking the racists and the capitalist system. Every time they tried to shut down our bullhorn, others continued our chants, indicating we had lots of support. The racists were pelted with eggs as demonstrators tried to elude the cops to reach the racists.

As the racists marched, protected on both sides by a police line, the anti-racists also marched. The approximately 70-90 Minutemen carried the flag of U.S. imperialism along with racist signs. The anti-racist marchers had only red flags, the flag of the international working class, as well as signs and banners calling for unity of workers worldwide against all racists. PLP’s signs called for smashing all borders and fighting for communism.

At one point on Broadway, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of angry workers joined in the chants. Later a Minuteman e-mail said he could see from the hatred on the workers’ faces that only the cops' presence stopped workers from beating them up. Many young workers and students who came to denounce the racists witnessed mass support for our militant anti-racist stance.

The protesters discovered the racists were planning to march late Monday. During the week, there were discussions at factories and schools about the importance of standing up to racism and fascism. These discussions led black, Latin and white youth and workers to confront the racists. The bosses used the fact that Ted Hayes (who is black) was calling the march to try to pit Latino and black workers against each other. PLP took this racist attack head-on, explaining that black and Latin workers and youth are all part of the same working class, and all victims of capitalism’s racist unemployment, which drags down wages and conditions for white workers as well. (See adjoining editorial.)

Other groups also supported the anti-racist march. Two area meetings of the UTLA (teachers’ union) passed resolutions condemning the racist march and calling on teachers to march against it. The resolutions noted that the rulers are trying to divide black and Latino workers.

During the week preceding the march, leaders of some immigrant rights groups were challenged to build for the protest. While some rank-and-file members of these groups — hearing about the racist march for the first time — participated, some leaders said the Minutemen’s march should be ignored. The "Immigration Solidarity Network" e-mailed people to NOT build for the protest because confronting the racists would "hurt the fight over Congressional legislation. These social fascist "leaders" stress passage of the McCain- Kennedy Bill. Along with the liberal rulers, they use the Minutemen as a foil, to make themselves look "less racist" and to scare workers into looking to the liberal rulers, nationalist leaders, and Democratic Party politicians as the workers’ saviors.

Before the racist Minutemen march, the TV and radio ignored it, because they don’t want masses of people who hate them to hit the streets and oppose them. These are the same hypocrites who say the Minutemen and their Congressional supporters like Sensenbrenner are the "main enemy." But they refuse to confront them.

Some thought that protesting the Minutemen march would only "give them more publicity." But they get plenty of publicity AFTER they engage in their racist practices — like patrolling the border — publicity which is used to try to make immigrants more fearful and rely on the politicians, not their untied strength. However, when confronted by a militant, multi-racial march with red flags and angry youth and workers, the racists got little publicity.

The rulers don’t want workers to realize their potential power to not only smash the gutter racists but the whole capitalist system, the source of racism. They don’t want workers to understand that the liberal leaders are part of the problem, not the solution!

Liberal Rulers Gain Upper Hand with New CIA Boss

(Numbered footnotes identify reports, groups and individuals.)

Conflicting strategies for preserving U.S. imperialism’s dominance over its rivals underlie the recent CIA flap. Amid great turmoil, a career military officer has shoved out a Bush crony for the agency’s top spot.

On one hand, U.S. rulers, centered in the Eastern Establishment1, dream of a militaristic police state mobilized for world war. The Hart-Rudman (H-R) commission reports2 outline drastic plans for realizing this deadly vision. On the other side, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld camp thinks the U.S. war machine, at present strength, can master any future crisis. These "cheap hawks" demand little monetary sacrifice from U.S. capitalists and are reluctant to restore the draft. But Bush & Co.’s failure in Iraq now gives the Establishment the upper hand. So, at CIA, Bushite chief Porter Goss is out, his No. 3 operative faces criminal investigation and General Michael Hayden is in.

Under Goss, the CIA’s main role was to cook up phony intelligence, like the lies about Iraq’s weapons and its ties to al Qaeda, that justified Bush-Rumsfeld’s undermanned invasion. Goss spent much of his CIA tenure weeding out anti-Bush whistle blowers. Hayden, however, marches to Hart-Rudman’s tune. His boss and mentor in the Air Force was Gen. Charles Boyd3 who oversaw the H-R project from beginning to end. Boyd’s article in the Wall Street Journal (5/10), "A Symphony for Hayden," sang the nominee’s praises.

Bush’s CIA never managed to infiltrate al Qaeda and failed to translate 9/11 tip-offs in time. Hayden vows to deploy a worldwide network of multilingual spies preparing far-flung future battlefields. Hayden’s plans mesh with Gary Hart’s, the co-chairman of H-R. Speaking in March before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)4, Hart proposed a "fifth service" of covert Special Forces backed by a new Human Intelligence Corps operating wherever U.S. imperialism may require.

So what’s to be made of the liberal, Establishment New York Times’ May 19 editorial opposing Hayden’s appointment? It offers a lesson on the relation of form and content. The Times objects only to Hayden’s image. It prefers a pin-striped Ivy League law school grad — untainted by the legally questionable eavesdropping Hayden conducted at the National Security Agency (NSA) — to head the CIA. The Times frets about how Hayden tarnishes liberal illusions like "the rule of law" and civilian control of the state but says he’s mainly on the right track, "General Hayden...was...properly critical of the way Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created his own intelligence agency before the war in Iraq."

Meanwhile, other liberal advocates of the war and police-state agenda back Hayden without reservation. Richard Falkenrath5, an architect of U.S. fascism sporting a Harvard pedigree, says, "Hayden is...exactly the sort of man that we should have at the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency while we are at war." (Washington Post, 5/13/06) Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings top military expert, called Hayden "capable of facing down [Rumsfeld’s] Pentagon." (National Public Radio, 5/7/06)

As for Hayden’s spying on private communications, most liberals advise us to accept this police-state tactic despite the Times’ quibbles. CFR fellow Max Boot, commenting on a 1970’s anti-wiretapping statute said, "This archaic law should be euthanized." (Los Angeles Times, 5/17/06) Falkenrath sees no such need for legislative change. He wrote in the Washington Post (5/13), "The Right Call on Phone Records," that "the NSA's alleged receipt and retention of such information is perfectly legal." And while pundits debate legalistic niceties, rulers having state power blithely ignore them. The May 20 Wall Street Journal reveals, "Time-Warner’s America Online employs more than a dozen people, including several former prosecutors, handling almost 12,000 requests [for e-mail contents] from federal, state, and local agencies. The unit works 24 hours a day."

Hayden and the liberals behind him seek to expand the CIA’s spying, kidnapping, torture and murder as U.S. rulers seek to militarize and mobilize society for sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry. In 1999, Hart-Rudman foreknowingly called this a period of intensifying "casualties, carnage, and death."

Footnotes

1. Eastern Establishment — Shorthand for the dominant wing of U.S. financiers and industrialists having the greatest need to control the world’s resources, markets and labor through imperialism. Includes companies like major East Coast banks, Exxon Mobil, GE and many others. Ideology outlets are Ivy League colleges, network TV, Time Warner, the New York Times, etc. Rockefeller family plays a leading role.

2. Hart-Rudman — Clinton’s 1999-2001 presidential commission that laid out plans for protecting U.S. world dominance through 2025. It proposed reorganizing government into a centralized police state capable of mobilizing for war with China, Russia or both. A 1999 H-R report said a major terrorist attack on U.S. should be followed by a campaign to "galvanize" the public into willingly sacrificing "blood and treasure" for U.S. imperialism.

3. Gen. Charles Boyd — Executive Director of the Hart-Rudman commission. Former Senior Vice President of CFR. Married to Jessica Tuchman Mathews, a Rockefeller Foundation trustee.

4. Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) — Rockefeller-led think-tank. Eastern Establishment billionaires have used it to steer U.S. policy since World War II.

5. Richard Falkenrath — Fellow at the liberal, CFR-allied, Brookings Institution. Deputy Homeland Security Advisor on 9/11. As a Harvard professor, he wrote in 2000 that, in case of terrorist attack, government should be ready to:

• Impose a state of emergency, including curfew;

• Compel people to remain in one location or move to another;

• Use the military for domestic law enforcement;

• Seize community or private property;

• Censor and control the media.

Transit Workers Protest D.C. Metro’s Negligent Homicide

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 18 — Capitalism kills. That was the message brought today to over 50 transit workers, members of Local 689, Amalgamated Transit Union, as they picketed Metro bosses’ offices protesting management’s negligent homicide of two track workers over the past seven months. Chanting "Metro opens doors, they shouldn’t open caskets!," the workers, led by their communist president, condemned the bosses for their failure to take seriously last October’s death of track worker Michael Waldron, killed by a high-speed train while working on the track. In a reprise of this grisly event, Jong Won Lee was killed as he was caught between two 40-mile-per-hour trains roaring past each other inside a subway tunnel.

Trains have killed several track workers over past decades. After each incident, Metro would post a flagman and run trains on manual in work areas. Then, after a few months, Metro would return to unsafe practices until another track worker was killed. Today, there are no flagmen and trains are allowed to run on automatic at high speeds through "minor" work areas as "efficiency" measures. The result? Two deaths in the past 7 months!

The union has protested this unsafe policy. Close calls abound; track workers have had buttons torn off their shirts when they leaped up against walls with insufficient clearance as trains unexpectedly tore through tunnel work areas.

Metro’s callous disregard for workers’ lives (just how many workers’ deaths is "customer satisfaction" worth?) is typical of the capitalist need to maximize profits and minimize costs. Just as the lives of the 30 coal miners who’ve been killed in mine explosions this year mean nothing to the coal bosses (especially as the price of coal skyrockets!), so, too, Metro workers can die in the name of "improved efficiency."

Now Metro bosses have agreed to a "high-level" safety committee to recommend new policies. Don’t hold your breath waiting for meaningful reforms. A revolutionary communist movement that fights for power is the only force that will end the rule of these bosses and change society’s priorities from "efficiency" and "maximum profit" to the sovereignty and well-being of workers. That’s why the fact that 20 workers at this rally took copies of CHALLENGE bodes well for the future.

The demonstration revealed important divisions within the union leadership. Less than half of the executive board members joined the rally, and fewer built for it. Some of the others, disdaining the rank-and-file, attended a "Labor 2006" meeting to plan "strategy" for the fall Congressional elections. These traitors to the working class rely on the bosses’ politicians, not the workers, whom they arrogantly believe to be incapable of organizing change.

But this rally, occurring just four days after the death of Jong Lee, was organized precisely by the rank-and-file workers who have supported a militant, anti-racist direction for the union. Twenty workers came from one garage, and others responded to organizing efforts of workers who are just learning about revolutionary politics from the Local’s communist president.

May Day Organizing 'Liberates' Workers, Now Meeting with PLP

BRONX, NY, May 22 — Back in March, members and friends of Progressive Labor Party held a successful fundraiser event for three PLP members arrested at a demonstration in Farmingville, Long Island last July, protesting affiliates of the fascist Minutemen. Approximately 35 students, parents and teachers attended the event, contributing almost $800. Our main speaker connected the attack on immigrant workers with the continuing rise in war and fascism.

Everybody left energized after one of the defendants and a City College PLP student asked everyone to join with PLP to celebrate May Day "as we raise the red flag within the anti-war march and call for an end to all imperialist wars and attacks on immigrant workers with a communist revolution".

After that fundraiser, we viewed every participant as a potential organizer for May Day. If somebody said they were interested in attending, we’d respond by saying, "Great, are there any friends, family or co-workers you would like to invite?" One long-time friend of PLP and his wife invited approximately 10 people to May Day. Although none actually made it to the march, their efforts reflected organizing for May Day in a serious way.

One NYC Dept. of Education employee brought two high school students and helped out with security on the march. When asked what she thought about it, she replied, "I felt liberated!"

Lastly, a NYC transit worker and strike veteran attended our May Day dinner. Inspired by its youth-led character, he agreed to invite his family and a couple of co-workers to our "2006 Summer Project Barbecue" on June 3. It’s important to note that all of our marchers attended activities leading up to May Day.

One highlight occurred when our transit worker was asked to speak at a Brooklyn dinner. During his speech he detailed the shortcomings of contract negotiations and of reliance on union hacks. When asked what he thought of our Party, he replied, "I usually play devil’s advocate, but lately I find myself agreeing more and more with the ideas of the PLP."

The best news is that these three workers have agreed to meet with a PLP club. We hope they’ll consider joining and help us "liberate" the working class from its capitalist chains!

Colombia Workers Greet PLP's Communist Politics

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Several May Day marches here converged into a mass trade union rally. Workers and youth demonstrated against state-sponsored terrorism, the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., against the re-election of fascist President Uribe and against all his anti-working class privatization policies. Some marched in support of Chavez’s "Bolivarian revolution."

PLP denounced the electoral farce and called for the fight for communist revolution internationally. Our contingent included a strong group of workers and students and differentiated itself with revolutionary chants like: "The history of the working class is not a carnival-like parade!"; "Workers’ struggles are not won through ballots!"; "The best education is to fight for communist revolution!"; "Down with the nationalism of the bosses, long live workers’ internationalism!"; "Smash imperialist war with communist revolution!" Some fake leftists even repeated our chants, but substituted the word "socialism" for communism.

Our main job was explaining PLP’s politics through distribution of DESAFIOS and communist leaflets. Many agreed with our analysis, and photographed our signs. They expressed their approval by chanting "Long live communism!"

When we passed a group protesting the cops’ murder of a youth last May Day, they saluted us with raised fists of solidarity. When we passed a group listening to the favorite Presidential candidate of the fake left, Carlos Gaviria, who claims he’s fighting for "true democracy," we denounced bourgeois democracy and elections as essentially anti-working class.

We joined many others singing The Internationale until we reached Plaza Bolivar where the union hacks had the crowd listen to a bunch of politicians and union sellouts.

Overall, it was a great experience for new younger and older comrades.

Boston Students Rally vs. Anti-Immigrant Racism

BOSTON — On May 1, for the first time in over five years, students at Roxbury Community College (RCC) rallied in the cafeteria denouncing anti-immigrant racism and calling for working-class unity. The budding student leaders came out of a student club, Pizza and Politics, which holds regular discussions about world and local events. The mostly women students leading the rally were pleasantly surprised at the students’ receptivity.

A PLP member at RCC warned against the McCain/Kennedy bill as more dangerous than the openly racist Sensenbrenner bill because McCain/Kennedy forces immigrant workers into low-wage labor under threat of deportation. Most importantly, he explained how the liberal rulers need immigrant youth to join the U.S. military and fight in their imperialist oil wars.

Everyone had a positive evaluation of the event. They learned that their fellow students do care about what’s happening in the world, despite on the surface seeming shallow and individualistic. They also learned about leadership: if you make a plan and carry it out, you can make things happen.

The next day, the counter-attack began. Some faculty and administrators — whose political agenda is to encourage the growth of the next generation of the black elite — demanded an apology from the club. They criticized the flier’s class analysis of anti-immigrant racism, which compared the division within the working class — U.S.-born vs. immigrants — to divisions among slaves. Unfortunately, their criticism overshadowed the positive nature of the May 1st rally. But in a heated meeting of the club, it was clear that nationalist and anti-communist politics were being used to attack the working-class unity and growing class consciousness of members of Pizza and Politics.

PLP is working hard to develop this consciousness and student leadership at the college. PLP members in Pizza and Politics advocate anti-imperialist and anti-fascist ideas and argue for the need to destroy capitalism with communist revolution as the only way to forever eliminate war, fascism, racism and exploitation. By developing closer ties we can win some students into PLP’s base. This will help us develop into an organization that can lead the working class in the period ahead.

Profit System Murders Five More Miners

Once again the profit drive of capitalism has murdered the workers who mine the coal that keeps the bosses’ economy going. Once again a mine-owner has flaunted safety rules that could have saved the lives of five Kentucky miners. The Kentucky Darby LLC company has been guilty of 41 citations in the last five years for not cleaning up coal dust — three times in just the last month — that was responsible for the explosion that sent these miners to an early grave.

The mine bosses have refused to supply the miners with properly working air equipment that is supposed to provide clean air for at least an hour but in this case lasted only five minutes. Priscilla Petra, the wife of George Petra, 49, said, "There would probably be three men still alive if their air equipment had worked the way they should." (NY Times, 5/23)

These were the same air packs that didn’t work for the 12 Sago, West Virginia miners who died in the same manner in January. The other two Kentucky miners were killed by the explosion set off by the mixture of coal dust and methane gas present in the mine, coal dust that was supposed to be cleaned up by the profit-driven coal barons.

And what of the bosses’ government that permits mine-owners to get away with violation after violation, killing miner after miner? What could one expect when this same government launches war after war against workers in the Mid-East, Latin America and Asia, killing millions?

These are not "accidents." They are murders. A society based on profits first, workers last, cares not one bit for workers’ lives. The dead miners can easily be replaced by other workers needing jobs to survive life under capitalism.

In a society that abolishes bosses and their profits — communism — the safety of those workers who descend into the bowels of the earth would have the highest priority. No expense would be spared to protect their lives.

The only way to prevent such murders is to destroy the system that perpetrates these atrocities. That requires a revolutionary communist party leading a working class in a fight for workers’ power. This is the goal of PLP. Every worker and youth who joins PLP is driving another nail in the coffin of capitalism, in the long-range struggle to bury this murderous system.

Rank-and-File Solidarity Moves Beyond Pro-Boss Union Hacks

LOS ANGELES — When the LAX Hilton fired a worker known as a union activist on May 15, the bosses hoped to intimidate others and squelch the drive for union recognition. Instead, 90 workers gathered in the cafeteria the next day and 75 conducted a work stoppage in solidarity with their fired comrade.

When the bosses suspended all 75 for a week without pay, they returned every day all week — with friends, relatives, and supporters — to picket the hotel, chanting loudly and enthusiastically. Other Hilton workers came out on break or after work and joined them. "I’ve never seen anything like this!" said a young woman worker. Drivers of cars and trucks on busy Century Boulevard honked in support, and some taxi drivers refused to cross the picket line.

Chants grew more militant as the week wore on. "We are the union, the mighty mighty union" became "we are the workers, the mighty mighty workers." "Aqui estamos y no nos vamos" ( "We’re here and we’re not leaving") became "Aqui luchamos y no nos vamos." ("We’re fighting here and we’re not leaving.")

Though the level of militancy was high, the political level remains low, focused mainly on bread-and-butter issues and abstract demands like "respect." For example, one worker — asked what the organizing campaign had achieved so far — responded thoughtfully that, although they hadn’t received the usual 20¢ raise, they also hadn’t gotten the usual 30¢ hike in insurance premiums. He figured they were already ahead. But when workers are fighting like this, they should be fighting for more than pennies!

The UNITE-HERE union leadership is sabotaging the potential development of class consciousness in this struggle by promoting a "Century Corridor" campaign in which hotel workers are supposed to ally with hotel bosses and politicians to gentrify the area around the airport. Still worse, low-paid hotel workers would no longer be able to afford to live near their jobs.

Some workers involved in this campaign understand the limitations of the UNITE-HERE leadership’s approach. Suspended workers responded well when a few pickets introduced the chant, "Este puno si se ve los obreros al poder." ("See this fist, workers to power.")

The originally fired worker has won his job back, and the suspended workers are back at work, more united and even more determined. And, more than ever, they need the political perspective that CHALLENGE provides. While a limited number of these workers are receiving the paper, readers need to find ways to get it to more hotel workers and their families.

PLP Summer Project Will Bring Red Ideas to New Orleans

PLP is organizing a summer project in New Orleans, where the contradictions of U.S. capitalism have been laid bare. The events surrounding Katrina continue to be among the most intense fascist and racist attacks in recent history. It is the same ruling class that has killed over a million Iraqi working-class families in 15 years of imperialist war. Both attacks are driven by the need for capitalists to maximize their profits.

The ruling class abandoned more than 100,000 hurricane victims. If Katrina had made a direct hit on the city, all but the luckiest would have been killed. Neither FEMA, the Red Cross, the National Guard, nor anyone in government lifted a finger to evacuate the poorest workers. After complaining several years ago "that New Orleans has too many poor people . . . [and] argue[ing] that . . . African-Americans . . . might be better served by a Greyhound ticket to another town" (The Nation), the head of the Transit Authority parked the city’s 264 buses two days before the hurricane.

The government gave no warning that the levees had been breeched and the city was beginning to flood. Instead, it carried out a vicious fascist occupation of the city, followed by an equally vicious forced evacuation. Hundreds of thousands nationwide have been left to face homelessness.

Conditions in New Orleans’ working-class neighborhoods are still appalling. Huge areas still lack any utilities or city services. Toxic waste fills the streets. Dead bodies are still being found in vacant houses. No government money is being spent on rebuilding workers’ homes, helping them to return, or maintaining them in their new cities. Only the working class is keeping them alive.

The rebuilding of the business district and rich areas is being done mainly by temporary, immigrant "guest workers," with no job security, little or no safety gear, no benefits, ultra-low wages and prison-camp type housing. This is the rulers’ fascist immigration "reform."

Just as the ruling class leads both sides of the immigration movement (see page 1), the other side of the rulers’ open racist terror is voter registration and Democratic Party politics through organizations they control. through organizations they control they’re also trying to mislead thousands of concerned people, mainly youth, who went to the city to try to help. Our Summer Project will fly in the face of their plans.

We’ll be mainly organizing the surviving black workers in the city to rebuild and fight for their needs by building Survivors Councils. Some already exist; we hope to help expand them to other neighborhoods and cities.

At a recent Survivor Council meeting in the Lower Ninth Ward, 40 residents met to continue their work, which includes prioritizing the clean-up to give preference to the elderly and single-parent families, as well as reclaiming a local school targeted for destruction. We will be working with hundreds of student volunteers, taking part in both reconstruction and door-to-door canvassing activities.

We believe that workers can and must grasp communist ideas in order for communism to win. This summer project can teach us some very valuable lessons in building a mass PLP, in bringing communist ideas to these victims of capitalism, that the profit system is the source of their exploitation.

We’ve raised Katrina front and center in CHALLENGE and in virtually all of our mass organizations, and encouraged numerous friends and comrades from a few cities to go to New Orleans; but now we’ll be making a Party-wide response there. We’ll enter this Summer Project with the approach of trying to learn from those who have preceded us while we struggle to win workers to PLP’s revolutionary communist politics.

We have long believed that black workers are the key force for communist revolution. We have much to learn and many experiences in fighting racism to help build the Party among black workers and youth. This will work towards transforming PLP and qualitatively strengthen the fight for communism.

Workers’ Rebellion Defies Mexican Cops’ Attacks

MEXICO CITY, May 4 — Yesterday, a second workers’ rebellion hit the administration of Vicente Fox in San Salvador Atenco, a settlement near Mexico City. The first uprising had fought the government’s attempt to displace workers with a new international airport in the area.

When workers recently tried to sell the flowers they grow in neighboring Texcoco, the mayor — a member of the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) of Lopez Obrador — ordered the police to stop them from erecting stalls to sell their flowers. But yesterday the workers set up their stalls, defying the mayor. When the cops arrived to throw them out, the workers repelled the attack and surrounded the area with a defensive guard.

Meanwhile, neighbors organized to support them, closing down the highway passing through the settlement. When state police tried to clear the highway, workers fought them with exceptional bravery, given that the cops had thrown a tear gas grenade killing a 14-year-old boy. That only strengthened the people’s resolve.

As happened on April 21 at Sicarsa, in Lazaro Cardenas Michoacan, the confrontation was broadcast live on television. Many victims of police brutality sympathized with the rebels, but TV hacks, being "indignant" at the workers’ action, called for the "hard hand of the government." They offered their video footage to help the police identify rebels.

This fascist response came quickly. Since the state police could not oust the workers, at 7:00 this morning the federal government sent in the Federal Preventative Police to violently recapture the settlement, arresting hundreds, including university students and others who had arrived at night to support the workers.

Thousands are protesting in various cities, demanding the charges be dropped against the hundreds arrested and that they be freed immediately. Some are calling for President Fox, to be tried for crimes against the people.

We must organize ourselves against this capitalist system that can do nothing but oppress workers. Lenin wrote that the political characteristic of imperialism is the tendency to violence and reaction (what we today call fascism). While politicians spread the illusion that the world is "advancing" towards more democracy — some using as an example "leftist" governments in Latin America — the truth is that we’re facing increasing fascism. These repressions will occur more frequently, since workers are resisting oppression more and more, and the ruling class needs stricter control of the working class as inter-imperialist rivalry and war gets sharper.

A comrade from Mexico

CHALLENGE comment: Thank you for the letter. We would just like to add that the whole murderous capitalist system should be destroyed. We must organize the Progressive Labor Party to lead a real communist revolution that ends, once and for all, this capitalist hell. One concrete step toward that goal is massive distribution of this revolutionary communist newspaper.

LETTERS

'Lives not worth risking for a war that's not their's'

A friend who is a U.S. Army public affairs soldier attached to a Special Forces unit recently sent me a long letter from Iraq. Following are excerpts highlighting the brutality of the war and the increasing difficulty U.S. imperialism is facing in fielding an army.

"My time has been mostly preoccupied by making memorial videos. I’m up to number 10 now….The platoon is currently operating at 40% of its strength due to injuries and deaths….

"Soldiers are getting maimed and killed and many will tell you that they don’t feel their lives are worth risking for a war they feel is not theirs….

"The soldiers I memorialize…died when a bomb exploded under their vehicle, exploded the extra gas canisters on the back and engulfed the vehicle in flames, and thanks to the combat locks on the doors and their inability to move because of excessive body armor, barbequed them alive. Last time I checked, Dateline didn’t have a special report on them.

"The Army is so desperate for bodies right now that they deployed soldiers…who can’t run…. They waived weight restrictions, increased the age limit, and are talking about making basic training easier. They’ve kept soldiers here with combat injuries like shrapnel and gun shot wounds, sending them to physical therapy so they can be rehabilitated and then send them back out….

"Don’t believe everything the media tells you (in fact, ignore most of it)….

"Imperialism is ugly on the ground. Let’s crush it.

"GI Jane"

Nature of Workers’ Collective Self-Interest

In the March 29 issue, a letter from Red Rider (RR) says that selflessness is the foundation of communism and that there is too much emphasis in the paper on "narrow self-interest." The letter contains misconceptions about the role of selflessness and the nature of self-interest.

Communist selflessness requires cooperation when giving, and sharing when receiving. The letter focuses one-sidedly on giving and rejects receiving altogether. It also neglects the difference between collective and individual self-interest.

By eventually abolishing classes (after perhaps centuries), communist revolution will abolish class interests and absorb all human interests into the varying needs of individuals in varying circumstances. Then selflessness and self-interest will be merged into one, with no contradiction between them.

RR says, correctly, that "Communism is not about offering the workers a better deal than the capitalists," implying that CHALLENGE is guilty of doing so. But when every issue describes the millions of ways that capitalism robs the working class, it does not imply that communism "offers" the working class a "better deal." Rather it means that by seizing control of the world from the capitalists and liquidating the system that produces — and is run by — these murderous thieves, the working class will enable workers to serve each other, based on our collective needs.

RR says communism is "about sacrifice and commitment on behalf of others." True, in part. But this formulation poses a contradiction between the needs of self and the needs of others, which is a central characteristic of capitalism, not of communism. When a tsunami or earthquake or hurricane occurs, workers internationally struggle to aid each other. In so doing, workers are not merely "sacrificing" self for the needs of others, but rather, as CHALLENGE points out, are in fact repairing the damage to a part of our own international class.

Millions of workers in the U.S. and abroad asked how they could help Katrina’s victims. Thousands helped each other with transportation during the recent NYC transit strike, without blaming the strikers. Workers always come to each others’ aid under severe circumstances, even without PLP’s local presence. But PLP is necessary to explain how to achieve a communist world, where such mutual aid will be an every-day occurrence.

CHALLENGE is filled with calls for workers in, say, the U.S. to support workers in Tehran or India or Iraq or Afghanistan or Sudan. But CHALLENGE points out that this support can best be given, under present circumstances, by attacking the imperialist bosses where they are weak. In particular, it showed how the recent NYC transit strike weakened the bosses in their effort to control the Iraqi oil fields through war.

The merging of self-interest with selflessness was implicit in Marx’s call on white workers to fight black slavery, saying that workers in white skin will never be free so long as workers in black skin are enslaved. This merging is also implicit in the slogan, "An injury to one is an injury to all."

Finally, RR contradicts himself when he says, correctly, "Down with nationalism...of this kind!" and then says, referring to the genocidal wars in Iraq and Sudan, "for which our society has a certain collective responsibility due to all the indulgence and gluttony that we passively accept and participate in." But nowhere on earth, much less in the U.S., is the society "our society." It belongs to the capitalists. By claiming it as "ours," RR unwittingly accepts the responsibility for the genocide in Iraq and Sudan on behalf of the U.S. working class. This merging of working class and capitalists is the essence of nationalism — the very nationalism that he correctly condemns in the previous sentence.

Saguaro Rojo

Evangelicals Also Oppose Iraq War

My church’s reputation is conservative, evangelical ("soul-saving"), but at least a few members aren’t politically conservative. One told me he believed many members oppose the Iraq war.

To check this out, he and I asked around and found a few more who agreed to call for immediate U.S. pullout, and no attack on Iran. We sent letters to every parishioner asking them to join us in that call. In a few days 17 had signed on, including three pastors. Not bad for a small conservative church! Eleven have read CHALLENGE, and some see it frequently.

The 17 then sent letters to 150 other churches like ours in our area, stating our position and calling on them to join us. It noted that the national church body voted to label the war "unwise, illegal and immoral." So the call wasn’t to the bosses’ government or politicians but to other church people.

Some opposition surfaced. First, a member criticized our "failure" to call directly on the government. Then a couple of pro-war members pressured one pastor to leave the group. Another member wrote a letter praising that pastor. It called me (correctly) "...a Stalinist communist who believes that the entire electoral system in a capitalist society is a sick, cynical sham..."! The political attacks and red-baiting were clearly efforts to throw cold water on our effort.

One person in the group has suggested we hold a forum in the church to discuss the war, with veterans as speakers. Others agree. We may not succeed in this immediately, but the effort has been worth it. The work goes on.

Pennsylvania Red Churchgoer

Lemon Meringue Pie and Workers' Unity

Mostly we have to initiate revolutionary discussion. These days, though, opportunities are just as likely to come to us, as us to them. Because of my current job insecurity I have missed some of the recent major events, or had to play a subdued role in them. Nonetheless, political opinion is everywhere.

I walk into my grocery store and immediately a worker I know stops stocking the shelves to engage me in a passionate discussion on immigration. A sometime CHALLENGE reader, he’s angry. As a black man he feels the sudden media attention paid to Latino immigrants "threatens" his community, which is already under a vicious and sustained assault. We argue. Whose country is it? Ours or the richest 1%? Who jails us, imports the drugs, replaces welfare with workfare? Who benefits when one section of the working class fights another over who can wave the flag of imperialism? We end by keeping our friendship and our differences.

Hell, I think, I came in here to get a Lemon Meringue pie for tonight’s party and got a debate on working-class unity instead. Later, at the party among black professionals, the issue is raised again in a quieter tone. "Is it really a Civil Rights issue?" is the question that leads us off. Again a wide-ranging debate, although half-way through I begin to wonder, is there something about Lemon Meringue pie or is it that "The times they are a’changin’?"

Driving home I realize that in neither case did I have CHALLENGE in my hip pocket, so to speak. I don’t mean that literally. I mean that in neither case was the idea that I am actively building a revolutionary party — the PLP — part of my argument. Misjudging the period we’re entering means missing out on the opportunities that will present themselves.

It was a useful reflection that perhaps helped me make a somewhat better plan for my next dilemma. After a too-long stint of unemployment, I had found a temporary job only to find myself in a pre-strike situation. Fortunately, one of the union activists is a former PLP’er who still distributes CHALLENGE. We meet and begin to probe the deeper forces behind the potential strike. It becomes apparent that imperialist rivalries — especially between the U.S. versus China and Europe — are shaping the issues surfacing in the contract negotiations. Also, because the scope and magnitude of capitalism’s direct intervention in our school system becomes clearer, the question of developing fascism also emerges. Disagreements over tactics bubble up, but despite my clumsiness the activist agrees to start meeting with the PLP club again.

Another friend of mine who’s been reading CHALLENGE for some six years recently organized a mass action involving a student walkout and parent support against the draconian consequences confronting students who fail the Exit exam. The friend has many disagreements but is clear on U. S. imperialism’s war plans and on CHALLENGE’S position that U.S. rulers aim to recruit thousands of Latino youth into their Army. So he’s now taking five CHALLENGES an issue.

Events have opened a window of opportunity. Imperialism, war, fascism and the need for a revolutionary communist party are more easily discussed. It’s no exaggeration to say that today a million people would read CHALLENGE on a regular basis, if they only had the chance. We may not have the means to meet that potential, but we do have an opportunity to expand our influence if only, as in my case, modestly. The window is open now. It won’t stay open forever. Let's seize the moment.

A Comrade

GM Article Needs More Explanation

A recent CHALLENGE article titled "GM Restructuring Follows Führer's Footsteps" (4/12) states that GM's layoffs are "similar to the 'restructuring' done by Hitler and the Nazis." This statement is incorrect, and no connection is made between GM's crisis and Nazi Germany.

When the Nazis seized power in Germany, productive forces were destroyed because under capitalism the economy cannot keep up with the development of productive techniques. Unemployment was greatly reduced. Military production sped up and became the center of economic development; commercial production was reorganized for military use.

Was the point of the article that GM's attacks on workers demonstrate a period of rising fascism? Or, more specifically, that we can draw a parallel between these current attacks and part of Nazi economic policy?

It's important that we talk about fascism, but it's more important that we explain it! Most workers don't know what the term means, and we can't throw it around without backing it up with solid historical evidence. We must clearly define and back up our terms and points in all of our writing.

Red students Impressed with PLP Role at LA March

On May 1, I went with two co-workers to the rally site of the LA Immigrant Rights March. Although we were quite early hundreds were already there. So on May Day, we waited for the march that would eventually grow to half a million.

As the crowd grew much larger, I raised a sign that said (in Spanish) "The boss and the migra are the same bastards." Not only did my co-workers like it but many marchers also commented on it, asking to photograph us with the signs. One co-worker now displays an enlarged copy in his toolbox of him holding the sign with other marchers.

The street had filled up and we were shoulder to shoulder. I knew the Party had a contingent somewhere in our area but in this huge crowd I couldn't possibly find them. Then a tall black student came through the crowd passing out flyers. I took one look at the headline, "Fight anti-immigrant racism. Power to the workers on May Day," and I quickly said, "We're with you; where's our group?" He gestured behind him.

I told my co-workers and we worked our way back to where the Party was distributing flyers and making speeches about workers' power and the failure of capitalism to provide a decent life for our class. Someone handed us a big stack of leaflets. I couldn't pass them out quickly enough — people were actually lining up to get one, and a pink sheet with our chants in Spanish and English. I think my friends from work were surprised at how willingly people took the flyers.

The party gave short one-minute speeches on racism and the racist Minutemen, the McCain/Kennedy Bill and the war in the Middle East. Each one ended with a chant reflecting the ideas in the speech. It was a very effective combination. After listening to each speech, the crowd picked up the chants in spirited fashion. We had a good, strong contingent and made ourselves heard up and down Broadway.

The two young workers who came from my job were at almost every meeting we've had over the last six months to discuss our upcoming contract and the political issues of the current period. They've gotten CHALLENGE several times. Perhaps they're less cynical or demoralized than some of the older workers who sometimes talk a good game but don't show up for one reason or another.

At any rate, it's both the Party's advanced ideas and also the organization of our contingent that impressed these workers. It's not only what we in PLP say but what we do that counts - and also, how we do it.

A Worker Comrade

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

US has long used law to exploit Mexicans

A pattern of deliberately leaving the country’s "back door" open to Mexican workers, then moving to expel them and their families years later, has been a recurrent feature of immigrant policy since the 1890’s.

…As commercial agriculture created "factories in the field," undocumented entry became the norm. Growers pointed out that no willing field hand could afford the "head tax" that went with legal entry. And employers regularly cited informal entry as a feature that made Mexicans more desirable than cheap foreign laborers like Filipinos, because they were easier to deport. As one rancher quoted in Mr. Zolberg’s book remarked to a Mexican hand: "When we want you, we’ll call you; when we don’t — git."

The full, brutal weight of that formula hit in the Depression. Roundups of Mexican families in public places, summary deportations — and well-publicized threats of more to come — sent panic through Mexican-American communities in 1931. The tactic was called "scare-heading" by its architect, Charles P. Visel, the director of the Los Angeles Citizens Committee on the Coordination of Unemployment Relief. It worked. Even many legal immigrants were panicked into selling their property cheap and leaving "voluntarily."

"I have left the best of my life and strength here, sprinkling with the sweat of my brow the fields and factories of these gringos, who only know how to make one sweat and don’t even pay attention to one when they see one is old," said one worker….

Today, the nature of the deal can no longer be disguised, said Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, co-director of Immigration Studies at New York University. "It’s a bad-faith pact," he said. "We can’t have it both ways — an economy that’s addicted to immigrant labor, but that’s not ready to pay the cost." (NYT, 5/21)

Immigrants pay plenty of taxes

…Americans say they are concerned that immigrants "overburden government services and programs."

….In the upcoming issue of the Harvard Latino Law Review, Francine Lipman, a professor at Chapman University’s law school in Orange, Calif., writes that the widespread belief that undocumented immigrants cost us more than they give us is "demonstrably false."

…There are 7 million undocumented workers….They cannot access or easily access many public services, yet in 2003 alone the labor of undocumented workers poured $7 billion in taxes into Social Security even though they cannot legally claim those benefits.

Often ignored by anti-immigration forces is that undocumented workers pay sales taxes and real estate taxes—directly if they are homeowners, indirectly if they are renters. (NYT news service)

Tax Cuts: $20 for you, $42,000 for rich

The tax cut bill that Senate and House leaders have generally agreed upon is expected to save Americans at the center of the income distribution an average of $20….Those making more than $1 million would save, on average, almost $42,000. (NYT, 5/5)

Muslims see US push for ‘democracy’ as a lie

In the western world, the view prevails that democracy is a better form of government than any other…But…..In the light of Gunatánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Falluja, the other horrors of the Iraq war, and the continuing revelations about so-called extraordinary rendition — a fancy phrase for kidnapping — the Muslim world may not be over-impressed with protestations about the rule of law. Muslims generally regard such ideas as self-serving hypocrisy. (GW, 5/4)

Free Labor market deepens child-labor trap

…In a report last week….

The ILO said hard labour was still a reality for one in seven children around the world aged five to 17….

A vast majority — 69% — of working children are found in agriculture, an area that the report’s authors said tended to be overlooked by campaigners. Trade unions in this sector are traditionally weak and…child labor on family farms was seen as "family solidarity".

The ILO stressed, however, that child labour paradoxically deepened the poverty trap in poor countries, with investment in education and health offering a better route to prosperity. Sending children to work was often essential to the survival of poor families but the resulting increase in the supply of workers tended to drive down wages, further convincing families that their children should work rather than study. (GW, 5/18)

Pfizer used African kids as guinea pigs

A panel of Nigerian medical experts has concluded the pharmaceuticals firm Pfizer violated international law during a 1996 epidemic by testing an unapproved drug on children with brain infections at a field hospital.

That finding is detailed in a lengthy Nigerian government report that has remained unreleased for five years, despite inquiries from the children’s lawyers and the media. The Washington Post recently obtained a copy….

An approval letter from a Nigerian ethics committee, which Pfizer used to justify its actions, had been concocted and backdated by its lead researcher in Kano, the report said. (GW, 5/8)

NY cops send spies to live among Muslims

A young police detective testified yesterday at the Herald Square bombing plot trial that he was recruited from the Police Academy 13 months after 9/11 to work deep undercover in the [N.Y.] Muslim community….

The Police Intelligence Division’s program to post detectives overseas has been widely publicized. But this detective’s testimony yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn provided the closest look yet at how the division is using undercover investigators to penetrate mosques, bookstores and other places where Muslims gather in the city.

His testimony confirmed what many Muslims have believed since the Sept.11 attacks: that law enforcement agencies have worked to infiltrate their community during terrorism investigations. It also revealed the extraordinary steps the department took to create a fictitious identity so a Muslim investigator could live for years in an insular neighborhood where people have become highly suspicious of the authorities. (NYT, 5/19)

Review of ‘Soldiers Speak Out!’

Trying to Corral A GI Movement

The "biggest weakness" of the documentary Sir, No Sir! according to CHALLENGE'S review (5/24), "is its failure to tie … the anti-war activities of those who were supposed to fight [the Vietnam War] to the current imperialist war in Iraq." Another documentary, Soldiers Speak Out! could have remedied this weakness as it features anti-war Iraq veterans. Unfortunately, it doesn't because it's fatally flawed.

Indeed, the word imperialism is never mentioned. To its credit, the movie does include a brief statement from a veteran about how the army uses racism to "dehumanize the enemy." Racism — never presented as a class question — is a key ruling-class weapon used to divide and control the working class, be it to wage imperialist wars or to split workers domestically. Smashing racism is in every worker's interest and can only be accomplished with communist revolution, since only that system abolishes profits and bosses, the source of racism. In this regard, "Soldiers" shares this flaw with "Sir, No Sir," although it contains more examples of anti-racist struggle.

"Soldiers" aims most of its firepower at stopping recruitment. It quotes soldiers bemoaning a "loss of self," how one is trained to follow "Pavlovian bells." One Iraqi veteran even asserts that "most soldiers" can't "think about the …justifications for a war" when they're in it. They can only think of survival, which sometimes leads to civilian deaths. Only when they come home can they think about such things. The implication is clear: stay away from the army.

How then can one explain the mass rebellion of active-duty troops depicted in Sir, No Sir? Two Vietnam veterans introduce the first GI newspaper mentioned in Sir, No Sir, — the "Last Harass." The documentary fails to note that a revolutionary communist PLP member organized this underground paper. Here's his rationale:

"We needed a paper that had more faith in the ability of the G.I. to understand the true nature of the war and the system that is responsible for it. It had to discuss the issues at hand and explain how those in power — the factory owners, bankers, landlords and capitalists in general — are responsible for the war and poverty at home."

This class view of soldiers stands in stark contrast to the one that says soldiers are, and will remain, helpless (or morally compromised) fools or cannon fodder. Soldiers can — and have historically — played a key role in revolution when organized under the leadership of a communist party.

Our Party has always had the outlook of reaching out to these working-class sons and daughters, joining the army to build for revolution. U.S. counter-intelligence officer Taylor spoke to our modest success during the Vietnam War period. "Other organizations were being overshadowed by . . . PLP in the 6th Army," he warned in the early 1970's. (House Internal Securities Committee, Vol. II)

At the end of Sir, No Sir, a number of veterans talk about how their experiences fighting the Army had led them to the option of "changing the world." Changing the world requires a communist revolution. All attempts to "progressively" reform this system inevitably leads back to imperialist war, racism and exploitation.

The ruling class is well aware of the history of GI rebellions. These two documentaries can be useful and we should arrange showings. But we should harbor no illusions that these movies would advance the cause of revolution. On the contrary, each in its own way wants to corral any soldiers' movement into dead-end reformist and/or pacifist politics. We must be prepared to answer any attempt to build a soldiers' movement that would only abet liberal-led imperialism.

Fighting Racism on Deployment to Iraq

Building a base to fight racism and overthrow capitalism takes patience and diligence. But after some years in the military, the work is starting to bear fruit. Recently I invited several soldiers to watch the PBS special on the "Scottsboro Boys." Two came, one African American and one Puerto Rican.

Neither had heard of this landmark case in the fight against racism, nor did it shock them since they knew the general history of U.S. racism. But what did surprise them was the role of the communist-led International Labor Defense in vehemently fighting for the release of the nine framed victims. The image of white anti-racists being beaten by NYC police officers in rallies for the Scottsboro Boys sparked conversations on the role of whites in an anti-racist movement and the history of communism in the U.S.

Afterwards my African American friend and I continued talking about the role of workers fighting racism in the military and eventually overthrowing capitalism. I shared with him the history of the 1905 Potemkin mutiny in Russia and gave him one of our readings on this. We hope to discuss it soon.

This exchange highlighted the importance of building strong on-the-job relationships. My ties to both these soldiers were strengthened during our deployment to Iraq when an equal opportunity complaint was filed against a racist who had harassed soldiers in the shop by displaying a noose, making a mockery of lynching. This was the culmination of many unpunished racist/sexist acts.

A full investigation validated our complaints. The perpetuator was stripped of his rank and confined to the base for thirty days.

The most important consequence from our standpoint was eliminating the defiant acts of racism/sexism in the shop (at least for a time) and demonstrating to other soldiers that struggle can produce results when workers unite and fight back! Of course, this didn’t change the military’s role in protecting the racist capitalist system, but our morale in the struggle against racism has certainly improved!

Our little group and a buddy from boot camp will be viewing the movie "Sir No Sir" soon. It documents the GI movement against the Vietnam War via sit-down strikes, work stoppages and the ultimate act of "fragging" (killing officers with fragmentation grenades). Our next goal is developing a Study Action Group and, hopefully, winning new comrades.

Red Soldier

Forward to communism

Overcoming Famine and Disease in the Soviet Union

Part 2

In her book "I Change Worlds," U.S. communist writer Anna Louise Strong writes about bringing supplies to famine areas in the Soviet Union in the 1920’s. Following the 1917 revolution and the 3-year wars of intervention by 14 capitalist countries to crush workers’ power, there were severe droughts in 1920 and 1921. Like everyone, Strong was exposed to typhus from lice. She spent four bed-ridden months, so weak she couldn’t wash her face.

Strong shared a cabin on the supply train with Sonia, an interpreter, who was devoting her month’s vacation to famine relief. "I thought in the past that there were impossible things," said Sonia. "For eight months I ran a typhus hospital where a thousand men lay on wooden floors that could not be disinfected. The men had been in dirt so long that we had to cut the clothes from them; they were rotten with filth that crumbled in your hands. The lice were imbedded in their flesh; you had to scrub hard or use a razor to get them off. We had no beds, no mattresses, no sheets, no blankets, no soap. The doctors and nurses came down with typhus regularly; there was no way to protect them.

"I thought it was impossible. But always something can be done. We sent word throughout the city asking every family to bring us one suit of underwear for the men who were left naked when we cut their clothing off....Communists, of course, were not permitted to refuse. They must give, even if they have no underwear left for themselves. We communists are making the revolution; we must do whatever is demanded."

She spoke of the revolution not as a past violent upheaval but as an ongoing process. "I learned that there is nothing impossible. There is always a way. This famine is nothing compared to the wars of intervention....Now that we’ve beaten the intervention, don’t think this famine can stop us."

This Sonia of the hard-won philosophy was a woman in her twenties. She said to Strong casually, "I should like a couple of babies more than anything, but we have plenty of children in Russia, and not many women who can work like I can."

In those initial five months, Strong never tasted fresh water or milk. After two months’ convalescence and work in Warsaw and England, she returned to Moscow, where she worked for the labor press. She shared two rooms with a comrade who gave her a bed of boards with a thin straw mattress and a writing table. She would rush to her office, and on coming home at midnight would turn on her desk lamp and work till three in the morning.

Strong "learned to go to bed with the door unlatched and never knew how many people would be occupying the rooms next morning. Meetings there lasted after the street cars stopped, so visitors simply slept on the floor and went directly back to their offices. Anyone who came ate whatever there was in the flat, and when there was nothing left we went hungry till the next day. They were all absorbed in keeping the country going."

But in Moscow, not all was selfless labor. Strong noted how stores with stolen goods were opening. The city was "becoming a regular…market-place, bargaining, cheating. There’s a horrible new-rich set growing, and opera audiences have changed from workers to petty traders showing off their women. It’s rawer by far than the capitalism of America."µ

(Next: rampant profiteering.)

1. RED FLAGS Fly On May Day
2. A RED MAY DAY IN LA
3. MILITANT YOUTH LEAD PLP MAY DAY MARCH
   1. On the Road to May Day
   2. Revolutionary Dinner
4. Workers Have One Flag: It Is Red
5. Bosses' `Solution' For Fight Over Oil:
   More Imperialist War
6. PLP-Led Protest Shuts Down Racist Minutemen
7. PLP Champions Internationalism vs. Bosses' Flag-Waving
8. Some Anti-War Vets Breaking With Pacifism
9. El Salvador: May Day Marchers Defy Anti-Riot Cops
10. Mexico: `All Bosses and Politicians Have Blood on Their Hands'
11. France: Reformist Union Agenda Won't Cut It
12. Bringing Communist Thought to the Class Struggle
13. PLP's Politics Expose Rulers' Attack On Immigrants
14. Red May Day Spirit at Immigrant March
15. Auto Workers Must Refuse to Go Down With Sinking UAW
16. RACIST CARNAGE OF CAR WARS
    1. NATIONALISM VS. INTERNATIONALISM
    2. Red-led Autoworkers Broke U.S. Bosses' Laws
17. `It's Not Just Cell Phones, It's Fascism!'
18. Movie Review: `Sir! No Sir!'
    MASS GI REBELLION IN VIETNAM WAR
19. Youth Struggle Against Smoking Pot
20. FORWARD TO COMMUNISM
    Early Experiences of the Soviet Revolution
21. LETTERS
    1. Medical Students, Hospital Workers Back Immigrants
    2. Black-Latin Solidarity on May Day Bus
    3. Honors Bolshevik Revolution
    4. Vet Indicts U.S. Mass Murderers
    5. `All the News That Fits, We Print'
    6. Airport Workers Hold May Day Forum
22. RED EYE ON THE NEWS
    1. Fear and anguish grow for the `near poor'
    2. Thousands sleep on streets in Paris
    3. Democracy + hi-tech jobs don't feed India
    4. German general: Red ideas steeled Russians
    5. Big money wants non-black New Orleans
    6. Immigrants pay plenty of taxes

RED FLAGS Fly On May Day

NEW YORK CITY, April 29 -- Militantly marching through the streets of New York City, friends, family and members of the Progressive Labor Party brought a communist edge to the mass anti-war demonstration today. Revolutionary politics reached thousands through the sale of CHALLENGE, T-shirts and buttons proclaiming, "We have a world to win, and nothing to lose but our chains"; and, "Workers have no borders." PL's participation spread the message that on the eve of May Day, international worker's day, we must emphasize that the only solution to racism, sexism, fascism and imperialist war is an international revolutionary communist movement.

Around 500 workers, students and soldiers gathered in Brooklyn following the demonstration. It was to be the best annual May Day celebration yet! Many young comrades played leading roles in organizing, speaking and performing at this event. Though exhausted from marching, traveling from cities as far away as the Midwest and preparing food for the standing-room-only crowd, we were energized by the well-organized program. By putting communist politics into practice, the group collectively arranged tables, chairs, decorations, food and sound equipment.

The event opened with the crowd on its feet, fists in the air, singing the Internationale in English and Spanish. A single glance around the room depicted PL's dedication to building a mass communist party and promoting leadership among black and Latin youth.

A powerful "State of the World" speech by a young Latin woman laid out the main political events of the last year including the spread of imperialism in the Middle East, growing fascism in the U.S. through targeting immigrant workers, the election of reformist parties in South America and the racist neglect of victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Personal testimonies of these struggles were given by a super-exploited Latin day laborer; a young woman arrested for disrupting a Minutemen meeting; a young man's travels through Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil, leading him to reject these nationalist, capitalist movements and instead join PLP; a Harlem church parishioner's story of organizing Katrina support; a riveting anti-racist talk by a hurricane survivor; and a community organizer calling for comrades to provide political leadership and support to the suffering workers in New Orleans.

There were new reports from communist organizers on building work in industry. Through stories of labor struggles in mass transit and auto assembly plants, two black workers brought to life the revolutionary potential of the industrial working class and why it is crucial to communist revolution. These reports marked an important qualitative advance in PL's work, after many long years of dedicated struggle in these industries.

An analysis of sexism under capitalism revealed it as another bosses' tool to divide the working class and described how PL'ers are combating it. This was followed by a moving story of a struggling working-class family who equally divide the labor in the home and on the job in order to survive. The diverse crowd was challenged to increase the fight against exploitation on the job and sexism in society in their daily lives.

A longtime unionist from Chicago related her experiences working with a reform group of "reform leaders" in her local. She explained the big picture of rejecting the accommodating reformists who are all too willing to sell out workers' struggles and the necessity of winning workers to PLP's communist understanding.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this evening was the effort of black, Latin and white workers, young and old, men and women who worked to make our celebration a demonstration of communist unity in action.

Filled with inspirational stories of success and set-backs, the crowd was left with the powerful reminder that as members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party we have an important duty to continually fight for communist revolution, not reform. We must make communist politics primary every hour, every day, everywhere, with everyone. No doubt, struggle is hard work, yet every year on May Day we take the time to celebrate our successes and watch the Party grow. So start building for next May Day, today!

A RED MAY DAY IN LA

LOS ANGELES, April 29 -- "I've been to a lot of marches lately, but I really loved this one because it was against capitalism and for communism, and because there were so many African Americans and Asians marching with us," said a young Latina worker following the PLP May Day March downtown today.

A very militant group of youth marched against the racist bosses, their borders, their war and their terror. We proudly and boldly put forward the need for a mass communist revolution to end capitalism's racist exploitation and inevitable imperialist wars. We sold 1,000 CHALLENGES and distributed 4,000 leaflets to the many workers who lined up to support the march. Some of those watching later told friends how impressed they were by both its message and its multi-racial character.

Afterwards, we held a spirited dinner with a great skit by high school students about fighting racism against immigrants and how the bosses plan to use immigrant youth in expanded wars in the Mid-East. One speaker related the fight in his union for a resolution to make May Day a holiday celebrating international workers' day, and to support the fight against anti-immigrant racism. He warned about the danger of the liberal bosses building a patriotic pro-imperialist "reform" movement and of the opportunity for PLP to grow into a mass party of the working class.

A young woman described the great response she got when selling CHALLENGE and talking to garment workers about why PLP was marching independently as well as participating in the big Monday immigrant marches. She urged marchers to dedicate their lives to serving the working class by building PLP to spread revolutionary communist ideas and practice, to build workers' international unity and loyalty to the red flag, not the bosses' flags.

Three people at the dinner did just that, and others signed up for CHALLENGE subscriptions and to sell the paper to their friends. The speaker also invited everyone to join the Summer Project to learn from -- and bring the Party's ideas to -- industrial workers.

The following are excerpts from speeches at the May Day dinners:

An industrial worker recounted his experiences in fighting for his union to support immigrant workers and May Day. He received significant backing, especially from black workers who are regular CHALLENGE readers:

"What have I learned from all this struggle over the last three weeks, other than I better bring my own lunch to work since I haven't had time to buy it? Well, first, our job is not to be the most popular guy on the block, or in the factory. Our job is to fight like hell for the working class. That means fighting for the Party's line.

"Second, CHALLENGE networks count. They're no magic bullet, but it's from among these networks that we can build and expand our political base and the numbers in our Party.

"Third, when the chips are down the internal political struggle is primary. There are objective political limits on what we can do. But make no mistake about it; our communist politics are the only ideas that can serve the working class and we can move significant numbers of workers -- in this case key industrial workers -- inspired by that communist vision.

"We'll have to build on these small victories through many years of devastating imperialist wars, intensifying exploitation and racism. But never...forget, the political development of our class will eventually determine everything. Long live communist revolution!"

A young industrial worker explained that the U.S. imperialists face increasing competition with China and the other imperialists, that the war in Iraq has no end in sight, and that the future of the entire working class depends on winning industrial workers and soldiers to communism. He spoke of one dividing into two and the danger and opportunity present in the immigrant struggle: "Our role in these huge reform struggles is to strengthen the side of revolution and communism. This means, in the current immigration struggle, to fight against the bosses' nationalism used to divide our class. We must fight for the idea that the working class has no nation or border.

"Imagine," he said, "if black, white, Asian and Arab workers were marching in huge numbers together with Latino workers, imagine the power of the entire working class fighting for power -- not for an illusory reform that the bosses are pushing.

"There are only two sides in every struggle and our side must always be the side of revolution and communism. We have to enter the contradiction of reform struggles, unite with workers, and fight for communist ideas.... "Building a base for communist revolution isn't quick or easy. It requires patience and a long-term plan. We should aim to concentrate in every factory and barracks....The world we need for our families and our class won't arrive by itself. A communist society in which collectivity defeats individualism has to be fought for worker by worker. But this society has its roots in every one of us, and with the Progressive Labor Party it will become a reality."

This May Day clearly shows the development of young working-class communist leaders. They point the way forward to victory.

MILITANT YOUTH LEAD PLP MAY DAY MARCH

NEW YORK CITY, April 29 -- Amid a sea of red flags and communist banners, the Progressive Labor Party marched among over 300,000 anti-war protesters to celebrate the International Workers' Holiday -- May Day. Working-class youth led the militant May Day marchers, chanting down Broadway, "Soldiers turn your, guns around, shoot the profit system down"; and "The only solution is communist revolution!"

Other marchers and onlookers welcomed an openly communist "red" contingent of over 250 workers and youth under the banners "WE NEED COMMUNIST REVOLUTION NOT LIBERAL POLITICANS" and "WORKERS, STUDENTS, SOLDIERS UNITE TO SMASH IMPERIALIST WAR." We sold over 5,000 CHALLENGES and distributed over 4,000 leaflets.

Many new marchers and passers-by were ecstatic to seize the opportunity to condemn racist cops; all politicians for keeping our class on the reform treadmill; and all wars for being imperialistic and profit-driven.

While the U.S. ruling class is having a hard time meeting its military recruiting goals, the very people the bosses want to use as cannon fodder in their wars were leaders and becoming leaders in the fight to put the leeches in their grave.

On the Road to May Day

The two weeks prior to May Day coincided with spring break in city high schools and colleges, enabling us to organize daily events preparing various aspects of this year's march and dinner.

We had one study group about turning imperialist war into class warfare for communist revolution and how the road to communism is filled with destruction and triumph for our class. Another study group analyzed the anti-war movement and why joining PLP and fighting for communism is the only solution to ending wars and racism.

We're fighting for recruitment with a higher level of commitment and understanding the revolutionary process. Everyone at these meetings came to May Day and led various aspects. Some are now meeting with a Party club and organizing in their schools around the rise in fascist attacks on students (see page 7).

Revolutionary Dinner

Our dinner in Manhattan mirrored the communist future we're fighting for. It was led by two charismatic high school women comrades who kept the entire crowd involved and impressed, moving from speeches to a skit youth wrote that depicted the struggle to kick military recruiters off campus. Then we must win youth to join PLP and enter the military to organize soldiers to fight for communism.

We heard a rousing opening speech exposing U.S. capitalism and the fact that the Dream Act and the McCain-Kennedy or Sensenbrenner bills attacked ALL workers, especially immigrant workers. While attacks on the international working class grow more acute, we don't yield. Instead, we take increased pride as we honor the communist heroes who opened this era of working-class revolution while we continue to struggle against the revisionism (phony "leftists") that reversed the great victories of these past giants.

May Day 2006 contained the seeds of a new future, a communist future. We need many millions more to achieve this goal. The creativity, boldness, persistence and comradeship among working-class brothers and sisters displayed on this May Day, and in the organizing for it, made a lasting impression on many new and old friends. Our ideas resonate deep in the minds of thousands now and will in millions more we've yet to meet. Our potential remains earthshaking. Each May Day is a step in our march from the potential to the actual. We'll continue to build international working-class solidarity. Fight for communism! Power to the workers!

Workers Have One Flag: It Is Red

NEW YORK CITY, May 1 -- The anger of millions of immigrant workers against racism was misled on this May Day. The Democrats, union hacks and religious leaders are doing everything possible to ideologically disarm workers. In today's mass marches here and nationwide, many workers were carrying the imperialist flag while chanting "USA" and "Yes we can." The bosses' flag has never liberated any workers anywhere.

PLP marchers tried to counter that poison. We sold over 500 DESAFIOS/CHALLENGES and carried a bilingual banner reading, "Workers' Struggles have no Borders." Many workers loved it and read CHALLENGE on the spot. Our presence at most of the recent marches in the immigration rights movement showed that our Party is the light that shines for the working class to see through the rulers' lies.

Bosses' `Solution' For Fight Over Oil:
More Imperialist War

"Oil will become an even stronger magnet for conflict and threats of military action, than it already is....As yet, there is not a full appreciation...of the competition that is already occurring throughout the world....American foreign policy must redeploy diplomatic, military, scientific, and economic resources toward solving the energy problem." (Senator Richard Lugar at the Brookings Institution, March 13)

Skyrocketing gas prices bring a flurry of finger-pointing and proposed solutions. But liberal Republican Lugar, a top strategist for U.S. imperialism, cuts straight to the point. The intensifying rivalry among the world's imperialists over control of oil underlies the latest spike. Lugar's warning indicates the rulers will try to solve their energy crisis with wars far deadlier than the slaughter in Iraq.

U.S. policy-makers' long-term oil worries center on China. Ethanol and better fuel efficiency in the U.S. have no chance of offsetting its huge oil thirst. Last year, China alone accounted for 31% of global growth in oil demand. Lately, Chinese officials have been making oil and gas deals in dozens of countries, all at Exxon Mobil's and Chevron's expense. President Hu just spent three days chatting up royalty in Saudi Arabia, Exxon's number one source of crude. In a December 2005 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Senator Joe Lieberman, an imperialist Democrat, echoes his colleague Lugar's bluntness: "China's drive to lock up energy supplies could put it on a collision course with the United States and other nations....Wars have been fought over natural resources."

The Senators' threats are not idle. The Telegraph (U.K.), commenting on Hu's Saudi trip reported: "The United States has begun a significant strengthening and revamp of its forces in case growing tensions -- fuelled by the struggle to secure oil supplies -- spill over into military confrontation. The radical, but little hyped, review of U.S. deployments in Asia is part of what Pentagon and White House officials have dubbed their `hedge' strategy towards China. The U.S. territory of Guam in the western Pacific is the hub for the new plan, where the Pentagon will spend $5 billion to upgrade facilities for attack submarines, ships and new long-range strategic bombers. U.S. Marine forces will be transferred there from Okinawa, in Japan, to put them out of immediate range of a Chinese attack.

"China has been increasing its defense spending by 10% a year for a decade, and American analysts believe its annual military budget could be at least twice the $35 billion Beijing admits to. Of particular concern to the U.S. is China's pursuit of a powerful `blue water' navy, based around a fleet of sophisticated submarines."

The theatre of potential military action stretches from the China Sea to the Persian Gulf to Central Asia, where the U.S. has already suffered a big setback. According to the CFR website, 4/5/06):

"[China and Russia] staged joint military exercises in 2005 for the first time, and are working together closely on Central Asia security issues.

"They're using the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to try to edge the United States out of Central Asia, both militarily and politically." In July, the SCO called on the U.S. to set a timeline for withdrawing from military bases in Central Asia. Soon after, Uzbekistan decided to evict the U.S. from its military base at Karshi-Khanabad.

U.S. military failure in Iraq is the biggest single cause of the current price hike. U.S. rulers had planned to make Iraq a "swing producer" of oil, one with enough surplus capacity to significantly affect oil prices. They predicted a possible output of 6 million barrels a day (mbd). But the Bush team botched the job by sending in a force too small to secure the oil infrastructure. Today Iraq pumps 1.6 mbd, less than half its pre-war peak of 3.5 mbd. This 4.4 mbd shortfall, equivalent to the combined output of Kuwait and Venezuela, drastically tightens demand. The U.S.'s troubles have emboldened Iran's ayatollahs, who now rattle the nuclear saber and threaten to block oil shipping lanes, thereby sending further tremors through oil futures markets.

Many loyal servants of the U.S. war machine, like the phalanx of retired generals who recently demanded Rumsfeld's head, urge that the U.S. regroup and build a massive international coalition, in order to invade and effectively occupy any of the Mideast's major oil producers. Gen. William Odom wrote (Foreign Policy, May-June 2006):

"Only with a rapid withdrawal from Iraq will Washington regain diplomatic and military mobility. Tied down like Gulliver in the sands of Mesopotamia, we simply cannot attract the diplomatic and military cooperation necessary to win the real battle."

Capitalists always try to make the working class pay for their problems, in this case, both at the pump and on the battlefield. But workers must not let the bosses have the last word. It is in the interests of the international working class to fight ALL the bosses, no matter what side they're on in this rulers' dogfight. Uniting the working class worldwide behind the communist ideas of Progressive Labor Party is the beginning of the long march to eradicate this hellish profit system. That's the only way the resources workers produce can be shared according to our class's overall needs. Building the PLP is the key to that goal.

PLP-Led Protest Shuts Down Racist Minutemen

CHICAGO, May 4 -- When a church in Logan Square, a neighborhood with a large Latino population, invited the Illinois Minuteman Project leader Rosanna Pulido to speak to the community, residents POURED out in force to let Pulido and church officials know that racist Minutemen are not welcome in their community. PLP-led stomping, clapping, and chants of "Hitler rose, Hitler fell! Racist Minutemen, go to hell!" lasted almost half an hour, forcing the church to cancel the forum before Pulido even made it to the mic! The resistance was so overwhelming that police had to escort everyone out of the building.

Earlier, PLP'ers had distributed thousands of flyers and CHALLENGES and made well-received speeches to crowds among the 750,000 people marching for immigrant rights downtown on May Day. Then one young comrade had spread the word that a church on the North Side had volunteered to be a soapbox for the Minutemen and that local Nazis had already promised their solidarity and vigilante security.

After the march, young PLP leaders planned how to shut down the event, to prevent Pulido from presenting her hate to local workers and students. Three days later, almost 40 PLP members and friends attended the event to end it quickly. The young comrades had planned to interrupt Pulido when she spoke. But a seasoned comrade guided them to attack the source of the entire racist event, the church that organized it.

When the preacher presented a hypocritical message, ordering the audience of almost 200 to respect the building they were in ("a house of God"), one indignant comrade yelled back, "How can you have Minutemen in here and say you're respecting God?"

Before the police had arrested our comrade, more people were on their feet to expose and denounce the Minutemen as racists, Nazis and domestic terrorists. As more joined in, the preacher's reprimands were drowned out.

Moments later, the people in the church were chanting and stomping, making so much noise that the event's organizers' calls for "respect" for racists could not be heard. This unified stance against the Minutemen made it impossible for the police to single out any more individuals for arrest or even continue the event, canceling it before Pulido could even speak!

After marching to the police station to protest the unfair arrest of our comrade, the protest leaders discussed the need for more young organizers to overcome hesitations and lead events that we've never before experienced. Young members must follow the example of the respected veteran comrades and renew our dedication to stopping racist groups granted de facto sanctions by the bosses to build fascism nation-wide. We learned that it's important to expose all aspects of racism, especially the more subtle ones, at these events. Clearly the Minutemen are racist, but we need to reveal how the bosses validate these vigilantes by giving them platforms from which to speak, while protecting their racism under the guise of "free speech."

Overall, this event taught lessons to many. Chicago workers came face to face with, and supported, the uncompromising stance PLP takes against all racism; young PLP organizers realized the importance of exposing racism inherent in the rulers providing a platform for Nazis and Minutemen; and the Minutemen learned that when they come to Chicago, their nationalist, divisive ideology won't be tolerated by PLP-led masses!

PLP Champions Internationalism vs. Bosses' Flag-Waving

LOS ANGELES, May 1 -- Today PLP members and friends participated in two gigantic marches totaling 700,000 people, led by the liberal rulers and built by their media. At these marches we distributed all of our remaining CHALLENGES (1,000) and another 5,000 PLP leaflets. Many people asked to help distribute literature, some giving us their names. Some young PL'ers and their friends led communist chants for hours.

Contingents of workers militantly chanted and rallied against the bosses and their anti-immigrant racism and imperialist wars. They exposed the U.S. rulers' flag -- which was very prevalent in the marches -- as the symbol of mass murder for the profits of the most deadly imperialists, telling a group of youth carrying it that the bosses soon wanted to put guns in their hands and send them to Iraq.

The U.S. flag was more prevalent than in the previous marches, a sign that the liberal rulers and their union and church leaders who built them pushed hard to have workers believe that carrying the bosses' flag was the way to have "better" immigration bills passed, bills which will force more immigrants into the military. On the other hand, workers literally lined up for CHALLENGE and PLP leaflets. Many workers took up chants against the war and for workers' internationalism. A multi-racial group of young PLP'ers and their friends enthusiastically shouted communist chants for several hours in the afternoon march, chants which were taken up by many workers.

Some Anti-War Vets Breaking With Pacifism

NEW YORK CITY, April 29 -- Today, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace marched over 200 strong against the war in Iraq. Like most of the more than 300,000 anti-war marchers, they chanted "Peace! Now!" and most sincerely believe that citizens can convince elected officials to end that war. But some of the Iraq vets steered the politics towards the more violent side.

There's an army cadence that's part of training soldiers to kill that goes, "Down by the river, took a little walk. Ran into Alpha, had a little talk." From there Alpha -- or whoever the bosses' enemies are at the time -- get beat up and thrown into the river until they drown. Some Drill Sergeants do this cadence non-stop in basic training. One IVAW member got on the bullhorn and changed the chant from the bosses' enemy to the workers' enemy:

Down by the river
took a little walk
Ran into War Pigs
had a little talk
I kicked them, I punched them, I threw them in the river
Held them down
Bubbles all around
Laughed as they drowned
No more war pigs
Hanging around

Some of the pacifists in the march gasped and hesitated but most of the vets were really into it, so eventually they joined in too. Briefly the contingent even chanted "Democrats mean, we got to fight back!" It was a small step forward from some who pin their hopes for ending the war on the Democrats.

Months ago, some IVAW members argued that getting Congress to stop funding the war should be their main strategy. Most in the vets and family groups still believe in that strategy. But for a few Iraq vets, that's changing.

The day before the march, IVAW held a "Soldiers Speak-Out" event. Of five speakers, all mentioned profit, greed and oil as causes of the war. One said he was glad the march wasn't in Washington, D.C. because we need to take the movement to the streets, not to politicians, and added that we need to get rid of this system. Many applauded; two other speakers who shared similar views.

One older Korean War vet spoke from the audience and said to stop profit wars we must fight imperialism and capitalism. While he received loud applause, especially from the younger vets, many in the anti-war movement are far from this view. Pacifism and anybody-but-Bushism is still strong among the vets and military family groups. But PLP members are working to unite vets and military families with workers and students into an international revolutionary communist movement.

Red GI

El Salvador: May Day Marchers Defy Anti-Riot Cops

SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR, May 1 -- More than 10,000 marched on May Day in this capital city, not only for their own demands but also to support immigrant workers in the U.S. Contingents of PLP'ers and friends participated at the starting points. Unionized workers, peasants, students and members of mass organizations marched, as well as representatives from other countries in solidarity with the struggle in El Salvador.

PLP youth distributed over 600 copies of DESAFIO and 5,000 PLP May Day flyers. PLP's banners read, "Long Live the International Working Class!"; "Communism is alive"; "You don't talk with the capitalists, you destroy them." Our banners displayed the international communist symbol, the hammer and sickle.

To build for our contingents we collectively visited workers, teachers, students, friends and DESAFIO readers in their homes, trying to raise their political consciousness and asking them to march with us. These efforts paid off as more people joined our contingents. Some comrades and friends had to leave their homes at 2:00 AM from distant towns and even the mountains to reach the march.

The marchers from outside the capital city had to overcome police check-points set up to try to intimidate people. But our friends and comrades, and our literature, made it to May Day and many marchers asked for extra copies to bring back to their jobs.

The Tony Saca government (the only one in Latin America which still has soldiers supporting the U.S. imperialist war in Iraq) sent anti-riot and regular cops to intimidate the marchers. They also issued threats through the mass media, but May Day prevailed.

At the march itself workers chanted with us: "Workers' Struggles Have No Borders"; "Communism is coming and nothing can stop it"; and "Workers who keep quiet will not be heard." It was indeed a great day for the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat as the only way out of the hell the bosses' dictatorship is forcing workers to suffer worldwide.

Mexico: `All Bosses and Politicians Have Blood on Their Hands'

MEXICO CITY, May 1 -- PLP boldly brought our communist ideas to the 200,000 workers who participated in the May Day march here today. It was called by the National Front for Unity and Union Autonomy (FNUAS) and other organizations opposed to the official CTM (Mexican Labor Federation -- Confederation of Mexican Workers) and includes unions of electrical, social security (national health care system), telephone and public university workers, among others.

Our PLP group distributed 8,000 leaflets, inviting the workers to organize in our non-electoral workers' party instead of voting for any boss. We denounced the bosses' murders of steel workers and miners (see CHALLENGE, 5/10) in collaboration with all the rulers' parties. As the title of one of our leaflets proclaimed, they all have the blood of the workers on their hands.

We also distributed literature in a mobilization led by the Zapatistas at the U.S. embassy.

The Party's presence was modest but significant for the thousands of workers who received our ideas. While the capitalist politicians call on workers to elect their oppressors or "resist" capitalism without destroying it, our message was to organize in an international communist party to fight for and build a new communist society.

The demonstration itself emphasized support for the deposed corrupt leader of the Miners' Union, Napoleon Gomez Urrutia and promoted the election of Lopez Obrador, the PRD candidate for President of Mexico. These mobilizations were orchestrated by Francisco Hernandez Juarez, leader of the UNT and for 30 years of the telephone workers' union. He's been supported by fascist killers of workers like Luis Echeverria who has been directly responsible for the oppression, persecution and death of workers since the 1970's.

Last October, the leadership of the social security workers union led by Roberto Vega Galina (who switched to the PRD from the PRI) joined the bosses and corrupt leadership of the Social Security system to cut workers' pensions, opening the health care system to private investment while laying off thousands of workers.

These union leaders' supposed "fight" against the federal government, with their demand for union autonomy, is only a smokescreen to ally with the bosses -- represented by the PRD -- in the presidential election. In no way do these hacks represent workers' interests. We must not be fooled! For many years these blood-suckers have lived off the sweat and blood of the workers.

Unfortunately we underestimated the number of workers who would participate and ran out of leaflets. We also underestimated the number of youth and women workers from our base. Learning from this will help improve future actions. As one young comrade said, "Today we learned a great lesson. Dialectically we'll learn from our errors and next year we'll do much better!"

The Party continues alive and well and in struggle despite the bosses' attempts to stop us here. We've developed a more collective leadership. As one PL'er commented, the presence of these youth and women comrades assures the future of the Party.

France: Reformist Union Agenda Won't Cut It

PARIS, FRANCE, May 1st -- About 100,000 people marched in 110 May Day demonstrations across France. The turnout disappointed union leaders, who hoped to build on the momentum created by the eight-week struggle that put over 2.5 million in the streets against the anti-labor CPE law, which would have extended job insecurity among those under 26. The right-wing government was forced to abandon it.

But the lack of a revolutionary perspective meant that it was not so simple to win people to the next reform on the union agenda: opposition to the CNE decree which, since last August, has extended job insecurity among workers employed by companies with fewer than 20 employees. Some doubtless felt that the struggle is over because the CPE has been withdrawn, while others felt betrayed because union leaders didn't win the movement's other demands: abandoning the whole racist "law on equal opportunity" and the Interior Minister Sarkozy bill on limiting immigration.

If workers and students had been convinced of the need to build a movement based on fighting capitalism as the root cause of their problems, this year's May Day demonstrations might have been more successful. But don't count on the reformist union misleaders to win people to that revolutionary outlook. This year's demonstrations only equaled last year's, and were only half as big as 2004's demonstrations.

The only bright spot was the relatively large contingents marching to oppose Interior Minister Sarkozy's fascist bill on "selective immigration," which aims to have Parliament set an annual quota depending on the economy's employment requirements. It will also make it more difficult for the spouses of French citizens to obtain French citizenship, and harder for family members to join "legal" immigrants in France. Some of the repressive measures in the selective immigration bill come straight from an immigration report by Malek Boutih, the "Socialist" Party's national secretary.

On April 29, about 10,000 people marched in Paris against the anti-immigrant bill. The president of the Representative Council of Black Populations (CRAN) said, "When they talk to me about selective immigration, I can see very well who they want to choose and who they won't choose!" The vice-president of the League for the Rights of Man (the French ACLU) said the bill "presents immigrants as a dead weight, as intruders ... it is truly a xenophobic bill."

On April 21, Sarkozy said that, "If some people don't love France, they should feel free to leave," echoing the "Love it or leave it" slogan of the fascist National Front. The marchers responded with a banner saying, "I love France, give me a chance to live here!" This sort of nationalist, patriotic slogan is a dead end for all workers, both immigrant and native-born. It creates the illusion that workers and bosses have something in common -- and the bosses are only too happy to turn workers who "love their country" into cannon fodder. Similarly, the "Socialist" front-runner for the French presidential nomination, Segolene Royale, suggested during last Fall's rebellion in the housing projects that putting immigrant youth in the army would "teach them discipline"!

Bringing Communist Thought to the Class Struggle

NEW YORK CITY, April 29 -- Professors, high school students, teachers, and veterans celebrated May Day this year at a dinner in Red Hook. After spending the day distributing CHALLENGE at the anti-war march, out-of-town guests joined us for a program, food and music. The theme was "Liberating our minds and our class: bringing communist thought to the class struggle."

After a collective reading highlighting thoughts on dialectics, lessons learned through struggle and poems by Langston Hughes, participants shared anecdotes over dinner about events that politicized them and others they met in the class struggle.

These included an inspiring account of a young man who gave a transit worker CHALLENGE after the recent transit strike and then the next morning seeing it posted at his station, and then his wife seeing it that evening still posted with a different worker on duty. Another teacher said that when she was a student she was arrested at a PLP demonstration against anti-communists on her campus, freeing her of illusions about justice under the Constitution when experiencing the court system.

Over the last year there have been some small, but encouraging developments in our group. Our small club began as a group of friends having mainly theoretical discussions about communism and politics. But by virtue of our jobs and membership in different organizations, we've been directly involved in several significant struggles in the city.

Our meetings have focused on raising the Party's ideas in these struggles and bringing people we know at these places around to PLP. It's not been easy but at the anti-war march we were actively involved with several contingents and had some effect on the chants, while distributing quite a few CHALLENGES and PL leaflets.

PLP's Politics Expose Rulers' Attack On Immigrants

CALIFORNIA -- About 100 workers and students marched toward a May Day rally in the city's downtown, chanting "No Justice, No Peace, No racist police!" and, with fists in the air, "Este puño si se ve, Los obreros al poder!" (See this fist, Workers to power!) Cops on horseback and in full riot gear couldn't intimidate the worker-student contingent, who joined over 5,000 other workers and students, both immigrant and citizen, in celebrating May 1st and protesting racism and exploitation.

Earlier about 200 students, faculty and workers marched through their campus, distributing leaflets and making speeches about the history and importance of protesting on May Day. Workers and students spoke about anti-immigrant racism, about its connection to neoliberal policies in Latin America and the super-profits of U.S. imperialism, about the racist outsourcing and super-exploitation of workers on their very campus and about the need to build a multi-racial movement of workers, students and soldiers to fight capitalism and its imperialist wars.

One speaker said that while gutter racists like Lou Dobbs and the Minutemen call immigrant workers "criminals" and "illegals," the only real criminals are the bloodsucking bosses, who live off the sweat, blood and suffering of workers worldwide. Workers and students need to fight to make these criminals and their capitalist system illegal, for good!

At the downtown rally, U.S. flags and white shirts were everywhere. Union hacks passed out flags and liberal misleaders spoke against HR 4437 and about the "American dream" being the immigrant's dream. Pushing nationalism and liberal lies, they didn't mention how racist attacks on Latino and Arab immigrants hurt ALL workers, spreading the bosses' racism and dividing the working class at a time when workers from Delphi to Boeing are facing massive cutbacks in wages, benefits and jobs. The misleaders ignored the bosses' need for more cheap slave-labor in all industries in order to compete with rivals in China and Europe, nor did they utter a word about immigrant youths being used as cannon fodder for U.S. imperialism's profit wars in the Middle East. But we did!

Some students, realizing the contradiction between protesting racism and waving the U.S. flag, composed a chant on the spot: "Abajo con banderas, afuera con fronteras!" [Down with flags, out with borders!]. Some stressed the importance of not carrying the flag, how it was a symbol of U.S. imperialism and its racist super-exploitation of workers across the globe, including in Latin America.

One young woman, who was invited to speak on stage, challenged the bosses' hacks, telling protesters that patriotism and nationalism isn't the answer to racism and exploitation; instead, workers need to smash all borders and everything they represent.

Marching with workers, the group chanted, "La migra, los patrones, los mismos cabrones!" ("The immigrant service, the bosses, the same enemy") and "No mas sangre obrera, para guerras petroleras!" ("No more workers' blood for oil wars") while distributing leaflets linking racism, capitalist exploitation and U.S. imperialism's oil war in Iraq.

These actions didn't happen over night. They've developed out of a long year of sharp political struggle against outsourcing on campus. A group of the students who participated are long-time CHALLENGE readers and some get the paper to their friends. In the weeks leading up to May Day, many of these students participated in demonstrations and forums on campus, including a students-of-color conference. At these events, PLP's politics led the way in fighting the reformism and political misdirection being pushed by liberals and revisionists (fake leftists) alike.

At one conference workshop, these same students fought against the U.S. patriotism and Latino cultural nationalism being promoted within the mainstream pro-immigrant rights' movement. They advanced a consciousness of the bosses' attempts to manipulate the legitimate anger and claims of immigrant workers and youths. While most workshops were focused on HR4437 (the Sensenbrenner bill criminalizing immigrants), these students linked the growing rivalry between the U.S. and China to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to the liberals' plan (in the McCain-Kennedy bill) to implement a guest worker program and make military service the "path toward citizenship" for most immigrant youths. Most students at the conference were open to PLP's ideas.

Continuing to build networks of CHALLENGE readers is crucial to the success of future struggles on our campuses and in factories and barracks. We must continue to spread communist ideas at every opportunity. Workers and students are open to communist politics, but they won't get it anywhere else. Bringing these ideas to workers, students and soldiers is our most important job.

Red May Day Spirit at Immigrant March

SEATTLE, WA., May 1 -- Thirty thousand immigrant workers and their supporters marched here under the leadership of the Catholic Church and the "Change to Win" unions. Nonetheless, our Party's revolutionary communist message was widely received as we distributed every CHALLENGE (300) and Party leaflet (1,300) in the city before the march even started.

Having just returned from our Party's May Day events in Los Angeles, we were determined to bring that spirit to the march today. An older farm worker from east of the Mountains, who we didn't know, shouted "Desafio! Desafio!," pushing his way through the crowd when he spotted one of our sellers. The value of our politics precedes us. Both danger and opportunity abounds this May Day. (More on the effect on Boeing workers in following issues.)

Auto Workers Must Refuse to Go Down With Sinking UAW

During a recent talk to a leadership conference outside Detroit, Dick Shoemaker, the retiring UAW Vice-President for GM and Delphi said that the outlook for the union and U.S. auto bosses was "bleak at best." Due to furious international competition, he said the auto industry was "undergoing painful and wrenching change. There is a new norm. We will not return to the old norm." He added that the emergence of China and India was creating a "tsunami of competition," and "the decline of the U.S. auto industry mirrors the decline of America." He said these contradictions were "60 years in the making and can't be solved by collective bargaining."

At about the same time, UAW Vice-President for Organizing and Independent Parts Suppliers (IPS), Bob King told a conference sponsored by the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank that the union "made a conscious choice to put aside the adversarial approach. We believe adversarial relationships drive manufacturing jobs out of the country." (Detroit News, 4/20) Next month, King will become union VP for Ford and Visteon and will "put aside the adversarial approach" to lead the 2007 contract negotiations.

Shoemaker's right. The contradictions of capitalism and imperialist rivalry cannot be resolved at the bargaining table. Ultimately, they are resolved by imperialist war. The union leaders want to deliver us to the Democrats so they can lead us to bigger and deadlier wars. For the international working class, the only solution is communist revolution.

RACIST CARNAGE OF CAR WARS

This is the ideological run-up to the UAW Constitutional and Collective Bargaining Conventions to be held in mid-June. With more than a year to go on the GM and Ford contracts, the union has granted over $15 billion in wage and healthcare concessions for active and retired workers and OK'd more than two-dozen plant closings and the elimination of 60,000 jobs by 2008. Add Delphi and the other parts suppliers and the numbers spike even higher. The auto industry and the UAW are governed by the laws of capitalism and its relentless drive for maximum profits. To battle their competitors, all capitalists must try to increase profits by driving down costs. The successful ones reign; the unsuccessful ones are driven out.

More than 56,000 manufacturing jobs were lost last year, and more than three million since Bush took office. At the same time, the U.S. auto market sold almost 17 million vehicles in 2005. Despite a five-year streak of high sales, GM and Ford market share has dropped and UAW membership has sunk to one-third of its former peak. While GM and Ford close plants, Honda, Toyota and Mercedes are opening new non-union shops in the U.S. Closing plants won't increase sales, but GM and Ford need to cut their overcapacity to profit as smaller companies. In the U.S., Ford is running at 79% of capacity and Toyota is running at 111%. In 1950, the Japanese produced no cars. Today, Toyota is about to pass GM as the world's leading auto manufacturer.

Black workers and youth in cities like Detroit, Flint, Toledo and others have been devastated by the retreat of the U.S. auto bosses, leaving behind crumbling schools, few if any public services and even less hope for the future. Workers and youth in St. Louis, Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul and more than a dozen other cities will join the list. More than 100,000 black workers were hired into the auto industry after the 1967 armed Detroit Rebellion against racism. But that reform has been all but wiped out by the layoffs of the past 20 years since these black workers were the "last hired" -- because of the companies' racist hiring practices -- and therefore the first to be let go. Still another example of how reforms always get reversed under capitalism when the bosses shift their crises onto workers' backs.

NATIONALISM VS. INTERNATIONALISM

At the end of his talk, Shoemaker said the union's job was "to build on the [workers'] anger and frustration and use it to serve America's needs, because as we serve America's needs, we serve our own." This is the nationalist, patriotic garbage that has led the UAW, and misled millions of workers, to where we are today. It is a clear path to war and cheap war production for the "arsenal of fascism." It is what led to the racist murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese student in Detroit who was beaten to death outside a bar in the 1980's by two Chrysler workers who thought he was Japanese. Today, being Chinese will be reason enough for those who follow union leaders wrapped in the bosses' flag. It is the same "American Jobs for American Workers" nonsense that has made the UAW noticeably absent from the mass immigration marches. Long ago, the labor leaders hitched their wagon to the profit system and now must suffer the same fate of their billionaire masters.

But it doesn't have to be this way. PLP is fighting for the political leadership of the workers. We fight under the red flag of the international working class, under the banner, "Workers of the World, Unite!" We fight to overthrow U.S. imperialism, not serve its needs. Slowly but surely, the voice of revolutionary communism is re-emerging among auto workers. Some are reading and distributing CHALLENGE, marching with us against the Iraq war, participating on May Day, waging a political struggle in the shop and in the union, among friends and against enemies.

In the current crisis it may sound like a whisper, but should there be a Delphi strike, it will be louder. And by the 2007 contract talks at GM and Ford, we will have our say, if not our way. That emerging voice will rest on a foundation of CHALLENGE readers and distributors and layers of class struggle and personal ties. In previous crises we suffered serious setbacks. As this storm approaches we are set to grow.

Red-led Autoworkers Broke U.S. Bosses' Laws

Communists organized the UAW during the Great Depression of the 1930's in an atmosphere of class war, not a "cooperative, non-adversarial approach." They broke the bosses' laws, seized plants with sit-down strikes, held billions of dollars worth of machinery "hostage" and forced the Big Three exploiters to accept union recognition, the 8-hour day, overtime pay, and much more. From 1937 to 1941, the CIO organized 4,000,000 workers in the mass production industries.

But the bosses still held power. It took barely 10 years for the ruling class to turn things around. They launched the anti-communist Cold War at home and abroad, ousted the communists from leadership in the UAW and installed the anti-communist, pro-capitalist Reuther leadership in the UAW, and eventually in the entire CIO. The process has now reached the logical conclusion of the bosses' lieutenants in the UAW cutting the workers' throats in the name of "saving jobs."

Despite mass heroism and communist leadership, industrial workers were not won to communist revolution, to destroy the dictatorship of the bosses and establish the dictatorship of the working class. And as long as the bosses hold power, imperialist wars are inevitable and any reform is temporary. Reformism and not fighting for revolution eventually did in the old communist movement. Even red-led unions can't reform capitalism.

`It's Not Just Cell Phones, It's Fascism!'

BROOKLYN, NY, May 3 -- About 30 students from the Secondary Schools for Law, Journalism and Research marched downtown here to the Department of Education's district office to protest the harassment of scanning students and the enforcement of a city-wide cell phone ban. A few weeks earlier about 200 students had walked out of school for the same reasons.

We learned much from the earlier walkout and tried to improve or organization and role in this march. Party members and friends gave both tactical and political leadership to the march.

Several students had participated in PLP's May Day march, the May 1 immigration rallies and a few study groups. This won them to the importance of the action and to help other students make the connection between the NYPD taking away their cell phones, treating them like criminals in scanning them every morning, and linking this to anti-immigrant attacks and the war in Iraq.

The need to fight growing fascism every step of the way was in the forefront of these students' minds as they marched down Brooklyn's streets. This was evident in the change of the signs from those carried in the walkout ("We Want Our Cell Phones") to this latest march -- "It's Not Just Cell Phones, It's Fascism!"; and "We're Not Criminals, [Chancellor]Klein, [Mayor] Bloomberg and Bush Are!")

Our marchers joined with two other Brooklyn schools at a rally downtown where many onlookers cheered our chants of "Racism Means Fight Back" and "More Books Not More Cops." PL's influence in several mass organizations is steering the anger these students rightfully have about the cell phone issue to one opposing the whole capitalist system.

Movie Review: `Sir! No Sir!'
MASS GI REBELLION IN VIETNAM WAR

The new documentary "Sir! No Sir!" is a fascinating 84-minute film about the GI resistance and rebellion during the Vietnam War. The film has weaknesses, but many strengths as well. Soon it will be available on DVD; teachers can use it for discussions in their classrooms, and we can ask unions and community and anti-war groups to show it as well.

The film's best parts are the amazing interviews with the aging veterans who detail their anti-war activities, including demonstrations and rebellions inside military stockades. (They trashed the Presidio prison in San Francisco.) One vet, Dave Cline -- a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- describes how he was shot by a North Vietnamese soldier while simultaneously shooting back. Later he was dragged wounded from his foxhole and shown the Vietnamese soldier he had killed. He started thinking about the insanity of one working-class guy killing another, and said that his decades of anti-war work have been to honor the memory of that Vietnamese soldier.

The film contains footage on anti-war coffee houses, the 144 underground newspapers, racism and the resistance of black soldiers, the Winter Soldier hearings, participation in mass anti-war demonstrations and fragging. Each of these activities was met with fierce repression by the military brass.

Anti-war coffee houses were declared off limits to soldiers, local cops arrested and jailed organizers, and some coffee houses were shot at or trashed. Soldiers were court-martialed for distributing underground newspapers; black soldiers were targeted for arrest and beatings for organizing against the war. Yet nothing could stop the growth and increasing militancy of anti-war soldiers.

Even soldiers with desk jobs did their best to subvert the war effort -- those whose job it was to electronically eavesdrop on North Vietnamese radio conversations refused to supply information, knowing it was being used to target sites for aerial bombing.The film makes clear there were mass desertions -- the Army recorded over 503,000 -- and refusals by entire units to follow orders to fight. It also depicts fraggings -- the attempted killing of officers by throwing grenades into their quarters -- as a frequent occurrence. It reviews the famous court case of Billy Dean Smith, the black activist soldier falsely accused of fragging his commanding officer. His trial spotlighted the militant GI opposition to the war. Smith was acquitted but the pressure of the trial and his long solitary confinement took its toll; he ended up unemployed, homeless and eventually imprisoned.

Another fascinating segment shows anti-war soldiers and civilian activists organizing an "election" among sailors and marines on the USS Constellation, an aircraft carrier due to return to Vietnam, on whether or not it should stay in port. The servicemen and women and residents of the town voted 6 to 1 to keep the carrier at home. It became national news, leading a general to call a press conference to announce that the carrier would return to Vietnam regardless of the vote! [At one point 5 of 6 Navy carriers were docked in San Diego, having been sabotaged by rebellious sailors.]

GI testimony at the Winter Soldier hearings about the brutality of the U.S. military toward Vietnamese civilians is riveting. On a lighter side, the film shows the FTA ("Fuck the Army") tour headed by actors like Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland. It played to audiences of soldiers nationwide, an anti-war alternative to the pro-war USO-Bob Hope tour. The skits shown are politically pretty good. Fonda is interviewed today (in her mansion!) talking fondly about the tour. The right-wingers have never forgiven her for her anti-war activities and for going to North Vietnam and standing in solidarity with the "enemy." She deserves much correct criticism, but her anti-war efforts then were the best moments of her life. It's refreshing to hear her describing them enthusiastically and without any apology.

The film's biggest weakness is its failure to tie the Vietnam War and the anti-war activities of those who were supposed to fight it to the current imperialist war in Iraq. It refuses to analyze the roots of the Vietnam War and the wars that have followed involving either direct U.S. intervention or proxy wars (Angola, Central America), all of which have killed millions.

The film's unwillingness to name the capitalist system that causes workers in one country to kill or maim workers in other countries to boost corporate profits. This contributes to building a movement that opposes particular war policies but leaves the underlying causes of war untouched. This only guarantees more wars and more death and destruction. This narrow, liberal-inspired view is reflected in the director's use of the film to "get rid of the Bush crowd" rather than destroy imperialism which creates the wars.

At one point it shows soldiers throwing away their medals onto the steps of the Capitol building in Washington. Before heaving his own medal, one soldier announces to the crowd, "We don't want to fight a war, but if we have to fight one, it will be to take these steps!" Unfortunately the film doesn't follow up on this worthy sentiment.

Youth Struggle Against Smoking Pot

After a wonderful May Day celebration, some comrades and friends were hanging out at a comrade's house having a good time just talking when a friend pulled out a joint. He and the other non-PL'ers wanted to get high on the fire escape. We then had an intense collective struggle.

One comrade told them not to smoke pot around us because it posed a security risk. We pointed out that as revolutionaries, it's both pointless and detrimental to use drugs, that we'd rather get arrested for attacking Nazis than for smoking pot. Also, there are enough problems workers must deal with already every day because of capitalism; drugs harm our health and our ability to face other problems.

Although open to discussing these issues and agreeing that drugs are an escape mechanism, our friends were committed to smoking pot; we lost the struggle. While they were on the fire escape, we sharply criticized ourselves as a group. Despite our intense struggle with them, they still got high after our most important day of the year.

We decided that had we not been drinking, maybe the pot would never have emerged. Could we have done something to win them to not smoking that night? How do we wage a general struggle with our friends about these issues?

We debated the merits of social drinking or alcohol consumption: how is alcohol different from pot except that the latter is illegal? These are issues many PL members, young and old, must combat within ourselves and with our friends and must be taken seriously. Drugs and alcohol are weapons the ruling class uses to make the working masses docile or incapable of effectively fighting back. We have lost strong fighters to these things.

Although we did not resolve these questions, we determined that communist workers, like most workers, feel the same frustrations and anger caused primarily by capitalism; rage against this system resides in us as well as in non-communist workers.

Many workers use drugs or alcohol as a means to ignore or escape their troubles, but as communists we must rid ourselves of these ruling-class weapons and channel anger into productive struggle against capitalism. Fighting back is our outlet to release this rage and the way to actually confront our problems, not using controlled substances to ignore them. We suggest that comrades and friends discuss these questions in their clubs and study groups.

Red Students

FORWARD TO COMMUNISM
Early Experiences of the Soviet Revolution

Part 1

(There have been some criticisms of this column -- not dealing enough with the difficulties of achieving a communist society in the face of powerful violent opposition from the world's capitalists. With this issue we're changing the column's name from "Under Communism" to "Forward To Communism," to emphasize the the struggle to be made from capitalism to communism, in addition to the ultimate goals.)

In her 1935 autobiography, "I Change Worlds," the U.S. communist journalist Anna Louise Strong (photo above) described her experiences in the early USSR.

In the 1920's, many millions of Soviet workers had already been killed in World War I (1914-1918). Then, following the 1917 Bolshevik-led seizure of power by Soviet workers, 14 capitalist countries sent their armies to crush the revolution, resulting in the 1917-1920 civil war. Despite 4.5 million more deaths, the capitalists failed.

The political problems of building a socialist (not yet communist) society were compounded by two years of drought, 1920 and 1921; and the transport of food and people was ground to a halt by horrific winters.

When Strong arrived, she wrote, "there was no enthusiasm; that emotion was long since worn down into a grim war with ruin. In place of the united country of convinced socialists defying the world...I found grumbling, ill-fed folk..." But there were people here and there "who quietly, doggedly and even cheerfully disregarded their own lack...most of them, I began to see, were communists."

But many of the leading people were dead following the intense civil war and imperialist attacks. "It was not only goods of which the intervention robbed us. It robbed us of our comrades. Whenever we Bolsheviks planned the revolution we always thought that we should be there afterwards to run things. Now we know that most of us do not survive the revolution; the communists were first to be slaughtered on every front." Those remaining and the trained new forces "seemed drowned in the chaotic, disgruntled masses; but their common purpose kept them moving forward and enabled them to move those inert others forward [the "common purpose" being the vision of communism -- Ed.]. The class struggle, then, was not over under this workers' dictatorship; it was, if anything, more open and bitter."

Strong's first impressions come in the chapter, "My Utopia in Ruins." From the USSR "which I so eagerly entered, Polish peasants were fleeing, panic stricken, from pestilence and hunger. They said it was true that there were no more bosses or landlords; nobody ran things but workers. Yet the factories were broken down, the machines worn out; there was no food, no clothes, no oil, no raw materials. Their wages, they said, had been a pound of bread daily till the famine. The famine had stopped even the daily pound of bread, so they were fleeing...

"A barefoot boy collecting for famine relief came into our train at Minsk. With fewer and worse clothes than any American beggar, he held himself with dignity and presented a paper with the seal of the city showing that he was a member of the Young Communist League, entitled to collect for the Volga famine. It was clear that he did not consider himself in need; he was helping others. For the first time I knew, what the propaganda outside Soviet Russia obscured, that this hard-pressed country was collecting help from the poor to feed the starving."

(Future columns will illustrate Strong's early immersion in the struggle against the famine and disease and include her meeting with Stalin about gross mismanagement of the Moscow newspaper which she edited.)

LETTERS

Medical Students, Hospital Workers Back Immigrants

Who would think that a call, by a handful of hospital workers, for participants in the Chicago immigrant rights march would turn out dozens of medical students? Even though they've been told again and again they're a very elite group, they had their reasons for marching. Some may have had their own experiences with anti-immigrant racism. Others were angered by the Sensenbrenner Bill that would make it a crime to treat undocumented people.

For hours they chanted, "Workers Unite -- Healthcare is a human right!"; and "Papers are not needed -- Our patients will be treated!"

When we arrived at the park with those chants, in all those white coats and a big bilingual banner, the crowd cheered. On one side our banner read, "Health Workers and Students Say: Destroy All Borders!" On the other side, "Trabajadores y Estudiantes de Salud Dicen: Destruir Todas Fronteras!"

A step in the right direction for these students. Now we need to help them take the next step in their medical education -- help them understand why capitalism must be destroyed to make good health possible for the mass of humanity.

Red Doctor

Black-Latin Solidarity on May Day Bus

You wouldn't think that the bus ride -- 16 hours for the second straight night -- would be the best part of the May Day trip, but it was. After Sunday morning breakfast one bus captain asked for someone to explain the immigrants' right march scheduled in Chicago for the following day. Three young Latino marchers spoke, describing the racist bills in Congress and telling a little of their own family stories, full of hard times. The other marchers on the bus were mostly African American hospital and nursing home workers from two union locals. They listened quietly and seemed friendly enough, but I felt an underlying tension wasn't being addressed.

Then a woman sitting near me took the mic and told her story. "My mama and daddy were sharecroppers in Mississippi. When we moved to the West Side of Chicago, I was four years old. I had to share a mattress on the floor of my Auntie's apartment with my two sisters. My parents were working real hard so we could finally get our own place. Sometimes when I talk to my black friends they talk about `these people' coming up here, living like animals all cramped up in little apartments -- like we didn't go through the same damned thing! I don't get it. Aren't we really talking about the same thing? Aren't we all in this together?"

People clapped and cheered. That definitely made 32 hours on the bus worth every second. That woman needs to join our Party. We are definitely all in this together!

Chicago Comrade

Honors Bolshevik Revolution

I gave a talk on the Russian Revolution at a Socialist Party convention in Johnstown, Pa., attended by about 25 people, identifying myself as a member of the Progressive Labor Party, and explaining that it's a revolutionary communist organization.

I noted that the 1917 October Revolution was the first successful workers' revolution in history and a major historical event of the 20th century. Using information from the CHALLENGE article on the long road to communism, I described the obstacles the workers' state faced, but that despite this it was able to achieve major advances in economic development, in science, women's rights, and against racism. I pointed out that the success of the revolution gave hope to workers and oppressed people worldwide.

I made clear that the world's capitalists could not rest until the Soviet Union was destroyed and helped the Nazis try to do just that. But the Soviet workers courageously beat back the Nazi aggressors and eventually their Red Army crushed the invaders.

In the discussion period, one person asked what the Revolution meant for us today, since Russia was now capitalist. I replied that it proved the old ruling class would fight desperately to destroy a workers' state, noting that 14 countries invaded the USSR in an attempt to strangle it. This tells us today that a workers' revolution in the U.S. can never occur peacefully or through elections, which is what the Socialists believe.

This led to a discussion of Venezuela and Bolivia. Some sincerely believed that Chavez and Morales would bring change for the workers there. I responded by saying there would be no real change until the capitalists' property and factories were expropriated and their state destroyed, replaced by a real workers' state. But I stressed that internationalism had to replace nationalism in this effort, explaining that the Soviets had made a major error in embracing nationalism.

I said that Marx's slogan, "Workers of the World, Unite!" still rang true today. National boundaries, along with racism, had to be destroyed. U.S. bosses were pushing nationalism now, attempting to win the support of U.S. workers for the rulers' imperialist wars and for fascism.

Many in the audience were interested in these views. Afterwards, some approached me and asked for more information about PLP. I said the latest issue of CHALLENGE hadn't arrived yet but if they gave me their names and addresses, I'd send them copies. Four people did so. I gave them some PLP buttons I had brought with me.

The next day, at a May Day celebration, one Socialist Party member reported on its history and the rulers' attempt to hide it from U.S. workers. Another speaker described his first-hand experience at the killing of the Kent State students on May 4, 1970, protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, also mentioning the murders at Jackson State in Mississippi.

After a report on the Socialists' plans to run people for various elective offices, I offered that elections in a capitalist society were a sham and that no matter how sincere an SP candidate might be about changing things for workers, there's no way the ruling class would allow fundamental change through peaceful elections that would threaten their rule. I declared that such illusions are dangerous when the capitalists' regime was moving towards fascism, while waging imperialist oil wars. I noted that while the recent struggle by workers and youth in France scared the bosses and forced them to back down somewhat, communist consciousness was needed to break workers and students away from the road of reformism and towards workers' revolution.

Red Coal

Vet Indicts U.S. Mass Murderers

On April 28, the Iraq Veterans against the War and some peace groups sponsored a soldiers' speak-out at New York's Community Church. As a Korean War vet, I asked to speak after the main presentation by the Iraq vets. They described how the horrors of war and occupation had affected their lives and changed their thinking about the war's justification. They blamed military-industrial profiteering from bullets, bombs, etc. for wars in general. They made three demands: immediate withdrawal, money for Iraqis to rebuild their country, and funding for veterans' rehabilitation.

Being the first from the audience to speak, I told of the 50,000 GI's and millions of Koreans killed in what was labeled a United Nations "peace action" at that time. I said what helped me overcome the horror I was part of was trying to make some sense of the war and how to stop it. Some years after the war I started to realize what we soldiers had risked our lives and died for. I noticed that many store products were manufactured in Korea. I declared that it was a misconception to believe that military-industrial war profiteering was the main cause of U.S.-led wars. I cited the book "Overthrow" by Kinzer (which I read about in CHALLLENGE, 5/10)). It describes 110 years of imperialist murder by the U.S., detailing how this country's rulers have forcibly overthrown many governments for profits from cheap labor and resources like oil. And all that had followed the U.S. government's genocide against Native Americans to steal their land, and the murder of millions of black people to force them into slavery.

I said their only "exit strategy" from Iraq will be to invade Iran, Korea, Venezuela and China if we allow this capitalist-imperialist murder to continue.

I praised the GI's in Vietnam who had turned their guns around rather than continue the slaughter, and the black and white sailors' rebellions which forced a number of Vietnam-bound aircraft carriers to return to U.S. ports. I concluded by stating that no matter how difficult or how long it takes we have to organize our brothers and sisters in the factories, schools and especially in the military to overthrow this murderous imperialist system.

Korea war vet

`All the News That Fits, We Print'

After returning from the huge anti-war march in NYC, I checked the New York Times website for their crowd estimates. Surprisingly, there was no mention of the march that had snarled traffic in lower Manhattan the previous day. But I had seen it! It had packed Broadway with marchers and banners for at least up to three miles with more waiting to march. I searched on "anti-war" and found the article -- under "Local News" for New York. The picture was shot from ground level, showing only the lead marchers. You could count a total of 18 people in that picture -- not the tens of thousands we saw looking down Broadway.

On May 1, I marched in the Immigrant Rights march in Chicago which was also huge. Again we were waiting for hours to feed into the main march, which stretched for up to three miles down Randolph Street, past the monument to the Haymarket martyrs, then to Grant Park. The next day's New York Times had a big photo of thousands marching through downtown Chicago on page 1, with the crowd estimate in the hundreds of thousands featured prominently.

Funny how two marches of hundreds of thousands can occur within 48 hours of each other and get reported so differently. This confirms CHALLENGE's estimate of the degree of ruling-class control of these movements. I would also conclude from the difference in spin that the rulers are still interested in building the immigrants' movement while their focus is on deflecting and co-opting the anti-war movement. Of course, if the immigrant rights movement takes on a more multi-racial and anti-capitalist tone, expect the pictures to disappear from the front page, if not altogether.

We all must learn to read between the lines in the capitalist press. Plus we must get our friends to see why they need CHALLENGE -- so they can decode the Times and NPR (National [Public] Propaganda Radio) from the workers' perspective.

Chicago Marcher

Airport Workers Hold May Day Forum

In the shadow of the fascist Homeland Security, airport workers staged a union forum an hour before work on "May Day and Immigrant Rights." It was a modest success attended by both citizen and immigrant workers from the U.S., Mexico, El Salvador and Ethiopia. CHALLENGE readers and distributors organized for the event by getting out fliers and talking to our co-workers.

The speaker gave a four-part presentation on the history of May Day, the importance of participating in this year's May 1 immigration rally, the Sensenbrenner bill that would make undocumented workers felons and those who help them criminals as well, and the short- and long-term solution to anti-immigrant racism. Some of the laws being proposed are historically similar to the fascist Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany which made Jewish workers "felons."

Short-term solutions include putting pressure on our union to demand an end to anti-immigrant racism. We drafted a resolution endorsing May Day and Immigrant's Rights to be presented to our local president. But mainly we waged the struggle in the union to enable us to expand the base of CHALLENGE and recruit more workers to PLP. Communist revolution is the only solution to racist terror.

The bosses tried to spy on our forum, but a young black worker saw him coming and quickly changed the subject of the conversation to protect everyone. This indicates the importance of having a base of friends who will politically support and protect the Party under all conditions.

We should have struggled harder to win more workers to the forum. We should learn a political lesson from Nazi Germany. All workers paid a heavy price for not stopping Hitler early on.

The workers who did attend understood that the new anti-immigrant laws are fascist and are an attack on the whole working class. But even more dangerous are the liberal politicians and union hacks who will be leading the May 1 demonstrations. They're hoping to mislead this movement into the voting booths, and immigrant youth into the army and low-wage factory jobs, all to provide cheap labor and cannon fodder for their growing wars.

Airport Red

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

Fear and anguish grow for the `near poor'

Americans on the lower rungs of the economic ladder have always been exposed to sudden ruin. But in recent years, with the soaring costs of housing and medical care and a decline in low-end wages and benefits, tens of millions are living on even shakier ground than before, according to studies of what some scholars call the "near poor." . . . .54 million were in households earning between the poverty line and double the poverty line.

"We don't track this group of people, and they are very vulnerable...."

...Statistics do not begin to convey their fears and anguish.

More people work in jobs without health coverage, including temporary or contract jobs that may offer no benefits or even access to unemployment insurance. Medicaid is offered to fewer adults. . . . (NYT, 5/8)

Thousands sleep on streets in Paris

Paris, May 3 -- The Arc de Triomphe, the towers of Notre Dame and, now, pup tents for the poor....

Since the frigid days of late December, Doctors of the World, a French organization that helps the homeless, has been distributing nylon tents to the growing number of people who sleep on the city's sidewalks and beneath its bridges....

There are thousands of people living on the streets of Paris, many of them newly arrived immigrants from European Union countries... (NYT, 5/4)

Democracy + hi-tech jobs don't feed India

...According to a report released by Unicef....more than one child in four in the developing world is undernourished....

In India...the share of children who are undernourished dropped by only six percentage points since 1990, leaving a staggering 47 percent of children under 5 underweight... (NYT, 5/3)

German general: Red ideas steeled Russians

"The Russian townsman," wrote the SS general Max Simon, "who is highly interested in technical matters, is just as well suited for the modern tank arm as the Russian peasant is for the infantry....It was amazing to see the primitive technical means with which the Russian crews kept their tanks ready for action and how they overcome all difficulties."

The tank men's skill was not just a matter of knowing where to put the wrench. The other quality that Max Simon observed among these sons of the factory was their determination. "An added factor," he wrote, "is that the Russian worker usually is a convinced communist, who, having enjoyed the blessings of `his' revolution for decades will fight fanatically as a class-conscious proletarian. Just as the Red infantryman is ready to die in his foxhole, the Soviet tank solider will die in his tank, firing at the enemy to the last, even if he is alone in or behind enemy lines." (Quoted From "Ivan's War," a recent anti-communist book!)

Big money wants non-black New Orleans

...The people of New Orleans, most of whom are black and many of whom are poor, want schools that will educate their children, jobs that will pay a living wage, and neighborhoods where capital investment matches the large pools of social capital created by their churches and close-knit communities.

Organised money has something else in mind: the destruction of many of those communities and permanent removal of those who lived in them, a city that follows the gentrification patterns of racial removal and class cleansing that have played out elsewhere in the US.

Only this time no one is watching....It's as though corpses have to be floating down the street before racism is once more worthy of note here....The organised people of New Orleans keep trying to move to higher ground: the organised money keeps trying to sell the land from under their feet. (GW, 5/4)

Immigrants pay plenty of taxes

...Americans say they are concerned that immigrants "overburden government services and programs."

....In the upcoming issue of the Harvard Latino Law Review, Francine Lipman, a professor at Chapman University's law school in Orange, Calif., writes that the widespread belief that undocumented immigrants cost use more than they give us is "demonstrably false."

...There are 7 million undocumented workers....They cannot access or easily access many public services, yet in 2003 alone the labor of undocumented workers poured $7 billion in taxes into Social Security even though they cannot legally claim those benefits.

Often ignored by anti-immigration forces is that undocumented workers pay sales taxes and real estate taxes--directly if they are homeowners, indirectly if they are renters. (NYT news service)

Advance the Revolutionary Communist Spirit of May Day

Liberals’ Rumsfeld-Bashing Masks Their Wider War Plans

Drafting Immigrant Workers and Youth

Machinists’ May Day Resolution Builds Anti-Racist Internationalism

Internal Political Struggle Is Primary

Union Misleaders Split On How to Respond To May Day Resolution

Dialectics Show Garment Workers Essence of Liberals’ Attack on Immigrants

Seattle: 20K Workers and Students March Vs Anti-Immigrant Racism

Workers’ Struggles Have No Borders

• Steel Strikers Seize Plant, Rout Mexico Cops Who Kill Two Workers
• Bosses’ System Great for Talk -Show Traitors, Not for Immigrants
• Retirees Debate Immigration Issue; Cite Class Basis for Attacks
• Rutgers University Forum Exposes Homeland Security Police-State Action vs. Immigrants
• California Teachers Condemn ‘Reform’ That Militarizes Immigrant Youth
• Brooklyn High School Students’ Walkout Resists Racist ‘Security’ Rules
• LA Health Workers Pro-Immigrant, vs. War

LETTERS

‘We’re Not Criminals, We’re Workers and We’re International!’

Students Walk Out; Racist Cops Riot; PL’s Ideas Take Hold

Red Flags Trump Nationalist Flags

Don’t Rely on Bosses’ Law to Save Workers

Need More Humor, Youth Stories in CHALLENGE

• RESPONSE

Column Errs on Wages

• CHALLENGE comment

Strike-Breaking Boss Takes Transit Workers for A Ride: But Not in His $260, 000 Ferrari

Red Eye On The News

• High-Schoolers plan Bush war-crimes trial
• Insurance profits come before health care
• US pal is the real Mid-east nuclear rogue
• 110 years of imperialist murder by U.S.
• Troops increasingly opposed Vietnam war

Movie Review: No Good Intentions Behind Imperialist War

Cooperation Comes From Our Struggles, Not Our Genes

Under communism: Will There Be Borders?

Advance the Revolutionary Communist Spirit of May Day

May 1st — May Day — was born in the heroic struggle for the 8-hour day when 350,000 Chicago workers went out on a general strike on May 1, 1886 and shut down the city. At the 1889 meeting of the Second International — a working-class organization patterned after the First International led by Karl Marx, founder of communism — the world’s workers decided to honor the Chicago strikers by mobilizing as "one army, with one flag." May Day had begun. Ever since, with communist leadership, it has symbolized workers’ demands and class interests, united in the fight against, capitalism.

But by the 1950’s, most "communist" parties had abandoned these principles. Union leaders — becoming lieutenants of the bosses — either renounced May Day or stripped it of its revolutionary character.

The Progressive Labor Party, formed in the 1960’s, picked up the red banners of May Day in 1971 in the U.S. and has organized May Day marches throughout the country every year for 35 years, to unite workers around eliminating wage-slavery, racism, sexism, nationalism, and imperialist war, and advancing internationalism, for workers’ power. PLP members and friends organize contingents in May Day marches in many other countries as well.

Capitalism is the source of racist exploitation and wars for profit. We can end this only by fighting to destroy the profit system with communist revolution. May Day represents this aim, marching with the red flag of the international working class.

This year union and "immigrant rights" mis-leaders and the Catholic Church have called for marches on May 1st for "immigration reform." They will be led by the flag of U.S. imperialism, that has slaughtered workers worldwide for 110 years (see Red Eye page 7) on behalf of the profits of U.S. bosses. These ruling-class agents seek to win immigrant workers and all workers to working, fighting, killing and dying for U.S. rulers in their widening wars for world domination against their imperialist challengers.

But we, the working class — workers, students and soldiers, immigrants and citizens the world over — have no stake in the imperialists’ genocidal wars or in their source: capitalist exploitation. We, and only we, who produce all value, have the power to change the world. Not by voting for capitalist politicians or supporting capitalist laws, union hacks’ promises or bosses’ flags, but by organizing workers in the factories and schools and soldiers in the military, by uniting Latino, black, Asian, Arab and white workers to fight for workers’ power, communism.

With communism, workers will fight and produce to meet the needs of our class, not for bosses’ profits. Unlike socialism (which maintained wages and reverted back to capitalism), communism will eliminate wages, bosses, borders and wars for profit. Our principle will be "from each according to commitment, to each according to need."

The bosses are planning wider wars to maintain world domination. We need to build a mass distribution of CHALLENGE newspaper and a mass PLP. The working class needs to organize to turn those wars into class war, to fight for communism. That is the true message for May Day, 2006.

Liberals’ Rumsfeld-Bashing Masks Their Wider War Plans

Many people who rightly hate Bush and his Iraq oil war support recent calls for the firing of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Bush, Rumsfeld & Co. are mass murderers, who the working class would punish as war criminals if we held state power.

Uniting with ruling-class factions that want to can Rumsfeld is a serious mistake. The anti-Rumsfeld forces among the bosses and their military brass aren’t "lesser evils." Their goal isn’t peace but rather far wider, deadlier war than Bush, Rumsfeld, & Co. are capable of fighting. When the big bosses get into a tactical squabble with each other, we have nothing to gain by uniting with any of them.

The source of the current dissatisfaction with Rumsfeld and chorus of demands that he be axed come from retired Army and Marine generals like John Batiste, Gregory Newbold, Paul Eaton and Tony Zinni, each of whom has helped spill large quantities of working-class blood in various U.S. imperialist military adventures dating back to Vietnam. Their main political support comes from Eastern Establishment liberals, whose real gripes against the Bush administration concern its failures to mobilize the U.S. population and military for a home-front police state and a long-range future of widening imperialist wars.

Both the generals and the liberal media have made a big deal about the Bush-Rumsfeld team’s "incompetence" in Iraq. But this is just a cover for a much bigger, deadlier issue. Bush-Rumsfeld took office trumpeting a military strategy known as "effects-based operations," a half-baked theory according to which, "with the careful employment of military power, wars can be conducted more efficiently with fewer bombing sorties and fewer casualties." (Wall Street Journal, 4/17)

The promise of low casualties helped the Bush gang push the illusion that the human cost of the latest oil war, at least in U.S. lives, would be low. And a relatively small number of ground troops would cost less economically than the number originally planned for the second U.S. invasion of Iraq. This would allow the Bush gang both to start a war while continuing to give tax-break goodies to their pals.

But it’s not working, and that’s Bush-Rumsfeld’s main sin in the liberals’ eyes and the main reason for which their media have been demanding Rumsfeld’s head. Rumsfeld invaded Iraq with 150,000 troops after getting Bush to fire Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki — who had requested 350,000 — and Army Secretary Thomas White, who had backed Shinseki.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq is a fiasco. A stable pro-U.S. government is not in sight. Amid widening civil war, Exxon Mobil et al. can not contemplate investing billions in the Iraqi oil industry. The Council on Foreign Relations (the leading Eastern Establishment foreign policy think-tank) had predicted that it would take "many years before oil production…would come up to pre-war levels." (April 19 interview with Leslie Gelb, CFR President Emeritus) And this was based on deploying 350,000 U.S. troops. Therefore, in the liberals’ view, Bush-Rumsfeld have seriously jeopardized U.S. imperialism’s dream of using Iraqi oil to strengthen its leverage over Chinese, European and Russian competition. Finally, the Bush crew’s Iraq mess is playing directly into the hands of Iranian oil bosses.

From the standpoint of Rumsfeld’s liberal critics, Rumsfeld’s failure in Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg. At stake is "fundamental disagreement about how wars should be fought." The New York Times gave retired Major-General Eaton a forum to tongue-lash Rumsfeld for his "unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower." (as quoted in the WSJ, 4/17)

Workers and others, particularly those who voted for the liberal Democrats in 2004 and intend to keep voting for them in 2006, 2008 and beyond, must learn what this means. The liberals are not taking Bush and Rumsfeld to task for going to war but rather for going to war with a losing strategy. If the liberals had had their way, not only would 350,000 troops at a minimum be stationed in Iraq, but plans would also be in place for millions more to occupy the entire Persian Gulf. Ultimately, U.S. rulers will need to do this — and the bloodletting will not stop there, because the other imperialists will inevitably retaliate and a third world war will result.

This development is not imminent, but the long-range scenario can not be avoided, because imperialism always leads to war. The key issue for our class isn’t which side will win the current tactical row between Bush-Rumsfeld and the liberal bosses but rather how we can build our own forces in this protracted period of war and fascism.

On the surface, things may appear grim for us. But we have an enormous advantage, and as the situation sharpens, it will give us many opportunities. Rumsfeld’s belief in technology over manpower is fundamentally a recognition that the U.S. working class is not ready to fight for the bosses’ oil profits and world domination. The liberals think they can remedy this problem, but we are not so sure. The "Vietnam Syndrome," U.S. workers’ reluctance, bordering on militant hostility, to kill and die for the rulers, is far from dead. Restoring the draft will only aggravate their problem, but they will have to do this sooner or later. The liberals can and will murder many people, but inspiring tens of millions to fight against our class interests is another matter.

Our Party can turn the bosses’ strategic weakness on this front into a mighty political force for communist revolution. It will take time. There will be casualties and defeats, but our side will eventually triumph. Dispelling illusions about the liberals as "lesser-evil" alternatives to more obvious killers like Rumsfeld and Bush remains a key task at all stages of this process.

Union Hacks’ New Service:

Drafting Immigrant Workers and Youth

Liberal U.S. rulers, in ever-increasing need of fresh cannon fodder, are trying to steer swelling immigrant protests towards U.S. patriotism and military recruitment. That’s why liberals went ballistic when more Mexican than U.S. flags appeared during the first round of rallies. The New York Times (3/30) warned, "Latino advocates...would do well to...trade their ancestral flags for the Stars and Stripes." Organizers of subsequent events made sure that the red, white, and blue flew high.

As the mounting attacks on Rumsfeld [see front page ] indicate, U.S. rulers require hundreds of thousands more soldiers today and additional millions down the road. Current troop strength can not secure Iraq, let alone Iran, for Exxon Mobil. Pentagon long-range planners are "preparing for a possible military conflict with China," (Wall Street Journal, 4/20). Consequently, U.S. imperialists are pinning a big part of their recruitment hopes on immigrants. No wonder a Times editorial (4/12) said it "was enough to provoke tears...when the thousands on the [Washington] Mall recited the Pledge of Allegiance."

The Service Employees International Union, led by Andrew Stern, has played a leading role in organizing immigrant protests. As a trustee of the Aspen Institute think-tank, Stern helps formulate U.S. imperialist strategy alongside war criminals like Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara and Madeleine Albright. Stern envisions unions functioning as draft boards funneling immigrants into the army. "Why not make a two-year commitment to national service one pathway to legalization?" he wrote in, "United We Serve." "Union leaders and employers together could identify eligible current and future workers for screening." This book, published in 2003 by the Brookings Institution, presented various liberals’, including Bill Clinton’s, approaches to mobilizing manpower for widening armed conflict.

Stern’s proposal meshes with the Dream Act, an immigration "reform" bill pending in Congress. It grants young immigrants legal residency in return for two years of military service. But the rulers’ troop shortage is so severe that they’re actually considering a program that makes enlistment a requirement for immigration. Speaking for the Council on Foreign Relation, U.S. imperialism’s top think-tank, Max Boot supports the Dream Act but "would go further by opening military service not only to immigrants already here but to those who would like to come here" (Los Angeles Times, 4/12). "It would make it easier for the U.S. armed forces to fill their ranks...if the recruiting pool were expanded from 295 million Americans to 6.5 billion earthlings," says Boot.

Pro-imperialist union, community and church leaders have hoodwinked immigrant and non-immigrant workers into endorsing the Dream Act and other exploitative "reforms" that go against their class interest. Many groups backing the demonstrations have, like Stern, direct links to the ruling class. The Center for Community Change and the National Immigration Law Center, for example, get funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. And the Catholic Church, which has been prominent at the rallies, now obeys U.S. imperialists more than it does the pro-European Vatican. A few years ago, bishops, like Los Angeles’ Cardinal Mahoney, serving anti-U.S. French and German capitalists, repeatedly decried the U.S. embargo, bombardment and invasion of Iraq. But now that abuse scandals have put the bulk of its wealth in the hands of U.S. courts, the church has resumed the "God and Country" patriotism it preached in World War II. Facing Supreme Court-backed judgments totaling $1 billion and the threat of criminal prosecution, Mahoney spouted the U.S. imperialist line to the National Catholic Reporter (4/14), "Carrying Mexican flags in a demonstration for immigration reform in the United States is stupid. Take out the Mexican flags and give everybody an American flag. That’s what this is about, making people citizens, for God’s sake." By "citizens," Mahoney also meant "soldiers." Read "J.P. Morgan Chase’s" for "God’s."

Risking deportation, jail and getting fired, millions of immigrants have shown great courage by demonstrating against blatant Homeland Security fascism. But the alternatives liberals offer are no better; they lead straight to the barracks, the battlefield and an early grave. Redressing the exploitation of immigrants ultimately requires a revolution, under the red flag of communism, that destroys the national borders capitalists put up to protect their profits by force.

Machinists’ May Day Resolution Builds Anti-Racist Internationalism

"This is big," warned a Machinist after hearing the shop steward report on the preceding night’s May Day debate at the union meeting. "You guys have things stirred up down here [on the shop floor], but the big boys [in the union] will side-step and keep a lid on it like they always do."

"Not after last night!" vowed the shop steward.

For the first time in anybody’s memory, issues of May Day, anti-immigrant racism, how racism hurts all workers, general strikes and the anti-worker role of the systems’ laws have taken center stage at two successive union meetings in this key aerospace local. It is been driven by an increasing widespread debate among the rank and file inside plant gates. The posting and distribution of 150 in-plant flyers and an equal number of CHALLENGES helped spread the word about an unprecedented union resolution to "support workers’ action on May Day," calling for "unity … [of] all working people." Veteran CHALLENGE sellers and readers struggled amongst themselves and with their co-workers to endorse the resolution, while some new Machinists distributed pro-worker and communist literature for their first time. The next step — in what many agree must be a long-term struggle — is for these rank-and-file leaders to become new CHALLENGE sellers, May Day marchers and Progressive Labor Party members.

Faced with this rank-and-file pressure, the union misleaders couldn’t just make this resolution — which condemned "anti-immigrant racism" and declared "an injury to one is an injury to all" — go away. After a fierce debate at the day-shift union meeting, the best they could do was get the motion tabled until the following swing-shift meeting.

That meeting was easier to control. Instead of a few hundred attendees, it only had scores, almost entirely paid union officials and appointed shop stewards. Even so, 44% endorsed the resolution. An equal number (mostly shop stewards) abstained, conflicted because they hadn’t participated in the preceding shop-floor discussions, which had occurred almost exclusively on day-shift locations where our base worked.

Internal Political Struggle Is Primary

For at least 50 years, the union leadership pushed narrow trade union, even xenophobic politics. This has saturated the minds of workers. However, for over a decade our CHALLENGE networks have answered with our communist-inspired anti-racist, international working-class politics. The huge pro-immigrant demonstrations recently, despite the "official" leadership’s rotten politics, gave us an opportunity to up the struggle for communist class consciousness, first by struggling with and then mobilizing our network sellers and readers.

Notably, black CHALLENGE readers stepped up among this mostly older white workforce, being among the first to sign on to the resolution. "We know what it’s like to be stuck in the low-wage jobs," said a couple of African-American machine operators, struggling with others to join in.

Throughout these sharp debates at the union hall and on the shop floor, new forces responded to our advanced Party line. "What I’m worried about," said a young Latino union member, who spoke at his first union meeting, "is that they’ll set up a path to legalization that legalizes exploitation."

"We are a union," he continued, in support of the resolution. "We’re about making sure people have jobs that don’t subject you to such blatant exploitation."

Revolution: The Only Way To End Exploitation, Racism, Imperialist War

The fact is that capitalism is based on exploitation — the more the better for the bosses. Trade unionism’s motto is to get a "fair share" for workers. Not very likely as the bosses are forced to pay for more — and more expensive — oil wars to defend their imperialist domination!

"After defending the empire, there’s nothing left for health care and pensions," said one machinist at lunch the next day. Usually he’d then go on to blame Bush. This time he concluded that, "You can change the president, but the system remains the same."

He is on to something: capitalism must go! Our victory in the last few weeks and the coming summer of struggle must be measured in winning workers to this revolutionary communist outlook. That is exactly what we will be fighting for at our communist May Day marches and dinners on April 29 and in our workplace contingents on May 1.

Union Misleaders Split On How to Respond To May Day Resolution

Part of the union staff, steeped in decades of xenophobic (fear of outsiders, ie. immigrants) politics, just wanted to crush our anti-racist, internationalist May Day resolution.

Others, seeing the weakness of the present-day labor movement, were embarrassed by this blatant anti-working class, racist stance. As a white woman shop steward said disgustedly after one meeting, "To tell the truth, I think it's racial. After all, we are talking of mostly Latino immigrants here." Of course, the "liberal" hacks were not embarrassed enough to stick their necks out in support of real anti-racist, international working-class solidarity.

Stung by the drastically falling percentage of unionization in basic manufacturing, these pro-boss, class-collaborationists reasoned serving the biggest imperialists — by endorsing the McCain-Kennedy path to legalization — was the way to go. They hoped to demonstrate they could deliver a more stable workforce of millions of low-wage immigrants for the weapons factories, while helping to recruit immigrants' sons and daughters as cannon folder for the bosses' imperialist wars. In this way, they hoped to insure their position as management's junior partners. Nonetheless, years of scapegoating immigrant and foreign workers undermined their ability to bring their base along.

Dialectics Show Garment Workers Essence of Liberals’ Attack on Immigrants

LOS ANGELES, April 24 — In preparation for the big pro-immigrant march here, a group of workers distributed general leaflets in the main garment district where thousands work in hundreds of sweatshops.

In my factory, I talked to many co-workers about the need to participate in the march. When I gave leaflets to my co-workers, one offered to help pass them out. He also put some in the bathrooms. The leaflets linked our exploitation to the war in Iraq.

At the break, three workers discussed the march, one giving his opinions based on the leaflet. He asked me if I had read the leaflet. "What it says is true," he continued, "this whole movement is just a trick by the politicians for their benefit."

"But we should participate," I interrupted, "not just to get legal status, but because the streets are ‘schools’ where workers can learn to fight in their own interests." As an example, I related the history of May Day.

Two days later, PLP distributed leaflets outside the factory. This communist leaflet was posted on the bathroom wall by a worker who understood its content and importance, substituting it for the workers’ committee leaflet which was also on the wall.

Thirty workers marched, leading to exchanges with various workers. With four of them, I’ve started discussing dialectical materialism — Marxist philosophy — after one had asked me if I thought a worldwide revolution was possible. I answered "yes." I described what workers in Russia and China had accomplished and asked if they had heard of dialectical materialism. One of the workers nodded, but didn’t remember what it was. I emphasized the need to study dialectics to understand how things change.

The appearance and essence of this immigrants’ rights movement is important for workers. "From far away the water looks blue, but when you get close, what’s its color?" I asked. When they replied that up close it was not blue, I said the same thing was happening with this movement — when examining it "up close," it is not in our interests. Being among these workers every day, I am having great experiences which bolster my confidence that we can make a revolution.

The day I gave them CHALLENGE, one of the four workers with whom I eat lunch started reading part of the editorial aloud, while workers at the nearby tables listened.

Discussions about the contradictions between rival imperialists are deepening. More workers are reading CHALLENGE regularly. I’m trying to win them to come to May Day.

Workers’ Struggles Have No Borders

Seattle: 20K Workers and Students March Vs Anti-Immigrant Racism

SEATTLE, WA., Apr. 10 —Angered by attacks on immigrants, 20,000 workers and students marched in downtown today. Like scores of other demonstrations nationwide, the numbers were bigger than expected. The politics were the same: welcoming immigrants to an 11-year "legalization" process and a patriotic, slave-labor cannon-fodder future for the bosses’ imperialist dreams. As if to emphasize the point, farm owners gave thousands the day off to demonstrate.

Nonetheless, many thought the "genie was let out of the bottle." Workers and students responded enthusiastically to the 900 PLP communist leaflets and more than 100 CHALLENGES sold and to our signs calling on the demonstrators to "Smash all Borders, Workers of the World Unite." and to "March on May Day."

The struggle now shifts to the worksites and classrooms where our political advances will determine whether the working class will eventually reject the dangerous leadership of the liberal bosses and their union and church allies and instead fight for multi-racial unity and workers’ power. (See above article on the struggle in a key aerospace union local.)

Steel Strikers Seize Plant, Rout Mexico Cops Who Kill Two Workers

LAZARO CARDENAS, MEXICO, April 21 — In a sight unseen in Mexico and many other countries for years, workers occupied the Sicartsa steel plant and repelled a combined attack by 800 federal and local cops attempting to break their three-week strike. The plant is owned by Villacero, the country’s biggest producer of steel bars and wire rod.

The cops killed two workers and injured and arrested many more but the steelworkers are still holding the plant. Some cops were also injured in the battle. The workers had struck and occupied the plant since April 2 to protest the federal government’s plan to impose a pro-company union leadership, using the excuse that the current leadership was corrupt.

Cops toting guns and carrying tear gas entered the rear of the plant at 7:00 AM, initially surprising the 500 workers who were expecting them at the front. But the workers regrouped and fought back, using heavy machinery against the attacking cops. They burned down the company’s administration building and destroyed 30 company vehicles. Two hours later, the workers using sticks, stones and steel rods routed the cops.

Other workers helped the strikers, including 1,000 wives and relatives who organized a march against the attack. Mittal Steel workers struck immediately and went to help their fellow workers repel the cops’ assault.

Michoacan governor Lazaro Cardenas Batel also ordered state cops to attack the workers. The governor is a member of the liberal Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) party, whose presidential candidate Lopez Obrador — touted as "a friend of the workers" and the answer to Vincente Fox, Mexico’s current right-wing president — is favored to become the country’s next President. The Sicartsa steelworkers have a long tradition of militancy. They’re trying to stop the bosses’ growing union-busting campaign. When the government privatized steel plants and coal and copper mines in the 1990s (aided by union hacks), the Sicartsa workforce sank from 8,000 to its present 4,000, while wages and working conditions plummeted — many of these workers ended up working for non-union contractors. The strikers are now demanding that all charges be dropped against the 60 facing jail for the fight against the cops. They are also demanding the resignation of Secretary of Labor Francisco Salazar, accusing him of trying to impose the new union hacks. They also blame him for the recent murder of dozens of miners at Conchos Pasta due to high methane gas levels (the miners are members of the same union).

Their fight-back is admirable, once again demonstrating that industrial workers play a key role in fighting the bosses’ attacks. But much more is needed. Workers like these and worldwide must turn their struggles into schools for communism. We must learn how to build the kind of communist leadership and movement needed to wipe out the bosses once and for all.

Bosses’ System Great for Talk -Show Traitors, Not for Immigrants

LOS ANGELES, April 24 — "Don’t hurt this great country that has given you everything," say the popular radio announcers "Cucuy" (Renan Coello) and "Piolin"(Eddie Soto) about the boycott organized for May 1. The biggest bosses are using them to impose their politics of patriotism, pacifism, and slave-labor poverty. They spread anti-communism, warning workers "not to pay attention to the communists," that they should "respect the bosses and not support the boycott."

Before the huge March 25 march against the racist law HR4437, they told workers to wear white shirts and carry U.S. flags. But these bosses’ agents are not alone. They’re joined by the union mis-leaders, "immigrants’ rights" groups and the Catholic Church hierarchy.

We workers have no reason to be grateful to the U.S. bosses and their government. Should we thank them for having tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of workers in Central America in the last 30 years? For their support for, and training of, the death squads who forced tens of thousands to flee those countries, leaving families and friends behind? Thank them for the U.S.-supplied weapons used to slaughter those who fought the ruling classes in their countries of origin?

Thank them for imposing the policies of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) which, together with the Mexican banks, have starved to death thousands of Mexican workers and have forced millions to leave their families in search of a miserable, exploitative job?

Or how about thanking them for the thousands of immigrants who have died crossing the borders and thousands of women who’ve been abused during this journey? Or for the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq? Not to mention the extermination of Native Americans and the enslavement of millions of black workers brought in chains from Africa, killing untold numbers on the way.

Be grateful for what? For poverty wages, police terror or the hated Migra?

The bosses have never given us anything. The few benefits some workers have gained are the fruit of the blood and struggle of millions of workers in the past. Like May Day, begun with the fight for the 8-hour day, these struggles were waged mainly by immigrant workers and communists at that time.

These announcers and the lieutenants of the liberal bosses have no shame when asking that we thank those who exploit us, and those who would use us as body bags in their plans for wider imperialist wars and more fascism. Our struggle must be to organize our class to build a communist revolution, where we will not thank the bosses, but instead we will bury them and destroy their class for all the crimes they have committed against the workers of the world.

Retirees Debate Immigration Issue; Cite Class Basis for Attacks

NEW YORK CITY, April 11 — The monthly meeting of about 30 retired city workers erupted into an emotional debate on immigrant rights. Our plan had been to discuss the State Taylor Law. However, the massive demonstration for immigrant rights changed our focus.

This group meets monthly at the offices of our old union local. The union provides an enjoyable lunch while we hear a guest speaker. Today it was the vice-president of grievances and legal services.

We’ve been discussing this fascist anti-worker law for several meetings since the December strike of NYC transit workers. Many view this law as part of the general attack on all workers. Several workers were interested in building a movement to end this oppressive law that outlaws public-worker strikes and mandates fines for both individual strikers and the union. (Currently, Roger Toussaint, transit union President, is serving ten days in jail for violating the Taylor Law. See page 7)

Prior discussions had featured workers’ actions to defeat this law, such as building strike solidarity or expanding future walkouts towards a general strike. Today’s meeting involved the law’s rules and interpretations the courts have used in applying the law. While useful, it lacked the passion of earlier discussions.

After the guest speaker left, the simple question of who attended yesterday’s rally opened the floodgates of ideological struggle. Rick said he had attended to honor his parents and grandparents who had emigrated from Eastern Europe seeking a better life. Sol countered that if his parents had not fled Europe they would have been killed by Hitler’s storm troopers, but he felt that immigration was a "complicated issue." He believed immigration laws must be obeyed. Lynn responded that immigrants are entering the U.S. because of conditions where they had lived. She said they had little choice.

Carol shot back that the U.S. must control its borders so terrorists will not attack us. Ron pointed out that the 9/11 hijackers had entered the U.S. "legally" and would not have been stopped by walls or increased immigration raids. He bitterly pointed out that his wife had been forced to leave this country and spend years waiting for documents that allowed her to resume her life with him. Maria said that immigrants must obey the rules. Manny stated that imperialism causes the conditions forcing working people to leave their home countries seeking a way to survive.

As chairperson, I spoke last, saying I thought the issue was not so complicated if viewed on a class basis. Internationally, workers are facing a race to the bottom in terms of wages, benefits and living standards. The same attacks facing U.S. workers are occurring worldwide, only worse in many places. I advocated standing with our class brothers and sisters.

I then related my vacation visit to southern Arizona. My wife and I were hiking in a mountainous region with a group of bird watchers, watching birds flying north to their summer feeding and breeding grounds. Our group encountered some empty water jugs and bags left by immigrants also heading north. Several hikers uttered anti-immigrant slurs. I responded by wondering why they were so happy seeing birds who had flown across the border while disparaging human beings who had done so for the same reason — survival. The racists among the hikers had been shamed into silence. My fellow retirees applauded my story.

Rutgers University Forum Exposes Homeland Security Police-State Action vs. Immigrants

NEWARK, NJ, April 11 — Amid nationwide mass demonstrations against racist attacks on immigrants, 250 law students, undergrads, immigrant workers and others packed a classroom at Rutgers Law School here to discuss the Sensenbrenner bill (HR 4437), the McCain-Kennedy proposed law and many other issues.

The speakers included a lawyer and a legal worker from a local immigrant advocacy center and an undergrad who suffered fascist treatment by Homeland Security agents and Middlesex County Correctional (MCC) guards. The undergrad, having lived in the U.S. since she was 6, was at an Immigration Office to adjust her status and get her green card when she was informed of an old deportation order she knew nothing about. She was immediately arrested, told she would be deported to Sierra Leone (she was born in Ghana), and taken to MCC, a county jail also being used as a facility for long-term detainees. There she was strip-searched and subjected to vicious sexual harassment. She was released after a week, but still faces further proceedings.

The speakers from the advocacy center opposed both HR 4437 and McCain-Kennedy. They agreed with one audience member who said McCain-Kennedy would set up immigrant youth for the recruit-starved military. However, the speakers advocated non-violent resistance to racism and fascism.

In contrast, one audience member described how anti-racists had disrupted a Minuteman organizing meeting in Bridgewater, N.J. last June. She passionately called for workers and students to fight back against the vile racism of the "Minute-Klan." She also urged participants to celebrate May Day by fighting for the unity of citizens and immigrants.

Workers from a local day-labor center also gave short talks, speaking eloquently in Spanish about the low wages and difficult working conditions on their jobs, and the hard times faced by many immigrants trying to enter the U.S. They said that the U.S. is "a good country," that they only want to work and support their families.

The genesis of borders is the capitalist nation-state. The big rulers, through their wars and imperialist domination, cross and sometimes redraw these artificial lines when it suits their profit purposes. While these bosses’ actions are deemed perfectly legal, workers crossing these same lines to prevent their families from starving are labeled "illegal aliens," and are viciously exploited. This, in a nutshell, is the source of capitalism’s "immigration problem."

Many at the forum did not oppose the idea of borders, nor did they see the current period as one of growing fascism. One participant did link the use of anti-immigrant terror to the super-exploitation of immigrant workers.

The upsurge in activity around these issues gives PLP increased opportunities to explain our politics to all our friends. One hour-long lunchtime discussion at work the day after the forum was a good start. We must show clearly the differences between the immigrant workers in these marches and the mis-leadership which wants to push them into the dead end of supporting liberal Democratic Party warmakers and their agents inside this movement. This will enable us to show that only a society without bosses, without borders, is good for all workers — communism.

California Teachers Condemn ‘Reform’ That Militarizes Immigrant Youth

CALIFORNIA — The California Teachers Association, the United Teachers of Los Angeles and the LA American Federation of Teachers Local 1021 have all recently passed resolutions opposing any immigration reform that hinders workers’ ability to organize or that pushes youth and workers into the military as a path to legalization and citizenship. PLP supports this fight to expose the liberal imperialists’ immigration "reform" while we simultaneously encourage soldiers to organize against imperialist war.

In an area meeting of a local teachers’ union, a resolution was put forward to support actions on May 1st and to recognize this day as the International Workers’ Day, one celebrated worldwide except in the U.S. Opposition arose with remarks like, "You people can’t bring this sort of thing to our union"; "We must stay away from the political"; and, "Even Cesar Chavez had problems with illegal scabs."

But there were also statements of support, like, "May 1st is celebrated around the world"; "The struggle against anti-immigrant racism affects our students as well as many of our parents"; and, "I support the resolution."

Someone explained that Cesar Chavez had failed to organize all workers, documented and undocumented alike. He recognized the bosses’ borders and patriotism, a losing strategy for the working class.

One person requested a secret ballot vote. The question was called and voting began first on whether it should be a secret ballot, producing only one favorable vote. Then the balloting on the resolution itself lost by only five votes, but a lot of people were glad it was raised.

This struggle gives us an opportunity to explain to teachers and students May Day’s revolutionary history and the reasons PLP revived it. It is part of the fight to build workers’ unity for revolution, to destroy the profit system and build a communist society where we share the fruits of our labor to meet the needs of the international working class.

Brooklyn High School Students’ Walkout Resists Racist ‘Security’ Rules

BROOKLYN, NY, April 22 — Chants of "What do we want? Cell Phones!" and "Racism means fight back" rang out through a neighborhood here when hundreds of high school students walked out of the Secondary School for Law, Journalism and Research last week, attacking the cell phone policy reinstated the day before. Within two days students wrote a call for a walkout, made signs, called the media and composed chants. Although there was much excitement and support for the action, some guidance counselors and teachers threatened students with revoking all their credits if they walked out. Cops arrested five students and harassed many more, attempting to scare students away, but their racist tactics failed.

Some teachers and students criticized the walkout, arguing that banning cell phones is no big deal. Others argued that students get as angry about the war, for the lack of textbooks or anti-immigrant attacks, as they were about the newly-enforced cell phone policy.

Although there’s some truth to these criticisms, actually those issues are not unrelated. Attacks on the working class in Iraq, on undocumented workers and on students are all necessary parts of living under a capitalist society. For U.S. rulers to retain their number one super-power status, they must carry out imperialist war abroad to secure oil and its trade routes and instill fear at home. They send youth to kill our working-class brothers and sisters overseas, do random searches on subways, detain Muslims in prisons for years without trial, and search students every morning before school, all in the name of security. The only security they’re worried about is that of their own profits and power.

These are the main points all parents, teachers and students need to learn in this struggle. Capitalism will always maintain repression. Any resistance to it is a great step forward. These students showed the administration and the NYPD that they will not bow down to cops’ racist terror.

We in PL will continue to expand this fight to other city high schools. We will organize and demand that the charges be dropped against the five arrested students. Most importantly we are organizing a contingent from the school to march on May Day and continue the long struggle to destroy capitalism.

LA Health Workers Pro-Immigrant, vs. War

LOS ANGELES, March 25 — Massive opposition to the Sensenbrenner Bill HR4437, united a group of health workers at L.A. County Clinic. People from different backgrounds wanted to participate in this huge march, but not everyone could, so they signed a letter of support and donated money for a banner that said, "Health Care Workers Pro-Immigrant and Against the War in Iraq." Patients, nurses, doctors and technicians marched, but whoever couldn’t go were represented by the group holding the banner.

LETTERS

‘We’re Not Criminals, We’re Workers and We’re International!’

The recent uproar over the racist proposed Congressional anti-immigrant legislation provides for the expansion of PLP’s base in the working class. On April 10 thousands of workers in our city joined those marching in protest elsewhere.

Early on, PL members helped organize the student-led university walkout and activities leading up to the city-wide march. Working closely with other campus organizations, PL’ers propelled working-class issues to the forefront. We pointed out that the "alternative" McCain-Kennedy Bill and Dream Act were just as much an attack on immigrant workers as the Sensenbrenner Bill.

These ideas filled our signs and speeches, making the walkout one of the most anti-racist events ever at the university.

While the student-led rallies were largely pro-working class, the LULAC-led rally heavily promoted the bosses’ nationalism. LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) brought congressmen and other capitalist gangsters to rally support for the "alternative" bills and to encourage marchers to wave American flags.

Many workers, however, were not fooled by LULAC’s nationalism. One worker’s sign read, "We’re not criminals, We’re workers. And we’re international."

Despite LULAC, PL members along with other students, soldiers and workers continued to promote international working-class solidarity. While LULAC encouraged workers to chant "Si Se Puede" ("Yes we can") we helped lead more revolutionary chants — "Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras!" ("Workers’ struggles have no borders!").

We had many good discussions with students, soldiers and workers from across the city. Some of the new folks received and helped distribute CHALLENGE. Many are now interested in doing more to fight for the working class.

The march showed both the ruling-class hopes to mobilize the working class behind a pro-war "reform" agenda, and their fear of mobilizing workers. In this case, the federal immigration court along the march route was closed, its doors bolted three hours before the march started, even though the LULAC leaders made no effort to target these centers of ruling-class oppression.

Meanwhile, workers’ and students’ response to PL’s ideas showed the possibilities for us if we advance our activities within this reform movement. PL must continue at the forefront of the fight against anti-immigrant racism, and to bring communist ideas to the heart of those struggles.

Southern Red

Students Walk Out; Racist Cops Riot; PL’s Ideas Take Hold

As CHALLENGE reported (4/26), numerous walkouts have occurred in high schools nationwide, protesting the current anti-immigration bill H.R. 4437. My school was no exception. The day the walkouts were scheduled, one of my students showed me a flier calling on the students to march through the building at 8:10 AM. I was unsure about the impact; it seemed somewhat unorganized. Was I surprised!

I announced the walkout in my first period class, explaining the two immigration bills (Sensenbrenner and McCain-Kennedy), and telling my students I would support them if they walked. Sure enough, at 8:10 the march passed my classroom and about half my students walked out. After marching through the school for about 20 minutes, they rallied outside in the "quad."

I spoke to the students who hadn’t left about anti-immigrant racism. The majority are black; many thought the struggle didn’t concern them, unfortunately a prevalent attitude. Some who had gone to the rally told me later that the black and Latino students were almost totally separated during the action and many black students didn’t really know what was happening. But in my classroom, we had a pretty good discussion about the source of racism and why people must unite to fight it. When I talked somewhat about class consciousness, a few of my students were very receptive.

That’s when things started to intensify in the "quad." My classroom windows face this area, so my class had a running commentary on events outside. As first period was ending, the principal was trying to convince students to return to class. The students refused. They wanted the administration to open the gate so they could march on the streets. (Some high schools actually marched all the way to city hall!) The principal said that would be very dangerous. She encouraged them to "write to their congressmen" instead.

Meanwhile, in the "quad" some Latino and black students were fighting. In about 10 seconds, 20 riot squad cops "miraculously" appeared, marching into the middle of the "quad" in full riot gear! Naturally, some students got scared, started running and were arrested.

Suddenly our school was labeled as having a "race riot" and was put on lock-down! This means the school is under police occupation and no one can leave their classroom for any reason. The rallying students were "escorted" back to their first periods watched by the LAPD. That day, the entire school spent more than five hours in their first period classrooms, without food, water or bathrooms. The police even refused to allow water to be distributed because the water bottles "could be used as weapons." Talk about fascism!

These attacks will happen increasingly as the ruling class moves for stronger control over the working class, in preparation for more imperialist wars and fascism. The huge marches recently are being dominated by nationalism and patriotism, but the bosses must resort to fascist measures to control these angry students. Simultaneously, this creates opportunities for PL’ers as it did for me at my school.

This event resulted in discussions about racism in all my classes. Three of my students have taken CHALLENGE and come to a study group. I’ve started a multi-racial unity club on campus with another teacher’s help. We all must take advantage of such opportunities as the class struggle intensifies. After seeing fascism’s effect on my students, I for one will work extra hard to get rid of this system — the sooner the better!

Red Teacher

Red Flags Trump Nationalist Flags

In my small city several meetings have planned for immigrants’ rights reform. Over 40 people attended the first one for the march on April 10. I received wide support saying the struggle should be multi-racial. Two others supported this and another said we shouldn’t bring Mexican flags. I said we shouldn’t bring any national flags.

The weekend before the march I invited some other PLP members to speak with my friends about current issues at a meeting at my house. I had made 25 small red flags and asked people if they’d be willing to carry one during the march and pass out extras. We discussed the liberals’ tactics of building U.S. patriotism and pushing youth into the military. We also discussed the significance of the red flag as the one representing the international working class. They all agreed to carry red flags.

The meeting was called for two hours, but one friend stayed much longer and then helped write a flier for distribution at the march. It exposed the open racists and the liberal rulers, attacked imperialist war and said our only flag should be the red flag. This friend and her husband were regular CHALLENGE readers before I lost contact for a while after switching jobs over a year ago. In the last few weeks I’ve started sending her the paper again. She eagerly came to my house for this meeting. She mentioned that at a recent gathering with her dance group everyone agreed not to bring any national flags to the march. She said they discussed the significance of national flags and all opposed the spread of nationalism and patriotism. No doubt she played an instrumental role in that decision.

At the march not one minute passed before people were approaching me to ask if I was handing out the red flags I carried. All the extras were given out. I had to send some people away empty-handed. Five others helped distribute 1,000 fliers. They went quickly in the crowd, estimated at about 10,000. I will be inviting all those who helped in this effort to PLP’s May Day.

While the liberal bosses are leading this movement, many in it can see that we workers don’t owe our allegiance to any bosses’ flag or any boss, but instead to the international working class and its fight for liberation and communism.

Young Red Mom

Don’t Rely on Bosses’ Law to Save Workers

On the March 29 CHALLENGE article about anti-Muslim racism, those racist Danish cartoons and their censorship: communists must ask themselves just who will be doing the censoring. Obviously, in this case, it’s the capitalist state, which has no intention of combating racism. I’m opposed to any capitalist censors or bans on anything, as more than likely it will be used eventually against the working class and its organizations. In reality, the only force that can battle this anti-Muslim racism is the working class.

Recently, Austria sentenced far-right British "historian" David Irving to three years in prison for claiming the Holocaust never happened. Should communists support the actions of the Austrian capitalist state? I don’t think so.

Firstly, these sorts of laws will be used against the working class and possibly anti-racists. For example, I attended a unity coalition meeting on the question of passing laws against hate groups. A list of such groups in Pennsylvania was passed around, containing the usual fascists — the Klan, the Aryan Nation, Church of Identity, etc. However, the Sharps — anti-racist skinheads — were also on the list.

The capitalist state has no interest in fighting fascism, as fascism is all about capitalism with its "democratic" mask removed. Fascism’s main target is the working class. Under a true workers’ state, I’d support laws against fascism, racism and other workers’ enemies. But it’s unwise to support the actions of the capitalist state to pass laws against and/or even censor fascist-type groups, as in the final analysis, this will all come back to haunt the working class.

Red Coal

Need More Humor, Youth Stories in CHALLENGE

(This letter was received by a comrade and is followed by his response.)

I really appreciate you keeping me up with CHALLENGE. I pass it to my friends to read also. We all feel your articles are compelling, thoroughly researched, well-documented and well-written. And we all agree with your premises. We feel, however, a little humor (Doonesbury-like or a timely political cartoon) could help lighten up the tone of the paper.

It’s time for communism to speak directly to and mobilize the young. With U.S. immigration issues affecting young Latinos and Mexicans, the French controversy over employer’s right to hire and fire the young and the young worldwide dying in global wars, youth are beginning to see the hypocrisy of power. They’re becoming aware, disenchanted and angry with the status quo and beginning to realize that leaders in ALL countries willingly sacrifice their young for short-term profit, power and political gain.

But the young must be spoken to in their own language; add a weekly column to CHALLENGE written by a young person showing youth perspectives. Discuss timely issues, the possibilities of the draft and how they affect youth.

Focus also on sexual politics, how women’s rights are being eroded, lost and/or women’s rights as victims right on down….job security, inequality in promotions, etc. A weekly column written from a woman activist’s view would be good.

State the facts; the facts are bad enough told straight. We believe without the rhetoric or the old party line they would be more powerful and appropriate today. The rhetoric leaves many with bad connotations of possible past communist transgressions. Whether the transgressions are true or not, this attitude is deeply entrenched capitalistic propaganda.

Lastly, we admire you all for your passion, compassion and untiring work for all of us. You are very admirable. I hope our suggestions and comments don’t offend or anger you. They came from our hearts. We, too, are ready for change.

Southern Friends

RESPONSE: Thanks for your very thoughtful and honest letter. It’s obvious all of you have been reading CHALLENGE closely, and that your letter represents that careful study. We definitely want to encourage this in our readership.

Although our Party is a very serious organization, and the paper’s tone reflects that seriousness, we agree with you about the value of humor. We do see humor, like all culture, as political. We try to convey humor through political cartoons, and occasionally in Red Eye on the News or in an article. However, we could always use more. We invite you and other readers to contribute to this process.

Hopefully, the last several issues of CHALLENGE, with articles on the mass demonstrations against anti-immigrant racism, and the mass uprising against the CPE labor law in France show how seriously we take issues that especially affect young people. After all, the future of our Party rests with the youth, particularly with black, Latin, Asian, immigrant and female young workers, soldiers and students. As we integrate more young people into the Party leadership, and into the production and distribution of CHALLENGE and other PLP literature, we expect to have more of the kinds of articles you mention. Meanwhile, our paper needs to address the older generations, many of whom still contribute valuable knowledge and experience to the revolutionary process, including young people’s political development.

You’re also right requesting more articles on the special oppression of women workers, and about sexist ideology and practices. However, as stated in the review of "North Country" (4/26), unlike feminists we believe male workers should unite with female workers to fight this oppression and sexism, just as white, black and Latino workers need to unite to fight racism. Therefore, we wouldn’t run a "women activist’s" column or a "black activist’s" column; rather we’d run more articles about workers, men and women, black, Latino and white, fighting for their common class interests against sexism and racism.

Lastly, there are times when our rhetoric is inappropriate to a particular article. However, the reason our Party’s line comes across so strongly in CHALLENGE is because we’re appealing to the most advanced and militant sectors of society. Some may be "turned off" (for now) because of the sharpness of our attacks on all aspects of capitalism. But we believe in the long run many more people will eventually see the truth of our views, especially as fascism and war intensify. We believe that only a mass party imbued with PLP’s politics, and steeled in class struggle against the enemy will be capable of the very difficult task of seizing power away from the bosses and beginning the revolutionary communist transformation of society. Our paper’s tone reflects the necessity for, and the urgency of, the actions that can and will lead to those changes.

Column Errs on Wages

Several points in the "Under Communism" column (4/26) on communism and wages are either wrong or at least unclear. It says that "Marx discovered one type of transaction in which value was not exchanged equally, namely wages in exchange for labor power." Marx’s claim was just the opposite of this, that the worker may well receive the value of his labor power (that is, the cost of minimally maintaining himself). But the worker won’t get the rest of the value he or she produces. The column seems to aim at the unfairness of the wage bargain. Marx’s point (in "Wages, Price and Profit," for example) is that all wages enrich the boss and oppress workers. He says the only fair wage is no wage, that is, elimination of the wage system.

A second point about what communism means is also incorrect. It says:

"[Workers’] ‘payment’ over the long term would be in the form of the labor each family contributed to the collective good, whether it is growing food, manufacturing, means of transportation, clothing, houses, etc, or providing some services such as health care, schooling, parks, etc."

This suggestion, that people must pay with their labor, is at least misleading. People who are very old or in poor health don’t have to "pay," and people who can do a lot will be expected to do it, even if they don’t need to draw very much from the common supply. Paying through labor, even if you put it in quotation marks, is a concept left over from the wage system; it isn’t real distribution according to need. It downplays the need for political struggle for greater commitment of those who are able to produce for the good of the whole working class. Under communism, the incentives to work will be mainly political, and the massive, collective struggle to get that commitment will be an important part of the struggle to win and build communism.

A Comrade

CHALLENGE comment: The reader is absolutely correct on both points. The column’s writer meant to say, "Marx discovered one type of transaction in which value was not exchanged equally, namely in exchange for labor," not labor power, as the rest of the article makes clear.

Strike-Breaking Boss Takes Transit Workers for A Ride: But Not in His $260, 000 Ferrari

NEW YORK CITY, April 24 — A judge has used the bosses’ notorious strike-breaking Taylor Law to send Roger Toussaint, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100, to jail for ten days after the militant rank and file forced a strike, breaking that law back in December. Toussaint’s been jailed despite the fact that he betrayed the strike, helping the bosses end it with a sellout contract. Obviously this wasn’t enough for the rulers. But it hasn’t stopped his "counterpart," Peter Kalikow, Chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), from adding to his stable of dozens of Ferraris by purchasing another one — a 612 Scaglietti, 540 horsepower, with a V-12 engine for at least $260,000.

Kalikow is not quite ready to join the millions of New Yorkers riding the crowded subways and buses nor the thousands of transit workers who spend most of their working lives underground running the trains.

Kalikow is insisting that the unresolved transit contract go to arbitration to try to screw the workers even more. But meanwhile he ordered the car’s body and interior of this latest Ferrari changed to his specifications, raising the price to close to a third of a million bucks. Kalikow’s hard line against transit workers contrasts sharply with his housing dozens of Ferraris in a secret climate-controlled underground garage in a building he owns near MTA headquarters.

These bosses make Queen Marie Antoinette ("let ’em eat cake") look like a do-gooder. But Kalikow and the system he represents will eventually also get their guillotine.

Red Eye On The News

High-Schoolers plan Bush war-crimes trial

A few weeks ago, when a class of seniors at Parsippany High School in New Jersey prepared for a mock trial to assess whether Bush has committed war crimes, a media tempest ensued….In Tennessee, the Chattanooga Times Free Press thundered in an editorial: "That some American ‘educators’ would have students ‘try’ our American president for ‘war crimes’ during time of war tells us that our problems are not only with terrorists abroad."….

During the 1980s, Robert Parry covered U.S. foreign policy for the Associated Press and Newsweek…. "In a world where might did not make right," Parry wrote in a recent piece, "George W. Bush, Tony Blair and their key enablers would be in shackles before a war crimes tribunal at the Hague, rather than sitting in the White House, 10 Downing Street or some other comfortable environs in Washington and London."

Over the top? I don’t think so… (Norman Solomon, Creators Syndicate, 4/2)

Insurance profits come before health care

There is almost no chance of universal coverage happening anytime in the foreseeable future.

Health insurers made $100 billion in profits last year, and industries of that size are just not legislated out of business… (NYT, 4/2)

US pal is the real Mid-east nuclear rogue

…Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is an alarming prospect, but very little attention is paid to the most obvious, immediate reason why: that there is already a Middle Eastern nuclear power, Israel, insistent on preserving its monopoly. So the crisis has been foreseeable for decades.…

…In nuclear terms in the Middle East, Israel is the original sinner. Non-proliferation must be universal: if, in any zone of potential conflict, one party goes nuclear, its adversaries can’t be expected not to….

Moshe Sneh, a leading Israeli strategist,…said: "I don’t want the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to be held under the shadow of an Iranian nuclear bomb." As if Arabs haven’t had to negotiate under the shadow of an Israeli bomb these past four decades. (GW, 4/20)

110 years of imperialist murder by U.S.

"Overthrow" is the history of forcible regime changes by the United States and its local allies over the past 110 years, starting with the undermining of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, passing through Cuba (1898), the Philippines (1898), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954) and elsewhere, and ending with present-day Iraq.

Kinzer has written a detailed, passionate and convincing book…

In the case of Cuba, the decision in 1898 to betray the Cuban rebels against Spain and impose American hegemony on the island fueled an anti-American nationalism that continues…

…The ugliest was the overthrow of the democratic socialist government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzm�n in Guatemala in 1954 and its replacement by a military dictatorship representing the interests of the local oligarchy and the United Fruit Company. The result was…Communist insurrection and a savage American-backed military campaign of repression that cost the lives of more than 100,000 Maya Indians — something that in other circumstances would certainly have been described in the United States as genocide.

…The American establishment is…over and over again, first in the cold war and now in the "war on terror"…covering its actions with the same rhetoric of spreading "freedom" and combating "evil."

As Kinzer writes of the Iranian hostage crisis, "because most Americans did not know what the United States had done to Iran in 1953, few had any idea why Iranians were so angry at the country they called ‘the great Satan.’"

They still don’t. (NYT, 4/16)

Troops increasingly opposed Vietnam war

In "Sir! No Sir!," Mr. Zeiger remembers… [the Vietnam War] veterans whose struggles against it are too often forgotten….

The image of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran…the important fiction that opposition to the war came strictly from outside the military…. [was] later cooked up by Hollywood and other revisionists. This film shows that as antiwar sentiment gathered strength in American streets, a parallel movement seized the armed forces….

Soldiers were fed up and up in arms…

Desertions were on the rise, as were fraggings, named for the fragmentation grenades lobbed at superiors by their own men. By 1974 the Defense Department would record more than half a million incidents of desertion since the mid-60’s. (NYT, 4/19)

Movie Review:

No Good Intentions Behind Imperialist War

"Why We Fight" is a documentary on the relationship between the U.S. government, its military and the arms industry. The movie argues that the U.S. is out of control with a massive military-industrial complex and an empire stretched beyond reason.

The movie is flawed in three major ways:

First, it creates the impression that the U.S. was a democracy before it was corrupted by the military-industrial complex, and that President Eisenhower was a good leader, struggling to rein in greedy capitalists. This ignores that: (A) the main section of the current U.S. ruling class (the Eastern Establishment) was already taking control of the U.S. government in the early 1900s; and (B) the U.S. was only a "democracy" for the property-owning, capitalist class.

Secondly, the movie doesn’t explain that the U.S. ruling class invaded Iraq because it needs to monopolize the strategic power of oil — dictating its supply, transportation and pricing. It argues that the neo-conservatives were behind the war in Iraq and exposes various neo-con, pro-war think-tanks. However, it completely ignores the fact that the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution — key liberal, Eastern Establishment think-tanks — are behind the war in Iraq (and the next war in Iran?). The multi-lateralist members of the Eastern Establishment disagreed with the neo-conservative, unilateralist members over when and how to wage war in Iraq. The multi-lateralists wanted to use many more troops, bring in more allies, work more through the UN and spend more time trying to win domestic support for the war through the humanitarian lie of "helping Iraqis." While they disagree over tactics, both wings know U.S. rulers must control Mid-East oil in order to protect their superpower status and profit empire against challenges from imperialist rivals, particularly China.

Thirdly, the movie’s most serious flaw is its argument that the main reason the U.S. government spends trillions on military activity is sheer corporate greed. That is, the reason why the U.S. fights wars is because weapons companies are driven to make profits from armaments production. This is simply false. The U.S. government accounts for half the world’s military expenditures — a huge percentage of the federal budget is devoted to military activity — because U.S. imperialism has a driving need to maintain its profit empire throughout the world in the face of increasing inter-imperialist rivalry.

The film fails to report that since the 1970’s U.S. bosses have been losing market share to their rivals: Europe, Japan, Russia and China. It didn’t explain that imperialism — capitalist competition on a global scale — inevitably results in war.

This movie is not anti-war. It merely opposes misguided or "poorly-waged" war. When Senator John McCain says in the film: "[Eisenhower] was worried that priorities are set by what benefits corporations as opposed to what benefits the country," he means arms companies’ short-term profits contradict the long-term need of the U.S. ruling class to field an effective, powerful fighting force which these rulers need to defeat their rivals in future wars. McCain and the movie are only complaining about the excessive or corrupt aspects of U.S. imperialism. They think the U.S. military is bloated with overpriced military contracts with armaments companies which make ineffective weapons, jet fighters or warships.

The movie wants to discipline the bosses who get too greedy. Today, the main wing of the U.S. ruling class is disciplining all capitalists, an aspect of fascism.

The bosses are worried. They need middle-class and working-class people to support fascism here and die for U.S. imperialism abroad. They need to win them to war and fascism through fear and pseudo-humanitarian lies. This movie is part of this deception.

The movie does show that the U.S. military has killed many innocent Iraqis and that Bush lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction as the excuse to invade Iraq. But this is already known by millions. It’s up to us in PLP to give people the full analysis of why capitalism breeds imperialist war and fascism and why peace is impossible under this profit system.

Cooperation Comes From Our Struggles, Not Our Genes

The article (3/29), "Chimps and Humans: Cooperation is the Link," makes the important point that selfishness is not a necessary or "natural" part of human nature. However, it’s a mistake to say cooperation is "natural" and inherited.

The recent German study cited in the article demonstrated that chimpanzees cooperate. That’s an important observation about animals that are evolutionarily close to humans. Jane Goodall’s studies have reported this about gorillas in the wild. She and others have also shown that apes use tools. But they’ve also shown that gorillas and chimpanzees can be violent towards one another, carry out murder and cannibalism, protect territory and engage in dominant-submissive behavior (with "alpha-male" leaders). Does this mean, therefore, that violence, territoriality and social hierarchy are "natural"? Hardly.

The biological basis of social behavior — the real "link" between chimps and humans — is the highly-developed brain and certain other physical characteristics: having an apposing thumb and forefinger, which makes grasping and manipulating objects much easier, as well as walking upright. These biological features, especially the brain with its mental capacity known as thinking, allowed early humans to engage in increasingly complex forms of labor and ultimately create ancient societies, like Egypt, for example, which certainly did demonstrate social cooperation. Consider the cooperative labor — not to mention the thinking involving mathematics, chemistry and physics — it took to build the pyramids. But ancient Egyptian society was also filled with violence, war and sharp class differences.

There is nothing "natural" about cooperation. It has no gene. What is natural and inherited is the biological basis of social behavior — the brain, apposing thumb and so on — which creates the potential for cooperation, but also creates the potential for many other kinds of social behavior, including selfishness. It’s taken thousands of years of social activity — including labor, class struggle, and the creation of ideas (like those about communist revolution and cooperative living) — before human society attained the potential for worldwide communism. (See Frederick Engels, "The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man.")

The notion that cooperation is natural or inherited is attractive on the surface. But it’s really another example of biological determinism, the general set of ideas that says social behavior — cooperation, selfishness, war, racism, sexism, whatever — is in our genes. (Sociobiology is a recent example of this reactionary view.) PLP has been fighting biological determinism for many years. We should continue this struggle with our friends, on the job and at school, and in CHALLENGE.

A Comrade

Under communism: Will There Be Borders?

The short answer is "No, what for?" Borders are a device used by bosses to make it possible to exploit the labor power of workers. They will have no use to the working class after workers around the world have defeated the bosses, freed ourselves from capitalism and organized ourselves into an egalitarian, sharing communist society.

Borders are relatively new. They didn’t always exist, and they haven’t always been where they are today. For example, before Europeans arrived, hundreds of Native American Indian tribes across North America, each with their own language and customs, had no borders. They hunted and gathered or grew food, and occasionally fought over the exclusive rights to use sections of the landscape, but borders were never drawn — even when their home bases were relatively fixed. They also forged agreements to share regions.

Even Europe only developed national borders in the last few thousand years of human existence, though humans have been around for tens of thousands of years.

Fixed and drawn borders arose only when societies became more complex, developing the ability to store a surplus not needed immediately. Rather than everyone having to spend most of the day finding or producing food, a surplus allowed a differentiation of labor. Surpluses also made it possible for some people to do less work and to manipulate others through superstition, magic or religion. This led to class divisions in society that are still with us worldwide thousands of years later, even though the relationship between exploiting and exploited classes has gone through various changes of form — slavery, feudalism, capitalism.

Ruling and exploiting classes developed a need to possess land for the wealth that could be produced or stored on it. So they developed borders and forced slaves and poor peasants and workers to fight and kill each other to expand one ruling class’s borders at the expense of another.

Today the entire world is divided into nations with basically fixed borders that rarely shift. Ruling classes use borders, among other reasons, to try to confine workers to different sections of the earth (nations). This makes it easier for the bosses to exploit our labor, mainly by making us believe in and fight for "our" nation — nationalism or patriotism. Many workers, meanwhile, struggle to escape those boss-imposed borders in order to find work and survive.

The U.S. bosses and their media refer to undocumented immigrants by the curt racist term "illegals." But the determinants of what is and isn’t illegal depends on which bosses outmaneuver the others. After all, the present border between the U.S. and Mexico was established in the mid-1800’s when U.S. President Polk declared war to steal from Mexico’s bosses what is now California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Shortly after this so-called Mexican War, in 1853, the U.S. government bought for pennies the southern part of Arizona below the Gila River for the railroads. The war, along with that "purchase," established the current border.

No politician in either the U.S. or Mexico has ever opposed the existence of borders, despite differences on the details. Whether they call for a thousand-mile fence or a welcoming "guest worker" program, they all want borders in order to facilitate exploitation of workers. When the conservative/reactionary McCain and the liberal Kennedy can cooperate to offer an immigration bill, it’s clear that liberals and conservatives agree on the maintenance of borders. They’re two sides of the same capitalist coin.

Current demonstrations by millions of workers and youth against the various border bills in Congress are dominated by a nationalist orientation, organized and fostered by the capitalists (see CHALLENGE editorial, 4/26, page 1). They reflect two factors: (1) immigrant workers and youth are angry over victimization by racist attacks, labeled "illegal" while forced to work on slave-labor jobs for poverty wages; and (2) the liberal section of the ruling class wants a new law enabling it to enforce social control over immigrant workers in order to maintain low wages— especially in factories producing war materials. They also dangle citizenship over mainly Latino youth as a lure for them to join the military to fight the bosses’ oil wars.

Recent mass protests — by immigrant workers, students and their allies — make a fatal mistake by carrying national flags of either the U.S. or of their countries of origin. Communists declare that workers and their struggles have no borders. The goal should be to destroy those divisions separating us by nationality, and to unite us as one world’s working class. On May Day, and every day, the only flag we should wave is the red one, representing the international working class. Our chants should be "Workers of the world, unite! We have nothing to lose but our chains!"

The future destruction of all borders by workers worldwide is not just a pipe dream. During World War I, soldiers from several warring countries stopped shooting and fraternized with each other, over the objections of their officers. In the build-up to World War II, workers from many countries volunteered to fight in Spain against the Nazi/Fascist-backed forces of Franco. Such international working-class united action is PLP’s goal.