• RULERS TO OBAMA: SELL WAR expand WAR Recruit for war
  • U.S. RULERS COUNT ON OBAMA TO EXPAND ARMY AND NAVY
  • WARMAKING RULERS ALWAYS EMPLOY BIG LIE
  • Each of these “noble” U.S. efforts claimed over a million lives, mainly civilian.
• Fight vs. Bosses’ Racist Unemployment
  • Smash Racist Unemployment With Communist Revolution
• CAPITALISM: THE UN-SAFETY NET
• Unite vs. Racist Murders of Immigrant Workers
• TWU Hacks Attack Rank-&-File, Help Rulers Squeeze ALL Workers
• Organize School Strike; Don’t Pay for Bosses’ Crisis
• Marchers Slam Racist Anti-Immigrant Raids
• PL’er Spurs Union Backing of Stella D’Oro Strikers
• Boeing Welcomes Back Workers With Layoffs
• Jewish, Palestinian Workers Must Unite Against Israeli Fascists
• U.S. Bombs Pakistan, Escalating U.S. Afghan War for Oil
• ‘Big 3’ Would Solve Auto Crisis on Workers’ Backs
• UAW-GM’s VEBA SCHEME ON THE BRINK
• Barcelona Nissan. Argentinian GM Worker Fight Back Against Mass Layoffs
• November 24, 2008 No Financial Meltdown for Challenge-Desafío
• Political Economy: FALLING RATE OF PROFIT HITS WORKERS IN THE HEAD
  • SNAKE OIL
  • Grand Theft Capitalism
• LETTERS
  • Racist Cops Frame Airport Skycap
  • Sunday School Lesson: Obama, No! Organize, Yes!
  • Thanksgiving: ‘New World’ Genocide
• REDEYE ON THE NEWS
  • Capitalism killing our globe
  • Obama an ambidextrous virtuoso
  • Long Afghan war still ahead
  • The ‘Big Steel’ is GM plan
  • Agencies rob the most vulnerable
  • Influential docs take drug co. $

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RULERS TO OBAMA: SELL WAR expand WAR Recruit for war

U.S. RULERS COUNT ON OBAMA
TO EXPAND ARMY AND NAVY

WARMAKING RULERS ALWAYS
EMPLOY BIG LIE

Each of these “noble” U.S. efforts claimed over a million lives, mainly civilian.

Fight vs. Bosses’ Racist Unemployment

Smash Racist Unemployment
With Communist Revolution

CAPITALISM: THE UN-SAFETY NET

Unite vs. Racist Murders of Immigrant Workers

TWU Hacks Attack Rank-&-File, Help Rulers Squeeze ALL Workers

Organize School Strike; Don’t Pay for Bosses’ Crisis

Marchers Slam Racist Anti-Immigrant Raids

PL’er Spurs Union Backing of Stella D’Oro Strikers

Boeing Welcomes Back Workers With Layoffs

Jewish, Palestinian Workers Must Unite Against Israeli Fascists

U.S. Bombs Pakistan, Escalating U.S. Afghan War for Oil

‘Big 3’ Would Solve Auto Crisis on Workers’ Backs

UAW-GM’s VEBA SCHEME ON THE BRINK

Barcelona Nissan. Argentinian GM Worker Fight Back Against Mass Layoffs

November 24, 2008
No Financial Meltdown for Challenge-Desafío

• (1) Checks can be made payable to Challenge Periodicals. If not in position to send personal checks, then:
• (2) Money orders can be made out to Challenge Periodicals and we will fill in a “sender’s” name (not yours).
• (3) Cash can be given to a Party member who will forward it to us immediately via check or money order or cash directly in person.

Political Economy:
FALLING RATE OF PROFIT HITS WORKERS IN THE HEAD

SNAKE OIL

Grand Theft Capitalism

LETTERS

Racist Cops Frame Airport Skycap

Sunday School Lesson: Obama,
No! Organize, Yes!

Thanksgiving: ‘New World’ Genocide

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

Capitalism killing our globe

Obama an ambidextrous
virtuoso

Long Afghan war still ahead

The ‘Big Steel’ is GM plan

Agencies rob the most vulnerable

Influential docs take drug co. $

a href="#Communism Is Only Solution Bosses’ Election: Capitalism Wins">"ommunism Is Only Solution Bosses’ Election: Capitalism Wins

Team Obama: Imperialists One And All

Bosses Use Elections To Settle Their Own Conflicts

From Iran to Guatemala to Chile, U.S. Foreign Policy Pushes Fascist Dictatorships

Company-Union Gang-Up Dampens Class Struggle

The Revolutionary Communist PLP: Indispensable Organization Of The Working Class

Stella Strikers Face Phony Pols, Cops, Scabs

Howard U. Students Demand Halt to Racist Execution

a href="#PL’ers Foil Mis-Leaders, Win UFT Backing for Stella D’Oro Strikers">PL"ers Foil Mis-Leaders, Win UFT Backing for Stella D’Oro Strikers

a href="#Cops Trample Iraq Vets; Pacifism Won’t Work">"ops Trample Iraq Vets; Pacifism Won’t Work

a href="#East Coast PLP Youth Back Strikers, Expose Bosses’ Elections">"ast Coast PLP Youth Back Strikers, Expose Bosses’ Elections

a href="#Do-Nothing ‘Leaders,’ Scabs Undercut Vought Strikers">Do"Nothing ‘Leaders,’ Scabs Undercut Vought Strikers

a href="#Mass Strikes Hit EU Bosses’ Bailout Attacks on Workers">"ass Strikes Hit EU Bosses’ Bailout Attacks on Workers

• Greece Paralyzed
• Thousands March In Italy
• Teachers, Parents Protest in France

Auto Workers Must Strike Against Racist Unemployment

a href="#Colombia Fascists Can’t Stop Raging Class Struggle">"olombia Fascists Can’t Stop Raging Class Struggle

Union Leaders Show How Not To Organize Support for Boeing Strikers

CHALLENGE Binds Striker and Red Transit Worker

Retirees Back Boeing Strikers; Hacks Balk

H.S. Students Support Boeing Strikers

a href="#Capitalism’s Mass Unemployment Spreading Worldwide">"apitalism’s Mass Unemployment Spreading Worldwide

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

• Let’s make up for lost time
• Bush-speak proves Marx right!
• Quick relief, but not for hungry
• Age + foreclosure = catastrophe

• ---

a name="Communism Is Only Solution Bosses’ Election: Capitalism Wins">">"ommunism Is Only Solution Bosses’ Election: Capitalism Wins

One of two events, both disasters for the working class, will occur on November 4. Either Barack Obama, spouting his phony "end-of-racism" message, will prevail (as polls predict), or a sudden upsurge in overt racism (always a possibility in the U.S.) might propel John McCain into office. We in Progressive Labor Party do not believe in voting in the bosses’ election system. They completely control this electoral circus and only those who swear allegiance to them are even allowed access to it.

Although important tactical differences exist between Democrats and Republicans, both are committed to capitalism and U.S. "democracy." The rich and powerful who own and rule the U.S. clearly will never give up their power peacefully. They will also spill the blood of millions of workers and soldiers to protect their imperialist interests overseas from their capitalist rivals, waging wider wars which will lead to another world war.

They offer us the chance to vote for "our representatives" when both parties are actually financed by the richest of the rich, who they serve in all important matters. For instance, in the current financial crisis, polls showed that voters opposed the government bailout plan. But even mere weeks before an "historic" election, the politicians of both parties approved rescuing the banks. The richest bosses feared that panic would undermine their ability to pocket their profits as usual and that imperialist rivals would be able to take advantage of their weakness. After a momentary show of reluctance, the "representatives" fell into line with the rulers’ program.

How Electoral System Serves Rulers’ Needs

All politicians work for the ruling class. However, if the parties and politicians were completely alike, the electoral system wouldn’t serve all the rulers’ needs. First they want workers, students and professionals to believe we can elect someone who represents their "interests." Anti-racists have black and Latin candidates, anti-sexists can vote for women and those concerned about the environment are given candidates who talk about fighting global warming as long as business profits aren’t affected.

The presidential primaries had someone for everyone, an attempt to win workers to see the electoral system as the only option for change.

A secondary effect of drawing workers into the election circus is to build the illusion that voters determine government policy. Workers are encouraged to feel they’re responsible for the government’s actions. If something goes wrong, then just vote for a replacement. But in reality, the candidates and parties will do the opposite of what they campaigned for if important interests of the rulers are involved.

With his broad appeal, probable victor Obama poses the graver danger. Many workers and youth see him as a "solution" to the catastrophe of the Bush years. Obama & Co. seek to lure masses of workers to the rulers’ agenda of ever-expanding wars paid for by workers.

The ‘Carrot And The Stick’

Rulers also use the electoral system to co-opt mass protests against capitalism and its racism, sexism and wars. When millions took to the streets to protest the Vietnam War, liberal Senator Eugene McCarthy was trotted out to entice them back into the fold of dead-end campaigning and voting that changed nothing.

In the 1960s, millions of students and workers rebelling against the harsh racism and segregation, north and south, were given black mayors and "anti-poverty" programs that bought off a few and left masses of black workers still facing police brutality and the lower wages of a racist system.

However, while the rulers can use the "carrot" of an "anti-war" Eugene McCarthy or black legislators and "anti-poverty" programs, they simultaneously will use the "stick:" the cops, National Guard and the Army to kill anti-war demonstrators (Kent State and Jackson State); repress black uprisings (sending the 82nd Airborne to put down the 1967 Detroit black rebellion); covert state terror (the FBI’s COINTELPRO); and imprison 2.4 million people, 70% black and Latino.

When the rulers worry that our struggles may threaten their profits, they may give us a crumb: a dollar more on the minimum wage, OSHA laws (governmental on-the-job safety regulations) with one inspector for every 10,000 workplaces, laws against discrimination that are rarely enforced. Later, those crumbs are taken away when they see that we’ve bought into the election shell game instead of militant working-class struggle.

Relying on elections to improve our conditions is a treadmill to oblivion.

Freeing ourselves from the passive pull-the-voting-lever mentality starts with militant struggle like the Boeing machinists’ strike in Seattle, or the teachers’ strike in Morelos, Mexico. Mass marches, demonstrations and standing up to the boss may help teach us to fight back instead of accepting the "democratic" program. But to really overcome capitalism’s exploitation and wars, we also need to struggle for more profound change — a new system where workers will be in control.

U.S. rulers are desperate to maintain their system of wealth and profits. They killed 3,000,000 Vietnamese and 58,000 U.S. soldiers trying to control a small country’s workers and resources. They’ve killed over a million Iraqi workers with eight years of Clinton bombing surrounded by eight years of Bush aggression trying to maintain control of the world’s oil supply.

Raw Deal For Workers

But now, to marshal the forces U.S. imperialism requires, Obama may try an end run around blatant militarism and the draft. With the crippled U.S. economy shedding 200,000 jobs a month, he may opt for a Roosevelt New Deal-style employment program to rally workers around the flag. The Times (10/26/08) reports that Obama "proposes increases for education, infrastructure, research, foreign aid, and the military."

For workers, voting for warmaker Obama is no better than backing McCain. Viewing Obama’s election as a triumph over racism would be a serious political error. By every measure imaginable — from wages to health to education to imprisonment to jobs and home foreclosures — racist disparity rages in the U.S. Because capitalism breeds racism and imperialist oil wars, Obama can’t and won’t end or even alleviate either. Only the working class can.

U.S. rulers claim to be "democratic," but they really preside over a capitalist dictatorship. They own the wealth, control the mass culture and media and use their government and its military and police forces to maintain their power. Communists in PLP believe the working class must overthrow their dictatorship and replace it with a workers’ dictatorship where the vast majority will be armed to prevent the capitalists from ever returning to power.

To achieve this, millions of workers must join PLP to embrace communist ideas of sharing the wealth we produce according to everyone’s needs, along with anti-racist, anti-sexist and internationalist ideas which are necessary to unite the working class in its struggle for power.

Team Obama: Imperialists One And All

Before Obama was given the resources to campaign for the presidency, he had to meet with, be vetted by and swear his allegiance to the bosses’ flag of profits before a committee of Wall Street financial tycoons and then they donated $7.9 million to Obama’s campaign (Reuters, 6/5.08).

Obama’s economic advisor is the ruling class’s top economic assassin Paul Volcker, who has frequently met with the candidate since the financial crisis broke. As Federal Reserve chief, Volcker "solved" the bankers’ inflation crisis of the early 1980s by jacking up interest rates and causing unemployment rates unseen since the Great Depression.

Today, Volcker and Obama push for a fascistic concentration of finance under tightened state control. Volcker was chief economist at Chase Manhattan bank when David Rockefeller ran it. With Rockefeller, he co-founded the imperialist Trilateral Commission.

On October 25, The New York Times published a list of "Possible Presidential Appointments." As Obama’s treasury secretary, the Times pointed to Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers. Geithner, head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, has toiled for Rockefeller’s Council On Foreign Relations and Kissinger Associates, which advises Exxon Mobil and other firms that depend on the U.S war machine. Geithner was a leading engineer of J.P. Morgan Chase’s takeover of Bear Stearns and the $250-billion federal buy-in to major banks.

Summers, who as Clinton’s treasury boss helped dismantle Welfare, tried mightily to restore officer training at Harvard when he was its president. The Times says Richard Lugar may run the State Department. In 1997 and 1998, Lugar sponsored a little-known terrorist attack drill that put local police under Pentagon control in cities from coast to coast.

Bosses Use Elections To Settle Their Own Conflicts

In addition to countering any worker protests against the system, elections are also used to provide a peaceful way to deal with conflicts among different sections of the ruling class. Various capitalists who are united in pursuing profits can sometimes have different economic and political needs. Those who are deeply invested in oil production internationally (tracing back to the Rockefeller and Morgan fortunes) are sometimes in conflict with those whose fortunes are tied to domestic oil production.

The government is used to mediate these differences. For instance, the "liberal" internationalists use environmental regulations to hamstring domestic oil producers. As a side effect, the liberals can appear to be pursuing the environmental goals of their supporters.

Health care "reform" is an issue where mediating conflicts between the rulers is combined with attempts to con us into believing that the government represents our interests. The older established section of the rulers, whose fortunes are centered in large industrial and financial institutions, provides most of the health care insurance available to U.S. workers. For decades they’ve been trying to reduce that expense by creating a system where more bosses (and also workers in general) will share that burden by increasing the number of workers who are insured but making the coverage considerably poorer and less expensive than the largest bosses pay now.

Small and medium-sized bosses, who rarely provide insurance coverage, fight these plans by having "their" politicians argue that they will lower the quality of health care available to workers (true). But they downplay the reality that tens of millions of uninsured workers must often choose between paying for food or for medical care.

Resolving this debate may solve problems for some set of bosses, but whether workers support one side or the other, all of us will wind up with the short end of the stick.

From Iran to Guatemala to Chile, U.S. Foreign Policy Pushes Fascist Dictatorships

U.S. rulers have constantly shown that their professed love of "democracy" is just a sham. In 1953, the CIA organized the violent overthrow of the democratically-elected Iranian government led by Mossadegh, whose fatal flaw was believing that the world’s major capitalist powers would sit by and allow him to nationalize Iran’s oil resources. Thousands of his supporters were massacred in order to put the autocratic Shah in power so U.S. companies could gain control over Iran’s oil.

In 1954, the CIA overthrew Guatemala’s democratically-elected Arbenz government — which had nationalized 70% of the country’s land previously owned by United Fruit — causing the murder of hundreds of thousands, many of them indigenous peasants,.

In 1973, the CIA joined with local capitalist and military forces to overthrow the Allende government in Chile. Allende described himself as a Socialist and believed that after he won the presidential election, industries could be nationalized and workers would benefit. He believed in "democracy" and refused to organize and arm workers to defend their gains.

This "belief" left workers defenseless against the U.S.-supported forces of the newly-installed brutal dictator Pinochet, leading to the murder of thousands of workers and leftists.

Today, Iraq and Afghanistan look more like U.S.-occupied colonies than like independent democracies. If the U.S. ruling class shows such hypocrisy defending its interests from imperialist rivals and their lackeys abroad, we have to assume that their concern for the electoral process at home serves their own interests, not ours.

Boeing Sellout: An Attack on All Workers; Reject It!

As we go to press, the company and the union have hashed out a new sellout offer. This is not just betraying Boeing workers. The International Association of Machinists (IAM) and pro-capitalist AFL-CIO misleaders are helping the bosses attack all workers’ wages and conditions.

We need to vote "NO!" and surround the plants with mass picketing to really shut the company down. Today, one worker at our weekly luncheon meeting said, "I’m voting "No" because it will screw the next generation." All agreed. We must expand our modest Party-led efforts to build striker-subcontractor worker anti-racist, international unity and organize solidarity rallies among our supporters locally and nationally.

Boeing CEO Jim McNerney has attacked our "repeated work stoppages," inviting the pro-capitalist union mis-leaders to help him "change this dynamic." They’ve obliged in this sellout. It’s similar to the one we rejected, which sparked this strike initially — except it’s a four-year contract, not the traditional three. (We’ve struck three of the last four contracts.)

Essentially this means a lower wage in the 4th year: normally the biggest increase is up front in the first year, but now what would have been a bigger increase in the first year of the next 3-year contract becomes a smaller one as the 4th year of this contract. For example, pensions increase a scant 2% in the 4th year, not even enough to keep pace with inflation.

New younger workers are attacked the hardest. Starting wages have been frozen for 15 years. Now the offer of a $2.28/hr increase is less than the $3.82/hr advance in the state’s minimum wage over the last 15 years! This contract preserves the same wage increase but over four years, not three. New hires will still make an average of $15/hour in 2012 — if they can get a job at Boeing! The subcontracting regime stays put with a few insignificant face-saving changes in language.

Company-Union Gang-Up Dampens Class Struggle

To win acceptance of this latest contract offer, both the company and the union want to isolate us strikers and wear us down. Both fear any sign we might put our faith in the might of a united working class.

Significantly, the IAM leadership sabotaged any attempt to hold a support rally at Corporate Headquarters in Chicago (see letter page 6). We exposed this treachery to dozens of workers we’ve visited. Every one responded, "That figures!"

What Is Success?

Given all this, one crucial measure of success is how many strikers and supporters are won to seeing the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party as the indispensable organization of the working class. There are two new Party-led study groups and other CHALLENGE readers who’ve agreed to attend Party club meetings.

This is a product of having organized numbers of rank-and-filers to build unity with subcontractor workers, to request and receive support letters and to speak at meetings of workers and students for the first time. One worker at a check distribution point, upon hearing about the need for this unity, exclaimed, "So it’s not us against them, it’s all of us against the company!"

"I’m new to all this," said a striking CHALLENGE reader who traveled to Los Angeles to personally give the "thank you" letter he wrote (and helped gather signatures for) to Boeing union and non-union subcontractor workers who the Party has organized to support our strike. "But it seems to me," he continued, "that you can advance your revolutionary [communist] cause by first educating workers and students like those here about the history and ideas of your movement and through action.

"I can’t speak for all the 27,000 Boeing strikers, but I was impressed by the letters of support from subcontractor workers and was inspired by the response of Los Angeles high school students. I’ve heard how these workers that supported us slave under horrible conditions. The most important thing you can do is advance that struggle here. Pick a factory, any factory! You have enough to fight here to keep you busy for a lifetime!"

Between the two LA meetings involving 85 union and non-union workers and students, black, Latino and white, and a similar support dinner in Chicago, we collected more than enough to pay for our tickets to the LA solidarity event and the continued distribution of over 1,000 CHALLENGES per issue and tens of thousands of communist flyers. Overall, in the strike in Seattle and among the Boeing subcontractors in LA, we’ve distributed over 40,000 PLP flyers and 17,000 CHALLENGEs since the beginning of our industrial summer projects in July.

Local college students, inspired by the emerging anti-racist, international unity between strikers and subcontractor workers, wrote their own leaflets about this outstanding development. They’ve organized through their campus groups to bring students to the picket lines. Internationally, we’ve received more than a dozen support letters (often with donations). Hundreds of rank-and-filers organized by PL’ers have taken the initiative to support us, by-passing the union misleaders.

Our weekly CHALLENGE readers’ luncheon group wrote another "thank you" note to these hundreds who’ve supported us internationally, stressing the need to mobilize the might of a united working class. It advocates mass pickets to shut down the bosses, organizing huge solidarity rallies based on anti-racist unity locally, nationally and worldwide. When we brought this letter to the picket lines for signatures, the overwhelming majority of workers who talked to us signed. We’ve also sent a support letter to the Bronx, NY Stella D’Oro strikers linking their struggle to the anti-racist, international unity we aim to build between subcontractor workers and ourselves.

The Revolutionary Communist PLP: Indispensable Organization Of The Working Class

Boeing CEO McNerney says decent wages, benefits and job guarantees are "unsustainable" in this period of intensified inter-imperialist rivalry exacerbated by "global financial turmoil." The pro-capitalist union hacks agree by running to support the bosses’ global subcontracting regime. They only want a few "ancillary jobs" to remain unionized (which the new contract offer may not include) so they can stay in business.

Most workers have learned from their own experience not to trust the pro-boss union mis-leadership, condemning them in language we can’t print here. Given the worldwide capitalist economic crisis, some are even questioning the viability of trade union reform, particularly around job security. No organization that is dedicated to preserving capitalism can provide viable answers for our class.

We will need many more Boeing CHALLENGE sellers to maintain the mass character of our paper now evident among strikers. As the economic crisis opens the door, we have to rush in with CHALLENGE and our revolutionary alternative to the bosses’ plans for war, racism and rapidly accelerating attacks on our livelihoods.

A CHALLENGE reader who is joining our study group declared, "You have to know what’s going on in the world and how the world works just to survive these days." He knows that our Party — through his reading and selling CHALLENGE, through the discussions and organizing at the CHALLENGE readers’ lunch, and through the anti-racist, international solidarity and class struggle we are attempting to build — gives him the tools to survive. As they say, revolution is the only solution. Now that’s worth a lifetime of struggle.

Building Solidarity Between Boeing Workers in Seattle and Long Beach, Cal. In Spite of Union Sellouts

PLP members took picket signs, leaflets and CHALLENGES to a Boeing plant of UAW members in Long Beach, California. Some said that while they support the Seattle strikers, the IAM leadership "steals jobs from us!"

We told them that all Boeing workers have the same enemy and the same interests. "We aren’t supporting the leadership of the IAM or the UAW. They’re trying to divide you. We’re communists. We’re building unity between Boeing workers in Seattle, Boeing workers in Long Beach, Vought workers, and the subcontractor workers who also work for Boeing." Most workers were then more than willing to get CHALLENGE and our leaflet which stated "Workers Power is our only Security." Our signs supported the Boeing strikers and also said "Warmaker Boeing—stop super-exploiting subcontractor workers!" As the Seattle striker said, Long Beach workers, under the same attacks as workers in Seattle, should strike too!

We also held solidarity dinners with Boeing strikers, raising over $700. Subcontractor and other workers, students and teachers vowed to increase our support for the Boeing workers and fight to increase CHALLENGE sales to build communist class consciousness.

Stella Strikers Face Phony Pols, Cops, Scabs

BRONX, NY, October 18 — Fighting Stella D’Oro strikers were joined by fellow workers from different locals for a rally in support of their strike. PLP students and teachers were also in attendance with revolutionary greetings and anti-scab anger.

Since elections are approaching, several Bronx politicians showed up at the rally. They spoke one after another and made promises to support the strikers. But in reality they have done virtually nothing.

A PL’er exposed the role of scabs, cops and politicians. No matter how badly you need a job, scabbing is never justifiable. When you scab, you are a traitor to your class — the working class. Scabs must be stopped. The politicians have allowed the bakery to remain open even though no quality-control inspector (legally required) is there. The politicians have allowed the cops to remove the shelter and chairs used by the strikers.

The politicians and the cops are on the side of the bosses, whether the Stella D’Oro bosses, the Boeing bosses or any others. The politicians depend on big business for the money to win elections. Their job is to protect the rich rulers of New York City and the country as a whole. As long as the rich run the system, things will always get worse for workers.

Since the rally, the cops have again demonstrated that they are the servants of the bosses. This week, in an attempt to break the strike, the Stella D’Oro bosses and NYC police orchestrated the arrest of one of the strike’s key organizers. One of the bosses falsely claimed to have received a phone threat from this organizer. The organizer was pointed out by the general manager, arrested and held for two days at Bronx central booking on $20,000 bail. Though charged with only two misdemeanors, this was clearly not only an attempt to remove the organizer from the struggle, but also to deplete the union’s strike fund.

As a result of this and other attacks, the strike fund is rapidly running out. Any contributions will be well-used and greatly appreciated. Since the arrest, PLP comrades have met with the strike leadership to push for immediate demonstrations to call for the dropping of these trumped-up charges against this strike leader.

The only way we will have decent lives is through working-class revolution. Many workers responded enthusiastically to the Party’s ideas. Counter to our message, the union president pushed the line of following the law, doing whatever the cops say and counting on the politicians. This is a losing strategy. We must count on our fellow workers and ourselves. We must build a united fight-back that takes on the bosses, their politicians, their cops and their scabs.

Howard U. Students Demand Halt to Racist Execution

WASHINGTON, DC, October 24 — During two days of rallying, members of Howard University’s Political Education and Action Committee (PEAC), were joined by members of Malcolm X Grassroots and the American Civil Liberties Union to fight the wrongful execution of Troy Davis.

PEAC speakers declared that Davis’ execution, scheduled for October 27, is one more example of the entrenched racism of the U.S. system. Davis, a black man, has been in prison almost 20 years for supposedly killing 27-year-old Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989.

The District Attorney and police intimidated and coerced witnesses to get a conviction of then 19-year-old Davis. Now decades later, seven of the nine key witnesses have recanted, and other witnesses have identified a person they believe to be the actual killer — but innocence is not a defense, according to the U.S. Supreme Court and the State of Georgia!

Campus police were sent to stop the PEAC rally, and a leader was detained when he refused to stop speaking on a bullhorn. Students continued their bullhorn rally despite the attack. The University administration’s effort to harass and suppress student activism — using the pretense that the students were "disrupting classes" — stands in stark contrast to the University’s endorsement of ear-splitting concerts and fraternity celebrations on the main campus at the same time of day.

This confrontation demonstrated that the so-called "legacy" of Howard University in civil rights struggle and progressive action is in reality a legacy of student and worker movements in opposition to the University. The University is a corporation dominated by big businessmen and the bosses’ politicians. We have no unity with the University administration which parades behind a fig leaf of liberalism while trying to blunt the revolutionary spirit of its students!

On the second day of the rally, Davis’s lawyer announced he had received a 30-day stay of execution, but this is only a temporary respite while the government figures out how to move forward with the execution of an innocent black man.

The racist (in)justice system is critical to the U.S. ruling class’s strategy of intimidating superexploited black workers and dividing them from other workers. But repression breeds resistance, and racism must give rise to anti-racist revolutionary unity.

Today’s financial crises and wars will give rise to ever-greater racist offensives against the working class as the rulers become increasingly desperate to build their profits and power. It is urgent that struggles like the Troy Davis case be linked to the battles of workers throughout the world. We must turn these into a fight for communist revolution to destroy the capitalist roots of racist oppression.

a name="PL’ers Foil Mis-Leaders, Win UFT Backing for Stella D’Oro Strikers"></">PL"ers Foil Mis-Leaders, Win UFT Backing for Stella D’Oro Strikers

NEW YORK CITY, October 15 — Four Stella D’Oro strikers brought by PLP members to the teachers union Delegate Assembly (DA) here won a rousing standing ovation from the approximately 1,000 delegates as well as a solidarity endorsement and a "sizeable contribution" to their strike fund. The PLP’ers’ effort overcame the union leadership’s attempt to stop the strikers from speaking, worried that the workers’ militant actions would expose the misleaders’ pacifist response to the growing economic crisis and $700 billion bailout to the banks. The latter was the reason for the emergency meeting.

The UFT (United Federation of Teachers) leadership showed more allegiance to the interests of the bosses than to the workers they allegedly represent.

In the debate on the resolutions, the leadership’s position on escalating cutbacks and mass racist unemployment was to react with our "head and not our hearts." This in a school system with 85% black, Latino and Asian students whose budget has been cut by $500 million and that sets them up for either poverty-wage jobs or as cannon fodder in the U.S. bosses’ imperialist wars. Although members and friends of PLP could not defeat resolutions supporting pacifism and the bosses’ elections, we did mobilize a different message.

Along with bringing the four strikers, over 200 copies of CHALLENGE were distributed as well as hundreds of leaflets entitled, "Support the Boeing, Morelos and Stella D’Oro strikers; Bosses’ Bailout only Bails Out Bosses: Workers’ Revolution Will THROW Them Out!" The well-received leaflet contained a resolution calling on the UFT to endorse all three strikes and provide financial aid for the Stella D’Oro strikers.

One PLP delegate was expecting to get the floor to present our resolution. But in attempting to divert the strikers from speaking, the misleadership claimed we were "acting hastily" and should follow protocol and wait for the workers’ local President to receive a "proper endorsement."

One PLP delegate declared there’s no "protocol" when it comes to a strike. "These workers have been on strike since August 13, just saw the cops remove their picket-line tarp and chairs and traveled all the way from the Bronx to get our support and all you have to talk about is protocol. Put them on stage and let them speak!" Knowing our history of boldly raising revolutionary politics at the DA, the union hacks quickly backtracked, saying they’d allow the strikers to speak.

To guarantee this, another PLP delegate escorted the four strikers on stage amid a roaring, standing ovation. UFT President Randi Weingarten sanctioned a unanimous resolution containing a general endorsement of the strike and a "sizeable contribution" to their strike fund. It encouraged members to attend the October 18th strike rally.

The strikers were congratulated with dozens of handshakes and words of encouragement. PLP members emphasized that they represent a working-class response to this economic crisis, which is why the leadership tried to ignore our resolution.

They did succeed in watering down our original motion. In supporting the Stella D’Oro strikers, Weingarten’s resolution omitted the other two much larger strikes and still hasn’t mentioned either of them — no accident.

We will return to the November DA with an even stronger push. Several delegates are reporting these struggles to their local schools. A few have published reports calling for support for all three strikes and openly criticizing the UFT’s pacifist misleadership during this vicious period of giveaways to the bosses and cutbacks for the working class.

a name="Cops Trample Iraq Vets; Pacifism Won’t Work">">"ops Trample Iraq Vets; Pacifism Won’t Work

Hempstead, NY October 18 — The final presidential debate was hosted here today but the most important message of the day unfolded outside.

Several days before the debate, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) demanded that members be allowed to address questions to the candidates on war resisters and funding for the Veterans Administration (VA). The vets received no response, so an hour before the debate a march was organized in order to enter the debate and ask the candidates the questions.

Over a hundred anti-war protestors followed the vets and chanted, "Let them in!" Several vets were arrested as planned but then mounted riot police charged the crowd, injuring several demonstrators including IVAW member, Nick Morgan, who was knocked to the ground and trampled. Morgan suffered a gashing wound to his face and a displaced cheekbone from the horses’ hooves.

An IVAW member and former army National Guard sergeant, Jabbar Magruder, angrily responded, "How can you treat veterans like that in America?...It is not what I gave eight years of my life [in the military] for. It is not what I served in Iraq for. This is not the America I believe in." Many patriotic vets and protestors shared Magruder’s rage and disbelief; however the attacks showed the real truth about America.

The police attacks are a systemic problem, and not caused by a few bad cops. Civil disobedience is a failure as a tactic to stop the war; and the media and politicians’ silence on the incident equals their consent for the police attacks.

What the police, media, and politicians don’t want is for people to conclude that pacifist strategies don’t work, the candidates don’t care, and police brutality is systemic to capitalism. However, facts prove otherwise. The Winter Soldier hearings, eyewitness accounts of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, paint a brutal picture of what capitalist competition does to both working-class occupied and working-class occupying troops.

The cops treatment of protestors at Hofstra — similar to cops day-to-day racist treatment of black, Latin, and immigrant workers as well as the racism inherent in U.S. troops attacks on the Iraqi’s and Afghans — show that the bosses will widen fascist brutality as they see fit in order to achieve their goals of making U.S. workers accept more war, higher prices, and less government services.

Many in IVAW honestly believe in their power to build a non-violent movement of resisting troops to force the Iraq war to end, full funding for the VA, and reparations for the Iraqi people (some in IVAW are even pushing the organization to formally address Afghanistan). However the root of the problem remains capitalism’s pursuit of maximum profit and no capitalist has ever peacefully stopped profit wars.

Vietnamese fighting and U.S. troops’ rebellions — including physically fighting racists and the killing of higher-ups — led to the withdrawal of US ground forces in the U.S. war on Vietnam. And a generation after the anti-Vietnam war struggle, the international working class faces even longer and deadlier wars and the same attacks by police because the root of the problem remains: Capitalist’s grip on state power. Only the communist-led revolutions in Russia in 1917 and China in 1949 have smashed the bosses grip on state power. Those revolutionaries made many mistakes that led to their demise but the fight for workers’ power remains the important correct lesson that we still must fight for.

a name="East Coast PLP Youth Back Strikers, Expose Bosses’ Elections">">"ast Coast PLP Youth Back Strikers, Expose Bosses’ Elections

New York City, NY, October 18,--About twenty-five black and Latin high school and college students spent today engaged in building a communist alternative to the bosses’ electoral circus. Instead of settling for a choice of which candidate will lead us into a future of more war and more fascism, a new generation of young leaders planned and executed a day of activity that solidified our determination to build the only movement that represents a true choice for workers, the movement for workers power. Our recent experiences at the Summer Project in Los Angeles reminded us all how inspirational and necessary it is for us to bring our forces together, and so we held a day of activity for East Coast comrades and friends.

Due to ongoing and deepening relationships party members have built among striking workers at the Stella D’Oro cookie plant in the Bronx, we were invited to begin our day at a rally outside the factory gates. The time for the rally was pushed back by cops from twelve to ten on Saturday, but our young people understood the importance of strike support and all who committed to show up at twelve made the effort to meet up earlier, including our young out-of-town comrades who had arrived late the night before.

Communist consciousness ("we need to be at the workers’ rally") beat out capitalist individualism ("let me sleep") so our day got off to a splendid start! A young Baltimore comrade moved the crowd when she spoke about the need for unity between students and workers.

At the CUNY Social Forum, young comrades led a workshop on the elections where fake leftists once again revealed themselves to be far more interested in arguing with other leftists than in fighting the bosses. Finally we headed down to Brooklyn for our evening forum at a local church entitled "Elections in the Shadow of Imperialist War."

An aspiring young teacher gave a clear and sharp overview of the current economic crisis, followed by a high school comrade whose presentation on the candidates exposed how this election really is about who the bosses think can best lead the U.S. working class into a future of more fascism and more war. In this light, our line that Obama is the main danger was driven home.

Then comrades from Baltimore put on a powerful show, including a short movie, about their struggle against budget cuts in Maryland and the need for revolution, not reform. The program was rounded out by other young leaders who spoke on how striking workers represent the real leadership we need, not politicians, and a group from a local high school who recounted past class struggles in their school against budget cuts and how more struggle will be needed in the future as the answer to economic crisis and war. The future of the working class is in good hands, with these motivated and dedicated young people learning to lead the way to a revolution. J

a name="Do-Nothing ‘Leaders,’ Scabs Undercut Vought Strikers"></">Do"Nothing ‘Leaders,’ Scabs Undercut Vought Strikers

Nashville, TN –– Nearly 1,000 Machinists (IAM 735) have been on strike since September 27 against Vought Aircraft Industries, a huge aerospace subcontractor. Vought wants to freeze the pension plan for employees with less than 16 years seniority and replace it with a 401(k) plan. Meanwhile, Vought’s net income so far this year is over $108 million, more than double last year.

Since the strike began, the capitalist financial meltdown has made it crystal-clear what the economic impact of the pension freeze would be on the workers. The political impact would be to weaken class solidarity by dividing younger and older workers. A striker commented, "Fortunately the older employees recognize this and are not willing to accept this offer at the expense of their younger union brothers and sisters."

Dallas-based Vought has brought in managers and other scabs to run the Nashville plant, which assembles wing and tail structures for commercial and military aircraft. Strikers are warning these scabs that "You’re being told how they need you [but] in the end they wont care about you, and your fellow employees will despise you. You will end up in your own private hell."

Rumor has it that when one scab told the boss he’d gotten a couple of flat tires, he was told that the company "wasn’t buying tires." Company officials admit that the strike is hurting productivity, but with the plant open, time is on their side. Workers need to shut it down! Instead of organizing mass picketing, IAM 735 leaders are encouraging workers to find temporary jobs elsewhere.

Vought is the largest subcontractor to Boeing on the C-17 program and builds the aft fuselage sections for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. The website of IAM 735 in Nashville features video clips from the Boeing strike, but IAM leaders are doing NOTHING to build rank-and-file solidarity among Boeing and Vought strikers, let alone broader support.

Vought facilities producing Boeing commercial airplane products and most impacted by the Boeing IAM strike include Stuart, Fla.; Grand Prairie, Texas; Milledgeville, Ga., and North Charleston, S.C. Vought is trying to use workers from these plants to break the strike in Tennessee. Clearly, aerospace workers across the board need to fight the racism and drive for maximum profit that has slashed wages of workers all over. Workers with communist leadership need to make this part of the long-term fight to destroy the profit system.

"It just seems like we are going backwards rather than forward," commented a Vought striker. And that’s in aerospace, an industry that will continue to grow as the U.S. imperialist ruling class steps up its preparation for wider war. But in this period of capitalist crisis and increasing attacks on the working class we can move forward by taking on the bosses attacks with increased fight-back, spreading the communist ideas of CHALLENGE, and building PLP.

a name="Mass Strikes Hit EU Bosses’ Bailout Attacks on Workers">">"ass Strikes Hit EU Bosses’ Bailout Attacks on Workers

Ever since European bosses formed the European Union (EU) in 1993, workers’ demands for any improvements in their lives and working conditions have been rejected because the EU guidelines "wouldn’t allow it." When working-class voters massively rejected the unified European Constitution in referendums in France and Holland in 2005, the rulers simply had the national parliaments adopt the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, allowing privatizations, cutbacks and other attacks on workers throughout Europe.

But when the current economic tsunami hit Europe’s bosses, their EU guidelines were the first thing to go as each national group of bosses nationalized and bailed out banks and cut each others’ throats. Britain threatened Iceland because the latter’s banking crisis affected billions invested by British bankers there. European "unity" went out the window as each capitalist country’s ruling class tried to save its own bankers and bosses.

But the crisis has also sharpened workers’ militancy, involving mass protests and strikes, including a general strike in Belgium on October 6 (see CHALLENGE, 10/29).

Greece Paralyzed

On October 21, a massive general strike paralyzed Greece, the ninth one against the conservative Karamanlis government since 2004. There were huge protests nationwide, two in Athens organized by different union groups. The strike shut down airlines, heavy industries, transportation, health services and schools. It also opposed the 2009 draft budget, headed for parliamentary debate.

The Greek budget would "reform" the pension system, adversely affecting millions of workers. They are also angry at the recent $37 billion bailout of failed banks, the privatization of companies such as Olympic Airlines, the ports, utilities and education. This would attack even more public-sector workers.

Workers were even more irate because while billions of euros of public money are being used to bail out banks, huge financial scandals are erupting, involving many government cabinet members and the "holy rollers" of a Greek Orthodox Church monastery.

Thousands March In Italy

On October 17, a mass strike took place in Italy against the anti-working-class policies of Prime Minister Berlusconi. A governmental education "reform" threatens 87,000 teaching jobs, huge cuts in health services and allows temporary contracts in many industries, leading to wage cuts.

Workers marched in many cities, including 300,000 in Rome, where the cops had to guard the education ministry to protect it from angry college and H.S. student protestors. In Milan, students and cops clashed when students tried to take over the Polytechnic college.

The attacks against workers and students are occurring amid a huge racist campaign against immigrant workers and youth which has led to murders and pogroms of Roma people and violent attacks against immigrants from Africa and Asia.

Teachers, Parents Protest in France

In France, the teachers’ unions and the main parent organization called a national demonstration in Paris on October 19. It had tepid demands — "to defend the public education service, to demand a halt to the budgetary policy of austerity and that necessary reforms be made in a different manner," according to the leader of the Christian teachers’ union. The "church bazaar" atmosphere only mobilized 40,000 protesters, although the union misleaders are claiming twice that number. Some analysts believe workers in France are "disoriented" by the economic crisis, not surprising since no organization is putting forward revolutionary politics.

The mass strikes in Greece and Italy are good but are not enough. Union leaders and opponents of conservative governments in Italy and Greece are using them as an electoral tool to bring back "pro-worker" bourgeois governments. In Italy, such a government preceded Berlusconi’s return to power last year. It was supported by Refondazione (the remnants of the old "Communist" Party). That government also attacked immigrants and workers, and sent troops to fight in the imperialist war in Afghanistan.

In the current situation of sharpening dogfights among imperialists to save their own skins during the global economic meltdown, any bourgeois government must attack workers more sharply.

A big victory workers and their allies could gain from these struggles is the building of a new revolutionary communist leadership, breaking with all the capitalist collaborators calling themselves "leftists." Only then could the working class construct a truly united society without any bankers or capitalists.

Auto Workers Must Strike Against Racist Unemployment

The current global economic crisis places auto workers at the beginning of a worldwide depression. Ground zero may be on Wall Street, but all workers will feel the effects. There will be no billion-dollar bailouts for us, no matter who wins the bosses’ White House. We need communist revolution.

Already, more than $25 TRILLION has been destroyed, much of it workers’ pensions, 401(k)s and IRAs. But the storm is just starting, and the bosses may have to amputate more of the domestic auto industry than they save. Before the crash, more than 140,000 auto jobs had been wiped out with the collaboration of the UAW International leadership.

Janesville, Wisconsin GM and Minneapolis Ford — where over 80% of the workers are Temporary Part-Timers (TPTs) — which already set to close, will close sooner. The Chicago Ford Assembly plant — almost half the workforce being TPTs — was losing a shift. This workforce also includes workers on parole or recently released from jail in the "Second Chance" program and is overwhelmingly black. That’s why racist Ford can get away with paying them about $7/hr!

Over the last year, GM stock dropped more than 80%, and Ford over 75%. With the crash, GM shares fell to $4.00 and Ford to $2.00. Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian started selling his $1 billion investment in Ford as it shrank to $300 million. Cerberus tried to sell Chysler to GM (after buying it for $7.4 billion a year ago), but no group of panicked bankers will finance the deal. Such a deal would cost over 30,000 jobs.

"Conditions in the industry are so perilous they are scaring away even the most fearless investors," said a partner in a major automotive consulting firm. "It’s reaching a point where we’ll have to decide if we’re willing to let the U.S. auto industry fail," said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. (NY Times, 10/22).

There are still more than 200,000 "Big 3" auto workers and more than a million retirees. But the emerging depression could cut these numbers in half. GM and Ford have lost more than $28 billion in the first six months of this year and are burning through more than $1 billion in cash each month. Despite massive cutbacks they can’t stop the bleeding.

This depression is pushing the bosses closer to another world war. They ultimately resolve their crises by destroying the factories, and factory workers, of their competitors. The U.S. is also moving more rapidly to full-blown Nazi-style fascism, with racist terror the cutting edge of the bosses’ attacks. Capitalism doesn’t work. The bosses’ future for us is expanding war, racist unemployment, poverty wages and police terror.

UAW President Gettlefinger and Ford CEO Alan Mulally (formerly of Boeing), can hold hands and go over a cliff but we don’t have to join them. Instead, we should follow the lead of 27,000 striking Boeing workers and strike for jobs.

In Chicago, we should keep our laid-off brothers and sisters active in our local unions and reach out to unemployed workers and youth in the region. Employed and unemployed Ford workers can unite with full and part-time CTA bus operators, working and laid-off hospital and city workers, immigrant workers and unemployed youth, and demand jobs on election night in downtown Chicago, not celebrate the bosses’ election.

Amid this struggle against racist unemployment, we must win workers to fight for communist revolution. More Ford workers are reading CHALLENGE newspaper, and are learning how the world works and how to change it. Our union contracts aren’t worth the paper they are written on in the face of fascism, depression and war. The bosses will survive this and all crises until we destroy them. By patiently building a mass PLP, this current depression can open the door to communist revolution.

a name="Colombia Fascists Can’t Stop Raging Class Struggle">">"olombia Fascists Can’t Stop Raging Class Struggle

Class struggles rage on amid more fascist repression here in Colombia. On August 15, a heavily-armed death squad called Los Rastrojos entered the house of Pablo Bolaños, a poor peasant, in a rural area of the State of Cauca. Several days later his mangled dead body was found with his nails pulled out and his tongue and the soles of his feet cut off.

He was murdered in the Argelia municipality, totally militarized by an Army Infantry Battalion. Cops covered the area. Clearly the death squads operate freely, backed by the Army and police.

In the municipality of Soacha, 20 youth were found buried in a common grave. People there say they saw soldiers and civilians jointly recruiting youth to work in another region with higher wages. The bosses’ media said these young people were all "guerrillas killed in combat." But their relatives and friends labeled this a blatant lie. There have been up to 200 youths murdered recently throughout Colombia under similar circumstances.

Hundreds of youth have been slain to try to crush any kind of organizing against the bosses and their death squads. Some victims were involved in fighting in the neighborhoods and towns. One was a revolutionary-minded worker who was offered a well-paying job as an electrician in another town. He was brutally killed, along with another worker, and their bodies dumped in a town near Bogotá.

Guillermo Rivera, while taking his daughter to school, was one of 42 union activists killed so far this year. A video camera showed Rivera being forced into a police car and taken away. His dead body was found four months later.

But these fascist murders have not halted the class struggle. Indigenous people have been blocking highways during several days of mass anti-racist protests in the State of Cauca and other rural areas, demanding an end to the repression, and that land seized by the landlords’ hired death squads be returned. They have not fallen for the government’s slander of being "infiltrated by guerrillas." An Army attack failed to stop their nationwide mass march on October 21.

On October 23, 500,000 workers, mostly state employees and teachers, went out on a 24-hour general strike called by the CUT union federation to protest the state of emergency declared by the government to smash a long strike by judicial system workers. Some 56,000 marched in Bogotá as well as thousands in other cities.

Amid the current global capitalist meltdown, the rulers’ attacks are bound to sharpen since Uribe has tied Colombia’s economy much closer to that of the U.S. Building for the general strike, on October 16 tens of thousands of public school teachers in the State of Sucre demonstrated against recent layoffs and a government plan to downgrade their health plan. It was part of a national day of protest by teachers against government attacks on their jobs.

Some 9,000 sugar cane cutters have been on a month-long strike in Cauca, affecting the ethanol and paper production industries. The strikers are demanding better pay and working conditions.
So it’s clear that the capitalist rulers’ fascist attacks, using their hired killers in and out of uniform, cannot stop the class struggle. The anger and militancy of workers and youth here offer our PLP group great opportunities if we redouble our efforts in bringing them our communist politics, exposing the reformists, union sellouts and others who say Uribe is the problem instead of the entire capitalist system. Using DESAFIO as our revolutionary ideological weapon is crucial for our Party to make serious inroads among workers and youth in the near future.

A Comrade, Colombia

Union Leaders Show How Not To Organize Support for Boeing Strikers

A friend of mine is a local union officer and wanted to organize a picket of various unions at the Boeing World Headquarters in Chicago. He told me the following story:

A local president told him to call Jobs With Justice, an AFL-CIO strike support group. The guy at JWJ told my friend that they couldn’t do anything until they were asked by the striking union, the IAM.

So my friend called the local IAM. The IAM guy said it was a great idea and said they represented Boeing workers in St. Louis. My friend asked him if he could bring a busload of workers from St. Louis to picket the world headquarters. He said, "of course we can do that."

He said he had to "check with the boss," and he’d get back to him after the weekend. He never did, and when my friend called him, the IAM guy said that negotiations had just resumed, and "the boss" didn’t want to do anything to upset the talks. My friend asked, "A few hundred workers picketing the world headquarters will hurt your chances?" The IAM guy said we’ll just have to wait.

Another guy in my friend’s local called the IAM spokesperson in Seattle and asked her to call JWJ so we could have the strike support picket line at Boeing world headquarters. She said, "We don’t want to bypass the local union in your area, you better go through them." "But they’re not the ones on strike," he replied.

Without a mass base for PLP that is constantly challenging the union leaders, we are at their mercy. If we can’t move people into battle, we are left with the demoralizing union hacks, who don’t want to fight or up the ante. Workers have to take control of these battles, and having a mass base for PLP is the only way to do that. From organizing mass picket lines at the Boeing strike to mass demonstrations at the Chicago world headquarters, we have to challenge the union leaders and move workers into battle.

A Reader

CHALLENGE Binds Striker and Red Transit Worker

I work for the NYC transit system and during my lunch break I visited the picket line of the Stella D’Oro factory workers. After speaking to some strikers one gave me a CHALLENGE. One striker told me that some teachers, professors and students had been there in support and they gave the picketers this paper that explained their struggle. We exchanged contact info and I returned to the picket line days later for a strike rally with several comrades and friends.

The rally, and PLP’s participation in it, allowed us to raise good conversations about the Party’s ideas with my friends on the car ride home. A comrade, who is a teacher, plans to return to the picket lines with her students and I’ve raised the strike with my co-workers.

I plan to stay in touch with the worker who gave me CHALLENGE and invite him to participate in PL activities. While he likes the paper and told me the strike is important for all workers — not just the strikers — in this economic crisis, he spent most of the rally talking to local politicians and doesn’t see building a revolutionary communist movement as the most important aspect of the struggle. Hopefully, we’ll make long-term ties with him and transform his superficial agreement on the Party’s support for their strike into active participation in future Party actions.

Red Transit Worker

Retirees Back Boeing Strikers; Hacks Balk

At the September meeting of my union retiree association, the attendees agreed to send a resolution of support to the Boeing strikers. The response from my fellow retirees was so enthusiastic that I brought a similar resolution to the retirees Association of AFSCME’s DC 37. This group represents 50,000 retired city workers. These workers’ response to supporting the Boeing strikers was overwhelming also. Both organizations quickly sent letters of support.

I was asked by a leader of the DC 37 retirees, "Why hadn’t Kourpais called for support of the strike?" George Kourpais, the head of the AFL-CIO retiree nationwide network, was the former President of the International Association of Machinists (the union which represents the striking Boeing workers).

After such favorable responses from retiree organizations, I brought the same resolution to the active members of AFSCME’s 125,000 strong DC 37 at a meeting of its delegate assembly. Although initially ruled out of order when I tried to raise Boeing strike support, I persisted and was able to again bring a resolution to the floor. The President of DC 37 again tried to block the motion, saying that a retiree could not present resolutions to this assembly. Another delegate, however, was willing to move my resolution that passed overwhelmingly. After the vote I asked to receive a copy of the support letter.

A week later I checked, there was no letter. Three weeks later, no letter. I called the secretary of DC 37. He said no letter had been sent yet.

Fighting for these support statements revealed that rank-and-file members are willing to support building solidarity and working-class unity, while at the same time the upper level and national leadership actively try to hold back such efforts.

Brooklyn Retiree

H.S. Students Support Boeing Strikers

Dear Boeing Strikers,

We are a group of students in Los Angeles who read about your strike in CHALLENGE. The following are statements from some of us:

* A strike can make a difference. As the daughter of a working-class family, I know the struggles and hardship the working class goes through on a day to day basis. I know that the strike will be successful due to the fact that workers are the ones who make this world. All the wealth that the bosses have comes from the working class; we create their profits. If the workers go on strike, the bosses aren’t making any money.

* It is important that this article talked about unity. Our class, the working class, is strongest when all of us — union and non-union alike — are lined up together against our common enemies.

* I learned about the important role of workers who make airplanes; especially war planes. It’s good that we have the power to stop making airplanes. If we want to stop the war, you guys are really important.

* Unity among workers — citizens and non citizens, students, and every single person who belongs to the working class — is important. We are all struggling to get what we need, but if we don’t unite, there’s no point. We want to end the bosses’ rule because in one way or another, workers are being exploited. Here in California we have a lot of immigrant workers who get paid less than many others.

* It’s an inspiration to me as a working class comrade to see all of you out there on the front line everyday in unity, side by side, fighting back. I just want to say on behalf of the youth of LA, you have all of our support. Tough times are ahead. I just hope you all can keep your chins up and fists in the air. We all can win this fight and will, sooner or later. Many of the bosses will try to put you down and divide the workers, but if you all keep the unity, you are a strong force. Keep up the struggle.

a name="Capitalism’s Mass Unemployment Spreading Worldwide">">"apitalism’s Mass Unemployment Spreading Worldwide

Both bosses’ candidates, Obama and McCain, build false consciousness among many U.S. workers. McCain jabbers about Joe the Plumber, a non-union, right-wing plumber who has illusions about owning a plumbing business. Obama babbles on about how the "middle class" is hurting. But the working class, the overwhelming majority, did not benefit from the "boom" years of the ’90s and is now hurting even more from the current capitalist economic tsunami.

For millions of workers, capitalism in the U.S. and worldwide in the last three decades has meant lower wages, union-busting, racist and fascist ethnic cleansing from the Balkans to Iraq to Rwanda to the U.S. (with 2.4 million in jail, mainly black and Latin males). Endless wars, racist-fascist terror and mass unemployment are the main aspects of global capitalism. In fact, the director of the UN’s International Labor Organization estimates that the current capitalist crisis will increase unemployment by 20 million worldwide.

According to the AFL-CIO (and it ought to know), over 45 million U.S. workers earn $10.20 an hour or less. One of four earns $9.60/hour, the official poverty rate for a family of three. And 15 million workers earn the minimum wage, $6.70/hour. Among black workers, one of three earns the poverty wage or less.

Throughout the entire history of the profit system, the only time "full employment" has ever existed is during world war — and then only in the more advanced capitalist countries which are the main antagonists of such wars.

Many compare the present crisis to the Great Depression of the 1930s when one-third of the working class in the leading capitalist nations was jobless. It was only when a military draft was enacted and during World War II when countries’ industries became completely devoted to war production that anything approaching "full employment" materialized.

Of course, that presumes that tens of millions in WWII uniforms could be labeled "employed" (at least 14 million in the U.S.). Meanwhile, the main warring capitalists in Germany, Japan, the U.S. and Britain geared total production for the weapons of war. It was only then that capitalism could claim the unemployment problem had been "solved." The German and Japanese fascists used millions of slave laborers for their war production. The war wiped out 100 million people permanently, including tens of millions of workers. A similar capitalist "solution" to the current crisis is not far-fetched.

The only country without any unemployment before WWII was the Soviet Union which had no private profit system; the source of unemployment, racism and war. It lost 25 million people in the war while its Red Army defeated the bulk of the Axis fascist armies.

Capitalism is based on the accumulation of maximum profits. The only source of profit is the value created by workers in the course of production. However, workers’ wages do not equal the full value they create. If that were true, there would be no profit for the boss. So the bosses try to keep workers’ wages at the lowest level possible, turning as much of the value workers create into profits for the bosses.

But each individual capitalist is competing against all his/her rivals for the maximum share of the market, and produces as much as they think they can sell. However, nothing is planned. So overproduction results, exceeding what the market can buy. Those capitalists who can produce at the lowest possible cost push aside many of their rivals. The latter, seeking to reduce costs to stay in business, feel compelled to achieve that by cutting labor costs, leading to either wage-cuts or mass layoffs, or both. Thus, unemployment is intrinsic to capitalism.

Racism is one of the main weapons capitalists use to reduce their costs. Historically, they relegate various sections of the working class to "second-class" status — the lowest wages, the hardest jobs, the last hired and first fired, and the worst-off in other aspects of life: housing, healthcare, education, etc. In the U.S., this super-exploitation has fallen on black workers, going back to slavery, and in the last two centuries also on Latino and Asian workers. (This does not include the genocide perpetrated against Native Americans who suffer the highest rate of joblessness, 90%.)

The capitalist class reaps super-profits from this racism, partly from the difference in family income between white workers and that of black, Latino and Asian, and partly because the bosses use the lower wages of super-exploited workers to drag town the wages of the entire working class. In the U.S., this difference amounted to $250 billion annually a decade ago, and is probably much higher when figuring in capitalist competition using racism on a world scale, not just within each capitalist country.

Since China has become a full-blown capitalist country, the imperialists have used its huge cheap labor to shift production away from relatively higher-paying areas. Others — India, Latin America, Vietnam and the former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe — have been used to "outsource" jobs. This "globalization," in turn, has also been used to lower workers’ wages in the imperialist countries, and even to subcontract key industrial jobs in auto, steel, aerospace, etc., to low-paying non-union areas all across the southern U.S. and California. Racism against immigrant and black workers has been crucial in this process. The pro-capitalist policies of the union leadership have helped the bosses carry out this massive attack.

This competition for profits, and for resources such as oil, gas and minerals needed for modern capitalist production, as well as to equip modern armies, is what leads to military confrontation: war. And not limited to wars between two countries, but to world war. This "solution" to inter-imperialist competition plus the mass unemployment produced by the general competition among bosses in one country and between corporations internationally is part and parcel of capitalism. This is what produces the cycles of "boom" and "bust," of recessions and depressions. This is the history of capitalism.

Obama and McCain constantly prattle about concern for "the middle class." They rarely, if ever, use the term "working class." But classes are defined by their relation to the means of production. U.S. workers who might earn $50,000 a year and manage to hang on to their houses and cars are labeled "middle class" and are even portrayed as "future owners of small businesses."

But auto or aerospace workers (or plumbers) can be laid off tomorrow, victims of the bosses’ drive to cut costs to maintain profits, and their homes and cars go up in smoke. Currently millions of U.S. workers are losing their houses because of the capitalists’ scams to make paper profits from subprime mortgages, because profit rates from these swindles exceed those that can be reaped from industrial production.

Workers and youth who think a President Obama will "create good jobs" will soon be disillusioned. These jobs will either be civilian ones, the "National Service-type," with low wages and no benefits or contain the military "option" to carry on U.S. rulers’ oil wars worldwide.

We must be involved with these working-class youth in their mass organizations and win them to see that, under capitalism, their desire for "decent jobs, healthcare, education and housing" is a mirage. We must be part of their daily fights in order to transform them into intensified class struggle between the two classes and use this opportunity to build the Progressive Labor Party. Our goal must be communist revolution to abolish capitalism, its system of wage slavery and racist super-exploitation.

While capitalist crises in and of themselves will not topple the system, they do open the door to building a movement and Party that can lead to the destruction of that system. This is the working class’s only way out of the insufferable horrors of the profit system.

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

Let’s make up for lost time

GW, 10/17

The markets no longer have any faith that the world financial system they helped create has any future. The model is bust…. This is history’s joke: the crisis of capitalism long predicted by communists…

Bush-speak proves Marx right!

NYT, 10/18

Everybody knows that anything our president says is very likely wrong, and certainly won’t happen….

So hearts sunk throughout the nation when Bush appeared at a Chamber of Commerce gathering to say that the economy would recover.

"America is the most attractive destination for investors around the globe. America is the home of the most talented and enterprising and creative workers in the world," said the president, who also insisted that "democratic capitalism remains the greatest system ever devised."

Which translates into: all the money is going to Asia, nobody will ever get a job again and Karl Marx was right after all.

Quick relief, but not for hungry

GW, 10/24

"Rich countries are directing their attention to… turmoil in the financial sector, but the number of malnourished people in the world rose by 44 million in 2008. Nearly one billion people are now going hungry. When you consider the speed of the world’s response to the credit crisis, the delay in acting is shocking," an Oxfam spokesman said…

Age + foreclosure = catastrophe

NYT, 10/18

Losing a home to foreclosure is a disaster for anyone. It’s a catastrophe for older people….

"I had all these stacks of papers at the closing," she told me, "and they were just passing papers back and forth to me, back and forth, telling me to sign. And I kept saying, ‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute.’"

She was assured that nothing untoward was going on.

Ms. Richardson did not have a fixed-rate mortgage. Her monthly payment rose, and rose again, eventually passing $800, which she could not pay….

"You find yourself gradually climbing down the economic ladder, and you start thinking, ‘How am I going to survive, and where am I going to go?... Oh, my god. I’m going to end up sleeping in my car.’"

Seeking Cannon Fodder, Obama Enlists Mass Murderer Powell

War criminal Colin Powell’s recent endorsement of Barack Obama speaks volumes about the Obama camp’s militaristic intentions. Powell has a long military history of serving U.S. rulers, from Vietnam to Gulf Wars I and II (see below). This endorsement means Obama embraces the "Powell Doctrine," which demands rallying wide popular and international support to unleash overwhelming force against any imperialist rivals threatening U.S. bosses’ interests, particularly oil.

As part of this strategy, the Obama-Powell love match aims at reversing the sharp decline — 41% last year — in black enlistment in the armed forces. They especially want to stem the loss — mainly due to the racist nature of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — of black sergeants, who train recruits and thus form the backbone of the Army and Marines. The rulers also count on loyal retired black non commission officers (NCOs) to recruit and spread patriotism in their neighborhoods.

In 1996, Charles Moskos, who later worked on Clinton’s Hart-Rudman Commission reports outlining U.S. imperialism’s goals for the 21st Century, co-wrote a book called "All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way." In it he said, "The beneficial impact of black sergeants extends beyond the Army. Every year 2,000 black NCOs in the Army (4,000 in the military as a whole) retire from service....The impact of this group of men — and now women as well — on the civilian black community will be tangible and positive." Obama hopes having Powell on board will help him get the 91,000 additional soldiers he demands for, among other stated aims, expanding the Afghan war into Pakistan.

With 35 years as a professional soldier, Powell rose to full General. He got his start as a captain and later a major in the U.S. invasion of Vietnam, serving as a South Vietnamese Army advisor and as assistant chief of staff for the Americal 23rd Infantry Division. He was assigned to investigate the My Lai Massacre of Vietnamese women and children, which he whitewashed, saying that "relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." (So "excellent" that 3,000,000 Vietnamese were slaughtered).

In 2004, Powell told TV interviewer Larry King, "I was in a unit that was responsible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened. In war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again."

Adding to his executioner "laurels," Powell — as senior military assistant to Reagan’s Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger — helped carry out the 1983 invasion of Grenada and the 1986 air strike on Libya.

Powell drips with the blood of the millions of Iraqis he helped kill in Desert Genocides I and II to benefit Exxon Mobil’s oil empire. Powell personally directed the slaughter in the first war as chairman of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs. He "justified" the second invasion by lying to the UN about Iraq’s weapons programs. Powell currently serves as a director in the Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. imperialism’s top think-tank.

An Obama presidency would put into practice Powell’s strategy for mass murder, while attempting to win working-class youth, especially black youth, to become cannon fodder for U.S. rulers in present and future oil wars.

• Union Sellouts in Bed with Boeing: WORKERS’ POWER IS OUR ONLY FUTURE
  • CEO Is Serious About Fascist Economic Regime
  • Communist Ideas: The Alternative To Fascist Capitulation
  • GLOBAL CRISIS WEIGHS ON STRIKERS’ MINDS, LEADS TO DISCUSSION OF REVOLUTION
• U.S. Rulers’ Biggest Bailout Scheme: Global War
  • MEGA-MONEY BOYS SOROS, BUFFETT, BLOOMBERG TAKE CHARGE
• GLOBAL WAR: OBAMA, MCCAIN AGREE ON GOAL, DIFFER ON APPROACH
• Troops, Cops, Tanks and Copters Can’t Crush Morelos Teachers’ Strike
• Anti-Racist Unity Key to Stella D’Oro Strike City Univ. Staff Backs Bakery Workers
• Strikers Defy Cops, Stand Fast
• Sellout Unions Battle for ‘Right’ to Screw Rebellious Hospital Workers
• Expose Obama/Spike Lee Drive to Win Youth to Fight Bosses’ Oil Wars
• Belgian General Strike Blasts Bailout Assault on Workers
• Anti-Immigrant Raids Attack on All Workers
• Public Health Workers Can’t Count on Obama
• LETTERS
  • Boeing Striker on Bosses: ‘Hang ’em all!’
  • ‘Service Nation’ Masks Obama-McCain War Draft
  • Talking Communism with Stella D’Oro Strikers
  • Ayers No Radical, Just ‘Establishment’ Liberal
  • Workers Need Class Analysis
• France-wide Protests Hit Bosses’ Meltdown of Wages
• Obama Healthcare Plan Hazardous to Your Health
  • WILL OBAMA FIX THIS PROBLEM?
• ‘Religulous’: Methadone for the Masses
• REDEYE
  • Rich/poor gap hits 1928 record
  • Nervous Brits in a gold rush
  • Read Lenin, fight capitalism
  • Russia’s poor: Capitalism = death
  • Old quotes suggest new trouble
  • Smile, and keep on overspending
  • ERs don’t solve workers’ health
  • Russia prepares for a big war
  • People lose faith, tighten belts
  • Blame capitalism, not US greed
  • ‘Humanitarian’ war usually isn’t
  • Market shows dialectical truths

---

Union Sellouts in Bed with Boeing:
WORKERS’ POWER IS OUR ONLY FUTURE

CEO Is Serious About Fascist Economic Regime

Communist Ideas: The Alternative To Fascist Capitulation

GLOBAL CRISIS WEIGHS ON STRIKERS’ MINDS,
LEADS TO DISCUSSION OF REVOLUTION

U.S. Rulers’ Biggest Bailout Scheme: Global War

MEGA-MONEY BOYS SOROS,
BUFFETT, BLOOMBERG TAKE CHARGE

GLOBAL WAR: OBAMA,
MCCAIN AGREE ON GOAL, DIFFER ON APPROACH

Troops, Cops, Tanks and Copters Can’t Crush Morelos Teachers’ Strike

Anti-Racist Unity Key to Stella D’Oro Strike
City Univ. Staff Backs Bakery Workers

Strikers Defy Cops, Stand Fast

Sellout Unions Battle for ‘Right’ to Screw Rebellious Hospital Workers

Expose Obama/Spike Lee Drive to Win Youth to Fight Bosses’ Oil Wars

Belgian General Strike Blasts Bailout Assault on Workers

Anti-Immigrant Raids Attack on All Workers

Public Health Workers Can’t Count on Obama

LETTERS

Boeing Striker on Bosses: ‘Hang ’em all!’

‘Service Nation’ Masks Obama-McCain War Draft

Talking Communism with Stella D’Oro Strikers

Ayers No Radical, Just ‘Establishment’ Liberal

Workers Need Class Analysis

France-wide Protests Hit Bosses’ Meltdown of Wages

Obama Healthcare Plan Hazardous to Your Health

WILL OBAMA FIX THIS PROBLEM?

‘Religulous’: Methadone for the Masses

REDEYE

Rich/poor gap hits 1928 record

Nervous Brits in a gold rush

Read Lenin, fight capitalism

Russia’s poor: Capitalism = death

Old quotes suggest new trouble

Smile, and keep on overspending

ERs don’t solve workers’ health

Russia prepares for a big war

People lose faith, tighten belts

Blame capitalism, not US greed

‘Humanitarian’ war usually isn’t

Market shows dialectical truths

Strikers, Subcontractor Workers: Unite Against Warmaker Boeing

• Strikers See Big Picture
• Subcontractor Workers Support Boeing Strikers

Imperialist War Needs Dictate Fascist Financial System Take-Over

• Facing Worst Crisis Since Great Depression
• Rulers Want Congress Under Military Discipline
• Who Pays? ....We Do, Mostly
• Top U.S. Policy-Makers Serve Class Dictatorship Of Financiers

a href="#Stella D’Oro Strikers Prove Tough Cookies in Battling Huge Cuts">"tella D’Oro Strikers Prove Tough Cookies in Battling Huge Cuts

Ten Thousand March For Homecare Worker Demands

Anti-Racist Fight vs. Police Murders Continues

Profit Drive Killed 25 in LA Train Wreck

a href="#Nebraska: Workers — Don’t be Suckers For Anti-Muslim Racism">Ne"raska: Workers — Don’t be Suckers For Anti-Muslim Racism

a href="#Chicago Bosses’ Aim: Run Transit On Slave Labor Chicago, Il,">"hicago Bosses’ Aim: Run Transit On Slave Labor Chicago, Il,

Italy: Black Workers Rebel vs. Racist Mafia Massacres

a href="#Colombia: Uribe Gov’t Murdering Student Protestors">"olombia: Uribe Gov’t Murdering Student Protestors

AFL-CIO Labor Fakers Always Bail Out Bosses

LETTERS

Anti-Racism Leads the Way in Boeing Strike

Summer Project Unites Workers Across Borders

At L.A. Factory Gate: Everyone Reads CHALLENGE

REDEYE

Boeing Bosses Part of Rulers Who Oppress All Workers

• Hospital Workers Back Boeing Strikers

U.S.-Russia Sharpening Rivarly Revs Up World War Threat

---

Strikers, Subcontractor Workers: Unite Against Warmaker Boeing

SEATTLE, WA, September 28 — "I was impressed," said a veteran Boeing CHALLENGE reader at our multi-racial strike-support BBQ. Referring to the traditional "Rolling Thunder" in which workers bang on metal every hour on the hour as the strike deadline approaches, she said, "At first, I was the only woman hammering, but pretty soon the new hires started hammering too. At first the banging was a few minutes; by the time the strike neared it was fifteen minutes. Those young people moved me right off my tub [metal container]! They got there with their hammers before I could even get started!"

Over 27,000 machinists are on strike. No work, no planes, no profit. But the bosses want a blank check to screw the workers. Carson, the company’s jetliner division boss, said, "It is important that it [the strike] be resolved in a way that allows the company to remain successful and…preserve…the right to manage the business."

The strikers, however, have their own ideas. As one worker told a CHALLENGE seller, "I’m not striking for the money. They could give me $50,000 and I wouldn’t take it. I’m striking for the kids and the grandkids."

We met plenty of other young workers as strikers grabbed 1,800 CHALLENGES and 2,500 four-page CHALLENGE extras (in five hours) and picked up their first $150 strike checks. Some had struck before they received their first check! All vowed to hold the line.

Strikers were impressed with our Party comrades from around the country and locally who came to support the strike with our revolutionary communist politics. "Thank you for coming out here to support us," said more than one. "This is the class struggle we all need!" responded one comrade.

Our organizing and literature stood in sharp contrast to the union misleaders’ narrow trade union view of job security. It’s clear to masses of strikers that our Party’s goal is anti-racist multiracial unity between subcontractor workers and those still in unions (see letter, page 6 ). We stand for revolutionary communist class-consciousness.

The union, on the other hand, is focused on insuring that what few jobs are left in the "heritage" (basic unionized) plants remain union (with new workers paid less than half the wages of veteran workers). The mass presence of our revolutionary ideas has put the union leaders on the spot. We brought our communist politics to life in this strike. It’s infuriated the right-wing. That’s why the hacks called the local security to order us to leave. But we didn’t leave until we sold and distributed every last piece of literature and gathered a dozen contacts!

Strikers See Big Picture

Everyone on the picket lines, at the strike-check distribution and at our BBQ was discussing the Wall Street financial meltdown. (The BBQ, incidentally, raised more than enough to pay for the cost of our CHALLENGE "Extra.") The "Extra" showed the link between the bosses we’re striking against (the Boeing Board) and this crisis and how they benefit from the bailout (see page 8).

One of the more interesting bailout discussions occurred in a Boeing CHALLENGE distributor’s kitchen. He, his wife and another striker nearing retirement joined a veteran Boeing comrade, a worker and a new teacher.

This group of black, Latin and white workers pooled decades of experience and knowledge to cut through the fog being thrown in our faces. Rather than accepting the excuse that Bush caused the meltdown, we traced the long history of U.S. imperialism’s need to rely on financial speculation. All roads now lead to more imperialist war and attacks on the working class.

We knew about one of the key economic attacks from personal experience: re-industrialization through racist super-exploitation. We described how a friend who makes Boeing parts in a subcontractor plant is about to lose his house despite massive overtime. Five out of the six concluded that revolution — as hard as it may be to accomplish — was the only answer. "Pacifist marches won’t do it," said a Vietnam Vet CHALLENGE reader, "This will come down to an armed fight!"

"Yeah, we’re going to have to bring the power of industrial workers like ourselves and soldiers together with
their natural allies if we want to succeed," suggested a comrade. Three older workers who participated in anti-racist, anti-imperialist rebellions during the Vietnam era began reminiscing about how it was done.

Much more was revealed in this hour and a half discussion. Here and in several other such gatherings are the beginnings of Party-led industrial groups who read and sell CHALLENGE and organize to win their co-workers, families and friends to PLP’s revolutionary communist ideas in the middle of class struggle. Our friends must become members and they, in turn, have to expand our paper’s sales and influence.

The union wanted strikers to come into this battle blaming black, Latin and Chinese subcontractor workers. But when one seller held up our CHALLENGE strike Extra and shouted, "Read how L.A. subcontractor workers support Boeing strikers," she was cheered.

Based on this experience, a Boeing CHALLENGE reader wrote a "thank you" note from us strikers to L.A. subcontractor workers who have sent support letters and spoken at some of our BBQs. It was the first political document he’s written. He presented it to our group that meets at a nearby restaurant. He knew the union would stonewall any effort to build multi-racial, international unity between non-union subcontractors and us so he proposed a way to gather many rank-and-file signatures right now. Another shop steward agreed to sell more CHALLENGES after this discussion.

Small, but useful, victories as the strike goes on. Holding the line while struggling to advance PLP’s revolutionary communist line.J

Subcontractor Workers Support Boeing Strikers

Workers in LA subcontractor factories are discussing how the Boeing strike affects them and how to support it. In one shop, workers posted PLP leaflets calling for support for the strike, building unity of all aerospace workers and fighting against racist super exploitation in the subcontractors’ factories. Some workers are being forced to work many hours of overtime. At another factory, workers eagerly took the leaflets and CHALLENGES, encouraging PLP’ers to "keep up the good work" and agreed that unity between union and non-union workers is "what we need." The bosses called the cops to hurry there in the middle of shift change. They told PLP’ers to leave or face arrest. But afterwards, more than a few workers drove their cars over to the sidewalk to get the literature and thank us anyway.

Imperialist War Needs Dictate Fascist Financial System Take-Over

Lenin explained many years ago the stage of capitalism where the big bankers eat up the smaller ones:

Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. (Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1916)

Facing Worst Crisis Since Great Depression

U.S. capitalists caused the financial crisis they now seek to solve with drastic measures like the stalled $700-billion bank bailout. Over the past 30 years, they drove house prices sky-high and workers’ wages down, creating the conditions for subprime loans. Financiers got rich, for a while, by trading these worthless instruments as if they were pure gold. But that joy ride has ended and left U.S. banks in a deep hole. The staggering consequences include a $1.2 trillion New York Stock Exchange plunge on Sept. 29th amid a spate of bank failures. And U.S. bankers’ woes extend far beyond Wall Street.

The profit system ties a nation’s capacity to exploit foreign labor, markets, and raw materials by armed force to the strength of its financial institutions. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), U.S. imperialism’s leading think-tank, is worried. "The issue today is whether Wall Street turmoil will produce similar pressure for the United States to look inward—and indeed whether its capacity to sustain an international role may have been compromised" (CFR website 9/29/08).

To maintain their global dominance, U.S. bosses are undertaking an unprecedented restructuring of their troubled financial system. Wealth and power are concentrating more and more into a handful of megabanks like J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and BankAmerica. The bank bailout, a massive infusion of capital to such firms from a Treasury run by Wall Street stalwart [See box.] Henry Paulson, is part of the plan. The big money boys continue to fight for it despite its Sept. 29th rejection on Capitol Hill. They also call for stricter government regulation of markets.

Through these proposed new regulations and massive consolidation that will give the ruling class more direct control over the financial sytem than ever before, the major U.S. capitalists are advancing economic fascism.

Rulers Want Congress Under Military Discipline

The bailout’s failure in Congress (which may prove temporary) highlights a major obstacle on the finance capitalists’ road to fascism and war. An inefficient political system, especially the House of Representatives, hinders actions they sorely need. With every house seat up for grabs in five weeks, most reps opportunistically pandered to their voting bases rather than support the bankers’ vastly unpopular bill.

U.S. rulers formed the Hart-Rudman (H-R) commission in 1999 to guarantee their world supremacy well into the 21st century. In 2001, it had proposed downgrading Congress’s cumbersome one-member-one vote rule in favor of a five person "leadership team" to "review the totality of Executive-Legislative relations." It was to consist of "the Speaker of the House, the Majority and Minority leaders of the House, and the Majority and Minority leaders of the Senate" and consult directly with the "the President, the Vice President, the National Security Advisor, and senior cabinet officers." Complaining of self-serving reps, Hart-Rudman said "Only by having the five most powerful members of the Congress directly involved is there any hope of real reform." One "reform" was that "every member of Congress...participate in one or more war games per two-year cycle" at the National Defense University.

Bush dropped the ball after 9/11, implementing only one of H-R’s 50 provisions (Homeland Security). Expect more ruling-class calls to clean up Congress following the bailout debacle.

As for the White House, the rulers hope the presidential race will produce a protector of the U.S. empire far more capable than Bush. The CFR is "looking for signals from both campaigns on how Obama and McCain would restore the economy, and thus maintain the ability to project power abroad" (website, 9/26/08). But the Establishment’s New York Times (9/30/08) laments, "Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama were far from Washington, bit actors at best in helping to resolve a crisis that one of them will inherit."

As this economic tsunami is hitting U.S. bosses harder than any other imperialist, the constant allusions in the media to the 1930s are telling. U.S. rulers long for a Roosevelt-style president who can implement the economic discipline they need before they can mobilize to confront rivals like China and Russia militarily. Over the course of a decade of far-reaching economic programs, FDR was able to raise taxes on the ruling class to pay for the consolidation and militarization of U.S. capitalism in preparation for WW II. So we can expect more drastic finance-capital sourced initiatives, like the bailout, under the next administration.

The ruling class, in the midst of a crisis, looks for opportunities to prepare for future conflict. For workers, the financial mess shows voting is a dead end. Obama and McCain are in fact competing to see who can best serve the most powerful camp of war-hungry bankers. We have to take advantage of every opportunity to expose the failure of capitalism and build confidence in our class and our Party as the future of humanity. Investing time and effort in building the revolutionary, communist Progressive Labor Party represents a far better "growth strategy" for our class. Financial disasters and wars are built into the profit system. It will take a long time to get rid of it. But efforts today will reward generations to come.J

Who Pays? ....We Do, Mostly

A few capitalists and all workers will bear the cost of the bailout and the crisis that necessitated it.

Bosses with shares of subsequently bankrupt firms see their holdings’ value drop to zero, but so do workers’ pension funds and individual retirement plans, which mainly hold stocks.

The $700-billion bailout price tag comes close to the Iraq war’s, which, combined with reduced public revenue due to the economic slowdown, spells sharp federal cuts in services for the working class.

The racist, anti-working class nature of the bailout will lead to African-American and Latin home borrowers losing between $146 billion and $190 billion from bad sub-prime loans, according to a United for a Fair Economy report (Interpress Service 9/25).

At the local level, New York’s mayor Bloomberg slashed $1.5 billion from health, education, sanitation and other necessities on Sept. 24 as a direct result of Wall Streets woes. Bloomie foresees a $5.2-billion deficit (roughly equal to his own personal wealth, which he is not about to part with) for 2011. New York governor David Paterson wants to increase his state’s already projected $1 billion service cuts and predicts a $24-billion budget gap over the next three years.

Taxes are going up. For example, seven percent, says Mayor Mike, on NYC property, which landlords jack up further as rent increases to workers.

The financial sector is already hemorrhaging jobs, some high-rollers but mainly working-class, in New York and other money center cities by the tens of thousands. The new consolidation onslaught hastens the pace.

Finance capitalists also want to bail out Social Security, which will be underfunded by 2017, and help themselves, by forcing workers to pay into "mandatory retirement accounts" managed by their banks. Leading this effort to rob workers in order to fund the war makers is the Concord Coalition headed by Pete Peterson, a major Rockefeller-allied investor who once chaired the Council on Foreign Relations.

Top U.S. Policy-Makers Serve Class Dictatorship Of Financiers

The Washington bigwigs doggedly pushing bailout count the biggest U.S. bankers as their main constituents. Treasury secretary Paulson is not just any Goldman Sachs alum. He headed the Wall Street powerhouse and was its biggest shareholder. Representative Barney Frank’s top donors come from Brown Bothers Harriman, a private bank that holds $2 trillion in custody for the ultra-rich. (Bush’s grandfather, Prescott, was a BBH partner.) Citigroup, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and J.P. Morgan Chase led the bankrollers of Senator Chuck Schumer’s last campaign. Senator Christopher Dodd cashed fat checks from Citigroup and AIG (as well as from war profiteer United Technologies).

a name="Stella D’Oro Strikers Prove Tough Cookies in Battling Huge Cuts">">"tella D’Oro Strikers Prove Tough Cookies in Battling Huge Cuts

BRONX, NY, SEPTEMBER 27 — "All these factory bosses, big or small, have been trying to eliminate the unions all together," explained one of the 136 striking Stella D’Oro Biscuit workers here, out since August 13. Not one worker has crossed the united picket line. Support has come from other locals, transit workers, truckers and the community said one machinist. Strikers said that although lost wages are starting to hurt, they’re all determined to win this struggle.

The Stella D’oro strikers are in Local 50, within the much larger Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM). When asked why the other locals haven’t walked out in solidarity, one worker said, "That would be great but many are afraid to lose what they have." This integrated local has shown the rest of the international that withdrawing their labor power from the bosses is a key way of both turning fear into its opposite and making a real stand for workers’ power.

This strike represents many of the same dynamics attacking workers nation-wide. One worker declared, "We know that this strike is an outcome of the economy. They say there’s no money but they want to squeeze profits out of our wages while they spend $2.3 trillion on the war in Iraq!" This worker is absolutely right!

This particular attack began when Stella D’Oro was sold to Brynwood Partners in January 2006 for about $17 million. The crashing economy has reduced sales and profits. A union official said Stella D’oro bosses want to steal an additional $1.5 million annually from these workers.

Preceding the strike the bosses pushed the workers to the hilt. "They sped up production to sub-human standards," said one worker, adding, "It’s not just the contract that drove us over the edge… it’s the working conditions as well!"

The bosses want to eliminate four holidays, 12 sick days, one week of vacation and viciously attack workers‘ wages. Now they want every worker to pay approximately $400 a month for their health benefits and to contribute a dollar of their hourly wage towards their pensions. However, over a five-year period these combined cuts (plus union dues and other expenses) would slash take-home pay nearly 50%, dropping from $18 to as little as $10 an hour, not counting inflation, by 2013!

This bosses’ attack is also racist. Given the composition of the workforce — Latin, Asian, black and white (European immigrant) — the bosses figure they can get away with super-exploiting these workers, and net super-profits.

Although production has slowed down, it hasn’t been stopped. Scabs have been hired. "Nobody wants to get into trouble" physically stopping scabs, explained one worker. We told another worker that, "Stopping scabs from crossing a picket line has always been an important part of maintaining an effective strike." But this worker said this would need the backing of the entire BCTGM union.

We brought coffee and donuts and gave all 25 afternoon-shift pickets a copy of CHALLENGE. They were impressed with the front-page Boeing strike article. "We’re small and it’s good to see so many workers fighting like this," commented one worker.

The Boeing strikers’ militancy and the role that communist leadership plays should help embolden this small but spirited strike here. We will bring our co-workers and students to discuss such lessons with the workers on future visits. They were also excited to hear we would try to raise strike support at the next teachers union Delegate Assembly. We will also invite some strikers to speak at our October 18 PLP forum on the elections.

"While so many people are talking about the illusion of "change they can believe in" declared one PL’er, "you guys are showing workers and students the real direction of change!"

We have much to learn from the striking Stella D’oro workers because they’ve done what so many of us need to do. Ultimately, it’s the entire capitalist system that needs to be shut down. Only then will workers see the true potential of their power.

Ten Thousand March For Homecare Worker Demands

NEW YORK CITY, September 16 — Some 10,000 homecare and healthcare workers of Local 1199 Service Employees International Union (SEIU) marched in Midtown Manhattan to demand a decent contract. Homecare workers are among the most exploited section of the working class despite many being unionized. The average union wage is $8/hour with limited health benefits and no pension. Still worse, sleep-in homecare workers get no overtime pay and are paid for twelve hours a day when they usually work sixteen. These workers are overwhelmingly immigrant women from the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America and some from Russia and China. Less than half of all homecare workers are unionized.

Agencies like BestCare are threatening to eliminate healthcare benefits when the contract expires on Dec. 31. The agencies are funded by NY State and keep half of all funding as "administrative expenses," i.e. profits. A "decent" contract for homecare workers would have to double their subsistence wage and guarantee full healthcare and pension benefits.

But there’s no such thing as a decent contract for workers, because of capitalism’s drive for maximum profits. The union is only asking for a $2/hour wage hike and healthcare, and no pension. They want the state to take over administration of homecare from these agencies, cut the administrative cost and use some of that money to pay for increased pay. This collaboration with the state will not win a decent wage or benefits for these workers — especially in these days of financial crisis and endless wars — and weakens the will of workers to strike and prepare for the larger struggles ahead.

The relatively higher-paid hospital workers in 1199 will also face increasing pressure for future wage and benefit cuts. The racism used to divide hospital workers and the mostly immigrant homecare workers must be smashed. Anti-racist unity, fighting for all health workers, must be organized to win these struggles.

At the rally, Progressive Labor Party members, some in 1199 SEIU, talked with workers as we marched. That same day AIG, the world’s largest insurance company, was being bailed out by the Fed to the tune of $85 billion (see page 2 on the financial crisis). The workers expressed indignation that we’ll be paying to save Wall Street and yet can’t receive a decent standard of living or job security. But that is the nature of capitalism: workers pay and pay for the bosses in boom or crisis times.

We distributed hundreds of PLP fliers and CHALLENGES which pointed out that, to satisfy workers’ needs, the only real solution to the failure of capitalism is building a PLP-led movement to fight for a society where production is based on the well-being of all workers, who produce everything of value. We must continue building our CHALLENGE networks in our workplaces, turn them into PLP study groups and and Party-led on-the-job groups to lead the struggles against the racist bosses’ attacks and recruit more communists.

Anti-Racist Fight vs. Police Murders Continues

LANGLEY PARK, MD, September 24 — "Fight Back!" chanted PLPers at a rally against police brutality today. Over 150 people gathered here, led by CASA de Maryland (an immigrant workers’ rights group) and supported by the People’s Coalition for Police Accountability. Protesters spoke out against the police murder of Manuel Jesus de Espina, the lynching of Ronnie White by prison guards (officially a homicide according to the coroner’s report), and the SWAT attack on the mayor of Berwyn Heights. Dorothy Elliott reminded protestors of the long struggle for justice, which she has been seeking for the murder of her son by police in the 1990s.

PLP members brought a message of militancy and revolution to this gathering, distributing over 40 CHALLENGES to fellow protestors. Many in the crowd appreciated the more militant spirit. A Guatemalan man eagerly took DESAFIO and said, "we need a society where everyone is equal — these police will continue the brutality until we have a new system." He liked PLP’s international organizing and outlook, and planned to show the paper to his friends and family. A worker from El Salvador was visibly angry, declaring "the police are without shame; they come in the community and want our help, then they turn around and kill our friend. On top of that, when we stay on the corner looking to work, they kick us off the corner with threat of arrest, when I am only just trying to feed my family."

With the exception of the poignant personal stories and the revolutionary line of the PLP, this event was only a symbolic rally that had the effect of quelling any sense of fight-back. It is almost as if the organizers were saying: "Come out, light a candle, think about the victims, then go home and continue your lives as wage slaves and you will be lucky if you are not targeted by the police." Many workers were optimistic that the rally might lead to justice. But we need to build a fighting spirit of anti-racist militancy in the spirit of John Brown and Harriet Tubman and swell the ranks of the PLP to advance this struggle beyond symbolism.

The reality of the situation is that under capitalism, police protect the bosses and their property and use racist terror against workers. The long history of police brutality will not be ended by rallies alone. At a time when the bosses’ financial meltdown will lead to more oppression of workers, the bosses will need to control fight-back with brutality and intimidation. Only the development of a mass militant anti-racist movement, ultimately leading to a revolution against capitalism, can stem the tide of police brutality.

Profit Drive Killed 25 in LA Train Wreck

LOS ANGELES, CA –– The train accident on September 12 in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles, in which 25 people died and over 125 were seriously injured, was totally preventable. The press has blamed the engineer, Robert Sanchez, for text messaging someone just before the accident, but this tragedy was caused by the greed of the bosses, their politicians, and their anti-worker capitalist system!

In this case a MetroLink commuter train collided head on with a Union Pacific freight train sharing the same track.

Yes, sharing the same track. Imagine driving on a one lane highway in which cars, trucks, and buses traveled at freeway speeds in both directions, but had to share that one lane. Furthermore, the only way a driver would ever know that an 18-wheeler was heading towards him or her was a stoplight. If it is red, drivers must get their car off the road. If it is green, just drive ahead on that one-lane highway.

This lunacy is the deliberate policy of the MetroLink Authority –– mostly appointees of local Southern California Democratic politicians –– which runs the Los Angeles area commuter train system. Their patchwork commuter system is woefully under-funded and run with callous disregard for the safety of passengers and MetroLink workers. And, to save a few bucks, MetroLink contracted with a French company to operate the system, including hiring workers.

Since these totally avoidable deaths, many people have pointed out the obvious fixes to avoid future accidents. First, the train system needs to be double-tracked; trains traveling in opposite directions would no longer share the same track. Second, all trains should be equipped with Positive Train Control. This is an electronic system widely used throughout the world which detects trains headed for a collision and automatically stops them.

New radios should be installed on local freight and commuter trains. Because MetroLink shares train tracks with freight trains and because passenger trains and freight trains use different radio frequencies, engineers are unable to communicate between the two systems.

Split shifts could be eliminated. The MetroLink engineer, who died in the accident, worked a 13- hour day. He worked the morning rush hour, then had the mid-day off, but had to report to work again for the afternoon rush hour. In addition to having such an unsafe work schedule all week, engineers have no back-up. MetroLink operates their trains with only one engineer, not two. If an engineer is sick, distracted, or misses one of those red lights, that’s it. No one else, and no safety feature, is there to back him up or catch his mistakes.

So far, after an enormous public outcry, the local and national politicians –– who are responsible –– have moved into inaction. Locally, California Public Utilities Commission directed rail companies to ban train employees from using cell phones while on duty.

Nationally, proposed legislation would reduce the number of hours railroad employees can work from 400 per month to 276. Workers can now work 90-hour weeks, but the new legislation would reduce their work-week to about 60 hours — still unsafe. In contrast, the FAA limits airline pilots to 100 hours of flight time per month, a 22-hour work- week.

As for Positive Train Control, current proposed legislation would not require these electronic safety systems until the year 2015. The bosses’ foot-dragging will lead to more people dying unnecessarily in the next decade because of this total disregard for the workers.

At a time when the Federal Government is spending about $1 trillion to bail out the banks and finance companies, spends more than $1.1 trillion per year on its military and spy agencies, and the lion’s share of local government budgets is devoted to cops and jails, the "no-money" argument of the politicians reveals that capitalism serves only the interests of the capitalists — at the expense of workers’ lives.

Workers and passengers are cogs in a giant capitalist machine devoted to squeezing every last ounce of profit out of the commuter train system. The bosses are sacrificing the safety and lives of the workers riding the trains (and transit workers) to bail out the banks, pay for imperialist war and line their pockets.

Only when workers take power will our safety and lives be more important than the dollar-bill flag of the bosses. A system that cannot provide safe transit is one more reason to join the fight for communist revolution!

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GRAND ISLAND, NEBRASKA, September 19 — About 150 Muslim workers were fired today at the JBS Swift meatpacking plant in a struggle over prayer time during the 30-day period of Ramadan. Of 2,500 workers, about 500 are Muslim, mostly from Somalia and Sudan.

While we don’t believe in prayer and religion, we must unite with Muslim workers and oppose racist anti-Muslim attacks. As the economic crisis deepens and the imperialist oil war expands, the rulers are building a mass fascist movement by getting workers to blame each other for boss-crated problems. The recent immigration raid in Mississippi — where more than 650 workers were rounded up — was called in by the AFL-CIO, and federal agents were cheered on by union workers as immigrants were handcuffed and led away. We cannot allow repetition of this chilling scene.

Last Monday, hundreds of Muslim workers walked off the job, protesting lack of prayer time, especially concerned for evening prayer, which ends the daily fast. Swift supervisors accused Muslim workers of taking too long on their prayer breaks. Some workers complained of being kicked by a supervisor while they prayed. A woman worker protested being followed into the bathroom by a male supervisor as she attempted to pray. They held a similar protest on Tuesday and marched to City Hall.

Break times were changed on the second shift to accommodate the sunset prayer, which forced all workers to work Saturday to get their 40 hours. That sparked a protest by about 400 black, Latin, Asian and white non-Muslim workers, who walked off the job Wednesday and Thursday in what was basically a racist protest against the Muslim workers. The bosses and union leaders of the United Food and Commercial Workers no doubt encouraged it.

About 80 Muslim workers were thrown out of the plant after a confrontation with protesters. When they tried to return for their shift Friday, they were fired, along with 70 others. No non-Muslim workers were fired. Also, the bosses reversed themselves on the new break schedules.

One worker said that the Somali workers "have changed everything," and that "Swift management has given in to the minority." Another said, "Nobody should have special privileges." How often have we heard white workers make these same racist comments about black and Latino workers? This is exactly the type of "unity" that Bush-Obama-McCain and the racist rulers are counting on to expand their war on terror to Pakistan, Iran and beyond.

One precondition for communist revolution is the highest unity of the international working class. "Globalization" and mass immigration worldwide, with more internationalized work-forces on the job, make this possible. But it doesn’t just happen. We must set the example of building anti-racist, international friendships, and a revolutionary communist movement that reflects the same. Like the Mississippi raid, we should see this Swift struggle as a sign of things to come, alert our co-workers and build the revolutionary communist PLP, the only antidote to the bosses’ fascist poison.

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September 29 — Union bus drivers are discovering the hard way what was buried away in the contract arbitration "award" forced on us last year. After a fear campaign of "doomsday scenarios" and sending the contract to arbitration to avoid a rank-and-file vote, our paychecks are shrinking and our jobs are less secure. All this is happening as more workers ride buses and before the current economic crisis.

The contract and the state legislators are funding a new Health Care Trust fund that most drivers will never use, by collecting 3% of every paycheck. In addition, they increased pension funding to 6%, more than wiping out the measly 3% wage "increase" we were "awarded." So far this has cost every worker about $2,000.

Even more dangerous, full-time senior drivers lost our 8-hour guarantee, and about 50 part-timers are being hired every month. Right now about 950 part-timers comprise almost 25% of the 4,000 drivers. They pay the same union dues as full-timers and get little more than the right to file a useless grievance. Part-timers cannot afford to feed their families on what used to be a job many young black workers sought. It’s so bad that union Local 241’s sellouts tried to get part-timers to support a 6-day schedule rather than split shifts, so they would have more time each day to work a second job to support their families!

Then there is the "Second Chance" program: workers on probation or sentenced to community service are cleaning buses and garages. Mayor Daley and the bankers want to run mass transit on poverty wages and prison labor. All this in a city and state run by the Democratic Party machine that created Barak Obama.

But workers are fighting back. Transit Workers United, a rank-and-file group of full- and part-timers, is circulating a petition demanding the union fight to make everyone full-time, and force the city to fill almost 200 vacant full-time slots. More than 200 part-timers attended the September union meeting.

This is good as far as it goes, but transit workers need to understand that this is not just our problem. We’re being assaulted by the same racist profit system that closed half the Cook County health clinics for uninsured workers in 2007, eliminating 2,000 jobs, and is eliminating the second shift at the Chicago Ford Assembly Plant this November.

These racist attacks hit black and Latino workers first and hardest. There are more than 20 million unemployed in the U.S., nearly a million in Illinois. The unemployment rate for black workers is twice the national average, and for black youth, ages 18-25, four times higher. With the unfolding Wall Street calamity, foreclosures on the South Side of Chicago have tripled; Detroit is the nation’s highest.

No matter who wins the White House, the racist rulers will continue their assault on the workers because they need trillions more to expand their oil wars and rescue Wall Street. As the rulers face increasing challenges to their empire from other imperialists, the threat of world war grows. A struggle against racist unemployment that unites transit, Cook County and Ford workers with immigrant workers and unemployed youth can be fertile grounds for expanding the revolutionary communist PLP and creating a more mass distribution of CHALLENGE. Fighting racist unemployment and for jobs, guided by communist politics, can open the door to revolution!

Italy: Black Workers Rebel vs. Racist Mafia Massacres

ITALY, Sept. 25 — Racism has grown all over Europe as the bosses need to superexploit immigrant and non-white workers to obtain massive profits and blame them for the crisis of capitalism. The racism built into the capitalist society breeds racist killers. The area of Castelvolturno was the scene of the first racist killing in post-war Italy when in 1989 Jerry Eslan, a black man, was killed by racists in the nearby Villa Literno. Today, racist violence is even more common.

More recently in Castelvolturno, a racist massacre was carried out by the Camorra, the local mafia. It was the biggest mafia killing in recent years. Some local gangsters randomly fired against a group of black workers and youth, killing six of them. The bosses’ media reacted to this atrocity by blaming the victims, who were condemned as criminals and drug dealers. In spite of these stereotypes, 99% of black workers work under semi-slave conditions in the tomato fields. But the mobsters shot at random to "teach blacks a lesson." Six were killed just for being black, just as neo-Nazis burn immigrant workers’ refugee centers to "teach them a lesson," and just as Roma people (often called by the racist term Gypsies) have been victims of a recent pogrom at the hand of racist mobs and the right-wing Berlusconi government. According to these racist killers, all immigrant and black workers should be killed.

This time black Italians protested the killings with a mini-rebellion, burning garbage cans and damaging some cars in the Caserta zone of Castelvolturno. A similar small rebellion took place in the bigger city of Milan.

These workers and youth are tired not only of being exploited on their jobs, but of being charged higher rents and of discrimination in general. They are tired of being treated as second-rate citizens.

In Milan, an Afro-Italian teenager was beaten to death with iron bars by two store owners. The killers said he stole some cookies, as if that was a crime punishable by death. This slander was repeated by the media without any real investigation of what happened, even though no cookies were found. Racism was the real cause of this horrendous crime.

The bosses, their media and some people influenced by racist ideas are labeling all blacks and immigrants as criminals, while treating the big criminals of the Mafia and their politician and cop protectors with kids’ gloves.

Racist brutality is a universal aspect of capitalism, from Milan to Paris to Brooklyn (like the recent killing of a mentally-impaired Latin worker with a taser) to Maryland (see article p. 3). Any worker who falls for this bosses’ racism is cutting his/her own throat, particularly today when the rulers need more racism to divide workers so they can exploit ALL workers even more to pay for their economic crisis and wars (Italy has a military contingent fighting with NATO in Afghanistan). Our slogan must be: same enemy, same fight! Black, Latin, Asian, immigrant and white, unite to smash capitalism and to fight for communism!

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Colombia’s bloodthirsty ruling class has murdered thousands of people who oppose its policies of hunger, war and oppression. It’s even killed many who foolishly tried to change the system through elections. It has also forced over four million rural workers and their families, many indigenous and union activists, to flee their homes, losing everything.

According to a report of 400 human rights organizations presented to the UN High Commissioner in Colombia, over 13,600 people have been "murdered, executed or disappeared in the six years of the President Uribe administration" ("Página12", 9/24). Meanwhile, bodies of 45 youth have been found in Bogotá’s southern suburbs and in the poor coffee region of Central Colombia. The cops and army executed the youth, including a minor with mental problems, under the guise that they were all "common criminals."

Also, "Página12" (9/26) reported that death-squad chief Salvatore Mancuso, extradited to the U.S. in May, testified via video in a trial of two Senators of Uribe’s Party that the AUC (the death-squad organization) influenced the local 2002 Presidential elections.

Uribe, a Bush lapdog in South America, was one of the "world leaders" Sarah Palin spoke to briefly at the U.N. in mid-September. (The others included the U.S. puppet President of Afghanistan and war criminal Henry Kissinger.)

But now, to avoid more national and international outcries, instead of the past mass massacres, people are killed daily in ones and twos. Militant students are some of the victims of this "new" style of repression, ones like Johnny Silva, Nicolas Neira, Oscar Salas and many more who’ve been murdered. They’ve been part of the militant fight against plans to privatize public universities. For this the government and the bosses’ media have branded them "subversive guerrillas."

So in addition to the usual brutal repression of young protestors during the annual mass May Day marches in Bogota, the rulers have now put a price on the heads of the more militant H.S. and college youth to try to quell the growing protest movement against the Uribe government.

As part of the struggle to give political leadership to angry workers and youth, two PLP comrades in Ciudad Bolívar are trying to bring communist ideas to some of the million people in this poorest section of Bogotá. Many of these residents are refugees from the murderous war waged by the rich landowners’ death squads and the army in rural Colombia.

The refugees face a lot of contradictions coming to Ciudad Bolívar. Instead of a countryside of trees and rivers, they now live in a boss-created urban jungle filled with unemployment, racist and sexist discrimination, alcoholism, police persecution and rejection by the bourgeois society. Their hard lives are made even more oppressive.

Many different groups are out to influence these refugees, some with pro-government ideas, others opposed to the government. We’re involved in some of them that are trying to bring the few available but limited resources available in this area. But we’re also struggling to fight for unity in action as the best way to fight for improvements for the residents of the area. We want to win some of the movement’s most active leaders into a political school, no easy task amid mass terror carried out by the bosses’ paramilitary goons, aimed at preventing us from organizing ourselves.

Our goal is not building a better reform movement begging for more crumbs from the government, but winning masses of workers and youth to PLP to fight for the only real solution to this capitalist hell: communism. DESAFIO is a key ideological weapon in accomplishing this long but vital process for our class.

AFL-CIO Labor Fakers Always Bail Out Bosses

NEW YORK CITY, September 28 — More than 1,000 workers and others demonstrated three days ago near the NY Stock Exchange against giving Wall Street a blank check in the financial bailout. This swindle is so unpopular — seen by many as "corporate welfare" — that the NYC Central Labor Council was forced to react and organize one of many similar protests held nationwide to demand a "fairer bailout" which helps working-class people. Big shot union sellouts like AFL-CIO President George Sweeney and teachers union chief Randi Weingarten attended the rally.

One of the AFL-CIO’s top demands is for the bailout to be governed by an "independent board." (Of course, the bosses pick these "independent" boards.) The labor honchos are banking on an Obama and Democratic Party victory so that some of the allotted $700 billion will finance Obama’s plan for infrastructure repair, which they hope could create many unionized jobs.

But as far as workers are concerned, the union mis-leaders are part of the problem. In every bosses’ bailout — from the NYC fiscal crisis to the one for Chrysler in the 1970s to all others for any company — the union sellouts have been on the bosses’ side, giving them huge concessions on jobs and benefits.

Lack of regulations, greedy bankers and speculators are all part of the problem but not the root cause. The first major post-World War II crisis occurred in 1973; then came the "Black Monday" Wall Street crash of 1987 followed by others in 1990-93, 1998 and 2001-2. As each crisis ended, we were told the problem was "fixed" — but then a new one occurred, slashing workers’ standard of living even more — and because of racism affecting black and Latin workers still more. On top of that, racist politicians and media pundits are blaming the victims of the subprime lenders for the crisis.

Company profit rates have actually not returned to their pre-1973 level. More than a century ago Karl Marx described this as the falling rate of profit. To compete with each other, the bosses invest in new technology, replacing workers. But machines by themselves don’t produce profits. Real profits come from workers’ labor, with the bosses pocketing most of the value that labor creates. While the volume of profit might increase, the higher investment in machinery and technology forces the rate of profit down.

As their crises worsen, bosses try to compensate by exploiting workers even more, by taking out or swallowing the competition and fighting with rival imperialists for new markets through wars. PLP has a different answer: workers of the world unite to smash a system based on war and economic crisis!

LETTERS

Anti-Racism Leads the Way in Boeing Strike

The Party’s work in aerospace subcontracting facilities (as well as other industries) has left us able to expose the racist super-exploitation present in these plants and tie it to the increased attacks on primarily white union workers in the basic heritage plants.

Subcontractors employ mostly Latin, immigrant and black workers. The fact that our Party has built a small concentration in the subcontractor plants over the last few years has given us a "leg up" on raising the absolute necessity for anti-racist, multi-racial class unity.

After more than a dozen visits to strike picket sites at Boeing plants all over King County it is clear that workers appreciate the Party’s revolutionary message. Almost every worker takes a CHALLENGE .

These visits to the picket lines have allowed the Party to expose how capitalism uses racism to attack all workers. Boeing strikers have shown great appreciation for the statements of solidarity coming out of subcontracting plants. The significant minority of black, women and now Latino workers in the Boeing union plants has been particularly receptive to this show of class unity.

Strikers delved into "how capitalism uses racism to attack all workers" at two recent lunches at a restaurant near the plant. A dozen strikers and a guest from England examined the condition of the working class from Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, to the slave-like conditions of India immigrant workers in Mississippi shipyards, to the ruin anti-black, anti-immigrant racism has wrought in the new "southern aerospace corridor" and the L.A. subcontractors. "It’s the same damn thing in England," said our British friend. "First they imported the Poles and when they started to organize the bosses switched to eastern Europeans — never allowing the Poles to become "legal."

No wonder many strikers believe the union can’t win on job security. The pro-capitalist union leaders’ narrow trade union outlook can’t deal with the racist and nationalist divisions that immobilize us. It’s impossible to save a few decent-paying jobs in the heritage plants while the bosses are hell-bent on attacking all industrial workers through racist super-exploitation in subcontractors.

A friend took a small step towards building anti-racist class conciousness. He volunteered to write a thank you note to L.A. subcontractor workers that have supported our strike. We are going to circulate it on the picket lines, and at our lunches and visits with strikers.

Even on my job, a construction site rather than an aerospace plant, the situation at the subcontracting plants has helped to illuminate the constant presence of racism on our site. After discussing the low wages and dangerous conditions present at these subcontractor plants one worker spoke up, "the immigrant workers on site are the subcontracted workers of construction." This is the first step to leading anti-racist fight-back on the job.

The key to defeating the boss’ divide and conquer tactics is to bring anti-racist struggle onto the shop floor. The sell-out contracts "won" by the UAW leadership and the current contract pushed by the pro-boss IAM leadership increasingly show how the fates of those in the heritage plants are tied to those in subcontracting plants. Ultimately this strike will be sold out as well. The only way to end this racist exploitation is to show workers that racism is inherent to capitalism and will intensify as the bosses scramble to shore up their shaky empire, and that only communist revolution can unite all workers by ending capitalism.

Red Worker

Summer Project Unites Workers Across Borders

The L.A. Summer Project showed that the working class must be internationalist. The comrades in the project shared experiences and learned from each other and lived in a comradely way, spreading PLP politics without being limited by borders and language barriers imposed by the bosses. We had a BBQ during the project where most of the participants spoke only English and a few of us spoke Spanish. But our communications, though limited by gestures and expressions, showed a lot of joy and curiosity in meeting people with the same goals: fighting for communist revolution. I was able to speak at the BBQ with a young worker living in L.A. who migrated from Mexico and told me about the difficulties of being a low-paid undocumented worker, living check-by-check and sometimes not being able to satisfy the basic needs of life. On top of that, he lives with the fear of being deported or fired from the job and so has a very limited social life because of these conditions. It is very difficult for him being away from his immediate family in Mexico to fight for the "American Dream" that is more and more a nightmare. But now that he knows the PLP, he is very happy with his friendship with the comrade who invited him to the BBQ and with other comrades he is meeting. He never imagined himself being part of a communist Summer Project.

I heard similar comments from a young Mexican immigrant couple who met our Party and politics for the first time, and now want to join a PLP study group.

Our Party offers answers to the hard daily lives so many immigrant workers, and workers in general, are suffering in this racist, crisis-ridden, war-making capitalist society. These ties make our Party more internationalist. Since bosses don’t respect their own borders when it comes to exploiting us, workers should put into practice the slogan: workers of the world, unite, workers’ struggles have no border!

A Young Comrade, Mexico

At L.A. Factory Gate: Everyone Reads CHALLENGE

This summer a comrade and I traveled to Los Angeles for our first Summer Project. As a new member and a friend of the Party we learned so much on this trip and gained a better understanding of the Party’s line.

At CHALLENGE sales we talked with many industrial workers and soldiers about their bosses’ exploitative practices and the horrible working conditions they endure on a daily basis. One worker told us she needed time off to care for a sick family member and was told not to come back if she took it. One of the greatest things we saw was the morning we had been at an industrial site and turned to look at the entrance gate and saw so many of the workers sitting outside reading the paper! Distributing papers to day laborers, one man told us how he had left El Salvador because of harsh conditions only to find himself worse off. He said that although the economic hardships were bad here too, the level of racist attacks against him and his family member was something he did not have to endure back home. We spoke with a homeless vet who told us of the deplorable tactics used by the military to deliberately train them to dehumanize civilian "enemies." This demonstrates how the bosses’ pit us one against the other in an attempt to break workers apart.

The Summer Project is a great opportunity to learn from other comrades about work done over their years with the Party as well as from each other. As someone very new to the Party, every discussion and reading helped me learn and inspired me. I was able to speak out more, and speak with others about some of my own questions. I helped lead a discussion of student/worker alliances which brought out the importance of keeping contact with friends we bring around the Party. Without the constant connections and close discussions we could lose those potential future leaders of the Party.

In my mind the LA Summer Project is a great way to be one step closer to the building of a communist revolution and the idea of living in a communist society. I know it has given me confidence to work harder, to ask more questions of my comrades, and want to step up to more roles of leadership. Everyone, no matter what their experience level, should attend every Summer Project they possibly can.

New Red

Talking Revolutionary Politics in Obama Campaign

I helped out at a voter registration drive in my neighborhood that I found out about through BarackObama.com. I never voted before and agreed with PLP’s position that voting can’t and won’t alleviate the suffering of workers under capitalism. I also agreed that the Obama campaign provides an important opportunity to meet workers that want to change society and introduce them to the ideas of the PLP.

I worked with two young women who felt strongly about voting and the "change" Obama promises. It ended up being a very good experience since we actually spent more time chatting then registering people. We talked about our lives and racism in the neighborhood and the media (my two fellow registrars were arguing about whether or not Tyler Perry [an entertainer] degrades black workers). Before I left we exchanged contact infomation. I am planning on attending some more campaign events with them and hope to expose them to some of Obama’s comments that accepted the Sean Bell verdict and discouraged violent protest.

Red Registrar

REDEYE on the News

Crisis shows voting doesn’t help
- GW, 9/26

The fact the credit crisis relegated the elections to the inside pages tells us two things.

First, that real power does not lie with politicians. The crucial decisions were made by traders, bankers and speculators….

Second, that…[the] contest to see who will run the country sheds little light and has little bearing on how it is run.

Pipe-dream of US diplomats
- NYT, 8/14

A bumper sticker that American diplomats distributed around Central Asia in the 1990s as the United States was working hard to make friends there summed up Washington’s strategic thinking: "Happiness is multiple pipelines."

People speak: Gov’t does opposite
- NYT, 9/25

Americans’ anger is in full bloom, jumping off the screen in capital letters and exclamation points, in the e-mail in-boxes of elected representatives in the nation’s capital…. in outright opposition to the White House plan…. members of Congress say reaction to the bailout does not appear orchestrated or coordinated, but rather individual expressions that come from the grass roots and run across the philosophical spectrum.

War opponents, for instance, are telling lawmakers that they are tired of an administration…[that] played "the fear card" too many times by leading the nation into war in Iraq to find nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and curbing civil rights in the name of pursuing terrorists.

US said ‘Don’t bail banks out!’
-NYT, 9/24

Wall Street and the administration’s record of financial oversight came under attack at the United Nations on Tuesday….

For some leaders, the Bush bailout plan seemed hypocritical given the tough course Washington has often advised struggling nations to take….

"They are all remembering the very hard, unforgiving advice that they got from American financial institutions" to "deflate your economy, let your banks go to the wall"…. The outpouring on Tuesday came from some of America’s closest allies and trading partners…

Big Washington meet: Look out!
- NYT, 9/25

In deference to the current emergency, we will refrain from pointing out that when our national leaders came together following Sept. 11, the results were, all and all, worse than if they had stayed home.

Boeing Bosses Part of Rulers Who Oppress All Workers

The Boeing bosses are part of a ruling class oppressing workers worldwide. Their Board of Directors is linked to some of the country’s largest corporations and biggest Wall Street investment houses who are looking to make a killing out of any bailout scheme that the bankers and their politician servants can work out. But they also have their hands full these days, with the strike and the financial crisis.

The top Boeing bosses run not only Boeing but they and their class run the whole country, and both political parties.

For example, Boeing director Edward Liddy is also a director of manufacturing giant 3M and (till recently) financial giant Goldman-Sachs. His 3M, like Boeing, makes profit the old-fashioned way, by exploiting workers who create value from making products. However, his Goldman Sachs has been profiting the deregulated way, by gambling and cheating — speculating in the markets and selling bad debts — because it was temporarily more profitable than investing in production.

But the new way has problems. Said the NY Times, "A significant portion of the financial boom…seems to have been unrelated to economic performance and thus unsustainable." So now Liddy and his cronies are getting the government to bail them out.

Their Goldman Sachs is taking advantage of the bankrupting of competitors like Lehman Bros. Had insurance giant AIG failed, it might have taken down Goldman Sachs, but the government bought, and saved, AIG — and Goldman Sachs. Now Liddy is the new CEO of AIG! Boeing director John Biggs is also a director of JP Morgan Chase and former CEO of TIAA-CREF, the national teacher’s pension fund. His successor there, Herbert Allison, is now head of Fannie Mae (currently on government life support).

While a bailout may be advantageous to these bosses, they still have to sell it — to Congress, U.S. workers and to international capitalists. If the world’s bosses don’t go along, it could endanger the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Another Boeing boss, William Daley, is a key Democratic Party power broker and an Obama "senior advisor." His brother Richard is currently Chicago’s mayor, and a big Obama backer. These Democrats are trying to convince workers and youth that "Republican greed" caused the meltdown and that Barack will lead them to the promised land of regulated capitalism. Obama’s main job is to win U.S. youth and workers to sacrifice blood and sweat for these thieves’ continued rule.

Although these Boeing bosses know they can count on Obama to serve Wall Street, some are backing his rival McCain (elections are unpredictable). Another Boeing boss, Kenneth Duberstein, is a director of Big Oil’s ConocoPhillips and was once Republican Reagan’s chief of staff. He’s a long-time McCain advisor and member of Timmons & Co., a leading lobbyist firm. McCain named its CEO, William Timmons, to lead his transition team.

Duberstein, a champion of unregulated capitalism, was also a Fannie Mae director. From 2002-2006 his firm advised that mortgage broker on regulatory matters — how to keep the scam going!

So, the Boeing Board members know that whoever becomes president, he will be tied to the same jackals that caused the meltdown in the first place.

They may have the election sewn up, but they still must convince the world that the U.S., while possibly going bankrupt, is still the only superpower. They plan strategy in the Council on Foreign Relations, the Rockefeller/Morgan-sponsored think-tank that ("unofficially") plots U.S. foreign policy. Its members include Boeing bosses Biggs, Daley, and Duberstein!

These bandits know they’re in deep trouble. Basically they didn’t make enough profit the "old-fashioned way" so they deregulated, starting with Reagan and growing under Clinton. Instead of investing in industrial production, they had to resort to scams like subprime mortgages — that the old rules made difficult — to make a fast buck.

Now they want to re-industrialize, but not making washing machines and hair dryers. What money remains will be spent on armaments to control the world’s oil supplies and destroy their rivals’ productive capacity.

They want to bail themselves out. But ultimately it’s workers’ loss of homes, jobs and health care, earning slave wages that would bail them out, in their drive to reindustrialize for war production to fight imperialist wars.

The union wanted strikers to come into this battle blaming black, Latino and Chinese subcontractor workers. But when one seller held up our CHALLENGE strike Extra and shouted, "Read how L.A. subcontractor workers support Boeing strikers," she was cheered.

Based on this experience, a Boeing CHALLENGE reader wrote a "thank you" note from us strikers to L.A. subcontractor workers who have sent support letters and spoken at some of our BBQs. It was the first political document he’s written. He presented it to our group that meets at a nearby restaurant. He knew the union would stonewall any effort to build multi-racial, international unity between non-union subcontractors and us so he proposed a way to gather many rank-and-file signatures right now. Another shop steward agreed to sell more CHALLENGES after this discussion.

Small, but useful, victories as the strike goes on. Holding the line while struggling to advance PLP’s revolutionary communist line..

Hospital Workers Back Boeing Strikers

STATEMENT FROM CHALLENGE READERS AT A BROOKLYN HOSPITAL

We the CHALLENGE readers express our solidarity with the Boeing workers.

We support our brothers and sisters in their struggle against the Boeing company.

Boeing recently made $20 billion in profit from super-exploiting Boeing workers yet Boeing refuses to meet the economic demands from the workers.

However, the bosses’ government is spending billions in taxpayers’ money to bail out the banks, mortgage and insurances companies, while millions of U.S. workers’ wages have stagnated and health and pension benefits have grown stingier.

We, the CHALLENGE readers, are contributing $70 towards your struggle.

Keep up the fight against the bosses at Boeing.

U.S.-Russia Sharpening Rivarly Revs Up World War Threat

As the Georgian-Russian war revealed, inter-imperialist rivalry has reached a new level. It demonstrated the Russian bosses’ willingness to commit military power to defend their centuries-old sphere of influence and their control of the energy-rich Caspian Sea-Caucasus region. It also again exposed the U.S. bosses’ growing inability to rely on proxy forces to defend their interests abroad, prompting an eventual clash of U.S. and Russian troops. This, plus the on-going worldwide economic crisis, has accelerated the threat of world war as the only "solution" to this rivalry.

At stake in this Georgian dogfight is not only who will exploit, transport and decide where to market those energy resources, but which imperialist gangs will dominate the world, which, since World War I has been based on controlling the world’s energy resources. Since WWII, U.S. bosses’ world supremacy stems from controlling the oil-rich Middle East and energy resources in Latin America and Africa. This control, however, has been eroding, hammered by unrelenting challenges posed by rival imperialists and local bosses.

All this has intensified the U.S. bosses’ decline. To reverse it, says Foreign Affairs (September/December 2008; "A Daunting Agenda" by Richard Holbrooke), the weakness in "the domestic economy" must be repaired because "in the long run, the rise and fall of great nations is driven primarily by their economic strength…." But in reversing this economic downturn "… a new factor has emerged, unlike any the United States has previously faced"; with the high price of oil "...Americans ….are contributing to the greatest transfer of wealth from one set of nations to another in history" — an astounding $3 trillion yearly to oil-producing countries.

Historically, economic power helped determine military power of past empires. U.S. rivals, like Russia, are using their energy wealth to rebuild their military with state-of-the-art weaponry. The Russian navy has commissioned six new carrier groups to be built starting in 2012. The U.S. has eleven.

To regain its economic clout, U.S. imperialism must reassert control over the world’s energy resources and seize or destroy its main rivals’ industrial base. Energy-wise, so far, it has been waging a losing battle in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Venezuela. It recently suffered a major defeat in the Caspian Sea area as Russia’s Gazprom outfit bought most of the region’s exportable oil and gas resources. This effectively killed the West’s projected NABUCO pipeline to transport oil and gas from this area to Europe, bypassing Russian territory.

Now, because of its Georgian military victory, Russia can shut the only pipeline that bypasses the Russian Federation, the BTC (from Azerbaijan to Georgia to Turkey), or achieve this through clients like the Turkish Kurds. Recently, during repairs fo9llowing a Kurdish attack, the million barrels of oil BTC transports daily to Europe was rerouted through the Russian network. Given this, the deputy vice-president of Azerbaijan’s State Oil Co. said, "his company is considering an offer by Russia to buy all of the firm's natural gas production for both domestic use and export to Europe." (LA Times, 8/18/08)

Thus, U.S. rulers’ dreams of using Central Asia’s energy resources to break Russia’s stranglehold on Europe’s energy supplies — to maintain the NATO alliance for geopolitical reasons and eventual global war against Russia and/or China — have temporarily being dashed. Thus, gaining control of Iran — the world’s third largest oil and second largest natural gas reserve — has therefore become more crucial than ever to an ever more desperate U.S. imperialism fighting to maintain its world hegemony, with very few options left but war. Iran is also the perfect land bridge to transport Caspian Sea’s energy to Europe.

All this will require a war of unpredictable consequences. That’s why Holbrooke states, "The next U.S. president will inherit a more difficult set of international challenges than any predecessor since World War II." A challenge either Obama or McCain will dutifully undertake.

Capitalism/Imperialism breeds war under either nationalized or privatized means of production. Eighty percent of the world’s oil/natural gas resources have been nationalized but it’s only sharpened the inter-imperialist rivalry and moved the world closer to global war. Whether Saudi Arabia’s Princes, Iran’s Ayatollahs, Venezuela’s Chavez or Mexico’s Obrador, nationalization serves the interest of one sector of the local ruling classes and whichever imperialist they are allied with.

Our class should never support any of these butchers or participate in any capitalist electoral circus. Our interests lie in building a mass revolutionary communist PLP to fight for a communist world, where our class will decide how to best use and allocate the world’s natural resources to meet the needs of the world’s workers.