Liberal pols still toxic!
It’s no secret that when those of us in the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) state that liberal bosses are the greatest long-term danger to our class, many honest workers and students around us recoil at the message. After all, how can we say they’re more deadly, as Trump directs his racist goons to snatch workers out of their cars and homes and shoot them dead in broad daylight?
Our organization’s line – grounded in practice and the material world – remains valid and we must continue to fight to win the masses to see the liberal rulers for who they are. Case in point is Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s recent executive order that directs the local kkkops to “identify and document” immigration agents abusing the rights of people in the city with the idea that later those same agents could be prosecuted in court.
What Mayor Johnson essentially is pushing is that workers in Chicago confide in the police department to help us in our struggle against the ICE Gestapo. Chicago Police Department! Johnson wants us to ally ourselves with the same racist force that murdered LaQuan McDonald, Rekia Boyd, Adam Toledo, Dexter Reed and far too many others. The same racist force that has tortured, harassed and disappeared countless members of our class, and to this day still pays out tens of millions annually in misconduct settlements.
Liberal bosses like Johnson and even a Democratic Socialist like Zohran Mamdani in New York are so toxic to our class because they peddle the myth that the system can be radically reformed to meet all workers’ needs equitably, which history has always shown to be false. They blunt and cheapen the real collective fightback and class struggle organized by the working class against ICE across the country by encouraging us to seek justice within the boundaries of capitalist law. Even if some ICE racists are prosecuted, it’ll be a drop in the bucket for the global state terror apparatus that serves the bosses.
The international working class needs communism more than ever. Today and in the future, the social fascist misleaders will be the chief obstacle for our class uniting around a genuine revolutionary movement, while the capitalist system that they defend hurdles towards a broader and potentially nuclear conflict. When push comes to shove, they will sacrifice millions of working-class people into the jaws of imperialist carnage.
There are no good politicians or cops in a racist and genocidal system! Let’s continue to be in the spaces where the workers are at so we can win them to the Party and a real fighting communist alternative.
*****
From unequal exchange to workers’ unity
I presented at the Unequal Exchange Conference in the Twenty First Century Conference in Amsterdam this past week. The concept of unequal exchange was developed by Arrighiri Emmanuel and Samir Amin. The essence of the idea is that by calculating the labor value of exports from low wage countries you will often find that there is a net loss, even though the classical economists say trade is always win-win. Jason Hickel recently made these calculations precise. This means a lot of work goes into social reproduction in poor countries (sometimes called the global south or the third world): caring for children and elders, feeding and entertaining workers, building and maintaining housing. In the first world (which can be called the rich countries or the global north) this reproductive labor is supplemented by imports. So this creates a situation where capital accumulates in the global north. Reformist labor movements have historically demanded bosses “share the wealth” rather than leading the working class to unite with their international siblings in labor. Some of the adherents to the unequal exchange theory assert that the global north working classes will never make revolution; they deny the essential unity of the working class. They suggest only an alliance of bosses and workers in the global south can create a revolutionary situation by first “rebalancing” the terms of trade. We correctly reject this as economism -- meaning the philosophy that economic incentives are the best way to motivate human behavior. I raised this point at the conference in the Q & A, and the response was positive. We believe in politics in command. Workers of the world must unite internationally based on a political commitment. They should rebel against reformist misleaders who call on them to ally with bosses of any nation, race or gender. This rebellion will create a revolutionary situation for the final seizure of power.
I was a little nervous about joining the conference, but many of the presenters were also supportive of an international working class alliance. The fascinating academic presentations proposed many innovations for measuring, analyzing, or even for recognizing where measurements can’t describe what workers know. On the third day of the conference, organizers from Palestine Action in the UK, which sabotaged the Israeli military contractor Elbit Systems’ factories, spoke about how they were able to sharpen the struggle by organizing labo . In some neighborhoods they were able to organize locals to form a picket line/protest of support during sabotage actions. Dutch anti-genocide protesters also spoke from Rotterdam Front for Liberation and The Hague for Palestine about combining student organizing and working class organizing. The Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle also spoke. The Anti Imperialist Network and The International League of People’s Struggles played an important role in organizing. There was a lot of support for the national liberation philosophy of new democracy, i.e. alliance of “progressive” bosses, workers and peasants. Even though our line is different, developing relationships with these groups could provide opportunities to introduce the multi-racial working class and students who live in the global north to class struggle around the world.
The Swedish syndicalist labor union Central Organization of Swedish Workers (SAC Syndikalisterna) spoke about a joint labor action between SAC member workers in the state owned alcohol distributor and agricultural unions in the vineyards of South Africa and South America. Swedish workers found management was meeting with vineyard owners to address concerns about labor practices. The workers insisted they be included. Workers made a point of including the organizers from the agricultural unions local to the vineyards. This meant the labor conditions really improved; the bosses’ reforms would have been superficial without the workers’ assistance. For their efforts the SAC workers were split up and sent to different locations. In response, the agricultural unions from the Global South protested, which led to the SAC workers in Sweden getting their jobs back. The SAC is now fighting for the job of a dock worker in the dock workers union Hamnarbetarförbundet fired for being the “ringleader” of a group of workers who refuse to load war material bound for Gaza. Surprisingly, they had heard of Progressive Labor Party before!
Overall, the Marxist movement in Europe is strong. They have a large base of support, longstanding institutions, and they also have many international connections to working class movements around the world. The workers of Europe do not live in a social democratic paradise. Migrant workers are second class citizens. The neoliberals cut the existing social programs, and the rising fascist movement tries to fool workers with a false you help me I help myself alliance. I was able to share the Party in a few one-on-one conversations. It seemed like mentioning the Party during my presentation or making a public announcement could have led to friction with the organizers or attendees that would serve no political purpose at this time when I am totally new to the community. Even though our political line may be different than many of the organizations participating in the conference, there were many inspiring and instructive examples of how to organize multiracial working class unity across borders.
*****
Olympics exacerbates displacement
The housing crisis in Los Angeles County has reached a tipping point of systemic cruelty. While the region prepares to host the 2028 Olympic Games, billions of dollars are being poured into infrastructure and security—with costs for the latter alone expected to exceed $2 billion—while working class families are being pushed onto the streets.
An estimated 72,000 people are experiencing homelessness in LA County. Despite this staggering figure, the fascist bosses appear more than willing to expand this number for profit. In an egregious case, a long time tenant family, currently out of work, is being sued for nonpayment of rent. Simultaneously, their landlord has refused to make necessary repairs in a building located in an area where rents are expected to skyrocket as the Olympics approach.
The conditions are not just deteriorating; they are life-threatening. This family has been pleading with the landlord to remove mold that, according to their doctor, is making their child sick. Instead of professional remediation, the landlord has merely painted over the mold—a move that only worsens the problem. Under California law (Health & Safety Code § 17920.3), visible mold that poses a health threat renders a dwelling substandard, yet enforcement remains a struggle for those without resources.
While the ruling class spends billions on “Gestapo ICE” and preparations for future wars, the working class is left to survive in uninhabitable conditions. This is why we have been active in organizing a tenants’ union to resist the bosses who treat housing as a commodity for the highest bidder rather than a fundamental human right.
In a communist society, housing would be guaranteed to all. We believe a communist revolution is the only way forward to ensure a decent life for the working class. We urge you to stand with us. Join the Progressive Labor Party !
*****
Smoke for spirits, machete for pols
I am visiting Oaxaca, Mexico. The language school I attend arranged an excursion to a renowned alebrijes workshop. These carved wooden figures, often representing local animals, are painted using colorful natural tints made from local vegetables and minerals. The detailed carvings depict ferocious pumas, coyotes, hummingbirds, rabbits with horns and many other creatures with fantastic features.
Alebrijes are both a part of local religious beliefs and treasured art pieces. Their sale and export employs many artisans.
A worker explained the process of making natural paint and, more importantly, sanctifying the figures to drive away evil spirits. The smoking resin of the Copal tree, a soft wood found in the forests, is used to whisk away any magic or bad luck that might be hiding in the wood.
As the talk closed, I asked our guide if I could bring some Copal resin home and use it to drive out Donald Trump and other politicians and enemies of the working people. Without missing a beat, he pulled a machete from a copal tree stump, brandished it over his head and said, “this is what you need for those kinds of evil spirits.”
*****
Capitalist rush for metals kills hundreds in DR Congo
Al Jazeera, 1/31–More than 200 people have been killed in a collapse at the Rubaya coltan mine in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to a spokesperson for the rebel-appointed governor of the province where the mine is located…“More than 200 people were victims of this landslide, including miners, children and market women…” Rubaya produces about 15 percent of the world’s coltan, which is processed into tantalum, a heat-resistant metal that is in high demand by makers of mobile phones, computers, aerospace components and gas turbines…The mine, where locals dig manually for a few dollars per day, has been under the control of the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group since 2024…
U.S. bosses tighten the oil grip on Cuba
The Guardian, 1/27–Mexico has cancelled a shipment of oil to Cuba, the country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, appeared to confirm on Tuesday, but she insisted the decision was “sovereign” and not a response to pressure from the US. Fuel shortages are causing increasingly severe blackouts in Cuba, and Mexico has been the island’s biggest oil supplier since the US blocked shipments from Venezuela last month. On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Pemex, Mexico’s state oil company, had “backtracked” on plans to send a much-needed delivery to Cuba this month. The cancelled shipment comes amid reports that the Mexican government had been privately reviewing whether to keep sending oil to Cuba amid fear of reprisals from the US.
U.S. analysts hope for continued dominance
Foreign Affairs, 2/4–After the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and President Donald Trump revived talk of acquiring Greenland, commentators reached for old clichés: the rebirth of the Monroe Doctrine…But these episodes revealed something more exceptional. The world today has only one true sphere of influence. The United States alone dominates a vast home region, not merely as a buffer against competitors such as China and Russia, but as a hemispheric base from which American power and commerce can project outward, largely unconstrained by rivals…China and Russia cannot consolidate control over their own regions, much less project sustained power into the United States’ backyard.
Israel now building cluster bombs for U.S. military
The Intercept, 2/6– The Department of Defense has quietly signed a $210 million deal to buy advanced cluster shells from one of Israel’s state-owned arms companies, marking unusually large new commitments to a class of weapons and an Israeli defense establishment both widely condemned for their indiscriminate killing of civilians. The deal, signed in September and not previously reported, is the department’s largest contract to purchase weapons from an Israeli company in available records…The DOD awarded the contract without public competition under a “public interest” exception to federal contracting law…
Ukraine is another example of how destruction is useful to capitalists
Rand.org, 1/30– When the fighting stops, the most promising opportunities for U.S. companies won't be in Russia, but in Ukraine…once a durable cease-fire takes hold, it will become one of the world's most dynamic emerging economies…Ukraine will become the site of the largest reconstruction project since World War II. The World Bank estimates more than $500 billion will be spent in the country over the next decade…Even during the war, thousands of U.S. and other foreign businesses opened up in Ukraine. More are likely to come soon.
Los Angeles cops train in Israel to learn the techniques of genocide
Los Angeles Times, 2/7–Over the last decade, the Los Angeles Police Department sent employees to Israel to train or be trained by the country’s counterterrorism experts on at least nine occasions…But officers who attended these training sessions and dozens of other overseas seminars and conferences routinely failed to document what they learned or keep track of who they met with…The LAPD’s relationship with Israeli security forces has come under scrutiny amid the country’s ongoing military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, which has caused tens of thousands of deaths and drawn allegations of genocide…The LAPD has been sending officers to train with Israeli security forces since the 1980s, and ramped up the trips after the 9/11 attacks…
As the international crisis of capitalism deepens, Minneapolis is under siege by state terror—and the working class is fighting back. In a city of less than half a million residents, more than three thousand federal shock troops have been given free rein to detain, arrest, brutalize, and murder any who cross their path. Over a span of 17 days, the paramilitary thugs of ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol executed a mother of three and an ICU nurse for the capital crime of protest. (So much for the bosses’ fake “freedoms” of speech and assembly!) Renee Good and Alex Pretti are just two of the latest casualties of the rulers’ vicious drive to scapegoat immigrants for the profit system’s failures and the plight of a waning and desperate U.S. empire. Thirteen workers have been shot by trigger-happy agents since last September, including Silverio Villegas Gonzales, a line cook near Chicago who tried to flee a traffic stop, and Keith Porter, a father of two gunned down in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve (themarshallproject.org, 1/26). The killings of Good and Pretti-both white workers-also show that no worker is safe from this racist terror.
But even under siege, Minneapolis is once again showing the world how to stand up against gutter racism and sanctioned state violence. While the liberal mayor and governor and police chief make useless pleas for “peace,” thousands of heroic workers have mobilized to defend and protect each other while standing up to the death squads dispatched by State-Terrorist-in-Chief Donald Trump. On January 23, tens of thousands marched downtown and hundreds of businesses closed in a general strike (democracynow.org, 1/26). In these selfless acts of working-class solidarity, in the hard lessons we are learning, there is a glimpse of a communist future—of a new and better world. It’s never been clearer that the working class must break free of the chaos and callous oppression of capitalism. It’s never been clearer that the liberal capitalist misleaders have nothing to offer us. Fighting the rise of fascism shoulder to shoulder, and led by the revolutionary Progressive Labor Party, we will build the communist world our class deserves.
Why we are under assault
Minneapolis is feeling the bloody brunt of an empire’s decline. As U.S. imperialism competes for dwindling global resources against a rising China and other rivals, it has splintered into two bitterly warring factions. The Big Fascists of finance capital, the multinational banks and oil companies, still seek global domination through endless, far-flung war and a nuclear-girded network of 750 overseas military bases (globalstatistics.com). The domestically based Small Fascists behind Trump, as they move to restore a more isolated Fortress America, have a cheaper plan for plunder.
Case in point: the U.S. oil grab in Venezuela. While the two sides have different strategies and tactics, both are faced with a system that’s drowning in debt and squeezing workers’ standard of living. Both sides must rely on racist terror to keep workers in line and also to divide them.
Both sides, in short, are being forced to turn to fascism, a phase of capitalism that strips off the mask of liberal democracy and reveals the rotten core beneath.
This is the context for the federal government’s declaration of war on immigrant workers. While Trump has a long way to go to beat Barack Obama’s 5.3 million deportations and “repatriations” of migrating workers, or Joe Biden’s single-year record of 1.5 million (newsweek.com, 1/15), his no-holds-barred agenda marks a qualitative escalation. The ICE goons in combat gear are being recruited with naked appeals to white nationalism and wink-wink tropes familiar to the Proud Boys and other nazi groups in the U.S. and Germany (New York Times, 1/27). It can be no surprise that they’re freely assaulting people in parking lots, dragging them from their cars—or shooting them when they get the opportunity. ICE agents are casing schools and daycare centers. In one horrific case, they snatched a five-year-old child and used him as bait to lure family members from their home before shipping the boy and his father to a Texas concentration camp for deportation (NYT, 1/22). Locked and loaded with live ammunition, stun grenades, tear gas, and pepper spray, these masked cowards have turned Minneapolis into a class war zone.
Occupied but not defeated
Though the terror is real, so is the collective response of the working class. Growing groups of workers are forming parent patrols around schools. Watch groups are alerting their immigrant neighbors to ICE’s presence and bringing food to those too terrified to go outside. Each day they are chasing ICE vans, confronting the thugs with whistles and an emerging multiracial class consciousness.
Falling back on skills and connections gained in the George Floyd resistance and then the fightback against genocide in Gaza, the working class in Minneapolis has built a broad and inspiring movement. They aren’t focused on the dead end of voting in the next election. With advanced antiracist politics, they are defying both Trump and the equally dangerous reformist misleaders (The Guardian 1/2). The workers’ collective will and commitment were on display on January 23, when thousands braved frigid temperatures to take to the streets after the murder of Alex Pretti. The deafening message from that day remains clear: Workers United Will Never Be Defeated!
The enemy of our enemy is our enemy
Even as Trump’s forces use a racist welfare investigation to target their Democratic Party rivals and migrating workers from Somalia, we can’t lose sight of a hard fact: The Democrats are no friends of ours. Just as most of them, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, stood opposed to defunding the police who killed George Floyd and so many others, they now have no intention of abolishing ICE (NYT, 1/15). In essence, these are the same liberal racists who built the foundation for Trump’s ethnic cleansing machine, dating back to the Illegal Immigration Responsibility Act that Bill Clinton signed in 1996. Under Obama, the Democrats built the razor-wire-topped cages for migrating workers and children—the same inhuman holding pens that Trump used in his first term (politifact.com, 9/13/19).
Whoever wins the next rounds of U.S. elections, we know that capitalism can never be reformed to meet the needs of the working class. The politicians will still lie as they serve their billionaire masters. The cops will still be brutal. And the working class will continue to suffer. But there is another solution to put the state terrorists out of business for all time: communist revolution.
Organize to stop ICE, fight for communism
Workers understand that we can’t stop ICE with whistles and snowballs and cell phone cameras. Though there will be cheers if and when Trump’s gestapo leaves Minnesota, we all know they’ll be off to terrorize workers someplace else. Capitalism is built on the exploitation and oppression of workers everywhere, from Minnesota to Gaza and Sudan and Tehran. No capitalists, no matter how much they hate other capitalists, can rescue us from fascism and inter-imperialist war. To build a world without bosses and borders—a communist world—we can rely only on our class. That is the lesson we learn in the struggle. Organize ICE Watch and fight for communism! Organize food distributions and fight for communism! Join Progressive Labor Party and fight for communism!
Minneapolis, MN—A multiracial collective of students and workers from Progressive Labor Party (PLP) brought the heat of antiracist communist politics and organizing to the city of Minneapolis this weekend. In subzero temperatures, we proudly stood shoulder to shoulder next to tens of thousands of other students and workers demanding an immediate end to the ICE nazis’ racist and fascist assault on the city.
The ongoing racist raids, arrests and deportations are rooted in the capitalist profit system, which can only exist from the division and intense exploitation of the international working class. Facing this truth, we shared the goal and vision of a communist revolution led by the mass PLP to overthrow the hated bosses and their wretched system and build an egalitarian worker-run society in its place!
ALL OUT for the general strike!
Our plan to travel to Minneapolis coincided with the call of unions and social organizations to hold a general strike on January 23rd. The ICE gestapo has ratcheted up their invasion of the area over the past weeks, sending thousands of agents to make arrests of our immigrant worker siblings while executing mother of three Renee Good in cold blood on January 7th.
The working class here has responded to the raids with passion and skill, organizing rapid response networks and mobilizing the masses to protect their neighbors, family, co-workers and friends through direct action. The general strike is the logical escalation of the class struggle: withholding our labor in a mass coordinated way across different industries to confront the bosses’ plans and damage their ability to make profits.
In inspiring solidarity, with the wind dropping the air temperature to around -30º, the working class showed up around 100,000 deep in the downtown commons area to participate in the strike. Our PLP collective chanted and spoke amidst enraged masses of workers rallying, chanting and marching to demonstrate the earth-shaking power of a unified working class.
Throughout the action, we marched with our red communist flags high, distributing hundreds of copies of CHALLENGE and leaflets. We sharpened the tone and militancy of the chants, stressing the need for multiracial working-class unity to challenge the bosses: “Asian, Latin, Black and white – Workers of the world, unite!” We peppered these chants with speeches that were well-received, especially by connecting the history of slavery to racist police terror and the murder of George Floyd with the genocides in Palestine and Sudan, and that our goal should not just be to kick the hated ICE out of Minnesota. General strikes can teach us our own power, but the only way to end this terror everywhere is to use our power to uproot the vicious capitalist society requiring such ruthless force to maintain their imperialist system. To do that we need a mass Red Army waging revolutionary violence and millions of workers building a mass international PLP. Anything less and we will repeat this same murderous cycle.
Capitalism keeps murdering us – Justice for Alex Pretti
The morning after the general strike we awoke to the horrifying news that the ICE fascists took the life of yet another worker in Minneapolis. 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti was wrestled to the ground by at least six agents and shot dead on a crowded street at point blank range.
Just as they did after the racist murder of Black worker George Floyd in 2020, liberal racist bosses like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz rushed to do damage control and provide cover for the murderers, pleading for calm and a peaceful response.
They were answered with a resounding HELL NO! As usual, the liberal misleaders like to pose as an alternative against Donald Trump and project a more friendly face of capitalism, but through hard experience workers see through their treachery. Their attempts to mask the brutal reality of the system make them the greater long-term danger to our class.
Connecting with local workers we met from the day before, our collective rushed to the growing scene of rebellion on Nicolett Avenue. The ICE fascists were quick to unleash crowd control, making arrests and shooting clouds of tear gas. But they failed to repel the working-class wrath and were forced to retreat as hundreds of workers weaved through a flimsy police perimeter to gather near the site of Alex’s murder.
Barricades were quickly erected by workers at street intersections to the north and south of the site of the shooting to keep ICE and any kkkops out. Businesses along the street opened their doors in solidarity to the antiracist fighters as spaces to warm up, strategize, and get free food, beverages and hand warmers. Members from our PLP collective who work in healthcare connected with other workers in a donut shop to create a street medic space for any people who were potentially injured in clashes with the police or ICE.
Soldiers: Turn the guns around!
Later, at that day’s mass vigil for Alex, we learned the Minnesota National Guard was staging to clear the area, prompting some to compare soldiers to kkkops and chant of “f*ck the Guard!” Amidst this chant, a woman took the mic and movingly spoke as a former soldier who refused orders to kill in Iraq and shared that many soldiers didn’t enlist to commit racist crimes, aren’t police, and often question their orders. In the stunned silence, a PL’er inspired by the veteran’s passion connected their experiences in Iraq to the murders of Shantel Davis, George Floyd and now these latest martyrs and said that only communist revolution can avenge them and bring the world we deserve.
Grief turned into militant cheers, and in the conversations that followed, we learned the soldiers nearby were in contact and questioning their orders. We were able to send messages to refuse orders to harm their class siblings, and to join us and turn the guns around. Ultimately, the Guard wasn’t sent out – but with our contacts here we can plant the seeds for future rebellions.
Contrary to the capitalist bosses and their mouthpieces’ constant lies that communism can’t work because it goes against “human nature” and other nonsense, Minneapolis gave genuine examples of communism in action. Workers of every background came together to organize, share, and defend one another without any motivation of personal gain. As one of our friends put it, it was “the dream within the nightmare.”
The class struggle continues
The mass openness to communist ideas in this atmosphere isn’t a coincidence. For the apparent future, our class will remain in mortal struggle against these capitalist parasites and the fascists protecting their property and wealth. But the fighting example of workers across Minneapolis as well as the entire world shows how rapidly the illusions of capitalist strength vanish in the face of workers’ power. Minneapolis demonstrates that our class has the potential and spirit to destroy this capitalist system before it destroys us. ALL POWER to the international working class! We salute the antiracist fighters everywhere – JOIN PLP, FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
Newark NJ, January 19 – Over a dozen Progressive Labor Party members and friends attended a rally commemorating MLK Day by protesting racist ICE abductions across the U.S. We are currently facing a rising tide of fascism (see editorial on page 2) and must prepare to take the streets with students and workers every chance we get. In New Jersey, we called up students from local colleges, antiracist fighters against the genocide in Palestine, and fierce organizers against the murderous ICE jail, Delaney Hall, to join us at the nearest march. Our class is righteously fired up about the public execution of Renee Good, the murder of Keith Porter by an off-duty ICE agent and the murder of ICE detainees like 41-year-old Jean Wilson Brutus, dying within days of detainment.
This murderous system has robbed our class, the working class, of too many people to name. The only way we can avenge our class is to fight to end this capitalist system and organize for the inevitable clash between the ruling class and the working class that is to come. If we organize for it, we can win the communist future that our class has the potential to win.
To strengthen our spears, our Party consistently stands beside antiracist fighters and families outside of Delaney Hall. We share CHALLENGE newspapers and host study groups, connecting police terror to the needs of this system—profit, war and imperialist competition, which is clearly leading us down a deadly road to World War 3. The bosses want our class to be under the boot of killer kkkops and ICE, long enough to figure out how to untangle the mess of their previous wars and expeditions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Latin America. As we prepare ourselves for what’s to come, we must bridge the confidence we have in our class to every worker, neighbor, and student, inviting them to join us in class struggle and build an internationalist Party that can contest the ruling class.
Liberalism poisons our class
A few days before the march, teachers, organizers, and parents met and exposed a connection between Delaney Hall and Newark Public Schools. Both corporate and state funded entities share Driscoll Foods as its food distributor. The same rotten food being fed to school children is killing workers like Brutus in Delaney Hall. Workers detained inside the ICE jail have complained of moldy or frozen food, freezing temperatures, and zero medical care. We decided to print this information on leaflets and call for every fighter at the rally to turn up at the upcoming Board of Education meeting.
The march’s organizers are known to be the mayor’s go-to for bringing out masses of workers and then ushering them behind the Democratic Party and collaborating with the police. This rally was no different. One speaker essentially declared that she didn’t want to abolish police but stop ICE from the fascist level of terror. Some fighters in the crowd boo’ed. We let out the chant: HOW DO YOU SPELL RACIST//G-O-P//HOW DO YOU SPELL MURDERERS//D-N-C. Some workers were taken aback by our boldness but still joined in. We made it our goal to not have the same few PL’ers chanting but to encourage fellow fighters to raise their voice, sharing printed versions of chant sheets that we made for the day.
Black workers are key to revolution
As we marched, undercover cops murdered a 43-year-old Black worker, Wali Bey. Newark’s Mayor, Ras Baraka’s weak response: “It is a heartbreaking tragedy for everyone involved when a police officer feels the need to draw a weapon—and so much more so
when they are compelled to fire.” The officer had no reason to draw the weapon, as Wali and another man were sitting in their car. The KKKops terrorized and shot them because police are given the rights under this system to murder in broad daylight and without impunity. Wali was a beloved member of the community and his murder exposes the contradictions of liberal responses to racist police terror under this capitalist regime. Baraka has built a base around the idea that Black workers and students, the primary targets of police terror under capitalism, could befriend and soften the nature of their captors, Killer KKKops in the Newark PD.
Days later, there was a statement released that officers could no longer wear a mask while patrolling the street. Not only is this reformist order too late; it’s a hollow peace offering in exchange for the life of a man and the lifelong trauma of his family and community. Wali’s family and supporters who were in Baraka’s base have protested outside of the local police precinct and disrupted the recent City Council meeting with chants to demand that they SAY HIS NAME. They are pressuring the local police and misleaders like Baraka to explicitly state what happened to Wali and are exposing the crimes that are inflicted against all of our class. One PL’er is related to Wali and is leading ways for our NJ section to support the family turning this tragedy into class struggle.
We have no time to lose
For Wali and the too many names of our class siblings slain by racist police and ICE, we must smash and bury this capitalist system. It is our role as antiracist communists during this period to also link struggles between racist ICE terror to racist KKKOP terror. Whether in the United States or anywhere in the world the horrors of capitalism are the same. Workers everywhere have the same needs and the same fight! Black, Latin, Asian, Arab, and white--workers of the world unite!
