Miners in Alabama ordered to pay for bosses’ expenses
UMWA, 8/3–“This is a slap in the face not just to the workers who are fighting for better jobs at Warrior Met Coal, but to every worker who stands up to their boss anywhere in America,” UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said. “There are charges for security, cameras, capital expenditures, buses for transporting scabs across picket lines, and the cost of lost production.

The union entered into a settlement agreement in June with NLRB Region 10 regarding charges the company had made about picket line activity...On July 22, the NLRB sent the union a detailed list of damages totaling $13.3 million dollars, more than 33 times the estimated amount NLRB lawyers had initially indicated would be assessed.
Warrior Met has reported millions of dollars in costs it has incurred over the course of the strike. “It appears that Warrior Met wants us to reimburse it for those costs, including costs it incurred before the strike even began,” Roberts said. “What’s extremely troubling here is that the NLRB appears to have taken up the company’s cause without a second thought.

Justice non-existent in assassination of Moise
World Politics Review, 8/11–This weekend will mark the first anniversary of the Aug. 14 earthquake in Haiti, which came just five weeks after the assassination of former President Jovenel Moise... Moise was killed on July 7 last year, when a gang of assassins went into his heavily secured house in an upscale neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. The killers somehow managed to get through the scores of security personnel meant to be protecting a president who knew he had many enemies. Not one of the officers meant to be guarding Moise was hurt.

Haitian authorities have arrested scores of people, including 18 former Colombian soldiers, who are believed to have acted as mercenaries, carrying out the assassination on behalf of a paymaster. They have not gone on trial.
Among the main suspects is Ariel Henry, currently both Haiti’s acting president and acting prime minister, but investigating a sitting prime minister under the current conditions is proving, shall we say, challenging. When officials have tried to question Henry, he has simply fired them. Other judges, prosecutors and witnesses have reportedly been threatened. Many, including the first judge investigating the case, have withdrawn from the investigation or gone into hiding. Another person of interest is Dimitri Herard, the current head of presidential security, who reportedly traveled to Colombia before the killing.

Anti-Muslim rapists and murderers released in India
BBC, 8/11–Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped and saw 14 members of her family being murdered by a Hindu mob during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the western Indian state of Gujarat, is back in the headlines.
On Monday, 11 convicts who were serving life sentences for rape and murder in the case, walked out of prison to a heroes' welcome. In a late-night statement on Wednesday, Bilkis Bano called the decision to free the men "unjust" and said it had "shaken" her faith in justice.

"When I heard that the convicts who had devastated my family and life had walked free, I was bereft of words. I am still numb," she said…Many have also pointed out that the release is in contravention of guidelines issued by both the federal government and the Gujarat state government - both say that rape and murder convicts cannot be granted remission. Life terms in these crimes are usually served until death in India.

Down with Kingmakers & nationalism
During one of my last days of summer break, I went to see Lauren Greenfield’s 2019 documentary The Kingmaker. We learned about the legacy of the infamous Marcos family, which has terrorized the working class of Philippines since the late 1960s. Following in the footsteps of the late, heinous Ferdinand Marcos, his son Bongbong—aided by his mother Imelda—campaigned for the 2016 vice presidency in an attempt to reclaim the family’s power. Soon after his opponent Maria Leonor Robredo won, in Trump-like fashion, Bongbong protested the official count with no avail.

Amid the overlay of interviews between the director and various political figures, Imelda Marcos, and workers, the corruption and devastation brought by the Marcos family and their aids (including the state apparatus) onto the Filipino people gave me pause. Familiar things included misinformation through social media, replacing history and upending the education system, and dangerous cult personalities justifying the state-sanctioned terror inflicted on communities. I instinctively recognized the same tactics used by the U.S. ruling class and inferred that today’s gruesome reality in the Philippines could very well be the near future of the U.S. as long as workers do not fight back and continue to let weak reforms misguide much-needed change.

After the film, we had a discussion that had an impact on me. Multiple workers from the Philippines spoke of their experience confronting intergenerational trauma and a lack of pride in the country on account of the horrific government. One person expressed deep frustration that in the Philippines, there is no reliable mainstream news source. They continued describing the racism they have experienced from non-Filipino and Filipino people alike. They recounted a trip to New York that was soured by workers in a Filipino store. Because of the language the person spoke—the same used by the Filipino government—they received an antagonistic response. It was clear that national and cultural boundaries isolated this person from those who are not so different, as we all have a common enemy in the Marcoses, Trumps, and Bidens of the world. People also went more in-depth about the martial law enacted by Ferdinand Marcos, permitting his administration to rule with an iron-fist and cement him as dictator for essentially 14 years. I also learned the causes of the large Filipino population in the U.S. (now understanding why I had many Filipino classmates and teachers throughout middle and high school). It was due to the complex and insidious relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines, leaving workers from the Philippines with alienation and resentment.

I spoke to my experience of recently broadening my perspective and analysis of systemic oppression beyond my community to the international working class and finding that an organized, antiracist, antisexist communist party is what is needed to tear down the crooked elite. Afterwards, I connected with multiple people, telling them of my work within the Baltimore West Wednesday Coalition to achieve accountability of police murders and described the Progressive Labor Party. Since the place that hosted the event is close to home, I intend to remain in touch and make inroads to building greater class consciousness among organizers.

*****
Top Gun: Maverick, recruitment tool
According to a recent article by William Koehler on MovieWeb, films that want access to aircraft carriers, fighter jets and skilled pilots need to get approval from the Department of Defense (DOD). In the first installment of Top Gun in 1986, “the US Navy saw a 500 percent increase in the number of people joining to be naval aviators.” They even had Navy and Air Force recruitment booths in some theaters showing the movies.

The DOD also has final say on the script, so if it’s not pro-U.S. military, it doesn’t get in the movie. Top Gun: Maverick concentrates on a combat mission to destroy an enemy target, an Iranian nuclear facility. The film assumes the U.S. government and its military are doing the right thing because there is no discussion about the political or historical ramifications. It glorifies the military and “the best in the world pilots,” who will uphold
U.S. imperialism at any cost. Propaganda films like Top Gun influence youths to join the military to do something heroic. The high tech killing machines are used to make warfare look “cool.”

But the reality is much different. The reality is that the bosses use the military to kill our sisters and brothers all over the world to ensure their blood profits. We must make it clear that the bosses use entertainment to weaponize their imperialist goals at our expense. Let’s build a communist alternative, join PLP!

*****
Weakening U.S. desperate for old world order
“The U.S. economy is based on profits from control of an imperialist empire of more than 750 military bases in over 100 countries and a military budget that dwarfs every other country (12 times larger than Russia’s). It provides 80 percent of the world’s weapons exports including military training to 40 of the most oppressive, anti-democratic governments on earth” (Jeff Cohen – Veterans For Peace, Summer 22).

The purpose of Nancy Pelosi’s Southeast Asia tour and recent “we got your back” message to Taiwan (see editorial, page 2) is to pledge protection against China and security for more billion dollar arms sales and military training not only to Taiwan but to Japan, Australia and South Korea to set up a Southeast Asian imperialist bloc to oppose Chinese economic expansion just as NATO’s imperialist bloc aims to prevent Russia’s expansion into Europe.

Joe Biden’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia had more to do with multi-billion profits for Raytheon and Boeing’s sales of missile systems and fighter planes to protect U.S. oil interests in the Middle East than any increase in oil production.

When U.S. imperialists scream about a return to “world order” and “democracy” they mean return to U.S. empire rule. The media flood of old and new U.S. war movies and how atomic bombing of Japan saved the U.S. are military propaganda. The military presence and nationalist flag waving at all events are really demands for worker’s blood to be shed once again to defeat  U.S. capitalist competitors. I believe however that the worldwide working class can turn the next imperialist profit war into a class war for a communist system of equality and worker’s power that will smash racist capitalism. Join PLP!

******
Remembering Camacho & Delano Summer Projects
Two Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members attended the memorial for Epifanio Camacho, longtime PLP member and leader in the Central Valley in California, a major agricultural area populated by large numbers of immigrant farm workers from many different countries.

Like many other (then) younger Party members, I participated in the Delano-McFarland PLP Anti-Racist Summer Projects, which took place between 1984 and 1990. Volunteers lived with local PLP members, almost all of whom were farmworkers. In the summer, farmworkers labored in 100 degree plus weather, frequently wrapping themselves in layers of clothing for protection from the toxic pesticides used by the growers in order to maximize their profits. We frequently went to the fields early in the morning to reach farmworkers with CHALLENGE and flyers from the Anti-Racist Farmworkers’ Union, which was led by PLP and the International Committee Against Racism (InCAR). In the late afternoons, we would go door-to-door in areas where farmworkers lived. PLP and InCAR led numerous marches and rallies through these neighborhoods on the weekends or late afternoons. During the projects, which usually lasted over six weeks, intense political discussion and activity planning took place at regular Party meetings.

One day, the volunteers were invited to come to Camacho’s house. This was the first time I had the chance to meet him. Both physically and intellectually powerful and politically sharp as nails, I could see why bringing workers like Camacho into PLP was so important to the growth and development of our revolutionary communist movement.

At Camacho’s memorial, I spoke on behalf of PLP. I first read two tributes written by PLP comrades from Mexico (see CHALLENGE, 8/17). I then read my remarks. This is a part of what I said:
[Camacho’s] greatest contribution to our movement was to show that PLP was and is serious about the working class leading society. We think he understood from his own personal conversion that the process of that transformation required deep immersion in the class struggle. He led that fight with a fiery spirit second to none. [He] was an invaluable member of our class, our communist party and the worldwide movement to abolish capitalism, end exploitation and wage slavery and establish a worker-run and worker-led communist society. Rest in power, comrade Camacho!

Several of the people who participated in the Memorial spoke eloquently about their own experiences as young people volunteering in the Summer Projects. They testified emotionally about the profound impact the experiences had on them during their formative years, and how those events had shaped their future lives.

My comrade and I had a long, in-depth discussion with one of the members of a family I stayed with in 1989. Although he is no longer a member of PLP, our conversation made it clear that he is still a communist at heart. He described in great detail some of the militant actions the Party led, and the importance of having a mass base in the working class. At one of those actions, a cop who wanted to shut down the action radioed headquarters for approval. He was told, in no uncertain terms, that it would not be a good idea given who the cops were up against, i.e. PLP and militant, antiracist members of the working class.

In discussing this memorial with a comrade afterwards, I realized what a privilege it had been to be part of the celebration of the life of this wonderful comrade! Epifanio Camacho may be gone, but the fruits of his communist labors continue through all of us who took part in the PLP’s work in the Central Valley and way beyond.
*****

In late July, hundreds of courageous workers responded to the latest crisis of capitalism by storming United Nations outposts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Workers’ lives everywhere have been made even more precarious by the imperialist bosses’ war in Ukraine, which has triggered astronomical hikes in the costs of fertilizer, food, and fuel. In recent months in the DRC,  an additional million people have fallen below the poverty line (ebrary.ifpri.org). These workers also face ever-mounting terror from mineral-hungry local gangs, government thugs, and Chinese imperialist mining companies. They declared to the world they’d had enough by raiding and setting fire to buildings in three cities that house MONUSCO, the UN’s “stabilization” mission—which has done nothing to make the DRC more stable since it entered the country in 1999. The UN “peacekeepers” responded with live fire that killed more than 30 demonstrators (msn.com, 8/2).
     Much like the storming in Sri Lanka two weeks earlier, the uprising in the DRC reflects the disgust of workers everywhere with the bosses’ political repression, bottomless greed, and vicious exploitation. Capitalism can never provide stability or peace for the international working class. Only communist revolution, led by Progressive Labor Party, can solve the never-ending capitalist crisis of inflation, depressions, and inter-imperialist wars for profit. Only a communist world can stamp out racism, sexism, and the rulers’ state terror.

United Nations “aid” sham
Since the end of World War II, a period of global domination by U.S. imperialism, the United Nations has proven at best ineffective and at worst complicit in making horrific conditions worse for our class. Throughout the world, workers have developed a deep hatred of the UN armed criminals who protect U.S.-aligned imperialist profiteers at the expense of workers’ lives and safety.  After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, racist military forces in MINUSTAH (UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti) raped and terrorized workers. Then-president Bill Clinton and the local crooks in the Haitian ruling class skimmed millions from “aid” projects at the height of a cholera outbreak. In Indonesia, UN-backed gold-mining operations by U.S. and Japanese capitalists used hundreds of tons of toxic mercury that continues to cause birth defects to this day. Today, the UN’s largest military presence, 16,000 uniformed personnel, is stationed in the DRC—not to stop a long-running conflict between warring groups of local bosses, but to help secure the world’s largest reserves of cobalt, an essential ingredient for electric vehicle batteries, computers, and cell phones.
     The deadly battle between rebel guerrilla groups like M23 and various ruling-class factions is about how to best control the super-exploitation of masses of workers in extracting valuable resources. The fury of workers against MONUSCO was manipulated by the DRC Senate president, Modeste Bahati Lukwebo, who has personally welcomed Chinese investors in mining and the beef industry with open arms (All Africa, 12/21/2021; China Mining Association, 3/14).  Ten days before the anti-UN uprising, he led a rally to attack MUNESCO’s failure to pacify M23—and to win his base over to join the Congolese national army, the FARDC, which represents DRC ruling-class interests (The Conversation, 7/28). This is just the latest chapter in a long history of capitalist infighting--instigated by bosses in Rwanda and Uganda as well as in the U.S., Russia, and China—that have made the DRC a tinderbox for decades.

Minerals and mass murder
The DRC has an estimated $24 trillion in untapped deposits of cobalt, copper, diamonds, gold, zinc, tin, and potash. The Congo and its riches have played a major role in the modern history of imperialism, from the European imperialist competition of the 19th and early 20th centuries to the U.S. imperial expansion after World War II. In The African Roots of War (1915), the great Black historian W.E.B. Du Bois noted that the scramble for natural resources and cheap labor in Africa in the 1880s was a big part of the tensions that finally erupted in World War I. In a relentless hunt for ivory, rubber, and diamonds, King Leopold of Belgium led the imperialist scramble that created the “Congo Free State”—and a genocide of 10 million deaths.
     During World War II, the U.S. ruling class outmaneuvered Nazi Germany in the Congo to seize control of the world’s top uranium deposit and force workers to labor in radioactive mines. The raw materials from this deadly toil were used in the atomic bombs dropped on children, women, and men in Japan.  In 1961, the U.S.-Soviet race for uranium and copper led the CIA—under an apparent directive from President Dwight Eisenhower (New York Times, 8/2/1981)—to plot the assassination of pro-Soviet Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and consolidate the rule of the pro-U.S. Mobutu Sese Seko (Project Syndicate, 7/29). Today, as the U.S. and Russia remain locked in battle in Ukraine, the Chinese bosses are making inroads from Egypt to the DRC to the Horn of Africa. All three imperialist powers are vying for regional support in an increasingly unstable world order. The inevitable outcome is World War III.

Chinese rulers: thieves and exploiters  
Chinese imperialism is no less dangerous or exploitative for workers across Africa. From 2000 to 2018, the DRC’s capitalist rulers went to China for more than 50 loans, totaling $2.4 billion, to fund power, transport, and mining projects (Ventures Africa, 7/25). As these local bosses failed to repay their loans on time, Chinese companies seized the controlling shares of producing mines.
     While the Chinese imperialists can benefit regardless of which local faction comes out on top, a recent agreement between bosses from the DRC and Uganda for roads threatens to undercut the profits of Rwandan bosses. This is the detonator that reactivated both state-sanctioned and proxy militias like M23 in recent months. MONUSCO, the largest peacekeeping operation in the world, has been useless in containing this two-sided terror, leaving workers with no good choice among misleaders (Deutche Welle, 7/28). As workers stormed multiple MONUSCO offices, the most telling response of the Chinese imperialists was to award its own unit of UN peacekeepers with UN Peace Medals for doing their part in maintaining the status quo (China Military Online, 7/29).

East African comrades: fight for communism!
In recent weeks, in response to years of capitalist super-exploitation, workers across sub-Saharan Africa have been protesting for double-digit wage increases. Their struggle for a decent life has grown even harder with the rising cost of living from the bosses’ war in Ukraine.  But just as local politicians in the DRC misled workers into attacking just the United Nations and not the entire capitalist class, union misleaders from Nigeria to South Africa to Uganda have kept workers in a dead-end reform struggle for higher wages instead of fighting to annihilate all capitalist production.  In East Africa, a group of workers celebrating May Day pointed out the futile nature of all reforms and stressed the need for more workers to join Progressive Labor Party as the only way forward for our class (see CHALLENGE, 8/3). PLP fights to build a mass international base within the working class. We fight to replace the profit-hungry system of capitalism with a society based on our needs as workers. That’s communism. Join Us!

THE BRONX, NY, August 3—The racist, capitalist system struck again on July 21, this time robbing the working class of 18-years-young Latin teen Raymond Chaluisant. Dion Middleton, an off-duty Black kkkop shot Raymond in the face for playing with a toy water gun. The murderer then fled the scene, leaving Raymond dead in a pool of his blood. A system that breeds racist murders of our class does not deserve to exist. Seek justice for Raymond by smashing racism with Progressive Labor Party. 

Racist system strikes again
Members of PLP visited Raymond’s family and friends shortly after the murder. We brought CHALLENGE to show support and draw a connection between what the family has endured and the experiences of other families terrorized by the criminal injustice system. These families include the family of Shantel Davis in Brooklyn who was also  murdered by Black kkkop detective Phil Atkins in 2012 and the Rodwell-Spivey family who have been brutalized by police and face legal attacks in Newark. We also discussed the history of racist police murder in the Bronx specifically, including Ramarley Graham’s murder in 2012.
     Raymond’s murder is another example of a senseless murder at the hands of a brutally racist system. Middleton, a cop in the Department of Corrections, has been trained to view Black and Latin children and workers as criminals that he can kill. PLP charges him and the whole system with genocide. It does not matter if the cop is Black or Latin if they are still carrying out racism. Having a city with a Black mayor, Black Attorney General, and a multiracial police force doesn’t change the fact that racist terror is the name of the game.

Family, friends and PLP confront fascist court system
PLP joined Raymond’s family and friends at the courts, where racist rule was on full display. Every time Middleton was brought into the courtroom, cops in uniform packed the room. Meanwhile, the judge told Raymond’s supporters that anyone who made a disturbance would be asked to leave, that we must remain silent, and that our movements would be read as a threat so remain seated until told otherwise. The family had pictures and protest signs that they were prohibited from bringing  inside. The racist intimidation, along with social control that demands respect for an utterly disrespectful system, points to who the government serves and protects—the capitalist class.
     For capitalists, public murder is a time-tested tool of social control and discipline of the working class. It is designed to frighten other workers into submission and stop rebellions before they start. In the U.S., the fugitive slave catchers are the ancestors of the police system. Yesterday's ku klux klan is today’s klan in blue.

Justice = no more racist murders
Middleton was indicted for second degree murder, first-degree manslaughter, and second-degree manslaughter. He has been suspended without pay, but he made $221,684 last year (New York Times, 7/22). Regardless of whether or not Middleton ends up being convicted, there is no justice in a racist system that makes such murders a daily occurance. Nonetheless, we will stand by the family at the next court appearance (which is scheduled for August 22) and never forget what happened to Raymond.
     It is possible that the racist city government, whose officers regularly criminalize and brutalize Black and Latin workers and youth, may scapegoat Middleton for the murder since he fled the scene of the crime.
     A city commissioner claimed his actions were “in no way a reflection of the [corrections and police] officers'' despite the racist and sexist jail practices that have left a trail of dead bodies in NYC. These include our working-class siblings Kyam Livingston, Layleen Polanco, and too many names.

KKKops and kkkourts blame the victim
The NYPD quickly came to Middleton’s aid by blaming Raymond for having a gel-bead water toy gun they considered an “air rifle” and illegal. The cops announced the same day on Twitter that anyone with such a water gun would be considered a criminal.
The kops, kourts, and klan officers’ union would love for us to ignore that Raymond’s water toy gun found with his body was white and orange. The racists also want us to ignore the lack of evidence that he even used the water gun on Murderer Middleton. The bosses’ media has also repeatedly blamed a TikTok trend for Raymond’s death, misleading workers to blame youth, rather than the killer kops for his death.
     As Raymond’s sister Jiraida pointed out, local Black and Latin youth were “just having fun…The whole neighborhood was having a water gun fight. It was 90 degrees.” In a capitalist system that super-exploits Black and Latin workers, criminalizes the behavior of our children, and brutalizes the sections of the working class with the least to lose—even kids having fun is dangerous under capitalism. A system that criminalizes and KILLS youth for having fun does not deserve to exist.

Fight for communism
This is why PLP fights for communism, a system run for and by the whole working class, where racism and sexism will be the things that are considered illegal. True justice will mean not only jailing murderers like Middleton but ensuring that nothing like this ever happens again. We know this will not happen tomorrow, but we can fight and win a communist future where it is a reality.