OBAMA: SAVE RACIST SYSTEM OVER WORKERS’ DEAD BODIES

WASHINGTON, DC, January 20 — The only apparent opposition at the inauguration of the new Obama regime came from a multiracial group of PLP communists and friends. A bullhorn rally was held at Gallery Place, a major Metro stop just outside the “security zone” for the Obama inauguration parade. Speakers at the rally called on the crowd heading to the parade to join PLP in the struggle against capitalism and racism instead of supporting Obama.

In a demonstration of the fascism of this system, 25,000 civilian and military police locked down the city. The day’s events were used to practice methods for the ruler’s need to control the working class.

The two million or so people that came to the inauguration, among them a sizeable number of black and Latino workers, believed what they were witnessing represented an historic victory against racism. In reality, they witnessed the latest in the succession of representatives of the U.S. ruling class, the most racist and murderous group of thieves in history.

Obama made it clear that for the working class, things will get worse, and the workers will be the ones paying for the latest crisis. Obama didn’t blame this racist system for the crisis, one that has enslaved millions and waged genocidal wars for the past 400 years, but instead blamed “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.”

The desperate conditions of millions of workers were glossed over as Obama paid only lip service to the swathes of racist foreclosures. Up to 10,000 homes per week have been claimed. Millions of black, Latino and other workers were unable to keep up payments on houses they were encouraged to buy at high prices and at eventual exorbitant interest rates. Similarly dismissed was the prison-like conditions of our schools, stating simply that “homes have been lost…our schools fail too many.”

He immediately followed that saying, “no less profound is…the nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable.” “America’s decline” is indeed the “profound fear” of the Rockefeller-led wing of the U.S. ruling class, the banks and companies like J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and Exxon Mobil, who have trillions of dollars invested in U.S. imperialism and have cast a nervous eye on their growing imperialist rivals in Russia, China, and the European Union.

Obama and his administration are the ruling class’s number one investment. They’re counting on him to win U.S. workers to support wider wars, unlike the Bush gang who not only squandered the chance to mobilize the country but provoked the anger of millions of workers worldwide. Key to this effort is the movement for national service, a precursor to support for a larger military as was evident in the references to the, “Brave Americans…who patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. …[and] embody the spirit of service: a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.”

In addition to this thinly veiled call to kill and die for U.S. imperialism was another message extolling workers to sacrifice to save the bosses’ system which Obama called on people to imitate, “the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours” — in effect, a wage-cut. Meanwhile, of the current U.S. prison population of 2.4 million — the largest ever in human history, and now over 1% of the total adult U.S. population — 70% are black and Latino. The inmate population languishing in the prisons of 10 states is expected to increase by 25% or more by 2011.

In the dangers of the ruling class’s efforts to build its movement, there are opportunities. Millions hate racism, imperialism, and sexism, and could be won to dedicate their lives to ending the brutal system that requires these evils.

Obama melodramatically showered us with images of slave-owner George Washington “huddling by dying campfires” and called on us to be “faithful to the ideals of our forbears.” Does he mean the first eight U.S. presidents, all of whom owned slaves? When only white, property-owning men were considered citizens and Native Americans were exterminated by the millions? What “greatness” about the U.S. is he talking about if not genocide and slavery?

The horrifying conditions of, and racism against, immigrant workers, and the Ku Klux Klan’s reign of terror, continued full steam into the 20th century. The U.S. was just cutting its teeth as a rival imperialist power to the genocidal British and French imperialists.  No, U.S. rulers have never been great at any- thing except mass murder — and now, with about 750 U.S. military bases worldwide, Obama wants to usher in “a new era” of U.S. global dominance.

The international working class’s inspiration is not in the slave-owners’ revolt in the U.S. war of independence from Britain, nor in racist Abraham Lincoln’s “solution” of shipping black slaves back to Africa. It’s in the mass slave rebellions and the actions of Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman and John Brown which led to the crushing of slavery.

We fight today with the memory of the brave millions of the Haitian Revolution of 1801, which inspired generations of workers because they taught the world how to fight back. The pride in our history is in the workers at Stalingrad who smashed the Nazis; in the caves of Yenan, China as the communist-led workers regrouped after the Long March to win workers’ power in the most populated country on earth; and in countless other uprisings where our class rose against all odds and dared to struggle for a world free of the capitalist slavery that Obama represents. Real change will come when millions of workers read and distribute CHALLENGE and become steeled in class struggle. Join the Progressive Labor Party and help build a mass international communist movement, learn from our predecessors’ mistakes and victories, and help destroy this system once and for all.

PLP RALLIES AGAINST THE NEW CEO OF RACIST CAPITALISM

WASHINGTON, DC, January 20 — Speakers at our rally alerted the throngs of people that Obama, far from making things better, would lead workers and students into expanded war. He would continue racist oppression from Chicago, where police terror and hospital closings marked his time in leadership, to Gaza, where he gave his stamp of approval to genocide. He will reward the thieving capitalists with bailouts just as he condoned those George Bush had given.
Many agreed that the struggle would have to continue, but thought that Obama would still be an improvement. One person told us that he had just won a 3-year battle against D.C. for police brutality and was interested in joining our campaigns on this issue. Several youth from Baltimore were happy to see us, as they knew us from our work in their city as part of the Algebra Project/Peer-to-Peer (see CHALLENGE 10/15/08). Several other young people agreed that Obama just represented capitalism, just more of the same, and that we had to intensify our fight-back.
There were a few hostile responses, one demanding that we talk about Bush’s crimes. We told him that we’d been doing that for eight years! Another said we shouldn’t “rain on Obama’s parade” and should give him a chance. But we can’t give murderous capitalism a chance. Capitalism always has, and always will, serve the ruling class, not the working class. We are in the midst of a severe economic and military crisis, and the working class must be mobilized to fight racism and capitalism now!
We gained several new contacts for the Party and distributed over 800 flyers and 400 CHALLENGES. We also came away determined to win the millions of workers deceived by the election to a revolutionary struggle against racist capitalism, and not compliance with the increased war and fascism being ushered in by this new CEO of U.S. capitalism.

The Only Growth Industry: Prisons

“Larger Inmate Population Is Boon to Private Prisons.” (Wall Street Journal, 11/18 )
It looks like the only “growth industry” in the U.S. is expanding the prison system.

“Prison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the economic downturn makes it increasingly difficult for federal and state government officials to build and operate their own jails.”

“As a crackdown on…[undocumented  immigrants], a lengthening of mandatory sentences for certain crimes and other factors have overcrowded many government facilities,” (WSJ) thousands of inmates are being contracted out to private prison corporations like the Corrections Corp. of America (CCA).

Inmate population in 10 states is expected to increase by 25% or more by 2011. The net profits of CCA, the largest private-prison operator, has risen 14% to $37.9 million. “There is going to be a larger opportunity for us in the future,” said Damon Hininger, CCA’s president.

California has shipped more than 5,100 inmates to CCA prisons since late 2006. “Prisons were so overcrowded that hundreds of inmates were sleeping in gyms….

Outsourcing incarceration to prison companies can reduce a government’s cost…by as much as 15%….Private operators say…“their payroll costs are lower and they can consolidate prisoners from many far-flung jurisdictions into facilities located in areas where land and building costs are very low.”

“Profit is…structured into the way these prisons are operated,” says Judy Greene, a justice-policy analyst….” (WSJ)
An ACLU suit charged CCA with “operating an overcrowded, unsafe immigrant-detention center…. Detainees were routinely assigned in groups of three to sleep in two-room cells — meaning one had to sleep on the floor near the toilet….The suit also alleged that detainees had little access to mental-health care.”

It was under Obama’s Democratic Party predecessor, Clinton, that the prison population skyrocketed to over two million and the immigration “reform” law was passed which is being used to jail undocumented immigrants. Somehow, “changing” this situation escaped Obama’s promises.

As the fascist attacks on immigrants intensify while unemployment rises and workers become more desperate, look for thousands of the jobless and immigrants to find themselves behind bars, and then “employed” in prison factories turning out products at 23¢/hr “wages.” Thus do U.S. bosses jail their unemployment problem and reap slave-labor profits.

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

NEW YORK CITY, NY, November 10 –– The city’s bosses are ganging up on mass transit’s riders and workers, who are mostly black, Latino, and immigrant. The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is considering raising fares 23% while proposing to lay off 2,800 workers and attack seniority in at least one department.

These racist attacks come just weeks before the current contract between the MTA and Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 expires in January 2009. Instead of mobilizing demonstrations against fare hikes and organizing job actions, Roger Toussaint, the president of Local 100, pledged not to lead a strike “now or in the future” in return for reinstating automatic union dues check-off.

The courts took away Local 100’s automatic dues check off after the union broke the state’s Taylor Law (barring public employees from striking) in a 60-hour strike in December of 2005.

Without automatic check-offs the union had to individually ask members to enter into payment plans. Instead of using the opportunity to mobilize workers to raise money to fight the bosses, Toussaint’s leadership denied any and all union services to members who weren’t paid up in full or in “bad standing.”

About 50% of the members are in “bad standing”—some to save money, others experiencing glitches with union plans, and many out of resentment with Toussaint for calling off the 2005 strike without a deal. These workers can’t call the union, go to union meetings, enter the union building, participate in union classes, vote in union elections, or receive union representation in grievances without paying up in full. Now, automatic dues check-off will collect millions in current dues but won’t restore past debts, leaving members in bad standing without rights.

In September the local’s executive board used dues to suspend three track division union officers. When one called for restoring members to good standing immediately as long as they paid the normal dues and an extra catch-up amount. The executive board charged him with calling for “dues amnesty.” Another was accused of running the August track division meeting while being in “bad standing.” The third was charged with defying union staffers attempting to shut down the August meeting.

Transit workers told CHALLENGE that the meeting almost came to blows when the union staffers tried to prevent workers from talking until the members in bad standing left the room.

The real issue is that the three track officers were leading job actions to prevent eliminating regular days off on the weekends for the track department, The executive board is opposed to any job actions.

In addition to dividing the workers, the bosses aim to pit the public vs. workers with a local TV news report accusing track workers of running personal errands on the job, and working only 1-2 hours a day.The bosses want riders to blame “lazy” workers for fare hikes but the real thieves are the MTA bosses, Wall Street banks and city and state politicians.

To fill the budget gap created by the lack of government funding, the MTA colluded with major banks to borrow money in the form of bonds.

Now two billion dollars, nearly 20% of the MTA’s projected 2009 budget, is going to “debt service,” the fastest-growing part of the MTA’s deficit. In plain English, “debt service” means paying interest on bonds backed by Wall Street banks. These banks’ corporate officers are stealing billions from transit employees and riders without doing a drop of work. Hundreds of higher managers in the MTA make six-figure salaries without ever picking up a tool or operating a vehicle. And the media calls workers lazy!

To fight these attacks, transit workers and riders will have to unite against the bosses as well as the sellout union leaders. Victory in the struggles for lower fare and a “good” contract should be measured in the unity of workers in fighting these attacks and in the  building of the revolutionary communist PLP. We can’t wait for someone else to take up this battle.

‘Small Schools’ Ploy Part of Bosses’ ‘Creeping’ Fascism

NEW YORK CITY — In discussions with friends, I’ve often mentioned that the working class is living under growing fascist conditions, but some disagree. They ask, “Are storm troopers kicking down the door to your house? If not, then we don’t have fascism.”

But the ruling class doesn’t want to control the working class by kicking down doors all the time (although sometimes it does. see Shades of Hitler, p.7). Some control is more subtle, slowly adding more and more fascist conditions over time so we’re deep in the middle of it before we know what hit us. For communists, it’s important to fight such trends.

Throughout the country there is a rush toward replacing larger schools with smaller ones. Among my friends with whom I work in our school I’ve raised the idea that this move is really “creeping” fascism. In New York City, the Chancellor has mandated the closing of large comprehensive high schools to be replaced by smaller ones, as is happening in my school.

They tell us the large schools are “not meeting students’ educational needs.” Although our school was improving somewhat, the bosses say it “wasn’t improving fast enough.”

The attack has a distinctly racist character since the majority of the school closings are in predominately black and Latino working-class neighborhoods. Currently the bosses feel they don’t have enough support or soldiers for their wars and think that one way to change this is to win these youth in the schools, and in the classroom, to patriotic support of their imperialist adventures.

I told my colleagues the rulers are closing the large schools to maintain more control, especially in the classroom. The students are their main targets.

Fascism in Schools Has Many Forms

This strategy is fascist for several reasons. These small schools have fewer students (although the same large class size) and so needed staff is also smaller, which is much easier to watch and control than a larger one.

Few veteran teachers are hired at the small schools. Mostly younger, newer teachers staff them. The latter aren’t tenured and usually are on probation, blunting their ability to fight-back against attacks on students and staff. A “55/25” proposal — allowing a teacher with 25 years of service to retire at 55 without penalty — is being dangled before more experienced teachers.

Small-school principals have greater power over the staff. At one Brooklyn school a principal rated 10 of 40 teachers “unsatisfactory.” At another school, union meetings are practically forbidden. When some staff did call one, they were ordered into the principal’s office to explain their action. The administration more easily knows everything occurring at these schools, making organizing more difficult.

The greatest fascist danger at these schools is the change in the relationship between the working class and the ruling class. Communists believe that the class interests of teachers, students and parents are opposed to the administration’s (bosses’) interests. These small schools spread a “we” philosophy, the “we” uniting the staff and administration. If one doesn’t follow the principal’s goal for student achievement, that teacher is ostracized from the rest of the staff.

For example, many teachers in these small schools work hours on their own time, without being paid overtime. If teachers refuse, they’re labeled “slackers.” Teachers go along with this anti-working-class thinking unwittingly, furthering fascism’s talons in the backs of the workers.

The majority of these small schools are housed — up to three or four — in a structure that used to contain one large school. The building is carved up into different sections to fit each school, often leading to a fight for space. Students who happen to wander down the “wrong” hallway may be considered “trespassers,” subjecting them to disciplinary action.

The fight over space forces students to share the little existing space. Gymnasiums and cafeterias that once served one school must now accommodate up to four schools. This not only pits staff members against each other, but also student against student.

School Closing Is Attack
on Working Class

The news that our school was closing devastated most of my colleagues. Many have been there 20 years or more. For some, this was the only school at which they’ve taught. The immediate response was depression, then anger (usually toward the principal or other administrators) and then fear — from not knowing where they’ll teach next year, not knowing what will happen next.

Many might not recognize this as growing fascism, but this is how it “creeps” into our lives, with workers concentrating on where to go next rather than on organizing. As workers “adjust” and get used to this level of attack by the bosses, it only enables the rulers to go further. This move to smaller schools is an attack on the working class, not “just another change in the schools.”

As we fight it, we must win teachers, students and parents not only to see it as growing fascism, but also to understand why the rulers are resorting to such attacks — the better to control us and win the youth, in preparation for unending wars against imperialist rivals. Ultimately, only communist revolution can defeat fascism because its source: capitalism.J Red Teacher

(Series continues next issue)

Black Students Lead Action Vs. Racist Minuteman Honcho

SOUTHWEST –– Chris Simcox, founder of the racist anti-immigrant Minuteman Civil Defense Corps recently returned to a university in the Southwest.  He previously visited the campus in April (see CHALLENGE, May 9), and was shut down by a multi-racial coalition of about 700 students and workers led by friends of PLP members.  It was the largest demonstration in campus history.

This semester, the same conservative student group brought Simcox to campus again. Because of the success of the last protest, the police attempted to crack down on any further show of multi-racial protest. This time, instead of five cops, there were 15. The event was held inside an auditorium rather than outside in the “free speech” zone. Also, to get inside the auditorium, you had to show a valid photo ID and write your name on a sign-up sheet. Although it seemed problematic to get in, many students wanted to do some sort of protesting to counteract and hopefully shut down his racist speech.

In order to stop this event, we needed a plan. So, before the protest started at 2:00, we passed out 500 flyers that showed the ties between the Minutemen and white supremacist groups and called for all students and workers to unite to shut Simcox down.  A group of about 30 black students were outraged to hear that Simcox was at their campus again. One student said, “I remember him from last semester, isn’t he that racist guy who got booed off stage?” Another stated his anger toward Simcox because he is “no better than the Klan.” They all seemed to be right-on with forcing him to leave their campus.

We then planned for everyone to meet near the entrance of the auditorium early and all but two people were going to go inside to shout Simcox down. When it got to be 2:00, the whole group of black students got out their ID’s and walked together towards the booth where they had to give their information. The doors suddenly closed and the cops denied them access. The cops explained that they were ordered not to let anyone inside the auditorium past 2:00. It was 2:02. The group of students was even more outraged…especially after witnessing the cops granting access to a white person at 2:04! My friend and I talked with them about options to act against the blatant racist actions of the school and police. One student suggested, “We should have an old-fashion sit-in.” My comrade and I explained how silent or peaceful protests would not show the school that we are not going to tolerate them allowing a racist to speak on our campus. So we all picked up posters and started chanting, “Minutemen, Nazis, KKK…Racists, Fascists, Go Away!”

Inside, about 15 anti-racists sat together and when Simcox came out to speak, they all stood up and started chanting for him to go home.  After a few minutes, they were forced to leave by the cops. When they walked out of the auditorium, they were greeted by dozens of black students chanting “Hitler rose, Hitler fell, racist Minutemen, Go to Hell!” The police made several attempts to shut us all up by taking away our posters and trying to separate us, but we remained together and stole our posters back. We demonstrated collectively and when the cops tried to tell us that we were not in a “free speech zone” we just chanted louder.

After Simcox left, we were able to speak with all the students who had protested. We got their phone numbers and invited them to a student meeting in which we were going to talk about what happened and relate it to the capitalist system as a whole.

The fact that so many black students showed up to oppose Chris Simcox was an important step in breaking the ideology that claims the Minutemen only affect the Hispanic community. We want to replace this idea with and understanding of how racism against one “race” hurts all workers. Our experience showed us the possibilities of working together in opposition to ruling-class ideology. It solidified for us the reality of needing to attack racism as one class: the working class against the ruling class.

From El Salvador’s Horrors PLP Politics Shaped a Young PL’er

EL SALVADOR — In 1980 I was among a group of people from El Salvador who went into exile in Honduras. I traveled in my grandmother’s arms, while my father and a sister stayed in El Salvador.

The “orejas” (snitches that spy for the police and army) murdered my mother and one of my brothers. When I was in Colomoncagua, Honduras, I remember Honduran soldiers massacring people in the camp where we lived. When the soldiers came, the people went out to yell at them. Once all of us children were locked in a house for safety, while the adults confronted the soldiers with machetes, sticks and rocks.

In 1990, when we returned to El Salvador, I was 11. The war was still on; before that I had never heard the sound and terror of bullets and mortars in full battle. One day around 4 A.M., I awoke to the sounds of shooting; during the night the soldiers had broken into our encampment in Morazán. For two days we heard the sounds of guns and mortars. Someone said that all the people had to go to the mountains.

By that time, the fascist army had murdered three brothers and my mother. My father was still alive along with myself and another brother; he joined the ranks of the guerillas with many of the youth from the encampment. Many who I knew died.
One night we saw a helicopter shooting and launching lights with flares. My father said, “I wonder if my son is there.” Until then, I still didn’t know the reason for the war.

After the 1992 peace accords, I always talked to veteran guerillas, asking them the reason for the war. After those 12 years of armed conflict, I was still only 13. These veterans taught me the history and I came to identify myself with the left.
I firmly believed that revolutionary politics meant power was won through elections. Given what I had been taught, I became a reformer in the FMLN, which capitalism turned into an electoral party. Many veterans and commanders have become capitalists or small bosses. Nevertheless, I thought that was moving the revolution forward.

Then a long-time friend began reading CHALLENGE to me. He spoke about the PLP, gave me the paper and invited me to a meeting in his house. Others there talked to me about the international situation.

When the question of ideology arose, I described my electoral party (the FMLN) thinking that was the course to follow. After several meetings, I was thrilled with the PLP, and was invited to meet with international comrades to discuss the Party’s work. Most important to me was how we analyzed reality. Meeting PLP has meant learning about a true revolution.

While the FMLN held sway in my infancy, now in the PLP I consider myself the fruit of those who spilled their blood defending me during my childhood and made it possible for me to fight for communist revolution through the international Progressive Labor Party.
A Young PLP member

PL History: Anti-Racists’ Multi-Racial Unity Defies Rulers’ Attacks

(Last issue’s article about the 1975 summer of struggle against racism in Boston recounted the rulers’ unsuccessful red-baiting campaign against the Committee Against Racism and the PLP, and the cops’ attempt to ban CAR — later known as INCAR, the International Committee Against Racism — from marching on City Hall with an anti-racist petition containing 35,000 signatures.)

Early in the morning of August 18 — the planned march date — INCAR members and their lawyers went to court to enjoin the ban. The judge bent over backwards to help the cops’ lawyers present their own case. But they had no case, even by the lopsided standards of capitalist “justice.”

The cops’ attorney was reduced to arguing that since the commissioner had already canceled the march, it was too late to assign enough police to manage it. This he argued despite the hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes cops stationed along the march’s route at that very moment, waiting to prevent it.

In a public courtroom, the judge faced the alternative between flagrantly denying the right to free speech and assembly, supposedly “guaranteed” by the U.S. Constitution, and restoring the permit for the sake of protecting the system’s democratic façade. This time, the mayor and cops had gone too far, even by their own standards. The judge regretfully revoked the ban, and 300 people marched. It was one of the summer’s highlights. Thousands of workers watched from the street and shouted friendly encouragement to the demonstrators.

One speaker, INCAR’s chairperson at the time, aroused a collective shout of militant anti-racist anger when he said: “We will turn ROAR into a mee-ow!” and then, pointing to Hicks, O’Neill, & Co., who were watching from their City Hall offices, led the demonstrators in collectively giving these fascists the finger.

After that march, most of the volunteers returned home to prepare for school openings. Some decided to remain in Boston to consolidate the gains made over the summer and to build both PLP and the anti-racist movement there. The project’s final action came on September 8, the opening day of the 1975-76 school year. A year earlier, at the start of the busing program, ROAR thugs had thrown rocks at busses carrying young black schoolchildren into South Boston, Charlestown, East Boston, etc., and had otherwise conducted a racist rampage throughout the city, under the benevolent gaze of Boston’s police. Having proven that the ROAR goons didn’t reflect the views of most Bostonian workers, INCAR and PLP were now intent on organizing a demonstration for multi-racial unity outside South Boston High School on opening day.

Two busloads carrying anti-racist black, white and Latino students and workers set out for “Southie” on the morning of the 8th. As the busses were crossing the bridge leading into South Boston, the cops pulled them over. A lieutenant named Bradley boarded and informed the anti-racists that they were all under arrest. “What for?” asked one of them, a final-year law student. “Well,” answered Bradley, “you’re not exactly creating a disturbance, but your presence could tend to create one.” The law student retorted: “There’s no such thing as ‘tending to create a disturbance.’ Your arrest is completely illegal.” “Don’t worry,” chuckled Bradley, “we’ll think of something.”

Before depositing the demonstrators in a South Boston jail, the cops made a point of handcuffing them so tightly that many lost circulation in their wrists. On the way to the jailhouse, the demonstrators were treated to a volley of racist vulgarities from the cops in the front of the vans transporting them. Once the demonstrators were behind bars, a cop at the jailhouse greeted them by saying, “Comes the revolution, we’ll kill every f—— one of you.” No one was intimidated, and spirits remained high.
After spending the day locked up, the demonstrators were transported in police vans back to the Park Street subway station in downtown Boston. The cops’ original plan had been to release them at dusk onto the South Boston streets, where they might have been easy prey for a cop-ROAR trap. At the request of a PLP member, who had spent a good part of the day befriending a public defender from behind bars, the lawyer agreed to accompany several shifts of demonstrators on the ride to Park Street. The thought was that with a public defender in the van as a witness, the cops wouldn’t dare try their usual brutalities. This estimate proved correct. The demonstrators held a short, defiant rally at Park Street.

The public defender’s courageous action had taught a valuable political lesson: sharp situations provide important opportunities to do the “right thing,” and given the proper encouragement, many people can be won to rise to the occasion.

BOSTON 75 proved that under determined communist leadership, a relatively small number of militant anti-racists can put the rulers, their state apparatus and their gutter racist henchmen on the defensive. This was one of the project’s important lessons. In the final installment, we will discuss others, including the crucial ones to learn from its weaknesses.

Spitzer’s Licensing ‘Gift’ Really Nazi ‘Yellow Star’

In October, New York’s liberal democratic governor, Eliot Spitzer, proposed allowing undocumented immigrants to get drivers’ licenses. The “immigrant rights” movement pushed the idea that Spitzer was taking a bold, pro-immigrant stance.

Spitzer’s plan was developed not out of concern that undocumented workers need to be able to drive to and from work legally, and to get car insurance, but rather “as a way of bringing a hidden population into the open.” This fits with “homeland security” concerns consistently pushed by the Democrats. Some right-wing flunkies of the ruling class favor licensing undocumented workers. Colonel Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney and West Point professor, figures this plan would address the problem of “hundreds of thousands of people run[ning] around the country without any oversight when there’s a war going on.” (NYT, 10/9/07)

But even that sham was too much for the openly anti-immigrant racists. Many upstate New York county clerks indicated that if the plan was enacted, they would simply disobey it. Within weeks, Spitzer held a meeting and then a joint press conference with Michael Chertoff, the head of the fascist Office of Homeland Security, and announced that New York would agree to a three-tiered driver’s license program. That plan would have given undocumented immigrants a license which could not be used to travel across borders or to fly, and would have left them open targets, easily identifiable by cops and immigration agents.

Spitzer’s apartheid licensing system would have led undocumented workers into the eagerly waiting arms of immigration agents (ICE) just as surely as the yellow stars on their clothes led Jews to the waiting arms of the Nazis. However, Lou Dobbs, CNN’s ranting racist, and his fellow media apologists for the ruling class, continued their vitriolic campaign, viewing even this plan as a “gift” to these workers. Within days, Spitzer announced that he was withdrawing the entire proposal.

Unfortunately, many workers still believe that liberal Democrats will look after their interests and protect them from the ravages of the gutter racists. Each of Spitzer’s proposals, however, shows the error of that belief. The liberals simply have a different way of building fascism. They know that the wider wars of the future require winning immigrants to patriotism, while maintaining a level of terror to keep workers in line. That is why they keep Dobbs & the Minuteman racists around, and allow them to build their movement.

Liberal Democrats are no more the friends of the working class than are the gutter racists. Today, we fight against all forms of racism and fascism, and for the international unity of the working class. Once our struggle is won, members of the working class will not have to carry an identification card to prove our entitlement to the fruits of our labor.

France: Black and Arab Youth Rebel Against Cops’ Terror

100 COPS INJURED:
“THEY WON’T STOP ’TIL THEY BURN DOWN A POLICE STATION”

VILLIERS-LE-BEL, FRANCE, Nov. 28 — Black and Arab youth have rebelled against the racism they face every day. Two police stations were attacked and 100 cops were injured in several nights of violent protest that rocked this Paris suburb. Angry youth have shot at the hated cops with hunting shotguns. The rebellion has spread to Toulouse.

The rebellion began after a police car deliberately struck and killed two Arab youth on a mini-motorcycle. The racist cops then fled. When the police failed to investigate the “accident,” the neighborhood exploded.

Le Monde, a French newspaper, quoted Younès B., a resident of Villiers-le-Bel: “A second police team came to pick up their colleagues. But they left the two kids without doing anything.”
The rebellion followed on the heels of two weeks of labor and student struggle (see page 3). On Nov. 27, while the Socialist Party Student group (UNEF) was trying to sell out the student and teachers’ struggle, riot cops attacked protesting students in Nantes. One 17-year-old high school student suffered a serious eye injury when riot cops aimed point blank at his face.
Meanwhile in this Paris suburb where the rebellion began, the father of one of the slain Arab youth, Larami, 16, said his son had been threatened by police last week.

“We’re fed up with the lack of respect,” said Ikram, 23, who used to live here. He predicted the uprising would continue. “The young people won’t stop until they’ve burned down the Sarcelles police station,” he said. Youth anger at the cops and the racist system they serve is very justified.

Rulers’ Wars Intensify Racist Police State

Amid escalating war in the Middle East, and threatening inter-imperialist clashes (see page 2), the rulers must impose wartime discipline on the home front — FASCISM. With the liberal, imperialist wing of U.S. capital leading the effort, a full-blown police state exists for black, Latino and immigrant workers and those of Arab and Muslim background:

•Chicago: In August, the police went on a racist rampage and brutally murdered four young black men in cold blood, in four separate incidents. This year the police have murdered at least 31 workers.

•Atlanta: Undercover cops shot and killed a 92-year-old black grandmother, Kathryn Johnston, in her own home.

•Cleveland: In May 2007, police killed three black people – Aaron Steele, Steven Ray and Ira Mitchell – within three days.

•Conneaut, Ohio: On Nov 17, Immigration Customs Enforcers (ICE) arrested an immigrant mother breast-feeding her child.

•North Carolina: Police shot and killed Phillipe McIver, a 23-year-old black man.

•Los Angeles: LA cops murdered Francisco Mondragon a 24-year-old schizophrenic.

• Minnesota: Law enforcement agents have killed five black people in the first half of 2007.

•New York City: Nov. 25 marked the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old unarmed black man, murdered with 50 shots from NYPD gunmen. On Nov. 7, the same NYPD assassinated 18-year-old Khiel Coppin, shot 13 times (see box). Since then, they have killed at least ten more people.

•Jena, LA.: Six black youth are being legally lynched for standing up against the racism of fellow students who hung a noose under a “whites only” tree. On September 20, over 50,000 people marched in Jena, protesting this racism and supporting the six youth.

•Since then over 60 incidents of noose hangings have occurred nationwide. (NY Times, 11/24)

•Thousands of Muslim workers have been detained in the U.S. and the Middle East and imprisoned and tortured in concentration camps in Guantánamo and “secret” CIA jails.

On the road to waging imperialist wars to control the flow of oil, the U.S. war machine has been tripping over a few roadblocks. Two of the main ones are their troop shortage and the fact that a crumbling economy hits most heavily on the super-oppressed black and Latino workers and youth. On the one hand, they need to win black, Latin and immigrant workers to fight and die in their wars. But since racism is inherent to capitalism, it inevitably shoots and harasses black and Latin workers while using the threat of deportation to terrorize and persecute immigrant workers. This racist terror undermines many of these workers’ loyalty to the system.

As a result of such racism, 2.2 million people are imprisoned nationwide, 70% of them black or Hispanic. Every twelfth black male between 25 and 29 languishes behind bars; the figure for whites is 1 in 100 (Bureau of Justice Statistics). Liberal misleaders and reformers have been working overtime to try to solve this insoluble contradiction: the system’s inherent racism oppressing black and Latino workers and their need to super-exploit them for super-profits, versus needing to use them as cannon fodder in their wars. They try to divert workers’ anger into such reform efforts as “community policing,” “civilian review boards” and their election campaigns. But to fight police murders we can’t fall into this trap!
The only way to smash the Klan in blue is to smash the racist system — capitalism — that uses them to terrorize working-class communities. Communism — the system of workers’ power, a society run for need, not profit — will sweep away these new night riders and their politician masters, crushing them like the cockroaches they are. To achieve this, we must organize!

POLICE TERROR

There is an alternative to capitalist oppression and its rotten culture: a society that produces for need, not profit; a society where the workers from all backgrounds can determine their own destiny as one united class; where we can stamp out selfishness, racism, sexism, killer cops, “workfare,” profit wars, prisons, deportations and national borders; where this system will be ground into the dust under the feet of millions of united workers and students.

That society is communism, and Progressive Labor Party is serious about organizing to make that world a reality. Join us!