Internationalist Group -- Reforge the Fourth International!

Mobilize the Workers To Defeat the Putsch!
Honduras: Coup d’État in the Maquiladora Republic
Yankee Imperialism, Hands Off!
For a Federation of Workers Republics of Central America!
In the early morning of Sunday, June 28, some 200 soldiers of the Honduran army kidnapped the president of the republic, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, at gunpoint and expelled him from the country. This first coup of the presidency of Barack Obama awakened fears of a return to the “years of blood,” when Honduras served as a launching pad for Nicaraguan contras and Salvadoran death squads which sowed terror throughout Central America. The overthrow was opposed by virtually every international governmental organization, the U.S. secretary of stated claimed she condemned it, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez vowed to overthrow the usurpers, but the military mutineers are still in power. Revolutionary Marxists stress that to defeat the coup we can only count on mobilizing the working people, in Honduras as well as throughout Central America, in Mexico and the rest of the continent. Honduras: Coup d’État in the Maquiladora Republic (29 June 2009)

For Workers Revolution Against the Islamic Dictatorship!
Mass Protests Rock Iran:
No to All Wings of the Mullah Regime!
U.S. Imperialism Hands Off!

For more than a week, Iran has been convulsed by mass demonstrations denouncing election fraud. Hundreds of thousands have repeatedly taken to the streets to denounce the government, which is now threatening, and beginning to carry out, a bloody crackdown. This time around, imperialist intervention is veiled: the White House feigns neutrality, the Western media go all out for the opposition, while in the background various agencies provide vital technical aid. In reality, all candidates in the presidential vote swear allegiance to the Islamic Republic, and the supposed moderate reformers are no less butchers and enemies of poor and working people than the conservative “populist” government. The situation cries out for revolutionary leadership independent of all factions of the theocracy, to wage a struggle for workers revolution against imperialism and clerical reaction. Mass Protests Rock Iran: No to All Wings of the Mullah Regime (23 June 2009)

Obama/Democrats’ Conciliation Emboldens Reactionaries
Assassination of Courageous Doctor in Wichita:
War on Abortion Rights Escalates
Mobilize to Defend the Clinics!
Abolish All Restrictions – For Free Abortion on Demand!

The vile murder of the courageous abortion doctor George Tiller marks an escalation of the war on women’s right to abortion. The constitutional protection hangs by a thread – a single vote in the Supreme Court. The “god squads” are in a frenzy, harassing women patients and abortion providers at the clinics. The reaction of the bourgeois feminists has been to look to the Democratic Party and the government of Barack Obama in the White House. Yet the Democrats are not allies but enemies of women’s rights. Obama opposes the late-term abortions that Dr. Tiller provided while seeking “common ground” with the Bible-thumping bigots who harbor the abortion doctor killers. And the police, from local cops to the FBI, give a free pass to the assassins, whom they know well. Assassination in Wichita – War on Abortion Rights Escalates (11 June 2009)

NYC Labor: Scab Cookies Are “Too Hot to Handle”!
Mobilize New York Unions’ Power to Win the Stella D'Oro Strike!

The struggle of the bakery workers at the Stella d’Oro cookie factory in the Bronx, on strike since last August 15, has reverberated through New York City labor. The company’s use of low-paid scab labor to run the struck factory is a threat to unions throughout the city. But paper resolutions expressing fine sentiments of labor solidarity are not enough. The fact is, NYC union officialdom has not actually done anything to use its power to win the strike. If it had, the strike would have ended in a victory months ago. We need to massively mobilize NYC labor in action to beat the union-busters at Stella D’Oro! Mobilize New York Unions’ Power to Win the Stella D'Oro Strike! (30 May 2009)

“Theoretical” Justification for Abstentionism, and Tailing After the PRD
Flim Flam from the GEM on Workers Control
In a curious “polemic” titled “Menshevik Symptomology,” the Grupo Espartaquista de México continues its customary practice consisting of stringing together scholastic arguments adorned with amalgams and sophistry, all in order to justify its opportunist and tailist policies. In practice it puts forth policies which mimic those of the bourgeois-nationalist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and its former presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. It doesn’t call for any workers action against the step-by-step privatization of the state oil company Pemex in the counterreform law of the Calderón government, and polemicizes against our call for workers control. These anti-dialectical “theoreticians” claim that this slogan of the Transitional Program can only be applied in a revolutionary situation. Yet they quote an article by Leon Trotsky saying the exact opposite of what they claim. Nowhere in its writings about Mexico and the global crisis of the capitalist economy does the GEM present a program of transitional demands to serve as a bridge between the present struggles of the working class and socialist revolution. Flim Flam from the GEM on Workers Control (28 May 2008)

From the Current Issue

The Internationalist No. 28
(March-April 2009)
click above or on image
for full list of articles

Bring Down the Bourgeoisie Through Workers Revolution!
World Capitalism Plunges
The global economic crisis continues to deepen, month after month. With the financial crisis that exploded in September 2008, the international credit system effectively froze. In the past five months, there has been a sharp drop in industrial production, investments, exports, consumer spending, construction and just about every other major indicator of economic activity in virtually every country of the capitalist world. In the U.S, this is already be the longest recession since World War II, and it’s not ending any time soon. In short, the recession is rapidly becoming a depression, although the capitalist rulers don’t want to say so because they fear that would set off an even worse panic. The underlying issue behind both the waves of financial speculation and now the sharp drop in the real economy is the overproduction of capital, and the associated falling rate of profit. Under capitalism, the only way the rate of profit can be restored is through the destruction of capital, by massive bankruptcies producing millions of unemployed, or by imperialist war laying waste to productive capacity. Or, as happened in the 1930s and ’40s, by both. The present global capitalist economic crisis is not cyclical or even structural but systemic. Neither monetarists nor Keynesians can solve it. But as Lenin and Trotsky insisted, capitalism will not collapse of its own accord. A series of transitional demands should be raised pointing to the need bring down the bourgeoisie and institute workers rule. World Capitalism Plunges (19 March 2009)

Expropriate the Banks Under a Workers Government!
From Wall Street Crisis to International Socialist Revolution

Break with the Democrats and All the Bosses’ Parties!
Build a Revolutionary Workers Party!

Over the last 15 years, there have been financial crises in a number of countries around the world: Mexico, 1994-95; Thailand, 1997; Russia, 1998; Brazil, 1999; Argentina, 2000 to 2002; the implosion of the information technology bubble in the United States in 2000-01; and from 2007 on, the credit crisis in the U.S. and around the world that began with subprime mortgages. Yet this time the entire capitalist system is at risk. The stock market panic can end up in a full-fledged crash, as in 1929, while the lack of credit is threatening to produce a new Great Depression. The economists and politicians who in the past acted as prophets of the religion of free markets are now nationalizing one financial institution after another. But the dire straits in which the masters of the U.S. economy find themselves will not by itself lead to a positive outcome for the international working class. In the 1960s and ’70s as well, the American empire was bogged down in a losing colonial war, along with great social unrest in Latin America, and a large-scale capitalist economic crisis. But nowhere was capitalism overthrown in the region. This is centrally due to the lack of a revolutionary internationalist leadership.Forging that leadership is key. From Wall Street Crisis to International Socialist Revolution (2 October 2008)

No to the Bailout of the Capitalist Speculators! (25 September 2008)

Exchange on Transitional Demands (26 September 2008)

New Commander-in-Chief, Same Bloody System of Oppression

Obama Presidency: U.S. Imperialism Tries a Makeover
Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!

On January 20, the baton was formally passed from George Bush to Barack Obama as leader of the the most powerful imperial power in the history of the world, presently mired in losing imperialist wars and the deepest economic crisis in three-quarters of a century. For the U.S. to elect a black president reflected a considerable social change in this country founded on chattel slavery, where Jim Crow segregation continued into the 1960s – and where in the 21st century blacks and Latinos have still been prevented from voting. But this has not changed the system of imperialist capitalism one iota: with Obama at the helm, the U.S. is bombing Iraq and Afghanistan to hell, marauding in Pakistan, supplying the weaponry for Israeli slaughter in Gaza, throwing millions out of work in the U.S. while enslaving workers with starvation wages around the planet. Obama in office will preside over a racist system, and he has already become a war criminal responsible for the deaths of scores of defenseless Afghans and Iraqis. Labor leaders are having a honeymoon with Obama, counting on him to make it easier to unionize by passing the Employee Free Choice Act. Class-struggle union militants look instead to the power of the working class, demanding freedom to organize and independence of the unions from the capitalist state. Obama Presidency: U.S. Imperialism Tries a Makeover (23 February 2009)

Why Marxists Oppose All Government Intervention in the Unions (23 February 2009)

The “Obama Socialists” (23 February 2009)

Not a “New New Deal,” But a Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution (23 February 2009)

What “Post-Racial” America?
Barack Obama vs. Black Liberation
For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States was widely hailed as the culmination of the Civil Rights movement. Obama’s campaign was based on the illusion that the United States had moved “beyond race.” The ruling class used the occasion to claim that this proves that racism in the United States has been overcome. But racist discrimination and oppression are woven into the fabric of American capitalism. Racist police brutality is ever-present. Obama and the Democratic Party political operatives who shaped his election campaign stayed away from any mention of struggle against racism. Now black people are being told to be patient. Yet patience will not bring freedom any closer for any sector of the oppressed. Gains won through struggle can also be taken back so long as social, economic and political power remains in the hands of capital. We only have to look at the history of the Reconstruction period following the Civil War. Installing a black president won’t change the racist nature of American capitalism, any more than having Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made the U.S. any less imperialist. Today, “diversity” is being promoted as an alternative to equality, which capitalism cannot provide. Genuine freedom and actual social, economic and political equality for blacks in America can only come about through a socialist revolution. Barack Obama vs. Black Liberation (23 February 2009)

For International Working-Class Action Against the Israeli Militarists, U.S. Imperialism and Its Arab Pawns!
Zionist Mass Murder – Break the Siege, Defend Gaza!
Defend the Palestinian People – For an Arab/Hebrew Workers State in a Socialist Federation of the Near East
Bush and Obama Back Zionist Butchers – Drive U.S. Imperialism Out of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Near East! For an Internationalist Workers Party!At midday on December 27, Israeli warplanes launched a massive bomb attack on the densely populated Gaza Strip. More than 270 Palestinians were killed as wave after wave of U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters dropped more than 100 bombs. The Israeli military said they were targeting Hamas installations, but numerous civilians were killed, including a number of children, as schools had just let out for lunch. The Zionists’ attack on downtown areas was deliberate mass murder. The Israeli slaughter was carried out with the full knowledge and a green light from its imperialist patrons in Washington, as well as U.S. client regimes such as Egypt. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International condemn the Israeli mass murder in Gaza and call for action by the international working class in defense of Gaza and the Palestinian people, including efforts to break the siege. Zionist Mass Murder – Break the Siege, Defend Gaza! (28 December 2008)

What Will It Take to Defeat the War?
Not Another Popular-Front “Peace Movement,”
Mobilize the Working Class to Fight for Power!
On June 28-29, an “Open National Antiwar Conference” was held in Cleveland, called by a newly minted National Assembly to End the Iraq War and Occupation. Over objections from the conference organizers, centrally Socialist Action, the assembly voted to change the name to include reference to the war on Afghanistan, and to emphasize the connection with U.S. backing for the Zionist occupation of Palestine. (The sponsors of the confab were so right-wing that they feared losing “unity” with Democratic Party supporters of Israel and the Afghanistan war!) What did not change at all was the popular-front character of the new outfit, tying it to the bourgeois parties despite the fig leaf of electoral “independence.” Making this utterly clear, it was decided not to call a national antiwar mobilization prior to the November elections explicitly in order to court those forces who wish to aid the Democrats (and therefore want to avoid making problems for the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama). Here is the leaflet issued by the Internationalist Group at the conference. What Will It Take to Defeat the War? (28 June 2008)

Revolution
Publication of the Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York

Democrats Vote Mega-Billions for War, Trillions for Bankers –
Working People Get Shafted
Students and Labor: Shut NYC Down!
No Tuition! Open Admissions! Free Mass Transit!
We Need a Revolutionary Workers Party
On March 5, some 75,000 New York City workers demonstrated in a huge labor protest against threatened budget cuts as the capitalist economic crisis deepens. They were joined by hundreds of students and faculty from the City University of New York (CUNY). The municipal labor tops called for a “fair budget for all,” while showcasing Democratic Party politicians. The principal student demands, however, were: “No Tuition Hike – No Cuts – No Layoffs.” After a walkout and rally, the energetic student contingent poured into the street chanting, “Students, Labor, Shut the City Down.” The CUNY Internationalist Clubs actively participated in organizing the student actions. We publish here the Revolution leaflet distributed at the protests which underlines the role of the Democrats and calls for powerful working-class action against the ruling-class attack. Students and Labor: Shut NYC Down! (5 March 2009)

See CUNY Internationalist Clubs video on "Fight the Tuition Purge at CUNY: Students and Labor, Shut the City Down!"

Beat Back the Suspensions – Expel Sexton!
Defend NYU Protesters!
Student and labor activists throughout the New York area and beyond must come to the defense of the 18 New York University students suspended and threatened with expulsion for their participation in the 40-hour sit-in that began February 18. The vindictive administration of NYU President John Sexton seeks to make an example of the protesters, including evicting them from their dorm rooms. Despite hostile media coverage, the NYU occupation struck a chord in NYC. Hundreds of people came out on two bitterly cold nights to stand for hours in front of Kimmel Hall, where the “Take Back NYU!” group and others had occupied the cafeteria. Defend NYU Protesters! (23 February 2009)

Inside the New School Occupation
For 38 hours, beginning on the evening of December 17, student activists carried out a widely-publicized sit-in at the New School in lower Manhattan. They declared that they were inspired by the recent factory occupation by workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, and by protests against police brutality in Greece. The occupation took place shortly after the faculty voted “no confidence” in the New School’s president Bob Kerrey. Back in 2001, we had called to drive out Kerrey, a war criminal who killed defenseless women and children in the Vietnamese village of Thanh Phong. This also became an issue in the December occupation. Our article is an account by participants of the development and discussions that took place during the sit-in, and what conclusions can be drawn for future struggles. Inside the New School Occupation (24 February 2009)

Marxism and Education

Pamphlets and Articles from The Internationalist
The Battle for Public Education,
Stop CUNY's “War Purge,”
The UNAM Strike and Workers Revolution

Recent articles on Education:
Stop Privatization of Public Schools – Not Corporate Fake “Reform,” We Need an Education Revolution!
No to Teacher-Basher McCain and Education-for-War Obama
Break with the Democrats – For a Class-Struggle Workers Party
From the outset of the 2008 presidential election campaign, teachers and teachers unions have been mobilized to the hilt for the Democratic Party. While the American Federation of Teachers first backed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, it and the National Education Association are now overwhelmingly for Barack Obama running against John McCain for the Republicans. Most teachers are going for the Democrats, but the Democrats are not going for them – nor are the Republicans, to be sure. The fact that for the first time a black man is the top candidate of one of the major parties and could likely be the next U.S. president, and that a woman was his chief opponent in the primary elections, marks a significant social shift in this country that will be widely seen as a breakthrough. Yet this does not change the fact that the Democrats and Republicans are bourgeois parties who govern by and for the capitalist class. Both candidates will continue the imperialist occupation of Iraq and both promise to escalate the war in Afghanistan. There isn’t the slightest doubt that McCain is bad news for teachers and students in every way. The issue is over Obama, who while promising to “work with” teachers says he wants to introduce “merit pay,” increase charter schools, and remove teachers who administrators decide are “doing a poor job.” These points just happen to be the three-pronged attack plan of the corporate interests for whom “educational reform” means union-busting. No to Teacher-Basher McCain and Education-for-War Obama (3 November 2008)

Mobilize Workers’ Action to Defend Bangsamoro Peoples’ Struggle!
Drive Out All U.S. Imperialist Troops and Agencies!
Philippine Government Launches New War on Muslim Groups
War officially came to southern Philippines again as the government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo unilaterally put an end to eleven years of negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) September 3. A month early the government abruptly broke off talks with the MILF on the eve of signing an autonomy pact. There are numerous reports of U.S. Special Forces accompanying Philippines Army units on their deadly sweeps in the Bangsamoro (land of the Moro people) region. More than 100 people have been killed so far and half a million refugees have fled from the fighting. Bourgeois liberals and the petty-bourgeois left lamely call on the government to resume the “peace process,” which in any case was only intended to wear down the insurgents. Revolutionaries instead seek to mobilize Philippine workers to drive out all U.S. forces, whatever their legal status; to force the withdrawal of the AFP from the contested southern areas; and to defend the Bangsamoro people and their right to self-determination.. Philippine Government Launches New War on Muslim Groups (13 September 2008)

From the Previous Issue

The Internationalist No. 27
(May-June 2008)
click above or on image
for full list of articles

Historic ILWU Dock Workers’ Action Points the Way
May Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down All U.S. West Coast Ports

On May 1, every port on the West Coast of the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go to work. They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which didn’t want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it down and cowered before the threats of legal action while waving the flag. The employers’ Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared the May 1 port shutdown an “illegal strike.” But after all the huffing and puffing from the bosses’ mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power. In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers’ May Day strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to bring down the warmongers in Washington. Their “symbolic” action was felt all the way to Iraq, where dock workers in two ports stopped work in solidarity with the ILWU. But it was only a beginning. What is needed is not only industrial action but a political offensive against the Democrats and Republicans, the partner parties of American imperialism, to build a class-struggle workers party. May Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down All U.S. West Coast Ports (3 May 2008)

Mumia Abu-Jamal, ILWU Strikes for Peace (1 May 2008)
Iraqi Dock Workers, Unions Salute ILWU May Day Port Shutdown (5 May 2008)
NYC May Day in Solidarity with the ILWU (7 May 2008)

Republicrat Obama vs. War Hawk McCain
The Buying of the Presidency 2008
U.S. Imperialism Seeks New Face on System of War and Racism
In the 2008 elections, the more far-sighted rulers of U.S. imperialism want to change the image of “America,” to replace that of the torture photos of Abu Ghraib. That’s why for the first time a black candidate has a very well-financed election machine and a real shot at the presidency. Disgust over the endless war in Iraq and concern over the economy are so intense that this election is the Democrats’ to lose. But they’ve pulled it off before, and one can’t underestimate the racism of U.S. bourgeois politics. The Bush loyalists want a certified war criminal, John McCain, to carry the Republican banner. But make no mistake, Barack Obama is no “antiwar” candidate. He has been drafted by the Democrats as the better war candidate. He summed up his strategy as “getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” In fact, he also intends to leave U.S. troops in Iraq. With his talk of “change,” Obama's candidacy has generated enthusiasm, particularly among college students, black youth and many others fed up with eight years of the Bush government. But in claiming to “transcend race,” he ignores and even opposes struggles against against racism. The centuries-old oppression of black people can only be overcome by smashing the racist capitalist system, just as it will take workers revolution to put an end to the endless imperialist wars. The Buying of the Presidency 2008 (26 June 2008) -

For Revolutionary Defense of Cuba!
Free the Cuban Five!
On June 5, a federal appeals court upheld the convictions of the “Cuban Five”: René González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labaniño, Fernando González and Antonio Guerrero. The Five heroically risked their lives to defend the Cuban Revolution against terror attacks launched from the U.S. Prosecutors presented evidence that the five had infiltrated counterrevolutionary terror groups in Miami. The government outrageously charged the defendants with “conspiracy” to commit espionage and murder, since there is not a shred of evidence that they commited any crime whatsoever. Several thousand Cubans have been killed in nearly five decades of invasions, bombings and assassinations by the U.S. and its gusano mercenaries. The authors of the notorious 1976 bombing of a Cubana Airlines passenger plane that killed all 73 aboard, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, walk around Miami freely while the Cuban Five have been locked up for nearly a decade. We demand the Cuban Five be freed now, and return the U.S. naval base and torture center at Guantánamo to Cuba! Free the Cuban Five! (14 June 2008)

“Workers Vanguard” Brings Up the Rear
The Opportunist Left and the Port Strike Against the War: The Sound of One Hand Clapping
On May Day, ports up and down the Pacific Coast were shut down by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) to demand an end to “this bloody war and occupation for imperial domination.” It is the first time ever that an American union has taken industrial action against a U.S. war. News of the ILWU’s strike against the war has reverberated among labor militants internationally. While the maritime employers threatened legal action and trade papers denounce reds under the beds, most of the left was notably silent. The reason: they are part and parcel of the popular-front antiwar movement, whose purpose is to pressure the Democrats, and militant labor action gets in the way. The Spartacist League for many years called for workers strikes against the war, as well as “hot-cargoing” war materiel. However, as part of its turn from revolutionary Trotskyism to centrist opportunism, the SL abandoned these key programmatic positions, along with its prior calls to defeat U.S. imperialism. Meanwhile, it smears the Internationalist Group for upholding the Trotskyist program of workers action against imperialist war. The Opportunist Left and the Port Strike Against the War: The Sound of One Hand Clapping (15 May 2008)

Strike Challenged Slave Labor Law,
Despite Setbacks They’re Still Ready to Fight
Puerto Rican Teachers: Unbought and Unbowed
The two-week strike by Puerto Rican teachers was a historic event, in open defiance of Law 45, a ruthless piece of anti-union legislation that outlaws strikes, work stoppages or even voting for such labor action. From the beginning of the walkout on February 20 to the decision to return to the classrooms, approved by a giant assembly on March 5, the action by the Federation of Puerto Rican Teachers (FMPR) threw the island into turmoil. In daring to break the prohibition decreed by the colonial capitalist rulers, the FMPR blazed the way for all Puerto Rican workers. The strikers confronted an unholy alliance of enemies which extended from a governor under investigation for corruption and his arrogant secretary of education to the “dues-sucking” union leaders of the SEIU, who shamefully took the side of the employer. The return to work was not a debilitating defeat, yet the outcome of the strike was a setback. Many teachers were not prepared for a lengthy strike, and while defying Law 45, overall the FMPR continued to play by the bosses’ rules. Above all, the teachers had to face state repression alone, while FMPR leaders’ comrades in the Movimiento Socialista de Trabajadores failed to bring out other key unions. The fact that the strike could not prevail confirms Trotsky’s declaration that reformist unionism is no longer possible, that unions can either be instruments of imperialist capitalism, or instruments of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat. Puerto Rican Teachers: Unbought and Unbowed (25 June 2008)

Solidarity in New York with Puerto Rican Strikers (25 June 2008)

Hard Class Battle Coming
Puerto Rico: All Out to Defend the Teachers’ Struggle!
We are on the threshold of a major class battle in Puerto Rico. Every day new preparations are announced for the coming strike of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR). With 42,000 members, a majority of them women, the FMPR represents almost all of Puerto Rico’s teachers and is by far the largest union on the island. The Shock Force of the Puerto Rican Police and National Guard are being readied to go after the strikers. The struggle of the Puerto Rican teachers affects everybody. The working class as a whole, students and parents, teachers and defenders of workers’ rights around the world must come out in defense of the FMPR! If there are mass arrests, the response must be massive blockades and spreading the struggle to the point of shutting the island down. In order to win this strike, it is necessary to prepare for a struggle not only of the teachers but within the whole workers movement against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy that sabotages the workers’ struggle. Above all, it is necessary to fight against illusions in and ties with bourgeois parties and politicians. It’s high time to begin building a revolutionary internationalist workers party. Puerto Rico: All Out to Defend the Teachers’ Struggle! (14 February 2008)

En español: Puerto Rico: ¡Todos a la calle en defensa del magisterio en lucha

Report from San Juan

Tens of Thousands March in Puerto Rico on Eve of Teachers Strike

“La huelga va, la huelga va” (the strike is on the way), sang thousands of teachers as they marched through the streets of Puerto Rico’s capital today in preparation for the massive strike that is shaping up as a major class battle. Victory to the Puerto Rican teachers! Tens of Thousands March in Puerto Rico on Eve of Teachers Strike (18 February 2008)

En español: Decenas de miles marchan en Puerto Rico en vísperas de la huelga magisterial

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!

Click here for selected articles from The Internationalist and other
statements from the League for the Fourth International.

Federal Court Reaffirms Frame-Up Conviction, Orders Life Behind Bars or Racist Legal Lynching
Ruling Against Mumia Shows:
No Justice in the Capitalist Courts
Mobilize the Working Class to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!
On March 27, the U.S. appeals court in Philadelphia reaffirmed the frame-up conviction of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther Party spokesman and world-renowned radical journalist who has been locked up on Pennsylvania’s death row for more than a quarter century. After previously rejecting Mumia’s request to present evidence of his innocence, as well as a host of issues showing that he was railroaded by a racist court, the Court turned down Mumia’s request for a new trial. It upheld the 2001 ruling by a federal district judge that ordered a new hearing on the sentence, but limited the “choice” to the living hell of life imprisonment without parole ... or execution. Mumia is innocent. He was declared guilty and sentenced to die because of his revolutionary politics and because for years he had been a thorn in the side of the racist rulers of the misnamed “city of brotherly love.” Around the world, millions have come out in defense of Jamal. This latest ruling, like all those that preceded it, shows that the exploited and oppressed must have no faith in the racist injustice system. We call on the workers movement to mobilize its power to free Mumia now! Mobilize the Working Class to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! (28 March 2008)

En español: ¡Movilizar a la clase obrera para liberar a Mumia Abu-Jamal!

Police Takeover Fails – Miners Resist
Mexico: Cananea Must Not Stand Alone! For a Nationwide Miners Strike!
Down with the PRI, PAN and PRD, Parties of the Bourgeoisie!
Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!
Once again the Mexican government of Felipe Calderón has run aground on the resistance of the battle-hardened miners of Cananea. On January 11, as the federal Labor Board declared their six-month-old strike “non-existent” and ordered miners back to work, an army of 1,000 state and federal police invaded the mining town in the northern state of Sonora. The miners did not surrender and instead put up a stubborn resistance. As a result, a federal court issued an injunction blocking the government back-to-work order. Despite a government vendetta against it, the leadership of the corporatist mineworkers organization has followed the dictates of Mexico’s corporatist labor legislation, copied from Mussolini’s fascist Italy. The Grupo Internacionalista has called for a nationwide miners strike in solidarity with the strikers, and for a national strike against the anti-worker policies of the Calderón government. In Oaxaca, Atenco, Lázaro Cárdenas in 2006, and now again in Cananea, the workers have put up a tenacious resistance against the deadly ruling-class attack. However, they are stuck in a cycle of endless resistance when there should be a struggle for power. For that, a revolutionary workers party is needed. Mexico: Cananea Must Not Stand Alone! (1 February 2008)

En español: México: ¡Cananea no debe estar sola! (1° de febrero de 2008)

See also: New York Picket Protests Repression Against Mexican Miners (12 January 2008)

En español: Piquete en Nueva York repudia represión contra mineros mexicanos (12 de enero de 2008)

Strike in Cananea, Sombrerete, and Taxco in Fifth Month

Mexican Miners Strike for Safety, Against Anti-Worker Attacks

Copper miners in Cananea, in the northern Mexican state of Sonora, have been on strike since the end of July over the deadly dangerous working conditions and anti-worker attacks by the management and government. Cananea, the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, has been owned by the billionaire Germán Larrea and his Grupo México since it was privatized in 1990. The criminally negligent safety conditions at the mine and smelter have been documented by an international commission of medical and industrial safety experts. The miners are facing the full force of Mexico's corporatist system of state control of labor, including the national miners’ “union” which in the past has repeatedly sided with the government and the bosses against its own members. The “independent” unions which politically support the opposition PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) have notably failed to back the striking miners. Class-conscious workers in Mexico must defend the striking miners, while fighting to break the corporatist stranglehold, build workers unions free of all ties to the bourgeois state and capitalist parties, and forge a revolutionary workers party. Mexican Miners Strike for Safety (15 December 2007)

En español: ¡Poner a Grupo México de rodillas con una huelga nacional! (15 de diciembre de 2007)

From the Great Miners’ Strike of 1906 to Today: Revolutionary Leadership Is Key

Cananea: A Century of Internationalist Class Struggle

June 1, 2006 marked the centenary of the copper mine strike at Cananea. The conglomerate that now operates the mines, Grupo México, tried to prevent the commemoration; the militant miners of of Latin America’s largest copper mine responded by going on strike. Now they have gone on strike again, as they have almost every year since 1999. This history of militancy goes back to the 1906 Cananea miners strike, one of the key events leading up to the Mexican Revolution of 1910-17. Much has been written about the 1906 strike from the standpoint of Mexican nationalism. But contrary to nationalist myths, that proletarian revolt was a joint effort by anarcho-syndicalist and revolutionary minded Mexican and American workers, who carried red flags at the head of their marches. In the recent strikes as well as one hundred years ago, the key factor is the need for a class-struggle leadership, a revolutionary internationalist party. Cananea: A Century of Internationalist Class Struggle (December 2007)

En español: Cananea: un siglo de lucha de clases internacionalista (diciembre de 2007)

“Civic” Revolution or Workers Revolution?
Ecuador Needs a Workers, Peasants
and Indian Government
Forge a Leninist-Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers Party!
For an Andean Federation of Workers Republics!
For the last two decades, Ecuador has found itself in an almost constant state of upheaval and revolt. Yet practically nothing has changed in the direction the country is headed: it is still subject to the dictates of Yankee imperialism, the dollarization of the economy, the U.S. Southern Command’s occupation of the Manta Air Base... By all accounts, Ecuador needs a revolution. But the question is posed, what kind of revolution? President Rafael Correa, a bourgeois populist, calls for a “civic revolution.” However, he ferociously opposes any class actions, particularly the struggle for a workers revolution to bring down the capitalist system. He called a Constituent Assembly in order to “refound” the couintry. Yet on the very day the Assembly was inaugurated, he unleashed a brutal repression against peasants of the Amazonian parish of Dayuma for shutting down production at an oil well. The Ecuadorian working masses need a struggle for a workers, peasants and Indian government, which launches international socialist revolution. Ecuador Needs a Workers, Peasants and Indian Government (25 December 2007)

En español: Ecuador necesita un gobierno obrero, campesino e indígena (25 de diciembre de 2007)

Craft Divisions Endanger Labor: Build a Single Media Union
Don’t Let Writers Stand Alone – All Media Workers Should Join the WGA on Strike!
As the strike by film and television writers nears its two-month mark, the 12,000 members of the affiliated East and West Coast Writers Guild of America have shown determination and kept up morale at picket lines and mass rallies in Los Angeles and New York. Late-night TV viewership is down, networks have to return millions of dollars to advertisers. Yet even as the WGA strike begins to bite economically, the media moguls are refusing to negotiate. The Hollywood bosses figure they can play one craft union off against another. By themselves, writers are at a great disadvantage. To win this important labor battle, it is necessary to extend the strike to include all media industry workers, particularly blue-collar workers without whom the studios would go dark. Ultimately there should be one union of all media workers. Instead of looking to millionaire Democrats like John Edwards, strikers can make a start by aggressively picketing scab talk show and “reality” TV programs. All Media Workers Should Join the WGA on Strike! (22 December 2007)

The World Socialist Web Site, a/k/a Socialist Equality Party, is trying to attract WGA writers. What the WSWS/SEP doesn’t mention is that they oppose unions, even telling auto workers to vote to keep unions out. Far from being some kind of ultra-leftists, these scab “socialists” are doing the bosses’ work.

SEP/WSWS: Scab “Socialists” (22 December 2007)

Why We Fight for Workers Strikes
Against the War
(and the Opportunists Don't)

Break with the Democrats – For a Class-Struggle Workers Party!
The U.S.’ colonial occupation of, Iraq and Afghanistan is at a dead end. Despite the vaunted “surge” of U.S. forces in Iraq last spring, attacks by insurgents have not diminished one bit, while the number of Iraqi civilian casualties has sharply increased. In the mid-term U.S. elections last November, the Democrats won control of both houses of Congress mainly due to the perception that they would “do something” to end the war. Yet the war goes on, with their support. The entire activity of the antiwar movement has consisted precisely of seeking to pressure the Democratic Party into opposing the war on Iraq. Forget it. This is a bi-partisan imperialist war. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International call not just for U.S. withdrawal, which would merely lead to the next war as it has repeatedly over the last century, but to drive the imperialist occupiers out of Iraq and Afghanistan and to defeat U.S. imperialism’s wars through international socialist revolution. We seek to mobilize the power of the workers movement in sharp class struggle, including workers strikes against the war and “hot cargoing” war material. Why We Fight for Workers Strikes Against the War (18 October 2007)

Port Shutdown Over Dock Worker Killed in Oakland,
Union Mobilization Over “Anti-Terror” Security Assault
Militant Protest Against Racist Cop Attack on Bay Area Longshore Workers
Dump the TWIC Card – Strike Against the War!
On October 4, upwards of 250 demonstrators rallied outside the Yolo County Courthouse in Woodland, California to protest the vicious police assault last August on two black dock workers from San Francisco who were working in the port of Sacramento. Dock workers came from all over northern California, Portland, Oregon and even Charleston, South Carolina, to protest the racist attack. Twice in the space of a month, longshore workers in California have been victimized amid ruling class hysteria over port “security threats” while actual safety conditions on the docks deteriorate. In late September, a worker in the port of Oakland was killed after being struck by a container. Outraged workers immediately shut down the entire port, one of the U.S.’ busiest. The port shutdown and October 4 rally demonstrate the potential strength of labor. Coming up is an October 20 “Labor Conference to Stop the War” sponsored by the Bay Area ILWU locals. This could help prepare the way for labor strikes against the war, as we have repeatedly called for. But to do so it will have to overcome the obstacle of the labor bureaucracy tied to the Democratic Party, which is now the main capitalist party keeping the war going. Militant Protest Against Racist Cop Attack on Bay Area Longshore Workers (12 October 2007)

ILWU Dock Workers Under Attack (28 September 2007)

Bolivia: Class Battles in the Andes

Articles on Bolivia from The Internationalist

Recent articles on Bolivia:

“Andean Capitalism” vs. Permanent Revolution
Bolivia: Evo Morales Against the Workers and Oppressed
When Evo Morales won Bolivia’s national elections in December 2005, becoming the first indigenous president in South American history, the international left almost unanimously hailed this as a victory for the oppressed. Yet as the League for the Fourth International warned, political support to Morales’ “Andean capitalism” is counterposed to the most fundamental interests of the workers, peasants and indigenous peoples. In a year and a half in office, Morales has carried out an “agrarian reform” that strengthens the landowners’ power, decreed phony “nationalizations” that leave oil and gas fields in the hands of imperialist corporations, called a “constituent assembly” in which right-wing racists hold the whip hand, and repeatedly attacked the workers movement. The experience of this bourgeois-nationalist regime confirms Leon Trotsky’s program of permanent revolution, that the working class must take power at the head of the poor peasantry and the exploited layers of the urban population, seizing the land and industries in a socialist revolution extending throughout Latin America and into the imperialist heartland. Bolivia: Evo Morales Against the Workers and Oppressed (September 2007)

Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants –
Mobilize Union Power to Block the Raids
New Haven: Break ICE Terror with Militant Class Struggle!
On Monday, June 4, the New Haven Board of Aldermen passed a local ordinance to provide undocumented immigrants a city-issued photo ID card. Barely 36 hours later, the federal government responded by carrying out a first-ever immigration raid in the Connecticut city. The ICE Gestapo barged into homes, grabbing entire families, picked people off the streets without so much as a warrant, and terrorized the entire neighborhood, home to many immigrant workers. The New Haven raids were a brutal reminder from the feds that the issue is power. After years of futile lobbying for “immigration reform” from Democrats in Congress, many liberals and reformists have turned their sights to more modest local initiatives for “sanctuary cities” and the like. “Stop the Raids!” say demonstrators’ signs. Yes, but how? It will take mass mobilization of labor power. New Haven: Break ICE Terror with Militant Class Struggle (16 June 2007)

Workers Strikes Against the War! Hot-Cargo War Materiel!
Defeat US Imperialism With Workers' Revolution!
Boston: How To End The War?
Reformist Movement Leaders Have No Answer
The Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition (STWC) recently held a meeting on “Ending the War: Peace Movement Leaders Ask, ‘Which Way Forward’?” Good question, to which they have no answer. Although the “movement” is divided between a variety of “coalitions,” they all have the same basic political makeup: one or two socialist groups at the core posing as “just us peace folks”; a minimum “democratic” program aimed at attracting support from mainstream liberals; one or another bourgeois politician dragged onto the speakers platform to gain the desired veneer of “respectability.” These popular fronts for peace chain opponents of the war to sections of the bourgeoisie, that is, the “bipartisan” imperialist war party. What they don’t have is a program to mobilize power to stop the warmongers in their tracks: the power of the working class. immigrants is the “home front” of the imperialist war on Iraq. The Internationalist Group says: The only “anti-war movement” that succeeded in stopping an imperialist war was the Russian revolution of 1917, led by the Bolshevik party of Lenin and Trotsky. Boston: How To End The War? (18 May 2007)

Hundreds Protest NYU Republicans’ Racist “Illegal Immigrant” Hunt
On February 22, College Republicans at New York University (NYU) staged a blatant racist provocation – a “game” of “catch the illegal immigrant.” This was only the latest chapter in a nationwide campaign by campus right-wingers. The grotesque stunt unleashed an outpouring of anger among NYU students and many others. More than 400 protesters turned out and kept up a steady din for three hours, chanting, picketing and drowning out the handful of racist vigilantes. The Internationalist Group carried signs calling for “Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants,” “Mobilize NYC Labor to Defend Immigrant Workers” and “Sweep Racist Vigilantes Off the Streets!” Hundreds Protest NYU Republicans’ Racist “Illegal Immigrant” Hunt (23 February 2007)

Button available from Mundial Publications. $1 each (Click here to order)	Button available from Mundial Publications. $1 each (Click here to order)
Button available from Mundial Publications. $1 each (Click here to order)

Permanent Crisis of the Popular Front
Lula Against the Workers – Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!
A wave of disgust is spreading across Latin America. The “lost decade” of the 1980s caused by the “foreign debt bomb” was followed by another ten years of regimes which applied the prescriptions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, deepening hunger and poverty throughout the continent. This gave rise to so-called “center-left” governments in several countries, installed after populist election campaigns denouncing “neo-liberalism.” First among them is the popular front headed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil. Yet these regimes soon turned out to be loyal servants of their imperialist masters in Washington. In Brazil, the Lula government was shaken by a series of scandals of monthly payoffs to legislators in “opposition” parties to get their votes and revelations of large-scale corruption in the Workers Party (PT). Yet far from mounting a revolutionary opposition to Lula’s bourgeois government, the left “opposition” (which overwhelmingly supported Lula, openly or in 2002) fell in behind the right-wing scandal-mongers, while calling for a slightly more left version of today’s PT. Lula Against the Workers – Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party! (May 2006)

Philippines Crackdown: Fight Arroyo with Workers’ Power!
Not Another EDSA "People's Power" Fraud, Fight for Workers Revolution! Build the Nucleus of a Philippine Trotskyist Party!
Once again the Philippine political landscape reverberated from the noise of police banging up their shields and tanks rumbling through the streets, reminiscent of the martial law years of the 1970s. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo proclaimed a state of emergency on February 24, then lifted it a week later. But the crackdown continues as the Philippines is undergoing “creeping martial law.” Most protests called for ousting Arroyo with “people power” – i.e., for mass mobilization behind the civilian/military bourgeois opposition such as brought down the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. The League for the Fourth International warns that this is a program for defeat of the working people. The LFI calls to drive the U.S. out of Iraq and Palestine, and to sweep away the Arroyo regime with workers power.

(English) Philippines Crackdown: Fight Arroyo with Workers’ Power! (23 March 2006)

(Pilipino) Crackdown sa Pilipinas: Labanan si Arroyo sa Pamamagitan ng Kapangyarihan ng mga Manggagawa! (23 Marso 2006)