Capitalism Killed Oklahoma Tornado Victims

"I used to live in Oklahoma," said a comrade, angrily. "Tornados are just an everyday thing there. For that, rich people have underground shelters in their houses. I knew a doctor who had one, but not in the little house where we immigrants lived.
"In apartments you can't find that kind of tornado shelter. If a tornado starts to come it destroys everything like we saw now. Even the elementary schools didn't have shelters."
At least 24 people, including nine children, died in one of the worst tornado disasters in US history. Hundreds more were injured, and tens of thousands left homeless in Moore, Oklahoma, by a huge storm that followed the same path as a 1999 tornado that destroyed 8000 homes.
These are not "natural" disasters. Storms become disasters because of the social conditions in class society. Furthermore, climate changes resulting from the capitalist system
are responsible, at least in part, for increasingly deadly storms.
In communist society, would anyone even live in an area known as "Tornado Alley"? If we had to, we'd make sure that there were shelters and warning systems in place.
Capitalism is vicious. Capitalism is callous. "You have a limited amount of funds. You set priorities," said an Oklahoma Emergency Management chief, making excuses.
It would cost an estimated $600,000-$1,000,000 to retrofit one school. That's just about what Raytheon gets for one Tomahawk missile.
"They were just openly saying it was a matter of FEMA and red tape, that it was openly about the money," remarked a comrade. "I was wondering about a parent who lost her child at that school, what conclusion would she draw?
Would she conclude we need a new society?" Those of us who see the possibility of a new society – a communist society – must mobilize the masses around that vision and that plan.
"In communism we'll build shelters, yes?" said the comrade who used to live in Oklahoma. "It's not just whether it's costly or not.
"In a communist society we'll do what it takes to save lives of the working class, not to make profits by analyzing whether it is cost-effective or not. In capitalist society, profit comes first— from Bangladesh to Oklahoma— and the lives of the masses of the working class are not taken into consideration."
--Angry comrades

I went to the FMLN's May Day march. I felt that few marchers were enthusiastic about expressing the injustices of capitalism. Most of the marchers were there only because they felt obligated to an international oil company which claims to support workers' social justice issues. However, this same company required some of its employees to work on May Day. The march seemed to be a public relations event for businesses. Where were the slogans of the activist leaders of the supposed left party? From what I observed, the fmln is no longer left.
The fmln no longer makes it a priority to lead workers' struggles to fight against capitalism and for another social system. Its leaders want to manage and grow businesses so they can climb the business ladder and become part of a new bourgeoisie. Some of its leaders have already gone down this road. This is why some people no longer identify with the fmln and don't march on May Day.
However, when I approached marchers with Red Flag, many readily accepted it. In our work, we see that more workers are interested in reading Red Flag and no longer see communism as a monster that will take away what
they have. They are beginning to see that communism, led by the International Communist Workers' Party, is the alternative to capitalism.

-A comrade in El Salvador

A young comrade from El Salvador wrote a letter in Red Flag about the preparations and actions for May 1st and about the struggle for communism. Dozens of high school students from Los Angeles in the United States read the letter and responded.
"Hello young comrade. The determination that you express in this letter can change the way many people think. Communism will happen one way or another, and this letter, I think, is a very big step towards communism. Keep
writing, I'm with you 100%. Today, May 1st, there is a march in downtown Los Angeles, and a lot of people that represent Red Flag and other people supporting communism will be there. I will go to this march to support and shout at the top of my lungs. Soon we will kill this system," wrote a student.
Emphasizing internationalism and the necessity of being part of a party, another student wrote," Dear comrade friend, what your letter says sound good, united and organized in the International Communist Workers Party we can achieve anything if we make it a point, we will march and write so that the people can know that we will reach our goal because everybody in this world is worth the same."
Another student demonstrated his solidarity in this way, "You are a very good example of a young communist. I read your letter, and how cool that you're a comrade of Red Flag. I would one day like to be a comrade from Red Flag as well. I will march with the International Communist Workers Party and I will do it not for me but for all the workers of the world.
Also, so that everyone can know who we are. Hopefully one day we'll see each other and march together side by side on the same street, for what we want. Keep fighting and don't give up, forever until victory.
The comments show the development of the communist internationalism that is required to mobilize the masses for communism and communist revolution.
Another young lady put it in these words, "Young comrade from El Salvador, I want you to know that together with one flag and with the same objective we will walk towards our inevitable future, it doesn't matter how small the place where you're from is, the important thing is that the International Communist Workers Party has young people, as yourself, with enthusiasm to march for communism. I'm sure that you all the way from El Salvador are doing an excellent job, keep it up. We're good. The effort that you, myself, and the rest of the comrades are making is worth a lot, very soon we will see excellent results. Fighting for the workers of the world is our mission. We will achieve our goal. I hope that all goes well with you all."

Which Ideology for the Popular Patrols in Mexico?
To put an end to exploitation, the use of wage labor by the capitalists, and the different forms of oppression that accompany it, we workers need to understand this relationship. We need to constitute ourselves as a Class, which means that we must build a Party: the organization that fights the capitalists for power. Without that, other organizational efforts will be fruitless.
Eighteen years ago, in the mountainous region of the state of Guerrero, Mexico, as a response to the crimes that they were victims of, the inhabitants of remote small villages began organizing armed "community patrol" units.
As crime got worse, aggravated by drug trafficking, the organization expanded, forming the Regional Coordinatorship of Community Authorities (CRAC), whose call for "self-determination" is influenced by the multiculturalism that claims to represent the "original people" of the villages and by revisionism (false communism).
The poverty of the workers and the absence of natural resources in the region meant that, historically, the capitalists and their government took little interest in the region until the "community patrols" became a political force of opposition, even though it never went outside of institutional channels.
Drug trafficking is part of capitalist life and, with the pretext of fighting it, the world's governments have taken fascist steps against the working class and the population in general. In Mexico these steps serve as a violent instrument to attack immigrants from Central and South America who are traveling through Mexico to the US.
Now that the "community patrols" have joined with the teachers of Guerrero and Michoacán, the state governments are seeking to "regulate them" and have begun to confront them.
The militancy of the people in the mountain villages and the teachers of Guerrero and Michoacán shows the potential for struggle of the working masses of Mexico. But to fight for power, the working class urgently needs to change its mode of thinking and make communist ideas and practices their own, joining in building ICWP
--Comrades in Mexico

Workers in the Middle East React to ICWP Leaflet About Bangladesh Factory Collapse
The response of a reader in the Middle East after receiving the ICWP leaflet calling for communist revolution in response to the factory collapse in Bangladesh:
What pride might a man have that his studies and predictions on the brutality of industrial development of the capitalist type may be vindicated more than a century and a half after his death? Actually, the repetition of these horrors of capitalist development would have brought up only feelings of the utmost contempt and disdain instead of “vindication” in old man Marx had he lived today. How foolish now seem those intellectual philistines who uselessly prattle about the “specificity” of Marx’s analysis when he wrote Capital based on England’s path of development. Isn’t the same sort of squalor that the English workers once lived in, or the malnourishment of their children, or the cramped and hazardous conditions of work, or the twelve-hour days a feature of life in the countries of the subcontinent also?
The deaths of hundreds of workers in Dhaka from the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse, or the hundreds who were burned alive in Karachi in the Baldia Factory fire, are a small price to pay for the ludicrous profits exploited out of their labor by these animals that we call “capitalists”. What sweeping regulations were implemented after the Baldia Factory fire? Who knows of any new measures taken to prevent these disasters again? It isn’t unreasonable to expect the same forgive-and-forget attitude towards Bangladesh’s vampires, who in collusion with the government, chain their workers to a life of misery, to toil endlessly until their bodies give out for profit.
Yes, hundreds of deaths are a small price to pay for profits. An example will be made of a few rotten apples for appeasement, and even that may be too luxurious an outcome considering that the owner of the factory in Rana Plaza is a politician of the ruling Bangladesh Awami League. But the barrel full of rotten apples, no one will dare to shake up, because that requires an attack on the “freedoms” of the whole capitalist class in Bangladesh. Further, an attack on the whole capitalist class, such
as sweeping factory and labor regulations, presupposes the existence of a strong labor movement that can push for these changes in direct opposition to the freedom of all capitalists to destroy the lives of workers.
The workers of the world must open their eyes and see the capitalists for what they are: mortal enemies. Everywhere, in every country, they are the same. The workers of Dhaka are as saddled with the dead weight of the capitalists as the workers of Karachi are. For all the differences in language, culture and traditions, the problem of workers is everywhere the same.
On May 1st, International Labor Day, let the working people of the world unite!