Communist Ideas among the Masses here ♦ Criminalization of Poverty here ♦ Party History at Boeing here ♦
Communist Ideas among the Masses
LOS ANGELES (USA), February 8— “F*** landlords!” That’s what drove a crowd of demonstrators to cheers in the middle of a speech given by a young woman activist at the Los Angeles Lunar New Year March in Chinatown. Five hundred marched under the banner “Fight Displacement from Chinatown to Palestine.”
Later, an ICWP comrade complimented the woman and handed her a Red Flag. “Your slogan translates directly to ‘F*** capitalism,” he said. She agreed, as many workers agreed throughout the march as eight ICWP comrades carried our party’s communist flag and signs and distributed about two hundred Red Flags.
It is becoming clearer to workers in LA and across the US that we are living in a fascist state. The stressors of capitalism are intensified in our everyday life. Whether it is housing costs, ICE raids, gentrification, inflation, xenophobia, or wars, these social problems are directly connected to the racist capitalist system that we must destroy and replace with communism.
At the end of the march, comrades talked about the same slogan, and one added, “Yes, f*** private property!” We should make it a point to wave a red flag at all demonstrations because it gives a stronger presence of ICWP. Soon enough, we must lead the masses to follow our red flag into a communist revolution.
“Long live communism!”
The Criminalization of Poverty
I think we made a mistake heading an article “Racist Mass Incarceration: a feature of declining US imperialism.” A better headline would read, “Criminalization of poverty: a feature of declining US imperialism.” Racism runs through every aspect – cultural, social, and economic – of life in the US but the oppression and exploitation of the working class is the dominant division.
The statistics in the second paragraph illustrate the multi-racial nature of imprisonment. They state 25% of the prisoners are Latinx, about 30% are white, about 30% are Black.
Then, like a street-con 3 shell game, the statistics that follow hide this reality. Latinx people are 19% of the population, Black people are 14% and whites are 51%. Black and Latinx workers are disproportionally imprisoned more than whites. Therefore, the liberals argue, mass incarceration is racist.
These statistics are true of the population as a whole but the catch, the bean in the shell game, is that the population as a whole is not threatened by incarceration. Since the 1980s, the criminalization of poverty has seen an intensified thrust by US capitalism. Intense policing of the reserve army of labor (long term unemployed or casual workers) has become the cheaper or favored method of social control.
Some 41 million people live below the Federal Poverty line. This sector is the most threatened by incarceration or jailing. Some 42% (17 million) are white, 27% (11 million) are Latinx and some 22% (9 million) are Black. If we are talking about prison population these statistics are more accurate, The racist nature of the State is still clear in these figures, but poverty is the dominant feature. Class matters.
The triumph of racism and the weakening of class consciousness rests largely on the ignorance each sector shas of the lived experience of the other. Liberal pro-capitalist arguments continually seek out statistics that hide or distort the class nature of oppression and exploitation. Speaking of the role of racism, Frederick Douglas pointed out, “They divided both to conquer each.”
—Comrade in California (USA)
Let’s Learn More from Party History at Boeing
It’s always good to read about our party’s work in Seattle among the new, younger, more diverse Boeing workforce. It’s great that the comrades are trying to take advantage of new opportunities for party growth.
But these articles raise a question. Though it’s never stated directly, the constant emphasis on these new opportunities seems to suggest that opportunities for party growth did not exist at Boeing before the pandemic, when the workforce was older and less diverse. Those of us who have read Red Flag for a long time know that isn’t true.
We remember how comrades and friends distributed communist literature on the shop floor. How they mobilized many co-workers to confront anti-immigrant racists, also on the shop floor. We remember reports of well-attended multi-racial social events with sharp political discussions. Some of us even attended a few of those. The Boeing work has helped to lead the whole party.
Newer readers wouldn’t know all that. In the US and around the world, the capitalist rulers have long spread a lot of negativity about US industrial workers, especially white workers, supposedly being “reactionary.” Decades of experience at Boeing proved that a lie. It’s still important.
Our line has been, and still is, to “mobilize masses for communism.” To build a mass party, not just a small party with a mass base.
Despite the good and consistent work at Boeing, we didn’t recruit many workers to the party. Why? Surely not just because the workforce was not yet “young and diverse.” Was it a problem with our line? With our practice? What can we all learn from whatever mistakes might have been made? And what are we doing differently now?
Comrades, your answers to these questions could help advance the work of the whole party.
—Older comrade