No. 17, August 2020 Table of Contents Selected articles linked  Newspaper of the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth and CUNY students from the Internationalist Clubs, for the program of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, published in accord with the Internationalist Group, U.S. section of the League for the Fourth International Click on image to left for pdf version of complete issue.

 

The Racist Police Murder of George Floyd Only Revolution Can Bring Justice! By Gordon Barnes Amidst the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, the United States has been wracked by nationwide protests against racist police brutality and murder. Nightly we hear the helicopters overhead; daily come new images of police violence, repression, curfews, arrests, and the threat of martial law. Why is it that, despite the waves of protest and cyclical pledges of “reform,” the police keep murdering black people? The list of their names is endless. As marchers chant them, some of us add “It never stops.” Born as a professionalized force from the slave patrols in the U.S. South, the police serve the ruling elite and protect their property and social order. That is the fundamental role of the cops under capitalism. What is in danger of occurring again during the current cycle of fervent protest, is the funneling of dissent into the Democratic Party. Democratic mayors largely control the urban centers in this country, and their police forces. It is these Democratic mayors who have instituted the various curfews and police crackdowns, and a series of Democratic Party governors have, along with their Republican confreres, deployed the National Guard. To overcome the racial oppression which is, and always has been, part of the bedrock of American capitalism, the power of the multiracial working class must be mobilized. When Will It End? The Racist Police Lynching of George Floyd (3 June 2020)

Protests Denounce Murders of Transgender People in Racist, Capitalist U.S.A. Since Minneapolis cops murdered George Floyd on May 25, mass demonstrations against police terror have swept the U.S. Amid this upsurge, protesters have called attention to the fate of African American and Latino trans people killed at the hands of police, prison guards and reactionary bigots. The capitalist dystopia called the United States is a living hell for the oppressed, triply so for black and Latino trans people. At a Hunter College protest in September 2015, after the lynch-law death of Sandra Bland in a Texas jail, the Internationalist Club held a speakout against racist terror, with posters with the names and faces of transgender people who had been murdered that year. But in this racist, capitalist country, the killing never stops. Some of the names we remember today are Dominique Rem’mie Fells, Jayne Thompson, Layleen Polanco. The working class and all defenders of democratic rights must actively oppose discrimination and attacks on transgender people. Ultimately, to put an end to this terror requires putting an end to the capitalist system itself. Protests Denounce Murders of Transgender People in Racist, Capitalist U.S.A. (August 2020)

No Segregation at Anti-Racist Protests! At a number of demonstrations that the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth has attended in the past period, liberal organizers have literally tried to segregate protesters in line with their notions of hierarchies of oppression. Starkly counterposed to real struggle against oppression, such “privilege theory”-inspired antics are no joke. In the face of the cops, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) and other repressive forces, this expression of guilt-tripping identity politics liberalism can quickly endanger the safety of protesters. This year, at a June 28 protest called in downtown Manhattan by the Reclaim Pride Coalition, a lead organizer announced that the march, which highlighted the issue of police brutality, would be separated into groups – according to tiers of oppression. Fortunately, the crowd of thousands was already integrated and it stayed that way. Fortunately, the crowd of thousands was already integrated and it stayed that way. No Segregation at Anti-Racist Protests! (August 2020)

Herding Votes for Biden, Pushing More Cash for Cops Like We Said: Bernie Sanders’ “Political Revolution” Was a Scam With populistic bluster about a “political revolution against the billionaire class,” Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont who calls himself a democratic socialist, drew wide support from youth disenchanted by capitalism’s escalating crises. His foot soldiers revved them up, registered them as Democrats and lined them up for the November 2020 vote. In April, Sanders dropped out of the primaries, throwing his weight behind the embodiment of the “Democratic establishment” his followers had reviled: Joe Biden. Now Bernie Sanders proclaims that Joe Biden could be the “most progressive president” since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Like his ally Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who snagged a prized post as co-chair of Biden’s climate taskforce, Sanders holds up Democratic imperialist icon FDR and his New Deal as a model and inspiration. Like we said from the beginning: Sanders’ so-called political revolution was and always has been a political scam, in the service of the Democrats. Like We Said: Bernie Sanders’ “Political Revolution” Was a Scam (August 2020)

Defend International Students! Defeat Attacks Against Immigrants! Statement of the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth On Monday, July 6, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) launched a vicious attack against international students, who now “may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States.” If they cannot find in-person classes, they must leave the country or face deportation. This xenophobic action by the U.S. immigration Gestapo targets over one million of our fellow students and classmates, including over 350,000 students from China. This sadistic bigotry comes after the U.S. has summarily deported over 2,000 children in the middle of the pandemic. The Revolutionary Internationalist Youth call for labor/black/immigrant action against racist police and anti-immigrant terror, and to stop this vile attack on international students. Defend International Students! Defeat Attacks Against Immigrants! (7 July 2020)

A Militant Program to Win UC Grad Student Workers Strike For months, graduate student workers across the University of California have been demanding a cost-of-living adjustment to offset skyrocketing rents. Grad students at UC Santa Cruz went on strike in early February, in defiance of the leadership of the statewide union, UAW Local 2865, which refused to authorize the walkout. UC president Janet Napolitano (head of Homeland Security in the Democratic Obama administration) has taken a hard line throughout, and on February 28 effectively fired 82 Santa Cruz grad student workers. The Revolutionary Internationalist Youth, Class Struggle Education Workers and the Internationalist Group have sought to build support for UC grad student workers from the outset. We present here a program to actually win the strike, by spreading the strike UC-wide and shutting the campuses down. What’s key is to mobilize working-class power. That means fighting politically, above all breaking with the Democratic Party. A Militant Program to Win UC Grad Student Workers Strike (4 March 2020)

For Labor/Black Mobilization Against Racist Police Attacks! Cops Off the Trains and Out of the Stations! Upwards of a thousand people have protested in recent weeks against a wave of racist police brutality in the New York City subways. Cellphone videos taken by bystanders have shown cops storming subway cars and brutally beating black youths. In response, first in downtown Brooklyn on November 1 and then in Harlem three weeks later, protesters marched through the streets chanting “being broke is not a crime” and “What’s our mission? Abolition.” The police assault has been defended by liberal Democratic mayor Bill de Blasio, while Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered 500 more police to flood the subways, trains and buses. The Revolutionary Internationalist Youth joined in the protests, calling for cops out of the subways, and to rip out the turnstiles – for free mass transit, run by the transit workers rather than the real estate speculators and Democratic Party pols who control the system today. TWU Local 100 representing transit workers is the stronghold of NYC labor, and if they were to intersect with the fight against cop terror in the subways it would produce a social explosion that would rock the city. But such a struggle must be waged politically and requires a fighting leadership prepared to take on the capitalist parties responsible for running the transit system into the ground. Cops Off the Trains and Out of the Stations! (November 2019)

Elijah McClain (1996-2019) Walking home from the convenience store with an iced tea in hand can be enough to get you killed in this country – if you’re black. The infamous murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012 by a racist vigilante in Florida was repeated against 23-year-old Elijah McClain by police in Aurora, Colorado in 2019. Elijah was a self-taught violinist, and his wanton murder caught world attention. When violinists from across the U.S. gathered in the Denver suburb this past June, they were met with violent police repression. Elijah McClain, 1996-2019 (August 2020)

Racist Cop Terror Stalks Connecticut

Free Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange! Hands Off Edward Snowden! The Lies Behind Imperialist Crimes: From Pentagon Papers to Afghanistan Papers

What Led Me to RIY Feminism or Women’s Liberation?

Slavery and the Constitution: Origins of U.S. Capitalist “Democracy”

Resignation from the International “Marxist” Tendency Real Marxists Don’t Support Police and Prison-Guard “Unions” IMT Supporters Dodge Debate

Capitalism’s Crises Pummel Millennials, Gen Z