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Student Debt Slavery: the Ruling Class’s Latest Shackles on Workers

by Dylan Borne

“I am a 60 year old mom and I work as a janitor to help my son pay his student loans. I have arthritis which makes my job even harder.”

A woman named Darlene posted this on studentdebtcrisis.org. She’s one of the 44 million Americans carrying crushing student debt. In the past decade, student debt rose to the highest it’s ever been. Now more than $1.4 trillion, it has overtaken auto loan, home equity, and even credit card debt. The average student graduates from college with $35,000 to repay—and counting. In just three years, between 2010 and 2013, the number of “seriously delinquent” loans (loans too high to repay) doubled. Many indebted workers are college dropouts, pressured to go to college by the competitive economy but ending up even worse off than if they had never gone to school.

But lenders and college administrators are laughing their way to the bank. More loans mean more people paying for college, so colleges take advantage and raise tuition. High tuition means more students take out more loans. The cycle continues, stacking up to a debt mountain nearly the size of Texas’s economy.

Yet real wages and salaries are declining. The value of a college degree now is less than half its value than in the early 2000s, according to the Pew Research Center. Students will have to stop paying; the tower of debt will have to fall.

When this happens, the banks won’t suffer. Whether there’s a Republican or a Democrat in office, the government will bail them out like both Bush and Obama did during the mortgage crisis.

But a solution is possible.

The New Orleans Workers Group demands that the government bail out the people instead of the banks. Cancel student debt. The billionaire bankers can afford to downsize the mansions we bought for them with our interest payments.

College should be free for everyone—like it is in socialist countries like Cuba—so the student debt can’t be amassed in the first place. Banks should be replaced by People’s Banks, overseen by ordinary workers to give out low-interest loans based on helping people sustainably pay for what they need, instead of exploiting them for the bankers’ profit.

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Puerto Ricans Still Left in the Dark

By Ashlee Pintos

Beginning on September 22nd, 2017, a modern colony of the “greatest country in the world” went into complete darkness. The small island of Puerto Rico with its 3.4 million citizens suffered in isolation while Hurricane Maria ravaged the entire country. It was not until day 4 or 5 that the millions of anxious Puerto Ricans living in the states were able to hear any information about their loved ones.

The government has declared only 48 deaths as direct results of the hurricane. However, The U.S. is only counting deaths directly related to the storm itself and does not address the hundreds of deaths caused by the failure of the U.S. government to help the island during Maria’s aftermath. There have actually been reports of over 450 deaths, island wide, with 69 people reported missing. Many of the island’s hospitals are not functioning at full capacity: they are running out of medications and fuel for their generators. This has resulted in hundreds of deaths from a lack of medication, oxygen tanks, and the sanitation that electricity provides to prevent the spread of disease. Relief resources are not being distributed to the island’s remote villages. Instead, the U.S. immediately began the militarization of the island, sending in hundreds of police and military officials.

After almost 2 weeks, Trump finally visited the capital of San Juan, the epicenter of the tourism industry and site of his own personal investments. He has not addressed the villages where dead bodies of humans and livestock have yet to be moved, there is no running water or electricity, and people are desperate for food, clean water, cash, and gasoline. One of his first responses to this catastrophic event was to acknowledge the island’s illegitimate debt of $74 billion and remark that the island is throwing the “budget out of whack.” But that debt has been caused by over 100 years of abuse by the U.S., and compared to state debts such as New York at $143 billion, Puerto Rico’s debt is manageable. Not to mention, the U.S. military budget is well over $800 billion, a figure that could pay PR’s debt 10 times over. Puerto Rico’s debt should be pardoned and the island should be granted liberation!

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Blood in the Cane Fields: An Interview with Chris Dier

By Gregory William

Chris Dier was born and raised in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. He was displaced by Katrina, but returned home in 2010. Like his mother, he is a history teacher at Chalmette High School, and author of a new book, Blood in the Cane Fields: The 1868 St. Bernard Parish Massacre.

W.V.: What was the St. Bernard Parish Massacre?

Chris Dier: In St. Bernard Parish there was a massacre in 1868, right after the Civil War. Following the war, many black males had gained the right to vote and that threatened the economic relations of these parishes, where white supremacy ruled the land. Around New Orleans, there were sugar-producing regions where black people were the majority, and had been locked into slavery. When they were emancipated and gained voting rights, many voted for the Republican Party, which in that time had sided with liberation. This threatened the white political and economic elite. That elite pushed the narrative that all the problems after the Civil War were caused by the freed people and a lot of poor whites bought into it…1868 was the first presidential election after the war. The Republican candidate was Union veteran, Ulysses S. Grant, and the Democratic candidate was Horatio Seymour, an opponent of Reconstruction and rights for African Americans…Days before the election, armed white groups, many poor planters – not the elites themselves, who had been stoking the fire – carried out one of the most violent episodes of the Reconstruction era in Louisiana. These groups went from plantation to plantation and executed up to 135 people in the streets.

W.V.: So this was a reaction to Reconstruction, which was coming down from the federal level, but did you also uncover information about what freed people were doing in the region at a grassroots level to secure their rights?

Chris Dier: Yes. The first Republican meeting in St. Bernard was a group of freed people coming together. They had their own processions and meetings. There were a lot of grassroots efforts in Louisiana. Interestingly, 19 years after the massacre, in 1887, black and white St. Bernardians marched in unison against the planter elite. That unity is terrifying to the rich…The idea of race had to be strongly imposed over the centuries, going back to the 13 colonies, where there were many instances of poor whites joining in struggle with enslaved people… During the labor movement in New Orleans, blacks and whites came together in 1892 and 1907 along the Mississippi River fighting for their common rights, and this is what brought about some of the harshest reactions from the rich…There are many lessons in this history for the struggle now.

W.V.: How have your students responded to this research?

Chris Dier: My students have been very eager to explore this event. Many see their last names in the book. Some of the last names of perpetrators as well as victims are those of students sitting in the same classroom today. This is their history and most knew nothing about it…It is so important for young people to learn about history, because they are the ones who are going to carry struggle forward.

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Oppose the Stepped Up FBI-Led War Against the Black Liberation Movement

By Malcolm Suber

The New Orleans Workers Group (NOWG) strongly opposes the August 2, FBI report that named so-called “black identity extremism” as a terrorist movement motivated by retaliation for incidents of police abuse and terrorism against African-Americans. The report predicts an increase in violence based on 6 attacks against police between 2014 and 2016, including Michael Johnson on July 7th, 2016 in Dallas where 5 cops were killed.

In all 6 incidents, a total of 8 police officers were killed, but this doesn’t compare to the hundreds of black people killed by cops according to the Washington Post. In 2015, police killed 259 black people. This move by the FBI to claim that black identity extremism is equivalent to white extremism and nazism is ridiculous on it’s face. We know that the racist white supremacist Donald Trump and the justice department under the leadership of Jeff Sessions are encouraging white supremacists and hell-bent on continuing the slaughter of black people in this country. The (BIE) designation is putting old wine in a new bottle. This is a continuation of the infamous COINTELPRO program created by J Edgar Hoover, designed to disrupt and derail the Black Liberation struggle.

The resurgence of the Black Liberation struggle, inspiring the Black Lives Matter movement, causes great consternation to the white racist billionaires who now run this country. They are hell-bent on preventing the resurgence of a strong black liberation struggle that may spark struggles among other oppressed peoples and segments of US society. NOWG calls for all of us to become more vigilant about infiltrators and agent provocateurs, which are trade tools of the FBI. Hopefully this latest program will not end with the murders and imprisonment of the newly developed leaders of the Black Liberation struggle.

We must all be vigilant and understand that the US state controlled by the billionaire ruling class is not neutral and has always been part of the lynch mob attitude towards the black masses and their struggle for freedom and liberation. We ask all working people and our allies to stand up and expose the fraudulent nature of the BIE designation. The real terrorists, the white supremacist neo-nazi elements of society who are trying to continue the terror campaign of the government and the Ku Klux Klan must be combatted and exposed as racist scum.

If all the oppressed and exploited stand together, we can turn back this assault by the FBI and the government and move closer to the day of the triumph of the workers revolution that will eliminate white supremacy and the billionaire ruling class.

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100 Years Later: Workers of the World Celebrate the Russian Revolution

By Quest R.

In October and November, workers and oppressed people on every corner of the globe celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the first Socialist Revolution: the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution of Russia. The downtrodden people of the Earth have looked to the Russian Revolution for inspiration since 1917, and in 2017, we have proven that the revolutionary legacy is still alive in the hearts of the masses everywhere.

The New Orleans Workers Group held a public celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution on October 29. Speakers gave talks regarding the historical context and significance of the Revolution and its implication on our struggles today. After brief talks, we celebrated with food and drinks and we sang the “Internationale”, the song of working class revolution.

Russian Revolution 100 year anniversary celebrations in South Africa, Russia, Bangladesh, Venezuela, and Italy.

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Local Indigenous History: United Houma Nation


By Isabella Moraga-Ghazi

Strength and resilience is exhibited throughout Houma history.

The Houma people were first “discovered” by white settlers living in the area we now call Baton Rouge. Thanks to the Indian Removal Act, signed into law by Andrew Jackson in 1830, Houma people were forced out of their homelands and into diaspora. Many were pushed to the west on the Trail of Tears. Houma people who were caught escaping the removal were sent as slaves to Cuba. The remaining Houma people settled on the Louisiana Gulf Coast and began to build their communities back up. Some Africans who escaped their slaveholders found refuge with Houma people.

Houma children did not have access to education until the late 1940’s because under Jim Crowe law, they could not go to school with either Black or white children. Schools only went to 7th grade, and there were no certified instructors. Subsequently, native children had to let go of any cultural identity they had. Having long hair, wearing anything related to one’s tribe, and practicing tribal spirituality were all prohibited. “Kill the Indian, save the man” was the government’s genocidal mentality.

Louisiana’s booming oil industry hit Houma people hard. Rich settlers profited off of the resources that this land offers. However, Houma people couldn’t get any of those jobs because most of them didn’t speak English. Houma people mostly spoke French with small bits of their native language.

Right now, Houma people still face a plethora of issues. The effects of Katrina can still be seen in many native communities. Environmental racism penetrates the lives of Houma people. The erosion of wetlands caused by climate change threatens their communities, and clean drinking water is scarce for many native households. The proposed Bayou Bridge Pipeline will further coastal and wetlands erosion and directly affect native people along the coast.

The federal government refuses to recognize United Houma Nation as a sovereign people. This allows the oil companies to extract oil from Houma land without compensation further impoverishing the Nation.

This is only a summary of Houma history. There is hope for the future because we, as Houma people, will continue to protect and defend our homelands. If we don’t, then who will?

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Book Review: “Turn the Guns Around: Mutinies, Soldier Revolts, and Revolutions” by John Catalinotto


By Gregory William

World View Forum has published a new book by John Catalinotto, a long-time anti-war activist and working class revolutionary. In the late 60s and early 70s, Catalinotto was an organizer of the American Servicemen’s Union, or ASU.

The ASU was an important organization in the struggle against the U.S. imperialist war in Vietnam. The union brought together rank and file soldiers on the basis of class, helping to intensify mass resistance to the military brass who were carrying out the directives of U.S. capitalists—the capitalists being the enemy of both the U.S. soldiers and the Vietnamese people.

Catalinotto brings together excerpts from period documents (many letters from G.I.s stationed in Vietnam and around the world, sent to ASU headquarters) with his newer analysis of these events. The book can be read as an exciting panorama of the 60s and 70s, told from the heart of the anti-war movement. It also details how this resistance did not develop in isolation, but rather in conjunction with the Black Power, Chicano, women’s, and other movements of the time.

Additionally, Catalinotto analyzes many other revolutionary situations in their military aspect, for example the Paris Commune, which in 1871, was the rst instance of modern working class revolution. They were successful (however briefly) because, at a pivotal moment, soldiers broke the chain of command and refused to fire on the armed workers—hence the title of the book, “Turn the Guns Around.” This was the case in the Russian revolution. He also demonstrates that the rebellion in the military even facilitated the U.S. defeat in Vietnam.
Countless soldiers deserted or went AWOL, the highest rates in modern history. And from 1969-1972, there were 900 documented incidents of U.S. troops killing their officers or sergeants.

The author has an overarching argument that he builds up with all these examples. He agrees with Karl Marx who concluded that workers must carry out armed resistance in order to break the power of the capitalist (or bourgeois) state; otherwise any resistance will be smashed by the capitalists who control repressive institutions such as the police. And in one revolutionary episode after another, rebelling soldiers, breaking the chain of command and joining workers in revolt, have played a decisive role.

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Celebrate Black August! Free all political prisoners!

By Malcolm Suber

August has been the month when the Black resistance to national oppression has been expressed most sharply going back to the days of enslavement.

August 2017 marks the 50-year anniversary of the widespread Black rebellions against racist national oppression in the USA. The Black masses came out into the streets of America to challenge state enforced segregation, poverty and police terror. Detroit, Newark and more than 180 cities and towns went up in flames representing the fire in the belly of the black masses for freedom and liberation. Unfortunately, conditions for the Black masses have not fundamentally changed since the 1960s. Poverty and police terror are still rampant.

The response of the US state to these righteous Black rebellions was the creation of the FBI’s COINTELPRO whose aim was to destroy the Black revolutionary leadership by murdering many leaders such as Fred Hampton and jailing many others. The ruling class feared that the Black rebellion would spread and allies would join the liberation struggle to overthrow the racist capitalist government. There are still dozens of political prisoners in the United States, many of whom have been incarcerated for more than 40 or 50 years. They have become elders inside prison- Black, Puerto Rican, Native, Chicano/Latino and white revolutionaries who have dedicated their lives to the freedom struggle.

The New Orleans Workers Group supports the commemoration of Black August as a time to recognize the life, work and struggles of these revolutionary fighters who have been held as political prisoners. The NOWG is composed of workers and the oppressed that consciously call for and organize toward ending the rule of the billionaire capitalist class. We see ourselves as part of the revolutionary heritage of resistance that harks back to the founding of this racist settler country. From the resistance of indigenous tribes against the settler-colonialists to the first flight to freedom by the enslaved African captives, there have been outstanding leaders and organizers who have fought for the freedom and liberation of the oppressed.

In 1979, revolutionary captives in the California prisons began to call on revolutionary supporters to commemorate Black August to focus on the fact that the US capitalist state had many political prisoners in its gulags. They called on supporters to begin the necessary work of exposing the capitalist state and working to free our heroes and sheroes from imprisonment.

Black August, as noted by one of our most famous political prisoners, Mumia Abu-Jamal, is “a month of divine meaning, of repression and radical resistance; of repression and righteous rebellion; and collective efforts to free the slaves and break the chains that bind us”.
The triggering event for contemporary Black August can be found in the actions of Jonathan Jackson who was gunned down at the Marin County courthouse on August 7, 1970 as he attempted to liberate three imprisoned Black liberation fighters: James McClain, William Christmas, and Ruchell Magee (still imprisoned), the sole survivor of the August 7th rebellion.

George Jackson was assassinated on August 21, 1971, a deliberate move by the US state to eliminate his revolutionary leadership. Three prison guards were killed in the rebellion sparked by George’s assassination. The government charged six Black and Latino prisoners with the guards’ deaths. These six brothers became known as the San Quentin six and were later acquitted of all charges.

Black August is a time for revolutionaries to rededicate themselves to struggle and to study the revolutionary history of the Black Liberation Movement. A brief listing of Black struggles in August include:

• The arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown, VA in August 1719

• The start of the Haitian revolution in August, 1791

• Gabriel’s rebellion of August 30, 1800 • Nat Turner’s rebellion August 21, 1831

• The Watts Rebellion of August 1965

• The Detroit rebellion August 1967

• The RNA 11 shootout with the FBI in Jackson, MS on August 18, 1971

• The bombing of MOVE by Philadelphia police August 8, 1978

Long live the spirit of Black August! Free all our political prisoners!

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Socialists Must Fight Imperialism!

by Quest R.

Socialism is the weapon that workers and oppressed people in every corner of the globe use to resist the constant abuse that capitalists and imperialists have inflicted. It has a rich history with both victories and defeats. Today, billions of people consider themselves part of this tradition, and they struggle under the banner of socialism. It is the responsibility of all who fight under this banner to study its history, the lessons that have been learned through bitter struggle.

Socialists have had to learn many lessons about nationalism and Internationalism. Through all this, the movement has suffered many splits, with some refusing to take up a revolutionary position. These people took the easy, “respectable” way out to appear non-threatening to the ruling class. The modern “democratic socialists” operate in this counter-revolutionary manner.

Long ago the revolutionary movement established two basic principles that lay the groundwork for consistent anti-imperialism.

First, is the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, which affirms the progressive role of nationalism in the countries dominated by imperialism. One reason for this is that the workers in imperialist countries like the U.S. and the people of oppressed countries, for example Venezuela, share a common enemy: the imperialist ruling class in the U.S.

And second, is the counter-revolutionary nature of nationalism in imperialist countries. Revolutionaries in imperialist countries realize that when their ruling class is in a conflict (whether military, political, or economic), it is good for the workers everywhere when imperialists are defeated or weakened. To be a nationalist in an imperialist country is both a betrayal to the people of oppressed nation and the workers in the imperialist country. The downfall of imperialism requires that we identify with the workers of the world instead of some imperialist flag, which represents the system that terrorizes both us and the people of the world.

On both these points, the “democratic socialists” reject the revolutionary outlook and side with imperialism. They consistently side with the imperialists in military conflicts. From Vietnam, to Iraq, to occupied Palestine, and the whole Cold War, the “democratic socialists” have encouraged workers to accept the U.S. government’s narrative. Time after time they’ve proved themselves unwilling to take the hard road: organizing people against the imperialist war machine and its media spokespeople. They deny the legitimacy of the oppressed people’s continuous fight to ward off imperialism. They refuse to lend support to almost any movement or government that bumps heads with the U.S., even though weakening the U.S. establishment strengthens our movements. When the movements and governments of the third world have the courage to strike blows against U.S. imperialism, then they are, in a sense, doing our own work for us. We should strive to be as fearless and self-sacrificing as the revolutionaries who have stood up to our government. But the “democratic socialists” will always encourage you to play by the rules of the establishment. If allowed, they will only lead our movements for liberation into a dead end: defeat and cooperation with the enemy. The only politics relevant to working and oppressed people, the only politics that stand a chance of winning real victory for the exploited here and the super-exploited abroad, is revolutionary politics. Without liberation for oppressed nations around the world, U.S. workers will never have a society that works in our interests.

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“La Vida es Lucha Toda”: Revolutionaries in the fight for Puerto Rican Independence

by A.M.P.

Pedro Albizu Campos, Oscar López Rivera, Lolita Lebrón, Rafael Miranda, and Andrés Cordero: these are a few names of Puerto Ricans who have taken up the struggle for Puerto Rican Independence. Many discount their valiant efforts because of their use of violence; however, we must evaluate the violence that the U.S. has committed against the Puerto Rican people for over a century.

When your country has been deemed “Rich Port” by colonial conquest, when your native people were murdered, raped and enslaved, when your country experienced independence for only 8 days before the U.S. invaded and seized control, deeming your currency worth only 60% of the U.S. dollar and sending your population into poverty: you and your ancestors have been victims of continuous violence.

In 1937, policemen with tommy guns massacred 19 people while hundreds more were shot in the back while attending a peaceful march in Ponce. The U.S. conducted sterilization surgeries on over 33% of Puerto Rican women between 1936 and the 1970s as an attempt to control population growth. For over 60 years, the U.S. Navy used the eastern half of Vieques, an island off the coast of P.R., to test billions of tons of bombs and chemical weapons. This resulted in alarmingly high rates of cancer, hypertension, diabetes, and infant mortality among Vieques. In addition to these atrocities, the U.S. holds P.R. under its thumb as a de-facto colony. They are not allowed to have representation in the U.S. government, therefore having no control over their own destiny. When the U.S. executes these actions, your people are the victims of incessant violence.

This is the most malicious type of violence; an abusive relationship in which your people are helpless against the deviant acts of an imperialist state that feeds you propaganda to make you believe they are helping you. Unless your people recognize their power. Unless your people accept a call to action and unite in the struggle for independence by any means necessary. The only relief from egregious violence is self-determination.

¡Que viva Puerto Rico libre!