A reading and discussion of a recent editorial in Challenge.

Progressive Labor Party salutes the bravery of the Los Angeles-area working class in defending our immigrant sisters and brothers in the face of a vicious attack by State-Terrorist-in-Chief Donald Trump and the masked thugs of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In response to state violence by the kkkops in L.A. and other cities, workers’ resistance—most of it peaceful, some of it violent in turn—pushed Trump to retreat and order a five-day pause on deportation at farms, meatpacking plants, restaurants, and hotels. The capitalist bosses are terrified of mass worldwide uprisings that strike at the heart of their rotten, racist system. They’ve been shaken by antiracist fightback after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and by the militant response to Zionist genocide in Gaza. They’re worried that the next wave of protests could light the match for an even broader rebellion.

The U.S. rulers have a dilemma they can’t solve. On the one hand, they absolutely need labor by immigrants, including more than eight million undocumented immigrants, to keep their fragile system afloat. On the other hand, they need racist scapegoating to divide and discipline the working class. As Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and the U.S. threatens to set off an all-out war in the Middle East, global instability is deepening by the day. Confronted by a rising China and their own relative decline, the U.S. bosses are on red alert for World War Three. Trump’s nazi-style immigration raids—like the mass deportations of Joe Biden before him—reflect the endangered state of U.S. imperialism. Regardless of which lying politician gets elected president the next time around, the bosses will be forced to keep moving toward open fascism, the parasites’ last-ditch move to protect their profits in a time of international capitalist crisis.

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