The Internationalist No. 48 May-June 2017 50¢ There Is No Justice for Black People in the Racist Capitalist Courts Black America Under the Gun Workers Revolution Will Avenge Philando Castile JUNE 25 – This proves it beyond a shadow working class. Immigrants and Muslims are of a doubt: there is no justice for the op- Courtney Pedroza/Star Tribune currently top targets. But there is always an pressed in the racist capitalist courts. The “enemy within” to be hounded. acquittal of Jeronimo Yanez, the cop who Philando Castile was a supervisor gunned down Philando Castile last July 6 in the school cafeteria of J. Hill Montes- as he sat in his car in suburban St. Paul, sori Magnet School in St. Paul. He was a Minnesota, is proof positive that the whole member of Teamsters Local 320. The kids system is rigged to guarantee that the po- called him “Mr. Phil” and he served meals lice can kill with impunity. to more than 400 kids twice a day. He knew Philando Castile did nothing wrong. all their names, and remembered who had When Yanez pulled him over, he was calm which food allergies. He was well-liked by and polite. He followed the protocol that the kids, parents and school staff. To the J.J. young black men are taught about how to Hill community, Castile was a “kind, gentle stay alive in an encounter with the police. soul,” as a parent Sally Rafowicz said, “kind Philando knew the drill: he had been stopped of like Mr. Rogers with dreadlocks” (Min- by cops at least 46 times over the past dozen neapolis StarTribune, 7 July 2016). years. Only six times was it for something Castile was pulled over as he was driv- that could be seen from outside the car ing in Falcon Heights, a tiny suburb of St. (speeding, broken muffler). He was racially Paul near the state fairgrounds, so small that profiled, targeted. And look what happened. it hired police from another suburb, St. An- Anyone who saw the heart-wrenching thony, to patrol it. A 2003 study of racial bias Facebook Live video by his girlfriend Dia- in policing by University of Minnesota law mond Reynolds, as millions did, knows. It professor Myron Orfield found that in the showed Philando in a puddle of blood as he Demonstrators with portrait of Philando Castile protest in St. Paul suburb lily-white suburbs of the Twin Cities, African lay dying after being struck five times from on June 18 against verdict acquitting the cop who murdered him. Americans and Latinos were “up to seven seven shots. Anyone who saw the horrifying Philando Castile was executed, the ulti- ery, racist American capitalism has meant times more likely to be stopped by police” police dashboard camera video and audio, as mate penalty for “driving while black.” And extermination of Native Americans, subju- (National Public Radio, 15 July 2016). the jury did repeatedly, of the frenzied cop his executioner, killer cop Jeronimo Yanez, gation of African Americans, persecution of When Yanez approached the car, he pumping bullets into Philando with his girl- walked. It’s the way the system works. Latino Americans and all-sided oppression. told Philando he had been pulled over be- friend Diamond and her four-year-old daugh- That system is capitalism. From the time Today the system is based on exploitation of cause of a cracked tail light, which was a ter in the car with him, can have no doubt. it was founded on the bedrock of chattel slav- “wage slaves,” as Karl Marx described the continued on page 6 Police Protect Vastly Outnumbered Racists Portland Labor Mobilizes to Stop Fascist Provocation Militants from 14 Area Unions Point the Way Forward PORTLAND, OR, June 8 – The rally here seven different jurisdictions turned down- on Sunday, June 4 of white-supremacist town Portland into a police state to ensure and outright fascist Trump supporters was Internationalist photo that the racist provocation proceeded. Spe- surrounded by far greater numbers of fu- cially outfitted copmobiles, each with a rious protesters outraged by this brazen dozen black-clad state police standing on provocation barely a week after the dou- the running boards circled the plaza where ble murder by a local Nazi. One of three the ultra-rightists were gathered. After a protests, a mobilization called by Portland standoff of several hours, the police un- Labor Against the Fascists, brought out leashed volleys of flash-bang grenades, several hundred union members and sup- rubber bullets and tear gas to clear anti-fas- porters who gathered to the east of Terry cist protesters out of Chapman Square just Schrunk Plaza, where the race-haters were to the north of Schrunk Plaza. As they did protected by triple lines of heavily armed on May Day, the police “kettled” the en- local, state and federal riot police. tire area, holding 200 people on the street Present at the labor mobilization as they IDed everyone and picked out in- against the fascists were members of at dividuals to be detained. Fourteen arrests least 14 area unions, including: IUPAT Several hundred unionists and supporters came out on June 4 in the first were reported. (painters) Local 10; IATSE (stage hands) significant labor action against white supremacists in decades. We demand that all antifa and other Local 28; Carpenters Local 1503 and Car- Local 29; AAUP (university professors); earlier passed coordinated motions calling protesters arrested on June 4 be released penters Northwest Regional Council; La- CWA (telecommunications workers); for “mobilizing against the clear and pres- and all charges dropped, and the same for borers Local 483; AFT Oregon (teachers); SAG-AFTRA (actors); AWPPW (pulp and ent danger that the provocations of racist those arrested on May 1 and those who were IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), paper workers); ATU (transit workers) Dis- and fascist organizations pose to us all.” protesting a prior racist rally on April 29. Seattle; SEIU Local 503; Iron Workers trict 757, and others. The first seven unions Meanwhile, an army of police from continued on page 10 Introducing Permanente Revolution, German-Language Newspaper of the LFI The following article is translated Hitler us!” They ended up pushing an un- International was Trotsky’s theory of from Permanente Revolution No. 1 (Sum- derground “people’s front” with a mythical permanent revolution, which holds that mer 2017), published by the League for the progressive wing of the bourgeoisie. After in countries with belated and uneven Fourth International. the KPD’s capitulation without a fight (not capitalist development, to win even With this first issue of Permanente to mention the SPD’s) and the complete ab- the most basic gains of the bourgeois Revolution, we are introducing the German- sence of opposition to this in the Communist revolution requires that the working language newspaper of the League for the International, it was clear to the Trotskyists class take power and extend the so- Fourth International (LFI), which fights that the Comintern was politically dead, and cialist revolution internationally. for international socialist revolution on the that building a new, fourth International was The devastation of the Second Marxist program of V.I. Lenin and Leon on the order of the day. World War and the all-round murder- Trotsky. It is precisely this perspective, pro- Founded in 1938, the Fourth Inter- ous repression to which innumerable claimed by the Bolshevik October Revolu- national stood for defense of the Soviet Trotskyists fell victim weakened tion of 1917, that is today the only hope of Union against counterrevolution from the Fourth International. Thereaf- mankind in the face of the spectacular de- within and without, and for a proletarian ter, between 1951 and 1953, it was cline of the imperialist-capitalist system of political revolution to replace the Stalinist plagued by the revisionist tendency war, economic crisis and poverty. bureaucracy with workers councils (sovi- of Michel Pablo, who denied the We take the name of our newspa- ets) under revolutionary leadership. Fol- necessity for a Trotskyist leader- per from the weekly paper of the German lowing the privations caused by the Civil ship. This led to the organizational Trotskyists in the early 1930s. The Bolshe- War and imperialist military intervention, dissolution of the Fourth Interna- vik-Leninists, as the Left Oppositionists in as well as because of demoralization due to tional. We of the League for the the Stalinized German Communist Party the absence of successful revolutions in the Fourth International seek to re- (KPD) called themselves at the time, fought economically more developed countries, forge it on the basis of the revolu- tirelessly for proletarian united-front actions the world’s first workers state degenerated tionary political continuity upheld of all workers organizations to stop the Na- under Stalin. The bureaucracy led a politi- first by the U.S. Socialist Workers zis. This stood in stark contrast to the KPD cal counterrevolution and usurped political Party under James P. Cannon, leadership, which first declared the reform- power, but had to maintain the foundations and then for three decades by the To order a copy of Permanente Revolution send ist German Social Democratic Party (SPD) of the collectivized economy from which it Spartacist tendency/International e-mail to [email protected]. a “social-fascist” twin of the Nazi party, siphoned off its privileges. Communist League. The consequences of comrades in the Spartacist League/U.S. then turned around and proclaimed, “After With its anti-Marxist, nationalist dog- counterrevolution in the DDR and USSR section of the ICL declared a faction. The ma of building “socialism in one country,” had a demoralizing effect on the ICL, which Better-Late-Than-Never Faction demanded: Stalinism opposed the internationalist poli- tenaciously fought against it, and led to a “Return to the Road of Genuine Spartacism! cies of the Bolsheviks.