workers.

org    February 22, 2024    Page 3

No slam dunk for 76ers arena

By Joe Piette $1.5 billion project. Activists are being asked Hundreds of activists from many of brought their own fact sheet citing recent
Philadelphia to turn out every Thursday to keep pressure Philadelphia’s neighborhoods, also threat- research that disputes the CSI study.
on the City Council. ened by gentrification and displacement, The displacement-for-profit model is all
When the billionaires who own the converged on the Arch Street United over Philadelphia. No neighborhood should
Philadelphia 76ers basketball team made Fight against predatory developers Methodist Church on Feb. 3 to meet in per- have to step aside and get out of the way
their announcement on July 21, 2022, What started a year and a half ago as son and discuss strategy, tactics and mobili- when a project poses an existential threat to
that they intend to build a new arena — ​76 Chinatown’s battle for survival has grown zation. No Arena Washington Square West, the neighbors, businesses, and families that
Place — ​on the edge of the city’s Chinatown into a citywide fight against predatory devel- a neighborhood group opposed to the pro- make our city special. The people deserve a
community, they didn’t expect the oppo- opment. People across the region who cher- posed arena on Market Street just north of say in our city’s future!
sition pushback to last this long. Now, 18 ish Chinatown and will fight to defend it are their community, attended the event and No Arena in Chinatown! ☐
months later, the No Arena Coalition is linked with everyone who wants a say in the
stronger and larger than ever and shows no future of the city.
sign of going away. A favorable impact study on 76Place,
When the Philadelphia City Council held conducted by economic consultant CSI, was
their first 2024 session on Jan. 25, which commissioned and paid for by the sports
included all the newly elected council mem- team. CSI has been the go-to consultant
bers, Chinatown community members and used to justify arenas and other big devel-
their supporters held a packed press confer- opment projects around the U.S. But sev-
ence in the rain behind a large banner read- eral other studies, which use more recent
ing: “No Arena in the Heart of our City!” data, conclude that arenas provide little to
Speakers emphasized that Council mem- no benefit to cities, and can result in loss of
ber Mark Squilla, in whose district the pro- revenue and jobs for existing businesses.
posed arena would fall, promised to oppose Timothy Kellison’s “Studies on Sports
any public funds being squandered on the Stadiums and Environmental Justice,”
unneeded sports arena. Many participants found, among other concerns, that: “Stadium
entered City Hall after the press conference development catalyzes gentrification and
to personally tell each council member that contributes to the displacement of margin- Hundreds of Chinatown supporters denounce proposed WW PHOTO: JOE PIETTE
a large majority of city residents oppose the alized populations.” (tinyurl.com/4y9vvcpy) 76ers arena, Philadelphia, Jan. 25, 2024.

Solidarity with migrant workers! Smash racism!

By Daphne Barroetad deported over 1.3 million Mexican and other Latiné peo- class, many of which we still hold (at least on paper)
ple, including those with U.S. citizenship and those who today. Both the FBI, working inward, and the CIA, work-
This talk was given at a Workers World Party branch were living on their ancestral lands in what is now the ing outward, managed to destabilize our movements and
discussion in Buffalo, New York, on Feb. 13. U.S. Southwest. attempted to divide us against one another.
In each of these examples, consent of the public was To this day, liberal ideologues and conservative media
The “border crisis” is a human ethics crisis in the manufactured by the use of “public safety” or “national messaging aim to divide our class and convince many
greater class war. sovereignty” rhetoric. The degree to which racism behind people that pushing within the state apparatus will bring
Over the past two weeks, a grouping of Christo-fascists this language is overt or covert, depends on the public about the liberation of a specific group of people. This
who call themselves the “Army of God” and the “Take figure in question. is a lie.
Our Border Back” convoy, has assembled a car caravan Every time a U.S. official creates a spectacle out of At the border lies a crisis of human ethics. Children
for the purpose of protesting the large influx of immi- these actions, they are doing it to preserve the power of are ripped from their families. They often are “spon-
grants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. While the U.S. settler-colonial project and its imperialist empire sored” entry into the U.S. by individuals who work for
they claim they will eventually wield over 700,000 cars by turning groups of working-class and oppressed peo- larger capitalists who are looking for a source of cheap
in their caravan, as of this writing the average estimate ple against one another. The variety of argumentation in “underground” labor in factories and construction sites.
across multiple news sources yields a total of 300 cars. public mass media ranging from liberal to fascist is all The detention facilities migrants are forcibly placed
Ultra-conservative political and media figures rang- beholden to the same structures of white supremacy and in are, in effect, concentration camps. Razor wire and
ing from Sarah Palin to Alex Jones are participating in capitalism, but just dress it in different ways. recycled circular saw blades lay bare in rivers and maim
this racist convoy. What may not seem apparent is that Granting asylum to Latiné people within the colonial migrants who have traveled hundreds or thousands of
politicians from both bourgeois parties are, in effect, borders of this country is not just a “nice thing to do.” miles in the desperate search for a new home and who
supporting the underlying sentiment behind this fas- Rather, it is a necessary part of reparations for over two mistakenly thought they found a semi-safe place to cross.
cist spectacle through the establishment and support of centuries of damage done by the U.S. to the peoples of Fascist gun store owners in Texas and other states
Congress’s newest “bipartisan border deal.” Latin America. To those living in the U.S., on reading the near the border profit off the “great replacement” theory
This bill contains several components, including mil- previous sentence, many are wondering, “How will we be and other racist conspiracies directed at Latiné immi-
itary and other financial assistance for Israel, Ukraine able to do this if the U.S. doesn’t have enough money or grants and other peoples of color. This xenophobia is not
and Taiwan; establishment of partial border shutdowns; resources to help the working-class folks already living isolated to the Americas. But the working-class peoples
a tightening of asylum rules to increase the burden of here?” of South and Central America are expressing a deepen-
proof to establish “cause for asylum;” and allowing ICE ing solidarity with others throughout the Global South.
and Border Patrol officers to make asylum determina- ‘Fund people’s needs, not imperialist wars’
tions in detention center hearings without the presence Know that this contradiction is created by our class Latin American solidarity with Palestine
of lawyers unless specifically requested and paid for by enemy — ​the bourgeoisie — ​which willingly gives away In much of Latin America there is a protest slo-
the plaintiff or aid organization. (PBS NewsHour, Feb.5). billions of dollars in military aid to the ruling classes gan which, when translated, says: “From Mexico to
While debate rages on in the Senate and House of of other capitalist states which in turn use it to oppress Palestine, tear down the walls!” This is referring to the
Representatives, corporate media outlets from across more members of our class. security apparatuses of both Israel and the U.S., as well
the U.S. mainstream political spectrum are focusing on This same class enemy is willing to spend millions of as the imprisonment of refugees. While the exact fig-
this “special news segment,” and the varying debates dollars on the prison-industrial complex and target Black ures are still being calculated by U.N. officials, current
between Republicans and Democrats. U.S. government and Brown, trans feminine and undocumented persons, reports available on the UNHCR (United Nations High
officials have, for decades, created a media spectacle instead of repairing the infrastructure like roads and city Commissioner for Refugees) website show that there
out of so-called “crises at the border” and other “Latin plumbing or investing in public education. This ruling were over 100 million refugees in 2022 and 2023.
American crises.” class needs the support of working-class and oppressed The genocide in Palestine has undoubtably increased
people to keep its systems of power and domination alive this number by a significant amount. The violence
Ruling class foments anti-immigrant racism
for the foreseeable future. enacted, ultimately by settler colonialism and the global
What hides behind extreme or alarming rhetoric It is time for these countries’ governments — ​espe- imperialist powers, exists as an ongoing force of destruc-
wielded by the ruling class and their puppets is a polit- cially those which are part of running the imperialist tion and displacement across continents.
ical fire set by decades of U.S. imperialism and by the world order — ​to take responsibility for the climate cri- All of this violence and these problems are part of
remnants of colonialism on these lands. sis, wars, famines and other disasters they have directly the greater contradictions, and ultimately war, between
Here are some noteworthy examples: Under President or indirectly caused and make reparations and shelters the working class and the ruling class. The only salve
Reagan, the U.S. funded and sent CIA operatives to dis- for those they have harmed. to these problems is the one detailed by thinkers like
tribute training manuals and arms to the “Contras” in Marx and Lenin: The working class and oppressed peo-
Nicaragua to destabilize the revolutionary Sandinistas Liberation movements = powerhouses ples of the world, as a global class, must overthrow every
because of the U.S. fear of communism. President Nixon In the mid-20th century in the U.S., the liberation appendage of capital and usher in a new order that they
declared the “War on Drugs” — ​a massive media spec- movements of nationally oppressed peoples were pow- run themselves.
tacle — ​which the CIA was behind through their use erhouses for our class. Groups like the Brown Berets and In the meantime, we must take every opportunity to
of cocaine and other drug sales to add funds to their Black Panthers revealed to many in our class the class act in solidarity with working-class and oppressed peo-
arms-dealing operations in Latin America. contradictions present and engaged them in a people’s ples everywhere and organize to fight back. ☐
From 1953 through 1954, President Eisenhower movement that won many concessions from the ruling