Hundreds of people took to the streets in Times Square in New York City on Friday, Nov. 15, to protest Israeli attacks on Gaza and support the Palestinian struggle for liberation.

The protest came as part of the call for an international day of solidarity with Palestinian resistance issued from Gaza after Israeli assassinations and bombing raids over two days of attacks killed 34 Palestinians, including eight members of one family, and injured 111 more.

Organizers of the protest included the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network as well as Al-Awda New York, Within Our Lifetime – United for Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine, the NY4Palestine Coalition, Labor for Palestine, Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, Code Pink, the International Action Center and Struggle–La Lucha.

Demonstrators gathered for brief speeches and ongoing chanting in solidarity with Palestine. 

Chants echoed through the evening as protesters carried signs and Palestinian flags.

Demonstrators marched through Times Square to Herald Square, chanting the entire route and calling for the boycott of Israel and a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea.

The protest ended with a strong call for further actions from Nerdeen Kiswani of Within Our Lifetime – United for Palestine.

Joe Catron, U.S. coordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, said that the demonstration was the largest and most enthusiastic action for Palestine in New York since December 2017, when Donald Trump announced that the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

He emphasized the importance of continuing these activities against Zionist occupation, apartheid and colonization, and in support of the Palestinian resistance.

Catron noted that these are especially important in the U.S., which exercises its full imperial power in support of the Zionist colonization of Palestine, including through the provision of $3.8 billion annually in military aid.

Photo: Joe Catron

Demonstrators gathered in front of the Bolivian Consulate in Los Angeles on Nov. 16 to denounce the U.S.-backed coup and repression in Bolivia. Signs and banners expressed solidarity with the democratically elected president of Bolivia, Evo Morales. 

People from the city’s large Latinx community, including Bolivian activists, took the mic and gave impassioned anti-imperialist talks, inspired by the Indigenous-led resistance to the coup.

“Any politicians who call themselves progressive or left have to say something about this,” declared John Parker, speaking on behalf of the Socialist Unity Party and Struggle-La Lucha newspaper. “Why? Because this is an example of imperialism, and U.S. imperialism is the most dangerous thing to humanity today.”

The action was called by the Answer Coalition, AIM SoCal, Me Too Survivors March and others. Other organizations participating included Unión del Barrio, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, the Socialist Unity Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. 

Talk by Struggle-La Lucha’s John Parker

SLL photos: Scott Scheffer

Welcome Freedom Fighter Pam Africa
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier & all political prisoners

Saturday, December 14 – 2:30 pm
Malcolm X Library & Performing Arts Center
5148 Market Street, San Diego, CA

Join us to welcome freedom fighter Pam Africa, who will be visiting Los Angeles and San Diego to give an update on Mumia, the remaining MOVE political prisoners and recently release MOVE members, as well as the ongoing struggle free all political prisoners.

Speakers:
– Pam Africa of the International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
– Zola Fish Muhammad is an activist member of the Choctaw Nation and organizer in the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Socialist Unity Party, San Diego Committee Against Police Brutality and People’s Power Assembly.

Sponsored by Struggle-La Lucha newspaper and Socialist Unity Party – San Diego
For more information please email: dadji@aol.com

The long shadow of the Chicago race riot, Part 8

The sudden death of Harold Washington in 1987 was a godsend to Chicago’s power structure. Most of Washington’s supporters wanted Alderman Timothy Evans to be made mayor. 

Alderman Ed Burke and other racists saw an opportunity to split the Black members of the City Council. Eleven years before, these bigots revolted when the Black President Pro Tempore Wilson Frost proclaimed himself mayor.

Now, in 1987, they threw their support to the African American President Pro Tempore Eugene Sawyer. The masses were outraged at this treachery. At least 5,000 people protested outside City Hall. 

Sawyer was elected mayor at 4:01 a.m. on Dec. 2, 1987, by a vote of 29-19. Only five Black aldermen voted for him. 

Sawyer was soon gotten rid of. Richard M. Daley beat him in the 1989 primary. The Daley family had become so hated by African Americans that Richard-the-second got just 5 percent of the Black vote. 

With millions in campaign funds provided by big business, Daley defeated Timothy Evans in the general election. (Evans ran on the Harold Washington Parry ticket.) 

The son of the pig who had Fred Hampton and Mark Clark murdered was re-elected mayor five times. What happened to the hopes of all those who put Harold Washington in City Hall?

A long depression for Black workers 

The movement that elected Harold Washington was a concluding act to the struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. It served as a springboard to the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign in 1984.

The Daley Machine had to be broken. It was broken, at least temporarily.

In the meantime, Chicago, like most other big cities in the Midwest and Northeast, has shrunk. Chicago’s population has fallen from nearly 3.6 million in 1960 to 2.7 million today.

It’s still a powerhouse. Chicago’s metropolitan region has grown to nearly 10 million people.

In the early 1980s, the Black community suffered the biggest drop in income since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Between 1978 and 1982, the median income of African American families in the Midwest fell by nearly 36 percent.

Deliberate deindustrialization was the culprit. U.S. Steel’s South Works in Chicago shut down. So did nearby Wisconsin Steel that was owned by International Harvester. Employment at Stewart Warner fell from 5,000 in the 1970s in Chicago to 20 in the late 1990s. 

It wasn’t just automation or even capitalist decay that got rid of these jobs. Big capital was determined to get rid of its dependence on Black workers in basic industry.

Back in 1970, a quarter of the workers in U.S. steel mills and auto plants were Black. Many of the new auto plants built since then were in areas with small numbers of African Americans.

Even in 2018, African Americans in the Midwest were poorer than they were 40 years before. Adjusted for inflation, Black family median income there in 2018 was just $44,790, as compared to $48,510 in 1978.

White workers suffered too. Hundreds of thousands of white workers were thrown out of factories along with their Black and Latinx sisters and brothers. White family income dropped 7 percent from 1978 to 1982, one-fifth of the decrease for African American families.

While African American median family income in the Midwest was the highest of any region in 1978, by 1982 it was the lowest, even below the South. 

A small reverse migration to the South began because that’s where the jobs were. Instead of being employed in the big plants, many Black youth were being railroaded to the big prisons.

It was this economic reaction ― which scattered, demoralized and incarcerated large numbers of workers ― that allowed the Daley family to make a comeback.

Welcome fellow workers and fighters

While the Great Migration of African Americans came to an end, another Great Migration began of Latinx people. Chicago’s Latinx community is now 800,000 strong. Two million live in the metropolitan region. 

Immigrant bashing is old rotten news. The Honorable Marcus Garvey was an immigrant from Jamaica who was framed and deported.

For decades there’s been a Mexican community in Chicago. But in the early 1930s, a massive deportation drive across the U.S. rounded up hundreds of thousands of Mexican people.

Thirty miles from Chicago, the U.S. Steel works in Gary, Ind., fired every Mexican worker who wasn’t a U.S. citizen. Mexicans were among those shot in 1937’s Memorial Day massacre.

Over the last 40 years, millions of Mexican people have been forced to leave their country by increased poverty. Between 1981 and 1986 alone, vampire-like U.S. and other foreign banks sucked $63.6 billion in interest payments out of Mexico. That’s worth over $200 billion in today’s dollars. In those same years, real wages for Mexican workers were cut almost in half.

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers lost their jobs because of the North America Free Trade Agreement. But millions of Mexicans were shoved off their land by heavily subsidized U.S. corn exports that jumped from two million tons in 1992 to over ten million tons in 2008.

Puerto Ricans were driven out of their beautiful homeland by Wall Street’s colonial occupation and its Operation Bootstrap. The Lincoln Park neighborhood was a center of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community. Led by José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, the Young Lords became a revolutionary force for change.

Power broker Robert Moses drove out thousands of Puerto Rican families from Manhattan’s Upper West Side to build Lincoln Center. Mayor Richard J. Daley’s urban removal program drove Puerto Ricans and other poor people out of Lincoln Park.

More than three million people have left Central American countries to come to the U.S. because of intense poverty and death squads. U.S. corporations, like United Fruit, are responsible for both. 

The name “Chicago” is derived from the Indigenous word “checagou.” But Indigenous people were driven out with the 1833 Treaty of Chicago.

Today around 80,000 Indigenous people live in the Chicago area. A key factor was the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, which offered one-way tickets to Indigenous families to move from reservations to what were often urban slums. 

Hundreds of thousands of Asian people have also come to the Chicago region. 

All of these workers from other lands — and Indigenous people whose land was stolen—are playing an increasing role in the working-class struggle.

An outstanding example is how immigrant workers revived May Day in the city where it was born. In 2006, 300,000 people came out in Chicago to celebrate International Workers’ Day. 

Fire sales and police torture

The second edition of Daley family rule was not quite as crude, but it was just as corrupt. Chicago became a leader in privatizing its infrastructure.

The Chicago Skyway, a toll road that links the Indiana toll road to the Dan Ryan expressway, was leased to private investors in 2005 for $1.83 billion. This was chump change for giving it away. The buyers made a billion-dollar profit when they flipped the Skyway ten years later. 

Daley also handed over Chicago’s parking meters. Wheeler-dealers led by Wall Street’s Morgan Stanley investment bank gobbled them up in 2008. Morgan Stanley had earlier grabbed a 99-year-long lease on the city’s parking garages. 

The $1.16 billion that the city got for the meters was a billion dollars too low. Chicago had to give $20 million back to the new owners in 2018 because construction had taken a large number of parking meters out of service.

What really rocked the city were revelations about police torture. Between 1972 and 1991, police commander Jon Burge and his “midnight crew” used electric shocks, strangulation and burning to coerce confessions from over 110 Black prisoners. Ten were sent to death row. 

In 1982, Richard M. Daley, then Cook County state’s attorney, was told about Burge’s crew torturing Andrew Wilson. Daley refused to investigate.

These outrages helped lead Illinois Gov. George Ryan to commute the sentences of 167 prisoners on death row. Ryan pardoned four condemned prisoners who had been tortured.

The deep state, which is the real state apparatus of police and prisons, paid Ryan back. The former governor was jailed for five years on corruption charges.

Ryan may have been guilty. But why haven’t any members of the Daley family been prosecuted?

Fight back

Daley eventually wore out his welcome with big business by a series of contracting scandals, some of which involved his son Patrick. Former congressperson and investment banker Rahm Emanuel was put into City Hall in 2011. 

Emanuel continued the attacks on poor people. He closed 50 schools in 2013. 

The Chicago Teachers Union led a fightback against these cuts. In their recent 2019 strike, the CTU demanded smaller class sizes as well as nurses and counselors in every school. Teachers are fighting for the “common good.”

The 25,000 members of the CTU are militant and strong. They’ve gone on strike almost a dozen times in the last 50 years. In 1987, the teachers walked out for 19 days, while a 2012 strike lasted more than a week.

These strikes echo the Chicago teacher’s revolt in 1933. Teachers stormed the City National Bank and Trust Co., demanding their back pay. They confronted bank president and former U.S. Vice President Charles Dawes. 

The vicious Chicago Police Department continues to kill, brutalize and frame people. Just between 2008 and 2015, they killed 108 people. More than 1,600 people have been shot by cops since 1986. 

The 2014 police murder of Laquan McDonald horrified the city. Police Officer Jason Van Dyke shot the 17-year-old Black youth 16 times.

The police brass tried to cover up the murder. Mayor Emanuel suppressed a video of this shooting until after he was re-elected. Community outrage finally compelled the state to prosecute Van Dyke, who was convicted of second-degree murder.

Leading the struggle against police atrocities is the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. One of its co-chairs is the former prisoner and longtime activist Frank Chapman, author of “The Damned Don’t Cry.” Together with community members, they are demanding a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC).

In the spirit of the Haymarket martyrs and Fred Hampton, the people of Chicago are fighting back.

Sources: “Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality” by Bruce Nelson; “Organized Labor and the Black Worker 1619-1973” by Philip S. Foner

End of series

Part 1: The long shadow of the 1919 Chicago race riot

Part 2: Bombings greet the Great Migration

Part 3: What did the unions do?

Part 4: Communists fight racism and evictions

Part 5: Chicago Mayor Daley’s racist machine

Part 6: Never forget Fred Hampton

Part 7: The people put Harold Washington in City Hall

Part 8: A city of struggle

Film Showing: ‘The Revolution will not be Televised’

After 580 days, one of the most famous political prisoners on the planet, former Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula Da Silva, was finally released on Nov. 8. But his struggle for justice and freedom continues. 

In a controversial ruling decided by one vote, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) voted to deny the imprisonment of defendants who are found guilty until all appeals are exhausted. This was the case with Lula, who was sentenced to prison after being found guilty of corruption and money laundering. Six out of 11 ministers — as Brazilian Supreme Court judges are called — voted to uphold what is written in the constitution. 

Although it is stipulated in the Brazilian Constitution that no person who is accused of a crime, if found guilty, shall be imprisoned until all appeals are exhausted, the former president, union head and leader for the Workers Party (PT) was sent to jail by a first stance judge (a lower court with no jury trial). It is important to point out that this law does not apply to repeat offenders and to crimes deemed to be violent.

The weaponization of the law in Brazil, or “lawfare” as it is commonly known there, is a mechanism that has been used often in the last decade. With the help of corrupt judges and the use of false accusations, or accusations of activities that are commonly done by many politicians and members of society in general, and thus not considered a crime, the ruling class targets politicians that do not acquiesce to its demands. By the same token, it acquits or refuses to indict those who are on their side, even when there is a lot of material evidence of wrongdoings and crimes.

Such was the case of a helicopter that was caught carrying 500 kilos of cocaine in 2013. It belonged to a federal senator who was never indicted or investigated. The pilot of the helicopter is now a member of Congress. More politicians and plutocrats are linked to this case, but not a single one has been indicted.

‘Lawfare’ against Workers Party leaders

Before Lula, the most famous victim of this tactic was Dilma Roussef, another former president from the PT who was ousted in a judicial-parliamentary coup in 2014. Lawfare has grown substantially since Roussef’s ousting. Her impeachment was only possible with the help of some of the STF ministers. 

The successful coup against Dilma made the Brazilian oligarchs even more powerful — for now they had the means to manipulate the laws to finally defeat the PT and put its leaders in jail. Lula was the main prize! 

On trumped-up charges, with no evidence of wrongdoing, Federal Judge Sergio Moro sentenced Lula to 9 years, 6 months, in prison in first stance. After appealing on second stance (higher court), the former president had his sentence increased to 12 years, 11 months, by a judge who plagiarized other judges, including Moro, to write her opinion. 

Lula was immediately called to serve his sentence. After two days of resistance inside the headquarters of the Metalworkers Union in the city of São Bernardo Do Campo, he was sent to a federal prison in the mostly white and reactionary state of Parana, where Judge Moro was based. All this was timed so that Lula would be unable to run in the 2018 presidential election or support any candidate. 

Lula was denied interviews, visits and any type of public comment until it was safe enough to guarantee the victory of the candidate supported by the Brazilian elites. The 2018 election was won by ultrarightist Jair Bolsonaro, and his victory opened the doors to the full implementation of neoliberal policies and the privatization of what is left of nationalized industry. Judge Moro was nominated as minister of justice as payback for his help in Bolsonaro’s election.

Meanwhile, people throughout Brazil and around the world continued to protest loudly for the former president’s freedom with the “Lula Livre” campaign.

Oligarchs’ infighting creates opening

After thinking that they could easily control Bolsonaro, some sectors of the oligarchy and some STF ministers are now being attacked by their own Frankenstein monster. 

The largest media conglomerate in Brazil, Globo Organizations, and the largest newspaper, Folha De São Paulo, are in a battle with Bolsonaro. Threatened with no renewal of their licenses and by the alliance formed between Bolsonaro and other media conglomerate owners, they need something else to keep their creature busy with, and the best option is Lula. 

Lula will divert Bolsonaro’s attention and, at least, divide the attention of his supporters, who angrily demand the shutdown of the Supreme Court, these media outlets, and the return of the military dictatorship, among other reactionary measures. 

The “Bolsominions,” as Bolsonaro’s followers are called by the resistance, are in their vast majority white petty-bourgeois people who still have not accepted that dark-skinned and poor people be treated with dignity and have access to the same areas that they have. 

They see in Lula and the PT the reason why they no longer have the right to call Black people slurs or pay almost nothing to their maids. They hate them for putting dark-skinned people in universities instead of prisons, and for being forced to treat LGBTQ2S people with the respect that they deserve. 

As an Internet commentator said, ”How do we expect people who refuse to accept the law that abolished slavery to understand the Federal Constitution?”

The road ahead for Lula is long. He will still have to face trial on other trumped-up accusations, but for now he can speak and his voice is being heard clearly by the part of the Brazilian population that refuses to allow that neofascists, racists, homophobes, sexists, bigots and religious zealots take control of their country.

The writer is an Afro-Brazilian activist based in Los Angeles.

Donald Trump tweeted some rare truth last month about the horrible cost of Washington’s “endless wars” in Southwest Asia (“the Middle East”): “Millions dead, $8 trillion spent, entire countries devastated.”

Then he lied big time: He said he would “bring the troops home.”

The Trump regime is not abandoning Washington’s long war to corner the world’s energy markets for U.S. monopolies. It is not ending the bloody war against Syria. The prize is too great, the profits too big.

The White House has made a tactical shift in an effort to pull Turkey back into the U.S./NATO orbit. This has become an issue in the factional struggle raging in Washington between the Trump regime and its rivals.

The shift follows the victories of Syria and its allies in eight years of war over invading mercenary forces armed and paid by the U.S., Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey and Israel.

Trump lies, children die …

While the Liar-in-Chief tweeted, the Pentagon poured more troops into Syria and the region. 

Days after several hundred U.S. troops were transferred out of northern Syria, a U.S. armored brigade invaded eastern Syria and seized the country’s oilfields. Private U.S. military contractors–mercenaries–have also been seen in the area.

“We are leaving soldiers to secure the oil,” Trump said at an Oct. 27 press conference. He was speaking of Syria’s estimated 2.5-billion-barrel oil reserves.

“We’re going to secure the oil,” he went on. “And we may have to fight for the oil. It’s okay. Maybe somebody else wants the oil, in which case they have a hell of a fight. 

“But there’s massive amounts of oil. … What I intend to do, perhaps, is make a deal with Exxon Mobil or one of our great companies to go in there and do it properly.”

On Oct. 28, Defense Secretary Mark Esper threatened to use “overwhelming force” to keep Syria from using its own oil fields. Esper is a former lobbyist for Raytheon, a leading Pentagon contractor with big interests in Saudi Arabia.

On Nov. 1, a U.S. B52 strategic bomber took off from Britain and circled a Russian base in Syria.

On Nov. 6, at a White House meeting, Trump and Pentagon officials agreed to “expand the U.S. military mission in Syria.”

… in Syria

Meanwhile, U.S.-armed and -trained terrorist militias that had been driven from Syria returned under the protection of invading NATO Turkish troops. They have attacked villages, murdered civilians and soldiers, planted bombs and mines, and destroyed schools, a hospital and a power station.

Trump encouraged the invasion, inviting Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the White House on Nov. 13. Turkey launched its offensive on Oct. 9. On Oct. 10, the U.S. vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Turkey’s invasion. 

On Oct. 17, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien traveled to Ankara to meet Erdoğan. A war between Turkey and Syria, which could draw in Iran, would be a dream scenario for the fracking interests that dominate the Trump White House.

The Syrian city of Idlib is still occupied by an alliance of Saudi, UAE and Turkey-funded bandit armies from outside Syria. The largest is Jabhat Al Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaida, which now calls itself Hayat Tahrir Al Shams (HTS).

Nusra-HTS is armed with U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles supplied by Turkey with U.S. permission. HTS is on the U.S. “terror list,” but the White House approved a big shipment of missiles to the group in May. On Oct. 22, the White House gave $4.5 million to the White Helmets, the HTS “civil defense” arm.

On Nov. 12, speaking at the Paris Peace Forum, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the U.S. of continued support to Nusra-HTS and of blocking Syria’s efforts to rebuild.

On Nov. 1, HTS launched a new offensive in northern Latakia, which was repelled by the Syrian Arab Army. On Nov. 6 and Nov. 8, the group shelled the city of Aleppo, injuring civilians.

As the fighting raged in Syria, the Pentagon deployed 1,800 more troops, two fighter jet squadrons, a THAAD missile battery and four B1B strategic bombers to Saudi Arabia.

The troops landed as Saudi ARAMCO, the world’s biggest oil company, prepared to launch what Bloomberg.com calls the “world’s biggest public offering.” The $100 billion stock sale is being underwritten by JPMorganChase and other major U.S. banks. Exxon, Chevron, BP and Shell market ARAMCO’s production.

There are now 3,000 U.S. troops in the Saudi kingdom and 70,000 in the region. Fourteen thousand U.S. troops have been sent to Southwest Asia since May.

… in Yemen

In April, Trump vetoed a Senate bill restricting U.S. involvement in Saudi genocide in Yemen. One hundred thousand Yemenis have been killed since 2015, when the U.S.-armed Saudi Kingdom began bombing their country.

Many more, mostly children, have died from famine and disease inflicted by the U.S.-Saudi blockade and deliberate destruction of Yemen’s agriculture. UNICEF reports that 360,000 children under age 5 suffer from acute malnutrition. All of the country’s hospitals are now closed due to lack of fuel.

At a Sept. 16 press conference with Prince Salman Al Khalifa of Bahrain, Trump bragged that the House of Saud had spent $400 billion on U.S. arms in recent years. “Saudi Arabia pays cash,” he said. On Nov. 6, CNN reported new U.S. armored vehicles being unloaded in Yemen’s Saudi-occupied port of Aden.

Saudi troops keep Bahrain’s brutal Prince Salman on his throne. He is also a big U.S. arms client. General Dynamics keeps the F16 fighter in production under a Bahraini contract. Bahrain is home base for the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

… and in Palestine

The figures on U.S. troop strength in West Asia don’t include the 1.5-million-strong Israeli occupation army in Palestine, armed and paid for by the U.S.

On Nov. 12-14, U.S.-made Israeli planes flown by U.S.-trained Israeli pilots again rained U.S.-made missiles on the nearly 2 million Palestinians imprisoned in the Gaza Strip. Thirty-five Palestinians, six of them children, died in the latest U.S.-Israeli attacks.

In Deir Al Balah, eight members of the Al Sawarka family were murdered when U.S.-Israeli planes targeted their house. Twelve more are in critical condition. Fifteen schools were hit by U.S.-Israeli missiles.

The latest attack began when Israel assassinated Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) military commander Badar Abu Ata and his spouse. Israel forces struck when they knew Abu Ata would be home, on his daughter’s birthday. The same night, an Israeli strike in Damascus, Syria, missed PIJ commander Akram Al Ajouri but murdered one of his sons.

One million Palestinian children live in the giant open-air prison called the Gaza Strip, where 97 percent of the water is poisoned with sewage and salt, 52 percent of adults cannot find work, hospitals are without medicine and there is electricity for only a couple hours a day.

Israeli snipers shot 94 children in the last two weeks of October. Israeli troops shoot Gaza fishers for working their own waters. Meanwhile, U.S. energy companies plunder gas off the shores of occupied Palestine.

In September, Trump proposed a mutual defense pact between the U.S. and the racist Israeli settler state. Last year, he signed the U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Act, which codifies $38 billion of U.S. military aid into law. In March, he signed a proclamation recognizing Israel’s “sovereignty” over Syria’s Golan Heights. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump “Israel’s best friend ever.”

• Part 2: Monopoly profits fuel U.S. maneuvers in Southwest Asia

16 de noviembre – El liderazgo del Partido Demócrata ha atado a las masas progresistas a una defensa del militarismo de la clase dominante estadounidense como el precio por destituir a Trump. 

Decenas de millones en este país y en todo el mundo justificadamente quieren ver que el abusador derechista, racista y misógino extremista de Trump sea derrotado. Pero se ven obligados a elegir entre Trump, que quiere culpar a Ucrania de sus problemas, y el campo que quiere atacar a Rusia. 

Esta es una opción completamente falsa y sin salida. 

Esta línea de argumentación ha sido presentada por Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Adam Shiff y compañía, sus abogados y sus patrocinadores corporativos. Los autores políticos intelectuales detrás de esta estrategia del juicio político han establecido que los procedimientos sean especialmente perjudiciales para los trabajadores y los oprimidos.

Razones legítimas para querer destitución de Trump

Hagamos un recuento de algunas de las legítimas razones por las que las personas quieren deshacerse de Trump.

Llamó violadores y delincuentes a los mexicanos el primer día en que se postuló para presidente y desde entonces ha continuado vilipendiando a los inmigrantes. Ha obligado a los migrantes que huían de pandillas y escuadrones de la muerte alentadas por los gobiernos imperialistas títeres, fuera de la frontera sur de los EUA. 

Trump separó cruelmente a las familias en la frontera, puso a los niños en jaulas y separó a niños de sus padres cientos de kilómetros de distancia sin ninguna forma de reunirlos. Y ha librado una guerra contra los inmigrantes negros y latinos, llamando a África y Haití países de “letrina”, además de otras acciones nefastas. 

Trump también trató de prohibir la presencia de musulmanes en el país. Ha sido demandado por 14 mujeres por agresión sexual. Se ha jactado de abusar de las mujeres y agarrar sus genitales.

Ha impuesto legislaciones contra los derechos de las personas LGBTQ2S. Ha perdonado a criminales de guerra y a reaccionarios. Ha usado constantemente la Casa Blanca para enriquecerse.

Silencio sobre exenciones fiscales, desregulación, militarismo y agresión de EUA 

En cuanto a su actitud hacia la clase dominante, Trump entregó al ejército presupuestos récord y otorgó a los comandantes una amplia autoridad para iniciar operaciones en el campo, a pesar del menoscabo a la OTAN. Él ha manipulado a los patronos y banqueros con exenciones de impuestos por un valor de $1.5 billones ($1.5 trillones US). Le ha dado a los saqueadores corporativos regalos de desregulación ambiental y de seguridad, mientras saquea y envenena la tierra, el mar y el aire, al tiempo que caracteriza el peligro real del cambio climático como un engaño.

Mientras se llevan a cabo las audiencias del juicio político, la administración Trump está librando una guerra contra el líder indígena boliviano, el tres veces presidente Evo Morales. Los generales bolivianos entrenados en subversión y represión por la Escuela de las Américas de los Estados Unidos atacan a las masas bolivianas.

Al mismo tiempo, Trump y Pompeo han estado tratando de derrocar al gobierno progresista y antiimperialista venezolano de Nicolás Maduro. 

El Pentágono se ha movido para apoderarse de los pozos petroleros de Siria y ha ayudado al presidente turco, Recip Erdogan, a perseguir a los kurdos sirios.

Ni una palabra sobre todo esto en las audiencias.

Yovanovitch, “luchadora contra la corrupción”

Marie Yovanovitch, ex embajadora en Ucrania y testigo estrella de los demócratas, fue presentada como una valiente “luchadora contra la corrupción”. Su testimonio siguió al de un funcionario del Departamento de Estado, George Kent, y otro diplomático estadounidense en Ucrania, William Taylor.

Uno puede preguntarse quién le dio a cualquier funcionario estadounidense el derecho a investigar la “corrupción” en otro país. Si los cubanos o los rusos enviaran funcionarios para investigar la corrupción en los EUA, tendrían que enviar delegaciones masivas a la calle K*, la Casa Blanca y todas las oficinas federales del gobierno capitalista de los EUA, porque la clase dominante estadounidense gobierna por corrupción. Además, las sedes estatales del poder legislativo y los ayuntamientos están prácticamente ocupados por cabilderos de todo tipo de grupos empresariales y corporaciones individuales. Pero no se permitiría tal cosa aquí. Eso sería denunciado como intromisión en los asuntos internos de un país soberano.

El comportamiento criminal de Biden

La conexión de Joe Biden con Ucrania es que presionó para que Ucrania ingresara en la imperialista Unión Europea y en una alianza anti-rusa con los EUA después de que el gobierno ucraniano electo de Victor Yanukovich fuera derrocado en un golpe fascista orquestado por EUA en febrero de 2014.

La administración Obama-Biden colaboró ​​con elementos fascistas para poner en el poder un gobierno de derecha en Kiev. Es importante volver a la conversación telefónica grabada en febrero de 2014 entre la subsecretaria de Estado Victoria Nuland y Geoffrey Pyatt, embajador de EUA en Ucrania.

La Unión Europea estaba planeando una toma de posesión suave de Ucrania, tratando de socavar los lazos económicos de ese país con Rusia. Estados Unidos intervino por sus propios intereses alentando a las multitudes fascistas a pedir el derrocamiento del gobierno electo. El Parlamento ucraniano retiró a la policía de las calles, permitiendo que las turbas rompieran el parlamento. Fue entonces cuando Nuland hizo el infame comentario de “A la mierda la UE”, en el que expresó abiertamente la preferencia de Washington por el ultraderechista Partido Patria, plagado de fascistas, para hacerse cargo del gobierno. (Washington Post, 6 de febrero de 2014). Cuando el humo se disipó, el Partido Patria estaba en el cargo y el presidente Yanukovich se vio obligado a huir.

La toma de posesión de Ucrania por parte de Washington fue parte de un plan para completar el cerco de Rusia y, finalmente, reinstalar un régimen servil de tipo Yeltsin. 

Entre 1999 y 2004, a pesar de las promesas anteriores de Washington de no hacerlo, Estados Unidos extendió el alcance de la OTAN para rodear a Rusia. Durante este período, Polonia, Hungría, la República Checa, Bulgaria, Estonia, Letonia, Lituania, Rumania, Eslovaquia y Eslovenia se unieron a la OTAN. Solo Ucrania, que también comparte una extensa frontera con Rusia, quedó fuera de la alianza militar imperialista. 

La guerra en Donbass

No se discute el hecho de que los $400 millones en ayuda votados por el Congreso fueron retenidos por Trump en su corrupto intento de extorsionar al gobierno de Zelensky para abrir investigaciones públicas sobre los Bidens y Burisma, así como la presunta interferencia de Ucrania en las elecciones estadounidenses en 2016. Pero esta ayuda estaba destinada a luchar contra la gente del este de Ucrania, que se ha resistido al régimen de derecha en Kiev. No quieren que el Fondo Monetario Internacional o la Unión Europea o el imperialismo estadounidense dicten su forma de gobierno. Los $400 millones eran para entregar misiles contra tanques a Kiev para detener su justa resistencia. 

La resistencia es apoyada militarmente por Rusia. Es parte de la lucha geopolítica entre Washington y Moscú, pero el apoyo a la resistencia de Donbass es progresista. Y también lo fue la toma de Crimea, que, como Donbass, es en gran parte un área de habla rusa. 

Los burócratas imperialistas que testificaron en las audiencias del juicio político son aclamados como héroes por luchar para conseguir armas que serían utilizadas contra una justificada guerra popular en el este de Ucrania.

Perdido en toda esta criminalidad es el hecho de que Hunter Biden recibió $50,000 al mes de Burisma, la primera compañía privada de gas natural en Ucrania. Esto significa que Biden gana más en un mes de lo que la mayoría de los trabajadores en Ucrania ganan en un año, solo por ser el hijo de Joe Biden. ¿Era Hunter Biden un experto en gas natural? ¿Era un prodigio corporativo? ¿O era simplemente el hijo del vicepresidente de los Estados Unidos? Su posición es un caso claro de puro nepotismo y tráfico de influencias a raíz del derrocamiento fascista. Sin embargo, los líderes del Partido Demócrata lo representan como una víctima.

La destitución es trampa para trabajadores y oprimidos.

La dirección del Partido Demócrata ha orquestado cuidadosamente estas audiencias para excluir todos los temas que preocupan a las masas progresistas. No ha habido una palabra sobre obsequios corporativos, destrucción acelerada del medio ambiente, presupuestos militares récord, desigualdad masiva y creciente, erosión salarial, subempleo, pobreza, privación de alimentos o supresión de votantes en sus llamados a salvar su “democracia”.

Todos los medios capitalistas han transmitido este circo reaccionario. Ningún comentarista ha criticado a los políticos por dejar de lado las preocupaciones genuinas del pueblo. Esta ha sido una gran maniobra electoral para el liderazgo del Partido Demócrata en el período previo a las elecciones de 2020. Ha sido una gran evasión de los reales temas candentes de preocupación masiva. Ha revelado en letras grandes el fraude del parlamentarismo capitalista.

Si hubiera habido algún parecido a democracia en este proceso, las organizaciones de masas habrían tenido la oportunidad de enmarcar las preguntas, llamar e interrogar a los testigos del establecimiento de la clase dominante y enmarcar los artículos de juicio político de acuerdo con las necesidades y deseos del pueblo.

Por supuesto, nada de esto es posible bajo la democracia capitalista, que está diseñada para fomentar los intereses del capital y suprimir cualquier disenso anticapitalista.

Lo que realmente se necesita es una movilización masiva, una coalición gigante de organizaciones comunitarias y de trabajadores, grupos de derechos de estudiantes e inmigrantes, organizaciones de mujeres y LGBTQ2S que se movilicen sobre el terreno y sacar, no solo a Trump, sino a los políticos capitalistas, a los burócratas del gobierno y a los cabilderos, fuera de sus posiciones de privilegio y fortalezas políticas. Esto sería preliminar al lanzamiento de un ataque contra el capitalismo mismo.

Notas: 

Calle K* – Calle en Washington donde están situados diversos grupos de cabilderos.

Publicado en lowwagecapitalism.com el 17 de noviembre de 2019.

Struggle-La Lucha received the following statement from the Aurora Women’s Club in Donetsk, capital of the Donetsk People’s Republic, which along with its sister republic of Lugansk has been resisting the far-right regime in Ukraine and U.S imperialism for more than five years.

“We express solidarity with all women who uphold the freedom and independence of Bolivia, with representatives of Indigenous peoples who are fighting against ultraright racists, with all Bolivian workers who do not want the dark times of the tyranny of capitalists and the oligarchy to return.

“The far-right are the main enemies of all the exploited and oppressed. No matter what beautiful words they say about democracy, no matter how they hide behind them, they will not hide their essence from us. All they want is to return unlimited power to the exploiters in Bolivia, make the country dependent on the United States, and take away freedom from women and Indigenous peoples. In the world of the future there is no place for fascism and imperialism.

“The whole world is with Bolivia!”

Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM EST

Socialist Unity Party – Baltimore
2011 N Charles St, Fl 1st, Baltimore, Maryland 21218

Join Baltimore Socialist Unity Party/Partido de Socialismo Unido for our monthly public forum

Doors open at 5 p.m. Dinner and beverages for all!

We will be discussing the recent U.S.-backed racist coup against the Bolivian people’s socialist leader Evo Morales and the Indigenous resistance, as well as the popular movement in Chile against the brutal Piñera regime.

Hear directly from speaker Leonardo Flores who was a staffer in the Venezuelan embassy in D.C. before it was invaded and seized by the U.S. and its imperialist puppet government. Flores participated in the Embassy Protection Collective and is a CODEPINK: Women For Peace activist

Activists who attended the Anti-Imperialist Conference for Solidarity and Against Neoliberalism in Havana, Cuba will be giving report-backs on the 3-day long event that was attended by 1,200 activists from 95 different countries and featured keynote speakers Miguel Díaz-Canel (president of Cuba) and Nicolás Maduro (president of Venezuela).

#ElMundoConEvo #NoCoup #NoAlGolpeEnBolivia #HandsOffBolivia #EvoPresidenteLegitimo #ChileLibertad #SolidaridadConChile #ManosFueraDeCuba #HandsOffCuba #BloqueoNo #EndTheBlockade