Make no mistake about it: Trump and the Pentagon played key roles in the Jan. 6 coup attempt at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

The Pentagon was deeply involved. Members of the U.S. military, both active and veterans, as well as from numerous police forces across the country, were leading participants. But that fact is being quickly covered up.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) recognized it: “We can’t have a democracy if too many members of our police and our military are acting to overturn it and undermine it,” Sherrill said in a video posted on Facebook. 

Sherrill knows the military. She was a U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander serving at the U.S. Navy command center in Europe before she became a Congress member. 

Sherrill also said that Congress members gave “reconnaissance” tours” the day before the Capitol raid. “I was told later that members of that mob had zip ties, were wearing body armor and were looking to take prisoners … members of Congress.”

Many at the scene observed the military character of the assault on the Capitol.

A Black officer in the U.S. Capitol Police who was on duty during the attack told BuzzFeed News:

“That was a heavily trained group of militia terrorists that attacked us. They had radios, we found them, they had two-way communicators and earpieces. They had bear spray. They had flash bangs … They were prepared. They strategically put two IEDs, pipe bombs, in two different locations. These guys were military trained. A lot of them were former military,” the officer said.

The Appeal reports that least 28 sworn members of U.S. law enforcement agencies from at least 11 states have been identified by law enforcement agencies and local reporting as attendees of the Jan. 6 rally.” 

The “Insurrection Timeline – First the Coup and Then the Cover-Up,” published at “Moyers on Democracy,” details the central role played by Donald Trump and his new Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller. 

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser asked Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy — who reports to Miller — for more federal help to deal with the mob that had broken into the Capitol. McCarthy and Miller denied the mayor’s request and blocked deployment of the National Guard until hours later, after the insurrection had already been put down.

From the “Insurrection Timeline”: “Who is Christopher Miller?

“By Nov. 9, every news organization declared that former Vice President Joe Biden had won the election. On that day, Trump fired Acting Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and replaced him with Miller, an Army retiree who worked for a defense contractor until Trump tapped him as his assistant in 2018. 

“Miller’s promotion began a departmental regime change that embedded three fierce Trump loyalists as top Defense Department officials: Kash Patel (former aide to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)), retired army Gen. Anthony Tata (pro-Trump Fox News pundit) and Ezra Cohen-Watnick (former assistant to Trump’s first national security adviser, Mike Flynn).

“At such a late date in Trump’s presidency, many asked why the shake-up at the Department of Defense? We may be learning the answer.”

In the autumn of 2014, I flew from New York to Simferopol, Crimea, to meet with activists who had been driven from their homes in Ukraine by far-right, racist, anti-communist mobs and politicians, much like those homegrown neo-Nazis who attacked the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, on behalf of Donald Trump.

The exiles I met and spoke with — socialists and communists, labor organizers and community leaders, even elected officials — had fled the country under threat of arrest or death. They had seen their offices raided, their neighbors beaten down and their comrades murdered because of the language they spoke, their political beliefs, their religious views or what part of the country they grew up in.

I went to meet them and report their stories. My motivation wasn’t only solidarity and human empathy for their plight. It was also because I knew what most people in this country were unaware of — that the U.S. government, including both of the dominant political parties, had a big part in helping the fascists overthrow the Ukrainian government, take over the streets and start a war in the eastern part of the country.

Prominent Republicans like Sen. John McCain and Democrats like Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, on behalf of Congress and the Obama administration. They pledged Washington’s support and monetary aid to the alliance of pro-Western politicians and fascist gangs that took power. Sometimes, they were photographed shaking hands with known neo-Nazis.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden served as the U.S. government point person on Ukraine. He delivered orders from Wall Street and the Pentagon to the compliant politicians in Kiev on matters like raising utility rates on workers, privatizing the economy and selling it off to Western businesses, and having NATO train Ukrainian troops for a potential war against neighboring Russia.

I felt a responsibility to report these facts to workers and the people’s movement here.

‘Raise the alarm, organize, defend yourselves’

I’ll never forget the plea I heard from one exiled Ukrainian activist. He had a warning for us.

In its desperation to dominate the globe economically and militarily, the U.S. is spreading fascism around the world, he said. And this will come back to haunt the workers in the U.S. 

When the fascists raise their heads here, he said, don’t hesitate. Raise the alarm, organize, defend yourselves before it’s too late. 

“We wish we had known,” he said. “We wish we had done more. Now we know what happens if you don’t.”

He knew what he was talking about. Some of his friends and comrades had been killed in the massacre at the House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014, in the city of Odessa. 

On that day, a fascist mob violently drove progressive activists from a public square into the trade union building. Then they set the building on fire. When people tried to flee the blaze, the mob shot and beat them. At least 48 people died.

I couldn’t help thinking of those events, and that activist’s warning, on Jan. 6, when I saw a lyncher’s noose prominently displayed outside the Capitol and white supremacists with sidearms and zip ties leaping through the chambers where Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib had recently stood.

The far-right coup in Ukraine had also started with protests and the invasion of government buildings targeting “moderate” politicians from November 2013 to February 2014.

Then came raids on the offices of workers’ organizations. Right-wing militias patrolled the streets of the capital and other cities, looking for people speaking the “wrong” language or expressing the “wrong” views, much like the Proud Boys who attacked Black churches and burned Black Lives Matter banners in D.C. in December.

And then, just a few months later, came the massacre of progressive activists in Odessa and the start of a bloody war in the Donbass region that has cost more than 13,000 lives and continues to this day.

Fascism is not to be debated, but smashed

Today, six and a half years after that trip to Crimea, I remain in touch with many of the activists I met there. Almost all remain exiled from their homes. They have had to build new lives, away from friends and family, often under harsh conditions. 

A few have returned to Ukraine but face the constant threat of repression. Some have spent time in jail. All continue their political work as best they can.

“Fascism is not to be debated,” goes an old slogan. “It is to be smashed.” 

The terrorists of Azov, C14 and Right Sector in Ukraine, like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other MAGA goons in the U.S., will not hesitate to murder, lynch and repress oppressed people and workers when they get the chance. 

The centrist and liberal capitalist politicians — who rely on fascism to advance the interests of U.S. bosses abroad — won’t mount an effective fight against them at home, even if their own necks are threatened. 

It’s up to us — the workers and oppressed communities — to get organized and prepare to defend ourselves and our organizations, to defend the people’s basic democratic rights and win the masses of people to struggle for the only system that can destroy fascism at the root: socialism.

Statement from Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

January 12, 2021

The Ministry of Foreign Relations of Cuba condemns in the strongest and most absolute terms the fraudulent qualification of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, announced by the United States government in a cynical and hypocritical act.

For months now, there has been speculation about the possibility of including Cuba in the State Department’s unilateral list that categorizes countries, without any authority or legitimacy, lacking genuine motivation, referring to terrorism and its consequences, and as an instrument of defamation to justify coercive economic measures against nations that resist bowing to the whims of U.S. imperialism.

The announcement made by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo is a superb act by a government that is discredited, dishonest and morally bankrupt. It is known, without a doubt, that the true motivation for this action is to impose additional obstacles to any prospect of recovery in the bilateral relations between Cuba and the United States.

Cuba is not a state sponsor of terrorism, a truth recognized by all. The official and well-known policy, and the impeccable conduct of our country, is the rejection of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, particularly state terrorism, by whomever, against whomever and wherever it is committed.

Cuba is a victim of state terrorism and our population has suffered it firsthand, at the cost of 3,478 fatalities and 2,099 disabling injuries, due to acts committed by the United States government or perpetrated and sponsored from the country’s territory, with the tolerance of official authorities. Cubans repudiate with contempt any maneuver meant to manipulate such a sensitive issue, for crude purposes of political opportunism.

Havana, January 11, 2021

Source: Minrex / Resumen

The United States is waging the medical warfare on the entire world, a system of medical apartheid, an American political analyst has said.

Bill Dores, a writer for Struggle-La Lucha and longtime antiwar activist, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday while commenting on the concerns raised in the U.S. media following the death of a “healthy” doctor two weeks after getting a first dose of a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

Dr. Gregory Michael, a Miami-Beach 56-year-old obstetrician, was in good health. Health officials from Florida and the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are investigating whether the vaccine played a role in his death, which possibly is the country’s first death linked to the vaccine.

“In a few days, we will be marking the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was murdered by the U.S. state apparatus. Dr. King famously said, ‘Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death,’” said Dores.

“At the time he was speaking about the racist healthcare system inside the United States, but it also applies to the medical warfare United States is waging to the entire world, a system of medical apartheid, of technological apartheid they are trying to impose on humanity,” he added.

“I am not a medical expert or scientist. I cannot speak on the effectiveness of different vaccines, but I know that everything the U.S. does is designed for corporate profits and to keep U.S. corporations at the center of the world economy, no matter the cost,” he said.

“And the cost of this politics of destruction is borne by the people of the entire world, including in the United States, where more people will be dead in a year than died in World War Two for this country,” he noted.

“In this health crisis for humanity, we should have global cooperation, not sanctions and economic warfare. The sanctions on Iran, as Dr. Morandi has pointed out, are medical mass murder. While the United States tries to impose its vaccine on the world, they cannot provide anywhere near enough for the people right here. The death rate here in the supposedly wealthy country is also terrible,” he stated.

“Why should people here not be able to access vaccines and treatments developed in other countries? Much of the world including Iran, China, Cuba, and Venezuela are cooperating, working together to try to develop a vaccine. Why should the United States not be joining in as an international effort instead of trying to impose its medical financial domination on the world? The sanctions on Iran and all other countries should end now,” he said.

“This is a time for international medical cooperation, not economic warfare. There are many people here in the United States who would still be alive if we’ve been able to access some of the treatments available in Cuba and other countries,” the analyst concluded.

Source: Press TV

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition is calling on all progressive forces to join a demonstration on Wednesday, January 20 at 4 PM at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Third Street in Detroit.

Just two weeks after the fascist coup attempt, we want to take to the streets to make it clear we firmly stand against the right-wing and white supremacists – with or without Donald Trump.

On the day Joe Biden is sworn into office as President, we want to send the Democratic Party a message that we demand a program to end the economic suffering faced by poor and working people.

We will gather outside the Detroit Police headquarters to condemn the violence of DPD against Black Lives Matter demonstrators, the outrageous lawsuit against Detroit Will Breathe protesters, demand the resignation of Trump supporter Police Chief Craig, and denounce those corporate bosses (like Trump supporter Dan Gilbert) and the many politicians who serve the interests of the rich against the people.

Join us!

You must wear your mask and observe social distancing.

https://moratorium-mi.org/

Honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr –
Jail Trump and his fascists!
Unite against racism, war and bigotry;
Stand up for workers & poor peoples rights!

Rally & Car Caravan

The Peoples Power Assembly will hold a rally and car caravan on Monday, January 18, 12 noon, gathering at 2011 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218 (car caravan will leave at 1 pm sharp) and travel to Jessup Correctional Institute and ICE detention center to demand justice for those behind bars.

We will also hold a virtual speak out before the caravan and at different intervals during the day.  If you would like to be a part of the speak out please email us at PeoplesPowerAssemblyHour@gmail.com or call 410-218-4835 so that we can record your statement.  We will play as many as possible on January 18.

SIGN UP FACEBOOK

REGISTER HERE FOR VIRTUAL EVENT

Please donate to make this weekend a success:
DONATE HERE
or Venmo@SolidarityCenter

The ugly and vicious racist coup attempt by Trump and his fascist followers, is not over.  Many of these same groups are planning actions at local state capitols and again in Washington D.C. on January 17, on the Dr. King Jr. holiday weekend, leading up to the January 20 Inauguration.

Trump’s fascist movement is a threat to all workers and is particularly aimed at overturning the movement against racism and police terror.  It is critical that we mobilize on Dr. King Jr. weekend, in whatever way is possible — car caravans, socially distancing protests, sick outs, strikes —  in our cities and towns.  We must send a clear message that the majority of workers and poor are deeply and actively opposed to the confederate flag waving mob that seeks to turn history back.

Do not let them define this weekend.  Let’s build a massive car caravan.

DONATE HERE  or Venmo@SolidarityCenter

Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST

Online Event

Join Tampa Bay Community Action Committe as we call local legislators to demand that they stand with the community and fight back against Gov. Desantis’s anti-protest bill (SB484 and HB1)! Call in from 1-3 PM on Thursday, January 15th, and use the script in the flyer if you would like!

Call-in to:
Dianne Hart (61st FL House District) 813-224-1956
Andrew Learned (59th FL House District)
813-856-1212

On Facebook

Get PDF here

• Coup attempt: Is the danger over?
• Stop U.S. attacks on Iran
• Trump’s Wisconsin coup attempt
• Fascist violence and the form of the state
• Wall Street’s New Year’s party
• Jeff Bezos says you don’t deserve $2,000
• Dispatches from the housing war
• Traveling to Cuba in the time of COVID-19
• End the blockade of Cuba
• The trials and tragedy of Duryea Green
• Stop killing prisoners with COVID-19
• What Biden’s cabinet picks show
• Trump’s racist revenge executions
• Blood and Oil and Trump and Biden
• Spies are going to spy
• Trump the big loser
• Iran and Iraq demand Trump’s extradition
• Intento de golpe: ¿Se acabó el peligro?
• ¡Alto a la guerra contra los vendedores ambulantes!

El asalto al Capitolio por supremacistas blancos incitados por Trump, que detuvo temporalmente el voto de certificación, tuvo que contar con la colusión de las agencias policiales federales y locales.  Es imposible que no hubiera preparación cuando estos mismos eventos habían sido telegrafiados durante meses por el propio Trump.  “Civil War 6 de enero de 2021” estaba impreso en las sudaderas de MAGA;  esto no era ningún secreto.  La única forma en que la mafia racista podría ocupar libremente el Capitolio es si la policía tomó la decisión deliberada de dejarlos.

El mundo observó mientras fascistas armados que portaban banderas confederadas y arietes metálicos violaron detectores de metales, tomaron como rehenes al Congreso, tomaron oficinas, rompieron ventanas, llevaron escaleras abiertamente para escalar el Capitolio, posaron para selfies con la policía y finalmente fueron escoltados fuera del edificio  sin arresto.

Se confiscaron dos bombas caseras, armas y municiones y se informó que cuatro personas murieron.  Se erigió una soga inspirada en el KKK en el extremo oeste del Capitolio.

Esto recordó cómo las autoridades de Alabama permitieron que el Klan atacará a los jinetes de la libertad en Anniston, Alabama, el 14 de mayo de 1961, casi matando a varias personas.  La policía local no hizo nada durante al menos 15 minutos.

El asalto al Capitolio fue conscientemente en la tradición del derrocamiento anterior de los gobiernos de Reconstrucción democráticamente elegidos y gobernados por mayoría en Carolina del Sur, Mississippi, Louisiana y todo, que culminó con el golpe y la masacre en Wilmington, Carolina del Norte, en 1898.

Compare esto con Kenosha, Wisconsin. En anticipación a la ira de la comunidad por la negativa de acusar a la policía por el asesinato de Jacob Blake, se cerraron las calles y se movilizó a la Guardia Nacional antes de la absolución.

¿Qué pasa después, se acabó el peligro?

La respuesta extremadamente débil de Biden es profundamente problemática en términos de hacer retroceder a los fascistas y lo que significa para el futuro.  En lugar de hacer un llamado para disolver a los matones fascistas, la mafia racista o arrestar a Trump, Biden pidió la unidad.

¿Unidad con quién y para qué?

Esta fue una oportunidad para que Biden y los demócratas asesten un golpe definitivo contra Trump y el movimiento que ha generado.  Pudo haber pedido el arresto de Trump o hacer un llamamiento a la gente para que se movilice contra la amenaza racista y reaccionaria.  No lo hizo.

En muchos aspectos fue una traición a los votantes negros, especialmente en Georgia, quienes resistieron valientemente las amenazas racistas de votar contra el racismo y la reacción.

La timidez de Biden y los demócratas no es sorprendente.

Lo que subyace a estos desarrollos y las vigas de la reacción fascista es la contracción de la economía capitalista y la profunda decadencia y crisis del sistema.  Aunque aparentemente oculto, reemplaza la voluntad de los políticos capitalistas que intentan representar a una sección u otra de la clase dominante.

Es una lección importante.  La clase capitalista, independientemente de sus divisiones, no tiene voluntad de arrojar a esta escoria racista al basurero de la historia.  Al igual que los banqueros y las empresas que financiaron a Hitler hasta la última bala, están cubriendo sus apuestas.  Son reacios a aplastarlos.

Peligro de guerra imperialista y los próximos 14 días

Sería un grave error no declarar la amenaza obvia de una guerra imperialista dirigida más inmediatamente a Irán, pero en última instancia, independientemente de qué administración esté en el cargo, dirigida a cualquier país que busque trazar un curso independiente del imperialismo, ya sea Venezuela, China.  , la RPDC o Cuba.  Vea la convocatoria para acciones de respuesta a emergencias.

Todavía quedan 14 días antes de la inauguración del 20 de enero.  

Así como exigimos el encarcelamiento de policías asesinos, debemos movilizar el movimiento para pedir el arresto inmediato de Trump y detener a las turbas supremacistas blancas.

Trump no solo debería ser arrestado sino también extraditado por crímenes de guerra.  Trump ahora es buscado en Irak por ordenar el asesinato del general iraní Qassim Soleimani y del comandante iraquí Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis;  Irán también ha emitido una orden de arresto a través de Interpol (Organización Internacional de Policía Criminal) por el mismo crimen.

El antídoto contra el fascismo es la solidaridad y el socialismo de los trabajadores

Mientras los multimillonarios están obteniendo ganancias sin precedentes, ganando mientras se acumulan las muertes de las víctimas de COVID, la gran mayoría de las personas se encuentran viviendo en una miseria más profunda.  Los gobiernos capitalistas no han podido detener la pandemia de COVID y han fracasado terriblemente en brindar atención médica a la gran mayoría.  El desempleo amenaza no solo a los trabajadores con salarios bajos sino también a la clase media.  Millones se enfrentan a desalojos, ejecuciones hipotecarias y cortes de servicios públicos.

Es la clase media quien tradicionalmente, los dueños de pequeños negocios y otros como ellos que estan aislados y en 

Tradicionalmente es la clase media, los propietarios de pequeñas empresas y otros como ellos que están aislados y desesperados,  quienes son engañados por la ideología fascista.  Es solo un movimiento de la clase trabajadora fuerte, unido, anticapitalista y antirracista lo que puede sacarlos de un callejón sin salida tan destructivo.

“Tal situación solo puede existir en períodos de crisis social extraordinariamente aguda cuando el estado capitalista está tan desgarrado por la acumulación de contradicciones internas y debilitado por su incapacidad para superar su crisis social que inevitablemente da paso a formas de gobierno extraparlamentarias y extralegales.  ”, Dijo Sam Marcy sobre la lucha contra el fascismo.

Se necesitará la organización de la clase trabajadora en general y el liderazgo de sus personas más oprimidas, negras, morenas, latinas, indígenas, árabes, asiáticas, mujeres y LGBTQ2S para desarrollar una defensa de sus propios intereses de clase y colocar el socialismo en la agenda.