Even though Veterans Day is a federal holiday, only 19 percent of workers employed by private business get the day off. Originally called Armistice Day, it marks the end of World War I “at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month” of 1918.

Twenty million people were killed during this imperialist war, half of whom were civilians. It was waged between colonial powers that had enslaved hundreds of millions in Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Lenin, the leader of the socialist Bolshevik Revolution, called it a “war between the biggest slaveowners for preserving and fortifying slavery.”

The Belgian King Leopold II had killed as many as 15 million Africans in Congo for rubber profits. British capitalists made fortunes from famines in India and occupied a quarter of the planet. Fresh from genocidal wars against Indigenous nations, the U.S. army had killed a million Filipina/os fighting for independence.

Another 50 million people died in the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic that may have started at U.S. Army bases in Kansas.

Around 117,000 U.S. GIs died in the war. Three months after the U.S. entered the conflict, at least 100 Black people were murdered in East St. Louis, Ill., by white racist mobs.

Black soldiers returning from combat were among those killed in the race riots that swept U.S. cities in 1919. But World War I was swell for U.S. big business.

According to Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler in his book “War is a Racket,” “at least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.”

This was back in 1918, when the dollar was worth 16 times as much as it is now.

The du Ponts weren’t even mentioned in “The History of Great American Fortunes” by Gustavus Myers, which was published in 1909. The family’s vast profits from selling explosives during World War I catapulted them into the superrich.

Besides their chemical empire, the du Ponts controlled General Motors, which had been the world’s largest corporation, for decades.

Never forget Nat Turner

So why should poor and working people commemorate Nov. 11? Because on Nov. 11, 1831, the liberator Nat Turner was executed.

Turner led a revolt of enslaved Africans in Virginia that terrified all the slave owners. Beginning on Aug. 21, 1831, Black people marched from plantation to plantation in Southampton County fighting for liberation. Black Panther Field Marshal George Jackson was murdered 140 years later on Aug. 21, 1971, in California’s San Quentin prison.

The reaction of slave masters was merciless. They thought they were facing another Haitian Revolution.

Soldiers and sailors were mobilized to crush the rebellion. Militia members were sent from both Virginia and North Carolina.

The Rev. G.W. Powell said there were “thousands of troops searching in every direction,” with many Black people killed. The editor of the Richmond Whig newspaper admitted that “men were tortured to death, burned, maimed and subjected to nameless atrocities.” (“Before the Mayflower, A History of Black America” by Lerone Bennett Jr.)

Nat Turner was captured but never flinched. He was executed in Jerusalem, Va. It’s named after the eternal capital of Palestine, also known as Al-Quds.

The slave masters called Nat Turner a “terrorist.” That’s the same term used today to smear Palestinian freedom fighters.

Hanged for the eight-hour day

Labor leaders George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons and August Spies were hanged in Chicago’s Cook County Jail on Nov. 11, 1887. Twenty-three-year-old Louis Lingg was also slated to be executed, but he was either murdered or committed suicide the day before.

These martyrs died for the eight-hour work day. Most workers in those days worked 10 or 12 hours a day, sometimes even longer.

On May 1, 1886, hundreds of thousands of workers across the U.S. went on strike to demand an eight-hour work day. Capitalists were terrified. Workers marched from factory to factory urging employees to strike.

Chicago was the center of this movement. Chicago police fired on striking workers at the McCormick reaper works — which later became part of International Harvester — on May 3, killing at least two.

The next day, a protest meeting was called at Chicago’s Haymarket Square. Police attacked the crowd, and someone threw a bomb at the cops. Eight policemen died as well as possibly some protesters.

The ruling class went berserk. Police arrested hundreds, but the bomber, who may have been a provocateur, was never found.

Instead, well-known labor leaders were put on trial for their lives because they supposedly incited the bombing. Years later, Illinois Gov. John Peter Altgeld courageously pardoned those who had been jailed.

Four of the five Haymarket Martyrs were immigrants. All were labeled anarchists. Trump wants us to hate immigrants while he calls anti-racist protesters “anarchists.”

As he was about to be hanged, Albert Parsons declared, “The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.”

Lucy Parsons, a Black woman who was Albert Parsons’ partner, continued fighting for the working class until she died in a house fire in 1942. Chicago police said that she was “more dangerous than a thousand rioters.” Lucy Parsons’ books and papers were confiscated by the FBI.

May 1 became the international holiday of the working class. In Mexico, it’s known as the Day of the Chicago Martyrs.

Long live the People’s Republic of Angola!

The People’s Republic of Angola was born on Nov. 11, 1975. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, along with his employees Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and White House occupant Gerald Ford, sought to kill it. They had the Nazi armies of then-apartheid South Africa invade the African country.

Angola’s independence was historical justice that resonated around the world. Four million Angolans had been kidnapped in a slave trade that lasted four centuries. Brazil’s sugar plantations were fed by Angolan slave pens.

Millions of Brazilians have Angola in their blood. So do some African Americans.

The largest prison in the U.S. is in Angola, La. The sugar plantation which became the core of the prison was named Angola because that’s where the enslaved Africans working there came from.

Today, thousands of slaves work on the Angola prison’s 18,000 acres. The “Angola 3” — Herman Wallace, Robert King Wilkerson and Albert Woodfox — spent decades in solitary confinement on frame-up charges of killing a prison guard before being freed.

Their real crime was forming a chapter of the Black Panther Party. Herman Wallace died of liver cancer a few days after being released.

Five hundred years of Portuguese colonialism in Angola were 500 years of resistance. The founding of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in 1956 was a decisive step. Forced labor was halted only after 50,000 Angolans were killed during the 1961 revolts.

When South Africa invaded Angola, Cuba came to Africa’s assistance. As the Pan African educator and organizer Elombe Brath said, “When Africa called, Cuba answered.” Two thousand Cuban soldiers died fighting alongside their African comrades.

The initial defeat of South Africa helped inspire the Soweto Uprising on June 16, 1976. The total defeat of the apartheid army at Cuito Cuanavale in 1988 led to Nelson Mandela walking out of prison two years later.

So let us remember Nat Turner and the Haymarket Martyrs while celebrating Angola’s independence. And be prepared to stop any new wars for the rich.

Rally in Solidarity with Cuba!

Thursday, November 11, 2021

The live discussion will provide background on the unjust trial of civil rights and Muslim leader Imam Jamil Al-Amin aka H. Rap Brown, his relationship with Imam Luqman Abdullah who was killed by the FBI, and the ongoing effort to free him from unjust incarceration.

The speakers will include Attorney Kairi Al-Amin who is the son of Imam Jamil, and Attorney Maha ElKolalli who serves as legal counsel for Imam Jamil.

For more background information, read the recent Time magazine article “The Many Lives of H. Rap Brown.” https://time.com/6111614/h-rap-brown-jamil-al-amin/

Streaming live at: https://www.facebook.com/CAIRMichigan

Get PDF here

• Capitalism is the crisis
• National Day of Mourning
• Their elections and our struggle
• Unemployed workers will continue to fight
• Stop terrorist ‘no-knock’ police raids!
• Raise the minimum wage (and give Marx a prize)!
• Berlin voters say: Expropriate the landlords!
• New York Times on cybersecurity: More like war propaganda
• Biden targets China: Turning Taiwan into a military outpost
• 12 years after coup, Honduran resistance fights for fair election
• Nicaragua stands up to U.S. election interference
• End sanctions on Zimbabwe
• Philippines: In memory of Ka Oris
• Estados Unidos tiene una obsesión malsana con Cuba
• The U.S. has an unhealthy obsession with Cuba

In the run-up to the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, currently taking place in Glasgow, politicians and media in the West conducted a coordinated and insistent campaign to shift responsibility for the climate crisis on to China.

US President Joe Biden claimed in his closing statement to the G20 Summit, the day before the start of COP26, that China “basically didn’t show up in terms of any commitments to deal with climate change.” He further stated that meaningful progress on climate change negotiations is “going to require us to continue to focus on what China’s not doing.”

Biden specifically criticized Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin for not attending the G20 Summit in person, although he failed to mention that they did attend via video link. Several commentators on social media have noted that attending a climate change conference via Zoom produces significantly less emissions than arriving in a private jet and travelling round Glasgow in an 85-car motorcade, which is what Biden did.

Blaming China is nothing new, of course, and feeds in to the New Cold War that the US and its allies are cultivating, with a view to protecting and expanding the US-led imperialist system. China is an enemy, a “strategic competitor”; it must not be allowed to “win the 21st century”.

When it comes to the global struggle to prevent climate catastrophe, pushing responsibility towards China has a further benefit beyond old-fashioned demonization; it means shifting the responsibility away from the advanced capitalist countries which might otherwise be expected to fix a problem largely of their making.

The “it’s all China’s fault” narrative rests on two key themes: first, that China has for the last few years been the world’s largest emitter (in absolute terms) of greenhouse gases; second, that China has committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, whereas the US and Britain have said they will bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

Such a narrative is flawed in five obvious ways:

First, China is the world’s most populous country, with a population of 1.4 billion Measured on a per capita basis, China’s emissions are very ordinary – around the same level as Bulgaria and New Zealand.

To understand the relevance of the per capita calculation, just imagine China is split into four different countries – that is, the wildest fantasies of the imperialist nations have been realized! Each one would have under half the emissions of the US.

Second, the comparison of current annual emissions distorts the overall picture. Greenhouse gases don’t suddenly disappear from the atmosphere; carbon dioxide hangs around for hundreds of years.

In terms of cumulative emissions – the quantity of excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere right now – the US is responsible for 25 percent, although it contains just four percent of the world’s population. China meanwhile is responsible for 13 percent of cumulative emissions, in spite of having 18 percent of the world’s population.

Over the course of two hundred years, Europe, North America and Japan have become modern industrialized countries, burning enormous quantities of assorted fossil fuels and creating an environmental crisis. Now they want to both shift the blame onto others and pull up the ladder of development. Any reasonable person will agree that this is outright moral bankruptcy.

Third, the reason China’s emissions have gone up in recent decades while the West’s emissions have gone down has essentially nothing to do with people in the rich countries compromising on their lifestyles or governments making impressive progress on decarbonization; rather, it’s that the advanced capitalist countries have exported their emissions to the developing world.

China as the “workshop of the world” means that products consumed in the West are very often produced in China. Chinese emissions are primarily caused by manufacturing and infrastructure development, not by luxury consumption. In fact, average household energy consumption in the US and Canada is eight times higher than in China.

Fourth, and related, is the fact that China is a developing country. The leading capitalist countries of Europe, North America and Japan reached peak greenhouse gas emissions in the 1980s, after nearly two centuries of industrialization. If they succeed in achieving net zero emissions by 2050, their journey from peak carbon to net zero will have taken six or seven decades.

Before the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, China’s economy was based overwhelmingly on small-scale agriculture. There was very little industry, very little transport infrastructure; only a tiny fraction of the population had access to modern energy. Since then, China’s use of fossil fuels has steadily increased as it has industrialized. If it meets its targets of reaching peak emissions by 2030 and zero carbon by 2060, both achievements will have taken less than half the time they took in the West.

Fifth, China is already making extraordinary progress towards tackling climate change. It is unquestionably the world leader in renewable energy, with a total capacity greater than the US, the EU, Japan and Britain combined. For the last two decades, it has been making a concerted effort to reduce its reliance on coal, which currently makes up 56 percent of its power mix, down from over 80 percent.

China’s forest coverage has increased from 12 percent in the early 1980s to 23 percent today. It has established national parks covering 230,000 square kilometers. Meanwhile it also leads the world in the production and use of electric cars, trains and buses. Around 99 percent of the world’s electric buses are in China, along with 70 percent of the world’s high-speed rail.

Even leading US politicians have recognized China’s progress. Back in December 2019, setting out his vision for the US to accelerate its decarbonization, John Kerry observed in an article for the New York Times that “China is becoming an energy superpower”, that “China surpassed us for the lead in renewable energy technology.” He commented: “China is doing things we are afraid to do. They offer citizens large subsidies for purchasing electric vehicles from state-owned companies.”

Of course, the world needs China – as the largest current emitter – to take serious action to reduce emissions. Indeed there is a clear consensus at all levels of Chinese government on tackling climate change, biodiversity and pollution. China is taking the project of constructing an “ecological civilization” very seriously, but it is hypocritical and nonsensical for the West to play the blame game and to push responsibility onto China.

As it stands, the US and its allies are more committed to their New Cold War than they are to a safe future for humanity. This is exemplified by US import bans on Chinese solar panels, based on the unproven and libelous accusation that this industry makes use of slave labor in Xinjiang.

Environmental catastrophe is knocking at the door. We need to get serious. The West must drop its policy of demonizing and threatening China; it must adopt an approach of multilateralism and cooperation. The US, Europe, China and others should be collaborating on research and development for climate change adaptation and mitigation; on renewable energy systems; on artificial intelligence systems for monitoring weather patterns; on providing urgently-needed support to the least developing countries.

China has been abundantly clear that it wants a close, collaborative relationship with the other major powers around environmental issues. The ball is in our court. Those of us in the West should be demanding our governments to stop shirking their responsibilities, to build mutual trust with China, and to do everything possible to keep Earth habitable for humanity.

Source: Morning Star

Fidel Castro was the first head of state to warn about the very serious threat posed by environmental pollution and greenhouse gases to the human species. It will soon be 30 years since that warning was made in just under six minutes at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

An important biological species -the Cuban leader affirmed- is at risk of disappearing due to the rapid and progressive liquidation of its natural living conditions: man. And he immediately went to the heart of the matter, which is not greenhouse gases per se, but a whole complex multidimensional crisis originated by the capitalist system. It is necessary to point out -added the Commander- that consumer societies are fundamentally responsible for the atrocious destruction of the environment. They were born of the former colonial metropolises and imperial policies which, in turn, engendered the backwardness and poverty that today plague the immense majority of humanity.

With only 20% of the world’s population, they consume two-thirds of the metals and three-quarters of the energy produced in the world. They have poisoned the seas and rivers, polluted the air, weakened and perforated the ozone layer, and saturated the atmosphere with gases that alter climatic conditions with catastrophic effects that we are already beginning to suffer.

Only with some adjustments in the quantities, those words still allow us to characterize the brutal depredation of nature and the exploitation of the great majorities by the imperialist powers. In reality, the situation described by his prophetic warning has only worsened, because during the three decades that have passed, the barbaric neoliberal policies have deepened, accentuating capitalist exploitation, plundering and environmental depredation practiced by imperialist capital, causing catastrophic global warming and pollution.

Fidel was also the world leader who in the whole second half of the 20th century devoted more energy of his brilliant mind to analyze capitalist and imperialist exploitation and its consequences. Among them, the very serious problem of global warming which, together with the danger of nuclear war, formed a substantial part of his concerns until the last days of his life.

From his warning in Rio to his Reflections in the final stage, the facts prove the Commander right. As denounced by most of the social movements in attendance, with particular emphasis on the representatives of indigenous peoples, very little has been done to date by the developed countries, the main causes of this situation, to halt and reverse it.

In fact, despite how threatening the phenomenon has become, none of the pollutant emissions reduction targets set in the famous Paris Agreement, which came into force in 2016, not to mention the previous Kyoto ones, have been met. On the contrary, a temperature increase of 1.1 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial era, the highest recorded in two million years, has already been reached.

Nor are the commitments reached so far at COP26 in Glasgow sufficient to avoid, before the middle of the 21st century, an increase in temperatures of more than two degrees Celsius and a climate change with terribly catastrophic effects. Increasing and more frequent heat waves that will kill many people, loss of forests and desertification; melting of glaciers, poles and Greenland’s permafrost; extreme and prolonged droughts, rains and floods of unprecedented magnitude, increase of temperature and acidity in the seas, irreversible flooding of large coastal areas and disappearance of small islands as a consequence of sea level rise, more frequent and intense tropical cyclones and storms, migration of important human masses; extinction of tens of thousands of species and loss of hundreds of ecological niches, both with consequences that are difficult to foresee, but certainly disastrous for life.

In truth, these phenomena are already here and are part of our daily lives. They will only become more and more common and will worsen exponentially, creating an unlivable situation for millions of human beings.

Meetings such as COP26 serve to raise awareness of the magnitude and serious threat to life posed by all of the above and to extract certain concessions, but they will not solve them. Only a gigantic pedagogical work together with great popular mobilizations can force governments to act on this crucial issue for humanity. The key to this was given by Hugo Chavez, “let us not change the climate, let us change the system.”

Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English

Nov. 6 — Yet another hero of the oppressed, of the proletariat and peasantry, has been taken away from us by the class enemy. Ka Oris, Comrade Jorge Madlos, joins the ranks of Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King, Malcom X and so many other fighters for the oppressed who have been murdered by the oppressor.

The Socialist Unity Party and Struggle-La Lucha send our deepest condolences and solidarity to our comrades of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army and the National Democratic Front on the martyrdom of Ka Oris and his medical aide, Ka Pia, at the hands of the assassins of the bloody Duterte regime. We share your sorrow at his passing and your rage at his murder. 

The reactionary Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) immediately spun the story and claimed that Ka Oris was killed in an armed encounter. Nothing could demonstrate more clearly the cowardice and corruption of the U.S.-armed AFP. Ka Oris and Ka Pika were unarmed and traveling by motorbike. 

The responsibility for this cowardly assassination lies not only with the AFP assassins and fascist mob boss Rodrigo Duterte. It lies with their imperialist paymasters in Washington D.C. It is the Pentagon that supplies, funds and trains the AFP for its so-called “counterinsurgency” operations, which are nothing but a terror campaign against the the workers, peasants and indigenous people of the Philippines on behalf of imperialist corporations. It is a continuation of the war the U.S. has waged against the Philippine people since the invasion of 1898. 

Ka Oris loved the people, the workers, peasants and oppressed, and they loved him.  He devoted his life to the people’s struggle and to building the New People’s Army, which fights for the rights of the Philippine people to life and land and justice and a future free of hunger and poverty. 

This week we saw imperialist politicians gather in Glasgow to babble about defending the environment in words. Ka Oris led Red fighters in action against the imperialist corporations and their agents who ravaged the land in Mindanao. He fought to defend the Lumad people against imperialist logging and mining corporations. 

His assassins and their paymasters, on the other hand, hate the people. They seek to keep the masses of the Philippines and the world living in hunger and poverty and environmental destruction while they grow richer on their backs. These criminals will not succeed.

It is fitting that Ka Oris will be honored and remembered on Nov. 7, the anniversary of the great Bolshevik Revolution that inaugurated the era of national liberation and proletarian revolution. Ka Oris lives in the hearts and minds of the people and in the deeds of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the thousands of Red fighters of the NPA. He lives in the ongoing People’s Democratic Revolution in the Philippines, which will not be stopped by bullets or lies. We join you in honoring his memory.  

Long live the memory of Ka Oris! 

Long live the People’s Democratic Revolution! 

Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army and the National Democratic Front! Workers and oppressed people of all countries, unite! 

Members of the Bolivarian Circle in Miami and Trokia Kollective chant “free Alex Saab” outside Miami’s Clyde Atkins Courthouse on Monday, Nov 1st – the day originally scheduled for Venezuelan Diplomat Alex Saab’s arraignment. Despite the disappointing delay of his arraignment to November 15th, his supporters are energized as they stand witness outside Ambassador Saab’s prison, the Miami Federal Detention Center (FDC). They are resolute in their commitment to Diplomat Saab for breaking through the crippling illegal U.S. unilateral economic sanctions imposed on the people of Venezuela.

Reportedly, the arraignment was postponed at the request of one of his lawyers, Henry Bell, since Diplomat Saab is “quarantined” from meeting with them in person. Ambassador Saab’s worldwide supporters are concerned with each day he spends incommunicado – knowing the brutality and inhumanity of the United States prison system – especially for political prisoners who are often set in prolonged solitary confinement. Additionally, statements made that the U.S. seeks to “extract sensitive information” from Ambassador Saab is alarming given the CIA’s gruesome track record of psychological and physical torture.

“Forbes uses the euphemism under pressure by US prison authorities as the means to force Saab to shed light on Venezuela’s post-sanction economic network. Saab already reports that his surrogate captors in Cabo Verde, have unsuccessfully employed torture to try to break his will and induce him to betray Venezuela.”

While other inmates at the Miami Federal Detention Center (FDC) prepare for arraignments on murder, drugs, human trafficking, and weapon charges, Ambassador Saab awaits arraignment for providing food and medicine to Venezuela’s impoverished. And it is particularly galling that U.S. unilateral economic sanctions are a root cause of foreign poverty and used to justify and conceal the theft of foreign assets by U.S. “dealer” banks through the Federal Reserve System.

Source: tortilla con sal

What do the Nov. 2 election results mean for poor and working people? 

In the Virginia governor’s race, Republican Glenn Youngkin beat Democrat Terry McAuliffe by 80,000 votes. In New Jersey, the Democratic incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy narrowly defeated Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli.

Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 450,000 votes in Virginia and by 725,000 votes in New Jersey. A year later, Biden and the Democratic majority in Congress have done nothing that would inspire people to go to the polls.

No increase in the minimum wage. No expansion of Medicare and Medicaid. No cut in prescription prices. No subsidies for child care.

Congress is refusing to pass these items that are needed by people. 

Biden could still issue an executive order to freeze payments on student loans. Over $1.5 trillion is owed by 43 million people. That’s an average of $36,510 of debt per person.

Wall Street would howl. Forty-three million voters would feel some relief.

Republican candidates instead felt free to use racism and attacks on transgender people to win votes. That’s what Glenn Youngkin did in Virginia.

Youngkin’s campaign ran a TV ad featuring a white woman lamenting that her son was forced to read “Beloved” in school. The famous novel was written by the late Toni Morrison, the only Black woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

Meanwhile, Fox News and Republicans across the country attacked immigrants. Yet it’s the Biden administration that has sent refugees back to Haiti.

Both Youngkin and Ciattarelli attacked “critical race theory.” That’s teaching the truth about the African Holocaust and the Holocaust of Indigenous peoples.

It wasn’t accidental that on the same election day, the Virginia counties of Mathews and Middlesex voted overwhelmingly to keep their confederate statues.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic helped Youngkin and Ciattarelli as well. Both candidates attacked the safety measures that are needed to defeat the coronavirus.

As racist as Youngkin’s campaign appeals were, he also said he would abolish Virginia’s sales tax on groceries. People have to pay a 2.5% tax on food.

A dozen other states outrageously tax food, including Mississippi. The poorest state in the U.S. makes poor people pay a 7% tax on food.

When McAuliffe was governor he kept this awful tax. So did the other Democratic governors in Virginia. 

Democracy for the rich 

These elections proved once again that the United States has the best democracy money can buy. Youngkin poured $21 million of his $480 million fortune into his campaign. The Democrat McAuliffe had billionaire donors as well.

Youngkin was the co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, a Wall Street outfit that has $16 billion in assets. He praised Virginia’s union-busting “right-to-work” law and opposed a $15 minimum wage.

New Jersey Gov. Murphy also made a fortune on Wall Street. The Democrat ran the Frankfurt and Hong Kong offices of Goldman Sachs, a bank with assets of $2.1 trillion. Murphy poured in $20 million of his dough to win the 2017 Democratic primary. 

Besides the Republican victory in Virginia, Republicans also defeated Democrats for several offices in Nassau and Suffolk counties in New York. Both counties are suburbs of New York City.

The Democratic Party establishment will use these defeats to attack the “Squad” and any other progressive member of Congress. This turns things inside out.

What were the Democrats doing running former Governor McAuliffe in Virginia? He was known for being a longtime fundraiser for the Clintons and chaired Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign when she ran against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination.

McAuliffe also carried out the last three executions in Virginia. The state’s death penalty was abolished under current Gov. Ralph Northam.

How was McAuliffe’s record supposed to motivate people to vote? If the Democrats had run a Black candidate in the state that established slavery in 1619, it would have been harder for Youngkin to launch his racist appeals.

Organize!

Particularly painful was the defeat of India Walton, who was running for mayor of Buffalo, New York. Although the Black woman won the Democratic primary, Walton ran as a socialist with a progressive program against displacement and development for the rich.

Walton was defeated in the general election by the incumbent mayor, Byron Brown, who waged a write-in campaign. Millions of dollars were spent on ads attacking Walton.

The capitalist media is also emphasizing that a measure to abolish the police in Minneapolis and replace it with a Department of Public Safety went down in defeat. But this measure won 62,813 votes, nearly 44% of the total.

Who would have thought a few years ago that an anti-police initiative would have gotten so many votes? George Floyd’s death was not in vain.

The future can be seen in the socialist campaign of Cathy Rojas for mayor of New York City. The candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation got over 25,000 votes — 2.5% of the total.

Rojas and her supporters distributed leaflets and put up posters throughout the city. The campaign called for defunding the police and housing for all.

The racism and bigotry peddled by Glenn Youngkin and other reactionary candidates is dangerous. But it won’t create jobs with decent wages or prevent inflation.

The future is struggle. Striketober is becoming Strikevember. We need to organize more than ever before.

Nov. 3 — The Unemployed Workers Union strongly disagrees with Circuit Court Judge John Nugent’s order to dismiss our lawsuit, Harp v. Hogan, which addressed the State of Maryland’s failure to distribute much-needed federal and state unemployment benefits.

The Maryland Department of Labor’s refusal to distribute already-paid-for federal benefits is an absolute disgrace. While the State of Maryland spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat our lawsuit, people continue to lose their homes, cars and possessions. Families have been made bankrupt and left without food and necessities.

The fight will continue. The Unemployed Workers Union will utilize every means necessary to secure the benefits thousands of people are still owed. We will review and assess other legal strategies. We will continue protesting. We will continue to call on the General Assembly to use its power to end the suffering of unemployed workers.

Both Gov. Larry Hogan and Labor Secretary Tiffany Robinson have remained arrogant and callous in their disregard for the rights of thousands of Marylanders who have still not received their benefits. 

We will take our fight to the “court of the people” and we will win there!

https://www.facebook.com/UnemployedWorkersUnion/videos/588770559135339