Joe Biden has engaged in some pretty abhorrent politics over the years. 

At Strom Thurmond’s 90th birthday party in 1993, Joe Biden spoke, heaping praise on the segregationist stooge. Biden’s glowing remarks reached a height when he compared Thurmond to another segregationist stooge, Robert E. Lee. 

Ole Genocide Joe did not mean this as a criticism, nor was he drawing a thoughtful parallel between the neo-Klan movement and the Confederacy. This comment was genuinely meant as a compliment. 

Thurmond had led the “Dixiecrat” charge against the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, famously filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours. The man certainly had a dogged commitment to the most pernicious racism and fascism. 

If you don’t remember that particular saga, you may remember Biden’s championing of racist mass incarceration legislation, or his glib threats of genocide against Serbia … or, last one, his insistence that “poor kids are just as bright as white kids.” Woof. 

That said, Genocide Joe Biden may have outdone himself May 7 with a right-wing tirade on national television that the Democratic Party had the nerve to frame as a “speech against antisemitism.” 

Genocide Joe began this “speech against antisemitism” with recognition of some alleged friends of the Jewish community and allies in the fight against antisemitism. In particular, Biden named Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and former Anti-Defamation League (ADL) spokesperson Abe Foxman. 

Let’s start with the esteemed speaker, Mr. Mike Johnson. Johnson is an open Christian Zionist and a proud Trump right winger. Christian Zionists support the colonization of Palestine by U.S.-backed Jewish Zionists because they believe that the full “return” of Judaism to Palestine will usher in the end of the world, where all non-Christians will be destroyed. Does this seem like a real friend to the Jewish people? 

Moving on to Hakeem Jeffries. The Democratic minority leader in the House has voted for every piece of legislation to arm Ukraine, despite neo-Nazis playing a prominent role in the Ukrainian military and Ukrainian society being deeply engulfed in fascism since the 2014 Maidan coup. As if that wasn’t enough, Jeffries has said that the U.S. should consider sending troops to Ukraine to protect those fascists. 

Last but not least, we get to Abe Foxman, a fervent Zionist spokesperson and lobbyist who formerly ran the Anti-Defamation League. Foxman is a huge supporter of the “birthright” program, which grants young Jews free trips to Palestine in order to indoctrinate them into the Zionist colonial project. Many of these young Jews from the United States are brainwashed on these trips into literal or figurative soldiers for the Zionist entity.

In 2016, Foxman attacked anti-Zionist Jew and IfNotNow founder Simone Zimmerman, taking particular aim at her new position in Bernie Sanders’ primary campaign. Foxman’s attack actually led to Zimmerman being suspended from her position just two days after she started. 

Foxman has a strange way of showing support for young Jews. The cherry on top is Foxman’s vitriolic stance against collegiate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. 

These men may be friends of Zionism, but they are certainly not friends to the Jewish community. 

Distorting history

After these insidious introductions, Biden launched into a lecture on Jewish history, and who better to speak on Judaism than an old white Catholic guy from Scranton? 

In his speech, Biden preached many inaccuracies and twisted versions of history. However, one rang out as particularly bold in its evil. 

About a third of the way through, Biden made a parallel between two events. He declared that the events of Oct. 7, 2023, were equal to the Shoah (or Holocaust) in their horror, hatred, and violence against the Jewish community. 

The events of last Oct. 7 were not an attack on Judaism. They were an attack against violent Zionist settlers who stole Palestinian land and waged a terror campaign against the Palestinian community, who the colonists themselves forced into Gaza and the West Bank. 

Many Jews live by a saying: Tikkun Olam. It is Hebrew for “heal the world.” My old rabbi opened every Friday evening or Saturday morning service with a discussion of Tikkun Olam. As a community, we asked ourselves, “How will we heal the world?” 

So it needs to be asked, how is the violent seizure of land from an Indigenous people healing the world? How are the armed Zionist settler militias that commit pogroms against the Palestinian community healing the world? How are the Zionist bombs that rain all over Gaza healing the world? 

The Jews who are staying true to the values of their community and the legacy of their ancestors’ struggles against fascism are the ones who now struggle against Zionist fascism. Those Jews are trying to heal the world. They are trying to heal the infected wound that is the state of “Israel.” 

So for Joe Biden to assert that resistance against vicious settlers, settlers who have really replaced their Judaism with a form of fascism, is not only an insult to living Jews but to all our ancestors who struggled against monarchism and fascism in Europe. 

Lucky for us, Genocide Joe did not stop there. He took it all one step further. When discussing the recent pro-Palestine protests and encampments at colleges across the United States, Biden again drew a comparison to the Shoah. 

Apparently, 19-year-olds protesting against apartheid are as serious a threat to the Jewish community as the policies of Hitler. This is a pretty wild comparison considering that 97% of pro-Palestine encampments did not even cause “serious damage,” according to a study by Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a nonprofit. 

The study analyzed 553 campus demonstrations between April 18 and May 3 of this year. It found that fewer than 20 resulted in any serious interpersonal violence or property damage. So, we are supposed to believe that several hundred relatively tame protests against apartheid are equivalent to the systematic industrialized murder of millions of Jews, Roma people, communists, LGBTQIA+ people, Slavs, and others? Really? 

Comparing the two is at best a trivialization of the Holocaust, and at worst – outright denial. 

Joe Biden’s speech didn’t have anything to do with antisemitism. It was just another despicable chapter in the propaganda war against the Palestinian liberation struggle disguised as an overture to the Jewish community. The spectacle was evil beyond evil, and not a word of it should be believed by Jews or anyone else. 

Free Palestine!

Lev Koufax is an anti-Zionist Jewish activist in Baltimore.

Los Angeles – The widespread campus revolts over the genocidal attack on Gaza by the Zionist state continue to spread. High-tech communications are such that millions are watching the horrific military assault on Palestinian babies, their parents, and all Palestinians in sight with the machinery handed over by U.S. military contractors, paid for by our tax dollars. 

The spread of determined protests, inspired and often led by young Palestinians, is historic in how fast it has grown and how widespread it has become. Students have been suspended, expelled, arrested, unjustly accused of antisemitism, and physically attacked. Support has emerged from faculty, unions, and thousands of individuals. Campus authorities are clueless as to how to stop it.

UCLA students are a great example of how durable this new protest movement is. In spite of their actions being declared illegal by the school’s chancellor, a four-hour fascist attack during the early morning hours of May Day, police brutally breaking up their encampment on May 2, and nearly 300 arrests and constant harassment by violent Zionists, LA cops and a private security agency, the struggle continues.

Immediately after the students set up the encampment at Royce Hall, Zionists began showing up with an expensive sound system and huge video screen. The funding that paid for their equipment and perhaps more than that was from a GoFundMe account that raised nearly $100,000. Among the contributors was Jessica Seinfeld, the wife of reactionary comedian Jerry Seinfeld, and billionaire hedge-funder Bill Ackman. That was the first indication that there would be an ongoing presence of a pro-genocide crowd. 

Campus police and California Highway Patrol (CHP) were stopping people going to the anti-genocide rally, while people wrapped in the Zionist flag or carrying pro-genocide signs were freely wandering into the pro-Zionist crowd.

Cops, fascists, media collude

Beginning late Tuesday night, April 30, the Zionists began showing up in greater numbers at the edge of the ongoing encampment. These were a more ominous crowd than the Zionists that had been showing up for several days. Some sported the Zionist flag, but others were masked and wrapped themselves in the U.S. flag. It looked like past gatherings of Proud Boys or other right-wing goons. 

Just after midnight, these thugs routed the handful of UCLA campus police, who fled when they were on the receiving end of barricades being picked up and thrown. The Zionist side blasted the sound of babies crying and music from their huge sound system to keep people from sleeping. They threw debris, sprayed water, and began tearing down the plywood walls that protesters had erected. They used bear spray.  

One protester was dragged out of the encampment, thrown to the ground and kicked by four fascists. Fireworks were tossed into the middle of the tent city. One protestor suffered a head injury when he fell after being hit with bear spray. Other protestors carried him to a safe space, where he lay prone and barely conscious as they tried to get an ambulance.

The call for an ambulance brought three accompanying squad cars. EMS workers rinsed some peoples’ eyes, treated a few minor injuries, and left. The cops (who turned out to be campus police) milled around for a few minutes and then left without taking any action or ordering the fascists to leave. 

When this writer called the Los Angeles Police Department and demanded to know why they did nothing to stop the attack, the cops claimed that they were there. It was a blatant lie, and the next morning, CBS News falsely reported that LAPD had shown up in full riot gear to stop the attack. Nothing of the sort happened. 

Fatineh Judeh, a member of the organization Unmute Humanity, confirmed with Struggle-La Lucha that no LA cops had ever shown up to stop the attack and that one protester had been stabbed by a knife-wielding attacker.

In reality the LAPD held back while the fascists attacked. In hindsight, it looked like a case of collusion between cops and hired fascist thugs, as well as a media coverup.

Calls for chancellor’s resignation

The power of this protest movement is such that UCLA’s chancellor, Gene Block, is now facing consequences. He’s hired the former Sacramento police chief to form a new “Office of Campus Safety.” The first task is to “investigate,” along with LA police agencies, the question of “if” there had been a security lapse. This is clearly a case of the fox being appointed to guard the henhouse.

UCLA’s Daily Bruin newspaper reports that Block is facing calls for his resignation even after the clumsy attempt to save himself.  

If there were still questions about the role of the cops after they did nothing to stop the fascist attack the night before, they were answered when California Highway Patrol moved in overnight on May 1-2 and broke up the encampment, arresting 200 people in the process. 

Their assault was no walk in the park though. Their first attempt to rout the students failed. Students and their supporters from UCLA faculty and other UCLA workers had linked arms and would not budge. The shoving match went on long enough so that the cops retreated. 

It was only when they returned in larger numbers, using flash bangs, rubber bullets and pepper spray, that the cops succeeded in kettling the protestors and arresting 200 people.

With all of this, the protest is continuing. On Monday, May 6, students held two consecutive sit-ins at Moore Hall and Dodd Hall. As the sit-ins were getting organized, cops arrested another 43 people – this time in the parking lot before they even reached any activity. Absurdly, they charged them all with “conspiracy to commit burglary” and “breaking curfew.” 

Hours later though, hundreds of students, faculty and staff marched through campus again.

The students united will never be defeated! Down with Zionism, down with U.S. imperialism!

May 7 — Thousands of people marched tonight on New York City streets demanding an end to the latest U.S.-Israeli assault on Rafah in Gaza, Palestine. While Zionist soldiers kill Palestinian children, it’s Genocide Joe Biden who is supplying the bombs and shells.  

People gathered at 6 p.m. in lower Manhattan’s Union Square for a short rally. Ysabella Titi of the Palestinian Youth Movement, Areej Khan of PAL Al Awda: the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and Layan Fuleihan of The People’s Forum demanded an end to the U.S.-sponsored genocide. So did TPF Executive Director Manolo De Los Santos and Claudia De la Cruz, the presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. 

Thousands marched out of Union Square carrying signs and banners. They headed west on 14th Street. People chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” while playing drums.

Cops forced marchers onto the sidewalk and singled out Manolo De Los Santos for arrest. Other marchers were arrested as well.

The demonstration went north on Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue), then turned east on 42nd Street. Onlookers were friendly and interested.

A rally was held in front of the great reference library on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds then went to One Police Plaza for jail support. 

Others went to the Fashion Institute of Technology, where cops arrested 50 people while breaking up the student encampment there. The people will stop the genocide in Gaza!

New Orleans, May 1 – Immigrant-worker organization Unión Migrante led a march to celebrate the international workers’ holiday, which has been revived across the country in recent years by immigrant activists. 

The march began on Conti Street beneath a statue of Mexico’s Indigenous president, Benito Juárez. (Juárez was a Zapotec leader from a peasant family who was exiled by a conservative government during the 1850s, first in Havana, Cuba, and then in New Orleans.) The May Day march ended with a rally in front of City Hall. 

Representatives from many endorsing organizations spoke, including unions like the National Association of Letter Carriers, United Teachers of New Orleans, and Starbucks Workers United. Speakers from revolutionary organizations also took to the mic, such as Workers Voice Socialist Movement, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and Party for Socialism and Liberation. 

Reflecting the great movement that is sweeping the country, many participants wore keffiyehs and speakers emphasized the importance of the Palestinian liberation struggle. An organizer with Students for a Democratic Society spoke on behalf of Tulane University’s Palestine encampment, which had been brutally suppressed by police the day before. 

The prominence of Palestine solidarity on May Day is a very good thing. The workers’ movement cannot confine itself to narrow economics. All attacks on oppressed people are attacks on workers. These are all workers’ issues. Indeed, this was one of the main arguments in Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin’s pamphlet, “What is to Be Done?” 

He said that the workers’ struggle absolutely cannot confine itself to just wages or economics in the narrow sense. Instead, our movement must expose the oppressors and exploiters in whatever sphere they’re operating, and we must fight all their attacks. We might take this advice to heart, given that Lenin led the revolution that established the first lasting workers’ state.

‘Resist Landry!’ 

Queer and trans contingents were prominent throughout the march, from trans youth organization BreakOUT!, to La Familia LGBTQ del Sur, to the Queer and Trans Community Action Project (QTCAP), newly formed by members of the old Real Name Campaign. 

QTCAP activists held aloft a banner saying, “Resist Landry.” Jeff Landry is Louisiana’s far-right, bigoted governor, who recently tried to prevent hungry kids from accessing school lunch over the summer (doesn’t seem like much of a “family man”). Others in the crowd held up the blue, pink and white trans pride flag. 

One stage and film set worker with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees or IATSE gave a talk. He said:
“The union movement right now in this country is huge. The workers’ voice is being heard and they are very frightened. Stay together, fight the fight, continue to spread the message of what is right.”

This message of unity was echoed in all the speeches. We are living in dangerous times. Capitalism is in crisis and attacks are coming down everywhere. Things are bad in Louisiana. Landry and his fascist movement are ramming through anti-worker, anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-queer, and anti-trans legislation. They’re imposing anti-women legislation. (Landry made a career undermining abortion rights long before he was elected governor.)

But that speaker was right. Our ruling class enemies are afraid. If they weren’t afraid, they wouldn’t be attacking us so fiercely. Six southern governors wouldn’t have signed a letter denouncing the United Auto Workers union drive in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Despite the governors’ efforts, the workers won! They organized a union. 

As in cities and towns across the country, and around the world for that matter, the crowd that gathered in New Orleans on May Day was a microcosm of the working class. Our class is diverse. It is immigrant and non-immigrant, Black and white, Asian, Indigenous. It is trans, cis, straight, and queer. Despite these differences, we are all workers. The capitalists are afraid of that. 

May Day was a warmup. They know that we can come out in the thousands and the millions, just like we did for Black lives in 2020.

¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido! The people united will never be defeated!

May 7 — As Israel embarked on the first steps of its long-promised invasion of Rafah, Biden delivered a chilling speech scapegoating Hamas militants and pro-Palestine protesters for antisemitism in the U.S. on Tuesday, vowing a crackdown on demonstrators seeking to end Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

During remarks at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, Biden interweaved discussion of the Holocaust with condemnation of Hamas militants’ attack on Israelis on October 7, 2023. Invoking racist tropes, Biden claimed that Hamas militants harbor the same “ancient hatred” of Jewish people that spurred the Holocaust — an equivalence that has been drawn by Israeli officials time and time again to justify Israel’s brutality against Palestinians.

Antisemitic “hatred was brought to life on October 7 of 2023,” Biden said, by Hamas militants “driven by an ancient desire to wipe out the Jewish people off the face of the earth.” At one point, he equated the attack on October 7 to the Holocaust. “Too many people denying, downplaying, rationalizing, ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust on October 7, including Hamas’s appalling use of sexual violence to torture and terrorize Jews.”

This statement is incorrect and dangerous for many reasons, as human rights advocates have pointed out. As a group, Hamas is far from “ancient” — Hamas was established 37 years ago by revolutionaries seeking to liberate Palestine from decades of violent Israeli occupation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, with an opposition to Zionism, not the Jewish people, as the group established in their 2017 charter.

Saying that there is an “ancient desire” to kill Jewish people within the Palestinian resistance, then, implies that Biden believes that Palestinians have an innate desire to oppose Jewish people — an implication that many advocates for Palestinian rights have pointed out is deeply racist, and an accusation that has long been levied against Palestinians in order to justify their slaughter.

“Hamas was founded in 1987. So when the president says ‘ancient desires’ to eliminate the Jews, he’s making a point about Arabs/Muslims as inherently and viscerally genocidal,” said AJ+’s Sana Saeed on social media.

The president spent roughly half of his speech, supposedly aimed at addressing antisemitism, denouncing Hamas and student protesters against genocide, without a word about the antisemitism growing within the Republican Party and embraced by his opponent in the presidential election. This is only the latest example of Biden and Zionists within his administration cynically using antisemitism as a bludgeon to silence critics of Israel’s genocide — a practice that many Jewish anti-Zionists have said only makes it harder to fight actual antisemitism.

Biden is one of the only people in the world with the singular power to end Israel’s genocide, which has killed at least 34,000 Palestinians so far, including over 14,500 children, with full U.S. backing.

But rather than stop Israel as it began its raid of Rafah on Monday and Tuesday — something Biden said was a “red line” that Israel cannot cross just two months ago and that advocates have warned is the “final phase” of the genocide — Biden focused on vilifying the wave of pro-Palestine student protesters opposing Israel’s genocide. For the second time in days, he smeared the protesters as antisemitic without evidence, and vowed to crack down on them.

“We’ve seen a ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world,” Biden said before going on to reference the protests. After implying that campus protests and pro-Palestine advocates were a danger to Jewish people in the U.S., he said that his administration is “mobilizing the full force of the federal government to protect Jewish communities.”

Jewish advocates for Palestinian rights reacted with horror to Biden’s speech.

“It is a horrific lie that Jewish safety is protected by the Israeli government’s slaughter of Palestinian families or that riot police arresting peaceful protestors is for the sake of Jewish students,” said Stefanie Fox, Jewish Voice for Peace’s executive director, in a statement. “Biden’s speech used accusations of antisemitism to distract the American public from our complicity in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. It was a grotesque betrayal of the memories of our families murdered in the Holocaust.”

These remarks play into the tradition of Zionists weaponizing antisemitism in order to fuel repression of pro-Palestine advocates, levying accusations of antisemitism against advocates when many Jewish advocates and Jewish organizations have said that they have seen no evidence of widespread antisemitism among protesters. Rather, Zionists are seeking to obfuscate the history of Palestinian resistance and Israeli occupation by saying that any criticism of Israel is antisemitic; ironically, Zionist Republicans have invoked detestable antisemitic tropes themselves in order to smear protesters as the real antisemites.

Members of Congress recently sought to codify this into law with a bill that would explicitly adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes criticism of Israel. But this conflation actually risks worsening antisemitism and weakening the movement against it, as San Diego State University political science professor Jonathan Graubart recently wrote for Truthout.

“Shamelessly … the [Anti-Defamation League] and other mainstream Jewish organizations add fuel to antisemitism by subordinating the struggle against antisemitism to advocacy on behalf of the state of Israel,” Graubart wrote. “Rather than educate the public about the dangers of conflating Israel’s actions with Jews at large, these organizations do the opposite by framing virtually all criticisms of Israel as antisemitic.”

Source: Truthout

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the official news agency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), published two important commentaries in April concerning US strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, noting that its principal target is China.

Writing on April 12, Jong Min, an international security analyst, focused on the US attempt to deploy intermediate-range missiles in the region.

He said that not long ago, the US army Pacific commander claimed that the Chinese army is taking an irresponsible way in the use of military means, adding that the US forces are planning to deploy new intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region later this year to restrain China.

Jong adds: “Not content with persistently escalating the situation and inciting constant war fever through frequent dispatch of strategic assets to the Asia-Pacific region, the US is scheming to deploy even ground-launched intermediate-range missiles capable of directly aiming at specific countries in the region and promptly striking them at any moment. This clearly shows what phase the US ambition for military supremacy has reached.”

He notes that the US started to develop and modernise intermediate-range missiles, as soon as it unilaterally withdraw from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles between Russia and US in August 2019 and completed the development of an intermediate-range missile system by the end of 2022.

“This fact goes to prove that the US attempt to deploy intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region is not a defensive step to cope with ‘threat’ from someone but a product of the offensive and hegemonic military strategy which has been steadily pushed forward in a sequential and planned way for a long time.

“The US attempt to deploy intermediate-range missiles is dangerous enough to explosively aggravate the political and military situation in the Asia-Pacific region, trigger off strong rebuff and counteraction of China and other regional countries and spark off a fierce arms race in the region.

“In view of the range of those missiles, their deployment in Guam, Hawaii and other territories of the US has no military significance. Accordingly, they will have to be deployed in such allies of the US in the Asia-Pacific region as Japan and the puppet Republic of Korea (ROK).

“The US arms buildup to check China’s peaceful development and growth and restrain it militarily will inevitably invoke strong countermeasures. And Japan and the puppet ROK or any third country might be well aware of the fact that they would be the first target of military retaliation if the US intermediate-range missiles were deployed in their territories.

“After all, the US deployment of intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region is not for protecting its junior allies. On the contrary, it will lead them to the fate of being victims and sacrifices of the US strategy for hegemony.”

Then, on April 25, international affairs analyst Kang Jin Song commented on the US attempt to expand the AUKUS military alliance, presently consisting of Australia, Britain and the United States, to other countries, starting with Japan.

He notes that since its founding, AUKUS has been called a nuclear mine planted in the waters of the Asia-Pacific as ‘the Anglo-Saxon nuclear submarine alliance’ for seeking nuclear supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region by detouring the international nuclear non-proliferation system.

It is the sinister intention of the US to make Japan a crewmember of a confrontation ship called AUKUS and put it at the outpost line of the anti-China pressure and push the nuclear minefield in the Asia-Pacific region closer to China.

He goes on to outline how the Biden administration recently held a tripartite summit of the US, Japan and the Philippines in the wake of a US-Japan summit to call for strengthened security cooperation between Manila and Tokyo, as well as Canberra and Seoul.

“This is mainly aimed at building double and triple infrastructure for implementing the ‘integrated deterrence strategy’ against China by ultimately putting together tools designed for achieving supremacy existing in the Asia-Pacific region in a ‘latticed’ way.

“The reality goes to prove once again that the ‘competition accompanied by dialogue’ with China and the ‘installation of a guard rail’ in bilateral relations, heard from US public officials, are nothing but deceptive slogans and their thinking and practice are oriented to anti-China confrontation from A to Z.

“Owing to the establishment of a ‘small group’ of the US whose arch enemy is China and its ceaseless attempt to expand the group, the Asia-Pacific region, where opportunities and potentials for development are richer than any other region of the world, is turning into a theatre of muscle-flexing and a touch-and-go nuclear minefield.”

The following articles were originally published by KCNA.

Int’l Security Analyst on U.S. Attempt to Deploy Intermediate-range Missiles in Asia-Pacific Region

Pyongyang, April 12 (KCNA) — Jong Min, an international security analyst of the DPRK, issued the following article “U.S. attempt to deploy intermediate-range missiles causes strategic instability in Asia-Pacific region” on Friday:

The U.S., immersed in realizing the military supremacy over the world, is trying to play a new military gambling in the Asia-Pacific region.

Shortly ago, the U.S. army Pacific commander said that the Chinese army is taking an irresponsible way in the use of military means, adding that the U.S. forces are planning to deploy new intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region late this year to restrain China.

Not content with persistently escalating the situation and inciting constant war fever through frequent dispatch of strategic assets to the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. is scheming to deploy even ground-launched intermediate-range missiles capable of directly aiming at specific countries in the region and promptly striking them at any moment. This clearly shows what phase the U.S. ambition for military supremacy has reached.

The U.S. has possessed and deployed a large number of strategic means capable of dealing a fatal blow to any country on the globe. Nonetheless, it is planning to deploy intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region. This is prompted by its strategic intention to improve the efficiency of military pressure on China by additionally reinforcing tactical and operational strike means and deploying them in the forward area.

It is the ulterior calculation of the U.S. that it can check China’s advance into the seas and secure the constant capability of rapidly striking the inland of China if intermediate-range missiles are forward-deployed in the Asia-Pacific region.

The U.S. started to develop and modernize intermediate-range missiles, as soon as it unilaterally withdraw from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles between Russia and U.S. in August 2019, and completed the development of intermediate-range missile system by the end of 2022.

The typical weapon system is Typhon, a ground-launched intermediate-range missile launch system, manufactured and delivered to the U.S. military by Lockheed Martin of the U.S.

According to experts, the Typhon can launch existing Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles and SM-6 multi-purpose guided missiles.

Besides, the U.S. is stepping up the modernization of the intermediate-range missile forces while focusing on the development of various types of hypersonic weapons, including the long-range hypersonic weapon (LRHW) of the Army, air-launched rapid response weapon AGM-183 and hypersonic attack cruise missile (HACM).

This fact goes to prove that the U.S. attempt to deploy intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region is not a defensive step to cope with “threat” from someone but a product of the offensive and hegemonic military strategy which has been steadily pushed forward in a sequential and planned way for a long time.

The U.S. attempt to deploy intermediate-range missiles is dangerous enough to explosively aggravate the political and military situation in the Asia-Pacific region, trigger off strong rebuff and counteraction of China and other regional countries and spark off a fierce arms race in the region.

The U.S. dreams about deploying the missiles within this year, but the process will never go smoothly.

In view of the range of those missiles, their deployment in Guam, Hawaii and other territories of the U.S. has no military significance. Accordingly, they will have to be deployed in such allies of the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific region as Japan and the puppet Republic of Korea (ROK).

The U.S. arms buildup to check China’s peaceful development and growth and restrain it militarily will inevitably invoke strong countermeasures. And Japan and the puppet ROK or any third country might be well aware of the fact that they would be the first target of military retaliation if the U.S. intermediate-range missiles were deployed in their territories.

After all, the U.S. deployment of intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region is not for protecting its junior allies. On the contrary, it will lead them to the fate of being victims and sacrifices of the U.S. strategy for hegemony.

The U.S. new military gambling in the Asia-Pacific region with “wager” called the deployment of intermediate-range missiles may be led to the nightmare-like result that even the security of its mainland should be mortgaged.

What Is Washington’s Scheme to Extend Sphere of Alliance Aimed at

Pyongyang, April 25 (KCNA) — Kang Jin Song, an international affairs analyst of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, issued the following article titled “What is Washington’s scheme to extend the sphere of alliance aimed at”:

The U.S. is now intensifying its scheme to expand and strengthen military blocs in the Asia-Pacific region.

As known, the U.S.-Britain-Australia tripartite defense authority talks on April 8 made public a joint statement on examining a proposal for promoting cooperation between AUKUS and Japan in the field of ultra-modern technology. And Biden confirmed Japan’s participation in AUKUS at the U.S.-Japan summit held in Washington on April 10.

It means that the extension of AUKUS and the preferential participation of Japan have become formal.

The U.S. defends itself saying that cooperation between AUKUS and Japan is limited to the field related to eight core defense technologies, including artificial intelligence and cyber, and it’s not aimed at increasing the number of AUKUS members, but the danger of Japan’s participation in AUKUS is making the whole international community tense, not to mention the regional countries.

In September 2021, AUKUS was forged as a tripartite security cooperation body involving the United States, Britain and Australia. Since its founding, it has been called a nuclear mine planted in the waters of the Asia-Pacific as “the Anglo-Saxon nuclear submarine alliance” for seeking nuclear supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region by detouring the international nuclear non-proliferation system.

Judging from the fact that the extension of AUKUS has become formal and the first candidate for its membership is Japan, a state of aggression and war criminal which tried to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War and has covertly beefed up its capability for manufacturing nuclear weapons after the war, this poses a serious problem in terms of security environment of the whole world including the Asia-Pacific region.

When the issue of extending AUKUS appeared on the table, Britain and Australia reportedly took a skeptical view, pointing out that Japan failed to fully protect sensitive information.

Although Canada and New Zealand, members of “Five Eyes” – an information-sharing body of Anglo-Saxons – were potential candidates for “AUKUS+”, Japan has been designated as a candidate member of AUKUS, which is attributable to the U.S. pressure and persistent persuasion, according to experts.

Clear is the intention of the U.S. that persists in involving Japan in AUKUS.

It is the sinister intention of the U.S. to make Japan, a vanquished country which revised the “Pacifist Constitution” and is making frantic moves to beef up the forces of aggression under the cloak of “possessing counterattack capability”, obsessed by nationalism, a crewmember of a confrontation ship called AUKUS and put it at the outpost line of the anti-China pressure and push the nuclear minefield in the Asia-Pacific region closer to China.

Most experts comment that the technical cooperation between AUKUS and Japan, promoted under the control of the U.S., will lead sooner or later to its full membership and to the additional admission of other potential candidate countries.

The Biden administration recently held a tripartite summit of the U.S., Japan and the Philippines in the wake of a U.S.-Japan summit to call for the strengthened security cooperation between Manila and Tokyo, and Canberra and Seoul. This is mainly aimed at building double and triple infrastructure for implementing the “integrated deterrence strategy” against China by ultimately putting together tools designed for achieving supremacy existing in the Asia-Pacific region in a “latticed” way.

The reality goes to prove once again that the “competition accompanied by dialogue” with China and the “installation of a guard rail” in bilateral relations, heard from U.S. public officials, are nothing but deceptive slogans and their thinking and practice are oriented to anti-China confrontation from A to Z.

Owing to the establishment of a “small group” of the U.S. whose arch enemy is China and its ceaseless attempt to expand the group, the Asia-Pacific region, where opportunities and potentials for development are richer than any other region of the world, is turning into a theatre of muscle-flexing and a touch-and-go nuclear minefield, and the ensuing immediate and prospective security burden has been heavily placed on the regional and international community.

The peace camp in the region and the rest of the world should heighten vigilance against the reckless moves of Washington to frantically expand its alliance sphere without limits, targeting a certain state.

Source: Friends of Socialist China

In Los Angeles on May Day, hundreds of people set off on a march and motorcade from MacArthur Park for the annual celebration of the international workers’ holiday. The neighborhood that surrounds the park is home to thousands of immigrant workers and has become the traditional launching point for the annual event.

An opening rally was held from the back of a flatbed truck when the event kicked off. Then the loud procession slowly made its way downtown for a final rally at a busy intersection adjacent to the University of Southern California (USC).

Chants that called out all the issues that are important to working-class people at home were interspersed with expressions of solidarity for the people of Gaza. The anger over the Biden/Netanyahu genocide echoed off the storefronts along the three-mile route.

Originally, the march was to have ended at the Los Angeles Federal Building. But during the weeks of organizing for the May Day march, campus protests and encampments in solidarity with the people of Gaza seemed to pop up everywhere. By May Day there were tents occupying the grounds of college campuses not only across the country, but internationally. 

Students at USC had been arrested and their encampment had been cleared out when the L.A. cops were called in by the campus administration in the days leading up to the workers’ holiday. To the shock and dismay of the cops and campus authorities, the 93 arrests that they carried out didn’t end the protest. 

Students reconstituted their tent city almost immediately. It was this beautiful act of defiance that inspired May Day organizers to change their destination to make sure to express the utmost support for the campus protesters.

Shutting down traffic for Palestine

For the final rally, the flatbed truck that had led the march was parked across the intersection of Jefferson Boulevard and Figueroa Street for at least an hour and was surrounded by throngs of May Day marchers, blocking rush hour traffic.

There is a long tradition of May Day marches being organized by Union del Barrio, Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, BAYAN USA and others. This year took on a new level of determination and spirit. The courage of the students at USC and so many other campuses fed the militancy of the May Day demonstration. 

As the organizing days ticked by, a host of organizations joined in the effort, such as Unmute Humanity, which had held a demonstration at CNN to protest U.S. media support for the genocide, and the Palestinian Youth Movement, which has been organizing mass protests repeatedly since Oct. 7. 

The Association of Raza Educators, Gabriela LA, Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, United Teachers Los Angeles, American Indian Movement, Los Angeles Tenants Union and others all joined in the effort to build May Day. 

The beautiful poster for the event was printed in English, Arabic and Spanish, and sported the logos of 23 community and anti-war organizations. Every group helped spread the word for weeks to bring people out.

The deadly agenda of U.S. imperialism and its proxies has never been more visible. Biden and Netanyahu are despised by millions for their terrible crimes. Those brave students and activists who protest are being slandered with ridiculous accusations of antisemitism and claims they are all “outside agitators” by the capitalist media. But the slanders are ineffective. 

Around the world, working-class people understand the nature of the Zionist state. The campus protests are hailed in the Global South countries that have been exploited and targeted by U.S. imperialism. There is growing awareness that it doesn’t matter which of the two parties of the billionaire class occupies the White House. The hope for humanity is in a united global working-class struggle that resists imperialism.

Long live International Workers’ Day! Viva, viva Palestina!

Talk given at the 2024 Los Angeles May Day march by John Parker of the Socialist Unity Party and Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice.

We remember George Floyd. We remember white knees on Black necks. We remember that on April 18, Frank Tyson was murdered by that white knee on his Black neck in Ohio. And the last thing he said was, “I can’t breathe.” 

How many times have we heard that? We’ve heard it many times, and it’s just part of the genocide that has been going on. It’s been beating records every year in terms of police killings of Black and Brown people.

We’re well aware of the murder of immigrants at the border, at detention centers and the denial of health care for immigrants that is currently causing more deaths. 

With so much genocide going on here that we can see with our own eyes, why would anyone be tolerant of genocide overseas in Gaza? We can see the denial of health care and homes and food that is afflicting all of the working class. 

When we talk about genocide against people of color, we also have to remember that during the height of the COVID pandemic, the likelihood of death for Black and Brown people was sometimes three times higher. 

And what did Biden do when federal funds were supposed to go to the states for pandemic relief? He told people like New York City Mayor Eric Adams, “Don’t worry about using money for COVID. Use it to hire more police.” He said that during another record year of police killings. 

We know that the genocide will continue until the movement for justice is strong enough to stop it. 

How do you stop genocide by building a movement? By making it so powerful that business as usual will not be possible. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re doing it right now and we’re going to do it tomorrow and we’re going to do it until those bombs that are falling on children in Gaza finally stop.

Palestine will be free, from the river to the goddamn sea!

According to sources based in Washington, on condition of anonymity, the Ecuadorian government’s assault on the Mexican Embassy in Quito was an operation directed and supported behind the scenes by the U.S. government.

The main objective was to create a political-electoral strategy aimed at reinforcing President Noboa’s image in the run-up to the April 21 referendum, as well as to send a message to the progressive Citizen  Revolution Movement (Revolucion Ciudadana).

The second objective was to rarify the elections in Mexico, where the Morena party is in the lead, promoting lines of attack and crisis to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador from the media and opposition forces. The third objective is to maintain the state of tension in the region, to prevent organizations such a the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) from being reactivated, complementing the offensive of the new Latin American right wing, which is waiting for Trump’s victory to go (even more) on the offensive.

As a fourth objective of the assault on the Embassy, the aim was to intimidate the opposition, especially Revolución Ciudadana, seeking to convey the message that the government is willing to cross any red line to crush Correism and make them disappear as a political force.

The assault on the Mexican Embassy in Ecuador had the prior consent of the U.S. Embassy, the State Department and the CIA. They informed the President of Ecuador that a possible imminent escape of Jorge Glas, similar to what happened in 2023 with the former Correista Minister María de los Ángeles Duarte, who was taking refuge in the Embassy of Argentina, would ridicule his government and would bury his aspiration for reelection, with an almost certain defeat in the popular vote.

The CIA station in Ecuador prepared in advance, together with Ecuadorian elite units, the operation to capture former Vice President Jorge Glas at the Mexican Embassy.

Prior to the operation, the CIA station in Quito shared with the government of Ecuador all available information from the Mexican Embassy, and the exact location of Jorge Glas. Information acquired from secret listening and filming applications illegally installed in the Mexican Embassy.

Hours before the raid on the Mexican Embassy, the President of Ecuador Daniel Noboa met secretly with the Ambassador of the United States, who gave his backing and consent to execute the action.

The military assault team was composed of foreign troops and advisors, who intervened wearing hoods and uniforms without official insignia, at the same time that the Embassy of Ecuador in the United States was in constant communication with the State Department during the development of the operation.

Currently, there is an alignment and subordination of the government of Ecuador with the United States, nothing is executed in the country without the approval of its Ambassador. Ecuador agreed with the United States, regardless of the fact that it has publicly “scolded” them, that the imperialist power was going to use its containment capacity so that the matter would not escalate, and to avoid economic implications and the application of sanctions against Ecuador. The United States for its part guaranteed Noboa, together with its regional and European allies, that the negative impact, both political and economic, would be limited.

Internationally, the incompetence of those responsible for Ecuadorian foreign policy, who do not represent the diplomatic officials of its Foreign Ministry, has become evident. In fact, the Minister of Foreign Affairs herself, Gabriela Sommerfeld, comes from business sectors linked to Israeli Zionism, with no previous links to diplomacy.

Lawfare, or the judicialization of politics, is driving major geopolitical changes in the region. An example of this is the actions of Lenin Moreno when he promoted through the judiciary the political persecution against Correa and his closest political circle. The same persecution that was or is being used against Dilma and Lula in Brazil, Evo in Bolivia, or Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Argentina. The objective is to destroy the main leaders and currents of the Latin American left, leaving the way clear for the rise of the new Latin American right wing.

Noboa and his government are not interested in what the international community says or does, and is gradually adopting a profile similar to that of Bukele, a figure for whom Noboa sympathizes. It is no coincidence that El Salvador was the only country that abstained in the condemnation resolution at the OAS.

Right now, Noboa’s government has other options that could be implemented in a scenario in which in the consultation won the Bukeleization of the security model, in order to reinforce its image internally while thinking about the presidential elections next year. The arrest warrant against the Prefect of Pichincha Paola Pabon for the crime of embezzlement is ready, and a coup in the form of the arrest of the narco “Fito”, to show Noboa’s commitment in the fight against organized crime.

Likewise, two important issues that could have a negative impact are being evaluated between the governments of the United States and Ecuador:

On the one hand, the questioning within the United Nations Security Council of Ecuador as a member country (observer) for violating international law and instigating a diplomatic conflict with another nation, or that contravenes the purposes of that body, consisting in theory with the preservation of international peace and security.

On the other hand, the loss of prestige and international leadership of Ecuador is in contradiction with the recognition of hosting the next Ibero-American Summit, to be held next November in the city of Cuenca.

In any case, everything seems to indicate that beyond containing these problems, there is a decision of the governments of the United States and Noboa’s Ecuador, to prevent by all means and at any cost, the victory of Revolucion Ciudadana in the presidential elections of February 9, 2025.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English