Dear reader,

We are proud to announce that December 9, 2019, marks the one year anniversary of our publication Struggle for Socialism ★ La Lucha por el Socialismo!

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This has been an incredibly important year for exposing the imperialist lie machine on almost every front, from Venezuela — where U.S. imperialism demonized President Nicolás Maduro to justify an unsuccessful coup attempt — to the continuing Hong Kong demonstrations — where empire has obscured the real issues under the false cry of “democracy” — or the continuing U.S.blockade of Cuba.

Our publication immediately condemned the coup in Bolivia and issued a statement in defense of the rightful president, Evo Morales. We did more than just write about Bolivia. Our writers helped to organize protests overnight from New York City to Los Angeles to Baltimore and Washington, and in other cities.

In addition to our continuous coverage of anti-imperialist struggles from Syria to Zimbabwe, from the Philippines to Ukraine and Palestine, Struggle ★ La Lucha held several national webinars, including “Sanctions are War” and “The Puerto Rican Liberation Movement.”

We took to the streets during the global climate strike, distributing our publication with front page coverage of the Amazon fires and carrying a huge banner that read, “The Pentagon, world’s biggest polluter — Shut it down!”

We have covered the attacks on immigrants and the movement to defend them; we have analyzed the rising racist, rightwing violence and its connection to capitalism in the United States, discussed the capitalist economic crisis and covered the workers’ fightback. This included publishing a series of articles from an Amazon worker. 

The fight for all political prisoners, from Mumia Abu-Jamal to Leonard Peltier, has received continuous coverage in both our printed editions and on the web. We have published a series of articles entitled “Black August — 1619 to 2019” by writers Gloria Verdieu and M. Matsemela Ali Odom, soon to be published as a book. 

Our writers attended and covered the “National Day of Mourning” in Plymouth, Mass., in depth.

Struggle for Socialism ★ La Lucha por el Socialismo representatives attended and reported back from the anti-imperialist conference in Havana, Cuba, and from the Women’s Conference in Namibia called by the Women’s International Democratic Federation/Federación Democrática Internacional de Mujeres.

In just one year, we are proud to announce not only our participation at the major marches commemorating the Stonewall Rebellion for LGBTQ2S pride but also the publishing of a new book by Bob McCubbin, “The Social Evolution of Humanity; Marx and Engels Were Right.” 

These are some (not all) of our accomplishments in just one year! 

We believe that there is a tremendous need for our publication Struggle ★ La Lucha! It is crucial that we not only survive but expand. This means being able to come out with a printed version more frequently; the ability to have a greater internet presence and to be able to send our activist writers into the field to give first hand reports.

We can only do this with your help.

Please consider donating to help us grow: DONATE

Miami, FL — The busy holiday season for UPS Teamsters took a deadly turn on December 5 in South Florida. Miramar police shot and killed UPS driver Frank Ordonez while firing dozens of times into the side of a UPS truck he had been taken hostage in. They also killed a civilian who was nearby.

After committing a failed robbery at a jewelry store in Miami suburb Coral Gables, the two burglars carjacked a UPS truck and took the driver hostage. They led police on a chase 20 miles north to Miramar. Upon getting stuck in traffic, police immediately began using cars filled with civilians who were waiting at a traffic light as human shields. They fired blindly into the truck with automatic rifles and killed not only the burglars, but the hostage and a motorist who happened to be on the scene.

Miramar resident Conor Munro said, “I watched the whole episode unfold live. That intersection is one of the busiest in the area, and the police turned it into a war zone. Instantly hundreds of cops were on the scene, firing easily 50 times. It’s no surprise they killed an innocent woman just sitting in her car. The killers need to be charged. Not only that, there needs to be a way we can stop this from happening again. Endless police militarization will only lead to more deaths like these. We need community control of the police now.”

Teamsters locals across the country released statements expressing their condolences for the driver and his young family. Meanwhile, UPS released a statement thanking law enforcement for their work without acknowledging the murder, implicitly taking the side of the police over Ordonez, his family, and the safety of UPS workers everywhere.

Source: FightBack! News

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2 Forums: San Diego and Los Angeles

San Diego — Welcome freedom fighter Pam Africa and recently released MOVE women, Janine Africa and Janet Africa, to Southern California. They are going to visit San Diego and Los Angeles.

Join us for this rare opportunity to hear firsthand from Janine Africa and Janet Africa, two members of the MOVE 9, incarcerated for over 40 years. Also, hear from Pam Africa, longtime leader of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The MOVE 9 members were jailed after a siege by police in 1978. In a second attack in 1985, police air-dropped two bombs on their Philadelphia headquarters, killing six adults and five children, and burning down an entire city residential block. Two MOVE members died in prison, two were released in 2018, and three were released in 2019 after forty years. Two more remain imprisoned.

Famed political prisoner, former Black Panther and journalist, Mumia Abu-Jamal, has made the case of the MOVE 9 his mission, even as his own life was in peril while on death row. Mumia’s death sentence was overturned and he was moved from death row, but the racists running the prison-industrial complex have since tried to murder him through medical neglect. It is through determined struggle carried out by the activists in International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, with Pam Africa in the forefront, that gains have been made in the cases of the MOVE 9 and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Pam, Janine and Janet will be featured speakers at a “Free Political Prisoners” forum  in San Diego on Saturday, Dec. 14, at the Malcolm X Library and Performing Arts Center, and in Los Angeles on Sunday, Dec. 15, at the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice.

The MOVE members will share with the community their experiences before, during and after release, and the continuing fight to free the two remaining MOVE 9 members: Delbert Africa and Chuck Africa.

Pam Africa will give an update on Mumia Abu-Jamal and the ongoing struggle to free all political prisoners.

In San Diego, Zola Fish, from the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, will give an update on the campaign to Free Leonard Peltier.

In Los Angeles, dancer Jessica Monea will perform West African Dance.

Both forums will emphasize the importance and necessity of supporting existing and former political prisoners like Janine Africa and Janet Africa. They have traveled all the way from Philadelphia on their first visit to the West Coast.

Let us show these sisters some love by helping them to recover some of their expenses and to ease some of the hardships as they adjust to life and struggle out on the streets along with us.

No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

The population of homeless people in Los Angeles County has exploded to 59,000 in recent years. A report by California Healthline and Kaiser Health News in April 2019 revealed that more than 3,600 homeless people have died on the streets of Los Angeles in four years; 4 out of 5 were men, but with the number of women who have died doubling in that time.

Over the holiday, local television news has been full of stories about charitable organizations serving hot meals. The staff of service organizations with limited budgets hustled on their outreach to try to get people off the streets and into shelters when lower temperatures, wind and rain hit. They may have made a small dent in the problem, but those extra efforts are not everyday occurrences and now, as in many areas of the U.S., three-quarters of the county’s homeless will resume “sleeping rough” — on sidewalks or in tents.

Until recent years, Los Angeles’ homeless population has been concentrated in the famed 50-block Skid Row neighborhood and in South L.A.  Due to spiking rent costs and consistently low wages, the rapid swelling of homelessness has generated tent cities in many neighborhoods, town and city alike — far from shelters and other services.

California has the largest homeless population in the U.S., particularly Southern California. An April 2019 Point-In-Time count for San Diego County showed 8,000 homeless, with more than 5,000 living on the streets. San Diego has the highest rate of formerly homeless people ending up homeless again. The same survey showed a 40 percent increase in the homeless population in Orange County, the densely populated area between the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego.

Of the homeless population in L.A. County, 19 percent are disabled. Nearly 18,000 are students in Los Angeles public schools. About 15 percent are women with children. African American homelessness, already disproportionately high, increased by 22 percent over the last two years. According to L.A. County, 35 percent of the homeless population are Latinx, but they caution that as immigrant bashing and deportations have ratcheted up, the pervasive fear of going near any government office likely means that that number is a significant undercount. Both of these high percentages are associated with early release from California’s racist prison system due to overcrowding. Of the 160,000 people in prison in this state, two-thirds are African American and Latinx. To a terrible extent, release from prison ends up being a pipeline to homelessness.

A September 2018 NPR report said that in Los Angeles, 8 percent of homeless people surveyed are working, and among adults with children, 27 percent have jobs. Nearly 5,000 in San Diego reported having jobs. Most have been evicted because they just can’t afford the rent.

In 2016, Los Angeles voted for and passed a bond measure to target homelessness and raised $1.2 billion for the construction of housing to attack homelessness. That’s the largest amount of money to target homelessness in the country so far, yet the plan is a massive failure.

Bonds are rarely paid off by cities. Because of the interest, they enrich the bankers and other investors and are a drain on a city budget that usually lasts for many decades past the use of the funds.  An article on laist.com explains some of the failures of Prop HHH, as the measure was named.

The initial goal was to build 10,000 units of supportive housing — meaning reserved strictly for homeless people. Of the 10,000, so far two units are expected to be finished by the end of 2019. Initial estimates put the cost at up to $414,000 per unit to build. Now the median cost is $531,000, and one large building that’s been contracted will cost $700,000 per unit.

In the meantime, Los Angeles has paid $5.2 million in interest. Interest, consulting fees and permitting, projected over the life of the plan, will use 35 percent to 40 percent of this staggering amount of money. Because the costs are so high, the goal of 10,000 units has been revised downward to 7,640, and instead of 100 percent of the units being supportive housing — there will only be 5,873 units of supportive housing. In a bow to L.A.’s real estate developers, the rest will be so-called affordable housing and manager units.

Karl Marx explained that the “reserve army of labor” is permanent in a capitalist economy. It maintains a level of vulnerability of the working class. The higher the number of unemployed, homeless or imprisoned, the lower are wages and the higher are capitalist profits.

Along with the massive warehousing of people of color in prisons, the lack of action to tackle the homeless crisis is driven by an irresistible trend of the capitalist economy.  Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti’s administration felt the pressure of the crisis, but Los Angeles’ powerful landlords, big banks and other capitalists wield the real power.

What appears to be bureaucratic speed bumps is likely fueled by their desire to continue making a fortune. Even when reforms like Prop HHH are successful, they are just barely enough to earn class peace. Homeless people are isolated. But every reform is worth fighting for. A united, determined and militant struggle against homelessness, racism and poverty can end the billionaires’ stranglehold on society once and for all.

New York — Picture the Homeless celebrated the 20th anniversary of their organization in the Harlem State Office Building on Nov. 25. Leaders of PTH called for a renewed commitment to their work of fighting for the homeless at a time when housing opportunities in the major cities are rapidly deteriorating.

Talks by members of the PTH board recounted personal experiences among a diverse group of all ages, many of whom had gone without housing. They recounted the solidarity of a couple of homeless founders who had recognized the desperate need to organize. Other members told stories of how the support they received enabled them to become active in building PTH. They chose the name “Picture the Homeless” because mainstream culture attempts to drive people who are struggling to survive into oblivion. They want to be seen and heard demanding: “Housing is a human right!”

An exhibit at one side of the crowded hall not only recounted PTH’s history but also explained their strategy on a variety of issues such as police abuse and the large number of vacant properties in New York City that the city could allow people to rehabilitate and live in.

PTH wages a battle for the homeless to speak in their own name and to be able to play a role in determining a solution to the myriad problems they suffer. Echoing the grim experience of being undermined by the administrators of social services, who are supposed to serve them, they repeated, “If you are not at the table, you’ll be on the menu.”

Picture the Homeless asks for help in strengthening the voices of those without housing.

Washington, D.C. — Six days after the fascist coup against Bolivian President Evo Morales, over 50 anti-imperialists gathered in front of the White House Nov. 16 to repudiate the racist ousting of the popular leader and the brutal military repression of Indigenous people and demonstrators. 

The demonstration was called by the ANSWER Coalition, Code Pink and others. Activists from the Socialist Unity Party / Partido de Socialismo Unido in Baltimore participated.

Later, a group of Chilean activists accompanied by Salvadoran supporters of FMLN-DC joined the rally. Speakers expressed solidarity with the people of Chile who are rising up against the repressive, U.S.-backed Piñera regime in the face of extreme police brutality. 

Many speakers had the chance to take the mic, including a number of independent journalists, representatives from the São Paulo Forum, Indigenous Bolivian immigrants, and activists who protected the Venezuelan Embassy in D.C. when it was mobbed by the U.S. Secret Service and members of the right-wing opposition to President Nicolás Maduro. Maduro is the current leader of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution and is popularly supported by the majority of the people, just like Evo Morales.

Indigenous Bolivians called for solidarity with Evo and the anti-coup demonstrators in Bolivia. Signs read “Repudio el masacre a los Indigenas” (“Repudiate the massacre of Indigenous people”) and “Fuera el govierno facista” (Fascist government out”). Many decried the lies being spread by corporate news outlets and asked that anti-imperialists everywhere help spread the real truth to the world. 

Attendees of the event were surprised when a mob of right-wing, pro-coup demonstrators arrived to counter the anti-imperialist rally. Supporters of the imperialist-controlled Organization of American States and the fascist military coup in Bolivia gathered not far from the anti-coup rally. They waved U.S. flags and held signs saying “USA, thank you for your support” and slandering Morales and Maduro. The right-wing chanted “We are Bolivia, you are not!” 

To deceive onlookers, one pro-coup demonstrator held a sign reading “No racism only love,” and several protestors waved the Wiphala flag that represents Indigenous peoples in Bolivia and other parts of Latin America. 

Ironically, these fascist coup supporters showed up to counter support for an Indigenous, anti-racist leader and the anti-coup demonstrations in Bolivia which have been led and largely constituted by Indigenous people. 

The many Indigenous Bolivians participating in the anti-coup demonstration expressed fear for their safety and that of others. Security was organized so that they could leave the area without being harmed. After all, the imperialist puppet “interim president” of Bolivia, Jeanine Añez, and the fascist military have been massacring and inflicting terror upon Indigenous Bolivians. 

It’s no coincidence that the counter-protestors proudly displayed support for the U.S. They represent the capitalist right-wing of Bolivia that profits from violently replacing a progressive, socialist leader and instituting a dictatorship that will work in tandem with the U.S. ruling class to maintain control of Bolivia’s lithium deposits.

Ruling-class counter-demonstrators may do their best to confuse the people, but when Indigenous Bolivians are afraid for their lives, it’s clear that the counter-protestors are on the side of Donald Trump, the imperialists and big business.

We, the undersigned U.S. organizations condemn the civic-military coup in Bolivia and the brutal repression unleashed by the police and military authorized by the self-proclaimed anti-Indigenous “President” of Bolivia, Senator Jeanine Áñez. 

The regime has burned the Wiphala, flag of the Indigenous nations of Bolivia; decreed an exemption to prosecution for the police and military for the use of lethal force against demonstrators; and has criminalized democratically elected officials and rank and file members of organizations associated with the deposed government. These decrees led to the massacre in Cochabamba on November 15 in which police and the armed forces opened fire on demonstrators killing five people and wounding more than 100, as well as the massacre of Senkata on November 19 in which at least 8 people were killed and at least 30 wounded. They have also led to the deployment of military, police and private intelligence agencies to hunt down and arrest political opponents of the coup regime.

We urge an immediate investigation by the U.N. of the killing of at least 32 people and the wounding of more than 700 by the police and security forces since the coup against President Evo Morales on November 10, 2019, based on official data from the Office of the People’s Defender  (“Defensoría del Pueblo”). We also call for the release of all political detainees.

We support calls by the constitutional President, Evo Morales as well as the United Nations, for dialogue to avoid further bloodshed. We call for the return of security forces to the barracks and an investigation into the crimes committed by the police and military, as well as those who authorized the use of lethal force, to hold perpetrators accountable. 

We also reject the illegal self-proclamation as “President” of Senator Jeanine Áñez, elected without a quorum and without the presence of MAS members of congress, whose safety is under permanent threat. This self-proclamation also violates article 161 of the Bolivian Constitution, according to which Congress must accept the President’s resignation in order for it to be valid, which so far hasn’t taken place.   

We urge the U.S. Congress and the Organization of American States (OAS) to condemn the coup against the constitutional government and support the path of dialogue over escalating confrontation.

WE DEMAND AN IMMEDIATE END TO THE KILLING OF INDIGENOUS BOLIVIANS!

PEACE FOR BOLIVIA!

SIGNATURES

1. Forum of Sao Paulo, Executive Committee in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia
2. CODEPINK, USA
3. ANSWER Coalition, USA
4. Democratic Socialists of America, Richmond, Virginia chapter
5. Socialist Unity Party / Partido de Socialismo Unido, USA
6. International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity, USA
7. Friends of the Congo, Washington DC
8. National Network on Cuba, USA
9. Popular Resistance, Washington DC
10. Party for Socialism and Liberation, Washington DC
11. Black Alliance for Peace, Washington DC
12. Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, Washington, DC
13. Communist Party, USA
14. Central Committee of the Peace and Freedom Party of California,  San Diego, California
15. Council on Hemispheric Affairs, COHA, Washington DC
16.  Peace Council, Greater New Haven, Connecticut 
17.  Red Nacional de Salvadoreños en el Exterior, RENASE, USA
18. Carolina Peace Resource Center, South Carolina
19.  Leonard Peltier Defense Committee,  San Diego, California
20.  Congreso de los Pueblos, Colombia, international committee in DC
21.  FigTree Foundation, USA, 
22.  Comité de Salvadoreños en Washington DC
23.  Friends of Latin America, Columbia, Maryland
24. Rutilio House, Takoma Park, Maryland
25. Committee Against Police Brutality, San Diego, California
26. Women in Struggle, Washington DC
27. Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, CISPES, Washington DC
28. International Womxns Alliance-DC (DIWA)
29. Comité del FMLN de Washington DC
30. All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC), Washington, DC
31. World Development Alliance, South Carolina

Source: COHA

People’s organizations condemn U.S.-instigated coup in Bolivia

We, allied anti-imperialist organizations and individuals across the world, condemn the rightwing coup against Indigenous President Evo Morales that forced him and other members of the Bolivian government to resign. This coup is being undertaken to inflict the worst kind of violence upon class-conscious, Indigenous revolutionaries who, under the banner of Indigenous socialism, have forged the path toward self-determination and peace.

To this day, no evidence exists to demonstrate that the October 20 elections which Evo Morales won were fraudulent. As early as one day later–on October 21–the Organization of American States (OAS) released a public statement in an attempt to discredit the election results

without any supporting evidence. For all its claims of multilateralism and diversity, the OAS receives a disproportionate amount of its funding from Washington, D.C.

This is not the first time that the United States government engaged in a coup in Latin America. This is not the first time that the U.S. government fully supported a member of the local economic and political elite whose aim is to restore the ruling elite bloc’s policies which are hostile to the interests of the majority.

Evo Morales’ rival, former Bolivian President Carlos Mesa, an agent of the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Inter-American Dialogue, and a political figure known for his hostility towards Indigenous socialism and partiality to multinational big business, has the qualifications of an ideal imperialist comprador.

The contributions of the Movement for Socialism (MAS)–under the leadership of Evo Morales–enjoy enormous support from the Indigenous population and the working class of Bolivian society. Its contributions to the political and economic advancements of Bolivia through the painstaking economic and cultural empowerment of Indigenous people and workers is well known and is inspiring, especially at this time of neoliberal attacks on the world’s working people.

We stand together in unity with Bolivian workers, peasants and Indigenous people in their struggle against U.S. intervention and economic imperialism. We strongly condemn the comprador elite in Bolivia who are agents of U.S. imperialism. We are prepared to reinforce all efforts to bring the perpetrators of violence to justice, may it be in the form of support for our Bolivian friends and comrades and/or an international people’s tribunal that will hold the culprits in this electoral destabilization and rightist coup fully accountable for their crimes against humanity.

El mundo con Evo, so are we!

U.S. hands off Bolivia!

Defend the right to self-determination!

Defend the people’s right to live in peace!

Signed by:

• 1. American Indian Movement Southern California
  2. Anakbayan USA
  3. BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance) Philippines
  4. BAYAN- USA
  5. Black Workers for Justice
  6. Candidatura d’Unitat Popular Països Catalans
  7. Coordinadora Nacional Sindical y Social (CNUSS-Guatemala)
  8. Covert Action Magazine (USA)
  9. For the People – North Amerikan Federation (USA)
  10. Frente Populare (Italy)
  11. Frente Popular Revolucionario (FPR Mexico)
  12. Fundación Amancio (Guatemala)
  13. Human Rights Alliance for Child Refugees & Families (USA)
  14. International League of Peoples’ Struggle-Australia (ILPS)
  15. ILPS Canada
  16. ILPS Guatemala
  17. ILPS Philippines
  18. LPS Commission 1 The cause of national liberation, democracy and social liberation against imperialism and all reaction
  19. ILPS Commission 11 Struggle of teachers and other education workers against imperialism and for an alternative future
  20. International Women’s Alliance
  21. Inti Barrios: Costureras de Sueños (Mexico)
  22. Juventudes Socialistas del Perú
  23. Journal of Labor and Society
  24. May Day Committee (Melbourne Australia)
  25. Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM)
  26. New Afrikan People’s Organization (NAPO)
  27. New York Boricua Resistance
  28. New York Peace Council
  29. Occupy ICE Los Angeles
  30. October Revolution Centenary (New York City)
  31. Philippine-U.S. Solidarity Organization PUSO Seattle
  32. Philippines-Bolivarian Venezuela Friendship Association
  33. Potere al Popolo (Italy)
  34. Proles of the Roundtable (USA)
  35. Regional Council of Africans in the Americas
  36. Union of Cypriots (Cyprus)
  37. Unión del Barrio (USA)
  38. Carol Araullo – Chair, BAYAN Philippines
  39. Alessio Arena – Fronte Popolare, Italy
  40. Christopher Connery, Professor, University of California Santa Cruz
  41. Diego Gullotta, Professor of Sociology, PRC
  42. Giuliano Granato – National Coordination, Potere al Popolo, Italy
  43. Andrew Kahn, Voice of América Blog
  44. Liza Maza – Secretary-General, International League of Peoples’ Struggle
  45. Mateo Bernabé López Pérez, Coordinadora nacional sindical y social, Guatemala
  46. Florentino López Martínez, Frente Popular Revolucionario Mexico
  47. Immanuel Ness – author, Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class (2016) and Chair, New York Peace Council
  48. Ben Norton, journalist, USA
  49. Paloma Polo – filmmaker, Spain
  50. Sarah Raymundo – Chair, Philippines-Bolivarian Venezuela Friendship Association
  51. Renato Reyes Jr.,  Secretary-General BAYAN-Philippines
  52. Akinyele Umoja, author, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement (2013)
  53. Samuel Villatoro, Fundación Amancio, Guatemala
  54. Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
  55. Socialist Unity Party/Partido de Socialismo Unido (USA)
  56. Oz Karahan – President, Union of Cypriots (Cyprus)
  57. Loan Tran, International Action Center (U.S.)
  58. Alliance for Global Justice
  59. Chuck Kaufman, National Co-Coordinator, Alliance for Global Justice (U.S.)
  60. Prof. Jose Maria Sison, Chairperson Emeritus, International League of Peoples’ Struggle
  61. Students and Youth for a New America
  62. Dakota Lily, activist, Students and Youth for a New America, NYC-NJ-PA
  63. Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy-UP (CONTEND-UP)
  64. Gwen Bautista, Artist and Independent Curator
  65. People’s Power Assembly (Baltimore, MD USA)
  66. Youth Against War & Racism (Baltimore, MD USA)
  67. Malcolm Guy, Vice-Chair External, International League of Peoples’ Struggle
  68. Centre d’appui aux Philippines / Centre for Philippine Concerns (Montréal)
  69. Concerned Artists of the Philippines
  70. Antares Gomez Bartolome (Quezon City, Ph)
  71. Danny Haiphong, Contributing Writer, Black Agenda Report
  72. Cindy Sheehan, National Coordinator of March on the Pentagon and Host/Producer of Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
  73. March on the Pentagon
  74. Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
  75. Carlos Martinez, writer, Invent the Future (London, GB)
  76. Ann Garrison, Journalist, San Francisco Bay View, Black Agenda Report, Pacifica Radio
  77. ILPS Commission 4
  78. FMLN-Vancouver
  79. Solidaridad Ayotzinapa Vancouver
  80. Venezuela Peace and Solidarity Committee of Vancouver
  81. Jesús Rodríguez-Espinoza – Editor, Orinoco Tribune
  82. United National Antiwar Coalition
  83. Committee to Stop FBI Repression
  84. Chicago Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines
  85. Jaime Coreas Jiménez, FMLN Vancouver
  86. María Luisa Meléndez, FMLN Vancouver
  87. Clara Sorrenti, Activist, Communist Party of Canada – Forest City Club
  88. Venezuela Peace and Solidarity Committee of Vancouver
  89. Leslie Salgado, Friends of Latin America, Columbia, MD
  90. Michele & Rick Tingling-Clemmons, Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington

Go here to add your name to the list, then click SHARE in upper right corner.

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

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

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

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

Talk by Struggle-La Lucha’s John Parker

SLL photos: Scott Scheffer

Nov. 16 — The Democratic Party leadership has chained the progressive masses to a defense of U.S. ruling-class militarism as the price for impeaching Trump. 

Tens of millions in this country and around the world justifiably want to see the right-wing bully, racist, misogynist bigot Trump brought down. But they are being forced to choose between Trump, who wants to blame his troubles on Ukraine, and the camp that wants to attack Russia.

This a completely false and dead-end choice.

This line of argument has been set forth by Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Adam Schiff and company, their lawyers and their corporate backers. The political masterminds behind this impeachment strategy have set up the proceedings to be especially harmful to the workers and the oppressed.

Legitimate reasons to want Trump out

Let us recount some of the legitimate reasons that people want to get rid of Trump. 

He called Mexicans rapists and criminals on his first day running for office and has continued to vilify immigrants ever since. He has forced migrants fleeing gangs and death squads fostered by puppet imperialist governments away from the U.S. southern border. 

Trump cruelly separated families at the border, put children in cages and moved children and parents hundreds of miles apart without any way of reuniting them. And he has waged a war on Black and Latinx immigrants, calling Africa and Haiti “shithole” countries, and more.

Trump also tried to ban Muslims from the country. He has been sued by 14 women for sexual assault. He has bragged about abusing women and grabbing their genitals.

He has moved legally against LGBTQ2S peoples’ rights. He has pardoned war criminals and reactionaries. He has used the White House to constantly enrich himself. 

Silence on tax breaks, deregulation, U.S. militarism and aggression

As for his attitude toward the ruling class, Trump has handed the military record budgets and given the commanders wide authority to launch operations in the field, despite disparaging NATO. He has plied the bosses and bankers with tax breaks to the tune of $1.5 trillion. He has given the corporate plunderers gifts of environmental and safety deregulation, while plundering and poisoning the land, sea and air — all the while characterizing the very real danger of climate change as a hoax.

As the impeachment hearings are going on, the Trump administration is waging war on the Bolivian Indigenous leader, three-time President Evo Morales. Bolivian generals trained in subversion and repression by the U.S. School of the Americas put the Bolivian masses under assault.

At the same time, Trump and Pompeo have been trying to overthrow the progressive, anti-imperialist Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro.

The Pentagon has moved to seize Syria’s oil wells and has assisted Turkish president Recip Erdogan in persecuting the Syrian Kurds.

Not a word about all this in the hearings.

Yovanovitch the ‘corruption fighter’

Marie Yovanovitch, former ambassador to Ukraine and a star witness for the Democrats, was presented as a brave “corruption fighter.” Her testimony followed a State Department official, George Kent, and another U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, William Taylor. 

One may ask who gave any U.S. official the right to investigate “corruption” in another country. If the Cubans or the Russians sent officials to investigate corruption in the U.S., they would have to send massive delegations to K Street, the White House and all federal offices of the U.S. capitalist government, because the U.S. ruling class governs by corruption. In addition, state houses and city halls are virtually occupied by lobbyists from every type of business group and individual corporations. But no such thing would ever be permitted here. That would be denounced as meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign country.

The criminal behavior of Biden  

Joe Biden’s connection to Ukraine is that he pressed to get Ukraine into the imperialist European Union and into an anti-Russian alliance with the U.S. after the elected Ukrainian government of Victor Yanukovich was overthrown in a U.S.-orchestrated fascist coup in February 2014.

The Obama-Biden administration collaborated with fascist elements to put a right-wing government in power in Kiev. It is important to go back to the tape-recorded phone conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, in February 2014. 

The European Union was planning a soft takeover of Ukraine, trying to undermine that country’s economic ties with Russia. The U.S. intervened in its own interests by encouraging fascist mobs to call for the overthrow of the elected government. The Ukraine Parliament pulled the police off the streets, allowing the mobs to break up the parliament. That is when Nuland made the infamous “Fuck the EU” comment, in which she openly expressed Washington’s preference for the ultra right-wing Fatherland Party, rife with fascists, to take over the government. (Washington Post, Feb. 6, 2014). When the smoke cleared, the Fatherland Party was in office and President Yanukovych was forced to flee.

Washington’s takeover of Ukraine was part of a plan to complete the encirclement of Russia and to reinstall a Yeltsin-type regime to do its bidding.

Between 1999 and 2004, despite Washington’s earlier pledges not to do so, the U.S. extended NATO’s reach to surround Russia. During this period, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia all joined NATO. Only Ukraine, which also shares a long border with Russia, remained outside the imperialist military alliance.  

The war in the Donbass

There is no disputing the fact that the $400 million in aid voted by Congress was held up by Trump in his corrupt attempt to extort the Zelensky government to open up public investigations of the Bidens and Burisma as well as alleged Ukranian interference in U.S. elections in 2016. But this aid  was meant to fight off the people of East Ukraine, who have resisted the right-wing regime in Kiev. They don’t want the International Monetary Fund or the European Union or U.S. imperialism to dictate their form of government. The $400 million was to give tank-killing missiles to Kiev to stop their righteous resistance. 

The resistance is supported militarily by Russia. It is part of the geopolitical struggle between Washington and Moscow, but the support for the Donbass resistance is progressive. And so was the seizure of Crimea, which, like Donbass, is largely a Russian speaking area.  

The imperialist bureaucrats who testified at the impeachment hearings are being hailed as heroes for fighting to get weapons to be used against a justified people’s war in East Ukraine.

Lost in all the criminality is the fact that Hunter Biden got $50,000 a month from Burisma, the first privately owned natural gas company in Ukraine. This means that Biden makes more for a month than most workers in Ukraine make in a year — for just being Joe Biden’s son. Was Hunter Biden an expert in natural gas? Was he a corporate wizard? Or was he simply the son of the U.S. vice president? His position is a clear case of pure nepotism and influence peddling in the wake of the fascist overthrow.  Yet he is being depicted as a victim by the Democratic Party leadership.

Impeachment a trap for the workers and oppressed

The Democratic Party leadership has carefully orchestrated these hearings to exclude all subjects that are of concern to the progressive masses. There has not been a word about corporate giveaways, accelerated destruction of the environment, record military budgets, massive and growing inequality, wage erosion, underemployment, poverty, food deprivation or voter suppression in their calls to save their “democracy.”

All the capitalist media have broadcast this reactionary circus. No commentators have criticized the politicians for leaving out the genuine concerns of the people. This has been one big election maneuver for the Demcratic Party leadership in the run-up to the 2020 elections. It has been one great evasion of the real burning issues of mass concern. It has revealed in bold relief the fraud of capitalist parliamentarism. 

If there were any semblance of democracy in this process, mass organizations would have been given the opportunity to frame the questions, call and cross-examine witnesses from the ruling-class establishment and frame the articles of impeachment in accord with the needs and desires of the people. 

Of course nothing even approaching this is possible under capitalist democracy, which is designed to foster the interests of capital and suppress any anti-capitalist dissent.  

What is really needed is a mass mobilization, a giant coalition of the workers’ and community organizations, student and immigrant rights groups, women’s and LGBTQ2S organizations, to mobilize on the ground and drive, not just Trump, but the capitalist politicians, the government bureaucrats and the lobbyists from their positions of privilege and political strongholds. This would be preliminary to launching an attack on capitalism itself.  

Posted to lowwagecapitalism.com on Nov. 17, 2019.