Deegan, of Lebanese ancestry, is a former newscaster, and is a known personality in the community, anchoring Channel 12 news for years. She subsequently went on to run a nonprofit, the Donna Foundation, focused around breast cancer awareness, using her own experiences with beating cancer multiple times to connect her with the broader community.

Deegan ran under the banner of uniting the community. Unlike her opponent, she swore off negative ads. Her campaign was supported by progressive forces as she supported calls for more investment in neglected communities and stood against privatization of city services and the publicly-owned electric utility. Unlike her opponent, she supported calls for civilian oversight of police and supported calls for taking down Confederate monuments. She also advocates ridding city hall of corruption after eight years of Republican leadership under Mayor Lenny Curry. Backed by every major labor union in the city with the exception of police and fire unions, she ran on supporting labor and using her office to support worker’s rights.

Daniel Davis, current CEO of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, ran unabashedly on a pro-cop, anti-police accountability, anti-BLM platform, parroting Fraternal Order of Police cop union talking points, using over $8 million raised (the most of any Jacksonville mayor race in history), to attack Deegan over her support of civilian review, something police and cop union forces have fought off for years.

Davis claimed if Deegan was elected, “radical activists” would oversee police. He called for adding over 200 new police officers, even saying he’d support cutting other city services to make it happen. Black Republican Sheriff T.K. Waters was used as Davis pit bull, being on the face of TV ads calling Deegan a radical who wants to defund police and support policies harmful to cops. Waters, an opponent of police accountability and civilian oversight, in his first interview after Deegan’s victory spoke about why civilian review shouldn’t happen, a clear signal of their fear of what Deegan’s election could mean.

Local grassroots activist Ben Frazier, president of the activist group the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, cited, “It should be acknowledged that black voters in Duval played a major role in the historic mayoral victory of Donna Deegan,” adding, “From the urban core to the northwest, Black voters propelled the trajectory of the Deegan victory.”

Deegan’s election comes at a time when the state of Florida has been terrorized by a Republican state legislature that has sought to limit the power of local counties and local city mayors. Governor DeSantis, with a Republican supermajority, pushed through reactionary policy after reactionary policy in order to grease the wheels for his bid for presidency. The city council of Jacksonville still has a 14 to 5 Republican to Democrat ratio, with a few moderate Republicans. However, to grassroots activists, Deegan’s election represents a change and more room to politically maneuver.

Under the previous mayor, after historic police accountability protests in 2020 where tens of thousands hit the street, Mayor Curry and former Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Sheriff Williams, along with current State Attorney Melissa Nelson, in response to rallies led by the Jacksonville Community Action Committee and their partners, met with and succumbed to activist demands around the release body camera footage. They released a new body cam policy pledging to release footage after a certain time frame in the summer of 2020. They’ve since reneged on that, only releasing body cameras when the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) deems it appropriate for them to do so.

In 2020 and 2021, in response to the rallies, the city council of Jacksonville created a special committee called the Safer Together Committee which proposed and supported the creation of a civilian review board. Deegan’s late cousin, Tommy Hazouri, a Democrat and former mayor, was city council president at the time. Families of police crimes used the committee meetings as a forum to air grievances with JSO and call for civilian oversight and change. JSO subsequently pressured to have that committee shut down and was eventually successful, stopping any change of police accountability reforms at that time through city council.

That is why progressive forces are optimistic about Deegan’s election. She represents the possibilities of a new era in Jacksonville politics and new organizing terrain for activists. However, those same forces plan to hold her accountable to her support if she fails to pursue pro people agenda.

Time will most certainly tell, but the smashing of the right-wing machinery that has held city hall in Jacksonville for almost a decade is a significant development.

#JacksonvilleFL #US #Opinion #PeoplesStruggles #Elections #DonnaDeegan #MayorOfJacksonville

By Destiny Spruill and Jacob Buckner

Chicago, IL – Two factors have made public safety a lynchpin issue in the upcoming mayoral election between Brandon Johnson, former teacher supported by the Chicago Teacher’s Union, and Paul Vallas, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, backed by the Fraternal Order of the Police (FOP). First is the rise in the crime rate in the city in recent years. The second, and principal, reason is the law-and-order backlash that followed the historic protests of the George Floyd Rebellion.

Groups like the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) are fighting to make sure that the city’s supposed concern for public safety prioritizes police accountability for its Black, Latino, indigenous and working-class residents. These residents face the highest rates of incarceration and violent police raids and have been the most likely to face the full force of the police state.

You can’t discuss public safety without discussing the struggle for community control of the police – a struggle for democratic rights.

“This mayoral election is historic. It is the first time in four decades that we’ve had a truly progressive candidate for mayor – Brandon Johnson. For the first time in history, the people of Chicago have a real choice between the old reactionary, recycling of the status quo and taking a progressive road towards advancing the democratic right of the people,” says Frank Chapman, the executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist Political Repression (NAARPR).

The movement for community control of the police in Chicago began over 50 years ago. CAARPR played a leading role in the 1970s and starting 11 years ago has led it through its Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) campaign. They believe that electing Brandon Johnson is an important piece in the broader struggle for police accountability. Understanding the history of CAARPR’s CPAC movement is crucial in assessing the needs of Chicago’s most vulnerable populations. It is also crucial in evaluating how we can chart the way forward.

CAARPR and its struggle for community control of police in Chicago

By 1968, the first citywide attempt at community control was started by the Black Panther Party (BPP), which initiated a number of programs that demanded to transform the power structure of the police and its effect on the lives of Black Chicagoans. The Panthers believed that community control of the police was a political necessity for Black community members to decide for themselves how public safety would be implemented. Their demands were clear: violent police officers must be held accountable through community boards, the people must decide the funding of the Chicago Police Department (CPD), and the power of supervising and administering the police department must be transferred to the citizens of Chicago. The National Alliance Against Racist Political Repression (NAARPR) took up these demands and created a model to bring these demands to legislation.

Starting in 2012, CAARPR, the Chicago branch of NAARPR, provided a model based on the principle set forth by the Panthers, and on legislation that had been developed by the National Alliance in the 1970s. Decades later, the need for this movement continued as racist policing in Chicago increased as a result of the heightened power of the CPD. In 2012, 22-year-old Rekia Boyd was murdered by an off-duty police detective named Dante Servin. Following community protests, the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression began a ten-year process of building a movement to pass an ordinance that would create community-controlled police boards in all 22 Chicago police districts. This movement became known as the Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) campaign.

CAARPR spent the next years in working-class neighborhoods most affected by police violence and spoke to survivors and community members about their public safety needs. These efforts continued from the murder of Laquan McDonald in 2014 to the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020. When George Floyd was murdered, the National Alliance Against Racist Political Repression called for a national day of protest on May 30. In Chicago, 20,000 marched or car caravanned into the Chicago Loop. In the following weeks, over 100,000 marched in Chicago. Every protest called for “CPAC now!”

The campaign collected over 60,000 signatures with an average of 1000 signatures in 38 wards. Their efforts proved that victory is only possible with the leadership and experience of the community. This mass movement created the conditions for passing legislation.

By 2021, CAARPR had the support of 19 of the 50 city council members. A competing police accountability legislation, the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA), had the support of 26 of the 50 city council members. Council members of the Socialist Caucus of Chicago told GAPA that they would not cast a vote to support their legislation unless they came to an agreement with the CPAC legislation proposed by CAARPR. After then-mayor Lori Lightfoot refused GAPA’s demand to include control of police policy in their legislation, negotiations between CAARPR and GAPA began, and a compromise was reached two months later.

The Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance was passed in the city council and officially created two bodies for police accountability: the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) and the police district councils, for which there were elections in February. These bodies have the following powers: Directly investigating crimes of police violence; determining Chicago Police Department policy; hiring and firing the Chief Administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA); holding hearings about police superintendents; and recommending preventative, proactive, community-based and evidence-based solutions to violence.

These District Councils and the CCPSA go beyond stopping vicious and racist police officers, they hold a model for community members directly affected by racist police violence to see justice and build a regenerative model to change public safety.

Many of the candidates for these boards had never run for public office – they are motivated by their own experiences with police violence. Cynthia McFadden, for example, ran for the board because she was inspired by her father who fled the South due to extreme violence only to be murdered by Chicago police the day of his arrival. Coston Plummer was motivated by his older brother who was forced by Chicago police to falsely confess to a murder when he was just 15 years old. These candidates believe that ECPS represents the will of communities impacted by police violence to finally experience justice.

On February 28, 2023, for the first time in history, residents of Chicago had the opportunity to vote for these boards – resulting in 39 of 66 district councilors being elected from the movement for police accountability. CAARPR, alongside their partners in their community, expanded this grassroots campaign and made it possible to succeed.

From CPAC to ECPS to Brandon Johnson

“The terms of this election were set by the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Across the U.S., 26 million people called for justice – including Brandon Johnson. Brandon Johnson has received the support of the Chicago Alliance because he alone included police accountability and working with ECPS in his platform and campaign. Paul Vallas received support from the FOP to maintain injustice. On February 28, the Black community voted against the FOP and for justice through democratic control of the police in the district council elections,” says Joe Iosbaker, cochair of the Labor Committee of CAARPR.

During a mayoral forum on public safety at the UIC Forum on March 14, Paul Vallas put forth his vision of police accountability by saying, “Community policing fundamentally means, you have beat officers on every beat. So every single beat is covered by a patrol car, manned with officers. Officers know the community, and are known by name and by badge number, by the community.” Vallas has seized on rising concerns for public safety – which have steadily grown as the city of Chicago experiences more violence and believes the only way forward is to increase police presence and grant them more control over the city. Chicago’s FOP, an organization that is nationally known for its hostility towards Black and brown people, threw its support behind Paul Vallas. He welcomed its endorsement and thanked “Chicago’s finest, men and women of the FOP who sacrifice their lives to make our city safer. Reducing crime and making Chicago safer are my top priorities.”

Brandon Johnson has built his public safety platform with the intention of addressing the “root causes of violence and poverty.” Johnson’s campaign for Chicago mayor is not only about the use of community control boards, but about creating an overall model of safety which positions the needs of the community at its center. Johnson argues that public safety is not only about stopping police violence but about investing in generative initiatives such as mental health care and housing.

Johnson believes these measures will prevent systemic violence from attacking Chicago communities. One of his initiatives involves getting rid of the racist “Gang Database,” which currently “labels more than 280,000 people – 95% people of color as gang members without requiring evidence of gang affiliation or informing them of their listing.” The Gang Database has been used to profile and surveil Black neighborhoods, resulting in heightened Black and Latino arrests. Johnson also supports the Anjanette Young Ordinance, which will stop no-knock warrants. He believes in collaborating with the democratically elected District Councils to manage police accountability and decide the Chicago Police Department's policy.

Each of Johnson's initiatives interconnects with the overall needs of the community, including mental health. Within mental health initiatives, Johnston aims to Launch Crisis Response Teams with non-police personnel, reopen all 14 mental health centers, and expand the 988 mental health crisis hotline to 24 hours.

The fight for Brandon Johnson is the fight for justice for the Black and Latino community In Chicago

The mayoral election between Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas will decide if the city continues the struggle for a public safety plan that includes Black and Latino Chicagoans and its working-class neighborhoods. The grassroots work of the last ten years – the struggle for democratic control of the police – could be upheld through Brandon Johnson’s leadership. For ten years, Chicagoans have fought for police accountability, affirmative mental health treatment, and housing for all community members. Many believe Brandon Johnson’s candidacy represents the work that Black Chicagoans have put toward a movement to see their own collective needs met against systemic violence.

Throughout the ten-year CPAC campaign, CAARPR created a grassroots movement that won a historic ordinance to hold the police accountable. CAARPR responds to the calls for public safety this way: “Black and brown communities are over-policed and under-protected. There’s a reason that 70% of violent crimes in our neighborhoods go unsolved. No one trusts the police. And why would they? After generations of police crimes, like the reign of torturer Jon Burge!” In the words of Frank Chapman, “We want to hold the police accountable for what they do, and what they don’t do.”

CAARPR’s current task is to uphold the advances made by the district council elections through the election of Brandon Johnson, but they will carry forth the mission toward real police accountability, in partnership with the local community, well beyond this mayoral election. We will continue to look to them as leaders in our struggle against state-sanctioned violence.

#ChicagoIL #InJusticeSystem #OppressedNationalities #US #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #Antiracism #PoliticalRepression #Elections #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #CommunityControlOfThePolice #BrandonJohnson

Tampa, FL – Hundreds came out to protest the right-wing, billionaire-funded “student group” Turning Point USA summit, July 23. The Turning Point summit featured a gaggle of reactionary, racist and chauvinistic speakers, not the least of whom was Donald Trump, looking to build momentum for a possible second presidential run.

Shouts of “shame!” echoed through downtown as speaker Laura Rodriguez from Tampa Bay Community Action Committee spoke about the conference’s police protection, stating, “They’re paying cops to protect those racists and bigots in our city.”

Rodriguez continued, “This city is in a housing crisis whether the mayor wants to accept it or not. Tampa is the fourth worst city in the nation for rent affordability.”

Who these cops protect couldn’t have been clearer than when the protest moved to the convention center where the hatefest was taking place. The bigots attacked, shoved, pushed down and assaulted protesters as cops looked on in tacit approval, intervening only when it looked like the reactionaries were in danger.

As David Jones of TBCAC described, “We sat there and watched them protect those conservatives while they were attacking us, because whose side are they on? Not ours.” The reactionaries attacked protesters as young as 11. After a tense standoff, protesters returned downtown.

The Tampa community took to the streets to let these hatemongers know that they and their brand of bigotry were not welcome. This event took place in the context of not just the repeal of Roe v. Wade, but also other state level attacks on women, African Americans, and LGBTQ folks, with Florida’s ban on abortion at 15 weeks, whitewashing the history of U.S.'s oppression and slavery, as well mandating LGBT discrimination in the education system with the “Don't Say Gay” bill.

It is no accident that this event took place in Florida – both of these bills have been the pet projects of Trump ally and potential successor, Governor Ron DeSantis, who was also in attendance. The virulent national agenda of those at the conference was to further roll back political and workers' rights, continue environmental devastation, enable attacks on women and LGBTQ folks, and suppress national liberation movements.

Speakers from a wide range of community groups attacked the agenda and attendees of the conference. Harrison Lundy, local activist and organizer with Democratic Socialists of America, said, “They get billions in dark money to keep poor people poor, to keep houseless people houseless, and keep birthing people from their autonomy, and so they’re scared to see us out here.”

The protest was hosted by Women’s Voices of Southwest Florida and Tampa Bay Community Action Committee, with speakers from Students for a Democratic Society, Democratic Socialists of America, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization. The same coalition of workers, oppressed nationalities, immigrants, LGBTQ folks and women, that united to deliver Donald Trump a crushing defeat in the 2020 election came out today, and is what is needed to continue the struggle to defeat the agenda of groups like TPUSA.

#TampaFL #ImmigrantRights #StudentMovement #InJusticeSystem #Labor #OppressedNationalities #WomensMovement #US #Antifascism #DonaldTrump #TurningPointUSATPUSA #TampaBayCommunityActionCommitteeTBCAC #AbortionRights

Los Angeles, CA – Right-wingers, racists and proponents of anti-COVID-19 measures are leading a recall election of Governor Gavin Newson. California voters will vote Yes or No on the recall and also pick who they would prefer if the recall is successful. The last day to decide is on election day, September 14.

Larry Elder, a South Central Los Angeles native who is known for his racist, elitist, sexist and homo-phobic statements, is Newson’s main threat. Elder graduated from Crenshaw High School in 1970, five years after the Watts uprisings, and at a time when the Los Angeles Police Department was once again under heavy public scrutiny. Elder is a huge Donald Trump fan and believes that racism does not exist. Among his ridiculous statements are that he fully believes in reparations, but for the descendants of the white slave owners and farmers who during slavery “lost their property,” and that the minimum hourly wage should be decreased to $0.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further divided people into two categories – those who believe measures to protect against COVID-19 must remain in place or increase, and those who believe the opposite. The recall election has a lot to do with the pandemic which began in the spring of 2020. But if Newsom is successfully recalled, and if contender Elder is elected, the Democrats will lose their longstanding hold of California.

Sometimes the enemy can look like us, like in Elder’s case. And sometimes Chicanas like us have to come out in favor of people who don’t look like us, like in Newsom’s case. The fight is also much more than about Newsom, it is also about the safety and future of the population of California – both voters and nonvoters. If Newsom loses, the Democrats lose, and California will return to being in the stronghold of racists and anti-working class people like Elder and his supporters. This cannot happen, and therefore if you can vote in California, be sure to vote No on the recall.

For vote ballot box locations in your area (instead of waiting in line during the pandemic), go here: https://lavote.net/home/voting-elections/voting-options/vote-by-mail/vbm-ballot-drop-off. We stand in solidarity with all of the working class within California who are under threat of having their minimum wages lowered to $0 an hour. Vote No.

#LosAngelesCA #US #PeoplesStruggles #Elections #GovernorGavinNewsom #CaliforniaRecallElection

The images are searing. Helicopters ferrying diplomatic personnel from the U.S. Embassy while plumes of black smoke billow from the building. Taliban fighters with heavy artillery parade through the thoroughfares of provincial capitals. The International Airport, still under U.S. control, is in chaos as collaborators try storm planes to flee the country. In the space of a few weeks the puppet government collapsed, and its figureheads have vanished. The decades of occupation have come to an end. Those that fought to end it now sit at the former president’s desk.

The U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan was never the right thing to do. The events of September 11, 2001 served as a pretext for the war on Afghanistan, a war that was cruel and unjust. Before the troops arrived, U.S. planes unleashed bombs on the country’s cities, destroying hospitals clearly marked with red crosses on the roofs. The invasion came with the brutality of a medieval crusade – marked by torture and summary executions. The U.S. and its accomplices always treated the Afghan people as the enemy. That is why we are seeing what we are seeing. The vast majority of the Afghan people welcome the expulsion of the foreign occupiers.

The occupation was never about helping people. It was about the domination of a strategic region of the world that is rich with resources. Nothing complicated about it. Empires doing what they always do – help themselves to land, labor and natural resources of others.

At the end of the day, and the end of the occupation, the Taliban are in fact a national liberation movement. A movement with real defects, largely lacking an agenda of social liberation that is product of a long historical process, which includes U.S. intervention to defeat the left in Afghanistan. That said, the people of Afghanistan have the right to determine their own destiny free of imperial arrogance.

The main way for assessing any movement for national liberation is by asking and answering the question, “does it weaken imperialism?” Undoubtably monopoly capitalism, or imperialism, was just handed a setback in Afghanistan. The rich and powerful who rule the U.S. rob people aboard and they rob us here at home. What is bad for them, is good for the rest of us. Their setbacks bring us closer to freedom.

President Biden heading out of Afghanistan is not a mistake – it is the recognition of reality. The U.S., along with the other Western powers, were defeated long ago, and we are witnessing the end of that process.

There is something fundamental going on here – U.S. imperialism is in a period of decline, and that decline is accelerating. In Latin America, Cuba and Venezuela are standing strong, and others are joining in. The Palestinian resistance is picking up steam, along with the other resistance movements across the Mideast. The revolutionary struggle in the Philippines is growing. Socialist China grows more powerful. The world is changing.

The outstanding Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong remarked, “Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality, it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality, it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger.”

That is where we are at today. People everywhere, including here at home, are tired of the obnoxious elite that rules the U.S. The paper tiger, monopoly capitalism, can and will be defeated. It will take time, but time is on our side.

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #Obama #Afghanistan #PeoplesStruggles #taliban #Bush #Trump #US #Biden #Asia

But this is unlikely, given all the shortages showing up in the economy. Shortages of computer chips have slowed car production. Shortages of lumber are crimping housing construction and driving up prices.

One thing that is not rising rapidly are wages, with a gain of 2% over the last year. This is less than half the overall inflation rate for consumers reported in April of 4.2%. This means that the actual purchasing power of workers’ wages are going down on average.

Nevertheless, businesses across the country are complaining about a shortage of labor, even as they drag their feet on increasing wages, in an effort to further fatten their bottom line. The big corporations and the richest 1% made out like bandits during the recession, and now they are doing the same.

Businesses are showing their control of both political parties, as 25 Republican-led states are ending the $300 a week supplement to unemployment benefits and also the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA for the self-employed and gig workers. President Joe Biden defended their “right” to end the aid and emphasized that they are temporary programs.

But the PUA in particular is needed as a permanent program, as a growing number of businesses like Uber and Lyft convert their workforce to “independent contractors” to save on taxes and benefits. These workers are not covered by traditional unemployment insurance, and the PUA actually is paying benefits to more jobless workers than the regular state unemployment program.

Last month, when the job creation number was only about one-quarter of what economists predicted, businesses launched a campaign to blame unemployment benefits. This month, with twice as many jobs created, they are still singing the same tune. What they really want is to reduce unemployment benefits as much as possible to force the jobless to work for lower wages. Another sign of the businesses chasing lower wages is that the unemployment rate for teenagers fell to a historic low in records going back to 1953.

The same jobs report also said that the official national unemployment rate fell in May to 5.8%, from 6.1% in April. While most of this improvement came from the unemployed finding jobs, almost one-third came from people leaving the labor force by giving up their search for a job. Over the last three months the unemployment rate has only dropped by 0.2%. At this rate is would take almost three years to get the rate down to the pre-recession level of 3.5% last seen in February 2020.

The official unemployment rate understates the economic hardship workers have faced. Counting all the people who have given up looking for working or working, the unemployment rate would be closer to 7.6%, more than twice the level before the recession. The rising tide of job creation, as usual, is very unequal, with Latinos and African Americans having unemployment rates 50 to 100% more than that of whites.

Another challenge for jobless workers is that the federal eviction moratorium is ending on June 30. More than 10 million tenants are behind on their rent and could face evictions once this protection is dropped. The federal government is spending billions to try to aid tenants and landlords. But not only is the amount too little; only part of the money has been spent. A handful of states have enacted their own moratoriums but many more will need to do this.

#SanJoséCA #US #PeoplesStruggles #IndigenousPeoples #MasaoSuzuki #economy #PandemicUnemploymentBenefitsPUA

To mark the 151st birthday, April 22, of the outstanding revolutionary V.I. Lenin, Fight Back News Service is circulating his famous article ‘Letter to American Workers.’

Comrades! A Russian Bolshevik who took part in the 1905 Revolution, and who lived in your country for many years afterwards, has offered to convey my letter to you. I have accepted his proposal all the more gladly because just at the present time the American revolutionary workers have to play an exceptionally important role as uncompromising enemies of American imperialism—the freshest, strongest and latest in joining in the world-wide slaughter of nations for the division of capitalist profits. At this very moment, the American multimillionaires, these modern slaveowners have turned an exceptionally tragic page in the bloody history of bloody imperialism by giving their approval—whether direct or indirect, open or hypocritically concealed, makes no difference—to the armed expedition launched by the brutal Anglo-Japanese imperialists for the purpose of throttling the first socialist republic.

The history of modern, civilized America opened with one of those great, really liberating, really revolutionary wars of which there have been so few compared to the vast number of wars of conquest which, like the present imperialist war, were caused by squabbles among kings, landowners or capitalists over the division of usurped lands or ill-gotten gains. That was the war the American people waged against the British robbers who oppressed America and held her in colonial slavery, in the same way as these “civilized” bloodsuckers are still oppressing and holding in colonial slavery hundreds of millions of people in India, Egypt, and all parts of the world.

About 150 years have passed since then. Bourgeois civilization has borne all its luxurious fruits. America has taken first place among the free and educated nations in level of development of the productive forces of collective human endeavor, in the utilization of machinery and of all the wonders of modern engineering. At the same time, America has become one of the foremost countries in regard to the depth of the abyss which lies between the handful of arrogant multimillionaires who wallow in filth and luxury, and the millions of working people who constantly live on the verge of pauperism. The American people, who set the world an example in waging a revolutionary war against feudal slavery, now find themselves in the latest, capitalist stage of wage-slavery to a handful of multimillionaires, and find themselves playing the role of hired thugs who, for the benefit of wealthy scoundrels, throttled the Philippines in 1898 on the pretext of “liberating” them, and are throttling the Russian Socialist Republic in 1918 on the pretext of “protecting” it from the Germans.

The four years of the imperialist slaughter of nations, however, have not passed in vain. The deception of the people by the scoundrels of both robber groups, the British and the German, has been utterly exposed by indisputable and obvious facts. The results of the four years of war have revealed the general law of capitalism as applied to war between robbers for the division of spoils: the richest and strongest profited and grabbed most, while the weakest were utterly robbed, tormented, crushed and strangled.

The British imperialist robbers were the strongest in number of “colonial slaves”. The British capitalists have not lost an inch of “their” territory (i.e., territory they have grabbed over the centuries), but they have grabbed all the German colonies in Africa, they have grabbed Mesopotamia and Palestine, they have throttled Greece, and have begun to plunder Russia.

The German imperialist robbers were the strongest in organization and discipline of “their” armies, but weaker in regard to colonies. They have lost all their colonies, but plundered half of Europe and throttled the largest number of small countries and weak nations. What a great war of “liberation” on both sides! How well the robbers of both groups, the Anglo-French and the German capitalists, together with their lackeys, the social-chauvinists, i.e., the socialists who went over to the side of “their own” bourgeoisie, have “defended their country”!

The American multimillionaires were, perhaps, richest of all, and geographically the most secure. They have profited more than all the rest. They have converted all, even the richest, countries into their tributaries. They have grabbed hundreds of billions of dollars. And every dollar is sullied with filth: the filth of the secret treaties between Britain and her “allies”, between Germany and her vassals, treaties for the division of the spoils, treaties of mutual “aid” for oppressing the workers and persecuting the internationalist socialists. Every dollar is sullied with the filth of “profitable” war contracts, which in every country made the rich richer and the poor poorer. And every dollar is stained with blood—from that ocean of blood that has been shed by the ten million killed and twenty million maimed in the great, noble, liberating and holy war to decide whether the British or the German robbers are to get most of the spoils, whether the British or the German thugs are to be foremost in throttling the weak nations all over the world.

While the German robbers broke all records in war atrocities, the British have broken all records not only in the number of colonies they have grabbed, but also in the subtlety of their disgusting hypocrisy. This very day, the Anglo-French and American bourgeois newspapers are spreading, in millions and millions of copies, lies and slander about Russia, and are hypocritically justifying their predatory expedition against her on the plea that they want to “protect” Russia from the Germans!

It does not require many words to refute this despicable and hideous lie; it is sufficient to point to one well-known fact. In October 1917, after the Russian workers had overthrown their imperialist government, the Soviet government, the government of the revolutionary workers and peasants, openly proposed a just peace, a peace without annexations or indemnities, a peace that fully guaranteed equal rights to all nations—and it proposed such a peace to all the belligerent countries.

It was the Anglo-French and the American bourgeoisie who refused to accept our proposal; it was they who even refused to talk to us about a general peace! It was they who betrayed the interests of all nations; it was they who prolonged the imperialist slaughter!

It was they who, banking on the possibility of dragging Russia back into the imperialist war, refused to take part in the peace negotiations and thereby gave a free hand to the no less predatory German capitalists who imposed the annexationist and harsh Brest Peace upon Russia!

It is difficult to imagine anything more disgusting than the hypocrisy with which the Anglo-French and American bourgeoisie are now “blaming” us for the Brest Peace Treaty. The very capitalists of those countries which could have turned the Brest negotiations into general negotiations for a general peace are now our “accusers”! The Anglo-French imperialist vultures, who have profited from the plunder of colonies and the slaughter of nations, have prolonged the war for nearly a whole year after Brest, and yet they “accuse” us, the Bolsheviks, who proposed a just peace to all countries, they accuse us, who tore up, published and exposed to public disgrace the secret, criminal treaties concluded between the ex-tsar and the Anglo-French capitalists.

The workers of the whole world, no matter in what country they live, greet us, sympathise with us, applaud us for breaking the iron ring of imperialist ties, of sordid imperialist treaties, of imperialist chains—for breaking through to freedom, and making the heaviest sacrifices in doing so—for, as a socialist republic, although torn and plundered by the imperialists, keeping out of the imperialist war and raising the banner of peace, the banner of socialism for the whole world to see.

Small wonder that the international imperialist gang hates us for this, that it “accuses” us, that all the lackeys of the imperialists, including our Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, also “accuse” us. The hatred these watchdogs of imperialism express for the Bolsheviks, and the sympathy of the class-conscious workers of the world, convince us more than ever of the justice of our cause.

A real socialist would not fail to understand that for the sake of achieving victory over the bourgeoisie, for the sake of power passing to the workers, for the sake of starting the world proletarian revolution, we cannot and must not hesitate to make the heaviest sacrifices, including the sacrifice of part of our territory, the sacrifice of heavy defeats at the hands of imperialism. A real socialist would have proved by deeds his willingness for “his” country to make the greatest sacrifice to give a real push forward to the cause of the socialist revolution.

For the sake of “their” cause, that is, for the sake of winning world hegemony, the imperialists of Britain and Germany have not hesitated to utterly ruin and throttle a whole number of countries, from Belgium and Serbia to Palestine and Mesopotamia. But must socialists wait with “their” cause, the cause of liberating the working people of the whole world from the yoke of capital, of winning universal and lasting peace, until a path without sacrifice is found? Must they fear to open the battle until an easy victory is “guaranteed”? Must they place the integrity and security of “their” bourgeois-created “fatherland” above the interests of the world socialist revolution? The scoundrels in the international socialist movement who think this way, those lackeys who grovel to bourgeois morality, thrice stand condemned.

The Anglo-French and American imperialist vultures “accuse” us of concluding an “agreement” with German imperialism. What hypocrites, what scoundrels they are to slander the workers’ government while trembling because of the sympathy displayed towards us by the workers of “their own” countries! But their hypocrisy will be exposed. They pretend not to see the difference between an agreement entered into by “socialists” with the bourgeoisie (their own or foreign) against the workers, against the working people, and an agreement entered into for the protection of the workers who have defeated their bourgeoisie, with the bourgeoisie of one national color against the bourgeoisie of another color in order that the proletariat may take advantage of the antagonisms between the different groups of bourgeoisie.

In actual fact, every European sees this difference very well, and, as I shall show in a moment, the American people have had a particularly striking “illustration” of it in their own history. There are agreements and agreements, there are fagots et fagots, as the French say.

When in February 1918 the German imperialist vultures hurled their forces against unarmed, demobilized Russia, who had relied on the international solidarity of the proletariat before the world revolution had fully matured, I did not hesitate for a moment to enter into an “agreement” with the French monarchists. Captain Sadoul, a French army officer who, in words, sympathized with the Bolsheviks, but was in deeds a loyal and faithful servant of French imperialism, brought the French officer de Lubersac to see me. “I am a monarchist. My only aim is to secure the defeat of Germany,” de Lubersac declared to me. “That goes without saying (cela va sans dire ),” I replied. But this did not in the least prevent me from entering into an “agreement” with de Lubersac concerning certain services that French army officers, experts in explosives, were ready to render us by blowing up railway lines in order to hinder the German invasion. This is an example of an “agreement” of which every class-conscious worker will approve, an agreement in the interests of socialism. The French monarchist and I shook hands, although we knew that each of us would willingly hang his “partner”. But for a time our interests coincided. Against the advancing rapacious Germans, we, in the interests of the Russian and the world socialist revolution, utilized the equally rapacious counter-interests of other imperialists. In this way we served the interests of the working class of Russia and of other countries, we strengthened the proletariat and weakened the bourgeoisie of the whole world, we resorted to the methods, most legitimate and essential in every war, of manoeuvre, stratagem, retreat, in anticipation of the moment when the rapidly maturing proletarian revolution in a number of advanced countries completely matured.

However much the Anglo-French and American imperialist sharks fume with rage, however much they slander us, no matter how many millions they spend on bribing the Right Socialist-Revolutionary, Menshevik and other social-patriotic newspapers, I shall not hesitate one second to enter into a similar “agreement” with the German imperialist vultures if an attack upon Russia by Anglo-French troops calls for it. And I know perfectly well that my tactics will be approved by the class-conscious proletariat of Russia, Germany, France, Britain, America—in short, of the whole civilized world. Such tactics will ease the task of the socialist revolution, will hasten it, will weaken the international bourgeoisie, will strengthen the position of the working class which is defeating the bourgeoisie.

The American people resorted to these tactics long ago to the advantage of their revolution. When they waged their great war of liberation against the British oppressors, they had also against them the French and the Spanish oppressors who owned a part of what is now the United States of North America. In their arduous war for freedom, the American people also entered into “agreements” with some oppressors against others for the purpose of weakening the oppressors and strengthening those who were fighting in a revolutionary manner against oppression, for the purpose of serving the interests of the oppressed people. The American people took advantage of the strife between the French, the Spanish and the British; sometimes they even fought side by side with the forces of the French and Spanish oppressors against the British oppressors; first they defeated the British and then freed themselves (partly by ransom) from the French and the Spanish.

Historical action is not the pavement of Nevsky Prospekt, said the great Russian revolutionary Chernyshevsky.[ A revolutionary would not “agree” to a proletarian revolution only “on the condition” that it proceeds easily and smoothly, that there is, from the outset, combined action on the part of the proletarians of different countries, that there are guarantees against defeats, that the road of the revolution is broad, free and straight, that it will not be necessary during the march to victory to sustain the heaviest casualties, to “bide one’s time in a besieged fortress”, or to make one’s way along extremely narrow, impassable, winding and dangerous mountain tracks. Such a person is no revolutionary, he has not freed himself from the pedantry of the bourgeois intellectuals; such a person will be found constantly slipping into the camp of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, like our Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and even (although more rarely) Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Echoing the bourgeoisie, these gentlemen like to blame us for the “chaos” of the revolution, for the “destruction” of industry, for the unemployment and the food shortage. How hypocritical these accusations are, coming from those who welcomed and supported the imperialist war, or who entered into an “agreement” with Kerensky who continued this war! It is this imperialist war that is the cause of all these misfortunes. The revolution engendered by the war cannot avoid the terrible difficulties and suffering bequeathed it by the prolonged, ruinous, reactionary slaughter of the nations. To blame us for the “destruction” of industry, or for the “terror”, is either hypocrisy or dull-witted pedantry; it reveals an inability to understand the basic conditions of the fierce class struggle, raised to the highest degree of intensity that is called revolution.

Even when “accusers” of this type do “recognize” the class struggle, they limit themselves to verbal recognition; actually, they constantly slip into the philistine utopia of class “agreement” and “collaboration”; for in revolutionary epochs the class struggle has always, inevitably, and in every country, assumed the form of civil war, and civil war is inconceivable without the severest destruction, terror and the restriction of formal democracy in the interests of this war. Only unctuous parsons—whether Christian or “secular” in the persons of parlor, parliamentary socialists— cannot see, understand and feel this necessity. Only a lifeless “man in the muffler” can shun the revolution for this reason instead of plunging into battle with the utmost ardor and determination at a time when history demands that the greatest problems of humanity be solved by struggle and war.

The American people have a revolutionary tradition which has been adopted by the best representatives of the American proletariat, who have repeatedly expressed their complete solidarity with us Bolsheviks. That tradition is the war of liberation against the British in the eighteenth century and the Civil War in the nineteenth century. In some respects, if we only take into consideration the “destruction” of some branches of industry and of the national economy, America in 1870 was behind 1860. But what a pedant, what an idiot would anyone be to deny on these grounds the immense, world-historic, progressive and revolutionary significance of the American Civil War of 1863-65!

The representatives of the bourgeoisie understand that for the sake of overthrowing Negro slavery, of overthrowing the rule of the slaveowners, it was worth letting the country go through long years of civil war, through the abysmal ruin, destruction and terror that accompany every war. But now, when we are confronted with the vastly greater task of overthrowing capitalist wage-slavery, of overthrowing the rule of the bourgeoisie—now, the representatives and defenders of the bourgeoisie, and also the reformist socialists who have been frightened by the bourgeoisie and are shunning the revolution, cannot and do not want to understand that civil war is necessary and legitimate.

The American workers will not follow the bourgeoisie. They will be with us, for civil war against the bourgeoisie. The whole history of the world and of the American labor movement strengthens my conviction that this is so. I also recall the words of one of the most beloved leaders of the American proletariat, Eugene Debs, who wrote in the Appeal to Reason, I believe towards the end of 1915, in the article “What Shall I Fight For” (I quoted this article at the beginning of 1916 at a public meeting of workers in Berne, Switzerland)—that he, Debs, would rather be shot than vote credits for the present criminal and reactionary war; that he, Debs, knows of only one holy and, from the proletarian standpoint, legitimate war, namely: the war against the capitalists, the war to liberate mankind from wage-slavery.

I am not surprised that Wilson, the head of the American multimillionaires and servant of the capitalist sharks, has thrown Debs into prison. Let the bourgeoisie be brutal to the true internationalists, to the true representatives of the revolutionary proletariat! The more fierce and brutal they are, the nearer the day of the victorious proletarian revolution.

We are blamed for the destruction caused by our revolution. . . . Who are the accusers? The hangers-on of the bourgeoisie, of that very bourgeoisie who, during the four years of the imperialist war, have destroyed almost the whole of European culture and have reduced Europe to barbarism, brutality and starvation. These bourgeoisie now demand we should not make a revolution on these ruins, amidst this wreckage of culture, amidst the wreckage and ruins created by the war, nor with the people who have been brutalized by the war. How humane and righteous the bourgeoisie are!

Their servants accuse us of resorting to terror. . . . The British bourgeoisie have forgotten their 1649, the French bourgeoisie have forgotten their 1793. Terror was just and legitimate when the bourgeoisie resorted to it for their own benefit against feudalism. Terror became monstrous and criminal when the workers and poor peasants dared to use it against the bourgeoisie! Terror was just and legitimate when used for the purpose of substituting one exploiting minority for another exploiting minority. Terror became monstrous and criminal when it began to be used for the purpose of overthrowing every exploiting minority, to be used in the interests of the vast actual majority, in the interests of the proletariat and semi-proletariat, the working class and the poor peasants!

The international imperialist bourgeoisie have slaughtered ten million men and maimed twenty million in “their” war, the war to decide whether the British or the German vultures are to rule the world.

If our war, the war of the oppressed and exploited against the oppressors and the exploiters, results in half a million or a million casualties in all countries, the bourgeoisie will say that the former casualties are justified, while the latter are criminal.

The proletariat will have something entirely different to say.

Now, amidst the horrors of the imperialist war, the proletariat is receiving a most vivid and striking illustration of the great truth taught by all revolutions and bequeathed to the workers by their best teachers, the founders of modern socialism. This truth is that no revolution can be successful unless the resistance of the exploiters is crushed. When we, the workers and toiling peasants, captured state power, it became our duty to crush the resistance of the exploiters. We are proud we have been doing this. We regret we are not doing it with sufficient firmness and determination.

We know that fierce resistance to the socialist revolution on the part of the bourgeoisie is inevitable in all countries, and that this resistance will grow with the growth of this revolution. The proletariat will crush this resistance; during the struggle against the resisting bourgeoisie it will finally mature for victory and for power.

Let the corrupt bourgeois press shout to the whole world about every mistake our revolution makes. We are not daunted by our mistakes. People have not become saints because the revolution has begun. The toiling classes who for centuries have been oppressed, downtrodden and forcibly held in the vice of poverty, brutality and ignorance cannot avoid mistakes when making a revolution. And, as I pointed out once before, the corpse of bourgeois society cannot be nailed in a coffin and buried. The corpse of capitalism is decaying and disintegrating in our midst, polluting the air and poisoning our lives, enmeshing that which is new, fresh, young and virile in thousands of threads and bonds of that which is old, moribund and decaying.

For every hundred mistakes we commit, and which the bourgeoisie and their lackeys (including our own Mensheviks and Right Socialist-Revolutionaries) shout about to the whole world, 10,000 great and heroic deeds are performed, greater and more heroic because they are simple and inconspicuous amidst the everyday life of a factory district or a remote village, performed by people who are not accustomed (and have no opportunity) to shout to the whole world about their successes.

But even if the contrary were true—although I know such an assumption is wrong—even if we committed 10,000 mistake for every 100 correct actions we performed, even in that case our revolution would be great and invincible, and so it will be in the eyes of world history, because, for the first time, not the minority, not the rich alone, not the educated alone, but the real people, the vast majority of the working people, are themselves building a new life, are by their own experience solving the most difficult problems of socialist organization.

Every mistake committed in the course of such work, in the course of this most conscientious and earnest work of tens of millions of simple workers and peasants in reorganizing their whole life, every such mistake is worth thousands and millions of “lawless” successes achieved by the exploiting minority—successes in swindling and duping the working people. For only through such mistakes will the workers and peasants learn to build the new life, learn to do without capitalists; only in this way will they hack a path for themselves—through thousands of obstacles—to victorious socialism.

Mistakes are being committed in the course of their revolutionary work by our peasants, who at one stroke, in one night, October 25-26 (old style), 1917, entirely abolished the private ownership of land, and are now, month after month, overcoming tremendous difficulties and correcting their mistakes themselves, solving in a practical way the most difficult tasks of organizing new conditions of economic life, of fighting the kulaks, providing land for the working people (and not for the rich), and of changing to communist large-scale agriculture.

Mistakes are being committed in the course of their revolutionary work by our workers, who have already, after a few months, nationalized almost all the biggest factories and plants, and are learning by hard, everyday work the new task of managing whole branches of industry, are setting the nationalized enterprises going, overcoming the powerful resistance of inertia, petty-bourgeois mentality and selfishness, and, brick by brick, are laying the foundation of new social ties, of a new labor discipline, of a new influence of the workers’ trade unions over their members.

Mistakes are committed in the course of their revolutionary work by our Soviets, which were created as far back as 1905 by a mighty upsurge of the people. The Soviets of Workers and Peasants are a new type of state, a new and higher type of democracy, a form of the proletarian dictatorship, a means of administering the state without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie. For the first time democracy is here serving the people, the working people, and has ceased to be democracy for the rich as it still is in all bourgeois republics, even the most democratic. For the first time, the people are grappling, on a scale involving one hundred million, with the problem of implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat and semi-proletariat—a problem which, if not solved, makes socialism out of the question.

Let the pedants, or the people whose minds are incurably stuffed with bourgeois-democratic or parliamentary prejudices, shake their heads in perplexity about our Soviets, about the absence of direct elections, for example. These people have forgotten nothing and have learned nothing during the period of the great upheavals of 1914-18. The combination of the proletarian dictatorship with the new democracy for the working people—of civil war with the widest participation of the people in politics—such a combination cannot be brought about at one stroke, nor does it fit in with the outworn modes of routine parliamentary democracy. The contours of a new world, the world of socialism, are rising before us in the shape of the Soviet Republic. It is not surprising that this world does not come into being ready-made, does not spring forth like Minerva from the head of Jupiter.

The old bourgeois-democratic constitutions waxed eloquent about formal equality and right of assembly; but our proletarian and peasant Soviet Constitution casts aside the hypocrisy of formal equality. When the bourgeois republicans overturned thrones they did not worry about formal equality between monarchists and republicans. When it is a matter of overthrowing the bourgeoisie, only traitors or idiots can demand formal equality of rights for the bourgeoisie. “Freedom of assembly” for workers and peasants is not worth a farthing when the best buildings belong to the bourgeoisie. Our Soviets have confiscated all the good buildings in town and country from the rich and have transferred all of them to the workers and peasants for their unions and meetings. This is our freedom of assembly—for the working people! This is the meaning and content of our Soviet, our socialist Constitution!

That is why we are all so firmly convinced that no matter what misfortunes may still be in store for it, our Republic of Soviets is invincible.

It is invincible because every blow struck by frenzied imperialism, every defeat the international bourgeoisie inflict on us, rouses more and more sections of the workers and peasants to the struggle, teaches them at the cost of enormous sacrifice, steels them and engenders new heroism on a mass scale.

We know that help from you will probably not come soon, comrade American workers, for the revolution is developing in different countries in different forms and at different tempos (and it cannot be otherwise). We know that although the European proletarian revolution has been maturing very rapidly lately, it may, after all, not flare up within the next few weeks. We are banking on the inevitability of the world revolution, but this does not mean that we are such fools as to bank on the revolution inevitably coming on a definite and early date. We have seen two great revolutions in our country, 1905 and 1917, and we know revolutions are not made to order, or by agreement. We know that circumstances brought our Russian detachment of the socialist proletariat to the fore not because of our merits, but because of the exceptional backwardness of Russia, and that before the world revolution breaks out a number of separate revolutions may be defeated.

In spite of this, we are firmly convinced that we are invincible, because the spirit of mankind will not be broken by the imperialist slaughter. Mankind will vanquish it. And the first country to break the convict chains of the imperialist war was our country. We sustained enormously heavy casualties in the struggle to break these chains, but we broke them. We are free from imperialist dependence, we have raised the banner of struggle for the complete overthrow of imperialism for the whole world to see.

We are now, as it were, in a besieged fortress, waiting for the other detachments of the world socialist revolution to come to our relief. These detachments exist, they are more numerous than ours, they are maturing, growing, gaining more strength the longer the brutalities of imperialism continue. The workers are breaking away from their social traitors—the Gomperses, Hendersons, Renaudels, Scheidemanns and Renners. Slowly but surely the workers are adopting communist, Bolshevik tactics and are marching towards the proletarian revolution, which alone is capable of saving dying culture and dying mankind.

In short, we are invincible, because the world proletarian revolution is invincible.

#UnitedStates #Labor #Socialism #US #PeoplesStruggles #MarxismLeninism #VladimirLenin

Chicago, IL – Karl Marx observed over a 150 years ago that “the biggest thing happening in the world today are on the one hand the movement of the slaves in America started by the death of John Brown and on the other the movement of the serfs in Russia.”

According to Marx, the defining event leading up to the Civil War was not the Slaveholders’ Rebellion announced by the cannon fire on Fort Sumter but the raid on Harpers Ferry led by John Brown and Shields Green – a Black and white band of abolitionists. In other words, the movement of the slaves inspired by Harpers Ferry, and the election of a president – Lincoln – who was opposed to the unbridled expansion of chattel slavery, were the indispensable preconditions for Civil War.

In a certain sense the movement of the slaves was already fermenting revolution. The secession of the slave states was really a counter-revolution before the revolution. This is precisely why Marx characterized the secession as the “Slaveholders’ Rebellion.” He understood that what the South was fighting for was the liberty to enslave Black people and to turn the United States into a slave republic.

Marx writes that “the North, after a long hesitation and an exhibition of forbearance unknown in the annals of European history, drew at last the sword not for crushing slavery, but for saving the union, the South, on its part, inaugurated the war by loudly proclaiming ‘the peculiar institution’ as the only and main end of the rebellion. It confessed to fighting for the liberty of enslaving other people...”

Harriet Beecher Stowe also clearly stated the aims of the slaveholders, said she: “The slave party, finding they could no longer use the Union for their purposes, resolved to destroy it.”

The slave party, in alliance with the northern Democratic Party and its precursors, had a diplomatic history of one compromise after another, from inscribing in the Constitution that Black people were three-fifths human, to the Fugitive Slave Acts, to the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, and right on up until the Union was made the “slave of the slaveholder.”

War was inevitable because the slave party was hell bent on removing every legal barrier to the expansion of slavery into the territories. The movement of slaves and their allies were uniting with the “Free Soilers” to stop the expansion of slavery. Now it became a question for the South not only to taint the democratic institutions of the North and Northwest with the stench of slavery but to overturn the democratic institutions all together. The war waged by the South was not a war of defense but a war of conquest.

Hence a new era of revolutionary struggle is born in the raid on Harpers Ferry and the blast of cannon fire on Fort Sumpter.

Marx understood, way before Lincoln or before anyone except for Frederick Douglas and the revolutionary abolitionists, that not only was this a war fought for slavery; he recognized the revolutionary role of the slaves in winning the war and ending slavery. Being that he gave detailed attention to the movement of the slaves and the program of liberation of Black people, he supported their demands for emancipation, the right to bear arms, the demands for land and social equality.

Once the Emancipation Proclamation was issued and freed slaves were inducted into the armed services, Marx and the revolutionary abolitionists knew that the death knell of slavery had been sounded – that the Civil War had went from being a constitutional war aimed at keeping slavery in the Union to a revolutionary war aimed at smashing the Slaveholders’ Rebellion, thus liberating the slaves.

I have taken the liberty of sharing Marx’s analysis of how the Slaveholders’ Rebellion had to be defeated by revolutionary means, bringing about Black liberation, because I believe this can help us in understanding what needs to be done today.

There has been a lot of popcorn analyses comparing the events of January 6, when white supremacists stormed the Capitol, with the launching of the Civil War in 1861. This is because the Civil War was also clearly a fight for the ‘liberty’ to enslave our people. And like the white supremacists then, Trump and his crew were hell bent on ignoring every barrier prohibiting them from wielding power.

Since the overthrow of Reconstruction, i.e., the ending by violence and terror the revolutionary gains of the Civil War, there is a whole other history of alliances and compromises between the old former slaveholding South and the high finance northern capitalist to continue the oppression and super-exploitation of Black people. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution – abolishing slavery, granting citizenship as a birth right, equal protection of rights and the right to vote – were kept on paper but not fully enforced ‘til this day.

The white supremacist attempted coup on January 6 had the explicit aim of overturning the presidential election of November 3, 2020 by disenfranchising millions of Black and brown voters. It is not enough that the ultra-right has already reversed affirmative action and gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, they want the total use of government to enforce their extremist white racist agenda. They want undisputed power to continue police tyranny in our communities, to perpetrate mass incarceration as the New Jim Crow, to plunder the national treasury, give tax cuts for the rich and budget cuts for the poor and so on. When the masses rise up and fight back not only with protests in the streets but in the electoral arena at the ballot box, the MAGA white supremacist thugs are unleashed by their commander in chief against the very government that up to now has been loyal to them and has given their leader, Trump, unprecedented executive power.

This is not 1861. This 2021, but we live in the shadow of the unfinished revolution started by the last Civil War. To go forward we must muster the masses the get Trump and his racist regime out, we must do so while at the same time firmly and unequivocally putting forth an agenda for Black, and Chicano/Latino liberation, along with a class struggle agenda for hundreds of thousands of workers who are dying and suffering from this COVID-19 health crisis and economic devastation

It is incumbent on us to demand that Congress must end this white-supremacist revolt, by fully restoring the Voting Rights Act, expanding the Civil Rights Act to mandate that Black and brown people have the right to determine who polices their communities and how their communities are policed and to defund the police. They must end mass incarceration and grant reparations for the slavery and genocide perpetrated against our people. We don't just want Trump and his cohorts held accountable, we want to end this racist tyranny with Black liberation.

#ChicagoIL #InJusticeSystem #OppressedNationalities #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #Antiracism #Us #Socialism #Antifascism #impeachment #Marx #CivilWar

U.S. role in the world and its election

In spite of its decline as the superpower of the world, the United States continues to be the major imperial power of the planet. Its economic and military power allows the U.S. to influence and to even directly intervene in crucial scenarios of the world.

It is inevitable then, that most major mass media outlets of the world, as well as the world’s citizens, closely follow electoral processes in the U.S. In fact, after the November 3, 2020 election, street protests against police killings continue and there is no remedy at hand for the gross human rights violations in U.S. cities. Imperial brutality and discrimination against oppressed nationalities, especially African American, Chicano and Latino people have enjoyed impunity for a long, long time.

Uncertain elections?

Election day passed, and people were expecting to obtain the final results of the election during the early hours of November 4. Experts and polling companies were offering their initial numbers and percentages with arrogance and certainty, as if coming back from the future to tell us what is going to happen.

Fact is, Trump, trying to discourage participation in the electoral process, began calling it a fraud even before November 3, and many days after he continues to tweet “I won the election.” What happened? Why the uncertainty and the delays?

U.S. elections are a very sloppy process, with almost as many procedures and regulations as states composing the union. Although it is a national election, there are neither national standards nor a national electoral council to lead and supervise it, like in Venezuela. Every state carries out the election with its own technology, procedures, methods, and verification and security standards.

Does this aid and abet Trump’s electoral fraud claims?

The United States is one of the most technologically advanced countries, nevertheless, the human factor is a fundamental aspect of its electoral processes. Why?

In another country with one of the most advanced electoral systems in the world, Venezuela, the vote for president is universal, direct and secret. There is no “Electoral College” like the U.S. Nobody elects a body, which in turn elects the president. Instead, voters receive a confidential confirmation of their vote, that is used in the after-election audits to verify the electronic results that voting machines produce. The National Electoral Council uses technology to cut down on fraud. They use a mandatory fingerprint reader to activate the voting machine and to allow for a one voter, one vote policy. It is difficult to beat.

In Venezuela, all political parties participate in software and hardware audits of the voting machines; they also audit energy backup systems, data transmission and protocols. Procedures are also implemented to safeguard secrecy while using the voting machine. The National Electoral Council in Venezuela works with all parties, but is independent of them, its own branch of government, like the judicial, legislative or executive branch.

In the United States, elections are indirect, because as Alexander Hamilton argued in his writings (see Federalist papers #68), the Electoral College was “most likely to have the information and discernment” to make a good choice and to avoid the election of anyone “not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” Neither Hamilton, nor any of the wealthy members of the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, 49% of who were slave owners, trusted the popular vote.

Today of course, women, African Americans and working people can vote, but because of the lack of a unified national electoral system, men like Trump can still take advantage and disavow the process, distracting attention from his own defeat and faults. Even with evidence lacking.

What Trump claims appeals to some people’s fears. There are potential weaknesses and heavy dependency on human factors throughout the U.S. electoral processes, but there are also cultural traditions that allow for the system to work. In the United States there is a tradition of respect for other people’s mail, and property. Violators are heavily punished.

Trump’s claims of fraud run counter to these traditions, and he has not been able to present any proof. If any tampering with the election arises, like during the Bush “hanging chad” election in 2000, it is likely to be on every news station, and in court.

From my perspective, the African American vote played a fundamental role in Trump’s defeat. It is very important to understand that in the near future, African Americans, Chicanos and other oppressed nationality peoples will be the majority around 2050. It is not my belief that race determines ideology, but in a racist country, it is a significant fact.

African Americans together with antifascist and other progressive organizations are leading the struggle currently taking place in the United States against ruthless repression, systemic racism and the extrajudicial executions of defenseless civilians. All in the midst of a hyper-criminalization of the right to protest, secret military maneuvers in the underground of U.S. big cities, militarization of the police forces, bolstered state surveillance of activists, support for emboldened neo-Nazis and other right-wing paramilitary forces.

What is the role of the Chicano and Latino vote in Biden’s victory?

It is complicated. Latin Americans in the United States lack a common project of their own. They are a quilt of different nationalities, cultures, traditions, languages and accents, and also political beliefs. The U.S. government treats people very differently, so colonized Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, while Cubans had privileged immigration status until 2017. However, most immigrants go through a lengthy process, sometimes ten years, to obtain their citizenship and to be able to vote.

Wealthy and middle-class South Americans find it easy to obtain a legal status or are quickly made U.S. citizens. They either ignore or reject the Latin American project of unity proposed by Simon Bolivar, and restarted by Chavez, Castro and others at the beginning of this century. For most of them, there is no alternative for the region but to be a dependent on U.S. imperialism. As long as they are making money, they are fine, even if it means supporting Latin American dictators like Pinochet, Somoza, Stroessner and Videla, among others. They support and even call for U.S. invasions and support sanctions, blockades and other measures to cause hardship on people and to try to subdue countries like Cuba and Venezuela.

Mexicans are by far the biggest nationality in the United States, contributing to the growing Chicano nationality. They are right at the current border, and they have been crossing it for centuries. They were inside the territory the United States stole from Mexico, and pretty much in every big city across the U.S. nowadays. About 5 million lack legal permission to reside in the United States. Mexicans and people from Central America are the ones suffering most of the discrimination and hardship. They are also the ones receiving most of Trump’s backlash and dirty talk. It is their kids who have been put in cages; it is they who Trump accuses of being criminals, drug traffickers, people with low IQ, and other pejoratives. Most people reject Trump’s statements.

It caught Chicano, Mexican and Central Americans’ attention that, when protests against the assassination of George Floyd erupted, it was the neo-Nazi groups who, with police support, came out to defend the system and to harass and insult them. There is no doubt that Trump’s tongue and the neo-Nazis’ harassment played a role in increasing Mexican and Latino participation in the electoral process and in their support for Biden.

Why then Trump’s fraud claims? Is he serious about it?

Since the beginning of his term in office, Trump has rejected the idea of making his tax return records available for public scrutiny. It casts a shadow over his financial status. It is true; Trump and his son have been very active in business with Arab sheiks, which may have had a highly positive impact on his finances. He is also trying to divert corporate investments from China to new places where his political influence may get him a share of the profits.

But if Trump had hope of using the presidency of the United States as a platform to reignite his finances, the COVID-19 crisis threw everything out the window. Because his businesses are related mostly to hotels and tourism, the pandemic affected his wealth really hard. That may explain why Trump continues jokes about the pandemic and his calling it a “cold”? Trump never took real measures to control the pandemic and it backfired against him, and harmed the American people.

Just before the election, Trump contracted the virus and was even quarantined in a hospital, only to soon emerge, appearing healthy. Even that he treated like a joke!

So, with Trump’s fraud claims, lawsuits and his “I won the election” tweets still coming out, three weeks after the election, it may be his financial status driving it more than any other thing?

What to expect from Biden?

Biden has been already recognized by the majority of the countries of the world as the next U.S. president. U.S. elites trust him with using his political and diplomatic skills to placate street protests in exchange for morsels. They know that throughout his political career, he has supported them in their imperialist wars and invasions of other countries.

Biden is aging, so we have to consider the possibility that Kamala Harris may become the first woman, an African-Asian American woman, to become president of the United States. What does her record say?

The truth is…Biden won. A difficult election, with no Cambridge Analytica that could decipher the election for Trump this time around. People in the United States gave a strong showing of participation, dignity and bravery. They are still on the streets across the United States, demanding change. Will Kamala and Joe understand and appreciate this?

Dozthor Zurlent is a Venezuelan activist who previously lived in Chicago, Illinois and El Salvador. In 2000, he moved back to Venezuela after the massive victory of President Hugo Chavez.

#Venezuela #International #US #Americas #PeoplesStruggles #Elections #DonaldTrump

Milwaukee, WI – On November 4, more than 150 protestors joined the march and car caravan put on by Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (MAARPR). The protestors joined up at Sherman Park, an important landmark in Milwaukee that experienced an uprising against police violence in 2016. Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES) set up a table for letter writing, to demand justice for “ThEE ThrEE”, two men and one child shot and killed by the same Wauwatosa Police Officer Joseph Mensah.

Speakers from El Pueblo and the Party for Socialism and Liberation echoed demands for COVID resources and an end to evictions. Teamsters Locals 344 and Local 200 came out with a “Black lives matter” banner to stand in solidarity with the fight against police crimes. Members from the Young Workers Committee of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council were also there to show support for MAARPR’s demands.

The group of various organizations marched to the Milwaukee District 1 Police Department to demand police accountability and a civilian police accountability council, or CPAC. On the way to District 1, the route snaked through working-class neighborhoods on Milwaukee’s predominantly Black Northside, prompting community members to join the march in unity with the demands.

At District 1 PD, a member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Lauryn Cross, gave a speech highlighting the need for people’s power and revolution.

“Here at Freedom Road Socialist Organization we understand the need for monumental change. And that is done by building people’s movements in the streets to force change. Power isn’t given, it is something that must be taken,” Cross said. “Building organized power in your own communities, in the streets, in your workplace is the only way to advance a struggle so powerful that it makes the need for revolution irresistible.”

The march ended at Dontre Hamilton Park, the community’s name for Red Arrow Park, where Hamilton, a Black man, was shot and killed by Christopher Manney in 2014. A moment of silence was had in remembrance of Hamilton before the event ended.

#MilwaukeeWI #ImmigrantRights #InJusticeSystem #OppressedNationalities #US #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #ChicanoLatino #PoliceBrutality #Antiracism #Elections #2020Election #MilwaukeeAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #PostElectionProtestForAPeoplesMandate

Los Angeles, CA – More than 3 million voted by mail and in person on November 3 in Los Angeles. District Attorney Jackie Lacey was defeated in a hard-fought race for district attorney of Los Angeles County, the most populous in the United States. Reform candidate George Gascon beat Lacey.

For the past three years, Black Lives Matter-LA has led weekly protest rallies at the ‘Hall of Injustice’ office demanding prosecution of killer cops and chanting, “Jackie Lacey must go! Jackie Lacey will go!” The weekly protests were attended by many Black and Chicano families whose sons and daughters have been killed by LAPD, LA Sheriffs and other local police departments. Many organizations joined this campaign including members and families from Centro CSO, based in Boyle Heights. Centro CSO members also organized a very successful rally and get-out-the-vote rally in East LA on October 25 asking voters to oust Trump and DA Lacey and vote for LA Measure J, which also won. Measure J will allocate 10% of the large LA County budget for human social needs, not more for police and jails.

In the past eight years, with over 600 mostly Black and Chicano young men killed, DA Lacey has only prosecuted one cop. She also pushed for the death penalty and led to the mass incarceration of Blacks and Chicanos. She was given millions for her campaigns by the LAPD Police Protective League, the Association Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and the District Attorney's organization, which also threatened to not support winning candidate George Gascon. In fact, Gascon did win by calling for an independent department to investigate police killings and opposing the death penalty.

On Election Day, November 3, in Boyle Heights at Salesian High School and Boyle Heights Senior Center, the Chicano voters came in a steady stream. At the historic Salazar Park in East Los Angeles, lines of voters waited to enter the gym to vote. Centro CSO members handed out literature saying “Afuera con Lacey” and “Lacey must go” to warm reception.

Centro CSO united with BLM-LA since its beginning five years ago and to promote Black and brown solidarity. Centro CSO continuously supported the Jackie Lacey must go campaign. Lawn signs were put up in major street intersections of Boyle Heights and ELA with the slogan “DA Jackie Lacey must go.” The group White People 4 Black Lives put up giant billboards with pictures of young Chicanos killed by LAPD and LA Sheriffs like Jesse Romero and Anthony Vargas.

On November 4, an enthusiastic victory rally was held in front of the Hall of Injustice to shouts of “Jackie Lacey, you are gone.” Black and Chicano mothers spoke of their loved ones killed by LA-area police and celebrated the defeat of Lacey. BLM-LA activists Melina Abdullah, Akili, Jan, Tabatha, Joseph and many more greeted the joyous multinational crowd. BLM-LA asked Carlos Montes of Centro CSO to speak at the rally. He greeted the crowd with chants of “Jackie Lacey is gone, now Trump must get out now.” He urged the protestors to continue the struggle against racist police killings.

“We voted, we organized,” said Montes. “Now we will continue to build a movement in the workplace, in the community and schools to build a movement for revolution in this country while we support people abroad fighting against the U.S. empire.”

This is a victory for the Black and Chicano families, BLM-LA, WP4BL and the many groups that supported the long, hard campaign to oust the pro-cop, now former, DA Jackie Lacey.

Centro CSO is proud to be part of this struggle and will continue to fight and demand community control of police, jailing of killer cops and an end to police killings of Blacks and Chicanos as we fight for Chicano self-determination. As Black Lives Matter-LA leaders like Melina Abdullah proclaim, we are building a struggle for liberation! Join Centro CSO.

#LosAngelesCA #OppressedNationalities #US #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #ChicanoLatino #PoliceBrutality #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #Antiracism #Elections #2020Election #LosAngelesDistrictAttorneyJackieLacey #GeorgeGascon

Trump aprendió mucho en 2000 cuando la Corte Suprema usó chads (los papelitos que se producen cuando la perforadora en la máquina de votación marca las selecciones en las boletas) colgantes para declarar a Bush presidente. Así como Bush, Trump no bastará para nada, eliminando votantes negros desde las listas de elegibilidad, forzando que votantes hacen fila por horas en las estaciones de votación, retrasando el correo estadounidense y rechazando de contar boletas de correo.

Juntos, ¡la gente debe desencadenar un aluvión de lucha! Si el voto no funciona, entonces es hora de tomar las calles – necesitamos mítines y marchas de la gente de la clase trabajadora y oprimida, con nuestros aliados, avanzar las reivindicaciones democráticas y desafiar al sistema.

Hace cuatro años, manifestándose en contra de la inauguración de Trump en Washington DC, el secretario político de Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) Steff Yorek declaró, “Nuestro objetivo es hacer que el país sea ingobernable para Trump y los Republicanos.” El próximo día, la Marcha de las Mujeres fue la manifestación masiva más grande en la historia estadounidense. Trump lanzaba ataque tras ataque, y la gente los resistía con números crecientes.

Hemos hecho todo en nuestro poder para echar leña al fuego de esta resistencia, desde manifestaciones en el aeropuerto, dándole una paliza a la Prohibición de Musulmanes de Trump, a mítines en oficinas de ICE denunciando a la detención de niños encerrados en jaulas, a promover y dirigir el número creciente de huelgas por trabajadores, a oponerse a los ataques de Trump hacia la gente LGBTQ+. Después de la ira justa en contra del asesinato espantoso de George Floyd por la policía de Minneapolis, es seguro decir que hay más gente poniéndose de pie y resistiendo que en cualquier momento desde el principio de los 70. Díganlo con nosotros, “¡Lucha! ¡Resiste!”

¿Y ahora qué? Estamos organizando a la gente para mantener las calles. Si Trump niega de salir, tendremos que seguir en modo de exigir que los gobiernos locales, condados, y estatales rechacen reconocerlo y actúen en su contra. Literalmente hacer que el país sea ingobernable.

¡Hemos trabajado para encontrar los ataques de Trump con unidad, poder de la gente y solidaridad! Cuando la gente fuerza a Trump a conceder, ¡será un día dichoso! Entonces avanzamos a la próxima etapa de lucha.

A pesar de cómo Trump sale del puesto, nuestro próximo blanco es un presidente que también baila al ritmo de los banqueros de Wall Street. Con la crisis económica y sanitaria en desarrollo, no podemos regresar a las formas viejas de hacer las cosas. Con Biden en el cargo, nada no va a cambiar aunque exigimos que lo cambie y lo respaldamos con poder de la gente, incluyendo los esfuerzos organizados de la clase trabajadora. Biden no va a salvarnos. Tenemos que iniciar los cambios que deseamos a través de nuestros movimientos y con la dirección que actúa conscientemente e independientemente de ambos partidos de Wall Street.

El historial de Biden es claro; empujó a los pobres de la asistencia social, encerró a los hombres negros y a otros en cantidades sin precidentes, y entró en guerra con entusiasmo en contra de países y gentes que Wall Street consideraba demasiados independientes o demasiados fuertes. Para dar el cambio, debemos avanzar una agenda de la gente como la de la Marcha en la Convención Nacional Democrática en Milwaukee, en agosto de 2020.

De las muchas reformas que la gente quiere, como los derechos de los inmigrantes y la reversión del cambio climático, tres destacan. Inmediatamente necesitamos atención médica para todos para luchar contra la pandemia COVID-19. Necesitamos extendido y ampliado subsidio por desempleo (¡Traiga de vuelta los $600 ahora!) para pagar el alquiler y los recibos. Lo más importante es que debemos poner fin a los asesinatos policiales y el terror policial con el control comunitario de la policía.

El hecho es que tenemos que quitarnos de encima a Trump. Su tipo de brutalidad y reacción no solamente es una amenaza concreta a las vidas de personas actuales; la pérdida constante de terreno es un impedimento para hacer progreso en varios asuntos, con el potencial de desmoralizar el flujo de lucha. Sin embargo, no estamos confundidos sobre la naturaleza de Biden o el hecho de que las reformas no son suficientes. La gente trabajadora y oprimida no pueden cumplir nuestros sueños y aspiraciones dentro del sistema que existe hoy – necesitamos algo diferente y mejor.

Si ustedes leen ¡Lucha y Resiste! como noticiario, saben que estamos construyendo movimientos, tratando de ganar peticiones urgentes, todo el tiempo pidiendo a los organizadores y activistas desarrollar la lucha por la revolución al registrarse con la Freedom Road Socialist Organization. Conviertan su ira justa en activismo valioso para la revolución, el socialismo, y la liberación. Únanse con la FRSO.

#EstadosUnidos #AntiwarMovement #ImmigrantRights #PoorPeoplesMovements #StudentMovement #InJusticeSystem #Labor #OppressedNationalities #WomensMovement #LGBTQ #US #Healthcare #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #HousingStruggles #EnvironmentalJustice #Antiracism #Elections #elección2020

Trump learned a lot back in 2000 when the Supreme Court used ‘hanging chads’ to declare Bush the president. Like Bush, Trump will stop at nothing, purging Black voters from election rolls, forcing voters to stand in line for hours at the polls, slowing the U.S. mail and refusing to count mail-in ballots.

Together the people must unleash a storm of struggle! If voting is not doing it, then it is time to take it to the streets – we need rallies and marches of working-class and oppressed people, with our allies, advancing democratic demands and challenging this system.

Four years ago, protesting Trump’s inauguration in Washington D.C., the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) Political Secretary Steff Yorek declared, “Our goal is to make the country ungovernable for Trump and the Republicans.” The next day the Women’s March was the largest mass protest in U.S. history. Trump immediately launched attack after attack, and people resisted these with growing numbers of protests.

We have done everything in our power to fan the flames of this resistance, from airport protests slamming Trump’s Muslim ban, to rallies at ICE offices denouncing immigrant children locked in cages, to promoting and leading the growing number of strikes by workers, to opposing Trump attacks on LGBTQ+ people. After the righteous anger of widespread militant protests against the gruesome Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, it is safe to say there are more people standing up and fighting back in our country than any time since the early 1970s. Say it with us, “Stand up! Fight back!”

So what is next? We are organizing people to keep it in the streets. If Trump refuses to leave, we will need to do things like demand that local, county and state governments refuse to recognize him and act against him. Literally make the country ungovernable.

We have worked to meet Trump’s attacks with unity and people power solidarity! When the people force Trump to concede, it will be a very happy day! Then we advance to the next phase of struggle.

Regardless of how Trump leaves office, our next target is a president who also dances to the tune of Wall Street bankers.

With the economic and health crisis ongoing, we cannot return to the old ways of doing things. With Biden in office, little is going to change unless we demand it and back it up with people power, including the organized forces of the working class. Biden is not going to save us. We must initiate the changes we want through our own movements and with leadership consciously acting independently of both parties of Wall Street.

Biden’s record is clear; he pushed poor people off welfare, he locked up Black men and others at record numbers, and he enthusiastically went to war against countries and peoples that Wall Street considered too independent or too strong. To make change, we need to advance a people’s agenda like the one at the March on the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, August, 2020.

Of the many reforms people want, like immigrant rights and reversing climate change, three stand out. We immediately need health care for all to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. We need extended and expanded unemployment (Bring back the $600 now!) to pay rent and bills. Most importantly, we need to end police killings and police terror with community control of the police.

The fact is that we need to be rid of Trump. His brand of brutality and reaction is not only a concrete threat to real people’s lives; the constant loss of ground is an impediment to making progress on many issues, with the potential to demoralize the rising tide of struggle. That said, we are not confused about the nature of Biden or that fact that reforms do not go far enough. Working and oppressed people cannot get our dreams and aspirations met within the existing system – we need something different and better.

If you read Fight Back! for news, then you know we are building movements, trying to win immediate demands, all the while asking organizers and activists to build the fight for revolution by signing up with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. Turn your righteous anger into meaningful activism for revolution, socialism and liberation. Join the FRSO.

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #ImmigrantRights #PoorPeoplesMovements #StudentMovement #InJusticeSystem #Labor #OppressedNationalities #WomensMovement #LGBTQ #US #Healthcare #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #HousingStruggles #EnvironmentalJustice #Antiracism #Elections #2020Election

President Trump is a right-wing reactionary and dangerous fool to boot. He promotes an agenda of racism, inequality and discrimination. He puts kids in cages and then laughs about it. From Palestine to the Philippines he has shown himself to be an enemy of the peoples of the world, including those of us who live in the United States. Trump’s talk about “America First” is chauvinist trash, a banner under which to enrich the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. The trash needs to be taken out, as soon as possible, and this November at the latest.

Everyone knows that the pandemic has been made so much worse by the Trump administration, which has blended incompetence, opposition to science and subordination to business into a toxic brew that has taken the lives of 190,000 people. Contrast the Trump response with that of socialist China, where young people are returning to school, fewer than 5000 people have lost their lives and the pandemic is contained. Maybe, we need to start talking about the “White House virus.”

The economy is in a crisis not seen since the 1930s. Tens of millions have lost their jobs or livelihoods. Food lines are getting longer. By every measure, poverty is growing – hitting oppressed communities, African Americans, Chicanos and Latinos, Natives and Asian Americans the hardest. Workers need money and we need it now. Trump is steadfast in opposition to the $600 unemployment benefit and his executive order on assistance to the out of work is a cruel joke.

A great uprising is sweeping the U.S. and a powerful movement against police terror and racist discrimination has emerged. This country is a jailhouse for the oppressed and many want to escape. The flames that illuminated Minneapolis, Kenosha and other cities are a sign that enough is enough, and that the way things are has become intolerable. Trump has consistently greenlighted police killings. His endorsement of racist vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two protesters in Kenosha, or his praise for the reactionary caravan that invaded downtown Portland show his vision of the future.

The upcoming election are in essence a referendum on the past four years, and we hold that it is important that everyone who can vote do so – and that you vote against Trump. The defeat of Trump and his ilk will create a more favorable context for the people’s struggle to advance.

That said, we need to proceed with our eyes open and the ability to distinguish friend from foe. The cold fact of the matter is that Biden is not a champion of working and oppressed people. He never has been and never will be. He is a tired, old corporate politician. While many are challenging police crimes and seeking community control of the police, Biden says he wants the police to have more resources. When Joe Biden says he is not a “radical socialist” he is telling the truth and he is telling us that he is not part of a real solution to the problems people in this country face.

In the U.S. today, both of the main political parties serve the rich and the powerful. For example, one of the reasons that current economic crisis is going to be so devastating is that Democrat President Bill Clinton carried out the largest single attack on the social safety net ever – his so called welfare ‘reform.’ We need something better. Something like the “radical socialism” that Joe Biden wants no part of.

No matter who wins the next election, we need to stay in the streets and fight for an agenda that reflects people's needs. And we need to keep our eye on the prize. That means advocating for and building organization to achieve revolutionary change. The kind of change that sweeps away the current ruling class from power and puts power into hands of working people.

#UnitedStates #Socialism #US #PeoplesStruggles #Elections #JoeBiden #DefeatTrump #Elections2020 #Biden

Jacksonville, FL – On August 18, Jacksonville held primary elections where movement candidates won big. Angie Nixon, a trade union leader with SEIU and a community organizer, defeated incumbent State Representative Kimberly Daniels in District 14 by a margin of 60% to 40%. Nixon, a longtime supporter of progressive movements here in Jacksonville, spoke at historic massive rallies over the summer organized by the Jacksonville Community Action Committee after the George Floyd rebellion. She pledged her support for repealing the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights, a statewide statute that hinders cities in Florida from instituting community control of the police. Her opponent, a controversial, anti-gay, anti-women’s rights, anti-Semitic pastor, had wide support from the local Fraternal Order of Police, private prisons like GEO group, as well as the backing of the statewide Chamber of Commerce.

Rhonda Peoples Waters, a local African American lawyer, became the first Black woman in Jacksonville history to be elected to a judgeship. Since 2009, Peoples Waters had been selected 13 times by commissions as a finalist for judicial nominations, only to be spurned by right-wing governors. Also supportive of the people’s movement here in Jacksonville, Peoples Waters supports the demands of activist groups like the JCAC and the Northside Coalition, and had substantial backing from the local Black community. She won her race by a margin of 58% to 42%, defeating former prosecutor Erin Perry, who had been appointed to the bench by former Florida Governor and crook Rick Scott in 2019. Perry’s campaign was supported by the local Fraternal Order of Police and Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Sheriff Mike Williams.

In other races across the county, progressive candidates did well. Nicole Hamm, a young African American woman who ran for city council in District 4, a traditionally republican area with changing demographics, won 42% of the vote against two republican candidates, pushing her campaign to a run-off in November. Her opponent, Kevin Carrico, raised substantially more money than her campaign, with backing from many corporate donors and establishment money pouring into his campaign. He’s called for giving police more money as opposed to Hamm, who publicly supported the JCAC’s demands for a People’s Budget and the reallocation of JSO funding into ending poverty and addressing other social ills. Her race in November will be widely supported by the progressive community in Jacksonville.

Candidate Tammyette Thomas defeated her democratic primary challenger by a wide margin in Florida House District 15 and moves to an election in November against republican incumbent Wyman Duggan. Thomas, an African American woman, has also supported calls to repeal the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights and for community control of the police.

“This election yesterday was powerful in terms of the movement now having a real influence on elections in Jacksonville,” said Michael Sampson II of the Jacksonville Community Action Committee. “Having progressive candidates and now elected state reps who support our demands of community control of the police and repealing the law enforcement bill of rights is a game changer in our work in North Florida and is a warning to all the status quo politicians, Black or white, who choose the path of accommodation with the police state as opposed to fighting for the people. We are just getting started.”

#JacksonvilleFL #FL #US #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #Elections #JacksonvilleCommunityActionCommitteeJCAC #CommunityControlOfPolice

“Our main goal as a group is to defeat Donald Trump. He is the key figure in promoting racist killings of Black, Latino and indigenous people, whether by vigilantes or the police,” said Ryan Hamann, one of the co-chairs of the Coalition.

Hamann continued, “But we need to also be clear in demanding that Joe Biden and the Democrats stop these killer cops who operate in Democrat-controlled cities like right here in Milwaukee. We must continue to build the people’s movements, especially against police crimes and for community control of the police.”

The Coalition is working to unite the families of victims of killer cops, particularly in Milwaukee and the surrounding areas, to attend and speak at the event on August 20.

The Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression, a member organization of the Coalition, is an integral part in the fight for justice for victims of killer cops locally. They’ve led or participated in many of the actions demanding justice for “Thee Three” – Alvin Cole, Jay Anderson and Antonio Gonzales.

“What we’re hoping to do during the DNC is shine a spotlight on the fact that killer cops exist everywhere, whether it’s a big city like Milwaukee or a small town like Oshkosh. We want to bring together as many families as possible from across Wisconsin,” said Lauryn Cross, a leader with the Milwaukee Alliance.

“We want to make sure their cases get the national attention and pressure that they deserve. Cops are killing Black, Latino and indigenous people without consequence. They’re occupying our communities all across the country. We can’t breathe,” said Cross.

#MilwaukeeWI #AntiwarMovement #ImmigrantRights #InJusticeSystem #Labor #OppressedNationalities #WomensMovement #LGBTQ #US #Healthcare #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #HousingStruggles #PoliceBrutality #Antiracism #Elections #CoalitionToMarchOnTheDNC #2020Election #JoeBiden

In addition to the $600 a week in extra unemployment benefits, another part of the CARES act protecting tenants is about to expire. There has been an eviction ban on all apartment buildings that are part of federal assistance programs, or whose landlords have federally insured mortgages. These come to more than one out of four rental units in the United States.

At this time, the job market seems to have bottomed out. The latest report on unemployment insurance benefits or UI released by the U.S. Labor Department said that in the week ending July 11, 1.3 million new claims were filed, down 14,000, or about 1%, from last week’s initial estimate. New claims for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA, aimed at self-employed and gig workers, were about 930,000, for a total of new claims of 2.2 million, down slightly from 2.3 million the week before.

The broadest measure that includes regular state UI, the PUA, and the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, for the week ending June 27, also dropped by about 1%, from 32.4 million the week before to 32 million. Since the recession began in February, there are now 30 million more people who have lost their livelihood because of the pandemic and are receiving government aid. While millions of people are lining up at food banks and more people are going hungry, the FPUC and eviction moratoriums have prevented a wave of evictions, foreclosures and loan defaults.

All that is set to end at the end of July. While the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives did pass another relief bill two months ago, the Republican-controlled Senate has done nothing but criticize the HEROES act – Senate leader Mitch McConnell said that it was “dead in the water.” Like the Republican’s attack on the Affordable Care Act, where they promised to “repeal and replace” where they never proposed a replacement, the Republicans are now saying that they will have a new relief act but don’t have a specific bill.

Part of the reason is that the Republicans really don’t care about working people or small business – just their big business buddies that fund their campaigns. But below this is the belief that government aid will keep the poor from working – thus their targeting of the FPUC, which allows two-thirds of the unemployed to take home as much or even more than they made before they lost their income.

In fact, people would like to work – but not at the risk of their and their family’s health and safety. Nor do they really want to work for the low-paying, no benefit, often part-time and/or temporary jobs that made up more and more of the jobs even before the recession hit.

If the FPUC was keeping people from jobs, we would see wages rising to entice more people to work. In fact, for the first time since the Great Depression in the 1930s, we are seeing more and more businesses cutting wages. Other businesses that increased wages right at the beginning of the pandemic have almost all eliminated these raises.

In addition to the FPUC’s ending, the pandemic itself is growing to new records. The latest daily infection count of more than 75,000 is up 50% in just two weeks. Hospitals in the hardest hit states of Florida, Texas and Arizona are again scenes of overflowing beds, staff shortages, shortages of personal protective equipment and medicines. Deaths are hitting record highs in the hard-hit states. In response, Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia signed an executive order forbidding cities or counties from mandating masks and is suing the city of Atlanta for doing so.

But more and more cities, counties and states are rolling back their ‘reopening’ of the economy, which started too soon and went too far, laying the ground for the current resurgence of the pandemic. This is taking an inevitable toll on jobs, which like the infections themselves, may not show up for a few weeks. With the pandemic again bearing down on the economy, extending the FPUC is more important than ever.

#SanJoséCA #PoorPeoplesMovements #Labor #OppressedNationalities #Unemployment #US #Healthcare #PeoplesStruggles #DonaldTrump #COVID19PandemicAid #FederalPandemicUnemploymentCompensationFPUC

Jacksonville, FL – Members of the Coalition to March on the RNC applied for permits several weeks ago from the City of Jacksonville to march against Donald Trump and the Republican National Convention on August 27. After not receiving any response about the permit application for several weeks, the Coalition still plans to march against Trump and the RNC regardless of the city’s decision to issue or deny a permit for the march.

The Coalition to March on the RNC organized large protests against previous RNCs in 2008 (St. Paul), 2012 (Tampa), and 2016 (Cleveland). Thousands are expected to participate in the historic rally and march in Jacksonville. The event will begin with a rally including prominent speakers near the Duval County Clerk of Courts and will include a march through downtown Jacksonville. The march will pass within sight and sound of the Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena and the Republicans.

The main slogan of the event is “We Can’t Breathe – Defeat Donald Trump.” The Coalition to March on the RNC is emphasizing the Black-led struggle against police brutality. The Coalition also stands for a people’s agenda – money for living wage jobs, education, universal healthcare, rights for immigrants, peace and equality.

Wells Todd, a main organizer of the event, says “The lack of police accountability nationwide, endless war, poverty wages, attacks on women’s rights, refusing to address climate change, the destruction of our public schools and the refusal by Trump to provide life-saving assistance during this pandemic are just a few of the reasons why we need to protest the RNC.”

On August 27, the Coalition to March on the RNC is preparing to march on the RNC at the same time as Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech. Activists are traveling from all over the country to rally and march against the Republicans and the event is expected to be successful – regardless of whether the city issues permits or not.

#JacksonvilleFL #US #CoalitionToMarchOnTheRNC #DonaldTrump #2020RepublicanNationalConventionRNC #WeCantBreathe

San José, CA – On Thursday, July 9, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the broadest measure of people on unemployment continued to climb. In the week ending June 20, the total number was 32.9 million, up by 1.4 million from a week earlier. This number includes those who are receiving the regular state unemployment insurance benefits, the growing number getting the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA, the Federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC, and other smaller programs.

The latest report on new applications for state unemployment benefits for the week ending July 4 did fall slightly to 1.31 million, down 99,000 from the week before. However new claims for the federal PUA rose by 42,000 to 1.04 million from a week earlier. Looking at only the slow decline in the state UI applications can be misleading as people on UI are barely more than half (52%) of all individuals getting aid. Further, even as new layoffs may be slowing, fewer people are getting hired back, boosting the total number getting aid.

Even this grim picture of more than 30 million people relying on direct government aid is looking worse. Yesterday the United States reported another record high in COVID-19 infections, with almost 60,000 new cases in a single day. Even worse, hotspots across the South and Southwest – Florida, Texas and Arizona – are seeing their hospitals in crisis, with intensive care units full and shortages of personal protective equipment, ventilators and medical supplies.

Back in April we saw the United States emerge as the world’s hotspot for COVID-19, rising above the outbreak in Europe. But while Europe has been able to dramatically reduce the number of new infections, the United States is still the world’s leader in infections and deaths. Three southern and southwestern states: Arizona, Florida and South Carolina, have more new infections, adjusted for population, than any country in the world. This increase in infections, hospitalizations, and now deaths are leading to more people pulling back from restaurants and shopping, and to businesses cutting back on operations.

Food pantries across the country facing historic demands and hunger is on the rise. There is a growing threat of mass evictions as state and local eviction moratoriums expire. In July more than a third (36%) of renters have missed some or all of their rent and these numbers will rise in August with the end of the expanded $600 a week unemployment benefits to end on or before July 31. Companies large and small are announcing more layoffs, or mass job cuts when their government aid runs out. Harley Davidson, Walgreens and Wells Fargo all announced plans for more layoffs. Most dramatically, United Airlines said that they would cut one half of their U.S. workers when federal aid ends at the end of September.

With the continuing economic crisis in mind, the Democrat-controlled House passed their HEROES Act, which would extend and expand the provisions of the earlier CARES act through the end of the year. In addition to extended the expanded unemployment, it includes a second round of payments that would include adult dependents and taxpaying undocumented immigrants left out of the CARES act, as well as more for state and local governments, and a small amount for renters.

In contrast, all the Republicans have been able to do is to declare the HEROES Act “Dead on arrival” and that they don’t want to extend the $600 a week benefits. But neither the Republican-controlled Senate nor the Trump administration has a concrete proposal. To add insult to injury, the Senate is taking a two-and-a-half-week recess and holiday that started on July 3. They won’t come back until Monday, July 20, leaving just days for them to agree on a plan and then negotiate with House on a bill. The fact of the matter is that many Republicans want the aid to expire, seeing it as a barrier to get workers to go back to work at dangerous jobs.

#SanJoséCA #PoorPeoplesMovements #Unemployment #US #Healthcare #PeoplesStruggles #DonaldTrump #COVID19 #stockMarketCrash

There are 4887 international students at UTA presently out of a total of 46,497 students, which accounts for nearly 10.5% in its entirety, a significant percentage but which has dropped progressively from 2016 (4988), a statistic that shouldn't baffle anyone and points directly towards the xenophobia of the Trump administration. International students and international faculty form significant percentages in every department at UTA, conducting valuable research that not only earns UTA millions and millions monetarily but also brings UTA immense reputation value, not only in the USA but across the world as well.

I am a Masters of Aerospace Engineering student at UTA. Imagine if the astronaut and engineer Kalpana Chawla was my classmate, and because of ICE's plans, we were forced to leave UTA and be deported back to our home countries. We would not be able achieve our respective dreams and careers. UTA prides itself on Kalpana Chawla being a graduate from this institution and has rightly dedicated a residence hall and memorial in her name. Kalpana Chawla, an international student, an inspiration to many like me who died not only as an American hero but as international one as well. This is the value that international students have, and we deserve better from UTA.

UTA must not cooperate with ICE and must avoid diplomatic answers with regards to cooperation with ICE According to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) guidelines, without proper warrants signed off by judges, agents cannot get information regarding students. UTA at this present moment must provide adequate protections and not provide personal details to ICE agents or allow them on campus. Additionally, UTA must increase the number of hybrid classes to ensure not a single student is deported.

The Trump administration's failure of illegally repealing DACA has caused this morally bankrupt and racist government to turn its eyes to the legal non-immigrant international students in the U.S. to deport them back home. UTA as an institution must stand firm against this xenophobia.

#ArlingtonTX #ImmigrantRights #OppressedNationalities #ICE #US #PeoplesStruggles #Antiracism #DonaldTrump #UniversityOfTexasArlington #internationalStudents