Tuesday 28 February 2017

HISTORIC ANALOGY

Sunsara Taylor ( of the RCP ) was on fox news talking about trump, where she compared him to hitler. Well of course the other people from fox ( and some shithead politicians ) immediately said that it was historically inaccurate to do so. Well morons, history does not move in a straight line, and she didn't say that trump was doing exactly what hitler did. But many of his policies and actions have the fascist flavour to it. Read this. Read .

Why It’s Not Just Right, but Highly Illuminating and Very Necessary to Compare Trump to Hitler

by Sunsara Taylor

February 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

What Is Fascism?
Tuesday night, on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, I said: “A fascist regime has seized the reins of power in the sole superpower in the world. Trump and Pence are operating out of Hitler’s playbook, only they have nuclear weapons.”
The next morning, Fox News assembled a panel to debate whether I had “gone too far.” The Democrat on the panel, Julie Roginsky, insisted that only people who carry out mass genocide deserve such a comparison. She further argued that Hitler had immediately eradicated all opposition in the Reichstag (German parliament) and enforced all sorts of laws that she believed Donald Trump “would not enforce,” but also “wouldn’t be allowed to enforce.” All the pundits agreed: “Certainly there is no place to analogize anybody to Adolf Hitler in American public life today.”
I disagree. But, I am glad this question has come up. A lot can be learned by honestly exploring it.

History Never Exactly Repeats Itself, but There Are Real Patterns That Can Shed Light

First, let’s get something out of the way. History never repeats itself exactly. During Hitler’s rise, Germany was coming out of defeat in World War 1, was in the throes of a major depression, and faced a popular communist movement and broad sections of very combative and progressive working people. The U.S. ruling class does not face that situation. But it does face an international situation increasingly fraught with challenges to its geopolitical, military, and economic domination. It does face a situation in which different sections of the ruling class are sharply divided over the “legitimating norms” of society—that is, the common set of values and morality around which the society is broadly understood, held together, and cohered. Quite a bit of this crisis flows out of the conflict between the foundational and structural character of the U.S. as a white supremacist society, and the way this has been challenged over the past 50 years—both through righteous liberation struggles and through major demographic changes, like the growing number of immigrants. And while the U.S. does not face a major depression right now, there is no work for huge sections of the working class (speaking here of the multinational U.S. working class, made up of Black, Latino, Arab, Asian, and other nationalities, as well as white), living standards and future prospects have gone significantly down for sections of the working class that do have jobs, and large sections of the middle class also face great uncertainty.
So, no, the U.S. does not face the exact circumstances of Germany; but the contradictions and problems it DOES face have proven extremely intractable. In the face of this, there have been increasingly strong fascist currents brought forward over a whole period of decades. In this situation, Trump has been able to cohere forces and come to power determined to carry out a fully fascist restructuring of society. And let us not fail to notice, Trump has already inherited—and has vowed to massively strengthen—a repressive apparatus that goes far beyond what Hitler inherited when he came to power. And, Trump—unlike Hitler—has unchecked personal control over the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and is clearly itching to use it. During a briefing, he asked three times, “If we have nuclear weapons, why can’t we use them?”

Fascism Advances Aggressively, but Also in Stages

Next, let’s set the record straight. In contrast to the simplistic and inaccurate view put forward by Roginsky (as well as Carlson), Hitler did not carry out all his greatest crimes on day one or even his first years in power. For example, while it was clear from the beginning Hitler had an anti-Semitic program of eliminating Jews from German society, this went through a process which included leaps as well as periods of stability during which many Jews unfortunately convinced themselves that the “worst was over.” The wave of terror and the laws expelling Jews from many aspects of public life and the economy in 1933-34 caused tremendous suffering and humiliation, but was still not on the same level as Kristallnacht—the night of the shattered crystal—in 1938 when some 7,000 Jewish businesses were ransacked, over 1,000 synagogues were burned, many Jews were murdered, and tens of thousands were rounded up to concentration camps. And even that was not the same as the decision to carry out the full-on mass extermination of Jews which was made in 1942.
Roginsky is probably familiar with the famous quote from Pastor Martin Niemöller. What did he say? That they came for everyone all at once? No. He said, “First they came for the communists, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist... Then they came for the Jews...” and on and on. He describes a process that was telescoped, but still a process nonetheless... and when you look at what Trump has already been doing, it is stark how far along the process today already is. It’s not for nothing that as early as midweek of Trump’s first week in office, protest signs started popping up that read, “First they came for the Muslims, then they came for the Mexicans, then the women, then the climate scientists, then the media, then LGBT people... and then it was Wednesday.”
         
Hitler utilized the incident of the burning down of the German legislature (the “Reichstag fire”) that took place early in his regime to single out the communists in particular for severe repression to jump-start this process. Trump has not yet had such an “incident” to use, but once one happens—whether it be something along the lines of the Orlando massacre or something staged or some combination of the two—does anyone doubt he will attempt to seize on this to qualitatively escalate repression? Even without such an incident, the dizzying pace of Trump’s repressive assaults should serve as warning.
So, what is the essence of this process? RefuseFascism.org has written: “Fascism has direction and momentum. Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Group after group is demonized and targeted along a trajectory that leads to real horrors.” Fascism is not just a collection of horrific policies, it is a qualitative change in how society is governed. Longstanding political and social norms are shredded, violence is whipped up and unleashed against demonized groups, the ability of the people and of oppositional forces within the governing structures to disagree or resist is obliterated with democratic rights essentially eliminated. All this sets the stage for, and makes it immeasurably difficult to resist, unfathomable horrors.
This is what Hitler did, and this is what the Trump/Pence regime is moving aggressively right now to do as well. Let’s walk through the most essential features and dynamics of Hitler’s  program and how these same essential features are manifesting themselves today by the Trump/Pence regime.

Fomenting and Unleashing Violence

Trump, like Hitler did, came to power by lambasting all who opposed him as “enemies” and whipping up violence against them and the people. This goes far beyond the normal rivalries and often vicious power struggles within the ruling class. And this goes far beyond the “normal” levels of unjust government repression—political arrests and imprisonment, racist police terror and mass incarceration, massive spying and more.
Think about it: Trump led frenzied chants that his opponent should be locked up. He suggested she should be assassinated. This is important to grasp: fascists MUST attack and destroy the previous “rules of the game” which allow a certain degree of space for disagreement and argument over how to defend and extend capitalism-imperialism and intimidate other sections into silence in order to implement the radical re-ordering of society they intend.
And they DO intend to not just maintain but to qualitatively intensify the repression that masses of people face in this society. Trump openly longed for the days when protesters were “carried out on a stretcher” and offered to pay the legal fees of anyone who assaulted a protester. He bellows endlessly about “law and order” (police state terror against Black and Brown people), has massively expanded deportation forces and begun terroristic raids, all while downplaying or excusing the violence unleashed by his supporters against immigrants, Muslims, Black people, and others. Again, this is coming on top of—and intensifying—the already existing levels of terror and repression against those groups to a far more dangerous level. And it is just the beginning. Fascism rules through the open use of unrestrained legal and mob violence.

Bludgeoning the Truth and the Press

Trump, like Hitler did, has open contempt for the truth and violent animosity towards anyone who challenges his LIES. This goes far beyond the regular lies told by politicians and media. Trump is not only a world-class, habitual LIAR, he is working aggressively to destroy anyone who challenges his LIES. He calls the media “Fake News” and barks at them to “sit down” if they don’t ask “nice questions.” He has gone so far as to declare the media “the enemy of the people,” with the full threat of violence and suppression this implies. He sends his political hitmen out to repeat his lies and to insist, as Stephen Miller did, that the president is always “100 percent correct.” And now, even as I am finalizing this piece, the news is breaking that the Trump White House has barred the New York Times, CNN and other long-established bourgeois media from attending their press briefing, even as they have allowed in fascist outlets like Breitbart and others. Again, all this is just the beginning. Fascism insists on a centrally determined “narrative” in which there is no objective measure of what is true, and is determined to break any voice or institution that does not comply with this narrative.

Subverting the Separation of Powers

Trump, like Hitler did, is subverting the separation of powers and building supreme and unchecked power in his executive branch. This goes far beyond even the grotesque expansion of the executive power enacted by George W. Bush and carried forward by Barack Obama. Trump has repeatedly made clear his intent to openly defy the courts. In his inaugural address, Trump broke with precedent by refusing to pledge any responsibility to abide by the Constitution, instead pledging allegiance to the people who supported him. When the acting attorney general acted on the mandate of the U.S. Constitution, rather than the wishes of Trump to violate that Constitution, Trump immediately fired her. When a court blocked his January 27 Muslim ban, he called the judge a “so-called judge” and set him up as responsible for anything bad that happens to the U.S. Then he sent out his stone-cold advisor, Stephen Miller, to hammer home: “[W]e have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many cases a supreme branch of government. ... The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.” (emphasis added)

Exalting an Exclusionary and Racist Vision of “The People”

Trump, like Hitler did, has fostered a seemingly “mystical” bond between himself and the section of the population he deems deserving of the title “the people”—meanwhile defining “the people” in an extremely narrow, openly racist way that feeds the logic of genocide. Contrary to popular caricature, when Hitler came to power he initially toned down his hate-speech against Jews (even as his minions continued anti-Semitic agitation and actions). Instead, he invoked his absolute devotion to the German Volk (i.e., the people)—but everyone knew that Hitler didn’t consider Jews, Roma people, communists, or others he demonized to be part of “the Volk.” Similarly, Trump has pledged his allegiance repeatedly to “the long-forgotten American people.” But everyone knows he is not talking about Muslims (who he’s demonized and is working to ban), Mexicans and other Latinos (who he is already violently rounding up and deporting), Black people (who he threatens with even greater racist assault from the police and prisons with the code words “law and order”), women (who he bragged about sexually assaulting and said should be “punished” for abortion), or anyone who refuses to submit to his openly white supremacist, woman-hating, xenophobic program (recall his threat to imprison and strip citizenship from flag burners).
At the same time, Trump—like Hitler did—puts himself forward as a single, strongman leader against the “elites.” This coded language against “elites” (read: intellectuals) is straight out of the Hitler playbook, by the way, which goes along with the anti-Semitism that also suffuses the Trump movement.
Actually, the Hitler analogy in this case could serve to underplay how dangerous Trump is: Hitler did not come to power in a society which had built itself on the genocide of one people and the enslavement over the course of centuries of another, and then the imposition of a system of racist oppression even after that enslavement ended. All the more reason to fully confront the utter catastrophe the consolidation of Trump/Pence would represent and why it is so urgent to drive them out.

Deeper, Driving Contradictions and Needs of an Empire

Trump has come to power at a time when the U.S. is confronting major changes in the world and internally that threaten to spin out of control. Powerful uprisings and protests have shaken this country against police murder of Black people and others, even as white supremacy has surged. The country is equally polarized around the role of women, immigrants, LGBTQ people, the importance of science and reality of global climate change, and more. Starkly different visions of  morality, justice, and humanity contend in a way not seen since the 1960s, and perhaps the Civil War.
Internationally, U.S. military and economic supremacy is threatened—by wars that have gone disastrously wrong in the Middle East and North Africa, by emerging threats from China and Russia, and many other factors. The post World War 2 economic and political order is going through upheaval, with the rise of reactionary and racist nationalism and fascism going on throughout Europe and the U.S., while Islamic fundamentalist jihadism continues to gain ground in the Middle East, North and now sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and Indonesia. 65 million people are refugees from military and ecological catastrophe.
Trump seeks to violently reassert U.S. supremacy in the world and to remake society in a way that not only holds things together, but “Makes America Great Again” no matter what the cost. In doing so, Trump has drawn together several strains of fascism that have been building in this country for decades, including various white supremacists, as well as powerful (often overlapping) Christian fascist forces with enormous influence in the courts, the military, and high finance. This Christian fascism—with its enslaving view of women—echoes the Nazis as well, who criminalized abortion (for “Aryan” women) and erected a vicious cult that exulted motherhood while shaming and then eliminating women who would not or could not “breed” for the nation. Bob Avakian sounded the alarm on this 20 years ago and has developed this analysis since, and I urge anyone seriously trying to understand what we face to dig into this work. (Trump’s reliance on the Christian fascists is, ironically, one area where he could be said to differ from Hitler, who forged a different cohering morality; but in both cases, there was an absolutist moral code which deemed some people to be sub-human and undeserving or humane treatment.)
****
All these elements—and others which are gone into in various articles and analyses at www.revcom.us—work together as part of a package. As revcom.us has written, “Fascism is the exercise of blatant dictatorship by the bourgeois (capitalist-imperialist) class, ruling through reliance on open terror and violence, trampling on what are supposed to be civil and legal rights, wielding the power of the state, and mobilizing organized groups of fanatical thugs, to commit atrocities against masses of people, particularly groups of people identified as ‘enemies,’ ‘undesirables,’ or ‘dangers to society.’”

Fascism Must Be Stopped BEFORE It Is Too Late

But, Tucker Carlson taunted me, “If it’s a fascist regime, how are you on this show?”
This was nothing but a debater’s trick distortion. I clearly said a fascist regime has “seized the reins of power,” not that it has fully consolidated and locked their fascist order into place. And, that is exactly the point. Just like the key to treating a particularly aggressive cancer is to catch it before it has spread throughout the whole body, so is it necessary to rise up and drive out a fascist regime before it is too late.
Quoting again from Refuse Fascism’s Call to Action, “Even as the Trump/Pence Regime is moving fast, they have not yet fully consolidated their regime, or, as yet, been able to implement their full program. But, this is their objective and it is very possible. It might only take a single crisis—international or domestic—for this regime to drop the hammer. We do not have much time.”
For the very same reason that Hitler analogies shouldn’t be made lightly, when the analogy does shed light on the situation that we face every single person better look into it deeply and act accordingly, and with great urgency.
Go to RefuseFascism.org. Read and sign the Call to Action. Spread it everywhere. Act together with people across this country to carry out the four essential tasks identified: take up the single unifying objective to drive this regime from power; spread the symbol NO!; meet every outrage from the regime with growing resistance; and organize—working with all our creativity and determination toward the time when millions of people can be mobilized to stay in the streets night after night and day after day, demanding and not stopping until the Trump/Pence Regime is Driven From Power.
Do this not just for ourselves, but in the name of humanity.

Monday 27 February 2017

MORE IMPERIALIST GARBAGE

The constant attacks on North Korea only serve the purpose of demonizing an already isolated regime, and the majority of mind-numbed western citizens eat that shit up without question. The most recent incident being the alleged " hit " on Kim Jong-Un's half brother, Kim Jong Nam. This is someone who has been out of their country for 14 years, had some criticisms of the government, but who was mostly ignored. Why kill him now, and so publicly ? And why is everyone so quick to jump on the idea that it was some form of lethal nerve gas ?  Why didn't the perpetrators of the crime die ? They say that just a drop can kill you . Why was no one else affected ? Too many questions, no answers.

Suspicious Killing of North Korean Leader’s Half Brother

Region: 
In-depth Report: 
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Renewed American Threats: Building a Pretext to Wage War on North Korea?
Kim Jong-nam was North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s paternal half brother.
On February 13, he was killed in Malaysia at Kuala Lumpur’s airport, the bizarre incident captured on security camera videotape for the whole world to see – an obvious red flag.
Malaysian authorities said he died from VX poisoning, a banned lethal nerve agent. At one time, he was considered heir apparent to his father, Kim Jong-il, later exiled in 2003 after falling out of favor with ruling authorities.
South Korea’s ruling party spokesperson called his killing a “naked example of Kim Jong-un’s reign of terror.”
Media scoundrels blamed Pyongyang for his death. He’d been out of the country for around 14 years, posed no apparent threat to his half-brother or the government.
No information suggested he planned returning to challenge Kim Jong-un’s leadership. So why was he killed?
Why an eruption of media reports about an obscure figure, away from the center of power in Pyongyang for years? Why now? Why publicly to be seen worldwide on videotape?
Who had motive and opportunity to kill him? If North Korean authorities wanted him eliminated, why did they wait so long? Why a public execution, making it easy for its detractors to automatically lay blame where it likely doesn’t belong.
Here’s what we know. North Korean senior representatives were preparing to come to New York to meet with former US officials, a chance for both sides to discuss differences diplomatically, hopefully leading to direct talks with Trump officials.
The State Department hadn’t yet approved visas, a positive development if arranged.
Reports indicate North Korea very much wanted the meeting to take place. Makes sense. It would indicate a modest thaw in hostile relations, a good thing if anything came of it.
So why would Pyongyang want to kill Kim Jong-nam at this potentially sensitive time, knowing it would be blamed for the incident, talks likely cancelled?
Sure enough, they’re off, Pyongyang accused of killing Kim, even though it seems implausible they planned and carried out the incident, using agents in Malaysia to act as proxies.
Reports indicate North Korea planned sending its Foreign Ministry director of US affairs Choe Son Hui to lead a delegation. On the US side, former Carter official/National Committee on American Foreign Policy senior vice president Donald Zagoria and former Clinton 1994 chief denunclearization deal negotiator Robert Gallucci were involved.
Pyongyang denied involvement in Kim Jong-nam’s death. It makes sense. Why sabotage talks it wanted held?
The Trump administration cancelled them anyway – an opportunity lost, likely undermined far from Pyongyang, maybe in Seoul with CIA help.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

Sunday 26 February 2017

STILL HAPPENING

Even though you don't hear much about northern ireland in the news these days, the struggle continues. It is still a colony of england, and the prisons are still full of political prisoners.
   This story was written in 2013, but seems like something that could have been written in the '60s.


Nine days in Northern Ireland

Hydebank prison in Belfast.
On July 6, 2013, while on vacation in Belfast, in the northern six counties of British-occupied Ireland, I visited a female political prisoner for her birthday and wound up arrested under Section 41(b) of the 2000 UK Terrorism Act, not knowing when or if I’d ever get out.
The prisoner was held in Hydebank jail on suspicion of trying to assassinate two police officers in May. Though we were allotted two hours to visit, the administration stopped the meeting short and escorted me to the visitors area. There they arrested me.
I was in complete shock. My first thought was “I’m fxcked.” The Police Service of Northern Ireland confiscated my phone, camera and other belongings. I was handcuffed and taken to the parking lot, where I was put in a car with three PSNI officers.
One male officer sat in the back with me and asked my name. After screaming at me, he thrust his weight against me, pinning me against the door in a painful position. He then radioed to the arresting officer that I was not complying.
The male officer told the female officer to take a detour to jail. As we drove, I looked out the window, mesmerized by the flowering green Antrim fields. I was thinking about how I was going to be fired from my job and how upset my parents would be at the news.
The detour the PSNI took was through Glengormley, a loyalist estate adorned with Ulster Volunteer Force murals. This would be the equivalent of U.S. police driving a Black person through a KKK-controlled community. While driving past the murals, the driver slowed, as if to say, “We could drop you out here and nobody would ever know.”
We approached Antrim Police Station, a massive structure complete with razor wire, outdated cameras on every corner, and an impenetrably high fence. No way out. A portly guard, former member of the hated Royal Ulster Constabulary, asked if I wanted to wear a handsome blue jumper.
“I’ve done nothing wrong and insist on wearing my own clothes!” I replied. He nodded his head and told me he would let the person in charge know.
A few moments later I met the man in charge, who sat behind a desk, and a bald prison guard who had UVF tattoos on his arms and wore purple gloves. “Because you insist on wearing your own clothes, we will administer a full search, for security purposes,” the man said.
The guard said, “Take off your shoes. Take off your shirt. Take off your pants.” I was paralyzed with fear and sweating profusely that hot summer day. The man behind the desk just stared down at the table as the guard violated me and probed my body.
“Do you want his knickers off?” the guard asked.
“No, that’s enough.” Humiliated, scared and enraged, I just wanted to get out of there.
I took the lawyer the political prisoner’s mother arranged. The guard put me in a small cell, with frosted windows which didn’t let in much light, a single toilet, a foam mattress, a soiled blanket, a sink (which you also drank from) and a green camera in the light fixture that monitors your every move. The cell is also equipped with an emergency call fixture, which was routinely ignored.
My lawyer finally arrived. Shocked by his apparent youth, I was still impressed by his wit and knowledge of law. When he said the room was bugged and they could be listening, I felt panic.
The PSNI employed a four-stage interrogation process. Little by little, they produced more evidence against you. I was shaking as one of the guards guided us to the interrogation room. Two detective constables, one male and one female, played the old “good cop/bad cop” routine.
Each interrogation session lasted around 45 minutes. I answered, “No comment,” to each of the questions.
That night two Special Branch officers woke me, offering a plane flight home if I cooperated. I said, “Get the fxck out of my cell and to call my lawyer.” They smirked and left. I never saw them again.
Historically, Irish political prisoners face the Five Techniques: wall standing, hooding, white noise, deprivation of food and drink, deprivation of sleep. I was subjected to three of the five techniques during my nine days in solitary confinement. I was locked up 23 hours a day and only let out for interrogation, showering and to see the doctor.
The first time I showered, one of the male guards watched as I undressed and cleaned myself, psychological abuse he compounded by making degrading remarks about my body.
Every hour on the hour a guard, usually female, would wake me, allegedly to check on me, turning the lights on and opening the door. To keep me from falling back asleep, the heat would be turned way up or the air turned on blast. White noise was common, with buzzing through the vents. Later guards banged on the cell door next to mine. I heard a woman scream — a scream I thought was from a real person until years later during therapy.
I lost nine pounds in nine days. Guards always told me the canteen was closed. My second lawyer brought in food so I could eat, but guards confiscated it when he left. These tactics aimed to break me — they failed!
Between interrogations and bed, I read constantly, about legendary Belfast soccer player George Best, mixed martial arts and “The Sands of Time,” a book about the Basque national liberation organization fighting French and Spanish imperialism.
Phone calls from my uncle Pat helped, too. Pat was a lawyer who set me up with the second lawyer (the first worked for the firm representing the female POW I visited — a conflict of interest). Pat’s skills helped secure my release. His humor on phone calls (monitored by the PSNI) became a form of release as he joked about the IRA — to the annoyance of the police.
In solitary, time creeps as you have nothing but time to think. I often thought about my girlfriend, parents, dogs and comrades. The PSNI wanted to charge me with conspiracy, IRA membership and material support for terrorism — I thought they would accept anything that would hold me longer.
I’d studied Irish history and knew of Bobby Sands’s suffering — he was the leader of the 1981 Hunger Strike who, along with nine of his comrades, died so that all political prisoners would live with dignity inside British dungeons — and the 1973 force feeding of two IRA sisters, Marian and Dolours Price, in England. So I knew I would have been ill equipped to deal with psychological torture.
A seizure on my final day in jail sent me to the hospital. Two armed PSNI men watched me at all times, even in the restroom. They too would mock me and asked if I wanted food. When I was taken back to the jail, I was informed I was being released.
As I saw the PSNI erase my name from the whiteboard, I was elated. I was alone in a room with a portly cop, who told me I was lucky: “Back in the old days, kids like you used to mysteriously disappear.”
My lawyer took me to a safe house where I met my uncle Pat, who had flown all the way to Belfast to retrieve me. We embraced and I cried. It was good to be free.
With freedom comes responsibility. This traumatic experience reinforced my outlook on the Irish liberation struggle and the struggle to support all imprisoned people. Only an Ireland free of British imperialism and European Union economic colonialism can truly be independent. This means all 32 counties reunited under a socialist banner with worker control in every sphere of life.
Labor and national liberation must be connected. As early 20th-century Irish freedom leader James Connolly once said, “The cause of labor is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labor.”

Saturday 25 February 2017

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

Can anyone really believe that the generals trump has loaded up his government with could be a " voice of reason " within this fucked up regime ? Why, of course they could. He got voted in didn't he ? Some people actually think that trump is some sort of " rebel " against liberal " fascists " . These are fucked up times, indeed.

Reality Check:

The Generals Are Not the “Grown Ups” Who Will Check Trump; They Are His Enforcers

February 23, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us


The Trump/Pence regime has loaded up its cabinet with generals. Some now claim these generals will be a “voice of reason” within the regime—the “grown-ups” who can be a check on Trump’s wilder ambitions.
Just the opposite. They are a critical piece of the juggernaut, essential to Trump’s wildest ambitions.
First: they are all proven cold-blooded war criminals. They all have records of violently enforcing the needs of the U.S. empire—from Vietnam to Iraq and beyond.
Second: The fascist agenda of the Trump/Pence regime requires a radical, violent restructuring of U.S. society, and a ferocious re-assertion of “America First” here and around the world. Trump’s incorporation of the generals strengthens his ability to do that.
Third: There is the idea that the nuclear codes are in sane hands. No they are not. These generals serve at the pleasure of Trump. And only one person can legally use these codes: Donald Trump.
        

Tuesday 21 February 2017

UNIVERSAL

It would seem that trump is universally hated and opposed, but obviously that can't be the case, as he is the fucking president of the most powerful imperialist warmongering state in existence! 

He is in the process of destroying his own government , but he can't do it on his own. Every step of the way, he needs to be opposed for all of the reactionary shit he is trying to do. Of course the cops and military are going to do whatever the fuck he wants them to do, because " it's their job ". Fuck that. Anybody who has a spine and a brain, fucking use them.

This article is from a group I don't necessarily support, but they come up with some great articles from time to time. Like now. Read.

NO BAN ON MUSLIM WORKERS—ABOLISH BORDERS

President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration, banning travel to the U.S. from seven mainly Muslim countries, has endangered and torn apart thousands of workers’ lives. A four-month-old baby from Iran was denied life-saving heart surgery. A breastfeeding Sudanese mother was separated from her 11-month-old child while both were detained at a Dallas airport. Countless refugees were trapped in life-threatening situations. Entry was denied to an Iraqi translator who’d risked his life for U.S. imperialism in the bosses’ war in Iraq; to an Iranian biologist working on a cure for tuberculosis at Harvard; to countless other scientists, doctors, researchers, and students.
While the U.S. bosses wage imperialist war, devastating millions of workers, they are also working overtime to prevent workers from escaping their death sentence (see box). No matter how the U.S. judicial process plays out, this racist policy serves only the needs of the capitalist ruling class. Sharpening imperialist rivalries—conflicts between bosses of different countries—are pushing the world closer to a wider global war. Whatever their internal differences, the U.S. rulers are using Trump’s anti-Muslim ban and “America First” nationalism to win the U.S. working class to their cause: the fight for U.S. capitalism and the bosses’ oil profits.
The difference between Trump and Barack Obama is less about ideology and more about political strategy. Obama deported record numbers but veiled his racist policies with lip service to religious and racial tolerance—a tactic to deceive and pacify the working class. Trump has taken an openly racist tack to mobilize his racist base. The good news is that anti-racist workers have responded en masse and fought back. Within hours of Trump’s signing his executive order, thousands of workers--Black, Latino, Asian, and white, men and women, young and old—rushed to join protests at numerous airports and dozens of cities throughout the U.S. and the world, from London and Paris to Manila and Jakarta. Workers set aside religious differences and joined in multiracial unity. This unity is essential for the working class to win a world free of racist borders, sexism, war and poverty, a communist world run by and for the international working class.
Ban: Nothing New
for U.S. Racism
These attacks on workers are nothing new. Trump’s racist fear-mongering comes on the heels of eight years of Deporter-in-Chief Obama’s racist immigration policies. (Between 2009 and 2014, Obama deported 2.5 million workers.) Trump’s “new” policy, in fact, is born out of Obama’s 2015 Terror Prevention Act, which listed the seven countries in question. Obama’s act, in turn, was a “turbocharged” version of President George W. Bush’s immigration policy (Nation, 6/27/16).
Fortified national borders—the better to divide and exploit the working class--are essential to capitalism. In the 1930s, under liberal Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S. bosses deported hundreds of thousands of workers to Mexico. During World War II, they turned away mainly Jewish refugees, sending them straight to the Nazis’ death camps. More recently, the bosses have used anti-Muslim racism to justify countless invasions, pillaging, and destruction in the Middle East (see box). For workers, crossing the border between the U.S. and Mexico has become more and more deadly for workers. During the Obama administration, children sent by their parents as a last effort to flee conflict in Central America were sent back—even though it was effectively a death sentence for some (New York Times, 7/16/16).
Trump’s immigration ban was significant as well for the countries it excluded—most notably Saudi Arabia, the leading source of cheaply extracted oil and a source of huge profits for ExxonMobil, where U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was CEO until last December: “In his order...Trump invoked the Sept. 11 attacks three times. Yet Saudi Arabia... home to 15 of the 19 attackers, was not included on the list of countries...[This] reflects the deep economic and security ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia” (NYT, 1/30).
The Courts and
Liberals Won’t Save Us
So what does it mean when the courts and many politicians—both Democrats and Republicans—are denouncing Trump? It reflects the rulers’ disarray as they try to get their capitalist class in line and protect the faltering U.S. empire. To that end, they will not blink at killing millions of workers around the world. Although Trump is less predictable and perhaps less easily controlled than other recent presidents, he will either deliver the pro-war movement the bosses need or they will find another racist politician to take his place. The judges temporarily blocking Trump’s order are the same forces that target Black workers for racist mass incarceration. Meanwhile, the real criminals on Wall Street are stealing billions from our class.
We cannot vote or petition our way out of capitalist oppression. The only way for the working class to get what we need is through mass revolutionary violence and the seizure of state power. To win the world, the international working class, organized by Progressive Labor Party, will have to take it! Only communist revolution, led by PLP, can smash exploitation and mass imperialist murder for all time.
Smash All Borders
The thousands of anti-racists who have taken to the streets and the airports send an important signal of resistance to the bosses’ attempts to divide the working class. They show the potential of multiracial unity to fight back. But fighting for a “fairer” immigration policy is a losing battle for the working class. Borders are created by capitalism; they serve only the bosses. Meanwhile, capital flows freely from one country to the next. The international working class has no need for these artificial lines. Smashing nationalist borders and building a revolutionary mass working-class movement is the only way forward.
Every time the bosses attack, we, the international working class, must be organized to fight back  and confront them with multiracial unity. On Friday, February 3, more than a thousand New York City bodega owners went on strike against Trump’s ban and in solidarity with the detainees. Marchers protesting the racist police murder of Ramarley Graham in the Bronx joined the bodega protesters. To move this unity to the next level, we must turn reform battles into a fight for communism. The international working class deserves a better world--a communist world, led by PLP!

*****
The bosses’ media has used anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism to paint war in the Middle East as part of an endless conflict between Muslim sects. But the real cause of the horrors inflicted upon our class is inter-imperialist rivalry, as can be seen in the seven countries targeted by Trump.
In Iran:
U.S. bosses remain locked in a struggle with China and Russia, the main backers of the Iranian regime, for control over the Middle East’s vast energy wealth, an increasingly deadly struggle for the working class.
What US bosses fear most is the encirclement and isolation of Saudi Arabia and its oil fields, the grand prize for U.S. imperialism, by Iran and its regional allies.
In Iraq:
The U.S. has a long history of attacks on the Iraqi working class, most recently killing more than one million in the second Iraq War.
Iraq is emerging once again as a focal point for U.S. rulers. U.S. bosses remain locked into Iraq’s petroleum-soaked politics.
ExxonMobil’s vast and growing operations in the country are aimed at controlling Iraqi oil sources, which are of growing importance to rival Chinese bosses.
In Syria:
For millions of workers, the horror of wider war is already a reality. The U.S. proxy war with Russia has left cities demolished, displaced millions of refugees, and slaughtered hundreds of thousands workers.
Trump’s order includes a total and indefinite ban on Syrian refugees.
In Libya:
Using the phony “responsibility to protect” excuse for waging wider wars, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton engineered a U.S. invasion in 2011. Bombing and missile raids by the U.S. were supposedly aimed at saving Libya’s citizens from dictator Muammar Qaddafi. In reality, however, the invasion was designed to consolidate oil deals the imperialist powers had made with the unreliable Qaddafi and each other.
In Sudan:
China first supported the Sudanese government in Khartoum fighting against separatist rebels in the south, who were funded by the U.S. But when the rebels succeeded in freeing their oil-rich province from control of the Khartoum regime, the Chinese skillfully switched sides to sustain their gas and oil projects.
China helped develop the South Sudan oil industry, which now exports 80 percent of its oil to China.
Chinese troops are part of a UN “peacekeeping force” that protects the oil wells and pipelines.
In Yemen:
Yemen is being torn apart in a proxy war between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the pro-Saudi/U.S. regime. A Saudi-led coalition has conducted indiscriminate air strikes across the country, killing thousands of workers. The finance capitalists fear any threat to U.S. control over the world’s foremost profit center in neighboring Saudi Arabia.
In Somalia:
The working class is caught in the crossfire of the imperialists’ fight to control Middle East oil. Over the last several months, the U.S.’s rampage has increased to six raids a month (Telesurtv, 10/16). Obama folded these raids into the perpetual war waged under the “Authorization for Use of Military Force,” the Congressional legislation signed into law one week after 9-11