Stop the US/NATO Encirclement of Russia

Money for Jobs, Healthcare, Income Support Not War Profiteers!

US-Trained-and-Funded Ukrainian Nazi Troops Bombing Civilians For Years

The war in Ukraine did not start yesterday. With full U.S. backing, Ukraine has been bombing and shelling the antifascist resistance fighters in the Donbass for eight years, killing at least 14,000 men, women, and children. For eight years Ukrainians have endured the daily terror of fascist raids and terrorist assaults by U.S.-armed-and-trained Gestapo forces that came to power in 2014 when the U.S. enlisted Nazis to violently remove the elected government and install a puppet regime.

Fascists in groups like the Right Sector and the Azov battalion are no different from the KKK.  These are the same forces that besieged and set fire to a union hall in Odessa in 2014, burning alive more than 40 antifascist resisters inside.

The move for a referendum in Crimea where residents voted to rejoin Russia and the move to establish the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk were defensive measures against the daily incursions of swastika-waving thugs terrorizing the population.

These Nazis act as shock troops for U.S.-enforced austerity, which means the ripping away of all social benefits and support for workers for the benefit of the rich. As soon as the U.S. puppet regime was installed in 2014, the living standards of Ukrainians fell as the U.S.-controlled International Monetary Fund demanded that the Ukrainian government purchase U.S. weapons and cut government pensions, education, health care, and social programs. These attacks have reduced Ukraine to the poorest country in Europe while it has become one of the top purchasers of U.S. weapons.

War profiteers treat working people in the U.S. the same way they do the workers of Ukraine: they rob us of the things we need by raiding our federal budget to the tune of $1.2 trillion dollars a year. As police and military budgets balloon, cuts to social programs, rising prices, etc., are making life unbearable for workers. We have an interest in common with the antifascist resisters of the Donbass, who don’t want to be strangled by U.S. war-profiteering and energy companies.

Reject the Corporate Media Lies, Stand Up to U.S. Imperialism, End All U.S. Sanctions

Since 2014, the U.S. has aggressively moved to build up the Ukrainian military and groom it for NATO membership. U.S.-supplied weapons in Ukraine are aimed at Russia. U.S. nuclear weapons have been positioned in neighboring NATO countries. Imagine if Russia had 29 installations surrounding the U.S., with nuclear weapons aimed at our city centers!

Agreements that were reached twice in Minsk giving partial sovereignty to the Republics of the Donbass and to establish cease-fires have been violated thousands of times by the government in Kiev. After years of attempts at diplomacy, Russia has finally resorted to military means to neutralize the threat of an attack. This is an act of defense. They have fired on military installations in Ukraine and have committed troops to aid the anti-fascist defenders of the Donbass.

The U.S. has leveled brutal sanctions against Russia in response. U.S. sanctions have killed millions around the world through poverty and starvation. Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright even admitted that U.S. sanctions were responsible for the death of 500,000 Iraqi children. For the sake of the people of Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran, etc., all people of conscience must demand an end to this inhumane form of U.S. warfare.

U.S. media will have you believe that Russia has been the aggressor despite the extreme escalation of U.S./Ukraine attacks on the Donbass in recent months which has forced Russia’s hand. Others take a cowardly “both sides are wrong” position that allows them to wring their hands and do nothing. This is the same as supporting U.S. imperialism and Ukrainian fascism. The allegedly “left wing” Democracy Now is a prime example, having fallen in line with the far-right by characterizing the removal of Nazis from Ukraine as an assault on Ukrainian nationalism, which is very convenient for the Nazis and an insult the Ukrainians who have been violently oppressed by the fascists.

From their brand-new iPhones, some of these “both sides are wrong” types have finally typed the word “imperialism” for the first time in their lives, hypocritically slinging it at Russia while living in the U.S., the most violent, destructive, exploitative imperialist country in human history. Meanwhile, the right wing in the U.S. is cheering to see their white nationalist brethren glorified by the U.S. media.

U.S. wars, interventions = mass murder for corporate profits

NATO, U.S. AFRICOM = Neocolonial armies for capitalist plunder

No country that has suffered a U.S. intervention, occupation, or coup has ever come out better for it. Over 23 million people in Afghanistan face starvation after 20 years of U.S. war and occupation. While U.S. soldiers guarded poppy fields and pipelines, millions were driven from their homes. The war only worsened conditions for a country which already had its popular democratic government ousted by U.S.-armed and trained Taliban and Mujahideen in 1978.

Whether the open slave markets in Libya after the 2014 bombing campaign or the extreme U.S.-backed repression in South Korea and Taiwan, or the complete disregard of even the slightest show of democracy in Iraq, the results of U.S. “humanitarianism” are crimes against humanity. What was “humanitarian” about the 80,000 tons of bombs dropped by NATO on the former Yugoslavia? U.S./NATO wars have resulted in poverty so severe that life expectancy rates plummet by decades.

The U.S. invokes the defense of Ukrainian “sovereignty” as it ships weapons to fascist Ukraine. At the same time, they are bombing Somalia and expanding their network of military bases in Africa in to enforce brutal neo-colonial rule for maximum corporate profits. NATO and U.S. AFRICOM attacks are flagrant violations of the right of Africans to determine their own national destiny.

Is the U.S. really arming Nazis?

Yes. They fly the swastika, and they are officially part of the Ukrainian military and government. The Ukrainian National Guard–which counts the Nazi Azov battalion in its ranks—was created with the direct assistance of the U.S. government. The Ukrainian government have erected statues to the Nazi Ukrainian Stephan Bandera and have taken down monuments to heroes who fought the Nazis. 

The U.S. has a long history of using fascist death squads to enforce capitalist exploitation, and the U.S. continues to condemn armed resistance to Nazism and white supremacy. Never forget that the U.S. propped up the fascist apartheid state of South Africa and designated Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Today, the U.S. funds and arms the fascist, apartheid Israeli government and considers Palestinian freedom fighters terrorists.

The U.S. armed and trained Nazis are the forces leading the attacks on the Donbass. They openly state their goal is to rid the world of people of color, Jews and “undesirables.” The Ukrainian government acts at their mercy for fear of withdrawal of U.S. support.

Fortunately, many Ukrainian soldiers have put down their weapons. Some are even bravely turning their guns on Nazi commanding officers now that the fighters of the Donbass are on a counter-offensive. According to the People’s Militia of the DPR, fifteen soldiers with the Ukrainian Army’s 57th Mechanized Infantry Unit rejected their orders then joined the separatist militias. The working class of Ukraine is suffering at the hands of these Nazis as well.

Why Is the U.S. Even in Ukraine? Military Profits and Fossil Fuels

The U.S. wants the natural gas and resources of Ukraine and Russia, just like it does in Africa and everywhere else around the world. U.S. politicians make little effort to hide this. Biden’s own son was put the board of Ukrainian gas company after the 2014 coup and was milking the Ukrainian people for $60,000 a month while thousands of workers were being laid off.

War and oil profits are all the U.S. capitalists care about, and they will cause the deaths of millions to get them.  

Workers should demand the immediate withdrawal of all support for the fascist Ukrainian government. We need funds for healthcare, childcare, and income support not for white supremacist death squads!

Money for Children, Youth, COVID Relief Not War Profiteers

U.S./NATO/Ukraine Planning Massacre of Donbass Anti-Fascist Fighters

Barricades outside the Donetsk regional administration building plastered with anti-fascist posters.

A message from Andrey Kochetov, a labor leader in the Lugansk People’s Republic:

“Now the situation around our Republics is very serious. Ukraine brought to the front line about 125,000 soldiers of Ukrainian Army and murders from Nazi battalions. Many foreign instructors came to train Ukrainian soldiers.

“But mass media of US and EU says about “Russian aggression”. But we can’t see any Russian troops on our territory. We hope that common sense and wisdom will win and the world doesn’t fall into war.

“We still remember that Ukrainian authorities decided to drop bombs on the heads of Donbass residents instead of sitting down at the negotiating table. And we will never forget that only Russia, not so-called “civilized world”, gave us real help, support and defense.

“It is difficult to make any prognosis right now. We just see US push Ukraine into the war very hard. It is terrible but it is so!

“What you can do for us? Thanks to Russia we not suffer from hunger. Only one thing we need. Your support and help us dissemination of real information about the situation in our Republics.”

We Need Money For Workers Welfare, Not for Capitalist Warfare

The monthly child supplement has been cut and millions are facing eviction and foreclosure. Millions are denied childcare and affordable health care. COVID is overwhelming hospitals and killing people by the thousands. Republicans and Democrats have rushed to spend another $500 million on weapons to send to the Ukrainian army and its allied Nazi paramilitaries which have been terrorizing people. That $500 million is destined for the pockets of the U.S. military corporations which already make record profits and already loot 65% of our federal tax dollars for themselves.

Why is the U.S. in the Ukraine anyway?

Members of the Ukrainian National Guard flying NATO flag, the flag of the Azov battalion, and the Nazi swastika.

The U.S. has no interest in protecting the Ukrainian people. They want to build another military base on the Russian border. Imagine if Russia wanted to do the same in Mexico.

The corporate media outlets that falsely claim that the U.S. is defending Ukrainian sovereignty don’t mention that when Biden was Vice President, the U.S. orchestrated a fascist-led coup in 2014 that forced mass layoffs, price increases, cuts to social programs, and open terror on the Ukrainian people. Nor do they mention the $2.4 billion U.S. taxpayer dollars used to build up the swastika-flying militias of the Ukrainian National Guard who have killed more than 14,000 people in their 8-year bombing war on the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. These are the reasons that the people of the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in the Donbass and the republic in Crimea are determined to be independent from Ukraine. Russia did not invade or seize Crimea; after the 2014 coup, the people voted overwhelmingly to disassociate from fascist Ukraine.

Solidarity with Anti-Fascist Fighters in Donbass and Ukraine

By now 150,000 U.S.-armed and -trained Ukrainian troops have amassed at the border of the People’s Republics of the Donbass located between Ukraine and Russia. They have been supplied with 250 tons of military equipment and ammunition (which corporate media has tried to hide in plain sight by calling it “lethal aid”) by the U.S. They are reinforced by U.S./NATO deployed jets, warships, and nuclear-armed submarines.  

By attempting to crush the anti-fascist resistance in the Donbass and advance U.S./NATO forces up to the Russian border, the U.S. is daring Russia to respond. Even the Ukrainian government has asked the U.S. to pull back but the capitalists in control of the U.S. and NATO have their eye on the vast energy reserves and infrastructure in the Donbass and Russia.

The U.S. government has declared that the world belongs to its capitalists and has 800 foreign military bases to enforce that ownership. Russia has a handful of bases in former Soviet states. Russia’s troops are on its own western border in defense of its territory. The “imminent Russian invasion” being hyped by the corporate U.S. media is a lie being peddled on behalf of U.S. arms manufacturers and oil and gas companies hungry for new sources of profit. These lies are no different from the ones told about WMDs in Iraq 20 years ago.

Working people have no interest in another rich man’s war.

Join us in saying no more blood for oil!

Massive Strikes and Mobilizations in Kazakhstan Push Back Against 30 years of Capitalist Dictatorship

Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan is asking for international solidarity in light of the massive strikes and mobilizations of workers which have been met with brutal repression from the government. They are demanding::

• An immediate end to hostilities against their people and the withdrawal of troops from the cities
• Immediate resignation of all Nazarbayev officials, including President Tokayev
• Release of all political prisoners and detainees
• Ensuring the right for workers to create their own trade unions and political parties and to hold strikes and meetings
• Legalization of the activities of the banned Communist Party of Kazakhstan and the Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
• The Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan calls on all the workers and working people of the country to implement in practice the demand of the executed oil workers of Zhanaozen – to nationalize, under the control of labor collectives, the entire extractive and large-scale industry of the country

Call the Embassy of Kazakhstan and demand an end to the repression: Yerzhan Ashikbayev at (202) 232-5488 ext. 122

Email the U.S. State Department at usakz@state.gov and demand the withdrawal of all U.S. military and all U.S. corporations from Kazakhstan.

Workers Voice Socialist Movement stands with the workers and youth of Kazakhstan who have taken to the streets in the hundreds of thousands to protest high prices, low wages, union busting, and government repression all of which stem from the capitalist takeover of the socialist Kazakh government 30 years ago.

The struggles being waged in the streets and oilfields of Kazakhstan are a genuine expression of protest against the theft and exploitation of the country’s resources and labor by foreign capitalist corporations like ArcelorMittal, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and others. This is one of the main reasons US/NATO imperialist powers are desperately deploying their NGOs, reporters, and paid agents to redirect the protests and co-opt them for their own ends.

Some progressives are mistakenly rushing to support the Kazakh government and the deployment of Russian troops to repress the protests, claiming that the uprising is nothing more than a color revolution orchestrated by the imperialist US government. But comparisons with the attempted coup in Belarus or the successful US coup in Ukraine fall short. For one, the now-deposed government of Nazarbayev and his hand-picked successor Tokayev have long been in pockets of U.S. and EU capitalists. These same progressives ought to support the Kazakh workers’ demands to take back ownership of their national resources from US companies ExxonMobil and Chevron. The cries for “stability” among those promoting CSTO intervention care nothing for the stability for the workers of Kazakhstan. Russian and CSTO “peacekeepers” are meant to keep peace for the corporate owners of Kazakhstan’s mines and oilfields,  not protect the workers of Kazakhstan, Russia, or any of the other peoples once joined in socialist solidarity as part of the USSR.

The Russian Federation is a capitalist country under attack by US imperialists who seek to reduce Russia to a neo-colony like Ukraine, Poland, etc. For our own sake and the sake of workers in Russia, socialists, progressives, and workers organizations in the US are right to resist any such attempt. But we cannot ignore the internal struggle of workers against capitalists in Russia which is also growing as living standards continue to plummet from the heights once attained in the Soviet Union. This is a major part of the reason that the Russian government is sending troops to put down the workers’ uprising in Kazakhstan. For their part, two of the main Russian communist parties have condemned the deployment of Russian and other CSTO troops and have called for working class solidarity among the nations once united under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

There is no doubt that the U.S. is feverishly trying to install a capitalist government that serves the interests of Chevron, ExxonMobil, ArcelorMittal, Glencore, etc. all of whom control a large share of the national wealth of Kazakhstan. The US will try different means of gaining the advantage. They will try to undermine the workers’ movement by dividing the multinational working class of Kazakhstan into hostile camps, each aligned with their own bourgeoisie. US imperialists especially want to seize the chance to pit Kazakhs against Russians in order to win from the Russian capitalists a larger share of Kazakhstan’s mineral resources for themselves. The US also wants to expand their military presence in the region in order to threaten and eventually dominate Russia and China. If they can bribe some grouping of the Kazakh ruling class to advance this aim, they will.

No progressive—much less socialist—would dare tell workers and oppressed people not to rebel against miserable conditions. What needs to be soberly and factually assessed is how strong the workers are against the capitalists and the chances for success of any action taken against them. The paid agents of the capitalists are always going to try to exploit and twist workers’ grievances for their own purposes. What is the extent of the capitalists’ influence or infiltration? How much bribing or sabotage are the capitalists willing to undertake? Any attempt to advance the class struggle requires tactics and organization. But just as importantly, it  requires the will to step into the fray.

There is a fierce battle underway for the leadership of the protests in Kazakhstan. Socialists, communists, and trade unionists are on the ground organizing assemblies to consolidate their forces. Day and night they are working to advance the progressive demands of the broadest section of workers possible. They are bravely taking to the streets despite dozens of deaths at the hands of government forces. Despite the provocateurs who infiltrate their ranks, despite all the paid agents of the capitalists trying to sabotage their struggle, they are pressing on without any guarantee of victory. We in the Workers Voice Socialist Movement salute them in their struggle and ask you to show your solidarity.

For more info, please see the full statement from the Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan below.

Hands off the workers!

U.S. out of Kazakhstan!

From Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan:

In Kazakhstan, there is now a real popular uprising and from the very beginning the protests were of a social and class nature, since the doubling of the price of liquefied gas on the exchange was just the last straw in an overflowing cup of patience. After all, the demonstrations began precisely in Zhanaozen at the initiative of the oil workers, which became a kind of political headquarters of the entire protest movement.

And the dynamics of this movement is indicative, since it began as a social protest, it then began to expand, and labor collectives used rallies to put forward their own demands for a 100% increase in wages, cancellation of optimization results, improvement of working conditions and freedom of trade union activity. As a result, on January 3, the entire Mangistau region was engulfed in a general strike, which spread to the neighboring Atyrau region.

It is noteworthy that already on January 4, Tengizchevroil oil workers went on strike, where the participation of American companies reaches 75 percent. It was there that in December last year 40,000 workers were laid off and a new series of layoffs was planned. They were subsequently supported during the day by the oilmen of Aktobe and West Kazakhstan and Kyzylorda regions.

Moreover, in the evening of the same day, strikes of miners from the ArcelorMittal Temirtau company began in the Karaganda region and copper smelters and miners from the Kazakhmys corporation, which can already be regarded as a general strike in the entire mining industry of the country. And here they also put forward demands for higher wages, lowering the retirement age, the right to their own trade unions and strikes.

At the same time, indefinite rallies on Tuesday began already in Atyrau, Uralsk, Aktyubinsk, Kyzyl-Orda, Taraz, Taldykorgan, Turkestan, Shymkent, Ekibastuz, in the cities of the Almaty region and in Almaty itself, where the overlap of streets appeared on the night of January 4-5. in an open clash of demonstrators with the police, as a result of which the city akimat was temporarily seized. This gave rise to Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev to declare a state of emergency.

It should be noted that these mobilizations in Almaty were attended mainly by unemployed youth and internal migrants living in the suburbs of the metropolis and working in temporary or low-paid jobs. And attempts to calm them down with promises by reducing the gas price to 50 tenge, separately for the Mangistau region and Almaty, have not satisfied anyone.

The decision of Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev to dismiss the government, and then removing Nursultan Nazarbayev from the post of chairman of the Security Council, also did not stop the protests, since on January 5, mass protest rallies began in those regional centers of Northern and Eastern Kazakhstan, where they had not previously existed – in Petropavlovsk, Pavlodar, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Semipalatinsk. At the same time, attempts were made to storm the buildings of regional akimats (municipal or provincial governments) in Aktobe, Taldykorgan, Shymkent and Almaty.

In Zhanaozen itself, at their indefinite rally, workers formulated new demands – the resignation of the incumbent president and all Nazarbayev officials, the restoration of the 1993 Constitution and the associated freedoms to create parties, trade unions, release political prisoners and end repression. A Council of aksakals was immediately created, which became an informal authority.

Thus, the demands and slogans that are now used in different cities and regions were broadcast to the entire movement, and the struggle received a political content. Attempts are also being made on the ground to create committees and councils to coordinate the struggle.

At the same time, troops were pulled together in Almaty, Aktau and Zhanaozen, and if everything went peacefully in the Mangistau region and the soldiers refused to disperse the protesters, then shootings began in the southern capital, and on the night of January 5-6, special forces were introduced, which began cleanup of the airport and neighborhoods captured by the rebels. According to various sources, there are already dozens of demonstrators killed.

In this situation, there is a danger of violent suppression of all protests and strikes, and here it is necessary to completely paralyze the country with a general strike. Therefore, it is urgent to form a unified action committees on a territorial and production basis in order to provide organized resistance to military and police terror.

In this regard, the support of the entire international workers’ and communist movement, leftist associations is also necessary in order to organize a large-scale campaign in the world.

ALERT!

100,000 U.S.-armed Ukraine Nazi regime troopers amassed on border of Donbass Region to massacre the antifascist resistance and line up at the Russian border

Blame will be put on Russia escalating chance of larger war

U.S. workers will pay the price as war profiteers further loot the budget

Say No to Another U.S. War for Energy Profits

The U.S. is setting the stage for its Nazi puppets in the Ukraine to commit a massacre as they push their troops closer and closer to Russia. Yet again, the American people are being told the lie that Russia is the aggressor.

100,000 U.S. armed and funded Ukrainian troops are amassed on the border of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. The fascist Ukrainian government is threatening to massacre the residents of the self-determined People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk which, along with the Republic of Crimea, declared independence from Ukraine in 2014 after a violent coup installed a U.S. puppet government in the capital of Kiev. Biden was a key player in the 2014 attack on Ukrainian sovereignty which he now falsely claims to be defending.

The heroic people of the independent republics of the Donbass are resistance fighters facing down a military with outright Nazis like the Azov battalion in its ranks. They don’t want to live in a fascist Ukraine, which since the 2014 coup has become the poorest country in Europe with its second largest military. They have faced waves of deadly attacks by fascists connected to the Ukrainian military and are shelled almost daily.

Russia shares several hundred miles of border with the Donbass region. Any military advance on its border—much less one by an army flying Nazi swastikas—is a serious matter of national defense. Anticipating some response by the Russian armed forces, the U.S. and its war propagandists in the capitalist media are hyping made-up intelligence ‘leaks’ of an imminent Russian invasion. The same news outlets fail to report that the U.S. has been flying nuclear-capable bombers on the edge of Russian airspace.

Already costing 14,000 lives, the U.S. backed Ukrainian war to regain the Donbass is not about defending Ukraine from “Russian aggression.” It’s about recapturing the industries of the region and crushing any resistance to the fascist dictates of Kiev which have driven the country into the dust. For the U.S., it’s also about maintaining a neocolonial government willing to sell out its country to U.S. and E.U. banks and corporations as has been done in Poland and Hungary.

The U.S. wants to use the Ukrainian military as the tip of its spear aimed eastward at neighboring Russia. Seeking out fresh sources of profit, the capitalists in control of the U.S. and the other major NATO powers want to bring Russia under their heel as they’ve done with other eastern Europe countries like the former Yugoslavia on whom they dropped 80,000 tons of bombs in 1999. We in the U.S. have nothing to gain by supporting these murderous wars for profit.

End all U.S. funding of the fascist Ukrainian government.

Stop the U.S./NATO drive to war with Russia!

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Independent Mass Action Needed

Stop Support for Biden’s War-making and Racism

Asylum for Haitians and all Migrants

Stop Deportations

End Racist Terror and Brutality of ICE and U.S. Border Patrol

Close the Camps, Release Imprisoned Migrants

Repeating the same state violence used against enslaved Africans, U.S. Border Patrol agents near Del Rio, TX have been terrorizing Haitians and other migrants from horseback, using whips to drive desperate families from the border. The Biden administration is also using a so-called “emergency” rule invoked by Trump at the start of the pandemic to enforce mass deportations of asylum seekers.

The agents responsible for these heinous acts must be arrested and jailed for their crimes, and the Border Patrol abolished. Migrants should be met at the border with the support they need, including healthcare, shelter, food, and asylum, not whips in the hands of sadistic, murderous scum.

Biden has done nothing to stop the unending deportations, close the detention centers (concentration camps), or help the thousands of immigrants who have been driven out of their home countries by the U.S. and other imperialist countries. Haiti has faced massive political repression in the wake of the assassination of President Moise (by U.S.-backed agents), as well as devastation and death brought by hurricanes, earthquakes, and COVID.

Border Patrol officials repeat the same sentiments expressed by Kamala Harris and Biden, warning immigrants that if they come to the U.S. they will be deported or detained. Though Biden’s press secretary Psaki feigned outrage when asked about this latest incident of racist violence, these acts stem directly from the official policies of the Biden administration.

Border Patrol, like ICE, is part of the Department of Homeland Security, created after 9/11 to enforce the increasingly repressive laws and policies of every administration since. This agency is a tool of the rich who use terrorism to keep workers–immigrants and not–desperate and willing to work for pennies.

As workers we must stand in solidarity with immigrants from around the world who have been victimized by the policies of U.S. corporations, war profiteers, and governments acting in the interest of the rich. Companies continue to set up shop abroad where they pay slave wages, which are kept low by brutal governments that the U.S. installs and supports.

Why aren’t laws passed to prevent off-shore bank profiteering or to prevent companies from setting up production in countries that pay lower wages or outlaw union organizing? Because the goal of the U.S. government, both Democrats and Republicans, is to lower the living standards of workers globally. The more workers of any country suffer, the more our living standards fall as capitalists aim to pit us workers against each other in a competition to sell our labor. Solidarity is our way to fight back.

Twenty years of U.S. bombing and occupation have killed 241,000 men, women, and children. Thousands more have been maimed for life.  Nearly 6 million Afghans had been driven from their homes by the U.S. puppet government. U.S. banks and Afghan officials have profited enormously from the vast opium fields guarded by U.S. troops.  $2.26 trillion has been looted from the U.S. treasury to enrich oil companies and war profiteering corporations. This money could have been used for jobs, fighting climate destruction, fires, pandemics, and providing education, housing, and healthcare for all.

Have we workers in the U.S. gained from this bloodshed?  No! This was a rich man’s war.

U.S. policy in Afghanistan is motivated by a drive to control mining, energy resources, transportation, and the opium trade in the region. Now that the Taliban has taken over the government, they may drive a harder bargain for a U.S. cut of profits than the puppet government that preceded them, but the U.S. Taliban negotiations that have been underway since Trump’s term will continue under Biden.

Biden and politicians now cry crocodile tears for the Afghan people after funding and training the original Taliban forces. State sanctioned slavery, torture, and the brutal oppression of women have not affected close ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, from which the Taliban draws much of its funding. From Syria to Afghanistan to Xinjiang to Colombia, the U.S. arms and funds ISIS or other right-wing death squads wherever they served to bring about or maintain domination by U.S. financial interests. Did the occupation and destruction of Libya bring any benefit to the Libyan people who once had free education, healthcare, housing, and borders open to immigrants? No, the people are impoverished, enslaved, and controlled by warlords each vying to be the favorite of the U.S. government.

Without Popular Support, U.S. Puppets in Afghanistan Fell Quickly

It took just a few weeks for the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan. Why didn’t Afghans rally to defend “their” government from advancing Taliban fighters? Because the corruption of the puppet government was plain for all to see. As U.S. troops withdrew, former President Ashraf Ghani and his cronies fled the country with suitcases of cash. Meanwhile, 90% of Afghans live in poverty. Afghans are painfully aware that the now-deposed government was only propped up to protect the profits of U.S. investors in gas pipelines, mines, and poppy farms. They are sick of being sold out to foreign occupiers by millionaires like Ghani.

U.S. Invasion Funded, Trained the Taliban, Destroyed People’s Progress

U.S. Interventions Destroy Workers’ Rights, Social Benefits, and the Liberation of Oppressed People

The U.S. occupation that began in 2001 is predated by U.S. involvement going back to the 1970s when the CIA funded and armed the Mujahideen that opposed the movements for social progress spearheaded by the Afghan left and supported by the Soviet Union. In 1978, with broad popular support, socialists overthrew the Afghan King, establishing the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). Anahita Ratebzad described DRA laws the U.S. fought to destroy: “Privileges which women, by right, must have are equal education, job security, health services, and free time to rear a healthy generation for building the future of the country […] Educating and enlightening women was a high priority.” This and other progressive steps were destroyed with U.S. arms and training of the Mujahideen, which became the Taliban. The U.S. particularly opposed the measures taken by the DRA to divide the old feudal landowners’ properties among the Afghan masses. The Soviet Union, with a 1,000-mile border with Afghanistan, joined the DRA at their request to defend their gains against a U.S. occupation and Taliban government.

“War on Terror” Just Another War for Profit

No Afghans and no Iraqis were involved in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. These attacks were used as pretext to destroy the independent governments of the Middle East that had formed during the anti-colonial struggles after WWII. This policy was outlined in 1997 by Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and their Project for the New American Century. Independent governments like Libya, Iraq, and Syria were attacked because they stood in the way of U.S. and European domination of the world’s resources, including its people.

Afghanistan has important pipelines, transportation corridors, and natural resources. U.S. military geologists appraise untapped mineral wealth alone to be $1 trillion. The U.S. government’s long occupation was a bid to control those resources by military force. Absent boots on the ground, they will be looking to extract these resources by working with the Taliban.

Workers Demand U.S. Withdrawal of Military, CIA, and Mercenary Forces

After initially withdrawing troops, Biden has ordered 6,000 military personnel back into the country where they have, in recent days, been involved in horrifying scenes at the airport. We must demand that all military personnel and all private military contractors leave the country and cease to perpetuate suffering, war, and death.

Though the exit of the U.S. has been compared to the withdrawal after defeat in Saigon, unlike the progressive, socialist government in Vietnam that threw off U.S. empire, the people of Afghanistan now face uncertainty at the hands of reactionaries created through decades of U.S. involvement. Afghan people deserve peace and prosperity, but these will never be won if the U.S. is involved. The national destiny of Afghanistan should be determined by the Afghans and the Afghans alone. Their own history of struggle shows the way.

The U.S. must stay out of the sovereign affairs of Afghanistan and all nations, including Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and Yemen. This includes an end to military intervention, blockades, and U.S. sanctions.

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We Must Unite to Defeat the Covid-19 Delta Variant

• Fight for Vaccine & Mask Mandates
• Make Vaccines, Tests, and Masks Available for All
• Fight for Paid Leave for Vaccination and Quarantines
• Fight for Secure Housing, Jobs, and Childcare
• Resume and Broaden Unemployment Insurance
• Fight Racism in Health Care, Give Medical Oversight to Communities of Color

On August 6, the Louisiana Department of Health reported that 3,000 children had tested positive for Covid-19 in just four days. Some are critically ill. Hospitals are beyond capacity. Shortages of hospital staff, ambulances, and EMTs are causing health care to be rationed. Patients are being held in ambulances as they wait hours for beds to open up in hospital hallways. Every day, dozens die from Covid-19 in Louisiana.

Insurance companies have raked in billions in pandemic profits. Meanwhile, the U.S.’s health care system ranks last among economically developed countries. By every measure of care, the for-profit system is failing.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, profit-making corporations have received trillions of dollars in bailouts from federal and state agencies, especially through the Federal Reserve Bank. Billionaires have increased their wealth by $1.8 trillion. Feeling secure in their guarded estates and pampered with the best healthcare money can buy, the ultra-rich and their government lackeys have decided to let people die. They are using the cut off of unemployment and other benefits to create even more desperate workers so bosses can drive down wages. Evictions and an end to food stamp supplements are planned for the fall.

Real Public Safety Means Protection from the Virus and Its Effects

While we’ve been dealing with record unemployment, evictions, and hunger, the racist Louisiana legislature handed over millions of 2020 CARES Act dollars to prisons and sheriff’s departments. The Biden administration redirected $350 billion in 2021 Covid-19 relief money to cops. Mayor Cantrell wants to give tens of millions in Covid-19 relief dollars to build up the police and jails. We say use this Covid-19 relief money for sick and quarantine pay and for back rent. Real public safety means protection from the virus and its effects. Economic and social desperation drives crime. Fund people’s needs, especially the youth, not cops and jails.

National Security Means Protection from Covid-19, Secure Housing, Food, Wages and Healthcare, Not War

A recent study showed that just $21.3 billion would wipe out the debts of the roughly 6.4 million households currently behind on rent. That’s less than the extra $25 billion in tax-payer dollars that the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to add to the already record-level U.S. war budget. Now there’s an effort to sneak in an extra $50 billion in war spending through the infrastructure bill. This would be enough to cover sick and quarantine pay for every worker. The money is there when it comes to bombing working people around the world. The money is there for the profit-making war corporations who elect congress. But when it comes to meeting people’s needs, we’re left to choke on pennies.  

Workers Must Advance Our Own Demands in the Battle Against Covid-19

Workers must lead the way in the fight for public health protections. This means fighting for universal vaccine mandates. Smallpox vaccines stopped a virus that claimed 500 million lives. We need to respond to Covid-19 with social solidarity, not with the selfishness being preached by corporate bosses and the politicians in their pockets.

Covid-19 has killed 11,260 people in Louisiana and hospitalized tens of thousands more. The good news is that the Covid-19 vaccines are very effective preventing serious illness and death. The unvaccinated make up more than 90% of people hospitalized for Covid-19.
Vaccines and masks help prevent the spread of Covid-19. Mandating these measures is essential to protecting our communities, but we should also demand:

• High quality masks, free and available for all. Shields for workers in contact with the public.
• Fun masks for all children in all schools. Parents refusing to wear masks or refusing masks for their children are endangering their children and should be provided health education and counseling.
• Every worker must be guaranteed paid time off to get vaccinated and paid time after as needed.
• Every worker and every caregiver must be guaranteed paid quarantine time with food delivered.
• Rent should be covered, and all back rent should be cancelled for affected households.
• Vaccines should not be made for profit. Vaccines should be equitably distributed around the world. Vaccine technology should be a public good for all.

Demand the Right to Survive, Not the Right to Infect

The right wing is claiming that individual and states’ rights to reject vaccinations and other protections trump the right to be safe from the virus. This phony defense of personal ‘liberty’ is used to justify right-to-work laws, and all kinds of discrimination. Union rights, the right to vote or work in a safe environment or live free of racism—the right-wing has fought to to deny all of these by empowering business or government with the right to fire, discriminate, and exploit.

Right-winger Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is criminally misusing his office to campaign against Covid-19 protections, including the use of vaccines and masks. He is building a racist, pro-death movement. An attorney general is not authorized to create policy. He is using the office to rally a right-wing following as he begins to campaign for governor. He is the successor to David Duke and must be stopped.

Landry says only local areas can decide on masks. But Landry opposes the right of cities across Louisiana to raise the minimum wage, sick pay for all, workers safety laws, and anti-racist education in the schools. This flunky of the rich lives off kickbacks from his oil company friends, opposes Medicaid, food stamps, civil rights, worker safety laws, raising the minimum wage, or doing anything to address climate change. He ought to be charged for mass murder and thrown into jail alongside Texas governor Abbott and Florida governor DeSantis.

Use Science to Serve the People

Heath care in the U.S. is bound up with racism and discrimination against low-income people. This cannot be ignored or dismissed. We cannot fight to change that by playing into right-wing ideas. The racist idea that Black people were inherently more susceptible to Covid-19 had to be fought to show that the real issue was lack of access to healthcare, good jobs, adequate housing, etc. The renowned Black scholar W.E.B. Du Bois fought against the phony “science” used to justify racist oppression of Black people. But he implored workers and Black people not to discard science but fight to have it benefit the people, especially the Black community.

Many people of color have reason to distrust the racist and anti-poor U.S. healthcare system. A statewide body of doctors, medical staff, and health professionals of color should be convened immediately to counsel and help people decide to vaccinate. This body should be given authority and funding to ensure that other safety measures are also put into effect. Special effort is required to guarantee that people of color are getting adequate access to vaccines, masks, income, housing, medical care, and sick pay.  

It is time for leaders in unions and other workers to put life into the slogan “an injury to one is an injury to all” and show solidarity to demand a science-based pandemic response that protects humanity. This means masking and vaccine mandates, paid sick leave, cash assistance, freedom for all non-violent prisoners, and programs to ensure needs such as housing, food, childcare, healthcare, and education are guaranteed for all.

End the Blockade and Murderous Sanctions against Cuba!

Stop U.S. Funding for Counter Revolutionaries

The Cuban Revolution Will Prevail

For 60 years, the U.S. has tried to crush the Cuban revolution in order to reclaim Cuba as a colony. Cuba has withstood U.S. invasions and blockade to do all in its power to end the racism that prevailed under U.S. domination, ensure equality for Black Cubans and LGBTQ Cubans, and provide free healthcare, education, and housing. The heroic Cuban people have defended their sovereignty and their right to a life of common dignity, defying U.S. military and economic assaults, attempted assassinations, economic sabotage, and right-wing terrorist attacks.

Today, the Cuban government called the people to the streets in defense of the revolution, and hundreds of thousands have responded.

We in the U.S. Need to Stand with Cuba

No country, including the U.S., can thrive isolated from trade, unable to purchase what is needed for its people. Cuba, an island only 90 miles in length, has summoned the revolutionary determination of the masses to not only maintain their independence but to put the welfare of the people above the wealth of a few. Despite having its access to fuel, spare parts, medicines, and other essential items blocked by the U.S., Cuba has managed to develop 5 COVID vaccines and send its medical brigades to assist dozens of countries around the world. By putting people’s health over private profit, it has kept COVID deaths to 1/14th the rate of the U.S.

Biden and his mercenaries in the Cuban right wing are exploiting the hardships that U.S. sanctions have produced. Biden hasn’t repealed any of Trump’s 243 brutal sanctions, which were imposed in order to starve the Cuban people to the point of begging the U.S. for mercy.

The U.S. wants total capitalist control of the island, which means destroying every social program won by the Cuban revolution. If the U.S. were to succeed in recolonizing Cuba, every last program for Cuba’s workers, children, and seniors would be wiped out. The Cuban international medical brigades would be dismantled, and apartheid against Black Cubans would be reinstated as it existed before the revolution.

Stand with Cuba, demand an immediate end to the blockade, sanctions, and U.S. funding of right-wing mercenaries in Cuba, Haiti, and Colombia.

Change of Presidents Carried Out to Intensify Repression Against The People

A professional hit team made up of Colombian military personnel assassinated Haitian president Jovenel Moïse on July 8. The U.S. armed and trained Columbian military mainly takes its orders from Washington. This was the aim of Biden and Clinton’s “Plan Colombia” which was put into effect in 2000. For decades the Colombian military and paramilitaries have assassinated hundreds of trade unionists and social organization leaders. 

In only the last few months, millions have taken part in country-wide rebellions against the murderous regimes of Duque in Colombia and Moïse in Haiti.  Like Colombia’s military, the Haitian National Police have been responsible for murders of protestors and assassinations of social leaders.

The U.S. government, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, has never hesitated to carry out or attempt assassinations of revolutionary leaders, especially in Africa. They have also assassinated once friendly heads of state as soon as they moved to break free of U.S. imperialist economic domination. And as with the case of Diem of then South Vietnam or Park of South Korea, they’ve assassinated outright puppets once they’ve deemed them ineffective for their ends.

Biden’s. C.I.A. Director Burns Visits to Crush Uprising of the People

The assassins of Moïse, reportedly wearing U.S. Drug Enforcement jackets and possessing inside information on the compound, are likely instructed by the U.S. CIA. Biden’s Director of the CIA, William Burns visited Haiti and Columbia just weeks ago to coordinate increased repression in Colombia and Haiti, and to plan attacks on Venezuela.

What would compel the U.S. to act so decisively to intensify repression at this time—even to the point of assassinating their former puppet Moïse? A major step forward in the Haitian struggle had begun. A citizen’s armed militia had formed to unite dozens of neighborhoods to resist the Haitian National Police and effectively turn the activity of desperate youth towards the revolutionary struggle.

Representing the masses, these unified forces demanded an end to the Moïse regime who was attempting to change the constitution to keep himself in power. More importantly, they’re fighting to end the super-exploitation and poverty caused by U.S. government on behalf of corporations who have sucked the life blood of the Haitian people for their profits.  France and Canada are junior partners in this exploitation and death.

The Haitian Masses Fight for Self Determination

Since 2010, the Clintons and their Foundation have used the guise of earthquake relief to enact programs to open Haiti to even more brutal exploitation by U.S. corporations.  While profits for corporations like Nike have soared, the Haitian masses face increased poverty, lack of food, water, and employment.

Headed by the U.S., the compliant U.N. has declared the next Haitian president with not even a semblance of choice by the people.  This new puppet with a changed face has already asked for U.S. troops. These troops will be used to repress the people’s movement for self-determination, sovereignty, and a revolutionary solution to their misery.

The racist U.S. and French ruling classes have never forgiven Haiti for the heroic 1791 revolution which was carried out by the formerly enslaved ancestors of the Haitian people. This spirit of resistance will prevail again.  Here in the U.S. “progressives” need to end their love affair with Biden who is carrying out an aggressive, murderous militarization around the world to build up U.S. empire.  No modest reform will bring lasting benefit to the U.S. working class when the US. government drives the global masses into starvation and death.