For years US troops have been occupying nearly 1/3 of the territory of Syria, plundering as much 140,000 barrels of crude oil daily from a nation crippled by US funded war and sanctions.
Between 2013 and 2017 alone, as part of the CIA’s Operation Timber Sycamore, over $1 billion dollars were funneled to the most right-wing, reactionary forces in order to topple the Syrian government. As the current National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan admitted in a 2012 email exposed by Wikileaks, the US was allied with Al-Quaeda in an effort to overturn a government which has until this day resisted US, Israeli, and Turkish efforts to steal its land and resources all while providing vital aid to the Palestinian resistance.
The billionaire backed forces who today cheer the efforts to overturn the sovereign government of Syria are salivating at the prospects of more land, more oil, more pipelines, more shipping corridors, and more workers to exploit. There is not one iota of concern for the well-being of the Syrian people coming from the likes of Trump, Biden, Erdogan, or Netanyahu.
Workers in the US are worse off when our tax dollars are used to strangle to strangle and subjugate our working-class siblings abroad. The same forces tearing down the Syrian people are coming after us too.
Bring All U.S. Troops Home, Close All U.S. Bases in the Middle East
No to Sanctions Against Iran
No More U.S. Wars for Oil
Yemen, a country ravaged by US bombs and starved by siege, is heralded by millions for its courageous actions to stop Israeli shipping. Now, in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of its embassy in Syria, Iran has bombed Israeli military bases in an act of solidarity and self-defense. The heroic freedom fighters of Gaza welcome Iran’s aid. Across the world, the masses are celebrating Iran for standing up to Israeli terrorism.
The US is now summoning its capitalist partners to threaten Iran, and we must say no! The racist, fascist apartheid government of Israel must be stopped by all means, just as the German Nazis should have been stopped before they murdered over 30 million people.
Millions have poured into the streets to demand that Israel end the genocide in Gaza which has already resulted in the murders of more than 40,000 Palestinians, nearly half of them children. Israel is deliberately starving Gazans to death and refusing them medicine and sanitation. Top Israeli officials openly call for the extermination of Palestinians. Illegal settlements have accelerated. Under the protection of the occupation forces, Israeli settlers in the West Bank are carrying out pogroms intended to drive out the native Palestinian population.
Israel continues to ignore international condemnation from the majority of countries around the world and the UN General Assembly. While they commit genocide in Gaza, Israel has also bombed Syria and Lebanon, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Israel has also committed acts of terrorism against the population of Iran, including the February bombing of Iranian gas pipelines amid the cold winter. Already, US-imposed sanctions on Iran severely reduce Iranians access to food, medicine, and other necessities.
Only the US government, Britain, France, and Germany continue to send arms and support to Israel. The masses of people across the Middle East who have endured decades of US occupation, invasions, and sanctions all oppose US-armed and-funded Israel.
The monarchies of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Kuwait – all brutal dictatorships, along with the fascist Egyptian regime – have collaborated with the US and Israel against the will of the people, who have poured into the street in support of the Palestinians. The US has more than 57,000 troops and dozens of bases in these countries, all for the purpose of enriching US oil companies and war profiteers.
The US openly admits to overthrowing the democratically elected Iranian government in 1954 when they installed the Shah of Iran (“Shah” means “king”) by force. For over 30 years the Shah oversaw a regime of terror against the Iranian people, to the delight of US and British oil companies and weapons manufacturers. The people of Iran have never forgotten, nor should we.
Our national security is not threatened by Iran, Yemen or the Palestinians. It is threatened by never ending wars for oil and gas profits. Everyday we grow more insecure the more war profiteering corporations continue to overtake the U.S. budget. Already nearly $1.2 trillion of our tax dollars are robbed by the likes of Lockheed Martin, Exxon-Mobil, etc. while the big banks extort hundreds of billions more in interest. Real security means guaranteeing universal access to healthcare, high quality education, homes, food, livable social security, infrastructure repair and emergency environmental action.
Arrests Orchestrated by White Supremacist Politicians and Capitalist-Funded Private Police Foundations
On August 29, Georgia’s Attorney General filed Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) indictments against 61 participants in the effort to Stop Cop City. For over two years, this popular movement has done mass organizing to prevent green space in a Black community from being built over by a $100 million militarized police base. The Stop Cop City coalition has had mass marches, meetings, and sit-ins. Hundreds have attended city hall meetings.
Repression has not stopped the movement. On September 7, after the announcement of the RICO indictments, activists carried out an act of civil disobedience by chaining themselves to bulldozers, temporarily blocking construction at the site. “They knew that they potentially faced domestic terrorism charges [and] RICO charges, but they still decided that we have the power as people to fight back,” said Kamau Franklin of Community Movement Builders. “Stewards, organizers, environmentalists, community people, young people…you represent the core elements that have kept this struggle going. It’s through you and the people of Atlanta that we will Stop Cop City.”
The charges follow a successful petition drive that collected over 100,000 signers supporting a ballot referendum to give residents of Atlanta a vote to stop Cop City. The Vote to Stop Cop City Coalition gathered signatures despite police intimidation, slander, arrests, and the police assassination of activist Tortuguita. The false charges, indictments, and other attempts to portray organizers as thieves, conspirators, and terrorists show how desperate the capitalist government is to stop this popular movement by any means.
Corporations Building Private Police Armies
Funding for Atlanta’s Cop City comes from mega-corporations, including Coca-Cola, UPS, oil companies, Amazon, Norfolk Southern, Home Depot, Uber, Bank of America, Verizon, and more. Police foundations exist in almost all major cities to allow capitalists to openly direct police repression to enhance their profits. Major banks, insurance, oil, mining, tourism, and real estate companies fund the New Orleans Police & Justice Foundation.
Georgia Republican Attorney General and candidate-for-governor Chris Carr used his office to back the January 6 violent break-in at the Capitol. Like Jeff Landry’s in Louisiana, Carr’s gubernatorial campaign openly calls for police violence. This position goes hand-in-hand with their opposition to unions, higher minimum wages, workers’ and tenants’ rights, lower insurance costs, immigrant rights, anti-racist history, and quality public education. Carr’s and Landry’s campaign chests come from the same corporations that fund the police foundations.
Federal RICO Charges—Used Against Unions, Environmental Groups, and More
The government has repeatedly used RICO, the 1970 anti-racketeering law, to silence, intimidate, and repress the people. Corporations like Chevron have also been filing RICO charges. This writer, NYC solidarity coordinator for the 1982 Greyhound Strike that occupied the main bus terminal, was visited by the FBI (NEVER speak to the FBI) after Greyhound threatened to indict the Amalgamated Transit Union in a RICO case and destroy the union.
Corporations file RICO charges and other lawsuits against unions as a conspiracy to harm them economically, especially during a strike. When unions were illegal in the US, they were considered a terrorist conspiracy, and the rich are trying to bring this back. RICO suits target environmental groups and pipeline protesters also. While many suits have failed, defending against them has taken away precious resources and time from organizers. If the government succeeds in prosecuting the Stop Cop City defendants, the government will target any movement.
These indictments follow the indictments of Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African Peoples Socialist Party (APSP), and two APSP solidarity organizers, Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel. Troops surrounded their homes, setting off flash-bang grenades, and destroyed APSP offices in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis. The APSP has been targeted because of their important work in Black communities and decades-long opposition to US imperialist wars. Heavy charges are also pending against indigenous and other water protectors and pipeline protesters, as well as anti-racist student protesters in Tampa.
Why Is Repression Ramping Up?
Atlanta’s Cop City is not the only center for police repression in the works. Last month, police and their capitalist funders proposed a $330 million “tactical village” in the predominantly Black neighborhood of West Baltimore.
Seeking greater profits, capitalists are turning to militarism, prisons, and war, paying for this by cutting social programs while attacking civil rights. Stagnant wages and inflation in rents, food, healthcare, and insurance are causing greater and greater hardships for workers and oppressed people. More migrants are detained, and racist police murders continue unabated. Fossil fuel companies reap billions in subsidies while oil and gas drilling permits are handed out at record rates. These repressive and destructive actions are not just the outcome of bad politicians or policies; these are features of the capitalist system destined to get worse unless we push back as a united force. Republicans lead the charge in attacking the people, but Democrats have also played a leading role in subsidizing corporations and raising war budgets with the stated aim of dominating the world by economic and military means.
What We Don’t Stop Abroad Is Coming Home to Us
In Colombia South America, Coca-Cola-funded death squads that killed union organizers at their plants. The Biden administration has used more than $100 billion of our tax dollars to put cluster bombs and tanks in the hands of Nazi soldiers in Ukraine. The Department of Justice has admitted that violent white supremacists are the number one terror threat in the US but does nothing about it.
70% of the federal budget goes to war profiteers. The military-industrial-banking complex now dominates the civilian sector, and this control is reflected in government policy. We cannot divorce low wages, racist violence, repression, union busting, and cuts to critical programs from increasing US militarism and endless wars. We need to see that the direct control of corporations over federal, state, and city budgets, and the police is connected to the worsening climate crisis. Because of the corporate control of the government, price-gouging companies rake in record profits while we struggle to pay for food, our mortgages, rent, and bills. Repression is growing as the capitalists prepare for more resistance. But repression and economic, social, and political attacks on our lives will breed resistance too. We can take inspiration from the Stop Cop City movement. Show them solidarity now:
Contact the Georgia Attorney General: law.ga.gov, (404) 458-3600
Strengthen the union for this contract and the upcoming battle to save tens of thousands of jobs from automation.
By Gavrielle Gemma, Workers Voice Socialist Movement, Louisiana
340,000 workers, members of the Teamsters Union, worked tirelessly during the worst of the COVID pandemic. Despite exhaustion from overwork, disease, and family tragedies, they saved lives by delivering packages to those quarantined. Meanwhile, bosses at UPS lived in luxury as profits soared to $56.3 billion from 2019 to 2023. In 2023 alone, UPS says it will spend $3 billion in stock buybacks and $5.4 billion in dividends. Every penny of that profit is due to the labor of the workers.
Teamsters Union Negotiators Reject Insulting UPS Economic Proposal
The current contract expires in less than five weeks. Every day the company delays making a realistic offer to the union, the closer workers come to a strike authorized by 97% of the rank-and-file who voted. The union has already achieved 55 tentative agreements on essential issues, including outfitting of new vehicles with AC and retrofitting others with fans; new protections against discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation; increased penalties to the company for wage theft, harassment, and working management; and a host of other items.
On Wednesday, June 21, the Union submitted a 23-page economic proposal on critical remaining issues, including base pay and catch-up raises, elimination of the two-tiered driver classification (22.4s), cutting out sub-contracting (to truck companies or personal vehicle drivers) and more full-time job opportunities for part-time workers who make up 65% of the workforce. UPS responded with “an appalling economic counterproposal,” according to Teamsters National Negotiating Committee.
UPS, Know This: The Union Will Strike on August 1 if Necessary
CEO Carol Tome mistakenly believes she can become a capitalist hero and housebreak the Teamsters on behalf of billionaire UPS shareholders and Wall Street. But she has in fact lit a renewed fire. UPS will need to make significant offers to avert a strike.
Wall Street is Watching – All Unions Need to Join This Battle
In the June 21 update by Teamster President Sean O’Brien and four rank-and-file negotiating team members, the union made the call to intensify unity and solidarity, practice picket lines, identify strike captains, and get information out to all members.
The union has resisted pulling back despite Wall Street’s tactic of threatening workers with a loss of jobs to other carriers. But this threat is first and foremost a problem for UPS if it loses a big chunk of the market share of logistics contracts.
Teamsters President Denounces Supreme Court Attack on the Right to Strike
On June 1, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that a union can be held liable for damages caused by a strike. This judgment represents the strong drive by the capitalists—who control all branches of government—to destroy the most basic labor rights won through workers’ struggle and sacrifice. They ultimately seek to undermine labor’s right to carry out effective strikes that will economically injure companies. Immediately, Teamster President O’Brien shot back: “The Teamsters will strike any employer, when necessary, no matter their size or the depth of their pockets. Unions will never be broken by this court or any other. Today’s shameful ruling is simply one more reminder that the American people cannot rely on their government to protect them. They cannot rely on their employers. We must rely on each other. We must engage in organized, collective action. We can only rely on the protections inherent in the power of our unions.”
Strengthening the Union by Encouraging Activism and Rank-and-File Involvement is on Target—Still More is Needed in the Locals
The Teamsters international union has continuously called for rank-and-file organizing, parking lot rallies, and education among the members. Rallies and trainings have taken place across the country, uniting workers of all nationalities, genders, and job classifications. Every worker, every steward, and every union local official needs to do all they can to ensure that members are getting information and otherwise prepare for the possibility of a strike. The UPS Teamsters app is helpful, but in many hubs, workers still don’t know it exists. Many local officials and rank-and-filers are getting the word out while others resist.
Southern Workers Deserve Equity in Regional Agreements
There are many Teamster regions in UPS, each with a contract supplemental to the national contract. The Southern Region is extensive, encompassing nine states. Regional negotiations have already resulted in tentative agreements that affect everything from vacations to pensions, grievances, sick pay, and PTO. A regional comparison of past supplemental contracts reveals a vast difference in these categories. For example, a worker in Northern California gains three weeks of vacation after three years of work. In contrast, a Southern worker must work ten years to get the same amount. These disparities are mainly due to unions’ continued lack of attention to the South. Still, it also shows the need for more activity by the Southern Region leadership and some locals.
Southern Workers Will Revive Union Militancy
Some locals in the South have been failing to enforce current contract provisions, press grievances, or mobilize members. Unions in “right-to-work” states need to sign up new members, which many locals have neglected. Signing up new members this month is especially critical because workers who are not in the union will not get strike pay. Many workers—particularly part-timers—don’t know there is a union, much less what it does, what the contract is, or how a grievance is carried out. Most UPS workers are part-time, and many have second jobs. Now is the time to prepare workers to walk the picket line on their usual shift (if not more) and promote unity between workers with different job classifications and seniority levels. Rank-and-file members and stewards need to put in extra effort to organize, educate, and inspire their fellow workers in places where local leadership is apathetic or worse.
Strike solidarity is important and should be encouraged. But those doing it should try to understand the problems and uplift members’ leadership, not substitute for them. No union, however large or strong, can succeed in isolation. Done right, solidarity can help lift morale and provide material support.
A well-organized strike can create a revolution in class consciousness and class unity if it fosters worker leadership, especially among members who may be stepping into that role for the first time. A strike can also clear the path to a stronger union by shaking up the cozy relationships that sometimes develop between local officials and the company.
UPS is Using Automation (AI, Robotics) and Uberization to Destroy Jobs
Whether UPS workers strike or not, the efforts already made to strengthen the union are critical. This contract is only one battle in the class war that pits the workers against UPS and its government supporters.
In some places, UPS has imposed hiring freezes for new drivers, creating a situation where the company gets too many packages for the current fleet to deliver. UPS then hires personal vehicle drivers (PVDs) to fill in the gaps that the company has created. PVDs make less and get no benefits while they pick up the costs for the upkeep and insurance of their vehicle. This Uberization is a major way for UPS to lower labor costs. They also want to subcontract to smaller trucking companies for the company-created overflow. A subcontracted company makes a profit while their drivers get much less than Teamster drivers, driving wages down across the industry.
The Teamsters Union has come to tentative agreements to prohibit the use of drones and driverless vehicles for the period of the next contract. But automation in the form of robotics and AI is already a significant threat to workers who sort and load packages. The union negotiated that UPS will notify them 45 days before any technological changes. This tentative agreement is good. But companies plan these changes for years, and UPS is likely looking to remove tens of thousands of inside workers who sort and load packages. The union needs to plan its offensive and lay the groundwork among the members to pursue new strategies to deal with this threat.
Unions Need to Find New Ways to Protect Jobs and Communities
Whatever you call it—AI, robotics, computerization, kiosks—it is all automation. The problem is not the technology itself. The problem is that we live in a capitalist system of private ownership of industry and business.
The capital used to retool and install new technology comes from the unpaid labor of the workers in the form of profits. The collective labor of the world’s workers could be used to our collective benefit—to make unsafe jobs safer, lessen the burden of work, or shorten work hours while maintaining living wages. But under capitalism, we workers wind up financing the destruction of our own jobs.
The capitalist U.S. government—local, state, and federal—is dedicated to protecting private corporate property using our tax dollars. In May, the Biden administration announced a $140 million subsidy to launch seven new AI research centers.
Workers Have a Property Right to Our Jobs by Virtue of Our Labor
We must fight to declare that workers have a property right in our jobs. Through united collective action—work actions, occupations, or general strikes—we need to assert control over the technology that our labor creates.
Hundreds of thousands of workers lost jobs in the auto and steel industries due to high-tech automation. This meant the destruction of entire communities. Unions at that time thought that working with their bosses to impose tariffs on cars and steel imports was the answer. While that charade played out, the companies downsized, set tiered wages and benefits, and made joint agreements with automakers from abroad, who the capitalists had previously called the enemy. The enemy was at home. As fewer workers could purchase cars, all these companies turned to military contracts with their unlimited money and war profiteering gotten by looting the federal treasury.
The best way for the Teamsters to prepare for the struggles ahead is to step up what is being done now to strengthen union forces nationally and locally for the best possible contract, and to work towards victory if it comes to a strike. Even if everything is not won, the effort to educate and inspire the rank-and-file to action will be necessary for the future.
We Must Unite Against the Right in a Mass Workers’ Movement
A vigil held at Club Q for those killed in the Pulse shooting .
Last night’s attack on Club Q in Colorado Springs is a result of years of anti-LGBTQ fearmongering in federal election campaigns, state legislatures, local municipalities and school boards, and across the capitalist media. Even though most people support LGBTQ people and our rights, the rich have spent millions funding politicians who spread hate. These anti-LGBTQ campaigns are part of a program to divide, disenfranchise, and attack the working class. United we can defend LGBTQ rights and fight back on every issue affecting the working class, from immigrant rights to abortion access to ending US wars for profit.
Anti-LGBTQ Violence Funded by Billionaires and Hate Groups
Billionaire-funded hate groups posing as foundations and think tanks—including the Alliance Defending Freedom, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and others—have drafted hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills and policy proposals for state legislatures and school boards. These same foundations push attacks on abortion rights and anti-racist education and have blocked raises to the minimum wage. They push laws that target healthcare, sports, and bathroom access for trans people, especially trans youth; policies forbidding discussion of LGBTQ-related subjects and people in schools; and attempts by the state to take trans children away from their parents. As healthcare for trans people has come under heavier attack, suicide rates for trans people—especially trans youth—have risen.
That the Club Q shooting occurred the night before Trans Day of Remembrance and Resilience is hardly a coincidence. The past few years have seen a rise in anti-trans violence and record murder rates, especially for Black trans women. The more the capitalists push anti-LGBTQ policies through the government, the more the far-right is emboldened to carry out terrorist attacks.
Capitalist Media Has Helped Stoke the Flames
The media has been complicit in anti-LGBTQ campaigns, promoting the division and lies the politicians have been spreading. From Fox News to the New York Times, the media has spent years amplifying those who equate being queer or trans with being a sexual predator, including politicians and celebrities like billionaire JK Rowling.
Armed queer people standing guard at an event in Denton, TX, while police guarded the Proud Boys.
More Police Are Not the Answer
After many mass shootings, politicians and their wealthy backers took the opportunity to call for more funding for the police, but customers took down the shooter at Club Q, not the police. And when police have been on the scene, they have protected far-right, anti-LGBTQ hate groups. Recently in New York, police escorted a rally of far-right, anti-trans demagogues, which was met by counter-protestors defending LGBTQ people. Last week, police in Denton, TX provided protection to Proud Boys and Christian nationalists who targeted an event where trans people were reading to children.
Police do not prevent mass shootings, and they don’t exist to protect us. They serve the rich and powerful. Heavily armed by the same weapons dealers making fortunes off war, many police forces include members of the same hate groups targeting LGBTQ people and other oppressed people. During the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, police waited outside for hours, refusing to help those trapped inside. In Uvalde, TX, police stood idly by while children were murdered.
In the last few years, local, state, and federal politicians have gone out of their way to increase funding to the police. Last year Biden urged city and state governments to spend $350 billion worth of COVID relief money on cops and jails. At the same time, the cost of living has skyrocketed, unemployment has worsened, and no relief has come from the government. The rich fear a scenario where these conditions lead to outright rebellion, as they did in 2020 in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd. The funding of fascist forces and the attacks on LGBTQ people, immigrants, and activists are meant to divide and weaken us. They don’t want us to challenge—much less overturn—the system of exploitation and oppression that is the basis of all their hoarded wealth.
Anti-fascist counter-protesters at an anti-trans event in New York.
Voting and the Courts Are Not the Answer
While Republicans openly run on platforms of hate, the Democrats offer empty promises. They have already given up on a federal bill to protect abortion rights after the midterms. And they have largely stood by as voting rights of millions—especially Black people—have been stripped away by the right wing. The Democratic Party blames voters for their losses and inaction rather than admitting that they have failed to address fundamental issues affecting all workers. They have failed not because they did not have support from voters or because of some broken Congressional procedure; they failed because they do not serve the people; they serve the rich.
Even if politicians could help us, we cannot afford to wait for the next election. Women and others who can bear children cannot access abortions right now. Immigrants are under assault, especially in Texas, where Governor Abbott has invoked invasion clauses to call in the National Guard. And no protection will come from the unelected, undemocratic Supreme Court, a panel of nine millionaires who stripped many rights last session and have openly proclaimed their intention to re-criminalize homosexuality, interracial marriage, and birth control in future rulings.
Mourners in Colorado Springs today.
We Need a Movement – Now
The only answer to this violence is a united front against rising fascist terror. We can build a mass, militant movement to make it clear we will not be divided and intimidated by their violence. To do this, we must go to our fellow workers directly and dispel the lies spread about LGBTQ people, stand in solidarity with immigrants, and speak out against the warmongers and parasites who profit off our suffering.
Support the Haitian People’s Revolution & Self-Determination
Reject the Racist, Phony Justifications for U.S. Intervention
In Haiti, the call for revolution is growing louder and louder as hundreds of thousands pour into the streets to end the criminal, U.S.-installed government of Ariel Henry and demand “U.S. Out of Haiti!” Protesters have barricaded roads in response to price hikes dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), making fuel impossibly expensive for most of the population. Workers have carried out massive strikes in garment factories from which U.S. corporations amass millions in profits while suppressing wages to $7.50/day.
Wall Street Gangs Bleed Haitian People for Profits
Desperate to shore up the neocolonial government of their puppet Henry, the U.S. and Canada have delivered military equipment and advisors. Henry’s military and police—many trained by the U.S.—are brutally repressing and jailing protestors while paramilitary gangs linked to the police terrorize the population. Since even these measures have not succeeded in keeping the Haitian masses down, the U.S. has instructed their puppet Henry to request a U.S./U.N. invasion and occupation of Haiti. Henry’s “request” for troops might as well have come from a boardroom at Citibank, whose investors similarly “requested” the bloody invasion and occupation of Haiti by U.S. Marines in 1915.
Capitalist Robbers Always Depict Those Fighting Them as Criminals
On behalf of U.S. millionaires, the Biden administration, dripping with the blood of the oppressed Haitian people, disguises its true aims with the old lie that “gang violence” must be addressed by U.S. intervention. Biden is desperate to conceal the truth that U.S. imperialism is the real cause of Haiti’s humanitarian crisis.
Every struggle of the workers and oppressed brings out the vilest slanders of the super-rich. Those who resist exploitation and oppression are branded as criminals. Striking workers are smeared as “union thugs” causing hardship for the people. The same goes for anti-fascist fighters, from the Black Panthers to BLM protestors, from the Suffragettes to anti-war protestors. Whether we’re striking miners or water defenders, we are all criminals in the eyes of the capitalists who consider it theft when workers gain a raise, a labor or civil right, or stop a planet-destroying pipeline. Above all else, their laws, police, and courts protect the private property of the few while criminalizing the just actions of the many.
Our Job is to Rip Off the Masks of Imperialism, Not to Support Lies
On October 21, the U.S. pushed sanctions through the U.N. Security Council based on their racist lies about Haitian “gangs.” The U.N. Security Council sanctions against Haitian “gangs” do not target the terror squads of the National Police that work with the U.S. CIA. (After all, the U.S. never sanctioned the Tonton Macoute, the terror squads they used to prop up the US-backed dictatorship of Papa Doc Duvalier.) Instead, the U.S.-pushed sanctions target Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier and the FRG9 (Revolutionary Forces of the G9 Family and Allies, Mess with One, You Mess with All), who have mobilized many of the most oppressed masses now openly calling for social revolution. The imperialists behind the sanctions are clearly afraid that the Haitian people are moving to take the future of their country into their own hands. As Cherizier (Barbecue) puts it, referring to Haiti’s national hero and freedom fighter, Jean-Jacques Dessalines:
“If Dessalines were alive today, it would be difficult for him to make the Revolution and liberate this country. As soon as your speech defends the aspirations and the popular demands of the oppressed, imperialism will automatically label you a bandit, a criminal, a terrorist.”
Buying into the criminalization of the Haitian struggle, some “progressives,” even some “leftists”, support sanctions. More concerned with their image and funding, they tout the work of capitalist and CIA-funded NGOs that hold back the people and defend the status quo. These so-called progressives are alarmed when the poorest, the shoeless, and the “uneducated” band together. They are alarmed when armed neighborhood organizations or political parties organize to end the terrorism of the rich, who try to keep people of the slums warring with each other rather than turning their weapons against the oppressor. They condemn mass direct action, and ultimately, they condemn revolution itself. After all, when the Haitian people free themselves from capitalist wage slavery and dictatorship, these NGOs and their well-paid directors will no longer exist.
“Down with American [U.S.] Occupation!”
U.S. Workers’ Interest is with Haitian Revolution
Every worker should stand on the side of the Haitian people in their struggle for self-determination. We must speak out loudly against the brutal occupation of Haiti and the super-exploitation of our fellow workers by U.S. capitalists, Wall Street, and the IMF.
We are part of a global working class. Our labor, exploited by the same capitalists, is bought and sold on the global capitalist market. If the capitalists can pay $7.50 for a day’s work in Haiti or force incarcerated workers to work for free, the whole working class is worse off. When the capitalists use fascist governments like Ukraine’s to repeal labor laws or when they use their politicians and their media to scapegoat immigrants so they can pay them less, our wages sink lower with theirs. What is imperialism? It is the criminal, global capitalist search to pay the least, steal the most resources, and prevent workers and peasants from rising up to better their lives and determine their own future.
We should say, “Not one penny for U.S. militarism or the occupation of Haiti.” Sanction the oil and food conglomerates for raking in record profits while 345 million people face starvation. Order gas and food prices and insurance costs rolled back. Issue a moratorium on rent hikes and mortgage and credit card interests. Spend money to address the effects of climate change, not to build up the U.S. military, whose purpose is to secure the profits of the banks and corporations torturing the Haitian people.
Let the Haitian workers take back the stolen property of the real gangsters—the U.S., Canadian, and French banks, apparel companies, and mining corporations that have bled them dry. Haitian workers have a rightful claim to that wealth that they alone have created. On the flip side, we must categorically oppose U.N. Security Council sanctions and seizures of property. Sanctions are war against the people. In Iraq alone, sanctions killed over half a million children, a fact proudly admitted by Madeline Albright, the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
The U.N. Security Council has authorized the most horrific wars, occupations, and sanctions for capitalist profit, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. There is not one shred of legitimacy to their claim of humanitarian concern when they have condemned millions to death and supported the most brutal repression for profit.
The U.S. has not given up on the idea of an invasion of Haiti, whether they try to go through the U.N. Security Council or not. Apart from protecting U.S. profit-making enterprises in the country, they do not want the example of a revolution to spread. The U.S. ruling class has never forgiven the heroic Haitian people for their world historic victory over the slavers of 1804, a victory that inspired many here in the U.S. to fight for the eventual defeat of the American system of chattel slavery. The struggling Haitian people continue to be a beacon for oppressed people worldwide.
Victory to the Haitian people’s struggle for self determination!
U.S. and its puppets out of Haiti! No to imperialist invasion, sanctions, and occupation!
Cancel Haiti’s debt, pay reparations for the colonial theft of Haiti’s national wealth!
Roberta A. Drury, 32, of Buffalo; Margus D. Morrison, 52, of Buffalo; Andre Mackneil, 53, of Auburn, New York; Aaron Salter, 55, of Lockport, New York; Geraldine Talley, 62, of Buffalo; Celestine Chaney, 65, of Buffalo; Heyward Patterson, 67, of Buffalo; Katherine Massey, 72, of Buffalo; Pearl Young, 77, of Buffalo; Ruth Whitfield, 86, of Buffalo.
Our hearts go out to the families, Black community, and all workers of Buffalo horrified and outraged by the racist murders of 10 people by a white supremacist neo-Nazi.
Yesterday, Biden spoke to the grieving families and city. This attention may be temporarily welcomed by some, but for all his sermonizing, Biden didn’t propose one concrete measure to combat fascist terrorism, nor did he mention that the fascists are funded and organized by the ultra-wealthy to divide the working class and maintain control of us through violence. The tiny clique of capitalists that control TV, radio, and social media promote fascism in their aim to dominate the world for their own profit.
Just four days ago, Biden urged city and state governments to spend leftover Covid money on police. Millions of these dollars will be handed over to fascist police training firms, as a recent Reuters report exposed. Later this week Biden will hand over $40 billion more of our tax dollars to war corporations who are getting rich putting rocket launchers in the hands of Nazi battalions in Ukraine.
Congress hasn’t removed one fascist politician from office or one racist judge from their lifetime appointments. Racist capitalists like Elon Musk are openly praised and lavished with billions of tax-payer dollars. While the Republican Party openly pushes racism and anti-worker assaults, the Democratic Party, funded by the same ultra-wealthy racists, offers empty promises and prayers.
Biden & NATO Push Militarism and Repression, Fuel the Rise of Fascism Globally
It’s critical that we workers build a united fight-back independent of the Democrats and Republicans who use our tax dollars to fund, arm, and train fascists here and in countries around the world, including Ukraine, Colombia, Israel, and the Philippines. The capitalists’ goal in all these places is to make us poor, isolated, controlled, and afraid—that way we won’t be able to wield our collective power to get higher wages and a better life.
The capitalists use 900 US foreign military bases to protect and expand their wealth through violent terrorism. They create debt, starvation, and poverty by sanctioning 39 countries. Their goal is the absolute impoverishment of the working class. We in the US cannot stop fascism at home while it’s being stoked abroad by the US military, State Department, and CIA on behalf of the rich.
The capitalists in control of US fossil fuel corporations, war profiteering corporations, and banks are the main forces behind the worldwide growth of fascism and war. Every year they loot more than a trillion of our tax dollars from the treasury while we’re left scrounging for gas money so that we can drive around looking for baby formula.
Through Education, Mass Protests, Strikes, and Organized Defense, We Can Send the Fascists Running
The working class is the only social force that can liberate society from the dictatorship of the rich who will never stop trying to poison us with their racist and bigoted ideas and who continue to drum up wars for us to die in. By taking on struggles that unite the working class—for housing, healthcare, income—we will build up our collective power. To stay strong, we need to ruthlessly combat anything that threatens that unity—whether racism, transphobia, misogyny, ageism, ableism, etc. United we will sweep the fascists off the face of the earth.
