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Iraqis Unite To Demand End of U.S. Occupation

Baghdad, Jan. 24: Thousands of Iraqis take to the streets to demand the U.S. military leave.

By Jennifer Lin

The Iraqi people are demanding an end to over 16 years of U.S. occupation. On January 24, over 1 million Iraqis flooded the streets, chanting anti-U.S. slogans and demanding that U.S. troops leave the country immediately. This is part of an ongoing series of protests that began last October. The Iraqi people are demanding that the U.S. respect their right to self-determination, free from imperialist domination. The protests transcend religious, ethnic, and political divides.

Like the British colonizers a century before, the U.S. has pursued a “divide and rule” strategy in Iraq, inflaming religious and ethnic tensions in Iraq in order to plunder the country’s oil wealth. The latest wave of protests follows the assassination of revered Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a U.S. drone attack in Baghdad on January 3. Both were leaders in the fight against ISIS in the region. Although the Iraqi Parliament voted to expel all U.S. forces following the assassination, troops remain.

The Iraqi people have created a united front demanding an end to the repressive policies of a government that is beholden to U.S. economic and political interests. They recognize that they have more in common with one another than any ruling elite. They recognize that U.S. imperialism and democracy cannot coexist.

U.S. imperialism is a threat to national sovereignty and democracy everywhere. We have more in common with the workers of the world than the rich capitalists who will stop at nothing to steal everything that belongs to us: our land, our wealth, our freedom. We must stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people and demand “U.S. out of Iraq!”

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Pensions Under Attack in U.S.

By Jennifer Lin

Workers’ pensions are under attack in the U.S. In 2014, the Obama administration proposed and Congress passed a new pension law that allows multi-employer pension plans (for example, trucking and construction) to cut pensions for current retirees.

Years ago, pension funds were put in a guaranteed account with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federal program ensuring that funds did not go bankrupt. Now employers put pension funds in 401K funds controlled by Wall Street speculators. These speculators profit from investments they make using pensioners’ money, but when the stocks fall, pensioners lose money.

Like the workers in France, we must take to the streets and demand an end to these attacks.

The 2014 pension law allows plan trustees to cut benefits for retirees in order to save the funds they manage from bankruptcy instead of requiring the PBGC to take them over. This ensures that bailout funds are reserved for Wall Street, not workers. Under the new law, 150-200 multi-employer plans covering 1.5 million workers will be drained over the next decade. Retirees, widows, and widowers and domestic partners whose benefits are reduced are banned from filing a lawsuit to challenge the legality of these reductions.

Due to low wages, less job security, and insurmountable debt burdens, workers in the U.S. are retiring later and later in life, only to face declining retirement incomes. In 2017, the median income of retirees age 65 or older was just $19,352.

On top of this Trump & Co. are threatening social security. All this proves that the U.S. government serves Wall Street financiers, not workers. In France, millions of workers and family members have shut down the country to defend their pension laws. Like the workers in France, we must take to the streets and demand an end to these attacks.

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The World Bank and the IMF: Weapons of Economic Warfare

By Jennifer Lin

The World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are the financial arms of U.S. imperialism. Just as the Pentagon pursues the aims of U.S. imperialism with war and occupation, the WB and the IMF achieve those ends through extortion.

These institutions were set up to keep colonized countries from developing by undermining their domestic industries and making them economically dependent on the U.S. Debtor nations are forced to export mainly plantation crops and to rely on the U.S. for grain and food imports. The U.S. government wields this dependency as an economic weapon, imposing sanctions against any nation (like Venezuela, Cuba, Iran) it perceives as a threat to its dominance in the global capitalist world order. Sanctions are an act of economic warfare that starve and impoverish workers.

IMF loans have obscenely high interest rates and include ‘structural adjustment programs’ that force debtor nations to privatize major industries and services and impose austerity measures on working and oppressed people. These include regressive taxes on the poor, cuts to wages, layoffs, and the destruction of labor unions.

The IMF is as anti-democratic as it’s anti-labor. The U.S. has sole veto power in both institutions and loans disproportionately to countries with repressive governments. The U.S. did not loan to Chile when it was governed by democratically-elected President Allende—that is, until he was overthrown by a U.S. backed military coup and the authoritarian Pinochet regime came to power. Under the military dictatorship of Somoza, Nicaragua received generous loans, but when the revolutionary Sandinista government rose to power, the U.S. imposed a trade embargo against the country.
The WB and IMF perpetuate the legacy of colonialism

So called “developing nations” suffer from poverty because they have been purposefully underdeveloped by centuries of colonial control. U.S. financial elites use the WB and the IMF to trap these nations in a vicious cycle of unsustainable debt. But the workers of the world have always been opposed to these heinous institutions. Since 2018 alone, the people of Argentina, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Haiti, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Sudan, Tunisia, and other countries have taken to the streets in protest. They refuse to be repressed by institutions designed only to protect the rich.

Working class people, who are most directly impacted by the IMF and WB, do not currently have a say regarding their policies. Until the IMF and the WB are collectively controlled by workers, they will continue to be weaponized by the rich to further oppress the global working class.

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Global Environmental Crisis: Out-of-State Oil Barons and Chemical Plant Owners Profit from Destroying Louisiana

A father and daughter attend the climate change protest together on Friday, September 20.

By Jennifer Lin

Energy corporations pillage and destroy the environment for profit, crushing the lives and livelihoods of workers in the process. As the climate crisis worsens, hurricanes and floods will become more destructive. These events have always revealed the intention of rich capitalists to profit from disasters.

After Katrina, the Road Home Program was designed to make it nearly impossible for Black workers to rebuild their homes. Real estate speculators then carried out a land grab.

Even systems that are supposed to protect people from natural disasters are being used against us, because they are the private projects of city officials and land developers based on profit contracts and bank loans. Drainage canals and artificial levees deplete the soil of groundwater and nutrients, causing land to drop below sea level. Worse, the lack of natural outlets for the Mississippi allows pressure to build up around the levees downriver, making the working-class communities that live there particularly vulnerable to flooding.

Of course, this is business as usual for the millionaires on the Sewerage and Water Board, who are now trying to impose a new drainage fee on workers that will push more and more people towards foreclosure and eviction. Meanwhile, the residents of Gordon Plaza continue to wait for a fully funded relocation. They have been struggling to have their humanity recognized for over thirty years since the city colluded with real estate vultures to build their homes on a toxic waste landfill in the Upper Ninth Ward. In Cancer Alley, the highest cancer-causing area in the U.S., people living near industrial plants are protesting the relentless poisoning of Black communities by petrochemical companies.

DEMAND REPARATIONS FROM OIL COMPANIES
Oil and gas extraction account for about 60% of wetland loss and coastal erosion in the Gulf. Louisiana has lost nearly 2,000 square miles of coast since 1930. Most of that land belonged to the Houma people, who have had their lands stolen and their histories erased for centuries, first by colonial settlers and now by oil tycoons.

Few people today mention the Taylor oil spill. Back in 2004, Hurricane Ivan destroyed an oil rig owned by Taylor Energy Co., which continues to leak 100 barrels of oil into the Gulf every day. Disasters like this and the Deepwater Horizon spill pervade the oil industry, which endangers workers’ lives and destroys entire ecosystems for profit.

We cannot stand for the wholesale destruction of our communities and livelihoods by rich capitalists. We must stop corporations from continuing to poison the land we live on, the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the people we love. Under capitalism, only what is profitable is valuable. Until this violent system of oppression and exploitation is completely overturned, the measure of our worth as people and the worth of the planet that shelters us, nourishes us, and sustains us will be dictated by a handful of rich CEOs who will never stop extracting the precious, collective resources of the earth for profit. Calling for an end to capitalist-driven ecological catastrophe is a necessary part of the revolutionary struggle towards liberation. An entire world is at stake, and we have no time to lose.

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Workers’ Rally Says Mass Action Needed to Fight White Supremacy

Photo credit: Fernando Lopez
By Jennifer Lin

On Sunday, August 11, Take ‘Em Down Nola hosted a “Rally to Unite and Fight Back Against White Supremacy” in response to recent white supremacist attacks waged by ICE and the El Paso, TX shooter. Several hundred people gathered in front of Jackson Square to hear community members speak, including representatives from the New Orleans People’s Assembly, New Orleans Workers Group, the Hospitality Workers Alliance, Congreso de Jornaleros/Congress of Day Laborers, New Orleans Renters Union, and the American Federation of Government Employees.

The ICE raids in Mississippi and the massacre in El Paso are violent expressions of the white supremacist ideology that the U.S. was founded upon. From the genocide of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Africans to the for-profit imprisonment of immigrants and people of color, racial hatred continues to be a tool used by the rich, mostly white ruling class to keep workers and oppressed people divided. When the people are divided, they cannot effectively challenge the institutions that oppress them.

Ashlee Pintos, a member of the Hospitality Workers Alliance and the New Orleans Workers Group, spoke to the importance of showing solidarity for migrant workers who are at risk of being deported the moment they step foot on U.S. soil: “We have to build up our communities so that we can actually protect our community members.” Her words were echoed by Yolanda, a member of Congreso, who denounced the El Paso shooter for claiming that America was being threatened by the “Hispanic invasion.” She called the ICE raids the “true invasion,’’ emphasizing the need for solidarity with migrant workers.

Jessie, a resident of Gordon Plaza, warned the crowd of the extent to which white supremacy has been internalized and institutionalized in New Orleans. Speaking of Mayor Cantrell, who had refused to acknowledge the residents of Gordon Plaza until recently, he said, “The white supremacists control the Black puppets…If we had been white, we would have been relocated.” The residents of Gordon Plaza have been fighting for over 30 years to be relocated off of a toxic landfill. The city has always had more than enough money to provide the residents with a fully funded relocation; however, 63% of the city budget continues to be allocated towards jails and the police, who uphold white supremacy and capitalism.

White workers must also organize to educate one another and dispel the propaganda that continues to fuel racism in the U.S. As Gregory, a member of the New Orleans Workers Group put it, “We have to build a movement that can bring white workers into the struggle as well, along with workers of color, who are sick and tired of this brutal system, who are sick and tired of being murdered in the streets by crooked, racist cops…We have to stand united.”

Our political power lies in our ability to organize against our oppressors. If we want to see a better world, we must actively create that world by organizing in our communities and by educating ourselves and others. We must collectively resist all forms of oppression: capitalism, racism, sexism, imperialism, and attacks against LGBTQ people. Only then can we begin to build a world in which people are truly free.

Photo credit: Fernando Lopez
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U.S. Wars Mean Mega-Profits for Corporations, Not Security

By Jennifer Lin

The US is a relentless war machine hellbent on destroying innocent human lives in its quest for military dominance and profit. The Pentagon has reached a deal with Lockheed Martin to procure over the next three years 478 F-35 stealth war planes (the most expensive US weapons systems in history) for $34 billion. This will be the largest procurement of weapons in US history. The deal will allow Lockheed to maintain its position as the world’s largest military contractor. Lockheed is responsible for some of the most atrocious war crimes. Their fighter jets have formed the backbone of Israel’s brutal attacks on Lebanon and Palestine as well as Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen, which has plunged the country into intense poverty, famine, and disease.

Raytheon is another military contractor that has a history of supplying weapons to Israel and Saudi Arabia. The company has agreed to merge with United Technologies, a corporation that researches and develops aerospace and defense systems. The combined company, Raytheon Technologies Corporation, is expected to rake in $74 billion in annual sales, which would make it the second-largest aerospace and defense contractor after Boeing.

This merger is part of a wider trend in the consolidation of military corporations for the purpose of accumulating more wealth for the capitalist ruling class.

The consolidation of wealth and power among war profiteers, along with banks and oil companies, directly deprives working class people. The lion’s share of our tax dollars are being squandered on deadly weapons instead of being invested in education, healthcare, housing, and much-needed public services that would improve all our lives.

As workers, we must demand an end to U.S. wars. All wars waged by the U.S. serve the interests of the U.S. ruling class, which also wages war against workers daily in the form of capitalist exploitation and oppression. As long as capitalism is allowed to continue, so will wars for profit. Millions of civilians will die, and the planet will continue to be destroyed at an unprecedented rate.

Stopping U.S. imperialist wars must be part of a larger effort to overthrow capitalism. We must continue to educate, agitate, and organize against ALL forms of capitalist exploitation.

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Teachers Organizing in Higher Ed

By Jennifer Lin

Contingent workers—temporary and part-time workers and independent contractors—have been steadily replacing full-time workers at colleges throughout the country. This trend reflects how the core mission of higher ed has shifted away from education. Most of tuition is spent on an excess of administrators and amenities (like luxury dining halls and shiny new squash courts) designed to convince students that a college education is a worthwhile ‘consumer experience.’ Colleges are run like businesses in which professors are being exploited and education has become a commodity stripped of value.

Businesses thrive off contingent labor. By classifying workers as independent contractors, businesses can avoid having to pay a minimum wage or provide any benefits. College administrators perpetrate this form of exploitation by hiring adjuncts. Adjuncts are part-time professors with semester-long contracts. They are constantly working to secure jobs for the next term, and classes often disappear without notice, meaning they have absolutely no job security. Most have to teach at multiple colleges just to make ends meet.

Adjuncts make less than half the salary that full-time faculty do, and they are denied health insurance and pension contributions. 31% of part-time faculty are living at or near the federal poverty line, and one in four families of part-time faculty qualify for Medicaid and food stamps. This is the purgatory of contingent life, in which adjuncts toil incessantly but are denied the rights that their full-time coworkers previously struggled to win.

Students also suffer from the exploitation of adjuncts’ labor. Adjuncts are often hired a few days prior to the beginning of the semester, so they have less time to prepare for their classes. They are often assigned lower-level and introductory courses, which mostly include students who need the most assistance. The time adjuncts need to spend updating their courses, commuting between classes, and working extra jobs—just so they can pay rent and health insurance—takes a massive toll on their psychological and physical well-being, placing serious constraints on their ability to give students the intensive mentoring they might need.

In response to this crisis, adjuncts have been organizing across the nation. Recently, members of the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), a student union, went on strike. Many of them are international grad students working as part-time teaching assistants. They demanded that the administration pay them fair wages, cover health care costs, and reduce exorbitant student fees. Prior to striking, the union increased membership, invited students to participate in bargaining sessions, and organized informational pickets. Undergraduate students boycotted classes and organized a rally in solidarity with the strikers. Through their organizing, students managed to freeze enrollment fees, reduce health care costs, and secure a 14% wage increase. Despite the fact that many students didn’t have any experience organizing, the GEO won a significant victory that inspired the professor union, the UIC United Faculty, to hold their own strike less than a week later.

For some of us, college remains a bastion of higher learning. However, we must not forget that colleges are capitalist institutions; they are just as likely to exploit workers as any other business. Tuition is skyrocketing, and less and less of that money is being used to pay workers. Contrary to what administrators might have you believe, colleges have more than enough money to employ full-time faculty and to provide quality education at a low cost, but they will not do so unless we students and professors collectively organize to demand what is justly ours: fair pay and quality education. The future of higher ed is in our hands.