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Bush Dynasty Got Rich by Arming Hitler, From Oil Companies and Banking and Lies, Bought His Way Into Office

9 Reasons Not to Be Sad That War Criminal & Racist, Bush Sr. is Dead

Bush began the 1991 war with Iraq with a blatant lie that Iraqi troops were aiming to invade Saudi Arabia and cut off the U.S. oil supply and deliberating encouraging Kuwait to steal Iraqi oil. With Bush even bombing air raid shelters, 89,000 tons of bombs killed 200,000 Iraqis. He bombed the infrastructure including sewage treatment plants which led to wide spread disease. He massacred tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers while they were retreating. By 1991, Iraq was ordering its soldiers to pull out of Kuwait through two roads. Those roads became known as the “Highway of Death” when the U.S. military bombed them “like shooting fish in a barrel,” according to one U.S. pilot.

He armed the death squads in Nicaragua that were killing anyone who opposed the Somoza dictatorship and U.S. invasion. He later pardoned all involved.

Bush was a war criminal. He violated the Geneva Convention, anti-torture convention, and War Crimes Act.

He initiated the so-called War on Drugs while allowing drugs to deliberately poison Black and other working class communities. Then threw a million people in jail where inmate slave labor is used to profit corporations.

During his presidential race against Michael Dukakis, he ran the infamous racist “Willie Horton ads”, painting young Black men as rapists and murderers. Bush Sr.’s campaign advisor would even apologize for the ad on his deathbed—Bush never did.

He sexually assaulted at least 8 women, including a 16-year-old woman by groping her when he was 79.

He let the AIDS epidemic grow to kill over 100,000 people. While mostly working class LGBT+ people were on their hospital deathbeds, Bush told them “well, change your behavior.”

As CIA director, Bush Sr. prioritized arms deals with fascist death squads in oil-rich areas, like the mujahedeen in Afghanistan (which would later become the Taliban). This was after he was on the payroll of Dresser Industries—a corporation that made a fortune off of weapons production and oil extraction.

He invaded Panama in 1989, killing 3,000 people and destroying the homes of tens of thousands more, all to keep U.S. military bases in Panama after they were scheduled to be closed by the government.

So who profited from Bush Sr.’s career? Oil corporations, private prisons, and military arms dealers (Bush’s own family!) reaped billions of dollars all throughout the criminal’s presidency. Bush Sr. was only an “American hero” to the wealthy elite that he served. He was an enemy of working class and oppressed people all over the world. It is sad that some progressives like Bernie Sanders praised him in death for his “humble and devoted service” to the country. Truth is our greatest weapon in securing a better future.

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International Communist Victories

Early 2018 has seen two major positive developments in the unity of the worlds revolutionary forces. In Venezuela, the governing United Socialist Party and the Communist Party have re-solidified their unity after years of harsh debate. In an accord established in late February, they both pledged to cooperate in many fields including elections, defense of the county, overcoming the economic crisis, and advancing the socialist revolution. On the other side of the world in Nepal the two major left parties, the Unified Marxist-Leninists and the Maoists, swept the country’s elections and decided to merge into a single party, which would make them the strongest political force in Nepal by far. The merger and the election victory have instilled a great sense of hope in the Nepalese people that their country will soon overcome much of the poverty and instability that they are accustomed to.

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Mayor Elect Latoya Cantrell: No Friend of the Working Class People of New Orleans

By Malcolm Suber

There’s an old saying that you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep. If we use this as a measure of our mayor-elect, LaToya Cantrell, we can safely predict that New Orleans workers have four years of hard struggle ahead. Cantrell styled herself as the people’s candidate during her mayoral campaign. She was widely embraced by a number of self-proclaimed progressives like Step-Up Louisiana as being on the side of the workers. Her campaign even issued a statement about forming a people’s transition team that would include residents from all walks of life and social classes.

What we find of course is a transition team made up of the usual suspects, members of rich white ruling class and their most loyal lackeys. The transition team is co-chaired by Walter Issacson, former head of the Aspen Institute; Norman Francis, former President of Xavier University; and Gayle Benson, wife of Saints owner Tom Benson, Louisiana’s favorite charity who became a billionaire on our tax subsidies to his empire. A few community people were thrown in as window dressing.

This ruling class transition team will help mayor-elect Cantrell develop policies for her administration. The make-up of this committee tells us that New Orleans workers cannot put any faith into Cantrell’s mantra that “we’re moving forward together” and that she is a “bottom up organizer”. Hardly. Workers will discover that Cantrell, as all the mayors before her, are solidly in the hands of the developers and local capitalist class that stand for low wages, racism, police terror, mass incarceration, sexism and gentrification. Cantrell will be new wine in an old bottle.

On top of all the above, Cantrell is requiring those who join her transition team to sign “disclosure agreement” which forbids them to discuss transition team proceedings. So much for being transparent and welcoming all points of view.

We in the New Orleans Workers Group are not swayed by sloganeering and empty promises. We will continue to organize and prepare New Orleans workers for a fight against the bosses and their newest servant-mayor LaToya Cantrell.