The People Will Bury the Fascists with Mass Struggle

Pentagon & Capitalist Rulers Allowed the Storming of the Capitol

Mandatory Credit: Photo by William Volcov/Shutterstock (9973296d) Protest against fascism and anti-Semitism on the Upper East Side on Manhattan Island in New York Anti-Semitism and Facism protest, New York, USA – 10 Nov 2018 Three protesters were arrested

The only thing more disgusting than the fascists who stormed the Capitol is the big business media endlessly replaying and publicizing their victory. Corporations and politicians are given airtime to claim their opposition but they have been and still are the main source of funding and support for the fascists. The fascists are celebrating the endless replay of them entering and holding the Capitol for four hours while they paraded around their racists Nazi signs and slogans. This has emboldened them to undertake further actions which they are again openly planning, this time with more focus on the seats of state governments.

Let’s be clear: this was allowed to happen not because a few Capitol police were sympathetic to the fascists (given a choice, the police will always side with the fascists). Evidence shows that the government and the Pentagon, at the highest levels, decided in advance to allow the scene at the Capitol to give the fascists a victory.

This violent assault was planned openly for weeks. They were allowed into D.C. and allowed to go to the Capitol. The Mayor had asked for troops and Trump and others were on the phone with the generals delaying. The Mayor certainly did not delay it. Even when a mere 340 National Guard troops were finally okayed, they stayed away from the Capitol until 5:15 PM.

Whether this was meant to be a dress rehearsal or more, it was not an insurrection with millions rising up for them. But it was certainly a step forward in the building of a fascist movement.

Fascism is not just a bad set of policies, it’s a bludgeon used to rescue capitalist profit.

Fascism is not just a bad policy cured by “good” politicians. It is a way to defend profits at a time when the capitalist system is in crisis. The German Nazi regime was a capitalist government dedicated to preventing workers’ power in the face of a depression. It was used to crush workers’ support of socialism.

In periods of relative stability, politicians take advantage of the low consciousness of workers to promote faith in capitalist democracy. But when deception fails, when they can no longer fool workers into believing that billionaires deserve private islands while millions of children starve, they will resort to open terrorism. This is what the history of fascism teaches us.

Independence from Democratic Party is urgent

It’s important to fight any setback, especially against the fascists. We must defend every right that we’ve won through struggle. The issue is how. We cannot depend on the Democratic party because they ultimately answer to their capitalist backers. They fund liberal and fascist politicians, one more than the other depending on which way the winds blow.

Even Biden admitted that Trump’s white supremacist shock troops were treated with kid gloves while Black Lives Matter protesters were met with brutal repression. But his answer is to call for “equal treatment before the law” as if Nazis and anti-racists were equal. Biden’s plan to “Unite America” is just another way of saying that he can work with the right-wing forces as long as they don’t give Wall Street the jitters.

Mass Mobilizations are more important than ever

The U.S. ‘left’ wasted four years waiting for the Democratic party until the tremendous Black Lives Matter protests broke out over the summer. As Workers Voice pointed out often, this was four years that Trump used to build his fascist movement. Anti-Trumpism was reduced to ridiculing the man himself, ignoring how effective Trump’s ploys were among many backwards workers. We urged mass street mobilizations to oust Trump. Even if he were replaced by Pence, the balance of power in the class struggle would have propelled the movement forward.

There’s no better time to hit the streets than now. Leave the parties of Wall Street and the Pentagon behind. The only force capable of defeating fascism is the collective power of working and oppressed people, united in motion. United, we can never be defeated.

Abolish the Capitalist Supreme Court – Editorial

Trump poses a real danger by nominating an extreme conservative and open white supremacist woman to the Supreme Court. The tyrannical decisions made by the Supreme Court and federal judges result in immense harm to the people. However, in the panic over the nomination, people overlook the most fundamental aspects of the court—that it is a capitalist tool of the billionaire ruling class and that only mass struggle against the capitalists can beat back reactionary court rulings.

The lifetime-appointed judges of the Supreme Court and the Federal courts uphold the undemocratic right of the capitalists to own and control all of society to the detriment of millions of workers and oppressed people. There are no workers who are judges. When an occasional woman or non-white person is nominated they are carefully vetted to make sure they uphold the capitalist order.

This author worked on a massive rent control referendum in Baltimore that was voted for overwhelmingly by thousands. One federal judge overturned the people’s decision by deciding that the referendum illegally interfered with the rights of landlords. Some democracy!

Respect for Ruth Bader Ginsburg must be acknowledged for stubbornly trying, while coping with a painful disease, to outlive a Trump administration. But to attribute gains made for women or LGBT people to her rulings alone rather than the mass action of women or the LGBTQ movement is false and deceptive.

Crediting a capitalist court or Congress for progress plays into the same mythology that attributes hero status to Franklin D. Roosevelt for the New Deal laws. In reality, it was the militant struggle of millions of workers to challenge the capitalist system that won social security, unemployment insurance, and more. When corporate lobbyists voiced their objections to these reforms, Roosevelt revealingly said, “Do you want me to wait until workers march on the White House with machine guns?”

MASS INDEPENDENT MOVEMENT AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION CAN PUSH THEM BACK

The struggle can push the right wing back. In fact, it is the struggle alone that succeeds in winning new laws or repealing others. The Supreme Court, federal courts and the constitution upheld slavery and racist Jim Crow laws until the movement was too powerful to ignore. No Supreme Court judge, congressperson, or senator was responsible. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act while three of the justices had affiliations with the KKK. The capitalists let the court know they considered it better to grant some temporary concessions on paper rather than fan the flames of revolt which might threaten the system as a whole.

The real tragedy of 4 years of Trumpism is that for all the damage his regime did on behalf of the capitalist class, no liberal or social democratic politician saw fit to answer these attacks by calling for a powerful mass movement in the streets. Workers could have mounted the people power to unseat Trump at any point over the last 4 years; instead, liberals preached that a vote for the Democratic party was the answer. Instead of arousing the rage of workers based on the real harms done to us, the Democrats trotted out a doomed impeachment campaign on behalf of the Pentagon and the CIA.

If Biden is elected, will he march up to the Supreme or Federal Court and handcuff judges for their crimes against the people? No. If a federal judge rules that we have no right to protest police terror or a pipeline and that the Justice department can charge us with sedition, will Biden defy these judges? Of course not! Because above all else, Biden will reverently obey the institutions of capitalist society. If he didn’t, he’d run the risk of lifting the veil of deception from the eyes of the working masses. Biden supported the illegal coup against the democratically elected Evo Morales in Bolivia so that Elon Musk and the Tesla corporation could obtain lithium for their cars. Will he not do the same here?

Trump has nominated the reactionary Amy Coney Barrett. If the masses block him by taking to the streets, that would at least serve to show the power of the people. But at the same time, we need to expose that the Supreme Court, and all U.S. courts serve the interests of the capitalist class and will never deliver real justice to the people.

We need to sweep away the illusion of checks and balances. We need courts made up of and for the workers and oppressed. We need to mount movements and struggles to lift us all up from oppression and exploitation, but ultimately, we must exercise the greatest democracy of all and claim our right to revolution.

Thanks to Trump, COVID-19 Vaccine Further Out of Reach

Trump sides with pharmaceutical companies and private profit instead of world’s people.

by Jennifer Lin

Trump has announced that the US won’t participate in the WHO-backed COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX), a global initiative of 156 countries working together to develop a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine and distribute it globally. Trump has already withdrawn funding from the WHO, which he falsely accuses of being controlled by China.

While international organizations including the WHO have praised China for its pandemic response and for assisting countries worldwide in curbing the pandemic, Trump insists on blaming China for Covid-19 in order to distract us from just how horrible the situation is in the US. Trump, who doesn’t believe in wearing masks and wants everyone to go back to work even though 200,000+ people in the US have died from Covid-19, once again shows he has zero commitment to public health.

Rather than being on the side of the people, Trump and his cronies are siding with pharmaceutical companies that have been profiting off the pandemic. One of these companies, Gilead, was given $99 million of US taxpayer money to develop remdesivir, a potential treatment for Covid-19. Gilead plans to sell remdesivir at $3120 per patient.

Pharmaceutical companies like Gilead see the pandemic as a giant cash cow, where the people fund research and development for lifesaving resources that Big Pharma hoards to secure billion-dollar profits. That’s why pharmaceutical companies are racing to produce vaccines as part of Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which aims to sell vaccines by January 2021.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has already granted companies like Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer over 6 billion of our tax dollars to develop vaccines. When he was head of Eli Lilly, current HHS Secretary Alex Azar tripled the price of insulin. When asked if HHS plans to make COVID-19 vaccines affordable for all, he replied, “We would want to ensure that we’d work to make it affordable, but we can’t control that price because we need the private sector to invest.” In other words, the U.S. ruling class sees healthcare as nothing but a commodity and is willing to let people die so the rich can profit.

Trump is continuing with the same policy of mass murder we’ve seen since the pandemic began. Corporations have received bailouts totaling $500 billion while workers have lost their livelihoods and lives because of cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and SNAP, mass unemployment, evictions, and being forced to return to unsafe jobs. How will we workers be expected to pay whatever outrageous prices Big Pharma charges for a vaccine when we’re already bankrupt trying to stay alive?

The WHO says another $35 billion will be needed for COVAX to succeed. Trump’s decision not to join this global effort is a threat not to just our safety, but to the safety of people worldwide. The only way out of the pandemic requires countries working together to develop a vaccine that everyone has equal access to, with an emphasis on protecting the most vulnerable populations. Countries like Cuba and China understand this; they are committed to offering vaccines to other countries rather than hoarding them for profit. We must oppose U.S. capitalists by championing global solidarity and organizing to secure healthcare as a right.

Editorial – Oppose Trump’s Attempt to Disenfranchise US Voters

Protect, Fund the US Postal Service

Donald Trump’s brazen attempt to hold onto office has no bounds. He is trying his best to convince the US public that a now sabotaged Post Office is incapable of distributing and returning mail-in ballots. Trump has admitted that he is trying to sabotage the Postal Service to limit how many US voters can vote by mail during the pandemic. This goes along with massive voter suppression in many states.

The headlines in the capitalist media in the past weeks have increasingly reported on how Trump’s crony Louis DeJoy, a millionaire North Carolina competitor of the postal service and Trump donor, is on a mission to destroy the USPS. He has ordered slow processing times, removed mailboxes from city streets, and reduced the number of sorting machines. 46 states and the District of Columbia have been warned that the USPS cannot guarantee that all ballots cast by mail will arrive in time to be counted on election day.

On Thursday, August 16th, Trump vowed to continue blocking aid for the USPS. DeJoy has been on a tear to remove many of the top managers at the Postal Service, reassigning 33 of them. He banned postal workers from making extra trips to ensure same day delivery, leading to long delays in mail delivery across the country to turn the public against the service.

We all must rally to oppose this attempt to disenfranchise millions of voters. The right to vote is a fundamental right and must be protected. The postal system must be saved from the big capitalists who are trying to starve the USPS, privatize it, and destroy the postal worker unions and their jobs. We must force the politicians of both the Democratic and Republican capitalist-controlled parties to stop fiddling while the USPS burns.

Democrats Used Impeachment to Promote War

By Milton Meyer

The Democrats did not impeach Trump for putting children in cages or for advocating white supremacist terrorism. Nor did they impeach him for the crimes against humanity he has committed against the people of Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Yemen, Afghanistan, or Iran. For these reasons and more, millions of workers would have loved to see Trump impeached. But the capitalist Democratic party wouldn’t dare inflame workers’ rage over the real causes of our troubles whether they be low wages, endless wars, or the constant onslaught of racist, sexist, anti-LGBTQ attacks.

On questions of unending wars, the slashing of social programs, the militarization of the police, mass incarceration, and tax breaks for the rich, Republicans and the Democrats differ only in the details. Both parties are dominated by Wall Street banks, fossil fuel companies, and the military industrial complex. However, while the openly white supremacist Republicans focus their energy on scapegoating immigrants and demonizing Muslims, the Democrats prefer to stoke fears that the Russians are the root of all our problems.

The Democrats could have impeached Bush for starting illegal wars, placing the entire U.S. population under surveillance, or authorizing torture. The Republicans could have impeached Obama for waging 11 illegal wars, ordering drone assassinations, or using the military as a domestic police force. Trump could have been impeached for his Muslim ban, his criminal neglect of Puerto Rico, or his support for the genocidal war on the people of Yemen. But these crimes are apparently not “impeachable” because both parties would have to indict themselves.

The Democrats centered their impeachment around Trump’s withholding of military aid to Ukraine in order to depict him as “soft” on Russia, reinforcing their absurd claim that Trump is aided by the Kremlin in his war on “American democracy.” Never mind the disturbing fact that next month the U.S. will deploy 20,000 troops to participate in hostile war games on Russia’s border.

In addition to stoking anti-Russian paranoia, the Democrats figured their impeachment of Trump would enable them to pose as the “resistance” to Trump while millions of workers really are desperate to resist his attacks. But as the countless testimonies of generals and CIA analysts made clear, the Democrats’ fake “resistance” was never mounted on behalf of workers but on behalf of the enemies of the workers: the generals and the millionaires on the boards of war profiteering companies. Without the real support of the masses, their case for impeachment flopped. In effect, Trump is emboldened to wield his power even more recklessly.

The impeachment farce should make clear to workers that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans represent the interests of the working majority of the country. We cannot depend on these capitalist parties to safeguard our rights. We must build an independent movement—of workers and for workers—to finally free ourselves of would-be fascists and war profiteers.

Send Trump To Jail

Trump Gives Tax Cuts to Billionaires & Trillions to War Profiteers.
Pardons Millionaire Criminals
Tells Workers, “F” You
Wants Budget Cuts To:
Social Security, Medicaid
Food Stamps, Housing Assistance
Environment, Species Preservation
Education, Disability Programs
Trump is Gutting Civil Rights, While Supporting Racists
He Attacks Women and LGBTQ People
PUT THIS CRIMINAL IN JAIL AND NO PARDON!

Thousands Protest Trump and Modi, Reject Militarism

Trump has refused to comment on the anti-Muslim pogroms in India, instead praising Modi as “very strong” and “very tough.” He has since boasted that he brokered the sale of $3 billion worth of military equipment to the Indian government and that he “looks forward to providing India with some of the best and most feared military equipment on the planet.”

Modi’s government, like Trump’s, scapegoats Muslims, immigrants, and others in order to turn attention from the real reason that there’s a widespread lack of decent jobs and deteriorating living standards for workers. When the capitalist system can no longer sustain itself from exploitation alone, racism and war are the answers of the capitalists.

As during the rise of Nazism, the ultra-rich are relying more and more on the arms trade for their profits. Here in the U.S. as in India, it’s urgent that we get organized to defeat fascism. In order to do so, we must stand firm against the Pentagon and the ballooning military budget that allows war profiteers to siphon more than 60% of U.S. government spending for their own enrichment.

Trump and Modi Unleash Fascist Violence in India Socialists Organize Fightback

The Dehli Solidarity and Relief Committee volunteers went to areas affected by the attacks to provide relief work and to survey affected areas and families. Brinda Karat (center) met the grieving family of Faizan, a Muslim man, who had been beaten and made to sing the national anthem while he was in a seriously injured condition. The Dehli police kept him in their custody instead of allowing him treatment. He was released when his condition became critical. Later he succumbed to his injuries.

By Gregory William

At the end of February, Trump spent two days in India, being regaled at lavish events by far-right president, Narendra Modi. They held a mass rally at a sports stadium in Gujarat, where Trump declared that the two countries are united in a fight against “radical Islamic terrorism.” But this is an extreme distortion of what both the Indian and U.S. governments are doing, and we must call this event what it was: a fascist rally.

While Trump was in the country whipping up hatred, at least 40 people were killed and thousands injured as anti-Muslim violence swept the streets of Delhi. Mosques, Muslim-owned businesses, and homes were set on fire, and multiple people were burned alive or lynched. These events parallel Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), a wave of anti-Jewish violence unleashed by the Nazis in November 1938. This was a prelude to the Holocaust.

Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has carried out assaults on workers on behalf of big business, pushing through cuts to healthcare, education, and more. All the while, he has stirred up ethnic conflict. Hate crimes in India dramatically spiked, as in the U.S. after Trump’s election. In December 2019, the Indian parliament passed a citizenship law that discriminates against Muslims. They have imposed military occupation on the semi-autonomous, Muslim majority states of Jammu and Kashmir.

Trump and Modi are birds of a feather and are leaders in the right-wing nationalist movement that is happening in many countries. Both have nothing to offer the masses of the people except division and hatred. This only benefits the ultra-rich who would rather see workers fighting each other than fighting against them.

In opposition to the violence, socialist and communist parties organized demonstrations across India, from Kerala to Kolkata. The parties have also organized aid for those affected. For example, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has organized solidarity and relief committees that are collecting funds and working directly with victims.

Trump’s Storm Troopers Target Immigrants

In cities across the U.S. people have democratically decided to show solidarity to migrants and immigrants. These sanctuary cities have directed the police not to check immigration status, to racially profile undocumented workers, or to call in ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) to imprison our brothers and sisters in detention camps. New Orleans is one of several so-called sanctuary cities.

The ultra-racist Trump, just like the Louisiana legislature, refuses to accept any local decisions to raise wages, get sick pay, or deny corporate tax exemptions and more. Both rule solely to provide millionaires and billionaires with profits at the expense of the entire working class.

These anti-working class, racist politicians want to bring U.S. Border Patrol Tactical Units into sanctuary cities, armed to the teeth to arrest immigrants. These units are like the storm troopers of the Nazis. If they are allowed into our city, they will not stop with immigrants: the militarization and super weaponry will be used against the entire working class.

Anti-immigrant Attorney General Landry Has Got to Go!

Like Trump, Louisiana Attorney General Landry has been one of the loudest and ugliest voices in Louisiana against undocumented immigrants and migrants. This vicious racist and anti-immigrant millionaire opposed raising the minimum wage and initiated a lawsuit to stop Medicaid expansion and to destroy beneficial features of the Affordable Care Act. His lawsuit, which threatens the lives of 700,000 adults and children, was never decided by the workers of Louisiana.

Landry wants to divide workers by pitting citizens against immigrants. In 2017 he led a group of Attorneys General who threatened to sue Trump if he did not cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, which protects 800,000 undocumented immigrants from deportation. Yet when it comes to making profits, Landry is only too happy to exploit migrant workers as part of a “guest” worker contract that his business rigged in order to get skilled and unskilled labor for cheaper than he could get it locally.

Guest workers work under conditions of semi-slavery. This program requires workers to sign contracts stating they will not complain or organize, or they will be deported immediately. Many “guest” workers are forced to live in horrid conditions, and their pay is deducted for food and housing. There is no path to citizenship. The racist-in-chief Trump has overseen an expansion in guest worker programs. There are more short-term migrant farm-workers being exploited as “guest” workers than ever before.

This goes to the very core of why the capitalists, and their media, are beating the message that we should blame immigrants rather than the super-rich. The purpose of the anti-worker, anti-immigrant and migrant hatred is to divide us while they laugh all the way to the bank. They want to lower the wages and benefits of all workers.

We need to tear down the prisons which make Louisiana the world’s prison capital for citizens and immigrants alike. Private prisons for profit, eight of them, are now operating to cage immigrants and take their children away.
All workers should reject the storm troopers and view an attack on immigrants as an attack on all workers. ICE and storm troopers out of New Orleans or anywhere! An injury to one is an injury to all!

Letter from a Veteran: Trump is a War Criminal

Trump thinks he has the final say on a lot of things. Executive orders, tweets, etc. His recent pardoning of three convicted war criminals is just another instance of abuse of power. Not surprising for a fascist.

Trump claims to be the best friend the military could have. What could he possibly know about serving? I served for 8 years, both under Bush and Obama. I entered combat zones under both regimes, which drove us into “forever wars” that destroyed the Middle East and gave trillions of our tax dollars to war profiteering corporations.

While I was in, I was required to abide by the UCMJ, or Uniform Code of Military Justice, which regulates the conduct of service members at home and while deployed. Violations of several of these articles can lead to Court Martial, which is where committing war crimes will land you. You’ll either be sentenced to death or get time in the brig. During times of war, which we are always in, you can be summarily executed for simply refusing to obey an order. This has happened as recently as 2013.

The military is largely a fraternity, for lack of a better word, run by corrupt generals. There are the UCMJ’s rules and then there are the “real” rules. Crimes are routinely covered up, obfuscated, or flat out lied about. That’s how it works, and it will not change until workers (including rank and file soldiers) rise up to dismantle this thing.

For someone to get convicted of these types of crimes, they would have to have been particularly heinous.

Trump claims he wants to “take care” of veterans. If he were serious about supporting active duty troops, he would bring Washington’s wars and occupations to an end. He would champion more funding for the VA. But he has as much concern for the troops as do the oil company executives who ought to be tried for war crimes themselves, along with the politicians and generals who orchestrate these wars.

Think about what fascists want and see if this fits in with their agenda. Trump is signaling that he has the final say in terms of justice. The criminals he pardoned are now emboldened, as are other service members who have done or aspire to commit similar acts. At the same time, the military refuses to address the problem of white supremacy among the ranks and will no longer screen for white nationalist views as a condition of enlistment.

Murdering civilians, posing with corpses, white nationalism, what else is Trump ok with?

Trump Says U.S. Military In Syria “Only For The Oil”

By Sally Jane Black

In a rare display of honesty, Donald Trump has stated several times in the last two months that U.S. troops have only remained in Syria to “secure the oil.” Though Pentagon officials have tried to backtrack on his comments (since they are an admission of war crimes), the cat is out of the bag. While Trump previously claimed U.S. troops would be leaving the area—signaling a victory for the Syrian people under threat by U.S. imperialism—troops remain to maintain U.S. corporate control of the natural resources of the region.

The U.S. military’s presence in the Middle East is the primary cause of the instability and wars that have plagued the region for decades.

There is a long history of U.S. imperialism and militarism acting only to rob other nations of their natural resources. Whether it’s Bolivian lithium or Nigerian uranium or Iraqi oil they’re after, the U.S. military serves capitalist exploitation in its plunder of the world’s wealth. In Syria, it has been no different; the U.S. involvement there began when Syria tried to build their own gas pipeline and control their own resources. Since then, the U.S. has bombed hospitals and civilians, spread lies about use of chemical weapons, and backed all kinds of reactionary paramilitary organizations including the so-called “moderate rebels” now murdering the same Kurds the U.S. once backed.

The U.S. military’s presence in the Middle East is the primary cause of the instability and wars that have plagued the region for decades; the impact of imperialism is always violence and suffering for working people. Trump’s remarks expose the long-standing truth. US workers should stand in solidarity with the Syrian people and demand that Trump be prosecuted for the war crimes he admits to.