Day: June 13, 2021

NATO Meets to Prepare War And Economic Murder

On Friday, Biden went to Europe to proclaim U.S., European, and Japanese capitalists’ intention to dominate the world by any means necessary, including extortion, sanctions, and war. His tour started with the G7 summit, a meeting of the world’s richest capitalist governments—U.S., Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, the EU, and Japan. This gang of thieves ought to hide their faces as millions around the world have died from COVID-19 and starvation solely because of their greed. They just blocked Venezuela from buying COVID-19 vaccines. 

After the G7 summit, Biden will meet with NATO, the joint armed forces of the G7 gang. Since its founding in 1949, NATO has been used to deny self-determination to dozens of countries around the world. U.S./NATO attacks on Syria, Afghanistan, Palestine, Libya, and Iraq have driven millions of desperate refugees from their homes. Meanwhile, the “democratic” billionaires of the G7 countries have only increased their wealth and their stranglehold over the people of the world.

Biden Giddy with Right-Wing Alliances to Attack China

Biden claims that the G7 is an alliance of democracies as opposed to oligarchies and tyrannies. There is no truth to this claim on either the domestic or the international front. G7 member states support the most brutal dictatorships, including Saudi Arabia and Israel, while the U.S. itself cages one quarter of the world’s prisoners in its prisons, jails, and detention centers. The G7 countries hoard vaccines for themselves while China has already sent more than 350 million vaccines to countries around the world.   

Like Trump and Obama, the Biden administration has singled out China as the main obstacle to realizing Western capitalists’ dream of total world conquest. The aim of the U.S. and its junior partners in the G7 is to recolonize and take the vast wealth of China, subjugating the Chinese masses to the rule of U.S capitalists. When Biden claims that their war maneuvers are meant to protect “U.S. interests” he means the interests of banks and corporations, not the interests of U.S. workers or any other member of the global working class.

Blood-soaked NATO Lies To Drum Up War Fever

Biden claims that the building up of NATO forces is necessary to counter Russian or Chinese “aggression.” This conveniently ignores nuclear-armed NATO’s own record of aggressions, such as the carpet-bombing of Yugoslavia, the destruction of Libya, the brutal occupation of Afghanistan, and more. As G7 members meet, the U.S. is carrying out troop exercises in 6 countries in Africa. Despite promising no NATO bases near Russia, Russia is now surrounded by them. 28,000 NATO troops will be deployed for military exercises across Europe this year. NATO’s war budget makes up 55% of total global military spending. Who’s the aggressor?

The U.S capitalist government and its mouthpieces in the media trot out lie after lie to justify the U.S. war buildup and the annual $1 trillion dollar handout to war profiteering corporations paid for with U.S. taxpayer dollars. The U.S. has 800 foreign military bases; China has one foreign supply depot. The U.S. is building bases all through Asia and just allowed its puppets in South Korea to build long range missiles aimed at China. The U.S., proclaiming imperial right of the sea and space, is sailing nuclear armed ships off the coasts of China, Venezuela, and other nations.

Workers Must Resist NATO’s Drive to WWIII

The governments of the G7 alliance have spent more than a century trying to enslave the people of the world and have condemned tens of millions to death in the process. Like the Berlin Conference of 1884 and many imperialist conferences since, the G7 summit is a coming-together of capitalist vultures to carve up the world for themselves. The “shared interest” that unites the G7 is capitalist greed. Whether the capitalist powers are united in greed or divided by greed, we workers are the ones to suffer the consequences. We’re the ones that die in their bloody wars for profit.  

We have nothing in common with the champagne guzzling warmongers assembled in these boardrooms. Workers of all countries should demand the immediate dissolution of the G7 and NATO, which endanger the world for the profits of a few. 

On May 27, Mayor Cantrell announced “Operation Golden Eagle,” a plan to deploy Louisiana State Police in New Orleans neighborhoods alongside NOPD.  On the same day, the family of Ronald Greene and hundreds of others were marching on the Governor’s Mansion to protest his murder by state cops.

In May 2019, LA state troopers murdered beloved community member Ronald Greene, a Black man from Monroe. Video footage leaked in May 2021 shows three cops beating him to death and then bragging about it. A lawsuit against state cops Jacob Brown, Dakota DeMoss, and George Harper, all of whom are white, revealed text messages between them bragging about another brutal assault—that of Antonio Harris—during a traffic stop. 

Racist Police Terror Serves the Rich 

These acts of armed racist terror go on every day. They are not the exception but are the rule. Most go unknown to the public due to police threats of retaliation. Only the atrocities that are videotaped get attention.  

Cops are violent, racist thugs. Because they protect the rich, they are encouraged to be a brutal force. The more hardship grows in the working class of all nationalities, the more the rich need their police to protect their obscene wealth.  Despite the world witnessing police crimes and despite damages sometimes paid, they continue to not only get away with this but are praised and rewarded with increased funding. This has not changed since the murder of George Floyd.  

State Police Kill Prison Reform Bill

In June, the Louisiana State Police and Louisiana Supreme Court successfully lobbied to kill a bill that would have automatically expunged eligible offenses from peoples’ records. Through the efforts of Voice of the Experienced (VOTE), several prison reforms did pass this year. But the fact that the Louisiana Legislature dropped House Bill 604, which would have automatically wiped criminal records after parole, is a blow to thousands of people. This measure would have enabled people to get jobs, vote, and have social benefits.  Prison follows you even when you get out, and that is what the rich want: to terrorize the poor for the rest of their lives, forcing them into low-wage jobs, or perhaps, back to prison to be further exploited. 

Incarceration Means Big Money for LA Lawmakers, Wardens, Prison Corporations 

Louisiana legislators rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars from sheriffs and police officers. That’s why they and other elected officials aim to keep Louisiana as the most incarcerated place in the world. While police and prison departments get massive funding, wardens personally profit. Capitalists in charge of Louisiana’s prison system get rich from the operation of private prisons, exploitation of enslaved prisoners, and from food and phone contracts. The entire system is rotten, but don’t call it corrupt: it does exactly what it is designed to do for the benefit of a few white Louisiana capitalists. 

Get Louisiana State Troopers off our streets now! 

Millions of people rose up last summer to demand an end to police terror, calling for cities to defund the police and abolish ICE. Instead of funding cops, cities need to fund good jobs, good education, housing, and healthcare. We say free the non-violent incarcerated in state prisons and jails, free the migrants, and free the children! Get Louisiana State troopers off our streets! Jail the cops who murdered Ronald Greene!

SESSION RENEWS ATTACKS ON WORKERS, CUTS TAXES FOR RICH

While workers have been suffering from hunger, unemployment, and poverty wages, the Louisiana Legislature has spent most of the last session focused on lowering taxes for the rich and enabling even more blatant corruption.  

Another year has passed with no raise to the minimum wage (still at $7.25), when $15 an hour would raise wages for half of all Louisiana workers, especially women and Black workers.  

$300 million a year has been diverted from the state general fund for education, healthcare and other services to road construction. This will line the pockets of Boh Brothers and others mega-builders who contribute to their campaigns. 

Louisiana lawmakers also moved to strip the additional $300 million in FEDERAL money to the unemployed. This is a giveaway to employers who pay poverty wages to desperate workers. After dealing this blow, they make it seem like raising maximum unemployment a whole $28 a week is an act of kindness. The max now is $247, the lowest in the country. Many workers get less than $150.  

Add to their crimes the denial of Medicaid coverage to women after giving birth which endangers the lives of many new mothers. 

FIRE THE LOUISIANA LEGISLATORS, STRIP THEIR MEDICAL BENEFITS, TAX THEIR INCOMES  

Just a few days ago the Legislature agreed to end some corporate loopholes, but only after lowering the tax rate for corporations, 200 of which already pay no taxes. They have made the “temporary” sales tax hike permanent putting the burden on the poorest.  

These legislators, with only a few exceptions, own companies or receive personal compensation from sheriff’s departments, water corporations, oil and gas and plastic companies’ companies, banks, real estate developers, and law firms representing the rich.  This is why they continue to praise and give exemptions to companies like Formosa Plastics, which is killing the Black community in Cancer Alley in St. James Parish. 

Workers Must Get Organized to Stop the Louisiana Legislature’s War On Workers  

The Louisiana legislators are smug, sitting in their mansions and country clubs as Louisiana remains the worst in child poverty, mass incarceration, unemployment benefits, wages, maternal deaths, and vaccination rates.  

They attempt to block education about the history of racism in the U.S. and Louisiana, which suffered massacres of Black residents in Colfax, Thibodaux, Opelousas, Bossier, St. Bernard, Orleans Parish and more. These were attempts by KKK-type groups backed by white politicians to prevent Black men from voting and from taking seats in elections they had won. Today, as Louisiana joins other states to suppress voting rights, that aim is being pursued by other means. 

The legislature is controlled by right-wing white supremacists, and while the burden falls especially hard on Black Louisianians, their policies create suffering for millions of workers of all nationalities. The state government’s claims of democratic legitimacy are ridiculous. They do not even allow a method for a popular vote to be put on the ballot by the people. We, the working class, have no representation.    

This will not change until we build independent workers’ organizations like the Louisiana Workers Councils. We need to build a militant workers’ movement to fight back. 

The research and technology for the Pfizer (Biotech) and Moderna COVID vaccines came from the National Institute of Health and was paid for by the public. Yet Pfizer has already made $900 million in profit from the vaccine. In April 87% of all vaccines went to richer countries, and the poorest countries only got 0.2%.  It is the combined labor and resources of the people that produced these vaccines. They belong to the people and should be mass produced and distributed to the entire world. An independent panel of scientists, workers, and international representatives should be convened to investigate and inform the U.S. public of the nature of the deaths caused by capitalist politicians and corporations.

Biden is running backward on many of whatever progressive measures his campaign promised. Instead, he is hyper-focused on war alliances and infrastructure and technology bills that are nothing more than subsidies to war profiteers and mega-corporations.

The committee to work out a ‘compromise’ on infrastructure spending has been called bipartisan. This is incorrect. Both Democrats and Republicans are partisan to profit-making capitalist corporations.

Gone from Biden’s $2.25 trillion proposal are climate, childcare, and tax-the-rich proposals. The new ‘compromise’ plan lays out $579 billion over 8 years – all for projects that will enrich various capitalist sectors. Most of the money will come from “left over COVID relief funds” except for a possible gas tax hike which hurts lower-wage workers the most. Trump’s tax cuts for the rich will remain in place.

The market rose to record heights hearing news of the plan for corporate subsidies and the absence of new taxes on profits and the super-rich. Wall Street consultants are issuing lists of which companies to invest in.

The bills include huge corporate subsidies for military projects, energy, supercomputing, AI, semi-conductors, pharmaceuticals, plastics and roads. These hand-outs are justified with the claim that is necessary to ‘counter’ China in order to protect U.S. interests. These are the interests of the capitalists, not the people whose funds for social programs will continue to be looted and handed over to war-profiteering corporations.

It is urgent that people stop clinging to the Democratic War Party. The power of the people is in the streets, as is being shown all around the world.

It is especially important for workers and progressives in the U.S. to realize that they cannot content themselves with fraudulent temporary gains for a few while supporting the predatory death machine of U.S. militarism and imperialist economic attacks. The “competitiveness and infrastructure priorities” are all to intensify the capitalist plan to drag workers to the bottom through war and economic strangulation. The countries that the U.S. singles out for attack are each in their own way trying to increase social benefits for their people. When these countries are destroyed by wars or sanctions, it lowers the living standards of workers in the U.S. as well.  

After years of activism from New York’s LGBTQ community, NYC Pride banned police from their official Pride parade, and a Seattle Pride organization has followed suit. Both cities have long resisted corporate Pride events and police presence at LGBTQ events, and with last year’s mass protests against police terror, the community finally succeeded in expelling the pigs.

Recent years have seen major, more militant events during Pride, like New York’s LGBTQ Liberation March from 2019, which rejected the corporate Pride event in favor of a more political, cop-free protest. Seattle has had a Trans Pride March that has been free of police for many years.

Amid last summer’s uprising against police terror, LGBTQ activists endured brutal repression and arrests in Seattle and many other parts of the country. The Capitol Hill Pride Festival announced their decision to kick the cops out last week and denounced the police for their ties to right-wing organizations as well.

For the past three years, the New Orleans Workers Group protested the presence of corporations, cops, and military in the local Pride parade. In 2020, after a motorcade for Pride, the people of New Orleans tore down the bust of slaveowner John McDonough in Duncan Plaza.

Pride events commemorate the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969, an uprising against police brutality against queer and trans people at the Stonewall Inn in New York. Police, corporations, and the military are enemies of LGBTQ liberation, as they serve the rich ruling class that funds and profits off our oppression.

The U.S. supports fascism in dozens of countries through direct financing, military support, and other coercive measures. Biden has continued the U.S. foreign policy of backing dozens of dictators around the world who use terror to carry out the orders of U.S. corporations and banks to keep wages low and workers desperate. But people around the world are resisting U.S.-supported fascism in record numbers and with increasing organization. 

Colombian General Strike Enters Seventh Week 

In Colombia millions of workers and peasants have come together to carry out a general strike now entering its seventh week. Strikers demand that the government protect the safety and dignity of workers, repeal anti-worker laws, uphold rights of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, end land exploitation by big corporations, and guarantee basic needs including education, housing, food, and employment.  

They’re also demanding an end to the routine torture, rape, and murder of social activists and trade unionists carried out or given cover by the U.S. puppet government of Ivan Duque. Much of this terrorism is carried out by mercenaries hired by corporations like BP, Coca-Cola, and Chiquita. Since the strike began on April 28, thousands have been injured and scores have been murdered by U.S.-funded and trained police, military, and paramilitary forces. 

In 2021 alone, the U.S. has allotted over $460 million in military aid to Colombia in addition to weapons and training. This falls directly in line with the U.S.’s “Plan Colombia” which sought to establish Colombia as the main U.S. military outpost in South America. Last year, Biden bragged “I’m the guy who put together Plan Colombia…straightened that government out for a long while,” vowing to continue and expand such brutal polices across Latin America. Fascist Israel is the second largest financer of the right-wing Colombian regime providing weapons, military training, and mercenaries.  

Solidarity with Palestinian Liberation Struggle Strong 

The U.S. gives the Zionist Israeli government over $11 million a day to prop up their genocidal occupation of Palestine. U.S. military support is longstanding, and Biden agreed to sell $735 million in weapons to Israel only days before the latest Israeli assault on Gaza. Though a May 21 ceasefire ended 11 days of murderous Israeli air strikes against the people of Gaza, daily assaults on Palestinians by Israeli police, military, and settler gangs continue unabated as millions of Palestinians remain under occupation and blockade.  

Palestinians continue to resist illegal evictions, occupation, and violence. Joined by allies around the globe, the Palestinian people’s movement for liberation continues to grow. Dockworkers and activists have blocked Israeli ships from ports in Oakland, New York, South Africa, and Italy. Major solidarity demonstrations have drawn out millions across the globe including a tens-of-thousands strong march on Washington, D.C. The steadfast struggle of the Palestinians is inspiring people across the world to ramp up the fight against all oppression and end the fascist tide.