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Support Incarcerated Workers’ Strike in Alabama (Calls to Action)

by Jennifer Lin

In protest against the utterly inhumane conditions in Alabama DOC, the prisoner-led Free Alabama Movement’s 30-Day Economic Blackout has stopped work from Jan 1 to Jan 31.

On January 1, incarcerated people across Alabama’s prison system went on a work strike and 11 people in isolation went on a hunger strike. Officially called the “30 Day Economic Blackout,” the strike is being organized by the Free Alabama Movement, founded and led by imprisoned Black men fighting against mass incarceration and prison slavery. People in Alabama’s prisons live in heinous conditions in overcrowded cells and are ten time smore likely to die from homicide than in any other state. Incarcerated peoples’ loved one can no longer visit them in person; Alabama is only allowing virtual visits due to COVID-19, but the Free Alabama Movement claims this is a front to permanently end in-person visits to psychologically torture incarcerated people even more. These virtual visits are insanely profitable for tech companies that have contracts with prisons. The strike is calling on people to show solidarity by boycotting 5 corporations that profit from prisons and forced prison labor: Securus Technologies, JPay, Access Correction, Union Supply Company, and Alabama Correctional Industries.

Prisons are a tool for the mass torture and dehumanization of primarily Black and brown people and funnel huge profits to private corporations through forced labor. They are designed to prop up capitalism and further the oppression of workers. Now incarcerated people are being left to die in crowded and dirty cells without access to adequate medical care during COVID-19. These people are our friends, family, and community members. The Alabama strike is a tremendous act of resistance that we must support.

The people on hunger strike have been brutally repressed with beatings, mace, harassment, and threats. The Free Alabama Movement is asking everyone to engage in an email, phone, and twitter storm of support. Tell Dunn: “At Kilby Correctional Facility, Sgt. Williams and Officer Landrum jumped on an bead a prisoner who is participating in a hunger strike. Alabama DOC needs to intervene immediately by investigating this incident and firing both guards.” – from the the #Alabama11. Show your solidarity by joining this call!

Call, Email, Twitter the Alabama Corrections Department
Alabama DOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn:
334-353-3883
Jefferson.dunn@doc.Alabama.gov
Twitter @ADOCDunn

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Trump’s Nightmare Space Wars Endorsed by Biden

We need money to end COVID-19, poverty, unemployment, racism and debt, not space bombs.

by Gavrielle Gemma

Militarism and war are the biggest ways capitalist vampires are sucking the peoples’ blood to amass huge profits. Trump may be on the way out, but Republicans and Democrats have endorsed his nightmarish space wars program – the U.S. Space Force, which was established in 2019. Both parties recently voted to give $15.2 billion to the new Space Force as part of the military budget for 2021.

U.S. throws out international treaty

After the fascist shut-down of the Capitol, politicians proclaimed that the U.S. believes in the rule of law. But the only laws they believe in are laws protecting private profits. In 1967, the U.S. signed an international Outer Space Treaty banning nuclear weapons and military bases in outer space and prohibiting any nation from claiming sovereignty over space. This treaty has been ignored.

New Space Force to threaten the world

Space Force is the Pentagon’s “separate military branch for American supremacy in space.” The Space Force is headed by General Jay Raymond, who wrote the “capstone war-fighting doctrine” for space, the plan for Space Force to encircle the globe with U.S. satellites to control the global GPS and for many satellites to have missile firing capability.

The Pentagon, on behalf of private corporations, has for years been carrying out a U.S. cyber war. There has been a lot of media hype about how maybe Russia, maybe China, maybe Iran hacked into the U.S. systems. These hysteric reports distract us from the failures of the U.S. with COVID-19 and growing poverty. Meanwhile, the U.S. openly bragged in 2019 that they have hacked Russian power grids, which has the potential to endanger the lives of millions of people.

Control of the global GPS could be used for even more deadly ends around the globe, as so many systems rely on this navigation system. Space Force would extend the already extensive hacking by the U.S. into countries’ systems around the world, increasing the threat to lives of the world’s people.

Biden signals he will continue Trump’s investment in space war

Profiteering corporations – including fascist Tesla’s Space X, Lockheed Martin, L3Harris, York Space System, Rand Corporations – are racing to feed at this new source of wealth stolen from the working people. Bill Gattle of L3Harris said, “the whole industry is moving from building a few satellites to building hundreds of them.”

In September, Joe Biden told the Military Officers Association of America that, “we have to make smart investments in technologies and innovations – including in cyber, space, unmanned systems, and artificial intelligence […] to meet the threats of the future.” That Biden would be for extending Trump’s Space Force project is not surprising. Biden’s transition team has many militarists, military corporations representatives, bankers, and Wall Street executives on it.

Space News, a publication for the profiteering space ware industry, responded to questions regarding the Biden administration’s support for Space Force. Velos, a military consulting firm, wrote “space continues to be a bipartisan policy and Joe Biden’s campaign has articulated their belief in the importance of the doman.” Velos continued, “the Democratic Party national platform supports continuity with NASA and the Space Force.”

The military section of the capitalist economy is growing ever larger. It represents the most racist and right-wing, pro-fascist elements of society. That is why the Pentagon, who has oversight of operations in D.C., openly delayed National Guard troops moving into D.C., allowing the fascists free reign on January 6.

All the money the government is giving to war profiteers belongs to the people. Their wars in space of on the ground are only to enrich the obscenely wealthy. A working-class anti-war movement can stop them, and we will.

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Biden Installed Fascists in Ukraine in 2014

Trump’s Gone – Good.
Don’t Count on Biden to Fight Fascism.

December 7, 2015, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko welcomes Joe Biden to Kiev, Ukraine.

On January 6, hours after the fascist storming of the Capitol, Biden was delivering a speech about this “unprecedented assault” on democracy. But Biden’s actions the day before make a mockery of this statement. On January 5, Biden announced his pick of Victoria Nuland for the position of undersecretary of political affairs. Nuland was Asst. Secretary of State in the Obama/Biden/Clinton regime. In this role she was tasked with toppling the elected government of Ukraine because they refused to cut ties with Russia and because Ukraine had resisted the building up of NATO military bases in their country.

In 2014, the U.S. got the coup they were hoping for and Nuland along with Senator John McCain could be seen at right wing rallies, standing shoulder to shoulder with openly neo-Nazi groups celebrating the overturning of the Ukrainian government. A leaked 2014 phone conversation between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt revealed that they’d planned the coup and had even hand-picked leaders who would serve U.S. business interests.

In order to carry out the coup, Nuland and her co-conspirators relied on fascist militias who took over government buildings and drove out the elected government by force. These were the same fascist forces that months later burned 39 people alive when they besieged and set fire to a union building in Odessa. THey hoped this act of terrorism would crush workers’ resistance to their newly installed regime. For more than 7 years they’ve waged a brutal war against antifascists in Eastern Ukraine. This war has been supported by U.S. military personnel and funded with more than $1 billion worth of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

December 6, 2018. Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko poses for a picture with the members of the Ukrainian military who openly display the “Totenkopf” insignia of the Nazi SS.

Biden and the wealthy capitalists that he serves took advantage of the “business friendly” environment that the fascist government enforced. Formerly state companies were scooped up at fire-sale prices and Ukraine’s rich farmland was raided by Monsanto. Biden’s son was put on the board of a formerly public owned gas company and paid $50,000 a month, just like a member of the Trump Klan.

Mass layoffs followed the privatizing of state industries. Pensioners were cheated out of their retirements on the orders of the U.S. controlled International Monetary Fund (IMF). IN a speech to the Ukrainian parliament Biden urged lawmakers to make the “difficult reforms” that the IMF demanded. Now fascist gangs patrol the streets of Ukraine to repress any resistance to these anti-worker attacks.

Last month a United Nations resolution to “combat the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance.” 130 countries voted in favor of the resolution. The U.S. and Ukraine were the sole votes against. The Democratic Party did not object.

Jan 6, 2021. Fascist inside the Capitol building wears a shirt that reads “Camp Auschwitz,” a reference to the Nazi death camp where 1.1 million people were exterminated.
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What is Antifa? It Means Anti-Fascist

It is we, the People – Black, white, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, workers and students, all genders, all ages, struggling for jobs, better wages, food on our tables, respect, equality, and peace. Antifa means to fight by any means to defend the people against racism and fascism and for workers’ rights. Antifa are those who fought against slavery, workers who fought to defend their unions, mothers who stood up tot he KKK, youth who bravely fought on the front lines in Portland against the same scum who rampaged in Washington D.C.

Millions of U.S. workers took up arms against the fascists in WWII. They were Antifa.

While the U.S. government entered the war to gain colonies and profits, and U.S. capitalists helped fund Hitler, millions of workers from the U.S. and around the world took up guns against the German Nazis during WWII. They lost their lives fighting to smash Nazi fascism. They were Antifa.

Who are fascists? Cowardly puppets whose strings are pulled by super rich right wing funders who hate working people and use them to do their dirty work. Fascists are the cowards who are too afraid to fight the real enemies of the people. They want a government of billionaires, with stormtroopers terrorizing all. Trump is a racist, fascist in chief, and mass murderer of the people, who from his golden toilet, waited on by servants, tells his fascist tools what to do on behalf of his wealthy friends.

Trump has blamed violence in Washington D.C. on Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters. Liberals put equal signs between us and the fascists. Some say the fascists were just people with “complaints.” This is dangerous. Fascists and white supremacists are people who are puppets for the ultra-rich capitalists they claim to hate. Donald Trump, whose father was a member of the KKK, is a slum lord and a crook, surrounded by racist war mongering maniacs. He steals our taxes, hates, despises, and spits on working people. They will never win if we the working class unite to defeat them!

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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.

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U.S. Capitol is Not a Temple of Democracy

Activist being removed during an occupation of the Capitol by disability rights advocates protesting Republicans’ attempt to repeal Obamacare in 2017.

Politicians have taken every chance they can to publicly mourn the “desecration” of America’s “temple of democracy,” but let’s get real. The U.S. Capitol is not a temple of democracy.

The U.S. Capitol is a monument to racist terrorism and capitalist profit, not democracy. Congress supported slavery, genocide, segregation, and attacks on women, LGTBQ people, workers, and unions. They support and fund murderous war after murderous war. It’s only because of the progressive movement that we’ve won any laws that are of value to the people.

UP WITH WORKERS’ STRUGGLE, DOWN WITH FASCIST TERROR

The issue is not about taking the Capitol, but for what purpose: to promote slavery or liberation? In 2011 workers of all nationalities united and occupied the Wisconsin State Capitol to defend their right to organize. In the 1980s when auto plants laid off hundreds of thousands and destroyed the communities, auto workers occupied the Michigan State Capitol to demand jobs. In 1965 the Mississippi Freedom Party refused to leave until they were seated in Congress. In New Orleans protesters chained the doors of the Eviction Court. In 1968 the heroic Black Panther Party entered the California State Capitol with arms to defend their communities against racist police terror.

These acts were right, justified, and democratic. They inspired millions of others to rise up and fight, even if the occupation was temporary, even if some were arrested, even if all demands were not met. Movements grow by mobilizing and mounting militant action.

If 20,000 workers marched on the Capitol to demand COVID relief, or protestors occupied the Capitol to demand an end to racist police terror, we would be cheering them on and rushing to gather support.

Let 20,000 workers of all nationalities and gender march on the Capitol to stand up against the fascists. This is what we need.

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INDIGENOUS LAND: Water Protectors Fight Pipeline Construction (International Briefs)

Jan. 9: Water protectors fight the construction site for an oil pipeline near Palisade, MN.

Hundreds of water protectors have been braving the harsh Minnesota winter to defend the territorial rights of Indigenous nations against Enbridge, a multi-billion-dollar pipeline company headquartered in Canada. Dozens of Indigenous activists and allies have been arrested as Enbridge attempts to push through construction of a tar sand oil pipeline, which would expose hundreds of miles of Indigenous land to toxic spills and would have a carbon cost equal to 50 coal power plants.

Enbridge has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire Minnesota state police as private goons to protect their pipeline and their profits. Oil and gas companies, with the help of the American Legislative Action Council (ALEC), are also using their money to sponsor a Minnesota law to make protesting a pipeline a federal offense. The oil tycoon Koch brothers run ALEC which funds anti-worker, anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion laws in multiple states, and was behind a similar anti-protest law in Louisiana. They practically own the Louisiana legislature.

One January 14, 3 activists halted construction on the Line 3 pipeline by locking themselves together inside a pipe segment. They demand that U.S. and Canadian governments recognize the treaty rights of Indigenous nations and immediately halt the construction of KeystoneXL, Line 3, and DAPL fossil fuel pipeline projects. Through militant action, these and other activists are standing up for us all.

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VENEZUELA: In Rebuke to U.S. Coup Attempts, Venezuelan People Put Chavistas in Power (International Briefs)

In elections on December 6, the Venezuelan people took to the polls to elect parliamentary representatives. In the highly watched elections, voters were able to choose candidates from 117 parties, including more than 70 parties in opposition to President Nicolas Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) party. Overwhelmingly, Venezuelans elected representatives of the PSUV and other progressive, Chavista forces who now occupy 257 of the 277 seats in the National Assembly after being sworn in on January 5.

For the past five years, National Assembly had been dominated by right wing parties and was used as a tool the United States and Venezuelan capitalists in their violent and criminal attempts to oust the democratically elected President Maduro. The election of the new National Assembly is a testament to the Venezuelan people’s refusal to submit to U.S. imperialism and will to fight for their national independence and right to pursue the path of socialism.

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ARGENTINA: Argentinians Win Right to Free, Safe, Legal Abortion (International Briefs)

After decades of struggle and massive street mobilizations, Argentinians win abortion rights.

On December 30, the Argentinian Senate passed the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy bill, legalizing abortion for any pregnant person. This victory follows decades of struggle led by Argentina’s women’s movement, LGBTQ community, and labor unions. As the bill was being debated, thousands of militant demonstrators filled the streets surrounding the National Congress to show support, erupting in cheers once the law passed. “We won it in the streets. We’ll see you again in the streets,” said Gostine Bete, and abortion rights activist with the Movimiento Popular por Dignidad.

Argentina’s new law guarantees free, safe, and legal abortions to women and people of any gender who become pregnant and request an abortion within the first 14 weeks with extensions in cases of rape, risk of life or health of pregnant person, or risk of still birth. Along with the right to abortion, a 1,000-day Plan bill was passed to strengthen healthcare service and nutrition for mothers and newborns from pregnancy until the child’s second birthday.

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Workers and Oppressed of the World, Unite!

Fight for socialism. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Workers Voice wishes you and your loved ones health and happiness in 2021. Yet, we carry heavy hearts into the new year as we continue to witness millions here and around the world plunged into unnecessary death from COVID-19 and other diseases. Millions more have sunk into poverty, hunger, and starvation caused by capitalism, imperialist war, and planet destruction.

In the face of these challenges, let us resolve to achieve greater unity among socialists, progressives, unions, and community activists and make 2021 a year we fully devote to reaching the workers and oppressed in all communities.

Around the world, this is happening. Take heart from the uprisings breaking out across the world. Take heart from the millions in India who are rising up against their own version of Trump, Prime Minister Modi, a racist nationalist and COVID-19 denier. In the biggest general strikes in human history, peasants, workers, and youth of all genders and nationalities are united against a common enemy. This is not an accident but a testament to years of work led by socialist forces. It is also the unfolding of world history, the story of the indomitable spirit, sacrifice, and struggle of the oppressed.

This will happen here too but not if we’re shackled to the idea that the Democratic Party is our salvation. We must mount a mass independent struggle for our survival rights, for equality, to defeat fascism and save the planet. We must break with any forces that support imperialist domination, deny self-determination and sovereignty, murder the masses through sanctions, and threaten millions with imperialist war.

NO WAR, NO INVASIONS, NO SANCTIONS
U.S. OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA, ASIA, AND LATIN AMERICA

Capitalism is on the decline, but in its death throes, even more nuclear weapons are being built. While millions starve, U.S. capitalists are looting the treasury to feed their addiction to war profiteering and financial gambling. We must organize to prevent war against Iran, China, Russia, and other nations in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialists. We must say no to invasions, sanctions, and space war. We must demand the closure of the 800 military worldwide.

The stakes are high. For nine months the Democratic Party has politely negotiated over relief, posturing for elections but has never raised a real fight for the people. Trump is a white supremacist who is clearly fundraising and organizing fascist elements. We the people can turn the tide, but to do so, we must foster class consciousness and independent struggle among the working class and oppressed. This means parting with the two parties of the Pentagon and Wall Street: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

The “relief” bill that just passed is an $2.3 trillion omnibus bill that mainly gives money and support to war profiteers to promote regime change, Israel, and space war. Clearly, the two capitalist parties only differ in the means by which they seek to rescue and continue war profiteering and exploitation.

Both capitalist parties have conspired to hide the fact that, throughout the crisis, the Federal Reserve Bank has handed out trillions to the banks each week. They have authorized the unlimited purchase of private bonds, reaping untold dividends for ultra-wealthy shareholders. That money alone could have guaranteed $600/week to everyone, including migrants and incarcerated people, and paid off credit card and student loan debts.

Our movement needs to fund the independent struggle of workers, not the Democratic Party, build united fronts, and organize rank and file in the unions to push them into mass action. Only the united power of the workers and the oppressed can stop fascism, imperialist war, white supremacy, gender oppression, and planet destruction. Onward to the mass struggle for the needs of the people!