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 No. 38, October-November 2014 Table
of Contents Click on image to left for pdf version of complete issue. |
Drive U.S. / NATO Imperialists Out of the Middle East
For Workers Action to Defeat
Barack Obama’s Iraq/Syria War
On the eve of the anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Barack Obama declared a new U.S. war, this time in Iraq (again) and Syria. The U.S. president says the bombing is being carried out to stop massacres and ethnic cleansing. This is standard procedure when Democrats launch wars. Public opinion has been whipped into a pro-war frenzy by grisly videos of beheadings of American and British captives by the fanatical Islamists of the Islamic State. Yet a key U.S. ally is Saudi Arabia, which beheads people all the time, and Barack Obama personally signs off on every drone strike. The Islamists use swords and knives, the U.S. uses drones. A “war against terrorism”? The U.S. military machine is the biggest terrorist force in the world. The Islamists slaughter hundreds, the Pentagon murders millions. This is a war for U.S. imperialist domination of the Middle East, and for world hegemony. While opposing all sides in the communal civil wars wracking Iraq and Syria, class-conscious workers must use their power to defeat he capitalist/imperialist war that targets the poor, oppressed and workers of the world. For Workers Action to Defeat Barack Obama’s Iraq/Syria War (25 October 2014)
Operation Kobanê in Germany (26 October 2014)Protests Sweep Mexico
Huge Outrage Over Guerrero Massacre
For a National Strike Against the Murderous Government!
Over the last week there has been a deluge of outrage throughout Mexico and worldwide at the police murder of six people, including three students of the Ayotzinapa rural teachers college, and the disappearance (and possible execution) of another 43 in Iguala, Guerrero. On October 8, there were protests in at least 63 cities in 27 states of Mexico, and protests at Mexican diplomatic offices in 15 countries. In Mexico City, 25,000 marched, in the capital of Guerrero, 50,000. The state of Oaxaca was paralyzed by militant teacher unionists, who shut down the schools and blockaded highways, bridges, shopping centers and a key oil refinery. In New York City, there were two protests outside the Mexican Consulate, initiated by the Internationalist Group, on October 5 and 8. The Trotskyists emphasized that militarization in Mexico is “made in U.S.A.” and ousting a mayor, a governor or even Mexico's president will not stop the massacres and “dirty wars,” which have taken 100,000 lives in the last eight years and will continue until capitlaism is overthrown. The massive fury shown in the streets points to the need for a national strike against the murderous government pointing to international socialist revolution. Huge Outrage Over Guerrero Massacre (12 October 2014)
Once Again: Bloodbath, “Disappeared” Victims and Impunity
Mexico: Massacre in Iguala Calls for Mobilization and Workers Revolution
PRI, PAN, PRD: Murderous Parties of the Bourgeoisie
Forge a Workers Party That Fights For Socialist Revolution!
Following the discovery of mass graves on October 4, the massacre in Iguala, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, has become news worldwide. International organizations piously call for a “transparent investigation” and the Mexican government cla+ims to comply. Against the official hypocrisy, the relatives of the murdered and disappeared students of Ayotzinapa along with their comrades and the militant Guerrero teachers have called for marches and strikes nationally. In these mobilizations it is vital to put the responsibility for the crime in Iguala on the Mexican government and its imperialist masters. The smokescreen about drug trafficking is nothing but an attempt to wash the blood off the hands of the regime, for it is the capitalist state that should be on trial. Guerrero has long been the scene of militant mobilizations of “those on the bottom,” and also an infernal cycle of masscres, dirty war and repression on the part of “those on top” – the capitalist ruling class. Yet from the peasant guerrillas of the 1960s to the teachers mobilizations last year, these struggles have been isolated from the power that can defeat the bloody capitalists: the urban working class. On behalf of Ayotzinapa, a class mobilization of the working people against the blood-soaked capitalists is urgently needed, to shut down key sectors of the economy and point toward socialist revolution. Mexico: Massacre in Iguala Calls for Mobilization and Workers Revolution (8 October 2014)
No Party or Candidate Presents a Class Challenge
Brazil: The Election Racket of the Bourgeoisie
Cast a Blank Ballot and Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!
We’re now at that time in the political cycle when the TV screens are filled with talking heads, theatrically pontificating and making empty campaign promises; when the electoral marketing firms are raking in profits hand over fist, when messengers hand over suitcases stuffed with cash to parliamentary deputies-for-hire, and union bureaucrats of all stripes clamp down on the workers’ struggles and instead dedicate themselves to rounding up votes. The Brazilian elections of 2014 are no exception to this rule. We Marxists do not reject on principle using the bourgeois electoral circus as a platform to present the revolutionary program, even as we recognize that this is enemy territory. But in this election there is no party or slate which could represent a working-class vote against capitalism. The three main candidates – Dilma Rousseff, of the Workers Party (PT), Marina Silva of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) and Aécio Neves of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) – all defend capitalist rule. For their part, the parties of the opportunist left all receive substantial government subsidies. A proletarian revolutionary party would not take one cent of financing from the capitalist state, or from other capitalist institutions (foundations, companies, etc.). Our motto in this Brazilian electoral year of 2014 is the same as that put forward by the Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin one hundred years ago: “For revolution!” Brazil: The Election Racket of the Bourgeoisie (October 2014)
The Great “People’s Climate March” Scam
On Sunday, September 21 an event billed as a People’s Climate March will be held in New York City in conjunction with the 2014 United Nations Climate Summit. It is being called “the biggest climate march in history,” with 100,000-plus participants predicted. Similar events are being held in a number of cities around the world. But the whole thing is a gigantic scam. The main organizers of the event, 350.org and Avaaz, are funded by major foundations and the same mega corporations that profit from fossil fuels. The march raises no demands and will do nothing about climate change. Instead it is a public relations stunt and marketing tool for capitalist investors looking to profit off the “new economy.” Moreover, Avaaz (a creature of hedge fund mogul George Soros) is a major lobbyist for imperialist aggression, in particular against Libya and now Syria. So Obama launches a new war in Iraq and Syria, but there are no protests. Instead, all the liberal and reformist “peace” marchers are at an empty climate march called by the war mongers. The only way to deal with the threat of global warming is through international socialist revolution to bring down the capitalist anarchy of production for profit. The Great “People’s Climate March” Scam (21 September 2014)
Outrage Over Cop Murder of Michael Brown Throws Capitalist Rulers Into National Crisis
Mobilize Across U.S. Against
Racist Police Terror in Missouri
For Labor/Black/Immigrant Mobilization Now!
Stand with Protests Against Military / Police Occupation
Drop Charges Against All Arrested Protesters
All Cops and Troops Out of Ferguson, Mo.!
When a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri shot down an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, and cops left his body lying in the street for hours, it set off an explosion of mass anger that hasn’t stopped. Despite massive deployment of military weaponry and armor, demonstrators brave racist repression by local and state police and the National Guard. What has happened in this white-ruled black Missouri town is not just the result of local racism, it is also a reflection of the rampant militarization of police forces across the U.S. The federal government has poured tens of billions of dollars into arming police for internal war, and we the poor, oppressed and working people are the target. The Internationalist Group stands with the embattled people of Ferguson, and hail the courageous youth who have refused to be intimidated by everything the racist rulers have thrown at them. Racist repression is a bedrock of American capitalism. Nothing short of socialist revolution will end it. Mobilize Across U.S. Against Racist Police Terror in Missouri (August 2014)
Defeat Israel / U.S. War – For Workers Action Against Zionist Slaughter
Defend Gaza and the Palestinian People –
For Arab-Hebrew Workers Revolution!
All Settlers Out of the West Bank!
From Egypt to Turkey, Fight for Workers Revolution!
Every two years since Israel’s rulers “disengaged” from Gaza in late 2005, the Israeli military has launched a murderous attack on the 1.8 million Palestinians confined in this narrow strip along the Mediterranean. As of July 29, over 1,200 Palestinians had been killed, three-quarters of them non-combatants and at least 250 children. This is a war to terrorize the Arab population, but it has not worked. Trotskyists call to defend Gaza against the Zionist onslaught while fighting for an Arab-Hebrew Palestinian workers state. Israel is neither a “colonial-settler state” nor an “apartheid state,” but a client state and junior partner of imperialism which seeks to expel the Palestinian population. Calls for “boycotts, divestment and sanctions” (BDS) are at bottom appeals to the imperialists and will not bring down Zionist rule. Instead, we call for international workers solidarity action pointing to workers revolution throughout the region. Defend Gaza and the Palestinian People – For Arab-Hebrew Workers Revolution! (29 July 2014)
Mobilize Workers Action Against Police Terror!
Racist NYPD Murder of Eric Garner
The racists in blue uniforms of the New York Police Department are at it again. Eric Garner, 43, was standing on a corner in Staten Island when he was set upon by cops. When he complained of harassment, they put him in a chokehold. “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe” he said over and over, but this didn’t stop the killer cops. In the aftermath, protesters have called for the ouster of NYPD top cop William Bratton, whose policy of massive arrests for minor infractions targeted Garner. But liberals and reformist leftists have given Bratton’s boss, liberal Democratic NYC mayor Bill de Blasio, a free pass. We said at the time of his election last fall, “De Blasio Will Be ‘Bloomberg Lite’.” And so he has been. As a capitalist Democratic Party politician, he takes his orders from Wall Street and Washington. The response to heinous crimes like the murder of Eric Garner should be to massively mobilize NYC workers and the oppressed in class-struggle action. It will take nothing less than workers revolution to put an end to this system of racist police repression. Racist NYPD Murder of Eric Garner (26 July 2014)
After 5-Month Platinum Strike, 200,000+ NUMSA Members Walk Out
Worker Revolt Continues to Shake South African Capitalism
Victory to the Metal Workers Strike!
South African bosses are worried. No sooner had the five-month platinum miners ended, the longest in South Africa’s history, than 220,000 members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, the largest union on the continent, walked out. Bosses claimed the NUMSA strike was costing them 30 million dollars a day. The miners strike ended with a limited but real victory: facing down police repression and company attempts to starve them out, strikers won a substantial wage increase. Yet mine workers will still be living in abject poverty. NUMSA has declared its opposition to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and its Tripartite Alliance which has held workers down for two decades and led to the 2012 Marikana massacre. But South Africa’s system of white supremacy was built on the bedrock of superexploitation of black labor, and has not changed under the black capitalist regime. Freedom from apartheid slavery for the impoverished masses requires a sharp break from the politics of class collaboration, rejection of the reformist myth of a “national democratic” (bourgeois) revolution and a fight for a black-centered workers government to begin the international socialist revolution. Worker Revolt Continues to Shake South African Capitalism (July 2014)
May Day: For Workers Action to Stop Deportations
MORE Takes a Stand ... With the Police
Denounces UFT for Backing Anti-Racist March
Otra vez: matanza, desaparecidos e impunidad
Masacre en Iguala exige movilización y revolución obrera
PRI, PAN, PRD: asesinos partidos burgueses
¡Forjar un partido obrero que luche por la revolución socialista!
Después del descubrimiento de unas fosas clandestinas el 4 de octubre, la matanza de Iguala es noticia mundial. Organismos internacionales piden piadosamente una “investigación limpia” y el gobierno mexicano pretende cumplir. Contra la hipocresía oficial, los parientes de los estudiantes muertos y desaparecidos de Ayotzinapa junto con sus compañeros y los combativos maestros de Guerrero han llamado a marchas y paros a escala nacional. En estas movilizaciones es fundamental responsabilizar al gobierno mexicano y a sus amos imperialistas por el crimen de Iguala. La cortina de humo sobre el narcotráfico sólo busca lavar las manos ensangrentadas del gobierno, siendo el estado capitalista el que hay que enjuiciar. Guerrero siempre ha sido el escenario de combativas movilizaciones de “los de abajo”, y también de un ciclo infernal de masacres, guerra sucia y represión por parte de “los de arriba” – la clase dominante capitalista. Sin embargo, desde las guerrillas campesinas de los años 1960 hasta las movilizaciones del magisterio del año pasado, las luchas se han mantenido aisladas del poder que sí tiene la capacidad de derrotar a los sanguinarios capitalistas: el de la clase obrera urbana. Por Ayotzinapa, urge una movilización de clase de los trabajadores contra el sanguinario estado de los patrones, paralizando sectores claves de la economía y apuntando hacia la revolución socialista. Masacre en Iguala exige movilización y revolución obrera (8 de octubre de 2014)
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