by Sean O'Torrain
I am originally from Ireland. We are a talkative people. When I go home I always enjoy the chat. Just about everything is on the agenda. Now here in the US it is a bit different. There is a real fear to talk about politics and serious subjects. But back to Ireland again. Say Ireland was funding Scotland to massacre people in England. There is no doubt this would be a non stop talking point in Ireland. Especially if at the same time it was cutting living standards at home. So why then is it the case that here in the US there is so little serious talk about how when US corporations and its government and parties are cutting living standards at home there is so little serious talk about the catastrophe of the slaughter in Gaza, how this is being funded by the US tax payer and the need to stop it.
There are a number of reasons. The pathetic cowardly creatures at the head of the 13 million strong trade union movement, the AFL-CIO are completely cowed by the US ruling class. When Obama wants to ingratiate himself with workers he has the wooden headed Trumpka, head of the AFL-CIO stand beside him in a badly cut suit with a boot licking grin on his face. The main reason there is not a raging debate in the US about what is happening in Gaza is because the trade union leaders like Trumpka will not mobilize their members to oppose this slaughter and war crime and organize to halt all military transport and communication which backs this slaughter.
The other main reason that there is so little discussion is because of the extreme censorship that exists in the US. Every major news outlet is a propaganda outlet for the US corporations. If any member steps out of line they are removed from their positions as was seen recently. These media outlets and the people at the top of them are war criminals just like the heads of the corporations and US government and parties and military are war criminals.
I was reading recently about the assassination of US Senator Paul Wellstone who had announced his decision to vote against the Iraq war. 11 days before his election, in which he was ahead in the polls, he was killed along with his wife and child when his plane crashed. At the time all sorts of things like garage doors opening, strange electronic events took place in the area. Cheyney had warned Wellstone a few days before that if he voted against the war there would be serious consequences. Wellstone's family refused to let Cheyney attend his funeral even though he was vice president. Another incident at this time was that the local CNN reporter said that it was not bad weather that had brought the plane down. But Blitzer, the anchor yes man over-ruled the local reporter and said it was. He had got his orders too. These people will do anything for a high salary and their face on the screen. It is also the case that they too are intimidated. They know that people can get assassinated as Wellstone was if they push too hard at any of the doors which hide the worst secrets of US capitalism. Cheyney had also told Wellstone to leave 9/11 alone.
US imperialism is waging a war against its own working class at home. It can no longer afford guns and butter so it is cutting back on the butter, that is on the living standards of its own working class. It is backing its stooge regime in the middle east Israel to make sure it has as strong as possible a grip on the oil and gas wealth there and on a strategic grip on the area. It is sacrificing the people of Gaza to this end. Into this big picture fits Zionism. From some tattered book it has found a few pages which says that Jewish people own the land of Palestine. From this they move in and drive out the Palestinians and they do this with the help of US imperialism. Zioniam is a catastrophe for the Palestinian people. This can be seen as the death toll mounts in Gaza and as more land is seized with each passing year. But Zionism is also a catastrophe for the Jewish people as it drives it into a bunker with a bunker mentality, as it isolates itself from the most progressive ideas and solidarity world wide.
There has to be a break from the fear of discussing this issue in the US. The US and working class and youth can play a major role in stopping the slaughter in the middle east but also in providing an alternative to Zionism, Islamic fundamentalism, nationalism and all the many backward ideologies which contest for space and which divide the working people of the world. For international working class unity. For a socialist middle east. Sean.
PS. I am sure I can find or even make up some old tattered book that says that Ireland owns Scotland and complete with bagpipes we can invade. We might even get US imperialism to back us for the North Sea oil and to keep its nuclear weapons there. Sean.
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