It seems to be the case that the Obama regime is about to announce it will send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan. They envisage the war there dragging on for many years. The Wall Street Journal says the Taliban presently controls most of the country. At the same time US imperialism cannot get out of Iraq and they are being dragged into Pakistan and they and their Israeli allies are thinking about attacking Iran. They would even think about getting their Columbian allies to attack Venezuela if they could get away with it. This increased in war activity will breath new life into the anti war movement in the US and internationally.
I would like therefore to raise a point for discussion. Should the Cal Student movement, as well as seeking to unite with the workers against the cuts and the fee hikes seek also to unite with the anti war movement and the movements in the military and with military families against the wars and occupations abroad and to bring all troops home. I think they should. I think this would be a step forward.
There are important interests in common here. The more difficult it is to pay your student fees or tuition the more difficult it is to get a decent education and a decent job. No decent job means greater pressure on young people to take a job of kill or be killed in the military. Increased fees and cuts in education means less jobs and cuts in wages, means more youth forced to consider taking jobs in the kill or be killed military. We should try to build a united movement of students, workers and anti war activists and the anti war movement.
In the 1960's the civil rights movement came to the conclusion that they could not confine their struggle to civil rights. The millions who made up their ranks suffered from mass poverty and were being sent to kill or be killed in Vietnam. The civil rights movement took up these issues.
When Martin Luther King was murdered by the state he was in Memphis to help the garbage workers who were on strike there. Over that period also he was building for a poor peoples march on Washington. This was aimed at all working class people from all backgrounds. And he had begun to speak out against the war in South East Asia and US foreign policy.
Martin Luther King was inspired by his base to oppose the Vietnam war. In doing so he opened up a debate in the leadership of the civil rights movement, the most conservative of whom thought the civil rights should remain loyal to US imperialism's aims abroad and seek to get its objectives fulfilled at home. It is a credit to the mass of the rank and file of the civil rights movement and to Martin Luther King that they stood against this sentiment and moved to take up the economic issues, to unite with the workers in their economic struggles and to unite with the anti war movement in their struggle against the war.
This is an example for our movement today. All the issues are linked together. In the US there is an increase in mass poverty. There are calls for the government to act against this. We should be aware that as well as wars abroad being used to seize and control property and territory for US imperialism wars abroad are used for another reason. They are used to "defund" the call for reforms, to defund the country's resources and increase deficits, so the profit addicted capitalist class can claim there is no money for health care or to end poverty.
This is exactly what is going on at the moment. They say they need all the money for the "war against terrorism." In the 1950's calls for reforms were rejected because they said they needed the money to fight the Korean war, in the 1960's they say they needed the money to fight the war in Vietnam and South East Asia now it is the so called war against terror. Their profit addiction means they never have a war against poverty.
##Spread the movement. Unite the movement.
##For unity between students, workers and the anti war movement.
Sean.
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