I don't want to harp on about the relationship between US imperialism and its stooges in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Middle East. But today's Wall Street Journal has a report on US Defense Secretary Robert Gates' visit to Saudi Arabia that I commented on yesterday (Isn't the Internet wonderful?) and it just makes me so mad.
It's not that the US would refer to the Saudi king, a misogynist with a 7th century mindset and a lot of blood money, as a reformer. Or that Gates says he has evidence that Iran is "Meddling in Bahrain" but won't share it. While I am sure that the Mullahs, the Saudi equivalents in Iran, will try to use the popular uprising in Bahrain to their advantage, I have to consider how workers in Iran in particular might see this but all workers in the Middle East and throughout the world.
"We also have evidence that they (the Iranians) are talking about what they can do to try and create problems elsewhere as well." says Gates. How can the US with any credibility talk about Iran "Meddling" in the area? There are revolts all around Iran. Bahrain is in the Persian Gulf, not in San Francisco Bay. Not in lake Superior. Iran didn't assassinate Patrice Lumumba, Walter Rodney, Salvadore Allende and numerous other Latin American politicians not to mention Labor leaders.
Iran didn't install the murderous Mobutu the Congo that killed some two million people, or Pinochet, another mass murderer. Iran didn't invade Vietnam killing three million people and poisoning generations to come by spraying the people, the food, and even their own troops with dioxin, perhaps the most poisonous substance known to man. Iran didn't invade Grenada, Panama, Yugoslavia and Iraq. And what did Grenada do again?
US capitalism did all these things, along with assassinating domestic leaders it was opposed to like Martin Luther King and Malcom X. These decisions were made in the conference rooms of huge corporations, private homes, ranches, and what the media calls "compounds" They were made in Jackson Hole Wyoming and the Bohemian Grove in California where all those that profit from them meet in secret. These decisions were not made in Tehran.
The WSJ, the cheer-leading sheet for this murderous bunch, writes with no shame or embarrassment that the Saudi troops sent in to Bahrain to "quell the protests" were sent in at the "invitation of the Bahraini Royal family.". The shamelessness gets more repulsive. "The US criticized the incursion and instead tried to persuade Bahrain's rulers to soothe the protesters with political liberation."
Brothers and sisters, fellow workers, "My fellow Americans" as the saying goes. The overwhelming number of people on this planet do not believe this. And it's not just that they don't believe it because they experience the catastrophe of US capitalism's "meddling" in their affairs, installing and propping up murderers, dictators and the like. As I said yesterday, US capitalism has no problem supporting repressive regimes including Iran's Mullah's if they'd share more of the spoils and open up their economy to US/western multi-nationals. It is compete "bullshit" if you'll pardon my language and only takes bothering to check it out and the fact on the ground prove such.
Gates' visit is the third in a month to this area so worried are the few thousand bankers, speculators and general wasters that actually determine US domestic and foreign policy. They'd prefer to support more liberal democratic regimes but its only natural then that self determination and democratic reforms like universal suffrage would express opposition to the likes of Chevron, Shell, BP and Exxon plundering their resources would be rejected; so if that's the case, any thug will do.
But here is what frustrates me the most and I appeal to my fellow workers to seriously consider these things. More than any other country we are told how the US government and system is the beacon of democracy and the words freedom and liberty are thrown around and applied to to everything from the freedom to wear or not wear bicycle helmets or smoke outside the pub that they have lost any serious meaning.
The American revolution was an historically progressive event in that it freed a colonial people from the clutches of its masters. It strengthened the working class. But that was then. Prior to the revolution and in its aftermath, the new regime, after sorting out the slave owners in the south did what all capitalist economies do, expanded through war and annihilation of its rivals. It did everything it could to crush its own working class through, terror, murder and deportation. It's prominent ideological weapon domestically was racism and the demonizing of people with dark skin.
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| Unmanned drone: Oops! Sorry folks, genuine mistake |
The frustration arises in me when I read such lies and statements in the capitalist press or hear it on TV without a peep from the American working class, from my own people. The workers' leaders atop organized Labor should lead a campaign against them but they have the same world view and support US capitalism's role abroad crushing any movement from within their ranks that threatens this view. I felt the same frustration the other day hearing a top AFLCIO official declare California's governor, Jerry Brown, to be a "friend of Labor" that means a friend of workers and the poor. But he is quite openly ferociously attacking workers and the poor. She said this amid a few thousand workers and she wasn't booed. But when there's no opposition, no consequences, public figures can say what they like; and in the US there's pretty much no consequences.
As US workers we are victims of their lies, their rapacious thirst for profits at our expense and at the expense of workers throughout the world. But our silence is deafening. The US mass media displays thousands of hours of violent macho TV shows that spout out all sorts of garbage for us to suck up like a sponge. You'd think we were all cops to watch US TV.; we're real tough over here when it comes to shooting people in the street, or youth in the cities. In fact I saw a great film last night, a Greek film and the three main characters were normal people, a truck driver (god forbid) a woman working in a bakery, and a young unemployed girl; it was refreshing and totally different to the crap Hollywood pours out. *
So if we want to end terrorism and hostile acts against us as Americans. If we want the workers of the world to respect us we have a responsibility to make clear to the world that Robert Gates, Warren Buffet, Barak Obama or Hilary Clinton (not to mention Bush) do not speak for us and that we condemn them and the role US capitalism is playing throughout the world; we have to have an independent working class position based on building links with other workers based on human need, cooperation and mutual respect. I traveled to Iraq in the 1970's and in those days you could go from London to Joburg overland in relative safety. We cannot do this today and it is due to the crisis of capitalism and it's dominant force, US capitalism. Do we think that all people's don't want a decent and secure life? That it is a peculiarly American feature?
The propaganda machine will accuse us of being anti-American, especially foreign born immigrants like me. We will be accused of being traitors and not proud of being American. Well, I am not proud of the role US capitalism plays and I condemn it. I am proud, despite the failures and weaknesses, especially with regard to racism, to be an American worker. Our history is one of struggle and sacrifice in the face of a violent and ruthless opponent.
We can change the world but we can't do it without the help of all workers internationally and we can't join with them if we remain linked to Robert Gates and the US capitalist class; not in our name we must declare to the world. And we certainly can't do it if we remain silent.
Workers of the world unite.
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