Morales Slams Trump. He's not Anti-American. He is an American.

What a great gift. The symbol of the Peasant, the Carpenter and Jesus the protector of the Poor and dispossessed.

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

It is important to be aware of how the capitalist mass media reports events, the type of language, phrasing etc. Evo Morales, former union leader and the president of Bolivia savaged Trump to his face at the UN: “I would like to say to you, frankly and openly here, that in no way is the United States interested in upholding democracy ’’  he said

Morales added, “The United States could not care less about human rights or justice.......If this were the case, it would have signed the international conventions and treaties that have protected human rights. It would not have threatened the investigation mechanism of the International Criminal Court, nor would it promote the use of torture, nor would it have walked away from the Human Rights Council. And nor would it have separated migrant children from their families, nor put them in cages.’’

The US mass media reported this event and points out that Morales is known for his anti-American speeches. This is to win support for them and create hostility toward Morales from people like us, from the average worker. After all, aren’t we Americans?

But Morales isn't anti-American American. He is an American, not only American, he is more American than Trump or any immigrant in the US. Morales is an indigenous American as well. He's president of a South American country. The capitalist press uses anti-American purposefully to include all of us, we're all attacked, we're all guilty and naturally people respond defensively to such accusations if they’re included in them. But we are not all guilty. We don't get to make decisions about wars, assassinations like the drone king Obama carried out with gusto. Most Americans couldn’t point to Iraq on a map before Bush, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and all their class brothers and sisters destroyed it.

It can be pointed out that as workers and union members some of us, we do not act enough or take steps to begin to counter the US war machine and its murderous foreign policy. This is is fair criticism, but that doesn't make us guilty as we are absent from the process at this point. Using the term American as we are all subjects of the same nation state is a way the ruling class keeps us tied to them. Patriotism, nationalism, “A nation indivisible” these are all tricks to bind us to a ruling class whose interests are diametrically opposed to ours. All nations use it but some nation states have a greater impact on world events than others. At present US capitalism is the most violent of all, a nuclear armed rogue state.

That's why we must always approach these issues from a class position. It is US capitalism that Morales is criticizing. It is US imperialism that is waging war terrorizing the peoples of the world in its rapacious quest for profits. We must not fall prey to nationalism. Our allies are workers internationally not the US capitalist class at home. I am from an English background and it is the culture I would identify with, not the English culture of the Queen or Richard Branson and others but English working class. As an American now, I don't identify with Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg or some hedge fund manager but the US working class to which I belong.

During the height of the troubles in Ireland should I have sided with England or the Irish whose land was stolen and occupied by its larger neighbor? In nationalist terms I should have support the occupation, I would be a traitor if I didn't no? Should I oppose the role of the English in Africa and India? Of course I should, but I can’t if I don’t look at it from a class perspective. The most important thing we can do is not be a class traitor. Marx was not wrong when he proclaimed “Workers of all Countries Unite”. This is why he is demonized for promoting class unity as opposed to national unity.

Morales is something. He understands about imperialism as Latin America was descended upon by European capitalism as it emerged from the womb of feudalism, in particular, the poorest members of European colonialism, Spain and Portugal. As I understand it, the gold stolen from South America by the Spanish increased hunger and starvation among the European poor as it led to price inflation of basic foodstuffs.

Morales gave the pope, the CEO of Vatican Inc. a present when he visited Bolivia. It was a crucifix surrounded by a hammer and sickle. The sickle represents the peasant or rural worker and the hammer the carpenter.

Naturally, the Catholic hierarchy that preys on the poor people of the world and accompanied European colonialism in its plunder of Latin America and Africa, was quite upset, and along with the US ruling class demonizes Morales. "The height of arrogance is to manipulate God for the service of atheist ideologies.", was one accusation. What nonsense.

The crucifix was based on a design by Luis Espinal, a Jesuit Priest assassinated in 1980 by right-wing militia and it is inconceivable that the Vatican was not involved in the assassination of Archbishop Romero and other Jesuits and religious members of the movement known as Liberation Theology. At least, the Vatican would have let it be known that it would not intervene but wash its hands of the affair. This movement was crushed by the Vatican in conjunction with US imperialism and its right wing militia’s in Central and South America.

The Catholic Church as the main religious organization of capitalism today must ensure that communism is seen as Stalinism despite that any reader of Marx and Engels would see that these great social reformers and revolutionaries would have been sent to Stalin’s gulag if they were lucky. Both the capitalist class and the Catholic hierarchy fear the working class and the peasantry of the world or what’s left of it.

The Catholic Church spreads its fairy philosophy of cherubs, saints, sin a woman being impregnated by a space being and the philosophy that human beings are born evil. It is the only church with its own state and an army of full time staff. But both the Vatican and US capitalism are experiencing an historic crisis at the moment both reeling from lack of trust and support. I would send them my thoughts and prayers if I thought that actually accomplished something, may they both be cast in to the dustbin of history where they belong, they’ve been partners too long and the planet will be better off without them.

It has been said that the gift was this unity of Jesus the peasant and carpenter. This is still a religious symbol but the Catholic hierarchy is so terrified of faith being expressed in this class way that it cannot abide by it. It fears its own congregation.

For those who choose to believe in some spiritual power, some higher power as they say, you don’t need a human designed religious organization for that. That is within you and is a private and personal matter. Religion is just as business as it is.