Mike Pence: Global Fighter For Human Rights

Pence and his master

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, AFL-CIO retired

There is no limit to the staggering arrogance of the present US administration and some of its front line mouthpieces. Mike Pence, one of the main figures in the cabal, and if you notice, some of them rarely smile, has a few choice words to say about China, Nike and the US National Basketball Association (NBA).

The Chinese are becoming “more aggressive and destabilizing” says this employee of Trump Inc. and lambasted Nike for “checking its social conscience at the door” and kowtowing to Chinese officials. This is incredible given that his master, the US Predator in Chief, had no problem sending weapons of mass destruction to the Saudi’s. Trump’s justification for selling billions of dollars of US built weaponry to well known beheaders and misogynists whose illustrious leader Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has a penchant for organizing the dismembering of political opponents, was that they spend a lot of money.

It gets worse. “A progressive corporate culture that willfully ignores the abuse of human rights….”, said Pence, “…is not progressive, it’s repressive.”  He went on a full frontal attack on the NBA accusing it of acting like “a wholly owned subsidiary of the authoritarian regime.”. What does Pence know about human rights?

Then, in a schizophrenic moment, much like the domestic violence perpetrators experience with their victims, Pence claims that, “The United States does not seek confrontation with China. We seek a level playing field, open markets, fair trade and respect for our values.”.  

It is no wonder that the US working class is so cynical about politics in general and some 100 million of them or so boycotted the 2016 elections.  In 2018, corporations spent $3.42 billion on lobbying in 2018 according to the Center for Responsive Politics. For the uninitiated who might be unfamiliar with the term, “lobbying” means bribing politicians in order to ensure they vote in a way that benefits corporate interests and profits. The two capitalist parties that have dominated US political life for over a century, Republicans and Democrats, are both owned and financed by the same corporate interests. The US Congress is but a committee for defending and expanding the interests of the 1%.

I should clarify that this criticism is not a defense of the Stalinist regime in Beijing.  I am simply pointing out the hypocrisy here. The vast majority of the workers of the world recognize that it is the US state machine and its massive military that is the most de-stabilizing force in the world. at the moment. It's predatory invasion of Iraq has destroyed it as a nation state. Its military presence in Africa is considerable despite it not being officially at war with any country there.  The US killing Baghdadi was wiping out its own former friend. In his excellent book, When Google Met Wikileaks, Julian Assange said of the Grenada invasion that the US was not there to corner the nutmeg market. And we see where Assange is now. It is not for rape or accusations of rape that Assange is under lock and key. We have a rapist (and a racist) in the White House, some American values there.

US workers and the middle class is paying for the policies of US imperialism but at some point, the ideological dam that immigrants, the poor and greedy workers are the cause of our declining living standards, crumbling infrastructure, poor health care, transportation and so on, will be breached.

Fire crosses Carquinez Strait

As I write this, from afar, my beautiful state of California is once again on fire. One of the main causes of course is unplanned growth and other factors, one of them being the state’s private energy company Pacific Gas and Electric. As a firm owned by investors who expect returns should, public safety is not given the same consideration as profits and PG&E as it is more commonly known, should be taken in to public ownership. The present fires are only 15 miles from where I live and I live 20 minutes from San Francisco. I spoke to a friend last night whose niece had moved in with him temporarily evacuated due to the fires 50 miles north. Another described how her throat was burning die to smoke.

As I stated in an earlier post, there is much to be excited about as there are uprisings against capitalism and market violence throughout the world. On all continents (Antarctica excepted) youth and workers are resisting austerity and profit making and the wars that accompany it.

It is not as if the situation is not ripe for a global revolutionary process to arise that can send the capitalist mode of production and the political infrastructure on which it rests in to the garbage can of history to borrow a much used phrase.  Contrary to what some well meaning people believe, leadership is crucial.

I was in Dublin Ireland recently and a number of young people I spoke to had never heard of James Connolly, Liam Mellows, James Larkin or other heroic figures of Irish working history just as most US workers have never heard of Eugene Debs, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn or Big Bill Hayward. In 1919, the workers of Seattle controlled that city through a 5 day general strike and a committee of 100. This history is hidden from us. Our socialist roots are hidden from us. They have to be re-learned but in times of great upheaval we learn quickly

What is happening in Chile, Iraq, Lebanon, Uruguay and throughout the world  will strike the US with a vengeance as the war US capitalism wages daily against its own working class is becoming intolerable. The US working class will enter the world stage with a vengeance at some point. Of that we can be sure.

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