America's Youth Rise to the Occasion in Response to ICE Violence.

By Mark Provost

 

I spent a couple hours last night, and a couple more today, reviewing countless photos from the massive protests around the country on Friday. 

 

Few people grasp the size, spread, and significance of these protests led by high school and college students. Legacy media can't adequately cover these events (even if they wanted to) so I'm going to give it a shot. 

 

To see spontaneous and organic protests organized by young people is to behold collective joy. I've reviewed thousands of images and videos. You don't see a single student scrolling their phone. They are living in the present and exuberant. They link arms, hug, and support each other. 

 

Some of the walkouts were organized by the senior class; other times by freshmen. These young people are forming their identities and have made the decision to become active subjects in the American story. They appear determined to turn a new chapter. 

 

A few of the signs adopt familiar messaging from previous protests like NoKings. Other signs are direct communiques to the adults who are supposed to be protecting them.

 

One of the more popular signs read: "We're skipping our lessons today to teach you one." Another sign said, "My immigrant parents work harder than your president." Signs featured curses that aren't permitted at home or school.

 

I noticed the boys who climbed the highest light poles and edifices proudly waved Mexican flags. The physical liberation of their bodies against artificial constraints betrays their spiritual and moral development. 

 

I pause on the images to reflect and zoom in on their expressions, homemade signs, and take in the camaraderie. These kids and young adults are making history and they're more aware of that than anyone else. 

 

I'd prefer to resume my day but I can feel my soul recharging. I stare into the imagery and no longer feel trapped by impending doom. It is impossible to bear witness to a youth uprising and not feel immense hope about our future — coupled with the commitment to help them make it a reality.

 

The anti-ICE protests mark a definitive turning point in our nation's trajectory, one that began with the emergence of Donald Trump as a force of nature roughly a decade ago. 

 

The walkouts also mark the moment the baton of anti-fascist activism has passed from the nation's oldest generation — who thus far accounted for the bulk of visible protests — to the youngest generation.

 

That corporate media and the commentariat refuse to acknowledge this seismic shift doesn't diminish its historical impact. 

 

The public murder of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the larger occupation of Minnesota, had the opposite of its intended outcome. The regime wanted to make a glaring example of Minneapolis —a diverse medium-sized Blue island in an ocean of Red — that resistance to their agenda is futile.

 

But by trying to stomp out an active fire in Minneapolis, Trump spread glowing embers to every town and city — the hot coals even hopped generational gaps. The broadening generational participation against the regime is arguably more important than the growing geography of resistance. 

 

That isn't to say the geography of rebellion isn't impressive. One can map concentric circles from the epicenter in Minneapolis across the Midwest: school walkouts in the tiniest towns in rural Minnesota, a massive protest in neighboring Milwaukee and throughout Wisconsin, student walkouts in Michigan and in St Louis, Missouri. I saw photos of students in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Ten thousand took the streets of Chicago. 

 

Across the plains and America's heartland, deep in Trump country, thousands of students poured out from their schools in coordinated and peaceful fashion. At an anti-ICE protest in front of a high school in Fremont, Nebraska, one student in an SUV waving an oversized Trump flag struck a classmate then fled the scene, to the horror of screaming students and faculty.

 

We bear witness to MAGA's violence against children, whether it's little Liam Ramos or a white child participating in their first sidewalk picket. The threat of physical danger and death lurks even in the most unlikely places, which means no protest against the regime can be glibly dismissed as purely performative. The symbolism of a Trumper injuring a fellow student then attempting to escape accountability was likely not lost on their classmates or the community. 
MAGA flees from the crime scene as fast as they dash from relevance; the Quickest Reich.

 

Friday's protests were so widespread I had to cross check common city names to identify which state it was in. For example, there was a huge march near the Bay in Lafayette County, California, as well as a protest in Lafayette, Indiana, home of Purdue University. Students and neighbors hit the streets in Lafayette, North Carolina. Two nights prior, the community of Lafayette, Louisiana protested against local police cooperation with ICE. Students from more than 100 schools in Georgia walked out. 

 

I saw a photo of students in Burlington under swirling storm clouds against a lush green mountainous backdrop wearing only flannels and hoodies and knew it couldn't be Burlington, Vermont, where despite three feet of snow and below freezing temps, saw at least 1,000 people march. That's how I learned of Burlington, Washington nestled in the Skagit Valley, where students lined both sides of the freeway. Students throughout Portland, Oregon led walk outs. I watched a clip of people marching through historic downtown Portland, Maine, accompanied by a brass band, that was so long it went for two minutes.

 

Students in California hit the streets from San Diego to Sacramento and everywhere in between. On the other coast, students walked out at Brooklyn Tech, the largest high school in the nation. 

Trump's invasion and occupation of Minneapolis not only spread the resistance across geographies and generations, but by extension across races. Aside from a few communities which remain mostly white, the majority of US children already live in a multi-racial society, go to diverse schools, and they don't want to see their friends and neighbors abducted, tortured, and deported. 

 

Let me quickly point out the unlikely example of my hometown of Manchester, New Hampshire. When I began school in the early 80s, 90% of the city's student body was white. All the non-white students combined comprised only 10% of the student body. Today, half of Manchester students are non-white. 

 

Many Manchester students are from recently immigrated families as our city is a UN designated relocation sanctuary for displaced refugees. We have immigrants from Sudan, Darfur, and the former Yugoslavia. In our small northern New England former mill town — in the nation's third-whitest state — our residents speak more than 100 languages.

 

Students rose up across the West, from Denver to Reno, from Tucson to Deep Red Dallas. Their families are from South and Central America. They are Mexican, Chicano, Mexican and Chicano, living alongside and among hundreds of Native American Nations and their communities. Their ancestors have been here and crossed imaginary borders for millennia before Christopher Columbus ever stuck his syphilitic foot on their soil. 

 

This is America and it will take more than chintzy sheet metal concentration camps and masked Rent-A-Goons to erase us. 

 

A sizable chunk of America's youth realize a sizable chunk of American adults are violent, racist, and delusional. Young people aren't waiting until they can vote to make political demands and take political action, something we adults should take a cue from. 

 

It's impossible to look at these brave children and sincerely believe this nation is on the cusp of descending into a fascist hellhole. If the growing demonstrations signify anything, it's that America's future will look dramatically different than the regime envisioned.

Sky’s Shutter

 

UC protests test the limits of Zionist fiction

Reprinted from Mondoweiss

The aftermath of the violence at UCLA illustrates that we live in an upside-down world where we decry property damage on college campuses as we fund the genocide in Gaza, and where we advocate for free speech until it says “stop the genocide.”

 

By UC Alumni 4 Palestine May 9, 2024  

 

UCLA Gaz solidarity encampment before it was cleared out by LAPD on May 1. (Photo: Social Media/X)

On April 30, a mob of Zionist vigilantes descended onto UCLA’s Palestine Solidarity Encampment, besieging it and waging horrific violence against students for hours throughout the night. On May 1, UCLA called in the LAPD to clear the encampment by force, unleashing yet another brutal attack on students before the blood from the previous night had a chance to dry. On May 2, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block hosted a town hall for UCLA alumni during which he glossed over the horrific events that took place on campus under his watch.

During his webinar, to an audience of 1000 alums unable to comment, Chancellor Block described the violence of the first night as a scuffle with some “pushing and shoving.” When asked about clearing the encampment the following night, he went so far as to praise police conduct as “patient” and “professional.” He claimed that police did not cause any “serious injuries” and that they had used techniques to “minimize harm.” He told these lies with a straight face as if his audience did not have access to the internet — as if we haven’t seen countless videos of rabid agitators beating students with metal rods and planks of wood, spraying students in the face with bear mace and launching explosives and other projectiles into the encampment. As if we haven’t seen the images of students bleeding profusely after being shot in the head with rubber bullets by brutal police forces. As if we haven’t heard the screams of terror as students fought for their lives on their own campus.

These outright lies from the Chancellor would have come as more of a shock if they did not perfectly align with the reality that we have all become accustomed to over the last six months: Zionism relies entirely on fiction, and its defenders will lie blatantly and shamelessly to uphold it, even in the face of irrefutable evidence. Without any substantive basis for the position, the best defense of Zionism has always been censorship and intimidation. Zionists are aware that even the tiniest opening for a legitimate conversation on the topic would send their entire argument crashing down.

A recent example of this phenomenon played out when Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of Berkeley Law, one of the most lauded legal minds of our time, was too afraid to let a student speak about Palestine during a school event held at his home. A vocal and staunch champion of free speech, Chemerinksy chose to shout over the speaker and silence her to avoid being confronted with her words — words he would not be able to refute. It is telling that Chemerinsky is able to argue persuasively and confidently before the Supreme Court, but cannot defend his position on Palestine before one of his students. 

The use of censorship and repression to uphold Zionism is not exclusive to university contexts; the incidents at UCLA and UC Berkeley are just two examples of a widespread phenomenon. Here are a few more examples: Israeli leadership continues to argue that civilians killed in Gaza are unfortunate collateral damage, even after it has come to light that the IOF uses AI to target men in their homes when they are with their wives and children. Western leaders proclaim that Israel has the right to use force in “self-defense,” while in reality, Palestinians are the ones who are afforded that right under international law as people living under a belligerent and illegal military occupation.

The New York Times — America’s paper of record — peddled an October 7 rape hoax that has been thoroughly discredited by multiple sources, and the paper has failed to pull the story from its site. In fact, the only effort NYT has made to correct the record for their journalistic malpractice has been launching an internal investigation to identify the source of the “leak” revealing the paper’s shoddy investigation. Every Biden administration spokesperson gets up on a podium and proclaims that Israel is working tirelessly to minimize civilian casualties, even as this administration bypasses Congress to send 2000-pound bunker bombs to drop on refugee camps. All these lies are told to manufacture consent for a genocide that killed more children in its first four months than were killed in all other conflicts globally in the last four years.

We live in an upside-down world where facts mean nothing and fantasy dominates. Where we rant and rave about property damage on college campuses as we fund the destruction and decimation of every home, hospital, and school in Gaza. Where university presidents resign for failing to protect students from protest slogans while Chancellor Block allows his students to be beaten to a pulp two nights in a row. Where we advocate for free speech until that speech says, “stop the genocide.” 

This perpetual manipulation and dishonesty is a sign of desperation — a last-ditch effort to salvage an indefensible ideology used to justify ethno-supremacy and apartheid. As these lies grow even more grotesquely convoluted, they accelerate the demise of the system they seek to defend.

Gaza Genocide: Organized Labor Should Not Let The Students Stand Alone.

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
HEO/GED
5-09-24

Frederick Engels said that, “An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory”. This doesn’t mean theory is not important. But we learn so much through the struggle on the ground, in the workplace, the university, the community; through action. That’s what we are witnessing at this moment as students protesting the Zionists genocide in Gaza are being brutally assaulted by the US security apparatus and without doubt drawing conclusions from it. They are standing firm and they are on the right side of history.

The gang that occupies the US Congress and the class they represent are very concerned that the growing student movement could spread beyond the universities in to the community colleges and the working class communities of America, and particularly the ranks of organized labor. And so they should be.

Biden’s loyalty to Zionism---he is a Zionist and friend of the fascist Netanyahu this stupid bourgeois announces to the world---has nothing to do with fondness for Jews or their safety, the US ruling class is rife with anti-Semites, but a genuine concern that this European settler colony, US Imperialism’s only reliable ally in the region, has made a major blunder that threatens U.S. Imperialism’s interests in the region.

The heroic Palestinian resistance in Gaza to the Zionist genocide, against occupation and a decades old attempt to drive them and their culture in to oblivion, is the basis for the student rebellion which is spreading throughout the world.

The US ruling class and its western allies is having a hard time blaming everything on anti-Semitism which has lost much of its meaning since US efforts to link it to criticism of Israel and Zionism. Efforts to make the genocide a war against a political organization the US denotes as a “terrorist” have also lost traction.

The movement in support of Palestinians and their right to a state and the objection to hundreds of thousands of foreigners taking their land and homes on a religious basis is solid. It’s somewhat comical to listen to the mainstream US media, the BBC included, whine about anti-Semitism in this movement when so many young Jews are leading it and are openly anti-Zionist.

The situation has laid bare the class nature of society even further. In contrast to the Jews that are in the forefront of the opposition to genocide some Jewish billionaires are having to be more open about their support for the Zionists. Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots was one of the first to withdraw financial support from Columbia University. Now there is a more concerted effort to head off the storm.

Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban worth $3 billion and a major Democratic donor is angry at Biden and wants him to send more 2000-pound bombs. Real-estate billionaire Barry Sternlicht (worth $4.6 billion) has started a campaign to counter world opinion and raise billions to, “define Hamas to the American people as a terrorist organization.

According to Semafor.com, “Bill Ackman and Apollo CEO Marc Rowan criticized universities for their handling of pro-Palestinian student demonstrations, and Michael Bloomberg donated $44 million to Israel’s nonprofit emergency medical service.”

In the UK, anti-Zionist Jews have been expelled from the UK Labor Party for anti-Semitism. They declare themselves as “The wrong Kind of Jew.”  The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called Jewish Voice For Peace a “hate group”

Here are some of the others that the campaign is appealing to and their net worth according to Forbes

Bill Ackman 4.3 billion USD

Barry Sternlicht  $4.6 billion

Eric schmidt $24.4 billion *

Michael Dell  $95.8 billion

Miriam Adelson worth, $42 billion is one of the 42 Israelis on Forbes 400 list in 2024. Such a small country has so many because many of them, like her, are US citizens or citizens of other countries.

So, while anti-Semitism, which is very real, and must be called out whenever it raises it’s ugly head, is simply being used in order to protect the investments of Jewish and non-Jewish capitalists that profit from the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the settling of European colonists.

We are in the midst of a shift in class relations globally. We should not fool ourselves, the response from the global elite will be ruthless and violent. They will attempt to divide us on racial, religious and gender lines. We must combat these divisions that undermine working class unity. Working people have the power to change the course of events. We have the numbers. If we don’t work, society doesn’t function.

I thank the Palestinian resistance for their heroic struggles and sacrifice that have changed the world in more ways than one.

*If you haven’t read it, check out When Google Met Wikileaks and support freedom for Julian Assange.

Pro Palestinian Protests Erupt on US Campuses. Labor Cannot Stand on the Sidelines

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
GED/HEO

4-23-24

It is heartwarming to witness students at Yale, Harvard, Columbia and other US universities protesting the Biden regime’s arming and overall support of the horrific genocidal war against the Palestinian people and particularly in Gaza where some 34,000 Palestinians have been killed with US weapons paid for by the US taxpayer. The same taxpayer that needs to borrow money for health care.

The US mass media is attempting to paint the protests as anti-Semitic. The New York Times and USA today makes the point that protesting the Gaza genocide or criticism of Israel is an attack on the Jewish people and their religion; according to these sources, Jews are in fear of their lives on College campuses. “The pro-Palestinian student movement has disrupted campus life, especially for Jewish students. Many have said they no longer feel safe in their classrooms or on university quads as the tone of protests at times has become threatening.”, writes thepro-Zionist New York Times.

But there is no evidence of this. This argument has been debunked by Jewish students, many of who are in the leadership of the protests.  Simone Zimmerman, a co-founder of ifnotnow, aJewish organization that opposes the Israeli Apartheid regime and calls for a Cease Fire in Gaza wrote on X, formely Twitter:

“Spent the first night of Passover at the student seder in the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia. The Jewish flank of the Palestine solidarity movement is growing and it is so beautiful to behold. Judge for yourself how unsafe these Jewish students look.”  Students at Columbia responded to the mass media's efforts to portray their protests as anti-Semitic  at a live broadcast today. You can see that here.

As a retired union activist and socialist it is wonderful to witness these developments. I was very moved watching the live press conference that the Columbia students held today.

One young Jewish woman talked of her Jewish ancestors and her great grandfather who was in the Russian Revolution of 1905 fighting against the oppressive Tsarist regime that forced Jews to live in a certain area (the pale).  She also talked of the Jewish Bund. She called it the Labor Bund. I was surprised as very few young Jews other than leftists have a clue what the Bund was.

The Zionists do not teach about the Bund which played such a hug erole in Jewish life in Europe before the betrayal of Stalinism and the rise of Nazism.MOst Jewish workers belonged to the Bund. I've met Jewish Israeli tourists in the US and when I mention the Bund they have no clue what I'm talking about. Joshua Freeman's book, Working Cass New York touches on the Bund's role here in the US.

 

Another young woman, an Iranian Jew,  was very powerful in her remarks and how her Jewish faith drives her to do what she is doing as part of the protests. It was so uplifting for me to watch it. One of the speakers, I can't recall which, explained how "Jewishness lives on with solidarity with the Palestinians" 

Things are happening so fast it's difficult to determine what will happen next. Columbia University's administration called the police on protestors and hundreds were arrested and 120 were arrested on Monday at NYU.   However faculty have come out to defend students and there is increasing anger at what is considered an assault on academic freedom.

The efforts of the Biden Administration and the US body politic to portray these protests as anti Jewish or anti-Semitic is not faring well, made difficult by the fact that so many young American Jews are in the forefront of the movement. While in these initial stages, it seems that some Ivy League universities are ahead of the game one wonders at what point public universities with a more working class base or community colleges might enter the fray.

The prospect of a wider student movement arising is a major concern for the US Congress which is overwhelmingly pro-Zionist for the reasons I have stated many times. The Zionist regime is the only reliable ally the US has in the Middle East and any defeat for the Zionist regime is a blow to US imperial power and influence already under threat from China. The US support for Israel has nothing to do with a love for Jews or preserving the Jewish identity; the US ruling class is rife with anti-Semites.

Having said all this, it is without question that there are anti-Semites, Jew haters, that will use the movement in support of the Palestinian cause and non Jews in the movement in particular must give them no quarter. We must take them up in the strongest manner possible.  But the students and young people protesting at Columbia and other universities, many of them Jewish, are on the right side of history and their demands include divestment from Israel, and amnesty for the students and faculty disciplined or arrested from the demonstrations.

These developments have undoubtedly caused concern in the halls of Congress and among the US ruling class in general. The owner of the New England Patriots, Robert Kraft, himself a Zionist, has pulled his support for Columbia University. “I am deeply saddened at the virulent hate that continues to grow on campus and throughout our country,” Here again, we witness how equating Zionism with Judaism serves the interests of people like Kraft who is worth about $12 billion.

Great social upheavals tend to open up the class divisions in society and that's what we are witnessing here. Kraft no doubt has lucrative investments in the Middle East, probably in Israel and Arab states. Fortunately, through the sacrifice of the Palestinian people, and the response to their resistance in Gaza by the Zionists, claiming that the protests are ant-Jewish or that criticism of Israel and the Zionists is anti-Semitic doesn't work any more.

As the students on the university campuses take the lead here we should recall that the same situation existed in 1968 when the French students opened up the floodgates of protests.  Before long, some ten million French workers ended up occupying their workplaces in what we know as the French General Strike. There was at that time a possibility of a genuine socialist transformation of French society leading to a wider movement to end capitalism.

I am not saying that is happening here, but the student protests will undoubtedly have an effect on the working class and our organizations. As they occupy campuses, the UAW, is attempting to organize more workers at the non union plants in the US South. I think the ILWU is still in negotiations though we wouldn't know it with the media black out and the ILWU leadership's silence on the matter.But organized labor will not be left out in the inevitable battles with capital that are on the horizon.

Yes, we are a divided country is many ways as the right wing has made serious headway over the past period, in my view due to the failure of the left to respond to the offensive of capital with an offensive of our own. The trade union leadership, the Dogs That Never Bark, as I call them, have disgracefully done little to change the situation and will no doubt campaign for Biden in the next few months.

It is inevitable that there will be turmoil within the ranks of organized labor at some point in time as the anger that simmers beneath the surface of US society rises to the top.

 

Let's give our support to the students on the front lines.

March 4th 2010, Students and Workers Fight Back

Richard Mellor

As usual, I forgot to mention, please hit the thumbs up on You Tube if you like the video. Also share and "like" it on Facebook. Thank you.

A few comments about the student and workers' protests and strikes in 2010 against the increasing costs or fees at public universities and for workers, attacks on wages, benefits and working conditions. I discuss here an issue that arose when two small business owners, food and drink vendors who had concessions at UC Berkeley called a strike in opposition to the University contracting out a much larger chain.

Students rightly sided with the small business owners against the contracting out of work to a chain but completely ignored the workers in these small businesses. The strike was called by the bosses, not the workers. This lack of class consciousness, was so obvious. I raise it not to condemn young workers, particularly those at university, for this weakness; I understand it to a degree. But it reflects the petit-bourgeois culture of much of the self styled socialist groups along with overconfidence, and at times, arrogance of those students that were from middle or upper middle class backgrounds.

After all, they went to the best schools, they lived in successful communities and they have been told from day one how bright they are and how they are born to lead. Working class youth in the workplace or union hall are very different.

George Floyd Murder: A Movement Erupts

This article was first published in the South African Magazine Amandla 

Long Beach CA

By Jack Gerson
Retired Oakland California Teacher 
Teacher Unionist

On May 25 George Floyd was murdered by the Minneapolis police, pinned to the ground and strangled, a knee on his neck, for nearly nine minutes. It was a public lynching by the cop Derek Chauvin aided by three other cops. The following day, Minneapolis cops attacked a mass protest of this murder with tear gas and plastic-coated bullets. Within a few days, demonstrations spread across the country. In city after city, the same scene played out: In New York, cops kettled and beat protesters with clubs several nights running. In Asheville North Carolina, cops destroyed a medic station. In Louisville, police responded to mass protests against George Floyd’s murder and the March 13 murder of Breanna Taylor by firing live ammunition into a crowd, killing a bystander. 

The cops met protests against police violence with even more police violence. This backfired: the protests grew into enormous multiracial outpourings, many organized and led by young people. Attempts to divide the “majority of peaceful protesters” from the “violent elements led by antifa” have thus far failed as well -- protesters and the public saw for themselves that the cops have been the main perpetrators of violence. When Donald Trump demanded that local officials “dominate” protesters through repressive force and put thousands of security forces on the streets of Washington DC (Secret Service, Bureau of Prisons, National Guard) and threatened to bring in the U.S. Army, rebellion brewed in the ranks, resulting in Trump’s open rebuke by the most prominent retired generals and admirals (including James Mattis, John Kelly, Mike Mullen, Colin Powell) and even public pushback from his hitherto obsequious Defense Secretary, Mark Esper. Trump withdrew the National Guard.

Protests have spread to most big cities and to many small ones, and around the world. The explosiveness of this movement has already resulted in acts that would have been inconceivable two weeks ago, including:

●      The Los Angeles mayor announced plans to reduce the city’s police budget by over $100 million and reallocate $250 million dollars to “invest in jobs, in education, and healing” in communities of color.

●      The New York mayor announced plans to reduce the city’s police budget and to implement reforms to the NYPD

●      The Minneapolis City Council voted its intent to disband the city’s police department and develop an “alternative model of community-led safety.”

●      Congressional Democrats introduced legislation to facilitate prosecuting cops for misconduct.

London England

These rapid concessions show the uncertainty and fear running through the U.S. ruling class. But much more fundamental change is needed.

If George Floyd’s murder was the lit match that touched off this explosion, and if four years of naked racist slurs and scapegoating by Trump was the kerosene, then the long simmering anger by black people at their treatment and conditions (and the knowledge of those conditions, if unspoken and suppressed, by many white people) was the fuel: centuries of brutal kidnapping, rape, murder, enslavement, oppression and exploitation. Jim Crow laws, lynchings, mobs burning black communities to the ground. segregation and exclusion of black people from all but low paying, menial labor.

Slavery was formally ended after the Civil War by the 13th Amendment, but with a loophole exempting felons serving a prison sentence. Today, although black males are not much more than 5% of the population, they comprise more than 40% of the prison system -- a system that houses one out of every four of the world’s prisoners. Prison labor is slave labor, and the threat of slavery is used to intimidate the black community. The “school to prison pipeline” carries a steady stream of young people of color to the prisons.

The U.S. spends $32,000 annually per prisoner, but only $12,000 per student. The Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that “separate but equal” schools weren’t equal and are illegal, but 65 years later de facto segregation and inequality in U.S. schools is greater than ever. Schools in the black and brown communities are underfunded, lack resources, are in need of repair, and are more crowded than schools in the wealthier parts of town.

Thirty percent of black people have lost the right to vote, largely because of criminalization (felony convictions often mean loss of voting rights). Donald Trump and his allies are taking this further, hinting at postponing the fall elections.

Unemployment and poverty have always been worse for blacks than for whites. The pandemic has made it more so. Unemployment in the U.S. is officially 16%, but the real figure is more than 25%. The mortality rate from Covid-19 for blacks is more than double that for whites.  The infection rates for blacks, Latinx, and Native Americans are much higher than for whites, and they have less access to quality health care needed to recover. Because few black and brown families have an emergency fund to cover expenses, they are forced to work in jobs that put them at high risk of contracting the virus. “It’s either COVID is killing us or the economy is killing us,” said a young black woman to Time magazine.

The cops are there to enforce these conditions, to keep black and brown people at the bottom. They act like an occupying army in the black community, and beneath the murders lies the daily grinding degradation of black people -- and especially of young black people. This wasn't just one bad cop. Murder by cop has gone on for generations. Black Americans are nearly three times as likely to be killed by cops than are whites. The cops are there to protect property, wealth, and the wealthy -- to protect the haves from the have-nots, by any means necessary.

Changing these conditions will require sweeping reorganization of society. Priorities are upside down. Defunding police and putting more money into essential services is a step, but only a small one (the proposed cuts are relatively small, and the amount of money to be transferred to essential services almost negligible compared to the needs). Disbanding the Minneapolis police, and community-based policing opens a promising discussion, but on its own will hit up against the imperative to protect property and the affluent.

But there are voices calling for more, including:

●     Strong measures for holding the police accountable;

●     Demilitarize the cops: confiscate the tanks, the armored personnel carriers, the bazookas, the military helicopters, the Star Wars uniforms, and the snooping surveillance devices that were provided to urban police forces by the Bush and Obama administrations;

●     Massive reduction in funding for the entire security state apparatus – the cops, the prisons, the military with the money going preferentially to low income communities and for housing, health care, schools and other vital needs;

●     End mass incarceration. End the criminalization of young black and brown people. Shut down the school to prison pipeline. Free all political prisoners.

●     End the deportation of undocumented immigrants. Dismantle the vicious U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program.

●     Organizing community patrols

The ruling class will attempt to divide and coopt the movement, using vast resources at its disposal. With the presidential elections now less than five months away, a concerted attempt has begun to channel the movement into campaigning for Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates, under the imperative of getting rid of Donald Trump. They will try to get protesters to spend less time on the streets and more time phone banking and door-knocking for candidates. We should not underestimate this strategy. It’s worked in the past, and repeatedly. After the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri, there were two years of Black Lives Matter protests and major ghetto uprisings in the St. Louis and Baltimore areas whose energy was effectively diverted into the Hillary Clinton campaign. Bad as Trump and the Republicans are, the Democrats have been complicit from their inception in constructing, enforcing, and sustaining the racist, exploitative, and oppressive U.S. system at home and around the world.

But this movement feels like a force that can hurdle barriers. It’s as though the protests of the sixties have been compressed into a few weeks: mass non-violent protests, widespread sympathy for the goals of stopping police violence, ending racism, and establishing true equality; and an emerging wing ready to employ militant self-defense against the cops. It’s a movement in large part organized and led by young people asserting their disgust with the racist system and their entitlement to a decent future in a better world.

UK Solidarity: "White People are Joining Us". These are Good Times

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

There are very positive developments coming out of the latest acts of violence by the police against people of color in the US. We should not be lost and buried by those obsessed with property damage and place that above black lives and a minority of de-politicized and de-classed people.  Given the complete betrayal of the heads of organized labor here in the US (Where are they one might ask) and the absence of a national leadership and social force that can pull all the aspects of the movement against capital together, it is vulnerable from all sorts of alien forces, not just the state and it will inevitably have periods of confusion and steps forward and steps back. But there is a great leap forward at this moment and the virus is not the only thing that has changed the game.

Believe me, the ruling elites are afraid. They will do whatever they can to undermine the unity and global solidarity we see in this movement. The organized working class, those in crucial positions in the economy and production and distribution of society's necessities, must take note. The US military we saw in Washington today will be used against us as strikes are terrorism to the bosses. Strikes are looting, are violent assaults on the bosses' profits as far as they are concerned. Using the military is a dangerous step as 40% of the US military are minorities, they are the sons and daughters of workers.

The organized workers cannot avoid a struggle with the present union leadership that suppresses militancy and  any rank and file movement from below that threatens the relationship they have built with the bosses based on labor peace. When capitalism goes in to crisis, their first move is to bail it out. We cannot ignore the present leadership that has led strike after strike in to defeat after defeat. The GM strike that left the other two major auto companies unscathed, in fact, continued the partnership program with them while GM workers were on strike is an example of why organized labor's rank and file cannot continue to follow and must lead. The 14 million members of the trade unions cannot sit back and accept the present leadership's slogan "leave it to us". We must join this movement.

These youth are our future. Black America has reached a point almost of no return, they cannot continue to allow the murder of  unarmed black men, the abandoning of the public school system and the continued conditions in their communities that breed violence, despair and a life of never ending trauma for their children to continue.  In a war like this, the torching of a police building is a legitimate target. We can change the world, but we cannot do it without class unity without the workers of the world recognizing the bond that we have with each other.

Colombia: Another US Backed Regime in Crisis

Mass student protests in Colombia. Students have been joined by workers Labor Unions and Indigenous Groups

 Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444m retired

Workers Internationally are Rising up Against Global Capitalism, I titled a piece I posted to this blog a week ago. I thought for a minute I was being too optimistic, allowing my desire to see global capitalism sent to its grave before humanity follows the path of extinction that this profit mad system of production is sending so many other species on our beautiful planet.

But I do not think so.

Workers and the indigenous populations of Latin America are, to put it mildly, in revolt. US capitalism considers this part of the world its own back yard and has intervened directly or indirectly through its financing and arming of murderous right wing pro-US regimes. From El Salvador and Honduras, to Chile and throughout the continent, US imperial power has wreaked havoc and violence. The IMF and World Bank, US dominated global financial institutions created at the end of World War 11 to defend a global capitalist system with US capitalism dominant, use their power backed by US military might to impose harsh austerity measures on poor but raw material rich former colonial countries in return for access to capital. The rising opposition to this process is what we are seeing at the moment

Another addition to the group of countries facing mass protests is Colombia. Colombian regimes have been among US imperialism’s most trusted flunkies in the region and relatively quiet of late following a cease fire with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) a guerilla group. But another reason is the Colombian regime has been armed to the teeth by the US taxpayer. What we are seeing here is something different as one capitalist risk assessor pits it:
“The government is worried because the people and organizations who have come out in support of the protest are more heterogeneous than they are used to,”. “It’s not only the labour unions, or the students, or indigenous people; it’s all of them.” *

I couldn't help thinking of a famous Hollywood line reading the above quote: "I think we need a bigger boat"

“All of them” means the working class, students and indigenous population that has been fighting against the poisoning of land and their communities by western oil companies. Efforts to form unions have been crushed and  leaders have been murdered by CIA financed gangs, similar to what has happened in Mexico to the North. I read this morning that Colombia has closed its borders the situation is so acute and many business and schools are closed.  This is telling and we should take note. It shows how fearful the capitalist class in these countries at how quickly the anger in society can spread in to a continent wide protest against capitalism. If a leadership with an internationalist outlook was present to any degree the likelihood of such a development would be real. There is clearly a mood for it among the masses.

The workers and rural populations of South America are all too familiar with the destructive role US capitalism has played in the region. Despite the mistakes and failed policies of the Chavez and Maduro regimes, the role of US imperialism in destabilizing Venezuela and support for the right wing coup in Bolivia and ouster of Morales is well understood by the masses of the population in the continent. With both Venezuela and Bolivia the lesson that must be absorbed is that you cannot have half a revolution and you cannot build socialism in one country. The global bourgeois will not allow it. Another example of counterrevolutionary forces in Latin America is the Catholic Church and more recently, the growth of the right wing Evangelical movement which has a huge influence in Brazil as well as Bolivia.

There have been widespread protests against the right wing coup in Bolivia especially in Argentina but these developments in Colombia must be causing considerable concern in Washington..

We are definitely in a new phase though that is for sure. In the US we are coming to the end of an era in which the two parties of capitalism dominate US political life. This era is coming to an end and we could well see splits in both the Republican and Democratic parties, to the right in the former and the left the latter. As we have explained in previous posts, we could also see  a fascist party arising as well as we have seen Europe. We will see this develop more clearly when the economy heads south. But I have learned of late not to be too conditional. Myself and millions of other Americans never thought we’d have a president endorsed by the KKK and the Nazis, not to mention a serial sexual abuser.

What we are witnessing is a crisis of global capitalism and how connected the nations states are and the world has become. We live in a world economy like it or not and the existence of nation states are in conflict, are a contradictory factor in this situation as Marx pointed out 180 years ago.

As these mass protests against the savagery of the market continue global capitalism will respond with increased violence, there is not much wiggle room for them. The existence of nuclear weapons has kept another at the cost of 50 million lives has not been an option but they don’t build all those nuclear weapons never to use them.  The only country to use nuclear weapons on urban populations is the US and the only political party, the Democrats, as representatives of US capitalism. In workers’ struggles to change society it will be necessary to win over some sections of the state that see there is no other way forward but destruction.

The most pressing issue is that the working class does not have a collective global revolutionary leadership that can offer the only real alternative. In conjunction with its allies especially in places like South America and other areas where the indigenous population has been in the forefront of the struggle to defend the land and their culture against global corporations and their hired gangs changing this is paramount. Capitalism cannot solve these crises of its own creation; it is driven to war in its rapacious quest for profits.  It will destroy life on earth as we know it and it is only the working class in all its forms that can stop it.

From the factories of China, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Vietnam to the Amazon Basin, the peoples of the world must win control over our own destiny and our productive lives and we must do that through changing how we produce what we need. This is not utopian; it is an absolute necessity.

A global society of democratic socialist states is the only solution to the madness of the so-called free market. It is uplifting to witness what is happening around the world. But in any struggle there has to be a victor. Stalemates don’t last forever and, as we saw with Venezuela, making deals with sections of the ruling class or trying to contain socialism within the nation state will not work. Global capital will not allow it.

Lessons are always learned in any struggle but what we are seeing globally, while positive will end with considerable violence as retribution is waged against the most advanced forces if permanent national and international organization does not emerge from it. Not one committed to making capitalism human and environmentally friendly, which is not possible, but one committed to ending it and changing the world in a real way opening the door to humanity finally reaching our full potential.

Warren Buffet is right, we are in a class war.

*Sergio Guzmán, the director of Colombia Risk Analysis in the Guardian UK

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Lebanon, Chile, Ecuador: There is Reason to Be Cheerful

Chileans protest in Valparaiso as government introduces reforms to end them.

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

I have finally found some time to catch up on world news and what I read confirms the optimism I have felt over developments the past couple of years. We are witnessing a worldwide movement of youth rising up in response to the global assault of capitalism on humanity and the environment. Climate change has taken a rightful position as one of the main concerns but we are also seeing new movements in opposition to austerity and economic warfare. The events in Chile and Lebanon are two examples and in both of them, the state has made concessions to mass street protests and in both cases, the movement wants more.

In Chile, the youth, since joined by workers, have fought pitched battles with the state that began on October 18^th with a protest against an increase in subway fares. This was the spark that set off nationwide protests against austerity in general, electricity prices, deteriorating public health services, a failing pension system and more. Reports in the media have detailed sexual abuse against some of the arrested protestors and there have been numerous deaths. Both the Dockworkers and Miners unions have called for a general Strike to support the youth protests against the right wing US supported government of the billionaire Sebastian Piñera. As I write, I see that homicide charges have been filed against one state official.

Throughout the world we can see that these movements arise in response to austerity measures forced on what the capitalist media refers to as, “developing nations” that cannot get access to capital without forcing the workers and middle class to pay for it and the accompanying debt.

In Ecuador, the government was forced to relocate in the face of protests against austerity measures including removing fuel subsidies demanded by the IMF in return for a $4.2 billion loan. In Ecuador, like Brazil, the indigenous population is in the forefront of the struggles against global capitalism’s war on the environment.

In an effort to halt the protests and prevent them spreading, the Piñera government in Chile has offered to increase wages, social payments and subsidies in energy and medicine. He has issued apologies for the government’s “lack of vision” in dealing with the frustration among Chileans. (Financial Times 10-25-19). But these concessions costing $1.2bn a year, about .4% of the of GDP are not likely to calm the storm. 

More is needed to head off further protests and the possibility of a political shift in the 20121 elections say some Chilean economists; “we are living through a social earthquake so it should be treated as such. Reconstruction, bringing back confidence and harmony -----that’s costly”, says Chile’s former central bank governor.

Eduardo Engel, a respected Chilean economist argues that with a budget deficit of just 2% of GDP plus a “relatively low” debt to GDP ratio, Chile can afford it and satisfy most of the protesters demands. Whether this is possible at this point or how far the movement will go is unclear.

The situation in Lebanon is somewhat similar and is threatening to topple the corrupt government there. Following the pattern in the Arab Spring of 2011, Lebanon’s youth took to the streets of Beirut on October 17^th spreading to the rest of the country the following day. The spark that lit the fuse was a tax on free phone call applications like WhatsApp, a government effort to raise money to fix the deficit. Unlike Chile, Lebanon is one of the most indebted countries in the world with public debt over 150% of GDP and servicing that debt consumes around 50 per cent of state revenues.

Adding to the anger is that a significant amount of Lebanon’s public debt is held by the country’s private commercial banks and many banks are owned by the country’s politicians and their relatives. So the attempt to tax free phone calls or instituting any other measures to tackle the deficit is seen by many as simply putting more money in corrupt leaders pockets.

As with the Arab spring and indeed the successful teachers/educators strikes and protests in the US, social media networking has played a crucial role. Much criticism of social media is valid, but we must not allow that to negate its positive aspects including in the Arab Spring of 2011, and remind ourselves that like all aspects of life it is a dialectical question.

Lebanon is extremely important in that it shows the tendency of the working class to seek unity and class allies when it moves in to struggle in a serious way. Lebanese Christians, Druze, as well as Sunni and Shia Muslims are united in their opposition to the government and religious sectarianism. Lebanon is a religious state with 18 officially recognized religious groups with the leadership of these groups jockeying for power and promoting sectarianism in the process. Divide and rule is the name of the game.

But the present protests consisting of some quarter of the country’s population, have so far overcome religious sectarian divides and made a conscious effort to do so despite efforts by some sectarian forces to promote them. “The politicians told us that we hate each other, but we don’t, I’m from a specific sect. My friend is from a specific sect. But we’re all here together for our futures and our children’s futures. We don’t want to live the way our parents lived.” said one protestor.

It’s easy to see why the religious leaders of the competing forces in the government want to halt the protests as a united class offensive brings results. Today’s Financial Times points out that, “The prime minister, Saad Hariri, announced a package of economic reforms on Monday evening meant to defuse the protests, including halving the salaries of current and former members of Parliament and requiring the banks to contribute $3.4 billion toward the national debt. The WhatsApp tax had already been scratched last week” New York Times 10-23-2109.

As with Chile, Ecuador and throughout the world, international moneylenders are waiting in the wings with money if the right conditions are met. The Lebanese government hopes these small steps will get things back to normal and, as the Financial Times puts it, “unblock $11bn from donors.”. Donors is an interesting euphemism for these parasites.

The response from the streets has been an emphatic no, demanding that the entire government must go. “The people have lost confidence in the government.”, says one protester. University teacher Rania al-Masry makes it clear, “The sectarian parties and their leaders brought us to this economic crisis and certainly they can’t be the ones to pull us out from it.”

As I absorb what is happening in Chile, Lebanon and around the world I cannot help reminding myself of what I was told once about politics and struggle, namely that consciousness always lags behind events and this is what we are seeing here, particularly in regards to Lebanon and also in neighboring Iraq where similar protests against a rotten regime are taking place. These events are related to the years of madness and war in that region, particularly since the murderous invasion of Iraq by US imperialism and its support for the Zionists and the Saudi’s and every rotten regime in the area. US and Russian imperialism, and their various allied regimes are locked in competition for influence in the region and the plundering of the regions resources so there can be no peace in the long run under these conditions.

We hear and read about the chaos in the Middle East in the western media although the immigration or economic refugees fleeing north in to Europe often referred to as a crisis, is never linked to the historical interference and colonial violence waged by European powers and more recently US imperialism. The same applies to the immigrants from Mexico and Central America. The role of US imperialism in Latin America is never discussed in the US mass media.

The anti-sectarian nature of the Lebanese protests is proof positive that neither Islam or religion in general is the root cause of the crisis in the Middle East but a result of it. We can be sure that the religious authorities from all sects will use sectarianism to undermine the movement if they can.

The demand of the movement to “change the system” refers to the introduction of a more democratic regime, and as one woman puts it in the video above, the building of a wall between religion and politics. In repressive religious regimes no matter which religion it is, women are always among the most severely oppressed, victims of patriarchal violence and excluded from important positions in society.



On all these situations there is considerable confusion and naïve expectations but this is to be expected.  It is also natural that the middle class will also have significant influence and play important roles, particularly in the early stages of a movement. But workers learn through struggle and in particular the struggle for reforms. But major reforms are not possible in this period and any minor changes will not be permanent.

The same forces that are holding the workers of Chile, Lebanon, Iraq and Ecuador hostage are the same forces that drove the GM workers out on strike. Here in the US we must let it sink in to our consciousness that the cuts GM management demanded from its workers were met with glee by Wall Street.

We are in a new era. There is a lot to be positive about in these recent developments but it is a volatile period and I for one can’t say exactly how things will progress, but I’m uplifted by it. A major cause of the confusion as well as the delay in the rise of a global movement against global capitalism is the absence of a leadership that has an understanding of the present nature of the period through which we are passing and the need for the socialist alternative to a global capitalism world. Socialist globalism and international solidarity is the alternative to the madness of capitalist globalism.

These are economic struggles they are not religious in nature and behind them there is always politics or political conclusions that will be drawn by some and the understanding that changing the system doesn’t mean changing the composition of the government, but the capitalist system of production and the superstructure that supports it.

Socialist traditions, that have been strong in the Middle East and also Latin America will re-emerge as the working class rises more to its feet and recognizes that only a democratic socialist world, a global federation of democratic states, can provide the answers people are seeking today by trying to reform a social system that, if left intact, will end life as we know it.