tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84190399661631780772024-03-12T19:29:47.338-04:00Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & InjusticeOpposing National Oppression, Class Exploitation, Institutional Racism and ImperialismMichigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.comBlogger731125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-45577874783520510142023-08-04T16:26:00.002-04:002023-08-04T16:26:14.611-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Three Military Governments Say They Will Resist Any Western-backed Intervention in Niger</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXCr0cWp7IWVk2ARLUR7peNBSzFQuoyh6bZmil6Uz0tAZ5TCmYpSTThq2YZF13XloxXxNvNdxBsdEtpKN3NYjeuixeTQR-MsKAkxyWd1Qh1dI3aFMIku9m10-1AIS3DCma7144xg5ztmGji5yOvaV-OnLXRS7GsS4RnMK3NhUQTRRFX4IcV-3LCsZnh6pY/s720/Mali%20and%20Burkina%20Faso%20leaders%20threaten%20to%20defend%20Niger%20from%20ECOWAS%20and%20NATO%20intervention.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXCr0cWp7IWVk2ARLUR7peNBSzFQuoyh6bZmil6Uz0tAZ5TCmYpSTThq2YZF13XloxXxNvNdxBsdEtpKN3NYjeuixeTQR-MsKAkxyWd1Qh1dI3aFMIku9m10-1AIS3DCma7144xg5ztmGji5yOvaV-OnLXRS7GsS4RnMK3NhUQTRRFX4IcV-3LCsZnh6pY/w400-h240/Mali%20and%20Burkina%20Faso%20leaders%20threaten%20to%20defend%20Niger%20from%20ECOWAS%20and%20NATO%20intervention.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Mali, Burkina Faso and the CNSP based in Niamey have cautioned ECOWAS, France and the United States to refrain from any attempt to reinstall the administration of ousted President Mohamed Bazoum</p><p>By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire</p><p>Thursday August 3, 2023</p><p>Geostrategic Review</p><p>General Abdourahamane Tchiane, the chairman of the ruling military administration in the West African state of Niger, has rejected the call by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to relinquish power to the former President Mohamed Bazoum.</p><p>The Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (CNSP) staged a coup against the Bazoum government on July 26. </p><p>Tchiane is the commander of the presidential guard which led the putsch. The following day on July 27, the leadership of the conventional armed forces in Niger announced their support for the coup.</p><p>On July 31, a joint statement was issued by the military governments in Burkina Faso and Mali expressing their solidarity with the CNSP in Niger. The declaration went further to send a message to the ECOWAS Chair, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, that any intervention aimed at removing the current regime in Niger would be viewed as an attack on their countries as well.</p><p>This statement begins by acknowledging that Burkina Faso and Mali:</p><p>“Express their fraternal solidarity and that of the peoples of Burkina Faso and Mali with the brotherly people of NIGER who have decided in full responsibility to take their destiny into their own hands and to assume before history the fullness of their sovereignty; denounce the persistence of these regional organizations in imposing sanctions aggravating the suffering of the populations and jeopardizing the spirit of Pan-Africanism; refuse to apply these illegal, illegitimate and inhuman sanctions against the people and authorities of Niger; warn that any military intervention against Niger would amount to a declaration of war against Burkina Faso and Mali; warn that any military intervention against Niger would result in the withdrawal of Burkina Faso and Mali from ECOWAS, as well as the adoption of self-defense measures in support of the armed forces and the people of Niger.” (https://www.facebook.com/arfsBlog)</p><p>Such a political position portends much for the future stability of the entire West Africa region as the rhetoric of ECOWAS Chair Tinubu of Nigeria indicates a determination to attempt the reinstallation of Bazoum by military means. Undoubtedly, the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and the French Armed Forces would play a critical role if such an intervention was authorized. </p><p>AFRICOM and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are in charge of two drone stations in Niger which ostensibly are there to assist in the battle against Islamic rebel groupings which have grown since the Pentagon-NATO war of regime change against Libya in 2011. Niger is the site of large deposits of uranium which is mined and exported by a French multinational corporation (Orano). (https://www.politico.eu/article/niger-coup-spark-concerns-france-uranium-dependency/)</p><p>The same above-quoted statement from Burkina Faso and Mali goes on to:</p><p>“Warn against the disastrous consequences of a military intervention in Niger which could destabilize the entire region as was the unilateral NATO intervention in Libya which was at the origin of the expansion of terrorism in the Sahel and West AFRICA. The Transitional Governments of Burkina Faso and Mali are deeply indignant and surprised by the imbalance observed between, on the one hand, the celerity and the adventurous attitude of certain political leaders in West Africa wishing to use armed forces to restore constitutional order in a sovereign country, and on the other hand, the inaction, indifference and passive complicity of these organizations and political leaders in helping States and peoples who have been victims of terrorism for a decade and left to their fate.” </p><p>France has already begun the evacuation of its nationals wishing to leave. Other people from the European Union (EU) and the U.S. have been transported out of the country by the French Armed Forces. </p><p>The State Department says that it will evacuate what it describes as “non-essential staff” at the U.S. embassy in Niamey. As of early August, the White House has not announced any intentions to close the embassy in Niger. </p><p>Sanctions Are Acts of War</p><p>ECOWAS, the 15-member West African regional organization, has already imposed sanctions against the CNSP in Niger. This follows a similar pattern of what has already occurred with respect to Mali, Guinea-Conakry and Burkina Faso over the recent period of 2020-2023, in the aftermath of the seizure of power by military regimes. </p><p>However, the degree of economic sanctions and threats to remove the CNSP by force reveals that there is much more at stake for the imperialist states and their allies in Niger. The fact that Niger is a formidable base for purported “counterterrorism” activities by Washington and Paris means that there is a concern over the exposure of AFRICOM forces, intelligence personnel and military hardware if the Russian Federation was invited to come to the aid of the military administration in Niamey. </p><p>On August 2, it was announced that neighboring Nigeria had cut power supplies to Niger by 90%. Niger, a country of 25 million people, is listed by the United Nations as one of the poorest countries in the world. </p><p>Sanctions which deprive the people of power sources can only worsen the already existing humanitarian crisis inside the country. </p><p>ECOWAS defense ministers began a two-day conference on August 2 in the Nigerian capital of Abuja to map out its strategy for Niger. Former Nigerian military leader General Abdulsalami Abubakar is leading an ECOWAS delegation to Niamey for further talks with the CNSP.</p><p>Ousted President Mahamed Bazoum has not been harmed by the military government since he was taken down from office on July 26. Photographs of Bazoum with the Chadian transitional President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno were released over numerous international news agencies on July 31. </p><p>Meanwhile, the government of Burkina Faso received a delegation from Niger to the capital of Ouagadougou where the transitional head-of-state Captain Ibrahim Traore pledged the government’s backing of the CNSP in Niamey. A communique from the Burkina Faso government said of the talks:</p><p>“A CNSP delegation was received by the Head of State (Ouagadougou, August 2, 2023). The President of the Transition, Head of State, Captain Ibrahim TRAORE received this Wednesday (Aug. 2) at the end of the afternoon, a delegation from the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Fatherland (CNSP) of Niger headed by General of army corps, Salifou MODY.</p><p>Discussions with the President of the Transition focused on the situation in Niger, which is calm and under control according to the head of delegation. We also talked about support. It must be said, we received very strong support from Burkina Faso.” </p><p>Intervention Could Further Destabilize Entire West Africa Region </p><p>France has already been forced to depart Mali after the transitional administration leader Colonel Assimi Goita suggested the presence of foreign forces were related to the escalation in rebel violence against civilians and the state. In addition, Burkina Faso has been the scene of anti-French demonstrations which enjoy widespread grassroots support.</p><p>The anti-French organization known as the M62 Movement has been operating in Niger. They have been credited with the mobilization of youth and workers against the continued military presence of France in Niger. (https://crisis24.garda.com/alerts/2023/08/niger-activists-plan-to-stage-demonstrations-nationwide-aug-3)</p><p>In demonstrations since the early days of the CNSP coup, people have been burning French flags, attacking symbols of colonial and neo-colonial rule while many carried both the Nigerien and Russian flags. Although there is no indication that the Russian Federation or the Wagner Group had a hand in the ascendancy of the CNSP to power, President Vladimir Putin recently announced his opposition to a western-backed military intervention in Niger. Putin urged the resolution of the conflict in Niger through dialogue and negotiations. </p><p>Overall, throughout the Sahel and other areas within the West Africa region, the economic situation is worsening. In Nigeria, which is the most populous state in Africa and designated as the continent’s largest economy, a food emergency was declared by President Tinubu. </p><p>The specter of sharply rising prices and food shortages prompted the two largest worker organizations, the Nigerian Labor Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC), to stage a national day of protest across the oil-rich state on August 2. President Tinubu met with the leadership of the union federations and agreed to grant some of their demands. Reports in the Nigerian press suggest that the mass actions by the unions will not continue as previously threatened by the NLC and TUC. </p><p>Therefore, the newly inaugurated administration of President Tinubu in Nigeria could very well be aggravating the social situation inside the country by threatening to deploy troops to Niger. Even the Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, whose country has troops along with Germany, France and the U.S. in Niger, proclaimed that a military intervention by the West to bring down the CNSP would result in charges of re-colonization. </p><p>Anti-imperialist and antiwar forces in the western industrialized states must oppose the military interventions by France, the U.S. and other NATO countries in Niger. Another disastrous invasion and occupation by the Pentagon and NATO will only create more displacement, underdevelopment and political divisions. </p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-20386452211379888752023-08-04T16:22:00.002-04:002023-08-04T16:22:10.339-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>White House Concerned over Niger Coup</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9T8d4O5m7jt5fZuXA18pw0F7jk-o8DXylzBiigY1tEe3HqcSEjk-A7SiyupVO6pTzVhGKYuk8vEZl5RET88Z12FuMpsTeAGAlBBg_j16Fh6glZsuXzuTrhhb_Mw1UDtQrLDISy0PdNiBYf_mXxYlkPSuNQxTQ-DK59tjCe71OhS_l4F493gjlmDZrF1b8/s678/Niger%20masses%20support%20coup.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="678" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9T8d4O5m7jt5fZuXA18pw0F7jk-o8DXylzBiigY1tEe3HqcSEjk-A7SiyupVO6pTzVhGKYuk8vEZl5RET88Z12FuMpsTeAGAlBBg_j16Fh6glZsuXzuTrhhb_Mw1UDtQrLDISy0PdNiBYf_mXxYlkPSuNQxTQ-DK59tjCe71OhS_l4F493gjlmDZrF1b8/w400-h225/Niger%20masses%20support%20coup.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>MILITARY LEADER OF THE CNSP CALLS FOR CHANGE IN THE DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY OF THE LANDLOCKED WEST AFRICAN STATE</p><p>August 3, 2023</p><p>Fighting Words <a href="https://fighting-words.net/2023/08/03/white-house-concerned-over-niger-coup/">White House Concerned over Niger Coup – Fighting Words (fighting-words.net)</a></p><p>By Abayomi Azikiwe</p><p>A new leader has emerged in the uranium-rich West African state of Niger just two days after the elected head-of-state, President Mohamed Bazoum, was toppled by his special forces.</p><p>The presidential guard on July 26 took over the residence of Bazoum and other key government buildings including the national media.</p><p>Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane spoke for the newly established National Council for the Safeguard of our Homeland (CNSP), saying that the president had been detained. Abdramane later claimed that the government had been seized by the presidential guard due to the declining security, economic and social conditions prevailing in the former French colony of 25 million people.</p><p>On July 28, yet another television announcement was made, this time by General Abdourahmane Tchiani, who said he was the leader of the CNSP and the present head-of-state for the country. General Tchiani continued a similar narrative related to the worsening atmosphere in Niger and the need to embark upon a different course.</p><p>Niger has been a close ally of France and the United States in its “war on terror” across the continent of Africa. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and the French Armed Forces maintain a significant troop presence inside the country. Published figures indicate that France has at least 1,800 soldiers in the country while the Pentagon forces stand at approximately 1,100.</p><p>There are two drone stations established by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Niger ostensibly to curtail the attacks by armed Islamist groups which have been staging operations in the south and west of the country. However, anyone assessing the military presence in Niger by NATO states cannot ignore the western interests in the uranium producing areas of the country.</p><p>The statement by Tchiani which aired on July 28 on national television in Niamey emphasized:</p><p>“We can no longer continue with the same approaches proposed so far, at the risk of witnessing the gradual and inevitable demise of our country. That is why we decided to intervene and take responsibility. I ask the technical and financial partners who are friends of Niger to understand the specific situation of our country in order to provide it with all the support necessary to enable it to meet the challenges.”</p><p>Immediately after the seizure of power by the presidential guard, the National Security Advisor for the White House, Jack Sullivan, along with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, called for the restoration of President Bazoum to office. In subsequent statements from Washington, administration spokespersons urged members of the conventional military forces in Niger and the population to prevent the consolidation of power by the CNSP.</p><p>However, on July 27, the day following the coup, the Nigerien military leadership expressed their support for the putsch, setting the stage for the appearance of Tchiane on July 28 as the new head-of-state. The coup has provided a dilemma for the Biden administration which has continued the support for AFRICOM which was launched from Stuttgart, Germany in February 2008.</p><p>Reports from the capital of Niamey suggest that the situation has calmed. Friday prayers in the Muslim-dominated state took place as usual.</p><p>Through successive U.S. Republican and Democratic administrations, there has been no wavering on the Pentagon and CIA operations in Africa. In 2011, the destruction of Libya under the previous Jamahiriya government of Col. Muammar Gaddafi, represented the first full-fledged destabilization and occupation project of AFRICOM. Since the overthrow of the Gaddafi administration, there has been no stable government in Libya. Since 2011, the North African oil-rich state has become a source for internecine conflict and human trafficking which has spread throughout other states within North and West Africa.</p><p>Supporters of the Niger Takeover Express Solidarity with Russia</p><p>Interestingly as well, on July 27, youthful adherents to the CNSP coup set fire to the Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS-Tarayya) headquarters of ousted President Bazoum. During the demonstrations in favor of the CNSP, people waved Nigerien and Russian national flags.</p><p>Omar Issaka, one of the demonstrators supporting the CNSP, told the Associated Press:</p><p>“We’re fed up. We are tired of being targeted by the men in the bush. … We’re going to collaborate with Russia now.”</p><p>Following a similar pattern which emerged in Burkina Faso and Mali in 2022, these leaders have moved closer diplomatically and militarily towards the Russian Federation. Obviously, the military forces, although being trained and groomed by AFRICOM and the French Armed Forces, have accused France and the U.S. of being a major impediment to stabilizing their countries.</p><p>In response to the CNSP takeover, the U.S. warned that the continued assistance to Niger is contingent upon cooperation with the Pentagon and CIA. Vice-President Kamala Harris reiterated this position on July 27.</p><p>The same above-mentioned article from the Associated Press noted regarding the level of funding by the U.S.:</p><p>“The United States in early 2021 said it had provided Niger with more than $500 million in military assistance and training programs since 2012, one of the largest such support programs in sub-Saharan Africa. The European Union earlier this year launched a 27 million-euro ($30 million) military training mission in Niger. The United States has more than 1,000 service personnel in the country. Some military leaders who appear to be involved in the coup have worked closely with the United States for years. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, the head of Niger’s special forces, has an especially strong relationship with the U.S., the Western military official said. While Russia has also condemned the coup, it remains unclear what the junta’s position would be on Wagner.”</p><p>Which Way for Niger?</p><p>It is not clear as of yet which line the Niger CNSP will take on continued cooperation with AFRICOM and the French military. The White House, having failed so far to reverse the coup, may decide to continue its cooperation for the time being in consideration of the declining status of Pentagon-NATO forces in Mali and Burkina Faso.</p><p>Other states such as the Central African Republic (CAR), Republic of Sudan and Mozambique are utilizing the services of the Wagner Group in handling internal security issues. While the coup was unfolding, the Russia-Africa Summit was being held in St. Petersburg.</p><p>Russian President Vladimir Putin in his consultations with the leadership of African Union (AU) member-states pledged to provide grain to the most distressed countries on the continent. This announcement was made in the aftermath of the suspension of the Black Sea grain deal in effect since the closing months of 2022.</p><p>Persistent efforts by the White House to persuade African states to condemn the Russian Federation have not been successful. The AU says it is guided by a policy of nonalignment and therefore is urging a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis.</p><p>The Democratic administration of President Joe Biden is opposed to any negotiated settlement or even a pause in the fighting, viewing such a set of circumstances as an admitted failure militarily and diplomatically. After sending $115 billion for weapons, training and other logistical support to continue the proxy war, the Ukrainian forces have failed miserably in the much-championed spring and summer offensives.</p><p>While losing influence in the West African Sahel nations, the State Department has refrained from describing events in Niger as a coup. Such a declaration would require the termination of assistance approved by the Congress.</p><p>Moreover, the deposits of gold and uranium in Niger are a cause for concern to Washington and its NATO allies. France and the U.S. would not want Russian military consultants and operatives in Niger since their hegemony over the natural resources could be jeopardized.</p><p>An update published by World Nuclear News on the developments in the country says:</p><p>“Niger produced 2248 tU in 2021, around 5% of world uranium output. Current production is from the open-pit operations of SOMAÏR (Société des Mines de l’Aïr), near the town of Arlit. SOMAÏR is 63.4% owned by French company Orano and 36.66% owned by Sopamin (Société du Patrimoine des Mines du Niger). Sopamin manages Niger’s state participation in mining ventures. According to data from the World Bank, uranium is Niger’s second largest export, in monetary terms, after gold. Uranium was first discovered at Azelik in Niger in 1957, and commercial uranium production began at Arlit – 900 km northeast of the capital Niamey – in 1971. COMINAK (Compagnie Minière d’Akouta) – also majority-owned by Orano – began production from an underground mine at Akouta in 1978, producing more than 75,000 tU before operations came to an end in 2021.”</p><p>Therefore, in pursuit of its strategic competition against Russia and China, the military option remains the most probable in the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy in Africa. However, based upon the outcomes of recent invasions and occupations, the specter of defeat will inevitably haunt the Biden administration in its campaign to win reelection in 2024.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-64199652989937566202023-08-04T16:15:00.004-04:002023-08-04T16:15:55.170-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Niger Soldiers Overthrow Western Allied Government</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFcS0UHvOzjvjqgb5OR62XeL6Lqtvk_5CyWIJbQ80wke5ek14kJX3YyTAXocgPE_QyvKZxz0-jMODF8MNFrAFsk9Zb6_uzDruOTKRqNpS0I6np88uHDrjdzdnYz5CT7MyziDGRRLsMLwzbkG3J3GPnJ4NTUwIRtIsX_C1yMDFL6NEb3QoqIKWY1mrDECTi/s678/Niger%20President%20with%20US%20envoy.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="678" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFcS0UHvOzjvjqgb5OR62XeL6Lqtvk_5CyWIJbQ80wke5ek14kJX3YyTAXocgPE_QyvKZxz0-jMODF8MNFrAFsk9Zb6_uzDruOTKRqNpS0I6np88uHDrjdzdnYz5CT7MyziDGRRLsMLwzbkG3J3GPnJ4NTUwIRtIsX_C1yMDFL6NEb3QoqIKWY1mrDECTi/w400-h225/Niger%20President%20with%20US%20envoy.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>PRESIDENT MOHAMED BAZOUM WAS REPORTEDLY DETAINED AS A MILITARY GROUPING DECLARED THE SUSPENSION OF THE CONSTITUTION AND THE CLOSING OF BORDERS</p><p>August 3, 2023</p><p>Fighting Words <a href="https://fighting-words.net/2023/08/03/niger-soldiers-overthrow-western-allied-government/">Niger Soldiers Overthrow Western Allied Government – Fighting Words (fighting-words.net)</a></p><p>Niger demonstration against the coup Niger demonstration against the coup.Niger regional map </p><p>By Abayomi Azikiwe</p><p>Throughout the day on July 26, members of the presidential guard in Niamey, the capital of the West African state of Niger, were reportedly in the process of seizing control of the government headed by a key United States and western ally, President Mohamed Bazoum.</p><p>Bazoum is an important player in the military operations of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and the French Armed Forces.</p><p>The AFRICOM units in Niger operate two Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) drone stations ostensibly designed to fight Islamic insurgent organizations in conflict with the central government in Niamey. U.S. AFRICOM documents indicate that some 1,100 U.S. special forces are based in Niger to carry out military missions and the training of Niger troops.</p><p>Several years ago in October 2017, four U.S. Green Berets were killed in a clash with armed elements operating in Niger. The U.S. government, under the-then administration of President Donald Trump, never provided a clear explanation as to how the Pentagon soldiers were killed.</p><p>This seizure of state power on July 26 appears to be led by Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane who announced the formation of a National Council for the Safeguard of our Homeland (CNSP). In a television address. Abdramane declared the dissolution of the administration headed by Bazoum citing what he described as the rapidly declining security situation inside the country.</p><p>In addition, Abdramane noted the poor economic and social conditions inside of Niger, which contains large deposits of uranium. This important natural resource is largely controlled by the French through a multinational corporation, Orano, based in Paris.</p><p>An indication of the importance of Niger and its president to the U.S. imperialist project in Africa was revealed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to the country in March. The administration of President Joe Biden is desperately seeking to maintain the influence of Washington and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in various geo-political regions of the African continent which has experienced five military coups since 2020.</p><p>A Guardian newspaper report revealed the position of the U.S. noting that:</p><p>“The White House said as the situation unfolded that the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had spoken to the captive Bazoum and ‘conveyed the unwavering support of the United States … the strong U.S. economic and security partnership with Niger depends on the continuation of democratic governance and respect for the rule of law and human rights.’”</p><p>Blinken, visiting New Zealand, later said: ‘I spoke with President Bazoum earlier this morning, and made clear that the US resolutely supports him as the democratically elected president of Niger. We call for his immediate release. We condemn any efforts to seize power by force. We’re actively engaged with the Niger government, but also with partners in the region and around the world and will continue to do so until the situation is resolved appropriately and peacefully.”</p><p>In neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso, the military regimes which have taken power are highly critical of the longtime alliances with France, the former colonial power. France has maintained its military presence and economic control of key sectors within these states.</p><p>In many ways Niger remains the closest West African ally of Paris and Washington in light of the shifting policies within Mali and Burkina Faso where French military and economic influence has been under attack. In Mali, the new government has demanded the withdrawal of French and United Nations troops from the country.</p><p>A coup in Burkina Faso last October was marked by mass demonstrations and violent attacks on symbols of French interests inside the country. Youthful protesters took to the streets waving Russian flags demanding that the government shift its security alliances from Paris to Moscow.</p><p>Mali’s military government headed by Col. Assimi Goita, has invited the Wagner Group to assist the state in fighting several Islamic rebel groupings in the northern areas of the landlocked country. France objected to the presence of Wagner in Mali threatening to withdraw its military forces. The Malian government welcomed this announcement from France and went on to encourage their troops in leaving the country.</p><p>Generally, the atmosphere in Mali is hostile toward Paris. The military government recently called for the removal of French as the national language of the country.</p><p>Will the U.S. and France Back Military Operations to Reinstate Bazoum?</p><p>Several reports from western media sources claim that there are elements within the military outside the presidential guard which remain loyal to Bazoum. The governments of the U.S. and France seem to be encouraging such a move to reinstate the civilian administration of its close ally.</p><p>Jack Sullivan, the Biden administration’s National Security Adviser, condemned the seizure of power by the CNSP. Blinken, the top U.S. envoy at the State Department, echoed this sentiment saying that the coup represented a threat to the democratic government in Niamey.</p><p>According to an article published by Al Jazeera:</p><p>“Bazoum supporters tried to approach the presidential complex but were dispersed by members of the presidential guard who fired warning shots, according to an AFP reporter. One person was hurt, but it was not immediately clear if he was injured by a bullet or from falling as the crowd scattered. Al Jazeera, however, could not independently verify the incident. But there was calm elsewhere in Niamey. Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Abuja in neighboring Nigeria, said there was a directive from the army for troops loyal to Bazoum to move in to quell what seemed to be a coup attempt. He said there were reports from the Nigerien capital signifying that there was ‘some form of negotiations’, with one report suggesting that the coup plotters wanted Bazoum to ‘surrender power’. ‘Right now, we also heard about mobilization in the outskirts of Niamey where military barracks are situated,’ he added.”</p><p>Other entities have condemned the coup in Niger as well. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the 15-member regional organization now chaired by the newly inaugurated President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, has called for the resumption of civilian rule. Benin President Patrice Talon has reportedly flown into Niamey in efforts to mediate a solution to the crisis of governance between the Bazoum administration and the coup makers within the presidential guard.</p><p>The African Union (AU) on behalf of the Commission Chair, Moussa Faki Mahamat, issued a statement on July 26 emphasizing:</p><p>“Informed of an attempt by certain members of the military to undermine the stability of democratic and republican institutions in Niger, which is tantamount to an attempted coup d’état, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, strongly condemns such actions by members of the military acting in total betrayal of their republican duty. He urges them to immediately cease these unacceptable actions. The Chairperson further calls on the people of Niger, all their brothers in Africa, particularly in ECOWAS, and around the world, to join their voices in unanimous condemnation of this coup attempt, and for the immediate and unconditional return of the felon soldiers to their barracks.”</p><p>Crisis of Governance Linked to Imperialist Influence</p><p>Previous military coups which have taken place in West Africa since 2020, although being condemned by ECOWAS and the AU, have not been reversed. Sanctions imposed by ECOWAS are not effective enough to apply the necessary economic pressure on the coup regimes.</p><p>Moreover, the legitimacy of the ousted civilian governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea-Conakry since 2020 have been questioned by broad segments of the civilian populations. In Guinea, protests have occurred demanding the holding of elections in order to transition to elective rule. However, the military regime of Colonel Mamadou Doumbouya has still not relinquished power to the politicians and their many political parties.</p><p>Widespread discontent over the failure of AFRICOM and the now-defunct French-dominated Operation Barkhane has provided a rationale for popular support of the military coups over the last three years. The unstable security situations in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have exposed the dubious role of western military presence in Africa.</p><p>Despite the thousands of AFRICOM and French Armed Forces troops on the continent, the purported anti-terrorism campaigns have resulted in greater insecurity and economic underdevelopment. Consequently, the African states backed by the majority of workers and farmers provide the only potential solutions to the crisis of insecurity and impoverishment.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-40499839284120649922023-08-04T16:11:00.001-04:002023-08-04T16:11:11.625-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Russia-Africa Summit Held Amid Worsening Global Security Situation</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-76gfmjXZ9N2Wb9KOv8-k31gEQJjFeWhp6O-m_9Tg-UTM7jqmG8Kl1SqYlhExuWL4J4PoY0OIm00DWVQ2_byOK40Tm3gCbaew3en-0f6qzbw5zaVYMs-Cw0zBagb54KsE8GltYkvD-BhANPgbhEKXu0MBVjEe4McUcxVAoSgg43sqHM2AhBK6fHOwjCB/s1440/Russia-Africa%20Summit%20held%20in%20St.%20Petersburg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="980" data-original-width="1440" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-76gfmjXZ9N2Wb9KOv8-k31gEQJjFeWhp6O-m_9Tg-UTM7jqmG8Kl1SqYlhExuWL4J4PoY0OIm00DWVQ2_byOK40Tm3gCbaew3en-0f6qzbw5zaVYMs-Cw0zBagb54KsE8GltYkvD-BhANPgbhEKXu0MBVjEe4McUcxVAoSgg43sqHM2AhBK6fHOwjCB/w400-h272/Russia-Africa%20Summit%20held%20in%20St.%20Petersburg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>African Union member-states put forward their peace plan for ending the conflict in Ukraine and received a positive response from Moscow</p><p>By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire</p><p>August 1, 2023</p><p>Geopolitical Analysis</p><p>Despite the tremendous pressure by the western imperialist governments placed upon the African Union (AU) member-states and the Russian Federation, the second Russia-Africa Summit was held on July 27-28 in St. Petersburg.</p><p>Many of the African heads-of-state present came from the leading countries across the continent of 1.4 billion people.</p><p>Heads-of-state such as Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa of the Republic of South Africa, Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, Adel-Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, Felipe Nyusi of Mozambique, Macky Sall of Senegal, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville, among others, were present and intensely engaged in the proceedings. The Summit consisted of open plenary sessions along with one-on-one meetings between African leaders and President Vladimir Putin. </p><p>Media reports in the United States made much of the fact that 17 heads-of-state attended the Russia-Africa Summit compared to 43 at the previous meeting in 2019. However, there were 49 delegations which attended representing a majority of African governments on official ministerial levels as well as regional organizations such as the African Union (AU), Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the New Development Bank (NDB), headed by former Brazil President Dilma Rousseff.</p><p>The Summit took place during an intensification of the military conflict in eastern and southern Ukraine as the United States and the European Union (EU) has pledged in excess of $100 billion to continue its efforts to maintain the dominant status of the imperialism throughout the globe. U.S. President Joe Biden has focused heavily on the foreign policy imperatives of weakening the Russian Federation through sanctions and the recruitment of Eastern European states into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).</p><p>In Africa, the impact of the Ukraine war is resulting in high rates of inflation triggered by the shortages in agricultural products. Rising prices and a deteriorating security crisis in several West African states has prompted military interventions in political life and the attempted realignment of domestic and foreign policy away from France and the U.S. towards Russia and China. </p><p>This is the first full meeting of the Russia-Africa Summit since the inaugural gathering in 2019. Over the last four years the world underwent a global pandemic whose magnitude has not been experienced for a century. The commencement of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 grew out of the reemergent Cold War initiated by Washington and Wall Street against Russia and the People’s Republic of China. </p><p>Over the last year-and-a-half since the beginning of the special military operation, the administration of President Joe Biden has sought to pressure AU member-states to support its position in Ukraine. U.S. Congressional figures drafted a bill designed to punish African states who maintain cordial political and economic relations with Moscow. The government in the Republic of South Africa led by the African National Congress (ANC) was accused by the U.S. ambassador of supplying arms to the Russian Federation to utilize in the Ukraine theater.</p><p>Russia has been subjected to widespread sanctions aimed at bringing about the collapse of its economy. During the Summit in St. Petersburg, Putin announced the cancellation of $23 billion in debt owed by African countries.</p><p>Outcomes of the Russia-Africa Summit </p><p>Consequently, the proceeding of the recent gathering provided an opportunity for both Russia and the AU to present their views on a myriad of issues impacting the international situation. Both the host, President Vladimir Putin and the AU delegates emphasized their interests in building closer relations in the cultural, economic and political spheres. </p><p>In a report on the Summit published by Tass news agency it says:</p><p>“The global importance of the second Russia-Africa Summit, held in St. Petersburg on July 27-28, continued to reverberate over the weekend. On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held meetings with several counterparts from the continent. As well, St. Petersburg native Putin hosted four African leaders at his hometown’s annual Navy Day parade on July 30 along the Neva River, Vedomosti writes. Putin said at his final press conference on July 29 that, ‘in general, the African continent is friendly and positive towards Russia.’ A 74-point declaration was the principal document to come out of the summit, where the signatories spoke out in particular against ethnic and racial discrimination and announced plans to coordinate a range of joint political activities, including within the United Nations Security Council.” (https://tass.com/pressreview/1654563)</p><p>Russia and its relationship with the African continent have been mutually cooperative since the era of the imperialist conquest when the country under the monarchy provided military assistance to Ethiopia during its war against Italy in the late 19th century. During the period of the Soviet Union, the official foreign policy position of Moscow was to aid the national liberation movements struggling for freedom and independence. The post-colonial years in Africa were marked by solidarity with the newly independent states through the granting of educational opportunities, trading projects along with military training.</p><p>A continuing pledge of security assistance was made clear during the Summit. In addition, scholarships for education will be enhanced for African students in Russia. The Russian government acknowledged the legacy of colonialism, imperialism and neo-colonialism and pledged to stand in solidarity with the African people in their struggle for genuine independence and sovereignty. </p><p>Testimony by African leaders were recorded in a Tass news report saying that:</p><p>“Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadera underscored that Russia’s support helped save democracy in his country. ‘Fearing no geopolitical problems, Russia provides aid to our country, our armed forces and security agencies in their fight against terrorist organizations,’ he said. Mali was able to reinforce its armed forces and ensure its security thanks to Russia’s aid, said Interim President Assimi Goita. ‘Mali has a military partnership with Russia, and we thank it for support and friendship. […] The Malian Armed Forces are currently on the offensive; we have significantly reduced the number of [terrorist] attacks on [our] military bases, we were able to ensure security in many places,’ he noted.” (https://tass.com/politics/1653945)</p><p>AU Leaders Emphasize Peace Plan</p><p>An underlying theme throughout the concluding phase of the Summit was the quest for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. The withdrawal of Russia from the Black Sea Grain Deal was based on the failure of the imperialist states to lift their sanctions against Moscow. </p><p>The actual volume of grain produced and exported by Russia far exceeds that of Ukraine. Putin offered to supply grain to several African states free of charge in an effort to meet the current challenge of burgeoning food insecurity. </p><p>Tass summarized the discussions on the African Peace Initiative for Ukraine as follows:</p><p>“South African President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that ‘negotiations and dialogue, as well as commitment to the UN Charter are necessary for a peaceful and fair resolution of conflicts.’</p><p>‘The African initiative deserves the greatest attention, and it should not be underestimated,’ President of the Republic of Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso said, calling to ‘end the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. This conflict affected the entire world in a negative way, African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said. ‘Of course, we are concerned over the grain supply issue,’ he said, adding that it is ‘necessary to immediately and promptly resolve the problem of food shipments to countries in need.’" (https://tass.com/politics/1653945)</p><p>Putin reiterated to the African delegations that Russia has been willing to hold constructive negotiations with Ukraine. However, Moscow has been met with refusals by Kiev which is operating at the behest of Washington and the NATO states.</p><p>Overall, the Summit further revealed the escalating conflict between the proponents of western imperialist domination and those advocating for a multipolar world system. This ideological and material conflict could very well be resolved in a protracted global conflagration which would portend much for the long-term stability and sustainable development of the majority of peoples and nations of the globe. </p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-56819572038679952632023-08-04T16:03:00.005-04:002023-08-04T16:03:35.321-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>East Africa Food Insecurity and the Role of AFRICOM</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJhP4MWds1SjxQu_dTaLFzkwlWcoANlExsfwyxvoMfFzaJ2dD6F5GzLKqBOEmNiQMz87_QEQcD1sGixed8Kv3UrSr17I6pD0lfmQ7S8DrWepVqwLQveQhBQP9SK9jMDcgEXYlhWxXwqJY8h6Bz-yeiX_b1ixwIIfpNe8SW00dwa3VPUdAD3PK13JVs3wXZ/s700/East%20Africa%20map%20of%20food%20insecurity.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="541" data-original-width="700" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJhP4MWds1SjxQu_dTaLFzkwlWcoANlExsfwyxvoMfFzaJ2dD6F5GzLKqBOEmNiQMz87_QEQcD1sGixed8Kv3UrSr17I6pD0lfmQ7S8DrWepVqwLQveQhBQP9SK9jMDcgEXYlhWxXwqJY8h6Bz-yeiX_b1ixwIIfpNe8SW00dwa3VPUdAD3PK13JVs3wXZ/w400-h309/East%20Africa%20map%20of%20food%20insecurity.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>AS THE WHITE HOUSE CONTINUES ITS IMPERIALIST MILITARISM IN THE HORN OF AFRICA AND ITS ENVIRONS, THE WAR IN UKRAINE AND DRACONIAN SANCTIONS AGAINST MOSCOW ARE HAMPERING THE SOCIAL STABILITY ON THE CONTINENT</p><p>July 29, 2023</p><p>Fighting Words <a href="https://fighting-words.net/2023/07/29/east-africa-food-insecurity-and-the-role-of-africom/">East Africa Food Insecurity and the Role of AFRICOM – Fighting Words (fighting-words.net)</a></p><p>AFRICOM continues to bomb Somalia amid food insecurity AFRICOM continues to bomb Somalia amid food insecurity.</p><p>By Abayomi Azikiwe</p><p>On July 19, several media sources reported that airstrikes were carried out against what was claimed to be bases of the Islamist group fighting the central government in the Horn of Africa state of Somalia.</p><p>The attacks were coordinated and implemented by the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) with the assistance of the western trained forces of the Somali National Army (SNA).</p><p>A report published by the Voice of America (VOA) notes that:</p><p>“AFRICOM said the strike was in support of Somali National Army forces fighting al-Shabab. The strike came at the request of the federal government of Somalia, the statement added. AFRICOM said it will continue to assess the results of Wednesday’s (July 19) operation and will provide additional information ‘as appropriate.’ The Somali government has been fighting al-Shabab militants since 2006. The group was removed from major cities but continues to control vast areas in the countryside. In August 2022, the Somali army, supported by self-mobilized local fighters, launched a military offensive that seized parts of central Somalia from the militant group. The militants have struck back, raiding military bases and inflicting heavy losses on government forces in the south and central regions.”</p><p>Apparently in response to the bombing of the previous week, on July 24 a military training facility of the SNA was attacked by a suicide bomber resulting in significant casualties and physical damage. This continuing conflict in Somalia can be traced back to the persistent interference in the internal affairs of the country by successive administrations in Washington and their allies.</p><p>President Joe Biden, a Democrat, redeployed hundreds of Pentagon troops from AFRICOM to Somalia during the early phase of his tenure in office. This policy decision was carried out after his predecessor, President Donald Trump, had withdrawn soldiers from Somalia prior to his leaving office in early 2021.</p><p>AFRICOM has been operating on the continent for the last 15 years while the level of instability has increased in several geopolitical regions. In West Africa, states such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Conakry, Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) have experienced military coups and insurgencies despite the joint military operations and training programs sponsored by AFRICOM and other NATO countries.</p><p>Regarding the latest insurgent attack in Somalia, US News reported:</p><p>“A suicide bomber killed at least 30 soldiers and wounded scores more inside a military academy in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Monday (July 24), two military sources said, in an attack claimed by the al-Shabaab militant group. A military campaign launched by government forces and allied militiamen last year has forced the al Qaeda-linked group from large swathes of territory in southern Somalia, but the militants have continued to stage deadly raids. In recent weeks, with the military campaign against them stalled as the army prepares a second phase of the offensive, al-Shabaab fighters have stepped up their attacks. In late May, they killed at least 54 Ugandan peacekeepers at a base south of Mogadishu. They laid siege to Baidoa, one of the country’s largest cities, for nearly two weeks. And they have staged a series of raids in Mogadishu this month. The bombing on Monday targeted the Jale Siyaad military academy.”</p><p>Imperialist Militarism and Food Insecurity</p><p>Somalia has been the focus of U.S. foreign policy initiatives going back to the latter years of the 1970s when the administration of former President Jimmy Carter encouraged the-then government of General Mohamed Siad Barre to intervene in the Ogaden region of neighboring Ethiopia. At this time, the U.S. was waging a destabilization campaign against the socialist-oriented administration of Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam in Addis Ababa.</p><p>Since the late 1970s, there have been ongoing attempts to remake Somalia and the entire Horn of Africa region in the political image of U.S. imperialism. With the present alarms sounded over threats of hunger and famine, Washington has paid very limited attention to their role in the developing crisis.</p><p>In fact, the problems of food deficits have been aggravated by the NATO proxy war in Ukraine against the Russian Federation. The suspended Black Sea grain deal is already negatively impacting the African Union (AU) member-states with their 1.3 billion people.</p><p>Although western media reports following the line of the administration in Washington, categorically blames and condemns Russia for the suspension of the Black Sea grain deal, an idea advanced and implemented at the aegis of the AU leadership and the government of Turkey. Contrastingly, President Vladimir Putin of Russia has said that he will continue to supply grain to AU member-states blaming the draconian sanctions imposed by NATO governments for the present situation.</p><p>Climate change has caused severe weather events including drought, cyclones and flooding in states as far south as Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Madagascar. On an international scale, the western industrialized capitalist governments have attempted to dominate the annual United Nations Climate conferences, blocking key resolutions which would provide assistance for developing regions to transition from a reliance on fossil fuels and other forms of pollutants.</p><p>In Kenya recently, the opposition party of former presidential candidate Raila Odinga has staged demonstrations which turned violent prompted by the rise in taxes. Several governments including large oil producers such as Nigeria and Angola have eliminated fuel subsidies causing sharp increases in prices.</p><p>However, the acute food deficits have been documented in Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organizations have published several reports on their activities in East Africa.</p><p>One organization known as World Vision said in a recent document that it has reached over 10 million people providing food assistance throughout the region, half of whom were children, over the last two years. A combination of climate change, internal and cross-border western-inspired conflicts, the post-pandemic economic crises and the escalating war in Eastern Europe, has resulted in the present conjuncture.</p><p>World Vision’s East Africa Hunger Emergency Response Situation Report #23, published in May emphasizes:</p><p>“In the face of unprecedented global demands for humanitarian funding, crises in East Africa are receiving limited international attention, despite urgent, growing and life-threatening needs. World Vision is calling on national governments, regional institutions, humanitarian actors and donors to urgently address the hunger crisis in Eastern Africa and more forcefully communicate its breadth and severity. This is not peculiar to this region as the world is facing its worst hunger crisis in modern times. In Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, there are more than 49 million people at risk of starvation or vulnerable to famine or famine-like conditions.”</p><p>The world’s leading capitalist state in Washington is at present preoccupied with its failing proxy war in Ukraine. Biden in his reelection bid for 2024, touts the official low jobless rate and the rising profits of the ruling class.</p><p>Nonetheless, there are many people within the U.S. and around the globe plagued by rising prices impacting their capacity to purchase food, energy resources, healthcare and housing. Social programs enacted during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic expanding unemployment payments, Medicaid and housing subsidies have expired. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) allocations have been drastically reduced due to the inaction of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.</p><p>This undeclared war on the impoverished millions within the U.S. and billions throughout the world coincides with the imperialist war drive against Moscow, the People’s Republic of China, the Islamic Republic of Iran and any other state and political entity which does not follow the dictates of the White House. Concerns about the events on the warfront in Ukraine are routinely ignored and dismissed by the Biden administration.</p><p>Consequently, the Pentagon war budget represents a major impediment in adopting any real solutions to burgeoning food insecurity in various geopolitical regions of the world. Therefore, the movement to defeat imperialism also represents the struggle to produce and distribute enough food needed for the well-being of people throughout the planet.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-23399972784226708512023-08-04T15:58:00.005-04:002023-08-04T15:58:50.280-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Food Insecurity in Africa and the Politics of NATO Expansion</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTWQLEeVkDexEPc2J2t-DrDiEbk_Xalh224lFF40x6YdC2HUjKqDIt-w0FMGmdLYVKB5SF497F2hivkiejKuQV9HYy44O6dm3VC7nQxqg36F2mkEi00Ntxw-PsKguitCx26Vm-JlsDdOBgIxQ76O8vAYYUW4wm-gV6EPXygVuqpbY3aRg3OQIJDORmZ_lE/s768/Africa%20food%20insecurity%20graph.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="768" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTWQLEeVkDexEPc2J2t-DrDiEbk_Xalh224lFF40x6YdC2HUjKqDIt-w0FMGmdLYVKB5SF497F2hivkiejKuQV9HYy44O6dm3VC7nQxqg36F2mkEi00Ntxw-PsKguitCx26Vm-JlsDdOBgIxQ76O8vAYYUW4wm-gV6EPXygVuqpbY3aRg3OQIJDORmZ_lE/w400-h400/Africa%20food%20insecurity%20graph.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>RUSSIAN FEDERATION PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN IS SUSPENDING MOSCOW’S PARTICIPATION IN THE BLACK SEA GRAIN DEAL</p><p>July 24, 2023 </p><p>Fighting Words <a href="https://fighting-words.net/2023/07/24/food-insecurity-in-africa-and-the-politics-of-nato-expansion/">Food Insecurity in Africa and the Politics of NATO Expansion – Fighting Words (fighting-words.net)</a></p><p>By Abayomi Azikiwe</p><p>United Nations affiliated humanitarian and development agencies are reporting that many countries across the African continent are experiencing food insecurity.</p><p>This phenomenon is related to at least three major factors: the sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation led by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU); an inflationary spiral triggered by the impact of the COVID pandemic; along with the worsening aspects of climate change.</p><p>The Russian special military operation in Ukraine has prompted the western countries to attempt a complete economic blockade of Moscow. Having failed to cripple the Russian economy during the first few months after the intervention on February 24, 2022, the administration of President Joe Biden has been unable to articulate a clear path to victory in Ukraine.</p><p>Parallel efforts by the U.S. State Department center around exerting political and economic pressure on African Union (AU) member-states. The continental organization subscribes to a Non-aligned foreign policy which has been developing since the Bandung Conference of 1955 through the founding of a formal organization in Belgrade, Yugoslavia during 1961.</p><p>Since the majority of African governments have not responded enthusiastically to the calls by Biden to condemn Russia and join in the sanctions-regime, the White House and Congress have threatened to tighten their grip over the national economies in Africa. The Republic of South Africa has been accused by the U.S. ambassador in Pretoria of shipping arms to Russia.</p><p>Meanwhile, the Black Sea grain deal which was suggested by the AU delegation that met Putin in Sochi during July 2022 and finalized with the assistance of Türkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, provided the potential for the reopening of trade in agricultural commodities produced in Ukraine and Russia. Ukrainian and Russian exports of grain and other crops to several African countries contribute immensely to food supplies.</p><p>In addition to grain, maize and other staple foods, Russia is a major exporter of fertilizer and the agricultural inputs needed in large-scale farming. Consequently, the AU member-states have a vested interest in ending the war in Ukraine and the resumption of international trade with the Black Sea region.</p><p>An article in the journal African Business says of the present situation and its impact on the continent:</p><p>“The collapse of the deal is ‘really bad news for countries highly dependent on food imports,’ says Jacques Nel, head of Africa Macro at consulting firm Oxford Economics Africa. East Africa is only just beginning to recover from a long period of drought, while Nel warns that North Africa – a region highly dependent on food imports – is also vulnerable. Egypt has been the sixth-largest importer of Ukrainian grain over the past year. Nigeria is another one of the world’s largest wheat importers and receives a quarter of its imports from Ukraine and Russia, says Debo Akande, a senior specialist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Akande warns that wheat prices are set to ‘increase astronomically’, which will have knock-on effects for the prices of other staple crops.”</p><p>Food Emergency Declared</p><p>The Federal Republic of Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa containing its largest national economy, has issued a declaration of emergency related to food supplies. The newly inaugurated President Bola Tinubu made the announcement just weeks after he assumed office in the oil-rich West African state.</p><p>After the cancellation of fuel subsidies which have kept petroleum consumer costs low in Nigeria, prices have soared in various sectors of the economy. The declaration of an emergency does not automatically address the fundamental problems in the country.</p><p>Although most reports in the western press dwell on the security challenges in Nigeria, which are many, particularly involving Boko Haram and other insurgencies operating in the northern regions of the vast country, almost no attention is paid in the mainstream media sources to the strain placed on the government resulting from the war in Ukraine and the subsequent draconian sanctions led by Washington.</p><p>The Tinubu government has adopted a policy of making more land available for agricultural production by channeling funds saved by abolishing fuel subsidies to providing incentive for farmers. Yet this pivot to greater agricultural production domestically will not occur overnight leaving open the potential for serious food insecurity in the urban and rural areas.</p><p>According to the World-Grain.com website that monitors wheat production and distribution internationally:</p><p>“Nigeria, which traditionally has procured a large portion of its wheat from the Black Sea region, is enduring severe repercussions from the Russia-Ukraine war, according to a Global Agricultural Information Network report from the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. ‘Nigeria is spending more on wheat imports amid high global wheat prices brought on by the Russia-Ukraine war,’ the FAS said. ‘The situation has negatively impacted Nigeria’s wheat supply value chain. More importantly, official records showed a drastic reduction in durum wheat imports from Russia in 2022. Russia was one of the country’s primary sources of cheap wheat.’”</p><p>A Global Crisis in Looming</p><p>The sharp rise in food prices is not just occurring in Nigeria. Many states across the continent and other geopolitical regions are facing similar problems. Even inside the most advanced capitalist states such as the U.S. and the U.K, price increases have created food insecurity as well.</p><p>Food pantries and soup kitchens are overwhelmed by the rapid increase in demand for assistance in cities and rural areas throughout the U.S. With the expiration of the expansion of Supplemental Nutrition Agricultural Program (SNAP) benefits, a lifeline has been taken away from millions of working class, oppressed and impoverished families.</p><p>This same website, World-Grain.com, published a report during April 2022, less than two months after the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, which predicted that:</p><p>“As the war continues in Ukraine, the impact on global agriculture will have prolonged effects, including food inflation, limited fertilizer supplies, a European recession and fundamental changes in supply chains. ‘There’s a lot that we are not talking about in terms of the overall issues that can come from the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, particularly if it extends over a year, two or three,’ said Richard Kottmeyer with FTI Consulting, Inc., during a webinar April 14 hosted by the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA). The conflict adds another layer to existing pressure on the agriculture industry from the COVID-19 pandemic and the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy, which aims to reduce the environmental and climate impact of production. Food inflation is likely to hit levels not seen in 20 plus years, Kottmeyer said. ‘If the war ended today, we would have food inflation widely for three years,’ he said. ‘That’s significant. As the war continues, food inflation and the number of years continues to get worse.’… With the food inflation that currently exists and the likelihood it will get worse, there is severe pressure on fundamental stability in northern and west Africa, he said. ‘The Ukrainian conflict is likely to lead to other conflicts within the next 24 months,’ Kottmeyer said. ‘That could put severe pressure on any number of specialty commodities, and agriculture trade in general.’”</p><p>The Biden administration is seeking to extend its tenure in office for another four years in the aftermath of the 2024 elections. Nonetheless, there are serious concerns on the part of the majority of the electorate in the U.S. over the handling of the war in Ukraine.</p><p>Food security graphic</p><p>Polls indicate that the primary issue on the minds of voters is the economy. While the administration praises the less than 4% jobless rate, tens of millions are struggling to pay rents, mortgages, education bills, energy costs and food.</p><p>The effects of climate change can be seen daily in the U.S. and Canada where drought, excessive heat, dangerous air quality, tornadoes, floods and wildfires are creating hazardous conditions for public health and food production. However, the Biden administration appears to be solely focused on undermining and weakening the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China and other perceived adversaries of U.S. imperialism.</p><p>People in the U.S. can only hope for relief when the support by the government to carry on the war in Ukraine has halted. The much talked about spring and summer counteroffensive in Ukraine has been an abysmal failure.</p><p>Despite the allocation of approximately $115 billion in military and other assistance to Ukraine, much of the ammunition, tanks, armored vehicles and missile launchers have been destroyed by the Russian military forces. At present, the Russian army has begun offensive operations in several areas along the frontlines.</p><p>Ending the Ukraine war has implications far beyond the battlefields. Eliminating the Pentagon budget is a matter of the survival and sustainable development of humanity.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-65066464994152086852023-08-04T15:53:00.004-04:002023-08-04T15:53:42.981-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>SAG-AFTRA and WGA Strike Exposes Deteriorating Conditions in the Entertainment Industry</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidR-PzWsR18RLfmrucJB-PAC9qxn3X1uyqPwL1si1S3G26PMXalYfYpOkrTBfvuT83nulKoGHDOLP1WQLnioq80ZD-uhuq2RfCR_-Lf_orxCigkcyjPaUjN-OfvEnw4UyPqz9cBl5aBG3R8Q0veAUDp4Uj4CryNSZJaqbuHviEtL3VQIIGcOfxD0ZMyZPd/s678/WGA%20and%20SAG-AFTRA%20strike%20graphic.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="678" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidR-PzWsR18RLfmrucJB-PAC9qxn3X1uyqPwL1si1S3G26PMXalYfYpOkrTBfvuT83nulKoGHDOLP1WQLnioq80ZD-uhuq2RfCR_-Lf_orxCigkcyjPaUjN-OfvEnw4UyPqz9cBl5aBG3R8Q0veAUDp4Uj4CryNSZJaqbuHviEtL3VQIIGcOfxD0ZMyZPd/w400-h225/WGA%20and%20SAG-AFTRA%20strike%20graphic.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>CORPORATE STUDIOS PUBLICLY EXPRESS DISDAIN TOWARDS WRITERS AND ACTORS WHILE SEEKING TO MAXIMIZE PROFITS</p><p>July 19, 2023 </p><p>Fighting Words <a href="https://fighting-words.net/2023/07/19/sag-aftra-and-wga-strike-exposes-deteriorating-conditions-in-the-entertainment-industry/">SAG-AFTRA and WGA Strike Exposes Deteriorating Conditions in the Entertainment Industry – Fighting Words (fighting-words.net)</a></p><p>SAG-AFTRA and WGA strike SAG-AFTRA and WGA strike.</p><p>By Abayomi Azikiwe</p><p>Striking members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Announcers (SAG-AFTRA) along with the Writers Guild of America (WGA), have created a crisis for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPATP), which represents the owners and executives of the major studios in the United States.</p><p>These industrial actions are jeopardizing the revenue and profits of the large studios and networks which will result in the postponement and cancellation of programs and films.</p><p>As the majority of those working in these sectors of the industry continue to experience declining pay and rising job insecurity, the studios have stiffened their resolve to severely weaken the unions. If the intransigence of the owners in regard to the more than two months-long WGA strike provides any indication, the SAG-AFTRA work stoppage could last for a long time.</p><p>Since the beginning of the WGA strike on May 2, the corporate leaders and union representatives have not held any negotiations. The screen actors and announcers joined the picket lines with the WGA on July 14 after the owners refused to make any offers to the union’s bargaining teams which could reverse the steadily declining standard of living for the workers.</p><p>Since the walk out by the SAG-AFTRA, the corporate executives have attempted to portray those on strike as being incorrigible with expectations that are “unrealistic.” They have asserted through the corporate news networks that the unions are not taking into consideration the changes which have taken place over the last decade.</p><p>However, what the AMPATP does not say is that the salaries and compensation for executives are consistently rising where many are earning tens of millions of dollars annually. The enormous growth in corporate salaries and bonuses reflect the prevailing practices within the movie and television industry. Union leaders of both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA claim that the studios have expressed only disrespect and contempt for the concerns of the workers.</p><p>Countering the Misinformation of the Bosses</p><p>Union leaders have sought to dispel the myths that members of their bargaining units are privileged and earn far more money than the average worker in the U.S. This is of course true for high profile and well-paid actors and screenwriters working on blockbuster films which cost tens to hundreds of millions to produce.</p><p>Nonetheless, many union members interviewed on the picket lines indicate that they are taking home far less than workers employed in other fields. The declining wages are due in part to the expanding popularity of streaming platforms leaving workers unable to receive their owed residuals.</p><p>Other changes in the operations of the media business include far fewer episodes per season, the elimination of payments for auditions which are often done online in the aftermath of the pandemic as well as earning thresholds for health insurance eligibility.</p><p>SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a press statement on the first day of the strike that:</p><p>“It came with great sadness that we came to this crossroads. But we had no choice. We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly. How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right while giving hundreds and millions of dollars to their CEOS. It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment.”</p><p>The attitudes of the studios are mirrored throughout the capitalist system in the U.S. and internationally. The corporate executives, owners and shareholders are demanding more concessions from employees to enhance their profit-making capacity.</p><p>Gains won by the working class and their unions during monumental struggles from the late 19th century to the present are under assault from the owners supported by local, state and federal governments. Several of the high-profile actors and screenwriters have voiced their support for the strike and are being seen walking the picket lines. Actors such as Susan Sarandon and Emily Blunt realize that despite their successes, the changes being instituted by the industry owners are threats to the profession as a whole.</p><p>As long as the strike continues, members of the unions are not allowed to promote the films in which they appeared. The cast of “Oppenheimer” were in Britain for the official premiere of the film. They refused to participate in the ceremonies and returned to the U.S. to stand in solidarity with the striking union membership.</p><p>Drescher continued to emphasize the importance of the strike during this important period in history, noting:</p><p>“We stand in solidarity in unprecedented unity. Our union and our sister unions and the unions around the world are standing by us as well as other labor unions. Because at some point, the jig is up. You cannot keep being dwindled and marginalized and disrespected and dishonored. The entire business model has been changed by streaming, digital, AI. This is a moment of history that is a moment of truth. If we don’t stand tall right now, we are going to be in trouble. We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines and big business, who cares more about Wall Street than you and your family.”</p><p>Artificial Intelligence is of utmost concern to the striking unions due to the potential for the owners and executives to further the level of already existing exploitation. The unfair use of individual images and voices in order to create new productions absent any contractual arrangements with the subjects will inevitably result in even deeper declines in salaries and other forms of compensation for the union membership.</p><p>SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said of the controversy surrounding the implementation of AI in the entertainment industry:</p><p>“The companies refuse to recognize that you can’t expect people to sign over their name, image, likeness and voice, their persona to some corporate conglomerate with no right to ever say what they’re going to do with it in the future. That is not going to happen, we are not going to agree to terms like that, so the companies have to move in our direction and come up with some reasonable agreement. We didn’t come into this negotiation saying ‘Let’s ban AI’,”. We came into this negotiation saying that AI has to be done in a way that respects actors, respects their human rights to their own bodies, voice, image and likeness. Nothing less than that is going to be acceptable.”</p><p>Economic Impact of an Extended Strike in the Film and Television Industry</p><p>Members of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA say they are prepared for the long haul. They realize that the studios are out to break the will of the unions to fight for their economic rights.</p><p>Withholding the labor power of the writers and actors will disrupt the functioning of the studios and other businesses which service the entertainment industry. Advertising revenues from film and television could decline with the postponement of movie releases and weekly programs.</p><p>With the current level of inflation in the U.S., union members will be hard pressed to make rent and mortgage payments in addition to transportation, energy and food expenses. The unions have established funds which can provide aid to striking workers. However, it is highly unlikely that these strike funds will meet the entire needs of the union members.</p><p>Consequently, a prolonged strike by SAG-AFTRA and WGA will have a ripple effect in the broader economy particularly in the Los Angeles and New York areas. Nonetheless, the unions recognize that the alternative to the strike would mean a complete capitulation to the industry executives and owners which would wipe out tens of thousands of jobs.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-61487104838046932522023-08-04T15:48:00.006-04:002023-08-04T15:48:50.886-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Screen Actors Join Writers in Entertainment Industry Strike</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuoepL6dqmq2rGt1ibA-0NWMMMBVkiJQP6cZ8Kk0rCwAQiozmKa67wOLYaBBlZ4Jro4xh8rxLab1-p9dRwMUuZGFyk912v9KbBQv_tVVr-E4NBiOZMoJmFnWY6KnwVSzHfU2bv2Cob4jnhGj8MC7Wzd-28GCgBhE26XYeJNS3jJcYkGK3HzAEZr_BlcXbz/s678/SAG-AFTRA%20strike%20photo.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="678" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuoepL6dqmq2rGt1ibA-0NWMMMBVkiJQP6cZ8Kk0rCwAQiozmKa67wOLYaBBlZ4Jro4xh8rxLab1-p9dRwMUuZGFyk912v9KbBQv_tVVr-E4NBiOZMoJmFnWY6KnwVSzHfU2bv2Cob4jnhGj8MC7Wzd-28GCgBhE26XYeJNS3jJcYkGK3HzAEZr_BlcXbz/w400-h225/SAG-AFTRA%20strike%20photo.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>COMBINED SAG-AFTRA AND WGA WORK STOPPAGES WOULD PARALYZE PRODUCTION CENTERS FROM HOLLYWOOD TO NEW YORK CITY</p><p>July 19, 2023</p><p>Fighting Words <a href="https://fighting-words.net/2023/07/19/screen-actors-join-writers-in-entertainment-industry-strike/">Screen Actors Join Writers in Entertainment Industry Strike – Fighting Words (fighting-words.net)</a></p><p>Writers Union of America set to strike Writers Union of America set to strike.</p><p>By Abayomi Azikiwe</p><p>Despite the enormous profits being made by film and television corporations in the United States, the writers, actors and announcers are undergoing pay cuts and threats to their future employment.</p><p>Since early May, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been on strike for better salaries, benefits and job security in a rapidly changing industry where streaming and the use of artificial intelligence have become avenues for greater exploitation and marginalization of scribes and performers.</p><p>The WGA claims that the billions of dollars in investments made by the motion pictures and television studios over the last decade has resulted in salary and benefits losses. Furthermore, they believe that the current system of working within the industry is broken. Union leaders are saying that the changes being implemented by the owners and management threatens writing as a profession.</p><p>Negotiations between the writers and the studios broke down on May 1 when the two sides were unable to reach an agreement to avoid a strike. The strike has delayed production on many film and television projects in the U.S. and internationally.</p><p>In regard to actors, the early phases of the coronavirus pandemic witnessed the introduction of certain forms of auditioning for jobs by performers which were done virtually without compensation. Other issues such as declining rates of residual payments related to reruns, streaming, syndication, etc., are key elements in the rising discontent among the union membership.</p><p>In the latest round of labor unrest, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) authorized a strike in early June by a margin of 98% after failing to reach an agreement with the studio owners represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The combined strike action involving the WGA and SAG-AFTRA could effectively shut down the entertainment industry in the U.S.</p><p>The SAG-AFTRA contract was extended to July 12 in the hope that an agreement could be reached with AMPTP. However, the AMPTP accused the SAG-AFTRA of being unreasonable in their demands and that the decision to strike is the total responsibility of the actors and announcers.</p><p>AMPTP represents the long-established major studios along with streaming platforms including Amazon, Netflix and NBCUniversal. A press release from the AMPTP emphasized:</p><p>“Rather than continuing to negotiate, SAG-AFTRA has put us on a course that will deepen the financial hardship for thousands who depend on the industry for their livelihood.”</p><p>This is the first time since 1960 that there has been a joint strike involving the writers, actors and announcers. There are 11,000 WGA members on strike, and they are being joined by 160,000 people represented by the SAG-AFTRA).</p><p>The industry has experienced a series of strikes since 1936. Other work stoppages have occurred among the writers and actors during the 1960s right through the present century.</p><p>A statement on July 13 issued by the SAG President Fran Drescher and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtre-Ireland says:</p><p>“The AMPTP has refused to acknowledge that enormous shifts in the industry and economy have had a detrimental impact on those who perform labor for the studios. Though we’ve engaged in negotiations in good faith and remained eager to reach a deal that sufficiently addressed performer concerns, the AMPTP’s responses to our proposals have not been adequate…. Our ninety-year history is a testament to what can be achieved through our conviction and unity. For the future of our profession, we stand together.”</p><p>Broader Economic Impact of an Entertainment Industry Strike</p><p>Tensions within the entertainment industry have been brewing for months. In June, well-known actors such as Meryl Streep, John Leguizamo, Jennifer Lawrence, Constance Wu and Ben Stiller, sent a letter to the SAG officials saying they are prepared to strike.</p><p>The advent of a long strike by the SAG-AFTRA and the WGA would further delay the completion of films and television productions. Even actors and writers from other countries have pledged to honor the labor actions by their counterparts in the U.S.</p><p>Advertising revenues would be severely impacted by an industry-wide strike since the large corporations utilize television, radio and movie screenings to promote their products. A delay in film releases will inevitably cause significant losses for movie houses which are still reeling from the pandemic. Many theaters have closed in major urban areas unable to recover from the revenue losses over a period of nearly two years of lockdowns and public health restrictions.</p><p>Moreover, those writers, actors and announcers working in the industry would be faced with the grim prospects of permanent layoffs. This is why the union leaders are sounding the alarm that the role of writers and actors are at stake in the current phase of labor relations in the industry.</p><p>As the chief negotiator for the SAG Crabtree-Ireland noted:</p><p>“We’re looking to make sure that acting can be a sustainable career choice for people, not just the 100 most famous celebrities in the world, but for the whole large population of our membership. They should be able to make a living and you know, pay a mortgage or pay rent like everybody else. We’re fundamentally interested in making sure that our members share in the success of projects that they create. We have a real vested interest in making sure that something significant is done about this, so that we’re not trying to fix it retroactively three years from now. It needs to be done now.”</p><p>One of the most anticipated films of the summer, “Oppenheimer”, made its UK premiere on July 12 in London. The red-carpet celebration was held to promote the official release on July 21 by Universal Pictures. The film is based on the role of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist involved in the manufacture of the first atomic bomb known as the Manhattan Project.</p><p>Co-star Emily Blunt said that in the event of a strike by the SAG-AFTRA she would not remain in Britain for the broader opening and would return to the U.S. She was quoted as saying:</p><p>“I think right now we are just sorting of … I hope everyone makes a fair deal and we are here to celebrate this movie. And if they call it, we’ll be leaving together as cast in unity with everyone …We are gonna have to. We will see what happens. Right now, it’s the joy to be together.”</p><p>A Summer of Strikes</p><p>In the U.S., the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike comes amid a wave of industrial actions. The Teamsters union representing 340,000 UPS workers are slated to walk off the job at the end of July. This could represent the largest private sector strike against a single employer in U.S. history.</p><p>The UAW began its negotiations with the automotive industry during mid-July, where the new leadership has pledged to take a harder line against the corporations. The traditional handshake between labor and management was avoided to indicate that the union leadership is committed to protecting the interests of the workers.</p><p>UAW leaders have postponed any presidential endorsements until further notice unlike the AFL-CIO, which at its recent national conference, gave its full backing to the re-election of Democratic Party President Joe Biden. The AFL-CIO has said publicly that Biden is the most pro-labor president in history.</p><p>Nonetheless, the majority of rank-and-file workers obviously have a different opinion. Several recent polls reveal that Biden’s ratings remain extremely low for a president in his first term. The majority of registered voters interviewed said that Biden should not seek another term due to his age.</p><p>However, even more significantly, most people stated that the economy was the major concern in the present period. There have been monthly reports saying that the jobless rate stands at 3.4-3.5%.</p><p>Even though the unemployment rate is low, the inability of workers to keep up with the rate of inflation has fueled hardships at the gas stations, supermarkets, car dealerships, rental properties and the payments for mortgage rates. The phenomenon of rising prices for energy and durable goods has slowed since the middle of 2022.</p><p>However, the costs for essential commodities and services are still far too high for many working families and the extremely impoverished. The federal minimum wage in the U.S. has not been raised since 2009 during the Great Recession.</p><p>Consequently, the working class must continue to organize and act in order to protect its own interests. Otherwise, the rightward shift related to labor relations will continue rendering people to even more dire social conditions across the U.S.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-38867375669794642362023-08-04T15:44:00.001-04:002023-08-04T15:44:03.317-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Artificial Intelligence and the Class Struggle</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPY7Y7dbA9Dc1H0_vIZ1Fg6HTCpotydU9gF7PaX09f-NgkVp-KoRa58CooyAjRq7AQECKEMcjxtcUttgbLjkqtXEV4VZS07TLrrHr5ennxB65TpyPhjJL1CtIz6zk_K-0CsTj7s3GGN9u5fmZplf3-IfV77B1M4-y5Cev0HItSq3ATB3wY8-Q16e9zd0VW/s1000/Artificial%20Intelligence%20graphic.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="1000" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPY7Y7dbA9Dc1H0_vIZ1Fg6HTCpotydU9gF7PaX09f-NgkVp-KoRa58CooyAjRq7AQECKEMcjxtcUttgbLjkqtXEV4VZS07TLrrHr5ennxB65TpyPhjJL1CtIz6zk_K-0CsTj7s3GGN9u5fmZplf3-IfV77B1M4-y5Cev0HItSq3ATB3wY8-Q16e9zd0VW/w400-h230/Artificial%20Intelligence%20graphic.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>July 24, 2023 </p><p>Fighting Words <a href="https://fighting-words.net/2023/07/24/artificial-intelligence-and-the-class-struggle/">Artificial Intelligence and the Class Struggle – Fighting Words (fighting-words.net)</a></p><p>Artificial Intelligence challenges working class from Hollywood to the Pentagon. | Image: geeksforgeeks.org</p><p>By Chris Fry</p><p>Since the earliest days of the industrial revolution, workers have fought company owners over their use of automated machinery to step up the pace of exploitation.</p><p>“Programmable” looms in textile mills allowed owners to hire children to work 12 to 14 hours a day at half pay.</p><p>Famously, workers used to throw their wooden shoes called “sabot” into the machine gears to force them to stop, hence the word “sabotage”.</p><p>At the Flint sit down strike in 1936, workers barricaded the doors to prevent General Motors from removing the assembly line machinery and setting it up at another location. This tactic helped the workers win the strike and force union recognition.</p><p>Today, the focus of automation has moved from mechanical to digital, particularly with the advent of AI (Artificial Intelligence). Webster’s dictionary provides two related definitions for AI: “1) a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers; and 2) the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior.”</p><p>Current AI applications depend on vast databases of different fields of knowledge (e.g., street maps, pictures, languages, literature, etc.) plus powerful computer hardware and software to interact with those databases to allow applications to simulate human intelligence, speech, behavior, appearance and more.</p><p>The incredible pace of AI’s increased use has even alarmed some of its developers, so much so that 1,000 of them wrote an open letter calling for a six month pause for AI’s most powerful technologies, as a May 1 New York Times article reports:</p><p>In late March, more than 1,000 technology leaders, researchers and other pundits working in and around artificial intelligence signed an open letter warning that A.I. technologies present “profound risks to society and humanity.”</p><p>“Powerful A.I. systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” the letter said.</p><p>“Our ability to understand what could go wrong with very powerful A.I. systems is very weak,” said Yoshua Bengio, a professor and A.I. researcher at the University of Montreal. “So we need to be very careful.”</p><p>These systems can generate untruthful, biased and otherwise toxic information. Systems like GPT-4 get facts wrong and make up information, a phenomenon called “hallucination.”</p><p>Automated weapons systems – the Pentagon’s “Terminator” syndrome</p><p>The most dangerous application of AI to humanity is its use in modern imperialist warfare. On July 9, PBS held an interview with Paul Scharre, Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security, a war industry “think tank”, who said that the Pentagon is already preparing autonomous weapons in its proxy war in Ukraine:</p><p>Well, we’re already seeing drones being used in Ukraine that have all of the components needed to build fully autonomous weapons that can go out over the battlefield, find their own targets, and then all on their own attack those targets without any further human intervention. And that raises very challenging legal, and moral and ethical questions about human control over the use of force of war.</p><p>Of course, these “questions” have not stopped the war industry’s head-long rush to implement AI technology. Scharre complained in his interviewer that the Pentagon is moving too slowly:</p><p>Well, they’re not keeping up. That’s the short version, they’re woefully behind because the culture is so radically different. And the bottom line is, you can’t buy AI the same way that you might buy an aircraft carrier. The military is moving too slow. It’s mired in cumbersome bureaucracy. And the leadership of the Pentagon has tried to shake things up. They had a major reorganization last year of the people working AI and data and software inside the Defense Department.</p><p>But we haven’t seen a lot of changes since then. And so the Pentagon is going to have to find ways to cut through the red tape and move faster if they’re going to stay on top of this very important technology.</p><p>In the famous Terminator movies, autonomous robot weapons destroy their own creators before attacking humanity in general. In a recent blog from the British Campaign for Nuclear disarmament, that scenario was described in a U.S. military simulation:</p><p>Also in May, the Royal Aeronautical Society hosted the ‘Future Combat Air & Space Capabilities Summit’ conference that brought together over 200 delegates from around the world to discuss the future of military air and space capabilities. A blog reporting on the conference mentioned how AI was a major theme and a presentation from Col Tucker ‘Cinco’ Hamilton, the Chief of AI Test and Operations, USAF, warned against an over reliance on AI systems and noted that they were easy to trick and deceive. They can also create unexpected strategies to achieve their goals, and he noted that in one simulated test an AI-enabled drone was told to identify and destroy ground-based missile sites.</p><p>The final firing decision was to be made by a human, but the system had been trained that destruction of the missile site was the top priority. The AI decided therefore that ‘no-go’ decisions from the human were interfering with its higher mission and, in the simulation, it attacked the operator. Hamilton was reported as saying that the human operator would tell it not to kill the threat, “but it got its points by killing that threat. So, what did it do? … It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective.” Although the system was trained not to kill the operator, it started destroying the communication tower used to connect with the drone.</p><p>The Pentagon excuses itself for developing these dangerous weapons AI applications by saying that the People’s Republic of China is also developing these systems. But it must be pointed out that it is the U.S. fleet that is parading its nuclear-armed warships just off the coast of China in its arrogant and provocative “freedom of navigation” campaign, giving China no warning time to respond to an attack. U.S. Imperialism has no such justification.</p><p>AI and the strike by the Writers and Screen Actors Guilds</p><p>Artificial Intelligence is a major issue in the ongoing strike by writers and movie production workers, including actors, and the entertainment industry’s corporate owners, called the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP). This “alliance” includes such giants as Amazon, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, HBO and The Walt Disney Company, the parent company of ABC News.</p><p>This is the first combined strike by these two groups of workers since 1960. The real pay for these workers after inflation has greatly declined in the last decade while the pay for owners and executives has skyrocketed. Along with demanding higher pay, these unions are demanding that AI applications not be used against them to lower their compensation.</p><p>AI applications like ChatGPT can “scrape” millions of documents from the internet without the writers’ permission to create new documents, or in this case, new story scripts. The writers call AI “plagiarism machines.”</p><p>For the writers, they demand that their writing not be used to “train” AI applications, and they not be tasked to correct AI generated scripts, for which they would receive less pay.</p><p>As one striking worker put it:</p><p>On Twitter, screenwriter C. Robert Cargill expressed similar concerns, writing, “The immediate fear of AI isn’t that us writers will have our work replaced by artificially generated content. It’s that we will be underpaid to rewrite that trash into something we could have done better from the start. This is what the WGA is opposing, and the studios want.”</p><p>The Screen Actors Guild has parallel demands regarding AI as their fellow strikers from the Writers Guild. As ABC News reported on July 19:</p><p>In addition to a pay hike, SAG-AFTRA said it proposed a comprehensive set of provisions to grant informed consent and fair compensation when a “digital replica” is made or an actor’s performance is changed using artificial intelligence. The union also said it proposed a comprehensive plan for actors to participate in streaming revenue, claiming the current business model has eroded our residual income for actors.</p><p>These AI issues may seem obscure to many members of the working class and oppressed communities. But it is important to remember that artificial intelligence in the hands of the Wall Street billionaires and Pentagon generals will lead to more and more exploitation for our class and increase the chances of a global nuclear catastrophe for our planet.</p><p>AI could offer tremendous social benefits, such as medical cures and economic scientific planning, but only if it is controlled by the workers and oppressed through a socialist system.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-53404269248049313772023-08-04T15:38:00.008-04:002023-08-04T15:38:55.719-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>NATO Summit Won’t Stop Ukraine’s Declining Fortunes</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU5ii8xRIrU4GC22_Ap-j61qMmcN2p8rcb1hslmC6pnV-H-YiQyzj0tAUcAHFaGXm60_0IuFGj9KPLxL9Gzr__N6yT_127aMm3sxpGU8ubLZIxqPD8CPX_I6PTPiU1gCBI3cdZnzPTK4DgPSqSJprQjjHzTilgocdP6UhWJkn51kyjoQeK044l3KAcYzCe/s678/NATO%20Summit%20photo.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="678" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU5ii8xRIrU4GC22_Ap-j61qMmcN2p8rcb1hslmC6pnV-H-YiQyzj0tAUcAHFaGXm60_0IuFGj9KPLxL9Gzr__N6yT_127aMm3sxpGU8ubLZIxqPD8CPX_I6PTPiU1gCBI3cdZnzPTK4DgPSqSJprQjjHzTilgocdP6UhWJkn51kyjoQeK044l3KAcYzCe/w400-h219/NATO%20Summit%20photo.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>July 19, 2023</p><p>Fighting Words <a href="https://fighting-words.net/2023/07/19/nato-summit-wont-stop-ukraines-declining-fortunes/">NATO Summit Won’t Stop Ukraine’s Declining Fortunes – Fighting Words (fighting-words.net)</a></p><p>31 NATO leaders at Vilnius Summit cannot save Ukraine proxy war</p><p>By David Sole</p><p>The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) held a high level summit July 11-12 in the capital of Lithuania not far from the Ukrainian battlefields. Delegates included U.S. President Joe Biden, the leaders of Germany, France, the United Kingdom and 27 other NATO allies. Central to their discussions was what to do about the failure of NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine which is becoming harder to cover up with the Ukrainian “offensive” stalled going into its 7th week.</p><p>Of course Ukraine’s President Zelensky was in attendance, too. Having been given over $100 billion in military assistance over the past 17 months, NATO officials have to figure out their next moves since “victory” over the Russian Federation is now further away than ever. It was probably inevitable that the summit revealed deepening cracks among the allies.</p><p>CNN World headlined “NATO’s crucial summit in Vilnius nearly came off the rails and gave Russia a PR victory.” Zelensky was so upset with the failure of NATO to lay out a clear path to membership that he denounced the gathering in a tweet as “absurd.” The British Defense Secretary was quoted as saying that Ukraine “should be more grateful for the support it has already received.”</p><p>The New York Times noted on July 19 that for NATO to project unity “is getting harder to sustain as the war in Ukraine goes on.” It states that “the membership disputes may be overshadowed by new worries that the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive is bogged down, and that Kyiv could run out of ammunition.”</p><p>Ukraine has gotten pledges for more weapons to keep the proxy war going. France will be supplying long-range missiles and Germany will send more tank ammunition. Denmark and the Netherlands announced that they, along with 9 other NATO countries, would start training Ukrainian pilots to fly the F-16 fighter jet. President Biden, several months ago, withdrew the U.S.’s objection to sending F-16s onto the battlefield. It is also reported that Biden may agree to send long range Army Tactical Missile Systems with a range of 190 miles.</p><p>While some of these weapons would not arrive for months or even next year, the U.S. has been shipping 155 artillery rounds that release hundreds of cluster bomblets – a weapon outlawed by most countries world-wide. Many of these cluster bombs fail to detonate and may be around years after a conflict inflicing death and injuries on civilians.</p><p>This type of shell is not effective against tanks or armored fighting vehicles, which is really what Ukraine has been demanding. Unfortunately for them the U.S. and the rest of NATO has run through all their stockpiles of 155 mm artillery shells and is sending these hated weapons instead.</p><p>None of these weapons can or will change the unequal balance of forces. Even Western experts agree with the Russian Ministry of Defense that Ukraine has lost up to one-third of its tanks and heavy armor in the first weeks of the offensive, along with tens of thousands of troops killed or wounded.</p><p>Reports that those severe losses have slowed down appear to come from the fact that Ukrainian battle commanders are not sending out their armor into the field of combat. Ukrainian Commander in Chief General Valery Zalushny complains that “the West hasn’t given him enough to fight with. He wants air superiority, long-range missiles, and the ability to have as many artillery shells as Russia can fire” according to the Washington Post.</p><p>Zaluzhny’s wish list is beyond the ability of the West to manufacture and provide. There is also the concern that the U.S. and its allies will go too far and be dragged into a direct war with the Russian Federation.</p><p>Another alarming announcement came from Biden following the NATO summit. On July 13 the President authorized the call up of 3,000 military reservists to be sent to eastern Europe. U.S. troops already are stationed in countries bordering Ukraine, such as Poland and Romania.</p><p>With little positive to report on their Ukrainian proxies in the war, the Western media has shifted its attention to a change in the Russian high command. A July 13 report in the New York Times “has exposed dissension and fueled a shake-up in the Russian military, as it tries to fend off a Ukrainian advance.”</p><p>The first thing to note is that, for 6 weeks and at tremendous cost to themselves, the Ukrainian armed forces have failed to make any significant “advance” against the heavily dug in Russian lines.</p><p>The article does report that a top Russian general inside Ukraine has been replaced whereupon he recorded a four minute denunciation of his superior officers. General Ivan Popov addressed himself to his troops, a serious breach of discipline, especially in wartime. Popov’s remarks were put on social media by a former general and current legislator.</p><p>Popov, however, does not appear to have any relation to the Wagner group insurrection inside of Russia three weeks ago led by its chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. Questions also were raised about the whereabouts of General Sergei Surovikin, head of the air force and previously head of Russian forces in Ukraine. Popov apparently had been complaining about “the lack of counter-battery and artillery reconnaissance capabilities” among other issues.</p><p>Anyone familiar with military history can cite numerous battlefield command replacements under the intense pressures of war. The U.S. Civil War, for example, saw the Northern troops repeatedly defeated over and again by the Southern slave owners’ armies. General George B. McClellan was appointed head of the Army of the Potomac by President Lincoln in the summer of 1861. Only months later Lincoln removed him from his post as General-in-chief of the Union forces (March 1862). In November 1862 Lincoln removed him from command. McClellan is reported to have conspired to carry out a coup in his anger against Lincoln and failed in his run for the presidency in the 1864 elections.</p><p>During the Korean War (June 25, 1950 0 July 27, 1953) President Harry S Truman appointed World War II hero General Douglas MacArthur as Commander-in-Chief of U.S. forces. Less than one year later, on April 11, 1951, President Truman fired MacArthur.</p><p>It would be unwise to read too much into command shake-ups in the Russian military. It is inevitable that mistakes will be made and that supply problems will arise. The problems inevitably are intensified by the life and death situation at the front lines. The powerful resistance shown by the Russian forces over the past 17 months, their ability to advance and, when necessary retreat, to prepare for and stop Ukrainian offensives and to minimize their casualties with use of superior weapons systems, all are evidence of a strong, motivated rank and file and an evolving, capable military leadership.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-48593198519874312712023-08-04T15:34:00.004-04:002023-08-04T15:34:31.123-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Haitians Protest UN Occupation and Pending Foreign “Intervention”</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTrGz2ZiZFmQ11cqdv7uInxpFXsgbT8LkwDpINyljIG9xgqo9HS-rbU9suw1dBaNeDI5E7FSbGnfn92nCOjyIFC7yYvSERZDaFfGthJEAbLBWXhU61bj4mePVHfZb8EkLzSohAZcuSEmxobP4YNFH8SspueXWNevsEHcCrBJTHWy0nBlClYoL7g2OHTJwP/s1536/Haiti%20mass%20demonstration.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1536" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTrGz2ZiZFmQ11cqdv7uInxpFXsgbT8LkwDpINyljIG9xgqo9HS-rbU9suw1dBaNeDI5E7FSbGnfn92nCOjyIFC7yYvSERZDaFfGthJEAbLBWXhU61bj4mePVHfZb8EkLzSohAZcuSEmxobP4YNFH8SspueXWNevsEHcCrBJTHWy0nBlClYoL7g2OHTJwP/w400-h266/Haiti%20mass%20demonstration.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>INTERVIEW WITH HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE MEMBER SETH DONNELLY</p><p>July 24, 2023 </p><p>Fighting Words <a href="https://fighting-words.net/2023/07/24/haitians-protest-un-occupation-and-pending-foreign-intervention/">Haitians Protest UN Occupation and Pending Foreign “Intervention” – Fighting Words (fighting-words.net)</a></p><p>Haitians continue protests against corruption and imperialist intervention. | Photo: wola.org</p><p>By Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor</p><p>The US and Canada have been arguing for a multilateral military intervention in Haiti led by the army of a third country, possibly even Rwanda, to support the puppet regime that they installed. They are using “gang violence” as the racist excuse, but there are actually more gang killings in Jamaica. In fact, the people of Haiti have been protesting in the streets to get the UN and the Core Group out of Haiti and get the US to stop supporting the illegitimate, unelected prime minister, Ariel Henry.</p><p>I spoke to Haiti Action Committee activist Seth Donnelly, a public school teacher who has traveled to Haiti over 20 times since the 2004 coup that removed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.</p><p>ANN GARRISON: Seth Donnelly, can you tell us what you see going on in Haiti?</p><p>SETH DONNELY: Yes, absolutely. The current situation is one of a neocolonial dictatorship, installed primarily by the United States, under the UN occupation.</p><p>AG: That’s the UN mission that the UN Security Council renewed on July 14, right? Not the foreign military force that the US and Canada are pushing for.</p><p>SD: Right. So since the US-orchestrated coup in 2004 against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and hundreds of other democratically elected officials at all levels, Haiti has been under occupation. And within that context, in 2011 the US installed the current regime that is in power in Haiti, that of the Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK).</p><p>When I say installed, there’s extensive evidence that Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, literally intervened, went to Haiti and maneuvered Michel Martelly into power after US-sponsored elections that were already fraudulent, given that the the largest political party in the country, Fanmi Lavalas, wasn’t allowed to participate.</p><p>Martelly is like the godfather of the PHTK, a very right-wing powerbroker connected to the Haitian oligarchy. He handpicked a successor, Jovenel Moise, who took power after more fraudulent US-sponsored elections in 2016.</p><p>Readers may know that Jovenel Moise was then assassinated in the summer of 2021. Based on the evidence that keeps being unearthed, this was quite possibly a US-backed assassination involving elements within the PHTK, including the current US-backed, unelected prime minister, Ariel Henry.</p><p>So under this current Ariel Henry regime, we have seen a proliferation of massacres carried out by the police and what US media calls gangs. They’re more accurately understood as paramilitaries, heavily armed paramilitaries, many of which work closely with the police, such as the G-9 Federation, led by the ex-police officer, Jimmy Chérizier, popularly known as “Barbecue.” A few notorious examples of such massacres include the 2018 Lasalin massacre (see this video) and the 2019 massacres in the Tokyo and Site Vensan (Cite Vincent) neighborhoods. The Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic documented this pattern in its 2021 report “Killing with Impunity: State-Sanctioned Massacres in Haiti.”</p><p>These paramilitaries and the police have laid siege to popular neighborhoods of resistance to the regime. They’ve destroyed them, burned down houses, and massacred men, women, and children.</p><p>AG: And what has the International Monetary Fund been doing amidst all this?</p><p>SD: The PHTK regime has loyally implemented IMF dictates. For example, removing the fuel subsidy. And that has resulted in cost-push inflation, which has created the worst hunger crisis in Haiti in many generations. Over half the population is now suffering from extreme food insecurity and malnutrition. Children are once again eating mud cookies. By March 2023, a record 4.9 million people were experiencing acute hunger, nearly half the population. Haiti’s food inflation is among the highest in the world, increasing by 48% between February 2022 and February 2023.</p><p>AG: There haven’t been any recent elections, have there?</p><p>SD: There’s not a single official legitimately left in office, because the regime is incapable of holding free and fair elections. All formerly elected officials are legally termed out.</p><p>So this is the situation in which the Biden administration is arguing for yet another “intervention,” which is really more of an invasion, as if that’s the solution. It’s akin to pretending that the arsonists will put out the fire they started.</p><p>AG: Canada too, right? Both US and Canadian mining companies are heavily involved in Haiti.</p><p>SD: Right. Canada too, and that’s clearly one of the main reasons the US and Canada have both been pushing this intervention.</p><p>AG: And what about the Haitian people?</p><p>SD: The Haitian people have been out in the streets protesting the idea of a foreign intervention. Operating at the base of the mass movement of the poor majority is Fanmi Lavalas, the most significant political party in Haiti, which has consistently been the target of US-backed political repression and terror. The mass movement demands that there be no foreign intervention. The Haitian people are struggling today to complete the revolution of 1804, to affirm their right to self-determination, to dismantle this hated neocolonial regime, and install a genuine transition government.</p><p>So that’s where we’re at, and the Biden administration has doubled down in supporting the government, despite opposition from even some Democrats in Congress. Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken continue to treat Ariel Henry as if he’s a legitimate leader that needs to be at the table for negotiations. They continue to fund the police hand over fist despite massive evidence that the police are linked to the gangs and paramilitaries.</p><p>AG: Biden has been mercilessly deporting Haitians too, hasn’t he?</p><p>SD: Biden has deported more Haitians than the last three presidents combined. That’s Trump, Obama, and Bush Jr.</p><p>Haitians are fleeing hunger and violence, and if they make it to the US/Mexico border, they’re rounded up en masse, as we saw in the photos of the US Border Patrol chasing refugees, border patrol agents on horses using the reins as whips.</p><p>So this is an absolute humanitarian disaster. It’s arguably the worst human rights crisis in the Americas. And it’s made in the USA.</p><p>AG: What about Biden’s support for the police?</p><p>SD: The police in Haiti are deeply connected to the repression and to the massacres, as well as targeted killings of journalists. There’ve been a lot of journalists, independent journalists, killed by the police. For example, on October 30th, 2022, police shot an unarmed journalist, Romelo Vilsaint, in the head, and killed him during a protest at the Delmas police station where he and other journalists were demanding the release of a jailed colleague, Robest Dimanche. Police had previously detained Dimanche when he was covering a street protest.</p><p>And we can contrast the Biden administration’s support for the police with how the administration sanctioned the Cuban police after a relatively minor crackdown in Cuba after the protests in July 2021. I think there may have been one fatality in that, whereas in Haiti, the police killings are epidemic, and all the US does is shower them with more money.</p><p>AG: The news is reporting that there are only 9000 police in Haiti, and more are needed. This proposed international intervention is supposed to help them. I don’t think those pushing it are likely to get it past the Security Council, and they know that, so they’re talking about some sort of multilateral force organized and sent in without UN Security Council approval.</p><p>SD: Right. One of President Aristide’s greatest accomplishments— before the second US-backed coup d’état in 2004—was to dissolve the Haitian military. The military had been a backbone of US control during the Papa Doc and Baby Doc dictatorships throughout the 20th century.</p><p>President Aristide instead sought to develop a small, professional police force, with training from countries such as Switzerland, that could protect, rather than terrorize, the Haitian people. Since the 2004 coup, the US has supported the reintegration of former military and death squad elements back into this police force, funding its transformation once again into an agent of terror.</p><p>The narrative being put out in the US media, and by the US and Canadian governments and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres—who is very much involved in this occupation—is that the police are outgunned by the “gangs” and that the police need more equipment and weapons and training and the support of foreign intervention.</p><p>What that narrative misses is that the police are heavily weaponized against the people, and overwhelmingly, at very high levels of command, working with the paramilitaries to terrorize the population.</p><p>AG: How are people on the ground resisting all this?</p><p>SD: There was an interesting development that started this past spring. The population rose up against the paramilitaries or “gangs” who had been occupying their neighborhoods. This became known as the “Bwa Kale” movement. And then, within a matter of weeks, the population brought the level of violence and the kidnappings down dramatically.</p><p>This did involve violence by ordinary people who have just been pushed to the brink, but what Bwa Kale shows you is that when the people organize at a base level, they can tackle the problem of insecurity. So clearly funding the police is not working to bring down crime. What brings down crime is people taking power.</p><p>AG: What sort of privilege is the regime getting from being in power?</p><p>SD: Well, first, it’s your classic neocolonial regime, in the most direct sense that it was literally installed by the US. Hillary Clinton, who, like I said, maneuvered the first PHTK leader, Martelly, into power, so there’s that classic architecture of colonialism.</p><p>Second, Haiti is mineral rich. It’s got bauxite. It’s got petroleum, gold, and more. Because of the racism in the US media and the ignorance it inflicts, Americans are always asking, “Oh, why is Haiti so poor?” but Haiti is not poor. Haiti is resource rich. It’s just the most plundered country in the Americas, similar to the Congo.</p><p>The regime has even been trying to change the mining law to give it more power. As it is now, the parliament has to approve mining concessions, but the PHTK regime wants to make that an executive decision, so that gold mining companies from Canada and the United States can just come in without having to go through Parliament.</p><p>Regime officials also accumulate wealth by:</p><p>Engaging in pervasive corruption and the massive looting of public funds.</p><p>Perpetuating land grabs and the dispossession of Haitian farmers, including by former PHTK President Jovenel Moise himself to enlarge his personal banana republic.</p><p>There’s tremendous pocketing of public monies by high level PHTK officials. Hence what they call the PetroCaribe scandal, provoking huge street protests in 2018.</p><p>There are linkages between this regime and the small number of families that dominate the import/export businesses, including organized crime, in Haiti. That’s most likely why Jovenel Moise was killed. He was probably stepping on the wrong toes.</p><p>So there are a lot of economic advantages to the regime, and I’m sure that filters down to various levels of the police force, who are getting paid off and protected from paramilitary violence by working with the paramilitaries.</p><p>AG: Are there any decent police?</p><p>SD: There are officers who are dedicated to protecting the population, but many of them have been killed. There’ve been police protests against the PHTK regime by police officers who say they’re being set up to be killed because the government and the PHTK are working with the paramilitaries.</p><p>AG: Okay, so you say there’s a lot of resource extraction going on. It’s just not benefiting the people. And this means gold, petroleum, and various minerals, including bauxite?</p><p>SD: Yeah. It would be good to do the type of research that folks have been doing since the coup in Peru against Castillo—looking at the mining concessions under the current regime in Peru.</p><p>AG: I’ve seen in the Congo that studying and reporting on mining concessions can be a good way to get yourself killed.</p><p>SD: I’m sure but I know folks have been doing that research in Haiti.</p><p>And in addition to the mining there are of course the free trade zones for exploiting Haitian labor. The Clintons funded the construction of this big free trade zone in the north of Haiti, the Caracol Industrial Park for textiles that led to a lot of land grabbing.</p><p>AG: When you say the Clintons, do you mean the Clintons operating through various NGOs or Bill Clinton when he was president?</p><p>SD: No, I mean, more recently, the Caracol Industrial Park was backed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and funded by the Obama Administration. When Bill Clinton was president he likewise pushed the neoliberal policies onto Haiti that led, among other things, to the destruction of Haiti’s domestic rice production.</p><p>AG: In this context, I think we should note that Hillary Clinton’s brother Tony Rodham was put on the board of a corporation that was then given a Haitian gold mining lease.</p><p>SD: Yes.</p><p>AG: And not because he knows anything about gold mining.</p><p>SD: I don’t think many people in this country adequately grasp the sheer criminality of the Clintons in particular. The Clintons, as instruments of US imperialism in Haiti, have been very destructive in so many ways, going all the way down to the trailers that were sent to supposedly house people after the 2010 earthquake. The Clinton Foundation installed trailers that were sent from New Orleans and that were contaminated with formaldehyde.</p><p>AG: OK, let me try to summarize the layers of conflict you’ve been describing here. The US, which represents various resource extractivist industries and individuals, put an oligarchic regime in power. This oligarchic regime is using the police and some of these paramilitary gangs to control the people amidst all this spiraling violence and chaos while the US and Canada are both doubling down in their support for it. There are various police, paramilitary, criminal and oligarchic elements competing for power. And at the same time you have a popular uprising being repressed by the oligarchy, the police, the paramilitary “gangs,” and the UN occupation, which could soon expand to further “multilateral intervention” backed by the US and Canada.</p><p>SD: That’s it in a nutshell.</p><p>AG: Lastly then, could you tell us some more about the popular movement and the role that Jean-Bertrand Aristide is still playing in it?</p><p>SD: Lavalas refers to the mass, grassroots movement of workers, peasants, street vendors, students, and other sectors that successfully toppled the Baby Doc Duvalier dictatorship and created the conditions for the free and fair elections of 1990 that led to the landslide victory of President Aristide. In Kreyol, Lavalas means flood, the idea being that each of us is a drop of water and that when we unite, we become a flood. The Lavalas movement and its political party, Fanmi Lavalas, remain the most potent political forces on the ground today in Haiti. The Haitian people have not forgotten the very real achievements in education, healthcare, housing, food production, and human rights when Lavalas was in power prior to the last coup.</p><p>Fanmi Lavalas candidates have dominated in every free and fair election, thus the 2004 coup and political exclusion and repression ever since under US domination. Despite this, President Aristide returned to Haiti from exile in South Africa in 2011, against the opposition of President Obama. Since his return to Haiti, he has, with international solidarity, reopened and expanded UNIFA, a flagship university—with medical, legal, engineering, and agronomy schools—that provides education to those otherwise unable to access it. UNIFA is a beacon of hope today in Haiti and a symbol of the new Haiti that the masses of the people in the street are struggling to build.</p><p>Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at ann(at)anngarrison.com. Please help to support her work on Patreon.</p><p>Seth Donnelly is a public school teacher who has been to Haiti more than 20 times since the 2004 coup that removed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He is also the author of “The Lie of Global Prosperity: How Neoliberals Distort Data to Mask Poverty and Exploitation” from Monthly Review Press.</p><p>Published in Black Agenda Report, July 19, 2023</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-50520992681304158302023-08-04T15:18:00.009-04:002023-08-04T16:31:53.836-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>What’s Going on Next Door in Mexico – and Why Don’t We Know?</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDwCcK3QaPFOGIwQXgV_jjXd4V45_sKHyiAl4PTkRvTY4InCfG_5hRyYpKuCyAwjQ81NmFbhYoVU-vXTWcaTAhbdB3D-N-kG8WltLEWpsqqC9QsKFAoBSjMFSaXGJorw1eRI4HjPZ03abhLJm-WRiD9vUCRsPibbKmOkU6J7S8cy7OdzL2EXC6PnaIVFj9/s678/Mexico%20President%20AMLO%20addresses%20the%20people.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="678" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDwCcK3QaPFOGIwQXgV_jjXd4V45_sKHyiAl4PTkRvTY4InCfG_5hRyYpKuCyAwjQ81NmFbhYoVU-vXTWcaTAhbdB3D-N-kG8WltLEWpsqqC9QsKFAoBSjMFSaXGJorw1eRI4HjPZ03abhLJm-WRiD9vUCRsPibbKmOkU6J7S8cy7OdzL2EXC6PnaIVFj9/w400-h225/Mexico%20President%20AMLO%20addresses%20the%20people.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>WEBINAR WAS ORGANIZED BY MORATORIUM NOW! COALITION</p><p>July 24, 2023</p><p>By Fighting Words Staff</p><p>To watch the recording of this webinar go to the following link: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqjlmePX9qs">What's going on next door in Mexico - and why don't we know?! - YouTube</a></p><p>The Moratorium NOW! Coalition organized a webinar on July 10 entitled “What’s going on next door in Mexico – and why don’t we know?!”. The idea for the forum was raised after leading members of the Republican party called for a U.S. military attack on Mexico. The calls became louder after Mexico expressed interest in joining BRICS. A goal of the forum was to begin the process of educating activists about developments in Mexico and the need for solidarity with the people of Mexico. The webinar featured members of the Mexico Solidarity Project.</p><p>The call for the forum stated:</p><p>In 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) won a landslide victory to become México’s President. His progressive party, Morena, was only 4 years old. Its base is working people and social movements. What has happened since then? Why is México important for us in Detroit?</p><p>Come hear from activists in the México Solidarity Project. They’ll discuss the historical relationship of the US and México, what has happened during AMLO’s Presidency, and why solidarity between Mexican and US peoples is critical for positive change in both countries.</p><p>Panelists:</p><p>* Bill Gallegos is a founder and leader of the Chicano movement of the 60’s and 70’s. His penetrating Marxist based analyses on US/Mexico relations, the formation of Chicanos as a people, and the importance of the Southwest have informed and guided many of us.</p><p>*Javier Bravo is a Morena activist, pushing it from the left. A professor at Guanajuato University, he also acts as a resource for Casa Obrera del Bajio, a center for independent worker organizing formed during the union campaign at the GM plant in Silao.</p><p>* Bruce Hobson has spent half his life in México, and has the distinction of having been deported by México in the 1990’s for his suspected support of the Zapatista movement. He lives in Guanajuato, and builds people to people ties between the MSP and Mexican political and social activists.</p><p>*Meizhu Lui is the daughter of Chinese immigrants, and cut her political teeth as a rank and file unionist in Boston. She has worked to build unity among peoples of color in the US, and now with the people of México; she co-chairs the joint MSP/Labor Notes labor solidarity committee.</p><p>*Jorge Mújica Murias works as the Strategic Campaigns Organizer of Arise Chicago, a worker Center. Born in Mexico, Jorge participated in labor and popular movements until he emigrated to the United States in 1987. Has worked as a journalist for several newspapers, Univision and Telemundo, and twice won the First Place award for Investigative Reporting from the Association of Hispanic Publicists. He is one of the main organizers of the 2006 immigrant rights marches, and co-author of “Voces Migrantes, Movimiento 10 de Marzo”, a book about the immigration movement. Jorge has worked for several labor unions, is a member of the National Council of the National Union of Writers, and several community organizations that have fought for the interests of the Mexican community abroad. He was elected to the Mexican Federal Congress in 2021, representing the Mexican diaspora.</p><p>Moreno is the acronym for the Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (National Regeneration Movement). The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), is a leader of Moreno and was elected in 2018.</p><p>Moratorium NOW! Coalition intends to organize additional forums regarding Mexico in collaboration with the Mexico Solidarity Project.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-47171008374664707912023-08-03T23:52:00.004-04:002023-08-03T23:52:34.117-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>C.L.R. James (aka, J.R. Johnson): World Events Are of Great Importance to U.S. Labor, (September 1944)</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy18Ub0Z3v6T1nYwF6Ta61-2Sxw0vGlKzIOJcwAYYVxq1uodA92s6XUwOxwmJvUQKcEtzTM0pJoblydLiRZi0BoEAHgAxyGByNlFarN0m9MMNuT6NOkQRtqNiRMp0zDQakBf6jlEdWHYalc_2YrzfPwHGeuKJT3YPmIaJYpk0W7j8vtOinF6K7G-X5cQ9J/s290/CLR%20James%20speaks%20to%20crowd%20in%20London.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="290" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy18Ub0Z3v6T1nYwF6Ta61-2Sxw0vGlKzIOJcwAYYVxq1uodA92s6XUwOxwmJvUQKcEtzTM0pJoblydLiRZi0BoEAHgAxyGByNlFarN0m9MMNuT6NOkQRtqNiRMp0zDQakBf6jlEdWHYalc_2YrzfPwHGeuKJT3YPmIaJYpk0W7j8vtOinF6K7G-X5cQ9J/w400-h303/CLR%20James%20speaks%20to%20crowd%20in%20London.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>From Labor Action, Vol. 8 No. 39, 25 September 1944, p. 4.</p><p>Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for MIA.</p><p>In 1933 the American working class was battling with an economic crisis such as had never before struck this rich and prosperous country. Unaccustomed to think in terms of danger to its national existence, the American working, class took little interest in the accession to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany. Two years before, the Japanese imperialists had invaded Manchuria. The event had caused even less excitement among the American workers.</p><p>Yet these two happenings were the beginnings of what became a worldwide catastrophe, dragging the whole of humanity into a whirlpool of blood and destruction. The American working class is paying and will continue to pay for the fact that it did not recognize then the true significance of the invasion of Manchuria and the Nazi victory.</p><p>The Rulers Knew</p><p>The American ruling class, however, knew quite well what was involved. Many of the biggest capitalists, Ford, for example, rejoiced openly at the destruction of the German working class movement by Hitler. Had the U.S. government exerted its influence in Europe, Hitler could have been blown out of existence before he had an army of a quarter of a million men. China could have been supported in an effort to strengthen itself against Japan. But imperialists never fight wars for any purpose except imperialist interests.</p><p>The American government was kept informed of all the intrigues in Europe with and against Hitler. It formally expressed sympathy for the Chinese, while American capitalism armed Japan for that war as for the present one. It stood by and saw Ethiopia raped. It joined Britain, France and Stalinist Russia in the blockade and strangulation of the workers of Spain in their fight against the fascist uprising.</p><p>Masses Are Rising</p><p>Now today after this most dreadful of wars, the European workers are holding up again. Italy is seething with discontent, the French masses have shown once more that the spirit which produced the great French Revolution and the Commune still burns as brightly as ever in France. In every occupied country the masses are ready to fight for their liberation and the creation of a new Europe.</p><p>But once more the American ruling class is alive to the situation. Having had to join in the crushing of an imperialist rival which had grown too dangerous, they are, as ever, alert to the necessity of destroying the working class as an independent force in European society. They are as determined as ever to crush the nationalist aspirations of the Oriental peoples. To the Anglo-American ruling classes has been added a formidable ally. Stalinist Russia, trading on the traditions and achievements of the October Revolution, is now at one with Britain and America in the determination to reduce the European workers to submission and impotence in their efforts to carve out their own destiny.</p><p>Labor’s Great Interest</p><p>The American working class, in its own interest, cannot afford to allow European affairs to be ordered and regulated by the imperialists in the interests of American and other capital. The American proletariat cannot afford to stand by and see the hundreds of millions of Asiatics made once more into milch cows over whom imperialists, Eastern and Western, fight their bloody wars. The American workers must intervene with an independent policy. We failed to intervene in 1933, when the German workers were crushed. We failed to intervene in 1936 to save the Spanish Revolution. See how bitterly we have paid!</p><p>Today as the European war begins to draw to a close, the signs are thick in the heavens that the imperialists are using the prestige of victory, the power of their arms, and the power of the productive system AGAINST the working masses of Europe. Darlan, Badoglio, Giraud and then de Gaulle all tell the tale. Stalin, afraid of the Warsaw workers, pushed it into the jaws of the German army and left it to bleed to death or to paralysis.</p><p>Let us have no misunderstandings. This is a matter of life and death for us. If the imperialists are left free to recreate the old Europe, economic crisis and political reaction will once more radiate to all corners of the globe. The American workers cannot escape it. Therefore, in our own interests we must intervene. We must speak in our own voice, in the voice of organized labor, declaring our solidarity with the struggles for freedom of the European proletariat and the Asiatic peoples.</p><p>Workers Must Speak Out</p><p>We must denounce the counter-revolution of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, and we must denounce it in the voice of American labor, speaking on behalf of the great majority of the American people.</p><p>We must organize assistance, assistance to the fighters, relief to the suffering masses, aid to the workers’ organizations. All this we must do in the name of organized labor.</p><p>Let us speak and act in our own voice. Let us show the great masses everywhere that there is another America besides the America of Roosevelt, of Dewey, of the financiers and industrialists.</p><p>Let us make it clear that there is an America which is the friend of liberty everywhere, that is in complete solidarity with all the oppressed, against all the oppressors everywhere.</p><p>Such an America is the organized labor movement of this country- the greatest in the world. Today it is asserting itself splendidly on the national scene. But as we think of 1933 to the present day, we cannot but see that labor’s independence must be felt on the international scene as well.</p><p>This we must do not only for good will and comradeship but from hard necessity and self-protection. The time is ripe. There can be no delay. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin are in full action for their own aims. Labor must rise to the occasion and challenge their foreign policy with a foreign policy of its own.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-64670504486176516382023-08-03T23:46:00.004-04:002023-08-03T23:46:27.994-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>C.L.R. James (aka, J.R. Johnson): French Workers Revolt Overthrows Nazis; Allied Propagandists Worried Paris Masses Did It Themselves! (September 1944)</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFZsqsK1J4LLB11kawyY5eQSKzkh6PF96J7yFCsL9wnhJQAUsCAAyxdiTm6tTSHUfIa3I95pVAQnsE1ZA48qR_YxxZfR6_YM_3UGY2C0PT_XTv8T_9HXzhj7fHfhtjg3eF7-P5NQb3najtbwhE0V9YzcgIlULlv_ZTj6jB38eoKiVenlWcvAAOiqeWVWAZ/s1200/France%20liberated%20in%201944.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFZsqsK1J4LLB11kawyY5eQSKzkh6PF96J7yFCsL9wnhJQAUsCAAyxdiTm6tTSHUfIa3I95pVAQnsE1ZA48qR_YxxZfR6_YM_3UGY2C0PT_XTv8T_9HXzhj7fHfhtjg3eF7-P5NQb3najtbwhE0V9YzcgIlULlv_ZTj6jB38eoKiVenlWcvAAOiqeWVWAZ/w400-h210/France%20liberated%20in%201944.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>From Labor Action, Vol. 8 No. 36, 4 September 1944, p. 1.</p><p>Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for MIA.</p><p>The ruling class is very disturbed at the praise which the world is showering upon the French Forces of the Interior. A dispatch from London in the New York Times of August 27 expresses clearly, first, the “world-wide” reputation of the French Forces of the Interior, and then goes on to say:</p><p>“However, so lavish has been the praise showered on the FFI and so highly colored are the accounts of some of its operations that the part played by this magnificent guerrilla force in the present campaign is becoming distorted and even exaggerated.”</p><p>And what is it that is griping them? “At the same time the brilliant military achievements of the American and British soldiers have become somewhat obscured.”</p><p>The British and the Americans want the people of France and the world at large to see their imperialist armies, if not one hundred, at least ninety-nine per cent, as the great liberators. That is to be the cover for the domination which they propose to impose.</p><p>Odds Against Underground</p><p>The London correspondent goes on to say what is the simple truth, that the FFI have not got heavy arms and therefore cannot be used against the German army. That the FFI has not these arms and is as poorly armed as it is, is not its own fault. Anglo-American imperialism consistently refused to arm it properly despite appeals, not only from the underground leaders themselves, but also from de Gaulle and his so-called provisional government in Algiers.</p><p>But no lack of arms must dim the glory of the underground movement and what it has contributed to the liberation of Europe from Hitlerite terrorism. This sniping by the ruling class against the global salute to the magnificent popular masses of France is merely a continuation of their policy of giving all credit to the imperialist armies. Thus, they try to embellish the naked imperialism of the war and to disguise their plans for the subjugation of the European people. In reality, the resistance of the millions of the European people to Hitler’s domination of Europe has been a factor of incalculable importance in his defeat. The working class in the United States and all the world over should bear this firmly in mind, and assert it on every possible occasion.</p><p>There are some three hundred million people in Europe who have been under the domination of Hitler. Suppose these masses of workers and peasants had behaved as most of their native rulers did – what would have happened? Hitler would have had an enormous source of manpower for his armies. The million French soldiers who are now interned in Germany, if they had listened to the propaganda of Laval, would have become soldiers in Hitler’s armies. He would have been able to get three or four million more soldiers from Europe. Instead of the constant resistance he met, Hitler would have been able to mobilize scores of millions of workers to produce at the high rate and in the organized manner which characterized Germany before the Nazi regime began to crack. The hundreds of thousands of German soldiers he was compelled to use as German garrisons would have been available for service elsewhere.</p><p>That would have been assistance enough. But it is only one part.</p><p>Masses Said “No” to Nazis</p><p>The mere fact that the masses of the European people gave such a resounding “No!” to Hitler’s “New Order” and refused to follow the large numbers of the possessing classes who were willing to support him – this was a great contribution to the liberation of the continent from Nazi tyranny. This should be added to the magnificent work of the FFI in the actual military conflict which is now taking place.</p><p>This is the true glory of what has taken place in France. And this is what in every part of the world has been celebrated by the popular masses everywhere, The reports that come in show joy not only at the driving out of the hated Nazis from Paris, not only joy that the wonderful city has been spared from destruction, but they show also the deep satisfaction of people everywhere that the masses of the Parisian people themselves fought to accomplish this great task. The uprising in Paris in particular shows that in France the great popular masses were never crushed by Nazi tyranny. THE PEOPLES of Europe in particular who are waiting their turn have gained a wonderful impetus toward taking their national affairs into their own hands by this magnificent action of the French resistance as a whole and the common people of Paris in particular.</p><p>From its own point of view the capitalist class correctly snarls and grumbles about the praise that people are giving to the FFI! It recognizes mass revolutionary action anywhere and under any circumstances as a threat to its authority and prestige everywhere. We, on the other hand, welcome it, though, as Labor Action has pointed out many times, the nationalist revolutionaries are in very grave political danger from their very association with these imperialist robbers.</p><p>New Battles Ahead</p><p>The great battle that will take place in France henceforth is to crush these splendid fighters and reduce them once more to a condition where they can do nothing but take orders from the capitalist government in the same way as they took orders before 1939 from the French governments, which led them to destruction. The working class, which has greeted their efforts so spontaneously and so generously, must realize that such feeling is not enough. The French people and the other peoples in Europe are just beginning their struggle for complete freedom, complete independence.</p><p>The organized workers of the U.S.A. must not only resist the malicious propaganda of Anglo-American imperialism, but must take organized steps to resist the chains which Anglo-American imperialism and European reaction are now forging for the European people.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-13219441720979691422023-08-03T23:40:00.004-04:002023-08-03T23:40:30.871-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>C.L.R. James (aka, W.F. Carlton): Ban on GI Jim Crow a Paper Edict Unless Negroes and Labor Enforce It, (September 1944)</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6mt2Gfah5LrwuMm_fW5689FZCn6TVkEptN3jjTf_rwejQKN78XbNwEAC2FxaUFl0x6ClyJeU24k3WRCDRdt9L_B1BMPvGGWJjG4XFXqtxXjEjQozm3DWWFOYpMzeAvHe5jyKLvXvFMTsk8f0CPSsBj64qzJnB0Zb6LanuxQ8mFYs1nBG2VV7nsjtXouZq/s292/CLR%20James%20in%201938.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="220" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6mt2Gfah5LrwuMm_fW5689FZCn6TVkEptN3jjTf_rwejQKN78XbNwEAC2FxaUFl0x6ClyJeU24k3WRCDRdt9L_B1BMPvGGWJjG4XFXqtxXjEjQozm3DWWFOYpMzeAvHe5jyKLvXvFMTsk8f0CPSsBj64qzJnB0Zb6LanuxQ8mFYs1nBG2VV7nsjtXouZq/w301-h400/CLR%20James%20in%201938.jpg" width="301" /></a></div><p>From Labor Action, Vol. 8 No. 36, 4 September 1944, p. 3.</p><p>Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for MIA.</p><p>The Roosevelt Administration continues to play its brazen political tricks with “the Negro people. A few days ago, that is to say, four years after the beginning of conscription, it has issued an order banning segregation in GI post exchanges, theaters and transportation. Negro soldiers now, according to this order, can go into any Army theater. They can travel, according to this order, in any United States bus or truck. According to this order, they will not be compelled to sit in the rear seat of these vehicles. The order is dated July 18, 1944. The election for the presidency takes place in November of this same 1944.</p><p>Now a great number of people hail this as a great victory and claim that it shows that President Roosevelt is a true friend of the Negro people, etc., etc. None are more vociferous about this than the members of the Communist Party. Benjamin J. Davis, the Negro New York City councilman, writes in the Daily Worker of August 27:</p><p>“It is the dictates of military necessity in a war which requires that the forces of right win over the forces of evil, and that element of compulsion, is as permanent, as moral and as powerful as Lincoln’s wise Emancipation Proclamation was, a military blow against the slavocracy.”</p><p>Who Will Enforce Order?</p><p>We have to ask two questions: First of all, who is to enforce this order?</p><p>As has been well said, Negroes in this country have every conceivable right that it is possible for them to have – on paper. Let any believer in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, with one of in either hand, go down into Georgia or Mississippi and try to enforce them.</p><p>People’s Voice, which is always whooping it up for FDR, carried another miserable story lately of a Negro soldier who recently spent one year at hard labor in prison. He reports that he and four others were tried by a court-martial, found guilty of rioting and sentenced to do one year at hard labor. He spent more than twelve months in prison and nine of these months were spent on the rock pile. He states that all who testified against him were asked if the soldiers were rioting. The witnesses all replied, “No.” Nevertheless, the accused were all found guilty. When he left the army he was forced to sign some kind of restoration papers, which said that he requested restoration in the Army, and he was put back into it. Now listen to the conclusion of his own story:</p><p>“I was sent to Louisiana and to Mississippi and then to Georgia. A short while ago, I was walking on the sidewalk in Georgia and a white military policeman told me to get off the sidewalk whenever I saw a white person coming.”</p><p>This is an example that could be multiplied over by hundreds and, with the necessary research, by thousands.</p><p>Now we can estimate what the value of this order is when it is to be administered in Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia by white military police. And further, if conflict arises, to ;be settled by military court-martials which, in certain areas and with certain personnel, will be exactly of the same type which found these soldiers guilty of rioting when the very witnesses against the accused testified unanimously against the accusation.</p><p>It’s a Jim Crow Army</p><p>We do not deny that the actual issuance of this order will mean improvement in certain instances of the meaner facilities offered to Negro soldiers. As such, the order represents an advance and we welcome it.</p><p>But the fact remains that the army is built on the Jim Crow model. In many army camps Negroes frequently are in a small minority with thousands of Southern soldiers. They are commanded by Southern officers, sometimes surrounded by Southern communities which are hostile to the very sight of a Negro in military uniform. Under all these circumstances so familiar to everyone, to hail this order as if some serious blow were being struck at Jim Crow is nothing else but a gross deception of the Negro people.</p><p>And why? This brings us to our second point. The main thing about this order is that it is an election maneuver. The Democratic Party is nervous about the Negro vote. At the recent Democratic Party convention in Chicago, the Southern bloc compelled the Roosevelt government, to pretend that the Negro question did not exist. The Republicans, seeking the Negro vote, produced a platform which Walter White has characterized as “dishonest and stupid.” But “this dishonest and stupid platform promised an immediate inquiry into the extent of discrimination against Negroes in the Army and corrective legislation. PM writes about this plank: “The plank about the Army is a phoney.”</p><p>Labor and Negroes Can Help</p><p>Good. The Republican platform is dishonest and stupid. Its plank about the Army is a phoney. But it is the Roosevelt government which has not been able to put forward any platform at all. And it is the Roosevelt government which is responsible for the shameful and continuous discrimination against Negroes in the Army. The Roosevelt government obviously could not promise an inquiry into its own crimes nor promise legislation. It is under these circumstances that, after four years of war, the War Department issues this order. It is aimed at counteracting the deep-seated dissatisfaction of the Negro people at the state of affairs in the Army.</p><p>The Negro people should not for one moment be deceived with nonsense about this order being equal in moral force to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Nothing but the mass pressure of the Negro people and the organized agitation of the labor movement will compel a United States government to begin the drastic steps which are neccessary to reorganize the Army and the whole social order so that legislation of this type will begin to have some serious effect.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-62673230438966809552023-08-03T23:32:00.002-04:002023-08-03T23:32:53.994-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>C.L.R. James (aka, J.R. Johnson): The French Rats and the Sinking Ship--A Gravedigger Indicts His Fellows, (September 1944)</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpZehlM7ktRxBGpGODWoqXUPAwwI0L9C-5VoYV7_KvfZQePE9UPkpSy__MqKtLn60neZ4b8itw_KGqYzyGppWhbKOMzQi1EL7rS4kZ3XeGeOsctnn_L1XQSbv-3MBQ6D7hmFllc016LBvzf6tgEGlYy8PhuoJxQM76EjSCA4DEn1-iYmQXGZIjP7kn5gk3/s1220/CLR%20James%20A%20Life%20Without%20Bondaries%20book%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1220" data-original-width="813" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpZehlM7ktRxBGpGODWoqXUPAwwI0L9C-5VoYV7_KvfZQePE9UPkpSy__MqKtLn60neZ4b8itw_KGqYzyGppWhbKOMzQi1EL7rS4kZ3XeGeOsctnn_L1XQSbv-3MBQ6D7hmFllc016LBvzf6tgEGlYy8PhuoJxQM76EjSCA4DEn1-iYmQXGZIjP7kn5gk3/w266-h400/CLR%20James%20A%20Life%20Without%20Bondaries%20book%20cover.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><p>Source: New International, Vol. X No. 9, September 1944, pp. 288–293.</p><p>The indication of where note 3 is appears in the text is missing. – ERC.</p><p>Transcribed: Ted Crawford.</p><p>Proofread: Einde O’Callaghan (December 2015).</p><p>I – Pertinax Remembers Everything</p><p>In The Grave-Diggers of France, Pertinax holds up Gamelin, Daladier, Reynaud, Pétain and Laval as the men who ruined the Third French Republic. The author is André Géraud, who for nearly thirty years wrote for the Echo de Paris, a journal of the Right. In an international situation going to pieces he stood firm for the Anglo-French and, later, the Russian alliance. But this was the foreign policy of the Popular Front, and of liberalism all over Europe. Thus this journalist of the Right became the oracle of the Left. In 1938 the Echo de Paris could stand his outspokenness no longer and he started a weekly journal of his own with the leftist title, L’Europe Nouvelle (New Europe).</p><p>Today, an exile in America, he tells all. He writes from the inside with the knowledge of incident and personality possible only to the active contemporary. His thesis is that “The impact of socialism on the Republic unsettled, from one end of the community to the other, the propertied classes, both those long established and those of recent date.” On this he builds his whole intricate structure. He is deeply moved at the collapse and humiliation of his country, but feels that if the political line he advocated had been followed, the catastrophe could never have taken place. Thus strongly based, from a political and moral point of view, this closely-packed book moves with a gathering impetus and cumulative power which is tremendous. And when at the end Pertinax says that what is needed now is a break with the past as clean as was the break of 1789, he appears as the avenging enemy of the old society and the harbinger of a new.</p><p>Yet this book is poison, deadly poison. It is no mere historical narrative. It is a political manifesto. “French affairs,” he says, “call for decisions which can hardly be more than a gamble if arrived at in ignorance of out country’s vicissitudes all through the recent years.” While his analysis is clear, his policy is implicit. Neither can be ignored. This is the kind of book that not only relates but makes history. As usual, we shall deal first with the author on his own ground, then later we shall take up his program and the hatred of Marxism which even his disciplined pen cannot totally disguise.</p><p>The Military Debacle</p><p>Pertinax insists upon an examination of the Battle of France. Rightly so. That was the most striking manifestation of the essential crisis of French bourgeois society. And this being so, the France which is emerging will at every stage bear upon it the stamp and effects of the military débacle.</p><p>Heavy as a bomb-load come down his strictures on Gamelin, Pétain and Weygand for what he calls “their futile defensive doctrine.” But Pertinax does not merely flog a dead horse. He seeks to establish that the catastrophic nature of the French collapse was not due to lack of air power and tanks. With the material on hand, poor as it was, different generals could have done differently. The point is not academic.</p><p>The French Maginot Line ended at Montmedy. Any newspaper today can supply a map, but for our purposes let the reader draw a line across a piece of paper and at the center of this line another line perpendicular to it. He will thus have a large T upside down. It is rough but it will do. The center of the T is Montmedy. The line to the right is the Maginot Line. To the left of Montmedy, a very few miles away is Sedan. And to the left of Sedan is a looser fortified line, “Little Maginot,” running to the sea. The Germans broke through at Sedan, attacking down the perpendicular line, which was their left wing. A blind man can see even on this rough map [1] that their flank was open to the most devastating counter-offensive from the scores of thousands of men inside the Maginot Line. Pertinax shows that the Germans were aware of this and trembled for the success of their enterprise. But no attack was ever made. Pertinax says bitterly that at no previous time in French military history, except perhaps in 1870, would French commanders have missed such an opportunity. Few could disagree. He shows how stupidly Gamelin misconceived the new application of the Schleiffen Plan but, more important, shows repeatedly that the tactical errors were the consequence of pinning the French strategy down in the steel and concrete of the Maginot Line.</p><p>The second stage is when Weygand took over from Gamelin. Weygand, he says, should have drawn all the soldiers out of the Maginot Line, abandoned Paris, and swung his forces into the West. From there he could have fought delaying actions and got off a large portion of his army, à la Dunkerque, to Britain, to fight again, instead of rotting in German prisons.</p><p>Again this is not wisdom after the event. Weygand and his chief of staff, General Georges, actually discussed this plan before Weygand began operations. They turned it down. Why they did this, we shall see soon. The military consequences we know. The political consequences Pertinax does not draw. We shall draw them for him. The French bourgeois army was destroyed. Thus de Gaulle has to start almost from the beginning. That is why in his first days in Paris he called on Eisenhower to march American troops through the streets in order to show the triumphant FFI that force existed somewhere.</p><p>From the battlefields Pertinax then builds up his case against those who prepared France for battle. French rearmament lay largely on paper. The criminal strategy and tactics on the battlefield were merely the climax of the ever-deepening social crisis and the paralysis it caused. On this paralysis the ignorance, incompetence and stupidity of Pétain, Weygand and Gamelin flourished. Of Gamelin, Pertinax concludes that if he could not get his way in preparing France for war, he should have resigned so as to warn the country; Gamelin therefore was a man of weak character. Here endeth the first lesson and the first grave-digger is buried.</p><p>But at this point we Marxists, while accepting this [2], must interrupt. Not so fast, my friend. What were you doing when all this was going on? Granted that you were no military man, you could have seen the social crisis which produced the bad preparations, the false strategy and the military defeat. What did you do about that?</p><p>Not only did the Pertinaxes and the de Gaulles see it. They sat and watched while the highest military men in France laid the foundations of fascism and capitulation to Germany. As far back as 1934 Weygand, then Commander-in-Chief, told Pétain, then Minister of War, that in case of defeat Pétain could become the Hindenburg of France. What a pair of leaders! This, if you please, is in Pertinax’s diary under date of November 4, 1934. Weygand, we are told, had a “burning aversion for the Left, the socialists, the Free Masons, democracy, parliamentary institutions, which became a frenzy after his retirement in January 1935.” Pétain, in turn, “was cut to the heart by that fear of a social upheaval which in so many a conservative had silenced every feeling of patriotism.” Obviously, these chiefs believed in the Leninist doctrine that the main enemy was at home.</p><p>Pertinax now says that these two “are effects far more than they are causes. They served as a blind for counter-revolutionary forces long held in check by the great majority of Frenchmen and ... put in a position of dominance by military defeat.”</p><p>See how an uneasy conscience causes him to slip into superficiality. The military defeat did not fall from the sky. These men and their followers caused it. Pertinax’s whole analysis of the military question has no sense unless this is the lesson to be drawn. And as for Laval! Here in rich detail are his fascist plots against the Republic at home and abroad. Pertinax knew it all.</p><p>On October 27, 1935, Laval, then Prime Minister, outlined his “anti-capitalist” party.</p><p>“The men of the Left,” said Laval, “have never laid a finger on the insurance companies, the trusts, the power monopoly ... The various direct action groups include a number of anti-capitalist elements. From among these a party could be recruited. And that is my party. The platform would be simple; internally a few steps taken against the plutocrats, externally a Franco-German rapprochement.”</p><p>This conversation, says Pertinax, was repeated to me a few minutes after it had taken place (page 423). So today a few hours after the destruction of the Republic, he reports this conversation and similar ones to us. We are not very grateful. Pertinax, after all, was no mere commentator. He was, in his own way, extremely active in politics. Take the following incident: M. Simond, editor of the Echo de Paris, complained that contrary to Pertinax’s information, Weygand denied that he supported the Franco-Russian pact of 1935.</p><p>“By way of reply I invited to luncheon M. Simond, Weygand and his wife, M. Titulescu and two other friends. At my request Titulescu put the question to the general: ‘When M. Barthou bluntly informed me that we all must get nearer to Russia ... I asked you whether the innovation was necessary ...you replied ‘It is necessary.’ Is that a fair account of what took place?”</p><p>“Weygand ... was on the spot. Reluctantly he mumbled ‘Yes.’ ...”</p><p>Titulescu was the Rumanian statesman. Thus Pertinax was part and parcel of the men who ruled and led the corruption which was the Third Republic. If Gamelin was a grave-digger of no character, what about Pertinax himself? He says that de Gaulle in 1934 came to his house to dinner and argued hotly against a representative of the defensive doctrine of the French general staff. This argument Pertinax and his wife found “exceedingly unpleasant to listen to.” We hope it will be equally unpleasant for the French masses to read it at this late hour.</p><p>But let us grant that he was no military man and that it took Sedan to expose the military weakness. Pertinax’s direct responsibility is still enormous. The military weakness had social causes. They were known. In 1931, Pétain, the hero of Verdun, was thoroughly exposed for the fraud that he was in a book which was ignored by reviewers and disappeared so quickly from the book shops that its effect was as if it had never appeared. Foch, says Pertinax, had many times told him the truth about Pétain, and Foch died in 1929. Why didn’t Pertinax and all those who knew speak? Of Weygand’s bare-faced lie he says: “If ... I had dared to throw that lie in the teeth of one of our great army leaders, the Echo de Paris would have been shaken to its depths.” Pardon me, my friend. That is not the truth at all. What you mean is that “if you had dared” French bourgeois society would have been shaken. There is no need to accuse Pertinax of any personal dishonesty. The dishonesty was social. He and all his tribe conspired to keep the truth from the great masses of the people. According to their bourgeois logic, the crimes and incompetences of the great military leaders had to he hushed up. To have entered upon a task of fearless exposure would have created “panic.” It would help the enemy. So the exposure, such as it was, remained enclosed within the limits of hypocrisy and dishonesty organic to bourgeois society. [3] Pétain’s World War I reputation was a fake. [4] From 1935 he made propaganda everywhere for the pro-German, pro-fascist Laval. Who exposed him? To jump on the bandwagon now with a dramatic “J’accuse” does not exculpate the accuser. Pertinax is here a symbol. All who happened to have politically or otherwise opposed Laval, Weygand and Pétain, all who refused to accept Vichy, will use this as a passport by which they will seek status in post-Vichy France. The French masses should turn to them a face of steel and the more devastating their indictments, the more unflinching should be the rejection of those who knew so much and said so little.</p><p>The Democrats of France</p><p>Pertinax is a symbol of the democratic “anti-fascists,” Daladier, Reynaud and Blum. Daladier knew both Weygand and Gamelin well. As Prime Minister he protected them. He appointed Pétain ambassador to Franco Spain. In the face of the German danger, he kept proved friends of Laval in his cabinet (page 114). According to Pertinax, Daladier allowed the conservative groups “unbridled license” to undermine the national unity. Marcel Déat of Vichy fame, who signed a manifesto urging soldiers to desert from the army, went free. Rather than give up his personal power, Daladier preferred to have people in his cabinet whom he himself more than once called “traitors” (page 151). In the end his colleagues threw him out and he went into the Foreign Office and would not do any work – said he wanted to go home to the country.</p><p>This was the miserable scoundrel who had more power than any man in France between 1930 and 1940. All of them had their personal and political enmities. But all of them, Radical-Socialists and Social-Democrats, were one clique, consorting with proved fascists, appointing them to the highest and most responsible posts, united with them in the exploitation, suppression and deception of the great masses of the French people. Yet when the French Trotskyists said that they were the main enemy, these bourgeois politicians had the audacity to call them “unpatriotic” and “pro-German” and put them into jail.</p><p>Reynaud was no party man. For years he said what he thought and attacked his opponents regardless of consequences. But Reynaud, this great democrat, had a mistress, Madame de Portes. That is not important. What is important is that this woman had the ideas of Pétain and she and her friends saw Reynaud as the one who could at a suitable opportunity introduce into France – none could guess – the “New Order.” Thus the “New Order” was represented in the bedroom of the French Prime Minister, symbolical of the intimate relation between fascism and bourgeois democracy. To quote Pertinax, she had the whole night to undo what Reynaud’s democratic friends had done in the day.</p><p>She usually succeeded. Reynaud wished to appoint as Secretary of the War Committee de Gaulle, who had been his military adviser for many years and understood the strength of the German army and the weakness of the French. Madame de Portes blocked the appointment and Daladier too prevented it for his own factional reasons. But this must not blind us to the personal and political tie-up. De Gaulle, Reynaud’s man, was Pétain’s nephew. Blum, the socialist, was supporting Reynaud after having collaborated with and supported Daladier. Blum deferred humbly to Pétain at the War Council, but though he distrusted Gamelin’s military capacity did not dare to dismiss him. Reynaud, however, wanted to dismiss Gamelin. But he could think of no one to appoint for the whole French higher command was a mess. Then came the catastrophe of the break-through on May 10. France started up in alarm. Like Daladier, Gamelin collapsed personally and Reynaud appointed as commander-in-chief – Weygand. Then, to give the masses confidence in his government he appointed as vice-chief of the cabinet – Pétain. The people would take courage from the association of the great days of 1916 and 1918 with the name of Pétain – Pétain, commander-in-chief of the counter-revolution, whose ignorance, incompetence and defeatism had been unexposed by Pertinax and his fellow-journalists. Now we can see why Weygand could not take the bold strategic steps necessary when he succeeded Gamelin. Instead (beginning with defeat in his head and Pétain as a prospective Hindenburg) he displayed the most shocking incompetence and then appeared at Reynaud’s cabinet to call for an armistice. “I do not want France to run into the danger of falling into the anarchy which follows military defeat.” Little local governments would be set up “after the Soviet model.” Reynaud had to be quick because “were disorders to spread throughout the army and the population, he (Weygand) would consider the usefulness of the armistice as being already lost. Then the harm would have been clone” (page 263). Pétain sat nodding his head in agreement. In 1870 the miserable Bazaine surrendered at Metz and then asked the Germans for permission to “save France from herself.” No wonder they fought so badly in 1870 and in 1940.</p><p>Reynaud at first refused to agree. Pertinax keeps on insisting that a large majority of the cabinet was in favor of continuing the struggle. He misreads the historical logic of the social movement. The fact is that Reynaud, like the woman in Byron, while protesting that he would ne'er consent, consented. It was proposed to carry the government to North Africa and carry on from there. Reynaud agreed. Instead, this friend of Britain broke the alliance with Britain. Finally he resigned and Pétain took over. Blum and the others were all for resistance to the end. But Blum trusted Reynaud. Reynaud trusted Weygand. Weygand trusted Pétain. Pétain firmly believed that France needed Laval. And Laval thought that France needed Hitler.</p><p>On July 12, when Laval formally abolished French bourgeois democracy, Reynaud completed his evolution by asking the Socialists in his cabinet to support Pétain and Laval. At this meeting Blum voted against, but did not dare to defend himself (page 471). Herriot did not even vote against. Of 850 legislators, 569 supported Laval.</p><p>As could have been foreseen, the arrests began a few months later. Daladier, Gamelin and Blum were among those arrested and at the Riom Trials they were to make fine and courageous speeches against Pétain, Weygand and Laval, speeches as good in their way as this book by Pertinax. But that does not prevent them from being among the deepest diggers of the grave of France. If Pertinax’s guilt is not as great as theirs it is because his pen was not as mighty a spade as the swords which these others wielded.</p><p>Thus is democracy in crisis defended by bourgeois democrats. Let us conclude this section with a warning to the organized labor movement in the United States. Your Wallaces and your Willkies, your “progressives” and “sincere men” and “friends of labor” are bourgeois politicians, tied with a thousand threads to the bourgeois capitalist structure. Whenever they face a serious crisis, somehow or other, through “extraordinary powers” to Congress or Parliament, though the cabinet council, through giving the army power to keep order, through the bedroom, through sheer moral weakness, they either hand over the power to reaction or abandon it altogether. That is why the fierce fury of Pertinax against Vichy does not excite us very much. He and Daladier, Reynaud, Blum and de Gaulle all helped to put Vichy where it was. All the democratic supporters of Bonomi in Italy and of de Gaulle in France are busy at the same game today. This is an old, old story, as old as the republics of Greece and Rome.</p><p>Historical Digression</p><p>Yet before we leave this extraordinarily powerful denunciation, we have to point out the great attraction this book will have for many French people on the whole and French intellectuals in particular. Like Pertinax, the intellectuals have been driven by the cataclysm to recognize that the ruin of France was not accidental. They have rendered splendid service in the underground and they recognize the necessity for drastic change. Apart from the gripping story he tells, Pertinax shows real feeling for French history and repeated flashes of insight and illumination, anti-Marxist though he is. Like all French intellectuals, he is proud of the French intellectual tradition, which he considers the finest European flower of the Graeco-Roman culture. His book is no theoretical mish-mash, as is the pseudo-Marxism of people like Hook and Laski. He himself is a product and uses the style of the best that remains of French classicism. This makes his political tendencies infinitely more mischievous. He is a skillful and subtle propagandist and we propose for a brief moment to challenge him here.</p><p>Hard-headed and practical as he is, he uses with telling effect familiar references to Catiline, Varus, Juvenal, driving home his points in terms well suited to his French readers. The climax of his book is the story of Terentius Varro, who had been routed at Cannae, “which Schleiffen considered a model of the victory of extermination” (see how cleverly he sets his case). But when Varro came home “factional strife” subsided. The citizens thanked him for “not having despaired of the Republic.” Pertinax goes on:</p><p>“How the antique phrase, stammered out by generations of schoolboys, takes on new life when applied to the French counter-revolutionaries!</p><p>“Reverse every detail of this picture and you have Pétain’s story.”</p><p>And there he ends his long narrative.</p><p>This, for France, steeped in the classical tradition, is wonderful propaganda. De Gaulle obviously did not despair of the Republic; French factions should rally behind him. Bur even in such limited space as we have, Pertinax will not get away with that. There is a much more important Roman parallel which applies not to de Gaulle only but to Pertinax himself, illuminates their past and predicts their future. It is worth relating.</p><p>Cicero in 63 B.C. was consul of Rome. He was (we quote only from the staid anti-Marxist Britannica) “leader of the Italian middle class.” He represented their “antipathy alike to socialistic schemes and to aristocratic exclusiveness.” Catiline and Caesar were aiming at dictatorial power and bidding for the support of the masses in true “fascist” fashion. Cicero, like Blum and Daladier, allowed Catiline the utmost license to carry out his plots against the republic. Space, alas, forbids us to quote from one astonishing speech in which he explains to the obviously angry Roman people why he took no stern measures against Catiline. However, Catiline fled from Rome. He was defeated and, despite the protest of Caesar, his friends were executed. Disorder continues and Cicero is exiled. Pompey, the soldier, has military power, but Cicero is recalled to restore the republic. In the face of growing confusion “even strict constitutionalists like Cicero talked of the necessity of investing Pompey with some extraordinary powers for the preservation of order.” Pathetic, isn’t it? Caesar destroys Pompey, establishes the dictatorship but is murdered. Once more the Romans call on Cicero to restore the republic. Cicero’s new policy “was to make use of Octavian, whose name was all-powerful with the veterans, until new legions had been raised which would follow the republican commanders.” Nothing ever teaches these people. Cicero in the end is murdered by Octavian, who finally abolishes the Roman Republic.</p><p>History is littered with the bones of the Ciceros and their modern counterparts. We have to add for Pertinax’s benefit that Cicero’s orations against Catiline have justly been famous as masterpieces of denunciation. It seems the denunciators are the best grave-diggers. For Pertinax in this book advocates a dictatorship for General de Gaulle in order to cleanse France of fascism and strengthen republican institutions (page 585). Our modern Cicero once more turns to the military dictator to save the republic. We repeat: these people never learn.</p><p>II – Pertinax Learns Nothing</p><p>When France was in danger, Pertinax’s crime was, by commission and omission, to have shielded the enemies of the Republic. Today, like a duck in water, he is doing the same thing all over again. Today United States imperialism is the enemy of French liberty. Pertinax finds excuses for the long American flirtation with Vichy and Weygand (pages 535–7). And, crime of crimes, he tries to excuse Roosevelt’s backing of Giraud. Backed by Roosevelt, Giraud set up in Algiers a regime of “white terror.” Pertinax is ready with his excuse: it was due to military necessity. He admits that “de Gaulle ... had practically to force a passage to North Africa through numberless obstacles.” But even after D-Day, he writes, “... the Washington and London governments do not yet see more clearly than in 1942–43.” So Roosevelt does not see clearly! Really, one can scarcely contain one’s contempt. It is like reading PM and The Post. Once more this highly intelligent, well informed man, who is not without character, does not use his influence and reputation to tell the truth in plain, simple language to his countrymen and to the world.</p><p>This is the truth: Roosevelt wanted to use American arms to place on the necks of the French people Giraud, a member of the same military gang which had ruined France. In that crime Pertinax shares. The Bourbons had forgotten nothing and learned nothing. Pertinax is worse. He has remembered everything but learned nothing. And why? Because, like those bourgeois whom he condemns in words, he can see workers only as people who work in factories and must do as they are told.</p><p>In his Preface, he says that he wrote for a rightist paper for thirty years because he was “temperamentally repelled by abstract political theorizing” (page VI). By “abstract political theorizing” he means, of course, Marxism. So with him it is not property, but temperament. We accept. However, this temperament has been well protected. He does not attack socialism directly but misses no opportunity to dig at anything tinged, however faintly, with the ideas of Marx. Mandel, one of his heroes, is repelled by the men of the Right, but “as for the men of the Left he saw them unfailingly ruin everything they touched.” When Frossard, a Marxist of twenty years before, joined Pétain, in 1942, Pertinax comments: “Still another Marxist converted to social conservatism!” See him then suddenly at the end of the book not only demand vengeance against the men who betrayed France but call for a break with the past as clean as 1789.</p><p>The German invasion, ebbing “back to its own boundaries ... will nevertheless leave behind it a state of revolution. It has shaken men’s ideas and their social conditions to the core.” Here is a revolutionary! But experience has taught us to go carefully with these gentlemen. What exactly does he want a de Gaulle dictatorship for? Pertinax himself tells us that Washington distrusted de Gaulle because he talked of “a second revolution.” Revolution today is revolution against the bourgeoisie. “The bourgeoisie,” says Pertinax, “stands condemned,” but only “insofar as it cannot get away from its moral complexion during the last fifty years.” So the bubble is blown. His strong, clear voice breaks down into stammering as soon as he touches the class question. The moral complexion of the bourgeoisie, my friend, is the reflection of the economic position of the bourgeoisie. If they feared socialism for fifty years they will still fear it, and will behave as before. Says Pertinax: “We can vaguely discern a new civilization in the making.” Vaguely.</p><p>There is no vagueness about the new society. The first thing is that bourgeois property must be destroyed. That is the conclusion shouting from every page of this book. Pertinax’s ears are deaf to it. What, he discerns only vaguely, the bourgeoisie sees only too clearly. That is why it acts as it does. Pertinax pleads passionately for the punishment of the “gangs responsible for the defeat, the armistice and the policy of collaboration.” Why? Because, unless this is done, “too many Frenchmen, however well meaning, may again be led astray by vested interests.” So there will again be “vested interests”? But it is the “vested interests” whom you yourself said had been so unsettled by socialism that they led the country to disaster. One feels like laughing and turning away. Despite all the big words, there is really nothing to Pertinax. Let us address ourselves to those who may be caught in the trap of his masterly indictment. For, no less than he, we want to see France on her feet again.</p><p>“Whither France?”</p><p>We, however, are unashamedly “abstract political theorists.” Our abstract political theory taught us that the French bourgeoisie would abandon democracy for fascism and would seek, yesterday the German bourgeoisie, today the American bourgeoisie, to save it from the destruction of its “vested interests” by the French proletariat leading the nation. Abstract political theorizing taught us that French society, after 1934, faced either the fascist dictatorship or the rule of the workers. Abstract political theorizing taught us that the Radical-Socialists and the Social-Democrats would pretend to lead the people, only to betray them. Abstract political theorizing taught us that we must choose our side and work for it, our theory being but a guide to action. This, however, could be done only by breaking with bourgeois society in all its forms and mercilessly exposing to the people all the crimes, plots, evasions and falsifications of bourgeois society. This is our conception of political journalism. Abstract political theorizing taught us that when a “veritable popular revolution broke out on May 25” (page 367), the thing to do was to help these workers to continue their revolution to the conquest of power. Pertinax admits that the “revolution” was justified but blames Blum for not curbing the workers and sending them back to labor sixty hours a week in the war industries. It is a pity that Pertinax wasn’t given the opportunity to try. Blum, Thorez and the Stalinists had work enough to prevent the revolution from succeeding.</p><p>Of the workers themselves, our abstract political theory taught us that they have been conditioned by their development under capitalist society to lead humanity to a new stage, to the socialist society. Bourgeois society today crushes them down. But we know the enormous power that lies in them. Not only brute power. All that is precious in France is now contained in them and in those intellectuals who see that France will rise again only as a workers’ France. What in French history is so splendid as the manner in which the French workers mobilized themselves for the national defense once they recognized that their rulers had betrayed and then deserted them? The ardor for liberty, the spontaneity, the sense of form, the historical consciousness, the wit, the mockery, the blend of sophistication and natural grace, all of which have endeared France to lovers of civilization the world over, these have never shone with more dazzling brilliance than in the crudely printed pages of the underground press, stained with the blood of French working men and women. France, “mother of laws and of civilization,” lives and will live forever, but must purge herself of the corrupt and traitorous bourgeoisie. “France has never had a free and uncensored press until we of the underground made one under the German occupation.” Let that inspired cry from a resistance leader ring in the ears of Pertinax and his brother worshippers of the “vested interests” until the workers establish above ground and in the light of day the free and uncensored press of a socialist France.</p><p>Pertinax has only contempt for the men of the Left and the Stalinists. We share it. They ruined France and will continue to drag her down. Why? Because today, as in 1936, like Blum, Daladier and Reynaud, they are pledged to the maintenance of bourgeois society. That way lies only further ruin and shame.</p><p>But there were others in France who not only theorized abstractly but worked in accordance with their theories. Their credo is embodied in a small volume entitled Whither France, written by Leon Trotsky. On page 18 this abstract theorizer says: “Only fools can think that the capitulation of Daladier or the treason of Herriot in the face of the worst reaction results from fortuitous temporary causes or from the lack of character in these two lamentable leaders.” You see, learned journalist, there is something to be learned from abstract theorizing.</p><p>Of the Social-Democracy and the Stalinists turned traitors to the revolution, Trotsky writes: “All the Jouhaux, Blums, Cachins ... are only phantoms.” Phantoms they proved to be in the great crisis of France. Today they are as busy as Pertinax preparing the destruction of what the French masses are so laboriously trying to build up.</p><p>What, then, is to be done? We cannot end better than by repeating the advice of Trotsky as the French strikes of 1936 burst from out of the depths of the masses. (Take note of it, Messrs. French intellectuals in particular. You have experienced one reality – fascism. You didn’t like it. You fought against it. Splendid. Now prepare yourselves for the second.) On June 9, Trotsky wrote:</p><p>“The revolutionary general staff cannot emerge from combinations at the top. The combat organization would not be identical with the party even if there were a mass revolutionary party in France, for the movement is incomparably broader than the party. The organization also cannot coincide with the trade unions for the unions embrace only an insignificant section of the class and are headed by an arch-reactionary bureaucracy. The new organization must correspond to the nature of the movement itself. It must reflect the struggling masses. It must express their growing will. This is a question of the direct representation of the revolutionary class. Here it is not necessary to invent new forms. Historical precedents exist. The industries and factories will elect their deputies who will meet to elaborate jointly plans of struggle and to provide the leadership. Nor is it necessary to invent the name for such an organization; it is the Soviet of Workers Deputies.” (Whither France, page 154)</p><p>And after that what will be the form of the new society that Pertinax sees so vaguely? That struggle for power, gentlemen, is the birth-pang of the new society.</p><p>Only a week before, Trotsky had written of these Soviets or Committees of Action:</p><p>“The Committees of Action cannot be at present anything but the committees of those strikers who are seizing the enterprises. From one industry to another, from one factory to the next, from one working class district to another, from city to city, the Committees of Action must establish a close bond with each other. They must meet in each city, in each productive group in their regions, in order to end with a Congress of all the Committees of Action in France. This will be the new order which must take the place of the reigning anarchy.” (pages 147–8)</p><p>Does anarchy reign? None denies it. Hitler’s New Order has been rejected. A Soviet France – that is the new order for which the country waits. This is the way it will be achieved. That is the only break which will be as clean as 1789. Recent events have shown that the French masses of today are of the same build their fathers were. Soon may they see the Soviet road!</p><p>Notes</p><p>1. On the actual map the German position is worse, for the line of attack sloped from east to west.</p><p>2. We said much the same ourselves. See particularly, The New International, July 1940.</p><p>3. The story got out however. [Note by MIA: In the printed version there is no indication where this note should come, but from the sense of the discussion, this would seem to be an appropriate place.]</p><p>4. The strategic decisions of Verdun were not his. On all critical occasions he was pessimistic to the point of defeatism. Clemenceau and Foch had to speak to him in a way that a commanding officer was never before addressed in public.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-48901711875730865482023-08-03T22:47:00.004-04:002023-08-03T22:47:37.461-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>C.L.R. James (aka, W.F. Carlton): Mr. Minor, This War Is NOT Like the Civil War of 1861, (August 1944)</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRae2Shx8r5XdQqheOMLBDayQFmuBkgXrSjZbGxehNZQ810YazI3dws31-wQsYQX7vmdUuEYOIWpa9iaRooe3NVmc-3PNswXXlP-GQEUQNp3hlmKH-x16WnIFlAwRcovhhk4OhTBRSv4FpltCImDzLtXD7BxDV2Y7K4OL0uXgbY3SBq_eNs1tIPXeCS07T/s1000/African%20American%20and%20the%20right%20to%20vote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="437" data-original-width="1000" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRae2Shx8r5XdQqheOMLBDayQFmuBkgXrSjZbGxehNZQ810YazI3dws31-wQsYQX7vmdUuEYOIWpa9iaRooe3NVmc-3PNswXXlP-GQEUQNp3hlmKH-x16WnIFlAwRcovhhk4OhTBRSv4FpltCImDzLtXD7BxDV2Y7K4OL0uXgbY3SBq_eNs1tIPXeCS07T/w400-h175/African%20American%20and%20the%20right%20to%20vote.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>From Labor Action, Vol. 8 No. 35, 28 August 1944, p. 3.</p><p>Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for MIA.</p><p>The events in Philadelphia are recognized on all sides as being of great significance in evaluating the present situation of Negroes and their future development.</p><p>To twist these events to suit their own perverted policy, the Stalinists are now twisting the history of the Negro people. In the Daily Worker of August 11, Robert Minor writes an article entitled Like the Draft Riots of ’63. He tells how, ten days after the defeat of Lee at Gettysburg in 1863, political gangs were organized by Fernando Wood, the defeatist former Mayor of New York. They captured and held New York and 1,000 people, most of them Negroes, were killed.</p><p>First, this “history” slanders the people of New York. What Minor says is misleading in the extreme.</p><p>Roots of Antagonism</p><p>Organized labor was supporting the Republican Party and Lincoln by 1863, supporting them fully. But the Southerners who dominated the old Democratic Party had always had a following among the unorganized in Northern cities. These were very often immigrants, and in New York the immigrants were chiefly Irish. They were the ones who suffered from and feared more the danger of Negro competition in industry. Into this situation came the high prices and profiteering of the war, exasperating everybody. Finally the government was allowing rich men to buy off military service. The attempt to enforce the draft provoked riots, but it was especially the Irish masses who formed the mob. The German immigrants noticeably held off.</p><p>Nobody expects Minor, in a newspaper article to tell the complete story, but at any rate it should not be told in a way that gives a false impression of what happened.</p><p>The Civil War in America</p><p>In reality, the Civil War was one of the greatest and most progressive wars in history. Its very name, civil war, tells us that it was a REVOLUTIONARY WAR, a war between contending forces in the same country. It destroyed chattel slavery. It abolished the threat of a divided America: After the Civil War the United States economy lifted this country into its present place as the most powerful nation in the world. Imagine what the United States would have been like today if slavery had continued in the Southern states.</p><p>Today we have arrived at a stage where the capitalist economy is as rotten as was the slave economy of those days. Robert Minor and his associates of the Communist Party (we beg their pardon), the Communist Political Association, have in day a gone by told us the horrible truths abput capitalism. The Civil War today which would correspond to the Civil War of 1861 is a war between the only progressive class today, the working class, and, the enemies of progress, the capitalist class. And just as the Negroes fought with the capitalists who were progressive in those days, so today, if a new civil war should take place, the Negroes should and, we have no doubt, would find themselves on the side of the workers.</p><p>But today we are in an imperialist war. As Minor told us up to June 1941, i.e., when Russia was invaded, the war was being fought for imperialist purposes and could result only in increased chains and slavery for the colonial peoples abroad and greater burdens and sufferings for the American masses.</p><p>Today however, Minor has the nerve to say: “The United States is passing through the early stage of a transition of its inner life, inevitable, long overdue and absolutely necessary for its stability, safety and prosperity.”</p><p>This is a bare-faced attempt to make the Negroes, believe that some sort of revolution is taking place in the United States today and therefore they must support the Roosevelt government, which is leading this revolution.</p><p>Here we have the crudest and most dishonest perversion of history. Minor brought in the draft riots only to help make the imperialist war into a revolutionary war. The Roosevelt government is as revolutionary as a dead fish. It is the government of Jim Crow. The Negroes had to threaten a march on Washington before the FEPC was formed. The Roosevelt government did not dare to make even a declaration of principle in the convention of the Democratic Party. For a Vice-President it had to take Missouri’s Truman, to please the Southerners. Southern congressmen are high up in its councils. The New Deal, after seven years, still could not get rid of ten million unemployed. Roosevelt, himself says that the New Deal is dead. Where is this “transformation ... of inner life” which characterizes the government? All Minor means is that Roosevelt is allied with Stalinist Russia and to maintain this alliance the Communist Party will bamboozle the working class, break strikes, urge incentive pay, try to make the Negroes believe that Roosevelt is their savior. For this purpose they pervert history and create a revolutionary transformation in America at the typewriter.</p><p>Guarding History from the Liars</p><p>Negroes, very rightly, make a study of Negro history. They have had to rescue it from the lies and perversions of the capitalists. Now they have to guard it from the lies and perversions of the Stalinists.</p><p>We can sum up the main lesson of that history. It is this: to free the Negroes from chattel slavery, a revolution was needed, a revolution that put the capitalist class in undisputed economic and political power. To free the Negroes from the crimes of capitalism, a revolution is needed – one that will put the working class in full economic and political power. Only a renegade revolutionary like Minor and a renegade party like the Communist Party (we beg their pardon, the Communist Political Association), can pretend that this imperialist war is a revolution.</p><p>The Communist Party was founded to lead the American workers’ revolution, for socialism and to struggle against imperialist war. Today they are the loudest and most active supporters of imperialist war and bankrupt American capitalism which can only employ the full population in wartime. The Negroes should realize that the indispensable party for militants who see clearly the past and future of this country is not the Communist Political Association, which is ashamed even to call itself a party, but a great mass party of labor – the organized workers and their allies of the office and the farm.</p><p>The Workers Party is the rallying ground for all, whites and Negroes alike, who see the need for a Labor Party and the equal need to expose the lies, current and historical, of the renegade Communist Party.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-89036526412180967722023-08-03T22:35:00.001-04:002023-08-03T22:35:04.599-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>C.L.R. James: Why U.S. Workers Should Support National Liberation Struggles (August 1944)</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR0aSzmhxkigcFTra2CzhzsuctP3CWd7m3OxpSUS9eb8N5uEMfpAmkvHsOhMnXdFpHk2IGt0vNt66bFh3SftPkFNFEtihrwllpXK5yJ-vY4ff_v4ZQ9_sX0ZEn0hm5FQ8oLpRsmvub6w6xURlywR0f3hYAwnCavvaJkLsXwREPk7A-KB34cllZpnHUtqhW/s2099/CLR%20James%20with%20film%20crew.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1499" data-original-width="2099" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR0aSzmhxkigcFTra2CzhzsuctP3CWd7m3OxpSUS9eb8N5uEMfpAmkvHsOhMnXdFpHk2IGt0vNt66bFh3SftPkFNFEtihrwllpXK5yJ-vY4ff_v4ZQ9_sX0ZEn0hm5FQ8oLpRsmvub6w6xURlywR0f3hYAwnCavvaJkLsXwREPk7A-KB34cllZpnHUtqhW/w400-h286/CLR%20James%20with%20film%20crew.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>From Labor Action, Vol. 8 No. 34, 21 August 1944, p. 4.</p><p>Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for MIA.</p><p>The cracks in the German structure will naturally bring increased activity and hopes in the European underground and guerrilla movements. Some people, good class-conscious workers and even some revolutionaries, are raising the question: “Isn’t it time to break with Tito and the other resistance leaders who are after all part of Anglo-American-Russian imperialism?”</p><p>There is here a fine collection of mistakes. First of all, when the Workers Party declared that it supported the SLOGAN of national liberation and recommended revolutionary socialists to join the resistance movements it did not thereby support, for example, Tito. No such thing. What we do is to join a lot of workers and peasants who of their own accord joined up with Tito to rid their country of a tyrannical and murderous oppressor. That we join a group of workers or workers and peasants and raise the slogan which is most likely to rally them does not in any way mean that we support those who happen to be leading them.</p><p>The underground and guerrilla movements, in France, in Yugoslavia, and in Greece are spontaneous mass movements. The workers join them willingly. If they are not satisfied with the movement, they try to change it and if they do not suceed they leave it and join another or go home. Many of the Yugoslavs left Mikhailovitch to join Tito. Today they say that they support Tito “because he is a good fighter.” That is a capital summation of the whole question.</p><p>Same with the German soldiers. They didn’t support Rommel because he won victories in Egypt; and then didn’t support him because he was beaten by Montgomery. In each case a highly organized, stable capitalist state organized its capitalist army, facing all workers will the alternative: “Obey or else.”</p><p>But when the masses of workers and peasants rush to join or to form a guerrilla band or underground organization, that is something else. True, the most perfect thing would be for them to form a strictly class organization. Sure, we would prefer that. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened that way.</p><p>But it can be argued, the large majority of the workers in the U.S.A. are in the Democratic or Republican Parties, and you of the Workers Party repudiate all support of those parties.</p><p>To that, the answer is simple enough. Do the Republican or Democratic Parties consist of masses of workers fighting for workers demands? The question is not only rhetorical, it is ridiculous. If, during the post-war period in America, a fascist leader organized a part of the army and fascists bands and attacked the Roosevelt government; and if the Roosevelt government mobilized the government and the workers to fight against this American Franco, the Workers Party would certainly fight alongside the Roosevelt government. Astonishing? Not at all. We did exactly that in Spain in 1936–38. We fought with the Loyalist capitalist government against Franco.</p><p>But did we support, Azana, Prieto, Caballero, Negrin and other Loyalist leaders? No such thing. The Trotskyists fought with the Loyalist armies but continually pointed out to the workers that no victory could be won over Franco unless the workers themselves took over the power.</p><p>“Ah!” says our sectarian, “I note that you say in the post-war period. That is our case. This is an imperialist war.” And he concludes triumphantly: “Tito’s army is tied to the United Nations. If even you SAY you do not support him, by joining his forces you are supporting one side of the imperialist war.”</p><p>Frankly, this is a form of insanity. Imagine that the Japanese have landed on the West Coast, have defeated the U.S. government and army and begin the persecution and plunder of the people. The American workers, deserted by the capitalists, begin to organize themselves in their own bands in order to fight against this intolerable oppression. Nobody compels them to do so. They do it because they cannot live under this destruction of their living standards and their rights and their pride. Some U.S. Colonel or even NCO organizes and leads this fight. He is capitalistic in his ideas. Soon there gather around him some representatives of the U.S.A. capitalist regime who begin to direct the movement as far as they can toward the restoration of the defeated and discredited American capitalistic regime. What do some people propose?</p><p>That because the workers who form the main body of the movement do not declare for socialism, the socialists in it must denounce the movement – and leave it.</p><p>This, we repeat, is a form of insanity. In addition, it shows great ignorance of revolutionary politics. Suppose the movement was entirely a workers’ movement, consisting of nothing else but workers, calling itself the American Workers Movement for National Liberation, would our sectarians leave it then? According to their logic, if this workers’ movement did not come out for socialism they would have to. If that is correct, then why don’t they leave the CIO and the AFL now? These are workers’ movements. They are committed to the eyes in support of the imperialist war. Yet nobody proposes to leave these movements. No, we stay and fight the reactionary bureaucrats with our program.</p><p>Isn’t this wisdom? Can’t these people see that the ruling class and the labor bureaucrats in America have to sweat and strain and exhaust themselves to keep the workers thinking that their first, consideration must be the imperialist victory? And can’t they see that in France, Yugoslavia, Greece (and it would be the same in an invaded and conquered United States), the workers themselves would demand that the first thing to be done was to drive out the people who were squeezing the life out of them? Are the workers wrong to think so? Such reasoning passes comprehension. No! What these purists want is to mobilize the workers at one and the same time to fight against the Germans who are oppressing them today and, with the same energy and vigor against the United Nations who will oppress them tomorrow. You can’t do it. The workers would not listen. And they would be perfectly correct – what the reactionaries do is to use the legitimate wishes of the workers for their own capitalist purposes. The socialists try to use the legitimate desires of the workers for the purposes of socialism. The workers look upon Tito as being a good fighter for national liberation. We want them to follow us, and they will do so only if to begin with we are as good or better fighters than Tito. But we don’t support Tito. We denounce him, yesterday, today and tomorrow.</p><p>We have our own platform. We are against Subordinating the workers’ struggles to imperialism, whether in America, Yugoslavia, Italy or France. But why that should mean that I must not devote my own energies to breaking the German foot that is on my chest and blunting the German bayonet that is on my throat, is beyond my comprehension. Tomorrow the workers’ movement may be reconstructed. Does anyone think we get rid of the DeGaulles and the Titos? No, they turn up now in the workers’ movement as union leaders, even calling themselves socialists sometimes. That struggle goes on, wherever the masses of the workers are. It does not stop. It will go on right up to the socialist revolution. It will go on after, in the soviet state itself. We must get our minds clear on these things in these critical times.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-68305163859214744282023-08-03T22:21:00.004-04:002023-08-03T22:21:29.050-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>C.L.R. James (aka, W.F. Carlton): Capitalism Taboos ‘Equal Opportunity’ for Negro People, (August 1944)</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgooLQn3HkvdFABA_wMmfQt3MafZ4ATeuHlaoeFI9XJ1GPgBRzyM6S1UG-tveT4NnhxCZttvrlY9CzatngNq-Z1FcUCeukPZ0eMg3BJJ0uuOXecRANVBKM1R3-89Jw9_XC3JaBi2qwuvU3Xf8zrAjTbh6WvDMYDlG4pDEBl4Yg1g_BwzXNlPEILkibDwMrd/s285/CLR%20James%20early%20writings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="285" data-original-width="177" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgooLQn3HkvdFABA_wMmfQt3MafZ4ATeuHlaoeFI9XJ1GPgBRzyM6S1UG-tveT4NnhxCZttvrlY9CzatngNq-Z1FcUCeukPZ0eMg3BJJ0uuOXecRANVBKM1R3-89Jw9_XC3JaBi2qwuvU3Xf8zrAjTbh6WvDMYDlG4pDEBl4Yg1g_BwzXNlPEILkibDwMrd/w248-h400/CLR%20James%20early%20writings.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><p>From Labor Action, Vol. 8 No. 34, 21 August 1944, p. 3.</p><p>Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for MIA.</p><p>Addressing an audience at Lincoln’s tomb in Springfield, Ill., some days ago, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York state: “It is a fitting occasion to renew our determination to bring complete equality of opportunity of life in America to all the Negro people.”</p><p>Governor Dewey does not mean this. It is campaign baloney. The Republican platform has been characterized by Walter White as “dishonest and stupid.” The Democratic platform simply did its best to pretend that the Negro question does not exist.</p><p>Yet we can expect many statements like the one quoted, by Dewey, from all types of political candidates and agitators between now and the elections. Let us make it quite clear at once that this phrase, “complete equality of opportunity for Negroes,” is not to be judged according to the sincerity or insincerity of capitalist politicians. Both parties are seeking to fool the Negroes. But if even they were not attempting to do this, it would be impossible for Negroes to have equality of opportunity under capitalist society. We struggle for it. The more advanced unions struggle for it also. Victories can be gained. But the thinking Negro must bear in mind always the limitations of the society in which he lives.</p><p>Since 1929, this country was unable to have less than ten million unemployed, until the preparations for the war saved the situation temporarily.</p><p>Since the war, however, the development of production in the United States has reached astonishing heights. Today the productive capacity of the country is such that if the population returned to the standard of living that existed before the war, there would be at the very least some twenty million unemployed. This is the problem that faces the country as a whole. This is the problem that the Negroes must constantly bear in mind.</p><p>First of all, if the United States economy cannot be organized in such a manner as to prevent this mass of unemployment, the “equality of opportunity” open to large numbers of the Negroes would be equality of opportunity to starve side by side with the white workers. No amount of promises, sincere or insincere, by Democratic or Republican politicians can prevent that.</p><p>But, secondly, and flowing from this, the very conditions of unemployment create a terrible situation.</p><p>In the cut-throat struggle of fifty million people for thirty million jobs, all the worst passions of humanity in general and the traditional racial prejudices of the United States come into play and disrupt the labor movement.</p><p>This basis of unemployment is the fertile soil on which flourish the race-haters and the race-baiters. They organize themselves politically, using the unemployment in industry as a means of creating social and political difficulties for the Negroes. Under these circumstances, the whole Negro question becomes one of the tensest political questions in the country. Instead of orderly progress toward the achievement of greater and greater equality, we have a period of racial riots and the unloosing of terror and counter-terror. During the last year or two the signs of this have been coming thick and fast.</p><p>Therefore, we struggle always for the immediate issues of equality wherever possible. But we must cultivate no illusions about the sincerity or insincerity of this or that particular party or candidate. Along with their immediate struggles the Negroes must ask themselves: What is the program of this or that political organization or party for the creation of such a society in the United States as will root out the conditions from which the prejudice and the inequality spring?</p><p>Neither of the two major parties has any serious program for the reconstruction of American society. All their talk, therefore, among capitalist politicians, about equality of opportunity for Negroes has no meaning in the face of the economic and social crisis which lies ahead.</p><p>The Workers Party has its transitional program for the purpose of mobilizing the American workers toward the struggle for a new social order. For the large masses of the workers, that struggle centers about the struggle for a mass Labor Party. The Negro, however, who sees clearly not only the immediate struggles but the basic and fundamental problem which lies behind it must make up his mind to follow the example of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and those other great Negroes in the greatest period of American history. These banded themselves together in revolutionary organisations in order, by precept and example, to mobilize the large masses of the population for a radical solution of the American crisis of those days. Here is a case where we can safely say to serious Negroes today: Come thou and do likewise.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-13784133791109142752023-08-03T22:16:00.001-04:002023-08-03T22:16:04.885-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>C.L.R. James (aka, W.F. Carlton): Does Cheap Patronage Cancel Oppression? (August 1944)</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcchRTqljXKs522OuWw2A33P5MNWlD9RBwXErrQ_lx6Sxw4YhgXVNLEZ5IdIFE5sf9kyuhV5SEWkXTnDv8U8MBxhqGctZFOX6f8U9kPP5392PCtRlqZlCAvkWKFmyaaAuIDAVcMPpeXf2teGfRK3HWNF_9SqCDRi3p3FplLDJqUxr67OLKcRHnD5ecdOv3/s960/CLR%20James%20taking%20a%20smoke%20in%201946.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcchRTqljXKs522OuWw2A33P5MNWlD9RBwXErrQ_lx6Sxw4YhgXVNLEZ5IdIFE5sf9kyuhV5SEWkXTnDv8U8MBxhqGctZFOX6f8U9kPP5392PCtRlqZlCAvkWKFmyaaAuIDAVcMPpeXf2teGfRK3HWNF_9SqCDRi3p3FplLDJqUxr67OLKcRHnD5ecdOv3/w400-h300/CLR%20James%20taking%20a%20smoke%20in%201946.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>From Labor Action, Vol. 8 No. 33, 14 August 1944, p. 4.</p><p>Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for MIA.</p><p>Labor Action has for years insisted that, the Democratic Party was no friend of the Negro people. Labor Action has pointed out on innumerable occasions that whatever gains the Negro people made from the New Deal, they made as a part of the working class. We have pointed out also that the Roosevelt Administration, in order to fool the large majority of the Negro people; has made spectacular appointments of a few Negroes to administrative and advisory posts while leaving the masses of the Negro people to suffer the humiliations, and degradations to which capitalist society has accustomed them.</p><p>Our enemies, and even some of the Negro people sympathetic to us, have, on the other hand, stood for Roosevelt as the “friend” of the Negro people. They have stated that Roosevelt has done more for the Negroes than any other President since Abraham Lincoln. They have argued that our policy of seeking to build a Labor Party was Utopian, unrealistic and prejudiced.</p><p>Within the last few weeks, however, the ignoring of the Negro people by both the Republican and Democratic Parties has caused a sharp political awakening and questioning among the Negro people. The result is that among Negroes themselves there are beginning to appear some wonderful analyses of the two parties and their treatment of Negroes.</p><p>A Few Extracts</p><p>We propose here to give a few extracts from one such article which has recently appeared in a Negro paper. It deals with the Democratic Party and Negroes, and it states:</p><p>“Our political and civic leadership has confuted federal relief with actual economic gain.</p><p>“It has misconstrued WPA and other federal-financed public works projects as permanent advantages while in reality these projects have been but public doles masking under new names.”</p><p>Nothing could be more true. The Negroes gained a few advantages simply because, as workers and unemployed, they shared in these “public doles.” We repeat: Roosevelt and the Democratic Party did little for Negroes as Negroes.</p><p>Stating the Truth</p><p>What they did do, however, is beautifully stated in this article.</p><p>“The Democratic Party has created a whole flock of ‘Negro experts’ and ‘Negro advisers’ and ‘Negro assistants’ who can be all grouped together under a $6,000 a year salary ceiling and rated as glorified lackeys, errand and call boys by the Democratic high command.”</p><p>“The Roosevelt Administration has tried to wash its face, put on a clean shirt and be at least respectable on the Negro question, but the effort has been mournful and incongruous with its actual desires.</p><p>“In the midst of the world’s greatest war, the Democratic Party has shown its consistency of anti-Negro viewpoints by denying the Negro the right to vote; by tolerating shameful, Jim Crow and shooting and murdering of the Negroes who wear the uniform of the nation’s armed forces. It has closed its eyes to race riots in principal cities. It has played around with the fundamental, constitution-guaranteed right of Negroes to earn a decent livelihood. It has accepted as its credit the continual denial of manhood to America’s 15,000,000 Negro citizens and even now, on the eve of its national convention, plans to avoid speaking about the master as a cover-up for its pursuance of its anti-Negro policies.”</p><p>That is quite perfect. And where does all this wisdom come from? It comes from the Amsterdam News of July 22. Powell, the editor, was recently appointed by Governor Dewey as a member of the New York State Boxing Commission.</p><p>For the moment we shall say here that we can predict with confidence one thing that Governor Dewey will do if he becomes President. He has been doing it already on a small scale in New York State. It can be expressed precisely thus:</p><p>“The Republican Party will create a whole flock of ‘Negro experts’ and ‘Negro advisers’ and ‘Negro assistants’ who can be all grouped together under a $6,000 a year salary ceiling and rated as glorified lackeys, errand and call boys by the Republican high command.”</p><p>That the Negro masses are beginning to see this, is one of the most hopeful signs of the times and we hope that the day is not too far off when the Negro people and the people of the United States as a whole will get rid of a lot of political baggage, including the Negro errand boys and lackeys of both the Republican and Democratic Parties.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-43215159244672006682023-08-03T22:05:00.004-04:002023-08-03T22:05:49.280-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>C.L.R. James (aka, W.F. Carlton): No Alternative for Negroes but to Fight for Labor Party, (August 1944)</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuXiCNCc3_VAOhl7S2j_YsmRwbP2t8e8T93eVuC_ixBhb0NraSuNTf9MBMjOg8H5_OLIIRmwyY4qz48RlIVyEAIJzjXzBkN8Us-xmft-_Zi7PDDqHBhkMV9Krv6BG1yG64PzSxA0tZT2EIenVqKmCzEeeQc3kumi5qf5yQsBzZqFfFIy7pifxsZn2c6p1A/s1345/CLR%20James%20on%20the%20Negro%20Question%20book%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1345" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuXiCNCc3_VAOhl7S2j_YsmRwbP2t8e8T93eVuC_ixBhb0NraSuNTf9MBMjOg8H5_OLIIRmwyY4qz48RlIVyEAIJzjXzBkN8Us-xmft-_Zi7PDDqHBhkMV9Krv6BG1yG64PzSxA0tZT2EIenVqKmCzEeeQc3kumi5qf5yQsBzZqFfFIy7pifxsZn2c6p1A/w268-h400/CLR%20James%20on%20the%20Negro%20Question%20book%20cover.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><p>From Labor Action, Vol. 8 No. 32, 7 August 1944, p. 4.</p><p>Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for MIA.</p><p>Two weeks ago I wrote of the theoretical mess in which Walter White found himself. He called the platform of the Republican Party “dishonest and stupid.” But all he could say about the Democratic Party amounts to this: that if they gave way to the Southern pressure, then the Negroes would be in a bad way indeed. What he really should have said was that Walter White and all the Negro politicians of that stripe would be in a bad way. They are.</p><p>First of all, the members of the NAACP, and the Negro people generally, reacted violently against White’s policy, of which his speech was only a special example. They accused him of dragging the NAACP into politics, of trying to sell out this civil rights organization, lock stock and barrel, to the Democratic Party.</p><p>The NAACP, said many members, even New Dealers, is a non-political organization. This, in some respects, is a nonsensical statement. When the disabilities of a minority like the Negroes have the deep economic and social roots and the political repercussions which accompany them, the struggle for civil rights becomes a serious political struggle. But let us leave that for the moment.</p><p>What the Politicians Did</p><p>The members mean that if the NAACP becomes attached to any political party, e.g., the Democratic Party, then Negro Republicans will not be able to join it. They understand further that once you become tangled up with either of the two major political parties, then you are its prisoner and it takes you for granted and goes its way, careless of what you think. This is profoundly true.</p><p>Unfortunately, it is also true that although the Negroes have NOT tied themselves up with any of the political parties, but carefully warned them by a manifesto that their policy toward Negroes would be carefully scrutinized, both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have as good as told them: “Do what you like.” If the Republican Party platform is “dishonest and stupid,” the Democratic platform practically ignores the Negroes. The choice is bitter.</p><p>Now once more we ask the Negroes: What are you doing and where are you going politically? If today there is an FEPC, miserable as it is, it was formed only because the Negroes threatened to march on Washington. If a Republican administration had been in Washington, it too would have recognized even the threat of mass action and would have formed some sort of organization to appease and fool the Negro people.</p><p>The proof is that the Republican Party has endorsed the proposal for a permanent FEPC. That means nothing.</p><p>For Negro emancipation, both these parties are the same big zero. The Chicago Defender recognizes this and says so:</p><p>“There Is Little to Choose”</p><p>“As of now, there is little to choose between Democrats and Republicans.” That is exactly what the “average Negro thinks. And what to do? The Defender says that Negroes “must take a ‘wait and see’ attitude of complete independence.”</p><p>That is just a lot of words. Complete independence for what? Going where? There is a legend which describes how St. Simeon Stylites sat for a number of years on the top of a tall pole, doing nothing. He too was completely independent – and got nowhere.</p><p>Neither party means to do anything serious for the Negroes. That is now a proved reality.</p><p>Then the Negroes have to do something for themselves. First of all, no more threats to march or threats to do this or that, but actual action is needed. Secondly, however, in the strictly political field, it is necessary for Negroes to seek another political organization. They have done it in the past. When the Whigs and Democrats were pussy-footing about slavery, both of them, militant Negroes joined the abolition movement and worked for the formation of the Republican Party, which abolished slavery.</p><p>This was the life-work of Frederick Douglass. He didn’t say “Now we must be completely independent” and go fishing or read the papers.</p><p>In 1892 the Negroes of the South, organized in their Southern Farmers’ Association, joined the Populist movement and battled for a third party. Isn’t the time ripe for Negroes of energy and ability to join in the agitation and organization of a Labor Party? Must Negroes always stand aside and wait for others to begin?</p><p>The Southern bourbons hate the CIO Political Action Committee only a little less than they hate the Negro organizations which preach equality. However, the Negroes have gotten the boot first. Isn’t it time for the NAACP and for all the Negroes to say to the CIO committee: “The time has come for a change. If you are ready to form a Labor Party, we are with you. Let us work on a program and with the poor farmers, the youth and the old people we shall be the political power in the land.”</p><p>But do you know one reason why Walter White and his type wouldn’t do it? The reason is very simple. For twelve years White in particular has been a member of Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet.” He has been a Minister Without Portfolio. He and his friends have been active in building up a fine fat set of $4,000-a-year jobs for a few hundred Negroes in the Roosevelt Administration.</p><p>Servants of One Group</p><p>These jobs are all children of the New Deal. If the Republicans win a victory, there will of course be another “Black Cabinet,” but a Republican one this time, equally subservient, equally useless, equally humiliating and degrading to the great masses of the Negro People. While White and his bunch hold on to the Democratic Party, we can be sure that another bunch (Powell of the Amsterdam News is one) are getting ready to get their crumbs from the Dewey table if Dewey gets into the White House. That is one good reason why, although they all wail about the brush-off the Negroes got from both parties, each group of Negro politicians hangs on to one.</p><p>Must March with Labor</p><p>The Negroes, once they recognize that nothing is to be gained from either of these two capitalist parties, must face the situation resolutely and act accordingly. “A plague on both of you. We are for a new party.”</p><p>Today such a party must be a Labor Party. I shall return to this subject again. But meanwhile I have to insist to my Negro readers in particular: If you agree that neither party has any program or policy for the Negro people as a whole, then don’t you agree that some radical departure is necessary?</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-78518134729074034802023-08-03T21:04:00.001-04:002023-08-03T21:04:06.861-04:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>C.L.R. James (aka, J.R. Johnson) on The Course of the War, (August 1944)</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Yv_rLAgdzs8zFIPwDIkwW6caWTbKYAeu4GdZARoWtUYt21cDu9kfQQLn1HzAsamkJJ24AQ0AjTPieVSgOkB3-TmSTtgGkysMMkyM2m8B6HBGHXl4VnhfCI-k1P1F6Q4NnFGoMDECs-bDLH-vydhXSLdPC3QltBOZkl14rP6OtQnzlWAC2IX38oDCbAzv/s900/CLR%20James%20in%20his%20library.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="900" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Yv_rLAgdzs8zFIPwDIkwW6caWTbKYAeu4GdZARoWtUYt21cDu9kfQQLn1HzAsamkJJ24AQ0AjTPieVSgOkB3-TmSTtgGkysMMkyM2m8B6HBGHXl4VnhfCI-k1P1F6Q4NnFGoMDECs-bDLH-vydhXSLdPC3QltBOZkl14rP6OtQnzlWAC2IX38oDCbAzv/w400-h334/CLR%20James%20in%20his%20library.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>Source: New International, Vol. X No. 8, August 1944, pp. 247–251.</p><p>Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.</p><p>Proofread: Einde O’Callaghan (December 2015).</p><p>The Bourgeois Theory of the Offensive</p><p>Today military conflict embraces the entire structure and superstructure of society. Its arena is the whole of the globe. We propose here to examine certain aspects of its development to date and more particularly in regard to the impending defeat of Germany.</p><p>No attempt will be made to deal with the technical military content of the war. Nor is this necessary. If Hitler lost four or five million men to get a thousand square miles outside the eastern borders of Germany in eighteen months, and in another eighteen months is back again where he started, one does not have to be a master of logistics to be able to draw certain extremely important conclusions. We propose rather, as an indispensable part of our analysis, to treat the question historically, to place this war in relation to other great wars in the past and the prospect of the future. In particular, we wish to draw attention to the method of judgment of Marx and Engels, the founders of historical materialism. By this means we shall be in a position to learn much that is valuable. The actual proletarian revolution can assume the form of a full-scale military conflict, as did the Civil War in Spain in 1936–38.</p><p>But there are today more topical reasons for the study of war. Marx wrote to Engels that “the history of the army brings out more clearly than anything else the correctness of our conceptions of the connection between the productive forces and the social relations” (September 25, 1857). Today when the whole social organism becomes one vast armed camp the movement of bourgeois society in its various stages of progress toward disintegration, ruin and barbarism appear starkly. Abstract theories take on a vivid actuality. The proletariat is faced with fundamentals and can learn rapidly.</p><p>Every general staff in Europe begins with Clausewitz, who drew his principles from the wars of revolutionary France and of Napoleon. Hitler’s special translation of the numerous volumes of Napoleon’s correspondence is deeply scored and underscored. The European generals know their roots. To attempt to understand them we must have some idea of what the teacher of them all stood for.</p><p>It is a commonplace in our movement that the drive of the French revolutionary armies sprang from the consciousness of the revolutionary nation in arms and the sense of individual personality in the soldier. Perhaps this was most concretely expressed in the speed of the French infantry which at times could do one hundred and twenty paces per minute, in comparison with seventy-five paces characteristic of feudal armies. Napoleon perfected the strategy and tactics which the earlier revolutionary generals began. Thus was born the modern theory of the offensive.</p><p>There is, however, a decisive break in Napoleon’s military career. After the victory of Austerlitz in 1805 the revolution was over. Napoleon’s wars were now unmistakably wars of conquest and the tremendous vitality of the army, the speed and recklessness with which large masses of men fought and sacrificed themselves between 1793 and 1805 began to disappear. Beginning with 1807 he was compelled to lean more and more heavily on artillery. By 1812 the very marshals and the higher officer caste were sick of war. Today contemporaneous evidence has piled up to prove the moral and organizational disintegration of the army before one foot had been set on Russian soil. Thus the great army and the great soldier rose and fell with the rise and fall of the revolution.</p><p>But, stated so baldly, the generalization is misleading. In 1814 Napoleon was decisively defeated and abdicated. When he returned from Elba he faced a coalition of all Europe. The masses were with him. The bourgeoisie was undecided. The rank and file of the army and the lower officers were fanatically on his side. But the old general staff was broken up. Ney took up his command at Quatre Bras with one officer in attendance for staff. Napoleon, it is said, didn’t know whether to trust him or not. Those who again joined Napoleon were distrusted by the soldiers. Thus the army was an exact reflection of the state of affairs in the country. Napoleon, with the help of Carnot, hastily organized an army, and in a few weeks had over 100,000 men with whom to take the field. Nobody knew more about war than Carnot, who had organized the armies of the revolution. Yet Carnot wanted Napoleon to wait six weeks. He would give him an army twice the size and fortify Paris so as to make it impregnable. Napoleon refused to wait. His reply was that he must have a brilliant victory at once. The class relations in the country, the political combinations against him, governed every move of the campaign from the initial organization of the army down to the last fatal hesitation at six o’clock whether to throw in the Old Guard or not.</p><p>Thus the theory of the offensive passed from the supreme military expression of the revolutionary masses of France to its final stage, where the bourgeois Emperor was using it only in form but with its genuine content gone. Engels has expressed his admiration for the Waterloo campaign, and it was a most brilliant display. But every theory, and military strategy, too, is rooted in class relations.</p><p>The “Classic Lines” of War</p><p>Marx and Engels used this basic method in the imperative political business of analyzing a concrete war and no more brilliant and instructive example can be given than their analysis of the Civil War in America.</p><p>When the war broke out, one graduate of West Point from Ohio wrote to another graduate from Georgia:</p><p>“Your whole population is about eight millions, while the North has twenty millions. Of your eight millions, three millions are slaves who may become an element of danger. You have ... none of the manufactures and machine shops necessary for the support of armies, and for war on a large scale ... Your cause is foredoomed to failure. “(R.S. Henry, Story of the Confederacy, page 18)</p><p>To think that Engels, a student of military affairs all his life, did not know this is ridiculous. Yet, after the early successes of the South, Engels wrote his doubts to Marx. Marx replied:</p><p>“The way the North is conducting war is only what might have been expected from a bourgeois republic, where fraud has been enthroned as king so long. The South, an oligarchy, is better adapted to it, especially an oligarchy where the whole productive work falls on the niggers and the four millions of ‘white trash’ are professional filibusterers. All the same, I would bet my head that these fellows will get the worst of it, in spite of ‘Stonewall’ Jackson. It is possible, of course, that before this things may come to a sort of revolution in the North itself.”</p><p>The summation is concise but complete. Engels, however, was still unconvinced and on October 28 Marx wrote again:</p><p>“In my opinion, therefore, for the South it will only be a matter now of the defensive. But their sole possibility of success lay in an offensive ... There is no doubt at all that morally the collapse of the Maryland campaign was of the most tremendous importance.”</p><p>Engels agreed in general but in his reply used the phrase: “I am by no means certain that the affair is going to proceed along such classic lines as you appear to believe.” What are these “classic lines” which Engels referred to so familiarly? Clausewitz has stated them when he says that “... when an object at the very beginning is beyond our strength, it will always remain so.”</p><p>Clausewitz was a student of Kant and a follower of Hegel. His book is a logic of war, of the subject conceived, like Marx’s Capital, in the “absolute” form. The laws are therefore subject to all the qualifications of a concrete situation. And on this there is always room for disagreement. On the basic analysis of the contending forces in the Civil War and the “classic lines” of the military development, there was no difference between Marx and Engels. They differed amicably only on the immediate estimate. Both agreed that if the North did not change politically, then there would be a compromise peace – temporarily. Marx’s judgment might have seemed rash. Today we can read in authoritative studies of the Civil War that, despite the brilliant victories of the South up to that time, the turning point of the war was the Maryland campaign of the fall of 1862, and not Vicksburg or Gettysburg in 1863. (R.S. Henry, The Story of the Confederacy, page 101. The volume is introduced by Douglas Southall Freeman.)</p><p>In his review of Engels’ military writings, Leon Trotsky notes that Engels makes the same basic point in his analysis of the Franco-German war, and Trotsky agrees with him. (The New International, May 1944)</p><p>Strategy and Class Struggle</p><p>Now that the bourgeoisie is washing its dirty linen in public, most of the military theories of 1918–39, like so much bourgeois theory in this age, are being exposed for what they are – a lot of knowledge, a lot of nonsense, and a lot of lies. The layman need not be afraid of this question at all. Clausewitz, the greatest theoretician of war, and a soldier and staff officer in many campaigns, has laid it down that “the events in each age must, therefore, be judged with due regard to the peculiarities of the time and only he who, less by an anxious study of minute details than by a shrewd glance at the main features, can place himself in each particular age is able to understand and appreciate its generals.” To judge the generals, you need to understand society. And the “main feature” of the military debates of society after World War I was the theory of the defensive. This was no accident, no stupidity of generals. The theory of the defensive came straight from the hostility of the organized proletariat and the great masses of the people to the very thought of war. In France, over the length and conditions of service and military appropriations, the “right” and the “left” fought a series of continuous battles that lasted practically up to the outbreak of war. In Britain it was the same, and the foremost military theoretician of the day, a man widely read by the general public, was Liddell Hart, the great protagonist of a special theory of defensive war. Ignoring the tank and condoning the miserable strategy of 1914–18, most of the authors used the 1914–18 war of attrition as a basis for their defensive theory. Major General J.F.C. Fuller, chief of staff of the Royal Tank Corps in 1918 (he now writes for NewsWeek), argued bitterly and in vain in favor of the mechanized offensive. As late as 1937 one of his books was published in Britain in an edition of only five hundred copies. But thirty thousand copies of the same book were published for Hitler’s army and it was widely circulated throughout the military forces of the USSR. The proletariat in those countries being chained, the ruling class could think a little more freely. That Russia’s geographical and economic position precluded more or less a Napoleonic offensive at the beginning of a war against Germany, for example, did not alter the question. It was the very concept of the Maginot Line which was so absurd and to which Britain and France stuck so woodenly.</p><p>In an article written four years ago, the present writer said as follows:</p><p>“Today the bourgeois theorists wake up to the fact that the strategy of the defensive was a criminal blunder and in fact always has been. But which country, torn as the democracies were torn, could even attempt to consider any other strategy but the defensive? ... Perhaps the most ironic commentary on the French defeat is that the method of breaking the center by a heavy concentration of mechanized forces was insistently urged on the French government by the French general, de Gaulle, as far back as 1934 ... It was open to the French if they had wanted it. THEY COULDN’t USE IT.” (The New International, July 1940, page 126)</p><p>There is little to add to that today. [1]</p><p>To the German ruling class, the defensive meant economic strangulation at the hands of Britain, France and the United States. But Germany up to 1933 was a democratic republic. We do not pretend to know what plans the general staff was secretly elaborating, but the theory which attracted wide-spread notice before 1933 was Von Seeckt’s theory of the small, highly mechanized army of the offensive. This was merely the German adaptation of the theory of the offensive to the limitations of the Versailles Treaty and the hostility of the organized German workers to war.</p><p>When Hitler gained power, however, he proceeded to organize Germany for total war based on the most extreme application of the theory of the offensive. His whole strategy rests on a modern application of Clausewitz, and it was Clausewitz who first gave full theoretical emphasis to the importance of the moral and psychological factors in war. The early revolutionary generals and General Bonaparte had developed their devastating offensives from the revolutionary consciousness of France. But the German people, and the proletariat in particular, with its enormous role in contemporary society, had no revolutionary or any other dominating consciousness for which to fight. Furthermore the class struggle had now reached a pitch, undreamed of and impossible in Napoleon’s time. Hitler needed a “revolutionary ideology.” He posed as the revolutionary creator of a “new order.” Napoleon to the end had retained the glamor of his name and achievements. Hitler sought to create artificially what Napoleon had done practically. Dr. Goebbels became his Marshal Ney. He sought to recreate in himself the legend of the divinely-inspired, all-conquering national hero who was Napoleon. Thus the general social policy of fascism reached its intensest expression in the military sphere. The World War experience of Germany, certainty of America’s ultimate entry, were the basic military conditions of the policy. But the causes go beyond that. It is impossible not to recognize in this macabre economic, political and psychological mobilization of a great nation and the whole fantastic plan the diseased imagination of a ruling class conscious that it was at the end of its tether and that only a miracle could save it. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. Some high-ranking generals, conscious of the innumerable chances of war, condemned the whole business. That Hitler was allowed to get so far with it testifies to the complete moral disintegration of bourgeois society as a whole, and not only of the German bourgeoisie.</p><p>To take the military strategy as it developed: first Hitler overwhelmed France. He followed this with an attempt to overwhelm Britain by air. He failed. He thereupon under-took the destruction of the military power of Russia.</p><p>The Russian Campaign</p><p>When the German army marched in June 1941, it proposed to be in Moscow before the winter and to overwhelm the Russians on two thousand miles of front. Like Napoleon, Hitler couldn’t wait.</p><p>In his sketch of The Army of the Soviet Union, Professor Minz of the USSR as early as 1942 wrote that “the phantom that always haunted the fascist generals – i.e., the danger that the blitzkrieg would be converted into a long-drawn-out war, with all the fatal consequences for Germany – became real. In their savage fury the fascists hurled more and more divisions into the holocaust in a desperate effort to bring the war to a speedy conclusion. They could not do otherwise.” (Page 35) That is brilliantly true and is the key to Hitler’s course. The great offensive drew from weakness in relation to the enemy as a whole and therefore carried within itself the seeds of its own catastrophic collapse at any miscarriage. The more thorough the preparation, the more necessary was unbroken success.</p><p>The defeat in front of Moscow was the turning point of the war for Hitler’s armies. It is easy to see that today and some saw it then. The course of the war has since placed in proper perspective the strategic significance of the Russian winter offensives of 1941–42. We must go back to Clausewitz again. After the passage quoted above, he went on to make a final application of this theory – the use of the offensive in defense. In his usual categorical manner when stating a general proposition, he wrote:</p><p>“But we must maintain throughout that a defensive without any positive principle is to be regarded as a self-contradiction in strategy as well as in tactics, and therefore we always come back to the fact that every defensive, according to its strength, will seek to change to attack as soon as it has exhausted the advantages of the defensive.”</p><p>That the Russians could launch an offensive after the battle of Moscow was an indication of great power. In 1941 they refused deliberately to fight a major battle on the frontier. They drew Hitler’s lines out almost to the very gates of Moscow, stood confidently on the defensive, repulsed the attack and then launched a powerful counter-offensive on every front. In front of Moscow the German army was on the defensive for five months. In the South the Russians recaptured Rostov, in the North their offensive saved Leningrad. Hitler’s whole strategic campaign on an international scale was based on the taking of Moscow in 1941. Not only in theory but in practice the German army threw everything that it could into that assault. Where it had failed once, it was useless to try again. It never even tried. Where Hitler had attacked on two thousand miles of front in 1941, he could attack only on five hundred miles in 1942. The German army wasted itself before Sevastopol and after a superhuman effort which put the Moscow drive in the shade, it experienced the disaster of Stalingrad.</p><p>Stalingrad, in the present writer’s opinion, is a battle without any parallel whatever in military history. To deal with it at all satisfactorily would involve a comprehensive treatment of the Russian army and state, which is beyond our scope. Sufficient to say here that the tremendous offensive which accounted for Von Paulus and his 300,000 men foreshadowed the whole story of the almost uninterrupted series of retreats and defeats which have since befallen the German army. To see beneath the surface and follow the inner dialectic of this campaign we cannot do better than try to grasp what is perhaps the main strategic thesis of Clausewitz’s great book. Near the end of his work he states it clearly enough:</p><p>“Our opinion is, therefore, that no pause, no resting point, no intermediate stations, are in accordance with the nature of offensive war, and that when they are unavoidable, they are to be regarded as an evil which makes the result not more certain, but, on the contrary, more uncertain; and further, that, keeping strictly to the general truth, if from weakness or any cause we have been obliged to stop, a second attempt at the object we have in view is, as a rule, impossible; but if such a second attempt is possible, then the stoppage was unnecessary, and that when an object at the very beginning is beyond our strength, it will always remain so.” (On War, Modern Library edition, page 590)</p><p>But that is only half the story. The other half is most pertinent. Clausewitz mistrusted these all-out offensives profoundly because he had seen in life what happened to the army which attempted them as they ought to be attempted, and failed.</p><p>“There are strategic attacks which have led to an immediate peace, but such instances are very rare; the majority, on the contrary, lead only to a point at which the forces remaining are just sufficient to maintain a defensive and to wait for peace. Beyond this point comes the turn of the tide, the counter-stroke. The violence of such a counter-stroke is usually much greater than the force of the original blow.” (page 513)</p><p>That is what we are seeing today on both the fronts where Hitler’s great offensives failed. The tremendous effort he made mobilized greater efforts in his enemies. The mobility of contemporary war insured not only the violence but the speed of the counter-stroke.</p><p>The vast trumpetings about the impenetrability of Festung Europa were myths. The German army could not muster the strength to make the last serious offensive open to them, to push the United Nations into the sea somewhere. Today, 1944, Hitler and Goebbels actually try to make believe that they are going to use men from civilian life, barbers’ assistants and movie operators, men who must have been rejected for military service a dozen times over, to help fill the gaps in the army and oppose the battle-tested Russian army and the millions of highly trained men whom Britain and America have not even yet put into the field. But for the vast tragedy involved, the gesture is not even comic opera, but opera bouffe, burlesque. Dorothy Thompson writes that the Allied estimate of German casualties all told is nine million men! It cannot be far from that. The present writer has not the slightest belief in any great defensive actions by the German army on the line of East Prussia or the West Wall or any other line or wall. Hard and bloody fighting there may very well be. But the theory of the defensive is even more rotten today for Germany than it was for France in 1940. If the German army could carry out any protracted defense of Germany it could do so in only one way – by taking not a mere tactical but a strategic offensive as the sole means of an effective defensive. Not only that. It would have done so long ago. Except in the retaking of Rostov in 1943 and for a brief moment at Salerno, it has shown, since Stalingrad, not the slightest capacity for doing this. Historical logic rolls with remorseless speed to a climax predestined at Stalingrad. And as it does so, it shapes the outlines of the future conflicts. We must look at those.</p><p>The War of the Future</p><p>It is a fundamental postulate of Marx that the increase of accumulation, i.e., the development of technology and science, is accompanied by the increased misery of the proletariat, not only in production but in society in general as well. Absolute as war seems to have become, the end is not yet. Napoleon aimed at the destruction and if possible the annihilation of the opposing armies. The limitations of this destruction were the economic limitations of his time – the horse was still the fastest means of transport. The Civil War in America showed that the steam engine, the railway, could bring large masses of men to the battlefield. But there it left them to fight on foot or on horseback. Despite the vast advances in artillery, the battlefields of 1914-17 were not as qualitatively different from the wars of the previous century as might have been expected. The decisive change came with the tank, the application of the Diesel engine to the battlefield itself. This the Germans developed and by means of the Diesel engine overwhelmed France and tried to overwhelm Britain. For Hitler, the failure over Britain proved another example of the catastrophic reprisals which await him who has tried an all-out offensive and failed. Britain and the United States began the preparation of an offensive in the air which aimed not only at the destruction of the existing Luftwaffe. This offensive aimed at preventing any future Luftwaffe from being built. Thus it sought to destroy the very sources of life of the enemy nation. Today one Anglo-American expedition can drop a weight of fire-power over Germany equal to all that Germany dropped over Britain in the entire air offensive of 1940. And as the tank appeared at the end of World War I, so the robot bomb has appeared in the last stages of World War II. This means that the strategic preparation of World War III must be based on the principle of an offensive aimed at the destruction or annihilation, no longer of armies, but of the whole economic and social life of the enemy country. It is difficult to see what place remains for any theory of the defensive.</p><p>One aspect of the defensive still remains, to destroy completely the defeated enemy and keep him destroyed. That is the fate reserved for Germany, even apart from the more basic question of economic rivalry. But Europe still remains the arena of competing imperialisms. De Seversky is confident that in a few years the powerful long distance plane, capable of going 25,000 miles will be perfectly feasible. Bourgeois nations, therefore, must become a congeries of armed camps, each of which, at the approach of war, concentrates on the business of wrecking the opposing nation completely. For this, fantastic as it may seem, the military men will prepare. Hitler’s whole career proves that. But the international proletariat will have its word before this consummation is achieved. The theory of the offensive, which safeguarded the birth, is now herald of the death of contemporary society. In war as elsewhere the inevitability of socialism is written across the skies.</p><p>Note</p><p>1. In an article on Attack in the New American Encyclopedia (1858–63), which is almost certainly written by Engels, he, governed by the limitations of his time, makes the best possible case for a general theory of the defensive. But in the end he decides for the general belief in the offensive though with “considerable modifications.” With the application of the Diesel engine to the battlefield itself, however, even the defensive had to lose every trace of a static mentality.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-26061661485556658962023-01-12T22:44:00.000-05:002023-01-12T22:44:02.903-05:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Honoring MLK Six Decades After the Mass Struggles of 1963</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zZlEHNrYwAgPIcDZYwAdvaeKJoe2zd0vBjFJflJ5Sd57kq9AAwORFepolA9TTYT_cFBSYGi3yr42GOKFh-LDJ7-xPgboTkpg-1pkXXLXI1RwtRyAWKn6Uxgn3ocYQXEhlEcPGIWFK86ctBPmISj8pFPx2xwCEA1XbRzePkZqKIdAfwQ1hmOSGtQrog/s1024/MLK-at-1963-Detroit-march-with-CL-Franklin.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="1024" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zZlEHNrYwAgPIcDZYwAdvaeKJoe2zd0vBjFJflJ5Sd57kq9AAwORFepolA9TTYT_cFBSYGi3yr42GOKFh-LDJ7-xPgboTkpg-1pkXXLXI1RwtRyAWKn6Uxgn3ocYQXEhlEcPGIWFK86ctBPmISj8pFPx2xwCEA1XbRzePkZqKIdAfwQ1hmOSGtQrog/w400-h216/MLK-at-1963-Detroit-march-with-CL-Franklin.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>AFRICAN AMERICANS IN BIRMINGHAM, DETROIT, CAMBRIDGE, GREENSBORO AND OTHER AREAS DEFIED THE RULING CLASS DEMANDING RACIAL JUSTICE AND SELF-DETERMINATION</p><p>January 11, 2023</p><p>Reprinted from Fighting Words, Journal of the Communist Workers League</p><p><a href="https://fighting-words.net/2023/01/11/honoring-mlk-six-decades-after-the-mass-struggles-of-1963/">Honoring MLK Six Decades After the Mass Struggles of 1963 – Fighting Words (fighting-words.net)</a></p><p>By Abayomi Azikiwe</p><p>On January 16 in the United States, the 94th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will be commemorated as a federal holiday.</p><p>Since 1986, the third Monday of January has been designated in tribute to the martyred Civil Rights and Antiwar leader who was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.</p><p>Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee during the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s (SCLC) intervention in support of the sanitation workers’ strike for recognition from the racist city government of Henry Loeb. African American sanitation workers were subjected to near slave-like conditions despite the passage of legislation such as the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964-1965.</p><p>The mass Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. had gained momentum in the aftermath of the brutal lynching of Emmett Till in Mississippi in August 1955. Mamie Till Bradley Mobley, the mother of Emmett, militantly condemned the racist lynching of her son prompting mass rallies in several cities such as Detroit.</p><p>Later, on December 1 in Montgomery, Ms. Rosa Parks, a longtime labor and civil rights activist, was arrested for violating the segregation laws of the State of Alabama. Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger. Several days later the African American community embarked upon a year-long boycott of the city buses. They defied the threats and intimidations by the racist city administration. Dr. King and other leaders were subjected to unjustified arrests and the bombings of their homes.</p><p>The case against segregation in Alabama was appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court resulting in a victory in November 1956. After the highest court confirmed the unconstitutionality of the segregated bus system, the boycott was called off by the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA).</p><p>According to a source on the historic ruling by the Supreme Court:</p><p>“Aurelia S. Browder v. William A. Gayle challenged the Alabama state statutes and Montgomery, Alabama city ordinances requiring segregation on Montgomery buses. Filed by Fred Gray and Charles D. Langford on behalf of four African American women who had been mistreated on city buses, the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld a district court ruling that the statute was unconstitutional. Gray and Langford filed the federal district court petition that became Browder v. Gayle on 1 February 1956, two days after segregationists bombed King’s house. The original plaintiffs in the case were Aurelia S. Browder, Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin, Mary Louise Smith, and Jeanatta Reese, but outside pressure convinced Reese to withdraw from the case in February. Gray made the decision not to include Rosa Parks in the case to avoid the perception that they were seeking to circumvent her prosecution on other charges.”</p><p>After the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the movement accelerated. In 1960, African American college and university students began the mass sit-in struggles throughout the South including Greensboro, North Carolina and Nashville, Tennessee. In April 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed while the following year, the freedom rides commenced resulting in additional legal victories outlawing segregation in interstate travel.</p><p>Mass Demonstrations Erupt in 1963</p><p>Despite these victories beginning with the Brown v. Topeka case of May 1954, where segregated K-12 public schools were deemed unconstitutional, to the Montgomery campaign, the sit-ins and freedom rides, the overall objective for the total elimination of Jim Crow was stalled by 1963. Then President John F. Kennedy had an image of being sympathetic to the plight of African Americans, yet his administration had not initiated a comprehensive Civil Rights Bill to nullify the draconian state and municipal laws enacted after the failure of Reconstruction in the late 19th century.</p><p>In Birmingham, the SCLC opened up a campaign to force the desegregation of the most industrialized city in the South. The Birmingham movement resulted in the arrest of several thousand youth who refused to halt their demonstrations in the city. Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor became the public face of the intolerant institutional racists who refused to integrate public facilities, businesses and schools.</p><p>A split between the outgoing and incoming segregationist municipal administrations in Birmingham led to a political vacuum where Connor was able to take administrative control of the efforts to halt the demonstrations during April and May 1963. These dynamics proved the opening for the business leaders in Birmingham to speak directly with the SCLC and other organizations where they reached a settlement to end the protests. Thousands were released from detention along with the reinstatement of African American students expelled from schools due to their involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.</p><p>During this same period, demonstrations erupted in numerous cities across the U.S. In Cambridge, Maryland, the struggle to desegregate the city led to mass militant protests and a rebellion. National Guard troops were ordered into Cambridge where they remained for over a year, representing the longest military occupation of a city since the Civil War.</p><p>Other municipalities impacted included Somerville, Tennessee; Danville, Virginia; Greensboro, North Carolina; and northern cities such as Chicago and Detroit where youth and workers took to the streets to protest the monumental injustices related to housing, police brutality and substandard education. In 1963, there were at least two cities where the demonstrations turned violent, providing a preview of the urban rebellions that became the focus of the Black struggle after 1964. In Cambridge, arson attacks and other forms of property damage occurred after many people became frustrated with the repressive tactics of the police. In Birmingham, there were occasions where youth and workers utilized unconventional methods to resist the brutality of Bull Connor’s law-enforcement agents.</p><p>On June 11, there was the historic admission of two African American students to the segregated University of Alabama, where then Governor George Wallace symbolically stood at the administration building to block the entrance. The admission of the two students had been authorized through a federal court decision which was supported by the Kennedy administration. These events and a speech by Kennedy suggesting he would introduce a Civil Rights Bill for deliberations in Congress, outraged segregationists in the South.</p><p>The following evening on June 12, Medgar Evers, a longtime Field Secretary for the NAACP in Mississippi, was assassinated outside his home in the capital of Jackson. The murder of Evers by a well-known racist businessman who boasted about committing the execution, infuriated people across the country.</p><p>In Detroit, a mass demonstration took place just two weeks later on June 23, representing a major departure for the overall movement for racial justice. This march known as the “Walk to Freedom” attracted hundreds of thousands of people within the city. The manifestation was led by Dr. King and the Rev. C.L. Franklin, a nationally-renowned minister based in Detroit and the father of the later designated “Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin. This demonstration culminated at Cobo Arena where Dr. King delivered an early iteration of his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, over two months prior to the March on Washington. The speech was captured by Motown Records and released as a recording, the first of LPs featuring Dr. King.</p><p>Although the Detroit Walk to Freedom was an overwhelming success attracting the participation of then UAW President Walter Reuther and liberal Democratic Mayor Jerome Cavanaugh, less than two weeks later, a 24-year-old African American woman, Cynthia Scott, was gunned down by two police bullets in her back during the early morning hours of July 5. Scott was walking on the street in the lower eastside when she was accosted by two white police officers. They demanded that she get into a police cruiser and when she refused, one of the officers shot her in the back while Scott walked away.</p><p>This incident mobilized the African American community in Detroit. The Wayne County Prosecutor and the Recorder’s Court refused to indict the officer who killed Scott. Thousands of people marched to police headquarters to protest the killing. Later a civil suit filed by Attorney Milton Henry was dismissed by the courts. A public rally was held at the Central Congregational Church attracting 700 people demanding justice for Cynthia Scott.</p><p>The corporate press during this period in Detroit attempted to criminalize Scott after her murder, citing previous arrests. The police claimed Scott had attacked them with a knife. Nonetheless, eyewitnesses to the killing gave statements to the police and the press saying that the shooting of Scott was completely unprovoked.</p><p>It would take another four years for the African American community to erupt in Detroit on July 23, 1967, with the largest urban rebellion in U.S. history. These events led to the election of the first African American mayor, Coleman A. Young, a decade after the Walk to Freedom and the police murder of Cynthia Scott, in 1973.</p><p>Lessons from the Mass Struggles of 1963</p><p>Today in 2023, there are no local or national elections for this year, therefore leaving the African American people largely abandoned by politicians who are not compelled to seek their votes. As in 1963, some six decades earlier, a Democratic administration is in office which could not have been elected three years before without the electoral support of African Americans.</p><p>Similarly, as in 1963, the reformist program adopted by the Democratic National Convention in 2020 has not been fulfilled. African Americans are still suffering from police misconduct, impoverishment, unequal educational opportunities and increasing environmental degradation.</p><p>The Pentagon war budget and the subsidization of the ruling class by the U.S. government continues to hamper the capacity of the state to meet the immediate needs of the masses of people. Dr. King in early 1967 began to speak out forcefully against the U.S. intervention in Vietnam demanding that the troops be withdrawn from Southeast Asia. He viewed the imperialist war machine as an enemy of the poor and oppressed.</p><p>Dr. King linked the struggles against poverty, racism and war into a program of action which the U.S. government feared. In 2023, we must study these developments which took place during previous decades to gain guidance and inspiration for the impending mass struggles ahead aimed at ending all forms of racism, national oppression, economic exploitation and imperialist war.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-54244860941624076862023-01-12T22:37:00.004-05:002023-01-12T22:37:33.345-05:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Netherlands Prime Minister Apologizes for Atlantic Slave Trade</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtt1QbsdKhZQ4NxO0_w9tNazXnRfyT5bzjyAzwitDQVTKWy3LjQ9kI9boM-GEBou73gEYbfnXVbabNKdefeFg1YdQXySC0ux-8lWEeYH77e6MTBapwVmKvpBW9pZT8dLL3pljltY-bCrp5j1fWVytMigVw5WvTuAe1TZh_xzr69oSo2ZG0d2vs3xWnAQ/s974/Netherlands%20PM%20apologizes%20for%20African%20enslavement.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="646" data-original-width="974" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtt1QbsdKhZQ4NxO0_w9tNazXnRfyT5bzjyAzwitDQVTKWy3LjQ9kI9boM-GEBou73gEYbfnXVbabNKdefeFg1YdQXySC0ux-8lWEeYH77e6MTBapwVmKvpBW9pZT8dLL3pljltY-bCrp5j1fWVytMigVw5WvTuAe1TZh_xzr69oSo2ZG0d2vs3xWnAQ/w400-h265/Netherlands%20PM%20apologizes%20for%20African%20enslavement.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>AFRICANS SAY THIS IS NOT ENOUGH, CALLING FOR REPARATIONS</p><p>December 27, 2022 </p><p>Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologizes for African enslavement</p><p>By Abayomi Azikiwe</p><p>Over the last few decades the demand to pay reparations for African enslavement has drawn support from around the world.</p><p>Africans on the continent along with those living in other parts of the globe have joined the movement for reparations as compensation from Europe and North America for the centuries-long Atlantic slave trade.</p><p>The initial move in any reparations process would be a formal apology from the nations, governments and corporations involved. Many nations within Western Europe and later the United States and Canada profited immensely from the enslavement of African people.</p><p>In fact, scholars such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Eric Williams, Walter Rodney, Vincent B. Thompson and many others have made the argument that without the exploitation and oppression of African people, the feudal and capitalist economies of Western Europe and North America would have never gained dominance within the world economic system after the 15th century. Such an historical fact means that the current international bourgeoisie owes its global status to the labor power, waterways and natural resources of the African continent and would therefore be liable for incalculable amounts of monetary damages extending back nearly six centuries.</p><p>As a result of the institutional racism which grew out of the slave and colonial systems, Africans and their descendants still suffer today from national oppression, discrimination based on color and economic exploitation which has its origins in the antebellum period and the rise of imperialism. In the U.S., segregation was legal up until the mid-1960s when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by both chambers of the Congress. The following year, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law even though well into the 21st century, the right to universal suffrage remains a source of struggle.</p><p>Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte on December 19 delivered an address at the national archives where he expressed his deep regret that Dutch history had been marred by involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. This speech grew out of a commission which was established in 2020 amid the worldwide demonstration against racism prompted by the police execution of George Floyd in Minneapolis.</p><p>The role of the Netherlands commission was to examine the colonial history of the country which profited from the enslavement of African people in several territories in North America, South America and the Caribbean. In 2021, the commission concluded that the Netherlands needed to accept its responsibility for what was described as a “crime against humanity.”</p><p>In the 20 minutes speech, Rutte apologized for:</p><p>“[T]he actions of the Dutch state in the past: posthumously to all enslaved people worldwide who have suffered from those actions, to their daughters and sons, and to all their descendants into the here and now. For centuries the Dutch state and its representatives have enabled and stimulated slavery and have profited from it. It is true that nobody alive today bears any personal guilt for slavery…(however) the Dutch state bears responsibility for the immense suffering that has been done to those that were enslaved and their descendants.”</p><p>Yet those African descendants who were present at the speech were not impressed with the Rutte apology. During the address the prime minister ruled out the payment of reparations. Instead, he announced that his government would be establishing a fund of $US212 million to tackle some of the problems stemming from past injustices.</p><p>Africans whose ancestors were enslaved by the Dutch accused Rutte of being disingenuous in his statements. Residents of existing and former colonies of the European country say they had not been consulted prior to the speech. Others claimed that the apology was ill-timed since the 160th anniversary of the abolition of enslavement in the Dutch colonies will be commemorated during 2023.</p><p>Dutch retiree Waldo Koendjbiharie said of the speech by the Dutch leader that:</p><p>“It’s about money. Apologies are words and with those words you can’t buy anything.”</p><p>Another African descendant from the South American state of Surinam, which was colonized by the Netherlands, Roy Kaikusi Groenberg of the Honor and Recovery Foundation, emphasized:</p><p>“It takes two to tango — apologies have to be received. The way the government is handling this, it’s coming across as a neo-colonial belch.”</p><p>The Dutch Role in Slavery and Colonialism</p><p>This area of Europe would emerge as a critical player in the Atlantic slave trade and colonization in the Western Hemisphere, Africa and Asia during the early 17th century. The Dutch fought a war of independence against the Spanish crown during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.</p><p>Several rival European states were seeking to dominate the trade in human beings and commodities during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Dutch fought both Spain and Portugal to claims its own place within the burgeoning Atlantic slave trade and the colonization of the Western Hemisphere and the Asia-Pacific.</p><p>Netherlands colonial outposts around the world Netherlands colonial outposts around the world.</p><p>The Dutch West India Company and its counterpart known as the East India Company established numerous stations around the world. The company fought several wars with states in addition to Spain and Portugal.</p><p>Between the early 17th century to the concluding years of the 18th century, competition was fierce between France, England and the Dutch. Eventually, the Dutch would be overwhelmed by the military and commercial successes of other Western European powers such as France and Britain.</p><p>One source says of the impact of Dutch colonization that:</p><p>“Dutch West India Company … founded in 1621 mainly to carry on economic warfare against Spain and Portugal by striking at their colonies in the West Indies and South America and on the west coast of Africa. While attaining its greatest success against the Portuguese in Brazil in the 1630s and ’40s, the company depleted its resources and thereafter declined in power. It was dissolved in 1794. The company also established several colonies in the West Indies and Guyana between 1634 and 1648, including Aruba, Curaçao, and Saint Martin, but later lost many of them to the French. The Dutch colony in North America, New Netherland (renamed New York in the mid-1660s), became a province of the company in 1623. A combination of low Dutch immigration, autocratic administration, and under-investment, however, damaged the ability of New Netherland to compete with the neighboring English colonies, and it was ceded to the English in 1667. The Dutch West India Company was much less successful than the Dutch East India Company, its counterpart in Southeast Asia. The West India Company was taken over by the state in 1791 and was dissolved in the wake of the French invasion of the Dutch Republic in 1794.”</p><p>Even today in the 21st century, the Kingdom of the Netherlands is composed of the European capital and other island nations in the Caribbean. The Caribbean part of the Kingdom is made up of the islands of Aruba, Curaçao, St Maarten, Bonaire, Saba and St Eustatius.</p><p>The Netherlands joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. Since this time successive governments and the monarchy have been loyal members of the western military alliance.</p><p>The Netherlands: A Center of “International Law” for Imperialism</p><p>Prior to the advent of World War I and II, The Netherlands attempted to maintain its foreign policy based on neutrality. Nonetheless, the country was occupied by the Nazis in 1940 forcing its leaders to take refuge in England.</p><p>In 1945 after the conclusion of WWII, The Netherlands would be a founding member of the United Nations. Later the country benefited from the Marshall Plan along with the aid airlifts in 1953 when over 1800 people died in catastrophic flooding.</p><p>During the last two decades, the Netherlands has become a venue for trials over alleged human rights abuses carried out in the former Yugoslavia and the African continent. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been exclusively preoccupied with the investigation, extradition and prosecution of African state actors and rebel organizations.</p><p>For this reason, the ICC has become a controversial institution as several African governments have criticized the court and threatened to withdraw from the Rome Statute, which created the framework for the ICC in 1998. Efforts were underway for several years to bring the former president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, and the current President William Ruto, to the Netherlands to stand trial over events which occurred in 2007-2008. Both cases against the two Kenyan leaders were subsequently dropped due to lack of evidence.</p><p>The former president of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, was kidnapped by French paratroopers in April 2011 and transported to the Netherlands where he remained for nearly a decade awaiting and standing trial over efforts he carried out to prevent the current French and U.S.-backed regime from taking power in this West African state. President Gbagbo was acquitted by the ICC also as a result of a lack of evidence. These are just two examples of the injustices perpetrated by the Netherlands government in alliance with imperialism operating under the guise of international law.</p><p>Consequently, until the Netherlands pays reparations for its role in the enslavement and colonization of African and Asian peoples, its apologies under the present administration of Rutte will remain a hollow gesture. Beyond the era of African enslavement to the present, the Kingdom of the Netherlands cannot escape its culpability in the ongoing oppression and exploitation of African and other peoples.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419039966163178077.post-28580358996963031942023-01-12T22:32:00.003-05:002023-01-12T22:32:51.504-05:00<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Death Toll Mounts as Unrest Continues in Peru</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigBITrW-9l7iVmKS6ArLq3bmpuNR6nTazhQCzsBA65c9snDQltcx7H56EuTzJM3zVCdlsV5PT8W07-cWvmnbqhLfcfSZsSEjqPa68z__3jE6iGeLGAZNY0z5r8OoFaDq1NuEu4utxm87gQxeBAcEdPk1DwQj8NFtw-vx0UIMV713J3HXaQCdpXMS6gYQ/s800/Peru%20military%20massacres%20civilians%20in%20Juliaca.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigBITrW-9l7iVmKS6ArLq3bmpuNR6nTazhQCzsBA65c9snDQltcx7H56EuTzJM3zVCdlsV5PT8W07-cWvmnbqhLfcfSZsSEjqPa68z__3jE6iGeLGAZNY0z5r8OoFaDq1NuEu4utxm87gQxeBAcEdPk1DwQj8NFtw-vx0UIMV713J3HXaQCdpXMS6gYQ/w400-h266/Peru%20military%20massacres%20civilians%20in%20Juliaca.webp" width="400" /></a></div><p>PRESIDENT PEDRO CASTILLO, A FORMER UNION LEADER, REMAINS IN DETENTION AMID A NATIONAL STATE OF EMERGENCY DECLARED BY THE CURRENT MILITARY-BACKED REGIME</p><p>December 27, 2022 </p><p>Peru people protest death of Wilfredo Lizarme</p><p>Reprinted from Fighting Words, Journal of the Communist Workers League</p><p><a href="https://fighting-words.net/2022/12/27/death-toll-mounts-as-unrest-continues-in-peru/">Death Toll Mounts as Unrest Continues in Peru – Fighting Words (fighting-words.net)</a></p><p>By Abayomi Azikiwe</p><p>Peru remains a center of resistance to the removal of President Pedro Castillo in a political coup by the Congress on December 7.</p><p>Castillo is still incarcerated on numerous charges including corruption and violation of the state constitution.</p><p>The former union leader and left-wing president has rejected these allegations and is demanding to be released from detention immediately. On December 22, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) was in Peru to investigate the current political turmoil.</p><p>As part of the assertion that he remains the legitimate head-of-state in Peru, Castillo requested a meeting with the IACHR delegation saying that the conditions under which he is being held are a violation of his human rights. Castillo, along with thousands across the South American country, are calling for the resignation of the recently installed President Dina Boluarte, the immediate release of the former president, the dissolving of Congress and the holding of national elections.</p><p>Castillo has received significant international support from several governments throughout the region. Mexico has repeatedly called for the president’s release along with Bolivia, Argentina, Colombia, Honduras and others. The Mexican government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (often referred to as AMLO) has granted political asylum to the family of Castillo, who have already left Peru.</p><p>The Mexican ambassador to Peru, Pablo Monroy Conesa, was expelled by the Boluarte government claiming that statements made by officials were hostile to the current coup regime in Peru. Since the impeachment of Castillo on December 7, the military has moved to seize control of all major transportation and infrastructure institutions in the country. This has taken place amid continuing strikes by workers, farmers and youth who have blocked roads, highways, airports and trains. On December 22, the defense minister, Luis Alberto Otarola, was appointed as prime minister of the government in Lima.</p><p>Mexican President AMLO announced that his government would seek to maintain diplomatic relations with Peru under the existing administration of Boluarte. The president was concerned about the status of Mexican citizens living and working in Peru.</p><p>Telesur reported on the diplomatic crisis between Mexico and Peru that:</p><p>“Regarding the current situation in Peru, marked by a political and social crisis, AMLO described Boluarte’s administration as ‘a very questioned government.’ In this sense, he denounced the use of repression in the face of the conflict instead of opting for dialogue and ‘the democratic method’ of early elections. AMLO criticized ‘the attitude of the so-called political class, of the economic and political power groups in Peru.’ The Mexican President accused them of being ‘those who have maintained that crisis in that country because of their ambitions.’”</p><p>AMLO characterized the Peruvian society as being under a “state of siege” since December 7 when Castillo was removed from office and arrested by the security forces. In addition, the Mexican leader criticized United States Ambassador Lisa Kenna who met with the Boluarte government, giving the regime legitimacy.</p><p>Other imperialist centers also met with Boluarte including the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK). State Department spokesperson Ned Price went as far as to commend Boluarte for protecting Peruvian institutions and publicly proclaimed the recognition by the U.S. of the coup which resulted in the existing regime.</p><p>The left-wing governments in South America, Central America and the Caribbean are constantly under threat by the U.S. Cuba has been under a blockade for the last six decades and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela defeated numerous coup attempts engineered by Washington and its allies in the region over the last two decades.</p><p>Peru has been undergoing political turmoil in recent years. The impeachment of Castillo and the ascendancy of Boluarte marked the sixth person to hold the office of the presidency in as many years.</p><p>Castillo is being held in pretrial detention which could last up to 18 months. After this period if he is not released, a judicial panel will decide his fate as it relates to the charges filed against him.</p><p>The country has been impacted by the worldwide rise in inflation. In Peru the rate of inflation is approximately 8.5%. Since the December 7 coup, uncertainty has increased both inside and outside the South American state.</p><p>A report published by Telesur noted:</p><p>“On Thursday (Dec. 22), the visit to Peru of the IACHR Secretary Tania Reneaum and her team concludes. They held meetings with authorities and organizations to gather information on the institutional crisis that the country is going through.</p><p>“Since December 7, thousands of citizens have taken to the streets to demand new elections, the closure of Congress, and the release of Castillo, whom lawmakers removed to appoint then-Vice President Boluarte in his place. With the support of the Armed Forces, her administration has harshly repressed social protests, which has left 27 citizens dead and dozens of people injured and detained. In this regard, prosecutor Karen Obregon opened an investigation into the heads of the Police and the Army as alleged perpetrators of 10 deaths in the department of Ayacucho.”</p><p>State of Emergency Declared by Installed President Boluarte</p><p>A 30-day state of emergency was declared by Boluarte after riot police and the military were not able to quell the initial wave of demonstrations. Peru, which in addition to its mining resources, is a center of tourism attracting hundreds of thousands every year to the ancient civilization of Machu Picchu. During early and mid-December, thousands of tourists have been unable to get transportation out of the area due to the popular uprising against the removal of Castillo.</p><p>In a first-person account of the situation in Peru, the Jurist printed a report from a law student which said:</p><p>“My flight was cancelled, since the protesters had taken over the airport and for safety reasons all the airlines suspended their flights until further notice. For this reason, I had to resort to another means of transport. There were no buses that provided the transportation service, there were only cars and since I needed transportation, I had to travel by hired car. However, I was unable to complete my journey as the roads were blocked…. A little later, the police arrived and started throwing tear gas canisters to try to disperse the protesters. The policemen were throwing many tear gas canisters, and they were also pushing the protesters, despite the fact that there were young people and older adults. This made the protesters angry and a fight started between the protesters and the police. I ran and tried to take refuge in some nearby houses because the situation was getting worse. I was afraid that the police would stop me or that the protesters would attack me.”</p><p>In a gesture to the popular movement, the Peruvian Congress passed a bill to hold elections by mid-2024. This measure differed from the proposal put forward by Boluarte who wanted elections to be held by December 2023. However, many outstanding issues remain within the context of these proposals.</p><p>Will the state of emergency be lifted along with the release of ousted President Castillo? This is an important question because of the more than two dozen people already reported killed since December 7 which must be addressed by the judicial system.</p><p>The bill in question was sponsored by the Constitutional Commission President Hernando Guerra, a far-right lawmaker and supporter of the party controlled by former presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori. However, this decision to move the elections from 2026, must be approved by the legislative session, which does not convene until March 1, 2023.</p><p>This latest political crisis in Peru has regional and international implications. The administration of President Joe Biden has not made any substantial changes in U.S. policy towards Latin America.</p><p>The objectives of Washington and Wall Street in the region remain essentially the same. The U.S. wants to maintain control of the domestic and foreign policy of the governments throughout Latin America. This can only be done through the utilization of economic control and military domination.</p><p>All throughout South America, Central America and the Caribbean, the masses of people yearn for genuine liberation and sovereignty. In order for these objectives to be realized a protracted struggle must be waged against the U.S. and its surrogates so that total liberation and self-determination can be achieved.</p>Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injusticehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15828203443248157900noreply@blogger.com0