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Workers’ Voice newspaper: March-April edition
The U.S.-Israel war on Iran is a major escalation in the Middle East that has dangerous implications for working people everywhere. The brutality of the imperialist assault internationally is paired with the attack on civil liberties by the Trump regime inside the U.S. This includes the continued operations of ICE and Border Patrol, the threats to the 2026 mid-term elections, environmental rollbacks that deeply impact the Black community, and unchecked police brutality.
Our editorial in this issue warns us: “There is a great danger of underestimating the determination of the U.S. corporate elite to drive through this effort. We cannot rely on court rulings or upcoming elections to save us. We must organize now, not only for mass demonstrations and community networks against ICE violence, but to find our way to building a new working-class party through which we can organize our political defense on every plane and on every day.”
In this issue we also have articles on the Epstein files and the ruling class, the San Francisco teachers’ strike, and a review of the new album by U2.
The March–April 2026 edition of our newspaper is available in print and online as a pdf. Read the latest issue of our newspaper today with a free pdf download! As always, we appreciate any donations to help with the cost of printing.
Click on the image to read the paper or message us to get a hard copy:
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U.S. and China: Tariff hikes highlight inter-imperialist tensions
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By ERNIE GOTTA
President Biden has been using his final year in office to expand on the Trump administration’s tariffs on China. New tariffs were announced in May, but the implementation was delayed until September. The steepest of the tariffs included a 100% tax rate on electric vehicles. Other imposed tax hikes on Chinese companies include 50 percent increases on semiconductors, 50 percent on solar panels, 25 percent on steel and aluminum, and 25 percent on non-lithium ion battery parts. Most of the taxes mentioned above went into effect on Sept. 27. Others in the list have various implementation dates between 2024 and 2026.
The move hopes to slow China’s advance in flooding the U.S. market with less expensive goods. The capitalist class in the U.S. faces a serious crisis with the rise of Chinese imperialism and the increased competition for resources, labor, and markets on a global scale.
U.S. policy makers decry what they call China’s unfair trade practices that give hefty subsidies to Chinese manufacturers. Capitalist economists at the Kiel Institute write, “Beijing heavily subsidizes its domestic industries, particularly in sectors such as green technologies like electric mobility or wind power. Estimates suggest that China’s overall subsidies range between three to nine times that of other OECD countries such as the USA or Germany.”
China doesn’t look to be slowing its advance any time soon. This has U.S. policy makers anxious to find a way to regain hegemony in the global marketplace. This was clearly expressed by Vice President Kamala Harris in her speech to the Democratic National Convention when she said it’s necessary that the U.S., not China, “wins the competition for the 21st century.”
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the government agency responsible for developing U.S. trade policy, writes, “Additionally, the White House released a statement further explaining how China’s acts, policies, and practices have contributed to China’s significant control of global production for the critical inputs necessary for U.S. technologies, infrastructure, energy, and healthcare and China’s growing overcapacity and export surges, and how such control threatens U.S. supply chains and economic security.”
Other problems exist in North America for the U.S. as both Mexico and Canada have more relaxed trade policies with China. Potentially, this could be a way for China to get around U.S. tariffs. The Brookings Institute writes, “For example, exports from Mexico of EVs from facilities owned by Chinese EV maker BYD could enter the U.S. under USMCA and pay zero tariffs if it meets the agreement’s rules of origin, regional steel and wage rate requirements, and could also benefit from the $7500 IRA tax credit for EVs assembled in North America. Alternatively, BYD could still export EVs to the U.S. from Mexico and pay the WTO MFN rate of 2.5% for automotive imports, compared to the 100% tariff rate the U.S. would apply to imports of EVs directly from China.”
Despite the implementation of these tariffs and the ongoing trade war, the U.S. and China established the Economic Working Group in 2023, which has met five different times. The most recent meeting, which concluded on Sept. 20, raised concerns from both imperialist powers. These meetings represent one important way that negotiations between fiercely competitive economic powers unfold.
Beyond the U.S. expressing concerns about Chinese overcapacity and China’s opposition to increased tariffs, both sides also try to navigate the exploitation of weaker economies. A readout from the Fifth Meeting of the Economic Working Group Between the United States and the People’s Republic of China stated, “The meeting sessions concluded with the two sides sharing views on domestic macroeconomic outlooks and discussions on areas of cooperation, including debt issues and financing challenges in emerging and developing economies.”
There are also concerns from automakers like the Big Three that wanted to see an easing of tariffs on minerals and other materials critical to the production of electric vehicles. The supply chain will be impacted not just by the import of raw materials needed in the production process but also by the replacing old heavy machinery like cranes that are used by longshoremen to unload container ships. David Lawder writes in Reuters, “The Biden-Harris tariffs include a new 25% levy on Chinese-made ship-to-shore cranes, a China-dominated sector with no U.S. producers. The Port of New York and New Jersey said it has eight cranes on order from China’s state-owned ZPMC at $18 million apiece, and a 25% tariff would boost the cost of each by $4.5 million, “causing a significant strain on the Port’s critical and limited resources.”
Differing perspectives on tariffs
Despite Donald Trump’s attempt to paint Biden, Harris and the Democrats as soft on China, what we see is not just a continuation of trade policy with slight changes from one administration to the next but rather an expansion of Trump’s trade policies. These policies are a reflection of a bipartisan agreement that the tariff,s on the one hand, offer the best possible chance for increased profits for U.S. manufacturing, retail, and other sectors. And on the other hand, perhaps more importantly, they create barriers for China’s encroachment on U.S. markets. But not everyone agrees.
There are other projections about the impact of the bipartisan tariffs. Some believe the tariffs will negatively impact many across the U.S. Erica Yorke reported in June 2024 for the Tax Foundation, “Before accounting for behavioral effects, the $79 billion in higher tariffs amounts to an average annual tax increase on US households of $625. Based on actual revenue collections data, trade war tariffs have directly increased tax collections by $200 to $300 annually per US household, on average. Both estimates understate the cost to US households because they do not factor in the lost output, lower incomes, and loss in consumer choice the tariffs have caused.”
Looking back toward classical economist David Ricardo, The Economist recently put forward a perspective that tariffs are a barrier to the development and innovation in the capitalist system. In opposition to Biden’s tariff expansion, The Economist writes, “As David Ricardo laid out more than two centuries ago and experience has since shown, it makes sense for governments to open their borders to imports even when others throw up barriers. Residents in the liberalizing country enjoy lower prices and greater variety, while companies focus on what they are best at producing. By contrast, tariffs coddle inefficient firms and harm consumers.”
The Economist continues, “Today’s American firms fear competition from BYD’s Seagull, some versions of which cost less than $10,000 in China. Now, they can sell inferior cars for three times the price. This gives American motorists little incentive to switch to greener wheels, as Mr Biden says he wants them to. You might argue that tariffs were inevitable, because America’s green subsidies would otherwise flow to Chinese firms. That is true, but it shows how one inefficient policy leads to the next.”
Elon Musk also seemed to agree with this perspective in May, speaking to a technology conference in Paris. Peter Hoskins of the BBC reported that Musk stated, “In fact, I was surprised when they were announced. Things that inhibit freedom of exchange or distort the market are not good.”
“Tesla competes quite well in the market in China with no tariffs and no deferential support. I’m in favour of no tariffs,” he added.
China expands auto production in Europe and Central Asia
Chinese company concerns over U.S. tariffs are offset by pivoting toward markets in Europe and Central Asia especially in auto manufacturing. East Asia Forum reported, “In 2022, China produced almost 60 per cent of the world’s EVs—both battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles. In 2023, production is expected to reach 8 million units, or 25 per cent of all cars sold in China compared with 22 per cent in the European Union, just 6 per cent in the United States, and a measly 3 per cent in Japan. Chinese firms also offer 90 different EV brands at prices ranging from US$5000–90,000. The average EV in China cost around €32,000 (US$53,800) in 2022, compared to an average of €56,000 (US$94,100)in Europe.”
BYD, the world’s largest electric vehicle producer, is ready to build the first Chinese auto factories in Europe, with Hungary as the targeted location. China has invested billions of dollars in Hungary and signed a cooperation agreement during Xi Jinping’s visit with far-right Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. Will this give China an entry point deeper into European markets despite the threat of new tariffs from the European Union?
While the E.U. is considering increases to tariffs on Chinese products, the hikes will be far lower than in the United States. Wang Chuanfu, the CEO of BYD, has expressed that the actions by the U.S. and EU only suggest that the U.S. is afraid of the advance of Chinese companies. BYD is also opening a factory in Turkey, Chinese automaker Chery is opening production in Barcelona, and Zhejiang Geely Holding acquired Volvo and is looking to start production in Europe.
In Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are quickly becoming a center for Chinese auto manufacturing, as both BYD and Chery are producing popular small electric vehicles and buses sold widely in the region. In 2023, Nargiza Murataliyeva and Shakhriyor Ismailkhodjaev wrote in The Diplomat, “Chinese brands also dominate EV imports to Kyrgyzstan, but unlike in Uzbekistan, where local demand is driving sales, few EVs from China can be seen on the streets of Bishkek or Osh. Instead, Kyrgyzstan serves as a convenient base for re-export to Russia.”
Chip wars
Similarly, U.S. tariffs seek to tamp down China’s technological rise in semiconductor development and production. The U.S. wants to maintain its role as the top competitor in research and development but sees China fast approaching in the rearview mirror. For example, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) writes, “In 2021–2022, 55 percent of global semiconductor patent applications were Chinese in origin (and China’s number of applications doubled America’s) while Chinese entities surpassed U.S. and Japanese ones for semiconductor patents granted in 2022.“
The ITIF report continues, “China is rapidly closing the gap across many facets of the semiconductor production process and is developing genuine IP and innovation capabilities across the board. In January 2024, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger asserted that, despite China’s ongoing efforts to advance its semiconductor industry and design more sophisticated chip manufacturing tools, the country still lags behind the global semiconductor industry by approximately 10 years. While there’s no question that China’s behind, the real gap, as noted, is probably half that now, or about five years—at least for the design and fabrication of leading-edge logic chips. China continues to plough hundreds of billions of dollars into its semiconductor industry in an effort to close that gap. Moreover, over the long term, as one observer commented, ‘The likelihood of China developing advanced chip-making capabilities is almost certain.’”
The U.S., in response to China’s technological development, passed the CHIPS Act in 2022, which is an attempt to stay competitive globally in the production of semiconductors. The Biden administration awarded Intel over $11 billion in 2024 to boost chip production in the U.S. Today, Intel is building four foundries in the U.S.; it also had plans to build foundries in Germany and Poland. While the Intel buildout in the U.S. is proceeding, its project in Europe has been halted over financial concerns and the need to cut costs. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said in a Sept. 16 announcement, “We will pause our projects in Poland and Germany by approximately two years based on anticipated market demand.”
An environmental component
China’s EV blitz will, of course, be promoted by greenwashing the harmful environmental practices that underscore capitalist production. However, the expansion of EV and semiconductors under current modes of production will only increase the output of carbon emissions. Both China and the U.S. have the world’s largest carbon emissions. The connection between inter-imperialist competition and the increase in the consumption of fossil fuels to maintain an edge over the opponent has driven us toward ecological catastrophe.
No amount of EV production is going to slow down the ongoing ecological crisis significantly, when you couple production with the build-up of arms among the imperialist powers. The U.S. military alone is the single biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. Sonner Kerht in Inside Climate News reports, “Using Department of Energy data, Crawford found that the U.S. military is a major polluter. Since the beginning of the Global War on Terror in 2001, the military has produced more than 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gasses. Crawford acknowledges her data is likely incomplete—but even with the available data, she found that the U.S. military emits more than entire countries like Portugal and Denmark, and that the Department of Defense accounts for nearly 80% of the federal government’s fuel consumption.”
Negotiations by other means
Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the tariffs and the broader trade war is the threat of a real inter-imperialist war. The military buildup and rearmament that has defined the tensions of the present period, deepened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israeli genocide in Gaza and expanded war in Lebanon, looms over the discussions on trade.
The U.S. in particular has ramped up its military presence in the Pacific. Following the pivot away from the Pacific during Trump’s presidency, the Biden administration has gone all out to buttress U.S. military positions to counter China’s aggressive moves around Taiwan, activity in the South China Sea, and joint military exercises with Russia.
The 2024 Workers’ Voice Political Resolution points out, “China’s rapid military expansion, particularly its naval strength, has put the U.S. at a strategic disadvantage, especially in potential conflicts involving Taiwan. China is swiftly expanding its naval force and aims to have a larger fleet than the U.S. And the latter cannot keep up because of the extensive shipyard capacity of China, which far exceeds that of the United States: China is scheduled to reach a fleet of 400 in 2025 and 440 ships by 2030, according to the Pentagon, while the U.S. Navy’s Navigation Plan 2022 is to reach 350 manned ships … by 2045!”
According to an April 2024 article in The New York Times, “Since the start of his administration, President Biden has undertaken a strategy to expand American military access to bases in allied nations across the Asia-Pacific region and to deploy a range of new weapons systems there. He has also said the U.S. military would defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. … Biden signed a $95 billion supplemental military aid and spending bill that Congress had just passed and that includes $8.1 billion to counter China in the region. And Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken traveled to Shanghai and Beijing this week for meetings with Mr. Xi and other officials in which he raised China’s military activity in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, calling it “destabilizing.”
The NYT outlines part of the strategy: “The United States is sending the most advanced Tomahawk cruise missiles to Japan and has established a new kind of Marine Corps regiment on Okinawa that is designed to fight from small islands and destroy ships at sea. The Pentagon has gained access to multiple airfields and naval bases in the Philippines, lessening the need for aircraft carriers that could be targeted by China’s long-range missiles and submarines in a time of war.”
Drawing some conclusions, asking more questions
The weakening of U.S. hegemony and intensified inter-imperialist competition where the U.S., China, Russia, E.U., and so on are vying for profits in every corner of the globe spells trouble for workers, farmers, and the oppressed across the globe. The working class is now facing the very real possibility that the governments of the world will once more send workers to fight each other in bloody battles to redivide the resources of the world.
The contradictions inherent in the capitalist system can’t be resolved through Economic Working Groups, tariffs, or threatening military maneuvers. The capitalist class simply has no long-term solutions to the problems that we face under capitalism. As long as the capitalist are in charge, their priorities will put their profits over the interests of human need, and that trend will inch the world powers closer and closer to war.
For the working class caught in the crosshairs of capitalist greed, the question should be: How can we create a world that flips the narrative by putting the needs of humans and the planet above the profit of a select few? Once workers and the oppressed in their billions take up that question, then the next question will be how do we build a vehicle, a working-class political party, rooted in revolutionary socialism, to drive that struggle forward?
Illustration: iStock
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The ‘Mazan rapes’ in France: Two commentaries from Europe
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Beyond the media coverage, let’s organize the fight against sexual violence!
By BRUNE ERNST (France)
On Sept. 2, 2024, the trial began in France against Dominique Pelicot, the man accused of being the organizer of numerous rapes of his wife. For almost 10 years, Gisèle was drugged by her husband and raped without her knowledge, more than a hundred times by about 50 men, who are also accused of aggravated rape.
A so-called “historic” case is emblematic of systemic oppression
In 2020, Dominique Pelicot was caught taking photographs under the skirts of women. An investigation followed, where numerous photographs and videos were found on his computer of Gisèle, unconscious, being raped by dozens of men. Four years later, the trial has begun against Dominique Pelicot and the rapists who could be identified thanks to the photos and videos.
In court, the rapists’ lawyers have resorted to the well-known strategy of invisibilization or minimization of the facts, describing the images as “sexual relations” and not rape, and questioning the victim about her “sexual preferences and practices”—threesomes or swinging. But the images speak for themselves, and in France there is talk of a “historic trial” that would be considered the most serious rape case ever tried in France.
Putting the notion of consent at the heart of the definition of rape
This trial is taking place in France in a context in which the definition of rape has been debated for several years. Indeed, following the proposal, in 2022, by the European Commission to unify the characterization of rape in Europe around the notion of consent, France was one of the 11 countries that opposed this definition. In France, rape is defined as “an act of penetration where sexual aggression is committed under threat, coercion, surprise or violence”. Thus, the notion of consent is not taken into account, which leaves enormous scope for the defense of rapists and ignores, among other things, the psychological dimension of the act and the trauma created, which can, for example, lead to states of shock in which the victim is unable to react to the violence they are experiencing. This definition also makes possible a “gray area”, particularly in cases of marital rape, which is almost impossible to characterize as such.
France’s refusal to unify the definition of rape around consent on a European scale has been strongly criticized by certain left-wing political groups, but especially by feminist collectives and associations fighting to defend all those who are victims of rape and violence in this system of oppression represented by patriarchal capitalism. This debate seems to have experienced a “180-degree turn” on March 8, 2024, when, on the sidelines of the sealing ceremony of the law constitutionalizing the voluntary termination of pregnancy, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, declared that the notion of consent should be enshrined in French law.
The parallel with the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution is interesting. Indeed, the pressure exerted on society by campaigns such as MeToo, social movements, or feminist strikes that have emerged in several countries around the world including Spain, Argentina, Poland… and the progress they have sometimes made possible, have also made it possible to put these debates at the center of society and the media, which are beginning to seriously address the issue of sexual and gender-based violence. The French government (and other parties claiming their radicalism on these issues) are not free from these pressures and often resort to “pinkwashing”, to give the appearance of taking this violence into account, and of acting in a progressive way towards it. The media coverage of the Pelicot affair is no doubt also a consequence of this pressure. But it should not make us forget that beyond the singularity of Gisèle’s case, there are many violations committed against victims of chemical subjugation, most of which remain unknown and unaddressed.
Keeping up the pressure through struggle
Beyond these effects, it is not difficult to blow up appearances and show their emptiness. For example, the constitutionalization of abortion, which had been strongly supported in particular by France Insoumise, did not fool everyone, and some feminist collectives very quickly demonstrated that it remained insufficient without the material means to carry it through with effective measures. Indeed, there are no guarantees that this right will be effective without the means and resources given to maintaining existing centers for carrying out a VTP (Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy) or the creation of new ones, especially in the countryside, without removing the conscience clause behind which many health professionals still hide, and without an explicit opening of abortion for trans persons.
The same goes for the inclusion of the notion of consent in the law. In fact, rape cases are emblematic of the systemic sexism that permeates the State and society on all sides. First, because the places where it is possible to talk about this issue are not numerous or, when they do exist, they lack funding and human resources to fulfill their function. And, when people do come forward to denounce rape or sexual violence, the way they are treated in the gendarmerie or in police stations is violent to say the least. Finally, because the cases—few in number, given the previous obstacles—that are actually tried often end up being shelved for lack of evidence.
Thus, what makes the Pelicot case so resonant is above all the presence of a large amount of evidence in the form of videos and photographs found on the defendant’s computer. We can easily imagine that without this evidence, and despite the unexplained psychological and gynecological disorders that the victim had been presenting for years, the trial would not have taken place and that the violence against Gisèle would have continued, in the shadow of the “private sphere”.
Therefore, including the notion of consent will not be enough. As with abortion, financial and human resources must be dedicated to the issue of rape and, more particularly, to sexual and male chauvinist violence. Mandatory training is also necessary for all those who receive, defend, or judge cases of rape. But these means, as well as the transformation of the society that supports them, will only be possible if the pressure on them is intensified. Like the mass mobilizations in many countries around the world on these issues, it is necessary to strengthen existing self-organized collectives, and in particular the coordination of collectives that give themselves the task of organizing the feminist strike – a strike to demand rights for women and minorities, and to demand a society free of the systemic oppressions that characterize it.
From this perspective, and although this struggle must be continuous, it is important to take advantage of Nov. 25 and March 8, to denounce their use by the political class, and to organize together with trade union organizations, which must be open to self-organized collectives on these issues, to present a platform of demands, as well as a general strike. In all the numerous cities where the dates of Nov. 25 and March 8 are celebrated, let us join the collectives organizing the struggle and the planned demonstrations, and build demands that allow the convergence of all struggles against oppression.
It’s time for the victims’ shame to pass to the perpetrators!
By LAURA R. (Corriente Roja, Spain)
Mom, did you hear about the “51 in France”? It’s horrible, Mom! No, what are you talking about? That’s when a quick Google search reveals the facts of the case, and a wave of indignation, and also shame reverberates through my body. Shame for her, for me, and for all women. Reality is once again harsher than fiction, however twisted it may be. No matter how many “advances and achievements” we are told we have made in civilized and democratic Europe, the brutal reality reminds us that, for some men, we are still “their” property. And what’s worse is that they are not alone.
The facts: “Rape is not the word; it is barbarism.”
67-year-old Gisèle, a resident of the town of Mazan in southeastern France, was repeatedly raped by more than 50 men over 10 years. During this time her husband Dominique Pélicot, a 71-year-old retiree, offered the “sexual services of a sleepwalking and obedient wife”, on a web portal that was shut down by the French Police in June of this year. This same web portal served a now dismantled child pornography distribution network, which extended into eight countries both in Europe and the Americas.
With respect to the case, which is being tried in Avignon, the authorities have identified 51 aggressors, who are on trial for an aggravated rape offense punishable by up to 20 years in prison. It is suspected that the number of aggressors could be as high as 83. At least 92 rapes occurred between July 2011 and October 2020. The newspaper Le Parisien has reported that several of the assailants are dead and one is on the run.
The victim refused to watch the videos of the rapes until May 2024, when she first watched the tapes of the sexual violence she had suffered for 10 years. Her description of what she witnessed speaks for itself: “Rape is not the word; it is barbarism”.
As a result of these abuses, and the drugs that had been administered for years by her husband, Gisèle suffered blackouts, intense and inexplicable fatigue, and discomfort that led to several visits to the gynecologist. The man responsible, Dominique Pélicot, could also be implicated in other cases of rape and even in a 1991 murder.
A system that objectifies and commodifies women’s bodies
We want to send all our support and solidarity to this brave woman, who, despite suffering from post-traumatic stress, has decided, together with her three children, to testify in open court in a trial that, in all likelihood, will drag on for months. As she herself declared before the Criminal Court of Vaucluse, in the southeast of France: “For me, the damage has already been done. I do so in the name of all the women who may never be recognized as victims”.
Beyond the horror and rejection the case elicits, it is one more sign that we live in a social and political order that is based on the control and oppression of women. It is what some feminists call “rape culture”, in which more than half of the sexual assaults, which are not always as easy to prove as this case, take place in the victim’s social, family, or work environment. And most of them are not reported, either out of fear or shame. It is this climate of impunity that some of these sexual predators rely on to commit their acts. On the other hand, the sex and entertainment industry of this increasingly violent and oppressive capitalist system objectifies, sexualizes, and commodifies our bodies, especially women’s, to such an extent that they become just another object, ready for consumption.
Only yes is yes, the rest is rape
Of the 51 men who have been summoned to the Avignon trial, some haved defended themselves by stating they were deceived by Dominique Pélicot, and they claim they were led to believe it was part of the couple’s “libertine delirium”. Others said they did not believe it was rape, “because her husband was there and they believed he could give consent for both of them.” So far, only 14 have pleaded guilty.
This trial, which has shocked French society by putting the question of consent front and center, is taking place in the context of an electoral rise of the far right, and at a time when the law regulating sexual crimes in Frances is under revision. There is talk of a “historic trial”, which would be considered the most serious rape case ever tried in France. It should be recalled that rape is currently defined in French law as an “act of sexual penetration” committed “by violence, coercion, threat or surprise”.
In France, as elsewhere in the world, we must come out and fight to change the law that defines and punishes sexual assault, to make it clear that sex without consent is rape. It must be clear that consent can be withdrawn at any time, and that there can be no consent if the sexual aggression is committed “abusing a state that prevents the judgment of the other”, as happens when the victim is drugged, the instances of which are increasingly frequent.
In the Spanish State, the Integral Law for the Guarantee of Sexual Freedom, better known as the “Solo Sí es Sí” (Only Yes is Yes) Law, came into force in October 2022, thanks to a struggle in the streets that lasted five long years. Unfortunately, it is a law that has many shortcomings and loopholes. Among several of its problems is that the economic resources that are to support all the non-criminal aspects of the law, including programs for prevention and sexual education in schools, have not yet been provided.
In spite of the above issues, we at Corriente Roja defend the law against attempts by the right and far-right to repeal it, because it was a demand that was won first in the streets, and which places the question of consent at the center of cases of sexual aggression.
But we cannot forget that no law can put an end to sexual violence in this system of oppression and exploitation. Sexual violence is a complex structural problem that needs to be addressed in many ways. Currently, this law is still no guarantee of anything, because the laws in favor of the working class and oppressed sectors in this capitalist system become a dead letter if we do not continue to fight to make them effective. And, above all, they are always threatened as long as capitalism exists.
It is also necessary to point out that experience shows that under bourgeois democracy, where the separation of powers is in reality a fiction, it is not enough to change laws. The judicial system in all countries is full of male chauvinist judges who often revictimize women when they dare to denounce sexual aggression and rape. These same judges often apply a very different yardstick according to the social class to which the person being judged belongs.
One example is what happened in the first months after the adoption of the Solo Sí es Sí law, when some judges interpreted and applied some of its articles in a whimsical way, in order to reduce the sentences already imposed on sexual offenders and pedophiles. In France, the defense lawyers of these rapists qualify the images as “sexual relations” and not rape, and have questioned the victim about her “sexual preferences and practices”, although the harsh images speak for themselves.
Achieving more resources to combat sexual violence and all forms of violence against women and oppressed sectors, such as migrants or LGTBQI people, is not only an issue that belongs to women or youth but the working class as a whole. It is necessary to organize so that working class organizations, starting with the unions, take these demands and make them their own, putting the whole working class and oppressed sectors at the forefront in the fight for them.
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Harris vs. Trump: Who loves fracking more?
By COOPER BARD
The Sept. 10 presidential debate showed clearly that the policies of the two big capitalist parties have a number of points of bipartisan collusion, including support for Israel (and by extension, its war crimes perpetrated with U.S. weaponry), increasing the USA’s military strength generally, and competition against China in the tech and manufacturing sectors. This agreement includes, as we saw, bipartisan support for expanded fracking (hydraulic fracturing) in places like Pennsylvania.
When questioned about her policy on fracking, Harris proudly said, “I will not ban fracking, I have not banned fracking when I was vice president.” She continued, “I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking.” This was included in order to reduce U.S. reliance on “foreign oil.” Unfortunately, emissions do not tend to respect tariffs.
Trump, in his typical rambling fashion, retorted, “If she won the election, fracking in Pennsylvania will end on day one,” implying that this would be a bad thing. “I got the oil business going like nobody else,” he boasted.
Both the Democratic and Republican candidates for the presidency want to sell the illusion that fracking is good because it brings in economic activity. But what it actually promises is a depletion of the land, the poisoning of the air and water, and the lining of the pockets of the big business interests for whom the twin capitalist parties actually work .
It is clear that no matter who wins the election, fracking as an industry will fare well. Sadly, this does not bode well for the climate or working-class people.
What is fracking and why is it dangerous?
Fracking is the practice of digging deep into shale bedrock and injecting pressurized liquid (made of water and other chemicals that we will describe below) into the hole to form cracks, from which petroleum and “natural gas” can be extracted.
The continued mining and production of fossil fuels will spell continued catastrophe on Earth, as the emission of greenhouse gases (particularly CO2, as well as methane, nitrous oxide, and other substances) continues to increase. The effects on the climate are already here and numerous, including deadly heat waves, famines, and mass extinctions. They have the potential to undermine the web of life on this planet to such a degree that extraordinary numbers of people could die off in the not too distant future—to say nothing of the severe human and animal suffering we are witnessing right now.
In addition, the chemicals in the fracking fluid have immediate effects on air, water, and soil quality, which can cause cancer and other health problems to local communities and downstream areas.
Major fracking operations in the U.S. include sites in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia (the Marcellus Shale formation), the Texas Permian Basin, the area around Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, as well as many other sites. In Canada, fracking has been an ongoing reality in Alberta, Quebec, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan, and—like most examples of industrial extractivism—remains a direct threat to Indigenous communities.
While the “debate” on fracking focused attention on Pennsylvania—especially because of its position as a “swing state” in the 2024 elections—the oil industry is planning massive increases to fracking in the Permian Basin. This has the potential to cause what activists are calling the “Permian climate bomb,” which would guarantee a release of billions of tons of new CO2 emissions on its own, virtually promising that we push past our “carbon budget” and doom human civilization.
Methane is first-rate threat
The emissions from fracking include those produced by the extraction, production, and end-use of fossil fuels. Areas around drilling sites often register higher measurements of air pollution by hydrocarbons and even toxic substances such as benzene. But the main threat from fracking comes from the released methane that occurs during the mining process.
Humans produce more CO2 than methane, and thus CO2 remains the most dangerous greenhouse gas by mere volume; it also remains in the atmosphere longer than methane. But methane is a more potent greenhouse gas and poses significant short-term effects—heating the atmosphere nearly 90 times faster than carbon dioxide.
Scientists have determined that fossil-fuel production releases a small amount of methane, whatever the source. But fracking in particular releases much more methane gas during the extraction and production process than most other drilling methods. Due to increased fracking in the United States and Canada, methane releases have increased by 61 million tons or 20% over the last two decades. This translates to increased planetary warming in a much shorter time period. It is also important to note that the methane generated by oil and gas production has a higher carbon content than methane released from biological sources.
Fracking pollution doesn’t end even after direct production has stopped, as orphaned wells have a leaking problem that contributes considerably to the overall creation of greenhouse gases in the U.S. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of wells remain to be properly plugged.
Dangers of fracking fluids
As mentioned above, fracking has an additional problem caused by the liquid used in the process. This liquid is a mixture of sand and chemicals meant to increase the efficiency of the process (making the liquid less viscous, increasing acidity, etc.). These chemicals are known to have carcinogenic properties, and can also cause birth defects.
Despite the fact that oil producers have lobbied Congress to keep the contents of fracking fluids a secret, we still know a few things. As a by-product, the fracking liquid produces PFAS, cancer-causing compounds also known as “forever chemicals.” These “forever chemicals” are also generated by the breakdown of plastics.
There are very few, if any, safeguards to prevent this liquid from entering the water table. Water, air, and soil contamination from fracking poses serious health risks to local communities, and the desecration of the soil and water will have disastrous consequences for farming going forward.
The poorer you are, the more likely you will suffer the consequences of fracking (while the oil magnates reap all benefits). To focus on Pennsylvania, a study by Scientific America found that rural and poorer communities are much more likely to be directly impacted by fracking. Multiple towns in rural Pennsylvania have had their water poisoned by fracking operations. Water was poisoned in Wyoming towns near fracking sites, and also in Dallas, Texas. We could go on for pages with other examples of direct harm to poor and rural communities in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Texas, Wyoming, Ohio, and others state.
Since the gas can leak into the water table, some people who live near fracking operations have had flammable tap water. This can also lead to ground tremors as a result of the degeneration of the bedrock.
Production for export is key to fossil fuel expansion
Our civilization’s addiction to fossil fuels and the resulting climate disruption is an international problem. One of the major factors driving the expansion of oil and gas in the U.S. is the drive to replace Russian oil and gas supplies to Europe. The U.S. has become one of the world’s top exporters of oil and gas as a result of this change in the international situation.
Needless to say, “our” oil magnates have exploited this opportunity to increase their market share globally. The U.S. government, which will serve them no matter which capitalist party carries the torch in 2025, is happy to facilitate their profit drive.
Of course, Europe’s addiction to oil is just as much a problem as our own. Russia’s imperialist invasion of Ukraine has simply accelerated the existing trend toward increased oil consumption and war production.
The Biden administration and the lie of “green capitalism”
In this context, we can see why the two capitalist parties give unconditional support to expanded oil production. Harris’ full-throated support for fracking should shatter any illusions that the Biden administration or the Democratic Party put the interests of the planet at the forefront. Rather, their primary interests are those of the oil magnates, the weapons manufacturers, the plastics manufacturers, etc.
The climate and environmental policies of the Biden administration are meant to sustain the capitalist system while giving it a “green” sheath. Biden’s “green capitalism”—embodied most forcefully in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—is a market-driven ploy. The idea is to boost U.S.-produced “green” commodities and energy use while still keeping fossil fuels profitable. Thus, while billions are spent on green technologies and infrastructure, fossil fuel extraction, production, and use continues anyway.
This is particularly evident in the tax credit given to oil companies for carbon sequestration (a different swindle beyond our scope here). Climate activists have already noticed that without any actual oversight, the companies could just as easily use the added cash to expand dirty oil operations such as fracking.
Similarly, the IRA mandated the government to offer at least 60 million acres of off-shore leases to the oil and gas companies one year before any leases could be granted for off-shore wind farms. This step in tying wind power to an expansion of drilling for fossil fuels clearly demonstrates the feebleness of the government in opposing the rule of the oil magnates.
In another example of this outlook, the Bureau of Land Management continues to prioritize oil and gas development on the federal lands that it manages over other uses—such as solar or wind-power installations, recreation, and conservation. Ninety percent of BLM land is open to fossil fuel leasing.
Despite increased investment in renewables, the vast majority of transportation and the electric grid is still powered by fossil fuels (approximately 60%). The Biden administration approved new pipelines, such as the notorious Willow Pipeline project in Alaska, new fracking (as Harris attested to), and new offshore drilling. Biden, therefore, is not a green president by any effective measure. So while liberal supporters of Biden insist that the IRA is the “greenest legislation in history” and cite factual increases in renewables, this is a deeply rose-tinted perspective. The Inflation Reduction Act, despite its successes, is quite simply not enough.
The reality is too bleak to allow for such partial measures. In the three years since the passing of the IRA, CO2 emissions have continued to increase globally. This is due to the market-driven growth model of capitalism (as well as new wars in Ukraine and Gaza), which will not be changed or slowed down when there are a few additional wind turbines or new EV’s on the roads. These few “green” items will have been put into operation in vain so long as new fossil fuel exploration is tolerated! Unless action is undertaken immediately to halt new oil production and make a green transition in a systematic and planned manner, it is doubtful that humanity can overcome climate disaster.
Fracking is part of the dominant fossil fuel industry, which the politicians who manage the interests of the capitalist state cannot abolish, because fossil fuels are so terribly integrated into every aspect of the global economy. There is no way the U.S. can maintain hundreds of military operations around the globe, and no way the Fortune 500 companies can remain in operation as they are now, without substantial investment in the existing infrastructure of fossil fuels. The oil magnates of each imperialist power dominate the economy of the world by virtue of their dominance of infrastructure including cars, the electric grid, packaging, and military operations.
In effect, actually pursuing a green economy (and averting the potential mass death of billions of people) demands an end to half measures. Profits must take the back seat, and hitherto unheard of encroachments into the rights of billionaire property and the private sector must be undertaken. This means an end to the “freedoms” of the fracking industry—their freedoms to poison our water and put human civilization at risk with their reckless methane pollution!
The Democrats and the Republicans will not do anything to harm their real masters, the capitalists. That’s why they both love fracking. The working class needs to break with the capitalist system in order to safeguard our own well-being and, indeed, all life on Earth.
End fracking! Halt all oil exploration! Keep it in the ground!
Emergency measures to reverse environmental destruction! Seal the wells! Make oil companies pay the costs!
Nationalize energy, transportation, and the banks under the control of the working class!
Organize ecological reconstruction! Allocate billions to reforestation, rewilding, and restoration of lands spoiled by industrial waste!
For workers’, Indigenous peoples’, and community control of the land!
End the war economy! Halt all aid to Israel! Russia and NATO out of Ukraine!
Sources and Notes
https://workersvoiceus.org/2023/11/07/environmental-racism-and-climate-solutions-in-canada/https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/08/study-fracking-prompts-global-spike-atmospheric-methane
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/12/climate/epa-pfas-fracking-forever-chemicals.html
https://www.ehn.org/health-impacts-of-fracking-2634432607.html
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/29/politics/biden-offshore-drilling-plan-climate/index.html
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2023/07/12/new-study-evaluates-climate-impact-ira
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/what-makes-methane-more-potent-greenhouse-gas-carbon-dioxide
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/poor-communities-bear-greatest-burden-from-fracking/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellus_Formation
https://newrepublic.com/article/169867/fracking-poisoned-towns-water-now-frackers-allowed-back-in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfHcypKLxgc
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2016/03/pavillion-fracking-water-032916
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/us-crises-water-flint-modesto-fracking/
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/45Q
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/28/energy/eu-us-oil-imports-overtake-russia/index.html
Photo: RotschetskyPhotography / Shutterstock.com
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Palestine solidarity movement holds Bay Area conference
By JAMES MARKIN
As Israel escalates its genocidal war on Gaza and expands the carnage into south Lebanon with scarcely any criticism by Washington, it has become more critical than ever for the U.S. working class and student movements to fight to end U.S. military aid to Israel. This focus on arms has become more prominent alongside the existing demands of the pro-Palestine student movement for divestment and disclosure, which dominated the encampment fight over the last school year.
During the summer, with this new urgency to prevent the transfer of arms, student Palestine activists began to re-assess the tactics, strategies and goals of the movement against Israel’s war in Palestine. San Francisco State University (SFSU) student organizers spearheaded the formation of a statewide student activist coordination formation. As part of this effort, an organizing meeting was held after the Labor for Palestine forum (https://workersvoiceus.org/2024/08/02/bay-area-workers-face-retaliation-for-palestine-solidarity/) in Oakland on July 7. At this event, students and labor activists came up with the idea for a mass democratic organizing conference, inspired by those organized by the movement against the war in Vietnam as well as the methods of the First Intifada, which could bring in all the different parts of the Palestine movement—students, labor, and political organizations.
The underlying theory that motivated this idea was best expressed by an elected leader of Students for Gaza leader, Sohrab: “The role of the students is to act as a catalyst for workers to go on strike, to politicize and empower their classmates who are the next generation of workers, and to turn their campuses, which act as a place to reinforce imperialism and Zionism, into popular universities.”
During the meeting in Oakland, it was agreed that the best way that the students could play this role alongside working-class activists was through the construction of a democratic general assembly that would be open to all who supported a free Palestine. Again, Sohrab explained the purpose of this tactic: “Democratic buy-in is required for mass action. If the masses of students themselves steer the struggle, it will instill the urgency and agency for them to go out, organize their classrooms, and demand change.” Out of this meeting a committee was put together that was tasked with bringing the conference together.
This continued with a public organizing meeting a month later. At this meeting details were hammered out and a presiding committee was elected to oversee the work of building the conference. As the day grew closer, the list of important organizations supporting the conference grew longer—including the Bay Area Student Coalition for Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Workers Voice, Palestinian Feminist Collective, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), DSA, and Bay Area Labor for Palestine. The convention was also endorsed by four union locals (the union of University of California academic employees, UAW Local 4811; the California Faculty Association (CFA) at SFSU, the Oakland Education Association; and the United Educators of San Francisco), as well as by a dozen student organizations in the Bay Area, including many Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Over 700 people registered and more than 350 attended the conference, which was held at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California on Sept. 15. Over the course of the day, the attendees heard greetings from endorsing organizations and voted on slogans, actions and leadership for the movement.
The first order of business was a discussion of the demands. The presiding committee presented three proposed demands, focusing on ending U.S. aid to Israel, fighting back against repression of activists, and reinvesting funds away from war into jobs and education.
Blanca, a CFA-SFSU and Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) activist speaking on behalf of the presiding committee, argued that “students and workers and faculty and community members have been fighting against many targets. Now we need specific demands that can elevate and put the pressure on the real power—the U.S. government—which is the main economic, military, and political backer of the state of Israel. We want to bring together all the active constituents that have stood in solidarity with Palestine to build a mass movement that can win, as was the case with the struggle against the Vietnam War, for civil rights, and so on. We know working people can exercise independent power to fight for social change.”
Following a process of discussion in breakouts and amendments, the convention adopted three main slogans based on a vote of all present (with all three demands receiving more than 88% of the vote):
- End all U.S.-backed aid to Israel; withdraw all occupation troops from Palestine; and end the genocidal war against Palestine
- Stop repression of students and workers and communities who are in solidarity with Palestine
- Money for health care, housing, jobs, and education—not for war and occupation
Next up, following lunch, was the proposal for coordinated days of action. Another member of the presiding committee spoke and argued for the need for coordinated actions, saying, “For many years, we have had a problem where student work never extended past the limits of the campus. Coordinated days of action bring the scope of the students to the broader region. This is the essential next step. We need to build out from the encampments and build a unified Bay Area that stands up for Palestine.”
The goal of these coordinated actions would be to provide common work that could be carried out by students, labor, and community activists but also be adjusted to fit the needs and contexts of different local areas. Ultimately, following another period of amendments, the convention endorsed the following coordinated actions:
- 5/6: Palestine Action Network International Days of Action.
- 6: Bay Area fundraiser at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California.
- 7: Day for healing and education.
- 8: Student-led Day of Action, with the goal of shutting down campuses, culminating in an evening rally, where workers, students, and community could unite in one place.
- 8-10: Three days of action, where families, students, and workers can participate in a massive march on a weekend and move toward larger student and workplace/community actions, with the goal of an economic shutdown in cooperation with port workers.
- Additional further actions to be organized and endorsed by the Action Coordinating Committee with a focus on supporting the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions’ call for an embargo on weapons for Israel.
This entire slate of very ambitious actions was approved, again with the support of over 85% of those present. However, given the goals of the convention, it will take the combined effort of all who were present, as well as those in the movement not yet part of this formation in order to successfully carry them out.
The final order of business before the convention was over was the creation of the Action Coordinating Committee (ACC). As explained by members of the presiding committee, the goal of the ACC is to “bring together three major sectors of the Palestinian Liberation Movement—student, labor, and community—from across the Bay Area.” Instead of electing the ACC at the convention, the presiding committee proposed that the ACC be composed of representatives of endorsing groups, and that it create a process by which new endorsers could also be represented on the body. Eventually, the ACC would also be responsible for organizing future popular conventions. This plan was passed with a super-majority for and no votes against.
Overall, it is fair to say that the convention was a smashing success. Built on the foundations and democratic methods of the student struggle at SF State, it showed the potential for mass democratic organizing for Palestine. As Blanca, from the FJP, put it, “One of the important achievements of this convention was bringing out and generalizing the method of organizing of student and faculty at SF State University: the method of our strikes and our fight for democratizing the union. This is the model that the students organized the encampment around. This became a model of success because we showed that when we organize this way, we can prevent repression, we can bring more people into the movement, we can have a leadership that is accountable to the ranks, and we can win. And we show we win because SFSU divested from four companies and agreed to full disclosure.”
Blanca continued, “This conference was an opportunity to expand this method of organizing, connecting the student movement with all the emergent work that has been happening within the rank and file of unions and calling on workers to support Palestine with their methods. Students, workers, and community realized that workers’ democracy is what they need to fight, align on demands, and reflect on the types of action that would unite them and not divide them. Ultimately, we want to understand the rhythms and methods of organizing in every sector. And that truly happened; students were listening to what workers need, and workers were listening to student methods of organizing. In the end, the results of the convention left everyone feeling very confident in the process and strategies that came out of it.”
Ultimately, the convention showed that this model can be generalized in order to bring students, labor, and community activists together to fight for Palestine. What is needed is now for the ACC and the convention organizers to continue the work and to organize successful coordinated days of action. At the same time, we need to build similar conventions all around the country to help students in the campuses and workers in their unions break from isolation and experience the power they have if they act united with the Palestinian community.
Our goal should be to spread the organization from local, to regional, to national—with the ultimate goal of unifying a popular resistance to the war on Palestine and Lebanon. As the SF State student Sohrab put it, “Students must be working with, not disrupting, their faculty, staff, and surrounding communities, bringing them into the process and actions. We need the masses in order to end all U.S.-backed aid to Israel, and the students play a vital role both on their campuses and in the broader movement. If we set our intentions on this and full liberation instead of just honing in on divestment or campus wins, we will take the steps needed to build truly revolutionary action.”
This is true because it is only the working masses of the United States who have the kind of power necessary to actually force the U.S. to stop arming and backing Israel. Student activists are at their most powerful when they are able to mobilize on campus but then bring their forces off campus and unify with working class people in order to strike out at the forces of the capitalist class in the broader community.
Finally, with the U.S. election approaching, and both establishment parties supporting continued aid for Israel and the repression of pro-Palestinian activists, it is essential to keep our organizing efforts independent of the forces that try to deflate, co-opt, and repress us, and to start building a real political alternative for working people.
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Right-wingers inflate false rumor that Haitian immigrants are eating pets
By DYLAN EDWARD
Springfield, Ohio, has become a focal point of national headlines and social media attention due to the spread of far-right conspiracy theories alleging that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating local pets and wild ducks in the park.
The racist rumors emerged after Erika Lee, a Springfield resident, posted in a local Facebook group regarding a missing cat that belonged to a friend of a friend of her neighbor’s daughter. Lee repeated the rumor that Haitian immigrants were “eating pets” but has since publicly admitted that her allegations were unfounded.
Following these false claims, xenophobic scapegoating and racist hysteria surged among the far right. Republican vice presidential candidate and current Ohio State Senator J.D. Vance fueled this narrative, which was echoed by Donald Trump during the last presidential debate. Trump stated, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs—the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.” A recent poll indicated that more than half of Trump’s supporters believe these racist allegations.
The xenophobic hysteria is not only amplified by prominent far-right figures but also propagated by militant fascist and neo-Nazi organizations on the ground. Recently, images of a flier from the “Trinity White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” circulated online, featuring propaganda that read: “Foreigners & Haitians Out; There is no place in America for this filth! We don’t need more police officers. We need MASS DEPORTATION. ¼ of SPRINGFIELD is already in poverty. Now $2 million is being used to care for these beasts of the fields.”
In the wake of this hysteria, more than 30 bomb threats have been made against schools, government buildings, and the homes of city officials since last week, forcing evacuations and closures.
With a population of approximately 60,000, Springfield has welcomed around 15,000 to 20,000 immigrants over the past four years, many of whom are Haitian. Once reliant on the auto industry, Springfield exemplifies the challenges faced by many Midwestern small towns that have experienced the outsourcing of industrial jobs and the accompanying economic hardships.
At the root of this racist hysteria is the “great replacement theory,” which has been championed by the far-right. This false theory suggests that immigrants are invading white communities as part of a plot to remove them from political power. While this conspiracy theory has gained traction among extremists, both of the major political wings of the ruling class bear responsibility for the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Haitian workers due to U.S. and other imperialist meddling.
More than two centuries ago, the people of Haiti defeated European colonialism and established the world’s first Black republic. Since then, they have repeatedly defended their independence from imperial domination, regime changes, and plunder. In October 2022, the Biden administration proposed a resolution in the UN Security Council to deploy a “multinational rapid action task force” to support the illegitimate and unpopular Ariel Henry, who was installed after the assassination of Jovenel Moïse by U.S.-trained Colombian mercenaries during a 2021 attempted coup. Following Moïse’s assassination, key public institutions were systematically dismantled and replaced by foreign-financed NGOs, which at one point provided upwards of 80% of all services.
The U.S. and others have justified their consistent interference in Haiti’s affairs under the guise of humanitarianism, peacekeeping, and aid, allegedly to weaken the power of criminal gangs and reduce violence within civil society. Ultimately, these so-called “peacekeeping” missions confuse the symptoms of unrest with their causes. As of August, more than 578,000 Haitians had been internally displaced. The Haitian people do not need more foreign meddling; the civil unrest in Haiti can only be addressed by ending foreign-imposed austerity policies that perpetuate hunger and impoverishment, and by supporting Haiti’s full self-determination.
Ultimately, the ruling-class’s effort to amplify these xenophobic conspiracies are an attempt to displace blame of the imperialist plunder and destitution they are causing in Haiti and other places abroad. Insofar as they are able to successfully convince U.S. workers that immigrants are the problem, they are able to deflect the real solution—mobilizing millions of workers against the U.S. imperialist ruling class.
Hands off Haiti! All out in defense of the Haitian community! Defend immigrant rights!
Photo: Residents of Springfield, Ohio, hold a roadside rally declaring, “Immigrants are welcome here!” The rally was organized by members of the local Democratic Party. (Chris Welter / WYSO)
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Climate barbarism is knocking at the door
By JEFERSON CHOMA
Brazil’s capital, São Paulo and a large part of the country’s cities are living under a blanket of smoke. Earlier this week, the capital of São Paulo became the most polluted metropolis in the world. But it inherited this title from cities in the western Amazon, which last month was the most polluted region in the world. In São Paulo, smoke from fires in the Amazon, the Pantanal, and parts of the Cerrado mixed with the dust particles released by uninterrupted construction work, fueled by monstrous real estate speculation, and with the smoke coming out of the exhaust pipes of the more than 6.2 million cars that make up the city’s vehicle fleet.
It looks like a scene from Mad Max or Blade Runner. But these are the consequences of the huge fires that are sweeping virtually the entire country. From Jan. 1 to Sept. 11, Brazil registered 172,815 wildfires, according to the National Institute of Space Research (Inpe). Of these, 86,195 are located in the Amazon and 56,363 in the Cerrado. The country is experiencing its worst drought since 1950, as a consequence of extreme weather phenomena caused by global warming. Last year was the hottest year in the last 125,000 years, but 2024 is expected to surpass that mark.
The flood catastrophe in Rio Grande do Sul in May and the current heat wave and drought are signs of the country’s “new normal” climate. It is happening so fast that it has surprised even one of the country’s top climate authorities. “I am terrified. Nobody foresaw this; it’s very fast,” said Carlos Nobre in an interview to Estado de S. Paulo (12/09), about the frightening dynamics of extreme weather phenomena observed in Brazil and in the world and caused by global warming.
Who is responsible for this situation? It is not the whole of humanity, but a small part of it formed by big businessmen and capitalist landowners. The average global temperature of the Earth has increased due to the voracious consumption of fossil fuels that run through the veins of capital accumulation and have continuously released tons of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) into the atmosphere. But, if in the imperialist countries the great villains are industry and transport, over here, in Brazilian peripheral capitalism, the greatest emitters of GHG are agriculture and deforestation. Together, they release more than 75% of national emissions, making clear the questionability of the current agricultural model promoted by the capitalist state.
Road, fire, and destruction
Nine cities in the Amazon are at the top of the list of the 10 municipalities that recorded the largest fires since the start of the year. These include São Félix do Xingu (PA), a city with the largest herd of cattle in the country; Altamira (PA), Apuí (AM), Itaituba (PA) and Labreá (AM), which are all crossed by the Trans-Amazon highway; and Novo Progresso (PA), on the edge of highway BR-163, where soybean cultivation is expanding from the north of Mato Grosso.
There is a truism about roads in the Amazon: where there are roads, there is also deforestation and fires. After all, these were built by the dictatorship to promote the advance of national and foreign capital in mineral resources and to occupy the region with agriculture. It is no coincidence that Chico Mendes, leader of the sertingueiro [rubber] movement, became world famous when he succeeded in getting the World Bank to stop financing BR-364. This was one of the main episodes that led the big ranchers to sign their death warrant. His martyrdom helped preserve the Amazon, but for how long?
Satellite images are the greatest proof that the fires in these regions indicate the opening of new agricultural frontiers for the capitalist agricultural model called agribusiness. They are large landowners and speculators who appropriate public lands on the margins of the BR-163 and the Transamazonica. They are also preparing for the invasion of National Parks or Indigenous Lands. And they have powerful allies.
A project that will lead to environmental collapse
It is the Brazilian state (and all the governments in power) that finances the environmental destruction caused by agribusiness. Since the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB), the sector has received generous public credits to finance its expansion and growth. At the time, the government viewed this financing as a “solution” to the country’s trade balance deficit and a way of continuing to attract dollars to pay interest and repayment of the public debt.
In Lula’s (Workers Party, PT) first terms, the sector received even more rewards. In addition to increased public financing for the sector, the government also stimulated the growth of agriculture as a way of projecting internationally the most successful Brazilian companies (the “national champions”), many of them linked to agribusiness. The PT governments thus sought to create a supposed “national bourgeoisie” to promote the reindustrialization of the country. But the result was very different. The country continued on the path of becoming a mere exporter of agricultural and low-tech products at the expense of the deindustrialization of other sectors of the economy. Its only role was to deepen Brazil’s dependence on international monopoly capital.
The farce of the past is repeating itself as tragedy when the government announces more than 400 billion reais for big agribusiness through the Safra Plan—while it has proposed only 70 billion reais for peasant family agriculture, which really produces food for the population. It is this mountain of money that finances the expansion of agribusiness on the ashes of the Amazon, the Cerrado, and the Pantanal.
As if that were not enough, the government has also announced its support for the reconstruction of BR-319 (connecting Porto Velho to Manaus), which will bring the destruction of agribusiness to one of the most preserved areas of the rainforest, right in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. And it has also declared that it is a measure that will mitigate the effects of the climate crisis in the region (!). How is this possible?
BR-319 can be called the “highway of the end of the world”. Its reconstruction will be the death sentence for one of the most preserved areas of the Amazon and will leave the forest very close to the so-called point of no return, when the forest begins to emit more carbon dioxide (CO2) than it absorbs, aggravating global warming. In addition, rainfall will also decrease throughout Central-South Brazil. All this is well explained by important scientists such as Philip Fearnside, who for years has been studying the possible impacts of the reconstruction of BR-319.
In addition to this project of destruction that will lead us to climate collapse, there is also the attempt to explore for oil at the mouth of the Amazon River, which will only serve the big international oil companies, threaten the Amazon biome and its traditional peoples, and further deepen the country’s subordinate role in the world economy.
A Congress of landowners
The landowners dominate the National Congress. In the midst of the catastrophe that has been announced, the parliamentarians are preparing an attack of historic proportions against the environment, the peoples of the jungle, and the entire population with the so-called “Destruction Package” that groups bills that favor the theft of public lands, the use of pesticides, the annulment of environmental licenses, and attacks on Indigenous lands with the approval of mining in these territories and the hindrance of new Indigenous land demarcations. The Proposed Amendment to the Constitution (PEC) for beach privatization is just the tip of this monstrous iceberg.
The landowners in Congress are unwrapping the package and many of their projects are advancing by leaps and bounds. To stop it, much mobilization will be necessary, and not only by the Indigenous peoples, quilombolas, and traditional peasants, but by the entire working class. The approval of these measures will seal the fate of the majority of the population in the coming years. It will decide whether or not we will have more catastrophes like the one in Brumadinho (MG), or floods like the one in Rio Grande do Sul, and droughts and fires as we see today. Perhaps all these horrible catastrophes are just child’s play compared to what will come if the Destruction Package is approved (see the package here).
STF wants to negotiate non-negotiable rights
As it could not be otherwise, the political weight of large landowners in Brazil is also reflected in the decisions of the Supreme Federal Court (STF). At this moment, the Supreme Court is discussing at a “conciliation table” the Temporary Framework and other attacks on native peoples under Law 14701/23. This is an attempt to suppress articles of the Constitution that guarantee rights to Indigenous peoples.
Law 14.701/2023 is absolutely unconstitutional and there can be no possible negotiation on it, so it must be suspended immediately. The conciliation table was created by order of Minister Gilmar Mendes, rapporteur of the processes and historical ally of the large landowners. Quite rightly, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples (Apib) recently announced its withdrawal from the STF Conciliation Table. “By the letter of the Constitution of the Republic of 1988, the Indigenous Lands were registered as inalienable, unavailable, and the rights over them, imprescriptible. Any negotiation on fundamental rights is inadmissible,” stated the Indigenous people in a letter.
Even so, the conciliation table continues its work with an organ of the Executive Power, the Forum of Governors, the National College of State Attorneys, the National Confederation of Municipalities, the National Front of Mayors, and many people interested in stealing the lands of the original peoples.
The Indigenous peoples, with their ancestral cosmology and culture, are the greatest defenders of the forests. Only 1.6% of the loss of Native Forest and Vegetation in Brazil between 1985 and 2020 occurred on Indigenous Lands. The data comes from the analysis of satellite images. It is also from above that one can see the real encirclement of their territories promoted by the latifundia. The integrity of their territories and their wisdom with nature is what prevents the sky from falling, as Davi Kopenawa Yanomami teaches us.
The coming catastrophe and how to combat it
The climate crisis is here to stay, and it is not enough for the government to decree a “climate emergency” to combat it and prevent the worst. Much more is needed. A deep and radical change in the country is needed so that the poor and working population are not the main victims.
Any GHG reduction plan in Brazil requires the expropriation of agribusiness lands, without compensation to their owners. These lands should be used to recompose the ecological systems and water resources. Some of them must also give way to a new model of agroecological and syntropic agriculture (agroforestry farming model based on concepts of syntropy, organization, balance and energy preservation), which actually produces food and not commodities whose prices are defined by the financial capital of the Chicago Stock Exchange. It is also necessary to demarcate all Indigenous Lands, Quilombolas and Extractive Reserves.
Evidently, the country also needs to suspend the opening of new oil exploration frontiers such as the Equatorial Margin and invest heavily in other renewable energy sources, nationalizing all energy resources. Any plan to reindustrialize the country requires a revolution in energy sources, and not the crude fossil neo-developmentalism of 70 years ago—a “developmentalism” that is only rhetorical and that leads us (as it did) to a greater dependence on imperialism.
It is urgent to invest massively in the recovery of environmental organizations in the control and fight against fires. To achieve this, it is necessary to implode the fiscal austerity maintained by the fiscal framework that prevents investments in these sectors. The situation is dramatic. More than half of the employees of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) will retire in 2025.
New extreme weather phenomena will hit the country (rains, landslides, droughts, heat, lack of water, etc.). It is necessary to be prepared to face them by creating a large national public system to combat disasters that is endowed with abundant resources and acts in conjunction with the democratic participation of the most vulnerable population.
Capitalism is leading humanity to climate barbarism. Without overcoming this system, humanity will not be able to stop the catastrophe that is looming. We need a new socialist society in which workers and their allies, Indigenous peoples, peasants, quilombolas and youth, effectively hold political and economic power. Only in this way will we face the challenge of revolutionizing the productive forces, radically changing the productive structure of society and establishing a metabolic balance with nature.
This article was originally published in www.opiniaosocialista.com.br, 13/9/2024.
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The war spreads to Lebanon
By CARLOS SAPIR
Almost a year into its invasion of Gaza and despite the global outcry against the genocide that it is perpetrating against Palestinians, Israel has lashed out at Lebanon with a series of bombings, and is publicly preparing a ground invasion of the country. This escalation, outrageous even in the context of the ongoing war for its blatant disregard of Lebanon’s sovereignty, has already killed hundreds of civilians.
While its attacks on Lebanon have been brutal, the Zionist state’s expansion of a war that has already made it a pariah on the world stage is a tacit admission of failure in Gaza, and risks a diplomatic, military, and economic overextension that could be fatal to the apartheid state. Further, Israel’s criminal attacks against Lebanon are only possible by means of the continued military support that the United States has provided to Israel, and it is the task of the Palestine solidarity movement in North America to do everything it can to end that support.
Why is Israel bombing Lebanon?
Since the beginning of the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2023, Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in low-grade skirmishes across the Lebanon border. Hezbollah has publicly stated that its goal is to stop the Israeli invasion of Gaza, and that it will cease its attacks if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza. While the physical damage and casualties caused by these attacks has been minimal, they have had a significant impact on Israel’s economy, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis living in the north, and have required Israel to retain forces on the Lebanese border rather than committing fully to its military campaigns within Palestine.
Although periodic attacks by Israel against Iranian and Syrian targets have been a longstanding tactic (even before the current war) and generally provoked minimal responses, the scale and character of the recent Israeli attacks on Lebanon have been qualitatively different. A series of terror bombings launched using compromised pagers and walkie-talkies on Sept. 17 and 18 caused dozens of deaths and thousands of injuries. This was followed by airstrikes against civilian targets in Beirut on Sept. 20 and widespread bombing killing hundreds per day throughout the rest of the week.
Israeli military leaders have announced that the goal of their attacks on Lebanon is to destroy Hezbollah’s capacity to launch rockets into Israel and thus allow displaced Israelis to return to the north. Having failed to do so with its initial bombing campaign, Israeli troops are now being prepared for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon. This comes at the same time that the Israeli military appears to be considering an even more prolonged approach to the war in Gaza, floating ideas of an indefinite siege of the northern part of the enclave. Israel has failed in its original goal of destroying Hamas. For Israel to turn the genocide of Gaza into a “managed conflict” and a new status quo tolerable to Israelis, it needs to return northern Israel to work.
Historical precedents
This is far from the first time that Israel’s war against Palestinians has pushed it to invade Lebanon. Israel first invaded Lebanon in 1982 to attack the PLO, which had been displaced to there from Jordan. Initially, Israel attempted to march to Beirut and install a government led by the fascist, pro-Israeli Maronite Christian Bachir Gemayel. Following the assassination of Gemayel and the collapse of their plan to dominate Lebanese politics, Israeli forces retreated south of the Awali River, where they continued to engage in a military occupation of southern Lebanon that would last until 2000. It was in the context of fighting against this military occupation that Hezbollah was formed and grew to be an influential force in Lebanese politics. Israel invaded Lebanon again in 2006 to attempt to destroy Hezbollah, and was forced to withdraw after a month of fighting.
Much like its attacks on Gaza and the West Bank, Israel’s prospects for a conventional victory are slim, as it appears intent on repeating wars that it already failed to win under more favorable conditions. Compared to 2006, Hezbollah is better entrenched to face an invasion, with reports that it has set up an underground infrastructure similar to the tunnels that have allowed Palestinian resistance to continue in Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel is more diplomatically isolated, and is both operationally and politically stretched thin by its existing war in Palestine. Given the precedent set in Gaza, it seems entirely likely that Israel will pursue genocidal means to accomplish war goals that do not appear attainable using more conventional military occupation.
It is entirely possible that an Israeli invasion of Lebanon could ignite a greater response from its population, similarly to how Hezbollah itself was formed in the context of Israel’s first invasion of the country. This may also become a critical moment for the people of other neighboring countries, already actively and historically sympathetic to Palestinian liberation, who can see the perennial military threat that Israel presents to their existence and that the wars of the 20th century have not been settled. Now that the “Axis of Resistance” finds itself under direct attack, it may find itself outflanked by new forces fully committed to the anti-Zionist struggle, inside and outside of Palestine.
This war runs on U.S. supplies
Neither the ongoing genocidal war in Gaza nor the invasion of Lebanon would be possible without the ongoing military and diplomatic support provided to Israel by the U.S., and to a lesser extent the other imperialist powers. This comes not only in the form of ongoing arms shipments worth billions upon billions of dollars, which Israeli officials have acknowledged are key to their military capacity. It has also taken the form of intelligence sharing, with U.S. military resources helping Israel choose its targets, and support from naval groups to shoot down any attacks against Israel. There is, of course, the diplomatic dimension, with the U.S. blocking every attempt to censure Israel in the UN and similar bodies. Perhaps most vitally, the U.S. provides Israel exclusive access to cutting-edge military hardware. This is not just significant because of the power of the weaponry; this special relationship means that Israel’s most valuable military hardware exclusively relies on U.S. parts and manufacturing for operation and repair, and these parts cannot be easily substituted by Israeli production or any other would-be supplier.
Other imperialist powers, while less directly complicit than the U.S., are far from innocent. While they also publicly call for ceasefires, France, Britain and Canada have longstanding arms deals with Israel that remain largely intact, and even in the face of Israeli aggression against Lebanon, they repeat the usual rhetoric that “both sides” must halt hostilities and negotiate. The “both sides” view of the invasion of Lebanon has also been adopted by Russia, which maintains close ties with both Israel and Iran. China was the only major imperialist power to clearly denounce Israel’s aggression against Lebanon, but its overall perspective is nevertheless one of a two-state solution and economic collaboration with the Zionist entity. There is no world power benefactor that is going to step in to liberate Palestinians. The fight for Palestinian liberation is a political struggle that must be organized and carried out by the masses in Palestine and by working people around the world in solidarity with them.
From within the U.S., it is vitally important to continue to organize mass protests and conferences to educate and organize people into action against the support by the U.S. government and industry for Israel’s endless wars. The machines and resources that are used today to build and maintain Israeli weaponry could easily be retooled to produce materials for overdue infrastructure projects, such as public transit expansion, bridge repair, and climate change mitigation. Working people deserve to have a say in how their labor is used, and should have the right to refuse to be ordered at their jobs to enable war crimes. To challenge U.S. military support for Israel is to challenge the very priorities of the U.S. economy, representing billions of dollars of production underwritten with tax dollars. This is a gargantuan task, but it is also a necessary one.
Israel’s unchecked attacks against Lebanon are a violent crime that has already sown hundreds of new tragedies on top of its horrific genocide in Palestine. It unsteadily marches into a new war, and challenges the whole world to stop it.
Hands off Lebanon! End U.S. aid to Israel! End the genocide in Palestine! From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Photo: Israel strikes a village in southern Lebanon. (Kawnat HAJU)
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Where is the mass movement against climate change?
By CARLOS SAPIR
As another Northern Hemisphere summer draws to a close, cataclysmic headlines about climate patterns have become routine. Whether it’s the weekly breaking of heat records, catastrophic storms and floods, or the irreversible death of coral reefs and other ecosystems, the planet’s climate has already sped headlong into uncharted territory. These events become so routine that even bemoaning the fact that these events have become routine has itself become routine. In the face of this massive existential threat to humanity, where is the mass movement to save the planet?
People know that climate change is real
Whereas a decade or two ago a reluctance to address climate change could have been attributed to ignorance or outright denial of the situation, this is no longer a compelling explanation. UN surveys suggest that over 80% of the world’s population not only recognizes that climate change is a real threat, but consciously supports greater government intervention to stop it. Large majorities similarly recognize that climate change is affecting people already, will affect them personally, and that not enough is being done to stop it.
While a few propaganda outlets continue to repeat the mantra that none of this is happening, most of the biggest contributors to climate change—for example, fossil fuel capitalists—have now pivoted to pretending that they’re part of the solution to climate change and positioning themselves to set the terms and pace of renewable energy production. International summits for climate policy are now dominated by oil company lobbyists. World leaders (such as the Biden administration) promise investment for green-adjacent technologies at the same time that they expand fossil fuel production to historic heights.
It’s the economy, stupid
Thus far, governments and international institutions have tried to deploy capitalist methods to address climate change. Tipping points were identified, emissions targets were set, treaties were signed, carbon footprints were monetized, “green” technologies were incentivized and the market was told to get to work. But markets are flexible; the moment that production conditions change, a previously prohibitive cost can become a lucrative investment. The track record of capitalism shows that even when costs are imposed and much of the market has fled an unpopular, taboo commodity, there will always be someone to swoop in and provide funding for what has now become an “undervalued” (and therefore, profitable) investment. The end result is that despite countless supposed commitments to transition to alternative sources of energy, more oil is being produced today than ever before.
Fundamentally, capitalism is predicated on constant expansion of economic activity; the only way for investors to receive returns on their investments on average is if the economy is growing. It is for this reason that economic growth (typically measured in GDP) is the primary economic statistic reported and discussed in capitalist political discourse. This constant expansion is in direct conflict with the fact that the Earth has finite resources, and that we are rapidly approaching the limits of said resources.
The obvious, necessary response to climate change is the reorganization and reduction of emissions-producing economic activity to levels that halt environmental collapse, and to begin to work towards reversing its impacts. The time that we had to avoid catastrophic changes outright has been squandered, and climate policy must now become a question of weathering the storm without enlarging it. This requires the immediate transition to less-polluting energy sources; but more importantly, it necessitates a reorientation of the economy as a whole to focus on strictly meeting human needs without producing excess commodities that will end up unused.
The elimination of planned obsolescence or the reduction of military production alone would represent a major reduction in emissions and pollution. Factories currently devoted to these wasteful endeavors can be quickly retooled to produce durable goods that are oriented to meeting urgent needs. Accompanying these changes in production, workweeks could be made shorter without a loss of pay, as production that is focused on meeting people’s needs rather than endless capitalist appetites for profit means less work is needed to maintain the same standard of living.
Unfortunately, this sort of transition is heretical to capitalism, and it is easy to see why: pivoting away from a policy of endless economic growth means that capitalists on average will lose money on investments. Interpreted through the lens of capitalist economic dogma, this would lead to cycles of economic collapse as capitalists pull out from losing investments, and it would correspond to further austerity and collapse of living standards for all social strata.
While it is essential that communities and activists redouble their efforts to fight climate-altering and environmentally destructive projects such as oil pipelines, forest clearing, fracking, etc., it must be recognized that attempts to regulate capitalism to any serious degree will prove fruitless.
Likewise, an ecological movement that concentrates on funneling its resources toward lobbying politicians for changes will ultimately fail to stem an increase in fossil fuel production. This tactic has had a disorienting effect on the climate movement, taking the focus away from the need for an immediate transition away from carbon-and methane-emitting fuels. To win a survivable future, we need a climate movement that is able to break with this logic and to articulate the clearly-necessary economic changes needed to avoid the further deterioration of the environment.
A movement paralyzed by misleadership
For anyone under 40, virtually their entire life has been spent in the shadow of a species-ending climate catastrophe, and we seem no closer today to resolving any of it than in the late 20th century, when this was first entering the public consciousness. A simple Google Scholar search shows that millions of peer-reviewed studies have been published identifying and analyzing the phenomenon of “climate anxiety” alone, and a recurring theme across these studies is that while climate anxiety can be identified as a mass psychological phenomenon, any resolution must actually address the climate crisis head on; this issue cannot be fixed by pathologizing it on an individual level.
Despite this mass awareness of climate change, the risks it presents, and the absence of effective responses from international political leaderships, it is astonishing to see a relative lack of protests and activity to force a change. In many respects, there seems to be less of a popular response to climate change today than there was to nuclear power in the 1980s, when hundred-thousand-strong mobilizations were regular occurrences and governments were generally forced to scrap their adoption or plans for expansion of the volatile, dangerous technology.
It is important to emphasize that the widespread anxiety is not itself the cause of inactivity around climate action. Rather, it is a response to the increasingly transparent failure of hegemonic liberal institutions to combat climate change, and an NGO-dominated movement that continues to simply continue appealing to these same institutions in the hopes that eventually they will “understand” the urgency of the situation. Whether through scientists’ polite appeals at climate summits or Just Stop Oil’s symbolic destruction of artworks in museums, the most visible activities of climate activism remain entirely focused on changing the minds of the same institutions that have already failed to act in the face of imminent catastrophe.
The climate movement we need
There are already examples of the necessary, working-class fightback needed to stop climate change. From Panama to the U.S. and around the world, Indigenous and other racialized working-class communities have been leading the charge to protect the environment where they live from the incursions of the fossil fuel industry, mining industry, and other polluters. This demonstrates the eagerness of people to fight when they understand that the health and livelihood of their families are on the line, and the extremely favorable possibilities of constructing mass-action coalitions that can extend deep roots into working-class communities. These movements can achieve real growth when they avoid reliance on corporate and political lobbying; to be most effective, protests must stay in the streets, maximizing the opportunities for all activists to have a voice.
The mobilizations have been most successful when they have won the support of local unions, which can freeze environmentally damaging developments in their tracks by refusing to build or supply them.
People are won to credible political alternatives, not empty promises and pretty rhetoric. The basis for building a movement against capitalism is strong labor unions that can fight for and win improvements to working conditions, which also include addressing the very real and often deadly impacts of climate change on the job. The task at hand is to rebuild the union movement into an organized, confident, independent political force and to have it throw its weight behind those who are already on the frontlines of fighting environmental disasters: Indigenous and grassroots community groups fighting against environmentally harmful development where they live. A strong movement for the political interests of the working class will be our best defense as every crisis of climate change pushes capitalist governments to impose more and more draconian policies.
The task of rebuilding and revitalizing the atrophied engines of working-class power is a daunting one. But it is no more daunting than the 19th-century struggle to build labor unions in the first place, a struggle that has been successfully fought again and again since then to win freedoms and material security for workers in shops all over the world. The fight to stop climate change has already begun, but only by providing an alternative to capitalism can we hope to decisively stop the capitalist death march towards extinction.
Socialism is not a new idea. It articulates a basic, democratic vision: a society where economic activity is planned according to the needs of society, rather than through an arbitrary market process that gives disproportionate privileges to the wealthy and unscrupulous. Today, the historical parties of socialism are scattered and disorganized; the majority of groups that call themselves socialist today have no real program for abandoning capitalism, the result of decades of cooperating with the status quo of international capitalism, and organized union density has waned in response.
But while the historical organizations of Marxism have withered, separated from the material roots that would give them power, the economic pressures underpinning the Marxist formula for political power have only grown stronger. The international working class is larger and more geographically concentrated than ever before, with greater ability to communicate among itself than ever before. With imminent climate catastrophe on the horizon, the working class also has more of a reason to unite than ever before.
Photo: Climate activists protest outside the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 15, 2021. (Jacqueline Martin / AP)
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Palestine solidarity struggle at Ohio State University hit by repression
We reprint below an article by the Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists. The report appeared in the Aug. 25 edition of the Columbus Worker, their online journal. It appears with the permission of the author.
Israel’s genocidal offensive in Gaza has triggered the largest and most militant expressions of support for Palestine in the United States to date. The Palestine movement has gained huge amounts of traction in the past year in response to heightened awareness of Israel’s brutal occupation and its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians throughout their ongoing genocidal war on Gaza. This major upsurge in the movement has hit Ohio State University as well.
This piece documents the major events and the pattern of repression meted out against the Palestine movement by OSU. This article is part of a larger series of articles Columbus Worker will be publishing detailing major events in the Palestine solidarity movement at OSU over the last decade. This includes republications of past articles written over the last decade documenting what the movement for a free Palestine has looked like at Ohio State University — its tactics and strategy and how institutions from OSU administration to the Ohio state government have attempted to stop it. We hope that these articles will prove useful for students who seek to learn the lessons of the movements’ past in order to win the basic historic demands of the movement. Let us now consider the events of the past year, the advance of the movement, and the alarming attacks meted out by the establishment.
Unprecedented repression against the student movement — A timeline
OSU has, for decades, attempted to undermine student movements and struggles for social justice – from protests against the Vietnam War to OSU’s complicity in South African apartheid. However, the scale of repression that students are facing today is largely unprecedented, both on OSU’s campus and nationally. OSU has proven over the years that they care little for optics as they silence social justice movements, as long as they can continue to profit from imperialism.
On November 16th, two dozen protesters shut down an OSU Board of Trustees meeting before leaving after warnings from security. Students and faculty alike called for OSU to divest from Israel and fossil fuels.
On December 7th, the student wing of the Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists (CORS) at OSU was suspended following an educational meeting titled “Intifada, Revolution, and the Path to a Free Palestine”. CORS was placed on interim suspension with OSU alleging that our group posed “a significant risk of substantial harm to the safety and security of your organization members, other members of the university community, or to university property”. This suspension came at the same time that pro-Palestine student organizations across the country were being suspended and was a direct product of Zionist backlash to the surging Palestine movement. Despite CORS’ student leaders being doxxed and suffering a coordinated campaign of harassment and slander, OSU administration classified our pro-Palestine educational meeting as the real threat. CORS resisted OSU’s repression and garnered vital support from students, faculty, and workers at OSU, the whole Columbus Palestine movement, and organizations across the country. Thanks to this show of unity and an outpouring of solidarity from the community and the movement, OSU backed down, reinstating CORS and withdrawing the spurious charges against the group. This struggle is detailed more extensively in a previous statement of ours.
In February and March, a ballot initiative was presented to the OSU student body by OSU Divest and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) OSU, entitled, “Initiative Urging the Ohio State University to Divest from Companies Profiting from Human Rights Violations”. After collecting well over a thousand signatures, the campaign met the threshold required to put the initiative on the ballot for OSU’s undergraduate student government elections. However, the Judicial Panel of the USG intervened against OSU Divest, disqualifying 415 signatures and ignoring the typical procedure of holding a hearing. In response, OSU Divest filed a complaint against USG’s Judicial Panel, and had the initiative officially instated on student ballots, with voting commencing at 12PM on March 4th.
At 12:56 AM on March 5th, just over 12 hours after voting had begun, the initiative was removed from the ballot in the middle of the voting period by the OSU administration. This maneuver was shockingly familiar to those who saw the Undergraduate Student Government (USG), under pressure from OSU admin, pull BDS off the ballot at the last minute in 2015 citing invented rules on the collection of signatures. On March 7th, OSU announced that students would not be permitted to vote on this initiative, citing Ohio Revised Code 9.76 of House Bill 476, which makes boycotts, divestments, and sanctions of Israel by institutions that contract with the state government illegal. According to OSU, Ohio Attorney General David Yost effectively intimidated the administration into removing the initiative from the ballot due to its “illegality”, sending a letter to the university on March 6th that outlined the Ohio anti-BDS law (pbs.org, palestinelegal.org). OSU administration additionally asserted that this initiative would not be enacted even if passed because the university is beholden to state laws. If the initiative wasn’t binding (which it wasn’t), why did OSU insist on intervening against a symbolic vote? It’s clear the administration sees even a symbolic victory for the movement as a threat to the imperialist bottom line.
On April 23rd, two students were arrested at a small protest outside of a meeting of the OSU Board of Trustees, calling again for divestment from Israel and fossil fuels. The Board called off its meeting preemptively in anticipation of this small protest. Despite this, there was still a large police presence. Protestors gave a few speeches and chanted before leaving after warnings from security. Though the crowd was dispersing, police swooped in for a targeted arrest of 2 people. The students who were targeted were organizers who had been charged previously by student conduct for their activism. It’s clear they were targeted for their roles in leading the fight against OSU’s investments in Israel and fossil fuels. After these arrests, OSU invoked invented rules around “Reading Day” to justify this repression, just as they did as part of the justification for the CORS suspension. They claimed that the protestors broke a noise ordinance on campus for that day to defend these unprovoked arrests, despite the absence of audio amplification devices or any behavior that would break a noise ordinance.
Early in the morning on April 25th, students from SJP made an initial attempt at starting an encampment on the South Oval of OSU. Less than 4 hours later, OSUPD ordered students to scatter, asserting that food and blankets were not permitted there and that large group gatherings would not be allowed on the South Oval that day. This was clearly inconsistent with general practices on campus, where students are often seen with food and blankets on the oval. Students were not told by police which of OSU’s rules they were breaking, but were given five minutes to disperse. Students scattered when over a dozen OSUPD cars surrounded the South Oval. A single member of CORS was arrested by six OSU police officers, despite having complied with the dispersal order and behaving well within legal constraints.
Later that same day, on April 25th, hundreds of student protestors showed up to demand a free Palestine and that OSU cut all ties and support for Israel, setting up a second encampment on Ohio State’s South Oval — one of hundreds of encampments set up at universities across the country. Students resisted OSUPD and state troopers’ attempts to disperse the protest for hours. Ultimately, 38 community and student protestors were arrested by Ohio State’s Police Department. The scale of the arrests and disciplinary proceedings initiated against protestors was unprecedented. It was perhaps the largest attack on the movement at OSU since they called in the National Guard and shut down campus for 2 weeks during the anti-Vietnam War, women’s liberation, and black liberation struggles in May, 1970.
Protesters faced high levels of aggression from the campus and state police and were charged with trespassing on their own public university’s campus. At the time of writing, criminal charges against these students have been dropped, but non-student community members are still fighting the charges pressed against them.
Following April 25th, student and community activists have continued the fight for divestment at OSU throughout the summer semester, and have been hit with myriad attempts at suppression. Two students were detained by OSUPD on May 1st while flyering at a rally. Their information was taken, but charges by student conduct were brought against only one student, who was placed on probation and even threatened with deportation.
On June 1st, a rally was held in protest of OSU hosting the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), an organization that partners with Northrop Grumman, a weapons manufacturer that supplies the state of Israel with weapons used to commit genocide against the people of Palestine. HRC also partners with and endorses some of the largest fossil fuel companies on the planet. At this rally, three individuals were targeted as organizers and arrested by OSUPD.
On June 30th, three students and two community members were detained by eight OSUPD officers while chalking pro-Palestine messages on campus sidewalks and buildings to call out OSU’s investments in genocide. The individuals were forced to get on the ground with their hands over their heads and were threatened with arrest. The involved students were reported to student conduct, but no disciplinary actions were brought against them. A police report was also filed by OSUPD, but no legal charges were made. OSU has since begun strictly enforcing university guidelines for chalking, despite decades of students using chalk on campus to advertise events and share beliefs and slogans without issue.
Implications of OSU’s escalation against students
While the actions taken by OSU against students are not wholly unprecedented, we can see that at OSU and universities across the country, administrations are escalating crackdowns on student support for a free Palestine. Students and community members at Ohio State University are facing a variety of suppressive tactics from university administrators. The university has clearly weighed the costs and benefits of allowing a student movement for Palestine to persist on its campus, and has decided that a profitable relationship with Israel supersedes any legal right to “freedom of speech.” The university clearly cares far less about the appearance of arresting and attacking their students (who are exercising their basic free speech and protest rights) than they do about their ability to maintain a profitable relationship with and ideologically defend U.S. imperial interests.
This type of large-scale repression of student activism is occurring in all parts of the country and clearly points to coordinated efforts to undermine the Palestine solidarity movement on the part of government institutions and universities. State authorities collaborated with the federal government to squash protests for Palestine, arresting over 3,000 people, and brutalizing many more across the United States. Many academic workers have been fired for their support of or participation in the mass movement for Palestine. Just two weeks after individuals were detained for chalking on OSU’s campus, Harvard University passed legislation that bans chalking and unapproved signage on campus. University administrators have implemented dozens of new regulations and restrictions to make sure that no further Palestine activism will go unpunished. Universities across the country are collaborating with local and state governments, as well as various levels of law enforcement, to silence activists. With OSU’s history of involvement with militarism, investments in imperialism, and student repression, it is no surprise that students are facing escalating aggression from administrators in the fight for a free Palestine.
The Palestine struggle will continue at OSU this fall
With students returning to campus for the Fall semester and classes starting up, university administrations and students alike are gearing up for the next phase in the battle over divestment. As the 6th largest university in the country, with an enrollment of nearly 70,000, OSU’s student body holds immense power and influence if effectively organized. Likewise, as the largest employer in Columbus, OSU’s workers too have a lot of potential power. Given the university’s $7.4 billion worth of investments and its links with the state of Israel, OSU plays an important role in economically bolstering and ideologically aiding Israel and the occupation of historic Palestine. A mass movement forcing OSU to divest from genocide would be hugely significant.
As OSU employs increasingly severe and varied tactics of suppression, students will be forced to engage in greater levels of strategic and creative organization to achieve their goals as they stand in solidarity with the Palestinian liberation movement and seek to aid the resistance to apartheid and genocide. Decisive battles are on the horizon at OSU. With the lessons of a decade of struggle, students and workers have the chance to turn the tide on OSU’s decade-long subversion of the BDS movement. With organization and mass struggle, we can do our small part at OSU in the worldwide struggle for Palestinian liberation against imperialism and racial rule.
Photo: Ohio State Students for Justice in Palestine holds rally outside the Ohio Statehouse in October 2023. (10tv.com)
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Macron out, prepare the general strike to win demands!
By MICHAEL LENOIR
IWL France Sympathizer Group
Almost two months after the July 7 vote, Macron has finally appointed a new prime minister. This decision confirms Macron’s total disregard for the results of the second round of the early legislative elections. Not only does Michel Barnier offer him every guarantee to continue the same authoritarian policies of austerity and social destruction, but his anti-immigration stance is a boon to the [far-right] National Rally (Rassemblement national or RN). We are now going to see the continuation of Macron’s policies, but under the control of the RN!
On Aug. 26, Macron had already officially rejected the appointment of Lucie Castets, proposed as prime minister by the New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire or NFP). Since then, the consultations have multiplied, but the seat of the Elysée [the presidential palace] is teetering in uncertainty, without an alternative solution. In recent days, the two most cited contenders, Bernard Cazeneuve (former minister of Hollande, on the right of the Socialist Party (PS), and Xavier Bertrand (Les Republicains, LR), seemed certain to be ousted by a vote of no confidence in the Assembly, which was voted for in both cases by the NFP and the RN.
Proposed by Alexis Kohler, secretary general of the Elysée, was the figure of Michel Barnier, who comes from the classic right LR. But he, unlike Xavier Bertrand, is less odious to [RN leader] Marine Le Pen. Most of the RN seems to believe that Barnier “respects the RN” and does not treat its elected officials “like victims of the plague ” [1]. Contrary to what the RN had announced, in case of a nomination within the NFP, Cazeneuve or X. Bertrand, they will not immediately opt for automatic censure and “will wait for the general policy statement to position itself” [2]. This was interpreted by Macron as a green light from the RN for the appointment of Barnier.
The tacit coalition of Macron–LR-RN
Barnier is an experienced right-wing politician. A parliamentarian and four-time minister, he has adopted the following reactionary positions during his career: He opposed the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1981, but also much more recently. He has also been against giving government assistance to the poor and unemployed, along with Wauquiez. And with respect to immigration, particularly for the 2021 LR primaries, he called for a “moratorium” on immigration, the restoration of double criminality, and the tightening of restrictions on family reunification.
An important feature of Barnier is that he is a major figure in the EU, to which he has devoted much of his political career. During his time as an EU politician, he built and reinforced its neoliberal structures as Commissioner for Regional Policy from 1999 to 2004, then as Commissioner for Internal Market and Services from 2010 to 2014, before being appointed EU chief Brexit negotiator. He is therefore at the heart of the EU’s neoliberal and anti-people mechanisms. The only point where he went so far as to contradict EU policy was precisely on the migration issue, where he made common cause with Hungarian President Viktor Orbán to flout the Union’s rules on human rights in order to create a migration shield in France [3].
The choice of such a profile as prime minister amounts to Macron offering a hand to to the RN, at least to avoid censure in the Assembly and to maintain the chances for a certain amount of stability. At the same time, this choice guarantees the continuity of policies that have been followed since 2017. The choice of Barnier is the expression of an unspoken coalition between Macron, LR, and RN. A far-right bloc has thus been formed, whose programmatic differences are fading more and more, and whose common ground is the continuation of the anti-social offensive, the increase of hostility towards immigrants, not to mention the maintenance of a militarist and colonialist policy.
Probably very soon we will have to fight against new anti-immigration measures, as well as against the austerity policy desired by Barnier. In addition, we will have to fight against the EU fiscal adjustment plan, and for the military budget to be transferred to public services, etc. Undoubtedly, the Macronist authoritarianism and repression—which so cruelly hit the yellow vests, the youth of the suburbs, etc.—will only worsen under such a government. The same goes for colonialist brutality: solidarity with Kanaky will keep us busy! This government, an enemy of the workers, of youth, of migrants, and of colonized peoples, must be fought now in the streets!
This de facto political bloc has allowed the RN to access power, for the moment indirectly. For a presidential camp that emphasized the “republican front” against the far right, it is particularly shameful! But this is not surprising if we understand that Macron dissolved the Assembly to place RN in government!
This “democracy” is a farce! Big capital is behind Macron!
Let us briefly summarize the political-institutional situation we find ourselves in. Macron has chosen as prime minister a politician from a political force which, with its 47 deputies and its 5.41% of the votes obtained in the second round of the legislative elections, is the fourth bloc in the Assembly. Macron made this decision because the third force, the RN and its “ciottist” allies, did not seem immediately hostile to him. And furthermore, the Elysée had the firm will to follow at all costs the general policy followed by the presidential camp, which was disavowed in the streets and at the ballot boxes, and which now represents only the second bloc.
He also wants to avoid appointing as head of government the person proposed by the NFP, the first bloc of the Chamber of Deputies. In many bourgeois democracies, the election would have fallen first to the strongest political bloc, not the fourth. According to a poll published by BFMTV on Sept. 6, 74% of the French believe that Macron has not respected the results of the July 7 legislative elections; 55% agree with [NFP and France Insoumise leader] Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who claims that Emmanuel Macron has “officially denied the results of the legislative elections” and that “he has stolen the elections from the French.”
This new situation is not only the result of Macron’s psychology. Certainly, his arrogance and his systematic denial of reality make him a madman. But his actions are nourished by the authoritarian traits of the Fifth Republic, a “democracy” of the rich that is increasingly turning out to be a farce. Beyond the Fifth Republic, the real power in this society is that of big capital.
If, according to the big capitalists, the existing politicians no longer do their job properly, the billionaires and the CAC 40 [French stock market index] bosses will find replacements. From this point of view, we have recently witnessed a double phenomenon. On the one hand, there is the possibility of Macron’s departure from the presidency, mentioned in particular after [former LR prime minister] Edouard Philippe’s candidacy for the next presidential election, which is no longer taboo. On the other hand, the Medef [French federation of employers] was quick to demand the maintenance of pro-business policies and warmly thanked Bruno Le Maire [the former Minister of Economy and finance, who resigned in July] for his action in Bercy [4].
Expelling Macron is an elementary democratic necessity and is a barrier that must be broken urgently!
No confidence in the institutions nor in the NFP!
The current situation is also a consequence of the decisions taken by the majority political and trade-union leaderships of the social movement. Their permanent tendency to want to solve the crisis and social polarization by institutional means—and in particular, the so-called “republican front”—does not stop the far right. Rather, it only changes the modalities of its rise: with the leader of the political bloc that is put in power, the program applied will be the one accepted by the RN.
The NFP will be able to vote as many motions of censure (votes of no confidence) as it wishes, but the real judge of the policy followed by Barnier’s government will be the RN. To defeat the new attacks from power and, a fortiori, to obtain measures favorable to the workers and the popular classes and democratic advances, only the streets and the popular struggle can change the situation.
We should not trust the leaders and parliamentarians of the NFP. A fraction of this coalition seems determined to challenge Macron’s anti-democratic election and called for demonstrations this Saturday [the size of the protest on Sept. 7 was estimated at from 100,000 to 300,000 people nationwide], which is correct. We will have to observe the impact of this mobilization, which will not end there. But apart from the LFI and some others who want to combine parliamentary censure, institutional struggle, and street mobilization for Macron’s removal, the rest of the NFP, with the PS at the head, seems to want to just lead a strictly parliamentary dispute against Macron’s coup.
Organize from the ground up!
The working class, the poor, and youth have the urgent need to organize from the base to win all our objectives, with a politics of class independence in the face of all bourgeois ways and means. The dynamics of such an organization would also go beyond a mobilization to overthrow Macron and respect the results of the elections. To move in this direction, we can draw on recent experiences.
History never serves the same dish twice, but the experience of a popular movement democratically controlled from below can build especially on the achievements of the yellow vests. Such a movement, self-organized and based on class independence, would certainly benefit from the association of local citizens’ assemblies and those based in workplaces. All forces, political or otherwise, claiming to represent popular interests, particularly those constituting the NFP, must be accountable to them.
But it is not enough to make demands. To win, a movement for a general strike must also be prepared.
Prepare the general strike!
Last year we lived through a long wave of struggle against Macron’s pension reform. In the end it could only be imposed through Article 49.3, repression, and the rotten strategy of single days of action to which the trade-union leadership remains attached. Neither the NFP nor LFI question this strategy.
Today, this question remains relevant. But let’s face it: If our class enemies do not fear the “days of action” and the Republic-Nation union marches, they are always worried about one specter—that of a social explosion. What frightens the propertied class is the idea that the country could be paralyzed, that the economy could be blocked and with it the profit machine. Therefore, an ongoing general strike is necessary.
Achieving such a strike implies fighting, from inside and outside the unions, against the policy of collaboration led by the confederal leadership, which, whatever its rhetoric, leads us from defeat to defeat. Putting self-imposed limits on the struggle will only guarantee its failure. It has now become clear that the strategy of relying on elections to change the situation—as union leaders have often suggested—clashes with both the institutions and the Elysian monarch. We must therefore find alternative means via an uncompromising class struggle. It is a question of bringing together all those who want to build a real strike movement—which is not opposed to other forms of action—to blockade the country. There is no lack of demands, as the social and political attacks and setbacks have been enormous in the last decades. But what follows should be at the heart of the struggle we are building:
- Out with Macron!
- Down with colonialism! Solidarity with the Kanak people!
- Solidarity with the Palestinian people! No more complicity with the Zionist genocide! Break trade and diplomatic relations with Israel, end the sale of arms!
- Let’s organize to prepare the general strike.
- For the withdrawal of the pension reform!
- For the increase of the SMIC and social minimums.
- No to the increase of military spending and the deficit adjustment plan imposed by the EU.
- More resources to save our public services strangled by austerity: health, education, transport.
NOTES:
[1] https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/politique/050924/barnier-matignon-la-gauche-ecoeuree-les-macronistes-perplexes-le-rn-savoure
[2]Idem.
[3]Seehttps://www.mediapart.fr/journal/politique /050924/michel-barnier-un-faux-modere-pousse-par-wauquiez-et-kohler
[4]Headquarters of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.