"Context, context, context," whine all the cop apologists every time incidents like these occur. Well, given the context of rampant cop brutality escalating by the day, I'm believing Benson and his friends over the Texas pigs who allege he was resisting arrest for operating his boat while intoxicated.
In doing so, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union workers are showing the rest of the US working class a glimpse of the collective power we have. If we had had the organization, class consciousness, political consciousness, internationalism, and balls that these West Coast workers possess, we could wage a national general strike that would shut this country down and end the Iraq occupation tomorrow.
The striking dockworkers are also teaching us about our own history, which many American workers have forgotten if they ever knew. As Professor Cole notes, May Day's origins began not in the Soviet Union but right here in the US back in the 1880s, when massive working class struggles centered in Chicago and the Midwest, fought for the 8-hour workday. Today's antiwar strike by dockworkers reminds us that if it weren't for the combativity of prior generations of working people, we'd still be working 16-18 hour days.
Many workers also don't know that when Seattle's shipyard workers conducted a general strike in 1919, they expressed solidarity with the Bolshevik-led workers revolution in Russia. As one strike pamphlet put it, "RUSSIA DID IT."--May 1, 2008
Add Palfrey to the growing list of questionable "suicides":
Brandy Britton, a call girl who worked for Palfrey.
James Hatfield, author of a book about George W. Bush and his crimes.
Gary Webb, who exposed the CIA's role in flooding US cities with cocaine to finance the Nicaraguan contras terrorist war against the Sandinista government.
Margie Schoedinger, who filed a civil suit in 2002 alleging Bush sexually attacked her.
Half million Cuban workers reaffirm Revolution while honoring workers of the world
This is a definitive answer to those deluded anticommunists who think that Fidel's retirement and eventual passing equals the demise of the Cuban Revolution. Think again, fools. As one Cuban marcher said, "We're here for Cuba. We're here for Fidel. We're here for everything good about Cuba."
The Cuban Revolution is not about one man, no matter how brilliant, charismatic and important he's been. It's about Cuba's working people, who are part of an international working class. We American workers are part of that class. We may be on the defensive now, and we don't have nearly enough workers organized into unions.
But we still have state power in Cuba!--May 1, 2008
Never before seen photos from An American Worker in Tiananmen Square:
All US workers--no matter their race, color, creed--should not let the US power structure and its racist media hirelings like Bill O'Reilly
co-opt Martin Luther King's legacy with phony, lofty sounding
platitudes about his support for nonviolence that dilute his real
politics and reduce King into a harmless prop for the status quo.
Memo to Clintons: You f***ing hypocrites
His wife is just itching to obliterate 70 million Iranians on behalf of Israel and the US ruling class. That makes Hillary infinitely more odious--and dangerous--than Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who is being crucified for telling the truth that many white Americans can't handle.
Angry Black folks are a no-no to the US ruling class and its kept press. With good reason. As dumb as they are, US capitalists are smart enough to know that Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was right: Black Americans will be in the vanguard of the coming US socialist revolution.--April 30, 2008
Hillary: "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on...Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."--May 9, USA TODAY interview [emphasis added]
As opposed to those lazy, shiftless niggers on welfare driving Cadillacs.
Clinton's racist comments make last week's post below documenting her 1995 opinions about Southern white workers even more illuminating. So much for her husband being the "first Black president."
"...It is a measure of the profound decay of American democracy
that when the president of the United States welcomed the Roman
Catholic pontiff to Washington last week, a major concern was
that the representative of a 2,000-year-old religious institution,
steeped in reaction and hostility to science and human progress,
might seem to criticize the US government from the left....
"Both the official sponsorship of the pope’s visit and
the endless media coverage serve a major political purpose of
the American ruling elite—to reinforce the role of religion
in American public life and further erode the traditional separation
of church and state, a major bulwark of democratic rights...."
"....With terrifying rapidity, hundreds of millions of people all
over the planet have been confronted with the inability to obtain
the basic necessities of life. The global capitalist market is
dictating intolerable conditions for masses of people on every
continent, provoking a worldwide eruption of class struggle....
"....In the end, the crisis is a product of the capitalist market
itself. It is not a matter of too many mouths to feed or too little
food to supply human needs. Food is available, but the market
has driven prices to a level out of reach for a growing portion
of humanity in the most oppressed countries, and at the same effectively
slashing the living standards of workers in the more advanced
capitalist world....
"....Speculation in food as a commodity has been sharply accelerated
by the decline in the value of the dollar, soaring oil prices
and the promotion of biofuel production in the US and elsewhere.
This attempt to generate a new investment 'bubble,'
based on the fraud that somehow turning corn into ethanol represents
a 'green' alternative to fossil fuels, has driven up
the price not only of corn, but other grains, while diverting
a major share of food production into a more profitable venture....
"....Country after country has been left vulnerable to the global
commodity price surge by 'free market' policies implemented
at the demands of Washington and the international financial agencies
such as the IMF and World Bank over the past quarter century.
"The closer integration of the economies of the oppressed countries
into the world market has been accompanied by their increasing
concentration on specialized export crops, while tariff barriers
have been demolished, opening the way to subsidized agricultural
staples from the more advanced countries capturing local markets.
"....What is emerging in the crisis over food prices is a tumultuous
manifestation of a breakdown of the global capitalist order. The
catastrophe facing billions of people around the globe cannot
be resolved within the confines of a system based on private profit
and the nation state.
"The revolutionary implications of this crisis are beginning
to dawn on elements within the ruling establishment itself. In
an article published Monday, the influential US magazine Time
noted: 'The idea of the starving masses driven by their desperation
to take to the streets and overthrow the ancien regime has seemed
impossibly quaint since capitalism triumphed so decisively in
the Cold War... And yet, the headlines of the past month suggest
that skyrocketing food prices are threatening the stability of
a growing number of governments around the world.'"
Multimillionaire Clinton Calls Obama "elitist" for Ascribing Bitterness to Rural Voters
There's a lot more than bitterness out there. There's a seething anger over the obscene accumulation of wealth and the Iraq war that one day will not be contained by the two-party system.
Thank you, "Hillary," for reminding us there's no bitterness in major league politics. How could there be with you running? You, who are so experienced that you can spot sniper fire a mile away.
As for Obama, he needs to recognize his limits. It can get pretty clumsy when a conventional bourgeois politician waxes Marxism in an attempt to explain the realities of America's class structure.
What he meant to say was something along the lines of what David Walsh wrote in a June 10, 2004 World Socialist Web Site article entitled "Abu Ghraib and the failure of American society":
"Cultural backwardness is rife in America, but nowhere so pervasively
as in small cities and towns. Left to rot by corporations that
have closed down plants and mines and moved on to more profitable
pastures; ravaged by budget cuts in social programs and education—which
have all but eliminated music and art from public schools—that
ensure a stunted intellectual level; neglected and ignored by
politicians and abandoned by the unions; as morally and spiritually
isolated as some remote village in China; indeed, linked to the
outside world principally through the stupidities of television
(‘reality shows,’ cop shows, daytime talk shows, etc.)
and the filth of right-wing talk radio—these towns offer
very little. For many, especially the young people, life is bleak
and without a future.
"Leave the highway and drive through Dubois, Pennsylvania; Blaine,
Washington; Adamsville, Michigan or Kingman, Arizona, and you
will draw the unmistakable conclusion that much of America already
lives in Depression conditions. That millions are eking out an
existence, working two or three jobs, up to their ears in debt,
one pay-check from genuine hardship, finds physical expression
in the peeling paint, the boarded-up houses and factories, the
rusting machinery, the deserted downtown streets.
"A recent article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch points
out that small towns, defined as those with less than 40,000 inhabitants,
have borne an inordinate burden in the Iraqi war. Some 46 percent
of the 800 or so US soldiers killed have come from such areas,
which represent only 27 percent of the American population. These
are 'economic conscripts,' driven by lack of opportunity
to enlist in the army. Out of these elements emerge a certain
percentage capable of the crimes at Abu Ghraib.
"One of their major influences is religion, Baptist and varieties
of Christian fundamentalism, whose obsessive sexual repression
is turned inside out in the Iraqi prisons. Also taking its toll
is the decades-long bombardment of the population by xenophobia
and chauvinism, whether by right-wing demagogues or Hollywood
films. Treating Iraqis as subhumans comes all too easily to some."
"Apparently, the Democratic senator is guilty of a double offense
against the norms of contemporary American electoral politics:
He allowed real-life experiences of social deprivation to affect
him, and then spoke frankly in front of an audience, albeit a
privileged one at a private fundraiser, of the economic realities
of American society.
"He compounded this political sin with the suggestion that religion,
gun rights, economic protectionism and anti-immigrant agitation
were used to divert working people from the economic oppression
they face....
"Nothing that Obama said was a surprise to the media pundits
or his political rivals. If anything, he understated the level
of bitterness in rural and small-town America, since he left out
one of the most important factors in fueling popular anger—the
war in Iraq, which has taken a disproportionate toll in these
communities, where a far higher percentage of young people volunteer
for the military than in urban or suburban areas.
"Republican political strategists have relied for years on appeals
to religious sentiments—'God, gays and guns,' in
the parlance of political consultants—to win support among
voters whose jobs and living standards have been devastated by
the decline of American industry and the unrestrained “free
market” policies of successive Republican and Democratic
administrations.
"Thomas Frank wrote a best-selling book four years ago (What’s
the Matter with Kansas?), which examined this process in his
home state, and his conclusions about the use of coded appeals
to religion to induce voters to ignore their own economic interests
have become conventional wisdom in ruling class political and
media circles.
"While Frank’s book had certain insights into American
culture and politics, he ignored the most fundamental factor enabling
the Republican appeals to prejudice and backwardness to produce
electoral successes—the drastic shift by the Democratic Party
to the right and its abandonment of any policies to alleviate
economic inequality or improve living conditions for working people....
"The near-unanimous consensus that Obama has committed a huge
blunder by referring to working class bitterness and resentment
has two sources: the enormous social distance of the millionaire
pundits and politicians from the real lives of working people,
and the fear that under conditions of convulsions in the financial
markets and the onset of a deep recession, any discussion of the
underlying social antagonisms in America has potentially explosive
consequences."
Every Day, 2008 Campaign Reveals Why We Need a Labor Party
Namely, that the Democratic Party, every bit as much as the Republican Party, "is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate interests."
Rice on 9/11: " I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."
This is change? Sounds like more of the same bullshit to me.
The truth is they're both lying. Washington knew about such plots since 1995, when Filipino police uncovered Operation Bojinka. Further, multiple reports from US and foreign intelligence predicted precisely that such a terrorist plot was about to happen.
More Iraqis Will Die at the Hands of Their Bloodthirsty Occupiers
Giving new meaning to the phrase, "the fox guarding the chicken coop." The vile, self-serving decision of military prosecutors gives the green light to US occupiers to commit further atrocities against unarmed Iraqi civilians.
Under international law and the laws of the class struggle, the Iraqis have a sovereign and moral right to defend their national sovereignty and resist the illegal occupation.--March 28, 2008
Lying Government Prosecutors Lose Case, Reneg on Pledge to Free Him
Couragous Political Prisoner Answers Illegal Imprisonment with Hunger Strike
These fucks make up the rules as they go along. The jury didn't buy the government's fraudulent case against Al-Arian. The government shows its contempt for democracy by jailing him any way.
McCain's "gaffe" Was No Mistake--He Just Can't Stop Lying
It's not that McCain confused Sunnis with Shiites--He just can't stop reading from the script
While John McCain is no intellectual giant, he's not that stupid.
Bush: Iraq War "Romantic"
Notice how Bush didn't knock down doors to go to Vietnam when it was his time to get in on the romance. Bush the Sadist, Bush the Torturer is much more comfortable sending working class youth to fight and die for Big Oil.
Cheney on Americans' Opposition to Iraq War: "So?"
No one should be surprised at the arrogance and antidemocratic sentiments of "Dick" Cheney. This latest manifestation of his contempt for the people and lack of remorse should be documented and taken into consideration when it comes time to sentence Cheney after he's convicted by an international war crimes tribunal.
Bush: Tehran "declared that they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people--some in the Middle East"
That's another bare-faced lie from the pathological liar, deranged sociopath and otherwise fully qualified capitalist leader currently occupying the White House. Iran has never declared it wants to have a nuclear weapon to destroy anyone. Iran has legally pursued its sovereign right to develop nuclear power, and has signed the international nonproliferation treaty--something Israel, which possesses nuclear weapons--has not.
The only government that has destroyed people with nuclear weapons is Washington. It is that regime that should be disarmed.--March 23, 2008
It's not about illusions in change or experience from this or that capitalist politician...
It's about shedding those illusions and believing in our own strength, our own values, our own solidarity...it's about forming a labor party that puts human need before private profit and the sanctity of the "free market"
As the deepening capitalist crisis imperils US workers, as the effects of the social and economic catrastophe caused by the accumulation of huge fortunes by capitalists through parasitic financial looting increase the exploitation and impoverishment of working people, we should fight back by breaking from the two big business parties and form a workers party based on struggles like that being waged by the 3650 striking workers at American Axle & Manufacturing.--March 16, 2008
Just like their US imperialist counterparts in Iraq following orders from the other end of the true Axis of Evil in the world.
Spitzer Bust Smacks of Republican-Orchestrated Politically Motivated Surveillance
"All of these affairs express the degeneration of both big business
parties and the media, which substitute scandal-mongering and
character assassination for any genuine and open debate of policy
and issues. The hand-wringing and feigned outrage over the personal
sexual conduct of this or that politician—combined with the
media’s dissemination of lurid details—all have the
effect of debasing the political environment.
"These cases also serve to distract public attention from the
real crimes being carried out in Washington, as well as Albany
and other state capitals: The continuation of wars of aggression
that have claimed millions of lives and are costing $12 billion
a month, the wholesale attacks on democratic rights and massive
spying on the American people, and the subordination of the social
interests of working people to the wealth accumulation of a narrow
and increasingly criminal financial elite.
"The other question that deserves careful consideration is the
way in which the Spitzer affair reflects the immense growth of
government surveillance over every aspect of life in America.
The kind of information that flowed from the New York governor’s
bank into the hands of federal investigators is regularly collected
through the monitoring of financial transactions of millions upon
millions of Americans, along with their emails, telephone calls
and travel information under the domestic spying operation run
by the secretive National Security Agency." ("Politically directed dragnet snares New York Governor Spitzer," Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site, March 12, 2008)
Obama, Clinton, McCain: Workers Lose With Any of Them
Workers Must Break From the 2 Capitalist War Parties or Go Down With the Empire
March 5-6, 2008--There's very few substantive political differences among Obama, Clinton, and McCain. Their differences are largely tactical, especially on foreign policy. How best to wage war. Where to wage war. When to wage war. They're all for capitalism. They're all for capitalist wars. They all put private profits before human needs. The fact that Clinton and McCain are ganging up on Obama shows just how much of a change from Bush we can expect from "Hillary." As Republican consultant Scott Reed put it, "What Hillary has been saying in Texas is music to our ears. All we have to do is run her ad and put a tag line at the end, 'Paid for by the Repubican National Committee.'"
And we've already heard from their own mouths how little separates Obama and Clinton politically.
Clinton outsmarted Obama in recent days, regaining the offensive by viciously attacking Obama with the grossly misleading and fear-mongering 3am ad, backing Obama into a corner in the debate over Farrakhan's endorsement of him, shrewdly exploiting if not sponsoring the Obama in Somalian garb photo. Obama, like Kerry in 2004, should have put a muzzle on his wife, because her running at the mouth comment about how this was the first time she was ever proud of her country may go down as her husband's Waterloo. And like Gore in 2000, Obama's retreat from--or inability to articulate--a populist message killed him in Ohio.
The World Socialist Web Site correctly pointed out that the bitter factionalism dividing the Democratic Party in this campaign is driven by political differences over how to salvage the war in Iraq and advance US imperialist interests worldwide. But these are fights within the ruling class, among the exploiters, over how to advance their interests against us--working people. The spectacle of Clinton praising McCain and essentially endorsing him over Obama is nothing but an expression of the underlying political fact that the Clinton wing of the capitalist class--and the Democratic Party establishment--"seeks to downplay the war in Iraq, both because of their own complicity in it and because they fear the consequences of an open posing of the issue against the pro-war candidacy of McCain. They would prefer a campaign focused on domestic issues like economic policy and health care." (WSWS, March 6, 2007, Patrick Martin, "Clinton victories in Ohio, Texas intensify divisions in Democatic Party")
Obama is backed by those wings of the US capitalist class "who regard the decision to invade and occupy Iraq as a disastrous foreign policy blunder which ahs set back the strategic interests of American imperialism..." (Martin, WSWS, 3/6/07)
Obama, Clinton, McCain, we're fucked with all of them. Obama can't be an antiwar candidate because he's not antiwar. His position on Pakistan parallels Bush's current policy of CIA and Special Forces operations in that country. He backs Israel's atrocities against Gaza Palestinians and Colombia's aggression in Ecuador. McCain, he envisions the US occupation of Iraq to last 100 years. Clinton, she's just can't wait to wage wars on behalf of the US financial elite, whom she identifies with far more than she does working people, despite her bullshit crocodile tears.
Clinton's fear-mongering ads, McCain ass-kissing, her repugnant commander in chief remarks, and apparent dirty tricks move against Obama regarding NAFTA and the Canadian embassy demonstrate both her desperation, sleaziness and viciousness. Clinton is one of the most despicable, repulsive and personally obnoxious figures to ever disgrace the American political stage. She just can't wait to show history how much balls she has, how eager
and experienced and tested she is to send young US workers to their
deaths and mental breakdowns on behalf of the profit system that she
has done very well by.
And now we have daughter Chelsea to look forward to. The 28-year-old hedge fund manager is apparently being groomed to continue the Clinton dynasty. We got a glimpse of Chelsea's character when she responded to a voter questioning Hillary's vote for the war this way: "She voted based on the best evidence at the time. Perhaps you had clairvoyance, and that's extraordinary."
Proving that she has all the arrogance of her mother.
August
2007--COSMOS LEFT aims to be the kind of "tribune of the people"
Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin urged all communists to be
in his classic 1902 work What Is to Be Done?:
"...who
is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no
matter where it appears, no matter what stratum or class of the people
it affects; who is able to generalise all these man ifestations and
produce a single picture of police violence and capitalist
exploitation; who is able to take advantage of every event, however
small, in order to set forth before all his socialist convictions and his democratic demands, in order to clarify for all and everyone the significance of the struggle for the emancipation of the proleteriat..."
Lenin
explained that communists needed to be tribunes of the people in order
to most effectively imbue working people with political consciousness,
that is, class consciousness, revolutionary consciousness, and
internationalist consciousness:
"Working-class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all
cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class
is affected - unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a
Social-Democratic point of view and no other. The consciousness of the
working masses cannot be genuine class-consciousness unless the workers
learn, from concrete, and above all from topical, political facts and
events to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of
its intellectual, ethical, and political life; unless they learn to
apply in practice the materialist analysis and the materialist estimate
of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and
groups of the population." [What Is to Be Done?, Chapter 2]
A
tribune of the people agitating in the 21st century United States
should be exposing how the US ruling class cynically exploited
September 11 in order to wage colonial wars long in the making, and
building the Marxist movement in the United States and around the world.
On this first page and on page 2, "Fighting US Imperialism," COSMOS
LEFT will target Bush's partners in crime in the Democratic Party and
big business media while presenting an internationalist, working class
perspective that dissects the lies and propaganda behind Washington's
war drive.
Page 3 of COSMOS LEFT, entitled "Oh Really O'Reilly,"will
explain that Bill O'Reilly is one of the most dangerous individuals in
the US today because he represents the face of American fascism.
Page 4,"September 11: Did you know...?"is
an evolving compilation of disturbing facts surrounding September 11
that points to US governmental complicity in the terrorist attacks.
Page 5,"What Is to Be Done?: Building a Communist International Today," discusses
the challenges facing communists worldwide and political differences
within the revolutionary workers movement. Above all, it seeks to
nourish a Marxist culture in the United States and internationally.
As Yogi Berra once said, "Ask questions. Maybe it might lead to somethin'." *************************
November
2002--The US government either allowed 9/11 to happen or was involved
on some level in its operation. This is nothing new. It would fall in
line with a history of provocations, lies, fabricated incidents,
stand-downs that Washington has used to justify military aggression and
intervention needed to police monopoly capital's empire: the sinking of
the Maine and Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin, Operation
Northwood (1962 Joint Chiefs' plan to hijack planes and commit other
terrorist acts and blame it on Cuba). COSMOS LEFT will examine the
mounting evidence that the stench around 9/11 points to Bush and high
levels of US military and intelligence: the links between the CIA and
al Qaeda, between the Bush and bin Laden families; the specific
warnings from Russian, French, German, Israeli, British, and Filipino
intelligence; the specific warnings from CIA and FBI; the lies by Bush,
Rice, Cheney, FBI chief Mueller, CIA boss Tenet and others concerning
the existence of warnings and the contents of those warnings; the CIA's
monitoring of "hijackers" Almihdhar and al Hazmi, who lived openly in
San Diego; the CIA's lies concerning what they knew about Atta; the
CIA's electronic monitoring of bin Laden; the NSA's intercepts of al
Qaeda communications; the 15 Afghans who infiltrated al Qaeda for the
CIA; the strange case of Zacarias Moussaoui; the links between the
aviation schools and the CIA; the warnings to 10 Pentagon generals not
to fly on 9/11; a similar warning to San Francisco mayor Willie Brown;
the FBI order to Ashcroft not to fly commercial airliners in July 2001;
the links between Bush, the CIA, Pakistan's ISI and the hijackers,
including the coincidence that the then head of the ISI, who had just
sent $100,000 to Atta, was meeting with Senators Goss and Graham, the
heads of the congressional intelligence committees, on the morning of
9/11; the criminal dereliction of duty by Bush, Rice, Cheney, etc.,
who, after receiving specific warnings about al Qaeda plots to skyjack
jets and fly them into the WTC and the Pentagon, did nothing to prevent
them; a course of inaction which resulted in the inexplicable failure
of US air defenses to respond that 9/11 morning for almost two hours;
the denials by the Bush administration that they were warned, followed
by dishonest statements about the specific nature of the terrorist
skyjacking threat.
COSMOS LEFT will also analyze the efforts
by the Bush administration to block an independent investigation; the
failure of the administration to reveal all they know about a suspected
al Qaeda terrorist and what exactly Bush was told; the plans to wage
war against Afghanistan and Iraq long before 9/11; the drafting of the
Patriot Act before 9/11; the conscious sabotage by FBI leadership of
its agents' attempts to warn them that al Qaeda terrorists were about
to hijack commercial jets and crash them into the WTC and the Pentagon;
the insider trading that took place at AB Brown division of
Deutschebank in Germany, where huge numbers of put options were bet
against United and American Airlines; the related case involving FBI
insider trading where the prosecution volunteered that a defendant had
foreknowledge of 911; the fact that AB Buzzy Krongard, the current
number three man at the CIA, used to be the head of AB Brown bank; the
links between the Bush family and the CIA; the cozy relationship
between Enron and the CIA; the fact that Fla. governor Jeb Bush
declared martial law on September 7, 2001; the long sordid
blood-stained history of the Bush family, dating back to Bush's
grandfather, Prescott, who had close business ties to the Nazis; the
efforts by Clinton, oil companies such as Unocal, and then Bush to try
to stabilize the Taliban government so that a natural gas pipeline
could be built in Afghanistan; the fact that Cipro was distributed at
the White House on September 10, and that the source of the anthrax
attacks was from within the US military and intelligence community, and
as we're learning, having the FBI in charge of a terrorist
investigation is like a fox guarding the chicken coop; the fact that
the Bush administration still has not released the passenger lists kept
by the airlines, the data from the two flight recorders recovered from
the crashes, the transcripts of communications between pilots and
controllers, any evidence that there were 19 Arab hijackers on board;
and so much more. There's much to talk about. It's deeper than failing
to connect the dots, and more than criminal negligence and
incompetence. If the predatory, gangster elements in power allowed or
organized 9/11, then we should believe Cheney when he guarantees there
will be another terrorist attack. To acknowledge the almost dizzying
level of conspiratorial intrigues surrounding 9/11 doesn't make one
guilty of lapsing into some kind of demented, paranoid world of
"conspiracist theories." Ruling class intrigues have been well
documented throughout history. As long as it's understood that these
intrigues occur within the framework of the class struggle, and do not
explain history in and of themselves, the workers movement has a right
to demand that the government open all their intelligence files to the
public concerning 911. But we shouldn't get obsessed with this
conspiracy theory about remote controlled planes or that theory about
the WTC imploding from internally placed bombs or the one about the
Pentagon being smashed with a missilet. We'll never know all of the
government's state secrets, including the truth behind Kennedy's
assassination and 911, until the American workers take state power and
publish all the secret files we get our hands on, just as the
Bolsheviks revealed all of the Czar's secret negotiations with the
Germans.
911 is a subversive problem for the rulers; it lays
bare the bankruptcy of capitalist rule and the need for a socialist
revolution as a matter of survival for the working class. If the
capitalist rulers are so criminally negligent and incompetent that they
allowed 911 to happen, they have to go. And if these bastards
consciously ordered a standdown and allowed 911 to happen so they'd
have a pretext to win public support for their colonial wars for
control and plunder of our fellow and sister workers of other
countries, then they're out of here also. It's right there in the
Declaration of Independence: "And when these rights are destroyed, over
long periods of time, it is your DUTY to destroy, or abolish, that
government." US foreign policy has terrorized much of the world with
chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction for the
last century it has been an imperialist power, inflicting dozens of
Ground Zeros, two of them incinerated hundreds of thousands of
civilians instantly. Now Washington's policies have turned this
country's shores into a bloody death trap. The foreign policy of this
government has always been that of the ruling rich, conducted to
maximize profits of the corporate elite. There is no "we" in the United
States; there's an "us" and "them". Working people have no foreign
policy; the foreign policy of the government is that of the
capitalists. The only foreign policy workers can have is the
internationalist solidarity we can build with workers around the world
when we stay the hands of the imperialist warmakers in Washington and
the Pentagon. There will be more provocations, more fabricated
incidents, more phony evidence like Blair's dossier, more terrorist
attacks. Look at the lies permeating Bush's campaign for a war against
Iraq. He quotes reports that don't exist, affirms findings that were
never found; almost every utterance from his smirking mouth is a lie.
Anti-war individuals have an obligation to expose these lies and urge
everyone they know to write letters, emails, make phone calls, talk
politics, and stand up and shout our opposition to this madness. Lenin
told the Bolsheviks in 1917 that their task was "to patiently explain.
The masses will turn to us. They have no alternative."
Hands Off Gaza! End the Illegal Israeli Occupation of Palestine Now!
End All US Aid to Israel!
Viva Fidel!
Viva Fidel!
May you live another 80 years, Comrade Fidel. Relax. Rest. Pace yourself. You've earned it. You, and the Cuban workers and peasants, have changed history forever, much as the Bolshevik-led Russian workers and peasants did in 1917. You've struck fear in the hearts of capitalist oppressors and exploiters everywhere. You've waged a principled, working class struggle against world imperialism for nearly 50 years. You, and the Cuban masses, have survived every attempt by US imperialism to overthrow socialist rule in Cuba. And still you're a beacon of hope and inspiration to working people worldwide. Much to the humiliation and horror of capitalists everywhere, Cuban workers and peasants still hold state power. Workers of the world: we still have state power in Cuba! Like the Vietnamese workers and peasants, we are forever indebted to Cuba's toilers for standing up to capitalist domination. For leading the way.
Viva Fidel.
Long live Fidel.
He will live forever. As Comrade Che Guevara does.
Russia was the first step. Cuba was another major step.
The fight for socialism will never die as long as there's an international working class. And the last time I looked, there still is.--February 28, 2008
We tortured, and we'll torture again. And I've got all my bases covered. Comes from my days as owner of the Texas Rangers. Eh, eh, eh. You see now it's legal. My lawyers said so, the Justice Department said so, heck, even the Democrats in Congress said so. So I'm gonna keep on doing it, and there's nothing anyone can do about it, because with the help of my man Bill O'Reilly over at Fox News, we've convinced enough Americans that it's saving their sorry ass lives...
The above post to COSMOS LEFT, published on February 9, 2008, was an interpretation of Bush's evolving position on torture by the author of this Web site.
Below are Bush's actual words from an interview he gave to Fox News' Chris Wallace on February 10, 2008:
First of all, whatever we have done, was legal.And
whatever decision I will make, will be reviewed by the Justice
Department to determine whether or not the legality is is there.And the reason why…there’s a difference between what happened in the past and today is there’s new law.And um, and so to answer your question, whatever we will do will be legal.The
American people have got to know that what we did in the past gained
information that prevented an attack and for those who criticize what
we did in the past, I ask them which attack would they rather have not
permitted…stopped?Which attack on America would they have said, you know, well, maybe that wasn’t all that important?That we stopped those attacks.I’ll do what’s necessary to protect America within the law.That’s what you gotta understand.And um, [nods head]
Except torture is illegal under US and international law. Period. There are no exceptions; there is no defense. But because the crisis afflicting US capitalism is so acute, bourgeois democracy is increasingly brittle, its foundation rotting from the termites of fascism, it isn't strong enough to defend democratic rights, stop Bush and bring him to justice.
That task will be left to the US working class, in conjunction with the international proletariat. But first we will have to shed our illusions in capitalist politics, shed the alien bourgeois values that we've internalized, and find our own identity by embracing our true values of proletarian internationalism and solidarity.--Feb. 10, 2008
End the Criminal US-Backed Israeli Siege of Gaza!
Israeli Blockade Violates International Law Banning Collective Punishment
Geneva Convention Calls Collective Punishment a War Crime
End All US Aid to Israel!
Raising and mobilizing around these demands against the two regimes responsible or these war crimes--Washington and Tel Aviv--is what the international working class can do right now.
Meanwhile, Gaza's Palestinians are doing their part...
This is a humiliating defeat for Israel. Working people everywhere should rejoice and be inspired by the heroic actions of our Palestinian brothers and sisters, our allies.--January 23, 2008
After being tortured by an outlaw government that failed to produce a shred of evidence against him.
This man, who didn't kill a soul, gets to sit in jail for 17 years.
George W. Bush, whose illegal invasion of a defenseless nation has killed at least one million people, lives in luxury under heavy protection at taxpayer expense.
"The imprisonment of Padilla is the culmination of a years-long campaign by the Bush administration to use his persecution as a test case for the dismantling of constitutional and democratic rights under aegis of the so-called war on terror."
Padilla is a political prisoner who should be freed immediately. Bush is a war criminal who deserves the harshest punishment after a fair trial he denies others, and who should receive the same level of mercy he showed to all those death row inmates in Texas.--January 23, 2008
Ron Paul: The 800-lb Gorilla in the GOP Race
The only thing more fascinating about the 2008 presidential primary campaign than Ron Paul kicking Rudy Ghouliani's ass is watching the television news pundits completely ignore that it's happening. The capitalist media establishment has done everything it can to marginalize and trivialize Paul's candidacy while simultaneously anointing Ghouliani as a leading contender and Republican establishment favorite, this one of the most corrupt politicians in the history of the US who on September 11, 2001 showed how tough he is on terror by running around like a chicken with his head cut off on the streets of downtown Manhattan.
But in primary after primary thus far, Paul has equaled, doubled or tripled Ghouliani's vote totals. Now by any stretch of the imagination, this is objectively a big news story warranting serious coverage. To date, I have not heard one word of analysis or reaction from any of the millionaire talking head pundits on any cable news show about the Ron Paul phenomenon. One doesn't have to be a fan of Paul--indeed, he's a reactionary libertarian capitalist--to recognize that his consistent ability to outpoll Ghouliani is important enough to merit recognition and analysis.
But the establishment press is ignoring Paul's success, because they know a substantial portion of his support comes from people who suspect the government's official 9/11 story is bullshit. Paul has become a conduit, a lightning rod for the widespread suspicion among broad layers of Americans that Washington was either behind the attacks or looked the other way in order to win public support for its predatory wars waged to seie control of the vast oil and gas supplies in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Paul is the only candidate openly associating himself with the 9/11 truth movement. The fact that he scored 13% in Nevada illustrates the potentially subversive and explosive consequences 9/11 presents to the US rulers, who, with the full cooperation of their kept press, have been trying to obfuscate with emotions and mind-numbing jingoism the searing truth that by the standards of the Declaration of Independence, which says when a government destroys the people's rights over long periods of time, it is the duty of the people to abolish that government.--Jan. 22, 2008
Memo to Bob Costas, Mike Lupica, George Mitchell, Bill O'Reilly, and every other sanctimonous scoundrel piously raging about athletes' "lying" about steroid use:
Until you call for the impeachment and indictment of George Bush and Richard Cheney, whose lies about Iraq justified an illegal preemptive invasion that's slaughtered hundreds of thousands, SHUT THE F**K UP about Barry Bonds, Roger Clements, and Mark McGwire!
January 14, 2008:
From the December 15, 2007 World Socialist Web Site article by Bill Van Auken, entitled "US: Baseball steroid report--reflection of a diseased social order":
"The intersection of professional athletics and the mass media have created an enormously profitable instrument for mass stupefaction. Millions are encouraged to live their lives vicariously through millionaire athletes, who are turned into popular icons, only to be demonized when caught in one or another inevitable scandal. These morality plays then become the means for diverting popular attention from the real crimes being carried out against working people both at home and abroad. This is the social importance of baseball to the ruling establishment, and why a state figure like Mitchell is employed in this investigation and why the president is compelled to pronounce on the matter and a congressional committee to convene hearings.
"Of course, when Mitchell spoke of the 'environment' that promoted the use of these drugs, he should have looked further a field than the major league clubhouses. The entire US economy has been on what amount to steroids for decades, the latest 'performance-enhancing substance' consisting of subprime mortgages, which yielded massive fortunes for Wall Street’s elite, before taking their ever more terrible toll.
"As for Mitchell’s warning that the use of these drugs 'poses a serious threat to the integrity of the game,' such a threat deserves to be placed in the context of a government and ruling elite that has gutted the integrity of every democratic institution in America.
In the end, the question posed by the statements of distress and outrage over the Mitchell report comes down to: why should anyone expect baseball to be any different than the rest of capitalist society?"
Bhutto before her assassination: "hold Musharraf responsible" if she's killed in Pakistan "I have been made to feel insecure by his minions"
"In the end, it was Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who phoned Bhutto in early October, telling her to return to Pakistan to serve essentially as an instrument of US policy and a prop for the Musharraf regime. In doing so, Rice sent Bhutto to her death." (World Socialist Web Site, 12/29/07, Bill Van Auken)
Everything Condoleezza Rice touches dies. That's what she's good at: condemning people to die; sending people to their deaths; ordering her occupation minions to slaughter those being occupied. Rice is going down in history as another Vlad the Impaler. Not one of affirmative action's finer moments.
The ties between Pakistan's military and intelligence and Al Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamists are well documented. US imperialism and its Pakistani puppet dictators going back to General Zia have used Islamic fundamentalists as a counterweight to Marxists and secular leftists.
Once again, Al Qaeda, born and bred by US intelligence, is being used as a cover for US military aggression to advance Wall Street's objective of controlling the world's oil and gas supplies.--Jan. 3, 2008
Iowa Caucuses: Nothing democratic about them
Whole categories of voters are disenfranchised: "the infirm, soldiers on active duty, medical personnel who cannot leave their patients, parents who do not have baby sitters, restaurant employees on the dinner shift, and many others who work in retail, at gas stations and in other jobs that require evening duty." (NY Times, Jan 2, 2008)
Yeah. Working people.
"The process by which the next US president is selected has little to do with democracy. The two-party system guarantees a political monopoly by corporate interests. The choice of nominee in each party is the outcome of a complex struggle within the ruling elite in which vast sums of money and a corporate-controlled media play the major role, not the sentiments and needs of the American people." (World Socialist Web Site, "On the even of the Iowa caucuses: Corporate money, media manipulation and the US elections," Patrick Martin, Jan 2, 2008)
No doubt because Zubaydah claimed he had ties to Saudi monarchy and Pakistani intelligence.
Torture is illegal. Waterboarding is torture. It has been since the Inquisition. Washington itselt prosecuted a Japanese officer for it during World War II. The CIA destroyed the torture tapes because the judge in the Moussaoui trial asked for them. No doubt the tapes weakened the government's case against Moussaoui. There's also a good chance that Zubadayh's torture-extracted testimony contradicted Washington's official version of 9/11.
Bush ordered the tapes' destruction and his entire criminal gang--including the Congressional Democrats--knew about the torture being carried out as US state policy.
Torture is illegal under US and international law. Period. There are no exceptions. It's not a question of whether it "works"--which it doesn't and isn't intended to.
You want to stop terrorist attacks? Open all files of, and then abolish, US, British and Israeli intelligence, since they either know about or are behind nearly every terrorist attack that's occurred.
Solidarity forever! Solidarity forever! Solidarity forever! For the union makes us strong
When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run, There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun. Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one? But the union makes us strong.
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn, But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn. We can break their haughty power; gain our freedom when we learn That the Union makes us strong.
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold; Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold. We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old For the Union makes us strong.
Written by Industrial Workers of the World organizer Ralph Chaplin in 1915, based on the music of Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Sooner or later, it comes down to this question. And the axis of choice is not George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden; it's not between Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists; it's not even between Western civilization and Islamic jihadists. It's between working people and capitalist exploiters; between wage slaves and subprime speculators.
Chorus: This land is your land, this land is my land From California, to the New York Island From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters This land was made for you and me
As I was walking a ribbon of highway I saw above me an endless skyway I saw below me a golden valley This land was made for you and me
Chorus
I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts And all around me a voice was sounding This land was made for you and me
Chorus
The sun comes shining as I was strolling The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling The fog was lifting a voice come chanting This land was made for you and me
Chorus
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there And that sign said - no tress passin' But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin! Now that side was made for you and me! [emphasis added]
Chorus In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple Near the relief office - I see my people And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin' If this land's still made for you and me.
Behind the "no tress passin'" sign stands Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Tom Tancredo, the Minutemen, David Horowitz, and the rest of the national chauvinistic, xenophobic slimeballs polluting the national discourse with their special brand of hate mongering and flag-waving jingoism designed to scapegoat immigrant workers for the deepening economic crisis of capitalism.
"The other side was made for you and me"--meaning working people; Black, brown, white; native born and immigrants; English speaking and Spanish speaking.
If Bill O'Reilly is the most dangerous man in America to workers, Hillary Clinton has to be the most dangerous woman.
She just can't wait to send US workers to their deaths on behalf of America's corporate elite. American, Iranian, and Iraqi blood is already dripping from her fangs.
Memo to Senator Dodd and Wolf Blitzer (who, if he had an ounce of personality or one tenth of O'Reilly's influence, would merit a website similar to this one): the presidential oath of office issued on January 20 does not obligate the new president to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and protect our country against enemies both foreign and domestic." [emphasis added] Article II, section reads: "I [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and I will to the best of my ability, preserve protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." [emphasis added]
Now, it is true that the military oath one takes upon enlisting is more expansive, mandating that you defend the Constitution "against all enemies foreign and domestic." But ultra right wingers like Glenn Beck should be careful before quoting those words--they can be validly used to argue that the military should defend the Constitution against the number 1 domestic enemy of the Constitution--George W. Bush. --November 17, 2007
So do we all, comrades. But at least the French--and the German workers--are fighting back.
"It is no accident that German train drivers are on strike simultaneously with French railway workers. On both sides of the Rhine they are fighting against the subordination of the public services as well as every aspect of their personal lives to the diktat of big business."--World Socialist Web Site Editorial Board, Nov. 19, 2007
And let's not forget the rising combativity of the Russian workers--who started it all and changed history by making the first socialist revolution in October 1917--and whose principal leader, Vladimir Lenin, still strikes fear in the hearts of capitalists everywhere.--Nov. 20, 2007
Bullshit. Carole Anne Gotbaum was murdered in police custody. The autopsy is a fraud and transparent whitewash of still another homicide at the hands of a member of the US capitalist state apparatus that is increasingly desperate, out of control, and operating with impunity and a license to kill.
The Gotbaum family should sue the city of Phoenix, the cops, and Phoenix Airport for everything they've got. Pauperize the bastards. And those responsible--those security pigs and cops at Phoenix Airport--should be arrested, prosecuted, convicted and given the harshest sentence possible.--November 11, 2007
Whether or not they realize it, when the 60 kids from West Morton High School staged their courageous sit-in against the war in Iraq, they were standing up to the entire US capitalist power structure, first and foremost the imperialist military and its chief media propagandist, Bill O'Reilly.
“Army recruiters are there three times a week. Why not let them [students] counter-recruit?”--Mark Serpico, father of one of the student protesters.
Take that, Bill O'Reilly, to the point where it stops your heartbeat.
But first, take Kids Are Americans, Too and wipe your ass with it. Because that's what it's worth to the kids in West Morton High and those at Boulder High School who occupied their school back in November 2004 to protest the war.--November 9, 2007
It's about the oil; it's about controlling the Middle East; it's how imperialism works
"I'm not saying this is a war for oil, but I am saying that oil fuels an awful lot of moves that political powers may have there" --Retired Army General John Abizaid, explaining why US troops will be in the Middle East for 50 years.
"Guided by American legal advisers, the Iaqi government has canceled a controversial development contract with the Russian company Lukoil for a vast oil field in Iraq's southern desert, freeing it up for potential international investment in the future" --Andrew E. Kramer, NY Times 11/4/07 article, "Iraq, With U.S. Support, Voids a Russian Oil Contract"
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil” --Alan Greenspan, former head of the US Federal Reserve
It wasn't about weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't about Iraq's connection to 9/11, or Baghdad's links to Al Qaeda. It wasn't about liberating Iraqis. And it certainly wasn't about bringing peace, freedom and democracy to Iraq. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is about Washington controlling Iraq's oil and its strategic position in the Middle East to get a leg up on its imperialist rivals in controlling the world's booty. And it's becoming clearer that Washington's conquering of Iraq was a stepping stone to conquering Iran.
Working people should keep that in mind as Washington ratchets up the bellicose rhetoric and military preparations for the coming aggression against Iran. Once again, the reasons given for an illegal preemptive war will have nothing to do with the truth. It won't be about Iran having or getting nu clear weapons. It won't be because Iran threatens peace and stability in the Middle East or the world. It won't be because Ahmadinejad intends to wipe Israel off the map. It won't be because Iran is helping Iraqi insurgents kill US soldiers.
9/11 Protesters Disrupt Maher's HBO Program
Host Leaps into Audience, Urges Security, "Don't be gentle with them"
Incident reveals Maher's reactionary side
"What's needed here is some ass-kicking." "If this were a microcosm of America, I'd vote for Rudy Guiliani." "It's the only time I defend Bush."
In the midst of a less than stimulating discussion with brain dead guests "journalist" Joel Stein, Texas Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and Hardball windbag Chris Matthews, inaudible shouts suddenly broke out from the studio audience during a live broadcast of Real Time With Bill Maher. When the shouting persisted, Maher, not wanting to be compared with Bush's frozen response to the second attack on the WTC, stood up and demanded, "Where's the fucking security? I'll kick your ass myself" before leaping into the audience toward the hecklers, several of whom were then forcibly ejected from the studio.
A few minutes later the heckling resumed, but this time the shouts were understandable: "What about Building 7?"
Maher replied with disdain, "You know what that's about? The World Trade Center was brought down by a controlled explosion"--his emphasis dripping with sarcasm. "It's the only time I defend Bush."
Sure, anyone who thinks that must be some crazy conspiracist looney tune, right, Bill. Here Maher makes the same mistake that regular Bush defender Bill O'Reilly does. They ignore the multitude of scientists, engineers, military and intelligence officials, and diplomats--here and abroad--who have examined the evidence and conclude that yes, Buildings 1, 2 and 7 of the World Trade Center appear to have been destroyed by controlled demolitions.
Perhaps if Maher had some of these individuals on his program, instead of empty-headed dolts like Stein, Leigh and Matthews, he and his viewers would be privy to the kind of evidence that would shatter Maher's smug self righteous sarcasm--the eyewitness testimony, seismic recordings and videos that point to an explosive detonation at the base of WTC 1; the testimony by NYC firefighters that suggest explosions occurred in WTC 2; the BBC video broadcast in which the reporter announces the collapse of Building 7 26 minutes before it actually did; the suspicious testimony from WTC owner Larry Silverstein that he and the NY Fire Department decided to "pull it" [Building 7].
If Maher had this kind of information on his show, there wouldn't be a need for anyone to disrupt his program. But when Maher censors this evidence from the public realm, he shouldn't be surprised that Friday's incident took place.
And it's not that Bush personally directed the demolition of the WTC; he obviously lacks the intelligence to conjure up such a complex plan. It's about the history of Washington using false flag operations and staging provocations to justify going to war. Did you ever hear of Operation Northwoods, Bill Maher, the false flag proposal from the US Joint Chief of Staffs that involved widespread domestic terrorism--including the hijacking of airplanes and significant civilian casualties as a pretext for invading Cuba in
