“‘Humanitarian Aid’ As a Weapon of Regime Change in Venezuela” by Diego Sacchi

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(Courtesy Camilo Rozo/El País and Andrés Martínez Casares/Reuters)

There are a number of different perspectives regarding the current situation in Venezuela within the Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice, and so we have chosen six articles that reflect that diversity in perspectives. This is part 2/6, written by Diego Sacchi. Originally published on Left Voice on 26 February 2019.

Last week [two weeks ago now], Venezuelan right-wing coup leader Juan Guaidó called for a “human wave” to mobilize at the country’s barracks in order to pressure the military into turning against President Nicolás Maduro. He also called on supporters to gather at the border with Colombia on Saturday to receive the “humanitarian aid” sent by the United States. The goal was to present an image of chaos to the world and force the Army and National Guard to let in the trucks carrying supplies—signaling a break with the Maduro government.

This maneuver was defeated, sparking an aggressive response by the Venezuelan right, the U.S. state department, and several high-ranking American officials, who have been beating the drums of war since the crisis began last month.

On Saturday evening, Guaidó stated, “The events of today have forced me to make the decision to formally declare to the International Community that we must consider all options to liberate this country, which is fighting and will continue to fight.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed Guaidó’s threats, maintaining that “Every option is on the table. We’re going to do the things that need to be done.”

After Saturday, Marco Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida, focused on searching for a “casus belli” that could justify a military response, using his Twitter account to spread lies, such as the claim that shots were fired into Colombia from Venezuela. [There have been reports of Venezuelan forces firing tear gas over the border into Colombia.]

War, Imperialism, and Class Polarization on a Global Scale: From East Asia to the Middle East and from South Africa to Europe

by Kevin B. Anderson, International Marxist-Humanist Organization

Adapted from a presentation to the Chicago Convention of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization, July 13, 2018.

Today’s Nuclear World, Capital, and the State

In January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their famous “Doomsday Clock” on the danger of nuclear holocaust to “two minutes to midnight–the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War.”  This resulted, they wrote, primarily from Trump’s threats of “fire and fury” against North Korea and his vow to upend the Iran nuclear pact, and also from North Korea’s continuing weapons tests and “Russia’s deployment of a new ground-launched cruise missile” (“It is 2 minutes to midnight: 2018 Doomsday Clock Statement,” Jan. 25, 2018). Even after tensions eased with North Korea, the administration continued plans for an estimated $2 trillion buildup of US nuclear weapons. While some of this began under Obama, according to arms control expert Lawrence Wittner, Trump’s escalation includes plans for “low-yield” nukes that the military could use under a new “nuclear posture” that “lowers the official threshold for use of U.S. nuclear weapons,” allowing the military to “employ them in response to non-nuclear attacks upon civilians and infrastructure, including cyberattacks” (“Trump’s Getting Us Ready to Fight a Nuclear War,” History News Network 6/18/18). Related to this is a massive buildup of US naval forces in what the Pentagon is suddenly calling the “Indo-Pacific,” and which is clearly aimed China as a rising power (see “Tomgram: Michael Klare, Is a War with China on the Horizon? TomDispatch 6/19/18)

This brought to mind the sixtieth anniversary of Raya Dunayevskaya’s Marxism and Freedom, first published in 1958 during the most fraught days of the Cold War, when threats of nuclear annihilation filled the discourse and Marxism had to be reconceptualized for our time as Marxist-Humanism. One of the book’s greatest achievements was its development of the theory of totalitarian state-capitalism for the nuclear age, in terms of the Hegelian absolute, of life “in an age of absolutes, on the threshold of absolute freedom out of the struggle against absolute tyranny” (p. 24).  Nothing signified the absolute development of the contradictions of capitalism more than nuclear weapons, which threatened, then as now, to wipe humanity off the face of the earth at the same time that new, humanist liberation movements were developing everywhere, from civil rights, to African liberation, to the peace movement itself.

Just as the Great Recession a decade ago bared the danger of outright systemic collapse after decades of complacency about the underlying stability of the capitalist system, Trump’s wild nuclear threats last fall laid bare the fact that we are still in the nuclear age, wherein a single leader can order mass destruction far beyond anything even Hitler carried out.

Since those wild threats of last year, Trump has held his photo op with Kim Jong-un, but who besides his apologists believes that peace is at hand on the Korean peninsula and in the region?  At the same time, the Trump administration continues to move closer toward war with Iran, continues to support Saudi Arabia’s murderous war on Yemen, while accelerating its war at home against immigrants by forcibly separating thousands of children from their parents in a policy reminiscent of slavery or the Nazi concentration camps.

Liberation, Not War! A Panel in Solidarity with Middle Eastern Political Prisoners

Date: Sunday, 5/27/18, 1-3pm
Location: The Public School, 951 Chung King Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90012

In the face of the ongoing counter-revolutionary offensive in the Middle East, as reflected in the estimated 100,000-200,000 political prisoners in Syria and the 6,300 Palestinian political prisoners held in Israel, the Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists, along with various socialist and labor activist organizations and individuals, have initiated a new campaign in solidarity with Middle Eastern political prisoners.

The aim of this campaign is four-fold:

1. To shine a spotlight on the political prisoners who are labor, social justice, feminist, anti-racist and human rights activists opposed to war, imperialism, occupation, authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism and extremism.

2. To oppose all the global and regional imperialist powers in the Middle East:  The U.S., Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and Iran.

3. To demand that both state actors and non-state actors responsible for perpetrating war crimes in the Middle East be put on trial.

4. To show that demanding the immediate release of political prisoners in the Middle East is a crucial part of fighting the rise of authoritarianism and racism at home.

The following speakers will present on the methods and goals of this Campaign in Solidarity with Middle Eastern Political Prisoners:

Frieda Afary, Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists, on Iranian prisoners
Omar Abbas, Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists, on Syrian prisoners
Celine Qussiny, Palestinian Youth Movement, on Palestinian prisoners

You can find the promotional brochure for the Campaign here.

Facebook event here.

For questions or more information contact: info@allianceofmesocialists.org

https://www.allianceofmesocialists.org

Please join us for this important discussion!

Hosted by Black Rose/Rosa Negra-Los Angeles and co-sponsored by the Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice (CPRSJ)

Massacre of Peaceful Gaza Demonstrators: An Israeli Crime Against Humanity

By Kevin Anderson

KHAN YUNIS, GAZA – MARCH 31: A girl, affected by tear gas, is being carried away by a boy after Israeli forces’ intervention in a demonstration within the “Great March of Return” at the Israeli border east of Khan Yunis, Gaza on March 31, 2018 (Ashraf Amra, Anadolu Agency)

 First appeared in New Politics Online

On March 30, over 30,000 Palestinians — children, women, and men — gathered near the Gaza border with Israel. As they assembled several hundred yards away from the border fence, 18 peaceful demonstrators were gunned down by Israeli military snipers using live ammunition, with over a thousand reportedly suffering bullet wounds. Many of the demonstrators had come as whole families, with picnic supplies.

The Palestinian protests continued for a second week on April 6, when Israeli snipers again used live ammunition, killing 10 demonstrators. Time will tell whether this turns into a new Intifada.

March 30, 2018 showed Israel’s descent into unabashed crimes against humanity, carried out openly by its military, and defended afterwards equally openly by its political and military leadership.

In Defense of Freedom and Humanity in Afrin!

by Ali Kiani

Response to Fredo Corvo, “Is the defense of Afrin proletarian internationalism?” (Libcom, 5 March 2018)

Over the past decade, the Kurdish people of Rojava and Afrin under the threat of internal war in Syria have surprised the world in their struggle for freedom by creating a democratic model of self-government that empowered women to rise to the top leadership of every aspect of society, including the Peshmerga militia, to a greater degree than all the authoritarian and reactionary regimes of the Middle East. Women holding key positions in self-government and army, reflecting the belief that women’s rights should be at the center of every important decision-making process in society, is one of the important breakthroughs in the struggle of people in the Middle East for freedom and democracy.

This is one of the important reasons for not only jihadist but also all ideological and religious authoritarian regimes that are united to destroy this liberty phenomena that is growing among the freedom movement in the Middle East, as we have seen in the example of a Yazidi women’s liberation militia that was shaped after this model.

“Behind Turkey’s Attack on the Afrin Kurds: Imperialist Machinations in the Middle East” by Ali Kiani

“The family’s plastic shoes remain after four members of the al-Khater family died when a Turkish shell hit their home in Maabatli, Kurdish Syria” (Courtesy Robert Fisk/The Independent)

Speech at Coalition for Peace, Revolution and Social Justice’s January 26 banner drop marking “Year 2 of Trump: LA Rise Up!”

by Ali Kiani, International Marxist-Humanist Organization

The danger of nuclear war is present today more than ever with Trump’s threats against North Korea and Iran. Without precedent in US history, the president openly states that he is willing to wage war and destroy a nation for US interests, disregarding his allies’ wishes. Trump not only follows the advice of his buddy Benjamin Netanyahu about the Iran nuclear deal, but he also announces that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. He remains ahead of schedule on the opening of the US embassy there as well as cutting off funding for Mahmoud Abbas for a Palestinian state, unless he bows to Israel and respects Trump. At same time, his military commander General Jim Mattis announces that the US should be ready for war at any moment.

New Uprisings in Iran: A Preliminary Analysis — by Ali Kiani

Courtesy AFP/Getty Images

Presented in Los Angeles at a January 14, 2018 public forum sponsored by the Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice

It is four weeks after the protest began against the Islamic Republic of Iran in Mashhad, one of the most religious cities of the northern province of Khorasan. This protest is different from Iranian struggles for freedom and democracy over the last decade, including the Green Movement of 2009-10 that started in the capital city of Tehran. The start of this latest movement is more like the Arab Spring of Egypt and Tunisia which erupted into an unexpected uprising of poor and working-class people demanding democracy, social justice and economic equality within a matter of weeks in early 2011. The epicenters of the protests were in regions badly hit by the economic crisis like Mashhad, which was stronghold of religious fundamentalists and the home of two of President Hassan Rouhani’s main rivals in the 2017 presidential elections. On December 28, when thousands of citizens came together in Mashhad to protest against higher prices and economic hardship, some “reformers” accused religious principalist fanatics under Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, a representative of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, of having the intention of covertly organizing the demonstration for a few days to weaken the “moderate” president, Rouhani, and his administration. Despite the hardliners’ intentions, once people went into the streets, protests quickly followed in dozens of other small to mid-sized towns that suffered from high rates of unemployment. They chanted slogans against the supreme leader and the regime as a whole, which shows that even if the uprising was started by a conspiracy on the part of one faction in the regime, it was not under its thumb.

Speeches from October 27 CPRSJ Demonstration against War Threats over Korea and Iran: An Iranian-American Perspective

by Ali Kiani, International Marxist-Humanist Organization (IMHO)

There is growing risk of a U.S.-Korea war. After Trump’s speech at the United Nations, where he declared that there will be no North Korea left after a U.S. attack, and the recent attack of U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Iran in the United Nations Security Council, there can be no doubt that the possibility of war is real. In fact, with war in Syria, Yemen, and the recent war between Iraq and the Kurdish Peshmerga, I have to say that it has already started. The political contradiction of imperialism today is centered in the Middle East and the eyes of the world should be focused on this deeply troubled region. This is because what Trump has planned for Korea is certainly linked to the Middle East and the military presence of Russia in that region, which should be considered a matter of urgency for all Marxist, socialist, humanist and progressive anti war peace activists today. The violence of “imperialist peace time ” is over and we are entering the violence of an era of imperialist war in the capitalist system. This brings a growing risk of wars between the U.S. and North Korea, and of the U.S. and Iran. The aggression of U.S. in the Middle East and the response to it of reactionary governments of North Korea, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Turkey, which are willing to sacrifice their own people’s humanity and even existence to stay in power, means that a surprise attack could be started from anywhere. This could escalate to a form of chemical or nuclear attack that could cost the lives of millions of people. It can only be stopped by a united front of revolutionary and progressive forces, of anticapitalist antiwar activists around the world fighting to stop neofacist rightwing racist actions of Trump.

Mass Incarceration and the Global Rise of Racist Authoritarian Capitalism: Saturday, September 23, 2017

The Los Angeles Coalition for Peace, Revolution & Social Justice (CPRSJ) invites you to a panel discussion:

MASS INCARCERATION & THE GLOBAL RISE OF RACIST AUTHORITARIAN CAPITALISM

What is the Prison-Industrial Complex in the U.S. and how does it affect African Americans, Latinxs, and working people as a whole?

Who are the political prisoners in the Middle East today and how are they challenging authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, occupation, imperialism and war?

Why is racist authoritarian capitalism on the rise globally today?

Speakers:

German Gallardo, Critical Resistance, Los Angeles

Romarilyn Ralston, California Coalition for Women Prisoners

Celine Qussiny, Palestinian Youth Movement

Yasser Munif, Co-founder, Global Campaign for Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution (via Skype)

Frieda Afary,   Alliance of Syrian and Iranian Socialists

Saturday, September 23, 2017, 7:00-9:30 p.m.

Peace Center, 3916 Sepulveda Blvd, Culver City

for more information, go to www.cprsj.wordpress.com or https://www.facebook.com/events/573374359453141/ or call 310-409-3932

Stop Trump’s War Threats against North Korea and Iran!

by Los Angeles Coalition for Peace, Revolution and Social Justice

August 11, 2017

Courtesy Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

With Donald Trump’s open threats of nuclear annihilation in August, the U.S.-North Korea confrontation has become the greatest threat to world peace. The U.S. has never recognized the North Korean regime and it was explicitly targeted—alongside Iraq and Iran—in George W. Bush’s infamous 2002 “Axis of Evil” speech. Since then, this brutal totalitarian regime has escalated its nuclear program—most recently, by launching a missile that could reach Alaska, and by threatening to target Guam. Even if the North Koreans have not yet miniaturized their nuclear warheads to fit onto a missile, it is conceivable that this will happen in the next few years. At the same time, the U.S. has targeted North Korean territory with nuclear weapons for decades. We oppose U.S. imperialism and all other forms of imperialism, militarism, and authoritarian capitalism in East Asia and throughout the world.

An equally dangerous war threat we face is the U.S., the Saudis, their allies, and Israel against Iran. Trump has vowed to rip up Iran’s nuclear agreement with the U.S., the UN, and the European Union. Trump also used very bellicose language against Iran during his trip to Saudi Arabia in May. More recently, he has promised to decertify the nuclear agreement in October, which could touch off a real war with Iran. We need to find ways to oppose Trump’s war threats while also supporting democratic and revolutionary movements inside Iran and the region. Iran is a regional power that, with its ally Russia, has intervened brutally against the Syrian people. We oppose the imperialist war threats against Iran and also support the struggles of the peoples of the region against all other forms of imperialism, militarism, authoritarianism, and capitalism.

Stop Trump’s War Threats against North Korea and Iran!

Abolish nuclear weapons everywhere, including the U.S., N. Korea, Israel, Russia and China!

Defend the peoples of the Middle East and Asia from war, imperialism, and authoritarian capitalism!

Stop the Russian-Iranian imperialist intervention in Syria! Support Syrians Who Oppose Assad, ISIS and Al-Qaida!

Stop Trump’s Social War on the people of the U.S.!