Call to Action: Stop U.S. War Threats Against North Korea and Iran!

Call for Demonstration by the Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice (CPRSJ)

Friday, October 27, 6PM: Westwood Federal Building, Veteran and Wilshire

 

Stop US war threats against North Korea!

Stop US war threats against Iran!

Abolish nuclear weapons everywhere and the capitalist system that produced them!

 

Trump’s aggressive moves over Korea and Iran have taken us closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. In threatening before the United Nations to destroy both the regime and the 25 million people of North Korea, Trump crossed a barrier not seen even at the height of the Cold War. Therefore, it is imperative that concerned people who see these threats as madness gather publicly to express our opposition, not only to Trump and to the capitalist system on which he stands, but also to all other powers, great and small, which threaten their neighbors and their own people with war and repression. As citizens and residents of the US, we feel a special responsibility to do everything we can to stay the hand of the most vicious, authoritarian, and warmongering administration in our history.

Please join us on October 27!

 

Sponsors of the CPRSJ:

Alliance of Syrian and Iranian Socialists

Black Rose/Rosa Negra Los Angeles

Campus Marxist Humanists, UC Santa Barbara

International Marxist-Humanist Organization, West Coast branch

Socialist Party of USA, Los Angeles chapter

Members of Solidarity, a Socialist, Feminist, Anti-Racist Organization

Endorsers of the October 27th action:

San Gabriel Valley Anarcha-Feminism

Los Angeles Anarchist Book Fair Collective

Stop LAPD Spying Coalition

Dyne Suh, JD UCLA and Korean-American rights activist

Douglas Kellner, UCLA professor

Rev. Jim Conn, former mayor of Santa Monica and social activist

Peter McLaren, Chapman University professor

John Foran, UCSB Professor

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.!

Report-back from CPRSJ Launch in Los Angeles, July 14

On July 14, Bastille Day, nearly fifty people came to the Westside Peace Center for the first public meeting of the Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice (CPRSJ). There was a healthy mix of younger and older activists with representation of much of LA’s ethnic diversity as well.

Four speeches were given by representatives of groups that convened the Coalition: Frieda Afary from the Alliance of Syrian and Iranian Socialists, Zach Medeiros from Socialist Party USA, Javier Sethness from Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation, and Kevin B. Anderson from the International Marxist-Humanist Organization. The speeches have been posted at the Coalition website here.

A lively debate followed about the Coalition’s published Principles of Unity, its membership, actions for the future, and strategies for moving forward. Representatives of several other organizations participated in the discussion, which centered on issues like our position of targeting all imperialist powers, including but not limited to the U.S., and the relationship of racial, ethnic, and gender diversity to building a solid movement in LA. Other discussion points included incorporating opposition to ableism into our work, especially in light of the leading role played by persons with disabilities in confronting the Republican assault on healthcare. Overall, support was high and most people in attendance felt that there was a need for a new revolutionary, anti-capitalist, and humanist anti-war coalition that opposes all forms of war and militarism, whether from the greatest global hegemon, the USA, or from other powers, great or small. At the same time, those in attendance who supported our work also wanted to keep the focus not only on war and imperialism abroad, but also on the fascist threat at home and the struggles against it on the part of working people, immigrants, people of color, women, the LGBTQIA community, and people with disabilities.

In the coming weeks, the Coalition will broaden its work, reaching out to the individuals and organizations that have expressed interest in working with us, and also to the broader LA community.

In the meantime, we encourage all of our supporters to subscribe via the Contact page on our website, and to download and distribute our Principles of Unity.

 

Zach Medeiros, “Solidarity with the Oppressed, Not the Oppressors: Why We Should Support Syrian Revolutionaries”

Zach Medeiros, Socialist Party of the USA

Comments presented at the July 14 launch of the Coalition for Peace, Revolution and Social Justice at a public meeting at the Westside Peace Center, Culver City

How can we support revolutionary Syrians and the Syrian people as a whole? This is not an easy question to answer. Yassin al-Haj Saleh, one of Syria’s greatest intellectuals and a former political prisoner jailed for nearly two decades for speaking out against his government, once wrote that “Syria is the world, and the world is Syria.” In other words, Syria has not only become a global issue, but the world has become a Syrian issue. When Syrians first took to the streets in 2011 to protest the brutality, corruption, poverty and discrimination that defined life for most living under the Assad regime, who could have foreseen that they would become the world? In those heady days, where dictators who had ruled for decades were falling like cards before the might of the people, who could have imagined that over six years later, Bashar al-Assad would still be on his butcher’s throne, propped up to one degree or another by most of the regional and global powers?

Kevin B. Anderson, “Rightwing Populism, Neofascism, & Imperialism in the Trump Era: Where Do We Go from Here?”

Kevin B. Anderson, International Marxist-Humanist Organization and Professor of Sociology, UC-Santa Barbara

Comments presented at the July 14 launch of the Coalition for Peace, Revolution and Social Justice at a public meeting at the Westside Peace Center, Culver City

The year 2017 has brought forth a new and ominous situation for the US, the world, and for progressive and revolutionary movements. First, we have seen the rise to power in the US of a form of rightwing populism with fascist overtones in the Trump regime. Trumpism shares some common features with neofascist movements abroad like the racist, anti-immigrant National Front in France or the neofascist Orban regime in Hungary. Trumpism is a hybrid form, however, as it continues many features of neoliberalism — like a cabinet of plutocrats — alongside those of rightwing populism. What is clear is that the new Trump regime is more openly authoritarian, racist, misogynist, anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, and anti-environment than we have ever seen in the U.S. at the national level, even under Nixon, Reagan, or Bush.

Second, the people of the U.S. are fighting back with force and determination. For we have in 2017 also witnessed the largest popular mobilizations of progressive and leftist forces since the 1960s. This has been true not only in the U.S., with the women’s march, the scientists’ march, and the almost daily marches of immigrant rights, environmental, and anti-racist activists.   It has also been seen at the large protests outside the G20 Summit in Germany, and in the leftwing populist Mélenchon candidacy in France and that of Corbyn in Britain, and of course, the Sanders campaign here last year. (In the U.S. in 2017, the continuous mobilizations are also keeping alive the split within the dominant classes as seen in the hearings over Russia or the firing of Comey.)

This Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice was originally conceived as a new type of antiwar coalition that would be able to oppose war and imperialism not only from the U.S. and its allies like Saudi Arabia, but also from their rivals like Russia and its allies like Iran. Thus, we wanted to oppose the murderous actions of Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime in Syria, at the same time that we opposed the wars of the U.S. and its allies in Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Frieda Afary, “How Did We Go from the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement to the Destruction of the Syrian Revolution and the Global Rise of Racist Authoritarianism?”

Frieda Afary, Alliance of Syrian and Iranian Socialists

Comments presented at the July 14 launch of the Coalition for Peace, Revolution and Social Justice at a public meeting at the Westside Peace Center, Culver City

In 2011, the world was abuzz with the spirit of the Arab Spring, a revolutionary movement for social justice, freedom and human dignity which aimed to overthrow authoritarian states in the Middle East.   This movement seemed to come out of nowhere but was actually the result of decades of deep mass dissatisfaction with worsening poverty and political repression under authoritarian regimes such as those of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria.

The revolts in Tunisia and in Egypt involved the participation of youth and women as well as large labor unions. They led to the overthrow of the dictators, Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt.   The uprising in Syria against the regime of Bashar al-Assad had the most diverse composition, involving youth, workers, women, and not only the Sunni Arab majority but also the Kurds, an oppressed national minority, as well as members of the Alawite Muslim minority, Christians, Assyrians and the Druze Shi-a community.   The Arab Spring was really a Middle Eastern Spring that involved non-Arabs and even extended to protests against poverty and corruption in Israel. It was also preceded by the Iranian Green movement, a mass protest movement against the fraudulent presidential election in 2009 which lasted several months before it was brutally crushed by the Iranian government.

Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice (CPRSJ) Principles of Unity

 

The Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice (CPRSJ) aims to resist capitalism, imperialism, and authoritarianism in the Trump era. We are helping to develop a thoughtful, multidimensional, and proactive opposition to the intensifying authoritarianism that has become evident around the globe, as exemplified by Donald Trump in the U.S., Vladimir Putin in Russia, and Xi Jinping in China. We oppose NATO and U.S. imperialism because they underpin capitalist-militarist hegemony around the globe. In general, we target rampant class oppression, imperialism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, nativism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, and environmental destruction.

Domestically, we resist Trump’s absurd and deranged proposals to build a vast border wall with Mexico, deport millions of people, broaden the prison-industrial complex and police powers in the name of law and order, cut tens of millions off from healthcare access, further deregulate the economy, suppress climate science, and greatly expand U.S. military and nuclear capabilities. We note that Trump is in sync with neofascist movements in Europe, especially in France, Austria, the UK, and Hungary.

In contrast to liberals who oppose Trump on the basis of the neoliberal politics of Clinton and Obama, we believe that the problems facing us lie in the very structure of contemporary capitalism.

In contrast to the authoritarian left, we oppose and organize against the machinations not only of U.S. imperialism and its subimperialist allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, but also those of Russian imperialism and of subimperialist powers like Iran.  Thus, we oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Saudi Arabia’s barbarous war on the people of Yemen, and the untold brutality of Assad’s suppression of the Syrian Revolution, which has been abetted by Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, and other Shi’a militias.

In the U.S., we support issues and movements like Black Lives Matter, women’s rights, free abortion on demand, climate and environmental justice, a living wage, the rights of immigrant labor, justice for Latinx, struggles of Indigenous peoples for autonomy and liberation, healthcare for all, and full rights for transgender people.

Our class politics recognizes the fundamental importance of an affirmative, liberatory, and humanist alternative to capitalism and the unity of all working people across national borders on the basis of international solidarity.

Our principles of unity follow:

1. We strive for the firmest unity of working people in the U.S. across racial and ethnic lines, and across rural/urban and regional divides, together with all those who oppose capitalism’s inhumanity on the basis of affirming Black and Latinx liberation, women’s rights, LGBTQIA rights, the rights of people with disabilities, immigrant rights, prisoners’ rights, and climate/environmental justice.
2. We note the specific detrimental role of white supremacy in U.S. history as a factor in undermining working-class unity. We also note that African Americans have been in the forefront of progressive and revolutionary movements throughout the history of this country.
3. We proclaim the underlying importance of class analysis and anti-authoritarianism in our theory and practice.
4. We oppose all forms of imperialism and state terrorism, including the U.S. and NATO’s military interventions in the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, Africa and elsewhere, even if under the guise of humanitarianism.

5. We also oppose terrorism by non-state organizations such as ISIS, the Ku Klux Klan, and fascist groups. Instead, we call for people to people solidarity with those who oppose both fundamentalist terrorism and authoritarian regimes.
6. We hold the growing influence of Trump and Putin and the growth of neofascist movements in Western Europe to be key manifestations of the increasingly authoritarian direction of global capitalism, as also seen in China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.
7. We envision a liberatory and humanist social movement opposed to capitalism, imperialism, and militarism that equally opposes reactionary regimes that happen to be at odds with the U.S.
8. We believe that power must be devolved to the people through grassroots democracy and that democracy without social justice is meaningless.
9. We do not consider authoritarian states that have claimed to be socialist or communist to be models of socialism or democracy in any sense. We strive instead for real human emancipation.
10. We uphold the principles of internal democracy and transparency in our own efforts, and commit ourselves to these ends.

We invite other organizations and individuals who share these views to join this coalition.

Initial conveners include the following socialist and anarchist organizations:

Alliance of Syrian and Iranian Socialists

Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation-Los Angeles

International Marxist-Humanist Organization, West Coast Chapter

Socialist Party, Los Angeles Local

Members of Solidarity: A Socialist, Feminist, Anti-Racist Organization, Los Angeles Branch

 

Adopted May 11, 2017