SAIC was organized in August 2005 as a working alliance between non-affiliated activists and Communist Voice Organization supporters determined to build up working class anti-imperialist consciousness and organization in the city, particularly in the anti-war movement. To do this we targeted the imperialist system (monopoly capitalism) as being the cause of Bush’s and then Obama’s wars abroad, as well as their reactionary domestic policies. We used tactics to win the broad masses away from illusions that the Democratic Party was anti-war and progressive. And while uniting with the various opportunist-led coalitions (e.g., ANSWER, SNOW, and World Can’t Wait) whenever possible, we also fought to expose how they refused to do this necessary work, thereby weakening the movement. Additionally, we soon broadened our work to include other fronts of the class struggle.

Through all of our activity of the past six and a half years—feeder marches, contingents, co-sponsoring demonstrations, putting up posters, discussions, passing out some 124,000 copies of our many leaflets, etc.—we think SAIC has indeed won new comrades to anti-imperialism. In fact, along with the recent objective political developments that all progressives are excited about, we mobilized more people than we’d ever before mobilized to the October 7, 2011 anti-war demonstration. But alongside this our actual membership had been declining for several years, due to some combination of objective political conditions and our abilities as organizers. Then, the January 13 resignation of our last non-CVO member (mainly for reasons that take him away from all political activity) meant that we were no longer an alliance organized on an anti-imperialist basis. The SAIC project had therefore come to and end.

With high regard to all, and forward with the struggle!

Former members of the Seattle Anti-imperialist Committee

The Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee is not part of the October 22nd Coalition Against Police Brutality, but we certainly support its yearly marches. After all, from one generation to the next, police brutality is an everyday reality of American democracy that must be fought against. Moreover, this is for most part a hidden war in which the guard-dogs of capitalist order beat and kill sons and daughters of the working class, with African Americans, other national minorities, and immigrants singled out for special viciousness: if you’re Black or Latino in New York City you’re nine times more likely to be subjected to stop-and-frisk searches than if you’re white; and nationally, if you’re African American you’re 3.8 times more likely to be killed by cops than if you’re white.

The fight against police brutality and murders is therefore part of the class struggle. And like in all other working-class struggles, in order to unite their ranks to effectively wage it, the workers must pay particular attention to raising demands and coming to the aid of their most victimized and oppressed sisters and brothers. Intuitively understanding this, this is why so many young working people of all nationalities flocked to last fall and winter’s protests demanding justice for the broad-daylight execution of Native American woodcarver John T. Williams by S.P.D. gunman Ian Birk. It’s also why SAIC was so active in working to draw more workers and youth into that movement.

The police as instruments of political repression

The everyday regime of police brutality is meant to keep the oppressed masses “in line” and intimidated. This is magnified when the masses of people begin to rise in struggle for their own interests. Then, the most basic role of the cops comes into the open for all to see: suppression of protests, strikes, rebellions, and the struggle for revolution. And this has been why the very class-conscious bourgeoisie has been for decades militarizing the police forces, supplying them with armored vehicles, helicopters, teargas launchers, flash grenades, rubber-bullet guns, etc., and training them in “crowd control.” (As we saw during the “Battle of Seattle,” crowd control really means attempted police-smashing of protests.) The ruling class knew that its decades of driving the masses of people economically downward while stripping them of hard-won political rights was at some point going to give rise to massive resistance, and that time is nearing.

Police and capitalist politicians hand-in-hand against the Occupy Wall Street movement

The same business-owners’ laws passed to drive the homeless out of sight and mind are now being used to tear down the tents of the Occupy Wall Street movement and drive it from sight. Well over one thousand protestors have been arrested nationally for refusing to give up their camps in public spaces, as well as for such “terrible” crimes as marching on the Brooklyn Bridge. Along with this, many people have been beaten or otherwise brutalized by the cops, especially on Wall Street itself. But these police attacks on the Occupy Wall Street movement have only helped spur the movement, and increased its popularity, including internationally.

This popularity reflects a mass realization that the rich have used the capitalist economic crisis to get richer by looting the national treasury, driving down the wages and conditions of the still-employed workers, and squeezing the poor. In this situation increasing numbers of people are angry, they want a way to fight back, they want class struggle. But those that many have looked to for leadership have betrayed their hopes.

The Democrats have shown themselves to be just as much the handmaidens of Wall Street as the Republicans. For example, Obama has given $trillions to these financial parasites while attacking entitlements and doing nothing serious about unemployment, e.g., his new jobs bill is projected to only decrease unemployment by one-percent–over the course of several years. He’s followed the same “color-blind” policies as the Republicans, which continue to worsen the conditions of African American and other national minorities. His education policy is no different than Bush’s. His healthcare reform was a give-away to the insurance companies. He’s driven still more migrant workers into the shadows while deporting a record one million people. He’s carried even farther the Bush-Cheney policies of government secrecy, spying, and infringement on civil liberties. While we head for environmental catastrophe his environmental policy is “drill baby drill,” mountain top removal for coal, and deadly nuclear power plants. He’s continued imperialist aggression abroad, and is now responsible for twice as many U.S. war deaths in Afghanistan than Bush (No one keeps count of the Afghans killed by the “gods” from overseas.)

The labor union officials, the supposed leaders of the workers, overwhelmingly told the workers to vote for Obama…while continuing their sell-out policy of saving or fattening the profits of the employers by forcing concessions on the workers. And they’re now loyal helpers in Obama’s campaign to make U.S. goods more competitive internationally by slashing wages and benefits. According to these labor traitors, the American workers should join in a suicidal competition with the workers of all countries over which contingent of the international working class is going to most starve itself: the race to the bottom.

But after the capitalist’s politicians and news media were at first silent about Occupy Wall Street movement—and mayors across the country sent the police to break up encampments and mostly failed—OWS is now being flattered and cajoled by media pundits and politicians (usually Democrats) who want channel it into being a movement for mild reforms, or want to line up OWS behind various current Congressional bills, or want OWS organizers to get behind Obama (or Ron Paul) in 2012, etc. Nevertheless, OWS continues to target the center of U.S. finance capital, Wall Street—a “street” that controls both corporate parties and dominates politics of the country, including through the mass media.

March on October 22!

In response to National Public Radio’s trying to justify its initial silence about the Occupy Wall Street movement by saying it didn’t have any demands, protestors started making signs that said “We demand everything!” And that’s right, we should demand everything.

Corporate greed, racial discrimination and oppression, and police brutality and murders are among the many guaranteed products of the capitalist system of production. But exploitation, injustice and oppression inevitably give rise to resistance struggles, with each of these struggles needing to be patiently built in its own right around its particular demands. Yet these seeming separate struggles are greatly strengthened when they fire each other up in united actions against the common class enemy. This is what will happen this Saturday at Westlake, and it will be another small step toward building a revolutionary movement that can win everything.

Down with police brutality!

Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee

October 19, 2011

Rally and March Saturday, October 22. Gather at 1:30 pm at Westlake (4th and Pine)

The U.S. and its allies militarily imposed a government of brutal Northern Alliance fundamentalists, warlords, drug lords, and other thieves upon the Afghan people. Even Washington now complains that it’s corrupt. But this doesn’t stop the perfumed politicians and generals from sending U.S. soldiers to fight and die for it anyway. Meanwhile, for the Afghan people these have been ten years of surviving the terrors of being bombed and strafed from the skies, seeing their sons being hauled off never to be seen again, and being subjected to sadistic torture, “trophy”-taking and other outrages at the hands of the U.S. and other occupiers. Tens of thousands of their fellow citizens have died at the hands of the foreign invaders as well as the fundamentalist Taliban, and the first half of this year was the deadliest six months for Afghan civilians since the war was launched!

Now, confronted with mounting opposition in Afghanistan and the United States, and huge budget deficits, Obama plans to prolong this imperialist criminality using fewer troops.

Obama tries to put a good face on U.S. defeats

Bush left office with just over 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and Obama “surged” this to nearly 100,000 troops. The predictable result was that the deaths of innocent Afghans skyrocketed, as did the deaths of Taliban fighters and U.S. soldiers. (In fact, there have been 1,093 U.S. deaths in Afghanistan under Obama in less than three years vs 575 under Bush in more than seven years.) But the Taliban only adapted its tactics by moving to other parts of the country as well as resorting to high-profile assassinations and bombings, including right in the capital, Kabul. More, after nearly ten years of fighting in one of the world’s poorest countries, the world’s most sophisticated and expensive killing machine just suffered its highest death toll yet in August.

Meanwhile, the just hatred of the everyday Afghans for the foreign invaders has only increased, and they’ve again and again mounted protests against U.S.-NATO atrocities and occupation, often sacrificing their blood in doing so. Their opposition is so great that President Karzai himself repeatedly denounces U.S. night raids and other atrocities. Moreover, in the midst of this growing mass opposition nearly 25,000 soldiers have deserted the Afghan army in the past six months, which is more than double the desertions for the same period last year.

And if there’s anything that shows that the “mighty” U.S. government is being defeated it’s the present bargaining with the “mortal enemy” Taliban over what share of governmental power it will have in post-war Afghanistan.

So in the context of his failed escalation, on June 22 Obama told the lies “We are starting this draw-down from a position of strength” and “are meeting our goals” in announcing a glacial retreat from Afghanistan: 10,000 troops to be pulled out by the end of this year, 23,000 more by the end of next summer, and 31,000 more by the end of 2014—which would still leave some 35,000 U.S. troops in the country. He also said that “the tide of war is receding,” something he should tell the families of the Afghans subsequently killed, as well as the families of the 66 U.S. soldiers killed in August. And Obama said that “the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance,” when the only peace he sees would be a rotten, militarily-imposed grand alliance between the murderous Northern Alliance and Taliban to rule over the Afghan people.

This is a coldly calculated plan under which Afghanistan will remain a U.S. killing field, and still more sons and daughters of the American working class and poor will be sent to die so that the U.S. imperialists can somehow salvage a propaganda victory and save face. World bullies that they are, the imperialists dare not reveal weakness. Also, it can be recalled that the Soviet imperialists followed a 1986 Afghanistan “surge” with a two stage 1988-99 withdrawal meant to save face, while they continued to give major military and economic assistance to the regime they left behind (which is what the U.S.-NATO also plans to do). But in two-plus years that regime collapsed anyway. Obama and his advisers gamble with the lives and treasure of the working people of America and Afghanistan hoping that this time will be different.

Solidarity with the Afghan people!

Secular and democratic Afghan activists have long said to western anti-war activists that the withdrawal of one enemy, the U.S.-NATO occupation forces, would make it easier for them to fight against their internal warlord and fundamentalist enemies: both government and Taliban. This is a hard struggle in a country where nearly 80% of the people are scattered in the countryside, where illiteracy is high and oppression brutal. (Additionally, the U.N. reports that seven million Afghans are currently experiencing food shortages due to drought, and that the number is likely to rise in the fall.) But the struggle has good prospects because the masses of Afghans are fed up with the U.S.-installed corruptocrats as well as the Taliban—which ruled over them for seven years and now inflicts “collateral damage” on them daily. Instead of being treated like dogs by the Karzai mafia and Taliban they want progress…and they look to the anti-war movements in the West to help rid them of the U.S.-NATO occupiers. It’s our duty to come to their assistance.

Fight the enemy at home

For ten years war contractors of all kinds have fattened their profits as the entire ruling class lusted for the wealth that expanding its empire would give it. But some 1670 mainly working-class sons and daughters have died for this rotten cause in Afghanistan, with many more thousands physically or emotionally maimed for life. Meanwhile, in the name of budget crisis, the politicians of both parties are viciously fleecing the workers and poor—with national minorities, women, the elderly and youth specially targeted, while they hand $trillions to the financial swindlers and Pentagon. Global warming accelerates, but the politicians of both parties do worse than nothing, e.g., they fight for more extraction of fossil fuels and more nukes! And to defend themselves from mass rebellion against these outrages, Obama has stepped up Bush’s government secrecy, and the building of an American police state upon which $80 billion was spent for spying just last year.

But this bipartisan program of war, impoverishing the people, and political reaction is causing mass anger, with increasing numbers of people learning the great lesson that both the Republicans or Democrats fight for the interests of the capitalist class, the rich, at home and abroad. History will not move forward as a result of voting for either party, or as a result of voting for any other party. The motor of history is mass struggle: protests, street demonstrations, strikes, and rebellions! Mass struggle is the weapon that brought the progressive changes of the 1930s and 1960s in the U.S. And the Arab spring uprisings that have now toppled three long-entrenched tyrants are again showing the power of mass action.

Today, anti-war sentiment has become one of the streams of really mass discontent in the country, the sentiment of the majority. It flows alongside many other streams of mass discontent, including those against racial discrimination and police murders, deportations of migrant workers, environmental destruction and global warming, and joblessness and mass impoverishment. This discontent is the basis for developing mass struggles more powerful than we presently have, with struggles on one front inspiring and fueling others. And demonstrations play a vital role in building up such a movement.

After ten years of bloody wars we say that the American working class has more in common with the workers and farmers of Afghanistan than it does with the bankers, CEOs, politicians, and generals who rule this country. Let us express solidarity with our Afghan, Pakistani, and other sisters and brothers living under the guns and drone attacks of our ruling class by demonstrating October 7. Let us target imperialism as the common enemy of workers and oppressed people everywhere.

Agitate for the demonstration!

March behind SAIC’s “For class struggle against imperialism” banner!

U.S. imperialists get out of Afghanistan now!

Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee, September 4, 2011

Friday, October 7 at SCCC (Broadway & Pine) Meet at 4:30 pm, MARCH downtown!
Sponsors: ANSWER, Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War–Anti-Imperialist, World Can’t Wait.

Un día que llega con la clase trabajadora internacional tomando por asalto a los capitalistas y sus gobiernos. Pero el año pasado ha sido uno de resistencia de montaje. Millones de trabajadores europeos salieron a las calles a manifestarse contra los presupuestos de austeridad. Importantes protestas han estallado contra los recortes de presupuesto en EE.UU. Y en el norte de África y el Medio los trabajadores han aumentado hombro a hombro con todas las masas oprimidas para derribar a tiranos! Estos acontecimientos son realmente algo que celebrar.

África del Norte y el Medio Oriente

Los trabajadores de estos países han vivido durante mucho tiempo bajo las dictaduras apoyadas por Estados Unidos y otras potencias imperialistas y estos aliados gobiernos imperialistas han seguido las políticas económicas neoliberales, empeorando el desempleo y la pobreza. Pero empezando en Túnez en diciembre, las masas en todo el mundo árabe se han levantado cada vez más, exigiendo democracia, derechos, fin a la corrupción y a las concesiones económicas de los gobiernos y los empleadores. Han gobernado Ben Ali de Túnez, Mubarak en el poder en Egipto; y ahora es Saleh de Yemen está en su camino de salida, mientras que el pueblo Sirio está aumentando como nunca antes!

Los 25 millones de la clase trabajadora Egipcia están desempeñando un papel dramático en esta gran levantamiento popular. Los trabajadores estuvieron activos en 18 días de continuas manifestaciones que eventualmente llevaron a millones de personas a las calles y activaron en todas las batallas con la policía y secuaces. Además, el creciente movimiento de huelga de los trabajadores alrededor de las demandas económicas y políticas fue el acto final que condujo a la renuncia de Mubarak. Pero después de esto, los trabajadores continuaron haciendo caso omiso a las señales y algunos generales que sobrevivieron, unificaron el resto del movimiento democrático alrededor de las demandas políticas: detener a Mubarak y otros asesinos notorios del régimen depuesto; levantar las represivas leyes de emergencias en vigor desde 1981; aumentar el salario mínimo; y mucho más. Y entonces prohibieron todas las protestas y huelgas contra las instituciones estatales o economía los trabajadores y otras masas progresivas desafiaron demasiado. Hoy, continúan las luchas políticas y económicas de salarios mientras la organización como nunca antes.

Nueva Lucha en los EE.UU.

En esencia Obama y los Demócratas dieron trillones de dólares a los ladrones de Wall Street al asumir el cargo. Así, con la mayoría Demócrata del Congreso este extendió los recortes fiscales de Bush para la salud: miles de millones más para los ricos. Pero cuando es el turno de los trabajadores y pobres los burócratas congelan los salarios y claman para que se reduzca el presupuesto federal. Mientras, tanto republicanos como Demócratas pro-estatales y los gobiernos locales también están reposando la carga de la crisis económica sobre las espaldas de trabajadores y pobres. Cientos de profesores son expulsados de escuelas recién cerradas, el costo de las matrículas incrementa dramáticamente, los programas de apoyo a la vejez, enfermos, minorías, inmigrantes, y otros necesitados se están recortando o son eliminados.

Pero esto no va sin protestas, con los eventos de Wisconsin que es un ejemplo inspirador, donde los manifestantes ocuparon los edificios de Estado en la capital durante un mes para oponerse a los draconianos recortes presupuestarios y ataques a los derechos del contrato colectiva de los trabajadores del Estado. Miles de maestros y otros trabajadores se reportan enfermos. Los estudiantes abandonaron las clases. Las demostraciones crecieron hasta ser hasta 100,000 huelguistas. Y hubo llamamientos para una huelga general. Pero para los Demócratas y los principales dirigentes sindicales de quienes se esperaba la orientación para el acuerdo respecto a los recortes presupuestarios, y la huelga, su principal preocupación es mantener los derechos de negociación colectiva, no porque quieren usar el arma de la huelga contra los capitalistas, sino porque quieren seguir recogiendo las cuotas sindicales y la venta a los trabajadores de contratos llenos de concesiones.

Paren las deportaciones. Todos los derechos para todos los inmigrantes!

Mientras tanto, Obama y los Demócratas se convirtieron en la Oficina de “pretender ser amigos” de los trabajadores migrantes. Pero el contenido real de su reforma de inmigración propuesta fue un gran ataque a los migrantes: más muros y agentes de la patrulla fronteriza; una versión del programa bracero; tarjetas biométricas de Seguridad Social; multas, pagos extras por tramites; inglés obligatorio y un laberinto de largos años en vueltas legales. Por ahora, han detenido este ataque, mientras que la administración Obama ¡deporta a más trabajadores migrantes que Bush o cualquier otro Presidente!Mientras tanto, varios Estados ya han aprobado leyes antiinmigrantes racistas, mientras que otros estados las están debatiendo.

Esto es un huevo de oro para los empleadores porque que con trabajadores migrantes, sin derechos y obligados a vivir en el temor a la deportación, explotar su fuerza de trabajo, resulta más redituable. Pero para la clase trabajadora este trato inhumano de los hermanos y hermanas indocumentadas es una barbaridad que de paso es usada por los capitalistas para reducir los salarios y las condiciones de todos.

Construir el movimiento político independiente de la clase obrera!

Los Republicanos y los Demócratas comparten un programa común: trasladar la carga de las crisis económicas sobre las espaldas de las masas, atacar y super-explotar a los trabajadores migrantes, ignorar la catástrofe ambiental y librar guerras imperialistas. Esto es porque son los hacedores de políticas de la clase capitalista. Para resistir los efectos del capitalismo, la clase obrera debe, por tanto, construir su movimiento independiente de y en contra de estos gemelos partidos de explotadores. Más aún, deben unir todas las luchas necesarias de inmediato con el gran objetivo planteado por los trabajadores en la histórica huelga general del “May Day” de 1886: “La abolición del sistema de salarios!”

¡Salud a los levantamientos en el norte de África y el Oriente Medio!
¡Salud a Wisconsin y otras manifestaciones!
¡Defensa a los inmigrantes indocumentados!
¡Trabajadores del mundo, uníos!

El Comité Anti-Imperialista de Seattle, 30 de abril de 2011

This May Day comes with the international working class everywhere under stepped-up assault by the capitalists and their governments. But the past year has been one of mounting resistance. Millions of European workers went into the streets against austerity budgets. Significant protests have broken out against budget cutting in the U.S. And in North Africa and the Middle East the workers have risen shoulder to shoulder with all of the oppressed masses to topple long-entrenched tyrants! These developments are truly something to celebrate.

North Africa and the Middle East

The working people of these countries have long lived under dictatorships supported by the United States and other imperialist powers, and these imperialist-allied governments have followed neo-liberal economic policies, worsening unemployment and poverty. But beginning in Tunisia in December, the masses of people throughout the Arab world have increasingly stood up, demanding democracy, rights, an end to corruption, and economic concessions from the employers and governments. They’ve driven ben Ali of Tunisia, Mubarak of Egypt from power; and now Saleh of Yemen is on his way out, while the Syrian people are rising as never before!

The 25 million strong Egyptian working class is playing a dramatic role in this great popular uprising. The workers were active in 18 days of continuous demonstrations that eventually brought millions into the streets, and active in all the battles with the police and goons. Moreover, the workers’ growing strike movement around both economic and political demands was the final act leading to Mubarak’s resignation.

But after this the workers continued strikes in defiance of warnings by the generals who took over, and united with the rest of the democratic movement around political demands: arrest Mubarak and other notorious murderers from the deposed regime; lift the repressive emergency laws in force since 1981; raise the minimum wage; and more. And when the military then outlawed all protests and strikes which disrupt the economy or state institutions the workers and other progressive masses defied this too. Today, they continue to wage economic and political struggles while getting organized as never before.

New struggle in the United States

Obama and the Democrats essentially gave $trillions to the Wall Street robbers after taking office. Then, while the Democrats still controlled Congress they extended Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy: hundreds of $billions more for the rich! But when it comes to the workers and poor they freeze wages for public employees and cry that the federal budget must be cut. Meanwhile, both Republican- and Democrat-controlled state and local governments are also shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the workers and poor. Tens of thousands of teachers are being fired and schools closed, college tuitions dramatically increased, programs that help the elderly, ill, national minorities, immigrants, and others in need are being cut back or eliminated.

But this is not going without protests, with the Wisconsin events being an inspiring example. There, protesters occupied the state capital buildings for a month to oppose draconian budget cuts and attacks on the collective bargaining rights of state workers. Thousands of teachers and other workers called in sick. Students walked out of classes. Demonstrations grew to be as large as 100,000 people. And there were calls for a general strike. But the Democrats and top trade union leaders which many protesters looked to for leadership agreed that there should be budget cuts, and they opposed strikes. Their main concern was to keep collective bargaining rights…not because they want to use the strike weapon against the capitalists, but because they want to keep collecting union dues while selling the workers concessions-filled contracts.

Stop the deportations! Full rights for all immigrants!

Meanwhile, Obama and the Democrats came into office pretending to be friends of migrant workers. But the actual content of their proposed immigration reform was a huge attack on migrants: more fences and border patrol agents; a version of the notorious bracero program; biometric Social Security cards; fines, fees, learning English, and a years-long maze of legal hoops. They’ve now stopped pushing this attack, while the Obama administration deports more migrant workers than Bush or any other president! Meanwhile, various states have already passed racist anti-immigrant laws, while others are debating them.

This is a golden egg for the employers because as long as migrant workers are without rights, and forced to live in fear of deportation, then exploiting their labor power becomes extra profitable. But for the working class this inhuman treatment of undocumented sisters and brothers is an outrage that is also used by the capitalists to drive down the wages and conditions of all.

Build the independent political movement of the working class!

The Republicans and Democrats share a common program: shift the burden of the economic crises onto the backs of the masses, brutalize and super-exploit migrant workers, ignore mounting environmental catastrophe, and wage imperialist wars. This is because they’re the political handmaidens of the capitalist class. To resist the effects of capitalism the working class must therefore build its movement independent of and against these twin parties of the exploiters. More, it should unite all the necessary immediate struggles with the great goal raised by workers in the historic general strike begun on May Day, 1886: “Abolition of the wages system!”

Salute the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East!
Salute the Wisconsin and other protesters!
Defend undocumented immigrants!
Workers of the world, unite!

Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee, April 30, 2011

These are historic events in which the masses of people are struggling to topple dictatorial regimes that have often been armed and supported by the U.S. and other imperialist powers for many decades. And they’re also being fueled by unemployment, rising food and fuel prices, and mass impoverishment that have been intensified by the regimes’ implementation of neo-liberal economic reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. Thus, throughout the region millions of people are rising in struggle against repressive emergency laws; bans on unions, strikes and political parties; brutal repression by police, military, and security forces; and corruption. They’re demanding democratic rights and real elections, sometimes elections for the first time.

The popular uprising in Libya is a component part of this Arab spring.

Against the Qadaffi tyranny

Qadaffi and the other colonels who overthrew King Idris in 1969 represented the interests of a rising bourgeoisie determined to enrich itself through exploiting Libyan oil reserves, which are the largest in Africa. This led to clashes between the imperialist powers and the nationalist regime, with the UN imposing sanctions for the imperialists. Also during those years the regime expanded Libyan capitalism and broadened its social support with economic policies that gave Libyans the highest standard of living in Africa. Facilitating this was Libya’s oil wealth combined with its low population—which is only some 6.4 million today. But at the same time Qadaffi & Co. were afraid of the people. They outlawed political parties, banned trade unions independent of the government-controlled union, and developed an all-round police state.

Then with the suspension of UN sanctions in 1999, Qadaffi called for foreign investment and began neo-liberal programs of privatization. And in the 2000s Libya became a full-fledged corporate “destination,” with oil and gas and other international contractors rushing to get in on the loot. Moreover, this was greased by a Qadaffi policy of allowing the super-exploitation of migrant and contract laborers from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Along with this reactionary economic policy, the Qadaffi regime joined Bush’s “war on terror,” while the Western death merchants sold it arms it is now using against the Libyan people. It signed a dirty deal with the racist Italian government whereby Libya became a gatekeeper against Africans seeking work or asylum in Europe. And all the while the Libyan capitalists grew ever richer through oil sales to Europe, as well as by becoming international exploiters of labor through overseas investments.

But after this “glorious” decade (which won the praise of the imperialist IMF) an estimated 30 percent of the Libyan workers and youth remained unemployed, food prices were rising, and the people had no rights.

The people rise up

On February 15 peaceful protests broke out in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, against the arrest of Fathi Terbil, a lawyer and activist who represents the families of those killed in the 1996 Abu Salim Prison massacre of some 1200 government opponents. On the 16th the protests spread to nearby Al Bayda (where people had been protesting poor housing conditions since January), and to Az Zintan, in the far west of the country. In these two days the police violently attacked protesters, two of whom were killed in Al Bayda. The masses responded by setting fire to police stations in two cities.

But this was only the beginning. Inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, democratic Libyans had been organizing for a day of peaceful protests on February 17. The government response included preemptive arrests, threats of violence, and later blocking internet and mobile phone networks and clamping down on the media. None of it worked. Tens of thousands of people turned out for protests. Troops and police used tear gas and live ammunition, killing at least a dozen people. For many the latter was the final straw.

In the next days people rose in struggle all across the country. In Tripoli, where the working class districts rose most angrily, the regime restored a seething order with machine guns, aircraft, and snipers. But in the rest of the country the masses bravely drove soldiers and police out of towns and cities, seized arms and fought back with them. Moreover, ordinary soldiers refused to fire on protesters and/or defected to their ranks, as did numerous military officers, government officials, technocrats and diplomats.

By early March the rebels controlled eastern Libya and several cities in the west, including far west Zawiyah, population 200,000. But on March 6 the government launched a counteroffensive to retake towns and cities from west to east. The rebels resisted but could not deal with the jets, artillery, tanks and military organization thrown against them. And by March 19 Qadaffi’s forces were on the outskirts of the last remaining rebel stronghold, Benghazi, where the rebels faced being drowned in a bloodbath.

UN/NATO intervention: a danger for the future of the movement

Meanwhile, seeing no other way out of their growing predicament the rebel leaders of the Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC) had been calling for the UN to impose a no-fly zone that would include air strikes on Qadaffi‘s ground forces. On March 17 the Security Council approved Resolution 1973 to this effect, and the U.S. France, and Britain launched their first attacks on March 19.

This is advertised as a “humanitarian” intervention, but the actions of the U.S., France, Britain, Italy, etc., are premised on defense of empire. In fact their hands freshly drip with the blood of Afghans, Iraqis, and others, and just yesterday they were arming Qadaffi himself knowing full well that he ran a police state. Nevertheless, the fact that two reactionary forces—NATO and the Qadaffi regime—are now fighting has temporarily saved the rebel forces. But the imperialist states comprising NATO continue to pursue a reactionary agenda which is very different from that of the Libyan rebels:

The imperialists badly isolated themselves by supporting Ben Ali and Mubarak until the end. So now they want to posture as supporters of democratic change so as to wrest initiative away from the North African and Middle Eastern masses, who are upsetting the imperial order of the region. (Perhaps they think that no one will notice their continued support for the oil monarchs of the Arabian peninsula and other tyrants throughout the region!)  To achieve this they’re sacrificing their ally, Qadaffi, and hoping to regain stability under a compliant new government.

Thus, the imperialist intervention is a grave danger for the Libyan masses. The big powers will do everything they can to finance and promote favorites in the ITNC and sideline those who oppose them. And they’re going to use their powerful position to act as dictating arbiters of what Libyan democracy will look like.

Problems confronting the movement

Even with the help of NATO air strikes the rebels remain in a difficult military position, which is connected with political issues. For example, Qadaffi not only violently suppressed the masses who initially rose up in western cities, including Tripoli, but he’s used the NATO bombings to step up his portrayals of the entire uprising as a plot of the imperialist powers, Islamic fundamentalists, and other reactionaries. He has also bought various tribal leaders back to his side with cash.

There’s also the issue of waging the political struggle within the popular movement itself, e.g., there are numerous figures associated with the ITNC who are   diehard neo-liberals with the most restricted of democratic visions. In fact the imperialist powers wouldn’t have attacked the Libyan government if they thought the rebellion had radical economic views. But in these conditions the Libyan workers and youth have no significant independent organization with which to fight for the maximum in democratic liberties for the masses, and to develop the struggle against class exploitation–exploitation which will continue under a bourgeois democracy. If such organization isn’t built during the course of the current uprising then any victory for the masses will be weak.

Connected with this is the huge issue of racial discrimination and lynching of Blacks. These crimes were part of the Qadaffi order, e.g., at least 150 people were murdered in anti-Black pogroms in 2000. But now numerous Blacks have been lynched in rebel-controlled territory, including by armed rebels. This tendency must be smashed if Libya is going to have any more than the restricted, shameful, elitist democracy that existed the Jim Crow South.

Solidarity from the workers and youth of America

The Obama-led bipartisan political reality in the United States is one of vicious budget cutting right in the midst of a continuing economic depression and wars abroad. Obama also continues to deport undocumented immigrants in record numbers, and his only program for national minorities boils down to mass incarceration. But the mass uprisings of the Libyan and other peoples of North Africa and the Middle East are showing that old political realities don’t have to just go on and on; they can be broken up with mass action! This is inspiring people everywhere to mount their own struggles against exploitation and oppression.

Certainly the mass uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East have problems, but these are problems to learn from by comparing them with our own experience. In fact, one of the reasons that workers and youth here in the U.S. can so identify with the fire in the Arab world is that we see the masses struggling to solve problems similar to our own: little independent political organization, political opportunists trying to end movements before they’ve barely begun, and more. So let us persist in our efforts to solve these problems in this country. Let us come to the aid of the Libyan and other rebelling peoples by stepping up efforts to organize mass struggle against our mutual enemy: the exploitative, budget-cutting, mass impoverishing, environmental-wrecking, racist, and warlike U.S. imperialist ruling class.

Solidarity with the democratic mass uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East!

Down with the Qadaffi tyranny and other repressive governments!

Expose and denounce the real aims of the NATO intervention in Libya!

Victory to the masses!

Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee, April 16, 2011 (updated on April 18, 2011)

The Bush administration used the September 11, 2001 terrorist atrocity to justify a policy of resurgent imperialism. Today, by escalating the bloodshed in Afghanistan, stepping up attacks on Pakistan, and passing the highest war budgets since WWII, the Obama administration continues to pursue the same disastrous course. The result has been untold suffering for millions of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Furthermore, invading weak countries to overthrow unpopular governments has only brought new problems for the militarists in Washington.

In Iraq

In 2003 Bush invaded Iraq with the aim of removing a political thorn from the side of U.S. interests in the Middle East, the Saddam Hussein regime.  In its place the U.S. planned to set up a puppet regime that would impose a neo-liberal economic program, privatize the oil fields, and obligingly turn them over to the U.S. corporations.  Along with this the U.S. wanted to establish huge permanent military installations from which to impose its will on the rest of the region.

This was blatant imperialism sold with lies and scare talk. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died as a result, hundreds of thousand more have been maimed for life, and the depleted uranium-poisoning legacy of  the 2004 U.S. assault on Fallujah is causing more cancers than did the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

In spite of this great crime against humanity, the arrogant Washington planners who thought they could control Iraqi politics ended up controlling little.

A section of the Baathists and fundamentalists went over to armed resistance while the dominant Shia clergy threatened rebellion if elections weren’t held sooner than the U.S. invaders had intended.  These and later elections brought to power an Iraqi government that was happy to have U.S. troops murderously repress its rivals, but it also pursued independent aims.  Hence, while it privatized the oil industry it gave most of the large contracts to non-U.S. corporations.  And, for now, the Iraqi government has also established close relations with the U.S. nemesis, Iran.  There is no way that U.S. imperialism can reverse these defeats with a garrison of 48,000 troops plus mercenaries, most of whom are going to be withdrawn at the end of this year.

In  Afghanistan

The Afghanistan war is barely in the news these days even though 2010 was the bloodiest year yet, especially for civilians. This year is starting no better. U.S. jet attacks were twice as high in January 2011 as in January 2010. On February 19 some 65 Afghan civilians were reported killed by NATO air strikes, and on Feb. 28 nine children were killed in another air strike as they gathered wood on a hillside.

All of this is more than nine years after Republican Bush portrayed his Afghan military tactics as very limited, aimed simply at the terrorist networks. Further, it’s more than a year after Democrat Obama began the process of doubling U.S. troop levels while knowing that his own CIA estimated that less than 100 scattered “al-Qaeda” members remained in all Afghanistan.

Behind this is the fact that Afghanistan has never been the “good war,” as it was sold by the Democrats. It’s another imperialist war based on lies. Nearly 140,000 U.S. and NATO troops are being used to defend a U.S.-imposed Afghan government of fundamentalists and warlords against their fundamentalist Taliban rivals. And through this project the U.S. wants to establish permanent military bases as part of its rivalry with Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey for spheres of influence in Central Asia.

But after nearly ten years of torture, night-time raids, and the deaths of tens of thousands of Afghans, and after expanding the war into Pakistan, these imperialist goals remain as distant as ever.

There is no anti-imperialism without class struggle

Baathist and fundamentalist groups dominated the Iraqi armed resistance from the early days of the U.S. occupation, while the fundamentalist Taliban and other reactionaries continue to dominate the armed resistance in Afghanistan.  But despite their disorganization, the progressive working and poor people have also struggled to fight the occupations of their countries, as well as against the domestic reactionaries who oppress them, thereby weakening the anti-occupation cause.  These working and poor people are the real anti-imperialist forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they deserve our support.

Meanwhile, revealing their class nature, several former anti-occupation groups have now joined the reactionary bourgeois government of Iraq, including  fundamentalist Moqtada al-Sadr’s party.  Indeed, with the decline of U.S. influence the struggle against the Iraqi oppressors is becoming more sharply posed.  In early February protests developed demanding government services, food ration cards, jobs, and the firing of officials who blatantly enriched themselves.  And some of the sharpest clashes occurred in Kurdistan, where the ruling parties have long been close allies of U.S. imperialism.  Then on Feb. 25 tens of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets in a “day of rage” protest despite the warnings of Prime Minister al-Maliki and clerics al-Sistani and Moqtada al-Sadr to stay away.  The government responded with arrests, beatings, and killing some 29 persons. This is only going to spark more struggle–and above all else–directly against the U.S.-armed regime itself.

New winds of change are sweeping the Arab world

The Feb. 25 Iraqi “day of rage” was inspired by the popular uprisings now sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. Although particular issues vary from country to country, the commonality is that the masses are rising up everywhere against decades of impoverishment by neo-liberal economic policies and rising prices, and rising up everywhere against tyrannies supported by the imperialist powers of Europe and America.

These are historic events. Decades-old political realities are suddenly being broken up by mass actions involving millions of people. A new period of ferment affecting more than the Arab world is beginning. Moreover, this uprising is part of the world struggle against austerity which saw huge demonstrations in Europe last year, and 250,000 Greeks marching on Feb. 23 this year shouting slogans like “Don’t obey the rich — Fight back!”

The U.S. and other imperialist powers are going to continue to support monarchists and military dictatorships across North Africa and the Middle East, and support oppressive replacements when this is no longer possible. They may also intervene militarily. But the decisive issue is that the anti-imperialist forces of the region, the masses, are now in motion and gaining confidence.

Class issues will increasingly come more to the fore, and there will be a new alignment of political trends over whether to continue the struggle. Whether the overthrow of the old tyrannies results in more freedom will depend on how far the working masses can unite on a class-basis and develop organization that speaks to their class interests, the interests of the exploited majority. This is the only way that they can defend their livelihood and their political rights, fight back against the neo-liberal economic order, and oppose imperialist dictate in the region.

Our enemy is at home

Obama has taken over and often expanded Bush’s war program. His military budgets are higher than Bush’s, and higher than at any time during the Cold War. In fact, U.S. military spending equals that of the next 15 countries combined (most of them allies) and represents 47% of total global military spending. Obama has also increased the number of countries that the U.S. has slated for dirty military operations from 60 to 75, and he gives himself the “right” to assassinate anyone, including U.S. citizens. Thus war and preparation for still more war is the bipartisan program of the American ruling class. Driving this is the fact that both the Republicans and Democrats represent the interests of the largest capitalists—monopoly capitalists whose global economic empire is being undermined by rivals, and who are viciously trying to hold on using their military might.

These same class interests are driving the bipartisan attacks on working people at home. Hence, Obama Inc. has given $trillions to Wall Street but has no jobs program for the unemployed; and lets millions of people be thrown out of their homes by the banks. In fact, Obama Inc. is so close-fisted when it comes to the poor that it wants to slash programs like Low Income Home Energy Assistance: “let ’em freeze!” And on the political side, Obama has again extended the “Patriot Act,” while continuing to give some $80 billion yearly to the huge intelligence/security bureaucracy, and hunting or incarcerating people like Bradley Manning, who expose the crimes of the U.S. government.

Moreover, while Obama found plenty of money to bail out the banks, he couldn’t find any money to bail out the states. Hence, whether in the hands of Democrats or Republicans, state governments are now laying off workers and implementing brutal budget cuts. And even though the Democratic Party allied union bureaucrats are on board with budget-cutting and the concessions bandwagon, the Feb. 27 demonstration of 100,000 people in Madison, Wisconsin showed that the masses themselves want to fight back.

Large numbers of the Wisconsin demonstrators (plus solidarity demonstrators around the country) have been inspired to action by the great, self-sacrificing mass upsurge that is bringing change to North Africa and the Middle East. Let us return the favor to our tens of millions of allies in those countries by stepping up the fight against our common enemy, the U.S. ruling class. On this eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, let us push forward the fight against war and domestic reaction in conscious solidarity with the struggling peoples of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, North Africa and all of the Middle East.
Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee, March 2, 2011

Demonstrate against Obama’s wars!
Saturday, Mar. 19 at Westlake (4th & Pine).  Rally at noon.  March at 1pm!
Cosponsors: ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee, SNOW (Sound Non-violent Opponents of War), Veterans for Peace Chapter 92, Vietnam Veterans Against the War-Anti-Imperialist, World Can’t Wait. Endorsers: Dyke Community Activists, Eastside Fellowship of Reconciliation, Ground Zero, Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq, Military Families Speak Out (Seattle), MLK Celebration Committee, Mobilization Against War and Occupation (B.C.), Seattle Fellowship of Reconciliation, Voices of Palestine.

This is the kind of class-biased and racist justice that is daily meted out in capitalist America.

Capitalism means a tiny minority exploiting the labor power of the great majority.  And rooted in genocide against the Indigenous Peoples and chattel slavery, U.S. capitalism has a unique racist history that continues today.  Racial discrimination is used to extract super-profits from the exploitation of national minority and immigrant workers, while some national minorities are forced into unemployment at twice the rate of whites.

But Native Americans, African American, Latinos and others constantly struggle against the injustices they find at every turn, and they’re always on the verge of mass rebellion.  The entire system of laws, courts, prisons, and police is therefore designed to control and repress them—and the working people and poor more generally.

On top of this the American ruling class has for  decades been pushing the majority of people downwards and backwards.  Under Bush, and now Obama, many trillions of dollars have been lavished on the finance capitalists while Obama has no jobs or housing programs, and promises more budget cuts for the masses while giving the Pentagon record war budgets.  Indeed, he’s so “concerned” about the poor that last year he robbed the food stamp budget to pay school teachers, while this year he plans to slash the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.  So there’s no wonder why the gulf between the rich parasites and the poor is the widest since the 1920s.  Meanwhile both parties of the ruling class have been building a police state in order to put down resistance and inevitable rebellion.  They’ve expanded, militarized, and better organized the police at all levels; and they now incarcerate more people than any other country; disproportionately these are national minorities.

John T. Williams was a casualty of this system.

And in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere the  U.S. dispenses the same kind of street justice as it did to John Williams.  His life, and how it ended, had more in common with the people of those countries than it ever did with the rulers of this country.

But this is not a world where everything is fated to stay the same. A great wave of revolt is sweeping the Arab world and already spreading beyond.  For example, the Egyptian people have long been oppressed by a dictatorship supported by the U.S. to the tune of $1.3 billion in military aid annually as part of its imperialist strategy to dominate the region.  Nonetheless, they’ve for many years struggled against neo-liberal economic policies, unemployment, and police murders and brutality.  Then, just three years ago they began their largest strike wave since WWII, fiercely fought back against the police and military, and denounced the U.S.-supported tyranny.  Now they’ve risen in an unprecedented mass revolutionary upsurge that has won concessions from the capitalists and forced Mubarak into hiding.

Out of this the everyday men and women have felt their collective power, and they’re currently waging more strikes and other mass actions because they know that replacing Mubark by the generals is not enough.

So the masses everywhere are now saying “walk like an Egyptian, ”  and we should do this.  Let us rise in struggle against police murders—murders to enforce a  racist system based on the exploitation and impoverishment of the working class.  Let us organize to bring about a great wave of revolt such as that which has been changing the Arab world, and spread this revolt to the workplaces and streets of America, thereby bringing about real change.  And let us never forget John Williams and the countless others who have been and are the daily victims of the police brutality spawned by this great American “civilization.”

Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee, February 16, 2011

Then, according to their own inquest testimony, with John Williams sprawled on the sidewalk, Birk stood around with other cops as they arrived,“ secured a perimeter,” and so on. Only after enough cops had arrived to “safely” handcuff(!) the then-dead “suspect,” did anyone check his vital signs and attempt to give first aid.

But Birk is not in jail awaiting trial, and he continues to collect his check from the police department. And the cops who arrived on the scene pride themselves on how they followed departmental procedures. None of this would have happened if John Williams had been a white businessman peeling an apple with a pocket knife. But John was Native American, poor, and often homeless. And to the cops—and the “good society” standing behind them—such a person is someone to fear, to “keep in line,” and to brutalize or murder if they “disobey orders.”³

Months of protests demand justice

Too often it is only the victims of police brutality and a few relatives and friends who know what happened. But this time was different. John Williams was widely known, with many friends. There were several witnesses who wanted to tell their stories. The murder came on the heels of several widely-known local instances of racist police brutality, including SPD officers kicking and beating a completely innocent Latino man while hurling racist slurs at him, and a cop punching a young Black woman in the face for jaywalking. And it came on the heels of large mass protests and rioting in Oakland after one of the BART-cop murderers of 25-year-old African American Oscar Grant was given a light tap on the wrist by the courts.

The result is that for nearly five months John Williams’ family members, friends, workers at social service agencies where he was a client, members of the Native American community, longtime fighters against police brutality, and many others have come together repeatedly to organize street rallies, marches, and other activities demanding justice.

The student walkout against police brutality

The Wednesday, January 26 student walkout was an encouraging development in this movement. It showed the democratic spirit of the youth. It was also a reflection of the fact that the youth have a special interest in the fight against racial and class oppression by the police. In the national minority and immigrant communities under disproportionate police attack, it is the youth who are especially singled out. And, of course, working-class white youth are also victims of police brutality and murders. In fact, the day after John Williams was murdered in Seattle, 23-year-old David Young was shot and killed by the Federal Way police.

But David Young’s mother didn’t take this laying down. She immediately began organizing to demand justice not only for her son, but for all sons murdered by the police. Further, she joined in the Justice for John Williams protests, where she gave speeches targeting the system responsible for these outrages. And look at this system:

A racist incarceration nation

With only 5% of the world population, America has more than 25% of the world’s prisoners: the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Since 1980, the prison population has exploded from about 300,000 to more than 2 million while crime rates have fluctuated and actually gone down. A huge number of these men and women are victims of the “war on drugs,” which was intensified under Democrat Bill Clinton. And while people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at similar rates, statistics show that in some states African Americans comprise 80%-90% of all drug offenders actually sent to prison. Overall, Black males are nearly seven times more likely to be incarcerated than whites, and Latino males are 2.4 times more likely.

Among other things, mass incarceration is the way that the American capitalists are dealing with the chronic unemployment caused by their system, a racist system in which African American unemployment is about double that of whites.

The police: attack dogs of  capitalism

The capitalists are driven to practice racism in order to increase profits by super-exploiting national minorities. And they spread racist ideas among white workers in order to justify this, and to undermine united resistance by the workers and poor of all races and nationalities. Moreover, during the past several decades the capitalist ruling class, through both the Republicans and Democrats, has gone on a vicious offensive of taking back previously-won democratic rights, affirmative action, wages and conditions, and social entitlements of all kinds. But fearing mass rebellions against their cold and fascistic policies, they’ve expanded, militarized, and better organized the police and other law enforcement agencies to unprecedented levels. This they have money for.

Building the political movement to fight back

The fight against police brutality and murders isn’t just a fight against the “law and order” Republican Party.  Liberal Democratic mayors and city councils have long controlled Seattle and many other cities, but police brutality has gone on unabated. And at the federal level, Obama not only continues the police-state measures of the Bush and previous administrations, but he’s deepening them. Hence: FBI raids on the homes of anti-war and solidarity activists in the Midwest; Obama giving himself the “right” to assassinate anyone on Earth; increased internet spying and control; placing alleged whistle-blowers like Private Bradley Manning in solitary confinement; deportation of record numbers of impoverished immigrants; and more.

Along with a growing police state, Obama also offers the youth a future of a rotting, increasingly re-segregated, and cut back public school system, while supporting privatization of education through charter schools which create a two tier system stratified by social class and race.

He offers them unemployment: In the midst of depression, the Democrats hand $trillions to the Wall Street financial parasites, and then plead poverty when it comes to budgets and relief programs.

He gives us imperialist wars: The Obama program has been to escalate the brutal war in Afghanistan, step up drone attacks on Pakistan, attack Yemen, give more weapons to the racist Israeli state, and pass record war budgets –  $750 billion just year.

And he offers environmental catastrophe: While the polar ice melts and raises the seas, while huge dust bowls develop in Africa, while weather patterns are radically changing before our eyes, the Obama administration does essentially nothing to prevent further global warming or deal with other environmental issues.

This is no future for the youth or anyone else. To have a better one is going to require organizing against the politics and policies of the Republicans and Democrats on all fronts of the class struggle. The struggle against police brutality is a necessary component of this. Let us unite to further intensify it.

1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1VKo6-m27c

2 http://www.seattlepi.com/local/433639_inquest.html, and many other P.I., Times, Weekly, and Stranger articles

3 http://www.thestranger.com/seattle.what-some-seattle-cops-think-the-problem-is/Content?oid=6266406

Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee, January 25, 2011 (Updated on February 4, 2011)

Demand that Ian Birk be charged with murder!
October 22 Coalition rally at 2:00pm, Sat, Feb 12, at Westlake (4th & Pine)

The need for political independence from the Republicans and Democrats

But this must be done independent of and against not just the Republicans, but also the Democrats. After two years in control of the presidency, and with big majorities in both houses of Congress, the Democrats record included:

— escalation of the brutal war in Afghanistan, stepped up drone attacks on Pakistan, attacks on Yemen, more weapons for the racist Israeli state, and war budgets higher than those of either of the Bushes or Reagan ($750 billion this year alone);

— continued building of a national security state that often goes farther than Bush’s, including FBI raids on the homes of anti-war and solidarity activists in the Midwest, and Obama giving himself the “right” to assassinate anyone on Earth, including U.S. citizens;

— opening more of the seas to offshore drilling, licensing building the first nuclear power plants in decades, and proposing unworkable market solutions to global warming;

— deportation of record numbers of impoverished immigrants;

— support for privatization of education through charter schools, which create a two tier education system with students stratified by social class, race, and sometimes language;

— in the midst of the greatest depression in 70 years, budget cuts instead of jobs and relief programs for the workers and poor; bailing out GM and Chrysler with $billions while forcing huge wage and benefit cuts plus layoffs on auto workers; handing untold $trillions to the financial parasites, including the tax breaks for the rich passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress in December.

And if this wasn‘t enough, the Democrats also champion racist “colorblind” policies while at the same time triumphantly proclaiming that politics have allegedly “moved beyond” race. As keynoter at the 2004 Democratic Party national convention, Barack Obama heartlessly pledged his and his party’s allegiance to this racism with the proclamation that: “There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America ― there’s the United States of America.” Then, in his presidential campaign, Obama ludicrously declared that African Americans had “already come 90 percent of the way” to equality. But for everyday African Americans, the facts speak otherwise.

The real condition of Black America

On the 2007 eve of the current depression the median Black family’s net worth was only six percent that of a white family. This was down from nine percent in 2004, 12% in 1990, 15% in 1980, and the peak of 25% in 1970—the end of the great struggles of the 1960s. And since “housing-bubble” lenders especially preyed on national minorities and women while Black unemployment is about double that for whites, this great gulf has now surely widened.

In 1974, median Black incomes were 63 percent of those of whites. In 2004, they had fallen to 58 percent of a typical white family’s. And today, Blacks are more than three times as likely to be homeless than whites are.

Over two-thirds of “middle class” Black youth now do worse off economically than their parents did. Moreover, while the education system was never fully integrated, school re-segregation has been going on for more than two decades. Thus, approximately 40% of Black and Latino students now attend schools that are 90 to 100 percent minority. This means separate but unequal education: inequality of opportunity.

Inequality in health care, with the life expectancy of African Americans five years shorter than of whites.

Disproportionate mass incarceration of Blacks and other national minorities as a “solution“ to the chronic unemployment of declining American capitalism. In fact, the U.S. now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with the prison population exploding from about 300,000 to more than 2 million during the past 30 years, while crime rates have fluctuated and actually gone down. A huge number of these men and women are victims of the “war on drugs,“ which was intensified under Democrat Bill Clinton. And while people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at similar rates, statistics show that in some states African Americans comprise 80%-90% of all drug offenders actually sent to prison. Meanwhile, on the streets, Blacks are 3.8 times more likely to be killed by the cops in “justified homicides” than whites are.

Two Paths

There’s deafening silence in Washington about this special and growing oppression of the African American masses, as well as of other minorities. Affirmative action/targeted programs, desegregation, attacking the racism of the criminal justice system, etc, just aren’t talked about because there’s no independent mass movement forcing the politicians to even talk, let alone act. In his Audacity of Hope…, Obama put this bipartisan opposition thusly: “An emphasis on universal, as opposed to race-specific, programs isn’t just good policy: It’s also good politics.” At root of this is the fact that the Democratic Party just as much represents the capitalist class as the Republicans, and that the capitalist bloodsuckers profit from racial oppression.

But the working class is dragged down by the special oppression of national minorities, women and immigrants. It’s therefore in the interest of all working people to stand up in defense of African Americans and other specially oppressed sections of the people, as well as to raise special demands in their interest. This is the path to forging the multi-racial unity that was shown in the December strike in Georgia prisons (which was the largest in U.S. history), and this is the path to achieving the kind of multi-racial solidarity we see in the movement demanding justice for Native American woodcarver John Williams, who was assassinated in broad daylight by SPD officer Birk.

Life has revealed the actual “universal” programs Obama favored in his Audacity of Hope…: endless imperialist wars; a government of secrecy, spying and political repression; no serious action to deal with the mounting environmental crises; budget cuts and austerity for the masses while the rich are handed $trillions; speed-up and wage-cuts in the workplaces; and all the while pushing African American and other national minorities backwards.

This is the vicious bipartisan program of the bourgeoisie, and the workers and poor have almost no organization that is not controlled by the bourgeoisie (including the trade union bureaucracies) with which to fight back. But the Black people in the Jim Crow South didn’t initially have much organization either. So on their own, and in the course struggle, they built it. And it was by using the power of organization that they were able to spread their movement, link it up with other struggles in the country and globally, and eventually profoundly shake up and change the old political realities. Such is our task today.

Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee
January 7, 2011

Monday, January 17, 2011. Meet at Garfield High School, 23rd and Jefferson.
MLK Day workshops 9:30am, rally at 11:00am, and MARCH at 12:00 NOON!

Sponsored by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Committee