August 2023

Two Americas on Contested Terrain

Reconstructing a Rainbow Democracy Vs.

Redeeming a White Supremacist Nationalism

(https://history-and-strategy.org)

A presentation by Carl Davidson's project to shape a new narrative of our history to outline our strategy and tactics better. Its story is rooted in the persistent struggles of the expropriated, the exterminated, the exploited and the enclosed--all oppressed and divided by a racialized capitalism from the beginning. It takes lessons from the radical democracy of the First Reconstruction, its defeat, and its repeated resurrections to the Third Reconstruction engaging us today.

August 28th, 9pm ET (4th Monday for August)

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYkcuGsqDsiHtdCf7joAM064sWaqYrG_g-y 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

WHEN IS ENOUGH, ENOUGH? 

by doug morris (dmorrisscott@yahoo.com)

July will be the hottest month ever recorded (for now), following the hottest June ever. Heatwaves and wildfires are out of control in many parts of the world. More than half the U.S. population is living under an extreme heat advisory. Ocean temperatures are the hottest ever recorded. Ice caps and permafrost are dangerously melting.

Families are scorched in flames; workers collapse and die in unprecedented heat; tourists choke on smoke; ocean creatures are suffocated; houses, lives and communities are swept away in raging floods and storms; refugees continue to flee baked lands where food no longer grows.

When is enough, enough? How many alarms will it take for people to awaken to the harsh, calamitous, future-wrecking reality we are facing, and do something about it?

If we look, there are new climate terrors daily. The present global climate horrors should surprise nobody. They are consistent with what scientists and activists have predicted and warned about for many decades. Who was listening? The only shift is that it is all happening much sooner and more precipitously than expected.

Yes, people were lied to by politicians, corporate media, and oil companies for decades. Now the truth is unfolding before our eyes and in our lungs. Deceit, dogma, and delusions are deadly.

What does the next decade portend? Will it only get worse? Current trajectories tell us: Yes, much worse!

The train upon which all of us are riding is racing toward the precipice. Will we collectively work to put on the brakes? Children and grandchildren are on this train. We know, regardless of formal political allegiances, all of us care for the children and grandchildren. Are we willing to make serious sacrifices together in the present to secure a decent and livable future for coming generations?

This week U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said, "The era of global warming has ended, and the era of global boiling has arrived." He earlier reminded us that we are on a “collective suicide mission.”

Collective suicide is, of course, insane, and immoral, and reflective of the insane and immoral dominant economic and political systems under which we live, learn, work, and suffer.

The head of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas said, "the extreme weather which has affected many millions of people in July is unfortunately the harsh reality of climate change and a foretaste of the future…The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is more urgent than ever …Climate action is not a luxury but a must."

Climate scientists and climate activists everywhere are calling urgently for climate action and climate justice, as many have for decades. Yes, urgent action, by people across the planet, is a must.

Where is the blame? Can we generalize and blame humans? No. Most humans have contributed little to nothing to the growing disasters, and many humans, especially many indigenous people, have been fighting to protect Mother Earth for decades. They teach us to love Mother Earth the way we love our own mothers. Will that love change our behavior?

Blame must be directed to a rapacious and rampaging system of fossil-fuel driven global capitalism that operates on the deranged, unscrupulous, and destructive quest to exponentially increase the accumulation of capital (at all costs). The system requires the exploitation, abuse, and destruction of much of the rest of nature. Hence, we are amid the Sixth Great Extinction, with the future of humanity imperiled.

Let us be frank. We will not be saved by CEOs, presidents, BIG bankers, politicians, billionaires, or corporate media. They have other priorities such as serving the imperatives that drive the destructive global machine.

Where do we find answers? We must work to mobilize the collective intelligence and imagination, energy and enthusiasm, care and love, cooperation and commitment, and support and solidarity, of communities of people.

We need visions of commendable, viable, and sustainable alternatives to current dominant systems, and we need to connect those visions to oppositional/constructive organizations and movements that oppose current dominant systems while working to construct alternatives.

We need alternative institutions grounded in values rooted in what we might call THE LOGIC OF THE CARING/LOVING HUMAN BEING: cooperation and resource sharing; democracy and freedom; equality and fairness; care and love; community and solidarity; empathy and compassion; social justice and peace; ecological rationality and environmental sustainability.

It is arguable that the very survival of the species must include imagining and working to build a society organized in a radically different way, a way that places the health and well-being of people and the rest of nature above profit maximization, militarization, and the concentration of wealth and power. Are we up to the task? If not, who will tell the children their future is probably doomed?



Will a world on fire inflame our imaginations and our desire to act morally and rationally to construct a different and better future? If we fail to act, we are placing the future of humanity and countless other creatures in jeopardy.

************************************************************

Early opposition to the atomic bomb

came from Black America

https://wagingnonviolence.org/wr/2020/0

8/early-opposition-atomic-bomb-black-

america/

While the Japanese faced widespread, extreme racism

during World War II, Black leftists were among the first

critics of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan.

Dan Park August 7, 2020

Paul Robeson spoke at a Campaign for Nuclear

Disarmament rally at Trafalgar Square in London in

June 1959. (London CND)

In 1946, Paul Robeson Gave A Scathing, Brilliant Speech About The Connections Between Nuclear Weapons And Racism Against The Japanese

And Black Liberation. He Said, “It Is All Part Of One Problem, This Matter Of Discrimination And It May Be The Foremost Question Facing Us

Today In The Atomic Age.” Robeson Puts The Crux Of The Problem Not On The Weapon Itself, But On The Ideologies And Prejudices That Compel The

Use Of The Weapons At All. As A Rising Black Performer With Much To Lose, Robeson Made These Dangerous Connections Between Racism,

Capitalism, Colonialism, War, And Ultimately, Extinction.

“Our Government Is Getting Uranium From The Belgian Congo For Atomic Bombs. American Companies Are Prospecting For Oil In Ethiopia And For Minerals In Liberia,” He Said. “But, Although The Enemy (Nazis--Ed)Has All The Advantage And Has A Head Start In The Race, It Is Yet Possible For UsTo Catch Up And Win. It Is Possible To Win If The Majority Of The American People Can Be Brought To See And Understand In The Fullest Sense The Fact That The Struggle In Which We Are Engaged Is Not A Matter Of Mere Humanitarian Sentiment, But Of Life And Death. The Only Alternative To World Freedom Is World Annihilation.” 

We solemnly recognize August 6 as the 75th anniversary

of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan — the

first time atomic weapons were used in war. Estimating

the number of casualties is difficult, and it is possible that

our estimates are over-conservative, but early attempts

place the figure at 70,000 dead by the end of 1945. More

recent reevaluations estimate at least 140,000 people lost

their lives.

Three days after the initial attack, the United States

dropped a plutonium bomb on the port city of Nagasaki,

killing at least 40,000 and as many as 70,000 people or

more. Within months, almost a quarter million would be

dead from just the two attacks — with the victims being

overwhelmingly civilians. Much has been written about

the morality and military expediency of using the bomb,

but missing from many of these discussions is a critical

examination of the extreme racist hatred that rapidly

developed in the United States against people of Japanese

descent, and how that led to the annihilation of two cities.

But also missing is the recognition that African-

Americans were some of the first in the country to voice

concern about or even condemn the bomb, and that Black

leftists were some of the first to draw the connections

between colonialism, racism, capitalism and war. 

The general American hatred for the Japanese during

World War II cannot be overstated. Thanks to the tireless

activism of younger Japanese-Americans in the 1960s and

1970s, many Americans now know about the inhumane

internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII — less

know that Nazi POWs held in American camps were

often treated with musical, theatrical, and even movie

showings on most nights, set up volleyball leagues with

their guards, were invited to dances and other social

events, and would even be able to visit shops and

restaurants in town that Black American G.I.s could not.

Some historians have pointed out that most Americans at

the time could differentiate between Nazis and Germans,

fascists and Italians — but with Japan, all Japanese people

were not only suspect, but by their very nature the enemy.

Medicare for All Update Group Zoom

Wednesday September 13th  5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern

Topic: How will the fight for a just health care system impact the 2024 Election?

All are welcome - if you wish to attend, email: m4aupdategroup@gmail.com and you will get the Zoom link 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=6405662096168487

Above is a link to a long but IMPORTANT video of a rally sponsored by the group Be A Hero (led by Ady Barkan) in Washington DC. You can start the video at minute 2:55.

The rally was organized to oppose the privatization of Medicare in the form of so-called Medicare Advantage plans. 

Note the elected officials who appeared. 

This is an opening salvo for the movement against profiteering in health care!

Marilyn Albert

Medicare for All Update Group

Immediate Tasks of Peace Forces in the US

Sandy Eaton, July 2023

I think our main demand should be an immediate ceasefire. Not going to happen, I know. The war was provoked by NATO and its expansion right up to the border of the Russian Federation, and initiated by the Russian stupidity of falling a second time into the Brzezinski trap. (I think the Russian people of Crimea and the Donbass have every right to secede from the Kyiv government of extreme Ukrainian nationalists and their Nazi-laced military.) The peace movement has rightly highlighted the deployment of cluster bombs as outrageous, and we should note the long-lasting effects of Britain’s contribution of depleted uranium shells. So, we demand a ceasefire, a supervised withdrawal of armies and mercenaries, and negotiations leading to a just settlement. US imperialism must be contained until we in the belly of that beast can overcome.

And slash the war budget to build back better!

Unlike President Putin, I adhere to Lenin’s definition of nation and the self-determination of nations, recognizing the distinction between oppressor and oppressed nations.

I see the historically-formed current nation-state of Ukraine as a binational state of Ukrainians and Russians. This fact is recognized by the ultranationalist regime in Kyiv by virtue of its actions in overthrowing the elected president in February 2014 to install a government oriented to the European Union and the International Monetary Fund - and all the neoliberal shock therapy it would bring. And also by suppressing the Russians’ parties and language, eliminating labor and social rights inherited from their Soviet days, and attacking the Russian oblasts in Crimea and the Donbass that voted to separate from their Ukrainian oppressors.

NATO, from its creation in 1949, has been dedicated to suppressing the working class in both Western and Eastern Europe, and destroying socialism. Its mission has now been extended beyond North Africa and Southwest Asia to the Pacific theatre of engagement, dramatically heightening the danger of species-annihilation via nuclear winter, and deflecting attention from the urgent need for world unity to block full-scale climate collapse.

NATO’s expansion to the border of the Russian Federation does in fact constitute an existential threat to Russia. Anyone denying this is either in denial or ignorant of history. This tension has only been intensified by years of deadly shelling of the men, women and children of the Donbass Basin.

The Ukrainian people have the right to self-determination, even under ultra-nationalist leadership. (Of course, Ukrainians, like all peoples, have the right to rise up and overthrow their fascistic, oppressive and corrupt ruling class.) Ukraine does not have the right to join NATO, a terrorist organization from its onset.

The Russian people in Ukraine too have the right of self-determination, exercised by disowning the coup-installed Kyiv regime and, under international auspices, establishing a separate state, or choosing to join the Russian Federation.

On February 24, 2022, Russia took the bait laid out by Brzezinski-inspired imperialists. By February 25th, it was clear that Russia had two objectives: the blocking of Kyiv’s plan to join NATO and the lifting of the siege of the Donbass. Prior attempts to settle these very real issues via meetings in Minsk have now been revealed as subterfuge to allow NATO to pour weapons into Ukraine in preparation for the planned war of attrition to weaken and dismember the Russian Federation (fighting to the last drop of Ukrainian blood), perceived by Washington ruling circles as a necessary step on its path to China.

US imperialism is desperate, recognizing that its global hegemony is slipping away, so it’s open to taking desperate measures, risking global annihilation. Our responsibility is to build unity with those global forces, now centered in the Global South, to contain imperialism until we in North America are strong enough to overthrow it.

Can we survive under capitalism? Whether by climate collapse or nuclear winter, our species is threatened with extinction. I see little good coming out of the Global North, mired as it is in white supremacy. I do have hope that the Global South will contain NATO, the consortium of colonial powers, until we in the belly of the beast can overcome.

The Global South must shape the international order to come.

As NATO goes global, Progressive International members from across the South call on popular movements around the world to join the project of peace and non-alignment.

from The Progressive International

We are the world’s majority, the voice of the vulnerable, and the keeper of the global consensus. Our position is for peace, sovereignty, and principled non-alignment.

The international order is undergoing a tectonic transformation. For the Global South, this process carries the promise of a new path of dignity and peace long denied to our people. But it also carries the risk that this tectonic shift will once again squeeze, sink or swallow our nations.

The war in Ukraine has already claimed many thousands of lives, destroyed livelihoods and critical infrastructure and created fear, loss and displacement.

But it has also had a marked impact on the nations and peoples of the Global South. From dramatic increases in the prices of food and fuel to the stifling pressure to choose sides, we have all felt the impacts of this war.

That is why we choose the path of non-alignment.

We choose peace at the diplomatic table over victory on the battlefield, because humanity is the first victim of war.

We choose not to impose sanctions, because economic warfare is still war — and cannot be the basis for solving humanity’s collective dilemmas.

We choose cooperation, because our common resources must be used to better our societies and halt the irreversible destruction of our climate, not accelerate their demise.

The Global South represents over 80 percent of the world’s population and more than 70 percent of global economic growth. Yet, we face relentless economic exploitation, political exclusion, and cultural erasure.

From the Sahara to the Sierra Maestra, from Bandung to Yan’an, our peoples have waged a long struggle for liberation from the indignities of that order.

For daring to seek our own path, we, too, have faced sanctions, interventions, and invasions — and the repeated demand of our involvement in conflicts not of our making.

Our history demands that we choose a different path — one that is pragmatic, that brings prosperity to our societies, and that recovers peace from the frictions of geopolitical antagonism.

We welcome the proposals advanced by the government of Brazil to form a Peace Club on Ukraine, and the 12-point position paper published by the People’s Republic of China, which calls for respect for the sovereignty of all countries and presents a positive vision for peace, collective security, and reconstruction.

These initiatives represent a starting point for a renewed project of non-alignment — a politics that is often mistaken for apathy or neutrality. It is neither. It reflects, instead, the continued struggle to chart a new world order — to create new political institutions that reject the zero-sum mentality of the Cold War and build a foundation for cooperation and peace.

As the architects of the non-aligned movement, Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito and India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote in 1954, non-alignment is a “positive, active, and constructive policy that, as its goal, has collective peace as the foundation of collective security.”



That is why we, progressive forces from around the Global South, reaffirm our commitment to non-alignment — and reject attempts to rob us of the capacity to chart our own futures.

Signatories:

• Haqooq-Khalq-Party, Pakistan
• Progressive Democratic Lawyers Forum, Pakistan
• WAELE Africa, Pan-African
• Congreso de los Pueblos, Colombia
• Coalition for Revolution, Nigeria
• Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, India
• Wiphalas Across the World, Bolivia
• Zimbabwe People's Land Rights Movement, Zimbabwe

From the CCDS Peace and Solidarity Committee

Stephen David.and Harry Targ submitted the following written proposal. That this committee establish a Task Force on “International Relations: The New Reality.” The task force would have several responsibilities, including organizing a 4^th Monday webinar, maybe in September. Anyone interested in joining this commitee contact Harry Targ targ@purdue.edu

We're trying something new, and you are all invited.

Saturday Morning Coffee!

A Zoom conversation with Carl Davidson and comrades from the Online University of the Left...and other places as well.

It will be more of a hangout than a formal setting. We can review the news in the previous days' Leftlinks, or add new topic. We can invite guests, or just carry on with those who show up. We'll try to have a progressive stack keeper, should we need one. Most of all, we will try to be interesting and a good sounding board. If you have at point you would like to make or a guest to invite, send an email to Carl Davidson, carld717@gmail.com

Continuing weekly, 10:30 to Noon, EDT. The Zoom link will also be available on our Facebook Page.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86897065843 

Meeting ID: 868 9706 5843

Let's see what happens!

Watch a video of Saturday Morning Coffee

China: peoples congress, expanding economy, world stage

SEP's Fourth Monday in April

Fight for High Paying Jobs!

We had an excellent presentation and discussion on this vital topic, and got many requests for the links to the slide show file and the video recording. Here they are:

Carl Davidson's Zoom presentation on the topic, 45 min plus another 45 min Q&A. Enjoy.

https://www.facebook.com/OULeft.org/videos/231912376304225

The Slide Show as PDF:

HTTP://ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/davidson-green-industrial-policy.pdf

Visit our Ecology & Energy Dept at https://ouleft.org/?page_id=3805

For more and wider nformation on the topic, click the logo below

 fed4mr.org

Order yours today

Vijay Prashad, “The Rise of ‘The Darker Nations’ in the 21^st Century:

Responses to Crises of War, Poverty,

and Environmental Disaster

click here for the recording