March 2024

LABOR RISING: A CONVERSATION ABOUT

THE NEW FACES OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT

Monday, March 25, 2024, 9 p.m Eastern, 6 pm Pacific

Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS)

Socialist Education Project

4^th Monday Webinar Series

Labor militancy has increased dramatically over the last few years fueled by strikes, organizing drives, shopfloor activism, and reform caucuses emerging in several of the major trade unions in the United States. And, labor militancy as spilled over from more traditional workers, to health care workers, teachers, baristas, Uber drivers, and actors, script writers, and stage hands in the entertainment industry. Moreover, labor is resuming its traditional role of connecting workplace issues to larger national and even international ones.

Labor Rising will address these new developments: summarizing them, assessing their meanings for progressive social change, and speculating whether we see an emerging “new working class” which will be a primary agent of change in the near future.

Discussion will begin with commentaries by longtime progressive labor organizers and participants in efforts to organize among the “new working class.” Then attendees will be invited to describe Labor Rising in their own work settings and regions of the country.

Panelists will include:

Paul Krehbiel, is the coordinator of Los Angeles Labor for Bernie, a member of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and national co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

Frank Hammer. former President and Chairman of the United Auto Workers Local 909, which is located at the GM transmission plant in Detroit. He worked for GM for 32 years.

Laurie Davidson, Business Agent, Writers Guild East (WGAE) and former organizer with SEIU.

Register below

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItf-isrzMuGtF5xpCQAe7yu5SUkRdq0qjJ

Major Strike Activity Increased by 280% in 2023

Many workers still need policies that protect their right to strike

March 3, 2024 Margaret Poydock, Jennifer Sherer  ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTe

reprinted from Porside

Striking workers listening to a speech by US President

Joe Biden in Michigan in September 2023,White House

Last year saw a resurgence in collective action among workers. More than 16.2 million workers were represented by unions in 2023, an increase of 191,000 from 2022. Workers filed petitions for union elections in record numbers and captured significant wage gains through work stoppages and contract negotiations. Further, organizing efforts continued in a variety of sectors—including health care, nonprofits, higher education, museums, retail, and manufacturing (Shierholz et al. 2024).

Strikes were among the more prominent forms of collective action in 2023. A strike is when workers withhold their labor from their employer during a labor dispute. By withholding their labor—labor that employers depend on to produce goods and provide services—workers can counteract existing power imbalances between themselves and their employer. Strikes provide critical leverage to workers when they bargain with employers over fair pay and working conditions, when employers violate labor law, or when employers refuse to voluntarily recognize unions.



Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that 458,900 workers were involved in “major work stoppages” in 2023. The number of workers involved in major work stoppages increased by 280% in 2023, returning to levels last seen prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. These strikes included workers across the country—from auto workers to Hollywood writers and actors, nurses, and public school teachers.

A common theme among strikes in 2023 was a demand for higher pay amid the inflationary shocks stemming from pandemic re-opening, global crises, record profits for many corporations, and stratospheric CEO pay. Related motivations for striking included decades of stagnant wages, eroded health care and retirement benefits, long work hours, and unsafe working conditions (Bivens et al. 2023; Dickler 2023). It should be no surprise that workers are taking collective action to improve their pay and working conditions—but we should be asking why it is happening now. The U.S. economy has churned out unequal income growth and stagnant wages for the last several decades. Research shows that unions and collective bargaining are key tools in combating income inequality and improving the pay, benefits, and working conditions for both union and nonunion workers (Bivens et al. 2023). However, the continued rise in collective action is not likely to increase unionization substantially unless meaningful policy change is enacted to ensure all workers have the right to form unions, bargain collectively, and strike.

In this brief, we highlight work stoppages that occurred in 2023 and discuss what policies are needed to strengthen the right to strike in the United States.

Major work stoppages data

The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines “major work stoppages” as those involving at least 1,000 workers and lasting one full work shift between Monday–Friday, excluding federal holidays. BLS data show that 458,900 workers were involved in 33 major work stoppages that began and ended in 2023 (BLS 2024c). This is an increase of over 280% from the number of workers involved in major worker stoppages in 2022, which was 120,600. Further, it is on par with the increase seen in pre-pandemic levels during 2018 and 2019.

Roughly 75% of major work stoppages in 2023 (25 of them) took place in the private sector, with over half (14) occurring in a health care setting. State government accounted for five major work stoppages, with the majority of those involving public colleges and universities. Local government accounted for three major work stoppages, which involved public elementary schools.

Examples of major work stoppages in 2023

The work stoppages data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics include a breakdown of the organizations at which major work stoppages occurred. The data, combined with an EPI review of publicly available sources, suggest a range of strike activity in 2023. Recurring themes of major stoppages occurring in 2023 include workers citing decades of stagnant real (inflation-adjusted) wages; erosion of health insurance or retirement benefits; long work hours; and dangerous or stressful working conditions as motivations for seeking significant improvements to wages, benefits, and working conditions. The following are examples of major work stoppages covered by the BLS data.

United Auto Workers “Stand Up” strike

On September 15, 2023, more than 12,000 workers went on strike at General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis after their contract expired. The workers—represented by the United Auto Workers—went on strike to secure better pay and benefits after previous concessions in contracts following the Great Recession. Between 2013 and 2023, the three automakers had seen their profits rise by $250 billion, while the UAW members had not seen a cost-of-living adjustment since 2009 (Hersh 2023).

During the work stoppage, the UAW operated under a “Stand Up Strike” strategy. Instead of having all 150,000 members go on strike at the same time, they selected specific worksites to strike with additional worksites at the ready to “stand up” and join the strike as negotiations continued with the three automakers (UAW 2024). Overall, approximately 53,000 workers participated in the work stoppage. The work stoppages marked the first time the UAW had gone on strike at all three automakers at the same time.

The strike concluded after two months once the United Auto Workers and General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis reached agreements that included raises of at least 33% for all workers, the elimination of a two-tier wage system, the re-opening of a previously shuttered Stellantis plant, a commitment to a just transition with electric vehicles, and annual bonuses for retirees (UAW 2023). Further, nonunion workers have seen spillover effects of the UAW gains. For example, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and Tesla raised wages for their U.S. workers (none of whom are unionized) shortly after the UAW reached a tentative agreement with General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis (Brooks 2023; Kolodny 2024).

Kaiser Permanente health care workers strike

In October 2023, more than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers represented by a coalition of multiple unions engaged in the largest recorded health care strike in U.S. history (Isidore and Delouya 2023). The three-day strike included nurses, medical technicians, and support staff at hundreds of Kaiser facilities in seven states and the District of Columbia, with the largest groups of Kaiser workers on strike in California (Reuters 2023).

Like many health care strikes in recent years, the Kaiser workers’ strike drew attention to union proposals to address lagging pay and an ongoing staffing crisis. Following the three-day strike, workers achieved a tentative agreement with Kaiser that included 21% across-the-board pay increases over four years; additional bonus and performance sharing pay; and new training, education, and hiring initiatives to increase staffing levels. The resulting agreement, ratified by over 98% of members in November 2023, also set a new minimum wage for Kaiser health care workers of $23 (increasing to $25 by 2026) in California and $21 (increasing to $23 by 2026) in all other states covered by the contract (Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions 2023).

University of Michigan graduate employees strike

In March 2023, approximately 2,200 workers at the University of Michigan went on strike. The workers, represented by the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) Local 3550, include graduate student instructors and graduate student assistants across three campuses. The workers voted to go on strike to improve their pay and benefits and gain harassment protections and safer working conditions (P. Lucas 2023).

The strike was contentious, resulting in both the GEO and the University of Michigan filing unfair labor practices charges against one another. The charges were ultimately settled between the two parties (Anderson 2023).

The five-month strike concluded when the Graduate Employees’ Organization and the University of Michigan agreed to a new three-year contract that included major pay increases across the three campuses, harassment protections, paid childbirth leave, health insurance coverage for gender affirming care, and a $1,000 signing bonus (Bruckner 2023; Mackay 2023). The strike was the longest major work stoppage in 2023 and the longest strike in the history of the union and university (Bruckner 2023). The University of Michigan strike is an example of the growing wave of labor actions among graduate student workers in recent years (Bivens et al. 2023).

Starbucks Workers United ‘Red Cup Day’ strikes

On November 16, 2023, more than 5,000 Starbucks workers went on strike in protest of the company’s refusal to bargain in good faith to reach a first contract. The one-day strike was organized to coincide with Starbucks’ “Red Cup Day” promotion, which historically is one of the company’s busiest days. The 2023 Red Cup Day strike was Starbucks Workers United’s largest work stoppage to date, involving more than 5,000 workers across 200 stores (Durbin 2023).

Since December 2021, workers in 43 states, at 391 of Starbucks’s U.S.-based company-owned stores, have voted to unionize (More Perfect Union 2024). For more than two years, Starbucks has refused to bargain in good faith and has not reached a first contract with any of its unionized stores. During that time, the National Labor Relations Board officials have issued 105 complaints alleging the company violated labor law, including a nationwide case charging Starbucks with illegal failure to bargain with unionized workers in stores across the country (Saxena 2023). Shortly after the 2023 Red Cup Day strike, Starbucks announced that it wanted to resume talks with Starbucks Workers United to reach a first contract in 2024 (A. Lucas 2023).

Work stoppages that do not appear in the BLS data

The Bureau of Labor Statistics data on work stoppages, while useful, have a major limitation: They only include information on work stoppages (both strikes and lockouts), involving 1,000 or more workers and lasting one full work shift between Monday–Friday, excluding federal holidays. An enormous amount of information is missed by restricting the data in this way. According to BLS data on firm size, nearly three-fifths (58%) of private-sector workers are employed by firms with fewer than 1,000 employees (BLS 2024b). Yet any strike activity by these workers would not be captured in the Bureau of Labor Statistics work stoppages data. For example, a six-week strike involving 750 Temple University graduate student workers was not captured in the 2023 data, because it did not meet the size limitations of the BLS (AP 2023).

These size and duration limits mean that the Bureau of Labor Statistics data are not capturing many workers who walked off the job in 2023 to demand fair pay and safe working conditions. While the BLS data show 33 major work stoppages occurred in 2023, Cornell’s ILR Labor Action Tracker shows 470 work stoppages—466 strikes and 4 lockouts—occurring in 2023 (Ritchie, Kallas, Iyer 2024).

Conclusion: Federal and state action is needed to ensure the right to strike

The 2023 BLS data on major work stoppages show that over 450,000 workers exercised the right to strike to pursue pay increases, better benefits, and safer working conditions. However, the fact remains that current labor law does not adequately protect workers’ fundamental right to strike. The following are federal policies that would strengthen workers’ right to join unions and bargain collectively.

• The Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act includes critical reforms that would strengthen private-sector workers’ right to strike. The PRO Act would expand the scope for strikes by eliminating the prohibition on secondary strikes and allowing the use of intermittent strikes. It would also strengthen workers’ ability to strike by prohibiting employers from permanently replacing striking workers.
• The Striking and Locked Out Workers Healthcare Protection Act would prevent employers from cutting off health coverage of workers and family members in retaliation against striking workers.
• The Food Secure Strikers Act would allow striking workers to qualify for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
• Congress should also pursue policies that extend a fully protected right to strike to railway, airline, public-sector, agricultural, and domestic workers. None of these workers has the fundamental right to strike under current federal law.

Exclusions of public-sector, domestic, and agricultural workers from coverage under federal labor law mean that the basic union rights of millions of workers in these occupations remain left up to states. To address a significant portion of these exclusions, Congress should, as a first step, pass the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, establishing a minimum standard of collective bargaining rights that all states and localities must provide for public employees.

In the absence of congressional action, states should ensure collective bargaining rights and protect the right to strike for all public-sector, agricultural, and domestic workers. Right now, only a dozen states grant limited rights to strike to some public-sector workers. States should also join New York and New Jersey in making striking workers eligible for unemployment Benefits.

The University of Havana Centre for Hemispheric Studies and the United States and the Global Studies Association of North America invite you to participate in this timely workshop.

March 15, 2024, 11 AM EST

Online meeting on Jitsi:

https://meet.jit.si/moderated/bbed296d475ede7a0b8fd8dfa5f8e4dca4c11c80b66ae23d03e27954ec7149f9

PROGRAM:

Marek Hrubec - Introduction to Foreign Impacts of US Presidential Elections

Marek Hrubec, Ph.D. is a Senior Researcher at the Centre of Global Studies at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. He has published many articles and has edited and authored 25 books, among them Africa in a Multilateral World (with A. Kasanda, 2022) and Towards a New Research Era: A Global Comparison of Research Distortions (with E. Visňovský, 2023)

SESSION ONE (GSA)

Jerry Harris - The US Neo-Fascist Project and the Left Response

Jerry Harris is the National Secretary for the Global Studies Association of North America and on the International Executive Board of the Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism. He is also a member of the national political education committee of the Democratic Socialists of America. His latest book is Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy (Georgia: Clarity Press). His research on globalization has been translated into Chinese, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Slovak and Czech.

Carl Davidson - A Two Party System at War within Itself: Making Sense of U.S.A. Politics

Carl Davidson is a veteran writer and political theorist. He joined the New Left in the 1960s, worked as National Secretary of SDS from 1966 to 1968, and worked at the Guardian. Today, he is a DSA member rooted in the blue-collar realities of Beaver County, Western PA, where he was born and raised. He is the founder of the Online University of the Left, and editor of the newsweekly, LeftLinks.

SESSION TWO (CEHSEU)

Raúl Rodríguez Rodríguez - US elections and its impact in Cuba and the hemisphere

Raúl Rodríguez Rodríguez is a professor/researcher and currently Director of the Center for Hemispheric and United States Studies at the University of Havana and Director of the National Program of Social Sciences and Humanities. At the University of Havana, he teaches introductory and postgraduate courses on U.S. and Canadian history and has taught courses (in English) on Cuban history and the history of U.S.-Cuban relations at Harvard University, University of North Carolina, American University, University of Alabama, and the University of Havana since 2004. Since 2022, professor Rodriguez is the director of the National Social Sciences and Humanities Program. Prof. Rodríguez has been a visiting scholar and guest lecturer in Canadian, European and U.S. and Latin American Universities since 2002 on topics related to Cuban Foreign Policy US-Cuba and Canadian Cuban relations.

Ernesto Dominguez Lopez - Political crisis in the United States, geopolitics and hegemonic transition

Ernesto Dominguez Lopez is a full professor at the Center for Hemispheric and United States Studies at the University of Havana. His research includes the study of knowledge-capitalism, US political system and processes, Cuba-US relations, international relations, political theory, and theory of history. He has taught undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on Cuban history, Cuban foreign policy, contemporary history, political economy, political sciences, and theory of history.

Time: 12:00 PM (EST)

Doors open at 11:00 AM (EST)

Location: Vanderbilt Hall at NYU Law Building

Vanderbilt Hall 218 and Vanderbilt Hall 220 (Classrooms); these are on the second floor of the building

Event Address:  40 Washington Square South in Manhattan, New York City

For more information contact us at (917) 887-8710 or [email protected]

Register Here for online & in-person!

If We Burn: Mass Protest and Political Strategy for the 21st Century

Fletcher and Davidson: Campaigns, Movements,

and Organizing Strategies

Sat, March 16

@ 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Bill Fletcher Jr. and Carl Davidson join us for a talk and discussion jumping off from their recent article on political strategy–“Campaigns and Movements: How Are They Connected, How Do They Differ?” (Convergence, Oct. 6, 2023).

In a wide-ranging survey, Fletcher and Davidson reference the 1960 Greensboro, NC, Woolworth’s sit-in, the 1963 March on Washington, the 2020 killing of George Floyd, as well as older historic organizing campaigns and upsurges. They invite us to distinguish what we can control from what we cannot in our organizing.

Go HERE for tickets

New African Film Festival March 15-28, 2024--

Festival Passes & Full Schedule NOW AVAILABLE 

featuring Opening Night--2024 Oscar® Selection, Sudan

GOODBYE JULIA Fri, March 15, 7:15PM

Centerpiece--MADU Sun, March 24, 3PM

   Closing Night--AFRICAN GIANTS Thurs, March 28, 7PM

AfricaNow! Mar. 6, 2024 Thinking Through CLR James with Matthew Quest

New African Film Festival March 15-28, 2024

AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Centre, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD

Now in its 20th year, the New African Film Festival (NAFF), presented by AFI and Africa World Now Project, brings the vibrancy of African filmmaking from all corners of the continent and across the diaspora to the Washington, DC area. Featuring 26 films from 16 countries, including three U.S. premieres, this year's festival opens with Mohamed Kordofani's Cannes-premiered GOODBYE JULIA, a rich moral drama deftly exploring the personal and political divide between a wealthy Muslim woman and a poor Christian mother from South Sudan, set on the precipice of Sudan's major split in 2011. The festival closes with the Slamdance award-winner AFRICAN GIANTS, which follows two first-generation Sierra Leonean American siblings navigating the changing dynamics of brotherhood after a surprise announcement.  The media sponsor is WPFW 89.3FM in Washington, DC.  Click here for trailer of NAFF 2024.  

Click here for the complete schedule and ticket information.

Or click here for schedule of NAFF 2024 below.

Windy City Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage

A Prayerful Walk of Solidarity

This holy season, a global faith movement is walking in prayerful solidarity with the people of Gaza. Come walk with us in Chicago on Saturday, March 23.

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A pilgrimage is a sacred journey, a prayer with one’s body – be it by foot, or wheelchair, or taking a posture of devotion – to a sacred place with the desire to turn one’s heart to God and others. 

Our Prayers

The Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage is a meditative entering into the suffering of what the people of Palestine are experiencing. Each step is a prayer for every life taken and those left behind.

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This pilgrimage has truly become an interfaith event as members of multiple religious communities have joined in solidarity.

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Together, we are calling for:

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An enduring ceasefire

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Immediate flow of life saving food, water, aid, fuel and humanitarian assistance into Gaza

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Release of all hostages, both the Israeli hostages held by Hamas and the Palestinian hostages held without charge in the Israeli prison system

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End of occupation and achievement of a just peace

PROTESTS AGAINST ISRAEL’S WAR AGAINST GAZA

SPREADS AROUND THE COUNTRY

by Harry Targ

From the Minutes of the CCDS Peace and Solidarity Committee

Reports on some campaigns demanding a cease fire in Gaza and opposition to US continued military support of Israel:

“Brief review of campaigns for a cease fire in Gaza. Greater Lafayette JVP, Students for Justice in Palestine and others went to the West Lafayette, IN city council, They were given first billing, and talked about the ceasefire resolution; the council said they’d take it under advisement.  A report from another delegate that in the county in which Portland, Oregon resides activists took a ceasefire resolution, securing a unanimous vote in favor. Their resolution got watered down but what remained was basically the Cori Busch/Rashid Tlaib etc resolution. It took 5 weeks. They became the 86^th local governing body to pass a ceasefire resolution. Also Corvallis is engaging in postcard-writing.

In addition, “Protestors have effectively SHUT DOWN all entrances and exits to General Dynamics in Garland, Texas, Monday March 11, 2024.. Activiists declared that “We are calling on the community to support these brave protestors by coming out with your cars and driving around with Palestinian flags, signs, and kuffiyehs out your windows.”

General Dynamics in Garland is directly responsible for producing the bombs killing people in Gaza. GD produces and supplies the Israeli Occupation with the BLU-109 and MK-80 bombs which have been used throughout this genocide to massacre people and level entire blocks, like in the Jabalia refugee camp. Join us to say STOP ARMING ISRAEL. WEAPONS MANUFACTURERS OUT OF DFW.”



Other protest actions at city councils, military bases, and other public spaces have been occurring around the country. Over 80 city councils as of March, 2024 have endorsed resolutions calling for Israel to cease its actions in Gaza.

On protests among Jewish activists:

https://portside.org/2023-12-14/how-anti-zionist-american-jews-are-organizing-ceasefire-gaza?utm_source=portside-general&utm_medium=email

A summary of a presentation at the West Lafayette, Indiana City Council:

https://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-summary-of-remarks-supporting-gaza_5.html

Your copy should address 3 key questions: Who am I writing for (audience)? Why should they care (benefit)? What do I want them to do (call-to-action)?

Create a great offer by adding words like "free," "personalized," "complimentary," or "customized." A sense of urgency often helps readers take action, so consider inserting phrases like "for a limited time only" or "only 7 remaining!"

IMPACTS OF THE ISRAELI WAR ON GAZA,

YEMEN, SYRIA, AND LEBANON

CCDS's 4th Monday Webinar on February 26th.

Israel's War on Gaza

By Stephen David

What I share today does not involve rigorous research or scholarly endeavor. I have supported the Palestinian struggle since I was a teenager in High school in South Africa. I knew then, as I do now, how deeply the Palestinian struggle reflected our own struggle against apartheid, as did the struggle in Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique. Then it was difficult to keep in touch with the details of that struggle.  Since then, I have read much and thought deeply about the Palestinian struggle. So the thoughts I share are connections I make from diverse learning. These involve the Middle East and the historical forces influencing our global reality.  

About Palestine

I am suspicious of narrative frames that use ‘terrorist’ tropes; religious polarizations, and the right of self defense to characterize the Palestinian struggle.  I refuse frames that limit this struggle to just two primary actors, Israel and Palestine. What I share today are larger frames in which Palestinians struggle against multiple powers, and are caught up in complex global issues. Zionist actions in Palestine show the same cruelty of 19th century colonialism and imperialism. Two destructive forces that have structured much of the global architecture from the 20th century to the present. I select two pertinent forces of this modern imperialism as fundamental forces in the Middle East today. Two capitalist monopolistic cartels: Oil and the Military Industrial Complex. There are many other monopolies in play but this is what I choose for now.  

For Palestinians the Zionist project follows the devastating path of indigenous peoples elsewhere: as in Australia, Tasmania - where the entire indigenous people were exterminated, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. If nationalism, as a political union, is primarily based on shared cultural and social memories; common historical experiences; common language; and enduring memories of shared geopolitical experiences in a particular geopolitical space, the nationalism of the Zionists is different. They searched for a political union outside that which served the European nation state. The Zionist state is predicated on a religion and instead of consolidating and expanding an already occupied space it sought to attract jews from around the world to displace a people and occupy a territory. Its nationalism is exclusively jewish and therefore provokes, for them, a Palestinian question. Which can only be resolved if it ceases to be a Zionist State or eliminates arabic Palestinians from the land. It may provide civic rights for non Jewish members but a national belonging is held exclusively for the jewish, - born anywhere in the world, and whenever that might be. 

Four days ago, the US vetoed a UN Security Council Resolution for a cease fire that could halt the genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. The UK supported Israel and the US by abstaining. Palestinians are at war with more than Israel alone. Social pages speak of Colombians, Canadians, the US Americans, Britains, Australians, and South Africans joining the IDF. Yes, the Houthis in Yemen attract many from around the world to help blockade Israel, but Gazans stand alone against the might of Israel; an Israel bolstered with all the support of Western nations and institutions wielding formidable influence in international affairs. Moreover, Israel has enjoyed endless financial, military, economic, cultural, and social support from its band of western nations. In short, Israel receives unconditional support and protection from western institutional forces no matter how severe or criminal its actions turn out to be. The Palestinian struggle has always been against a wider consortium of western forces. So, I want to speak a bit about the material conditions that lead the US, UK, and the band of Western ex-colonial states to stand unequivocally with Israel.

The Zionist project in the 1890s began against the backdrop of new European nation states embroiled in colonial and imperial expansion around the globe. More often than not this involved annexing territories and subjugating its peoples.  In the partition of Africa, in 1884,  and in both world wars, confiscated territories were not set free, but divided among Colonial powers as the spoils of war. Natural resources, markets, and imperial power towered over any concern for human worth and dignity. To the present day, the Zionist history in Palestine, mirrors such actions. Zionists in their appeal to Zionist sympathizers in the British Empire ironically used anti-semitic tropes of unassimilable jews to further their objectives. In this way they made their case for a Jewish homeland to serve as a solution to a European problem. The idea of un-assimilability is a familiar trope in the colonial mindset and heralds the transition from colonialism to a modern imperialism. The Zionist vision of manifest destiny of a promised land, aligns with the Christian manifest destiny that undergirds much of the new imperialism in vogue at the time.The Zionist project, then, replicates a regular colonial project despite not projecting from an established nation state. For the support a colonial venture of this kind requires from a powerful ‘mother’ country, Israel substitutes the surrogate support, of primarily the UK, and the US. 

This accounts for British and US approval and assistance, but how does one explain the tremendous support for Israel despite its horrendous war crimes and human rights infractions?

Israel’s strategic value to the West, lies in oil security, security of a vital trade transportation artery, (The Red Sea) and a military deterrence, vital for managing the antagonistic forces which imperialisms engender.

The invention of the internal combustion engine in the 20th century sparked the automobile industry. Since then, Oil has grown in importance and dominated the means of social production. It also gave rise to powerful monopolies and cartels that continue to influence imperial policies and foreign relations. Oil monopolies command such policies as spheres of interest, national interest, and versions of manifest destiny. Such policies require strong militaries and this leads to yet another monopoly - the military industrial complex. These two, oil and military productions play vital roles in the Middle East and run deep in the relations between Israel and the Arab world. 

Israel, as an ally intimately intertwined with US politics and social reality, is a powerful instrument that destabilizes the oil rich Middle East to prevent the emergence of strong national democratic states among its neighbors that may encourage a sovereignty that jeopardizes Western control of oil. Its role can be seen in its continuing bombings in Syria and its threatening posture towards Iran and its earlier instigation of the war against Iraq. .

The US supplies Israel with state of the art weapons to be a military force that can simultaneously prevail over all its neighbors in any conflict. Its history of wars and frequent incursions into neighboring states with impunity,increases destabilization and also provides a field test for American led NATO weapons and military technology. A veritable showcase for various military industrial complexes. 

In the last two decades, NATO used the opportunity of the fragmentation of the Soviet Union to expand its territorial reach to the very borders of Russia. NATO clearly views a strong sovereign Russia and China as imperial obstacles and threats. It would suit NATO’s imperial designs to have a more fragmented Russia and China that poses no threat of leading an opposition to its world order. EU’s growth is not dissimilar to an imperial expansion of a federated nature. Against such a phenomenon, BRICS and the Global South seek a different International World Order from the Rules based one currently in operation. A new order envisions a more just and equitable system that centers on a globally shared future for all nations. In this context, the war in Ukraine is at its root a proxy war between NATO and Russia. I notice that Military reports on this war dwell heavily on military equipment; more is made of the units of weapons countered and destroyed than the personnel lost. Consequently much is made of the failure of NATO weapons to achieve its objectives in that war. Often the decision to provide arms to Ukraine dwells on the effect this would have on the reputation of military industrial monopolies and fears of how adverse performances would affect the markets for such weapons.  As this war progressed, the reputation of Western, and especially US military monopolies, suffered compromises from how Russia minimized the effects of NATO’s weapons. 

In the Gaza war, the transfer of the US’s most formidable navy vessel and forces to the Mediterranean, the media visuals of Israeli/US supplied bombs to devastating effect, and the UK/US posturing in the Red Sea and bombing of Yemen can be seen as attempts to reclaim the reputation of weapons diminished in the Ukrainian conflict. The empire cannot afford to be seen as weakening. 

Finally,we strive to bring a halt to the genocide unfolding in Palestine, and we are right to give all our energy to this at the moment; but in terms of a solution to the burning questions in the Middle East that manifests itself in the Palestinian struggle, we need to keep in mind the larger issues involving concentrated oil and military industrial monopolies, imperial designs, and a settler power steeped in colonial and imperial characteristics. 

Presentation by Rod Sush

There are many actors and many factors in this current conjuncture, but the central and overriding actor is the Palestinian people, and the central factor is the Palestinian struggle for liberation from Israeli settler-colonialism backed by U.S. imperialism.

We are now about to enter the fifth month of Israel’s genocidal response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, and the fifth month of U.S. complicity in that genocide. Just last week the Biden Administration exercised its veto power in the UN Security Council for the third time to keep the genocide going. This was actually the 40th time the U.S. has exercised its veto power on behalf of Israel. For Israel the “two essentials,” as former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren described them, are the U.S. veto and U.S. weapons.

I believe what’s going on here is the U.S. determination to be rid of non-state actors, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. That’s why it has given full-throated support to Israel’s aim to eliminate Hamas as a military force.The U.S.has even abandoned the so-called two-state solution, telling the International Court of Justice last week that it should rule against a finding that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is illegal because of the “security situation” facing Israel. 

Just to be clear, the U.S. support for a two-state solution has long been a fig leaf. This is well documented in the Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi’s book Brokers of Deceit who outlines the role the U.S. has consistently played in peace negotiations as Israel’s lawyer.

The Western focus on Oct. 7, of course, elides what happened on Oct. 6. What happened on Oct. 6 that the corporate media ignores? It was the 5,840th day of the siege on Gaza that has curbed the freedom of movement of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants, that has put those 2.3 million people on “a diet,” as one Israeli official put it, resulting in a crisis of malnutrition. Oct. 6 was the 5,840th day of the creation of an open-air prison, a concentration camp that has suffered regular periods of aerial bombardments killing thousands of women and children. Those 5,840 days even witnessed the killing and maiming of thousands of people demonstrating peacefully at the Gaza border during the March of Return in 2016.

Oct. 6 was also the 27,533rd day of the founding of Israel, a state created by the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians, the destruction of more than 500 Palestinian towns and villages, and the confinement under military rule of some 100,000 Palestinians remaining within Israel.

So what happened on Oct. 7 that led Hamas to attack Israeli military outposts? I believe the answer can be found in an article written by a member of the Hamas political bureau, who noted that among other factors, the Oct. 7 attack attempted to disrupt the U.S.-Israeli effort to persuade “Arab and Muslim countries to ignore Palestinian rights and normalize relations with the Zionist entity without resolving the Palestinian issue, rendering it a purely domestic Israeli concern.”

In other words, the so-called Abraham Accords, which the Biden administration has been attempting to persuade Saudi Arabia to join.

Two prominent factors figured into this full-court diplomatic press. One, of course, was the wealth to be gained from an accord that would pay off for U.S. corporations by helping Saudi Arabia build a nuclear reactor and purchase more technologically advanced U.S. weapons.

But the other was to counter China, which had recently scored a diplomatic coup in helping end Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen and helping normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Imagine! In the heart of the Middle East, where the U.S. had been the sole superpower for decades, suddenly China was the peacemaker. And that wasn’t the end! Soon after, Saudi Arabia agreed to join BRICS, the economic and trade alliance that included Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

Surely, there’s a degree of panic in the White House at the thought of a nonstate actor like Hamas and the other resistance organizations playing spoiler to an Abraham Accord with Saudi Arabia. I think this has played a significant role in the Biden administration’s doubling down on Israel’s genocide.

However, there’s also a domestic factor, which is not confined to the enormous role played by the Israel Lobby in the U.S. in general and the Democratic Party in particular, which has long been reliant on the Lobby’s campaign donations.

This new domestic factor is the way in which the whole political spectrum has shifted radically to the right with the emergence of Trump and the white nationalist base of the Republican Party with its fervent Christian Zionism. 

Consider the fact that under Trump, the U.S. moved its embassy to Jerusalem, whereas for decades it kept the embassy in Tel Aviv in order to avoid recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Under Trump, the U.S. no longer opposed the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and it formally recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel, another position the U.S. had previously rejected.

Once Biden was in office, his administration failed to undo anything Trump did. It kept the embassy in Jerusalem, it failed to renounce the annexation of the Golan, and it even failed to oppose settlement expansion–until just last week that is when Secretary of State Blinken called it “inconsistent” with international law! Not illegal! Not a violation of international law! Just “inconsistent.”

Without a doubt the Palestinian liberation struggle has learned much during its decades of resistance. That struggle embraces a strategy that in many ways resembles what the African National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela, used to call its four pillars, among which was international solidarity in the form of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) and armed struggle.

The very idea of the right of armed resistance to colonialism was not even recognized as a right until we entered the beginnings of a post-colonial world and formerly colonized nations were finally able to influence international law. They did so with the addition of Protocols I and II to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Still, Reagan and Thatcher placed Mandela on the terrorist watch list, and U.S. imperialism never really ended its support for apartheid Pretoria until the Cold War had ended and was no longer a factor in its calculations. 

I’ll end here with a tentative forecast that the U.S.-Israeli war on the Palestinians is unlikely to lead to a wider war but is likely to lead to the greater isolation of the U.S. and Israel internationally.

This isolation is reflected in the votes in the UN Security Council and the General Assembly, and the growing pushback from the Global South, especially the role of South Africa in bringing genocide charges to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the role of Mexico and Chile in bringing war crime charges against Israel in the International Criminal Court, and the role of more than 50 nations, mostly African and Muslim, in their ICJ challenge to Israel’s illegal occupation.

It’s also reflected in the growing mass movement in this country and Europe, in southwest Asia and Africa, in Central and South America, where demonstrations on the scale and frequency of those during the Vietnam War have been occuring. Ultimately, this is not just a struggle against genocide and for human rights, but it’s against imperialism, militarism, and war. It unites the Palestinians with the broadest possible united front we’ve ever seen.

Election 2024!!

Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport

2024 Is a De Facto Constitutional Referendum.

MICHAEL PODHORZER

FEB 28, 2024

Update: This post became tragically timely yesterday a few minutes after it published, when the MAGA wing of SCOTUS succeeded in postponing Jack Smith’s J6 trial. If you have any doubt that it was strategic, consider that the same MAGA justices who yesterday insisted on taking up the immunity question nearly two months from now rejected Smith when he asked them to decide it two months ago.

Properly understood, the 2024 elections are the only chance Americans will have to cast a ballot against the MAGA agenda, which would be tantamount to a new constitutional order.

Recently, Ezra Klein posted the most compelling, fair-minded, and well-reasoned argument I’ve seen on the question of whether Biden should be the Democratic nominee. It set off a firestorm of debate, mostly ranging from skeptical to critical. Spoiler alert: I’m not weighing in on that question. But I do want to use the controversy to illustrate what is dangerously wrong with the prevailing political discourse.  



The conversation right now is much like one you would expect to hear in a bar during the seventh game of the World Series. The home team (Democrats) are the defending champions. But now, it’s tied in the top of the seventh inning. The Democrats’ pitcher, Joe Biden, looks shaky and tired, and just walked the bases loaded. Now, with two outs, Donald Trump is at the plate. Many in the bar scream at the TV, imploring the manager to turn to the team’s very deep but rookie bullpen before it’s too late. Meanwhile, others, including some old-timers, push back by reminding everyone what happened the last time they tried this strategy in the 1968 season. Everyone else in the bar just wants the shouting to stop so they can enjoy their drinks.

Mark Knight, 2020.

What we have here is a category error. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It is up to us whether those who reject a MAGA future vote in greater numbers than those who embrace MAGA. By “us,” I mean anyone who understands the consequences of a second Trump Administration. Critically, this includes leaders of civil society who might normally (and properly) stay out of partisan politics – the free press, religious leaders, business leaders, foundations, academia. We are in something of a Niemöller moment. When we depend on the campaign smarts of the Democratic Party to forestall a MAGA future, we abdicate our duties as democratic citizens to do everything we can to keep it from happening.  

The presidency is a performance. You are not just making decisions, you are also acting out the things people want to believe about their president. …

And then there’s the argument you’ve heard on my podcast. … There’s an anti-MAGA majority in this country and they will come out to stop Trump. And I think that might be true. I still think Biden might win against Trump, even with all I’ve said. It’s just that there’s a very good chance he might lose. Maybe even better than even odds. And Trump is dangerous. I want better odds than that. 

Let’s be clear: Those eager for Democrats to be running a younger, stronger and charismatic candidate will themselves vote for whomever the Democrats nominate against Trump. They will do this because they know that the next four years will be a disaster if Trump returns to office, but that if any Democrat wins – whether it’s Biden or someone else – the next four years won’t be much different from the last four. In other words, those investing so much intensity in second-guessing the Democrats because they know the stakes for America’s future (“Trump is dangerous”) lack confidence that other voters will be informed or invested enough to come to the same conclusion. (“The presidency is performance.”) 

The dangerous mistake here is to take for granted that the ordinary voters who will decide this election will invariably make their decisions based on whether they judge Biden or Trump better able to perform the presidency, rather than on what they and their families have to lose if Trump and MAGA wins. The evidence of voter behavior since 2016 tells us that people will do the latter, as long as these stakes are made clear to them. But if we treat this like a normal election – just another round of single combat between two individuals, Joe Biden and Donald Trump – Trump and MAGA could win.  

The Greeks and the Trojans tried to settle their differences through single combat (Achilles vs Hector). Should we be doing the same? (Biden vs Trump)

A De Facto Constitutional Referendum

The 2024 election is not a contest between two politicians, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but a de facto constitutional referendum. At first blush, “de facto constitutional referendum” may seem a bit much. But, if implemented, the MAGA agenda as expressed by Trump, and delineated in great detail in documents like the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership, would change America as quickly and as fundamentally as the Reconstruction Amendments and the New Deal Order – if not more so. 

The Ends

I don’t want to spend a lot of space on the details of Team Trump’s plans in this post, since the topic has been handled well elsewhere. For a comprehensive view, see this regularly updating American Autocracy Threat Tracker on the Just Security website; for the impacts on financial markets and business, see in this Brookings report; and see excellent reporting on the details of plans to deport millions in the New York Times, The Atlantic and The Washington Post. 

The Means

As has been the case since he descended the escalator in 2015, Trump has done nothing to hide his intentions, which, instead of being greeted with appropriate alarm, are usually discounted as rhetoric for the base. Again, I don’t want to take too much space here, but there are five important reasons to take everything he says literally. Like in Jurassic Park, we are no longer safe in the kitchen now that he’s mastered door handles. 

The Insurrection Act and Emergency Powers

No new laws need be enacted to enable Trump to be a “dictator on day one” if he chooses to be. Trump can easily invoke the Insurrection Act the moment he takes office, which would allow him to deploy military forces to quell civil unrest. Unfortunately, the full import of that has not sunk in, likely because of how few people realize that the Insurrection Act, as well as many other “emergency powers” laws on the books, have no process for challenging presidents claiming those powers, as the authors of those laws never imagined someone like Donald Trump reaching the Oval Office. To the extent you think there will be institutional barriers to his making those moves, remember that those who prevented him deploying the military in response to the George Floyd protests, or stopped him from taking over the Justice department before January 6th, are long gone.

Transition Planning Is Well Underway

Unlike the disorganization following his surprise 2016 victory, Trump’s plans for a second term have already been developed in great detail by his allies, as seen in Project 2025, led by the Heritage Foundation and endorsed by just about every major right-wing political organization in the United States. Those plans include “a private red-state army under the president’s command” to round up millions of immigrants and throw them into detention centers, “institutionalizing Trumpism” by firing 50,000 nonpartisan civil servants and replacing them with unqualified Trump loyalists, letting Trump use the FBI and the DOJ to prosecute his personal vendettas, eliminating reproductive freedom and basic protections for LGBTQ people, abandoning NATO allies, starting trade wars with China, and taking a wrecking ball to basic government functions that Americans depend on and take for granted, from public education to weather data. 

MAGA Lock on the Senate and Courts

There is no scenario in which Trump is elected and Republicans do not control the Senate. (Remember, the best case scenario for Democrats is 50-50, which isn’t good enough with a Republican Vice President. And the 2026 midterm map offers no apparent pick-up opportunities for Democrats.) That means that not only will Trump have clear sailing for his Cabinet nominations, he will likely fill another 200 or more federal judges, now in the mold of Kacsmaryk. Plus with both Thomas and Alito approaching 80, Trump will have the opportunity to replace them with young, equally MAGA justices. 

Red State Support

The danger to America is from the MAGA movement, not Trump as an individual. Much of Trump’s agenda, as well as most of the items in Project 2025 and other preparations for a second administration, have either already been implemented by Red state trifectas, or are Red state trifecta ambitions that have been thwarted by the levers Democrats still control. (See “The Two Nations of America” for more.) In other words, Trump’s agenda is not merely “rhetoric for his base”; its supporters dominate the Republican Party’s congressional caucuses (See “Hiding in Plain Sight: The Sources of MAGA Madness and Congressional Kakistocracy”), the state legislatures and governorships of half the states, and a majority of the Supreme Court.

The singular focus on Trump obscures the extent to which the MAGA movement (née Tea Party) has already metastasized in half the country over the last dozen years. And, as I wrote recently in the Washington Monthly, that half does not fully accept the legitimacy of federal authority. 

The Constitutional Coup Is Well Underway

Trump in his first term, and the Federalist Society Supreme Court majority for the last dozen or more years, have shown that with enough minority-rule power and enough shamelessness, they don’t need the support of three-quarters of the states to amend the Constitution; they can just “reinterpret” it beyond recognition, or even ignore it entirely. 

As a result, America has already changed in profound ways that are not imaginable through any open or democratic process. For example, can you imagine enacting legislation to allow corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in campaigns (Citizens United), allow state legislators to pick their voters (Rucho), make owning an AR-15 a constitutionally protected right (Heller, Bruen), prevent consumers from bringing class actions lawsuits against corporations (AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion), overturn the Voting Rights Act (Shelby County, Bronwich), or allow states to ban abortion (Dobbs)? Those radical changes have been the stated intentions of the Republican Party and at least implicitly of Republican presidential nominees all along.

The (Very Contingent) Anti-MAGA Majority

As I discussed on Klein’s podcast, and have written about extensively, the “anti-MAGA majority” is the most important dynamic in our elections today. When the question is called, most Americans don’t want a MAGA future. Of the 178 million Americans who have voted at least once beginning in 2016, about 94 million have voted against MAGA, and about 84 million have voted for MAGA.3 Post-election polling by Pew (and others) shows that those 70 or so million who could have voted, but didn’t, oppose MAGA by even greater margins.4 Newly engaged voters – those who only entered (or rejoined) the electorate in 2018 or later – have been driving historically high turnout, and have been breaking dramatically, and consistently, for Biden and Democrats when the stakes have been a MAGA future. Even more to the point, MAGA has lost 23 of the 27 statewide elections since 2016 in the five states that gave Trump his Electoral College victory in 2016 (and will decide the 2024 races as well). 

But I’ve also been clear that when people don’t recognize those stakes, they stay home. As I explained in “Red Wave, Blue Undertow,” the 2022 midterms were best understood as two different elections – one in the key battlegrounds, where voters understood the stakes and turned out in droves to reject MAGA; the other where voters did not understand the stakes and turned out at low levels more typical of a midterm, allowing the predicted Red Wave to occur. The difference came down to whether a state had a MAGA candidate running in a high-profile, competitive race. This did not include “safe” Blue states like California and New York, where losses ended up costing Democrats the House.  

This leads us to the unacknowledged problem with the anti-MAGA majority dynamic for Democrats. Their majorities in the Electoral College battleground states5 depend on sustaining ahistorically high turnout and support from people who were not regular voters in 2016.

By definition, those voters are alienated from partisan politics and lack confidence in Democrats’ governing ability. That’s why horse race polling now looks so bad for Democrats, as it did before the last midterms. As the party in power, Democrats are also the prime targets for people’s frustrations with this same fundamental, now long-running dissatisfaction with the direction of the country, the “economy,” and nearly every major institution. 

At this point, you might be thinking, “But wait a minute … isn’t it the case that Democrats have been winning special elections because in those low-turnout races, engaged Democrats make up a disproportionate share of voters? Won’t greater turnout doom them?” That certainly has become the conventional wisdom. 

In a future post, I’ll explain why the “high” and “low” turnout framework as it’s popularly deployed is not useful at all. But, without getting technical, there are two ways to look at the fact that more engaged voters oppose MAGA. Prophesiers of Democratic doom in high turnout elections presume that those currently unengaged will remain so – that their minds are already made up. The other way to look at it is to at least entertain the possibility that when the currently unengaged tune back in, they will have the same anti-MAGA reaction as the currently engaged do now, and that the currently unengaged themselves had four years ago. (By “engaged” I mean engaged enough to be aware of the MAGA agenda; it doesn’t require following politics obsessively.) 

Not only are most voters now not paying attention to Trump’s legal troubles, they know next to nothing about what he’s said on the campaign trail about what he will do if elected again, let alone the very specific and chilling agenda his allies have assembled in the event he wins a second term. Moreover, most voters have forgotten how, despite campaigning as a rogue anti-business populist in 2016, the first things Trump did in 2017 were pushing through a hugely unpopular tax cut for the rich and nearly repealing the ACA.

Perhaps most importantly, to “understand” the stakes is not just to know intellectually that Trump has done this or that, or that he promises to do this or that. It means believing that it will happen. The Dobbs decision, for instance, didn’t so much change how voters felt about abortion rights, or even their importance in the abstract; it changed people’s beliefs about whether Trump and MAGA would actually take abortion rights away. The prevailing belief used to be that anti-abortion rhetoric was just red meat for the base, and that Roe v. Wade would never actually be overturned. Not anymore.

How NOT to Talk About the Election

The anti-MAGA majority will not turn out to defend “democracy,” reject “extremists,” or because Trump is a racist fool. Those lines of attack do not connect with people’s lives. Specifically:

Ad Hominem Attacks on Trump

Every time you see Donald Trump say something that seems obviously disqualifying to be president (which is pretty much all the time), and wonder how anyone not marinated in Fox grievance TV could vote for him, you actually underestimate them. Because they, not you, understand that what the candidates will do is more important than who they are. 

It’s obviously frustrating when the media makes more out of Biden’s saying “Mexico” when he meant “Egypt” than Trump saying “Nancy Pelosi” when he meant “Nikki Haley.” But when Democrats and progressives make Trump (the person) and his deranged rants central to their critique, they make counterclaims against Biden fair game. All of this confirms the public’s well-founded belief that all politicians are hypocrites who are more preoccupied with scoring points against each other than improving the lives of everyday Americans. 

Consider two 2022 Senate races. In Georgia, Herschel Walker was, shall we say, a flawed candidate, who was exposed as a serial liar with troubling family issues, declared that “I don’t want to be a vampire any more. I want to be a werewolf,” and had no idea whatsoever about any issue of policy. Yet he came within a point and a half of winning. A dozen or more years ago, a candidate with that “baggage” would not have come close. In Pennsylvania, a state Biden won by just 1.2 points, John Fetterman, who was facing midterm headwinds and had difficulty debating as a result of a stroke, won by 5 points. As in Georgia, this would not have been the likely result a dozen or more years ago. 

In both instances, voters understood that the differences between a Democratic and Republican Senate were more consequential than the differences between how well the individual candidates would serve the states of Georgia and Pennsylvania, respectively. Regardless of any other outcome, voters in those races knew that Walker would be a vote for a MAGA Senate, and Fetterman would be a vote against one. Nothing else mattered. 

Defend “Democracy!”

Remember: It should be self-evident that appeals to save “democracy” will ring hollow to the less engaged anti-MAGA voters who have the least confidence in our institutions and political system, and who are sour on Democrats in surveys right now. 

During the Cold War, “democracy” was given credit for unprecedented growth and shared prosperity enjoyed by many, though not all, Americans. Democracy was enormously popular not because the masses appreciated its procedural genius, but because it consistently delivered the goods. But, over the last 50 years, the United States went from being one of the most equal countries in the Western World in terms of wealth and income to the most unequal; the only major nation in the Western world where life expectancy was decreasing for sizable segments of its population even before COVID; and the stingiest nation in the Western world in its provision of basic needs to its populace.

And so, if we understand that for most people the word “democracy” comes down to what it delivers, it should be obvious why so little enthusiasm remains for a system that was once creating hope, distributing shared prosperity, and enacting greater freedoms, but has now reversed itself. This may be difficult to see for those who continue to thrive and prosper. 

Reject “Extremism!” 

While polls show that no one likes extremists, extremism is very much in the eye of the beholder, as this Reuters poll reconfirms. It is a term that too many voters apply to “both sides.” Thus, the term “extremist” positions Republicans as still co-existing on an acceptable political spectrum with Democrats, instead of what they are: a revanchist movement whose governing agenda is to take away your freedoms and empower corporations at your expense. 

Civil Society is AWOL

It’s worth elaborating here what I mean when I say “civil society” or “us.” To sustain liberal democracy, societies require robust civic institutions that speak the truth without partisan fear or favor. That is, after all, the basis for the warrant for a free press and freedom of assembly in the First Amendment. Here, I’m thinking first and foremost of the press, but also major religious institutions, mainstream foundations, think tanks, and large organizations who consider their mission either protecting democracy or marginalized populations, as well as enlightened business organizations. They are societies’ necessary antibodies against antidemocratic pathogens. 

The MAGA pathogen has avoided triggering a sufficient immune response by camouflaging itself as healthy cells (Republicans) and by evading the immune system's recognition mechanisms (the media, civil society). But it's actually worse than that – we have an autoimmune disorder on our hands. Over the last dozen years, the most powerful civil society antibodies have been protecting those “healthy cells” (MAGA Republicans) while attacking other antibodies that are outside the mainstream – discrediting those raising alarms as either partisan or exaggerating the danger. 

Consider the Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett confirmations. The prerequisite for being considered for those vacancies was that they were on a list provided by Leonard Leo of Federalist Society-approved justices. That was a prerequisite because Trump saw that as a way to assure the religious right that Roe v. Wade would be overturned (among other things) – and now Trump takes credit for overturning Roe. Yet each nominee’s performance as a “healthy cell,” with their incantations of fidelity to stare decisis, were given more credence than those who insisted that each nominee would be a certain vote to overturn Roe. 

A similar dynamic is at work internally in the media. There has always been excellent reporting to be found on the dangers of Trump and MAGA, in mainstream and independent outlets alike. But rarely if ever do the insights and warnings from this reporting filter out into mainstream political and elections reporting. Rarely if ever do we see these warnings reach Topic A status, with endless and unmissable wall-to-wall takes, in the same way that Biden’s age has (or that Hillary’s emails did in 2016). 

At other times like this in American history, whether it was about abolition, women’s franchise, prohibition, trade unionism, civil rights, the war in Viet Nam, the ERA, environmental protection, health care, or gay rights, civil society institutions stepped up to educate about the issues and facilitate democratic discourse and compromise. Yet, for the last dozen years, those institutions have been muted in performing the same role as, for example, the Federalist Society majority on the Supreme Court “amends” the Constitution in the ways I described earlier.    



Or consider Germany and Brazil now. Since the second world war, Germans have understood the importance of protecting its democracy from fascism. Just a few weeks ago, when it leaked out that “high-ranking politicians from Germany’s far-right AfD party, neo-Nazis, and sympathetic business people gathered in a hotel near Potsdam [where the agenda was] nothing less than the fine tuning of a plan for the forced deportations of millions of people currently living in Germany” the response was swift, including hundreds of thousands protesting and a ban on public funding for the AfD. And, with enviable alacrity, in October a Brazilian congressional committee formally asked prosecutors to charge former president Jair Bolsonaro for attempting to overthrow the rule of law, political violence and criminal conspiracy, related to a January 8, 2023 riot by his supporters that he was found to have instigated.

Thus, small-d democrats anxiously hoping for Democrats to nominate better candidates and run a better campaign against Trump must come off the sidelines to make clear that in November, we are not choosing a leader; we are choosing the nation we will become. It is necessary, but not sufficient, for voters to hear this from Democrats; unless the media and other trusted non-partisan civil society institutions are forthright in affirming this fact, voters have no reason to believe that it’s anything more than the usual partisan squabbles.  

Conclusion

I hope you can see that being clear about the stakes in this election is not a tactical recommendation; it is a prerequisite for preserving the freedoms we still have. 

On his last podcast, responding to questions about his original post, Ezra Klein concluded by confronting his interlocutors with these powerful words (emphasis added): 

It’s very easy to see from a perspective of people’s [Democrats’] individual incentives, how it would make more sense to stick with the Biden-Harris ticket, even if you don’t think the Biden-Harris ticket is going to win.

But … that is an abdication of duty. That is an abdication of what a party is supposed to do, and it is much more so an abdication of what a party is supposed to do when the party believes the other candidate is as dangerous as they believe Donald Trump is. … If you think Donald Trump is going to win, you have to do something about it. Otherwise, you’ve kind of just been lying to people and lying to yourself.

… well, then you have to ask yourself, “What are you here for? What is your job in this? What are you going to feel good about having done or not done on the other side of the election?”

Here, Klein asks exactly the right question, but to the wrong audience. If you believe that Trump is the danger we know he is, then not raising the alarm about that “is an abdication” of what a free press, faith leaders, community leaders, and democrats generally, are “supposed to do.” And if, on January 20, 2025, you are at home watching Chief Justice Roberts administer the oath to Donald J. Trump for a second time (an oath he will again ignore), well, then you have to ask yourself, “What are you here for? What is your job in this? What are you going to feel good about having done or not done on the other side of the election?”

The Iron Dome Is Global – And So Is the Resistance

Naomi Klein

March 2, 2024

Reprinted frpm Portside and Red Pepper

All we have is our solidarity. Our determination. Our resolve. And our shared moral commitment to the preciousness of life. With that, we can build a world with no iron domes. With that we will earn our hope.

When my dear friend Asad Rehman asked me to help close this gathering, his specific instructions were to speak about the political situation today and to do it in a way ‘filled with hope’. A bit of a tall order and I’m not entirely sure I can deliver. Let’s see what we can do instead…. 

The last time I was in London, it was late September. Just five months ago. But five months that feel like a hundred years.

One hundred years of Palestinian parents wailing over their murdered and maimed children. One hundred years of bombed schools and raided hospitals and desecrated mosques. One hundred years of Israeli soldiers making TikToks of their war crimes. One hundred years of teens trained in fascism blocking trucks filled with food. One hundred years of open calls to annihilate more than two million captive, occupied, ghettoized people. One hundred years of giddily expressed plans to turn Gaza into a parking lot. An Israeli beach town. A museum. A slaughterhouse. A buffer zone. One hundred years of fired truth tellers and one hundred years of wilfully obtuse pundits. One hundred years of universities that can’t say ‘Palestine’ and one hundred years of NGOs that won’t say ‘genocide’. One hundred years of failed and vetoed resolutions demanding a ceasefire.



If not hope, then commitment

All of this makes it difficult to deliver that speech filled with hope. What I can muster, what I feel more deeply than ever, is resolve. Commitment. Commitment to the movements that this gathering represents. Movements for true equality, and justice — social, racial, gender, economic and ecological justice. Movements that exist in every country. Movements that have grown with tremendous speed over these past terrible months. Grown not only in the size of marches and blockades but in the depth of their analysis. Grown in their willingness to make connections across movements and issues, and in their willingness to name underlying systems.

If these months have taught us anything, it is that these movements are all we have. In your country as well as mine, there is no moral leadership except the leadership rising up from the grassroots. All we have is one another.

We should pause over this, because it is part of the horror and vertigo of our historical moment. Israel’s annihilatory campaign in Gaza is not the first genocide in modern history. Not the first time openly fascist forces have fused a violent, supremacist ideology with a seemingly limitless commitment to wipe out a people they consider a demographic threat.

The distinctive unity of the global political elites

What is unique, at least since the era of open colonialism and its genocides, is the unity this carnage has inspired among political elites in the Global North, and to some extent beyond it. After all, when fascism rose in Europe the 1930s, it had powerful supporters in our political classes, but it also had powerful opponents.

That is far less true today. All across what passes for a political spectrum, from the rabid far right to the mealy-mouthed centre left, we have witnessed powerful actors putting their partisan differences aside to come together in active support of these crimes against humanity. Far from fracturing our political class, this iteration of fascism has united it: Donald Trump agrees with Joe Biden; Rishi Sunak with Keir Starmer, Emanuel Macron with Marine Le Pen; Justin Trudeau with Giorgia Meloni; Viktor Orbán with Narendra Modi.

And so, we must ask: On what precisely do they all agree? What are they uniting behind? What are they all defending when they speak of Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’?

It’s too simple, I’m afraid, to say they are united in defense of a single state. They are, of course, but they are also united in defense of a shared belief system. Amidst the reality of global economic apartheid and accelerating climate breakdown, they are united in a shared supremacist vision of safety and security for the few. This vision is the flip side of their steadfast refusal to in any way address the underlying drivers of these crises: capitalism, limitless growth, colonialism, militarism, white supremacy, patriarchy.

As Sherene Seikaly puts it, we are ‘In the age of catastrophe’ and ‘Palestine is a paradigm’. 

Israel’s Iron Dome – a global security model

And Israel, a kind of pioneer. For decades now, since giving up on any pretext of a peace process, Israel has pursued its own security and land hunger through an elaborate system of high-tech fences, walls and its so-called Iron Dome shield. Its architects pride themselves on the ability to intercept rockets and missiles and repel all threats. That system of high-tech surveillance and enclosure is a material reality on a particular geography – it is a way of life for Israelis and was a way of slow death for Palestinians long before October 7th.

But in addition to being these things, the Iron Dome is also a model – a super-concentrated and claustrophobic version of the very same model of security to which all Global North governments subscribe, the very same governments that have lined up behind Israel’s genocidal campaign. It’s a model in which the borders of wealthy states – grown wealthy through their own colonial genocides – are protected by their own versions of the Iron Dome. 

Because, in fact, the Iron Dome is global. It stretches along our own fortressed borders, with their lethal fences and walls and detention centres, and it reaches outward into a transnational gulag of offshore migrant detention camps and disease-ridden barges and buoys embedded with saws in the Rio Grande and coast guards that watch ships drown in the Mediterranean.

And the Iron Dome also reaches inside our impossibly unequal and unaffordable countries and cities. It is the ballooning police budgets that unleash militarized forces to clear parks of encampments of unhoused people and repress Indigenous blockades against fossil fuel projects, foisted without consent. And these same forces stand ready to put down the next wave of racial justice rebellions, which they know to be inevitable. The Global Iron Dome is also the surveillance nets tracking down whistleblowers and waging war on journalists who dare to tell the truth about our wars and spying, of whom Julian Assange is only the most prominent symbol.

Might will make right

As it is for Israel, this Global Iron Dome is about a belief in the prerogative of states to meet human demands for basic rights and for the basics of life with brutal state violence. A commitment to making people who fall outside of the state’s highly policed and racialized circles of protection disappear – by locking them away, by pushing them further away, by letting them drown. And it is also about claiming the prerogative to meet resistance from the oppressed with lethal force.

Israel’s Iron Dome is extreme because its ethnonationalism and supremacist ideology are so explicit. Yet we should be clear that Israel modelled itself on racist colonial laws, logics and practices borrowed from earlier eras of colonialism forged in and by our own nations, and also that Israel is itself a model: from the start, the Iron Dome was built for export.

We need to understand this because on October 7th, that model and that dome collapsed before the eyes of the world. Hamas’s attack – brutal and horrific – shattered the entire illusion of safety and security for the few that this model embodies. And that terrified not only Israelis, not only Netanyahu’s government – it also shook our own governments to their core.

Because if Israel’s heavily armed walls and fences and drones and dome could not hold, what does that say about our own countries’ illusions of safety and control? It begged the question: If Israel’s Iron Dome could fail, what about all the other Iron Domes? In the face of the mass displacement of people, spurred by endless wars and criminal climate arson and cruel economic policies of immiseration, will they also fail?

I believe that this fear is why our governments have united in such an unprecedented fashion to assert their central belief system: That might will make right. That he who has the most advanced weaponry and the highest walls will succeed in containing and controlling the billions in dispossession and desperation. This belief system, more than anything else, helps explain why the governments of the wealthy world have joined Israel’s revenge frenzy with such unshakable enthusiasm, and why so many have refused, months into this slaughter, to even call for the barest of minimums: a permanent ceasefire.

The security of the gilded bubbles of luxury

They understand that Israel’s unending campaign is also a form of mass communication – that it is a message. And the message is being sent not only by Israel’s government but by every government that has blessed this onslaught – with words, with votes and vetoes at the United Nations, with photo ops, with weapons, with money, and with domestic attacks on Palestine solidarity. The message being broadcast is a simple one: That the gilded bubbles of relative safety and luxury that are dotted across our cruelly divided and fast-warming world will be protected at all costs. Up to and including with genocidal violence.

In the many pillaged parts of our planet, this obscene message has been clearly understood. Gustavo Petro, the courageous president of Colombia, decoded its meaning immediately. Back in October, just a few days into Israel’s onslaught, he stated:

‘The barbarity of consumption based on the death of others leads us to an unprecedented rise of fascism, and therefore, to the death of democracy and freedom. It’s barbarism, or global 1933.’

In Israel’s attack, and the support for it from the governments of the North and from right-wing forces in the South, he also saw a preview of a shared future, writing: ‘What we see in Palestine will also be the suffering in the world of all the peoples of the south [as] the West defends its excessive consumption and its standard of living based on destroying the atmosphere and climate… knowing that it will cause the exodus from the south to the north’.

This system, Petro reminds us, ‘is ready to respond with death’ to ‘defend the consumption bubble of the rich on the planet and not save humanity, whose majority is disposable, like the children of Gaza’.

It is worth reading Petro’s entire statement, which I think is historic, but I’ll skip to the end: ‘We are going to barbarism if we do not change power. The life of humanity, and especially of the people of the south, depends on the way in which humanity chooses the path to overcome the climate crisis…. Gaza is just the first experiment in considering us all disposable’.

All we have is each other

What else is there to say? Perhaps only this: We are hosted here today by War on Want. And the war on want is the only war worth waging, and wage it we must. We either transform this death machine through the just and equitable redistribution of wealth within the boundaries of the earth’s limits – what many at today gathering have referred to as ‘a Global Green New Deal’ – or this nightmare engulfs us all.

All we have is each other. All we have is our movements and the power we build together. All we have is our solidarity. Our determination. Our resolve. And our shared moral commitment to the preciousness of life.

With that, we can build a world with no iron domes. With that we will earn our hope.

This article is taken from a speech delivered virtually by Naomi Klein to Still We Rise festival on 24 February, 2024. Her speech can be viewed in full here starting at 21:30

Naomi Klein is the Faculty of Arts Professor of Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia and the author of The Shock Doctrine (Penguin) and Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (Penguin).

Red Pepper is a quarterly magazine and website of left politics and culture. We’re a socialist publication drawing on feminist, green and anti-racist politics. We seek to be a space for debate on the left, a resource for movements for social justice, and a home for open-minded anti-capitalists.  

We’re a non-profit magazine, and we operate on a shoestring. We think the left needs non-sectarian publications yet unafraid to take a stand, radical yet non-dogmatic, and thoughtful yet orientated on real-world activism. If you think so, too, please consider subscribing to Red Pepper – at whatever price you can afford.

Decoding Project 2025: Inside the

 Heritage Foundation's Vision for the Future

Published Mar 01, 2024 at 4:58 PM EST

Updated Mar 01, 2024 at 5:05 PM EST

By Rakim Brooks

Host of For Justice! With Rakim Brooks, President of the Alliance for Justice

The following is a lightly edited transcript from For Justice! With Rakim Brooks, a Newsweek podcast. You can listen to the full episode here.

Have you all heard about Project 2025? A lot of my friends on the left have been bringing it up to me recently. It's a project of the Heritage Foundation, essentially a presidential transition project, where they're going to attempt to equip the next president—"the next Republican president," they say, as though they don't know who that would be if a Republican were elected—with the tools necessary to wrest control of the government from what they call the "radical left."

The news coverage of Project 2025 has been fairly scathing. It has referred to it as a Christian nationalist document. It's talked about authoritarian impulses. It claims that the project wants to strip the federal government down to the studs, firing thousands—if not tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands—of federal workers just through an executive order. It talks about the motivations really being an extension of the movement to overturn Roe and to continue to protect "the sanctity of the unborn child."

Basically, there has been no positive coverage of Project 2025 on the left.

I would also say, however, that there's been no truly descriptive coverage of Project 2025.

The best article I found thus far came from The Week magazine, which attempted to summarize everything that people have been saying about this project all in one place with various links. And I'd recommend it to you if you just need a quick read. But if you follow those links, I think you gain no greater clarity about the specific plans and how they all work together, which is really a shame because thanks to the Heritage Foundation, the "mandate for leadership," which is what they call Project 2025, is all online. All 30 chapters of it are available to us to read for ourselves.

And so I suddenly had the impulse that maybe our listenership would be interested in knowing what each of these chapters said, or at least in big blocks what it says because it's broken down into four or five distinctive parts.

And so that's what I'm going to do.

In this episode, at least, I'm going to go over the introductory statements of Project 2025. But I'm of the belief that people should read things for themselves. The coverage has been interesting to me. It's certainly alarmed me enough that it led me to this place where I wanted to actually read the document. But if you'll take the time with me, I think we can actually make our own assessments of what this document says in critical detail so that we know exactly what a group like the Heritage Foundation is proposing for our country.

So let's dig in.

The first essay, if you could call it that, is actually a note on Project 2025. It comes to you from the project director, a man named Paul Dans. It starts out and says, "We want you! The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is the conservative movement's unified effort to be ready for the next conservative Administration to govern at 12:00 noon, January 20, 2025. Welcome to the mission. By opening this book, you are now a part of it."

So I guess we're in! We got this keys. All right, let's see: What's this about?

It says, "For conservatives to have a fighting chance to take on the Administrative State and reform our federal government, the work must start now." It continues: "The long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before."

I don't know about you, but this all feels a little overstated.

In any case, it goes on to say, "This book is functionally an invitation for you the reade

Mr. Smith, Mrs. Smith, and Ms. Smith—to come to Washington or support those who can. Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State."

So that's the project. Everybody got that?

"On day one to deconstruct the Administrative State," which apparently has been taken over by "cultural Marxism," and this is the greatest threat to freedom and liberty in our lifetimes. No, not in our lifetimes—as never before. Never before in our history have we seen such a great threat to liberty and freedom since "the long march of Cultural Marxism."

All right. If you're me or anyone like me, you're already very skeptical of this document, because none of this seems to comport with reality. But let's go to the second essay, because that's written by Kevin D. Roberts, who is president of the Heritage Foundation.

I first learned about Kevin D. Roberts just maybe a month ago or so, because there was a great New York Times magazine piece called "Inside the Heritage Foundation's Plans for 'Institutionalizing Trumpism.'" And since I want to keep Trump as far from the White House as possible, the idea that you would institutionalize even his legacy seemed problematic to me, so I had to read this.

\

And there are many concerning parts of that interview—I recommend it to you—but to me the most important was that Roberts really seemed obsessed about the "focus on family policy." And he describes "the motivation to realize that Hungary has to do something, as most countries in the world outside of Africa, have to do to reverse the declining birth rate" as a fundamental concern of the conservative movement.

I just don't understand how that could possibly square with any notion of limited government. I do not want the United States government to be concerned with the national birth rate. That is really Handmaid's Tale type of stuff.

Rakim H. D. Brooks is the president of Alliance for Justice and host of For Justice! With Rakim Brooks. Available everywhere your favorite podcasts are heard:

Corvallis Celebrates Red Books Day



by  Mike Beilstein

The Corvallis, OR Chapter of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism along with the Oregon State University Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a Red Books Day celebration on February 21, 2024 on the OSU campus on the 176^th anniversary of the publication of Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto.  

The event started with singing Solidarity Forever.  Five volunteers from the Platypus group and three from the local Pacific Green Party Chapter alternated reading aloud most of the Manifesto.  Section III on Socialist and Communist Literature was omitted for time consideration.  Copies of the Manifesto, Andreas Malm’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline, old copies of Monthly Review and a variety of books on progressive political activity were available to give to attendees.  Eight copies of the Manifesto and seven of Malm’s book, plus a few other items were distributed to students who stopped to listen.

This is the second year that groups have cooperated to host a Red Books Day celebration in Corvallis.  The event was started in India in 2020.  It is currently celebrated by tens of thousands of people in dozens of countries around the world.   https://redbooksday.org/  



'Move the Money' is on the Move!

‘Move the Money’: Detroit votes

for slashing bloated Pentagon budget

Reprinted from People's World

February 28, 2024 12:08 PM CST  BY C.J. ATKINS

Photo via U.S. Peace Council

DETROIT—Following in the footsteps of neighboring Hamtramck, Detroit has become the biggest U.S. city so far to pass a “Move the Money” resolution. The measure, approved unanimously by City Council on Tuesday, calls on the U.S. Congress and the president to shift public money away from the military to fund social services.

The Michigan Peace Council, a major backer of the campaign to win the resolution, praised the council vote, which came on the same day that nearly 101,000 Michiganders voted “Uncommitted” in the Democratic primary to oppose President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s brutal war against Gaza.

“These two victories in Michigan (Detroit and Hamtramck) are just the beginning of building coalitions that will personify the people’s concerns about excessive military spending,” Michigan Peace Council Chair Bill Meyer told People’s World.

“The Gaza genocide woke the world up,” Meyer said. “People are UNCOMMITED to warmongering!”

The text of the resolution, which was submitted by Councillor Mary Waters, slams the Pentagon’s nearly $1 trillion budget. It points out that this total surpasses the arms spending of China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, the U.K., Germany, France, South Korea, Japan, and Ukraine—combined.

Cutting even just $100 billion from the bloated military budget could pay for the clean energy and childcare components of the Build Back Better initiative, power every household in the U.S. with solar energy, hire a million elementary teachers, pay for free college tuition for most students, and provide $700 inflation-busting offset checks to every household.

The People Over Pentagon Act of 2023, co-sponsored by Michigan’s U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Shri Thanedar, calls for just such a $100 billion reallocation.

Recalling the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the resolution says: “A nation that continues, year after year, to spend more money on military defense than programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Detroit has already blazed a trail when it comes to pro-peace measures; in November 2023, the City Council approved a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. With passage of the Move the Money resolution, it is joining Hamtramck in making even more advanced demands.

In addition to putting pressure on Congress and the White House, the latest resolution also commits the city to holding “in-depth public hearings” to let residents themselves make clear what basic human needs are not being met “because of government appropriations for the Pentagon.”

A Michigan Peace Council statement issued Tuesday observed: “Some feel that the recent wars supported and funded by the U.S. government, especially the genocidal war in Gaza, has created a groundswell of opposition to military spending.

“That money should be better spent helping people in our own country rather than killing people around the world,” the group said.

The nationwide campaign to pass Move the Money resolutions was initiated several years ago by the U.S. Peace Council; the Michigan Peace Council is the state chapter of USPC. Both are linked to the international anti-war movement as part of the World Peace Council.

C.J. Atkins is the managing editor at People's World. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from York University in Toronto and has a research and teaching background in political economy and the politics and ideas of the American left. In addition to his work at People's World, C.J. currently serves as the Deputy Executive Director of ProudPolitics.

by Uncle Devin

“In national news the official poverty rate remains steady at 11.5% with 37.9 million people in poverty in 2022 according to the federal Census Bureau. Despite these numbers more than 23s of the US House of Representatives voted in favor of increasing the Pentagon’s budget to a record 886 billion in annual military spending.” – Uncle Devin

Award-winning artist, Uncle Devin, ignites a fiery debate with his upcoming single, “Move the Money.” Inspired by the iconic 1986 anthem “The Word” by DC’s Junkyard Band and released by Def Jam Records, Uncle Devin challenges the current allocation of resources in the U.S. government, urging a shift from military spending towards bolstering vital social programs.“Junkyard’s ‘The Word’ was one of the most important socially conscious songs in Go-Go history. Created by a group of teenagers and pre-teens from the Barry Farms Community in Southeast DC, their message still resonates today,” says Uncle Devin. “ ‘Move the Money’ is my way of saying thanks by continuing their work,” the DC resident says.

\

With echoes of the teenage band’s bold lyrics that questioned President Reagan’s priorities, Uncle Devin’s “Move the Money” continues in Junkyard’s tradition by taking aim at contemporary issues through the indigenous DC sound of Go-Go music, sparking vital conversations about national budgets and where our collective needs genuinely lie.

On February 1, 2024, I released a single called “Move the Money,” and the music video is now available. Here are some important facts mentioned in my song. The US has over 750 military bases in over 80 countries, while there are millions of people in this country in poverty and homeless. And both the Democrats and Republicans have jointly given the Pentagon a record $886 billion in annual spending in 2023. That’s ridiculous. Also, The Pentagon failed an audit for the sixth straight time last year. In fact, they have never passed an audit and can’t account for half of his resources, nearly $1.9 trillion. Now, fighting against the US military complex is an integral part of the civil rights movement that our children must learn. For example, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee helped to defeat the draft through the slogan Hell No, we won’t Go. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, under the leadership of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, called the US the greatest purveyor of violence in the world and spoke out against their out-of-control military spending. However, many bourgeois politicians, including many of the inept Congressional Black Caucus, turned their back on this history. It’s time to make them move the money. All 245 U.S. House of Representatives and 34 Senate seats are up for election in November. They don’t deserve our vote if they don’t move the money.\

Thank you, Uncle Devin

For more information about New York City’s campaign to Move the Money, go to Move the Money–NYC.

UCF students successfully kick Lockheed Martin

Event off campus

By Cassia Laham

March 7, 2024

Reprinted from Fight Back! News

University of Central Florida SDS shuts down Lockheed Martin event on campus. | Fight Back! News/Cassia Laham

Orlando, FL – 25 students gathered at the University of Central Florida, March 4, to protest the presence of Lockheed Martin on their campus. UCF Students for a Democratic Society organized the rally outside of what was meant to be a “Diversity Panel” hosted by the weapons manufacturer, which has supplied weapons to Israel for the ongoing occupation and war against the people of Palestine.

As they rallied outside of the Career Services and Experiential Learning Building, student protesters chanted, “Free Palestine!” and “Israel bombs, Lockheed supplies, end the Gaza genocide!” A large banner held be several activists read,” Lockheed Martin bombs hospitals.”

The group listened to various impassioned speakers who denounced the Israeli occupation, the ongoing slaughter of the Palestinian people, and the attempt by Lockheed Martin to pinkwash its reputation by recruiting a more “diverse” workforce to its blood-stained ranks. The students of UCF didn’t buy it.

“By selling weapon systems and aircraft to Israel, Lockheed Martin isn’t just complicit, but an active enabler of Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” said Marcus Polzer, co-founder and lead organizer with UCF SDS. “And if UCF actively help Lockheed Martin’s recruitment of employees thought the College Work Experience Program, then our university is complicit in genocide. Get these war profiteers off of our campus.”

Within an hour of the start of the protest, a major victory was announced.

It was confirmed that Lockheed Martin had moved its event off campus. It was not clear whether it was the University of Central Florida that gave in to the students’ demands and kept Lockheed Martin from meeting on college ground, or whether the weapons manufacturer itself was scared off by the students’ presence and promise of further direct action.

“This is a great victory for the students of UCF,” said Polzer. “And proof that direct action, ongoing protests, and organizing on the ground, work. And we will continue to agitate for justice on this campus, and for a free Palestine.”

#OrlandoFL #AntiWarMovement #International #MiddleEast #Palestine #StudentMovement #SDS #UCFSDS

Corvallis Celebrates Red Books Day



by  Mike Beilstein

The Corvallis, OR Chapter of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism along with the Oregon State University Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a Red Books Day celebration on February 21, 2024 on the OSU campus on the 176^th anniversary of the publication of Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto.  

The event started with singing Solidarity Forever.  Five volunteers from the Platypus group and three from the local Pacific Green Party Chapter alternated reading aloud most of the Manifesto.  Section III on Socialist and Communist Literature was omitted for time consideration.  Copies of the Manifesto, Andreas Malm’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline, old copies of Monthly Review and a variety of books on progressive political activity were available to give to attendees.  Eight copies of the Manifesto and seven of Malm’s book, plus a few other items were distributed to students who stopped to listen.

This is the second year that groups have cooperated to host a Red Books Day celebration in Corvallis.  The event was started in India in 2020.  It is currently celebrated by tens of thousands of people in dozens of countries around the world.   https://redbooksday.org/  

STOP ISRAEL: HANDS OFF RAFAH! STOP THE SLAUGHTER!



Asalaamu alaykum and Ramadan Mubarak: May those beginning Ramadan month of fasting today find solace with friends and family during these tragic times and may our shared hope and commitment help bring peace AND liberation to Palestine soon!

Report Back: 

CODEPINK IWD March/Rally for Gaza on the Golden Gate Bridge

by Toby Blomé, 

Photos by Martha Hubert

Martha Hubert’s Great Photos.

SF Chronicle Article with Photos & Video

(NBC & KQED also covered our action)

About 100 people converged to join our CODEPINK International Women’s Day (IWD) march/rally for Gaza yesterday on the Golden Gate Bridge. People came from as far away as Fairfield and Sunnyvale. As a feminist organization, our overlying theme on IWD was that reproduction rights must always include the right of mothers and fathers everywhere to raise their families in a safe environment, without warfare or violence, with sufficient food, clean water, housing, jobs, education and healthcare essential to thrive. FREE PALESTINE!

It was a beautifully diverse crowd in terms of age, sex, and ethnicity and included many families with children of all ages. We were united in our call for an Immediate & Permanent Ceasefire, a FREE PALESTINE, and an End to U.S. funding and aiding of the Israeli-led genocide in Gaza. We were clearly a crowd moved by our humanity. STOP U.S. Complicity in Genocide!

Most importantly, we collectively recognized the urgent need for adequate and speedy delivery of sufficient food, water and other essential needs to ward off the pending mass deaths expected in Gaza from severe famine and dehydration. “Stop Bombing Children" and "Free Palestine" were recurrent chants.

Some marchers carried boxes labeled “Flour” over their heads to symbolize the ongoing desperate need for food, and to memorialize the “Gaza Flour Massacre” incident, on Feb. 29, when Israeli Defense Forces shot at hundreds of hungry people getting sacs of flour off of an aid truck near Gaza City, leaving hundreds dead or wounded: Update on Flour Massacre.

(Most were NOT killed by stampede, as the Israeli propaganda machine was spewing out.)

Youth led passionate chanting throughout the walk on the bridge, especially when pedestrians passed. And, as Kathe Burick expressed, there often seemed to be an overwhelming non-stop flood of horns honking in solidarity with our messages!

Other visuals included an abundance of small & large Palestinian flags, dozens of keffiyehs and many creative signs, including some large ones that expressed our key demands and the dire conditions of GAZA:

-Stop Funding Israel

-No Tax $$ 4 Genocide

-2 Million Hungry

-9,000 Women Killed

-30,000 Killed

-Food Not Bombs

-FREE PALESTINE

-Stop Zionism

Special thanks to David Solnit for lending his beautiful “seen everywhere” signs!

Martha Hubert did some great chalking on the bridge, in spite of harassment by bridge security, and again later near the plaza. Good mainstream media coverage helped us reach thousands more, including great photos and video by SF Chronicle! The day closed with an enthusiastic rally demanding justice in Palestine, that included chants, and a closing song: "Peace, Salaam, Shalom."

We made many new connections to Bay Area activists as our collective effort to seek justice in Palestine grows! Rise Up People, Rise Up!

It was a most successful day!

Friday, March 8, 2024

THE VIETNAM WOMEN'S UNION:

AN EFFECTIVE MASS ORGANIZATION

Harry Targ

(Originally posted Sunday, April 17, 2011)

 Vietnamese Women’s Club. Photo by Paul KrehbielWe arrived in time to be ushered into a meeting of a rural Vietnamese women’s club, just outside of Hue. Discussion among the 75 single women was animated, self-assured, and clearly engaged. Members listened to each other, respected what each had to say, and evidenced not one iota of shyness even though their discussion of women’s health, environmental, and other immediate issues was being observed by eight American guests and a Vietnam Women’s Union official from Hanoi.

We had already been to a briefing at the Center for Women and Development’s new building, and the Women’s Museum in Hanoi. We had visited Peace House, a shelter for Vietnamese women victimized by sexual trafficking, part of the CWD project to provide shelter, training, and advocacy for women victimized by domestic violence or sexual trafficking. All of these venues-- the CWD, the Women’s Museum, the rural single women’s club, the Peace House shelter project-- were part of the national activities of the Vietnam Women’s Union. The VWU was clearly well- organized at the center, clear of purpose and commitment, and connected to regional and local bodies of women throughout the country.

Our introduction to the VWU was part of a 14-day educational tour of Vietnam in March, 2011 organized by the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) and hosted by the Vietnam Women’s Union. In addition to our request to receive information about the VWU, we expressed interest in briefings on the Vietnamese policy known as Doi Moi, or the social market economy, and the lingering long-term impacts on the Vietnamese people of the 10-year use of Agent Orange during the American war. These issues and more were covered on our travels, briefings, museum visits, and conversations with Vietnamese people. The focus of this essay is the VWU.

The Vietnam Women’s Union, one of six major mass organizations in the country, was founded in 1930 just before the Indochinese Communist Party. In socialist theory and practice, mass organizations are designed to mobilize major populations who require and are committed to social change in their societies. While their ideas and programs parallel those of local Communist parties, they are committed to meeting the needs of workers, women, youth, farmers, war veterans, and others whether they are members of political parties or not. Also effective mass organizations require both leadership and authentic and active participation from the grassroots.

As far as we could tell, the VWU is a model mass organization. It has levels of activity and participation at the national and provincial levels as well as in districts and small village communes. There are an estimated 13 million VWU members. As indicated in a VWU pamphlet: “Since its foundation, VWU has transformed itself fully into a women’s social-political and developmental organization, which is mandated to protect women’s legitimate rights and strive for gender equality.”

Levels of organization of the Vietnamese Women’s Union consist of a National Congress, a Central Executive Committee, a Presidium and provincial, district, and communal organizations. The VWU has 16 departments including communication and education, family and social affairs, international relations, ethnic and religious affairs, law and policy, and departments overseeing museums, a newspaper, and publishing. Our tour was organized by one of the departments, Peace Tours.

The VWU emphasizes organizational tasks ranging from supporting and building women’s skills and autonomy at the local level to greater political influence at the national level. The commitment to goals which were identified as critical for the recent period, 2007-2012, were reflected in what we saw. These included raising women’s consciousness, knowledge, and capacity, promoting gender equality at all levels of society, promoting economic development, building the VWU as a national organization, and building networks of relationships with progressive organizations around the world.

VWU short-term goals, identified in their literature seemed plausible based on our brief observation. These included targeting 70% of poor women for support “… to reduce poverty and eliminate hunger,” and “supporting more than 90% of female-headed poor households, with the goal of 40 to 50% escaping from poverty.”

One of the VWU departments, the Center for Women and Development, concentrates particularly on giving support to victims and overcoming violence and sexual trafficking of women. Peace House, with aid from overseas NGOs, was opened in March, 2007, to construct a model shelter for abused Vietnamese women. A CWD report indicated that “The Peace House has supported women and children who suffered from domestic violence from all over the country. The numbers of women and children receiving the services of the Peace House are increasing and after leaving the Peace House they are new persons, more independent and able to protect themselves and their children.”

Reflecting on guided tours such as the CCDS visit to Vietnam can have profound long-term impacts on participants, even though it is recognized that such tours are designed to show host successes while minimizing problems or organizational deficits. However, among the indisputable strengths of the VWU are the following:

1.VWU is truly a mass organization in the best sense of that term. It carries out policies representing the interests of a large percentage of women in Vietnamese society at all levels--from the rural commune to the nation.

2.A fundamental component of all VWU work is the belief that there is dignity in each member. Each Vietnamese woman has the right to fulfill her life to the full limit of societal resources and to be an active agent in that fulfillment.

3.Government, party, and mass organization, all have as their uppermost obligation serving the people. This means that these entities continue to struggle to overcome class exploitation, gender oppression, and racial and ethnic discrimination.

Several of the tour participants only partially in jest wondered if progressives in the United States could hire Vietnam Women’s Union organizers to help us reorder institutions and policies in the United States.

Buy this book in honor of International Women's Month!

click HERE to purchase

Listen to January's 4th Monday discussion:

Consequences of the 2024 Elections: For Democracy, Racism, Workers, War, the Environment, Healthcare, Patriarchy and Cultural Diversity

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErceGtrjMuHNYZBKAo0a2HVxvBn1NbPDp4 

Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements

From Void to Hope

By Joan Braune

This book is based on the premise that understanding fascism is crucial for defeating it.

Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements suggests fascism must be understood according to two “dimensions.” First, fascism is a social movement seeking power, always already connected to sources of power. Hence, fascism cannot be defeated by policing it as a crime problem, nor therapeutically treating it as a pathology of mental health. Second, fascists have cognitive and emotional needs they are seeking to fulfill through their participation in the movement, but the presence of these motivations must be held in tension with the fact that fascists are responsible for their choices and that these individual motivations also exist in a wider social context of capitalism and systems of supremacy.

The book opens by examining some psychological elements of recruitment and disengagement from fascist movements, before addressing broader social narratives, concluding with the limitations of an approach that is grounded in the national security state that relies on individualized, perpetrator-centered interventions. Rejecting centrist paradigms that see fascism as “extremism” or “accelerationism,” Braune argues that fascism must be addressed in its specificity and uniqueness as an ideology and movement. Ultimately, she argues, fascism can only be defeated by countervailing social movements that not only demand radical social change but offer alternative spaces of belonging, community care, and the search for meaning.



Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements is a philosophical contribution to antifascist theory and practice that will be appreciated by academics, students, and activists concerned about fascism today. https://www.routledge.com/

New releases and initiatives from Hard Ball Press

http://www.hardballpress.com/index.html

Children, did you know that you have real superpowers?

It’s true! Even if you are young, even if you are small, you and

your friends and schoolmates have the power to make the world a

better place.

Want to know how to release your powers? Read Little Meena and the

Big Swim/ La Pequeña Meena Y El Gran Nado and you will see that

when many little people all get together and speak in one voice, big

people have to listen. And change.

It is called Solidarity/ Solidaridad!

Release: June, 2024

_ _ _ _

Hard Ball Press is helping preserve indigenous languages through

partnering with the Maya Book Project. Little Heroes author Andy

Carter has released his wonderful children's book Margarito's Forest

in English-Mam and English-K'iche, the two most common indigenous

languages spoken by the Maya.

In Guatemala, the Ministry of Education, in partnership with the

Maya Book Project, is including the Spanish/K’iche and the

Spanish/Mam editions in their indigenous bilingual curriculum.

Children in schools across the country will be able to practice

their native language.

In addition, Little Heroes Press has released two new editions: Mam/

English and K’iche’/English. We published these versions for

children in North America to help Maya children (and parents!)

practice their indigenous language.

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 a new topic. We can invite guests or 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 a point you would like to make or a guest to invite, send an email to Carl Davidson, [email protected]

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

China: peoples congress, expanding economy, world stage

SEP's Fourth Monday in April

 fed4mr.org

Purchiase here