End to U.S. aid to Israel, support Palestinian self-determination
By Richard Becker

(Adapted from a presentation at a Party for Socialism and Liberation public forum in San Francisco on Sept. 23)

On Sept. 23, the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in his capacity as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, submitted an application to the United Nations for the recognition of the State of Palestine as the 194th country in the U.N. The U.S. and Israeli governments – both of which officially claim to be in favor of a Palestinian state – denounced the application, threatening multiple retaliation if the PA sought membership in the UN as an independent state.

In a classic example of double-speak, U.S. President Barack Obama said that if Palestinian statehood “comes to the Security Council, we would object very strongly, precisely because we think it would be counterproductive. We don’t think it would actually lead to the outcome that we want, which is a two-state solution.” In other words, if the U.N. actually accepted Palestine as a state – with Israel having long been recognized as such – that would be “counterproductive” to “the outcome that we want, which is a two-state solution.”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, echoing countless other corporate media commentators and U.S. officials, said on September 19: “At issue for the United States and much of the world this week, a showdown over the Middle East. The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas is vowing to submit a formal application for statehood to the United Nations’ Security Council, a move that could send shockwaves through the peace process [our emphasis] and have serious implications for the U.S. relationships with Israel and the Arab world. “

Blitzer wasn’t trying to be funny when he talked about this step sending “shockwaves through the peace process.” But the reality is that the negotiations between U.S., Israeli and Palestinian leaders over the past two decades have amounted to little more than a prolonged bad joke for the Palestinians.

A “Peace Process” that is neither

The negotiations were never really about “peace” and there hasn’t been even the pretense of a “process” for more than two years. Conditions for Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza have sharply deteriorated over the past 20 years. During the same time, the number of Israeli settlers living on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank has tripled, from 200,000 to 600,000.

Negotiations broke off due to Israel’s refusal to halt settlement building. Israel continually seizes more Palestinian land to build and expand settlements in the West Bank. All the while, Israeli leaders cynically repeat the tired refrain, “Israel wants peace but cannot find a partner for peace.” Only if you change the spelling from “peace” to “piece” can you get a true picture of what the Israeli leaders really mean. They want this piece, then that piece and then another piece of Palestinian land.

Even former president Bill Clinton, no friend of the Palestinian people, felt compelled to say after the Sept. 23 UN speeches: “Netanyahu does not want negotiations… he’s just not going to give up the West Bank’.

The “Palestine Papers,” leaked by the Al-Jazeera network in January proved the real outlook of the Israeli leaders beyond any doubt. The “Papers” were mainly record of talks between U.S., Israeli and PA negotiators in 2008.

At one point, the PA negotiators expressed willingness to capitulate on virtually every issue – Israeli control of borders, water resources and airspace, retention of settlement blocs in the West Bank, no right of return for refugees, no Jerusalem as the capital – really a surrender from the Palestinian point of view. And what was the Israeli government’s response? Then Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni replied to the PA negotiators’ offer of surrender on all major points: “We do not like this suggestion because it does not meet our demands.” In typical condescending colonialist fashion, she added, “Probably it was not easy for you to think about it, but I really appreciate it.”

Describing the reality of the “peace process,” former PLO adviser, Michael Tarazy said: “We are negotiating about sharing a pizza and in the meantime Israel is eating it.”

The deep frustration of Palestinians over two decades of going backwards, and the humiliating details revealed in the Palestine Papers were clearly factors in the PA’s decision to make its bid for UN recognition now.

A long struggle for recognition

Palestine was incorporated into the British Empire following the end of World War I in 1918. The British colony of Palestine was partitioned by a vote of the UN General Assembly on November 29, 1947. Fifty-five percent was awarded to what was to become the State of Israel, and 44 percent to what was supposedly to become a Palestinian Arab state. In the war that followed the Palestinian and other Arab forces were defeated by the better-armed, financed and more numerous Zionist military.

By the Fall of 1948, Israel controlled 78 percent of Palestine, the West Bank had been annexed by Jordan through a secret deal with the Zionist leaders, and Gaza was under Egyptian administration. More than 750,000 Palestinians had been driven out by means of terror to make way for an exclusivist Israeli state, and Palestine seemed to have disappeared from the map.

In the 1967 Six Day War, Israel conquered the remaining 22 percent of Palestine and parts of Syria and Egypt as well. Instead of ending the Palestinian struggle, however, the 1967 war spurred the creation of a mass-based Palestinian resistance, and the transformation of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The 1974 Arab League summit designated the PLO as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and reaffirmed their right to establish an independent state.” The PLO has had observer status at the United Nations as a “non-state entity” since 22 November 1974, which entitles it to speak in the UN General Assembly but not to vote.

The State of Palestine was proclaimed in exile in Algiers on 15 November 1988, when the PLO National Council adopted the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. At the time of the 1988 declaration, the PLO did not exercise control over any territory. The declaration in 1988 came in the midst of the massive Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, that lasted from late in 1987 until 1991.

After the Declaration of Independence, the United Nations General Assembly officially “acknowledged” the proclamation and voted to use the designation “Palestine” instead of “Palestine Liberation Organization” when referring to the Palestinian permanent observer.

In 1993, the Palestinian National Authority was created as an outcome of the Oslo “Peace” Accords, orchestrated by the Clinton administration. The PA came to administer parts of the West Bank and Gaza, but Israeli occupation and control has continued down to the present.

Palestine and the upheavals in the Arab World

That the U.S. response to the application for statehood could have “serious implications” for its relations with the Arab world points to the main reason why the Obama administration and its allies have brought such enormous pressure to bear on the PA and Abbas not to go through with its application.

The bid for recognition as a state by the U.N. comes in a year of mass upheavals across the Arab World. Washington is deeply worried about how a veto of the Palestinian application will impact U.S. attempts to “manage” the crisis there.

The Palestinian struggle is deeply felt by people across the region and throughout most of the world, especially in the oppressed countries which suffered under colonialism and see Israel as a blatant example of the continuation of European colonialist rule.

The standing ovations and cheers were not so much for Abbas as an individual, but an expression of the broad and deep international support for the Palestinian people.

Did the U.S. corporate media respond to this outpouring of support by reporting that the international community stands with the Palestinian people? Not a chance. “International community” has a particular meaning in mass media here: It is the U.S., its allies and whatever puppet governments that can be lined up against whatever country is currently being targeted, whether it’s Iraq, Iran, Yugoslavia, Libya or Afghanistan .

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu followed with a speech which he started by saying, “I’m not here for applause” which wasa good move since he didn’t get anything like the reception Abbas had received less than an hour earlier. He said that he was “here to speak the truth,” then proceeded with a speech in which virtually every sentence was a blatant lie, starting with his portrayal of Israel – which has been in state of perpetual offensive war since its founding in 1948 – as simplywanting peace.

First there must be peace, Netanyahu demanded, then there could be a Palestinian state. In other words, the Palestinians must first surrender, then negotiations could supposedly begin. He finished by calling on the U.N, not to grant recognition to a Palestinian state.

Just a few weeks earlier, the U.N. accepted the state of South Sudan within a few days of its independence, a step which fit in with the U.S./British strategy of breaking up the Sudan into more digestible pieces.

In his equally dishonest General Assembly speech the previous day, Obama , too, called for the U.N. not to accept the State of Palestine application. But this is nothing new for U.S. governments.

Until 1991, the U.S. refused any and all negotiations with the Palestinians. And since the negotiations began, the U.S. has never functioned as the “honest broker,” but instead has been Israel’s prime funder and supplier of weapons, as it seized more and more West Bank territory, and made war against the people of Lebanon and Gaza. It is well-documented that the U.S. has not been any kind of neutral party but instead a partner with Israel in the negotiations.

The current frontrunner among 2012 Republican presidential candidates, Rick Perry tried to one-up Obama with a blatantly racist statement in support of the Israeli position: “The Obama policy of moral equivalency, which gives equal standing to the grievances of Israelis and Palestinians, including the orchestrators of terrorism, is a dangerous insult.”

Palestinian controversy over statehood application

There has been a debate within the Palestinian community over the application for statehood. This mainly revolved around the borders of the state proposed by Abbas in his speech today: A West Bank/Gaza state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

All the main parties, or factions as they are sometimes called, who are members of the PLO supported this initiative, but not all with the same motivations. These include Fatah (the governing party of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank,) the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front and the Palestine People’s Party (formerly the Communist Party), as well as the Palestinian National Initiative, led by Mustafa Barghouti. There were numerous large demonstrations of support across the West Bank on September 23.

Hamas, the governing party in Gaza, made statements opposing the UN bid: “We have reservations about the United Nations because we feel the institution is controlled by the Americans and others.” Hamas representatives stated that they had not been consulted, and that a West Bank/Gaza state did not represent justice for the Palestinian people.

This is also the view of a number of other organization, many of them part of the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions movement, inside and outside of Palestine. Those in opposition argued that the “two-state solution” is neither just nor viable for the Palestinians, and that U.N. acceptance of Palestinian statehood could be seen as entrenching this “solution,” and negating the right of return for the 6 million plus Palestinian refugees.

Kayid al-Ghoul, a leader of the PFLP, which has long stood for the right of return as the most fundamental and anchoring demand of the Palestinian struggle, said on Sept. 18: “We support the Palestinian leadership’s plan to go to the U.N .because it’s a natural right of the Palestinians and part of the political battle against Israel. Regardless of the outcome, this step should be part of the political battle we fight against occupation. It will also be an opportunity to enlarge the circle of solidarity with the Palestinian people’s rights, and to expose Israel’s policies and the supportive U.S. policy.”

There are different ways to view the potential achievement of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza – which all the PLO parties and Hamas support. One is to see it as the final goal — that is clearly the perspective of the Fatah leadership.

Another perspective, taken by the more progressive forces in the Palestinian movement is that it could be a step toward the liberation of Palestine as a whole, and the establishment of a democratic state with equal rights for all, in place of the present racist and exclusionary Zionist state.

Palestinian nationalist, Islamic and left forces have argued against the negotiations that the U.S. and Israel have been calling for in recent years. They have argued that under the present conditions such talks could lead only to the creation of Palestinian bantustans on pieces of the West Bank instead of an independent state.

The role of international solidarity

We in the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition stand for the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people who have suffered so much for so long.

Our task is not to take sides in the debate over the tactic of going to the U.N. seeking recognition at this time. Our responsibility is to demand an end to U.S. aid and support that has made Israel into the military power that it is today and made its occupation of Palestine possible.

We demand a halt to the billions of dollars of military aid that flow to Israel every year. We know that nothing that U.S. imperialism does in the Middle East serves any purpose other than profit and empire. And we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their just struggle for true self-determination, including the right of return.

Content may be reprinted with credit to LiberationNews.org.

The statement below was released today by the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a member organization of ANSWER.

10th anniversary of the ANSWER Coalition

Building a nationwide movement for justice during a decade of war, racism and repression

Dear supporter of the ANSWER Coalition,

On September 14, 2001, just three days after the September 11 attacks, the
ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) came into existence and
announced a planned mass demonstration against war and racism for September 29,
2001, in Washington, D.C. The attacks against ANSWER were swift and furious.
Right-wing organizations condemned us as “traitors” and many liberal
organizations said that it was “wrong” and “untimely” to have a demonstration
against the Bush administration.

The people of the United States were still in a state of shock and grief
on September 14, 2001. Behind the scenes, the Bush administration was rapidly
putting into place a plan for military invasion and domestic repression using
the terrible events of September 11 as a pretext. Bush’s announced “war on
terror” was the rationale that the administration hoped would be enough to
silence any opposition. In the days after September 11, Bush’s approval ratings
were at 90 percent.

In a Difficult Moment, September 29 Showed that Mass
Opposition to Bush was Possible

The ANSWER Coalition organized a demonstration of 25,000 people on Sept. 29, 2001, just 18 days after the Sept. 11 attacks, to show mass opposition to Bush’s policy of war abroad and racism at home.

The September 29, 2001, demonstration in
Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania
Avenue in D.C. was a watershed event. People of conscience came
together—under very difficult circumstances—to make clear that they
would not support
the government’s efforts to launch a global war drive abroad and
eviscerate
civil liberties at home. Under the heavy pressure of a national
propaganda
campaign intended to silence dissent, many were told, even by friends
and
allies, that they should not speak out – yet they came. Some of the
students
organizing busses were falsely told by their schools that attending the
demonstration would be dangerous and unsafe—but they too came anyway.

We did not know how many people would come, but knew that it was
imperative that those who were willing, organize against the looming imperial
war drive and domestic repression. As the demonstration grew, we watched the
Plaza fill as people joined to take a stand together. 25,000 people came
despite the intense pressure. The chants rang out from the heart of Washington,
D.C., “We will not be silent!” and “We want justice, we want peace, U.S. out of
the Middle East.” C-Span carried the demonstration and the message went out
throughout the country that resistance and organization was possible.

Including the Issue of Palestine in the U.S. Peace Movement

Seven months later, on April 20, 2002, the ANSWER Coalition organized the
largest demonstration in U.S. history in support of the Palestinian people.
100,000 people marched under the slogan, “Free Palestine, No War on Iraq” just
three weeks after the Israeli re-invasion of the West Bank. That demonstration
was also a major controversy within the peace movement. ANSWER, which at its core
included partnership between non-Arab and Arab-American organizers, refused to
accept the marginalization of the Palestinian struggle. Treating the
Palestinian struggle as a taboo was a shameful legacy of the traditional peace
organizations in the U.S.

Many groups said we should not emphasize the issue of Palestine, claiming
it would “alienate” people. That demonstration marked a turning point. The
struggle of the Palestinian people was raised as a vital part of the movement
for justice and peace in the Middle East. Support for the Palestinian
people is now widespread among many U.S. groups because of this hard-fought
battle in the anti-war movement and others that followed from 2002 to 2005. Today
there are few in the peace movement who would suggest that Palestinian
self-determination can properly be delinked from organizing for a just peace in
the Middle East.

A New Anti-War Movement

As the Bush administration made its plans for war against Iraq, the ANSWER
Coalition announced plans for a mass demonstration on October 26, 2002, in
Washington, D.C.

To the surprise of the administration and the media, 200,000 people
answered that call and a new massive anti-war movement was born.  On January 18, 2003, a half million people
marched again in Washington, D.C. On February 15, 2003, millions took to the
streets in thousands of cities in nearly every country.

In the months and years that followed, hundreds of thousands more came
together as the ANSWER Coalition became the motor for mass actions against the
war in Iraq as well as mass actions in support of the Palestinian people,
against the war in Afghanistan, and the bombing of Libya, the threats against
Iran, and in support of the people of Cuba and Venezuela to develop free from
U.S. sanctions, threats and subversion.

ANSWER
Coalition’s Unique Political and Organizational Perspective

Half a million people marched on Jan. 18, 2003, in opposition to the looming war on Iraq—the largest anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C., since the Vietnam era.

A cornerstone of ANSWER’s approach is to provide in-depth political
analysis from an anti-imperialist framework. We have also stressed the primacy of action, of mobilizing and organizing
people. The ANSWER Coalition has been characterized by a dynamic organizing
style, a sustained level of activity throughout the country, and the inclusion
of hundreds of volunteers who have worked selflessly to build this grassroots
movement. We believe that the people themselves are the decisive factor to
bring about change. We have been distinctive in our orientation towards the
Republicans and Democratic parties. We believe that both parties were
responsible for the war drive and the attacks against civil rights and civil
liberties at home.

The ANSWER Coalition from its inception was distinctive because it was
completely multi-racial and multinational. It made the connection between the
anti-war movement and the struggles against racism and for social and economic
justice. We have fought free speech battles around the country to open the
streets and parkland to all those who wish to speak out.

ANSWER has played a leading role in the fight against racist and religious
profiling, in defense of the Muslim and Arab American communities inside the
United States, and in support of civil rights and civil liberties that are
under attack. We have taken to the streets to defend workers rights, defeat
anti-immigrant bigotry, and to advance the struggle for social and economic
justice. 

There were others who criticized raising issues besides “peace” but we
felt that no U.S. movement could be relevant, inclusive or effective without
doing so.

A
New Era of Organizing Among Active Duty Troops and Veterans

In recent years March Forward!, an affiliate of the ANSWER Coalition, has
brought together anti-war veterans and active-duty service members to fight for
their rights and oppose U.S. imperialist wars of aggression. March Forward! organizers
have worked to defend conscientious objectors and demand justice for the
families of military members whose lives have been destroyed by war. These
current and former military personnel have taken the risk of speaking out and
organizing a powerful movement in opposition to the generals and the Pentagon.

A
Decade of Consistent Organizing Creates a New Generation of Leaders and
Activists

Numerous organizations have come and gone in the last decade. The ANSWER
Coalition is still here. In fact, the Coalition has vibrant chapters all over
the country active in education, outreach and mobilizing. A whole generation of
young activists who came into political life during the past decade have become
trained, skilled organizers through their experience with the ANSWER Coalition.
They continue as a generation of young leaders working not only in the anti-war
movement but in critical progressive social movements throughout the United States.

Your support has been crucial. Now, for this
important and remarkable 10th anniversary, we ask that you make a
special donation. Please become a
sustaining donor.

We couldn’t have
done this without the support of tens of thousands of committed people of
conscience who have organized together with us to build this movement. Please make a
generous donation now to support our continued struggle against war and racism.

Sincerely,

ANSWER Coalition

Click here for details about demonstrations

The same global powers that used the force of arms to colonize Africa, suction out its natural resources and enslave millions of its people are now raining bombs and missiles down on the continent’s largest oil producer.

A great irony in the vicious and yet cowardly attack on Libya is that the same exploiters and enslavers of Africa explain their most recent act of mass violence as motivated by a tender concern for democracy and freedom for Libyans.

On Libya’s eastern border is Egypt, where the U.S. government financed, armed and cheered on the Mubarak dictatorship until the very last days of the tyrant’s hold on power. Even during the people’s uprising at Tahrir Square and elsewhere, the spigot of U.S. “foreign aid” kept flowing to Mubarak. After Israel, Egypt’s torturers were the second-largest recipient of this “aid.”

The U.S. government is at war again. How could they get away with launching another war when they tell us the country is so broke that vital public services must be slashed and public workers must be fired in massive numbers?

The people of the United States are opposed to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and would openly oppose a third U.S. war in a Muslim country. So President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Gates are going out of the way to assure the country that all the bleeding will be exclusively from Libyans.

When U.S./NATO forces destroyed Serbia and broke up Yugoslavia in the 1999 aerial war, they dropped 23,000 bombs and missiles on Yugoslavs and not one U.S. soldier died.

As they did in the 19th century, the colonialists—who have now morphed into modern-day imperialists—bribed or
coerced some indigenous elites to function as their partners and clients. Today, the so-called Arab League provided some early cover to mask the imperialist character of the operation.

As U.S. planes drop terror bombs in the center of Tripoli, CIA-operated drone aircrafts are carrying out missile attacks on villages in Pakistan, and Pentagon forces are bombing the people of Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops still occupy Iraq after a war that took 1 million Iraqi lives.

The dominant force practicing terrorism in the world today is the U.S. government, the Pentagon and the CIA.

Washington’s goal in Libya is to have the U.S.-backed rebel leadership of Libya’s civil war take power in all of Libya or, as an alternative, to become a new governing power in the oil-rich eastern part of the country.

The cheerleaders for this “democracy movement” went from right-wing Republicans to some liberal Democrats. It is a repeat of the political
alignment that led to the first Iraq war in 1991 and the Yugoslav war in 1999. In this case too, they were joined by some in the U.S. anti-war movement, including some self-described “socialists,” desiring to show their “democratic” credentials and wanting to accommodate to liberal mainstream public opinion. By their cheerleading for a rebellion whose leaders demanded foreign intervention, and focusing all their fire on the Libyan
government, they only contributed to confusion in the weeks leading up to the onslaught against Libya. They are embarrassed about their position now that the imperial carnage is clear for all to see.

The United States needs a real anti-imperialist movement—a movement that can resist the lies and demonization schemes that the corporate media churns out to justify military aggression. That’s why the ANSWER Coalition is mobilizing a movement in the streets that extends a hand of solidarity to the people of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine who have both suffered and resisted the terrorism of the greatest war machine in human history. Please join us in the streets in coming days in demonstrations across the country. Click here to see an up-to-date list of upcoming demonstrations.

For analysis and information on U.S. strategy toward Libya, read the articles below:

After Libya declares ceasefire, U.S. government lays bare its imperialist ambitions

U.S. progressives must tell truth about Libya and impact of foreign intervention

If you are planning an action in your
city, click here to submit your information.

In the last few hours, the Pentagon has repositioned naval and air forces directly off Libya’s coast in preparation for an escalated military intervention against the government there.

In recent days, the United States, United Nations Security Council, Britain, and the European Union have all imposed sanctions on the Gaddafi government, and there is now open discussion of enforcing a no-fly zone. British Prime Minister David Cameron is discussing the “use of military assets,” while the U.S. and French governments said “nothing is off the table.”

The civil war in Libya is not foreign-inspired, but imperialist countries are now attempting to take advantage of the situation and resolve it in their favor. U.S. and British imperialism are focused, above all, on having a Libyan government that can guarantee them steady control of its oil resources. Libya has the largest oil reserves in Africa, amounting to 47 billion barrels. If it could, the Pentagon would undoubtedly like to set up military bases on Libyan soil.

“Top military officials in Washington have also been looking at other options, including ‘safe zones’ for people sheltering from the regime, securing ports, airports and oil fields and providing guarantees for an attempt to set up a new government,” states the British-based Financial Times.

The recent escalation by the U.S. government is in the direction of military intervention. These are dangerous provocations, which threaten to rapidly escalate the civil war in Libya. All countries rightly consider the imposition of no-fly zones to be acts of war that directly violate national sovereignty.

It is essential that all anti-war and progressive people in the United States stand together right now to oppose U.S. military intervention. No-fly zones and other acts of foreign intervention aim to bring control over Libya.

Don’t believe humanitarian pretenses for intervention

It was reported today that Saudi Arabia began sending tanks to Bahrain to help suppress the youth calling for the king’s removal. They could not make such a brazen military move without the consent of the United States government, which, as the New York Times admitted this weekend, is carefully “consulting” the Gulf monarchs. How is it possible the same government sending tanks to repress democracy in one country could intervene on behalf of it elsewhere? It is not.

While the U.S. government supports the Saudi suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain, it is offering military support for the “pro-democracy” forces in Libya. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared a willingness to “offer any type of assistance.”

The U.S. government, sometimes working through the United Nations, has used “humanitarian” pretenses time and again to initiate military actions that lead to wider war. The Iraq and Afghanistan occupations have used a variety of false pretenses: saving ethnic minorities, removing dictators, spreading democracy, defending women’s rights, etc. Each one of these has been a bald-faced lie. The U.S. military does not now, nor has it ever, operated in the interests of peace and democracy. It exists as an institution to protect and expand U.S. geostrategic and economic interests, and is only deployed for that reason.

The U.S. and European governments are deathly afraid of the spreading Arab revolt, which threatens the whole arrangement of power that has delivered profits and power to the imperialist countries for decades. They would want nothing more than to have pro-imperialist boots on the ground in the region, and to recast themselves as “friends” of democracy. But they are afraid of real democracy in the Arab world, which would reassert the region’s self-determination and break the client relationships with the West. The U.S. government hopes only for paper democracy, which will placate those in revolt but preserve all the same economic arrangements.

We should recall: The White House justified both the Korean and Vietnam wars as interventions to help “save democracy” amid civil wars. The first Iraq war purported to “save” the people of Kuwait. The U.S./U.N. intervention in Somalia was authorized to provide “security” for a humanitarian mission, but it simply caused death and destruction. The merciless bombing of Yugoslavia was rationalized as the only way to save Bosnians and Albanians. Murderous U.N. forces have occupied Haiti for years now under the false pretense of “restoring stability.”

In fact, the same “democratic” reasons have been given for every U.S. and European military intervention. It is only though mass deception of this type—manipulating people’s desires to see a freer, more democratic world—that imperialism is able to operate at all. If they disclosed why they were really intervening, no one would support their profit-seeking missions.

How U.S. imperialism views the form of government in Libya and elsewhere

The form of government in any Middle East country is of incidental concern to imperialism. Washington has backed and financed the most vicious dictatorships possible and has been an enemy of the democratic aspirations of the people in the region. The U.S. opposes genuine democracy because a free people would put the Middle East at odds with the colonial-type designs of imperialism and its client regime in Tel Aviv.

While neither Gaddafi nor the opposition refer to their conflict as a civil war, that is what has emerged. Much of the country is under the control of the opposition, but Gaddafi has long enjoyed more support in the capital city of Tripoli, which houses one-third of the country’s population. This can be partly explained by the city’s more developed welfare programs, which have been financed from the country’s vast oil revenue. Those oil fields are largely in the eastern part of the country, which has been the center of the revolt. It is not possible to determine from a distance the depth of allegiance to the government among the social base that has traditionally supported the Gaddafi government.

The revolt in Libya against the government of Gaddafi quickly took on aspects of civil war as major sectors of the Libyan state apparatus—including military, police, and security units from the regime—broke away from the Gaddafi government. In fact, these forces are the leadership.

The revolt, however, is not homogeneous. The National Libyan Council, which controls Benghazi and other oil-rich cities in the East, appears divided internally. Two of Gaddafi’s former ministers, of justice and of the interior, claim to lead the Council and have issued statements declaring an interim government and a military march against Tripoli. Other former high officials in the Gaddafi regime, including the Ambassador to the UN, are appealing for U.S. and Western intervention.

Another Council spokesman, Hafiz Ghoga, says no such interim government exists, and has declared, “We are completely against foreign intervention.” The opposition includes not only former elements of the Gaddafi government and state apparatus, but also workers and students who have many valid grievances and have been suffering the effects of unemployment, inequality and neoliberal reforms.

The National Front for the Salvation of Libya, which has been all over the Western media calling for no-fly zones, is a CIA-trained exile group; it is not clear if it has played any significant role in the revolt.

Libya and the entire region are in grave danger with the specter of U.S. military intervention. Only the people of Libya should determine their own destiny. There is undoubtedly considerable consciousness among the people of Libya about the dangers of Western intervention.

Let us not be fooled! Oppose U.S./U.N. intervention in Libya! Self-determination for the people of Libya and all the struggling peoples of the Middle East!

On Jan. 22, students, teachers and other workers came together and raised their voices in a march as part of a month-long series of events known as “Enero Zapatista”—a commemoration of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional uprising 17 years ago this January in Chiapas, Mexico.

The march was organized by Colectivo Zapatista, a coalition in San Diego made up of various progressive organizations. The Party for Socialism and Liberation joined to support the struggle of the working class in the border community of San Ysidro, Calif.

The march showed multinational solidarity with militant Filipino organizations, with AF3IRM and KmB Pro-People Youth participating as well. Coalition demands included free health care, free quality education, an end to the U.S. occupation of the Middle East, and an end to police brutality and racial profiling. Many college students from area schools came out in solidarity and expressed support of the working-class demands of the march.

More people cross the San Diego-Mexico border crossing than any other border crossing in the world. Many of the pedestrians and drivers showed their support for the march by honking their horns and cheering. When the march stopped at the top of a bridge, hundreds of drivers waiting to cross into Mexico honked their horns to show their support.

The March for the Liberation of the People was a wake-up call for the community, calling for organization among the working class. This is only the beginning of a year that will be filled with a political fight-back movement. The PSL stands ready to take part in this growing movement. It’s time to take a stand against the ruling class and say “Ya Basta!”

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) salutes the heroic uprising of the people of Egypt against the U.S.-backed Mubarak dictatorship.

The unfolding revolution is filled with endless examples of heroic acts by workers, students and other young people. The number of those martyred by police forces grows, but their sacrifice has served to inspire rather than instill fear in others. The ranks of the swelling street protests grow more numerous as people lose their fear. Meanwhile, wealthy and pampered elites are heading to the airports.

All revolutions throughout history demonstrate the capacity of working people, and especially young people, to enter the political stage and, through their own deeds, their own heroism, become the force that shapes and changes society.

The political convulsion in Egypt is part of a growing wave of rebellion and uprising throughout the Arab world. From Tunisia to Jordan and Yemen, the entire region is become a political battlefield where the oppressed, the impoverished, the unemployed are taking to the streets against U.S.-backed proxy dictatorships and monarchies.

The Middle East is viewed as a geo-strategic pivot by U.S. imperialism. It is in this vast region that two-thirds of the world’s oil supplies exist. The anti-colonial struggles of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s made the Middle East the primary focus for U.S. military intervention, subversion and occupation.

U.S. relies on client regimes

While the U.S. government sent hundreds of thousands of troops to invade Iraq, destroy its government, occupy its territory and hobble and diminish the regional stature of the entire country, U.S. imperialism has largely maintained its domination through the exercise of a colonial-type proxy strategy.

Primarily, U.S. imperialist domination has been maintained through a network of proxy and puppet governments that function as clients for the U.S. military and for U.S. banking and corporate economic interests.

Central to this network of proxy regimes is the settler regime in Tel Aviv. As a settler regime viewed by the indigenous people of the Middle East as an extension of colonial power, the Zionist government is entirely dependent for its survival on the protection and guarantees provided by U.S. imperialism.

But even a nuclear-armed Israel is incapable by itself of policing this geo-strategically vital region. For that, the United States used the Mubarak dictatorship, the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia, the monarchies in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the government in Yemen and others.

While these U.S.-backed dictatorships have brutally used U.S. military hardware and equipment and dollars to beat down and suppress their own people, each of them has a significant vulnerability that does not exist for the U.S.-backed Israeli regime.

As evidenced by what happened in Tunisia in recent weeks and what is happening today throughout Egypt and elsewhere, the puppet regimes of U.S. imperialism are inherently vulnerable to revolutionary uprisings of their own people. Guns, missiles, torture and the other instruments of repression cannot by themselves seal the fate of the Arab nation. The working class, the peasantry and the youth constitute the vast majority of these class-divided societies. These social forces can rise up and topple the U.S. client government that rules over them.

Israel, on the other hand, is a settler regime. If any of its governments were toppled by a domestic internal struggle, the next government would be equally dependent on U.S. aid and support to guarantee its continued existence in a region populated by 300 million Arab and other indigenous peoples. Israel is thus an inherent extension of U.S. power, and is viewed as the most stable U.S. client in the region.

Mubarak: Anchor of U.S. strategy

The Mubarak regime, like the Sadat government that preceded it, is an anchor of the strategy of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. This huge nation of 80 million, possessing the largest army in the Arab world, was a principal target of U.S. designs. The so-called Camp David Accord, signed between Egypt and Israel in 1979 under the stewardship of then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter, constituted a historic setback for the entire Arab nation and especially the Palestinian people. It created a U.S.-Israeli-Egyptian partnership ratified in the Camp David treaty and removed the largest Arab country and the largest Arab army from the historic Arab alliance.

While they embraced Tel Aviv, the Sadat regime and the Mubarak government that followed opened the door for the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982 and the intensification of Israeli aggression against other Arab lands, and especially the Palestinian people.

In recent years, the Egyptian government cooperated with the Israeli regime, under the watchful supervision of Washington, to maintain the murderous siege of the people of Gaza. Egypt and Israel are the two primary recipients of U.S. foreign aid.

As it has over the years, the reaction of the U.S. government has been fundamentally supportive in all ways of the Egyptian regime. Even recently, P.J. Crowley, the Obama administration’s State Department spokesperson, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that “Egypt is an anchor of stability, friend, and an ally of the United States.” He continued to state that the United States “wants to see a peaceful transitional into democracy.”

Tear gas canisters “Made in the USA”

While representatives of the Obama administration cheered on the pro-Western “Green Movement” street protests in Iran last year, in the case of the Egyptian people’s uprising, President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton urged both the government and protesters to “use restraint” and be “peaceful.” The matchless hypocrisy of these appeals have been illuminated by demonstrators in Cairo holding up tear gas canisters marked “Made in the USA.”

But events have gone far beyond the careful diplomatic clichés uttered by the administration in Washington. The fear that allowed the Mubarak administration to remain in power despite the people’s hatred has been lifted, and a new stage of heroic resistance has shaped the latest events.

Thus, the Obama administration is preparing a “Plan B” if Mubarak is overthrown. It is seeking to promote pro-imperialist leaders from within the multi-class opposition movement that could function as a post-Mubarak transitional regime and maintain the nexus with U.S. imperialism. Specifically, the presence inside the opposition of Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Emergency Agency (IAEA), who has now returned to Egypt, could provide the United States with a pro-imperialist political leader in the event of the overthrow of Mubarak.

The unfolding uprising in Egypt is dynamic. It is impossible to know what the final outcome of the current phase of this struggle will be. The replacement of Mubarak with another pro-U.S. political leader will not solve the problems of poverty, unemployment, inflationary food prices and dependency on Washington.

The historic potential for Egypt and the peoples of the Middle East

Egyptian society can be reorganized on the basis of a new social and class power. The working classes, both urban and rural, can take hold of the vast resources of the nation and use them for the benefit of the masses of people rather than the international corporate and banking elites, the International Monetary Fund and the Egyptian comprador capitalist class. It could reverse the IMF/World Bank-imposed neoliberal policies which have impoverished tens of millions while enriching a tiny handful at the top.

New political and social forces are crystallized alongside a spontaneous uprising of the masses of people. In them lies the true historic potential for Egypt and the oppressed people of the Middle East.

For our part, the people of the United States must—as we are—go into the streets in the coming days to show solidarity with the people of Egypt to demand an end to all U.S. imperialist aid to the Mubarak government. All people engaged in revolution become the symbol and the inspiration for those who suffer a similar injustice and oppression everywhere. We must denounce the multi-layered efforts of the U.S. government and its military and intelligence resources that have been used for decades to maintain the dictatorship in Cairo.

Long live the struggling people of Egypt!

Click here for a list of demonstrations taking place across the United States in support of the uprising of the Egyptian people.

The big question Haitians are asking is: who is behind Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier’s surprise arrival in Haiti with an expired Haitian passport on Jan. 16 aboard an Air France flight from Paris? “I have come here to see how I can help my country,” he announced, stepping off the plane.

Yeah, right. It is inconceivable that Baby Doc, 59, would return to the country where there are outstanding criminal proceedings against him without knowing that some powerful foreigners have his back.

With dozens of Haitian SWAT team police outside and a helicopter hovering overhead, Haitian government prosecutor Aristidas Auguste and investigating magistrate Gabriel Ambroise met for about an hour with Duvalier in his suite at the posh Hotel Karibe in Pétionville on Jan. 18 and then took him unhandcuffed to their offices downtown for more questioning, before allowing him to return to his hotel. Ambroise will now weigh the evidence, which sources say is solid and massive, that Duvalier, his former wife Michelle Bennett, and other cronies embezzled over $300 million (and by some counts almost triple that) during the course of his rule from 1971 to 1986. However, Judge Ambroise’s ruminations might take as long as three months, which lends the whole
episode an air of “grimas,” as they say in Kreyòl, a face-saving show. Duvalier should have been arrested immediately at the airport, most Haitians say. Instead, he was escorted by Haitian police and United Nations occupation troops to his hotel.

“Usually in Haiti a thief gets unceremoniously dumped into a pickup and carted off to a stinking cell to await trial in a few years or never,” quipped author and journalist Amy Wilentz on Twitter. Duvalier will await his improbable indictment dining on grilled conch at the Karibe.

He has this luxury because he has surely received a wink and a nod from powerful government sectors, even if not the official ones, in either the U.S. and/or France, the two nations which helped prop up his regime with economic and military aid. The U.S. also flew Duvalier out of Haiti on Feb. 7, 1986 on a C-130 loaded with his sports cars and motorcycles and his wife’s furs, while France has hosted his golden exile and
protected him from prosecution ever since.

Duvalier’s lawyer is Gervais Charles, the head of the Haitian Bar Association. He
makes the dubious claim that the files pertaining to the charges against Duvalier were all destroyed in the earthquake and that, anyway, the statute of limitations on the embezzlement proceedings, undertaken by several governments against Duvalier since 1986, has run out.

But Brian Concannon of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) says this is unlikely. “The statute of limitation on these financial crimes is something like five years after the last instance of investigation by a judge into the case,” he said, noting that “a July 3, 2009 order from the First Court of Public Law of the Federal Court of Switzerland said the Haitian government had informed it of criminal proceedings against Duvalier as late as June 2008.”

On Jan. 17, the IJDH along with the International Lawyers Office (BAI) in Port-au-Prince issued a statement urging the Haitian government “to comply with Haitian law” by arresting Duvalier for embezzlement on the basis of rulings and investigations in both Haiti and the U.S..

The statement also pointed to “Duvalier’s human rights violations, including the torture and disappearances of political dissidents at the Fort Dimanche prison and other crimes committed by organizations under his control, including the Armed Forces of Haiti and the Volunteers for National Security (Tontons Macoutes).
Mr. Duvalier is not protected against prosecution by any statutes of limitations” for these violations because they are “crimes against humanity, which are imprescriptible under international law.”

Meanwhile, former political prisoners and other victims like youth sports trainer Bobby Duval and former journalist Michelle Montas (Duvalier’s thugs destroyed her husband’s radio station in 1980) expressed their outrage that Duvalier was in Haiti without being immediately arrested and vowed prosecution.

The standard storyline being repeated today is that Baby Doc inherited
François “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s repressive dictatorship in 1971 and continued it until the Haitian people rose up and chased him out of the country 15 years later.

History is, of course, a good deal more complicated than that, and between the elder and younger Duvalier regimes there are important differences, an analysis of which can help us decipher, or at least make an educated guess about, what lies behind Duvalier’s sudden return.

Throughout most of its 207 years, Haiti has had two ruling classes: the grandon, Haiti’s big landowning class, and the comprador bourgeoisie, an import-export merchant class based in the coastal cities, primarily the capital, Port-au-Prince. These two ruling groups carried out a bitter rivalry for political power in the capital, control of which gave one an upper hand over the other. This rivalry explains why Haiti’s history is checkered with at least 32 coups d’état. The grandon often organized rural militias which would run bourgeois presidents out of the capital, and the bourgeoisie often ousted grandon presidents with the standing city-based Army.

Papa Doc, a former country doctor who came to power in a military sponsored election in 1957, was a classic representative of the grandon, who extract surplus value from peasants through a form of semi-feudal share-cropping called the two-halves system or dè mwatye. The arch-reactionary grandon were often hostile to encroaching foreign capitalists, who sought to turn peasant sharecroppers into starvation-wage-earning workers. This put Papa Doc at odds with Washington officials, but they needed him as a bulwark against the spread of communism from revolutionary Cuba, only 60 miles west across the strategic Windward Channel.

To offset the bourgeoisie’s and Washington’s influence over the Haitian
Army, François Duvalier, a sgtudent of Machiavelli, established his own militia, the infamous Tonton Macoutes. Their reign of terror and violence is legendary, immortalized in Graham Greene’s novel “The Comedians” and Bernard Diederich’s and Al Burt’s exposé “Papa Doc: The Truth about Haiti Today.”

The elder Duvalier used the Macoutes to beat back several Washington-sponsored (and ratted on) invasions during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. But there was a sea-change in 1969 when Papa Doc received President Nixon’s envoy, Nelson Rockefeller. Shortly afterward, cheap labor U.S. assembly factories began setting up in
Haiti.

When Papa Doc died of natural causes in 1971, he passed the title of
“President for Life” (won in a 1964 referendum that some 2.8 million
people voted for and only 3,234 against) to then 19-year-old Baby Doc, and the sweat-shop sector began to take-off.

Jean-Claude had gone to Haiti’s finest schools with the bourgeoisie’s
children, developing a taste for fancy women, fast cars, and a less brutish reputation. He began to offer a “reformed” Duvalierism, called
“Jean-Claudism,” in response to the Carter administration’s call for
“human rights” in Latin America. Carter’s crusade was actually the
beginning of a U.S. policy shift away from strong-arm and corrupt dictators like Duvalier to façade democracies which were backed by so-called multinational peace-keeping forces.

The push to reform the Duvalier dictatorship did not stop with Reagan’s election in 1980 as the old guard Duvalierists had hoped. Jean-Claude did crack down on journalists that year, exiling many of them. He also married archetypal bourgeois princess Michelle Bennett. That marriage begat an ugly new offspring, a kind of Macoutized bourgeoisie, which would become more familiar to the world during the 1991 and 2004 coups
d’état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

At the same time, the comprador bourgeoisie was transforming into a more assembly industry variant, typified by “Jean-Claudiste” and later coup-backing families like the Apaids, the Bouloses, the Brandts, and the Mevs.

Washington became peeved as Jean-Claude and his crew skimmed off millions of
development aid dollars into Swiss bank accounts, money that was supposed to build better roads, water systems and electrical networks to serve expanding U.S. sweatshops and other foreign investments. Even the Pope visited Haiti in 1983 and warned that “Things must change here.”

Finally, in 1986, the U.S. decided to give Jean-Claude the boot, fully expecting they could easily install a puppet in post-Duvalier elections.

Among the democratic activists fighting for that change a quarter century ago was René Préval, now Haiti’s president. Like activist businessman Antoine Izméry and radio journalist Jean Dominique, Préval came from Haiti’s “enlightened bourgeoisie,” which was inspired by the anti-imperialist struggles of the 1960s and 1970s and dreamed of a democratic Haiti. Préval along with Izméry were the two who pushed Aristide , a former parish priest, into the electoral ring for president in 1990 against the neo-liberal U.S.-backed candidate, former World Bank economist Marc Bazin.

Six years later, Préval himself was Haiti’s president, thanks to
Aristide’s long coattails. But over the past 15 years, he has compromised repeatedly with the U.S. empire he once vowed to fight, bowing to their demands that Haiti privatize its state enterprises, lower its tariff walls, and allow U.S. military aircraft and vessels to enter Haitian airspace and waters any time they please.

Préval has gradually been turned into a Washington’s patsy, often happily but sometimes grudgingly, doing its bidding. Until now.

Washington and Préval are presently at loggerheads over the disastrous Nov. 28 elections, which Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council claims should go to a second round between neo-Duvalierist former First Lady Mirlande Manigat, who supposedly came in first, and Jude Célestin, the candidate of Préval’s party Unity.

But the Organization of American States (OAS), acting on Washington’s behalf, has issued a report that orders Préval to change the second-place candidate to neo-Duvalierist former konpa musician Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly. “There is nothing to negotiate
in the [OAS] report,” said  US ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten. But Préval is resisting. And this is where Duvalier, his old nemesis, comes in.

Manigat and Martelly are essentially the old and young faces of resurgent Duvalierism, of which Baby Doc is the living symbol. Célestin is not that much different; he was, after all, escorted to enlist as candidate by Rony Gilot, an infamous Duvalierist crony who is today escorting Baby Doc around Haiti. But Célestin is suspect because “sources in the American government know that Préval recently sought $25 million from [Venezuelan president Hugo] Chávez to bankroll [Célestin’s] runoff campaign,” complained the American Enterprise Institute’s Roger Noriega, who as President George W. Bush’s Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, was an architect of the 2004 coup against Aristide.

Also among the former dictator’s current escorts is Jodel Chamblain, the former No. 2 of the death-squad FRAPH during the first coup against Aristide and a leader of the “rebels” who terrorized Northern and Central Haiti during the second coup against Aristide.

So we have come full circle. For the first time in 20 years, the bourgeois-grandon alliance, along with the U.S. and France, have a chance to install one of their preferred puppets through an election, however patently bogus, rather than a coup. This is likely why Duvalier is now in Haiti.

IPR footnote: See also Bob Barr to Aid Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier in Haiti

Opening Plenary
Building the struggle against capitalism across the United States

Special International Solidarity and Awards Session
Fighters for justice, champions of freedom

Keynote Plenary
Tasks and perspectives of the socialist movement

By: Abel Macias

Say no to detentions and deportations!

On Nov. 5, as workers were coming home from work, they came across a rally of over 150 students, youth and workers who were demanding an end to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in their community.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation had called for the rally after a young student shared her experience at a PSL class on socialism.

She told the PSL members the story of how federal ICE agents, under the direction of Homeland Security and the Obama administration, came to her home and took away members of her family after having raided her father’s workplace. Over 40 workers were arrested, including the owner of the bakery who was able to post bail a few days later. As of this writing, the father was still in custody and facing federal charges. (signonsandiego.com)

The corporate media failed to cover the aftermath of this raid. Fortunately, the daughter of the detained worker shared with PSL members how the ICE raids had torn her family apart and left them without any source of income.

The recently established San Diego branch of PSL was able to quickly respond to the ICE raid and called for a rally. PSL members reached out to other progressive organizations in the area and, in a matter of days, pulled together a rally to demand an end to the deportation and detentions of undocumented workers.

Under capitalism, the ruling class seeks to isolate undocumented workers from the rest of the working class in the United States. The PSL recognizes this divide-and-conquer tactic and works diligently to build solidarity across all sectors of the working class, not allowing race, sexual orientation, citizenship or gender to divide our power.

A young, multinational crowd turned out for the rally. The success of this rally illustrates the power of an organized and disciplined working-class party in fighting back against racist, ruling-class oppression.

The workers’ struggle knows no borders!

Private prison corporations sought increased profits for jailing allegedly undocumented immigrants

Arizona’s barbaric anti-immigration law SB 1070, now facing federal court challenges, was created to not only scapegoat immigrants, but also feed the boundless greed of capitalists. Private prison corporations and politicians worked hand in hand in the law’s creation as they drooled at the prospect of huge profits through the unjust detention of thousands of undocumented immigrants.

Protest against SB 1070

According to a recent National Public Radio report, reactionary Arizona legislators worked closely with at least one private prison corporation to create the onerous SB 1070 bill at an American Legislative Exchange Council conference held in Washington late last year.

The monster they created was nearly identical to SB 1070 presented to the Arizona legislature by state Sen. Russell Pearce, who attended the conference. He is a known racist with ties to extremist groups, including neo-Nazis.

Pearce received “additional guidance” from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, another notorious racist group with connections to Pearce.

ALEC, meanwhile, is a secretive members-only group that attracts legislators from around the country to be bought and sold by big business in the shadows, circumventing scrutiny and the reporting requirements of traditional lobbying activities. Members freely admit that many of the council’s 200 big business members actually write laws for “lawmakers.”

So as long as lawmakers play ball with the big boys at ALEC and allow powerful business interests to literally write their own laws, the corrupt, conservative legislators are showered with perks and favors, including extravagant meals, trips and even child care.

Meanwhile, among the powerful corporations belonging to ALEC is the multi-billion- dollar Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the country, according to the NPR report.

CCA already has six prison facilities in Arizona, three of which are run all, or in part, for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and where hundreds of undocumented migrants are already imprisoned, often for months or years.

Apparently, however, the huge profits they are already making is not enough for CCA, which not only helped draft the racist bill at the ALEC conference, but reportedly had influential friends in high places help push it through, including a bevy of former CCA lobbyists and hacks on the staff of Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the bill into law on April 22.

The law gives local police the power to determine the immigration status of any individual by demanding “proper” documentation of their status. If the person is suspected of being in Arizona “illegally,” they can be arrested and jailed on state misdemeanor charges. Once their sentence is completed, they can be turned over to federal immigration authorities to face possible additional charges and expulsion from the country.

For CCA, the new anti-immigration law couldn’t have come at a better time, especially now, when the once-promising boom in private sector prisons seems to be ending.

CCA documents indicate the industry has slowed in recent years as thousands of prison beds are unused, entire facilities have been closed and states are becoming reluctant to spend big money in tough economic times.

Company executives also fear a growing trend in community supervision, expanded probation and parole alternatives, and new monitoring technologies, so the industry is now forced to seek “creative” ways to stabilize profits and stockholder dividends. Further restricting their future profits, costs are soaring, and it is now often more expensive to house a prisoner in a private prison than in a state facility, according to Arizona Department of Correction reports released in early 2010.

Their reason for private prisons to exist is now being challenged.

To protect what profit margins remain, private prisons “cherry pick” prisoners so the companies are not burdened with high medical costs, pushing that responsibility back on the state.

The solution, CCA executives freely admit, is to increase the number of ICE detainees, as immigrant detention translates into bigger profits, often two to three times greater than with regular state prisoners.

Arizona’s Department of Correction reported earlier this year that it pays companies on average between $48 and about $58 a day for state prisoners, depending on services offered. On the other hand, ICE, through the Department of Homeland Security, pays up to nearly four times more, depending on services offered, according to Lori K. Haley, Public Affairs Officer/Spokeswoman for DHS/ICE.

While DHS and ICE pay just $64.47 to the Bureau of Prisons and CCAfor immigrant prisoners at the Eloy Detention Center, in Eloy, Ariz., it pays a $94.10 daily rate to CCA at the Central Arizona Detention Center in Florence, and an astronomical rate of $197.87 at the Florence Correctional Center, in Florence, to another private prison firm, Asset Protection & Security Services, L.P.

So it’s little wonder why such an unjust and racist law was passed. Once again big  business, working hand in hand with corrupt and racist politicians, has placed profits over humanity.

Class-wide struggle is brewing

Do the Nov. 2 election results signal a major shift to the right and a resurgence of conservatism among the people? Is that what the capture of 66 House seats by the Republicans indicates? That is the fundamental message from the corporate media and by many in the milieu of pro-Democratic Party liberalism, such as the ACLU.

But that is the wrong conclusion.

Of course, there has been a political offensive by the corporate-financed Tea Party and other middle class, right-wing organizations. They are emboldened. In fact, they were emboldened from the beginning.

They received nightly TV coverage by the news networks. They received millions of dollars in secret donations from billionaires like the Koch brothers. They felt secure enough to bring guns to “Town Hall” meetings that were held throughout the country in August 2009 to discuss Obama’s health care package. Can you imagine what the reaction would have been if leftists and progressives showed up with firearms?

So, yes the right wing is on the move. But it is not a foregone conclusion that the election results show a significant move to the right throughout the U.S. population. That could happen, but it is not inevitable at all.

The vote yesterday was above all else a vote of disgust against the incumbent party. The party in charge of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives since January 2009 has been the Democratic Party.

In 2008, the Democratic Party won the White House and big majorities in the House and Senate. They could have introduced and almost certainly passed any legislation they wanted.

What has happened for tens of millions of families since November 2008?

Unemployment is higher, not lower, than two years ago. More people have lost health care coverage in those two years. The number is now over 50 million of people who cannot go to the doctor because they have no coverage. Instead of providing a single-payer health plan that most people favored (more than 70 percent according to the New York Times, March 2009), Obama settled on a plan that does not take effect until 2014 and guarantees super-profits for the health insurers and pharmaceutical giants who are rapidly raising premiums and rates.

In the last two years more families, not fewer, have been driven from their homes through foreclosure. Wages have been slashed, they have not gone up. Mass layoffs and cutbacks at the state and local levels are increasing, not decreasing, under the tenure of Obama and the Democratic majorities of the past two years.

And while the poverty rate and foreclosure crisis for working people reached new records this year, the Democrats allowed the biggest bankers—the very ones who torpedoed the economy—to be handed the people’s money in the biggest bailout in history. These bankers are now racking up record profits and awarding themselves even bigger bonuses than they received in 2007.

Instead of fighting and reducing the power and wealth of the bankers and corporations, the Democrats used their position as the dominant majority in the government to secure even greater wealth and power for the “fabulous few.”

On Nov. 2, the people voted against the incumbent party. The Republicans and the right wing took advantage by pretending to be “anti-government populists.” That explains their electoral victory.

A massive and militant people’s fight-back movement that targets the banks, corporations and the bought and paid for politicians of both parties is what will swing the tide against the right wing and the entire political apparatus, which serve the needs of the capitalist criminals who lord over the vast wealth of the United States while the people continue to suffer.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation exists to meet that challenge. The class war waged by the rich against the people will soon be joined by massive and determined class-wide counter force from below. It may start with small battles, but the capitalist system leaves no alternative.

On Tuesday, Nov. 2, thousands of people will get out to vote in Ohio for the midterm elections. For those in District 22, there will be an alternative to the capitalist candidates. Corey Ansel, a 19 year-old member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, will be on the ballot on the Green Party ticket.

Ansel campaign volunteers

This is the first time that a PSL candidate has intervened in the elections in Ohio, but the momentum that has come from the Ansel campaign has been remarkable. The campaign provides an alternative for workers – a candidate fighting for their interests, raising demands such as free, quality education and health care for all and a comprehensive jobs program. These issues are not even mentioned by the corporate candidates running for the State Representative seat.

The campaign has mobilized dozens of volunteers in the streets. Ansel and campaign volunteers have gone door to door across Columbus to pass out fliers and talk to hundreds of workers. PSL volunteers attended dozens of community forums, union meetings, public debates and other events and put forth a socialist platform demanding “People over profits!”  The campaign organized several PSL forums, volunteer meetings and days of outreach.

The campaign was different in its activism, in that it was a campaign in the streets. Ansel and campaign supporters organized transportation to the March 20 March on Washington to demand an end to the wars. They were also in the streets in April after the aid flotilla to Gaza was brutally attacked by the Israeli military. Activists from all walks of life were able to hear about a socialist alternative in the elections that demanded an immediate end of U.S. aid to Israel and stood for a free Palestine.

On Oct. 3, over a dozen campaign supporters stood up to the bigoted Westboro Baptist Church when it came to Columbus to spread its message of hate. Volunteers passed out leaflets demanding full LGBT equality and marriage rights. Students were very receptive to the campaign and many of them began volunteer work with the campaign as a result. Ansel volunteers also worked with the Communication Workers Union to organize transport to the One Nation Working Together rally in Washington, D.C. They joined hundreds of thousands of workers and worked with the PSL in distributing fliers and issues of Liberation newspaper.

On Oct. 16, members of the PSL and the campaign joined the Midwest Regional anti-war demonstration in Chicago to protest on the 9th anniversary of the Afghanistan war. Activists demanded “Money for jobs and education, not for war!”

Many local businesses, coffee shops and buildings proudly posted Ansel campaign fliers in their windows to show support for the working class campaign. Candidate Ansel was also able to speak to hundreds of students on Ohio State University and Capital University campus about the campaign and the struggle for socialism.

“When I told my dad I was working with a socialist campaign, he lectured me about it,” said Taylor Conway, a student at Capital and a campaign volunteer. “I think that’s wrong.  What we need to do is get out there and change these illusions people believe about socialism. You have no idea how willing I am to fight for this.”

Ansel’s campaign was covered widely, from ThisWeek Newspaper, to the Columbus Dispatch, UWeekly and other local newspapers across the state. In addition, Ansel was interviewed by dozens of independent media websites in Ohio.

Most importantly, the PSL campaign reached thousands of workers in putting forth a message of socialism. The Ansel campaign has built an alternative for workers in the elections, which many desperately sought after the failure of the corporate parties to provide real change. The Ansel campaign is fighting  to change the current system and to struggle for socialism.

However, campaign volunteers and PSL members in Ohio know the struggle does not end in the ballot box. What is needed is a mass movement in the streets struggling for workers’ rights and an end to exploitation. The Ansel campaign sowed the seeds of an alternative to capitalism in Columbus. Upon that base the PSL will build a movement to fight back.

By: Doug Kaufmann

‘Stand up and fight back!’

On Nov. 13 and 14 in Los Angeles, hundreds of people from all over the country and the world will converge on the University of Southern California campus for a National Conference on Socialism. 

2008 Conference on Socialism

The Party for Socialism and Liberation has worked tirelessly for months to promote the 2010 conference. It will be the second National Conference on Socialism organized by the PSL. The first was in 2008. This year’s conference will illustrate a growth of interest in socialism as an alternative to capitalism’s destructive course. It will also highlight the PSL’s growth over the past two years.

New PSL organizing centers have sprung up around the country in places like New Mexico, Texas, Pennsylvania and Louisiana, just to name a few. PSL leaders and supporters from more than 20 states will attend the upcoming conference.

Sabrina Carollo, a Chicago area community college student, told PSLweb.org why she is coming to the conference in L.A.: “Community college budget cuts and tuition hikes are outrageous—especially when so many are struggling. As a young person from a working-class family, I’m ready to organize for the future we need—where jobs and education are rights. I’m coming to the PSL conference to fight for people’s rights.”

Rob Sayers, a student and IT worker in Austin, Tex., told PSLweb.org: “I’m going to the National Conference on Socialism because I feel it will be a great way to learn more about the role I can play in the working-class struggle. It will also be a chance to network with other revolutionary activists outside of my local area. Only with solidarity will we achieve change, so joining with others to exchange ideas and information will be a powerful tool in our fight for liberation and equality.”

A weekend to discuss socialism

The two-day conference will feature exciting speakers, panels, organizing sessions and discussion, along with art displays, films and music. Topics will include: resisting U.S. imperialism, the class struggle in Africa, building a new workers movement, defending immigrant workers, confronting racism and bigotry, fighting the expanding police state, why socialism is necessary, the role of a revolutionary party, how to fight the bankers and billionaires for workers’ justice and more.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark will be a featured speaker. Clark will host a special awards ceremony to honor political prisoners, radical lawyers and activists who have long histories of self-sacrifice in the struggle for social justice.

The conference will also feature community leaders and activists throughout the United States, and international solidarity speakers from the Filipino, Salvadoran, and Palestinian movements.

Other sessions of the conference will focus on expanding the reach of socialist media, sharing the experiences of organizing and building the socialist movement across the United States, developing the PSL’s Spanish-language work and more. There will also be a revolutionary writers’ clinic.   

In preparation, organizers have already passed out 30,000 palm cards and flyers, 15,000 stickers, and put up 3,000 posters that have lead to hundreds of pre-registrations for the conference.

When asked why she was organizing people to attend the conference, Molyda Khim, a college student and restaurant worker, said: “I want to raise consciousness about how socialism is more vital to our society today than ever. The capitalist system has failed to provide even the most basic necessities of life such as food and shelter to the vast majority of workers. This is becoming more apparent in the most recent economic crisis. Only under socialism can we solve the problems we see around us each day.”

The National Conference on Socialism hosted by the PSL will be a truly historic event in the socialist movement. The PSL will continue to organize for the upcoming conference and hopes to connect with hundreds of workers and students from throughout the country who are ready to stand up and fight back. There is no better time for socialism than right now!

Click here to register for the National Conference on Socialism.

Followup post at PSLweb:

Featured speakers include Ramsey Clark

The National Conference on Socialism in Los Angeles is set to be a can’t-miss event. November 13 and 14 will be two exciting days of speakers, panels, organizing sessions, discussion and entertainment at the University of Southern California campus. Hosted by the Party for Socialism and Liberation, hundreds of workers, students, organizers, activists and progressive people will come together from across the United States.

2010 Fighters for Justice Award Honorees

Mumia Abu-Jamal Leonard Peltier Lynne Stewart

The Cuban Five (from left to right): Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, Rene González, Gerardo Hernández and Antonio Guerrero.

The conference will begin at 9:30 am on both Saturday and Sunday. It is an all-weekend event. We encourage everyone to attend the entire conference.

On Saturday night, Nov. 13, beginning at 6:30 pm, there will be a special International Solidarity and Awards Session, featuring speakers and statements from international groups and national liberation movements in the United States.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark is confirmed as a featured speaker. He will present the PSL’s first-ever “Fighters for Justice, Champions of Freedom” awards to some of the recipients, which include political prisoners, radical lawyers and longtime grassroots leaders.

Fighters for Justice

The Fighters for Justice Award will be presented to political prisoners for their decades of struggle and perseverance before and during their unjust incarceration. The 2010 award recipients are:

• Mumia Abu-Jamal: Revolutionary journalist unjustly imprisoned since 1981. His writings and commentaries resonate with working-class and poor people across the world.
• Leonard Peltier: Native American political prisoner and American Indian Movement leader unjustly incarcerated since 1976.
• The Cuban Five: Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Rene González, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González. The Five are Cuban nationals incarcerated for infiltrating right-wing terrorist organizations in Miami.
• Lynne Stewart: Radical lawyer serving an outrageous 10-year federal prison sentence. Stewart is guilty of nothing more than ardently advocating for the most oppressed and championing freedom and liberation. 

Champions of Freedom

The Champions of Freedom Award will be presented to radical lawyers and longtime leaders in the struggle for justice and equality and against imperialism. The 2010 award recipients are:

• Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo: Partnership for Civil Justice Fund
• Carol Sobel: National Lawyers Guild
• Muntadhar al-Zaidi: Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at then-President George Bush in 2008. Al-Zaidi was imprisoned and tortured for his anti-imperialist actions. He continues to advocate for the Iraqi people and struggle against colonial occupation.
• Mary Harb: Palestinian American Women’s Association

There will also be a tribute to the late Lucius Walker, Executive Director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace.

Additional Guest Speakers

Guest speakers at the National Conference on Socialism include the following well-known activists and organizers:

• Ramsey Clark: Former U.S. Attorney General
• Imam Mahdi Bray: Executive Director, Muslim American Society Freedom
• Jollene Levid: National Chairperson, AF3IRM
• Ron Kovic: Vietnam Veteran; author, Born on the Fourth of July
• Ken Lerch: President, National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 3825
• Dr. Henry Clark: Executive Director, West County Toxics Coalition
• Jim Lafferty: Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles
• Yousef Abudayyeh: National Coordinator, Free Palestine Alliance
• Arturo Garcia: Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines

These are just a few of the speakers who will be present. Click here for a full conference schedule.

Make sure you register for the National Conference on Socialism today. Be there and bring your friends, family, co-workers, co-students and everyone you know.

Click here to register for the conference. 

For more information visit www.PSLweb.org/conference.

Michael Prysner of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Wayne Root of the Libertarian Party debate socialism vs. capitalism in this clip from Russia Today:

Also of interest to our Libertarian readers and some others, at the 6:10 mark in the clip Wayne Root says he is running for President in 2012.

Back in April, Wayne Root said the following while running for LNC national chair:

BRIAN HOLTZ: You’ve said that your latest plan is to not seek the LP presidential nomination for 2012 because the LP isn’t ready. Are there any concrete metrics that you would use to decide when the LP is ready?

WAYNE ROOT: If the Citizen Revolution really catches fire in the 2012 cycle, and the LP is unified and organized enough to lead it and leverage it, then we could see LP voter registration and sustaining membership increase dramatically, and 50-state ballot access would be within reach. That would be one way to know that the LP is ready for the kind of presidential race I want the LP to run. More likely is that I can lead this party to minor victories on the local and state level, and major improvements in a variety of metrics: fundraising, candidate training, media appearances, brand recognition, ballot access, excitement from college students, etc. If I can help to achieve this kind of slow but steady success for the next 4 to 6 years, this might just provide the perfect window of opportunity for me to run as President in 2016. Until then, I’m thrilled and focused on being the CEO.

And in February, Mr. Root is quoted as saying:

“People ask me: ‘You’re running for national Chair, will you run for President in 2012?’ Let me give you an honest answer: I think this party right now is too disorganized to ever do well in a presidential election. And I don’t think, until I can get elected chairman and build it and organize it and be CEO of this party for a few years, I don’t think it’s worth it running for president, or senator, or anything else — you’ll get 1% of the vote. I want to seriously run for president, after I’ve been national Chair, in 2016, after I’ve built this party, and we really are structured and organized, and I have a chance to actually get 5, 10, 15 million votes. And if luck happens, and we catch fire, and we catch lightning in a bottle, and maybe even win. That’s my current game plan.”

The youtube description of the clip is “At a time when the economy is still insecure, why is there an endless debate over capitalism versus socialism and which financial system actually works? A heated debate between Wayne Allyn Root a 2012 Libertarian candidate for president and Michael Prysner a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation takes place as both present their reason socialism or capitalism is the best choice. Michael Prysner points out that a single president is not the problem, it is the system”

Thousands of people rallied today in lower Manhattan in defense of
the Muslim, Arab American and South Asian communities that have been
increasingly demonized in recent months.

The demonstration dwarfed the smaller right-wing, racist mobilization
that was organized in opposition to the planned construction of an
Islamic Community Center several blocks from the site of the former
World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.

Today’s demonstration was organized by a broad coalition of
progressive, anti-war, Muslim, Arab American, South Asian and social
justice organizations from the Black, Latino and Asian communities. The
ANSWER Coalition organized its members and supporters to join this
important mobilization against racism and Islamophobia. Speakers at the
demonstration included Ramsey Clark, Cynthia McKinney, representatives
of the International Action Center, December 12th Movement and others.

It is critical for the anti-war movement and all people of conscience
to stand together in defense of the Muslim community, and in opposition
to racism and war.

The ANSWER Coalition is organizing people from all over the East Coast and Midwest to participate in the Stand Up-Fight Back contingent at the Oct. 2 mobilization in Washington, D.C. Click here to sign-up to join the contingent. The Oct. 2 mobilization will draw together hundreds of thousands of working people who will demand jobs, peace and justice.