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Pro-War Democrats Battle for the Presidency
By Steven Argue
Every four years the American people are subjected to the farce of bourgeois democracy, a “democracy” where only the candidates chosen by the very wealthy have any chance of being elected. That season of nicely dressed pathological liars and false hopes is now upon us.
Since the corporate media of the United States has long ago abandoned any semblance of reporting on anything of substance about candidates such as voting records and actual political views, it is up to the journalists of the left press and Indy-media to do so.
A front-runner in the race is pro-war Democrat Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton has voted for every war the United States has carried out since she came into office in 2000. Those pro-war votes include the Iraq war. She also voted to take away our civil liberties by supporting the “Patriot Act” and its renewal. Hillary Clinton, like many Democrats, pounds the war drum for the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans. In addition she voted for the anti-immigrant wall.
In her recent successful run for Senate Hillary Clinton amassed more than 22 million dollars, making her the biggest campaign finance recipient running for Senate in the country. Her money came from such corporate interests as drug and hospital conglomerates, Wall Street finance interests, real estate developers, and rightwing corporate media mogul, Rupert Murdoch.
Barack Obama
Another front-runner and “rising star” of the Democrat Party is Barack Obama. Like Hillary Clinton, Obama has voted for the Patriot Act by voting to renew it in 2006. He also voted for the racist anti-immigrant wall as well as the “guest worker” program that denies immigrants rights, but allows them to come to this country to be exploited and under-paid. Obama also voted for the so-called “Class Action Fairness Act” that makes it harder for the people to sue corporations.
One might think that Obama, as a black man in racist America, might have something to offer on issues dealing with the suffering caused by the racist police state, mass incarceration of the poor, lack of healthcare, and dramatic drop in the standard of living of the multi-racial working class and poor. Instead Barack Obama plays into racist stereotypes, blaming the victims of racist America rather than the corporate criminals, stating:
"Such wisdom might help us move beyond ideological bickering and serve as the basis of a renewed effort to tackle the problem of inner-city poverty. We could begin by acknowledging that perhaps the single biggest thing we could do to reduce such poverty is to encourage teenage girls to finish high school and avoid having children out of wedlock. . ." Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, pps. 255-256
The inner cities of America have, by and large, been abandoned by the same capitalists that got rich off of the jobs they have now exported, just as the victims of hurricane Katrina were left to die by this same racist system. Yet the best thing to do according to Barack Obama is for black girls to stop having children out of wedlock.
In his book Uncle Obama not only lets this racist system off the hook, but he praises one of the worst anti-working class reforms of the Clinton administration stating, "we should also acknowledge that conservatives-and Bill Clinton-were right about welfare as it was previously structured." Bill Clinton’s welfare reform has caused homelessness, hunger, and less access to other basic necessities for the poor in America, but Barack Obama says Bill Clinton and the conservatives were right.
Both Obama and Clinton have voted for war appropriations. The fact that they both decided at the last minute to vote against war appropriations in the most recent vote on supplemental war appropriations is a symptom of the fact that the war has not gone as planned. The war has not gained the desired oil loot for U.S. corporations and has caused a number of growing problems for U.S. imperialism including internal dissent in the United States. And while Clinton and Obama have finally voted against war appropriations this time, their pro-war Democrat Party garnered plenty of other votes to keep the imperialist war going.
In his book, Barack Obama makes clear his support for the billions being squandered on lining the pockets of the military contractors stating, “given the depletion of our [military] forces after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will probably need a somewhat higher [Pentagon] budget in the immediate future just to restore readiness and replace equipment.” (Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, p 307).
Joe Biden
Another Democrat candidate is Joe Biden. Unlike many Democrat presidential candidates that have tried to distance themselves from the war that they voted for to begin with, in the most recent vote on war appropriations Joe Biden voted with the majority of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate putting billions of dollars towards the continued U.S. imperialist slaughter of the Iraqi people.
John Edwards
Another presidential candidate with a pro-war record is John Edwards. Edwards voted for the war against Iraq and campaigned as a vice presidential candidate on the pro-war John Kerry ticket. At that time both candidates defended their votes for the war. John Edwards has since apologized for his vote for unprovoked military aggression and mass murder (without using that wording and without recognizing that his vote for war was a criminal act).
Yet when Edwards was running for the position of vice president in 2004 this what he had to say on his pro-war vote:
“We need to stick to this [defending their Iraq war votes]. We should stand by our votes, say we would vote that way again. If you admit a mistake, it shows weakness in time of war. That's what the Republicans want us to do.” (John Edwards's changing tune on the Iraq vote, Scot Lehigh, The Globe, April 17, 2007)
Bill Richardson
Another candidate trying to paint himself as an antiwar candidate of the people is presidential candidate and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Richardson doesn’t call for immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, but instead calls for a slow withdrawal. In the early 1990s he did vote against the U.S. war to reinstate the anti-woman pro-U.S. corporate oil monarchy in Kuwait, but later said he regretted that vote. In addition Richardson is a strong supporter the pro-corporate anti-worker NAFTA, GATT, and WTO. On the death penalty Richardson, like many Democrats, says it is a good thing.
Well over one hundred inmates in the United States have had their convictions overturned as a result of new DNA evidence being brought to light, with some of these being death penalty cases. Still prosecutors have fought against the use of DNA evidence to overturn old convictions, even when the lives of innocent people are on the line. In racist America, death penalty juries are always more likely to convict because all who oppose the death penalty are excluded from these juries, making them juries that are more biased towards supporting the prosecution. Blacks often face all or mostly white death penalty juries. These are juries likely to contain a number of people who think that all Black people are criminals, making these jurors incapable of weighing the evidence and understanding the concept of reasonable doubt even in those rare circumstances when the evidence is fairly presented.
Why would anybody support the death penalty being carried out by a system that has been proven to make so many mistakes? The answer lies in the fact that the death penalty is an instrument of terror used by the American ruling class against the working class, poor, and people of color. On the one hand when such innocent people are executed it has no importance to the likes of Joe Biden because to them the lives of the poor and people of color are cheap. But for the ruling class, the added bonus of the death penalty is when it is used in political cases to silence dissent such as with the executions of Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg, the Haymarket martyrs, and the threatened execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. As governor, the fact that Joe Biden has no problem with the death penalty means that he already has blood on his hands.
Dennis Kucinich
Likewise Dennis Kucinich is portraying himself as the standard bearer of peace, love, and liberalism, but has voted in favor of the frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The resolution Kucinich voted for falsely claims, “Mumia Abu-Jamal stood over Officer Faulkner and shot him in the face, mortally wounding him…” Yet this is not what the eyewitnesses said. For instance eyewitness William Singletary says, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen [that Faulkner had stopped] got out of the car and shot him. When Mumia came on the scene, we [Singletary and another man] were on the police radio trying to radio for help." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)
In the last presidential election Dennis Kucinich portrayed himself up as an anti-war candidate of the Democrat Party. Yet on his web site the Kucinich campaign stated that Kucinich, “Supports a strong and efficient military. He believes that the current practice of procuring ever more costly weapons has the effect of weakening military readiness. As the cost of new weapons systems rise, the cost of merely replacing aging weapons with new ones becomes prohibitively expensive. As a result, U.S. military forces shrink, while they become at the same time more expensive to maintain and more prone to failure.”
So Kucinich advocates more frugal and efficient spending on imperialist terror and murder.
This is the same position taken by two U.S. generals waging the war in Iraq. During the U.S. invasion of Iraq General Stanley McCrystal complained, "It was enough for the enemy to show a little resistance and some creative thinking as our technological superiority begun to quickly lose all its meaning. Our expenses are not justified by the obtained results. The enemy is using an order of magnitude cheaper weapons to reach the same goals for which we spend billions on technological whims of the defense industry!"
Similarly General Richard Mayers commented on precision-guided munitions, "The rate of their use is incompatible with the obtained results. We are literally dropping gold into the mud!"
The contradiction here was purely limited to the difference between the pure profiteering of the military industrial complex and the desire for actual cost effective results for imperialist victory on the battlefield.
Dennis Kucinich spoke to a gathering of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action claiming, "We [he and the congress] did not authorize an eye for an eye. Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan. We did not authorize the Administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases. We did not authorize war without end. We did not authorize a permanent war economy. Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy."
Yet that is exactly what Kucinich and the rest of the congress, with the exception of California Democrat Barbara Lee, agreed to with their votes authorizing Bush’s endless war on the world. The entire Democrat Party in both the Senate and Congress, with only one exception, voted for Bush's war.
Since a different vote was later taken authorizing the US war in Iraq, the most practical application of this vote by Kucinich was to authorize the US war in Afghanistan.
In stark contrast to Kucinich’s vote for war Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote on March 2002:
“When U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about an "endless war," some took it as mere political speech, or rhetoric designed to gain the top spot on the evening network news. I did not. "W" is an agent of his class, the wealthy oil merchants of the land, and his intentions are to press for an ever-wider war in all corners of the earth, to make the world safe for capital exploitation and unbridled commerce. This will eventually become a war that reaches into a slew of countries in the Middle East, on behalf of the rich and powerful elites who rule. Make no mistake: this is a war that has nothing to do with democracy. The U.S. enters the region, armed to the gills, not to defend democracies, but to defend theocracies; to defend kings, princes and sultanates; to defend U.S. access to vast oil resources in the region.” Mumia Abu-Jamal
The U.S. war in Afghanistan has in fact killed tens of thousands of civilians and brought the Afghan nation back to the chaos of fragmented warlord rule last seen after the various U.S. trained and financed Mujahideen forces defeated the Soviet backed PDPA government.
The day after the September 11 attack this author wrote:
“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.
“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen (from which the Taliban were later formed). With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing woman for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.
“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2002
Kucinich, the “peace candidate”, as much as he may now want to deny it, voted for the war in Afghanistan and played his part in making it happen.
On the war in Iraq Kucinich now states, "There is only one way in which the United States will withdraw from Iraq, prior to the end of President Bush's term: Congress must vote to cut off funds." (Rep. Kucinich, The Huffington Report) This position not only ignores the role of the people of the United States, Britain, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere rising up and resisting the war and imperialist occupations, but it is also is being put forward by a politician that voted for the war in Afghanistan, wants a leaner meaner imperialist military, voted for the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and who has worked hard to bring the anti-war movement back into the pro-war Democrat Party.
Some may argue that Kucinich is not perfect, but he’d make a better president than Bush. Yet it is unlikely that Kucinich has any intention of winning the presidency. His role is one of bringing the anti-war movement and others who are breaking from the establishment and the twin parties of war and racism back into the fold of the pro-war Democrat Party. Kucinich makes this point clear when he states, "The Democratic Party created third parties by running to the middle. What I'm trying to do is to go back to the big tent so that everyone who felt alienated could come back through my candidacy" (Counter Punch, April 2003).
Yet that tent Kucinich speaks of is one that, despite its name, is not democratic. It is a tent dominated by big capital and the politicians subservient to it. It is under this tent that the ruling class would like to swallow up the legitimate opposition of the people towards war and turn us into the water boys for the “responsible” politicians of the Democrat Party.
It is such "responsible" politicians, including Kucinich, that voted in their vast majority to back the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal. It is outrageous that that the Democrat party would vote in its House majority to condemn a French city for daring to make an issue of this racist legal lynching, while at the same time doing nothing about the liar and killer, Bush. But then again that should be no surprise either since the Democrat Party voted in its majority for the war in Iraq.
Hillary Clinton
In a press conference on August 21, 2006 George Bush Jr. finally admitted what Liberation News has been pointing out since before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. Yet Bush had used a supposed connection as a pretext for the U.S.’s unprovoked aggression against Iraq. In addition, Bush Jr. also admitted that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
Most of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, Hillary Clinton included, supported going to war with Iraq. Today Hillary Clinton has no remorse for that murderous decision stating, "Obviously, I've thought about that a lot in the months since. No, I don't regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade." Hillary Clinton: No regret on Iraq Vote, CNN.Com
In trying to let themselves off the hook many Democrats claim that Bush “did not fairly represent intelligence”. Feeble cries by these politicians today that their votes for war weren’t their fault because they were lied to by Bush not only make them look stupid, they are an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Clinton, however, is worse in not even distancing herself from this “justified invasion” and “weapons of mass destruction” lies.
While the Democrats helped promote the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had no right to defend itself, Liberation News pointed out that it is the United States that has the weapons of mass destruction. Instead we supported the right of Iraq to acquire the weapons necessary to defend themselves from U.S. aggression. There can be little doubt that if Iraq had acquired those weapons they might not be in the mess they are now.
Yet for Bush Jr. and Hillary Clinton Iraqi weapons were never the real motive for mass murder in Iraq. The capitalist ruling class, and their Democrat and Republican representatives, thought that they could use their superior military power to quickly move into Iraq and establish by force a stable neo-colonial puppet regime, and then make massive profits from the privatization of the Iraqi economy, especially oil. It is the failures of this imperialist plan, in the face of Iraqi resistance and growing unpopularity at home, that has forced some Democrats to try to rethink, or at least distance themselves from, the Bush policies they have supported.
Just as Liberation News opposes the U.S. occupation and corporate looting of Iraq, we also denounced the starvation blockade that was carried out through the UN by the Bill Clinton administration. That blockade, partially due to the capitalist nature of the Iraqi economy under Saddam Hussein, cost the lives of about a million people, many of them children. While a socialist economy like that of Cuba could have made sure that everyone in Iraq had food, blame for this mass murder should also be put on the Bill Clinton administration. Likewise, it was this Clinton starvation blockade that also weakened Iraq for the Bush invasion.
Today, while the U.S. occupation of Iraq has murdered well over 655,000 people and the U.S. starvation blockade of Iraq murdered a million or more, the U.S. government and its puppets in Iraq had the nerve to put Saddam Hussein on trial, and execute him, for propaganda purposes. Yet the worst crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime were also carried out when he was directly backed by the United States. In the 1980’s the U.S. was giving massive military assistance to Iraq to help Saddam Hussein commit genocide against Kurds and carry out a bloody war with Iran at a time when Saddam Hussein was being used as an asset of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. Likewise the CIA helped Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party come to power, supplying them with the names of 5,000 socialists and labor leaders that the Ba’athists subsequently rounded up and executed.
Yet to those who claimed that an invasion of Iraq would be a chance for the U.S. to finally set things straight and set up a democracy in Iraq, Liberation News responded before the U.S. invasion saying:
“In the 1970s Iraq nationalized its oil fields. This helped the Iraqi people by taking a chunk of the profits made off of oil out of the hands of the international oil monopolies and instead keeping them in Iraq. This money helped pay for free healthcare and education. As such this was a socialist measure carried out by Saddam Hussein’s capitalist government. It was also a measure that stood up to the interests of the rich and powerful nations. For both reasons socialists supported the nationalization of Iraqi oil while those measures infuriated the imperialists...
“While defending Iraq against imperialist attack and supporting their right to defend themselves socialists also recognize that Saddam Hussein is a capitalist leader and that the Iraqi people have their own scores to settle with him. Yet any government set up by a US occupation army will not be democratic and will only lead to the privatization of the resources that American oil monopolies intend to steal...”
“U.S. imperialism will never solve the question of women’s liberation in the Middle East. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Over 50% of Iraqi doctors are women. Iraqi women are allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They are allowed to drive. Iraqi women can even freely criticize men. In addition Iraqi women have the right to work and control their own funds. This is in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive U.S. backed governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where women have no rights what-so-ever.
“The U.S. ruling class hates governments like Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela who use the profits of their oil resources partly to benefit the people with social programs. Likewise they love governments like that of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that strip the people of all their rights and keep the oil profits in the hands of the international oil monopolies and their corrupt local servants. Today in the United States we face unemployment, homelessness, and a lack of health care. The billions of dollars the U.S. will squander on killing Iraqis to steal their resources should be spent to benefit the working class and poor of the United States instead.” -From Liberation News: What Is Socialism, and Why We Oppose The Invasion of Iraq
What was predicted is reality. Those predictions were not from a crystal ball. They were accurate because they were based on the past behavior of U.S. imperialism. Today in Iraq the U.S. has set up a puppet Islamic government with functioning death squads and torture chambers. Socialists have been excluded from participating in elections and unarmed demonstrators have been shot down and murdered in the streets by U.S. troops and troops of the puppet Iraqi government. The puppet Islamic government also opposes women’s rights and women’s rights have deteriorated dramatically since the U.S. invasion. The rebuilding of basic infrastructure, such as electricity, has lagged way behind what was rebuilt by Saddam Hussein after the massive U.S. bombardment of Iraq in 1992.
With the exception of the privatization of Iraqi oil, all of the predictions have shown themselves to be true and the only reason that Iraqi oil isn’t completely under the direct control of U.S. oil monopolies now is because of the union resistance of 23,000 organized oil workers as well as the general resistance by the Iraqi people to the idea of Iraq’s resources being looted by U.S. corporations.
For the working class in the United States there is ever growing frustration with a war that is costing many lives and billions in dollars while needed programs for healthcare, jobs, the environment, and disaster relief do not get the funding they need. Just as the new imperialist masters of Iraq have shown a criminal lack of interest in the rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure, so too they left the people of New Orleans.
Yet for the ruling class their failure in Iraq is not in the murderous, undemocratic, and anti-woman puppet regime they have set up and the money that has been squandered in doing it, but in the failure of that regime to deliver the stability needed to acquire the oil loot. They complain that oil production in Iraq is below prewar levels and the occupation by U.S. and British troops serve as targets for the insurgency.
The words of Hillary Clinton, an icon of Democratic Party liberalism, makes abundantly clear that what she opposes is not the oil war itself, but the fact that Bush is not winning it:
“Let us not confuse the leadership’s failures with either the remaining mission in Iraq or the war on terrorism or with our support for our troops. What we have here is a failure of leadership to accomplish that mission. What was hailed as our shortest war has now become one of our longest. What was hailed as a model of democracy teeters on the brink of complete anarchy. What was the leadership that quickly claimed credit for success has been lethargic in the face of misjudgments and setbacks.” Hillary Clinton
As a result of imperialism’s failure in Iraq some Democrats that voted for the war like John Kerry have called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of this year. Yet the Kerry-Feingold plan actually calls for keeping troops in Iraq that are "critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces." The Kerry-Feingold plan also calls for "an over-the-horizon" troop presence in the region that could come to the aid of a failing puppet government in Iraq as well as intervene elsewhere in the so-called war on terror. (Lawmakers begin Bitter Debate on U.S. Troop Withdrawal Plan for Iraq, FOXNews, online report, June 2, 2006)
Hillary Clinton even opposed the Kerry-Feingold plan and voted against it arguing against any withdrawal timeline.
Unlike Hillary Clinton and the leading Democrats, Liberation News sees nothing good that can come from the continuation of the U.S. war against Iraq. The U.S. occupation of Iraq is doing nothing for anybody except the capitalists that are profiting from the war and the tax dollars of the American people. We call for no support to the Democrats and we demand: Iraq to the Iraqis! U.S. Out Now!
Liberation News calls for ending the war through building the mass movement in the streets; striking against arms producers; hot cargoing war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks; and building towards a general strike against the war. Likewise we support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war. We support students, such as those at UC Santa Cruz that have repeatedly driven military recruiters off campus. And we call for building the socialist movement to end imperialism through socialist revolution.
The Role of Peace Action (Formerly Sane / Freeze)
Hillary Clinton’s record is clearly pro-imperialist war. Yet the group “Peace Action” gives Hillary Clinton the passing grade of voting for peace 89% of the time. Other Democrats are given similar scores by these political hacks.
“Peace Action” is deceiving the anti-war vote. Why? Because Peace Action is a pillar of the status quo that sees no alternative to delivering votes to what they see as the “lesser evil” Democrat Party, even when the Democrats are equally pro-war. This strategy has made “Peace Action” an obstacle to peace and a pillar of the status quo of war.
Every few years the ruling class of the United States parades its selected representatives in front of the American people to give us the chance to vote for their so-called “lesser” and “greater evil” representatives in the Democrat and Republican Parties. The corporate media and liberal pro-war groups like “Peace Action” ignore the real anti-war candidates and back pro-war Democrats by misrepresenting their records to the people.
Liberation News urges all of the super-exploited workers that go door to door raising money for the Peace Action bureaucracy to quit your meaningless jobs and look for better work while looking for ways to hook up with the real anti-war/anti-imperialist movement that is marching in the streets. Likewise we urge all of the liberal and leftist minded people that give money to Peace Action to stop doing so and instead participate in the mass anti-war movement in the streets with your bodies, minds, and your money if you can afford it.
No to the twin parties of war and oppression! Yes to the independent organization and mobilization of working people!
Obama, Clinton, and Richardson, Supporters of Racist Israel
Hillary Clinton, like many Democrats, has pounded the war drum for the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans. The U.S. gives Israel billions of dollars in military aid every year and Senator Clinton’s vote backs that money for death. Israel is a racist settler state established in 1949 that has denied the original inhabitants, the Palestinians, many basic rights, often including the basic right to live. Besides denying Palestinians the same rights to travel, jobs, housing, and education as allowed Jews, the racist and religious Zionist State has used massacres and other forms of terror, wars, and torture to drive out the original Palestinian inhabitants.
Likewise Israel is always at war with its Arab neighbors. Israel’s recent attack against Lebanon where their aerial bombardment of the civilian population murdered 1,150 people and destroyed vital infrastructure is only the latest such terrorism by Israel. Yet Hillary Clinton recently told a pro-Israel rally “We will stand with Israel because Israel is standing up for American values as well as Israeli ones.”
She’s got it wrong, the mass murder and racism of Israel are in league with the values of American ruling class, as has been seen in Iraq, but these are not the values of the American people.
Claims of Israel being the victim, bombing and invading Lebanon on the pretext of two Israeli soldiers taken prisoner do not hold water in light of the fact that Israel is holding 2,000 Lebanese prisoners in their torture chamber dungeons from their previous invasion of Lebanon. In addition numerous reports say those two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanon, not in Israel. Those reports are from such sources as AP, Hindustan Times, and AFP.
On Israel “anti-war” Richardson shares Hillary Clinton’s views stating, “I am firmly committed to one of the United States' closest and most important allies - the State of Israel. Throughout my career, I've steadfastly supported Israel, obtaining a consistently pro-Israel voting record in Congress and defending Israeli interests as Ambassador to the United Nations.”
Barack Obama also backs racist Israel stating, “The United States and Israel share important interests - promoting a peaceful Middle East, combating terrorism, and encouraging reform in the Arab and Muslim world.” Likewise as a senator he has backed the massive military aid the United States gives Israel every year and says he will continue this policy as president stating he will, “insist on fully funding military assistance to Israel”.
For Socialist Democracy!
Let me be clear on this point, Obama and Clinton, and the rest of the pack will not betray us. They cannot betray us because they were never with us. Under the current politics most Americans would never have heard their names if they were on our side.
A truly democratic society would eliminate corporate control of the elections by nationalizing the corporate media and allowing all candidates equal access to the airwaves, cable, and print. Likewise a truly democratic society would carry out a sweeping “campaign finance reform” through the nationalization of the means of production (using that wealth for human and environmental needs rather than decadence and deception).
Up against the likes of Hillary Clinton, with her millions of dollars in corporate bribes, a sympathetic corporate media, growing police state, and increasing electoral fraud, it will take a socialist revolution to bring democracy to the United States.
How we can all resist:
Tell the truth!
Build the mass movement in the streets!
Strike against arms producers!
Become ungovernable!
Hot cargo war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks!
Build towards a general strike against the war!
Support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war!
Drive military recruiters off campus!
No tolerance or excuses for the pro-war, racist, and capitalist Democrat Party!
Build the socialist movement to end imperialism, racism, environmental destruction, and capitalism!
End U.S. imperialism through socialist revolution!
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By Steven Argue
Every four years the American people are subjected to the farce of bourgeois democracy, a “democracy” where only the candidates chosen by the very wealthy have any chance of being elected. That season of nicely dressed pathological liars and false hopes is now upon us.
Since the corporate media of the United States has long ago abandoned any semblance of reporting on anything of substance about candidates such as voting records and actual political views, it is up to the journalists of the left press and Indy-media to do so.
A front-runner in the race is pro-war Democrat Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton has voted for every war the United States has carried out since she came into office in 2000. Those pro-war votes include the Iraq war. She also voted to take away our civil liberties by supporting the “Patriot Act” and its renewal. Hillary Clinton, like many Democrats, pounds the war drum for the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans. In addition she voted for the anti-immigrant wall.
In her recent successful run for Senate Hillary Clinton amassed more than 22 million dollars, making her the biggest campaign finance recipient running for Senate in the country. Her money came from such corporate interests as drug and hospital conglomerates, Wall Street finance interests, real estate developers, and rightwing corporate media mogul, Rupert Murdoch.
Barack Obama
Another front-runner and “rising star” of the Democrat Party is Barack Obama. Like Hillary Clinton, Obama has voted for the Patriot Act by voting to renew it in 2006. He also voted for the racist anti-immigrant wall as well as the “guest worker” program that denies immigrants rights, but allows them to come to this country to be exploited and under-paid. Obama also voted for the so-called “Class Action Fairness Act” that makes it harder for the people to sue corporations.
One might think that Obama, as a black man in racist America, might have something to offer on issues dealing with the suffering caused by the racist police state, mass incarceration of the poor, lack of healthcare, and dramatic drop in the standard of living of the multi-racial working class and poor. Instead Barack Obama plays into racist stereotypes, blaming the victims of racist America rather than the corporate criminals, stating:
"Such wisdom might help us move beyond ideological bickering and serve as the basis of a renewed effort to tackle the problem of inner-city poverty. We could begin by acknowledging that perhaps the single biggest thing we could do to reduce such poverty is to encourage teenage girls to finish high school and avoid having children out of wedlock. . ." Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, pps. 255-256
The inner cities of America have, by and large, been abandoned by the same capitalists that got rich off of the jobs they have now exported, just as the victims of hurricane Katrina were left to die by this same racist system. Yet the best thing to do according to Barack Obama is for black girls to stop having children out of wedlock.
In his book Uncle Obama not only lets this racist system off the hook, but he praises one of the worst anti-working class reforms of the Clinton administration stating, "we should also acknowledge that conservatives-and Bill Clinton-were right about welfare as it was previously structured." Bill Clinton’s welfare reform has caused homelessness, hunger, and less access to other basic necessities for the poor in America, but Barack Obama says Bill Clinton and the conservatives were right.
Both Obama and Clinton have voted for war appropriations. The fact that they both decided at the last minute to vote against war appropriations in the most recent vote on supplemental war appropriations is a symptom of the fact that the war has not gone as planned. The war has not gained the desired oil loot for U.S. corporations and has caused a number of growing problems for U.S. imperialism including internal dissent in the United States. And while Clinton and Obama have finally voted against war appropriations this time, their pro-war Democrat Party garnered plenty of other votes to keep the imperialist war going.
In his book, Barack Obama makes clear his support for the billions being squandered on lining the pockets of the military contractors stating, “given the depletion of our [military] forces after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will probably need a somewhat higher [Pentagon] budget in the immediate future just to restore readiness and replace equipment.” (Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, p 307).
Joe Biden
Another Democrat candidate is Joe Biden. Unlike many Democrat presidential candidates that have tried to distance themselves from the war that they voted for to begin with, in the most recent vote on war appropriations Joe Biden voted with the majority of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate putting billions of dollars towards the continued U.S. imperialist slaughter of the Iraqi people.
John Edwards
Another presidential candidate with a pro-war record is John Edwards. Edwards voted for the war against Iraq and campaigned as a vice presidential candidate on the pro-war John Kerry ticket. At that time both candidates defended their votes for the war. John Edwards has since apologized for his vote for unprovoked military aggression and mass murder (without using that wording and without recognizing that his vote for war was a criminal act).
Yet when Edwards was running for the position of vice president in 2004 this what he had to say on his pro-war vote:
“We need to stick to this [defending their Iraq war votes]. We should stand by our votes, say we would vote that way again. If you admit a mistake, it shows weakness in time of war. That's what the Republicans want us to do.” (John Edwards's changing tune on the Iraq vote, Scot Lehigh, The Globe, April 17, 2007)
Bill Richardson
Another candidate trying to paint himself as an antiwar candidate of the people is presidential candidate and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Richardson doesn’t call for immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, but instead calls for a slow withdrawal. In the early 1990s he did vote against the U.S. war to reinstate the anti-woman pro-U.S. corporate oil monarchy in Kuwait, but later said he regretted that vote. In addition Richardson is a strong supporter the pro-corporate anti-worker NAFTA, GATT, and WTO. On the death penalty Richardson, like many Democrats, says it is a good thing.
Well over one hundred inmates in the United States have had their convictions overturned as a result of new DNA evidence being brought to light, with some of these being death penalty cases. Still prosecutors have fought against the use of DNA evidence to overturn old convictions, even when the lives of innocent people are on the line. In racist America, death penalty juries are always more likely to convict because all who oppose the death penalty are excluded from these juries, making them juries that are more biased towards supporting the prosecution. Blacks often face all or mostly white death penalty juries. These are juries likely to contain a number of people who think that all Black people are criminals, making these jurors incapable of weighing the evidence and understanding the concept of reasonable doubt even in those rare circumstances when the evidence is fairly presented.
Why would anybody support the death penalty being carried out by a system that has been proven to make so many mistakes? The answer lies in the fact that the death penalty is an instrument of terror used by the American ruling class against the working class, poor, and people of color. On the one hand when such innocent people are executed it has no importance to the likes of Joe Biden because to them the lives of the poor and people of color are cheap. But for the ruling class, the added bonus of the death penalty is when it is used in political cases to silence dissent such as with the executions of Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg, the Haymarket martyrs, and the threatened execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. As governor, the fact that Joe Biden has no problem with the death penalty means that he already has blood on his hands.
Dennis Kucinich
Likewise Dennis Kucinich is portraying himself as the standard bearer of peace, love, and liberalism, but has voted in favor of the frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The resolution Kucinich voted for falsely claims, “Mumia Abu-Jamal stood over Officer Faulkner and shot him in the face, mortally wounding him…” Yet this is not what the eyewitnesses said. For instance eyewitness William Singletary says, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen [that Faulkner had stopped] got out of the car and shot him. When Mumia came on the scene, we [Singletary and another man] were on the police radio trying to radio for help." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)
In the last presidential election Dennis Kucinich portrayed himself up as an anti-war candidate of the Democrat Party. Yet on his web site the Kucinich campaign stated that Kucinich, “Supports a strong and efficient military. He believes that the current practice of procuring ever more costly weapons has the effect of weakening military readiness. As the cost of new weapons systems rise, the cost of merely replacing aging weapons with new ones becomes prohibitively expensive. As a result, U.S. military forces shrink, while they become at the same time more expensive to maintain and more prone to failure.”
So Kucinich advocates more frugal and efficient spending on imperialist terror and murder.
This is the same position taken by two U.S. generals waging the war in Iraq. During the U.S. invasion of Iraq General Stanley McCrystal complained, "It was enough for the enemy to show a little resistance and some creative thinking as our technological superiority begun to quickly lose all its meaning. Our expenses are not justified by the obtained results. The enemy is using an order of magnitude cheaper weapons to reach the same goals for which we spend billions on technological whims of the defense industry!"
Similarly General Richard Mayers commented on precision-guided munitions, "The rate of their use is incompatible with the obtained results. We are literally dropping gold into the mud!"
The contradiction here was purely limited to the difference between the pure profiteering of the military industrial complex and the desire for actual cost effective results for imperialist victory on the battlefield.
Dennis Kucinich spoke to a gathering of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action claiming, "We [he and the congress] did not authorize an eye for an eye. Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan. We did not authorize the Administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases. We did not authorize war without end. We did not authorize a permanent war economy. Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy."
Yet that is exactly what Kucinich and the rest of the congress, with the exception of California Democrat Barbara Lee, agreed to with their votes authorizing Bush’s endless war on the world. The entire Democrat Party in both the Senate and Congress, with only one exception, voted for Bush's war.
Since a different vote was later taken authorizing the US war in Iraq, the most practical application of this vote by Kucinich was to authorize the US war in Afghanistan.
In stark contrast to Kucinich’s vote for war Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote on March 2002:
“When U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about an "endless war," some took it as mere political speech, or rhetoric designed to gain the top spot on the evening network news. I did not. "W" is an agent of his class, the wealthy oil merchants of the land, and his intentions are to press for an ever-wider war in all corners of the earth, to make the world safe for capital exploitation and unbridled commerce. This will eventually become a war that reaches into a slew of countries in the Middle East, on behalf of the rich and powerful elites who rule. Make no mistake: this is a war that has nothing to do with democracy. The U.S. enters the region, armed to the gills, not to defend democracies, but to defend theocracies; to defend kings, princes and sultanates; to defend U.S. access to vast oil resources in the region.” Mumia Abu-Jamal
The U.S. war in Afghanistan has in fact killed tens of thousands of civilians and brought the Afghan nation back to the chaos of fragmented warlord rule last seen after the various U.S. trained and financed Mujahideen forces defeated the Soviet backed PDPA government.
The day after the September 11 attack this author wrote:
“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.
“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen (from which the Taliban were later formed). With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing woman for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.
“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2002
Kucinich, the “peace candidate”, as much as he may now want to deny it, voted for the war in Afghanistan and played his part in making it happen.
On the war in Iraq Kucinich now states, "There is only one way in which the United States will withdraw from Iraq, prior to the end of President Bush's term: Congress must vote to cut off funds." (Rep. Kucinich, The Huffington Report) This position not only ignores the role of the people of the United States, Britain, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere rising up and resisting the war and imperialist occupations, but it is also is being put forward by a politician that voted for the war in Afghanistan, wants a leaner meaner imperialist military, voted for the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and who has worked hard to bring the anti-war movement back into the pro-war Democrat Party.
Some may argue that Kucinich is not perfect, but he’d make a better president than Bush. Yet it is unlikely that Kucinich has any intention of winning the presidency. His role is one of bringing the anti-war movement and others who are breaking from the establishment and the twin parties of war and racism back into the fold of the pro-war Democrat Party. Kucinich makes this point clear when he states, "The Democratic Party created third parties by running to the middle. What I'm trying to do is to go back to the big tent so that everyone who felt alienated could come back through my candidacy" (Counter Punch, April 2003).
Yet that tent Kucinich speaks of is one that, despite its name, is not democratic. It is a tent dominated by big capital and the politicians subservient to it. It is under this tent that the ruling class would like to swallow up the legitimate opposition of the people towards war and turn us into the water boys for the “responsible” politicians of the Democrat Party.
It is such "responsible" politicians, including Kucinich, that voted in their vast majority to back the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal. It is outrageous that that the Democrat party would vote in its House majority to condemn a French city for daring to make an issue of this racist legal lynching, while at the same time doing nothing about the liar and killer, Bush. But then again that should be no surprise either since the Democrat Party voted in its majority for the war in Iraq.
Hillary Clinton
In a press conference on August 21, 2006 George Bush Jr. finally admitted what Liberation News has been pointing out since before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. Yet Bush had used a supposed connection as a pretext for the U.S.’s unprovoked aggression against Iraq. In addition, Bush Jr. also admitted that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
Most of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, Hillary Clinton included, supported going to war with Iraq. Today Hillary Clinton has no remorse for that murderous decision stating, "Obviously, I've thought about that a lot in the months since. No, I don't regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade." Hillary Clinton: No regret on Iraq Vote, CNN.Com
In trying to let themselves off the hook many Democrats claim that Bush “did not fairly represent intelligence”. Feeble cries by these politicians today that their votes for war weren’t their fault because they were lied to by Bush not only make them look stupid, they are an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Clinton, however, is worse in not even distancing herself from this “justified invasion” and “weapons of mass destruction” lies.
While the Democrats helped promote the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had no right to defend itself, Liberation News pointed out that it is the United States that has the weapons of mass destruction. Instead we supported the right of Iraq to acquire the weapons necessary to defend themselves from U.S. aggression. There can be little doubt that if Iraq had acquired those weapons they might not be in the mess they are now.
Yet for Bush Jr. and Hillary Clinton Iraqi weapons were never the real motive for mass murder in Iraq. The capitalist ruling class, and their Democrat and Republican representatives, thought that they could use their superior military power to quickly move into Iraq and establish by force a stable neo-colonial puppet regime, and then make massive profits from the privatization of the Iraqi economy, especially oil. It is the failures of this imperialist plan, in the face of Iraqi resistance and growing unpopularity at home, that has forced some Democrats to try to rethink, or at least distance themselves from, the Bush policies they have supported.
Just as Liberation News opposes the U.S. occupation and corporate looting of Iraq, we also denounced the starvation blockade that was carried out through the UN by the Bill Clinton administration. That blockade, partially due to the capitalist nature of the Iraqi economy under Saddam Hussein, cost the lives of about a million people, many of them children. While a socialist economy like that of Cuba could have made sure that everyone in Iraq had food, blame for this mass murder should also be put on the Bill Clinton administration. Likewise, it was this Clinton starvation blockade that also weakened Iraq for the Bush invasion.
Today, while the U.S. occupation of Iraq has murdered well over 655,000 people and the U.S. starvation blockade of Iraq murdered a million or more, the U.S. government and its puppets in Iraq had the nerve to put Saddam Hussein on trial, and execute him, for propaganda purposes. Yet the worst crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime were also carried out when he was directly backed by the United States. In the 1980’s the U.S. was giving massive military assistance to Iraq to help Saddam Hussein commit genocide against Kurds and carry out a bloody war with Iran at a time when Saddam Hussein was being used as an asset of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. Likewise the CIA helped Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party come to power, supplying them with the names of 5,000 socialists and labor leaders that the Ba’athists subsequently rounded up and executed.
Yet to those who claimed that an invasion of Iraq would be a chance for the U.S. to finally set things straight and set up a democracy in Iraq, Liberation News responded before the U.S. invasion saying:
“In the 1970s Iraq nationalized its oil fields. This helped the Iraqi people by taking a chunk of the profits made off of oil out of the hands of the international oil monopolies and instead keeping them in Iraq. This money helped pay for free healthcare and education. As such this was a socialist measure carried out by Saddam Hussein’s capitalist government. It was also a measure that stood up to the interests of the rich and powerful nations. For both reasons socialists supported the nationalization of Iraqi oil while those measures infuriated the imperialists...
“While defending Iraq against imperialist attack and supporting their right to defend themselves socialists also recognize that Saddam Hussein is a capitalist leader and that the Iraqi people have their own scores to settle with him. Yet any government set up by a US occupation army will not be democratic and will only lead to the privatization of the resources that American oil monopolies intend to steal...”
“U.S. imperialism will never solve the question of women’s liberation in the Middle East. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Over 50% of Iraqi doctors are women. Iraqi women are allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They are allowed to drive. Iraqi women can even freely criticize men. In addition Iraqi women have the right to work and control their own funds. This is in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive U.S. backed governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where women have no rights what-so-ever.
“The U.S. ruling class hates governments like Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela who use the profits of their oil resources partly to benefit the people with social programs. Likewise they love governments like that of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that strip the people of all their rights and keep the oil profits in the hands of the international oil monopolies and their corrupt local servants. Today in the United States we face unemployment, homelessness, and a lack of health care. The billions of dollars the U.S. will squander on killing Iraqis to steal their resources should be spent to benefit the working class and poor of the United States instead.” -From Liberation News: What Is Socialism, and Why We Oppose The Invasion of Iraq
What was predicted is reality. Those predictions were not from a crystal ball. They were accurate because they were based on the past behavior of U.S. imperialism. Today in Iraq the U.S. has set up a puppet Islamic government with functioning death squads and torture chambers. Socialists have been excluded from participating in elections and unarmed demonstrators have been shot down and murdered in the streets by U.S. troops and troops of the puppet Iraqi government. The puppet Islamic government also opposes women’s rights and women’s rights have deteriorated dramatically since the U.S. invasion. The rebuilding of basic infrastructure, such as electricity, has lagged way behind what was rebuilt by Saddam Hussein after the massive U.S. bombardment of Iraq in 1992.
With the exception of the privatization of Iraqi oil, all of the predictions have shown themselves to be true and the only reason that Iraqi oil isn’t completely under the direct control of U.S. oil monopolies now is because of the union resistance of 23,000 organized oil workers as well as the general resistance by the Iraqi people to the idea of Iraq’s resources being looted by U.S. corporations.
For the working class in the United States there is ever growing frustration with a war that is costing many lives and billions in dollars while needed programs for healthcare, jobs, the environment, and disaster relief do not get the funding they need. Just as the new imperialist masters of Iraq have shown a criminal lack of interest in the rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure, so too they left the people of New Orleans.
Yet for the ruling class their failure in Iraq is not in the murderous, undemocratic, and anti-woman puppet regime they have set up and the money that has been squandered in doing it, but in the failure of that regime to deliver the stability needed to acquire the oil loot. They complain that oil production in Iraq is below prewar levels and the occupation by U.S. and British troops serve as targets for the insurgency.
The words of Hillary Clinton, an icon of Democratic Party liberalism, makes abundantly clear that what she opposes is not the oil war itself, but the fact that Bush is not winning it:
“Let us not confuse the leadership’s failures with either the remaining mission in Iraq or the war on terrorism or with our support for our troops. What we have here is a failure of leadership to accomplish that mission. What was hailed as our shortest war has now become one of our longest. What was hailed as a model of democracy teeters on the brink of complete anarchy. What was the leadership that quickly claimed credit for success has been lethargic in the face of misjudgments and setbacks.” Hillary Clinton
As a result of imperialism’s failure in Iraq some Democrats that voted for the war like John Kerry have called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of this year. Yet the Kerry-Feingold plan actually calls for keeping troops in Iraq that are "critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces." The Kerry-Feingold plan also calls for "an over-the-horizon" troop presence in the region that could come to the aid of a failing puppet government in Iraq as well as intervene elsewhere in the so-called war on terror. (Lawmakers begin Bitter Debate on U.S. Troop Withdrawal Plan for Iraq, FOXNews, online report, June 2, 2006)
Hillary Clinton even opposed the Kerry-Feingold plan and voted against it arguing against any withdrawal timeline.
Unlike Hillary Clinton and the leading Democrats, Liberation News sees nothing good that can come from the continuation of the U.S. war against Iraq. The U.S. occupation of Iraq is doing nothing for anybody except the capitalists that are profiting from the war and the tax dollars of the American people. We call for no support to the Democrats and we demand: Iraq to the Iraqis! U.S. Out Now!
Liberation News calls for ending the war through building the mass movement in the streets; striking against arms producers; hot cargoing war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks; and building towards a general strike against the war. Likewise we support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war. We support students, such as those at UC Santa Cruz that have repeatedly driven military recruiters off campus. And we call for building the socialist movement to end imperialism through socialist revolution.
The Role of Peace Action (Formerly Sane / Freeze)
Hillary Clinton’s record is clearly pro-imperialist war. Yet the group “Peace Action” gives Hillary Clinton the passing grade of voting for peace 89% of the time. Other Democrats are given similar scores by these political hacks.
“Peace Action” is deceiving the anti-war vote. Why? Because Peace Action is a pillar of the status quo that sees no alternative to delivering votes to what they see as the “lesser evil” Democrat Party, even when the Democrats are equally pro-war. This strategy has made “Peace Action” an obstacle to peace and a pillar of the status quo of war.
Every few years the ruling class of the United States parades its selected representatives in front of the American people to give us the chance to vote for their so-called “lesser” and “greater evil” representatives in the Democrat and Republican Parties. The corporate media and liberal pro-war groups like “Peace Action” ignore the real anti-war candidates and back pro-war Democrats by misrepresenting their records to the people.
Liberation News urges all of the super-exploited workers that go door to door raising money for the Peace Action bureaucracy to quit your meaningless jobs and look for better work while looking for ways to hook up with the real anti-war/anti-imperialist movement that is marching in the streets. Likewise we urge all of the liberal and leftist minded people that give money to Peace Action to stop doing so and instead participate in the mass anti-war movement in the streets with your bodies, minds, and your money if you can afford it.
No to the twin parties of war and oppression! Yes to the independent organization and mobilization of working people!
Obama, Clinton, and Richardson, Supporters of Racist Israel
Hillary Clinton, like many Democrats, has pounded the war drum for the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans. The U.S. gives Israel billions of dollars in military aid every year and Senator Clinton’s vote backs that money for death. Israel is a racist settler state established in 1949 that has denied the original inhabitants, the Palestinians, many basic rights, often including the basic right to live. Besides denying Palestinians the same rights to travel, jobs, housing, and education as allowed Jews, the racist and religious Zionist State has used massacres and other forms of terror, wars, and torture to drive out the original Palestinian inhabitants.
Likewise Israel is always at war with its Arab neighbors. Israel’s recent attack against Lebanon where their aerial bombardment of the civilian population murdered 1,150 people and destroyed vital infrastructure is only the latest such terrorism by Israel. Yet Hillary Clinton recently told a pro-Israel rally “We will stand with Israel because Israel is standing up for American values as well as Israeli ones.”
She’s got it wrong, the mass murder and racism of Israel are in league with the values of American ruling class, as has been seen in Iraq, but these are not the values of the American people.
Claims of Israel being the victim, bombing and invading Lebanon on the pretext of two Israeli soldiers taken prisoner do not hold water in light of the fact that Israel is holding 2,000 Lebanese prisoners in their torture chamber dungeons from their previous invasion of Lebanon. In addition numerous reports say those two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanon, not in Israel. Those reports are from such sources as AP, Hindustan Times, and AFP.
On Israel “anti-war” Richardson shares Hillary Clinton’s views stating, “I am firmly committed to one of the United States' closest and most important allies - the State of Israel. Throughout my career, I've steadfastly supported Israel, obtaining a consistently pro-Israel voting record in Congress and defending Israeli interests as Ambassador to the United Nations.”
Barack Obama also backs racist Israel stating, “The United States and Israel share important interests - promoting a peaceful Middle East, combating terrorism, and encouraging reform in the Arab and Muslim world.” Likewise as a senator he has backed the massive military aid the United States gives Israel every year and says he will continue this policy as president stating he will, “insist on fully funding military assistance to Israel”.
For Socialist Democracy!
Let me be clear on this point, Obama and Clinton, and the rest of the pack will not betray us. They cannot betray us because they were never with us. Under the current politics most Americans would never have heard their names if they were on our side.
A truly democratic society would eliminate corporate control of the elections by nationalizing the corporate media and allowing all candidates equal access to the airwaves, cable, and print. Likewise a truly democratic society would carry out a sweeping “campaign finance reform” through the nationalization of the means of production (using that wealth for human and environmental needs rather than decadence and deception).
Up against the likes of Hillary Clinton, with her millions of dollars in corporate bribes, a sympathetic corporate media, growing police state, and increasing electoral fraud, it will take a socialist revolution to bring democracy to the United States.
How we can all resist:
Tell the truth!
Build the mass movement in the streets!
Strike against arms producers!
Become ungovernable!
Hot cargo war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks!
Build towards a general strike against the war!
Support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war!
Drive military recruiters off campus!
No tolerance or excuses for the pro-war, racist, and capitalist Democrat Party!
Build the socialist movement to end imperialism, racism, environmental destruction, and capitalism!
End U.S. imperialism through socialist revolution!
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Re: Pro-War Democrats Battle for the Presidency
Sat, June 9, 2007 - 7:50 AMinteresting how so much of the focus in this so called "candidate info" is geared toward israel and the ever popular anti-zionist movement. just how much do you know about israel, friend? -
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Re: Pro-War Democrats Battle for the Presidency
Sat, June 9, 2007 - 8:54 AMHow much do I know on Israel? I've written a bit on the subject and consider myself pretty knowledgeable on the subject. Here is one of those writings:
Steve Argue responds to Senator Adam Kline regarding Israeli actions in Jenin.
Senator Kline sent the following reactions after he read information on the cities of Ramallah and Jenin being laid to waste by the Zionists just as the Nazis smashed the towns of Guarnica and Lidice in the name of collective punishment. While the Israeli government claims that they only killed combatants Human Rights Watch has documented the following crimes in Jenin alone: murders of civilians including children, the old, and the disabled; summary executions; the bulldozing of houses with people in them; and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields.
Sen. Adam Kline:
“Would this have happened if Arafat had bargained in good faith with Barak and Clinton at Camp David in the summer of 2000? They offered him much more than he had reason to expect, and he turned it down, knowing that there would be war, and apparently expecting to win a better settlement militarily.”
Steve Argue:
“Barak’s offer was not generous. In 1948 Palestinians owned 90% of the land. Since that time the majority of Palestinians have been driven from their land through Zionist violence and all are denied their basic human rights by Israel.
“The “occupied territories” in the West Bank and Gaza constitute only a small amount of the lands that have been stolen from the Palestinians and occupied by the Israelis. Israel spoke of offering 95% of those “occupied lands” to the Palestinians. Yet, even if we accept Israel’s definition of occupied territories a look at this plan shows that 95% is not accurate math. Under Barak’s plan the Latroun area, Jerusalem, and the Dead Sea would remain under Israeli control. This means that in reality the offer then amounts to only 65% of the total area of the West Bank.
“Barak also demanded that 80% of the present settlements in the “occupied territories” be annexed to Israel. This constitutes a drastic division of the West Bank into four isolated cantons. These cantons include the Ariel block between Nablus and Ramallah, the settlement block between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and the Gush Etzion block between Bethlehem and Hebron. These settlements are connected by bypass roads, which are not only under complete Israeli control but also swallow up thousands of acres of Palestinian lands. In addition, many of the settlements are built on Palestinian water aquifers, thus depriving Palestinians access to water resources.
“On the small amount of land that the poor, oppressed, and exploited Palestinian people were offered they would have little to base an economy and in fact would remain dependent on the Zionist bourgeoisie for jobs much as blacks in Apartheid South African Bantustans were dependent on the white bourgeoisie for employment. With anti-Arab hatred and discrimination prevalent among Israeli employers this is not at all an attractive proposal for most Palestinians.
“According to UN resolutions 242 and 338 Palestinians are now "allowed" to take back 22% of their land. Further more UN Resolution 194 calls for the right of Palestinian refugees to return. In addition, there are other UN resolutions, including Resolution 465, which declares that the Israeli settlements in the “occupied territories” are illegal and, as such, should be removed. Resolutions 478 and 252 have declared that the Israeli annexation of Jerusalem is illegitimate.
“Meanwhile Israel has refused to comply with international law or UN resolutions as the basis for a political settlement. Each one of these resolutions has been approved by the United Nations as well as the US. Even Israel accepted Resolution 194, as a prerequisite to being accepted as a member of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Yet Israel continues to violate this agreement by not allowing Palestinian refugees the right to return, while at the same time granting Jews from anywhere in the world the automatic right to immigrate.
“During the second round of meetings at Camp David, Barak would not even consider the basic right of Palestinian refugees to return. In addition, he refused to accept that Israel has any political, legal, or moral responsibility for the plight of the Palestinians. He dealt with the refugee issue within the framework of individual cases of family reunification, which violates the Palestinian right to a homeland and also is against international law. This clearly illustrates Barak’s attempt to relinquish all responsibility for the destruction of Palestinian villages and the violent purging of Palestinians from their homeland turning them into refugees around the world.
“Through approving resolution 194 and subsequently ignoring it the Zionist government has shown its word to be meaningless and the US has shown its real policy towards Palestinians in the billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to the Zionist Israeli regime every year. Settlement building, oppression, and violence against the Palestinian people continued and in fact were stepped up, not decreased under Barak.
“Clinton's proposal in those negotiations made the assumption that the settlements of extremist Zionists in Jerusalem and the surrounding area are legal. It divided the geographic and demographic unity of the city within the framework of complete Israeli control over all Jerusalem, including the so-called Palestinian self-rule areas in the "Arab Districts."
“The Palestinians rejected these offers because for any solution to be acceptable or reasonable it must begin with Israel and the United States accepting and complying with international law. Barak and Clinton clearly rejected such a framework. Thus the negotiations came nowhere near restoring basic Palestinian rights and as such should not be characterized as, ‘more than he (Arafat) had reason to expect.’
“So where is the "generous offer" of the Israeli government? Was its rejection really a lost opportunity? All Israeli proposals were simply attempts to coerce the Palestinians to accept occupation under slightly different terms. When understood properly, this "generous offer" illustrates that Israel is neither serious about a political settlement nor interested in peace. Since the beginning of Intifada 2 (September 2000), Israel has been systematically destroying the Palestinian infrastructure, not to mention carrying out its policies of assassinations and collective punishment.
“The current state of the situation has shown that Yasir Arafat’s strategy of negotiations with the Israeli government has achieved nothing, that the Israeli government can not even keep their word on earlier agreements, and that there will not be peace for either the Palestinian or the Hebrew speaking population until the Israeli state is abolished and in its place a democratic secular Palestine is built with a separation of church and state where the civil rights of all nationalities are guaranteed. Only a socialist movement that represents the rights of the entire working class and speaks uncompromisingly against the discrimination and violence meted out to the Palestinians by the Israeli State will be capable of making such a revolutionary transformation. Likewise such a movement can not see the Hebrew speaking population as the enemy and must instead target the repressive apparatus of the Zionist state.
Much hope can be seen in the fact that neither the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) nor the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) target civilians. In addition a revolt has taken place within the Israeli army where nearly 400 Israeli soldiers are refusing to participate in Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people, despite going to prison for their heroic actions.”
Sen. Adam Kline:
“Meanwhile (during negotiations), he (Arafat) was ordering 50 tons of explosives from Iran.”
Steve Argue:
“I ask you at the time you say that Arafat was ordering what would be a comparatively small amount of weapons if the terrorist state of Israel was not ordering much much more from the United States? The U.S. sends Israel billions of dollars in military aid every year, including many explosives that are used against Palestinian civilians. In addition Israel worked with Apartheid South Africa in developing its own nuclear weapons.
“Do the Palestinian people not have the right to defend themselves from Israel’s murderous troops? The Palestinian people have repeatedly faced extermination from the Israeli government. In the 1982 case of the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in Lebanon, Palestinians were rounded up and systematically slaughtered in the thousands by Israeli troops and their Phalangist Militia allies.
“As survivor Mrs. Sersawi testified in a Belgium appeals court on the Israeli governments war crimes, ‘The Lebanese forces militia [Phalangists] had taken us from our homes and marched us up to the entrance of the camp where a large hole had been dug in the earth. The men were told to get into it. Then the militiamen shot a Palestinian. The women and children climbed over bodies to get to this spot, but we were truly shocked by seeing this man killed in front of us and there was a roar of shouting and screams from the women. That’s when we heard the Israelis on a loudspeaker shouting, ‘give us your men.’ We thought, ‘thank God, they will save us.’
“’We were told to walk up the road to the Kuwaiti Embassy, the women and children in front, the men behind. We had been separated. There were Phalangist Militiamen and Israeli soldiers walking alongside us. I could still see Hassan (her husband with whom she was 3 months pregnant) and Faraj (her brother-in-law). It was like a parade. There were several hundred of us. When we got to Cite Sportif, the Israelis put us women in a big concrete room and the men were taken to another side of the stadium. There were a lot of men from the camp and I could no longer see my husband. The Israelis went around saying ‘Sit, sit.’ It was 11 AM. An hour later we were told to leave. But we stood outside amid the Israeli soldiers, waiting for our men.
“’Some men came out, none of them younger than 40, and they told us to be patient, that hundreds of men were still inside. Then about 4 PM an Israeli officer came out. He was wearing dark glasses and said in Arabic: ‘What are you waiting for?’ He said there was nobody left, that everyone had gone. There were Israeli trucks moving out with tarpaulin over them. We couldn’t see inside. And there were jeeps and tanks and a bulldozer making a lot of noise. We stayed there as it got dark and the Israelis appeared to be leaving and we were very nervous. But when the Israelis had moved away, we went inside. And there was no one there. Nobody. I had been only three years married. I never saw my husband again.’
“Sabra and Shatila are only two of the massacres of people done by the Israeli government in the past 54 years of Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Today all of the Palestinian towns of historic Palestine are either occupied by Israeli troops who are killing people or surrounded by Israeli troops and tanks who are poised to attack. While Israeli troops are claiming that they are only killing combatants Human Rights Watch has documented the following crimes in Jenin alone: murders of civilians including children, the old, and the disabled; summary executions; the bulldozing of houses with people in them; and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields.”
Sen. Adam Kline:
“Would this (Jenin) have happened if the Palestinian militia had not purposefully taken up positions and conducted military operations from densely-populated civilian areas? They knew that the IDF would have a choice when hit by fire from a residential area: refuse to defend their people, or defend them and be blamed for firing at civilian neighborhoods.
“Does it offend you EQUALLY that civilian Palestinians and civilian Israelis were killed? Apparently, it does not occur to you that for years, especially after Arafat's refusal to deal, Palestinians had been targeting Jews in cafes, pizza joints, public squares, and in their own homes, killing babies and their others, not because they were near a military target but because they WERE the target. Your single mention of the Passover attack sure looks to me like lip service. Understand: that attack was merely the one that drew Israel over the edge, as it was intended to do.
“I used to support the peace activists in Israel. I opposed the tactics of Netanyahu and Sharon. That is, until Arafat made them necessary.”
Steve Argue:
“You speak of the Palestinian people as if the actions of a few suicide bombers represent the actions of an entire people. This is the same argument presented by the Ku Klux Klan saying that blacks rape white women. Both arguments are racist and both are meant to justify racist attacks against an entire group of people.
“The Israeli offensive will not stop those willing to do suicide missions against civilians, attacks that are futile attempts to combat the genocide Palestinians face. The Israeli offensive does the opposite in deepening the conditions that created suicide bombers in the first place. The anger created by escalated Israeli murder is actually more likely to increase the number of tragic attacks on Hebrew civilians. At the same time Israel has not targeted the main base of the suicide bombers, Gaza, where Hamas is heavily organized. In fact, the murderous Israeli repression really isn’t meant to stop attacks on Hebrew civilians because these bombings by Hamas actually play right into the Zionist government’s aims and objectives in pushing for a final solution against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority who the Israeli government consistently blame for the attacks done by Hamas.
“Hamas is an anti-Semitic fundamentalist religious organization that killed 150 Israeli civilians through suicide bombings between 1994 and 1998 alone. From its beginnings as the Mujama in the 1970s to this day Hamas does not face the same kind of repression as any other Palestinian group. In addition Hamas reportedly receives $28 million dollars a year from another key U.S. ally in the region, Saudi Arabia.
“The U.S. and the Saudi Arabian monarchy work together closely to systematically loot Saudi Arabia’s oil resources for the profits of U.S. oil monopolies while the vast majority of the Saudi people live in poverty. In addition the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Hamas worked together closely in the U.S. war drive to destroy the left progressive PDPA government that held power in Afghanistan from 1978 to 1992. This was a war where the U.S. government and Saudi Arabia gave billions of dollars of military aid to Osama Bin Laden and the Islamic fundamentalists of the Mujahedin who were waging a holy war against the advances in women’s rights, including women’s literacy, that were occurring under the PDPA government. Tactics of the Mujahedin included throwing acid in the faces of women liberated from the veil and murdering women for teaching little girls how to read and write. Fearing a Mujahedin government right on its border and defending the PDPA government from U.S. aggression the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan in 1979. Although these Soviet troops were invited by the Afghan PDPA U.S. propaganda called this a Soviet invasion.
“An estimated 100,000 of the Islamic fundamentalists who fought in Afghanistan were recruited by the CIA outside of Afghanistan. Hamas participated in this activity. As John Cooley from ABC news pointed out on March 13th, 1996 in the International Herald Tribune: ‘A key Hamas organizer was Abdallah Azzam. He was a tough, brilliant and charismatic Palestinian from Jordan. He supervised training for the CIA’s Afghan guerrillas in Peshawar, Pakistan, where a car bomb killed him in 1989. In the earlier 1980s he toured the United States, recruiting Arab-Americans for the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.’
“Just as the United States used Hamas against the Afghani people and the leftist PDPA government, Israel has used the religious fundamentalists of Hamas as a club against the socialist and secular nationalist movements in Palestine that Hamas has violently opposed. It is those secular and socialist movements that Israel has seen as more of a threat in terms of winning the masses of people, including Hebrew speakers, over to positions of sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinians. Hamas’s suicide bombers against civilians instead serve Zionist interests in driving a larger wedge between Palestinians and Hebrew speakers, people who will need to unite against their common oppressor and killer, the Israeli Zionist government.
“Early Israeli support for Hamas included in 1978 the granting of Mujama charitable status in Gaza while other organizations, especially political organizations as Mujama was, could not get such status. In 1979 Israeli collusion with the Mujama movement set up the Islamic University of Gaza whose anti-PLO and anti-socialist slogan was: “How can uncovered women and men with Beatle haircuts liberate our holy places?” Students who did not tow the Islamic line were disciplined through brutal beatings and sometimes had acid thrown in their faces. In addition Mujama mobs were allowed to violently attack and burn down PLO controlled institutions at a time when other street demonstrations were not allowed or tightly controlled by the Israeli authorities.
“In 1979 the Mujama movement burned the Palestinian Red Crescent Society’s (PRC) building to the ground. In response the PRC issued the following statement, “The tacit approval of the authorities, if not their actual connivance in what happened, was displayed in their attitude of non-interference. While they usually display great alertness to combating even peaceful demonstrations of young students within schools, here they stood indifferently watching a violently destructive demonstration march to its objectives.”
“In 1988 Hamas was formed out of Mujama. While PLO supporters were organizing mass demonstrations in the streets Hamas was instead focusing on shooting Israeli soldiers. Despite this fact Hamas had top-level meetings with the Israeli government while that same government would not even meet with the PLO. Milton Edwards in “Islamic Politics In Palestine” noted the relationship: “The relationship between Hamas and the Israeli authorities was, however, at the strongest during the second year of the Intifada. The Israelis had been quick to extend legitimacy status to Hamas in an attempt to marginalize the PLO. Leaders of Hamas were regularly filmed at meetings with top-level Israeli officials and the message the Israelis were sending out was that they regarded Hamas as the type of people with whom they could work…
“In addition the Israelis continued turning a blind eye to large amounts of money coming into the country destined for Hamas coffers, while at the same time stopping the flow of PLO funds in support of the Intifada.”
“In 1994 Hamas began its indiscriminate attacks on Hebrew speaking people through suicide bombings. Those suicide bombings had been stepped up by Hamas in the beginnings of the Intifada 2 uprising in September 2000, but then ended due to an agreement between Arafat’s Palestinian Authority and Hamas. While this agreement was in effect world attention became focused on the gunning down of Palestinian children by Israeli sharp shooters on the West Bank. For the Zionist government this was becoming a public relations disaster.
“Israeli Prime Minister Sharon needed a new provocation he could use as propaganda to escalate the war against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). To create this provocation he took action to end the truce between the P.A. and Hamas on ending the suicide bombings of civilians. On November 23rd Israeli security forces assassinated Hamas leader Mahmud Abu Hunud. On November 25th, 2001 right-wing Israeli journalist Alex Fishman accurately observed in the “Yediot Achronot”: “Whoever gave the green light to this act of liquidation knew full well that he is thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman’s agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority; under that agreement, Hamas was to avoid in the near future suicide bombings inside the Green Line.”
“Of course no one but Sharon could have given the green light for such an important operation. Sharon’s provocation against the Hamas anti-Semites had its intended affect. Within days Hamas resumed attacks against Israeli civilians. In March a Hamas bomber killed 25 civilians in the Passover attack that was then used by Sharon as his excuse to attack the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority while leaving the Hamas stronghold of Gaza untouched.
“The U.S. government’s massive military support to the Zionist State and, to a lesser extent to the repressive Saudi Arabian monarchy is responsible for the bloodshed in Palestine. The racist state of Israel currently receives 300,000 dollars per hour in U.S. military and economic aid. The F-16 bombers, Apache and Cobra helicopters used in the latest attacks are just some of the weapons used to kill Palestinians that are made in the United States.
“Socialists stand for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and all of the crowned princes, sheiks, emirs, and Islamic fanatics of the Middle East. We understand that these U.S. policies are the policies of both the Democrat and Republican Parties. Imperialist policy isn’t the result of some misunderstanding by these parties of the wealthy. Instead the repressive and genocidal policies of U.S. imperialism flow from the drive for profits by the rapacious U.S. capitalists that rule America and much of the world. Democrat and Republican politicians like Sen. Kline know that they only represent the wealthy that get them elected. The Rosa Luxemburg Club stands for building the nearly 70,000 member California based Peace and Freedom Party in every state as part of building a socialist alternative to the policies of war, racism, union busting, and ecological degradation persued by both the Democrats and Republicans. Socialists know that the only way we will get a just foreign policy, fair treatment of workers and the poor, and sound ecological policies is through a socialist revolution in the United States that redistributes the wealth and the power to the majority.”
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