https://www.newsghana.com.gh/the-us-imperialist-policy-on-war-and-the-declining-empire/

An anti-imperialist program points the way towards transformative efforts to build cooperation and stability

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire, http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/

Note: These remarks were delivered at a Moratorium NOW! Coalition and Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) special weekly organizing meeting in Detroit on Mon. December 12, 2016. The gathering featured as the keynote speaker journalist Eva Bartlett who reported on her coverage of the United States backed war in Syria. Bartlett spoke on a panel chaired by Randi Nord of Geopolitics Alert, http://geopoliticsalert.com/ along with contributions by Joe Mshahwar of Detroit FIST and Abayomi Azikiwe. https://www.newsghana.com.gh/the-us-imperialist-policy-on-war-and-the-declining-empire/

JOBS, Justice & Peace!

Syria: Doctors in Aleppo refute Western media lies

Link to a Youtube video interview of a Syrian ambulance driver discussing the role of the Syrian government and Russian assistance in the conflict.

Syrian Communist appeal: statement from Syrian Communist Party-Unified

NATO data: Assad winning the war for Syrians’ hearts and minds

What do the Syrian people want?

Communist Youth of Syria: ‘We will never give up!’

Sept. 9, 2013 Washington D.C.

Please click here to add your name in support
of the Hands off Syria Coalition

Only in a peaceful and independent Syria, free of foreign aggression, can the people of Syria freely exercise their sovereign rights, express their free will and make free choices about their government and their country’s leadership.

We invite all supporters of peace and peoples’ right to self-determination around the world to join hands of cooperation in this effort to achieve these most humanitarian demands.

   We need jobs, healthcare, education and an  
     end to racist police violence here at home,  
   NOT U.S. WARS ABROAD!     
 
Please click here to add your name
in support of the Hands off Syria Coalition
and to see hundreds of other signers

Sept. 7 march in NYC from Union Square to Times Square.

Workers World editorial: http://tinyurl.com/zv6cley

http://www.workers.org/

The CIA’s allegation that Russia intervened in the U.S. presidential election to help Donald Trump is “fake news” being peddled by the Washington Post and New York Times.

Did the Russians sabotage voting machines in the Midwest? That’s the sort of stuff U.S. spy agencies would brag about discovering. But no.

Russia is accused of hacking the computer of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta and giving embarrassing information to WikiLeaks. But Julian Assange, WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief, denied Russia was the source. (Politico, Nov. 3)

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina nonetheless declared, “I’m going after Russia in every way you can go after Russia. … I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want Putin personally to pay the price.” (Washington Post, Dec. 10)

It wasn’t Russia that set up the Electoral College that’s sending Trump to the White House, even though he got 2.8 million fewer votes than Clinton. As Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar has pointed out, the Electoral College was established to protect slavery. (Vox, Nov. 12)

And it was not Russia that suppressed African-American and Latinx votes.

The CIA claims against Russia are old news. “‘We have not drawn any evidentiary connection to any Russian intelligence service and WikiLeaks — none,’ said one U.S. official,” That’s what the Washington Post reported back on July 27.

So why the clamor now? It probably has something to do with most of Aleppo being liberated by Syria’s elected government, which is aided by Russia and Iran. It’s a big defeat for the CIA.

Attacking Russia for allegedly aiding Trump is also a way to attack this super-bigot from the right.

Millions of people may be coming to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20 to protest Trump’s inauguration. Blaming Russia is an attempt to divert the struggle.

It’s easier to knock Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, Trump’s apparent secretary of state nominee, for deals with Russia than to attack the oil giant for, say, exploiting Yemen.

Democrats like New York Sen. Charles Schumer are yelling the loudest against Russia, while capitulating to Trump’s nomination of a virtual junta of generals in his cabinet.

During the election campaign the ruling class and its capitalist state were split. The biggest banks and the CIA supported Clinton. Most of the small banks, oil frackers like Harold Hamm — the sort of forces that backed Barry Goldwater in 1964 — were for Trump.

The FBI was also for Trump, and FBI Director James Comey may have helped tilt the elections by raising Clinton’s emails late in the campaign.

The split between these two Gestapo-like agencies — the CIA and the FBI — has continued, with the FBI discounting the CIA’s claims about Russia. (CNN, Dec. 11)

What’s ironic about the CIA’s “fake news” is that U.S. election consultants boasted about how they helped re-elect Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996. (Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1996) Wall Street used Yeltsin to help overthrow the Soviet Union, a tragic defeat for poor people and workers everywhere.

Russia today has a capitalist government, but it’s not a vassal state like Saudi Arabia. To U.S. generals like “Mad Dog” James Mattis — Trump’s choice for defense secretary — Russia is 6 million square miles to attack and occupy.

Our enemies are in the corporate boardrooms and the Pentagon, not in Moscow.

All out for J20 Counter-inaugural!                                   The working class must unite!

The presidential election is over. Trump captured the Electoral College even though a majority of people in this country voted – if they voted at all – against Trump. The big business media immediately ran headlines blaming the struggling, so-called “white working class” for Trump’s victory. It is sadly true that millions of working-class whites embraced or accepted Trump’s hateful rhetoric attacking Black people, all people of color, immigrants, Muslims, women, people with disabilities, Jewish people and the LGBTQ community. Many workers and small business people, including those who lost everything after the 2007-8 recession, fell for his empty promises to fix the economy. But the polls acknowledge that the strongest base of support for Trump’s fascist campaign was white people making over $70,000.

There is only one multinational, global working class. Media “experts” don’t acknowledge that Black, Brown, or Indigenous voters are also part of the working class. Workers who can’t vote, including prisoners, undocumented workers and those under 18 years of age are part of the working class. In fact these are the most exploited and oppressed sectors of the working class. There is nothing in Trump’s program for any of us. Truly ALL workers and oppressed people are hurt, threatened and divided by bigotry and scapegoating.

Now, unfortunately, leaders of the AFL-CIO as well as the Autoworkers, Steelworkers and Building Trades unions have adopted the posture of “give Trump a chance.” This is a betrayal of our class interests.

What does the working class need? Workers need jobs – a full employment agenda that includes a massive public works program and a shorter work week with no cut in pay.  A national health program that leaves no one choosing between paying costly premiums and going without insurance. A moratorium on evictions, foreclosures and utility shutoffs. Quality public education and free college tuition. Restore and expand the social safety net, which has seen heartless cuts in food stamps, welfare, unemployment benefits and more. An end to so-called trade agreements like NAFTA and the TPP that hurt workers worldwide – not just here. Stop union-busting by the bosses; reverse the dozens of anti-union bills passed by state legislatures across the country including Jim Crow “Right-to-Work” (for less) laws. Labor laws should not be written by people like the Koch brothers and the DeVos family. Money to rebuild the infrastructure of our cities, not for the prison-industrial complex, the military budget and wars against oppressed people around the world. Reparations for our communities — from Detroit and Flint to Puerto Rico – suffering from racist austerity.

Hate crimes against people of color, Muslims, women, the LGBTQ community and immigrants – on the rise since the Trump election – must be forcibly stopped along with the hateful rhetoric that encourages them. Plug the school-to-prison pipeline. Short term projects that poison the waterways – like DAPL—create no permanent jobs and ultimately only help Big Oil & the banks.

The epidemic of police murders of Black, Brown and Indigenous people must come to an end! Jail killer cops! Black lives matter!

The appointment of fast food CEO Andrew Puzder is a declaration of war against Fight for $15. We need $15 and a union – not as a ceiling but a foundation to build upon. All workers deserve at least $15 and with the right to organize and collectively bargain. This includes workers in the U.S. South, farm laborers, domestic workers, workers with disabilities, prisoners, vulnerable undocumented workers often subjected to wage theft, and super-exploited precarious workers (often mis-labeled self-employed).

Workers and oppressed people are powerful! Our movement was growing even before the election. The number of strikes went up after years of decline; Verizon workers, Minnesota nurses and the Harvard dining hall workers were victorious. Prisoners struck on the anniversary of the Attica Rebellion. Rebellions have broken out in Ferguson, Baltimore, Milwaukee and Charlotte. The Black Lives Matter Movement is showing the world what a fightback looks like. The DREAMers, Fight for 15, and Standing Rock are other inspiring examples.  Mass youth-led protests erupted as soon as the presidential election results were known.

All of the working class must unite. Organized labor, the first line of defense for the workers and oppressed, must see itself as part of the broader working class movement. Low wage and precarious workers are a part of this movement. Unemployed and underemployed workers are a part. Prisoners are a part. Workers around the globe — super-exploited and often by the same bosses we work for – are a part. Migrant workers, risking their lives to escape war or austerity, are a part. All of us, together, are unstoppable!

We must show Trump, all the politicians and the one-percenters they serve that we refuse to be divided! Build a united front and make January 20 a sea of working class unity!

http://uspcn.org/2016/12/13/new-indictment-against-rasmea/

Rasmea Defense Committee

For Immediate Release

Media contact: Hatem Abudayyeh, 773.301.4108, hatem85@yahoo.com

U.S. Attorney extends political attack on Rasmea, brings new indictment against the Palestinian American

Tuesday, December 13

Today, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade announced that a grand jury she had empaneled returned a new, superseding indictment against Rasmea Odeh for unlawful procurement of naturalization. This new indictment, just four weeks before her retrial, is a vicious attack by prosecutors desperate after a series of setbacks in their case against the Chicago-based Palestinian American community leader. From the outset, the government has attempted to exclude and discredit evidence of Rasmea’s torture at the hands of Israeli authorities, but the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the prosecution, which led to the retrial; and the government’s own expert affirmed that Rasmea lives with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

As the January 10 retrial approaches, and knowing that it faces the real prospect of losing before a jury, the U.S. Attorney’s office has reframed its case against Rasmea, putting allegations of terrorism front and center. In the first trial in 2014, prosecutors were barred from using the word “terrorism,” because Judge Gershwin Drain agreed the word would bias the jury. The new indictment adds two allegations that preclude this protection: first, that the crimes she was forced by torture to confess to are “terrorist activity”; and second, that she failed to report an alleged association with a “Designated Terrorist Organization.” Despite the government’s claim that this is a simple case of immigration fraud, this new indictment is written to ensure that Rasmea stands before a jury as an accused terrorist.

“They are switching course because they know that a jury will believe Rasmea,” says Nesreen Hasan of the Rasmea Defense Committee and its lead organization, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network. “We have always said, from day one, that this is a political case, and that the government is prosecuting Rasmea as part of a broader attack, the criminalization of the Palestine liberation movement. This new indictment is literally the same charge, with the same evidence – immigration forms. Only now, they want to paint Rasmea, and all Palestinians, as terrorists. The real criminals in this case are the Israelis who brutally tortured Rasmea 45 years ago, as well as those in the U.S. government who are trying to put her on trial for surviving the brutality committed against her.”

Prosecutors will be disappointed to find that these new allegations fail to erode Rasmea’s support. People have mobilized by the hundreds for countless hearings, every day of her 2014 trial, and her appeal earlier this year. “We have people ready to come from across the Midwest to stand with Rasmea in Detroit on January 10, but we are also prepared to adjust those plans to be there whenever we are needed,” says Jess Sundin of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, who lives in Minneapolis and has mobilized dozens of Minnesotans and others in support of the defense. “We will redouble our organizing and fundraising work, and make certain Rasmea has the best defense possible.”

Given the desperate move by prosecutors, it is clear that things may change quickly. Rasmea’s legal team has filed a motion to postpone the January 10 trial date, so they can prepare a defense against the new allegations. According to lead defense attorney Michael Deutsch, “We also intend to challenge this indictment as vindictive and politically-motivated.”

The Rasmea Defense Committee is urging supporters to continue to call U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade at 313-226-9100, or tweet @USAO_MIE, and demand that she stop wasting taxpayer money, that she stop persecuting a woman who has given so much to U.S. society, and that she #DropTheChargesNow against Rasmea.  In addition, the committee is calling on supporters to help win #Justice4Rasmea by donating to the defense and organizing educational events about the case.

Visit www.justice4rasmea.org for more information.

Make It Ungovernable! Protest the Presidential Inauguration in Washington DC

These resources and more are available to download at J20resist.org