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United
States
Refuse to Be Penned in by U.S. Imperialism
- Voice of Revolution*, October 17, 2011 -
 
Brooklyn Bridge, New York
City, October 1, 2011.
On October 1, police led demonstrators onto the traffic
lane of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. Then when the hundreds of
protesters were only part way across, the police blocked both ends of
the bridge and penned them in. Protesters were forced to stay on
the bridge and then were shipped out to police stations across the
city. More than 700 people were arrested by this police
entrapment.
Since that time, the on-going demonstrations, known as
Occupy Wall Street, have received almost daily coverage in the monopoly
media. President Barack Obama, in response to a press question about
the protests said he thinks "It expresses the frustrations the
American people feel" that "the same folks who acted irresponsibly
[are] trying to fight efforts to crack down on abusive practices
that got us into this problem in the first place. So yes, I think
people are frustrated and the protesters are giving voice to a more
broad-based frustration about how our financial system works."
It can be said that the entrapment by police of
protesters and efforts to entangle them in the legal system are
symbolic of efforts
by the U.S. rulers, and Obama as their current champion, to do the same
to the working class: To pen it up in public spaces and limit
its struggles to those imposed by the rulers and reacting to their
brutal anti-social, anti-worker cuts and police attacks. It is to
block the working class from striking out on its own independent path,
with its own thinking and genuine alternative to the current
system -- with its economic crises, imperialist wars and threats of
fascism and world war. The fight by the working class for a
new direction for the economy is to be blocked and silenced. The fight
for a human-centered society where the rights of all at home and
abroad are put at the center is to be blocked and silenced.
One form this silencing takes is the broad promotion
that the "solution" to the current crisis is restoring "balance" or
"fairness"
to the existing set up, using taxes or similar instruments of the
government. As Obama put it, "We've got to make sure that everyone in
this country gets a fair shake, and a fair shot, and a chance to get
ahead." This is the limit, the corral, the rulers want to impose,
of "restoring fairness" in a situation ripe for a new direction, a new
content -- not for a "chance to get ahead" but for a human-centered
society where the Constitution enshrines the rights of all and
they are guaranteed in law. Today, all past arrangements that
provided the bourgeoisie's definition of civil rights with a guarantee
and based labor relations on bourgeois notions of fairness are
finished. The more unequal the system divided between rich and poor is
revealed to be, the more the promotion of fairness as the
guiding principle to sort out relations between competing interests
rings hollow.
Bringing human-centered social consciousness and
politics into the center of the political and economic life of the
country is
necessary and is the task of the working class. This requires refusing
to be penned in by U.S. imperialism and its "solutions" and
consciously rejecting the imposition of agendas whose aim is said to be
to "pressure" those in power. This negates the historical need
to set one's own agenda by analyzing how to defend rights and organize
to be the decision makers.
It is also the case that the concentration of economic
wealth in fewer hands, which is indeed broadly opposed by people across
the
country, is being accompanied by the concentration of political power
in the hands of the executive, the Office of the President. We
are witnessing the disarray and disintegration of the two parties of
the rich, their inability to function within the old arrangements.
Discrediting and limiting of the power of Congress and promotion of the
president as the force able to "get things done" is taking
place. The "debt deal appointed a Super Committee for budget matters,
which likely will remove these matters from Congress. Elections,
and funding of them, are directed much more to the backing of
individual candidates, not parties.
Within this, Obama is developing machinery for people to
support him as president, against Congress. This includes the newly
established "We the People" site at the White House website, where
anyone can "petition" the president and call for action on issues of
concern, like the environment, economy, education and so forth. It is a
"direct line" to the president. In attempting to get his jobs
bill passed, Obama has gone not to Congress, but across the country
appealing to people to "agree with me" and tell Congress to "pass
this bill right away." These actions reflect institutionalizing
arrangements for far greater concentration of power in the executive
while directing the working class into the corral of supporting the
president against a Congress that "refuses to act."
It is within this context that Obama expresses his
sympathy for the protesters and says they "are giving voice to a more
broad-based
frustration about how our financial system works." For Obama, the
opposition to corporate greed and influence being expressed by
protesters can be utilized as a mandate for his program for jobs,
taxes, and so forth. As he says, it is an expression of "broad-based
frustration" with Congress and "folks [on Wall Street] who acted
irresponsibly" and their "abusive practices." He supports protests
"giving voice" to frustration, indeed he hears the "voice" and will be
the one to act on it.
In this manner, the necessity for new political
arrangements that favor the working class, that empower the people
themselves to
govern and decide is removed from the thinking and discourse. The voice
of the working class for a new direction for the economy and
for new political arrangements where the people themselves have power
is silenced. Organizations known to be main backers of Obama, like
MoveOn.org, Rebuild the American Dream, and others are joining
nationwide efforts, including a "virtual march" that coincided with the
NYC march on Wednesday, October 5, where unions also joined in support.
It is notable that the media, forces like MoveOn and various
union presidents that participate in the Obama administration and
campaigns, are all promoting the protest when normally protests face
a wall of silence. Indeed, there is just such a wall against the
courageous hunger strike by prisoners [...] in California,
involving more than 12,000 prisoners defending their rights and
opposing solitary confinement and torture. There is little being said
and certainly not similar support for the struggle of longshore workers
in Longview, Washington, defending their rights against brutal
police repression. The promotion of the New York protest is not
accidental, any more than police leading protesters onto the bridge was
an accident. There should not be illusions as to the ability of Obama
and the monopoly media to manipulate the situation in their
favor.
The task facing the working class together with the
youth is to refuse to be penned in by the rulers and their false
solutions. It
is to elaborate and organize for a new direction by taking up the
defense of rights in a manner that organizes the working class to be
effective and to exercise control over its affairs.
The working class of the United States must deal with
the elimination of rule of law and institutionalizing of the lawless
violence
and "might makes right" dictate of U.S. Empire all over the world, over
which President Obama is presiding. He has now authorized the
targeted assassinations of U.S. citizens abroad, as took place in
Yemen. This reverses a long-held expectation that the president alone
cannot and would not authorize assassinations of U.S. citizens. It
reflects the increase in state violence, extending FBI
assassinations against African American and Puerto Rican leaders to
anyone the president brands as a "threat," and orders executed. It
is being accompanied by the greatly increased use of torture and
solitary confinement against prisoners inside the country and
criminalizing of resistance by the youth and workers.
Drone assassinations and massacres, open use of CIA and
Special Forces wherever the U.S. decides, military intervention in the
name
of regime change, torture and indefinite detention, are all examples of
how this lawless violence is escalating to keep the rivals to
the U.S. striving for world domination in check. The brutal U.S.-led
invasion of Libya and Obama's demand now that the U.S. "must
insist on unrestricted humanitarian access," anywhere in the world, is
further indication of the reactionary and fascist direction of
U.S. imperialism with which the U.S. working class must settle scores
if it is to make headway in its own struggle for rights and
empowerment within the United States.
President Obama Intervenes in
Railway Workers' Fight
for Rights
There are presently 11 unions representing 92,000 U.S.
railroad workers in the midst of negotiating a contract with the
National
Carriers' Conference Committee (NCCC), which represents the major
railroad associations. Despite the four largest railroad carriers
alone making more than $8.5 billion in profits last year, they are
demanding that workers pay more for health care. Older workers and
the sick and injured are especially being targeted. In June, the NCCC
secured concessions from 40,000 railway workers represented by
the United Transportation Union, and has been using this to insist all
other workers submit.
The other unions rejected this extortion. On October 3,
the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET),
representing
25,000 workers, voted to strike on October 7. They were joined by the
Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen. Several other unions were
considering joining their call for a strike.
On October 6, President Barack Obama, using executive
authority, intervened and issued an order that blocked the strike,
saying,
"It's in our national interest to make sure our freight rail system
runs smoothly, since a disruption could affect businesses across
the country and cause unnecessary damage to our already-fragile
economy." These executive powers were put in place in the Railway
Labor Act, which governs labor relations in the railway and
airline
industry and provides the legal basis to hamstring the workers and
sanction government intervention.
The U.S. Marxist-Leninist Organization points out that,
"It is notable that the main concern raised by Obama is that the
economy
would be damaged by a strike and that the workers would be to blame.
This is consistent with the capital-centered view that attacking
the workers, lowering their standard of living and eliminating their
health care and pension benefits are actions that serve the
economy. It is an obsolete view that refuses to recognize that to move
forward and overcome the state of perpetual economic crisis, it
is the workers' rights and their fight for a new direction for the
economy that must be advanced."
As part of the attack on the workers, Obama formed a
Presidential Emergency Board comprised of five "mediators" that will
have 30
days to recommend a contract. After an additional 30-day cooling-off
period, the unions can strike if they reject the contract.
However, the Railway Labor Act
also allows Congress to step in and
unilaterally impose a contract. The last time railroad workers went
on strike, in 1991, the strike lasted 14 hours before Congress passed a
bill and the president then created a board that did precisely
that.
"The government intervention is clearly serving monopoly
right and its anti-worker, anti-social demands. What is required is for
the
workers to strengthen their fight by standing up for public right,
insisting on restricting monopoly right and hold government to
account for doing so," the USMLO concludes.
Longshore Workers' Union Files Civil Rights Lawsuit to
Stop Police Brutality
- ILWU Local 21, September 22, 2011 -
Longshoremen
and their supporters protesting against a grain loading facility run by
scab labour
in
Longview, Washington, are attacked by riot police, September 7, 2011. (ILWU)
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union and
(ILWU) Local 21 today responded to ongoing police brutality and
harassment
related to its labor dispute with EGT Development at the Port of
Longview by filing a civil rights lawsuit against Mark Nelson, the
Sheriff of Cowlitz County; Jim Duscha, City of Longview Police Chief;
Cowlitz County; and the City of Longview.
"The ILWU is filing this lawsuit to stop the abuse of
longshore workers and their supporters who are being violently pursued
and
intentionally prosecuted for exercising their free speech and
associational rights," said ILWU International President Bob McEllrath.
"Longshore workers and their supporters are no longer free to move
about their hometown without fear of being ambushed in front of
children and families by an overzealous, out-of-control Police Chief
and Sheriff. This blatant abuse of authority has to stop."
The lawsuit was filed in United States District Court
Western District of Washington on September 22, 2011. The lawsuit is
aimed at
stopping a law enforcement campaign against union members and
supporters that includes:
* arresting and jailing members for non-violent
misdemeanor citations that ordinarily do not merit arrest let alone
jail;
* acting with aggression, brutality and force when
arresting members for non-violent misdemeanors without probable cause
for such
force and without having a reasonable suspicion that the members or
supporters posed an immediate or credible threat or injury to law
enforcement or any other person;
* refusing to arrest members when they voluntarily
presented themselves for arrest and instead insisting on arresting them
in
surprise visits to their homes or in "made-for-television" style scenes;
* engaging in almost constant open and obvious
surveillance of the ILWU Local 21 union hall;
* following and roughing up individuals wearing clothes
bearing the ILWU name or logo and/or driving vehicles marked with the
ILWU
name or logo;
* shining bright lights into union members' homes for
hours at a time late at night; and
* following and conducting surveillance of union members
and officials in their homes.
Leal Sundet, ILWU Coast Committeeman said, "Local union
officers have tried for weeks to engage law enforcement and the Port of
Longview to coordinate peaceful picketing and targeted acts of lawful
and constitutionally protected public demonstrations and civil
disobedience in an isolated rural area on public port property. These
efforts have been rebuffed with law enforcement choosing instead
to impose its own brutal campaign of retaliation and excessive force on
the union and its supporters."
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union
represents 50,000 men and women on the docks, in grain terminals and in
other
industries inWashington, Oregon, California, Alaska and Hawaii. Union
longshoremen have worked in all Northwest grain terminals for the
past 80 years and recently reached a new tentative collective
bargaining agreement with the region's grain export terminals after
just
three days of negotiations.
October 22, 2011 Bulletin • Return to Index • Write to:
editor@cpcml.ca
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