Statements
Defend Our Rights! Into the Streets! Shut It Down!
- United National Antiwar Coalition -
November 4, 2020.
Chicago, Illinois.
We, the undersigned social
justice activists, peace and justice organizations, defenders of
fundamental democratic rights, defenders of Black Lives, of Migrant
workers, defenders of healthcare for all and in opposition to endless
war, recognize that no matter who is elected president on November 3,
the attack on our democratic and human rights will continue. However,
we reject President Trump's threats to ignore the November 3 election
results and declare himself president. Clearly the
system itself is in crisis. Corporate controlled elections are used as
a distraction to their failures to protect and defend the people. Tens
of millions of people have been in the streets against racist police
violence. Their voices are ignored. Both parties want more police
funding and ignore healthcare for all. On
Wednesday, September 23 President Trump, in response to a reporter's
question declared: "We want to get rid of the [mail-in] ballots, and
we'll have a very peaceful -- there won't be a transfer, frankly.
There'll be a continuation." We can only consider
President Trump's November 3 assertions as the attack on fundamental
democratic rights and an effort to establish an open U.S. dictatorship.
Democratic rights have been under attack for a long time. The
will of the people is denied in a system so dominated by money and
corruption that neither of the major party candidates represent our
needs or interests.  The defunding of
the Post Office and aggressive voter suppression measures, threats to
reject mail-in ballots, plans to use Republican controlled state
legislatures, state courts and the U.S. Supreme Court are
overwhelmingly aimed at suppressing Black, Latinx and Native American
representation.
President Trump threatens to void
the entire process by massive disenfranchisement of tens of millions of
voters and to call in the U.S. military to suppress massive protests.
The fact that U.S. elections are largely limited to the
parties of the corporate elite, that ballot access and access to the
corporate media is similarly restricted, further confirms the system's
basic failings. In this period of economic
collapse, escalating pandemic, climate crisis, racist police violence
and armed militias the only way forward is determined people's
mobilization to secure our rights. The corporate elite and their
political parties can't be relied on. As collective
signers of this statement we take no position on any of the 2020
presidential candidates. We are united in defense of the right of the
people to freely cast their votes and that their votes will be counted.
In a November crisis of the entire system and all its
institutions we see no alternative but a full national mobilization in
the streets to shut down the nation entirely, including the closure of
all government and corporate institutions via united and coordinated
strike actions and related mass protests. Deploying the mass power of
the people is the only way forward. Prepare
to Shut It Down!
Into the Streets!
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 43 - November 7, 2020
Article Link:
Statements: Defend Our Rights! Into the Streets! Shut It Down! - United National Antiwar Coalition
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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