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US Electoral Politics

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Under Siege: why socialists must fight for Palestine and BDS

The struggle for Palestinian liberation from Israel’s U.S.-backed settler-colonial regime has become a cornerstone of most radical and progressive political platforms. Especially since Palestinian Civil Society launched the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign (BDS) in 2004, modeled closely on the South African campaign to end Apartheid; the broad U.S. and global Left have made the struggle to end Israel’s occupation part of a wider critique of U.S. imperialism.

Yet recent events have challenged the unity and momentum of both the struggle for Palestinian liberation on the Left, and its primary global weapon, the BDS campaign. One of those challenges has come from the reformist wing of the Left, the Democratic Socialists of America. Another, even more potentially threatening to Palestinian liberation unity, has come from within the ranks of the U.S. Arab political class and its institutions.

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Serious about Systemic Change: an interview with Marco Amaral

Marco Amaral is a progressive candidate running as an Independent for the position of California Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2022. He is Chicano educator and long-time activist who teaches high school Special Education in a low-income area. Amaral lives and works in a community near the US-Mexico border in San Diego, a largely working-class Mexican community and is currently a Board of Trustees member at the South Bay Union School District. He spoke to Puntorojo about activism, education, politics and his campaign.

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Zionists Weep Crocodile Tears

As Israel bombs Palestinian civilians in Gaza, ethnically cleanses Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and deliberately unleashes right wing mobs to terrorize Palestinians everywhere, the whole U.S. congressional establishment has united to condemn Israel’s critics.

The entire Democratic leadership joined with the most rabidly racist sections of the Republican Party to slander congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s statements comparing Israel’s and the United States’ crimes with those of Hamas and the Taliban as antisemitic. The statement they issued on June 11th reads, in part: “Drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the US and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all.”

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The QAnon Coup: hysteria and conspiracy at the end of the world

In the halls of Congress, Democrats are attempting (or at least feigning an attempt) to force an investigation into the January 6th riot, in which Trump supporters invaded the US Capitol building. Many on the left correctly view this step as a piece of political theater designed to simultaneously appease their base and generate a rationale for further expansion of the national security state. Despite the ridiculous charade of the capitalist parties, however, there is nothing frivolous about the riot or the horde of fanatical “QAnon” conspiracy theorists that spawned it. The events of January 6 portend the emergence of a new, radicalized Right which the Left must be prepared to combat.

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Us versus the billionaires and their parties

In a recent interview, Joe Biden was visually irritated when responding to a reporter who asked if his proposed policies are “socialist”. “Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career — my whole career. I am not a socialist…I beat the socialist!”

This back-handed slap at Bernie Sanders occurred precisely at the time that Sanders and the self-identified progressives and Socialists in Congress push for the 10-15 million people who voted for Sanders in the primaries to get behind Biden—despite deep ideological differences.

On the heels of the deployment of Federal police in several states to repress Black Lives Matter protests, and Trump accusing him of being soft on the movement against police violence, Biden defensively replied and criticized the protests. At a high-profile press conference at a steel mill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with all of its dog-whistle

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Los Demócratas: partido sangriento del imperialismo, guerra, y opresión

Ese momento ha vuelto, llega cada cuatro años, cuando la gente nos dice que es nuestro deber votar…votar por el mal menor, votar contra los republicanos, votar por los demócratas. En este momento algunas personas están entusiasmadas con el demócrata Bernie Sanders, esa gran esperanza para los liberales.

Muchos justifican su apoyo a Sanders por diciendo que el empujara a los demócratas hacia la izquierda y los regresara a sus raíces “progresistas.” La verdad es que los demócratas no son el partido del mal menor y sus raíces están lejos de ser “progresistas.” No es un aliado de la clase obrera y de los oprimidos, y nunca lo fue. El Partido Demócrata es el otro partido de la clase dominante angloamericana, es un partido que hace cumplir el encarcelamiento en masa y las deportaciones en masa, ejecuta guerras imperialistas y apoya dictaduras sangrientas en otros países. Esto es lo que es Partido Demócrata: un partido capitalista e imperialista.

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El plan de inmigración de Bernie Sanders: una respuesta desde la primera línea de lucha

Vivo en Queens, Nueva York, uno de los lugares más diversos en el país. Era tan solo una niña recién llegada de México cuando los eventos del 11 de septiembre sucedieron e introdujeron un periodo de militarización social disfrazado en discurso de “seguridad nacional.” Entre los asquerososataques racistas por parte del partido republicano y el pretendido apoyo de los funcionarios demócratas, la voz de inmigrantes indocumentados generalmente ha sido ignorada, particularmente cuando nuestra voz no se alinea con la de los demócratas o si vamos más allá de simplemente registrar a nuestra comunidad documentada para que voten “azul.” Esta era ha sido efectivamente marcada por la represión y el chivo expiatorio de las comunidades inmigrantes.

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The Democrats: blood-stained party of imperialism, war, and oppression

That time has come again, it comes every four years, when people tell us it is our duty to vote…to vote for the lesser evil, to vote against the Republicans, to vote for the Democrats. Right now, some people are enthusing over Democrat Bernie Sanders, that great hope for liberals.

Many justify their support of Sanders by stating that he will push the Democrats to the left, take them back to its “progressive” roots. The truth is that the Democrats are not the party of lesser evil and its roots are far from “progressive.” It is not an ally of labor and the oppressed, and it never was. The Democratic Party is the other party of the Anglo-American ruling class, it is a party that enforces mass incarceration and mass deportations, wages imperialist wars, and supports bloody dictatorships abroad. This is what the Democratic Party is – a capitalist, imperialist party.

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Bailouts are class warfare

The global capitalist economy has quickly stumbled into recession, a process already unfolding before the COVID-19 pandemic came into full view. The effects of the spreading virus have led to rolling closures and shutdowns to large swathes of different international economies, inducing a full-blown crisis that is now breathlessly impacting people across the world.

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Bernie Sanders’s immigration plan: a response from the front-lines of struggle

I live in Queens, New York, one of the most diverse areas in the country. I arrived from Mexico as a child in the post 9/11 period of social militarization, carried out under the veil of “national security”. This era has been marked by scapegoating and repression. Between Republican’s nauseatingly racist attacks on our civil rights and the shallow support of establishment Democrats, the voice of undocumented immigrants is ignored in elections if it does not fall in line behind the Democratic Party, or if we go beyond merely focusing our efforts to register our documented community to vote “blue”. 

Despite being taxpayers, we are not allowed to vote, run for office or donate to, fund-raise, or directly campaign for candidates in most local elections and in no state or federal elections. For this reason, civil society and immigrant rights organizations are constrained to waging limited legal challenges and legislative reforms that rely on building alliance with Democrats at the cost of independent action and accountability to the larger community. This marginalization in the electoral arena

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