US Imperialism

October 6, 2020

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

October 3, 2020

by Ivan Waldo

They came for us

Recent revelations by whistleblower Dawn Wooten, exposed that at ICE detention centers, doctors have been performing hysterectomies on unsuspecting patients. Her revelations, while appalling and detestable, are not surprising to me. I’ve seen this before. I know this movie well. It’s like The Ten Commandments playing on television during Good Friday, I know what happens next. I can quote this story line for line.
As a Latin American History scholar, I’ve spent many years familiarizing myself with people like Cornelius Rhoads, a former US Army doctor and hospital administrator who was oversaw racist and barbaric human experimentation projects. I have learned about forced sterilizations on colonial islands through documentaries like La Operación. I’ve combed through the published studies of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment on African American males who were injected with syphilis. I am well aware of the medical community’s penchant for using people in Africa to conduct clinical trials for prescription drugs.

October 2, 2020

by Alexis Meza

History, memory, and politics: “unforgetting” in the diaspora

Born in San Francisco, California, Roberto Lovato was raised in the shadow of silence surrounding family history and trauma, a commonly shared experience among those in the Salvadoran diaspora. In Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and the Revolution in the Americas (2020) Lovato shares his experience growing up surrounded by this omnipresent silence and the personal and political stakes of intergenerational forgetting. Lovato states “the machete dismembers our humanity from our stories” (xxiii). He uses the machete as a metaphor to describe the ways the social fabric of this community has been cut, wounded, and

September 30, 2020

by Héctor Reyes

Assimilate This! Is it possible or desirable to assimilate into a white supremacist, colonial settler, and imperialist nation?

Assimilation is this political plasticine that is frequently at the core of newspaper editorials, scapegoating by politicians, and ideological constructs of what it is to be a citizen of the United States of America (U.S.). As such, it refers to a myth-soaked narrative of the history of the U.S. as a nation; who is assumed to belong to it, or who can be allowed to earn a spot in that ark of glorified passengers known as “Americans.”
The term “American” sits at the center of this chauvinistic and exaggerated conception of who is a “red-blooded” inhabitant, and therefore a bona fide “citizen” of the U.S. It is a misguided and vainglorious term that robs the rest of the inhabitants of the Americas of such self-designation. For everyone born or naturalized in Latin America, Central America and the Caribbean

August 13, 2020

by Trans Asylum Seekers Support Network

“Look me in the eyes and tell me that I am not human”

In El Salvador, trans people realize from a young age that their lives are to be full of persecution and survival. When a trans girl is young, she realizes who is like her. We know if someone is part of our trans community through their way of speaking, walking, etc. Not every trans person has the courage to say they are trans because they know that the whole world, including their own family, will turn their backs. Among ourselves, we support one another because we understand that in order to survive, we need our communities. When our families kick us out, our trans sisters are there, supporting and helping us. They give us food, a place of refuge, and community. That’s how we support each other, giving each other everything we can.

May 13, 2020

by Blas Reies

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.

May 4, 2020

by Lupita Romero

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.

May 1, 2020

by Colectivo Ollin Calli

Coronavirus y conflictos en las maquilas

En México vamos entrando un camino que los y las trabajadoras de Italia ya han andado: la pandemia del coronavirus se ensaña en los y las trabajadoras de los parques industriales. En Bérgamo, Italia, ya les ha pasado. En Baja California ya estamos entrando pero hay resistencia. Para el 21 de abril, justo cuando el gobierno federal mexicano ha decretado la “Fase 3” de la pandemia, tres conflictos principales se agudizan en la maquila: (1) Trabajador@s vs empresarios maquileros para que no les obliguen a trabajar arriesgando su vida y el de sus familiares por el coronavirus; (2) Gobierno de Baja California vs empresarios maquileros tratando de obligar a las maquilas que no son “esenciales” a que cierren; y (3) Trabajador@s vs empresarios maquileros demandando que les paguen su salario “integro” mientras están en casa por la pandemia, y no sólo el “mínimo” o aun peor que se les despida sin salario.

April 14, 2020

by Justin Akers Chacón

COVID-19 and Imperialism: the coming disaster and revolt

As the coronavirus spreads across the globe, the impact is winding its way through the hierarchical channels of the global capitalist system. As the richer nations approach the apex of the first wave of the infection, the pandemic is just hitting the poorer nations. The combined catastrophe of mass-infection and economic collapse is going to be more destructive and the effects longer-lasting in societies historically under-developed by imperialism. This refers to the internationalization of the capitalist system by the dominant economic powers, who then divide (and re-divide) and economically exploit other nations through the institutions of neoliberal capitalism.

April 2, 2020

by Blas Reies

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.