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US imperialism

US OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST! Stop the Genocide and Imperialist War

US OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST! Stop the Genocide and Imperialist War. Presentation by Joseph Daher, who is an internationalist anticapitalist and an academic. He teaches at Lausanne University, Switzerland and at the university of Ghent, Belgium. He is the author of Marxism and Palestine (2024) Syria after the Uprisings (2019) and Hezbollah: The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God (2016). He is the founder of the blog Syria Freedom Forever.

Jockeying to Lead the Empire

On September 10th Kamala Harris and Donald Trump held their first presidential debate. An analysis of the content of their statements and responses shows how both candidates were verbally jockeying to present and position themselves as the better candidate to direct the course of genocide in Palestine and unfolding global imperialist war. They also sparred over who could better guarantee that capitalist accumulation continues to stack the fortunes of the billionaire class that backs and funds the two-party capitalist electoral regime. Neither of capital’s two preferred candidates spoke to the multiple and overlapping crises that are deteriorating the lives of working-class people. Below, Izzy Tellin and Michelle Rundquist share some analysis of the debate.

Reading Rosa Luxemburg in an Era of Barbarism

At the outset of the unprecedented carnage and destruction of the first World War, Rosa Luxemburg, the German-Polish revolutionary leader and thinker wrote:

Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.’ … Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. … Today, we face the choice exactly as Friedrich Engels foresaw it a generation ago: either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration – a great cemetery. Or the victory of socialism, that means the conscious active struggle of the international proletariat against imperialism and its method of war.

Harris and Walz form “Team A” of US Imperialism

The Harris-Walz ticket will not change the U.S. commitment to war and imperialism. In fact, it will expand it under the cover of domestic liberalism.
Tim Walz is a retired master Army sergeant amd long-time member of the National Guard. He has voted to fund almost every way the U.S. has fought since 2007. He has actually voted to the right of many Democrats when it comes to funding U.S. wars.

From Genocide Joe to Kamala the Cop: the only solution is revolution

The Democratic Party has changed killers. Kamala Harris, a cop lover, former prosecutor, and a woman who has praised Zionism and rode shotgun to Genocide Joe in the slaughter of 40,000 Palestinians, is now the Presidential rival to Donald Trump. In one of her first official acts as presidential candidate Harris lauded Israel’s right to “self-defense” and attacked protesters in Washington standing up against genocidaire Benjamin Netanyahu’s fascist appeal to the U.S. Congress.

Zionism is Now The Highest Stage of Imperialism

In 1922 the League of Nations issued its Mandate for Palestine which gave the British formal ruling power of the country. The Mandate was part of the carving up of the Middle East territories by western capitalist states after World War I in the so-called Sykes-Picot Agreement. The Mandate was issued at a time when about 78 percent of the indigenous population was Arab or Muslim, and about 9 percent Jewish.
The Mandate also made good on the “Balfour Declaration” of 1917. Lord Balfour, an antisemitic British imperialist, promised the Jewish Zionist movement that Britain would support a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. The Middle East was strategically chosen to further Britain’s dominance in the oil-rich region. As scholar Rashid Khalidi notes, the League of Nations Mandate was an “extraordinary gift to the Zionist movement…the clear implication…is that only one people in Palestine is to be recognized with national rights: the Jewish people.”
These two events effectively made the Jewish Zionist movement a junior partner of Western imperialism. Zionist colonization of historic Palestine was given the full blessing of western capitalist ruling classes who sought to push Jews out on their own nations, while creating a foothold of western power and influence in the Middle East.

DEFEND THE PEOPLE OF IRAN! FIGHT FOR PALESTINIAN LIBERATION!

The Marxist theory of imperialism argues that capitalist states necessarily seek to conquer and expropriate people, territories, states and nations outside of their own. From that premise, Marxists defend the right of self-defense and self-determination for all countries under imperialist attack. Thus, “Defend Iran” must now be the rallying cry of Marxists everywhere.

Israel and the United States are the imperial aggressors in a war against the people of Iran. Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that saw the popular overthrow of the US-installed and backed Pahlavi monarchy of “Shah of Iran” Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the US has been waging undeclared war against the state and people of Iran. After the attacks of 9-11-2001, then President George W. Bush declared a new era of “generational” imperial warfare starting with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea–deeming the three nations the “Axis of Evil”.

Towards a New Year’s Revolution: Fighting for Our Lives in 2024

Today, we are living in an historic moment. All over the world, and here in the United States, people are rejecting their government’s support for Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Millions in the Arab world, in the Global South, and in the West have taken to the streets to say No More War/End the Israeli Occupation/Free Palestine. But the leaders are not listening to the majority voices. When 60% of Americans are calling for a ceasefire and only a dismal few representatives have come forward to actually introduce and support legislation calling for a ceasefire, the system is beyond broken. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is even accusing people who support Palestinians of being agents for Russia, and President Genocide Joe Biden has proudly declared himself a Zionist while sending billions of dollars to Israel to kill more Palestinians. It is time for us, the people, to refuse once and for all, to be the silenced majority.

Build a Revolution: A CALL TO ACTION!

Building an open revolutionary movement and party is non-negotiable under the unsustainable
global capitalist and imperialist system that keeps billions of people around the world in poverty,
oppression, exploitation, violence, and environmental catastrophes.
On August 19-22, thousands of working people are traveling to Chicago to protest Biden and the Democratic Party that has been arming and enabling the Zionist occupation of Palestine and the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
People across the world have taken action to oppose the Palestinian genocide, as well as the ongoing and imperialist-driven genocides in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Yemen. The Biden Administration, the Democratic Party, and the aligned Republican Party have responded to protest movements by unleashing state repression and police violence. “Cop Cities” are being built all over the country with the intent to strengthen and build up the state’s armed forces in preparation for the rebellion of the people as they continue to strip away all our rights. The hard right turns being taken by the ruling class is also emboldening far right and fascist forces to take action.

No Justice in Imperialist Courts

The ICJ, like the International Criminal Court (ICC), was born as a response to the Nazi Holocaust in an attempt to stop it from ever happening again. This doesn’t mean international law is going to come to anyone’s rescue, but Netanyahu’s genocidal hypocrisy becomes especially apparent when one compares him to the late Ben Ferencz.

Ferencz, who was also Jewish, had been the last living Nuremberg Trial prosecutor until his death in April 2023 at the age of 103. Ferencz was among those who led the charge for the ICJ and was responsible for the creation of the ICC too, believing it to be necessary in the fight for global justice. Unfortunately, even in the scores of obituaries after his death, only one mentioned his opposition to the crimes against humanity committed by the USA.

In a 2019 documentary called “Prosecuting Evil,” Ferencz pointed out that he and Vietnam War architect Robert McNamara co-authored an article in the New York Times mid-December 2000 urging that then President Bill Clinton have the United States join the ICC. McNamara knew full well that in the US becoming a signatory, he could be tried for crimes against humanity because of his role in the US anti-communist war in Vietnam. Clinton signed on, but then George W. Bush quickly withdrew in 2001.

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