|
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volume 54 Number 28, November 2, 2024 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Mass action in New York City marking one year of
US/Zionist genocide and one year of resistance,October 5, 2024
For the information of our readers, we reproduce two articles by Kathleen Chandler on the US Presidential Election of November 5. They are reprinted from TML In the News, publication of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).
The central issue in the US presidential election which will take place in less than a week is that no matter which candidate wins the most electoral college votes, they will not bring in the kind of change the people want. Whoever wins, the US working class and people will persist in waging their fight for the rights of all, at home and abroad. Even as the campaign winds down, they continue to oppose genocide, in Gaza and Lebanon and continue making their claims on society. Militant demonstrations will take place on November 2 in many cities raising the call: No Votes for Genocide!
Whether on campuses, workplaces, or communities people are stepping up their organised resistance and developing a people's way forward to bring about the change US society and rule require. Debates, seminars, tribunals and demonstrations are planned for the coming months to hold government and university officials accountable.
The frenzy to cover up that elections serve to block the change demanded is such that the last week of the campaign has become totally irrational. It involves the juxtaposition of the extreme violence and extreme racism promoted by Donald Trump with the desperate appeal of Kamala Harris for everyone to vote for her because she is not as extreme as Trump. It is tantamount to telling voters she is a better choice because she has killed fewer people than Trump, which is factually not even true given the genocide the Biden/Harris administration is responsible for in Gaza.
How many persons killed is okay to qualify for president, one is left to wonder. The fact that both candidates represent the worst killing machine ever known in the modern era is not up for discussion. Nor is the prospect that both will increase presidential police powers with their impunity and lack of accountability for war crimes and genocide at home and abroad. While the two candidates are portrayed as one standing for the Constitution and one wanting to smash it, in fact both stand for intensifying presidential powers to act above and against the law at home and abroad. Harris repeatedly calls to uphold the Constitution to defend democracy, while Trump calls to break any obstacles in the path of "Making America Great Again".
We are witnessing a frenzy to line people up behind Harris even if they oppose everything she stands for, to avert the danger of the extreme racism and violence which Trump is seen to represent, and does indeed represent. However, to think that the system Harris is part of and champions is not characterised by the very same extreme racism and violence, is not rational. It also counters the advanced stand taken by all those who stand firmly against genocide and all those responsible for it.
This is why unprecedented numbers of people will continue to reject the "choice" between one candidate and the other. Many are doing so because they reject the entire system which these candidates represent. It is clear to them that Harris, Trump, and the existing institutions stand against democracy, peace, and freedom.
History is calling on the peoples to march on to create a modern democracy of their own making. Conciliation with the rotten institutions called democratic, with the Constitution which was a compromise with slavery and oligopoly, against democracy and for wage and penal slavery, is not an option.
This is the central issue in this election.
Demonstration in New York City opposing Biden's executive
order to close the southern border and
illegally block refugees seeking asylum. June 6, 2024
The US presidential election provides evidence that the rulers cannot control the contention and conflict within their ranks. Predicting the outcome is out of their control. This increases the likelihood of open violent civil war in the United States and more imperialist wars abroad, no matter which candidate, Harris or Trump, is said to win in November. The situation also brings to the fore the decisive role of the peoples and their resistance to resolve the situation in their favour.
While elections are being used to try to line people up behind Harris or Trump, the peoples are persisting with their independent organising, unflinchingly speaking out in their own name for their rights. Opposing US/Zionist genocide and supporting Palestine remains front and centre.
As the presidential campaign enters its last days, there is an increasing effort to derail the striving of the peoples for their own empowerment as the solution to the current US/Zionist genocide - that both presidential candidates are guilty of - and to the dysfunction of the existing institutions. The candidates and their agendas are plastered across all forms of media. The peoples are to abandon their red line of no support for genocide and their firm stand that US crimes and wars are Not in Our Name! They are instead to rely on the candidates for change, something which has repeatedly meant that change favouring the people is a casualty.
However, all the ruling factions are ignoring the current level of collective consciousness of the working class and people in the US based on their experience of speaking in their own name and fighting for their rights and the rights of all. The US people's sense of internationalism, in support of the struggles of the peoples against US imperialism and its wars of destruction and genocide, imbues their struggles. The spirit reflected in the determination of the Palestinians, where resistance is honour and duty, is being embraced. It is the names of those massacred in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries that are on the banners the people carry in the streets and today those of Palestinians and Lebanese are front and centre. It is their struggles for self-determination that are upheld. The united demand against US/Zionist genocide remains central.
To counter the widespread anger with the current dysfunctional institutions, with many people, especially youth, increasingly seeking alternatives, and to rally the divided rulers, both Harris and Trump promote US chauvinism. They use talk of "making America great", or that it is the "greatest country on earth" and "country before party". They try to divide workers in the US from those abroad, including with attacks on immigrants and refugees.
What stands at the centre of their campaigns is that it is the US that must be indispensable leader and its president the one to decide what is best for all, who is and is not a terrorist, or un-American or a "threat to national security", to be punished and faced with forms of extreme violence.
Harris, especially, is being brought forward in the hopes she can quell the resistance and anger with the existing dysfunctional and undemocratic set up and forestall open civil war. She is said to be "new", because she is a minority woman from a £middle class background", and "for the people". Her role as a prosecutor, where in court cases she introduced herself as "Kamala Harris, for the people", is brought to the fore.
This is done in part to promote the idea that the state stands for the people when in fact the justice system itself, which Kamala Harris represented as a prosecutor, is known for promoting mass incarceration and letting killers off scot-free when it comes to crimes committed against the people. The fact that this system hands out class justice which serves the ruling class is a given.
People on an organised basis are looking into alternatives, at the need for a new constitution with new institutions of their own making. They are speaking out against upholding a rule of law that is pro-war, anti-people and unable to solve problems at home and abroad. To ensure that change is not a casualty, the peoples are fighting for a way forward that serves their interests and meets their striving to govern and decide.
Having Harris, Obama, Clinton, military generals and many others put forward the need to uphold the US Constitution as key to finding a way forward is an effort to block this striving for new institutions. But the consciousness of the people is such that the Constitution is increasingly recognised for its compromise with slavery and with oligopoly, with rich men of property, against the empowerment of the people. There is growing consciousness that it is the state and its institutions that are the problem. They are undemocratic, unrepresentative, and beyond repair.
The governing arrangements impose a ruling elite governing above and against the majority. It includes prerogative powers for the president to "execute" his office, powers which today are greatly increasing and used with impunity. Harris, Trump and the ruling oligopolies they represent have their allegiance to ensuring the state organised against the people is what persists and is sustained.
The peoples are saying NO! and continuing to speak out, proclaiming US genocide, racism and wars are Not in Our Name. This is strengthening their work for political empowerment.
Among the peoples there is growing consciousness that it is the state and its institutions that are the problem. They are undemocratic, unrepresentative, and far beyond repair. The peoples are looking into alternatives, at the need for a new constitution with new institutions of their own making - not upholding one that is outdated and unable to solve the problems it helps create. To ensure change is not a casualty, the peoples are fighting for a way forward that serves their interests and meets their striving to govern and decide.