Monday, March 2, 1998
Socialist rebellion could right wrongs of U.S. conquest
IMPERIALSIM: World’s proletariat must unite against capitalism’s
blatant imperialism, prejudice
By Michelle Oberman
In February, the Spartacus Youth Club (SYC), youth organization
of the revolutionary socialist Spartacist League (U.S. section of
the International Communist League), held a speakout at UCLA to
protest war moves against Iraq. As I write this letter, an
agreement between the United Nations and Iraq seems to have been
reached. While this may stave off a U.S. attack for now, it does
not deter the fight against U.S. imperialism which has murdered
over a million Iraqis since the 1991 "Desert Slaughter" through
starvation sanctions. We say: U.S.,U.N.,NATO out of the Persian
Gulf! Down with the U.N. starvation blockade! U.S. hands off
Iraq!
Imperialism is not a policy that can be reformed. It is a stage
of capitalism that carves up the world for unfettered economic
exploitation, thrusting humanity into horrific world wars where
millions of working class and minority youth are slaughtered for
capitalist profits. Behind the U.S. military moves in the Persian
Gulf are inter-imperialist rivalries of the United States, Japan,
Germany and other imperialist competitors which ultimately threaten
military conflagration. This is further intensified by the collapse
of the Soviet Union, East European deformed workers’ states, and by
imperialist designs over Near Eastern and Central Asian oil fields
and pipeline routes. That’s why support from other imperialist
powers for the military buildup was tepid, at best.
Domestically, anti-war sentiment has been ubiquitous, with
protests across the country drawing thousands. U.S. officials
trying to sell this dirty expedition to American workers and youth
faced repeated heckling by anti-war protesters. But the
pacifist/reformist policy of pressuring the imperialist butchers to
pursue "diplomacy" only builds illusions in capitalism and derails
the class struggle necessary to defeat U.S. imperialism.
The SYC fights to unite anti-imperialist youth behind the power
of the proletariat in opposition to increasing militarism. At our
Feb. 19 speakout we protested the presence of ROTC on campus, who
made clear its purpose to crush student protests and labor strikes
when they staged a sinister "mock occupation" of Royce Quad last
quarter. ROTC is the government’s main vehicle for generating a
killer elite, the military’s top brass who are responsible for
engineering the deaths of millions across the globe. ROTC off
campus!
While we unconditionally oppose imperialist war moves against
Iraq, we give no political support to the anti-Communist Iraqi
regime. It is the job of the Iraqi proletariat, drawing behind it
oppressed women, Kurds, ethnic and religious minorities, to sweep
away Hussein’s regime through socialist revolution. We stand
opposed to Israel’s bloody Zionism as well as bankrupt Arab
nationalism, underlying the need to build an Arab/Hebrew Leninist
party to defend the Palestinians and sweep away the sheiks, emirs,
kings, colonels and Zionist rulers. The SYC fights to build a
multiracial, class-struggling, internationalist workers party,
counterposed to the Democratic and Republican parties of war and
racism. Our party links the struggle for the emancipation of the
toilers of the Near East with the fight for socialist revolutions
around the world, especially against the main enemy of humanity –
U.S. imperialism. Defeat U.S. imperialism through class struggle at
home! For a socialist federation of the Near East!
The post-Soviet "New World Order" was punctured by the 1992
integrated L.A. upheaval which demonstrated the real social tinder
at the base of racist American capitalism, but what was lacking was
a multiracial revolutionary workers’ party like the Bolsheviks who
led the workers to power in Russia in 1917. In the United States,
such a party must take up the fight for black freedom. Black
oppression is the bedrock of American capitalism, enforced in a
thousand ways, from the repeal of the meager gains of welfare and
affirmative action to fascist Klan terror and murderous cop
brutality in the ghettos. Today, these same racist rulers who have
killed over a million Iraqis through the harshest sanctions ever
imposed on any nation want to execute African American journalist
and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal for speaking and writing
against racist oppression in this country. Abolish the racist death
penalty! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! For black liberation through
socialist revolution!