HIGHS AND LOWS

 For me, the best part of 2020 was getting to play with punkrock giants DOA in February ( thanks Esther !), and doing a three night stand with BLKR and The Dayglos in March in Victoria, Nanaimo and Vancouver , just one week before the world shut down. Mass Distraction played the show in Victoria also , and were fucking intense.

The shows weren't as well attended as they should have been due to coronafear setting in , but it was a great time and showed me the wonderful side of the members of all three of those bands , and the timing of the events were just perfect, all thanks to Jay from BLKR . I am grateful to him for his tireless efforts to have made it happen.

The lowest parts of the year were the losses , which of course are inevitable , but it's always far sadder when families are left behind and the people who've left were far too young for that to have happened. 

Jeff Grosso  left behind a young son and a skateboarding legacy larger than life . His internet show "Loveletters To Skateboarding" highlighted his passion and knowledge about everything skate related , and his passing left many people in shock and pain.

Chi Pig of hugely inspirational punk band SNFU was another gigantic loss of 2020 , and his influence on the music scene will be felt forever. His life and career was a bit of a roller coaster , but that's often the way extremely creative people live . The last song he released was a gut wrenching tune that will haunt you forever.

The most difficult one for me personally was the passing of Dave Del Castillo  , AKA Dave Knight.

I still can't believe I'll never see him , hear his laugh , or hear him sing again. I kept thinking I saw him around this Christmastime , but the dark reality would always set in and I'd realize it couldn't be. This was a particularly hard loss to get over, and I know many in Victoria and beyond feel the same way . My heart goes out to his family forever.

I wish everyone a healthier and happier 2021.

EASILY LED

 I'm not a covid denier, but I have to admit that I'm baffled by the way the majority on the "left" have been so easily led into the hysteria surrounding coronavirus , which has led to the mega billionaires making billions more while the little guy gets fucked , lonely people are even more isolated than before leading to an increase in suicides and overdoses , and snitches are regaled as heroes for ratting out their neighbours to the cops for having family visits .

So called "critical thinkers" of the more liberal persuasion are accepting everything the government says about this, where previous to this they would have been questioning absolutely everything the powers that be would have to say on almost any topic. I'm not talking about "freedom" and "rights" like the inbred moron trumpites are talking about , I'm talking about asking questions and perhaps looking into what people like Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi have to say . It's frightening that people have been so easily manipulated by fear , and without even a second thought.

NO JUSTICE ON ANY DAY EVER

 This is the kind of shit that happens with regularity in the land of the free , no matter what time of the year it is , or whatever their rhetoric proclaims . They will constantly bray on about the lack of freedom in other countries, while continuing to execute innocent people who oppose their system.

Their fucked up system is decaying and they want to take the entire world with them.

Death Row, Texas: A lonely birthday for innocent Rodney Reed 

By Gloria Rubac posted on December 24, 2020

Bastrop, Texas

Rodney Reed’s family and supporters had a press conference and rallied outside the Bastrop County Courthouse, with its Confederate monuments 25 yards away on the lawn. Reed was railroaded to death row inside the courthouse in 1998 by Bastrop County’s historically racist injustice system.

Rodrick Reed, speaking to the media.

On Dec. 19, three days before Reed’s 53rd birthday, a crowd gathered to wish him a Happy Birthday and to let him know that they are fighting for him until he is home with his family.

When a reporter asked what people need to know about his brother’s case, Rodrick Reed replied, “It is a fact that four or five medical examiners who have examined all the evidence found that it is medically and scientifically impossible for my brother to have committed this murder. This same evidence gives a time of death that puts the victim, Stacey Stites, in her apartment with Jimmy Fennel, her fiancée. If we can get a new trial, with the expert help of lawyers with the Innocence Project, this evidence will free Rodney.”

R.J. Reed, son of Rodrick and nephew of Rodney, has protested from Bastrop to the U.S. Supreme Court for his Uncle Rodney.

After taping signs on their cars, people paraded their car caravan around downtown Bastrop with horns blazing, calling attention to this unjust case. Two decades of events in Bastrop have made most people in this small town, 30 miles outside Austin, familiar with the Reed case. Many shoppers gave thumbs-up and smiled as the caravan passed them.

Closing out the events, Rodrick Reed said, “If we move and work together, we can not only free Rodney, but we can also abolish this death penalty. It’s racist! It’s inhumane! At the end of the day, it’s just plain corrupt.”

Mirinda Crissman and Caleb Granger prepare to join the car caravan.

 

Reed’s evidentiary hearing, which was granted following a Nov. 2019 stay of execution has been postponed twice and is now set for May 17. The family’s Reed Justice Initiative is planning to have one event each month leading up to the May hearing.

ANGRY SNOWMANS

 For those of you who don't know, this is the time of year you should be listening to everyone's favourite Christmas themed punk rockers, The Angry Snowmans .

They will keep you happy during the season, especially if you recognize the songs they are Christmasizing , and honestly, even if you don't.

FREE MUMIA

 It is long past time for the philadelphia pigs and the entire u.s. government to admit this was all a political frameup and to finally and unconditionally release political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal . The "evidence" was all lying bullshit anyway , and his political Black Panther past was brought up in his "trial" again and again . Let him go.

Release Mumia now!

By Betsey Piette posted on December 18, 2020

Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police have done everything possible to silence Mumia Abu-Jamal and bury his fight for justice. In February their obstruction even included filing a “King’s Bench” petition – which sidesteps and preempts all other judicial or appeal procedures – to attempt a change in venue for his appeals hearing.

Pam Africa speaking at Dec. 9 press conference to ‘Free Mumia Now!’                    Credit: Joe Piette

But Abu-Jamal’s global supporters, insisting on his innocence and demanding his immediate release, have other ideas.

Twice recently, a broad coalition of U.S. and international groups and individuals has succeeded in gaining major media coverage for the former Black Panther and journalist, who is Pennsylvania’s best-known political prisoner. On Nov. 16, former football star and Black Lives Matter activist Colin Kaepernick issued a statement in support of Abu-Jamal. This aired during a virtual press conference that included prison abolitionist leader Dr. Angela Davis, and other luminaries. Mainstream media, including CNN, have continued to raise Abu-Jamal’s case as a result.

On Dec. 9, on the 39th anniversary of Abu-Jamal’s unjust incarceration, supporters again caught the attention of the media with a live press conference in West Philadelphia near Malcolm X Park. There, less than two months earlier, anti-police brutality protesters clashed with Philadelphia police following the cop shooting of Walter Wallace, Jr.

The anniversary gathering also included a free food giveaway and the launch of Abu-Jamal’s newest book, “Murder Incorporated Vol. 3: Perfecting Tyranny.” Those attending were treated to free donuts and coffee as several news outlets and independent journalists covered the event, despite the bitterly cold and windy weather. (More information available at prisonradiostore.com.)

Marking the day that Abu-Jamal was shot and wrongly arrested for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer, the event was organized by a coalition that included Mobilization4Mumia, Campaign to Bring Mumia Home, International Concerned Friends & Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and MOVE.

Speakers included Pam Africa, Minister of Confrontation for International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal; Mumia’s spouse, Wadiya Jamal; Noelle Hanrahan with Prison Radio; Yahné Ndgo from Black Alliance for Peace; Ted Kelly with the Prisoners Solidarity Committee of Workers World Party; Razakhan Wali of Nation TIME Judicial Research; Gabriel Bryant with the Black Philly Radical Collective, and others.

Pam Africa unveiled a local campaign to rename a Philadelphia street “Mumia Abu-Jamal Way.” Freed MOVE 9 members Janet and Janine Africa spoke and denounced the Philadelphia City Council’s recent apology for the city having imprisoned them for 41 years, calling it a “public relations stunt.”

Janine Africa stated: “An apology with no action behind it is meaningless. Show us a symbol of your sincerity by releasing Mumia Abu-Jamal.”

REAL COMMUNITY ACTIVISM

 These fine folks in portland oregon are willing to put themselves at risk in order to help out a family being pushed out of their home. This is real community spirit , where the law doesn't matter if it's unjust . Fuck the pigs and their government .

‘Red House on Mississippi Ave.’
Portland activists block eviction

By Johnnie Lewis posted on December 15, 2020

Dec. 14 — The Kinney family — owners of the now internationally famous “Red House on Mississippi” — is the last Black-Indigenous family in their neighborhood. They have been fighting foreclosure, and now eviction, since 2018.

The house, purchased in 1955, is in the Albina district — a collection of neighborhoods in the only sections of Portland where Black people were allowed to own property for most of the 20th century. The district, home to the majority of the city’s Black population, has long been under attack by developers and gentrifiers and targeted for so-called urban renewal — actually, removal. This once vibrant Black community has been destroyed.

Joined by supporters, the Kinney family resists eviction.

In its place, the banks — historical redliners — and wealthy real estate developers, aided and abetted by the city’s white politicians, have built an interstate highway, a sports arena, a hospital expansion, along with thousands of new, high-priced houses, condos and apartments. For the most part, people of color, poor and working people have been priced out of Albina, where the median price of a house is now $649,000.

The Kinneys say they paid their mortgage on time but got caught up in a predatory loan scheme to take their home. Urban Housing Development LLC purchased the property in 2018, but the family remained in the house while pursuing lawsuits in state and federal court to keep the home.

After a years-long court battle over the foreclosure, a judge ordered the Kinneys evicted in September 2020. The attempt to evict the family led to a mobilization of militant support.

‘Red House Autonomous Zone’

In an effort to defend the Kinney family from eviction, hundreds of Black Lives Matter, antifa, black bloc, Occupy, Popular Mobilization and other Black youth, people of color, white, queer revolutionaries have established a Red House Autonomous Zone similar to Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. It involves a compound of about six square blocks around the house that includes a kitchen serving free meals and a coffee shop supporting the movement with free coffee. On Dec. 8, the compound was attacked by Portland police.

On Dec. 10, this reporter entered the compound, now behind 10-foot-high barricades, to learn more about the police assault. I was warmly greeted by defenders, offered free food but asked to not take photos. It helped that I brought a Workers World newspaper with the headline: “Evo Morales returns, Bolivians eject coup regime.”

A Black leader-organizer, asking to remain anonymous, told WW: “Early on the morning of Dec. 8, at least 50 police vehicles, sirens going off, blue lights flashing, blocked off street intersections all around here. At least 100 Portland cops and Multnomah County sheriffs — looking like Robocops — attacked the Red House.”

Police broke down the front door and assaulted the owner Michael Kinney and others asleep in the house. Deputy sheriffs arrested them and charged them with trespass in their own house. Their guests were also arrested.

The defenders were unable to stop the initial assault on the house and the arrest of Michael Kinney and the others inside. But very quickly the hundreds of defenders regrouped and prevented the deputies, who were backed by the cops, from taking possession of the property and house and removing its contents.

The organizer recounted how defenders armed with wooden banner and placard poles, broom handles, tree limbs, baseball bats, trash can lids and other homemade defensive weapons, in an organized and military fashion, “pushed the cops down the street and out of the neighborhood.”

Another activist told WW: “Twelve of our people were grabbed by the cops, but for lack of evidence, most were released uncharged. The Portland cops announced the same day that they would arrest no more until those arrested were actually charged with something.”

It was clear that the activists were serious about defending the Kinney family. While in the compound, this reporter was told by young activists: “We’re here to stop the eviction. We’re waiting for our marching orders.” Just then a platoon of maybe 30 people marched by, chanting in cadence, carrying poles and shields. As a former U.S. Army soldier and an organizer for the American Servicemen’s Union (1968-69), this reporter knows a military formation when they see one.

Since the arrests, more and more fighters have gathered behind the 10-foot-high barricades surrounding the house, where many live round the clock. People have brought in boxes of food and crates of bottled water, firewood, sleeping bags, tents, canvas sheets and more. The nice smell of food cooked, along with the biting but pleasant aroma of smoke from cedar wood fires, wafted over the compound.

Barricades were strengthened in anticipation of more police attacks. Groups of a dozen or so stood watch around wood fires near entrances, armed for self-defense. Oregon is an “open carry” state, meaning that most people are allowed to carry firearms openly without a permit.

Resistance wins

The determination to defend the last Black family in the Albina appears to have paid off.

KGW News reported Dec. 10 that the developer who bought the Red House is willing to sell it back to the Kinneys at cost. As of Dec. 11, a GoFundMe campaign had raised over $280,000 — enough for the Kinneys to buy back their home under such a deal. The developer seems to be responding to public pressure — but has not yet directly contacted the family.

According to a Dec. 14 statement by the Kinney family, Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler has had to back down on his threat to use cops to evict the family by force. The family has demanded and received a public apology from Wheeler for harm caused to the family and for “the emotional violence caused by evictions against Black and Indigenous families.”

The statement conveys firmly that, as the family has not yet secured their home, supporters would still be present, defending them and the house.

Lyn Neeley contributed to this article.

GREED OVER HEALTH

 It comes as little surprise that kkkanada is siding with the richest countries over the poorest when it comes to the covid vaccine or anything else for that matter. It has nothing to do with trudeau being a smug arrogant child of privilege and more to do with the fact that kkkanada is an imperialist country and will behave the way imperialist countries do.

DECEMBER 13, 2020 · 20:23

Trudeau chooses big pharma’s rights over health of billions

The Canadian government is choosing corporate property rights over the health of billions.

The World Trade Organization is currently discussing a proposal by India and South Africa calling for a waiver of certain rules on intellectual property rights to allow poor countries to produce COVID-19 vaccines. Backed by about 100 countries, the initiative to temporarily waive some elements of the TRIPS Intellectual Property Rights accord has been opposed by Ottawa. The Liberals’ opposition to the “Waiver from Certain Provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for the Prevention, Containment and Treatment of COVID-19” is particularly galling since Canada is hoarding COVID-19 vaccines. A recent report showed that Canada was the worst offender in the world, having amassed enough vaccines to cover the entire Canadian population five times over. Many poor countries have barely enough vaccines on order to cover 10% of their population.

Canada has aligned with the US, Switzerland and EU and Big Pharma on an issue that could save many lives. Hopefully, growing criticism will prompt Ottawa to shift its position but the Canadian government has long supported strengthening (anti-free market) intellectual property rights in international trade forums. More generally, Canada usually aligns itself with the demands of the richest countries at the WTO.

Recent protests in India inadvertently shone a light on the issue. Over the past week farmers in India have launched massive protests against a bid to deregulate crop pricing. While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke in favor of the protest, the Indian media has pointed out that Canada has consistently sought to undercut India’s minimum support price (MSP) for small farmers at the WTO. In a story titled “Hello Canada! Trudeau support to India’s farm protests contradict Canada’s WTO stand”, Business Today reported that over the past four years Canada has raised 65 “questions” against India’s agricultural policies at the WTO’s Committee on Agriculture. Canada’s criticisms focused on “India’s MSP-based market price support policies for agriculture products to India’s public stockholding programmes for food security to India’s trade policies on pulses.”

At the WTO Canada is a member of the Cairns Group of Agriculture Exporters. In a bid to expand their country’s exports, the Cairns Group pushes to eliminate supports for small-scale local agricultural producers.

Through the WTO Canada has also recently challenged European Union restrictions on gene-edited crops. In July 2018 the European Court of Justice ruled that agricultural gene editing should be regulated under the EU’s genetically modified organisms (GMO) protocols. In response Canada, the US and 11 other countries criticized EU farm product regulations at the WTO. They claimed that exports with a low-level presence of gene-edited crop should not be restricted even if the product was unapproved in the recipient nation. Changing food at the molecular level, gene-editing is used to modify the flavour or texture of fruits. Big agricultural firms such as Monsanto/Bayer promote gene editing partly to tighten their grip over the food supply. But there are unresolved questions about the long-term effects of gene-edited organisms on human health and the environment.

Prior to the pandemic Ottawa coordinated a bid to recharge the WTO that reinforced international inequities. In October 2018 international trade minister Jim Carr created a coalition of 13 WTO members (EU, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Kenya, Mexico, Singapore, New Zealand, South Korea, Norway and Switzerland). The group met in Ottawa amidst trade tensions between the US and China and while the US president was criticizing the WTO. The aim of the initiative was to find an agreement on WTO reform that could later be brought to the institution’s broader membership. The spokesperson for the African Group, South Africa’s envoy to the WTO, Xavier Carim, criticized the Canadian-led scheme. “When we look at these proposals, we see them as making the imbalance that we have even worse,” said Carim. “They should make it difficult for developing countries to advance.” Carim said the African Group wanted greater policy space to industrialize and reforms to agricultural trade distortions.

Why are Trudeau’s Liberals not supporting this sensible policy to help the people of poorest continent?

Because Ottawa is in thrall to big business and supporting the interests of the already wealthy.

But, surely ending the COVID-19 pandemic must be a priority. The faster the world’s population has access to vaccinations, the better off we will all be.

Sensible people should demand: Free the vaccines now!

 

SAME SHIT DIFFERENT FACES

 Biden and his crew will be the same profit driven prison filling warmongering set of assholes who always occupy positions of power in mainstream garbage bourgeois politics. Don't get me wrong, I'll be happy to see fuckface trump go, but the majority of the people of the world will see no lessening of their misery just because idiot biden is in office. Elections will not change the class structure of the existing system .

BIDEN’S CABINET: FACES OF LIBERAL FASCISM

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2020 AT 4:50PM

The United States president exercises government power on a day-to-day basis to keep the blood-sucking, war-making U.S. profit system running. This job requires a committee of people, a Cabinet, that assists the president with the constant oversight and adjustment of executive government activity: imperialist war, law enforcement, government finances, diplomacy, preserving capitalism, and more.
In analyzing the role of presidents and prime ministers of their day, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto that “the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” In 1848 when capitalist classes in Europe were on the rise, they were relatively unified and focused on completing their drives to push monarchs from power and suppress early efforts of workers to organize fightback and revolution.
In 2020, Marx’s description fits the Chinese executive power under Xi Jinping, as rising Chinese capitalism prepares for world war to challenge declining U.S. imperialism (see editorial, page 2).
The U.S. ruling class, on the other hand, is fractured, contributing to the decline of U.S. capitalism’s world power in relation to a rising China. The Donald Trump presidency marked an acceleration of that decline as the “modern executive” was seized by a gang of open bandits with no loyalty to “the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”  
Compared to Trump’s team of outsiders, Biden’s crew is the ultimate collection of insiders and his choices in personnel point to an attempt to return to the smoothly-delivered imperialist and anti-worker policies of the Barack Obama era. Biden’s cynical and manipulative move to install the “most diverse cabinet ever” is a thin veil that seeks to cover the house of horrors the main imperialist wing of the U.S. ruling class has in store for workers everywhere.
The managers of an empire in free fall
Joe Biden, President: He announced that military spending will expand, especially in the areas of cyberwarfare and AI (artificial intelligence) for a more mechanized and efficient surveillance and slaughter of our class overseas, combat roles for transgender workers, and updated equipment for the National Guard who is called in to suppress serious domestic rebellion (Stars and Stripes, 9/10). In 1988, Biden co-authored the infamous “100-to-1” law that targeted Black and Latin workers with mandatory 10-year sentences for possessing small amounts of crack cocaine.  For nearly half a century, Biden has played a lead role in building racism, sexism, and war while serving the interests of finance capital. In 1994, he decried “predators on our streets” and led the charge for Bill Clinton’s Crime Bill, which doubled the U.S. prison population and caged generations of Black and Latin workers. Biden’s slogan sounded a lot like Trump: “Lock the SOB’s up!” (NYT, 6/25/19).
Kamala Harris, first woman Vice
President: In this period of growing fascism and approaching war Harris will continue the long and sordid tradition of Black-led racist assaults on Black workers and sexist assaults on women that are the hallmarks of liberalism. As district attorney in San Francisco and later as California’s state attorney general, Top Cop Kamala “fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions” (theguardian.com, 1/31/19). The cops’ racial profiling of Black workers flourished on her watch. As an attorney general, she criminalized parents of truant children, rather than giving them support..
Tony Blinken, Secretary of State: “...A job in which he will try to coalesce skeptical international partners into a new competition with China, according to people close to the process” (NYT, 11/24). Blinken was Biden’s chief advisor when he cast his 2002 ballot in support of imperialist assault on Iraq as well as a vocal proponent in the Obama administration to launch war in Libya.
Janet Yellen, first woman Treasury Secretary: As Chair of the Federal Reserve under Obama, she crafted the 2008 bailouts and subsequent ‘quantitative easing’ that showered billionaires with cash and left millions to languish in a ‘jobless recovery.’ Expect her to continue Trump-style stimulus bribes to pacify workers while the pandemic rages and to attack Social Security and Medicare, as she has advocated since 2012 (HuffPost, 9/13; NYT, 12/1).
Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser: This Obama-Era top aide to Hillary Clinton has recently dedicated himself to formulating “U.S. Foreign Policy for the Middle Class: A Perspective from Nebraska” a Carnegie Endowment study which seeks to solve the problem of re-energizing mass support for the U.S. military (NYT, 11/22).
Avril Haines, first woman Director of National Intelligence: Architect of Obama-era drone bombing program that has killed untold numbers of non-combatants across the Middle East and Africa.
Alejandro Mayorkas, first Latin Director of Homeland Security: Author of the  Obama-era DACA program whose false promises drew millions of undocumented youth into providing personal information in the hopes of legal residency. Oversaw the construction of an archipelago of detention centers as Obama’s deputy and innovator in implementation of family separation (vox.com, 6/14). Right-hand man to Deporter-in-Chief Obama as deputy-secretary of Department of Homeland security.
Pocket-Lining warmakers line up to join Jim Crow Joe
Biden’s repeated promises to restore U.S. leadership are backed up by a phalanx of money-grubbing Democratic Party operatives who alternate between government jobs and lucrative positions at defense-industry investment and lobbying firms like WestExec and Pine Island Capital. Past Democratic power brokers like Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt rub elbows with up-and-coming Biden picks like Anthony Blinken and Avril Haines and enrich themselves at the heart of the U.S. imperialist war machine (NYT, 11/28). Michele Flournoy, front-runner to become the first-ever woman Secretary of Defense, earned compensation of $440,000 in 2018 and 2019 from Booz Allen Hamilton, engineering consultants to U.S. imperialism.
This kind of brazen double-dealing at the heart of the empire is an outrage to workers and Trump was able to mobilize his base to propel him to the White House because Hillary Clinton represented more of the same.
Identity politics: different faces, same crime
Racist attacks were embodied by Obama himself, who commanded his Black-manager-led Justice Department to do nothing to punish the kkkops who strangled Eric Garner and shot Michael Brown. If the wave of Black and Latin mayors who were put in charge during the racist decay and gentrification of U.S. cities since the 1970s were not enough to convince you, Obama himself is the best lesson of what “Black faces in high places” gets us under capitalism  - Black-led racism.
The same goes for sexism. The rulers use women as the faces to deliver on sexist policies. Now-disgraced Bill Clinton picked the first ever woman Secretary of State in Madeleine Albright, who famously declared that the deaths of 500,000 children (half of whom were girls) in U.S. imperialism’s 1990s-era bombing and sanctions campaign against Iraq was “worth the price.”  In the same role under Obama, Hillary Clinton was the face of a crumbling US-led world order, which sowed chaos across the Middle East. The ensuing refugee crisis is the largest since World War II—70 million by 2018 and has exposed untold millions of women to increased chances of physical and sexual assault (World Health Organization, 2018).
Workers and youth, looking for an example of multiracial and antisexist leadership, should not look to the rogues’ gallery of Biden’s cabinet. We must instead spark and join struggles against capitalism’s attacks on our class, from racist police murder to school budget cuts, layoffs and more. Class struggle means that we build new leadership from the ground up. We can guarantee victory of our anti-racist and anti-sexist struggles by keeping our eye on the prize: growth of the Progressive Labor Party today to lead communist revolution tomorrow

KKKANADIAN IMPERIALIST DOUBLE STANDARDS

 Once again, it seems the liberal "left" in kkkanada don't fucking get it, and never will. They are willing to look at other imperialist misdeeds, but not those committed by their own ruling class.  kkkanada and the u.s.a. are a lot more alike with regards to foreign policy than you might know.....

Time to refocus from Hong Kong to Haiti

For those who support a truly just foreign policy comparing Canadian politicians’ reactions to protests in Hong Kong and the slightly more populous Haiti is instructive. It reveals the extent to which this country’s politicians are forced to align with the US Empire.

Despite hundreds of thousands of Canadians having close ties with both Haiti and Hong Kong, only protests in the latter seem to be of concern to politicians.

Recently NDP MP Niki Ashton and Green MP Paul Manly were attacked ferociously in Parliament and the dominant media for participating in a webinar titled “Free Meng Wanzhou”. During the hullabaloo about an event focused on Canada’s arrest of the Huawei CFO, Manly — who courageously participated in the webinar, even if his framing of the issue left much to be desired — and Ashton — who sent a statement to be read at the event but responded strongly to the backlash in an interview with the Winnipeg Free Press — felt the need to mention Hong Kong. Both the NDP (“Canada must do more to help the people of Hong Kong”) and Greens (“Echoes of Tiananmen Square: Greens condemn China’s latest assault on democracy in Hong Kong”) have released multiple statements critical of Beijing’s policy in Hong Kong since protests erupted there nearly two years ago. So have the Liberals, Bloc Québecois and Conservatives.

In March 2019 protests began against an extradition accord between Hong Kong and mainland China. Hong Kongers largely opposed the legislation, which was eventually withdrawn. Many remain hostile to Beijing, which later introduced an anti-sedition law to staunch dissent. Some protests turned violent. One bystander was killed by protesters. A journalist lost an eye after being shot by the police. Hundreds more were hurt and thousands arrested.

During more or less the same period Haiti was the site of far more intense protests and state repression. In July 2018 an uprising began against a reduction in subsidies for fuel (mostly for cooking), which morphed into a broad call for a corrupt and illegitimate president Jovenel Moïse to go. The uprising included a half dozen general strikes, including one that shuttered Port-au-Prince for a month. An October 2019 poll found that 81% of Haitians wanted the Canadian-backed president to leave.

Dozens, probably over 100, were killed by police and government agents. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other western establishment human rights organizations have all documented dozens of police killings in Haiti. More recently, Moïse has ruled by decree, sought to extend his term and to rewrite the constitution. Yet, I couldn’t find a single statement by the NDP or Greens, let alone the Liberals or Conservatives, expressing support for the pro-democracy movement in Haiti.

Even an equal number of statements from a Canadian political party would be less than adequate. Not only were the protests and repression far more significant in Haiti, the impact of a Canadian politician’s intervention is far more meaningful. Unlike in Hong Kong, the police responsible for the repression in Haiti were trained, financed and backed by Canada. The Trudeau government even gave $12.5 million to the Haitian police under its Feminist International Assistance Policy! More broadly, the unpopular president received decisive diplomatic and financial support from Ottawa and Washington. In fact, a shift in Canada/US policy towards Moïse would have led to his ouster. On the other hand, a harder Canada/US policy towards Hong Kong would have led to well … not much.

The imperial and class dynamics of Haiti are fairly straightforward. For a century Washington has consistently subjugated the country in which a small number of, largely light-skinned, families dominate economic affairs. During the past 20 years Canada has staunchly supported US efforts to undermine Haitian democracy and sovereignty.

Hong Kong’s politics are substantially more complicated. Even if one believes that most in Hong Kong are leery of Beijing’s growing influence — as I do — the end of British rule and reintegration of Hong Kong into China represents a break from a regrettable colonial legacy. Even if you take an entirely unfavorable view towards Beijing’s role there, progressive Canadians shouldn’t focus more on criticizing Chinese policy in Hong Kong than Canadian policy in Haiti.

Echoing an open letter signed by David Suzuki, Roger Waters, Linda McQuaig and 150 others and the demands of those who occupied Justin Trudeau’s office last year, the national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, Chris Aylward, recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau critical of Canadian support for Moïse. It notes, “Canada must reassess its financial and political support to the Jovenel Moïse government, including police training, until independent investigations are conducted into government corruption in the Petrocaribe scandal and ongoing state collusion with criminal gangs.” The NDP, Greens and others should echo the call.

To prove they are more concerned with genuinely promoting human rights – rather than aligning with the rulers of ‘our’ empire – I humbly suggest that progressive Canadians hold off on criticizing Beijing’s policy towards Hong Kong until they have produced an equal number of statements critical of Canada’s role in Haiti

LIKE A DISEASE.....

 There is a much worse pandemic than covid that's been spreading all over the world for decades now, and that's the sickness of u.s. imperialism. With their 800 military bases all over the world, there is barely a corner of the planet that hasn't been touched with their greed and filth . This will remain the case as long as their system is here , and it doesn't matter which party of parasites is in power. They both stand for the same thing.

Trump and Somalia

By Editor posted on December 7, 2020

The outgoing president took another deceptive public step on Dec. 2: He ordered the remaining 700 U.S. troops out of Somalia. These troops are part of the U.S. AFRICOM force that promotes U.S. imperialist interests throughout Africa. They will first redeploy to nearby Kenya, also in East Africa. 

The U.S. troops have been carrying out extensive drone warfare against the Somali-based organization, al-Shabab. 

Besides withdrawing troops from Somalia, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller announced administration plans in November to reduce U.S. troops from 3,000 to 2,500 in Iraq and from 4,500 to 2,500 in Afghanistan by mid-January. 

Both big capitalist parties have started wars. Don’t expect this to change.

Republican as well as Democratic administrations have ordered, since 1990, major aggressive wars against Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, and with smaller forces against Syria, Libya and Ukraine. They have carried out strikes across Africa and engaged in subversion aimed at overthrowing progressive governments in Latin America.

The Republican and Democratic Party establishments share a common foreign policy goal: to maintain and if possible increase U.S. economic and strategic U.S. domination of the world. The Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA and various other sectors of the state apparatus enforce this strategy, regardless of which party is running the government. 

Every invasion, bombing or other intervention by the U.S. has led to enormous suffering in the countries targeted, often with millions of victims. The interventions shower U.S. military industries with profits.

While the pretext for these interventions can be human rights, women’s rights or stopping terrorism — most often the real reason is to grab resources, usually oil, or to eliminate a strategic problem.

As U.S. imperialism’s economic and moral authority declines compared to  imperialist rivals — Europe, Japan — and especially to socialist China, Washington turns to weapons — where it is still Number One. Thus the drive to maintain hegemony pushes the world toward war no matter which party holds office.

Washington sometimes turns to other tools, from hired mercenaries to economic sanctions, to achieve the same goal of domination, with or without subversion or bombing. The sanctions sometimes kill as many people as war does. 

In 2016, as an election ploy, Trump criticized “Washington’s endless wars,” although he supported them all when they began. After his four years in office, the longest ones — Iraq and Afghanistan — continue. His latest “withdrawals” might look like he’s trying to keep a 2016 election promise — but skepticism is justified.

Meanwhile he pumped up the Pentagon budget to record levels, exacerbated a confrontation with China, pulled out of the Intermediate Range Missile treaty with Russia, carried out many more drone strikes in Africa, dumped an historic agreement with Cuba, wrecked the nuclear treaty with Iran and assassinated an important Iranian political leader — or two.

Trump’s erratic aggression, however, is no reason to give the Democrats a free ride. Rep. Jim Langevin, a leading House Democrat and chair of the House subcommittee on intelligence and emerging threats, exposed Democratic Party warmongering. He called Trump’s Somalia withdrawal “a surrender to al-Qaida and a gift to China.” (theguardian.com, Dec. 4)

For the antiwar and anti-imperialist forces inside the U.S., any debate about Somalia should be seized as an opening to press demands to get U.S. troops out of all its 800-plus worldwide military bases, stop all U.S.-imposed sanctions and end U.S. world domination

FUCK THOSE PARASITIC MOTHERFUCKERS

 This is what happens when those pieces of shit imperialist pigs run the world. The health of the people is just another commodity to be profited from , no matter how many are sick and/or dying. If you can't afford to live , then that's your fucking problem. This fact alone is enough to condemn those motherfuckers who profit and thrive off of misery to the garbage can of history. More and more wealth is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands during their pandemic. And now, miraculously, pharmaceutical billionaire giants have come out with a vaccine , just in time to save the people, being the kind hearted assholes that they are. It's long past time for all of this shit to be thrown out, and something better put in it's place .

Capitalist COVID catastrophe / FIGHT or DIE!

By Martha Grevatt posted on December 8, 2020

It’s December 2020. The working class in the United States is facing a crisis of survival. It is the worst such crisis since the Great Depression, especially for the most oppressed.

The statistics are damning: One in six households face hunger; one in five workers are out of work; some 30 million renters and homeowners face homelessness in the coming winter months. The COVID death toll will hit 300,000 any day now. The virus is now the leading cause of death in the U.S., passing heart disease and cancer. Hospitals are unable to cope with the surge in COVID cases.

1930.

 

There could likely be half a million deaths before vaccines are widely available — more than double the 200,000 projected as a worst case scenario at the start of the pandemic.

The parallel economic and public health disasters feed each other. Hunger, houselessness and loss of job-based health insurance all increase the risk of contracting COVID-19, developing serious and even life-threatening symptoms and being unable to access medical treatment. On the flip side, being exposed to COVID-19 and needing time off work can cost a worker their job. 

In reaction to this crisis, some Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate along with President-elect Joe Biden hope to pass a bipartisan, $908 billion, “something is better than nothing” bill. “Without the money,” according to the Dec. 4 New York Times, “many families could go hungry, become homeless and face other hardships.” Ten million people will run out of unemployment benefits by year’s end and could, along with others, lose housing when the eviction moratorium expires Dec. 31.

A lot of the particulars of the bill are still vague, but there are obvious problems with it. There’s no repeat $1200 “stimulus check” in it. Unemployment benefits still expire after 39 weeks. This bill just keeps the 26 weeks of regular benefits and the 13-week extension going and funds an additional $300 per week (not $600) after Dec. 31, for those who remain eligible at that time. It allots an inadequate $25 billion for rental assistance. 

Undocumented workers and their families cannot even access these benefits, nor others like food stamps and Medicaid. There has always been an epidemic of hunger, homelessness and inadequate medical care in communities of color — and it is getting worse. 

But now the emergency is broader. The whole working class is being pauperized.

For-profit health care impedes the battle with COVID

A mass vaccination program has the potential to put the scourge of COVID — and its devastating economic fallout — behind us. But the pitiful $16 billion in the rescue bill for vaccine distribution will protect few people in the U.S., let alone the rest of the world.

We’re told that frontline health care workers, who interface with COVID patients all day long, will be first in line to be vaccinated. Next will be the most vulnerable: people over 65 and those whose medical conditions put them at greater risk. After them other “essential” workers in supermarkets, agriculture, education, etc. will get the shots.

Eventually everyone will supposedly be vaccinated. 

But that scenario raises more questions than it answers. Is the shot free to anyone? If not, how much will it cost? What about the millions of uninsured? 

Do the rich have to wait their turn like everyone else? Or will 36-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, most definitely not a frontline worker, get vaccinated before the elderly? And will Jeff Bezos wait in line behind low-wage essential workers at his Amazon-owned Whole Foods?

Capitalism, where everything including health care is a commodity to be sold on the market for profit, is the biggest obstacle to a mass, global vaccination campaign. The capitalists of each country compete with each other, impeding global cooperation to defeat the pandemic. Big Pharma corporations, including Pfizer and Moderna, are battling it out to make a vaccine at the lowest possible cost, in order to maximize their own profits. 

Wherever human needs take a back seat to the bottom line, the masses suffer. Big Pharma’s drive to maximize profit, combined with the legacy of racist medical experimentation on Black and brown communities, have engendered distrust around taking the vaccine. Transparency around side effects is lacking.

Will the Trumpite anti-maskers also be the loudest anti-vaxxers, further endangering their communities with their super-spreading defiance?

1930s: Fight or starve!

When the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, there was no social safety net. Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and a range of government assistance programs were nonexistent. 

From the veterans’ Bonus March to the Ford Hunger March to numerous eviction defense actions, it was the class struggle that won these benefits. The New Deal programs weren’t a gift bestowed upon the suffering masses by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They were, as FDR himself explained, “riot insurance.”

When the masses got tired of waiting in long food lines — which we are sadly seeing again — or just going without, they organized around the slogan: “Fight or starve!” Many demonstrations were organized by the Communist Party USA.

After spending the better part of 2020 enduring this pandemic depression, after watching our loved ones get sick and die of COVID, the working class is again in a desperate situation, one magnified by the fascist threat posed by the growth of white supremacy. State-sanctioned police terror and the growth of extralegal paramilitary formations like the Proud Boys are two sides of the same coin.

This 1930s-level suffering is compounded further by misogyny, anti-LGBTQ2S+ bigotry, ableism, Islamophobia and xenophobia.

We must demand: Medicine for people — all the people — not for profit! Money for health care, not warfare! Food, housing and jobs are basic human rights! Smash white supremacy and bigotry!

Workers and oppressed people face two choices: Fight or die!