https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwm7Wi3w4Mw
Sunday, August 30, 2020
Socialist Appeal bulletin
Boris Johnson's Tory government is one of chaos and crisis: unable to control the virus; forced to U-turn over exam grading; and presiding over a sharp economic collapse.
On top of this, a tsunami of job cuts and austerity lies ahead for the working class. As the economic life support is removed, a deep depression looms. We are facing an unparalled crisis of the capitalist system.
This is why we need to build a strong Marxist organisation - in the labour movement and on the streets. We therefore urge all our readers to join us today in the fight for socialism.
Seven Socialist Appeal activists have put themselves forward as the Marxist Voice platform in the Momentum Primaries. Voting is now open, and we urge all our young readers to sign up to Momentum and vote for the Marxist Voice for Young Labour!
We are proud to announce the launch of Revolution 2020 - a three-day festival of Marxist ideas, hosted online and across Britain from 23-25 October. Buy your ticket now for this exciting and inspiring festival - and join the revolution!
The latest issue of the paper (no. 333) is out now, with articles on: The Beirut explosion and revolution in Lebanon; 80 years since the assassination of Leon Trotsky; first issue of "PCS Marxists" published; and much much more.
BIDEN OFFERS NOTHING BUT MORE WAR, AUSTERITY AND WHITE SUPREMACY
https://popularresistance.org/biden-offers-nothing-but-more-war-austerity-and-white-supremacy/
By Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report.
August 28, 2020
| EDUCATE!
Without Trump.
Biden is an unreconstructed racist and warmonger who has been in the forefront of austerity, and Harris is a party hack and mass Black incarcerator who became a prosecutor with police union endorsement.
“Biden’s acceptance speech put forward not one word that hinted at programmatic change on racial matters.”
The corporate Democrats are once again running as the Not-Trump Party, the second consecutive election in which they have succeeded in suppressing every issue except the fitness for office of one very wretched man. The only way a party wholly-owned by oligarchs can deflect attention from its own culpability in dragooning its constituents into a Race to the Bottom amid never ending war, is to set up a straw man to be knocked down, leaving the machinery of racial capitalism and armed-to-the-teeth imperialism intact — Hillary Clinton’s gambit in 2016.
She lost, but the oligarchy did just fine under the Orange Menace, as stocks and profits skyrocketed. In the interim, however, popular demands for relief from the duopoly’s bipartisan regime of austerity and war escalated, and a Black-led movement took to the streets in unprecedented numbers. China’s economy, which had already eclipsed the United States in purchasing power parity , continued to roar ahead, as Beijing countered U.S. military encirclement with the most ambitious multinational infrastructure project in world history: the Belt and Road initiative, formerly the New Silk Road.
“Popular demands for relief from the duopoly’s bipartisan regime of austerity and war escalated, and a Black-led movement took to the streets in unprecedented numbers.”
With the bulk of the U.S. ruling class and their servants in the national security apparatus now aligned with Democrats, Trump was made the scapegoat for both Black anger at institutional racial oppression and for imperial decline. Black Democratic elected officials played their assigned role, waving American flags as they pretended that only Trump stood in the way of racial “healing” in a nation born of native genocide and Black enslavement. Recent history was quickly rewritten, positing the rise of Trump as the demon who taunted Blacks into resurrecting a grassroots movement that had been dormant for two generations, when in fact the Black Lives Matter phenomenon arose to demolish a bipartisan Mass Black Incarceration regime under his predecessor, the First Black President.
Having strangled the anti-austerity (but loyal imperialist) internal challenge from Bernie Sanders, the oligarch-aligned Democrats and their media chose Joe Biden as front man: a political hack with impeccable corporate credentials and an architect of the “New Jim Crow” and white northern massive resistance to Black urban intrusion. His Black female running mate is a pure product of the corporate Democratic machine, who launched her electoral career with the endorsement of police unions.
But neither of them is Trump, and that’s all that matters.
“Trump was made the scapegoat for both Black anger at institutional racial oppression and for imperial decline.”
With Biden, the “white working class” champion carrying the corporate torch, there will be no talk of baskets of “deplorables” – because he is a certified denizen of the basket. Rather, Biden promised in his acceptance speech to “choose a different path, and together, take this chance to heal, to be reborn, to unite. A path of hope and light.”
Trump is darkness, the Democrats are light – ad nauseum for 3,000-plus meaningless words.
Biden acknowledges that the U.S. responded to the Covid-19 epidemic with “the worst performance of any nation on Earth.” But it was all the fault of the unmasked man, Trump. The methodical privatization and shrinkage of the public health system, a thoroughly bipartisan policy, had nothing to do with mass death. The austerity regime, of which Biden is a founding member, which apportions health care based on race and class, is blameless. There can be no true national health care system absent a single payer program, but Biden vowed to veto Medicare for all if it ever crosses his presidential desk. Biden joins Trump in scapegoating China for the coronavirus, promising “we will never again be at the mercy of China and other foreign countries in order to protect our own people.” Yet, he is the light.
“There can be no true national health care system absent a single payer program, but Biden vowed to veto Medicare for all.”
Biden assures us that his “economic plan is all about jobs, dignity, respect, and community” — a claim that flies in the face of his history as budget-slasher. As journalist Branko Marcetic writes, “Biden is uniquely susceptible to budget-cutting dogma. He quickly became a fiscal hawk after entering the Senate in 1972, introducing the Federal Spending Control Act five years later to potentially put all federal spending programs on the chopping block, and musing that Reagan’s 1980 victory was ‘more consistent with the budgetary thrust that a guy like me … has been going for.’”
In his speech, Biden called Social Security a “a sacred obligation, a sacred promise made.” But, again citing Marcetic, Biden has proposed to means-test Social Security and, from the 1980s on “has called for and introduced legislation aimed at slashing federal spending, including by cutting Medicare and Social Security.” Vice-President Biden was point man for Barack Obama’s partially consummated “Grand Bargain” with Republicans, during which the administration offered four trillion dollars in cuts, mostly to social programs, including Social Security – a program that Obama put on the cutting table, along with Medicaid and “all other entitlements” at the very beginning of his presidency.
Biden has always been a soldier for austerity, a war against the poor. Why should anyone believe he has reversed course in his old age?
“Biden was point man for Barack Obama’s partially consummated ‘Grand Bargain’ with Republicans.”
Biden is an unreconstructed racist, as is proven every time he makes a remark even remotely related to race. His acceptance speech put forward not one word that hinted at programmatic change on racial matters. However, he did mention the name of George Floyd’s daughter, and seemed to think that John Lewis’ ghost will cause us all to “see the light.”
But Russia shall be consigned to darkness, along with Trump. Biden repeated the wholly unsubstantiated and historically bizarre charge that Moscow put “bounties on the heads of American soldiers” in Afghanistan, despite Russia’s longtime and invaluable assistance to maintain the U.S. presence in that country.
War. Austerity and White Supremacy are all that Biden/Harris offer – but without Trump. If that’s enough for you, then say “Hallelujah” — and then tighten your belts and pass the ammunition.
| EDUCATE!
Without Trump.
Biden is an unreconstructed racist and warmonger who has been in the forefront of austerity, and Harris is a party hack and mass Black incarcerator who became a prosecutor with police union endorsement.
“Biden’s acceptance speech put forward not one word that hinted at programmatic change on racial matters.”
The corporate Democrats are once again running as the Not-Trump Party, the second consecutive election in which they have succeeded in suppressing every issue except the fitness for office of one very wretched man. The only way a party wholly-owned by oligarchs can deflect attention from its own culpability in dragooning its constituents into a Race to the Bottom amid never ending war, is to set up a straw man to be knocked down, leaving the machinery of racial capitalism and armed-to-the-teeth imperialism intact — Hillary Clinton’s gambit in 2016.
She lost, but the oligarchy did just fine under the Orange Menace, as stocks and profits skyrocketed. In the interim, however, popular demands for relief from the duopoly’s bipartisan regime of austerity and war escalated, and a Black-led movement took to the streets in unprecedented numbers. China’s economy, which had already eclipsed the United States in purchasing power parity , continued to roar ahead, as Beijing countered U.S. military encirclement with the most ambitious multinational infrastructure project in world history: the Belt and Road initiative, formerly the New Silk Road.
“Popular demands for relief from the duopoly’s bipartisan regime of austerity and war escalated, and a Black-led movement took to the streets in unprecedented numbers.”
With the bulk of the U.S. ruling class and their servants in the national security apparatus now aligned with Democrats, Trump was made the scapegoat for both Black anger at institutional racial oppression and for imperial decline. Black Democratic elected officials played their assigned role, waving American flags as they pretended that only Trump stood in the way of racial “healing” in a nation born of native genocide and Black enslavement. Recent history was quickly rewritten, positing the rise of Trump as the demon who taunted Blacks into resurrecting a grassroots movement that had been dormant for two generations, when in fact the Black Lives Matter phenomenon arose to demolish a bipartisan Mass Black Incarceration regime under his predecessor, the First Black President.
Having strangled the anti-austerity (but loyal imperialist) internal challenge from Bernie Sanders, the oligarch-aligned Democrats and their media chose Joe Biden as front man: a political hack with impeccable corporate credentials and an architect of the “New Jim Crow” and white northern massive resistance to Black urban intrusion. His Black female running mate is a pure product of the corporate Democratic machine, who launched her electoral career with the endorsement of police unions.
But neither of them is Trump, and that’s all that matters.
“Trump was made the scapegoat for both Black anger at institutional racial oppression and for imperial decline.”
With Biden, the “white working class” champion carrying the corporate torch, there will be no talk of baskets of “deplorables” – because he is a certified denizen of the basket. Rather, Biden promised in his acceptance speech to “choose a different path, and together, take this chance to heal, to be reborn, to unite. A path of hope and light.”
Trump is darkness, the Democrats are light – ad nauseum for 3,000-plus meaningless words.
Biden acknowledges that the U.S. responded to the Covid-19 epidemic with “the worst performance of any nation on Earth.” But it was all the fault of the unmasked man, Trump. The methodical privatization and shrinkage of the public health system, a thoroughly bipartisan policy, had nothing to do with mass death. The austerity regime, of which Biden is a founding member, which apportions health care based on race and class, is blameless. There can be no true national health care system absent a single payer program, but Biden vowed to veto Medicare for all if it ever crosses his presidential desk. Biden joins Trump in scapegoating China for the coronavirus, promising “we will never again be at the mercy of China and other foreign countries in order to protect our own people.” Yet, he is the light.
“There can be no true national health care system absent a single payer program, but Biden vowed to veto Medicare for all.”
Biden assures us that his “economic plan is all about jobs, dignity, respect, and community” — a claim that flies in the face of his history as budget-slasher. As journalist Branko Marcetic writes, “Biden is uniquely susceptible to budget-cutting dogma. He quickly became a fiscal hawk after entering the Senate in 1972, introducing the Federal Spending Control Act five years later to potentially put all federal spending programs on the chopping block, and musing that Reagan’s 1980 victory was ‘more consistent with the budgetary thrust that a guy like me … has been going for.’”
In his speech, Biden called Social Security a “a sacred obligation, a sacred promise made.” But, again citing Marcetic, Biden has proposed to means-test Social Security and, from the 1980s on “has called for and introduced legislation aimed at slashing federal spending, including by cutting Medicare and Social Security.” Vice-President Biden was point man for Barack Obama’s partially consummated “Grand Bargain” with Republicans, during which the administration offered four trillion dollars in cuts, mostly to social programs, including Social Security – a program that Obama put on the cutting table, along with Medicaid and “all other entitlements” at the very beginning of his presidency.
Biden has always been a soldier for austerity, a war against the poor. Why should anyone believe he has reversed course in his old age?
“Biden was point man for Barack Obama’s partially consummated ‘Grand Bargain’ with Republicans.”
Biden is an unreconstructed racist, as is proven every time he makes a remark even remotely related to race. His acceptance speech put forward not one word that hinted at programmatic change on racial matters. However, he did mention the name of George Floyd’s daughter, and seemed to think that John Lewis’ ghost will cause us all to “see the light.”
But Russia shall be consigned to darkness, along with Trump. Biden repeated the wholly unsubstantiated and historically bizarre charge that Moscow put “bounties on the heads of American soldiers” in Afghanistan, despite Russia’s longtime and invaluable assistance to maintain the U.S. presence in that country.
War. Austerity and White Supremacy are all that Biden/Harris offer – but without Trump. If that’s enough for you, then say “Hallelujah” — and then tighten your belts and pass the ammunition.
PROTESTERS GATHER IN ‘NOISE PROTEST’ OUTSIDE TRUMP’S RNC SPEECH
By Associated Press.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered around the White House on Thursday night for a “noise demonstration and dance party” in an attempt to drown out President Donald Trump’s speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination.
“I hope you hear us, Trump,” the leader of the popular local band TOB shouted. The band blared Go-Go music, a distinctive D.C. variant on funk, as it moved in the direction of the White House, where Trump delivered his acceptance speech to a crowd of more 1,500 on the South Lawn.
One protester held up a sign, “Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue” — the street where the White House is located.
WTOP’s Alejandro Alvarez described Black Lives Matter Plaza as “bustling with activity.”
There was no indication that Trump heard the protesters but there were a few points when a mix of sirens, music, and blowhorns could be heard in the background, and spectators in the back turned to see where the sounds were coming from.
Acknowledging the coronavirus pandemic, the demonstrators wore masks but there was no social distancing.
“Make some noise if you want to drown out Trump,” protest organizer Justin Johnson said.
After the convention concluded, there were skirmishes as protesters yelled and threw water bottles at police at the historic St. John’s Church near Black Lives Matter Plaza. There were some arrests.
There was a robust police presence but the demonstration was peaceful.
The demonstration was significantly smaller than the protests that rocked the nation’s capital this past spring after George Floyd died at police hands in Minneapolis.
Floyd’s family and the families of other Black Americans who were victims of police violence were expected to participate Friday in commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington that is being led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III.
Before Trump spoke, there was a brief standoff between police and demonstrators, who shouted anti-police slogans. “Free the people, fight the power,” they chanted. Nearby protesters set up a small guillotine, with the District of Columbia flag as the blade.
At one point there was a moment of levity.
“You guys gotta get some rhythm,” a protester told Secret Service officers.
“Would you have rhythm if you were wearing 30 pounds of gear,” one responded.
Lafayette Park, a traditional site of demonstrations across from the White House, was sealed off and there were some street closures.
The groups ShutdownDC and Long-Live Go-Go had put out word in advance about the planned “noise demonstration and dance party” to coincide with Trump’s speech.
“We’ll be at the White House on Thursday to drown out (Trump’s) racist rhetoric with another vision for the future of our country,” the groups said in a statement.
A longtime D.C. signature sound, Go-Go music emerged last year as a battle anthem for activists fighting fast-moving gentrification in the nation’s capital. The music has been a regular presence in recent protests against racial injustice and rolling Go-Go trucks with live bands have appeared frequently at the epicenter of the protests, which was renamed by the city as Black Lives Matter Plaza.
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