Monday, June 8, 2020
BOLIVIA UNDER DICTATORSHIP: US THE REAL POWER
By Stella Calloni, Internationalist 360.
June 7, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/bolivia-under-dictatorship-us-the-real-power/
An Interview With Evo Morales.
A little more than six months after the coup d’état (10-11 November 2019) against President Evo Morales in Bolivia, now exiled in Argentina, he warned of the serious situation his country is facing under a de facto government headed by the self-proclaimed President Jeanine Añez, who in addition to repression involving massacres against the population and persecution and imprisonment of political leaders and militants, is systematically destroying the social and economic model and achievements of the overthrown government of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).
Now that country is confronting the COVD-19 pandemic in the absence of state presence, while military threats are growing and war tanks continue to arrive from the interior of the country for military garrisons in the city of La Paz, the former president denounced in an interview in Buenos Aires.
When asked about the general situation in his country, he recalled that “the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended a rigid quarantine for Bolivia, but the de facto president did not apply it, and the situation of the poorest families is aggravated by the absence of the state, which is worse for some regions such as the department of Beni, which is currently the most affected by the rapid expansion of Covid-19. I have just been informed that a young militant is dying in Beni and there are other serious cases and we feel powerless in the face of this situation”.
Q.- You have denounced the absence of the State in these circumstances, aggravated by these military mobilizations.
A.- This is what we are seeing all over the country and from this comes what happened to the organized health system that we left behind and the current absence of the Bolivian state to protect the population from the lethal effects of the virus. With the pandemic we could see that everything has changed. Between 1985 and 2005, in 20 years of neoliberalism, 500 million dollars had been invested in health. Between 2006 and 2018 we invested another 1.6 billion dollars and there were even second and third level hospitals, not to mention the health centers. As an example, I cite the case of Montero in the department of Santa Cruz, where we had completed the construction of a major hospital and the coup leaders paralyzed it. Only during our administration (2006-2019) did we initiate the Universal Health Insurance program. In just ten months, ten million consultations were given free of charge and now the Universal Health Insurance Service has been paralyzed. I cannot understand why Universal Health Insurance was abandoned as well, nor the destruction of the health system that we left behind. Those of us who have advocated the presence of the State were not wrong. The coup leaders paralyzed the entire health system that we implemented.
Q: You have always stressed this project. How would you have confronted the pandemic if you had been in government?
A.- That health system would be working right now, which would mean a profound change. Immediately after the coup, they expelled and mistreated the Cuban doctors. They had come to Bolivia without asking for anything, they were doing a very important job, they did not come to privatize but to advance in a health project for all. I always remember that Fidel (Castro) once told me “we share the little we have especially in education and health rights”. Fidel continues to be for me the most supportive man in the world. Besides healthcare, Cuba also sent the teachers for the literacy project. They helped us with the literacy programs with the “si se puede” and we defeated illiteracy. In addition to this, we received the Juancito Pinto Bonus, which helped us to prevent school dropouts, which was very serious in Bolivia. After becoming literate, many women wanted to continue studying and with this enormous help we implemented secondary education and sometimes we saw mothers and daughters of high school graduates get together. It was very emotional. We realized that it was a question of encouraging, orienting, incentivizing. One feels that this is doing something for the country and above all with transparency, and that destroying this is inhuman.
Q.- How do you evaluate the political situation at this time?
A.- This government was never a transition government for us, as they said it would be. It is a de facto government, a dictatorship, just like what happened with the dictatorships of General Hugo Banzer (1971-1978) and Luis García Meza (1980-1981). Bolivia is being ruled by the Americans, by the CIA. The de facto president’s private advisor (Erick Foronda) was an advisor at the U.S. embassy, the former health minister (Marcelo Navajas) was the doctor at that embassy and also had a private clinic, which was in fact unconstitutional. He is the same person who was involved in the issue of the overpricing of purchased respirators and when the investigation was made he clearly said that this overpricing was by order of the President and the Minister of Government. He confessed it when he was arrested and imprisoned. But this and other similar situations demonstrated the great corruption of the de facto government, which is now trying to suspend the elections indefinitely.
Q: The self-proclaimed president had remained in that position on a transitory basis exclusively to call for elections; could she change cabinet and make the decisions she is making?
A.- The only obligation Añez had was to call elections quickly. Now she is also a candidate for president, which we do not object to, (although the UN observers have objected) but what she is doing together with the right, under the political direction of the United States, is to suspend the elections indefinitely. By means of a decree, she is trying to implement the 1994 constitution, to disqualify and outlaw MAS. Furthermore, it threatens the Senate. This is the goal of the right wing, to prevent the elections. The fact is that before the Pandemic the MAS was winning and now it’s winning too. That is why it remains the great debate among us on the electoral issue for our movement. The de facto government has also presented actions against Law 1297 on the postponement of elections and against Law 421 on the distribution of seats. Their objective is clear: to deepen the crisis so that the elections are not held and are extended. The Bolivian people are fighting to recover their rights that have been taken away.
Q: You are currently denouncing a movement of war tanks to take up positions in military barracks in the city of La Paz, while recently the head of the armed forces, General Sergio Carlos Orellana, showed up in full dress at the Senate to sign his promotions, and threatened that if they are not approved, the senators will be replaced by military laws.
A.- Senate President Eva Copa, of MAS, told them that they will not submit to pressure from the military or the government. This appears to be another coup d’état and further aggravates the situation before the world regarding the attempts to continue impeding the electoral process. This is why we speak of a dictatorship. As far as tanks are concerned, the pandemic is not being fought with war tanks, nor guns or gases, but with the active presence of the State in the face of the seriousness of the social situation. Food is urgently needed. The de facto government has created a small bonus of 500 bolivianos for two months, and if you compare it, for the oil companies they give 416 bolivianos per day. We used to pay the oilmen a food voucher of 150 per day. But now they go up to 416 and only get 150. The rest is part of the business, theft and corruption. Last night (May 29) I was in communication with Bolivia and we learned that three war tanks had arrived in La Paz. Last week ten tanks arrived from the town of Tapalcá and from Coro-Coro regiment in rural areas. Eight war tanks will also arrive in La Paz from Patacamaya (located 98 km from the capital) and 14 are in regiments in the city. Yesterday, Añez said that there would be an easing of quarantine, and we asked ourselves, why war tanks? The pandemic cannot be fought with tanks, nor with guns or gases, elections are not held with tanks. And on the other hand we see that the people of the Tropic of Cochabamba, who bring fruit and food, sharing what little they have with the population, are imprisoned, detained, even the mayors of some localities, provoking more and more conflicts with the population.
Q.- How do you see the panorama of the region at this time and the interference of the United States in the face of the peoples in resistance in various countries?
A.- We are seeing the struggle of the people throughout the region against domination, intervention, aggression, and economic policy. I can’t understand how the president of the United States breaks with the World Health Organization (WHO), demonstrating that he is against life, at least the life of the most humble. It is serious to destroy international organizations created by the United Nations, trying to displace international bodies. This is not a pandemic, it is biological and economic warfare. I remember that years ago I read that several international organizations and the International Monetary Fund argued that in politics, towards the New World Order, it was necessary to plan for the reduction of the unnecessary population and which population is “unnecessary”? The humble, the elderly, the disabled, the poor, are all unnecessary people? And this is happening. I think it’s biological warfare when we’re looking at what’s happening in the United States. That world power considers the ‘unnecessary’ population a bad burden and abandons its people to the virus. The United States is no longer the world power. This third world war was won by China without firing a weapon. With a population of 1.5 billion, it has control of the situation while the ‘great’ world power’ is the country with the highest number of deaths and it continues, however, with sanctions, blockades against Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries. It continues to invest in military interventions and is breaking relations with international organizations and in the face of the pandemic it is evident that they do not have a healthcare system to deal with it. Health is a right, everyone should understand that health is a human right. Life cannot be a commodity and you cannot terminate a public healthcare system and return to a privatized healthcare system. Health is not a business, the drug industries in the world should not be in private hands, and they cannot be seen as ending the life of a human being. Nations must debate these issues and health research must be state-run.
Q. How is this U.S. interference reflected in Bolivia?
A.- Under the mandate of the United States, the achievements of our government and of a Constitution celebrated by the world with the conception of the Plurinational Republic are reduced and destroyed. Bolivia has two pandemics affecting life and the economy. The coronavirus is killing us with a virus, and the dictatorship starves and represses. It has paralyzed the productive apparatus. The dictatorship of Añez, Carlos Mesa and Fernando Camacho destroyed our economy and production with corruption and nepotism. Unfortunately, all public enterprises are paralyzed. There will no longer be economic resources for social funds and income. Today at five o’clock in the morning we were discussing this with colleagues, and about lithium, remembering that in September 2018, we inaugurated the first lithium plant of potassium chloride. In December of that same year we exported 15 thousand tons to Brazil, last year 200 thousand tons, now they inform me that since January of this year it is paralyzed, they are no longer producing potassium chloride or Urea. In 60 days it was paralyzed and we had exported 350 thousand tons to Brazil, Argentina and other neighbours. This year we would have inaugurated the lithium industry and now it is paralyzed. All this is painful to the point of tears and to see how they are destroying the economy, public companies closed and paralyzed.
Q: It seems like almost irreparable damage in some cases, and this surely means more poverty, unemployment, a turning back?
A.- That’s right. They are destroying everything, the public companies say that they are not profitable and they have to be privatized. That’s why I say that this coup d’état was by the ‘gringo’ against the Indian who had shown that another world is possible, that another Bolivia was possible. A coup d’état to our economic model, which had emerged without a United States embassy, without USAID (International Development Agency), without the IMF. We demonstrated that it was possible without the United States, without ATPDEA (Andean Trade Preferences and Drug Eradication Act). Neither they nor the IMF can present any other model. The United States, the capitalist system, has no other alternative model. Theirs is poverty, inequality, death. It was also a blow to keep the lithium. We had demonstrated that we could industrialize it ourselves and now they are going to hand over the lithium to the United States, privatization is just a matter of time. The people can do everything, and they demonstrated it not with violence but with democratic coexistence. That is why they are persecuting the leaders and there are political prisoners and asylum seekers in the Mexican embassy. We demand the freedom of these prisoners and an end to the persecution and actions against the defenseless people.
Q.- Finally, how do you see the action of the hegemonic press, in this grave circumstance for humanity, where false news has been activated more than ever in the networks, in the media, and disinformation is a weapon of war?
A.- The people will resist. These are difficult moments and the struggle of the peoples is important; these are times of liberation. Reality is showing that this media war is being overcome by the reality that the people are living. U.S. imperialism is planning how to confront Latin Americans, how to confront Bolivians using that same press. That’s why it was so important to integrate into UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations) those spaces that created leaders like Fidel, Hugo Chávez, Néstor Kirchner, Lula (Luiz Inácio “Lula” Da Silva). There is a great need in these times, and also Rafael Correa, Daniel Ortega, Fernando Lugo and others.
The United States is trying to make Latin America its backyard forever. We know about the hard resistance of the peoples of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua. The struggle of our peoples is very important. The United States wants to divide us in order to plunder our natural resources. The peoples no longer accept domination and plunder. The United States is in decline, and yet it lashes out. In Bolivia, if this pandemic had not happened last May 3, we would have recovered the country, democracy and our process of change. For the Bolivian dictatorship, the pandemic came as a surprise; now they intend to permanently alter the Bolivian model, which was an example. The United States wants dictatorship, not elections. We understand that when the gringos bite, they do not let go, but we are confident that in Bolivia we will soon return in the millions to restore dignity and democracy, to recover the homeland.
Translation by Internationalist 360°
TEN ACTION IDEAS FOR BUILDING A POLICE-FREE FUTURE
By MPD150.
June 7, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/ten-action-ideas-for-building-a-police-free-future/
Imagine that you were asked to help create stability in a newly-founded city. How would you try to solve the problems that your friends and neighbors encountered? How would you respond to crisis and violence? Would your *first* choice be an unaccountable army with a history of oppression and violence patrolling your neighborhood around the clock?
— from Enough is Enough: A 150-Year Performance Review of the Minneapolis Police Department
What makes a community healthy and safe? This document doesn’t have all the answers, but it acknowledges that for many of us, police are not part of the solution. Patterns of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and bullying are too common. When someone is having a mental health crisis, or when neighbors are concerned about a fellow neighbor, or when we feel unsafe– are the police our only option? Of course, different communities have different needs. Vibrant, dynamic, and police-free communities aren’t going to be created by outside groups– they’re going to bloom from the soil that already exists in those spaces. What we can share here, though, is what that process has looked like elsewhere. Here are a few tools, ideas, and strategies:
1. An easy one: STOP calling the police when it’s clearly unnecessary.
We can’t tell you to never call the police (though some do make that choice). We can challenge you, however, to reflect on that choice, to make sure that calling them isn’t an automatic response to each and every moment of personal discomfort or uncertainty. Never forget: an inconvenience for one person, once police are involved, can become a death sentence for another person.
2. Get trained in first aid, crisis de-escalation, restorative justice, etc.
The more skills we have to share with our neighbors and family, the less we have to rely on unaccountable armed paramilitary forces! Find or organize local trainings, and share that knowledge.
3. Build community all the time, not just in times of trouble.
It isn’t just about building capacity as individuals; it’s about cultivating resilient communities. One of the first steps we can take toward communities that no longer need police is meeting one another. We can know our neighbor’s names. We can hold potlucks, volunteer to help our neighbors with simple things like shoveling snow or carrying groceries, and build real relationships. That way, when crises happen, we have other resources to call upon besides the police.
As Critical Resistance’s Abolitionist Toolkit puts it: It can be as simple as asking a friend a basic question: “If I needed to, could I call you?” or telling someone “If you ever needed someone, you could call me.” We know that this is nothing like a perfect solution. But we have to begin to try out what solutions might work, especially because know that calling the police doesn’t.
4. If you DO need police, go to them instead of calling them to you.
From the zine, “12 Things to Do Instead of Calling the Cops:” If something of yours is stolen and you need to file a report for insurance or other purposes, consider going to the police station instead of bringing cops into your community. You may inadvertently be putting someone in your neighborhood at risk.
5. With mental health crises, remember to center the person in crisis.
From the article “5 Ways to Help Someone in a Mental Health Emergency Without Calling the Police” (Tastrom):
Remember that the person having the mental health crisis is a person and their wishes should be followed as much as is safe. The best intervention strategies will be things that the person buys into and does voluntarily. Those of us with mental health issues have likely been traumatized by doctors and other practitioners not listening to us or doing things against our will. All of this is contextual and there are no absolutes, but think about trauma when you are considering what actions to take.
6. Make a list of local services/hotlines you can call instead of the police.
From domestic abuse crisis centers, to shelters for people experiencing homelessness, to mental health support groups, to a range of other kinds of advocates and service-providers, find the people who can deal with the kinds of crises that police so often are not equipped to handle. Find out which ones involve the police as a matter of protocol, and which ones don’t. Hang the list on your refrigerator. Keep those contacts in your phone. Make copies and give them to friends and neighbors.
7. Support organizations that really do keep our communities healthy.
On that note: where these services exist, support them, whether by volunteering, donating, or lobbying for funding from city/county/etc. government. Some great alternatives to the police already exist; they’re just often extremely underfunded. Take this a step further: how might we strategically re-allocate resources from police to services that truly help people? Campaigns to divest from police while investing in communities may offer a path forward.
8. Zoom in and find solutions where you are.
Across the country, activists are finding ways to change the narrative and do this work. Teachers and parents are working on campaigns like Dignity in Schools’ “Counselors Not Cops.” LGBTQ groups are disinviting police to Pride parades. Formerly-incarcerated people are organizing networks of mentorship and even unarmed community mediation teams. Organizations like the Sex Workers Outreach Project are working to address stigma and criminalization. Churches are pledging to not call the police. From the decriminalization of drugs, to the dismantling of the school-to-prison pipeline, to abolishing ICE, and beyond– every step gets us closer to a police-free future.
9. Engage in policy work that can prevent, rather than just punish, crime.
When we ask people “what keeps your community healthy and safe?” the answers we hear are often very similar: affordable housing, jobs, youth programs, opportunities to create and experience art, welcoming parks, etc. We can cultivate safer and healthier neighborhoods by getting involved in activist organizations, neighborhood groups, school boards, etc. that have the power to do this preventative work.
10. Dream bigger: there was a time before police, and there will be a time after.
Some of the solutions we need don’t exist yet. There are some things we can do now, but this work is also about planting seeds. A vital first step toward a police-free future is simply being able to visualize what that future will look like. We must break out of the old mindset that police are this inevitable, irreplaceable part of society. They aren’t. There are better ways for us to keep our communities healthy and safe, ways that do not include the violent, oppressive, unaccountable baggage of police forces. Check out the various sources mentioned here. Do more research, have more conversations, and help build the world in which you want to live.
A MASS UPRISING IS HERE, PROTECT IT FROM THE RULING CLASS
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance.org.
June 7, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/mass-uprising-protect-it/
The breadth of the uprising is astounding with antiracism protests in all 50 states and more than 500 cities plus more than 13,500 arrests in 43 cities. This weekend there were larger numbers of protesters in the streets including cities and towns of all sizes. In Washington, DC, where we were, the crowds were multi-racial and crossed all ages but were dominated by black youth. People were united in their opposition to racism and police abuse and their calls for systemic change.
While the crowds were notable in the nation’s capital, across the country, and around the world, what stood out this week is the palpable fear emanating from the White House. President Trump, who has blown racist dog whistles from his first-day campaigning in 2016, is afraid. His fear is demonstrated by ten-foot-tall black metal fences, fortified by concrete Jersey blocks surrounding not just the White House but all of Lafayette Park to the bottom of the Ellipse, and from 15th Street to 17th Street. Inside this fence are rows of smaller fences, mobile searchlights, and scores of police and military. Dump trucks block every entrance. The White House fence, which was built higher during the Trump-era, is covered in a white shroud to hide what is behind it. Comedian Sarah Cooper mocked Trump’s comments describing his visits to the secure bunker under the White House when the protests were at an angry peak. The failures of the US government to fulfill basic tasks of protecting and empowering people have reached a tipping point.
This Is A Take Off Moment For Ending Structural Racism
Racism in the United States did not start with Trump and it won’t end if he is defeated in November. The people at protests understand Trump is a symptom of deeper problems. While there were some anti-Trump signs outside the White House, the crowd was more focused on broader changes that are needed. The United States suffers from deep structural racism that creates economic inequality and an unfair criminal injustice system.
A national consensus is developing in favor of the protests. Polls indicate the public supports the uprising, sees the anger as justified, and even supported the burning down the police precinct in Minneapolis. Three out of four say racial and ethnic discrimination are big problems with 87% of black people believing they are more likely than whites to experience excessive force. Multiple polls show sympathy for the protests and support for their goals. There has been a shift in views on racism with the biggest change in acknowledging racism coming in the managerial class where many used to believe the US had evolved into a ‘post-racial society’.
The persistent protest movement — which has been strengthening since there was a take-off after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO six years ago and with the thousands of murders since then — has built national consensus for change. Now, there are opportunities for change but also challenges for the movement. Ajamu Baraka, of the Black Alliance for Peace, describes some of them in Black Agenda Report:
“The enemy knows how to quickly adapt in the ideological struggle: 1) undermine the emerging unity with white agitator propaganda, 2) follow up with declaration against something called Antifa as a terrorist group, 3) instruct the police to join demos and express solidarity, 4) release statements from police chiefs and others pushing the bad apples theme, and most important, 5) keep the focus on the individual and call for ‘justice’ for that individual to avoid attention on the systemic and enduring elements of Black and Brown colonized oppression.”
The Movement Can Overcome The Challenges We Face And Win
Here are some of the ways we can overcome the challenges the power structure is putting in our way.
Divide and Rule – Unite and Build Power: When the power structure sees white and black people uniting to work for common goals, it gets worried. It will do all it can overtly and covertly to divide the movement. For example, despite the FBI saying there is no evidence, the Trump administration accused Antifa (short for Anti-Fascist) of being an organization (it isn’t) committing violence at protests. In fact, a report found that a far-right group masquerading as Antifa was promoting violence. There is evidence that provocateurs, including officers in uniform, have been destroying property, and police have brutalized thousands of protesters over the past two weeks. Any attempts to denigrate one group or sow division, such as the ‘good protester/bad protester’ myth, must be met with skepticism.
We must strive for greater unity in the movement by linking our struggles and promoting a common vision of the society we wish to create. Just prior to the police murdering George Floyd, a movement was building for a general strike. That campaign is ongoing and is being manifested in various ways. Payday report cites more than 220 wildcat strikes, many involving working-class people of color, that have occurred in the United States since early March. Rent strikes are taking place and millions more are ready to rent strike. Black Lives Matter is calling for a statewide general strike in Washington state on June 12. The general strike campaign calls for nationwide actions on the first of each month.
The National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression is calling for a national day of action on Saturday, June 13 calling for the transformational change of democratic community control of the police.
Offer Weak Reforms – Demand Systemic Changes: People exercising their First Amendment rights are calling for transformational changes such as abolishing the institution of police, ending the militarization of our communities, and investing in black and brown communities. Already, a few groups are working to shift the demands to a weaker platform such as spending less money on police and banning the knee-on-neck technique that officer Chauvin used to kill George Floyd. Banning techniques such as chokeholds have failed. Police still use them and they get away with it. While there must be justice for George Floyd and others killed by police, this is not only about convicting police who terrorize communities, but about stopping police terror and the entire racist system in the United States that is repressing people at home and abroad. Police serve as enforcers of the racism that pervades education, healthcare, housing, employment, the legal system, and foreign policy. The movement may celebrate minor victories along the way, but we must build power to win systemic changes that end the institutions and policies that perpetuate structural racism and inequality.
Diversion to Elections – Escalate Street Heat: There are already efforts to distract the movement to focus on President Trump and divert people’s attention to the upcoming presidential election. The Democratic mayor of Washington DC took performative action when she had “Black Lives Matter” painted on 16th Street in front of the White House, but DC residents weren’t having it and called her out for increasing the police budget while cutting social programs. In a recent essay, Obama urged reforms enacted through elections as have other black misleaders, as Margaret Kimberley describes. The always-opportunist Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime Democratic operative, has called for a March on Washington on August 28. This will likely be a Democratic Party anti-Trump rally to kick off the final months of “get out the vote” for the presidential election. People know the record of Joe Biden – opposing integration of schools, escalating the war on drugs, being an architect of mass incarceration, and supporting the interests of his corporate donors over the necessities of the people. We will not elect our way out of these crises. We must continue to build our capacity to stay in the streets, even if it is once a week, and our pressure through tactics like strikes and other forms of non-cooperation to build enough power to overcome the ruling class.
Unleash the Counter-Revolution – Defy It: If the movement is not defeated by these tactics, but instead grows larger by unifying fronts of struggle and escalating our demands, there will be more efforts to suppress us. In Occupy, the Obama administration, through the FBI and Homeland Security working with local police, escalated their tactics, sending infiltrators into the movement to create divisions and throw the movement off course. It entrapped participants in crimes with serious consequences and used the media to create opposition. We know this is coming, so we can be prepared. Our goal must be solidarity, protecting each other, and remaining persistent with unwavering demands. When the power structure escalates their tactics, it is a sign we are winning. It is a show of weakness, not strength on their part and that means it’s time for protests to escalate.
These are all some of the common tactics used against popular movements. In our web-based free school “How Social Transformation Occurs”, we review these and other strategies used by the power structure and how movements can respond. People involved in the vibrant movements of our times need to be well informed so we are a movement of leaders who are prepared to win.
The Movement Is Already Defeating The Ruling Class’ Tactics
The media described the uprising as a “riot” involved in violence and property destruction but the movement responded by using videos to show black organizers trying to stop people, some of whom seemed to be undercover police or white supremacists. When mayors put in place curfews, people came out in larger numbers to ignore the curfew. When police assaulted people with batons, rubber bullets, and chemical weapons, they were caught on camera and shown to be the instigators of violence. In response to thousands of complaints about police actions, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Police Chief Carmen Best announced a 30-day ban on the use of tear gas and a review of police actions with an emphasis on de-escalation.
As the result of a class-action suit in Colorado, federal Judge R. Brooke Jackson ordered the police to stop using tear gas, rubber bullets, and other “less-than-lethal” forces like flash grenades and ordered body cameras to be used at all times. The judge noted videos of police injuring people, including journalists, without giving any warnings.
When President Trump threatened to use the military against people, there was a rapid response opposing him. Some GI’s and National Guard troops have refused to follow orders against the people. Courage to Resist has set up a fund to defend them. And, a lawsuit was filed against the police’s actions.
The movement for change in the United States has grown and matured in recent decades. We must continue to protest, be non-compliant with the power structure, defy the opposition’s tactics, support each other’s needs, and build alternative structures. This is how we will transform our society in a way that respects human rights and protects the planet. The time is now. Let’s keep doing the work.
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