https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ELL24dBlfg&t=43s
Thursday, May 5, 2022
Protests in defense of abortion rights met with police violence in Los Angeles
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/05/abor-m05.html
Jacob Crosse
8 hours ago
In the wake of Monday’s leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade and abolish the right to an abortion, protests have been held in major cities throughout the country.
Marches and demonstrations attended by workers, students and youth took place in several cities Tuesday, including in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California; Austin and Houston, Texas; Providence, Rhode Island; New York City; Boston, Massachusetts; Denver, Colorado; Washington D.C.; and Richmond, Virginia, among other places.
Organic grassroots protests, as well as others organized by Democratic Party politicians or their appendages, such as “Women’s March” or NARAL Pro-Choice America, are planned in the coming days and weeks, with nationwide protests scheduled for May 14.
Despite the peaceful character of the protests on Tuesday, in several instances police were seen violently attacking demonstrators, press and onlookers.
In downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday, independent reporter and documentary filmmaker Vishal P. Singh filmed thousands of workers, youth and students as they chanted and marched in support of abortion rights. Protesters had earlier rallied outside the federal courthouse, carrying signs reading “abortion=healthcare” and “abortion is a human right.”
In the early evening, hundreds continued to march, leaving the courthouse and assembling at Pershing Square where they listened to speakers and chanted “legalize abortion now.”
After 8 p.m., federal agents driving Department of Homeland Security cars intervened in the protest and aggressively drove up, and into the crowd, forcing those in the path of the vehicle to move or risk being run over.
After driving into the crowd, DHS officers, wearing body armor and wielding batons, were seen shoving protesters and press alike, demanding they “back the f*ck up!”
Minutes later, Los Angeles police, wearing riot helmets and armed with shotguns, 40 millimeter “less lethal” launchers and batons, were filmed assaulting protesters.
The police riot against protesters continued. In another video, a Los Angeles cop is seen chasing and throwing a protester to the ground, causing them to almost hit a fire hydrant, while his partner viciously beat back onlookers with his baton.
Just after 9 p.m., Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore tweeted that the police “attempted to communicate, clear [sic] and provide dispersal order to the group” and that the “crowd began to throw rocks and bottles” at police.
At 9:20 p.m., Los Angeles Police declared the protest an “unlawful” assembly. However, by that point, less than 200 protesters remained, and 20 minutes later the order was lifted. Some protesters mingled past 10 p.m. It is unknown at this time if any arrests were made or how many protesters were injured by police thugs.
In downtown Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, hundreds of protesters, including many students, marched from the state Capitol to the federal courthouse against the Supreme Court’s opinion. They carried signs that read “my body my choice” and “we won’t go back.”
Despite no reports of violent activity or weapons, a video obtained by the local Fox affiliate shows an Austin police officer, seemingly for no reason, throwing a young unarmed woman protester violently to the ground.
The same cop pulled out his pepper spray and threatened the unarmed protesters to “back up!” At the same time, several other cops are seen surrounding another person who is lying on the ground.
There is overwhelming popular opposition to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which would have an immediate impact on the ability of millions of working-class Americans to access an abortion. A December 2021 report from the Guttmacher Institute found that if the Supreme Court “overturns or guts” Roe v. Wade, “26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion,” which would affect “58 percent of US women of reproductive age” in the United States, or roughly 40 million people.
In anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling, right-wing state legislatures, dominated by Republicans and conservative Democrats, enacted “a record 108 abortion restrictions in 19 states in 2021,” according to the Institute.
Nine states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia and Arizona, have laws still on the book that banned abortion prior to Roe v. Wade. There are 13 states—Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Utah, the Dakotas, Missouri, Idaho and Wyoming—that have “trigger bans” in place. This means that if Roe is overturned, within as little as 10 days abortions in that state would be illegal. In almost every state mentioned, having an abortion would be a felony.
The Democrats have responded to the provocation by the extreme-right faction of the court with impotent calls to elect more Democrats in the upcoming midterm election, along with empty promises to hold votes in Congress to legislate abortion rights that they know will not pass.
The Democratic Party, a party of Wall Street and the military, has adapted to the right-wing attack on abortion rights for decades. It is opposed to any popular mobilization to defend the basic democratic right to an abortion, which would cut across its “national unity” campaign for war against Russia and threaten to develop into a broader movement against the ruling class.
As the assault on protesters in Los Angeles demonstrates, moreover, the Democrats will respond to popular opposition with police violence.
On Tuesday, the Socialist Equality Party issued a statement calling for the independent mobilization of the working class to defend the right to an abortion, connecting this struggle with a broader defense of democratic rights and opposition to the capitalist system. The statement declared:
There is a profound connection between the assault on democratic rights and the massive growth of social inequality, unrestrained militarism, and the destruction for all practical purposes of a labor movement. The abolition of the right to an abortion epitomizes the protracted disintegration of bourgeois democracy in the United States, which has become nothing more than a hollow shell.
Even the initial response to protests over the Supreme Court decision has further confirmed this fact.
Solomon Islands PM warns of invasion by Australia and US
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/05/cidf-m05.html
Mike Head, Socialist Equality Party candidate for the Senate in Queensland
6 hours ago
Responding to a series of threats of intervention by the US and Australia, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare warned on Tuesday that his small Pacific islands country was in danger of invasion by the allied powers.
Based on the ultimatums issued by the Biden administration and Australia’s Liberal-National government, backed by the opposition Australian Labor Party, Sogavare’s statement is entirely credible. His warning, and the belligerent reaction to it in Canberra, also highlights the escalating US-led war drive to confront China, even as Washington intensifies its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
In an address to parliament in defence of his government’s recent security agreement with China, Sogavare denounced the warnings issued by both the US and Australian governments that no Chinese military presence in Solomon Islands would be tolerated.
Without naming the US or Australia, Sogavare said: “We deplore the continual demonstration of lack of trust by the concerned parties, and tacit warning of military intervention in Solomon Islands if their national interest is undermined in Solomon Islands. In other words, we are threatened with invasion.”
Sogavare’s statement followed US Indo-Pacific co-ordinator Kurt Campbell’s declaration, issued on April 22 during a top-level visit to Solomons Islands, that the US would “respond accordingly” to any Chinese military presence in the country.
Campbell’s threat was swiftly echoed by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who said a Chinese base in Solomon Islands would be a “red line” for Australia, that is, a trigger for military intervention. Defence Minister Peter Dutton has accused China of “aggression” and said Australia needed to “prepare for war.”
Equally bellicose was the reaction of the Labor Party, which is using the campaign for the May 21 federal election in Australia to position itself as the most reliable and ruthless advocate of Australian and US imperialist interests.
In an election debate with Morrison, Labor leader Anthony Albanese accused the Coalition of leaving “our backyard” unsecured, allegedly by allowing China to establish a foothold in the region. Labor’s shadow foreign affair minister Penny Wong described the Solomons’ agreement with China as the “worst Australian foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of World War Two.”
Wong’s statement underscores the strategic importance of the Solomons, a country of 700,000 people and hundreds of islands in the southwest Pacific, as well as the other scattered Pacific island states. These islands became key battlegrounds in the US war against Japan in World War II, including the bloody six-month 1942-43 Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomons.
That war established US domination over the Pacific, which Washington is intent on retaining, with the assistance of Australia, as part of its drive to prevent China from posing any challenge to Washington’s global power.
Sogavare denounced the references in Australia to the Solomon Islands being in Australia’s “backyard.” He said backyards were “where rubbish is collected and burned”, and “where we relieve ourselves.”
The Solomons’ PM also condemned nations that proclaimed “Christian values” but had waged “some of the bloodiest wars in the history of our planet.” That charge certainly applies to the long history of US-led wars, not least those in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sogavare also said there were “two sides” to the war in Ukraine, as there had been on the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The latter reference was in response to Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who fuelled the anti-China campaign by claiming that the Solomons’ security agreement with China would result in “our own little Cuba off our coast.”
As Sogavare recounted, the Cuban crisis, which raised the immediate danger of nuclear war, was triggered by the US after Cuba invited the Soviet Union to station missiles on its territory as a deterrent against a US invasion. That followed the botched American “Bay of Pigs” invasion of Cuba in April 1961 and the stationing of US missiles in Italy and Turkey within striking distance of the Soviet Union.
Sogavare has every reason to warn of a military intervention and regime-change operation against his government. His government has been destabilised already by a right-wing separatist movement in Malaita province encouraged by Washington.
One of Sogavare’s previous administrations was ousted in 2006-07 as a result of Canberra’s machinations which were part of a protracted Australian-led military occupation of the Solomons, the 2003 to 2017 “Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands” (RAMSI).
Sogavare has denied any plan for a Chinese military base but that has not halted the threatening allegations against him. On the contrary, just-retired Australian Strategic Policy Institute head, Peter Jennings, who has close links in Washington, said Sogavare’s warning was “as unhinged as Fidel Castro’s.”
Jennings said “Sogavare should remember” that “the Cuban missile crisis ultimately left Cuba isolated from its neighbours in the Caribbean, with a mouldering economy.”
Jennings echoed the alarm in Washington that Australia had failed to prosecute US and allied strategic interests sufficiently aggressively in the Solomons.
Jennings said Sogavare’s reaction to Australian and US concerns over the China agreement showed “Australian politicians have been pandering to Pacific leaders with soft soap rhetoric about the Pacific family.” He added: “When a genuine crisis comes along sometimes we need to remind the region that Australia has security interests that need to be respected.”
Morrison confirmed today that he had not spoken to Sogavare since issuing his “red line” threat. In a bullying tone, he told reporters: “We are Solomon Islands’ primary security partner.” Morrison claimed that Sogavare had conveyed to him agreement with that proposition.
The contemptuous attitude of the US and Australia towards the Solomons’ sovereignty exposes the fraud that the US war plans against China and Russia have anything to do with defending “democracy” or “national sovereignty.”
In provoking war with Russia, Washington and Canberra have said Ukraine’s ability to join the NATO military alliance must be upheld, even if it leads to a nuclear World War III. However, with regard to the Solomons, “national sovereignty” is thrown overboard.
The Socialist Equality Party is the only party in the Australian elections opposing the US-led war drive and seeking to mobilise the working class, in Australia and internationally, against it.
Contact the SEP:
Phone: (02) 8218 3222
Email: sep@sep.org.au
Facebook: SocialistEqualityPartyAustralia
Twitter: @SEP_Australia
Instagram: socialistequalityparty_au
TikTok: @SEP_Australia
Authorised by Cheryl Crisp for the Socialist Equality Party, Suite 906, 185 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000.
The way forward for striking Sri Lankan workers
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/05/lfzo-m05.html
Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka)
8 hours ago
Millions of Sri Lankan workers will participate in the one-day general strike to be held tomorrow, following a similar strike last Thursday.
Unions have announced Friday’s action as a “hartal” (a general strike and shutdown of businesses) and called on all people to support it. Unions will call another one-day strike on May 11, as part of their efforts to deflect seething mass anger.
These strikes will embrace the entire working class while more oppressed layers of the population, including the rural and urban poor as well as small businessmen, are expected to join.
Millions are demanding the resignation of President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government and an end to social catastrophe being heaped on them by the Rajapakse regime and the entire ruling class.
The intervention of the working class in Sri Lanka is significant and welcome. It is part of the class struggles sweeping across the globe, including in Sudan, Iran, Peru, Turkey and India to name a few countries. Strikes and protests are also emerging in major capitalist centres, including the US and Europe.
Workers in all these countries are up in arms against the assault on their living conditions with skyrocketing inflation, and the slashing of wages and jobs. The world capitalist crisis has been fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and, has exploded to a new stage with the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.
The entry of the working class into struggle in Sri Lanka comes on top of continuing anti-government protests throughout the island that began in early April. This mass movement has not only shaken the Rajapakse government to the core but the entire ruling establishment, including the trade unions which act as vital prop for the capitalist system.
For all their militant posturing about tomorrow’s general strike, the unions are desperately seeking to apply a brake on the developing strike movement of the working class.
Ravi Kumudesh, the leader of Health Professionals Federation, declared: “We gave the government until May 6 to resign and if the government does not listen to the people, we will have to have a hartal.”
The general secretary of the Ceylon Teachers’ Union, Joseph Stalin, thundered: “If the government is not willing to leave, we will have to kick it out.”
What is the political program, however, that the unions are pushing behind this empty bombast?
All of them are seeking to divert the working class into the dead-end of parliamentary politics and into the arms of the capitalist opposition parties.
In its statement on May 1, the National Trade Union Front and Mass Organisations, listed its main demands as follows: “Resignation of discredited President and Prime Minister and the government; Allow for an interim regime for a certain period; Political stability with a small cabinet; Exercising people’s sovereignty through parliament; Establish a government after certain period of time with people’s mandate.”
The Trade Union Coordinating Committee, the other union front calling Friday’s general strike, is campaigning on the same basis.
What is the meaning of these demands? It is to replace the totally discredited Rajapakse government with an unelected interim government of opposition parties then hold elections. The purpose of the interim regime is crystal clear: to establish “political stability,” in other words to suppress the mass strike and protest movement so as to stabilize capitalist rule.
The demands of the unions are virtually identical to those of the opposition parties—the right-wing Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and Sinhala-communalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)—as well as the corporate lobby groups. “Political stability” is what is being demanded by big business as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and foreign investors.
None of the parliamentary parties—government and opposition alike—has any alternative to the austerity program currently being implemented. None has opposed the government’s decision to seek an IMF emergency bailout or explained that such a loan will inevitably mean more, not less, austerity. The SJB and JVP both have a track record of implementing pro-market restructuring.
What is being prepared is an even worse social disaster for working people. After two weeks of talks with the IMF, the finance ministry issued a statement on May 2 outlining what is being discussed as the price for a bailout.
It made clear that sweeping privatisation is on the agenda, as “investment in sectors such as education, healthcare, public transport, and service delivery,” is required. The statement bluntly declared that “a culture of unproductive government subsidisation and handouts is no longer viable,” meaning price subsidies, welfare payments and social services are to be further reduced of completely axed.
Speaking to parliament on Tuesday, Finance Minister Ali Sabry said that the country’s foreign reserves have sunk as low as $US50 million, adding: “I do not know whether these issues can be solved even in two years.” He made clear that large tax increases will be imposed, saying: “People who earn must share some money, or society will collapse. Tax revenue will have to increase by about 15 percent over the next two to three years.”
The IMF is demanding that workers and poor be compelled to pay for the already crumbling public healthcare, education of children and all other services from their meagre wages. At the same time jobs, wages and pensions will be slashed. In short, workers and poor must sacrifice for the survival of decaying capitalism.
The entire political establishment, including the opposition parties and the trade unions, knows that such austerity measures, coming on top of an already dire social crisis, cannot be implemented democratically. Behind the scenes, the security forces are being prepared for use against the protests and strikes whether by the Rajapakse regime or any capitalist government that replaces it. Already the police have opened fire without warning on protesters in Rambukkana, killing Chaminda Lakshan and wounding others.
The trade unions are playing a criminal political role. Their strikes are called not to resolve the social and economic crisis facing workers, but to let off steam and to buy time for the political establishment as it prepares its deep attacks on the working class. It is trying to hoodwink workers into believing that an “interim regime” and elections will end the social disaster they confront.
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) warns the working class the only way to defend its democratic and social rights is to mobilise its independent strength on the basis of a program that meets its urgent class needs—in other words, a socialist program.
We encourage workers everywhere—in your factories and workplaces, in the plantations, and in working-class suburbs—to form action committees independent of the unions to fight for your class interests.
To defend democratic rights, the SEP demands the immediate abolition of executive presidential system, along with all repressive legislation, including the emergency laws, the Essential Public Services Act and the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
There is no solution for working people to the spiraling price increases, shortages of essentials and creeping starvation within the capitalist system.
The SEP proposes the following demands as the basis for a political struggle by the working class through its action committees:Take the production and distribution of all essential goods and other resources critical for public lives under the democratic control of the workers!
Nationalise banks, large corporations, large estates and other major economic centres under workers’ control!
Reject the austerity demands of the IMF and the World Bank that represent the international banks and financial institutions!
Seize the enormous wealth of the billionaires and corporations!
Abolish all the debt of the poor peasants and small-business holders! Reinstate all the subsidies, including fertiliser subsidies for the peasantry!
Guarantee jobs for all with decent and safe working conditions! Index wages to the cost of living!
Repudiate all foreign loans!
By building action committees and fighting for its social rights, the working class will begin to rally to its side the rural masses who are suffering from the same attacks.
In opposition to the unions’ campaign for an interim regime and the defense of capitalism, the SEP advocates the revolutionary overthrow of the profit system and the establishment of a workers’ and peasants’ government to refashion society on a socialist basis.
In this political struggle, Sri Lankan workers need to turn to their class brothers and sisters around the world who face similar attacks and are now entering into struggle. There is no national solution in any country to the crisis created by global capitalism confronting workers.
That is why the SEP urges workers to build a network of action committees and coordinate with workers in other countries through the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), launched by the International Committee of the Fourth International.
The past month testifies the urgency of the tasks facing the working class and the need to base its political fight on the socialist and internationalist program elaborated by the SEP. Such a struggle requires revolutionary leadership. We urge workers wanting to form action committees to contact the SEP. Above all, we call on you to join the SEP and build it as a mass party.
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