The Empire on Election Day

FULL SHOW HERE

You’re listening to Back in the USSR on 93.3 FM CFRU, we’re still in pandemic mode comrades, but we’re still forging ahead and I’d like to thank you all for listening.  Last week on the show I had a chance to get into some good news for a change, really good news, namely how the Bolivian people managed to defeat a brutal, unelected US-backed coup regime after a year of fighting against all the odds, and electing a new socialist government by a landslide…and millions of downtrodden Bolivians can now breathe again.  This has to be the best news I’ve heard all year, but it was to be followed up by more good news.  On October 25^th, Chilean voters went to the polls to decide whether or not to scrap the undemocratic constitution that military dictator Augusto Pinochet imposed on Chile in the 1980s, and, just like in Bolivia, the results were unequivocal: nearly 80% of voters wanted a new constitution, democratically drafted via consultation with the people. 

Last week I mentioned this vote and how important it was in the context of the struggle for democracy in South America, and the landslide result of this referendum is another blow against the neo-liberal capitalist order that the US has long sought to impose on the entire region.  After all, Augusto Pinochet came to power in a US-backed coup in 1973 and reigned as dictator for the next twenty years, imposing economic austerity on his people at gunpoint and leaving a bitter legacy that persists to this day.  It’s still going to be a long struggle by left-wing forces before that legacy of capitalist dictatorship, which made Chile one of the most unequal countries on the planet, is undone.  And that’s not even getting into the legacy of colonialism and genocide against which the Mapuche indigenous nation in Chile is still fighting.  The open wounds of Latin America go back five hundred years to the Spanish conquest and, as the struggle the indigenous majority in Bolivia against a white supremacist coup attests, healing those wounds is not going to be an easy task.  There is a reason why Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of any country in the western hemisphere, invoked the name of Tupac Katari, an indigenous leader who fought against the Spanish colonizers centuries ago, because that anti-colonial struggle is still ongoing…only this time the colonizer is based in Washington D.C.

Which, of course, brings us to the topic of tonight’s show: the current situation in the US of A, the heartland of a global empire with more than seven hundred military bases spread across every continent and with an armed presence in every corner of the globe.  What happens in Washington has global repercussions and that is why US elections are major events from a geo-political standpoint, not just a domestic one.  And from a geo-political standpoint the two contenders in this election appear especially unappealing.

I say this because, as a non-American who lives outside the US, I’m more concerned about US foreign policy than anything else.  I’m more concerned about what the US is going to do to other countries, especially those in close proximity to its borders.

To start with, it’s very telling that the CEOs are American arms manufacturers and their investors are confident in their prospects regardless of who wins the election.  My friend Greg Shupak wrote a really great piece in The Nation on this very subject last Friday and he quotes Dave Calhoun, the CEO of Boeing, who said “I think both candidates, at least in my view, appear globally oriented and interested in the defense of our country and I believe they’ll support the industries…I don’t think we’re going to take a position on one being better than the other.” And Greg rightly points out that it was Boeing’s Apache helicopters that were responsible for killing civilians in the infamous “Collateral Murder” video that Chelsea Manning brought to public attention.  Arms giants like Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed-Martin are directly and indirectly funding both Trump and Biden’s campaigns, confident that both of them can be counted on to pursue policies favorable to them, which, in short means more aggression and belligerent actions around the globe and a policy of military brinkmanship with regard to Russia and China.  Pushing the world to the brink of World War III is good for business if you are Boeing.

There’s a lot of continuity in American elections.  You’ll likely have noticed that if you’ve been around long enough.  The overall policy direction of successive American administrations doesn’t shift a whole hell of a lot.  Everyone thought there was going to be a big sweeping change when Obama took over from George W. Bush at the beginning of 2009, but Obama kept troops in Iraq, supported Israel in its murderous assault on Gaza, maintained Guantanamo Bay, didn’t punish anyone for torture, kept up the War on Terror, and later expanded military operations into Libya and Syria.  There were migrant kids held in cages under Obama just as there are migrant kids held in cages under Donald Trump, who mainly just expanded on racist anti-immigrant policies already in place or made official what was already being done in practice.  The military-industrial complex keeps on rolling, the prison-industrial complex keeps on rolling. 

While things like Obama’s deal with Iran are notable exceptions, American foreign policy has been remarkably consistent and just as remarkably belligerent.  And this is because these policies serve certain very powerful interests.  Beyond arms contractors, just about every sector of the American capitalist class, from the bankers to Silicon Valley, is geared toward empire and global dominance.  Even if they don’t have direct dealings with the Pentagon, they rely on a steady flow of cheap resources from the Global South and the exploitation of cheap labor, both of which are guaranteed by American military power and the military power of America’s allies and vassals around the world.  I mentioned Elon Musk last week and his role in the 2019 Bolivian coup, which he openly supported out of his desire for cheap lithium to fuel his electric car empire.  Canadian mining companies like Barrett Gold exploiting natural resources in countries like Honduras and Indonesia likewise benefit from American imperial dominance and its ability to put puppet rulers into place who will serve the interests of global capital and the Fortune 500 over and above the needs of their own citizenry. 

Honduras is notable for having suffered an American-backed coup back in 2007 which ousted progressive President Manuel Zelaya and led to a series of right-wing governments that basically handed the country to multi-national corporations on a silver platter while unleashing death squads against indigenous land defenders and environmental activists like Berta Caceres.  This coup, like the 2019 coup in Bolivia, was also supported by the Government of Canada.  It should come as no surprise that large percentages of the Latin American migrants arriving at the southern border of the US in recent years are fleeing from Honduras in a refugee crisis of America’s own making, and now we have all these desperate kids locked up in concentration camps after being forcibly separated from their parents.

This is empire, brothers and sisters, and it rarely enters into American political discourse.  Even Bernie Sanders and AOC rarely talk about it and, when they do, they rarely make the necessary connections between things like the migrant crisis and the imperialist policies of successive administrations going back decades now.  There is so much that goes unstated, even on the left.  When you have a country based on plunder, firstly of stolen indigenous lands and then of other countries throughout the world, there are many illusions that must be maintained if the status quo is to be maintained.  I think it was Stokely Carmichael who said that America is the most successfully repressed country in the world, because so many of its people believe its omnipresent propaganda with all their hearts.  Even progressives are lulled into saying that propaganda is only something that America’s supposed “enemies” do and that America is a free country with some problems that can be worked out and set straight – even settler-colonialism and systemic racism are misrepresented as the “attitude problems” of certain “bad apples” rather than the foundational features of the American state going back to the very beginning, even as black and brown people are regularly killed by the cops. 

Of course, it’s becoming harder and harder to maintain these illusions amidst a pandemic with a death toll of 225,000 and growing, the highest death toll of any country in the world.  And the idea that Joe Biden, who has said again and again that he rejects every single policy proposal that Bernie Sanders ever advanced, is going to come in and fix everything is just unbelievable.  It won’t happen.  As much as people want Trump gone, they know that Biden really isn’t going to ease their pain…and so they hold their noses while voting for the “lesser of two evils”.

Fundamentally, brothers and sisters, there is never going to be a “socialist America”.  The idea that the stars and stripes can be redeemed is patently ridiculous at this point.  If socialism really triumphed, if a socialist revolution really succeeded in this part of the world, America would effectively cease to exist and a new nation would have to emerge in its place.  The same goes for Canada.  You cannot build a new society on such rotten foundations of empire, colonial violence and genocide, you’ll have to demolish the old house and put down new foundations, it’s the only way.  Maybe I’m out of step with a lot of white leftists when I say this, but I don’t really care seeing that I try to take my cue from the indigenous land defenders who do not recognize the authority of the capitalist settler-state.  If there is going to be justice in this land, if systemic oppression is going to be overcome and broken down, we’re going to have to start building from a new foundation.  This time we’re not going to start from white supremacy, but from the principles of internationalism and solidarity.  This is the only path to a livable future.

 

Indigenous Resistance and Victories from Bolivia to Mi'kma'ki

 FULL SHOW HERE

You’re listening to Back in the USSR on CFRU, this is Siegfried.  I just want to say thanks for being patient with me everyone, seeing I just got started up again with the show last week after a long absence.  Talking about the reactionary politics surrounding COVID-19 and this explosion of anti-Asian racism that’s emerged since January was not an easy thing for me.  This new cold war situation has been difficult.  As many of you know, I’ve lived in China and know many people there, and to see this kind of wholesale demonization of a country and its people, not only in corporate media but in certain alternative media outlets too, is not an easy thing to deal with.  I find it offensive, I find it infuriating, I find it sad, and I can only imagine how Asian-Canadians and Asian-Americans feel about it, seeing this propaganda blaming Chinese people and anyone who looks Chinese for the pandemic (and a ton of other things besides) puts them in actual physical danger.  Like I talked about last week, 1/3^rd of Chinese-Canadians report being physically assaulted since the pandemic began.  As Fred Hampton said, you can only fight racism with solidarity and it’s really disheartening just how little of that I see with regard to Asian-Americans and Asian-Canadians right now.

But there are a lot of struggles going on in the world.  There are a lot of people standing up against oppression and racist violence.  We saw the explosion of defiance that emerged in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis this past June, the spread of BLM protests across North America and beyond, including what has to be the largest protest march that Guelph has ever seen in living memory – over 5000 people coming out in support of black life this past June.  I was there and it took my breath away.  I never thought I’d see that kind of mobilization in this town around anything, and yet, in the midst of a pandemic, it just exploded.  And that’s inspiring.  We’ve seen the amazing level of resistance from Portland to New York City, with tons of people coming out in defiance of racist police brutality, even in the face of massive state violence and the threat of hard jail time.  The systemic racism of the capitalist system was really in the spotlight this summer, and certain communist organizations, most notably the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), played a remarkable role in these demonstrations, with their members putting their bodies on the line in cities like Denver and risking major prison sentences in order to stand with the people. 

More and more people came to understand this year that the system doesn’t care about them: it’s willing to shoot black and brown people to death in the streets and in their own homes, it’s willing to throw people under the bus during a pandemic, it’s willing to make massive giveaways to Wall Street (and Bay Street) while working class people are stretched to the breaking point, it’s willing to build concentration camps for kids, railroad millions of mostly racialized people into prisons, you name it…all the while claiming to stand for freedom and liberty.  And anyone who can look at the Trump/Biden debates and still think that the USA is a healthy place to live is either safe and secure in their mansion in the hills or is just deluded beyond reason.

But getting back to the situation in Canada and the matter of indigenous resistance to settler-colonialism, something I covered pretty extensively at the beginning of this year.  I think many of you who listen to this show will be familiar with what’s been going on in Nova Scotia and how much the situation has escalated in recent weeks.  Here we have Mi’kmaq fishermen suffering a brutal campaign of racist violence on their own land.  They’ve been physically assaulted, their boats have been sabotaged, their catch has been spoiled, and their buildings have been set on fire.  The perpetrators of this violence are white settler commercial fishermen, the RCMP has done nothing to stop them and has in fact violently arrested Mi’kmaq fishermen instead.  Meanwhile corporate fishing companies are licking their lips at the prospect of taking over what’s left of Mi’kmaq sovereign territory. 

Clearwater Lobster, a major offshore fishing company headed by CEO John Risley has been fishing on unceded, stolen Mi’kmaq lands and waters for decades now, and has enjoyed special treatment from the federal and provincial governments.  Unlike small-scale lobster fishers, the Clearwater is able to fish year-round with its large fleet, has a near monopoly on Lobster-fishing licenses and is able to essentially disregard government regulations at will. 

The monopolization of east coast fisheries under a Neo-liberal economic regime since the 1980s and the subsequent destruction of independent producers has led to the current situation where settler fishermen are attacking indigenous fishermen over control of a shrinking slice of the pie.  This is a classic example of how white supremacy buttresses capitalism.  Instead of attacking Clearwater and these big fishing companies that have been driving them to economic ruin, these fishermen are attacking those they deem as racially inferior.  They don’t blame capitalism for their problems, they blame the Indians next door who they accuse of being “freeloaders” and “sponging off the state” because they have legal rights to their ancestral territory. 

This prejudice is common across Canada, and all it results in is more destroyed communities…like the fishing communities around St Mary’s Bay in N.S. that will go belly-up if Clearwater has its way and is able to drive the last independent operators out of the lobster business.  And what happens then? Do these out-of-work fishermen then go to the man-camps raised on stolen indigenous land in northern B.C. and Alberta to work on the oil-patch and the pipelines that are still being driven across unceded Wet’suwet’en territory without consent? Do they choose to be shock troops for a racist system that will use them and then discard them all over again? How many times does this have to happen before they realize that they’re nothing more than pawns? When are they going to realize that the system doesn’t care about them? When are they going to understand that they’re going to have to fight the real enemy? Maybe then they might stand alongside oppressed people and show some solidarity.

Speaking of solidarity, and this has really brought my spirits up this past week, the people of Bolivia have just elected a new socialist government by a landslide on October 18.  It’s official now and it’s truly inspiring in light of what that country has been through over the past year. 

Some of you might remember the show I did last November when I expressed my solidarity with the Bolivian people as they faced up to a US-backed military coup that toppled President Evo Morales, South America’s first indigenous president, after bogus charges of electoral fraud were leveled against him by his right-wing opponents.  The result was an orgy of fascist violence by right-wing paramilitary groups, the police and the military, including numerous massacres of indigenous people, and the rise of an illegitimate oligarchical regime kept in power by force with the full blessing of Washington, which was eager to privatize Bolivia’s natural gas and lithium reserves.   

You might remember Elon Musk getting all giddy about the coup on Twitter and saying that he’ll “coup” whoever he wants or something to that effect.  Of course, he was only interested in securing cheap lithium batteries for Tesla…conveniently harvested from stolen indigenous land in the Global South.  While Evo Morales had every intention of developing Bolivia’s lithium, he was going to do it via the public sector with assistance from China, thus ensuring that the profits stayed within the country and could be used to raise living standards for ordinary people.  This, of course, was unacceptable to the United States, the Fortune 500, and their local proxies.  Evo Morales, a legitimate elected president, was forced into exile after the coup and is now in Argentina.

But things have changed a lot since last year, and Elon Musk is not a happy camper right now.  You’ve probably seen the memes.  Despite facing major political persecution, attacks on its members, the jailing and exile of its leaders, and the silencing of its media outlets, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), Evo Morales’ political party, kept fighting all throughout the pandemic, mobilizing millions of working class and racialized people who had been kicked to the curb by the coup government, and won a crushing victory against all odds, with Luis Arce winning over 55% of the vote. 

It’s worth noting that the coup government did not even want to hold the election on the 18^th, and delayed the vote multiple times over the course of the year, but was forced to give in after a massive general strike shut down the country in September.  Remember, this is after the coup government privatized everything, dismantled large sections of the economy, put thousands of people out of work, and then provided no support to anyone when the country was locked down during the pandemic which drove people to the edge of starvation.  And this was in addition to the racist violence against the indigenous majority and a huge surge in femicide and violence against women.  People had had enough.  They rose up and took the power back, and the results are undeniable.  It's also telling that over 50% of the newly elected lawmakers are women.  MAS has a greater majority than ever and it looks like Evo Morales can finally come home.

The important takeaway from this is that the Bolivian elite and its backers in Washington could not keep the Bolivian people down.  I hope the same can said for Chile, where people are about to vote in a referendum on a new constitution, with an opportunity to reject the undemocratic constitution imposed by the Pinochet dictatorship.  I hope the same can be said for Venezuela, where parliamentary elections will be held in December, and Ecuador where elections will be held early next year.  I hope the left is coming back, because the political situation in South America has been pretty grim for years now, with right-wing pro-American governments doing real damage to people and the environment, but now there’s reason to believe that the tide is turning once again.  Segundina Flores, leader of the Bartolina Sisa National Confederation of Campesino, Indigenous and Native Women of Bolivia had this to say when she spoke to Telesur on October 24: "Today a democracy will return which is egalitarian, a participatory democracy, a democracy for all."

I wish that I could say the same thing about Canada, where corporate developers are still trying to steal Caledonia from Six Nations, right here in Ontario, and where a judge has just filed an injunction against indigenous land defenders who have been facing major police repression.  The protest movement in support of Wet’suwet’en earlier this year was one of the most powerful political movements that I’ve ever been a part of, and it’s painful to see that it wasn’t enough to secure justice for indigenous people living on unceded land in B.C.  They’re still fighting.  They have no choice.  Even though they dropped out of the headlines months ago.  And we can still choose to stand with them.  Solidarity, brothers and sisters.  All power to the people.