THE FIGHT AGAINST
BARBARISM IS A CLASS AND ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE
Dave Silver October 2004
The Open Letter to the Anti-War Movement from the organizers of the Million
Worker March urges that we unite the broad anti-imperialist struggle with
that of the needs and rights of the working class. The March to take place
on October 17th has special significance in the struggle against systemic
racism in that many of the main organizers of the Demonstration are militant
Black workers. The Open Letter states;
“With every day that passes, the crisis facing the American people deepens.
Resistance to a brutal occupation escalates and spreads across Iraq as both
major political parties march in lock-step to intensify the war, increase
the number of troops, allocate yet further billions of dollars to permanent
war and devastate social services in America. We have an historic responsibility
to converge our forces, to come together as one great movement for social
justice, to unite the rank and file of labor with the anti-war movement and
all movements for social justice.”
The statement links the struggle for economic and social justice with the
fight against militarism, war and occupation. The political consciousness
underpinning the Statement is that we can’t feed any illusions that the Democratic
Party can provide a solution to the war abroad and the war against working
people at home. It was Kerry after all that said “we must stay the course”
and if elected would increase the number of our troops in Iraq.
As the presidential election approaches, we note that ships of the U.S.
7th Fleet has arrived in the waters east of the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea (DPRK) commonly and pejoratively called North Korea. Only unlike
the deployment of ships off the Korean coast in 1950 by Harry Truman, the
ships today are equipped with Aegis missiles. For many in the anti-war movement
today the Korean War was a just war for “the north invaded the south.” What
is not mentioned is the trip of the State Department “Consultant”, none other
than John Foster Dulles, was meeting with Douglass MacArthur as the US puppet
forces in the south were already firing across the border. Who were they
firing at? The liberation fighters that were the main reason for the defeat
of the Japanese militarists and who had the revolutionary intention of building
a different society for the entire Peninsula as Ho Chi Minh did a decade
later.
While the Bush administration created a Missile Defense Agency that provides
lucrative contracts to Lockheed Martin, Ratheon and Northrop Grumman, Tom
Daschle the Senate Democratic leader is silent and Senator Kerry says we must
“stay the course” and get tougher on North Korea.
Could there be an “October Surprise” with some provocation against
the DPRK in order to look strong before the election? Let’s hope not.
