LL:PR: Workers Power on US Attacks
STATEMENT ON ATTACKS ON US TARGETS Stop US military retaliation! Fight imperialist hypocrisy! Reject individual terrorism! The horrific attacks and the killing of thousands of people in New York on 11 September have shocked millions around the world. Revolutionary communists condemn the attack on the World Trade Centre and massacre of civilians, because such actions will not take forward the struggle against US world domination by a single step. It is not yet known who organised these individual terrorist attacks. But in the midst of the wave of anger and sorrow, one thing must not be forgotten. The attack was a consequence of the fact that the actions of the US have earned the hatred and indignation of millions. This is because the rulers of the USA dominate the globe, consign millions to poverty and debt, back oppressive regimes and the violation of national, human and democratic rights. Over the last ten years the armed forces of the USA and their NATO allies have bombed and blasted the civilian populations of countries like Iraq and Serbia that dared to oppose it. The Western media has rushed to blame the attacks on New York and Washington on forces who are fighting against US sponsored oppression in the Middle East. If this is true, revolutionary communists - who seek the overthrow of global capitalism and its US superpower - believe that isolated terrorist attacks and civilian massacres will actually set back that struggle. Whilst we remain firm in our support for the Palestinian liberation struggle and all resistance against imperialism, we say tactics such as these play directly into the hands of the imperialist enemy. The massive loss of life? of office workers, firefighters, ambulance crews? has given US President Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair every excuse they need to: * Step up repression against liberation movements in the Middle East and around the world * Rally the shocked and terrorised populations of the capitalist democracies behind their leadership * Win backing for greater internal repression and increased military spending * Accuse Islamists of being the 'greatest threat to world peace', distracting attention from the carnage, war, poverty, starvation and suffering caused by their global capitalist system of inequality * Pose as men of peace, when in reality they and their immediate predecessors are directly responsible for bombings, deaths and injuries in Belgrade and Baghdad running into the hundreds of thousands? far exceeding the bloody toll of 11 September * Prepare a sustained war on the peoples of the Third World, especially on those peoples who fight back. Not everyone around the world has viewed these events with revulsion. Those who have suffered or witnessed the effects of US cruise missile attacks on the population of Baghdad or Belgrade, the families of the 700 or so Palestinians killed by US-supplied weapons, including Apache attack helicopters, have understandably rejoiced at proof of that the world's only superpower Is not invulnerable They see the World Trade Centre as a symbol of financial capital and the elite institutions that plunder the world's resources. They see the Pentagon as the command centre for the USA's ongoing war against Iraq, Afghanistan and for military support for Israel. Indeed, depending on who carried it out, the attack on the Pentagon may indeed be a legitimate target for forces engaged in resisting the US's attacks. But terrorist methods? which alienate the US working class and confuse the anticapitalist movement, are not the way to defeat US imperialism. The attack on the World Trade Centre killed thousands of ordinary, often low paid, office workers and firefighters. The US working class today? like the antiwar movement of the 1960s? can enormously aid those fighting imperialism. For this reason such an attack was reactionary. Any members of the financial elite caught in the blasts can be replaced, office buildings can be rebuilt. Sickening Hypocrisy But in his expressions of shock and his stern threats to exact retribution, Bush is guilty of gross hypocrisy. He heads a state that?through the IMF and the other global financial institutions? kills hundreds of thousands of children every year through poverty, preventable disease, and through weapons sold to all sides in the conflicts which erupt as a result of this impoverishment. As the head of a state that backs Israel1s every move to suppress the Palestinian people, to assassinate their leaders, bulldoze their homes and drive them step by step from their land, he has no right to lecture anyone about barbarism. He is not alone in his hypocrisy. The European Union has immediately fallen in behind the US, supporting Bush's claim that the target of the attack was not US government, finance and military power but freedom and democracy around the world. It is a lie, one which underlines the European Union's
LL:PR: Socialist condemn terrorist outrage
Socialists condemn terrorist outrage [The following statement was issued by the Democratic Socialist Party on September 13, 2001.] Socialists unequivocally condemn the September 11 terror bombings in the United States. The killing of thousands of ordinary working people is absolutely criminal and has nothing whatsoever to do with the struggle for a better world. Indeed, this atrocity will undoubtedly make this struggle more difficult and aid the forces of capitalist reaction. Popular struggles throughout history have often involved the killing of oppressors, tyrants, police torturers and the like. Such actions may or may not be politically expedient. But the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was of a fundamentally different kind. It was a deliberate act of mass murder. The perpetrators made no political demands, they had no goal except to kill indiscriminately and inflict pain, suffering and devastation. It showed an astonishing callousness and brutality. Our sympathy and solidarity are completely with the innocent victims of these terrorist acts not with their perpetrators. Hypocrisy But our solidarity with the victims should not blind us to the absolutely breathtaking hypocrisy of George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Ariel Sharon and other imperialist spokespeople and their lackeys in the always-accommodating capitalist media. The outrage in the US may be described as the greatest act of terror of all time only with severe reservations. While it is certainly the greatest act of non-state terror, many acts of governmental terror have far surpassed it. At the end of World War II, for example, the US leaders cold-bloodedly carried out the nuclear annihilation of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki solely to demonstrate their power and intimidate the Soviet Union; several hundred thousand men, women and children were killed to make this point. During the long Cold War with the USSR, Washington propped up scores of blood-soaked Third World dictatorships and helped them torture and murder their opponents with impunity, and helped cover up their crimes. In 1965, for instance, the US helped aspiring Indonesian dictator Suharto organise a pogrom against the left and progressive forces which massacred at least one million people. The long US intervention in Vietnam against the liberation forces there killed and maimed millions of people and inflicted massive material devastation on the country. Saddam Hussein's murderous regime was another US client, being particularly favoured during the Iran-Iraq war of the early 1980s. Then the wheel turned and, for various reasons, he became a liability. Since the Gulf War, US- and British-backed sanctions against Iraq have led to the deaths of more than a million Iraqis through starvation and disease and politically strengthened Saddam's hold on power. Afghanistan's brutal Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime is a product of the US-backed war of the reactionary Mujahadeen freedom fighters against the Soviet-backed secular, leftist People's Democratic Party government. This was also the origin of the Saudi Islamic fundamentalist Osama bin Laden, Washington's current world public enemy number one and suspected organiser of the US attacks. Ever since the 1959 Cuban Revolution removed Cuba from the US sphere of influence, Washington has organised numerous terrorist attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. Furthermore, the US has imposed a ruinous economic blockade on the island for over 40 years. And right now, the US authorities are resisting Cuban calls for them to extradite the CIA-linked counter-revolutionary terrorist responsible for the 1976 midair bomb-destruction of a Cuban airliner off Barbados in which 73 people died. And then there is the misery and slow death to which the mass of the world's people have been condemned by Western capitalism's ruthless drive for profit, regardless of the costs to the planet and its people. Each year, for instance, millions of children in the Third World die of absolutely preventable diseases, victims of an implacable and merciless economic regime imposed on their countries by imperialism and its agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation. Who are the major enemies of civilisation? If Osama bin Laden is a terrorist we would have to conclude that he is a relatively minor one. If there was any justice in this world, Western capitalist leaders like George Bush senior, Bill Clinton, Blair and Bush junior would be on trial for crimes against humanity. The Saddam Husseins, Suhartos and Bin Ladens would feature simply as their junior accomplices. Roots of terrorism It is still not clear who organised the terrorist operation in the US. But where would any terror organisation recruit people who were so embittered and without hope of the future that they could contemplate such a pointless atrocity
LL:DDV: Public forum with Ali Kazak
Public Forum Who is to blame: Middle Eastern People or US foreign policy? Discussion on the US tragedy and possible implications speakers include: Ali Kazak - Head of the General Palestinian delegation to Australia and Palestinian Ambassador to Vanuatu Surma Hamid - Political refugee and Representative of Worker Communist Party of Iraq Alison Thorne - Socialist Alliance Senate Candidate Thursday, 20/09/01, 7.00pm, New Council Chambers, Trades Hall, corner Lygon st and Victoria st., Carlton, entry by donation sponsored by Socialist Alliance Seat of Melbourne endorsed by: Socialist Alliance House of Representative Candidates for Gellibrand, Jorge Jorquera; Batman, Jackie Lynch; Corio, Tim Gooden; Wills, David Glanz; Aston, Josephie Cox contact: 9639 8622, 9388 0062, 0417 537 388 -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
DDV: Study seminar - Against Individual Terrorism
Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women present a study seminar on Leon Trotsky's Against Individual Terrorism. In New York and Washington DC thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of working people have lost their lives. This event is tragic. But despite the total lack of political context presented in mainstream media commentary, these events are not incomprehensible. The policies of the U.S. imperialism cause terrorism - a reaction fuelled by despair - to flourish. The introduction to Russian Revolutionary leader, Leon Trotsky's pamphlet titled Against Individual Terrorism describes terrorism as an attempt to substitute the technical feats of a small group with a necessary social movement of the masses themselves. Socialist feminist are implacably opposed to terrorism as a strategy. We oppose terrorism as a strategy because it provides a rationale for repression at home and abroad. It is used as an excuse to fuel racism and curtail civil liberties. What the U.S. Government and its mates Howard and Beazley in Canberra will attempt to do is use the tragedy in the U.S as an excuse to clamp down on the working class and particularly the growing anti-corporate mass movement. They will crack down, but we won't back down! Debate about terrorism raged in the movement in Russia in the decades leading up to the Russian Revolution. Come to a study seminar which looks at the theoretical lessons of last century and applies them to the searing reality of the world in 2001. Sunday 30 September 11.30 am - 3.00 pm Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick Study guide and pamphlet: $2 Delicious lunch served for a $6 donation Everyone is welcome to participate in this seminar Sponsored jointly by Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women, PO Box 266 West Brunswick Vic 3055. For more information call Peter on 9388-0062 or 9386-3230 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.socialism.com -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:DDV: Socialists Stand Up for Reproductive Freedom
Wednesday, 26 September, 7.00 Radical Women Meeting Not the Church, Not the State. Women Must Decide our Fate! Stand Up for Reproductive Freedom for ALL Women Limited as they are, women's reproductive rights are under fire. Abortion clinics are under tight protective security from rightwing terror. In Melbourne, a guard was recently killed. Abortion is still a crime. The Howard Government is trying to further impose his family values by allowing only certain women access to fertility treatment. Women with disabilities, Indigenous women and other women of colour are sterilised. Childcare is only for those who can afford it. The good news is feminists are fighting back, and we can defeat the Right! Join us in a panel discussion with Jackie Lynch, Socialist Alliance candidate for Batman in the upcoming federal election, Melissa Venville, federal Queer Officer for the National Union of Students, and Debbie Brennan, veteran reproductive rights activist. Meetings are free and held at Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick. Dinner is served at 6.30 pm for a $6.00 donation. For more information, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] or phone us on (03) 9386 3230 -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
