[Marxism] Why Police Reforms Are Not Enough

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Why Police Reforms Are Not Enough
We must end capitalism to end war and police violence
By Bonnie Weinstein

We can and should fight for police reforms such as outlawing choke holds, stop 
and frisk laws, plea bargains, bail requirements, as well as getting police out 
of our communities and schools. But that will not end the fundamental 
reactionary role of police departments in capitalist society. 

The job of the police is to protect the fundamental core of capitalism that 
commandeers the wealth that we produce through our labor, while paying us the 
lowest wages they can get away with—including by outright slavery—still alive 
and well in our prison system.

Community occupation and control
The whole purpose of the police is to occupy communities of the working 
class—especially people of color—to enforce the basic economic foundation of 
capitalism that puts private wealth above life itself. 

The police don’t protect the innocent from getting killed. They don’t prevent 
rapes. And they rarely capture those responsible for these crimes—including, of 
course, those committed by their own officers or by the wealthy elite. 

Criminalizing the poor
Their job is to enforce obedience to laws that are designed to make even the 
smallest infractions punishable by death on the spot—a broken tail light 
(Sandra Bland who died mysteriously in her jail cell after being arrested); 
selling cigarettes without a tax license (Eric Garner died in a police choke 
hold while crying “I can’t breathe”); by allegedly trying to pass a counterfeit 
twenty dollar bill (George Floyd, murdered by police kneeling on his neck and 
chest for eight minutes and 46 seconds until he died); sleeping in bed (Breonna 
Taylor was shot eight times by police on a “no-knock” warrant. She was innocent 
of any wrongdoing), and on and on.

The prison industrial complex
The whole prison system is filled with people whose crimes are the product of 
poverty and racism. And the conviction rate is astronomical.

Ninety-seven percent of federal and 94 percent of state criminal convictions 
are obtained through plea bargains. 

In an August 8, 2019 NBC News article by Clark Neily titled, “Prisons Are 
Packed Because Prosecutors Are Coercing Plea Deals. And, Yes, It’s Totally 
Legal.”1

“America is the most prosperous country in the history of the world. We excel 
at innovation and mass production—and nowhere is that more true today than our 
criminal justice system, which features a streamlined process for transforming 
millions of suspects into convicted criminals quickly, efficiently and without 
the hassle of a constitutionally prescribed jury trial. It’s called coercive 
plea bargaining, and it’s the secret sauce that helps us maintain the world’s 
highest incarceration rate. The answer is simple and stark: They’re being 
coerced. Though physical torture remains off limits, American prosecutors are 
equipped with a fearsome array of tools they can use to extract confessions and 
discourage people from exercising their right to a jury trial. These tools 
include charge-stacking (charging more or more serious crimes than the conduct 
really merits), legislatively-ordered mandatory-minimum sentences, pretrial 
detention with unaffordable bail, threats to investigate and indict friends or 
family members, and the so-called trial penalty—what the National Association 
of Criminal Defense Lawyers calls the ‘substantial difference between the 
sentence offered prior to trial versus the sentence a defendant receives after 
a trial.’”

The wealthy are not only able to hire banks of lawyers if they are even accused 
of a crime, they pay the lawmakers to create laws that are to their advantage 
and to the distinct disadvantage of working people. 

These laws are designed to keep us in line—to instill in us the idea that we 
are powerless over them. 

The police are the enemy of the working class
Law enforcement unions have no place in the American Federation of Labor and 
Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL/CIO). The allegiance of police, 
prison guards, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to capitalist law and 
order sets them apart from, and in direct opposition to, the working class. In 
fact, law enforcement organizations have nothing in common with unions and no 
common interests with working people.

They accept the role of occupation of our communities—it’s their job and sworn 
duty. How else can they calmly keep a knee pressed to a man’s neck for eight 
minutes and 46 seconds without even grimacing—while stopping a human being from 
breathing?


Read more at:

http://www.socialistviewpoint.org

[Marxism] Year of the Plague: A Capitalist Disaster in U.S. Prisons

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Year of the Plague: A Capitalist Disaster in U.S. Prisons
By Chris Kinder

The capitalist structure in the U.S. is in crisis, facing multiple challenges 
to its right to exist as it is. Masses are in the streets day after day, and 
around the world, attacking the U.S. ruling class for its racist police 
murderers, and proposing radical reforms up to and including abolition of the 
police. This is an uprising of unprecedented extent in the post-World War II 
environment in the U.S. It is an existential challenge to the system, and all 
in the context of a world-wide pandemic.

The capitalist state specifically is in crisis, as the official head of state 
has lost the confidence of a good portion of the ruling class, despite the 
favors he has heaped on them. Trump is under attack from many sides. Knowing he 
is in danger of losing his reelection bid, Trump openly eggs on a reactionary, 
racist minority of armed thugs, white supremacists, and conservatives 
generally; while his Republican toadies are accelerating a long-standing plot 
to steal elections through many forms of voter suppression chiefly aimed at 
Black and Brown urban communities, and now including efforts to prevent mail-in 
ballots right in the midst of the pandemic. Trump actually said that 
Republicans would “never” be elected again if it was easier to vote!

Mass protest movement 
demands change
Hundreds-of-thousands of protestors in the streets every day since the 
sickening, outright murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis on the 25th 
of May have not only changed the dialogue considerably, but led to talk of 
reforms at local and state levels—some even being implemented—such as banning 
choke holds and preventing police from hiding their disciplinary records from 
public scrutiny. 

On June 19 dock workers in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union—shut 
down all 29 ports on the West Coast to demand an end to police murders of Black 
people, and honor the memory of Juneteenth, the day in 1865 that the slaves of 
Texas had finally been freed. This powerful show of workers’ power was 
accompanied by ten-to-15,000 militant protestors (very rough estimate) in a 
march and caravan—led by the ILWU motor cycle squad—from the port to the 
Oakland police headquarters and a rally at Oscar Grant Plaza (at City Hall).

Protestors add prisons 
to their agenda
Throughout the protests, many identify capitalism itself as the core of the 
problem that needs to be done away with. And prisons, like police, are an 
integral part of the capitalist state. And not just the capitalist state. The 
French Revolution, which overthrew the feudal nobility and their monarchy, 
began with the assault on the Bastille, a horrific dungeon/prison in Paris, on 
the 14th of July 1789. This revolution marked the coming to power of the 
capitalist class in Europe, but it did not mark the end of prisons!

Prisons are a product of any class society that must exploit and oppress the 
peasants (in older societies) and working classes, as well any minorities which 
might be “expendable” or a challenge to class rule. The U.S., as the 
imperialist monster extending its tentacles throughout the world and seeking 
“full spectrum dominance,” is also the most backward of the major capitalist 
nations. The U.S. has more incarcerated people per capita than any other 
country, and they are all in incubation centers for a highly contagious virus. 

Prisons are a petri-dish paradise for the virus
There are more COVID-19 cases in some U.S. prisons than in entire countries. 
According to one report, as of the early weeks of June, there were over 1600 
clusters of 50 or more cases of the coronavirus across the U.S., in prisons, 
nursing homes, meat packing plants, etc. The largest clusters were centered in 
either prisons or meat processing plants—which most meat packer workers see as 
entirely too similar to prisons. Overall, fewer people contracted coronavirus 
in the countries of Cyprus, Jamaica, and Iceland than they did in the 
Smithfield Foods pork processing facility in Sioux Falls South Dakota, the 
source of 1,098 cases. 

U.S. prisons are over-crowded hell holes. They have no ability to physically 
distance inmates, and they have inadequate supplies for hand washing, little or 
no personal protective materials, inadequate healthcare, and no way to deal 
with an expanding pandemic. The only solution for this is mass releases of 
prisoners, with provisions for places to live, get healthcare, food, and the 
other requirements of life, as well as adequate measures for safety among those 
who remain incarcerated. This includes obvious things like soap, 

[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Capitalism and COVID-19

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Capitalism and COVID-19
Global competition or global workers’ cooperation?
By Bonnie Weinstein, May/June 2020
http://secure-web.cisco.com/1eDt9_URDLBqyVtl57Hxuf1kOm9RiPBf8EMCvzqIqMRldVSTN7GzVW8QjNTDaLewnQjzFeytMiUIII_e7uvnYzaLrl4G_wYlAJaFSMZxpdS_86ygd1z3gCdopJD-qFeVW7HWff7W5bld2w3B7JsCdFF8XN3p3l6GW-kljBuwOHNP3_Y_T4X5CXVw87iNrU9h-gHGNM0g-LoRXBQmRJK_GZGRaNkmUYADJdh8z7mb2xR673mqNZ7fo4aK_bbabPok5qsJY6cbYTqKIM1UMWGgKLmt6GLhuFYvLmZ3MFWbortzbt0SxG83c07s1plIm9StvIQSQzLrp0PbwzZoxQh3GNM4n31q_OlZqgRxHcLuknL0w_vpHP7FWyrVANOq-fU5Q/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.socialistviewpoint.org
 


Socialism is a world-wide solution to end the devastation and destruction 
brought about by capitalist competition for the highest profits off the backs 
of the masses of humanity and the rape and pillage of the world’s natural 
resources. It can’t be fully realized country-by-country. The transformation to 
socialism can only be accomplished through the cooperation of all the workers 
of the world.
 
Now, we, the masses are struggling through a worldwide pandemic—a virus 
exacerbated by environmental filth, pollution, mass poverty, racism, lack of 
healthcare—all caused by capitalism’s need to acquire ever-more profits.
 
In an April 23, 2020 article by Kristin Toussaint titled, “American 
Billionaires Have Gotten $280 Billion Richer Since the Start of the COVID-19 
Pandemic” 1 that appeared in Fast Company Toussaint stated:
 
“Though the coronavirus itself may not discriminate in terms of who can be 
infected, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from a great equalizer. In the same 
month that 22 million Americans lost their jobs, the American billionaire 
class’s total wealth increased about ten percent—or $282 billion more than it 
was at the beginning of March. They now have a combined net worth of $3.229 
trillion. The initial stock market crash may have dented some net worth at 
first—for instance, that of Jeff Bezos, which dropped down to a mere $105 
billion on March 12. But his riches have rebounded: As of April 15, his net 
worth has increased by $25 billion. Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom, was one 
of the few to see an increase in net worth even as the markets crashed, and 
he’s now up $2.58 billion. …These ‘pandemic profiteers,’ as a new report from 
the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, calls them, is just 
one piece of the wealth inequality puzzle in America. In the background is the 
fact that since 1980, the taxes paid by billionaires, measured as a percentage 
of their wealth, dropped 79 percent. We’re reading about benevolent 
billionaires sharing .0001 percent of their wealth with their fellow humans in 
this crisis, but in fact they’ve been rigging the tax rules to reduce their 
taxes for decades—money that could have been spent building a better public 
health infrastructure,” says Chuck Collins, director of the Program on 
Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies and coauthor 
of the new report, titled ‘Billionaire Bonanza 2020: Wealth Windfalls, Tumbling 
Taxes, and Pandemic Profiteers.’”
 
Yet, in spite of the increased profits being accumulated at the top of the 
capitalist economic food chain, personal protective equipment (PPE) is in short 
supply for those who need it the most—the healthcare workers and all workers 
who are out in the public doing essential work in grocery stores, delivering 
food from farms, running transit systems, processing food products, etc.
 
Yet the great capitalist industrial complex is unable to manufacture them. That 
is being left to charity.
 
Fashion designers are sewing face masks and scrubs and donating them to 
healthcare workers. Other wealthy celebrities are donating money and supplies. 
Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback, donated $100,000, saying that 
communities of color “are being disproportionately devastated by COVID-19 
because of hundreds of years of structural racism.”2
 
Capitalism’s ineptitude

Instead of scientists coming together across the globe to cooperate in a vast 
effort to fight this pandemic—by sharing information and collaborating to find 
new treatments and cures—the capitalist corporations in each country are in 
competition with each other to 

[Marxism] Brexit, Scottish Nationalism and Socialism (excerpt)

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Brexit, Scottish Nationalism and Socialism
By John Blackburn

Nationalism is one of the most powerful political forces in history and remains 
so today. It has dictated the patterns of voting in the recent British general 
election which is the product of the three years of chaos that have followed 
the EU referendum of 2016. 
In that referendum the percent of the vote for leaving was: 
England as a whole, 54.2; Wales, 52.5; Scotland, 38.0; Northern Ireland, 44.2.
The leave campaign is fundamentally an English nationalist movement while the 
Conservative and Unionist Party (Tories) has transformed into the “English 
national party” with Brexit representing the longing to return to the glory 
days of the English empire. The population of England is 80 percent of the UK, 
greater than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland taken together, so this 
skewed the whole UK result of the vote towards leave. When seen in this light 
England is imposing Brexit on Scotland and Northern Ireland against their will.
The general election results have given Johnson’s Conservatives an unassailable 
78 majority in Parliament. This is due to large numbers of former Labour 
supporters in the devastated industrial and mining communities of England 
voting for Conservative and Brexit Party candidates. The utopian Tory campaign 
of “Get Brexit Done!” with little else of substance but a subtext that 
immigration is the real problem, together with an unrelenting campaign of 
vilification of Jeremy Corbyn by the right-wing media has successfully 
attracted the votes of many working-class people.
In Scotland the vast majority of the working class which has also suffered the 
consequences of the deindustrialization, austerity and social deprivation that 
their English counterparts have did not fall for the Brexiteers’ reactionary 
propaganda. The Scottish National Party (SNP) campaigned to “Stop Johnson,” 
remain in the EU and for Scottish independence, together with a left-wing 
reformist program. They took 48 of the 59 Scottish Parliamentary seats. The 
Tories have only six (having lost seven) and Scotland where the British Labour 
Party began has now only one Labour MP. The SNP has taken on the radical mantle 
in Scotland. The Scottish people have overwhelmingly rejected Johnson’s Tories 
and their Brexit program. Johnson has said that he will not countenance 
Scottish independence so the imposition of the will of the English Tories on 
the Scots will be a major political issue for the whole term of this government.
UK background
“United Kingdom” is the creation of the English ruling class. Wales was 
conquered, Ireland was colonized and after six centuries of conflict Scotland 
was finally subdued in 1746. The Union Flag is meant to symbolize the union of 
these equal partners (though Wales is left out.) The history of all four 
countries is characterized by ebb and flow in the popularity of nationalist 
movements with armed conflict featuring frequently between rebels and the 
British state.
Attempts to crush Scotland began with Edward I, known as the “Hammer of the 
Scots” for his unbridled brutality. With the defeat of his son, Edward II, by a 
Scottish part-time army, led by Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn, 
in 1314, independence was secured for a time. The first defeats of the English 
invaders were by Scots led by the then commoner William Wallace and that 
egalitarianism was to be consolidated in the Declaration of Arbroath (1320):
“As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions 
be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor 
honors, that we are fighting, but for freedom—for that alone, which no honest 
man gives up but with life itself.”
The Magna Carta was about equal rights for barons while the Declaration of 
Arbroath is about freedom for all Scots. (Most Scottish people know of the 
Magna Carta but few English people know of the Declaration of Arbroath, which 
is just as important.)
The Reformation occurred in Scotland in 1560 nearly 30 years after England. 
However, the forms that the respective Protestant religions took were 
fundamentally different. In 1534 Henry VIII basically substituted himself for 
the Pope and, provided the clergy came to heal, they were relatively safe. As 
head of the Church of England, Henry would appoint the bishops and they, with 
the local aristocracy, would select the local clergy. The religious and 
political conflicts triggered by Henry would not be settled in England for 
nearly two centuries with hundreds-of-thousands of lives destroyed on and off 
the battlefield.
In Scotland, the leader of the 

[Marxism] Capitalism vs. Life Itself By Bonnie Weinstein

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Capitalism vs. Life Itself
By Bonnie Weinstein
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org
In a December 9, 2019 New York Times article by Sarah Almukhtar and Rod 
Nordland titled, “What Did the U.S. Get for $2 Trillion in Afghanistan?”:
“The Taliban are gaining strength. Opium production has quadrupled. Osama bin 
Laden is dead. Most Afghans live in Poverty…More than 2,400 American soldiers 
and more than 38,000 Afghan civilians have died. …the cost of nearly 18 years 
of war in Afghanistan will amount to more than $2 trillion dollars.”
And according to the Watson Institute Costs of War, U.S. military emissions 
since the beginning of the Global War on Terror in 2001 has produced “1.2 
billion metric tons of greenhouse gasses.”1
These figures are a drop in the bucket if you consider the human and 
environmental costs of the U.S.’s massive war industry and trillions of dollars 
necessary to keep the threat of the destruction of the planet for profit on the 
agenda.
War is a top priority of capital. The U.S. war machine is the most profitable 
industry in the world. 
In a February 21, 2019 USA Today article by Samuel Stebbins and Evan Coman 
titled, “Military Spending: 20 Companies Profiting the Most from War:”
“…the United States is the world’s largest defense spender by a wide margin. 
…The United States’ position as the top arms-producing nation in the world 
remains unchanged, and for now unchallenged. …The United States is home to five 
of the world’s ten largest defense contractors, and American companies account 
for 57 percent of total arms sales by the world’s 100 largest defense 
contractors…. Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, the largest defense contractor in 
the world, is estimated to have had $44.9 billion in arms sales in 2017 through 
deals with governments all over the world. The company drew public scrutiny 
after a bomb it sold to Saudi Arabia was dropped on a school bus in Yemen, 
killing 40 boys and 11 adults. Lockheed’s revenue from the U.S. government 
alone is well more than the total annual budgets of the IRS and the 
Environmental Protection Agency, combined.”
Life in service to the war machine of capital
The commanders of capital protect their wealth through the threat of war. They 
not only protect themselves through war but enrich themselves as well—all by 
utilizing our labor and our lives to accomodate their rule by threat of death 
over us.
But, what about us? How are we, the toilers, faring under the rule of profit 
for the few above all else?
In an October 27, 2019 Alliance for Sustainable Communities article by 
Elizabeth Oram, titled, “Dollar Meals and Diabetes,” (also appearing in this 
issue of Socialist Viewpoint):
“Public health indicators between the rich and the poor continue to diverge, 
but now it is chronic illness, not infection, that is the killer. Insidious and 
poorly understood biologic processes are driving accelerating rates of cancer, 
heart disease, stroke and diabetes. And, like the infectious pandemics of the 
18th and 19th centuries, these illnesses claim more victims among the poor…. 
The number of people diagnosed with diabetes has skyrocketed since 1980, 
increasing more than fourfold. The global prevalence has doubled. …when we 
analyze maps of diabetes incidence, it is zip code, not genetic code, that 
appears to confer risk.”
Our health is the “collateral damage” of capital’s quest for profits. The food 
industry also targets the health of the poor because they, along with the 
medical insurance and pharmaceutical industries, profit off of our illnesses 
caused by the poverty and pollution capitalism creates:
“The modern western diet is high in sugar, denatured white flour, vegetable 
oils, and meat; it is low in fresh vegetables, fruits and whole grains. More 
importantly, it is spiked with hidden sugar and fats, highly processed, and 
laced with chemicals to make it feel good in your mouth. …The tax-subsidized 
food industry spends billions on saturation marketing, chemical flavor 
manipulation, and portion creep—this expenditure has been highly effective in 
changing eating behavior over the years. Opting out is a luxury that takes time 
and money.”
Capitalism profits in every way it can
Capitalist economic exploitation of the working class and our environment 
sustains a vicious cycle of poverty and pollution that can only be broken if 
the system itself is eradicated from the planet. 
By its very nature, the drive to increase the rate of profit is supreme. It is 
the driving force of war, poverty, sickness and environmental destruction. 
It can’t continue, of course. The planet is dying and the human and material 
resources to maintain 

[Marxism] "Better Living Through Chemistry?" Think Again!

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 "Better Living Through Chemistry?" Think Again!
By Chris Kinder,

RE: The Fight Against Monsanto's Roundup, the Politics of Pesticides
Mitchel Cohen and others. Forward by Vandana Shiva
Skyhorse Publishing
New York, 2019

"Better Living Through Chemistry" was an advertising slogan, I think for Dow 
Chemical, seen on black and white TV when I was a youth in the late 1950s and 
early 1960s. It all seemed so innocent back then. But it never was. 
The stuff chemical giants like Dow, Dupont, etc., were selling then—pesticides 
such as DDT and malathion for instance—were all part of an explosion of 
chemical products following World War II, most based on the development of 
chemical warfare during the war. Development for war continued, as with the 
notorious Agent Orange—the long-lasting and harmful effects of which were 
covered up by Dow and Monsanto—used in the devastating U.S. war on Vietnam. But 
proliferation of toxic chemicals doesn't stop there. 
Massive applications of pesticides and herbicides such as Monsanto's Roundup, 
along with genetically-engineered crops and artificial fertilizers, have 
transformed big agriculture in a new sort of war. The "green revolution" was 
supposed to help "feed the world," but we now see it as not only promoting U.S. 
imperialist interests for market domination, but also actually destroying 
healthy food production worldwide, all in the name of profit. But imperial 
domination on the farm fields is only one side of the widespread effects of 
chemical saturation on humans, animals and the environment.
Roundup causes cancer
Roundup's reputation as a cancer-causing poison has been getting some 
well-deserved ink lately, with a couple of precedent-setting court wins by 
victims. Over a thousand additional cases against Monsanto are pending. Despite 
Monsanto's lying insistence that Roundup attacks plants only, not animals, a 
high correlation between Roundup usage and contraction of non-Hodgkin's 
Lymphoma, a cancer that starts in the white blood cells—which are key to the 
body's immune system—has been found—but not by U.S. regulatory agencies! 
It took the World Health Organization's cancer unit, the International Agency 
for Research on Cancer (IARC), to find that glyphosate—the key ingredient in 
Roundup—was a "probable cause" of cancer in humans and animals. U.S. regulatory 
agencies, compromised by collusion with chemical corporations—under both 
Democratic and Republican administrations—were AWOL on this issue.  
Unfortunately, the IARC finding came only in 2017, over 40 years after the 
introduction of Roundup as a herbicide, and after it had already been widely 
used by the cancer victims coming forward today.
Activists and scientists take on Monsanto
Environmental activist, anarchist and poet Mitchel Cohen is the lead author and 
editor of this book, which includes 14 other authors, including Brian Tokar, 
lecturer on environmental studies at the University of Vermont; Steve Tvedten, 
who describes the lessons of his 50 years as a pest control operator; and 
Stephanie Seneff, PhD, a senior research scientist at MIT's Computer Science 
and Artificial Intelligence Lab. The preface is by Vandana Shiva, PhD, an 
Indian scholar, physicist, and environmental and food sovereignty advocate and 
activist. Together, these writers describe a disturbing and alarming story of 
the poisoning of the earth in graphic detail. 
Cohen, as a co-founder of the No Spray Coalition, is a veteran of this struggle 
and many others. As a leader of the No-Spray Coalition, he helped win a 
seven-year fight against then New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani's 
indiscriminate spraying of the organophosphate malathion by aircraft and spray 
trucks over the city to combat the so-called West Nile Virus. He also organized 
a campaign to rid NYC public schools of milk from cows injected with Bovine 
Growth Hormone, a genetically-engineered monstrosity also from Monsanto, also 
discussed in this book. Mitchel is a long-time Green Party activist who has run 
for mayor of New York City. And he's a poet, with compilations delightfully 
titled, One-Eyed Cat Takes Flight, and The Permanent Carnival. 
Spraying the city
This West Nile virus was much less of a threat than it was portrayed. The 
spraying operation killed more people than the virus ever did, including people 
sprayed, and operators of the trucks doing the spraying! Eight members of the 
No-Spray Coalition itself died from cancers or other disorders caused or 
exacerbated by the spraying. 
Mitchel describes his first encounter with the spraying:
"[September 4th, 1999] I was strolling through Prospect Park in Brooklyn on 
that warm 

[Marxism] My New York Times Comment to:

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An Immigration Policy Worse Than Trump’s
By Bret Stephens, July 5, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/opinion/immigration-trump-southern-border.html#commentsContainer=101323665:101323665

>> This world is in turmoil. People are fleeing wars, starvation, brutal 
>> governments, environmental catastrophe that affects masses of people whose 
>> only hope of survival is to flee the land they were born to—to which they 
>> had no choice. Those who did and still do have a choice—a choice that began 
>> with Manifest Destiny—are the Western governments of the wealthy elite. 
>> Those governments, the U.S. being at the top of the list, have plundered the 
>> wealth of nations across the globe to increase their own coffers at the 
>> expense of hundreds-of-millions—billions of the working poor who labor for 
>> them for a pittance. These commanders of capital prop up corrupt governments 
>> that will bow to their wants and desires no matter how many human lives it 
>> costs. This is the root of the problem and the cause of war and poverty 
>> everywhere. It's called capitalism, and it has to end. It's time has come. 
>> It's destroying the globe to enrich a tiny few who can't see beyond their 
>> own lives of luxury. We don't need to live this way. We can share the world 
>> with equality and justice for all. It is in the hands of all working people 
>> everywhere to realize our power—through unity, democratic organization and 
>> solidarity of action to take control of the means of production into our own 
>> hands—to live a life of peace with plenty for all and save the planet, too. 
>> It's our only hope for the future. It's socialism or barbarism. That's our 
>> choice! —Bonnie Weinstein

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[Marxism] Toward Socialist Unity By Bonnie Weinstein

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Toward Socialist Unity
By Bonnie Weinstein
http://socialistviewpoint.org
At the same time faith in capitalism is on the decline, and a revolutionary, 
anti-capitalist socialist alliance is most urgently needed, one of the largest 
socialist organizations in the U.S., the International Socialist Organization, 
voted to dissolve. 
The reasons for the group’s dissolution were partly explained in a post titled 
“Taking our Final Steps,” that appeared April 19, 2019, on the website of their 
newspaper, Socialist Worker and signed by their most current leadership:
“In late March, current and recently resigned members of the International 
Socialist Organization took the highly unusual step of voting to dissolve the 
organization. ...Our newspaper Socialist Worker has ceased production, and we 
are developing a separate, independent body tasked with reporting on the 
botched 2013 sexual assault allegation so that former ISO members and the rest 
of the left might learn from our mistakes. ...Unfortunately, the impact of 
decades of undemocratic practices, including a hostility to caucuses and the 
self-organization of members of oppressed groups, as well as the recently 
revealed egregious treatment of allegations of sexual assault, meant that we 
were not able to recreate ourselves.”1
The demise of the ISO is not an isolated incident of the revolutionary left in 
the USA, and across the globe. The organized, revolutionary socialist left has 
been in decline for decades since the great upsurge beginning in the 1950s and 
into the ’70s that included the Cuban revolution, the civil rights movement, 
the rise of Black Nationalism, the Vietnam antiwar movement, the United Farm 
Workers Organizing Committee strike, the women’s liberation movement, the LGBTQ 
movement, along with the student radicalization and free-speech movement that 
included the May 1968 general strike and occupation of universities and 
factories throughout France. 
The capitalist class did all it could to squash these growing upsurges through 
their systematic divide-and-conquer assault on the working class. Civil rights 
demonstrators were brutally beaten and murdered. In 1965, as Malcolm X and 
Martin Luther King, Jr. were having talks about organizing joint actions, 
Malcolm X was assassinated February 21, 1965. Three years later Martin Luther 
King, Jr., who was in Memphis, Tennessee to support a sanitation workers’ 
strike, was speaking out against the War in Vietnam, and was in the midst of 
organizing a massive Poor Peoples March on Washington, was assassinated April 
4, 1968. Their deaths were a product of the extreme racism and bigotry the 
capitalist system thrives on.
All during those years, the capitalist class was on the warpath to destroy 
organized labor as well. In the 1960s a third of American workers belonged to a 
union. Today, only one-in-ten are in a union. 
What was missing during these times of turmoil—and is still missing today—is a 
class conscious labor leadership—one that recognizes that capitalism itself is 
what’s standing in the way of social justice and economic equality for all 
workers. 
To build such a leadership among the working class, there needs to be a strong 
socialist vanguard that can lead the way—that can expose how class 
collaborationist politics leads only to defeat—and a principled, 
internationalist, anti-capitalist program is the is the necessary prerequisite 
for achieving justice and equality for the workers of the world.
The “branding” of the socialist left
The primary role of revolutionary socialist parties is to nurture 
class-consciousness—the awareness that the very nature of capitalism is the 
enslavement of workers—an economic system that exploits labor for the private 
economic gain of the capitalist class at the expense of labor. The job of 
socialists is to teach that there can be no mutually beneficial alliance 
between workers and capitalists. (Individual capitalists, of course, are 
welcome to participate in and support any of our independent struggles and are 
invited to contribute generously to them.)
However, while most of the revolutionary socialist left adheres to these 
principals they have been unable to unite; and have, instead, fractured and 
dissipated and, in the case of the ISO, actually disbanded. And, already, 
various parties on the left are inviting ex-ISO members to join their party, 
without considering what is really needed in order to win a socialist world. 
So what went wrong with the revolutionary socialist left? Ironically, as the 
left and organized labor has been declining, capitalist competition has revved 
up. 
All products are now 

[Marxism] Drugs, Wars, Prisons and Corporate Wealth By Bonnie Weinstein

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Drugs, Wars, Prisons and Corporate Wealth
By Bonnie Weinstein
http://socialistviewpoint.org
The principle of profit is king holds true for the military and prison 
industrial complexes as well as the healthcare industry and industry in 
general. War, prisons and the healthcare industry all have one thing in 
common—they make money off of human misery.
There’s a multitude of examples of how the quest for higher profits endangers 
the health and welfare of working people. But two recent examples in the 
medical industry stand out.
Pharmaceutical corporations spend tens-of-millions of dollars on 
advertisements—on everything from hemorrhoid ointments to late-stage cancer 
drugs—because they profit tremendously from the sale of them. 
The financial wellbeing of pharmaceutical corporations depends on profits from 
the sale of drugs to individuals, and to insurance companies that insure drug 
coverage. Profit is the purpose of their existence. 
Safety, efficiency and accessibility for the poor to life-saving drugs are only 
important if they make a profit. 
In the case of the manufacturers of opiates that have killed over 70,000 in 
2017 alone,1 addiction is profitable because they can sell more drugs—proving 
capitalism and medicine are incompatible.
The depths of greed
In a January 18, 2019 New York Times article by Danielle Ofri titled, “The 
Insulin Wars,” 
“Between 2002 and 2013, prices tripled for some insulin. Many cost around $300 
a vial, without any viable generic alternative. Most patients use two or three 
vials a month, but others need the equivalent of four. Self-rationing has 
become common as patients struggle to keep up. In the short term, fluctuating 
blood sugar levels can lead to confusion, dehydration, coma, even death. In the 
long term, poorly controlled diabetes is associated with heart attacks, 
strokes, blindness, amputation and the need for dialysis. The exorbitant prices 
confound patients and doctors alike since insulin is nearly a century old now. 
The pricing is all the more infuriating when one considers that the discoverers 
of insulin sold the patent for $1 each to ensure that the medication would be 
affordable.”
This means that people are getting sicker and even dying because they can’t 
afford the insulin they need because the industries’ profit margin is more 
important than their lives. 
In a January 31, 2019 New York Times article by Barry Meier titled, “Sackler 
Scion’s Email Reveals Push for High-Dose OxyContin, New Lawsuit Disclosures 
Claim,” 
“The lawsuit, which was filed in June by the Massachusetts attorney general, 
Maura Healey, claims that Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family knew 
that putting patients on high dosages of OxyContin for long periods increased 
the risks of serious side effects, including addiction. Nonetheless, they 
promoted higher dosages because stronger pain pills brought the company and the 
Sacklers the most profit. ...The lawsuit alleges that the Sackler family 
received more than $4 billion in opioid profits since 2007, when the company 
pleaded guilty. The lawsuit includes claims that McKinsey and Company, a 
consulting firm, prepared reports for Purdue Pharma to develop strategies that 
would increase the prescribing by doctors of the more powerful forms of the 
company’s painkillers. According to the complaint, McKinsey consultants advised 
Purdue Pharma to increase sales by claiming that opioids reduced stress and 
made patients less isolated. Patients on drugs such as OxyContin can in fact 
become socially withdrawn. McKinsey consultants, members of the Sackler family 
were told, also planned to study techniques for keeping patients on opioids 
longer and McKinsey urged Purdue Pharma to fight efforts taken by federal 
agencies to stop illegal drug sales...”
Financial success for the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma, in fact, 
contributed to more than 70,200 American deaths in 2017.2 This is nothing short 
of mass murder for profit. And, under the private, for-profit medical industry, 
big business has nothing to lose by people getting sicker while becoming 
addicted to their drugs. It just means more profits for them all around.
Death and incarceration is big business, too, in the USA
War and the sales of weapons—from small arms to nuclear arsenals—is the USA’s 
biggest industry and is underwritten by U.S. taxpayers to the tune of $716 
billion for 2019 alone, that includes a 2.6 percent pay increase for service 
members.3 (And this figure does not include the cost of the U.S. police force.)
Meanwhile, the private corporations that manufacture these weapons keep 
increasing their profits while causing death 

[Marxism] Drugs, Wars, Prisons and Corporate Wealth

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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Drugs, Wars, Prisons and Corporate Wealth
By Bonnie Weinstein
http://socialistviewpoint.org 

The principle of profit is king holds true for the military and prison 
industrial complexes as well as the healthcare industry and industry in 
general. War, prisons and the healthcare industry all have one thing in 
common—they make money off of human misery.
There’s a multitude of examples of how the quest for higher profits endangers 
the health and welfare of working people. But two recent examples in the 
medical industry stand out.
Pharmaceutical corporations spend tens-of-millions of dollars on 
advertisements—on everything from hemorrhoid ointments to late-stage cancer 
drugs—because they profit tremendously from the sale of them. 
The financial wellbeing of pharmaceutical corporations depends on profits from 
the sale of drugs to individuals, and to insurance companies that insure drug 
coverage. Profit is the purpose of their existence. 
Safety, efficiency and accessibility for the poor to life-saving drugs are only 
important if they make a profit. 
In the case of the manufacturers of opiates that have killed over 70,000 in 
2017 alone,1 addiction is profitable because they can sell more drugs—proving 
capitalism and medicine are incompatible.
The depths of greed
In a January 18, 2019 New York Times article by Danielle Ofri titled, “The 
Insulin Wars,” 
“Between 2002 and 2013, prices tripled for some insulin. Many cost around $300 
a vial, without any viable generic alternative. Most patients use two or three 
vials a month, but others need the equivalent of four. Self-rationing has 
become common as patients struggle to keep up. In the short term, fluctuating 
blood sugar levels can lead to confusion, dehydration, coma, even death. In the 
long term, poorly controlled diabetes is associated with heart attacks, 
strokes, blindness, amputation and the need for dialysis. The exorbitant prices 
confound patients and doctors alike since insulin is nearly a century old now. 
The pricing is all the more infuriating when one considers that the discoverers 
of insulin sold the patent for $1 each to ensure that the medication would be 
affordable.”
This means that people are getting sicker and even dying because they can’t 
afford the insulin they need because the industries’ profit margin is more 
important than their lives. 
In a January 31, 2019 New York Times article by Barry Meier titled, “Sackler 
Scion’s Email Reveals Push for High-Dose OxyContin, New Lawsuit Disclosures 
Claim,” 
“The lawsuit, which was filed in June by the Massachusetts attorney general, 
Maura Healey, claims that Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family knew 
that putting patients on high dosages of OxyContin for long periods increased 
the risks of serious side effects, including addiction. Nonetheless, they 
promoted higher dosages because stronger pain pills brought the company and the 
Sacklers the most profit. ...The lawsuit alleges that the Sackler family 
received more than $4 billion in opioid profits since 2007, when the company 
pleaded guilty. The lawsuit includes claims that McKinsey and Company, a 
consulting firm, prepared reports for Purdue Pharma to develop strategies that 
would increase the prescribing by doctors of the more powerful forms of the 
company’s painkillers. According to the complaint, McKinsey consultants advised 
Purdue Pharma to increase sales by claiming that opioids reduced stress and 
made patients less isolated. Patients on drugs such as OxyContin can in fact 
become socially withdrawn. McKinsey consultants, members of the Sackler family 
were told, also planned to study techniques for keeping patients on opioids 
longer and McKinsey urged Purdue Pharma to fight efforts taken by federal 
agencies to stop illegal drug sales...”
Financial success for the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma, in fact, 
contributed to more than 70,200 American deaths in 2017.2 This is nothing short 
of mass murder for profit. And, under the private, for-profit medical industry, 
big business has nothing to lose by people getting sicker while becoming 
addicted to their drugs. It just means more profits for them all around.
Death and incarceration is big business, too, in the USA
War and the sales of weapons—from small arms to nuclear arsenals—is the USA’s 
biggest industry and is underwritten by U.S. taxpayers to the tune of $716 
billion for 2019 alone, that includes a 2.6 percent pay increase for service 
members.3 (And this figure does not include the cost of the U.S. police force.)
Meanwhile, the private corporations that manufacture these weapons keep 
increasing 

[Marxism] Yellow Vests Shift to the Left--YouTube Video

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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Yellow Vests Shift to the Left
The yellow vests movement in France is now shifting decisively to the left, as 
shown by the huge anti-capitalist bloc in Paris on the December 8. Led by 
prominent campaigners against police violence, The Adama Committee for Justice 
and Truth, it included railworkers, striking postal workers, other rank and 
file workers, students, migrant workers groups, important collectives such as 
The Rosa Parks Collective, sex workers, LGBTQ groups and many more. The mood 
has changed completely since the horrific mass arrest at a school in a Paris 
banlieue; now workers are calling for a general strike, and the student 
movement is exploding with schools and universities blockaded throughout the 
country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54yAOKvWRxk 

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[Marxism] Yellow Vests Shift to the Left

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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This YouTube video is a must see! The most inspirational thing I've seen in 
decades!
In this video, the protestors call for a general strike—not just a one-day 
strike—but an ongoing general strike until they can end racism, sexism, police 
brutality, and capitalism! At one point, they force the police to step aside 
and let them through to join the climate march and they are totally non-violent 
in their protest. —Bonnie Weinstein

Yellow Vests Shift to the Left
The yellow vests movement in France is now shifting decisively to the left, as 
shown by the huge anti-capitalist bloc in Paris on the December 8. Led by 
prominent campaigners against police violence, The Adama Committee for Justice 
and Truth, it included railworkers, striking postal workers, other rank and 
file workers, students, migrant workers groups, important collectives such as 
The Rosa Parks Collective, sex workers, LGBTQ groups and many more. The mood 
has changed completely since the horrific mass arrest at a school in a Paris 
banlieue; now workers are calling for a general strike, and the student 
movement is exploding with schools and universities blockaded throughout the 
country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54yAOKvWRxk 

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Re: [Marxism] Addicted to War

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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Hi Ken,

Addicted to War is an excellent educational tool. It may be a little out of 
date today. We used it in a city-wide proposition (“College Not Combat,” 
Proposition I) in 2005 against JROTC in the high-schools, which won by 60 
percent of the vote. Unfortunately, it was just an “opinion” proposition, so 
JROTC is still alive and well in our high-schools in San Francisco. 

As part of our campaign (a united front of anti-war and socialist groups—we had 
to collect, as I recall, over 200,000 signatures to get it on the ballot.) We 
set up tables at the schools on “career days” when the U.S. military showed up 
in force along with the colleges and businesses. 

We had these books on our table along with other informational flyers to hand 
out to students warning them of the lies the military may tell them such as, 
“you have the right to leave the military honorably any time you want.” And, 
“you don’t have to go into combat if you don’t want to.” 

All the various recruiters handed out “freebees” to students, pens, notebooks, 
etc., but the military handed out shopping-bags full of bells and whistles—way 
more than anyone else did to entice the kids—all five branches of the military 
attended and each handed out separate bags of stuff.

You also may be interested in this report which was very useful to us at the 
time:
Military Recruiters Lie About Dangers In Iraq

Army To Suspend Recruiting For Retraining Following Target 5 Investigation

May 18, 2005

http://www.wlwt.com/news/4508233/detail.html 


In solidarity,

Bonnie Weinstein, Co-Editor, Socialist Viewpoint



> On Nov 8, 2018, at 7:45 AM, Ken Hiebert via Marxism 
>  wrote:
> 
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> 
> This week I was given a copy of Addicted to War, an illustrated exposé by 
> Joel Andreas.
> The man who gave it to me bought it in bulk to circulate it cheaply.
> 
> It seems familiar, in that the graphics are very recognizable.  But I had not 
> read it before.
> On the cover it says there are 450,000 in print worldwide.  There is an 
> impressive list of supporters.
> 
> I’d like to ask people on this list what they think of it as an educating 
> tool.
> 
>   ken h
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[Marxism] Capitalist Ju$tice vs. A Socialist World

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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Capitalist Ju$tice vs. A Socialist World
By Bonnie Weinstein
“Thinking outside the box” is a popular metaphor that means, “to think 
differently—from a different or new perspective.” It’s meant to encourage 
creative thinking—to find new or different ways to solve problems. 
But when it comes to the rationalization and justification of capitalism by the 
capitalist class, there is no “outside” of the box. 
When it comes to war, the capitalists say, “there has always been war—it’s 
human nature to be war-like.” When it comes to economic inequality they say, 
“there has always been a wealthy minority in power over the masses—the wealthy 
are on top because they are smarter, better, stronger. The poor are poor 
because they are inferior.” 
This is social Darwinism and it is beat into our heads from the time we are 
born. We are taught to believe that this is the way it is, has always been, and 
will always be. It’s what justifies Manifest Destiny, slavery and 
imperialism—the “great white hope” that is meant to “tame and/or slaughter the 
savages” and establish “civilization,”—i.e., white domination by force of 
violence. 
Capitalist Ju$tice is determined by income inequality
You may have noticed that the wealthy rarely go to jail and almost never get 
the death penalty or life without parole—these punishments are for the masses. 
Not for the capitalists.
In an August 31, 2018 New York Times article by Robert H. Frank titled, “How 
Rising Inequality Has Widened the Justice Gap,” the author states:
“Rising inequality has harmed low-income families not only by depriving them of 
a fair share of society’s income growth, but also in a more specific way: It 
has stacked the legal system even more heavily against them. According to a 
recent survey, more than 70 percent 
 of 
low-income American households had been involved in eviction cases, labor law 
cases, and other civil legal disputes during the preceding year, and in more 
than 80 percent 
 of 
those cases they lacked effective legal representation.”
That’s because in a capitalist society like ours it takes money to have 
adequate legal representation—just as it takes money to eat, have a home, 
clothes, medical care, education.
The article goes on: 
“Many top earners are not only talented and hardworking, but they are also 
lucky to have grown up in privileged circumstances. And it is one thing to say 
that someone who is ten percent more skillful should be paid ten percent more. 
But in today’s winner-take-all marketplace, those who are only one percent more 
talented often earn thousands-of-times more. These observations are difficult 
to square with anyone’s conception of a just society.”
This is because capitalism—by its very structure—is designed to protect the 
privileges of the wealthy by any means necessary. That is the purpose of the 
courts, the police and the military. After all, workers are talented and 
hardworking too, but we are not adequately compensated for it.
The economic structure of capitalism and the laws created and enforced by 
capitalists are all designed to allow the wealthy to accumulate the profits 
that the working masses produce. 
Workers are only compensated for our labor by what we demand and can win 
through cooperative actions such mass demonstrations, union organizing and 
strikes. As revolutionary socialist James P. Cannon once put it, “The ethic of 
capitalism is: ‘From each whatever you can get out of him—to each whatever he 
can grab.’”1
Even the so-called democratic electoral system is rigged in favor of the 
wealthy. It’s a system that allows working people to vote for one wealthy 
representative of the capitalist class over another. We do not get to vote on 
laws, or who sits on the Supreme Court. We have no say over the cost of credit 
card interest rates, gas and electric rates, education, food or housing, etc. 
We have no say over the costs to us, of any of the basic necessities of life. 
Capitalism is democracy for the wealthy and dictatorship over the working 
class. 
Capitalist pillaging and destruction of the world
Capitalism is a stage of social evolution that has outlived its usefulness. It 
destroys the world in order to increase private profits for the wealthy. 
The gap between the rich and the poor has grown astronomically in the last few 
decades. Not just in the United States but all over the world. And it is 
reinforced by massive military interventions—led by the United States and its 
allies—across the globe. 
Natural resources wherever 

[Marxism] Capitalist Ju$tice vs. A Socialist World

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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Capitalist Ju$tice vs. A Socialist World
By Bonnie Weinstein
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org

“Thinking outside the box” is a popular metaphor that means, “to think 
differently—from a different or new perspective.” It’s meant to encourage 
creative thinking—to find new or different ways to solve problems. 

But when it comes to the rationalization and justification of capitalism by the 
capitalist class, there is no “outside” of the box. 

When it comes to war, the capitalists say, “there has always been war—it’s 
human nature to be war-like.” When it comes to economic inequality they say, 
“there has always been a wealthy minority in power over the masses—the wealthy 
are on top because they are smarter, better, stronger. The poor are poor 
because they are inferior.” 

This is social Darwinism and it is beat into our heads from the time we are 
born. We are taught to believe that this is the way it is, has always been, and 
will always be. It’s what justifies Manifest Destiny, slavery and 
imperialism—the “great white hope” that is meant to “tame and/or slaughter the 
savages” and establish “civilization,”—i.e., white domination by force of 
violence. 

Capitalist Ju$tice is determined by income inequality
You may have noticed that the wealthy rarely go to jail and almost never get 
the death penalty or life without parole—these punishments are for the masses. 
Not for the capitalists.

In an August 31, 2018 New York Times article by Robert H. Frank titled, “How 
Rising Inequality Has Widened the Justice Gap,” the author states:

“Rising inequality has harmed low-income families not only by depriving them of 
a fair share of society’s income growth, but also in a more specific way: It 
has stacked the legal system even more heavily against them. According to a 
recent survey, more than 70 percent 
 of 
low-income American households had been involved in eviction cases, labor law 
cases, and other civil legal disputes during the preceding year, and in more 
than 80 percent 
 of 
those cases they lacked effective legal representation.”

That’s because in a capitalist society like ours it takes money to have 
adequate legal representation—just as it takes money to eat, have a home, 
clothes, medical care, education.

The article goes on: 

“Many top earners are not only talented and hardworking, but they are also 
lucky to have grown up in privileged circumstances. And it is one thing to say 
that someone who is ten percent more skillful should be paid ten percent more. 
But in today’s winner-take-all marketplace, those who are only one percent more 
talented often earn thousands-of-times more. These observations are difficult 
to square with anyone’s conception of a just society.”

This is because capitalism—by its very structure—is designed to protect the 
privileges of the wealthy by any means necessary. That is the purpose of the 
courts, the police and the military. After all, workers are talented and 
hardworking too, but we are not adequately compensated for it.

The economic structure of capitalism and the laws created and enforced by 
capitalists are all designed to allow the wealthy to accumulate the profits 
that the working masses produce. 

Workers are only compensated for our labor by what we demand and can win 
through cooperative actions such mass demonstrations, union organizing and 
strikes. As revolutionary socialist James P. Cannon once put it, “The ethic of 
capitalism is: ‘From each whatever you can get out of him—to each whatever he 
can grab.’”1

Even the so-called democratic electoral system is rigged in favor of the 
wealthy. It’s a system that allows working people to vote for one wealthy 
representative of the capitalist class over another. We do not get to vote on 
laws, or who sits on the Supreme Court. We have no say over the cost of credit 
card interest rates, gas and electric rates, education, food or housing, etc. 
We have no say over the costs to us, of any of the basic necessities of life. 

Capitalism is democracy for the wealthy and dictatorship over the working 
class. 

Capitalist pillaging and destruction of the world
Capitalism is a stage of social evolution that has outlived its usefulness. It 
destroys the world in order to increase private profits for the wealthy. 

The gap between the rich and the poor has grown astronomically in the last few 
decades. Not just in the United States but all over the world. And it is 
reinforced by massive military interventions—led by the United States and its 

[Marxism] There’s a Black Man in the Children’s Area’ and Other Baseless Accusations

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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‘There’s a Black Man in the Children’s Area’ and Other Baseless Accusations
Readers share stories of themselves or friends and relatives deemed suspicious 
for simply walking around in their own skin.
By Rachel L. Harris and Lisa Tarchak, October 24, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/opinion/white-fear-black-crime.html

In “To the Next ‘BBQ Becky’: Don’t Call 911. Call 1-844-WYT-FEAR 
,”
 Niecy Nash, the actress and comedian, uses a satirical infomercial to call 
attention to society’s “fear of the other,” specifically when white people call 
the police on black people who are just going about their business. 

Readers responded with stories of when they or someone they knew had been 
unfairly targeted. Some challenged their accusers, others laughed them off. The 
exhaustion of constantly being watched was weighing on one reader, Kim 
, who wrote that while she laughed at 
the video, “the truth is, this stuff is not funny.” 

The infomercial may be fake, but our hotline is real and open to calls. Tell us 
your story by leaving a message at 1-844-WYT-FEAR or by emailing a video 
message to 844wytf...@nytimes.com .

‘There’s a black man in the children’s area.’

I am a librarian and a white woman. A few years ago, I was working at the 
reference desk at a library in a suburb of Salt Lake City when an older white 
woman came to me and whispered, “There’s a black man in the children’s area.” I 
looked at her with concern and replied, “What exactly would you like me to do 
with that information, ma’am?” “Well,” she sniffed, “I just thought you should 
know.” I replied, “I do know. That is Mr. —, he is our neighbor and brings his 
children to story time every week.”

I confess that I laughed and added, “I’ll be sure to inform him of your 
concern.” She blanched, scowled at me and scurried away. I smiled and waved, 
thinking, “This is the 21st century and this is a public building, you 
miserable old biddy.” — MS, Orlando 
‘How can I rob this place in a blizzard, wearing socks?’

I went to a famous medical school that I prefer not to name. I was studying in 
a conference room at midnight during a blizzard, wearing a baseball cap 
backward, a T-shirt and socks. Police officers approached me with reports that 
I was robbing the medical school and were in the process of handcuffing me when 
I said, "How can I rob this place in a blizzard, wearing socks?" 


They asked for proof that I was a medical student (a bunch of medical books 
wasn't enough). The problem was, we didn’t have student IDs. This was the fifth 
time I was harassed by police within six months. Soon after, the school issued 
IDs so that kids of color could prove that we belonged.

Twenty years have gone by and I'm routinely confused for the janitor, despite 
the fact that I am the medical director and chairman for 100-plus doctors. But 
at least nobody calls the police anymore. — JRMW, Minneapolis 


‘You should have seen her face when I said they were with me.’

I’m white, but I’ll never forget the time my son and his black friend — they 
were both about 8 or 9 at the time — went to an art store in Noe Valley, San 
Francisco, to get some markers. They came home empty-handed and told the same 
story: A salesperson in the store followed my son’s friend around and then told 
him to get out.

I brought them back to the store and sent them in first. Then I casually walked 
in, not acknowledging them, and pretended to shop. Immediately, the salesperson 
started following my son’s friend. You should have seen her face when I said 
they were with me.

The horror of this racism is that it starts when children are so young. It’s 
insidious and thoroughly rooted in our society. The amount of hurt it causes is 
incalculable and it has to stop. — Bonnie Weinstein, San Francisco 

‘There was a big difference between my white son walking to the store and her 
black son walking the same route.’

I’m an older white woman who shares a home with a black woman and her two sons. 
One evening, her oldest son, who is 18, wanted to walk up to the convenience 
store at the front of our neighborhood. She would not let him. She insisted 
that she drive him there. I gave her a bit of a hard time about babying her 
18-year-old, telling her that my son used to make that walk all the time when 
he was younger and that it was perfectly safe. 

A week or two later there was an 

[Marxism] Eugenics and the Origins of U.S. Racist Immigration Policy

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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Eugenics and the Origins of U.S. Racist Immigration Policy 
By Bonnie Weinstein
http://socialistviewpoint.org

In a July 5, 2018 article by Brendan O’Connor titled “The Eugenicist Doctor and 
the Vast Fortune Behind Trumps Immigration Regime1” that appeared in 
SplinterNews.com , he describes the deeply racist 
origins of U.S. immigration policy and it’s current form, Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement, (ICE). This article summarizes the important ideas in 
O’Connor’s very informative essay.
According to Wikipedia:
“Eugenics…is a set of beliefs and practices that aims at improving the genetic 
quality of a human population. …Frederick Osborn’s 1937 journal article 
‘Development of a Eugenic Philosophy’ framed it as a social philosophy—that is, 
a philosophy with implications for social order. …Osborn advocated for higher 
rates of sexual reproduction among people with desired traits (positive 
eugenics), or reduced rates of sexual reproduction and sterilization of people 
with less-desired or undesired traits (negative eugenics.)”
This is the basic underlying philosophy of racism—that white people are 
genetically superior to people of color. It is the foundation of U.S. racist 
immigration policy and the fundamental driver of Manifest Destiny—the God-given 
right of white people to conquer and rule people of color—the historical 
foundation of the U.S. itself. 
It has been used to justify everything from the near extinction of the native 
inhabitants of the Americas to the enslavement of Africans, the internment of 
Japanese Americans and today, to justify police murders and mass incarceration 
of people of color and the separation and deportation of immigrant families of 
color seeking a better life. 
The corporate money behind 
U.S. racism
In his article, O’Connor referrs to Thomas Homan, the acting director of ICE 
who recently gave a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. 
hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies defending U.S. immigration policy:
“‘A lot of people want to attack ICE. I see it every day. They want to call ICE 
racists, they want to call us Nazis,’ he said. However: ‘We’re simply enforcing 
the laws on the books. …‘If you think ICE is racist—is Congress racist because 
they enacted these laws? Think about that for a minute. The men and women of 
ICE deserve thanks from this country.’” 
O’Conner goes on:
“While the Center for Immigration Studies bills itself as an independent, 
non-partisan research organization, it is in fact a key node in a small network 
of think tanks and nonprofits, founded and directed by a man whose private 
correspondence contains praise for anti-Semites, fascists, and race scientists 
of various ideological backgrounds…financed largely by one of the oldest and 
wealthiest families in America. That man is John Tanton, an aging 
ophthalmologist from Michigan; his benefactor was Cordelia Scaife May, heir to 
the Scaife family fortune, a branch of the Mellon family. …The institutions 
they created together show more clearly than most how capitalism and white 
supremacy are mutually constitutive; how the ruling class uses racial 
resentment to reinforce its rule; and how the spoils of imperialism are 
redeployed toward maintaining the internal colonies, racial hierarchies, and 
economic order of our age.”
The Mellon family fortune, O’Connor points out, was built on oil, steel and war:
“Andrew Mellon, a banker, served as Treasury secretary to Presidents Warren 
Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, dedicating himself to rolling 
back (or working around) the gains of the early 20th century Progressive 
movement… Andrew Mellon’s private fortune and that of his family leaped from 
the hundreds-of-millions to over a billion…” 
These are the financial roots of the current immigration policy. But there’s 
more says O’Connor: 
“In practice…enforcement criminalizes more and more people living in the United 
States simply for being here, increasing the number of people categorized as 
undocumented without necessarily providing a mechanism to remove those people 
from the country. Therein lies an opportunity not only for cruelty and sadism 
but also profit. …Since the 2016 election, according to a report from the 
Center for Popular Democracy, Wall Street behemoths JPMorgan Chase and Co., 
Wells Fargo, and BlackRock have all increased their shares in the nation’s two 
largest prison companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group, financing the growth of a $5 
billion industry with gargantuan loans: the two companies are now carrying a 
total of $1.94 billion and $1.18 billion in debt, respectively. CoreCivic’s 
most 

Re: [Marxism] The Infinity of the Small

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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I would be very interested in reading the Lightman article.

Thank you,

Bonnie Weinstein

> On Aug 3, 2018, at 11:54 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism 
>  wrote:
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> 
> As comrades know, I forward links to articles about black holes, particle 
> physics, quantum theory, big bang, etc. even if they have no direct 
> relationship to Marxism and are often difficult to wrap your head around.
> 
> In the March 2018 Harpers, there's an article by physicist Alan Lightman 
> titled "The Infinity of the Small" that is just tremendous. Lightman is also 
> a novelist and able as such to bridge the two cultures that CP Snow referred 
> to.
> 
> It is behind a paywall but don't hesitate to contact me for a copy. This will 
> give you a sense of his approach:
> 
> Regardless of whether space is indeed grainy at very small scales, physicists 
> are confident that time and space must be chaotic at Planck. Because of the 
> indeterminate, probabilistic character of quantum physics, at the dimensions 
> of the Planck length, space and time churn and seethe, with the distance 
> between any two points wildly fluctuating from moment to moment. Indeed, at 
> the Planck scale, time itself randomly speeds up and slows down, perhaps even 
> going backward as well as forward. In such a situation, time and space no 
> longer exist in a way that has meaning to us. The sensation of smoothness and 
> substantiality that we experience in our large world of houses and trees 
> results only from averaging out this extreme lumpiness and chaos at the 
> Planck length, in the same way that the graininess of a beach disappears when 
> seen from a thousand feet up.
> 
> Thus, if we relentlessly divide space into smaller and smaller pieces, as did 
> Zeno, searching for the smallest element of reality, we arrive at the 
> phantasmagoric world of Planck — where space no longer has meaning. Instead 
> of answering the question of what is the smallest unit of matter, we have 
> invalidated the words used to ask the question. Perhaps that is the way of 
> all ultimate reality, if such a thing exists. As we get closer, we lose the 
> vocabulary. Sitting at midnight on my wooden dock by the sea and imagining 
> myself falling and falling into smaller rooms of reality, I might continue to 
> fall without limit. But once I reach Planck, space as I know it no longer 
> exists. Space has been blown thin by an ancient glassblower, so thin that it 
> dissolves into nothingness. The Planck world is a ghost world. Perhaps that 
> is where we must look for the Absolutes, even if we no longer have the words 
> to describe them.
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[Marxism] Capitalism’s Conspiracy of Terror

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Capitalism’s Conspiracy of Terror
By Bonnie Weinstein, May/June 2018
http://socialistviewpoint.org/index.html 


The terror of war is the modus operandi of U.S. capitalism, and has been from 
the very beginning. When the first white man set foot upon this continent he 
did so not only as the representative of European imperialism—England, France 
and Spain—but armed with weapons of mass murder far more advanced than the 
hunting implements used by the indigenous peoples who inhabited this land for 
millennia. 

The onslaught by these imperialists was relentless. Every means of slaughter 
was used to steal this land including biological warfare—small pox tainted 
blankets—and the massive slaughter of game that the indigenous people depended 
upon for survival. Bounties were paid to settlers for the scalps of indigenous 
men, women and children who were in the way of these conquering marauders. Soon 
after, the Black slaves of Africa were brought over to further enrich the 
colonial conquerors and establish their dominance on this continent. This is 
how the United States was born. 

Throughout its history, from its very inception, the U.S. government has 
carried out mass violence against indigenous inhabitants, slaves, and the 
working class. Every war, every battle, every invasion, every massacre carried 
out by this country was waged against the innocent while the commanders of 
capital and their generals sit in safety and fill their coffers with wealth 
beyond reason. 

This is the way of war. It is not natural. It’s not human nature. It is the 
nature of capitalist imperialism because war and the sale of weapons of mass 
destruction are a source of great profit. And it is waged at the expense not 
only of the masses who are attacked but also those who are the cannon fodder 
for their imperialist armies.

War is a vehicle of terror and oppression. It never brings peace, only unending 
war. The sum of all the wars in the history of humanity has come to what we are 
witnessing today—a world in chaos. 

We have come to the end of the line. The commanders of capital are waging a 
worldwide war against humanity and each other with the aim of keeping the U.S. 
on top. But even with the most powerful arsenal, their wars are not being won; 
they are just killing more and more of the innocent and devastating the planet.

War crimes are inevitable because war, in and of itself, is a crime. The 
capitalist class will do whatever they think will work to put themselves on 
top. They have poisoned, they have napalmed, they have used nuclear weapons, 
and they have carried out clandestine operations to make themselves appear to 
be the victims. 

Bloody massacres have never stopped them because it is not their blood that is 
shed—it’s our blood—the blood of the working class that is shed.

What the Iraq war has brought
In an April 17, 2018 article in the New York Times by Margaret Coker and Falih 
Hassan titled, “A Ten-Minute Trial, a Death Sentence: Iraqi Justice for ISIS 
Suspects,” 

“The 42-year-old housewife had two minutes to defend herself against charges of 
supporting the Islamic State. Amina Hassan, a Turkish woman in a flowing black 
abaya, told the Iraqi judge that she and her family had entered Syria and Iraq 
illegally and lived in the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate for more than 
two years. But, she added: ‘I never took money from Islamic State. I brought my 
own money from Turkey.’ The whole trial lasted ten minutes before the judge 
sentenced her to death by hanging. Another accused Turkish woman entered the 
courtroom. Then another, and another. Within two hours, 14 women had been 
tried, convicted and sentenced to die.”

This is the glorious victory the U.S. war on Iraq has brought. Our government 
is rooted in the blood of the innocent. History will NOT absolve them! We can’t 
trust a word they say. They lie, cheat, murder and steal with abandon. They 
routinely carry out mass murder, torture, deceit and terror. It’s how they 
rule. World domination is their only goal.

In another article in the New York Times by Gardiner Harris dated April 19, 
2018 titled, “Trump Administration Seeks to Expand Sales of Armed Drones,” the 
article states,

“The biggest change announced on Thursday involves the sale of larger armed 
drones like the Predator and the Reaper, which have been the workhorses of the 
fight against insurgents in Afghanistan and the tribal regions of 
Pakistan…Under the old policy, only Britain, France and Italy were approved to 
purchase armed drones…As more countries are approved, ‘the risk is that 
countries may be more 

Re: [Marxism] American Socialist opens in NYC this week April 27 - please spread the word to hundreds thanks

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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Dear Yale,

I live in San Francisco. Will it be coming here? If not, is there a way to 
purchase this film? 

In solidarity,

Bonnie Weinstein

> On Apr 23, 2018, at 6:38 PM, Yale Strom via Marxism 
>  wrote:
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Folks my new doc. film American Socialist: The Life and Times of Eugene 
> Victor Debs opens April 27 - May 3 at Cinema Village in NYC and May 4 - 10 in 
> Los Angeles at the Laemmle Theatres (Monica, and Playhouse).  Debs was one of 
> America's greatest labor and union organizers who ran for president five time 
> on the Socialist Party of America ticket. Many of the socio-economic problems 
> Debs fought against 100 years ago we are dealing with today. The film is 
> narrated by Amy Madigan and features Jeremy Kittel on violin on the 
> soundtrack which includes music by Woody Guthrie, Joe Hill and original music 
> by Yale Strom. Elizabeth Schwartz (ex. prod. co-writer) and I will attend 
> many of the screenings for Q & A afterwards. We have a limited budget for 
> press so please help and send this onto hundreds of others. 
> Thank you, Yale Strom  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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> 
> 
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> 
> https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/jan/20/ticker-remember-wobblies/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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[Marxism] School Massacres and the U.S. War Machine

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School Massacres and the U.S. War Machine
By Bonnie Weinstein, March 2018
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/marapr_18/marapr_18_02.html 


There have been 18 school shootings since January 1, 2018— on average, three 
shootings per week—the latest, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 
Parkland, Florida on February 14, that killed 17 people and injured more than 
15. No other country on the planet even comes close to these murderous 
statistics. 
The shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, was trained to shoot in that very school 
when he was in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. And, according to the 
U.S. Army JROTC Homepage1 "It is one of the largest youth programs in the world 
with more than 310,000 high school students participating annually…" and they 
are routinely taught to handle and shoot weapons. The program is an extension 
of the U.S. military and it has no place in our schools. 

This devastating shooting, along with the 146 people that have been shot and 
killed by police so far in 2018 according to the a February 21, 2018 update in 
the Washington Post, has become the norm in this country. But it should be no 
surprise because the U.S. is the most violent country in the world.

U.S. military might
Make no mistake about it; war is a first priority for the United States. War is 
how capitalist imperialism settles disputes of power. If things don't go the 
way the capitalists want it to, they kill those who stand in their way as they 
have done since the beginning of our country. And we working people are 
supposed to be in awe of this power. 

The JROTC teaches the glories of U.S. wars to these students. They are taught 
to hail our generals as heroes for having the most mighty killing powers. This, 
they are told, is what makes our country great. And, indeed, the U.S. has the 
most powerful and the greatest number of weapons of mass destruction on the 
planet.
According to an April 24, 2017 Forbes article by Niall McCarthy titled, "The 
Top 15 Countries for Military Expenditure in 2016:" 

"The United States remained at the top of the military spending league last 
year with $611 billion. That's 36 percent of the global total and over three 
times the amount spent by second-placed China. Russia upped its outlay 5.9 
percent to $69.2 billion, third overall…" 

And according to nationalpriorities.org , the 
proposed military budget for 2019 accounts for 61 percent of Trump's 
discretionary budget request in the amount of $727 billion. And this does not 
include national security spending in other departments like nuclear weapons in 
the Energy Department, Homeland Security or the portion of the federal debt 
caused by paying for war on the national credit card.

War as a way of life
We are justly horrified by these mass shootings—school shootings, gang 
shootings, police shootings—but we are immune to the tens-of-thousands of 
casualties of war perpetrated by the U.S. government on nearly every continent 
on the planet. We can't ignore that the violence perpetrated by the U.S. 
military has set the stage for this violence here at home. 

The U.S. capitalist class not only wages war, but wages assassinations by 
Special Forces, by drone strikes, that take out "enemy combatants" which most 
often turn out to be "collateral damage." War doesn't just kill "the enemy" it 
kills civilians—men, women and children who have no say in what their 
governments do any more than we, here in the U.S. do. We do not vote on war, on 
expenditures for the military, for nuclear weapons, or for "The Mother Of All 
Bombs." That is not our prerogative. Our only choice is to vote for one 
warmonger over another—from Hillary to Trump. 

Military grade weapons and the struggle against capitalism
From its very inception, the U.S. has outgunned and out-bombed those they 
labeled "the enemy" from the original inhabitants of this land; the enforcement 
of slavery; the arming of police; calling in the National Guard against unarmed 
workers in the early years of the U.S. labor movement; to the May 4, 1970 
murder of four students and the wounding of nine more by the Ohio National 
Guard at Kent State University; and the murder of two students and wounding of 
12 others by the city and state police May 15, 1970 at Jackson State College in 
Jackson, Mississippi during the Vietnam War. Not to speak of the millions of 
Vietnamese who were killed by the U.S. war machine. It took a massive antiwar 
movement to finally bring an end to the Vietnam War, which the U.S. lost. 

The U.S. lost the war to the Vietnamese 

[Marxism] Torture in America: The Prison System

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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Torture in America: The Prison System
By Carole Seligman, March 2018
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/marapr_18/marapr_18_01.html 


I had the tremendous honor of meeting Mumia Abu-Jamal on January 18th and 
Bryant Arroyo on January 19th. After several years of corresponding with these 
innocent prisoners, respectively serving life sentences in SCI Mahanoy and SCI 
Frackville, in Pennsylvania, I wanted to meet them in person.

While visiting Mumia, I also met Eddie Africa in the visiting room. Eddie 
Africa has been imprisoned for four decades after cops attacked their home in 
the City of Philadelphia in 1978 and arrested the nine occupants—the MOVE 9. 
Later cops bombed the MOVE home and killed 11 of the organization's members 
including five children. Eddie Africa was just denied parole again by the 
corrupt and callous Pennsylvania Parole Board, although they are well aware 
that Mr. Africa, had nothing to do with the death of the police officer who 
died, most likely by "friendly fire" during the attack on the MOVE home in 
1978. In the face of such prolonged imprisonment Eddie Africa takes an active 
role in helping young prisoners to survive in this hostile environment.

While visiting Bryant, I met Major Tillery, an innocent man in prison for 33 
years. Major is the man who actually saved Mumia's life, when Mumia collapsed 
and went into a coma at the height of his Hepatitis C illness. For that good 
deed, he was punished, transferred from Mahanoy to Frackville and sent to 
solitary confinement for four months.

Knowing about their cases—innocent, framed prisoners—and then getting to meet 
them in person gives one a new understanding of the depth of cruelty in the 
American prison system, a system whose atrocities and torture are only 
beginning to be revealed to the public, as there are more and more 
exonerations, including from death row! The revelations are due in part to the 
writings and radio broadcasts of Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as those of several 
other prisoners who write about their prison experiences and help us understand 
what we're up against in the struggle for justice against the capitalist state.

Mumia is a warm, welcoming man. Despite a terribly uncomfortable skin outbreak 
that keeps him from sleeping, and itching that is constant and unrelenting, 
Mumia has kept on writing trenchant commentaries on all current pressing issues 
and recording them in his beautiful voice on Prison Radio. I was introduced by 
attorney Rachel Wolkenstein who was visiting Eddie Africa, as well as Mumia. 
Basym Hasan (from the Pennsylvania Prison Society) and Mumia's brother, Keith 
Cook, were also visiting and we had a roundtable, wide-ranging discussion on 
many topics—including the court proceedings of the previous day, DNA testing, 
the death penalty in Pennsylvania, the water quality in the prison (the guards 
don't drink from the water fountains,) the itchy skin conditions that many 
prisoners are suffering, prison food, the April 20 Women's March, and the 
significance of last year's Women's March on the day after the Trump 
inauguration. We also discussed the case of a juvenile lifer, who, after 64 
years in prison had his sentence converted to 35 to life, but wasn't allowed to 
leave the state to go to family members in the South! Much of our discussion 
cycled around to the combined conditions of extreme cruelty with irrational 
idiocy in the prisons.

Now, the system of mass incarceration has spread to the population of 
undocumented immigrants and refugees who are being rounded up by the 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal agency—ICE. They are held in 
profit-making private prisons in horrendous conditions including the forced 
separation of young children from their parents, inadequate protection from 
cold weather, inadequate quality and quantity of food—in other words, basic 
necessities of life. ICE is making a concerted effort to violate local and 
state sanctuary policies, such as the recent round-up of immigrants in the 
Northern California Bay Area on February 28.

To write in any meaningful way about the prison system in the United States is 
to document a litany of abuse. One example, as explained in the January visit: 
Mumia, while he was on death row in Pennsylvania's SCI Greene was in the wing 
of the prison where they could watch the food preparation from their cells. The 
food was put on carts and delivered to all the different cellblocks, ending 
with the death row blocks, where it was always cold. When he was transferred to 
SCI Mahanoy, he burned his mouth because he had grown used 

Re: [Marxism] The Young Karl Marx

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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How can we see it?



> On Feb 13, 2018, at 6:06 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism 
>  wrote:
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> 
> Just came back from a press screening of "The Young Karl Marx", sitting next 
> to A.O. Scott who was taking notes furiously. I will be writing about the 
> film at great length in a few days but suffice it to say that if you can see 
> only one film this year, and maybe in the rest of your life, it should be 
> this.
> 
> Here's Scott McLemee's take on the film that I agree with completely although 
> I will be writing a review from a somewhat different angle.
> 
> https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/02/02/review-young-karl-marx
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[Marxism] “A Watershed Election” An Exchange of Ideas between Dave Gilbert and Lynn Henderson

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“A Watershed Election”
An Exchange of Ideas between Dave Gilbert and Lynn Henderson

The following is a friendly correspondence—four letters—between Dave Gilbert, a 
political prisoner and Lynn Henderson, author of “A Watershed Election for U.S. 
Imperialism” that appeared in the March/April issue of Socialist Viewpoint, 
Vol. 17, No. 2.

David Gilbert:
Lynn Henderson’s “A Watershed Election for U.S. Imperialism” is on-point in 
moving past the various superficial explanations for Trump’s victory. 
“Watershed” roots the disturbing results in the broader decline of 
imperialism—with the frustrations born of long term stagnation of the standard 
of living for the U.S. middle/working class and the slipping ability of the 
ruling class to provide strategic coherence or convincing justifications. 
Henderson is right to point both to the many continuities from the Obama 
administration and to how Trump’s election is a deeply dangerous development. 

At the same time, I found the analysis to be too Eurocentric. The large wage 
benefits concessions to U.S. workers in the 25 years that followed World War II 
are attributed to the lack of capitalist competition—without mentioning the 
highly lucrative exploitation of the Global South. The reason given for the 
decline starting in the late 1960s is that Europe and Japan had recovered from 
WWII devastation and now provided competition on the world market. That may 
have been the biggest single economic factor, but the 1960s/1970s challenges 
from the Global South and within the U.S. were also very important. 

Also, I was upset to see “Watershed” rail against austerity programs recently 
imposed on some European countries, without mentioning the forerunners, going 
back to about 1980, the far more extensive and lethal austerity programs 
imposed on some 70 Global South nations, meaning literal starvation for 
hundreds-of-millions of people. 

Looking at the competitive stresses, Henderson argues that NATO is 
disintegrating. I’ve seen such predictions periodically since 1968. What the 
Eurocentric analysis misses is the role of the U.S. military in keeping the 
Global South open for exploitation by all the imperialist powers. That’s the 
genius of neocolonialism—a kind of free market imperialism—in that they can 
avoid going to war over which power has total control over each particular 
piece. In return for that crucial military function the U.S. gets away with 
certain otherwise unfair economic advantages. 

Sometimes the European powers grumble over that, but it hasn’t yet led to the 
long-predicted breaking apart. That doesn’t mean that it couldn’t happen. The 
stresses are real; Trump is making it worse; and, as Henderson points out, the 
emergence of China as a potential competitor brings in a new factor. But no 
analysis can be convincing without also accounting for the way the imperial 
triad of the U.S., Europe, and Japan has worked together to exploit and 
suppress the peoples of the Global South.

Lynn Henderson:
Dear David Gilbert,

I received a short critique you wrote on my article, “A Watershed Election for 
U.S. Imperialism.” I also accessed your article “The Context for the Trump 
Phenomenon,”1 which I thought was excellent. One major criticism you raised in 
your critique was the observation that my article was too Eurocentric. I think 
you raise a legitimate point.

I particularly wanted to put what many concluded was a bizarre and seemingly 
inexplicable election in a broader historical and global context that helps 
make it explainable. How the election was shaped first by the utterly unique 
era of U.S. global hegemony emerging out of WWII and specifically how the 
increasing disintegration of that unsustainable hegemony is key to 
understanding the election and much else that is now unfolding globally. I 
think you are correct, that including a serious look at how the exploitation of 
third world countries through imperialism’s ruthless application of austerity 
policies could have strengthened the article.

I liked your observation on how the “U.S. military played an essential role in 
keeping the Third World open for the exploitation that is absolutely necessary 
for all the imperialist powers. That’s part of the genius of post-WWII 
neocolonialism in that they don’t have to go to war over who controls each 
particular piece, but it’s more of a free market imperialism.” But that 
post-WWII era has come to an end.

It’s hard to see how “free market imperialism” remains feasible except under 
the entirely unusual and historically unsustainable period of U.S. global 
hegemony emerging from WWII. “Free market imperialism” could 

[Marxism] California Burning, Puerto Rico Drowning

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California Burning, Puerto Rico Drowning
By Bonnie Weinstein
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org 
Preventing or coping with natural disasters can only be managed by massive 
collective efforts unhampered by economic restrictions. That means that society 
must be structured so that the health and safety of all must be our priority.

But this is not how capitalism works. Capitalism breeds chaos because its 
priority is to maximize profits above all else. And when natural disasters do 
occur, the capitalist class blames the unpreparedness of individuals for the 
hardship they endure, and leaves the responsibility to rebuild up to them. 
Those with the most money and the best insurance coverage can rebuild. Those 
who can’t afford insurance, or even a home of their own, are just plain out of 
luck.

This logic of capitalism was reflected in an October 13, 2017 CounterPunch 
article by George Wuerthner titled, “Why California is Burning,”1 which claims 
that it’s the individual who must be responsible for preventing fires:

“If you want to save your community, you must have mandatory fire wise policies 
that are enforced…. But when your neighbor fails to protect their home 
[clearing brush and fireproofing their homes], they are demonstrating a lack of 
community value and a selfish attitude towards the rest of the town…. Wildfire 
in your neighborhood…can be reduced or prevented with reasonable building codes 
and mandatory fire-wise regulations.”

What Wuerthner gets wrong is that many people can’t afford or, due to age, 
illness, etc., are unable to clear their land or fireproof their homes. It’s 
the same in flood zones and hurricane pathways, or in earthquake country. It’s 
insane to leave this up to the individual. 

Were the people in New Orleans supposed to have shored up the levees on their 
days off work? Were the victims of floods supposed to go out and rebuild the 
dams or move their homes away from the flood zones on their own? What were the 
people of Puerto Rico supposed to do? Move their island out of hurricane 
Maria’s path? And the same holds true for those living in earthquake country. 
There’s just so much one can do to shore up a home before a giant earthquake 
hits. 

And, of course, in every natural disaster, it’s the poor who suffer the most 
hardship and hazard, and who get the least help before and after disaster 
strikes.

Capitalist war and environmental plunder
And it doesn’t only apply to natural disasters. In war, masses of people, now 
in the hundreds-of-millions, have been forced to migrate due to the bombings 
that have destroyed their land and homes, and to the poverty brought about by 
capitalist greed. We are seeing our environment destroyed by mining and oil 
drilling; by deforestation in order to graze cattle or plant more profitable 
crops; by the contamination of our land and water by corporate 
irresponsibility, like what has happened with the lead-contaminated water in 
Flint, Michigan—and by the wholesale destruction of our environment by giant 
corporations whose only concern is profits. In fact, it is suspected that 
Pacific Gas and Electric’s power lines, woven through un-cleared, 
drought-ridden forests, which were blown down by heavy winds, caused the 
California fires.

Environmental catastrophes are not the result of individual neglect, just as 
war isn’t about one group of people hating another. Wars, and the devastation 
brought about by natural disasters made worse by global warming, and the 
failure to ensure a safe environment for all, are the products of capitalism. 

Natural and un-natural disasters
While all natural disasters can’t be prevented, wars and corporate 
environmental destruction can. Global warming can be reversed and environmental 
destruction can be repaired, but not by individuals. This must be a massive 
planned effort by all of us. And the only way to make these changes is to get 
rid of the cause, i.e., the profit-driven system of capitalism. 

Indeed, while all of these catastrophes are happening, the most wealthy and 
powerful country in the world, with the most powerful and prolific weapons of 
mass destruction, the U.S., is planning to build even more, and more-lethal, 
weapons. 

An October 18, 2017 CounterPunch article by Chris Ernesto titled “Funding for 
War vs. Natural Disasters”2illustrates capitalism’s inability to alleviate 
natural catastrophes while pouring trillions into war and destruction:

“Nearly one month after being crushed by Hurricane Maria, 85 percent of Puerto 
Ricans still do not have electricity, and 40 percent do not have running water, 
and people from the 

[Marxism] A brief history of the Sunday, February 16, 2003 "The World Says No to War" mass march and rally in San Francisco

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The first meeting called to organize for the 2003 massive “The World Says No to 
War" protest in San Francisco against Bush’s build-up for the Iraq war was 
organized by Bay Area United Against War, which was a tiny, dwindling coalition 
at the time. 

Specifically, it was organized by Carole Seligman and Bonnie Weinstein (now 
co-editors of Socialist Viewpoint magazine). The two of us, in our frustration 
with Bush’s war plans and the disorganization of the antiwar movement, first 
sent out a call from BAUAW via email and snail mail to as many Bay Area groups 
as possible; then the two of us personally went around to the major groups at 
the time—Not In Our Name, United For Peace and Justice and ANSWER—and got an 
agreement with these groups to call an organizing meeting to plan for a 
demonstration to oppose the pending war on Iraq. 

The momentum was there. There was a call for massive demonstrations on February 
15th that went out from Europe, and we had originally scheduled the San 
Francisco demonstration for that date. However, when it became clear that a 
huge momentum was building to protest the upcoming war, we were contacted by 
the Chinese New Years Parade committee who requested that we change our 
demonstration to Sunday, February 16th, in order not to compete with the 
Chinese New Years Parade on Saturday, and we did. A representative from the 
Chinese New Years Parade became part of the coalition to build the 
demonstration and attended the coalition planning meetings.

In exchange for our cooperation, the Chinese New Years Parade committee 
advertised the Sunday, February 16th “The World Says No To War” march on their 
website and on their phone message center for their parade. As a result there 
was a large contingent from Chinatown that marched on Sunday after their Parade 
on Saturday. 

The demonstration was a huge success. Jeremy Corbyn, Danny Glover, Bonnie 
Raitt, Martin Sheen, along with the five co-sponsoring groups, spoke, as well 
as many, many others.

The five co-sponsors for this demonstration were Bay Area United Against War, 
Not In Our Name, ANSWER, United for Peace and Justice and the Vanguard 
Foundation. There were at minimum, 250,000 people who marched that day.

As we know, in spite of the massive opposition to the war across the globe, 
Bush launched the “Shock and Awe” assault on Iraq on March 19, 2003.

Comradely,

Bonnie Weinstein

Some links about the history of the demonstration:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/war-in-iraq-begins 

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/02/16/sprj.irq.sf.protests/index.html 

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/feb/17/local/me-peace17 


> On Jul 20, 2017, at 6:20 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism 
>  wrote:
> 
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> 
> On 7/20/17 9:13 AM, DW via Marxism wrote:
>> Louis P:
>> "In 2003, UNAC and ANSWER led massive protests against Bush's war. "  No,
>> they didn't. ANSWER did along with another broader based united front, but
>> UNAC didn't even exist then.
>> David
> 
> Right, I meant UFPJ.
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[Marxism] Constructing Workers' Power

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Constructing Workers’ Power
Capitalism is responsible for all the violence in the world—
only workers have the power to bring peace.
By Bonnie Weinstein
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org 

“That is what I want to urge upon the working class; to become so organized on 
the economic field that they can take and hold the industries in which they are 
employed. 

“Can you conceive of such a thing? Is it possible? What are the forces that 
prevent you from doing so? You have all the industries in your own hands at the 
present time. 

“There is this justification for political action, and that is, to control the 
forces of the capitalists that they use against us; to be in a position to 
control the power of government so as to make the work of the army ineffective, 
so as to abolish totally the secret service and the force of detectives. That 
is the reason that you want the power of government…

“…If I didn’t think that the general strike was leading on to the great 
revolution which will emancipate the working class I wouldn’t be here. I am 
with you because I believe that in this little meeting there is a nucleus here 
that will carry on the work and propagate the seed that will grow into the 
great revolution that will overthrow the capitalist class.” —Big Bill Haywood.1

The world capitalist system, commanded primarily by the U.S., is doing the only 
thing it can do to maintain its power a little longer—plunder the world back 
into barbarism. 

They have no hope of establishing permanent power over the world’s wealth 
because there is a limit to how much destruction they can carry out before the 
entire Earth is destroyed along with them. 

They can’t kill everyone. They still need workers to do their bidding in both 
industry and as cannon fodder for their military exploitations. The U.S. and 
its allies are on a military destabilization campaign in the hopes of 
paralyzing any and all opposition to their growing interventions across the 
globe. This is the only way they can hope to even temporarily maintain and 
increase their wealth, and the power it buys them. 

Their power seems insurmountable. Their accumulated wealth is incomprehensible. 
In fact, according to a January 15, 2017 Fortune article by Reuters, eight 
men—Microsoft’s Bill Gates; Inditex founder Amancio Ortega; investor Warren 
Buffett; Mexico’s Carlos Slim, business magnet (America Movil, Latin America’s 
biggest mobile telecom firm,) investor and philanthropist; Amazon 
 boss Jeff Bezos; Facebook’s Mark 
Zuckerberg; Oracle’s Larry Ellison; and former New York City mayor Michael 
Bloomberg—are now as wealthy as half the world’s population.2

This obscene fact has a two-fold reality. One, the commanders of capital have 
more money than anyone could possibly spend in a lifetime—or even a hundred 
lifetimes; and two, they are a tiny, miniscule portion of humanity—an 
infinitesimal despotic regime that could not stand on its own without the 
enslavement, both physically and mentally, of the masses of the working class 
to do their bidding. 

The statistics below illustrate that the terms, “capitalism” and “war,” are 
synonymous. They show that the need for a fundamental change from capitalism to 
socialism is necessary if we are to save the world for future generations. 

What the capitalists spend to maintain their power
Besides the accumulated wealth held by the capitalists, they spend trillions of 
our tax dollars on a massive military budget to protect their financial 
interests. In fact, the military industrial complex is the most lucrative 
business in the U.S.—and the world. 

They spare no expense on their weapons of mass destruction. Just last year, the 
U.S. dropped 26,171 bombs on the world.3

In a April 7, 2017 article in Fortune by Jen Wieczner titled, “Syria Airstrikes 
Instantly Added Nearly $5 Billion to Missile-Makers’ Stock Value:”

“Raytheon stock surged Friday morning, after 59 of the company’s Tomahawk 
missiles were used to strike Syria in Donald Trump’s first major military 
operation as President…. The Tomahawk missile used in the strike is made by 
Raytheon…whose stock opened 2.5 percent higher Friday, adding more than $1 
billion to the defense contractor’s market capitalization. The shares of other 
missile and weapons manufacturers, including Boeing…Lockheed Martin…Northrop 
Grumman…and General Dynamics…each rose as much as one percent, collectively 
gaining nearly $5 billion in market value as soon as they began trading, even 
as the broader market fell.” 

The top five military revenue earning corporations in 2016 

[Marxism] Lynne F. Stewart, Lawyer for Omar Abdel Rahman, Unexpectedly Outlives Him

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Lynne F. Stewart, Lawyer for Omar Abdel Rahman, Unexpectedly Outlives Him
By BENJAMIN WEISER FEB. 24, 2017
When Omar Abdel Rahman 

 died last Saturday while serving a life sentence for a 1995 conviction in a 
plot to blow up New York City landmarks, it came as little surprise that the 
nearly universal view of him as a dangerous terrorist would not be shared by 
his former lawyer Lynne F. Stewart 
.

What was something of a surprise was that Ms. Stewart, who then called 

 Mr. Abdel Rahman “just the latest in a long line of American heroes who were 
convicted wrongfully,” was around to do so.

Three years after she was granted 

 a “compassionate release” from federal prison in her own terrorism case after 
doctors had said that Ms. Stewart, ill with cancer, would not survive beyond 18 
months, she has endured, remaining unmellowed, especially about Mr. Abdel 
Rahman.

“He was a personification of an American hero,” Ms. Stewart, 77, said in an 
interview on Thursday. “I feel very strongly that he suffered. He suffered 
unjustly because he was convicted of this bogus crime.”

Ms. Stewart sought an early release from prison while serving a 10-year 
sentence 

 for smuggling messages from the imprisoned Mr. Abdel Rahman, known as the 
blind sheikh, to his followers in Egypt.

She had been found to have breast cancer, and in 2012, doctors at the Federal 
Medical Center, Carswell, in Fort Worth, said that the cancer had spread to her 
lungs, lymph system and bones, according to court papers filed by her lawyer.

Ms. Stewart said in a 12-page handwritten letter to the judge in 2013: 
“Isolated, in hospital, as I now am, I have time to contemplate life and death. 
I do not intend to go ‘gently into that good night,’ as Dylan Thomas wrote. 
There is much to be done in this world. I do know that I do not want to die 
here in prison — a strange and loveless place. I want to be where all is 
familiar — in a word, home.”

The judge, John G. Koeltl of Federal District Court in Manhattan, ultimately 
granted Ms. Stewart a compassionate release after a request by the government, 
which said that she qualified for such release because she had a terminal, 
incurable illness with a life expectancy of less than 18 months, and because of 
the relatively limited risk, if she were released, of recidivism and danger to 
the community.

Ms. Stewart was interviewed on Thursday in her living room in Brooklyn, where 
she was joined by her husband, Ralph Poynter, and later that day on the phone, 
one day after she had returned home from her latest treatment at Memorial Sloan 
Kettering Cancer Center. Doctors had told her that she had suffered a “couple 
of strokes,” she said.

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/nyregion/lynne-stewart-lawyer-for-omar-abdel-rahman.html?rref=collection%2
Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion=click=nyregion=rank=package=
highlights=2=sectionfront
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[Marxism] A Nation in Mourning: Images of Cuba After Fidel Castro

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This photo-story appeared in the online version of the New York Times this 
morning. One of the photos in particular struck me. It was a photo of Cuban 
military personnel standing on the side of the road waiting for Fidel’s ashes 
to pass by. Hundreds-of-thousands of people did the same. But what really 
struck me was that the military personnel were completely unarmed! In fact, in 
all the news photos of the masses of Cuban people out in the streets to morn 
the passing of Fidel you see no armed military or police; no armored tanks with 
sharp-shooters on their gun turrets as we’ve seen on the streets of Baltimore 
and on the plains of North Dakota! In fact, there has never been such a scene 
here in the U.S where even the local police are armed to the teeth with 
military-grade armor and weapons! Where else in the world can you see 
hundreds-of-thousands, maybe millions, of people out in the streets with no 
armed police or military necessary. Even the vehicle carrying the ashes of 
Fidel is open and unarmed! These images speak for themselves! I guess the Cuban 
governmental “dictatorship” doesn’t feel the need to bare arms against its own 
people!
A Nation in Mourning: Images of Cuba After Fidel Castro
By TOMAS MUNITA, MAURICIO LIMA and AZAM AHMED 
DEC. 3, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/world/americas/a-nation-in-mourning-images-of-cuba-after-fidel-castro.html?ref=world
 




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Re: [Marxism] Rosenberg children seek exoneration of mother

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Sons of executed spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg ask Obama to exonerate their 
mother
By Joe Heim  December 1, 2016
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/sons-of-executed-spies-julius-and-ethel-rosenberg-ask-obama-to-exonerate-mom/2016/12/01/a654c7ca-b7e6-11e6-b8df-600bd9d38a02_story.html?utm_term=.471de03fbea8
 



On the day Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were scheduled to face the electric chair 
as convicted spies in June 1953, their sons, Michael and Robert, then 10 and 6, 
were told to go to a friend’s house and play baseball until dark.

When they walked back in the house that evening, Michael asked family members 
if his parents’ lives had been spared. When he didn’t get a direct answer, he 
knew his worst fears had been realized. 

It was just days after the two boys had protested at the White House and handed 
a letter to a security guard asking the president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, for 
clemency. The request hadn’t been granted. 

On Thursday morning, the two brothers — who took the last name of their adopted 
family, Meeropol — returned to the White House. Now 73 and 69, they approached 
the northwest gate with a letter addressed to President Obama asking that he 
issue a statement exonerating their mother, who they say was wrongly convicted 
and sentenced.

“We are giving the United States government the chance to acknowledge the 
injustice done to our mother,” Robert Meeropol said to a group of reporters and 
onlookers. “This is a test to see if our government has the courage and 
commitment to true justice to acknowledge the terrible wrong it did to her and 
to us.”

“After 40 years of research and struggle, we are sharing with President Obama 
the fruits of that struggle and once again asking for presidential action,” 
said his brother, Michael. 

“This time we are not merely advocates for our family, but for our country. It 
is never too late to learn from the mistakes of the past,” he said. 

Citing evidence that was unsealed last year, the brothers say their mother was 
not a spy and that she was convicted based on perjured testimony and judicial 
misconduct.

“Our claim is that the trial of Ethel Rosenberg was a perversion of justice,” 
Robert Meeropol said. “The FBI files show that my mother was only arrested to 
use as a lever against her husband.”

The Rosenbergs were arrested in 1950 and charged with conspiring to provide 
technical information about building an atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.

Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, who was working on the top-secret 
Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, had been 
arrested earlier that year. He told investigators that his brother-in-law was a 
Soviet agent who had recruited him to steal classified information.

Initially, Greenglass told a grand jury that his sister was not involved in any 
espionage activities, but he later changed that story and said she typed up 
notes for her husband about the information Greenglass provided. That reversed 
testimony led to the charges against Ethel. 

Many years later, Greenglass said he implicated his sister to protect himself 
and his wife.

The Rosenbergs’ trial began on March 6, 1951. They were convicted on March 29 
and sentenced to death a few days later. Opposition to the sentence came from 
figures as varied as Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso and Pope Pius XII, who 
petitioned Eisenhower to spare the couple’s lives.

Michael Meeropol said Thursday that he remembers taking part in the White House 
protest 63 years ago and seeing a broad coalition of supporters and signs that 
said such things as “The electric chair can’t kill the doubts in the Rosenberg 
case.” 

He also remembers his brother asking, “When are we going to see mommy and 
daddy?” for many weeks after their parents died. 

The brothers have fought for years to clear the Rosenbergs’ names. Although 
they admit that their father was a spy for the Soviet Union, they do not 
believe he passed along secrets about the atomic bomb, the crime for which he 
was tried and executed. 

Their mother, they say, was not guilty of spying. They dismiss assertions made 
by some historians of their mother’s guilt as “absolutely absurd.”

> On Dec 3, 2016, at 4:21 AM, Gregory Adler via Marxism 
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[Marxism] For A Class-Struggle Workers Party

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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For A Class-Struggle Workers Party

No support to the Democrats, Republicans, or any party of the bosses

International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Local Union No. 10

Whereas the bosses have two parties to represent their class while the millions 
of working people have none, and

Whereas the Democratic president Barack Obama sent the U.S. Coast Guard to 
enforce scabbing against the International Longshore and Warehouse Union during 
the 2013-14 lock-out of northwest dock workers, and

Whereas the Democratic governor Kate Brown opposed and undercut the movement 
for a $15 minimum wage across Oregon, and

Whereas in 2014 Democrats in Congress joined with Republicans to pass a 
disastrous pension “reform,” allowing the bosses to escape their obligations 
and cheat our retirees, and

Whereas the two presidencies of the Democrat Barack Obama have been eight years 
of unending war in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, causing untold human 
suffering, millions of refugees, and attacks on our democratic rights at home, 
and

Whereas the Democratic Party in power has deported some five million 
immigrants, a record, and

Whereas across the country, from Oakland to Baltimore, police under Democratic 
mayors regularly murder Black men and women with impunity, and

Whereas the 2016 presidential election offers us the “choice” between a raving, 
bigoted clown and a career representative of Wall Street, and

Whereas the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Virginia governor Tim 
Kaine, supports union-busting “right to work” laws, and

Whereas Democrats and Republicans are and have always been strike-breaking, 
war-making parties of the bosses, and

Whereas so long as the labor movement supports one or another party of the 
bosses, we will be playing a losing game, therefore be it

Resolved that IUPAT Local 10 does not support the Democrats, Republicans, or 
any bosses’ parties or politicians, and Resolved that we call on the 
International Union to repudiate its endorsement of Hillary Clinton for 
president, and Resolved that we call on the labor movement to break from the 
Democratic Party, and build a class-struggle workers party

Approved at the August 17, 2016 Regular Meeting of the Membership

Sign the Petition

On August 17, Painters Union (IUPAT) Local 10 in Portland, Oregon, passed a 
resolution calling for the building of a “class struggle workers party.” This 
call is especially important today, when the corporate mouthpiece Hillary 
Clinton, and the racist demagogue Donald Trump are presented as the only viable 
options for president. No matter which of these is elected, workers and youth 
will need to fight the coming attacks. To do this, we will need a political 
party of working class people, one which will unite, organize and mobilize all 
working class people to fight for our interests. That’s why we should help 
spread the word of this call of Local 10 and take the first concrete steps in 
that direction. Please sign and help pass around this message of support, which 
will be sent to Local 10.

Support the call of Painters Local 10 for a working class party!

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/IUPAT10

International Union of Painters and Allied Trades

Local Union No. 10

11105 N.E. Sandy Blvd.

Portland, Oregon 97220

www.iupatdc5.org 
Phone: (503) 257-0589 , Fax: (503) 
262-5358 , Oowl: (503) 262-5347 

 
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[Marxism] Kwame Montsho Ajamu Somburu ¡Presente!

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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Kwame Montsho Ajamu Somburu ¡Presente!

October 13, 1934 - May 3, 2016

By The Editors of Socialist Viewpoint Magazine

We are saddened by the loss of comrade Kwame Somburu. He was a dear friend, 
revolutionary fighter, and a devoted distributor of Socialist Viewpoint 
magazine until he became too ill to continue.

He had an amazing knowledge and memory of history—all of which he learned on 
his own by reading everything he could get his hands on and, of course, being a 
participant throughout his life in the struggle for freedom and human 
emancipation. 

He was an active member of the Socialist Workers Party from 1965 to 1983. From 
1983 he became a founding member of Socialist Action, formed by former members 
of the SWP, who were either expelled or dropped out when the party deviated 
from the historic teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and James P. Cannon 
(founding member and leader of the SWP.)

Kwame remained in Socialist Action until 1999. Then, in 2000, after a split in 
SA, Kwame helped form Socialist Workers Organization, the group that began 
publishing Socialist Viewpoint magazine. SWO dwindled down to a small core of 
activists whose numbers were insufficient for the crucial project of party 
building but continued to promote the building of a revolutionary Marxist 
working class political party through the pages of Socialist Viewpoint.

Throughout his life, Kwame was part of the Civil Rights movement; the Vietnam 
Antiwar movement; the Black Liberation movement; the Women’s Liberation 
movement; he worked with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X; he was a supporter 
of the Cuban Revolution; he fought against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; he 
was anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian; and that’s just to name a few causes he 
was intimately involved in.

He was an active fighter for socialism and a promoter of the power of worker’s 
solidarity until his last days.

Saying it like it is

He was in his best form speaking extemporaneously—debating and street-corner 
speaking, for which he was arrested many times in New York.

One of his most memorable debates was the one he and Fred Halstead had with 
William F. Buckley on his show, Firing Line, in 1968.[1] 
  

Fred Halstead was the Presidential candidate and Paul Boutelle was the Vice 
Presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party that year. (At that time, 
until 1979, Kwame went by his given name, Paul Boutelle. And, at the time, if a 
TV show interviewed a major candidate, they also had to give “equal time” to 
minority candidates. In 1968, the Socialist Workers Party was on the ballot in 
19 states across the U.S. That’s how two revolutionary socialist candidates got 
an hour of prime time on TV.)

Kwame, the scientific socialist and historian

Kwame ruled the debate throughout with his profound knowledge of history and 
his quick wit. Buckley didn’t stand a chance. Halstead, to his credit, took a 
back seat to his running mate, who clearly had the upper hand on Buckley.

Towards the end of the show, Kwame was pointing out that Buckley was defending 
the U.S. knowing that it was built by profiting off of slavery, the slaughter 
of the Native Americans and its never-ending wars—WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc.

Buckley was, again, trying to defend U.S. wars when he said, smugly, “I 
represent a country that went to war to liberate the Negroes a hundred years 
ago.”

Kwame responded, “I know some people in Mississippi and Alabama that would like 
to hear that. Why don’t you take a trip down there this summer and tell them 
that they’re liberated. In fact I know some in the outskirts of Chicago that 
would like to hear, too, and Brooklyn—Bedford Stuyvesant…” 

Then Buckley said, “Put it this way, Mr. Boutelle, I’m sure that if I ran for 
office in Mississippi, I would have more Negroes voting for me than for you…”

Kwame answered, “I’m sure of one thing, if you went down to Mississippi and 
told Black people they were free, you would be running, and it wouldn’t be for 
office.”

The audience went crazy applauding and cheering Kwame.

“It takes all five fingers to make a fist!”

On April 27, 2014 Ill Box Media presented an ib Video Production of, Kwame 
Somburu, A Conversation with a Rabble Rouser?[2] 

This is a powerful history lesson covering years of U.S. imperialist oppression 
from the perspective of an active, self-taught, “scientific socialist” who not 
only knew what he was talking about, but was part of the on-going struggle 
against it.

Kwame’s whole life was devoted to fighting oppression. He was a fighter for 
socialism and a strong promoter of worker’s solidarity.

In this interview, more than once, he holds 

Re: [Marxism] This is what I wrote in November 2007, about some background how my politics evolved!

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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For those who may not have seen this, below is the link to a 
video presentation of Kwame's autobiographical account of 
his many life experiences.
 
He will be Greatly missed.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FliVUa2vUiw 

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Re: [Marxism] Background on Kwame Sombrau!

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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I am so saddened by the loss of comrade Kwame. He was a dear friend to me and 
my family for many years and a devoted distributor of Socialist Viewpoint until 
he became too ill to continue. He had an amazing memory for history—all of 
which he learned on his own by reading everything he could get his hands on. 

He was in his best form speaking extemporaneously—debating and street-corner 
speaking, for which he was arrested many times in New York. But one of the best 
things he did, in fact, one of the very best things I have ever seen on the 
great wasteland of TV, was the debate he and Fred Halstead had with William F. 
Buckley on his show, Firing Line, in 1968.*  Fred Halstead was the presidential 
candidate and Paul Boutelle was the Vice Presidential candidate for the 
Socialist Workers Party. (At that time, and until 1979, Kwame went by his given 
name, Paul Boutelle.) Kwame ruled the show! I truly believe this was one of the 
best moments on TV of all time. Be sure to watch it till the very end:

http://amodernmanifesto.tumblr.com/post/49309511725/william-f-buckley-conservative-douchebag-and

I will miss him very much. His contribution to the revolutionary, socialist 
workers movement was incalculable!

—Bonnie Weinstein

*In those days, when a TV show interviewed a major party candidate, they were 
also obligated to interview “minority candidates.” That’s how they got on the 
show. Buckley thought this would be a “piece of cake” interview for him. You 
can see it in his condescendingly smug demeanor at the beginning of the 
interview. It didn’t last long as you will see when you watch the interview. 
It’s the best comeuppance I’ve ever seen! You can hear that the audience went 
wild with applause!

> On May 5, 2016, at 5:40 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism 
>  wrote:
> 
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> 
> On 5/5/16 6:58 AM, Anthony Brain via Marxism wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Kwame Somburu 1934-2016
> 
> Anthony is having email problems. He asked me to forward this:
> 
> met Kwame when I was 16 when Pat Brain (my Father) organised a big meeting of 
> 100 people discussing the dialectical inter-relationship between Black 
> Nationalism and the struggle for Socialism! Kwame remarked when he met me at 
> 16 that I knew a lot about American Trotskyist history. He thought even then 
> I was one of the more promising potential cadres of my generation!
> 
> 
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[Marxism] U.S. Wars, Police Violence and Incarcerations

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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U.S. Wars, Police Violence and Incarcerations
By Bonnie Weinstein

Socialist Viewpoint

January/February 2015
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/ 

The whole world is in turmoil suffering the capitalist descent into barbarism. 
Working people are just beginning to realize that we are all in the same 
sinking boat.

Across the globe, we are facing the economic reality of austerity for us, and 
untold accumulation of wealth for the ruling elite. Democratic rights are being 
decimated. Police brutality and murder are rampant. And while the military, 
police and the corporations can kill, mutilate and rob with impunity; the poor 
are locked up for the crime of being impoverished.

We are reaching a tipping point both in our climate crisis of capitalist 
pollution and environmental destruction and our overwhelming social crisis of 
unending war, poverty and criminalization of the poor. What workers do not yet 
realize is that we have the power to change all of this.

Workers have the power

There is a great divide between those with well-paying jobs, such as those 
working in the abundantly-funded military industrial complex, building bombs, 
etc., and the vast majority of the rest of us.

Not that the divide can’t be closed. But there needs to be a huge rise in 
consciousness. Workers need to realize that by working together democratically 
and in our own common interests, we can make the world a better place and, in 
fact, we are the only hope to make that happen!

The purpose of oppression

The huge U.S. military and incarceration complexes are indelibly linked. Their 
intent is to make capitalism appear all-powerful and make workers think, not 
only that we are weak and defenseless, but that workers of different races, 
religions, and sexual orientations—even occupations—are somehow our natural 
enemies. They want us to fight amongst ourselves for crumbs.

U.S. capitalism’s war for profits on the workers of nations across the 
globe—which is what U.S. wars are all about—is the very same war of police 
murder, brutality and mass incarceration of workers at home. The warlords are 
one in the same.

Capitalism’s wars and police violence are designed to inhibit workers’ 
solidarity—especially here in “the belly of the beast.”

The capitalists will do anything and everything in their power to blur the 
connection between capitalist, imperialist wars and the enforced poverty of the 
masses through austerity measures, police violence and incarceration here at 
home.

In effect, capitalism is forcing workers to pay for our own military 
bombardment and incarceration. And, we are being forced to supply the hard 
labor to build the weapons used to murder and oppress us, and to pave the road 
to their murderous descent into barbarism.

The capitalist class knows full well that the only force that can take this 
despotic power from them and change the world for the better is the unified 
force of the working class.

We can stop building weapons of violence, mass destruction and oppression and 
build the things we need for life, instead.

This will happen only when we come to the fundamental, conscious, realization 
that we can only reach our fullest potential as a humane society through peace, 
love, equality and cooperation. The current capitalist alternative—war, bigotry 
and competition—only leads to barbarism.

That’s why we have to oppose war and police violence as one and the same 
thing—capitalism’s method of getting us to blame and fight each other instead 
of them.

The chaos and descent into barbarism can sometimes be blinding; yet the 
solution is simple—end capitalism and build a socialist democracy worldwide 
under the control of the working class and in defense of all life on Earth!

The only solution is world socialist revolution! 

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