Showing posts with label FEMA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FEMA. Show all posts
Defeat Bush, Howard & Clark's War Of Terror
Support the Dec 1 US Nationwide Strike against Poverty, Racism and War!
NZ out of Afghanistan! Stop ANZ war profiteering! International Day of Solidarity with Venezuela, December 2! Unite Workers Against the War Of Terror!
Bosses' posse
The US imperialist sheriff and his Deputy, John Howard, closely followed by the Deputy’s Dog, Helen Clark, are riding roughshod over the oppressed of this world. They are doing this because US imperialism and its weaker allies such as Australia, Britain and Italy, and its ‘good friends’ like NZ , must grab what is left of the world’s resources to overcome the crisis of monopoly capitalism caused by falling profits.
The cynical wars for ‘democracy’ and the ‘cancelled’ debt in Africa and Iraq are a cover for monopoly capitals plans to re-colonise the world.
In the Pacific region the ‘peacekeeping’ role of Australia and NZ is a front for monopoly capitalism’s plunder of the Pacific’s economic resource base and reserve of migrant labour.
When this fails and resistance rises up against the WOT, domestic anti-terror laws are used to criminalize and jail political opponents of the WOT.
To defeat the WOT it is necessary for workers to mobilize internationally against the roots of the WOT, the crisis-ridden global capitalist economy that threatens to destroy humanity and nature.
War Of Terror
Bush and his neo-cons planned the WOT well before 9/11 to occupy Afghanistan and get a strangle hold on the Central Asian oilfields. Then they lied about WMD to invade Iraq to gain control of Iraqi oil from China, Russia and the EU, and bust the OPEC cartel.
The new Iraqi Constitution guarantees Big Oil like Exxon-Mobil, Shell etc around 80% control of Iraqi oil. Big Oil is backed up by the IMF, WB and the JP Morgan bank consortium (which includes ANZ ) to ‘reconstruct’ Iraq along the lines of a free market where monopoly corporates like Halliburton, Bechtel etc., can rip off the tiny share of oil wealth left in the hands of Iraqis.
The scandal of ‘kickbacks’ paid to Saddam Hussein during the UN imposed ‘oil for food’ scheme in the 1990s is a smokescreen designed to blame companies like Fonterra which supplied vital imports during the embargo which killed a million Iraqis, and to cover up the ruthless imperialist multibillion dollar plunder of Iraq planned in the 1990s and now being put in place.
The imperialist posse is using the WOT to invade, terrorise and recolonise oil rich and mineral rich countries. Not just pre-emptive wars against Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq, but the threat of preventative war against Cuba, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
The US justifies this mounting genocide, terror and torture as a war for ‘democracy’ against Islamic ‘fundamentalism’, ‘drug cartels’ or ‘rogue states’ for which they themselves are responsible.
From the Taliban and Saddam Hussein to Castro, Chavez and Aristide these regimes are the product of US imperialist policies that created the oppressive conditions out of which they emerged as allies or opponents.
The WOT has got nothing to do with ‘democracy’ and everything to do with eliminating ‘rogue’ nationalist regimes and imposing imperialism’s dictatorship under the cover of ‘democracy’. Thus the recent Iraqi Constitution was dictated by the US to guarantee continued control of Iraq oil by Big Oil and Big Banks.
Anti-terror torture laws
Imperialism and its allies suppress rising opposition at home with draconian anti-terror laws that allow the arrest, incarceration and torture of ‘suspects’ without legal rights.
Blair used the London bombings to immediately suspend basic civil rights and authorised a ‘shoot to kill’ policy the led to the killing of the Brazilian migrant worker John Charles de Menezes.
Bush’s FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Authority) was empowered to suspend civil rights in the emergency of the aftermath of Katrina. Workers can be drafted to work gangs and shot for ‘looting’ food and water for their survival while the corporates move in to profiteer from the reconstruction of New Orleans just like they do in Iraq!
Emboldened by Bush, Howard has used the hysteria following recent bombings in Indonesia to deport a visiting US non-violent protest advocate, and to rush through anti-terror laws that include suspension of habeas corpus and ‘shoot-to-kill’.
NZ rapidly passed anti-terror laws legislation modeled on US and UK laws to earn its share of the spoils that fall off the imperialists table. In the Ahmed Zaoui case it used ‘intelligence’ passed on by the French state that fought a bloody colonial war against Algeria to lock up Zaoui as a suspect terrorist. NZ remains an integral part of ‘Echelon’ the US imperialist spy network that monitors internet communications.
Attack on Labor
At the same time the imperialists and their allies impose new labour laws to smash the unions and defeat organised labour as it begins to mobilize against the WOT.
Bush found bipartisan allies in the AFL-CIO to block the Million Worker March against the war in Iraq during the last Presidential election campaign. US corporates are outsourcing most of their production and for twenty years have used bankruptcy laws to close plants, cut jobs, wages and conditions of their remaining US workers in steel, airline and auto industries.
After abandoning the poor people of New Orleans, Bush suspended labour and health and safety laws to rebuild New Orleans with poor, migrant workers. New Orleans his is a metaphor for US imperialism’s attacks on its own workers rights, wages and social security. The vast majority of US workers are not covered by any decent public health or pension entitlements while CEOs payouts are in the millions of dollars.
Howard’s workplace ‘reforms’ are designed to smash the unions and put workers on individual contracts so they have no power to prevent the complete erosion of their past gains like overtime and holiday pay. In this way Howard hopes to follow NZ’s lead in the 1990s in cutting labour costs and boosting the profits of monopoly capital.
Clark’s new Labour led government has moved right in agreements with NZ First and United Future. NZ First will try to shut down the border to migrant workers and refugees.
Fight the WOT as a class war!
The WOT is a continuation of imperialist neo-colonial politics which is itself the symptom of the global economic crisis. To restore profits, imperialism must cut costs.
This is what is behind the ‘drive to the bottom’ – the sourcing of the cheapest supplies of raw materials and labour world wide by monopoly banks, energy corporations and manufacturers. The effect is to concentrate and centralise production and destroy the forces of production. Nature is depleted and exhausted and the surplus population is killed off by endemic disease, overwork or genocide.
There is nothing ‘progressive’ about imperialist globalisation and free trade or investment. In China today, the restoration of capitalism has created a huge multi-million reserve army of cheap labor to boost the profits of monopoly capital. Despite the problems of the former state economy the masses’ needs were better served than by the capitalist world market.
The only way to defeat imperialist destruction of humanity is to eliminate its roots in the capitalist system and replace it with a socialist planned society. Fighting back against the imperialist military machine, and mutinies within imperialist armies, can inflict defeats but they cannot win a decisive victory.
The world proletariat must fight a class war to politicise the masses, win over the rank and file of the imperialist armies, and occupy and control vital economic resources. The vital steps towards this socialist revolution are workers’ and peasants’ militias, a popular constituent assembly and workers ownership and control of production, distribution and exchange.
Victory to Iraq and Venezuela!
Leading the fight back today is the armed resistance and rebuilt unions of Iraq, and the workers movement of Venezuela. Here the defence of national self-determination can only be realised by the mobilisation of the workers to found their own state and plan for a socialist economy.
Victory to Iraq!
For a Popular Constituent Assembly!
US reparations for reconstruction!
Big Oil, Big Banks Out!
Bush Out!
For workers control of the reconstruction of New Orleans!
US Hands Off Venezuela!
No Venezuelan Oil for the WOT!
End the US blockade of Cuba!
Destroy Guantanamo!
US and Latin American troops out of Haiti! Reinstate Aristide!
Bring down the Howard Government!
No WOT laws!
No workplace 'reform'!
NZ Troops out of Afghanistan!
Occupy and Nationalise Air NZ under workers’ control!
No to FTAs with Chile, China and the US! Socialise Big Oil, Big Banks and MNCs!
For Workers’ and Peasants’ Governments!
For a United States of Socialist Republics of the Pacific!
Build and International Workers opposition to the WOT!
International solidarity with the December 1st US Nationwide Strike against Poverty, Racism and War!
International Day of Solidarity with Venezuela, December 2nd!
WAWOT (Workers Against the War on Terror) 027 2800080
From Class Struggle 64 Nov 05/Jan 06
Katrina Aftermath: Capitalist Disaster: Socialist Answer!
The impact of hurricane Katrina was a metaphor for capitalism. The rich white ruling class left the poor black working class population of New Orleans to drown or die of exposure.
The hurricane was itself a natural force, but its major impact was not its predictable violence but the equally predictable cuts in the budget of the Army Engineers for building adequate levees against flooding. Compare this. For all its faults, in Cuba 1.5 million people were recently evacuated out of the path of a hurricane with no loss of life! In the US, black and white workers must unite to build a working class movement capable of taking the struggle for equal rights all the way to socialism!
The Third American Revolution?
The anti-war movement has been boosted by the massive anger that followed the capitalist disaster of New Orleans. Bush and his Wall St cronies have proven to a world wide audience that it is the system that is rotten whether its against Iraqi workers or workers in New Orleans.
We need to take this movement back to its class roots in the labor movement and build the upcoming nationwide Strike in the US on December the 1st into a world wide strike against US imperialism and its War Of Terror. Bush is going to use his power to fight terrorism to impose a state of emergency on the Gulf Coast following the recent crises to the compounding crises of US imperialism. This demands a revolutionary response from the working class.
Taking the lead in imposing martial law will be FEMA, the federal authority empowered to deal with 'emergencies'. At the end of this article are a set of regulations detailing the draconian powers FEMA has to control the people in a bosses' 'emergency'.
If we substitute the term 'workers' in all the FEMA regulations for 'government' we can see the task that lies ahead.
There's no movie to guide us but here's a few ideas for the plot.
Since the ruling class is responsible for these compounding disasters, only the working class can provide a solution that will NOT inevitably lead to further, and worse, disasters. The weakness of the US economy, its costly occupation of Iraq, the rising price of oil etc mean that Bush is facing a mounting class opposition at home. Like 9/11 Bush will use this crisis to impose the next level of his anti-terrorist police state to contain growing opposition.
But the horse has already bolted. The majority growing against the war, and the clear failure of the system (not just the 'free' market at some leftists are suggesting) that caused these capitalist disasters has generated a huge outrage against the rich white ruling class that is now bringing the most oppressed layers of the working class into vocal opposition to the Bush regime.
The international day of action on Saturday the 24th September showed that the New Orleans disaster is widely seen as part of the same problem as the invasion of Iraq. The bigger turnout on the marches around the world is a good sign, but it goes nowhere unless it takes root in the only place where workers have power, the workplace.
We must redouble our efforts to make sure that the union led nationwide strike on December 1 will take off and become an international strike!
Bush will use the disasters to justify using emergency regulations and existing anti-terrorist laws to try to stop the growing class resentment and class mobilisation against him; just as the anti-terror laws were used to stop the Million Worker March last October from becoming a huge event.
They will be used to identify, lock up or kill those who protest against FEMAs allocation of fuel, food, housing etc just as survivors of Katrina were shot as 'looters' for helping themselves to food from supermarkets in New Orleans.
Workers made destitute by capitalisms neglect of its reserve army of black and migrant labour have already been drafted into virtual slave labour gangs to rebuild New Orleans where labour laws have been suspended. FEMA can use its powers to extend this to draft workers into work brigades.
So how to build a workers response to this crisis against increasingly draconian state powers of repression?
The 'Government' will impose control over all of these functions via its agencies. No doubt this will include the oil refineries and outlets of the Venezuelan state company in the US that distributes oil aid offered by Chavez. But those agencies are all manned by state employees or contractors.
In fact the 'Government' in order to rule over the working class, has to pay workers to do this. The emergency services, the national guard and so on are made up of workers. So are all the services that the 'Government' will take over directly to run transport, health, education, etc. The work brigades will have to be run by mercenaries - just like the slave drivers of old.
Workers Control of Rebuilding New Orleans
What is needed is that the locals of the unions spearhead demands for community assemblies to take over the running of all of these services on the grounds that this is the only way to ensure that emergency aid and rebuilding will meet the needs of the people, and not the Halliburtons, Bechtels and Bush's other capitalist cronies.
All the agencies 'empowered' by FEMA to do these tasks must become subordinated to community assemblies backed up by armed self defence committees. Fuel and food must be controlled and allocated by workers committees. Workers should refuse to be forced to work and agree to work only if community assemblies are responsible for overseeing the work.
Under the US Constitution the provision for citizens to bear arms against tyranny will be suspended in any emergency. Workers armed defence committees should be set up to maintain law and order and prevent real looting of fuel and aid.
Where the National Guard or the army is used to disarm the self-defence committees, the community assemblies must appeal to the rank and file of the army to disobey all orders that involve repressing these local democratically constituted organisations.
When the 'Government' tries to crack down, as in Iraq, on what they designate as 'terrorism', the US labor movement, bureaucratic and compliant with the state as it is, has to be challenged by the rank and file to take strike action against Bush and his ruling class backers.
In this way organised opposition to FEMA could see the build up to a nationwide strike on December the 1 become the launching platform for a renewed mass democratic unionism and the birth of the first genuine workers party ever. At that point the strangle hold the ruling class exercises over the working class with its 'Republicrat' congress can be blown away, and the formation of a workers party rooted in workers councils and self-defence committees open the way to socialist revolution.
The anti-war movement has been boosted by the massive anger that followed the capitalist disaster of New Orleans. Bush and his Wall St cronies have proven to a world wide audience that it is the system that is rotten whether its against Iraqi workers or workers in New Orleans.
We need to take this movement back to its class roots in the labor movement and build the upcoming nationwide Strike in the US on December the 1st into a world wide strike against US imperialism and its War Of Terror. Bush is going to use his power to fight terrorism to impose a state of emergency on the Gulf Coast following the recent crises to the compounding crises of US imperialism. This demands a revolutionary response from the working class.
Taking the lead in imposing martial law will be FEMA, the federal authority empowered to deal with 'emergencies'. At the end of this article are a set of regulations detailing the draconian powers FEMA has to control the people in a bosses' 'emergency'.
If we substitute the term 'workers' in all the FEMA regulations for 'government' we can see the task that lies ahead.
There's no movie to guide us but here's a few ideas for the plot.
Since the ruling class is responsible for these compounding disasters, only the working class can provide a solution that will NOT inevitably lead to further, and worse, disasters. The weakness of the US economy, its costly occupation of Iraq, the rising price of oil etc mean that Bush is facing a mounting class opposition at home. Like 9/11 Bush will use this crisis to impose the next level of his anti-terrorist police state to contain growing opposition.
But the horse has already bolted. The majority growing against the war, and the clear failure of the system (not just the 'free' market at some leftists are suggesting) that caused these capitalist disasters has generated a huge outrage against the rich white ruling class that is now bringing the most oppressed layers of the working class into vocal opposition to the Bush regime.
The international day of action on Saturday the 24th September showed that the New Orleans disaster is widely seen as part of the same problem as the invasion of Iraq. The bigger turnout on the marches around the world is a good sign, but it goes nowhere unless it takes root in the only place where workers have power, the workplace.
We must redouble our efforts to make sure that the union led nationwide strike on December 1 will take off and become an international strike!
Bush will use the disasters to justify using emergency regulations and existing anti-terrorist laws to try to stop the growing class resentment and class mobilisation against him; just as the anti-terror laws were used to stop the Million Worker March last October from becoming a huge event.
They will be used to identify, lock up or kill those who protest against FEMAs allocation of fuel, food, housing etc just as survivors of Katrina were shot as 'looters' for helping themselves to food from supermarkets in New Orleans.
Workers made destitute by capitalisms neglect of its reserve army of black and migrant labour have already been drafted into virtual slave labour gangs to rebuild New Orleans where labour laws have been suspended. FEMA can use its powers to extend this to draft workers into work brigades.
So how to build a workers response to this crisis against increasingly draconian state powers of repression?
The 'Government' will impose control over all of these functions via its agencies. No doubt this will include the oil refineries and outlets of the Venezuelan state company in the US that distributes oil aid offered by Chavez. But those agencies are all manned by state employees or contractors.
In fact the 'Government' in order to rule over the working class, has to pay workers to do this. The emergency services, the national guard and so on are made up of workers. So are all the services that the 'Government' will take over directly to run transport, health, education, etc. The work brigades will have to be run by mercenaries - just like the slave drivers of old.
Workers Control of Rebuilding New Orleans
What is needed is that the locals of the unions spearhead demands for community assemblies to take over the running of all of these services on the grounds that this is the only way to ensure that emergency aid and rebuilding will meet the needs of the people, and not the Halliburtons, Bechtels and Bush's other capitalist cronies.
All the agencies 'empowered' by FEMA to do these tasks must become subordinated to community assemblies backed up by armed self defence committees. Fuel and food must be controlled and allocated by workers committees. Workers should refuse to be forced to work and agree to work only if community assemblies are responsible for overseeing the work.
Under the US Constitution the provision for citizens to bear arms against tyranny will be suspended in any emergency. Workers armed defence committees should be set up to maintain law and order and prevent real looting of fuel and aid.
Where the National Guard or the army is used to disarm the self-defence committees, the community assemblies must appeal to the rank and file of the army to disobey all orders that involve repressing these local democratically constituted organisations.
When the 'Government' tries to crack down, as in Iraq, on what they designate as 'terrorism', the US labor movement, bureaucratic and compliant with the state as it is, has to be challenged by the rank and file to take strike action against Bush and his ruling class backers.
In this way organised opposition to FEMA could see the build up to a nationwide strike on December the 1 become the launching platform for a renewed mass democratic unionism and the birth of the first genuine workers party ever. At that point the strangle hold the ruling class exercises over the working class with its 'Republicrat' congress can be blown away, and the formation of a workers party rooted in workers councils and self-defence committees open the way to socialist revolution.
From Class Struggle 63 Sept/Oct 2005
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