Photo: Alicia Raya
PRESENTATION on Zoom, Sunday February 11th:
The Unity of Class Struggle in the Fight for our Collective Humanity & Survival
The United States could stop the ongoing Gaza massacre of Palestinians by the Zionist government calling itself “Israel” in 24 hours, but it refuses to do so, even though the majority of Americans demand this.
Retired Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brick admits: “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.” (https://www.jns.org/biden-is-the-primary-obstacle-to-israeli-victory)
The Zionist entity has received almost $4 billion a year from the US in military aid for decades, the most of any country. This means that its military is an organic part of the vast U.S. global war machine. Just like in the Ukraine, the United States does not support a cease fire, nor any serious diplomacy.
Both the United States and its so-called Arab allies have it in their power to stop this war immediately. The United States could cut off military support in 24 hours. Arab states cut off oil production to Europe in response to the Zionists’ 1973 Yom Kippur War. The failure to act reveals the long-term goals of the ruling capitalist classes which hold power, especially in the United States.
The U.S. government spends untold billions for war, yet tells us that there is no money to take its people off the streets, no money for housing, health care or mental health support. Yet even the meager family relief funds provided during the pandemic lifted five million children out of poverty. Child poverty doubled when it was eliminated last year. These are all government choices, supported by both political parties, made in defiance of the will of our people.
Why does the ruling capitalist class want to perpetuate this slaughter? The situation is complex, but war is a political necessity for US capitalism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States proclaimed that it was the lone global superpower and proceeded to enforce its will upon the world. It started wars in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria that have taken millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
But the world has changed tremendously since then. In the past 30 years, industrial production has expanded around the globe. Countries everywhere now have developing industrial bases that are independent of the United States. This is especially true for the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
This rising multipolarity is seen by the United States as a threat to its unipolar dictatorship. The wars today in Western Asia are the first showdown between a rising global multipolarity and a declining U.S. capitalist “hegemon.”
REMAKING THE MIDDLE EAST
In September, the United States, India, France and Germany announced the “India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor” (IMEC) that runs from Mumbai to Saudi Arabia and then up to Greece. The goal is to counter China’s growing commercial influence. In addition, the United States and the Zionist state are discussing a new canal from the Red Sea that reaches the Mediterranean Sea exactly at … Gaza. This canal would replace the Suez Canal and allow larger ships to pass through. Gaza also has ownership rights over the huge newly discovered Leviathan gas field off its shores.
In November 2023, State Department officials portrayed the Ukraine war as a means of transforming the geopolitics of energy in the Black Sea. As long as Ukrainians keep fighting, they said, there remains a potential to transform the Black Sea into a new market for the European Union. The officials envisioned a new energy corridor that provides Europe with oil and natural gas from Central Asia, redrawing the energy map around the Black Sea.
The United States also opposes what it calls the Islamic Pipeline, one that could send natural gas to Europe with pipelines through Iran and Syria. Instead, it proposes one from Saudi Arabia through Iraq. Each of these “pipeline wars” and trade route makeovers will cost billions of dollars to establish.
The issue of Palestine is central to the political control of West Asia and the global control of petroleum and trade routes. The United States has specific regional goals in the arc that runs from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea and the Ukraine. For almost 10 years, China has been building infrastructure throughout Central Asia with the Belt and Road Initiative to facilitate economic development across the vast continent. Now the United States is threatening regional war on China’s western edge. The United States already directly supports regional war across Central Africa, engulfing the Congo, Sudan and drawing in Ethiopia and Somalia.
LOSING GLOBAL HEGEMONY
Gaza is the flash point of aggressive global fascism. U.S. support for genocide in Gaza means that it has lost the global propaganda war for the hearts and minds of a new generation. The ruling class is turning to fascism at home to maintain its control.
Anti-Arab racism is weaponized. White supremacy rampages. Attacks on Jewish people as people – the real definition of antisemitism – is also weaponized. This is the direct result of the false claim that criticizing the Zionist state is antisemitism. Criticizing the policies of a state is simply not equivalent to attacking individuals for their religious beliefs.
Across the United States, people are being fired, threatened and censored simply because they dare to criticize the U.S. government’s support of genocide in Gaza. What’s happening in Palestine is beginning to happen here! As a response to 9/11, the U.S. government militarized the police across the country, then the War on Terror came home. Now militarized police kill more than 1,000 people a year in the United States. And we see massive voter cancelation, legal attacks on abortion, Black History, LGBTQ+ people, organized vigilante gangs and insurrection as the capitalist ruling class seeks to shore up its power to rule.
Gaza is a catalyst for global thinking. This moment is unprecedented in the scale of global consciousness. As the world faces increasing climate crisis, we must stop wars for petroleum, since it is burning fossil fuels that created this crisis in the first place. The people in the United States have a special role here. The U.S. ruling class is the enemy of humanity and the earth itself. First there must be a ceasefire, then an end to genocide and apartheid. This is the path to stopping regional war, the next step towards stopping global war.
The battle against a U.S. regional war in West Asia will set the stage for the new world that is coming. The line is drawn. It’s either fascism, war and more global destruction, or it’s abolishing capitalism and its war by taking public control of all the technologies that produce the wealth that is the base of its power.
The clarity and consciousness of revolutionaries globally will shape the new world and a new America!
Published on January 22, 2024
This article originated in Rally!
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