PressTV: "OWS Aligns With People's Struggle Against Capitalism"

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Although the United States continually accuses other countries of violating human rights, Washington itself is widely considered as one of the biggest violators of human rights in the world.


Press TV has talked with Caleb Maupin from the International Action Center in New York to discuss the matter further.

The program also offers the opinions of two other guests: human rights and international lawyer Paul Wolf from Washington and Vice Chair of the Institute for Policy Studies Saul Landau from Berkeley.

The following is a rough transcript of the interview.

Press TV: For the first time ever the US came under question at the Human rights council at Geneva last year. Discrimination against Muslims and police brutality were cited as two of the top main concerns. Why this decline, overall; and then especially in these two areas do you think?

Maupin: Well, there is a number of factors involved with this situation. One of which is that the United States is ruled by a small elite, who have the money and the wealth and the power in the US, less than one percent most likely, but they are commonly called the one percent among the Occupy Wall Street Movement and they seeing their power threatened, as the people are pouring into the streets and demanding justice and so as a result they have been forced to reveal themselves in a way and reveal the brutality that they wage.

The second reason is the hypocrisy involved. The US goes around the world, invading people’s countries, burning people’s holy books, shooting people, murdering people, overthrowing governments; all in the name of defending human rights.

But if you want to see the human rights the US is talking about, you can look in Libya, where NATO bombs have destroyed the country and people are now in misery, you can look at Afghanistan where the people are suffering under horrific occupation and oppression. You can also look at the New York City, where the police murder people and get away with it, where demonstrators are clubbed and pepper sprayed when they tried to exercise their free speech and you can look in the US which has one of the highest prison populations on the planet.

This whole notion that one percent controlled government in the US, which is a tool of the bankers and the corporations, is an entity that has the right to speak about human rights and defend it internationally is false.

The US is one of the greatest violators of human rights in the world and it should be regarded as such and I think that it is a great thing that many people are realizing this and the people are standing up to this one percent controlled government and not letting it say it represents human rights, when in reality it represents the repression and the further enslavement of the human beings.

Press TV: It was interesting the way that the US democracy was described by former Vice President Al Gore that it had been “hacked”, what do you think he means by that?

Maupin: Well, I do not know what Al Gore means by democracy because when Al Gore was in office, he was just another continuer of the policies we are seeing now. He carried out imperialistic intervention in Serbia and elsewhere.

But I will say this, you know, one of the most striking things about this massacre that went on in Afghanistan is [that] this is the future that the US has to offer [to] the next generation. It does not have jobs for the next generation of youth, it does not have education, education is being cut, but the military recruitment is there and they do have the opportunity for young people to be sent to other countries abroad to be put in the situations and to be trained to be murderers and to be killers like this has happened.

I mean this is a continual policy of repressing people and the only option left for young people is not be educated, not to have a future but instead to join the ranks of an army being sent around the world to make sure other people do not rise up against the same conditions that are being faced by working people across the US.

It is very frustrating and very shocking and the fact that young people, you know, it is so crazy that all our lives in the US we were taught that the US is a great country because there is democracy and there is freedom and people are allowed to express themselves. But a generation right now tried to actually use that freedom and they poured into the streets and they are seeing what this freedom actually means if you ever try to use it.

The one percent government that runs the US has never been a democracy. It has always been a dictatorship by the super rich, who controls the banks, the factories, the media, the school system and they have utilized all of the wealth of this world in order to make more and more money for themselves.

And now people are revolting and what Occupy Wall Street, you know what we are starting to understand is, the people in Afghanistan [who are] fighting against the United States and fighting to liberate their country, the people in Libya [who are] fighting against the NATO occupiers, they are our allies, they are allies in a global class war against these bankers and these corporations and we need the working class in the US not just the radical youth but all of the working class in the US, the people who were being laid off, the people who were having their homes foreclosed, we all need to join in a global struggle against these bankers and these corporations.

These ultimately the bankers and the one percent that the Occupy Wall Street is fighting against, are not just the enemies of the people here in the US; they are the enemies of the people all over the world.

It is the US and the corporations that are causing poverty throughout the world and it is the US and the bankers and the corporations that are threatening wars that created and backed the state of Israel and which is repressing and brutalizing the Palestinian people.

And ultimately if we want to see change, there needs to be a global alliance between workers and oppressed people in every corner of the globe, standing up to this one percent, engaging in heroic actions like Occupy Wall Street is engaged in where take over buildings, we refused to let system continue as usual, we confront the police, we confront the state and we ultimately call out and say, we are the 99 percent; not just the 99 percent in the US but the 99 percent of humanity against the small ruling elite, who does nothing but owns while the rest of us produce all of the wealth of this world.

Press TV: Caleb Maupin, our guest there, Saul Landau, talked about the Patriot Act, of course you are familiar with the NDAA bill, he also talked about the authorizing the arrest without just cause, and then you have this Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act, which restricts gathering and protests at special public places, what are we looking at here? These are examples of violations of the first amendment. What happened to the first amendment? What is happening with the Constitution?

Maupin: Well, it is interesting that all of the things you described are being used to allegedly protect people from terror. But let’s think about who the US has considered to be terrorists in the past. Nelson Mandela [former South African president], when he waged a struggle against the apartheid government in South Africa, was called a terrorist by the US government. The provisional Irish Republican Army, as they fought to free their country from British Empire, was also called terrorists. The Maoist rebels in the Nepal, as they fought to bring down an absolute monarchy, were also called terrorists by the US government, and still are.

So, if you look at it overall, the US government is not anyone who should be protecting us from terrorism. In fact the US is engaging in terrorism all over the world right now, whether it is Israel, whether it is in Africa, whether it is in anywhere. The US is engaging in terrorism. So, the idea that they would protect us from terrorism is very scary.

They are not trying to protect the people from terror; they are trying to protect their system from the wrath of the people as they boil in anger at its results which are largely economic at this point. People are suffering in mass economically, and I do not think [that] there is any popular support for these policies. I think the popular support is only amongst the halls of power, where they are they bracing.

This idea that you can’t protest in any “official building.” What is that? What is an official building? The law is so vaguely defined. I mean it would just make a federal offense out of things that are exercising free speech. The National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA] says they can detain anybody. Anyone on suspicion of being a terrorist, they do not even have to prove it.

All kinds of legislation is being used to make sure that the government has the ability to do anything it can, to keep itself in power, amidst the rage of the people. And if all the polls that are coming out right now show people are extremely dissatisfied with this system and extremely dissatisfied with the fact that there is a one percent with all the wealth in its hands and all the power and all the resources, while the people have nothing.

And ultimately, you know; the polls are also showing that the people are coming to an understanding that the word Socialism, which has been presented as the opposite of Capitalism and has been demonized in the US for a long time, is not such a bad word and that the idea that we could hold in common, all these resources which we have produced, yet the one percent owns; you know that is not such a bad thing and many people are turning away from the Capitalism and turning against the Capitalist system in the US and [are] looking for a more compassionate and more human-based and a more truly democratic alternative.

I am sure, that really scares the ruling elite and especially, it especially scares the ruling elite that this Occupy Wall Street Movement is not aligning with them and not saying, we want to make their system better and we just want to help them do better in their pursuit of oppressing and repressing the people of the world, but it is aligning with the people of the world in their struggle for justice. This is a beautiful thing.

Workers World Editorial: They Hate Truth

From: Workers World

Published Dec 23, 2011 8:26 PM

They — the Pentagon, the administration, the U.S. ruling class — fear and hate the truth. How else can you explain their passion for persecuting Pvt. Bradley Manning, who has already spent 570-plus days of his 24 years in military prisons, most of them isolated from any contact with his many friends and supporters, and most of that time in isolation that amounts to torture.

For six days in mid-December, Manning has been in an Article 32 hearing that will determine if he is to stand trial. He is accused of telling the truth, specifically of releasing the truth to the public. This particular truth includes the exposure of U.S. helicopters killing Iraqi civilians, reporters even, seen dramatically in a video made from a U.S. helicopter. This incident was one tiny part of the unspeakable war crimes the Bush administration, the Pentagon, indeed, the entire U.S. ruling class — what today we call the 1% — unleashed upon the Iraqi people.

During the hearing, Vietnam ­anti-war whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was expelled for getting too close to Manning, and Iraq anti-war ­ex-lieutenant Dan Choi was wrestled to the ground. That’s further proof the Pentagon hates those who bear the truth.

In this case the truth is that the Pentagon, which has imprisoned Manning and is trying to put him on trial, is the real criminal — the war criminal. With the full backing of the U.S. ruling class, it has waged wars of aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya based on lies intended to deceive the people, lies that the massive imperialist propaganda machinery — as powerful and well-financed as the Pentagon itself — has spread, repeated and spread again.

The government has up to now proven nothing against Manning. It has essentially tortured this courageous private. If he really did what they accuse him of, then he is a 21st-century cyber-hero, who has dug out the truth and offered it to the world. Now we must make the best use of it.

Free Bradley Manning!

Put the generals on trial!

"Wall Street elites funding US-led wars": PressTV interviews Caleb Maupin

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A political analyst says Wall Street elites are major initiator of US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and financially supporting the occupying regime of Israel.


Press TV has conducted an interview with Caleb Maupin from International Action Center to further discuss the US occupy movement.

The following is a rush transcription of the interview:

Press TV: Caleb Maupin, we have seen now Police brutality accruing in Berkeley, clashes there resulting in many arrests, and then the deaths of two people.

What do you think this turn of events means for the protest movement, in particular the way the police have handled it which has been cited with violence?

Maupin: Well, these accusations that are being made by the powers that be that Occupy Wall Street is violent, need to be taken in context, because the Occupy Wall Street movement is not the source of violence in this world.

The biggest occupiers in this world are the Wall Street class of bankers. They are occupying Iraq and Afghanistan; they give 18 million dollars every day to Israel to occupy Palestine. There are many people in the US, people of color who they feel their communities are being occupied, as violent police brutality goes on every day.

These are the occupiers; these are the source of violence. And it does not surprise me one bit that the ruling class who has been happy to bomb NATO, happy to threaten war against Iran, it does not surprise me that they would be threatening and they doing this kind of horrific violence against people who demonstrate against them.

They are motivated by profits. And people are standing up and saying they do not want to be sacrificed for the bankers' greed. So they are going to come down and they are going to attack because of they are the vicious banker class they are.

Press TV: Let me turn our attention to another point here Caleb Maupin, that is on something that I wasn't aware of, maybe you could shed light on it. Since we started talking about unemployment in the United States, when it reached peak levels months ago at 35 million, the figure is now up towards 45 to 50 million people in the United States, Americans who are on food stamps.

And it's come to my attention that actually the food stamps are now used by debit cards, debit cards that are issued by JP Morgan, of which JP Morgan, whether those food stamps are used or not makes the profit out of that. Isn't there something fundamentally wrong in that?

Maupin: What we are seeing now more than anything is we are seeing capitalism at a dead end, the system where profit comes before people. It is continuing the go on, and millions and millions of people have been cast a side, by this system as useless.

They've been- This system, you know, you can only survive under capitalism if you sell your labor to a boss, to a capitalist. And right now, the capitalist system through, trying to make profits, by doing everything they can- number one to produce as much as possible, and number two to hire as few people as possible, and pay them as little as they possibly can- has created a situation where people can't buy back these products they're producing, and it has been glutted with unemployment.

And they've come up with all kinds of schemes to try and save a naturally unstable system that is what we are seeing right now. JP Morgan Chase, Wall Street, they are trying to maintain their power amid a system that cannot continue to go on and that's why these uprisings continue as people see that in this situation where so much suffering is going on, JP Morgan's doing fine, the bankers are doing fine, the food stamps are being cut off, and profits keep flowing into the hands of the rich, while so much suffering continues.

They are doing everything they can to shut down this movement but this movement is a result of the crisis people are facing, and the only thing that is going to stop the suffering people face is going to be when people stand up and eventually take control of the banks and the factories and we don't have this profit run system any longer.

Press TV: Caleb Maupin, we had [another speaker on the show] Paul Street talk about the number of Americans that are at or below the poverty line, on the flip side of the coin, within the Senate Democrats, the majority party, they posses about 80% of the wealth, Republicans 78% percent.

I'm sure you know this perhaps. I didn't know it's to this extent. Doesn't this need to change some how? How can these people be sympathetic lawmakers to the 99% when they are this rich themselves? Something in that configuration needs to change, don't you think?

Maupin: Congress is just a cast of hired actors, hired by the one percent to trick us into thinking we actually have power in this country. Power lies with the bankers who own and operate the banks and the factories.

And what is so glorious about this moment is that the trick has been exposed. People are out on the streets in huge numbers, and they realize that this game they have been playing for so long of walking into the ballot box and voting for a Democrats or a Republican and thinking that is going to win them a better future, is a fixed game and they are done playing it.

And now they are voting with their feet, they are voting by occupying and taking over squares, taking over any place and they are saying they are going to continue to fight and we are not going to allow business as usual to continue, until we get the justice that we have been wanting for so long.

This is the richest- we have the richest ruling class in this country of any country in the world, yet all the money that could be used to help people goes to bomb people in other countries, goes to fund wars, goes to just lie in the pockets of the rich.

Now, people are in a fighting mood for once and it's a fighting mood that is going to keep going, because it is the only thing that's ever made a difference. Social security, all these programs they're now talking about cutting are won on the streets, things like the Flint sit down strike, you know.

These were the victories that won changes that we won in the past and we are reviving the forgotten traditions of fighting for our class, not phony patriotism, not saying my country is better that your country, but saying we are workers and we are going to stand up to these corporations and bankers and we are going to fight for our class.

The class struggle that is the glorious tradition that has been forgotten and it is being revived stronger every day.

Two Quotations on War and Imperialism

"A weak nation can defeat a strong, a small nation can defeat a big. The people of a small country can certainly defeat aggression by a big country, if only they dare to rise in struggle, dare to take up arms and grasp in their own hands the destiny of their country. This is a law of history."

"A new upsurge in the struggle against U.S. imperialism is now emerging throughout the world. Ever since the Second World War, U.S. imperialism and its followers have been continuously launching wars of aggression and the people in various countries have been continuously waging revolutionary wars to defeat the aggressors. The danger of a new world war still exists, and the people of all countries must get prepared. But revolution is the main trend in the world today."

- Mao Zedong, May 23, 1970

Mass Rally in Baghdad Opposes Iraq Occupation

By Caleb T. Maupin
Published Apr 13, 2011 8:14 PM

Eight years ago the U.S. army poured into Iraq, where it overthrew the Ba’athist-led government using the pretext of alleged “weapons of mass destruction.” On April 9, 2003, the Pentagon orchestrated a media stunt to build popular support for a nearly universally opposed, unprovoked invasion.

A group of pro-U.S. Iraqis, who had just returned from exile, entered Firdos Square, which had been blocked off by the U.S. military. Under the direction of professional television producers and with the U.S. Marines’ truck and chains, they toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein before the cameras of CNN, FOX and MSNBC and thanked the U.S. for bombing and destroying their country.

It was eventually revealed that the U.S. Army’s Department of “Psychological Operations” had staged the entire event to build public support for the invasion. The military’s blatant attempt to deceive the public in order to build support for the war was never treated as a scandal or widely discussed. (Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2004)

But as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus stated about 2,500 years ago: “The only thing constant is change.”

On April 9, eight years after this stage-managed rally, the streets of Baghdad were filled with students, youth, workers and others from all across Iraq. Their message was very different from the one in 2003.

This year’s protest began on April 8 when a crowd of 300 gathered in a square in Baghdad to protest the crimes of the U.S. occupiers, as well as the economic devastation following the U.S. invasion. According to CNN, this crowd has gathered every Friday since Feb. 25 to protest the disappearance of health care, employment and the other economic benefits that existed under the Ba’athist government. These benefits have been replaced by the bullets of U.S. troops and the mercenaries who protect the oil, which has been stolen to benefit imperialist corporations.

This April 8 the crowd grew to 2,000 people, who marched holding placards with names of dead relatives and demanding an end to the occupation. (CNN World, April 8)

The next day, as 10,000 protesters hit New York City streets to denounce the occupation, the Baghdad demonstrators protested U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ April 8 comment that the U.S. may stay in Iraq for as many as 10 more years. Muslim Cleric Muktada al-Sadr, in exile in Iran, sent a message to his supporters and followers to protest the U.S. occupation in response to Gates’ comments.

Al-Sadr’s statements in support of “military resistance” as well as “peaceful and public resistance” were picked up not only by thousands in the streets, but also by several members of the Iraqi parliament. (New York Times, April 10) Contingents of people from across Iraq poured into Baghdad on buses to protest the U.S. occupation and demand that the U.S. leave Iraq by the end of the year.

Muntazer Al-Zaidi, who was imprisoned and beaten in December 2008 for throwing his shoes at then-President George W. Bush on his last visit to Iraq, had called for demonstrations and endorsed the rally. He now leads a mass organization called the Popular Movement to Save Iraq.

Leaders of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers also supported the call for an escalation of protests.

Ali Husain, a high school student from southern Iraq who participated in the Baghdad protests, told the New York Times, “We will expel the occupier.” (April 9) The continued demonstrations under harsh conditions show that numerous Iraqis share his sentiments.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Glenn Beck Admits He Hates Freedom & Loves One Party Dictatorships and Monarchies!

In the above clip, Glenn Beck discusses his fear that various pro-U.S. governments in the middle east will fall as their people rise up in revolution.

It is ironic that Beck calls himself such a patriot and "constitutionalist" when the governments he seems to adore and fear for include the following:

Jordan - An absolute monarchy with a King, no elections at all.

Egypt - A brutal U.S. backed dictator, magically has won every election in two decades, and has a secret police force that tortures anyone suspected of seeking reform. U.S. embassy estimates that thousands are tortured daily in wiki-leaked memo.

Saudi Arabia - Another absolute monarchy, and the only country in the modern world to practice beheading. Death penalty for homosexuals. Women are not allowed to leave their homes, even for medical care. Squads of armed thugs with clubs patrol the streets looking for "infidels" who question the government.

Yemen - Another U.S. backed dictator, who has magically won every election since 1978. He also has a squad of secret police who torture and execute dissidents.

Ironically as well, most of these regimes have Islam as the state religion. In fact, Saudi Arabia is a religious state run by the Whahabia sect of Islam.

Beck, for some reason, believes that the movements throughout the middle east that are demanding "democracy" are a danger. Instead, Glenn Beck thinks, as stated above, that overthrowing these brutal dictators will lead to disaster.

Does Glenn Beck love Democracy? Not in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or Yemen.

Does he hate radical Islam? Not in Saudi Arabia or Jordan.

Does he oppose monarchy and absolutism? Not in Jordan or Saudi Arabia.

Does he believe in free elections? Not in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Yemen.

Remember when he was telling us we had to invade Iraq in order to "bring democracy." Remember when he called Obama a "dictator" for wanting everyone to have health insurance?

I think I will send him this personal letter:


Dear Glenn Beck,

Why do you hate freedom? Why do love absolute monarchy in Jordan and Saudi Arabia? Why do so adore one party dictatorships that massacre their people in Yemen and Egypt?

Aren't your pep rallies called "Tea Parties" in honor of the overthrow of a King? I guess now you like Kings, as long as they let U.S. oil companies and banks do as they please.

You must like "radical Islam" and Sharia law now too, as it seems you are terrified of it leaving Saudi Arabia.

You lying hypocrite! Do you ever stop and read what is on your tele-prompter? Do you really love Absolute Monarchy and One Party Dicatorship? Or are you just a fool?

-Caleb T. Maupin

Evidence Shows U.S. Weapons Cause Birth Defects in Fallujah, Iraq

By Gene Clancy
Published Jan 9, 2011 8:08 PM

Zainab Abdul Latif moves wearily among her three children, wiping their foreheads and propping them up in their wheelchairs. “Every day, they need intensive care,” the 29-year-old Fallujah mother says. Neither her two sons, Amar, 5, and Moustafa, 3, or daughter, Mariam, 6, can walk or use their limbs. They speak two words — “mama, baba” — between them. All are in diapers.

Zainab is one of many faces of Fallujah’s battle aftermath. She is overwhelmed by a situation that she has no way to change. “They cannot eat or drink by themselves, and every day I have to take Mariam to the hospital. She is very sensitive to flu and regularly gets diarrhea and other ailments. The doctors have told me they are mentally [impaired] and have nerve paralysis. They say it is congenital. I really can’t take care of them like this and I need help.”(Guardian, Nov. 13)

Dr. Bassem Allah, the senior obstetrician who is chief custodian of Fallujah’s newborns, finds the cases both perplexing and disturbing. During medical school he had to search Iraq for a case study of an infant with a birth defect. “It was almost impossible during the 80s,” he told the Guardian. “Now, every day in my clinic or elsewhere in the hospital, there are large numbers of congenital abnormalities or cases of chronic tumors. Now, believe me, it’s like we are treating patients immediately after Hiroshima.”

Birth defect rates in Fallujah have become increasingly alarming over the past two years. In the first half of 2010 the number of monthly cases of serious abnormalities rose to unprecedented levels. In Fallujah’s general hospital, 15 percent of the 547 babies born in May had a chronic deformity, such as a neural-tube defect — which affects the brain and lower limbs — cardiac or skeletal abnormalities or cancers. (Guardian, Dec. 30) In addition to these conditions, research has shown startling increases in children born with cleft palates, multiple fingers and toes, encephalitis and leukemia.

The Dec. 30 Guardian reports that no other city in Iraq has anywhere near the same levels of reported abnormalities. Fallujah sees at least 11 times as many major defects in newborns as world averages, research shows.

The United States government, of course, denies that the appalling spike in birth defects in Fallujah has anything to do with its illegal and brutal invasion of Iraq and the U.S. assault that led to the virtual destruction of the city in 2004. Washington has quickly pointed out what it calls the lack of comprehensive scientific studies and claims that the unprecedented rise in birth defects is “anecdotal” and “inconclusive.”

As the new year began, however, the callous aplomb of the Pentagon war directors was shaken by a report published in the January issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The research confirms earlier estimates of the major, unexplained rise in cancers and chronic neural-tube, cardiac and skeletal defects in newborns. The authors found that malformations rose to unprecedented levels in the first half of 2010.

The report says Fallujah has been infected by a chronic environmental contaminant. It focuses on depleted uranium, used in weaponry during two U.S. assaults in 2004, as a possible contaminant. Depleted uranium has long been suspected as a deadly contaminant of battlefield areas going back to the first U.S.-Iraq war. (See “Metal of Dishonor,” 1999, 2nd ed.)

The report acknowledges that other battlefield residues may also be responsible for the defects: “Many known war contaminants have the potential to interfere with normal embryonic and fetal development. The devastating effect of dioxins on the reproductive health of the Vietnamese people is well-known.”

The findings come prior to a much-anticipated World Health Organization study of Fallujah’s genetic health. They follow two alarming earlier studies, one of which found a distortion in the sex ratio of newborns since the 2003 invasion of Iraq — a 15 percent drop in births of boys.

“We suspect that the population is chronically exposed to an environmental agent,” wrote one of the report’s authors, environmental toxicologist Mozhgan Savabieasfahani. The report identifies metals as potential contaminating agents afflicting the city — especially among pregnant mothers. “Metals are involved in regulating genome stability,” notes the report. “As environmental effectors, metals are potentially good candidates to cause birth defects.”

“It is important to understand that under normal conditions, the chances of such occurrences are virtually zero,” wrote Savabieasfahani.

Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

11 Blatant Deceptions in 17 Minutes of Air Time!

Below is Glenn Beck's 17 minute attack piece on the "One Nation" Rally called by the AFL-CIO. Glenn Beck blatantly deceives his audience 11 times. He is not merely giving his opinion but being blatantly dishonest. He lies about world history, economics, and in some instances, his own television program and rally.

It seems that websites devoted to calling him out, such as "Media Matters" and "Newshounds" are only concerned when he attacks figures in the Democratic Party. They ignore blatant factual lies, passed of as truths. The fact that most of these lies have been allowed to pass is a testament to the U.S. political spectrum of Extreme Right v. Center Left.



Section One - Obama

1.“Our President… Blames America for all the problems of the world.” Obama is hardly a radical. His speeches, though Beck must not have noticed, ooze with patriotism, “greatest country in the world”, “one nation under God”, and all kinds of rightist nationalism. Obama frequently speaks of the U.S. as a force only for good in the world, and portrays U.S. foreign policy as motivated purely by morality and charity. Beck needs to listen to Obama’s words, which oddly enough, are designed to appease people like him, however ineffectively.


2.“We already know… there are Communists around the whitehouse.” The closest thing to a Communist in the White House was Van Jones. Jones was a FORMER communist, as he had joined a small Maoist sect in college. However, since 1992 he has been merely a liberal reformer. His low-ranking post was “Green Jobs Czar”, and he simply mouthed environmentalist rhetoric in order to channel support for Obama’s policies. He was fired when Beck publicized his radical past.
Obama fired Shirley Sherrod from the Department of Agriculture simply because she was falsely accused of being “Anti-White.” These charges were disproven almost instantly.
The fact that Obama would fire a former Communist turned liberal, and a civil rights veteran on the flimsy evidence of her being “anti-white” shows that no open Marxists would ever be welcomed in the White House, regardless of Obama’s radical past.
As of yet, no “open communist” has been proven to be working within the administration. Beck’s attempts to find are foolishly limited to Van Jones, the former Maoist turned environmentalist, and a department of education worker who made a sarcastic joke about Mao Zedong.
If any open Communists existed, I am sure Beck would have pointed them out.

Section 2 – The Rallies

3. “No signs because the people who came aren’t professional agitators…” ¬– Beck himself specifically asked those attending his rally not to have signs. At the last minute, his rally was declared non-political. Some attendees brought signs anyhow. The Beck rally was simply a religious revival meeting. How does the fact that those who attended obeyed his request not to bring signs, reflect on the nature of the attendees? The various Tea Party rallies throughout the country have featured numerous signs, many comparing Obama to Hitler and invoking racist imagery. When Beck has not ordered them not to, Tea Partiers are about as “professional” in their agitation as they can get. Often their signs are printed for them by those who bus them in, organizations such as Freedomworks with large budgets of corporate funding.

4. “Many had to go…” – The idea that Labor Unions have the ability to force their membership to attend rallies is ludacris. Labor Unions have no arrest power or legal authority. No one was forced against their will to attend the Oct. 2nd rally, and no one in their right mind would make such a claim. The Unions heavily sponsored the rallies, but no coercion of any kind was used in gathering attendance to the rally. If such coercion existed, I am sure that more evidence would be presented on FOX than simply a brief quote from one unionist.


5. “Not a single wad of paper…” – The reason that the national mall was “clean” after the Beck rally, was not because its attendees were “more respectful.” It was due to the fact that the rally was heavily sponsored, and due to its massive funding from right-wing capitalists like the Koch Brothers. The results of this massive funding included the ability to hire a clean-up crew, so not as to depend on the National Park Service to clean up, as most rallies do, whether they be of the political left or right.

Section Three – U.S. Foreign Policy

6. “Do they forgive our trespasses as we have forgiven others our debts?” – The U.S. is in debt to countless foreign countries, as the Tea Party movement often likes to remind us. Furthermore, the U.S. financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and World Trade Organization do not “forgive debt.” Rather these institutions lend money to impoverished countries, with strict stipulations. In Bolivia, for example, a massive revolt erupted because the government was forced by the IMF to privatize all water, and even went as far as to jail people who collected rain water on their roofs. The “debts” from U.S. foreign lending institutions are rarely if ever forgiven, and they often result in forced privatization and corporate domination of the country. In addition, the vast majority of state revenue in various impoverished countries is used to repay debt. Interestingly enough, much of the budget of state, federal, and local governments in the U.S. is used for the same purpose, such as $11 Million in the Cleveland City Budget, used to pay the banks this year.


7. “Do you think they’ll ever get off our backs and stop taking stuff from us?” – The idea that the world is “taking stuff” from the U.S. is ludacris as well. The U.S. uses far more resources than is proportional to its population. The U.S. economy is largely dependent on cheap labor from foreign countries. The U.S. invaded Iraq, and as a result now owns the rights to its oil resources. Currently efforts are being made to destabilize the Venezuelan government because it demands a fair price for the oil it exports to the U.S. All of these do not point to the people of the world “taking stuff” from the U.S., but the exact opposite. In addition, the U.S. banks are now “taking stuff” from the U.S. taxpayers in the form of bailouts. Banks also are “taking stuff” in the former of privatization of schools, public resources, etc.
The wealthy elite in the U.S. is “taking stuff” from the people around the world, and at home. Even jobs many have depended on for income are now being taken, as unemployment reaches 20%.


8. “Do you know how many young women and girls we have saved from brutal regimes…” – It was the U.S. that installed the Taliban in order to “fight communism” i.e. the People’s Democratic Party that taught women to read in Afghanistan following the 1979 Revolution. The U.S. currently supports Saudi Arabia, which is extremely oppressive of women. Within the U.S. there is one of the highest rates of rape per capita for an industrialized country.
Furthermore, in Afghanistan violence against women has not decreased since the U.S. intervened, but increased as lawlessness have ensued and Islamic war lords have been funded to “keep peace.”
In Iraq, Saddam’s government was much more open to women’s liberation than many of the various fundamentalist sects that now control sections of the country. The Baathist Regime of Saddam Hussein had various women holding public office, and was loathed by Iran as a “secular” regime. Bin Laden even engaged in war against Saddam’s Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, because he viewed Iraq as “western” and “Marxist.”

9. “When fascism faced the world, it was the United States that defeated it…” The U.S. didn’t land at Normandy until the USSR had already turned the tide of the war at the Battle of Stalingrad. Far more Soviet Soldiers died in World War Two, and unlike the USSR, the U.S. opposed a world united front against fascism. The U.S. government barred people from supporting the Spanish Republic when it faced an internal fascist insurgency. U.S. anti-Fascists were forced to travel to Spain illegally and could be prosecuted for visiting Spain to aid the Republic.
However, U.S. corporations continued to fund the Spanish fascists, both directly, and through funneling money through Germany and Italy.
The IBM corporation designed the computer system used by the Nazis for the holocaust, and Henry Ford proudly mouthed support for Hitler on numerous occassions. The American Legion, a “patriotic” organization of Veterans made clear that it admired the Italian Fascists. A coup d’etat was plotted to overthrow Roosevelt by the “Liberty League” an free market faction of the Republican Party.
The U.S. did not enter World War Two until the Pearl Harbor attacks, and even then, it did not get involved in the European theatre of the war until the Red Army was already marching through Europe. Many former Gestapo agents were recruited in the CIA in exchange for immunity from war crimes prosecution.

Section Four – Socialism & Communism

10. “Socialism and Communism have failed everywhere they’ve ever been tried…” Cuba has the highest life expectancy and literacy in all of South and Central America, as well as the Caribbean. It has a lower infant mortality rate than the United States. Under Socialism, the Soviet Union went from a primitive agrarian system to launching the worlds first sattalites just after defeating the Nazis. China currently leads the world economically. Venezuela’s moves toward socialism have slashed poverty exponentially. This statement is utterly false, if actually examined. Beck is simply repeating a popular cliché of U.S. culture, that has no basis in fact.


11. “No one is taught about the evils of Communism…” – The only reason Beck’s previous lie is tolerated is because of the mis-education about Communism. The U.S. school system, public and private, as well as the Universities, preach anti-Communism at a high volume. The myth that Stalin killed more people than Hitler, or that Mao was a genocidal maniac is extremely rampant in U.S. society. For Beck to deny it is outrageous, especially since his nightly broadcasts are devoted to “teaching” what is supposedly “never taught.” I challenge Beck to find any news reports in mainstream media, or any mainstream school curriculum that has anything positive to say about the former Soviet Union, North Korea, or the various revolutionary regimes around the world.

Denounce FBI Repression of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization

From: Freedom Road Socialist Organization

By Fight Back! Editors

We denounce the Federal Bureau of Investigation harassment of anti-war and solidarity activists in several states across the country. The FBI began turning over six houses in Chicago and Minneapolis this morning, Friday, September 24, 2010, at 8:00 am central time. The FBI handed subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury to about a dozen activists in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. They also attempted to intimidate activists in California and North Carolina.

"The government hopes to use a grand jury to frame up activists. The goal of these raids is to harass and try to intimidate the movement against U.S. wars and occupations, and those who oppose U.S. support for repressive regimes," said Colombia solidarity activist Tom Burke, one of those handed a subpoena by the FBI. "They are designed to suppress dissent and free speech, to divide the peace movement, and to pave the way for more U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and Latin America."

This suppression of democratic rights is aimed towards those who dedicate much of their time and energy to supporting the struggles of the Palestinian and Colombian peoples against U.S. funded occupation and war. The activists are involved with well-known anti-war groups including many of the leaders of the huge protest against the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN in September 2008. The FBI agents emphasized that the grand jury was going to investigate the activists for possible terrorism charges. This is a U.S. government attempt to silence those who support resistance to oppression in the Middle East and Latin America.

The activists involved have done nothing wrong and are refusing to be pulled into conversations with the FBI about their political views or organizing against war and occupation. The activists are involved with many groups, including: the Palestine Solidarity Group, Students for a Democratic Society, the Twin-Cities Anti-War Committee, the Colombia Action Network, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera (a Colombian Political Prisoner).

Steff Yorek, a long-time antiwar activist and one of the activists whose homes was searched, called the raids “An outrageous fishing expedition.”

We urge all progressive activists to show solidarity with those individuals targeted by the U.S. Government. Activists have the right not to speak with the FBI and are encouraged to politely refuse, just say “No”.

Please contact info@colombiasolidarity.org or info@fightbacknews.org if you would like to provide support to the targeted activists.

Contact: Tom Burke, 773-844-3612; Steff Yorek, 612-865-8234
Take action:

Call the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at 202-353-1555 or write an email to: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov.

Demand:

* Stop the repression against anti-war and international solidarity activists
* Immediately return all confiscated materials: computers, cell phones, papers, documents, etc.
* End the grand jury proceedings against anti-war activists

Video: Speech to Baldwin-Wallace Atheist Humanist Agnostics

In Spanish Courts, U.S., British heads of state charged for war crimes in Iraq

By Caleb T. Maupin
Published Oct 25, 2009 11:09 PM

In the high Spanish court called the Audiencia Nacional, charges for international crimes had already been lodged against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and other nefarious world leaders. On Oct. 6, new charges were brought charging Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Gordon Brown and Barack Obama with crimes against humanity for their responsibility for harming the people of Iraq.

The next day, Oct. 7, the Senate in Madrid voted to change the law allowing such charges to be made, but the Oct. 6 charges remain in force.

The news release issued by those bringing the charges says that they are prosecuting “19 years of intended destruction.” The charges include the bombing of civilians, the starvation by sanctions that resulted in over one million deaths, as well as the invasion and occupation of the country.

The complainants seek to bring these world leaders to justice. The charges are filed on behalf of the 500,000 children who, according to the World Health Organization, died because sanctions stopped food aid and other necessities from reaching to the Iraqi people.

The case also seeks justice for the victims of the bombing campaigns that destroyed the water purification services of Iraq, as well as for the hundreds of thousands who died in the invasion and occupation beginning in 2003, when foreign troops illegally prowled through the neighborhoods, cities and countrysides of Iraq, violating the rights of this sovereign nation that refused to bow before the interests of Wall Street.

The tortures at Abu Ghraib and the approval they received from the Pentagon have also been listed among the crimes. The 2003 government of the Spanish state, led by rightist Prime Minister José Aznar, colluded with the invasion. In March 2004, a bombing in the main Atocha train station in Madrid killed over 100 people. An election held only days after the bombing removed Aznar. The new Socialist Party government removed Spanish troops from Iraq.

Many hope now that the U.S. and British leaders named in the indictment will be held accountable for their crimes. The charges have again brought before the public the extent of the imperialist crimes in Iraq, which at least in the U.S. are systematically ignored by the corporate media. For more information, see brusselstribunal.org.

Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Cindy Sheehan Speaks in Cleveland

Videos: The Crisis in Iran

Pourzal: Iran's Capitalists Like Mousavi

Iran's Business Elite, Too, Is a "Dissident"
by Rostam Pourzal

With mass rallies for government accountability dominating the news from Iran since June 12, Western audiences are missing the underlying controversy that polarizes the country's electorate. We hear much about the boastful social conservatism of president Ahmadinejad, whose contested re-election on June 12 fueled days of bloody protests led by his moderate challengers. But the battle is also about welfare reform and private property rights in an economy that has been state-dominated since the Islamic Republic was established thirty years ago. Whether Iran's national oil revenue should now be directed away from grassroots priorities emerged as a major election issue this year. All of Ahmadinejad's three challengers promised to promote investor-friendly policies if elected.

The opposition insists that Ahmadinejad unfairly buys voter loyalty with consumer subsidies, low interest loans, and similar "handouts." The president has especially enraged the managerial class with his wildly popular monthly rallies in the provinces, where he orders funding on the spot for the infrastructure needs of common folks. A special flashpoint is the pace of a long-anticipated privatization and deregulation drive that was officially launched a year ago but was not embraced by the Ahmadinejad administration.

Among the four approved hopefuls that ran for president recently, Ahmadinejad is the least enthusiastic about the neo-liberal reforms demanded by Iran's corporate interests. Several of his advisors and cabinet ministers and even a Central Bank's director general have stepped down or been dismissed after challenging the president's "unscientific" intervention in markets. At least one of them, former economic affairs minister Davood Danesh Jafari, campaigned for a rival candidate this spring.

Not surprisingly, Iran's business journals invariably promote Ahmadinejad's challengers. They regularly deride his welfare-state initiatives as "fiscal irresponsibility" and lash out in Cold War language at his close ties to left-leaning Latin American leaders. They demand that Iran align itself instead with the "international community" in order to benefit from globalization.

As they clamor for "meritocracy" and "performance" to overtake affirmative action programs, it is not uncommon for Iranian business columnists to quote the Washington-based Heritage Foundation -- of Ronald Reagan lineage -- which ranks Iran almost last among nations in its Index of Economic Freedom. In a similar vein, articles that lament how Ahmadinejad has brought back the "irresponsible anti-capitalist climate" of the early years of the Revolution appear in Iran's opposition literature about as often as conservative Western media condemn the 60s' "hippie generation" for permissiveness.

Ahmadinejad's leading ballot-box rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is allied with Iran's most influential "free market" advocate, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. His was the face next to Mousavi's on the candidate's billboard advertisements this campaign season. Rafsanjani is best known for his "structural adjustment" program that met popular resentment and resistance from 1989 to1997. Since he was defeated by Ahmadinejad in the presidential elections of 2004, Rafsanjani has led a public crusade against the winner's zeal for social spending, which he characterizes as Gadaparvari, or dependency promotion.

The powerful state Expediency Council, which Rafsanjani heads, led a reinterpretation of Article 44 of Iran's constitution that last June mandated a downsizing of the government in favor of private investors and contractors. The sale of state-owned industries is advancing faster than ever, and the introduction of private banking was followed late last year by the opening of the first foreign bank branch. A comprehensive intellectual property protection law is finally in effect and legal restrictions on foreign investors are being relaxed in order to circumvent UN-imposed trade sanctions. Yet Rafsanjani's powerful allies complain bitterly in public that Ahmadinejad loyalists in the bureaucracy impede progress towards the competitive economy envisioned in the new law. This year Mousavi adopted Rafsanjani's 2004 campaign pledge to institute "an economic revolution" in which improved efficiency would result from deregulation.

Mohsen Rezaie, a former top military commander who dropped out of the race in 2004 and ran against Ahmadinejad again this year, is the Expediency's Council's secretary and a confidant of Rafsanjani. Rezaie's recent campaign boldly touted him as the "Architect of a New Economy" in which Ahmadinejad's two most cherished initiatives (which Rezaie ridiculed as "Komonisti") would be abandoned. Under one of the programs, named Sahaam-e Edaalat, millions of largely low-income households have received bundled shares of profitable state-owned industries at half-price. The cost of the discounted shares is deducted over time from the small investors' dividend incomes. Ahmadinejad boasts about this as his favorite kind of privatization. Ahmadinejad's year-old Maskan-e Mehr initiative, under which hundreds of thousands of first-time home buyers are offered 99-year leases on state-owned land and affordable loans to build modest apartments, was also targeted for termination by candidate Rezaie.

The other investors' delight among Ahmadinejad's rivals is former speaker of the parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, who ran for president in 2004 and again this year. The center piece of Karroubi's economic platform this year consisted of suggested first steps towards de-nationalization of Iran's oil industry. The scheme was devised by the candidate's chief economic advisor, a self-described Milton Friedman devotee named Masoud Nili. It envisioned the formation of a non-government entity that would take control of all domestic refining and distribution of oil and make every citizen 18 years or older a shareholder. Karroubi's other top advisor, Abbas Abdi, a fervent promoter of trickle-down economics, often refers to the proposition as "empowering the people." They neglect to mention how, over time, better endowed Iranian (and eventually non-Iranian) investors could acquire large blocks of the proposed oil shares from low-income citizens and form Iranian equivalents of unaccountable Western oil giants.

Iran's state budget (including tens of billions of dollars annually for popular subsidies and services) relies far more on oil revenue than on taxation. Thus, to advocate removing oil from state control is, in the Iranian context, equivalent to the right-wing "citizen empowerment" protests this year in the US by tax day "tea party" tricksters. More generally, like the resentments that Ronald Reagan exploited and galvanized against the civil rights gains in this country, the backlash now energizing Iran's opposition candidates is in part a reaction to the attention the government showers on less fortunate Iranians.

In short, Iran's fiscal-conservative candidates are disputing the re-election of a social-conservative president. Which conservatism is worse? Should the Western progressive community side with the libertarian candidates? The answer may not be as straightforward as our mainstream media pretend it is. Instead of granting the opposition our unconditional support, we must demand that the movement shed its corporate bedfellows and isolate Ahmadinejad by championing the cause of underprivileged Iranians.

Rostam Pourzal is a Washington, DC-based political analyst specializing in the politics of human rights.

Iran and the U.S. Media: A Comment Must Be Made

My thoughts on recent events in Iran, and the reaction of the U.S. Left.



Wealthy Iranian Student Protestors: Friends or Foes?

Just one summer ago, in early August, I was in Los Angeles. I went there to assist the International Action Center in building for its demonstration “Stop War on Iran”, which was held as it seemed the U.S. was threatening to attack Iran once again. At this point, among left circles, support for this demonstration was nearly unanimous.

Barack Obama had no yet been elected. George W. Bush was still in office, and his war in Iraq was still raging. I hung posters and passed out fliers, and eventually people poured into the streets and into a park in downtown L.A. to join us in saying “Not Another War.”

It seemed everyone we passed agreed with us. Iraq was proven to be a disaster, invading Iran would only make things worse.

In the hot L.A. sun, as our protest was beginning to start, a group of fairly wealthy, middle eastern people suddenly appeared in the square. There were only about twenty of them. Both men and women stood their, hostilely glaring at us. The men wore militaristic white uniforms and ball caps. The women carried umbrellas. Both the umbrellas and ball caps bore a symbol that contained the image of a Lion and a saber, that being the logo of the Shah, the U.S. backed monarch of Iran who had been installed by the U.S. government.

This crowd of wealthy Iranian exiles began pushing and shoving people. The LAPD sat by and laughed to themselves as an all out fight broke out. We outnumbered the Iranian exiles by a couple hundred, but most of the pacifists in the audience thought we should just ignore the violence, and flash them peace signs.

Eventually, after a scuffle and a near arrest of a bystander, the Iranian exiles left. The entire time of their visit they chanted “regime change in Iran!” over and over again. In response, the Iranians on our side, who also outnumbered them, chanted “Savak! Savak! Savak!” This was the name of the Shah’s secret police force which tortured and murdered people at the behest of the CIA.

Luckily, other than a few bruises and bloody noses, everyone was alright. The Iranian exiles didn’t harm us to much.

Interestingly, this protest was not just held by friends of Workers World Party. The Revolutionary Communist Party, the International Socialist Organization, the Spartacist League, News & Letters, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and countless other factions of the U.S. left were present at the demonstration.

The Iranian exiles attacked all of us equally. They violently hated anybody who would defend Iran from the attacks of the U.S.

I learned from speaking with some Iranians who opposed having their homeland turned into the new Iraq, that these Iranian exiles got millions of dollars from the U.S. government. Though they had very little support in Iran and probably 95% of their party resided in the U.S. or Britain, they were able to make themselves look powerful, because the U.S. media and the Government liked what they had to say, and gave them plenty of money to say it.

So interestingly now that nearly a year after I saw members of the ISO, RCP, and other leftist groups being attacked by the Iranian “democracy” movement these groups have switched sides. Now, RCP and ISO believe that the Iranian “student movement” and “democracy movement” should be supported. The newspapers of these organizations are hailing the very people who assaulted them for protesting against imperialism as “heroes” and “revolutionaries.”

It is so ironic.

Iran today is under constant threat from the U.S. Iran is being denied the right to establish nuclear power. Iran is being punished for not allowing the U.S. to control its oil resources. Iran has good relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Bolivarian Revolution in Latin America, and the resistance to Zionist occupation of Palestine.

Iran, despite many of its less desirable domestic policies, is carrying out massive welfare programs. Iran is the only country in the middle east where the living conditions of the people are not declining due to the economic crisis, because unlike Egypt, Jordan, and other nations which allow their country to be raped by U.S. oil companies, the Iranian government uses the oil profits in the state-run oil corporation to feed the people, not line the pockets of U.S. capitalists and bankers.

Iran is not a paradise. Iran is not the ideal world. Iran is under a very theocratic and socially conservative government. In terms of women’s rights, LGBT liberation, and religious freedom, Iran is not the ideal that I am taught to worship as a student of political science at the U.S. institutions of higher learning.

But Iran is not being attacked for this.

Egypt is a brutal military dictatorship, and not demonized for it, but rather one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid in the world.

Saudi Arabia is famous for public beheadings, floggings, and torture of dissidents, homosexuals, and religious minorities. Bush regularly hugged the leaders of the Saudi Royal Family, and Barack Obama has even gone as far as to bow to them.

But Iran is singled out as a bastion of “Islamo-Fascism” by the United States.

As is almost universally the case, unless a mass movement forces otherwise, the U.S. claims of “Human Rights Violations” never seem to come unless the regime posses some kind of economic threat to the pockets of the wealthy.

Saddam Hussein, was the U.S.’s good friend until he sided with the USSR and stopped giving good deals on oil. Then he became an “evil dictator.” Prior to that he and Donald Rumsfeld were shaking hands, and he was being given CIA training for his military.

But how do I know the Iranian protest movement is not a mass movement of the Iranian people for a MORE anti-imperialist regime?

It’s very easy to tell. The Iranian “democracy” movement is being championed by all the wrong people. I am currently receiving e-mails from “Human Events” magazine, the publication of Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan, attacking Obama for not supporting these “dissidents” enough.

CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and the rest of the pro-U.S. media are all casting nothing but positive glows of admiration on these “revolutionaries.”

If the Iranian student movement were a movement for progress, the U.S. press would not be cheering. The U.S. press did not cheer when Chinese Workers and Peasants threw the bureaucracy within the Chinese Communist Party out and established the Shanghai Commune during the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.”

Yes, students, workers, and peasants were in the streets of China calling the leaders of the country corrupt and demanding change.

The U.S. media calls this “mass movement” in “totalitarian China” a “brutal coup” and “crime against humanity.”

However, in 1989, when a group of the privileged bureaucracy's children put up a model of the statue of liberty and began randomly killing members of the People’s Liberation Army, this was a “righteous revolt” of the “oppressed Chinese masses.”

The African National Congress which resisted apartheid was called a Terrorist Organization by the U.S. media. Nelson Mandela was once on the same list that Osama Bin Laden now sits on, that being the "foreign terror" list of the U.S. State Department.

The overthrow of Salvador Allende’s democratic government in Chile was “progress” according to the Chicago School of Economics and its “freedom” and “liberty” campaigns.

Watch the footage from Iran.

Iran is an impoverished country. But the student “democracy” movement is not being carried out by impoverished people. It is concentrated in Tehran, the richest city. It also concentrated among the college students, in a country where most people don’t have access to secondary education.

Yes, these “oppressed masses” look hardly anything like the people who fought the police in Watts in 1993, or the U.S. Anti-War Movement of the 1960s.

No, these “oppressed people”, are almost universally acknowledged to be college students. They wear trendy western style clothes. I wouldn't be surprised if they are sipping mocha's and lattes on their way to these "protests." Perhaps they drive to them in SUVs or better yet, Hyrbids. (They are "activists", remember...)

I don’t see any red flags. I suspect a statue of liberty might go up next. Perhaps they will hang a picture of George W. Bush on the wall during their next “sit-in” and scream before the CNN cameras:

“Why can’t Obama do for us, what Bush did for Iraq!”

One must have an understanding of world events that isn’t based on emotions and gut feelings.

When one hears of how the Iranian regime treated the leadership of the Communist movement in Iran after assuming power, one grows especially angry, no doubt.

But one must keep in mind, that the Iranian revolution was an advance over the Shah’s regime. Prior to the Shah, Iran was a “western-style democracy.” When the Iranian people voted to nationalize the oil, the “western-style democracy” was smashed. The Shah’s reign of terror was not just political repression; it was also economic theft.

As oil was pumped out of Iran’s oil fields, the Iranian people did not benefit from it. Poverty soared higher and higher everyday. The Shah sat back and watched as the U.S. exploited the Iranian people’s natural resources.

The Iranian revolution established Iranian control over Iranian oil fields. It didn’t establish Women’s rights. It didn’t establish LGBT liberation. It didn’t establish secularism. It didn’t establish democracy, let alone Socialism.

But it did establish nationalization of the oil.

The Iranian “democracy movement”, the people who attacked me and my fellow anti-war activists a year ago, is not about women’s rights, LGBT liberation, secularism, democracy, or Socialism. The Iranian “democracy” movement is overwhelmingly about moving backward.

The U.S. wants Iranian oil back, now more than ever.

Russia’s oil fields are now in the hands of an Anti-U.S. regime. Venezuela is moving toward Socialism, along with Bolivia. Oil vessels coming from the middle east are being hijacked by Somali “pirates.”

The Anti-U.S. bloc of nations, including China, the DPRK, Nepal, Cuba, Zimbabwe, and many others is getting the worlds oil resources under its control. When they control them, they can be used to feed people, to redistribute wealth, and to threaten U.S. domination.

If the U.S. wishes to continue controlling the world, it needs Iran’s oil as quickly as possible.

The kind of Democracy the U.S. likes can be found in “chop chop square” in Saudi Arabia, in GITMO, in Israeli Cluster Bombs, in old photographs of southern Jim-crow lynchings, and in the names written on the memorial to those murdered by Augusto Pinochet in Chile.

The U.S. media, the Pentagon, and Wall Street have never been champions of “popular movements.” Don’t be fooled. It’s embarrassing, especially for other Marxists.



The Iranian "democracy" fought for by the "student movement" can be seen above. These people were murdered by the Shah, before the Islamic Revolution took away this "free society."

Iranian Leader Defends Against Counter-Revolutionary CIA Disruptions

Workers World Editorial: Iran, What Fraud?

Published Jun 17, 2009 4:27 PM

The first thing to make clear about the Iranian election is that the U.S. and other imperialist states have no right to intervene. The media here are now filled with moralizing, even racist scolding of Iran over the election results. Who are they to act so hoity-toity? Remember George W. Bush’s open theft of the 2000 election in Florida?

And then there are the self-righteous European imperialists. Only 43 percent of the people voted in the recent EU elections. Compared to that, Iran’s 82 percent vote makes it a vibrant capitalist democracy.

The second thing is that absolutely no evidence has been dredged up of significant electoral fraud. Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s 62.6 percent total is completely consistent with his 2005 vote total of 61.7 percent. It is also consistent with the only election poll taken. Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty polled a thousand Iranians and predicted a two-to-one win for Ahmadinejad. (Washington Post, June 15)

Given that the Iranian economy is continuing to grow, despite the world capitalist contraction, it’s reasonable that a majority would vote for the incumbent.

The vote breakdown by neighborhood, as provided by the official election authorities, is also consistent with political reality. Ahmadinejad lost in Teheran City, a bourgeois stronghold. He was weakest in the wealthier northern part of the capital. But he swept the rural areas and did well among the urban poor.

All the Iranian candidates—and here we will discuss just the president and his nearest rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi—are part of the Islamic Republic’s ruling circle of politicians. It would be surprising if any deviated far from generally acceptable politics in Iran. That means capitalist economic development and projecting Iranian power in the region. And maintaining some independence from the imperialists—not easy if your economy is integrated with the world capitalist market.

Ahmadinejad is closely identified with militant support for the mass-based resistance movements in Palestine and Lebanon, and also with the determined public defense of Iran’s nuclear power program. With a high vote for him, the Iranians thumb their noses at the imperialists. This also explains the strong hostility from the U.S. ruling class.

In Iran, the reelected president is also considered a populist who will fight for economic concessions to Iran’s poor—which explains his strong popularity outside the middle-class and wealthy districts.

Mousavi was first seen as a reformer who might relax cultural and social restrictions and give more leeway to organize for rights. He got some support from women’s organizations, labor and even some progressive circles. By the end of the campaign, however, Mousavi was obviously allied with the power broker and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom Ahmadinejad defeated handily in the 2005 election.

All reports—even from anti-Ahmadinejad sources here—describe the Mousavi-Rafsanjani followers as the wealthier, college-educated Iranians who dwell in the cities.

Rafsanjani, who still holds a position of power in the regime, is identified with the wealthiest sector of Iranian society, with privatizing industries, with a more conciliatory approach to imperialism. Mousavi is now linked to him, and it’s their grouping that the imperialists either want to win or want to cause enough internal trouble to weaken the government. In the end, what the imperialists want is to reverse the Iranian revolution and get back control over its rich resources.

But 2009 is not 1953, when the CIA overthrew Prime Minister Mossadegh and installed the Shah. The Iranian people have benefitted enormously from their revolution and cannot easily be turned back.
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Video: George Galloway Speaks in Cleveland

This Clip Shows The Introduction


This shows clips from his speech, including responses to the accusation of Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism, as well as the crimes of Zionism.



In This Clip He Speaks of Building the International Aid Brigades to Gaza.


In this clip he answers a question from a Fascist who maintains that Isreal's existance was secured because "the Jews control America." Galloway rips this fascist lie, perpetuated by the Ron Paul/John Birch Society Fascists, to shreds, and exposes it as a tool against the people.

Two Wars At Once

Printed in the Exponent Campus Newspaper under the title "Two Wars"

By Caleb T. Maupin
Contributing Writer

There is a lot of talk about the war in Iraq and the horrible things that are occurring in the Middle East. The war in Iraq should be ended as soon as possible. But it is not the only war that is going on. Right now in this country, there is another war, a war against the people.

Workers are losing so much. Wages are going down. People are losing their benefits. This year there are record evictions. Countless people are losing their homes due to the trickery of the bankers, and the bad state of the economy. So many jobs are disappearing, and workers are being forced to compete with people in the third world who will work for nearly nothing.
What more, a war against black Americans is taking place. Look at what is happening in Jena, Louisiana. Look at the amount of poverty there is in the inner cities. Look at how often we hear about police brutality and killings of black people.

A war against immigrants is occurring. In an effort to divide us, the media is whipping up anti-immigrant bigotry. They never mention that the reason so many immigrants are coming to this country is because the same corporations that are screwing us, have done horrors to the people of countries like Mexico and El Salvador. They never mention that in Mexico if workers seek a better life through organizing for it, the U.S. backed government is happy to suppress them with sheer brutality.
Gay people continue to be demonized 24 hours a day on “Christian” broadcasts, where Bible thumpers preach that gay people are “sinners” and will “go to hell”.

There is clearly a war against the people going on at the same as the war in Iraq. The big corporations, the people own the banks, factories, and oil wells are supporting the U.S. in dropping explosive and sometimes even chemical bombs in Iraq, at the same time they are dropping economic, racist, anti-immigrant, and homophobic bombs on us.

But we are fighting back. On Sept. 29th, there was a huge march of students, trade unionists, black nationalists, immigrants, and many others demanding “Stop the War at Home and Abroad.” Just like the Iraqis are fighting to win a better life for themselves by throwing the U.S. invaders out of their country, we must fight for ourselves by demanding that the robber barons and greedy exploiters who grip power be put in their place by a strong movement of the people.

I think we can do it. All power to the people!

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College Republicans Go Gleefully to Iraq (Satire)

By Staff Writer Caleb T. Maupin

There are many places that college students go to escape from the stressful world of books, grades, and bleeding-heart socialist professors. Some will backpack through Europe, others will celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or spend their spring break highly intoxicated and “going wild.”
But the College Republicans of Baldwin-Wallace are going to a place not many college-aged youth plan on going to--at least happily, that is.
Yes, the Baldwin-Wallace College Republicans are going to Iraq.
“I’ve heard about it on TV,” said one of them. “Every time I see it, I get so much more excited about going.”
When asked what she looked forward to, she responded, “Everyone I see on the news talking about Iraq looks so happy. They are always showing smiling kids going to school for the first time. I mean, in Iraq, when you vote you get to finger paint! How cool is that!”
When asked about the reports of death and violence, she went on, “Whenever there is any bad news about Iraq, it’s just liberal propaganda. I mean, look at all these ‘explosions.’ What do we do in this country to celebrate our freedom? Hello! Fireworks! The Iraqis are so happy that George Bush liberated them they are setting off fireworks all the time. We should have a blast. Imagine the Fourth of July at least 90 times every day!”
Another leader of the College Republicans made it clear that he would be paying his own way to Iraq, and not doing any military service while there.
“If I join the military and go to Iraq, the government has to pay for it. That’s called Socialism. I’m going to enjoy this democratic tropical paradise with the money my grandfathers’ fathers’ father earned. That’s the American way!”The College Republicans plan on having a topless dance party in Fallujah, as well as a hotdog roast in one of the large Mosques in the Sunni triangle.
“We’re going to show the Iraqis some of the things they can do now that they are free. They will probably join us in our celebrations of their new freedoms. I can’t wait to see the excited looks on their faces. They have been dreaming about seeing someone do the vicious Anti-Islamic things we’ve planned on doing for years.”
When asked if they thought the Iraqis would be offended they answered, “It’s only a small minority of people in Iraq that don’t love absolutely everything about the West. I heard on the Rush Limbaugh show that they are considering renaming Iraq ‘the new America.’”
When asked if there were concerns about being hurt on their visit, they responded, “When we turn on FOX news, we never see any rotting bodies, or dead children, or hospitals being bombed, or people being tortured. So, obviously it isn’t happening. The trip should be great. Now sign up for it if you don’t hate freedom!”
The College Republicans will have a sign-up sheet for the trip, and other Republican literature, in the Union during meal times.
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