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US Imperialism, Domestic Police Aggression, and Worker Agitation
This Political Update was presented at the April 17, 2021 General Meeting of the New York Young Communist League, by Co-Chair Justine Medina. If you are interesting in being involved and live in N.Y. State or the NYC Metro Area, email our Coordinating Committee at NewYorkYCL@gmail.com or join us at one of our events!
I want to share with the collective some thoughts on recent political events, and pose some questions along the way to, perhaps, help us collectively steer our work in the months to come.
Opposing US Imperial Aggression
US imperialism and international aggression continue to be the biggest threat to human peace, prosperity, safety, and even survival around the globe. We have seen that Biden, and his Secretary of State, Blinken, have no shame in doubling down on most if not all of the Trump administration’s nightmare foreign policy agenda. We’ve seen the heightened Cold war aggression against China, propaganda and media aggression daily, full of exaggerations and false claims; US economic aggression against the region; as well as increased Military Presence. We just passed the biggest military budget in history, much of it explicitly targeting China. In the Middle East, not only did the Biden administration bomb Syria earlier this year, we have seen recently that they do not plan to pull out of Afghanistan (perhaps in the fall, though we’ll see) -- and even if our military pulls out, there has been and will continue to be an increase in private contract mercenaries in the region. And of course, around the globe, US capitalists refuse to give up patent rights to Covid vaccines, contributing to thousands upon thousands of deaths a day, particularly in the Global South. Closer to home, Biden continues to be aggressive to Latin American countries, but also is pushing anti-immigrant policies of his own: continuing to build the Wall, and originally announcing that he would not be lifting Trump’s cap on refugees, only reversing after intense outcry (He will release his increase later this summer; I don’t expect it to be much). What can we do to combat this aggression, aggression that has bipartisan consensus? How do we rally left, progressive, and anti-imperialist forces together to rebuild the peace movement and hold the line against US imperialism?
Uniting the People’s Movements Against Racist Violence
On the domestic front, as things are getting “back to normal” we’ve seen a return to our “normal” of increased (returned) mass shootings, often shootings in the form of increased racist violence: anti-Asian violence (directly tied to US aggression against China and news media stoking fear), and in particular continued horrific anti-Black and anti-brown violence and murders by police, including against children (on top of an already brutal police and prison system, the most violent in the world, meant only to extract value from the poor workers, many of whom are Black and brown). In response to this violence, we see a return to more protesters in the streets. Perhaps not the historic numbers we saw last year, but it is clearly a continuation of a real people’s movement spanning political ideologies, calling for an end to the racist violence, and those protestors are met with more police brutality. How do we support and forward the calls to 'abolish police' and 'abolish prisons,' to 'stop asian hate'? How do we build solidarity across the oppressed, brutalized, colonized, and imprisoned classes of this country; tie our struggles together as workers to fight the common enemy of the capitalist class?
Winning Policies for Workers
Still, we have recently seen some small local victories: the #TaxTheRich campaign, while not coming anywhere close to getting its demands, was able to prevent an austerity budget out of Albany, get a 7-billion dollar increase to fund and pass some genuinely good bills, perhaps helped by the recent scandals against Governor Andrew Cuomo, so he is more amenable to signing laws he was loathe to pass before: The legalization of marijuana; the passing of the HALT solitary confinement bill to end long term solitary confinement (though still allowing 15 day stays, which are brutal, much better than 6 months, a year, more!); the Excluded Workers Fund (giving at least some relief to undocumented immigrants not covered by the meager pandemic assistance we’ve gotten in New York). However, nationally and locally we are still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic (over 5000 covid deaths across the country last week, with 500 deaths in NY state alone). We still face huge economic crises, with mass unemployment, mass evictions, and millions who are homeless or on the verge of homelessness. How do we get the rent relief, the economic support we need from our government? How do we build support for the legislation being pushed by progressives to give real stimulus relief, real housing assistance?
And while union agitation, strikes are continuing to grow, with new unions forming every week across the country, the big major wins we need are far off -- which we can see in reflecting on the unionization struggles at Amazon in Bessemer. We need to fight for the rights of workers; we need legislation such as the PRO Act; can we get it passed? How can we help in that fight? How can we support and build up the working class movement and militant unions in addition?
These are some of the most important political fights of our current moment, and indeed, will be the challenges that in many ways define this decade; what can we as Communists, and even more as Communist Youth, bring to these fights to tangibly build power for the working class and advance the cause of socialism?
These are the questions we must reflect on. These are the battles we must win.
