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Genocide

The Netanyahu Israeli government rained down U.S.-made bombs provided by Biden on Gaza killing over 40 thousand Palestinians 80 percent of whom are women and children, destroying most housing, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, churches, industry, farms. Wantonly killing health care and aid workers, Israel’s siege starves Palestinians of food, water, medicines, sanitation and electricity. Now Trump wants to ethnically cleanse Gaza and turn it into a resort.

Assassinations

On the African continent Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara, Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Guinea-Bissau’s Amilcar Cabral were all overthrown and assassinated to assist the continued transnational theft of each country’s resources.

Blockades

The Cuban people are now suffering from severe poverty because U.S. sanctions on their country make it extremely difficult for Cuba to import sorely needed fuel, food and medical equipment.

Immigration

Poverty and instability lead millions to uproot their families and migrate out of Africa, Asia and the Americas for the sake of their own survival.

Back home

Poverty has become the 4th leading cause of death in the United States, responsible for 295,000 deaths a year – or over 800 deaths a day.

What is the root cause of these wide-ranging atrocities and many other examples of suffering and injustice?

It’s called U.S. imperialism.

Imperialism is the inevitable outgrowth of putting profits before people and nature. It is advanced monopoly capitalism’s economic, political, diplomatic, social and cultural control of society by the richest corporations to control governments, markets, resources and labor, defiling the earth with pollution to extract maximum profits. Those profits benefit the billionaire class while destroying the planet at the expense of the vast majority.

Imperialism foments direct and proxy wars by pitting countries against each other, e.g. Ukraine and Russia. The goal? To gain markets, appropriate Ukraine’s farmland and minerals along with stealing Russia’s natural resources and ensuring low labor costs.

Imperialism also includes financial, trade and industrial policies often implemented through US control of global institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that disadvantage the poorer, less powerful countries and benefit only the wealthiest monopoly corporations and individuals, who attempt exclusive control over markets. Importantly, these policies also immiserate the U.S. working class.

Examples of these monopoly corporations are the weapons contractors – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Boeing and General Dynamics; fossil fuel giants – Chevron, Exxon, BP, and Shell; financial institutions – JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo; and hedge funds like Bridgewater and BlackRock. Monopolization also includes pharmaceuticals and high tech.

The billionaires and their companies have bought lock, stock and barrel many of the political candidates on our ballots.

The names of the richest billionaires are well known: Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison. These capitalists and others make decisions that affect the lives of billions of people, although we have no vote in the matter. The billionaires and their companies have bought lock, stock and barrel many of the political candidates on our ballots.

These trillion-dollar corporations control much of the world. In 1917 V.I. Lenin called imperialism “The highest stage of capitalism.” Since Lenin’s time imperialism has become global. Capital is still exported and supply chains are increasingly prevalent. Banks and high tech companies dominate the world economy. The three centers of world imperialism, the U.S. the E.U. and Japan are increasingly challenged by emerging imperial powers. U.S. imperialism must confront new centers of power in a growing multipolar planet.

In today’s world, state-supported monopoly capitalism and imperialism are essentially the same thing. For us in the United States, fighting imperialism means fighting the capitalists here at home who keep a tight rein on politics, the economy and maximum profits.

Do working people in the United States benefit from imperialism?

No! Taxpayer money spent on imperialist wars abroad in Ukraine, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and other regions, and on maintaining more than 800 military bases worldwide, almost entirely benefits the armaments industry and other wealthy corporate sectors. The $1.2 trillion military budget, which is 60 percent or more of the Congressional budget, wastes critical resources that could be spent to end poverty, provide housing, health care, infrastructure and all our other essential needs. To survive, workers in our country have to join workers abroad to fight to transition to an alternative, green, peaceful economy, ensuring workers in all industries affected have jobs, appropriate training, or income.

The violence of mass shootings on our streets and by our institutions echoes the mass killings of war that our government wages in other countries. It reflects the “might makes right” mentality, misogyny, and racism imposed by U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. has become the prisonhouse of nations, incarcerating more individuals – disproportionately people of color – than any other nation. Special oppression based on skin color, national origin, sex, and gender divides workers, sapping opportunities and income from the whole working class. Violence meted out to the environment results from the imperative of fossil fuel and other corporations to gain maximum profits and hurts all of us. It generates rapid climate change. It exacerbates environmental injustice to our working class and in particular, people of color.

The U.S. is the richest and most powerful country in history, but living standards are declining with stagnant incomes, unaffordable and substandard housing, education and health care, crumbling infrastructure and increasing insecurity. The extreme right blames the decline in living standards on immigrants entering the southern border and on countries like China, which has gained strength as an economic powerhouse. But these are racist and anti-communist lies. Living standards and the economy for the majority began stagnating in the early 1970s, long before China industrialized. The big capitalists in the U.S. found great profits in moving industries abroad – to China, Mexico, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc. – to take advantage of their low wages, while destroying domestic manufacturing. These oligarchs are the culprits responsible for the loss of good jobs in the U.S.

Yet rather than cooperating or even accepting a challenge to compete economically our ruling class has chosen to demonize China to prevent its further development and to counter its projects that economically develop the poorer nations with sanctions, trade embargoes and military threats.

Wealthy corporations and individuals almost exclusively benefit from imperialism. As many of us worry whether we’ll have a job to pay the rent, be able to send our kids to college or trade school, be able to cover medical costs, or pay the inflated price of food, the super rich have increased their wealth by leaps and bounds since the Great Recession of 2008. In 2019 the top 10 percent of families owned 76 percent of the country’s wealth. Between 2020-2022 during the height of the Covid pandemic, billionaire wealth grew by $1.5 trillion – more than $2 billion a day For working families, it’s getting worse.

Keeping people in other countries in poverty undercuts the position of the U.S. working class because it motivates corporate outsourcing. We should demonstrate solidarity with all workers everywhere to abolish poverty for good everywhere. We must actively support people in poorer countries who rise up to demand better economic conditions and civil and political rights because their enemy is our enemy and their struggle is our struggle! Communist say: “Workers and oppressed peoples of all countries, unite!”

Demands:

In the Israel–Gaza conflict, we demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire and a massive influx of humanitarian aid leading to a just solution for Palestinians and Israelis. We demand that Israel and its supporters abide by International Law as reiterated by the World Court: End Apartheid, end the wars and occupation, remove the settlements and settlers from stolen territory, and allow all refugees to return to historic Palestine.

We demand an end to all U.S. sanctions against Cuba. Immediately remove Cuba from the bogus “State Sponsor of Terrorism” list. Normalize relations with Cuba, which terrorizes no one but is the victim of U.S. terrorism for over 60 years.

We demand that the U.S. stop interfering in Venezuela’s internal affairs, remove sanctions and return stolen Venezuelan property to the Venezuelan people. End all illegal U.S. sanctions on the dozens of other countries targeted by the U.S. capitalist class.

We demand a peaceful, diplomatic resolution of the war in Ukraine. Stop NATO’s expansion and move to abolish it.

We demand the U.S. military stop threats against China and stop rebuilding bases in the Philippines. Close the anti-China THAAD missile system in South Korea, the military bases in Okinawa, and throughout the Indo-Pacific. Dismantle the several aggressive Indo-Asia-Pacific military pacts like AUKUS and the Quad. Reverse the economic wars against China; instead prioritize cooperation on climate, economic, health, and infrastructure.

We demand an end to first-strike nuclear war policies. Sign and abide by treaties to abolish and dismantle all nuclear weapons everywhere.

We demand the prompt and radical cuts to the bloated military budget. Use the money saved to meet people’s needs and transition workers to green jobs.

Image: Fred Barr / CPUSA