For class-struggle in defense of immigrant rights and against state repression.
The cowardly murder of Guillermo Martinez, an 18 year old undocumented worker who was shot on the back with hollow point bullets by U.S. Border Patrol agents at the San Ysidro border area on December 30 of 2005 shows the complete disregard for human life by the agents of the racist U.S. government, and is also indicative of the everyday workings of the capitalist state. The mass murder and terror bombing of innocent people in Iraq, the (not so) secret torture chambers and prisons that the CIA runs all over the world are not anomalies, they are part of a structure that seeks to protect the investments and geopolitical interests of the U.S. capitalist class; This is why it is recognized that the state is not a neutral entity that looks after the interests of the mass of the population, but that it is simply the executive committee of the bourgeoisie. The domestic equivalents of their “policies” have been suffered by the racial minorities and ghetto poor that inhabit this country for too long. An example of this has been the “war on drugs” programs that have only meant cop-terror shooting rampages and the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. We had a glimpse of the capitalist state in action after hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans. Those naïve enough to expect some help from the government received only cops with machine guns and National Guard troops (the same one shooting people in Iraq) protecting private property, impeding people from getting a loaf of bread. Activists in the U.S. have encountered the state through such programs as the FBI’s COINTELPRO that spied on every leftist sounding group there ever was and that murdered most of the leadership of the Black Panther Party. Now we find the extension of the Patriot Act, military tribunals, the status of “enemy combatant”, etc.
At the same time that the U.S. government and corporations advocate globalization, neoliberalism, and the tearing down of barriers for their products, and while they plunder country after country, creating generalized poverty among the native populations, they seek to create a fence that covers the border from California to Texas. They seek to criminalize the people who try to find a job outside of their colonial or semi-colonial countries to survive. They declare them “illegal”, thereby making it legal to push them to the desert and mountains so they can die -more than four hundred people die trying to cross the border every year-, or to shoot them in the back. They unleash their fascist thugs such as the racist vigilantes known as the Minutemen. The capitalist class finds all of this is as great for business. They have vast amounts of cheap labor, and they find the perfect scapegoats for any economic crisis that might take place.
Towards the existing anti-immigrant demagogy pushed by the ruling class, and against ethnic and racial chauvinism, as well as towards the disgusting cynicism of the racists who forget that the original inhabitants of this continent where almost completely wiped out by the European invaders, and that two-thirds of Mexico was stolen by U.S. imperialism in 1848, we need to respond with class struggle for full citizenship rights for all immigrants. We need to activate a massive unionization drive of all immigrants so they can receive union wages, join together with the oppressed black population and the organized working class. The sell-out leadership of the unions, especially those that advocate unity with the racist-capitalist Democratic Party should be pushed out by one that fights for the historic interests of the working class. From the beginning it should be made clear that borders exist along material scarcity, and that scarcity is a product of the capitalist system of production and exploitation; as historical experience has shown, capitalism can not be reformed, therefore class struggle should be organized to bring about a socialist transformation of society, where the products of human labor will be distributed among the population, and where the institutions will finally serve the interests of all human beings.
The cowardly murder of Guillermo Martinez, an 18 year old undocumented worker who was shot on the back with hollow point bullets by U.S. Border Patrol agents at the San Ysidro border area on December 30 of 2005 shows the complete disregard for human life by the agents of the racist U.S. government, and is also indicative of the everyday workings of the capitalist state. The mass murder and terror bombing of innocent people in Iraq, the (not so) secret torture chambers and prisons that the CIA runs all over the world are not anomalies, they are part of a structure that seeks to protect the investments and geopolitical interests of the U.S. capitalist class; This is why it is recognized that the state is not a neutral entity that looks after the interests of the mass of the population, but that it is simply the executive committee of the bourgeoisie. The domestic equivalents of their “policies” have been suffered by the racial minorities and ghetto poor that inhabit this country for too long. An example of this has been the “war on drugs” programs that have only meant cop-terror shooting rampages and the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. We had a glimpse of the capitalist state in action after hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans. Those naïve enough to expect some help from the government received only cops with machine guns and National Guard troops (the same one shooting people in Iraq) protecting private property, impeding people from getting a loaf of bread. Activists in the U.S. have encountered the state through such programs as the FBI’s COINTELPRO that spied on every leftist sounding group there ever was and that murdered most of the leadership of the Black Panther Party. Now we find the extension of the Patriot Act, military tribunals, the status of “enemy combatant”, etc.
At the same time that the U.S. government and corporations advocate globalization, neoliberalism, and the tearing down of barriers for their products, and while they plunder country after country, creating generalized poverty among the native populations, they seek to create a fence that covers the border from California to Texas. They seek to criminalize the people who try to find a job outside of their colonial or semi-colonial countries to survive. They declare them “illegal”, thereby making it legal to push them to the desert and mountains so they can die -more than four hundred people die trying to cross the border every year-, or to shoot them in the back. They unleash their fascist thugs such as the racist vigilantes known as the Minutemen. The capitalist class finds all of this is as great for business. They have vast amounts of cheap labor, and they find the perfect scapegoats for any economic crisis that might take place.
Towards the existing anti-immigrant demagogy pushed by the ruling class, and against ethnic and racial chauvinism, as well as towards the disgusting cynicism of the racists who forget that the original inhabitants of this continent where almost completely wiped out by the European invaders, and that two-thirds of Mexico was stolen by U.S. imperialism in 1848, we need to respond with class struggle for full citizenship rights for all immigrants. We need to activate a massive unionization drive of all immigrants so they can receive union wages, join together with the oppressed black population and the organized working class. The sell-out leadership of the unions, especially those that advocate unity with the racist-capitalist Democratic Party should be pushed out by one that fights for the historic interests of the working class. From the beginning it should be made clear that borders exist along material scarcity, and that scarcity is a product of the capitalist system of production and exploitation; as historical experience has shown, capitalism can not be reformed, therefore class struggle should be organized to bring about a socialist transformation of society, where the products of human labor will be distributed among the population, and where the institutions will finally serve the interests of all human beings.
