Threat of imperialist war: How Occupy movement must react

Sara Flounders WW photo: workers.tv

Excerpts from a talk by WWP Secretariat member Sara Flounders at the Oct. 8-9 Workers World Party National Conference in New York City.

There are unique moments in history when people’s consciousness becomes a material force, an explosive and even revolutionary force. What was for too long acceptable suddenly becomes intolerable.

It is why our revolutionary workers party exists in the U.S. We always consider how to push and help to grow an emerging movement in the direction of revolutionary change. We focus on how to involve the most oppressed. They will be the most determined force because they have the most at stake in change.

After years of passivity in the face of unrelenting attack on U.S. workers’ lives, jobs, homes and futures, there is a beginning response. Millions of people are becoming aware that capitalism has no solutions, no jobs and no recovery on the horizon.

Imperialist war is a danger to the new Occupy Wall Street movement. The racism and right-wing reaction that accompany every imperialist war are the greatest threat to every progressive movement and to every gain that worker struggles have won. War is the weapon that the bourgeoisie uses to destroy class consciousness and allow reaction and fear to take hold.

Imperialist wars since 9/11 strengthened the forces of political reaction and repression. Homeland Security, the FBI, CIA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement coordinate with local police in entrapment, intimidation, frame-ups, raids and deportations. They will threaten the OWS movement as they already threaten people of color, especially immigrants, Muslims, and anti-war and political activists.

In this new movement, politics and demands take on great importance. We’ve contributed by raising the campaign to “Stop the racist execution of Troy Davis” and by moving anti-war demonstrations to Wall Street with slogans like “Wall Street = War Street” and “We need jobs, not war and racism.” Racism and war are the essence of capitalism.

The ruling class — the bourgeoisie, the owners of capital — has centuries of experience in destroying class consciousness and rerouting workers’ demands into channels that don’t challenge their ownership of everything in society. They aim to funnel movements into safe, electoral channels, and they are sophisticated at using racism and reaction to divide and disorient a section of the population.

Imperialist wars are a dagger pointed at the movement here. Wars are meant to — and have succeeded in the past at — dividing and even causing workers’ movements to collapse.

Recent U.S. imperialist wars have been spectacular failures and have not repositioned U.S. power. After 10 years in Afghan­istan, the U.S. position is worsening. The most powerful weapons in history have not prevailed against one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries.

The U.S./NATO war in Libya was a desperate attempt to push back the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions and move aggressively into Africa. Immediate collapse was predicted in Libya, but heroic resistance went on for seven months through non-stop U.S./NATO bombing and unimaginable destruction, targeting the civilian infrastructure.

U.S. imperialism is driven to war, and can’t do without it, even though the imperialists are less able to prevail. Their failure to reverse their deteriorating global position will propel these predators to larger adventures. We don’t know if the next war will be against Syria, Iran, Sudan, Korea, Venezuela or China.

In the center of this empire that has tentacles worldwide, we need to help this emerging movement to develop an automatic reflex to imperialist war propaganda, and not to believe the racist demonization that is used to justify a war or the hype about democracy or “humanitarian intervention.”

Educate the movement

Too many political activists are taken in, confused and disoriented, echoing the corporate media. We must educate this movement to focus on the outrageous crime being committed by the Pentagon’s giant death machine and refuse to accept any justification for the attack.

Activists must refuse to side with a racist attack, whether in response to an imperialist war of aggression or a lynch mob, a police attack on an oppressed community or a boss’s attack on a union. No one should join an orchestrated vilification campaign that blames the victims.

Stand in solidarity with all oppressed people under attack. That must be ABC.

If the U.S. corporate media, the White House and the State Department praise a struggle, a leader or a movement as a liberating force and claim a struggle is for democracy, be suspicious. They only want corporate domination.

Even if we disagree with some policies of a regime that U.S. imperialism targets, we should refuse to accept the bogus justifications for U.S. involvement.

The whole world is following what is happening at Wall Street and in U.S. cities. Our party can contribute a lot based on our experience in past struggles and on our class understanding of the international capitalist system.

Let us do all that we can to build and defend this new movement.