For Worker/Immigrant Action to Stop Deportations
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The Internationalist No. 49 September-October 2017 50¢ Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants! For Worker/Immigrant Action to Stop Deportations From Day One, Donald 400-500%, and would continue Trump has been waging a re- to carry out immigration arrests lentless war on immigrants. Af- Internationalist photo around courts and schools (where ter launching his campaign for the I.C.E. agents have been lurk- president by demonizing Mexi- ing, despite supposedly being off- cans as drug dealers, criminals limits along with hospitals and and rapists, he smeared Muslims places of worship). as terrorists. On taking office, The U.S. has become de- his first act was to issue a ban on portation nation. But it’s not refugees, immigrants and visitors just since Republican immigrant- from Middle Eastern countries. basher-in-chief Trump took over. Despite huge protests at the air- Democrat Barack Obama be- ports and court rulings against his came known as deporter-in-chief blatantly discriminatory action, by expelling a record number the racist in the White House is- of immigrants – over 8 million sued a new Muslim ban at the when you include those stopped end of September. Earlier in the near the border. The “well-oiled month he decreed the end of the deportation machine” he hand- Deferred Action for Childhood ed over to his successor is now Arrivals (DACA) program, lift- going into high gear. Under ing the temporary hold on depor- Trump’s executive orders, all 15 tation of almost 800,000 young million or more undocumented immigrants. And in January, the immigrants in the U.S. are poten- Department of Homeland Securi- tially at risk. In early October, the ty (DHS) may end the Temporary White House sent a document to On May 1, Internationalist Group and Trabajadores Internacionales Clasistas joined unionized Protected Status (TPS) of almost Congress outlining 39 measures immigrant workers in New York who marched with signs calling to “strike against deportations.” 60,000 Haitians. for intensifying repression of Meanwhile, the Immigration and Cus- most 100,000 undocumented immigrants, some 28,000 people torn away from their immigrants inside the U.S., including hir- toms Enforcement (I.C.E.) police have been up 43% over the same period last year. The families just because of their immigration ing 15,000 more Border Patrol and I.C.E. terrorizing immigrant communities across DHS claims it “targets criminals,” but the status. Now I.C.E. acting director Thomas agents. In fact, Democrats in Congress the country. In the first seven months of number detained who have no criminal re- Homan has declared that the agency plans voted for many of these measures as part Trump’s administration they detained al- cord at all has almost doubled over 2016, to increase factory and restaurant raids by continued on page 10 The Central Enemy Is the Capitalist State The Fascist Threat, And How to Fight It Suddenly in mid-August, millions blame “violence on many sides,” saying across the country and around the world Times York Edu Bayer for the New not a word about racism. What else would were shocked into awareness of the in- one expect from the white supremacist in festation of outright fascists in the Unit- the White House? ed States. People were horrified as they When Trump’s refusal to condemn watched video footage of the dramatic white supremacists set off a chorus of murder of Heather Heyer (and the injur- complaints from Democrats and especially ing of 19 others) by a Nazi who plowed his Republicans, an anonymous White House car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters in spokesman declared that “of course” he Charlottesville, Virginia. For many it was condemned “white supremacists, K.K.K., a wakeup call, making it crystal clear that neo-Nazi and all extremist groups.” That such racist killers pose a significant and lasted barely two days before Trump was growing threat. The liberal bourgeois me- not just putting an equal sign between rac- dia, as well, were jolted by the sight of hun- ists and anti-racists, but declaring the swas- dreds of action-ready white supremacists, tika-sporting, race-hate-spouting fascists many of them heavily armed, in a Nazi-style to include some “very fine people” and night march with blazing torches chanting denouncing the violence of the “Alt-Left.” Hitlerite slogans like “Blood and soil” (Blut But, significantly, he was soon joined by und Boden) and openly anti-Semitic appeals the Washington Post (the voice of Ama- (“Jews will not replace us”). zon), The Atlantic and other liberals, who The assorted Ku Klux Klans, paramili- Charlottesville, Virginia, August 12: anti-racist demonstrators face off with denounced antifa (anti-fascist) groups as tary fascist militias, Alt-Right fascist “fight helmeted white supremacists and Nazis thirsting for blood. just as bad as the fascists. The aim of this groups,” champions of the Confederate proliferated under the cover of the Repub- suit) declared that they were “going to grotesque equation of wannabe genocidal slavocracy, worshippers of the Third Reich lican regime of Donald Trump. There were fulfill the promises of Donald Trump” to murders with those who seek to stop the and bizarrely costumed Internet publicity the usual Trump election posters and red “take our country back.” So unsurprisingly Nazi-fascists in their tracks was to call for hounds that banded together in the Char- “MAGA” (Make America Great Again) Trump’s reaction to the horrific murder of more police repression. lottesville “Unite the Right” march have caps. Kluxer David Duke (Mr. Klan in a Heather Heyer in Charlottesville was to continued on page 2 and military resources of the bourgeois Fascist Threat... Chad Simmons dictatorship, together with their parlia- continued from page 1 mentary screens, no longer suffice to We must start by calling the fascists hold society in a state of equilibrium by their right names. Liberals seek to – the turn of the fascist regime arrives. make them seem harmless – “verharm- Through the fascist agency, capitalism losen” in German (as in portraying the sets in motion the masses of the crazed “identitarian” Aryan supremacists as only petty bourgeoisie and the bands of de- concerned with preserving cultural iden- classed and demoralized lumpenprole- tity), “dédiaboliser” in French (painting tariat – all the countless human beings the fascist National Front as mere popu- whom finance capital itself has brought lists). In the U.S., along with accepting as to desperation and frenzy.” good coin their cynical pose as champions –“What Next? Vital Questions for the German Proletariat” (1932) of free speech, the media regularly refers After quoting Trotsky’s analysis of to these Confederacy lovers as “white na- tionalists,” making a parallel to black na- victorious fascism, which uses the methods tionalists. The would-be führer of the Alt- of civil war to annihilate the workers’ Right, Richard Spencer, claims to seek a organizations, we stressed: “This scenario is not a description of what “White Ethno-State,” a racist conception is happening in the United States today. in itself. In reality, he is a white suprema- What is happening is plenty dangerous, cist and millionaire Mississippi plantation a drive toward increasing bonapartism, owner1 who yearns for the days of Jim Behind the fascists is the capitalist state. Police protected racist rally in Portland, June 4. Labor mobilization brought out some 300 unionists and supporters. that is military/police rule. Moreover, the Crow segregation. ominous expansion of police powers has For opponents of racist reaction and enforcers stand behind (and often with) Spencer) traveled to New York City been promoted by the Democratic ad- defenders of the oppressed, the poor and their auxiliaries in white sheets and where he killed Timothy Caughman ministrations of Bill Clinton and Barack working people, the issue is starkly posed: brown shirts. That power is the organized with a sword. Obama no less than by the Republican how to defeat these deadly white suprem- working class, and the Internationalist • On May 21, Sean Urbanski (a member Bushes. It is the product of decaying acists. Liberal Democrats usually tell Group has repeatedly called for work- of the Facebook group, Alt-Reich: Na- capitalism which increasingly discards people to ignore the fascists, and rely on ers mobilization and defense guards to tion) stabbed to death African Ameri- its ‘democratic’ trappings.” the police. But the cops are by far the big- CRUSH the fascist threat. Now, before can student Richard Collins III at the –“Donald Trump, the ‘Alt-Right’ and gest, most organized force of racist kill- it grows stronger. University of Maryland’s College Fascism” ers around, and as the enforcers of capi- Park campus where the fascist Van- What Is Fascism? However, we added: “But while neither talist “law and order,” they are often in guard America has been recruiting. Trump nor Bannon are fascists, actual league with and defend the fascists. Vari- The fascists have been growing for • On May 26, Jeremy Christian (who fascists are crawling out of their holes and ous groups that claim to be socialist but some time, often claiming to defend free had attended a “free speech” rally looking forward to the Trump years.” And in reality seek to reform the (unreform- speech, a pretext that the liberals buy into. draped in a Nazi flag) murdered in an article written the day after Trump’s able) capitalist system call to bring out The would-be nightriders and stormtroop- Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and election, we warned: large numbers in alliance with the liberals ers are not trying to convince people of Ricky John Best on a Portland, Ore- “As violent racist and outright fascist for “peaceful protests” that seek to pre- their “ideas,” much less win a popularity gon street car when they came to the forces are emboldened by Trump’s vic- vent protesters from directly confronting contest – they want to instill fear in those aid of two young black women he was tory, Muslims and Middle Eastern im- the fascists to put a stop to their deadly who would be their victims.