[P2P-F] Fwd: AfGJ Statement on Election of Donald Trump

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alliance for Global Justice <AFGJ at afgj.org>
Date: Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 4:44 AM
Subject: AfGJ Statement on Election of Donald Trump
To: michelsub2004 at gmail.com


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AfGJ Statement on the Election of Donald Trump as US President
<http://org2.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=1W1W5j2TyAgIDxJ0CaRCDeubvQTyYiEB>

Para leer en español
<http://org2.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=YU9l8meJUjmmKICeWhEg2eubvQTyYiEB>

We find ourselves today in a worldwide struggle such as we have never seen
before.  We are not only confronting the destructive nature of
neoliberalism and imperialist wars, we are in a race towards the end of the
world as we know it with respect to ecological degradation.

With Donald Trump we will have a United States president who speaks eagerly
about the possible use of nuclear weapons, who does not believe in climate
change and who wants to significantly advance extractivism and the oil and
coal industries.

We will have a president openly motivated by racism. This racism will not
only define a repressive political character within the US, but will be a
guiding principle in international relations. Racism has always been an
underlying aspect of the US experience. But with Trump, we are already
seeing an aggressive legitimization of violent racism in our streets and
this will certainly be reflected in the government’s comportment towards
other countries of the world.

Nevertheless, equal to the possibilities for destruction, we also have the
possibility for a new era of people’s internationalism.  While many of us
are in a state of shock with the election of Trump, we cannot stand idly
by. We need to soberly assess where we are. The tools we need to advance
our revolutionary cause already exist in the real world. We must know what
they are and how to use them.

We of the Alliance for Global Justice are focused on struggles against
Empire and for popular democracy, especially with respect to the Empire’s
policies toward Latin America, which we understand as US military and
political power in service to transnational capitalism.

Since the election of Trump, we have received requests from friends and
partners in other countries concerning what to expect from a Trump
administration. This declaration is our answer to these solicitations.

We must start by talking about what the election signifies for the US
people. There exists a great polarization here. We are divided politically
between a strong extreme right wing and a popular movement of resistance
that is also strong, but less organized, less united. That popular movement
has produced important uprisings. For instance, the Occupy movement
popularized the language of class struggle with its identification of the
1%, or the wealthy and the capitalists, as the primary source of repression
in the country and the world. We have been able to mount large movements
against wars, for immigrant rights, for the Earth, against Free Trade
Agreements (FTAs), against mass incarceration, and more. But we have lacked
the political consciousness to sufficiently sustain them.

Additionally, the press, the government and the capitalist powers work
every day to diminish our voices and to isolate and marginalize us, but
they can’t do it. We keep coming back and won’t be eliminated.

With the Black Lives Matter movement against racist police brutality we
have seen something that may have staying power. We also see this
possibility with struggles against oil and gas pipelines such as the
Keystone pipeline. Today that movement is focused on stopping the Dakota
Access Pipeline that would pass through traditional territory of the
Standing Rock Sioux, violating sacred sites and threatening the nation’s
only water supply as well as the Missouri River, one of North America’s
most important water sources.

What we in AfGJ have known and said many times is that the US is going to
change and the one option we don’t have is that we can maintain the status
quo. The US is going to turn to the Left toward popular democracy or to the
Right toward fascism, more war, more exploitation. With the victory of
Trump we see the latter, unless we can mount a durable opposition in the
streets.

The election of Trump is a terrible victory for bigotry and hate.  Trump
frequently expressed extreme racist and sexist remarks and encouraged
violence on the part of his supporters. Those who voted for him heard
these, which means they either agreed or were not sufficiently motivated to
confront them. But his election also reveals something profound for the
Left and the Right. Neoliberal capitalism isn’t working for the middle and
working class. More than anything else, those who voted for Donald Trump
were voting against the political establishment and business as usual which
has crushed the aspirations of working class people.

We know that Trump does not represent all the US people, or even a
majority. Of those with the right to vote, 45% did not vote at all.
Participation in the presidential election was the lowest in 20 years.
There are many obstacles that block electoral participation of many
citizens. There are many people who have lost all faith in the US electoral
system. This is easy to understand considering we have a system that does
everything in its power to prevent the emergence of a campaign that
confronts transnational corporate greed and that truly addresses itself to
the most fundamental concerns of poor and working families. In fact, in our
so-called democracy, a person can become president even when they lose the
popular vote. That happened with George W. Bush in 2000 and, again, with
Donald Trump in 2016.

This election was not so much a victory for Trump as a defeat for Hillary
Clinton and her allies in the Democratic Party. Although people fear Trump,
we know Clinton. We remember that during her husband’s administration, she
supported or was silent when he dismantled our welfare system, went to war
in Yugoslavia, bombed and maintained sanctions against Iraq, passed laws
that raised our incarceration rate to the highest in the world, passed the
North American Free Trade Agreement and began construction of the border
wall. We remember how Hillary Clinton supported wars against Afghanistan,
Iraq and Libya and how she wants to escalate a war in Syria that would be
directed toward regime change. We remember that she supported the coup
against the elected government in Honduras as well as ongoing coup attempts
in Venezuela, and that she pushed forward the Free Trade Agreement with
Colombia and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In all the political
world of the Democrats, they chose as their candidate the one person who
could not mobilize and inspire a successful campaign against Donald Trump.

What can we expect from a Trump administration? There is a mountain of
reasons for us to be worried. But we should also recognize that with Trump
we have a window of opportunity regarding two matters. Although Trump is a
dedicated imperialist, he wants to normalize relations with Russia and
cooperate with them with respect to Syria. Nevertheless, Trump has also
promised to escalate military activities of the US in Syria and we must
oppose these. We simply cannot trust in the designs of the US oligarchy or
the Pentagon and we must oppose any further US military intervention in the
region.

Another opportunity has to do with the struggle against
corporation-friendly FTAs. For many years, the leadership of both the
Republicans and Democrats has pursued passage of FTAs despite the fact that
both Party bases opposed them. On the Left, we do not want what Trump
wants, which is protectionism. We want fair trade and community based
economies and sustainable agriculture. But we have a good opportunity to
advocate for the repeal of existing FTAs and to defeat the Trans-Pacific
Partnership.

With respect to relations with Latin America, there are clear dangers.
Trump promised to end normalization with Cuba. He poke in racist terms
about immigrants from Mexico and his desire to massively detain and deport
those without documents, and to militarize the border even more than it
already is. His policies will result in a witch hunt not only against
immigrants, but against all Latinos since, by virtue of skin color, culture
and language, they will be targets for racial profiling.

There is no struggle more important in the world than the struggle for
climate and ecological justice. Trump does not believe in climate change
and is committed to developing more mines, more oil wells, more pipelines,
more out of control and unsustainable consumerism for obscene profits for
the very few. He wants to end whatever international accords or policies we
have to confront climate change.

We simply must unite in common cause for the defense and integrity of our
ecosystems and communities. The opportunity that presents itself now is the
possibility to raise up international resistance that can truly challenge
the power of Empire and its drive toward environmental collapse.

Many times AfGJ has offered our solidarity to popular struggles in Latin
America and the world. We now ask for solidarity. With Trump we are going
to see increased attacks against our people of African heritage,
undocumented immigrants, Latinos, the indigenous, Muslims, women, the
working class, the poor, LGBTIQ people, and the environment. The solidarity
we need can take many forms. For example, we hope that a President Trump
can never travel anywhere in the world without being met by massive
demonstrations against his presence. With Trump as president, we expect
that many people of the world will plan NOT to travel to Disney World, the
Grand Canyon, New York City, and other popular tourist attractions. This
informal boycott can have a positive effect by showing economically that
racism and nativism has consequences. By the same token, a cultural
boycott, such as exists against Israel, could be another helpful
consequence. If global citizens show their solidarity through how they
spend their money, that would be an act aimed precisely where capitalism
and Empire are most vulnerable.

But more than anything, we need two forms of solidarity. First of all, we
need to learn and take inspiration from our international comrades,
especially from the movements in Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and
every place where the people have achieved defeats of their enemies and
have won popular power. Above all we ask our friends and partners that you
continue your struggles against the Empire and that you defend your
anti-imperialist and popular governments and movements.

We the people of the United States also suffer the effects of imperialism.
The Empire robs us of our resources, submits us to injustice and represses
our workers, our students, our communities, our oppressed peoples in order
to advance its militaristic and exploitative adventures around the world.
We understand that international liberation struggles are part of our own
liberation struggle. We believe that together, we can make a better world a
reality, a world the size of our dreams.


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