The International Socialist Organization
(ISO) is committed to building an
organization that participates in the struggles for justice and
liberation
today--and, ultimately, for a future socialist society.
Israel’s horrific military
invasion of Gaza has elicited international condemnation
and propelled hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets. The
Freedom Socialist Party has sponsored coffeehouses where community
activists discuss the U.S.
role in the current carnage of Gaza and
talk about the worldwide resistance to Israel’s aggressive policies.
We have explored connections between the meltdown on Wall Street and the
actions that have resulted in the deaths of over a thousand
Palestinians. Everyone is encouraged to share overall solutions to
achieve equality and lasting peace in the Middle
East.
the Freedom Socialist Party. For more
information call 503-240-4462 or email fsp@igc.org
.FSP’s statement on
Israel’s invasion of
Gaza appears
below.
____________________________________________________________
Freedom Socialist
Party condemns the Israeli invasion of Gaza
January 6,
2009 The Freedom
Socialist Party denounces Israel’s
horrific military attack on the
residents of Gaza. Israel’s massive use of ground troops
and U.S.-supplied tanks and helicopter gunships is nothing but
indiscriminate slaughter. The invasion comes after more than a week of
vicious aerial bombardments that killed more than 500 and wounded over
2000. And this followed a two-year-long blockade that caused 250 deaths
and the misery and malnutrition of thousands more.
FSP deplores
Israel’s effort to violently crush all resistance
to their inhumane and illegal occupation of Palestine. Israeli authorities have turned the
Gaza strip into
a prison for 1.5 million Palestinians. The blockade has left residents
without basic necessities and now the bombing has destroyed vital
infrastructure including transportation, power and water.
There can be no peace as long as the deadly blockade and invasion
continue!
The outrageous actions of the
Israeli government have met with condemnation and opposition throughout
the Middle East, Europe, the Americas and elsewhere. Hundreds of
thousands of people are marching in the streets and flooding the
internet with demands that their governments condemn
Israel’s unwarranted aggression and
take action to stop the killing.
FSP members and friends are among
protesters calling for an end to anti-Arab racism and violence that is
fueled by the lust of United States,
Israel and other countries for Middle
Eastern oil, land and water. The party also condemns the Bush
administration for actively supporting the present siege and genocidal
air and ground attacks and president-elect Obama for doing nothing to
stop them. This is not the first time that U.S. officials have had Palestinian
blood on their hands.
Both
Israel and the U.S.
attempt to justify their actions by falsely blaming Hamas for breaking
the cease-fire. This claim turns reality on its head.
Israel
and its western allies don’t want a cease-fire with the Hamas
government. They want to overthrow it and install their own puppet
regime. They have publicly said as much. In fact, it was
Israel that broke the cease-fire agreement by its
assassination of six Hamas fighters in Gaza on November 5 and by its refusal to lift
the siege as expected under an Egyptian-brokered deal.
There are some people who, even in the face of Israel’s mass atrocities, hesitate to
oppose its suppression of Hamas because they disagree with the latter’s
ideology and goals. However, the issue at stake now is not Hamas’
Islamic fundamentalism, which the FSP disagrees with, but the right of
the Palestinian people to self-determination and survival in the face of
the overwhelming might of Israeli and U.S. imperialism.
The blatant escalation of Zionist
aggression has reenergized the international movement for Palestinian
rights and is creating new opportunities to organize against the
occupation and the U.S aid that makes it possible. At this time, when
millions of people are reeling from the impact of the world crisis of
the capitalist system, there is a growing recognition among working
people of the need to unite across borders and nationalities. This
international solidarity is our most powerful weapon in fighting back
against the war-mongering leaders of Israel
and their backers in other countries.
FSP urges everyone to take part in
street demonstrations, bring resolutions to labor organizations, write
protests to government officials and give as much support as possible to
the residents of
Gaza and the
Palestinian people who are resisting oppression with their lives.
Go to http://www.endtheoccupation.org
for a listing of actions
to be taken to aid the people of Gaza and a continuously updated calendar of
protest activities.
Stop the siege and
military invasion of Gaza!
U.S. out
of the
Middle East! End the occupation of
Palestine
now!
Posted By Tula Connell On October 22, 2008 @ 6:26 pm In
Economy, Legislation & Politics | No Comments
All the recent talk by the [1]
McCain campaign about socialism is making me long for the time
when this nation didn’t have any socialism—that is, for the pre-Wall
Street bailout days when CEOs weren’t given taxpayer money which
they are now using to buy up other companies, to go on [2]
half-a-million dollar retreats, to [3]
hoard, or to fund [4]
lobbying for, what else? More taxpayer money. In short, doing
everything with our money but what they were supposed to do: return
it to the market so credit again would flow on Wall Street and
Main Street.
Spreading the wealth among CEOs via the Bush administration’s
socialist policies is a bit unseemly. In fact, it’s downright
un-American. Economist Dean Baker [5] sums it up this way:
Last week, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson mailed $150 billion in
checks to the big banks. From that point forward, the CEOs and all
the other top executives of these banks are now our dependents. They
are living off the tax dollars of schoolteachers in Iowa, truck
drivers in Montana and [6] even Joe
the Plumber.
It is difficult to understand why we should be taxing people who
make $40,000 a year to boost the paychecks of bankers who make more
than $1 million a year and in many cases more than $10 million a
year. Sen. McCain has called Sen. [7]
Obama a socialist because Obama believes that it is OK to impose
higher tax rates on rich people than poor people. Sen. McCain
considers this sort of redistribution unacceptable.
But, if redistribution from the rich to the rest of the country is
socialist, what do you call the upward redistribution that Congress
approved in the bailout package? It’s hard to justify taxing people
who make $40,000 a year to benefit bankers who make more than 100
times as much.
Spreading the wealth—our wealth as taxpayers—through
Wall Street socialism, means exacerbating the nation’s massive [8]
income inequality. Which, in turn, means an end to the American
Dream of economic mobility. Just like in socialist countries.
Article printed from AFL-CIO NOW BLOG: http://blog.aflcio.org
People and Nature Before Profits! We are in
the Willamette Valley, Oregon, and welcome anyone whose politics
come in shades of red. We're a working collective of socialists,
Communists and independent leftists. We are also known as Willamette
Reds. And no, we don't sell red wine. We do drink red wine.
"The spread of evil is the symptom of a
vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the
moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be
no compromise on basic principles."
Ayn Rand
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