Debunking Myths About Venezuela: What's Really Going On?

[Photo Credit: MIGUEL GUTIERREZ/EPA/Shutterstock]

By Eli Morey

Republished from Liberation Center.

Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela’s socialist movement, won the July 28 Venezuela presidential election by a wide margin. In a near-repeat of 2019,  the Biden administration  immediately declared the election illegitimate and recognized their preferred—but badly defeated–candidate as the winner, Edmundo González as the winner, just as they supported Juan Guaido’s pitiful attempt to take power in 2019-2020. Similarly, the U.S. is fully supporting current right-wing violence in Venezuela to set the stage for another coup against the legitimate and widely popular government.

None of this appears in the corporate media, of course. Instead, we only encounter accusations of “corruption” and “illegitimate” elections.

What about the polls that showed Maduro losing?

Headlines in the U.S. cite polls as evidence of fraud in the 2024 elections. According to some polls, Maduro trailed the opposition by a wide margin in the lead-up to election day. A closer look reveals that these polls are not a reliable source of information about Venezuelan voter preferences. 

In fact, each of the four polls cited by Western media were run by organizations with a clear conflict of interest:

1. The Encuestadora Meganálisis poll is openly affiliated with the opposition, as their Facebook page filled with videos denouncing Madruo and the Bolivarian Revolution.

2. The Caracas-based Delphos poll is directed by Felix Seijas Rodriguez, an outspoken member of the Venezuelan opposition who has authored numerous articles attacking Maduro and even discussing U.S. military intervention against Venezuela.

3. OCR Consultores is a “consultancy” group whose Director, Oswaldo Ramirez Colina, lives in Miami, where the group is headquartered. Colina studied “Terrorism and Counterterrorism” at Georgetown University, which is notoriously cozy with the CIA. He has appeared on news segments and podcast episodes criticizing Maduro and questioning the legitimacy of Venezuela’s electoral processes.

4. Edison Research, whose exit poll claimed Maduro’s loss, has “top clients [that] include CIA-linked US government propaganda outlets Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, all of which are operated by the US Agency for Global Media, a Washington-based organ that is used to spread disinformation against US adversaries.”

Are elections in Venezuela free and fair?

While western media consistently accuses Maduro of rigging elections, there is zero evidence to support this claim. In both the 2018 and 2024 elections, thousands of international observers were present at polling stations across Venezuela. 

In fact, even mainstream liberal organizations like the Carter foundation have praised Venezuela’s electoral system. In 2012, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said that “as a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”

Who are the leaders of the opposition?

Maduro’s primary opponent in the elections, Edmundo Gonzalez Urritia, was not a big figure in Venezuelan politics until this most recent election cycle. He is primarily serving as a stand-in for Maria Corina Machado, who is the true face of Venezuela’s opposition. 

Machado is on the far right. Her policies would undermine Venezuela’s sovereignty by privatizing national assets and selling off Venezuela’s oil reserves to western corporations. 

She is also a proud and open Zionist. In fact, in 2018 she wrote a letter directly to Benjamin Netanyahu asking Israel to intervene militarily in Venezuela to conduct a “regime change” operation in order to overthrow its democratically elected government. In 2020, she signed a cooperation agreement with Netanyahu’s Likud party stating that they were in agreement on “political, ideological, and social issues” and “issues related to strategy, geopolitics and security.”

The right-wing’s violence is particularly directed against Afro-Venezuelans and the indigenous populations because the Revolution has greatly benefitted the sectors of society who have historically been excluded and oppressed. In 2014, a right-wing group beat a law student named William Muñoz, and doused him in gasoline. Fortunately, an ambulance rescued Muñoz before the mob could ignite the gasoline. In 2017, the right-wing went on a rampage targeting darker-skinned Venezuelans, setting them on fire and even lynching them.

Why and how does the U.S. try to overthrow the Venezuelan government?

It is not only the domestic reactionaries that constantly threaten the Revolution. Particularly since 2005, the U.S. has deployed numerous strategies to reverse the revolutionary gains of Venezuela.

A few years after the presidential election of Hugo Chávez, representing the Fifth Republic Movement, the U.S. ruling class started openly working to destroy Venezuela’’s socialist government since the Bolivarian Revolution began with the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez, who ran as the Fifth Republic Movement’s candidate.’s government. Under Chávez’s leadership, Venezuela’s democratic processes expanded quickly and rapidly. In 1999, Venezuela adopted a new constitution that created a constituent assembly, bringing the people into positions of power to pass laws in their interests. Land was redistributed and social goods like housing and education were prioritized thanks to the massive oil reserves of the country.

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What became known as the Bolivarian Revolution, led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)—which formed in 2007—was a spark that set off a “pink tide” throughout Latin America. Progressive governments came to power in Brazil and Bolivia, and people’s movements surged across the continent. With state power, progressives and socialists formed new alliances to challenge U.S. domination and imperialism, including notably ALBA, or the Alliance for the People’s of Our America. Founded in 2004, ALBA enables Latin American and other countries to engage in non-exploitative trade and other inter-state projects and agreements.

Sanctions were the first tactic the U.S. deployed against the Revolution. By depriving the government of the ability to fund social programs, the intent was and is to create widespread poverty and misery to foment dissent and blaming the results of the sanctions on the policies of the Venezuelan government.

If Venezuela’s socialist government was allowed to engaged in “free trade,” they could make even more impressive advances for their people and inspire other countries to follow in their path. As a result, Venezuela is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, with over 900 unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States alone. The U.S. has actively worked for over a decade to destabilize the Venezuelan economy specifically by targeting its oil industry and its financial sector.

However, undermining the Venezuelan economy is just one element of the U.S. hybrid war on Venezuela. There have also been multiple coup attempts with links to the U.S. Here are a few:

• 2002: Socialist president Hugo Chavez was kidnapped and removed from power by military coup plotters connected to Venezuelan big business. After two days, huge protests in support of Chavez forced the coup government out of power and restored the constitutional order. Chavez was freed and returned to the presidency.

• 2019: In 2018 the opposition boycotted the elections, and as a result their candidates lost by a huge margin. In spite of this, they then declared opposition figurehead Juan Guaidó—who had not even run in the elections and won 0 votes—the new interim president of Venezuela. The United States immediately recognized Guaidó as the president of Venezuela. The following year Guaidó led a failed coup attempt against Maduro. 

• 2020: “Operation Gideon,” an armed invasion of Venezuela led by a former member of the U.S. Army special forces, was defeated by the Venezuelan military.

Why are so many immigrants leaving Venezuela?

Millions of people have left Venezuela in the last 10 years. While the U.S. media often portrays these people as political refugees fleeing a dictatorship, the reality is quite different. 

Global oil prices dropped drastically in the mid 2010s. Oil is a key component of Venezuela’s economy. This would not have been a problem if Venezuela was able to take out loans to cover shortfalls until the price of oil rebounded. Oil-dependent countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE are able to get cheap loans when oil prices decline because they are allies of the U.S. and EU. In Venezuela’s case, the U.S. did everything it could to undermine the Venezuelan economy in a moment of crisis, and prevent its economy from rebuilding in the wake of disaster. 

Most of Venezuela’s immigrants are in fact victims of the U.S’s harsh sanctions regime, which has damaged Venezuela’s economy and prevented it from accessing key goods including food and medicine. 

Why do I see posts on social media calling Maduro a dictator?

After every election there are outspoken people who are upset about the outcome. If you were to look on social media or talk to random people on the street after the 2016 or 2020 elections in the U.S, you would certainly find people angry or confused about the results. You would probably also encounter people claiming that the election was rigged. This does not amount to evidence of election fraud. 

In the U.S. and on western social media platforms, the anti-Maduro position is over-represented because of the number of expats living in the United States. Venezuelans living here have, for the most part, left Venezuela either because they had the money to leave when the economy took a downturn, or they left out of desperation when the economy was at its lowest point. These are the segments of the population most likely to be critical of Maduro, most likely to speak English, and most likely to be on American social media pages and platforms.

Alternatively, the social base of the Bolivarian revolution is in the working class, poor, and indigenous people living in the barrios and rural villages of Venezuela. These people are significantly less likely to speak English, have smartphones, or be active on social media platforms like Instagram. Their voices are never centered in conventional media like TV and radio in the United States, which is largely run by corporations with a vested interest in demonizing socialism.

What is the Bolivarian Revolution and why do the masses support it?

Under the leadership of Chavez and later Maduro, notable achievements were made in spite of ongoing attempts by the U.S. to sabotage Venezuela’s socialist project. The main vehicles for these achievements has been the mobilization of the working class and the misiones, or “missions,” which are long-term economic and social development programs. The Bolivarian government has built over 4 million new homes for poor people living in substandard housing as part of the Misión Habitat. Over 10 million poor Venezuelans have benefited from subsidized food under a program called Misión Mercal. Another program known as Mision Barrio Adentro built thousands of clinics and community centers in an effort to provide free healthcare and dental care to Venezuela’s poorest people.

A massive literacy campaign in the 2000s helped over a million people to read and write. In spite of economic hardships due to the oil crisis and U.S. sanctions, millions of Venezuelans continue to support the Maduro government because of the tangible benefits it provides in their day-to-day lives. This is even more understandable given the ruthless nature of the racist right-wing opposition.

Biden or Trump: No Road Ahead

(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

By Sudip Bhattacharya

“I am your retribution,” said Donald Trump, the king of the sunlight-challenged, the prophet of those hollering through dried and cracked lips.

It’s been months since the presidential race officially began, although electioneering never really ends. The United States thrives on political circus, with a mass media uninterested in the issues, save for gas prices and whether a candidate is sufficiently patriotic. 

Trump is set to be the GOP nominee. He humiliated Ron DeSantis and is on track to overwhelm Nikki Haley, the so-called moderate. As his popularity has grown among the Republican base of bootlickers and crypto-fascists, with segments of the disaffected sprinkled in, there’s been reasonable fear and anxiety surrounding his potential return to the White House. 

“It will be the end of democracy, functional democracy,” Bernie Sanders stated recently.  

In his sole and hopefully only term in office, Trump relished cruelty. From separating families at the southern border to his explicit support for law enforcement, Trump’s agenda is clearly a destructive one, steeped in white supremacy, a conspiracy-charged and anti-human American exceptionalism, and an extreme pro-business posture. Trump’s coalition was a ragtag assortment of Christian evangelicals eager to eradicate transgenderism, whites who view racial equality as a threat to their identity, and a rainbow coalition of the greedy, selfish, and insecure. 

Still, it would be a gross oversimplification, and dangerously naive, to attribute all oppression and anti-democracy to Trump. His Republican rivals are hardly paragons of compassion — especially as it relates to people of color and trans folks. Currently, the DeSantis regime in Florida is committed to dismantling educational equity. DeSantis and his braindead allies are vigorously repelling any challenge to Eurocentric or otherwise whitewashed humanities curricula, accusing his truth-seeking opponents of pushing “indoctrination.” Oh the irony. 

Haley too is a bottomless well of the very right-wing insanity that outlets like Fox News have fought hard to normalize. Although now Fox has been outpaced in its cravenness and conspiracy theories by other far-right blogs and “independent” news sources. 

But what about the #Resistance, led by Joe “Anti-Busing” Biden and Kamala “Don’t Come” Harris? It bears repeating that Democrats and Republicans are not mirror images. Republicans are worse. At least there are progressives in the Democratic Party. But, at the leadership level, the average Republican and average Democrat are remarkably similar. 

Both refuse to challenge the very undemocratic electoral college system. And both are doing nothing to stop the Supreme Court from laying waste to reproductive and voting rights. Sending fundraising pleas doesn’t absolve Democrats’ failure to combat these severe infringements on freedom and autonomy. 

When it comes to the very nature of the American economy, leaders of both major parties insist that basic necessities — whether it’s housing, healthcare, or clothing — must be distributed through the private sector. Both parties expect Americans to rely on business interests for their daily bread. And they call that precarious dependency “freedom.”

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To wake up each day when it's still dark, then prop yourself behind a desk or stay on your feet until they’re swollen. To return to your apartment exhausted but with another dozen emails in your work inbox, many written in the passive-aggressive tone typical of managers and their paranoid bosses. Is that what it means to be free?

Claudia Jones, the foremost theoretician of the Communist Party USA, didn’t think so. More than anyone, she understood the shortcomings of American capitalism.

“American monopoly capital can offer the masses of American women, who compose more than one-half of our country’s population, a program only of war and fascism.”

Jones made this remark following the end of World War II — just as Democrats were advocating a return to “normal.” By the war’s end, the Harry Truman administration began intensifying the Cold War and concomitant anti-communist purge within the country’s major unions and mainstream politics. Jones warned her comrades this wasn’t just a phase. With Truman’s blessing, major companies were firing their female employees and ordering them home to work for far less as domestic laborers. Jones saw that the Democratic Party was itself a vessel for the same retrograde policies the country allegedly fought in the war. 

Much like Biden’s current support for the far-right regimes in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and India, the United States, following World War II, continued to develop ties to anti-communist, anti-democratic, and arguably neo-fascist regimes across the world. Though the United States portrayed itself as somehow anti-colonial, it sided with anyone willing to build a world safe for counterrevolution — from white supremacists to Islamists. As Charlotta Bass, the first African-American woman on a presidential ticket, stated in 1952:

“Yes, it is my government that supports the segregation by violence practiced by a Malan in South Africa, sends guns to maintain a bloody French rule in Indo-China, gives money to help the Dutch repress Indonesia, props up [Winston] Churchill’s rule in the Middle East and over the colored peoples of Africa and Malaya.” 

In 1952, Bass was the vice presidential nominee of the Progressive Party — an attempted vehicle for channeling the radicalism of the interwar period to challenge the duopoly. It was the right strategic move. What followed, however, was more purging of radicals and communists from major institutions and intensified suppression of the Left broadly.

This cycle repeated in the early to mid-1970s when groups like the Black Panther Party faced attacks from law enforcement and the labor movement itself, which had become just another coalition partner of the Democrats — a party that hated labor unrest. Soon, the labor movement, or what was left of it, would descend into a hollow business unionism that aligned itself with some of the worst elements in American political life. 

Despite inevitable and often overwhelming resistance, the American Left still needs to cultivate a socialist constituency — a social base of people willing and able to move beyond the two-party system and replace capitalism with something far more humane and just. What’s required is a constituency that is pro-socialist, pro-Palestine, pro-humanity, against climate change, against the companies that command us to use paper straws while they pollute the water we drink, and against the scourge of American empire and the various monsters its money and weapons empower. 

But there’s a problem. The commitment necessary to do this, the capacity and leadership that’s so foundational to such a daring agenda, is lacking. The American Left has no Bass or Jones to guide it. Sanders is better than most but he too, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, still supports Biden, despite the bodies piling high in Gaza. Both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have criticized Biden. But how far can that criticism travel when neither has been willing to use any type of leverage against the Biden administration regarding Palestine?

There are insightful and brave voices scattered across the United States. But many of them are too consumed by meeting the daily demands of living, waking up, sipping stale coffee, and grinding their teeth while riding a bus stuck in traffic. 

Not to mention that building an independent social force will involve heartbreak. Some challenges will trounce us before we conquer them. Who amongst us is willing to sacrifice their time and energy? Who amongst us is willing to fail many times before they succeed? 

Look to the streets. You’ll find many people expressing the same commitment to basic humanity. These are the people who fight for $15 and against a genocide their tax dollars are financing. But it takes organic, transformative leaders to cohere those miniature uprisings into a tidal wave of undeniable resistance. 

Yet, where is our Bass? Where is our Jones? Where is our soul? 

Sudip Bhattacharya is a doctoral candidate in political science at Rutgers University. He’s written for outlets such as Jacobin, Black Agenda Report, Protean Magazine, Truthout, and Current Affairs, among others.

The Peru Protests and U.S. Infiltration of the Left

Pictured: Supporters of Pedro Castillo, the ousted president of Peru, protest in front of police in downtown Lima on Friday, Dec. 16, 2022. (Marco Garro/The New York Times)

By Kidus Desta

Peru has made international news in the past few months after thousands of citizens — many being indigenous and traveling from rural regions — began protesting in the capital city of Lima. Their main demand is the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, who stepped into power after former president Pedro Castillo was ousted from office and imprisoned. Castillo’s removal and imprisonment was the result of his attempt to dissolve the right-wing Congress.

Boluarte has said she will not step down until the next election. This sparked controversy since the next election is not until April 2024 and many see Boluarte as an unfit representative who betrayed Castillo, her party, and the Peruvian people. In addition to Boluarte’s resignation, many protesters are demanding Castillo’s release and changes to the nation’s constitution, which they say grants Congress too much power over the executive branch.

This concern is partly why Castillo ran on creating a new constitution as president. But fulfilling that campaign promise would require the formation of a constituent assembly, which Congress blocked. Some protesters therefore see the need to dissolve Congress so that the process of drafting a new foundational document can commence.

Peru’s current constitution was created under the far-right regime of Alberto Fujimori and is deeply informed by his capitalist politics. The constitution, for example, made it harder to tax gold and copper mines. Some hope that a constituent assembly will pave the way for a new constitutional framework that expands the state’s role in the economy and allows for more taxation on mining to fund social programs that indigenous and rural communities need. 

These communities have long felt disenfranchised. Despite comprising 26% of Peru’s population, indigenous Peruvians — the rural voices of the Andes — hold just 6.92% of federal congressional seats. Hailing from the Peruvian countryside, where he formerly worked as a schoolteacher, Castillo understood the grievances of rural and indigenous Peruvians and tried to address them as president. Boluarte and her government have gone in the opposite direction, ignoring calls to convene a constituent assembly by these marginalized groups who desire a constitution that works for them.

The Boluarte administration’s approach to governance has incited widespread outrage, with 71% of Peruvians disapproving of the president’s job performance. This sentiment — along with disapproval of Congress, which sits at 88% — lays at the heart of the current protest wave. In response, the Boluarte regime has used police repression as a means to retain power. This state violence has killed at least 53 people with the youngest being just 15 years old.

Despite the reprehensible actions of their government, the Peruvian people are firmly on the side of the protesters. According to the Institute of Peruvian Studies, 60% believe the protests are justified. An identical number agree with the central demand to free Castillo and a whopping 69% want a constituent assembly. Meanwhile, only 12% believe in keeping the constitution as is — down from 19% in June 2022. 

During the protests, conservative groups have come together to counter-protest. These counter-protests have been met with skepticism because of their initial backing by the national police, who promoted the “March For Peace” on social media and asked people to attend. Attendees included conservative politicians like far-right congressman Alejandro Muñante as well as retired military and police.

Due to the United States’ history of meddling in Latin America, many are questioning whether the superpower has a hand in the recent events in Peru. Peru — after all — has abundant natural resources including minerals like copper, lead, zinc, tin, silver, and gold. Copper has become an especially important resource in recent years due to its use in energy technology, with Goldman Sachs calling it the “new oil.”

Under Castillo’s presidency, the exploitative nature of neoliberalism was challenged by his demand that these resources benefit the people of Peru. Castillo believed that Peru’s resource endowment could help fund social programs that materially improve people’s lives. But efforts to undermine this vision may have been well underway even before Castillo left office. The day before he was ousted, Lisa Kenna — US ambassador to Peru and veteran of the CIA — met with Peru’s defense minister, “who then told the country’s powerful military to turn against Castillo.” On January 18th, Kenna held a meeting with mining and energy ministers from the Boluarte regime to discuss “investments” — a euphemism for expanding the extractive reach of Western multinationals.

In a stunning betrayal of values, Boluarte has gone from leading an anti-imperialist, anti-neoliberal party to overseeing a regime which serves imperialist and neoliberal interests. Such a betrayal has precedent in Latin America. In 2016, President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil was impeached and replaced by her vice president Michel Temer. Temer's vision of a pro-business economy contradicted Rouseff’s plans to bolster social programs.

During a conference at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, in a speech addressed to “members of multinational corporations and the U.S. foreign policy establishment,” Temer admitted that this impeachment occurred so that he may be installed as president to cut social programs and privatize industry. This squares with Temer’s history as a US informant and aspiring challenger to Lula in Brazil’s 2006 presidential race.

As with Temer, Boluarte’s turn against her own party is primarily an act of opportunism. By siding with the far-right Congress and its imperialist allies, Boluarte has increased the odds of retaining her position of power. This unholy trinity shows how capitalist powers like the United States can undermine leftist movements in the Global South from within.

Kidus Desta is a Hampton Institute intern and undergraduate studying political science and economics at Virginia Commonwealth University.

In Brazil's Class War, Will Lula Fight Back?

[Photo credit: Pedro Vilela/Getty Images]

By Bernardo Jurema

It’s not an exaggeration to say that, with Lula da Silva's razor-thin victory over incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil dodged a bullet. As it has in other countries like Hungary or India, another term of far-right rule would have meant a more reactionary police and military, accelerated environmental destruction, further evisceration of individual rights, and a serious blow to the prospects for restoring democracy. It’s also fair to say that the world dodged a bullet, given the Bolsonaro government's fervent support for mining and other extractive activities that threaten the Amazon rainforest, a crucial link in the global climate system. 

Although the final result was very close, with Lula at 50.9% and Bolsonaro at 49.1%, Lula won by a large margin among the poorest segments of the population. The former president carried 977 of the 1,003 least developed cities. And a poll right before the second round of voting showed Lula winning the lowest income bracket with 61% to Bolsonaro’s 33%.

Lula shied away from presenting a clear economic program during the campaign, explaining that “we don’t discuss economic policies before winning the elections.” He made vague promises to increase public spending, with a focus on infrastructure and social welfare. His main pledges were directed toward the segment of society that supported him most heavily. Lula called for removing Brazil from the Hunger Map, increasing the minimum wage, boosting employment, and improving access to healthcare. 

The challenges Lula now faces cannot be overestimated. He will take office on January 1st, 2023 under circumstances remarkably different from those of twenty years ago when he began his first term. With a global recession on the horizon, interest rates are on the rise worldwide and Brazil's largest trading partner, China, has seen its demand for commodities subside. On top of that, the outgoing Bolsonaro leaves in his wake "shaky public finances, with debt projected to reach almost 89 per cent of gross domestic product next year, and an economy forecast to slow sharply."

How will Lula address this poor state of affairs? A cursory look at his economic transition team raises some red flags. The team was led by Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin, a former rival of Lula’s Workers' Party, who is socially conservative, economically liberal, pro-police, and anti-labor. He was handpicked by Lula in a clear nod to Faria Lima (Brazil’s Wall Street), signaling to the market and conservative voters that "there would be no radical economic measures." As Glenn Greenwald noted in 2018, "For the powerful, it is impossible to dream of a better guardian of the status quo [than Alckmin].” 

Other members of the transition team included André Lara Resende, who headed Brazil's public investment bank under the center-right government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Resende infamously played a key role in repressing the 1995 oil workers' strike. He served on the transition team alongside Pérsio Árida, a longtime economic advisor to Alckmin who, in 2018, supported then-President Michel Temer’s radical neoliberal government. Árida has publicly opposed taxing large fortunes, instead backing privatization and neoliberal reform efforts. 

These neoliberals were counterbalanced in the transition team by members of a  "developmentalist" profile, who favor state planning and expanding public spending. Guilherme Mello, a professor at the University of Campinas Institute of Economics (known as the main intellectual hub of dissent against neoliberal orthodoxy), was one of them. Mello has since been appointed as the new Secretary of Economic Policy at the Ministry of Finance. Another developmentalist member of the transition team was Nelson Barbosa, who served as Minister of Finance from the end of 2015 into the first months of 2016 under the Rousseff government.

Most members of the transition team will not go on to become ministers or even occupy government posts. But the team nonetheless helped set the terms of political possibility, offering a choice between neoliberalism and developmentalism. While such a choice is hardly auspicious in the face of the climate crisis, Brazilians can at least be cautiously optimistic that developmentalists in the administration will pursue redistributive policies. 

Thanks to an historic commodities boom, redistribution efforts during Lula’s first two terms in office passed with relatively little friction. But what if the extractivist pie stops growing? These days, any redistributionist policies will almost certainly require some degree of confrontation. From the transition team, there is no clear vision of what must be done in terms of economic policy. As Roberto Andrés, an urban planner at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, has rightly pointed out:

“There will hardly be a favorable economic scenario for a new stage of inclusion without class struggle. It will be necessary to take from the richest to raise the level of the poorest. A tax reform that corrects the unfair Brazilian taxation may be the first step. To do so, the new government will have to face the dissatisfaction of the privileged classes, who will lose income. If it fails to do so, it runs the risk of not delivering the improvements it promises to the poorest."

On December 9th, Lula announced Fernando Haddad as his finance minister. Haddad previously served as Lula’s Minister of Education from 2005 to 2012. In that role, Haddad’s signature achievement was the PROUNI program, which expanded scholarship opportunities for poor students. This policy is a microcosm of Haddad’s conciliatory politics. While PROUNI helped disadvantaged pupils access higher education, the influx of government money was a major boon to private universities. 

For his second stint in a Lula administration, Haddad looks set to continue placating private interests. Recent comments suggest he’s open to privatizing airports and highways, saying that public-private partnerships “have to get on the agenda.” Despite this pro-business rhetoric, the markets reacted negatively to Haddad’s appointment. As one financial analyst explained, worries abound that Haddad will work to expand public spending and increase the national debt. In an attempt to quell these fears, Haddad recounted his time as Mayor of São Paulo, during which he reduced municipal debt and strengthened the bond market.

The new finance minister’s agenda appears syncretic, embracing the full spectrum of beliefs found in the transition team, from mild center-left Keynesianism to hardcore neoliberalism. Similarly mixed are the plans of Bernard Appy, the new special secretary for tax reform. While Appy seeks commonsense adjustments to Brazil’s notoriously anti-poor tax structure, his fixation on taxing consumption promises to preserve substantial regressivity.

There are also concerns to be had about Gabriel Galípolo, who will serve as the executive secretary of Lula’s economic ministry. Previously a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Galípolo is close with corporate interests. In the past year, he has served as a mediator between the Workers’ Party and big business.

Galípolo won’t be alone in representing the financial sector within Lula’s economic ministry. O Globo, a Brazilian daily newspaper, reports that “at least one more member of Faria Lima” will receive an appointment. A countervailing influence, however, takes the form of Aloízio Mercadante. A close Lula ally and noted center-left Keynesian, Mercadante has been nominated to chair the National Bank for Economic and Social Development, a key instrument for long-term financial planning.

In addition to internal ideological disputes, the incoming Lula administration also faces external constraints. As journalist Diego Viana explains, the government will be “under siege by the Right, who are ready to pounce at the first sign of weakness.” This leaves little room for radical experimentation. It is mostly likely, Viana says, that the administration will “insert some distributive policies within an essentially traditional political economy.”

Seeking compromise has been a Lula trademark ever since his days as a union organizer in the 1970s. With Brazil now at a crossroads, it remains to be seen how much longer this balancing act can persist. Given the combination of the climate crisis, the rise of the far Right, and a looming global recession, only bold action is commensurate with the urgency of the moment. But that not only goes against Lula’s realpolitik penchant; it also would not be consonant with the balance of power, whereby the reactionary forces of agribusiness and finance are very strong, while working-class social movements find themselves demobilized, demoralized, and under constant attack.

Such a context calls for measured and realistic goal-setting. According to Viana, “What Lula needs to deliver, first and foremost, is to not be succeeded by another fascist like Bolsonaro. In addition, the coalition that elected Lula expects stability in employment, prices, and exchange rates. That can be achieved. But is it enough to obtain the most important outcome?”

Maybe not. But, to paraphrase Peggy Lee, that's all there is for today. 

Bernardo Jurema is a Brazilian political scientist based in Germany. He earned his PhD from the Free University of Berlin and has worked for international organizations and think tanks throughout Latin America and Europe.

Lula’s Victory Means Relief for Venezuela

By Joseph Lobodzinski

Lula's victory on October 28th was an electoral win for leftists both in and outside of Brazil. The pink tide that has swept many right-wing leaders across Central and South America from power once again crested to wash out the crazed fascist Jair Bolsonaro. 

There are many reasons to celebrate this triumph. Lula has pledged to end the Bolsonaro administration’s massive deforestation efforts, promising to protect the rights and livelihoods of the millions of indigenous peoples who call the Amazon their rightful home. Lula’s pledge will also prevent approximately 100 billion metric tons of carbon being released into the Earth’s atmosphere.

However, there is reason to temper hopes. Despite Lula’s win, Brazil’s right wing secured a majority in the national congress and have vowed to block any of his progressive policies. The Vice President-elect of Brazil, Geraldo Alckmin, is a social democrat who has been labeled as a “pro-business centrist,” highlighting the fact that the incoming presidential administration will take a more “pragmatic” and “means-tested” approach to governance.

Despite these issues, Lula's win is another step in the beginning of a new era — one in which Brazil and other Latin American countries will begin normalizing relations with Venezuela.

The recent pink tide has brought forth more leaders who are either actively advancing diplomatic relations with Venezuela, or who are — at the very least — open to doing so.

In Colombia, leftist President Gustavo Petro, elected earlier this year, has taken the most ambitious approach toward working with President Nicolás Maduro and Venezuela. In late September, the two countries reopened cargo trade, and their borders, for the first time in seven years. A few weeks later, on November 1st, Maduro welcomed Petro in Caracas, inaugurating the reactivation of flights between the two countries.

In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who hosted Maduro in Mexico City for his 2018 presidential inauguration and has refused to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaidó, recently urged the United States to restore relations with Venezuela. Since the decision by the US to impose draconian sanctions, Venezuela’s economy has collapsed, creating a massive humanitarian catastrophe. Unable to obtain housing, food, and medical care, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have left the country, triggering a migration crisis that has left thousands stranded in Mexico as they seek entry into the United States. While the US agreed to take in 24,000 asylum seekers, last month, the Department of Homeland Security inexplicably deported 1,700 Venezuelans back to Mexico.

Lula’s victory, however, may facilitate the amelioration of this dire situation. Like in other countries, Brazil’s executive office holds significant power to shape foreign policy and direct trade agreements. Not only should Lula’s administration be able to reverse the diplomatic approach of its delusional predecessor; they should be able to convince other nations — specifically, the United States — to normalize relations with Maduro and lift sanctions through appropriate avenues of economic leverage, such as placing an exports tax on some of the $31.3 billion of goods shipped to the US from Brazil.

The timing could not be any more relevant. With relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia souring after the latter seemingly convinced other OPEC members to follow its lead in cutting oil production as an act of retaliation for Western opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US has now been left scrambling to find an alternative source of crude oil.

This has led all eyes to fall on Venezuela.

Both Biden and Maduro have supposedly signaled their openness to normalizing relations, whether by directly stating it or by opening certain diplomatic avenues. 

Maduro has been forward, auctioning off some of the 300 billion barrels of oil in his nation’s reserves to the West, including a three-million barrel sale to Italy earlier this year, leading to global leaders such as France’s Emmanuel Macron meeting with Maduro at COP27 to begin “proposing dialogue” between their countries.

Earlier this year, US senior officials began negotiating with Maduro over the possibility of relieving sanctions. Now several months into the process, the prospect of reaching an agreement seems increasingly likely.

In exchange for cash and sanctions relief, all Maduro has to do is agree to a “clean” presidential election in 2024 and return to stalled negotiations with the Unitary Platform, his liberal-democratic opposition.

However, this is all tentative. As history shows, the US will do anything to obtain the natural resources it needs to drive its economy. In the case of Venezuela, if throwing the opposition under the bus or launching another imperialist coup provides access to their oil reserves, either may happen.

Then there’s Lula.

Lula’s established relationship with both Maduro and countries such as the United States makes him the best mediator for a decent deal.

Lula has had solid diplomatic relations with Maduro dating back to his initial presidency from 2003–2011, and both have already agreed to resume a “cooperation agenda” between their two countries. Lula’s respect among Western powers like the United States is also quite notable. This relationship was recently exemplified by the Biden administration’s immediate recognition of Lula’s electoral victory.

What all of this ultimately means is that Lula can lead the charge of providing sanctions relief for Venezuela, as well as restarting their economy through the oil sector. Lula can influence the United States to begin lifting sanctions and reversing some of its hostile diplomatic stances toward the Maduro government. In return, Maduro would take steps toward “free” elections and resume oil sales to the United States, giving him the money he needs to rescue his country.

Regardless of how this diplomatic situation plays out, it is important to remember that the people of Venezuela need to be alleviated of their current strife. After years of trade embargos that have caused poverty to skyrocket, creating a massive humanitarian crisis, any means of bringing this to an end should be considered.

And while it looks like the US is once again getting away with geopolitical hostage-taking by placing another country with leftist sympathies under the gun of despotic sanctions, we should be cautiously optimistic that Venezuela — with the help of Brazil — may be able to lift the imperialist boot from its neck.

Joseph Lobodzinski is a University of Michigan alumnus and leftist writer covering international politics, American social movements, labor, and the environment.

Global Ruling Classes Welcome Fascist-Led Government in Italy

By Luca Tavan

Republished from Red Flag.

The Italian general election was a historic win for the far right. A coalition of the three major parties won 44 percent of the vote, enough in Italy’s byzantine electoral system to form a clear majority in both houses of parliament. Most importantly, it was driven by the meteoric rise of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, a party rooted in the post-Mussolini fascist tradition, which secured 26 percent of the vote, making it the single largest party in parliament. 

For many, the ascension to power of a fascist party in the centre of Europe seemed unthinkable. But decades of grinding economic crisis, state-sponsored racism and the discrediting of parties of the neoliberal centre have created a dangerous situation of far-right advance. With Europe on the brink of yet another recession, the prospect of further descent into authoritarianism and barbarism is alarming. 

If you listen to the capitalist press and politicians, however, you would think that there’s nothing to worry about. A headline in the Australian exhorts: “Relax, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers aren’t fascist”. The Australian Financial Review carried the line, “Victory to Italian right is no lurch into extremism”. This is despite Meloni’s pledge to institute a naval blockade to stop refugee ships, roll back abortion and LGBTI rights and dismantle social welfare. 

Speaking to an Italian journalist at the Venice Film Festival, US former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton even praised Meloni: “The election of the first woman prime minister in a country always represents a break with the past, and that is certainly a good thing”. It’s remarkable to speak of “breaking with the past” as Mussolini-nostalgists return to power in the birthplace of fascism. 

A statement from Lorenzo Codogno, a former director-general of the Italian Treasury, reveals the real reason for establishment nonchalance in the face of fascism. “They want to be perceived as a party that you can do business with and can govern the country.” Business has taken a look at this coalition of far-right racists and fascists, and decided it’s a government they can deal with, potentially making a great deal of money. 

Aided by a wave of apologetics from the media, Meloni has attempted to sanitise her image to present a respectable face. During the election campaign, she reassured voters that her party had “handed fascism over to history for decades now”. But Meloni has maintained a commitment to fascist politics throughout her life. At the age of 15, she joined MSI (Italian Social Movement), the party founded by leading fascists who survived the fall of Mussolini’s regime in 1943 and wanted to work for its return. Along with a series of other former MSI leaders, Meloni founded Fratelli d’Italia in 2012 as the latest iteration of this project. 

In her autobiography, I am Giorgia, she espouses the “great replacement theory”, claiming that the left is attempting to destroy Western civilisation by flooding the continent with African and Middle Eastern migrants and undermining traditional family structures. In local government, Brothers politicians have passed legislation making it harder for migrants to access social housing, and proposed laws that would make it compulsory to bury aborted fetuses in cemeteries. 

Meloni will rule in coalition with the Lega, led by Matteo Salvini, who as interior minister in a previous government blocked the entry of NGO ships carrying rescued refugees to Italian shores, and Silvio Berlusconi, the infamously corrupt and venal media magnate whose Forza Italia was once the leading light of the populist right. 

While the far right has been advancing in Europe since the 2008 global financial crisis, Meloni’s victory is a significant milestone. It’s the first time a party with neo-fascist roots has led a government in a major European economy. This gives a boost to the rising tide of far-right politics internationally. 

Meloni’s victory comes in the immediate aftermath of the major win for the far-right Sweden Democrats. She has been a vocal supporter of the Spanish Vox Party and Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian government in Hungary. Both Meloni and Orbán were guests of honour at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the most important gathering of the American right.

Meloni’s victory was assured by the craven support that every party of the political mainstream gives to unpopular and brutal neoliberal policies, which have created massive poverty and youth unemployment and savaged living standards. The 25 September election was triggered by the collapse of the Draghi government, an unelected technocratic cabinet headed by a former European Central Bank president to oversee further cuts to social spending. 

Every major party from the centrist Democratic Party to the Lega participated in this “national unity” government. Meloni’s group was the only significant force that remained outside of the coalition. As the government slowly but inevitably collapsed, the Brothers gained credibility.

The high level of abstention in the election was another important factor in Meloni’s success. The rise of the right can be put down to widespread revulsion at the political mainstream, rather than a popular endorsement of Meloni’s program. Fewer than 64 percent of the eligible population voted, the lowest turnout in history and down from an average of 90 percent in the post-WWII period. Meloni increased her vote largely by winning voters from the other right-wing parties. 

Despite a history of shallow anti-establishment rhetoric, a hallmark of the far right, Meloni will likely continue Draghi’s economic agenda. Meloni has also reassured the capitalist class that her government will support NATO. Internal divisions could emerge within the coalition over the war in Ukraine—Salvini’s Lega has ties to Italian capitalists with heavy investments in Russia, and he has questioned the continuation of sanctions. Meloni will have to balance the fragile and conflicting interests of her coalition partners with her desire to remain a reliable ally of European capital at large.

What is certain is that the new right-wing coalition will intensify attacks on workers and oppressed people. It can’t be ruled out that they will attempt to curb civil and democratic rights. The Brothers have already signalled their desire for legislation to ban what they term “totalitarian” or “extremist” ideologies, by which they mean communism and Islam.

The far right’s victory is a harbinger of things to come. A recent opinion piece by Edward Luce in the Financial Times noted: “Western liberalism is still skating on thin ice”, with war and looming recession in Europe, a protracted energy crisis and far-right electoral advances making for destabilising factors in world politics. 

The capitalists realise that in a crisis-ridden and polarised world, far-right governments may increasingly be an option for defending their power and privilege. They think that they are playing a clever game by normalising the new government in Italy. They believe that they can keep the fascists under their thumb, use them to absorb discontent at unpopular austerity measures and advance their economic agenda. 

History tells us that fascists like Meloni, who are inspired by the monstrous dictatorships of the 1920s and ’30s, may harbour even darker aspirations for the future.

One of Austria's Most Popular Mayors is a Marxist

By Joseph Lobodzinski

It’s hard to imagine someone with Marxist leanings holding an influential position in neoliberal European politics. Ever since the fall of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, to brand yourself as a communist would be a political death sentence throughout most of Europe.

The Alpine nation of Austria is no different in this regard. For leftists, its political terrain is as tumultuous and difficult to traverse as the steep mountains and hills that make up much of the country’s geography. Despite having an expansive welfare state that would make many American politicians’ heads spin, fit with universal healthcare and tuition-free public college, the country of approximately nine million people is roughly 55% Roman Catholic and is arguably one of the more socially and politically moderate countries in all of Europe. The center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs, SPÖ) and center-right Austrian People’s Party (Österreichische Volkspartei, ÖVP) have dominated Austrian politics since the end of the Second World War.

Yet, one of Austria’s most influential and popular mayors is an open Marxist.

On September 26th, 2021, the second largest city in Austria, Graz, held municipal elections to determine its city council and mayoral office via a party-line ballot. The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), which led the mayoral coalition of Graz heading into the election, was favored to defeat the Communist Party of Austria (Kommunistische Partei Österreichs, KPÖ) which up until that time was the second largest political party in the city’s government.

Entering Election Day, the ÖVP was leading all polling, and was expected to win the most votes, giving it the privilege of forming the city’s governing coalition, as it had previously enjoyed in many elections prior.

However, by the time all the ballots were received and counted, the KPÖ had won, obtaining 28.8% of the votes cast.

Shocking many across the country, the continent, and the world, Elke Kahr, a Communist city councilor who is the leader of the KPÖ’s Graz chapter, quickly formed a coalition government with the Greens and Social Democrats. By November 17th, 2021, she had become the first communist mayor of an Austrian city.

A bronze-colored bust of Karl Marx soon found itself as a main piece of decor in the Mayor’s office.

Almost immediately after taking office, Kahr went straight to work implementing policies helping the city’s most vulnerable populations.

Growing up as an orphan who was raised by a family that lived in low-income government housing within the city, one of her main goals is to “redistribute wealth” and “alleviate the problems of the people in our city as much as possible.”

Kahr’s government has done much to address poverty across Graz. They have produced a budget devoid of additional support to real estate speculators; increased the rent deposit fund; capped rents in city-owned housing with the money that would have otherwise been spent financing private constructors to build exorbitant housing; cleaned up the city by instituting a freeze on rates for garbage and sewage collection; protected city trees that contribute to producing clean air; opened public housing to non-EU citizens; and reduced fees for public transportation. Finally, the city government has also unleashed a plan to install a new, extensive tramline by 2025 and to give every child a bicycle to advance their goal of making the city carbon neutral by 2040 in order to follow the standard set by the national government.

And if that wasn’t enough, Kahr gives away €88,000 of her €120,000 mayoral salary — often to retirees, migrants, and individuals with health problems who are struggling to pay different monthly bills. “I’m simply convinced that politicians make too much,” she says.

In an interview with Jacobin, Kahr laid out how her journey to becoming Mayor was one that took nearly four decades of organizing through the Austrian Communist Party to demonstrate commitment to the residents of her city. “You have to be in touch with how others live and work if you are going to be a useful party for people,” she explained.

“I joined the KPÖ in 1983 because I was looking for a political home and community that resembled how I pictured a just and equal society. Over the decades, and in all my various roles — first as a KPÖ employee, then as a city council member, and later as the head of the party in Graz — the one thing I’ve wanted was to serve people. I’ve wanted to do everything I can to make sure that the party works with people to further the causes that are important to their lives.”

Kahr has also attributed some of her success to rejecting the excesses of past communist governments. When pressed about the history of communism and state socialism, she said, “Of course, crimes have been committed in the history of the communist movement as well, and they need to be openly discussed... among the many human lives on Stalin’s consciousness were no small number of great communists.” 

However, she emphasized the importance of maintaining the Communist brand, and to not shy away from the political ideology when placed under scrutiny. “Anything else would be false advertising.”

It seems by distancing herself from the usual perceived negative connotations of Marxism, through years of organizing and building relationships with her constituents, as well as developing policies for the struggling citizens of her city, Kahr has found a recipe for electoral and political success.

And now, nearly one year into her term as Mayor, she touts an impressive 65% approval rating among city residents. 

Elke Kahr’s example may just illuminate the path that European leftists should follow to win political office, particularly at the local level. In the Mayor’s own words, “We can’t end neoliberalism in one city. But we can do everything to ensure that people aren’t burdened even more.”

How Black Student Civic Agency Impacted the 2020 Elections

By Asha Layne

The years of Trumpism have been marked by relentless assaults on facts and evidence based science leaving an indelible memory on the minds of all Americans. In the final months of his presidency, Trump’s futile efforts along with other Republicans, to cancel out the votes of many Americans, specifically Black voters, in many Democratic states was representative of voter disenfranchisement. True to form, one of his most outrageously alarming act of voting misinformation, was when the former president encouraged his supporters to commit voter fraud, by suggesting that voters should send in a mail-in ballot and to vote in person. When that failed, Trump and his allies quickly began targeting voting ballots with largely Black voter populations in a desperate attempt to discredit Joe Biden’s presidential win. Recently, former Trump lawyer and staunch ally, Mr. Rudy Giuliani was handed a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems accusing him of spreading false claims about the company’s handling of the November 2020 elections. In keeping up with the barrage of viral misinformation and right wing voting conspiracies, we must not overlook the civic agency of young Black student voters that prevented Trump from retaining power despite his unprecedented attempts to disenfranchise Black voters.

In November, Black voters showed up to the polls in record numbers in response to the former President’s appalling, yet unsurprising attempts of racial division and voting suppression, the COVID pandemic, and a nationwide call for racial justice after the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. According to exit poll data, Black voters overwhelmingly voted Democratic and with a surge in turnout among young people of all races. Research conducted by Tufts University, Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), reported that Black youths played a critical role in the 2020 election especially in key swing and voter suppression states like Georgia where 90% of young Black youth voted for Joe Biden. In the same report, data also showed that young Black women strongly supported the President-elect Joe Biden by voting slightly higher at 90% compared to 84% for young Black men. This data reflects the significance of Black students who fall under two categories: the Black vote and student vote.

Black student civic agency is nothing new, it has a deep rich history that affirms the tradition Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) play in politics. Historically, HBCUs became known as sites for political activism during a time when White supremacist ideologies prevented Black students from entering White college institutions and mainstream society. These educational institutions would also serve as sites for political activism and agency as tools of empowerment. HBCUs held and still today, possess the unique advantage in increasing political activity among young Black people. Civic engagement and HBCUs have played a critical role in American democracy and democratic politics.

HBCU representation in politics can be traced back to the Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century at which this political process produced prominent leaders of that time who lead Black students in political agency activities like sit-ins, boycotts, and voter registration drives that would help shape the legacy of HBCUs for generations to come. What this 2020 election have shown the country is that HBCUs are not only leading institutions of higher educations but the producers of political stalwarts for the Democratic Party such as Spelman alum Stacey Abrams, Morehouse College alum Raphael Warnock, and Howard alum and Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.

The November elections confuted the misconceptions that Black students and Blacks do not vote. The truth is, young Black voter agency propelled the now President, Joe Biden to the White House and Democratic Georgia Senators Jon Osoff and Ralphael Warnock to the Senate affirming the significance of young Black voters. More than ever young Black students at HBCU campuses have become more civically engaged as a result of Trumpism, racial injustice, the pandemic, and desperate need for change. Despite the United States’ long history of voter suppression of people of color, the recent events during the tenure of former President Donald J. Trump will not only empower young voters to critically think but to continue the fight against injustices.

Black American Apathy and Internationalism

By Erica Caines

Republished from Hood Communist.

“…There is no “American dilemma” because Black people in this country form a colony, and it is not in the interest of the colonial power to liberate them. Black people are legal citizens of the United States with, for the most part, the same legal rights as other citizens. Yet they stand as colonial subjects concerning the white society. Thus institutional racism has another name: colonialism.”

-Black Power: Politics of Liberation.

For those organizing African people towards Revolutionary Pan-African Socialism, a Joe Biden presidency is not a win. It’s a detriment. Understanding neoliberalism breeds fascism would mean that it is a mistake for anyone alleged to be of a “radical politic” to celebrate Biden becoming the president-elect and, by extension, celebrating his running mate, Kamala Harris. Unfortunately, many Africans in the US have strapped themselves in willingly for a presidency that will attempt to be even more hawkish than the Barack Obama administration in every warmongering, drone-dropping, coup-backing, militarized-policing way.

Much of the issues around internationalism stems from a communal lack of political maturity, which helps one analyze their material conditions as they are. Furthermore, a lack of political education obstructs international solidarity with Africans and oppressed people globally. African people in the US make up a colonized nation not dissimilar to colonized nations always under attack by the strongarm of US imperialism and their western allies.

The US military and its 400 bases worldwide serve as occupiers in the same way the (overt) police state does in our neighborhoods. What is the difference between the US African Command (AFRICOM), which is said to “combat the War on Terror,” and militarized policing units like Operation Relentless Pursuit and Operation LeGend, both used in multiple cities across the country to “combat crime and domestic terrorism”? What is the difference between the murderous Israeli occupation of Palestine and the occupation of a colonized neighborhood in the US using IDF trained police units?

There is no difference.

The primary contradictions of imperialism have been distorted by dishonest conversations around “anti- Blackness,” as well as a new sense of American ‘pride’ found in Black Americans that assists in framing all geopolitical issues from an ‘us vs. them’ lens. Global and domestic imperialism are counterparts. African people’s allegiance to the US, and military enlistment, has always existed as a contradiction within the community. While it may be true historically African people were the least favorable to war, Obama’s presidency set the stage for a bold backing of US imperialism by way of patriotism from ‘Black America.’

Although most unite under hating Trump, many earnestly believe the US is worth saving. Mass “get out the vote” mobilizations across the country ensued to “stop full-blown fascism” by asserting a false sense of power in electing a majority unfavorable democratic candidate. The mainstream media announcement of Biden as the 46th president has caused a mass reactionary hysteria and sighs “of relief” that things may return to normal.

As the celebrations have been going on, despite Donald Trump not formally conceding, Biden’s team has been busy, too. Names for potential cabinet members who range from the center to the right have been circling the internet. Jim Clyburn and other democratic centrist moderates are currently vowing to protect the country from going “socialist” by pushing back against the messaging of “defund the police.” 

Benjamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi have congratulated the presumed  president-elect and madame vice president-elect, promising even closer ties and relations. Both Netanyahu and Modi are fascists, in their own right, and part of a more extensive global expansion of fascist leadership, yet neither Biden nor Harris find an issue in continuing the existing relationships despite the very real murderous actions of both men in their prospective countries against Muslims. Coincidentally, alleged crimes against Muslims is the same propaganda use to be actively aggressive towards China and President Xi Jinping that Biden intends to continue with through the Indo-Pacific Command. 

Reactionary Internationalism: Fascists Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu congratulate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on their presumed electoral victory.

With rumors of Dick Cheney potentially being an advisor to Biden on foreign policy, a majority conservative Supreme Court and a majority GOP senate would be a convenient cover for Biden’s actual geopolitics and non-plan for the poor working-class. Biden has built a career in the US government on criminalizing Africans and other colonized people in the US with the racialized “War on Drugs” through policy measures like the crime bill (domestically) and Plan Colombia (globally).

The “open-letter left,” which includes characters like Noam Chomsky and Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK, has decided, as a predominately white and economically stable coalition of signatures, to ignore historical materialism for the sake of ousting Trump. They have agreed that any policies that will place colonized people the most at risk, here and abroad, would be worth it so long as it’s not policies signed off on by Trump. Just like during the Obama era, the US left is proving itself useless in not only helping the masses comprehend imperialism but fighting against it by not voting for the man who has never seen a war he disapproved.

“Imperialism, which is the highest stage of capitalism, will continue to flourish in different forms as long as conditions permit it.  Though its end is certain, it can only come about under pressure of nationalist awakening and an alliance of progressive forces which hasten its end and destroy its conditions of existence.”  

- Kwame Nkrumah, Consciencism

‘Black American’ apathy through American exceptionalism creates that “sigh of relief” people express now. The indifference to wars and occupation is the result of a rupture in the ability for African people to make the connections between a man promising more policing as a campaign strategy during the height of mass uprisings against the police to his aggressive rhetoric towards nations like Venezuela, China, Iran, etc. Nor the US’ role in establishing brutal neocolonial leadership in the Global South and on the Continent.

It is becoming more and more evident that despite the strengthening calls to ‘Free Palestine’ and more recent actions to ‘End Sars,’ internationalism will again become a backburner issue. How will Africans in the US combat this and re-establish the anti-war internationalism politics that cemented the Black Radical Tradition and politics of the past?

First, we must ruthlessly attack the aversion to political education. The lack of understanding of the Third World struggles adjacent to the struggles of Africans in the US has resulted in liberal reactionary responses to anti-imperialism. Imperialism can not continue to be a vacuum issue by Africans living within the empire of the US. This isolated framing of the world prevents the practice of revolutionary internationalism – international solidarity against the same white supremacist forces that oppress Africans domestically. We are witnessing the frantic reactionary calls to “let people enjoy things” for the sake of identity reductionism.

A #BlackLivesMatter solidarity action in occupied Palestine drawing connections between the murders of George Floyd and autistic Palestinian youth, Eyad Al-Hallaq

Online discourse centered around anti-imperialism is met with push back primarily because people do not possess the political maturity to comprehend the ways imperialism materially affects their everyday lives and the importance of internationalism. Once Africans in the US understand themselves as colonized people on stolen land, there will be a more precise analysis of how liberation is sought and gained through tactics not tied to revolutionary internationalism – not to continuously voting for one’s demise.

For colonized people within the imperial core, there should be no allegiance to America.

Joe Biden’s Victory is Still a Loss For Humanity

By Danny Haiphong

Republished from Black Agenda Report.

The Biden-Harris administration is good news for corporations, cops, war profiteers and banks too big to fail, but offers nothing to save the people and planet from multiple crises.

Biden managed to defeat Donald Trump by a razor thin margin in yet another quadrennial contest over which section of the ruling class will exploit the people and the planet. But the results burst asunder the two most popular assumptions among Democrats about the 2020 election. Polls predicted that Biden would defeat Trump by a large margin in the electoral college. The opposite was true. Biden’s near defeat proved that no set of conditions exist where the Democratic Party can mount a resounding defeat of their duopoly counterpart.

More importantly, a Biden victory was always assumed by Democrats to be a victory for humanity. Think again. Biden and the Democrats did nothing to shake the halls of Congress in their favor. Nor did the Democratic Party offer anything to the masses to secure what should have been an easy victory over Donald Trump. With over 200,000 people dead from COVID-19 and tens of millions more left unemployed, Biden’s lackluster performance is more of an indictment of the Democratic Party’s legitimacy than it is a victory for humanity.

Humanity will suffer many losses under a Biden administration. Black America will likely suffer the worst. While Trump and his GOP allies waged open war with Black Lives Matter activists, Biden has promised to provide more than $300 million in federal funding for police departments to put down Black uprisings in a manner more palatable to the Black misleadership class and its white corporate masters. Black wealth plummeted rapidly under Obama and Biden’s administration. The current economic crisis, compounded with Biden’s lack of any plan to relieve the prolonged suffering of the working class, has already worsened the living standards of millions of Black American workers who never recovered from the 2007-2008 crisis.

There are many on the leftish wing of the Democratic Party that have argued Trump’s ouster will alleviate the suffering of humanity in several key areas. Some cite Biden’s willingness to enter back into the Paris Climate Accords, the JPCOA agreement with Iran, and the World Health Organization (WHO). This makes Biden more progressive than Trump. The argument has one fatal flaw. Biden is much more likely to use his institutional backing to change the form, not the scale of the suffering that the U.S. imposes worldwide.

Biden’s possible re-entrance into the Paris Climate Accords will be canceled out by his commitment to fracking. The possibility of eased sanctions with Iran, while extremely important, is not guaranteed and will be offset by Biden’s own commitment to imperialist plunder in the region. One cannot forget that Biden helped the Obama administration increase U.S. wars from two to seven. In eight years, Biden assisted in the coup of Honduras, the overthrow of Libya, and the ongoing proxy war in Syria. Biden’s commitment to the WHO should not negate his firm opposition to any single-payer model of healthcare and the large sums of money he receives from the very healthcare industry which has ensured the U.S. is without a public health system all together.

Biden and the Democratic Party are joint partners with the GOP in the facilitation of the ongoing Race to the Bottom for the working class. Wall Street donated heavily to Biden with full knowledge that his administration will continue to support the right of corporations to drive down wages, increase productivity (exploitation), and concentrate capital in fewer and fewer hands. Boeing’s CEO stated clearly clear that his business prospects would be served regardless of who won the election. Prison stocks rose after Biden announced Kamala Harris as his vice president. On November 4th, Reuters  announced that the lords of capital were quite pleased that no major policy changes were likely under the new political regime elected to Congress and the Oval Office.

Biden will inevitably rule as a rightwing neoconservative in all areas of policy. His big tent of Republicans and national security state apparatchiks is at least as large as Hillary Clinton’s in 2016. Over 100 former GOP war hawks of the national security state endorsed Biden in the closing weeks of the election. Larry Summers, a chief architect of the 2007-2008 economic crisis, advised his campaign. Susan Rice and Michele Flournoy are likely to join Biden’s foreign policy team—a key indication that trillions will continue to be spent on murderous wars abroad.

The question remains whether Biden can effectively govern like prior Democratic Party administrations. American exceptionalism is the Democratic Party’s ideological base, but this ideology is entangled in the general crisis of legitimacy afflicting the U.S. state. Biden’s ability to forward a project of “decency” that restores the “soul of the nation” is hampered by his attitude that “nothing will fundamentally change” for the rich. Biden also lacks charisma and talent. While millions were ready to vote for anyone and anything not named Donald Trump, four years of austerity and war under a president with obvious signs of cognitive decline is guaranteed to sharpen the contradictions of the rule of the rich and open the potential for further unrest on both the left and the right of the political spectrum.

To maintain social peace, Biden will use the Oval Office to consolidate its corporate forces to suffocate left wing forces inside and outside of the Democratic Party. The graveyard of social movements will expand to occupy the largest plot of political territory as possible. A “moderate” revolution will be declared for the forces of progress in the ruling class. Perhaps the best that can be summoned from a Biden administration is the advancement of consciousness that the Democratic Party is just as opposed to social democracy and the interests of the working classes as Republicans. Plenty of opportunities exist to challenge the intransigence of the Democrats but just as many obstacles will be thrown in the way of any true exercise of people’s power.

The 2020 election is yet another reminder that social movements must become the focus of politics, not the electoral process. This is where an internationalist vision of politics is especially important. Social movements in Bolivia returned their socialist party to power after a year living under a U.S.-backed coup. Massive grassroots mobilizations in Cuba, Vietnam, and China contained the COVID-19 pandemic in a matter of months. Ethiopia and Eritrea have agreed to forge peace rather than wage war. The winds of progress have been blowing toward the Global South for more than a century. The most progressive changes that have ever occurred in the U.S. have been a combined product of the mass organization of the U.S.’ so-called internal colonies such as Black America and the external pressures placed on the U.S. empire by movements for self-determination abroad.

The 2020 election has come and gone. What we know is that Biden is a repudiation of revolutionary change. Humanity will suffer many losses even if more of the oppressed and working masses become aware of Biden and the DNC’s hostile class interests. Trump was rejected by a corporate-owned electoral process just as Clinton was rejected in 2016. Politics in the U.S. remain confined to the narrow ideological possibilities offered by neoliberalism and imperial decay. Oppressed people must create and embrace a politics that take aim at the forces of reaction currently pushing humanity to the brink of total destruction. The only way this can happen is if Biden and the rest of the Democratic Party become the primary target of the people’s fight for a new world.