Once Again: When Is Enough Enough?

May 27, 2019 | revcom.us

 

Even as Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are targets of totally unjust persecution, those who ordered, oversaw, and carried out war crimes, and continue to do so—including generals, cabinet officials, and all the way up to presidents—have not only gone unpunished, they are hailed by this system as “heroes” and “statesmen.” (A small handful of soldiers have been charged and convicted of crimes, and Trump is reportedly getting ready to issue presidential pardons for some of them.¹) The real heroes are those who refuse to stay silent in the face of America’s crimes against humanity and act to resist and stop them.

While some civil rights and press freedom advocates have spoken out against the Assange indictment, there is an urgent need for mass, society-wide upsurge of protest against this outrage. As we recently wrote,² in the face of the quickly advancing fascist juggernaut—from Trump goading followers to shoot immigrants to intensifying attacks aiming to eliminate women’s right to abortion, to heightening danger of war and more—the actual resistance of the people to this has been virtually nil. And so: THE QUESTION IS SHARPLY POSED TO EVERYONE WHO KNOWS RIGHT FROM WRONG: AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY “ENOUGH!”?

And what about the Democrats, who pose as defenders of people’s rights but are, in fact, also an imperialist ruling class party intent on defending and promoting the “national security” of the U.S.? The top Democratic Party leaders have not made any statements on the new Assange indictment, but some, like Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, cheered when the Trump/Pence regime revealed the charges against Assange earlier this year. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren criticized the new indictment as an attack on the First Amendment—without calling this out as fascist and calling on masses of people to be out in the streets. (And Warren prefaced her statement by calling Assange a “bad actor who has harmed U.S. national security” and saying he “should be held accountable.”)

As we said in the earlier piece:

To make this plain and simple. What we face is consolidating fascism. And, electing the Democrats, or waiting for some normal process of this system to remove Trump and Pence—when the rule book to that system is steadily being shredded—is not only folly, but is bringing real horrors.

There is a way to drive out this fascist regime in the program of RefuseFascism.org, which is organizing now to be able to launch a movement as soon as possible of thousands of people taking to the streets across the country in nonviolent, yet sustained and continuing protests that don’t stop until the demand “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go” is met. The sharpening struggle within the ruling institutions (Congress, Courts, the media) can provide openings for the struggle from below, and also, if they are faced with a national political crisis caused by the determination of millions of people to stay in the streets in nonviolent political protest as has been done recently in countries like South Korea, Algeria, and others, then, there are forces within in the ruling institutions who could be compelled to act for their own interests to remove the regime.

The stakes of whether or not this program is taken up are this: should the Trump/Pence regime succeed in consolidating its grip, in cementing a full-out fascist form of rule and program—and make no mistake, they are now on the offensive to do just that—it will make any form of progressive change, including an actual revolution to overthrow the system that gave rise to this fascism, immeasurably more difficult. In fact, every day that it remains in power puts the future of humanity in direct peril.

So, again: When Is Enough FINALLY Enough?

 

---

1. “Trump says considering pardons for some U.S. soldiers accused of war crimes,” Reuters, May 24, 2019.  [back]

2. “WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?,” revcom.us, May 13, 2019.  [back]