This is Bob Avakian—REVOLUTION—number Eighty-Nine.

The question of immigrants—and especially Donald Trump’s crude and vicious racism toward immigrants (for example, those from Haiti)—has become a very big deal in this country now. And recently, Linda Ronstadt made an important statement about this.

When Donald Trump held one of his rallies in Ronstadt’s hometown of Tucson, Arizona—in a building with her name on it—Ronstadt was moved to condemn Trump’s “hatred of women, immigrants and people of color,” as well as his “criminality, dishonesty and ignorance.” She expressed particular outrage over the fact that, as President, Trump:

ripped apart migrant families seeking asylum. Family separation made orphans of thousands of little children and babies, and brutalized their desperate mothers and fathers. It remains a human catastrophe that Physicians for Human Rights said met the criteria for torture.

Ronstadt is also right in insisting that, “There is no forgiving or forgetting the heartbreak” caused by this—especially when Trump, in seeking to once again become President, is not just repeating but ramping up his fanatical racist rants and Nazi-like attacks on immigrants.

BUT...Ronstadt falls into a deceptive and dangerous pit when, in the same statement, she declares that she “will be voting proudly in November for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

Voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will NOT lead to a more just society and world—in fact, just the opposite: It will lead to the continuation, and even escalation, of the kind of horrors that Ronstadt righteously condemns (and others which she does not mention in this statement of hers).

As I spoke to in my message number 85:

I have shown how the description mass murderer, of Palestinians and others, and mass incarcerator—particularly of Black people and Latinos—accurately captures what Harris has actually been in her “service” to this system and its dominating role in the world.

Specifically on the question of immigrants, while Harris (and the Democrats) do not engage in the crudely racist language of Trump (and the Republicans) against immigrants, the actual record of Harris and the Democrats is also terrible in terms of vicious repression against immigrants, including those seeking asylum. In fact, the Biden-Harris Administration has deported more immigrants than Trump did as President; and Biden has issued an asylum ban, as part of increasing deportations. In the recent debate with Trump, Harris made a point of calling attention to a recent Congressional Bill she supported which would have significantly ramped up repression against immigrants. She condemned Trump for killing this Bill (because passing it would hurt his election campaign—making it harder for Trump to attack Democrats for not being repressive enough against immigrants). Again, Harris strongly insisted on the actually very repressive record of Democrats toward immigrants—such is the perverse “logic” of ruling class politicians, Democrats as well as Republicans.

And that is just part of the overall atrocious actions and policies of Harris and the Democrats. As I have emphasized repeatedly—and again in my last message (number 88):

In the world as a whole, the very functioning of this system of capitalism-imperialism—including the actual policies of Biden and Harris—is leading to the accelerating destruction of the environment. (At revcom.us, there is extensive exposure of the actual policies, and the lies and misleading claims, of the Biden/Harris administration, regarding the environment.)

In arming and backing the actions of Israel, the U.S. government is not only enabling the genocidal slaughter of Palestinians but is also increasing the possibility of a war with Iran, and perhaps an even wider and more destructive war. At the same time, by massively providing weapons, as well as intelligence and strategic direction to Ukraine, the U.S. government, headed by the Biden/Harris administration, is already indirectly at war with Russia, while also making preparations for military confrontation with China—all of which could lead to world war, between nuclear-armed imperialist powers, with the possibility of wiping out human civilization as we know it.

This once again emphasizes this crucial reality:

We, the people of the world, can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to continue to dominate the world and determine the destiny of humanity. They need to be overthrown as quickly as possible. And it is a scientific fact that we do not have to live this way.

And, to repeat once again this profound truth, which does need to be driven home repeatedly, in the face of all the confusion and misunderstanding which is constantly promoted and which too many continue to be caught up in:

This is not a time to be siding with one group of oppressors or another. This is a rare time—a very rare opening—a chance that may come only once in a lifetime—a chance to take advantage of the deep divisions among the ruling oppressors and go after their whole system, with the aim of bringing the whole thing down, and putting something much better in its place.