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Border Update:

Two More Immigrant Deaths From “Operation Lone Star”

Fascist Governors Send Reinforcements to Texas

Barbed wire barrier at Texas-Mexico border caused people to die.

 

Barbed wire barrier at Texas-Mexico border, August 2, 2023.    Photo: AP

Recently at least two more immigrants died at the Texas portion of the U.S.-Mexico border. One man was entangled and his body torn in the floating razor wire barricade placed in the middle of the river separating Mexico and Texas. How did these razors get there? They were put there as part of “Operation Lone Star,” under orders from Greg Abbott, Texas' Christian fascist governor. And they were intended to maim, wound and murder people. The body of another man was also found drifting in the river by Mexican authorities.

As we have written before, whatever the exact circumstances of the deaths of these two men, the sadistic Christian fascist Abbott is soaked in their blood. This brings the total deaths from these death traps to at least six, including one infant. (See the Revolution article “Official Texas Border Policy: Torture and Murder, A Spectre of What's to Come... Unless We Make Revolution” for more on Operation Lone Star.)

The Biden administration has sued Texas to remove the razor barricades, and Abbot basically told Biden to go fuck himself. The steel death traps are certain to remain in place for at least another month. (And in case you didn’t know, Biden has expelled more immigrants along the border than all his predecessors. He has relentlessly developed and expanded the militarization of the border—while calling his approach “fair, orderly and humane.”)

These are the “alternatives” imperialism has to offer to its “immigration problem,” in a nutshell. The openly vicious bloodlust and bottomless cruelty of the Republi-fascists, or the often concealed from view, and sprinkled with language like “compassion,” and “humane”—but equally bloodthirsty—approach of Biden and the Democrats.

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Fascists Escalate Border Repression, Defy Biden and the Democrats

All the deaths were near the “twin cities” of Eagle Pass, Texas, and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. Over the past several weeks the area around Eagle Pass has been Lone Star’s “ground zero.” The Texas “Department of Public Safety” (DPS) has occupied a public park in Eagle Pass and turned it into what the Houston Chronicle described as “a militarized zone with shipping containers and razor wire lining the banks of the Rio Grande…. It is the only public property in the state where troopers are able to arrest migrants, and more than 500 have been charged with trespassing there in the last month alone.”

Migrants from Mexico stopped from crossing the Rio Grande by barbed wired buoys

 

The official Texas policy places 1000-foot chains of floating river barricades in the Rio Grande, buoys wrapped together with barbed wire, July 2023.    Photo: AP

Recently the DPS began implementing a form of family separation in Eagle Pass. The Chronicle reported that DPS has “broken up at least two dozen families by detaining fathers on trespassing charges, while the other members—including small children—are transferred to Border Patrol agents, according to spouses and attorneys representing those migrants.” This is in violation of Texas’ own written policy on families encountered by DPS. It is also a return to the infamous and widely hated family separation program of the Trump/Pence regime. It openly flaunts current federal policy.

Also last week, Republi-fascist governors from 13 states announced that they are sending 1,305 National Guard troops and 231 “law enforcement personnel” to Texas to be part of Lone Star. Their statement reads, Every state is a border state and Republican governors—together—are stepping up to protect Americans where Biden has failed.”  

All this is a serious escalation in Republi-fascist defiance of federal authority—as long as that authority is exercised by Democrats like Biden. Abbott and the other Republi-fascist governors are taunting Biden and the federal government, and daring Biden to do something to stop them from implementing their own “border policy.” No matter what the Democrats do around the border or anything else, they are seen as illegitimate by these fascists. The fascists are preparing for a civil war, if they cannot take power “peacefully.”

 
Something Terrible or Something Truly Emancipating - Square, wo "NEW"

 

A Conflict Coming to a Head

How to repress and keep out millions of immigrants is part of a larger set of conflicts among and within the ruling class that are shredding the “norms” by which this system has functioned. It is an acute expression of how the “ruling class is more and more unable to rule in the old way,” as Bob Avakian wrote. BA also wrote:

[T]hese divisions among the ruling powers, and in the larger society, cannot be resolved within the framework that has existed, and has held things together, for nearly 150 years, since shortly after the end of the Civil War which led to the abolition of slavery—they cannot be resolved on the basis of the capitalist “democracy” that has been the “normal” means of capitalist rule (dictatorship) for so long.

Something radically different is going to replace the framework that has existed for all this time—and as “A Declaration, A Call to Get Organized Now for a Real Revolution” from the revcoms sharply points out:

the crisis and deep divisions in society now can only be resolved through radical means, of one kind or another—either radically reactionary, murderously oppressive and destructive means or radically emancipating revolutionary means.

Both Democrats and Republi-fascists represent and defend the same system. They differ sharply on how openly violent and racist the repression they rain down on migrants should be, but both agree the repression must intensify. Their solution the “immigration problem” their system created is: more walls and whips; more detention centers and deportations; more razor wire, and more bodies floating in the Rio Grande. 

We revcoms are determined to wrench a fundamentally different and emancipating future out of this clash the only way it can be: through a real revolution. As WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM states, this revolution would, as one of its bedrock principles, would be determined to do this:

Eliminating Discrimination, Inequality, and Oppression in Every Form

In the new socialist society, eliminating all the oppressive divisions that characterized the old society—including oppression based on nationality and race, sex and gender—will be a fundamental goal and of the highest priority. Special attention and resources will be devoted to overcoming the terrible legacy of slavery and genocide, and the continual discrimination and brutal degradation, to which Black people, Native Americans, Latinos and other people of color have been subjected throughout the history of the USA. Immigrants, from all parts of the world, who have a sincere desire to contribute to goals of the new socialist republic will be welcome in this republic. The rights of LGBT people and of women, including the fundamental rights to abortion and birth control, are guaranteed in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America and will be protected and enforced by the government of that new socialist republic. As emphasized in this Constitution, the oppression of women arose together with, and for thousands of years has been woven together with, relations among human beings based on exploitation, and this is a defining feature of the capitalist-imperialist USA. Abolishing and uprooting all this will be one of the most important objectives of the new revolutionary society based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

We are at a turning point in history. The capitalist-imperialist system is a horror for billions of people here and around the world and threatening the very fabric of life on earth. Now the election of fascist Trump poses even more extreme dangers for humanity—and underscores the total illegitimacy of this system, and the urgent need for a radically different system.

The website Revcom.us follows the revolutionary leadership of Bob Avakian (BA), the author of the new communism. Bob Avakian has scientifically analyzed that we are in a rare time when an actual revolution has become more possible in the U.S. He’s charted a strategy for making that revolution, and laid out a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for “what comes next” in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

Revcom.us projects BA’s voice, leadership, and vision throughout society. It posts his timely leadership for the revcoms (revolutionary communists) and the whole movement for revolution, including his social media posts, and curates his whole body of work. 

Our website applies the scientific approach BA has developed to analyze major events in society and the world—why they are happening, how they relate to each other, how all this relates to the system we live under, where people's interests lie, how revolution is in fact the solution to all this, and what the goals of that revolution are.

Revcom.us acts as a guiding and connecting hub for the revcom movement nationwide: showing what’s being done, digging into what’s right and what’s wrong, and rapidly learning—and recruiting new people into what has to be a rapidly growing force. As part of this, revcom.us feature and promotes the weekly The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show on YouTube.com. 

Put it this way: there will be no revolution unless this website not only “keeps going” but rises to a whole different level!

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