Revolutionary Worker #1168, September 29, 2002, posted at http://rwor.org
From September 25 to 29, people are mobilizing in Washington, DC to stand up against the crimes of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank at the annual fall meetings of these bloodsucking institutions. The Revolutionary Worker salutes the courageous resisters who will be in DC to continue this important struggle.
Worldwide, we have fought to bring into being a brighter day. We put the world on notice in Seattle, going up against tear gas and rubber bullets. We've taken on the global predators of the IMF/World Bank in DC, winning new support around the world despite press lies and police spies. We fought back in Quebec City to stand with our brothers and sisters throughout the Americas facing a free market catastrophe planned through FTAA. In Genoa, Buenos Aires, Quito, Prague and Barcelona, millions of us have resisted.
Now people face the challenge of not only developing the movement against global capital higher, but confronting a U.S. campaign of war and repression that threatens the entire world and all its people. To do that, resisters need to recognize that there is a new situation and to connect with all those who are ready to stand up and declare their resistance to this juggernaut.
The Revolutionary Worker calls on the DC resisters to connect the fight against capitalist globalization to the resistance against the whole U.S. campaign of war and repression--to bring the energy and commitment of this movement to join with thousands of people on October 6 in New York's Central Park to say "Not in Our Name."
The Challenges We Face
After 9/11, the government cynically seized the opportunity to declare a war without limits. A U.S. war Donald Rumsfeld says could target 60 countries--a war where the leaders of "the free world" have announced their intention to strike pre-emptively, including the possible use of nuclear weapons, against anyone and everyone they declare an enemy.
A brutal air and ground assault on Afghanistan was launched on October 7, 2001. Thousands of innocents have been killed.
Along with this war, the U.S. government has set loose a campaign of police- state repression. The FBI and INS have rounded up over a thousand immigrants. They've been locked away without charge, without us even knowing their names. Civil liberties have been attacked, unions threatened with strike- breaking by military troops, and Homeland Security snitch networks planned so neighbors can spy on and turn in neighbors. Prompted by government "terror alerts" and tales of "al-Qaida cells," the media has promoted an atmosphere of fear and paranoia.
In the face of this, many in the movement against capitalist globalization have continued to resist, to step up resistance--and these confrontations need to continue and grow.
At the same time, it is urgent that this movement take some new steps together with others that can begin to build resistance powerful enough to change the direction of the country in the face of unprecedented warmongering.
The U.S. has spread their military assault from Afghanistan to the Philippines. And now they aim to attack Iraq--claiming for themselves the right to military superiority over the entire world and a doctrine of pre-emptive attack anywhere their predatory interests are challenged.
On September 12, 2002, George Bush stood in front of the United Nations, telling the world that Iraq is a threat to global peace. Already U.S. and British bombing of Iraq, together with punishing sanctions, have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. How many more Iraqi people will die in a U.S. war aimed at taking over the whole country? How many young soldiers will be sent to war against the people of Iraq? And for what?
The U.S. intends to take Iraq not because of its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, but because the U.S. ruling class has grand plans to recast the political, military and economic relations in the world so no one dares challenge them. Bush and Co. have openly declared their intention for U.S. imperialism to be the world's supreme ruler, controlling the oil-rich Middle East and the lifelines of the world economy. They are openly bragging that they plan to dictate to the world who will do what, who will get what, and who will not.
Everything they are doing with their "War on Terrorism" has to do with enforcing the inhuman world order of global capitalism and planetary destruction on the world's people. The whole "war on terrorism" aims at imposing, by force of arms, a world order where the IMF and World Bank can more thoroughly dominate and twist the lives of the people around the world in the interests of imperialist capital. And there are people all around the country looking for a way to oppose this.
So it is urgent that the movement against capitalist globalization join with all those who want to take on this whole juggernaut of war and repression --and declare a common determination to stop it.
A Time for Mass Resistance to War
On October 6 in New York's Central Park thousands will gather to send a message to the world that they are not going to tolerate this unjust, illegitimate, and immoral machinery of war and repression. Together they will carve out new space for resistance.
This will be a day when a great diversity of people come together for a major show of defiance. Together we will pledge to do everything in our power to bring wider and wider sections of society into political action to stop this whole machinery of war and repression.
There are historic days when it is urgent for the people to stand up and be counted -- times when our coming together transforms us all and creates new conditions to take the resistance of the masses to a whole new level. October 6 is one of those days. Now, when the whole world is watching and wanting to know what the people in this country will do, we need to send a powerful message to people around the world that right in the heart of this empire, there is hope for a different future.
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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