USA: Monstrous Super-Predator,
Now on Steroids

April 23, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Imperialism means huge monopolies and financial institutions controlling the economies and the political systems—and the lives of people—not just in one country but all over the world. Imperialism means parasitic exploiters who oppress hundreds of millions of people and condemn them to untold misery; parasitic financiers who can cause millions to starve just by pressing a computer key and thereby shifting vast amounts of wealth from one place to another. Imperialism means war—war to put down the resistance and rebellion of the oppressed, and war between rival imperialist states—it means the leaders of these states can condemn humanity to unbelievable devastation, perhaps even total annihilation, with the push of a button.

Imperialism is capitalism at the stage where its basic contradictions have been raised to tremendously explosive levels. But imperialism also means that there will be revolution—the oppressed rising up to overthrow their exploiters and tormentors—and that this revolution will be a worldwide struggle to sweep away the global monster, imperialism.

Bob Avakian, BAsics 1:6

The images pour across our screens. In Mosul, a stream of people flee the U.S./Iraq siege, scrambling through rubble, dodging bullets, past what were once homes and businesses, a dead soldier. A boy clutches his father; a young girl carries her little sister, fear in their eyes, looking for a way out.

Let your eye sweep the globe and truly see: people digging through bombed homes for their children, men tortured by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib, villages laid waste by U.S. drones. And millions of refugees fleeing, lives upended, in vast tent cities, baking under summer sun, freezing in winter, or taking to the sea in small boats, delivering the lucky to an unwelcoming Europe, while thousands drown and wash up on shore.

And WHY?

Not because of some unchanging “human nature” as we are told, but because of an inhuman system, capitalism-imperialism, that rests on win-or-die competition between blocks of capital, and between capitalist states, competition that drives them ceaselessly to expand, to see in the amazing regions and diverse peoples of our world only resources to plunder and bodies to enslave. Inevitably, they crash into obstacles—other imperialist powers doing the same thing; regional thugs trying to make it into the big leagues; peoples or nations that refuse to submit. And so wars of conquest, wars of occupation, proxy wars, become necessary accompaniments to the accumulation of capitalist profit on a world scale.

This system funnels the labor, creativity, and insight of millions into developing the means for killers sitting at computer consoles to rain destruction on tiny villages 5,000 miles away, or to twist the minds of young soldiers to become torturers, baby killers, and mass murderers in foreign lands.

And worse looms on the near horizon. The fascist Trump/Pence regime does not yet have society locked down, but it’s not waiting for that to radically escalate military aggression; in fact, it is using militarism to project “strength” at home, to rev up its fascist social base, and to convince rival forces in the U.S. ruling class to close ranks behind them.

During his campaign, Trump literally said, “Bomb the shit out of them!” And he has nearly tripled the rate of civilian casualties in Middle East wars. The fascists revel in launching missiles, in dropping massive bombs, in displaying armadas of warships in Asian seas. They threaten and bully, engaging in nuclear brinkmanship with criminal recklessness. War with Russia or China are “options on the table”; North Korea is “a problem” and “we will solve it.... U.S.A.” All it takes is for one rival power to call Trump’s “bluff” and things could spiral into nuclear war, with tens of millions of lives and the livability of our whole planet on the line.

This regime must be driven out before it consolidates power, and before it unleashes further hell on humanity. But the thunder and torment of wars of conquest and domination are wired into the system as a whole—as is driven home by the legacy of two world wars in the 20th century that killed at least 75 million, and the wars that endlessly rage across the Middle East and Central Asia.

THIS MUST STOP and IT IS POSSIBLE. Stopping it means overthrowing the system that causes it—country by country, but aiming for the whole world—and the establishment of socialist societies that put the needs of the people of the world at the center of economic, political, and social life. Fuck “Make America Great.” Bob Avakian, the leader of the revolution, says “Internationalism―The Whole World Comes First,” and this outlook and leadership must inspire people to revolution, create new alliances, and infuse and guide a whole new society.

There are millions here, and around the world, who would fight for a future where people’s energy and creativity are used to heal the people and planet, not destroy them. People around the world, demonized by our rulers, are our brothers and sisters, and—if and as, with revolutionary leadership, we reach out to them—they will become our allies in conscious revolutionary struggle to free the planet and forge a new world fit for human beings.

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USA: Monstrous Super-Predator, Now on Steroids

USA: Monstrous Super-Predator,
Now on Steroids