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    Ecuador: workers caught in bosses’ crossfire

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    03 February 2024 777 hits

    Ecuador, January 31—Workers in Ecuador have found themselves caught between a turf war between drug gangs led by Jose Adolfo Macias, known by the alias “Fito” and the Ecuadorian state headed by new president Daniel Noboa. Workers of course have been the victims of the attacks by both sides of this fight. Gunmen hired by the Cartels have taken hundreds of hostages. They have also taken over a TV station during a live broadcast (an event which has been widely viewed over the internet), killing at least 14 people, and threatening to execute more workers and soldiers.

    In response, the government has the country on lockdown, has instituted a curfew, and  seeks to have workers in Ecuador pay for these wars (Reuters, 1/12).  All this, while terrible economic conditions wreak havoc on Ecuadoran workers.  Twenty-five percent of Ecuadorian children lack access to proper nutrition (Institute for Human Rights, 7/9/23).

    Ecuador gangs a symptom of capitalism in crisis
    The appearance of the government defending its citizens from gangs hides the true essence of the conflict: bosses vying for control of decreasing profits during a crisis of capitalism. Ecuador’s oil-dependent economy is on the decline and its government, like many of the countries who do not benefit as much from imperialist plunder, is not powerful enough to defeat rival non-state capitalists such as the drug gangs. That will not stop capitalist governments like the one in Ecuador from trying to institute higher levels of fascism, while exposing workers to more violence.

    In fact, Ecuador’s plans to build new high-security prisons and institute harsher legal penalties for drug possession were inspired by El Salvador’s own recent war on drugs. That war on workers has resulted in 60,000 people being imprisoned in a country of six million, with one in six estimated to be innocent (San Fernando Sun, 3/22/23).  

    Bosses in the Philippines have waged their own “war on drugs” since 2016 which resulted in the deaths of 12,000 mostly poor urban workers.

    This conflict also shows how the United States and Europe are struggling to maintain order in the countries under their sphere of influence. U.S. ally Ukraine has failed to repel the Russian attacks despite billions of dollars in weapons, Israel continues its genocide of workers in Palestine despite a weak U.S. pressure to reign in the conflict. Recently, China has surpassed the United States as Ecuador’s top trading partner (Al Jazeera 12/19/22).

    Communsim is the only solution to imperialist war and violence
    As crises of capitalism such as drug violence continue to get worse, and the inter-imperialist rivalry between the United States and China heats up, workers will continue to be exposed to more violence and fascism at the hands of their bosses. The only thing that will save all workers from drug gangs, state gangs and imperialist war is communism, where workers not capitalist war-mongerers actually run society. Join the Progressive Labor Party and let's lead this revolution together!

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    “Call of Duty”—Reject Imperialist Propaganda and Embrace Communism

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    03 February 2024 1278 hits

    Late last year, the U.S. imperialist propaganda machine cranked out another “game” Call of Duty Modern Warfare III  to encourage young workers to enlist in their bloodsoaked military and die for oil profits. The U.S. imperialists know that they are facing ever increasing competition and in fact are already deeply engaged in the wars in Israel/Palestine and Ukraine/Russia. Just as Russia, Ukraine, and Israel are desperately attempting to recruit or coerce youth to join their militaries, so too does the U.S. military as it leverages video games to boost its dismal recruiting as it prepares for further, more expansive wars.

    For 20 years, Activision Blizzard has launched new versions of Call of Duty (CoD) “ripped from the headlines” video games mimicking U.S. imperialists’ actions globally. One version of CoD replicated the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, while another duplicated U.S. bombing of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

    Call of Duty: propaganda in service of U.S. imeprialism
    The veil all but disappears, as the Marine Corps Entertainment Media Liaison Office is credited as a consultant and Activision Blizzard consistently credits the Marines across the franchise. CoD is not just profitable war fan-fiction, (earning $27 billion from 2013 to 2020), it is tied insidiously to the U.S. military. Activision Blizzard is infested with U.S. State Department and Defense Department personnel, making CoD military propaganda. With over 90 percent of American children playing video games, the military is deepening its reach to Twitch and Discord gamers, to lure prospective soldiers. Such blatant activity has prompted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (still a misleader for workers) to sponsor a House amendment to ban the military from such activities. CoD is intended to manipulate the working class to fight for the bosses’ wars, accept U.S.imperialism, and join the military.

    Who are the imperialist agents in Activision Blizzard?

    Chief among these is Frances Townsend, Activision Blizzard’s senior counsel and executive vice president until September 2022 when AB merged with Microsoft. She was Assistant Commandant for Intelligence for the United States Coast Guard, counter-terrorism deputy for  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and a member of the National Security Council under President George Bush. She serves as trustee of the Atlantic Council, which actively strategizes how NATO can manage foreign affairs and, she also serves on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the International Republican Institute. These are all bosses’ think tanks strategizing on how to promote U.S. imperialism.

    Another Activision capitalist agent is Brian Joseph Bulatao who is their current chief administrative officer. He previously was appointed to be the CIA’s Chief Operating Officer by CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
    Grant Dixton is Activision’s Chief Legal Counsel.  He previously was a law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court and the senior vice president of Boeing, a military aerospace company. As loyal servants of the U.S. empire, Bulatao and Dixton make CoD military propaganda and reflect the intimate connection between video game media and military production for war.

    Promoting nationalism and war crimes with historical lies
    To help increase support for U.S. imperialism, CoD revises history portraying the U.S. as the hero, promoting the notion that war crimes like torture are necessary, and desensitizes players to atrocities.
    One such alteration of history includes the “Highway of Death” which was a real event following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait where the U.S. military bombed the retreating Iraqi army along with innocent civilians and refugees. However, in the Modern Warfare version, the attack is carried out by the Russians. The player’s assignment in Modern Warfare II is to kill a 'fictional' Iranian General “Ghorbrani.” He even has a white beard and similar attire as Qassem Soleimani who in 2020 was actually  assassinated by a drone strike ordered by former President Donald Trump.

    In the 2019 edition of CoD, the player executes no-knock raids in the middle of the night, killing anyone whose reasonable response is to shoot back. For example, a fictional mother reaching for a firearm to protect her child is shot. While players can't engage in friendly fire in the game a baby can be killed, either in cold blood or for leverage against parents in the interrogation room.

    Modern Warfare 2's “Borderline” mission takes place in the U.S./Mexico border. The player navigates an alley in a residential area until reaching one of the houses, barging in and "de-escalating" by aiming at the civilians. If the player fails to do this, the fictional civilians kill the player.

    Also from Modern Warfare 2, in the mission "Hardpoint," participants pilot a helicopter providing air support to ground teams in the fictional region of Las Almas, Mexico. In the process of fighting off cartel members, the player destroys a school, church, restaurant, gas station and market!
    In the first game of the Call of Duty: Black Ops series the player is tasked with killing Fidel Castro during the Bay of Pigs, a failed CIA-backed coup.

    Overall, Call of Duty promotes imperialism and fascist myths that U.S. intervention saves lives, torture gets results, and "we get dirty, so the world stays clean." This encourages capitalist war, imperialism, racism and implicates Activision Blizzard as part of the sprawling military industrial complex.

    COD recruiting youth to kill and die for U.S imperialism
    The U.S. military has never shied away from exploring any relationship, charity or otherwise which promotes soldier recruitment.   The U.S. Armed Forces have recently started Twitch channels on which actual soldiers stream games online where viewers can donate and be convinced to join. Twitch viewers in the Army’s channel are repeatedly assaulted with chat prompts to “win a Xbox Elite Series 2 controller” The link simultaneously opens a recruiting form with no additional mention of the contest. These solicitations are aimed at kids as young as 12, who line up to be contacted by the U.S. military once they reach 16, the minimum age at which recruiters may legally contact someone in the United States. In 2022, the U.S. Army spent millions of dollars to host tournaments with high profile streamers, targeting Gen-z youth, especially Black, Latin, and young women close to recruitment age (Vice News, 12/1/22)

    Our response to the imperialists’ murderous “Call of Duty” must be one of our own – Let’s embrace our “call of duty” to smash racism, sexism, and capitalism with communist revolution as part of an international process to destroy the roots of exploitation and imperialist war. This “call of duty” is not a game, it is reality.

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    Red eye on the news . . . February 14, 2024

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    03 February 2024 659 hits

    World military situation mirrors 1930s
    Foreign Affairs, 1/26
    –World War II began as a trio of loosely connected contests for primacy in key regions stretching from Europe to the Asia-Pacific—contests that eventually climaxed and coalesced in globally consuming ways. The history…illustrates uncomfortable parallels to the situation Washington currently confronts…​​with wars in eastern Europe and the Middle East already raging, and ties between revisionist states becoming more pronounced, all it would take is a clash in the contested western Pacific to bring about another awful scenario—one in which intense, interrelated regional struggles overwhelm the international system and create a crisis of global security unlike anything since 1945. A world at risk could become a world at war.
    The parallels between this earlier era and the present are striking. Today, as in the 1930s, the international system is facing three sharp regional challenges…Russia and China are drawing closer through their “no limits” strategic partnership, which features arms sales, deepening defense-technological cooperation, and displays of geopolitical solidarity such as military exercises in global hot spots…the Sino-Russian partnership has pacified what was once the world’s most militarized border and enabled both countries to focus on their contests with Washington and its friends.

    Preparing soldiers to fight in nuclear war
    Business Insider, 1/26–Russian scientists have created a new simulator to train Moscow's troops on how to operate in the event of a nuclear explosion…The simulator… is set to be used in military exercises to prepare Russian ground forces for post-explosion combat missions, the state-run Tass news agency reported on Tuesday. State media said the simulator would also instruct chemical, biological, and radiation reconnaissance teams on how to find the epicenter and determine the characteristics of a blast.

    "The purpose of the model is to simulate what a nuclear strike looks like — the shock effect, flash of light and mushroom cloud of a ground-based nuclear explosion," the description of the simulator's patent says, according to Tass.

    The US is working toward upgrading its silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, building new bombers, and developing ballistic-missile submarines. In October, the Pentagon announced that it would pursue a new variant of the B61 nuclear gravity bomb, an air-launched weapon to be designated the B61-13, pending approval from lawmakers.

    Farmers aim to shut down Paris
    France24, 1/28
    –Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Sunday tasked law enforcement officials with putting into place "extensive security measures" to prevent farmers from blocking Paris area airports or its Rungis market and “to prohibit any entry into Paris”. The leaders of two of France's largest farming unions said Saturday that members from the regions around Paris "will begin an indefinite siege of the capital" on Monday. "All the major roads leading to the capital will be occupied by farmers," they said, announcing their intention to blockade the massive Rungis wholesale food market south of the capital. French farmers are furious at what they say is a squeeze on purchase prices for produce by supermarket and industrial buyers, as well as complex environmental regulations. But the last straw for many was the phasing-out of a tax break on diesel fuel for farm equipment.

    West African nations move further away from French control
    Al Jazeera, 1/28–Three military-led West African nations have announced their immediate withdrawal from regional bloc ECOWAS, accusing the body of becoming a threat to its members. Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso “decide in complete sovereignty on the immediate withdrawal” from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), read a joint statement published on Sunday. ECOWAS “under the influence of foreign powers, betraying its founding principles, has become a threat to its member states and its population”, read the statement…“There is bad faith within this organization,” lamented Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, Niger’s army-appointed prime minister…The three countries have cut military ties with France, the former colonial power. France once had a strong presence across the Sahel, but announced the withdrawal of its troops from the three countries after the coups.

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    Letters . . . February 14, 2024

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    03 February 2024 583 hits

    Felt ‘urgency and emotional rawness’
    I was impressed by the seriousness of the comrades at the recent cadre school. The school was proof the Party is developing young, working-class, Black and Latin, women leadership to lead the working class to power.

    The discussions were advanced, focused, and honest. People shared their questions and disagreements, and we struggled for everyone to be heard. People came from different walks of life, but we were united in our commitment to study the world and fight for a communist future.

    We contemplated some of the most complicated issues we face in the class struggle, like the need to confront nationalism and fight for internationalism, the need to fight directly for communism, the necessity of armed struggle and revolutionary violence to defeat the capitalist class once and for all.

    You could feel the urgency and emotional rawness in the voices of the comrades in the room: the fate of the international working class is on our shoulders! I came away feeling fortified to apply myself more resolutely to struggling in my neighborhood to win my friends and neighbors to the Progressive Labor Party.

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    Argentina: Pro-U.S. Milei attack our class, caught between imperialists

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    21 January 2024 521 hits

    The elections in Argentina in October and November 2023 resulted in the return of the far right to power, with Javier Milei at its helm. For the working class, this election only made things, already bad, worse as Argentina was already going through a period of economic crisis and experiencing social difficulties linked to inflation which had risen to more than 160% in 2022. With a so-called socialist government at the helm, the standard of living of workers was diminished by corruption scandals and structural problems during the past few decades. The rightwing trend mirrors what is happening elsewhere in the world, with xenophobic, nationalist and anti-working class speeches by the newly elected president, especially the anti-migrant ones, which blame migrant workers for the crises brought on by capitalism.

    Argentina stands between the current inter-imperialist struggles. At the last BRICS summit in August 2023, Argentina was among the countries proposed to become a member of this grouping. BRICS is an intergovernmental organization comprising the capitalist bosses of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It was at the same time that the IMF granted a loan of several hundred millions of dollars in the country. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a U.S.-controlled body that furthers capitalist expansion, always to the detriment of the working class of its member countries. These two events show how Argentina is being tossed between the influences of the two protagonist camps of the moment, the Western imperialists on one side and their rival imperialists on the other. Both sides are vying for economic and political control of the world’s resources and wealth.

    Argentine misleaders attack workers, line the ruler’s pockets
    Since the election of Milei, Argentina’s bosses have faced a series of popular protest demonstrations (which are becoming increasingly illegal) against their “anti-democratic” measures. During the first mobilizations the police began to use excessive force against demonstrators and union members. Ten days after taking office, Milei published a “DNU” (decree of necessity and emergency), which aims to modify or repeal more than 300 standards, in particular removing rent controls, State intervention to protect the prices of essential products, weakening worker protections, enabling privatizations. For older workers, their pensions are being cut via an “economically viable” automatic calculation method—once again stealing from the poor to fill the coffers of the already-rich. While Milei talks about austerity measures for the working class, he has not renounced class privileges for himself and his bourgeoisie.

    Liberals and Libertarians, fascists-in-arms
    Milei’s preparedness shows that the return of the extreme right was a well-planned project that was already underway. Milei’s election was hailed by other hard rightliners such as Bolsonaro (former president of Brazil) and Trump (former president of the U.S.). Milei, like his fascist counterparts, calls himself an “ultra-liberal,” trying to fool the masses into thinking he is really on their side, like the Nazis were called National Socialists and Mussolini started out as a so-called socialist—liberal or far-right fascist, they’re all on the bosses’ side.
    The struggle in Argentina is a struggle that promises to be long and difficult for the Argentine workers and students who have a long tradition of fighting back in various forms of class struggle. What the current situation shows us is that our class in Argentina—and everywhere—cannot rely on reformers (liberal or fascist) destroy the capitalist system and replace it with communism—an egalitarian system that the working class controls to serve its own needs. We urge our comrades in Argentina to join with us in the Progressive Labor Party and fight for communist revolution. That is the only way that we will be able to liberate our class.

    1. East Africa: Hell to Zionist ideology, long live working-class unity
    2. Colombia: Ruling-class divisions over imperialist U.S.-Israel
    3. This is what liberal fascism looks like: 5-year-old Jean Carlos killed in Chicago’s concentration camp
    4. All 2023: PL’ers and friends bloomed antiracist red fightback

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