Yes We Can End US-Backed Military Intervention From Palestine to Libya!

The Challenge of Building a Left Alternative

A POLITICAL STATEMENT BY MEMBERS OF SOLIDARITY
Roughly four years ago, Israel launched a brutal military assault known as Operation Cast Lead on Palestinian communities in Gaza, killing approximately 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 700 civilians. In an important moment of truth, then incoming President Barack Obama chose to remain mostly silent throughout the crisis. Since his election, Obama has continued or expanded many of the hallmarks of foreign policy under George Bush, including extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention and torture, drone attacks, and aggressive military actions, including regime change, that have been carried out in the name of national security or justified as humanitarian intervention. The damaging, hypocritical role of the United States in North Africa is clear. While imperialist powers responded the Qaddafi regimes brutality with intervention and ultimately helped topple the government, they remain silent about the ethnic cleansing of Black Libyans. Today, the ferment sweeping the region has been used as a pretext for sending more US troops. Despite Obamas record of pursuing US interests throughout the world at the expense of all but the most elite in the Global North, many in the Black community, with some basis, continue to see in Obamas Presidency a symbol of the hope for African Americans to achieve self-determination and respect. This has to be understood in the context of the seemingly hopeless conditions faced by many Black people, including economic devastation within inner cities, police murder, and prison-industrial complex lockdown. The partial weakness of the Black liberation movement, result-

ing from its difficulty in regrouping from the state repression and its own internal contradictions since the 60s and 70s, has opened up space for a mass sentiment that sees Obama as a continuation of the legacy of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Even some who do not see Obama in this positive light will still support him on election day, if only to show their opposition to the reactionary Romney-Ryan ticket. Its understandable that African American and Latino voters, women, working people and progressives feel that the overriding imperative is to defeat the Republican Partys appalling racism, its anti-immigrant policies, and its assault on womens rights. Yet, nothing would strike a stronger blow against the right and do more for working people and all of the oppressed than building a mass movement and a new progressive political alternative. An important task for the broad left, antiwar, and Black liberation movements is to build a real political alternative to Obama and the Democrats that speaks to peoples current consciousness and immediate needs. Although there is no force now which represents the mass movement we need, the campaigns of the We recognize the politi- Green Party and Peace and Freedom Party are important efforts support. We further supcal space that the Black Is to construct a left alternative worthy offorces in the Black liberaport constructive dialogue with those Back Coalition is seeking tion movement seeking to engage with this task, such as the Afto create as an important rican Peoples Socialist Party, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Ujima Peoples Progress Party, the New York Freedom Party, and one at a critical time. others. Even in instances where these efforts do not represent a full break from the Democratic Party and ruling-class forces, we believe much can be gained by seeking to learn from the experiences of others, as well as from engagement in principled dialogue, debate, and common struggle. In this respect, we recognize the political space that the Black Is Back Coalition is seeking to create as an important one at a critical time. To communicate with the authors of this statement, email Thano Paris at thano.paris@gmail.com and Nick Davenport at ndvnprt@gmail.com. The authors are members of Solidarity. Solidarity is a revolutionary socialist, feminist, and antiracist organization with branches across the United States. We are a multi-tendency organization, seeking to promote regroupment of socialists and non-sectarian united work to rebuild the left and the movements.

SOLIDARITY www.solidarity-us.org 313-841-0160