PART’s Perspective: Sinking Roots of Revolutionary Resistance
Sinking Roots of Revolutionary Resistance
by Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action-Los Angeles/People Against Racist Terror (ARA-LA/PART)
As resistance to ICE and the use of military troops reaches a flashpoint in Los Angeles and spreads across the US, we must work on how to deepen, extend, solidify, organize and sharpen the outrage and anger in sustained, and sustaining, ways. Street clashes are inevitable, but massive protests and extended community non-compliance are also called for. Overcoming the contradictions between the documented and undocumented, between housed and unhoused, between those in organized labor and those not; overcoming differences in age, in nationality, in income or education; unifying those ready to throw down in militant action and those committed to non-violence (whether revolutionary or not), are all essential if a resistance is to build and grow powerful enough to thwart the state’s designs and the rising authoritarian or neo-fascist trend in the US (and elsewhere).
Leading in this work in Los Angeles has been the Community Self-Defense Coalition of LA, seeking to build organization and accountability, and to connect street patrols that can alert the community to ICE raids before they happen with larger-scale community organization and education, and militant defense against kidnapings. Hundreds of new members are being on-boarded through training and political education. But there are many others carrying out actions and strategies of their own, including the organized labor movement, which held massive rallies in LA and nationally in support of David Huerta, an SEIU labor leader arrested by the feds, various non-profit groups that have a long history of service work with migrant communities, direct action and autonomist formations and large numbers of individuals who have taken to the streets to defend migrant neighbors and express their outrage at ICE, Trump and the overall assault on democracy.
The Trump regime and its slash-and-burn approach to regulations and the social safety net, and its scapegoating of migrants and the left as enemies of “America”, represent the attempts of the Empire to grapple with the profound economic, social, political and environmental crises it is facing. But we need to recognize that those problems, and indeed those protracted crises, have deep roots in the nature of settler colonial capitalism in the US and its globalized system. ‘Fascism’ has its roots in colonialism and enslavement, mass incarceration and corporate privatization of the commons, all of which have been norms of class rule in this society since long before Trump was born, let alone elected.
We need to seize the time in this latest crisis to strengthen and unite the popular forces and our capacity to build solidarity, self-educate and organize, resist on the basis of an understanding that we do indeed have an implacable enemy with whom we have an irreconcilable contradiction, and put forward a strategy that will help us win not just a street battle, but our ongoing liberation.
Without diminishing or minimizing the particular threat posed by Trump and his minions (whether in uniforms or judicial robes, Proud Boy or Patriot Front gear or suits and ties), we need to grasp that the other corporate, imperialist party has blood on its hands as well, and no solutions to offer. Elected officialdom in the city, county and state are almost uniformly in the hands of Democrats who have allowed or directed law enforcement to defend the ICE operations and attack the protesters. This reflects their longstanding complicity with and obedience to the developers, shippers, hoteliers, sweatshops, agribusiness and other corporate interests that have exploited migrant workers with or without documents for decades.
Exemplary in Los Angeles has been the unity of Chicano/Mexicano, Black, Asian, Palestinian, and Indigenous peoples and the leadership they are providing for conscientious European-descent working and professional people and youth who recognize the need for conscious anti-racist and anti-colonial solidarity. But there are still many contradictions to overcome, especially in reaching, uplifting and absorbing tens of thousands of everyday people who have not been engaged in the movements. But it is in them where the real power of the movement lies, and with them arises the possibility of a new and different world without oppression and exploitation, without oppressors or exploiters.
Building that solidarity and providing a vehicle for that liberatory process of collective self-realization and empowerment requires overcoming sectarian differences, small-group perpetuation, and identification with the oppressors and with the power of the rulers and the rulers’ ideas. It means rejecting the idea of cutting a better deal for yourself at the expense of others.
The people turning out to “Kick Out the Clowns” or declare “No Kings!” on Trump’s militarized birthday celebration must recognize that they can only achieve that goal through conscious and active solidarity with migrant workers, with the unhoused, with sex workers, postal workers, hotel and warehouse workers, with elementary, secondary and college students being turned into profit centers for the financiers, with the incarcerated millions and with the trans targets of the white Christian nationalists. The resources and ‘bodies’ those campaigns funnel into the Democrat’s political machine but be redirected to solidarity with the leading forces of real resistance coming from the struggles of those oppressed and exploited communities.
Sidebar 1: What’s the record of previous presidents compared to Trump?
On seeking to add Greenland, Panama and Canada to the US:
Jefferson purchased Louisiana Territory from Napoleon and envisioned an “empire of democracy” traversing the continent.
Jackson took US troops into “Spanish” Florida during the War of 1812.
Polk annexed Texas and then invaded and conquered most of northern Mexico, including Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and California.
Lincoln purchased Alaska from the Czarist Russian empire.
McKinley went to war with Spain and took over Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines and Guam (waging a lengthy guerrilla war in the Philippines). He also annexed Hawaii after US Marines backed a plantation owners’ coup against the independent monarchy of Hawaii.
Teddy Roosevelt took control of the so-called “Canal Zone” in Panama, and Reagan tried to reverse the treaty that returned sovereignty to Panama, saying, “We stole it fair and square.”
On immigration, deportation and militarizing the border:
Lincoln, Johnson and Grant oversaw the importation of Chinese and Irish laborers to build the trans-continental railway.
Chester Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Coolidge signed the 1924 Immigration Act that banned immigration from Asia, set quotas based on the ethnic and national origins of the US two generations earlier, and created the Border Patrol.
Franklin Roosevelt signed the executive order incarcerating Japanese Americans in concentration camps, using the Enemy Aliens Act.
Eisenhower launched Operation Wetback, deporting massive numbers of Mexicans and many Chicano US citizens.
Bill Clinton launched Operation Gatekeeper on the border between Mexico and California
Obama became the “Deporter-in-Chief”, deporting more people than any other president.
Biden increased the ICE budget to even higher levels than Trump had in his first term.
On McCarthyism, surveillance and militarization of policing:
Harry Truman imposed a loyalty oath on government workers, initiated the CIA and the National Security Council, and oversaw the incorporation of Nazi spies and scientists into the CIA and NASA.
Eisenhower let the FBI develop COINTELPRO and run a massive snitch network against Black people and suspected communists.
Johnson called out the US Army in DC and Detroit to suppress Black rebellions, and military intelligence against anti-war protesters in Chicago.
Nixon created the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration to fund local law enforcement and OKed COINTELPRO attacks on the Black liberation movement, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos and the American Indian Movement.
Reagan pardoned the FBI agents who carried out “black bag jobs” against anti-war organizers and arranged the Five Eyes agreement to have the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand spy on each other’s people.
Clinton authorized transfer of military hardware and technology to police departments and fomented fear of so-called “super-predators”, stepping up mass incarceration
Dubya Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act.
Obama pressured mayors for mass arrests to shut down Occupy encampments and signed the NDAA criminalizing protests at federal buildings and installations
Sidebar 2: What’s in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill?
It is expected to increase the federal deficit by trillions of dollars.
It increases funding for deportations and border control operations.
It will reduce the take-home incomes of the bottom 10% of wage earners by four percent by the end of the decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projections. Penn Wharton estimates that households earning less than $51,000 will immediately see their after-tax income decrease. Meanwhile, the bill boosts the incomes of the top one percent by nearly $70,000 each in the first year alone, with a collective $124 billion net tax cut over the life of the bill.
It abolishes taxes on gun silencers, ends tax incentives for clean energy and cars, prohibits state and local regulation of artificial intelligence for 10 years, and cuts eligibility for Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps).
People who are kicked off Medicaid over work and work-reporting requirements will also become ineligible for subsidies for individual insurance plans sold under Obamacare. This is expected to increase the population without medical insurance coverage by at least 10 million people.
It would expand work requirements for SNAP on adults up to the age of 65 (from the current age 55) and also increase work requirements on families with children. 2.7 million families are expected to lose benefits, with an average increase of monthly food costs of over $250.
It increases the “SALT” (state and local taxes) deduction, which overwhelmingly favors wealthy white homeowners or second homes.
It subsidizes support for private school vouchers. Rich people who donate to nonprofits that hand out vouchers to private K-12 schools will now receive a tax credit. Every dollar donated is counted as a dollar paid in taxes and can be deducted from their tax bill — including for the appreciated value of stocks they bought at a lower price.
Americans for Tax Fairness says about a provision in the bill limiting estate taxes, “this handout to lucky heirs and heiresses will cost over $200 billion in lost revenue over 10 years.”
The bill increases the child tax credit, but limits it to only citizen children with citizen parents. The current tax credit applies to children with Social Security numbers if the parent has a taxpayer ID number. This will probably disqualify 2 million children from mixed-status families.
It blocks any funding to enforce contempt of court orders. This, in turn, could enable the Trump administration to flout the rulings of judges without consequence. Erwin Chemerinsky says “the greatest effect of adopting the provision would be to make countless existing judicial orders unenforceable.”