The latest response to the state terror in Gaza from Genocide Joe Biden and Top KKKop Kamala Harris is a classic case of appearance and essence (see box). Between Biden’s announcement of “aid” drops and Harris’ phony call for a ceasefire, the main wing of the U.S. ruling class wants it to appear that they care about the mass slaughter and starvation in Palestine. But the essence is that the liberal rulers are terrified of international fightback and of isolationist Donald Trump recapturing the White House.
Despite the desperate efforts of the capitalist media to mislead and confuse us, more and more workers are seeing the Democrats’ true colors. In a period of nine days, hundreds of thousands of workers—including 19 percent of the total vote in Minnesota and 13 percent in Michigan and North Carolina—slapped Biden by voting “uncommitted” or “no preference” in the presidential primaries. Once-loyal liberal voters are disgusted and appalled by the Democrats’ complicity in arming Israel and enabling the racist mass murder in Gaza. On the international stage, a declining U.S. has little influence over events in the Middle East, or even over Israel, increasing the risk of a wider war in the region.
Global fightback against genocide and starvation
The Zionists’ brutal ethnic cleansing has captured the attention of the international working class. On March 2, more than one hundred cities around the world staged "Shut it Down for Palestine" protests (ENN, 3/2). Over the last five months, millions of workers have said no to genocide and imperialist war. Though the politics in this struggle are mostly nationalist and reformist, this multiracial movement, led mainly by youth and women, has inspired our class. The Progressive Labor Party can do more to root itself in the mass organizations driving this international fightback. Our political line—that the only solution to nationalist genocide is a communist revolution--has never been truer. But we still need to win masses of workers to see the need for a communist party as the only way out of this capitalist hell.
Famines don’t happen overnight. Prior to the Israel invasion last October, malnutrition was essentially nonexistent in Gaza. Today, according to humanitarian organizations, it has the highest proportion of people living in food deprivation in the world (Guardian, 3/6). At the highest risk are children, who make up half of Gaza’s population. Thanks to the Zionists’ blockades, as World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain noted, “People in Gaza risk dying of hunger just miles from trucks filled with food” (World Health Organization, 1/15). With more than half a million people in Gaza one step away from famine (U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), the 38,000 meals recently dropped by the U.S. are pathetically inadequate (AP News, 3/2).
After months of inaction and obscene indifference, it's no coincidence that Harris's call for a limited ceasefire or Biden’s celebration of the airdrops occurred within days of the Democratic primary humiliations (Reuters, 3/7). Regardless of whether Biden or fellow criminal Trump win in November, electoral politics can never change the capitalist system. An end to exploitation, racism, sexism, and war will never be on the ballot. Only a mass revolutionary communist party has the potential to turn the guns around and transform imperialist war into communist revolution.
Ceasefire call driven by bosses’ cynicism
In her hypocritical speech to a crowd commemorating the famous antiracist civil rights fightback in Selma, Alabama, Harris called for an “immediate ceasefire” five months into the U.S.-funded slaughter of workers in Palestine. The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging Black, Latin, and Muslim workers from their ranks. These are the same workers that the liberal finance capitalist bosses need to recruit into their inevitable wars with Iran, Russia, and China over Middle Eastern trade routes and control over the region’s oil. Harris’ speech was nothing more than a cynical attempt to win these workers back into the Democrats’ fold.
From the loss of Iran in 1979 to the U.S. military debacles in Iraq and Syria to weakened relations with petroleum kingpin Saudi Arabia, the U.S. has little clout left in the region. As its imperialist rivals keep making political and economic inroads, the U.S. ruling class is forced to stand by Israel, even if doing so risks a wider war the U.S. isn’t ready to wage. At the same time, the U.S. bosses have little leverage over hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Though Harris made a show of meeting with Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s main political rival, the fact is that both Gantz and Netanyahu are on the Israeli War Cabinet. Both have signed off on the genocide of workers and children in Palestine. If the U.S. still wielded the global power it had fifty years ago, Biden wouldn’t have to resort to building a temporary port off the Mediterranean to bypass Israeli blockades of aid into Gaza (Associated Press, 3/7) And Netanyahu wouldn’t be pursuing an invasion of Rafah in violation of Biden’s toothless “red line” (Politico 3/10)
The only solution is communist revolution
While most workers aren’t falling for the Democrats’ charade, they are a long way from committing to the fight for a communist revolution. While the essence of the main wing's agenda is visible to many, the working class still struggles to see the potential of our class to run the world and serve workers’ needs. But while the revolutionary beacons in Russia and China have been lost in the dark night of the current period, Progressive Labor Party's flame is small but bright! For our class sisters and brothers to be moved to join us, we must expand our potential by working in mass organizations and raising antiwar struggles everywhere we are. There is no day like today to fight back against imperialist war and end these capitalist horrors for good. Join us!
Understanding Apperance and Essence
Dialectical materialism is the Marxist theory that historical events result from the conflict of opposing social forces—from a series of contradictions and their solutions. “Appearance and essence” is one category of dialectical materialism. The essence is the truth of something at its core, something that’s often hard to see it because it lies so deep within the thing. Appearance is what is readily visible about the thing. Because there is a tendency to avoid digging deep to discover a thing’s essence, misleading appearances tend to become conventional wisdoms. For example, the U.S. Democratic Party leaders might appear to be more compassionate and pro-worker than the Republicans because they pretend to care about racism, poverty, and reproductive health. In essence, however, they are controlled by the billionaires of finance capital. These misleaders will resort to lies and deceit to try to gain workers’ allegiance to their agenda for fascism and world war.
