Liberals use Capitol ‘insurrection’ to target political rights
https://themilitant.com/2021/01/23/liberals-use-capitol-insurrection-to-target-political-rights/
BY SETH GALINSKY
Vol. 85/No. 4
February 1, 2021
Liberal Democrats and capitalist bosses are using the action by some
Donald Trump supporters who entered the Capitol Jan. 6 — falsely
claiming it was an “insurrection” or “fascist coup” — to escalate their
attacks on freedom of speech and political rights more broadly. Their
main target is not Trump, but working people.
The FBI has gone into action looking for people to prosecute and workers
have been fired for joining the protest. Democratic Party politicians
are trying to come up with a way to deal with what they see as
“deplorable” workers who don’t think like them.
“This escalating assault on political rights is a threat to all working
people,” Willie Cotton, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New York
public advocate, said Jan. 18. “To be targeted by the rulers’ political
police or fired because of your ideas must be opposed.”
In Massachusetts, Therese Duke was fired from her nursing job of 15
years by bosses at the UMass Memorial Hospital after being recorded on
video during a tussle in D.C. the day before a relative handful of
conspiracy theorists and would-be paramilitaries, confederate flag
carrying rightists and a few overenthused Trump supporters occupied the
Capitol Building. Since her firing Duke has tried to launch online
fundraisers to support herself, but says these have been shut down by
the big tech companies.
Bosses at Metro North in New York are trying to fire rail worker Will
Pepe for joining the Capitol occupation.
Ocasio-Cortez says the U.S. is “one of the most revered democracies in
the world,” and demands that any representative who claims the 2020
election was rigged must be thrown out of Congress.
Katie Couric, a longtime anchor of the CBS Evening News and NBC’s
“Today” program, said, “The question is how are we going to really
almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump.”
Bosses at Facebook, Twitter, Snap, and Reddit have shut down Trump’s
personal accounts, claiming they have the right to close accounts of
people they disagree with. Twitter has shut more than 70,000 accounts
that it alleges post QAnon conspiracy theories. Facebook is removing
content that even mentions “Stop the Steal.”
Apple, Amazon and Google, which dominate the internet, have closed
Parler, the conservative version of Twitter, by denying it access to
their webservers.
Bosses at companies that ban posts they claim are violent are highly
selective. Twitter, owned by billionaire Jack Dorsey, continues to allow
posts under numerous variants of “KillTrump.”
Attacks on free speech always end up undermining the political rights of
working people. Last October Facebook “deactivated” the account of
Cheryl LaBash, a co-chair of the National Network on Cuba, and 14 others
for posting information on a Nov. 14-15 conference organized to fight
against the U.S. economic war against Cuba. In the face of protests the
page was restored after 24 hours.
Twitter has frequently blocked accounts of organizations and political
leaders in Cuba who defend the revolution.
The U.S. rulers always seize on whatever opportunity they can to chip
away at the political rights of working people. During World War II the
second-class mailing permit of the Militant was revoked — and several
issues destroyed at the post office — by the administration of
Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Officials justified the
measures citing the Militant’s uncompromising defense of Black rights
and complained the paper reported the war as a conflict “fought solely
for the benefit of the ruling groups.”
With the support of Black rights groups, trade unions and supporters of
civil liberties the Militant forced the government to back down.
As part of the latest attacks, Stripe, a web-based financial company,
has stopped processing transactions on Trump’s campaign website. Airbnb
announced that it is banning anyone connected with the “riot” at the
Capitol from using its services as well as anyone it alleges is part of
a “hate group.” The Transportation Security Administration and the FBI
are threatening to add Trump supporters and others they deem suspicious
onto the federal no-fly list.
Some anti-Trump union officials have jumped on the bandwagon. The SMART
union’s Transportation Division and the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers and Trainmen sent a letter to the Federal Railroad
Administration asking it to establish a “no-ride” list, banning those
they call “suspected insurrectionists” from rail travel.
The main target of these bans and other attacks by liberals and bosses
are working people who refused to back Joe Biden for president. They
think such “deplorables” must be held in check. New York Times columnist
Paul Krugman ran an opinion piece Jan. 10 titled, “When It Comes to
Trump Supporters’ Fascism, America Cannot Afford Appeasement.”
Working people need to oppose all these attacks on our rights.
‘Thought control’ sedition charges are threat to workers’ rights
Federal prosecutors, aided by bosses, liberal political groups and tech
moguls, are aggressively pursuing charges — including seditious
conspiracy — against a small group of individuals who pushed their way
into the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 during a much larger…
US has long history of rigged elections
Liberal media and Democrats sneer at claims of chicanery in the 2020
elections. But stealing the vote and rigging elections is not new in
U.S. capitalist politics. The Democrats often led the way over the
decades. In the 1960 presidential…
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George H. Smith “It is my firm conviction that man has nothing to gain,
emotionally or otherwise, by adhering to a falsehood, regardless of how
comfortable or sacred that falsehood may appear. Anyone who claims, on
the one hand, that he is concerned with human welfare, and who demands,
on the other hand, that man must suspend or renounce the use of his
reason, is contradicting himself. There can be no knowledge of what is
good for man apart from knowledge of reality and human nature, and there
is no manner in which this knowledge can be acquired except through
reason. To advocate irrationality is to advocate that which is
destructive to human life.” ― George H. Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God