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The UC Berkeley International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) calls for workers and young people throughout the Bay Area to demonstrate their opposition to US military action in Syria!

We are making a strong appeal for UC Berkeley students to voice their opinions about US and global military intervention into Syria. The lessons we learned from the Iraq war in 2003 shows that any “humanitarian” justifications for war are thoroughly disingenuous coming from a ruling class that dismisses democracy in its own country!

This will be a demonstration – not for pressuring the big business parties involved, but for discussing and learning the ideas and the program that are in the interest of the working class – in Syria, the US, and internationally. Speakers from the IYSSE and the Socialist Equality Party will deliver lectures concerning the situation, both historically and currently.

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1. The Socialist Equality Party and the International Committee of the Fourth International call on workers and youth in the United States, Europe and throughout the world to mobilize their collective strength against the plans of the Obama administration and its allies for a military assault on Syria.

The statement of President Obama on Saturday that he would seek Congressional authorization for the bombing of Syria means only that the attack has been delayed, not that it has been called off.
The recourse to a vote in Congress is a cynical political maneuver aimed at legitimizing a war based on lies. After Thursday’s stunning defeat in the British parliament of a pro-war resolution, the Obama administration is scrambling to create a political cover for an illegal war opposed by the overwhelming majority of the American people. Obama expects, with good reason, that Congress will sanction the attack on Syria. Moreover, the charade of a congressional debate will enable Obama to claim that the decision for war has been arrived at democratically and expresses the “will of the people.” This argument will be invoked to justify increased repression against those who oppose the war.

2. Among the central lies being employed by the Obama administration is the claim that military action will be “limited,” aimed only at punishing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons.

There is nothing limited about the massive bombardment that will be unleashed against Syria. In his Rose Garden speech, Obama stated that the attacks would seek to “degrade [the] capacity” of the Syrian military. This will require the large-scale destruction of equipment and the killing of thousands of soldiers and civilians. The US military plan will be a repeat in all but name of the “shock and awe” tactics employed against Iraq in 2003.
US military action will continue until it meets its strategic aims: reversing the course of civil war in Syria in favor of the US-backed opposition, killing President Assad if possible, crippling the regime and clearing the way for the installation of a puppet government of the United States.

Beyond Syria, the aim is to undermine the influence of Iran, Russia and other US competitors in the region. The war against Syria will lead rapidly to a military confrontation with Iran. The New York Times reported on Sunday that Obama told his staff that the most “compelling” reason for seeking Congressional authorization was that “acting alone would undercut him if in the next three years he needed Congressional authority for his next military confrontation in the Middle East, perhaps with Iran.”

3. There is no question but that the administration is in serious crisis. The road to war has not gone as smoothly as Obama expected. Obama believed that the allegations of a poison gas attack would succeed in stampeding the public into war. The missiles were to be fired and the bombs dropped before any questions could be asked, let alone answered. These plans suffered a setback after the vote in the British parliament vote, when it became clear that Prime Minister David Cameron could not substantiate any allegations of Syrian use of chemical weapons.

While Obama was prepared to go to war without public support within the United States—polls put support for military strikes on Syria at as low as nine percent—the defeat in Parliament created a politically untenable situation. The administration concluded that it would be politically dangerous to begin war without either domestic support or credible international backing. The vote in Congress is intended to create the pretense of broad public support for war.

4. With the date for the beginning of a congressional debate only one week away, the days ahead will witness a massive media propaganda campaign in support of war, centered on claims of Syrian government use of chemical weapons.
These allegations have no credibility. Numerous reports already implicate the opposition, dominated by Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organizations, in the gas attack. These reports include statements from witnesses who assert that the opposition forces used chemical weapons provided by the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabia, which opposes Assad. Moreover, it is a fact that US-backed opposition forces have used chemical weapons before and have been caught in possession of sarin nerve gas.
The US spy agencies’ “intelligence assessment” released by Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday is a compendium of lies and empty assertions unsupported by any concrete evidence. The administration has refused calls from Russia to make this evidence available to the United Nations for independent review.

5. Even if it were to be established that the Syrian military had used poison gas, this would not change the predatory and imperialist character of the US intervention. For two years, the US has worked with allies in the region, along with Britain and France, to stoke a civil war, aiming at regime change. The Assad regime has long been perceived as a potential obstacle to US machinations in the Middle East, largely due to its close relations with Iran and Russia.

The hypocritical claims of the Obama administration to be motivated by “humanitarian” motives are exposed by its long and bloody record in the Middle East. Most recently, the US had no trouble accepting the mass killing carried out last month by the Egyptian military, funded with billions of dollars in US subsidies.

A determined struggle against the disaster that is being prepared is necessary. In opposing war, however, no confidence can be placed in the Congress—an institution that, no less than the White House, is controlled by the corporate and financial elite.

The top officials of both parties, Democrat and Republican, have already declared their support for war, and the entire political establishment has waged more than a decade of unending war, under the rubric of the “war on terror.” Even if the war resolution is voted down, it will at best delay but not stop the drive to war. The same is true in Britain, where maneuvers are already underway to hold another vote to authorize war, following action by the US Congress.

6. If war is to be stopped, action independent of the Congress and the two big-business parties must be taken by working people, students and youth. The fight against war must be made the spearhead of the fight against the relentless attacks on living standards and basic democratic rights of the working class. This is, in essence, a struggle against capitalism.

This is not a time for watchful waiting, but conscious political action. This must begin at once. It is necessary for all those who oppose the war to make their voice heard. The question of war must be taken out of the hands of the ruling elite and its political representatives.

Public Meeting: Defend Edward Snowden!
NSA Spying and the Accelerating Disintegration of Democracy in the U.S.

Where: UC Berkeley, room TBA (on Monday, September 16)
When: 7:00-9:00pm, Tuesday, September 17

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden continues to release stunning documentation of the breathtaking scope of unconstitutional NSA spying in the US and internationally. These formerly secret spy programs are deeply unpopular in the US and worldwide, yet they enjoy strong bipartisan support. The near-universal condemnation of Snowden in US media, including many pundits and academics critical of similar policies under Bush, testifies to the absence of any genuine constituency within the ruling class willing to defend the democratic principles laid out in the bill of rights.

Despite a vitriolic campaign of vilification, Snowden continues to enjoy broad support within the US and international working class (i.e. the vast majority of the population). If we want to keep our hard-won democratic rights, it is up to us to organize to defend Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and the generation of whistleblowers that will reveal the greater government crimes that are likely coming.

For those of us interested in building a social movement capable of defending and expanding our basic social rights (e.g. the right to a healthcare, education, access to culture and a good job), perhaps the most pressing question is the approach to organizing. Lenin’s “What is to be Done?” perhaps the definitive text on organizing written in the 20th century, provides a clear and cutting argument for a democratic organization firmly based on principle, prepared to wage an unrelenting theoretical and political struggle against all forms of opportunism that would, wittingly or unwittingly, pull the wool over the eyes of workers. Unsurprisingly, this work has endured a century of sustained, vitriolic (and generally unfounded) criticism from opportunists of all stripes.

We feel that “What is to be Done?” is so critical that we are spending two classes on it. This week, we read a piece by David North, chairman of the editorial board of the WSWS, called “The Origins of Bolshevism and What Is To Be Done”. This short piece provides historical context for Lenin’s groundbreaking work, and rebuts a few of the most-common objections raised by anti-Marxists and pseudo-Marxists alike

In two weeks, we will discuss the whole of “What is to be Done?”

Here is a link to David North’s lecture: http://intsse.com/wswspdf/en/articles/2005/09/le3-all.pdf

After the murder of Greek anti-fascist hip-hop artist Pavlos Fyssas, allegedly by supporters of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, strikes and demonstrations have erupted across Greece in opposition to fascist terror. In the midst of depression-level unemployment being enforced upon Greece by the EU, a strengthened fascist movement is hardly surprising. The rapid rise of Golden Dawn, which polled 7% in the 2012 Greek election after getting only 0.3% of the vote in 2009, is expressed through savage attacks by affiliated paramilitary thugs by affiliated paramilitary thugs. Neither of these phenomena would be possible without the votes and tacit (or sometimes explicit) support of the police.

Moving to channel popular anger behind inoffensive channels, various trade unions and so-called left political parties and organizations are attempting to popularize the demand that the government ban Golden Dawn, while doing their best to prevent open class conflict by limiting the duration of the strikes workers are overwhelmingly voting for. Would banning Golden Dawn be a step forward in the fight against a fascist terror whose key constituency is the police? Probably not. Would giving the Greek state the power to ban political parties pose a serious threat to Greek democracy and to the Greek working class?  Of course.

We invite you to join us to discuss the implications of the rise of fascism in Greece, and the steps we can take at home and abroad in the fight against fascism and the threat of a police state.

Here is an article with more information about recent events in Greece: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/25/gree-s25.html

Lenin’s definitive work on the role of a political party in catalyzing a mass socialist movement of the working class lays out the fundamental task, the fight to bring a scientific socialist perspective to workers. Lenin makes a case for the creation of mass newspaper, whose perspective is guided by an uncompromising Marxist analysis of world events, to help workers understand how their immediate struggles are related to the broader struggles of workers across the Russia and the world, and to expose and study the class relations that underly society. This is the perspective behind the World Socialist Website, wsws.org.

Lenin comes out both barrels blazing against an orientation toward spontaneity or a rejection of the political struggle in favor of a struggle simply for better wages and working conditions. More broadly, Lenin makes the case for an unrelenting fight to expose the class interests behind opportunist and reformist political tendencies of all sorts. This work’s continuing significance is demonstrated perhaps most vividly by the unrelenting efforts of so-called “left” tendencies of all sorts to falsify, obscure and attack Lenin’s unambiguous arguments. Lenin is labeled an elitist, an authoritarian, a revisionist of Marxism (among pseudo-Marxists), a true adherent of Marxism (among anti-Marxists), and ridiculous claims are made that Lenin himself backed away from these views because he didn’t immediately reprint the work after the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia.

So, what is the truth? In the current rapidly changing period of history, what is to be done? We invite you to join us on October 8 to discuss “What is to be Done?”.

Here is a link to “What is to be Done?”: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/

Today we face criminal wars abroad, budget cuts at home, skyrocketing incomes for the upper crust, falling living standards for the rest of us, and an economy that can’t seem to survive without $85 billion per month in life support from the federal reserve. We didn’t vote for this, and the ruling elite knows very well that we never would. The status quo cannot be maintained through democratic forms of rule.

It is no accident that today we see unconstitutional drone assassination programs and NSA spying programs openly defended by all branches of government, the militarization of police, and core constitutional rights shredded under the false pretext of the war on terror.

The US ruling class is preparing to fight two sorts of enemies: rivals abroad, such as Russia, China, Iran, Syria and any other country that challenges US strategic interests, and the working class at home. Only the US and international working class has the power to halt the drive toward war abroad and dictatorship at home.

As the US government shutdown continues, nearly every positive federal government program has halted its operations, from nutrition assistance to medical research to regulation of industry and finance. Of course, as hundreds of thousands of federal workers, whose wages have been under relentless attack for half a decade, are forced to shut down work and forfeit pay, the vast US military and intelligence apparatus operates more or less unimpeded by the political showmanship in Washington DC. Of course, the US Federal Reserve continues to dispense $85bn per month in free credit to the banks.

Behind the facade of “partisan gridlock”, the real purpose of this artificially created crisis atmosphere (the third of its kind in the past six years) becomes clearer. As Republicans drop their ostensible insistence on defunding the Affordable Care Act, they are beginning to come together with Obama and the Democrats to carry out a shared agenda: massive cuts to Medicare and Social Security, along with every other social gain of the working class won through a century of bitter struggle.

Please join us Tuesday to get informed and get involved!

Here are a few key news articles covering the shutdown:

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/30/budg-s30.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10/01/shut-o01.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10/02/pers-o02.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10/02/shut-o02.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10/07/budg-o07.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/10/12/budg-o12.html

We invite you to join us for a discussion of sections 4-end of Lenin’s ‘What is to be Done?’

Here is a link to a PDF version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/svjglfdimf2wyfc/WITBD121011.pdf

Lenin’s definitive work on the role of a political party in catalyzing a mass socialist movement of the working class lays out the fundamental task, the fight to bring a scientific socialist perspective to workers. Lenin makes a case for the creation of mass newspaper, whose perspective is guided by an uncompromising Marxist analysis of world events, to help workers understand how their immediate struggles are related to the broader struggles of workers across the Russia and the world, and to expose and study the class relations that underly society. This is the perspective behind the World Socialist Website, wsws.org.

Lenin comes out both barrels blazing against an orientation toward spontaneity or a rejection of the political struggle in favor of a struggle simply for better wages and working conditions. More broadly, Lenin makes the case for an unrelenting fight to expose the class interests behind opportunist and reformist political tendencies of all sorts. This work’s continuing significance is demonstrated perhaps most vividly by the unrelenting efforts of so-called “left” tendencies of all sorts to falsify, obscure and attack Lenin’s unambiguous arguments. Lenin is labeled an elitist, an authoritarian, a revisionist of Marxism (among pseudo-Marxists), a true adherent of Marxism (among anti-Marxists), and ridiculous claims are made that Lenin himself backed away from these views because he didn’t immediately reprint the work after the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia.

So, what is the truth? In the current rapidly changing period of history, what is to be done? We invite you to join us on October 8 to discuss “What is to be Done?”.

This week we are reading Results and Prospects, Leon Trotsky’s groundbreaking 1906 work. Results and Prospects explains the political implications of Russia’s particular course of historical development, with a feudal autocracy grafted on top of a rapidly growing industrial base owned by foreign investors. Through this historical analysis, Trotsky lays out, with striking accuracy, a prediction of the revolutionary role the working class would come to play, and the tasks ahead for the instigation of a global socialist transition after the proletariat had seized power in Russia.

In the wake of the 1905 revolutionary upsurge in the Russian Empire, serious questions faced the global socialist movement. The Russian working class had proved itself as the leading revolutionary force against the Tsarist autocracy, while the bourgeois democratic movement the Mensheviks and others expected to replace the Tsar had failed to substantively materialize. Why had this happened? What was the way forward, in Russia and in the rest of the world? These are the questions Trotsky seeks to answer in Results and Prospects.

Here is a link to a PDF that contains both Results and Prospects and Permanent Revolution, which fleshes out many ideas put forward in R&P: https://www.dropbox.com/s/iho8sj7au67odh9/LDTPermRev121104_2.pdf