Boycott "Rage Against the War Machine"

To: Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice mailing list
February 16, 2023

The crisis of the anti-war movement (part 6):
On the anti-Ukrainian section of the anti-war movement
allying with the racist right-wing

Below is a joint statement by many activists against this coming Sunday’s “Rage Against the War Machine” rally. This rally is not actually against war, but is against resistance to reactionary war. It is against the right of the Ukrainian people to defend themselves. But moreover, it is appealing to the far right; Ron Paul will appear as a speaker, thus presenting him as anti-war and anti-imperialist; and it promotes such Trumpist memes as the "deep state". It mixes together left-wing and right-wing rhetoric. At a time when the hard right has taken over many state governments and is seeking to soon control the federal government, the “Rage Against the War Machine” is seeking to build connections with the most racist and anti-worker wing of the imperialist ruling class.

This rally is an example of left-right alliance between the left-wing and the racist right-wing (this is called red-brown alliance in some other countries). This has resulted in some squabbling within the anti-Ukrainian left about the rally, but left to itself, this will probably die down. So it is up to the mass of activists to denounce this collaboration with the far right.

The Communist Voice Organization strongly endorses this joint statement, and we call for activists to look further and deeper into how prettification of the hard right could have gone so far. Let’s prevent this betrayal of the working class from going any further! The D/SWV will carry further discussion on this in a coming issue. A list of some of the signers of the statement, as well as a place to sign the statement, can be found at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdLpLQsQUNQuiN7h6uVnvTWs9fNx3BoUwZ_Tze8QZ-nByCZ2A/viewform.

— Joseph Green, Detroit Workers' Voice

Boycott “Rage Against the War Machine”

Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign, CISPOS, AND Syria Solidarity NYC call for boycotting “Rage Against The War Machine” rally on February 19th, 2023

A coalition of extreme right groups and groups nominally on the “left” have organized a rally in Washington D.C. on February 19th. Called “Rage Against the War Machine,” the organizers say the event is for peace in Ukraine. However, if many of their demands are implemented, it will be a victory for Putin and the “peace of the graveyard” for Ukraine.

This “anti-war” rally’s demands pertaining to Ukraine have been thoroughly exposed as Russian disinformation. And, not all of their demands relate to Ukraine. The rest are general demands, such as, “Global nuclear de-escalation,” which most people agree with. These easy to agree with anti-war demands serve as cover and, they hope, make them appear legitimately concerned about the violence of state warfare as a means by which to attract honest people who want peace.

The “Rage Against the War Machine” event is significant: it represents a dangerous escalation of a developing red-brown (1) alliance. This rally is sponsored by far right groups and figures that include Ron Paul and the Libertarian Party. Others, such as Chris Hedges, Max Blumenthal, and the People’s Party, pose as being “left” but are worsening conduits to the far right and what can be termed “fascist entryism.” The Green Party, the largest independent progressive party in the US, has let itself be co-opted into this red-brown coalition with its endorsement of the event by a narrow 54-50 vote of its National Committee. Jill Stein, the Green Party’s 2012 and 2016 presidential candidate, and an ally of Putin’s regime and Russian geopolitics, has agreed to speak at it. Originally a sponsor of the rally, Code Pink (Russian disinfo purveyors with campist politics) has now withdrawn. Perhaps they realized that joining forces so directly with the extreme right could alienate some of their supporters, or out their real political sympathies too directly.

Nevertheless, their duplicitous role is made clear by Code Pink leader, Medea Benjamin, in her tweets supporting MAGA neo-fascists Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump, and in Medea Benjamin’s alliance with “leftist” Vijay Prashad, who supports the Russian imperialist idea of Eurasianism — which was first developed by fascists in the 1930s and was re-popularized by Dugin, a Russian fascist, in the last 40 years. Prashad is also a denier of the genocidal treatment of the Muslim Uighurs in China.

The Arab Spring was a turning point for the Left internationally. Bashar Al Assad’s Syrian Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party has maintained ties with large parts of the Left throughout the world, despite his regime’s brutal repression of the Syrian people’s democratic revolution for a Free Syria, from 2011 to present. Russian imperialism stepped in to save the Assad regime in 2015 and launched a relentless (and ongoing) disinformation effort to cover up the war crimes of the Assad and Russian regimes in Syria. Much of the liberal and socialist Left in the United States has been silent and/or complicit in the face of these atrocities.

This disinformation war’s success, and the silence of the Left, paved the way for Putin’s military invasion of Ukraine. Now, Russian disinformation continues directly under the banner of extreme right-wing forces allied with those who call themselves anti-war (some claim to be pacifists), anti-imperialists, and anti-capitalists — but conspicuously [with] no “left” groups, including Code Pink, [which] claim to be socialist, anarchist, and/or anti-fascist. All of the groups taking up “anti-” positions [war/imperialism/capitalism] are trumpeting traditionally leftist slogans and postures. This is noteworthy. Fascist movements have historically tried to expand the base for their reactionary agenda by building red-brown alliances using leftist slogans and posturing. The upcoming “Rage Against The War Machine” rally is no different.

We urge Left and peace activists to not be fooled and co-opted into joining a right-wing movement.

We stand unequivocally in solidarity with Ukraine, and for a military defeat of the Russian invasion.

We oppose all red-brown alliances and we will organize to expose and denounce them.

(1) The term red-brown is shorthand to describe when the far left, which is supposed to be anti-fascist, and the far right, which is on a fascism spectrum, come into open alliance (red = far left, and brown = far right, named after Hitler’s brownshirts).

The crisis of the anti-war movement (part 6): On the anti-Ukrainian section of the anti-war movement allying with the racist right-wing

Boycott “Rage Against the War Machine”

The crisis of the anti-war movement (part 6):
On the anti-Ukrainian section of the anti-war movement
allying with the racist right-wing