Kansas City, MO– At this year’s annual August convention of Veterans for Peace, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined over one hundred veterans, military fami1ly members, and antiwar supporters who were gathered to voice their outrage about ICE-led fascist aggression, the Iran war’s catastrophic failure marked by pervasive low morale among enlisted soldiers, and the continued mass genocide of workers globally. , Democrats remain the greater danger to the future leaders of communist world revolution, since they, too, push for wider war, support for Israel, and the bloody supremacy of U.S. imperialism, but in less openly fascistic rhetoric. This was evident in the revisionist, anti-Trump and implicitly pro Democrat politics at the convention, and it is also revealing itself as Democrats rush to blame Trump for the aircraft carrier Lincoln’s catastrophe rather than the declining global power of oil-driven U.S. imperialism as a whole. As Chinese rulers increase their leverage during the U.S.’s fiasco in the Iran war, and bosses everywhere scramble to find alternatives to trade and military partnership with the U.S., more war is an inevitable future for the young workers of the world. As members of PLP, we call for armed revolution of the working class, with politicized, pro-working class soldiers as the key for arriving at a better world.

From chaos to community to communism!

The annual convention of Veterans for Peace offers a powerful and consistent opportunity for veterans of all branches, from wars ranging from World War II to the Iran war, to join together alongside labor, community and other organizers for collective conversations about the state of the world and prospects for peace. It is our Party’s function to i  push all limits of political reformism in an effort to introduce our class to a more precise and tangible path forward. In one panel featuring Chris Smalls of the Amazon workers’ union and Paul Ortiz, a longtime labor history professor, PLP created space for the organizers in the audience to join in the conversation and voice their frustration about the Democratic Pparty war machine, the adverse impact of ICE kidnappings on immigrant activists, and the ever-relevant need for militant self defense emanating from the legacy of Black slaves, Russian and Chinese communist peasants, industrial workers, and anti-colonial workers worldwide. Both panelists were prodded on their position about nonviolent resistance and revisionist misleadership in the labor movement, and each of them testified to the need for militant resistance and to the complacency of union leaders in the aftermath of government indictments for pro-Gaza flotillas and encampments in the U.S.

Mission Impossible: failed Iran war and low morale

Perhaps the most telling and strategically vital point in the convention came from the military families from Military Families Speak Out who spoke to the utter ineptness of the U.S. military leadership and the frustration of the soldiers entrenched in the war against Iran.  Families testified to the dangers of their kin, largely stranded in “camps”, not bases in Jordan, after having been deployed for battle against Iran but staying past their end date.  With bombs from Iran raining down from overhead, soldiers in Jordan are being told to shelter in bunkers that can not even house half of the soldiers on the camp–leaving 50 percent of the troops as pure cannon fodder. The convention’s discussion of low morale in Jordan is indicative of the current crisis onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, where the destruction of a decades-old U.S. navy base in Bahrain by Iranian missiles forced the aircraft carrier into an essentially stranded position at sea for nearly nine months, since day two of the war.  The 5,000 soldier ship has reported dire mental health concerns from trapped and deployment-weary sailors, several of whom have reportedly attempted suicide. There are also food shortages, dysfunctional plumbing, and a host of concerns associated with the Bahrain supply base’s destruction.

Liberals are the main danger

In both the antiwar movement and within the mass consciousness of disgruntled soldiers, the Democratic Party politicians are the chief misleaders that push our class toward capitulation to the war machine–and have been for the past half century. Just as the Democratic bosses, who promise reforms in return for all class unity,  as a whole historically function to stamp out class anger among the most radical sectors of the population–Black, women and immigrant workers–that fact continues today with fierce manifestation in the antiwar movement. Democratic Party politicians, just as they did in the 2004 Iraq war, are calling for an end to wars with no clear “mission” and lack of support for military personnel in combat. 

Mass organizations are schools for communism

We made contact with Vietnamese-American organizers who are interested in collaborating for solidarity campaigns around the continued ravages of war in Vietnam after the U.S. invasion in the 1960s and 1970s. We are looking to recruit teachers and students based out of the LA and NYC areas for solidarity brigades to carry on the legacy of what Vietnam vets have been doing for decades in recognition of the atrocities they committed in service of U.S. imperialism. None of this struggle would take place without persistent, consistent, decades-long commitment to this organization, and so the lesson is clear: join and stay in groups so that our class can be introduced to our theory and practice through action, reflection and struggle.