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Mass Protests Rock Iran: No to All Wings of the Mullah Regime! (tags)

For more than a week, Iran has been convulsed by mass demonstrations denouncing election fraud. Hundreds of thousands have repeatedly taken to the streets to denounce the government, which is now threatening, and beginning to carry out, a bloody crackdown. This time around, imperialist intervention is veiled: the White House feigns neutrality, the Western media go all out for the opposition, while in the background various agencies provide vital technical aid. In reality, all candidates in the presidential vote swear allegiance to the Islamic Republic, and the supposed moderate reformers are no less butchers and enemies of poor and working people than the conservative "populist" government. The situation cries out for revolutionary leadership independent of all factions of the theocracy, to wage a struggle for workers revolution against imperialism and clerical reaction.

Leftist Union Leaders Assassinated in Venezuela (tags)

On November 27, three leftist union leaders in the Venezuelan state of Aragua – Richard Gallardo, Luis Hernández and Carlos Requena – were gunned down by an assassin. The murder came hours after the unionists had led a workers occupation of a Colombian-owned milk plant which had been brutally broken up by state police. All three were leaders of the UNT (National Workers Union) and of the USI (Socialist Left Unity), a party which has opposed attempts by the government of Hugo Chávez to impose state control of labor, and has fought the rightist opposition backed by imperialism. They may have been murdered by assassins hired by the Colombian company, by elements connected to the police of outgoing state governor, a former Chávez ally, or by supporters of a current official of the governing United Socialist Party. In any case, despite Chávez’ socialist rhetoric, the reality of the bourgeois Bolivarian “revolution” in Venezuela today is that leftist unionists are murdered while the forces of capitalist state repression back up the bosses. While many leftists have called on the Chávez government to investigate, Trotskyists call for organizing workers defense guards and imposing workers control of production. Venezuela today is stuck at a crossroads. Building a Bolshevik-type workers party based on Trotsky’s program of permanent revolution is key.

Nazis and Neo-Cons: compare and contrast (tags)

It’s not uncommon to hear a left-leaning person denounce the Bush administration with a barrage of Nazi-related epithets. The slurs are typically blurted out in anger with little thought to evidence or validity. In fact, whenever analogies are made linking a person or current event to either the Nazis or Holocaust, accusatory responses of “exaggeration” and “slander” are usually justified; it is indeed immature to randomly compare anything to the machine of Nazism that took the innocent lives of so many. While taking this into full consideration, the following is nevertheless an attempt to make some unpleasant connections.

Statement of the International Marxist Tendency for the 16th WFSY (tags)