Like major cities across the country, Boston has seen protests opposing Trump’s bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro and his wife, and the murder of legal observer Renee Nicole Good by ICE agents in Minneapolis. These two horrifically violent events have reinvigorated the struggle against ICE and against U.S. imperialist aggression. The most recent protest was organized in the context of both struggles, calling for “No War at Home, No War Abroad.”
Many see that the attack on Venezuela and Good’s murder are not isolated incidents, but part of a renewed offensive against workers and oppressed people. They are connected because they represent the Trump administration’s goal of reinforcing U.S. imperialism’s military and coercive power at home and abroad. Through indiscriminate targeting of ethnic minorities, brazen attacks on political sovereignty, and total legal immunity for ICE officers and international violations, Trump is setting the stage for greater exploitation and the total fracturing of any possibility of resistance.
Let’s Get Organized
Recent protests turning out hundreds of people have demonstrated that there is already a strong sense of anger and solidarity in the wake of these attacks. There are also a lot of questions, confusion, and doubts about next steps, how to unite and strengthen the movement, and what the best ways are for the movement to grow.
Maintaining the energy of the moment means we have to organize more than one day of rallies and protests. We need a place where participants and organizers can talk about the overarching goals and how to achieve them. Independent activists, socialist groups, the immigrants rights movement, and the militant sectors of the labor movement can help organize that space to discuss next steps.
Specifically, these groups can use their collective forces to plan further actions that are more disruptive and focused than the actions taken so far. Sit-ins, walkouts, strikes, neighborhood defense committees, and pressure campaigns are all valuable actions that can be targeted towards key supporters and facilitators of Trump’s offensive, including ICE kidnappings right here in Boston. However, these actions have to be planned strategically, in a democratic and collective manner.
Political Independence Is Key
As we have seen from previous iterations of the movement, strategy matters. The strategy of relying on the Democrats, Congress, or the courts is a failure because all of these institutions refuse to consistently stand up against Trump. Far from expanding and strengthening the struggle against the president, the Democrats have either limited the struggle or sent their own forces to repress the movement. This was shown by their unwillingness to indict the murderer of Renee Good, by the Minnesota governor Tim Walz’s insistence on “peace,” but also when state troopers and police were sent to Minneapolis to contain protests.
In order to avoid the co-optation of the movement, a space must be organized that is politically independent of the Democrats and Republicans and the capitalists class both parties represent.
Political independence is also key in the struggle against U.S. imperialism, like in Venezuela. We can fight for Maduro’s release while being critical of his regime. The Current for Permanent Revolution (CPR), which includes numerous socialist organizations in Latin America, is arguing for a continental strike across the Americas to combat U.S. imperialism.
United Action on Strategic Issues
It is possible to take united action against ICE and U.S. imperialism while continuing to discuss future steps and broader strategy. Left Voice wants to contribute to the creation of a space like that on our pages and in real life in Boston. We can work together in this space by fighting for ICE out of Massachusetts, against funding for military adventures in Latin America, and to build a united front of labor and social movements against the Trump regime.
We want to propose to unaffiliated activists of the social movements and the rank and file of organized groups, such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the Boston Democratic Socialists of America (BDSA), Massachusetts Peace Action (MAPA), LUCE Immigration Network, and militant members of unions like the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) and United Auto Workers (UAW), to organize a meeting in the upcoming days to unify the Boston movement. A democratic meeting with open participation and collective decision-making is well within our reach and urgent in the coming weeks.
The post We Need an Open Meeting in Boston for the Movements Against ICE and Defense of Venezuela appeared first on Left Voice.
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