by Nikoli Weir
There comes a time in the history of a subjugated people when, to preserve its dignity and win its freedom, it must take up arms against the powers that have for too long been crushing it beneath the weight of tyranny. This story is as old as time itself, and should be all too familiar to Americans. Our republic was born in the fires of rebellion, drenched with the blood of patriots and tyrants alike. We took up arms not because we are a violent people; we resorted to arms because we had no other choice. We resorted to arms when it became clear that our pleas for freedom were falling on deaf ears.
Who among us would find fault with our forefathers for their rebellion? In schools all over our republic, the heroism of the American revolutionaries is exalted as the height of political virtue. So do we also honor those Americans who took up arms to crush the rebellion of slave owners in our civil war. By our celebration of these events, we implicitly recognize that violence, though it is never good, is sometimes necessary. Though rebellion carries the risk of defeat, desolation, and humiliation, it also carries the hope of freedom and self governance.
When Gaza is bombarded, its people starved out and slaughtered, who benefits? When missiles rain over Tehran, Iran, when the United States drops bunker buster bombs over Iranian military installment, who benefits? Do the people of Gaza benefit? Do the people of Iran benefit? Do Americans benefit? No. Gazans obviously do not benefit from the destruction of their city, nor do Iraninans benefit from American military aggression.
Americans don’t benefit from it either. It must be understood that the United States has expanded its imperial influence at the expense of its own people. The American people, and especially the working people of America, have no interest in the endless wars that the United States has been involved in for decades. The American workers have not struggled against the rich and powerful in their own republic for over two centuries only to allow them to reign over the working people of the rest of the world with terror and impunity.
Only one group of people benefits from the brutality of American military intervention; the ultra-rich and those who serve them. The rich, no matter what country they are from, all share the same interests. President Trump and his rich donors have infinitely more in common with the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran and the theocrats of his government than they do with the vast majority of people in America. Both want more for themselves and less for everybody else. The working people of the United States have more in common with the working people of Iran than they do with their own President, and the people of Iran have more in common with the people of America than they do with their Supreme Leader.
The American ruling class, which includes the current government, the corporate lobbies that control it, and the overpaid functionaries that serve them, bank on the hope that the American people will be so blinded by racial hatred and prejudice that they will fail to see that those who they are told to hate have more in common with them then those who are selling hate as a solution to all their problems.
The American government has, since the end of the Second World War, and arguably before, been inflicted with a mania for depriving foreign nations of their freedom and independence. The American working people have never been subject to such a political disease. This has become increasingly clear, beginning during the Cold War with popular opposition to American intervention in Korea and Vietnam, and continuing after the Cold War with popular resistance to American intervention in the Middle East.
While resistance to American military intervention has been growing at home, it has also been growing all over the world. This resistance has taken on many forms, some peaceful and some militant. Can either form be condemned? If you condemn resistance fighters in Palestine, you must also condemn American students occupying their universities. If you condemn those who call for an independent Palestinian state, you must also condemn the American revolutionaries of the War of Independence who fought for an independent American state.
The people of Palestine, and people all over the Third World, are taking up arms not because of some hatred for America or inclination for violence, but because they have been given no other choice. They take up arms not because they are a violent people. They resort to arms because it has become clear to them that their pleas for freedom have fallen upon deaf ears.
The Revolutionist 