From the January-February 2018 issue of News & Letters
Los Angeles—On Oct. 27, a demonstration sponsored by the Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice was held in front of the Federal Building in West Los Angeles to protest possible wars between the U.S. and North Korea and the U.S. and Iran. Speeches denounced the pose that Trump is displaying toward North Korea and his enticing of a war with Iran to derail the nuclear deal—a hallmark of the Obama administration.
Participants in the Oct. 27, 2017, anti-war protest in Los Angeles. Photo: Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice.
At the protest, a young South Korean said, “The vast majority of my friends and family as well as half of all people in South Korea live in Seoul, the capital city located about 30 minutes from the North Korean border. If the U.S. goes to war with North Korea, it will mean annihilation and destruction for South Korea. It will throw South Korea into complete devastation and chaos while the U.S. watches from TV screens, hardly feeling a thing.”
An Iranian activist said that a war between the U.S. and Iran is inevitable. He was speaking of Saudi Arabia’s attacks on the Houthis in Yemen who ally with Iran He added, “With the recent attack of U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Iran in the UN Security Council, there can be no doubt that the possibility of war is real.”
SAYING ‘NO’ TO CAPITALIST SYSTEM
Christian, a student from the University of California, Santa Barbara, captured the spirit of the protest:
“Today we gather to say no to the capitalist system, which turns people into machines and machines into people. To say no to a Trump regime that pretends to care about the danger of nuclear weapons, all the while pointing thousands of nuclear missiles at millions of innocent people all over the world.
“We say no to a disastrous war that would harm both the people of North Korea, victims of their own regime, and the American people, victims of Trump. We say no to war with Iran, while the American ruling class cozies up to the oligarchs in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and their illegal war in Yemen. We say no to the building of walls and the deportation of working people, while the rich get away with the most heinous crimes possible.
“We say no to the making of millions of refugees at the hands of the bloodthirsty Bashar Assad regime and their criminal Russian backers. We say no to an Iranian mullah regime that starves, harasses and murders the Kurds and the representatives of Iranian workers. We say no to the Russian plutocrats that brazenly rob the Russian people dry and distract their own population with war and strife.
“We will not rest until our own immoral, wicked, oligarchical President and his crony friends are torn down and real democracy, workers’ democracy, takes place not just in this country but all over the world!”
—Mannel