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ILPS USA statement in support of “Occupy Wall Street” Movement
Thursday, 13 October 2011 00:00 ILPS USA ICC Members North America
ILPS-USA International Coordinating Committee Members


It is right to rebel

The International League of Peoples Struggle, representing hundreds of organizations in 43 countries, stands with the young workers, students and unemployed occupying Wall Street and city centers around the United States. You are fighting a battle that needs to be fought. You have a right to march and protest without fear of arrest or brutality.

Mass action is the only way forward

You are right to take to the streets in mass action rather than waiting for change from overpaid Republican and Democratic politicians who are on corporate payrolls. You are right to follow the militant path taken by people from Egypt and Tunisia to Greece and Spain, from Britain to Chile to Wisconsin. From Social Security and the 8-hour day in the 1930s to civil rights laws in the 1960s, mass action is the only way people in this country have won any rights from the corporate ruling class.

You are right to take the battle to the doorsteps of that class, the unelected tyrants who own the top 500 banks and corporations. Every day, at electronic speed, they send trillions of dollars around the world in financial transactions while millions cannot find work or afford health care. Their decisions shutter factories, destroy jobs, throw people out of their homes and wreck the economies of communities and entire nations.

Wall Street is the enemy of all humanity

These bankers and billionaires also rake in super-profits from murderous imperialist wars against people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine and elsewhere. In the U.S., they have created a monstrous police state-prison-industrial complex to lock up mostly youth of color, the children of generations of workers, whom they now deny the right to a job.

Bloomberg lies, jobs die

New York City Mayor Bloomberg, one of the richest men on earth, lies when he says that banks create jobs. His banker pals at JPMorgan Chase and Citibank have destroyed 7 million jobs since 2008. This billionaire parasite is closing schools, bus lines, clinics and libraries while increasing his personal fortune by billions of dollars since he took office.

Where did the bankers get their billions?

They stole them! And not just the bailout money they were given by both the Bush and Obama administrations. The fortunes of the top 1 percent are the unpaid labor of generations of workers not just in the United States but all over the world. It was created in farms and factories, mills and building sites, mines and offices from the Nile Delta to the Mississippi Delta, from South Africa to South Korea to South Carolina, from Mindanao to Mexico to Michigan. Many of the biggest fortunes in the U.S were founded on the slave trade. This wealth belongs to all humanity.

Imperialism is the source of their power

It is not a matter of making the rich pay their “fair share.” They have no right to even a penny from anyone else’s labor. We must smash their power over our lives. The source of that power is imperialism, the merger of finance and industrial capital that is plundering the entire world. To fight them we must take a clear stand against imperialism and racism and join hands with people all over the globe who are fighting the same enemy.

Both the Republican and Democratic parties represent Wall Street, we have to fight for ourselves. As ILPS Chairperson, Prof. Jose Maria Sison, pointed out in his Keynote Address to the 4th International Assembly this past July, "The Democratic and Republican parties in the US compete as do Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola in flagrantly carrying out the policy dictates of the financial oligarchy and the military industrial complex. Both parties agree on raising the US debt ceiling. And to blunt public protests, they promise to bring down the public deficit, with the Democrats wishing to reduce the tax cuts for the corporations and upper class and the Republicans demanding the further reduction of government social spending."

Everyone on this planet has the right to a job, food, health care, education, a home and a peaceful life. The wealth is there! We created it! But to take it back, we must deepen our struggle, strengthen our unity and increase our organization and continue to fight!

A JOB IS A RIGHT! HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT! EDUCATION IS A RIGHT! A HOME IS A RIGHT!
 

WE CAN GET THEM IF WE FIGHT!

DARE TO STRUGGLE, DARE TO WIN!

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LPS CALLS FOR GLOBAL ACTION ON OCTOBER 15 AGAINST IMPERIALIST PLUNDER, REPRESSION AND WAR
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
8 October 2011

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle calls on all its global region committees, national chapters and member-organizations as well as its allies to arouse, organize and mobilize the broad masses of the people for street marches and assemblies at the most prominent public places on the Global Day of Action on the 15th of October.

We urge ILPS-USA and its allies to participate vigorously in the occupy actions at Wall Street and all over the US. It is of great importance to wage resistance in the belly of the beast.

We unite for global change with all possible forces of the people along the anti-imperialist and democratic line. We must initiate the mass actions or participate in those initiated by other forces. We must cooperate and conjoin with a broad range of forces interested in any of the 18 concerns of the ILPS. We must protest and resist imperialist plunder, state repression and wars of aggression and demand the immediate end of these in order to bring about a better life for the people.

We condemn monopoly capitalism and its persistent neoliberal policy of unbridled greed for devastating the social conditions and natural environment and for escalating state terrorism and wars of aggression under various pretexts. Spearheaded by the financial oligarchy, the monopoly bourgeoisie has ruined the lives of the working people and even the middle class in both developed and underdeveloped countries.

The crisis of the world capitalist system has already resulted in a protracted depression comparable to the Great Depression. It is unleashing the forces of fascism and military aggression. It is urgent that we intensify our struggle against imperialism and all reaction (including chauvinism, racism, religious bigotry and war mongering) and for greater freedom, democracy, social justice, full employment and better living conditions, development and world peace.

We salute all the people, organizations and individuals who have waged the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle since a long time ago and in recent times. The current militant mass movements in various continents and countries are inspired by the history of people’s struggle and are driven by the current conditions of extreme exploitation and oppression to fight for the fundamental rights of the people. We are determined to expand and intensify the struggle and to raise it to a new and higher level. ###

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“PH not for Sale! Filipinos hold solidarity action for Occupy Wall Street
Posted at BAYAN website on 14 October 2011 by admin
News Release
October 14, 2011

Various groups led by the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) gathered today at the country’s financial center in a solidarity action for the US protests dubbed “Occupy Wall Street”. For weeks now, mass actions have been held at Wall Street in New York to denounce US economic policies that protesters blamed for the current crisis affecting millions of Americans. Filipinos in living in New York and New Jersey have also joined the protests. Other “Occupy” movements have taken shape in other states in the US.
Filipino protesters gathered in front of the Philippine Stock Exchange in Ayala, Makati carrying placards that read “PH not for Sale” as they assailed foreign economic plunder by big US companies and financial institutions. They then proceeded to the offices of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines.

“We stand in solidarity with the people of the United States in their fight against an unjust economic system that benefits and protects the 1% while exploiting and disregarding the other 99%. We join in their call ‘People over profits’. The crisis that they are facing and the economic woes we are experiencing here are inter-related. These are brought about by a system dominated by big monopoly banks and corporations that control our entire economy,” said Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr.
 

“In the Philippines, we are very much concerned about moves to lift restrictions on foreign ownership of land, utilities, media and tertiary educational institutions. The move to change the Charter is a step towards the bargain sale of Philippine patrimony and total surrender of economic sovereignty. The move favors the big banks and transnational corporations and puts Filipinos at a gross disadvantage,” Reyes said.
 

The protesters carried placards that showed telling statistics of the state of the Philippine economy which they described as “dependent of foreign investments, foreign loans and remittances from overseas Filipinos.”
 

“49 M FILIPINOS ARE POOR. 36 M FILIPINOS COULD NOT AFFORD FOOD.15 M FILIPINOS EXPERIENCE HUNGER.11 M FILIPINOS ARE JOBLESS,” read the placards.
 

“The US public is rising against the big banks and corporations because they have plunged their country into crisis and debt. It is time for our own Philippine policymakers to take a critical look at this system. We cannot continue relying on the so-called benevolence of the foreign investors that foster sweatshops, destructive mining activities, high rates and massive indebtedness,” Reyes said. ###

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ILPS - HK & Macau statement on Global Day of Action against Imperialist Plunder, Repression and War

The worsening crisis of imperialism is pushing people even deeper into crisis as dislocation, displacement and poverty intensify. At the same time, it is spurring the people of the world to rise up, question the ruling socio-economic and political system, and act towards changing the structures that thrive on oppression and exploitation.

The world needs a change and the change that we want is the demise of imperialism.

Two years after the explosion of the financial crisis that rapidly turned into an economic crisis, imperialists led by the United States are no way near finding a solution to the rut they have put the world in. Their prescription of neoliberal globalization and militarism instead heighten the deterioration in the condition of people in their colonies and semi-colonies; a condition that is now also rapidly spreading among the people in their own country.

Greater plunder, draining off of cheap raw materials and cheap labor of other countries, consolidation of their spoils of war and tightening of their military stranglehold in strategic regions of the world – these are the ways that imperialists, chiefly the US, are using to maintain its global domination at the expense of the working class and other oppressed and exploited classes and sectors.

Hong Kong hosts many of the financial oligarchs and the headquarters of monopoly corporations that rule the world and plunge the people in crisis. Even the people of Hong Kong, especially the working class including the migrant workers are not spared from imperialist attacks and the brunt of the crisis.

Control of the elite remains in the economic, political and social spheres. In the midst of the crisis, the government salvaged the corporations instead of prioritizing the needs of the people. Even in the so-called recovery of the economy, the people are just given mere dole-outs in order to pacify the discontent arising from the rising prices of goods, erosion of real wages, and cutbacks on social services.

The gap between the very rich and the very poor in Hong Kong is widening. Even the much-vaunted middle class of Hong Kong is rapidly dwindling as the economic status of many people cannot keep up with the surging cost of living.

Migrant workers in Hong Kong are now contending with heightened social exclusion and discrimination. From the issue of wage to the working condition and to the general treatment that migrant workers receive, they are relegated to the gutter and disposed of as seen fit. Worse, they are pictured by the government and the elite as job-stealers and as competitors for the dwindling social services in order to drive a wedge between them and the local workers.

Imperialism with its greed for superprofit, plunder of economies, destruction of natural environment, brutal war machinery and exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few is rapidly getting exposed as the root cause of the people’s misery.

The political actions of the people in the US in recent weeks further present the need for the people of world to intensify the struggle against imperialism. Occupy Wall Street is further spurring the people across the US and overseas to challenge imperialist schemes and advance a society that is more just and democratic.

We all want change. We the people shall continue to act to attain the societal changes we need.

No to neoliberal globalization! No to war!
Down with imperialism!
Long live international solidarity!

Signed:

International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS) – HK and Macau Chapter
Abra Tinguian Ilocano Society (ATIS)
Asia Pacific Youth and Students’ Association (ASA)
Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM)
Association of Concerned Filipinos in Hong Kong (ACFIL)
Asosiasi Tenaga Kerja Indonesia di Hong Kong (ATKI-HK)
Asosiasi Tenaga Kerja Indonesia di Macau (ATKI-Macau)
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) – Hong Kong
Cordillera Alliance in Hong Kong (CORALL-HK)
Filipino Migrant Workers’ Union (FMWU)
Filipino Women Migrants Association FILWOM)
GABRIELA Hong Kong
Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Union (IMWU)
Left 21
LIPMI (League of Indonesian Migrant Workers) Hong Kong
Pangasinan Organization for Welfare, Empowerment and Rights (POWER)
PILAR (United Indonesians against Overcharging)
Pinatud a Saleng ti Umili (PSU)
United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL-MIGRANTE-HK)