UNAC Statement on the Right-wing Mob Attack at the Capitol Building

1/9/20

While largely peaceful demonstrations against police killings of African Americans have been met by violent repression, the attempted takeover of the US Capitol by a white supremacist mob saw very light security and even collaboration.

When UNAC organized a peaceful demonstration in Chicago at the NATO summit in 2012, there were lines of cops all along the march route and, at the end of the event, when they saw there was no violence, the cops attacked anyway. There were no lines of cops in DC on January 6.

The US has always used right-wing forces and employed the same tactics to discredit elections that Trump is using now. Both Republicans and Democrats, especially Biden and of course Trump have used these tactics abroad for years.

Right-wing mob at the capitol building

Right-wing mob in Venezuela

Every Regime Change operation began with repeatedly calling an election fraudulent, refusing to accept the results, and bringing in violently disruptive right-wing forces to try and change the results. These disrupters are always called “democratic forces” in the US media when they are in other countries.

This was the US tactic of choice in Ukraine, in Venezuela, in Syria, in Libya, in Hong Kong and in Bolivia, just to name a few recent examples.

Each of these countries faced an economic crisis imposed by US sanctions and destabilization programs.

In the US today we face an economic meltdown and a health crisis. The crisis in the US that led to the kind of right-wing movement we see today was built by decades of bi-partisan policies. In large part, thanks to the Telecommunications Act that was pushed and passed under Bill Clinton’s administration, the entire media moved to the right. It became open propaganda and facts had no meaning. Attacks on “big government” – pushed by corporations that did not want restrictions and regulations – became the norm. Both parties used this narrative when they pushed their neo-liberal agendas for their corporate masters. As the fake War on Terrorism was declared to bring the US into new profitable wars and to gain more resources and markets, our democratic rights and freedoms were further curtailed. Also, under Clinton, with support from Biden, the 1994 Crime Bill passed that stirred up the endemic racism in the US and led to mass incarceration.

Neither of these parties of war and profit will be able to solve the crisis that came to a head on January 6 which will only grow in the period ahead. We need to build a unified, independent movement to do this. One that calls for an end to the wars and the bloated military budget; one that demands Medicare for All, jobs with a living wage, protects people from rent defaults and foreclosure, an end to racism, and demands that the US ends interference in the affairs of other countries. This is something that we will not see from the Biden administration. We will need to build our own movement to do this. We urge all organizations to join UNAC and work together to end the wars at home and abroad.