Dare To Struggle, Dare To Win: Kansas City Rises Against Trump

The people of Chicago did what no one had done since the 1960s: actually shut down an presidential election rally and they could not have picked a better person to shut down. The fascist clown Donald Trump was immediately kicked out before he even took the stage, due to pressure from the thousands of protesters outside, as well as those on the inside of the venue. Some sources claim that upwards of 60% of attendees in Chicago’s Trump rally were actually protesters.

Apart from seeing this as well as the events in St. Louis, we begin to see a trend where Trump’s rhetoric against Mexicans, Black people, Muslims and others are reaching a boiling point. A point where people no longer can stand quiet and do nothing as this beast is allowed to spew hate and sow seeds of discontent. In the past we saw crowds in the Trump rallies spit, punch and assault individual protesters with no interference from police, security or the Secret Service. Now we are seeing larger numbers come out not only to disrupt his hate speeches, but to rally outside his venues. The events in Chicago and St. Louis inspired us in Progressive Youth Organization to issue the call to get “Trump Out of KC”. Donald Trump had been scheduled to host a rally at the Midland Theater in Downtown Kansas City, at the same time as the Big 12 Basketball tournament was going on in the City and we had hoped to draw a huge crowd to meet him upon his arrival.

Protest of Donald Trump campaign for President outside a Trump campaign rally at the Midland Theatre in downtown Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday, March 12, 2016.

Protest of Donald Trump campaign for President outside a Trump campaign rally at the Midland Theatre in downtown Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday, March 12, 2016.

In essence thousands of people were going to be downtown, thousands more than usual. With less than two days to prepare, our organization was in full motion to not only coordinate the call to rally outside, but also to coordinate disruptions with our members and those taking our lead, as well as spreading the call to support the bail and legal fund for those that could have been and that were arrested. Inside our comrades as well as fast food workers from Stand Up KC and others disrupted Donald upwards to a dozen times for almost 45 minutes. It became so bad for Trump that much of his time was spent ranting about protesters and reading a newspaper about a snake for ten minutes, the meltdown of Trump after being disrupted for so long was taking a toll that he was forced to leave early.

The rallies themselves are almost circus like, complete with incomprehensible yelling, glam rock music and hooligan fans. Some comrades of ours had their hair pulled, signs torn up, and shoved. Others were spit on, with the Secret Service and the Kansas City Police Department doing absolutely nothing to protect protesters. In fact the police were culprits in the violence themselves. Shoving people by the neck, pulling batons out and rough handling people out of the venue.

Working Women: We Have The Power!

March 8^th is International Working Women’s Day or International Women’s Day. This is a day of celebration and recognition for the struggles overcame and accomplishments achieved by women, especially working women. We begin on March 8, 1857 when garment workers in New York City march and picket demanding better working conditions, a ten hour work day and equal rights for women. The brave women who had dared to fight for better conditions were dispersed by the police. A full fifty-one years later on the same day on March 8, 1908, women in the needle trades in New York City marched again. The march this time, honoring that historic march on 1857 demanded the right for women to vote, they also demanded an end to child labor. Just as in the past the police were there to disperse them.

In commemoration of these struggles, in 1910 at the Second International, a worldwide socialist party congress, German socialist Clara Zetkin proposed that March 8th be proclaimed as International Working Women’s Day, to commemorate the mobilization of women workers in the US and honor working women the world over. Since then, we recognize all efforts to improve the lives of women, both locally and globally. It is also an occasion to unite, mobilize and struggle for a radical change that is still desperately needed.

Out With The Racists, In With The Refugees

As 2016 rolls around, so does the 5th year of the Syrian Civil War. Millions of people have fled the country attempting to escape the violence, preferably to Europe or the United States. In a 289-137 the US House of Representatives voted to make it harder for refugees fleeing the tragic violence to come here. In Missouri, Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder and the Missouri Republicans want the State to deny entry for all Syrian Refugees. Meanwhile Governor Jay Nixon wants “more safeguards” to an already restrictive process. While in Kansas politicians like Sam Brownback are attempting to block refugees from coming in signing an executive order to prevent refugee resettlement! Governor Sam Brownback is a gubernatorial travesty, and is trying to shift the attention away from his failed policies and joins about 20 more governors, in denying refuge for those fleeing terror and violence caused by this country’s imperialist policies. They are not alone, presidential candidate Donald Trump, one never to disappoint with his racist rhetoric, has even gone as far as to call for a ban on all Muslim immigration and a national database as we “cannot be sure” if they are terrorists or not. Implying that the majority of the world’s Muslims are only a shove away from adopting the tenets of the Islamic State. This sort of language is what comes right before a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Using racist and Islamophobic rhetoric, the Far Right in this country has demonized and painted with a broad brush all Muslims and people of Arab descent as terrorists. We must stand together against these reactionaries because they do not only affect refugees from countries like Iraq or Syria, but also refugees fleeing violence in Central America.

Colum-Bust Day: Genocide Is No Reason To Celebrate!

The United States of America as it stands is and was founded as a white supremacist settler-colonial state that could not exist without the almost total genocide of the original inhabitants of this land and the enslavement of those with Black skin. To literally and figuratively whiten it’s image and history it has adopted legends surrounding itself which are no more than moral and ideological justifications for Empire. We see this with it’s narrative of Plymouth Rock and the Puritan zealots in their plight to escape oppression, to Thanksgiving where the indigenous people and colonizers sat down together to enjoy a shared meal, to Columbus Day where Christopher Colombus “discovered a continent”. Nothing is mentioned about the fact that he had died thinking this was Asia, and nothing about the fact that people had already been living here for thousands of years and that had cities more vastly populated than anywhere in Europe at the time. Far from being a day of celebration, Christopher Columbus represents one of the darkest chapters in the history of this continent, it represents a chapter full of genocidal murder, human trafficking and unimaginable brutality against the native people of this continent.

For oppressed people of color Columbus Day is a constant reminder that many of our ancestors and their suffering did not matter. In extension we do not matter as well. The schools, the media and the government utilize these days in such a manner to indoctrinate themselves and those they oppress to accept their lot. While lionizing the image of the colonizers and omitting and failing to mention the history of those who resisted the invasion of this world, we are taught to look up to people who look like them and to hate ourselves.

Even among supposedly progressive narratives we are given an image of indigenous people as cattle lining up for the slaughter or that they didn’t exist at all. The truth is that their descendants are still fighting and resisting this unwarranted aggression to this day. From Agüeybaná, to Oscar López Rivera, from Nat Turner to Malcolm X the oppressed have always resisted their oppressors.