'Off the charts extraordinary': Strategist heaps praise on Harris after border speech

Erik De La Garza
September 27, 2024 

Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech Friday night for her first campaign trip to the border was welcomed as a homerun by a Democratic strategist who said it “is why Kamala Harris is going to win this election on November 5.” (Screengrab via MSNBC)

Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech Friday night for her first campaign trip to the border was welcomed as a homerun by a Democratic strategist who said it “is why Kamala Harris is going to win this election on November 5.”

“That thing was off the charts extraordinary,” said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster and strategist. “She gave a serious speech that didn’t sound like open borders advocacy. She said ‘I’m a responsible leader. I’m going to solve this problem.'”

Harris' speech in the border town of Douglas, Arizona, aired live on the three major cable news networks and showed how the Democratic nominee is “growing by leaps and bounds,” according to Amandi.

“Just a terrific speech by Kamala Harris,” he told MSNBC host Chris Hayes on his show "All In."

Journalist Maria Hinojosa, the founder and CEO of Futuro Media Group, pushed back on Amandi’s enthusiastic reaction by hitting Harris for "painting all immigrants as criminals," and not recognizing that crime and fentanyl overdoses have dropped.

“Why is she not saying it’s time to turn the page on that rhetoric. She herself needs to turn the page on that rhetoric,” Hinojosa said before adding that she would “give her a few points” for portions of her speech.

“You know I’m highly critical because our country should be doing better,” Hinojosa said.

Amandi concluded the segment by trying to convince Hinojosa that Harris was focusing on immigration issues “because it’s working.”


“She's taken Donald Trump’s plus 35 on this issue of immigration sliced it down to only a 14 point lead, after this speech if it resonates, it’s going to get into the low single-digits,” Amandi said.

“I don't think you could have asked for a better, more thoughtful, more sober and serious speech compared to the unseriousness and frankly the cruelty of what the trump campaign is offering."

Watch the clip below or at this link.

Harris speech was 'tough on the border without being terrible to people': CNN commentator

Daniel Hampton
September 27, 2024 

Vice President Kamala Harris' "gamble" of a border speech in Arizona earned praise from a former Obama administration adviser even as the panel's Republican strategist cast doubt on the speech's effectiveness. (Screengrab via CNN)

Vice President Kamala Harris' "gamble" of a border speech in Arizona earned praise from a former Obama administration adviser even as the panel's Republican strategist cast doubt on the speech's effectiveness.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper noted some called Harris's speech Friday night a "gamble" that will bring attention to her and the Biden administration's record on the border.

Harris and her team clearly thought the speech was "worth it," he said, to "distance herself from what [President Joe] Biden has done, charting her own course."

Reacting to the speech, commentator Van Jones applauded Harris.

"Bravo," he said, twice. "I thought that was an extraordinary speech."

Jones said Harris' remarks that she prosecuted and put people behind bars as a prosecutor for heroin, that's "what she was known for" in California.

"You can have confidence that she will carry that forward," he added, calling her a "mature leader" who has proven she can provide "bipartisan leadership."

Jones also lauded Harris for acknowledging she can be tougher on the border, while also respecting the dignity of migrants.

"You can be tough on the border without being terrible to people," he said. "You can be tough on the border without scapegoating people. You can be tough on the border without lying about people eating cats and dogs."

Journalist Gretchen Carlson noted Harris struck a tougher tone on the border to separate herself from Biden.

"Let me be blunt about this speech, Anderson: This was for independents and undecideds. That's what this speech is about."

Carlson highlighted that Harris used buzzwords and phrases such as "reaching across the aisle," "commonsense approach" and "put politics aside." These phrases, said Carlson, help her "bridge the gap of our hyperpolitical environment."


But Republican strategist Scott Jennings poured cold water on Harris' praise, asserting that voters won't take her words in "in a vacuum, independent of everything else you know."

Voters, he said, know they don't like what the Biden administration has done thus far on immigration. To boot, Harris' stances have "favored a more permissive immigration structure."

"She wanted to decriminalize border crossings," said Jennings. "She once compared ICE agents to the KKK! She tried to scapegoat border guards by claiming they were whipping people on horseback at the border, which turned out to be false."

Jennings said immigration-focused voters who think the border is broken will likely still favor Trump.

"I don't think this speech, despite trying to separate herself from Biden is going to change that. I don't think 100 speeches would change it."


Watch the clip below or at this link.

Harris walks tightrope on migration while calling for more restrictions on asylum

Issued on: 28/09/2024 - 

Vice President Kamala Harris walked a scrubby stretch along the US-Mexico border on Friday and called for further tightening of asylum restrictions as she sought to project a tougher stance on illegal migration and address one of her biggest vulnerabilities in the November election.

The Class Struggle in the US Since the Civil War

Richard Moser

September 27, 2024

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An innovative, wide-ranging, thought-provoking account of class struggle in the US since the Civil War, Jon Jeter’s latest book Class War in America: How the Elites Divide The Nation by Asking: Are You A Worker Or Are You White? is both redemptive and damning. He has rendered the tale forcefully but with a charm and grace that frees the reader to face the terrible beauty of class war in America. It’s a story that pulls you in and doesn’t let you go, not just because it’s so well done and so deeply researched but because Jeter guides us on an exploration of the primary issue confronting class struggle in the US — the long and winding relationship between race and class.

The question that reverberates throughout this book is for workers of all colors, but for people like me, as children of the white working class, we must confront our own deeply contradictory position:

America’s interpretation of capitalism…demands a hard choice from its European settlers: Are you a worker, or are you white?*

How we answer that question means everything.

New History 

The first thing I love about this book is that I have learned much about US history since the Civil War. Jeter has revised the accepted timelines and interpretations by excavating tales rarely told and events on the periphery of historical awareness. As a people’s journalist, his chapters also give voice — and often the last word — to the otherwise unheard.

Jeter does not offer a simple linear narration as he travels through time and space. Jumping back and forth between historical eras with ease, the author leaves no doubt about the relevance of his material or the persistence of racial betrayal or class solidarity. Some readers may suffer from jet lag or whiplash, but buckle up—it’s a new kind of history that we desperately need.

Jeter’s account brings us up to the present (with insight on more topics than this review can touch on). He reveals the pattern of solidarity and betrayal emerging during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Jeter introduces us to the question that informs his work by telling the story of two crucial events—the Battle of the Crater and the rise of a third party, the Virginia “Readjusters.”

The Battle of the Crater was a botched, suicidal nightmare in which white racial solidarity triumphed, and Black soldiers were murdered by their own “brothers in arms.”

And then, in a horrific demonstration of racial solidarity, scores of white Union soldiers turned their bayonets, knives, and sidearms on the Colored troops they had fought alongside just moments earlier. “The cry was raised that we would all be killed if we were captured among the negroes,” one white soldier recalled later.

Jeter continues:

A white proletariat literally dug a hole for itself and managed to escape only with the help of the African Americans they had shunned and marginalized. But once the white settler has climbed from the chasm, they do not repay their Black rescuers with gratitude but a knife thrust in the back…. the worst racial massacre of the Civil War shines a spotlight on our maddening national metanarrative…[E]very victory is undone, every insurrection put down, with the 99 percent in full retreat…and the betrayal of a radical Black vanguard by their white allies who—like the Union soldiers at the Battle of the Crater—ineluctably choose “race” when the going gets tough.

Yet, the author also finds a very different flower in the same Virginia soil—a brief but shining example of the rise of a people’s third party—the Readjusters. The Readjusters championed the working class’s interests, actually got things done, and provided a model for bi-racial movements in other southern states.

The Readjusters remain the most powerful independent political movement in American history…. seizing control of the state legislature, the Congressional delegation, both U.S. Senate seats, city halls in Richmond, Danville, Petersburg, and the governor’s mansion, all within a single election cycle.

The Readjusters bucked hard times, white supremacy, and the bankers to form a biracial political party.  They worked with Black Republicans to push through real reforms in 1880s Virginia.

Class solidarity or racial betrayal? So, the story of Class War in America unfolds.

The Mid-20th Century

Jeter makes a compelling case that the defense of the Scottsboro Boys was the catalyst for America’s last period of reform and revolution that lasted from the 1930s to the end of the 1970s. An international solidarity movement rose to defend a group of innocent young black men who faced legal lynching after they were falsely accused of rape. Cross-racial solidarity in the face of this injustice and the visionary work of the Communist Party that lead the defense put the New Deal back into the hands of everyday people and a principled left opposition where it belongs.

[T]he arrest of the Scottsboro Boys triggered 50 years of tumult in America’s class relations, as a critical mass of whites forfeited their racial privileges to join with their Black co-workers and fight the wealthiest 1 percent who oppressed them all. Until roughly the moment that Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the nation’s 40th president, employees went blow for blow with their employers, modernizing the state in the process.

As we know, this revolution did not occur unopposed. By the mid-1970s, a corporate counterattack was launched to lower wages, impose austerity, and breathe new life into the embattled empire.

Chicago, Counter-Revolution and the Election of 2024

Jeter makes clear that the book’s central question is not posed to whites alone.

The people of Chicago made a last stand against the resurgence of corporate control by organizing a multi-year effort to elect Harold Washington mayor in 1983. But, as the half-century of upheaval and progress waned, a class of elite Black politicians rose to “isolate the vanguard of the revolution: the African American working class.”

If there is one book to read before the 2024 election, this would be it.

Jeter’s recounting of Chicago politics puts Obama and his hand-picked successor, Kamla Harris, in their larger political context. The grassroots movement that put Harold Washington in the Mayor’s office was overshadowed by the rise of well-financed, well-connected Black politicians, including one who would one day occupy the White House.

Absent an understanding of Chicago’s first Black mayor you cannot begin to make sense of the Republic’s first Black president. Obama owed his electoral triumphs to a top-down political movement that was antithetical to the grassroots organizing that produced Washington, and each man governed accordingly. As such, the pro-business policies of Black politicians such as Obama, Kamala Harris, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New Jersey’s U.S. Senator Cory Booker, former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser…can only be explained as a response to an insurrection, and the radical Black polity that was its engine. Or, to put it another way, Obama was the figurehead for a counterrevolution that takes dead aim at its foes in the American working class.

If, indeed, “Obama was the figurehead for a counterrevolution that takes dead aim at its foes in the American working class,” then 2024 offers us no real choice between the two corporate parties, both hostile to everyday people.  We can be sure that war and austerity will continue regardless of which corporate candidate wins. Both poverty and the poverty draft increase the short-term value of white privilege, making it an asset fewer whites are willing to sacrifice to the rigors of class struggle — despite the fact that a much bigger prize awaits a working class who can tell friends from enemies. After all, Jeter asks, “What good would it be to be white in a country where everyone’s needs are met?”

And so, meeting our needs will never be on the agenda of the Democrats or Republicans. Austerity is their strategy to maximize profits, preempt dissent, and perpetuate white ethnonationalism. As we are divided, so are we conquered.

Hey, What’s the Big Idea? 

Jeter convincingly shows that — in the battles of the class war — we do not have an either-or choice between race and class.  Class has multiple meanings in America: multiracial solidarity is the feature of class struggle at its high water mark, and white treachery is the feature of class struggle when the bosses win and we lose.

This thoroughly dialectical account shows that race and class do not work as static opposites but as two possibilities of a single revolutionary process.

In Jeter’s telling, and among the contemporary opposition, there are two master narratives: the colonial/settler narrative and socialist or anarchist-inspired class analysis. Jeter’s contribution, and a significant one it is, has shown us that great storytelling can weave both strands into a single tapestry. Jon Jeter has done his part and paid his dues by moving us closer to the day that workers will answer the call to join and win the Class War in America.

*All quotes are from Jon Jeter, Class War in America.

Richard Moser writes at befreedom.co where this article first appeared.

 

Gilbert Achcar: ‘We are witnessing the first genocide in history to be televised and openly supported by the West’

By Gilbert Achcar, Israel Dutra & Victor Gorman

Published 25 September, 2024

First published in Portuguese at Revista Movimento.

Israel’s escalating war, the genocide in Gaza and the opening up of new fronts of Zionist-led violence have once again focused the world’s attention on the Middle East region. To better understand the situation and the challenges that lie ahead, Revista Movimento spoke with Gilbert Achcar, a University of London professor and Lebanese activist affiliated to the Fourth International. In this interview, Achcar provides an overview of the complex political situation in the region, situating it within the context of the political project of the global far right of which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a main exponent. The interview was conducted by Israel Dutra and Victor Gorman on September 16.

After almost a year of aggression, we are facing an impasse in terms of a possible ceasefire in Gaza. Meanwhile, the Netanyahu government is confronting major protests and an internal political crisis. What are the short-term prospects for the war under the current Zionist government?

It was clear from the beginning that this war was going to last. The Israeli side made it very clear that it will take no less than one year. That is because they intended to seize the opportunity of October 7 to reoccupy the Gaza Strip and completely flatten this very dense concentration of Palestinians in order to create a condition whereby they could control it forever. And that indeed entailed a genocidal intent — the intent, that is, to kill a large part of the population. They have already killed more than 50,000 people, including the dead estimated to be under the rubbles, and it is not over yet. The onslaught is still ongoing.

Within the Israeli power elite, there is no consensus yet on what they will do with the Gaza Strip after the onslaught. There are disagreements about this between the far right and the Zionist mainstream plus, of course, the perspective of the US election, which Netanyahu factors into his calculations. He is certainly hoping that Donald Trump will win. If this happens, Netanyahu will feel that he can do even worse and more than what he has done until now, not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and against Iran, of course. So, these are the factors that determine the present situation.

How do you view the relationship between the current Israeli government and other expressions of the far right in the world?

Netanyahu has been a key figure of the international far right. He came back to power in 2009 and remained prime minister uninterruptedly for 12 years. After a few months of interruption, he got back in government at the end of 2022. He has thus accumulated an exceptional longevity in power, with a specific, very demagogic style in politics, which has been a source of inspiration for the international far right that developed during those years, in the wake of the global economic crisis of 2008.

Netanyahu connected with all the key figures of the global hard right and far right, notwithstanding the antisemitic tradition and current profile of most of them. He befriended antisemites such as Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and Trump. Netanyahu provided the international far right with a cover for their past and/or present antisemitism. He went as far as explaining in a public event that Adolf Hitler had no intention of perpetrating the genocide of the European Jews, and that it was the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al Husseini, who inspired him to do that. This was a grotesque falsification of history, of course, and it was vehemently denounced by historians of Nazism and the Holocaust, but it shows to what extent Netanyahu is willing to go to please the far right.

This kind of discourse obviously suits them in that it shifts the blame of antisemitism from the European far right to Palestinians and Muslims. It feeds into Islamophobia, which Netanyahu has made a central part of his discourse, in accordance with today’s international far right that is much more Islamophobic than antisemitic because the migrants into Europe today are mostly Muslims. It is easy to see how this works, for instance with Marine Le Pen in France, who is heir to a long antisemitic political tradition. Such far right currents are now 100% pro-Israel and anti-Palestinians, as well as anti-Muslims. They even claim to be against “antisemitism”, which they attribute to Muslims and even to the left. They now accuse the left of being antisemitic because it criticises Israel. This hypocritical discourse has been buttressed by Netanyahu and the Israeli far right, of which he is a major figure.

Why did the Netanyahu government open up a second front in the West Bank, starting with the siege of Jenin?

The genocide in Gaza has been accompanied from the beginning with an escalation of the Zionist settlers’ violence in the West Bank. This violence had already reached a high level after the inclusion of neo-Nazi ministers in Netanyahu’s latest cabinet, in positions crucial to the operation of the settlers. This has radicalised many young Palestinians, leading to new groups forming and taking up arms in the West Bank to fight back against the colonial settlers. The Israeli army is trying to break the Palestinians’ resistance spirit and prevent the further build-up of a network of armed struggle in the West Bank. They want to terrorise the Palestinians and deter any form of resistance. That is why they launched their recent brutal offensive in the West Bank, turning parts of it into Gaza-like scenes of destruction.

What is your opinion on the involvement of Lebanon and Hezbollah in this conflict? Is an escalation from Lebanon possible? Could you also tell us a bit more about Lebanese domestic politics?

The involvement of Lebanon is essentially the involvement of Hezbollah, because the Lebanese state is not involved as such, and neither are most other Lebanese political parties. Hezbollah, however, is a major military force, stronger than the Lebanese army.

When Hamas launched the October 7 attack, they called on Hezbollah, Iran, Syria and Yemen to join them in the fight against Israel, believing — with a lot of illusions and religious thinking — that October 7 would be the beginning of Palestine’s liberation and Israel’s destruction. Hezbollah faced a dilemma, because they felt a moral obligation to act in solidarity with Gaza, especially in light of the terrible violence of the Israeli onslaught that started immediately after the October 7 attack. But they did not want to take responsibility for a major war in Lebanon, like that of 2006. In that year, Hezbollah launched an attack across the border in South Lebanon, killing eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two. This led to a major Israeli onslaught on Lebanon, which was highly destructive. Thus, Hezbollah did not want to take the responsibility of offering Israel a pretext for a second onslaught, which could be even worse than that of 2006.

The result of these two contradictory pressures has been that Hezbollah decided to launch a limited war, consisting of a limited exchange of bombing with the Israeli side. This led to a population displacement on both sides of the border: close to 100,000 people displaced from South Lebanon and 80,000 people displaced on the Israeli side. This could happen and remain within limits for almost a year now, because the Israeli army was concentrating its effort in Gaza and would have found it difficult to wage war on both fronts at the same time. But the most intensive part of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza is ending, and it is very likely that Israel will now turn against Lebanon, and against Hezbollah specifically.

It will also depend on the outcome of the US elections, as I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation. If Trump wins, a green light to Netanyahu for a new onslaught on Lebanon will become very likely. If Trump is not elected, Netanyahu will increase the pressure on Lebanon and probably give an ultimatum to Hezbollah: either they backtrack and withdraw from the border to north of the Litani River, or they refuse and face a major Israeli onslaught. Whereas there is some disagreement today in Israel between Netanyahu and the opposition about the next phase in Gaza, there is no substantial disagreement about Lebanon. The opposition is even blaming Netanyahu for prolonging the war in Gaza, instead of dealing with Lebanon, which they now see as the priority.

As for Lebanese domestic politics, Hezbollah is in alliance with another Shia sectarian force, Amal, but most other Lebanese political parties are rivals or opponents of Hezbollah and blame it for involving Lebanon in the war. They argue that there is no reason why Lebanon should be involved and pay the price whereas Syria, which is much stronger than Lebanon and an ally of both Iran and Hezbollah, is not doing anything. Even Iran, for that matter, is hardly taking any risk. So, that is part of the political equation that Hezbollah must consider.

What about the role of other countries in the region, such as Egypt and Jordan?

Both Egypt and Jordan are part of the US military arc of forces in the region. Both are major recipients of US military aid. Therefore, even though they criticise Israel’s war on Gaza to appease public opinions and they do not like Netanyahu because he is too extreme for them, they will not do anything that could provide real support for the Palestinians. Syria also shares a border with Israel, like Jordan and Egypt, and a major stretch of Syrian territory in the Golan Heights has been occupied and even annexed by Israel since 1967. And yet Syria’s demarcation line is Israel’s quietest border. None of these states are willing to take any risk in defence of the Palestinian people. Egypt and Jordan are rather eager to see its resistance subdued.

The Houthis in Yemen have been targeting ships in the Red Sea, which has impacted on global maritime logistic routes. Why are they doing this, and what have been the impacts of their action?

The Houthis are a very reactionary force from a social and ideological standpoint — closer to the Afghan Taliban than they are to the Iranian regime — but they are linked to Tehran because they belong to a sect related to Shi'ism, the dominant branch of Islam in Iran. They are seen in the region, therefore, as part of a sectarian arc of forces led by Iran and composed of Shias in Lebanon; Alawis, the sect of the ruling elite in Syria; pro-Iran Shia militias in Iraq; and Yemen’s Houthis.

The Houthis started their intervention in the Red Sea as a way for them to gain legitimacy against their opponents in Yemen itself, where there has been a civil war in which the Houthis have confronted the southern half of the country, which is Sunni. By outbidding everyone on the issue of Israel with their action in the Red Sea, the Houthis have been doing a propaganda stunt in the face of their rivals in Yemen, as well as in the face of the Saudis, the main enemies of both the Houthis and Iran. The Saudi rulers are annoyed by the way that the Houthis are outbidding them on Israel.

However, the attacks in the Red Sea are not really harming Israel: the country that is most harmed is Egypt, because of the sharp drop in the use of the Suez Canal, a major source of income for Egypt. China too is harmed, because it is a major user of the Suez Canal, and now needs to ship its exports to Europe around Africa, which increases time and cost. By their action, the Houthis have given further incentive to European countries and the US to develop a way to bypass the Red Sea and the Suez Canal through a transport corridor going from India by sea to the United Arab Emirates, and from there by land to Israel through the Saudi Kingdom and Jordan, and then to Europe via the Mediterranean. This project is also obviously designed to enhance the collaboration between the three Arab countries and Israel.

In your evaluation, what has been the impact of international solidarity in support of Palestine? How has this affected the political fight in the US? What does each sector in the presidential election campaign represent?

We are witnessing the first genocide to happen in front of the eyes of the whole world, directly reported on TV, and openly supported by Western countries. It is therefore a major historical event, as well as a terrible disaster for the Palestinian people, of course. The only ray of hope, however; the only little positive point amid this very gloomy, very dark picture, is the spectacular development of international solidarity with the Palestinian people. The cruelty of the Israeli genocidal war has been such that it led to an awakening of conscience in many countries, and the development of solidarity in the Global North, in Western Europe and in the US.

What happens in the US is crucial for Israel, due to Israel’s dependence on Washington. The movement that has been developing in the US among the youth, particularly among students, is very important for the future of the Palestinian struggle. It has already managed to influence the campaign of the Democrats: Biden was denounced for his complicity and full participation in Israel’s genocidal war and could see that this was going to cost him a lot of votes. He somewhat shifted his position accordingly: after having long opposed the call for a ceasefire, the Biden administration started calling for one. Trump, of course, even called Biden “Palestinian”, as if it were an insult. He is accusing the Democrats of being “against the Jews”.

Kamala Harris has a different tone than that of Biden in recognising Palestinian suffering, but she has not dared until now to take any distance from Biden and she will not as she is still Biden’s vice president. If she gets elected, we shall see whether she will continue the very pro-Israeli policy of Biden or revert to the Obama kind of cold support to Israel, with an attempt to moderate the Israeli attitude. The Democrats, in general, are dedicated to the defence of Israel as they keep saying, however, so we cannot expect them to do what needs to be done, which is for Washington to stop arming Israel and force it to withdraw from the 1967 occupied territories in accordance with what is supposed to be the official position of the US. The only way for anything like this to happen is for the solidarity movement to reach enough force to impose it on the US government.

Lastly, what are your views in terms of the strategy or possibilities for building the radical left in the Arab world?

The radical left in the Arab world has been very much weakened by the defeat of the two successive waves of what has been called the Arab Spring or Arab uprising. The first wave in 2011 saw major uprisings in six Arab countries along with a big rise in social and political protests in most other Arab countries. This created conditions in which the radical left could play an important role in several countries, including Tunisia, where it all started, and Egypt. The second wave in 2019 included four countries. In one of them, Sudan, the radical left played a very important role. Unfortunately, however, the defeats of those uprisings — especially the 2013 coup in Egypt, the 2021 coup in Tunisia, and the civil war among the military that unfolded in Sudan after the 2021 coup — all had a hugely negative impact on the radical left in the Arabic-speaking region.

But the key point to understand is that the social and economic crisis in the region is very deep, and it is this crisis that led to the two successive waves of uprisings in 2011 and 2019. Not only is the crisis not solved, but it is getting worse and worse, year after year. This means that there will inevitably be further social explosions. The key condition for the necessary radical change is that young people manage to find new ways and forms of organisations in order to build a new radical alternative to the existing situation.