San Francisco, 9 November 2004 -- International ANSWER sponsored an emergency rally to protest the u.$. invasion of Fallujah, Iraq, which brought out thousands of supporters. So far, the news reports are saying scores of civilians have been killed and over 100 Iraqi deaths in the first two days of the attack. These numbers are sure to increase as the united $tates has bombed already suffering medical facilities in Fallujah and reportedly arrested and detained medical staff. (1) One speaker at the rally told the story of a man who watched his child die from wounds caused by an explosion because he knew if he brought her to the hospital she would be killed. This is all within the context of the recent estimate of over 100,000 Iraqi deaths, making violence the leading cause of death in Iraq these days. (2)

With this imperialist slaughter being conducted by the u.$. military, we condemn the leadership (International ANSWER and associates) that ended up leading a march to all of the downtown hotels to support workers that are striking for a contract. ANSWER baited those who are rightly outraged by the slaughter in Fallujah to join what became a rally for guaranteed wealth for the relatively wealthy(see below). Judging by the enthusiastic chants of "What do we want? Contracts!", if anything the crowd was more excited about the hotel struggle than the war on Iraq. However, the hotel strikers have not been able to rally a crowd big enough to block Market Street in downtown San Francisco as we did this night, so the loud chanting at the hotels may have happened because it was a break from the monotonous march and chant routine and not an indication that the crowd thought the hotel strike was a more important cause. While clearly in the minority, MIM and RAIL were not the only ones that seemed uninterested during the hotel stops.

The hotel workers make at least $8.00 an hour, which at 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year is $16,000 per year not including benefits. (3) This puts the lowest paid hotel worker in the top 12% of the richest people in the world. (4) The hotel workers have legitimate complaints regarding questions of job security and health care, both of which would be guaranteed under socialism. But these are questions that we can deal with after the rest of the world has food, shelter and clean water and certainly after we put an end to mass genocide in Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere around the globe. Not only are these issues more pressing, but it is only the struggle of those who have nothing to lose that will lead us to a peaceful and equitable future.

Of course, the people leading the rally argued that the money being spent on war could better go to health care and fat contracts for workers in the united $tates. On the contrary, the demands of the hotel workers in the current economy amount to calling for more imperialist exploitation to pay them off, in other words more slaughter of Third World people. It is the chauvinism of amerikans that allows them to think that the billions of dollars spent on war was wealth that rightfully belongs to them in the first place. Until International ANSWER and 90% of the anti-war movement recognize the economic realities of imperialism, the struggles of the oppressed will continue to be used as window dressing for the struggle of the oppressors and oppressor wannabes. (5)