Capitol Seizure Demonstrates Need for New Democracy

The seizure of the Capitol on 6 January 2021 was the culmination of oppressor nation organizing over years that has proven the continued need for New Democratic revolution here in North America, what many First Nations people today call occupied Turtle Island. Participants in the siege donned racist Odinist tattoos, pro-holocaust slogans, anti-China signs, and waved pro-slavery and nazi flags. Most had Amerikan flags or pro-Trump flags, hats and shirts. They included QAnon followers, Tea Party members, elected officials, Proud Boys, and leaders of a number of fascist organizations and groupings.

Media reported five deaths, including one U.S. Capitol Police officer and four pro-Trump rioters. Those killed during the siege included a womyn shot by security for trying to crawl through a smashed window to get to the Senators, a man who reportedly tasered himself to death while trying to steal a painting off the wall and a cop who was beaten to death with sticks, including one carrying an Amerikan flag, while the audience sang The Star-Spangled Banner. The latter, Brian Sicknick, served the imperialist army in Afghanistan and was an outspoken supporter of President Trump.(1)

The group who laid siege to the Capitol did so in response to calls from President Trump to oppose the election results that has Joe Biden scheduled to replace him on 20 January. As the mob took swings at police and smashed through barricades, they chanted, “USA, USA!”, “Stop the Steal” and called out the Democrats and CNN as primary targets of their anger. By denying the outcome of the election, this organized force is allied with efforts to deny New Afrikans, and other oppressed groups, the vote. These front-line Trump supporters militantly deny the right of Chican@s to even exist on their own land, not to mention control it. And they generally support the incursion of multinational corporations into the small fragments of territory left to the other indigenous peoples of this continent. They want to keep Muslims and Asians out of the United $tates, whether its because of terrorism, a virus, or some other semi-factual excuse for xenophobia. They fear the browning of the U.$. population.

Regarding the vote, the shift of Georgia from Republican to Democrat marked for these settlers another step towards the end of white domination on occupied Turtle Island. Newly-elected Senator Raphael Warnock is the first Black senator in the state of Georgia, which was 31.94% New Afrikan and 51.82% white (“non-hispanic”) in 2019 (in a country that is about 12% New Afrikan overall). In recent years, “non-hispanic” whites have only accounted for about 44% of births in the state.(2). Warnock comes from the same church as Martin Luther King Jr., where Warnock was Pastor for former representative John Lewis. MLK of course was a symbol of multicultural integration that brought much ire and hatred during eir short life, leading to eir assassination. The current period is the culmination of the reaction to the attempts by the bourgeois state to incorporate those ideas of King’s into the empire. After the abolition of slavery, the Federal government made the first attempt at granting New Afrika democratic rights and full citizenship by imposing Reconstruction policies on the southern states. These were mostly undone by white settlers by the by the 1876 presidential election, which led to the Jim Crow policies(3) (maintained by violent voter suppression of New Afrikans) until the time of MLK and the Black Panther Party. The movement today is to undo the progress of integration that followed the civil rights and national liberation movements of the 1960s. Rioters literally marched confederate flags through the Capitol, after fighting their way in, in 2021.

In 2020, Georgia also saw shows of force from New Afrikan militia, and lumpen organizations coming together to seize the site of a police murder, and defend from threats by groups like the 3 Percenters and Ku Klux Klan from coming into Atlanta.(4) While New Afrikans band together in self-defense, the oppressor nation has made it clear they are now on the offense with their seizure of the U.$. Capitol. They brought firearms, pipe bombs and nooses as they called for the blood of Vice President Mike Pence and others. Men who entered the Capitol carried fire arms and one had seized zip tie handcuffs, ready to take hostages and possibly assassinate Federal representatives, including the Vice President. When officials escaped, the intruders settled for posing for photos in their office chairs and taking memorabilia off the Senators’ desks and walls.

Economics of the Crisis

Social media posts by leaders promoting the action on 6 January are also calling for the assassination of Mitch McConnell and Republicans in general for blocking the $2000 stimulus check currently backed by Trump and the Democratic Congressional leadership. The battle over stimulus funding (to respond to COVID-19 restrictions) in recent weeks has been a great demonstration of the relationship between classes under imperialism. The wealth flowing into this country is split between the imperialists and the rest of the population. The stimulus bills were a clear demonstration of this, with big corporations getting 100s of millions to billions in benefits, while the rest of the country averaged thousands of dollars per persyn. Most people in the world received little to no money.

The printing of money by the U.$. central bank since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in history. With so many more dollars in circulation, economists wonder whether this money can be exchanged for goods at the value one would expect. Many Third World countries have seen depreciation of their currencies compared to the U.$. dollar as finance capital left those countries in response to the pandemic. For the dollar to maintain its value, the empire must stay strong. We’ve already seen a decrease in Japanese and Chinese finance capital from U.$. treasuries in the last year.(5) Japan and China are the two largest foreign holders of U.$. treasuries.

The people of Weimar Germany (prior to the popular Nazi takeover) faced conditions where what they were paid one day could not buy a loaf of bread the next. This was due to having lost WWI and facing sanctions from other imperialist countries. The U.$. has not yet faced this problem, but they are having to do more to stabilize their own currency and economy. If the white nationalists had their way, and productive labor from Latin America and Asia was forced out of U.$. borders, we would see the dollar decrease in value very quickly. While dollar values have not declined yet, the situation is quite precarious, especially as productive output of the economy remains slow.

What Will Happen Next?

Senators who were calling the election a fraud backed off immediately following the siege, proving it was just a popularity game to them. Yet some who forced their way into the Capitol, came ready to die that day. This is curious, as economic conditions in this country do not yet warrant such extremism, especially for the demographic showing up at these demonstrations. Many on the front lines of the siege are steeped in conspiracy theories. These theories tap into a deep existential fear they have of the ending of their white country. Something many of them feel has already happened.

While the attacks of 9/11 were a blow to the sense that Amerikans could have their fingers in every other part of the world, while staying safe at home, the response was a show of strength through Amerikan nationalism. Since then, the U.$. image continued to decline with more lost wars and humyn rights abuses abroad and at home. This week’s attack on the Capitol marks an internal weakening from within.

There is no god coming down to purify the crackers’ souls in the rapture. Nor can Turner Diary-style fantasies resolve the contradictions that define this imperialist country. A re-civilization of the oppressor nations must come from the hands of the oppressed. Having one side of the oppressor nation try to cajole the other into giving the oppressed what they think they need, or rather what they think will appease, has proven ineffective over the last 150 years. The oppressed nations occupied on this land must seize their own destinies. They must rise up for a New Democracy, where they as sovereign peoples can decide how to solve their own problems without the constant oversight and interference of the euro-Amerikan.

We support the continued development of New Afrikan defense organizing in places like Atlanta, that is based in real revolutionary nationalism – which as Mao said is applied internationalism. We re-iterate the call for Barrio Committees in Aztlan, as outlined in the book Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán. We all need to connect with those in our communities that are ready to respond.

With regards to those that are already familiar and well versed with Marixt-Leninist-Maoist political philosophy, we must call for discipline and centralized organization. Most major cities’ “radical scenes” are dominated by anarcho-liberals who preach on voting for the Democratic party one day and preach for militant direct action the next day. Even amongst the more militant and anti-reformist anarchists, there are a lot of poorly organized forms of violence that fleets in energy. Us communists should work towards building independent institutions that the people can go to to solve their daily material problems – not have loosely affiliated cliques that serve themselves more than the masses.

Another test of principled actions that many communists failed was the reliance and aid to the existing bourgeois institutions such as the FBI and the police. Many radical liberals online have resorted to identifying the Capitol Hill fascists for the police agencies while also hoping these police institutions can repress the fascist movement. The Communist Party of India (Maoist) have had the correct response to this regarding the issue of rape in the country of India. Whereas petty-bourgeois movements call for the death penalty and stronger punishments for rapists in the semi-feudal country, the Maoists recognize that rape is not alien to the system and stronger state forces against these anti-people crimes will result in stronger state repression against the masses.(6) And just like how relying on the bourgeois state to give justice in India will result in the repression against the masses, these acts by radical liberals of relying on the FBI and the police departments will only result in more surveillance and crackdowns on the oppressed people.

<sup>Notes:
1. Grace Hauck et al., 8 January 2021, Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick who died after pro-Trump riot was veteran and war critic, USA Today.
2. U.S. Census Bureau data via Wikipedia
3. the name Jim Crow comes from a character from a famous black face performance by a white entertainer 4. Greyhound, July 2020, On the Tragic Death-of Secoriea Turner, Under Lock & Key No. 71.
5. Reuters, 15 December 2020, China, Japan cut U.S. Treasury holdings in October -data 6. CPI(Maoist), December, 2012, Fight Against Patriarchy, Not Only Against Rape!, Towards a new dawn.</sup>