RT-SP Rejects Left Party Austerity, Intervention in Libya, & Support for Israel

Photo: Ghost town of Tawergha, Libya where 30,000 black Africans were "cleansed" by imperialist backed "rebels". [Photo: BBC]

The Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Party (RT-SP) Opposes the Decision of the Socialist Party National Committee to support the Left Parties of Germany and Sweden

At the time of the election of Obama, leaders Gregor Gysi, Oskar Lafontaine and Lothar Bisky of the social-democratic Die Linke (The Left party) in Germany, sent Obama their “most heartfelt congratulations” stating: “The worldwide fight to eliminate poverty, for a peaceful resolution of conflicts, against the environmental catastrophe and currently against the most severe international financial crisis in 80 years, require closer cooperation and collaboration by the community of states on the basis of the rule of international law” [http://www.die-linke.de ]. So they gave their most "most heartfelt congratulations" to a pro-war, anti-human rights, and anti-environmental president pretending he was the opposite.

Likewise, Die Linke has said that calls for divestment from the racist Israeli state are "anti-Semitic".

In Germany, Die Linke seeks to rule in coalition with two other pro-imperialist capitalist parties, the SPD and the Green Party. Die Linke even formed a ruling coalition with the SPD in Brandenburg where their government has carried out austerity that has included massive jobs cuts to public sector jobs, destroying both jobs and public services.

It is the job of legitimate socialists to oppose Die Linke and their capitalist politics. Yet, the National Committee of the Socialist Party-USA took a position in support of Die Linke at their meeting on the last weekend of January 2012 saying, "we ask the International Commission to establish relations with these guidelines: 1. Democratic socialist, not social-democratic (examples of democratic-socialist parties being the Swedish Left Party and Die Linke)..."

The Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Party opposes this support by the NC of the SP given to the social-democratic Die Linke and supports the building legitimate socialist alternatives to Die Linke in Germany.

Likewise, the Left Party of Sweden supported the imperialist bombing of Libya under the "no fly zone". This was a war that Sweden directly participated in that helped put racist rebels in power that jailed Black Africans, murdered a hundred or more Black Africans, made hundreds of thousands of Black Africans refugees as they fled the country in fear for their lives, and now routinely uses torture and murder against opponents of the new regime. Yet it is a government more friendly to imperialist oil interests. For more on why that war should have been opposed, read: "Why We Should Oppose the Imperialist War on Libya"
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/03/25/18675579.php

While President Barack Obama hails “a new and democratic Libya” the reality of discrimination against blacks and the new government's use of torture has been documented by Amnesty International, who said on the question of torture, “torture is being carried out by officially recognized military and security entities as well as by a multitude of armed militias operating outside of any legal framework.”

Amnesty International goes on to report: “visible marks indicating torture in recent days and weeks... Their injuries included open wounds on the head, limbs, back and other parts of the body.” Prisoners are “suspended in contorted positions, beaten for hours with whips, cables, plastic hoses, metal chains and bars and wooden sticks, and given electric shocks with live wires and Taser-like electro-shock weapons.”

The organization Doctors without Borders has pulled their doctors out of Libya complaining that it is not their role to treat injuries between torture sessions. Both the Left Parties of Sweden and Germany supported the naked imperialist war in Libya that created a new torture state more friendly to U.S. and European imperialist interests in Libya.

Opposition to imperialist war and world imperialist hegemony are essential components of the socialist program, and the Left Parties of both Sweden and Germany have failed the test on this fundamental question. Therefore, the Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Party condemns the recent decision of the National Committee of the Socialist Party to support the social-democratic organizations Die Linke and the Left Party of Sweden and instead calls on revolutionary socialists in those two countries to build their own organizations with strong anti-imperialist, anti-austerity, anti-capitalist, and pro-socialist programs.

Workers of the World Unite! Build the RT-SP!

Check out the Statement of Purpose of the RT-SP
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2012/02/251336.php

Distributed by Liberation News, subscribe free:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Another article by Liberation News:
Gains for Health Care, Despite Obama
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/02/01/18706348.php