Special to RYOn Saturday, January 21st, more than 600 US cities and several million people participated in marches against the new US President Donald Trump and his racist, mysoginist, pro-corporate agenda.
The Women's March on Washington, which initiated the organizing for January 21st, released a common platform which goes beyond just condemning Trump. The platform calls to end violence against women, against racism in policing and incarceration rates, for reproductive rights, against misoginy in culture, for LGBTQIA rights, higher wages and better paid leave for women, equal pay, migration as a right, and more.
The Young Communist League of Canada released a statement in November after the US election that described the Trump agenda:
"Trump’s big promise to raise wages and create jobs is pure fantasy. His real program is full steam ahead in terms of the corporate agenda. This includes eliminating corporate taxes and any regulation of banks as well as slashing education, healthcare and social security. While “opposing” NAFTA and the TPP, he wants free trade deals that favour US capital to an even greater extent. While opposing a no-fly zone in Syria and saying he wants less hostile relations with Russia, he is proposing a full ground war with ISIS, wants to double military spending, and has surrounded himself with the most extreme imperialist hawks, including his running mate who criticized both Trump and Clinton on being too soft with Russia. Trump is no better than Clinton when it comes to the build up to a potential world war, in fact it is likely an even more dangerous situation.
The struggle against climate change is now more important with a Trump White House that does not acknowledge this immediate threat to humanity and the planet. The Republicans have said they will tear up the Paris Accords, which are already too tepid to ward off some of the worst symptoms of climate change, and gut all environmental regulation.
For women, the new Administration offers to roll back the clock decades. Trump has promised to attack reproductive rights through fully defunding Planned Parenthood and control over the judiciary would likely mean the end of legal abortion in the US. For immigrants, Trump has made his cornerstone promises to deport all undocumented immigrants, build a wall on the border with Mexico, ban Muslims from entering the US, and surveil and close Mosques. For the LGBT community the Republican platform attacks same-sex adoption, opposes a ban on “gay cure” or “conversion” therapy, and supports “religious freedom” laws exempting bigots from anti-discrimination laws. In addition, Trump’s rhetoric on these issues and others opens up the political space for fascist and neo-Nazi groups to flourish and organize. Trump’s white supremacist, misogynist, transphobic and homophobic agenda must be defeated."
For these reasons the mobilizations this weekend were especially important. Across Canada mobilizations also occured. The size of the demonstrations were remarkable: several tens of thousands in Toronto and Vancouver, and many protests of several thousand in most other cities in Canada.
Here are some photos of the Young Communist League in action over the weekend as well as photos that show the size of the mobilizations.
Toronto
Edmonton
Montreal
Vancouver
Winnipeg
Halifax
No comments:
Post a Comment