Despite widespread opposition from working people, Donald Trump and the Republicans have launched a horrific attack against Venezuela and carried out a military coup, including abducting President Nicolás Maduro. This assault by U.S. imperialism must be completely condemned. It is a culmination of a decades-long project of U.S. imperialism motivated not by the false allegations of “narco terrorism” but by a grab for Venezuela’s oil wealth and retaliation against the anti-imperialist stances of the Venezuelan government.

If this is not prevented through immediate mass action by working people in the U.S., in Venezuela, and internationally, it could take thousands of lives. Such a war would also come on top of the crippling sanctions already imposed on Venezuelan working and poor people by U.S. politicians in both the Republican and Democratic parties.

As I said in my December 5th statement opposing war and a coup in Venezuela, workers and union members need to organize mass strike action. We need broad unity among labor, socialist, and antiwar organizations to build mass protests and civil disobedience actions.

The policy of aggression and regime change toward Venezuela is bipartisan, as with the genocide and occupation of Gaza.

Prominent Democrats like Florida Congressmember Debbie Wasserman Schultz are cheering on the coup, calling it “welcome news.” Grotesquely, Wasserman Schultz is also effectively calling for full-blown war, saying that “…cutting off the head of a snake is fruitless if it just regrows.”

Even “progressive” Democrats have limited their critique to merely asking for Congressional approval, while actively helping Trump and the Republicans manufacture false narratives about “narcoterrorism” to justify the assault. Senator Bernie Sanders, in his statement about the U.S.-led coup in Venezuela, calls Maduro a “corrupt and brutal dictator.” Sanders does NOT talk about the many corrupt and brutal dictators that the Democratic and Republican Parties have propped up around the world when it suits the interests of U.S. imperialism. In the context of bombing and a coup by U.S. imperialism, Sanders is parroting pro-war rhetoric like that which has been used by Trump and Republicans to justify this attack.

Both billionaire-backed parties have ratcheted up towards war on Venezuela. It was Democratic President Barack Obama who first declared Venezuela an “extraordinary threat” to national security in 2015. In 2020, Trump issued a bounty of $15 million for Maduro. Democratic President Joe Biden increased that bounty to $25 million, and Trump increased it again to $50 million.

The only way to stop the war on Venezuela is for the American working class, led by unionized workers and the labor movement, to urgently organize mass strike actions to build toward a one-day general strike against imperialist war and the billionaire class. Workers internationally must stand with working people in Venezuela against the privatization and plundering of their oil resources by U.S. and Western European oil companies. We must also fight to end the sanctions against Venezuela, which have had catastrophic consequences. Working people need to take the major oil and gas companies into democratic public ownership to put an end to their warmongering and destruction of the planet.

American working people and the antiwar movement cannot afford to have illusions in the Democratic Party. We need to build independently to fight both parties of Wall Street and war.

I am running as an independent revolutionary socialist for the U.S. Congress against Democrat Adam Smith, who has a 29-year warmongering record.

I am calling for an end to all imperialist war and an end to all U.S. military aid to Israel. We need a new party of the working class to fight the two parties of war and Wall Street.

My opponent Adam Smith voted for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He is also one of the many Congressional Democrats who have voted to fund Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and to ban U.S. support for United Nations food assistance in the region.

Just over three weeks ago, Smith was one of the 115 Democrats who voted to approve the U.S. House bill to give nearly a trillion new dollars to the billionaires and multimillionaires who profit from forever war. It is especially striking that the Democratic Party supported this bill in the context of the genocide in Gaza and the regime change that Trump has been threatening against Venezuela. The bipartisan cheerleading for this bill was so thorough that it passed with 74 percent of the vote while tens of millions of American working people and their families are barely scraping by.

Joining Trump and the Republicans in their fabricated justifications for war on Venezuela, Adam Smith has said that transnational drug-trafficking gangs in the Western Hemisphere are “a problem for our national security” and that “You’ve got budding narco-states down there. … We need to be engaged and involved in that.”

All of this shows that war, death, and destruction have no end in sight if working people keep buying into the idea that Democrats are an alternative to Republicans, or vice versa. History decisively shows that the only way to break out of this to make the lives of the majority livable is for workers to build movements independent of the parties of the bosses.

If we can win this election, I will be the first-ever revolutionary socialist elected to the U.S. Congress. It will be nothing short of a political earthquake, and would provide tremendous momentum for the antiwar movement and for the fight to end all military aid to Israel.

It is also a historic opportunity to deliver a stunning blow to Wall Street and the billionaire class. The elite know this as well as we do, and they will move heaven and earth to prevent us from winning the election. This is why we need you to join our working-class campaign.

My campaign is fighting for
● No war on Venezuela! Release Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and
his wife and withdraw all U.S. troops from the Caribbean.
● End all imperialist war! End the genocide in Gaza, all U.S. military aid to
Israel, and the occupation of Palestinian lands.
● Free healthcare for all — Tax the rich!
● Stop the deportations — Shut down ICE and the detention centers!
● Cancel all student and medical debt!
● National rent control and a massive expansion of high-quality social
housing!
● Take the big oil & gas companies into democratic public ownership!
● We need a new party of the working class! Fight the two parties of Wall
Street and war!

Donate and get involved today
Solidarity!
Kshama Sawant