by Mike Paradela
Watch a video of the event here.
Thank you for giving me the honor and the opportunity to speak on this most important day.
We are all gathered here today to remember the origins of Veterans’ Day — Armistice Day. A day to warn against the horrors of war. A day that was born from the senseless death of the so-called Great War, an imperialist conflict fought solely to redivide the planet for profit. The so-called Great War took the lives of 22 million people through combat, disease, and genocide. They perished so that the Western European and the American governments, funded by financial and industrial capitalists, could have a bigger share of the world’s resources.
This first modern war revealed the atrocities of capitalist society, and it brought home a truth that colonized peoples knew all too well: Western imperialist powers wage war not just to seize land, but to exterminate and dominate a people in order to crush their will to fight back. They will topple and seize control of governments in the name of profit. War is a means to profit.
If we want to learn the lessons of the so-called Great War and all wars for profit, we will take seriously its economic and political causes, particularly the role of profit and territorial acquisition, which spawn the scourge of militarism and nationalism.
While the so-called Great War was over a century ago, we are still experiencing its consequences, and its primary causes are ravaging the planet. Today, the primary imperialist power, the American capitalist class and their government is financing wars abroad that have led to genocide in Palestine, have captured the government of Ukraine and sent them and their Nazi collaborators to war with Russia, and are currently in the process of ousting governments surrounding China to destabilize the region and ignite a war. They are using legitimate anger within Asian countries to remove their governments and coerce them into accepting American military bases. The State Department under the direction of Marco Rubio is provoking Venezuela into a war and is squeezing Cuba harder by establishing more sanctions.
In just these past few weeks, Trump announced the military will restart nuclear weapons testing.
All of this is to say that war is on the minds of our business elite and of their government. But what about the American working class? What is on our minds? Peace. Justice. Cooperation. Prosperity. The direct opposite to an elite who knows nothing but war and profit.
The oppressed masses of the world are fighting to have a world based on peace, justice, cooperation, and prosperity at the expense of the minority imperialist elite. We know all too well that their wars destroy our lives.
As the American imperialists steer this country onto the path of war, we must remember our history, especially the history of resistance. We, American workers, have been known for our militancy. We resisted and organized against the Philippine American War, and nearly won that fight, World War I, and the Vietnam War. Particularly with World War I, many of the tactics we used were so effective that our government had to outlaw them. Even our opposition to the Vietnam War encouraged the Vietnamese to fight harder as they knew their fellow workers were doing everything in our power to stop the imperialist domination.
Today, we American working people have worked tirelessly to oppose and call for an end to the genocide in Palestine. We work to stop the fighting in Ukraine. We must support Congressional efforts to stop sending arms to Israel, to reverse and halt the nuclear arms race, to end the blockade of Cuba. While these national Congressional efforts are worthy, we must not rely on our politicians. We also have to work within our own organizations and unions in order to move money out of bloated police budgets and ICE and Israeli companies in order to have a safer and more sustainable community. We must build the Mayors for Peace movement which seeks to end nuclear weapons. We must strengthen organizations like San Jose Peace and Justice Center, Veterans for Peace, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Code Pink, and many more.
The lessons of history have shown us that we had a world without war and that we can return to it. A world rooted in peace and justice is possible. A true Armistice Day is only possible when we the working people dictate society and actively shape it for the benefit of all. We must remember that a true Armistice Day is possible when the workers of all nations unite under the banner of peace, justice, prosperity, and cooperation.