Senate Candidate Sare Campaigns for U.S. World Mission of Progress, Peace

Diane Sare, independent candidate for U.S. Senate from New York, has stepped up campaigning outside her state, for the U.S. to return to a mission of economic progress and peace, instead of war-making and economic decay. At the end of December, her campaign issued a 20-page economic and foreign policy program, including in hard copy for mass circulation, titled “America’s Next Fifty Years—The United States Joins the Belt and Road.”

She is taking this perspective across the country, working with newly forming “Friends of Sare” groups, stood up so far in some 20 states, intersecting the start of the 2024 primaries, which begin January 15 with the Iowa party caucuses and mail voting.

Sare is also campaigning internationally, visibly “showing the flag” that there are still sane and trustworthy Americans as partners and allies. Her positive leadership is resonating especially among youth. For example, she was interviewed the last week in December on the Shanghai-based online program, “Thinkers Forum,” and received, as the host said, a rain of clicks of approval.

On that program, titled “Too Unproductive To Aid Ukraine,” Sare dissected the sad state of the U.S. She reviewed the destruction of the formerly-productive U.S. economy by the military-industrial-financial complex, and outlined a cultural perspective for retooling industry by and for the American citizenry, and for the world. The interview was subtitled in Mandarin.

Giving a short class in Lyndon LaRouche’s science of physical economy and culture, she detailed the causes of the collapse of the U.S. economy since the assassination of President Kennedy: “The U.S. underwent a horrific shift. There was something called the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the whole cultural warfare project involving the CIA and the Tavistock Institute in London. And part of what they introduced was the idea of the post-industrial economy—the idea that you could just have an economy by just being consumers, which puts people in a horrible mind set, because, first of all, there is no need for creativity, just waiting for everything good to be delivered to your doorstep. It meant a takedown of our industrial capability and it meant the destruction of the workforce.”

Sare laid out an alternative, a positive vision for the U.S. “We would first have to have a national mission, a purpose for the good, which would inspire young people to want to develop their skills as engineers or scientists, to work hard, laboring to get things done….”

Maine Defends ‘Sacred’ Democracy by Barring Trump from Ballot

The state of Maine has joined the ranks of self-congratulating defenders of democracy who support that virtue by preventing voters from casting ballots for the currently leading challenger to the incumbent president. On December 28, Maine joined Colorado in kicking Donald Trump off the ballot in the primary election, on the basis that he had incited insurrection. (Since then, Trump was reinstated on Colorado’s ballot, while Republicans contest the ban.)

“I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” wrote Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows in her unilateral decision. “I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”

With deep sincerity Bellows also said, “I do not reach this conclusion lightly. Democracy is sacred….”

California’s Governor Newsom expressed a different understanding of the sacredness of democracy. He confirmed on Dec. 22 that “in California we defeat candidates we don’t like at the polls.”

The Trump campaign can appeal Bellows’ unilateral decision to Maine’s Superior Court. Maine’s electoral college votes are not winner-take-all. Trump received one of Maine’s four electoral votes in 2020 by winning in one of its two congressional districts.

Argentina’s CGT Labor Federation To Strike vs. Milei’s Shock Therapy

Argentina’s General Confederation of Labor (CGT) trade union federation announced Dec. 28 that it will hold a 12-hour general strike and mass mobilization in front of the Congress on Jan. 24 to denounce President Javier Milei’s policies of economic “shock,” included in the draconian Urgency and Necessity Decree (DNU) he announced Dec. 20, and in the subsequent Omnibus bill delivered to Congress Dec. 27. Both documents include sweeping reforms to eliminate the state, through total deregulation, doing away with all laws that protect living standards from unbridled free-market looting. Libertarian madman Milei calls this “freedom.”

The decision to strike was made Dec. 28 during a meeting of the CGT’s executive body, the Confederated Central Committee, which discussed steps to be taken between now and Jan. 24, including a Jan. 10 meeting of the CGT’s 10 regional delegations and meetings with other trade union federations to coordinate joint action. Rumors from the presidential palace, Casa Rosada, have it that Milei and his underlings are very unhappy about the strike.

The CGT, many of whose top leaders have been in their positions for 30 years, is not known for bold action, but now it is responding to fierce pressure from its base and from the population in general. The Dec. 28 strike approval follows a very large march Dec. 27 in front of the Justice Ministry and the court complex in Buenos Aires, where the CGT filed legal paperwork for an injunction against the DNU. Other groups will join in the January action.

According to the state-run Telam news agency, at a Dec. 27 press conference, CGT executive Hector Daer warned that “the DNU is illegal and targets the individual and collective rights of workers, the solidarity-based universal healthcare system, and many other rights.” The Omnibus bill alone contains more than 600 articles.

Pablo Moyano, one of the younger CGT leaders, spoke out strongly. Referencing Milei’s claim that he is guided by the “forces of heaven,” Moyano said, “[W]e don’t expect the forces of Heaven to help us. Jesus came down and walked with the workers. The envoy from Heaven thinks he can s*** on the Congress and the workers, but we’re going to be in the street as we always have been….” The march and strike on Jan. 24 will be “multitudinous.”

Argentine President Formally Renounces BRICS Membership

In a brief letter Dec. 22, addressed to the five heads of state of the current BRICS member states—Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Brazil’s Lula da Silva, China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa—Argentine President Javier Milei officially renounced his country’s membership in the BRICS.

In the letter, published by cnnespanol, Milei stated that his government “doesn’t consider the Argentine Republic’s incorporation into the BRICS as of Jan. 1, 2024 to be appropriate. The foreign policy of the government over which I have presided for some days differs in many respects from the previous government,” referring to that of former President Alberto Fernández. The latter, he explained, had proposed to create a “specialized unit for the country’s active participation in the BRICS,” but this is now deemed “inappropriate.”

The rejection of the BRICS notwithstanding, Milei told each of the BRICS heads of state that he is committed “to intensifying bilateral ties with your country” to increase “trade flows and investment.” To Putin he expressed his desire to travel to Russia and meet with him personally.

Farmer Protests Could Bring Down German Government

The pre-Christmas farmer protests in Germany are just a prelude to massive actions coming in January, by both farmers and other groups intent on bringing the present government down. A joint protest day, by farmers, rail workers, and others, is set for January 15. Days of farm protests in December, most with tractors in the streets, some spreading manure on the highways, were held in Berlin (3,000) and Stuttgart (2,000), with major actions in Bavaria and many other localities.

An immediate issue is the hike in diesel fuel prices, making farm operations impossible and showing that the government backs cutting food output and population. However, the revolt is spreading across the board, especially aimed at the German “green” energy policy, which is destroying the power supply, and the country. The demand is for the government to step down and be replaced, said senior farm activist Anthony Lee of the “Country Creates Connection” organization (Land schafft Verbindung), speaking to Austrian independent economist Marc Friedrich in a video interview near year’s end.

The government has a positive rating of no more than 17%. Lee, saying that it is high time for this incompetent government to go, forecast that Jan. 15 is set to become an historic breakthrough in the wave of protest.

Russia, Arab Nations Call for International Peace Conference on Palestine

In its joint declaration, the Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum, meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco for its 6th annual ministerial summit, issued a call Dec. 20 for an international peace conference. The text stated, “[The ministers] call for the convening of an international peace conference, as soon as possible, from which a credible peace process will be launched on the basis of international law.”

The declaration issued from the two-day summit reviewed many regions and topics, including Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia, as well as Palestine. Russia will host the Forum’s next meeting in 2024.