Additional Information on Solidarity
In its 1986 founding statement, Solidarity:
- stated that “the escalation of [American] ‘defense’ spending is part of the effort to construct a consensus for policing the Third World, under the cover of stopping ‘Soviet expansionism’”;
- denounced “U.S. imperialist intervention in the Third World, its continued colonial occupation of Puerto Rico and the Micronesian archipelago, and its arms buildup which threatens humankind with annihilation”;
- asserted that “In Central America, whether the United States government is backing death squads or the ultra-right or Christian Democratic ‘reform’ from above, its objectives remain the same”;
- charged that “in South Africa, ‘constructive engagement’ and the mildest of cosmetic sanctions against apartheid are two sides of the same pro-racist U.S. policy”;
- claimed that America’s “client dictators” around the world “retain the full support of the U.S., regardless of how alienated and hated they are within their own countries, unless repression fails and the threat of revolution from within undermines ‘stability’”;
- declared that “in the Middle East, the United States, together with its ally and junior partner Israel act [sic] in concert to suppress all expressions of the Palestinian peoples’ nationhood and aspirations for justice and human rights”;
- complained that “unlimited U.S. military and economic support to Israel are the underpinning both for Zionist expansionism in the Middle East and for Israel’s increasing global role in Third World repression, including the genocide in Guatemala”;
- stated that “racism and national oppression have been cornerstones of U.S. capitalism since its inception”;
- charged that “the exploitation of nonwhite peoples—both within its [America’s] borders and in the colonial and neocolonial worlds—has served as a source of profit for the U.S. ruling class as well as a political tool to maintain its dominance”;
- and lamented “the historic oppression” and “virulent racism” that historically led blacks, Native Americans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Asians, and Arab-Americans to each “for[m] their [own] particular identity as oppressed nationalities.”