SYC Protests NATO at CCNY

Workers Vanguard No. 1011	26 October 2012

SYC Protests NATO at CCNY

(Young Spartacus pages)

On September 27, City College of New York (CCNY) president Lisa Coico and her administration rolled out the red carpet for war criminal Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The New York Spartacus Youth Club protested outside Shepard Hall where Rasmussen, who presided over the 2011 NATO war on Libya, gave his talk “Why NATO Matters for You.” The slogans for the SYC speakout were: Protest Anders Rasmussen at CCNY—Secretary General of Blood-Soaked NATO War Alliance! U.S./NATO Forces Out of Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa! Imperialist Hands Off Syria! Down With Imperialist Sanctions Against Iran!

An SYC speaker addressed the protest: “The U.S.-dominated NATO alliance was forged after World War II—after the Soviet Red Army’s victory over Hitler’s Third Reich—as part of the imperialists’ drive to ‘roll back communism’.” She emphasized that in the post-Soviet world, NATO has served as an all-purpose tool for the imperialist subjugation of dependent capitalist countries, from Serbia in 1999 to Afghanistan and Libya today. Another SYC speaker called for all cops and military recruiters off campus and for abolishing the university administration.

A leading activist for Freedom Road Socialist Organization conspicuously stood apart from our protest and refused to join it. A supporter of the League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP) did join and take up some of our chants against imperialism. But the fact is, the LRP was in the same camp as NATO against the Soviet Union when it counted. By contrast, we communists gave unconditional military defense to the Soviet Union and fought for political revolution to oust the corrupt Stalinist bureaucracy. U.S./NATO hands off the world!