On Friday and Saturday, February 2 and 3, 2024, the U.S. bombed alleged Iran-linked targets in Syria and Iraq. U.S. authorities say this attack is in retaliation for the attack that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan last Sunday, January 28. The Friday attacks represent an escalation in U.S. military action amid its strikes in Yemen. 

John Parker, socialist congressional candidate for California’s 37th district, demands the White House and Congress end all wars and all war provocations. 

“The same way the overwhelming majority of the world stands with Palestine, so do they oppose war,” said John Parker. “U.S.-led wars serve only the interests of the billionaires and war profiteers, offering the people nothing but pain, death, and suffering.” 

To this day, the U.S. has not formally ended its 74-year war on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, nor its political and military occupation of the Korean peninsula. Yet the west’s corporate media rattles sabers whenever People’s Korea demonstrates its ability to defend itself. Ostensibly, only the U.S.’s biggest aircraft carrier “Israel” has the right to self-defense.

John Parker mourns the death of the three Black soldiers killed in the Jordan attack. At the same time, their deaths are an indictment of US imperialism and white supremacy. 

“Black, Brown, and poor working class people will always bear the brunt of the ruling class’s wars,” John reminds us. “Another war puts the most marginalized and exploited people in the line of fire. The ruling class can thank their poverty draft for that.”

John Parker declared: “Whether or not I am elected, I am calling on all peace-loving people to unite and build a mass movement strong enough to topple imperialism. It is the only way to truly stop the genocide in Gaza and to end the occupation of Palestine.” 

California's 37th district socialist congressional candidate John Parker demands to know, "When will we be paid for the work we've done?" 

Congressional candidate John Parker declared that "justice demands reparations" at the beginning of Black History Month. While supporting the efforts of California legislators to secure restitution of stolen property and other important items, Parker believes more has to be fought for.

"Over fifty years ago, the Staple Singers asked 'when will be paid for the work we've done?'" said John Parker. "The money is there. Just the four richest California billionaires have a total stash of over $600 billion. All of their loot represents the unpaid wages of workers that produced that vast wealth."

Parker pointed out that "Biden can hand over $14 billions to Israel kill over 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, of whom over 10,000 were children. Meanwhile SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, were cut by a monthly average of $90 per household last year. Gaza's children are literally starving while millions in the United States are forced to line up for food banks."

"Reparations includes bringing home the sisters and brothers who've been railroaded to prison," said John Parker. "Trump and all the other corporate gangsters, banksters and slumlords should be locked-up instead."

The socialist candidate declared that "capitalist deindustrialization has deliberately targeted Black workers. While 50 years ago General Motors was the largest employer of Black workers, who were members of the UAW, today more Black workers are employed at low-wage, non-union Walmart than anywhere else."

"Stopping the war against Black people will be a victory for all poor and working people," said John Parker. "It goes hand-in-hand with demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and justice for Palestine."

John Thompson Parker is a member of the Socialist Unity Party who's running as the Peace and Freedom candidate for the 37th congressional district, which includes much of South Los Angeles, as well as parts of Culver City and Inglewood. He was jailed in Egypt while part of a solidarity delegation seeking to bring aid to Gaza.

John Parker can be contacted at John.Parker@voteforsocialism.org

January 14, 2024 — The Zionist entity’s latest genocidal war turned 100 days old on January 14. This awful anniversary symbolizes all the reasons I am running for Congress. The US continues to heap money into Israel’s genocidal land grab. How many more days will Palestinian babies be buried under rubble? The zionist slaughter of Gaza must end. This is why myself and others traveled to Egypt at risk to ourselves physically and mentally. We must all give what we can to end this US funded genocide. 

Regardless of the result of this congressional election, our campaign to end imperialism and genocide will never end. This is about more than one election cycle in a system rigged towards the powerful. This is about sending a message to the ruling classes that the people of the US are not going to tolerate this anymore. That is why we are running this congressional campaign and this is why we all must continue to be in the streets for Palestine. No more money for zionism. No more money for the US war against Palestine, or Yemen, or Russia, or anyone else!

We remember all those Palestinians who have not only lost their lives to zionist terror over the past 100 days, but since the Nakba in 1948. Their existence was an act of resistance. Rest in power.

Working and poor people have been pushed back since the 1970s while the super rich has stolen trillions. Union membership has declined as nearly 7 million manufacturing jobs were destroyed by the wealthy and powerful.

Fifty years ago the largest employer of Black workers was General Motors. Today, it's Walmart that exploits everybody.

Wages have stagnated or even fallen. The buying power of the federal minimum wage is barely half of what is was in 1968.

The result is that there are 186 billionaires in California while 200,000 people are homeless. Capitalism makes a tiny few fantastically wealthy while millions live in misery.

We need to turn that around. The labor movement is showing us how to do it.

The UAW strike against GM, Ford and Stellantis, formerly known as Chrysler, brought the Big Three to their knees. It even forced Elon Musk to raise wages at Tesla because the super bigot is afraid of a union drive.

He should be. UAW has announced an organizing drive against the non-union auto companies.

That's what we need to win: struggle! It's only because of the efforts of unions and community organizations, including the essential push by the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice’s $15 minimum ballot initiative written by John Parker in 2013, that California's minimum wage was increased to 16 dollars per hour.

Back in 1963, one of the ten demands of the historic March for Jobs and Freedom, where Dr. King gave his "I have a dream" speech, was a two dollar an hour minimum wage. It was championed by A. Philip Randolph, the leader of the Railroad Sleeping Car Porters.

That two dollars an hour is now worth twenty dollars an hour because of inflation. We have to fight for more!

Nobody should forget how the Republican racist Reagan broke the PATCO strike of the air traffic controllers. But the strike breaking plan was developed under Jimmy Carter. 

It was also the Carter administration that pushed deregulation that attacked both the Teamsters and airline unions.

It was the labor movement that was decisive in pushing back Trump. Joe Biden double-crossed railroad workers by taking away their right to strike. Biden should have attacked the railroad monopolies instead.

If Biden can find billions to kill Palestinian children in Gaza why can't he cancel student loans?

The banksters and other capitalists have two political parties. The working class and all poor people need one of their own.

That's why I'm running as a socialist on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. We need to fight back against the filthy capitalist system that was jumpstarted by the Holocaust that preceded the Nazi genocide of Jewish people - the African Holocaust and the genocide of Indigenous peoples in the Americas.

We need to organize, organize, organize! 

Approximately 45 million student loan borrowers across the U.S. owe $1.7 trillion collectively to the federal government and predatory private companies when all education should be provided at no cost. Nonetheless, the US government refuses to enact any significant form of student debt relief. Instead, millions of workers spiral further into debt while Biden and his cronies send billions of our tax dollars to fuel a war against Russia, bomb Yemeni cities, and commit genocide in Gaza. 

The elected officials of the imperialist ruling class in the United States will always choose investment in war over investment in people. Investment in people doesn’t spike the profit margins of Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, etc. The list goes on and on. 

We need money to relieve workers from the yoke of predatory student debt, not for missiles that murder children. The democrats and the republicans both are happy to shell out money for genocidal imperial projects like Israel, but the well is suddenly dry when it comes to any policy that would actually benefit the working class of the U.S. 

The government should represent the interests of the workers, not the war profiteers. That is what John brings as a candidate for congress, someone who will prioritize the interests of the workers. Fund the people not the war machine!

December 29, 2023 — On December 29, the Republic of South Africa initiated proceedings in the International Court of Justice against the Zionist entity known as Israel. South Africa’s filing alleged that “Israel” is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in violation of the Geneva Convention, not to mention basic human rights. 

Significantly, South Africa’s filing did not confine itself to the events since October 7th. South African legal counsel argued that the current events in Gaza must be placed within the broader context of 75 years of apartheid. In such context, the Zionist entity’s current actions clearly fit into a larger strategy of attempted genocide and/or displacement of Plaestinians from Palestine. 

Of course, the US and it’s Zionist project have predictably and fiercely opposed the ICJ genocide case. The actions of South Africa should be anything but opposed. Peoples from all over the world should rise in support of South Africa’s heroic actions to end the genocide in Gaza. Who is better fit to identify apartheid than a people who themselves were subjected to decades of colonization and brutal repression at the hands of European powers. 

Instead of condemning the ICJ case, the governments of the world, including the US, should enact resolutions in support of and solidarity with the heroic efforts of the South African people to end the genocide of Palesitnians in Gaza.