Problem is not Trump but global monopoly capitalism, says Bayan-USA chair

Problem is not Trump but global monopoly capitalism, says Bayan-USA chair

Bayan-USA Chair Bernadette Ellorin with Petronila Cleto of Gabriela Ontario. (Photo LQ)

On U.S. Presidential Election:

By Lui Queaño

The recent U.S. presidential elections that proclaimed Donald Trump as the winner created troubling reactions within the Fil-Am community and stirred up waves of protest actions across the United States, according to Bayan-USA chair Bernadette Ellorin.

Ellorin is not surprised that people have reacted badly to Trump’s election results. She admitted, however, that she didn’t vote for Hillary either.

“Definitely right now, what we’re seeing is a wave of protest almost every day. The moment Trump was announced the winner, immediately there was protest upon protest,” “The American people or the people in the US are still protesting the results of the Trump election,” Ellorin said.

“On our part as Bayan USA, we understand that immigrant communities including the Filipino community are concerned – are even fearful – because Trump’s rhetoric is very scary when it comes to immigrants. Look at how Trump views Arabs and Muslims, and even the black and brown communities. It’s very scary because his position on these communities is to repress them,” Ellorin added.

Bayan USA, according to Ellorin, strongly believes that the people in the states have a right to be angry but believes that the anger is being misdirected towards fake enemies instead of channelling their dissent to the right target.

“People are angry because there’s rising poverty in the U.S. There’s also the skyrocketing preventable diseases that are killing people because they cannot afford health care. No one can afford to pay their tuition anymore. People have a right to be angry but they’re being told their enemies are Muslims, imigrants, arabs. Meanwhile the very rich are just getting richer. Everyone else is getting poorer. But we are being told that the enemies are Islam and Mexicans. I think Trump represents that oligarchy that has been misdirecting the working class to channel their anger because of the crises amongst fake enemies,” Ellorin further said.

“I think corporate media really deceives us into thinking that we’re okay when we’re really not okay. It’s time for people to wake up and see the acute gravity of the situation. How much people are tolerating fascism and repressive ideas, people’s acceptance of those speaks directly to how bad the situation is. It’s really time for us to unite and organize and educate ourselves on what’s happening,” Ellorin said.

“I think with Trump, definitely he represents a move to neo-fascism in the US, where we’ve seen this before. We have seen this before all throughout Europe. There are anti-fascism struggles because there’s now the normalization of the neo-Nazi. Being neo-fascist is becoming popular. But the point is that people have been resisting neo-fascism. I think in the US we also have to resist neo-fascism. What is shocking is that despite of Trump’s rhetoric and his openly fascist rhetoric he was still elected. The people now have to follow suit with that while they are resisting -they have to direct their anger towards the right target now,” Ellorin further said.

Bayan-USA firmly believes that the challenge is to unite the people in the US around anti-fascist, anti-Trump issues, but it carefully reminds the mass movement that the it should go beyond this at some point – ultimately it should not just be against Trump or racism or fascism. It has to go beyond that.

” While the crises continues, ” as Ellorin puts it, ” mass movements should start seeing the real root of the crises – which is the global monopoly capitalist system.”