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NO END IN SIGHT AFTER FOUR YEARS OF CIVIL WAR: IMPERIALISM WORSENS DISASTER FACING SYRIAN PEOPLE

Published On November 21, 2015 | By Socialist Party (CWI in England and Wales)

Four years into a brutal civil war, Syria is back in the headlines because of the massive refugee crisis that has swept the region and Europe. The U.N. has estimated that half of Syria’s population have left their homes, three million of them fleeing the country.

Besides the U.S., a series of Western and regional imperialist powers are now militarily engaged in Syria – either to support the regime, or fight ISIS, or both – including France, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The intervention of these powers, each pursuing its own interests, has not brought peace any closer but, in fact, has deepened the conflict at every step. The war is now also contributing to the destabilization of neighboring countries, including Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.

But the war in Syria is also part of a much larger regional catastrophe with numerous flash points. This disaster was created first and foremost by U.S. imperialism, which has sought – with decreasing effectiveness due to its declining power – to maintain control of this politically and economically vital area:

In Iraq, the reckless U.S.-led invasion in 2003 led to the purging of Sunnis from the state and the creation of a sectarian and oppressive Shiite regime, also backed by Iran. This opened the road to ISIS and led to the country’s de facto dismemberment.

In Afghanistan, President Obama has recently agreed to maintain 10,000 troops through 2017 due to the advance of Taliban forces and the weakening of the corrupt U.S.-backed Afghan government after 14 years of military intervention.

In Libya, imperialist intervention to oust former dictator Muammar Qaddafi resulted in complete destabilization and the rise of Islamist forces, who are now fighting for control.

In Yemen, upheaval following a popular revolt ousted the 22-years-long dictatorship of Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011, resulting in the Iranian-backed Shia Houthi rebels taking over the capital, Sana’a. Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies, backed by Obama, have launched a brutal bombing campaign in order to restore a president more to their liking, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Meanwhile, the United States’ most trusted ally in the region, the Israeli state, is faced with another wave of popular Palestinian revolt. In a meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Kerry, they decided to try and bring things back to “normality.” Normality means the continuation of the Israeli occupation, land theft, and ongoing attacks on the Palestinian masses.

The Middle East today is perhaps the most dramatic example of the complete dead end facing human society under capitalism. As world and regional imperialist powers vie for control, the mass of ordinary people in the region face impoverishment and endless conflict, while millions are forced to escape the horror.

Imperialism’s long history in the region, from French control of Syria and Lebanon to British control of Egypt, Palestine, and Iraq, through the years of the Cold War and today’s “War on Terrorism,” has always used the tactic of “divide and conquer,” mostly relying on ethnic and religious sentiments. It is no surprise, then, that it has created nothing but sectarian conflicts and rivers of blood.

The burning question is: what is the way out of this endless horror?

Below is an edited article by The Socialist, the paper of the Socialist Party of England and Wales, with which Socialist Alternative is in political solidarity through the Committee for a Workers International.

After four and a half long, bloody years of civil war in Syria – with over a quarter of a million dead and eleven million displaced – there is still no end in sight. On the contrary, the entire region faces being drawn into a sectarian civil war.

While there is a widespread desire among ordinary people to see something done to bring peace to Syria and to defeat the reactionary thugs of ISIS, there is also a deep-rooted scepticism over what further military intervention will achieve.

No wonder, after the disastrous invasion of Iraq by the U.S., which laid the basis for the current quagmire, and then the 2012 onslaught on Libya, which has led directly to the anarchy which now exists there.

Syrian refugees entering Iraqi Kurdish regions. Photo:UNHCR/G. Gubaev

As Patrick Cockburn put it in the BritishIndependent: “The U.S.-led air campaign against ISIS has not worked. The Islamic militants have not collapsed under the weight of airstrikes, but, across the Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish regions, either hold the same ground or are expanding” (10/03/2015).

After just over a year of airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, at a cost of more than $2.7 billion and the killing of many civilians, ISIS still controls at least half of Syria and a third of Iraq. In May of this year, for example, the Iraqi city of Ramadi fell to ISIS. The U.S. Air Force carried out 165 strikes against ISIS positions in the month before it fell, but they did not alter the outcome. At the time of writing, five months on, ISIS still holds Ramadi despite a prolonged attempt by the Iraqi government to retake it.

In desperation to retake the city, the predominantly Shia Iraqi government has deployed the Shia militias. Given that Ramadi is the capital of Anbar province, both predominantly Sunni, this will do nothing to undermine support for ISIS among the Sunni population, who fear mass reprisals against all Sunnis if Ramadi falls.

These fears are not without foundation; earlier in the year, the Shia militia were central to the campaign to retake Tikrit from ISIS. After the city’s recapture, mass executions of Sunnis – all wrongly written off as ISIS supporters – forced thousands to flee.

Ramadi is an example of imperialism’s utter failure – not just because of the events of the last year, but because of everything that has happened since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and occupation.

Confirmation

The events in Syria confirm the analysis The Socialist made at the start of the conflict. At the time, there were widespread predictions that President Assad would rapidly be defeated.

We argued that, unlike in Libya, this would not be the case. Assad had greater reserves of support from ethnic and religious minorities within the country, with the increasingly sectarian character of the rebels driving them toward the regime.

At the start the uprising was part of the Arab Spring – a genuine popular revolt against the Assad dictatorship. But this changed with the outside intervention of reactionary forces opposed to revolution in the region – in particular, the brutal dictatorial regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar – backed up by imperialist forces. The result has been the unleashing of a dangerous battle between the Sunnis and the Shias on a regional scale. ISIS is the horrendous consequence of this process.

U.S. imperialism – initially, at least – turned a blind eye to the growth of ISIS while attempting to create and fund a pro-Western Free Syrian Army (FSA) to fight Assad.

Senator John McCain was even photographed posing – supposedly with the FSA, but in reality with ISIS commanders! U.S. weaponry sent into Syria ended up in the hands of ISIS.

However, ISIS’s aggressive and accelerating role in tearing apart Iraq and Syria, as well as its contempt toward the world powers has forced the U.S. to act against it.

Imperialism

In reality, U.S. imperialism has no forces it can rely on in Syria. As Robert Fisk explained,  “Washington admitted their [the FSA’a] disappearance, bemoaned their fate, concluded that new ‘moderates’ were required, persuaded the CIA to arm and train 70 fighters, and this summer packed them off across the Turkish border to fight – whereupon all but ten were captured by Nusrah [the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria] and at least two of them were executed by their captors” (Independent, 10/04/2015).

In reality, there are 20 or more opposition groups fighting Assad, funded by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE – all with a sectarian Sunni Islamist character.

The United States remains the most powerful imperialist country on the planet, but it is a declining world power. Its complete inability to “police the world” as it did in the past is graphically demonstrated in Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin feeling confident to launch airstrikes in support of Assad is only one indication of this.

It is also shown in how U.S. imperialism has been left as “piggy in the middle” between the Sunni regimes funding the fighters against Assad and Shia Iran, which has sent 15,000 troops to back the Assad regime.

Kurdish YPG fighters. Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/kurdishstruggle

That is not to suggest that ISIS cannot be defeated. On the contrary, its underlying weakness has been shown by the military successes won by the predominantly Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), who have established a territorial base in Northern Syria.

Within limits, it has shown that, when anti-ISIS fighters link their military struggles to appeals for national liberation and social change, it is possible to win victories.

However, these successes rely on the heroic action of guerrilla units rather than on the democratic, mass, multi-ethnic mobilization of the people themselves.

There is a danger that this can lead to the driving out of non-Kurds, in some cases, as has been reported to have taken place by Amnesty International and Patrick Cockburn, although this has been denied by the YPG.

Even if these incidents are rare and not widely endorsed, they are a potentially very dangerous development. In addition, the political leadership of the YPG/YPJ still express hopes that Western imperialism will act in their interests. However, imperialism has shown again and again that it has no interest in the genuine aspirations for self-determination for any national or ethnic grouping.

However, it has repeatedly leaned on one group to try and defeat another, creating the sectarian nightmare that now exists.

Working-Class Alternative

The working class and poor farmers of Iraq and Syria and the Kurdish people can only rely on their own self-organization to put an end to this nightmare.

United nonsectarian self-defence of threatened communities and minorities is vital and can be an important lever through which a grassroots movement fighting for socialist change can be rebuilt.

By standing uncompromisingly against all imperialist forces, local reactionary regimes, and sectarian death squads, and supporting the rights of self-determination for all communities, such a movement could find mass support among the regional and international working class.

In turn, workers’ organizations internationally need to spearhead movements against imperialist intervention in the Middle East.

In order to seek a real end to sectarianism and bloodbath, ordinary workers and farmers must demand a complete end to imperialist intervention, as well as open and free elections, to elect a government of representatives of workers and the poor. We call for the building of united, nonsectarian defense committees to defend workers and the poor. This can be the basis of a movement to fight for independent trade unions and mass workers’ parties with a program of land to the masses and factories to the workers, implemented through a program for a socialist democratically planned economy.

The Syrian workers must fight in solidarity with the Kurds for the recognition of the right of the Kurdish people to self-determination – including, if they so wish, full autonomous democratic rights within the state they live in or the establishment of a common state of the Kurds themselves.

But the movement has to go beyond that and link their struggle with those of all oppressed workers and famers in the region. Imperialism and capitalism have devastated the Middle East. There’s no solution under capitalism, but only under a democratic socialist confederation of the Middle East and North Africa.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/21/sight-years-civil-war-imperialism-worsens-disaster-facing-syrian-people/

[socialistalternative]

U.S. JOINS INTERNATIONAL WAVE OF STUDENT PROTESTS: #MILLIONSTUDENTMARCH

Published On November 23, 2015 | By Elan Axelbank 

On Thursday, November 12, over 10,000 students walked out of their classes to fight back against the worsening student debt crisis. Demanding tuition-free public college, a cancellation of all student debt and a $15 minimum wage for all campus workers, the #MillionStudentMarch was the first national day of action against student debt. Students at 115 campuses took to the streets to say, “Enough is enough.” With over 40 million Americans saddled with student debt totaling more than $1.3 trillion, and a government that has done nothing to stop it, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the only way we’re going to see an end to this crisis is by bringing back the U.S. student movement in full force, united under clear political demands.

The idea for the day of action was inspired by a call made by Bernie Sanders during an interview back in June for a million students to march on Washington to demand tuition-free public college. Fresh off the successful $15 minimum wage referendum campaign on Northeastern University, Socialist Alternative put out the call for a national day of action and received a tremendous response from students all across the country interested in participating in #MillionStudentMarch.

Unite and Fight

#MillionStudentMarch marching alongside Mizzou solidarity protestors

Two days before the day of action, Black students at the University of Missouri (also known as Mizzou), waging a campaign against the chronic racism they faced on campus, called for a national day of solidarity actions on the same day as #MillionStudentMarch. #MSM immediately took up their call for solidarity and made every action a joint #MSM and Mizzou solidarity action to show the links between racial and economic justice.

The same corporate minded administration at Mizzou that ignored a series of racist incidents also cut the health care of graduate students and revoked Planned Parenthood’s admitting privileges at the university hospital. All of these attacks contributed to the scale of the revolt and show that the fight against racism, sexism and the corporate domination of education, which is leading to debt bondage for millions, must be brought together into a national mass movement.

The three core demands of #MillionStudentMarch were chosen to create the broadest based movement possible, and it achieved just that. The first demand of tuition-free public college brought out current and future students, who in the face of rapidly rising tuition need free college. The second demand to cancel all student debt brought out current and past students who, graduating with record high levels of debt, need this weight taken off their shoulders in order to start their post-college lives. Finally, the third demand for a $15 minimum wage for all campus workers facilitated the student-worker solidarity necessary to take the fight for free college to the next level.

The corporate assault on education has been facilitated by both Republicans and Democrats, although Obama and some Democrats now give verbal support for free tuition, at least for two year community college programs. Hillary Clinton has, however, dismissed the idea of free public college for all. Achieving the demands of #MSM will require mass struggle, which the Democrats will oppose, and this struggle therefore also points to the need for a new independent political force for the 99%.

Next Steps

The student movement, in alliance with the workers on our campuses and workers in broader society, is capable of achieving big things. The University of California system showed up in full force with a big protest on nearly every UC campus. UC Santa Barbara had the biggest action of the day with a rally and march of over 1,500 people, including students, campus workers, and workers from five different unions. National Nurses United, the first and largest union to endorse Bernie Sanders, endorsed #MillionStudentMarch and had a big impact by showing up to actions all over the country and helping to make clear the necessity for the student movement to link up with the labor movement.

#MillionStudentMarch was an incredible and promising beginning, but we can’t let up. What we have to do now is stay organized, continue to build the base of our movement locally by agitating for our demands. The potential exists for an even bigger day of action in the new year. We must link up and form stronger connections with the Black Lives Matter movement and the broader Fight for $15. The energy among students right now to fight back against the corporate system of higher education is undeniable. Now is the time to stand up and defend the right to higher education for all.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/23/u-s-joins-international-wave-student-protests-millionstudentmarch/

[socialistalternative]

THE TIGER ROARS: RACISM, SPORTS AND STUDENT ACTIVISM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI

Published On November 24, 2015 | By Eljeer Hawkins

“…Missouri [is] the most racist state in the country.” –  John Gaskin III, a spokesman for the St. Louis County NAACP, (Bloomberg Business Week; 8/25/2014)

On November 7, black members of the Missouri (Mizzou) Tigers football team, supported by their white teammates and coaches, announced that they would not participate in football related activities as long as  the university president remained in office. The immediate resignation of University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe and the chancellor of the Columbia campus, R. Bowen Loftin, sent shockwaves around the country. They serve as a warning to all university, college, and education officials that racial, sexual, and economic injustice on our campuses and in our schools will not be tolerated. We are in the midst of the emergence of a new powerful student movement in the United States.

Far from an isolated incident, Mizzou football players took their action in the context of increased activism at Mizzou, in the state of Missouri, and on college campuses nation-wide. Missouri was rocked by the events in Ferguson following the death of Michael Brown. In the fall of 2015, graduate students responded to having their health care cut, by demonstrating and eventually starting a union drive. At the same time, Chancellor Loftin provoked outrage by revoking Planned Parenthood’s admitting privileges at the University of Missouri Hospital, dealing a blow to abortion access in the whole state. (See this excellent timeline of Mizzou activism this fall). In addition, this is the football program from which Michael Sam made history as the first openly gay man drafted by an NFL team. This is a team deeply affected and concerned with their community and campus.

One Year after Mike Brown

It has been one year since the death of Michael Brown at the hands of law enforcement officer Darren Wilson. Mike Brown’s death ushered in a new phase in the long black freedom movement as the youth of Ferguson rebelled against militarized law enforcement and a corrupt city and state administration in Missouri. The banner of Black Lives Matter was raised as a life affirming act of defiance against structural racism, poverty, and oppression under capitalism.

The Ferguson uprising inspired the creation of the Mizzou student group “Concerned Students 1950” referencing the first year black students were admitted to the university. Several extreme incidents of racism coupled with the everyday harassment that black students face at Mizzou, where they are only eight percent of the student body, pushed students to speak out as part of the Black Lives Matter movement to fight for a safe university environment. They were severely let down by the university administration.

Only 110 miles from Ferguson, the University of Missouri’s Columbia campus has a history of racial strife and blatant racism. The death of Mike Brown and daily occurrences of racism spoke to the consciousness of the black student body and they organized groups around the issue such as @MU4Mike Brown, Racism Lives Here, and Concerned Students 1950 to challenge the racist history of the University and current conditions.

The Tipping Point

There were numerous incidents on campus like the blatant use of the N-word towards black students, outright racist vandalism, and a swastika drawn in human excrement and charcoal in two separate incidents in a matter of months. The denial and negligence of a University administration to the racism on campus spoke volumes to the black student body, the wider student body, and the faculty and community.

Mizzou players. Photo: TWITTER/Coach Gary Finkel

Jonathan Butler, a graduate student decided he had enough and went on a hunger strike until President Wolfe resigned. Days later, 30 black players on the Mizzou Tigers football team, inspired by the student organizing and protest, decided to stand in solidarity and decry the injustice on campus. They were joined by their white teammates, head coach Gary Pinkel, and assistant coaches in an act of unity and brotherhood as the black players announced they would withhold their labor; no practices and/or games until President Wolfe resigned as well. Despite blacks being a numeric minority in the University, they make up 69 percent of the football players. The power was clearly on the side of the students and football players which tipped the scales in the direction of justice and forced both Wolfe and Loftin to resign.

All Labor Has Dignity

The protest and self-sacrifice of the broader student body, particularly the black students, must not be lost in this struggle at the University of Missouri as so much press and praise has been heaped upon the football players and rightly so. But the daily organizing and agitation of the student activists and organizations was critical to forcing the resignation of Wolfe and Loftin.

President Wolfe had no experience in education when he was hired to run Mizzou in 2010. Wolfe sought to turn the university into a Fortune 500 tech corporation: he slashed and burned the academic publisher associated with the university; cut graduate student health care; and cut tuition waivers for graduate students who taught courses. In addition, the “image” of the university was held paramount: instead of addressing systematic racism on campus, the administration instead treated each incident as a matter to investigate separately. A premium was placed on income-generating parts of the university – particularly the football program. These attacks are part of a trend that is no less than a national plan to slowly privatize and erode public education and services for students, campus workers, and the community with the goal of maximizing the profits and profile of the universities and corporations.

This protest by Mizzou players builds on the powerful example of the Northwestern football team’s efforts to unionize over a year ago and represents further progress in collegiate athletes being seen as workers/employees. The announced labor strike by the Mizzou football team, and, significantly, its black players, would have cost the university $1 million in forfeiture fees per game. The biggest blow would be to Mizzou’s reputation, and the donor confidence in the leadership. We must remember that this team was in the hunt for a NCAA national championship just two years ago.

The act of solidarity and strike threat exhibited the potential power of the athlete in contemporary capitalism that has turned sports into a corporate-controlled mass consumption commodity and mindless entertainment. The Mizzou players realized their strength and the threat of withholding their labor forced the hand of the board of trustees and President.

“We Are United”

Ithaca College students protest in solidarity with the Mizzou students. Photo: New York Daily News

The protests in Mizzou, Yale, Berkeley High School, and Ithaca against racism, environmental destruction, corporate dominance over education, tuition hikes, and student debt are all part of a revitalization of the student movement.

The anti-immigrant, racist and misogynist rhetoric of Donald Trump, Ben Carson and others in the GOP is encouraging the expression of reactionary views by a minority in our society and this is having a reflection on campuses. As if to stress this point, Trump and Carson have called the demonstrations “disgusting” and “infantile.” The Democratic Party establishment, on the other hand, expresses sympathy with the demonstrators’ aims; but from “ending welfare as we know it” to the policies that created mass incarceration, it is fully implicated in the structural racism that creates the breeding ground for the type of attacks we have witnessed at Mizzou.

There have been threats against the activists and movement at Mizzou following the resignation and backlash from the corporate media on how reporters were handled during the protest on campus. We must defend the right to organize and protest without reprisals from racist vigilante forces or even by the state, while at the same time being watchful of the corporate media and their reporting of events which is meant to cast a dark cloud over the activists and movements as they did following Mike Brown’s death. The movement must come up with a plan to deal with genuine reporting of events instead of alienating potential press that could help expand and spread the message of fighting back against racism at Mizzou.

What Mizzou has taught us is that the old labor movement mantra of “An injury to one is an injury to all” is relevant and powerful as a counterweight to racism, xenophobia and capitalist oppression. Student activism is a powerful tool, but the strike of football players showed that students must focus on demands, strategy, and tactics that reaches out to, and involves the university staff and employees. They are the ones who truly have the power to stop the running of the institution.

Black Lives Matter has bolstered student activism nationally; last week there were solidarity demonstrations with Mizzou on campuses around the country, some of them linking up the Million Student March for free education and to cancel student debt. On campuses, students should join these movements and use this inspiration to build further fights against cuts to education. Activists should work to create lasting coalitions that fight on issues from racism on campus to fighting for a campus-wide $15 minimum wage. Socialist Alternative is involved with the Million Student March and various students for Bernie clubs.

Working people can take inspiration from the heroic activism of the students at Mizzou and the brave stand taken by the football team. Only a united and cohesive working class mass movement rooted in our commonalities and not our artificial “differences” can challenge and uproot the edifice of oppression at home and abroad.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/24/tiger-roars-racism-sports-student-activism-university-missouri/

[socialistalternative]

UNITE AGAINST POLICE REPRESSION IN MINNEAPOLIS!

Published On December 2, 2015 | By Ty Moore

“Everybody that stood with Mayor Hodges is not part of the solution, they’re part of the problem.” – NAACP President, Nekima Levy-Pounds

Solidarity statement from Socialist Alternative Minnesota

Providing political cover for police repression, Mayor Betsy Hodges held a major press conference Monday, demanding protesters end their occupation of the Police Department’s 4th Precinct. Flanked by an array of establishment leaders, including Rep. Keith Ellison and City Council President Barb Johnson, Mayor Hodges blamed the peaceful protest for threatening public safety.

Photo: Star Tribune

Echoing the right-wing media and racist Police Federation President Bob Kroll, Hodges cynically blamed the occupation for “near-daily threats to burn the precinct, kill our officers…” The Mayor’s incendiary statements are designed to justify police repression, and are especially irresponsible coming just one week after the racist terror attack on protesters.

In reality, the only real violence over the previous two weeks came from the Mayor’s racist police who killed Jamar Clark and violently attacked peaceful demonstrators, and the racist vigilantes who shot five protesters.

Labor/Community Mass Action Needed

If we allow threats of racist terror and police repression to push back the protests demanding #Justice4Jamar, it will only encourage more repression and racist attacks, and set back the struggle for racial equity. We cannot allow the Mayor and political establishment to isolate the courageous young people leading the #4thPrecinctShutDown.

We are urging all progressive forces, all labor leaders, all who want #Justice4Jamar, to publicly call on the Mayor and police to stand down.

The big labor and community organizations backing the ongoing campaigns for racial equity and workers’ rights in Minneapolis – a struggle the Mayor also recently betrayed – should urgently pull together a broad labor/community defense coalition to physically defend and support ongoing protests including the 4th Precinct occupation.

As a first step, calling a mass unity march on City Hall could draw ten thousand or more if the big labor and community organizations spent just one week throwing their full weight into the mobilization. Such a mass demonstration organized by a broad coalition would be a powerful response to the Mayor’s call to demobilize, showing the widespread support for police accountability. We could facilitate the active participation of thousands more in the struggle to defend free speech and demand racial equity.

No Grand Jury – Prosecute the Police!

Less than 2% of grand jury trials of police killings result in criminal charges. The system is so obviously corrupted that California recently banned their use in cases of police killings. We join the call of Miski Noor, a spokesperson for Black Lives Matter Minneapolis:

“If Mayor Hodges is so concerned about safety, she should join us and call for the appointment of special prosecutor to investigate Jamar Clark’s murder to avoid using a broken grand jury system. Instead, she’s using her political capital to attack peaceful protesters braving white supremacist attacks and freezing temperatures to demand justice for Jamar Clark.”

Community Control of Police

The attempted cover-up of the police murder of LaQuan McDonald in Chicago, almost certainly orchestrated by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, is a powerful warning that we can place no trust in the political establishment to root out racist police, much less address the deep structural racism of the criminal justice system.

Minneapolis City Hall’s continued failure to root out racist police and end the entrenched racial bias in law enforcement shows the urgent need for a fully independent, elected community control board with full powers over the Minneapolis Police Department, including hiring, firing, and budget priorities.

Build a Political Alternative

The #Justice4Jamar movement is again exposing the corporate character of the entire Minneapolis political establishment. Mayor Hodges was elected pledging to prioritize racial equity, but in two years she failed to fight for any substantial reforms. Alongside Barb Johnson’s majority on City Council, Mayor Hodges has opposed calls for a $15/hour minimum wage, backed away from support for fair scheduling, and offered no leadership for paid sick days or preventing wage theft.

As long as power in our city remains in the hands of business-backed politicians, of the business-backed Democratic Party establishment, there will be no meaningful change. There will be more racist police harassment, brutality, and killings. There will be more lives destroyed by mass incarceration, more poverty, unemployment, housing insecurity, cuts to education and social services, all impacting communities of color hardest.

But we can built a political alternative. Socialist Alternative has twice elected Kshama Sawant to City Council in Seattle, despite the all-out efforts by big business to defeat us. Kshama Sawant and SA built an energized mass base of support by taking an uncompromising approach to workers’ rights and racial equity. We led the fight to win a $15/hour minimum wage among other demands, and with only one working class fighter in office we have built struggles to completely transform Seattle city politics.

Our movement can achieve this in Minneapolis too, and Socialist Alternative is excited to participate in the ongoing discussions about how to take the struggle for racial and economic justice forward.

Let’s make this powerful movement against police racism a line in the sand in Minneapolis. Let’s use this moment to begin forging the grassroots coalitions needed to build a new, fully independent political force in this city to remove the corporate-backed Democratic Party establishment from power.

“They don’t care what happens to the poor and vulnerable… they have blood on their hands.”

– Nekima Levy-Pounds, Minneapolis NAACP President, speaking in a personal capacity to demonstrators outside the 4th Precinct Monday

Photo: KARE 11

“Now I heard about that press conference Mayor Hodges did earlier with the old-guard leadership. Everybody that stood with Mayor Hodges is not part of the solution, they’re part of the problem… We will not continue to tolerate old-guard Black leadership, sitting at these tables, looking for power, looking for grant money, selling out our community… And I’m tired of these politicians, knocking on our door, asking for our vote, and then they get in office and don’t do diddly with the political power that they have. We asked them to change the laws and the policies that are oppressing people, and they’d rather focus on storing political capital than doing the right thing on behalf of the people. They don’t care what happens to the poor and vulnerable, because if they did they would have held the 4th Precinct and the Minneapolis Police Department accountable a long time ago. But instead what did they do? Continue to rubber stamp the system, continue to pay out millions and millions in excessive force complaints, to settle those lawsuits. As far as I’m concerned, every member of government who played a role in that has blood on their hands because if they held the police accountable a long time ago, Jamar Clark might still be alive.”

[socialistalternative]

OBAMA HALTS WITHDRAWAL AS TALIBAN ADVANCES

Published On November 18, 2015 | By Tom Barnard

On October 15, President Obama approved a new $15-billion-a-year plan under which the U.S. will maintain its current force of 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of 2016, then drawing down to 5,500 in early 2017 to remain at bases in Kabul, Bagram, Jalalabad, and Kandahar. The president had originally planned to maintain only a small embassy-based force of 1,000, but in Obama’s own words, “in key areas of the country, the security situation is still very fragile, and in some places there is risk of deterioration. Afghan forces are still not as strong as they need to be.”

That all-too-obvious assessment comes on the heels of the fall of Kunduz to the Taliban, its largest strategic victory in years. The victory was accomplished in a matter of hours, as 500-700 insurgent fighters sent 7,000 government troops fleeing. Only after 15 days was a combined force of Afghan army and U.S. Special Forces, supposedly only used in Afghanistan for training and counterterrorism missions, able to retake the city, with massive air support.

U.S. War Crime

But not before the U.S. used that air support to commit a war crime, bombing a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the only facility of its kind in northeastern Afghanistan. Many staff members and patients were killed and wounded, and the facility was destroyed, as the hospital was hit by precise aerial raids for over an hour, destroying the intensive care unit, emergency rooms, and the physiotherapy ward, while frantic calls to Coalition forces went unanswered.

This despite the fact that MSF had provided the GPS coordinates of the hospital to Coalition and Afghan forces as recently as September 29. After several attempts in as many days to point the blame elsewhere, the U.S. finally admitted that U.S. Special Forces on the ground called in the strike.

The fall of Kunduz, one of the centers of the American troop surge five years ago, exposes the bogus assurances about progress in the War in Afghanistan often given by American and Afghan officials. U.S. claims notwithstanding, recent data compiled by the United Nations show that the Taliban insurgency has spread through more of Afghanistan than at any point since 2001. Amid a corresponding sharp rise in Afghan military casualties, local officials describe a pattern of worsening morale and reluctance by troops and policemen to leave their posts. In February, the Afghan intelligence service said it was investigating dozens of police officers in Kunduz for cooperating with the Taliban, sometimes even selling their ammunition. Even in districts that are nominally under government control, government forces hold only the government buildings in the district center and are under constant attack by insurgents.

Regime Cannot Defeat the Taliban

Afghan Local Police installed by the American Special Forces extort protection money from farmers, while Afghan commanders use soldiers’ pay for their own sordid purposes, including the widespread practice of raping local boys. And Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani is widely regarded as unable to rein in the corrupt warlords who hold key posts in his regime.

Socialist Alternative opposed this war from the beginning because we knew that the U.S. invasion had nothing to do with bringing democracy and alleviating poverty in Afghanistan. It was based on U.S. imperialism reasserting itself after 9/11 and controlling energy resources in the region through an alliance with compliant feudal allies.

Though we are completely opposed to the brutal and reactionary Taliban, we are also clear on the nature of the gangster warlords who are the force behind the current regime, and Karzai’s before it. The only way forward is the independent mobilization of the workers and peasants of Afghanistan in their own interests, allied to workers and peasants across the region.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/18/obama-halts-withdrawal-taliban-advances/

[socialistalternative]

VIDEO: KSHAMA SAWANT ON BERNIE SANDERS´ DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

Published On November 19, 2015 | By Kshama Sawant 

Sanders spoke today, November 19, at Georgetown University about democratic socialism. Kshama Sawant, Seattle´s Socialist Alternative City Councilmember, responds to his message in this video (see transcript below).

Sisters and Brothers,

Socialism is rising.

Just a few minutes ago, Bernie Sanders addressed working people in the United States to speak about democratic socialism. Hundreds of thousands will watch it. Such an audience for socialist ideas has been unprecedented in the U.S. in several generations.

Bernie Sanders is giving voice to the enormous desire for change after a decade of economic crisis where millions lost their jobs and homes and the “recovery” has overwhelmingly benefited the 1%. There is deep anger because the political process has been completely dominated by big corporate interests; structural racism and sexism remain entrenched; and because no decisive measures are being taken to address global warming.

Underlying all of this is a diseased and decaying social system – the failed system of capitalism.

Poll after poll show that people under 30 now support “socialism” and “capitalism” in roughly equal numbers. And we also see that support for socialism leads over capitalism by 12 percentage points within Democratic Party supporters nationally.

But what is socialism?

Socialism is a democratic society based on human need not corporate greed. A society of social, gender and racial justice. A world where black and brown lives matter. A world that will have addressed the crisis of climate change.

How can such a society be achieved?

Take the huge challenge of climate change: 90 companies have caused almost two thirds of all carbon emissions in human history. All for amassing limitless profits. Capitalism is destroying the planet.

We need to take these companies into democratic, public ownership in order to move fully towards renewable energy, and to keep fossil fuels where they belong – under the ground.

Socialism is about working-class democracy, where the 99% make the key decisions, instead of Wall Street and their global capitalist casino.

The 500 largest corporations and giant banks that dominate our economy, control our political system and degrade our environment should be taken into democratic public ownership. This way, the resources of society could be used to benefit society as a whole.

The great German socialist, Rosa Luxemburg, posed the alternatives facing humanity long ago – she said that the future will either be one of socialism or barbarism.

We see barbarism globally today in many forms. We see it in the development of the Islamic State and the horrific attacks in Paris and Beirut last week. We saw it in the barbarous invasion of Iraq by a US government on behalf of a tiny cartel of rapacious oil companies.

The devastating consequences of the Iraq invasion, as well as the preceding decades of imperialist policies, are tearing apart the very fabric of society in the Middle East, fueling the rise of ISIS, and creating the biggest refugee crisis in world history.

We see the shadow of that barbarism here in the US, with huge poverty next to exorbitant wealth, and the rise of anti-immigrant, racist policies emanating from the Republican Party.

We have an alternative to this barbarism. A socialist world.

Bernie said that he supports a coalition of countries to fight ISIS. However all those governments represent the interests of their local capitalist ruling classes. As a socialist, I believe we need a movement of working people, of all nationalities, of all religions or no religion. A movement in the common interests of working people in the Middle East and internationally, to challenge both ISIS and Western imperialism, to create an alternative to the deep humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.

Bernie Sanders spoke today of FDR, the New Deal, and Social Security.

It is no accident that the victories on Social Security in the 1930s and Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s took place during times of great, historic movements of the working class and youth.

In 1935, when Social Security was passed, workers across America were on strike for a better life. They fought to unionize through sit down strikes. They took over and occupied their factories, and refused to give them back until their unions were won and their demands met.

It was these American workers, this radical labor movement, that won Social Security. Contrary to the popular myth, it was not handed to them by the benevolence of the ruling elite headed by FDR. In fact, Roosevelt had run for office in 1932 on a promise of fiscal conservatism – of shrinking social programs, not expanding them.

The workers movement that won the New Deal was led by socialists.

Similarly, Medicare and Medicaid were won in the context of the radicalized 1960s Civil Rights movement. The battle against segregation, lynchings, against the grotesque brutality of Jim Crow racism. They were won under the pressure of the black activists and also of the developing movement against the war in Vietnam.

Social struggle needs to be combined with building a new political force for the 99%. Bernie Sanders’ campaign, which raised $28 million in the past three months and has refused corporate donations, shows the potential for independent working class politics to fight against corporate politics.

Bernie is absolutely correct to call for a federal 15 dollar minimum wage, single payer health care, free college education, and defeating the power of the billionaire class to defend democracy.

That’s why I want Bernie Sanders to win the presidency and defeat the agenda of the Billionaire class.

But in order to win, Bernie Sanders needs to take on Wall Street and all those corporations who dominate Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic Party machine.

To win, Bernie Sanders needs a mass movement from below and an organization, independent of corporate cash. He needs a mass party of and for working people.

Let’s come together to build such a movement and such a party, against the Republican right wing and independent of big business, Clintonite Democrats.

This race is not a race between two progressive candidates. Hillary Clinton served on the Wal Mart board of directors, while Sanders supports the fight for $15. Hillary Clinton is a hawkish supporter of military intervention and voted for the Iraq war. Clinton is the candidate of Wall Street and the Billionaire class.

Clinton does not deserve the support of working people and progressives and can not be supported by socialists.

Win or lose, Bernie Sanders’ inspiring campaign offers a unique opportunity to spread socialist ideas to a new generation, to build an independent mass party of working people, to build a new movement capable of defeating the stranglehold of Wall Street over our society.

We can organize the fight back against the billionaire class. Join me in this struggle, join Socialist Alternative.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/19/video-kshama-sawant-bernie-sanders-democratic-socialism/

[socialistalternative]

THE WORLD AWAITS: THE GRAND JURY DECISION IN THE TAMIR RICE CASE

Published On November 20, 2015 | By Eljeer Hawkins

The grand jury in Cleveland, Ohio, is currently deliberating over evidence in the police killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by then-rookie Officer Timothy Loehmann on November 22, 2014. Tamir Rice was playing with an airsoft gun that shoots nonlethal pellets outside of a recreational center when a police car pulled up. Within seconds of arriving on the scene, Officer Loehmann fatally shot Tamir.

This brutal incident, captured on security camera footage, quickly became national news. Tamir’s tragic death joined the multitude of black and brown victims of police violence in the United States in 2014.

Not one law enforcement officer in Cleveland has been convicted of killing an unarmed citizen. Why? The political and judicial relationship between the prosecutor’s office and law enforcement: the cops collect the evidence for the state’s attorney that is used during trial to secure a conviction. This is the same Cleveland Police Department that was cited by the Department of Justice with numerous cases of police violence that violated citizens’ human and civil rights.

The Rice family and supporters are calling for a special prosecutor to oversee the case. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty has received justified criticism for delays in presenting the evidence to the grand jury, as well as lack of communication between his office and the Rice family.

Can we rightly have confidence in a system to police itself?

As we await the decision of the grand jury, we must continue to agitate, organize, and protest outside the courtroom and build a sustained protest movement to demand justice for Tamir and all victims of police terror, linking it to the broader struggle against institutional racism, poverty, and capitalism.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/20/world-awaits-grand-jury-decision-tamir-rice-case/

[socialistalternative]

10 BOOKS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X

Published On November 16, 2015 | By Domino LaMarr

My Uncle, a total jock that ran yards for touchdowns instead of studying to get through high school, told me once the only book he ever read was The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I used to think that was crazy and maybe I still think it a bit. But if there is just one book that my uncle, a black man fighting to save his home from foreclosure, ever reads, the personal story of such a self aware revolutionary couldn’t have been a better choice.

First edition of The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The media and Hollywood have done their duty in keeping the spirit of Malcolm alive, making his face an almost “cool” image to display. But only by reading his words can one begin to understand the process of his revolutionary mindset, one that went through many changes in his short life. As a Marxist, I understand that the material conditions in which we live are what shape our understanding of the world. One of Malcolm’s greatest contributions to working class struggle was his travels to Africa that served to unite in his mind the struggles of all oppressed people, regardless of color. But that was not always the case. His first instincts were towards black nationalism. But only through reading the story of his life can one understand why he drew those conclusions.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X is an essential read for not only revolutionaries but ALL members of the working class. It begins with colorful examples on how capitalism has failed our most vulnerable i.e. the un-educated, the mentally ill, the jobless, the black youth, and evolves into an inspiring account of a man learning in the struggle the path to true black and brown liberation.

The lessons Malcolm learned are particularly relevant in the current Black Lives Matter movement. It serves to arm us with the ability to explain why black nationalism will not serve as a means to black liberation and how we need to fight capitalism instead. He may not say this in so many words but the key is understanding Malcolm’s process. Workers and youth should listen the speeches of Malcolm but not fetishize his fervor. Workers and youth must read his writings about his life but not dwell on the excitement of his vibrant life. For what makes Malcolm so great is that he was forever learning, adapting and evolving his program to make himself a true, effective leader.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/16/10-books-shook-world-autobiography-malcolm/

[socialistalternative]

#JUSTICE4JAMAR: MINNEAPOLIS POLICE STATION OCCUPIED AS PROTESTS ESCALATE OVER RACIST SHOOTING

Published On November 17, 2015 | By Ty Moore

“Our city is not too far from burning like Baltimore because as the violence, disparities, and erasure of people of color grows, so will the people’s rage and desire for justice,” said Michael McDowell, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Minneapolis.

The racist police shooting of Jamar Clark must be a line in the sand. It’s time for a major escalation of struggle until we get #Justice4Jamar and win real structural change to the racist criminal justice system that continues to destroy black and brown lives in our communities.

“From witness accounts, Jamar Clark was handcuffed and then shot in the head in front of dozens of witnesses,” said Nekima Levy-Pounds, president of the Minneapolis NAACP. “Police essentially threw a corpse in the back of an ambulance, and put him on life support at the hospital. They pulled guns on witnesses and sprayed them with mace… This is one of the worst examples of what we’ve seen, recently, with the execution of unarmed black men.”

On Sunday night, hundreds gathered at the site of the shooting in North Minneapolis. Black Lives Matter Minneapolis led a march to the nearby 4th Precinct police station, beginning an occupation of the precinct entryway and an encampment outside. On Monday hundreds of protesters shut down Interstate 94 during evening rush hour, with 50 arrested.

Despite rain and near-freezing temperatures, the #‎4thPrecinctShutdown grew Monday and continued into Tuesday. Underscoring the popular support for the movement, so far city officials have not felt the political room to send in police to reclaim their precinct station! For updates and upcoming actions, follow Black Lives Matter Minneapolis on Facebook and Twitter.

Socialist Alternative is urging an all-out community mobilization to get #Justice4Jamar and in support of Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, whose demands include:

Release the videos of the police shooting and the names of the officers involved

For an independent investigation

Community oversight of police with full disciplinary powers

Under Pressure, Mayor Calls for Federal Investigation

The shooting of Jamar Clark comes amid rising conflict in Minneapolis over city leaders’ refusal to seriously address deepening racial inequities or undertake serious police reform. Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges was elected in 2013 promising to prioritize combating our worst-in-the-nation racial inequalities in income, education, healthcare, and other areas. However, after two years, Hodges is facing increasing criticism for the City’s failure to take serious action. In October, facing pressure from business, the mayor backed down on previous promises to fight for a workers’ rights agenda in Minneapolis pushed by a broad coalition of racial justice and labor organizations, provoking further anger.

At a Sunday press conference with the police chief, Mayor Hodges urged patience as the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigated. BLM leaders rightly responded that they had no trust in local law enforcement investigating themselves. Facing escalating protests and a torrent of online criticism, Hodges reversed herself within 24 hours, echoing protesters’ call for a federal investigation.

This is a big step forward, and shows the power of our movement, but is no guarantee of real justice. The federal Department of Justice has a long history of protecting the interests of big business and the political establishment. As Baltimore and so many other examples show, only a powerful movement capable of forcing the hand of the political establishment and the racist legal system can ensure justice. Structural changes to law enforcement, like the call for locally elected community boards with full powers over the police, must remain a central demand.

Broadening the Struggle

Since the Ferguson uprising 15 months ago, the movement against racism and police violence has transformed the entire national debate and again demonstrated the power of protest. Yet apart from a few partial victories, the system of mass incarceration and structural racism in American remains fully intact. There is a growing dialogue within the movement over a strategy to take the fight forward and, especially in Minneapolis, there is growing recognition of the need to link up the fight against police racism with a wider workers’ rights and racial equity agenda, including the fight for $15.

More than most other cities, Black Lives Matter in Minnesota has closely allied themselves with the wider labor-community coalition that has mobilized hundreds of low-wage workers, most of them Black and Latino, to demand Minneapolis City Council pass a $15/hour minimum wage, paid sick days, fair scheduling, and stronger enforcement against rampant wage theft. Forging these wider alliances and championing class demands that unite low-wage workers of color with the wider workers movement has helped broaden support for Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and for the struggle against police racism here. There are powerful lessons in Minneapolis for both BLM and the labor movement nationally.

In Minneapolis and nationally, Socialist Alternative members have helped lead the 15 Now movement, and our members have been active in the fight against police racism, consistently aiming to build bridges between them. Through this experience, we have made a number of contributions to the ongoing dialogue on crafting a winning strategy to fight police racism and win fundamental change, including articles here and here.

In the days ahead we urge all our supporters in Minnesota to join with Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and other forces in organizing the strongest possible protest movement to ensure #Justice4Jamar. For those outside Minnesota, be alert for solidarity actions and consider making a donation to the BLM Minneapolis legal defense fund.

When we fight, we win!

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/17/minneapolis-police-station-occupied-protests-escalate-racist-shooting/

[socialistalternative]

RACISTS SHOOT BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTESTERS IN MINNEAPOLIS, SPARKING NATIONAL WAVE OF PROTEST

Published On November 25, 2015 | By Ty Moore 

Shock, outrage, and a mass outpouring of solidarity. That is how Minneapolis responded after white supremacists opened fire on Black Lives Matter protesters Monday night, injuring five. Social media immediately exploded with outrage and solidarity. A solidarity march Tuesday afternoon swelled to over over 2,000 as it wound through downtown Minneapolis to City Hall, which was put in lockdown as the march arrived. Hundreds of high school and middle school students walked out, shutting down intersections and protesting outside police stations across the city.

The racist attack occurred near the Black Lives Matter encampment outside the Minneapolis 4th Precinct police station, then in its eighth night following the police murder of Jamar Clark on November 15th. A black man, Jamar Clark was unarmed and in handcuffs when police shot him in the head, according to multiple witnesses. As organizers attempted to escort three masked men away after they refused to identify themselves, the men opened fire on the organizers.

“What happened last night was a planned hate crime and an act of terrorism against activists who have been occupying the Fourth Precinct,” said Miski Noor, spokesperson for Black Lives Matter Minneapolis. Police responding to the incident maced protesters on the scene before attending to the wounded. Several witnesses heard police telling them “this is what you wanted,” despite repeated public warnings by activists that white supremacists were threatening them and infiltrating protests to act as provocateurs. “We reiterate that we have zero faith in the police department’s desire to keep our community safe,” Noor said.

Police arrested three of the suspected gunmen on Tuesday. However, early Wednesday morning an unidentified gunman fired several more shots near the 4th Precinct occupation. While thankfully no one was injured this time, we cannot allow our sisters and brothers in Black Lives Matter to continue being terrorized on a daily basis! If police and white supremacist groups are able to use violence and fear to force a premature end to the #4thPrecinctShutDown, it will only encourage similar attacks on protesters across the country.

The labor movement and the big community organizations need to use their resources to help organize a broad, community-led coalition to defend the 4th Precinct encampment and future protests. Several unions have taken a step in the right direction by organizing a solidarity demonstration last Saturday, and solidarity statements have been issued by both the SEIU State Council and Take Action Minnesota (a large, politically connected non-profit). But as the threats escalate, dramatically stepped up mobilization is required to draw a line in the sand against terror tactics used by racist and bigoted groups.

Solidarity demonstrations with Minneapolis are being organized across the country. Protests also erupted in Chicago on Tuesday, after city officials released a gruesome, long-concealed video of a police officer shooting 17 year old Laquan McDonald as he walked away from police, riddling his body with 16 bullets. The Chicago incident only reinforced calls to #ReleaseTheTapes of police shooting Jamar Clark in Minneapolis.

No Tolerance for Racist Police!

This terrorist attack was the culmination of a week-long campaign of racist intimidation and provocations against peaceful protesters by both police and white supremacist groupings. Racists had already posted videos of themselves visiting the 4th Precinct shut down, filming organizers, and making violent threats against protesters.

The vocal head of the Minneapolis police union, Bob Kroll, has a long-documented history of racist comments and complaints of racist violence. A photo of Kroll wearing a “white power” emblem is widely circulated. The mainstream weekly, City Pages, reported Kroll’s association with “City Heat,” an off-duty law-enforcement motorcycle club whose members are known to proudly display racist symbols, including KKK symbols, alongside their badges. Kroll has been repeatedly accused of violent, racist attacks while on duty. Among other racist comments, Kroll refused to apologize aftercalling Congressman Keith Ellison a terrorist (Ellison is black and the first Muslim elected to Congress).

Kroll has been outspoken in attacking Black Lives Matter protesters, characterizing them as violent. He has repeatedly criticised Minneapolis police chief Harteau for failing to disperse protesters at the #4thPrecinctShutDown, despite a pending federal investigation into the MPD’s use of excessive force in their attempted crackdowns at the 4th Precinct last week. Kroll’s unapologetic racism and verbal attacks on protesters undoubtedly helped whip up the racist online frenzy against Black Lives Matter this past week.

Violent racist attacks like the shooting Monday night are inevitable in this context. They can only be understood as part of the long legacy of police and vigilante terror against black people standing up for their rights, from KKK lynchings to programs like COINTELPRO and state-sponsored assassinations to repress the Civil Rights movement. It is unacceptable that the City of Minneapolis tolerates such open displays of racism among its officers, especially given the well-documented statistics of racial bias in arrests, incarceration, and violence against communities of color.

Our movement needs to demand the termination of Bob Kroll and any other officers associated with hate groups. City Hall’s failure to root out racist police and end the entrenched racial bias in law enforcement practices shows the urgent need for a fully independent, elected community control board with full powers over the Minneapolis Police Department. Movement leaders continue to demand police release the video of Jamar Clark’s murder and prosecute the officers involved.

Racist Backlash

The Black Lives Matter movement has transformed the national debate on police racism, mass incarceration, and widening racial inequalities in wealth, education, health, housing, and almost every other measure. The movement has raised consciousness among millions and forced a major debate in the U.S. political establishment.

At the same time, a right-wing backlash is gaining steam. The backlash is fueled by prominent Republican politicians like Donald Trump who in just the last week openly celebrated the beating of a Black Lives Matter protester by some of his supporters. Trump and others have also been pushing virulently racist ideas against Latino immigrants, including a policy of mass deportations. Most recently, in the wake of the Paris terrorist attack, Trump has echoed a majority of Republican Governors advocating a moratorium on Syrian refugees, and even going so far as to demand Muslims wear special IDs, similar to Nazi Germany’s policy of forcing Jews to display the Star of David!

Despite polls showing a majority of American workers moving leftward in their attitudes on race, gender, and other social issues, at the same time there is a fast-growing space on the far-right of American politics for increasingly fierce and violent hate speech. Politicians are providing political cover for the growth in racist mass shootings, attacks on black churches and mosques, assaults on immigrants, sexual minorities, Planned Parenthood facilities, and more. Corporate-funded Republican politicians have stoked up this bigotry to justify passing voter suppression laws, to terrorize low-wage immigrant workers standing up for their rights, to de-fund of Planned Parenthood and further curtail access to abortion among other things.

The racist attack on Black Lives Matter Minneapolis must be a wake up call. Unless the wider labor and progressive movements are able to build a more generalized fight-back, the right-wing backlash will continue to grow. This situation also underlines the urgency of  building a new political force for the 99% independent of both corporate parties whose representatives refuse corporate donations and who stand unambiguously on the side of working people, people of color, immigrants, women, sexual minorities, and all those targeted by big business and right-wing bigots.

The mass outpouring of solidarity across the country with Minneapolis and Black Lives Matter on Tuesday shows the potential. We are the vast majority. Now let’s turn that majority into a powerful, transformative movement that wipes away the legacy of racism, bigotry, and inequality, and rebuilds our country in the interests of working people.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/25/racists-shoot-black-lives-matter-protesters-minneapolis-sparking-national-wave-protest/

[socialistalternative]

PARIS CLIMATE SUMMIT: SAVE OUR PLANET FROM CAPITALISM!

Published On November 15, 2015 | By George Martin Fell Brown

From November 29 to December 12, world leaders will gather in Paris for the 21st UN Conference on Climate Change, or Conference of the Parties (COP 21). The gathering has the objective of achieving a legally binding and universal agreement on climate policy to replace the expired Kyoto Protocol and, for the first time, to include all nations – in particular the U.S., which never ratified the Kyoto Protocol. But environmental activists are understandably skeptical. Over the past twenty years, international climate talks of this sort have become an empty ritual, allowing world governments to flaunt their environmental credentials without accomplishing any practical results.

In particular, the Paris talks come in the aftermath of the Copenhagen fiasco of 2009. The COP 15 talks in Copenhagen made similar promises to achieve a legally binding treaty. But the talks fell into disarray.  Despite its lofty aims, there’s little to convince most environmentalists that Paris will be anything other than Copenhagen II.

The failure of capitalist leaders everywhere to effectively tackle global warming and other environmental problems is an expression of the underlying contradictions of capitalism. Scientists have warned time and again that urgent action is needed to take on climate change. They have calculated our “atmospheric carbon budget,” how much fossil fuel we can burn and limit the total warming to just two degrees. The calculations indicate that we have roughly 30 years left, at current rates of carbon emissions, to transition to renewables and adapt to the changes already underway.

Growing Struggle

Regardless of the outcome of the Paris talks, we cannot rely on the capitalist world leaders to solve the climate crisis. That task is up to us. The failed climate talks in Kyoto, Copenhagen, and Paris are only one side of the fight against climate change. On the other side are mass movements against the Keystone XL pipeline, against fracking, and against the destruction of indigenous communities by the encroachment of big business. The battle to stop Keystone XL, which has delayed the construction for four years and forced TransCanada to rescind its proposal, shows the effectiveness of mass resistance.

This side of the environmental struggle will also be seen in Paris, just not in the conference itself. Concurrently with the talks, environmental activists from across the world will be gathering in Paris to make their voices heard. Protests across France will kick off the talks, and regular actions will be held, culminating in a mass direct action on December 12. Socialist Alternative’s European sister organizations in the Committee for a Workers International will be actively involved in these protests, putting forward a slogan of “Save our planet from capitalism!”

From soaring temperatures to big agriculture’s farming techniques – stripping the soils of vital nutrients and threatening our ability to feed ourselves – capitalism is driving society back into barbarism. A profit-based economy is not capable of rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels. On the contrary, it’s hell-bent on squeezing every last drop of cheap fuel from the Earth.

The only way forward for humanity, to secure an ecologically balanced future, is to bring the economy into the hands of working people and democratically map out a production plan that begins to slow global warming, dramatically reduce pollution and toxic chemicals, and lessen the intensity by which we interact with the natural world, all while working to raise living standards globally.

Socialist ideas have been gaining in popularity. And among environmental activists, system change is gaining support as the guiding aim of struggle. By building these environmental protests into a sustained and organized mass movement, we can make that change happen. Left in the hands of the capitalist world leaders gathering for COP 21, the prospects are far gloomier.

[socialistalternative]

VIDEO: KSHAMA SAWANT ELECTION NIGHT SPEECH

Published On November 9, 2015 | By Jess Spear

After campaigning against an onslaught of corporate cash (over $200,000 donated directly to a corporate candidate or to Independent Expenditures or PACs), on November 3, 2015 Socialist Alternative Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant was re-elected. Below  is a video and transcript of her speech to supporters after the results were announced. 

Sisters, brothers, comrades,

I was going to ask how everyone is feeling, but I think I have an idea.

Let’s keep in mind this is the first ballot drop. We fully expect our numbers to go up every single day.

In November 2013, the Seattle Times, in its endless wisdom, said about me, “she alienates others with bold assertions.” The same article went on to say, “I kind of love it when political outsiders think they can sweep in overnight and change the status quo. 

The verdict is still on whether Kshama Sawant can follow through with her own campaign pledges.”The verdict is in. It was precisely our audacity to challenge big business that attracted working people to our first campaign for city council. Working people are fed up with corporate politics. Now, not only have we fulfilled our pledges from 2013 we have accomplished something historic. We have had an open socialist reelected.

This victory, this vote, is a strong victory for all working class people, for the socialist movement, and for independent working class politics. It’s a sharp reminder that the arrogant political establishment that runs Seattle is increasingly out of touch with the deep anger and frustration of so many working class and middle class Seattleites who are struggling to get by in an increasingly unaffordable city. The complacent media pundits were wrong. Socialist politics are here to stay, and will be a growing force in Seattle, nationally, and internationally.

My sisters and brothers, these conditions are not unique to Seattle. There is a huge chasm of economic, wealth, and racial inequality opening throughout the nation.

Most of us have had six years of a joyless so called recovery. The political establishment is totally discredited and we have a dysfunctional and broken two party system that is drowning in corporate cash. In the face of all this opposition we won the fight for 15 in Seattle and now we’ve become a national movement. When we were elected first in 2013 it was considered a fluke, but now we have won despite all the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent against us.

But it’s not just in Seattle. Nationally Bernie Sanders campaign has electrified the working class around the nation. And our reelection victory along with the huge enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders opens a new chapter for the American socialist movement, a movement that consistently champions the interests of the working class and all those oppressed by capitalism–starting with fighting for immediate improvements in living standards such as 15 dollars, taxing the rich, affordable housing, a dramatic expansion of public transit and human services, and a renewable energy revolution. All of this as part of a fundamental democratic and socialist reorganization of society on rational lines to meet needs human need, rather than what we have today which is a subordination of social needs to the demands of private profit.

The coming battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will clarify to tens of thousands that the Democratic Party is not a tool that can be used to fight for the interests of the working class. While many genuine social justice minded people identify as Democrats, the party is largely dominated by a pro-capitalist establishment. Working people and the left need our own political party that is one hundred percent on our side, for the millions, not the millionaires.

Socialist Alternative and I will support every step that will bring about such a project as a broad based independent working class party. I appeal to you tonight first and foremost, if you agree with us, if you think that this was an historic f**king campaign then join Socialist Alternative. There has never been a better time to become a socialist and to join Socialist Alternative. Together we can build a new socialist party across the country of thousands of socialist activists.

We have shown how working people can stand up to the billionaire class and their establishment and we have shown how we can win. Let the number one message from this reelection be unambiguous: we can and must rely on 100 percent on our own strength as working people instead trying to serve the interests of workers and big business at the same time because you can’t do that. By organizing powerful grassroots movements that can mobilize support for far reaching demands that inspire workers and the youth to take action, we have changed and we will continue to change the balance of power between the ruling elite and the 99%.

We have shattered the myth that there is nothing progressive candidates can do against the avalanche of corporate money. We have shown that it is entirely possible, if there is the political will, to refuse donations from big corporations and instead base ourselves on the support of working people and win. That is why we have won, and successfully I might add, not just independent of corporate cash but also independent of the two political parties that represent that corporate cash.

Here in Seattle, as in most urban areas across this country, the political party of big business is the Democratic party. We ran an independent working class campaign meaning independent of the Democratic party, and we showed not only is it possible, but we demonstrated that it is absolutely the only way that we can build the power and strength of working people in the political arena.

I know people will be looking at the other races. I want to take the example of the race between Tim Burgess and Jon grant. Does anybody here think that Tim Burgess won tonight because he has great ideas to represent the working class? Tim Burgess is not [invincible], corporate politicians like him are not [invincible], but the reason they won and the reason they win is because they have corporate PAC money. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from investment bankers, from the real estate industry, from every anti-union business in town. So what’s the lesson here?

The lesson is that the days of corporate politicians like Burgess are numbered. The lesson is that the labor movement needs to unite around progressive independent candidates. We won because we have a very strong organization which has been the backbone of our campaign.

We have succeeded in uniting socialists, democrats, environmentalists, the LGBTQ community, the black community, Black Lives Matter activists, and other community activists around this campaign. Let’s make inauguration day in early January. Let’s make that a major rally in city hall. Let’s put the corporate politicians in city hall on notice. We are demanding a strong bill of rights for tenants including rent control, a billion dollars in public bonds to build thousands of units in affordable housing. How does 12 weeks paid parental leave for all workers sound to you? And a world class mass transit system paid for by a millionaires’ tax. Let’s put the corporate politicians on notice by declaring that black lives matter and that we will put an end to police brutality and racism, that we will build our movement to build democratically elected civilians oversight boards with full oversight power over the SPD. There’s another date you all should remember. On November 14 at 7:00 at the Labor Temple we are going to have a rally for socialism. I hope everybody got a leaflet tonight. If you’re excited by tonight your task is by no means over, it’s just beginning. Then on February 27 we will have a conference hosted by Socialist Alternative on building a movement against the billionaire class.

Sisters and brothers, we have so much to look forward to but we have already won so much just by having on socialist in city hall. In the coming years we need to seriously build on this. We need to elect more socialists in city hall and nationwide, along with independent working class representatives. The future is on our side. Let’s seize the time. Get organized. Join us. Solidarity.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/09/video-kshama-sawant-election-night-speech/

[socialistalternative]

THE CHANGE SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE IS FIGHTING FOR

Published On November 11, 2015 | By Kshama Sawant

Sanders’ Socialist Message Resonates

A specter is haunting the US presidential election – the specter of socialism. Before he even opened up his mouth to speak at the first Democratic Party presidential debate on October 13, Bernie Sanders’ impact on the presidential race was clear.

The debate marked another step forward in the re-emergence of socialist ideas as a legitimate force in US politics. Google reported that Sanders was the most searched candidate online throughout the debate. Merriam Webster reported a spike in searches for “socialism”.

The most important thing about the Sanders campaign is the enthusiasm it is building for the idea of a political revolution against the billionaire class and the popularizing of socialism. We in Socialist Alternative have argued that Sanders needs to draw as sharp a contrast as possible with Hillary Clinton who is now pretending to be a progressive and trying to hide her long history of service to corporate interests.

The Democratic Party is tied by a thousands threads to the billionaire class. It is increasingly urgent to take steps through and around Sanders’ campaign to create a new political force that will serve the interests of the 99% and therefore must be independent of the Democrats.

The article below by Kshama Sawant, Seattle’s newly re-elected socialist city councilmember, is a contribution to the necessary discussion of how we achieve democratic socialist change.

We want to live in a society where ordinary people have full control over the key decisions that affect their lives. A society based on social justice where discrimination based on gender and race has been relegated to the history books. A society based on full employment where all workers receive a living wage; with high quality and free healthcare for everyone; free education from kindergarten to college; decent pensions and good housing accessible for all. A society where communities are based on solidarity and cooperation rather than plagued with fear and alienation. A society where we have ended the threat of climate catastrophe by rebuilding our infrastructure on a green basis and agreed to leave the remaining fossil fuels permanently in the ground. These democratic socialist changes are both necessary and achievable.

Capitalism Has Failed the 99%

However, as Bernie Sanders points out, we currently live in a society dominated by the oligarchy of the super-rich. Income inequality and exploitation are driving millions into desperation and bitterness. That’s why his call for a “political revolution” against the billionaire class has had such an electric effect on hundreds of thousands of young and working people.

At the first Democratic presidential debate, Sanders declared: “what democratic socialism is about is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of 1 percent in this country…own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.” Sanders is giving voice to the enormous desire for change after a decade of economic crisis where millions lost their jobs and homes and the “recovery” has overwhelmingly benefited the 1%. There is deep anger because the political process is completely dominated by corporate interests; cuts to social programs and attacks on the rights of workers are endless; structural racism and sexism remain entrenched; and because no decisive measures are being taken to address global warming.

Underlying all of this is a diseased and decaying social system. But how does one take on the “casino capitalist” process, as Sanders describes it? And how does one create a society where all people do well, not just a handful of billionaires?

Socialism Goes Mainstream

Poll after poll show that people under 30 support “socialism” and “capitalism” in roughly equal numbers. The increased acceptance of socialism is the product of the unmasking of capitalism over the past eight years, during and after the “great recession”, and the new wave of social struggle that has broken out nationally and internationally. From the Wisconsin uprising in 2011, to Occupy, to the Fight for $15 to Black Lives Matter, we have seen working people, young people and people of color standing up against the rule of the 1%. Sanders has correctly stressed the role of mass movements in changing society.

In the wake of my election in 2013 as Seattle’s first socialist city councilmember in 100 years, we built a grassroots campaign with union support and won a citywide $15/hr minimum wage, the first in the country and the biggest victory for working people in a very long time. This helped inspire activists in other cities, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, to fight and win $15. We are currently leading the fight for rent control and affordable housing in Seattle which also has major national significance.

The social power of working people is the key force that can galvanize all the strands of struggle and can push back decisively against the corporate agenda and in favor of the needs of ordinary people.

But social struggle needs to be combined with building a new political force for the 99%. Bernie Sanders’ campaign, which raised $28 million in the past three months and has refused corporate donations, shows the potential for independent working class politics. This is ultimately incompatible with the framework of the Democratic Party which is dominated by corporate money and a neo-liberal apparatus. We need an independent mass party of and for working class people to fight for their own interests here and now, linking it to a socialist transformation of society.

Breaking the Stranglehold of Wall Street

A government acting in the interests of the 99% would, as Sanders has advocated, enact progressive taxation to create a massive jobs program, rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure on green lines.

But even to carry through these basic measures means completely breaking the stranglehold of Wall Street and the biggest corporations over society. This requires more than breaking up the big banks or restoring the Glass-Steagall Act, although such measures would certainly be positive steps. It would entail bringing the big banks into public ownership, along with the big energy companies and other key parts of the economy. Why is this necessary? Consider that around 90 companies are responsible for around two thirds of carbon emission in human history. They have wielded an effective veto on any serious attempt to end global warming.

Of course entrenched corporate interests will resist the fundamental change that is necessary and they have massive resources. This is why working people need to rebuild a fighting labor movement which stands in solidarity with all those oppressed under this system. We need a powerful mass movement in the streets, workplaces and campuses with an independent political voice in the halls of power.

And for such a movement to succeed it must be linked to the movements of working people and young people across the world. Capitalism is a global system in decline. This is expressed not just in the climate crisis but in the collapse of societies across the Middle East and North Africa after decades of imperialist intervention, leading to the biggest wave of refugees ever seen in history.

Global crisis must be faced through global solidarity. Creating a viable socialist future for the people of the planet based on the utmost democratic participation of ordinary people is the paramount challenge of our era. Join the socialists, build Socialist Alternative.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/11/change-socialist-alternative-fighting/

[socialistalternative]

FRANCE: HORROR IN PARIS

Published On November 14, 2015 | By Gauche Revolutionnaire (CWI in France)

We will not be intimidated !

Statement from Gauche Révolutionnaire (sister party of Socialist Alternative in France)

Sickening violence has struck Paris once more. Over 120 dead and dozens of injured in places where workers and young people gather at the end of the week (Stade de France, Bataclan music venue, various bars in the 10th and 11th districts). These barbarians had their minds set on indiscriminate mass murder, striking innocent people once again. These were working class districts of Paris, with their diverse populations, which sufferedin this tragedy.

Nothing can justify these mindless attacks which took place on the same Friday in Paris, Bagdad and Nigeria, nor the attacks on a Beirut market on 12th November, nor in Ankara on 10th October, nor in Tunisia. We grieve today for our brothers and sisters, workers, young people, jobless, single parents, pensioners, irrespective of their background or heritage.

Cowardice exemplified

We condemn these attacks and the blind cowardice behind them. To execute defenceless people in cold blood reveals a far right ideology, whatever the supposedly religious or other excuses offered. Incapable of winning support among any section of the population, and certainly not among Muslims, the terrorists of ISIS, who have claimed responsibility for these attacks, use methods which are exactly the same as fascist groups, state dictatorships, and armies of occupation. Terror is a political weapon which aims at preventing workers from uniting, at imposing passivity through fear, at strengthening racism : we will not be intimidated, we will not be divided.

Unity of workers and youth against racism and barbarism

ISIS’ reliance on indiscriminate terror reveals the true nature of this organisation, which is nothing more than a gang of looters and traffickers. ISIS is merely the product of the chaos into which Iraq has been plunged following the destructive wars waged by European governments and in its methods it replicates the indiscriminate bombing raids on Syria and Iraq under cover of the ‘war on terror’.

In striking indiscriminately at working class districts of Paris ISIS plays an arch-reactionary role since it will be Muslims who may end up paying a high price through a renewed wave of Islamophobia, intolerance and racism. Moreover everything will be put in place to justify repression of action by workers and young people, starting with the imposition of a ‘state of emergency’ under which trade union demonstrations can be banned.

Not our war

Politicians, from the Front National to the PS (Socialist Party), are all united in their talk of ‘war’. A war they created and for which the people are paying the price today. But this is not our war. This government of ours continues to support the regime of the President of Turkey Erdogan. This is the same Erdogan who has for years been aiding ISIS, by allowing the terrorists and their contraband to cross the frontier, while keeping it firmly closed to the people of Kobane, a Kurdish town in the north of Syria which resisted and defeated ISIS last January. This same Erdogan bombs towns in Turkish Kurdistan, yet it is the Kurds who have just freed the Iraqi town of Sinjar from ISIS occupation.

It is the governments of Europe who sustain the regimes in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and sell arms to them, at the same time as these countries support ISIS and engage in mass killings in Yemen.

No to the religious or political far right

The position of the Hollande government, with the support of the FN and the Republicans, is to block any mass solidarity movement. The consequence of the ‘state of emergency’ will be to prevent any solidarity demonstrations such as those which took place in January after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. Similarly, various current disputes, such as the strikes against redundancies in Paris hospitals or at Air France will certainly be banned. The state of emergency provides for ’the banning in general or in particular cases of meetings likely to be provocative or lead to public disorder’ and ‘enables those same public authorities to take any measures necessary to ensure the control of the press and all publications’. We must not accept these limitations on our rights and our activities since only the capitalists – the bosses of large corporations, share-holders – and the politicians who act in their interests will benefit, without creating any obstacle for terrorist groups.

It’s essential that the organisations of the workers’ movement, trade unions, parties, campaign groups, unite and declare their opposition to war and to the murderous policies of capitalism and its wars for oil and profits.

The genuine poverty in which whole sections of the population are plunged can only lead to despair and confusion which plays into the hands of the reactionaries and those who would divide us. The policies pursued in the Middle East and Africa can only promote further chaos. The consequences will be terrible for ordinary workers who will pay the price while politicians use the situation to provide further justification for their wars. In those countries terrorist groups, whose only motivation is pillage and contraband, reap generalised despair and use it to send out suicide bombers while the leaders live in palaces. More war will only bring more terrorism !

How much longer are we going to pay for a system which wages military, economic and social war a majority of the population of the planet to create profits for a handful who are safe and comfortable ?

And we are expected to suffer the worst terror, death, mistrust and fear. Enough ! We won’t let the racists, the far right like the FN and reactionaries win !

We will not be intimidated and divided, we will continue to fight for a tolerant and co-operative society, freed from capitalism and exploitation, for a democratic socialist society.

This will be a massive struggle with workers and youth united, whatever their nationality, skin colour, religion or none, a struggle for a decent life for all to take society forward and eliminate the filth of economic and social poverty in which religious and political reaction can thrive.

We are saddened and pained by the destruction of so many innocent lives. But we draw from these events all the more anger and determination to tolerate this inhuman system and the chaos it creates no longer.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/14/france-horror-paris/

[socialistalternative]

TPP SPELLS ATTACKS ON WORKERS AND CLIMATE RUIN

Published On November 14, 2015 | By Daniel Kroop

Trade ministers representing twelve nations reached an agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on October 5, advancing to the final stages a deal that, if passed, will deepen inequality and climate change while boosting the power of multinational corporations over working people.

The deal will come up for final approval in Congress in the next few months. Congress voted in July to give TPP “fast-track” authority, meaning that no amendments will be allowed on the massive, 30-chapter trade deal.

TPP: How Bad Is It?

The TPP, which has been a bipartisan project, represents the extent to which the leaderships of both major parties are beholden to the interests of their corporate and Wall Street donors. As Americans remember, promises of growth from trade agreements often fall short – NAFTA, for example, was a boon for corporate interests but a catastrophe for working people, with millions displaced, massive job losses, escalating privatizations, and shredded environmental protections.

President Obama has promoted the TPP as “the most progressive trade bill in history” by inking into the document basic principles recognized by the International Labor Organization such as freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, and abolition of child labor.

The reality is that the U.S. systematically fails to monitor and enforce compliance with the labor provisions included in existing trade deals. As Dan DiMaggio describes in a recent Labor Notes article, Guatemalan unions, together with the AFL-CIO, have been waiting for seven years for their Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) case to be heard by the Department of Labor. In the meantime, 72 Guatemalan unionists have been murdered, and union density in Guatemala sits at just 2 percent. The rosy promises of justice have fallen flat when “employers often ignore court orders, and the government stands by.”

But, as we have said before, the TPP will be even worse. The big corporations and multinationals will benefit, while average workers are decimated. Reports about the final text of the TPP raise questions about food safety, Internet freedom, financial stability, and affordable access to life-saving medicines.

For example, Big Pharma will be able to withhold data required to produce generic drugs for at least five years, with no maximum across countries. This will lengthen pharmaceutical monopolies and decrease access to drugs that treat cancer, HIV/AIDS, and more.

Corporate Greed Over What People Need

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been consistently opposed to the TPP, calling the agreement “Part of a global race to the bottom to boost the profits of large corporations” (12/29/2014). Sanders has attacked the TPP’s special “corporate tribunals,” which give corporations the ability to sue nations for lost profits due to laws or regulations.

Fossil fuel companies could use the corporate tribunals to their advantage by ensuring that efforts to cut carbon are tied up in private courts. 350.org’s Karthik Ganapathy called TPP a “disaster for climate change” (ThinkProgress, 10/05/15).

While American unions should be commended for rallying some opposition to the TPP, it was not enough to stop fast-track authority from passing. To halt TPP will take a full mobilization of union membership, including through workplace action.

Nationally, over 2,000 unions and progressive organizations “who spanned the base of the Democratic Party,” according to The Guardian, oppose the legislation. Yet the corporate leadership of the Democratic Party was able to ignore this opposition because there was no real threat that they could be challenged by left-wing independent candidates at the ballot. This must change.

In October, over 250,000 people turned out in Berlin for a rally against a parallel European-American free trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). If trade unions, socialists, environmental activists, and anti-globalization groups unite in a mass movement, it is still possible to defeat the TPP.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/14/tpp-spells-attacks-workers-climate-ruin/

[socialistalternative]

US PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: REVOLT AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT

Published On November 3, 2015 | By Tom Crean

Originally published in Socialism Today, Issue 193 (November 2015), the political journal of the Socialist Party of England and Wales (sister party of Socialist Alternative).

The 2016 US presidential campaign is now in full swing and its key lesson so far is that, despite the avalanche of money from the super-rich, the huge anger of working people and big sections of the middle class at the establishment is finding expression. In the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders – a self-declared democratic socialist whose call for a “political revolution” against the billionaire class has excited hundreds of thousands – is building a serious challenge to Hillary Clinton. Only a few months ago, the media portrayed Clinton as a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination. More ominously, Donald Trump, notorious for his call to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US, has been leading the polls on the Republican side for months. His right populist appeal has created an enormous headache for the party’s elders.

New Era of Struggle

These developments are the political reflection of the deep crisis of the capitalist system beginning in 2007-8 which led to savage attacks by the ruling class against the public sector and workers’ rights. This was followed by an economic recovery which has overwhelmingly benefited the rich. The latest data from the US Census Bureau shows that median household income in the US was 6.5% lower in 2014 than in 2007. The jobs being created are overwhelmingly low paid and working conditions are worsening.

Since 2011, we have seen growing resistance, beginning that year with the uprising of workers and youth in Wisconsin against the state’s newly elected right wing Governor Scott Walker who set out to destroy public sector unions. A few months later the Occupy movement exploded on the national scene, raising the banner of the 99% and putting the question of inequality firmly on the agenda. Since the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri just over a year ago, tens of thousands of black youth have taken the road of struggle. And the fast food workers’ actions for “$15 and a union” have led to a movement to raise the minimum wage at local level which first succeeded in Seattle in 2014 after the election of Socialist Alternative’s Kshama Sawant to the city council.

Citizens United

But in terms of national politics it is the domination by corporate interests – through an army of lobbyists and massive campaign donations as well as the never-ending dysfunction in Congress – which has provoked the most outrage. In 2010, the US Supreme Court effectively ruled in the Citizens United case that there could be no restrictions placed on corporate spending in federal elections. Since then there has indeed been a flood of money from the super-rich, particularly into so-called “Super PACs” that pay for ads on behalf of candidates while nominally being “independent” of their campaigns.

As the New York Times recently reported (10/11/15), in this election cycle, a mere 158 families have contributed an incredible $176 million, fully half of the total raised to support all the candidates so far. The bulk of the money from the 158 families is going to Republican candidates. Most of these donors have made their fortunes in finance or the energy sector and are primarily focused on removing any regulation or taxation affecting their profits.

The same article points out though that the overwhelmingly right wing views of the 158 families are not in sync with those of ordinary people: “Two thirds of Americans support higher taxes on those earning $1 million or more a year…while six in 10 favor more government intervention to reduce the gap between rich and poor…nearly seven in 10 favor preserving Social Security and Medicare as they are.”

Many liberal commentators have said that there is no way to resist the deluge of corporate cash unleashed in the wake of Citizens United. This type of fatalism is usually connected to the idea that progressive workers and youth have no choice but to support the “lesser evil” corporate-approved alternative.

But Bernie Sanders’ recent fundraising shows this fatalism is false. Uniquely among the presidential candidates in the two main parties, Sanders has refused to take money from big business. Nevertheless in the three months from July to September, his campaign raised $26 million, almost as much as Hillary Clinton’s, and he has almost as much cash in hand as she does. His campaign has 650,000 donors, typically giving $30 each. Besides showing how Sanders’ campaign has tapped into mass anger at the ruling elite, this is also an indication of the potential to mobilize resources for independent working class politics in the US in the next period.

Sanders’ Historic Campaign

Sanders’ campaign is part of an international trend, including the rise of Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain and Jeremy Corbyn’s dramatic ascendancy to the leadership of the British Labour Party. In all these cases, sections of the working class and youth have been looking for a way to push back against austerity, neo-liberalism and to break up the established political order. Like Corbyn, Sanders’ campaign has also led to a surge of interest in socialism.

At the first Democratic debate on October 13, watched by a record audience of 15 million, Sanders was questioned about calling himself a socialist and he responded that, “democratic socialism is about saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of 1 percent in this country…own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.”

When he was then asked jokingly if he was a capitalist, Sanders retorted: “Do I consider myself part of the casino capitalist process by which so few have so much and so many have so little, by which Wall Street’s greed and recklessness wrecked this economy? No, I don’t. I believe in a society where all people do well. Not just a handful of billionaires.”

The website Vox.com reported that Sanders’ debate contributions led to a spike in searches for the word “socialism” on the online Merriam-Webster dictionary. This comes on top of a series of polls in recent years showing vastly increased support for socialism as a broad concept, especially among people under 30.

Key aspects of Sanders’ program have wide appeal including his support for a $15 federal minimum wage; free tuition for all public colleges and universities; breaking up the big banks; ending the policies which have led to the mass incarceration of black youth; and opposing corporate approved trade deals like the recently unveiled Trans Pacific Partnership between the US and 11 other countries on the Pacific Rim.

Key Contradiction

Socialist Alternative has welcomed Sanders’ candidacy because it is contributing to the radicalization of millions of people. Unlike some on the left we have chosen to actively engage Sanders’ supporters rather than stand on the sidelines because Sanders is running in the Democratic primaries. When Sanders was considering whether to run, we urged that he should do so as an independent with the goal of using his campaign to help lay the basis for a new party of the left. One can debate whether Sanders would have created the same level of enthusiasm as an independent left candidate but he could definitely have reached millions on a clearer basis and created a political instrument for working people that would have lasted well beyond his campaign.

But since he made the decision to run in the Democratic primaries, we have urged him to continue his campaign as an independent even if he loses the primaries and certainly not to support the party’s eventual Wall Street-backed nominee. Sanders has said previously that if Clinton wins the Democratic nomination he would support her. This would be a serious mistake.

We have consistently stressed the campaign’s central contradiction, namely that it is trying to challenge the corporate domination of politics while accepting the framework of the thoroughly corporate-dominated Democratic Party. We have also explained our disagreements with Sanders on a number of issues, particularly on foreign policy.

Sanders has declared that he wants to avoid a “negative” campaign. In one sense this is understandable given the vicious slanders that many US politicians like to engage in rather than discussing real issues, but how can Sanders’ campaign defeat determined and ruthless establishment foes like Clinton unless they bring the fight to them?

It is clear that the more Sanders’ campaign looks like a real electoral threat, the more the corporate elite with its huge resources, including the vast array of media outlets they control, will go on the attack. In fact this has already begun with vicious attacks on Sanders in the likes of the New York Times in the wake of the debate.

A Real Political Revolution

The central question for us though is not Sanders himself but how the process evolves and particularly what conclusions his legion of supporters draw from this experience. And the key question Socialist Alternative members have been raising at local People for Bernie meetings and mass rallies is: how will we actually achieve the bold progressive demands that have galvanized people into action? Or to put it another way: what does a real political revolution against the billionaires look like?

First of all, it is necessary to build a mass movement against inequality, poverty and racism in workplaces, communities, campuses and on the streets centered on the social power of the working class. Sanders himself has called for mass action including a million student march in Washington for free college education. This would be an excellent start.

But what is also critical is to begin now to build a new political force, independent of all corporate influence, that really represents the interests of the 99%. This is not compatible with remaining in the framework of the Democratic Party. Many of Sanders’ supporters have become understandably excited about the possibility of him winning the Democratic nomination which, despite his increased poll numbers, we think remains remote.

However, as we have pointed out, even if his campaign were to overcome all the obstacles in the primaries intended to weed out radical challengers without making fundamental compromises, the apparatus and the bulk of the elected Democratic Party officials would work overtime to undermine him in the general election. A Sanders presidency is simply not acceptable to any section of the ruling class, not so much because Sanders’ politics represents a fundamental threat to their system but because of the aspirations and expectations such a development would trigger among huge sections of working people.

Many of Sanders’ supporters agree with us – despite their enthusiasm for him standing in the primaries – that the Democratic Party cannot ultimately be used as the vehicle to win such a radical program. We are highlighting these points precisely in order to help organize and move the broadest possible section of the hundreds of thousands inspired by his campaign beyond the framework of the Democrats.

The discussion about the way forward will heat up as the primary votes approach, first in Iowa and New Hampshire next February, and will sharpen if Sanders wins one of these contests on the road to “super Tuesday” in March when a large number of states hold their primaries.

The Danger of Right Populism

The importance of Sanders’ campaign should not however blind us to the real danger of right populism which has also asserted itself in the early stages of this election cycle. Besides Trump, the billionaire real estate developer, Ben Carson, a black neurosurgeon, has also received significant support, particularly from Christian conservatives, by arguing, for example, that a Muslim should not be allowed to become president of the US.

But Trump remains the key expression of this phenomenon. Much of the liberal left has spent its time deriding Trump as a buffoon. While this may be an entertaining Facebook pastime, it does not help us to understand the appeal he has for a section of the white middle class and working class. One element of this appeal is that Trump has repeatedly pointed out how politicians are bought by the “donor class” including himself. When asked at the first Republican debate about his donations to Democrats, he replied: “You better believe it… I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people. Before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me. And that’s a broken system.”

Trump offers himself as a billionaire financing his own campaign who can’t be bought by special interests; he’s his own special interest. But at a deeper level he and other right populists tap into the deep uncertainty created by the economic crisis and cultural and demographic change. Besides appealing explicitly to anti-immigrant sentiment which is again on the rise among sections of the population after receding for a period, he also talks about restoring the dominance of the US globally and “making America great again”.

Despite Trump and Carson’s current strength in the polls, the most likely scenario is that the ridiculously large Republican field of candidates will start to thin significantly after the first couple primaries and the establishment will rally around an “anti-Trump” candidate.

But even if Trump finally fades, in the absence of a fighting labor movement or a strong organized left, the space for right populism can grow, reinforcing divisions within the working class. This shows the urgency of using the current opening, created by mass disgust with the establishment and broad sympathy with left demands, to make a breakthrough for independent working class politics.

What Will A New Party Look Like?

Of course seizing this opportunity is not straightforward and raises many complex questions. The two capitalist parties maintain a virtual monopoly at national level and the organized left is very weak on the ground. Lesser evilist arguments continue to have a major effect on large sections of progressive workers, youth, women and LGBTQ people especially in national elections. This is because of the overt hostility of the Republicans to the rights of workers, women and other oppressed sections of society and the current lack of a viable alternative. But this dynamic is much less evident at local level where many large and medium sized cities are virtual one party states, usually dominated by the Democrats.

When Socialist Alternative member Kshama Sawant was elected to the Seattle City Council with over 95,000 votes in November 2013 in a citywide race, the local media soon began to refer to SA as Seattle’s “second party”. Given the almost complete absence of an organized Republican Party in Seattle this was essentially accurate. Over the course of the past two years, Sawant and Socialist Alternative have had a dramatic effect on Seattle’s politics helping to force a clear shift to the left and creating a model of what could be accomplished in other cities in the next period and then extended to Congressional races.

One of the challenges in trying to make the case for a new political party of the 99% to a wider audience is to explain what such a party would look like given the lack of any recent models in the US. We stress that it must be a party of struggle rooted in workplaces and communities, linking the movements in the streets to the fight against both corporate parties in city councils and Congress. Such a party must also have a genuinely democratic internal life and accountable structures so that the lessons of struggles and political campaigns can be fully assimilated and thereby strengthen the party’s roots in the broader working class.

The Seattle Model

This is the type of politics we set out to develop in Seattle. Kshama’s 2013 campaign focused on the call for a $15/hour minimum wage, based on the impact of the national days of action by fast food workers, and our victory helped to take this question to a new level. Through building a grassroots campaign, 15Now, in Seattle with the support of key unions, Socialist Alternative and Kshama played a leading role in achieving the first local $15 minimum wage in the country in 2014, which led to further breakthroughs in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Now Kshama and Socialist Alternative are fighting to win rent control in Seattle and to push back against the profit lust of the developers and their allies in the political establishment. This battle too has important national repercussions, as working people in city after city face rapid rent increases and destructive gentrification. The victory on the minimum wage and the fight around other social issues is also helping to spur the Seattle labor movement into greater activity, as evidenced by the recent five day teachers’ strike. This shows how developments on the political plane can help to spur social struggle and working class activity.

While national attention increasingly focuses on the presidential race, the key immediate battle for the US left is re-electing Kshama Sawant. Kshama’s campaign has raised nearly $500,000 (like Bernie Sanders overwhelmingly from small donations) which would have been previously thought impossible for a socialist in a local race. This type of fundraising is necessary because equally large amounts of corporate money are flowing into the campaign of our opponent. The ruling elite also sees the importance and, for them, the danger of the model of left politics that is developing in Seattle.

But Kshama’s reelection is also essential because it will give US socialists a platform to intervene in the key national developments that will unfold in 2016 when we could see significant steps towards establishing a new left political force especially as a huge debate unfolds within and around Sanders’ campaign about the way forward to achieve real change for working people.

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/11/03/presidential-campaign-revolt-establishment/

[socialistalternative]

New issue of Socialist Alternative out now!

http://www.socialistalternative.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Socialist-Alternative-Newspaper-Issue-18.pdf