Memphis Socialist Party

Racism and Privilege Teach In

2011-11-27T01:47:00.002-06:00

Occupy Memphis is still going strong! Caucuses meet periodically (often weekly) and are generally a place where marginalized groups of people can have their voices heard while eliciting direct action not only within Occupy, but throughout Memphis. The Diversity Caucus has organized a teach in on Privilege and Racism scheduled for Tuesday, November 29 7:00 P.M. at the AFCME Local 1733 building at 485 Beale St. Speakers will discuss white privilege, and racism in its structural, institutional, and interpersonal dimensions. They will also address the impact of the history of privilege and racism on our modern-day interactions and society. Following the speakers and a q-and-a, a panel will share their personal experiences of racism. Other Occupy Memphis caucuses include the African-American Caucus, Women's Caucus, Anti-Capitalist Caucus, Homelessness Caucus, and Atheist/Agnostic Caucus. For meeting times, please refer to occupymemphis.org

Occupy Memphis Anncounces Solidarity Rally

2011-11-15T11:23:00.005-06:00

In solidarity with those violently evicted from the Occupy Wall Street encampment this morning, Occupy Memphis will hold a rally this evening (11/15) from 5pm-8pm at Civic Center Plaza. The following statement is taken from Occupy Memphis' website:

"In light of the overnight police raid on Occupy Wall Street, the 99% of Memphis is coming together today in solidarity to show support.

We, the Occupy Memphis General Assembly, are repulsed by the direct infringement on First Amendment rights granted to the American people by the Constitution. We are disgusted with the repressive tactics used by the New York City Police Department. Citizens were assaulted and arrested for practicing their rights. Journalists were blocked by police. Personal property valued at thousands of dollars has been destroyed.

Occupy Memphis will have a rally today at 5 p.m. in Civic Center Plaza to express our anger and disgust with these actions from law enforcement in an effort to stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. While the City of Memphis has stated publicly the right for protesters to assemble as long as they are peaceful, other cities are not as fortunate.

Following our rally at 6 p.m., we will march to the Civil Rights Museum as a tribute to preceding generations who have fought for our rights; the same rights which have been ignored. While we understand the need for peace and safety, it is unlawful to suppress the voice and assembly of citizens who strive for political and social change.

“We need to speak out for people who tried to be silenced,” said Becky Muehling, one of the protesters with Occupy Memphis. “We need to band together, so that we can show the people trying to suppress our free speech: we will fight.”

“We cannot sit idly by as the livelihood and culture of our country is being trashed,” said Tristan Tran, another occupier who watched the Occupy Wall Street raid live online.

If you believe that the First Amendment rights of freedom of assembly, press, and speech exist always and not just between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., stand with us.

If you feel that your voice as a citizen has been suppressed by the power of lobbyists and self-serving politicians, speak out with us.

We invite the communities and city of Memphis to occupy this public space; to voice the issues which affect us; and together create solutions for a better society.

We the people shall speak for ourselves."

23 Days In, Occupy Memphis Holds Its Ground

2011-11-08T18:24:00.002-06:00

On October 15th, Occupy Memphis setup camp in Civic Center Plaza. Occupiers quickly organized a library, a kitchen, supply tents, and sleeping quarters. Members of Occupy Memphis have since organized caucuses to make the local movement more inclusive of diversity as well as committees to handle logistics, sanitation, legal, and other issues facing the local occupation. Occupy Memphis holds General Assembly meetings three times a week. To get involved, visit Occupy Memphis' website: http://occupymemphis.org

Support Striking Verizon Employees!

2011-08-07T15:13:00.003-05:00

At midnight last night Verizon employees with the Communications Workers of America (CWA)and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)went on strike. The unions are in contract negotiations and at the 11th hour Verizon has refused to back off over 100 concessionary items. Find out more about the issues and how you can support the strike here.

AFSCME Local 1733 & Other Public Unions Sue the City

2011-07-13T15:44:00.001-05:00

The Memphis SP stands in solidarity with the public workers facing pay cuts and layoffs months after their contracts had been negotiated with the city "in good faith" and agreed upon. Read more about the lawsuit and the privatization issue at Tennessee Labor Coverage.

NO to Privatization! Jobs and Justice NOW!

2011-06-06T23:39:00.000-05:00

TOMORROW AT 9:00AM! Stand with the workers of AFSCME 1733 as they face the threat of privatization--this is about jobs, dignity, human rights and the local that Dr. King came to Memphis and died for in 1968. There will be a picket beginning at 9:00am at City Hall, 125 N. Main.

TOMORROW AT 3:00PM! Rally to stop our city council from privatizing sanitation, slashing jobs and hours, and repealing the living wage ordinance.

TOMORROW AT 3:30PM! Tell the city council what your priorities are, and that it is inexcusable to make workers and the poor pay for the crises of capitalism!

Memphis SP Statement on Obama's Commencement Address at BTW High

2011-05-16T12:01:00.003-05:00

While Memphians celebrate the victory of Booker T. Washington High School in President Obama’s 2011 Race to the Top Commencement Challenge, a critical analysis of the President’s educational policies has been absent from public discussion, despite the fact that schools like BTW could eventually fall victim to the administration’s tacit goal of mass privatization through the President’s market-based “reform” agenda.

Although President Obama’s administration does not use the anti-public education rhetoric of the hard right, he is clear about his ideological alignment with Bush’s No Child Left Behind program. Moreover, Obama’s Race to the Top—a competitive program of corporate school reform that pits public schools and communities against one another for scarce federal funding—is a natural continuation of the neoliberal agenda, which seeks to create a favorable market for profit-driven charter schools by busting teachers’ unions and closing schools in communities reeling from the disastrous effects of global capitalism. Race to the Top ensures that the most vulnerable students will continue to be marginalized as their schools remain underfunded and understaffed, if they remain open at all.

Teachers, students, and parents understand that successful schools have small class sizes, support staff such as teachers’ assistants, nurses, and counselors, and an approach that values a variety of learning opportunities for individual students with different needs and talents. The Obama administration and its corporate partners, however, take a regressive approach that focuses on standardized testing as a measure of student achievement and teacher effectiveness while firing masses of school staff and replacing neighborhood schools with charters, which are unaccountable to communities and no more successful on average than their public counterparts.

However, barriers to providing a quality education for all people will remain in one form or another under any reformist agenda no matter how progressive or student-centered the approach. Education reform will not solve the major problems created or reinforced by global capitalism: poverty, segregation, institutional bigotry, mass unemployment, mass incarceration, labor exploitation and social alienation. The corporate think tanks and foundations responsible for creating and implementing Obama’s educational policies have no interest in educating all students; in order to maintain low wages, low expectations, and high profits, capitalists depend upon a large unemployed population and a much larger population of working poor.

The recent uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, organized largely by disaffected youth, have provided more concrete evidence for what the capitalists already know: if society provides an education without providing jobs, the people will revolt. The ruling class is much too sophisticated to risk losing power by providing effective education beyond what is necessary for them to continue to develop new consumer products and instruments of war. Until the masses of people on the losing end of this rigged system organize and commit ourselves to a revolutionary restructuring of our social and economic relations, those who write the rules of the game will continue to have access to quality education while the rest of us will continue to be denied that right.

The students of historic BTW will always remember the day that the first black president of the United States delivered their commencement address, but they deserve much more than empty platitudes about hope, change, the “American Dream” or “Equality of Opportunity”—they deserve a future where their children will not have to compete with their sisters and brothers to “win” an education; they deserve a future where their neighborhood is safe and clean, and where all people have a right to engage in meaningful work. This future will not be created for us.

As revolutionary socialists, we believe that workers and the poor have the ability to create a better world than the status quo maintained by the capitalist class—capitalists’ power lies not in god-given mandates or managerial prowess, but only through convincing the people that we are incapable of controlling our own lives. We reject this notion, just as we reject the notion that the solution to the harms inflicted by global capitalism lies in education reform alone. Instead, the situation today compels us to organize ourselves and our communities to create an actual and revolutionary change in socioeconomic relations. Together, there is a world to win and a world to defeat!

AFSCME Local 1733 Looking For Veterans of the 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike

2011-05-10T17:09:00.000-05:00

AFSCME Local 1733, famous for its role in the 1968 sanitation workers strike in Memphis, which Dr. King came to stand in solidarity with when he was gunned down, is looking for workers who participated in the strike. This strike played a pivotal role in the way public sector unions were handled in the South and opened the doors for unions across the region. Let us never forget their contribution, nor let their struggle have been in vain- Union now! Union forever!

You can read more here. Or if you have information on someone who was there call AFSCME Local 1733 at (901) 525-2458.

May Day Greetings!

2011-05-03T00:25:00.000-05:00

Despite the imminent threat of flooding, thunderstorms, and tornado warnings, Memphis SP folks and comrades held a May Day celebration in solidarity with the working people of the world.

This year was an especially difficult one for labor, but we can celebrate some steps towards victory, such as the working-class movements in Tunisia, Egypt, and throughout the region. We can celebrate the courage of those all over the world who have stood their ground and resisted ruling class efforts to crush solidarity. This year has shown that though the ruling class can beat us, imprison us, starve us, shoot us, and criminalize us, they cannot break the eternal bond that we share as one united working class.

We will learn from our experiences in recent struggles in Wisconsin, Ohio, here in Tennessee, and across the country, and next May Day, we'll celebrate victories wherever the ruling class naively assumes they've prevailed.

Working people from all over the world came together May 1st to celebrate our inspiring history of struggle and to build solidarity in the face of a tough road ahead.

Our future is a certainty.

May Day Cookout!

2011-04-27T21:01:00.000-05:00

Come enjoy the company of friends and fellow workers as we celebrate the achievements of the labor union movement.

Sunday, May 1, 1:30–5:30pm; at The Buccaneer on Monroe

Bring $5 for food!
All proceeds go to the Memphis SP and to legal defense for those arrested at the capitol on March 15! Food and jukebox or dj will start at 2.

We'll be there rain or shine unless there are tornadoes everywhere.

facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=182621788452890

SP Candidate for Charlottesville City Council

2011-04-25T15:39:00.000-05:00

Brandon Collins, the Secretary of the Socialist Party of Central Virginia and a National Committee Alternate, has announced plans to run for a position on the Charlottesville City Council. Brandon is a dedicated activist, father, worker, cellist, and socialist, and the Memphis SP wishes Brandon good luck on his campaign. Solidarity!

For information on Brandon's campaign, including his press release, platform, and how to get involved, please visit his site.

Read more from Charlottesville News & Arts.

An Introduction to Socialism

2011-04-17T15:53:00.000-05:00

The People's Cause

By Elijah Henderson

"The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win." This was the last line from the increasingly famous and controversial Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. Marx and many other men dreamed of a world without exploitation, oppression, inequality, or class hatred. A world in which everyone could have a say in the economic, political, and social decisions that effected them directly and indirectly. A system that developed with hundreds of years that earned the title: Socialism.

This bring me to my next point: what exactly is Socialism? Throughout its years of existence, there have been many divisions within the Socialist movement. But Socialism is the community or state management over the economy. In such a system, the workers would exercise control over farms, factories, banks, stores, and other tools of production and distribution through public enterprise or workers' councils. Socialism will be a society where profit motive is dismantled and democratic control will accommodate it. Incentive will be offered for those who are willing to work for the good of society and the natural eco-systems which it relies on. It will cling to natural resources and live within our finite world with proper and motivated leadership. Socialism will be a society where needed assistance such as health care will be free of charge and accessible to all. Examples of Socialism are Cuba, Vietnam, and Venezuela.

On to my next point: Who are Socialists and what do they believe? Socialists and Communists are some of the most outspoken and misunderstood people in the world. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Government has been extremely cautious of them. Many blame the cruel events that happened in the Josef Stalin era on Socialists, saying that USSR and China were Socialist countries. But this is not true. Socialism only exists when the people have full control. In reality, Socialists see a revolutionary change in world in the future. And although many of them do not, Socialists tend to have left-wing ideas about the world. Socialists hope to see a new era in which man finally controls the world he lives in. They are proud of their citizenship of the earth, their love for humanity, and their visions vision for a classless society.

Many of you probably have objections towards Socialism. I will give you some objections towards Socialism and then I will answer them. The first one is: Why would I want the government to run the economy? There is a reasonable answer to this. You will never have a say in any corporation. However, you will always have a say in democracy. And now to my next question: Isn't Socialism godless? The answer is very simple: no. Socialism has had a history of secularism. Being secular means not based on based on any religion. And in countries like Cuba, people are free to worship their God without religion belonging in the Government. Here's another question: Isn't Socialism a huge tax burden on everyone? No. Socialism will not require income tax because the government will get its revenues from industry. On to my final question. In Socialism, isn't everyone equal and no one allowed to make more money than anyone else? Socialism is reliant on the idea that "all men are created equal". The system will ensure everyone a decent wage and basic necessities as opposed to equal wages. Instead the workers will share the profits according to need based on democratic control. This will create more incentive for economic growth and success.

On to my next point. How might Socialism be established? Through democratic reform, grassroots activism, or simply the people's decision as a whole. The people must grow tired of belonging to a class-divided system. And ultimately, capitalism will culminate like Marx predicted, calling capitalists "their own grave diggers". This will start with protests for better working conditions, public services, higher wages, and the nationalization of the means of production. People must campaign for freedom from government oppression in the areas of everyday life. Police brutality, phone tapping, homosexual persecution, along with racism and sexism are what Socialists strongly stand against.

Society's evolution is simply not complete. We as humans must understand how and why society operates only for the select few. With this information at hand, we can understand the inequality and class oppression that divides us bitterly. This is a day where millions go without health care, the earth is being polluted, children are being forced to work long hours for little pay. This world is crumbling at the hands of profit-interests. We the people have the power to end these things all over the world. Socialism may very well be the cure to our society's problems. If I haven't made you see differently than I hope you will understand. Thank You.

SP Comrade Elected to the Detroit Downtown Citizens District Council

2011-04-16T21:53:00.000-05:00

Revolutionary Socialist Matt Erard of the Detroit SP has just been elected to a three-year term on Detroit’s Downtown District Citizens’ District Council. In his campaign, Matt committed to "fight for a radically democratic reorientation of our city leadership’s priorities toward an uncompromising dedication to serving and supporting the economic human needs and political struggles of the city’s working class and oppressed majority." The Memphis SP stands in solidarity with Matt and the people of Detroit as they build democracy in their downtown community. Congratulations from your Memphis comrades!

Read the press release from the Socialist Party of Michigan here...

April 7, 8 & 9: The Cost of War at Home and Abroad

2011-04-06T17:45:00.000-05:00

Please visit the Memphis International Solidarity Committee blog for more information about three days of anti-imperialist education and action!

The Memphis SP can't wait to see you there!!

Memphis International Solidarity Committee: HOME SWEET HOMELESS

2011-03-29T20:59:00.000-05:00

Memphis International Solidarity Committee: HOME SWEET HOMELESS: "Please join the Mid South Peace & Justice Center, Radical Arts Memphis, the Center for Transforming Communities and MISC on Saturday, ..."

Self-determination for Libya!

2011-03-25T15:39:00.000-05:00

The Memphis SP joins the people of Memphis to protest the imperialist invasion of Libya.

Shut Down Wisconsin!

2011-03-09T20:55:00.000-06:00

by Andrea Pason and Billy Wharton, co-chairs Socialist Party USA

March 9, 2011 - It has just been reported that Wisconsin Republicans have approved the provision in Governor Scott Walker’s Budget Repair Bill that strips public employees in Wisconsin of their collective bargaining rights. Collective Bargaining is necessary to the functioning of trade unions and is a right that should be held by every worker in both the public and private sectors. As socialists, we condemn Governor Scott Walker and the Republicans in Wisconsin.

We call on students, workers and all who are opposed to this decision to converge on Madison tomorrow to protest. We support the resolution passed by the South Central Federation of Labor (Wisconsin) that calls for a general strike of all workers in the region. We support the immediate formation of strike committees by all union and non-union workers in the state. We support all acts of civil disobedience and non-compliance to protest and reverse this Bill.

Workers and students shut down Wisconsin! As popular movements throughout the world claim their democratic rights, Walker and the Republicans have trampled on workers in Wisconsin. By building on the spirit of Tahrir Square, Madison can be the site where a new militant worker’s movement is built. Our democracy is not contained within the Assembly Houses and State Capitols; we build it in the streets!

For a General Strike of all Wisconsin Workers!
Kill the Bill!
Build Democracy in the Streets!

***
Get Organized! Contact the Socialist Party USA
http://socialistparty-usa.org/

International Womens Day 1910-2011

2011-03-08T09:55:00.000-06:00

Women's Day
Alexandra Kollontai
full text available at marxists.org

There was a time when working men thought that they alone must bear on their shoulders the brunt of the struggle against capital, that they alone must deal with the 'old world' without the help of their womenfolk. However, as working-class women entered the ranks of those who sell their labour, forced onto the labour market by need, by the fact that husband or father is unemployed, working men became aware that to leave women behind in the ranks of the 'non-class-conscious' was to damage their cause and hold it back. The greater the number of conscious fighters, the greater the chances of success. What level of consciousness is possessed by a woman who sits by the stove, who has no rights in society, the state or the family? She has no 'ideas' of her own! Everything is done as ordered by the father or husband...

The backwardness and lack of rights suffered by women, their subjection and indifference, are of no benefit to the working class, and indeed are directly harmful to it. But how is the woman worker to be drawn into the movement, how is she to be awoken?

Social-Democracy abroad did not find the correct solution immediately. Workers' organisations were open to women workers, but only a few entered. Why? Because the working class at first did not realise that the woman worker is the most legally and socially deprived member of that class, that she has been browbeaten, intimidated, persecuted down the centuries, and that in order to stimulate her mind and heart, a special approach is needed, words understandable to her as a woman. The workers did not immediately appreciate that in this world of lack of rights and exploitation, the woman is oppressed not only as a seller of her labour, but also as a mother, as a woman... However. when the workers' socialist party understood this, it boldly took up the defence of women on both counts as a hired worker and as a woman, a mother.

Socialists in every country began to demand special protection for female labour, insurance for mother and child, political rights for women and the defence of womens interests.

The more clearly the workers party perceived this second objective vis-a-vis women workers, the more willingly women joined the party, the more they appreciated that the party is their true champion, that the working class is struggling also for their urgent and exclusively female needs. Working women themselves, organised and conscious, have done a great deal to elucidate this objective. Now the main burden of the work to attract more working women into the socialist movement lies with the women. The parties in every country have their own special women's committees, secretariats and bureaus. These women's committees conduct work among the still largely non-politically conscious female population, arouse the consciousness of working women and organise them. They also examine those questions and demands that affect women most closely: protection and provision for expectant and nursing mothers, the legislative regulation of female labour, the campaign against prostitution and infant mortality, the demand for political rights for women, the improvement of housing, the campaign against the rising cost of living, etc.

Thus, as members of the party, women workers are fighting for the common class cause, while at the same time outlining and putting forward those needs and demands that most nearly affect themselves as women, housewives and mothers. The party supports these demands and fights for them... The requirements of working women are part and parcel of the common workers' cause!

On 'Women's Day' the organised demonstrate against their lack of rights.

But, some will say, why this singling out of women workers? Why special 'Women's Days', special leaflets for working women, meetings and conferences of working-class women? Is this not, in the final analysis, a concession to the feminists and bourgeois suffragettes?

Only those who do not understand the radical difference between the movement of socialist women and bourgeois suffragettes can think this way.

What is the aim of the feminists? Their aim is to achieve the same advantages, the same power, the same rights within capitalist society as those possessed now by their husbands, fathers and brothers. What is the aim of the women workers? Their aim is to abolish all privileges deriving from birth or wealth. For the woman worker it is a matter of indifference who is the 'master' a man or a woman. Together with the whole of her class, she can ease her position as a worker.

Radical and Out!

2011-03-08T09:25:00.000-06:00

In his new book A Saving Remnant: The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds, Marty Duberman chronicles the lives of "two openly queer Americans who devoted their lives to the struggles for peace and social justice." This is an excerpt of Doug Ireland's review from Gay City News.

Lives of Courage and Commitment
by Doug Ireland
March 2, 2011

McReynolds, born in 1929 and still going strong today, was raised in Los Angeles as a devout Baptist by conservative Republican parents. But while in high school he read muckraker Lincoln Steffens’ autobiography and underwent a political conversion. McReynolds had his first homosexual experience in grammar school, and when he was 19 came out to his parents. Although he had some guilt about his “deviance,” that vanished when he was a student at UCLA after an encounter in a notorious “queer bathroom” on campus with a young Alvin Ailey, not yet famous as a dancer and choreographer.

“Alvin’s guilt-free attitude toward homosexuality became a model for David (‘I came home walking on a cloud’) and the two became good friends, though never lovers,” Duberman recounts.

By this time, 1951, McReynolds had become deeply involved with the Socialist Party. Founded in 1901 under the leadership of labor leader Eugene Victor Debs, the party reached its peak of influence in 1912, when, with Debs as its presidential candidate, it won 6 percent of the vote; had 100 elected public officials, including several members of Congress; and a press with a readership in the millions. But the party’s principled pacifism during World Wars I and II brought it government persecution and decimated its membership, and by the early ’50s the party, for decades led by Norman Thomas, was a shadow of its former self.

As a well-known, “outspoken and magnetic” campus radical “on the non-Communist side,” the handsome young McReynolds became a leader of the Socialists’ left wing, all while being open about his homosexuality with his party comrades in its somewhat Bohemian LA local, but “never taking any flack for it.”

McReynolds, already a committed pacifist, risked prison when he refused induction into the army for the Korean War, and it was then that he met Bayard Rustin, the field director of the principal pacifist organization, the War Resisters League, later famous as the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington under Martin Luther King’s leadership. At the time of their meeting, Rustin had just been arrested on a “morals charge” for a homosexual encounter, and a long talk with Rustin about homosexuality helped further diminish any of McReynolds’ residual guilt feelings about his own same-sex orientation.

It is difficult to overstate the enormous courage and personal integrity required of Deming and McReynolds to be openly queer at a time in America when homosexuality was illegal, and homosexuals were condemned to barbaric tortures to “cure” them by medicine and loathed as degenerate outcasts by most of society. This was especially true in the 1950s at the height of the McCarthyite witch-hunts, when government was purging both left-wingers and homosexuals from its ranks and those of academia and the labor movement, and when homosexuality was frequently identified with Communism in the dominant rhetoric of the red-baiters.

read the entire review at Gay City News...

This Friday!

2011-02-21T22:04:00.000-06:00

Come out this Friday for two unbelievably amazing events.

First, From Cairo to Egypt.

From the facebook event page:
The local community and guests from Egypt are gathering to better understand and engage with the ongoing revolutionary activity in the Middle East and North Africa. Memphis's historical struggle with discrimination and poverty allow us to look into the unfolding of these events with inspiration and hope. In this spirit, we will explore how we can enact freedom, justice, equality, and dignity (the slogan of the Egyptian revolution) within our community.

Panel discussion and Q&A to follow.

Free and open to the public. Everyone is welcome!

And after that, Red House Show at The Dairy, 2010 Court Ave. Thanks, Dairy House!!

Democracy in the Streets: Madison Mobilizes to Defeat the Anti-Labor Walker

2011-02-20T12:51:00.000-06:00

by Omar Mohamad, Secretary, Socialist Party of South Central Wisconsin and Billy Wharton, co-chair Socialist Party USA

The mass protests led by public employees unions in Madison, Wisconsin have been presented by some mainstream commentators as a labor’s last stand. They are not. They are a spark, a spark with the potential to create a new protest movement capable of revitalizing our unions, radicalizing student organizing and creating a space for democratic socialist politics. As socialists, we stand steadfastly in solidarity with this protest movement. We pledge to support the immediate goal of blocking Governor Scott Walker’s reactionary and draconian anti-union legislation and the longer-term project of building a serious left-wing political movement in the US.

Walker’s proposal to strip workers of collective bargaining rights is an extreme example of the budget cutting strategies being prepared by state and local officials throughout the country. More than 31 states are in the process of implementing deep cuts to basic public services. The local budgetary situations have been made worse by the ending of Federal stimulus funds. Much like at the Federal level, most of these states have, for decades, refused to properly tax their richest residents and corporations. In the case of Wisconsin, corporate tax rates have not been increased since 1972 and a myriad of loopholes and tax credits allow these companies to further evade taxation.

But the budget cuts are not about the fiscal balancing of budgets. They are, instead, an ideological attack on the rights of working people, on the opportunities for public university students and on the public programs that millions of people rely on. Gov. Walker and the other politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, have refused to cover deficits by spending from reserve funds or increasing taxation on the rich and corporations. This is a political choice, driven by free market ideology, to defend the wealth of the elite at the expense of the vast majority of people in our society.

As socialists, we understand that public employees are not the problem. Their work helps to enhance the public good. The problem that is gripping all of American society is that 5% of the population controls 85% of the productive wealth and this 5% has no intention of returning this wealth to those who produced it. As a result, politicians will violate any democratic right – union rights, civil rights and economic rights – that threatens this wealth. Walker demonstrated just how far he would go by putting the National Guard on notice in the event of mass unrest.

No wonder then that the protesters in Madison compared the Governor to the deposed dictator of Egypt Hosni Mubarak. This comparison is not only because the protesters see a bit of Walker in Mubarak, but more importantly, they see themselves in the massive street protests that gripped Egypt and in the occupation of Tahrir Square. And what great lessons to learn from this brave movement that faced down the police and forced a dictator out. The fighting spirit of Tahrir Square represents a global wave of unrest in which people are exercising and demanding their democratic rights. Democracy, in Cairo or Madison, is about more than elections. It is about creating a society based on economic democracy – where working people who create the wealth can claim that wealth.

Democratic socialism offers the best hope to make the aspirations of these protests real. We believe that society can best be run through direct democracy – where people have a direct say in how the society runs. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Legislature should not be the ones determining how the budget is crafted. A system of participatory budgeting in which those who will be affected by the budget are given a direct decision making voice in how the funds are spent would be the most democratic and efficient process possible. Here, the true will of all those people mobilizing to stop Walker would be heard.

Until we are able to build the political will to create such a democratic structure, the political focus must be placed on taxing the rich and corporations to cover the immediate budget deficit in Wisconsin. In the short term, this will mean employing all possible forms of civil disobedience and non-compliance on our worksites, our schools and in our communities. Simply put, if a small group of politicians attempts to strip us of our rights in the service of protecting the wealth of the elite, we are more than justified in using all of the social power we can muster to bring the society to a stand still.

The Socialist Party USA has initiated a national campaign to fight against budget cuts and the attack on public workers. We are calling on all of our members and our supporters to join local campaigns to defend jobs, education, and services. As socialists, we bring with us a firm conviction about taxing the rich and a vision of a democratically run society in which people regain control of their lives from the logic of the market, from the workings of capitalism and from the elite 5% who benefit from our labor, while offering little in return.

Solidarity with the Madison Protests!

Kill the Anti-Union Bill!

Defeat the Anti-Labor Walker!

CommonDreams.org Reports on FBI/Sheriff's Dep't/MPD Harassment

2011-02-13T21:30:00.000-06:00

To Protect and Serve? Despite Harassment, Peace Activists Vow to Continue Work
by Randall Amster
2/11/2011

On January 25, 2011, people gathered in cities across America to demonstrate against the ongoing harassment of peace organizations and individual activists by law enforcement agencies. In particular, these “solidarity actions” were focused on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had served subpoenas and raided the homes of people involved in anti-war and international solidarity work in Minneapolis and Chicago in late September 2010. From Boston to Los Angeles, activists rallied at federal buildings, collected petition signatures, distributed pamphlets, and peacefully demonstrated on street corners as part of the “National Day of Action to Stop FBI Repression and Grand Jury Witch Hunts.”

In Chicago, over 350 people assembled in front of the Dirksen Federal Building to protest U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s decision to subpoena 23 antiwar activists and order them to appear in front of a grand jury. In Minneapolis, more than 100 people swarmed the sidewalk at the downtown Federal Building, waving signs that read "Opposing war is not a crime" and "Hands off free speech," denouncing the infiltration of their groups with undercover agents, and stating that they will not cooperate with the grand juries even if it means going to jail. Actions large and small were held in over 50 cities across the nation in a show of solidarity for peace activism and against official harassment.

Perhaps the most curious – and potentially revealing – episode among these many actions played out in Memphis, Tennessee. In a bizarre twist, the small group that had assembled there on January 25th was visited by the FBI and local law enforcement, ostensibly to warn them about their own event and stating that they were there for the activists’ own safety. A local media outlet reported on the episode:

“When a police SWAT team and an FBI anti-terrorism squad showed up Tuesday at a Memphis church where peace activists were staging an event, a scene reminiscent of the turbulent 1960s ensued. The activists, members of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center who oppose the war in Afghanistan, characterized the encounter as police intimidation and a case of illegal surveillance. FBI and Memphis Police Department representatives countered it was all a misunderstanding. They said they were there to protect the activists from potential harm by extremists who might oppose their views.”

Interestingly, the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center (MSPJC) had planned no public demonstration as part of its activities that day, but were merely holding a small meeting of about a dozen people to fill out forms under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to investigate the extent to which activists in their community may have been under surveillance, infiltration, or other forms of potential intimidation. The media release sent out by the MSPJC stated that the event was being held to “demand an end to FBI harassment of peace, anti-war and solidarity activists.” In response, according to the MSPJC’s Director, it appears that the agents and officers were in fact sent to the event to monitor and intimidate the group.

Read the full article at CommonDreams.org...

Memphis activists protest FBI repression on September 29 in response to the raids on September 24, 2010:

Statements on Egypt

2011-02-12T15:33:00.000-06:00

Socialism and the Spirit of Tahrir Square
by Andrea Pason and Billy Wharton, co-chairs Socialist Party USA
February 11, 2011

We send greetings to the working people of Egypt on the day of their victorious struggle to depose the dictator Hosni Mubarak. Their grassroots movement provides definitive proof to the world that radical political activity can change the course of history. The activities of the protesters in Tahrir Square transformed the idea of democracy from a stale ritual that occurs every few years to an open ended struggle for freedom. We are inspired by the example provided by this mass revolt of the Egyptian people.

It is particularly important to recognize the central contribution made by the working class to the defeat of the dictator. While the occupation of the square and the street demonstrations in several cities galvanized the resistance, it was the mass strikes carried out by the workers that broke the back of the regime. On February 9th thousands of workers demonstrated the ability to shutdown the entire society and economy until their demands were met. After these mass strikes, the regime understood that surrender was its only option.

The victory of Tahrir Square need not be an isolated one – limited only to the removal of one dictatorial regime. The revolt was as much about the conditions imposed on Egyptians by capitalism – the lack of food, the unemployment, the poor housing, the declining environment – as it was about Mubarak. We can all join in the spirit of struggle initiated in Cairo by demanding a democratic socialist society where the needs of human beings are placed ahead of those of corporations.

See Tahrir Square for what it is – an open-ended struggle for freedom. And what the dissident voices in Egypt and many other parts of world are demanding are things that capitalism cannot deliver. In Egypt, the reorganization of an independent trade union movement, the experiences of direct democracy in the protests and the revitalization of a socialist left in the country offer greatest hope for advancing the political agenda for economic freedom developed in Tahrir Square.

As socialists located in the US, we pledge to continue to do our part in the international struggle for socialism. We see our own political activity as a part of the larger international movement for jobs, peace and freedom. As a part of a Socialism for the 21st Century!

To the Revolutionary Socialists of Egypt
An Open Letter from the Internationalist Socialist League (Israel/Occupied Palestine) and the League for the Revolutionary Party (U.S.)
February 8, 2011

The following is a response to the statement “Glory to the martyrs! Victory to the revolution!” issued by the Revolutionary Socialists group in Egypt, published on February 1. . .

Comrades,

With sincere respect for your place among the courageous fighters against Mubarak’s bloody dictatorship, we must share with you some serious criticisms of your statement of February 1. We know that your role in the Egyptian masses’ great struggles can only be properly appreciated by considering all that your group has said, as well as all that it has done in practice. However your February 1 statement is the first to be translated and circulated by your comrades in the International Socialist Tendency, so it deserves to be paid special attention.

You are right to say that Egypt’s revolution is being stolen from the working class and poor. The move by prominent opposition figures to enter into negotiations with the government shows their willingness to compromise the masses’ most basic aim of ending their oppression and winning democracy by driving Mubarak’s NDP from power. Your insistence that the economic demands of the workers and poor must not be sacrificed in the struggle for democracy is certainly correct, as are your arguments for the creation of elected councils of the struggle. You are also right to warn that the army cannot be trusted to protect the masses and that the rank-and-file soldiers will have to be rallied to split from their officers.

These points express the fact that the Egyptian revolution is at a dangerous turning point. The prominent figures claiming to represent the masses who are now negotiating with the dictatorship are acting according to their bourgeois class interests. As you know, bourgeois and middle class elements like the imams, businessmen and landowners who dominate the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, or professionals like the diplomat ElBaradei, can all be satisfied by being given a little more space at the top of Egyptian society. No wonder they are anxious for the workers and poor people to leave the streets and return to their old lives of quiet suffering as soon as possible.

A Stable Capitalist Democracy Is Impossible In Egypt

The treachery of these bourgeois opposition figures confirms Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, a perspective that we know you subscribe to: only the working-class and poor masses can be relied on to continue the fight to overthrow the dictatorship and win democracy for all Egyptians, because only the working class and poor have no interest in maintaining the capitalist society that the dictatorship defends.

It is essential to recognize that the reality of class exploitation and imperialist oppression means that whatever course the struggle takes, there cannot be a stable democracy in Egypt for as long as imperialist capitalism rules the region. At this time of economic crisis, with the world sliding toward another Great Depression, capitalism cannot offer a better life to the masses. Aside from the most temporary concessions granted to quell mass struggles, capitalism offers only worsening poverty and exploitation. In dominated and exploited neo-colonies like Egypt, enforcing these conditions is ultimately only possible by means of dictatorship.

Indeed, the Egyptian state is essential to imperialism’s domination of the whole of the Middle East. It governs vital shipping routes including the Suez Canal. Egypt’s border with Gaza and Israel is another wall in the Zionist settler state’s prison-house for the Palestinians. The struggle for democracy in Egypt thus threatens the imperialists’ most vital interests and will face their most violent resistance. A stable and genuine democracy will be only possible in Egypt after imperialism’s client states in the region are overthrown, especially the racist colonial settler state of Israel. Working-class socialist revolutions throughout the Middle East are the only solution to the problems faced by the workers and poor of the region. The speed with which the uprising of Tunisia’s workers and poor people inspired similar rebellions across the Arab world shows the potential for this strategy to succeed.

Under these conditions the opposition leaders’ treacherous moves to negotiate with the dictatorship do not merely threaten to prevent the masses from winning their demands. By demobilizing the struggle, especially before the working class and poor can establish their own independent mass organizations, these bourgeois leaders are helping the dictatorship regroup its forces. While the mass struggle in Egypt today has proved too great for the state to crush, that balance of forces cannot last forever. The dictatorship, as well as the imperialists who rely on it to keep order, will inevitably turn to bloody repression when it thinks it can and must.

Put simply, the Egyptian masses’ struggle will either triumph as a socialist revolution of the working class that defeats imperialism by spreading the revolution throughout the Middle East, or it will suffer a bloody defeat. Workers’ revolution is the only hope of avoiding a nightmarish counterrevolution.

Working-Class Leadership Needed

That socialist revolution is the only solution to Egypt’s crisis is of course a conclusion that most Egyptian workers seem far from embracing today. Workers and poor people (semi-employed and unemployed workers as well as impoverished vendors and others from more middle-class occupations) account for the overwhelming majority of protesters on the streets, but at least at first they for the most part participated simply as members of “the people,” without emphasizing specifically working-class demands. Unlike in Tunisia where unions organized protests from the beginning of the uprising and general strikes were widely observed, workers in Egypt are mostly only just beginning to turn from street protests to engaging in strikes and workplace occupations demanding Mubarak’s ouster. However the announcement of the formation of a new federation of independent unions, and the example of militant struggles by tens of thousands of textile workers in Mahalla and of strikes and workplace occupations by factory and service workers in Suez and elsewhere are sure to spread.

But the experience of struggle against the Mubarak dictatorship has given the working class a sense of the tremendous power it has when united in collective action and the role played by the various opposition leaders is already providing powerful confirmation of the revolutionary socialist perspective. Those lessons will be lost, however, if the revolutionary strategy is not put forward clearly and openly. That is why we were disappointed to see that in your statement of February 1 you expressed yourself not in the clear language of Marxism, which speaks of specific classes having specific interests, but instead in the vague rhetoric of populism. Complaining about “elites” hijacking the “popular revolution,” you call for the working class to support the other forces making the revolution, but you do not call for the workers to lead the revolution. Thus instead of calling for workers’ power through socialist revolution, your statement raises the purely democratic populist slogan, “All power to the people!”

Comrades, this slogan of “power to the people” may not seem so bad – it sounds a lot better than Mubarak’s rule! But “the people” include not just the masses of workers and poor but the capitalists and petty bourgeoisie as well. For as long as the revolution is promoted as being in the interests of all, it will be limited to the demands for limited democratic change that seem acceptable to most people of all classes. If revolutionaries do not insist on working-class leadership of the struggle, power will by default fall into the hands of those with the greatest resources, the bourgeoisie.

Your February 1 statement says:

“The revolution is a popular revolution. This is not a revolution of the elite, political parties or religious groups. Egypt's youth, students, workers and the poor are the owners of this revolution. In recent days a lot of elites, parties and so-called symbols have begun trying to ride the wave of revolution and hijack it from their rightful owners.”

But while the masses of workers, poor people and youth are the great force behind the revolution, they have never “owned” it. How could they have, without a working-class political party leading the broader masses in an open struggle against not just the Mubarak dictatorship but against all the representatives of capitalism?

If it is to move forward, the limits of Egypt’s “popular revolution” must be transcended and the masses’ struggle transformed into a conscious struggle for the working class to seize power. That requires leadership by a revolutionary socialist political party of the most far-sighted and determined workers and youth that is prepared to win the support of the masses in seizing leadership of the struggle from the pro-capitalist and reformist figures that currently dominate it. Until that takes place, any talk of the masses’ owning the revolution is nothing more than wishful thinking, and populist sloganeering about a “popular revolution” giving “power to the people” can only obscure the class conflict and delay the working class from realizing its tasks.

Read the full letter here...

Mubarak Resigns, the Struggle Continues
Solidarity Webzine
by Jase
February 11, 2011

One thing is clear from the events of the last 18 days: the power of the people is now back on the world stage in a dramatic fashion.

What has transpired in Egypt is nothing less than the largest popular revolution in the last 30 years. Two weeks of demonstrations and mass actions put the authority of Hosni Mubarak on its last legs, and 2 days of strikes finished the job. Masses of working class people have participated in the protests, swelling the ranks in the streets, but once the working-class exercised its social power over the economy in an organized fashion, the regime could not sustain itself. As the Revolutionary Socialists, an Egyptian organization, said: "The regime can afford to wait out the sit-ins and demonstrations for days and weeks, but it cannot last beyond a few hours if workers use strikes as a weapon."

The ruling classes of the world are now on notice: the people are back, in a big way.

While it is good and necessary to celebrate this victory, we must also understand that this political revolution is not yet a social revolution--and the extent of the political revolution, a transfer of power to the armed forces, is still minor. Cultural change is sweeping Egypt in a way that it has not in a very long time, caused by the movement for democracy from below. The explosion of popular organization in the form of independent unions, neighborhood defense committees and new political organizations will forever change the face of Egypt, the Arab world, the entire Middle East and the world itself. However, the regime created by Mubarak remains in place.

Where did the Mubarak Regime come from?

The regime of Hosni Mubarak is a creation of local Egyptian elites who worked in tandem with US, Israeli and European interests to repudiate the Arab Nationalist regime of former Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser. Nasser's government came into existence in 1952 following a revolt by military officers against the British-installed monarch King Farouk. Nasser himself did not take power until 1954, but he was the major architect of the 1952 overthrow.

Nasser's regime opposed forms of popular self-organization but gained an enormous amount of respect from the people of Egypt and the entire world with his robust opposition to Israeli imperialism and indeed following the 1956 Suez Crisis, world imperialism itself. The regime operated via nationalizing major industries in order to develop the country's economy.

The Arab Nationalism of Egypt was supported by ruling elites to counter revolutionary internationalism, and its limitations (especially via the nation-state) were made clear during the 1970's. Below Nasser in the hierarchy of the regime was Anwar Sadat, who began the process of creating the regime that is in power today in Egypt. Sadat made peace with Israeli apartheid, giving de facto support for continued imperialist bludgeoning of the Arab world. Without fear from the Egyptian government--the only effective counterweight to Israeli aggression--the Israeli government was able to spend the following thirty years demolishing the region in the name of "security." Invasions and occupations of Lebanon coupled with airstrikes on Iraq and multiple vicious campaigns against the "internal" threat of occupied Palestine became the rule of the day.

A splinter group of the Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Sadat, a kind of "chickens coming home to roost" moment for the Egyptian ruling class. To counter working-class self-organization and revolutionary internationalism (not to mention more consistent and independent secular Arab nationalism) the government in Cairo did what many other governments across the Muslim world did during the 1970's: bolster--both directly and indirectly--religious political groups to provide the only effective opposition (the most cynical version of this policy in the region was the Israeli intelligence services' support for Hamas in Gaza during the First Intifada in order to counter the Arab nationalism of the Palestine Liberation Organization).

Read the full article here...

Take a look at some beautiful photos from Mubarak's last day on stephentempe's blog.

Statement from Revolutionary Socialists in Egypt

2011-02-10T20:04:00.000-06:00

A call from Egyptian socialists
from SocialistWorker.org
Revolutionary socialists in Egypt issued this statement about the Egyptian uprising and the tasks that the movement faces as the struggle continues in the coming weeks.

Glory to the martyrs! Victory to the revolution!

What is happening today is the largest popular revolution in the history of our country and of the entire Arab world. The sacrifice of our martyrs has built our revolution and we have broken through all the barriers of fear. We will not back down until the criminal "leaders" and their criminal system is destroyed.

Mubarak's departure is the first step, not the last step of the revolution

The handover of power to a dictatorship under Omar Suleiman, Ahmed Shafiq and other cronies of Mubarak is the continuation of the same system. Omar Suleiman is a friend of Israel and America, spends most of his time between Washington and Tel Aviv, and is a servant who is faithful to their interests. Ahmed Shafik is a close friend of Mubarak and his colleague in the tyranny, oppression and plunder imposed on the Egyptian people.

The country's wealth belongs to the people and must return to it

Over the past three decades, this tyrannical regime corrupted the country's largest estates to a small handful of business leaders and foreign companies. One hundred families own more than 90 percent of the country's wealth. They monopolize the wealth of the Egyptian people through policies of privatization, looting of power and the alliance with capital. They have turned the majority of the Egyptian people to the poor, landless and unemployed.

Factories wrecked and sold dirt cheap must go back to the people

We want the nationalization of companies, land and property looted by this bunch. As long as our resources remain in their hands we will not be able to completely get rid of this system. Economic slavery is the other face of political tyranny. We will not be able to cope with unemployment and achieve a fair minimum wage for a decent living without restoring the wealth of the people from this gang.

We will not be guard dogs of America and Israel

This system does not stand alone. As a dictator, Mubarak was a servant and client directly acting for the sake of the interests of America and Israel. Egypt acted as a colony of America, participated directly in the siege of the Palestinian people, made the Suez Canal and Egyptian airspace free zones for warships and fighter jets that destroyed and killed the Iraqi people, and sold gas to Israel dirt cheap while stifling the Egyptian people by soaring prices. Revolution must restore Egypt's independence, dignity and leadership in the region.

The revolution is a popular revolution

This is not a revolution of the elite, political parties or religious groups. Egypt's youth, students, workers and the poor are the owners of this revolution. In recent days, a lot of elites, parties and so-called symbols have begun trying to ride the wave of revolution and hijack it from their rightful owners. The only symbols are the martyrs of our revolution and our young people who have been steadfast in the field. We will not allow them to take control of our revolution and claim that they represent us. We will choose to represent ourselves and represent the martyrs who were killed, their blood paying the price for the salvation of the system.

Read the full statement at SocialistWorker.org...

SOLIDARITY WITH THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE! يسقط مبارك!

2011-02-05T14:56:00.000-06:00

The Memphis SP stood in solidarity today with activists across Memphis calling for an end to the Mubarak regime and democracy for the people of Egypt.

IMPORT THE REVOLUTION!

TONIGHT! Art in Response

2011-02-04T14:01:00.000-06:00

Revolution in Tunisia: Three Left Perspectives

2011-02-01T10:15:00.000-06:00

Tunisia Breaks Free
Solidarity Webzine
by Jase
January 27, 2011

The events unfolding in Tunisia before our very eyes constitute a sharp break in world events, albeit a break that has emerged from years of grinding contradictions that have now come to a head. These events represent a break from US-backed “color revolutions,” feigned revolutionary upsurges by reactionary Islamists masquerading as harbingers of progress, and forms of reformist and guerilla-style revolutionary elitism. Popular self-organization from below has scored a victory that—although limited in nature—has had profound effects in transforming the consciousness of people around the Arab world and indeed globally.

The revolt in the streets of Tunis had their origins in the rural southern regions of the country, specifically in the town of Sidi Bouzidi. There, mostly rural workers took to the streets in December “with a rock in one hand and a cell-phone in the other” (according to Rochdi Horchani, a relative of Mohamed Bouazizi—the 26 year old street vendor whose self-immolation sparked the current round of resistance) to challenge the regime of Ben-Ali.

The challenge came after three decades of ruthless repression at the hands of Ben-Ali's Mukhabarat (secret police). The US and French support for the regime went very far as Tunisia was upheld as an exemplar of behavior considered acceptable to the interests of the American and French ruling classes. Tunisia was to be a place of robber-baron dictatorship (Wikileaks cables reveal that something like 50% of the economy was in one way or another under the control of Ben-Ali's family and 6 other clans). All of the repression occurred with the blessing of Washington and Paris, for as long as the people were docile and timid before their oppressors, no complaints about human rights abuses seemed to matter.

Unlike similar demonstrations against the regime that had broken out in the spring, the people of Sidi Bouzidi made a huge effort to get the news of their demonstrations out to a broader public. They succeeded dramatically. Images from the south were seen via the internet and pirated satellite television.

Then came more eruptions across the country—and the entry of thousands of urban working-class citizens into the battle. The explosion was more than the police could handle and so Ben-Ali called on the military to enter the mix with guns drawn: and the orders were refused.

We do not know exactly what transpired in the halls of power, but the ruling RCD party maneuvered for its own survival following the military refusal by pressing Ben-Ali to flee—and flee he did. First he tried to touch down in Paris, but the shrewd Sarkozy government refused him asylum, recognizing that inflaming anti-imperialist tensions was probably an unwise decision at this given juncture. Ben-Ali has taken refuge in Saudi Arabia now—though the new (second) interim government is trying to have him brought into custody.

Unlike recent “color” revolutions in Eastern Europe or Central Asia, millions of dollars of George Soros' “democracy promotion” aid did not contribute to the effort and no liberal opposition parties were significant participants. The dissension from the regime by the largest trade union confederation (which had previously been the handmaiden of the regime) turned the struggle from one isolated among youth and rural workers to a general uprising against the regime.

read the full article on the Solidarity Webzine...

Tunisia’s Revolution in Danger
A Bolshevik Policy is Needed to Guide the Workers and Poor People to Power!
A Joint Statement by the League for the Revolutionary Party (U.S.) and the Internationalist Socialist League (Israel/Occupied Palestine)
January 28, 2011

The sight of Tunisia’s long-time dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fleeing in the face of workers’ general strikes and mass demonstrations is inspiring an upsurge of struggle throughout the Middle East. The idea is spreading among the Arab world’s workers and youth that they could rise up and send the rest of the region’s imperialism-backed dictators packing as well.

But in Tunisia itself the struggle is far from over. The dictator is gone, but the political party that he led and which ran the dictatorship, the RCD, still dominates the government. The hated police have been driven away or underground in many places, but the state apparatus of courts, police and the army that was the dictatorship’s foundation remain in place in the country’s most important centers of power. Weeks of big demonstrations and mass strikes demanding that the RCD be ousted from the government have yielded little change, and Ben Ali’s crony Mohamed Ghannouchi continues to hold the position of Prime Minister.

Today, the forces of the old dictatorship are too weak to try to violently crush the masses’ struggles. But the workers and poor people do not see a leadership willing and able to lead them in finally driving the RCD from power. The current standoff between these forces cannot last forever.

The masses’ desire to rid themselves of the RCD is accompanied by a growing sense of the need for a strong government to get the economy moving again. Ghannouchi’s regime hopes that it can hold on to power while the masses grow tired from weeks of struggle without a breakthrough. But there are already signs that more violent means could be used to subjugate the masses: recent provocative demonstrations in Tunis expressing support for the government and condemning the unions and the left for spreading anarchy, combined with scattered violent attacks on union offices in different cities, warn of attempts to rally middle-class support for a more dictatorial crackdown.

The Role of the Army

The current balance of power between the Ghannouchi government and the masses is held by the army. Its ranks of soldiers, conscripted from the working class and poor, have been swept up in the masses’ revolutionary ferment. They broadly share the hope of seeing the RCD ousted from power and today guard government buildings and central streets with flowers in their gun barrels, symbols of their intention not to harm the masses.

The army’s top leader, General Rachid Ammar, was at least at first regarded as a hero for refusing Ben Ali’s orders to crush the masses’ protests. Indeed in the days after Ben Ali’s downfall, the army played an important role in apprehending bands of police engaged in wanton acts of murder.

But Ammar was hand-picked for his position by Ben Ali and has long been closely tied to U.S. imperialism and its military. Ammar may have prompted Ben Ali’s flight from power, but he did so with the aim of sacrificing the dictator in order to rescue the rest of the capitalist ruling class and save its state power to rule over the masses. When “Caravans of Liberation” arrived in Tunis from the country’s impoverished central region and threatened to lead demonstrators in toppling the government, Ammar stood before them with a megaphone and begged them to allow more time for reforms. “The army will protect the revolution,” he promised. What Ammar was literally doing, however, was saving the RCD from the revolution.

A Democratic, Not Socialist, Revolution?

Tunisia’s revolution did not begin with intellectuals in cosmopolitan Tunis protesting for free speech. Rather, it began with massive union-organized demonstrations in the impoverished center of the country. Rallying behind slogans like “Bread and Freedom – Not Ben Ali!” the masses of workers and poor people made clear from the outset that they were fighting to liberate themselves not just from political oppression but also from poverty and exploitation.

read the full statement here ...

Statement on Tunisia
by the Socialist Party USA International Commission
January 31, 2011

Tunisia has become the latest hot spot in a global wave of popular rebellion against failed economic policies, corruption, and despotism. Ongoing protests throughout the country – called the Sidi Bouzid intifada by Tunisians in reference to the city where the protests began - were sparked by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a twenty-six year old street vendor. Like many, he suffered from underemployment and police violence. The rebellion went largely unnoticed by the international commercial media until the Tunisian dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14th, ending 23 years of autocracy.

The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA salutes the people of Tunisia in this important step toward liberation. The ousting of Ben Ali shows that tyrants cannot rule over a population that refuses consent. In particular, we recognize the central role played by working people. While students and the middle class also went into the streets, it was workers, organized by the General Union of Tunisian Workers that gave the demonstrations structure and tipped the balance of power toward the protests. Through concerted mass action, the working class of Tunisia proved to have the power to overthrow a seemingly invincible authoritarian regime and make history. The revolt has inspired popular struggles throughout the region and the world. Already protests have rocked Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen and other Arab states.

The Tunisian struggle continues over the nature of a new government. Mobilizations in the street are continuing in protest against a proposed “unity government” which maintains many officials from the old ruling party. Protesters are demanding a new democratic constitution before elections. Removing the dictator is not enough; the entire dictatorship must go.

Behind the scenes, economic power brokers are working to preserve neo-liberal relations with foreign interests, and insulate themselves from democratic forces. Recent revelations from Wikileaks have exposed how French and U.S. diplomats were well aware of the corruption and human rights violations of the Ben Ali regime, yet maintained uncritical friendly relations. A truly democratic alternative for the people of Tunisia that is independent of economic and diplomatic imperialism will be served best by connecting to the international socialist movement.

The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA pledges to share Tunisia's story, and to pressure our government to respect Tunisian sovereignty. We extend our solidarity and seek greater ties with the movements in Tunisia of unionists, women, youth, and socialists. The liberation of Tunisia from Ben Ali's personal dictatorship brings us one step closer to ending the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, warding off aggression against Iran, and ending the occupation of Palestine.

RED JANUARY III

2011-01-27T19:24:00.000-06:00

Last Red January show of the month!

Sunday, January 30
9:00PM

The Buccaneer Lounge

1368 Monroe Avenue

featuring:

BAKE SALE
KRUXE
THE VIGNETTES
DJ JAGUARRIOR
DJ BENNETT

$3
There will of course be literature and free vegan treats!
Proceeds benefit the Memphis Socialist Party.
Thanks to everyone for showing your support at these events! It is apparent that the artist and art lover in all of us thirsts for meaningful and imaginative resistance to the self-interested homogeneous corporate aesthetic forced on us by our universities, the media and our bosses.
Together we are building a movement which cannot be ignored!

Media Coverage of FBI/MPD/Sheriff's Department Harassment of Memphis Activsts

2011-01-27T16:25:00.000-06:00

Commercial Appeal blog...

ABC 24 News with Live Footage...

WREG/CBS 3 News with Live Footage...

Memphis Activists Harassed by FBI (While Protesting FBI Harassment)

2011-01-26T18:47:00.000-06:00

Local activists, including members of the Memphis Socialist Party, gathered at the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center yesterday to file Freedom of Information Act requests as part of a nationwide day of action against recent FBI harassment of anti-war and international solidary activists. A few hours prior to the event, three FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force agents visited the Center to inform them that there was going to be a demonstration. They left after they were told that the Center was not only aware of the event but had planned it.

Approximately two hours later, the Memphis Police Department's TACT unit arrived with at least six unmarked black SUVs and one marked squad car. When questioned about the reason for their presence, they replied that they were there to keep the peace. The Center was eventually able to get into contact with the unit's chief, who made a vague statement about a call from a "concerned citizen."

On the same day, at least two activists (including the Chair of the Memphis Socialist Party) had their homes entered by the Shelby County Sheriff's Department on the pretext of warrants issued for failure to appear in court. In both cases residents were not given the opportunity to view the warrant, despite multiple requests. At the deCleyre Cooperative, police entered without permission through an unlocked door and moved through every room with their guns drawn, searching for someone who hadn't lived there in years.

Why were residents not allowed to see the warrants used to enter their homes? Why was the TACT unit, described by MPD's website as "not subject to regular calls," and "responsible for handling barricade situations, hostage rescues, counter terrorism, and high risk felony apprehensions," sent to respond to a single, unverified phone call? How is it a coincidence when the same group of activists is targeted by three separate law enforcement agencies on the same day?

The FBI has a long history of intimidation, harassment, and repression, but we refuse to be silenced by it. We will continue to stand in solidarity with our activist brothers and sisters.

Check out other local folks' first-hand reactions here and here.

Read the local paper's take on it here.

ART IN RESPONSE--CALL FOR ENTRIES

2011-01-22T19:10:00.000-06:00

“Art in Response” is an exhibition at Caritas Village organized by Radical Arts Memphis, an alliance of artists dedicated to achieving a communal voice through art. We seek solidarity between the artistic and political communities of Memphis in an effort to combat inequality and exploitation in our city. We wish to create a forum which questions the prevailing structures of power and pursues... a radical re-imagination of our society.

“Art in Response” will feature works from the Memphis community. The works should critically question the systemic divisions (race, gender, class, etc) within our city. Works should explore the ways in which these forms of separation affect us as both individuals and as a community.

HOW TO SUBMIT
all mediums are welcome-visual art, video, sound, poetry, music, etc.
all entries should be emailed to artinresponse@gmail.com by JANUARY 28th. Please include your contact information (name, email address, phone number) in the email submission.

FOR VISUAL ART ENTRIES
Please send JPGs of your work and a title sheet listing the dimensions, medium and titles of the pieces.

FOR OTHER ENTRIES
Please send mp3, .mov, or .doc files of your work and a title sheet listing the length and title of the piece.
If you are unable to email your submissions, please contact Bennett Foster at (901)-210-3768 to set up a time to have your work photographed/reviewed for submission.

*It is free to submit work to this show, however, please consider making a donation to Caritas Village.

TIMELINE

JANUARY 28th- deadline to submit work
FEBUARY 2nd- accepted work must be delivered to Caritas Village
FEBUARY 4th - “Art in Response” opening night at Caritas Village
FEBUARY 5th- artists pick up work from Caritas Village

facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=131132140284719
contact: artinresponse@gmail.com

RED JANUARY II

2011-01-18T14:43:00.000-06:00

RED JANUARY CONTINUES!

Friday, January 21st
9pm

The Poplar Lounge

2586 Poplar Avenue

3D ACID GLASSES
GIRLS OF THE GRAVITRON
MODERN CONVENIENCE
DJ BUCK WILDERS
DJ BOSCO DELREY

$3 dollars
There will be literature and vegan treats!

Come out and support the Socialist Party!

No to Political Assasinations! Let’s Make a Democratic Revolution!

2011-01-09T10:35:00.000-06:00

by Andrea Pason & Billy Wharton - co-chairs Socialist Party USA

January 9, 2011 - On behalf of the Socialist Party USA, we send our
sincerest condolences to the families of the people killed in the recent
shooting in Tuscon, Arizona. This was an attempt at political
assassination as the shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, reportedly
shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (AZ, D.) in the head before turning his gun
on the crowd. The dead include a 9 year child and five others, with
twelve people wounded. Rep. Giffords remains in critical condition.

As socialists, we say unequivocally that political assassination has no
role inside of a democratic society or our movement. Throughout American
history, assassination has been a tool primarily used by the right-wing.
The death by execution of strong leaders such as Medgar Evers, Malcolm X
and Martin Luther King Jr. stand as testimony to the damage done to our
cause. We are democratic socialists and we seek to make a democratic
revolution. A revolution that places people in control of their own
lives. Political assassination has no role in such a movement.

The same cannot be said of the far-right. Right wing activists have
consistently engaged in acts of assassination and in rhetoric that
reinforces and encourages such acts. We can note the murder of abortion
rights activists such as Dr. Barnett Slepian as well as the violent and
hyper-masculine language consistently promoted by the right-wing media.
Loughner was reported to be heavily influenced by these ideas, motivated
by the call to arms being issued by the far-right.

And he did not have to look hard for motivation to attack Giffords.
During the recent mid-term election, Sarah Palin’s Political Action
Committee produced a chart that targeted Democrats. The chart employed
crosshairs to identify the electoral opponents and utilized language like
“We'll aim for these races,” “This is just the first salvo” and “join me
in the fight.” While Sarah Palin did not pull the trigger, she certainly
holds a significant amount of guilt for creating the conditions in which
such as act was possible.

Now is the time to reject such politics both here in the US and globally.
A fitting tribute to the innocent victims from the Tuscon shooting would
be to end the US occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and to end the bombings
in Pakistan. The US military has, through targeted assassinations,
extraordinary renditions and drone attacks, made political violence an
everyday part of life in this region. As we learned in Tuscon today, such
violence creates real human tragedies. The lives of innocents lost in the
Middle East to political violence are of equal value to Loughner’s
victims.

As socialists, we aim to create a non-violent world. A world where the
great wealth of society is used to satisfy human needs. Ours will be a
democratic revolution where the great majority of working people are
finally able to express their desire for things like jobs, peace and
freedom. There is no place in this process, in the transition to a
democratic socialist society, for political assassination. This is the
political tool of the right and only serves to re-enforce the presence of
the repressive apparatus of the government. We want freedom and believe
that mass non-violent political protests are the means to acquire it. We
invite you to join us in this struggle for a better world.

Socialist WebZine: New Design!

2011-01-07T21:25:00.001-06:00

The Socialist WebZine, the SP-USA's weekly online publication, has just undergone a massive redesign. This week's articles:

Recovery Noises and Political Taboos
by Prof. Richard D. Wolff
To avoid the instability of capitalism and its huge social costs requires changing the system. That remains the basic issue for a new year and a new generation.

Solidarity with the Georgia Prison Strike
by the Socialist Party USA National Action Committee
The Socialist Party USA stands in solidarity with these courageous inmates. They represent a neglected and oppressed group of our society.

Larry Summers, Goodbye & Good Riddance, Part I
by Mitchel Cohen
"I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted."
-Larry Summers

Wikileaks, War and Hard Truths
by Lydia Howell
How many hundreds of thousands of people can be murdered in the name of September 11th before the Americans say, “Enough!”?

Statement on Israel
by the SPUSA International Commission
The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA endorses the July 2005 call of 180 Palestinian organizations for a boycott of Israeli goods.

Socialists Support Freedom to Write
by Dianne
It requested that a ban on Dr. Richard Shapiro be lifted and charges dropped against Angana Chatterji and Zahir-ud-Din.

The Prodigal Book Reviewer
by Julie
If a little person isn’t ridiculed, it seems, he or she has to be imbued with mystical qualities.

Carl Sandburg Born January 6, 1878
He moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and joined the Social Democratic Party, the name by which the Socialist Party of America was known in the state.

RED JANUARY

2010-12-28T22:36:00.000-06:00

Come out on New Year's Day for our fundraiser:

January 1, 2011
9pm
The Buccaneer Lounge

1368 Monroe Avenue

Memphis, TN 38104

$3

MANATEES
DRUGWARS
SHARP BALLOONS
DATA DRUMS
bands will start at 10 sharp

DJ Bennett will play requests for donations/feel free to bring your own music.
There will be homemade vegan cookies!

Let's build a socialist future together in Memphis.

How Does the Biggest Prison Strike in American History Go Unnoticed?

2010-12-21T22:38:00.000-06:00

Georgia inmates' refusal to work in demand for humane treatment receives scant media coverage.

Mark Anthony Neal, TheLoop21
12/21/2010

In September of 1971, more than a thousand prisoners at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica , NY revolted in what eventually became one of the most famous prison standoffs in American history. Before the insurrection was bloodily quelled on orders of then New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the prisoners demanded an improvement to the conditions that they were forced to live. In the midst of the Black Power Movement, Attica became a lasting symbol for demands for human and civil rights, even among the incarcerated.

In the spirit of Attica, nearly 40 years later, prisoners at six prisons in Georgia, organized a non-violent labor strike to demand better conditions for themselves. Specifically the inmates demanded a living wage for their work, educational opportunities, decent health care, an end to cruel and unusual punishment, decent living conditions, nutritional meals, opportunities for self-improvement (rehabilitation), access to their families and just parole decisions.

Perhaps even more remarkable than the strike, in which inmates shared information via text messaging on phones bought from prison guards, is that the strike went virtually unnoticed by mainstream American media. That so many chose to ignore what has been called the largest strike of its nature in American history, speak volumes to how Americans continue to think of the American Prison System or what scholars and activists have more commonly referred to as the “Prison Industrial Complex.” The inmates themselves have another word for their reality: “Slavery.”

Read the entire story at TheLoop21...

The Crisis and Obama's Decline

2010-12-12T16:36:00.000-06:00

The Crisis and Obama's Decline

by Rick Wolff -

The economic crisis that Obama rode to victory in 2008 also rode him down in the 2010 elections. Obama and his economic advisors badly "mismanaged the crisis." While the Obama team seems to have learned little from its failure, we need to draw its lessons if we are to reduce the costly social consequences of that defeat.

Obama's administration decided to handle the severe crisis inherited from Bush by following standard Keynesian economics. It undertook massive new spending. First it bailed out banks and other large corporations (AIG in insurance, GM in automobiles, etc.). Then it "stimulated" the economy by boosting spending on goods and services by all levels of government. Standard Keynesian practice also includes not taxing corporations and the richest 10% of US taxpayers to raise the money for all that new spending. Instead, the government borrows that money to cover the difference -- the deficit -- between tax receipts and increased spending. (Super Keynesians like Paul Krugman want more spending and thus bigger deficits.)

No doubt Obama's team worried that large US corporations and the 10% richest individuals would react badly if they were taxed more to enable Washington to spend more. However much they contributed to the crisis and however much they benefit from government spending, corporations and the rich want others to pay for that spending. When have those two groups ever willingly behaved otherwise? They prefer lending to Washington over being taxed by Washington. So the Obama team spent more by borrowing more (much of it from the same corporations and rich people that it had not taxed).

Whenever governments run deficits by borrowing, corporations and the rich become concerned about a resulting problem: who will be taxed to pay the interest on the government's borrowings and to pay back the lenders? To make sure it would not be them, corporations and the rich shifted a significant amount of their political and financial support to Republicans for the mid-term elections. That shift aimed to ensure that no future taxation of business and the rich would force them to pay for deficits. In a capitalist crisis, that's how economic policy works when no organized opposition exists to prevent it.

As 2009 passed into 2010 and government deficits ballooned, the worries of corporate America and the rich deepened. They saw unemployment rise and stay around 10% and a flood of foreclosures eject millions from their homes. They saw Obama losing support from his electoral base as economic conditions kept deteriorating. They feared that he might be tempted (politically compelled) to regain his base's support by taxing corporations and the rich rather than middle and poorer citizens. Then some Obama remarks blamed Wall Street for helping to cause the crisis and criticized the high executive salaries in corporations receiving government aid. In response, a significant portion of corporations and the rich decided to block Obama from moving any further in such directions.

The way to do that was clear: help Republicans. They reliably oppose taxes on corporations and the rich by blocking all tax increases. Corporations especially interested in preventing Obama from other efforts to recoup his base -- such as regulating energy companies after the Gulf of Mexico disaster -- helped the Tea Party's total demonization of Obama and Washington. Media exposure for the Tea Party -- its activities and candidates -- became extraordinary and often quite favorable. Media attitudes toward Obama became much less sympathetic. Funds shifted to Republicans and lobbying against Obama's legislative efforts ramped up.

Obama's team ignored the classic flaw in Keynesian deficit spending policy: underestimating the political struggles over taxes. Middle and lower income individuals were desperate to ease the burdens of the recession on them, while corporations and the rich had no intention of accepting such burdens. As the crisis persisted (no drops in unemployment, foreclosures, job deterioration, etc.) and deficits soared, Obama's base felt increasingly betrayed as very little improved for them. Meanwhile, corporations and the rich shifted support toward Republicans in significant numbers. By mid-2010, it was already too late for Obama. The six months before the November elections were, for many Democrats, like watching an approaching car wreck from inside the car yet powerless to stop it.

Had Obama pursued a different set of policies from the beginning, he might at least have had a chance to avoid the November 2010, electoral results. At the peak of his popularity and support early in 2009, he might have used them to blunt the resistance of corporations and the rich to pay for the increased spending needed to overcome the crisis (and thereby reduce or eliminate the deficits). Only a massive, popular mobilization could frighten (persuade) them that paying all sorts of taxes and other costs of government programs was preferable to risking a mass anger and opposition that might demand far more basic social change at the expense of corporations and the rich. After all, it was massive popular mobilization that enabled FDR to do some of that in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Nowadays, when no trade union upsurge nor sizeable socialist and communist parties exist to mobilize a left opposition, Obama himself would have had to help build one to avoid the defeat he suffered this November.

Obama missed his chance. His advisors, said to include "experts on the Great Depression," misunderstand its political economy, consequently misadvised Obama, and thereby produced a political defeat. A new political formation able and willing to mobilize a majority around its interests is required. It could win a possible exit from the economic crisis by taxing corporations and the rich to enable increased government spending. That modest program would reduce or avoid deficits. Middle and lower income people would then face fewer or no cuts in public employment and services and no need for tax increases. With that program and with government spending focused on jobs and affordable housing, Obama might also have developed into a popular hero along the lines of FDR rather than become a shaky first-term President.

***
Rick Wolff is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and also a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York. He is the author of New Departures in Marxian Theory (Routledge, 2006) among many other publications. Check out Rick Wolff’s documentary film on the current economic crisis, Capitalism Hits the Fan, at www.capitalismhitsthefan.com. Visit Wolff's Web site at www.rdwolff.com, and order a copy of his new book Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do about It.

Red State Podcast: Episode Three

2010-12-12T11:33:00.000-06:00

Listen to episode three of our Socialist Party of Kansas comrades' Red State Podcast.

This episode highlights perspectives rarely displayed by the media, including a constructive conversation with a Tea Party activist, a lecture on the degeneration of Soviet state capitalism in the 1990s, a discussion with Dan LaBotz on his successful campaign in Ohio, and a speech on the continuing relevance of Karl Marx given by Brian Jones of the ISO.

The Red State Podcast moves beyond slogans, soundbites and sectarianism to provide compelling political commentary.

Check out the Sunflower Socialists blog...

BIGGEST PRISONER STRIKE IN U.S. HISTORY—DAY TWO

2010-12-12T11:13:00.000-06:00

Press Release

Thousands of Georgia Prisoners Continue Peaceful Protest
Georgia Department of Corrections Responds with Violence

December 10, 2010…Atlanta, Georgia

Contacts: Elaine Brown, 404-542-1211, sistaelaine@gmail.com;
Valerie Porter, 229-931-5348, lashan123@att.net.

Yesterday morning, December 9, 2010, thousands of Georgia prisoners refused to work, stopped all other activities and locked down in their cells in a peaceful protest for their human rights. The December 9 Strike was the biggest prisoner protest in the history of the United States.

Thousands of men, from Augusta, Baldwin, Hancock, Hays, Macon, Smith and Telfair State Prisons, among others, went on strike to press the Georgia Department of Corrections (“DOC”) to stop treating them like animals and slaves and institute programs that address their basic human rights. They have set forth the following demands:

· A LIVING WAGE FOR WORK
· EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
· DECENT HEALTH CARE
· AN END TO CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS
· DECENT LIVING CONDITIONS
· NUTRITIONAL MEALS
· VOCATIONAL AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES
· ACCESS TO FAMILIES
· JUST PAROLE DECISIONS

Despite that the prisoners’ protest was non-violent, the DOC violently attempted to force the men back to work—claiming it was “lawful” to order prisoners to work without pay, in defiance of the 13th Amendment’s abolition of slavery. In Augusta State Prison, six or seven inmates were brutally ripped from their cells by CERT Team guards and beaten, resulting in broken ribs for several men, one man beaten beyond recognition. At Telfair, the Tactical Squad trashed all the property in inmate cells. At Macon State, the Tactical Squad menaced the men all day, removing some to the “hole,” and the warden ordered the heat turned off, and today, the hot water. Still, men at Macon, Smith, Augusta, Hays and Telfair State Prisons say they are committed to continuing the strike, one inmate stating, “We’re going to ride it until the wheel falls off. We want our human rights.”

When the strike began, prisoner leaders issued the following call: “No more slavery. Injustice in one place is injustice to all. Inform your family to support our cause. Lock down for liberty!”

Read more from the Black Agenda Report...

Read more from the New York Times...

Classic Interviews with Erich Fromm

2010-12-10T09:47:00.000-06:00

Erich Fromm on work, love, and socialism.

There Is A WAR Being Waged Against The Working Families Of America! Sen ...

2010-12-02T19:59:00.000-06:00

The New American Oligarchy

Ohio Campaign "A Great Success"

2010-11-13T08:36:00.000-06:00

from Socialist Webzine:

“The Socialist Party campaign for the U.S. Senate in Ohio was a great success. We won more than 25,000 votes for socialism in Ohio,” said Dan La Botz the 65-year old school teacher, writer and activist and the party’s candidate for Senator. "We didn't win in traditional terms, but this was not a traditional campaign. The corporate parties want working people to wake up think about politics only on election day, and then they want them to go back to sleep. This campaign was about creating an ongoing movement to build power to transform our society.”

Explaining his satisfaction with the outcome of the election, La Botz said, “These were 25,000 votes for ending corporate domination of our society, for ending capitalism’s booms and busts, and for creating economic security and a full-employment economy. These were votes for ending the use of coal and stopping mountain-top removal—while providing support for miners and power plant workers during a period of transition. These were votes for peace, votes to get out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan now. These were votes to tax the rich to pay for health, education, transportation and housing. We are very happy with the result.”

Only Socialist Party presidential candidates Eugene V. Debs in the period from 1900s to 1920s and Norman Thomas in the period from the 1920s to the 1940s won more votes for socialism in Ohio than La Botz.

Asked why the Socialist Party did so well in the election, compared to other socialist candidates in the past, La Botz said, “First, we’ve are in a terrible economic crisis and people are looking for alternatives. Then the Tea Party attack on Obama led to a great national debate about socialism. We were able to explain to Ohio voters that democratic socialism means the American people n needs of working people rather than on the needs of corporate CEOs, corporate boards, and their investors. Socialism is about rebuilding the labor unions and social movements so that working people have the power to push aside the corporate parties and run the country in the interest of the majority.”

La Botz said the party had used its resources wisely. “We used the $10,000 we raised to travel 15,000 miles around Ohio, to distribute tens of thousands of pieces of literature, to talk to thousands of Ohioans about socialism. We were able to do this because we had built an organization in cities and on college campuses throughout the state. We brought together senior citizens, working age adults, and college students. Our organization was made up of peace activists, LGBT activists, environmental activists and labor union members from teachers to teamsters. We united half a dozen small socialist groups in this campaign,” La Botz explained.

“Many people recognize that the Republicans and Democrats, representing the corporations as they do, cannot resolve the country’s problems in the interest of working people. My Socialist Party campaign was part of a long term project to build a working peoples’ party in this country. Our efforts will in the long run coalesce with those of others around the country to build a working class socialist movement. We aim to turn the country upside down, to put working people and the poor on top. And we’re going to do it.”

“The campaign is over, but the struggle continues,” said the former steelworker, truck driver and college professor. “We will continue to organize to fight for jobs, for a green economy, for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, and for equality and justice for all. We will continue to resist the scapegoating of Latino immigrants, Muslims, gays, and African Americans. We will continue to fight the corporations and government policies. We continue to operate on the theory that working people make this country run, and that working people should run the country.”

Dan La Botz won almost half his votes in Ohio’s three largest cities:
Urban area
CLEVELAND - 4,713
COLUMBUS - 4,257
CINCINNATI - 3,489
DAYTON - 1,706
AKRON - 1,527
TOLEDO - 1,488
YOUNGSTOWN - 1,063
CANTON - 943

Dan La Botz for U.S. Senate—Ohio
DanLaBotz.com // contact@danlabotz.com // P.O. Box 19136, Cincinnati OH 45210-99

Prof. Richard Wolff: The Fed and the Great Recession That Won't Go Away

2010-11-09T11:34:00.000-06:00

by Richard Wolff

November 8, 2010

***

Conservatives in the US worry about the inflation potential in their ideological rush to reduce government. They pronounce homilies about inflation’s dangers in order to reduce the size of government. By cutting government spending – and thereby forcing more reliance on the private capitalist sectors – it will be possible to cut deficits, thereby reduce Treasury bond issuance, and thus relieve the Federal Reserve of the need to create money to finance the deficits. Conservatives downplay the risk of worsening unemployment by an abiding faith in the private sector’s capacity to hire everyone willing to work.

Liberals in the US worry about unemployment in their ideological rush to reduce the risk of worker-based anti-capitalist upsurges. They pronounce homilies on the costs of unemployment in order to support government expenditures aimed at reducing unemployment. To appease the rich and big business, they do not propose taxing them to raise the funds for government employment-generating programs. Instead they advocate borrowing those funds (chiefly from the rich and big business) to enable federal government budget deficits. This certainly pleases the rich and big business, since they prefer buying Treasury bonds (lending to the federal government at interest) to being taxed by that government. Liberals downplay inflation risk by reminding everyone that the Federal Reserve has tools to reduce as well as increase the money supply.

***

read the full article...

Update on the FBI Raids

2010-11-06T10:53:00.000-05:00

Don't Mourn, Organize!

2010-11-03T22:09:00.000-05:00

The 2010 Election was a major setback for Obama and the Democratic Party, but it may be good for the progressive left.
The failure of Obama and the Democrats to push a progressive agenda (e.g single-payer Medicare for All) and escalation o the war in Afghanistan suppressed younger and more progressive voters.
But the Tea Party and the Republican Party are still unpopular and do not have popular support for their radical agenda of austerity and cuts to social programs like education and Social Security.
John Boehner and the Republican Congress will soon loser favor with the Tea Party and the American people.
The progressive/left must learn from the Tea Party and build a movement for a viable third party.
As labor organizer Joe Hill said before he was killed, "Don't Mourn, Organize!"

Republican Blowout, But NO Conservative Mandate

It Didn't have to Be this Way--Progressives Must Be Bolder

7 Things Progressives Need to Keep in Mind about the "Bloodbath"

Comeback of the Republicans and the Rise of the Tea Party-Result of Democrats' Failure

Blame Obama's Phony Populism

The Myths They'll Spin About Election 2010

Norman Solomon, Back to Basics

Vote Socialist!

2010-10-27T21:00:00.000-05:00

Dan La Botz, Socialist Party USA candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio, has been endorsed by Cincinnati weekly newspaper, City Beat:

"The former history and Latin American studies professor, who currently teaches Spanish at Cincinnati Waldorf School, is running what he calls 'a campaign of justice' as the Socialist Party candidate. La Botz supports radical democracy, the democratic control of the economy by the majority of Americans instead of by a small minority." Read more in City Beat.

Dan calling for full employment and an end to the wars at a NAACP forum:

The SP-USA currently has fourteen candidates running for local, state, and national offices.

Check out some of our other candidates:

Diana Demers for University of Michigan Board of Regents:
"In contrast to the corporate management credentials touted by each of my Democratic and Republican opponents, my entry into this race comes with firsthand knowledge and experience of the immense struggles facing workers and students throughout our state from skyrocketing tuition costs, mountainous student loan debt, and the increasingly standard hiring model of cyclical ‘temporary track’ employment."

Jane Newton for U.S. House of Representatives, Vermont:
SD: What do your grandkids think about having a socialist granny?
JN: They think it's great. They're not embarrassed by it. They're proud of it. They come and tell everybody I got arrested. (From the Seven Days Staff Blog)

Todd Vachon for U.S. Senate, Connecticut:
Endorsed by A Few Queers on the Prowl blog: "Let’s really vote this time for what we believe in not because we are scared that one mad dog will win if we don’t vote for the other."

Peter Diamondstone for U.S. Senate, Vermont:
SD: Does Sen. Bernie Sanders act like a socialist?
PD: I see him as a war criminal. Everybody in the U.S. House and Senate who has voted to finance the military in Afghanistan and Iraq is in my view a war criminal. People always point to Bush but Bush is just a figurehead. He doesn't have a tank. He doesn't have a gun. He doesn't have nothing until Congress gives it to him. And Sanders has always said that his ideal of socialism is Sweden, and to me Sweden is as capitalist as the United States it's just got a little better welfare system. (From the Seven Days Staff Blog)

Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Ordinance Back on the Table

2010-10-26T06:49:00.000-05:00

Once again, the City Council is contemplating the necessity for modifying its nondiscrimination ordinance to include sexual orientation and gender identity under its protection. This time, Councilmember Shea Flinn is proposing the ordinance and requesting that a study be done on discrimination in the city government to find out if there is really a "problem."

Read more... Council to revisit gender discrimination

No doubt that even if those against the ordinance allow a study to be conducted, they will diminish the findings no matter what they reveal. It is unlikely that this well-intentioned study will be able to measure the effects of insidious institutional homophobia on hiring, firing and promotional practices, much less on the effects of socially acceptable and deeply-rooted bigotry in the work environment of LGBTQI city employees.

Although it is obviously not enough to "legalize gay," a failure to provide these very basic legal protections lends legitimacy to anti-LGBTQI civil rights activists and further isolates an already stigmatized minority. While the entire country is focused on the recent spate of highly publicized teen suicides--which is certainly not a new phenomenon--the City Council needs to show that yes, it does "get better," even in Memphis, Tennessee.

Class Struggle Update

2010-10-21T23:30:00.000-05:00

Robert Reich, The Perfect Storm That Threatens American Democracy
The top one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans earn as much as the bottom 120 million

America's Poor: Where Poverty is Rising in the U.S.

10 Reasons Not to Tax the Rich-and Why they are All Bad

Recession Just a Speed Bump for the Rich

American Income Inequality Highest Since Great Depression

The Depths of Misery for all but the Wealthy

What Happened to Change We Can Believe In?

Socialism? The Rich are Winning the Class War

Protest to Mark Nine Years of War in Afghanistan

2010-10-07T06:50:00.000-05:00

Thursday October 7 • 5:00-6:30pm • Corner of Poplar and Highland

MEMPHIS -- The Mid-South Peace & Justice Center, the Progressive Student Alliance of the University of Memphis, the Memphis Socialist Party, and other concerned residents from across the city will gather on Thursday, October 7th to protest the immoral and unnecessary war in Afghanistan on the 9th anniversary of our invasion.

While our government fails to provide adequate jobs, homes, education and healthcare for the people of this country, the cost of our futile imperialist adventure in Afghanistan has exceeded $1 trillion. "It's outrageous that millions go jobless at home while billions are handed over to war proﬁteers," says Jeffrey Lichtenstein, a member of the Progressive Student Alliance.

The staggering economic cost of the war is dwarfed by its devastating social cost. More than 100,000 Afghan civilians and 2,130 coalition soldiers have been killed during the 3,285 days of Operation Enduring Freedom. Violence has increased dramatically following Obama's surge and continues to escalate. Our drone attacks and preparations for an indeﬁnite military occupation have not improved security in the region but have instead contributed to its deterioration. Neal Gammill, Air Force veteran, explains, "I've been to Afghanistan; the people of Afghanistan need jobs, they need schools, they need infrastructure. They do not need more bombs, more troops, more U.S. interventionism."

Groups of concerned Memphians will gather to denounce the occupation of Afghanistan and call for an immediate end to this racist war for proﬁt. We remember that OUR ﬁght is against racism, unemployment, and poverty here at home. We call all residents of Memphis to join us and demand that not one more life—civilian or soldier—be brutally squandered in our names.

What: This Thursday concerned citizens from across the mid-south will come together to protest the ninth anniversary of the war in Afghanistan and call for an end to the occupation.

When: October 7, 2010 • 5:00 - 6:30pm

Where: Corner of Poplar and Highland

"Operation Recovery": On 9th Anniversary of Afghan War, Veteran-Led Campaign Seeks to End Deployment of Traumatized Soldiers

SPUSA at One Nation Together March 10-2-2010

2010-10-02T20:47:00.000-05:00

My partner Glenn and I joined the Socialist Party USA and the Socialist Contingency at the One Nation Together March Oct. 2. It was great to finally meed the national SPUSA officers and socialist comrades from across the country.
And I finally got to meet David McReynolds!

Some of my highlights:
Driving up to the march I got into a discussion with an older white man (in his 50s) who worked in a TN rest stop. When I told him I was going to the march, he said he thought everyone should have healthcare and that he worked two jobs and had no health insurance. He even agreed that we should expand Medicare to cover everyone. This from a working class man who I was afraid to discuss my politics with because I assumed he was a right-wing conservative.

I also ran into Lt. Dan Choi, who was kicked out of the military for being gay, and he was marching with a group of young LGBT people holding signs with the pictures of the 5 young gay males who have committed suicide in the past weeek.

I got into an argument with a couple of African-American women who objected to referring to gay rights as "civil rights." They support equal rights for gays but not gay marriage and they started throwing the Bible ad religion at us. They walked off, but we had a better interaction with an older black man and his younger daughter (I think). They admitted their was a lot of homophobia (they used that word) in the black community, but the man said he told his daughter he would rather she was with a woman that loved her than a man that abused her.

The crowd was incredibly diverse, unlike the Beck-Palin neo-Nazi rally last month. Lots of discussions about issues and the upcoming elections....

We marched with the Socialists and carried signs and chanted slogans critical of Obama and the Democrats, like "Obama is No Socialist, But We Are, But We Are!"

I admit I was wrong about the Socialist Contingency and now think it was a good idea, even though I didn't agree with everything some of the other groups believe or advocate. We agree on most things, and the big things that matter--the need to replace capitalism with democratic socialism! (We just don't all agree on how to get there.)

Here are some pics I took at the March/Rally

Here are more SPUSA Pics from One Nation Together

Memphis Emergency Protest: Stop FBI Raids and Harassment

2010-09-28T14:46:00.000-05:00

Memphis Emergency Protest: Stop FBI Raids and Harassment
- Wednesday, September 29
- noon-1pm
- 167 North Main St. (near the federal building)

From the facebook event page:
Concerned citizens of Memphis condemn the FBI raids on anti-war and solidarity activists on Friday, September 24th, and denounce them as part of this government's ongoing assault on civil liberties and its campaign of intimidation against activists speaking out for freedom and self-determination.

We urge Memphians concerned by this outrageous fishing expedition to offer their full support to the targeted activists, and to oppose the criminalization of dissent, by gathering outside the Memphis federal building at 12 noon, on Wednesday September 29th.

* Stop the repression against anti-war and international solidarity activists.

* Immediately return all confiscated materials: computers, birthday cards, cell phones, family photos, papers, documents, etc.

* End the grand jury proceedings against anti-war activists.

http://antiwarcommittee.org/?q=node%2F534

http://www.iacenter.org/actions/riads-activists092410/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyG3dIUGQvQ&feature=player_embedded

Help Mobilize the SP for the One Nation Working Together March!

2010-09-16T17:53:00.001-05:00

Comrades,

In the past the Party has asked members which type of fundraiser they are most
likely to support. The overwhelming response was for special fundraiser with
specific purposes and for specific issues/events. Over the last few months,
you’ve probably noticed we’re had more special fundraisers than in other
times, but on each occasion members came though.

In August we had a successful National Organizing Conference and were able to
get Cindy Sheehan there and most recently we were able to keep The Socialist
printed at a union shop after our old union printer went out of business. Now
we have one more reason to ask you for a contribution.

On October 2nd hundreds of thousands of activists will be mobilizing in
Washington DC for the “One National Working Together” march and rally at
the Lincoln Monument. The forces behind the march are mostly main-stream
pro-Democratic Party organizations and originally we did not consider this
event an action to focus on (especially since it’s just after the general
strike mobilization in Europe and just before mass-student walkouts in the US),
but recently there has been a general agreement by many left and socialist
organizations to make sure our faces and message is included and we’ll be
there.

This puts us in a bind and with a short window to organize a large SPUSA
contingent at the One National march. So here’s our plan and what your
support is needed for;
* a mailing announcing the event to many of our members in the area
* a new banner for the contingent
* lots of lit for the literature table
* white SPUSA t-shirts for all participants
* funds to cover last minute expenses

We think we can get this done. By the end of next week, we will have a website
with logistics and a RSVP form for the SPUSA contingent linked from our
homepage, but since we did not really budget for this, we need your help to
make sure we can get this done.

We REALLY need your financial support to make sure we can get banners, signs
and t-shirts to Washington, so please help us with a contribution. You can
contribute on-line at: http://socialistparty-usa.org/contribute.html
or send your contribution directly to the SPUSA at 339 Lafayette St. #303 NY,
NY 10012

If you are going- please RSVP from the link at:
http://socialistparty-usa.org/onenation102.html so we can be sure to give you
up-to-date info. There are free and low-cost buses from across the eastern part
of the US (and some from the West!) you can get this info off the march website
at: http://www.onenationworkingtogether.org/pages/transportation

Hope to hear from you soon and hope to see you in DC!

In Unity,

Greg Pason
National Secretary
Socialist Party USA

Solidarity with the Striking Workers in Europe and Student and Worker Walkouts in the US this September and October

2010-09-05T17:32:00.000-05:00

Passed by the Socialist Party National Action Committee, August 31, 2010

Since May of this year, workers in Greece, Italy, France and Spain have organized increasingly large strikes. In Europe, just as in the United States, workers are confronted with budget cuts, union-busting, and labor law ‘reforms’ that favor the rich. In Spain, labor unions are organizing a general strike on September 29th to coincide with a meeting of European finance ministers on September 29 in Brussels. It is expected that militant actions in other countries will also take place on this day.

Workers’ organizations and individuals in Europe have been calling others to help build September 29 into a day that will begin to awaken a response by global workers to austerity and attacks on our rights.

In the United States students and workers have called for a repeat of last year's mass actions and students walk-outs. On October 2nd and 7th actions are being called to stop budget cuts and other regressive measures which balance budgets on the backs of students, the poor and union workers.

We stand with the European workers and our fellow workers and students in the United States, raising our fists in defiance this September and October.

As socialists, we must reject the latest onslaught of neo-liberal attacks on students’ and workers’ rights, working conditions, social services for our youth, the elderly, and people living with disabilities.

Inasmuch as we call on the US and European governments to immediately halt austerity plans that are killing our people, we also remind our sisters and brothers in the movement that we cannot settle for reforms – we must reject capitalism as a whole. Just as globalization has opened borders to exploitation, we must stand united for the transformation of our societies from the rule of the wealthy few to the radically democratic governance of the collective wealth of the many.

Together we recognize that our politics and our approaches to this mass strike ought to reflect the open, transparent and democratic qualities that are prerequisites for genuine socialist democracy. It is necessary to show unity in action as well as theoretical, tactical, and political distinction from reformist parties and labor union bureaucracies.

With one voice, American and European workers, students and all oppressed by the capitalist system must rise up and demand an end to the war on workers, an end to the imperialist occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq; and an end to capitalism’s war on humanity, thus giving substance to the words: Workers of the world, unite!

This Labor Day, Workers Face Weak Economy on All Fronts - Working In These Times

2010-09-04T12:33:00.000-05:00

This Labor Day, Workers Face Weak Economy on All Fronts - Working In These Times

Please help the SP magazine keep a union printer!

2010-08-31T14:22:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends and Supporters,

I write to you today to ask for your support in our effort to continue printing The Socialist magazine at a unionized printer. Our long-time printer, Saltus Press, shut down unexpectedly last week just as the magazine was about to go to press. We have scrambled to find another union printer and after a flurry of calls finally found one that could match our print specifications. However, the cost will be $200 more than our deal with Saltus.

Once we get the latest issue out, we will conduct a more thorough search for a union printer that fits our budget. Your contribution will help us keep the magazine going while we look.

As socialists, we support unionized workplaces. Larger than that, we are often the folks who initiate union drives or wake sleepy bureaucratic unions from their slumber through rank-and-file action. We need to keep the Socialist at a union printer and need your help to do so.

The Editorial Board of the Socialist Party USA and the Editor of the Socialist ask that you please consider making a generous contribution to our emergency printer fund. Times are tough for all of us, but socialists have bedrock principles. Supporting union labor is one of them.

Please donate online via a credit card or PayPal:
http://socialistparty-usa.org/contribute.html

Or send a check or money order (mark Emergency Printer Fund in the memo) to:
Greg Pason
Socialist Party USA
339 Lafayette Street, Room 303
New York City, NY 10012

Thank you in advance for your support and keep up the struggle!

In Solidarity,

James Marra
Convener, Editorial Board SP-USA

Billy Wharton
Editor, The Socialist

Non-Discrmination Ordinance Withdrawn

2010-08-25T12:55:00.001-05:00

The proposed amendment to the current City of Memphis Non-Discrimination Ordinance, which would have extended workplace protection to LGBTQ City employees, has been withdrawn by Councilmember Janis Fullilove due to lack of support from the Council and Mayor A.C. Wharton.

Mayor Wharton issued a statement last night saying that he is against non-merit-factor-based discrimination, but that his support lies with the decision of the City Council.

This approach is cowardly and cynical, as he certainly benefited from the votes of LGBTQ rights supporters in the election without making known his total disinterest in lifting a finger to help the community achieve those rights.

read more on Mayor Wharton's shifting position on the Grand Divisions blog...

read more on the withdrawal of the ordinance in the Commercial Appeal...

Red State Podcast!

2010-08-21T15:58:00.000-05:00

The Socialist Party of Kansas has started recording podcasts discussing social issues, economics, current events, socialist history, etc.

Listen to their first podcast on the Socialist Webzine, featuring interviews with SP Co-Chair Billy Wharton and long-time peace advocate and former SP presidential candidate David McReynolds...

Check the SP Kansas blog for future podcasts...

Visit the SP Kansas on facebook...

Billy speaks at David's 80th birthday last year:

SP Queer Commission Statement: California Same-Sex Marriage Ban Declaired Unconstitutional

2010-08-10T14:09:00.000-05:00

By SPUSA Queer Commission Chair Jim Sanders

On Wednesday, August 4th, Judge Vaughn Walker issued a 136 page decision declaring Proposition 8, the law that bans same-sex marriage, unconstitutional. This is great news in the long struggle for marriage equality.

From Judge Walker's decision:

"Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite- sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional."

In a socialist society, state intervention into, and authorization of, marriage could be made obsolete. Making healthcare and housing available to everyone would end the need for spousal dependence. Marriage would then become a right of personal privilege rather than an economic compulsion. Until such time Socialists need to engage in the struggle to make all equal under the laws of the current state.

While this is a welcome legal victory, there is still much work to be done. It is reprehensible that a law like this could ever be created in the first place. Opponents of same-sex marriage used the same tired local autonomy – “it should be left up to the states” – rhetoric that was used by the confederacy before the civil war, and by many long after. The “Jim Crow” laws were defended in this way. We must fight for equal protection at a federal level.

Ultimately, the arguments must be taken to the people. The law went into effect in California because a scant majority of California voters succumbed to a campaign that trumpeted long accepted prejudices and approved it in a referendum last year.

As socialists, we seek to create a world where, quoting Marx: “The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

Memphis SP Statement on the Non-Discrimination Ordinance

2010-08-09T11:05:00.000-05:00

The Memphis Socialist Party strongly supports the proposed amendment to Chapter 9 of the City of Memphis Code of Ordinances, which seeks to add language banning discrimination based upon sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. Although the amendment to the non-discrimination ordinance (NDO) is limited in that it attempts to prevent discriminatory hiring and promotion practices only for those who work for the City of Memphis, businesses contracting with the City, or groups using City facilities, our local government must take this opportunity to stand up against the institutional bigotry that infects and divides our communities.

Unfortunately, legislation protecting the basic human rights of the LGBTQ community does not ensure actual equality any more than the decriminalization of LGBTQ relationships and families can ensure their safety and security. The irrational hatred and fear that is characterized by the opposition to the NDO is symptomatic of an unhealthy society; it will not be extinguished by extending job security to LGBTQ City employees, because bigotry is continually reinforced and validated by our economic system that is rooted in oppression, exploitation, and the monetary valuation of human worth. Workers are constantly pitted against each other in a battle for scarce jobs with low wages to do meaningless work that benefits only the capitalist class, who intentionally use race, gender, disability, religion and sexual orientation to maintain divisions between workers and perpetuate our alienation.

We can no longer afford to be complicit in our own exploitation. When we allow people to be stigmatized and discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, gender expression or gender identity, we are legitimizing our own oppression while denying our own humanity. Reforms such as the proposed NDO will continue to be necessary under capitalism, and the Memphis Socialist Party stands in solidarity with the LGBTQ community in the struggle for liberation, lasting equality, and a society where all people can exercise their rights to learn, work, create and love.

The first reading of the NDO will be tomorrow, August 10, 3:30-6pm.

Location: 125 N. Main Street in the City Council Chambers (to your left after you pass through the metal detectors).

Tennessee Equality Project's Facebook Event Pages:

First Reading: Tuesday, August 10, 3:30-6pm
Second Reading: Tuesday, August 24, 3:30-6pm
Final Reading: Tuesday, September 14, 3:30-6pm

Act Now to Stop the Wars and Defend Our Civil Liberties

2010-07-28T06:21:00.000-05:00

July 28, 2010
by Andrea Pason and Billy Wharton, co-chairs Socialist Party USA

The recent disclosure of thousands of top-secret documents by Wikileaks and the Washington Post media project “Top Secret America,” makes one point perfectly clear – the American people need to act now to stop the US military and the growing security state. With hundreds of bases worldwide and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military constitutes the greatest threat to peace in the world. Simultaneously, a growing security state threatens to shred any semblance of civil liberties and personal freedom at home and abroad.

The Wikileaks documents that were bravely secured by Bradley Manning and published by Julian Assange reveal a US military operation in Afghanistan that has violated nearly every tenet of international human rights. Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama both openly lied to the American people about the conduct of the military and the status of the wars. The use of CIA-trained death squads, the manipulation of the puppet government of Afghanistan and the consistent use of drone bombers all reveal a war that cannot be won being carried out by a military willing to commit acts of aggression against a defenseless civilian population. These documents prove decisively that the truth is indeed the first casualty of war.

The “Top Secret America” report reveals a growing security state that is as active domestically as it is internationally. This security apparatus constitutes the single greatest threat to civil liberties throughout the world. The post-9/11 US security state is responsible for torture, extraordinary renditions, false imprisonment, racial profiling and covert assassinations. All of this has been done secretly, in the name of the American people.

It is, therefore, the responsibility of the American people themselves to put an end to the military and security apparatus’ ability to operate. Building a mass movement that both demands the end of the current wars and reclaims civil liberties would be a first step in that direction. As democratic socialists, we believe that any non-violent action that seeks to disable or derail the US military machine is a just act.

Such a movement should also push for a permanent end to militarism by calling for an immediate 50% reduction in military spending as well as the closing of all American military bases abroad. The resulting “peace dividend” could be shared between necessary domestic social services and in repairing the global damage done by the US military. Once in motion, such a movement would find widespread support from peace loving people throughout the world. Only then, after the US is well along the road to disarmament, can serious discussions about global peace and reconciliation begin.

Now is the time to summon the courage of Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. To protect them against the repression of the US government. To demand an immediate end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And, to put our bodies on the line in support of a vision of the future that moves beyond capitalism and the wars it fuels.
***
Check out the Socialist Party USA - http://www.socialistparty-usa.org/
Contact us - natsec@socialistparty-usa.org

Real News Network: Afghan shootings raise war crimes question

Murfreesboro Activists Confront Islamaphobia

2010-07-27T11:03:00.000-05:00

On July 14, reactionaries roused by mega-church leaders and gubernatorial candidates protested the Rutherford County Regional Planning Commission's approval of the Islamic Center's plans to build a mosque with educational and recreational facilities in Murfreesboro, TN.

Middle Tennesseans for Religious Freedom staged a successful counter-rally in solidarity with the Muslim people of Murfreesboro, several of whom have been the target of death threats. The folks in support of religious freedom outnumbered the opposition, largely affiliated with World Outreach Church, and the Commission is so far standing by its decision to allow construction.

The opposition to the Islamic Center has garnered national attention, and the right-wingers have been collecting signatures to present to Commissioners at their next meeting on August 12.

Below is a video clip of Lieutenant Governor and gubernatorial candidate Ron Ramsey speaking at a campaign event in Chattanooga. Starting at 3:06 in the video, the fear and ignorance fueling the opposition is painfully clear in this irrational and racist diatribe against Muslims.

Regardless of the tactics used by powerful mega-churches and right-wing bigots in state government, the people of Middle Tennessee will stand up for religious freedom and not allow the Planning Commission to give in to Islamaphobia on August 12.

Middle Tennesseans for Religious Freedom on Facebook...

read socialistworker.org interview with Jase Short, member of Middle Tennesseans for Religious Freedom...

read Huffington Post response to Ron Ramsey...

watch Nashville news coverage of July 14 protests...

watch Daily Show clip on the opposition...

Cindy Sheehan at the SP National Organizing Conference

2010-07-23T16:26:00.000-05:00

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan will be speaking at the Socialist Party National Organizing Conference August 14-15 in Madison, Wisconsin, along with Paul Buhle (co-author of A People's History of American Empire) and Dan LaBotz (SP candidate for US Senate, Ohio).

From Billy Wharton's interview with Cindy in this week's Socialist Webzine:

"I would think that we could move, especially in these trying times, towards socialism and away from capitalism, corporate-fascism, whatever you want to call it. I always say I’m against capitalism and all the free market people attack me and say, 'This isn’t capitalism, this is crony capitalism, this is corporatism.' I say, if you have a system that degenerates so quickly and seamlessly into fascism, then it’s not healthy. There’s no such thing as a free market. All capitalism is crony. All capitalism is profit over people."

read the full interview...

Queer Notes: Memphis Churches Oppose Non-Discrimination Ordinance

2010-07-21T21:54:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Jim Maynard, Queer Notes

It's unbelievable that a city the size of Memphis, Tennessee, with its historical role in the civil rights movement, would be one of the few major U.S. cities that does NOT protect gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people from discrimination.

read more...

Workshop Preview

2010-07-20T20:44:00.000-05:00

At this Saturday's meeting I'll be previewing my workshop proposal for this year's SPUSA National Organizing Conference.The workshop is titled "Disaster Socialism:Combating Disaster Capitalism Locally and Globally". It focuses on disaster capitalism in the South and then works out to the global situation. It also asks the question "Is Disaster Capitalism set to become the primary impetus for capital accumulation in the 21st century?" Come join us Saturday at 4PM at Caritas Village.

Niall

t r u t h o u t: BP's Scheme to Swindle the "Small People"

2010-07-20T20:10:00.000-05:00

Monday 19 July 2010
by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t

Gulf Coast fishermen and others with lost income claims against BP are outraged by a recent announcement that the $20 billion government-administered claim fund will subtract money they earn by working on the cleanup effort from any future damage claims against BP. This move, according to lawyers in Louisiana working on behalf of Louisiana fishermen and others affected by the BP oil disaster, contradicts an earlier BP statement in which the company promised it would do no such thing.

read more...

Nix and La Botz Offer Alternatives to Financial "Reform" Bill

2010-07-13T12:26:00.000-05:00

In The Nation's The Beat blog, Socialist Party USA candidates Nicholas Nix (U.S. House of Representatives, Texas) and Dan La Botz (U.S. Senate, Ohio) describe their alternatives to the limited reforms contained in the current version of the financial regulatory reform bill, which is likely to be voted on by the Senate and possibly signed into law in the next couple weeks.

read "Is the Financial Regulation Bill 'Socialist'? Don't Make the Socialists Laugh" in The Nation...

Facebook Cracks Down on Leftist Groups and Profiles

2010-07-09T07:17:00.000-05:00

From Leftists in the U.S. South:

In a move to censor the voices of solidarity and human rights, Facebook shut down the “Free Ricardo Palmera!” page on June 30th, claiming it violates their terms of use. On July 7th, the profiles of the three administrators of that group, Josh Sykes, Angela Denio, and Tom Burke, were disabled by facebook with no reason given.

Read the full post.

Join the Facebook group Facebook, reinstate the profiles of Josh Sykes, Angela Denio, and Tom Burke.

Join the Facebook group Stop Facebook Assault on Progressive Causes.

Merton & Princeton Garden

2010-07-05T12:04:00.000-05:00

In 2009, the Memphis SP helped to establish and fund a garden at the corner of Merton & Princeton, which has become an open community garden, with planting space and food available to anyone interested fresh produce and organic gardening methods.

We can always use help from anyone interested in weeding, mowing, mulching, or otherwise tending to the plants. Feel free to stop by anytime to pull a few weeds, and be sure to take some cucumbers, butternut squash and basil! If you would like more information on what you can do to help, please email us at memphissocialist@yahoo.com.

BP: The Case for Public Ownership -- In These Times

2010-07-01T21:55:00.000-05:00

BP: The Case for Public Ownership -- In These Times
Article by SPUSA Co-chair Billy Wharton

RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism

2010-07-01T17:41:00.000-05:00

It’s not the Crimes, It’s Capitalism: The Gulf Oil Spill

2010-07-01T16:47:00.000-05:00

by the Socialist Party USA National Committee - June 20, 2010

By now, nearly everyone on the planet is aware of the creeping disaster that is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Many call the oil spill a crime. People are rightfully outraged and many are calling for criminal prosecution of the British Petroleum Corporation. Many blame the problem on corporations. While it is clear by now that crimes were committed, this is not the issue. The fundamental problem isn’t the crimes. The problem is capitalism.

Workers and the environment are perpetually exploited by corporations for profit, but the true nature and functions of corporations must be understood. Corporations are no more than tools of capitalism. While it is important to recognize and disable the tools of exploitation, it’s even more important to recognize who wields those tools: the capitalist class.

Even without these tools, this would still be happening under capitalism. Before there were corporations as we know them, labor was mercilessly exploited (often under deadly conditions), poisons were dumped into the waters, forests were mowed down, and the skies were blackened with industrial waste. Corporations don’t destroy people and the environment; capitalism does.

This is because the capitalist system is a continuous race, because the failure to keep up means destruction by the competition. Capitalists are forced to seek every advantage to make a profit. This, not simply greed, is the reason why capitalists are forced to crush unions, slash wages, increase hours, cut corners and lower safety standards. This, not greed, is why the capitalist fights against regulations, and ignores them when he can.

British Petroleum is only one of many corporations that evade basic safety standards. Only a few months ago we saw the deaths of dozens of miners at the Upper Big Branch Mine for the same reasons. On the Deepwater Horizon, eleven workers were killed, seventeen injured. While this disaster never should have occurred, under capitalism, these disasters are inevitable.

The supply of energy in all its forms is held hostage to a system that must put profits above everything. Held hostage by corporations, Congress betrayed the public by capping damages arising from environmental catastrophes. Government regulators are held hostage too by capitalism, betraying the public by looking the other way or even aiding the capitalists.

The Socialist Party USA calls for the immediate socialization of all energy companies and the creation of a publicly owned entity that can meet energy requirements while being operated under community and worker control. These corporations should be transferred to the public sector without compensation. Because of the inherent danger in deep water drilling, the SPUSA calls for the total ban on offshore exploration, drilling, and for immediately phasing out of existing off shore wells.

The United States must reverse its dependence on oil and gas. The SPUSA calls for free mass transit and a massive program to greatly expand light rail in urban areas and build a network of inter-city fast rail. Electrical energy needs should be met through the use of renewable resources such as wind and ocean power.
The oil spill is indicative of the necessary disregard of human life and our environment that is fundamental to the capitalist market economy. Efforts to tinker with this system, attempting to regulate capitalism, are bound to fail. Only the abolition of the for-profit, market system and its replacement with a democratic, socialist society can prevent more catastrophic ecological disasters.

Recent Statements

2010-06-18T21:27:00.000-05:00

Statement on Gay Pride 2010
by the SPUSA Queer Commission June 9, 2010

On June of 1969 fed up queers fought back when police began harassing them at the Stonewall Inn bar on Sheridan Square in New York City. By most accounts the most oppressed, drag queens and lesbians, lead the charge. This was a flashpoint in a long history of struggle. The homophile movement, the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis laid the groundwork for the uprising. Stonewall was also influenced by the feminist movement, the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, and the struggle against the war in Vietnam.

The first organized group that sprang from the Stonewall Riots was the Gay Liberation Front which was consciously named after the Vietnamese Liberation Front and included socialists, communists, anarchists and other radicals.

The Socialist Party USA stands with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Questioning people for liberation and full and equal participation in society. LGBTQ people deserve the same rights of marriage as heterosexuals, including the right to adopt children. LGBTQ people who chose to enter the military should have every right to live openly without penalty or harassment, and have every right that their heterosexual peers have.

Gay Power and Gay Liberation were the rallying cries of Stonewall. The Stonewall riots demonstrate the power of resistance and confrontation against injustice. Socialist liberation goes beyond rights and demands full empowerment and participation. The Socialist Party USA celebrates the legacy of Stonewall and the movement for LGBTQ liberation.

Statement on Israel's Latest Outrage
by the SPUSA International Commission- June 7, 2010

It is almost beyond belief that Israel could again shock us, after the siege and blockade of Gaza, the destruction of Lebanon, and decades of brutal colonization of the Palestinian people. Yet, in the early dawn hours of May 31, military forces of Israel attacked an unarmed aid convoy bound for the Gaza Strip, massacring between nine and sixteen civilians, injuring as many as sixty. The convoy intended to breach the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, delivering humanitarian aid supplies to the Palestinian people. The ships were attacked and seized in international waters, in violation of international maritime law.

The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA strongly condemns this act of piracy and murder. We join tens of thousands around the world in demonstrating against Israel's crimes at all Israeli consulates and embassies. We demand Israel immediately end the cruel and inhuman blockade of Gaza and withdraw from the Occupied Territories. Until this is done, we call for all to join in the international boycott of Israel and Israeli goods. We demand an end to all American military aid to Israel. We demand an international tribunal to pursue the crimes against humanity committed by Israel. The seized goods must be delivered to Gaza and restitution must be made to the injured and the families of the slain.

Israel is not alone in blame. The United States is also at fault. Without the five billion dollars that the American taxpayer annually gives to Israel, the Israeli military would not be capable of such murderous disregard for human life. It is through this payoff that the American ruling class maintains its grip on the politics of the Middle East through division of the workers. It is through this payoff that Israel is able to ward off its enemies and international criticism of its policies. It is through this payoff that Israel continues to illegally occupy Palestine and the Golan Heights of Syria. It is through this payoff the Palestinian people are colonized. This donation, taken from the American workers to divide their brothers and sisters in the Middle East, must cease.

Israel's continuing colonization of Palestine and the resultant war crimes and crimes against humanity are the fundamental reasons that peace does not exist in the Middle East. The Israeli military must withdraw from Palestine.

Which Side Are You On?

2010-06-13T12:49:00.000-05:00

It's time President Obama, the Democrats, and the American people choose between populism and corporatism. There is a class struggle between the corporate rich and "the people" (workers, poor, etc.) Unfortunately, the Obama administration and the Democratic Party can't seem to make a decision on which side to fight for.

The Democratic Party establishment, including Bill Clinton and the Obama administration, tried to STOP progressive candidates from challenging their established (corporate) Democratic candidates in primaries last week. Bill Clinton himself tried to persuade Joe Sestak not to run against former Republican Arlene Specter in PA, and campaigned for corporate whore Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas.

President Obama refuses to take a hard stand against BP in the Gulf, or STOP oil drilling off the coast, to placate "moderate" Republicans and Democrats, just as he refused to push for single-payer health insurance.

With the threat of another recessionary dip in the economy, Obama refuses to push for a bold progressive economic agenda, and is caving in to the "deficit hawks" who want to slash government spending and are pushing for cutting Social Security and Medicare.

When will Obama and the Democrats learn how to fight for workers? Will they side with workers ("the people") against the corporate elites? Not likely, since the Democratic Party, including Obama, are in bed with the corporate elites as much as the Republican Party.

Obama Needs to Decide Which Side He is On: Corporatist or Populist

Robert Reich: Why We're Falling into a Double Dip-Recession

Long-Term Unemployed Now 46% of Unemployed (Highest on Record!)

Obama Warns of Massive Layoffs of Teachers, Police & Firefighters (Congress refuses to Act)

The Do-Nothing 44th President

Glenn Greenwald Clobbers Eliot Spitzer on Gaza Flotilla

2010-06-03T08:06:00.001-05:00

Must See Video: Glenn Greenwald Clobbers Eliot Spitzer on Israel's Attack on Gaza Flotilla

Israeli Legislature Reveals Terror on Flotilla Ship-Accuses Israel of Intentionally Killing Peace Activists

TONIGHT: Vigil for the Gaza Flotilla

2010-05-31T14:26:00.000-05:00

Last night, Israeli soldiers shot at and boarded a ship in international waters, which was part of a small fleet headed for Gaza carrying aid workers, activists, and humanitarian supplies. After hoisting a white flag and offering no resistance, around ten unarmed civilians on the ship were killed and at least thirty wounded.

NY Times

Al-Jazeerah

Live Report and Footage from Ship as Israel Attacks

Please attend the vigil tonight at Poplar and Highland: We will not tolerate Israel's aggression towards international aid workers and peace activists, nor will we tolerate continuous acts of violence towards the people of Palestine. End the illegal siege of Gaza, end US military aid to Israel, and end the occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem NOW.

Poplar & Highland
6-8pm
Today, Monday May 31, 2010

Any questions about tonight, please email: memphissocialist@yahoo.com
-Sally

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T13:32:00.000-05:00

Memorial Day is not about sales and buy new a new matress, and it should not be about glorifying war and jingoistic national patriotism. We should remember why war is bad, and remember the dead who speak to us from their graves:

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America's War On Iraq: 4,718
icasualties.org/oif/

Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan : 1,789

Cost of War in Iraq Afghanistan
$1,000,042,858,296

Falling Off the $1 Trillion Cliff

10 Things to Remember on Memorial Day

MLK vs. War

2010-05-31T13:26:00.000-05:00

Dr. Martin Luther King spoke against the Vietnam War and American imperialism and tied the war in Vietnam and war spending to the neglect of the poor in the United States.

"Silence is Betrayal"

What is Wrong with this Picture?

2010-05-27T01:41:00.001-05:00

Capitalism vs. Socialism: Big Surprise in New Polls

2010-05-18T22:19:00.000-05:00

Capitalism: Big Surprises in Recent Polls

A new Pew Poll shows widespread skepticism about capitalism and hints that support for socialist alternatives is emerging as a majoritarian force in America’s new generation.

Carried out in late April and published May 4, 2010, the Pew poll, asked over 1500 randomly selected Americans to describe their reactions to terms such as “capitalism,” “socialism,” “progressive,” “libertarian” and “militia.” The most striking findings concern “capitalism” and “socialism.”

Pew summarizes the results in its poll title: “Socialism not so negative; capitalism not so positive.”

“Capitalism” is still viewed positively by a majority of Americans. But it is just by a bare majority. Only 52% of all Americans react positively. Thirty-seven percent say they have a negative reaction and the rest aren’t sure.

A year ago, a Rasmussen poll found similar reactions. Then, only 53% of Americans described capitalism as “superior” to socialism.

Meanwhile, 29% in the Pew poll describe “socialism” as positive. This positive percent soars much higher when you look at key sub-groups, as discussed shortly. A 2010 Gallup poll found 37% of all Americans preferring socialism as “superior” to capitalism.

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a “Center-Right” country but a populace where almost 50% are deeply ambivalent or clearly opposed to capitalism.

More interesting, in the Pew poll, just 43% of Americans under 30 describe “capitalism” as positive. Even more striking, the same percentage, 43%, describes “socialism” as positive. In other words, the new generation is equally divided between capitalism and socialism.

The Pew, Gallup and Rasmussen polls come to the same conclusion. Young people cannot be characterized as a capitalist generation. They are half capitalist and half socialist. Since the socialist leaning keeps rising among the young, it suggests—depending on how you interpret “socialism”—that we are moving toward an America that is either Center-Left or actually majoritarian socialist.

May Day Protests

2010-05-02T22:47:00.000-05:00

Hundreds of Thousands of Workers March in Global Protests on May Day

Thousands March on Wall Street

Video of Wall Street Protest

Rally for Rights (Rescheduled for Sat. May 8)

2010-05-01T23:50:00.000-05:00

Rally For Rights
Manifestación para los Derechos Civiles
Saturday, May 8 :: Sabado, 1 Mayo
12:00pm - 2:30pm
National Civil Rights Museum
Museo Nacional de los Derechos Civiles

REFORM IMMIGRATION FOR AMERICA

Arizona Legalizes Racial Profiling

SPUSA May Day Statement

2010-04-29T23:55:00.000-05:00

Socialist Party May Day Statement

Socialism – An Idea Whose Time Has Come!
“Ideas,” someone once wrote, “move rapidly when their time comes.” As we gather to celebrate May Day, the continuing capitalist crisis makes socialism an idea ready to move rapidly. While the banks have received trillion dollar bailouts, working people still face mass unemployment, state and local budget cuts and deepening personal debt. Capitalist crisis has made the socialist vision of a world where human needs are put ahead of individual profits even more relevant. Our task on May Day is to convert socialism from a good idea into a movement to transform our society.

Capitalism Exposed
The recent economic crisis was more than a banking crisis or a housing price bubble. It was a demonstration that there is a fundamental problem at the center of capitalism. That problem lies in the nature of corporations themselves. Noam Chomsky once described corporations as “unaccountable private tyrannies.” There is no democracy inside of a corporation and, as a result, there is no democracy on our worksites. Corporations are undemocratic entities created only to make profits from exploiting the labor of workers.
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The undemocratic corporate model now also dominates American politics. A corrupting system of campaign donations and lobbying ensures that both Democrats and Republicans serve the interests of corporate America. When corporate profits declined, politicians began handing out trillions of dollars in public money to them. When these same corporations fired millions of workers, neither Democrat nor Republican attempted to stop them.

Socialist Solutions
Socialism offers an alternative to undemocratic profit-mad capitalism. By ensuring that people’s needs for housing, healthcare, education and employment are guaranteed, a socialist society will offer equality of opportunity. By bringing democracy to the economy through worker’s control of production, we will make sure that the place where most people spend their adult lives operates democratically. By organizing participatory budgeting, we will put people at the center of the system – fully empowered to make decisions concerning the future of the society they live in.
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The powerful necessity of socialist ideas can be seen most clearly with the issue of immigration. The capitalist state presents restrictions and police actions as the proper way to keep immigrants in line. Conversely, socialists support the rights of all workers regardless of their status. We support the creation of an unconditional amnesty program and seek to build solidarity amongst workers throughout the world. Where capitalism offers ICE raids and the Border police, we support human freedom and social solidarity

May Day- Our Day
May Day is our day. A day when trade unionists, anarchists and socialists gather to state clearly that another world is possible. This other world is a democratic participatory one, where resources are shared for the betterment of humanity. However, democratic socialism will not come about spontaneously – we must get organized. So, today we invoke the names of Eugene Debs, of Caesar Chavez, of Dr. Martin Luther King to call on all working people to join the struggle for socialism. Move rapidly, act boldly, we have a world to win!

Visit the SPUSA May Day 2010 Page

Help out our Virginia Comrades!

2010-04-29T09:03:00.000-05:00

Help out our comrades from the Socialist Party of Central Virginia; please sign their petition protesting the order to hire and pay off-duty officers to police their May Day parade.

Below is their letter:

Hi friends,
The Richmond Police Department has decided that the May Day parade planned for this Saturday must hire and pay for police presence in order to parade in the streets.
We are doing our best to resist this on a number of grounds. This creates a terrible precedent for other groups in Richmond to have to follow. This is an assault on our rights to peaceably assemble, and the RPD has already violated numerous ordinances in an effort to deny granting any permit at all.

A lawsuit is being planned, with the help of the ACLU, in the event that the parade will have to be on the sidewalks instead of the streets, but we hope that with enough public pressure we will be able to have our parade on our terms.

PLEASE follow this link and sign our letter, http://www.change.org/petitions/view/free_speech_for_richmonds_may_day

A press conference and picket will be held tomorrow (Thurday 4/29) at 5:00 pm in Richmond in front of the Police Head Quarters on Chamberlayne Avenue where Captain Shamus and Sgt. Selander's Special Events Division is located.

This is how the petition reads-
Free Speech for Richmond's May Day!

Dear Mayor Dwight C. Jones and Police Chief Bryan T. Norwood:

I am writing to protest the fact that the Richmond Police Department is attempting to deny a parade permit to organizers of a Richmond May Day Parade planned for this coming Saturday, first by failing to respond to the organizers' permit application within the time limit imposed by city law, and second by demanding that the organizers first agree to hire two off-duty police officers, a requirement not included in the relevant city ordinance. I urge the City of Richmond to do the right thing, respect the First Amendment right to peacefully assemble and immediately grant the parade permit.

Cc:
The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Richmond Free Press, Richmond Voice The Virginia Defender, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Style Weekly, WRIR, Richmond-area Clear Channel radio stations, WTVR Channel 6, WRIC Channel 8, NBC Channel 12, May Day 2010 Richmond Organizing Committee

Sincerely,

[Your name]

For more info on Richmond May Day go to www.maydayrva.org

and please pass this on to your friends!

Repeal Arizona's Anti-Immigrant Law

2010-04-29T08:56:00.000-05:00

Passed by the Socialist Party USA People of Color Commission April 29, 2010
http://socialistparty-usa.org/statements/repealaz420.html

The Socialist Party USA calls for the immediate repeal of the “Support Our
Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” (SB 1070) in Arizona. This law
sanctions racial profiling and gives cover to the repressive actions of
officials such as the racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Further, we call for an
immediate moratorium on all police raids of immigrant communities; we
demand the closure of the immigrant detention camps and an end to the
militarization of the US-Mexico border.

Arizona has become the epicenter of struggle for the rights of immigrants.
The state offers the clearest example of the abject failure of the current
immigration policies in the United States. These policies rely on the use
of force – ICE raids and the border police – backed up by an equally
brutal labor discipline that traps the undocumented in low-wage dead-end
jobs. The results are well known – the splitting up of families, the death
and criminalization of migrants and a race-to-the-bottom for work
conditions and wages. A 2009 mass march in Phoenix, Arizona led by young
people who had been separated from their undocumented parents and families
highlighted the terrible human costs of these systematic attacks on
immigrants. SB 1070 seeks to take this process a step further by
transforming Arizona into the equivalent of a police state where anyone
with brown skin becomes a suspect. In response, immigrant communities and
their allies, all across the country, are mobilizing to demand an end to
the repression.

Such fervor has not, however, made it to Washington, where Democrats are
preparing reform legislation that amounts to more of the same. Much like
the recent healthcare reform, immigration reform has been watered down to
suit the needs of Republicans and employers. This is no surprise since, as
a candidate, now President Barack Obama never fully distanced himself
from the Republican's positions on immigration: the border wall, more
military presence on the border, and building more detention camps.
Despite this, he still gained the support of mainstream immigration reform
groups who slowed down a vibrant May 1st Immigrant Rights movement. The
now disarmed movement was left without any commitments from Democratic
candidates and with no plans to mobilize after the elections.

The current legislation under consideration will do little to address the
problem. Bills such as “the Dream Act” of 2009, which would provide
conditional permanent residency to a few immigrants who entered the
country as minors or have “good moral character,” will not break the
crisis in Arizona. Instead, such reforms attempt to paper-over the demands
from immigrant communities in order to continue the cycle of
militarization, repression and wage slavery.
Socialists have something significant to offer to the immigration reform
discussion. We call for an unconditional amnesty program for all
undocumented people. This demand is based on our desire to create a world
in which everyone will be able to move freely across borders, to visit, to
work and to live wherever they choose. Amnesty will also allow workers,
documented and undocumented, to begin to advance serious demands for wages
and benefits. Amnesty will move us out of the current immigration crisis
and towards a society based on freedom.
Defeating SB 1070 is an urgent first step in this direction and the
Socialist Party USA encourages our members and allies to join in this
struggle.

¡No somos criminales, somos trabajadores internacionales!
¡Que viva la justicia y la dignidad de los migrantes unidos sin fronteras!"

Upcoming event:

Rally for Rights :: Manifestación para los Derechos Civiles
May 1, 2009
12:00pm - 2:30pm
Location: National Civil Rights Museum :: Museo Nacional de los Derechos Civiles

Contact us to join the Memphis SP at the rally!
memphissocialist@yahoo.com

See you there!

Movie Sat. April 24: Capitalism A Love Story

2010-04-19T22:05:00.001-05:00

In lieu of the regular monthly meeting on Sat. April 24, The Memphis Socialist Party invites you to join us to watch Michael Moore's CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY to kick off May Day events in Memphis.

What: Capitalism A Love Story
When: Sat. April 24, 4 PM
Where: 2110 Evelyn (Behind Black Lodge Video near Cooper/Evelyn)

For info call 901-722-3790

Massey Mine Tragedy: Capitalism vs. Labor

2010-04-18T17:05:00.000-05:00

The death of 29 miners in the Massey Energy Company's Upper Big Branch mine last week was not an accident, it was the result of a deliberate attempt by a corporation to sacrifice mine safegy, and the lives of mine workers, to make a profit. It is the latest in a long history of capitalism sacrificing the safety and lives of workers for corporate profit.

Despite a supposedly tougher federal law that passed in 2006 after the Sago, W. Va. mine explosion killed a dozen miners, Massey and other companies have been able to use the law as a shield to avoid tougher enforcement measures by appealing safety citations — and overwhelming the weak Mine Safety and Health Administration with a backlog of appeals.
Even though Massey has faced proposed fines nearing $2 million since 2005 and been cited over 1,300 times, it’s paid only a fraction — one-sixth — of the proposed fines. All told, according to the United Mine Workers of America, nearly 50 people have been killed at Massey mines in the last 10 years. In March alone, it was cited over 50 times for violations, many directly related to ventilation violations that allowed the build-up of explosive methane gas that played a major role in the killing of the 29 miners.

Lesson from Mine Tragedy: Union Busting = Death

Massey CEO Don Blankenship Fought Regulators
As CEO, "he has fought with mine regulators, unions, residents of his town and even his personal maid.
His company regularly appeals fines for safety infractions. He has personally gone into mines to persuade workers to abandon union organizing efforts. Massey is fighting lawsuits that claim it contaminated groundwater in Blankenship’s town. A maid supplied by a company she claimed was a Massey unit was forced to fight all the way to West Virginia’s highest court to collect unemployment benefits."

Blankenship was also a Teabagger, speaking out at Tea Party protests against government regulations, global warming, etc. Like other corporate backers of the Tea Party movement, Blankenship sounded like a working class populist railing against "big" government and unions, but he was actually an enemy of labor and the American working class.

Here is the union-busting Massey CEO Don Blakenship speaking at a Tea Party celebration of "American Labor":

It is a perfect example of how corporations are using the TEA PARTY movement to protect their own profits and financial interests over the well-being of the American working class.

In These Times: Will Massey Corp. Ever Face Justice?

Obama is not a Socialist! Tea Party vs. Socialists

2010-04-15T21:57:00.000-05:00

CNN Asks Card Carrying Socialists: Is Obama One of Them?

Featuring SPUSA co-chair Billy Wharton

Tax Day Fact Check

2010-04-15T21:18:00.000-05:00

Some inconvenient facts for the teabaggers on Tax Day:
From Crooks & Liars:

Over 95% of Working Households Got Tax Cuts
Only 2% of Tea Baggers Know Obama Cut Their Taxes...
...and 52% of Tea Partiers Think Their Taxes are Fair...
...and Think the Federal Tax Level is Over Double What It Is
1% of Families Earned 24% of All Income...
...and 57% of All Capital Income
400 Richest Taxpayers Saw Incomes Double, Tax Rates Halved
Only 1 in 500 Families Pay the Estate Tax
Corporate Taxes Have Plummeted as a Share of GDP
The U.S. Loses $345 Billion a Year to Tax Evasion and Fraud

Taxes for working class LOWER under Obama:

Institute for Policy Studies:Tax Day Talking Points

How to Talk to a Tea Party Activist:

53% of Tax Dollars Goes to the MILITARY

GE, Exxon: Large Corporations Pay NO Taxes!

How 50 Years of Tax Cuts Benefited the Wealthy

Tax the Rich!

Taxes: Myths vs. Realities

Tax, Baby, Tax!

Tax Day April 15: Tax Wall Street

2010-04-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

Wall Street got its bailout--now it's time to bail out the American working class!

April 15: Tax Wall Street Day of Action

AFLCIO: March on Wall Street Planned As Unions Try to Out-Tea Party the Tea Party

Labor Plans March on Wall Street

Thought for April 15: More than 53% of Your Tax Payment Goes to the Military

Rally for Homeless in Memphis

2010-04-12T22:21:00.000-05:00

For more information contact Mid-South Peace and Justice Center

Democratic Party Net Unfavorable Rating for First Time in Two Decades

2010-04-09T23:51:00.000-05:00

Democratic Party has Significant Net Unfavorability Rating for First Time in Two Decades

Some serious bad news for Democrats from Gallup. For the first time in nearly two decades, the Democratic party now polls a net unfavorability–54% of registered voters have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, while only 41% of voters have a favorable view. This is a huge–and potentially devastating–swing for Democrats over the last few months.

In the past twenty years, Democrats have not had a statistically significant net unfavorable rating. Only back in 2006 did more voters briefly hold an unfavorable view of the party, but that was well within the margin of error. Clearly, the American people have soured on the Democratic Party in a big way. The people meant to be directing the political operations and outreach to maintain popular support for the party have been failing miserably.

The Republican party’s favorability ratings have increased somewhat during the last few months, but registered voters still have a net negative view of the party that is probably lingering from the George W. Bush years. Only 42% of voters view the Republican Party favorably, while 51% view the party unfavorably. This means both parties favorable numbers are well below their recent long-term norms.

It is impressive that in our two-party system, we currently have both major parties with a majority of registered voters having an unfavorable view of them. Assuming a prefect split, only 83% of voters have a favorable opinion of either major top party they are expecting to vote for.

TIME TO END THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM--JOIN THE SOCIALIST PARTY USA!

MLK

2010-04-04T13:25:00.001-05:00

Today is the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis.

If the racist tea-baggers and conservatives attacking "big government" think Barack Obama is a "socialist," what would they call Dr. Martin Luther King today? Well they called him worse things back then...

Too bad liberal politicians today still lack the courage and "progressive" vision of MLK, who spoke truth to power even when it cost him popularity--and his life.

If people really want to know what a Democratic Socialism is about they should listen to MLK on economic justice, war, inequality, etc...

John Lewis on Martin Luther King: U.S. Lacks a Moral Leader

Bill Moyers, Dr. King's Economic Dream Deferred

His last speech in Memphis

Happy Ceasar Chavez Day

2010-03-31T22:15:00.000-05:00

Today is Ceasar Chavez Day, marking the birthday of the late United Farm Workers organizer and activist.

Chavez was also the first civil rights leader to publicly support LGBT civil rights. I remember hearing him speak at the 1987 LGBT March on Washington, it was the largest crowd he ever spoke to. He also walked in the march.

“Sí Se Puede” – “Yes We Can!"

In Defense of "Socialism"

2010-03-31T20:32:00.000-05:00

The term "socialism" has long been thrown at liberals by their right-wing opponents, even when liberals act to reform and save capitalism. Barack Obama has been labelled a "socialist" and his "insurance reform" is being attacked as "socialized medicine," even though it is basically a Republican plan to mandate people buy private insurance and keeps the failing for-profit healthcare system in place.

Socialists must educate the public about what is and is NOT socialist. While liberals diligently reject the socialist label and side with conservatives to defend capitalism, we must assert that DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM is, in the words of Michael Harrington, the only "hope for human freedom and justice under the unprecedented conditions of life humanity faces in the twenty-first century."

Frances Moore Lappe, Why Are We Afraid of Saying "Socialism"

Billy Wharton, Obama's No Socialist

Actual Socialist Weighs in on "Socialist" Health Bill

Socialism? Not Quite, Say the Socialists

Hunger in Memphis

2010-03-27T14:53:00.000-05:00

Amid Recession, Memphis Becomes America's Hunger Capital

Healthcare Bill A Victory for Capitalism

2010-03-25T22:49:00.001-05:00

Michael Moore: Healthcare Bill A Victory for Capitalism

Diary of a Wimpy Health Care Bill

Big Pharma Wins Big with Health Insurance Reform Bill

Bill Moyers: Health Bill is Bonanza for Insurance Industry and other Monied Interests

British Medical Journal: Obama's Reform No Cure For What Ails Us

Socialists Oppose Democratic Health Insurance Bill

2010-03-22T22:56:00.000-05:00

Socialist Party USA Co-Chair Opposes Obama Healthcare Bill

March 22, 2009- Co-chair of the Socialist Party USA, Billy Wharton, opposes the healthcare bill passed yesterday by the House of Representatives and scheduled to be signed into law by President Barack Obama on Tuesday. Wharton’s opposition is based on the belief that this bill is not a reform. Instead, it is a corporate restructuring of the health insurance industry created to protect the profit margins of private insurance companies.

The bill passed by the House yesterday would mandate all Americans to purchase health insurance coverage or face a fine. It would also create health insurance exchanges, an idea crafted by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, where people would purchase insurance from private companies. Those not eligible for Medicaid but who still could not afford to purchase insurance would receive public funds from the federal government to purchase bare bones coverage insurance plans from private insurers.

Wharton opposes this restructuring on the grounds that the mandates allow private insurers to use the coercive power of the state to enhance their private profits. Insurance credits will serve as a public subsidy to private companies. It is yet another case of public money that could be used for necessary social programs being funneled towards companies that engage in practices that are abusive and detrimental to the overall society. He believes the bill is also a demonstration of how deeply corporate lobbyists and campaign contributions have infected the country’s political system.

“This is not a healthcare reform bill,” says Wharton, “It is instead a corporate restructuring of the American healthcare system designed to enhance the profits of private health insurance companies disguised with the language of reform”

Instead, Wharton believes that public funds would be better spent in creating a national single-payer system. Democratic socialists see such a system of open access to care as one part of a larger transition toward making healthcare a guaranteed human right for all. Wharton calls for people to take power into their own hands by supporting the demand for single-payer health insurance and by conducting a red and green rebellion at the voting booth and in the streets to claim our human rights.

Wharton encourages people to visit the website of the Socialist Party USA to gain more information about the struggle for healthcare and the organization’s broader vision of a democratic socialist society.

Salon: Actual Socialist Weights in on "Socialist" Health Bill

SPUSA Healthcare Campaign Website

In The Great Recession, Socialism Sells

2010-03-15T14:35:00.000-05:00

In The Great Recession, Socialism Sells
By Shareen Pathak
from: COLUMBIA NEWS SERVICE

The Socialist Party’s chapter in New York City has a brand new member. Kimberley Ortiz, 25, is a single mother from the Bronx who had never heard of socialism until six months ago, when her co-worker handed her a piece of paper with the details of the Socialist Party’s next meeting.

“He told me, there is a word for what you believe in,” she says. “Socialism.”

Ortiz attended the meeting, and the one after that, and the one after that. She became an official member of the party on Feb. 12.

The economic crisis may have sounded a death knell for investment banks, construction companies and countless small businesses, but there are some groups that are benefittng from the general malaise. Alternative political movements such as communism and socialism are hoping that some Americans will go outside the mainstream and adopt a socialist ideology, breathing new life into these organizations.

“I want to put a normal face on socialism, which looks like this big scary thing for most people,” says Ortiz, who has been working alongside party members, translating fliers into Spanish and handing them out. She says that she has been seeing a steady increase in the number of new faces at every meeting.

“I want more people like me to join, single moms and regular people, y’know?”

Officials from the Communist Party USA and the Socialist Party USA say they have never seen such interest from Americans as they see today. A poll conducted by Rasmussen in 2009 showed that 20 percent of Americans favor socialism over capitalism, with more support among younger people. Of adults under 30, 37 percent of them said socialism was the better choice.

Though Ortiz had never heard of socialism, she thinks that in her own way, she had always been championing its cause. “I had been inquiring about a union at my workplace, and pointing out unjust and unfair treatment,” says Ortiz, who works in food services at the Statue of Liberty. “I work my tail off at this job and I don’t get paid what I deserve, and being a woman doesn’t help my chances at promotion either.”

read the full article at: http://columbianewsservice.com/2010/02/leftists-profit-from-economic-crisis/

International Women's Day

2010-03-13T17:36:00.000-06:00

On Monday, March 8th, the Memphis Socialist Party celebrated International Women's Day by preparing an IWD lesson for our art class at Bent Tree Apartments. A wonderful couple runs an after-school tutoring program in the rent subsidized apartment complex, and we help out as much as we can through tutoring and with our weekly art class.

Our lesson explained the background of IWD along with its relevance today as working women continue to be the caretakers of and providers for our families and communities, while struggling to attain political, economic and social equality.

Bennett and Melanie introduced the work of a few women artists: Kahlo, Morisot, Cassatt, O'Keefe, and the photography of Annie Leibovitz.

The girls enjoyed drawing self-portraits with pastels in the style of these artists, but clearly the most fun was taking black and white photos of each other.

The Memphis SP has few resources, but we promote the socialist principles of love, solidarity and equality through our work by sharing our skills and time in ways that are useful for our community.

We hope to expand our celebration next year outside of the art classroom to educate more mid-southerners about International Women's Day--happy 100th anniversary!

Democratic Party Disaster

2010-03-12T13:18:00.000-06:00

At the urging of the Obama White House, the Democrats in Congress have KILLED the "public option"... less "change" we can believe in.

Ex-Obama Advisor: Democrats may get "Slaughtered" in the Fall

Jim Hightower on the Spineless Democrats

Kucinich: Kill the Obama/Democratic Health Insurance Bill

Sen. Bernie Sanders: Obama has Tragically Lost Youth, Antagonized Labor

"Liberal" Dems Now Attacking Progressive Democrats (Dennis Kucinich) For Not Caving In on Healthcare Reform

The "Public Option": Democrats Scam Becomes Apparent

Obama's Reluctant Populism Irks Left

Time for a Revolution: 15 Reasons