NO to Privatization! Jobs and Justice NOW!

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

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

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!

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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, ..."