Socialist Alternative #100 - February 2024

SOCIALIST

ISSUE #100 l FEBRUARY 2024

ALTERNATIVE

WHY I JOINED SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE

SAMMEE JOHNSON, HOUSTON Long before the Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe was leaked, I was terrified for the future of society, starved for the company of people with likeminded ideas, and desperate to find a way to meaningfully contribute to changing the world around us.

Socialist Alternative called for a protest on the very same day the news broke.

I arrived early enough to hear the opening speeches, and I could hardly believe my own ears. There were no urgent calls to hit the polls and vote blue or to donate as much as we could to some mainstream liberal organization. Besides, most of us

had already done that. There were instead calls to dismantle brick-by-brick the very system that oppresses each and every one of us, and there were heated reminders of the power of working people.

Soon, I was attending weekly meetings with SA, learning more about the history of labor struggle, past movements fighting for the liberation of POC and queer people, and actively putting that knowledge to use in helping fight back against the crises of capitalism. The solidarity, accountability, education, and action happening inside of SA has been truly invaluable.

Together, we link arms and link our struggles with those of all working people. The billionaires have two parties, and we need one, too! We are building a movement completely independent of the 1% and their influence, and we have the confidence that working people and all oppressed people will fight back and change society, because we know a socialist world is possible. We as working people make the world turn, and there’s never been a better time than right now to lift up one another and fight for change.

WHAT WE STAND FOR No To Imperialist Wars

job are pushing hundreds of thousands of workers to go on strike. We need effective strikes that hit the bosses where it hurts most – their pocketbooks – to win lasting victories like Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA).

• Unions should stop spending hundreds of millions of dollars on electing Democratic Party politicians, and spend it instead on efforts to organize the unorganized.

• Union leaders across all unions should accept the average wage of a worker in their industry and should be accountable to their membership and the broader working class.

• An injury to one is an injury to all! Unions need to fight all manifestations of racism, sexism, queerphobia, and all forms of oppression as part of the struggle to rebuild a fighting labor movement.

• Unions should form consumer protection committees to monitor price increases, which should have the power to review corporate finances, especially when money is squandered on CEO pay and stock buybacks.

• We call for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza; an end to US military aid to Israel; and an end to the occupation and siege of Palestine.

• We need a massive anti-war, anti-imperialist movement linking up workers and youth across borders, for the end to Israel’s massacre in Gaza and to challenge the capitalist powers whose geopolitical chess game continually throws working people into the meatgrinder of war. Only socialist internationalism can end war and destruction and win lasting peace and stability for the working masses around the world!

• Socialist Alternative completely opposes Russian imperialism’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Ordinary Ukrainians who already suffer exploitation, oppression, corruption, and growing poverty conditions now face the horror of war and bloodshed.

• We oppose the aggressive imperialist agenda of NATO and the US for whom Ukrainians are a pawn in the wider Cold War conflict with Chinese imperialism.

• De-escalating the rapidly deteriorating situation in Ukraine requires the return of Rus- A New Political Party For sian troops to the barracks in Russia and the withdrawal of all NATO troops from Working People Eastern Europe.

• Republicans are resorting to divide-andrule scapegoating because the GOP have no real answers to the questions facing Rebuild A Fighting Labor working people, but the corporate DemoMovement cratic Party offers no solution to right-wing • Inflation, unaffordable healthcare, sky high attacks against workers and marginalized rents, and a lack of basic respect on the people and has repeatedly failed to

use their majorities to protect our rights.

Biden is so unpopular, the (un)Democratic Party isn’t even allowing debates.

• Fight for the highest possible vote for Cornel West for president, an independent socialist with roots in the movement as a step towards building a new, workingclass, multi-racial party that organizes and fights for workers’ interests.

Mobilize Against Gender Oppression & Attacks On Bodily Autonomy • The overturn of Roe v Wade opened the door for vicious attacks on bodily autonomy across the country. We need a mass movement against the reactionary right on the scale of the 60s and 70s when Roe was first won.

• Free, safe, legal abortion. All contraception should be provided at no cost as part of a broad program for reproductive health!

• Fight back against brutal anti-trans legislation and all right-wing attacks on LGBTQ people. Noncompliance with these bigoted laws should be organized by the labor movement among workers tasked with enforcing them.

• Full legal rights and equality for trans and queer people, including the right to selfidentification! We completely oppose the attempts of the right wing to spread antitrans bigotry and isolate LGBTQ people from society.

• Fighting gender oppression means fighting for our rights to bodily autonomy, reproductive justice including universal childcare, and Medicare for All including free reproductive and gender-affirming care.

Invest In Our Basic Needs • Pass strong rent control. End economic evictions. Tax the rich and big business to fund permanently affordable, high-quality social housing.

• No pay cuts! We need a significant raise in the minimum wage and to tie raises to inflation.

• An immediate transition to Medicare for All. Take for-profit hospital chains into public ownership and retool them to provide free, state-of-the-art healthcare to all.

• Capitalism failed to stop COVID-19, with the “post-pandemic” new normal consisting of total indifference to public health.

We urgently need permanently free and accessible testing, paid sick leave, and to take Big Pharma into public ownership – vaccines should be for public health, not profit!

• Bring back the COVID-era child tax credit and make it permanent. Fully fund highquality, universal childcare. No cuts to food stamps!

• Fully fund public education! End school privatization. Give educators an immediate 25% raise and increase staffing.

Cancel all student debt and make public college tuition-free.

A Socialist Program For Environmental Disaster • We need fully-funded emergency systems

to protect and evacuate people from everincreasing storms, floods, and fires, and we need to tax the rich to reimburse working people for their destroyed homes and livelihoods.

• In the wake of ecological disasters like chemical spills, corporations should immediately be responsible for relocation costs, health costs, and home remediation.

• We need a union jobs program to rapidly expand green infrastructure including a massive expansion of free, high quality, fast public transit.

• Fossil fuels can’t coexist with a sustainable future – ban new oil and gas drilling and take the top 100 polluting companies into democratic public ownership, while implementing a democratically planned, just transition to 100% green energy!

End Racist Policing And Criminal (in)Justice • There is still a massive fight to be waged against police violence. We need a new movement in the streets and mass organizations of struggle to fight for Black liberation!

• Arrest and convict killer cops! Purge police forces of anyone with known ties to white supremacist groups or any cop who has committed violent or racist attacks.

• End the militarization of police: ban the use of “crowd control” weapons and disarm police on patrol.

• Put policing under the control of democratically-elected civilian boards with power over hiring and firing, reviewing budget priorities, and the power to subpoena.

• Beyond fighting to end racist policing, we need a struggle against all forms of racism in our society, including segregationist housing and education policies.

The Whole System Is Guilty • Capitalism produces pandemics, poverty, racism, transphobia, environmental destruction, and war. We need an international struggle against this failed system.

• Bring the top 500 companies and banks into democratic public ownership.

• We need a socialist world! This means a democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the planet.

FIND US ONLINE

www.SocialistAlternative.org

info@SocialistAlternative.org @Socialist Alternative @SocialistAlt /SocialistAlternative.USA /c/SocialistAlternative @socialistus

EDITORIAL

TRUMP IS SWEEPING THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY WHAT WILL IT MEAN FOR WORKING PEOPLE IF HE WINS A SECOND TERM?

Trump celebrates a sweeping victory after the New Hampshire primaries in January.

VARUN BELUR, PHILADELPHIA The Republican presidential primaries are underway, but it isn’t much of a contest. After decisively winning the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, Trump remains the frontrunner. Former rivals like Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy closed ranks and endorsed Trump before even the first competitive primary, a shocking reflection of Trump’s hold over the GOP. Meanwhile, Nikki Haley’s campaign, kept afloat only by the billionaire Koch brothers, takes a distant second place to Trump. It’s clear Haley won’t win, but her establishment Republican backers and those of Trump’s former primary rivals share the same hopes as the Democrats, that the machinations of the courts will knock Trump out of the running. But as we’ve written before, this is extremely unlikely.

Given Trump’s absolute dominance over the Republican Party and Biden’s staggering unpopularity, even among Democrats, it’s very possible Trump wins a second term. If he does, what would that mean for working people?

Trump Poses As Anti-War If reelected, Trump would enter office in the context of a changed and highly volatile world situation. The New Cold War, the economic, political and military conflict between US and Chinese imperialism and their allies, has seriously escalated since Trump’s term.

A Trump victory would be a major headache for the broader Western imperialist alliance because of his “go it alone” approach and opposition to NATO, but it would not make US imperialism less dangerous or less warmongering. While Trump says he would “end the war” in Ukraine, which has been a priority for the US and its allies, this is only because he sees it as the “wrong war” and would prefer to focus even more on ratcheting up the direct conflict with China. There is zero difference between Trump and Biden on giving unconditional support to the Israeli regime for the slaughter in Gaza. Trump, however, might be more quick to start a full-scale FEBRUARY 2024

war with Iran. And he is promising to raise tariffs on all goods from all countries to 10% which would further destabilize the world economy.

Most of all, his victory would be a massive boost to the populist and far right around the globe.

What’s At Stake?

Trump could well be better able to implement his right-wing agenda in his second term. His first term was marked by tumult and constant turnover in his administration (Trump’s “A Team” had a 92% turnover rate over his entire term). But today’s GOP is stocked with Trump loyalists and a great number of his opponents have been essentially purged from the party.

Beyond his primary goal of purging the state apparatus, which we detail below, other key targets for Trump would likely be attacks on immigrant rights, environmental regulations, and workers’ rights. We can also expect more vicious anti-”woke” attacks on LGBTQ people and any teaching of the history of racism.

Trump’s 2024 platform on immigrants is draconian, promising mass deportations, the end of birthright citizenship, barring all refugees and much more. This goes far beyond Trump’s promise to “build the wall” in 2016.

Horrifyingly, Trump’s attacks on immigrants will not in reality be that dissimilar from what Biden has already done in his first term.

Trump plans to use military funds to build vast camps on the border to hold undocumented migrants. In a speech in Iowa, Trump spoke of migrants crossing the southern border “poisoning the blood” of America, literally the language of Adolf Hitler and an indication of the type of racism and xenophobia he will stoke. Trump also plans to reintroduce and expand the Muslim ban, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018, to include Gaza. Trump has also stated that he will send deportation officers to protests to target immigrants who support Hamas, in reality a threat against all protestors speaking out against the bloodbath in Gaza.

One thing is certain. Trump is no friend of working people. His main agenda will be to reward the CEOs and owners of big corporations and to to build his own financial empire.

This will include weakening the labor movement and using the government to defeat

working class struggles.

There is also a strong potential for Trump to overreach on a number of issues. This can provoke a backlash to his policies and provoke a broad crisis. International markets are much more fragile than during his last administration. Serious financial analysts fear if Trump pushes through an extreme policy on tariffs or further sharp cuts in taxes on the rich, it could trigger a financial implosion and/or an economic recession. This could create a political and social crisis as Trump fumbles to find any measured response.

“One thing is certain. Trump is no friend of working people. His main agenda will be to reward the CEOs and owners of big corporations and to to build his own financial empire. This will include weakening the labor movement and using the government to defeat working class struggles.”

Trump’s policies and attacks could trigger a revival of struggles, further revive the labor movement and trigger a growth of the socialist left. However, the stakes for such struggles will also be tremendously high and defeat would have major consequences. This points to the critical need for the left to draw lessons from the past period, especially the need for independent sustained organization; clear leadership and a bold program. The Economist, an international business publication, warns the ruling class: “If Mr. Trump is broadly corrupting of American politics, and businesses are seen to profit from his rule, that poses a big risk to them in the future.

In Latin America, when big businesses have become associated with autocrats, the result was usually that capitalism was discredited and the appeal of socialism rose.”

Project 2025 If Trump were to win a second term after blatantly trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and inciting the attempted coup on January 6, it would would shake the whole system of capitalist democracy to its core. The goal of Trump 2.0 would be to create an authoritarian regime more like Hungary or even Turkey where the media and state apparatus are under the direct control of one

party and its leaders and dissent is dangerous.

C apitalis t d e m o cr a c y exists to serve the interests of the rich, but this outcome would also be a direct threat to the right of working people and the oppressed to organize in their own defense. It would be an even more brutal and naked dictatorship of capital.

Under the banner of “Project 2025,” a coalition of right-wing organizations is preparing for a Trump presidency that will not only surround the president with hardline loyalists, but also expand presidential power. This will involve making dramatic changes to government bodies under federal authority to bring them under direct presidential control. Under capitalism, no arm of the state operates in a truly independent or “nonpartisan” manner, but the prospect of the entire machinery of the federal government under the control of Trumpism is rightly frightening for many working people.

How Do We Get Out Of This Mess?

Trump’s re-election would mean a dramatic setback for workers and youth, both in the US and internationally. The key responsibility for this disaster would lie with Biden and the Democrats. The Biden administration has escalated Trump’s economic war with China and increased military tensions, poured billions into wars and presided over a huge transfer of wealth from workers to the ruling class. Because working people lack a positive alternative to vote for, it’s likely that Trump would win the presidential election, were it held today – not because the American people are a hopeless, reactionary mass, but because the political options are so dreadful and a lot of people stay home. Of course, a lot can happen between now and then.

How do we get out of this mess? There are no shortcuts to building a political force to represent working people. The Democratic Party can’t offer this alternative.

We urgently need to forge a mass movement in the US which takes aim at all wars, bi-partisan anti-migrant policies, and organizes for Medicare for All, a cancellation of student debt, and a Green New Deal. The potential for such a movement can be seen in the mass protests that have swept Germany in recent weeks. Over a million people have marched against the far right German AfD party whose support has been growing alarmingly. This is the scale of fightback we need against our own reactionary threat here at home.

In a longer-term sense, one of the most critical projects that the American working class needs to take up is the creation of our own political party that makes no concessions to corporate or right-wing politics. We need a party that is truly democratic and fights for the very ideas that inspired millions to get involved in the Bernie Sanders campaigns in 2016 and 2020. The construction of a working-class political alternative to the Democrats and Republicans is the only way we can stop the never ending cycle of “lesserevil” matchups like Trump vs. Biden. J

3

WA R O N G A Z A

Inside the few remaining hospitals overflowing with patients, many are being treated on the floor.

The intensity of destruction is both hard to fathom and yet made clear by brutal, hard facts and figures. At least 25,000 are dead, over 70% of them women and children, some seven or eight thousand missing and presumed dead under the rubble. 60,000 or more have been injured, and most hospitals are either totally destroyed or only partially functional. All of this is made worse by persistent power outages, fuel scarcity, and disruption of other basic utilities most of which are controlled by the Israeli government.

The Netanyahu regime continues to justify this war on the civilians of Gaza as a campaign against Hamas. The blood on the hands of that regime is shared by Biden and US imperialism that has supported Netanyahu in his war crimes. The immediate demand of all working people is that the war stop now and the ceasefire be permanent. Only then can we start healing from these atrocities and bring the war criminals to justice.

AP News’ Julia Frankel reports that “In just over two months, researchers say the offensive has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II.” Over 70% of school buildings have been damaged, despite many of them clearly serving as attempted shelters by civilians.

The extent of destruction of hospitals and healthcare facilities is such that according to the Gazan Ministry of Health, over 800,000 have absolutely no access to healthcare.

The vast majority of Gaza’s infrastructure has been turned to rubble with the new added nightmare of overflowing and damaged sewage systems which have created a chillingly perfect environment for the outbreak of

GAZA CRISIS UNFOLDS INTO DEADLY REGIONAL WAR

by BADR H, PHILADELPHIA The Middle East has entered an unprecedented phase. Not only was the scale of Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack completely unexpected, but Israel’s mass killing of the Palestinian people in response has caused the highest daily death toll of any conflict in the 21st century, according to Oxfam. However, precedence has not only been broken in human casualties, but also in their wider ramifications.

Amidst the conflict for global domination between US and Chinese imperialism, the assault on Gaza has set into motion a regional conflict that could trigger a full-scale war. October 8 saw Hezbollah begin launching missile attacks on Northern Israel, with Israel responding with strikes on Southern

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GAZA FROM AN OPEN-AIR PRISON TO A KILL ZONE

The aftermath of israeli airstrikes on Gaza City. Oct 23, 2023.

by TEDDY SHIBAWAW, MADISON

diseases from air- and water-borne pathogens as well as particulates.

Over 80% of Gazans are facing what the Red Cross calls “severe food insecurity” on top of constant extreme psychological trauma. All this data, in addition to the heartwrenching images spread from Gaza, begins to paint a picture of the depth and breadth of the humanitarian catastrophe concentrated in just 141 square miles – the same area as the city of Philadelphia.

Israel controls two out of the three borders and Gaza’s air space, which it is unwilling to open up. Egypt continues to refuse to accept refugees through the Rafah border. The official line of the Israeli government pressing Palestinians to flee the area is like a cruel ulcer of a joke. With nowhere to go and no way to get out, Gaza has been turned into a kill zone with cage walls.

Reuters reports,“The first ten weeks of the Israel-Gaza war have been the deadliest recorded for journalists, with the most journalists killed in a single year in one location” according to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). As of this writing, estimates vary from 80 to over 100 journalists killed in Gaza.

Israeli politicians and military leaders defend their war in the press even as the right wing urges more brutality. The claims of attempting to limit civilian casualties while trying to eliminate Hamas fool no one. All that’s needed to expose this claim as a baldfaced lie is that the IDF continues to use 2,000-pound bombs in heavily populated areas. In just the first six weeks of the mass

slaughter of Palestinians, the Israeli military used these munitions to create at least 208 different craters of rubble, mixed with human remains and badly injured survivors.

Structures, humans, and institutions all lie at the bottom of these craters – refugee camps, schools, residential buildings, hospitals, journalists, pharmacies, and more.

According to a New York Times video investigation, “Israel routinely used one of its biggest and most destructive bombs in areas it designated safe for civilians. The video investigation focuses on the use of 2,000pound bombs in an area of southern Gaza where Israel had ordered civilians to move for safety.” Amira Hass, an Israeli journalist for Haaretz wrote, “UN notes that 60% of the buildings in the Strip have been destroyed or damaged” and “85% of Gazans rendered homeless and displaced” (1.9 million people).

IDF spokespeople cry that they have little choice as all the Hamas tunnels are in densely populated areas. Even if there was incontrovertible evidence that there were full-blown armored and staffed tunnels underneath hospitals and other facilities, it still would not justify the massacre of civilians. Add in the fact that many civilians have been forced to rely on hospitals for food distribution and shelter, and you see a multiplier effect of cascading destruction of life.

Netanyahu spews blood-curdling language of mass murder in a cynical ploy to hang on to power. He is seen as responsible for allowing the October 7 attacks to happen and is likely to be voted out and put on trial for previous crimes. Those further to the right in his administration and the Knesset have openly spout genocidal rhetoric. The Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for instance, is quoted

saying, “We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” Another right-wing minister, Amichay Eliyahu, told a Hebrew radio station that there was no such thing as noncombatants in Gaza.

The Israeli government continues the carnage despite the remoteness of a military path to achieving its officially stated objectives – eliminating Hamas and freeing hostages. The reality is that the occupation itself has for 75 years worked to crush secular, mass-based nonviolent civil resistance, opening the road to the likes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The destruction and mass murder being inflicted in Gaza today will only serve to drive up support for these organizations.

If this brutal assault continues on the same course, Netanyahu’s government’s unmistakable effect will be the snuffing out of hope for any possibility of life in Gaza even after this round of mass murder ends.

By now, exponentially greater masses around the world understand that Israel’s impunity is the direct consequence of its imperial patrons, primarily in the US but also in the EU. The Biden administration’s pretense, doublespeak, and crocodile tears chiding the Israeli government to minimize civilian casualties are completely invalidated by the fact that it continues its military aid and weapons sales while running interference for this war in the world diplomatic stage. US military aid must be stopped, an unlikely development unless Biden and the US ruling class are pushed by an antiwar movement.

There will be no saviors from the world diplomatic corps. Only a mass, international working-class movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people can jam the gears on the imperialist mass murder machine. J

Lebanon. Soon after, the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” a front for Iran-backed militias, began firing missiles at US bases in Iraq. Similar clashes began in Syria, with Israel assassinating multiple high-ranking Iranian generals in Damascus. Facing its own internal security crisis including a major bombing attributed to ISIS, the Iranian government has bombed the Syrian province of Idlib, Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Balochistan state in Pakistan. Pakistan responded with an attack on the Balochi province of Iran. Perhaps the most significant escalation, however, is the Yemeni Houthi interception of Israel-linked shipping through the Suez Canal. Currently, US and Western imperialism have launched an unofficial low-scale war in response, a country already devastated by imperialist war.

The US’s ceaseless backing of the Israeli military machine hasn’t made American people nor troops any safer. On January 28, three American troops were killed in an Iranbacked drone attack on a US base in Jordan,

threatening an even bloodier response by the US. Iran, the US, and Israel claim to want to avoid an expanding war, though elements of the Israeli and Iranian regimes may be seeking escalation. While a wider war creates serious risks for every regime involved, conditions and miscalculations may push any one of them to the point of no return. A ceasefire is an absolute necessity to stop the ongoing bloodshed, however, with no clear end to the Gaza war in sight, any potential local or regional ceasefire would be under threat of violation.

Workers in the region or around the world don’t stand to benefit in any way from this widening conflict. US imperialism is facing huge opposition from the masses of the region since backing the bloodbath in Gaza.

This can become a threat to the Arab regimes most closely linked to it, including Egypt and Jordan. However, the regional imperialist mullah-regime of Iran, backed by China and Russia, and its allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, have shown time and again their

willingness to exploit, violently repress and use their own working classes as cannon fodder.

The only way to stop the killing in Israel/ Palestine and the regional war is through a mass struggle of the international working class for a permanent ceasefire, and in the US, for the end of military aid to Israel. Only the power of the working class, which makes the capitalist system run, can bring this forprofit system and its wars to a halt.

Bombs And Craters

• Unions must break with the Democrats and block arms to Israel!

• No to imperialist diplomacy, no to imperialist war!

• For a working class fightback for a permanent ceasefire, an end to the siege and occupation, and self determination for the Palestinian people!

• Complete the “Arab Spring!” For a socialist federation of the Middle East! J

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

HOW WE FIGHT FOR A CEASEFIRE

A N T I-WA R M O V E M E N T

by JESADA JITPRAPHAKHAN, LOS ANGELES Israel’s October assault on Gaza unleashed a global anti-war movement against the massacre of 25,000 civilians and counting, and in solidarity with Palestinian liberation. In the US, recent polling found that 68% of Americans support a ceasefire. The movement must urgently grow to reach its as yet untapped potential to have maximum impact on political developments around the war.

How can this be made possible?

It’s crucial to evaluate the movement’s trajectory over the past several months, to best understand what tasks are most important in the immediate future. The most visible actions have been mass protests in the streets, which in some areas have been held nearly every weekend since the siege began. Between October 7 and the end of 2023 comprised nearly 3,300 pro-Palestine actions across every US state, involving a conservative estimate of 767,000 people.

Direct action has also featured heavily, disrupting business as usual across the country.

Protesters blocking several major airports, bridges, tunnels, and roadways.

The US Is Bankrolling This War On the whole, the movement for a ceasefire has had an important impact. It’s created an enormous headache for Biden. The movement has forced him to introduce some friction and chide the Israeli regime for running the war too hot. Still, these rebukes amount mainly to slaps on the wrist, and the movement must go further to have a more concrete impact.

Netanyahu is fully reliant on US-made bombs, US defense contractors, and billions and billions in aid to carry out his ruthless agenda. A key aspect of our role in the US, as part of this global movement for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine, is waging a relentless fight to end US military aid to the Israeli regime.

Backing Israel is a strategic priority of the US capitalist class with bipartisan consensus.

Knowing this, we should remain sober about what can and can’t be won so long as the capitalists remain in power. Pushing a ceasefire resolution through Congress is not in the cards today, but this does not contradict the urgent necessity of building the movement.

FEBRUARY 2024

Polarization & Dangers The polarization created by the war in Israel and Palestine poses a serious challenge for the movement. While 90% of Israeli-Jewish and 98% of Arab-Palestinian populations oppose violence against the other group, Israeli-Jewish support for a ceasefire is far more limited: many are convinced that a military defeat of Hamas is a prerequisite for peace. At the same time, the mass murder of Palestinians is leading to the growth in support for Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank.

For the movement in the US to reach broader layers of the working class, it must not only denounce Israeli state terrorism and the role of US imperialism in backing it but also oppose the reactionary role of Hamas and the idea that the Israeli population is one reactionary mass.

At its core, the siege on Gaza, the denial of national rights, and the oppression of Palestinians in all of its forms stem from a vicious divide-and-rule strategy meant to benefit the Israeli capitalist class. As a whole, Palestinian workers suffer from a far greater level of oppression and poverty than the IsraeliJewish working class (within which there is further stratification on an ethnic basis), but it would be wrong to say that Jewish workers actually benefit from the oppression of Palestinians.

Within Israel itself, some anti-war protests have been held that point in this direction, with one spokesperson pointing out to NPR that “The war is bad for Israelis and Palestinians. The war is good for the Hamas and Bibi.

They both have interests in the war, of dead people, people scared from each other.” But the most powerful basis on which to expand the movement is with a program of clear working-class demands. Socialist Struggle Movement, Socialist Alternative’s sister section in Israel-Palestine, has energetically built and participated in these demonstrations, and holds a long record of determinedly organizing to unite Israeli and Palestinian working people in courageous public demonstrations against not only this war but the longstanding and brutal occupation that led up to it.

Labor’s Central Role Some shining examples of what is possible

have emerged from the international labor motions passed committing their unions to movement, following a call to action by a host support a cease fire and oppose all US miliof Palestinian trade unions: to stop building tary aid to Israel. and transporting arms to Israel and to pressure governments to stop funding Israel’s Next Steps military. Unionized dockworkers in Belgium, Shipping ports can be effective targets for Italy, and the Spanish State responded by direct action, as activists can directly impact issuing statements and refusing to handle the transport of arms to Israel. Hundreds of arms on ships heading to Israel.

Importantly, major unions in the US have demonstrators in Oakland were able to hold put out statements demanding a cease- up a ship for 9 hours bound for Tacoma to fire, including the United Auto Workers, pick up military equipment for Israel. That 1199SEIU, United Electrical, Radio and same ship was blockaded for 12 hours in Machine Workers, and the American Postal Tacoma. These “Block the Boat” actions Workers Union, and have even brought their have been most effective when activists have members out into the streets. The leverage built strong relationships with the union repthat workers in this industry have to con- resenting workers loading the ships.

Not all actions have equal impact in buildcretely disrupt the war machine is unparalleled, and points to the urgency of organiz- ing the movement. For instance, when direct ing within trade union channels to create actions are staged by smaller numbers of people or seem dangerous they the strongest possible threat can have the effect of demobilizfrom below to the warmongering sympathetic workers who see ing ruling class. Unions could exert significant pressure on A key aspect of our role the movement as “too radical” to have a place for them. By running the Biden administration by in the US, as part of too far ahead of the movement, more fully mobilizing their this global movement smaller groups of activists can memberships and planning for a ceasefire and an in effect find themselves substicoordinated work stoppages, sick-outs, or strikes. end to the occupation tuting themselves for the much The UAW is now one of the of Palestine, is waging larger active movement that’s needed. most influential unions in the a relentless fight to Activists have won ceasefire country, having just pulled off an inspiring strike against the end US military aid to resolutions in a number of cities, including Seattle where the resoBig Three automakers in 2023 the Israeli regime. lution was introduced and spearand announced a bold call to headed by Socialist Alternative. organize over a dozen new auto In addition to the important role manufacturers. While some these local battles can play in smaller rallies have been held by the UAW and other unions against the war, building up pressure and keeping the crisis in President Shawn Fain made a mistake when Gaza in the news and on people’s minds as he endorsed Biden’s 2024 campaign. This an urgent issue, they can also help to attract conceded important political leverage and and cohere a broad base of support, includwent against the union’s otherwise positive ing Jewish and Arab activists, for a movement that must be united, organized, and outspokenness against the assault on Gaza.

Shamefully, many labor misleaders, like strengthened.

Calling for an end to US military aid to Stuart Appelbaum of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) and Israel brings our movement into direct conRandi Weingarten of the American Federa- flict with the Biden administration and the tion of Teachers (AFT), continue to insist on Democratic Party as a whole. Making Biden’s Israel’s “right to defend itself.” The push for culpability undeniable is crucial; the only way a ceasefire position in the UAW came from they will make serious concessions is if we below. Union members supporting a cease- raise the stakes by bringing the social power fire nationwide should urgently push to get of the working class to bear. J

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L ABOR

141,000

Number Of Workers That Went On Strike, 2021-23

224,000

500,000+

2023 Was A Record Year For Strikes

Source: Cornell University School of Industrial & Labor Relations Tracker

‘21

2023 will be etched in labor history as the year the US labor movement again picked up the tools of old militant labor action, like rank-and-file workers taking the lead; using clear, bold demands people will rally to; and striking to win those demands. We saw the largest number of workers going out on strike in the US since the mid-1980s: over 500,000 workers across 354 strikes.

This comes in the midst of an international labor surge. In Nigeria, oil, gas, and state workers went on strike twice against the government with political demands. After initially being threatened with cuts, they won a more than doubling of the federal minimum wage, among other things. There was also the London underground tube workers strike in July that stopped job and pension cuts plus won a 9% pay hike. And of course, France had their largest social strike movement since the historic 1968 youth and workers’ uprising.

Workers Strike Back Solidarity strikes are making a comeback, despite business-friendly labor laws banning them under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. SEIU healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente held the largest healthcare strike in US history. LA teachers broke their contract to strike alongside support staff. The thirty-thousand support staffers won their main demand of a 30% raise and the educators maintained

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Writers Shut Down Hollywood

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) writers had a massive five month-long strike that, in the end, won a contract worth three times the company’s pre-strike offer.

Workers knew that the failed “one day longer” approach that tries to merely wait out the deep pockets like Hollywood media giants was not going to work.

While picketing writers were beginning to be stretched thin, SAG-AFTRA actors joined two months in, escalating events to a nearfull film and TV strike, re-igniting the movement and on a new level. From day one, these workers – particularly in WGA – took an all-out approach, shutting down every production possible while holding mass pickets every single day.

‘22

STEVE CAPRI, PITTSBURGH

that momentum to win a 21% raise.

Additionally, higher education workers have been unionizing in droves, making up the top seven largest union elections in 2023 all having overwhelming “YES” votes, averaging over 90% in support of unions in card counts.

The workers at the University of California capped off 2022 with 48,000 workers striking six weeks for wages and Cost Of Living Adjustments (COLA).

‘23

Missed Opportunity At UPS While Hollywood showed us how much more could be achieved by striking, the Teamsters chose not to take up their opportunity to go on the largest US strike in over 60 years at UPS. Instead it accepted a contract that, while stronger than others in the recent past, was far below what was possible. With 325,000 workers strong, workers could have shut down a huge portion of the economy when popular opinion of unions and striking workers are at historic highs, and gone to bat for not just ourselves and living wages and safe, comfortable conditions for every worker at UPS, but also for the whole working class.

Autoworkers Show The Way Forward United Auto Workers (UAW) held a nationally coordinated strike against the

Big 3 automakers, General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford. This strike cost the automakers profits, inspired workers everywhere, and forced major gains for both these workers and non-union auto workers around the country in the wake of the strike.

A big factor in the success of the strike was Shawn Fain as union president, and the majority slate of new leadership in the UAW. Fain represented a 180-degree turn from the previous rotten leaderships, many of whom have now been indicted on corruption charges. Fain named our class enemy

“[Workers] are taking lessons from labor’s history of victories and defeats, and their own creativity, rather than from prevailing opinion by so-called experts whose ideas have been costing workers big losses for decades.”

– the billionaire class – in stark contrast to most union leaders who emphasize their friendliness to the bosses. They also had clear demands like a 40% raise, an end to the two-tier wage, pension, and healthcare system, and a brilliant demand for the entire labor movement to pick up and run with:40 hours of pay for a 30-hour workweek.

Even though UAW won massive victories after years of retreat, 44% of workers at General Motors voted against the final deal because they believed they could win more.

After all, three days before the strike was set to begin, the UAW workers and the public

were all under the impression that the whole unit, 150,000 autoworkers, were going on strike. Unfortunately, at the last moment, Fain announced the “stand up strike” which consciously limited the impact on the historically high profits of the automakers. (Read more about next steps on page 15.)

2024 With more big contracts up in 2024, inflation watering-down the dollars in our wallets, and a newfound confidence to go on strike, there will be more struggle in 2024. However, the labor movement will face other challenging questions as well. In presidential election years, unions often get subsumed into the muck of campaigning for the Democrats’ flavor of the month. Despite initially withholding their endorsement, Shawn Fain announced in January that UAW – like all other major unions – would endorse Biden for re-election.

Fain correctly identifies Trump as a con man who offers another dead-end for the labor movement, but there is no remedy for the situation in Biden, who broke the rail strike, trashed the PRO Act, and continues to demand military aid for Israel and recently cut humanitarian aid to Gaza. 2024 will provide new tests for the new reform leaderships in the Teamsters and UAW, and their approach in the political arena will have important consequences for working people. The strikes of 2023 could provide a powerful launching pad for the creation of a working-class political alternative to the Democrats and Republicans, however it’s highly unlikely the labor leaders take steps in this direction. If the labor movement is to take another explosive step forward, UAW and other unions must break from the two-party system and fight for an independent, working class political force that can take on the billionaire class inside and outside the workplace. J

AMAZON FIRES LEADING UNION ORGANIZER IN KENTUCKY Members of the fledgling Amazon Labor Union-KCVG are mobilizing to fight back after Amazon executives shamefully fired leading worker-organizer Griffin Ritze on Tuesday in an attempt to stall the accelerating union campaign. The termination letter presented to Ritze on January 23 states Amazon fired Ritze for “insubordination” and “self-assigning” because he attempted to attend and speak up along with other pro-union workers at Amazon’s anti-union information sessions that company lawyers and other executives staged in December to try to scare workers from joining the union.

KCVG workers struggle to get by on low wages at the Air Hub, while in the third quarter last year, Amazon “tripled its net earnings to $9.9 billion and reported a 12.5% increase in revenues to $143.1 billion,” according to TheWrap.com.

Last year the ALU-KCVG workers formed their union and this winter they are formally establishing it by democratically

adopting a union constitution, in advance of pressing Amazon to recognize their union.

“It’s shameful. Griffin was fired because he stood up for our coworkers. This is exactly why we’re building a union at KCVG,” Marcio Rodriguez, a ramp worker and member of the union’s Organizing Committee said. “This is bigger than just one person. Hundreds of workers are fired without just cause at KCVG every year. We’re standing with Griffin to demand his reinstatement, fight for $30/hr, and build our union to end all retaliation and wrongful terminations at Amazon. Honestly, this only makes me even more motivated.”

Workers at DONATE KCVG aren’t backing down, and we have their back.

Donate to help build the fight to unionize Amazon’s largest Air Hub. J

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

HISTORY

LENIN, 100 YEARS ON

by GRACE FORS, CHICAGO

January 21, 2024 marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known as Lenin. Lenin was a leader of the Bolshevik Party which oversaw the Russian Revolution in 1917, where for the first time working people established their own system of democratic rule.

Picking up the mainstream papers on the 21st, however, would have given you quite a different idea of who Lenin was and what his legacy represents. Take the billionaire-owned Wall Street Journal’s testimonial: “A Century After Lenin’s Death, His Evil Legacy Lives On.” In it, David Satter paints Lenin as a demonic figure representing lawlessness, amorality, and terrorism. Socialists, on the other hand, want to end the horrors of capitalism such as war, climate destruction, oppression, exploitation of workers, and imperialism. So we look at Lenin in quite a different light.

Russian Revolution Satter writes that the Bolshevik Party was able to triumph “because it was a machine of concentrated power that accepted murder and glorified it as a moral obligation.” The reality is quite different. The Russian Revolution was directed against the Russian monarchy, which had plunged millions of workers and peasants into World War I (in which capitalists accepted murder and glorified it as a moral obligation). The Tsar was overthrown in the February revolution of 1917, but the resulting provisional government plunged Russia deeper into the war.

During 1917, the Bolsheviks won popular support because of their demands, in particular the rallying cry of “Peace, Land, and Bread.”

This paved the way for the October Revolution that year. The revolutionary government that resulted was based on workers’ democracy through Soviets: democratic councils set up by the workers and soldiers in the course of the revolution.

Civil War Contrary to ruling class apologia, the October Revolution was nearly bloodless. However, the capitalists, backed by 21 imperialist armies, inflicted a deadly five-year civil war that killed over seven million. The counter-revolutionary White Army were the aggressors in the war, unleashing a terror campaign of anti-Semitic pogroms in order to restore the capitalists’ privileges. This put the new workers’ state through a ferocious test of its resilience.

Satter’s portrayal of Lenin as a bloodthirsty maniac is nonsense.

Nonetheless, Lenin was no pacifist. He saw clearly that when the masses of working people fight back, the ruling class will clamp down with every violent weapon at its disposal. Anyone who has seen police use tear gas and rubber bullets, break up strikes, and arrest peaceful protesters knows this truth all too well. Lenin’s answer to this was to have no illusions in the capitalist class’ willingness to “peacefully” hand over their power and profits; only a genuine mass movement backed by the majority of workers, armed with a program for collective good, can carry out and defend socialist change.

Why Lenin’s Legacy Matters Capitalism can’t offer working people what we need, and it’s continuing to spiral the world into crisis. Just as in Lenin’s time, ordinary people around the world are being thrown into the meat grinder of imperialist war. Something has to change, and radically. But how can working people and the oppressed of the world possibly stand a chance against the global superpowers?

This question is what Lenin dedicated his life to learning, and his guidance should be studied seriously by anyone who wants to organize for system change today. It is exactly why his legacy is feared by the likes of the super-rich and the Wall Street Journal. We stand unequivocally for the goal of building a movement of workers, youth, and oppressed people to carry on not only Lenin’s legacy, but that of every person in history who has ever dared to fight for a better world. J FEBRUARY 2024

MLK’S RADICAL LEGACY

by MANNY VEIGA, BOSTON

Martin Luther King, Jr. first emerged as a leader of class struggle for racial justice in the Montgomery Bus Boycotts at 26 years old. He refused to acclimate to the segregationist political norms of his era, which in the course of struggle against the racist status quo led him to embrace ever more radical conclusions. By the end of his life, he was actively supporting strikes and calling for an end to the burgeoning Vietnam War. During his life, King was an outspoken dissident against the status quo, and a thorn in the side of the US government and ruling class. This was especially true in his later years when he began to say that “something is wrong with capitalism,” and that “there must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”

Yet today, much of King’s political legacy has been corporatized and co-opted by the ruling elite.

His name is used to sell everything from washing machines to pickup trucks. His message about peaceful protest has been distorted to wrongly suggest that King would be opposed to militant activism. The ruling class finds ways around King’s criticisms of systemic capitalist rot, instead choosing to acknowledge his memory with token gestures. Even far-right politicians invoke King’s message in an absurd attempt to promote racist policies and ideas.

That’s why it’s important to revisit the real legacy of Martin Luther King, one rooted in class unity and militant action.

King’s Class Politics King did not view racism as solely a question of identity or skin color. He made the fight for civil rights a class issue, explaining the role of the capitalist system in perpetuating the evils of economic injustice.

“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people,” King said in a 1967 speech at Stanford. “The giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

Importantly, King backed up his words with action. He led marches in support of striking Black sanitation workers in Memphis. He launched the Poor People’s Campaign, which was designed to create a multi-ethnic coalition of workers – Blacks, whites, Latinos, indigenous people, and more – in a fight for economic freedom.

In contrast to NAACP organizers at that time who

looked to resolve the Montgomery Bus Boycotts through the courts, King took to the streets, inspiring organizers to extend the boycott until their full demands were met and pushing the movement to take up more radical demands, including the complete desegregation of the bus system.

MLK Was Internationalist King’s vision did not stop at America’s borders.

Through his international travels, he developed perspectives that connected fights against oppression abroad to the civil rights movement at home.

King opposed the Vietnam War and rampant militarism, speaking out against the death of millions of Vietnamese as well as Black American soldiers sent to die for a country that did not support their freedom. He saw this as so important that he refused to support then-President Lyndon B. Johnson for a second term in 1968, even though Johnson had signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, because of Johnson’s rampant escalation of the Vietnam War. He drew a direct connection between South African apartheid, which he called “the world’s worst racism,” to the white supremacy that was rampant in the US government. Once again, he made this a class issue, noting that the legalized segregation of apartheid had the goal of “economic exploitation,” and called for an international stand against the South African government.

MLK’s Radical Approach Pointed The Way Forward King faced many direct attacks in his life, including constant state intimidation, imprisonment, and several assassination attempts before the Memphis shooting that ultimately claimed his life. Though the ruling class may opportunistically celebrate his message today, his radical views made him an unpopular figure to most Americans when he was alive.

Still, King never surrendered hope. Part of what made him such an effective leader at the time was that he put forward a message of unity that crossed racial boundaries and pointed clearly toward the steps society needed for a better future. In particular, he identified the youth as a driving force of change: not yet chained by an established ideology, “they are a new seed of radicalism,” King said, lacking only a “clear idea of what the new society should be.”

Through his words and actions, King helped to articulate the barrier represented by capitalism’s exploitation and divide-and-rule, and put forward a powerful vision of what that society could look like. J

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A YEAR OF CRISIS

& WHY WE NEED REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE TOM CREAN, NYC

As we enter a new year, it is evident

that on many fronts the situation facing the human race is dire. Of course there are commentators who insist the opposite (we’ll refer to them again later). But most people know the trendlines are bad. All you had to do was go outside in many cities in the northern US states last June and try to breathe air that had turned orange and hazy because of wildfires in Canada. Or read the horrific daily reports from the Middle East over the past three and a half months. The question is why all this is happening and what can be done to change the path we’re on.

Crisis On Steroids First we need to describe the scale, and direction, of the crises facing us.

Encompassing the whole situation are the rapidly escalating consequences of climate change and environmental degradation. It’s not just that last year was the hottest globally since detailed records began and that this year will probably be hotter. We also see the rapid loss of key rainforests, the growth of desertification, depletion of mountain glaciers and underground aquifers – both crucial sources of fresh water – loss of species

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and habitat, as well as dangerous tipping points ahead.

Another key feature of the world we live in is the sharpening struggle for global domination between the two most powerful imperialist powers, namely the United States and China. This struggle has many dimensions, including economic and diplomatic, but it is increasingly a military competition. In the course of the past few years, the US and China have consolidated blocs around themselves and numerous regional conflicts are becoming subsumed into this wider power struggle. The war in Ukraine which began with Russia’s brutal invasion in early 2022 has turned into horrific trench warfare where Western powers back the Ukrainian side while China aids Russia. The interests of the Ukrainian people are completely secondary to both Russia and the US. The horrific terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7 has provided the justification for the biggest act of state terrorism in the 21st century, the all-out assault by Israeli forces on the people of Gaza. Now that conflict is starting to tip over into a regional war, with the US backing its long-term ally, Israel, against Iran and its proxies, who in turn are effectively backed by Russia and China.

It is repeatedly said, and it is true, that neither China nor the US, nor Iran, want a regional conflict, and yet it

has effectively begun. Events in the Middle East demonstrate that the pace of events is even taking the leaders of the imperialist powers by surprise. Eight days before the Hamas attack on October 7, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the Middle East was “quieter” than it had been in two decades!

The New Cold War is leading to growing militarism, restrictions on democratic rights, wars and the threat of a further and potentially far more devastating war in the Western Pacific. A year ago, the UN reported that the number of violent conflicts internationally was at the highest level since World War II. And that was before war began in Gaza and started to spread in the Middle East. In 2022 it is estimated that there was $2.2 trillion in military spending globally, a record level, and 3.7% higher than the previous year. Of course, the US leads the way with a staggering $877 billion; China is second with $292 billion. This is an incredible squandering of resources that could be spent on education, healthcare, or the transition from fossil fuels to a sustainable economy.

The capitalist commentators, seeking to put the best possible spin on things, point out that projections of a sharp global economic downturn did not materialize in 2023, that the US economy is doing better than

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

expected and so forth. But this is at best superficial.

A new World Bank report states that the five year period 2020-2024 will have the lowest pace of global growth since the early 1990s. An important factor in this global slowdown is the severe economic crisis in China, which then impacts many countries in Asia and beyond for whom China is their main trading partner. For the poorest nations, the thrall of debt is becoming worse. The World Bank itself points out that, “For the poorest countries, debt has become a nearly paralysing burden.”

Some bourgeois commentators still claim that despite all the obvious problems, things are getting better. At the start of the year Nicholas Kristof wrote a piece in the New York Times making this case by

“From climate, to imperialist competition, to economic friction – all of these major factors exist not just in tandem but as elements that reinforce each other and create unpredictable, and sometimes catastrophic, outcomes.” pointing out that global child mortality as well as “extreme poverty” have reached record lows. Indeed, certain international programs have had a dramatic effect in reducing or eliminating endemic diseases which then reduces mortality, showing what a global planned economy could do. But a closer look at the data on extreme poverty (defined as an income of less than $2.15 per day at 2017 prices) shows that the decline has basically stalled in the poorest countries, especially in Africa whose population is projected to be one fourth of the global total by 2050.

From climate, to imperialist competition, to economic friction – all of these major factors exist not just in tandem but as elements that reinforce each other and create unpredictable, and sometimes catastrophic, outcomes. In turn this is impacting mass consciousness and laying the ground for major political shifts.

Major Contradictions The case for ending capitalism and beginning the socialist transformation of society couldn’t be clearer.

The scale of the problems we face and their urgency begs for a rational and democratic planned use of resources for human needs. The working class under capitalism has created productive forces on a completely unprecedented scale which lays the basis for ending all of these crises, but they can’t be properly deployed because of subordination of the economy to profit.

In the last five years, especially in FEBRUARY 2024

2019, we have seen a wave of massive social struggles across the world from Hong Kong and Myanmar in Asia; to Iran in the Middle East; to Chile and Colombia in Latin America.

In the US we had the George Floyd Uprising in 2020; in France in early 2023, a massive wave of strikes to defend French workers’ hardwon

The Strait of Taiwan (above) is another hotspot where the US/China Cold War could erupt.

pension gains threatened to become a full scale confrontation with the ruling class. We have seen huge feminist struggles and an unprecedented level of involvement by young women in social struggle generally.

Young people have also displayed a tremendous level of internationalism in these struggles, a desire to overcome all traditional divisions.

Nevertheless, the enormous willingness to struggle and sacrifice for revolutionary change is not in itself enough to ensure victory. Specifically, mass movements need clearly articulated bold demands, democratic structures, and an authoritative leadership. These have been sorely lacking in almost all cases.

These weaknesses are inherited from the massive defeats suffered by the working class in the neoliberal era, leading to a loss of traditions and the spread of “horizontalist” ideas that explicitly oppose structures and leadership. They will be overcome as new layers enter the struggle and draw lessons from these complex experiences.

In the words of British railworkers leader Mick Lynch, we now also see that “the working class is back” in a whole series of countries, with huge strike waves, spurred particularly by inflation which has eroded living standards. Britain and France stand out in Western Europe for the scale of workers’ action. A general strike took place in Greece in September; transport workers took action in Italy in December; and there is an ongoing series of strikes against a right wing government in Finland. German train drivers have also taken action.

More workers went on strike in the US than any year since 1986, resuming the wave of class struggle begun by teachers in West Virginia, Arizona, and Oklahoma in 2018. The outcome of the strike by auto workers at the Big Three stands out as a major victory. There are similar developments in Canada and Quebec, as well as a general strike in Argentina on January 24, against the newly

elected reactionary government of Javier Milei.

But in many of the very same countries, including Germany and France, the far right continues to make gains in the polls. In the US, Trump is dominating the start of the Republican primaries with a very real chance to be reelected. We have seen the electoral victory of outright reactionaries and far right elements like Milei and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands though they also lost in Poland.

The only explanation for this is the massive weakness of left parties and figures. In Greece in 2015, the leader of the left party SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, capitulated despite mass backing during the fight to end the savage austerity being imposed on the country by the EU and IMF bloodsuckers acting at the behest of the banks. Jeremy Corbyn, the radical leader of the British Labour Party, failed to follow through and win the war against the vicious neoliberal wing of the party. And tragically Bernie Sanders capitulated to the leadership of the Democratic Party in 2020. This failure of left social democrats who won huge support from workers and young people with calls for change but who refuse to break with capitalism has also been seen in Latin America, for example in Chile. It is this failure, combined with the lack of a strong alternative from the revolutionary left, that opens the door further to the far right.

Where We Are In History All the key problems that have been described here cannot be properly understood outside the context of the crisis of neoliberal globalization and the beginning of the new era of global disorder.

The capitalist system has distinct phases in its history which have specific characteristics, including the degree of integration of the world economy, the degree of state intervention, the ideological presentation of the ruling class and, most importantly, the nature of class relations.

Under neoliberal globalization, beginning in the 1980s, there was free market fundamentalism, vicious attacks on the working class and its historic gains and free trade deals to increase the global mobility of capital. The Great Recession of 2007-9, showed that neoliberal globalization had entered into a deep crisis. The final straw was the mass upheavals of 2019 followed by the pandemic.

In the new era we’ve entered, the key features are a partial reversal of globalization, growing protectionism, growing state intervention in the economy, inter-imperialist conflict and ramped up militarism and nationalism. The claims of neoliberal apologists of a world economy that would lift all boats based on endless expansion of trade have been shattered. The idea of greater mobility and opportunity for people has been

replaced by austerity, decimated social services, harder borders around the wealthy countries, and vicious anti-migrant policies.

The “unipolar world” dominated

by US imperialism has now ended, replaced by a struggle for domination between the US and China which neither side can walk away from. In many ways the world we live in can be compared to the period before World War I when British imperialism which dominated the world in the 19th century was increasingly challenged by Germany.

But referring to World War I also points to a huge difference in the world today compared to most of the 20th century. In 1917, in the middle of the massive bloodletting fought to see which imperialist power would rule the world, the Russian working class, led by the Bolshevik Party, took power and opened the door to the beginning of the transition to socialism on a world scale. Stalinism’s rise to power in the 1920s represented a huge setback to those aspirations but the Soviet Union was still a post-capitalist society.

The spread of Stalinist states, while in all cases dominated by a stifling bureaucracy, still represented an objective challenge to capitalism up until their collapse beginning in the late 80s.

The original Cold War, unlike today, was therefore a competition between two different social systems. The collapse of Stalinism, in reality a social counterrevolution, turbocharged neoliberal globalization but all the ruling class promised

Elements of the beginning of the end of neoliberalism were visible in the economic crash of 2007-9, which gave rise to the Occupy Wall Street movement (above) in 2011.

at the moment of its triumph over “communism” is now turning to dust.

The only way out of this nightmare is to return to the road of the Russian revolution, to fighting for democratic workers governments everywhere, as a step towards a global planned economy.

What Will It Take To Change Direction?

It is at the present moment very hard to see the way forward.

That is why it is important to study the long history of capitalism. This allows us to see that the current situation will inevitably change and open new opportunities to build mass movements and, within them,

a revolutionary force. The right and far right could yet inflict even bigger blows on working people and the oppressed. But they will also overreach and provoke massive resistance. An example of this came in Israel in 2023 when Netenyahu’s far right government sought to remove checks and balances in the political system so that it could push through a profoundly reactionary agenda.

This provoked massive, ongoing resistance that even raised speculation of a possible civil war in Israeli society.

It is vitally necessary to continue the process of restoring the fighting capacity of the working class.

This means organizing the unorganized and replacing moribund union leaderships with those committed to waging the class struggle. It means taking new initiatives towards working class political independence, forming new parties, fighting to reclaim others. Many will question

“The ‘unipolar world’ dominated by US imperialism has now ended, replaced by a struggle for domination between the US and China which neither side can walk away from.” if this is possible given the long list of failures and betrayals by many, if not all, “new left” parties. But a new generation will learn these lessons and will create organizations more suited to the harsh political climate of the new era of disorder, with a clearer and stronger program.

As socialists, we see it as our task internationally to help in the rebuilding of labor’s economic and political strength. But it is also vital that those who see the necessity of fundamental, revolutionary change organize themselves. Millions of people across the world see the need to end capitalism and that this cannot be done in a piecemeal, gradualist manner. Far fewer have decided to dedicate themselves to building a revolutionary organization that can intervene in struggle.

The task of organized revolutionaries today, including in Socialist Alternative, is to gather the initial forces around an internationalist perspective and a clear program; to demonstrate in practice the superiority of their ideas while also learning from the masses and being prepared to constantly update those ideas; and to be prepared to work with other forces in a principled way. Perhaps most importantly it must act as the “memory of the class,” using the lessons of the past to show the potential and dangers ahead. J

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WOMEN & GIRLS

Drunk On Profits How Luxury Skincare is Preying on Young Girls

by EVA METZ, SEATTLE

This holiday season, parents of young girls scratched their heads at the items topping their children’s Christmas lists: Protini Polypeptide Cream ($68), T.LC. Sukari Babyfacial ($80), D-Bronzi AntiPollution Sunshine Drops ($38)...since when does a prepubescent eight-year-old need these products? Did they think that Santa’s elves had set up shop with luxury skincare company Drunk Elephant?

Even without this winter’s widely-discussed skincare frenzy amongst young girls accounted for, the global beauty market is growing rapidly. In 2022, the industry generated $430 billion in revenue, with luxury products comprising $62.3 billion. Drunk Elephant has been a particular focus of recent buzz, both for the voracity with which young girls have targeted its products and for price points sometimes topping $100. Described by Forbes as one of the fastest-growing prestige skin care companies in history, the luxury skincare company Drunk Elephant was acquired by multinational beauty giant Shiseido for $845 million.

The Ugly Side Of The Beauty Industry In some ways similar to the $164-billion supplement market, much of which lacks regulation as well as sound scientific backing, the skincare industry benefits from blurring the line between cosmetics and “healthcare” – after all, the skin is the body’s largest organ. But there’s a wide berth between dermatological treatments for eczema or acne and the complicated skincare routines peddled

by TikTok influencers. At best, these are time-consuming and expensive. For instance, $1,714 will get you LaPrairie’s “Skin Caviar Exclusive Luxury Holiday Ritual” set (for topical use only). At worst, these products are downright dangerous for young girls.

Retinol, a common ingredient in antiaging skincare products, is marketed as

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boosting collagen production to minimize the appearance of wrinkles. Dermatologists warn that this is not only unnecessary and illogical for young girls whose skin is still developing and producing collagen, but by overstimulating collagen production in young skin it can cause permanent skin damage, in addition to photosensitivity and skin irritation. Harsh but popular ingredients like salicylic acid and niacinamide can disrupt skin development and lead to conditions like dermatitis (eczema). But according to Drunk Elephant, a “simple” skincare routine for kids and tweens includes a $16 cleanser, your choice of a $38-68 oil or a $62 moisturizing cream, a $34 sheer sunscreen, and an $18 lip balm.

While it might seem absurd that young girls are flocking to products claiming to “promote elasticity while helping to reduce the look of fine lines,” it all starts to make a lot more sense once you dip your toes into the quagmires of social media. There, you’ll be bombarded by images that are filtered and photoshopped, peddling impossible-to-obtain beauty standards.

There’s a good chance you’ll wade into “Get Ready With Me” territory, a segment of TikTok with 157 billion views, where you can watch short, algorithm-friendly videos of beautiful people sharing stories as they get ready to do something. In what is becoming a key marketing sector now worth $250 billion and predicted to double by 2027, influencers will innocuously sprinkle in product placements for skincare, makeup, and clothing.

Keep going, and you’ll encounter warnings to start your anti-aging routine now… don’t wait until it’s too late! If that message isn’t sinking in, just try out TikTok’s new AI-generated “aging filter” to glimpse the horrors that could await your future… wrinkles, sagging skin, ick! If you get fully swept into the wild sea of #AntiAging TikTok, you’ll find bizarre hacks to eternal youth like taping your face for a DIY face-lift or training tips to freeze your face into an expressionless mask, because if it doesn’t move, i t won’t get wrinkled (be sure to follow in the footsteps of Kim Kardashian and stop smiling). You can even purchase a special, anti-wrinkle straw that allows you to drink without pursing your lips!

Social Media Sells Insecurity It is unfortunately nothing new for teenage girls to struggle with insecurities and body image issues in a period of their development where peer acceptance becomes critical. What is new, however, is how ubiquitously these beauty ideals are shoved down young girls’ throats, alongside marketing for products claiming to offer their attainment.

Generation Alpha is typically delineated as the generation born after 2010, the birth year of iPads and Instagram.

Even more than Gen Z, they grew up

completely inundated with social media and are estimated to spend over eight hours per day on screens (mostly Instagram and TikTok).

A leaked 2021 internal report from researchers inside Instagram, owned by Facebook (now Meta), exposed that the company was fully aware of how it was harming teenage girls. Their findings included, “We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” and, “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression.”

Amongst suicidal teens, 13% of British teens and 6% of American teens attributed their desire to kill themselves to Instagram. Did this research prompt the corporation to consider how they could better protect young girls? Of course not!

With retention and expansion of young users vital to Instagram’s $100 billion in annual revenue, the report disgustingly concluded, “Instagram is well-positioned to resonate and win with young people.”

Insecurity + Objectifion = Corporate Profits The craze for luxury skincare amongst young girls is just one example of what happens as for-profit social media platforms grant unfettered access to younger and younger children to rapacious interests, from retailers to influencers to even the $56 billion plastic surgery industry.

The objectification of women and its corresponding crushing pressures to meet a narrowly-defined beauty ideal has been a time-honored tradition just about as old as class society. At least modern shapewear is a bit less painful than whalebone corsets…even if it might cause issues like acid reflux or organ compression!

The objecti-

fication of women also leads to a stark double standard for aging between men and women, which is preyed upon by the anti-aging industry. As women age, they are told that they lose their beauty and in turn, their value. Without the drudgery and stresses of capitalism, including the insecurity and isolation of aging in a country with an abysmal healthcare system, the bogeyman of aging would lose its grip.

A socialist society would democratically retool industries like the skincare sector for public good and wellness, not profit and #wellness. Without the $766-billion global advertising industry, the sight of a pore could again be normal, not a nightmare, and the objectification and exploitation of women and girls could finally become a matter of ancient history. J

EPSTEIN WAS THE SIGN OF A SICK SYSTEM

By TONYA ROGERS Spoiler alert, the much-anticipated “Epstein List” didn’t contain much bombshell new information. The “list” didn’t add to the names of powerful politicians and celebrities linked to Epstein that we already knew – Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Donald Trump. Despite the lack of any major new revelations, Epstein’s horrific sexual abuses gained headlines again, reviving a bitter taste for the million ways the rich and powerful escape accountability for their crimes.

Conspiracy theories around Epstein have come to represent distrust in institutions paired with the “posttruth” information economy on social media. There is an elite ruling class wreaking havoc on the lives of the majority of ordinary people in society, and yes, we can see with Epstein’s example that unless ordinary people fight back, the elite believe they’re untouchable. But the looting of our society’s health, home, and livelihood happens in the daylight under ordinary capitalist exploitation and oppression on a massive scale. People are trying to cope with the sick reality that Epstein already got away with a lifetime of kidnapping, trafficking, and sexual abuse under a system that will never find real justice for his victims.

We need to fight the system of capitalism that breeds monsters like Epstein. Most of his victims were vulnerable teen girls, working class and poor, many underage and often lured under false pretenses, then sexually abused and controlled via massive amounts of money and intimidation. Many were trafficked, as well as coerced to recruit others.

A man who had more money than Midas preyed on vulnerable women and girls with his rich and powerful friends for decades. The #MeToo moment registered some important victories against powerful abusers like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby. But if you ask today, few, if anyone, would feel satisfied that our work is done against gender-based violence, sexism, or sexual exploitation and abuse.

The untouchable billionaire class, messed-up justice system, and broad wealth inequality that allowed Epstein to carry out his abuse and evade consequences is still intact. People of all genders face major uphill battles to achieve even a basic standard of living under capitalism, and our instability is made even worse by the sexism, racism, and all forms of discrimination which are the system’s insurance policies to keep working-class people in our place.

Epstein was allowed free rein to play two roles: by day, he hustled to grow the status of his wealthy clients, which was rewarded by wealth and power for himself. By night, his whole crime ring relied on the silence of the same circle of elites protecting their status, treating a slew of young women as utterly disposable. These young women have had their lives forever altered in immeasurable ways, an infuriating consequence that is tragically relatable to survivors of abuse who regularly face a saga of horrors when seeking justice in our society. The dark corners of the world are an inglorious result of the inequality of capitalism, and will be changed only when they’re brought to light and fought ruthlessly.

The key takeaway for everyone looking for answers should be that we need to attack the capitalist system as the source of these revolting behaviors. Pockets of resistance are crucial but fundamental change requires broader social and economic action. Innumerable attacks from the right wing over the past several years should not discourage the idea that a better world based on equality is possible. Protest, strikes, and direct action can work when linked to movements with roots in workplaces, campuses, and demands to address the social and economic world we need – and to dismantle the ruling class, with its many Epsteins, and their gangster control of our lives. J S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

UNSUBSCRIBED WHY WATCHING YOUR FAVORITE

of entertainment.

These phenomena, as well as others including companies disappearing digital content from the internet entirely if it proves insufficiently profitable, have led those observing the state of the entertainment world to draw the following conclusion: “Now turmoil rules the industry.”

SHOWS IS ALWAYS GETTING MORE EXPENSIVE ELLA RAPP, PHILADELPHIA

It’s a Tuesday night, and you just got back from work. Dishes in the sink need to be washed and laundry needs to be folded, but you just need a 45-minute break before addressing a near-constant stream of responsibilities. You turn on the TV and open a streaming app, only to be met with a notification – the subscription fee is going up by $2. Mentally, you start to tally up the cost of everything you pay to access your favorite shows, movies, and music – it’s getting to be too much.

The Streaming Economy Before streaming, the entertainment economy relied largely on television advertising revenue, as well as sales of cable TV packages and movie theater tickets. The profitability of streaming services, on the other hand, depends on attracting and retaining huge subscriber bases.

Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have increasingly taken over the market for home consumption of television and movies.

In 2023, for the first time, Americans officially spent more of our screen time on streaming than on cable TV. But already, the alarm is being sounded that more and more consumers are canceling their subscriptions.

Working families are balking at higher prices, the increasing infiltration of ads, and crackdowns on account sharing.

As streaming grew in popularity, everyone and their mother rolled out their own streaming app, and the field became crowded.

Instead of the way several cable channels would often share the airing rights to a show, streaming services bid on exclusive streaming rights as a way to compete with one another.

As a result, prices for the most popular movies and shows are continuously jacked up, and services pour money into developing and buying more content than any one of us could possibly watch – or enjoy.

Instead of a base of profits from advertising, which is how cable made its money, streaming companies also have to maintain massive subscriber bases in order to turn a profit. But when consumers start to cancel our subscriptions – because we’re facing new economic hardship, or because we’re unsatisfied with the quality of the content being offered – companies make moves to try to maximize their gains. These include higher subscription prices; the rolling back of adfree entertainment, once one of the biggest draws to streaming as an alternative to cable; and cracking down on the number of devices that can be logged in to one account. While over time these measures drive viewers away, in the short term they can buoy profits as consumers feel locked into familiar sources FEBRUARY 2024

Winners & Losers We should be clear about the interests at stake in the streaming economy, and about the fact that two groups are bearing the brunt of this “turmoil:” average working-class consumers, and workers in the entertainment industry. Massive development budgets and sky-high price tags for streaming rights to our most beloved movies and TV shows do not translate into higher pay for the vast majority of actors, writers, and crew members.

While the entertainment industry has always been marked by inequality between Hollywood executives and A-list stars on the one hand, and artists barely getting by on the other, the streaming economy has heightened the divide. People who worked on a production used to make money – good money, in some cases – from syndication and reruns on cable. Now, a show can be watched a million times on Netflix, and most of the workers who created it will see pennies, or nothing at all, in residuals.

This growing gap was part of the fuel for the historic writers’ and actors’ strikes last year. Workers were rightfully outraged, and the WGA made a significant leap forward for all entertainment workers when they won a system for streaming revenue bonuses in their contract. In the coming years, the labor movement can continue to play a central role in pushing back against the most exploitative features of the streaming economy, and all eyes should be on this issue especially going into a potential strike of entertainment workers represented by IATSE and the Teamsters this summer.

Can This Broken Model Be Fixed?

In theory, streaming offers a number of positives to consumers, namely more convenient and immediate access to our favorite movies and TV shows. However, the realities of the streaming economy and its effect on the entertainment industry as a whole demonstrate that under capitalism, technological innovations are never put to use to improve working people’s quality of life. Rather, they are rolled out in a chaotic and uncoordinated fashion for the primary purpose of garnering maximum profits for those at the top (Netflix, claiming it has no choice but to hike up its subscription prices, made over $12.9 billion in profits last year). The same can be said for technology which has much more power to change our daily lives for better or worse, like AI. The streaming economy isn’t working for

C U LT U R E

all capitalists; modern capitalism and its extraordinarily high upfront costs result in industries that tend toward monopolization and centralization, and as a result, many streaming companies other than those at the very top are struggling to remain profitable and keep their subscribers. Because of all these problems, we may see changes to the streaming model in the coming years.

But whatever replaces it will have a similarly damaging impact on consumers, entertainment workers, and art as a whole.

Following the example set by the 2023 WGA strike, only militant struggle from workers in the arts and entertainment industries, in solidarity with all of the working people and families who enjoy the fruits of their labor,

can point us toward a healthy cultural environment: one where we are all able to produce and consume quality art which reflects our experiences, struggles, and perspectives.

An example of a partial victory in this realm can be found in the workers’ movement that pushed forward the New Deal, which included significant arts programs as a method of bolstering the interwar economy and fostering cultural output in the US. Art serves a crucial role in society, and it should be accessible both to those who wish to produce and consume it. Only by fighting to destroy capitalism, and the profit motive which will always stifle human creativity, can we achieve this goal. J

THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS

mimics the opioid crisis, with both a ddictions causing substantial health, social, and financial harm.

Some argue that it is better to have sports gambling “above board” where it is more visible. While BetMGM might not have goons ready to break your legs over unpaid debts, there are plenty of banks to repossess your car and landlords to evict you.

Sports are genuinely enjoyed by a huge cross-section of working people today. For many, a friendly bet or an office bracket on a game’s outcome or a player’s performance is a way to deepen their enjoyment.

However, by definition, a “friendly bet” is not exploitative – no true friend would take your rent or grocery money over a ballgame bet.

For starters, we can end the practice of initial promotional discounts gaming companies offer to new customers. The propaganda-like ad campaigns should be banned, like we do with other harmful products such as tobacco. Going further, problem gambling is a compulsive activity, and can be disrupted by putting some transactional friction into place. We should institute limits on the number of daily wagers to tamp down on compulsive gambling, require a “cool-down” period between placing and confirming bets, and limit wager amounts.

To protect the integrity of both the actual sports and the betting games, there should be no cross-ownership of franchises and sportsbooks. Both industries should be heavily taxed, with that money going directly to mental health, addiction, and other social programs addressing the social problems associated with problem gambling.

Finally, the sports teams and the books should be taken into public ownership, both to ensure the integrity of the sports and to democratically determine whether to keep organized sports betting at all. No billionaire should profit at our expense, simply for enjoying friendly competition and the sense of belonging to a team. J

billionaires cash in on sports betting

BRIAN HARRISON, HOUSTON For decades, betting on sports events was heavily regulated, and in most places illegal. But in 2018, the Supreme Court struck down regulations using the same reactionary “states’ rights” argument that they would later use to gut abortion rights.

Almost overnight, online sportsbooks became a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s been both Republican and Democratic politicians leading the charge. In fact, three of the largest and most influential states in gaming policy – Nevada, New Jersey, and New York – are “Blue States” led by Democrats.

In September 2023, 73.5 million Americans said they planned to bet on the NFL this season, a new record, and an almost 60% increase from last year. By the end of 2023, 33 states had legalized online sportsbooks. In that time, the industry handled over $250 billion in bets.

On average, individual bettors only win back $90 of every $100 bet. With 21st century technology and algorithms, sportsbooks can mathematically ensure that enough “punters” will lose so that the house comes up on top.

Wall Street and venture capital quickly entered the market. It’s the merciless banks and money-managers who stand to win from the gaming industry, not football fans sitting on their couch trying to cash in on an impossible parlay.

Sportsbooks are an inherently rigged game. There is a lot of truth to the old saying, “The house always wins.” The entire business model produces more losers who lose more money than the cash the smaller number of winners walk away with.

There are enormous public health concerns involved with sports gambling. The National Council for Problem Gambling estimates that the risk of gambling addiction increased by 30% between 2018 and 2021, a rise directly tied to legal sports gaming. The explosion in problem gambling

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MIGRANT CRISIS

Knock-On Effects

A group of migrants transported from Texas to Chicago. Sep 27, 2023

RIGHT-WING POLITICIANS THROW MIGRANTS UNDER (AND The Right’s War On Immigration ONTO) THE BUS

by MARIE O’TOOLE, NEW YORK CITY Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent the first busload of immigrants to Washington nearly two years ago in a cruel and dramatic effort to hold the Democrats’ feet to the fire on the issue of border crossings. Since then, “Operation Lone Star” has sent off nearly 100,000 migrants to sanctuary cities like Chicago and New York.

Abbott’s efforts, along with Ron Desantis’ in Florida, aim to create a crisis around immigration in northern cities the likes of which Mayor Eric Adams declared would “destroy New York City.” Those are the ridiculous words of a politician desperate to deflect anger away from his administration’s attacks on housing, schools, and social services. Still, they are characteristic of a game of political football that can be seen beyond the United States.

Migration is surging around the world. The inter-imperialist rivalry between US and Chinese capitalism is ripping up the old world order, leading to new wars and increased instability. On top of this, climate change is disproportionately affecting poorer countries in the neocolonial world, especially among agricultural workers. Migration is the natural effect of this, and it is creating new challenges for the political elites.

Discredited by decades of attacks on its own working class, the liberal political establishment is now losing ground to right-wing populists who have no real answer to the crisis, but whose dramatic maneuvers will further destabilize global capitalism.

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Anti-immigrant agendas are a key part of right-wing platforms arising internationally.

Donald Trump has been facing criticism for a notably reactionary statement he made at a rally in December, saying that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our nation.” What Trump said is shocking on its own, but he would feel right at home at so many similar rallies around the world.

In Ireland, an anti-immigration grouping is seeking to challenge as many as fifty local seats across the island in June’s elections.

They are whipping up anger around the issue, directly causing a racist riot in Dublin last November. Rather than condemn the rioters, the response from the Rural Independent Group in the Irish Parliament was to motion for a debate about “illegal and undocumented people.”

In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party won the most seats in the November elections. A major point in their platform was their call for the country to stop admitting asylum seekers and to back out of treaties around asylum and refugees. Wilders is regularly compared to Trump for his racist and xenophobic statements like “what [rightwing people] really feel is a threat for the safety of their daughters … they are being called racist if they make a remark about ‘hey this is not our country anymore.’”

In Switzerland, the People’s Party became a leader in the national elections aided by attacks on the cost of asylum. The president of Tunisia’s racist rhetoric has sparked a wave of violence against sub-Saharan Africans. In South Africa, racist vigilante group Operation Dudula has registered itself as a political party. In country after country, immigrants and asylum seekers are common denominators in the advance of right-wing populism.

Sharpened rhetoric around immigration has put pressure on establishment politicians, and even some considered to be on the left, to accommodate these ideas in order to keep pace with their rivals on the right.

Die Linke, the left party in Germany, is a case study on the knock-on effect of this political environment. The right wing of Die Linke represented by Sahra Wagenknecht broke away to form its own party following a long series of factional disagreements.

The 14-year member of German parliament named the new party after herself and based it on her own brand of populism.

Wagenknecht has been in office for a while as a member of the left, though she has not made calls for any real alternative to the capitalist system. It says something about the pressure in society to reject immigration that a figure nominally from the left has swung so far to the right on this issue.

She has attacked “unregulated migration” with the aim of winning over support from the base of the far-right Alternative for Germany.

Establishment politicians are put under the same pressure. For the Turkish CHP, a part of distinguishing themselves as opposition to Erdoğan’s regime in the elections was to flex as being tougher on Syrian refugees.

President Macron in France pushed through strict measures on immigration in order to cut across the appeal of the far right, though Marine Le Pen claimed it as an “ideological victory” for her party. Marine Le Pen may not be right about much, but that much is true.

The short-sighted effort to undercut the base of the right by adopting right-wing measures is actually a gift to right-wing parties and politicians.

What’s The Appeal?

The scale of crises facing the capitalist system internationally is accelerating migration. Wars have broken out in Syria, Sudan, Ukraine, and Gaza. The effects of economic warfare from Western imperialism have fuelled profound crises in countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. Venezuela has one of the biggest displacement crises in the world with over seven million having left the country.

Populist candidates on the right are able to posture as fighting for the interests of working people by tapping into their justified anger at the profound cost of living crisis.

Trump finds every opportunity he can to point to the failure of America’s economy and political system to provide a good life for the average person.

When t h e

liberal establishment gaslights people by saying the economy is actually very healthy, the “truth-telling” of the right can be an appealing alternative.

The reality is that reactionary figures like Trump are architects of the very cost of living crisis driving their popularity. It was Trump who gave hundreds of billions in handouts to major corporations during the early days of the pandemic, directly contributing to the inflationary crisis today. He has no intention of providing a genuine challenge to the root causes of insecurity and frustration in our society. When social services and housing markets are overburdened, who is to blame: a profit-based system that has left them completely inadequate or refugees seeking better conditions? For millions uncertain of their futures, the right-wing’s xenophobic arguments to the latter can carry a lot of weight.

Socialist Change For Migrants & All Working People!

Accommodation to anti-immigrant ideas should be a complete nonstarter for working people. The bosses thrive off of a divideand-rule strategy which keeps us fighting among ourselves. Immigrants are used by this system as a cheap and easily exploitable source of labor, but can also be scapegoated by cynical politicians to distract domesticborn workers from the real faults in society.

What we need is a mass movement of domestic-bornworkers and migrants in solidarity with each other for genuine change.

Legalization and equal rights for undocumented people, an end to deportation, and accommodation for asylum seekers would actually strengthen our position overall by undermining the efforts to divide us. A fight for massive expansions in good jobs, social housing, and social spending would begin to tackle the uncertain conditions that give right populism its edge today, and benefit both immigrant and domestic-born workers.

This type of change cannot happen to the necessary extent under the capitalist system which is built on profit at the expense of billions of people’s livelihood. Only a socialist planned economy under the democratic control of working people could fully address the cause of this crisis: capitalism’s ruthless system of “dog eat dog” exploitation playing out on a global scale. The migration crisis proves why this kind of change would need to be international. Workers in the biggest economies should oppose economic warfare and the underdevelopment of neocolonial countries.

Solidarity with would-bemigrants for socialist change in their home countries can push back on global inequality and point to a better world for everyone. J

“Capitalism benefits from a divide-and-rule strategy around immigration. Immigrants are used by this system as a cheap and easily exploitable source of labor, but can also be scapegoated by cynical politicians to distract domestic-born workers from the real faults in society. “ S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

UKRAINE U P D AT E BRYAN KOULOURIS, MINNEAPOLIS

It is now nearly two years since the Russian imperialist invasion of Ukraine ordered

by Vladimir Putin. Despite an initial wave of enthusiasm to sign up for the Ukrainian military to defeat the invasion, the war is now at a stalemate while the carnage continues with no clear end in sight.

The world situation plummets into further disorder with the Israeli state’s massmurderous assault on the Palestinian people.

Worldwide, people are more wary of war and specifically the cynical aims of US and European imperialism in their backing of both the Israeli regime and the reactionary Zelensky government.

Military conflict throughout history takes on its own logic despite the personal or tactical goals of different world powers. In Ukraine and Russia, this means an increasing turn towards aerial assaults in the context of deadlocked ground combat. Despite Western imperialism initially objecting to attacks within Russia itself, Ukrainian military logic has led to drone assaults, shelling attacks, and a brief ground incursion on Russian territory in Belgorod.

The Zelensky regime has tied itself to strong support for the Israeli mass murder campaign in Palestine. While Western imperialism would like to limit the prospects of a regional war in the Middle East, military conflicts have intensified in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, threatening a wider conflagration. The overarching context for the growing horrors of capitalism is the “New Cold War” with US and Chinese imperialism, with blocs surrounding them, battling each other for global influence and corporate profits.

Global Rivalries & Roadblocks The conflict in Ukraine can’t be viewed outside the context of the New Cold War. While inflation continues and a global economic downturn looms, US and European imperialism have given over $100 billion towards the Ukraine war effort. More military aid is coming despite the political obstacles in the halls of power and the war’s increasing unpopularity among ordinary people.

In December, Republicans blocked another $50 billion for the war in Ukraine, but Democrats have vowed to find a way to further finance the bloodshed. Trump is currently leading in Presidential polls, and he’s vowed to cut funding, cynically posing as the only viable “anti-war” candidate. This is one crucial reason why the majority of the US ruling class will do whatever they can to try to stop Trump from returning to the White House.

European imperialists have also been temporarily hampered in some of their proUkraine initiatives by a right-wing populist, FEBRUARY 2024

WA R I N U K R A I N E

Stalemate, Cold War, Shifts in Consciousness

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, but the ruling classes are determined to step up their war funding. Of course, whether the European ruling classes would actually be able to deliver on this is another matter, but the idea that the Ukrainian regime will just be “abandoned” even if Trump is elected is fanciful. The stakes are too high for Western imperialism.

On the other side, Russian imperialism is taking in weaponry directly from North Korea and Iran, two states firmly backed by China in the global great power rivalry. That’s only the tip of the iceberg though. Surpassing all expectations, trade between Russia and China totaled well over $240 billion in 2023, more than in any other year ever. This includes material that can be used to produce weaponry for the battlefields and increasing air assaults in Ukraine.

Roadblocks to the intensification of the New Cold War are only temporary, and imperialist warmongers will bust through them or speed around the obstacles. While there can be temporary pauses and detours, the general direction of travel in the world situation is towards more conflicts, and unstable right populists currently pretending to be anti-war will likely eventually intensify the antagonisms.

For instance, Trump and Biden will compete to ramp up anti-China sentiment on the campaign trail which could result in another horrific spike in anti-Asian hate crimes.

US and European ruling classes didn’t initially support the Ukrainian war efforts leading to attacks in Russian territory, but conflicts have their own logic. The same goes for the murderous Israeli assault on the Palestinian people leading to the prospect of war dragging into Lebanon and Yemen. The New Cold War has its own momentum outside of the subjective wishes of any ruling class politician. The very logic of capitalism leads to intense scrambles for super-profits, resulting in wars and deep disorder, especially in this period of capitalist decay. The great power rivalries will intensify deeply in the coming months and years, leading unfortunately to further conflict, and even wider wars.

War Weariness Poll after poll show people throughout the world are less and less enthusiastic about supporting Ukrainian war efforts despite a media onslaught. Suspicion and opposition to Western imperialism was always strong in the neocolonial world, and now people in Europe and the US are increasingly wary of billions in war spending after the failure of the Ukrainian offensive and the current stalemate.

In Russia itself, there was a heroic antiwar movement at the start of the invasion, but Putin has carried out vicious and ongoing repression as his propaganda machine intensifies its efforts. Some brave Russians, including family members of troops, are still speaking out. In Ukraine, after initial popular resistance to Russian invasion, there are many

signs of people wanting an end to the ongoing bloodshed that has no end in sight. Without a mass movement to stop Putin’s war machine, this mood is instead reflected in estimates that 600,000 have fled the country.

Scandal after scandal has erupted in Ukraine about corruption connected to draft dodging. As with most wars, the rich and powerful making the decisions leave it to the poor and working-class people to die, get maimed, and lose family members. As many fighting-age men have left Ukraine to avoid death and destruction, the average age of Ukrainian soldiers is now more than 40 years old! Stories abound of untrained draftees being sent to the front lines when they were told their role in the war would be elsewhere.

No wonder morale has clearly decreased during and after an offensive in 2023 that gained little ground.

In recent weeks. Ukrainians have started

Russian imperialism or give cover to Western ruling classes by calling for “victory to Ukraine,” which amounts to advising people to sign up for Zelensky’s NATO-backed army, or giving abstract advice to a now Ukrainian war effort. Anti-colonial struggles throughout the 20th century show that numerically larger militaries can be defeated by popular resistance, provided this resistance is based on fighting for social revolution as well as national liberation. Zelensky’s government doesn’t fight for liberation of any sort, just more attacks on working people and the oppressed. Ordinary people internationally are increasingly turning against the madness of escalating military conflict.

Sadly, the right wing in many countries is gaining support through cynically posing against the war. Trump is not alone in this with far-right Islamophobe Geert Wilders in the Netherlands winning a shocking elec-

staging small protests, with women at the forefront, demanding soldiers be allowed to come home for leave. Promised time off is now being taken away by a reactionary regime in the back pocket of Western imperialism. A program for the working class to end this war needs to take into account the widespread war weariness and the just struggles against the reactionary Ukrainian government.

Under cover of war, Zelensky has enacted repressive anti-union laws and trampled on the language rights of Ukraine’s significant minority populations. Marxists must take an approach of fostering working-class unity through a struggle to win full rights for oppressed people.

Socialists should be at the forefront of a struggle against war, whether in the Middle East or Eastern Europe, calling for mass demonstrations and working-class action to end the bloodshed. This can be a crucial step towards building the working class movement necessary to confront and defeat the capitalist system at the root of this increasing death and destruction.

toral victory while promising to cut funding to Ukraine. The extreme right “AfD” in Germany is gaining in polls, and there are other terrible examples of this worldwide. Right-wing populism has no solutions and will contribute to ramping up nationalist tensions and racism.

The warmongering ruling class contributes to this by posing the war in Ukraine as a “battle for Western civilization,” a phrase also used by reactionaries and outright fascists.

The left needs to put forward an anti-war alternative to the ramping up of militarism internationally. War production should be retooled and taken under working-class control to produce goods that meet the needs of people and the environment. A mass movement of street protests should oppose both the war in Palestine and in Ukraine, connecting calls for peace to concrete needs of workers facing inflation, housing crises, climate change, and rampant inequality. While some on the left will say that calls for socialism in this struggle would be “abstract,” society is crying out for fundamental change. If we don’t get organized to pose an alternative, the right wing will continue to gain.

Capitalism has created a world of profound disorder, plummeting towards even deeper disaster. It is only working people who have the potential power to stop war production, refuse to fight for imperialist aims, and begin to organize toward a society free of all exploitation and oppression. J

Right-Wing Danger & Socialist Solution Unfortunately, the left is largely missing from the struggle against the horrors of war.

Bigger “left” parties, and even some claiming to be Marxists, wrongly support either

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C O R P O R AT E C R I M E S

BIA LACOMBE, SEATTLE In early January, in a near disaster in midair, an Alaska Airlines flight of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 was forced to make an emergency landing after a side ‘door plug’ ripped off the plane. Passengers reported being sure they were going to die. Just by chance, no one was sitting near the door, the plane was not at maximum altitude, and the flight crew responded quickly – otherwise there would likely have been casualties. This came just a few days after flight crews saved the lives of 380 people after a collision at the Tokyo airport.

Since the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration, or the FAA, has grounded all Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes for further investigation and inspection. It’s not even the first time the 737 MAX has been grounded: this plane, and the executives who have profited handsomely from it, caused the deaths of over 300 people in 2018 and 2019. As Alaska Airlines, and also United Airlines, have recently inspected their Boeing MAX 9 planes, they’ve reported finding loose bolts on a number of them.

This news has exposed and brought attention to a wider breakdown which implicates not just Boeing executives, but the aviation industry as a whole, including federal regulators. It’s just the latest symptom of a system in complete crisis.

Perhaps the most jolting statistic illustrating this disastrous situation is the one reported by the New York Times last summer.

After analyzing a NASA database that contains confidential safety reports filed by pilots, air traffic controllers and others in aviation from 2022, a study showed that there were close to 300 instances of near-collisions involving commercial airlines in domestic US flights! Two such near misses occurred last July within ten days of each other. They were such dangerously close shaves that the FAA’s internal records reviewed described the two encounters as “skin to skin.”

Aviation corporations, from airlines to aerospace manufacturers, put profits first and the needs of workers and passengers last. Rather than take responsibility for the disastrous results of putting profits before safety, aviation corporations are quick to blame flight crews for anything that goes wrong with a flight.

There have been numerous media reports

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CAPITALISM MAKES AIR TRAVEL DEADLY of the crisis faced by flight attendants, air traffic controllers, pilots, ground crew, and workers in the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA. The widespread mental health issues faced by pilots received major headlines in October when pilot Joseph Emerson was charged with trying to crash an Alaska Airlines flight. Pilots, air traffic controllers, and others in the industry have reported lying about mental health problems so that they don’t risk their jobs.

This industry-wide crisis has grown under both Democrats and Republicans, who gladly underfund regulatory agencies like the FAA while giving enormous tax breaks to wildly profitable companies like Boeing. In Washington State, in 2013, Democratic Governor Jay Inslee and Democratic-controlled legislature gave Boeing a whopping $8.7 billion in tax breaks to supposedly keep jobs in the state.

But Boeing dramatically cut jobs anyway: by 2017, they had cut 12,655 jobs, or more than 15% of its Washington workforce.

Boeing Cuts Corners With Deadly Consequences In 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed and all 157 people on board were killed. Just a few months earlier, in 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed near Indonesia and killed 189 people. These two flights were both operating Boeing 737 MAX 8s, and the story of this plane helps expose the rot at the center of this and other capitalist industries with their never-ending race for profits.

The two biggest airplane manufacturers in the world are Airbus and Boeing, and they are longtime rivals. In 2011, Airbus announced a new type of engine on their popular domestic, shorter-range aircraft that would save fuel, and therefore lots of money, for commercial airlines. It was a big success. Boeing, frantic to keep selling more planes than Airbus, raced to upgrade the engine on their domestic plane, and called it the 737 MAX. Because of the way the Boeing plane was originally designed over 50 years ago, they had to place the new engine higher up on the wing. They used software to stabilize the unstable design. To reduce training time (and costs) Boeing didn’t tell pilots about this software, and didn’t include it in any manuals. When the software malfunctioned and pushed planes down until they crashed, pilots couldn’t figure out how to stop it in time.

Besides bad headlines and lost sales, Boeing faced almost no consequences. No executives went to jail, the FAA helped them recertify the airplane as quickly as possible, and even intimidated whistleblower workers who continued to raise alarms about the process that led to these disasters.

The Lever recently reported about a federal court filing against Spirit Aerosystems, the Boeing subcontractor that reportedly built the door panel that blew out on the Alaska flight, where employees allege that they repeatedly warned corporate officials about safety problems and were told to falsify records. Workers allege that they were told to misrepresent the number of defects in their products, and that workers who raised concerns were demoted or moved to different positions.

facing flight attendants, and tips on where to get free food in the cities to which the airline flies.

Working-Class Fightback Needed To Fundamentally Change the Industry

Whether it’s defending the lives of passengers, or improving the wages and working conditions of the workers, any change in this industry can only come from an organized working-class fightback. Aviation workers are fed up with deteriorating, dangerous conditions, and they’re getting organized.

On February 13, flight attendants will hold a day of action at over 30 airports worldwide.

More than two-thirds of the US flight attendants are currently in contract negotiations, including contract fights at American, Alaska, United, and Southwest. Recently, flight attendants at Southwest Airlines rejected a tentative contract agreement, with 64%of them voting against the proposed five-year deal.

On January 13, Brussels Airlines pilots held a wildcat strike over benefits that haven’t Aviation Workers Pushed to the kept up with inflation. In May of last year, 99% of the rank-and-file members of the Brink Southwest Airlines Pilots Association voted to Workers in every part of the industry, from approve a strike mandate for the first time in those who build the planes to those who fly the company’s history, with them, care about pas98%of members participatsenger safety and want to ing in the vote! At the end do their jobs to the highof January, pilots voted by est standard. But they’re 93% for a new contract that forced into crushing workwill raise wages by nearly ing conditions that make 50%over seven years and this virtually impossible increase retirement benefits.

– all so their company’s In September, an overwealthy executives and whelming 99% of American shareholders can get even Airlines flight attendants wealthier. voted to authorize a strike, A New York Times with over 93% participating investigation last month in the vote. American Airlines revealed how a “nationis operated by over 26,000 wide shortage of air traffic flight attendants unionized controllers had resulted in with the Association of Pro“Workers allege that an exhausted and demorfessional Flight Attendants, they were told to mis- who are demanding better alized workforce that was increasingly prone to represent the number of pay and working conditions making dangerous misagainst the corporation’s defects in their prodtakes.” They reported that 1.3 billion-dollar ucts, and that workers reported virtually all US air traffic profit in the second quarter control sites were underwho raised concerns of last year. staffed, forcing controllers The Teamsters in the US to work 10-hour days, six were demoted or moved are currently forming a coalidays a week. to different positions.” tion to unionize over 50,000 Pilots face similarly workers at Delta, including enormous pressures, leading many to also ramp, tower, and cargo workers, flight attendevelop physical and mental health prob- dants and mechanics. lems. Many have quit or turned down promoThis year, the contract will expire for Seattions that would lead to unpredictable flying tle-area Boeing machinists unionized with schedules. There is now a massive pilot IAM District 751. According to one worker, shortage: there are around 18,000 fewer they’re fired up to win the cost-of-living commercial pilots than the industry needed increases they’ve gone more than ten years in 2023. without, including preparing for a strike.

Chronic financial distress has been the Air travel that is so integral to public norm for many flight attendants, with wages infrastructure and safety like Boeing, Spirit so low they often qualify for food stamps and Aerosystems, and even all the airlines, aren’t other public assistance. Many have to sleep safe in the hands of the billionaires. It’s the in cars while on call for a shift, a call that workers who know how things should be run, may or may not come. As the Seattle Times and it’s the workers who want to do their jobs reported last month, two Alaska Airlines well and keep people safe. Workers need to flight attendants started a private Facebook take these companies into democratic public page titled “Alaska Airlines FAs experienc- ownership and run them in the public intering hunger and homelessness.” The group est, with the whole industry organized demoshares countless stories of financial problems cratically. J S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

CHRIS GRAY, MINNEAPOLIS

UAW UNION DRIVE

UAW’s strike against the “Big Three” automakers last year could be a turning point in working people’s fight against the billionaire class. Armed with the authority of a strong contract won over a historic 40-day strike, they have embarked on a campaign to unionize the entire auto industry.

While the corporations will fight back, UAW currently enjoys strong headwinds to carry this out with the popularity of unions at all time highs and that there hasn’t been a catastrophic economic downtown (yet).

The victory has raised the expectations of workers everywhere. Despite the fact that auto-corporations immediately announced raises to head off union drives, in less than two months since the end of the strike, 5,500 workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee and 1,500 workers at a Mercedes Plant in Vance, Alabama have collected signed lawyers can’t protect workers, because the bosses own the union authorization cards from 30% of their coworkers. politicians who write the laws. All of this is in contrast to most Although this happened at an astonishing pace, the union is labor leaders, who play up their “friendly relationships” with waiting until 70% of the cards before the bosses, at the expense of their own filing for an election. memberships.

UAW’s new president, Shawn Fain, For these reasons, it’s a mistake is encouraging the whole working class for UAW to take all this authority, and to participate directly in the unionizathrow it behind Biden’s 2024 election tion effort. Any worker can go to UAW. campaign. While it’s true a Trump 2.0 org/join and sign an electronic authoriwould be a thoroughly pro-corporate, zation card, and there is a transparent anti-worker administration, Biden does “how to” guide published to forming a not offer a way forward for workers union. This recognition of the political either. Endorsing Biden undermines moment combined with relying on the the powerful stance UAW took against initiative of rank-and-workers stands the massacre in Palestine. We need to in stark contrast to most unions, who be clear that the breakthroughs for the rely on foggy, staff-driven, legalistic labor movement over the last year came UAW President Shawn Fain speaks at a rally kicking off walkouts of the union in September of 2023. methods that can actually disempower from workers taking the initiative and workers. getting organized against the boss, not Workers in existing unions are learnfrom favorable decisions at the National ing the lessons of the strike. Many of Labor Relations Board (appointed by “In less than two months since the the president). these workers are fed up with their own conservative leaders who don’t want to Unions wasted $150 million electend of the strike, 5,500 workers organize or fight and would rather sit in ing Biden in 2020, far more than the at the Volkswagen plant in Chatoffices making hundreds of thousands dismal amount of resources they devote tanooga, Tennessee and 1,500 to organize the unorganized. That money of dollars a year. They are discussing launching their own rank-and-file reform workers at a Mercedes Plant in would be far better spent unionizing caucuses to topple the old guard, Vance, Alabama have collected workers, and rebuilding a fighting labor inspired by Shawn Fain and Unite All movement based on the working class signed union authorization cards struggle, which unites workers from difWorkers for Democracy (UAWD). Workers have seen what a leadership that is from 30% of their coworkers.” ferent backgrounds against a common prepared to fight can do. foe: the billionaires. UAW missed an There is no doubt the strike has had opportunity to spearhead building an an impact far beyond the existing unions. Workers across the independent, working class movement capable of breaking country watched UAW go on strike, and win a big victory. the depressing cycle of Trump/Biden elections, but it can still More importantly, UAW is clear about the challenges workers play a decisive role in rebuilding a fighting labor movement, face. Shawn Fain is clear about the need for class struggle. starting by going all out to win at Mercedes in Alabama and He’s clear that corporations will lie, cheat and steal to keep Volkswagon in Chattanooga. J raking in massive profits. He tells workers that even the best

UAW Has The Opportunity To Spearhead Rebuilding The Labor Movement – Don’t Squander It On Campaigning For Biden

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SOCIALIST

ALTERNATIVE ISSUE #100 l FEBRUARY 2024

what ideas do we need to change the world?

by GREYSON VAN ARSDALE

CELEBRATING 100 ISSUES OF SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE In the 1980s, 50 companies in

total owned about 90% of American media, from newspapers, to music, to TV, to movies.

Today, that landscape has been winnowed down even more – of all the media Americans consume for entertainment, information, or education, 90% of it is owned by just six companies. You probably already know the names of most of “The Big Six”: Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, GE, and News Corp.

Even with media institutions outside this massive monopoly, corporate control plays a huge factor. The Washington Post, an historic newspaper that gets between 55-85 million clicks on its website every month, is owned by none other than Jeff Bezos, perhaps the world’s most notorious billionaire and union-buster.

Under capitalism, news, like everything else, is a way for a small handful of people to make billions of dollars. Concretely, this means there is a huge void of institutions who write about the things that are important to the lives of working class people.

How Corporate-Run Media Fails Us Just to take an example, about four million American workers are teachers in public schools. Growing classroom sizes have been a daily battle for these teachers, as the amount of students they’re responsible for continually increases and the attention they can give to each diminishes. And yet, the last time the country’s leading newspaper, the New York Times, wrote a story about how this problem plagues teachers was five years ago, in 2019. And even then, the story only got written because Los Angeles teachers went on strike in part to win smaller class sizes.

The media landscape is worse, still, for teenagers and young people. News and media designed for teenagers rarely deals with the reality of the pressures of being a young person today, and in fact, is often the

cause of them. TikTok and Instagram endlessly feed young people new trends that they have to go out and buy, as well as content that warps body image and self-perception, and they often silence or “shadowban” content about more serious issues that teenagers are perfectly capable of understanding and caring about.

Bleakest still is the way corporate-owned media reports on the political field. Under their cameras and microphones, protesters demanding racial justice are deemed “rioters.” The reality of the American political ‘spectrum’, where supermajorities support both Medicare for All and a $15 minimum wage, is consistently ignored. By giving air time to either Republicans or Democrats on any given day, they clamor to proclaim themselves “unbiased” media.

But they are biased – towards maintaining the world we already live in, one where working-class people are straining under the weight of poverty, war, and systemic oppression.

Being a working-class paper means taking a firm stance – that the way things are doesn’t serve us, that we deserve a better world that runs in the interests of the majority of people, and crucially, that we can win one.

The very first issue of Socialist Alternative was published in 2013. That issue featured on its cover three socialists running for local office in three cities – Seattle, Minneapolis, and Boston – on a platform of a $15 minimum wage and building truly independent working-class politics. Despite how these campaigns electrified working-class voters who were desperate for a political alternative

to the two-party system, the corporate media had little interest in discussing these socialist candidates – not until one of them won, Socialist Alternative member Kshama Sawant, in Seattle.

Even despite that stunning victory, corporate media is only interested in talking about working-class movements as a far-away curiosity. As working-class people who want to win a better world, we need more than that.

We need serious organizations and media institutions where our experiences can be discussed, debated, and sharpened, to help us understand the world we live in and fight to build a new one.

The Working Class Needs Media Of Our Own! As the paper of a real fighting organization, with branches all over the country, we have written articles from the ground of some of the biggest struggles of our time.

We have written from the mass movement to fight against the gutting of public sector unions in Wisconsin in 2011, to the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in 2014, to their dramatic re-emergence in 2020, to the feminist marches of 2016 and 2017, to the wave of teachers’ strikes in 2018 and 2019, and today from the protests against the appalling war on Gaza. The people who write for Socialist Alternative are not columnists – we are bus drivers, nurses, teachers, servers, carpenters, baristas, flight attendants, librarians, and more. Our articles are written by working parents, high school students, retired union workers, and everyone in between.

This paper is the instrument through which, over more than a decade, hundreds of articles have been written about the realities of working-class life: why it feels like nobody can get a job, how racist city curfews are keeping young people from public life, what the loss of child tax credit money meant for working parents, and why eggs cost so damn

much for so long. All of these were written from the perspective of people experiencing these struggles, not just looking at them from afar.

Now, more than ten years since that first copy in 2013, we’re publishing our 100th issue – not just of a newspaper, but of an instrument of struggle. Many people subscribe to our paper, but most people who read us don’t find it at their doorstep – they pick up copies at protests and public meetings, at streetcorner tables, and through conversation with their coworkers. This newspaper is the physical tool through which, over many years, hundreds of people have been convinced to join the fight for a better world – a socialist world.

From our very first issue of Socialist Alternative to our hundredth, and on to many more – if you want to be part of the struggle towards a world that is run by and for working people, this paper is for you. J

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