SOCIALIST ISSUE #104 l JUNE 2024
ALTERNATIVE
CAPITALISM CREATES WAR
& OPPRESSION FIGHT FOR QUEER LIBERATION
FIGHT FOR SOCIALISM ARE DEMOCRATS PRO-QUEER?
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HOW RESISTANCE TO VIETNAM WAR SPURRED QUEER RIGHTS REBELLION FIGHTING THE FAR RIGHT
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WHY I JOINED SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE
NOVA MOHIUDDIN, CHICAGO
Inundated with years of discourse in online “left” spaces, I became jaded to the possibility of organized change. Sure, I was privy to protests or demonstrations posted on instagram – yet I felt their direction was lacking. After all, will I ever see those people again? How am I supposed to rely on people to fight for change through the ups and downs of capitalism – how do I translate my frustration into something that actually helps? These questions plagued my mind, guilt building up at the edges of my beliefs. One unassuming day at a Pride event last year, I stumbled across a table with a poster titled “Socialist Alternative” hanging
off the side. I signed my name sloppily on their clipboards – I’m sure I looked anything but serious about joining their organization. I followed their instagram, and a month later found myself sending a curious DM. To my surprise, their response was enthusiastic about meeting me to talk about politics. It felt like a fresh breath of air to interact with folks who were similarly sick of the tragic state of the world, and proposed perspectives to me which felt transitional. I found an organization willing to learn from failures in history and critique themselves internally to find the best way forward. Consistent and structured activism was what I was looking for, and with weekly meetings and targeted actions, SA fosters an accessible way for folks to politically develop. Leading with revolutionary optimism, we understand that while struggle is not easy, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that the working class is capable of forcing massive structural change. To know I stand with comrades whom I can foster strong relationships with through weekly activity creates a sense of solidarity and trust that we desperately need. We exist as a blink of the eye in the breadth of human history, but each deliberate action is a domino in the struggle for a better, international socialist world.
WHAT WE STAND FOR Mobilize Against Gender No To Imperialist Wars & Oppression & Attacks On Bodily Politicians Autonomy • We call for an immediate, permanent cease• 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! Resist all right-wing attempts to criminalize abortions, and drop all charges against doctors and pregnant people who have been targeted by these laws. • Fight back against brutal anti-trans legislation and all right-wing attacks on LGBTQ people. Unionized workers like teachers who are targeted by these same laws should unite with students to organize mass non-compliance, strikes, and walkouts. • Full legal rights and equality for trans and queer people! End employment discrimination and unionize all workers to end at-will employment. • 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. • Housing is a human right! Pass strong rent control. End economic evictions. Tax the rich and big business to fund high quality, socially owned housing that’s legally protected from discrimination and permanently affordable.
Living Adjustments (COLA). • Unionize every worker. Autoworkers have launched a massive campaign to organize the south, which would be a huge step to building a united resistance to corporations and their political allies who profit most off keeping us divided. • 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.
A New Political Party For Working People • Republicans are resorting to divide-and-rule scapegoating because the GOP have no real answers to the questions facing working people, but the corporate Democratic Party offers no effective resistance to right-wing attacks against workers and marginalized people and has repeatedly failed to use their majorities to protect our rights. • We desperately need a strong, pro-worker alternative to Trump and Biden. Organize the strongest possible vote for independent candidates like Cornel West and Jill Stein, who was recently arrested supporting nonviolent student occupations against the massacre in Palestine. • Unions should condemn to crack down against student protests opposing the massacre in Gaza, and rescind their endorsements of Biden. • Take the hundreds of millions of dollars unions waste on Democrats every election year, and use it to organize every worker into a union, and launch an independent political party that refuses corporate donations and fights to unite working class people at the ballot box and in our workplaces.
fire in Gaza; an end to US military aid to Israel; and an end to the occupation and siege of Palestine • Build a mass anti-war protest at the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago in August. No support for Biden, and the pro-imperialist Democratic Party. • Build a massive anti-war, anti-imperialist movement linking up student protests with workers 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. • Build support for student protests; drop all charges against students; labor unions should mobilize their resources and members to support student protests, and oppose US support for Israel’s brutal invasion of Gaza. • Socialist Alternative completely opposes Russian imperialism’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. We oppose military aid from Western imperialist countries, which only fuel this war and devastate the lives of working people.
Invest In Our Basic Needs
Rebuild A Fighting Labor Movement
A Socialist Program For Environmental Disaster
• Inflation, unaffordable healthcare, sky high rents, and a lack of basic respect on the 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 wallets – to win lasting victories like Cost of
• 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
• 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.
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!
No Deportations & End Racist Policing • The crisis at the border need not be a crisis for working people: we need to rebuild a movement that unites immigrants and native-born workers against the billionaire class to fight for good union jobs, social housing, and education for all. • No migrant detention and deportation! No border wall expansion! We need full legalization and citizenship rights for all migrants! • 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 CLIMATE CRISIS • HIGH RENTS • ATTACKS ON ABORTION • WAR ON GAZA • ATTACKS ON QUEER RIGHTS • RACIST POLICE BRUTALITY
WHO’S GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD?
GUN VIOLENCE • LOW WAGES • MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS • OPIOID CRISIS • Joe Biden and Donald Trump are neck and neck in a race no one asked them to run. Groceries are 30% more expensive than they were before COVID, while portion sizes shrink. The US is bankrolling the genocidal onslaught in Gaza to the tune of billions of dollars while millions of Americans struggle to find stable housing. And amidst all this, once-progressive political leaders have completely retreated from the spotlight. Many young people today are experiencing profound despair and wondering if society will always be this way. In charting a path forward for a world free of oppression and exploitation, we need to look at how we got here.
Living Through An Age Of Disorder The profound instability in the world today is not the product of any celestial event or bad decision. It’s a product of tectonic shifts in the bedrock of global capitalism. Capitalism has gone through many phases in the past 100 years. Each era of capitalist history has looked quite different, from the Great Depression to the post-war boom to Neoliberalism, the system adapts to changing economic and social realities in order to ensure its survival. The 1990s and early 2000s were defined by a new global order after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The political scientist Francis Fukuyama declared “the end of history” as capitalism triumphed. Sure there were shocking world events even then, but a unipolar world was built around the apparent stability of US capitalism. Then, the Great Recession hit in 2008 and Chinese capitalism emerged as runner-up to the US in the race to rule the world. This competition for dominance between these two imperialist behemoths has become the axis around which nearly every shocking and mundane world event revolves. From climate politics to the war in Ukraine, the fingerprints of the new cold war between the US and China are everywhere. This seismic shift in world relations has had a profoundly destabilizing effect. Capitalism today faces
JUNE 2024
increasingly global problems, from wars to pandemics to climate disaster, but unlike during the era of globalization, there are no international systems capable of addressing them – even shallowly.
No More Heroes Teenagers and young adults who are coming of age in a post-COVID world are desperate for change. A combined 78% of those ages 18-29 believe the system needs either major changes or to be torn down entirely. Millennials, those between 30-44, aren’t far behind at 76%. There is a lot that these two generations have in common. Millennials were the first generation to be worse off than their parents, and Gen Z has continued that trend. Millennials grew up during the Great Recession, Gen Z grew up during the COVID-era economic crash.
“Teenagers and young adults who are coming of age in a post-COVID world are desperate for change.” Both generations marched for Black lives, in 2014 and again in 2020, and both generations graduated from high school with nothing to look forward to but low wages and mountains of debt. However, every problem that confronted millennials when they were coming of age has only deepened for Gen Z. It is not a surprise that, given the hideous state of the world, far fewer Gen Z-ers feel they are “thriving” when compared to millennials at the same age. A crucial difference that no doubt contributes at least in small part to this increase in hopelessness is the political landscape facing teens and young adults today. When millennials voted for the first time, it felt like there was someone to vote for. Bernie Sanders burst onto the scene in 2015, igniting a fire under millions of young people who were desperate for a political revolution. During Bernie Sanders’ two presidential campaigns, it felt like system change was on the ballot. People were marching and rallying in the tens of thousands for a transformative, left-wing political alternative to the rotten two parties of big business. And it wasn’t just Bernie. After the Democratic Party establishment conspired to crush him in 2016, leading to Trump’s first election, political options sprung up left and right for young people. AOC, a young socialist bartender from the Bronx, defeated a lifelong political operative. The Democratic Socialists of America ballooned into a dynamic organization with
BY KEELY MULLEN, CHICAGO
RISING COST OF LIVING • TWO CORPORATE PARTIES
tens of thousands of members. There was a world in which these figures and organizations could have completely transformed the political landscape in the US. However, their willful captivity in the Democratic Party, and their unwillingness to fully break with the establishment, led them to the doorstep of irrelevancy. This is the political world Gen Z has now been forced to inhabit. Where the world is burning around them, and there’s no hero to be found.
Where Do You Go When You Want Change? Despite the fact that Gen Z is widely credited with being very progressive, this generation’s political outlook isn’t as clear-cut as some may expect. The absence of any left-wing political option for young people has created a barren political wasteland where the options are Trump who will bring reactionary chaos, and Biden who will keep working-class people in an endless downward spiral. 78% of young people want major change or to tear the system down. 55% believe Donald Trump – if elected – will make major changes or tear the system down, 13% believe Biden will do the same. This doesn’t mean that Gen Z are all of a sudden MAGA-heads; far from it. But it does reflect a political disorientation experienced by the youngest voters who are desperate for change, and have nowhere to turn. If Cornel West had really seized the opening to build a major left wing campaign for president this year, it would have made a huge difference, but unfortunately the weaknesses of his campaign far outweigh the positives. Jill Stein may be the most viable left alternative on the ballot –she has correctly campaigned against the war on Gaza and US imperialism and was arrested alongside campus anti-war protesters, but her campaign lacks the type of electricity that could turn the political tide for young people. While we need to build the broadest vote for these alternative candidates, there’s still a desperate need for a new broad left party based on the interests of working people to give voice to the desire of tens of millions for progressive change.
This would be a gamechanger. But for the most radical young people, the greatest antidote to despair will be a revolutionary socialist vision for the future. While American schools do not teach us this history, the system has been torn down before, and it’s been rebuilt – for a time – in the interests of the working class and oppressed. The united working class has incredible power to shut down the system. Under capitalism, which has concentrated and globalized production, workers hold the lever to bring the entire economy to a grinding halt. Today, workers across the US are beginning to rediscover our power – the powerful all-out writers’ strike last year, the strong demands of the UAW strike, and the ongoing movement to organize the unorganized in Amazon, Starbucks, and beyond are examples of this. This is exactly the power that can bring the systemic change that young people are desperately seeking. Just over 100 years ago the Russian working class led all exploited and oppressed people in smashing the Tsarist dictatorship, overthrowing landlordism and capitalism and laying the basis for a society owned and planned by the people. In the decades that followed, working people the world over have attempted to take power. In the wake of World War II a revolutionary wave swept the globe. In 1968, millions of French workers and students united to shut down society, culminating in a general strike of ten million and the fleeing of the French president. In 1974, the political uprising of workers and youth overthrew fascism in Portugal, ushering in the beginning of a social revolution. While these revolutionary struggles did not succeed in delivering us to worldwide socialism, they show what is possible. Profound, revolutionary change is not a pipe dream, it’s where we come from. As the world gets darker, with war and militarism, climate disaster, and an ascendant right wing, we need to get organized as revolutionaries. As people who believe that a better world is possible and can be fought for. For young people striving to understand how we got here, and how we can tear the system down, it’s time to join a revolutionary socialist organization like Socialist Alternative. J
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H E A LT H C A R E
WE NEED GENDER-AFFIRMING MEDICARE FOR ALL SHANE RIGGINS, PHILADELPHIA
Healthcare in America is the stuff of nightmares. Cancer patients go bankrupt 2.5 times as often as the general population, pregnant people leave the hospital with $3,000 of debt on average and GoFundMe is now a normalized part of the health system. Medical insurance is a massive $5.5 trillion industry which profits by making workers pay as much as possible for as little coverage as possible. This is particularly acute for transgender patients; fundraising and crowdsourcing the costs of gender-affirming care is practically a rite of passage for trans people in America. Trans healthcare is a clear example of how the American health system is horrible at both care and healing. Winning a system where trans people can reliably and affordably get the healthcare we need is a crucial demand for queer people in the US – but it would also be transformative for the working class at large.
a culture war that has no answers to the real issues of the working class and offers queer and trans people as scapegoats, as well as immigrants and people of color. To see this culture playing out in real life, look no further than Ron DeSantis absurdly launching the ‘Freedom Summer’ by banning rainbow colors on Florida’s bridges and Texas governor Greg Abott bussing migrants to Democratic cities as a form of political attack. One of the ugliest aspects of this culture war is that it seeks to pit trans youth against their families; a key lie told to nervous parents is that children are pressured to transition and will later regret it. Regret for transition is also known as “detransition”, and the reality is that less than 1% of trans people that undergo gender affirming surgery report regret. Compare this to the 14.4% of the broader population that report regret for similar surgeries. While it is normal for parents to be concerned about their children’s wellbeing, access to robust mental health care including talk therapy would do much more to support individuals questioning their gender than stigmatizing their desires for care. Attacks on transgender healthcare, and removing the ability of transgender patients to decide what happens to our own bodies, is an attack on all workingclass people – if insurance companies and right-wing politicians can take away our ability to choose our own care, they can do so for any patient.
“The total lack of accessible trans healthcare is a symptom of a system that keeps everyone sick.”
What Is Gender-Affirming Care? Gender transition encompasses a wide range of actions, from changing one’s name and pronouns to medical care such as hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgery. Many trans people experience gender dysphoria or a sense of enormous unease with the mismatch between the gender they were assigned at birth and their authentic gender identity. Some people describe this as feeling “in the wrong body.” Gender-affirming care has over and over resulted in lower levels of self-harm, depression, and suicidality in trans people; it is necessary care. And yet hormone therapy and gender-reassignment surgery are allowed to be categorized as “cosmetic” by health insurance agencies. This phenomenon is felt by patients with any number of conditions that need specialized care – anybody outside a very specific life experience can have their health needs deemed “unnecessary”; the total lack of accessible trans healthcare is a symptom of a system that keeps everyone sick. In addition to financial attacks by private insurance companies, the right is also targeting many essential rights of trans people. Bathroom usage, access to sports, healthcare and even parental care are all under threat by
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We Need Medicare For All! Americans pay more for worse healthcare than countries with single-payer healthcare! These facts are well known by politicians, yet the logic of capitalism means this will not change without a fight by and for the working class. Currently the US is on track to spend $42.9 trillion on healthcare over the next 10 years. Compare this to the approximately $38 trillion it would cost to fund Medicare For All over 10 years. Even a study funded by the infamously right-wing Koch Brothers had to admit that Medicare For All would save $2 trillion over this period. But cynically, enemies of robust healthcare ask how it would be funded. Slashing the ever-increasing military budget, which has spent a whopping $7.5 trillion between 2014 and 2023, would be a great starting point. The rest can come from taking the bloated insurance industry
into democratic public ownership and taxing the richest in our society. Medicare For All would transform society, and be a huge victory not just for the fight for queer liberation but to all marginalized communities. Free reproductive healthcare including abortion ondemand would be an enormous bolster against the anti-feminist backlash currently taking place in society, including the devastating overturning of Roe v Wade. Disabled people would receive free care including mobility aids and specialized therapies which currently are paid for out-of-pocket if people don’t meet absurd qualifications. Easily accessible, free healthcare would begin to close the enormous gap between health outcomes for Black people and particularly Black women versus the rest of the population. The huge impact of Medicare For All is in fact one reason why the two corporate parties oppose it. In addition to being for their own profit, the richest people in America fight against a Medicare For All system tooth and nail because materially improving the lives of millions of working-class people would embolden them to fight for more, without depending on their employers for the basic human right of healthcare.
Labor Needs To Lead The Way Working people of all identities have the most power in collective workplace action. The rich and the bosses do all they can to disguise this essential fact. Without us caring for patients, teaching kids, building homes and fixing roads, their system would collapse and their profits would shrivel up. There is no question winning Medicare For All would be hugely advantageous to the labor movement in general. Not only will it embolden workers to fight for more, it will take healthcare as a bargaining chip off the bosses’ negotiating table. But winning Medicare For All would take clear strategy and bold action. The National Nurses United union has vocally supported the demand of Medicare For All for years and time and time again have been sold out by Democrats, all as conditions for healthcare workers have gotten worse. Bernie Sanders and others have spent years lobbying Democrats. They have not only not won Medicare For All, they have not meaningfully gotten closer to winning. The Democratic Party is a thoroughly capitalist party and millions of working people have shown through the Uncommitted movement that they are fed up
with our money being used to fund a genocidal war. By no means will it be easy or simple, but it’s clear winning Medicare For All would require coordinated strike action with the maximum leverage possible. We can look to the UK in 1948 and the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS). The path to the NHS was anything but smooth, but its creation was certainly a sign of the strength of the labor movement. Key action occurred in 1920 with two million workers striking across various industries as well as a nine-day general strike of 1.7 million workers in 1926, which forced the government to advocate public funds to partially cover heath-care costs. While strike action was cut across by WWII, changes in society and consciousness lead to a landslide victory for the Labor government in 1945 and soon after, the creation of the NHS. Dynamic social movements have also been essential in fighting for the broadest possible protections in healthcare. For example, in 1962 Canada won single payer healthcare as part of a broad social movement. The movement was so strong, it not only won healthcare but formed the basis of a new social democratic party. And in the 1980s, the ACT Up movement made crucial use of mass demonstrations and direct action to force government action during the HIV/ AIDS crisis. Medicare For All while a tremendous step forward would not fix all the problems of our healthcare system overnight. For example, medical racism and other discriminatory practices are perpetuated by doctors and nurses as well as insurance companies. But these problems can only be addressed effectively under a worker-controlled system whose purpose is to treat patients, not make profits. Working-class people deserve to be able to go to the doctor free from fears of unexpected bills, trans people should not have to jump through hoops to get their healthcare covered – we need Medicare For All! J S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G
US POLITICS
MARIE O’TOOLE, NYC The prospect of a second Trump administration is raising alarm bells for oppressed people everywhere who are fearful of what this November could bring. For many young people who are disgusted by Biden’s emboldening of Netanyahu’s massacre in Gaza, the question of whether or not to “hold their noses” and vote for Biden anyway is a tough one. After all, despite the Democratic Party’s unpopular policies – not the least of which being their continued support for the Israeli regime’s genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza – aren’t they at least the party that is willing to stand for issues like our endangered rights as queer people? More than a thousand anti-trans bills have been put forward across 49 states since the beginning of 2023. These bills have targeted healthcare for minors, access to appropriate bathrooms, and the right to play on the appropriate sports teams. Polls show that anti-trans legislation is actually opposed by a majority of Americans. Even many Republican voters even see the issue as being little more than distracting political theater. That has resulted in a certain slowing of attacks from last year with less than half as many bills actually passing as of May this year. Even still, Trump is now promising to end funding for “transgender insanity” in schools on the first day of his administration. What steps are the Biden administration taking to stand up for the rights of trans and queer people?
Biden’s Empty Words The truth is, despite being the current party in power, the Democrats have done next to nothing to stop the assault on queer rights. There have been a few limited reversals of Trump administration policies which are, of course, under threat once again if Trump manages to get reelected. We welcome positive reforms for the lives of queer people, but the tiny steps that have been taken forward are drastically outweighed by the state-level onslaught against protections for trans people, to which Biden’s response has been almost absent. This Trans Day of Visibility, the White House put out a statement from Biden claiming that he is “working to stop the bullying and harassment of transgender children and their families.” But contradictorily, Biden’s Department of Education last year put forward a proposed rule change that would allow schools “flexibility to develop team eligibility criteria,” effectively allowing bans on transgender students on sports
DO DEMOCRATS FIGHT FOR QUEER RIGHTS?
teams to remain in place. They claim the proposed rule would mean that schools wouldn’t be forced to adopt a one size fits all policy that categorically bans trans students. But more importantly, it also means schools won’t be forced to adopt protections for trans students against discrimination in athletics. A presidency that placed importance on trans children would openly campaign for full and fair access to gender appropriate sports teams, legal recognition and protections for students’ chosen genders, and heavy investment in both gender affirming care and sexual education, and embolden student protests and walkouts to fight for fairness in their schools. The willingness to watch trans rights be eroded despite holding office is reminiscent of this administration’s failure to protect Roe v. Wade, despite promises to legalize abortion at a federal level.
Democrats’ Real Record On Queer Rights It is important to recognize that every victory for the rights of the oppressed has come from the tremendous power of social movements and grassroots campaigns for change. The legalization of gay marriage followed years of significant struggle and campaigning for a host of queer issues. The passing of Prop 8, a 2008 ballot initiative which sought to recognize marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman, was a serious defeat for queer rights in California. Five years later, that defeat would be turned into a statewide victory by the movement that overturned it. Two years after that came the federal legalization of gay marriage. This massive shift came from the momentum of grassroots organizing that had originally fought the right wing ballot initiative in 2008 and which had worked tirelessly to win supporters from all layers of society. The Democratic Party, for their part, was pulled along with the tide of support among their base into changing their tune on the issue. This was in an effort to “get on the right bus” electorally, but at the same time then-Senator Obama came forward in 2008 to say that while he opposed a blanket ban, he did view marriage as being between a man and a woman. He initially focused in a limited way on supporting “civil unions” for queer people that would be supposedly separate but equal to the special marriage status of straight couples. His running mate, now-President Biden, echoed the
Presidential Candidate for the Green Party, Jill Stein
JUNE 2024
Is it only a policy failure that has led these and other leading Democrats to at times outright oppose positive change for queer people? Actually, it’s something much more fundamental to the nature of their party that has regularly put them on the wrong side of history. The Democrats are a corporate war-mongering party funded by billionaires, and it is not in their billionaire donors’ material interest to support the oppressed. The right-wing and the Republicans are the main offenders of anti-queer attacks, but they are aided and abetted by a Democratic Party that has very little interest in opposing them. If our main strategy in 2008 had been to leave gay marriage to the Obama administration without a fight, we might have little more than civil unions today, if that. Legal rights like marriage are only the beginning of queer liberation – we desperately need universal health care, affordable housing, good union jobs, and a social safety net. All of this, the Democratic party has refused to fight for. So, should we plug our noses and vote for
Jill Stein EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW “Why Ending the War on Gaza Means Breaking From Biden”
There is an uprising right now. We will be working with that uprising to give it a vehicle.” @OnStrikeShow
No Biden, No Trump
the war profiteers to hold back the right on social issues? The answer that most speaks to the needs of queer people everywhere should be a resounding no – no to Biden and no to Trump! Just as we need working people everywhere to stand up for queer rights, the interests of queer people lie with the majority of working people in the US and internationally. We need to stand up against the Biden administration’s pro-war policies and stand up for our queer and straight siblings in Gaza, Ukraine, and everywhere. The best way to fight for queer rights right now in the US is to build the anti-war movement, which will provide a world-class education for a generation of young people on how to fight and win against the behemoth of the US ruling class. Both the queer and anti-war movements need their independence from the Democratic Party and require a working-class party that will actually fight for our interests. In order to build the strongest possible fight against the antiqueer aims of the Republican party and the prowar aims of both major parties we need to begin building an independent alternative today that is rooted in unions, social movements, and the youth. We should completely reject both major candidates and vote instead for the strongest independent left pro-queer and anti-war candidates on our ballots as part of a broader campaign to build for political independence. Queer people have nothing to gain from supporting the parties of big business, and everything to gain from standing with the whole working class to build an independent party based on our needs, not the billionaires! J
EPISODE 29
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sentiment that marriage is for men and women when he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment for the second time. Obama and Biden, along with the Democratic Party apparatus as a whole, have long taken their cues on social issues from unavoidable public pressure guided by nonprofit and NGO lobbyists who barter off the most low-hanging of issues. Even today, almost ten years after winning same-sex marriage, prominent voices in the Democratic Party argue the Democrats should stay out of “the transgender debate” to avoid rocking the boat, as Hillary Clinton did in a Financial Times article as recently as 2022.
@OnStrikeShow
@OnStrikeShow
One of the people arrested at the campus encampments this Spring was Jill Stein, who along with Cornel West is one of the two left antiwar Presidential candidates running this election year. This episode is a special conversation with Jill Stein about the antiwar movement and what it will take to end the war on Gaza. On Strike will also be bringing you a
sit-down interview with Jill Stein, in which we will talk more about her campaign. Jill Stein’s support of the antiwar movement is obviously a sharp contrast to President Biden, the warmonger-in-Chief. Those of us who oppose the war on Gaza and who oppose Biden’s attacks on working people should absolutely NOT vote for Biden in November.
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LGBTQ RIGHTS
BY MEAGHAN MURRAY, MINNEAPOLIS
BIG BUSINESS’ PERFORMATIVE PRIDE A
s we enter Pride month, a time of year where many people find courage to come out of the closet, corporations roll out their marketing schemes, looking to capitalize on queer joy and the memory of the Stonewall riots. The likes of Svedka, Delta, and Marathon are the typical big sponsors in major cities’ celebrations. But while they’re waving rainbow flags with one hand, corporations are funding anti-LGBTQ lawmakers with the other. The political action committees for Constellation Brands, Svedka’s parent company, Delta, and Marathon have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2024 alone to Republican politicians running on promises of making the LGBTQ community’s lives a living nightmare. Some are incumbent candidates who have already helped pass anti-trans bills in Congress within the last year (names like Sam Graves, Ted Cruz, and Dan Crenshaw). And those three PACs aren’t the only ones: dozens of articles have been written in recent years about “Pride friendly” corporations and their secret donations to the very people that attack trans rights and queer liberation. Delta is the biggest sponsor at Minneapolis Pride this summer, and were praised a few years ago for an ad poster depicting a gay couple on one of their flights. In this political climate, where the right wing is viciously attacking queer people, even symbolic depictions of queer life can be a comfort. However, it’s a cold comfort when you learn that Delta has spent over $200,000 on GOP PACs and Trump this year, funding campaigns that will undoubtedly aid in passing laws similar to Florida’s homophobic Don’t Say Gay bill. And with anti-trans laws being passed nationwide, these attacks worsen everyday travel experiences for trans and nonbinary people. Who cares that Delta’s at Pride if their own passengers are traumatized trying to use the airport bathroom that matches their gender identity? While it’s true that brands promoting representation play a positive role in shifting societal views, it’s all for naught if those same brands fund politicians that will enact Draconian laws that set us back decades. Bud Light can feature a trans influencer in one of their commercials, but if they spent over $300,000 courting Republican campaigns in 2022, they have a direct effect on how safe, or rather, unsafe, trans people feel simply stepping into a bar in America. Toyota is another company that has been hailed for having inclusionary policies for their LGBTQ employees, yet donated $600k to anti-LGBTQ legislators between 2020 and 2022. Mercedes-Benz has an LGBTQ employee resource group (ERG), but worked with Alabama Republicans and other business groups to crush unionization efforts at their Vance plant in May. A good union contract would include transparent pay scales to address gender pay gap, a clear grievance process
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and protections when addressing workplace harassment, rights.” Because corporations operate in a capitalist system and collective bargaining to make healthcare trans-inclusive, that puts profit over people, they can never fully deliver what better, and cheaper for all workers. working people need – and they do not hold any answers for Amazon, like Mercedes-Benz, has an LGBTQ employee working people of color, working people with disabilities, or resource group called “Glamazon.” On Amazon’s own web- working people in the LGBTQ community. site, they cite that “LGBTQ+ employees face unique chalCorporations have no place in Pride, a celebration with lenges at work, including increased rates of sexual harass- radical roots and liberation at its core. Keep corporations out ment and discrimination based on gender and orientation.” of Pride and, instead, link up the labor movement with the But Amazon won’t stand for those same employees orga- queer and trans liberation movement. It’s on us to deliver for nizing a union and winning a strong contract that protects ourselves everything that we deserve: the right to be safe, workers facing harassment and discrimination. They’re in healthy, housed, and to have our needs met so we can truly the midst of a colossal union-busting effort as workers try live a life of dignity and pride. J to unionize Amazon’s KCVG Air Hub in Northern Kentucky. They’ve violated labor laws to the point that the National Labor Relations Board put them on trial in April; the multibillion-dollar company has lawyers who effectively delayed the case further. Despite this deflection and Amazon’s illegal labor practices, workers are still fightDelta is the biggest sponsor of ing for $30/hr, 180 hours of PTO, transMinneapolis Pride in 2024 lation rights at work, union reps present at disciplinary meetings, and childcare. When the reality is that LGBTQ workers earn about $0.90 for every dollar a cis/ They spent over $200,000 heterosexual worker typically earns, and on GOP PACs and Trump they’re less likely to be offered various Bud Light featured a trans this year employee benefits, it’s clear that a union influencer in their commercial win would be a victory for LGBTQ workers not just at Amazon, but beyond. While corporations taking a stand can have an impact in this political climate, They spent over $300,000 it’s important to see where that “stand” on GOP campaigns in comes from: companies, above all else, 2022 want to make a profit. Much of Gen Z Toyota is hailed for having has been in the workforce for years now, inclusionary policies for LGBTQ and is the queerest generation yet. Comemployees panies don’t want to miss out on that key demographic when it comes to selling their products. They’ll churn out rainbow anything for a month if it’ll fill their They donated $600,000 pockets. They’ll create an ERG to make to anti-LGBTQ legislators LGBTQ employees feel accepted, but between 2020-2022 refuse to pay those same workers a living wage with benefits, including genderaffirming healthcare. To quote Marsha P. Johnson, one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall riots, “you never completely have your rights, one person, until you all have your
CORPORATE HYPOCRISY
BUT...
BUT...
WE NEED QUEER LIBERATION NOT RAINBOW CAPITALISM
BUT...
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C U LT U R E
TIKTOK ERUPTS OVER ANTIBLACK RACISM IN THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY
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acism is once again on full display in the beauty industry. Issues with Youthforia’s new line of foundations were first highlighted by TikTok content creator, Golloria George, in September of 2023. She and other creators criticized Youthforia for not being tone-inclusive, with most of the available foundation shades leaning heavily towards lighter skin tones, and commented on how unacceptable it is to be in 2023 and still encountering this failure in the beauty industry. Following the viral review, the CEO of Youthforia, Fiona Co Chan, mentioned how she always intended to extend the shades eventually, but claimed that shade development takes time and that she wanted the base formulas to launch first as a “proof of concept” and see if they would be successful before expanding the shade range to darker complexions. This excuse was not well received. Chan then issued a second apology where she stated the brand missed the mark, and that the other shades were already in development. The brand went on to quickly release four more shades. The regular development time for the brand was two years, but these new shades were released after just four months of development. Golloria George went back to create another review for the newly-released darkest shade, named 600. Quickly, Golloria condemned the foundation for being “minstrel-show black”, equivalent to the exaggerated jet-black face paint used to perform blackface. The foundation had no undertones present – the product only had one base color, an all-black pigment, whereas the other shades of foundation have a mix of at least three pigments to represent the different undertones that human skin has. It is important to note that makeup brands such as Fenty, Urban Decay, Covergirl, Nars, and Haus Labs have developed deep shades that black creators have praised. This shows that achieving these dark tones for foundation can be done when handled with knowledge, care, and attention. Golloria reviewed the newest shade 600 side-by-side with black face paint, finding barely any difference between the two. This was a failure yet again to deliver on what should’ve been a correction to the first mistake. For the brand to claim that they planned to be inclusive all along, this second failure appeared to be a malicious mockery of women of color simply asking to be included. These brands that want to pose as inclusive want to benefit from a wider base of people to market to, while not genuinely caring about what Black women would actually like and JUNE 2024
use. Then, when their poorly designed products fail, they drop the product and blame the consumer as the reason for the product not being marketable to begin with. Youthforia has yet to publicly address the negative reactions to the abysmal attempt at providing an actual shade people can wear. Recently, Youthforia products have been pulled from shelves at stores like Credo and Revolve.
An Industry Fraught With Racism This scandal speaks to the long history of racism that is still common within the beauty industry. The Youthforia CEO’s first apology really highlighted the all-too-frequent excuse that many makeup brands have used for their lack of inclusion with their range of shades. When stating that they want to make sure the lighter shades are successful first, before expanding and including deeper shades, it portrays that inclusion for those with darker skin is an afterthought and not the audience they are concerned with. Often, some makeup brands tend to have anywhere from 5 to 15 shades for lighter or fair skin tones, while only throwing in two to five darker shades. The frustration Golloria felt is echoed by many Black content creators and consumers, as for many years it has been a long struggle to find products that work for them. Even in the late 1940’s when makeup options for Black women were available, most beauty companies primarily focused on skin lightening products instead. This speaks to the Eurocentric and whitewashed beauty standards still upheld today. In the 1920s and ‘30s, white consumers abandoned skin lighteners for tanning lotions to present an outdoor and leisurely lifestyle. From this point, women of color were primarily associated with skin lighteners. Harsh chemicals were commonly used in skin lighteners, such as mercury. The Black is Beautiful movement in the 1990’s brought global attention to harmful impacts of lightening agents, and through this cultural and political movement fought for the government to ban skin lighteners
BY JAYLYN ORTIZ, PHILADELPHIA
in South Africa. Hair relaxers and straighteners are another staple of the beauty industry that has capitalized off of anti-blackness. The chemicals in hair relaxers such as metals, parabens, and formaldehyde, have been linked to 18% higher risk of breast cancer and a possibility of other health issues. Part of the Black is Beautiful movement was also embracing natural hair, which has influenced a general trend towards sulfate- and paraben-free products. Today, we have seen the changes in availability of products for natural and curly hair unlike any other time before, and also a major change in making straightening products and tools that are safer for hair, mainly pioneered by Black women – which has changed the landscape for the better of all.
We Need Creativity Free From Capitalism Women of color know how far the beauty industry has come in terms of inclusion, yet know how much further it still has to go. Some think that the solution to racism in the beauty industry is more women of color being represented in the higher decision making levels of these brands. But unfortunately, capitalism requires exploitation – diversity at the top of a corporate ladder won’t change that companies need to feed our insecurities to sell products, which is inherently linked to systemic oppression. Visual characteristics of marginalized communities will continue to be deemed flaws, so beauty companies can sell us products to “fix” them. Not to mention, many brands owned by prominent women of color, like Beyonce’s Ivy Park and Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty, rely on the exploitation of women of color in the neocolonial world to make their products cheaply.
Even with the best intentions, we will always find ourselves ramming against the barriers the system has set forth for its survival. Within a socialist world, workers have the power to create products that benefit society, because they too are not separated from society but the makeup of it. When we own the materials in our places of work we democratically get to decide on what to use. We can examine using ingredients that are better for us and the environment. We can have the freedom to play and create more variety instead of catering to what sells the most. The outrage around this topic truly is more than skin deep. Makeup is a fun and creative way many people get to express themselves – it is a shame that capitalism within the beauty industry seeks to rob us of not only representation and inclusion in these spaces, but in the same turn making us feel inadequate when or if we are included. They make us feel not enough to be represented, not enough to be compensated, and not enough to be seen as beautiful. What really is never enough are these companies’ conquests for more markets and products for us to consume and expand their profits, without being accountable to the ones spending their hardearned dollars on their products. The failure is on the system, not on us ordinary people. It is rightfully just for us to demand inclusive and truly democratic environments for us to participate in, and products that are made with our needs in mind. The toxicity in the beauty industry is a direct product of the exploitative nature of capitalism. When we see ourselves outside of their profit margins, we see our true humanity, we see our collective beauty. J
“The outrage around this topic truly is more than skin deep. Makeup is a fun and creative way many people get to express themselves – it is a shame that capitalism within the beauty industry seeks to rob us of not only representation and inclusion in these spaces, but in the same turn making us feel inadequate when or if we are included.” 7
HOW The Movement Against The Vietnam War Electrified The Fight For Queer Rights By Greyson Van Arsdale, Chicago
This Pride month will mark the passage of eight months since Israel’s invasion of Gaza, which has killed over 35,000 people and injured many thousands more. Millions are now displaced, and Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah and the threat of mass starvations threatens to ratchet the casualty count to a far higher level. Many young queer people have been at the forefront of anti-war protests in the US, most especially the outbreak of student encampments on college campuses that began in April. As school lets out for the summer, the anti-war movement will be searching for its next evolution, and many young people will bring an anti-war consciousness to Pride celebrations and demonstrations. But this is not the first time that queer youth in America have played a role in fighting against a brutal war. In fact, the evolution of the queer liberation movement in the US has not just been influenced but in some ways has been born from militant anti-war struggle. It has long been said that Pride has its origins in a protest, in a riot, at the Stonewall Inn in 1969. This is true, and the struggle is ongoing to reclaim Pride’s radical origins in Stonewall’s tradition. But Stonewall itself had roots of its own, in the movement that developed against the Vietnam War, which not only helped to crystallize a gay political identity but set the stage for decades of queer organizing to come.
and because of the social revolution in Vietnam, it was ordinary people who were tasked with prosecuting the violence. The Vietnam War took millions of people from their lives and into the arena of war and expected them to kill, and this had a deeply radicalizing impact. Across the war two million people were drafted and over 40,000 Americans were killed – this was disproportionately borne by the working class and poor, since fulltime college students were eligible for draft deferment. As non-draftees in America began to see the violence televised, and hear back stories of people they loved being injured and killed, this transformed distaste for the war into outright dissent, and finally, into drastic action. But different communities felt this radicalization in different ways. For young draft-eligible queer people, the Vietnam War also created a certain pressure to come out of the closet.
Being gay, or having “homosexual tendencies” as the draft asked, was a disqualifier to join the military. Answering in the negative, if untrue, could result in a dishonorable discharge, which could greatly impact your life and make it difficult to get work. But if you answered in the affirmative, it was likely you’d be forced out of the closet, since draft information was public. But as avoiding the draft became of paramount importance for many, both as lifesaving action and as political expression, more and more young queer draft-eligible people took the option of “coming out” against the war, so to speak. The Vietnam War created pressure towards the development of a gay political identity, beyond a personal sexual identity, that we recognize today. At the same time, mass demonstrations against the war were building, which gave gay liberation groups an opportunity to step out of the shadows, emboldened by a movement that over time increasingly became not just about the Vietnam War but linked to other struggles including the Black Freedom movement and the women’s liberation movement. A May Day anti-war demonstration in 1969 contained an organized gay contingent, before the Stonewall riot took place and set off the modern era of gay rights organizing later that year. The horror of the Vietnam War also drew a clear line through gay activist circles over what constituted “progress”. Integration into the armed forces had long been a demand for gay equality, but the movement against the war convinced many that it was no measure of equality to be allowed into military service. Gay liberation groups that erupted during this period, like the Gay Liberation Front, steadfastly opposed the demand of integration into the military, setting the stage for even more radical expressions of
1969
Before Stonewall
Though it was the US ruling class who launched the war as part of their global struggle against “Communism” during the Cold War
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the movement for queer liberation. This was a marked change from gay advocacy organizations that had cropped up in the aftermath of WWII, like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitus, who saw dishonorable discharges from the military for being gay as socially and economically disastrous, and integration as necessary to win respectability for queer people. The war in Vietnam transformed this consciousness, and set the stage for the explosion of struggle at Stonewall Inn in 1969, and for a new vision of what it meant to be freely queer.
Different Struggles, Same Fight The movement against the war in Vietnam taught a generation of workers and youth how to fight against the capitalist regime, which fomented war and brutality abroad and oppression and poverty at home. It was a proving ground for the activists that would later participate in the movement that started the Pride month we still celebrate today, but it wasn’t just pivotal to the queer liberation movement. The movement against the Vietnam War drew energy and inspiration from the Civil Rights movement in the 50s which preceded it, and contributed to the radicalization into the Black Power movement of the 1970s, and bolstered feminist struggle which led the biggest womens’ rights demonstration in US history in 1970 and won Roe v. Wade in 1973. Over the last decade, many young people have come to intuitively understand that different oppressed identities overlap, or “intersect”. Though the term “intersectionality” was coined to describe how the lives of individuals are concretely shaped by different oppressions – racism, sexism, queerphobia, ableism – that combine and synthesize into unique forms, new generations understand that it’s not just personal experiences but the struggles themselves that are related. But how are they related? A better word than “intersect” might be “co-depend.” The struggles of each experience are united
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by our exploitation as working-class people, which gives us a common interest against the will of the ruling class that pits us against each other for no one’s benefit but the wealthiest of society. Martin Luther King, who came out vocally against the war in 1965, put it this way in his famous speech “Beyond Vietnam” in 1967: “This query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don’t mix, they say. Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.” “We have been repeatedly faced,” King said, “with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chic a go. I could not be
silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.” The capitalist system uses oppression to divide the working class, which outnumbers the capitalists internationally by a margin of billions. This means that all workers, regardless JUNE 2024
of identity, have a vested interest in overcoming oppression – because it is the obstacle in the way of workers fighting together against the main enemy in society, a rich and powerful few who make trillions in profit at the expense of everyone else. In this way, movements against oppression are dependent on one another, and compound each others’ progress. The example of the movement against the war in Vietnam is a profound display of this happening in practice, and of working-class people of different experiences learning from each other how to lead bold struggles against oppression.
them likely on campuses where Gaza protest encampments have been organized. What lessons are they learning about how movements win? Over time, they have concretely seen international court action fail to stop Israel’s murderous campaign, and even successful motions by the UN against the violence fail to have an impact. They have seen their own actions in mass protests and viral campaigns transform consciousness in the US and create enormous pressure to call for a ceasefire, and most recently, they have seen President Biden endorse and vocally support police action to abuse and remove students from protest encampments. What might queer students conclude, then, about the fight against queer oppression in the US? If the Democrats are so unapologetically sending weapons to Israel to execute a campaign of mass murder, can they be the party of queer equality? If Biden so readily endorses
failed to report for duty. By 1972, there were more conscientious objectors to the war than there were draftees, and there were 245 individual newspapers being published and circulated by rank-and-file soldiers, with names like Out Now! and Star Spangled Bummer. The street movements were much larger than we see today, with two million Americans demonstrating against the war on October 15 of 1969, and 14,000 arrested – the largest mass arrest in US history. Of course, by the time the anti-war movement reached its height, the US war had been going on for a decade and a half since 1955, escalating after the start of Operation Rolling Thunder in 1965. The movement against the war in Gaza is in a weaker position – not just because US troops are not directly involved, but also because of the weakness of organizations of the working class and of struggle in the twenty-first century. Labor unions which once were centers of not just eco-
sending police to crack down on anti-war protesters occupying space on the very campus they live on and pay tuition to, is it any measure of success for the movement to have his support for transgender rights? Is it more powerful to win victories through pushing for court action, or is it better to build protest action and even civil disobedience in the streets, workplaces, and schools? The conclusions drawn from the movement against the war on Gaza can draw queer struggle to the next stage of its fight – for demands that will bring us into open conflict with the Democratic Party, like Medicare For All including gender-affirming care and abortion on demand, massive expansions in affordable housing paid for by taxing the rich, and for labor unions to organize mass non-compliance with anti-LGBTQ laws in hospitals and schools. A militant fight for what queer workers and youth actually need is necessary to take the momentum away from the right wing and towards building a world of genuinely free expression.
nomic but political struggle have been eroded by decades of attacks and are only just starting to get back on their feet. Activist organizations which once had memberships numbering in the tens of thousands are now advocacy NGOs, connected now more to the establishment of the Democratic Party than they are to the lives of working-class people. Building back this capacity and re-learning the lessons of the past is an all-sided struggle – from the anti-war movement, to the movement for queer liberation, to the fight against racism and against sexism and gender oppression. The era of the Vietnam War shows us the enormous power of mass struggle. Popular resistance ended the Vietnam War, both on the ground in Vietnam by guerrilla fighters and the movements eroding the will of the military to fight from the United States. The late sixties and early seventies were explosive for all struggles, and ultimately the thing missing was a mass workers party which could have united the struggles and pointed towards their ultimate conclusion: a confrontation with the capitalist system itself, and building a united fight to overturn that capitalist exploitation and win a socialist world. Today, the need for that united fight still remains. J
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Gaza & Queer Struggle Today
Queer people in the United States are in an increasingly embattled position. Since a wave of right-wing backlash overtook the country in 2022 and 2023, the legal rights of trans people have been dramatically curtailed in many states.
Today, 38% of transgender youth live in a state where gender-affirming care for minors is banned. About the same number live in a state where transgender athletes are banned from playing sports. Eleven states ban transgender people from using public bathrooms of their gender identity, and in two of those states, it’s a criminal offense to do so. Pride month in the last two years has been overcast with a feeling of unease, fear, and at times even desperation at the state of queer rights being rolled back from a position of progress over the last decade. Queer youth, sometimes alone and isolated in their schools and communities, looked for ways to fight back, but valiant efforts at building a protest movement weren’t able to stand up to the right-wing onslaught in most cases. Now, the same queer students who were juniors and seniors in high school are freshman and sophomores in college, many of
For A Socialist World The heights of the movement against the war in Vietnam are very different from the antiwar struggle we see today. In Oakland, California, in the six months leading up to March 1970, 50% of those called to the military
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L ABOR MOVEMENT
UAW Loses Battle At Mercedes, But The War To Unionize Auto Is Far From Over LEAH STEVENS, CINCINNATI About one month after the historic United Auto Workers victory at the Chattanooga, Tennessee Volkswagen plant, workers at MercedesBenz in Vance, Alabama began their union election. Chattanooga Volkswagen was the first auto plant in the South to unionize through an election since the 1940s. Off the tails of a landslide 73% yes vote at Volkswagen, and filing for a union election at 70% union authorization cards collected in the workplace, there were high hopes for the Mercedes union election results on May 17. Unfortunately, the over
5,000 worker plant, the sole producer of one kind of luxury SUV in the world, lost its union election 44% to 56%. It begs the question – was the Chattanooga victory a fluke?
Is Momentum Enough? Momentum from a strong contract won through a strike at the “Big Three” was enough to carry 4,300 autoworkers in Chattanooga to victory. However, as workers develop their own strength and confidence, learn the best methods and tactics from each other, the bosses learn too and fight back stronger. The bosses
may have gotten caught off guard in Chattanooga, but will fight in illegal and dirty ways to not let it happen again. If momentum is the wind behind the sails, then a strong ship is what is needed to make it through the worst of a storm.
Can the Bosses Be “Neutral?” One explanation for the defeat is the lack of a “neutrality agreement,” where the auto bosses agree to stay hands-off a union drive, something that was granted to autoworkers in Chattanooga. No such agreement was reached in the deep red state of Alabama, where workers were subjected to intense captive audience meetings, intimidation, and even bribery. However, to rely on such peacemaking agreements would be a mistake. First of all, there is no neutral position between the boss and the worker. Every dollar gained by the boss is a loss for the worker, and vice versa. This makes unions, workers organized to fight for concessions against the boss, an inherent threat to companies, their power, and their profits.
UC WORKERS STRIKE FOR GAZA, AGAINST UNIVERSITY REPRESSION! DAVID RHOADES, LOS ANGELES
On the night of May 1, LAPD, fully clad in riot gear, violently stormed the Gaza solidarity encampment at UCLA. Summoned by university administration, they fired rubber bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades, and arrested 209 student protesters. In short order, workers filed unfair labor practices (ULPs) against the UC system and voted to authorize a strike. Organized with UAW Local 4811, UC academic workers have taken up a political strike, a rarity in the US and a critical step forward for the antiwar movement. Striking marks a new stage in the US movement against the genocidal war in Gaza, potentially bridging the gap between the student movement and organized labor’s biggest sectors. By expanding the Gaza movement from streets and campuses to workplaces, there’s an opportunity to organize walkouts, sick-outs, and strikes at major profit generators, confronting the US war machine where it is most vulnerable. UAW 4811 leadership adopted the “stand-up strike” strategy used last fall by UAW autoworkers against the Big Three, empowering union leadership to call on workers campus by campus to join the strike. They began with UC Santa Cruz, where some 2,000 members hit the picket lines on May 20. Then they called on UCLA and UC Davis to go out on May 28. UAW 4811 is playing an important role in the Gaza solidarity movement, but its leadership is not fully mobilizing the weight of the union. In fact, they seem to be actively dissipating momentum, using the strike more as
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a pressure release than a ramp-up to further struggle, which is the path supported by many rank-and-file members. When UCLA rank-and-file members made preparations to strike immediately following the authorization vote, the 4811 Executive Board said at a recent meeting it would withhold legal protection for any union members who struck without approval. During the auto strike last year, the “standup strike” was touted as a strategy that keeps bosses guessing and workers fresh. In reality, it’s being used to stifle rank-and-file action from the top – and many workers are now frustrated that their own leadership is keeping them from striking with the union’s full strength! What authority is the 4811 Executive Board appealing to? It’s not their membership, 79% of whom authorized a strike. It’s ‘appealing’ with the threat of legal action against its own members – a parallel of what UC has done to its own students. While the Executive Board intermittently taps the brakes, UC administrators are doing all they can to end the strike entirely. The UC’s attempt to file an injunction against the strike failed, although the CA Public Employment Relations Board filed a complaint against UAW for allegedly violating its no-strike clause. The UC injunction is part of a broader ruling class backlash against the movement; the president of a small public college in California was removed for making a concession to protest demands. Given the ruling class’ fundamental animosity to the Gaza struggle, UAW strikers can’t afford a hesitant and half-committed leadership. It’s to the credit of rank-andfile militancy that the Executive Board was compelled to call for a strike vote in the first
place, but the leadership has shown itself to be unwilling to take the strike as far as it needs to go. And given that UC academic workers are members of UAW, a union with more than 400,000 active members, the strike has real potential to spread. UAW was one of the first major national unions to come out with a resolution supporting a ceasefire in Gaza, and six months later, UAW president Shawn Fain condemned the repression of the student encampments. UAW locals around the country, especially those involved in military manufacturing, could take 4811’s lead and coordinate ULP strikes through the summer that raise political demands, perhaps alongside workplace demands to unite the membership. Workers could also organize coordinated days of action, including sick-outs or walkouts. Certainly broader labor action need not be limited to the UAW! UAW workers would also make waves by passing resolutions to rescind the union’s endorsement for Biden, who signed legislation for $26 billion in assistance to Israel last month. There’s a total contradiction between this endorsement and the union’s generally correct stance against genocidal war based on the shared interests of the international working class. Correcting this means first rejecting Biden, and next, mobilizing workers to demonstrate against the war at the August DNC gathering in Chicago. The union can further lead by supporting the strongest left independent candidate in the November elections and playing a crucial role in building a working-class alternative to the two capitalist parties. J
From Majority Cards to Majority “No” Vote Excitement was high as a supermajority of UAW union authorization cards was turned into the National Labor Relations Board, filing for a union election. In the month that followed, a company crackdown that echoed the Chattanooga Volkswagen strategy of 2019, when autoworkers lost their second union election at that plant, played out. A new CEO was put in place at Mercedes-Benz, and workers were asked to “give the company another chance,” and offered time off the backbreaking work line if they agreed. Management targeted team leaders, higher up workers with large influence amongst the workers below them, with the worst of their anti-union campaign. Outside the company, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey encouraged workers to vote no, framing the union vote as a threat to the state’s economic success, citing recent layoffs at the Big Three automakers as proof. “Not only could there be layoffs, there could be investment made in other plants in other parts of the country or in other countries,” warned Alabama Public Television’s Capitol Journal. What these vicious attacks point to is the need for even stronger shop floor organizing, where leaders in the workplace are inoculated to stand up to the lies of the company and politicians, and prepare for what needs to be fought for beyond the union election. There needs to be a robust community campaign that backs autoworkers, and sees the betterment of workers’ lives as synonymous with the betterment of the whole working class of Alabama. For example, unionization would help push back against Alabama’s refusal to enter into Medicaid expansion offered under the Affordable Care Act. This is one of many reasons why unions should run independent candidates with a program that speaks to the full working class.
The Road Forward For Autoworkers The Mercedes-Benz UAW loss is the first big setback yet in the national organizing drive. However, this was not done in vain – the workers took up a heroic battle against a powerful, luxury automaker, effectively eliminated wage tiers, and have added important contributions to lessons of the labor movement. Potentially up to bat next is the Hyundai auto plant in Montgomery, Alabama, and the Toyota plant in Troy, Missouri, both of whom announced reaching 30% of cards collected. Unfortunately, the bosses will now be looking to replicate their union-busting tactics from the experience of Mercedes. The bosses and their politicians at these auto plants will do the same thing. They will scare southern workers, who experience higher poverty rates and lower standards of living, that the “job creator” bosses will leave. They will look to intimidate and harass workers on the shop floor. They will try to create divisions between various tiers of workers to put up a smokescreen in front of the massive profits auto corporations are making. To win, workers need clear demands for what the union will do, double down on the shop floor organizing to counteract union busting, and mobilize the wider working class into the struggle to fight back against the harsh corporate-GOP alliance that has profited off southern workers for decades. It is up to workers to prove that Volkswagen was not a fluke, but an alarm to the bosses for what is possible when workers fight together. J
S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G
FIGHTING THE RIGHT
TONYA ROGERS, MINNEAPOLIS For the second time in five months, trade unions in Argentina built a 24-hour general strike on May 9 against far-right president Javier Milei’s policies meant to “shock” the country from its economic crisis. Milei’s libertarian agenda, aimed to protect the rich and big business and unload the crisis on the backs of the poor and working class, is deepening the pain felt by poverty-stricken Argentinians. Milei and his government argue that the dollarization of the economy, devaluation of the currency, privatization of public companies and other austerity-driven economic measures are necessary to combat wildly high inflation, even while poverty rates have risen as high as 50% in January 2024. Argentina’s monthly inflation slowed down to 13.2% in February, compared to 20.6% in January and 25.5% in December. On a yearly basis, however, annual inflation remains the highest in three decades, now around 300% - among the highest worldwide. Most economists expect the economy to contract by over 3% this year. Consumption, construction, and manufacturing are down sharply year-over-year. Previously one of the richest countries in Latin America, Argentina has run a deficit for 13 years, and survives on loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - almost one-third of all IMF lending – resulting in crushing debt. Decades of mis-rule by the pro-capitalist left populist Peronist coalitions, have left a massive vacuum for a genuine left alternative. The failure of the left to fill
Argentina Strikes Against Reactionary President Milei
this vacuum paved the way for the chainsaw wielding Milei’s libertarian party, La Libertad Avanza, to win in last fall’s election. The May 9 general strike shut down all major transportation services “in defense of democracy, labor rights, and the living wage,” according to a statement from three main trade union organizations, including the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the Argentine Workers’ Central Union (CTA), and the Autonomous CTA. These same confederations pointed toward more action without naming a specific date of escalation.
Milei’s Chainsaw Threatens Workers Rights May’s general strike was a powerful response against Milei’s government attempt to railroad an omnibus bill through the Senate that would deepen attacks on labor and social programs. The bill passed the lower house in April but even Milei’s threats to his own government officials couldn’t get him a vote in the Senate, where the opposition Peronist party holds 33 of 72 seats, until possibly June or July. In a major attack on poor Argentinians, the bill includes the abolition of a tax status for low-income self-employed workers called the monotributo social, a category that provides low-cost health coverage and formal
NO TIME TO LOSE!
How Do We Stop The Far Right?
Originally published September 2020 ELAN AXELBANK, CINCINNATI “The political polarization which has taken place in the US over the past decade is continuing to deepen. On balance, the majority of society has been moving to the left – just one example is Black Lives Matter this summer becoming the largest ever social movement in the country’s history, and the significant increase in antiracist consciousness which accompanied it. It’s also reflected in majority support for Medicare For All and the highest level of support for unions in decades. But the other side of this polarization is the process of reactionary ideas taking root in a section of society, with a much smaller but growing section being pulled toward the far right. The forces of the far right in the US are larger, more visible, and more confident than they have been in many decades and, as the system plunges
JUNE 2024
deeper into crisis, if no left alternative is built, the far right is poised to grow even more. The million-dollar question is how can we stop this from happening.”
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work, translating into government support. Further attacks include labor reforms that extend probationary periods for workers (giving the bosses more power to discriminate and fire), loosen penalties on abusive employers and weaken maternity leave. The bill eliminates taxes on trade and imported goods and gives more executive power to Milei to dismantle social and economic programs. And further, the bill includes the partial or total privatization of most public companies, including those controlling the mail service, electricity generation and energy, broadcasting, and transportation.
Where’s The Left Alternative To Libertarian ‘Strongmen’? It might seem baffling that recent polls show Milei retains a 49% approval rating, with 64% support from young people. The same polls found 59% don’t support the government attacking pensions, even while a survey on Milei’s first 100 days found that 56% of 1,300 respondents “considered that Milei’s adjustment and deregulation measures are “adequate” to improve the country’s economic situation.” The election of right-wing strong men like Milei, Trump in the U.S., and elsewhere, show a deep dissatisfaction with the establishment – and an unorganized expression that ordinary people expect more. When the status quo means economic dysfunction and poverty, it’s no wonder the youth and working class are looking for a way out of an unreliable quality of life. These sentiments are contradictory but reflect a deeper problem of the left. There wasn’t a sufficiently strong left alternative that didn’t back the Peronist establishment in last fall’s election, forces that have been complicit in Argentina’s crisis. The exception was the coalition of Trotskyist parties in the FIT-U (Workers Left Front – Unity). Their presence is very positive but they have yet to demonstrate the capacity to make an appeal
which can split the base of Peronism, especially in the unions. A mass movement of the left and the broader working-class Argentinian’s who are tired of attacks on workers’ rights, LGBTQ people, women, and dead-end economic schemes that further devastated the youth and poor, is the only force that can turn the tide in Argentina. The main union confederations should call for another general strike
“When the status quo means economic dysfunction and poverty, it’s no wonder the youth and working class are looking for a way out of an unreliable quality of life.” within a month, and build support through school and workplace committees. Organizing the working class in this way in opposition to the Peronist establishment would be an important step towards filling the political vacuum. Through this struggle a true mass party of the working class can be forged which can cut across young people finding answers in far-right figures like Milei, and instead wage a ferocious struggle against the social and economic poverty on offer from the status quo. The Argentinian working class could help ignite a new wave of struggle across Latin America and the US laying the basis for ending the whole capitalist system of exploitation and wars. J
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STUDENTS DEMAND DIVESTMENT
Behind the ivy-covered walls and ivory towers, universities are big businesses. Besides taking exorbitant sums from students in tuition, universities also sit on enormous treasure chests of money called endowments. The total value of all endowments in US universities is over $839 billion dollars, or about equal to the expected 2024 budget of the entire US military. These mountains of money are meant to supplement the school’s budget and insulate higher education against the demands of the market. But the reality is very different. These wealthy universities manage their endowments by investing in the real estate and stock market, looking to win the greatest return on investment so that they can spend those returns on prestigious research centers, university capital improvements, and (way down the list) student scholarships. Plus many institutions do not list their investments, meaning that most endowments are total black boxes, leaving students and faculty with no way to know where their money is coming from or going to.
What Do We Need To Win Divestment? One thing is extremely clear: University chancellors and boards will not disclose, divest, or even engage in dialogue without a forceful push. Occupations and encampments on campus are a good start, but on
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We Need To Go Further Than Divestment Divestment can play a huge role in rallying students and campus workers around a concrete demand that can be won. But the reality of divestment is that, in our capitalist system, for every university dollar taken out of Israeli war and occupation, another profit-seeking dollar from somewhere else replaces it. There are real limits on what divestment is able to achieve. To go further, campus movements will need to link up with broader struggles against oppression and war throughout society. Most importantly, students can play a tremendous role in working-class movements fighting against the war and exploitation inherent under capitalism, whether in Israel or in the United States. Finally, any movement that seeks to actually end war and exploitation will need to be international. The central driving force of the struggle for liberation in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel will be mass action by working people in the region, both Israeli and Palestinian. A working class movement in the Middle East, crossing both religious and national divides as well as linking up with an international movement, will be much more effective in advancing their struggle than any divestment action from the outside can be. J
ON THE GROUND REPORT ON THE GROUND REPORT ON THE GROUND REPORT
University Endowments Are Unaccountable & Unequal
ON THE GROUND REPORT
In one of the boldest developments in the movement against Israel’s assault on Gaza, tens of thousands of university students, professors, and workers occupied college campuses across the country. United not only by their opposition to the violence, these encampments demanded that universities sever financial ties with Israel, and specifically that their endowments “divest” from companies doing business in Israel. This demand has been defined more or less broadly by different parts of the movement. Socialist Alternative has called for the end of all US military aid to Israel and to divest from state and private institutions linked to the brutal occupation of Palestinian land. These demands were drawn in part from past struggles fighting for divestment from fossil fuels, the apartheid South African regime, and the military industrial complex during the Vietnam War. This spring, some university encampments won limited concessions from campus administration. But why would the movement focus on university divestment, and what does it actually look like for a university to “divest”?
their own aren’t sufficient to actually win divestment. Most victories won using only this tactic so far have been for “Promises to discuss divestment” and other similarly squishy, soft concessions. To win real and concrete divestment, student movements must disrupt business as usual on campus. They will need to also work closely with university workers, especially unionized or organizing graduate students, to stop campus instruction across campus and give real weight to our threat to not let up until the movement’s demands are met. These efforts will need to be nationally coordinated, to make the movement more resilient in the face of police repression. Once again, campus workers, through their national union, can play a critical role in connecting different campus efforts together across the country. Divestment also needs to be targeted to be maximally effective. A blanket divestment from “everything Israeli” can feed extremely false narratives of anti-semitism and push away working-class Israeli people that are otherwise sympathetic to ending the war and occupation. Targeted divestment would also force universities out of American military companies like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, which are enabling and profiting from the war. Targeted divestment would be more effective and be clearer to Israeli workers that divestment is directed at the Israeli establishment rather than workers.
ON THE GROUND REPORT
BRIAN HARRISON, HOUSTON
ON THE GROUND REPORT
WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO WIN
ON THE GROUND
A N T I-WA R M O V E M E N T
ON THE GROUND REPORT
ON THE GROUND REPORT
ON THE GROUND REPORT
YALE GRADUATES WALK OUT FOR GAZA SAMMY ALBRIGHT, YALE STUDENT On Monday, May 20, over 100 graduating seniors at Yale walked out of their own commencement, wearing keffiyehs and chanting “free Palestine” and “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.” The university’s president pretended that nothing was happening, and the video broadcasts were cut out. I ran over to the exit gate from my seat in the back to join them. Hundreds of students, faculty, and parents joined the procession, as we marched onto the New Haven Green. There, students and faculty called out Yale’s active support of weapons manufacturers profiting from Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, and pledged not to donate to the university. This was a powerful escalation, and, to our knowledge, one of the largest graduation walkouts in the country thus far. This was a powerful step, and the culmination of a number of actions at Yale. Since October 7, there have been many different actions against the onslaught in Gaza on campus. There was a walkout in October, a disruption of the Harvard/Yale football game, sit-ins, rallies, and the two stages of encampments. While these have all been courageous, there didn’t seem to be a coherent escalation plan until the encampments. For many Yale students, it has been difficult to plug directly into the organizing efforts against the genocidal war. There is unfortunately an overly secretive organizing style from Yalies4Palestine, the leading group organizing on campus, and this has been true of most Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters. Citing safety as a primary concern, Y4P has
not meaningfully allowed excited, new students to join their decision-making process. Instead of organizing primarily over signal chats, we should build mass action assemblies which bring in the widest layer of students and workers to discuss how to increase the anti-war energy over the summer. The main demand has been divestment from weapons manufacturers. Recently, students have added the demand of “reinvestment in New Haven.” This is a very positive step to overcome divisions between students and the community, which has long been a feature of life here. A weakness of the movement so far that we have to overcome has been the idea that students should only make demands for divestment on their own university. Divestment is important, but, materially, divesting a small portion of university endowments will not win a permanent ceasefire or an end to the occupation. The movement is a national one. In order to have the biggest impact, we have to coordinate nationally and take up farther reaching demands. A national day of coordinated walkouts and strike action is a key step in realizing this. Political demands which go beyond the campus, such as refusing to vote for the Democrats, and calling on campus unions to take action alongside us must be made. As the summer break approaches, the movement will be forced off campuses. In the coming months, we will be building for mass protests at the DNC to help build the largest possible independent left vote. Students should join Socialist Alternative in building for this, and a socialist world. J
S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G
YOUTH & STUDENTS
TIKTOK BAN AND IMPERIALIST FEUDS
use it for their own advertising purposes. Anyone who regularly uses social media can testify to the onslaught of ads we’re subjected to when scrolling. With the introduction of TikTok Shop, an online store where users can sell products and earn small amounts of money from promoting other products, much of the content in the app is monetized. While large creators can make money from the creator fund and TikTok Shop, a majority of creators do not. While these practices are concerning, they are not any different from US companies. The issue for the US government is clearly not collecting and selling data, but rather who is doing it.
Is Social Media A Bad Thing?
At the end of April, the US Senate voted to pass a bill that would require TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell its US subsidiary to a US company or face a nationwide ban. The ban is set to go into effect in nine months – timed purposely to avoid any fallout for the Biden administration in November – if ByteDance fails to sell. This follows several years of attempting to ban TikTok, an effort started by Donald Trump during his presidency. Trump’s ban was overturned in court. However, this new bill has massive bipartisan support. Congress claims that the ban is to protect US citizens’ privacy and to keep US consumer data away from the Chinese government. These worries ostensibly stem from Chinese laws incentivizing companies to collect intelligence information, laws that would apply to the data of over 170 million Americans that use the platform. In reality, this is about undermining Chinese imperialism and censoring political speech in the US. The battle over TikTok is a microcosm of a much larger conflict between American and Chinese imperialism. If there’s one thing both Republicans and Democrats agree on, it’s advancing the interests of US imperialism, whether through funding endless wars in Ukraine, supporting the genocidal assault on Gaza, or by cornering the market on social media data collection and advertising. The US ruling class fears that TikTok will be used to politically influence users and give an edge to Chinese capitalism. In March, TikTok used its admin privileges to send out notifications to US users to protest the ban. The ability for the Chinese state to communicate en masse with regular people through TikTok would be particularly worrying for the US ruling class in the event of an escalated conflict between the US and China.
Data Collection & Advertising TikTok collects large amounts of user data, mainly for the purpose of targeted advertising, which made most of TikTok’s $16 billion in profits in 2023. This collected data is often sold off to other companies who JUNE 2024
The ability for people to express themselves and share interests with those around the world is undoubtedly positive. It is an innately human quality to seek out connection with one another, and that’s a good thing. TikTok facilitates the communication of hundreds of different niche communities across the app with their own unique content. Social media has also been a tool in political organizing. The ability for individuals, and even entire populations, to learn from different movements in real time is invaluable, in many cases directly contributing to their spread. Millions around the world can watch and participate in events as they unfold, creating important potential for international solidarity. The ongoing genocidal war in Gaza has been thoroughly documented online. Mainstream news, especially in much of the western world, has been lackluster at best and purposefully misleading at worst. On the ground accounts from those in Gaza have been instrumental in bringing attention to the horrific massacre of Palestinians. This is especially important as Israel has cracked down on traditional reporting in a variety of ways, from shutting down Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel, to full on assassinating journalists. People have always sought out opportunities to connect to one another across long distances. But the most positive feature of social media has always been the audience that uses it – people, whose instincts are to find ways to create community and help each other. The fact is that social media platforms are privately owned and controlled to create a profit and exercise social control, which minimizes its positive characteristics and amplifies its negative ones. Social media sites are designed to be addictive to make money from advertisers, and those advertisers need to keep users coming back by instigating feelings of anxiety, fear, and inadequacy – contributing to enormously high levels of depression and suicidality in teenagers. Social media sites should be taken into public ownership and separated from advertising entirely. Global communication for and by the working class is vital in this era of instability, and it should not be dictated by the capitalists of any nation, including the US and China. Overall this potential ban will do nothing to address the issues that plague social media sites or the issues that regular people face on a daily basis. J
MAJOR CITIES FACE THE THREAT OF SCHOOL CLOSURES ERIC JENKINS, PENNSYLVANIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS (personal capacity)
with little reason for joining with its poor pay when compared to other “professional” jobs. Republican politicians don’t care about As the summer comes and the school year wraps up, school districts across the any of that, but parade around as defendcountry are staring at a financial abyss. ers of children. They have worked themSchool districts in cities like Seattle are selves and their supporters up into a frenzy even seriously considering widespread about “woke indoctrination” such as reading books about sexual education, learnschool closures in response to this crisis. School closures bring devastation to ing about social issues, or transgender working-class communities and continue students using their preferred bathroom the degeneration of a public education according to their gender expression. Democrats, on the other hand, simply system which is already in disarray. Families are forced to choose between privately make empty promises to fund schools, but controlled charter schools or underfunded never make good on those promises in a public schools; students are forced to meaningful way. Let’s remember that Democratic administrations travel long distances to across the country lead the nearest open school. the charge in underfundBlack neighborhoods, “What’s necessary ing education and proalready suffering from a lack of high quality to stop school closures moting disaster ideas like to the Top” impleeducational options, are would be a major cam- “Race mented by the Obama more likely to have their administration. schools shuttered. paign to tax billionNeither party has News that the public aires, corporations, talked about seriously education system is taxing the rich to fund broken isn’t new or conreal estate and other education, which is nectroversial. It’s a talking for-profit sectors to essary to begin actually point shared by both the education Democratic and Republifund schools and other reforming system. They rather use can politicians, and their public resources.” the absolute failure of the solutions often don’t education system as a look that different. Neipulpit for their own antither party is interested working class platforms. in properly funding public education. Many working families already associate public Sometimes they even work together openly! schools with shoddy education at best and, A big example is Chris Christie and Cory if they have the cash or connections, rush Booker allying in New Jersey to charterize to send their children to private or charter the education system. What is necessary to stop school closchools. This is part of the charter school scheme which is essentially a massive fun- sures would be a major campaign to tax neling of public money into private hands billionaires, corporations, real estate and other for-profit sectors of the economy with little oversight in many cases. However, there is one factor that makes in order to fund schools and other public the current situation of school closures resources. Many working people are rightly skepeven more impactful: COVID-19. The pandemic served as a lifeline for many school tical of public school districts using this districts. A trove of federal money went into money to better students’ learning environpublic schools. Some were even able to run ments. To undercut this skepticism, these on a small surplus! Now, however, that funds need to be distributed in a demomoney has dried up, with many leftover cratic manner under the direction of unionemergency COVID-19 funds still languish- ized teachers, parents, students, and coming in state treasuries, school rosters have munity members. Imagine what education shrunk significantly. In some districts like could look like if it was teachers, parents, San Francisco, there are thousands less and students in charge rather than out-oftouch politicians and billionaires! public school students. These demands will not be won through The crisis in education goes even deeper than school closures. Many students are wishing or pleading. Unions such as the under-performing on all metrics including AFT and various of other educator unions math and reading. Dropout rates in high need to seriously discuss launching a schools are extremely high, especially for national campaign to reverse school clostudents of color. School shootings are sures, taxing the rich, and ending private seen as a regular occurrence on the news. control of education on a democratic basis Violence and the lack of staff safety has involving working class families and stumade teaching a dangerous profession dents. J
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L ABOR MOVEMENT
WHERE’S OUR CONTRACT?
will not be able to fend off these attacks, maintain a public, reliable, and affordable postal service, win gains in wages and working conditions, and build a stronger union, unless we get organized around a program and actually put up a fight. J “This could work in a moment like now when support for unions is high, but what if a recession hits and we are locked into this process?”. The 2008 financial crisis was caused by the big banks and rich corporations. Wall Street got bailed out, the rest of us got sold out. A whole generation of labor leaders accepted concessionary contracts because they accepted the capitalist notion that workers and the bosses have the same interests. When another recession hits, the labor movement needs to be at the forefront of fighting back, not on the sidelines. Conservative labor leaders like Renfroe, who would rather collaborate with the boss than confront the boss, often hide behind bureaucratic methods to exclude rank-and-file workers from the contract negotiation process. Demands for more democracy and transparency, like open bargaining, can play a huge role in radicalizing workers, but they need to be included in a wider economic program to improve the lives of workers to actually build a movement to beat the bosses. A wider program can’t ignore broader issues in society
Embattled NALC Leadership Lashes Out Against Open Bargaining
TYLER VASSEUR, MINNEAPOLIS Tyler Vasseur is a shop steward in NALC Branch 9, writing in personal capacity. Letter carriers at USPS have been working for a year without a new contract – which means a year without raises – and union leadership have put forward no fighting plan to win gains at the bargaining table. At the same time, letter carriers’ working conditions have come increasingly under attack. This is happening as the regime of National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) President Brian Renfroe is increasingly exposed, and the majority of the Executive Council, all of whom make six figure salaries, are rallying to defend their regime. The national contract is likely going to binding interest arbitration, where a panel of three arbitrators (one appointed by USPS, one by NALC, and one “neutral”) hear “evidence” from both sides and decide the terms of the contract. Binding arbitration means NALC members can’t vote on our own contract! This undemocratic tactic is designed to ice-out membership. Support for a resolution demanding open and transparent bargaining in NALC is spreading like wildfire among rank-and-file workers and even some local leaderships who realize it’s time to fight. The Open Bargaining resolution is calling for a process that would combine more transparency and regular bargaining updates, with the mobilization and activation of the membership through public rallies, centered around strong demands like a $30/hr starting wage and immediate $5/hr raise for all letter carriers. So far 31 NALC branches, and one NALC state association have passed the resolution, and hundreds of NALC members are getting organized in national “Build a Fighting NALC” Zoom meetings. A real fight for the future of NALC is brewing going into the National Convention this August.
National Leadership Opposes Open Bargaining NALC President Renfroe’s regime is more comfortable cutting deals with management than they are mobilizing workers to fight. Not surprisingly, they have started a campaign to oppose Open Bargaining, vigorously defending their closed door “Secret Bargaining” strategy at regional union trainings, state conventions, and local union meetings. Let’s debunk the Renfroe regime’s misleading arguments one by one. J The Renfroe regime claims: “We’ve always conducted negotiations in private”. This is false, and only highlights the mentality of union leaders like Renfroe who prefer meeting with bosses over mobilizing workers. NALC and the other postal unions have a long history of public contract campaigns, including joint public demonstrations and rallies in Washington DC and around the country, like the Postal Solidarity Day rallies held by the NALC and APWU when they bargained together. J They tell us: “We can’t show our hand before negotiations begin”. Demands are not promises, they are clear goals that state what the union is fighting for.
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Demands need to be democratically discussed, and linked to a plan to win them. We should be unapologetic about what we need in front of the boss. J “This would backfire, the public wouldn’t support us calling for higher wages”. UAW had incredible support across the country during their strike and had wide-ranging and bold demands like a 40% raise, a 32-hour work week, an end to the two-tier pay scale, and more. The widespread support was because of their bold demands, not in spite of them. Working people everywhere can empathize with us, because they are facing the same issues we are: high cost of living and inflation, poor wages, and bosses who make work even less tolerable every day with arbitrary rules and harassment on the workroom floor. J “If letter carriers fight too hard, Congress will privatize the post office and attack the postal unions.” The postal service, and postal workers, are one of the most trusted and well-liked federal workers in the country. Sections of the political establishment, and private delivery companies have been at the forefront of attacks on USPS as a public institution, from pushing for the 2006 “Pre-Funding Mandate”, which caused years of financial crisis for USPS, to attempts to push for privatization and more. Workers
ELI FOX, SEATTLE
either, ranging from confronting discrimination and rising rents, to stopping endless wars, and replacing corporate politicians with genuine fighters for working people. NALC members need to get organized to develop a serious economic program. All letter carriers need an immediate $5/hr raise, and a $30/hr starting wage – like what Amazon workers at the $1.5 billion air hub in Kentucky are demanding. Letter carriers work to live, not live to work. We need to end mandatory overtime, and follow UAW President Shawn Fain’s calls for a 32 hour work week without loss of pay. We need to start the discussion now in NALC about the program that is needed to mobilize and fight for what we need. J
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SEATTLE ACADEMIC WORKERS WIN 36% RAISES – COULD MORE HAVE BEEN WON?
Eli Fox is a member of UAW Local 4121 writing in personal capacity. This May, Academic Student Employees (ASEs) in UAW Local 4121 at University of Washington (UW) ratified a contract containing some important wins: raises for all workers including 36% salary increases spread over three years for the lowest-paid salaried employees, vision coverage, and limited paid leave for immigration appointments. While this is far more than the 3% per year raises in our previous contract, there are serious weaknesses in this one. ASEs, especially at the base rate, are still not paid enough to live poverty-free in Seattle. Many ASEs above the base rate will take a pay cut the first year of our contract when inflation is considered, and hourly ASEs got a much smaller raise. ASEs were hoping to win big, given the exciting organizing happening across academia, including the 2022 University of California (UC) strike which won 46% raises across two years and was a reference point for many. UW and UAW’s bargaining team reached an agreement after a mere one-day strike, when UW increased their wage proposal from 31% to 36% over three years. This strike saw four energetic pickets across each campus entrance, hundreds rallying at UW’s administrative building and a mass sit-in. Pickets were often successful at turning away deliveries, especially unionized truckers like UPS Teamsters. It was completely correct to go on strike, but bolder strategies could have made the strike more powerful. There was potential for a longer strike, and had we all been more
seriously prepared to strike through finals and withhold grades, we’d have put tremendous pressure on UW. An escalation plan tapping into the broad community support for our struggle, including organizing with other campus workers and appealing for an undergraduate student walkout, could have maximized our leverage by shutting down campus operations. Socialist Alternative members in UAW 4121 launched a rank-and-file petition calling on our union to fight alongside student protesters and to incorporate demands that UW take action to stop Israel’s massacre in Gaza into our pickets. We took inspiration from UC academic workers in UAW 4811 who are boldly striking over police repression of the Gaza protests. Uniting our movements could have strengthened both struggles and only UW gained from keeping our struggles separate; shortly after the ASE strike ended, UW students were forced to pack up their encampment in exchange for “advisory committees” to address their demands. While our strike won a small concession, many ASEs feel that too much was given away beforehand at the bargaining table. We initially demanded an immediate 67% wage increase and cost of living adjustment, to bring us in line with pay at peer institutions. UW countered with insultingly low single digit increases up until the night before the strike when they leapt up 10%, while our bargaining team dropped down to a 40% raise across three years. The 67% wage demand should have been given a high profile earlier in the campaign, to give the bargaining team more confidence to
hold firm, to motivate more ASEs onto the pickets, and to give our demands a more offensive edge. Bold, concrete demands are essential for mobilizing workers and staying united against attempts to undermine our struggle. It was crucial to fight against UW’s outrageous proposal to increase healthcare premiums by over $1000, but centering our fight on a vague call for “fair wages” and a defensive demand to maintain $0 premiums allowed UW to cut our momentum when they dropped their $1000 healthcare proposal the night before the strike. The tentative agreement was controversial, with around 20% of ASEs voting “No,” and many more only reluctantly voting “Yes”. Socialist Alternative members advocated for a strong “No” vote to signal that ASEs were ready to keep fighting. Many members were disappointed that our bargaining team settled for UW’s first offer, feeling there was real potential to escalate the strike to win more. Washington State law requires a strike be paused pending a TA vote, but other actions could have been organized to keep pressure on UW and prepare workers to return to the pickets in the event of a “No” vote. The rank-and-file organizing that went into this contract could lay the groundwork for stronger contract fights in the future. ASEs, postdocs, and researchers in UAW 4121 are actively discussing the lessons from our recent contract campaigns and building for a bigger fight in the future – like synchronizing our contract expirations to answer UAW President Shawn Fain’s call for a general strike in May 2028, where the working class could have the opportunity to fight together for major gains. J
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HOUSTON, TX........................houstonsa@socialistalternative.org SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE ISSN 2638-3349
Editor: Keely Mullen Editorial Board: George Brown, Tom Crean, Chris Gray, Josh Koritz, Greyson Van Arsdale, Tony Wilsdon Editors@SocialistAlternative.org
JUNE 2024
15
SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE END THE SLAUGHTER
ISSUE #104 l JUNE 2024
IN GAZA ONCE AND
FOR ALL
CHRIS GRAY, MINNEAPOLIS Over 750,000 Palestinians were removed from their ancestral homeland in 1948 when the Israeli state was founded. Since then, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed by direct fighting over the various wars, incursions, and airstrikes, and relentless discrimination and slow ethnic cleansing, which is now picking up pace on the West Bank. Since the Israeli state invaded, one in 25 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been killed. This genocidal war is a continuation and escalation of the logic of brutal colonialist occupation backed by US imperialism over decades. Despite all the bloodshed, the Netanyahu regime has failed to secure anything resembling a safe and stable existence for working class Israelis. On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants massacred 1,200 people from dozens of Israeli communities, and 200 more were taken hostage. Less than a quarter of those killed were Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers. The majority of the dead were workers and young people, including Jew and Arab medical responders and young people attending a music festival. Reactionary nationalists like Hamas have absolutely no way forward for the Palestinian people except endless misery. Nor are any of the reactionary regimes in the region from Egypt to Iran genuine allies of the Palestinian people. Last year, the main threat to Netanyahu’s government was mass protests of ordinary Israelis against his undemocratic power grab in alliance with the far right. Before the war, Hamas was losing popularity in polls, and mass protests against their corrupt rule were growing; Hezbollah in Lebanon was facing protests over rising food and fuel prices; and the Iranian regime was rocked by mass feminist protests and strikes following the murder of Mahsa Amini. In the United States, one of the only things both the Republicans and Democrats agree on, besides ramping up their conflict
with Chinese imperialism, is support for the Israeli government. Like always, the Democrats speak out of both sides of their mouth. Biden has found himself in the bizarre position of supplying sick and starving Palestinians with small amounts of aid, vocally criticizing Israeli policy and the conduct of the war, while also supplying the Israeli government with weapons to continue the war. In reality Israel is a vital ally in their wider fight in the region with allies of China, especially Iran. Trump is much more forthright about his support for Netanyahu, and doesn’t offer an alternative. A wider war in the region could lead to devastation on a far greater scale than we have already seen. Biden has already carried out airstrikes in Yemen and Syria. Israel has been skirmishing with Hezbollah on the Lebanese border, risking a repeat of the disastrous
2006 invasion that killed thousands but on a much bigger scale. In response to assassinations and provocations, Iran took the unprecedented step of launching a massive drone and missile strike against Israel. While US intelligence officials viewed Iran’s response as “designed to fail”, it did highlight the unsustainability of the Israeli state’s reliance on its Iron Dome missile-intercept
system. $20,000 interceptor missiles were needed to shoot down $300 Soviet-era rockets and drones purchasable at Wal-Mart. The possibility that the mysterious death of the Iranian president in a helicopter crash involved the Israeli state put people across the region in fear of a full-scale war erupting. Across the world, working class and young people are fighting to stop the war. In the US thousands of students have been arrested, and many more injured, demanding an end to the Israeli occupation. International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 has refused to handle cargo destined for Israel. Hundreds of thousands of people have registered their frustration at Biden by voting “uncommitted” in the Democratic Party primaries. The next step is to take this energy to end the war, and show it in the streets. People should join Socialist Alternative and Workers Strike Back in building the biggest possible protests at the DNC in August. In Israel, tens of thousands of people protested last month against Netanyahu, and his failed strategy to bring peace through genocidal war. An important breakthrough was that pro-democracy demonstrators joined forces in the streets with the families of hostages, the pretext for the invasion of Gaza. These protests have forced cabinet ministers to quit. However, with the rising threat of the Israeli far-right, which openly advocates for the complete ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, it’s urgent that the Israeli working class steps into the scene. A mass anti-war movement for peace, democracy and better living standards for all could topple Netanyahu and
the Israeli far-right once and for all. A powerful wave of protests against all forms of imperialism, oppression, and exploitation could spark a movement throughout the Arab world as well. In recent history, working-class, secular protests toppled reactionary dictatorships throughout the region during the Arab Spring in 2011. Mass protests in Lebanon over fuel and bread prices almost toppled Hezbollah last year. The Iranian regime, which is no friend to working people or women, was shaken by a mass wave of protests and strikes. The spark of the Iranian protests in 2022 was a police murder of a young woman and rapidly became a revolt against clerical rule, the oppression of women and the impoverishment of the population under a corrupt regime. What’s needed is an international, mass, working-class movement to cut across militarism, nationalism and sectarianism. Such a movement needs to oppose the ruling classes of all countries who benefit from maintaining the status quo, and unite working people to bring down all the reactionary regimes on the basis of a revolutionary socialist program for peace and stability for all.
“What’s needed is an international, mass, working-class movement to cut across militarism, nationalism, and sectarianism.”
J End the seige; end all military aid to Israel! J
All-for-all deal exchanging Israeli hostages and Palestinian political prisoners now!
J
Build an international working-class movement for a permanent ceasefire and an end to occupation!
J For a socialist Palestine and a socialist Israel in a socialist federation of the Middle East!