Socialist Alternative #106 - September 2024

SOCIALIST

ALTERNATIVE

FIGHT THE RIGHT FIGHT FOR SOCIALISM

ISSUE #106 | SEPTEMBER 2024

Fighting Trump 2.0 page 4

Gen Z Revolution In Bangladesh page 5

What Is Socialism & Can It Work? page 8

WHY I JOINED SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE

GEO HERNANDEZ, ORLANDO I have always considered myself to be a socially and politically conscious person, but never organized and always reserved.

After taking a break to work and decide what I wanted to do, I went back to the University of Central Florida. It was my first day of class in a long time, and my nerves were heightened, only made worse by all

the student clubs and booths that try to stop you on your way to class. As I turned a corner, I saw a table with a large red banner that read “Socialist Alternative” and I stopped rather quickly in my tracks.

After a quick conversation about how the government and two party system are broken (unless you’re a billionaire), I immediately wrote my information down so that I could be contacted, and spent the night researching more.

I had just left a toxic work environment and was surrounded by countless other people, some of them my friends and family, who were struggling in their workplaces, both socially and financially. I thought about my future, the future of my peers, and the future of my children, and that’s why I joined a group of like-minded people with a passion for the safety and justice of everyday people. Now, with the information Socialist Alternative has provided me about how to organize effectively, how to protest safely, and how to get through to people just like us, I no longer see a bleak future for us and our children. With this organization, I have become more aware and engaged than ever, and I am proud to be helping others open their eyes the way Socialist Alternative has for me.

WHAT WE STAND FOR Fight The Right With Independent Working-Class Politics • Vote against war, imperialism, and oppression. Vote for the strongest independent left anti-war candidate, Jill Stein – not Kamala Harris or Trump!

• For a working-class alternative to the two corporate parties! Republicans are using divide-and-rule scapegoating against migrants and other oppressed communities because the GOP has no real answers to the questions facing working people. But the corporate Democratic Party offers no effective resistance to right-wing attacks and has repeatedly failed to use its majorities to protect our rights.

• Take the hundreds of millions of dollars labor unions waste on supporting Democrats every election year and use it to organize every worker into a union. Launch an independent political party that refuses corporate donations and fights to unite workingclass people at the ballot box.

No to Imperialist Wars • For an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza; an end to US military aid to Israel; and an end to the occupation and siege of Palestine.

• Build a massive anti-war, anti-imperialist movement linking up student protests with workers across borders for an end to Israel’s massacre in Gaza. Challenge the capitalist imperialist powers, whose geopolitical chess game threatens to engulf the whole Middle East in war.

• Rebuild student protests in the fall! Labor

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unions should mobilize their resources and members demand a ceasefire, as UAW grad workers did in their strike at the University of California system.

• Socialist Alternative completely opposes Russian imperialism’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s recent invasion of Russian territory. We oppose military aid from Western imperialist countries, which only fuel this war and devastate the lives of workers in Ukraine and Russia.

• Socialist Alternative opposes the military build-up between US and Chinese imperialism, which threatens working people everywhere.

No Deportations & End Racist Policing • No migrant detentions and deportations! No border wall expansion! We need full legalization and citizenship rights for all migrants.

• 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.

• Build a new immigrant rights movement independent of both corporate parties! The Democrats have betrayed immigrants both at the border and in major cities. Trump doesn’t offer any alternative.

• Arrest and convict killer cops! 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 the power to subpoena, power over hiring and firing, and the power to review budget priorities.

• We need a struggle against all forms of racism in our society, including racist housing and education policies, that go beyond fighting to end racist policing. We need a new movement in the streets and mass organizations of struggle to fight for Black liberation!

Fight Attacks on Women and Trans People • Free, safe, legal abortion now. 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 these laws have targeted.

• Fight back against brutal anti-trans legislation and all right-wing attacks on LGBTQ people. Full legal rights for all queer people.

Build a movement to fight for good jobs, affordable housing, universal childcare, and gender-affirming Medicare for All. • The labor movement needs to take a clear stand against these attacks. Unionized workers, like teachers who face retaliation under these same laws, should unite with students to organize mass non-compliance, strikes, and walkouts.

Tax the Rich and Invest in Our Basic Needs • Fight inflation with significant wage increases! Billionaires keep getting richer while inflation eats more and more out of every paycheck working people receive.

• Medicare for All now. Take for-profit hospital chains out of the hands of greedy investors and incompetent managers, and run them under democratic workers’ control for the safety of staff and patients.

• Housing is a human right! Pass strong rent control. End economic evictions. Fund high-quality, permanently affordable, socially-owned housing where renters are legally protected from discrimination.

• Fully fund public education! End school privatization. Give educators an immediate 25% raise and increase staffing. Stop rightwing attacks on curriculum, like “Don’t Say Gay”. Ban standardized tests. Cancel all student debt and make public college tuition-free.

• Fully fund addiction and mental health services and job programs. Big Pharma profits off of the suffering and misery of workingclass people. Corporations caused the fentanyl crisis, and untreated mental health is a massive problem. Fully fund addiction and mental health services and job programs.

• Permanently free and accessible testing and paid sick leave. Take Big Pharma into public ownership – vaccines should be for public health, not profit! Capitalism failed to stop COVID-19, with the “post-pandemic” new normal consisting of total indifference to public health. We must fight back.

• Bring back the COVID-era child tax credit and make it permanent. No cuts to food stamps!

Rebuild A Fighting Labor Movement • 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 Living Adjustments (COLA).

• Unionize every worker. Autoworkers have launched a massive campaign to organize the South, a huge step toward building a united resistance to corporations and their political allies in both parties who profit most from keeping us divided.

• Demand union leaders stop rubbing elbows with corporate politicians and start laying the ground for a new independent worker’s party. Union leaders should accept the average wage of workers in their industry. These leaders 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.

End Climate Catastrophe and Create Green, Union Jobs • Fight for green, union jobs! We need a unionized jobs program to rapidly expand green infrastructure including a massive expansion of free, high-quality, and fast public transit.

• For fully-funded emergency systems! We need fully-funded emergency systems to protect and evacuate people from ever-increasing storms, floods, and fires. Tax the rich to reimburse working people for their destroyed homes and livelihoods.

• Take real steps to address climate change.

Both parties fund the US military, one of the biggest polluters in the world. Addressing climate change means ending war and cutting military budgets.

• 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!

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. Working-class people know how to manage their schools, workplaces, and communities better than out-of-touch executives and Wall Street investors.

• For a socialist world! This means a democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the common interests of working people and youth everywhere.

FIND US ONLINE

www.SocialistAlternative.org info@socialistalternative.org @Socialist_Alternative @SocialistAlt /SocialistAlternative.USA /c/SocialistAlternative

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Kamala Harris: A New Hope Or A Mirage?

TEDDY SHIBABAW, MILWAUKEE Teddy is a member of Socialist Alternative’s Black Caucus.

Four years of existential dread with two of the most unpopular presidential candidates of the last few decades, Trump and Biden, seem to be over. Harris’ entry into the presidential campaign has lifted the spirits of the Democratic Party base. The Trump campaign has been knocked off balance.

No longer an outsider, Trump now appears like an incumbent with 4 years of anti-worker attacks during his administration.

The dynamic was further turbocharged with Tim Walz being chosen for VP. However, it wasn’t long ago when Walz called for the largest mobilization of the National Guard to target non-violent protestors in the wake of the horrific murder of George Floyd. Plus, Minnesota is far from a progressive paradise – corporations like Target and US Bank profit while deep levels of racism and homelessness remain.

Kamala Harris is and always has been – as Truth Dig referred to her in 2019 – an “Oligarch’s Dream Politician”. She is emblematic of the Democratic Party establishment and has deep ties to Wall Street and Silicon Valley tech bros. She was birthed onto the political scene of San Francisco elite circles as an ambitious prosecutor who climbed all the way up the political ladder to Attorney General, and eventually Senator.

She was focused on locking up Black and brown working-class people and throwing away the key. Even people exonerated by the Innocence Project were forced to stay longer on technicalities. In 2013, an article with the headline “Kamala Harris mocked “Progressive Protesters Who Want ‘More Schools, Less Jails’”, noted that Harris laughed about putting the parents of truant kids in jail. She also jammed the bureaucratic gears to suffocate attempts to root out corruption and prosecutorial misconduct from her years as DA to her years as “Top Cop”.

On the issues – Harris goes whichever way the wind blows. When you take stock of Harris’ entire political career, you see a common feature of many corporate politicians – standing up on the record on some progressive issue when there’s no risk of it becoming policy, then unceremoniously chucking it out when no longer politically expedient.

In her 2020 campaign, when the environmental movement was riding much higher in the public eye and she needed to compete with Bernie Sanders, she committed to banning fracking. Now, she’s abandoned that position. Not only has Harris backed away from talk of abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, but she has gone further in the opposite direction by supporting the Biden administration’s budget requests for increased funding for border

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enforcement. All of this has helped advance Trump’s central message.

Will Harris Be Better Than Biden?

She has been willing to be the cold antiimmigrant messenger of the Biden Administration, famously dispatched to tell migrants from Central America “Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders. If you come to our border, you will be turned back.” She has doubled down on this with major campaign ads in the last few weeks, touting plans for hiring thousands of border patrol agents and disrupting “border gangs” – essentially cosigning Trump’s formulation of immigrants as criminals.

While she called for a ceasefire in March, it means nothing without applying the concrete pressure available to US imperialism as the strongest backer of the Israeli state. As the Palestinian co-chair of the National Uncommitted Movement, Layla Abed, told Democracy Now, “Palestinian children cannot eat words.” Harris unceremoniously shut down Gaza solidarity activists who protested one of her campaign rallies to challenge the lack of concrete policy change.

On foreign policy overall, the Vice President is as deeply committed as Biden to US imperialism and its client regimes like the Israeli ruling class. As the US-China interimperialist Cold War becomes increasingly hot, Harris has not indicated any change in direction. Strategists under the Xi Jinping regime do not see any differences between the Trumpian right, Biden, or Harris on this issue that is increasingly defining all key international geopolitical trends.

In 2024, Harris backed away completely from Medicare For All. She adjusted her policy to maintain a role for private, big insurance companies through the Medicare

Advantage program, which is almost nothing like Medicare proper. Her policy included false and misleading low premiums with big gaps in coverage for care and prescription drugs.

For all the talk about facing down “predators,” “cheaters” and “fraudsters” like Donald Trump, her record reveals the opposite. As just one high-profile example of many, OneWest Bank, accused of widespread misconduct that ruined the lives of many homeowners, somehow escaped her sights. The owner of that bank was none other than Donald Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. She was the only Democratic Party senate candidate he donated to in 2016.

Harris’s Campaign “Promises” Harris is also campaigning heavily on abortion rights, promising to codify Roe v. Wade, just as Biden also promised under a new term. But they are in office right now! They could mobilize the Democratic base to force Congress to pass it and sign it, but instead,

US ELECTIONS

point to a mirage that will never bear water.

On what is arguably the most enduring top issue of the last few years - the unbearably high cost of living – the Harris campaign has begun making bold promises, such as bringing back the Covid-era child tax credit of $6,000 per child, banning price gouging on food, and providing $25,000 in support for new homebuyers. But the questions are: how would this be paid for, and how will she win support if the Senate and House flip during the elections? Despite these economic plans, Trump still leads Harris on the economy.

Is this newfound hope in the Democratic Party justified? Not by a long shot.

They have neutralized their left wing, Bernie and the Squad, including dumping tons of money into primaries to deal stinging defeats to Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush this year.

Even when Democrats have had majority control in all branches of government in the last few decades, they failed to codify Roe v. Wade, failed to pass the labor-friendly PRO Act, and have been overwhelmingly in favor of increasing funding for police and the mass incarceration state.

In fact, the Democratic Party is responsible for opening up the space for the right wing of the Republican Party – from the Tea Party in the Obama years to Trump in the last decade – because they spout empty rhetoric while failing to pass any meaningful reforms to help working people weather the crisis of capitalism.

The only thing we can count on is building independent mass movements of the working class in the streets, workplaces, campuses, and neighborhoods. The resurgent labor movement of the last five years, along with the movement against the genocidal war in Gaza and renewed movement to restore abortion rights, have real potential.

However, movements are undermined when they support politicians who betray them. We need a new mass political party of workers, youth, and oppressed, free from corporate cash and deeply accountable to our movements. In this election, we can register our commitment to this direction with a protest vote for the Green Party’s Jill Stein, the only anti-war, pro-worker candidate on the ballots in most states. J

VOTE FOR THE STRONGEST LEFT ALTERNATIVE: JILL STEIN! Working and young people need an alternative to the two capitalist parties. The Republicans rely on attacking the oppressed to divide the working class, while the Democrats offer no path towards effectively fighting back. Both parties serve big business, and ignore the crises faced by ordinary people today – the high cost of living, threats to immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, climate

catastrophe, and more.

For these reasons, Socialist Alternative endorses the strongest left alternative against Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, anti-war Green Party candidate Jill Stein for the 2024 Presidential Election. We pledge to vote against the parties of big business, and commit to building a new worker’s party that fights on the side of working people and youth.

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US ELECTIONS LEAH STEVENS, CINCINNATI Three months before the presidential elections, many ordinary people are feeling a sense of relief. They do not have to watch a showdown between two old men. One who has the deaths of over 40,000 Palestinians on his hands and one who is a billionaire landlord and recent felon ready to unleash a full reactionary program.

After losing in 2020, Trump came back more dangerous than ever, and the basis for the popularity of his reactionary ideas will not just go away if he loses this year.

We have seen how the last four years of the Biden-Harris administration have given them a perfect opportunity to fester. So the question we have to ask is: do Harris and the Democrats have what it takes to put up a real fight against the growth of Trumpism and the far-right?

Project 2025 and Agenda 47 The top two items on Trump’s “Agenda 47” come as no surprise after years of campaigning around “building the wall”: seal the border and stop the “migrant invasion”, and carry out the largest deportation operation in American history. Around the world, as imperialist wars, inflation, and climate crises are uprooting the most oppressed layers of society, the right is making anti-immigrant policies central to their campaign promises in the advanced capitalist countries that migrants are fleeing to. This of course comes on top of a host of anti-worker, anti-women, and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric of the Trump campaign that serve to whip up the far right and further divide and oppress workers.

Trump 2.0 is in a position to go much further than he was in 2016. He now has the backing of seasoned reactionaries ready to fill his cabinet and the state apparatus.

Among these reactionaries are the 100 conservative groups behind the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” a 900-page policy book that lays out a right-wing makeover of the federal government.

Plans include dismantling the US Education Department and Homeland Security, cutting Medicaid and Social Security, slashing money for renewable energy, and further restricting abortion access. Anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ policies are couched in language calling to “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life.” While Trump has recently tried to distance himself from Project 2025 to save face, a peek behind the curtain reveals that several of the authors served in the previous Trump administration. Trump’s running mate JD Vance uses similar talking points to what is written in Project 2025.

The Same Old Strategy The threat of Trump and Project 2025 evoke a real fear in ordinary people, particularly queer youth and immigrants. For the Democrats, it serves as the perfect fearmongering bargaining chip. This, alongside empty calls to “save democracy”, make up the recipe to cover for their failures over the last four years. The Democrats rely on these fear tactics every election cycle while falling

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short when it comes to fighting on the offensive for what working people truly need.

Not only has the Biden administration failed to deliver on campaign promises such as eliminating student debt, raising the minimum wage, fighting for climate action, and fighting for healthcare reform – they have done the opposite. The Biden administration has continued many Trump-era policies around immigration, increased drilling projects, failed to address the cost-of-living crisis, and is at the helm for providing the arms, training, and strategy for the massacre in Gaza.

election, it will take much more than the Democrats operating on the defensive to defeat the far right and the growth of Trumpism globally.

Only a coordinated mass movement of workers and young people around a common pro-worker political program can fight and defeat the far right. This is far from utopian – after the election of Trump in 2016 it was the masses taking to the streets in protest that inaugurated the resistance while the initial reaction by the Democratic Party was to congratulate Trump on his victory.

It was gig drivers and protesters at air-

A Third Option?

Only a coordinated mass movement of workers and young people around a common pro-worker political program can fight and defeat the far right.

The “uncommitted” movement through the Democratic primary elections, spearheaded primarily by Muslim Americans refusing to vote for Biden and his genocidal policies, expressed a real frustration at the pro-imperialist Democratic Party. Nearly three-quarters of a million voters checked “uncommitted” or mailed in a blank ballot.

However, polls show Republicans are gaining momentum in majority-Muslim counties in Michigan as well.

The “uncommitted” movement needs to not only continue withholding votes from the Democrats but point a way forward, including taking a clear stand for genuine anti-war, Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

While Stein won’t win, every vote against Harris and Trump is a vote for something new that concretizes the mood to break with the status quo. The result of the perpetual cycle of voting for the lesser of two evils pulls the Democrats rightward and aids the growth of the far right.

Defeating Trump Vs. Defeating Trumpism While a strong vote against both the Democrats and Republicans in November can express a real mood to break from the two corporate parties, politics do not start or end at the ballot box.

Even if Trump loses the presidential

ports who forced the reversal of Trump’s Islamophobic “Muslim ban”. It was the air traffic controllers staging a sick-out and the threat of the Association of Flight Attendants striking that forced Trump to end the longest government shutdown in history. And, it was a rally of 40,000 workers and youth in Boston that shut down a march of the far right after a white supremacist killed a protester in Charlottesville the week before.

These confrontations with the right are not unique to the US. This month, tens of thousands of protestors gathered in England and Northern Ireland to defend against the violent, racist attacks of the far

right against local Muslim communities.

Socialist Alternative’s sister organization in the UK energetically built this movement.

The election of five independent candidates to Parliament shows the possibility of forming an independent coalition. These victories include Jeremy Corbyn, who was previously suspended by the Labour Party for his leftwing ideas, and others. All of these campaigns were organized around a pro-Palestine program – this could build enthusiasm for a new party needed to take the movement forward here.

New Party, New System In the 2010s, Bernie Sanders’s call for a political revolution against the billionaire class rallied millions around him and created an enormous opening for a new independent workers’ party outside of the Democratic establishment. Today, the emergence of left labor leaders and union reform caucuses that name the bosses as the enemy express that potential. The major unions that endorsed ceasefire resolutions should break with the Democrats and begin organizing around putting a stop to Trump’s reactionary agenda.

Linking labor struggles to social and anti-war struggles will be crucial in charting the path forward for the emergence of a new party that can fight on the side of workers.

Ultimately, building fighting unions and organizing a new party are only the first steps to winning what workers need. War, poverty, climate catastrophe, and oppression are deeply rooted in the system of capitalism itself, and the CEOs of major corporations are the real puppeteers of every election cycle.

Working people do not just deserve, but urgently need, a new system based on need rather than profit. A socialist future is possible, but only if we start building the kind of left alternative that we need and start getting organized on a mass scale now. J

O T W O H HT FIG

P M U R T 2.0

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YOUTH & STUDENTS

BANGLADESH: Youth-Led Revolution Gets Rid Of Dictator

VARUN BELUR, PHILADELPHIA In less than two months, the Bangladeshi masses have thrown off the yoke of two decades of dictatorial rule. Millions of students and working people overthrew the autocratic Sheikh Hasina regime in a political revolution, proving that mass struggle can win. Now, the question is: what will follow next?

The student-led movement that toppled the dictatorship was initially sparked by the reintroduction of a “quota” system that set aside 30% of government jobs for descendants of “liberation war heroes.” It represented nothing more than the systematic nepotism and corruption of the Bangladeshi ruling elite in a country where 18 million youth are unemployed.

But as the movement grew and repression increased, the demands broadened to include the resignation of former Prime Minister Hasina, one of the world’s most hated autocrats. Under her direction, the military and police shot and killed hundreds of unarmed protestors and imprisoned thousands. The massacre of August 4th, in which over 100 students were slaughtered, was the last straw. Thousands marched to Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, to demand Hasina’s immediate resignation. On August 5th, the dictator fled to New Delhi and millions flooded the streets in celebration.

In the days that have followed, a caretaker government has been set up by the military.

Several student leaders have accepted leading positions in the new government. But it is crucial that Bangladeshi students, and the broader movement they’ve inspired, learn the lessons of the 2022 Sri Lankan movement that toppled two autocratic governments

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in two months but failed to fundamentally improve living and working conditions: without revolutionary organization and program, a new right-wing government was returned.

The real enemy of the movement is not only the Hasina regime, but decaying Bangladeshi capitalism itself. The movement should set up committees in the universities, factories and communities that have risen up against the dictatorship in order to sustain and democratically direct the ongoing struggle. It should link up with the struggle of the garment workers, whose heroic strike was brutally put down by the state last year.

The movement should run independent candidates in the upcoming elections on a program based on the needs of the Bangladeshi masses: housing, healthcare, jobs and the end of oppression against minorities.

South Asian Capitalism In Crisis The overthrow of Sheikh Hasina takes place in the context of deep instability for capitalism globally and especially in South Asia. The general strikes and mass protests of the farmers movement in India of 2020-21 delivered a powerful blow to the reactionary Modi regime and blocked its attempt to privatize the agricultural sector. Mass protests swept Pakistan in 2023 against searing electricity and fuel price increases that were implemented at the behest of the IMF. Increasingly, young people in the neocolonial world are faced with two choices: migrate or fight.

In Bangladesh, the youth directed their anger at the Awami League, the party of Sheikh Hasina that has mostly held power since the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971. But they’re also skeptical of all the rotten political choices on offer. The

fraudulent elections carried out by the ruling Awami League in January illustrate the extreme decay of democratic institutions. Both the main Stalinist and reformist left parties have failed to offer an alternative and, scandalously, have refused to independently challenge the Awami League.

It’s not hard to see why there is hardly any faith in the establishment parties. Youth unemployment is at a staggering 40%. The private sector is dominated by the highly exploitative garment industry, which makes up 90% of Bangladeshi exports. The garment unions have a tradition of militancy, but over the last two decades their Stalinist leaderships have accepted backbreaking conditions and pay.

The exploitative terms imposed on the Bangladeshi masses by imperialism have played no small part in igniting the anger behind this movement. A 2023 loan issued by the IMF imposed a crippling program of austerity: greater privatization of state-owned corporations, cancellation of crucial fuel and electricity subsidies and tax increases on workers. Any new Bangladeshi regime accepting these conditions will continue its predecessor’s attacks on the working class and poor.

boycotts. Students also called for a shutdown of all factories and public transit, a call that was broadly heeded by the working class. In the mass protests since the quota law was reimposed, teachers, rickshaw drivers, factory workers and others have joined students in the streets.

The Path Forward The fighting Bangladeshi students were correct to build their movement independent of the failed establishment parties, including the parties of the so-called opposition.

It’s also significant that they led the uprising without illusions in any imperialist powers to come to their aid, as has been a feature of some movements like the Hong Kong democracy movement of 2019. And it was critical that they didn’t retreat when the Supreme Court hastily scrapped the quota system within weeks of the protests, but instead used the increasing momentum behind them to demand the Prime Minister’s resignation.

But the task facing the students and workers of Bangladesh is far from complete. The student leaders – Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and others – who have taken on roles as ministers, are mistakenly legitimizing the interim government. Muhammad Yunus, the head of the interim government, won a Nobel Prize in Economics and developed a reputation as a humanitarian for his pioneering of “micro credits”. But, as we pointed out at the time of his winning the Nobel Prize, Yunus’s program served to preserve the big capitalist institutions like the IMF and World Bank by creating “the illusion that everybody can have a chance now to release themselves from poverty.” The movement needs to organize for the cancellation of all IMF and foreign loans. Take into public ownership the telecommunications companies, banks, garment producers and other major corporations. Launch a jobs program based on the state ownership of vast swathes of the economy for the millions of unemployed youth and poor. All political prisoners must be released immediately.

The Bangladeshi youth and working class should build a mass party out of this struggle based on the unions, and compete against the pro-capitalist parties in the upcoming elections. But as long as the power of the capitalists, imperialism and the military remains, the danger of counter revolution and a new authoritarian regime is still there. What is necessary for the final victory of Bangladeshi students and workers is the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the construction of a socialist society run democratically by the working class. J

The Bangladeshi mass insurrection is being called the “first Gen Z revolution”. It is notable that the struggle has been led mainly by Role Of Students university students, many The Bangladeshi of whom have never lived mass insurrection is being called the “first under a different regime.

Gen Z revolution”. It is notable that the struggle has been led mainly by university students, many of whom have never lived under a different regime.

Students have played a key role in unifying the movement, and society in general, against religious divisions. Some Islamist groups have used the cover of the protests to attack the Hindu minority, but students from all faiths have played a crucial role in countering this. Students, along with many Muslim workers, have set up community watch groups to defend Hindu temples and other minorities.

Youth can play a major role in struggle on their own, but a movement becomes exponentially stronger when the working class throws its full weight behind it. This was seen when, ahead of the mass march to Dhaka, students called for tax and utility payment

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CULTURE The majority of artists in the industry do not make enough to live off their art’s earnings; for a streaming service like Spotify, a musician would need to have over a million streams in order to make $3,000$4,000. Think about that: you could have a million people listen to your music and make just enough to cover rent in Seattle. You’re still coming up short if you pay rent in New York City. It amounts to being paid between $0.003 and $0.004 per stream. The streaming giant is cutting pennies into thirds and fourths for music-makers while its net worth is $67 billion. Some artists make money by performing live; in addition to finding time to create their art, they also have to find the time and energy to do those performances, and to go on tour. It’s no surprise that some of the biggest names in music are nepo babies with generational wealth and connections to spare.

If an artist does achieve commercial success, it doesn’t guarantee they’re “out of the woods.” Their labor can be exploited through bad record deals, predatory producers (see Kesha v. Dr. Luke), and absurd work schedules. In a capitalist world where industries need the next best thing, the pressure can reach a fever pitch. There’s the risk of substance abuse and burnout, resulting in resenting the craft and abandoning their passion altogether, or depression and suicide. Working-class artists, like all workers, should be able to have all their needs met – mentally, physically, financially – and also be able to share their art with the world.

In less than a year since her Billboard interview, one can imagine it’s become even more of a struggle for Chappell Roan to deal with everything the music industry demands of a rising artist. A healthy work/life balance is an impossible feat for most working people. More than 8 million Americans work multiple jobs just to make ends meet. For many ordinary people, there’s not enough time in the day to work to pay rent, medical bills, and student loans, and still participate in our arts and culture scenes. Capitalism starves us of the opportunity to enjoy music, museums, cinema – the need of the billionaire class to profit off our labor is prioritized over everything: art, wellbeing, rest, collaboration, community – the things that inspire us to find joy in being alive. J

The Rise & Stress Of A Midwest Princess

Chappell ROAN

by Meaghan Murray

In

early August, Chappell Roan made history when her performance at Chicago’s Lollapalooza became “the biggest daytime set” in the festival’s history. A video of the masses dancing along to her synthpop song “HOT TO GO!” went viral that same weekend. Between Coachella, Governors Ball, and Bonnaroo – where festival organizers moved her from a performance tent to one of the main stages – the indie pop star has serenaded hundreds of thousands of people this summer.

Her primary audience has been queer women in their teens and early 20s – listeners that see themselves in Chappell. In just a few short months, her fanbase has ballooned beyond that, with articles proclaiming that she’s uniting queers everywhere. It’s her queer expression on stage and in verse, her ability to deliver an unapologetically gay, sapphic bop like “Naked In Manhattan” to scores of people. It’s her refusal to perform at the White House for Pride that makes her so popular among a radicalizing youth hungry for change in a society that’s increasingly put restraints on gender and sexuality.

But while fans of her 2023 sleeper-hit album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, are excited to see her get the recognition she deserves, catapulting into global stardom comes with consequences – especially in a brutal, capitalist music industry.

Nearly 40% of Chappell Roan’s days since February 2024 were spent doing live performances – either opening for Olivia Rodrigo on her Guts World Tour, doing late-night shows, NPR’s Tiny Desk, on her own Midwest Princess Tour, or festivals. Chappell’s shows are high energy, with iconic, drag queen-inspired

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outfits, choreography, and a vocal range that stuns, particularly in her latest single, “Good Luck, Babe!”

As any musical artist knows, it takes both mental and physical fortitude to be on tour.

In the last 6 months, Chappell Roan has had a wild schedule.

Born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz in a small Missouri town, Chappell was the oldest of four and grew up in a conservative Christian home in a trailer park. Now 26 years old, she’d been working toward her current commercial success since she was 14. From auditioning on America’s Got Talent to uploading YouTube videos of covers to traveling between Missouri and the coasts for musical showcases, the singer-songwriter spent most of her teen years and early 20s chasing a chance at making it big. It took twelve years for her hard work to pay off.

But in mid-June, Chappell paused during a show in Raleigh, North Carolina, to tearfully and sincerely admit that she was overwhelmed by the acceleration of her career: “I just feel a little off today, ‘cause I think that my career has just gone really fast, and it’s really hard to keep up… This is all I’ve ever wanted. It just hits me sometimes.”

And this is an artist’s dream come true: Chappell Roan is finally getting to do what she loves as a full-time job. But having a fulltime job under capitalism is grueling, and like any other job, musicians who have “made it” are pushed to the brink by the same people other workers are exploited by: the bosses.

In this case, multinational music corporations and streaming services like Universal Music Group and Spotify. And like gig workers in other industries, artists don’t have the protections they’d have in a unionized workplace. Chappell Roan is well aware.

When interviewed by Billboard in June of

last year, Chappell said, “I encourage other artists to remember that labels need you. You don’t need them. I hope that I continue to love myself and strive to find a healthy way to deal with this career. This industry does not thrive off of gentleness. It thrives off of exploitation, unfortunately.”

And her best-selling merch has already been exploited by the Harris-Walz campaign; they’ve raised over $1 million with their “Chappell Roaninspired” camo hats.

Those funds will be used to elect politicians that are in favor of bombing Palestine indefinitely. Did they ask the pop star who said “freedom for all oppressed people in occupied territories” if they could co-opt her look?

In 2015, Chappell Roan was originally signed by Atlantic Records (whose parent company is one of the big three: Warner Music Group), but was dropped from the label in 2020 – her music, at that time, wasn’t “profitable enough.” She was on her own, working as a production assistant, nanny, and barista just to stay afloat in LA – eventually, she moved back to Missouri and worked at a drivethrough while making music independently.

In a capitalist world where industries need the next best thing, the pressure can reach a fever pitch... Artists should be able to have all their needs met – mentally, physically, financially – and also be able to share their art with the world.

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EDUCATION

FIGHTING FOR AN Bring Gaza EDUCATION SYSTEM Protests Back To Every Campus!

THAT WORKS

by Rose Hiemstra, Seattle

If education isn’t inherently bad, why do so many people hate school? The reality is that capitalism distorts genuine education, making it about checking boxes and turning students into statistics rather than actually enriching young people and society. But it could be different if we fight for it.

Imagine if high school was designed to actually focus on the well-being of young people. Students could help shape what is taught and learned, rather than it coming down from out-of-touch politicians and bureaucrats. Music programs, theater programs, and fine arts could be adequately funded and expanded, not cut. Multiple counselors and psychiatrists could be placed at every single school, with no barriers to accessing mental health resources.

Rather than being judged by standardized testing, students could have flexible, projectbased learning opportunities. After-school programs would be plentiful and consistent, rather than dependent on a budget decision from a higher up. Instead of feeling pressured to rack up as many AP or IB courses as they can, students could have access to career and college training to actually help decide what they are interested in. Teachers would be properly paid, supported and equipped to do their jobs.

Obviously, this ideal of what our schools could look like is far from the reality. Instead, most students face overcrowded classrooms, standardized test after standardized test, and an astonishing lack of mental health support despite youth depression and anxiety levels skyrocketing since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Without a relevant and dynamic curriculum addressing the multiple crises in society, classmates run the risk of falling into far- right indoctrination or fringe conspiracy theories. Electives and extracurriculars, some of the most vital spaces for self-expression, are constantly on the chopping block.

While most of us are stuck in failing school districts, the ultra-wealthy get much better schools. This is the result of capitalism, which puts profits for the rich over everything else, where the priority for the education system is developing a new generation of young workers for the rich to exploit. The ruling class needs a working class educated enough to do their jobs efficiently, but docile enough to fall in line. That means poor and working class students aren’t encouraged to be creative or pursue their passions, and instead are told to prepare for student debt-ridden, mind-numbing, back-breaking jobs as future adults.

Both the Democrats and Republicans, the parties of the corporate elite, uphold this. For the last 400 years, the primary source of funding for schools has continued to be property taxes – a system that ensures poor people

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go to poor, underfunded schools. This disproportionately affects people of color, especially Black and Latino populations. Neither political party is willing to tax the rich (who control both parties) to fully fund our education system. Instead, they keep a model that reinforces racial inequities and drastically slashes school budgets when enrollment dips or when students ‘underperform’ on useless tests.

In attempts to “fix” the broken education system, the elite and their politicians, disguised as education advocates, point to plans like charter schools as the cure. Charter schools are private schools with their own independent goals and curriculum, but unlike traditional private schools, they receive government funding. Ultimately, they perpetuate a failing system by siphoning millions of dollars away from public school districts. Charters have very little accountability, with no unions, little parent involvement, and minimal oversight. Charters only grant attendance to a limited number of students, often barring disabled students or students with “behavior” issues. They are not an alternative to having a fully funded school district where everyone can have access to quality education.

Oftentimes, the fight for funding pits programs against one another. I saw this in my previous school district, where cuts to 5th grade band and orchestra were pitted against cuts to middle school sports, which were pitted against the closure of a therapy pool.

Instead of feeling like we need to fight one another for scraps, educators, students, and community members need to unite to stand against these abhorrent cuts and fight for full funding.

It’s crucial that students, their parents, and educators fight together to win reforms, like funding for mental health resources or better pay for teachers. But at the end of the day, those wins are constantly under threat from the ruling class under capitalism. And, regardless of what schools are like, the society that working class students enter into when they are done with school is one that only values their productivity as workers, not their quality of life.

Under a socialist society, there is unlimited potential for what schools could be like, and how they could enhance the lives of young people and the entire community. Uniting students, families, educators, non-educational staff, and community members to fight for key demands allows us to wield our collective strength and win serious reforms to our current education system, but also prepares us to fight against the capitalist system as a whole. Alongside the rest of the working class, we can fight for a socialist future where education as a whole is radically transformed. J

SAMMY ALBRIGHT, YALE STUDENT

So much has changed in American politics since college students went home for the summer: Biden had the worst debate performance ever, Trump almost got assassinated, and Kamala Harris replaced Biden. What hasn’t changed is the Israeli military’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza and US funding for it. But will Kamala Harris approach Israel differently than Biden?

While Harris has tried to portray herself as more supportive of a ceasefire than Biden or Trump, her phony posturing is completely hypocritical. She, like all other capitalist politicians, serves US imperialism which is currently in competition with Chinese imperialism to be the dominant world power. This means the US ruling class has an interest in controlling territory and markets all over the world, and they need Israel in order to counter China’s influence in the Middle East.

College campuses were the center of protests last semester, and they should play a key role going forward.

The encampments were incredibly impactful; thousands of students occupied our campuses calling for divestment. The ruling class waged an all-out campaign both rhetorically and through the police: condemning the protests as anti-semitic, and violently beating up students. They were shaken to the core thinking about another 1968 moment.

They know that students can play a crucial role in spurring forward movements to win serious victories, and we should too. Just look at the student-led movement in Bangladesh that, alongside the millions of working people who joined their struggle, recently toppled their

long-time dictator! Unfortunately, our encampments were broadly unsuccessful at winning their most basic demand of divestment, let alone a ceasefire and an end to the occupation.

We should initiate anti-war, antioccupation protests the moment we get back to campus. A weakness of the spring encampments was that the actual organizing was done exclusively by a small group of unelected activists, who faced tremendous pressure. Students, alongside groups like SJP, should call mass action assemblies where we can decide the direction and demands of the movement, as well as elect an accountable leadership. We should specifically launch sub-groups to reach out to unionized campus workers about joining us, like UAW4811 did on UC campuses. These actions should act as hubs to organize a national walkout of both students and campus workers at every single campus on October 7 to commemorate a year of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

At the mass action assemblies, students should decide what demands to fight for. Many encampments were launched on a narrow set of demands with the idea that that would be able to mobilize the most people. In practice, this actually limits the struggle to local campuses, when what we need is to broaden out the struggle as much as possible. A ceasefire, let alone an end to the occupation, cannot be won at individual campuses. Protests must set their scope not just on their administrations, but on the whole capitalist system that breeds war. We need to get organized to fight for revolutionary socialism – in the US and globally. Anyone who agrees should join Socialist Alternative! J

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Y R A N O I T U L O V RE IALISM C O S Fight Why Can’t We Make Capitalism Work?

It can seem like it would be a lot easier to just reform capitalism into a kinder, friendlier, less exploitative version of itself – an idea which Marxists refer to as reformism. While some reformists claim to want revolutionary change in a dim and distant future, others claim that if the working class is organized as a powerful force in society, then you don’t need to take the economy out of the hands of the capitalist class, but can simply force the capitalists to make society better.

The problem is that the working class can’t simply take a primary tool the capitalist class uses to maintain its rule – the capitalist state (which means the government, the police, and other similar institutions) – and use it for our own purposes by winning reforms to make capitalist society somewhat less exploitative. As long as billionaires and massive corporations remain in control – as long as capitalism remains the economic system of society – the market-driven rush for profits will inevitably claw back any pro-worker reforms. Worse, if the working class does try to take control of the state while leaving capitalism intact, as typified in the example of Chile in 1973 and Venezuela today, the bosses can use their wealth, political power, and the police (and army!) to overthrow a pro-worker government if they feel it has gone “too far” in reshaping society.

In the US, our most recent experience with reformism on a mass scale was Bernie Sanders. The central idea of the Bernie campaign was a political revolution against the billionaire class, a message that mobilized millions of young and working people wanting to break with the status quo. But Bernie wasn’t talking about an actual revolution, and he ultimately capitulated to the capitalist Democratic Party.

The enormous political potential of Bernie’s movements were blocked by the Democratic Party leadership both in 2016 and 2020. Both times, Socialist Alternative argued for the need for Bernie to break with the capitalist, corporatebacked Democrats and launch a new independent political party for the working class. A mass workers’ party would need to be free from corporate cash, rooted in unions and movements, with a program that is democratically decided on and candidates that are actually accountable. But as a workers’ party fights for reforms, it brushes up against the limits of what capitalism can offer, which is why an explicitly revolutionary party is ultimately needed to get rid of the system once and for all.

However, elections are neither the central nor the best tool we have, and can’t be the end-goal in themselves. Winning an election is just the beginning of a new stage in the fight to expose the true nature of the parties of the capitalist class and their “democracy”. The bosses will never let the majority of people vote on things that could truly transform our lives, like voting to veto a declaration of war, to end racist policing or mass incarceration, or to nationalize the top 500 corporations and take them under democratic workers’ control, just to name a few.

e h & T hange C o T World The Young people today are living in a world rife with crisis. The cost of living crisis, numerous wars, and a killer climate, just to name a few. It’s no wonder huge sections of young people have absolutely had it. Out of the experience of living through the tumult of this period, many are realizing that we need to fundamentally transform society.

There is a growing openness to socialism and communism among young people who recognize the need to do away with capitalism. Last spring, the Harvard Youth Poll found that only 9% of 18-29 year olds think the country is moving in the right direction. A YouGov 2020 poll showed that 57% of Gen Z and 60% of millennials in the US favor a complete change of our economic system away from capitalism and that 30% of Gen Z and 27% of millennials have a favorable view of Marxism.

However, it’s not enough to be anti-capitalist. Revolutionary socialists argue that the economy can’t be left in the hands of the corporate elite and out-of-touch politicians, who pocket the profits made off the backs of working people. Society runs off our labor, and we know what’s best for our workplaces, schools, and communities. Making society truly democratic, where everyone’s needs are met, will take a political revolution that takes power out of the hands of the rich, and replaces it with public ownership and full democratic control by the working class.

This includes democratic public ownership of key industries and the banks, a planned economy, guaranteed quality public housing, healthcare, transportation, and education for all with a sharing out of work. This means having leaders who are actually accountable, take the average worker’s wage, and are directly recallable. But a socialist transformation of society is fundamentally not possible without going beyond the capitalist system, which will take an almighty clash with the capitalist class.

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ie h p o S y b ll, Scho aukee Milw

Why Socialists Must Be Internationalists

The task of building a united, international movement to overthrow the capitalist system and build a socialist world is challenging, but absolutely necessary. Capitalism strangles the whole world; it’s not possible to beat it in one country and build a new and better system in isolation. The capitalists would use the vast resources at their disposal to defeat any challenge to their system, even uniting across borders to wage all-out war against any country where the working class took power. It will require socialist revolution around the world in order to usher in an era free of capitalist oppression.

Working people everywhere have more in common with one another than they have with the billionaires of their own nation, and it is our task as socialists to drive home that point.

Furthermore, the crises caused by capitalism, like the climate catastrophe, are caused by a drive for profit that is completely global, and will require a coordinated global solution. In the US, Biden has continued and expanded Trump-era drilling, and has committed to increased weapons production (one of the largest sources of pollution in the world) to serve the interests of US imperialism. Meager reforms in the US, such as the production of electric vehicles, are no counterweight to the existential crisis we face. Without global cooperation through an international planned economy, there is no real chance at stopping climate change.

Does Russia Prove Socialism Can’t Work?

A socialist revolution anywhere represents a threat to the capitalists everywhere. As revolutionary socialists, we look to the example of the Bolsheviks in Russia, but we also are aware that many people have misunderstandings or concerns about the example of the USSR, in no small part due to the role played by the Stalinist bureaucracy.

The Soviet Union started off as a state genuinely led by the working class, which had overthrown capitalism and taken power. Under workers’ control, land was nationalized, housing and healthcare were provided, abortion was free and legal, and LGBTQ people and women were granted full rights.

Before revolutions happen, they seem impossible. In their aftermath, they seem to have always been inevitable.

However, due to its international isolation, underdeveloped industries, and the fact that it had to defend against the invasion of over twenty capitalist armies trying to overthrow its worker’s state, the revolution degenerated. The underdevelopment of Russia at the time really can’t be understated; only around 40% of the population had any degree of literacy at all, and literacy among the workers and peasants was lower still. Also the vast majority of the country were peasants, while the working class was only 8% of the population (although very powerful due to their

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concentration in large factories).

Faced with this level of underdevelopment – with no help from abroad – the working class was forced to leave many bureaucrats from the old Tsarist regime in their roles. This bureaucracy was eventually able to consolidate power and conduct repeated purges of the working-class leaders of the revolution. It seized an opportunity to take power into its hands, with Stalin at its head. Stalin advanced the theory of “socialism in one country” – the opposite of Marxist internationalism.

Rather than focusing on an international socialist revolution to develop the economy of the USSR, Stalin first reintroduced parts of capitalist exploitation, telling rural landlords to “enrich themselves”. Then later Stalin zig-zagged in the other direction and turned towards gulags and forced labor to modernize the USSR. The bureaucracy shut down the power of workers committees (soviets) from running society. It ended the democratic rights of the working class in Russia by ending its ability to govern through working-class control over the state economy.

Trotsky launched the Left Opposition to oppose this, but Stalin’s fumbling of other international revolutions like in China in 1927 actually strengthened the Soviet bureaucracy.

As the only viable alternative to capitalism, Stalinist ideas shaped all revolutions that followed. In China in 1949, a peasant army led by Mao Tsedung overthrew a vicious capitalist class linked to colonial exploitation. As a government, the Chinese Communist Party had a dismissive attitude towards the working class and internationalism, instead developing their national economy by relying on imperialist countries like the US. The Chinese Communist Party is now essentially the ruling class of Chinese capitalism, and its leader Xi Jiping is a multi-billionaire.

Different variations of Stalin’s counter-revolutionary theory of “socialism in one country” shaped revolutions in Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, Cambodia, and more. Even explicitly nonMarxist groups like the Ba’ath Party in Iraq and Syria, Ghaddafi in Libya, and many other former colonial countries leaned on the bureaucratic features of the Stalinist USSR to develop their economies, and today all these countries are capitalist with their own ruling classes and their own forms of vicious exploitation. What made all of this possible was a deadly hostility to genuine Marxist internationalism.

The Need For Democratic Workers’ Control Nevertheless, the experience of the USSR’s planned economy demonstrated to many workers around the world the viability of a planned economy not governed by the profit motive. Within the span of a few decades, the USSR’s planned economy took many of the most underdeveloped countries in the world and rapidly brought them up to speed with the rest of the industrialized world.

In fact, in some areas the USSR even outstripped the capitalist countries in terms of advancement. For example: in the first few decades of the USSR, life expectancy dramatically rose to eventually equal that of the US. This was in part influenced by the large emphasis placed on improving medical care in the Soviet Union; by the 1970’s the USSR had more doctors and hospital beds per capita than the United States.

The USSR also began to technologically rival imperialist powerhouses like the US, and in some cases even outstripped them, like in the 1960s when the USSR became the first country to put a satellite in space.

There have been many attempts to transform society in the image of the bureaucratic Stalinist USSR, with state control of the economy, but without the working class itself actually wielding political power. Examples of this are states built on the Stalinist model from the very beginning, such as China prior to the restoration of capitalism in the late 20th century, and also Cuba. These examples demonstrate that a planned economy needs democratic control by the masses in the same way a human body needs oxygen.

Decades of suffocating repressive bureaucratic rule and mismanagement by Stalinist regimes has often led to economic stagnation and even regression, with workers’ living standards falling and shortages of many basic items. These so-called communist dictatorships’ use of socialist terminology to justify their misdeeds discredited socialism among big sections of the population globally.

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The Role Of The Working Class In the modern era, the only force capable of changing the world and overthrowing capitalism is the united working class.

Our definition of the working class includes all those who work for a living and receive wages or salaries in exchange for their labor. The power of the working class is clearly evident during outbreaks in the class struggle, such as the UAW Big Three auto strike in 2023, the current Amazon unionization drives, and the large numbers of nurses and teachers moving into struggle.

Strikes, especially mass strikes, along with demonstrations and campaigns for reforms, can play a critical role in challenging the power of the capitalist class and showing workers and young people everywhere what is possible. General strikes and uprisings are among the sharpest weapons of working class liberation. However, these outpourings of energy can be dissipated unless they are successful in winning tangible gains. The capitalist class and its political servants do everything they can to confuse, curb, or crush the movement.

It is due to the often chaotic and fast-paced nature of revolutionary struggle that revolutionary leadership must be steeled before revolution breaks out. The Russian Revolution showed that the working class needs to develop revolutionary leadership – an organization made up of the sections of the working class, oppressed, and youth. We call this the revolutionary party. This party needs to be embedded deeply in the movements of working and young people, and most especially in the labor movement through the established unions.

It needs to have a clear set of ideas, a clear program, that can combat the ideas the bosses use to distract and divide workers like racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression.

If carried out correctly, the revolutionary leaders in this party would then be positioned, during a powerful or revolutionary movement, to point to the need for the working class to overthrow capitalism entirely in order to win any real, long-term gains.

The party we need to build needs to not only be present in the workplace fighting on issues of pay, but would also need to take up the fight against all forms of oppression, the fight against war and imperialism, the fight against climate change, and all the other crises of capitalism. It must be opposed to the parties of the bosses, exposing their lies and shortcomings, as opposed to working with them in a cross-class partnership.

The revolutionary party would need to play a leading role in social struggle alongside the rest of the working class – however it is the inherent power of the larger working class, not the revolutionary party itself, that can transform society.

Socialist Alternative is a revolutionary organization that aims to develop working-class leaders to prepare to take part in forming the revolutionary party that can help lead the working class to victory. We are part of International Socialist Alternative, which has sections all over the world.

Developing capable revolutionary leadership is one of our primary tasks today, alongside rebuilding the broader left and the labor movement. These are not simple matters; at times it can seem like the task before us is too great to ever be achieved. Before revolutions happen, they seem impossible.

In their aftermath, they seem to have always been inevitable.

The truth is that a future where humanity is liberated from the oppressive yoke of class society is neither impossible, nor guaranteed. We can shape the future only through active struggle against the oppressor class. The crises of capitalism are brewing what could be its greatest catastrophes yet, and the workers and young people of today have a choice to make: whether we will declare the fight hopeless before its greatest battles even arrive, or whether we will take up the fight to free humanity from exploitation and oppression and build a new world. J

International Socialist Alternative in action!

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AI & TECH

RECLAIMING TECHNOLOGY FROM THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS

by Matthew Gliboff, Seattle

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lobally, wealth inequality is on the rise. Of the 10 richest people in the world (all worth more than $100 Billion), 8 are involved in the US technology industry. This includes CEOs of social media companies like Facebook and X, which extract value from our desire to socialize with one another in public spaces on the internet.

As AI technology achieved a qualitative leap in its capabilities over the past few years, tech companies saw a new moneypot.

Despite the huge amount of money these billionaires have made, they have not used technology to make life better for average people. Cell phones get more expensive and less durable every year. Google Search has gradually become worse, burying useful information behind ads and launching an AI banner which confidently states false information. AI products largely are not useful investments in a better world, but ways for companies to pay fewer workers. It’s fine with Google if the product is worse, as long as costs go down. However, even on its own profit-seeking terms, AI’s success is overshadowed by a bubble of corporate grifters and gambling on speculative claims about future performance. Tech companies grew up in an era of extremely cheap loans after the 2008 financial crash. Companies did not use this money to invest in a safe and healthy future, but instead inserted themselves into our lives and became inescapable. Facebook renamed itself to Meta and has lost around $46.5 billion since 2019 pursuing virtual reality offices that no one asked for. Uber’s main innovation has been new ways to get around labor laws.

AI Bubble Currently, the mainstay of capital investments in technology is the AI bubble. Over $200 billion globally is invested in companies producing AI tools like large language models or voice assistants. This is driving massive investments in companies like the chip designer NVIDIA. NVIDIA made nearly

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$80 billion dollars last year, and its speculative value skyrocketed to $1 trillion based on the idea that AI will continue to grow exponentially, as will the need for new computer chips.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen unbelievable claims around AI: that chatbots will replace teachers, doctors, and office workers; boost productivity; or even develop sentience. Now we can see the reality. We have AI tools that we didn’t ask for built into our phones and into Google Search. These are tools which can be sometimes helpful but routinely make errors and spout nonsense.

AI tools used by companies haven’t raised economic productivity. In spite of the bubble, OpenAI is on track to lose $5 Billion this year. The main “success” has been deskilling workers like call center or helpline workers, or using a buggy AI tool to deny health insurance claims for the elderly.

These aren’t growing pains. Data scientists have shown that general purpose large language models have reached a point of diminishing returns. The strength of a model like ChatGPT is its volume of training data and the current model is already trained on the entire internet and history of human writing. Better large language models may be possible for focused applications, but these require a lot of human labor, with experts curating a data set for a specialized purpose like medicine or science. AI companies aren’t interested in making focused investments for better tools like these, only in stealing your writing and art to use as training data.

This isn’t a new problem for capitalism. Every investment in automation gets more expensive, reduces costs by a smaller amount, and results in workers losing their jobs.

Inter-Imperialist Conflict AI has also been in the news regarding the ongoing wars on Gaza and Ukraine. In Ukraine, drone warfare has seen record usage. In Israel, the army uses a computer system to identify socalled targets in Gaza.

In reality, this system is finding increasingly tenuous reasons to kill civilians for any possible connections to Hamas, and mostly produces entire families as targets. In both cases, the threat is not some future hostile intelligence but the increased detachment

and bypassing of the conscience of soldiers.

So, what is keeping AI going? We can look to US government policies like the CHIPS act, sending public money to support factories for computer chips and data centers in the US. The CHIPS act is part of the interimperialist conflict against China, with the US moving strategic production to more “friendly” locations that are better under US influence and control. This comes amidst global overproduction of computer chips, and AI projects provide artificial demand for these new chips.

Real innovation requires the ability for working people to make changes from the bottom up and wield our creativity and expertise.

Environmental Impact Recently, the US sent $400 million to Taiwan’s GlobalWafers to build a semiconductor factory in Texas. Electricity is cheap in Texas’ deregulated electricity market and these factories use a lot of electricity. Microsoft is already the largest consumer of electricity in Texas through its data centers, largely for the

computational power to run AI models like ChatGPT. The data centers and computer chip factories planned in the US will double to 35 gigawatts by 2030, consuming nearly half of all planned renewable energy projects and offsetting our paltry progress on fighting climate change.

These investments prioritize companies and leave regular citizens with crumbling infrastructure. The deregulated electricity grid in Texas is in shambles, and extreme weather leaves millions without power for days. Extreme cold weather in 2021 caused weeks long blackouts which left 246 dead and 12 million people with burst pipes or other major expenses. This year, a hurricane left 2.6 million people without power for 10 days during a heat wave, and 23 people died as a result. During these outages, corporate clients like Microsoft were given priority over the lives of working people, and did not lose power. These extreme weather events will only become more common as climate change continues unaddressed.

We cannot rely on capitalism to solve its own problems. Energy investment is weighted 95% towards making oil extraction more profitable, prolonging the lifetime of fossil fuel infrastructure. Capitalists have spent money to build pipelines, drilling rigs, energy-hogging data centers and other expensive infrastructure without a long-term vision. Wind power costs as low as 1/10th to produce compared to fossil power, but the fossil company infrastructure exists, and at this point amounts to free money for its investors – they will not give that up without a fight. Climate change is an urgent problem that requires action – it cannot wait 100 years until we run out of oil to begin solving it.

Break From Capitalism Tools like AI could actually be made more useful and save us time doing undesirable work. If working people had a say, we could invest in automation that makes our jobs easier without worrying about profit. Workers could have a sliding scale of hours that means if your job takes less time, then you get more time back with no loss in pay. Autoworkers in the UAW fought for a 4-day workweek in their strike last year, as the building of electric vehicles takes fewer hours than building a gasoline powered car.

They didn’t win that, but it showed what working people should demand in the era of increased automation.

Real innovation requires the ability for working people to make changes from the bottom up and wield their creativity and expertise. We need to bring technology and energy companies into democratic public ownership.

This means working people would have direct control over how these companies run, to ensure they function for the public good rather than short-term profit seeking. What will fix climate change is investment in our basic infrastructure and prioritizing our resources in a way that benefits regular people, not massive corporations. New technology can be used to improve our lives and reduce our workloads, but only if workers have control over what investments are made and how these technologies are used. J

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FIGHTING RACISM

Sonya Massey Murdered By Police:

The Whole System is Guilty

At 12:50 AM on July 6th, Sonya Massey called the police in suspicion of a “prowler” in her neighborhood. Two police officers arrived, including Officer Sean Grayson who would later shoot Sonya three times in the face, killing her instantly.

Sonya invited the two cops into her home. She was boiling water previously. She approached the stove and turned it off at the officer’s request. The two cops backed away, and she asked why they were backing up.

Officer Grayson said because you are near boiling water, to which she responded in a non-hostile way, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Grayson, agitated, threatened to shoot her in the face. Sean and the other officer raised and pointed their guns at her. Sonya muttered, “I’m sorry” before raising her hands to comply, as Grayson shot her three times in the face.

After being discharged from the Army for serious misconduct, being arrested twice for driving while intoxicated, Grayson was passed around six Illinois agencies. It doesn’t take an empath to understand when a cop like Grayson literally stops his partner from helping mortally-wounded Massey as to not “waste his supplies”, and proceeds to call her a “fucking crazy bitch”, that we have a dangerously toxic, racist culture of law enforcement in the United States.

This is not simply an issue of a deeply sick cop, but more importantly, of every authority that allowed him to be in an unchecked position of power. Reformist remedies such as body cams have no checks in a dehumanizing police culture, seen here, when Grayson turned off his body camera before the shooting.

The system is designed to look the other way, whether it be from a legal perspective, or a social one.

Police and other first responders fill the

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massive gaps in the underfunded social safety net, but their fundamental role is to protect the ruling elite and their profits. Their role exists to enforce the subjugation of the working class and marginalized in order for capitalists to exploit for profit. This is accomplished through the intimidation of vulnerable working-class populations – through harassment, brutal violence, and cold-blooded murder.

The police are ultimately tasked with maintaining “law and order” for the wealthy, which fundamentally means the suppression of working-class communities. Cops do not primarily exist to solve crimes, or respond to working people when they actually need assistance, though occasionally they also fulfill that role in order to maintain legitimacy in the eyes of most working people.

The capitalist ruling class creates all sorts of obfuscations to sell the lie of “law and order”. Hell, lawyers must go to school for years to learn the law, yet most police officers train for six months, and supposedly “enforce the law”.

And while the Democrats might cozy up with progressive NGOs, they do not act on a federal or local level to even do the bare minimum of reforms to the criminal system.

The working class is fed lie after lie about the police’s true role in this country, which in reality is to enforce state violence to uphold the ruling class’s power structures.

Because the 2020 George Floyd protests failed to directly challenge the Democrats, it allowed them to step in and redirect the movement toward supporting Democratic administrations that continued business as usual. Police budgets have continued to increase under Joe Biden’s administration, and in Democrat-run cities like Atlanta, Chicago, and New York.

The ruling class cannot reduce their repression of the masses as the cost of living increases and cornerstones of community infrastructure crumble. This inevitable worsening of society under capitalism

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leads to increased crime but also to outrage among working people at ruling institutions. To hold on to their wealth, they must beat us back. Access to healthcare, and funding for libraries and social services are dropped by both parties in favor of pouring billions of dollars into police budgets, funding over-militarized police training centers, and committing violence against protesting students, workers, and minorities.

Don’t expect Kamala Harris nor Trump to do anything about the deaths of Black people like Massey, and countless others. Harris’s background as a “prosecutor” versus the felon Donald Trump stands in sharp contrast to the reality of militarized policing and ever-increasing mass incarceration in Black working-class communities.

The genuine fears of working people, especially Black communities, about gun violence and the near-daily mass shootings across the country are understandable. However, police departments don’t exist to protect us,

and they don’t actually stop or decrease the amount of crime our communities face.

Law enforcement in the United States will never be just or effective at stopping crime under capitalism, especially because the poverty and alienation that capitalism causes is at the root of the majority of crimes. The function of law enforcement is to protect private property and the financial interests of the ruling class.

“Cop Cities” (or “urban warfare” training facilities) and militarized police must go. Ban police use of “crowd control” weapons and disarm police officers on patrol. Police training and background checks must be extensive, and ties to white supremacy or hate groups cannot be tolerated. Bloated police budgets need to be cut at least 50%, to reallocate towards housing, education, and social services. These demands give weight to police reform.

Improving the conditions that lead to crime is the only way to prevent it. The ruling class will use non-local officers to police in Black communities specifically to create a basis for intimidation and cultural miscommunication. Law enforcement should be put under the control of democratically-elected civilian boards with power over hiring and firing, reviewing budget priorities, and the power to subpoena. J

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LABOR MOVEMENT

WORKERS STRIKE AMAZON’S DEATH STAR IAN RIVERO, CINCINNATI

On July 19th, 75 Amazon workers marched into Amazon’s largest Airhub in the world demanding more pay for Prime Days, safer working conditions, and day one benefits. It was one of several confrontations between workers and the bosses at Amazon’s 1.5 billion dollar KCVG facility, known internally as the “Death Star.”

Five days after the march, these same workers were out on the picket lines leading a ULP (Unfair Labour Practice) strike against Amazon.

The morning of the strike, Amazon panicked. The company sent threatening messages to their workers, blocked streets, and even tried to bribe workers with nasty frozen meal boxes. The workers acted quickly to get the word out. Inside every department, coworkers were asking each other, “Are you ready to blow the whistle on Amazon’s union-busting?”

Since the start of the union drive at KCVG, pro-union workers have been targeted with severe retaliation by the corporate goliath. 11 pro-union workers were given final warnings after standing up to management. Amazon has no shame in illegal spying, harassment, intimidation, as well as demoting pro-union workers to protect their power.

Amazon is currently on trial for their illegal, dirty tactics. While it is significant for the National Labor Relations Board to come forward and expose Amazon’s lies, it is as important for workers to show the company they aren’t backing down.

KCVG workers have affiliated with the Teamsters union, which has over a

million members including over 300,000 workers at UPS. The morning of the strike, Teamster organizers were preparing multiple picket lines outside the facility.

KCVG workers were not alone in the strike – they were joined by Amazon Teamsters from Skokie, Illinois and DHL8, local labor leaders, and community supporters. At exactly 1pm you could hear a whistle blow across all departments. Workers walked off the job and joined the picket line, chanting, “Who are we? TEAMSTERS!” Jared, a KCVG worker, had this to say at the pickets: “Without us this [facility] doesn’t operate. Without us Jeff Bezos doesn’t fill his pockets…

Amazon is a multi-billion dollar company and right now they’re afraid of just a few hundred workers. What does that tell you about the leverage we have?”

Amazon was able to rake in $30.4 billion in profits last year, but not a dime from those profits was used to improve the conditions for the 4000 workers that keep the KCVG facility running. KCVG alone is on track to carry 40% of Amazon’s air cargo. Every worker that joins the fight to unionize at KCVG can have an outsized impact in disrupting Amazon’s profits and putting pressure on the corporate behemoth.

After the initial pickets, workers held a short rally where we heard from Ebony, an Amazon worker from Skokie, Illinois, where

she and her coworkers are also on strike to demand union recognition. It is crucial that Amazon workers are willing to take collective action across the country in common struggle. As Ebony put it, “we all have the same struggle, and we all have the same enemy now.”

Across the street from KCVG is the DHL air hub, where ramp workers successfully unionized to win better pay, zero-premium healthcare, and an end to firing season just last year. Tom, a DHL8 worker, warned against being intimidated by Amazon, saying, “Your work is leveraged against you to create

billions for a corporation that doesn’t care about you…These things can be overcome, but only if we stand strong, get organized and become part of your local union. Make these things happen!”

The example of KCVG is pointing the way for a future of Amazon workers across the country, towards a class-struggle approach to fighting billionaires like Jeff Bezos. United alongside collective and coordinated actions with other Amazon workers in every state, we can unionize Amazon everywhere! J

NALC: Union Letter Carriers Confront the Renfroe Regime TY NOLAN, BOSTON Over 5000 USPS letter carriers met for the NALC (National Association of Letter Carriers) national convention. They’re the nation’s largest unionized workforce, and they move roughly 40% of all Amazon’s packages.

This convention comes at a decisive moment for the union. NALC President Brian Renfroe is caught up in a series of corruption charges on top of the general discontent with decades of bad contracts at USPS under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Many work 60+ hours a week with forced overtime. Wages have slid back dramatically which has only been exacerbated by recent inflation, and the introduction of the tier-system has put new hires even further behind. One letter carrier at the convention stated if wages stayed in line with

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inflation since he started at USPS, starting wage would be $31/hour today. Instead, many carriers start closer to $19.

With frustration boiling over, little to no updates on negotiations are given to the workers who often quit in desperation, and there remains a real possibility carriers won’t have any chance at all to vote on their own contract with the looming threat of federal mediation.

The Rank and File vs. Renfroe The story of the convention is the rank and file anger permeating throughout the week. The crisis of the Renfroe regime and at the post office has led to major openings for reformers. The reform slate Concerned Letter Carriers and Mike Caref are challenging Renfroe in the 2026 election. The militant rank and file group BFN (Build a Fighting NALC), is not running a candidate, but is uniting letter carriers around a fighting program: • Open bargaining

• $30/starting wage • End mandatory OT • Worker’s wage for union officers • Right to strike

Open bargaining is part of a broader strategy by BFN to advocate for the union to mobilize rank-and-file letter carriers to fight for a strong contract. 40 local branches signed on. A motion they put forward called for rallies to build public support and regular updates of specifics. The approach is similar to what was seen at UAW in the lead up to the “Big Three” strike which won a record contract for auto workers. UAW gave regular updates on specifics to engage union members and build public support in advance of a strike.

Open bargaining posed a real threat to the NALC leadership who want to avoid all accountability for any giveaway deals negotiated. They openly opposed Open Bargaining, launched a campaign for it throughout union structures, and put it in writing in

mid-July in an email to all members. However, sensing the shifting tide in support of open bargaining, the Renfroe regime recommended for approval their own slightly watered down version of open bargaining, which passed. This shows future potential to make bigger gains, and what can be won through rank-and-file organizing.

However, the fight is far from over. Letter carriers will have to continue building pressure to receive real updates in negotiations.

BFN received huge cheers for demanding the union to fight for the right to strike, showing the popularity of a more fighting approach. It is currently illegal for letter carriers to strike, but to accept this is to accept fighting with one arm behind your back. The last time letter carriers went on strike was 1970, where NYC carriers started an illegal wildcat strike that spread like wildfire and won huge gains.

Following the convention, dozens of carriers spoke of wanting to build BFN in their local area. After you’re done reading this paper, let your letter carrier know about Build a Fighting NALC to help spread the movement! J

socialistalternative.org

IMMIGRATION

Socialist Answers To The Immigration Crisis

IAN COOPER-SMITH, LOS ANGELES With the 2024 election only three months away, immigration has become a hot-button issue at the forefront of American electoral politics. This year has seen a surge of immigration, as millions flee deteriorating political and economic conditions, war, and poverty.

This recent influx, particularly on the USMexico border, has triggered a crisis that neither the Democrats nor GOP are willing to solve. Instead, anti-immigrant rhetoric is ramping up, and migrants are pitted against US-born workers. While right-wing Texas state governor Greg Abbott has spent $150 million bussing migrants to sanctuary cities, Democratic governors in cities like New York and Chicago house migrants in desolate conditions while complaining about high public expenditure. This drives anti-immigrant sentiment among working people.

Growing global instability caused by climate change will only increase immigration as more climate refugees are displaced from their homes by natural disasters, droughts, and other extreme weather events. Rising global immigration has already taken a central role in European politics. The far-right has been able to grow by weaponizing the anxiety of working people facing inflation, wages, and cuts to social spending, and the failures

SEPTEMBER 2024

of the left in addressing those issues.

In France, the far-right won twice as much of the vote as President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party in the EU elections on a nationalist, anti-immigration platform. Similarly, the Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni doubled her party’s seats in the assembly on a similar ticket. In Britain, the far right has used a mass stabbing in Southport to stir up racialized, xenophobic violence against Muslim communities. Let’s be clear about what the rise of the right and attacks on immigrants represent – the scapegoating of the oppressed in the face of a system that is failing all working people.

Faced with a crisis of profitability, the US corporate elite similarly encourages US-born workers to blame their problems on immigrants “stealing jobs”. In his interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump, in between his racist rants questioning Kamala Harris’s racial identity, dedicated most of his time to fearmongering around immigration. Trump’s absurd proclamation on the protection of “Black jobs” from immigrant workers is an attempt to sow divisions between the Black working class and other workers.

The Democrats, unfortunately, use antiimmigrant talking points that are no better – claiming immigration is “good for the economy” because “immigrants do jobs Americans won’t do”. Democrat politicians

say this after Biden expedited the construction of Trump’s wall, signed an executive order to enact a near-total ban on immigration, and oversaw the cruel deportation of Haitian refugees amid violent unrest and political instability.

Bosses use deportation to keep immigrants in a vulnerable position while continuing to depress wages.

Capitalists make a show of deporting some of the most vulnerable immigrants, claiming that they are “cracking down”, but they can never carry out mass deportation on a scale that would threaten their labor pool.

Deportations not only destroy the lives of migrant workers, but are an expensive waste of taxpayer money. Trump’s recent promise to carry out the largest deportation in history reflects the boss’s need to prevent immigrant-inclusive labor organizing.

Although immigration has little to no effect on the Black employment rate, sanctuary cities have subsequently received pushback from historically marginalized groups, most notably Black residents who often lack access to affordable housing, face worsening living conditions, and increasing job insecurity. Growing resentment within marginalized communities is reflected in a sentiment that cities should “take care of their own” before housing and feeding migrants, a sentiment felt by many working people, especially as homelessness reaches a record high in the U.S. and the Biden administration continues to send billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine and Israel. Black workers feel the pressures of job insecurity more acutely, and the unemployment rate for Black Americans is the highest of any racial or ethnic group.

Layers of Black workers are particularly vulnerable to populist, anti-immigrant appeals promising job security. This is the ruling class’s divided-and-conquer strategy on full display.

All workers, regardless of nationality, share the same interest in struggling against

the bosses. Scarcity in terms of wages and jobs are controlled and imposed by capitalists upon the working class while they hoard the wealth created by workers, immigrant or otherwise. The bosses use immigrant labor to depress wages and limit hiring to ensure profits. Immigrant labor under capitalism is crucial for staffing low-paid and “unskilled” jobs to maximize profits and cut wages.

Questionable legal status and language barriers leave immigrant workers vulnerable and less able to protect their rights in the workplace or pursue better job opportunities. In turn, the ruling class can use immigrants as scapegoats for all manner of social ills under capitalism, such as crime and underfunded social services. Workers in the US have felt pressure between inflation, low wages, and soaring costs of living.

The ability for immigrant workers and USborn workers to improve wages and living conditions is impossible without them uniting in struggle against the bosses, thus the labor movement must fight against right-wing attacks on immigrants. Collective demands that raise wages and living conditions and for all workers regardless of immigration status denies the capitalist class its tool to divide workers. Union workers have to demand shorter work weeks with no loss in pay. For capitalists to produce at the same rate, they would be forced to create more jobs with living wages, raising living standards for immigrants and US-born workers alike. Forcing capitalists to hire more labor without loss in pay robs capitalists of the leverage they utilize to keep immigrant labor subdued for fear of reprisal.

Workers may need to struggle against their own union administrations to raise those demands, as labor leaders like Sean O’Brien, the president of the Teamsters, use their position in the union to parrot the ruling class’s nationalist slogans. Sean O’Brien delivered a speech to the RNC in which he was very clear in his stance on “protecting” American workers. He called on both sides of Congress to enact trade policies that “put American workers first”, and keep companies in America. Labor leaders should be calling for good union jobs, not just for American workers but for all workers.

Unions must organize immigrant workers, full acceptance of all workers, demand jobs, not deportations, and shorter work weeks without a loss in pay. The ruling class claims that the US working class cannot afford to accept immigrants. That could not be further from the truth, in fact, it is the capitalists who must pay up to fully employ the workforce. It is crucial that solidarity between immigrant workers and US-born workers is built around a program that targets the bosses as the enemy, not each other.

Workers should own the economy, rather than the economy owning us. J

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JOIN SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE Socialist Alternative is a national organization fighting in our workplaces, communities, and campuses against the exploitation and injustices people face every day. We see the global capitalist system as the root cause of the economic crisis, poverty, discrimination, war, and environmental destruction.

Socialist Alternative is the organization that spearheaded the campaign to elect Kshama Sawant to Seattle City Council in 2013, the first independent socialist elected in a major US city in

decades. We then led the successful campaign to win a $15 minimum wage in Seattle, and are now spearheading fights by Amazon workers and letter carriers to win a $30/hr starting wage.

As capitalism moves deeper into crisis, a new generation of workers and youth must join together to end the ruling elites’ global competition for profits and power. We are for a democratic socialist world where ordinary people will have control over our everday lives.

How Kenya’s “Gen Z Protests” Beat Back Price Hikes

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foreign capitalists extract from working people. No matter who holds office, if they support capitalism, they will be beholden to the International Monetary Fund and other debtors.

Throughout August, weekly protests have continued in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, but as time goes on they have grown smaller. Democratic decision-making structures are needed to debate the way forward and to organize future struggle. Demands should go beyond merely replacing Ruto, and point toward replacing the system as a whole. System change will require the wider working class to get organized in the streets and in their workplaces. Labor unions will need to join the struggle, along with small farmers who comprise a majority of Kenyan workers.

Unemployed youth, workers, and farmers are all subject to the same abuse at the hands of the political elite in order to

by Hannah Swoboda, Seattle serve the interests of local and foreign capitalists. The working masses need their own pay the country’s debt, senators pay political voice, a workers’ party to fight themselves upwards of $80,000 per the capitalists and the IMF. year, compared to the $2,000 the averLast year, the Ruto administration age Kenyan earns. Ruto himself is one of Kenya’s richest men, and his cabi- announced its plans to address Kenya’s net is one of the wealthiest and most debt crisis by selling off 35 stateunpopular groups of politicians in the owned companies. This would discountry’s history. The protests are mantle essential industries that millions fighting to drive out Ruto and his whole depend on and worsen unemployment government. Ruto dismissed nearly his across the country, all in a bid to generwhole cabinet under the pressure of the ate more profit to repay debt. Workers height of protests, but later just reap- and youth should fight back against any privatizations. In order for any national pointed many of them!

The protest movement has united industry to adequately serve the needs around the slogan “leaderless, party- of working people, however, it will need less and tribeless”. This new generation to be democratically planned by workof protesters is rejecting the historic ers, to ensure that Kenya’s vast natural ethnic divisions introduced during colo- resources are used to improve the lives nization by the British in order to aid of ordinary people rather than to let the their plundering of Kenya’s resources, rich get richer.

The anger manifesting into protest in which the Kenyan ruling class has conKenya is not an isolated phenomenon. tinued. And this time, the traditional The protests in Kenya were a spark that opposition parties play no role in the inspired hundreds of thousands to take protests. History has shown these to be the same sort of false promises Ruto to the streets all across Nigeria in #EndBadGovernance protests in August that made on his campaign trail.

But there is a downside to the move- were met with heavy repression. Days ment’s lack of leadership. The Black before, young Ugandans inspired by Lives Matter protests of 2020 – the the example of Kenya protested governlargest protest movement in the history ment corruption as well. Governments of the U.S. to date – hold an important in other countries have reason to fear lesson: week after week of heroic street further spread of the protests.

From economic crisis to climate protests alone will not be enough to change, bleak prospects for the future win significant or lasting change. The are something that young people in bill was defeated by the mass revolt, every country are feeling more and but the government, big business, the military and imperialism remain. Der- more. The capitalist system has got to rick Chauvin and other racist police go. Replacing it with an economy that aren’t “bad apples” – they’re part of actually serves the interests of ordinary a rotten system. Similarly, Ruto and people, a socialist economy, is an interother politicians are part of a corrupt national task for all working people and clique that serves a vital role in capital- youth, who have more in common with ist society. The vast sums these politi- one another across national lines than cians steal from taxpayers pale in com- they do with CEOs and politicians in parison to the billions they are helping their own country. J

Protests have rocked Kenya since June, opposing a widely unpopular finance bill that would have meant dramatic price hikes on basic food items.

Despite a brutal police crackdown on protests resulting in over 50 deaths and dozens of disappearances, the president was forced to withdraw the bill in less than two days. The protest wave has been largely led by young people, many protesting for the first time.

Before the current president William Ruto took office, Kenyans were already struggling with high inflation and unemployment that has made day to day life unbearable for many. Ruto was voted into office because of his promises to lower the cost of living, implement economic relief programs, and to uplift who he referred to as “hustlers”, hard-working people in the informal economy.

Instead, he cut food, fuel, and electricity subsidies, increasing costs for working and young people. Ruto’s 2024 Finance Bill was the last straw. This bill would have further raised the cost of many basic goods, including a 16% tax on bread and a 25% tax on cooking oil.

Young Kenyans in particular have been suffering the brunt of the cost of living crisis. Their job prospects are bleak. The majority of unemployed people are recent college graduates, finding they stand no chance at securing work unless they come from wealthy families that can pull the strings for them. Ruto campaigned on the promise of creating a million jobs, but the roughly one million young people graduating from schools in Kenya every year have not seen the results.

The protests correctly see Ruto as allied with massive debt-collecting banks like the IMF and Western imperialism. While increasing food costs to

socialistalternative.org

FAR RIGHT DEFEATED IN FRENCH ELECTIONS ERIN BRIGHTWELL, BAY AREA What just happened in France offers important lessons for all those who are understandably terrified about the rise of right populism. The rise of the farright Rassemblement National, and their vicious anti-immigrant program, posed a major threat as the second round of elections to the National Assembly approached in France this summer.

Would this be the moment where the RN broke through, after steadily gaining ground over years of pro-capitalist, centrist political regimes?

However, the results of the second round were a triumph not for the far right, but for the left, organized into the Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front, NFP), a coalition of four parties. By breaking with Macron’s centrist policies and offering a real alternative for workingclass and young people, these parties massively increased voter turnout. The far right was defeated at the ballot box and relegated to a third place finish, with the new left coalition finishing with the most seats.

This result came as a huge relief to a whole section of French society who are horrified by the racist and generally reactionary views of the far right. However, the way forward for French working people and youth is not fully clear, and the fight against the far right is far from over.

The RN campaigned for the European elections earlier this year on a program of economic populism, including a promise to return the retirement age to 62. Despite 18 months of strikes and protests in 2022, Macron achieved his goal of increasing the retirement age to 64, but was forced to do it by presidential decree. As the RN edged closer to holding power when it looked like they might win the most seats in the Assembly, parliamentary leader Jordan Bardella reneged on the retirement promise, reassuring the capitalist class that the RN doesn’t have real intentions of leading pro-worker reforms.

The government is essentially frozen, with the prime minister from Macron’s party held over as a caretaker. After 16 days of intense negotiations, the NFP agreed to their own candidate for prime minister, a little-known civil servant and

VENEZUELA’S ELECTION CHAOS GEORGE BROWN, MADISON

Exit polls showed opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzales more than doubling the vote of incumbent Nicolas Maduro, winning 65% to 31%. The day after the elections, protesters, some

SEPTEMBER 2024

activist, Lucie Castets. Macron immediately rejected Castets, and is insisting that a candidate can be found that appeals to a majority of the Assembly, despite the fact that the Assembly is split three ways. This shows how when politicians like Macron call for “unity”, what they really mean is for working class people to drop their ambitions and demands for the “greater good” of preserving a functional government for capitalism.

Castets is reportedly using the political “Olympic Truce” declared by Macron to tour the country and build support for her candidacy. In an interview on July 28, she said that she would be prepared to compromise with any political party other than the right-wing RN. Meanwhile, Macron’s aides are shopping a plan for a consensus-based government that would appeal to the left and the right. Castets and the NFP are in danger of making the same error as the Macron plan for a consensus government – moving toward a political center which is rapidly crumbling.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (France Unbowed, LFI) is the most dynamic and left wing party in the NFP, and will continue to be under pressure from within the NFP to moderate its more radical demands. LFI is subjected to a campaign of attacks and slander by the mainstream media and political establishment because the capitalist class is completely opposed to LFI’s key demands: raise the minimum wage, repeal Macron’s hated retirement reform, and raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

By contrast, the answer offered by the RN, racist scapegoating of immigrants, is not only divisive and hateful, but it doesn’t solve the problem of the sinking quality of life that the right wing says it does. This is why it’s essential for the left not to drop its pro-working class program, even if it brings down Marcron’s “unity” government. Working class and young people, not liberal capitalists, are the only force that can beat back the far right once and for all.

The capitalists are not afraid to fight for their profits no matter what. The French government is under pressure to reduce its debt, which is among the highest in the EU, and it will cut services regardless of the skin color or birth country of the

people who use those services.

Ultimately, capitalism is in crisis all across the globe, unable to make the same level of profits it once did. All political parties will come under pressure from financial markets and the capitalist class of their countries to make cuts to the things working people need, in order to make capitalism in that country more “competitive”. Only a party and politicians that are truly politically independent from the demands of the capitalists and based on the power of the working class can successfully resist this pressure in the long term.

Macron is very unlikely to accept Castets as the new prime minister. Enormous pressure will mount on the NFP from financial markets to accept a compromise government, particularly because the French constitution prohibits another election for at least 12 months. Macron will likely seek to split the Socialist Party and Greens away from LFI and assemble a capitalist coalition over the heads of French voters with a bare majority.

This kind of centrist government, which implemented policies demanded by capitalist markets would have no popular mandate, would attack the working class and would actually be a driver of votes to the far right as the next presidential election approaches in 2027. An electoral alliance and parliamentary maneuvers won’t defeat the far right. In order to build on the momentum of the stunning victory of the NFP, the LFI needs to join with the unions and build a movement in the workplaces, communities, school and streets to oppose the disastrous capitalist system and stand for the building of a socialist alternative. Such a mass movement, sustained through democratic organizations of struggle, is the only way to defeat the far right.

LFI doesn’t represent a democratically run, bottom-up party, and is instead led by a figurehead, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, just as some capitalist parties are. To build the movement the French working class needs in this situation, LFI should launch a mass party of struggle equipped with an uncompromising program for socialist change which can win unity in action for workers, farmers, migrants and young people. J

armed, blocked highways with burning tires, and occupied the Caracas international airport.

Capitalist apologists hold up Venezuela as a cautionary tale about the dangers of socialism. But Venezuela’s current crisis is the product of the failure of reforming capitalism. The right-wing opposition, in spite of their newfound popularity, are a danger to Venezuelan workers. But Maduro is a dead-end. The way out of the crisis is an independent working-class struggle rooted in international solidarity.

• For an independent working-class way out of the Venezuelan crisis

– no trust in the reactionary and proimperialist right, no illusion in Maduro’s pro-capitalist and repressive government!

• For an independent commission of workers’ organizations and social and democratic movements to audit the electoral process and guarantee free elections in which the working class and the socialist left can be represented! J

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SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE I spent my summer...

ISSUE #106 | SEPTEMBER 2024

by Addi Langhorst, Milwaukee

Young people everywhere are grappling with the horrors of war and imperialism, attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, climate catastrophes, and the cost of living crisis. We are hitting our campuses and the streets to fight for the system we need. In high school, I participated in walkouts for queer rights. I saw that we needed a much bigger nationwide struggle to fight back effectively, but I didn’t know where to start.

By getting involved with Socialist Alternative, I have a deeper understanding of the capitalist system we are fighting against and the socialist world we need to build. The capitalist class hinges all decisions on their ability to make more profits, which produces crisis after crisis that ultimately fall on working people. What would solve these crises – an economy democratically planned for the needs of ordinary people by ordinary people – would require a revolutionary struggle for an entirely new society, a socialist society.

I joined Socialist Alternative when I was

19 because I knew that capitalism was a failed system and I was looking for an opportunity to get involved in the struggle for revolutionary change.

In joining Socialist Alternative, I gained opportunities to build movements and argue for class struggle tactics – including during this summer.

This past May, when the school year ended, many of the anti-war student encampments made deals with their respective university administrations. Here at UWMilwaukee, the encampment was taken down in exchange for a vague promise to meet with a small group of students to “discuss concerns” and a formal statement from the university denouncing the genocide. The university had no intentions of cutting ties with certain companies affiliated with the Israeli state.

The majority of Americans oppose the bloody massacre in Gaza, and there is a broad mood to fight for a ceasefire. Despite this, there wasn’t a readily apparent way for most people to get involved in the movement after the encampments ended. Here in Milwaukee, and around the country, Socialist Alternative was able to tap into the mood to organize against the brutal occupation of Gaza at Pride events.

Over three days of tabling at Pridefest, we got in contact with hundreds of working-class people looking to build the anti-war movement, fight back against right-wing attacks

on trans youth, and get organized to fight for socialism. We talked about the need to connect the anti-war movement to the fight for queer rights because our movements are stronger when we unite against our common enemy: the capitalist class. Not only do we need to fight for a ceasefire, but we need to fight for an end to US military funding for the Israeli military, and instead fund trans-inclusive Medicare for All and affordable housing.

We also pointed to the need to move beyond supporting the Democratic Party and toward building a new party that will fight for working people and the policies that would transform our lives. While Democrats often run on protecting queer rights, they betray the movement once elected. By failing to counter right-wing attacks, the Democratic Party has

“I saw that we needed a much bigger nationwide struggle… but I didn’t know where to start.”

allowed the right wing to put forward bolder and more dangerous proposals. Genderaffirming care is now restricted in 25 states.

The only opposition in state and local governments has been from isolated Democrats, who haven’t gotten any support from the Democratic Party establishment. This lack of a fighting approach has laid the groundwork for Project 2025, which proposes brutal attacks on not just queer people, but also immigrants, women, students and teachers, and the working class as a whole. The most effective way to fight back is by building a broad movement in the streets and in our workplaces to stop the far right.

fighting for revolutionary change!

In June, we went to Juneteenth events across the country and continued to make the case for a break with the Democrats and talk about the need for a revolutionary socialist approach in the struggle for Black liberation. Neither corporate political party has an answer for the problems facing minorities in the US. Only a party built for the working class, independent from corporate donors and accountable to our movements, can win what Black working people need, like a livable minimum wage and a massive expansion of quality affordable housing.

In July, I was invited to be on a CBS panel with other voters in the Milwaukee area to talk about the upcoming election and the Republican National Convention. CBS didn’t know that I was a socialist, and they didn’t know what I would say. I tried to use this spot to argue for the strongest possible independent left vote in November, and the need to build a movement for a new party. I went on national TV to tell working people that I will not be voting for Kamala Harris this fall, and advocating a vote for the strongest independent left candidate, Jill Stein. This posed such a threat to the corporate media that they cut it out entirely.

This experience shows the importance of independent, working-class journalism, like our socialist newspaper. The capitalist class and their press won’t just hand us the lessons working people have learned in struggle, which is exactly why we need fighting working-class organizations that can carry those lessons to the next struggle. We will need to continue arguing for all these things in the fall when millions of people feel pressured to vote for Kamala Harris out of understandable fear of another Trump presidency.

Joining SA is one of the best decisions I ever made. It showed me how struggles against all forms of oppression are linked and rooted in capitalism, and gave me concrete steps forward in the fight for socialism. If you agree with these ideas and if you want to join the struggle for revolutionary socialism, get in touch with SA in your area! J

JOIN at socialistalternative.com