Socialist Alternative Issue 67 - October 2020

ALTERNATIVE

SOCIALIST ISSUE #67 l OCTOBER 2020

SUGGESTED DONATION $2

BUILDA MOVEMENT TODEFEAT THE RIGHT NOFAITHIN THE DEMOCRATS subscription address box

INSIDE DEFEND THE VOTE STOP THE FAR RIGHT KSHAMA RECALL DEFENSE

p.4 p.8-9 p.10

WHAT WE STAND FOR: OCTOBER 2020 Fight the Right Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death has left a vacant seat on the Supreme Court and Trump and the Republicans are eager to appoint a justice and solidify the reactionary majority on the Court. This would threaten the rights of women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, Black people and trade unionists. On top of this, the far-right has ramped up attacks on the left and Black Lives Matter. We need to fight Trump’s appointment and all other attacks from the right wing, including vigilante violence from the far-right.

J We need mass demonstrations against Trump and the Republican’s attempt to drive through a reactionary Supreme Court justice as well as Trump’s threats to attack democratic voting rights.

J Organize against vigilante terror! Where BLM protests face attacks from the far right, we need elected self-defense committees. The labor movement has an important role to play in organizing to defend social movements from far-right attacks.

J

J

J J

COVID-19 tests.

States and cities that see a spike in cases, should return to Phase 1 of lockdown. Contact tracers should be immediately deployed where hotspots are identified.

End profiteering on vaccine research!

More than $10 billion of our taxes have been funneled to big pharmaceutical companies in the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. When available, the vaccine should be free to everyone with no profit-motive attached.

We need a rapid transition to a Medicare-for-All system to ensure high-quality, affordable, public health care to all!

Tax big businesses and the super rich at the federal, state, and local levels to fund the emergency response needed to address this crisis.

Aid to Workers, Not Wall Street

Because of the establishment’s failure to resolve the chaos surrounding a COVID-19 election, it is almost guaranteed that we will not know the results of the presidential election on election night itself. This leaves open a dangerous situation where Donald Trump could declare an early and inaccurate victory.

J Every state should accept mail-in ballots up until election.

J States should allow mail-in ballots to be counted before election day.

J Fully fund USPS! J Fight voter suppression! Expand polling locations, repeal voter ID laws, enact universal same day registration, enfranchise current and former prisoners J Prepare for mass demonstrations to defend the vote. The labor movement has a key role to play in this and should begin mobilizing now for protests and rallies to defend polling stations and vote counting locations.

Any emergency response to the crisis needs to prioritize the health and safety of working Americans, not big business and billionaires.

J Renew elapsed unemployment benefits including the $600-a-week top up.

J Extend federal, state, and city eviction moratoriums and cancel rent for the duration of the pandemic.

J Universal rent control and a tax on the wealthiest corporations like Amazon to build high-quality, publicly-owned social housing.

J All workers on the front lines of this pandemic should receive hazard pay. For a reduced workweek to share out the work with no reduction in pay. For a living wage for all those laid off or unemployed.

J Adequate PPE needs to be guaranteed in every workplace and any worker choosing to self quarantine or refusing to work in an unsafe workplace should not be retaliated against.

J With states and cities facing huge deficits, they are already beginning to cut spending on public education and health care. The federal government should use a tax on big business to provide disaster relief to states.

Prepare to Avoid a Second COVID-19 Wave:

ASafe and Just Society: End Racist Policing

Count Every Vote!

The pandemic is still not under control in the U.S. With scientific experts warning of potential surge in cases in the fall and winter, it is clear that efforts to prevent further spread will need to continue for many more months.

J Free, accessible COVID-19 testing with rapid results and contact tracing in every community. The government should take over production of testing material and expand the capacity of labs that process

J Indict killer cops! Indict the three officers involved in Breonna Taylor’s murder.

J Immediately fire and prosecute all cops who have committed violent or racist attacks.

J Cities should slash police budgets by at least 50%, and reinvest those funds in needed public services.

J End the militarization of police. Ban police use of “crowd control” weapons.

info@SocialistAlternative.org

@Socialist Alternative

www.SocialistAlternative.org

2

@SocialistAlt

/SocialistAlternative.USA

/c/SocialistAlternative

WHY I JOINED SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE One of my favorite songs is “My City Was Gone” by the Pretenders – a lament about the urbanization and environmental destruction of Akron, Ohio. I used to enjoy hearing it on the radio with my father driving all around southern California. I enjoyed it even more when the song faded and Rush Limbaugh would come on, enriching us with wisdom from the Limbaugh Institute of Conservative Studies. I grew up a dutiful, obedient son in a conservative, Christian Jamaican household in Los Angeles, and bought into many of the ideas one might associate with those descriptors. I believed whatever my father did, and as a poor boy from Jamaica who “succeeded with hard work,” he (and therefore I) resented the “subtle racism of low expectations” with which liberals treated him.

It was only during the run-up to the 2008 election that my father’s (and therefore my) mind began to change. The blatant racism exhibited by our favorite Fox News anchors and conservative AM radio host(s) against then senator Barack Obama shook our faith in these people. My father’s shift toward liberalism shocked me.

Over the next couple years as I started college, I oscillated between liberal and conservative Christian fellowships, and merely allowed my politics to follow along.

Having trained in the dogmatisms of both Disarm cops on patrol.

J Put policing under the control of democratically elected civilian boards with power over hiring and firing policies, reviewing budget priorities, and the power to subpoena. All of this should be done openly and publicly.

Labor Movement Needs to Step Up Trade unions are the only organizations workers have to directly defend their rights. However, the leaderships of most major unions have not stepped up to defend their members or organize the unorganized during this pandemic.

J We need fighting unions that defend workers on the job and do not shy away from a fight with the bosses.

J Join the movement! Unions have a key role to play in the struggle against racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression.

For a Socialist Green New Deal Extreme weather has pummelled the West Coast. We need an urgent plan to enact a socialist Green New Deal to address the growing threat of climate disaster.

J Tax the billionaires and big business to fund extreme weather mitigation including fully funded firefighting and forest management services!

J For a Green New Deal jobs program to tackle climate change and provide jobs for tens of millions of workers. To be successful, this needs to be tied to public ownership of the massive energy companies and banks.

David Herman Los Angeles, CA of America’s major political parties, in early 2016 I began critical political study of my own. I started with Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of America, mostly because it was a book by a white man that I saw in a black bookstore. Watching Bernie Sanders’ first presidential run, I began to flirt with socialism.

By December 2019, I described myself as a socialist, and wanted to do something about it. I responded to a post by a member of Socialist Alternative’s Los Angeles branch inviting fans of a meme page to get involved, and soon joined the organization.

Since joining nine months ago, I have developed my political analysis and experience through meaningful discussion with my Socialist Alternative branch and the larger organization, and interventions in a presidential campaign and protests against police brutality. I have even been able to develop a better understanding of the forces that changed cities like Akron, Ohio for the worse, and what can be done to make them better. J

For a New Political Party for Working People The Democratic Party has completely failed to fight Trump in the past four years, directly contributing to the increasing threat he now poses. We need to break with both parties of big business!

J Democrats and Republicans alike are passing austerity budgets across the country that are full of layoffs and cuts to social services. Despite their differences, the establishments of both parties are loyal to billionaires, not workers.

J We need a new multiracial workers’ party that organizes and fights for workers’ interests and is committed to socialist policies to point a way out of the horrors of capitalism.

The Whole System is Guilty Capitalism produces pandemics, poverty, inequality, environmental destruction, and war. We need an international struggle against this failed system.

J We need a democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the planet. Bring the top 500 companies and banks into democratic public ownership.

J Malcolm X said, “You can’t have capitalism without racism.” The fight against police racism and the corporate political establishment must be expanded into a fight against the capitalist system itself and for a socialist alternative. J SOCI ALI STALTERNATI VE. ORG

PRESI DENTI AL ELECTI ONS

FORESIGHT 2020: LOOMINGPOLITICAL STORMS OF U.S. CAPITALISM Br yan Koulouris Mi nne a po l i s , MN 2020 isn’t over yet, and it could get even more turbulent. The deeply rooted injustices of capitalism are coming to the fore across the world. Climate change and budget cuts are leading to unprecedented wildfires and hurricanes. The pandemic’s effects are made worse by Trump’s incompetence and a forprofit health system. Mass protests against racism are now being met with right-wing vigilante violence, in collaboration with militarized police. No matter the outcome of this election, these problems can become worse if we don’t build a mass movement to fundamentally change society.

Given the deep hatred of Trump by tens of millions, this election is the Democrats’ to lose, but Biden’s lead has narrowed in many polls since July. Just like Hillary Clinton in 2016, the corporate-controlled Democratic establishment is running a complacent campaign. Biden’s staff aren’t knocking on doors, hitting the phones, or registering young people to vote, even in battleground states like Michigan. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is knocking on one million doors a week. Biden and Harris fail to put forward any program that inspires working people, the millions of unemployed, or the youth. Massive voter turnout will be necessary to defeat Trump.

If this threat materializes, then socialists should be at the forefront of building a determined mass struggle to ensure every vote is counted, linking this demand to the fight against racism, economic inequality, and environmental destruction.

Democratic Incompetence?

Trump is whipping up “law and order” sentiment in recent ads, claiming that the thoroughly pro-corporate Democratic leadership is somehow “radical left.” Making matters worse, Trump has encouraged right-wing violence and given a “nod” to the deeply misguided “QAnon” conspiracy theories.

On top of this, Trump is able to pose to the “left” of Democrats through executive orders for increased unemployment benefits and a moratorium on evictions. There are new

Republican ads pointing out that hated pharmaceutical companies prefer Biden and the Democrats to Trump (which is true), and a recent Trump speech criticized the Iraq war and anti-worker aspects of free trade agreements. This political posturing is combined with attempts at voter suppression that go beyond even the “normal” Republican maneuvers.

There is a distinct threat that Trump will try to undemocratically steal this election.

Socialists have been at the forefront of the fight against Trump’s right-wing, racist, anti-working class agenda since the moment Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign conceded the election in 2016. The Democratic Party leadership, on the other hand, has offered meager “resistance,” failing to mobilize the anger of millions into a movement for popular policies like single-payer health care, a Green New Deal, or any substantive change to racist policing. Instead Democratic Party leaders have spent the last four years talking about “Russiagate,” an issue that failed to inspire people to take action.

Now, in this election facing a weakened yet dangerous Trump, the best that the Democratic Party can offer is an embarrassment of a candidate who is often kept in hiding while the world burns. Many people see this as “incompetence,” but that doesn’t tell the whole story. The corporate-controlled Democratic establishment was extremely

continued on p.15

After RBG’s Death: Republicans Move to Consolidate Reactionary Control of the Court Er in Br ight we ll UP T E - CWA 9 1 1 9 (P e r s o n a l C a p a c i t y ) The death of Supreme Court Justice and liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the latest blow to any sense of normalcy in this election year. Trump has moved rapidly to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ginsburg. If she is approved this will solidify a 6-3 reactionary majority on the Court. This represents a threat to abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, immigrant rights and union rights. In reality it represents a threat to the interests of the vast majority of the American people. It must be met by mass mobilizations in the coming days and weeks.

With Mitt Romney announcing his intention to support a Trump nominee, the votes are there for Trump and Mitch McConnel to fast track someone through. This is a gift to the Christian right and is completely linked to the Republicans’ strategy for reelecting Trump and trying to keep control of the Senate. It’s an attempt to distract attention from Trump’s disastrous handling of the pandemic and mass unemployment and to drive turnout of social conservatives.

Democrats’ Meaningless Threats Democrats in Congress are talking tough and promising retribution if Trump and the Republicans confirm a new justice in the narrow window between Ginsburg’s death and the election. But the Democrats have failed to land a single blow OCTOBER 2020

against Trump in nearly four years. They failed to stop the accused sexual assaulter Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. They’ve stood by as Trump has enacted racist travel bans, slashed taxes on corporations, rolled back over 100 environmental regulations and destroyed the asylum program.

The obstacles Trump has faced dismantling the Affordable Care Act or starving out federal workers to get funding for the border wall in the federal shutdown have come from working people. Mass protests, organized civil disobedience, and work stoppages are the tools that have the best chance at forcing the Republicans to stand down. Those same tactics of working class struggle are absolutely anathema to the corporate Democrats who will avoid them at all costs.

Nature of the Supreme Court The Supreme Court is a highly undemocratic institution designed by slaveholders and capitalists in the 18th century. The fact that the death of a single 87-year-old threatens women’s right to bodily autonomy is evidence enough of the backward role that the Supreme Court plays in U.S. society.

The big advances for which the Supreme Court is often credited, like Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board, were won first in the streets by the strength of mass movements, with a legal process running along in parallel. For example, abortion right were won through mass struggles led by socialists and other radicals in New York and Washington State before Roe v.

Wade. The Roe decision was not because the Supreme Court was left-leaning, but because the establishment wanted to head off an even bigger movement that would radicalize more working people.

Biden Isn’t the Answer The Christian right has gained confidence during Trump’s administration, and even if Biden wins, it won’t disappear any time soon. For years now, abortion access has been rolled back in state after state with very little response from the Democrats.

There is no point to hoping a Biden victory will change everything -- we already know that Biden opposes widely popular reforms like Medicare For All, and we should not vote for him or any representative of the capitalist class. We should not buy into the idea that, if there is a more solid right wing majority, there is no way to win significant gains for working people. At the same time we call for a mass struggle beginning now to oppose the Republicans attempt to consolidate their control of the Court.

At the end of the day, the only real way to safeguard our interests and ensure that the death of one Supreme Court justice doesn’t throw our hard won rights into jeopardy is to build a party that truly represents working class people and unifies a protest movement in the streets with candidates who can be held accountable to a left, pro-worker program. J

3

PRESI DENTI AL ELECTI ONS

COULDTRUMP STEAL THE ELECTION?

BREAKFROMTHEDEMOCRATS:

The Call for AProtest Vote for Howie Hawkins

How Should the Left Respond?

Edi t o r i al St at e me nt On September 12, Trump tweeted to urge supporters to vote twice (by mail and in person). At the same time, he is trying to undermine mail-in voting through lies, cuts to the Postal Service, and lawsuits against counting mail-in votes before election day. This is on top of the usual right-wing voter suppression involving purging voter rolls, shutting down polling locations, barring former prisoners from voting, and establishing new last-minute requirements for voter registration.

Even without Trump’s attacks, widespread mail-in voting infrastructure doesn’t exist to meet higher demand under a pandemic. Poll worker shortages in the thousands could close polling locations in key battleground states. This undemocratic disenfranchisement hits the poor and people of color most heavily.

Due to health and safety concerns from the pandemic, only 26% of Biden voters said they’ll vote in person on election day, while 66% of Trump supporters said they’d vote this way (NBC / WSJ poll). This means that the results we see on election night could be extremely misleading, showing Trump in a far stronger position than he will end up in when all the votes are counted. Both parties are preparing for messy elections results.

A dangerous situation could emerge: election night results could show Trump in the lead, and he could falsely try to declare victory with only a small portion of votes counted. Some progressive groups are preparing for this potential scenario with plans for mass protests and civil disobedience, which is a good step. Actions like this should be organized independently of the Democratic Party leadership, who failed to wage a fight against George W. Bush stealing the election in 2000.

Instead, we should rely on the potential power of working people to disrupt “business as usual.”

Socialist Alternative is against the logic of lesser-evilism, and we organize against both Trump’s right-wing

4

agenda and the corporate-driven Democratic Party establishment with mass action and a working-class program. At the same time, we staunchly defend democratic voting rights. If Trump tries to steal this election, then socialists should mobilize workers, young people, and the oppressed to fight back with every tool we have to drive this right-wing menace out of the White House. Of course, the ruling class rejected Trump’s earlier threat to simply cancel the elections. They do not want a Trump dictatorship, but this does not exclude various ways for Trump and the Republicans to steal the election. This is all the more true with the changes likely coming in the Supreme Court following the death of Ruth Bader-Ginsberg.

The best way for us to stop “grand theft election” is with millions of working people taking mass strike action, backed up by well-organized mass demonstrations in every city. Again, the experience of 2000 shows that the Democrats would rather lose than build a mass movement to defend the vote. Instead, organized labor should be at the forefront of protecting protesters against the potential for rightwing vigilante violence in a movement against election theft. With economic crisis, mass unemployment, a global pandemic, racist police murders, and unprecedented wildfires, a mass movement should demand much more than just Trump leaving the White House.

A strike of millions would show the billionaire class that people wouldn’t take a stolen election lying down. It would also help us flex the strength of united working people, and could be a launching pad for a revived movement against racism and all inequality. If Trump tries to steal the election, then a successful mass strike with clear fighting demands that defeats the right-wing could help lay the basis for a new working-class party to confront both right-wing populism and the Democrats, who both serve the interests of the billionaire class. J

Ke e l y Mul l e n Ne w Yo r k , NY At the beginning of 2020, millions of Americans cheered as Bernie Sanders edged out a crowded Democratic primary field and emerged a seemingly unstoppable force. After his knockout win in Nevada, even the establishment struggled to identify a strategy to beat him before their convention.

As we know, however, they pulled it off. Socialist Alternative warned at every stage in both Bernie’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns that the Democratic Party leadership simply would not accept him as their nominee and that they would be prepared to pull out any number of dirty tricks to chop his campaign off at the knees.

In the days before Super Tuesday, what was once a dramatically bloated primary field shrunk down to two real candidates: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. On Super Tuesday, Joe Biden officially took his place as Democratic establishment mega-candidate, absorbing the campaigns of all the other corporate also-rans.

If it were truly the goal of the Democratic Party leadership to defeat Trump, why did they sideline the candidate best positioned to defeat him? Because defeating the increasingly authoritarian Donald Trump was far less important than defeating the movement-building socialist.

Unfortunately, Bernie himself accepted this logic and bent the knee to the establishment.

Some on the left, particularly those around Jacobin magazine, dramatically underestimated the obstacles in Bernie’s path to the nomination.

They declared the Democratic Party “Bernie’s party” after his win in Nevada. This misestimation of the Democratic Party has kept the American left trapped in this thoroughly corporate party.

Towards a New Party In opposition to the lesser-evil politics that are responsible for putting figures like Donald Trump in the White House (see pages 8-9), Socialist Alternative is calling for a protest vote for Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins in this year’s

presidential election. Howie Hawkins is a socialist and longstanding Teamster activist. His program includes much of what Bernie fought for, but Howie takes it even further. He’s calling for Medicare for All, 100% clean energy by 2030, free public college, community control of the police, and sweeping COVID-19 relief for working families.

But, while we agree with Howie’s platform, we do not think the Green Party will be the vehicle to build a left political alternative.

If we are going to defeat big business politics, we need to form a new party entirely independent of the Democratic Party leadership that has real democratic structures and a pro-working class program. A recent poll found that 60% of Americans, regardless of political affiliation, want a new party. In 2016 we called on Bernie himself to take a bold stand and transform his campaign into the embryo of a new party, but he completely air-balled this historic opportunity both in 2016 and now.

Other organizations, like the Movement for a People’s Party, and figures like Nina Turner — president of Our Revolution — and RoseAnn DeMoro — former executive director of the National Nurses United —have stepped in to capture the hunger for a new political force in the U.S. This is a very positive step and organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America need to throw themselves into this process, refusing to be used by the Democratic establishment as left cover.

The fundamental reason that social movements of the past decade have failed to win dramatic change boils down to the complete lack of mass organizations of struggle in the U.S. The creation of a new mass or semi-mass political party in the U.S. could flip that on its head. It could be a home to social movements like Black Lives Matter, the labor movement, and the general struggles of workers against exploitation and oppression.

A significant protest vote for Howie Hawkins in the 2020 elections led by the left and socialists would be a step in this direction. It would signal the beginnings of a historic jailbreak from the Democratic Party. J SOCI ALI STALTERNATI VE. ORG

FI GHTI NG RACI SM

STOP THE STATIONANDENDGENTRIFICATION:

DEFUNDTHE PITTSBURGHPOLICE TO FUNDHOUSING! St e v e Ca pr i P i t t s b u r g h , PA

East Liberty, a historically Black and working-class neighborhood that is being rapidly gentrified, is an epicenter for BLM in Pittsburgh. Not long ago, the area was full of affordable public housing and small businesses. Now, half-empty luxury apartment complexes and tech giants’ offices are

the new sights. Adding insult to injury, the city government has, without transparency or community input, decided to relocate a police station into the neighborhood.

The location for the new station is two blocks from Penn Plaza, the site of a demolished public housing complex that was home to over 200 families only six years ago. Penn Plaza Support and Action (PPSA), a grassroots organization to defend tenants’ rights

Members of Socialist Alternative out canvassing with the Stop the Station campaign.

and fight for affordable housing, emerged out of the struggle against its demolition. When the new police station was announced, PPSA alongside Socialist Alternative began organizing to stop the $3 million project. Out of this, the community coalition “Stop the Station” was born. From the beginning of the campaign, by flyering at protests and reaching out to emerging leaders, we have connected with the ongoing BLM movement and the newer activists involved, with their deep well of energy and dedication to fighting racism and police terror.

The rallying cry of “defund the police” heard in protests across the country clearly connects with Stop the Station, as we are demanding the money for the station instead be allocated for affordable social housing, public education, and social services. We can’t allow the city’s politicians to wriggle out of responsibility with vague promises of change. Our movement will hold their feet to the fire to address the root cause of crime — poverty.

We know that even slashing the bloated police budget and reallocating the $3 million for the police station will not fully fund everything we need. That is why we are also calling for taxes on big business and developers, like Google, Amazon, and LG Realty, as well as removing the tax-exempt status from hospital and insurance conglomerate, UPMC. Beyond reallocation of funding, how can we truly stop racist policing? Stop the Station demands full democratic control of the police by an elected board with power over hiring

THE WHOLE SYSTEMIS GUILTY: JUSTICE FOR BREONNATAYLOR Chr i s Gr ay Mi nne a po l i s , MN

Under intense pressure from the political establishment, a Kentucky Grand Jury failed to charge any of the cops for the murder of Breonna Taylor. In what amounts to a slap in the face against those who spent six months fighting for #JusticeForBreonna, one of the cops will be charged for endangering her neighbors when he blindly shot 10 rounds from outside of Taylor’s apartment.

The Whole System is Guilty Initially, the political establishment didn’t acknowledge her muder at all, even refusing to place the officers involved in her death on leave. It took relentless protests to get them to even look into her death. When they finally did, the investigation focused on discreting her, even trying to bribe her boyfriend by offering him a plea deal in return for saying Breonna was a “criminal.”

OCTOBER 2020

When asked about Breonna’s murder earlier this month, Joe Biden said “I think we should let the judicial system work its way.” This couldn’t be more tone deaf. The Black Lives Matter rebellion this summer broke out precisely because of the failures of the judicial system!

Breonna’s real crime was being poor, Black, and at the wrong place at the wrong time living under the racist system of U.S. capitalism. She was murdered during a “no knock” military style raid, a common tactic of the racist “war on drugs,” which has devastated the lives of millions of Black, brown and working class people.

It would be a mistake to dismiss the important victories the movement in Louisville has won so far, though there is a lot that still needs to be won.

The most concrete win, “Breonna’s Law,” makes no-knock raids illegal in Louisville, and should be expanded nationally. Street protests are a critical tool in our struggle, but we need sustained organization in order to carry the movement forward. J

and disciplinary policy as well as power to, subpoena, review budget priorities, and how police are deployed. This demand has been extremely popular in the community when knocking on doors and setting up community tables, a regular practice of our coalition. We have found that when our campaign pairs social questions of racism, police violence, and a lack of democracy in our city with economic questions, like the roots of crime, funding clear community needs, and taxing big businesses to pay for it, working people are excited and support us, even when they do not agree with every aspect.

Stop the Station has held regular open meetings, as well as rallies and teach-in events attended by hundreds of workers and youth. At all our events and meetings we offer ways for people to plug in immediately.

Currently we are organizing for a “People’s Budget Forum” which will call on the mayor and city council members, all of them Democrats and many who call themselves “progressives,” to listen to Pittsburghers speak on what should be prioritized in the budget and respond to the demands of the coalition.

A victory for this movement would have potentially national implications and would set a powerful example of how to wage successful “defund the police” campaigns.

Socialists have always played a strong role in movements against racism and today is no different. The power of a united, multiracial working class can not only stop the station, but it can build a new society free of oppression and exploitation. J

Soci al i st Al ternati ve Cal l s For: J Prosecute the police! Indict all three killer cops involved in Breonna Taylor’s death.

J We need a top-to-bottom purge of police forces across the country. Officers with histories of racism, sexism, and violence should be immediately fired. We need democratic community oversight of the police at every level.

J Expand the movement - We need to organize mass democratic community assemblies where working class people, especially people of color, play an active role in developing a strategy to respond to police repression, misinformation, and misleadership. Unions need to remember that “an injury to one is an injury to all”, get off the sidelines and join the struggle.

J Build a political alternative to the Democratic Party – In Louisville and cities across the country, Democratic Party politicians are responsible for racist policing. We need independent, movement based candidates who are prepared to take on big business and the cops.

J Dismantling the police means dismantling capitalism – Police violence is part and parcel of the capitalist system. We need to tax billionaires and corporations to build affordable sociallyowned housing, a green jobs program, quality public schools, free transit, and health care for all. We need to fight for a society without police repression built on socialist foundations, where the economy is democratically controlled to improve the lives of all.

5

WORKERS’ LI VES Queens food bank sees lines down the block.

WE HAVE TOFIGHT FOR AWORKERS RECOVERY Gr a c e Fo r s Ho u s t o n , T X In a crisis, the ruling class tends to sugarcoat the real economic situation. Politicians and mainstream media outlets are searching for any “silver lining” signaling a recovery in order to avoid facing the failures of capitalism that are on full display: One in three U.S. families with children don’t have enough food. Millions are headed toward disaster after two months without the $600 unemployment, and a major financial crisis is just around the corner.

Convincing people that we are headed “back to normal” makes it easier for the bosses to call people back to work, force teachers and students to return to school, and avoid social outrage at mass unemployment and an astronomical 200,000 COVID19 deaths.

We have seen many examples of this in recent months. In June, Trump seized on the understating of unemployment due to a misclassification error in the May jobs report to boast of a booming recovery. Just weeks ago, headlines announced new unemployment claims dropping to below one million per week, while in reality the labor department had changed its reporting methods and the number of claims had actually risen.

Working people can see all around us the signs of economic turbulence and looming disaster. When we look at the actual trends in the labor market, it’s clear that we need to prepare for the possibility of a prolonged economic downturn, with many more potential crises on the horizon.

August Jobs Report: What is the Real Story?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ official unemployment rate declined in August to 8.4 percent.

However, beneath the headline’s unemployment rate are signals of a slowdown: jobs

6

added in August fell far below those added in July and June. Permanent job losses increased by more than half a million. More than 8 million Americans have been unemployed for 15 weeks or more. Additionally, a quarter of jobs added were government positions, many of them temporary census workers who will be laid off when it concludes.

Furthermore, the 8.4% figure is a drastic understatement. Economists warn that the real number may be 11.1% or higher. Given that 27 million are currently receiving unemployment insurance according to the Department of Labor, out of a total labor force of 160 million, real unemployment is twice the official number at 16.7%. Overall, the

economy has added back less than half of the 22 million jobs lost during the pandemic.

Hidden from headlines, also, are the many indications of another wave of layoffs ahead.

Corporate bankruptcies are at a 10-year high, especially in retail and manufacturing, and these companies are moving to shrink their workforce. Major airlines have already begun announcing massive layoffs.

While the retail sector added jobs back as lockdown restrictions eased, a major disaster is looming over the industry. Businesses can’t pay the rent, especially small businesses being wiped out in the absence of government aid. Permanent storefront closures are continuing to climb. According to Yelp, 60% of businesses that closed temporarily won’t reopen. Restaurants that have so far survived on outdoor dining will struggle to stay afloat as the weather gets colder.

Consumer spending, which makes up more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy, has declined, and overall consumer confidence is “in the dumpster.” Struggling workers simply can’t afford to keep the economy afloat. As a result, there is a real risk of longterm unemployment for the millions already out of work, as well as workers whose entire industries may well collapse in the coming months and years.

continued on p.7

Workers Speak Out Starbuck s Barista My life is being put on the line every single day in the name of profit. Over just one shift my Starbucks location will serve hundreds of customers. That means hundreds of coffees, lattes, and frappuccinos are being churned out by me and my coworkers daily, even as the COVID-19 death toll approaches a million globally and even as countless articles are released on the potential long term effects of the virus on the recovered.

Despite it all, we are forced to remain on the front lines earning minimum wage in order to keep a multi-billion dollar machine running. We used to receive an extra three dollars per hour in hazard pay, but that ended in May. Daily reported infections have doubled since then!

Simply keeping business moving isn’t enough on it’s own either. Corporate metrics such as our “customer connection’’ score are still being pushed from above. Each week we are given a score for our location based on how well customers felt we had “gotten to know them.” This score has been deemed essential to our business model by upper management who have the luxury of working from home. Flying in the face of advice by health officials to socially distance, we are corrected and reprimanded for not attempting to have longer and more genuine interactions with every single person who walks through our doors.

This isn’t even my only job. On minimum wage how could it be? But with increasing unemployment levels and so many Americans facing the threat of eviction when the moratorium ends I can’t afford to lose a source of income. With my insurance coverage tied to my employment during a global health crisis, maintaining my job becomes a matter of life and death.

The capitalists who call the shots at my company understand all too well that workers are not currently in a strong position to challenge their mistreatment. This isn’t a job - it’s a hostage situation!

My challenges are not an isolated incident. Millions of lowwage workers across the country are facing these exact same anxieties right now. So many of us, lacking representation in fighting workers’ organizations, are being used as fodder to continue putting money in the pockets of those who will never need to choose between a hot meal or their rent payment.

The most important thing to remember in all of this is exactly that - workers are the ones who put the money in the bosses’ pockets. As long as we fail to recognize our collective power in society we can expect these kinds of abuses. The billionaire class has made it clearer than ever through the current crisis that if there is money to be made it will be made even if it has to be made at the expense of the health and safety of service industry workers like myself, delivery drivers, Amazon warehouse workers, or any others that keep the capitalist system functioning.

If workers organize and form or join unions we can use our collective power to shut down business until our well being and quality of life is prioritized. We can win safe working conditions during and beyond the pandemic, we can win fair compensation for our labor, and we can win universal health coverage instead of it being tied to our employers. One day we can even win an equitable world where our work is no longer owned by billionaires like Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson who have never done an honest day’s work in their lives. The work begins today by organizing our coworkers and by joining a socialist organization. J

SOCI ALI STALTERNATI VE. ORG

Us Them versus

Millions Still Out of Work The unemployed are suffering from a massive loss of income since the $600 unemployment expansion ran out. Enduring without federal aid for over a month, millions are surviving on state unemployment insurance which typically only covers half of lost wages.

Now, 50% of unemployment recipients say they can’t cover their basic expenses.

In August, 30-40 million renters were at risk of eviction by the fall. In the outrageous absence of any Congressional response, the CDC introduced a sweeping eviction moratorium to postpone many evictions until the end of the year. But households will be on the hook for months’ worth of rental debt by the time the ban expires.

The Road Ahead The media is starting to discuss the possibility of a “K-shaped” recovery, in which one section of society remains economically stable, or even prospers, while the working class is left holding the bag.

So far, many white-collar professional workers have stayed afloat or even saved by working from home. The super-rich and households with liquid assets are riding a booming stock market. Corporations like Amazon, Netflix, and Zoom have seen soaring profits. Billionaires have increased their wealth by $845 billion in the past 6 months.

Of course, tremendous inequality long predated COVID-19. However, even those sections of society whose incomes have not yet been affected may soon see the other shoe drop.

A major financial crisis has, until now, been prevented by unprecedented government handouts to the banks and stock market, as well as the initial direct payments to workers. Demand is crumbling in the absence of the unemployment expansion and aid to small businesses. The stock bubble is a ticking time bomb, as is the massive bubble of corporate and government debt. The housing market, already taking massive hits from climate disaster and from a shaky foundation of unpayable rental debts, could collapse.

Economic projections for the next decade paint a grim picture. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects economic growth to slow to a 1.8% annual rate between 2019-2029, with employment projected to grow just 0.4 percent - much slower than the 2009-2019 period.

Tens of millions of people were already living paycheck-to-paycheck, spending 50% or more of their income on rent, earning stagnant wages, with no paid sick leave or universal health care. The working class was barely scraping by even when the economy was in a “boom.” Now, with even greater blows being OCTOBER 2020

dealt to huge sections of workers, it is clearer than ever that this system does not work for us.

The Alternative What would it take to truly solve this crisis?

At the very least, the federal unemployment top-up of $600 must be reinstated. We need to cancel the rent, forgive all back rent owed to landlords and credit card companies, and ban all evictions. We need to defund the police to ensure strained public budgets can fund needed social services, while also taxing the rich and corporations to fully fund our schools, build high-quality social housing, and provide universal childcare.

Millions are out of work while wildfires eviscerate the West Coast. A massive Green New Deal jobs program could provide the unemployed with productive, well-paying jobs while also addressing the urgent climate crisis.

Democrats and Republicans alike have failed us massively. After weeks of deadlock, the Senate abandoned negotiations on a new relief package to take recess, leaving millions without the bare minimum. We cannot expect the political establishment, whether under Trump or Biden, to give us what we need. We need a new party of the working class to point the way out of this crisis.

Looking ahead, unions will need to put up a bold fight against layoffs and demand sharing out the work in all workplaces to implement shorter hours with no loss in pay. We need a federal $15 an hour minimum wage, extended hazard pay, and PPE for essential workers operating under unsafe conditions from COVID-19 to wildfire smoke. Renters need to organize to protect ourselves from crippling debt and eviction. These movements must be united in solidarity and combined into a real mass movement for systemic change.

We need to find a way out of the eternal loop of boom-and-bust that routinely throws millions off a cliff, while the capitalists get ever richer. A socialist planned economy would be the only way to escape this vicious cycle. Workers and communities would democratically decide how the economy is run, and direct production toward the needs of society as a whole. Major corporations would be taken into public ownership, and workers would no longer be laid off in the thousands to protect the salaries of greedy executives.

The wealth hoarded by the rich would be freed up to use for the benefit of society as a whole.

We can’t afford another recession, and we certainly can’t afford another “recovery” where all the gains accrue to the richest. We will need to fight tooth and nail for our survival and demand an alternative! J

A n t h o n y D’ A m i c o Ne w Yo r k , NY

1. Billionaires Boom But Workers Bust Unemployment is at its worst levels since the Great Depression, but it’s a banner year to be a billionaire. The fortunes of American billionaires grew an average of $42 billion during each week of the pandemic. Meanwhile for the working class (which includes our unemployed siblings), rent, medical bills, and student debt are piling up with stores closing permanently and a likely winter COVID-19 surge just around the corner. But here’s a glimmer of bright news: Although Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is $48 billion richer just in pandemic times, he failed to defeat the Amazon Tax passed by Socialist Alternative’s Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant in July. The $240 million per-year tax will build urgently needed social housing. Now there’s something more useful than another superyacht for Bezos (Business Insider, 8/3/2020).

2. Escape to New Zealand The island nation of New Zealand has long featured in the doomsday survival plans of wealthy Americans. Even Former New Zealand Prime Minister John Key admitted in 2018, “I’ve had a lot of people say to me that they would like to own a property in New Zealand if the world goes to hell in a handbasket.” Well, now the billionaires have their chance to test out those secret locks and escape tunnels in their basements. As COVID-19 swept through homes and hospitals, the richest Americans boarded planes and jetted off to New Zealand. Meanwhile, over 900 front-line

U.S. health care workers, a majority people of color, have died of COVID-19, often from underfunded hospitals and a lack of PPE and testing. These things could easily be fixed if we had access to the staggering 10% of global GDP that is hidden in offshore tax havens. Why are the rich investing in hidden bunkers, anyway, you might ask? The founder of Vivos, a bunkerbuilding company, believes they fear uprisings against the top 1%. “They don’t want to have to defend their homes when the gangs of looters or marauders show up” (Bloomberg, 4/19/2020). Noted.

3. Small “Learning Pods” Are Becoming Big Business Are the kids tired of remote learning?

Struggling to balance your own job and your child’s education? If so, you might be ready to launch your own “learning pod” - as long as you’ve got an extra $30,000 a year or so. For the uninitiated, “learning pods” are formed by parents who hire teachers for small-group, in-home instruction. The private tutors supplement, or even replace, remote learning offered by public schools.

Like so many educational enrichment opportunities, though, it’s completely out of reach for working parents. Shy Rodriguez, a single mother and nursing assistant in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, heard about the idea and thought how wonderful it would be to form a pod for her two kids. But the cost was unreasonable. Ms. Rodriguez said that people who live paycheck-to-paycheck feel “like we’re directly failing our children because we can’t offer or afford the same level of opportunities.”

Ms. Rodriguez isn’t the failure - it’s the system of capitalism that’s failed our kids.

Millions of low-income families can’t even get online for classes, or attend school safely, while the rich get a head start (NY Times, 8/14/2020). The answer is simple: tax the rich to fund small class sizes and safe, new schools. Too bad the Democrats and Republicans don’t have the spine to do it. Two peas in a pod. J

STAYUPTODATEWITHSOCIALISTALTERNATIVE @Socialist Alternative /SocialistAlternativeUSA @SocialistAlt /c/SocialistAlternative

Subscribe to our journal and our paper for only $3.50 a month!

Visit SocialistAlternative.org/ Dual-Subscription-Deal

7

POLI TI CS

NOTIME TOLOSE:

HOWDOWE STOP THE FAR RIGHT? Elan A x e lbank

T

he political polarization which has taken place in the U.S. over the past decade is continuing to deepen. On balance, the majority of society has been moving to the left - just one example is Black Lives Matter this summer becoming the largest ever protest movement in the country’s history, and the significant increase in anti-racist consciousness which accompanied it. It’s also reflected in majority support for Medicare for All and the highest level of support for unions in decades.

But the other side of this polarization is the process of reactionary ideas taking root in a section of society, with a much smaller but growing section being pulled toward the far right. The forces of the far right in the U.S. are larger, more visible, and more confident than they have been in many decades and, as the system plunges deeper into crisis, if no left alternative is built, the far right is poised to grow even more. The million-dollar question is how can we stop this from happening.

How We Got Here: Trump Both a Cause and Effect It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Trump’s frequent use of racist rhetoric and his regular refusal to condemn right-wing violence has emboldened and given cover to dangerous white nationalist and right-wing forces. But the story didn’t start here. A cocktail of conditions had been brewing underneath the surface during the Obama/Biden years and before which needs to be honestly reviewed in order to fully understand how we got here.

Despite their progressive facade of “hope and change,” Obama and Biden ruled for eight years with a corporate agenda. The post2008 “recovery” they oversaw was only for the super-rich and corporations, while the working-class majority got poorer and sunk deeper into debt. The bailout of the big banks while millions of ordinary people got foreclosed on was the key factor that gave rise to the Tea Party. The shameless continuation of war in the Middle East under the guise of “anti-terrorism” contributed to growing Islamaphobia.

The escalation of deportations to a higher level than any presidency in history helped foment xeonophobic ideas, giving a recruiting ground and legitimacy to the anti-immigrant right.

It was precisely the Democratic Party’s failure to meet the needs of working and middle-class people that allowed Trump to demagogically appeal to millions of voters whose living standards had been falling for years. He seized on the anger at a corrupt, out-oftouch political establishment with cynical appeals to national pride, scapegoating immigrants, blatant misogyny, and pledges to “drain the swamp” in Washington. Of course there was one candidate in 2016, Bernie Sanders, who could have countered Trump with an anti-establishment campaign from the left and a message of working-class unity, rejecting all appeals to racism and sexism. But in doing everything in their power to stop him in the primaries, the DNC showed they preferred four years of Trump to four years of Bernie,

8

Battle of Cable Street, London 1936. a wish which, unfortunately for the rest of us, they may be granted.

Once in office, Trump further catalyzed the growth of the far right.

After the August 2017 “Unite the Right” protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump said there were “good people on both sides.” More recently, Trump refused to condemn the murder of two BLM protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin by 17-year old white supremacist Kyle Rittenhouse.

In some cities, heavily armed, self-styled militias of white nationalists patrol BLM and anti-mask protests. Trump has spun a narrative that these right-wing vigilantes are responding to the terror brought on by the “radical left” and Antifa, backing up his “law and order” campaign message. And now, Trump is setting himself up to contest the election results as illegitimate and rigged should he lose, even hinting that he might refuse to leave the White House.

All of this and more has millions of people fearfully wondering, what is happening in this country? Are we witnessing a slide into fascism like Germany in the 1930s? How can we stop the further growth of the far right?

What is Fascism and Germany in the 1930s Definitions of fascism in the media and popular consciousness vary greatly. With a president now who refuses to condemn whitenationalist violence and claims the elections will only be legitimate if he’s the winner, the need for a serious discussion on the nature of fascism, and a historical look at situations like the 1930s in Germany, is increasingly important.

Germany had a powerful labor movement and two mass working-class political parties, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Communists (KPD). There had been revolutionary upheavals after World War I with workers inspired by the Russian Revolution. However, these tragically ended in failure. The massive world economic crisis which began in 1929 only got worse in 1931 leading to mass unemployment.

Fearing that this time the working class would succeed in ending capitalism, sections of the ruling class turned to Hitler’s Nazis and began funding them. The Nazis had been a very weak force through most of the ‘20s but the failure of the Socialists and Communists to show a clear way out of the crisis led desperate sections of the ruined middle class and unemployed to turn to them.

Fascism in Germany became a rapidly growing mass movement based on fury at the worsening conditions and a redirecting of blame for those problems onto minorities such as the Jews.

But even at this stage, if the Communists and Socialists, with millions of supporters and even armed detachments, had united in decisive action they could have begun pushing the fascists off the streets. But to really defeat this menace would have meant going on the offensive against the diseased capitalist system which bred fascism, with a program to end unemployment and poverty. One example of this type of action was when British socialists, trade unionists and Jewish workers acted decisively to check the country’s embryonic fascist movement in the Battle of Cable Street in London’s East End in 1936. A strong approach early helped ensure the far right in SOCI ALI STALTERNATI VE. ORG

Far-right couple in Louisville points guns at Black Lives Matter protestors.

Britain never grew into a truly mass movement like in Germany or Italy.

The historic failure of the left’s leadership in Germany and especially that of the KPD to act decisively at this juncture opened the door to the Nazis taking power even though they never even won a majority of the vote. Once in office, the Nazis moved rapidly to smash the unions and the left parties. This is precisely the role that fascism has historically played: a mass social movement utilized by the ruling class when their system is under serious threat, to smash the labor movement and organizations of the working class, and ensure the survival of capitalism.

the last four years, the Democrats have instead obsessed over “Russiagate” and an entirely uninspiring impeachment trial. They were completely incapable of bringing an end to Trump’s government shutdown over the border wall in late 2018-early 2019. The shutdown only came to an end due to heroic workplace actions by TSA workers, air traffic controllers, and the threat of a mass strike by flight attendants.

In fact, all the instances in which Trump or the far right have been pushed back most decisively have one glaring thing in common: the Democrats were nowhere to be found and the winning strategy was mass action by the working class and young people.

Is the U.S. Becoming 1930s Germany?

Biden vs. Trump: Implications for the Far Right

Many similarities to this situation as well as some key differences can be found in the U.S. today. We are in the very early stages of a deep global depression, certainly the worst since the Great Depression with the potential even to surpass it. There is an extreme political polarization with fewer and fewer people satisfied with the status quo. Among a growing section of the working class and youth, there is a gravitation toward left-wing and socialist ideas while a section of the white middle class and working class are being pulled further right, with one example being the growing popularity of the far right QAnon conspiracy theories.

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that the number of white nationalist groups in the U.S. rose 55% from 100 in 2017 to 155 in 2019, with an accompanying rise in white nationalist violence. In 2018, a self-proclaimed neo-nazi shot up the Tree of Life Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 people and injuring more.

In 2019, another white nationalist shot 46 people, killing 23, in a Walmart in a Latino neighborhood in El Paso, Texas. Armed rightwing militias have shown up to dozens of Black Lives Matter protests across the country. It has also become clear that the far right has infiltrated many police forces around the country.

These are all extremely dangerous developments which point to a deeper process at work, but there are also important differences to the situation today than in the leadup to fascist takeovers of the past.

Historically, fascism has only come about with the blessing of a wide section of the ruling class as a last resort. The threat of imminent socialist revolution simply does not exist today in the U.S. or other major capitalist countries, though this can change in the coming years in the context of the deepening economic and social crisis of capitalism. The big majority of the ruling class believes that the situation is still salvageable through regular “democratic” norms, which have served the U.S. ruling class extremely well up to this point.

The far right today in the U.S. is a long ways away from the two million strong, highly organized Nazi Party, or even the Ku Klux Klan in its heyday. This is not to downplay the threat that even the currently small forces of the far right represent but to say that now is the time to build a mass working-class movement that can decisively push back the far right before they grow into an even bigger force.

Tens of millions of progressive-minded people are rightfully terrified of another four years of Trump and are willing to do whatever it takes to get him out. What are the Democrats providing as the answer to this desperation? Just about the most risky and uninspiring candidate imaginable to go up against Trump: Joe Biden.

While Trump is obviously a nightmare, and no socialist should shed a tear if he loses, we must also be clear that “Trumpism” will not magically vanish if Trump is forced to leave the Oval Office.

Trumpism and the growth of the right is a symptom of a decaying system in crisis with no way out for the masses being shown.

A Biden presidency will bring any amount of “stability” or a “return to normal.” The crises of COVID-19 - which has been exacerbated tenfold by the private health care nightmare Biden refuses to address - the economic depression, systemic racism, climate change, and the resulting social unrest will all persist and escalate.

The corporate rule of a Biden presidency will still very much fan the flame of capitalist crisis and the growth of the far right.

How do we stop this? Mass action by the working class, rebuilding a fighting labor movement, a left alternative to the Democrats in the form of a working-class party, and eventually the replacement of capitalism with socialism as the only permanent solution.

The Democrats’ Record in Fighting Trump and the Right

40,000 people marched against the far-right in Boston in 2017.

OCTOBER 2020

Socialist Alternative’s Strategy Any strategy to stop the far right must include tactics in the short term for collective self defense. In situations of ongoing protests like we saw this summer in Minneapolis, Portland, or Kenosha, the starting point should be democratically run community meetings in working-class neighborhoods, especially communities of color, to discuss self defense. This should be in contrast to the “militant” actions of isolated anarchists and others who are not accountable to working class communities.

As we’ve seen in countless examples this summer, the police or National Guard cannot be relied upon to stop right-wing violence. Instead of relying on state forces to protect us from the far right, community meetings should elect groups of stewards to patrol protests and maintain safety. Historically, the labor movement has played a key role in activity like this, and unions today should bring back that legacy. In the event of a contested election with major protests, rightwing violence is possible and these sorts of tactics could be important.

But while well-organized self defense is crucial, the working class taking the initiative is the key to pushing back the far right. For example during the height of the rebellion in Minneapolis or the street clashes in Portland, a one day general strike of all workers in the city would have far more decisively pushed back state forces and the far right, and won actual demands for the movement if they were clearly laid out. When the working class truly flexes its muscles, much can be accomplished.

As we saw in Boston after Charlottesville, if the far right is met with massive and determined resistance, they can be pushed back.

But in the longer term, what’s desperately needed is a real strategy to put an end to the conditions that have allowed the far right to grow in the first place. Limiting ourselves to being just anti-Trump or against the far-right, as most establishment Democrats do, is fatal.

Whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden who sits in the White House, we need an offensive program that can unite the widest

“ WHILE WELLORGANIZED SELF DEFENSE IS CRUCIAL, THE WORKING CLASS TAKING THE INITIATIVE IS THE KEY TO PUSHING BACK THE FAR RIGHT.”

The morning after Trump was elected, Socialist Alternative wrote, “We must start today to build a genuine political alternative for the 99% against both corporate dominated parties and the right so that in 2020 we will not go through this disaster again.”

Unfortunately, a real left alternative to the Democrats has not been built. Blame for this lies in no small part at the feet of Bernie Sanders who, both in 2016 and 2020, refused to decisively break from the pro-corporate leadership of the Democratic Party despite their relentless efforts to block both his campaigns. The need for a new party to the left of the Democrats can be seen in the Democrats’ utter failure to stop Trump coming to power, effectively resist his agenda once in office, or prevent the emergence of a more serious threat on the far right.

After the violence in Charlottesville, emboldened far-right organizations called over 60 rallies in dozens of states. But after 40,000 people counter-protested a rally of the far right in Boston, the overwhelming majority of these rallies were cancelled.

Instead of mounting any real fight against Trump’s attacks over

continued on p.15

9

POLI TI CS

RIGHT WING& BIGBUSINESS BEHIND KSHAMASAWANT RECALL EFFORT

Kshama at a BLM rally in June.

K a i l y n Ni c h o l s o n S e a t t l e , WA On September 17, a King County Superior Court Judge ruled in favor of four articles of recall brought against Seattle’s socialist city councilmember, Kshama Sawant. The recall campaign represents an attempt by the right wing and big business to overturn Kshama’s re-election last year and drive socialist politics out of Seattle City Hall.

Kshama’s office has played a crucial role in groundbreaking working-class movements, most notably the 15 Now movement, which made Seattle the first major U.S. city to adopt a $15 minimum wage, and the recent Tax Amazon movement, which won a $240 million per year tax on the city’s top 3% largest corporations to fund affordable housing and public services.

Kshama and her office also fought alongside Seattle’s Black Lives Matter movement, both on the streets and in City Hall.

She introduced legislation to ban the use of crowd-control weapons against peaceful protesters - which passed the council only to be challenged in court - and to defund Seattle police by 50%, which was rejected by all eight other Councilmembers.

Right-Wing and Big Business Coalition While the recall petition was officially filed by an individual resident of Kshama’s district, the campaign is being funded by big business interests including Egan Orion, the Amazon-backed candidate who ran unsuccessfully against Kshama in 2019, as well

as far-right Trump donor and billionaire ICE landlord Martin Selig. The campaign has raised over $50,000 in anonymous donations so far, which has been used to hire a top-dollar lawyer to represent them in court: John McKay, former U.S. Attorney under George W. Bush.

Nationwide Reaction Against BLM& Working People The recall effort against Kshama is happening in the context of a nationwide reaction from the right wing and political establishment against BLM protesters and progressive movements in general.

The political establishment and big business can’t accept the democratic choice of working people who have now elected Kshama three times, most recently last year despite Amazon and big business spending unprecedented sums of money trying to unseat her.

Three of the four articles of recall approved by the judge directly take issue with the leading role Kshama and her office played in social movements, including Seattle’s recent Black Lives Matter protests and Tax Amazon.

The fourth article takes issue with Kshama being a socialist, accusing her of delegating the authority of her office to an “outside organization,” Socialist Alternative. Not only is this an old accusation already dismissed by the Seattle Ethics and Elections commission, it attacks Kshama for being accountable to her own grassroots organization and its working-class platform. In reality, this is a quality most people wish other politicians had!

Kshama Solidarity Campaign We are launching an all-out mass campaign to defend our Council seat. Simultaneously, we are fighting to win victories on the things working people in Seattle need: J Defunding the police by at least 50% to fund housing and social programs.

J Canceling rent and mortgage payments for those who’ve lost jobs or income during the pandemic.

J A socialist Green New Deal - end fossil fuel usage by 2030, and carry out a massive expansion of solar and wind, paid for by taxing the rich. Bring big energy corporations into democratic public ownership and retool them for clean energy.

We are appealing the decision of the

Seattle District Court Judge, but we recognize that the courts are on the side of the ruling class. If this ruling is upheld, the recall campaign will need to collect 10,700 signatures to qualify for the ballot. Given the recall campaign’s unlimited funding from the right-wing and corporate elite, we should be prepared that they will be able to accomplish this.

They will be supported by the corporate media, the Democratic establishment, and by countless big business lobbying groups.

But we also have good reason to be confident going into this fight. With the leadership of Kshama’s council office and a fighting

continued on p.15

COMPETITIONVS. COORDINATION: THE SEARCHFOR AVACCINE To n y Wi l s d o n S e a t l l e , WA It should be pretty clear how to stop a pandemic, especially since we were forewarned a pandemic was imminent.

Isolate and contain positive cases, stockpile necessary equipment, set up a mass testing plan, and create organizational structure on a federal, state, and local level to achieve it.

By December 2019, the devastating growth of the virus was known worldwide. The rest should have been automatic - but nothing happened. This failure goes beyond Trump’s incompetence. The tools that are needed to resolve this public health crisis are clashing with the logic of competition intrinsic to the system of capitalism.

Vaccine Development: Competition Rather than Cooperation On July 31, the World Health Organization reported 165 research projects seeking a possible vaccine against the coronavirus. Of these, 26 were being tested on humans.

Companies have been engaging in secretive competition, hoarding research and technology to ensure they’re the first to

10

the finish line. Regulatory agencies like the FDA will evaluate vaccine candidates on a first-come first-serve basis, meaning the goalpost for pharmaceutical companies is not developing the best vaccine, but simply the first vaccine. This competitive race leads to a waste of resources and time that could be put to better use through cooperation.

Democratic Planning Needed There is no historical example of an effective vaccine being developed in this kind of accelerated timeline. This means our best protection remains the immediate introduction of a massive safety program. This should include immediate mass testing, and tracing of infection, and supply of tens of millions of units of safety equipment on a weekly basis. To do this means breaking with the profit-making logic of capitalism.

It means taking public control of necessary productive resources, urgently deploying medical teams into struggling communities. Yet, neither major political party is willing to put forward such policies, which would challenge the dysfunctional inability of capitalism to achieve these goals.

Instead of these pharmaceutical companies each working in secret to develop profitable vaccines and drugs, these efforts should be shared among scientists and the public on

an international scale. Sharing of medical information would massively improve the international search by scientists for an effective and safe vaccine. The need to share medical research information and a response to the pandemic based on people’s needs not profit points towards Medicare for All and taking the major pharmaceutical companies and hospitals into public ownership.

These companies already have global supply and distribution chains and trained personnel. With the additional workload, it will be necessary to employ more people, but on stable contracts and under good conditions. Research and technology previously held in silos by different companies should be collectivized.

This goes to the heart of the case for socialism. Why? Because to implement these policies means democratic control of government and the economy by the working class. It means decision-making taken out of the hands of billionaire shareholders and their representatives in government.

While this kind of transformation might seem overwhelming, it is absolutely necessary. The devastation due to the pandemic and failing economy is a direct result of this failing system. Join the socialists in fighting to build a new fair, just and equitable society – a socialist world. J SOCI ALI STALTERNATI VE. ORG

ENVI RONMENT

THE NEW CLIMATE NORMAL:

CAPITALISMIS KILLINGTHE PLANET Re be c c a Gr e e n B o s t o n , MA In almost every metric to measure extreme weather, the Earth is breaking record after record, from the hottest heat waves to the worst fires to one of the most active hurricane seasons on record. This is the new normal and yes, this is climate change.

Millions have been evacuated, and hundreds of thousands have lost their homes to fires and flooding since COVID-19, a pandemic that itself foreshadows the dangers of unfettered environmental degradation. Across the West Coast, under menacing orange skies, people have been forced indoors to avoid toxic smoke from historic fires in the middle of a respiratory pandemic.

The fires and smoke have created a dramatic sense of fear and dread among a huge section of the population not just in California, but in Washington State and Oregon as well.

While millions, especially young people, see the need for immediate, dramatic action; there is also an overwhelming sense of fear that we’re out of time.

The two main political parties in the U.S. stand squarely in the way of the seismic change that is necessary. The only way out of this crisis is if we do it ourselves, and

EVACUATED Elliot Bar t z Remembering the experience of a wildfire is like assembling a series of fragments from a broken picture: startled awake at 3am to an unprecedented dry lightning storm. A sense of foreboding rising in our stomachs. This weather belongs in the midwest, not coastal California.

2pm the next day: evacuation warning. Pack everything now! We fly through the house. Start the car. Rip off the

OCTOBER 2020

involve millions in the process of democratically planning and building an environmentally sustainable, socialist society.

Extreme Weather Unchecked As global temperatures rise, dry climates become drier, creating more fuel for fires out of scorched fields, forests, and debris.

Warmer weather also means that in wetter climates, the air can hold more moisture, meaning that tropical storms and hurricanes come with more threat of flooding. Even if we went 100% carbon neutral tomorrow, extreme weather would continue. While we need to stop this crisis at its source, we also need to adapt to a new climate norm.

We need full funding for wildfire response and forest management, including controlled burns. We also need to reconsider where we can live and work. If carbon emissions continue as they are, in 30 years half a million homes will flood each year. By 2070, 28 million people will be impacted by Manhattansized megafires.

And yet, since 2010 in coastal states, the most flood-prone areas have seen the highest rates of home construction, and development is continuing in areas hit by wildfires on the West Coast.

Meanwhile, the insurance industry is

flammable window coverings and throw clothes and keepsakes into bags. Then comes the official order to evacuate. Get out now!

As we depart, we observe the fire: columns of flame extend up to 50 feet in the air. The fire is creeping down the hill towards our house as smoke billows upwards; time to go for real.

We drove to the next town over to find a hotel room with our terrified cat in the back. After several calls we secured a room that allowed pets for $300. We could only afford to stay one night, so we were forced to start looking again. After a couple hours of searching we found a 200 square ft studio for $110 a night, barely

playing a disappearing act. Last year, California officials had to ban insurers from cancelling policies for 800,000 homes. Hundreds of thousands are being dropped by their insurance companies because insurance is just not profitable when a house burns down or floods.

People don’t need for-profit insurance - we should be ensuring all people have affordable housing with the promise of relief in the case of any natural disaster. We also need severe restriction on further construction in fire and flood prone areas.

Instead, we need a massive jobs program that could put millions back to work in union jobs building affordable, sustainable housing in climate-safe areas, and retrofitting existing homes to withstand extreme weather. To do this we need to tax the rich and big business who overwhelmingly create the highest carbon footprints and exacerbate the crisis.

No Time to Wait The Republican Party and Donald Trump are obvious threats to the environment, but the criminal negligence of the Democratic Party that controls California, Oregon, and Washington is life-threatening too. With one hand, California Governor Gavin Newsom mandates cars be fossil-fuel free by 2035.

within our budget.

We spent 8 days in that studio with the smoke thick outside. We were just over the hill from the fire threatening our house and we could see the smoke rise.

We had a Nest cam in our house and saw the police come several times to make sure we had evacuated. They banged on the door so hard that it opened and they left it ajar.

After 9 days we were able to return home and our house was fortunately undamaged. Since then, my main job has been brush clearance and preparing for the inevitable wildfire. Hopefully we’ll get the full year to prepare for the next fire season. J

With the other, he has approved 36 new fracking permits since COVID-19 began. In July, he cut pay for firefighters by 7.5%. In May, budget cuts from his emergency pandemic budget meant CalFire added just 167 firefighters to its ranks, instead of the 500 they requested, which is itself far short of what they need.

Newsom also opposes raising taxes on the wealthiest in the state – so where, then, is the money for wildfire response supposed to come from?

Joe Biden has a far-reaching climate plan compared to those of Democrats past, but it still falls wildly short of what is necessary, and he still doesn’t support a Green New Deal. To win even his modest measures, Biden and the Democrats would need to directly take on the fossil fuel industry, developers, and major polluting industries, which they continually refuse to do.

Just 100 fossil fuel producers are responsible for 70% of emissions from the last two decades - is it any wonder they promote individual lifestyle change as a solution? The billionaires that have run our planet into the ground have known about climate change for decades, and they know it’s getting worse.

As long as our society is run on the basis of profit, we will have to battle moneyed interests every single step of the way to win the most modest changes. And as long as our two political parties are both beholden to these corporate interests, we’ll have to fight them too.

We don’t have time to let them slow us down anymore: to avoid full-scale climate meltdown, we have to completely do away with the system of capitalism. Private utilities and fossil fuel companies should be taken into democratic public ownership. We need to build on the youth climate movement that has brought millions into the street to fight for our futures. To win, we will need a mass, revolutionary movement of the working class, the class that can bring society to a grinding halt and build it up from the ground again, on a sustainable basis. J

11

SOCI ALI ST ALTERNATI VE I N ACTI ON

INTERVIEWWITH BROOKLYNTENANT ORGANIZER ONTHEGROUND: We interviewed Elin Miller who is on the executive board of FullTime Tenants Union and is a member of Socialist Alternative.

What is it like to be a renter in NYC during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Being a working-class renter in New York City during COVID-19 is a really mixed experience. Some of us face unrelenting landlord harassment for nonpayment, while others face radio silence. Some have been able to tap into government aid or use our stimulus checks for rent, but others haven’t seen a dime of unemployment. Some are leaving NYC for cheaper markets, while others hold onto our homes whether we can pay or not.

What protections do renters have under the pandemic?

New York has relatively strong renter protections in comparison to other states thanks to our long tenant organizing history, yet the complex patchwork of eviction moratoriums and meager rent relief packages haven’t solved the looming debt and eviction crises.

Money-hungry corporate landlords are stopping at nothing to get tenants out of their homes, sending henchmen to break into

apartments and intimidate tenants into leaving, drilling tenants’ locks, and using their wealth to lobby politicians in their interests.

Tenants are also being threatened with insurmountable back-rent. My landlord used this tactic to pressure one former tenant into a predatory deal that left her homeless and still in debt, allowing her to break her lease for a small reduction in rent owed.

What is the FullTime Tenant Union, and how did you get involved with them?

FullTime Tenant Union is a group of tenant associations and individuals who rent from FullTime Management, which operates hundreds of apartments across NYC. FTTU formed in March, around the same time I began organizing a rent strike in my building.

We’ve been involved with a lot of initiatives over the months, primarily organizing renters around common issues like neglected maintenance, landlord harassment, and inability to afford rent. We’re empowering tenants to organize within their buildings. We distribute legal information, mobilize for protests, and organize eviction defense.

Ultimately, our work demonstrates that renters need to build collective power and

Socialist Alternative members in Gainesville, FL.

BUILDINGIN THE SOUTH Co nno r B .

No r t h C a r o l i n a Capitalism’s crises are worsening everywhere, and as working class people look for genuine solutions, many are turning to socialist ideas. Socialist Alternative has seen a surge of interest and has been expanding in new areas throughout the country, including the South.

We have been holding online meetings where there is interest in

12

SA across the South, in particular in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. These meetings have featured discussions on current events like the Black Lives Matter uprising and the presidential race as well as the state of the labor movement and broader theoretical discussions on Marxist ideas. Members from established branches across the country attend these meetings and train members in new areas in how to build a branch of Socialist Alternative.

fight on all fronts. We need to address the immediate crises we face in order to build a movement that is ready to fight for long-term change.

What do you think it will take to guarantee no one faces eviction, or insurmountable rent debt as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Tenants nationwide have already been evicted, and many more face devastating debt that could lead to an eviction down the road. Historic numbers of young people are moving back in with their parents. Rent paid with credit cards has increased 43%; one in ten renters have withdrawn money from retirement accounts for rent. Only one solution will ensure no one else is evicted during COVID-19: universal rent cancellation, funded by taxing the rich and letting corporate landlords take the hit they can afford.

We must also address the housing crisis that existed before COVID-19, by urgently reclaiming vacant apartments to house the homeless, implementing aggressive rent control, and massively investing in affordable social housing.

Renters need to be clear about what we’re up against. Democrats and Republicans alike

Elin organized a rent strike in their buliding in March.

are bending to pressure from corporate landlords instead of helping renters. The only way to fight back is to build a mass, organized movement that can take power back from landlords directly. From rent strikes to eviction defense, we need mass solidarity to force the establishment to capitulate. J

SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE INNEWAREAS

Members across the South have attended Black Lives Matter protests this summer, bringing flyers and sign-up sheets to further build the movement.

In Orlando, Gainesville, Miami, Raleigh, New Orleans, Atlanta, Dallas and Houston, our members have discussed with other protesters the inextricable links between capitalism and racism.

In Gainesville, FL, we have held a number of rallies including one to defund the Gainesville Police Department and invest in communities instead.

In the South where tenant laws are extremely weak, anti-eviction work has become another area of struggle for newly formed Socialist Alternative groups. COVID-19 and insufficient government relief has created a perfect storm of evictions that is only beginning.

We have been canvassing door

to door in Gainesville and discussing with friends and coworkers in Orlando about how we can fight back. In Durham, NC we are getting active with Bull City Tenants’ United, a grassroots renters coalition.

In Atlanta, SA members set up our first ever community table in July. We used this to pass out flyers with the slogan “Fully Fund Our Schools” and talk to our neighbors about the Tax Amazon movement in Seattle. In Tennessee, a member has been discussing workplace safety under COVID19 with her coworkers at Krogers, where PPE has been scant and workers have tested positive.

In a time of unprecedented crisis, it is crucial that we build the socialist movement everywhere, especially in the South where the bosses have used reactionary tactics to beat back the workers’ movement. The ruling-class tactics of vicious racism, anti-union propaganda, attacks on reproductive rights and LGBTQ people, and outright anti-worker Republican governance are hallmarks of the

South. But the similarities with the rest of the country outweigh the differences: stagnating wages, rising rents, police violence, and capitalist oppression are universal, and demand a socialist movement that transcends regional boundaries.

Regardless of where you are, the best time to join the fight against capitalism is now. Socialist Alternative is an organization of working class fighters committed to changing the world, and regardless of where you live we urge you to become a member. While getting started building in a new area might seem difficult, being part of a fighting organization committed to building the socialist movement in every corner of the country and globe means you are not alone. Check the last page of this newspaper to see where we have existing branches, and if there isn’t one in your area, reach out about starting one today. We have a world to win! J

SOCI ALI STALTERNATI VE. ORG

WORKERS RISE UP AGAINST THE DICTATORIAL LUKASHENKOREGIME

I NTERNATI ONAL To read more international news check out International Socialist Alternative at internationalsocialist.net.

Mass anti-government demonstrations in Minsk.

Beginning in May 2020 there have been ongoing protests and demonstrations in Belarus against the Belarusian government and President Alexander Lukashenko. These began in the lead-up to their 2020 presidential elections where Lukashenko sought a sixth term. The protests escalated on election night when Lukashenko declared victory against opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Protestors were demanding a fair count of votes. This has turned into a sustained prodemocracy movement. Below is an adapted excerpt from an article by published on September 21 by Rob Jones from the Russian section of International Socialist Alternative (ISA). To read more about this ongoing struggle, visit www.internationalsocialist.net.

After weeks of stand-offs between mass protests and the dictatorial regime of Alexander Lukashenko, the last few days have seen new, and possibly dangerous developments.

The current deadlock can only be broken for the benefit of ordinary people if there is a return to independent action by the working class through strike action.

Protesters have repeatedly gathered in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and other cities demanding for Lukashenko to go. For several weeks the police have held back, but now arrests are widespread. Gangs of “tikhari” – plain clothed and masked thugs from the KGB secret police - and police have roamed the streets, attacking protestors with sticks.

ISAINACTION: M i c h a e l O’ B r i e n Du b l i n , I r e l a n d

Workers’ Strikes The biggest turning point in the struggle was when, one after another, workforces across the country went out on strike, some for an hour, others a day, demanding that Lukashenko goes. The regime was forced to step back, ceasing police violence and torture within the prisons. The working class demonstrated that it had the power to stop the country.

The upsurge in working-class militancy is all the more impressive given that the organized labor movement has been decimated by the legacy of Stalinism, with state-sponsored trade unions serving as appendages of the government. The independent unions that do exist argue for participating in “social partnership” projects and entering negotiations with Lukashenko. Even in conferences that have taken place during this tremendous movement, the independent unions discuss their tasks as preparing for future organization, rather than posing clear demands for mobilization today.

When workers returned to work, they faced massive repression in the workplaces. As one commented: “People are made to work under threats. The most active have been sacked [fired]. They even threaten physical violence against the families of those who spoke in support of the strike.”

This is the paradox of the current situation. The masses are prepared in huge numbers to take great risk, face arrest, beatings, torture and the loss of their jobs to protest against Lukashenko’s authoritarian regime.

Spontaneity and self-organization are positive features of the movement. Social networks are full of individual blocks of apartments organizing their participation in protests. But this leaves the movement without either up the resources for redundancy a strategy for victory, or a pay from their stocks and the plan for what follows the profits hidden by their UK parent overthrow of Lukashenko. company.

Socialist Party members Left Alternative worked with Debenhams workers in these meetings to also organize Needed socially distanced protests at the The “Coordination stores and the Bank of Ireland, Council,” initiated

by Svetwhich is a shareholder of the lana Tikhanovskaya, the parent company and is itself part candidate who ran and owned by the government. Once won against Lukashenko, the lockdown restrictions eased, is the unelected opposition the workers took the initiative to leadership. Tikhanovskaya mount strong pickets that have herself is supported by rebuffed attempts by the court self-appointed businessappointed liquidator to sell the men, media consultants, company’s stock to pay off busiand former government nesses and state taxes instead of ministers. Many protesters paying workers their agreed upon would support Tikhanovsredundancy payments. kaya as president, but they These blockades as well as do not look to her or the recent occupations of two of the Coordination Council as a stores have been in defiance of whole for leadership of this Ireland’s restrictive labor laws, movement. but have been absolutely necesA strong left alternative sary to sustain the struggle for intervening with proper five months and counting, giving demands and a strategy the best chance of victory. J

IRISHRETAIL WORKERS STRIKE

Michael O’Brien is a member of the Socialist Party, the sister section of Socialist Alternative in Ireland.

The lockdown enforced in Ireland in March by the onset of COVID-19 paved the way for a massacre of jobs, especially in the retail sector. The Irish subsidiary of Debenhams, a UK based retail chain, seized the opportunity to cut their losses and announced the closure of all 11 stores in the country with the loss of over 1,000 jobs.

The company bogusly claimed that they didn’t have the money to give laid off workers four weeks redundancy pay (severance in the U.S.), a guarantee won by their union MANDATE in 2016 during a previous round of job losses. The union leadership and company assumed that this would be accepted by the overwhelmingly female workforce, OCTOBER 2020

Protestors are learning new methods of struggle. Training is taking place to provide self-defense for the demonstrations. Groups of demonstrators are often seen with youth at the front linking arms. One media outlet has released a database of the riot police with names and addresses, which it had threatened to do if police violence didn’t cease.

many with decades of service in the company. However, some of the shop stewards and many of the workers want to fight back.

One of the Debenhams workers in Cork, a city in the south of Ireland, contacted Socialist Party member of Parliament Mick Barry soon after the closure announcement. Similarly one of the Dublin based workers contacted Socialist Party member and former member of parliament Ruth Coppinger. We quickly facilitated a Zoom conference call of 70 workers spanning most of the stores. These meetings became regular during the severest period of lockdown and grew to over 100 workers spanning all the stores.

These meetings discussed the politics and economics of the closure, and were used to develop demands and a plan for struggle.

We discussed the need for state intervention to save the jobs through public ownership, and to demand Debenhams cough

to win is needed to fill the massive political vacuum that now exists. The size of the demonstrations has encouraged many people, who for years have suffered repression and discrimination in silence, to join the mass movement. Victims of domestic violence have been flooding into womens support groups and well organized groups of LGBTQ activists have participated in the protests. But those organizations that do exist find themselves overwhelmed.

For an Independent Socialist Belarus Self-defense needs to be coordinated on an internationalist basis to defend the right of self-determination of Belarus while opposing attempts to divide people on nationalist lines. Links need to be built with work collectives and university groups. The current deadlock can only be broken for the benefit of ordinary people if there is a return to independent action by the working class through strike action.

Calls for Lukashenko to go and all political prisoners to be freed need to be linked with demands for an end to privatization, the contract system, and pension reforms, as well as to restore free and quality health care and education. The working class should place itself at the head of this struggle, establishing a democratic and accountable national strike coordination. This would provide the basis for forming a mass workers party with a socialist program, presenting candidates in coming elections as well as convening a constituent assembly at which elected representatives of all working people can decide how Belarus should be governed. This would lay the basis for democratic planning in the interests of the working class, and an independent, socialist Belarus as part of a wider federation of democratic socialist states. J

13

EDUCATI ON

TAX WALL STREET TOPROVIDE NECESSARY RESOURCES:

NEWYORK CITY’S BOTCHED SCHOOL REOPENING To m C r e a n Ne w Yo r k C i t y , NY School reopenings across the U.S. have been an absolute nightmare. There has been no scenario - whether school is in-person, remote, or hybrid - that has worked well for families and educators.

New York City was originally slated to be the only major city in the country whose public schools were reopening for in-person learning. The reopening in NYC, originally planned for early September, has been pushed back twice due to justified fears from educators and school administrators about the lack of resources they’ve been given to reopen safely. COVID-19 cases have now been positively identified at 100 schools in the city, and most students aren’t even back in the classroom yet. A significant reason Mayor Bill de Blasio has been forced to twice delay reopening is the building wide activism of teachers who have organized sick outs and rallies.

There is an atmosphere of tremendous frustration and anxiety among New York City families and educators. Had the city pumped a dramatic amount of money into transforming the schools over the summer for in-person learning, including the hiring of thousands of new educators, this crisis could have been managed. Instead, the situation has left NYC’s over one million public school students hanging in the balance with another

reopening date set for early October.

Can Schools Be Reopened Safely?

New York, after going through the worst disaster in the country, with COVID-19 with over 23,000 deaths, has been more careful than almost anywhere else in lifting lockdown restrictions. This has kept the rate of transmission relatively low over the past two and a half months.

In this sense New York meets the first objective test for safely reopening schools but this is far from resolving the question of whether the reopening will actually be safe and successful. A letter signed by a number of groups entitled “Slow Down to Save Lives” points out there are still neighborhoods, mostly Black and immigrant, with infection rates above 3%. They called for making decisions on reopening at the Community District level and for not reopening schools in an area with an infection rate higher than 3%. Socialist Alternative would agree with that demand.

We do not, however, agree with some educators and the Democratic Socialists of America who say the schools should not reopen until the city goes without a confirmed case of COVID-19 for two straight weeks as this would keep schools closed indefinitely.

We have been very clear that the closure of schools and online learning has been a disaster for most working class and middle

class kids and their parents. Many parents are eager to get their kids back in school not just because of the impossibility of remote learning in some circumstances but also because of the critical social services schools provide like free meals and counseling.

While capitalist politicians cry crocodile tears for the emotional and educational damage being inflicted on children, they only care about the reopening of public schools in terms of its effect on the economy so that big business can get back to making mega profits. But if the country had been locked down earlier and the reopening had been done in a more responsible way, millions would not have been infected, tens of thousands who died would be alive and it would be possible to reopen schools across the country.

The reopening plan in New York City, with its 1.1 million public school students, is based on using a “hybrid” model. Children will go to school on a rotating basis and do online learning from home on other days to keep class sizes low and reduce crowding in buildings. Families can also opt to have their children stay home and continue with online learning full time -- something that now nearly half of NYC students will do. The city also committed to regular testing of students and staff and cleaning of classrooms.

They also agreed at the last minute, under pressure, that schools could create outdoor structures to expand their usable space and improve ventilation.

This all sounds good and in principle it is but the key sticking point is resources including sufficient staff to teach some students online while others are in school. The city education budget has already been cut by $700 million. This could mean 9,000 teacher layoffs! On top of that the state has begun to “temporarily” withhold 20% of its funding for school districts. UFT Strike Threat The leadership of the United Federation of Teachers which represents over 100,000 education workers in the city has come under massive pressure from rank and file teachers who have not been convinced about the reopening plan. This pressure was exerted from a wide variety of teachers but was perhaps best organized by the Movement of Rank and File Educators caucus (MORE).

At the end of August, the

UFT president, Michael Mulgrew, threatened strike action if the reopening was not delayed to give more time for schools to prepare.

There was also significant pressure for a delay from the principals union. This threat which was credible led to a partial victory with the physical reopening delayed for a week and a half and an agreement that the union would inspect all buildings to make sure they were safe to reopen. But when teachers returned in early September to begin preparations, they found a number of schools had not been cleaned and lacked any PPE. This led to walkouts in several schools which forced De Blasio to again delay the beginning of inperson learning.

At Middle School (MS) 88 in Brooklyn, teachers discovered after returning to their building that a colleague had tested positive for COVID-19. Teachers were then told the next day by the Department of Education (DoE) that it was safe to return to the building even though the proper level of contract tracing had not been done. As the teachers at MS 88 wrote in an eloquent statement, “This new year has already evoked memories of last spring, when we had numerous cases among staff, tried to support our students through the loss of parents, grandparents and extended family, and had a colleague in the hospital, fighting for his life for 88 days.”

What Now While the union leadership has adopted a slightly more militant posture under huge pressure, it is still avoiding the key fight on resources. Without a reversal of cuts and without hiring more teachers, counsellors, cleaning workers, etc, this reopening will not work. MORE has indicated support for the general demand for more resources, but their formal material is not concrete enough in calling for a tax on the billionaires and Wall St. This is an issue that urgently needs to be taken up by rank and file teachers in the UFT and forced on the agenda in the union.

We need mass demonstrations in the city, led by the unions, to demand taxing Wall Street and the billionaires to keep public transit running, fully fund school needs, and preserve all other social services. We should have no faith in Cuomo, de Blasio or any of the other corporate Democrats who have mismanaged this crisis and refuse to even consider taxing the rich. If they won’t listen, teachers, transit workers and the rest of the public sector workforces should stage a one day general strike.

Building the strongest possible alliance between teachers and working class parents was key to the gains made in the wave of teachers strikes in 2018 and 2019. It is also the key now to winning and executing a safe reopening. J

New York City teacher protests unsafe reopening.

14

SOCI ALI STALTERNATI VE. ORG

CONTI NUATI ONS

FORESIGHT 2020: LOOMINGPOLITICAL STORMS OF U.S. CAPITALISM continued from p. 3

well-organized earlier this year to defeat the Bernie Sanders campaign. In fact, the Democratic Party leadership is quite competent at what they see as their main job: to help maximize the profits of big business and billionaires. Doing what is “best for business” means holding back movements of workers and the oppressed when they challenge capitalism’s exploitation and oppression. For instance, despite the fact that “Medicare for All” is growing in popularity, Biden and Harris oppose it vehemently, because they’re bankrolled by insurance and pharmaceutical corporations.

As this article was being written, we received news about the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. While millionaire Congressmen went on vacation rather than providing necessary stimulus for working people this summer, we’ll now see emergency sessions for the Republicans to try to push through a right-wing judge.

Democrats could try to block this by refusing to show up to hearings and calling for mass protests across the country. They likely won’t do this. Instead, they’ll play politics with people’s lives, using this to increase “lesser evil” pressure to vote for Biden who’s pushed for conservatives to sit on the Supreme Court in the past. While fighting against a right-wing takeover of the courts, we should also recognize the inherently undemocratic nature of lifetime-appointed positions being so crucial in U.S. politics.

Would Biden “Bring Back Normal?”

When the clock strikes midnight to usher in the New Year, everyone will be glad to see the end of 2020, but the pandemic, economic crisis, racism, environmental catastrophe, and a growing right-wing threat will still be with us going into 2021. If Biden wins the election, it won’t be because of any enthusiasm for him, but rather due to the deep hatred of Trump.

Millions of people would be jubilant about both the end of the Trump regime, and the beginning of the New Year, and socialists will participate in the celebrations with our eyes wide open about the dangers that lie ahead.

If Biden enters the White House, the Democrats will be overseeing the biggest crisis this country’s seen since the Great Depression.

Anti-establishment moods will grow and political polarization will continue. Far right groups and outright fascist forces will increase in support, because the Democrats and the capitalist system they serve won’t deliver substantial change. We should remember that the failures of corporate establishment politics led to Trump coming to the White House in the first place, and a right-wing figure or organization even worse than Trump could emerge under a Biden Presidency in crisis.

In order to effectively fight against the far right, we need a movement and ultimately a new party that fights in the interests of the working class (see pages 8 and 9). This is one reason why Socialist Alternative rejects the

logic of “lesser evil” voting. In this election, a protest vote for Howie Hawkins can help build steps toward a working-class party, despite the weaknesses of the Green Party (see page 4). More importantly, building the labor movement, struggles against racism, a fight against looming evictions, protests against climate change, and an outright rebellion against all the injustices of capitalism can lay the basis for the type of party we need.

While there will be a huge sigh of relief if Biden wins the election and a potential decrease in protests for a few months, nobody has faith that Biden will solve all our problems.

Movements would emerge again and increasingly come into conflict with the Democratic Party. Socialists can play a huge role in these struggles, pushing for people to get organized, putting forward clear demands, popularizing the need for a new party, and pushing for fundamental change.

The “normal” of rampant inequality and destruction of the planet would still be devastating, and we’ll never return to “pre-2020” conditions. But coming to grips with these conclusions doesn’t need to lead toward despair.

Instead, we need a sense of urgency about building the socialist movement, laying the groundwork for a new working-class party, and building the struggles of oppressed and young people to fight for a better world. There is a burning need to get organized. And if you feel that need, you should join Socialist Alternative, as part of a worldwide movement to end the capitalist system that produces monsters like Trump and the horrific events of 2020. J

NOTIME TOLOSE: HOWDOWE STOP THE FAR RIGHT? continued from p. 9

possible layers of the working class against the right and for something better. This means our movements taking up a fighting program of Medicare for All, defunding the police by at least 50% to fund much needed social services, taxing the rich to fully fund public education, cancelling all student debt, 100% renewable energy by 2030 by taking the top energy and manufacturing corporations into democratic public ownership, and more. But we must have no illusions that a movement like this can be successfully built through the corporate-controlled Democratic Party. Their corporate backers will never allow it.

This means that regardless of who wins the election, one of the most urgent tasks for

our movement is building a new party based around working people’s interests, not corporations. A working class party will be infinitely more effective than the Democrats in winning actual victories for workers and the planet, and fending off the far right. Such a party, if actually effective at winning victories, would be able to win over a section of Trump’s base.

A new party centered on the multiracial, multigender working class and youth, and rooted in social movements, can be used to win victories for the working class, prevent regressive change from the establishment, and organize against the far right. But at a certain point, what a working-class party fights for will run up against the limits of capitalism,

where a tiny unfathomably rich minority controls everything.

German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg famously said that society stood at the crossroads of “socialism or barbarism.” Just over 100 years later, from apocalyptic scenes of the West Coast wildfires to the U.S. president refusing to condemn white nationalist terror or promise to accept the results if he loses the election, this warning rings truer than ever.

Capitalism is what gives rise to the far right, alongside the other social and economic problems we face. The only long-term solution is to end this crazy system altogether. J

RIGHT WING& BIGBUSINESS BEHINDKSHAMASAWANT RECALL EFFORT continued from p. 10

movement, the establishment was forced to back down on an attempt to reverse modest gains recently won by the Black Lives Matter movement in the city’s budget. And in just the first week of our Kshama Solidarity Campaign, we have raised over $40K in donations from working people.

We have begun campaigning on the ground OCTOBER 2020

in Kshama’s district to ensure working people understand what’s at stake and how they can get involved.

If you don’t live in Seattle, you can still help!

J Donate at kshamasolidarity.org/donate J Follow the Kshama Solidarity Campaign: Facebook @indictthesystem, Twitter @

Kshama_SC J Post to your social media accounts about why you stand with Kshama against this right-wing attack and encourage others to donate.

J Consider joining Socialist Alternative and subscribing to our publications!. J

SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE ISSN2638-3349

EDITOR: Keely Mullen EDITORIAL BOARD: George Brown, Tom Crean, Rebecca Green, Eljeer Hawkins, Joshua Koritz, Calvin Priest, Tony Wilsdon

Editors@SocialistAlternative.org

NATIONAL 639 Union Street, #B Brooklyn, NY 11215 info@SocialistAlternative.org facebook.com/SocialistAlternativeUSA Instagram: @Socialist_Alternative Twitter: @SocialistAlt

INTERNATIONAL Socialist Alternative is part of International Socialist Alternative (ISA), which has sections in over 30 countries. Learn more about the ISA at internationalsocialist.net.

INYOUR AREA MID-ATLANTIC

CAPITAL DISTRICT, NY ........ cdsocialistalternative@gmail.com NEW YORK CITY, NY ����������������������������������������� (347) 749-1236 PHILADELPHIA, PA ������������������������������������������� (267) 368-4564 PITTSBURGH, PA ���������������������������������������������� (412) 500-6806 ROCHESTER, NY .............................................. (585) 465-8685 Contact our national office for: WASHINGTON, D.C. and NEW JERSEY and

NEW ENGLAND

BOSTON, MA ����������������������������������������������������(978) -549-3855 NEW HAMPSHIRE ..............................................(603) 748-9031 PORTLAND, ME .................................................(571) 296-8652 PROVIDENCE, RI ..........................pvd@socialistalternative.org WORCESTER, MA ..............................................(617) 516-4271 Contact our national office for: NEW HAVEN, CT VERMONT

MIDWEST

CHAMPAIGN, IL ................... socialistalternativecu@gmail.com CHICAGO, IL ������������������������ Chicago@SocialistAlternative.org CINCINNATI, OH ����������������Cincinnati@SocialistAlternative.org MADISON, WI ���������������������� madison@SocialistAlternative.org MINNEAPOLIS, MN �������������������������������������������� (443) 834-2870 Contact our national office for: CHAMPAIGN/URBANA, IL COLUMBUS, OH DETROIT, MI GRAND RAPIS, MI INDIANAPOLIS, IN MILWAUKEE, WI, and PEORIA, IL

PACIFIC

LOS ANGELES, CA ���������������socialistalternative.la@gmail.com OAKLAND/SAN FRANCISCO, CA ������������������������ (510) 220-3047 SAN DIEGO, CA ������������������������������������������������ (478) 494-7717 SEATTLE, WA ���������������������������������������������������� (612) 760-1980 Contact our national office for: PORTLAND, OR

SOUTHEAST

ATLANTA, GA .....................................................(404) 884-5121 GAINESVILLE, FL ���������������������������������������������� (352) 538-6014 NORTH CAROLINA ............. nctriangle@socialistalternative.org NW ARKANSAS ������������������������������������ ArkansasSA@gmail.com Contact our national office for: ORLANDO, FL

SOUTHWEST

DALLAS, TX .......................................... graceafors@gmail.com DENVER, CO .................................................... (404) 213-7197 HOUSTON, TX ��������������������������������������������������� (281) 635-5286

15

SOCIALIST ISSUE #67 l OCTOBER 2020 SUGGESTED DONATION $2

ALTERNATIVE

WHY YOUSHOULDJOIN SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE Ev a M e t z , S e a t t l e WA

2020 has been a nightmare of a year.

The year kicked off on an apocalyptic note with the Australian wildfires and the threat of war with Iran, but it quickly became clear that the worst was yet to come. One day, life seemed fairly normal and the next, millions of us went into lockdown as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world. In the following months, millions of us would lose our jobs, our savings, and many thousands of our loved ones. Over the summer, the West Coast erupted into flames as climate change-driven wildfires spread uncontrollably. Now, we are looking toward a presidential election where the increasingly authoritarian Donald Trump is squaring off against an incompetent, bumbling representative of the Democratic Party elite, Joe Biden, with Trump openly threatening to steal the election. More than ever before, capitalism has exposed itself as a social system that is truly rotten to the core, with a political system that is utterly bankrupt.

But 2020 is not just a year of disaster. It is also a year of incredible fightback. Tens of millions took to the streets to demand Justice for George Floyd in some of the largest protests in U.S. history. A key task for socialists is to help unite these struggles and point the way forward out of the horrors of capitalism.

Before and during the pandemic, Socialist Alternative has been a force behind incredible struggles and major victories for the working class.

ARevolutionary Organization that Gets Things Done In Seattle, where Socialist Alternative member Kshama Sawant sits on the City Council, we have provided a powerful example of what’s possible with an elected Marxist who uses her seat to build movements that can fight for every possible gain for working people. In just one year, we’ve gone toe-totoe with Jeff Bezos and won — twice. In the first instance, we re-elected Kshama despite Amazon dumping a record-breaking $1.5 million into the election. Immediately after that, Kshama and Socialist Alternative played a leading role in the recent Tax Amazon victory, winning a tax on Seattle’s biggest corporations to fund affordable housing, and demonstrating in action that it’s possible to win offensive struggles against austerity. This summer, in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, Kshama’s office introduced and won a bill to ban chemical crowd control weapons and chokeholds from police, the first of its kind in the country. The far right and the billionaire class are so outraged at the effectiveness of our socialist seat that they are launching a recall campaign in an

attempt to drive Kshama out of office (see page 10).

Through our work in Seattle and elsewhere, we always put front and center our demand for a new political party for working people in the U.S. We do not see the Democratic Party as reformable, and we use our electoral work as well as our positions in social movements and the labor movement to advance the project of the formation of a new party. A party of the working class, with a fighting program and genuinely democratic structures, would be a major step forward in channeling our struggles into lasting change.

In Minneapolis, a member of Socialist Alternative serves as the elected president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005.

During the Justice for George Floyd uprising, our members in the union led bus drivers in refusing to transport protestors to jail. This inspired transit workers across the country to follow suit, including in New York City, providing a concrete example of the indispensable role of working-class solidarity in Black Lives Matter and other movements.

In Somerville, MA, Socialist Alternative members played a leading role in the struggle to win a huge living wage victory, with a 25% raise for paraprofessionals in the Somerville Public Schools.

Our members are leading and participating in tenants’ struggles across the country.

In New York, our members serve as leaders in their tenants unions fighting unjust evictions (see page 12).

Socialist Alternative has also made important steps forward in building the forces of Marxism across the country, including building inroads in the South. While we’re steadily growing, we are still a small organization – how have we been so effective, despite our comparatively small numbers?

Punching Above Our Weight The reason why Socialist Alternative has been able to consistently “punch above our weight” is because of our political cohesion.

We are an organization based around the understanding that capitalism is a fundamentally broken and backwards system that will never meet the needs of working people.

Socialist Alternative members are leaders in their workplaces and communities. We fight for all the advances we can win under capitalism, but we also believe that a socialist transformation is necessary to end oppression and injustice. We seek to build a bridge from struggles for immediate reforms to an understanding of the need for socialism. Capitalism relies on racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of oppression to divide an exploit. A key task for socialists is to unite the multiracial, multigender working class, which we see as the key force capable of changing the world.

Key to our effectiveness is our organization as a democratic centralist party. This essentially means that within our organization, we have democratic discussions and debate our program and priorities as much as possible, but once we make decisions, we are united in action to carry them out. If you are serious about changing the world, 2020 may be the year for you to join Socialist Alternative. J