Socialist Alternative Issue 75 - July/August 2021

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INSIDE p.3 CLIMATE CRISIS ESCALATES p.4 WINNING VOTING RIGHTS BIDEN BETRAYS PROMISES p.8-9

WHAT WE STAND FOR

WHY I JOINED SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE Mia Fierberg, New York City

No Return to “Normal” While the economy is rebounding due mainly to stimulus spending and the success of the vaccination effort, this temporary recovery is masking the broad instability of American capitalism. Biden’s agenda is stalling and the Democrats refuse to fight for real, permanent reforms for working people. We need a mighty struggle to demand: • Extend the eviction moratorium and cancel rental and medical debt accrued during the pandemic.

• Make the child tax credit permanent and fully fund high-quality, universal childcare.

• Tax the rich and big business to fund permanently affordable, high-quality public housing. Raise the corporate tax rate to at least 35%!

• We need an immediate transition to Medicare for All. Take for-profit hospital chains into public ownership and retool them to provide free, state-of-the-art healthcare to every American.

• Fully fund public education! End school privatization. We need a national hiring program to bring on board tens of thousands of new educators to accommodate a permanent reduction in class size.

• Cancel all student debt!

For a Socialist Green New Deal This summer we are seeing record heat and the worst drought in 1,200 years on the West Coast. All of this means this summer’s wildfire season will be especially brutal. In this context, Biden is prioritizing bipartisan deal making over delivering real climate legislation. Progressives in Congress should fight for a much bolder infrastructure plan based around a Green New Deal jobs program.

They will need to organize a mass movement of youth climate strikers and the labor movement to demand its passage!

• Fight for a genuine Green New Deal jobs program to tackle climate change and provide well-paid union jobs for millions of workers.

• Tax the billionaires and big business to fund extreme weather services including fully funded firefighting and forest management, and weatherizing homes.

• Take the top 100 polluting companies into democratic public ownership.

For a New Political Party for Working People Fighting the right means abandoning the “center.” We need a new working class political party not beholden to big business interests.

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• The Democratic establishment is backing down on many of the promises they made during the 2020 election. They are far more committed to bipartisan partnership than doing what’s necessary to fight for working people.

• Democrats and Republicans alike are unwilling to make any structural changes that threaten the dominance of big business. We need a new, multiracial left party that organizes and fights for workers’ interests and is committed to socialist policies to point a way out of the horrors of capitalism.

• No attacks on democratic rights! We need to fight against all attempts at racist voter suppression being driven through by Republicans.

A Safe and Just Society: End Racist Policing and Criminal (in)Justice • Arrest and convict killer cops!

• Purge police forces of anyone with known ties to white supremacist groups or any cop who has committed violent or racist attacks.

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

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

Disarm police on patrol.

• End minimum mandatory sentencing, immediately release any prisoner charged with non-violent crimes of poverty and expunge their record, no more cash bail, close all private prisons!

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

End the Global COVID Chaos Despite widespread availability of vaccines in the U.S. and other advanced capitalist countries, the global COVID situation is a disaster. Even in the U.S. the rate of vaccine skepticism threatens any attempts at reaching widespread immunity.

• We need maximum pressure on all Western capitalist powers refusing to support the TRIPS waiver!

• Take Big Pharma profiteers into public ownership and turn existing vaccines into the People’s Vaccines! This would go a long way in overcoming vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. given people’s widespread skepticism of big pharma.

• In the U.S., we need Medicare for All

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

I grew up with full faith in the Democratic Party. I participated in some issuebased organizing over the years, but overall I was confident we could fix the biggest problems in our society by electing the right people to the right places.

No surprise that I was fired up by Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns.

He was going to dramatically accelerate our progress: take on the billionaire class, do something about the climate crisis, and give my community the healthcare, job protections, and debt relief we need.

Collecting signatures and canvassing my neighborhood for Bernie was exhilarating.

But we know how that ended. Ultimately, it was the 2020 primary election that made me a revolutionary socialist.

In the middle of a global pandemic, the Democrats still chose corporate interests over working people. Their absolute betrayal of Bernie’s movement proved to me that they can’t be reformed. And the system’s blatant disregard for human life proved to me that we need something fundamentally different.

Before the pandemic hit, I had been canvassing for Bernie with local members of Socialist Alternative. Talking with them helped me understand the including a robust investment in and coverage for mental health services.

End Sexism, Homophobia, and Transphobia • Across the country we need to urgently organize to repeal laws that ban trans women from playing sports and young people from accessing life-saving, gender-affirming healthcare.

• The Supreme Court is gearing up to attack Roe v Wade, we need a reinvigorated women’s movement to fight all attacks on reproductive rights!

• Domestic violence and sexual assault, already rampant, have skyrocketed under COVID. We need to fight gender-based violence, victim blaming, and sexism in all its forms.

Rebuild a Fighting Labor Movement • The Democratic establishment’s refusal to get rid of the undemocratic filibuster means Biden’s legislative agenda hangs in the balance. Major unions, socialist organizations, and community groups need to put huge pressure on the Democrats to do whatever is necessary to win the PRO Act, including abolishing the filibuster. This can include rallies in every major city as a step toward preparing to occupy the offices of any senator that stands in the way of its passage.

• Similarly, we need to fight for a $15

importance of independent working class politics at every level of our society. It also helped me understand how progressive change really happens: not just by voting every couple of years, or donating to the right nonprofits, but by building powerful movements of working people both in elected office and on the streets, in schools, and in our workplaces.

In my six or so years of organizing experience, I have never encountered a more serious, effective, and democratic organization than Socialist Alternative.

I never stop learning, and every day I’m more energized for the work ahead. J minimum wage and to get rid of the separate, tipped minimum wage.

• We need to build radical fighting unions with accountable leaders that help organize social struggles against evictions, poverty, and racism.

Fight Racist, Far-Right Violence Even with Trump out of office, the threat of the far right will continue. The key to pushing back the far right is a determined response from the labor movement and all whose interests it threatens.

• Organize against vigilante terror! We need multi-racial solidarity of the entire working class against racist violence.

Where our movements face attacks from the far right, we need grassroots self defense.

• We need a struggle against right-wing anti-protest bills being introduced in states across the country.

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

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

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

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

TIPPI

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OINT S

APPR OACH ING

ENVIRONMENT

In a 2019 paper titled “Climate tipping points – too risky to bet against” in the science journal Nature, scientists identified a number of critical climate tipping points which, if reached, would lead to accelerated and potentially irreversible impacts.

Since then, the scientific community has become increasingly certain that these tipping points will occur within our lifetimes – in fact, some of them may have already passed. Slowing the worst effects of climate change will require drastic and immediate action to reduce carbon emissions. Action on the scale and timeframe required is not possible under capitalism, which unfailingly prioritizes the profits of big corporations over everything else. The only way to slow the worst effects of climate change is to build an independent mass movement of workers and youth fighting for an end to fossil fuel extraction, for a Green New Deal, and ultimately for a socialist transformation of society.

Points of No Return

There are three key tipping points that scientists have been warning about for decades which will have dire consequences if passed.

One of these tipping points is the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet. Ice shelves at the edges of the Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers are structurally weakened and at risk of disintegration because of global warming. If these ice shelves break apart, the ice they’re holding in place would flow freely into the sea, rising sea levels by 1.5 and 4 feet respectively. If the entire West Antarctic ice sheet collapses, sea levels would rise by 10 feet, displacing over 12 million people in the United States alone. Scientists fear that this tipping point may have already passed, as Arctic sea ice melted “faster in the spring of 2020 than since the beginning of records.”

Another major tipping point is the transformation of the Amazon rainforest into a savannah, which will likely occur if between 20-40% of the rainforest Blythe Serrano is destroyed. Already

WE NEED A MASS MOVEMENT TO SLOW CLIMATE CHANGE

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20% has been completely cleared. The Amazon’s transformation into grassland would lead to more drought and thus increase the risk of wildfires. Its dry season has expanded by a month over the past 50 years.

A third critical tipping point is the potential collapse of the Gulf Stream, which transports 20% of the excess heat that accumulates at the equator towards polar regions in the Northern Hemisphere and also plays a key role in determining weather patterns.

This current is slowing down at an alarming rate. Climate scientist Tim Lenton warns that the continued slowing down of the Gulf Stream would wreak havoc on weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere and cause an escalation of extreme weather.

Taken separately, each of these tipping points represent an alarming escalation of the climate crisis. But what is even more concerning is scientists’ prediction that cascading effects might be common, i.e. that one tipping point could trigger others.

World Leaders’ Response: Too Little, Too Late In recent years, climate scientists have become increasingly certain that these tipping points will occur – and soon. While this has the potential to be catastrophic, recent research suggests that it might be possible to temporarily exceed these tipping points without causing permanent damage. However, if drastic measures are not taken soon, disaster remains inevitable.

Leaders of the world’s wealthiest countries walked away from the G7 summit in June having agreed to a number of halfhearted pledges, promising to phase out sales of fossil fuel-powered vehicles and end the use of coal, without setting a date by which either of these goals must be met.

At the summit, G7 leaders reaffirmed their commitment to collectively dedicate $100 billion per year to help poor countries reduce carbon emissions and adapt to global warming. When this pledge was first made back in 2009, 2020 was established as the deadline for developed countries to meet their $100 billion target. They fell short, contributing less than $80 billion in 2019, and have now opted to simply continue pushing back the deadline with no real accountability.

The root of all of this political inaction is that politicians under capitalism overwhelmingly serve the corporate interests of “their” nation state. In the era of deglobalization and growing protectionism, capitalism is unable to provide the type of international cooperation and pooling of resources that is needed to address the crisis. The nation state and “national interests” are the single biggest obstacles to getting something done. Environmental destruction has, for them, been an unfortunate but necessary byproduct to expansive growth and profit-making. Only now that the climate crisis threatens the stability of society and profit-making itself are politicians and major corporations starting to take any action, but on the basis of capitalism it will be too slow.

Biden and the Democrats are No Friends of the Environment After having the U.S. re-enter the Paris Climate Agreement early in his presidency, Biden has done essentially nothing to put the U.S. on track to reach these goals. He essentially removed all pro-climate components from his infrastructure plan under the guise of bipartisanship, despite the fact that the Democrats’ control of the House and Senate would allow the bill to pass without Republican support.

The fact that Democrats, with their control of the White House and both halls of Congress, have not already passed robust climate legislation given the severity and immediacy of the crisis is an abomination.

We can’t rely on Democrats to stop the U.S. from pushing the world over the 1.5°C threshold and triggering numerous potentially irreversible tipping points – instead, we must build a mass movement of students and working people, independent of the Democratic Party. On September 20, 2019, over four million people participated in the world’s largest climate strike, inspired by Greta Thunberg’s “Skolstrejk for Klimatet” (School Strike for Climate). We need more actions like these in schools and universities across the world, involving not only students but teachers and school staff as well.

Sunrise Movement, which first gained national attention for leading a sit-in in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in 2018, is currently organizing to win a Civilian Climate Corps, modeled after the New Deal era’s Civilian Conservation Corps, which would provide green jobs starting at $15/ hour as well as funding for education and long-term career opportunities. Sunrise has staged protests in D.C. and is discussing an escalation of these plans, which is very positive. AOC who has worked with Sunrise in the past, should urgently join the call and ramp up pressure on the Biden administration to act.

Youth and Workers Must Unite to Slow the Climate Crisis In order to win a full Green New Deal – let alone a transformation of society away from parasitic capitalism – we must take a fighting approach.

This has to be organized in the form of a mass movement that involves both workers, especially workers in currently polluting industries, and young people. As Congress debates the contours of a wholly inadequate infrastructure package, we should begin planning major demonstrations and direct action to demand meaningful climate legislation. Any Congressperson who refuses to support it should be the target of protests and occupations.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of “The Squad” should support and build this work, like AOC did when she joined Sunrise for their 2018 occupation of Pelosi’s

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FIGHTING RACISM

WINNING THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965

March on Washington, 1963.

Matthew Hochberg and Alicia Salvadeo, Pittsburgh Amidst massive Justice for George Floyd protests and repressive police violence against youth and people of color last summer, Stop the Station formed as a grassroots community coalition in Pittsburgh, PA to stop the proposed relocation of a police station to a historically Black working class neighborhood that has been the epicenter of dramatic gentrification.

Stop the Station has since launched a citywide referendum campaign for Community Control Over the Police (CCOP). CCOP’s central demands are for a democraticallyelected, civilian-led police control council with full powers to hire, fire, subpoena, and set budgets and department policies, and replace the mayor to openly negotiate and approve police union contracts.

Tamar Wilson, Philadelphia The Republican right is carrying out historic attacks on the right to vote for millions of Americans, mostly Black and Latino people. This amounts to a GOP-led and Democrat abetted erosion of the landmark legislative achievement of the Civil Rights Era: the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Over 250 bills in 43 states have been filed this year alone restricting voting rights. Arizona is sponsoring a case before the Supreme Court which could invalidate key sections of the bill. That these attacks follow in the wake of the GOP’s loss of traditional Republican stronghold states Arizona and Georgia is no coincidence. The historic Black Lives Matter and Free Palestine movements have showcased a growing rejection of their rightwing agenda among a multiracial coalition of voters, and they are determined to depress voting access however they can. It’s imperative that we recall the lessons of how voting rights were won in order to protect them now.

How The Voting Rights Act of 1965 Was Won The Voting Rights Act was the crown jewel in a trio of legislation passed in the 1960s Civil Rights era that, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Fair Housing Act of 1968, functionally ended Jim and Jane Crow in the United States. The Voting Rights Act was the most influential of these three due to its mix of permanent provisions such as: Section 2 which banned racially-based voting discrimination nationwide, Section 4 which outlawed literacy and poll tests, and temporary provisions such as Section 5, which demanded states with a history of racist voting discrimination submit to a procedure of federal pre-clearance before implementing any new voting laws.

Though the 15th amendment passed in 1870 guaranteed the right for Black people to vote, there still existed a white supremacist framework of unfair laws and rules, enforced by intimidation and violence, which prevented true political participation for nearly an additional 100 years after its ratification. It was these material and social conditions that spurred the efforts of the Civil Rights era, led by strong, militant, democratic organizations rooted in the Black working class and youth like the Students’ Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

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PITTSBURGH FIGHTS FOR COMMUNITY CONTROL OF THE POLICE

Lessons of the Past

It was this mass movement that ultimately won transformative change. The militancy of these organized groups harkened back to the Black radicals of the 1920s and 30s, who unabashedly identified as socialists and communists and had played a key role in building the multiracial Congress of Industrial Organizations which won significant gains for working people.

Despite the Civil Rights movement facing fierce and oftentimes violent racist opposition, these organizations and their sympathizers staged sit-ins, traffic blockades, work stoppages, boycotts, and other demonstrations. Mass meetings were held, often in churches, that not only strengthened the community spiritually, but also took on a practical political character as they were key hubs for democratic planning, information dissemination, and turning organization into mobilization.

Between August and November 1965, over 8,000 new Black voters registered in Alabama, notably registering almost 400 voters in Dallas county in one day – more than in the previous 65 years. The outlawing of discriminatory voter suppression tactics, like exorbitant and unaffordable poll taxes or humiliating literacy tests, saw the number of Black elected officials skyrocket in states with a history of racist voter suppression from 72 to over 1,000 in just 10 years. After its passage, white politicians began catering to the growing Black political constituency, wooing influential community leaders and addressing long-standing local grievances.

An increasing political constituency brought economic boons too: the number of public contracts awarded to Black firms increased, which led to commensurate rises in Black

opportunity, employment, and wealth. Also, crucially, key gains were made in ending workplace and other forms of discrimination.

Supreme Court Assault On Voting Rights Act Less than 20 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, in 1983, GOP operatives like John Roberts were arguing before the Supreme Court to dilute the landmark legislation. Once on the body as its Chief Justice in 2013, Roberts led the court in a drastic undermining of the bill, quizzically ruling in Shelby County v Holder that the 1965 Voting Rights Act’s preclearance requirement for areas with a history of racist voter suppression was both unconstitutional and unnecessary.

Immediately after the 2013 ruling, Alabama passed a law which purged hundreds of thousands from voter rolls, mandated voter IDs, and closed polling places with large Black constituencies. Georgia wiped over 560,000 voters from its rolls without their knowledge. In Florida, after its citizens courageously voted to restore voting rights to ex-felons, Florida Republicans mandated ex-felons submit to modern-day poll taxes, requiring all fees related to their imprisonment be paid before being eligible to vote, or face felony charges.

The rhetorical basis used for many of these attacks follows the same line as Trump’s fear mongering about mail-in voting. With the public defenestration of Liz Cheney from Republican leadership for opposing Trump, it is clear that the party has

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After years of rampant police violence in the 80s and 90s, the murder of Jonny Gammage in 1995 galvanized support for what eventually became Pittsburgh’s Citizen’s Police Review Board (CPRB). While CPRB’s creation represented a victory, like similar review boards across the country, it has not lived up to the movement’s vision.

Only a pitiful 3% of more than 3,000 complaints received by the CPRB over twenty years have resulted in a public hearing, which at best produced disciplinary recommendations the board was powerless to enforce!

The board is appointed by the mayor and City Council. Black and working class people in Pittsburgh therefore have no way to hold the CPRB accountable, nor can they expect corporate Democrats like Mayor Peduto, who over his eight years as mayor increased police funding by 50%, to fight for a stronger board.

A Grassroots Movement to Win In February, the Stop the Station and CCOP movement voted to proceed with a ballot referendum at a community action conference with over one hundred participants.

Three such conferences discussed, debated, and voted on strategy, platform, and even the campaign’s name. The third conference elected an initial Coordinating Committee to lead CCOP, including members of Socialist Alternative and other community leaders.

Grassroots democratic structures like this are important for all social movements to be sustained and collectively determine the best strategy to win.

A victory for CCOP would be a win for the entire BLM movement, and the millions of Black and brown youth who are hungry for real systemic change, going beyond Derek Chauvin’s indictment. Building out this movement nationwide on a sustained, independent basis will be key to winning significant concessions from the two-party corporate elite, on policing as well as other key demands like taxing wealthy corporations and developers. J S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

I M M I G R AT I O N

HARRIS’ MESSAGE TO GUATEMALAN MIGRANTS:

“DO NOT COME.” Jen Narin, Boston In May, more than 180,000 migrants were taken into custody as they tried to cross the U.S. border, representing a historic surge in migration from Central America not seen since the early 2000s. In response, the Biden Administration sent Vice President Kamala Harris to Guatemala to discuss the causes for the surge. The message of her visit was impossible to misinterpret: “do not come.”

Harris argued that the leading cause of migration to the U.S. was corruption and the failures of the local governments to control violence and poverty. While there is certainly truth to this, not once did she acknowledge how the effects of U.S. imperialism – through neoliberal trade deals like CAFTA, policies associated with the “war on drugs,” or active support of coups ousting left-wing leaders – have caused the very instability and dire economic conditions in the first place.

In an attempt to distract from this feeble position, Harris did, however, pledge 500,000 vaccine doses to “make a dent” in the COVID crisis still wracking the region and reiterated that aid in the form of U.S. investment was on the horizon. This was conditional, however, on “certain progress [being] made” by the Guatemalan government to reduce migration.

Surge at the Border Migration from Central America, especially over the last few years, has been steadily increasing as conditions continue to worsen. The extended drought season and extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and tornadoes, have decimated the region and, as a result, any chance at a decent standard of living for many

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Central Americans. Climate change paired with the pre-existing inequality, poverty, corruption, and violence has forced many Central Americans to leave their homes to try to better provide for their families. When the pandemic hit, it only further exacerbated these conditions.

The response by a section of the political establishment in the early 2000s was to attempt bipartisan “comprehensive immigration reform” to ensure a controlled steady flow of migrants who are kept in a semi-permanent second class status on the “path to citizenship.” This approach was supported by a majority of the ruling class who benefit from the additional, cheaper labor. However, the attempts at immigration reform collapsed under pressure from the right and since then there has been a concerted effort to ramp up security measures, including the creation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Trump’s border wall more recently. As part of Biden’s response to the surge at the border, he has pledged $4 billion to fight the causes of migration in the region for only a four-year period. However, this aid is set to overwhelmingly go to non-profit organizations and the private sector, such as the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Microsoft, instead of local governments. This is not even a drop in the bucket of what is needed to improve circumstances in Central America long-term.

Failed Promises Biden campaigned on the promise of reversing Trump-era anti-immigrant measures, including reuniting families and tackling the asylum backlog. While he did use executive order to reverse the Muslim ban and protect Dreamers, Biden has only reunited seven families since February out of the over 5,000 families separated under Trump. Under the 1980 Refugee Act, asylum seekers are legally allowed to enter the U.S. in order to apply for an interview and a hearing about their case to be granted asylum.

Trump enacted policy Title

42, which denied asylum seekers these rights by turning them away at the border before they could even get to the U.S. Biden has continued this policy under the guise of public health concerns, despite his promises to hasten the process for those with pending asylum claims under Trump.

While Biden’s proposed budget for the Department of Homeland Security will stop funding Trump’s border wall, much of the budget is aimed towards funding ICE. Biden promised to stop the detention of migrants at the border, but the budget funds 32,500 detention beds, which when compared to last year’s budget is only a decrease of 1,500 beds. Biden also promised to stop the use of 287(g) agreements, which allows ICE to deputize local police forces to help the agency. This budget proposal instead would continue the practice and increase the amount of federal and local programs that can use this policy, such as the Criminal Alien Program, which permits ICE access to individuals in prison or jail for deportation.

We Need a Fighting Movement Regardless of party affiliation, about 68% of Americans agree that the current process for immigration is not working and that the American government is failing to act adequately to address the crisis. While there is a big section of the ruling class that sees more immigration as a solution to the current domestic labor shortage right now, hardened opposition in the Trump-dominated Republican Party and a lack of a coherent immigration policy among Democrats all but dooms substantial immigration legislation in the short-term. Neither capitalist party has a solution to address the root causes of migration, because both parties relentlessly supported the neoliberal policies in the region that have led to mass migration in the first place. What we are seeing now with climate refugees will only become a more dire situation over time as climate change continues to worsen living conditions.

With our political and economic systems in the hands of capital, everyone in the U.S. will continue to see deteriorating living conditions and an artificial scarcity of decent jobs and housing while the ruling elite will cynically pit immigrants and American workers against each other. We need a workers government that would extend massive aid to the areas like Central America that have been devastated by U.S. imperialism. We need an urgent fight against xenophobic ideas around migration in sections of the working class. A united movement of American-born and foreign-born workers will be necessary to overcome xenophobia and racist divisions, win better wages, working conditions, affordable housing, decent healthcare, and citizenship rights for all undocumented workers in the U.S. J

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PEDRO CASTILLO WINS IN PERU No Concessions to Capital!

Build Mass Mobilization for Radical Change Marcos Ariel, ISA supporter in Argentina

Rob Darakjian, Los Angeles Over the last two months, large scale protests across Colombia have presented the right-wing government of president Ivan Duque with a nationwide revolt against the poverty and inequality he has defended since taking power in 2018. The revolt reignited the protests of 2019 and, along with recent movements in Bolivia and Peru, provided a beacon to workers and the oppressed in Latin America and throughout the world.

Duque’s Offensive Against Working People

GENERAL STRIKE ROCKS COLOMBIA

Like many countries in the former colonial world, Colombia has struggled to address the combined economic and social crisis triggered by the global outbreak of COVID-19. In 2020, the economy contracted by seven percent, 500,000 businesses closed permanently, and an additional 3.6 million Colombians were pushed into poverty, bringing the total to 42% of the population!

Since taking office, Biden has been under dual pressures; to reassert the image of the U.S. as a consistent defender of democratic rights against a rising China, while simultaneously maintaining international institutions, like the IMF, that have kept Colombia and other nations in Latin America permanently indebted. U.S. imperialism does not care one iota for the people of Colombia. As long as the Colombian state complies with protecting their business interests they will be happy to support any government, no matter how brutally they repress dissent.

Unlike the United States, the Colombian government simply does not possess the resources for a massive stimulus response.

Earlier this year, Duque proposed new taxes on working people. He sought to expand the income tax and add a new sales tax on basic items like eggs and chicken. The government claimed these taxes on the “middle class”

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were aimed at helping the government assist the very poorest in society. In reality, these proposed taxes on those earning the equivalent of 168 U.S. dollars per month were a way to shield the richest from having to contribute to addressing the crisis.

The Masses Respond On April 28th, a National Strike Committee made up of the union federation and other organizations, including indigenous and feminist groups, called a one-day strike to oppose these measures. Tens of thousands took to the streets, and more importantly, remained there. The strike spread to over 250 cities across the country, and began to take up broader demands: to not only oppose the new tax measures, but also to confront the ongoing effort by the government to finish the privatization of the healthcare and pension systems. Working people of Colombia shut the entire system down, in a sustained mass strike throughout the month of May. On May 2, the government announced

that the army would assist the riot police to subdue the crowds, while simultaneously announcing the withdrawal of the proposed tax measures. Since then, they have used brutal force to repress protests. Human rights organizations in the country have estimated that over 40 people have been killed so far, hundreds have been disappeared, and thousands injured by rubber bullets, tear-gas, and baton blows.

What Strategy is Needed to Take the Movement Forward?

Negotiations between the National Strike Committee and the government have gone nowhere, and were abandoned on June 15. The National Strike Committee then called off weekly protests. At the height of the strike, protesters began to organize themselves. In Cali, the country’s third largest city, neighborhood committees were formed to ensure the distribution of food and provide medical care to protesters. Despite the calls from the National Strike Committee, these local organizations have continued to meet and discuss next steps for the movement.

Democratically elected committees in each city need to be linked up with regional and ultimately national committees to sustain and coordinate a nationwide mass movement. While next year’s elections will be an important battleground, the protesters must remain organized to ensure that they are in a position to act, independently of the National Strike Committee if necessary.

Socialist Alternative and the International Socialist Alternative have launched an international solidarity campaign, Colombia Resiste, to support and learn from the movement in Colombia. We stand in full solidarity with the Colombian workers and poor in their struggle. J

The great social polarization and the radicalization of the poorest sectors in Peru were expressed in the presidential elections with the triumph of the rural teacher and candidate for the ‘Peru Libre’ party, Pedro Castillo, against the ultra-right neoliberal Keiko Fujimori.

This triumph is a blow not only to all the Peruvian right-wing parties but also to the projects of the right wing throughout the continent.

The bourgeoisie was at first surprised and then frightened. It orchestrated a campaign of fear in the second round, saying among other things that if Castillo won “the communists would take your house.”

Faced with the crisis opened by mass mobilizations in November 2020, which brought down the illegitimate President Manuel Merino, the bourgeoisie responded by calling presidential elections for 2021, seeking in this way to divert the people’s anger and end the crisis. Castillo’s electoral triumph was a product of those mobilizations.

Castillo will govern in the midst of a global crisis where he does not have much economic room to maneuver. Either he quickly makes the promised political and economic changes or his government will be in crisis, especially since he governs thanks to mass mobilization.

Unfortunately, the first signals point in a disappointing direction. Castillo’s statements are aimed at calming the bourgeoisie by “maintaining dialogue with the various sectors of businessmen,” indicating that his government will respect private property, and even promising all the changes he will make will be within the current constitution.

Along with these important political limitations, it is necessary to point out and criticize the very problematic positions that Castillo has defended in relation to the right to free abortion and LGBT+ marriage: he has openly opposed both.

Castillo’s triumph means a step forward for popular aspirations and opens the possibility of implementing great changes. But for this to happen, the movement that got him there will need tohold him to account.

The situation in Peru presents revolutionaries with enormous challenges and opportunities. All the energy of the Peruvian masses must be organized to advance beyond the reforms proposed by Pedro Castillo. Our international organization ISA (International Socialist Alternative) is fully in the service of this exciting task. J S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

Steve Edwards, Chicago

GUN VIOLENCE SURGES IN U.S.

“What we have is compounded trauma,” said Shani Buggs, an assistant professor with the University of California at Davis’ Violence Prevention Research Program. “The pandemic exacerbated all of the inequities we had in our country — along racial lines, health lines, social lines, economic lines. All of the drivers of gun violence pre-pandemic were just worsened last year.”

The COVID-19 lockdown of 2020 was without any close historical precedent. It was also accompanied by the biggest economic slump since World War II. Studies of previous pandemics and quarantines showed that psychological distress, including PTSD and depression, were to be expected. As in every social crisis under capitalism its effects were dramatically different based on which class people belonged to and what racially segregated community they lived in.

Pandemic Crisis Millions of middle class people were able to stay home, work remotely, and even save money to buy bigger houses, while low-paid grocery, food production, and delivery workers, disproportionately people of color, living in the most poorly served communities and widely reliant on public transit, had no such options. For millions of working class women, the demands of childcare put paid work out of reach. Millions went hungry and got seriously sick. The impacts of the pandemic on the social and emotional wellbeing of working class communities was devastating.

It is not surprising that this stress and dislocation manifested itself through increasing levels of violence in the U.S. where economic precarity and the absence of comprehensive social services have incubated levels of violence not seen in other advanced industrial economies. Violence against women increased, although with many women’s shelters and rape crisis centers closed during the lockdown the

A Socialist Plan to End the Crisis

crisis is likely even larger than what has been reported. What can be quantified, however, is the widely publicized increase in gun violence and in particular, mass shootings.

Gun Violence Epidemic The U.S. ranks 20th in the world for gun violence. All of the 19 countries that are worse have experienced the intervention of U.S. imperialism; 18 are in the Western Hemisphere, the exception being Afghanistan which has been in a state of war since the 2001 U.S. invasion.

Given the ongoing crisis of alienation in U.S. society, by far the most common cause of death from guns is by suicide, which maintained a steady pace of approximately 22,000 a year from 2014-2019. The year 2020, however, saw a leap to 24,156 gun suicides. Mass shootings, defined as four or more people other than the shooter being either killed or injured, were already on the rise, from 336 in 2018 to 417 in 2019, but 2020 saw an almost 50% increase to 610.

So far, 2021 has maintained the same pace with 303 mass shootings, and a total of 9,637 non-suicide gun deaths. Gun suicides stand at 11,616. Some media reports point to an accelerating rate of increase. 2021 will almost certainly see more shootings than last year.

While the increases in gun violence are serious, they remain very far from the levels of violence in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. But there are now more guns in U.S. society than ever before: in 2020 more than 23 million guns were sold, a 66 percent increase over 2019 sales. 8.5 million of these were bought by first-time gun buyers, indicating new levels of fear and insecurity from which people seek to protect themselves.

Political Response March in Philly, July 2020.

J U LY - A U G U S T 2 0 2 1

The surge in violence is also being used by politicians to justify reactionary positions. Right-wing politicians and media have claimed since the George Floyd protests that society is

being engulfed by chaos driven by the left.

Establishment Democrats, especially in big cities, have used these fears to push back on attempts to reform policing such as cutting bloated police budgets or attempts to set up elected civilian bodies to hold police accountable.

On the federal level, Joe Biden on June 23 pledged to go after illegal gun dealers and help states tackle increasing violence through more policing. The U.S. Treasury Department released information on how states and localities can use the $350 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act, allocated to help economic recovery from COVID-19, to employ more police officers to deal with this spike in violent crime.

There are also, understandably, calls for restrictions on gun sales. Socialist Alternative supports some measures of gun control such as banning high-capacity magazines, automatic and semi-automatic weapons, implementing background checks and waiting periods for gun sales (while guaranteeing the right to appeal to avoid discriminatory and racist enforcement of these rules against the Black working class), and closing the gun show loophole.

However, with an estimated 400 million guns already in circulation and a firearms industry that continues to push gun ownership as a solution, a serious anti-violence program needs to focus on fighting the poverty and alienation that create the conditions in which guns are used.

Addressing the Roots of Gun Violence Gun violence coincides with, and exacerbates, poverty, segregation, and inequality with Black men almost eight times more likely than white men to be its victims. Tragedies like that of Philando Castile, who was shot after Castile informed a police officer that he had a licensed firearm in the car, point to the enormous dangers of relying on gun control measures which would have to be

SOCIAL CRISIS

enforced by the police. A program to rein in gun violence has to include a program for community control over the police. We call for elected police accountability councils with full powers to investigate, discipline, and discharge the police, and for police budgets to be reduced and the funds used instead for mental health and other community services.

What is needed to reduce gun violence is a transformation in social and political priorities. The violence and alienation seen in working class communities is a reflection of tremendous instability in the foundations of society as well as the fact that powerful, left wing political movements like Bernie Sanders’ campaign and the Black Lives Matter rebellion last summer have not produced clear political gains.

The response of working class people and the left should be to put the blame squarely on the billionaire class. What’s needed are movement-building campaigns to tax the rich and corporations on a scale not seen since the infrastructure expansion of the post WWII era. This is where the wealth exists to pay for a workers’ Green New Deal, expanded and improved Medicare for All, massive investment in treating the mental health crisis, and massive investment in the communities most affected by gun violence. Such a program would include creating millions of jobs at union rates of pay, building decent, affordable housing and fully funded schools, libraries, and community centers. This can create the conditions for stable communities and expectations, especially amongst the youth who are by far the hardest hit by gun violence. J

Protesters in NYC, Aug. 2019.

Two 19-year-olds at a march in Chicago.

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BIDEN BETRAYS PROGRESSIVE PROMISES

HOW DO WE WIN REAL CHANGE? Keely Mullen, New York City Shortly before the election, Joe Biden encouraged his supporters to imagine all the “institutional changes we can make.” He appointed rivals Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to key task forces and the Republican National Committee branded him a “banner-man for the socialist agenda.”

After r u n ning a

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campaign last year where he promised very little, he took office promising an extensive agenda: sweeping COVID relief, a $15 an hour minimum wage, cancellation of some student debt, a public option for healthcare, a jobs program paid for by taxing the rich, a roadmap to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, the passage of historic prounion legislation, and an aggressive plan to combat the worsening climate crisis.

During his first days in the Oval Office, a euphoria swept over millions of Americans who saw him pass a flurry of executive orders undoing some of Trump’s worst attacks. This was quickly followed by his passage of desperately needed COVID aid, including a round of stimulus checks, a renewed unemployment top-up, money to ramp up vaccination infrastructure, and new child tax credits to soften the COVID blow on working families.

Biden was officially enjoying a substantial h o n ey m o o n a n d this

understandably disoriented a large section of the left. Bernie Sanders called Biden courageous, and AOC proclaimed that Biden had “exceeded expectations.” Members of “the Squad,” who rose to prominence in the context of a Trump presidency and tight Republican control in Congress, found themselves suddenly with actual power. With such narrow Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, progressives could hold up any component of Biden’s agenda until it meets their expectations.

Debates broke out on the left about how to force Biden to go further. Most notably was the debate on whether progressives in Congress should force a vote on Medicare for All. A number of important figures, including AOC herself, balked at the suggestion that they should take such an adversarial posture to Nancy Pelosi and other establishment gatekeepers. Instead, they insisted there would be more opportune times to assert themselves.

Months later, and no such time has come. To the detriment of the entire working class, they remain politically committed to the futile project of “taking over” the Democratic Party.

Months have passed since Biden’s delivered substantial relief to working people, the memory of $1,400 checks is beginning to fade and his promises f o r

further investment in “human infrastructure” remain stalled. His entire legislative agenda is suspended in limbo and his executive orders have ground to a halt. As Biden prioritizes bipartisan playtime over delivering meaningful change to working people, the fragility of his honeymoon is being exposed. In this context, as working people’s illusions in Biden begin to crack, the left cannot afford to be facing the wrong direction.

‘We Have a Deal’ In late June, Biden declared victory as he and his Republican colleagues came to an agreement on a $1 trillion traditional infrastructure package.

This package is a truly pathetic climbdown from his already inadequate American Jobs Plan introduced in March. Two-thirds of proposed spending on transportation has been cut, including 96% of the money allocated for a transition to electric vehicles. Around 83% of Biden’s proposed climate related spending has been cut alongside all funding for affordable housing. This is not to mention that the most progressive part of his initial proposal, to pay for it through increased taxes on the rich and corporations, has been thrown out as well.

Biden has insisted that he will not advance this infrastructure deal unless it’s accompanied by a “robust” spending package that the Democrats will pass using budget reconciliation, meaning they do not need Republican support. However, even getting the entire Democratic caucus on board with a big spending bill will be an enormous challenge.

As he’s done his entire political career, Biden has shown a desperation to achieve bipartisan agreement. This is particularly important from his standpoint now as the stability of the twoparty system, which has served the American ruling class for centuries, is in peril. For the sake of capitalist democracy, Biden is seeking to save the Republican Party from itself and restore a bipartisan balancing act.

Biden’s biggest legislative success in the past several months has nothing to do with gains for the working class. Where he and the Republicans have had no problem coming to agreement is in their attempt to undermine the ascendency of Chinese state capitalism on a global scale. Seemingly under the cover of night, the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate teamed up to carry out massive government investment in private industry in order to ramp up American manufacturing and technology. Republicans who have historically been wary of state intervention into the economy required no convincing when it came to Chuck Schumer’s multi-billion dollar industrial policy. This highlights Biden’s willingness to go the distance when it comes to defending the interests and competitive edge of U.S. capitalism internationally. Unfortunately for the global working class, the same cannot be said of his determination to defend our interests or the interests of the planet. Biden has not acted with nearly this level of urgency to deliver desperately needed vaccines to poor countries still being ravaged by COVID. Despite his big promises, Joe Biden’s “transformative” agenda for the working and middle class is not so transformative afterall.

In several months, pandemic era aid will be wound down and evictions and debt collection will resume.

BIden is refusing to use executive action to wipe out student debt which he could do with a stroke of his pen. He is accepting the death S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

of large parts of his legislative agenda because he will not do away with the undemocratic filibuster rule (see page 14). The For The People Act which would dramatically expand voter access was killed in the Senate in June (see page 4), and a similar fate awaits the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, and the Equality Act. This legislative approach also means that other sweeping gains for working people are cut off at the knees. Most notably, his campaign promises to create a public healthcare option for millions of Americans and to provide a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.

The obstacle to all these gains is actually not strictly the Republicans, though they are without question staunchly opposed to all of these reforms. But with Democratic control of the White House and both branches of Congress, the main roadblock comes from the centrist wing of the Democratic Party itself.

Time and again we’ve seen a stage-managed tug of war between Joe Biden and Joe Manchin, the centrist wing’s most prominent figure, where Biden makes a big promise, Manchin throws cold water on it - threatening to withhold his decisive vote, and Biden shrugs his shoulders. This is a remarkably convenient excuse for Joe Biden who has called the Democratic center home throughout his political career.

There are dramatic inbuilt dangers to such an approach. With an ascendant right in the U.S. and a Republican Party that has been thoroughly captured by the forces of Donald Trump, the Democrats' atrophied approach risks further accelerating the growth of the right. If Biden’s agenda remains stalled by the time the midterms come around, the Republicans will be positioned to make big electoral gains. This is especially true in the context of their assault on voting rights which has not been meaningfully challenged by the Democrats.

On top of opening the door to the growth of the right, this approach from the Democrats leaves the planet hanging in the balance.

Biden and a section of the ruling class - including even some Republicans who now acknowledge climate change as a threat - are prepared to take some action to slow the march toward environmental catastrophe. However, even the boldest proposals from Biden, which we can be certain even he won’t fight for, are insufficient to tackle the scale of dangers we face.

An FDR Sized Presidency?

Before Biden took office, a huge section of the corporate and even left-wing media were declaring him the next Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was entering the White House in the context of a crisis comparable to the Great Depression and was signaling a willingness to boldly intervene into the situation. Like FDR, he comes from a moderate political tradition and seeks to - above all else - preserve American capitalism. Any prediction of whether or not Biden can bring New Deal scale reforms requires first and foremost an accurate understanding of how the New Deal was won. It was won not by the benevolence of the President, who at every stage sought to moderate the New J U LY - A U G U S T 2 0 2 1

Deal promises, but was won by a titanic revolt of the working class. Whether or not Biden is “a new FDR” depends entirely on whether such a movement is built today.

When Roosevelt took office, he was a fiscal conservative fixated on balancing the budget and lowering taxes. On the campaign trail he coined a happy phrase that was intended to provide psychological relief to working people in the context of the Great Depression. That phrase was: “a new deal for the American people.” However, the phrase was, at this stage, meaningless and FDR did not have a plan to rein in the crisis.

Upon taking office he was confronted with the magnitude of the crisis facing American

However, as FDR was preparing to pack up even these moderate reforms, something dramatic changed that forced FDR to change tact: the working class moved into action. Mass unionization was unleashed after three militant strikes claimed dramatic victories in 1934.

These included the Minneapolis Teamsters strike, which was led by Trotskyists, the San Francisco dock workers strike, and the Toledo auto workers strike.

The following year, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was formed and became home to a militant and audacious wing of the labor movement. Working people joined unions en masse, wildcat strikes shook the country, and socialists, communists, and other radicals were playing a key role in building new unions.

It was in this context that the second phase of the New Deal began and FDR’s bolder, long term programs were won. In order to prevent a class struggle spiral from overtaking the country, FDR introduced the National Labor Relations Act, established Social Security, formed the United States Housi n g

General Motors strike, Detroit 1936.

c a p i talism.

Beyond the failing banking system and mass unemployment, he was sitting between two distinct international poles: fascism in Italy and a post-revolutionary workers’ state in Russia. The latter was seen as a beacon of hope for working class people around the world, and “obviat[ing] revolution” became FDR’s primary political motive (The Coming of the New Deal, Schlesinger).

This is where the “New Deal” went from a happy phrase to the defining feature of FDR’s administration. The first phase of New Deal policies, which lasted from 1933-1934, was marked by stop-gap programs intended to stop the bleeding triggered by the 1929 stock market crash. No doubt the programs created in this period put many unemployed people to work and gave relief to the poor. However, these programs were themselves fundamentally temporary and moderate. Most of these first New Deal programs did not make it longer than two years. In 1935, FDR was prepared to wind down the New Deal. In his State of the Union address that year he declared: “The Federal Government must and shall quit this business of relief.”

UAW Flint sitdown strike 1936-37.

Department store strikes, 1937.

Authority, and created the Works Progress Administration which employed more than 8.5 millions workers. The federal minimum wage was also established under Roosevelt. While he faced staunch opposition from a section of the ruling class to these proposals, he was able to drag Congress along by pointing to the Soviet Union as an example of what working class people can accomplish when they take hold of events. From his standpoint, these bold measures were the minimum required to prevent such events from happening in the U.S. The question asked by the liberal commentators before Biden even took office was: “will

Biden have an FDR sized presidency?” The question for us, however, is not “how do we get a modern day FDR” but “how do we win fundamental change?”

What Force Can Win Change?

A renewed, combative labor movement, robust social movements, and a fight for political independence from the Demcratic Party.

These are the ingredients that can deliver fundamental change that goes beyond even “FDR sized” reforms.

While we’re currently witnessing the Democrats fold their hands on big sections of their agenda, this does not mean more cannot be won in the next year in the run up to the midterms. In many ways, the situation has never been so ripe for the working class to wrest reforms from the hands of the ruling class.

The Democrats’ control the White House and both branches of Congress. Fearing general instability in the system they have signalled a theoretical willingness to spend money delivering gains for working people, and progressives hold the balance of power in both the House and Senate.

As Frederick Douglass brilliantly said in 1857: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” Despite what is, in many ways, a wide open situation for working class struggle, such a struggle has not yet cohered. However, history teaches us that this could change in the blink of an eye and hurdles that once seemed insurmountable can crumble.

A mass struggle could burst onto the scene in any number of scenarios. A successful unionization drive could spur organizing efforts at workplaces across the country, rapidly changing the terrain of the labor movement.

The youth climate movement could kick off with students back in school in the fall, spurring the formation of new or renewed youth organizations.

In this context, major obstacles will need to be overcome including: the conservative approach of the labor leadership who refuse to lead workers into open conflict with the political establishment, and the timid approach of high profile progressives like Bernie Sanders and AOC who have, up to this point, prioritized ingratiating themselves into the Democratic Party apparatus over building a new political home for their supporters. Their political approach of remaining trapped in the thoroughly procorporate Democratic Party is what has so desperately hamstrung the movement.

We do not need to wait for mass struggle to emerge to tackle these obstacles. We need to fight to overcome them now so that when explosive opportunities are presented to the working class, we are prepared to take it forward on a winning basis. Socialists have a key role to play in this process, relentlessly fighting to transform the labor movement and fighting tooth and nail for political independence from the Democratic Party.

While the stakes for the working class are enormously high, so too are the opportunities to win. We need a mass, working class revolt that matches the scale of both these stakes and opportunities. J

9

Us Them

YOUTH & STUDENTS

WE NEED A MOVEMENT TO WIN DEBT CANCELLATION!

THE STUDENT DEBT CRISIS IS ABOUT TO GET WORSE Cole Warner, Cincinnati Early last year, as the pandemic first swept the country and tens of millions lost their jobs, the federal government ordered an emergency pause on the collection of student debt payments. That temporary pause is set to expire this September and 43 million Americans will have to pay an average of $400 monthly to service their loans. The price of defaulting on loans is high, as permanently damaged credit scores make it extremely difficult to afford homes or cars.

While the pandemic makes the student debt crisis more visible and acute, it was a nightmare for millions of workers well before 2020. Now more than ever, we need a bold political program to cancel existing student debt and ensure that no more students have to take out exorbitant loans just to gain an education.

The Root of the Crisis: Capitalist Profiteering Higher education in the United States is underfunded and overpriced. The funding available for public universities from state and federal governments is paltry and has declined for years. At the same time, the total cost of a four-year education has skyrocketed dramatically.

The declining funding for public universities is the most important cause driving tuition prices higher. Universities must cover more costs with tuition alone, which drives them to admit larger and larger student bodies. Many universities put large amounts of resources into attracting wealthier students that can afford higher tuition prices and may donate large sums to the school years down the road.

While the

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government continues to defund higher education, a huge industry of bankers are making a killing off student debt. Companies like Sallie Mae convince young students to take on lifetimes of debt that they may never be able to pay back while the creditors profit from interest payments. Especially worrying is the practice of bundling the student debt of thousands of borrowers into a financial product that can be bought and sold as an investment. These Student Loan Asset Backed Securities have incredibly troubling similarities with the speculation in mortgage backed securities that ignited the financial crisis of 2007. From the leadership of universities to speculators in student debt, the ruling class has a vested interest in maintaining the high price of education.

While the largest source of tuition hikes is declining funding and growing student bodies, the leadership of underfunded universities is not innocent. Members of the boards which direct schools are largely unelected, even in the case of public universities, and frequently have more experience in corporations than in education. Exorbitant spending on athletics and construction of flashy new facilities are part of a strategy to attract larger and wealthier student bodies.

At the same time, universities are exploiting their workforce more and more as they replace permanent instructors with underpaid adjuncts and graduate students.

Academic programs that don’t bring in as much money face defunding.

The main way that the undemocratic leadership of public universities responds to

versus

Meaghan Murray, Minneapolis

Stellar News It was a headline out of a dream: “Jeff Bezos is Going to Outer Space.”

One hoped that pro-union Amazon workers and socialists had finally driven the man out of this world. The idea that this is actually a rich man attempting to turn multiple planets into his playgrounds before other rich men do – is, well, less cool. But just imagine this scenario: the rocket lifts off. His astronaut escort says, “see ya, buddy,” then parachutes out of the spacecraft at the last second, leaving Bezos to fend for himself on Mars as he waits for the arrival of his still-earthbound frenemy, billionaire Elon Musk. Thousands of others would relish in that reality: over 125,000 people have signed an online petition to keep Bezos far away from Earth.

If you search “Jeff Bezos in space,” about half the results are articles talking about the July liftoff and his aerospace company, Blue Origin. The other half? Articles talking about how many people want to make this a “one-way trip” for him. You love to see it. What isn’t a top search result, but should be: the richest man on the planet is asking Congress for $10 billion in funding

for space exploration research. Send taxpayer dollars to the founder of... Amazon?

The jokes write themselves.

On Another Planet The ultrarich truly are in a league – no, galaxy – of their own. In a recent ProPublica report, leaked (or hacked) IRS information on the wealthiest Americans reveals what many of us already knew: the ultrarich are paying next to nothing in taxes. And it’s entirely legal. With the current U.S. tax laws, gains made out of rising value in one’s assets, stocks, or properties are not taxable income until those assets, stocks, or properties are sold. The numbers in the initial report are breathtaking (like getting a soccer ball punted into your stomach, that kind of breathtaking). The top 25 richest Americans accumulated $401 billion between 2014 and 2018. IRS data shows they paid $13.6 billion in federal taxes during that period. That’s a 3.4% tax rate. The poor and working class pay up to seven times that, with annual income that amounts to what Jeff Bezos makes in 30 seconds. What did President Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, have to say about these staggering statistics? “I promise you, [finding the source of the IRS leak] will be at the top of my list.” J

STAY UP TO DATE WITH SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE @Socialist Alternative /SocialistAlternativeUSA @SocialistAlt @socialistus /c/SocialistAlternative funding cuts is to turn universities into profitgenerating machines.

Never has the absurdity of the price of education been more clear than in this last year, as students continued to bury themselves in debt to afford a sub-par remote education. For years, job prospects for recent graduates have been paltry, and this is only accelerating. At the same time, the prices of housing, healthcare, and other essentials continue to rise. Recent graduates face serious setbacks in their lives as the debt and affordability crises force them to move back home, remain in miserable jobs, and rethink their prospects of ever owning a home or raising a family. Many graduates will continue to pay back student loans for the rest of their lives, never able to escape the gravity of the

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interest accruing on their debt.

Biden Won’t Cancel the Debt: We Need a Movement As a candidate, Biden promised to cancel “up to $10,000” in federal student debt per person, a tiny number relative to the scale of the crisis. Despite campaigning on this promise, Biden has only cancelled debt for students who were defrauded by their schools or who have disabilities. While the White House proudly boasts this positive, but completely insufficient measure, Biden has neither cancelled any student debt by executive action

continued on p. 15 S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

Attacks on Abortion:

FROM TEXAS TO THE SUPREME COURT Katie Ibrahim, Dallas Texas, the same state whose restrictive abortion law was struck down in Roe v Wade in 1973, is now facing one of the worst attacks on abortion rights yet. The “heartbeat” bill, signed in May by Governor Greg Abbott, is set to take effect in September.

It bans abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, with no exceptions for instances of sexual assault and incest.

The law is unique in that it allows any private citizen to take legal action against abortion providers or anyone who assists in an abortion after the fetal heartbeat has been detected. The already scarce abortion providers will have to take up the financial burden of endless litigation to defend against these suits. This is an absurd breach of medical privacy and only adds to the difficult struggle to get an abortion in Texas.

In Texas, 1.7 million women live in “reproductive deserts,” with the closest abortion clinic being hours away. Over 50 reproductive clinics have closed in the last few years, many in poor and rural areas where working women and teens don’t have the financial ability to travel far distances for the proper care. Texas’ draconian law mandates two trips to the clinic before an abortion, with distances averaging well over 200 miles.

This situation leaves working class families with the financial burden of children they may have difficulty taking care

J U LY - A U G U S T 2 0 2 1

of, makes working class women more likely to resort to unsafe abortion practices, limits access to proper medical care should something go wrong in the pregnancy, and leaves many vulerable to the emotional burden of carrying a baby to term that was the result of sexual assault. It also threatens the sexual health and safety of working people, as many reproductive clinics are often the only places that will provide contraceptives, OB-GYN screenings, and STD screenings. The Texas fetal heartbeat bill is just one illustration of the war on reproductive rights across the county.

The Supreme Court and Abortion Trump’s presidency heightened concern around the fate of Roe v. Wade, which guarantees the right to an abortion before fetus viability (the point at which the fetus can live outside of the womb, which the court estimated at 23-24 weeks). Trump appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices during his term, leaving the court

WOMEN’S MOVEMENT

at a 6-3 conservative majority. The court has said they will hear a case out of Mississippi, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which would ban abortion after 15 weeks, well before the 23 week mark currently protected under Roe. This means that the Supreme Court has the chance to scale Roe v Wade back or potentially repeal it entirely; deliberations will likely start in the fall, meaning a decision in the spring.

While repealing it entirely could very likely open the door to another wave of mass protest which the ruling class wants to avoid, the right-wing strategy is to scale back Roe v Wade’s jurisdiction in such a way that empowers right-wing leaders at the state level to severely restrict legal abortions. So instead of the court ruling there is no constitutional protection of abortion before 23 weeks, they could say that sometimes, in some scenarios, the right is constitutionally protect.

This would open the floodgates for states to mercilessly test the limits of the ruling.

A number of “trigger bills” have already passed in states, which would immediately go into effect and criminalize abortion if Roe v Wade is weakened. Many of these bills are fetal heartbeat bills, making abortion illegal after six weeks of conception, which is commonly when the first heartbeat begins in the fetus. Over 380 anti-abortion provisions have been introduced in 43 states this year alone.

For example, Arkansas and Oklahoma have enacted near-total abortion bans, and Montana banned the procedure at 20 weeks.

We Need a Socialist Feminist Movement Women are continually

oppressed under capitalism, as we saw increase even more during the crisis of the pandemic. With children stuck at home and childcare becoming an increasing problem for families who can’t afford it, women are being shoved out of the workforce. Birth rates have declined by 20 percent in the past decade largely because women and families can’t afford the costs of childcare, exemplified in the amount of homeless children in the United States, which reached an alarming high of at least 1.5 million in 2017-2018.

Denying women the right to an abortion and reproductive healthcare exacerbates all of these issues and leaves working women even more vulnerable to emotional, financial, and health complications in life.

The fact is that nearly one in four women in America will have an abortion in their lifetime, so what we are discussing is not whether abortion will happen or not, but whether the law will allow for safe abortions to take place.

Before legal and safe abortions, one in six pregnancy-related deaths were caused by unsafe abortions due to the practice being outlawed.

We need a mass movement like we saw in the 70s that won Roe v. Wade under a Republican presidency and conservative Supreme Court. This means organizing democratic planning meetings, occupying legislative buildings where anti-abortion measures are being passed, and coordinating days of action. We must unite movements that will win gains for all working people including trans-inclusive Medicare for All; free, safe, and legal abortion; free child care; voting rights for all; and a living wage for all people.

All of this will require putting immense pressure on the Democrats in power who are hiding behind Republican obstructionism to avoid doing anything. We need a movement that will appeal to unions and labor for support, not wait around for inactive politicians, and take to the streets to make the demands for what we need. J

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COVID-19

VACCINATION RATES SLOW IN THE U.S.

WHAT’S BEHIND VACCINE HESITANCY?

Marty Harrison, member of Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (personal capacity) If getting vaccinated can protect you, your friends and family, and maybe even the world, why would anyone hesitate to get it? Beyond the right-wing media fueled conspiracy theories and the dangerous pre-existing undercurrent of anti-vax sentiment, there are some understandable reasons based on people’s real experience with our profit-driven, grossly unequal system generally and the healthcare industry specifically.

No Trust in For-Profit American Healthcare Ironically, as a nurse I have heard patients reference the fact that the vaccine is free as evidence that there must be something wrong with it. Common, but essential medicines like insulin and epi-pens are priced out of reach, so how can this new, high-tech vaccine really be free? And how free is free? People expect that there will be hidden costs they didn’t know to ask about and have no control over.

This well grounded fear is a result of surprise medical bills which happen every day and are a significant source of medical debt.

The well-documented history of racist, sexist, bigoted research and treatment programs by our institutions of public health also contributes to vaccine hesitancy. For 40 years, the Centers for Disease Control Rebecca Green, New York City Despite making up just 5% of the global population, the U.S. accounts for 16% of those globally who have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. The entire continent of Africa has received just 1.7% of all vaccines administered despite representing 17% of the global population. In the U.S. many have returned to a sense of normalcy, but while globally cases have come down from their all-time-high May peak, hundreds of thousands of new cases are still being reported every day. South America, sections of Central America, the Middle East, and Africa are facing deadly spikes with no

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and Prevention (CDC) supported the criminal Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis— researchers told Black men in Alabama they were being treated for the disease when in fact they were being studied to determine what happens when syphilis is left untreated.

This is the very same CDC that alongside Trump, Republican governors, and the entire political establishment totally failed to contain the spread of Covid, with flip-flopping and confusing guidance. Hot spots of infection still continue to emerge, especially in the South and West. Why, then, should anyone trust the CDC’s recommendations?

What we are seeing is the emergence of two Americas: large concentrations of people in the South and rural areas are unvaccinated and actively vaccine resistant, many succumbing to conspiracy theories about the vaccine. But these ideas can only spread in the context of a completely discredited medical and political system.

Only a socialist analysis can validate this skepticism and provide a credible explanation: it is true that profit is the only goal of the pharmaceutical, health insurance, and hospital corporations. We agree that the institutions of government, who everywhere prioritized reopening economies over science-informed pandemic response, leading to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, do not deserve our confidence. But a grossly ineffective vaccine would not stabilize the economy. Only 0.1% of new COVID hospitalizations, and 0.8% of deaths in the U.S. are among vaccinated people. In other words, nearly everyone dying and getting seriously

sick is unvaccinated; the vaccine works. The speed, quality, and price of the vaccine are simply an admission by the capitalist class that they need us, a lot of us, to do the work that makes them money. Turns out, workers are essential.

adequate vaccine supply to counter them.

A nationalist approach to ending the pandemic is not only morally bankrupt but scientifically illogical. If the vaccine spreads anywhere it will continue to mutate, become more deadly, and potentially render our vaccines ineffective. A dangerous and more infectious variant that emerged in India’s devastating second wave, named the “Delta” variant, has mutated again into the “Delta plus,” which has now been spotted in 11 countries, including the U.S., and could be even more contagious. While early research shows that major vaccines, including Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca are still largely effective, they are slightly less so

than against previous variants.

In the U.S. Fauci has warned the Delta variant poses a serious threat to unvaccinated people as it went from 10% to 20% of current U.S. cases in just two weeks. Within the U.S. itself, we could see the development of “two Americas,” one where widespread vaccination has allowed society to reopen and one that remains trapped in a COVID spiral. Large pockets of unvaccinated people, largely concentrated in the South, could face surges this summer as people move indoors to avoid the heat.

Extreme inequality in COVID spread and vaccinations will only continue on the basis of capitalism, where wealthy governments

A Socialist Response to the Pandemic If development, production, and distribution of the vaccine are primarily in the interest of the capitalist class, what would a working class solution look like?

A widespread public health campaign, with easily digestible information in multiple languages, and participation from all levels of government, educational institutions, and unions should be launched to educate people about how the vaccine was developed, how it works, how you get it, and how effective it has proven to be. Outreach should be done in communities with low vaccination rates to answer questions about the vaccine and dispel myths. All workers and students should be guaranteed time off with no loss of pay or grade penalties to receive the shot and recover for days after if need be.

Fundamentally though, we need an improved Medicare for All system so everyone in the U.S. could access high quality care, free at the point of service. With such a system, we all would have long-term relationships with healthcare professionals whose recommendations we trusted. With tens of millions uninsured and a general underinvestment in primary care in the U.S., this type

of trusting relationship with familiar faces in healthcare who could encourage getting the vaccine is not a reality for many. Over time, improved Medicare for All would improve health overall, close the racial and income gaps in health outcomes, and restore dignity and respect to healthcare in the U.S. Even the best healthcare professionals cannot provide effective medication, vaccines, and treatments without a network of ethical, unbiased research, development, and production facilities behind them. We cannot control what we do not own: the pharmaceutical corporations who are making billions off of vaccines that were developed by hard-working healthcare workers and scientists must be taken into public ownership and democratically controlled.

Scientific research must be freed from its reliance on corporate funding. We need massive re-investment in education generally and science education particularly.

Until the climate catastrophe is seriously addressed, and rampant deforestation halted in its tracks (one of the key drivers of infectious disease), the next pandemic will continue to lurk just around the bend.

Extreme heat and pollution too will worsen health outcomes. A forprofit healthcare system was failing before and has come near collapse under COVID. Now is the time for a restructuring of healthcare, dramatic action on the climate, and the end of the for-profit system that brought us here in the first place. J hoard resources and whip up nationalism, big pharmaceutical companies make a killing, and millions die even though we have the wealth, resources, and science to stop the spread immediately. J

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

YOUTH & STUDENTS

Grace Fors, Dallas The relative fast pace of vaccination in the U.S. has been an enormous relief for tens of millions. People are able to reunite with family members and friends.

But the real toll of 15 months of isolation, the psychological and social effects on the population is still revealing itself as many struggle to readjust. The distress of quarantine and social disaster have been compounded by a contraction of resources available to working class people as the mental health system, shelters, and social services have faced unprecedented tests.

While children and teenagers were, at least initially, considered less likely to experience the worst of the virus’ symptoms, they have been far from immune to the pandemic as a whole. Social distancing, online learning, and unparalleled disruption of daily life, especially during key phases of childhood development, will leave many young people struggling to cope in the coming months and years.

The “pandemic within a pandemic” of the childhood mental health crisis, learning loss, and trauma will have a long-term impact that demands a response.

A Year of Living Online The onset of the pandemic was a drastic life change for everyone, including children.

No age group was spared. Parents of children under five reported increased defiance, fussiness, and separation anxiety, while three studies found restlessness, irritability, anxiety, clinginess, and inattention on the rise.

Virtually overnight, a majority of kids were cut off from some of the most important factors in their psychological development.

Quarantine meant day-to-day life involved excessive screen time, decreased physical activity, and mandated separation from social networks.

Over a third of adolescents described high levels of loneliness. Heightened boredom, frustration, and sleep disorders became common. But the distress was often much deeper and more severe, with alarming rates J U LY - A U G U S T 2 0 2 1

of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. In 2020, mental health related emergency room visits rose 24% among children 5 -11 years old, and 31% i n adolescents 12-17.

While much of this can be chalked up to quarantine and disconnect from social supports, grief has played a major role: among the 600,000 lives lost are parents, grandparents, relatives, educators, and family friends.

This was all met with a dramatic contraction in mental health resources with hospitals overstretched and school resources made digital. Children recovering from suicide attempts were placed in surgical beds for lack of space, and Colorado Children’s Hospital declared a state of emergency amid a flood of urgent pediatric mental health crises.

When Home Isn’t Safe For some households, quarantine offered a chance for family bonding, while others found coexistence more difficult. For a concerning number of children, quarantine was like being trapped inside a nightmare. Families cooped up for long periods of time, with financial hardship and heightened stress, formed a breeding ground for a surge in household violence including child abuse and neglect. Worse is how much has gone undetected.

When subject to constant monitoring by abusers, lacking in-person interaction with mandated reporters, and cut off from safe havens like school, friends, and extended family, what are victims’ options?

Disproportionate job losses and a childcare crisis forced many women out of the workforce. For victims of domestic violence, this not only meant quarantining with their abusers, but being paralyzed by fear of contracting or transmitting the virus if they sought help. Many domestic violence shelters and homeless shelters were forced to reduce their capacity, or close their doors entirely, for COVID safety.

CRISIS OF THE COVID GENERATION The Road Ahead

needs of students, incentive programs must be created to help people quickly and affordNow, kids are returning to in-person school ably become youth mental health care prowith a colossal lack of resources. Countless viders. More money needs to be allocated to educators are bracing for the most challeng- domestic violence services, after-school proing school year of their careers. Behavioral grams, and community centers. We need a adjustment to the classroom environment will Medicare for All system with free and widely be a struggle falling primarily on educators’ available mental health services. shoulders. School psychologists, social workThese demands could be fought for and ers, counselors, and nurses are in critically won if we build a sufficiently combative mass short supply. movement. Young people will have a critical The average ratio of students per school role to play in demanding that their schools psychologist is 1,500 to one - three times are adequately resourced. As school restarts the recommended ratio of 500. Social work- in the fall, students should initiate discusers are responsible for 1,200 students on sions with one another and their teachers average, more than five times the recom- about the resources they need. This can be a mended ratio, which no state in the country jumping off point to organize actions includcurrently meets. Millions attend schools that ing school walkouts to demand funding. have no social workers or school psycholoIn reality, the crisis facing kids today pregists, and only half of schools have a dedi- dates the pandemic. Depression, anxiety, cated full-time nurse. Finding hires for these PTSD and suicides were already on the rise positions is exceedingly difficult due to the among children. The fact that kids at the debt associated with becoming qualified start of their lives could suffer so acutely is and the meager incentives offered to forego a fierce condemnation of the system that better salaries in the private sector to serve allows inequality, deteriorating job prospects, in underfunded public climate catastrophe, and schools. a rapidly fraying social Winning all that we The $129 billion in fabric to dash their need will take nothing COVID relief to schools hopes for a better future. will help, and Biden has Winning all that we less than a movementasked districts to alloneed will take nothing driven overhaul of the cate some of the funds less than a movementsystem. And fortunately, to mental health. Howdriven overhaul of the ever, this relief is only system. And fortunately, this type of collective short term, and schools this type of collective struggle is a powerful will have to make imposstruggle is a powerful sible choices in distributantidote to the alienation antidote to the alienation ing these resources. How and powerlessness that’s and powerlessness do they choose between played a central role in that’s played a central hiring new staff, a longthe crisis. To win real term expense that will change means a strong role in the crisis. outlast federal relief, movement, regular while also ensuring necdemocratic meetings to essary safety measures like sanitation and discuss strategy, outreach to other students, ventilation are addressed? parents, and educators, protests against the politicians and school admin holding back progress, and a common struggle for a better A Future Worth Fighting For world.

The crisis of the pandemic has engulfed From the global climate strike movement, every aspect of young people’s lives. There to the George Floyd rebellion, to the countneeds to be a strategy to intervene on all less mass revolts taking place worldwide in fronts from schools, to households, to entire recent years, while young people have sufcommunities. This will mean fully funding fered from this system they too have been public schools on a permanent basis not a driving force behind ground-shaking moveattached to test scores, eliminating high ments. As the crisis of capitalism deepens, it stakes testing, and using federal funds to hire will only become clearer to legions of young teachers and support staff en masse to help people that the fight for their future is for a students catch up academically. socialist society built on collective well-being, To meet the urgent mental and behavioral not misery and exploitation. J

13

BIDEN & THE FILIBUSTER What’s Actually Stopping POLITICS

Protesters rally for sweeping voting rights legislation, which Republicans blocked with the filibuster in late June.

Democrats from Delivering?

Ella Rapp, New York City With the unprecedented and acute crisis working people endured during the last 18 months, the moment calls for an immediate $15 an hour minimum wage, a transition to a Medicare for All healthcare system, a permanent extension of child and childcare tax credits, an expansion and protection of voting rights, and robust taxes on the rich and corporations to pay for it. All of this is 100% doable for the Democrats with their control of the White House and majorities in both the House and Senate. But as Biden’s first 100 days have come and gone and as the eviction moratorium, student loan debt moratorium, and unemployment top-ups are set to end, Americans are still waiting on broader, long term reform.

What is Biden’s excuse for not doing what’s necessary for working people? As usual, and as we heard for eight years under Obama, the messaging is “I want to deliver on my promises and fight for working people, but the Republicans won’t let me.” This time around, with the Democrats holding only a one vote majority in the Senate through the Vice President as tie-breaker, the scapegoat is the filibuster: a procedure which effectively requires a 60-vote supermajority to get anything passed.

But if the filibuster is the reason we aren’t seeing the far-reaching change Biden promised, what do Democrats plan to do about it?

What is the Filibuster and Why Do We Have It? Until 1917, most legislative matters could be subject to unlimited debate in the Senate; if lawmakers wanted to block something from being passed, they simply had to stand up and talk until the rest of their colleagues were sick of hearing about it or until the legislative session came to an end. At the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, the Senate instituted a two-thirds majority rule for forcing the end of debate on a bill, or overcoming a filibuster, and in 1975 that threshold was lowered to the 60-vote requirement we have today. The 1975 rule change also got rid of the requirement that filibustering senators actually have to get up and talk; now they just have to signal their intent to block a law’s passage. As a result, we have our current nightmare scenario, where a 60-seat majority is essentially required for the passage of almost all legislation.

Throughout our country’s history, the filibuster has been used to quell the power of the Civil Rights Movement and diminish gains for Black Americans wherever possible.

Southern white capitalists sent their senators to Washington during the 19th and 20th centuries to block moves toward the abolition of slavery, desegregation, and the expansion of voting rights. The filibuster was a crucial tool in this process; in many cases, civil rights bills were filibustered out of existence

even when the White House and a majority in both houses of Congress supported them, including 20th-century efforts to eliminate poll taxes, prosecute lynchings, and address racist housing discrimination. Just last year, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky used the filibuster to try to block a bill that would make lynching a federal hate crime.

What is Biden’s Stance on the Filibuster?

So if the filibuster is what’s standing in the way of the progress Biden and the Democrats supposedly want to make, they must be ready to abolish it, right? After all, eliminating the filibuster would only require a simple majority vote in the Senate. Turns out, it’s not so simple. Biden has expressed weak support for a return to the “talking filibuster,” i.e. returning to the days when senators had to actually stand before the chamber and keep talking in order to maintain a filibuster. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader from New York, has made no commitment either way. But Biden’s preferred reform would likely not change much about the legislative bottlenecks in the Senate; the GOP would have no problem working in shifts to keep a bill stalled as long as they want to.

What is Biden’s Actual Policy Agenda?

Senate Republicans have repeatedly used the filibuster to block progressive legislation, but Democrats face opposition in their own party to getting rid of the undemocratic rule.

14

The Democrats aren’t willing to whip up a simple majority of votes to abolish an obviously undemocratic, racist, and paralyzing procedural tool like the filibuster in order to get their “progressive agenda” through the Senate for one simple fact: it isn’t their actual agenda. While Biden was on the campaign trail promising urgently needed reform to the American people, he was also promising his

billionaire donors behind closed doors that “nothing would fundamentally change” if he was elected. With attacks on voting rights the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades threatening the Democrats’ voter base, and their majorities in both halls of Congress, the pressure to abolish the filibuster is growing even sharper (see pg. 4). And yet Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have both vowed to protect the filibuster.

What Do We Need to Do to Win? Without a doubt, the filibuster, an undemocratic and fundamentally racist, anti-working-class tool of the ruling elite, must be abolished. As long as it remains in place, it will be far harder to achieve the change we desperately need: the PRO Act, Medicare For All, effective police reform, a $15/hour minimum wage, real action on gun violence, a cancellation of all student debt, and climate change policy that actually meets the urgency of the crisis.

But we don’t harbor illusions in corporate politicians to deliver working people the change we need. Their stance on the filibuster reveals they have no interest in serving us unless they are forced! The multi-gender, multi-racial working class must use our position as the force that keeps the wheels of society turning to first force the abolition of the filibuster – but we can’t stop there. We have to throw our full weight into getting laws like the PRO Act and M4A passed; and ultimately, we need a political party that actually works for us and is accountable to our interests and our movements. Politicians, while governing, should always be oriented toward working people. Right now, Joe Biden is proving that he has more allegiance to his supposed enemies, the Republicans, than he does to us. J

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

C O N T I N U AT I O N S

TIPPING POINTS APPROACH office. They should also withhold their votes on the Biden infrastructure package unless it includes significant climate protections, just as Democrat Joe Manchin has consistently done to hold up progressive legislation in the Senate.

Unions should organize alongside youth organizations for days of action for the climate,

continued from pg. 3

with the demand for guaranteed green jobs at the forefront. A starting point to cohere a movement like this could be a national climate conference that brings together youth climate strikers, union members, and working people more broadly.

Ultimately, the climate movement must fight for more than just immediate demands.

The kind of political action needed to slow the effects of climate change in any meaningful way is fundamentally incompatible with the system of capitalism, which prioritizes the billionaire class’ boundless drive to increase their short-term profits over the finite limits of what the planet can handle. J

SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE ISSN 2638-3349

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

Editors@SocialistAlternative.org

NATIONAL

WINNING THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT concretely consolidated around his right populist ideals and are willing to use the courts to erode the voting rights of minorities in order to maintain power.

The Democratic Party’s Weak Defense of Voting Rights With control of all branches of government federally, the Democrats have so far failed to match the urgency of the moment.

On June 22nd, Republican Senators used the highly undemocratic filibuster to block debate on the For the People Act, which would guarantee automatic voter registration, sameday voter registration, two week early voting, grant felons the right to vote, and more. The Democrats could have voted then and there to abolish the filibuster and pass desperately needed voting rights legislation, but they failed to do that, claiming that there’s too much opposition from within their party – notably from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Sen.Joe Manchin (D-WV). This is a pathetic excuse for Biden and the establishment to hide behind. If they exerted even a fraction of the pressure on Manchin and Sinema as they do on the Squad, they could force them in line and pass desperately needed reform. (see page 14).

CANCEL STUDENT DEBT nor included cancellation in any proposed budget.

There are calls from some Congressional Democrats like Senators Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren to cancel as much as $50,000 in debt per person, but none are mobilizing around it or building the kind of pressure necessary to win bold legislation. Largescale movements of students and workers can win debt relief, but they can also achieve many more policies that would make education genuinely accessible and democratic. We should build a movement for full debt cancellation, free four-year public college for all, and

J U LY - A U G U S T 2 0 2 1

continued from pg. 4

Ultimately, the Democrats cannot deliver substantive change. Demonstrations, protests, and direct action like the boycotts, sit-ins, and traffic blockages used in the Civil Rights era will be required to protect voting rights and to expand them to include exploited and oppressed peoples like felons. We will need to harness the incredible energy of mass movements like Black Lives Matter in order to defeat this coordinated campaign by the right wing. The labor movement will also have to play a role, threatening work stoppages like those used to compel federal government action in decades past. Community and civic organizations will be helpful in setting up mass community meetings for a coordinated social struggle.

The Lasting Legacy of the Struggle to Win Voting Rights It’s clear that we can’t rely on the courts, political parties, or even legislation to protect the hard won civil rights gains of the past. One of the major lessons from the civil rights movement and the more recent Black Lives Matter movement is that the key to substantive change lies in both mobilizing (involving working class people in an action) and organizing (settling

on a list of demands, distributing information, developing a decision-making structure, and connecting to the community).

Another major lesson from the civil rights movement is that strong, democratic organizations of the working class are needed to fully hold institutions and politicians to account with protecting and expanding voting rights.

Just like SNCC prepared to face down violent oppression to win the right to fully participate in the system of governance which controlled their lives, so too will we have to make sacrifices to transform society in our day and age.

The final lesson to be learned from the civil rights movements is that while it was lauded as the second Reconstruction, attacks on the Voting Rights Act started very soon after its passage. Any gains working people achieve under capitalism will face continual threat as the capitalist elite seek to take back what they’ve been forced to give up because of working-class social struggle.

We need a true socialist transformation of society away from capitalism in order to defeat racism and to usher in a truly democratic society rooted in the interests of the multiracial working class, poor, and oppressed. J

continued from pg. 10 hugely increased funding for state universities.

Progressives in office who have campaigned on this agenda, like Bernie and AOC, can use their positions to build movements by raising the call for nationwide demonstrations.

In organizing to win demands like debt cancellation and free public college, we need to understand that the same capitalist politicians and university administrations that got us in this crisis in the first place will be obstacles to our movement. Winning what we truly need will require also pushing for democratic control of public higher education by students, workers, and the community. These demands can

only be won through a mass movement of students and workers that use tactics like national days of actions, marches on Washington D.C., and debt/tuition strikes.

More and more young people are seeing how broken the capitalist system is at the same time that they discover the power of mass movements to genuinely transform society and take power from the hands of the ruling class. Winning extensive demands requires not just building large movements, but also uniting those movements on the basis of an overarching socialist program. J

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SOCIALIST ISSUE #75 l JULY-AUGUST 2021 SUGGESTED DONATION $2

ALTERNATIVE

Eviction Moratorium Ending:

TIME TO FIGHT BACK!

Eva Metz, Seattle The federal moratorium on evictions, originally set to expire on June 30, was extended by merely another month to the end of July.

The tsunami of evictions that has loomed on the horizon throughout the COVID-19 pandemic could soon arrive at our doorsteps if President Biden fails to extend the moratorium even further.

Recent studies underscore the dire housing crisis which could soon become a reality: over four million people say that they fear eviction or foreclosure and nearly 5.7 million households nationwide owe roughly $20 billion in rental debt. Even though $45 billion was allocated for emergency rental assistance over the past two stimulus bills, these funds have largely not reached tenants.

The impending housing crisis could be compounded by the lapse of other measures which the political establishment has been forced to deliver in order to shield working people from utter devastation during this pandemic. Currently, both the suspension of federal student loan payments and the $300/ month federal unemployment top-up are set to expire in September. Renters could suddenly be on the hook for not only $3,400 (the average amount owed by households with rental debt as of March), renters could be forced to resume payments of $393/month (the average payment for those with student loan debt) as they struggle to find work that pays a living wage.

Evictions have persisted throughout the moratorium issued last September by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The moratorium unfortunately contains copious loopholes for corporate landlords to exploit. For instance, it only applies to evictions related to “nonpayment of rent” — landlords are more than happy to invent bogus excuses to evict their tenants!

Despite its limits, the eviction moratorium has protected millions of families and prevented thousands of additional deaths during the pandemic. An extension would provide invaluable time to distribute the tens of billions still remaining in rental assistance as we fight for affordable housing for all. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has announced a $5.2 billion plan to pay off all past due rent of low-income renters in the state accrued during the pandemic using federal funds. But a slow roll out of renters’ aid in the state so far shows that it’ll take more than a few weeks or months to reach renters. There is nothing preventing President Biden from extending the moratorium — he could either maintain this vital lifeline for renters or he could side with corporate landlords to pull the plug.

For-Profit Housing: A Failed System Under the chaotic capitalist system, this eviction crisis exists simultaneously with a frenzied housing market. Home prices are at an all-time high. The average time homes

spend on the market is at an all-time low.

Some of this represents middle-class and millennial buyers who are finally able to afford a home. However, as the Wall Street Journal illustrates in an article titled, “If You Sell a House These Days, the Buyer Might Be A Pension Fund,” an estimated one in five houses sold is bought by someone who never moves in, with corporations, investment firms, and pension funds buying up entire blocks.

The homeownership gap between white and Black Americans, already nearly 30% before the pandemic, is expanding further and with it the racial wealth gap. While 28% of renters started the year with rental debt, that figure was a staggering 53% for Black households. Approximately 80% of all those facing eviction are people of color, particularly Black and Latino people.

Fight for Housing for All In addition to controlling the White House and Congress, Democrats control most major U.S. cities. They could use their power to pass sweeping protections for renters, working people, and struggling small businesses.

For instance, they could make the banks and the corporate landlords pay for the cancellation of rental debt for both renters and struggling small businesses.

As experience shows, though, we can’t rely on the Democratic Party establishment to stand up to powerful landlord and realestate developer lobbies. We need to take

matters into our own hands, uniting renters, working-class homeowners, and small businesses to fight for eviction defense, an expansion of the moratorium, and the cancellation of rental debt.

We also need far-reaching solutions to a crisis that was spiralling out of control even before the pandemic. Working people and progressive elected officials across the country can look to the example of Socialist Alternative Councilmember Kshama Sawant in Seattle, who has used her seat to win a series of landmark renters’ rights. This includes vital protections against evictions such as “right to counsel” legislation providing free legal counsel for all tenants facing evictions, and a school-year eviction ban for the households of students and educators.

In Minneapolis and Seattle, Socialist Alternative is currently playing a leading role in coalitions to win rent control, a crucial policy to stop the skyrocketing rents. Last summer, Socialist Alternative and Councilmember Sawant played a leading role in the victorious struggle to Tax Amazon and Seattle’s biggest corporations to build affordable housing. We have no time to waste in building struggles in cities across the country for an extension of the eviction moratorium, rent control, and for a massive public investment in affordable housing funded by taxes on top corporations.

Housing is a human right — just not according to the logic of the for-profit capitalist system and its political representatives. J