{"id":7049,"date":"2017-02-11T17:32:42","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T23:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lavozlit.com\/?p=7049"},"modified":"2017-02-11T17:32:42","modified_gmt":"2017-02-11T23:32:42","slug":"after-the-inauguration-protests-and-womens-march-lets-build-an-independent-working-class-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/2017\/02\/11\/after-the-inauguration-protests-and-womens-march-lets-build-an-independent-working-class-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"After the Inauguration Protests and Women\u2019s March, Let\u2019s Build An Independent Working Class Movement!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nA Failed Inauguration for Trump<\/b>
\nThe inauguration of Trump has seen mobilizations without past precedent in the United States: for the first time in history, spontaneous and organized protests erupted in the country on January 20th. Presidential inaugurations are usually the moment to celebrate \u201cthe greatness of American democracy\u201d. But this time, tens of thousands of high school students, and many workers and university students protested. Most significantly, two unions took labor action: ILWU Local 10- by shutting down the Bay Area ports- and \u00a0UAW 2865, the academic workers union of the University of California, which organized dozens of teach-outs and walkouts of hundreds of members with students.<\/span>
\n 
\nBy La Voz \/ Workers\u2019 Voice<\/strong>
\nFEBRUARY 10TH, 2017
\n 
\nBeyond the \u201cbattle of the numbers\u201d initiated between CNN and President Trump regarding the number of people attending Trump\u2019s inauguration, and the attempt to depoliticize the current situation, there is something beyond doubt: Trump is the less popular and most hated President the U.S. has ever inaugurated.
\nOpinion polls show that since day 1, Trump is the least popular President to be inaugurated in the U.S.: \u201cthe CNN\/ORC poll shows 53 percent of Americans view Trump unfavorably, while only 44 percent have a favorable opinion of the incoming president,<\/i>\u201d \u201ceven George W. Bush \u2014 who lost the popular vote and was designated the next president only after a protracted recount in Florida \u2014 had a 62 percent favorable rating on the eve of his inauguration\u201d<\/i>. In fact, according to The<\/i> Washington Post,<\/i> he is the least popular candidate to be inaugurated in the past 40 years.
\nSome of the inauguration protests and actions showed the seeds of a sustained and base-building form of mobilization that is taking shape in this country. But what also remained clear in J20 is that the government is ready to use the most brutal methods of repression. In Washington D.C. 230 activists were arrested on Inauguration day and they are being charged with felony charges for rioting, facing up to 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The arrests were conducted without any proper warning and discrimination, as expected, so many medics, journalists and legal observers ended up arrested.
\nJ21 Women\u2019s March: A Historic and Unexpected Milestone of Mass Mobilization<\/b>
\nOn Saturday J21 more than 3 million U.S. residents took it to the streets to participate in the Women\u2019s March. This made it the largest national demonstration in U.S. history! These demonstration were beyond doubt extremely popular and very spontaneous: the expectation of the organizers (tied to the Democratic Party and liberal organizations) were exceeded by millions, so were then too the restrictions and rules they attempted to impose to the demonstrations. They had announced in many cities that no chants against Trump were pertinent in the march, that the march was supposed to be about \u201cunity\u201d, with the popular liberal slogan \u201cLove Trumps Hate\u201d, and with many pink \u201cpussy\u201d hats as a sign of defiance of the many \u201cnasty women\u201d against Trump\u2019s misogyny.
\nYet the massive participation luckily exceeded the capacities of the liberal groups to lead the march. Millions flooded the streets with hand-made signs which expressed a wide range of political views: from the expected pro-Hillary \u201cI\u2019m with her\u201d, to \u201c\u201dBlack Lives Matter\u201d, \u201cWe won\u2019t go away! Welcome to your first day!,\u201d \u201cHey-Hey, Ho-Ho, Donald Trump\u2019s Has Got to Go!\u201d and many others.
\nIt is important to note that the largest demonstration was not the one in D.C. planned by small enterprises, the DP, labor leaderships and multiple non-profits, but the one in Los Angeles with more than 750,000 participants, mostly Latin@ working class families. Denver, Chicago, New York, and Boston had more than 200,000, and Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland and Philadelphia around 100,000. A total of 408 women\u2019s marches were planned in the U.S., even in the smallest towns!
\nThe Contradictions of the Women\u2019s March and the Tasks Ahead for Socialists<\/b>
\nOne of the majors contradictions of the women\u2019s march was that between its pro-liberal leadership and the confusion and diversity of political views expressed in the crowd. Even though many of the speakers in Washington, like Michael Moore, proposed to \u201ctake over\u201d or \u201crenew\u201d the Democratic Party, not all participants were there just to demand a return the Democratic Party. This is why it is very important for us in the Left who believe in independent politics, who want to build a third party for working people, immigrant families and all the oppressed communities in the U.S. to organize separate contingents in the future mass demonstrations. We want to join in action against the Trump administration with everybody, liberals, abstentionism, undocumented who did not vote, even with those who voted for Trump and are now shocked that he is attacking their very rights, but we want to join in action to build a political alternative of our own, that is not a return to the corrupt establishment of the 1%, that will not be easily co-opted and that is based on mass action and mobilization of working class folks.
\nFurther we need to pursue, in our multi-faceted movement to respond to the many attacks launched by Trump, an independent, \u201cintersectional\u201d and base-building strategy for the working class. With great mobilizations also come great responsibilities for us in the Left and the socialist movement. Mass days of actions will not be enough, we need to build the tools that will allow the struggle to continue, to be independent and democratically controlled by those who do the groundwork of organizing. We need to be better organized. Many union members massively protested on J21, but their union leaderships were absent as such, so labor rights, and union rights, and the articulation of class politics with immigrant, race and gender issues was mostly absent.
\nThis is why we need to build strong democratic student coalitions in all schools and universities, build rank and file caucuses in the unions or cross-union collectives, like the Labor Rising Against Trump new formation in the Bay Area, and neighborhood committees to fight against deportations and police brutality. We need to build the base groups of class resistance now, and also, our socialist revolutionary organizations, like Worker\u2019s Voice, which puts itself to the service of a collective, democratic and independent working class fight back!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“One of the majors contradictions of the women\u2019s march was that between its pro-liberal leadership and the confusion and diversity of political views expressed in the crowd. Even though many of the speakers in Washington, like Michael Moore, proposed to \u201ctake over\u201d or \u201crenew\u201d the Democratic Party, not all participants were there just to demand a return the Democratic Party. This is why it is very important for us in the Left who believe in independent politics, who want to build a third party for working people, immigrant families and all the oppressed communities in the U.S. to organize separate contingents in the future mass demonstrations. We want to join in action against the Trump administration with everybody, liberals, abstentionism, undocumented who did not vote, even with those who voted for Trump and are now shocked that he is attacking their very rights, but we want to join in action to build a political alternative of our own, that is not a return to the corrupt establishment of the 1%, that will not be easily co-opted and that is based on mass action and mobilization of working class folks.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13882120,"featured_media":7050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27671],"tags":[28421,28061,28158,28655],"class_list":["post-7049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized-en","tag-bay-area","tag-democratic-party","tag-michael-moore","tag-washington-post"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":true},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdQxqk-1PH","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13882120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}