-
Workers’ Voice newspaper: March-April edition
The U.S.-Israel war on Iran is a major escalation in the Middle East that has dangerous implications for working people everywhere. The brutality of the imperialist assault internationally is paired with the attack on civil liberties by the Trump regime inside the U.S. This includes the continued operations of ICE and Border Patrol, the threats to the 2026 mid-term elections, environmental rollbacks that deeply impact the Black community, and unchecked police brutality.
Our editorial in this issue warns us: “There is a great danger of underestimating the determination of the U.S. corporate elite to drive through this effort. We cannot rely on court rulings or upcoming elections to save us. We must organize now, not only for mass demonstrations and community networks against ICE violence, but to find our way to building a new working-class party through which we can organize our political defense on every plane and on every day.”
In this issue we also have articles on the Epstein files and the ruling class, the San Francisco teachers’ strike, and a review of the new album by U2.
The March–April 2026 edition of our newspaper is available in print and online as a pdf. Read the latest issue of our newspaper today with a free pdf download! As always, we appreciate any donations to help with the cost of printing.
Click on the image to read the paper or message us to get a hard copy:
-
Why is Brazil burning?
A map showing every fire that’s started across Brazil since August 13. Credit: Global Forest WatchBy JEFERSON CHOMA
Unified Socialist Workers Party (Brazil)
Brazil is in flames. Fires have spread throughout most of the country, especially in the Amazon region. Normally the region’s fire season occurs between June and October, but now farmers, miners and land grabbers are cutting down the forest and preparing to burn it all year round.
According to data from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), the Amazon registered 65,667 fires between January and September 1 of this year. This figure represents an increase of 104% compared to the same period last year, when the Institute counted 32,145 wildfires. In fact, more than 38 wildfires were recorded in August alone, according to the Inpe.
The fires in the Amazon have been occurring in regions on the agricultural frontier, such as on the margins of highways,like BR-230 (Trans-Amazon highway), particularly in the municipality of Apuí (Amazonas State) and BR-163, between Itaituba (Pará State) and Novo Progresso (Pará).
The smoke plumes coming out of the Amazon have traveled thousands of kilometers towards the center-south of Brazil. They were transported by the same winds that form the so-called “atmospheric rivers”. But instead of moisture, they have carried the soot produced by the burns at the advancing agricultural frontier. Particularly in the last few days, rivers of smoke have reached cities such as Porto Alegre (in Rio Grande do Sul), São Paulo (São Paulo), Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro), Brasilia (Federal District) and Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais).
Flames in the Pantanal and the Cerrado
This year, the Pantanal[1] and the Cerrado[2] also registered a record number of fires. Since last year, the Cerrado was already registering high deforestation rates; but, since the beginning of this year, 40,496 fires have been registered in total. This marks an increase of 70% compared to the same period in 2023.
The flat land of the Cerrado favors mechanized agriculture. For this reason, more than half of the biome has already been destroyed to make way for the production of soybeans, corn, cotton, or the planting of eucalyptus.
The Pantanal, on the other hand, is suffering the consequences of leasing land to cattle ranchers to expand cattle farming. Those who lease the land seek to make as much profit as possible, even if this means the unlimited exploitation of natural resources and replacing vegetation with crops or pastures.
More than 95% of the biome’s land is private and only 4.4% of the Pantanal is protected by public lands. In addition, the Pantanal also suffers from the territorial expansion of large soybean crops in its surroundings.
An apocalyptic scenario in São Paulo
In the last week of August, the interior of São Paulo was engulfed by large fires, which threatened cities, condominiums, roads and rural properties. It was an apocalyptic scenario of smoke and fire that bore the signs of a coordinated action, very similar to the “day of fire”, when, on August 10 and 11, 2020, farmers and land grabbers set fire to the Amazon, inflamed by Bolsonaro’s speeches.
The images show that the fires started in large territorial areas; and that they started practically at the same time and in large numbers. And further, that they have gotten totally out of control. This burning pattern is very common in the burning of sugarcane straw, an archaic practice that is partially banned in the state, but is insistently used by mill owners.
Satellite images also show that the large fires originated in areas where sugarcane monoculture predominates. São Paulo’s legislation on sugarcane burning is totally lax. And it has one objective: to allow the large sugar mills to continue burning the cane fields. Burning reduces the cost of production. This is more profitable for the mill owners.
The “new normal” of climate change
From north to south, Brazilians are already living under the effects of extreme weather phenomena (such as torrential rains, droughts and more intense heat waves) that are the result of global warming. The effects are so noticeable that 91% of the population has already noticed the changes, according to a survey by the National Confederation of Industry (CNI).
In May, a catastrophic flood hit Rio Grande do Sul, causing the biggest climate disaster in the state. This was a tragedy that had been forseen for some time. Meteorologists and environmentalists warned about the risks of extreme rainfall in the state, but they were ignored, while municipal and state governments tore down laws to protect the environment, all to favor agribusiness, big capitalists, and real estate speculation.
Governments at all levels are agents or accomplices in the catastrophe
The situation was greatly aggravated by the privatization and fiscal adjustment policies implemented by governments at all levels. The entire flood prevention system in the capital, Porto Alegre, was dismantled. The levees broke and the water pumps did not work.
The Lula government also bears responsibility. Besides investing a pittance in the prevention of natural disasters, it has also applied measures that favor of big agribusiness, as we will see below.
Now, according to the National Center for Natural Disaster Monitoring (Cemaden), the country is being hit by what may be the worst drought in recent history. The drought is even worse in the northern region. In the Amazon, more than 300,000 people are suffering from drought. Rivers have dried up, making navigation impossible and isolating entire cities.
Global warming is caused by capitalism
This situation shows that climate change is here to stay. Last year was the hottest year on record in 125,000 years. Ocean temperatures also continue to rise and have already surpassed all previous records. In addition, levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, the main greenhouse gas (GHG), are the highest ever recorded in 800,000 years.
Global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal), which release tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. All this is caused by capitalist industry and its voracious consumption of oil. More than 75% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from industry, transportation and buildings.
And it will get even worse
Global warming intensifies extreme weather events, such as the El Niño of 2023-2024, which was the most intense it has been since 1940. This triggered a series of other extreme phenomena, such as the rains in Rio Grande do Sul in May and the current drought. And what’s worse is that the situation is deteriorating even further. The future will be marked by new catastrophes caused by extreme phenomena that is more intense and more frequent.
The poorest populations are the most frequent victims of extreme weather events. And it is important to add a key detail: they are the same populations who have least contributed to the problem.
Agribusiness is fire, death and destruction
In Brazil, the biggest contributors to GHG emissions are capitalist agriculture, cattle ranching and deforestation, which together are responsible for 75% of the country’s emissions. Pará and Mato Grosso are the states that lead the emissions ranking. They are precisely the states with the highest rates of deforestation and increases in cattle ranching and monoculture planting, such as soybean.
In the satellite images it is easy to identify the areas that are being burned with the expansion of the agribusiness agricultural frontier. In these regions, there is a predominance of vacant land, i.e. public land that has no government use and is subject to illegal private appropriation by farmers and land speculators.
Fire as a weapon, the “law” and governments as shields
Fire is an instrument for the theft of these lands. First comes deforestation and logging, followed by fires. Then come pastures, cattle or some monoculture, such as soybeans. Then comes the pardon to the landowners, granted by the governments of the day, through the regularization of lands in the stolen area.
This was carried out by the governments of FHC, Lula, Dilma, Temer and Bolsonaro. This only increased the appetite of land thieves, who were always rewarded for their crimes. Moreover, the governments of the day have deliberately maintained lax regulation of the land market, leaving “wastelands” out of public control, but also refusing to inspect whether or not rural properties have a “social function”, as established by the Constitution. Thus, stolen lands end up being self-declared as productive.
National Parks, Ecological or Extractive Reserves, as well as Indigenous Lands (all public lands) are also invaded by the advancing frontier of agribusiness, loggers and miners (garimpeiros). This problem has been facilitated by the lack of environmental inspection agents and the dismantling of agencies such as the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) and the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (Funai).
Environmental destruction is caused by capitalist agriculture
Environmental destruction in Brazil and GHG emissions are directly related to the current economic model, based on the export of primary, agricultural or mineral products.
Those who finance agribusiness are the governments, through the public coffers. Last year, the Lula government allocated R$ 360 billion to agribusiness, through the Safra Plan. This year, it announced another R$ 400 billion for the sector, beating all records. This financing guarantees the expansion of agribusiness on the ashes of the Amazon, the Cerrado and other biomes.
The government finances the expansion of this model of agriculture so that the sector produces a surplus in the trade balance; that is, the dollars that enter the country through exports, so that it can replenish the financial system with the payment of the public debt. This story began with the FHC (Fernando Henrique Cardoso) government, which began to invest public money in agribusiness after the 1998 currency crisis.
In other words, the expansion of the sector and the destruction of our biomes are totally connected to financial capital. The winners are the speculators, the big banks and some representatives of agribusiness.
In capitalist agriculture, profit flourishes along with destruction
Moreover, the territorial expansion of this model of agriculture cannot be stopped. This is because the reduction of the sector’s production prices depends on the permanent opening of new lands, even the least fertile, in order to obtain an ever-increasing rate of land rent.
For this reason, in Brazilian agriculture, the tendency of large landowners is to control more and more of the best lands and to acquire greater amounts of income. But, on the other hand, they also seek, through pressure on the State, the incorporation of new areas in production, the guarantee of lowering the general price of production, which translates into an increase in the income of the owners of the best lands.
For all these reasons, this model of capitalist agriculture has accelerated, on an unprecedented scale, the country’s environmental destruction. In a very short period, from 1985 to 2023, Brazil lost more than 110 million hectares of natural areas, according to MapBiomas data. This is almost half of what the country has lost between the year 1500 and today.
Measures to cope with the climate emergency
Agro is fire!
Agribusiness capitalists destroy the environment in the country, promote fires and are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Enough of permissiveness with agribusiness. Expropriation, without compensation, of agribusiness.
The confiscation of the sector’s lands should be used to restore degraded ecological systems and biomes. It is necessary to introduce a new model of agriculture, which is ecologically balanced (agroecology or syntropic agriculture, that is, considering integration with nature and its preservation) that, in fact, produces food for the population and not monocultures for export.
For an energy transition controlled by the workers!
For the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the end of fossil fuels!
The Earth’s climate is dangerously reaching the point of no return. The only way out is the transition to clean energy sources. We are for an emergency energy transition plan, designed and controlled by workers, and for the development of renewable energies. We want a plan that starts from the nationalization of energy resources and energy companies, such as Petrobras and Eletrobras, under workers control, and that receive public investments in technologies and processes that allow the transition to clean energy sources. We are against the opening of new oil frontiers and new thermoelectric plants, which will only aggravate global warming, compromising the Earth and humanity.
Strengthening of Civil Defense and Disaster Prevention Systems!
To face new catastrophes, it is necessary to create a public company, under workers’ control, for the construction of a disaster prevention infrastructure. We need a plan for facing extreme weather events, to be prepared and implemented by the population, organized in Popular Councils, in workplaces and homes, and with the necessary support of technicians and scientists.
Repeal of all points of environmental legislation flexibility!
It is also necessary to strengthen the country’s environmental control agencies, hold new public competitions for the admission of new agents, and intensify actions to prevent new fires with firefighters, together with indigenous populations, quilombolas and traditional peasants, who for centuries have used their ancestral knowledge to prevent the spread of fires.
Notes:
[1] “Pantanal” is the name given to the alluvial plain that extends mainly through the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, and to a lesser extent through the state of Mato Grosso and surrounding parts of the department of Santa Cruz in Bolivia and the department of Alto Paraguay in Paraguay.
[2] The Cerrado (from the Portuguese “espesso” or “denso”) is a large tropical savanna ecoregion in Brazil. The Cerrado covers 1,916,900 km², occupying 22% of Brazil’s land area. This is an area larger than the state of Alaska in the United States.
-
What takes to defeat the billionaires and build a socialist alternative in Brazil’s cities
By JULIO ANSELMO
Brazil will hold local elections on Oct. 6, with a runoff scheduled for Oct. 27. The Unified Socialist Workers Party (PSTU), the section of the International Workers League in Brazil, is running candidates in 43 cities for mayor, city council, and other offices. The candidates represent a range of working-class and union activists, youth, and Indigenous and other oppressed people.
Only working men and women know how difficult it is to live in Brazil’s cities. There is a lack of hospitals, beds, and doctors. The schools suffer, abandoned to their fate, with poorly paid teachers, while those in power advance in their plan to militarize schools, which worsens education and increases the oppression of students, teachers and parents (read more here).
The lack of employment, leisure, and culture for youth is appalling. Cultural and leisure spaces are concentrated in expensive areas, with prohibitive prices for those who have to work to support themselves. In short, cities offer nothing to young people, other than despair for those who have to combine study and work, who are trapped in precarious schools and in poorly paid jobs, without rights, and susceptible to oppression and violence from the police or crime.
Taking the money and the city away from billionaires
Today’s cities only work for capitalist billionaires. It’s where business flows. They control everything from public transportation companies to construction companies that operate in real estate speculation, taking over the “desirable” areas of the city and evicting the working poor to faraway places.
We are not talking about the owners of small stores, bakeries, or little corner bars. We are talking about the owners of multi-million-dollar companies, the real estate funds, the controllers of pension funds, the big bankers and the big capitalist companies that dominate our country.
Less than 0.01% of the population keeps all the wealth produced by us workers. According to Forbes magazine, there are 62 billionaires in Brazil (5.6 billion reais). This handful of people is made up of owners of large companies that control the country’s economy, dominate national politics, and also shape the city according to their interests and business.
That is why, at the same time that there is the Fiscal Framework created by the Lula [President Ignácio Lula da Silva] government, which demands a reduction of funds for social areas, pressure is increasing for the privatization of schools, hospitals and public companies, such as Sabesp (sanitation and water), just as the Bolsonarist governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio Freitas (Republican Party), is doing.
PSTU candidacies: In defense of working class control of the cities
The focus of the PSTU candidacies in this election is to show how, in order to have a city at the service of the workers, it is necessary to defeat the capitalist billionaires and not to govern in alliance with them. If it is the workers who produce all the wealth of the city, why can’t this wealth be used and controlled by them?
Evidently, it can. But, for that, it would be necessary to take the money away from these multimillionaires who, just because they are shareholders and owners of large capitalist monopolies, control the economy and also the politics of the cities and the country.
It would be possible to have cities with zero tariffs in transportation; popular housing for all those who need it, and to take people off the streets and offer them decent jobs and fair wages. It is possible to have cities where there is access to employment, education, and leisure for youth and the guarantee of quality public healthcare.
Change the city and fight against the far right in a coherent way
Which candidacy really proposes to confront the capitalist billionaires? Nothing is expected from Bolsonarism and the far right. They openly defend the interests of the big capitalist billionaires, privatizations, and attacks on workers. They represent the worst of the Brazilian and international bourgeoisie. They even have a project of military dictatorship for the country.
Lula and the PT [Workers’ Party] claim that they want to include the poor in the budget and tax the rich more. However, the Fiscal Framework proposed and implemented by Lula has the opposite logic. Therefore, in practice, the government does the opposite of what it says.
They govern with and for the capitalist billionaires, who are making a lot of money with the Fiscal Framework and all kinds of tax benefits. If they really wanted to prioritize the poor in the budget, they should not only say so but do so, by ending the Fiscal Framework and confronting the capitalist billionaires, and not governing in alliance with them. [Lula was elected in 2022, with Geraldo Alckmin, considered close to the capitalist financial establishment, as his vice president.]
The PT says it deserves their support because they present, with the Broad Front policy with the capitalists, the only viable alternative against Bolsonarism. But the fact that the PT supports right-wing candidacies in 37 cities is proof of the level of adaptation to the capitalist order and shows how, in fact, they cannot even fight the far right.
In truth, by administering capitalism, they contribute to the disorganization of the workers and the demoralization of the activists, which helps Bolsonarism.
A candidacy with a program against the capitalist billionaires, to guarantee the interests of the workers of the cities, and to fight coherently against the Bolsonarist right, needs to position itself as a left and socialist opposition to Lula’s government, strengthening an alternative of class independence that is revolutionary and socialist.
Photo: The PSTU held its convention to nominate local candidates on Aug. 24. Shown are the nominations for São José dos Campos, where the PSTU candidates list will be headed by Tonino Ferreira, a lawyer and former president of the local Metalworkers union.
-
Layoffs in Peru: Should workers rely on ‘justice’ or mobilizations?
By VICTOR MONTES
The recent collective dismissals at the ceramics manufacturer Celima are part of a long list of closures, layoffs, and impositions of “perfect work suspensions” (temporary layoffs) that for the past five years have been hanging over the Peruvian working class, especially industrial workers. Because the defeat of collective dismissals is a vital component of struggle for the working class as a whole, we find ourselves in a moment dominated by confusion and a lack of mobilization. This is in large part a consequence of the policies promoted by reformist organizations, including the Communist Party–Unity (PC), Red Fatherland (PR), and their acolytes.
It is crucial, then, to question this policy and open up a discussion among workers who are at the vanguard of the struggle. This will help workers find a path forward for defeating collective dismissals, and, as equally important, encounter solutions to the economic and political crisis that is suffocating the country.
What is at issue with the layoffs?
In the first place, the collective dismissals, layoffs, and closures that have been taking place in the country are part of the deepening deindustrialization and denationalization of the Peruvian economy.
Since the 1990s, under the boots of the Fujimori dictatorship, a model of accumulation was imposed in which the country returned to exporting raw materials, particularly minerals. This led to the bankruptcy and disappearance of an important sector of the limited national industry that had existed since the 1950s. Today we find ourselves in a new “turn of the screw” in favor of the same model.
However, for the bosses this is not a problem. They are satisfied as long as they can maintain their businesses by hiring workers under worse labor and wage conditions, and become junior partners or executives of the companies that come to replace their old businesses. They would also be pleased with a move into the commercial sector.
On the other hand, for the workers, the closing of factories is a tragedy. This is not because they “love” the factories where they labor. On the contrary, workers hate exploitation. And in that sense, even if they are not fully aware of it, they look for a thousand and one ways to get out of work. That said, it is truly unjust and inhumane that workers are being left without a livelihood for themselves and their families.
The closing of factories, or collective layoffs, mean a leap into the void for many workers, as it throws them into informal labor and a greater degree of exploitation and misery.
This is why the struggle against layoffs, collective dismissals, and factory closures is part of the struggle of the entire working class and poor people against imperialist and capitalist domination, which privileges its profits over the lives of people and the development of countries.
What role does reformism play in the struggle against the layoffs?
Like all reformists throughout history, the Communist Party, Red Fatherland, and a long etcetera falsify reality and the concepts with which reality is understood. They do this in order to disarm the working class in its struggle and keep it tied to their own electoral interests.
Thus, while they speak of “unity,” they divide the struggles of the unions, taking their cases separately onto legal terrain. In addition, they have cut themselves off from the popular struggles occurring in Peru’s interior, and they say absolutely nothing about them.
They have demanded the “fall of the Minister of Labor,” to keep quiet about the need to overthrow the government of Boluarte and Congress. The latter are the current guarantors of capitalist and imperialist exploitation in the country. They are the guarantors who, as they have already demonstrated, have imposed themselves with blood and fire and restricted the country’s democratic spaces.
They call the congressmen and organizations that are completely adapted to the bosses’ legality their “friends” and “allies.” These are the same politicians who have never spoken up about their support for the end of exploitation, but they are key for reformists because they make electoral alliances possible.
But fundamentally, their understanding of “struggle” is based on lawsuits, which is their only real strategy of action in the face of layoffs. Under this framework, they take the class out of the streets and away from direct actions. In this way, they weaken the struggle, which is prolonged in time and demands expenses. These are two factors that favor companies as opposed to workers.
This is precisely the reason why, for those who have a Marxist and class understanding, it is clear that the bosses’ justice, where everything is bought and sold, is not the terrain on which the workers’ struggle develops naturally.
Although the bourgeois and bosses’ legality has had to recognize the conquests that the working class has wrested from its domination throughout history, at the same time, it starts from the recognition of the capitalist rights of the bosses above any others, beginning with their right to private property, the means of production (factories, mines, etc.) and for that very reason, to exploitation.
By putting the working-class struggle within the framework of bourgeois legality, they keep the action of the working class under control. In that sense, they keep the working class trapped in the myth that the problem of the dismissals will be solved with a “good legal defense,” while life drags the workers to look for new jobs and to abandon the direct struggle in the streets. As a result, this facilitates the materialization of the dismissals, and the continuity of the government. In other words, what it least wants is a front of conflicts opened up by the industrial working class.
What is the way forward for putting an end to collective layoffs?
The struggle against layoffs has, therefore, a set of characteristics that unify workers’ and popular indignation. On the one hand, it reveals the bosses’ desperation for guaranteeing their profits at the cost of the lives of workers and their families. On the other hand, it takes on the ongoing subordination of the national economy to the big imperialist transnationals that are deindustrializing the country to earn more.
In terms of the correlation of forces between the working class and the bosses, this struggle also opens the possibility of reversing the unfavorable conditions that the government of Dina Boluarte and Congress have created from the fierce repression with which they have imposed themselves, along with the retreat of the self-styled “democratic” sectors in the struggle.
And in terms of workers’ organization, it raises the need to overcome the reformist leadership, headed by the CP, which has lulled the workers to sleep and demoralized the fighters of the South and the working class itself. But in order for the struggle against the layoffs to become a central factor in the class struggle, that effectively confronts all these aspects, it is essential to proceed carefully.
In the first place, it is necessary to call for the broadest unity of action against the layoffs and dismissals, promoting meetings, assemblies, and the coordination of the affected sectors, whether they are unionized or not, and call on popular organizations to be part of the same struggle.
In this sense, the leaderships have their own responsibility. Although it sounds contradictory, it is essential to demand that the CGTP, the CUT-Peru, the FETRIMAP, and other union federations, which are the concrete leaders of the workers’ organizations at the national level, take the lead and carry out a united action of struggle. This should be a big militant strike, which together with the demand for the end of dismissals and the reinstatement of the fired workers, should add to its demands the needs of the poor.
Wherever possible, and where the facts on the ground demand it, the organized workers should take over the factories to prevent their closure and layoffs. They can put the machines to work under their own control, just as more than 400 companies in Argentina have been doing since the crisis of 2001.
And finally, it is necessary to demand, as a fundamental solution, the nationalization of the companies that lay off their workers or close their plants. This is the only way to guarantee that all the workers keep their jobs. The factories must then go on to function under the control of their workers, of factory committees, which must organize the continuity of production, while the State guarantees the purchase of raw materials, the payment of energy, etc.
We need leadership for this struggle
It will only be on this terrain, that of direct struggle and with mass action by working people in the streets, that we will be able to define the fate of the layoffs.
This demands the independent and political organization of the most militant sectors of the working class to build a leadership that in a consistent, militant, and class-conscious. We need a leadership that is willing take the lead in the fight for the immediate reinstatement of all those fired, the prohibition of permanent and temporary layoffs, and other mechanisms with which the bosses attack the basic right to work.
Only in this way will we put a stop to the wave of layoffs and firings. And we will open, at the same time, the road to the struggle for power and socialism.
This is the task to which the Socialist Workers Party is committed, which without any confidence in the bosses’ legal system, raises the banners of the direct struggle of the working class for their rights and most heartfelt needs.
-
Workers’ Action newspaper: September – October 2024 edition!
Workers’ Action/Acción Obrera September – October 2024 edition of our newspaper is now available in print and online as a pdf.
This issue has it all! From election coverage that includes the position of Kamala Harris on the police, we look at the foreign and economic policies of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. We also examine the struggle for liberation in Palestine, the fight against gender oppression, and immigrant rights. Our newspaper is printed by union Teamsters; check for the union bug on our print edition. Thank you to agitprop artist Mike Alewitz for the cover art! You can see more of his work at RedSq.org
As always, we appreciate any donations to help with the cost of printing. Click on the image to read the paper or message us to get a hard copy.
-
Food-service workers vote to strike at Philadelphia’s sports venues
By COOPER BARD
Workers at the three major sports venues in Philadelphia (Lincoln Financial Field, the Wells Fargo Center, and Citizens Bank Park) have voted to authorize a strike against Aramark, the food-service provider. The workers, represented by UNITEHERE Local 274, are now on strike watch.
The primary demands of the workers are for uniform wages that are adjusted to inflation across all three of the sports facilities, plus year-round health-care benefits. Out of nearly 2500 workers at the sports complex, only a few dozen actually receive health-care benefits.
The strike votes were very strong. The vote at Lincoln Financial Field (where the Eagles play) gained 84% support, while the vote of the Aramark workers at Citizens Bank Park (home of the Phillies) received 83% approval.
“One job should be enough!”
The three facilities employ large numbers of so-called “part-time” laborers under very exploitative contracts, which include limits on available health-care benefits. Aramark employs the workers under a different contract at each sports venue, even though many of the workers work seasonally at all three places. Those workers actually perform full-time work, but because of the company’s trickery, they are on the books as working two or three “part-time” jobs, which do not qualify for full-time health-care benefits.
The union is demanding that workers who put in 750 hours across the three sports facilities receive full-time benefits, while Aramark is insisting on a minimum of 1500 hours. At pre-strike informational picket lines, workers have chanted, “One job should be enough! Not two or three!”
Naturally, sales of concessions at the sports stadiums are very profitable. As the strikewatch page for the local says: “Our employer Aramark reported $18 billion in revenue in 2023, but many of us can’t afford health insurance. We’re standing up for health care and family-sustaining wages that adjust for inflation.”
Many companies, like Aramark, make extra profits when wages fail to keep pace with the rise in prices of basic needs like rent, gas, and groceries. In this way, although a company does not reduce the wages paid out to workers in literal dollar amounts, it is in fact paying them a functionally lower wage from the point of view of purchasing power. Thus, the demand of the workers for wages that are adjusted to inflation is completely reasonable.
Workers are in motion
UNITEHERE Local 274 had made its intentions and demands clear to the bosses on numerous occasions. Earlier this year, the Aramark workers at the Wells Fargo Center had staged a two-day strike starting on April 9, and a three-day strike started again on April 25, after the company offered a measly 25-cent pay increase. In June, workers picketed outside Aramark’s national headquarters building in Philadelphia, where they were joined by members of other unions from around the region. On July 31, the workers at Citizens Bank Park and Lincoln Financial Field rejected Aramark’s latest contract offer by a whopping 93%.
Local 274 held an Aug. 23 informational picket about the workers’ grievances outside Citizens Bank Park during a Bruce Springsteen concert in Philadelphia, as the artist has often made pro-worker statements. Workers from other unions (such as the teachers) and political organizations (DSA, Workers’ Voice, etc.) joined the picket line. UNITEHERE also marched proudly in the Philadelphia Labor Day Parade shortly after the vote at Citizens Bank Park. Now that the workers at all three sports facilities have officially joined the strike pledge, things are heating up. All labor should actively support the Aramark workers and Local 274!
Photo: UNITEHERE union members march in Philadelphia on Labor Day. (UNITEHERE Local 274 / Facebook)
-
Democrats’ 2024 platform tells us just where they stand on Palestine
By COCO SMYTH
Politicians, celebrities, capitalists, and party operatives convened at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago between Aug. 19 and 24. They were greeted by thousands of protesters demanding justice for Palestine.
At the same time, a movement within the Democratic Party known as the “Uncommitted Campaign” was visible at the Convention. The movement tried to exert pressure on the Democrats to moderate their unflagging support of Israel and its genocidal war in Gaza by voting “uncommitted” in the party’s primaries. The movement also butted heads with the Democratic leadership over its outright refusal to allow a Palestinian-American speaker to make a presentation at the DNC.
Nevertheless, despite disaffection with the party line on Palestine among a minority of its operatives and the majority of the American people, the newly released 2024 Platform of the Democratic Party forcefully reasserts the party’s existing position.
The 2024 Platform, drafted by the bureaucrats of the Democratic National Committee, represents the priorities, goals, and general political outlook of the party for the upcoming election. A vote on the platform was taken at the Convention, but its passage was a fait accompli. Though its program is non-binding, we can gain a lot of insight from it into the worldview of the top echelons of the Democratic Party. For those committed to the Palestine solidarity movement, and especially those who support the Democratic Party and vote for its candidates in “normal” times, understanding the program is absolutely necessary to determine how to orient to the party in the 2024 elections and beyond.
Israel as key to U.S. imperialist objectives
The platform doesn’t leave you wondering for long where the Democratic Party stands on Palestine. In fact, support for Israel constitutes the framework and primary theme for the whole section on “The Middle East and North Africa.” Of the three pages of this 91-page document dedicated to the MENA region, there is barely a paragraph that doesn’t include statements of unequivocal support for Israel or further emphasis on the centrality of Israel for U.S. imperial politics.
The 2024 Platform states: “President Biden and Vice President Harris believe a strong, secure, and democratic Israel is vital to the interests of the United States. Their commitment to Israel’s security, its qualitative military edge, its right to defend itself, and the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding is ironclad.
“President Biden traveled to Israel—the first U.S. president to do so at a time of war—in the days after October 7 to demonstrate that the United States stands with Israel in its quest for peace and security. He has also defended Israel at the U.N. against one-sided efforts to condemn Israel. The Administration worked with Congressional leaders to pass a historic aid package worth $14 billion to help Israel defend itself and to provide more than $1 billion for additional humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Kamala Harris’s DNC speech also hit on this theme. She promised, “I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself. And I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself.” In her Sept. 10 debate with Trump, Harris reiterated her determination to give military aid to Israel. Her remarks make crystal clear that Biden is not at all an outlier in his rabid support for Israel.
Many celebrated Biden stepping down, seeing it as a victory and product of the Palestine solidarity movement. Many have also entertained the idea that Kamala Harris might represent a break from unflinching Zionism within the party. However, this program and the speeches by the leading figures of the Democratic Party, including Harris, should put all this speculation to rest.
In her Sept. 10 debate, Harris also declared that “far too many Palestinians have been killed.” However, it is quite unconscionable that Harris and Biden talk about their commitment to Palestinian human rights while ensuring military funding for Israel’s genocidal offensive in Gaza. You can’t give somebody guns and bombs knowing that they’ll use it for murder, and then encourage them to moderate the carnage as you continue to give them more guns and bombs.
Negotiations between the sword and the neck
The platform states: “President Biden is working to build a durable peace in the Middle East bolstered by regional integration, a strong coalition to counter and deter Iran and prevent it and its terrorist proxies from threatening the security of the region, and a negotiated two-state solution that ensures Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state with recognized borders and upholds the right of Palestinians to live in freedom and security in a viable state of their own. The terrorist group Hamas sought to destroy the promise of that [two-state solution] vision on October 7, 2023, but they will not succeed. The United States strongly supports Israel in the fight against Hamas. And the hard work of diplomacy under the President’s leadership has made real progress on a way forward that will free the hostages, establish a durable ceasefire, ease humanitarian suffering in Gaza, and make possible normalization between Israel and key Arab states, together with meaningful progress and a political horizon for the Palestinian People.”
The best that a supporter of the Palestine movement might latch onto in this Program is its reaffirmation of its “commitment to a two-state solution” and platitudes about the human rights of Palestinians. But these nice-sounding words occur in the same paragraph where the party discusses its total support for Israel.
Before accepting this as a sign of positive movement in the Democratic Party establishment, it’s important to recognize this echoes the U.S. government rhetoric for a generation — since the inauguration of the Oslo Accords and the era of the “peace process” in 1993. A whole generation has lived in this post-Oslo world; most Palestinians were born after its signing. For this whole period, vacuous discussion of human rights, commitments to a Palestinian state sometime in the future, and occasional finger-wagging at Israeli excesses against Palestinians has been the norm. Just as now, this rhetoric has always been hedged with declarations of total support for Israel, and practice has shown which part of the rhetoric reflects reality.
The events of Oct. 7, 2023, which the program has a titled section dedicated to condemning, was a predictable consequence of these decades in which official hypocrisy and human rights rhetoric poorly masked violent occupation, dispossession, and racial rule. The choice that the post-Oslo world has offered the Palestinian people is either horror without end or an end full of horrors. And faced with this terrible choice, an end full of horrors at least offers an end—either liberation or destruction.
The U.S. commitment to an ethno-supremacist Israel necessarily undermines the empty promise of “the right of Palestinians to live in freedom and security in a viable state of their own.” The party claims that “the President’s leadership has made real progress on a way forward” through negotiations, as though they couldn’t just end the war today. The war ends when Israel stops the offensive, and Israel can’t continue the offensive forever without U.S. arms and funding. Even threats of cutting off support have stopped Israel in the past. Consequently, the high-minded discussion of humanitarian concerns, a “durable ceasefire,” and a “two-state solution” rings hollow.
Moreover, the Democratic Party’s advocacy for a “two-state solution” should not be seen as a commitment to a just and final resolution to the “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” The two-state solution has constituted the theoretical aim of the peace process in the Oslo era, but it is neither feasible nor desirable. Israel and its U.S. backers have offered the Palestinian people a solution that, at its best, would constitute an internationally recognized Palestinian state comprised of the non-contiguous Gaza and West Bank bantustans. Such a “state” would still be dominated politically, economically, and militarily by Israel without resolving any of the fundamental problems facing the Palestinian people.
The “two-state solution” is nothing but ideological cover for the ongoing colonial situation, which serves no other purpose than to make the current reality palatable and to buy-off a section of Palestinians’ political leadership. One secular, democratic, and socialist state with equal rights for all in the whole of historic Palestine is the only basis for a just and lasting peace, which is precisely why it will never appear in a Democratic Party program.
The program then brags about a “historic aid package worth $14 billion to help Israel defend itself and to provide more than $1 billion for additional humanitarian aid to Gaza.” This factoid pretty much sums the whole issue up. It would offer $14 billion to continue the war, and $1 billion to offer a band-aid to those who are suffering its consequences. This “historic” aid package is the proof of how direct the link is between the U.S. ruling class and the ongoing genocide. This package was a product of the Democrats’ coveted “bipartisanship,” and it is a point of “pride” that Harris will point to countless times during her campaign.
Democrats on the Palestine Solidarity Movement
The 2024 Platform states, “The Administration opposes any effort to unfairly single out and delegitimize Israel, including at the United Nations or through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, while protecting the Constitutional right of our citizens to free speech.”
The Democrats’ relationship to the Palestine solidarity movement in the United States is simple and can be encapsulated in three words: they oppose it. Democratic Party politicians from the state to the national level have made it a priority to attack—and where possible ban—the Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel under the guise that the movement is “anti-Semitic.” This campaign has been fundamental to the solidarity efforts in the United States since 2001. Signed by hundreds of Palestinian civil society organizations and endorsed by thousands more organizations across the world, the demands the BDS campaign levels at Israel are quite simple:
- Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in 1967 and dismantling the Wall
- Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality
- Respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194
Readers can determine whether these demands are antisemitic. The Democrats constant denunciation of and attacks against the BDS movement demonstrate how violently they oppose even moderate expressions of support for Palestine or condemnation of Israel.
The “Uncommitted Campaign” is another important facet of this discussion. The moderate successes in getting voters to vote uncommitted in an uncompetitive race have heartened many in the Palestine movement as a reflection of widespread disenchantment with the Democrats’ unwavering support of Israel. Thirty uncommitted delegates won seats and were present at the DNC. The Uncommitted Campaign also publicly celebrated the party’s decision to allow a panel at the conference entitled “Democrats for Palestinian Human Rights.”
But after reading the program of the party, how are we to feel about the state of this reform movement? The Democratic Party apparatus is happy to give superficial “wins” to movements in order to co-opt and placate them. The party loves to utter platitudes about Palestinian humanity and rights to self-determination, yet not for one day have they stopped their relentless funding and ideological backing for Israel, and consequently, its genocide.
Furthermore, conference speeches by Democratic leaders made clear that no change of position on Palestine is being considered. Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and the supposed leftist firebrand Alexandria Ocasio Cortez maintained remarkable unity of line in their speeches. Just as in the platform, Democratic leaders reiterated their unequivocal support for Israel, blamed the Palestinian resistance for all of the carnage in this war, and bragged about their commitment to the phony peace negotiations—which Israel has undermined every step of the way, most recently, with the shocking assassination of the Hamas leader and leading Palestinian negotiator in the peace talks, Ismail Haniyeh.
Taken together, the Democratic platform and subsequent speeches make clear that support for Israel constitutes the core of the party’s orientation to this war. The leadership is criminalizing BDS and undermining reform efforts within its ranks at every turn. It’s time to accept that there is no place in the Democratic Party for those who support Palestine.
Hear what the Democrats are telling you!
As Israel’s war in Gaza approaches its one-year anniversary, the Democrats have only shifted their rhetoric on it, but have not changed their position. The suffering of the Palestinian people has not been enough to change their position. In Michigan, 100,000 people voted “uncommitted” in the Democratic primaries in disgust over Biden’s bankrolling of the war. But that was not enough to change the party’s position. Encampments, walk-outs, and sit-ins rocked the campuses of 140 colleges in 45 states. That was not enough to change their position. Over 3000 students were arrested in this protest wave, with thousands more facing suspensions, firings, and other forms of discipline thanks to a coordinated nationwide campaign of repression demanded by both parties. Despite majority disapproval of Israeli military action, despite support for Palestine within their base, despite everything—nothing has changed their stance.
Support for Israel is so central to U.S. imperial strategy and the interests of the U.S. ruling class that it is non-negotiable. There is a unanimous bipartisan consensus among the political elite, just as there is on the most fundamental issues for capitalist rule. Their new program for the 2024 elections is just the latest confirmation of which side they’re on.
Our movement as a whole needs to give up on the hopeless and demeaning efforts to reform or exert conditional pressure on the Democratic Party. The party doesn’t represent us and it’s not going to. Seeing the true character of the party, we must adopt demands and strategies that build the power of the movement as an independent force. We can halt Israel’s genocidal war by forcing the U.S. to withdraw all support to Israel through a well-organized nationwide movement based on mass struggle. Anything less ensures that the terrifying politics of the status quo will continue.
As a movement, let’s listen to the Democrats’ statements and accept the simple truth: If you want to see liberation for the Palestinian people, you have no home in the Democratic Party. We are not going to change the minds of Kamala Harris or the hundreds of operatives at the DNC. They’re not going to change their positions, but we can change their actions if we fight independently and turn this into a movement of millions.
Those of us in the United States collectively have more power to influence the course of events in Israel and Palestine than just about anyone. That makes it our duty to organize a mass solidarity movement for Palestinian liberation and make the current situation untenable. The Democratic Party knows that our movement is a threat, so let’s carry out the threat and do our part to support Palestinians as they fight for liberation.
Photo: SkyNews
-
Defend Palestine solidarity protesters at Temple University!
{:en}
By COOPER BARD
On Aug. 29, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Temple University in Philadelphia held a rally and march, with multiple stops, to highlight the numerous on-campus actors providing aid to Israel, whose military has killed over 40,000 Palestinians including 7000 children. Soon afterward, university president Richard Englert published a statement that charged the protesters with using “intimidation and harassment tactics,” and implied that their action had been antisemitic. This statement was clearly untrue and unhelpful toward protecting safety and free speech on campus.
Temple SJP leads a march from campus to central Philadelphia in April 2024. (Fernando Gaxiola / The Temple News) Students for Justice in Palestine released a reply that said in part: “Englert singled out our stop at Hillel, and intentionally distorted our message to serve the false narrative that Temple SJP is a threat to Temple University. Our clear-cut goal was to highlight Hillel’s hand in sponsoring and legitimizing the Zionist Entity, an apartheid state that has killed countless friends and family members of Palestinian students at Temple University. Englert has once again threatened SJP and the students involved with disciplinary action, striving to unfairly punish us and to scare students from participating in our future actions.”
The U.S. struggle for the right to protest
To call the killing and genocide that is purposefully carried on by the State of Israel a mere “situation,” as the Temple University president does, vastly understates the unending slaughter of the people of Gaza. Moreover, his statement implying (wrongly) that SJP has antisemitic intentions and is a danger to Jewish students can only have a chilling effect on the right to protest—particularly in light of the current climate of repression nationwide. The right to protest is a constitutional guarantee, and in the struggle to save the people of Gaza, it is the only morally correct thing to do.
Repression against left-leaning activists is reaching a decades-long high in the U.S. This includes mounting repression and attacks against pro-Palestinian youth nationwide, as well as the state-led crackdown against anti-police-brutality activists and climate activists. In many ways, the state and the capitalist class—with the compliance of the country’s college and university systems—are attempting to silence youth on multiple burning issues that have the potential to explode into mass struggles against the inherent madness and inhumanity of this system.
This is why, as Mondoweiss reported, U.S. universities spent the summer planning with consultant firms—including openly Zionist outfits—to clamp down on even the possibility of student unrest.
Zionism is not Judaism
Israel has never truly represented the Jewish community. Zionism as a political project has for over a century enlisted the aid of first British and then U.S. imperialism to implant itself on the land against the wishes or interests of the original Palestinian inhabitants. Israel is, in short, a country established by land theft and genocide, over many decades, which acts as a vehicle for U.S. domination of the Middle East.
Anti-Zionist Jews have resisted the project from day one, although their voices have been sidelined by the pro- imperialist mainstream media. There exists today a broad, and widening layer of anti-Zionist Jews in the Western world—including U.S. organizations such as Not In Our Name and Jewish Voice for Peace—that have mobilized tens of thousands of Jews in solidarity with Palestine. Pro-Zionist media conveniently ignores the uncomfortable fact that the opposition to Israeli includes Jewish people in many countries, since the myth of total Jewish-Israel identity is absolutely essential to legitimizing the colonial-settler project.
Zionism, in fact, requires the survival of antisemitism in order to justify the existence of Israel. The ideological justification for Israel rests on the allegation that it is the homeland of the Jews and the only safe space for Jews in the world.
Early Zionist leaders had made peace with antisemitism. For instance, Theodor Herzl, who is regarded as the father of Zionism, wrote: “I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to ‘combat’ anti-Semitism.” [1] This kind of attitude permeates the thinking of leaders of modern Israel.
The most pervasive source of antisemitism in the U.S. is not the activists who support Palestinian rights, but the far right, which projects a hidden Jewish plot in fantasies such as the so-called “great replacement” theory. The Republican Party, now fused with a strong white nationalist and Christian nationalist wing, helps to promote antisemitism in the U.S. today. Trump, for example, refused to condemn the fascists who marched in Charlottesville in 2017 while chanting, “Jews will not replace us!” And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) suggested in one of her outlandish utterances that a wildfire in California might have been set by a laser from space that was controlled by wealthy Jewish bankers.
It is the far right that, historically, has promoted the false belief that Israel dictates U.S. policies, whereas the anti-Zionist movement correctly identifies Israel as the stooge of U.S. policy in the Middle East, and the beneficiary of U.S. corporate and institutional investment. At the same time, the global far right has supported Israel as an example of a “successful” ethnostate.
Defend civil liberties!
Big U.S. capitalist interests—including the major financial supporters of U.S. universities—find the demonstrations by Palestinian and Jewish youth to be a potential hindrance to their economic and political objectives in the Middle East. The line was drawn clearly when students, faculty, and supporters set up encampments on campuses across the country. In response to the urgings of the political establishment, university administrators used repression, slander, and expulsion against peaceful protesters—and even tolerated physical assault against them by Zionists. Simultaneously, pro-Palestinian formations inside the unions have faced attacks.
The Temple community and all supporters of civil liberties should express solidarity with the right of the SJP to protest against genocide. Last year, Temple students and faculty showed during the strike by graduate student instructors their willingness to fight the administration on issues of workers’ rights and win. This same solidarity can be mobilized to protect the community from harmful infringements upon our right to protest. It is vital that we defend the civil liberties of Temple students against these attacks, and mount a united defense. The fight for civil liberties at home also strengthens our resolve to end wars abroad.
Defend Temple students’ right to protest!
Stop slandering opposition to Israel as antisemitism!
Defend Jewish students against their real enemies on the far right!
For a free, secular, and democratic Palestine!
End all U.S. aid to Israel!
Notes:
[1] Theodor Herzl, The Diaries of Theodor Herzl (New York: Dial Press, 1956), p. 6.
Top photo: Palestinian solidarity protesters gather on the edge of the Temple University campus for the Aug. 29 march organized by the SJP. (Kayla McMonagle / The Temple News)
-
What does Kamala Harris say about police violence?
By BRIAN CRAWFORD
Kamala Harris is officially the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. For the next couple of months, a flurry of rationalizations will be used to convince voters to support her. The seasonal “lesser evilism” will be paired with the threat of the Heritage Foundation’s right-wing “Project 2025” program. The party will assert that all that stands between democracy and Trump as an American Mussolini are Kamala Harris and the Democrats. Many succumb to such arguments because they believe they have no choice.
But any illusions regarding the Democratic Party go up in smoke when examining the history. In 2020 tens of millions marched for an entire summer after viewing the video of a Minneapolis police officer murdering George Floyd. Floyd’s death was the catalyst for a movement primarily focused on police brutality and criminal justice but also, at its roots, an attempt to address the material conditions of African Americans. Floyd’s death is one in a continuing story of Black people’s deadly encounters with law enforcement. Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner are three among a multitude of victims; their tales reflect back throughout the history of the United States.
The momentum of that summer was not sustained. It was consumed by electioneering and the illusions in a progressive turn by the Democrats. Disappointment soon followed. Many within the movement supported Biden. This was a defensive vote, however, cast with the specter of another four years of Trump as the alternative.
Biden in his essence is a conservative Democrat who needed to appeal to the progressive base of the party for his last chance at the presidency. Both the president and current vice president are committed to investment in the ever-increasing militarization of law enforcement.
For Harris the first step up the political ladder was as San Francisco district attorney, defeating the more progressive Terrence Hallinan by shifting slightly to the political right of her opponent. After assuming office, Harris announced she would not pursue the death penalty. This was consistent with her image as a “progressive prosecutor,” but there was little political risk involved. Even the head of the police union understood that the political climate in San Francisco would not support the death penalty.
The “progressive prosecutor” is a contradiction in terms. The prerogatives of the state are the primary concern for a prosecutor no matter how “progressive” they might be portrayed. Harris was as aggressive as any in defending the system and funneling more people into overcrowded jails and prisons. As California’s attorney general, she fought a U.S. Supreme Court order to address overcrowding in the state’s prisons by releasing some low-risk and non-violent prisoners. At one point the system was packed to 200% of capacity.
Harris and Biden’s hard positions on criminal justice are emblematic of the Democratic Party of the last 40 years. Democrats strategically shifted rightward after defeats to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. As a result, the working class, and especially Black people, became appendages to the party—only to be acknowledged during campaign season. The new target constituency became the white suburbanites who had fled the cities as the African American population increased.
Crime prevention and longer sentences were part of a reactionary legislative trend. Bill Clinton, the “New Democrat,” preached law and order to appeal to this new constituency, and “personal responsibility” replaced the “New Deal,” “Great Society” and “War on Poverty” of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Clinton promised 100,000 more police and increased the number of capital crimes. His now infamous crime bill was supported by then Senator Joe Biden.
During the 1990s, Congress authorized the Department of Defense to ship surplus military hardware to local law enforcement. Under the 1033 program, police departments around the country have access to the same weapons used by U.S. forces in combat zones. The Black liberation movement has demanded the end of the 1033 program, but the arms flow continues under Biden, while police budgets still increase.
Moreover, cities around the country are developing “public safety training facilities” (“Cop Cities”), whose purpose is social control and engagement in urban warfare. These training centers are erected in or near neighborhoods that are historically deprived, disinvested, and left to decay. These facilities and their forces stand ready when the communities rebel against their conditions.
The Democratic Party platform of 2020 included references to police brutality, criminal justice reform, and funding communities. It also called for an end to mass incarceration and the end of the death penalty. Now four years have passed and the Democrats no longer feel obliged to address these demands. They want to reclaim the mantle of the party of law and order. The 2024 platform places emphasis on policing.
The Democrats and their party’s nominee state clearly: “We need to fund the police, not defund the police.” References to police brutality and ending mass incarceration are absent. The United States has nearly two and half million people in prison, many of whom languish on death row. While the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, and the practice is considered inhumane and inconsistent with a civilized society, the United States has not abolished capital punishment. The absence of the death penalty issue from the Democratic Party platform for the first time in 20 years indicates it is not a priority in this election year.
If the Democratic Party is the “party of the people,” then the people are in a crisis. Leap years bring us presidential elections, and each time, the Democrats ask the electorate to take a leap of faith to punch a ballot for them and receive little in return. Democrats hope that fear of the GOP will be a compelling reason to overlook their deceit and betrayals.
In 1964 the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party attempted to be seated in that state’s delegation to the Democratic Party convention. Rather than seating the Black members of MFDP, Democrats sought a compromise with the segregationist Mississippi delegation and offered two at-large seats. MFDP activists, including Fannie Lou Hamer, left the convention and the party. For the Black liberation struggle to succeed, it must emulate this historical example. It would be a first step in political independence.
Photo: A demonstrator raises his hands in front of police in riot gear during protests in Baton Rouge, La., July 10, 2016. (Shannon Stapleton / Reuters)
-
The source of transgender oppression — and how to fight it
By RUSS O’SHEA
One of the most emergent issues of our time is the fight for transgender rights. In recent years, an enormous amount of vitriol has been directed against this community. The hostility has long existed but it has become so disproportionate that many are asking themselves why politicians focus so much on trans people when there are plenty of other issues facing working people that desperately need to be resolved. Some of these include lack of housing, a cost of living crisis, climate devastation, just to name a few. Yet an overwhelming amount of bills being posed address not these but curbing the rights of trans people, who comprise less than 2% of the adult population in the U.S.
In fact, a recent poll found that 77% of people in the U.S. think the attacks on trans people are a distraction by politicians to divert attention from “real issues.” Why, for example, were trans people a constant topic of discussion at the Republican National Convention? What is behind the constant fear-mongering in the press? What is it about trans people that is so urgent that it means focusing an incredible amount of political energy to restrict the rights of a tiny minority?
To answer these questions, we have to understand where transgender oppression comes from, and to answer that question we must consider the origins of gender itself.
As class society began to develop, along with private property, a gendered division of labor was established. “Men” were designated as the heads of the families and given control over the herd and the tools to provide meat and shelter. Those inhabiting “female” bodies were generally assigned the role of performing reproductive labor—including child-rearing, domestic tasks, and care.
This development attempted to erase intersex and trans people, especially later on, when these identities were encountered in Indigenous societies by colonial empires. Gender expressions that didn’t conform to the imposed binary were violently suppressed. Two Spirit and the Hijra are examples of people who faced violence for not conforming.
The profit-making system is dependent on structures like the nuclear family and the assumption that the life aspiration of most people should be to start a family. These are deliberately cultivated cultural phenomena to ensure there is always a fresh supply of workers being born, raised, and assimilated into the workforce. Overwhelmingly, these tasks are taken up by women and Queer people with no compensation for their labor. The sexualities of birthing people are regulated to meet this end, so this system and its efficiency are threatened by agency over one’s own body. For this reason many aspects of bodily autonomy including reproductive and gender rights are being rolled back.
Attacks on trans people in particular are made by the ruling class with the knowledge that the consciousness that may develop from advances on trans rights would strengthen the struggles for Black, Indigenous, women’s, immigrant, and other rights. This is all the more threatening in the context of a generation that has already been mobilized in huge numbers against police brutality, genocide, and climate destruction.
The ruling class is terrified of how the dominoes might begin to fall if a structure as pervasive and effective as the gender division could be overcome. So to preempt this situation, extreme brutality is exacted on trans people and divisive rhetoric is employed that points to the existence of trans people as cataclysmic for the living conditions of the working class. A huge part of this rhetoric focuses around maintaining the family; here the ruling class shows its hand and reveals also just how important the family is to maintaining the current mode of production and its inherent exploitation.
Why do we defend trans people’s right to self identify? Why do we fight for trans liberation?
Defending trans people is about much more than making a statement on the construct of gender. Defending trans people and fighting to advance trans rights must be taken up by the entire working class, not just because trans people are a section of the working class but also because they are a vehicle through which the entire working class is being attacked. Workers in fields that in any way validate trans people, like teachers, librarians, and care workers, are being attacked for doing part of their job. Oppressed groups like women, immigrants, and Black and Indigenous people are similarly being targeted on the basis of combatting “transgender insanity.”
What is necessary to achieve trans liberation?
The interest (or lack thereof) of the political wings of the ruling class in defending trans rights was put on full display at their respective conventions. The RNC was rife with anti-trans, anti-Queer, anti-immigrant, and generally anti-worker rhetoric. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) remembered Trump’s first term as a time when “there were [only] two genders” (such a time has never existed). Another called trans people filth. This happened at the same time as the GOP attempted to pander to gay men.
The DNC, on the other hand, saw trans people mentioned a mere two times, and a trans person was not allowed to speak. But the task of sowing illusions in the Democratic party is carried out by peripheral formations, like the union bureaucracies and Drag PAC, each of which are meant to funnel the most ardent champions of issues like trans rights into a dead end in the form of the Democrats. This is the only possible outcome of placing faith in a party that on the one hand can barely even pay lip service to trans people and on the other is meant to uphold the very system from which trans oppression stems.
Bearing this in mind, what options do we have? How can we wage a real struggle for trans rights that will not be herded into empty promises or reforms that get overturned within a couple years of being won? What is our vision for trans liberation and how would that be achieved?
The foundation of gendered oppression is the capitalist system, which divides the working class into categories to most efficiently exploit it. Not even a “progressive” capitalism can overcome this; there is a fundamental contradiction between the interests of the exploited and oppressed and the interests of the exploiters and oppressors. It is never in the interest of the capitalists to do anything that will restrict profit-making.
Reforms that make life a little better for workers are hard fought, and any moves by the business owners or politicians made outside of such reforms are part of a calculation to quell uproar by appearing to be progressive. In Queer contexts, this is referred to as pinkwashing or rainbow washing, and we can see that, as the social pressure for progress dies down, companies and politicians are reversing or shying away from reforms and posturing en masse.
Absent a mass movement, this reversal (and new attacks) can take place unchallenged. Reforms amount to a process; they act as pressure valves that open to ease tension as social movements surge and are closed after some time to protect and maximize capital gains.
The only thing that can really break this cycle and bring about permanent change is a transformation of the entire society to one not predicated on exploitation. This would mean a society organized in the interest of serving people’s needs, able to guarantee things like food, housing, education, and health care. Diverse gender expressions and identities would have room to flourish, as it would also mean an end to restrictions on and usage of bodies to serve the interests of capitalists. For this, a socialist society is necessary, which itself necessitates a socialist revolution.
-
U.S. elections: Neither party will end financial crisis for working-class households
By CHRISTINE MARIE
One of the most painful displays of hypocrisy in the current presidential race revolves around the effort of each ticket to present their candidates as the best defenders of working-class families. While the Democratic and Republican parties are associated with sharply differentiated notions of the “family” and policies on abortion and bodily autonomy—and while they polemicize over how to fund health care, education, and housing—they have both put the Child Tax Credit at the center of their promises. An examination of this approach shows its limited character and demands a discussion of an alternative strategy to escape the financial crises facing working families.
Why do both tickets love the child tax credit?
The CTC is a neoliberal approach adopted over direct assistance to low-income households due to its minimal association with “welfare” to the poor. It was expanded during the COVID-era economic meltdown to meet protests from those losing income. The expansion gave out $3600 per child under six and $3000 per child between the ages of six and 18 in tax credits to households per year. This expanded plan also tweaked the neoliberal framework by allowing some families who paid little or no taxes and were previously excluded from such credits to receive some money. Because of this latter shift, the program was widely credited with lifting around 2 million children out of poverty. Still, the CTC provided a drop in the bucket of the emergency relief needed by working families.
To understand just how modest impact of the expanded CTC really was, it is worth noting that a non-profit called The Bridge, based on a needs assessment and in sharp contrast to the CTC payouts, gives out $1000 per month to low-income new mothers. And according to the Children’s Defense Fund, 11 million children in the U.S., not 2 million, are living in poverty. This means that during the historic high of poverty reduction attributed to the CTC expansion, the conditions of less than 1/5 of children in need changed significantly.
But that is not the whole story. While gains for the poor were relatively modest, the COVID-era expansion was wildly popular, especially among middle class voters. This is because the credit was made available to couples with an income of up to $400,000. It provided more to the middle classes than to essential workers, low-income workers, and the unemployed.
At the same time, liberal policy makers touted it because it allowed them to claim a win for restoring a kind of “welfare” measure long abandoned due to reactionary ideological shifts that deemed the poor unworthy of direct cash payments. It was not a huge outcome but one good enough to sell the approach. They could point to numerous authoritative studies of this economic period showing that cash transfers to low-income families were not squandered, as neoliberal orthodoxy postulated, but used to enhance the well-being of at least 2 million.
As modest as it was, Congress failed to extend the COVID-era CTC expansion. Nonetheless, congressional discussions of a return to a similar tax-based family support system, with sensitivity to limiting what should be given to the “unworthy poor,”—i.e., those not working or supposedly not working enough, has become ideologically acceptable and normalized among elite policy makers. A significant number of Democratic and Republican office holders consider talking about an improved CTC a politically acceptable way to show concern for “family” finances without riling up all of corporate America.
Thus, today, the Child Tax Credit is at the center of the policy proposals put forward by both big business parties. JD Vance, known for his reactionary pro-natalist advocacy of the “traditional family,” has advocated a CTC of $5000 per child and wants to extend it families earning more than $400,000. Kamala Harris, known for a more expansive view of the “family” to be rewarded, has proposed raising the credit $1000 higher, to $6000 per child for the first year after birth, and providing $3600 per child for every subsequent year. However, neither party has come out in support of guaranteeing the full CTC annual amount to households whose income is too low to tax, disappointing community-based advocates who actually care about those most in need.
Social reproduction and production
Not only is the CTC a fully inadequate solution, but the reality is that no proposals from the two big business parties come close to addressing the root cause of household financial misery. This should not be surprising because, in fact, the functioning of the for-profit system is predicated on the practice of making working people take up the vast majority of social costs necessary to keep the capitalist system humming. This includes raising and socializing the future workforce, caring for the elderly, and creating the circumstances that make it possible for the majority to work for private capitalists for only a tiny portion of the value that they produce on the job.
Socialists talk about these activities, mostly carried out as unpaid labor, as contributing to “social reproduction.” These activities, for the capitalists, are a pendant to “production,” during which the owners directly extract as profit the majority of the value created by those working in manufacturing, mining, and construction. Forcing the costs of social reproduction onto working-class households already victimized by the fundamentally exploitative relations of production for profit is foundational for historical capitalism. Profit could not be extracted without this approach to social needs.
There has not been a capitalism in space or time that did not require the that the working classes struggle to secure their own welfare via the privatization of the fundamentals of life-giving activity, with households acting as individualized units of unpaid labor and units for the consumption of high-priced goods, health care, education, and basic care.
This is true no matter what the level of social welfare supports adopted by any capitalist state at a specific conjuncture under pressure from working people or portends of social breakdown. State commitments to socializing some of the costs of care work, of life-giving work, are never permanent. Nor do they ever come close to alleviating the financial emergency faced by working people. They never really challenge the whole set-up in which the unpaid labor of caregivers of the working classes—to say nothing of the gender and racialized oppression that is inextricably intertwined—are organized and sustained for the needs of big business through myriad tax and spending policies.
Which way forward?
It is in this context that we must view the show of concern and modest reforms for child support that are being proclaimed by the Democratic and Republican candidates, all of whom remain committed to this system. Some reform is better than no reform, and a CTC that provides aid for any part of the millions left impoverished by the normal working of the system will be welcomed. New CTC proposals, however, do not signal a turn toward relieving the double burden on care givers in any fundamental way.
Our strategy for alleviating the crisis faced by our class must acknowledge that the functioning of capitalist society requires this unacceptable cost. The only way toward obtaining a dramatic upset of these arrangements is political action independent of those parties dedicated to the system.
Photo: John Froschauer / AP