october 2016 vol. 25, no. 10 solidarity price: …...for a labor party, for a workers’...

For a Labor Party, For a Workers’ InternationalOCTOBER 2016 Vol. 25, No. 10 SOLIDARITY PRICE: $1

EDITORIALAs we go to press, the nation — or, to put it

more aptly, the dwindling number of peopleacross the nation who bothered to tune in —was treated for a third time to the sorry spec-tacle of a “debate” (call it mud-slinging) be-tween Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Hotwords about “rigged votes” and “acting as apuppet of Putin” were bandied about, with lit-tle, if any, discussion of the substantive issuesfacing working people.

Throughout the 18-month presidential elec-tion campaign, the working class majority ex-pressed its deep-seated rejection of thetraditional politicians of the twin parties ofcapitalism: the Democrats and Republicans.This took many forms.

Inside the Democratic Party, BernieSanders, who presented himself as an “out-sider” (but was really an insider), was seen bya large number of discontented voters, prima-rily among the youth, as a means of express-ing their aspirations.

Fourteen million people turned to Sanders

because they wanted single-payer healthcare,a real wage increase, an end to Wall Streethegemony over the body politic, a halt to theTrans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement,and more.

Within the Republican Party, Trump pre-sented himself as the outsider, the “non-politi-

cian,” which earned him a stronger followingthan most people expected.

All the traditional G.O.P. politicians —from Jeb Bush to Jon Kasich — fell by thewayside, as a rightwing populist upsurge, fu-eled by massive job losses and white-su-

CLINTON vs. TRUMP:NONE OF THE ABOVE!

(continued on page 3)

The Time Is Now forIndependent WorkingClass Political Action!

Freedom ManifestoPoints Way Forward!

(See Excerpts and Interviewwith Nnamdi Scott, pp. 7-10.) “Shoot Down Fees, Not Us!”

SOUTH AFRICA:Special Report on the “Fees Must Fall”Student Strike

(see pp. 14-15)

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

2 The ORGANIZER - OCTOBER 2016

WHO WE ARE &WHAT WE STAND FOR

The Organizer is the publication ofSocialist Organizer, the U.S. fraternalsection of the Fourth International.Since we began publication of The

Organizer in February 1991, we havefocused the newspaper on helping to ad-vance the struggle for independent politi-cal action by the working class and allthe oppressed — at home and abroad.That focus governs all the activity of

Socialist Organizer. It is the reason be-hind our persistent advocacy of a LaborParty based on the trade unions androoted in struggles of the working classand all the oppressed sectors of society, aLabor Party that charts a clean and deci-sive break with the twin parties of thebosses, the Democrats and Republicans.Consistent with this view, The

Organizer is a Forum that is open toall individual and currents in theworkers’ movement seeking to build aLabor Party and a Workers’ International.

The Organizer (ISSN 1059-2369) ispublished bimonthly for $16 per year by

The Organizer, P.O. Box 40009,San Fran cisco, CA 94103. Periodi calsPostage Paid at San Francisco, Calif.

Our website is:www.socialistorganizer.org

You can reach us at Tel. 415-913-7428or by email at:

<[email protected]>.Rates: To subscribe for one year, send$16 to The Organizer, P.O. Box 40009,

San Francisco, CA 94140. FOREIGN RATES: $40 per year.

Published under the responsibility ofthe Editorial Board of The Organizer

Newspaper.We welcome contributions from our

readers. Signed articles do notecessarily reflect the positions of

The Organizer.

Time For a New Party!(from a statement by the Labor Fightback Network)

[Note: Following are brief excerpts froma statement by the Labor Fightback Net-work titled, “It’s Time for a New PoliticalParty.”]

With each passing year, elections in theUnited States have been increasingly in-sulting of working people’s intelligence. In2016 working voters are fed up to theteeth, and they are unleashing their angeron the political elites of both major politi-cal parties.

In polling, both Clinton’s and Trump’sdisapproval ratings exceed their approvalratings; Trump’s net disapproval exceedsClinton’s. It is clear that in 2016 the voterswill be voting against a candidate ratherthan for a candidate, and the campaigns arereflecting the negativity, as Trump rantsabout “Crooked Hillary,” and Clintoncounters with “Dangerous Trump.” It’s thesame old political game, and Americanworking people are sick of it.

If there was ever an opportunity for anelectoral alternative to Big Business’s twinparties, it is staring us in the face, rightnow.

Unfortunately, the leadership of thelabor movement, of the African-Americancommunity and other communities ofcolor, and even challenger candidate Sena-tor Bernie Sanders, have chosen the routeof “defeat Trump at all costs” and are call-ing on working people to vote for Secre-tary Clinton.

Polls have indicated that while mostSanders voters will likely vote for Clinton,the campaign activists, those who phone-banked, canvassed, and fund-raised forBernie Sanders, are not coming around tosupport Clinton in the numbers that theDemocratic leaders had hoped. It was visi-ble at the Democratic convention in

Philadelphia, where anti-Clinton streetmarches brought together hundreds of peo-ple, including Sanders delegates who hadwalked out of the convention. The Demo-cratic National Committee did its best tostage-manage its convention so that thoseprotests were invisible, but they had lim-ited success.

The largest independent electoral initia-tive — not counting the right-wing Liber-tarian party — is the Green Party, whosecandidates are Dr. Jill Stein for presidentand Ajamu Baraka for vice president. Vari-ous polls show Green support at betweenfour and eight percent, considerably higherthan the support that the Green Party re-ceived in 2012.

The Green Party platform raises manyimportant issues. But what we need todayis a political party that is based upon andrepresents the organized working class,through its own organizations, the tradeunions. It is up to social-justice-mindedtrade unionists to fight within the unionsfor the perspective of such a new politicalparty, rather than trying to use one of thebig business parties in a vain attempt towin a few concessions.

premacist racism, came to thefore.

But now that’s all a thing of thepast: Sanders has delivered on hispromise to turn over his 14 mil-lion voters to the candidate sup-ported and financed by WallStreet and Big Business: HillaryClinton.[1] Long forgotten isSanders’ tirade against WallStreet. For her part, Clinton hasmade little effort to court theSanders voters or even voice theirconcerns.

Meanwhile, the Trump cam-paign is imploding.

As the election campaigncomes to a close, the RepublicanParty, to quote The New YorkTimes, is “on the verge of civilwar,” with G.O.P. leaders distancing them-selves from Trump as fast as they can run.Trump’s rating are dropping so quickly thatthe G.O.P. leadership is now worried that theirparty will lose its majority in the House andSenate on November 8.

Trump’s tirade against Republican HouseSpeaker Paul Ryan is no less vicious than histirade against Hillary Clinton, expressingTrump’s growing understanding that his shipis sinking. Even his own ticket is in shambles:While Trump warns that he may not accept theoutcome of the November presidential elec-tion, his running mate, Mike Pence, has statedthat, of course, the G.O.P. will honor the re-sults of the vote.

This unprecedented election campaign —where a largely unknown Bernie Sanders tookthe Democratic Party frontrunner almost to thewire and where a TV celebrity outscored allthe Republican Party frontrunners — is a signof the growing discontent with the two-partysystem, but it is also a refraction of a capitalistsystem in deepening crisis.

Karl Marx wrote that, “government is noth-ing but a committee for managing the affairsof the whole capitalist class.” Today, this ad-ministrative committee in the United States isin profound disarray, with a much-reviled, un-popular presidential candidate as its only vi-able candidate.Ruling-Class Drive to Elect Clinton in

Full ThrottleAs we approach the final weeks of this

seemingly interminable 18-month presidentialelection campaign, the U.S. ruling class is put-ting its electoral machinery into overdrive toget Hillary Clinton elected to the nation’shighest office. From the vantage point of theruling class, Trump is a serious liability.

According to an op-ed piece in the October

10 issue of the New York Times by Steven Rat-tner, a Wall Street executive and Times con-tributing opinion writer, “not a single chiefexecutive of a Fortune 100 company has do-nated to Trump’s campaign or endorsed it,”

while more than half have supportedand donated generously to Clinton’scampaign, particularly in recentweeks.

A Wall Street Journal survey of45 former members of the WhiteHouse’s Council of Economic Ad-visers found not one who would en-dorse Trump. All are supportingClinton.

If anyone is still not convincedthat Clinton is THE candidate ofWall Street in November, the re-cently released emails in the files ofClinton campaign chairman JohnPodesta should put those doubts torest.

In the documents made public byWikiLeaks — none of which hasbeen disavowed — Clinton tells a

gathering hosted by Goldman Sachs that “asa Senator I represented and worked with so

OCTOBER 2016 - The ORGANIZER 3

... Clinton vs. Trump: None of the Above!


“A Hard Rain of IncreasedWar Is About to Fall”

If there were even the slightest doubtabout the increased war drive being pre-pared by the top brass of the U.S. military,with the approval of Hillary Clinton, oneneed only read the speech by Army Chiefof Staff General Mark A. Milley on Octo-ber 4, 2016. Warning that wars will bespreading across the globe, Milley threat-ened to crush militarily any nation orforce that might oppose U.S. policies. Hetargeted in particular those voices thathave spoken out in favor of “dismantlingNATO and the European Union.”

Milley went on to add:“All the countries, Russia, China, Iran,

and North Korea went to school on us.They closely watched how we fought in1991 and 2003. They studied our doc-trine, our tactics, our equipment, our or-ganization, our training, and ourleadership. And in turn, they revised theirown doctrines, and they are rapidly mod-ernizing their military today to avoid ourstrength in hope of defeating us at somepoint in the future. …

“Unfortunately, war between nationstates, in my view, is very unlikely to re-main relegated to the history books. Andbecause there is no higher authority, and

because security is the primal interest ofeach State, conflicts between nationStates are virtually guaranteed at somepoint. And today, today we are in the mid-dle of yet another major geopoliticalchange. …

“So in short, the next 25 years are notgoing to be like the last 10, and not likethe last 25. The keen challenge that weface is the changing character of war; it isunlike anything our actual force has everexperienced in intensity and lethality.

“A noted class historian (Victor DadidHanson), recently wrote that he sees anincrease in nationalism and regionalarmed forces, unresolved territorialclaims, sectarian and disputes, and returnto 18th Century balance of power politicsof spheres of influence. And he concludedthat there is a light breeze in the air, and itmay turn into a storm. And he concludedat the end of his essay that a ‘hard rain isabout to fall’.”

This warning could not be clearer. Bothpresidential candidates are tearing eachother apart. But the Army Chief of Staffknows full well that whichever of the twocandidates is elected, this war without endwill continue and deepen.

many on Wall Street, and I did all I could tomake sure that they could prosper.”

At another moment, Clinton told the WallStreet banksters not to worry about her publicdeclarations in opposition to TPP or in supportof Social Security. In her line of business, sheinsisted, it is necessary to have a “public” pos-ture and a “private” one. She needed to take a“public” stance on many issues dear to theworking class majority to get elected, she toldthem, but once in office she would carry outher “private” policies, in sync with her WallStreet donors.

This last point is particularly important tothe trade union movement. Throughout herpresidential campaign, Clinton has insistedthat, “I oppose the TPP. I’ll oppose it after theelection. And I’ll oppose it as president.” Butin a $225,000 speech to the Wall Streetbanksters in San Diego, she said that her“dream is a hemispheric market, with opentrade.”

Can there be any doubt that Clinton, oncein office, will do everything possible to enactthe TPP — mind you, with a few cosmeticchanges to make it appear that she is really onthe side of the working class?

Can there be any doubt that she will moveto promote the “reforms” to Social Securitythat the speculators have all been demanding,or that she will continue to promote, evendeepen, the privatization and deregulationpolicies of all past administrations, includingthat of Bill Clinton?

Can there be any doubt that she will accel-erate the drive toward war, with more U.S.troops on the ground, throughout the Middle

East?A Crisis Rooted in the Capitalist

System ItselfThe dispute between Hillary Clinton and

Donald Trump is not over ultimate objectives;rather it’s over how to implement them. Thecrisis that has dislocated the summits of polit-ical power in this country is due to the fact thatthe economic basis of the capitalist system it-self has been profoundly destabilized by the2008 crisis, with no recovery in sight.

It’s a fact: Despite the Obama administra-tion’s $8 trillion-plus bailout of the majorbanks and financial institutions, despite the as-tronomic sums injected into the economy inthe name of Quantative Easing, despite themassive number of jobs cut in industry afterindustry, despite all budget cuts in social serv-ices — despite all of this, there has not beenan economic recovery.

The IMF has recognized this situation, de-claring: “The U.S. economy has lost its vita-lity over the course of the most recenttrimesters; the expansion predicted for the se-cond semester of 2016 did not materialize.”Even the $5.4 trillion invested in shale oilhave only gone to inflate a speculative bubblethat is even greater than the sub-prime bubble.

The root of it all is the very crisis of the ca-pitalist system. It’s a system that’s incapableof developing anything other than parasaticfuel rods to keep the economy afloat: the mi-litary-industrial complex and war, on the onehand, and unbridled financial speculation, onthe other.

The ruling class’s inability to surmount the

crisis of the capitalist system is what spurs itsgrowing political crisis.Once Again on “Lesser-Evilism”In this context, it is especially troublesome

to see the top trade union leadership, even itsmost progressive wing, urge its members tomobilize to elect Hillary Clinton.

Josh Pechthalt, president of the CaliforniaFederation of Teachers (CFT), one of the mostprogressive unions in the country, wrote thefollowing in an editorial published in Califor-nia Teacher (Sept-Oct 2016):

“We can’t be cavalier about who will be thenext president. … Unfortunately there is noviable labor party in this country, so we knowthe next president will either be a Democrator a Republican. Electing Donald Trumpwould be a catastrophe. Hillary Clinton is ourbest choice to advance a progressive agenda,and her election must be our number onegoal.”

And Pechthalt concludes: “We can’t becomplacent about our vote for president. Evenif our electoral votes are not in doubt, this isnot the time to squander a vote on Jill Stein orany third-party candidate.”

This decades-old “lesser-evil” argument hasbeen used time and again to justify support forone candidate of the corporate class againstthe other. Today it’s the fear of Trump’s “hate-filled views” that is being raised to justify avote for Clinton.

There can be no doubt that Clinton andTrump have sharp disagreements on a numberof subjects. Trump openly spouts the most re-actionary, racist, and war-mongering rhetoric.Clinton’s discourse is different.

But once elected, will Clinton not pursuethe war without end, will she not continue thevery same policies of social and racial dis-crimination which, under the Obama admin-istration and all previous administrations,have triggered the police killings of Blackpeople?

Isn’t it a fact that the reactionary wave thathas lifted Trump is simply the result of theanti-working class policies implemented overthe past eight years by the outgoing Demo-cratic Party president?

The inconvenient truth (for some) is thatClinton is really a traditional Republicanmasking as a “centrist” — at times even as a“progressive” — and that she only has achance of winning this election because she isfacing a buffoon named Donald Trump.

The inconvenient truth is that we are facedin this election with a choice of two of themost unpopular political figures in U.S. his-tory because of the continued policy, pursuedover decades by the top leaders of the U.S.labor movement, of “lesser-evilism.” Witheach consecutive election, “lesser-evil” poli-tics has only pushed the political spectrum fur-


... None of the Above!


ther and further to the right.The view that Clinton will be a vehicle for

workers to “advance a progressive agenda,”as Pechthalt argues, could not be further fromthe truth.How Do We Get There From Here?Like many progressive labor officials, Josh

Pechthalt is in favor of a Labor Party, at leastin theory. But if this is your goal, the questionbecomes, how do you get there from here?

Many labor partisans of a Clinton voteargue that we must first stop Trump, and onlythen can we confront Clinton and compel heradministration to meet working people’s mostpressing demands, including the demands ofthe Black Lives Matter movement. This, theyargue, will ultimately create a mass socialprotest movement that can become the caul-dron for the creation of a third-party move-ment, including for a Labor Party.

But this logic is not borne out by historicalexperience. The record shows that when theDemocrats are in office, the top leadership ofthe labor movement exerts all the pressure itcan muster to quash all social protest move-ments.

The lesser-evil arguments used to rational-

ize a vote for Clinton in November will bewielded, in a different form after her election.Social protest movements will be urged tohold back in their criticisms of — and mobi-lizations against — Clinton, lest this add fuelto the grist of the Trump rightwing forces. Anyactions that could be seen as “destabilizing

Clinton” will be portrayed as doing the workof Trump and his minions.

No! If the working class — and especiallyits most oppressed Black and Latino sectors— is to prevail in defending its rights and in-terests, and if it is to make new gains, it willhave to affirm its independence at all times; itwill have to act on independent class groundsboth in the electoral arena and in the streets.This has to happen before and after the No-vember 8 election

Working people are ready and looking for achange. Reports from our readers speak ofgeneral scorn in the workplace for the twomainstream candidates. They speak of wide-spread unwillingness by labor activists to takeHillary Clinton door-hangers when getting outthe vote for ballot propositions and candidatesfor local, state and national office. They speakof anger by Black activists, particularly Blackyouth, with all politicians, whatever their po-litical stripe.

While it is a fact that this aspiration for anauthentic working class political alternativecannot be expressed at this time in the elec-toral arena for all the reasons explained above,these reports from our reader — and there arecountless others — underscore a simple truth:the deep aspiration for independent workingpolitics is not going away; in fact, it will con-tinue to seek every avenue to find a way for-ward.

No doubt, many, if not most, of the union-ists and activists will vote for Clinton, buttheir contradictory attitudes express a greatfrustration with ruling class politics and asearch for a real working-class alternative.[2]

The road to independent working classparty will not be linear. The formulation byKarl Marx that the emancipation of the work-ing class will be the task of the workers them-selves rings true.

The working class will need its historic or-ganizations — primarily the trade unions —




WikiLeaks Confirms that HillaryClinton Sold Weapons to ISIS

Julian Assange, the founder of Wik-iLeaks, revealed publicly that HillaryClinton and her State Department wereactively arming Islamic jihadists, whichincludes the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria.

Clinton repeatedly denied these claims,including during multiple statementswhile under oath in front of the U.S. Sen-ate. But the WikiLeaks documents, whichhave not been disavowed, tell anotherstory

In Obama’s second term, Secretary ofState Hillary Clinton authorized the ship-ment of U.S.-made arms to Qatar, a coun-try beholden to the Muslim Brotherhood,and friendly to the Libyan rebels, in an ef-fort to topple the Libyan/Qaddafi govern-ment, and then ship those arms to Syria inorder to fund Al Qaeda, and topple Assadin Syria.

Clinton took the lead role in organizingthe so-called “Friends of Syria” (aka AlQaeda/ISIS) to back the CIA-led insur-

gency for regime change in Syria.Under oath Hillary Clinton denied she

knew about the weapons shipments dur-ing public testimony in early 2013 afterthe Benghazi terrorist attack.

In an interview with Democracy Now,Wikileaks’ Julian Assange stated that1,700 emails spanning the time from June2010 to August 2014 contained in theClinton cache directly connect Clinton toLibya to Syria, and directly to Al Qaedaand ISIS.

Assange stated, in part:“The Hillary Clinton emails create a

rich picture of how Hillary Clinton andthe U.S. Department of State operated.So, for example, the disastrous, absolutelydisastrous intervention in Libya, the de-struction of the Qaddafi government,which led to the occupation of ISIS oflarge segments of that country, weaponsflows going over to Syria, being pushedby Hillary Clinton, into jihadists withinSyria, including ISIS, that’s there in thoseemails. There’s more than 1,700 emails inHillary Clinton’s collection, that we havereleased, just about Libya alone.”

For all the details concerning this im-portant disclosure, go to the WikiLeakswebsite.

to break with their reliance upon the Demo-cratic Party to champion the interests of theworking class majority and chart the way for-ward toward a Labor Party.

Linked to this struggle, Blacks will need aBlack working class party to advance their im-mediate and national interests, such as advo-cated by Nnamdi Scott, the independent Blackcandidate for city council in Baltimore of theUjima People’s Progress Party (UPP).

“It is necessary to understand the relation-ship of the Black workers to capitalism,” Scott

stated in the interview with The Organizerpublished in this issue. “What this means isthat the political organization of Black work-ers as a class needs to take place. It is notenough to have a movement. There will be noBlack liberation without our organization.”

Scott argued for stopping to “petition orleverage the capitalist parties” and to “plot ourway toward independent political struggle, bethat in the electoral arena or in the grassrootsarena; there has to be a conscious effort byBlack workers to have their own political in-

dependence and confidence in their ownstrength as a class.”

These words apply not only to Black work-ers, but to the entire working class. Never hasthe task of advancing independent workingclass political action been more urgent.

Endnotes

[1] Whether Sanders succeeds in his ven-ture of turning all his voters over to Clinton isfar from certain, however. While most Sandersvoters will no doubt “hold their noses” andvote for Clinton, many others will vote forother candidates running for high office — orthey will simply not vote at all.

[2] Others will vote for Jill Stein, not nec-essarily because they support the Green Party,but because they see a Stein vote as the mosteffective protest vote against the two-partysystem. Others still will vote for one of themany socialist candidates running for presi-dent — be it the Socialist Party, the Party ofSocialism and Liberation, or others.

But Stein and the Green Party are not thealternative that working people need if theyare to win their demands. The Green Party isnot a working class party; it does not view so-ciety as divided into opposing social classeswith contradictory interests; the Stein andGreen platforms are based on the notion of a“civil society,” where class lines are blurred.

Although many of the planks put forwardby Jill Stein point in the direction of progres-sive social change, working people — espe-cially the oppressed Black masses fightingagainst police brutality and for self-determi-nation — will need a class party to prevail.



Response to a MoveOn Posting on the “Political Revolution”

By COLIA L. CLARK

I received a posting from MoveOn urg-ing me to keep the “Political Revolution”going by supporing Hillary Clinton.

But Clinton is the most anti-revolutioncandidate in this race. It is regrettable thatBernie Sanders has sold the people out.

Trump is a right-wing bigot and unaccept-able as president, but Hillary is a right-wing butcher: Libya and Iraq are just twoto her credit. There are more, like Hon-duras and Haiti.

When the Democrats took office in2008, there were fewer than 100 nationsacross the world with U.S. occupationtroops. Today more than 150 nations haveU.S. troops on the ground. Secretary ofState Hillary Clinton was instrumental inthis U.S. military expansion.

Every time the images of Black menbeing hanged come to mind, I see Libyaunder invasion and the scores of Africansfrom south of the Sahara who were housedin Libya being hanged and slaughtered be-cause of Clinton’s and Obama’s policies.

The United States funded and controlledthe illegal invasion of Libya, while France

and NATO invaded – with mass lynchingsand murders of non-military Africansworking in the oil fields. This was no dif-ferent from the lynch-mob antics in theU.S. South.’’

Thanks to Clinton and Obama Africa isnow the site of 28 U.S. military bases:AFRICOM. At home, meanwhile,Africans in the United States were sub-jected to the Bill and Hillary Clinton Om-nibus crime bill and the destruction of thewelfare system. Today there is a legalslave system in place; it’s called the schoolto prison pipeline.

There is a never a righteous human mo-ment when we must decide between whichof two evils. MoveOn, we who believe inliberty, justice, and human rights want realchange. Words do not make revolutions.We demand more!

[Note: Following is an interview con-ducted by The Organizer with Nnamdi Scott,independent Black candidate for City Coun-cil in District 7 in Baltimore, Maryland.]

The Organizer: Since our last interviewwith you [see July-August issue of The Or-ganizer] the police killings of Black peoplehave continued unabated. First it was TerenceCrutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the list goeson. What is the state of the movement againstpolice brutality? Here in the San FranciscoBay Area, the national anthem protest byColin Kaepernick has caught on; the entireMission High School team took a knee toprotest the police killings.Nnamdi Scott: The consciousness of the

general masses is being heightened. We see itwithin the Black Lives Movement, which ini-tially didn’t have a very clear understanding,let alone goals, about how to deal with policebrutality in a capitalist state. But now thismovement has kept growing and has becomemore consistent in its messaging. The move-ment is taking its first steps in summing upwhat they are trying to do. And this has im-pacted athletes, artists, and musicians.T.O.: The Policy Table of the Movement

for Black Lives Matter, the united front ofmore than 50 organizations that was forged inCleveland just a year ago, just put together apolicy paper titled “A Vision for Black Lives.”What is your assessment of the document?Scott: This document represents an impor-

tant step forward. As I said, initially thismovement did not have any clear goals andobjectives. Now you have a movement that is

articulating a vision. This is an important stepin advancing consciousness.

Still, in my view, there has to be a more ac-tive participation of the Black radical left inhelping the young cadre that are emerging inthe Black Lives Movement to have a strongeranalysis of the contradictions of capitalismand the rule of Capital over working people.T.O.: There is a plank in the Visions docu-

ment around community control. There is aplank demanding independent Black politicalpower. There is a plank around Black self-de-termination. These are all very advanced no-tions. My next question has to do with the rolethat you feel the Black Left Unity Network(BLUN), of which you are a member, can playin helping to advance the political thinkingand actions of this emerging movement.

Do you see the document that BLUN is put-ting forward — the “Freedom Manifesto” [seeexcerpts in this issue] as a contribution to thebroader discussion that is taking place withinthe Black Lives Movement? In your view, canyour Freedom Manifesto help these activistsclarify and concretize some of the ideas pre-sented in their Vision document?Scott: Yes, absolutely. We think that our

Freedom Manifesto can help these emergingforces. We took the older version of our owndocument and added more content to make itmore relevant today to the Black Lives Move-ment, as a way of addressing what we thinkare some of the weaknesses still present intheir Vision movement.

This whole question of class, for example,really hasn’t been addressed in any depth yetby this movement. And yet is of vital impor-

tance to understand the key role of the work-ing class as the leadership of the anti-capitaliststruggle. It is important to understand that theworkers themselves are victims continuouslyof direct harassment, whether it turns into po-lice murder or brutality. This is the day-to-dayinteraction that most African workers have,because they as a class bear the brunt of policecontainment and force.

It is necessary to understand the relationshipof the Black workers to capitalism. And whatthis means is that the political organization ofBlack workers as a class needs to take place.It is not enough to have a movement. Therewill be no Black liberation without our organ-ization.T.O.: This raises the issue of building an in-

dependent Black political organization, an in-dependent Black political party.Scott: Exactly. This is very important, so

that we decide not to just petition or leveragethe capitalist parties — which I am not an ad-vocate for — but that we actually start to plotour way toward independent political struggle,be that in the electoral arena or in the grass-roots arena. There has to be a conscious effortby Black workers to have their own politicalindependence and confidence in their ownstrength as a class.T.O.: This poses the question of the leader-

ship of the Black working class, but it alsoposes the question of its alliance with the anti-racist white working class, which is also ex-ploited under capitalism and has to be wonover as an ally in this struggle to overthrow

Nnamdi Scott: “We must plot our way towardindependent political struggle, be that in theelectoral arena or in the grassroots arena”

SPECIAL SECTION OF THE ORGANIZER NEWSPAPER


OPEN FORUM FOR DISCUSSION ON INDEPENDENT POLITICS



[Note: Following are briefexcerpts from a document pub-lished in August 2016 by theBlack Left Unity Network. Thefull text can be obtained bywriting to Twenty-first CenturyBooks and Publications [email protected] or to theUjima People’s Progress Partyat [email protected].]

The Black Liberation Move-ment has reawakened. Militantactivists are fighting against po-lice terror, for jobs and a livablewage, for housing for the home-less, against environmentalracism, for quality education, forhuman rights for our LGBTbrothers and sisters, and more.This manifesto is a contributiontoward uniting our diverseforces into one mighty move-ment for Black liberation and thetransformation of the entire so-ciety.

Our movement has been pow-erful and it is becoming power-ful again. We just have to sum upour practice in struggle — past,present and future — and thinktogether about the problems wehave and how we can solvethem. This manifesto, read and talked aboutby people and groups all over, can contributeto a national consensus to be ratified at a Na-tional Assembly for Black Liberation.Our Fight Is Against CapitalismThe Black left is fighting on all fronts

against all forms of oppression. A central pointof unity is that all of our struggles can advanceonly to the extent that we mount a full assaulton the capitalist system as a racist system ofclass exploitation, national oppression, patri-archy, and imperialism. Capitalism is how the1% control society and the world economy. Itis the source of our misery.

What is capitalism? Capitalism is an eco-nomic, social, and political system that ex-ploits the labor of working people and feedsthe greed of the corporations and the rich whoown the factories and the machines. Peoplework and create value by turning raw materi-als into usable products. We are paid far lessthan the value we create — just the minimum.Most of the rest is surplus taken by the corpo-rations as their profit. Workers and ownersstruggle over who gets this surplus. They live

fat while we starve. In its monopoly stage ofdevelopment, capitalism became imperialism,a global system of exploiting countries allover the world.

How is the origin of U.S. capitalism basedon slavery? The wealth needed for the originof the industrial system in the U.S. was cre-ated out of the super profits taken from thesale and labor of the slaves, especially in thecotton fields. This slave-based wealth hasfunded many corporations and banks. Thiswealth has propped up wealthy families thatinherit and maintain control over social andcultural institutions such as private universi-ties, especially in the Ivy League.

How does capitalism exploit us? Todaycapitalism is transforming and replacinghuman labor with “smart” machines. If peopleare not working for a wage, the market systemfor circulating goods and service breaks down.Without a job, you can’t buy what you need,and they can’t sell it.

So capitalism has turned to making moneyon death. That includes bad food. Bad healthcare. All varieties of drugs and alcohol. TVculture that kills the mind. The military-indus-

trial complex produces weapons for im-perialist wars and all forms of militaryaggression including the violence in ourcities. All too often our churches be-come appendages to this, preachingmoney over morality.

How does capitalism exploit theworld? The 1% uses military interven-tions supported by global organizationssuch as the International MonetaryFund, the World Bank, and the WorldTrade Organization. Everywhere theycapture cheap labor and important rawmaterials. They use the United Nationsand NATO to justify imperialist militaryaggression. This way they keep movingwealth from poor countries to rich ones.

Can we defeat the capitalist system?Nothing lasts forever. Slavery ended.Feudalism ended. Capitalism will end aswell. More and more, humanity has nostake in the capitalist system and is rap-idly growing to hate it and struggleagainst it. Outside of the U.S., resistanceis explicit in rejecting capitalism. Buthere we face the soft terror of media andgovernment. They are obsessed withputting a gag rule on any alternative dis-course. The end of capitalism will onlycome with our militant unity of actionamong and between movements of re-sistance by the working class and op-pressed nations and people, including

the movements of Afro-American people.Strategic Working Class Unity Includes

the Leadership of the Black Working ClassWhy the working class? The majority of

people in the U.S. are working people. We areall exploited by the capitalist system. Peopleknow this and spontaneously oppose it in somany ways.

Of course there is a racist national chauvin-ism that turns some white workers into ene-mies of Black people and other people ofcolor, especially working and poor people.Mainstream media broadcasts the lie that weBlack workers are the cause of their misery.As people fight in their own interest againstthe bosses, conditions are created to exposethe role of white supremacy to divide theworking class, defend white privilege, and jus-tify the exploitation and oppression of Blackpeople. We have the chance to win significantnumbers of white workers to an anti-racistworking-class unity. This is worker’s solidar-ity.

Thinking globally, more allies of the BlackLiberation Movement are the militants in the

Freedom Manifesto: A Draft ManifestoTo Rebuild the Black Liberation Movement


international working class movement, espe-cially from the oppressed nationalities andpeoples. The enemy of my enemy is myfriend.

Black labor organizations. The first Blackworker organization was the 1866 ColoredNational Labor Union. Frederick Douglasswas one of its early leaders. Working class ac-tivists have engaged in every stage of organ-izing the Black liberation movement. We havewitnessed the struggle for inclusion of Blackworkers in the CIO unions of the 1930s, thelargest, most significant organizing of U.S.workers. We have seen the League of Revolu-tionary Black Workers (1969), the BlackWorkers Congress (1971), the Coalition ofBlack Trade Unionists (1972), Black Workersfor Justice (1981), and the Black WorkersUnity Movement (1985). Today we havemany rank-and-file Black caucus groups,workers centers, and the Southern WorkersAssembly.

Anti-imperialist unity with Latinos. Na-tional oppression and extreme capitalist ex-ploitation of Latinos makes them close alliesof Black people. This is especially true forpeople with roots in Mexico, Puerto Rico, andelsewhere in the Caribbean and the Americas.

The capitalist strategy is to divide workersand play them against each other. The mostdesperate among us take the lowest wages.Our class unity must take a strong positionagainst this capitalist ploy and unite Black andBrown workers in a common cause. To defeatimperialism we must unite struggles againstclass exploitation and national oppression athome and abroad.

Class struggle and Black liberation. Ini-tially, the fight of workers is first and foremosta fight to make wages and working conditionsbetter. This includes benefits and pensions.People fight as individuals, work teams, work-places, and entire industries. All of this is nec-essary. And we can go further and link these

reform struggles with the vision and coordi-nation to end the capitalist system once andfor all. We are in an all-out war: capitalistsagainst the masses of workers and poor peo-ple. They will always cheat us. Capitalismmeans exploitation. That’s how their game isplayed.

Our Fight for Reform Is Linked to aRevolutionary Strategy

The day-to-day struggle. The idea of a rev-olution is abstract, but the fight for one is not.People fight back in daily life, at workplaces,the unemployment office, the grocery store,school, church and more. Big political ideastake shape in on-the-ground practice. Whenthe fight intensifies everybody can get edu-cated, get political, and begin to think aboutthe link between the reform struggle and therevolutionary leap that is necessary. In thiscontext a Black left can be grounded in ourpeople, in the very fight they wage them-selves. We join them. We embrace their lead-ership. We link their fight with the fight ofothers. We help sum up and learn lessons fromvictories and defeats. We train militants to in-crease their ability to sustain the struggle.

Fight back every day! Link the fight for re-form to revolutionary goals!

The response to racist attacks. Every racistattack must be opposed and mass resistancebuilt to end it, just as we raised the slogans NoMore Trayvons! and Black Lives Matter! Wedo this as part of massive nationwide mobi-lization. So must we continue on higher andmore coordinated levels. This is a key task ofrebuilding a national Black liberation move-ment.

The electoral struggle. The capitalist stateis a rigged game controlled by the ruling class.They don’t play fair and we can’t win by get-ting in it and trying to reform things. All toooften we have been lured into local politics asmayors and city council officials, only to try

and fix a broken system that can’t be fixedwith minimal reforms.

But electoral politics is a terrain of strugglewhere debate and discussion can raise the con-sciousness of people. This can present peoplewith an alternative to the hypocrisy and illu-sions of mainstream politicians. The move-ment must remain autonomous from state andNGO control. On the other hand, Black powerat the local level can be used by the move-ment, especially if we build the independentpower of the forces in struggle for unioniza-tion, livable wages, eminent domain to housethe homeless, money for public schools notcharter schools, and so on.

The Strategic Role of the South

The majority of Black people have al-ways lived in the Southern region of theUS. This has also been the region of themost oppression against Black people. Itcontinues to be the region most hostile toorganizing workers with right-to-workanti-union laws. Increasingly capitalfrom all over the world joins US capitalin patterns of extreme economic exploita-tion in the South. But more than thatthere is the structural patterns of racism,and the lowest quality of life in all areasof human existence.

The southern region is a strategic loca-tion for the Black liberation movement,the workers movement, and the generalrevolutionary forces because it is so cru-cial for the existence of the capitalist sys-tem. The social, economic and politicalextremes of the region make the fight forreform an essential component to build-ing a movement for fundamental socialchange.

On the one hand it is essential for theBlack liberation movement’s fight forAfrican American self-determination,while at the same time advancing the roleof Black workers in leading the move-ment.

This class perspective strengthens theanti-capitalist character of the nationalBlack liberation movement and is an es-sential part of fighting for the unity of themulti-national working class.


the capitalist State.Scott: We have done some-

thing here in Baltimore that is anattempt to be the first Blackworkers-led electoral party. It’s aparty that is open to all nationali-ties to participate in, but we donot hide that we have a leadershipthat is from the Black workingclass. This is something that ishard for even white liberals to di-gest. They are so used to a certainkind of relationship to Blackworkers, a relationship that fortoo long has created a kind ofwelfare mentality for Blackworkers.

The question of Black workingclass leadership is critical. Thehistory of our struggle in America shows thatBlack people, Black workers, fighting for so-cial justice, for human rights, has opened thedoor to all other social forces, whether it’swomen, or gays, or people with disabilities.The strategies and tactics that we’ve used, thevery example of our tenacity, has opened thedoors for everybody.

There needs to be an understanding abouthow capitalism impacts us all differently. Yes,there are ways in which we are impacted sim-ilarly as a class, but the ways we are impacteddifferently are not always understood by whiteworkers. Black workers are the most devas-tated, most incarcerated, most oppressed sec-tor of the working class. We can’t build amovement where everything is glossed over.We have to understand what motivates differ-ent social forces correctly.

It can’t just be freedom for white workerswhile everyone else is still being incarceratedand attacked by capitalism.

We try to do this in Baltimore, to make ourwork open to all social forces. The relation-ship we have built with left-leaning non-Black

organizations is already very positive.T.O.: How is your own campaign going?

Has it caught the attention of workers and or-ganizations elsewhere across the country?Scott: Yes it has. We’ve been lucky to get

some support from different parts of the coun-try. And we are very thankful to your organi-zation and to The Organizer newspaper forgetting information out about our campaign.Local media forces have been able to help.Left-leaning media have helped. We’ve beenable to get material and financial support.

Locally this has raised our profile. We’vebeen invited to speak at rallies to get our mes-sage out. The response has always been verywarm, which has reaffirmed that it’s the rightpolitics.

In these elections in a capitalist system youalso need money. We’re not able, of course, torun the same kind of campaign as the Democ-rats in Baltimore. We recognize what will hap-pen at the end of the day in terms of the vote.

But our goal is to help people get connectedto our platform. Our goal is to help organizethose people and help them understand that

what we’re struggling for is notgoing to be solved through the elec-toral process, that we have to get or-ganized to fight for our demandsevery day of the week. Our goal isto help people get involved with theUjima People’s Progress Party.T.O.: Is there anything you

would like to add, especially in re-lation to how people can get in-volved and help out yourcampaign?Scott: We’re not running a

protest election. We’re trying to runa principled, strategic election tohelp chart a way forward.

We would like our campaign toprovide other Black left radicalforces with a blueprint for how we

can go out and engage people more widely.We are now able to go to churches, to recre-ation centers, to people’s homes with our pol-itics.

We haven’t changed who we are. I thinkthis is a perfect example of what the left needsto do if we want to be more influential, notjust during election time but more importantin organizing a movement.

We are still fighting for the $15 minimumwage, which didn’t get passed, so we need tocontinue that struggle. We just had the citygive $660 million to Kevin Plank, the billion-aire owner of Under Armour, a company thatdoes not pay its workers a livable wage. Sothere is a lot of work that needs to be done.

And, yes, we’re always calling for re-sources, for volunteers. If you have readers inour area, please have them get in touch withus. We can be reached at our websiteat www.nnamdiscott2016.com. You can alsosend messages to:

[email protected]/or visit the UPP facebook page at:

UPPMarlyand/.

... Nnamdi Scott on Independent Politics

[Note: Aiana-Koli, aka AniLi-Mars, is a23-year-old BlackLives Matter ac-tivist in Philadel-phia. She is also a

musician and videographer. She is one ofmany U.S. delegates who will be attendingthe Mumbai Open World Conference AgainstWar, Exploitation and Precarious Labor.Following are excerpts from an interviewwith InfoInter, the weekly newsletter pro-moting the Mumbai conference.]

InfoInter: Hundreds of thousands ofBlack people and their supporters have beendemonstrating for months to the cry of“Black Lives Matter!” What are the causesbehind the development of your movement?Aiana-Koli: Police killings have been

happening for a very long time. When aBlack person is killed every 28 hours by lawenforcement, we must look at the systemthat is allowing this to continue.

The government is not upholding the prin-ciples of the Constitution, which are sup-posed to cover ALL citizens regardless ofrace, class, sexual orientation, etc.

As Martin Luther King said:“You know, my friends, there comes a

time when people get tired of being trampledby the iron feet of oppression.”

The people are angry and are tired of thecorruption and oppression.

The people DEMAND JUSTICE andEQUALITY for ALL.

Our government is supposedly fighting fordemocracy and human rights overseas, buthow can this be when at home it tramplesupon the rights and very lives of Black peo-ple.

Aiana-Koli: “The People Are Tired of Oppression!”

While news of the fight at Standing Rockhas not infiltrated the mainstream media, onthe ground and throughout the country, soli-darity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribecontinues to grow. Supporters have flockedfrom all over the world to stand in solidaritywith the tribe at Standing Rock as they protecttheir lands, water, and sacred grounds. Indige-nous leaders as far as the Amazon have joinedthe ranks of the Sacred Stone and Red Warriorcamps, proving that indigenous struggles areones without borders.

The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is amassive 1,150-mile project of Dakota AccessLLC meant to carry crude oil from NorthDakota to Illinois. The DAPL, and many likeit across the world, is a recent example of thelengths the ruling class will go to ensure theirprofits. The DAPL threatens the MissouriRiver and its many tributaries. It will destroy

ecosystems in its path along with the flora andfauna inhabiting them. It will destroy the veryresources humanity depends on for life.

The strength of the movement led by theStanding Rock Sioux Tribe has highlightedthe role of government in protecting corpora-tions over its own citizens. While the Obamaadministration and the Army Corps of Engi-neers symbolically back injunctions and de-clare support for the Tribe, North DakotaGovernor Jack Dalrymple has called on theNational Guard to threaten the water protec-tors. Dakota Access has continuously harassedand violently attacked water protectors, in-cluding children.

Although portrayed as a battle for waterrights, what’s really at stake at Standing Rockis much larger. Standing Rock represents theforefront of indigenous struggle in the UnitedStates. A struggle for sovereignty and against

the continued genocide of Native peopleswaged for the past 500 years on this continent.The struggle against colonization and indige-nous rights goes hand in hand with the strug-gle for workers’ rights. Like the liberationstruggles of Blacks, Chicanxs, women, andother oppressed groups, the fight for indige-nous emancipation is a fight against capital-ism.

Many individual workers have joined theranks at Standing Rock and workers’ organi-zations have also expressed their solidaritywith #NoDAPL including the National NursesUnited (NNU), Communication Workers ofAmerica (CWA), the United Electrical Work-ers (UE), and SEIU 503. Despite this, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka declared theAFL-CIO in support of the Dakota AccessPipeline. It exposed the shortsightedness ofunion leadership and their capitulation to cor-porate interests. The AFL-CIO statement re-gurgitated the corporate narrative that pitsworkers and their families against Nativerights.

We join the ranks of those calling on theAFL-CIO to retract this statement and declaresolidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.We, Socialist Organizer, declare our own sol-idarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe,with the water protectors, and with the indige-nous peoples fighting against capital and itscolonizing forces all over the world.• No Dakota Access Pipeline!• Clean and safe water for all!• Sovereignty of all Native peoples!


By LINDSAY CURTIS

For decades, October 22nd has be-come known more and more as a na-tional day of protest against policebrutality. Sacramento, California hadplenty to protest this year, with thefocal point of Saturday’s protest andrally highlighting the police murderof Joseph Mann.

Mann was experiencing a mentalhealth crisis when he was shot by po-lice 14 times in July. He was armedwith a knife and acting erratically,which police are using to justify attempts byofficers to run him down with their vehicle be-fore putting 14 bullets into his body.

A rally was held in South Sac to draw atten-tion to yet another example of police murder,as well as to the fact that it took Sacramento

PD more than two months to release thefootage and audio of the murder. Not even thefamily were allowed to view it.

The Sacramento Bee newspaper eventuallyobtained and released alternative footage fromanother source. Almost immediately after that,the police department finally released what

tapes they had (including the 911 calls).There is no doubt the Bee’s move forced thereluctant hand of Sac PD.

Sacramento activists and general commu-nity members will not forget what happenedto Mann and numerous others at the hands ofuntrained and/or egomaniacal police officersacting as tools of the ruling class.

Multiple groups and individuals havecome together to form a list of demands, cur-rently taking on the form of a petition. Itsgoal is to change public policy at the statelevel. The proposed changes would alter the hir-

ing and training processes of officers, wouldgive communities a say in how they are po-liced, and would ensure that officers who dis-charge their weapons at people go through aninvestigation, testing, and oversight process.

We Stand with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe!Indigenous Rights are Workers’ Rights! #NoDAPL!

Activists Protest Police Murder of Joseph Mann in Sacramento, Calif.


By DOMINIQUE FERRE

The governments of the Western powers,with presidents Barack Obama and FrançoisHollande in the lead, are denouncing theslaughter in Aleppo —but their hypocrisyknows no bounds. Let us not forget thatthese major powers (United States, France,and Britain) and its allies in the region (Gulfmonarchies and the Turkish government)were the ones that initiated the war of ag-gression against Syria in the first place.

In September 2015, the military interven-tion of Putin’s Russia (which seeks in partic-ular to defend its only military base in theMediterranean port of Tartus) simply fol-lowed the lead of the military interventionby the coalition led by the United States,which has bombed Syria since August 2014.How dare they try to make us believe thatonly Russian bombs are hitting the civilianpopulation, while U.S., French and Britishbombs are saving lives?

The hypocrisy of Obama and Hollandegoes even further. Just as Aleppo is being de-stroyed by bombs, the U.S. and French gov-ernments are overseeing a major assaultagainst the Iraqi city of Mosul. This is a cityof more than 1 million people that was takenover in June 2014 by Daech [ISIS].

Using the presence of Daech as a pretext,a broad coalition of heavily armed forceswith often-conflicting interests has launchedthe assault against Mosul.

UN diplomats in the region warn that amajor humanitarian disaster is about to beunleashed. “If more than 150,000 people aredisplaced in the coming days and weeks, noinstitution in the world can handle them; therisks are huge and there has been very littlepreparation,” said the humanitarian coordi-nator of the UN in Iraq.

In addition to jihadist militias entrenchedin the city, the coalition forces led by theUnited States are on the ground, reinforcedby the arrival of 600 additional U.S. GIs.

The U.S. administration does not hide thefact that it needs the “trophy” of takingMosul to justify an intervention that hasbeen increasingly rejected by the Americanpeople. U.S. Secretary of Defense AshtonCarter has declared this “a decisive mo-

ment.”The U.S. military and its allies are not

alone in this attack on Mosul. Other militaryforces include the Iraqi Army, formed by theUnited States; the armed forces of the au-tonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan; Shiitemilitias (some supported by Iran and othersnot), Sunni militias; and the Turkish Army,which is allied with Iraqi Kurdish forces, butwhich seeks to establish a back-up postagainst Kurdish forces linked to the PKK inSyria and southeastern Turkey.

This is an explosive cocktail of militaryforces, especially given the fact that Mosul,according to a Kurdish military official, is “acity populated by a large array of ethnic andreligious minorities. If one of them is mar-ginalized in one way or another, a new Is-

lamic State-type formation will be created.”All these forces, each driven by their own

objectives, risk turning a so-called “liber-ated” Mosul into a battleground of bloodyscore-settling that will transform the cityinto a mass cemetery.

“The only thing that we can say for sure,”stated a politician in the region, “is that afterthe first shot is fired, nobody knows what isgoing to happen.”

From Aleppo to Mosul, from Yemen toother “theaters” of war no longer on thefront pages of our press, the tragedy be-falling the peoples of the Middle East andAfrica has one and only one origin: foreignimperialist intervention spearheaded by theU.S. administration and its proxies.

U.S.-NATO Out Now!

Toward the Mumbai World ConferenceAgainst War, Exploitation & Precarious

Labour (November 18-20, 2016)

U.S.-NATO Out of theMiddle East Now!

Iraqi refugees cross the Tigris River in Northern Iraq in 2014 en route to Syria. Todaythe massive numbers of displaced peoples from the offensive initiated by the imperial-ist powers in Mosul are expected to create an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.


On Sunday, September25, an estimated 300 tradeunionists and activists gath-ered at a rally in Palenque,Chiapas, in support of themembers of the local chap-ter of Section 50 of the na-tional healthcare workers’union (SNTSSA) who hadbeen out on strike to de-mand a halt to the health-care “counter-reform” lawaimed at privatizing health-care in Mexico. (At thiswriting, the workers inPalenque are in the 155th

day of their strike.)In Chiapas the implemen-

tation of this law has led tothe drastic reduction ofmedicines and medical sup-plies for patients, with therequest that patients helpcover the costs of thesescarce items — when allhealthcare costs at the Mex-ican Institute of Social Se-curity (IMSS) and atISSSTE (for governmentworkers) had been free uptill now.

The striking healthcareworkers were joined bypublic-school teachers fromSections 7 and 40 of the National TeachersUnion, or SNTE-CNTE. Nine speakers ad-dressed the gathering [see accompanyingphoto].

Among those assembled was a contingentof Ch’ol indigenous people from the “comu-nidades de base.” As a result of the healthcare“counter-reform,” they have received no med-icines or supplies for the past six months at

their outposts, and their children are dying.Many of them walked up to six hours to themain roads, where they took buses or jumpedon trucks to get to the rally.A Rich and Far-Reaching DiscussionAlan Benjamin, editor of The Organizer

newspaper and member of the OrganizingCommittee of the Mumbai Conference

Against War, Exploitationand Precarious Labor, wasinvited to address thePalenque rally as a keynotespeaker. He explained thefundamental problems withthe U.S. healthcare system,which is based on the U.S.private-insurance model.The Mexican government, inthe name of “healthcare re-form” and the creation of“universal healthcare,” isseeking to impose the U.S.model and to destroy theMexican public healthcaresystem.

Because the rally partici-pants were convinced thatonly the working class, at anational and internationallevel, is capable of forcingthe bosses and the govern-ment to bend to their de-mands, the assembly issuedan International Appeal ad-dressed to workers and theirorganizations in Mexico andinternationally, calling onthem to support the struggleof the healthcare workers inChiapas and throughoutMexico

Also, because the questionof the independence of the trade unions wasposed, the participants in the Palenque rallyagreed to endorse the Mumbai Open WorldConference and to mandate a representative ofthe rally to attend the conference in India. Therally chair noted that the Mexican delegationto Mumbai was being put together fromwithin the struggles and mobilizations of theworkers and their community allies.

Healthcare Activists Mobilize Across Mexico on Oct. 23To Defend their National Public Healthcare Systems

Doctors, nurses and other healthcareworkers in 70 cities across Mexico stagedmarches and rallies to demand the repeal ofthe “Sistema Universal de Salud” (Univer-sal Healthcare System) — a healthcare pri-vatization law enacted by the governmentof Enrique Peña Nieto at the behest of the

International Monetary Fund (IMF) and theOrganization for Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD).

Everywhere banners could be seen call-ing for the defense and improvement of thenational public healthcare institute (IMSS)and the public sector workers’ healthcaresystem (ISSSTE).

In the town of Palenque, in the state ofChiapas, the local chapter of Section 50 ofthe National Union of Healthcare Workers(SNTSSA) has been out on strike sinceMay 23 to press for their community’shealthcare demands [see accompanyingstory]. Marches and rallies were held infive other towns in Chiapas and across

Mexico’s southeast region in support of thestriking healthcare workers under the ban-ner of #TodosSomosPalenque (We Are AllPalenque).

Messages of support were sent to the ral-lies in Chiapas and Mexico City from theorganizers in India of the Mumbai OpenWorld Conference Against War, Privatiza-tion and Precarious Labor, as well as fromhealthcare unions and officers in France,Germany, Canada and the United States(where the California Nurses Association,the National Union of Healthcare Workers,and Labor for Single Payer Healthcare na-tional organizer Mark Dudzic, among manyothers, sent solidarity messages).

Striking Healthcare Workers inChiapas (Mexico) Support

Mumbai Open World Conference

Speakers at the September 25 Solidarity Rally with the Healthcareworkers in Palenque, Chiapas are (from left to right: Mayra Ocampode la Torre, Daniel Martinez, Melquiades Velueta (standing), RussellAguilar Brindis, Alan Benjamin, Helena Caeri Baca Leon (behind),and C. Callejas.

Dear friends and comrades the world over,On September 19, thousands of university

students across South Africa went out onstrike against the decision by Minister ofHigher Education Blade Nzimande to allowuniversities to increase their fees by 8%[roughly between US$2,000 and $4,000 –Ed. note].

Tens of thousands of South African stu-dents have mobilized to demand “Fees Must

Fall”! They have received support from theNational Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA).[See interviews on this struggle in thisissue.]

Their struggle is legitimate.But the government’s answer has been to

unleash brutal repression. On October 14, inJohannesburg, the police gunfire sent severalstudents to the hospital. Four days later atrial began in Johannesburg involving sev-eral students, including Busisiwe CathrineSeabe, one of the spokespersons for the stu-dents.

Delegates from South Africa to the Mum-bai Open World Conference sent us a mes-sage to inform us that, “all over the country,students are being arrested, and the move-ment is deepening to demand, ‘Release Bu-

sisiwe Cathrine Seabe and All Our Com-rades Now!’”

Please join us with actions and delegationsto embassies and consulates of South Africaacross the globe to demand that the SouthAfrican government stop the repressionagainst the students immediately, that theyrelease and drop all charges against the ar-rested students, and that they repeal the tu-ition fees’ increase, so that the promise offree higher education can be fulfilled.

In struggle,Nambiath VasudevanOn behalf of Organizing Committee of the

Mumbai World Conference Against War, Ex-ploitation and Precarious Labor (November18-20, 2016)


Urgent Appeal in Support of StrikingSouth African Students from Mumbai

Conference Organizers

[Note: Following are excerpts from aninterview with Mandla Phangwa, a youngactivist in South Africa (Azania) and dele-gate to the Mumbai Open World Confer-ence. The interview is reprinted fromInfoInter No. 11.

Question: A new wave of studentdemonstrations involving mostly Blackyouth has swept South Africa (Azania)against the increase in university fees.What is the meaning of this movementthat is standing up to fight the ANC gov-ernment?Mandla Phangwa: The attitude of the

party in power, the ANC, regarding thestudents’ fight against the increasing costof education is an anti-youth and anti-Black working class attitude. It seems tomirror the policies of the previous regimeunder the white National Party [ofApartheid]. The struggle for free educa-tion is in opposition to the ANC’s poli-cies, which are driven by profits and theexploitation of the Black working class ma-jority.Question: Black students are up against

the Minister of Higher Education, Black Nz-imande, who is also the general secretary ofthe Communist Party (SACP), which is amember of the coalition in power, the rulingTripartite Alliance, together with the ANCand COSATU. But the Communist Party isin crisis.Mandla Phangwa: The Tripartite Alliance

in power is on the verge of imploding. Onthe one hand, the leaderships of the SACPand the COSATU trade union federation

have promised to back the general secretaryof the SACP — Blade Nzimande, the Minis-ter of Higher Education — who announcedthe increase in university costs.

And on the other hand, there is a confus-ing situation inside the Young CommunistLeague of South Africa (YCLSA) over thequestion: Should we defend the general sec-retary of the SACP, or should we defend thedemands of the students? This crisis has ex-posed the cracks in the Stalinist bureaucracythat has been running the SACP and has ledto class collaboration with the henchmen ofimperialism.

Question: A delegation sent by youngpeople and workers in Azania will be at-tending the Mumbai Conference AgainstWar, Exploitation and Precarious Labor.What is the relevance of “against war andexploitation” in Azania?Mandla Phangwa: This slogan is fully

relevant to the youth and student move-ments in Azania as it echoes #Fees MustFall. For university workers who are sub-jected to extreme exploitation with mea-ger wages and unsafe working conditions,this slogan echoes theirs: “Out-sourcingmust fall!”

“Against War and exploitation” alsospeaks to the unemployed youth of Aza-nia, who, through desperation, find them-selves being subjected to precarious laboras a refuge against poverty.

We also understand that South Africa ismuch involved in imperialist wars andtroop deployment in the neighboringcountries, and it is the same youth whoare recruited to the Army to represent im-

perialist interests in the Central African Re-public, the Democratic Republic of Congo,Rwanda and Mali, where such deploymentsresult not only in the escalation of crises inthose countries but also have an agonizingimpact on the working class and the youththere.

The slogan also speaks to the efforts wehave been making as Trotskyist youth ac-tivists in trying to call for a united front thatmust put at its center the solidarity amongthe youth, workers and the students’ move-ments towards a real fight for a Black Work-ers Republic of Azania.

“Fees MustFall!”

[Note: Following is an interview con-ducted by La Tribune des Travailleurs(Workers Tribune) with Zwelinzanlema Vavi,past general secretary of the Congress ofTrade Unions of South Africa (COSATU).La Tribune des Travailleurs is publishedweekly by the Democratic IndependentWorkers Party of France (POID). This inter-view was published in Issue No. 61, Oct. 26.]

Workers Tribune: The staff of the unionsfighting for a New Union Federation, as wellas the National Union of Metworkers(NUMSA), have taken a clear stand in defenseof the South African students and their de-mand for free education — as well against therepression by the government. Could you ex-plain why it was important that the organizedlabor movement in South Africa took thisstance.Vavi: These students are our children. We,

the fathers, provide for their school fees; wecannot afford them and as a result, many of usare victims and living testimonies of the im-pact the high university costs and registrationfees will have on the students. We know thisas parents and as former students ourselves.So that’s why we are supporting the students.

This is a working class battle. Workers, andthe Black majority in South Africa, are thevictims of the exclusions — even though therehas been an increase in the intake of workingclass and Black students as a result of the gov-ernment’s intervention through NSFAS (Na-

tional Student Financial Aid Scheme).But NSFAS is not a solution. It is a loan that

gets paid back at the end of the term of the stu-dents, and therefore we are asking that a freeeducation be introduced. We are arguing thatfree education is possible in South Africa. Weare arguing that the government has sufficientresources now to do something about free ed-ucation. It’s not a matter that can wait until acommission reports back, and all of that rub-bish. We want free education now. WT: What is your characterization of the

politics of this government?Vavi: There is a general political crisis in

South Africa, a crisis of legitimacy and a crisisof representation. The government itself, ledby the ANC, the former liberation movement,no longer has the moral authority that it onceenjoyed; there is no Nelson Mandela. Moreand more people in South Africa no longerparticipate in the formal elections. The major-ity stays at home as the majority feels unrep-resented.

There is a crisis also in the representativesystem of students. Most of the students con-sider that the School Representative Councils,or SRC’s, are not legitimate. They have hadplayed no role whatsoever in the recent strug-gles.

The trade union movement is going throughits worst crisis, a crisis of representation aswell. COSATU has imploded. The once-pow-erful trade union federation has been dividedby the ruling elite. We plan to form an alter-

native federation; we are still in the embryonicstages.

So there is a general crisis of representationand legitimacy. That’s why there is not a sin-gle forum where there could be direct negoti-ations between the students, the parents, thegovernment and even the employers. We areon autopilot politically in this country, andthat’s why this university protest is a manifes-tation of a broader political crisis in SouthAfrica today.WT: These past few days, there has been an

important increase in the international solidar-ity with the South African students and theirstruggle — from students groups but mainlyfrom working class organizations around theworld. Do you think this is important?Vavi: We are absolutely encouraged by the

increasing demonstrations and picketing ofSouth African ambassadors all over the world,including in France. This is quite encouraging.We welcome and appreciate these very impor-tant messages of solidarity for the students inSouth Africa. And we would like to encourageother student formations and movements allover the world to take up this struggle.

This is not a South African struggle; this isa struggle of all working people all over theworld. Those who cannot afford the punish-ing, high education fees must now join hands,both in the poor and the most developed coun-tries, to say: Education is not a privilege, buta right that must be enjoyed by all the citizensof the world!


Former COSATU General SecretaryZwelinzanlema Vavi Speaks Out in

Support of Striking Students

APPEAL FROMRUBINA JAMIL

Dear Comrades, Sisters and Brothers,As you all know, by celebrating Internatio-

nal Women’s Day on March 8th, we comme-morate and pay tribute to those brave womenwho took up the struggle for bread, peace, andfreedom — and also for an end to the war —in Russia in 1917. We all are proud thatwomen workers were in the leadership ofthose struggles.

Comrades, as a woman activist and tradeunionist in Pakistan, I would like to celebratewith you the 100th anniversary of the RussianRevolution, which remains a great benchmarkfor all the working class, for all the peasants,for all the oppressed peoples, for all the youthand women workers. The Russian Revolutionremains a great inspiration to all of us.

Today, we women are victims of violenceby the State, in our homes, and by the wars.In my country, Pakistan — and also in Afgha-nistan, India, and Sri Lanka — women are fa-cing the worst kinds of violence. Thousandsof women are killed in terrorists attacks — aterror that imperialism is responsible for – atthe same time they are victims of traditionaland social norms only applicable to women,

as the patriarchal and feudalistic systemmakes them third-rate citizens of society.Women also face heightened violence at homeand in the work place.

So let us join together to break all thosechains, and let us celebrate March 8th withgreat zeal and raise our voices against allforms of discrimination, exploitation and in-justice. Let us join together to pay great tributeto the working women in Russia who, in 1917,rose up to demand bread, peace and freedom.

I call on all women the world over to mobi-lise massively to fight for peace and to breakall our chains of bondage. Let us celebrate In-ternational Women’s Day on March 8th, sideby side with all workers, by raising our voicesto say, “Women do not want war! They wantpeace and freedom!”

I call upon you to join with me in setting upan International Committee to organise theserallies and actions on International Women’sDay against war, exploitation and injustice –in continuity with the Mumbai ConferenceAgainst War, Exploitation and Precarious La-bour on 18-20 November 2016.

Let us join together in the struggle – side byside — to put an end to violence, war and ex-ploitation.Long live the working class!Long live international solidarity!


PHOTO ABOVE: Mass demonstrationof women in Petrograd on March 8,1917. On front lead banner, one canread, "Increase the rations for the fami-lies of the defenders of freedom andpeace among the peoples." On the backbanner, one can read, "Feed the fami-lies of the defenders of the homeland!"

WOMEN IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONWOMEN IN REVOLUTION

Initial List of Supporters of this Appeal:BELGIUM: Françoise Cambie, worker;

Laetitia Coucke, student activist; NathalieLeloup, trade unionist; Monique Lermusiaux,retired trade unionist; Laura Moraga Moral,teacher unionists; Claire Thomas, teacher tradeunion delegate. BRAZIL: Christiane Granha,member Workers Party (PT), member, JusticeCommittee for Anderson. BRITAIN: JaneDoolan, Public sector trade unionist; Doreen Mc-Nally, Secretary, Association of Dockworkers’Wives. FRANCE: Julie Beguerie, teacher, femi-nist trade union and political activist; Katel Cor-duant, trade unionist; Christel Keiser, citycouncil member, POID; Christelle Leclerc, tradeunionist; Geneviève Marchal, trade unionist,Collective of Widows and Wife of Mineworkers;Isabelle Michaud, city council member, PCF;Marie-José Montout, activist for the defense ofmedical gynecology; Marie-Luce Mouly, activistfor a break with the European Union and the 5th

Republic. GERMANY: Sidonie Kellerer, Aca-demic (Köln). GREECE: Vassiliki Frangou,writer (Athens), Eva Kallitsi, student (Athens);Maryse Le Lohé, activist in Laiki Enotita(Athens); Sotiria Lioni (Naples). HUNGARY:Anyiszonyan Klàra, retiree, chemistry; SomiJudit, editor of Munkas Hirlap. ITALY: ValeriaBusicchia, teacher; Monica Grilli, teacher tradeunion delegate; Elisabetta Raineri, teacher tradeunion delegate. MEXICO: Liliana Plumeda(Mexicali), Alejandra Rivera (Tijuana). RUS-SIA: Aliona Glazkova, activist and left-wingjournalist. UNITED STATES: Colia LafayetteClark, National Coordinator, Judicial ViolenceSymposium, civil rights activist; NancyWohlforth, Secretary-Treasurer Emerita, OPEIU;Lindsay Curtis, Editorial Board, The Organizernewspaper; Melina Juarez, student; Itzel CalvoMedina, immigrant rights activist; MilliePhillips, Socialist Organizer.

october 2016 vol. 25, no. 10 solidarity price: …...for a labor party, for a workers’...

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