When: Saturday, November 10th at 12noon
Where: The Socialist Party L.A. Local office, 2617 Hauser Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA

Truthdig’s Scott Tucker will be giving a speech at the meeting to discuss the importance of fighting for a socialist alternative both locally, regionally and nationally. Scott will give particular focus to the multi-ethnic history of the southwest. He will also be giving attention to the relation between non-union labor, labor unions and the state. Please join us for this special meeting!

About Scott Tucker: “Scott Tucker is a democratic socialist, a member of the Socialist and Green parties, and a writer for the political website Truthdig. He was a cofounder of ACT UP Philadelphia and of Prevention Point Philadelphia, a needle exchange and harm reduction project for injection drug users and sex workers. He is the author of The Queer Question: Essays on Desire and Democracy, published by South End Press in 1997. He is now working on a book about the radical (small r) republican tradition from Thomas Paine to Rosa Luxemburg.”

Facebook event page:

2012 Socialist Party USA National Organizing Conference: July 27-29, 2012

Across our nation, we as a movement always have and still today grapple with the same systems of oppression that are rooted in the core of capitalism. In the “new” South this is even more pronounced, from the political rise of the moral majority, to relentless attacks on the rights of women and rampant union busting, to the blatant legislation of bigotry and the blatantly racist gentrification of the post-Katrina New Orleans, the South– then and now– is the battleground in the struggle of Socialist revolution.

While the Civil War ended well over a century ago, the spectre and legacy of racism, sexism,exploitation, poverty, and tyranny continue to re-emerge in new neoliberal forms, creating the illusion of change but producing more of the same. Thus, in the 21st century it is crucial that the road toward socialism much march through the South with the renewed focus of organizing those most affected by the injustices we see.

The Socialist Party USA Presidential Candidate Stewart Alexander says that the most recent jobs report represents the bankruptcy of Obama’s economic policy. The report included an increase in the unemployment rate to 8.2% and indicates a lull in job creation for the first quarter.

Alexander proposes a public employment program that will use public funds to put unemployed Americans back to work. This plan is the opposite of the course chosen by Obama, who lavished the banks and private companies with money as a part of his bailout program.

Alexander stated, “Obama’s policies were always geared to protect the 1%. While the rich have profited, working people in America are still being thrown into unemployment or are facing a labor market in which they cannot find a job.”

“The Socialist Party USA Presidential campaign is proposing an economic policy in which a job is a human right,” Alexander continued, “We want to achieve a full employment economy.”

Alexander also pointed to two disturbing trends. First, the majority of jobs lost in the first quarter of 2012 were from the public sector, as state and local governments continued to implement budget cuts. And the more accurate unemployment rate, known as U-7 unemployment, which measures both those unemployed and those who have given up looking for a job, surged to nearly 17%.

Stewart Alexander is joining with Alex Mendoza to fill out the 2012 Socialist Party USA Presidential slate. The pair is engaged in a national effort to achieve ballot access in order to offer American voters a socialist alternative in November.

The Socialist Party USA is America’s voice for democratic socialism. The SP-USA supports the creation of a radical democracy where regular people have a direct voice on issues related to public budgets, how their work sites operate and problems in their community. We believe that things like housing, healthcare, a clean environment and a good job are human rights and should be guaranteed.

Simultaneously, Socialists can proudly proclaim our support for two ideas that have fueled Occupy – horizontalism and direct action. Democratic socialism is horizontalism.

Statement of the Socialist Party USA National Action Committee

Most years, May Day is an opportunity for socialists to look backward. This year, thanks in large part to the appearance of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), we are looking forward. The future is, as it always has been, filled with both the treacherous pitfalls of capitalism and the glorious opportunities to create a world based on justice and equality. This May Day, Socialist Party USA members will take to the streets all over the country to offer a vision of another, better world, that is possible.

Clearly, OWS is a critical movement for the future of the Left in America. Socialists have important contributions to make to this movement. We can demonstrate the way in which political protest can be organized into multiple forms of resistance to the system. These include the spectacular direct actions carried out by Occupy along with community organizing, rank and file trade union organizing and even left independent electoral campaigning. Ultimately, the goal of our movement is to contest the influence of capitalism in every part of our lives. To help to inspire a movement capable of organizing a society based on grassroots democracy that makes sure that wealth is controlled by those who create it.

Simultaneously, Socialists can proudly proclaim our support for two ideas that have fueled Occupy – horizontalism and direct action. Democratic socialism is horizontalism. If, for a moment, we think backwards we will find that at the origins of the Socialist movement at the turn of the 20thcentury, anarchists and socialists worked closely together to create a vibrant anti-capitalist movement. Subsequent efforts at the “vertical” organization of socialism during the revolutions of the 20thcentury extinguished much of the democratic impulse of early socialism. Those of us in the democratic socialist side of the movement have always kept this horizontal vision of early socialism alive. We share that value with Occupy and we should look to collaborate with other socialists interested in pushing this idea forward.

And, Socialist Party USA members have always been at the forefront of direct action initiatives. Non-violent civil disobedience has always been a hallmark of first, the Socialist Party of America and then the SP-USA. Think Eugene Debs protesting World War I, or A. Philip Randolph leading the Civil Rights movement or David McReynolds protesting the Vietnam War or, more recently, members of the SP-USA engaging in direct actions to protest war, or anti-union legislation. If horizontalism is our goal, non-violent civil disobedience is our democratic weapon to get there.

We will need all the momentum and enthusiasm that OWS has inspired, because in important ways the future also looks quite bleak. Capitalism has transitioned from the public looting that defined the immediate aftermath of the economic crisis of 2008 to the politics of austerity that are being imposed all over the world. Austerity has swept across Europe, decimating a once significant social safety net and driving millions of people into unemployment and previously unheard of levels of deep poverty. The same is true in other parts of world, as capitalist governments roll back all manner of supports.

This global trend is sure to hit the US in a significant manner after the 2012 Presidential elections. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have dedicated themselves to the politics of austerity. Romney with a cruel glee and Obama behind a public relations mask that offers empty claims of “hope” and “change.” Socialists can begin to resist this drive towards austerity today by involving themselves in local movements against budget cuts and by putting their energy into the Socialist Party Presidential campaign of Stewart Alexander and Alex Mendoza. Though the pair will not win the elections, their campaign represents the clearest socialist voice in the elections against the coming capitalist cutbacks. This effort should work seamlessly with the existing campaigns against the cuts.

So, on this May Day, Socialists can raise our banners high in the streets, we can join with the OWS protests and we can encourage others to join us in resistance. Though we can find inspiration and intellectual sustenance in the past, ours should be a movement with an eye toward the future. As the old Civil Rights slogan reminds us, “keep your eyes on the prize.” And, in this case, the prize is a new society where a job for all, housing for all, education for all and freedom for all becomes the norm. Long live May Day!

http://socialistwebzine.blogspot.com/2012/04/looking-forward-this-may-day.html