The horrific gang rape of a minor in Steubenville, Ohio, and the subsequent show-trial and “slap on the wrist” punishment of a fraction of those responsible has done more to cement the reality of rape culture, victim-blaming and slut-shaming than years of feminist thought and activism could ever accomplish. 

About IWD History



1909: The Woman’s National Committee of the Socialist Party calls for a
 national day of protest on the last Sunday of February to support women’s
 suffrage in the context of the broader movement for women’s rights, 
workers’ rights, and social justice.

1910: The Women’s Congress of the Socialist International meets in August
in Copenhagen and approves the call for an international day of protest.
The specific date is left open to the participants in each country.

1913: Russian socialists begin celebrating International Women’s Day.
Their intention is to organize rallies for the same day as that set in the
United States, but since the Julian calendar lags several days behind the
Western calendar, the events take place in early March by our reckoning.

1917: The date of March 8 for International Women’s Day gets established
 when tens of thousands of women, demonstrating on that day in Petrograd, 
the capital of Russia, spark a revolution that topples three centuries of
 czarist autocracy.

1979: In Tehran, women’s rights activists celebrate International Women’s 
Day by taking to the streets to demand equality for women and to protest
 the reactionary order of the Ayatollah Khomeini calling for all Iranian
 women to wear the veil.

About IWD and Peace


In August 1914, World War I erupted, leading to the slaughter of millions. 
International Women’s Day became a focal point for those calling for an 
immediate end to the war.

On February 23, 1917, (March 8 on the new 
calendar), tens of thousands of Russian women celebrated International
 Women’s Day by surging onto the streets of Petrograd demanding peace.

 These militant protests led to the downfall of the czar and, soon
 afterward, Russia’s decision to leave the war. Senseless war continues.
 Once again we are told that military action in Iraq and Afghanistan is 
intended to promote freedom and peace, and once again we know the real
 reasons are about power and wealth.

As we demonstrate our opposition to
 war and occupation this and every International Women’s Day, we
 commemorate the heroic actions of the women in Petrograd in 1917 and the
 women in Tehran in 1979. In doing so, we maintain an unbroken link in the 
struggle for peace, justice, and equality.

About IWD and Power

International Women’s Day is about power: theirs and ours.

Their power 
puts courts and legislatures in charge of whether or not a woman can have 
an abortion. Our power leaves this decision where it belongs: with the
 woman herself.

Their power dictates a profit-driven “managed care” health
 care system, at the service of the health insurance industry and
 transnational pharmaceutical companies. Our power lies in grassroots
 organizing, for a national system of universal health care under community 
control.

Their power rests in greedy corporations owned by an ultra-wealthy few
 that deplete the world’s resources and exploit its people. Our power 
depends on building a mass movement for a new society rooted in
 cooperation, equality, and workers’ control.

Their power dumps toxic waste sites in our poorest communities-of-color,
 and builds dams that destroy the livelihoods of countless farmers in our 
poorest countries. Our power demands environmental justice.

Their power 
busts unions. Our power is at our work sites, talking with our co-workers
 about the connections between workers’ rights, human rights, and women’s
 rights.

Their power is “welfare reform” that pushes women into low-paid,
 dead-end jobs, and their children into inadequate child care. Our power is 
the fight for the creation of good jobs with pay equity and benefits, and
 the full funding of quality child care, education, and social services.

Their power dupes young men and women into signing away their rights and 
often their lives for the sake of U.S. imperialism. Our power gets the
 word out on alternatives to “jobs” in the military and calls for huge cuts 
in the military budget.

Their power blames hunger and poverty on
 over-population. Our power blames hunger and poverty on policies and
 practices consciously designed to protect and enrich the global capitalist
class, in particular the agribusiness of the most developed countries.

Their power gets channeled through politicians whose primary allegiance is 
to the economic requirements of global capitalism. Our power gets exerted
 through political action completely independent of both mainstream,
 capitalist parties.

Their power resides in exploitation, inequality,
 domination, violence, and deception. Our power resides in cooperation,
 compassion, respectful communication, justice, and collective action.

March 8th — International Women’s Day — is our day. It’s our opportunity
 to come together to speak out for a world where democratic socialist 
feminist values and programs enable people to live lives in ways they
 never will be able to under capitalism and patriarchy. That’s the truth.
 That’s our power.

Join us for Organizing 101, a workshop hosted by Andrea, a longtime organizer for labor, education and other movements. 

She’s the real deal, folks, and she’s offered to teach us how to turn our rad ideas into real actions. Don’t miss it!!!

WHEN: March 2nd @ noon

WHERE: Socialist Party of California office, 2617 Hauser Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016

RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/293369567459927/

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