‘Fight for unity on a working-class basis’

Sisters and brothers, 

We’re in the streets today to protest the U.S. war on Iraq and the corporate elite’s criminal and racist response to Hurricane Katrina. These are stark reminders that we live in a deeply unequal system in need of sweeping change.

It was the poor of New Orleans, mostly African Americans, who have died, and they continue to suffer. It is the people from working class communities that are dying in Iraq, fighting in a war that is not in their interests. The U.S. war on Iraq is a rich man’s war of plunder and domination. The Iraqi people are on the frontlines of the worldwide anti-war movement, and U.S. imperialism has a deepening crisis on its hands.





We have more in common with the people of Iraq, Palestine, Haiti and Afghanistan than we will ever have with the Bush administration and its ruling class allies. We lose nothing when we fight to end colonial occupation everywhere. Self-determination is the only path to real and lasting peace in the world.





At home, the rich get tax cuts as corporate profits soar. Workers, immigrants, women and the LGBT community are all under attack. The Black and Latino communities suffer police brutality and face the racist prison system and unemployment. 





Building unity, especially around the struggles of the most oppressed, is the only road to justice and true equality in the United States. Let’s make 2006 and 2008 years of struggle for the movement and not the elections. Only the mass intervention of an independent people’s movement will bring lasting change.





The Party for Socialism and Liberation is building a multinational revolutionary party that fights on all fronts. 





The capitalist system of war, racism and oppression must be stopped. The greed and exploitation of the mega corporations is wrecking the planet. Socialism, a system based on sharing resources and planning for human need, will be a great aid to the people of the world. As long as capitalism exists, we will continue to live through bloodbaths of endless imperialist wars. 





Let’s stay in the streets. Let’s build a working class movement from all communities for revolutionary change. Together we will win! 
—Los Angeles, Sept. 24, 2005


Photos: Andree Kahlmorgan, Krista Kennell and Roger Scott in Washington, D.C.; Kelly Wine in Los Angeles; Bill Hackwell in San Francisco; Faramak Zahraie in Seattle