On October 24th, 80 people gathered at the African American Art and Culture Complex in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco to learn more about socialism and current struggles going on around the world. The occasion was a socialist conference held by the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Some 15 of those present had never before attended a PSL event.
 Conference workshop on ‘What Is Socialism?’ Photo: Bill Hackwell |
Guest speakers included: Brian Becker, the national coordinator of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism); Eugene Puryear, 2008 PSL candidate for vice president; Carlos Alvarez, 2010 PSL candidate for California governor; and Peta Lindsey of Students Fight Back in Los Angeles. Two rounds of workshops focused on the struggles in Latin America and against racism, bigotry and imperialism, and included a question-and-answer discussion on “What Is Socialism?”
Eugene Puryear talked of how while the AFL-CIO has found the actual unemployment rate to be close to 17 percent, studies from before the economic crisis put the unemployment rate of African-American men in many major cities close to 50 percent. He also pointed out that while President Obama had promised to create thousands of new “green jobs,” in reality hardly any jobs have been saved or created in the metropolitan areas with the highest unemployment rates.
Brian Becker reminded us that on the same day this month the AFL-CIO made its announcement about unemployment rates, Goldman Sachs announced that it would be paying out $24 billion in bonuses to executives. Becker told of the struggles the Party for Socialism and Liberation has been engaged in across the country, whether in making sure that the heat and electricity is not turned off in homes in Washington, D.C. or fighting against the proposed parking meter hikes in San Francisco.
Becker also talked of how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are continuing to cost $300 million each day because the capitalists are fearful of what it would mean to “lose” in either country. The U.S. elite has deluded themselves into believing that with enough missiles they can break a people’s desire to be free. “The United States is an empire that is contracting and will fall in the same way all empires have,” he stated.
His concluding message was simple: “Socialism offers the only alternative to the capitalist crisis. … We are not facing a foe that can be talked into being more humane.” It is important to get involved in the struggles and join a revolutionary party that works to help increase consciousness and lead the way to victory.”
