Abel Macias from San Diego, Calif.
In contrast to the image of San
Diego as a conservative, military city catering toward the tourist industry is
the stark reality of thousands of immigrants and poor people of color who are
segregated based on the discriminatory housing policies of the 1940s and 1950s.
With “white flight” out of the cities into the suburbs and now back to the
downtown area we face continued issues of gentrification, homelessness, racism
and state repression from Border Patrol and local law enforcement.
We recently met a woman whose
father, sister and other family members were taken from their workplace and
home by ICE agents who drew their weapons on several family members simply for
trying to work in this country.
Once hearing the story we
immediately decided to take action to defend the family and not allow them to
be isolated by this attack.
In the days that followed we
quickly put together a coalition and on Nov. 5 over 150 people took to the
streets. The rally was mostly a young, multinational
crowd, protesting for the first time in their neighborhood and directly across
the street from the police station.
The photo behind me shows Alexis
Castro, whose father was taken in the ICE raid, at the demonstration.
Our struggle along the U.S.
Mexico border is one that is in its initial stages but that we are working hard
to build because it exemplifies our belief that the workers struggle knows no
borders!
Ashley
Sauers from Syracuse, New York
The
PSL’s presence in Syracuse only dates back to last April and we are the first
group of PSL members working in Upstate and Central New York, but so far we
have already initiated and participated in many important struggles.
Our
most successful intervention has been in response to several recent deaths that
have taken place at the local jail. Chuniece Patterson, a 21-year-old African-American
woman, died last November from an ectopic pregnancy after being repeatedly
denied medical care. Raul Pinet Jr, a 31-year-old Puerto Rican man, died in
August after being brutally beaten by the police and restrained by jail
deputies.
The
next month, we organized a march and rally that attracted hundreds of people.
The demonstration was one of the most multinational, working class and militant
demonstrations in the history of Syracuse, with large outpourings from amongst
family and friends of those who have been killed.
We
also held a demonstration outside the Sheriff’s office to protest a racist and
bigoted jail deputy and Democratic Party candidate for Sheriff.
Right
now we are working on a campaign to stop the police from installing
surveillance cameras in the city’s Westside, a predominately Latino
neighborhood, and Southside, a predominately African-American neighborhood. Our
intervention, including a protest three days ago, was instrumental in
organizing resistance and severely derailing the police’s plans.
Emmanuel Lopez from South Florida
Over the past several years,
members of the PSL have begun the necessary work of organizing and building the
party in the South.
Some of the unique challenges our party has to address
in this region are labor laws that are especially reactionary and of course the
legacies of Jim Crow apartheid and slavery.
Despite these challenges, the
hard work and sacrifice of our comrades has allowed the party to lay a
foundation in a region central to the class struggle in the United States.
As the world watched the
devastating effects of the BP oil spill, PSL members in Louisiana and
throughout the Gulf Coast region were important on-the-ground agitators and
organizers this past summer as we helped to launch and carry out the “Seize BP”
campaign nationwide.
In the state of Florida we face the possibility of an
Arizona-style law becoming a reality in the coming months as communities
struggle under the Polimigra regime already in place.
However, our work within the immigrant rights movement
in Florida throughout the past several years has placed us in a unique position
to organize a politically conscious movement to fight back.
In Central Florida, we are deeply
involved in the organizing efforts in farmworker communities and in the trade
unions of the hospitality industry.
While our efforts in the region
are at a very early stage, the comrades who are joining the party and
establishing centers of study and action are an indication of the potential for
struggle that exists in the South.
Deb Malatesta from New Haven, Connecticut
Much of our work in Connecticut is around the
struggles of immigrant communities for full rights. We have worked closely with
Unidad Latino en Accion, an immigrant rights organization, to organize a fight
back movement. New Haven was the first city in the country to have a resident
ID card for immigrants who cannot obtain a state ID. By contrast, Latinos in
East Haven have been routinely stopped by the police, arrested and even
deported if they did not have proper identification. Following a successful demonstration in East
Haven, the police chief was suspended.
Together with ULA, we organized the New Haven
Workers’ Association. One case involved
a bookstore where the manager threatened to fire the workers if they were
caught speaking Spanish. Our struggle resulted in the policy being revoked and
the manager being fired.
Most recently, we joined with many organizations in
the Latino and African-American community in a heightened struggle against
police brutality after New Haven saw an increase of police violence as part of
new police operation called “Operation Night Life.”
In May of this year, the New Haven and Boston
branches organized the PSL’s first New England Regional Conference on
Socialism. The success of this conference represents a major step for the PSL
in this important region. When we formed we had no presence in New England and
now we are making strides to expand our reach in this important part of the
country.
Stephanie Munoz from New York
City
The New York City branch’s work
against the NYPD’s racist Stop and Frisk practices has been ongoing for a few
months now. Leading open-mic sessions “soap-box” style in Brownsville,
Brooklyn, allowing the people to openly call out the cops on their abusive
tactics to intimidate the community has been empowering. As organizers, we all
know the difficulties in building with the people to raise our morale and
muscle when we have been disenfranchised. If you stick around long enough to
prove your solidarity, standing outside in all types of weather, people begin
to wonder “what are these people still doing out here in the rain?”
Brownsville is one of THE most
oppressed neighborhoods in New York City. The 73rd precinct is one
of the most notoriously known. Out of
the city’s 581,000 racist stop-and-frisks just last year targeting NYC’s Black
and Latino youth, Brownsville has been the “ground zero” for police harassment.
These cops would never carry out
the same harassment, raids and illegal searches in neighborhoods gushing with
the wealthy and privileged. With the New York City branch’s public educationals
and public forums continuing to grow in the upcoming weeks, we have also put
together a “know your rights” presentation titled: “The ABC’s of Dealing with
the Cops.”
We will continue to assemble the
masses until the Brownsville Police Department is as fearsome as the fear they
have continuously attempted to instill into the hearts and minds of our people.
Down with the police!
All power to the people!
Corey Ansel from Columbus, Ohio
Our party’s presence in central
Ohio is relatively new, but we managed to accomplish some extraordinary things
in the last year by taking up a difficult task.
For the first time, the PSL in Columbus intervened in the capitalist
elections. I ran for Ohio State Representative as a 19-year-old socialist.
Not only did we have a large and
diverse group of volunteers, but we managed to intervene in struggles across
the city in the name of the campaign. We
were the key organizers behind protests demanding a free Palestine after the
aid flotilla to Gaza was brutally attacked.
We joined forces with progressives to protest the virulently anti-LGBT
Westboro Baptist Church when they came to Ohio State University campus. We spent entire days going door to door to
promote a socialist alternative in the elections. And we organized transportation
to Chicago for the big Oct. 16 protest on the 9th anniversary of the
Afghanistan war.
Our intervention in the elections
led to considerable growth of the PSL in Ohio.
We had no illusions of winning the election. We know that elections
under capitalism are a completely rigged system to ensure the domination of the
tiny ruling class of Wall Street bankers, corporations and big-business owners
over the vast majority of people. What we did was succeed in exposing the
Democratic and Republican Party candidates and the system as a whole, and drawing
in more people to the movement for socialism.
Ymelda Viramontes from Chicago
On Oct. 16, traveling from all
over the Midwest, students, working people and antiwar activists converged in
Chicago for a regional march and rally on the 9th Anniversary of the
Afghanistan war. The October 16 regional protest demanded, “End the Wars and
Occupations! Jobs, Peace and Equality Now.”
PSL members and friends played a
central role in the mobilization. To build the Oct. 16 march, organizers and
volunteers handed out tens of thousands of leaflets on dozens of school
campuses and at busy train stops all over Chicago. On Oct 7, the actual
anniversary of the Afghanistan war, we held a well-attended street meeting and
speak out in the middle of downtown Chicago during the evening rush hour.
Exceeding organizers
expectations, Oct. 16 was the largest protest in the region on the anniversary
of the Afghanistan war. Over 1,500 people attended Oct. 16. The Chicago branch
of the PSL organized people to come to the march from nine states across the
Midwest.
On the march up Michigan Avenue,
protesters carried hundreds of anti-war banners and placards. The large
contingents of young people at the protest and the growing numbers of young
people who are joining the movement energized marchers and was a vital
component of Oct. 16’s success.
Angel Pardo from Albuquerque, New
Mexico
Albuquerque is the newest area
where the PSL is organizing.
There could not be a more
important time to expand our work in New Mexico. The right-wing program of the
new governor includes privatizing education and carrying out massive cuts in
social programs for what is the 48th poorest state in the country, overturning
New Mexico’s immigrant-friendly programs that include drivers’ licenses,
increasing raids on workers, and a promise to veto civil rights legislation for
same-sex couples.
The battle in Arizona was a
crossroads for our quickly developing Albuquerque branch and its members. When
SB 1070 came into effect, we helped to mobilize workers from Arizona, New
Mexico, California – from all over the Southwest and across the country – to
stand together in Phoenix.
The efforts of our branch really
peaked at a rally to demand justice for women from West Mesa who were murdered
and whose case was neglected by the police, and at the Day Against Police
Brutality last month that spotlighted the escalation of police brutality and
terror in our communities. When a new police killing took place, family members
immediately contacted us because of the work we’ve been doing and asked us to
begin organizing for justice.
All of us who traveled here from
Albuquerque are excited about building locally and expanding throughout the
Southwest.
Danusia Lewakowski from San Francisco
The PSL and ANSWER support many struggles
affecting the working class here and around the world.
UNITE HERE Local 2 represents 11,000
mainly immigrants workers and is waging a militant struggle for a new contract
During two anti-war demonstrations this year ANSWER led the marches to the Hilton
hotel and joined picketlines.
The PSL believes that real solidarity
and unity is built mainly through action, not words.
The San Francisco Municipal Transit
Agency sought to make up their deficit by cutting service and raising fares.
They blamed the crisis on the drivers, in a racist anti-worker attack against
the predominantly African American Transport Workers Union. We played a key
role in organizing a coalition uniting MUNI operators and riders to demand
“Chop from the top, tax the rich!”
We have worked alongside ILWU Local 10,
the progressive longshore workers, who refused to unload an Israeli ship – a
first in U.S. history — when 800 people picketed the Port of Oakland. We
provided critical support for the action.
We were there for the many protests for
Oscar Grant, shot and killed by a BART police officer, who got just a 2-years
sentence.
When the bigoted Prop 8 was passed, we
worked closely with One Struggle One Fight, a grassroots organization, demanding
an end to anti-LGBT bigotry.
These are just some of the struggles we
are engaged in. If you want to fight for change, if you believe that real unity
is built through struggle, join us.
Patrick
Moore from Austin, Texas
Our delegation is particularly
proud to be here because, two years ago, when our first national conference was
held, we didn’t yet have members in Texas. Our presence in still modest when
you consider the size of our state, but it represents the basis for what we
believe will be substantial growth.
We are also still in our initial
stages of development in the South. We have people here today not just from
Texas, but from Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and other southern
states. We consider the task of organizing and recruiting in the South to be of
the utmost importance to building a revolutionary party in the United States.
Even in a state of 25 million
people, organizing can begin with just one person. A little over a year and a
half ago, I was becoming more and more disgusted with the injustices that I saw
everywhere around me, and I started looking for a revolutionary organization
that was fighting for real change.
Since I and others in Austin
joined the PSL, we have been able to participate in and help to lead many
struggles around Texas. The day after we get back from this conference, we’ll
be traveling to Dallas to protest at the opening of the George W. Bush
Presidential Library.
Our message today is that
wherever you live, even an individual or small group can be the beginning of
building a revolutionary movement in your area.
Yohana Deeon from Los Angeles
I was raised in one of the most
oppressed areas of Pico Union and Westlake here in Los Angeles. Growing up, I
saw racism, oppression and police brutality on a daily basis, but I never
understood the reasons why. The injustices I saw motivated me to search for
answers and a solution to help my community.
I found PSL by searching on the
internet. Through the Party, I have learned to be an organizer, activist and a
leader.
The oppression of the community
where I grew up is not a thing of the past. Last Sept. 5, Manuel Jamines was
killed by cops in the Westlake neighborhood where I grew up. Jaminez was a
Guatemalan immigrant worker who was also a father and spoke no English and only
a little Spanish. The police took advantage of Jaminez since he couldn’t
understand or speak to the police.
After the killing, people came
into the streets night after night to demand justice, braving multiple police
attacks and a martial law-like atmosphere. We were there in the streets, and
worked with immigrant rights and community organizations to organize a
demonstration that marched from the site of the killing to LAPD headquarters.
Now that I’m a member of the PSL,
I’m able to organize around police violence cases like Manuel Jamines’s case,
and I was able to find out about the socialist alternative to the oppression of
capitalist society. Please join us in the struggle and fight back.
Dr. Catherine Wilkerson from
Southeast Michigan
In Michigan the crimes of capitalism
are manifest in grim statistics
Children of Detroit, especially
African Americans, evidence extraordinarily high levels of low birth weight,
infant mortality, high lead levels, sexually transmitted diseases, violence and
substance abuse.
Unemployment hovers around 50
percent.
Hundreds of thousands of utility
shut-offs cause suffering and death. Children perish in fires after DTE Energy,
the local electricity provider, shuts off their utilities.
In Michigan the crimes of
capitalism are manifest in the post-apocalyptic landscape of Detroit. Blocks of
boarded-up, collapsing, burn-out houses, parks overgrown with weeds, littered
with debris, the only sounds the creaking of rusty swings and the barking of
prowling dogs.
Yet in Michigan the crimes of capitalism
meet fierce resistance. The people of Detroit stand up and fight back. They
fight criminal utility companies that condemn people to darkness and cold,
banks that steal people’s homes, police that brutalize and kill.
This past June Detroit hosted the
US Social Forum, where thousands of people came together. PSL comrades came to
join the struggle, to build the movement, to end the crimes of capitalism.
One strategy to build the
movement is to organize at the point of service. With 59 million people in the
United States lacking health insurance, there is no service more essential than
health care. We are now developing a project, the Detroit Health Care and
Organizing Center, as a strategy for organizing at the point of delivering
health care.
Austin Thompson from Atlanta,
Georgia
In August of 2009 I traveled to
Dakar, Senegal in West Africa where I spent 10 months working with a newly
established Pan-Africanist alliance of student associations and left political
parties to coordinate the Pan-African Youth Summit 2010.
The event took place after months
of preparation and ideological work to ensure the outcome of the summit was a
progressive seed for a new anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist Pan-African
coalition.
When the event took place in May under
the theme “Toward a Second Wave of Liberation Struggle” it was an
overwhelming success with student and activist representatives present from
throughout Senegal and West Africa.
The summit was a timely response
to the increasing pace of foreign militarization and neo-liberal capitalism
threatening the popular classes of West Africa.
After the event, coordinators
agreed to establish a new regional alliance known as the League of
Revolutionary Pan-Africanists. The central task of the League is to raise
political awareness among youth that only an organized popular struggle against
the neo-colonial state can liberate the region from the thieves in power.
Through the work I did in
Senegal, I gained a deeper understanding of Africa and working-class struggles
for justice, which I have now brought back to my organizing work here in the
United States.
The Pan-African Youth Summit was
in every way a recommitment to the vision of former Burkinabè revolutionary
Thomas Sankara, who urged the young generations of Africa that “we must dare to
invent the future!”
Eddie
Pages from New York City
In the age of 24-hour news cycles
led by media groups that claim with a straight face to be such things as “The
most trusted name in news,” “Fair and Balanced” and “the only news fit to
print” while in reality serving as blatant propaganda arms for the ruling
class, it is imperative that we engage with our class through every possible
avenue.
New Media, meaning social
networks, Youtube, Vimeo, blogs and many other multi-media platforms, is
creating a new path that we are using to expose the lies of the capitalist ruling
class.
New media is putting the power of
reporting back into the hands of the people. When the Mavi Marmara Gaza Aid
Flotilla was brutally attacked by Israeli commandos they had a live Internet
stream running on the ship, making it impossible for Israel to deny the attack
on activists.
As we move forward the PSL is
ramping up our media department as a national organization.
We have sold tens of thousands of
copies of Liberation news. PSLweb.org’s readership is higher than ever, and we
have received an incredible amount of views on social networks and Internet
video sites.
We are now integrating video into
our work in a much more substantial way. You have been watching the types of
images that we hope will inspire more people to take to the streets, to attend
events such as these, and to be committed fighters in the revolutionary
struggle.
