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What is socialism? For academics its a systematic way of organizing the distribution of goods and services. Said former President Harry S. Truman, in reference to socialisms opponents: Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people. Dr. Martin Luther King later observed ironically that, in light of American racial and economic inequality: We have socialism for the rich and rugged free-enterprise capitalism for the poor.

To utter the word in public in todays America is to open a red-hot can of worms. People who cant quite define socialism use it as a convenient curse. But it doesnt necessarily have to be that way. In the spirit of Michael Moores 2009 Capitalism: A Love Story, director Yael Bridges energetic new documentary The Big Scary S Word builds its argument for socialismperhaps our societys most widely misunderstood political/ philosophical systemon a case-by-case, ground-level basis, with plenty of help from the history books and such public figures as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, philosophy professor Cornel West and sociologist Adaner Usmani.

Bridges entertaining history lesson lays it out clearly. The friction between cooperative living and the proprietary interest began about the time that hunter-gatherers were first notified that someone else owned the land they considered open to everyone. With the enshrinement of private property and the profit motive, labor became a salable commodity and the concept of rent reared its ugly head. Taken to its extreme, this fundamental inequality eventually led to the current situation, in which the five richest persons on the planetgo ahead, guess who they areown more wealth than 3.5 billion of their fellow human beings.

Economic inequality in the 21st-century United States is, of course, shockingly widespread. The battle between diehard capitalismand its apologistsand working people goes back to the beginnings of the industrial revolution in the late 18th century. Surprisingly, socialist thinking has deep roots in the U.S. Organized labor, workplace rules, occupational safety regulations, Social Security, the minimum wage and unemployment compensation are just part of the legacy of socialist action. Poet Walt Whitman was an American socialist, as were disabled rights activist Helen Keller, scientist Albert Einstein, civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., author James Baldwin and Francis Bellamy, who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. One of the docs talking heads points out that Teddy Roosevelts presidential campaign platform was to the left of Bernie Sanders.

Here are a few factoids to chew on: The U.S. abolition of slavery during the Civil War was the largest transfer of wealth in human history, according to one of the docs experts. Abraham Lincolns Republican Partythe latter-day hideout of corporate pirate Donald Trumpwas founded on the principles of anti-slavery socialism. Furthermore, Lincoln and Karl Marx, the founder of communism, famously exchanged views with each other on the issues of slavery and labor in 1865their letters were published in newspapers in the U.S. and Britain.

However, the ownership class continues to tenaciously fight back against workers rights. Low wages and debt, the twin nemeses of working Americans, have been wrecking families since the 1970s. The Wall Street Bailout of 2008also known as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Actleft everyone else in the country behind, while rescuing the bankers. The current Coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated the inequality. Capitalism may even destroy the possibility of human life [through climate change], warns sociologist Vivek Chibber.

Whats a struggling American wage-earner to do? The first challenge sounds abstract but makes sense: rebuild faith in ourselves for a more equitable economic/social system. Support organized labor and collective bargaining. Keep in mind Harvard sociologist Usmanis blueprint for a just economic principle: in the best of all possible worlds we wouldnt have preconceptions about each other, and wed all be in this together equally. This Labor Day weekend, see The Big Scary S Word and take a long, hard look around you.

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Whats so bad about socialism, asks The Big Scary S Word - East Bay Express

Ed Asner. (Photo by Greg Doherty / Getty Images)

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When we can discuss socialism rationally. It will be as if a heavy curtain has been lifted from mans eyes. Those were not the words of Karl Marx or Eugene Victor Debs, though either of those radical thinkers might well have uttered them.

Those were the words of Ed Asner, the actor who became a household name in the role of gruff but lovable Lou Grant, the boss at a TV station, in the 1970s TV comedy The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He then carried the character over, with a new job as a Los Angeles newspaper editor, to one of the most socially conscious programs in the history of television, the eponymous Lou Grant of the late 1970s and early 80s.

When he died Sunday, at age 91, after a storied career that included multiple runs on Broadway, dozens of TV and movie roles, and even a star turn as the voice of Carl Fredricksen in the Academy Awardwinning 2009 film Up, the Associated Press obituary described Asner as a liberal.

Asner chose more robust language.

A self-proclaimed old-time lefty, he proudly embraced the label socialist at a time when many of the most radical people in public life avoided it. In the 1970s, as author and activist Michael Harrington led the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, Asner was among the early supporters of the groupalong with US Representative Ron Dellums, feminist Gloria Steinem, and International Association of Machinists president William Winpisinger. When DSOC merged with the New America Movement to form Democratic Socialists of America, Asner became not just a member but an enthusiastic advocate for the organization, penning fundraising appeals.

There was a time, before Bernie Sanders ever thought about running for the presidency, and before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born, when Asner was arguably the best-known democratic socialist in the United States. As an instantly identifiable celebrity, with an image as a no-frills newsman with a big heart, he used his prominence to define the word for generations of Americans who rarely heard it mentioned in a positive light. Socialist means a thing that will curb the excesses of capitalism: the increasing wealth of the rich and decreasing wealth of the poor, Asner explained. Id like to see a national guarantee of health, a national guarantee of education (through college), fair housing, and sufficient food.

At the peak of his fame, Asner ramped up his activism. When Lou Grant was one of the best-rated shows on TV in 1981, he ran for and was elected as president of the Screen Actors Guild. Under his leadership, the union took militant stances in defense of its own members and in solidarity with the broader labor movement. There have been few actors of Ed Asners prominence who risked their status to fight for social causes the way Ed did, said current SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris. He fought passionately for his fellow actors, both before, during, and after his SAG presidency. But his concern did not stop with performers. He fought for victims of poverty, violence, war, and legal and social injustice, both in the United States and around the globe. Current Issue

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With a top-rated TV show, and as the head of a major union in the first year of Ronald Reagans right-wing presidency, Asner emerged as one of the countrys most outspoken critics of the new president, a former actor who had himself served as SAG president during the red scare era of the 1950s. When Reagan fired striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, Asner joined their picket line in Los Angeles. A former GM assembly-line worker, he preached an old-school gospel of labor solidarity, telling members, Our union is our bill of rights.

Asners battles with Reagan became legendary. I was brought up believing that the presidency was a very honorable office, Asner said in 1985. I would prefer being able to trust the guy. But I cant and I dont. That was especially the case when it came to foreign policy. Asner was an outspoken critic of apartheid in South Africa. And he came to be known as one of the most prominent foes of the Reagan administrations support for right-wing regimes in Central America. Asner cofounded the group Medical Aid for El Salvador and was active with the Committee of Concern for Central America. When he and a group of actors and activists appeared outside the US State Department in February 1982 to announce that they had raised $25,000 to aid Salvadorans who were victimized by the regime, The Washington Post described Asner as the most articulate and the most politically savvy of the group.

The Post noted that

Asnerso closely identified with his successful television show that he was introduced as Lou Grant, er, Ed Asner yesterdayhas emerged as a political beast. His sincere-looking, gruff mug is turning up in magazine and TV ads, at fund-raisers, and demonstrations. During the past few years Asner has lent his name to the ERA, the Freedom of Information Act, Ralph Naders consumer organization, Public Citizen, and most recently, El Salvador. He has called himself a union loyalist and a staunch unionist. He was an outspoken critic of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, charging the panel with opening a vendetta similar to the anticommunist crusade in Hollywood in the 1950s.

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As his political profile rose, Asner announced, I delight in the issues we deal with. I long for greater activity in the presentation of them. Did he fear red-baiting and retribution? Im quite comfortable and believe I have an ability to speak out, perhaps sometimes too rashly, but I think in this day and age there are far too many who dont speak out at all, he said. I would consider it an attribute.

The powers that be did not share that view. Though Lou Grant won 13 Emmy awards for its groundbreaking examinations of issues ranging from nuclear proliferation to LGBTQ rights, and was garnering top ratings for CBS, it was canceled in the fall of 1982. CBS has never convincingly denied that the cancellation was based partly on Asners politicshis sponsorship of a medical relief committee for war victims in El Salvador and his activist rampage as president of the Screen Actors Guild, observed TV critic Tom Shales. Asner shared that view, telling the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation, Most insiders seem to think that the show would not have been canceled had it not been for the controversy that arose over my stand on El Salvador. I thought at the time that Id never work again.

He would work again. A lot. Asner won a second term as SAG president with 73 percent of the vote. He appeared onstage and screen regularly, remaining busy until his last days. And he kept agitating for economic- and social-justice movements. (Asked about Republican attempts to undermine voting rights in an interview earlier this year, he replied, What kind of bullshit is that?) A proud recipient of the Eugene Victor Debs Awardan honor named for the five-time Socialist Party presidential candidate that he accepted at the height of his wrangling with ReaganAsner once replied to an inquiry about what he stood for with a single word: socialism.

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Ed Asner, American Socialist - The Nation

As the Socialist Equality Party candidate for California governor, I demand the immediate implementation of the most far-reaching measures to suppress the devastating fires that have engulfed the state. There must be a massive redistribution of wealth from the states ruling oligarchy to rebuild and modernize power infrastructure to protect current and future generations from the ravages of human-induced global warming.

The ongoing fires in California have burned through more than 1,650,000 acres of land, and wildfires nationally have now consumed more than 5,020,000 acres. More than half the total is still on fire, and only one of the 85 active large fires has been contained.

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated, over 1,000 homes have been destroyed, with thousands facing the trauma of losing everything. Some are reliving the nightmare from the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise, killing 86 people.

Air quality continues to range from unhealthy to hazardous for large parts of Northern California and Oregon. Smoke from the fires has traveled as far south as Louisiana, to the south, and Newfoundland, Canada, to the north. Health officials warn that extended exposure to high levels of smoke can cause asthma or other long-term health problems, as well as make those impacted more vulnerable to COVID-19.

That such massive catastrophes continue to occur every year is a staggering indictment of capitalism and its media and ruling elite. Every year, increasingly massive wildfires erupt across California and large portions of the American west as has been predicted by climate scientists for years. Yet the resources necessary to both fight and prevent these fires across and the state and country have remained essentially static over the past decade.

And when more personnel have been directed toward firefighting, they are often drawn from the states prison population. Each year, an estimated 3,000 inmates are worked in 24-hour shifts for as little as $2.90 to fight fires, through policies defended by Vice President Kamala Harris when she was California Attorney General, and carried out under a series of state administrations, both Republican and Democratic.

The systematic defunding of infrastructure and public safety is the other side of the vast transfer of wealth from public coffers to the states wealthiest individuals and corporations. According to data from Forbes, 160 billionaires reside in California and are collectively worth more than $984 billion, much of which was gained during the pandemic as a result of government bailouts through the CARES Act and similar legislation. Just one percent of this wealth is more than triple Californias fire budget and would provide for a vast and necessary expansion of the states firefighting and fire prevention efforts.

Among the companies directly responsible for the fires, none stands ahead of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), which has prioritized ensuring billions in stock dividends are paid to investors by divesting any efforts to maintain and modernize the power grid. The utility giant has also been found criminally liable for specific fires, including the catastrophic Camp Fire in 2018, which their antiquated equipment sparked. To evade compensating the victims of the Camp Fire, and wildfires started by the company, PG&E declared bankruptcy. At the same time, California Governor Gavin Newsom moved to bail the company out indirectly through utility rate hikes and directly with public funds.

There is widespread anger at both PG&E and Newsom for their actions, anger which was tapped into to spur the recall campaign itself. Newsoms ruling class opponents in the recall election are, however, just as beholden to capitalism as he. Republican Kevin Faulconer is seeking to militarize firefighting, having called for a war footing to fight the blazes. Republican John Cox has similarly called for an air armada to fight fires.

The dangers of wildfires are also exacerbated by the accelerating coronavirus pandemic. Hospitals across the state are filling up with cases as schools open amid an explosion of the Delta variant nationally and internationally. Not only do the fires and resultant smoke make cases of COVID-19 worse, full hospitals mean there is less space for any injuries caused by the wildfires. And the tens of thousands fleeing the flames are forced to temporarily reside in close proximity with hundreds of others, further spreading the deadly disease.

Like the coronavirus pandemic, a fight against the wildfires is not just a question for California workers. The fires reflect the broader changes of Earths climate as a result of global warming and are now causally linked to increased global temperatures as a result of capitalist industrial and agricultural activity. It is thus scientifically necessary that a concerted, systematic and international response be mounted to combat climate change on a global scale, lest the fire seasons of the past several years become normal, with even more extreme infernos to come.

Climate change is also behind the increasing incidents of extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Ida, which devastated New Orleans and led to the massive flooding catastrophe in New York City and the surrounding region. More than 60 people have been killed in eight states. The fires sweeping across the Mediterranean and the floods in western Germany are part of the same deadly process.

Any effort to address climate change is blocked by two factors: first, the subordination of Earths resources to private profit, which drives the overuse of fossil fuels and other activities for the enrichment of corporate executives and Wall Street bankers. Second, the necessary globally coordinated response to climate change is blocked by the division of the world into competing nation-states, all fighting for the interests of their own financial elite.

The only genuine solution is for the working class to fight for its own independent class interests. Climate change and the coronavirus pandemic will never be resolved without an international strategy that places social need over private profit. The fortunes of the ruling elite in California and around the globe must be expropriated and that wealth used to fight wildfires and the underlying problem of climate change.

I urge all those who agree with this perspective to contact my campaign and take up the fight for socialism among the working class in California, the United States and around the world!

Support the campaign of David Moore for governor!

new wsws title from Mehring Books

The New York Times 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History

A left-wing, socialist critique of the 1619 Project with essays, lectures, and interviews with leading historians of American history.

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Fighting the California fires requires an international and socialist strategy - WSWS

Xi calls for more fruitful practical cooperation with Ecuador

President Xi Jinping talked with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso over the phone on Monday.

President Xi said Monday that China is willing to work together with Cuba in building socialism and be good partners in pursuing common development in a phone conversation with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

Xi also said China is willing to join hands with Cuba in being good exemplars of anti-COVID-19 fight and good comrades in strategic coordination.

In their talks, Diaz-Canel conveyed Comrade Raul Castro's sincere greetings to Xi, and briefed Xi on the recent domestic situation in Cuba. Xi asked Diaz-Canel to convey his cordial greetings to Comrade Raul Castro.

Xi pointed out that under the strong leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba, Cuban comrades have forcefully defended their revolutionary achievements with no fear for the powerful and unyielding struggle.

Historically speaking, the socialist cause has never been smooth, and the communists have always strived for survival, development and victory through struggles, he said.

China, Xi said, always believes that the right to choose one nation's own path of social development should be respected, and that unilateral sanctions against other countries or external interference in other countries' internal affairs should be opposed.

China has always supported Cuba in taking the development road in line with its national conditions and building prosperous and sustainable socialism, and backed the country's just fight to safeguard the security of its national sovereignty and oppose interference of the powerful, he added.

China will continue to provide assistance and support within its capacity to Cuba in fighting against the pandemic and improving people's wellbeing, Xi said, expressing his belief that Cuba will make new progress in its socialist cause.

Xi stressed that under the careful cultivation and vigorous promotion of successive generations of leaders of the two parties and countries, China-Cuba relations have grown even stronger as time goes by, becoming a model of solidarity and cooperation between developing countries.

No matter how the situation changes, China's policy of sticking to long-term friendship with Cuba will not change, and its willingness to deepen cooperation in various fields with Cuba will not change, Xi said.

China, Xi said, is ready to intensify high-level exchanges with Cuba, strengthen exchanges and mutual learning in governance of party and state, deepen anti-pandemic cooperation, promote practical cooperation and push for even greater development in bilateral relations.

The two sides should intensify their strategic coordination on international and multilateral occasions to safeguard the common interests of developing countries, Xi said, adding that China will continue to uphold fairness and justice for Cuba in both speeches and deeds on the world stage.

For his part, Diaz-Canel said he appreciates China's precious long-term support for Cuba, including providing Cuba with anti-epidemic supplies, which has shown the brotherly friendship between the two countries.

Cuba firmly follows the socialist path and is willing to strengthen inter-party exchanges and communication with China, as well as practical cooperation in various fields, and to jointly promote the cause of socialism and the development of Cuba-China relations, Diaz-Canel said.

Cuba stands ready to work with China to deepen multilateral coordination, and jointly oppose hegemonism, power politics, and the politicization and stigmatization of the epidemic, he said.

He said Cuba firmly adheres to the one-China policy and opposes interference in China's internal affairs, and will continue to unswervingly support China's positions on issues of core interests such as those related to Taiwan and Xinjiang.

The Cuban side, he added, is willing to play a positive role in promoting relations between Latin America and China.

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Xi says China willing to work together with Cuba in building socialism - Chinadaily USA

Keir Starmer was a bit of a leftie in his youth. This much is known, and two biographies of the Labour leader published over the summer provide some detail of his anti-capitalist writing for magazines called Socialist Alternatives and Socialist Lawyer in the Eighties and Nineties. Anyone who hasnt railed embarrassingly against the unfairness of the world in their 20s and early 30s doesnt have a heart, but what do these two books tell us about our possible future prime minister?

To begin with, neither book looks promising, because Starmer refused to have anything to do with them. One, Red Knight, by Michael Ashcroft, proudly advertises that it is The Unauthorised Biography. It is hardly surprising that Starmer told friends he would rather they did not participate in it. Ashcroft, the former Conservative peer and ex-deputy chair of the party, also co-wrote a hostile biography of David Cameron, Call Me Dave, which seemed to be a continuation of a feud between himself and the prime minister, so you can see why Starmer might be wary.

The other book, by journalist Nigel Cawthorne, seems to have been written partly because he went to the same school as Starmer, Reigate Grammar, but that does not seem to have persuaded Starmer to have cooperated with it. Nevertheless, both authors have done their research, and they do tell us important things about their subject.

Ashcroft may be controversial, but he has provided a valuable service to politics by paying for a huge amount of opinion polling over the past decade, and this book appears to be the product of a genuine curiosity about Starmer. He establishes that Starmer did physics, chemistry and maths at A-level, although we dont know what grades he got. Both books dwell rather pointlessly on Reigate Grammar becoming a private school while Starmer was there, but as Starmer and his cohort were state-funded pupils all the way through, this doesnt seem relevant. He doesnt agree with private schooling and didnt choose it for his children either.

Starmers youthful socialism is entertaining, and these books help to locate him in the partys long march to electability. We were radical anti-imperialist ecosocialists, said Ben Schoendorff, the leader of the seven-member editorial team, including Starmer, 23, that ran Socialist Alternatives. The magazine was inspired by Michalis Raptis, a Greek former Trotskyist known as Pablo, whose faction, the Pabloites, wanted to broaden socialism to include feminism and green politics. The first issue was published in July 1986, proclaiming that its vision of socialism was the generalised self-management of society as a whole; it claimed to be concretely working towards a radical extension of popular control over wealth and power by integrating the traditional labour movement with new social movements.

Starmers articles in the first issue proposed trade unions having control over industry and community, and criticised a policy document produced by Neil Kinnock, then Labour leader: Unfortunately, by turning back to the market economy, it misses a third alternative, that of participatory socialism based on democratic planning.

Well, its a point of view, isnt it? Even Tony Blair, when he was aged 29, wrote about how the resources required to reconstruct manufacturing industry call for enormous state guidance and intervention. That, in turn, will bring any Labour government into sharp conflict with the power of capital, particularly multinational capital.

Starmers early politics were also evident in a Socialist Lawyer article when he was a young barrister of 32, in which he said Karl Marx was, of course, right about the futility of trying to bring about change through abstract declarations of fundamental rights. When I wrote about this before, I said I thought this was a dry joke, but Cawthorne kindly sent me a copy of the article and Starmer (a) wasnt joking, and (b) was sceptical about incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into British law a policy that produced the Human Rights Act in Blairs first government.

What is important, however, is how Starmers thinking developed. He now strongly defends the Human Rights Act, for instance. The value of these books is in telling the story of his later career. Because he wasnt in politics, Starmers evolution has to be glimpsed at between legal work Blair, on the other hand, became an MP at the age of 30, so it was easier to trace the growing confidence of his version of social democracy.

What comes through strongly is Starmers earnestness. He was committed to equality and the rights of the underdog, but by the time he took the position of Director of Public Prosecutions, he was clearly a reformer within the establishment rather than an outsider wanting to tear it down.

His misfortune when he became an MP was to serve under leaders who seemed to want to move in the opposite direction. I remember Blair saying of his fellow MPs when he was leader of the opposition: You can tell the ones who had serious jobs before they came here. Starmer was one of those, but unfortunately, he rose to the top under Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, neither of whom had serious jobs before they came here, and both of whom made it hard for Starmer to prove that he had indeed developed from the idealistic participatory socialism based on democratic planning of his youth.

Red Knight: The Unauthorised Biography of Sir Keir Starmer, by Michael Ashcroft, Biteback; Keir Starmer: The Reluctant Politician, by Nigel Cawthorne, Gibson Square Books.

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Keir Starmer has come a long way from the anti-capitalism of his youth - The Independent