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By Genevieve Leigh 25 March 2020

Socialist Alternative held an online meeting Sunday under the title Coronavirus Wreaks Havoc: Socialist Response. The event was hosted by Kshama Sawant, a leader of the organization and Seattle City Council member.

Ten guest speakers participated in the broadcast, including two prominent members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)New York State Senator Julia Salazar and Mike Sylvester, a Maine state representative. Also taking part were Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King and various local union officials.

The event was an attempt to cover over the conventional Democratic Party politics of Socialist Alternative and the DSA with anti-capitalist rhetoric and empty slogans. This was combined with the foul injection of racial politics, a hallmark of the Democratic Party.

Sawant presented herself as the most radical speaker on the panel, calling for a freeze on all rent and mortgage payments, the organization of a rent strike, immediate cash assistance to replace lost wages and the nationalization of the banks and corporations, among other demands.

However, the real character of Socialist Alternatives politics came at the end of her remarks. She concluded with: One last thing I would like to say, and this is to Senator Bernie Sanders: Bernie dont drop out. Dont endorse Joe Biden.

Socialist Alternative is, in fact, little more than an electoral auxiliary of the Sanders campaign. Sanders role has been to convince workers and youth to support the Democratic Party, a right-wing capitalist party, and Socialist Alternative has worked to convince them to support Sanders.

In 2016, after dissolving itself into an electoral campaign for Sanders, it claimed to oppose Sanders support for Clinton and declared that his political revolution had to go on without him. Four years later, it did the same thing, covering up for Sanders own pro-imperialist positions and doing what it could to encourage young people to support Sanders and the Democratic Party.

The organization is now in crisis over Sanders winding down of his campaign. Despite Sawants urgings, Sanders is clearly preparing to drop out. As he has made clear from the beginning of his campaign, he will support former Vice President Joe Biden or whichever other right-wing politician the Democratic Party ends up selecting as its nominee.

At the same moment that Sawant was making her plea, Sanders was hosting his own online event on the coronavirus crisis with Democratic Party congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Neither Sanders nor his guests even mentioned his candidacy for the Democratic nomination.

In his remarks, Sanders said he did not want to be partisan because everyone had to come together to address the pandemic. While criticizing aspects of the bipartisan boondoggle to the corporations that was at that point passing through Congress, Sanders said nothing about the responsibility of the capitalist system for the crisis. None of the panelists uttered the words capitalism or socialism.

The reactionary role of Socialist Alternative, the DSA, et. al. in seeking to block a genuine movement of the working class for socialism was perhaps most clearly revealed in the comments by Shaun King, a Black Lives Matter activist who was heavily involved in campaigning for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

King was brought in to inject racial politics into the discussion of the pandemic. He began by asserting that communities of color have been hit the hardest by this pandemic. He continued: The role of racism and white supremacist systems is really central to the impact that the coronavirus is having for so many reasons

What we see is the role of whiteness and skin privilege even in what this bailout package is going to be.

What does the phony concepts of skin privilege and whiteness have to do with the coronavirus pandemic? Millions of workers, black and white, of all ethnicities and nationalities, are already suffering immensely from this crisis. The virus respects no borders and does not discriminate by race, religion or gender.

The policy of governments, led by the United States, has been directed at utilizing the crisis to advance the interests of the ruling class, not whiteness or skin privilege. It makes no difference to the ruling class if those who die are black or white, women or men, gay or straightso long as the stock market soars and workers are forced back to work to make profits for the rich.

To justify his reactionary racialist narrative, King made the absurd claim: When I have to go out and get groceries in my neighborhood and all over Brooklyn, I hardly see any white people in grocery stores working, in the food service industry working. When I see UPS workers, postal workers They are again unproportionally black and Latino.

The assertions made by King are not only outright lies, they are politically filthy and dangerous conceptions made in the service of the ruling class.

The racialist politics of King is the politics of the Democratic Party, utilized to divide the working class and advance the interests of privileged sections of the upper middle class, competing for access to positions of power and affluence in academia, corporate boardrooms, the state and the trade union apparatus.

The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare with unprecedented acuteness the fundamental class divisions in society and the urgent need for the working class to unite as an international class to demand measures to save lives and defend the living standards of working people.

As the working class enters into struggle to advance its interests, it must and will sweep aside the Democratic Party and racialist politics of organizations like Socialist Alternative.

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Socialist Alternative town hall injects racial politics into COVID-19 pandemic - World Socialist Web Site

To the editor: I lived under socialism in the 1950s and escaped from it during the bloody Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Socialism in that form stinks.

After the Nevada caucuses, Sen. Bernie Sanders is looking more like the inevitable Democratic Party presidential nominee, but he has no chance against President Trump if his message is perceived as socialism.

Words matter. Perceptions matter.

If the self-described democratic socialist secures the nomination, he should do everything he can to distance himself from the concept of socialism as opposed to democratic socialism. Sanders plan of increased spending on healthcare, infrastructure and education (supported by practically all European governments) is not the same as Soviet-style (or Venezuelan or Cuban) socialism.

Unless Sanders can make this clear enough for at least 51% of voting Americans, we will have another four years of Trump.

Thomas Seres, Van Nuys

..

To the editor: Before the Democrats jump on the Sanders train, they should remember that Sanders performed well in the 2016 caucuses, but Hillary Clinton outperformed him in the primary elections.

Caucuses are a poor way to measure the voters general opinion of the candidates since the number of participants tends to represent only a fraction of a states registered voters. So far, only a small fraction of the Democrats have been heard from.

The pundits should hold their horses before they proclaim Sanders as the inevitable Democratic nominee.

George Eaton, Arcadia

..

To the editor: It is fitting that Sanders won Nevada on George Washingtons birthday.

The father of our country and the military leader of our first revolution must be dancing a jig for joy that a second revolution will include everyone this time people of color, women, the poor and others.

Mary Lou Jacobs, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Please, Democrats, do not select an old, rich, white male extremist as your nominee. Havent we had enough of those?

You need to select someone who will appeal to the country as a whole, not just your party. By selecting someone so far left, you leave the middle up for grabs. If you select someone toward the center, you get the left, center and even that part of the right desperate for an alternative to the current regime.

For the good of the country, think about it.

John Schiermeier, Valencia

Read more here:
Bernie Sanders' democratic socialism isn't communism - Los Angeles Times

There will be an effort, especially this election year, to claim that progressive Social Democrats are kind of like Socialists and Communists, and will try to taint all opponents with that label. However, there is a vast difference between totalitarian communist socialism and social democracy as practiced in the Scandinavian countries and in most of Europe.

Social democracy does not try to control the "means of production," but rather permits a free enterprise supply-and-demand economy that harnesses the best of human initiative for the common good. At the same time, it employs good social programs that serve to soften the hard edge of capitalism. These programs provide for universal health care, good equal educational opportunities for everyone, reasonable child care, and secure retirement programs for the elderly and incapacitated. Students and their parents need not incur huge debts to finance college costs.

These social democracy programs are paid for by an enlightened tax policy that does not disproportionately favor the rich and very rich and has a realistic corporate tax structure. The current policies have the bulk of the wealth going to the top tier, while at the same time driving up the national debt to historic levels.

We already have many social democracy programs in effect in our country, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the vast health care and retirement systems for the federal workforce and the VA system for all of our veterans, as well as government support programs for our farmers.

And really, all levels of our government are operated on social democracy principles, as well as our schools and water/sewer systems and our REA cooperatives and the Bank of North Dakota, which provides student loans. And we have the North Dakota State Mill and Elevator. I believe it's safe to say that the vast majority would not want to cancel all these programs and totally privatize them.

There is room in our country for both free enterprise as well as good social democracy programs for everyone's benefit and life security. And at all levels of our social democracy entities, we get to vote and choose our leaders.

It's important to be informed and to vote in all our elections, whether it be town, county, city, school board, state or national. This is how we can keep our democracy.

I have to admit that I am 100% Norwegian descent and am proud that all the Nordic countries with their social democratic governments are constantly rated as having the best quality of life for all their citizens.

Please do not let the scare tactics of portraying Social Democracy as a dirty word sway your balanced thinking on these matters.

Read more from the original source:
Letter: Don't believe the socialism scare tactics - INFORUM

Ironically, it will take a democratic socialist movement to prevent the current capitalist system, lacking in oversight regulations, rife with corruption and influence-peddling vastly favoring the super-rich, from imploding onto itself.It will compel the United States to live up to its overriding promise that anyone can succeed depending on their motivation and talent.

Democratic socialism is not a magic panacea or unattainable utopian vision from a futuristic film. Instead, it provides a concrete foundation to lift our nation from the ever-widening social and economic abyss in which we find ourselves.

Related: Now Christian conservatives are attacking 4-H clubs because theyre socialist

Young people, especially those steeped in history or possibly protected from its murky shadows can educate their elders who grew up in earlier generations when socialist was thrown around as an evil epithet.

The type of democratic socialism proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is completely dissimilar from the freedom-killing National Socialism ruthlessly imposed by the Nazis or the ruthless socialism of Venezuela.Rather, the version outlined by Sanders resembles the social and economic systems of Scandinavian countries.

While not referring to herself as a democratic socialist, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has articulated similar plans.

No country in the world today stands as a fully socialist state, but some of the most successful economies combine elements of capitalism with socialism to create greater degrees of equity and fewer disparities between the rich, the poor, and those on the continuum in-between.

This year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development conducted its Better Life Index to determine the happiest countries in the world, according to its residents. Based on an 11-measure survey assessing quality of life, including housing, income, jobs, community, education, the environment, health, work-life balance, and life satisfaction, all of the Scandinavian countries reached the top ten.

Included in descending order are number one, Finland, followed by Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Netherlands, Canada, (which provides a single-payer health care system unlike its North American neighbor, the United States), New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia (which places severe restrictions on firearms ownership).

The United States did not make the cut but came in at 17 (down two places from the previous year). We might do well to look to these countries for some of their Socialist policies that sustain high levels of quality of life issues for their residents.

Socialism No Longer an Epithet?

In his second State of the Union Address in 2019, President Donald Trump set a major theme for his 2020 Presidential bid by throwing out the red meat of Socialism to his base characterizing it as an anti-American freedom-killing political philosophy.

Many on the political right have established the false binary of capitalism on one side and socialism on the other. But when we get beyond the fear and false generalizations, is socialism really so anti-American?

Even before the Cold War and McCarthy Era, the political right has flung the term socialist into the faces of their political opponents to discredit their characters, dismiss their political ideas and policies, and sway the electorate toward a conservative agenda.

The type of democratic socialism proposed by Sanders and Warren include policies to protect and enhance our Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid safety nets.It advocates for the further nationalization of our forests and mountains rather than allocating increased corporate mining, drilling, and timber rights.

It provides quality education throughout higher education in public colleges and universities.It advances a government-sponsored program that guarantees our seniors a retirement system that ensures a high quality of life free from economic burdens.

It furthers the rights of workers to organize and collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions.Democratic socialism helps to eliminate workplace and larger societal inequalities based on race, ethnicity, nationality, citizenship status, age, sex, sexual identity, gender identity and expression, disability, socioeconomic standing, religion, and other social identities.

It mandates effective governmental regulations on food producers to safeguard our food supply and protect against the maltreatment of animals, and on corporations, companies, and individuals to defend our environment.

It supports clear restrictions on the political process to prevent mammoth contributions by individuals and corporations to buy and own politicians and influence public policy while locking out individuals unable to amass large political funds.

Democratic socialism challenges a prison industrial complex that perpetuates the racial and socioeconomic class inequities pervasive throughout the society.

It contests and advocates for effective restrictions on the so-called free market economic system that enables the creation of mega monopolies, outsourcing jobs, and inhibits the development of clean renewable energy technologies.

Democratic socialism demands a true progressive tax structure where everyone pays their fair share, one that inhibits massive inequities in the overwhelming accumulation of wealth by the top one percent of the nation as is currently the case.

It will take more, though, than a President to do this. It will take Congress to propose and pass legislation and the courts to maintain policies and regulations making the capitalist system more equitable and sustainable.

Yes, it will take a democratic socialist movement to save capitalism from itself. Whodathunkit?

Here is the original post:
Will it take democratic socialism to prevent capitalism from imploding? - LGBTQ Nation

(Alan Maass)

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For Tarig Robinson, it was seeing those images of immigrant children lying on the floors of detention centers, huddled under aluminum blankets. I knew I couldnt just sit there, he says. I had to do something about it.Ad Policy

Robinson was in Washington, DC, and he heard about a protest planned for Northern Virginia, outside the home of Thomas Homan, the former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The action was organized by the Metro DC chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

The people there had a common sense of purpose, says Robinson. This seemed markedly different from other forms of political engagement Id grown up with, where it was all about this polite engagement with the powers that be. Here, we were going to this persons house, and we were confronting him with at least a tiny fraction of the terror that the Blackshirts he commanded presented to undocumented people.

That sense of purpose led Robinson to the Temple University chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), the campus wing of DSA, when he began classes there last yearand this past weekend to a frigid Chicago, where he and 250 other students convened in the Chicago Teachers Union Center for the YDSA Winter Conference.

(Alan Maass)

Sarandon Elliott, a student at the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville, was drawn to YDSA for similar reasons. I grew up in a working-class black neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia, and I just saw that capitalism has never worked for the working class, especially black working-class folks. Its time for a change, its time for radical change.

Others were won over by democratic socialisms recruiting officer in chief: Bernie Sanders, the oldest candidate in the presidential race, whose most fervent base of support is among the youngest voters. Amelia Blair-Smith was inspired by Sanderss 2016 campaign while she was a high school student in suburban Chicago. She joined DSA after Donald Trump won the 2016 election and sought out the YDSA chapter at Carleton College as a freshman one year later.

Many YDSA members are knocking on dorm room doors to build support for Sanders, and the enthusiasm for his underdog successes in the 2020 primaries ran through the conference. The featured speaker was Phillip Agnew, cofounder of the Florida anti-racist organization Dream Defenders and now an official surrogate for the Sanders campaign.

Phillip Agnew of Dream Defenders addressing the conference. (Alan Maass)

Still, canvassing for Bernie comes alongside other YDSA activism: At Temple, Robinsons chapter wants the administration to cut ties to food services providers that contract with privatized prisons and detention centers. At UVA, Elliott is part of YDSAs College for All initiative in coalition with other campus groups to make the school accessible to working-class students. Blair-Smiths first taste of activism at Carleton was the campaign to raise the campus minimum wage from $9.50 to $15 an hour.Current Issue

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For Kristen Cervero, a New York University student and fellow national YDSA cochair with Blair-Smith, all this is bound together in connecting students with democratic socialism. In the past or the present, whether it be Quebec or Chile, or here during the antiVietnam War movement, students and young people have always been in the forefront of fighting for these ideas, so its important for us to organize students who care about things like a Green New Deal and Medicare for All, and make sure that theyre engaged in the struggle.

YDSA has grown dramatically since 2016, with nearly 100 chapters at the start of this year. Joseph Tejada, who moved to New York City from the Dominican Republic two years ago, says YDSA is also expanding its reach from more affluent campuses to working-class schools like LaGuardia Community College, where he is in his fourth semester.

Given the challenges of organizing on a campus where many students go part-time because of jobs and family responsibilities or financial constraints, Tejada says it took a lot of work to grow the chapter from two core members to five since the start of the school year, with others who come to meetings occasionally.

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Students at a school like LaGuardia dont have a lot of faith in the system, Tejada says. When we talk with them, they mostly tell us theyre not political. So our job has mainly been to let them understand that they are indeed political. We start to ask about things that they care about, and most of the time, they end up understanding that they need to be politically engaged, though they may not immediately sign up to be a member.

(Joe Legault)

Talking about Bernie Sanderss campaign is a gateway for students to better understand what socialism stands for, says Tejada. But the conference attendees last weekend were quick to say that the conversation doesnt end there.

Its not about getting him elected and having him put this, this, and that in place, says Tarig Robinson. Its about building working-class power. He thinks Sanders, as the candidate with the most popular platform, will win. But its not all about him. He says it himself: Not me, us. Its about rebuilding the labor movement, and its about rebuilding a working-class movement capable of winning economic justice.

Cervero, speaking in one of the conferences final sessions, urged YDSA members to start thinking about how were going to run beyond Bernie, and what youre going to be doing on your campuses and in your communities to do that. Were going to be running straight into sites of strugglethats where we matter.

The rest is here:
The Future of Democratic Socialism Starts Here - The Nation