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Pushing a socialist agenda and saying they fear a Trump administration, thousands of demonstrators are expected to take to the Common tomorrow night to protest the inauguration.

Eight activist groups under the umbrella of Socialist Alternative have dubbed the event Occupy Inauguration. Their issues include:

Making Boston a sanctuary city while stopping deportations of illegal immigrants.

Stopping mass incarceration of minorities.

Legislating gay and transgender rights.

Taxing the super-rich like Trump to fund universal health care and free college tuition.

Im personally afraid of his presidency, said Keely Mullen, 22, of Roxbury, one of the organizers. One of the things that will counteract the fear is what is likely to be mass demonstrations all across the country. ... Trump doesnt have a mandate he didnt win the popular vote.

Mullen, a member of Socialist Alternative, said its important to stage protests around the country as well as in Washington on Inauguration Day.

Its not just in D.C. that people are resisting Trump, there are protests all over the place. We are seeking to strengthen the roots that we have in the city, she said.

As of yesterday afternoon, 2,200 people had indicated on the events Facebook page that they plan to attend while another 7,700 have said they might attend.

Other groups that are listed as co-sponsors include Massachusetts Peace Action, Boston Feminists for Liberation, Boston Democratic Socialists of America and Socialist Students.

The demonstrators say they will meet at the Parkman Bandstand at 6 p.m., march to the State House, around Beacon Hill and then end at City Hall.

Boston police said yesterday all groups involved obtained required permits. Cops will utilize additional police resources but said they dont expect any problems and urge demonstrators to use public transportation to avoid tying up traffic.

Joe Sugrue, 21 of Allston, a member of two groups participating, said large-scale protests have proven themselves to be effective tools in fighting against marginalization, discrimination and other forms of oppression people endure under capitalism and will certainly endure under the Trump administration.

Excerpt from:
Groups come together to protest Donald Trump, promote socialism in Boston - Boston Herald

posted at 9:01 pm on January 18, 2017 by John Sexton

Venezuelan socialism has been a huge success. Theres no doubting it now. Thanks to the brillianteconomic management of President Nicolas Maduro there are probably now more millionaires in Venezuela than any country in the world. From Fox News:

Amid rampant inflation, widespread shortages of everything from toilet paper to medicine and a failing economy, the Venezuelan government recently introduced three new bank notes into the market ranging from 500 to 20,000 bolivars.

But while somebody in Caracas can now carry 1 million bolivars in his billfold, in terms of U.S. currency those 50 bank notes are only worth only about $300 on the countrys black market and one bill is valued at less than $6.

Well, hyperinflation does have its problems but lets focus on the bright side. Lots of regular people can now say they are worth a million bucks. At least they could if anyone could scrape together that much cash after two years of economic collapse and privation.Chris Sabatini, a professor at Columbia University, tells Fox News, Theres going to come a time when theyre going to run out of space on the bill for all those zeros.

Even the transition to the new bills was badly mismanaged by the incompetent Maduro. In December heannounced that Venezuelans would have 72 hours to turn in all of the 100 bolivar bills in their possession. Since the 100-bolivar bill made up about half of all the bills in circulation at the time, people had just a few days to exchange 6.1 billion of them.

Then, when the exchange deadline began, the new bills people were supposed to get in exchange for the old ones hadnt arrivedat most banks. Eventually Maduro had to extend the deadline for swapping bills several times. So on top of spending every day waiting for hours in long lines to get basic supplies like food and toilet paper, Venezuelans now had to wait in long lines at the banks to get rid of their old money.

Did I mention that President Maduro is not very bright?

Continue reading here:
Socialism works! Venezuela a nation of millionaires - Hot Air

More than being factually inaccurate, it is genuinely fucked up to chalk all of socialist thought up to white men given the indelible role that racial minorities have had in shaping the movement. We need to stop doing this.

Redit Media

Prior to the civil rights movement and the congressional resorting of democratic committee chairs in the 70s, there existed an ideological heterogeneity within the two parties. To the south, conservative democrats relied primarily on white, blue collar voters to help enact what we might view as fiscally liberal policy while maintaining what, at the time, was socially conservative policy (i.e. racist, segregationist policy). In the northeast, there existed a constituency of liberal republicanism, which was weary of unions and very prone to deregulation of the financial industry while maintaining socially liberal policy positions. After the Civil Rights movement there was what is referred to as a political realignment of the parties.

This began in congressyoung new liberal Democrats in the House of Representatives began to push out the old southern Democrats from their committee chair positions, which had been gained by seniority within the House. By the beginning of the Reagan administration, the realignment had all but been completed, save the blue-dog democrats of the south and midwestwhich were essentially moderate democrats.

The term centrism is telling from the perspective of principle-based voting. The inability for the term to carry any true political meaning reflects, in large part, the inherently arbitrary nature of the disjunct between the social and fiscal realm.

Liberal pundits made great efforts during the Sanders campaign to portray the socialist movement as fundamentally an economically-driven ideology. In doing so, the narrative implicitly relied on a disjunct between the ideology of social and fiscal realms. The notion that these two realms are necessarily separate helped bolster their ill-founded conjectures that the modern socialist movement was composed of cisgender, straight, white men who were unable to fathom the intersecting nature of oppression, due to economic oppression being the only form of oppression facing these individuals. Relying on intersectionality as a seemingly diametrically opposed mode of privilege analysis, they continually focused on the economic nature of the movement as precluding any space for the existence identity-based politics.

The nature of fiscal policy is that is intrinsically linked to the social standing of certain groups, and visa versa. Take for example, a policy of reparations. This is usually clumped into social policy although, arguably, it is fundamentally a fiscal oneit provides a means by which the federal government would redistribute material wealth. Another example is womens access to health care: although it might be viewed by unaffected parties as being a social one (particularly the ready access to birth control and abortions), it is fundamentally a fiscal policy insofar as it creates an immense financial burden on women who attempting to seek adequate health care.

On the other hand, a policy of financial deregulation or an income tax scheme may be quickly determined to be a matter of fiscal policy, but such policy nonetheless has profound social implications. In particular, we tend to view the policy decisions surrounding the regulation or deregulation of certain markets are being distinctly fiscal in nature. When the derivatives market was deregulated, we chose to view that a form of purely fiscal policy. The deregulation of the subprime housing market was also framed as being a matter of fiscal policyeven when such policy is going to have a markedly different affect on poor populations within the United States than on upper middle class or upper class populations. American rhetoric is not fractioned over whether or not those poor populations are, largely, also divided by racial lines.

The interplay between this disjunct and a perversion of so-called Marxist theory is worth noting, as well. There formed a false dichotomy between class distinction and other forms of identifying features, this false dichotomy is what, in large part, supported the bulk of the Bernie Bro narrative. The Bernie Bro was a (mostly fictional) young, white, male political actor who supported Sanders due to his misogynistic rejection of the female candidate and only adopting an overtly socialist position due to his whiteness, the latter being a presumption that socialism inherently valued class above all other distinctions.

Polls repeatedly showed that, in particular, young women actually outnumbered young men in their support of Sanders. This was true of nonwhite voters as wellwhat tended to differentiate the vote was not race nor sex, but age. In fact, polls showed that Sanders actually lead in the polls with young (aged 1829) black and hispanic voters. That is to say that more young black and hispanic voters were voting for Sanders than Clinton. If the Bernie Bro was meant to be the young, white and male there sure seemed to be a lot of nonwhite and female (and nonwhite female) voters who did not fall into this clearly ill-fitting yet relentlessly embraced mold put forth by Clinton-supporting pundits.

Deemed brocialists, this myopic description of the varied constituency of Sanders supporters also served as a misguided and malformed description of the modern socialist movement. The implicit notion that was continually put forth was, as aforementioned, the belief that socialists disregard any identifying properties other than classeffectively rejecting social change in lieu of fiscal change. To be certain, I cannot speak for all Sanders supporters nor can I fully ascertain what each self-identifying socialist believes the role of race, gender, sex, sexual identity, sexual orientation and each other potential identifying factor should be within a socialist movement. What I do know is that a large part of socialist rhetoric not only embraces movements for racial, gender and LGBT equality, but that its largely inextricably intertwined with them.

The presumption that economic grievances are somehow reserved to white men who have no other means of expressing oppression is a harmful one. Any attempt to divvy up distinctions and lay bare compartmentalization of any socio-economic strata tends to rely on false dichotomies and a failure to identify proper cause-and-effect. This is disingenuous at best and more likely just plain purposefully misleading. Some of the greatest socialist writings hail from the depths of the minority tiers of privilege. It is an affront to any social minorities to erase the profound role they played in shaping modern socialist theory.

Angela Davis wrote Women, Race and Class in 1981. Davis articulated the plight of the black woman in America and in so doing spoke of the need for socialist change:

Like their men, Black women have worked until they could work no more. Like their men, they have assumed the responsibilities of family providers. The unorthodox feminine qualities of assertiveness and self-reliancefor which Black women have been frequently praised but more often rebukedare reflections of their labour and their struggles outside the home. But like their white sisters called housewives, they have cooked and cleaned and have nurtured and reared untold numbers of children. But unlike the white housewives, who learned to lean on their husbands for economic security, Black wives and mothers, usually workers as well, have rarely been offered the time and energy to become experts at domesticity. Like their white working-class sisters, who also carry the double burden of working for a living and servicing husbands and children, Black women have needed relief from this oppressive predicament for a long, long time.

Davis ends this chapter by concluding,

The abolition of housework as the private responsibility of individual women is clearly a strategic goal of womens liberation. But the socialisation of houseworkincluding meal preparation and child carepresupposes an end to the profit-motives reign over the economy. The only significant steps toward ending domestic slavery have in fact been taken in the existing socialist countries. Working women, therefore, have a special and vital interest in the struggle for socialism. Moreover, under capitalism, campaigns for jobs on an equal basis with men, combined with movements for institutions such as subsidised public health care, contain an explosive revolutionary potential. This strategy calls into question the validity of monopoly capitalism and must ultimately point in the direction of socialism.

The contention that the formation and flourishing of capitalism was dependent on slavery is not new. Speaking of capitalism as a foundational aspect of the modern world,Greg Grandin explains:

Slavery created the modern world, and the modern worlds divisions (both abstract and concrete) are the product of slavery. Slavery is both the thing that cant be transcended but also what can never be remembered. That Catch-22cant forget, cant rememberis the motor contradiction of public discourse, from exalted discussions of American Exceptionalism to the everyday idiocy found on cable, in its coverage, for example, of Baltimore and Ferguson.

The reality being that slavery and all the trappings of racial oppression which founded and enabled and perpetuated the systemand capitalism, as a mode of economic governanceare so fundamentally entwined as to have been impossible to have existed and to continue existing without one another. Socialism is a response not just to class inequity, but to the profound social realities of marginalization.

The national oppression Chicano people and other minorities face, and the exploitation of the whole working class, can only be eliminated by making revolution and eliminating their sourcecapitalist rule.

The attempt to parse through these issues without being cognizant of the ever-present role of the capitalist in creating these social strata is doomed to fail. The reality is that there is a very real and inextricable relationship between the social groups (i.e. racial minorities, sex, sexual orientation, etc.) and the economic realm of which they inhabit.

So, perhaps an early means of dispelling this sort of bullshit rhetoric would be to render pass the use of terms such as fiscally liberal/socially conservative or whatever bizarre means by which one might find their ideology most fitting. For the distinction is not only illusory but ultimately harmful.

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Socialism, Intersectionality And The Myth Of The Social/Fiscal Disjunct - Huffington Post

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Then-mayoral candidate Tom MacMillan speaks at a debate in the University of Southern Maines Hannaford Hall in 2015. (File photo by Troy R. Bennett)

A high school band has driven two Portland politicians to socialism A high school bands performance at President-elect Donald Trumps inauguration has struck the wrong chord with some on Maines far left. Tom MacMillan, a 2015 candidate for Portland mayor, and Seth Baker, who lost a November bid to represent the city in the state Senate, say theyre leaving the Maine Green Independent Party because a party leader will be attending the presidential inauguration.

Instead of sticking with a party that is unwilling to keep its own leadership in line, MacMillan said he and Baker would be joining the Socialist Party, which is not currently on the ballot in Maine.

That was the last straw, said MacMillan. Its really a betrayal of values.The thing is, Green Secretary Ben Meiklejohn says he isnt going for political reasons. Hes a music teacher and director of the Madawaska school band, which was invited to perform in the Make America Great Again! Welcome Concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Jan. 19. Trump will be sworn in the following day.

The students are really excited, said Meiklejohn, who served on the Portland school board from 2001 to 2007. I think it would be an injustice to deny them the opportunity they would get because of my political views.

The idea that Meiklejohn is doing his job and providing his students with what might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity didnt satisfy MacMillan. He said the performance is normalizing something that should never be normalized and pointed to other bands that have refused to play inaugural events. Jake Bleiberg

A group of Portland singers organized a street choir to perform at protests The Portland Street Choir is a breakaway mobile unit of the more established singing group The Phoenix Chorale. Conceived before the election, the ad-hoc a cappella ensemble formed to add harmonic heft to marches, vigils and human rights protests, Kathleen Pierce writes.

Cookies for a cause More than 15 chefs and bakers from greater Portland are donating baked goods on inauguration day to raise dough for Planned Parenthood. The owner of Little Giant, Briana Volk, launched Fridays cookie drive on Facebook today. The goal is to raise $6,000 by selling $40 boxes of badass treats. Cookies from Aurora Provisions, to Tandem Bakery to the brand new Congress Street eatery LB Kitchen, will be baked in the name of health care for all. All the money raised will go directly to Maines Planned Parenthood health centers. Kathleen Pierce

TOMORROW: The South Portland Police Department is holding an open meeting to discuss its plan to outfit officers with body cameras. The meeting will be at 7 p.m. at the police department, 30 Anthoine St. Heres Jake Bleibergs explanation of its policy around the new technology.

Netflix and no chill Among the many proposed tax changes in LePages budget is a 6 percent tax on digital subscription services, like Netflix, Hulu and Spotify.

Darren Fishell reports:

The governors budget proposal reaches further into the digital realm, too, requiring rental platforms such as Airbnb to collect taxes for Maine rentals booked through what the budget bill defines as a transient rental platform. The budget separately raises the lodging tax to 10 percent, from 9 percent.

[The proposal] extends a push by the state and federal government to capture revenue from online retail sales. A 2013 state law broadened the states power to collect tax from such retailers.

Future Red Sox stars will stay in Portland until at least 2020 The Portland Sea Dogs and Boston Red Sox announced the extension of their player development contract for an additional two years. With the extension, the Dogs will continue as the Soxs Double-A Eastern League affiliate through the 2020 season. Troy R. Bennett

Portland novelist says hes been gentrified off Munjoy Hill In Downeast Magazine, writer Ron Currie Jr., author of God is Dead and Everything Matters, laments how economic changes in the city forced him into exile in Libbytown. The young artists and cooks and dog walkers are being weeded out. Ever more yupsters and slick urban types prowl the brick sidewalks, and ever more hyper-modern architecture dominates sightlines, writes Currie. Troy R. Bennett

From John Hodgman:

Scientists say the northeast U.S. will warm 50 percent faster than the rest of the planet Thats based on a new study from University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which also found that the United States will reach a 2 degree Celsius warming 1020 years before the globe as a whole, according to the Guardian.

Got any interesting story ideas, suggestions or links to share? Email Dan MacLeod at dmacleod@bangordailynews.com, or tweet @dsmacleod.

If someone forwarded you this newsletter, click here to sign up. Or just text PORTLAND to 66866. As always, like BDN Portland on Facebook for more local coverage.

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A high school band has driven two Portland politicians to socialism ... - Bangor Daily News

HUNDREDS OF thousands of people are going to be protesting Donald Trump's inauguration and marching to send a message for women's rights and other demands in the next few days. And there's every reason to believe these mobilizations won't stop anytime soon.

The Donald groping his way to power will dominate mainstream headlines, but the big news for the left is that socialism is re-emerging as a systemic alternative to capitalism. Thousands of people are asking whether it's time to join socialist organizations in order to resist Trump--and the social system that gave rise to his villainy in the first place.

Of course, there are important shades of difference in how people define socialism--ranging from Bernie Sanders' advocacy for increasing taxes on the wealthy so we can expand Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and make public college free; all the way up to Eugene V. Debs' proposal for the "utter annihilation of the capitalist system and the total abolition of class rule."

But wherever you fall on this spectrum, it's a pleasure to welcome so many new people to the socialist movement.

There's a lot to talk about, but I want to begin by urging you, if you've not already done so, to join an existing socialist organization or start one of your own. Being an "individual socialist" is like being a fish out of water. You can have the best analysis of the world as you read about what's happening on the Internet, but you have no power to do anything about it unless you're organized.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Some Starting Points for Socialists

How should you choose? I would argue that any group you consider joining or initiating should agree on these common tasks and shared responsibilities for all socialists:

-- First, we must do everything we can to agitate against each one of Trump's attacks, as well as every concession to him by his not-so-erstwhile opponents among the leaders of the Democratic Party.

We are in immediate need of united fronts to defend immigrants from deportation, safeguard abortion and reproductive rights, stand up against racist police violence, protect public education, fight for our unions and save the planet. Unity in struggle doesn't have to wait for unanimity of politics--even as each component force within our broad movement retains the right to respectfully, if forcefully, advocate for its own unique beliefs.

-- Second, all socialists share a common duty to educate a new generation of activists about what those who have fought before have to teach us.

The socialist movement overflows with inspiring and ingenious lessons, and as the Russian revolutionary Lenin once put it, "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." Any prejudice against study and debate will doom us in advance. How can we hope to overturn the most powerful and destructive economic system in world history if we deny the wisdom of the past?

Furthermore, we aren't alone in our individual countries. Internationally, from Brazil to Greece to South Africa to Spain, socialists are building organizations and movements. Ours must be a global movement of solidarity and sharing.

-- Third, while we organize in the short term, we must learn to sustain movements and organizations.

Donald Trump is dangerous, but it isn't 1933--that is, we aren't on the verge of a fascist dictatorship taking power, as the Nazis did in Germany. Trump will do real damage, but he will also overreach and expose his vulnerabilities. And in the crises we know are coming, there will be opportunities to turn the tide.

But we should not be so nave as to think that we will win quickly or so shortsighted as to trade away the organizations and movements we build for the promise of a simple "return to normalcy" under some status-quo Democratic administration.

We are in a decades-long fight for the future of humanity and the planet, and we must learn to act like it.

Having made these general points, I want to focus on a specific aspect of political strategy: Namely, what sort of socialist organization or party will strengthen, rather than smother, social and class struggles? This is not the only area up for debate, but I think it is a particularly relevant one today.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Time to Resist Is Now

Let's begin with something all socialists should agree on: as the great abolitionist Fredrick Douglass put it, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress." If you rely on the elite of society for social justice, you'll be waiting a long time. Decades of union busting, climate catastrophe and mass incarceration should have driven this point home.

Obviously, it's easier to invoke past struggles than organize new ones, and there is a danger that politicians will manipulate our legacy for their own purposes. Remember President Obama's inspiring references to suffrage and civil rights organizers? Or his more recent call for people to "grab a clipboard" and start organizing? In the end, his presidency relied more on drone strikes than knocking on doors.

Despite this--or, really, because of the consequences of disappointment in Obama--many people are developing a healthy appreciation for the necessity of organizing movements to change the world. Writing in The Guardian, Kate Aronoff rightly sounds the alarm that only by "mustering more unity and vision than progressives in the United States ever have" will we be able to confront Trump's reactionary agenda.

At the same time, Aronoff assumes that, like it or not, social movements have no choice but to turn to the Democratic Party when it comes time for elections. While this point of view can be argued forcefully and effectively by those honestly committed to radical change, I think it deserves to be challenged--and not only on tactical grounds.

Why? Here it's useful to recall Karl Marx's insight that workers and the oppressed must develop their own movements and struggles, and they must control their own political parties and organizations, in order to liberate themselves from the profit system.

If workers struggle for their own emancipation in the social sphere, but hand over politics and elections to (at best) marginally sympathetic leaders of a party financed by business interests, they will never learn how to run society collectively.

Socialism isn't simply the end "goal." It's not just a series of worthy reforms. It is a living movement in which ordinary people learn to organize democratically. Marx made the case that "for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men [and women] on a mass scale is, necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution."

To steal a phrase from Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, for workers to create genuine socialism, the democratic means to organize and control their own movements and actions must be "baked in" to their own political party.

This, I would argue, ought to form the starting point for our discussion of how to understand the relationship between socialist organization and mass movements. It is, undoubtedly, a minority point of view today. In fact, Aronoff's view is broadly shared by many socialists in the U.S. today, even if there are important distinctions in their positions.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Can the Democratic Party Be Reformed?

First and foremost, supporters of Bernie Sanders advocate a close link between building movements and the success of the Democratic Party.

The socialist movement owes Sanders a debt of thanks for--in a rare instance of courage in American politics--making the forthright defense of his brand of socialism a topic of mainstream political discussion. For millions of people, Sanders has helped connect ideas of economic, social, racial and climate justice to the concept of socialism.

At the same time, he has a particular definition of the "political revolution." He proposes that unions and social movements expend their energy on participating in and reforming the Democratic Party. In a speech endorsing Rep. Keith Ellison to be chair of the Democratic National Committee, Sanders urged his supporters to "transform the Democratic Party from a top-down party to a bottom-up party, to create a grassroots organizations of the working families of this country, the young people of this country."

Now you might think that starting at the top of the Democratic Party is an odd place to begin building a "bottom-up" movement if the aim is to create a genuinely democratic party. The solution to this riddle lies in the strict limits that Sanders sets on the sorts of changes he thinks are needed in the Democratic Party.

Ellison's subsequent remarks make this abundantly clear. By all accounts one of the most liberal members of Congress, nevertheless, his plan to "reset" the Democrats consists of little more than "listening sessions" and making it possible for immigrants rights and Black Lives Matter activists to "express themselves electorally" when it comes time to vote.

And that day isn't far off, according to Ellison: "We're off to a good start because Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton combined to create the best platform the Democratic Party has ever head."

So for Sanders, joining the socialist movement means, in a fairly straightforward fashion, participating in the Democratic Party and working within its structures in the hopes of pressing it to adopt more progressive policies.

However, as Lance Selfa, author of The Democrats: A Critical History, demonstrates, the Democratic Party isn't susceptible to easy change. Despite lots of public hand-wringing, for example, Senate Democrats continue to "curry favor with their corporate backers"--including potential 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Corey Booker, who joined Trump's most enthusiastic partisans in voting to ban the import of cheaper prescription medicines from Canada.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Time for Something New?

Unfortunately, understanding the political apparatus of the Democratic Party as a "field of struggle" for unions and social movements, as long-time organizer Bill Fletcher suggests, has a long and powerful tradition in the United States.

On the other hand, Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, recently concluded, "I hold little hope that a political revolution will occur within the Democratic Party without a sustained outside movement forcing truly transformative change. I am inclined to believe that it would be easier to build a new party than to save the Democratic Party from itself."

Here, Alexander is pointing to a key link in the chain for socialists--that is, the goal should be to construct a political party that strengthens our social movements and advances working-class struggle. The starting point should not be "how can we reform the Democratic Party?" Rather, it ought to be how can we give that "sustained outside movement" a political voice of its own?

Fortunately, for the first time in decades, Sanders' campaign itself--even if we disagree with his decision to run as a Democrat--along with the experience of social movements from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter to Standing Rock, and the inability of the Democratic Party to offer an inspiring alternative to Trump, have all combined to create a dynamic and multi-sided discussion about what next.

One of the most talked-about contributions to this conversation is "A Blueprint for a New Party," written by Jacobin magazine editorial board member Seth Ackerman.

His innovative and closely researched contribution begins by insisting that a "true working-class party must be democratic and member controlled. It must be independent--determining its own platform and educating around it." This is critical, as it breaks the cycle of subordinating working-class struggle and social movements to a party controlled by hostile powers.

Ackerman warns that traditional leftist notions of "working within the Democratic Party" cede "all real agency to professional politicians." In Ackerman's estimation, Sanders' Our Revolution group seems sadly poised to fall into the "trap" of "becoming a mere middleman, or broker, standing between a diffuse, unorganized progressive constituency and a series of ambitious progressive office-seekers."

As a way out of the electoral quicksand, Ackerman proposes a particular kind of "inside/outside" strategy in which he suggests we organize a working-class political party that uses the Democrats' ballot line where convenient, but remains formally independent--preserving its right to run on alternative ballot lines, for instance.

In other words, rather than the Democrats using social movements and unions for their own selfish purposes, Ackerman proposes that socialists turn the tables and use the Democrats.

Although intriguing, I would argue that Ackerman relies far too heavily on technical maneuvers, even putting a good deal of faith in a new party's ability to bend existing Federal Elections Commission regulations and Supreme Court decisions to our needs.

Yet the system doesn't just accidentally happen to be rigged. It's actively rigged. Any loopholes we might find in the short term could be quickly closed in time-honored bipartisan fashion. Defending their domination of "American democracy" is one of the few things that Democratic and Republican politicians agree on these days.

Aside from these legal questions, Ackerman himself expresses skepticism about whether or not "a significant part of the labor movement," in its current state, can be convinced to join in--a prerequisite for success in his opinion. One problem with this model, I believe, is that it puts the cart before the horse. The question is: Why isn't the labor movement, so badly mistreated by the Democrats, willing to strike out in a new direction?

Adolph Reed and Mark Dudzic, both leaders in the now defunct attempt to start a Labor Party in the U.S. in the 1990s and 2000s, suggest this is due to the "strategic defeat" of the labor movement itself over these last decades.

This is true as far as it goes, but it doesn't answer the question of how to build a socialist alternative today--which takes us back to our question about the relationship between struggle and organization.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Working-Class Struggle Is the Key to Building a Mass Socialist Party

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor identifies a good place to start when she describes how the Black Lives Matter movement developed in response to racist police violence:

[T]he formation of organizations dedicated to fighting racism through mass mobilizations, street demonstrations and other direct actions was evidence of a newly developing Black left that could vie for leadership against more established--and more tactically and politically conservative--forces.

The Black political establishment, led by Obama, had shown over and over again that it was not capable of the most basic task: keeping Black children alive. The young people would have to do it themselves.

Taylor doesn't begin by asking how Black Lives Matter might impact existing liberal forces. Rather, she identifies how an entirely new force came into being. This is what is important in the first instance.

Applying this extraordinarily important lesson to the attacks we will face in the coming years, labor historian Kim Moody warns:

There will be resistance. Rather, there will be increased resistance. And this will offer new possibilities for organizing, even in a more hostile atmosphere. At the same time, many, including not a few on the socialist left, will run for cover in the Democratic Party's "Big Tent," arguing that now is not the time to take on the Democrats, that the great task is to elect a Democratic Congress, any Democratic Congress, in 2018 to rein in Trump just as the Republicans blocked Obama after 2010, and so on.

But such a political direction will only reinforce the Democrats' neoliberalism, digital-dependency and failed strategies. We had better bear in mind what this approach has not done for the past four decades and will not do in the coming years.

Nothing of what Taylor and Moody write should be construed to mean that elections don't matter. The point is that building socialist organization cannot begin within the confines of American electoral law and then work backwards from that. Instead, we must build up social movements and unions that eventually grow powerful enough to challenge--and break--the bipartisan duopoly's lock on "politics."

Along the way, socialists may support genuinely independent candidates and organize referendums, like those calling for a $15 an hour minimum wage, for sanctuary cities, and so on.

It goes without saying that this is no easy task, but the potential for the revival of a mass socialist movement is just as alive today as it was back when Debs one a million votes for president in 1912. Any other disagreements aside, Chris Maisano of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) hits the nail on the head when he writes that:

a revival of working class organization is sine qua non for a broader revival of the Left...Continuing to see the working class in all its occupational, racial, ethnic, and sexual variety as the leading historic agency for radical change is not metaphysics--it's a recognition of the enduring realities of life under capitalism. The Next Left would do well to keep this in mind.

We are in for a rough ride in the coming years, but the truth that Maisano points to will only become more apparent as Trump grafts his macho nationalism and xenophobia onto the neoliberal order.

Objective circumstances will tend to discredit politics as usual in the eyes of millions. However, Trump's election also shows that if we don't organize a left-wing alternative, then despair and frustration can win the day. Organizing that alternative is our common challenge.

For my money, I hope you consider joining the International Socialist Organization because I believe the ISO clearly understands that socialist organization must flow from social and working-class struggle. We are dedicated to the three common tasks outlined above, and we are capable of putting our principles into action.

Besides that, the ISO stands by Rosa Luxemburg's belief that there is an "indissoluble tie" between reform and revolution. As she put it, "The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim."

Having said that, you should make an informed decision. Comrades from other organizations--such as DSA, Solidarity, Socialist Alternative, the Philly Socialists, Left Roots and the Kentucky Workers League, among others--are making real contributions to the revival of the socialist movement.

Political and tactical differences remain among the socialist movement. But that is nothing to fear. Disagreements can be debated fraternally and tested in practice on one simple condition: you join the socialist movement. We are not yet at the moment where a socialist party of tens of thousands can easily arise. However, there are indications that the necessary precursors--growing socialist organizations and rising struggle--are emerging.

Now is not the time to sit on the sidelines and hope history turns back from the abyss. Now is the time to join the fight for a socialist future.

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Socialist organization in the time of Trump - Socialist Worker Online