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Socialist Action is a nation-wide group of revolutionary socialists.  We fight for a society organized to satisfy human needs, rather than corporate greed. We seek to revitalize the anti-war, labor, student and other social movements, and to bring activists together from different backgrounds into a revolutionary party that can successfully challenge the wealthy elite. As socialists we seek to understand the theory of Marxism, but as an activist group, we also seek to put those ideas into practice.  Join us in the struggle to make a better world!   

 

 

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 800 Attend Antiwar Conf. in Albany:  The July 23-25 national antiwar conference in Albany, N.Y., was an extraordinary advance in the fight against imperialist war and for social justice. To an extent greater than in any other decision-making conference of recent decades, this was a broad, determined, and united political mobilization against all of the ongoing and threatened U.S. wars, interventions, and occupations. And by the same measure, the conference was the most thorough repudiation of the government’s “bail out the banks” antisocial agenda at home. continued

 

 On to April 9:  The war in Afghanistan is already the longest war in U.S. history. In Iraq the pain and suffering just goes on and on and on. Equally morally repugnant is the vicious propaganda campaign and illegal blockade against Iran. The U.S. flaunts all world opinion and continues to support the brutal Israeli regime: its apartheid walls, dark prisons, criminal blockades, and its nuclear arsenal bristling with weapons aimed at the other nations of the Middle East and South Asia. From Korea to Costa Rica, the U.S. military machine is in deadly motio.  continued

 

 Lynne Stewart Facing 30-Year Sentence:  The full force of the U.S. criminal “justice” system is today aimed at an innocent political prisoner, 30-year humanrights attorney and radical political activist Lynne Stewart.  continued

 

 FI Debates Party Building Strategy:  More than 200 delegates, observers, and invited guests from some 45 countries attended the 16th World Congress of the Fourth International (FI), Feb. 23-28 in Belgium. The FI is the world socialist organization founded in 1938 by Leon Trotsky with the help of co-thinkers worldwide, including James P. Cannon, the pioneer of American Trotskyism.  continued

 

 SA Candidate Needs Your Help:  Complaints regarding the politics of the Socialist Action campaign to elect Chris Hutchinson to U.S. Congress have led administrators at Manchester Community College to require campaign volunteers on the MCC campus to sit behind a table while collecting signatures to put their candidate on the November ballot.  Volunteers – including an MCC student – have been told that if they approach a person on campus to ask for a signature they will face arrest, making signature collection next to impossible.  We believe this represents a threat to free speech on all Connecticut campuses and to the ability of third party candidates to obtain ballot status.  We strongly urge supporters of free speech to contact the campus administrators below to express support for these rights on MCC’s campus.  continued

 

 World Blasts Israel for Murder of Gaza Aid Workers:  In the pre-dawn hours of May 31, Israeli commandos deliberately murdered at least 16 and perhaps as many as 29 members of the Free Gaza Flotilla who were bringing aid to the besieged people of Gaza. The bulk of the deaths and injuries occurred on the largest ship, the Turkish-registered Mavi Marmara. Firing (with bullets paid for by U.S. tax dollars) began even before the commandos boarded the ships, and continued once these new pirates of the Mediterranean rappelled down from helicopters.  continued

 

 Greek Workers Pay for Europe's Capitalist Bailout:  Workers in Greece have launched repeated general strikes against the attempt by Europe’s rulers to make them pay the price of the country’s economic crisis, and have inspired workers throughout the continent—indeed, the world—facing similar attacks.  continued

 

 Rand Paul & the Tea Party:  On March 19, libertarian and first-time candidate Rand Paul defeated the GOP establishment-backed Senate candidate, Trey Grayson, in the Kentucky primaries. Paul used his victory as a platform to deliver a message from the Tea Party, which fueled his campaign: “We have come to take our government back."  continued

 

 Action Proposal for United Antiwar Conference:  The prerequisites for ending the U.S. wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and re-orienting the nation’s priorities from empire building to solving the pressing needs at home are unity in action, massive mobilizations, inclusion of the broadest popular sectors of society, democratic functioning, and the construction of a mass social movement that operates independently of all political parties while seeking to influence their rank and file.  continued

 

 Arizona Anti-Immigrant Law Spurs Protests:  A huge wave of protest has risen up against Arizona’s new anti-immigrant law, SB (Senate Bill) 1070, which in effect legalizes racial profiling. A number of cities, among them San Francisco and Los Angeles, are considering calls for boycotting Arizona. In Chicago, immigrant-rights groups picketed a major baseball park, Wrigley Field, where the Arizona Diamondbacks ball team was playing. Reports are coming in of students and researchers withdrawing from the University of Arizona.  continued

 

 Environmental Disaster in the Gulf:  The seas are the key to life on this planet. Many in the environmental movement have come to recognize that capitalism is killing the planet, but the killing just turned from slow strangulation to a gunshot  continued

 

 Horizon Darkens for U.S. in Afghanistan:   The political justifications for the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan are unraveling rapidly. And its prospects are fading apace. The most eloquent demonstration of the bankruptcy of the occupation was the attack on a NATO convoy by an angry crowd reported in the April 26 issue of The New York Times. This was not an operation by the Taliban but an outburst of rage against the occupiers by local people.   continued

 

 A 'Left-Right' Antiwar Coalition?  In April, two well-known progressive figures, Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin and scholar of working-class cultural history Paul Buhle, went to press to champion a new “Left-Right Alliance Against War.” Such an alliance was the topic of a Feb. 20 conference held, according to Buhle, “auspiciously, the day after the Conservative Political Action Conference, at which Representative Ron Paul stole the show with denunciations of war.”.   continued

 

 America's Iraq - Chaos & Atrocities:  Iraq’s disputed and inconclusive election continues to draw commentary in the U.S. press that the country’s political crisis could “delay the withdrawal of American troops.” But the journalists who make this ominous observation never ask what American troops are doing there, and why it should be their obligation to solve the country’s political problems?   continued

 

 Debt Crisis in Greece:  In recent weeks, the main flashpoint of the global economic downturn has been Greece, where strikes and demonstrations continue to challenge attempts by the continent’s ruling classes to force workers to bear the burden of the country’s deepening debt crisis. But in the U.S. all eyes were on charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Goldman Sachs.   continued

 

 Kirghiz Revolt Signals Instability in Ex-USSR:  The April 7 uprising in Kirghizia (sometimes called Kyrgyzstan), the mass uprising that overthrew the corrupt tyrant Kurambek Bakiyev, himself the beneficiary of a mass uprising five years ago that overthrew his predecessor, Askar Akaev, was a new sign not just of continuing political ferment in that country but of growing instability in the former Soviet Central Asian republics. In the Russian-language Neweurasia.net of April 23, an article written under the pseudonym of Alpharabius compared the Kirghiz event with the Tadzhik civil war, which started in 1992 and lasted for four years.   continued

 

 200,000 Flood D.C. for Immigrant Rights:  On March 21, some 200,000 people, overwhelmingly Latino immigrants, gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to demand immigration reform. Thousands of people rode in on buses, traveling across the country so they could participate in the march in the nation’s capital, making it the largest demonstration to have taken place since Obama became president. They came with their friends, their families, their unions, their churches, and their local community groups, holding colorful banners, chanting, and demanding an alternative to the increasingly harsh climate that many immigrants face in the U.S. today.   continued

 

 Forward to the National Antiwar Conference:  Five thousand antiwar protesters in Washington, D.C., and 3000 in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, mobilized on March 20, the 7th anniversary of the murderous U.S. war against the Iraqi people, to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops and mercenaries from Iraq and Afghanistan.  continued

 

 Socialist Action Candidate for Congress:  Socialist Action is running Chris Hutchinson for U.S. Congress in Connecticut. Chris is running for office to encourage working people to begin taking political action in their own names and to build a massive fight-back against the corporate and government attacks we are enduring. He pledges to use his campaign to support demonstrations, strikes, and other mobilizations of working people in their own interests!  continued

 

 Obama Offer No "Change" for the Economy:  In his State of the Union speech, Jan. 27, President Obama did his best to repair the tarnished image of his administration and the Democratic Party. Following last month’s “disaster” in Massachusetts, in which Democrats lost a key Senate seat to a Republican newcomer, Obama had the task of recapturing disillusioned voters who a year ago had been enticed by his campaign promises of “change we can believe in."  continued

 

 Turning the Haitian Crisis Into an Occupation:  After a 7.0 earthquake hit the Haitian capital of Port au Prince on Jan. 12, U.S. President Barack Obama solemnly told the Haitian people two days later, “In this hour of need you will not be forsaken.” The quake was a catastrophe that may rival the deadly tsunami of 2004. At press time, the death toll is estimated at 200,000, and the number of affected or displaced persons is perhaps as high as 3 million to 3.5 million out of Haiti’s population of nine million.  continued

 

 Supreme Court Opens Door to Mumia’s Execution:  In a dangerous decision and a break with its own precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court, on Jan. 15, opened the door wide to Pennsylvania prosecutors’ efforts to execute the innocent political prisoner, murder frame-up victim, award-winning journalist, and world-renowned “Voice of the Voiceless,” Mumia Abu-Jamal.  continued

 

 U.S. Brokers Sham Accord at Copenhagen:  Given the greatly lowered expectations thrust upon us by world leaders in advance, it came as no surprise that the outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December did not include mandatory, binding, and enforceable greenhouse gas emission reductions. Thus, action was delayed once again.  continued

 

 The Health ‘Reform’ Bill:  On Nov. 7 the House of Representatives passed a health-care “reform” bill whose central plank was a massive giveaway to private insurers. It included a “public option” plan that would compete in an insurance exchange dominated by the profiteers, and would cover only a fraction of the number projected in earlier versions of the bill.  continued

 

 Death Squads Unleashed in Honduras:  The human-rights situation in Honduras is getting progressively worse, with reports detailing a right-wing offensive that includes not just harassment but kidnapping, torture, and murder. The international spotlight that shined on Honduras after the coup against democratically elected President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya has now disappeared, and the right wing that has traditionally controlled the country is now free to pursue leftists and pro-democracy activists without fear of bad press.  continued

 

 Lynne Stewart Jailed: The Nov. 16 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, to reject radical New York attorney Lynne Stewart’s appeal of her 2005 frame-up conviction on five counts of aiding and abetting terrorism is a legal and political atrocity. The court’s ruling is in line with the 9/11 witch-hunt “anti-terrorism” climate that has been orchestrated to stifle dissent, justify war and, in Stewart’s words, “chill the defense bar.” In interviews with the press, Stewart predicted that the ruling would set the stage for the upcoming U.S. prosecutions of Guantanamo prisoners. continued

 

 Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Kevin Cooper’s Appeal: On Nov. 30 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider the appeal of innocent San Quentin death-row inmate Kevin Cooper. The High Court reached its decision to reject Cooper’s petition despite overwhelming evidence of a massive police frame-up—laid out in dramatic detail in an unprecedented 103-page dissenting opinion signed by five judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  continued

 

 Report on LGBT Rights March in DC:  On Oct. 11, as many as 200,000 LGBT activists and straight allies descended on Washington, D.C., for the National Equality March (NEM), whose single demand on the federal government was “Equal protection for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states! Now!”  continued

 

 The Ultra-Right Pot Boils Over:  The appearance of right-wing mobs at town meetings organized by Democratic Party representatives to discuss the proposed health-care reform has set off alarm bells, in particular because of the blind fanaticism of the right-wing protesters and their threats of violence, including armed violence. These outbursts show many features of historic fascist developments—and on a scale as yet unseen in the United States. continued

 

 Workers Employ Sit-ins as Job Losses Mount:  There was a period of several months after Hitler invaded Poland of relative inactivity on the World War II European battlefield. Pundits called this the Phony War or, in a play on words with the strategy of blitzkrieg, sitzkrieg—a sitting down war. But there is nothing phony about the growing use of the tactic of sitzkrieg by workers on four continents. You don’t need lightning mobility to take control of a plant—just sit down and don’t allow any work to be done. continued

 

 2009 SA Political Resolution: The central institutions of world capitalism are being shaken by a severe worldwide financial meltdown not seen since the Great Depression of 1929. The massive U.S. banking failures, credit freeze and ongoing corporate bankruptcies have their parallels in literally every industrialized and semi-industrialized nation, as do the draconian measures inflicted on their working classes. The poor nations of the world, already reduced to grinding poverty and deprivation, suffer even more. Still at the beginning stages of a now universally expected deep and long recession, if not depression, its full and devastating impact remains a way off.  continued

 

 The Story of North Korea: The capitalist press is full of horror stories about North Korea of late.  Almost every day we are bombarded with sensational stories about North Korea’s nuclear program, the test firing of its ballistic missiles and its reclusive leader, Kim Jong-Il.  And hand in glove with these sensational stories, is a steady drum beat from Washington calling the use of any means necessary to bring this rogue state to heel.  continued

 

 S.A. Statement on Iran: A division in the ruling elite has opened up the way for an explosion of discontent with the reactionary clerical capitalist regime in Iran. The massive mobilizations clearly reflect the deep hatred of the government by the masses in Iran's largest city. The greater Tehran area accounts for about one-fifth of the total population of the country and is where most of the industry is based. It is the major working-class center. It was also the focal point of the 1979 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed crowned dictatorship of the shah.  continued

 

 Fund Workers’ Needs, Not Banks & Billionaires:  As part of his plan announced March 30 to "save" GM and Chrysler, President Barack Obama demanded that autoworkers give back even more of the wages and benefits they had won from the corporations in years past.  continued

 

 Zionism – An Ugly History:  The Zionist movement from the very beginning was aided and funded by capitalists who saw it as a preferred option to socialism and militant labor struggles, which they feared. Jews were heavily represented in the labor movement and the socialist parties of Europe. As an especially oppressed group within the working class, Jewish workers were more exposed to the brutality of capitalism, and were more likely to see a solution in socialism. continued

 

 Troubled History of Afghanistan:  The story of Afghanistan is in so many ways a tragic one. Afghanistan is one of the most impoverished nations of the world. It is also one of the most war-torn, most ravaged, and most beleaguered of nations. It is a nation that has been repeatedly beset by invasion, external pressure and internal upheaval since before the time of Alexander the Great. Its people are a people who have endured more than most of us can ever imagine. In fact, for many Afghans, all that has changed in the last one thousand years are the weapons which have been used against so many of them. It is therefore with great sadness and respect that we tell the story of Afghanistan.  continued

 

 Trotskyism & the Struggle Against Fascism:  Fascism is a term that is often thrown about rather casually, generally with very little understanding of its actual meaning.  While many liberals, and even some radicals, tend to use the term as simply a pejorative against people who are politically to the right of them, we as Marxists have a much more precise definition, and understanding, of what fascism truly is.   In our view fascism is a uniquely sinister and violent form of capitalist rule.  It is something that comes about when the ruling class of a nation is in an extreme crisis, when it feels that it can no longer afford the luxury of democratic appearances, when the threat from its own working class is so dire that it feels it must resort to the most brutal form of government in order to survive.  continued

 

 Workers’ Action Program to Confront the Crisis: The liberals propose to tweak the Wall Street Bailout on behalf of the amorphous “taxpayers” living on a mythical “Main Street.” Revolutionary socialists, in contrast, start from the needs of flesh-and-blood workers, and rely on their class power to challenge ruling class attacks.  continued

 

 

 

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