The Corresponder

The Newsletter of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism

September 2024

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September23rd

8pm ET



Election 2024: What Are Our Choices and Why?

Sponsored by Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (Socialist Education Project)

Join in the debate as Jay Jurie and Ellen Schwartz, 2 CCDS members debate the choices in the 2024 Election

Register here

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckdeurqzooG929EVzgJaWI50FcILUldOx7

Profiles in Political Cowardice:

Tempest and the National Leadership of DSA

Liberation Road and Max Elbaum

Sep 9

By Max Elbaum

Fighting effectively for social transformation is hard. Socialists and revolutionaries don’t square off against our class enemies on any kind of level playing field. The country’s political structures are formidable barriers to radical change. We don’t have the luxury of determining the terrain on which we fight or the timetable on which battles will be waged. We have to deal with the specific circumstances shaped by forces far more powerful than we are.

This means, among other things, that practicing radical politics means making a lot of tough choices. At almost every juncture, our options are not what we might wish for. Every course holds both opportunities and pitfalls. There are no easy roads and no guarantees.

So, we make the best assessment of the landscape and balance of forces that we can, choose a course of action, and then throw ourselves into implementing it. When a particular campaign or stage of struggle wraps up, we look at the choices we made, learn from what we got right and what we got wrong in both conception and execution, and make the next set of tough choices. 

In late August 2024, the tough choices facing US socialists are front and center. An authoritarian MAGA bloc that incorporates openly fascist elements at all levels of its apparatus is bidding for enough power to impose its white Christian nationalist agenda on the country. The most powerful current in the opposition offers an alternative agenda on numerous important issues but is complicit in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and has caved to right-wing fearmongering on immigrant rights. A general election is approaching whose outcome – especially at the presidential level – will be decisive in determining whether MAGA or anti-MAGA holds federal power for the next four years. Throughout the socialist left – and more broadly in almost every sector of the electorate – people are wrestling with what to do when they enter the voting booth. There is a choice to be made. 

Tempest: Ready, Set… Punt 

The Tempest Collective was formed largely by former members of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) soon after the ISO disbanded in 2019. Tempest describes itself as “an organizing and educational project. Our goal is to put forward a revolutionary vision that is clear and understandable, that weighs in on strategic and tactical questions, and that offers concrete guidance about how to put a consistent set of working-class politics ‘from below’ into practice today.”

Tempest has published two articles by Collective members on the 2024 elections this month. Let’s see what “concrete guidance” is offered in those pieces.

Author Ashley Smith writes:  

“…we must be crystal clear: The two candidates and parties are not the same and it is an ultra-left mistake to characterize them that way. The greater evil is obviously Trump and the far-right GOP. He, not Harris, is threatening the deportation of 13 million human beings and the criminalization of queer people. Harris and the Democratic Party are lesser evils by comparison. But that does not exonerate them of being evil."

Smith’s article also asserts:

"In this epoch of political instability, socialists must develop a strategic approach to elections. We are not anarchists; we do not dismiss elections as irrelevant to the class struggle. Electoral politics are one of the battlefields of the class struggle."

Putting those ideas together, the article says:

"…what should the Left do? First of all, we should not argue with individuals about what they do at the ballot box. That is not the key question and debate to have. Instead, we must argue that activists, social movements, and unions should not spend our time, money, and energy campaigning for Harris as the lesser evil." (The other Tempest article, by Collective member Natalia Tylim, offers the same punchline: “I want to stress that I’m also not going to spend my time or resources arguing with individuals about how they vote as individuals out of their fear of Trump.”

Wait a minute. The left, and those paying attention to what left groups and leaders think, is debating electoral strategy. That strategy is not limited to – but certainly is commonly understood to include – a stance on who to vote for or against. An electoral strategy that refuses to take a position on who people should vote for is not a strategy; it’s a refusal to make a tough choice. Or in Tempest’s terms, to offer “concrete guidance” to those you seek to influence.

What we have here is a new twist on an old adage:

When the going gets tough, the tough…. change the subject.

DSA Leadership Redefines the Word “Bold”

The new “Workers Deserve More” program for 2024 recently announced by the national leadership of DSA is similar in essential respects. In a vein similar to Tempest, the program declares:

“We recognize that a second Trump victory would be catastrophic for the international working class. Relying on the Democrats to defeat Republicans isn’t working.” 

In the preamble, the DSA leadership lays out their view of dilemma US voters face and offer their guidance as to how to proceed:

“In the 2024 elections, working people have few good options. In most races, Americans will have the choice between far-right Republicans and corporate Democrats. In both cases, workers lose, and our politicians will remain controlled by their corporate donors, not the ordinary people who voted for them…. Neither major party is capable of advancing a positive program for the 2024 elections that meets the needs of the majority of Americans. That’s why the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is presenting a bold alternative course of action. In our 2024 program, “Workers Deserve More,” we hope to bring together millions of people throughout the U.S. to fight for a true democracy where working people have control over their own lives, their government, and the economy.”

What follows is a list of 18 demands/programmatic goals (Medicare for All, Tax the Rich, Free Palestine, etc.).

Again, wait a minute. Isn’t something missing? That list of programmatic goals is good. But aren’t similar lists put forward by many progressive and left organizations? And is fighting for them really an “alternative” to taking a stand on who people should vote for in 2024? Doesn’t the DSA text imply that prospects for making headway toward those goals would be immeasurably more difficult under a Trump administration than a Harris one? Isn’t calling it an “alternative” just another way of saying we don’t like the options so we’re taking a pass on making a choice? What is “bold” about that?

And how about some candor about why no recommendation is being made? Pretty much everyone in or anywhere near DSA knows that members of the organization – including members of the national leadership body – are badly divided on who to vote for in 2024. Is there a reason not to come out and say so? Isn’t one of the hallmarks of “democratic socialism” supposed to be that it rejects the practice of a left organization or party projecting an image of monolithic unity to the working-class public when that is not the case? Where is the credibility in an organization saying it hopes to “bring together millions of people across the US to fight for a true democracy” when it won’t offer any guidance on who workers should vote for two months from now or explain one of the reasons it is sitting this one out?

“Revolutionary Phrase-Making”    

It’s no secret that I advocate a vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 to prevent the MAGA authoritarians and fascists from taking control of the federal government. I’ve argued in numerous articles and webinars that advocacy of abstention or a third-party vote is a profound error that underestimates the danger of MAGA, misunderstands the way working-class and revolutionary organizations can build political power, and does nothing to strengthen our immediately urgent or long-term Palestine solidarity efforts. (See here, here, here, and here.) But a certain respect is due to those who advocate abstentionism or third-party voting: they put their politics out there and fight for them. That’s a serious way to do politics.

Respect is also due to most issue-based and constituency-based organizations that do not offer a who-to-vote-for recommendation. Matters regarding the specific issue which is their main focus, the sentiments within their base, and/or internal differences in groups whose main focus is not electoral need to be taken into account. And the main thing is that such groups do not promote themselves as offering a revolutionary vision for the US working class or as building a new party that will lead the working class to socialism. 

Organizations that do self-identify that way and issue pronouncements about the tasks of socialists in today’s class struggle have greater responsibilities. They need to be held to a higher standard. Part of their responsibility is to make tough choices, or in cases when they cannot make a choice, straightforwardly explain why. 

There is an unfortunate history of organizations not doing so and, like Tempest and the DSA national leadership today, substituting “bold” radical pronouncements for biting the bullet and making a difficult choice. There is even a term for this practice – “revolutionary phrasing-making” (or “the revolutionary phrase”) – coined by none other than V.I. Lenin:

“Revolutionary phrase-making…is a disease from which revolutionary parties suffer…when the course of revolutionary events is marked by big, rapid zigzags. By revolutionary phrase making we mean the repetition of revolutionary slogans irrespective of objective circumstances at a given turn in events, in the given state of affairs obtaining at the time. The slogans are superb, alluring, intoxicating, but there are no grounds for them; such is the nature of the revolutionary phrase.” 

“Superb, alluring, intoxicating…” – perfect for battles on twitter or Facebook and the publication of “bold” programs. Unfortunately, outside of actual revolutionary situations, practicing working class politics usually involves making choices between less-than-ideal options. No radical organization or party will get those choices right every time. But organizations with an aversion to choosing, and especially those that encase their taking a pass in clouds of radical rhetoric, are avoiding rather than engaging with objective circumstances and are traveling a dead-end road. 

Max Elbaum has been active in peace, anti-racist and radical movement since joining Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the 1960s. He is the author of Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che(Verso Books, Third Edition, 2018), a history of the 1970s-‘80s ‘New Communist Movement’ in which he was an active participant. He is currently a member of the Convergence Magazine Editorial Board.

Thanks for reading Liberation Road Notes !



Rev. Dr. William Barber II speaks to thousands of moral activists during the Mass Poor People's & Low-Wage Workers' Assembly & Moral March On Washington DC & To The Polls on Pennsylvania Ave on June 29, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Repairers of the Breach)

It’s time to get out the vote ahead of this

year’s crucial elections!

Bishop William J. Barber, II

With just nine weeks until one of the most crucial elections in

recent history, we need your support.  

It’s not just the presidential candidates who are on the ballot – we also have the control of state houses, city councils, and everything in between at stake in this election. We need to go to the ballot box to win living wages, health care for all, guaranteed voting rights, and a livable planet.

But we can’t win any of these issues without making the voices of poor and low-wage people heard. For too long, those in power have ignored the needs of the least of these, preferring to cater to the wealthy and well-connected instead.

But there’s hope.

Following the 2020 elections, we studied the poor and low-wage vote. What we found is that in so-called battleground states where the election was won by thin margins, poor and low-wage voters made up many times the margin of victory.

In key battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, poor and low-income voters made up 34 to 45 percent of the voting population. And yet many of these people did not vote in the 2020 election. 

For instance, Biden won Georgia by almost 12,000 votes in 2020. And in North Carolina, he lost by 74,000. But in both states, more than a million eligible low-income voters did not vote in those elections. 

Poor and low-income people make up a huge potential swing vote – what we call the sleeping giant – and we need your help to awaken it.

When we talk to poor and low-income voters, the number one reason they give us for why they don’t vote is because nobody speaks to them. That’s why we’re working to mobilize at least 15 million poor and low-wage infrequent voters across this country ahead of this year’s elections. 

When poor and low-wage people go to the ballot box and make their voices heard, those in power will be forced to listen. 

From September 13th through September 15th, we’ll be hosting a National Canvassing Weekend where we will be conducting door-to-door canvassing, tabling, and other outreach in targeted communities to mobilize poor and low-income infrequent voters. 

Will you help us mobilize voters during the National Canvassing Weekend? Click here to sign up with a Poor People’s Campaign state coordinating committee near you.

This week, county officials in North Carolina will start mailing absentee ballots to eligible voters. The time is now to wake the sleeping giant of poor and low-wage voters.

JOIN THE MOBILIZATION 

Contact your state Poor People’s Campaign to join our mass mobilization effort. 

Click here to visit Vote.org to check your registration, register to vote, request an absentee ballot, check what’s on your ballot, and get election reminders to make sure you’re where you need to be on election day.

You can also help spread the word among your friends, family, and social networks.

Send this email to people you know

Share the Vote.org link on social media

Republican-Led Group Launches $11.5 Million Swing States Campaign Against Trump

September 7, 2024 carldavidson 

Reprinded from Beaver County Blue

By Ian Karbal

Penncapital-Star

Sept 3, 2024 – Pennsylvania drivers might begin seeing more billboards featuring ordinary people, like a white-haired, red-shirt wearing man named “Mike,” and a simple message: “I’m a former Trump voter. I’m a patriot. I’m voting for Harris.”

The billboards are paid for by a group called Republican Voters Against Trump, a project of the Republican Accountability PAC, that is hoping the voices of ordinary voters will sway conservatives and independents to support Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, in November.

On Tuesday, the group announced a new $11.5 million campaign that will feature voters like Mike on billboards, online ads and tv and radio commercials in Pennsylvania and other swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.

But the bulk of the spending, $4.5 million, will target Pennsylvania, which could end up being the decisive state in the 2024 election.

John Conway, the D.C.-based director of strategy for Republican Voters Against Trump, is leading the campaign (He claims no relation to perhaps the most famous never-Trumper, George Conway).

“Our campaign is built on the idea that you need to establish permission structures in order to get voters who have historically identified as Republican to vote against their party’s nominee,” Conway said. “The ads themselves are coming right from the same people we’re targeting with these campaigns: center-right former Trump voters who don’t want to vote for him again.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.



Conway says the group has collected the testimonies of roughly 300 voters who previously cast ballots for former President Donald Trump, but who no longer support him. They constitute the heart of the new advertisements.

Wednesday, September 4, 2024

AND THE LAST TWO MONTHS OF THIS ELECTION SEASON

Let's Mobilize Around a Progressive Agenda

by Harry Targ

Chart above is from the War Resisters League

1.A systematic progressive economic and political program that prioritizes the fulfillment of human needs.

2.A unified political movement that organizes around this program or at least builds an alliance of Left groups that share a common humane peace and justice vision even as groups work on particular issues.

3.A grassroots organizing strategy that in word and deed does not prematurely identify critics with pejorative labels. Certain sectors of the population already embrace a progressive agenda, others are not yet decided, and a smaller percentage have embraced rightwing fascism.

The task of the left should include mobilizing those who agree, convincing the unconvinced, and finally respectfully seeking to change the minds and actions of the minority who are reactionary (including those who believe only violence will protect them).

From the War Resisters League

4.A progressive movement that reaches out to, participates with, and learns from the literally millions of people that are rising up all across the globe. At this stage in human history the campaigns of people of color and various nationalities in the Global South matter. And these movements parallel those of the poor and oppressed in the United States as well.

5.Finally prioritizing in this progressive project an anti-militarist, anti-war agenda. It is clear that the “permanent war economy” constructed after World War II robbed the world’s citizens of resources and hopes for a better future. A just world is a disarmed world, a world of peace.

Addendum from Senator Bernie Sanders:

In a recent speech in Detroit, President Biden laid out an agenda for the first 100 days of his second term. (It should be embraced now by Kamala Harris and Tim Walz) including:

·                  Restoring Roe v. Wade

·                  Signing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act

·                  Expanding Social Security and Medicare

·                  Ending all medical debt

·                  Raising the minimum wage to a living wage

·                  Passing the PRO Act to enable workers to organize

·                  Banning assault weapons

·                  Leading the world on clean energy

·                  Lowering childhood poverty by restoring the child tax credit

·                  $35 insulin cap for all and lowering prescription drug costs

·                  Building more affordable housing

·                  Investing in childcare and elder care

A Black Woman Communist Candidate: Charlene Mitchell’s 1968 Presidential Campaign

By E. James West  September 24, 2019 

Reprinted from Black Perspectives

This piece is the third installment of E. James West’s article series on the 1968 Presidential Campaign. Click these links for part one and part two.

“Racism Chains Both,” CPUSA National Black Liberation Commission (Library of Congress: Hugo Gellert)

In the previous installment of my article series on African American presidential politics, the 1968 campaign, and the Black radical imagination, we left Black comedian Dick Gregory at his March 1969 inauguration as the nation’s “president-in-exile.” It was a fitting end to a wildly entertaining campaign, which provided a window into the intersections of civil rights, political activism, and celebrity politics during the second half of the 1960s. But what of a figure whose campaign was in many ways more significant than Gregory’s, but who for a variety of reasons was largely ignored by both the Black press and American mainstream media?

This installment focuses on Communist Party candidate Charlene Mitchell, who became the first African American woman to run for President of the United States. Mitchell was born in 1930 in Cincinnati, Ohio, although her family relocated to Chicago when she was a child. Both parents had been born in the South and had moved northwards as part of the first wave of Black migration during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Her father was a laborer and railroad worker, who, like many African Americans in Chicago during the 1930s, became involved in local politics and eventually joined the Communist Party. At the age of 13, Mitchell joined American Youth for Democracy, the youth wing of the American Communist Party, which had formerly been known as the Young Communist League until political pressure from the federal government led to the adoption of a more “patriotic” name during World War II. Her first experience of activism came as part of an attempt to end segregated seating practices at the Windsor, a popular theater on Chicago’s Near North Side.

As scholars such as Erik McDuffie and Lisa Brock have argued, Mitchell emerged as one of the party’s most influential leaders during the 1950s and 1960s, helping to develop the party’s connections with African American labor activists and pushing for a greater engagement with Black diasporic and Third World politics. In his landmark 2011 study Sojourning For Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism, McDuffie suggests that Mitchell was one of if not the most important leader in a network of Black radical women who moved in and out of the Left during the early Cold War period. She travelled widely, connecting with activists such as Claudia Jones, a member of the Leading Committees of the Community Party in London, and Yusuf Dadoo, a leader of the South African Communist Party with strong connections to the South African Indian Congress and the African National Congress.

Despite the party’s declining influence — brought on by a variety of factors including federal suppression, internal disputes, and the growing influence of the postwar civil rights coalition and the emergence of the New Left — Mitchell remained an important party figurehead and respected organizer. By the onset of the 1968 presidential campaign, she was a logical candidate for the Communist Party ticket, and was officially nominated at the party’s national convention at the Diplomat Hotel in New York in July 1968, alongside Michael Zagarell, the party’s national youth director. In her acceptance speech, Mitchell thanked her comrades for their support and expressed her intentions to “put an ‘open-occupancy’ sign on the White House lawn.”¹

While media outlets such as the Boston Globe and the New York Times acknowledged Mitchell’s nomination, her status as an African American woman was largely seen as indicative of the party’s failure to produce a “serious” candidate. The Boston Globe declared that the Communists had “nominated a black woman as presidential candidate and a man too young to hold the office of Vice President” — equating the constitutional unsuitability of Zagarell (twelve years shy of the required age of 35) and Mitchell’s de-facto unsuitability as a candidate who was both Black and female.² Other outlets such as the Chicago Tribune saw Mitchell’s nomination as little more than a symbolic gesture to “dramatize what the Communists perceive to be the nation’s major discontents.”³ The African American press was similarly uninterested in the significance of Mitchell’s nomination, choosing to focus their attention on the more flamboyant public displays of Dick Gregory and Eldridge Cleaver.

To be sure, Mitchell’s campaign stood no chance of success — a reality Mitchell acknowledged in a press conference held after her nomination, where she quickly shifted attention away from the question of vote tallies and towards public engagement with party politics. Mitchell argued that the campaign’s success would depend on whether it could “present to the American people the [party’s] views and platforms in a way that the American people can begin to understand what Communists see as some of the solutions to some of the problems in our country.” However, the dismissal of her campaign underplayed the significance of her role within the party and her long history of political activism. From a different perspective, it relayed an uncertainty as to how to address the subject of Black presidential politics outside the lens of celebrity activism.

The low-key nature of Mitchell’s campaign was neatly encapsulated in an article by Harvard Crimson journalist Nicholas Gagarin after visiting her headquarters at the Frederick Douglass Book Store in Boston. The Crimson painted a picture of an amateur and out-of-date operation hidden amidst old copies of the Daily World and half-filled cups of stale coffee, where Mitchell spent”‘almost as much time helping friends by watching the store and answering the telephone as she does campaigning.” However, Gagarin’s profile also conveyed the sincerity of Mitchell’s political beliefs and her critique of Black activists connected with the New Left and the moderate wing of the civil rights struggle. Mitchell contended that “what we need is a revolutionary transformation … replacing white capitalism with black capitalism isn’t going to solve the problems of poverty: the problems of poverty are rooted in the nature of capitalism itself.”



A longtime Communist Party member, labor activist, and community organizer, Mitchell’s 1968 campaign helps to connect the anti-colonial and Black liberation praxis of early Cold War activists such as Claudia Jones and Louise Thompson Patterson with Black feminism during the Black Power era and the first wave of Black female elected officials, which emerged during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Furthermore, Mitchell’s experiences can be read as an important precursor to the more widely documented efforts of Shirley Chisholm to secure the Democratic nomination in the 1972 presidential race. While Mitchell was fundamentally further to the left than her Democratic counterpart, the mainstream and African American media response to her nomination was framed by the same “twin jeopardies of race and sex,” which would be dramatically amplified by Chisholm’s campaign four years later. In a campaign overshadowed by the exploits of Black male third-party candidates, Mitchell also provides an important reminder of how Black women struggled to be taken seriously as political leaders and to carve out new spaces for the imagination and articulation of Black radical politics outside of the two-party system.

1. “We Come Forward.” Acceptance Speech upon CPUSA Nomination for President, July 1968. ↩
2. “Reds Pick President Candidate,” Boston Globe, 8 July 1968, 12. ↩
3. “The Communist Ticket,” Chicago Tribune, 30 July 1968, 8. ↩

Buy this book in honor of incredible woman!

click HERE to purchase

CCDS REAFFIRMS ITS OPPOSITION TO UNITED STATES SANCTIONS AND OTHER INTERFERENCE IN VENEZUELA INCLUDING ELECTIONS



Peace and Solidarity Committee

Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS)

“And so, on election day, just after polls closed and before any official results had been released, Machado and Washington, as if in concert, began to bleat about fraud, building on a line of attack that they had been establishing for months. Machado’s followers immediately took to the streets and attacked symbols of Chavismo…” V J Prashad, https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/venezuela-elections-2024.

PRESS RELEASE: “National Lawyers Guild electoral observers praise fairness, transparency of Venezuelan election process; condemn the U.S. backed opposition’s refusal to accept the outcome of democratic election.”

https://nlginternational.org/2024/07/press-release-national-lawyers-guild-electoral-observers-praise-fairness-transparency-of-venezuelan-election-process-condemn-the-u-s-backed-oppositions-refusal-to-accept-the-outcome-of-de/

“The US secretary of state has said there was "overwhelming evidence" Venezuela's opposition won the recent presidential election.” (BBC. August 2, 2024, )

End the Interference in Venezuela

The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) joins with people all over the world to demand that the United States stop interfering in the internal affairs of the sovereign nation of Venezuela, including its elections.

In addition, we demand an end to US efforts to isolate Venezuelan diplomats from normal international interaction, stop efforts to blockade and weaken the Venezuelan economy, and end support for internal opposition elements who are engaging in violence and physical destruction in the streets of Caracas.

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-12th District) speaks to the Pennsylvania delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago Aug. 22, 2024 (Capital-Star photo by Kim Lyons)

Beaver Lawrence Central Labor Council PA Holds

9th Annual Human Rights Banquet

September7th, 2024

This event co-sponsored by the NAACP was a wonderful event again this year. Attended by about 250 people who joined together, both Black and white, enjoyed good company and good food. Many community organizations sponsored tables.Attendees were encouraged to join them in their Breaking the Chains of Poverty Program.

The keynote speaker for the evening was Fred Redmond, Secretory-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO. Redmond was born and raised in Chicago. He started working a Reynolds Metal Company and became active United Steel Workers, In 1998 he came to Pittsburgh to work for the USW.

For over a decade he has been a guiding force championing workers on the job and in the communities. He spent his life fighting for racial justice in the work place.As the chair of the AFL-CIO Task Force on Racial Justice he focused on taking concrete action to address America's long history of racism and police violence.

He gave a stirring address to the the banquet attendees largely focused on the upcoming 2024 election and encouraged everyone to get out and vote. This is the most important election of our lives! Everyone need to get out and vote for Kamila Harris to beat back facism,

At the end of his speech he go a stand ovation!

**Press Release: Israeli army kills American International Solidarity Movement volunteer during demonstration

in Beita, Nablus**

Media enquiries: ismtraining [at] riseup.net

During the weekly demonstration in Beita, Palestine, on the morning of September 6th, 2024, the Israeli army intentionally shot and killed an International Solidarity Movement (ISM) human rights activist named Ayşenur Eygi.

The demonstration, which primarily involved men and children praying, was met with force from the Israeli army stationed on a hill. Initially, the army fired a large amount of tear gas and then began using live ammunition. Ayşenur, who we consider a martyr in the struggle, was the 18th demonstrator to be killed in Beita since 2020. She was an American citizen of Turkish descent.

The Israeli forces fired two rounds. One hit a Palestinian man in the leg, injuring him. The other round was fired at international human rights activists who were observing the demonstration, striking a human rights activist in the head. Eygi died shortly after being transported to a local hospital in Nablus.

Fellow ISM volunteer Mariam Dag (a pseudonymn) was on the scene, and witnessed the fatal injury of her comrade. She said:

“We were peacefully demonstrating alongside Palestinians against the colonisation of their land, and the illegal settlement of Evyatar. The situation escalated when the Israeli army began to fire tear gas and live ammunition, forcing us to retreat. We were standing on the road, about 200 meters from the soldiers, with a sniper clearly visible on the roof. Our fellow volunteer was standing a bit further back, near an olive tree with some other activists. Despite this, the army intentionally shot her in the head.

This is just another example of the decades of impunity granted to the Israeli government and army, bolstered by the support of the US and European governments, who are complicit in enabling genocide in Gaza. Palestinians have suffered far too long under the weight of colonization. We will continue to stand in solidarity and honor the martyrs until Palestine is free.”

A friend of the slain human rights activist and fellow volunteer with the ISM who does not wish their name released said:

“I don’t know how to say this. There’s no easy way. I wish I could [say] something eloquent, but I can’t through my sobbing tears…. my friend, comrade and travel partner to Palestine, was just shot in the head and murdered by the Israeli Occupation Forces. May she rest in power. She is now one of many martyrs in this struggle.”

Beita is a village in the West Bank where just weeks ago Amado Sison, another American volunteer, was struck by live ammunition in the back of the leg. Beita has a long history of resistance against Israeli occupation and has been a focal point of violence directed towards Palestinian residents by Israeli forces. Located near several illegal Israeli settlements, the village holds regular demonstrations. Due to escalating aggression by the Israeli forces, residents are currently refraining from marching or chanting, instead gathering together on the land and praying.

In recent years, Beita has seen ongoing demonstrations, particularly against the construction of new illegal Israeli outposts on the lands of the village. For example Evyatar outpost, on Sabih Mountain, has been established on Palestinian land. In June, the Israeli security cabinet approved the ‘legalization’ of Evyatar, causing the people of Beita to strengthen their popular resistance

.

Residents of Beita recently restarted weekly Friday demonstrations to resist the further theft of their land. While protests had nearly ceased since October 7th 2023, due to escalating violence from Israeli occupation forces, there was a renewed push on July 5th 2024, when dozens of Palestinians, accompanied by international and Israeli activists, marched from the adjacent mountain, through the valley, and towards the outpost.

In recent months, international activists have experienced a sharp increase in violence from Israeli forces and the occupation must be held accountable for this. The woman martyred today was an activist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led organization that provides protective presence and solidarity in the West Bank. The ISM was founded in 2002, and has maintained a steady presence in Palestine ever since, supporting the Palestinian popular struggle against the occupation.

Our comrade is added to the 17 Palestinian protesters already slain in Beita:

**Palestinian demonstrators martyred in Beita**

– Mohammed Hamayyel, 15 (March 11, 2020)

– Islam Dwikat, 22 (April 9, 2020)

– Karam Amin Dwikat, 17 (October 15, 2023)

– Issa Sliman Barham, 40 (May 14, 2021)

– Tareq Ommar Snobar, 27 (May 16, 2021)

– Zakaria Maher Hamayyel, 25 (May 28, 2021)

– Mohammed Said Hamayyel, 15 (June 11, 2021)

– Ahmad Zahi Bani Shamsa, 15 (June 16, 2021)

– Shadi Ommar Sharafa, 41 (July 27, 2021)

– Imad Ali Dwikat, 38 (August 6, 2021)

– Mohammed Ali Khbeissa, 27 (September 24, 2021)

– Jamil Jamal Abu Ayyash, 32 (December 1, 2021)

– Fawaz Ahmad Hamayyel, 47 (April 13, 2022)

– Immad Jareh Bani Shamsa, 16 (October 9, 2023)

– Mohammed Ibrahim Adili, 13 (November 23, 2023)

– Maath Ashraf Bani Shamsa, 17 (February 9, 2024)

– Ameed Ghaleb Said al-Jaroub, 34 (March 22, 2024, died of a bullet wound injury to the head sustained on August 21, 2023)

A CCDS Strategy for BDS



by Rod Such

As a national organization, CCDS has member activists across the country, making it a natural fit for nationwide BDS campaigns. But CCDS is also uniquely situated for locally organized BDS efforts, especially due to its blend of veteran activist experience and the diversity of its membership, ranging from people in academia to the labor movement, antiracist struggles, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and those long involved in various international solidarity movements. 

CCDS members also bring a unique anti-imperialist perspective to all of these campaigns, and this becomes increasingly important for the Palestinian BDS movement due to the unique role of U.S. imperialism as the prime backer of the Zionist apartheid regime.

Currently, there are at least two national BDS campaigns where CCDS could play a role. One was just announced by the National BDS Committee targeting Chevron Corporation, a prime supplier of oil and natural gas to the state of Israel. Its current strategy is to target Chevron gasoline station franchises (as opposed to Chevron-owned stations) with the hope that franchise owners will switch to another brand of gasoline, thus putting pressure on Chevron to end its close ties with Israel.

Another national BDS campaign is being undertaken by Jewish Voice for Peace under the slogan Break the Bonds. Its target is Israeli government issued bonds. JVP hopes to make this a multilayered campaign that commits individuals to renounce any bonds they may have been given or inherited (a commonplace in the Jewish community as bar or bat mitzvah gifts), civil society institutions such as trade unions and faith groups that have their own investment portfolios, especially for pensions, and local and state governments that include Israeli bonds in their investment portfolios.

The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a national coalition organization, also has numerous national campaigns that it supports, including Chevron and Break the Bonds. Its Web site https://uscpr.org/ is an important source for active campaigns, networks, and resources. “End U.S. Military Funding to Israel” and “Demilitarize U.S. to Palestine” are two of USCPR’s active campaigns, and they are closely aligned with the focus of CCDS, especially the Peace and Solidarity Committee.

My recommendation would be for CCDS to choose only one national campaign to work on for it to be effective. However, I also strongly urge individual CCDS members to consider local BDS campaigns if there is one active in a member’s area. The old saying, “all politics is local” applies here, but is also relevant if a CCDS member is already politically engaged locally and has strong community and activist ties. This is especially true where a strong left/progressive movement already exists locally and has influence in local government, opening a path for a local divestment campaign. 

We need to recognize that local efforts may be an uphill battle for people living in red states where repressive legislation targeting BDS already exists. However, that in itself is an important challenge inasmuch as anti-BDS laws are fundamental attacks on democracy, especially First Amendment rights. Taking on these laws therefore becomes part of the struggle against the fascist threat. And this struggle in turn gives hope to all those marginalized by white nationalism, such as migrants, Muslims, and people of color. We also can’t forget the blue oases in many red states where local city governments struggle against the reactionary tide in state legislatures.

Also, let’s keep in mind that while anti-BDS laws are repressive, they are not yet draconian. Many states have passed legislation that requires contractors with state government to pledge they will not support BDS, but otherwise these laws don’t affect the free speech rights of average citizens. A good source for where these laws exist and what they actually do is Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights https://palestinelegal.org/ 

BDS is, of course, in and of itself a strategy, a nonviolent method that addresses issues of Palestinian unity and the solidarity of people around the world with the Palestinian liberation struggle. Within BDS, I would argue that there is a distinction between bringing political and economic pressure on Israeli apartheid. 

At this juncture political pressure is paramount. Once we change the political narrative, economic pressure is sure to follow. By political pressure, I mean challenging the Democratic Party establishment’s close alliance with Israel by widening the influence of The Squad and others independent of the Democratic Party, introducing an anti-imperialist perspective to the reasons for the U.S.-Israeli alliance, and educating people about the justness of the Palestinian cause. I outlined some of the reasons for political BDS in this article https://www.palestinechronicle.com/what-would-gramsci-and-said-do-a-socialist-perspective-on-bds/ 

The U.S.-Israeli alliance is currently hegemonic, but cracks in the wall are starting to appear. Let’s guard against “paralysis by analysis” and jump in, both nationally and locally. 

Palestine: From Shifting the Discourse to Changing US Policy

by Max Elbaum

Article published:

September 5, 2024

The movement opposing Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has transformed this country’s conversation about Palestine. This achievement, and the passion and political creativity displayed since October 2023, opens the path to forcing a change in US policy—and to putting internationalism at the center of the progressive movement’s agenda.

Eighty percent of Democrats support a permanent ceasefire and somewhere around 63% support conditioning weapons aid to Israel. But the Biden administration is still sending the bombs that Israel uses to kill children.

The Lancet, one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, estimates that the death toll from Israel’s assault on Gaza as of June 2024 would approach 186,000, 7–9% of Gaza’s total population. The equivalent figure for the US would be 27 million people dead.

Though it is a tribute to all who have protested that the Democratic presidential nominee now uses (and may even in a way believe) the phrases “Palestinian dignity” and “Palestinian self-determination,” the Democratic Party leadership still will not allow a Palestinian-American to speak their own truth from the Democratic Convention podium. And the US Department of Justice is bringing terrorism charges against six Hamas leaders while letting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu slide, despite his pending arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges.

Such are the reminders of how far we still need to go to end US complicity with the genocide taking place in Gaza. Every single day it continues is a human catastrophe.

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Yet it should bolster rather than diminish our sense of urgency to realize that the movement for a ceasefire and Palestinian rights has accomplished a great deal over the last year. If we can combine that sense of urgency with effective strategy and persistent action, we can make even greater headway in the pivotal weeks and months ahead.

(For weekly updates on what is happening in Gaza, the Middle East, and international and US politics, as well as listings of actions to take, follow Arab Resource and Organizing Center analyst Samer Araabi’s reports on the weekly Palestine Solidarity Announcements program; recordings of all past calls are posted here.)

The pro-Israel narrative has been shattered

The US movement opposing Israel’s war on the people of Gaza marks a turning point. It is a watershed in solidarity with Palestine on what has been a third rail of US politics since World War II. It has made breakthroughs in accurately naming what is taking place in Gaza and in targeting Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid as the root cause of the violence that afflicts all those who live in historic Palestine and constantly threatens war throughout the Middle East.

As early as last December, evidence presented by South Africa to the International Criminal Court convinced the Court that it was “plausible” Israel was violating the Genocide Convention. Since then the scale of carnage has only grown and with each passing day more is revealed about the scale of death and destruction. When someone like former Israeli soldier and Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Omer Bartov changes his mind and decides that in fact Israel is committing genocide in Gaza (and compares the actions and mentality of the Israel military to that of the German military in World War II) the case is open and shut for anyone not in active denial.  

The combination of this carnage (seen in real time across the world’s cellphone screens) and the outpouring of pro-Palestine activism has transformed the country’s conversation about Israel, Palestine, and US policy. The main arguments that defenders of the Israeli ethnostate relied upon pre-2023 (already under strain by the consensus among global human rights groups that Israel is an apartheid state) have collapsed. The claims that Israel is a “light among nations,” “the only democracy in the Middle East,” deploys “the most moral army in the world,” is a peace-loving state in a supposed “bad neighborhood”—all these lie in tatters.

The movement for a ceasefire and an end to US military aid to Israel has captured the moral and intellectual high ground. It has transformed the thinking on Palestine among younger people, within the trade union movement, and within the voting base of the Democratic Party. It has effectively put an end to PEP—Progressive Except Palestine—as a viable stance among partisans of social justice. It has filtered upward to reshape the view of congressional staffers and mid-level administration officials.

A corner has been turned, there is no going back

This tectonic shift in US public opinion will only get broader and deeper as more information emerges about the scale of the Gaza genocide. And dissatisfaction with US backing for Israel will grow as Palestine solidarity efforts increasingly make clear how essential the arms shipments and political/diplomatic cover the US provides Israel are to all the killing.

Israel’s hardline defenders—the AIPAC-anchored Zionist establishment, the Christian Zionist movement, the military-industrial and police-prison complexes, and the white Christian nationalist anti-Semites who now dominate the Republican Party—will double down on denial. But already they have all but abandoned engaging in debate about Israel’s actions. AIPAC spent close to $100 million targeting pro-Palestine candidates this year but never even mentioned Israel in their attack ads, a clear sign that they know their position is a losing one. Instead, the hard Zionist and MAGA factions in the pro-Israel camp push for repressive legislation and crackdowns on protests, while deploying charges of anti-Semitism  against Palestine solidarity activism (and also as a cudgel against higher education and other institutions that they regard as threats to white Christian hegemony). The pro-Israel forces that function in the Democratic Party, while collaborating to a degree with Republican-led repression, now claim to be “working night and day” for a ceasefire even as they approve sending bombs to Israel.

Both the repression and the posturing are infuriating. But both indicate how much pro-Palestine sentiment has gained in the battle for public opinion. And though there are certain to be ups and downs on that battlefront in the months and years ahead, a corner has been turned. For the new generation especially, there is no going back.

Getting from here to policy change

The challenge now is to turn the sea change in public opinion into a corresponding change in US policy. This is no easy task in a country where all kinds of structural barriers exist to block majority rule, and where foreign policy is especially shielded from popular input, held tightly by a groupthink-practicing cohort (“the blob”) that functions inside the executive branch.

Yet there are vulnerabilities that a movement determined to change US foreign policy can and must exploit. A key indication of what Israel’s defenders are most worried about is their constant stress on the importance of keeping support for Israel a “bipartisan” project. It’s right there on the AIPAC website landing page: “We are more than 4 million pro-Israel Americans from every congressional district who are working to strengthen bipartisan support for the US-Israel relationship.” And it’s evident in the millions of dollars AIPAC has thrown into Democratic primaries to prevent critics of Israel from being nominated and elected. AIPAC’s fear is that if the Democratic Party shifts away from its longstanding support for Israel, changes in US policy will be the inevitable result.

On that they are right. And their fears are well-grounded: thanks to pro-Palestine activism going back long before October 2023 and exploding in scale and intensity since, a shift in the Democratic Party’s stance on Israel-Palestine is already well underway.

Change in the Democratic Party is well underway

In 2021 for the first time more Democratic voters expressed sympathy for Palestine than for Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict. In spring 2023, the initial narrow tilt had widened: 49% expressed more sympathy with the Palestinians compared to 38% for Israelis. As of May 2024, 56% of Democrats believed Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

Crucially, these sentiments have been finding political expression. A cohort of pro-Palestine congresspeople – the Squad along with several other progressives – began to congeal after the 2018 election. Growth of sympathy for Palestinians at the congressional level was slow but steady, and by May 2024, 94 members of Congress  (all Democrats) had come out publicly for a ceasefire. And soon after that, ideas about putting conditions on or ending US military aid to Israel begin to be seriously considered by numerous Democratic members of Congress.

There were wins and losses in the Democratic primaries. An avalanche of AIPAC money defeated Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, but Summer Lee and Omar Ilhan beat back AIPAC-funded challengers and AIPAC gave up altogether on challenging Rashida Tlaib. The spotlight all these races put on AIPAC’s practice of using money from MAGA donors to intervene in Democratic Party races further galvanized the grassroots “Reject AIPAC” movement and has made resistance to AIPAC common throughout the progressive movement.

Opposition to Israel’s actions, almost unheard of in the labor movement only a few years ago, has swept through major unions. By Summer 2024 the AFL-CIO and unions representing a majority of US union members had called for a ceasefire. And in late July seven unions representing six million workers published an open letter to President Biden demanding that he cut off military aid to Israel until it ends its brutal assault on Gaza.

In June the NAACP called for ending arms sales to Israel to force a ceasefire, adding the voice of this often conservative-on-foreign-policy organization to the many calls for the US to put pressure on Israel for a ceasefire coming from Black faith leaders. 

And through it all, the growing weight and leadership of the Arab, Palestinian and Muslim communities made itself felt, from street protests to meetings (both held and boycotted) with administration policymakers to debates about the Gaza genocide’s impact on the 2024 presidential election. (James Zogby’s weekly Washington Watch columns are a good place to track much of this; see this column in particular for his reflections on “the long journey to Arab American empowerment.”)  

Uncommitted at the DNC

The work of the Uncommitted National Movement at the DNC pushed all this further and gave it focus. Though the movement did not win its main demand for a commitment to an arms embargo on Israel, or even its call for a Palestinian-American speaker, it had a significant presence that led to expanded support among delegates and considerable media attention. Uncommitted was represented by 30 delegates to the Convention based on the 700,000-plus votes it received, but by the end of the Convention it had convinced 300 Harris delegates to join them in signing a pledge as “ceasefire delegates.”

Both strategist Waleed Shahid and journalist Lisa Featherstone, writing in Jacobin, compared Uncomitted’s presence to that of Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic Convention. The MFDP did not win its demands at that time but laid the groundwork for future civil rights victories. Shahid concludes that Uncommitted’s work “signals the building of a coalition that transcends individual battles to redefine the party’s stance on Palestinian human rights,” and adds: 

“This coalition — uniting progressives, racial-justice advocates, labor unions, elected officials, Palestinian and Arab organizers, and Jewish organizations — is the blueprint for a new Democratic majority. One that says no more bombs, no more weapons for Israel’s military aggression against Gaza, and no more complicity in the occupation of Palestine. The next few weeks, months, and years, hopefully under a Harris administration, will be about solidifying and expanding this coalition.“

(On what was and was not won at the DNC, see also “Palestinians Will Speak Whether Democrats Want Them to or Not” by Y.L. Al-Sheikh in The Nation and “Palestine Won at the Democratic Convention” by James Zogby in his column for the Arab American Institute.)

The “inside” component of a peace and Palestine solidarity effort cannot succeed without constant pressure from “outside” in the form of protests, agitation, civil disobedience, and creative mass actions. The energy galvanized and the message sent by such protests over the last 10 months have been essential to keep a spotlight on the carnage in Gaza and US complicity with it, move public opinion, and force every elected official and public figure to take a stand.

But the demands raised in streets, encampments, and vigils must take root in and grow “inside” the Democratic Party and the halls of Congress if they are to be won. There will inevitably be tensions between those focused on building “outside” protest and those taking on the messy slog “inside.” The more communication and coordination is forged between inside and outside (and some groups are involved in both components) the more effective the overall work can be. The Not Another Bomb campaign launched by the Uncommitted Movement, which can and should gain traction throughout the electoral season and if necessary beyond, is one where inside and outside synergy has great potential.

At the cutting edge of internationalism

Right now, the Palestine Solidarity movement is at the cutting edge of the fight for peace, respect for international law, and a shift away from global domination and militarism as the anchors of US foreign policy. The Gaza genocide is seen throughout the world as an egregious example of the global dehumanization of peoples in the global South. It is the most blatant example of US double standards in posing as the great defender of a ‘rule-based international order”; in practice the US has one standard for its enemies or non-aligned countries and a totally different one for its allies and puppets.



In this context, the fight for Palestinian rights is simultaneously a fight for peace, for human rights for all, for respect for international law, and for ending the obscenity of so-called “defense” contractors making billions from human suffering. Making gains on any one of these fronts is bound up with making gains on the others. As the first sustained movement at scale with internationalism at its center in more than a decade, Palestine solidarity has already re-energized activists focused on these closely related battlefronts. And the impact it has already had on labor and every other sector of the progressive ecosystem shows its potential to make internationalism central once again to the entire movement’s thinking and practical work.

Translating that potential into a thick alignment of institutions, organizations and campaigns that can synergize “inside” and “outside” peace and solidarity work will not be easy. But it is a moment of wide popular awareness of the deep connection between struggles in this country and around the world against racist dehumanization, militarism, and dispossession. So even as we intensify our campaigns for #NotAnotherBomb and a permanent ceasefire, the time for a conversation about building for the long term is now.

Richard Ochs 

Mon, Sep 9, 2:19 PM (1 day ago)

Letter to the editor

(printed in the Baltimore Sun Tuesday, August 27, 2024)

READERS RESPOND

Is there evidence of an actual threat?

The guest commentary by Evan Nierman devalues freedom of speech and presents unsubstantiated claims (Colleges must be ready to stand firm against campus protests, Aug. 21).

Mr. Nierman asks of campus administrators: “What measures do you have in place to prevent violence and harassment?” That is ironically a good question considering that the only violence reported in the news was when police attacked peaceful students or otherwise looked the other way when anti-protesters attacked peaceful campers at USC.

The news reports of alleged harassment of Jewish students were never substantiated with evidence, witnesses, photos or affidavits. It is particularly flimsy considering that most of the encampments have many Jewish students protesting the genocide of Palestinians.

Likewise, Nierman’s claim that “campuses have been dogged by violence, antisemitism and property damage” has been unsubstantiated by news reports or photographs. Any graffiti by unknown elements has been removed with little damage.

The only violence against Jewish students was by police and hooligans who attacked students including Jewish protesters of genocide. No other violence or harassment of Jewish students has been documented.

The argument that some Jewish students may feel threatened by protesters reminds me of George Zimmerman in Florida who claimed he felt threatened by Trayvon Martin, allowing George to kill Trayvon and get away with murder. Zimmerman was armed but Martin was not.

Anyone can claim they feel threatened, but is there any evidence of an actual threat? No cases of actual threats on Jewish students by protesters has been documented anywhere.

Mr. Nieman reported that the President of Johns Hopkins University Ron Daniels said the demonstration was “inconsistent with the core values of the university.” Evidently. Freedom of speech is not a core value of the university.

Richard J. Ochs, Baltimore

The writer is a Maryland Peace Action

board member

Saturday, September 7, 2024

THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ORDER a 50 Year Anniversary

Harry Targ

https://progressive.international/blueprint/collection/7e2256c4-1bb2-49a3-bf78-a3e0bc6160d2-new-international-economic-order/en

“The Progressive International inaugurated a global process to build a New International Economic Order fit for the twenty-first century at a multilateral summit in midtown Manhattan in partnership with UN Permanent Representatives, sitting and former ministers from eight governments across the Global South. You can watch the proceedings.” (No. 49 | Build the New International Economic Order in Havana).

The Third World Demands a New International Economic Order: History of an Idea

 The brutal overthrow of the Allende government in Chile in 1973 was reminiscent of traditional US. activities as world policeman. The impact of the coup on the Chilean people in terms of economic justice and political freedom was negative in the extreme. The bloody victory of counterrevolution in Chile and elsewhere, however, came at a period in world history when the rise of Third World resistance to U.S. imperialism was reducing the prospect of more Chiles in the future.

By the 1970s, the worldwide resistance to U.S. and international capitalism was growing. The revolutionary manifestation of this resistance was occurring in Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and Central America and the Caribbean. During the Nixon-Ford period, the United States and its imperialist allies lost control of the Indochinese states, Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. South Yemen, Nicaragua, Iran, and Grenada would follow later in the decade. The Rockefeller Foundation and leaders of colonial powers and multinational corporations and banks formed the Trilateral Commission in 1973 to strategize about how to crush rising dissent in the Global South.

Along with the rise of revolutionary victories and movements throughout the Third World, a worldwide reformist movement began to take shape around demands for a New International Economic Order (NIEO). Its predecessor, the. nonaligned movement of the 1950s and 1960s, had been nurtured by leading anticolonial figures such as Nasser of Egypt, Nkrumah of Ghana, and Nehru of India. Their goal was to construct a bloc of Third World nations of all ideological hues which could achieve political power and economic advantage by avoiding alliances and political stances that might tie them to the United States or the former Soviet Union. The nonaligned movement saw the interests of member nations tied to the resolution of "north-south" issues, which in their view were of greater importance than "east-west" issues.

After two decades of experience with political independence from formal colonialism, revolutionaries who believed that economic exploitation resulted from the structure of the international capitalist system were joined by Third World leaders who saw the need to reform international capitalism. Consequently, a movement emerged, largely within UN agencies, such as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), increasingly populated by Third World nations, that addressed Third World poverty and underdevelopment (https://unctad.org). This movement presupposed the possibility of reducing the suffering of Third World peoples without necessarily bringing an end to capitalism as the internationally dominant mode of production.

To counter the declining Third World percentage of world trade, fluctuations in prices of exported commodities, foreign corporate repatriation of profits earned in Third World countries, technological dependence, growing international debt, and deepening crises in the supply of food, Third World leaders were forced by material conditions and revolutionary ferment to call for reforms. The inspiration for a NIEO movement came also from the seeming success of OPEC countries in gaining control of oil pricing and production decisions from foreign corporations.

Two special sessions of the General Assembly of the UN in 1974 and 1975 on the NIEO "established the concept as a priority item of the international community" (Laszlo, Ervin, Robert Baker, Jr., Elliott Eisenberg, and Raman Venkata, The Objectives   of the New International Economic Order, New York, Pergamon, xvi). The NEIO became a short-hand reference for a series of interrelated economic and political demands concerning issues that required fundamental policy changes, particularly from wealthy nations. The issue areas singled out for action included aid and assistance, international trade and finance, industrialization, technology transfer, and business practices.

Paradoxically, while the NIEO demands were reformist in character and, if acted on, could stave off revolutionary ferment (as did New Deal legislation in the United States in the 1930s), the general position of the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations on the NIEO were negative. European nations were more responsive to selected demands, like stabilizing Third World commodity prices and imports into Common Market countries, but the broad package of NIEO demands continued to generate resistance from the wealthy nations, which benefited from the current system. Nabudere correctly understood the interests of Third World leaders in the NIEO when he wrote that:

"The demands of the petty bourgeoisie of third world countries are not against exploitation of the producing classes in their countries, but of the domination of their class by monopoly. The demands therefore for reform—for more credit to enable the petty bourgeois more room also to exploit their own labor and extract a greater share of the surplus value. This is unachievable, for to do so is to negate monopoly—which is an impossible task outside the class struggle." (Nabudere, D.Wadada,  Essays on the Theory and Practice of Imperialism, London, Onys Press, 1979).

Therefore, the NEIO, commodity cartels like OPEC, and other schemes for marginal redistribution of the profits derived from the international economy would not go beyond increasing the shares which Third World ruling classes received from the ongoing economic system. But minimal benefits to workers and peasants would accrue. Third World successes against monopoly capital, however, would serve to weaken the hold the latter had on the international system. Ironically, while opposing channeling Third World militancy in a reformist direction, such as the NIEO, had the opposite effect of generating a new militancy among masses of Third World peoples where it did not exist before. Those workers, peasants, and intellectuals who gained consciousness of their plight in global structural terms through their leaders' UN activities realized that NIEO demands were not enough. It was feared that they would come to realize what Nabudere argued, namely:

“But in order to succeed, the struggles cannot be relegated to demands for change at international bodies, mere verbal protests and parliamentary debates, etc. Therefore, demands for a new economic order are made increasingly impossible unless framed in the general context of a new democratic revolution; the role of the working class and its allies is crucial to the achievement, in any meaningful way, of a new international economic order.” (Nabudere, D.Wadada, Essays on the Theory and Practice of Imperialism, London, Onys Press, 1979.180).

And now in the contexts of demands for reconceptualizing international relations away from fissures between “great powers” to those between the rich of the Global North and the poor of the Global South, the NIEO is being revisited in the contexts of environmental catastrophe, grotesquely growing economic inequality, massive migration, religious fundamentalism, and civil and hybrid wars. Progressives in the Global North should support demands, though modest, for an NIEO.

ON PINOCHET’S CAPTURE (song by Mitchel Cohen & Victor Jara) | Mitchel Cohen

“New International Realities Subcommittee”

CCDS CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE NEW INTERNATIONAL REALITIES

We invite you to attend our ongoing discussions at our next meeting.

The conversation continues e

Place: On Zoom

for more info contact Harry Targ targ@purdue.edu

“ The Market Has Spoken ”

By Sandy Eaton

Labor Day 2024

Addendum: The Demise of Acute Health Care in Quincy, Massachusetts

https://masspeaceaction.org/steward-health-the-market-has-spoken/

This could be an appropriate epitaph for Steward Health Care’s fourteen years of

lies, corruption and greed. It could also be the motto of the Healey-Driscoll-Walsh

Administration, as well as of House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President

Karen Spilka.

The health reform task force of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA),

chaired by Doctor Judith Shindul-Rothschild, looked at the deterioration of public-

sector health care in Massachusetts in 1991. The privatization juggernaut, begun

modestly under Dukakis, reached full force with the Weld-Cellucci regime and

wreaked havoc among the state’s most vulnerable, with its first major target

being prison health, contracted out initially to a for-profit outfit from Florida. We

witnessed this, and accurately foresaw that the private-sector deregulation then

being enacted by the Democratic-led legislature and the Republican governor

would extend this havoc to the private sector.

Chapter 495 of the Acts of 1991 , the deregulation of hospital financing,

unleashed a cavalcade of consequences that set the stage for our current

disaster. Changes mushroomed rapidly, with mergers, acquisitions and closures

creating giant conglomerates; massive job reengineering; heavier managed-care

penetration; and the invasion of for-profit investor-owned hospital chains. In the

midst of the chaos of the ’90s, we fought back.

First, the nurses rallied on the steps of the State House in June 1993, uniting

RNs and LPNs, student nurses and patients. We launched a statewide campaign

for safe care in 1994. This campaign soon focused in on legislation to create

enforceable safe staffing standards. Facing stiff opposition from the hospital

industry and its allies, we spent years pushing the legislature without success.

MNA and its many allies finally took it to the ballot box in 2018, only to face a

crushing defeat there, vastly outspent. So this battle continues, hospital by

hospital, often requiring bitter confrontations.

Then many unions and their allies in Jobs with Justice launched the

Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care , or Mass-Care, in 1995.

The goal has been to enact a publicly-financed state trust to replace commercial

health insurance, removing payment at the point of service and weakening

healthcare disparities by valuing each person’s health - and life - equally.

Prospects at the federal level have waxed and waned, so Mass-Care’s

concentration has been on winning Massachusetts Medicare for All . This piece of

legislation, updated and sharpened with each two-year legislative session, has

never been allowed out of committee for a vote, no matter how many union

presidents, policy experts or busloads of seniors flock to the State House to

lobby, rally and testify. And no matter how many local non-binding ballot

questions are handily passed (around sixty so far), reflecting the overwhelming

support across the Commonwealth for fundamental reform. The Democratic

Party has held a veto-proof supermajority in both chambers of the legislature for

as long as anyone can remember, yet this just financing mechanism has

remained bottled up despite the fact that it’s a plank in that party’s platform.

And clinicians, primarily MDs, launched the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health

Care in 1997 with the publication in JAMA of the statement “ For Our Patients,

Not for Profits: A Call to Action ,” with 3,000 signers, and a reenactment of the

Boston Tea Party by the dropping of cases of insurance rejection forms into the

harbor. The Ad Hoc Committee went on to build a broad coalition to reform

Massachusetts health care by putting Question 5 on the 2000 ballot. Three goals

were pursued: a managed-care bill of rights for patients and clinicians, the

creation of a universal system of health care by July 2002, and a moratorium on

for-profit conversions of facilities and services until such a system was in place.

In July 2000, the legislature passed a partial remedy. Since that lacked the

universal system and the for-profit moratorium, the split coalition carried on to

November, narrowly losing 48% to 52%, despite $5 million in around-the-clock

attack ads. This close call so frightened the health insurance industry that Blue

Cross Blue Shield created a foundation in 2001 to turn Massachusetts’ policy

priority away from access to care toward access to insurance coverage, paving

the way for the 2006 neoliberal insurance reform.

In 2010, marketplace medicine reached a new low with the creation of Steward

Health Care, funded by Cerberus Capital Management, a New-York-City-based,

globally-active private equity outfit. Starting with the six Caritas Christi hospitals,

Steward-Cerberus acquired four more financially-troubled acute-care hospitals

and a rehab facility within a year, making it the third-largest hospital chain in

Massachusetts. Despite glowing promises made to eleven communities, it soon

began cutting needed services it deemed unprofitable and stripping assets to

generate cash flow for expansion out of Massachusetts into the MidWest and

Deep South, and even as far as Malta. The wise Maltese were the first to cry foul

and fight back, but the emperor’s clothes were soon seen by all to be threadbare.

When Steward finally declared bankruptcy in May 2024, the very politicians that

let it work its Ponzi scheme for fourteen years refused to take any responsibility,

or remedial action. The people of Quincy, Norwood, Stoughton, Dorchester and

Ayer have been left with hollow shells instead of ready access to quality care.

Steward’s founder, Ralph de la Torre, and his henchmen, as well as Cerberus,

raked in the wealth and have escaped any penalties. Their enabling politicians

now strive to put it all behind them, pretending that “ the market has spoken ,” so

they bear no guilt for exposing so many diverse working-class communities to care deserts. They refused to listen to the nurses, the unions, the physicians and

the suffering patients for thirty years. Only a powerful organized movement can

become the irresistible force that will overcome the immovable object that is

corporate rule in Massachusetts and nationally.

Sandy Eaton, RN has spent fifty years delivering care at the bedside, organizing with Local 1199 and then the Massachusetts Nurses Association to build a countervailing force to the growing corporatization of health care. Having been on MNA’s varied elected leadership bodies, Sandy chaired National Nurses United’s Legislative Council. Eaton has written and spoken extensively on nursing, labor and healthcare issues as is now active with Mass-Care, the Labor Campaign for Single Payer and the Fund Health Care Not Warfare working group of Massachusetts Peace Action.

A Wonderful Remembrance of Ira Grupper

By Frank Rosenthal

Ira Grupper (1944 – 2024)

On July 23, 2024, the world lost a staunch fighter for the working class and progressive causes. Ira Grupper spent his entire adult life as an activist. His activism started at age 16, when he went with his father to picket Woolworth’s in NYC in solidarity the sit-ins protesting racial discrimination at lunchcounters in Greensboro,North Carolina.

In 1963 he went South to work with SNCC first in Atlanta and then in Hattiesburg, MI. While he

was there he endured getting arrested multiple times, taken to jail and being beaten by guards, and having the place he was staying fired upon by white supremacists. He was recruited by people he met in SNCC to go to Louisville KY to work with the Southern Conference Education Fund.

Wherever he worked, he was a labor organizer, dedicated not just to getting workers in the union but pushing the unions to better serve the interests of the workers. In describing his work in the labor movement, he said he endeavored to not only organize the unorganized also to “organize the organized”. He was a shop steward, organized a rank-and-file caucus within

the union and was a delegate to the Greater Louisville Central Labor Council for eight years.

Ira was drawn to fight injustice wherever it occurs. He was legally blind and when he was denied employment because of this, he doggedly brought a legal case against the company and forced them to back down. His case

was among the first group of successful complaints under Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the predecessor to the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

From 1989 to 1993 he was National Co-Chair of New Jewish Agenda, an organization devoted to a variety of progressive causes, including Palestinian statehood, with over 50 chapters nationwide He was adamant in support of Palestinian human rights and self-determination. To this end he was Co-chair of the Louisville Committee for Israeli Palestinian States, visited the Middle East six times, was a member of Jewish Voice for peace, and often spoke and wrote on this issue.

In 2015, he and three other veterans of the Civil Rights Movement toured US campuses to stimulate dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in coordination with efforts to democratize the “Hillel” Jewish student organizations . They had some success until they were banned from speaking at Hillel chapters by Hillel’s national organization. Ira was proud of his Jewish heritage and was pained that Israel oppressed Palestinians in the name of the Jewish people.

For many years, Ira was a Commissioner of the Louisville and Jefferson County Human Relations Commission; and from 1980-1986 he was Vice-Chair,. Ira once related that he had the “dubious distinction” of being thrown

off the Commission twice for his “vigorous defense of affirmative action”.

Ira was a proud member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and served on the CCDS National Organizing Committee.

In his later years, Ira focused on spreading the word to new generations. He was a faculty member at Bellarmine University in Louisville teaching courses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Civil Rights Movement. He also conducted tours at historic sites of the Underground Railroad in the Indiana. He wrote a bi-monthly newspaper column called “Labor Peans” and often contributed articles to websites and movement publications.

Ira once said: “The Civil Rights Movement enabled me to meet, and learn from, some of the most dedicated freedom fighters, helped me understand the nature of racism, its relation to class oppression, and the international aspects of capital accumulation. It provided a purpose to life, the building of the "beloved community". For this, I will always be grateful.”

He will be missed.

Little Meena and the Big Swim for is a sweet, bilingual book about a little fish who learns how to deal with a bully by organizing all the little fish to join in the "Big Swim."

The book plants the seeds of Solidarity in the children's mind, a sweet allegory for union organizing.

Imagine if the unions promoted this kind of education among their members' little ones?

Timothy Sheard, editor Hard Ball Press

Chair, Metro NY Labor Communications Council 

Below are education materials that you can use!

Share with friends. invite people over for a video night, etc!

Saturday Morning Coffee!

A Zoom conversation with Carl Davidson and comrades from the Online University of the Left...and other places as well.



It will be more of a hangout than a formal setting. We can review the news in the previous days' LeftLinks or add a new topic. We can invite guests or carry on with those who show up. We'll try to have a progressive stack keeper should we need one.

Most of all, we will try to be interesting and a good sounding board. If you have a point you would like to make or a guest to invite, send an email to Carl Davidson, carld717@gmail.com

Continuing weekly, 10:30 to Noon, EDT.

The Zoom link will also be available on our Facebook Page.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86897065843 

Meeting ID: 868 9706 5843