http://themilitant.com/2017/8133/813303.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 33 September 11, 2017
(front page)
SWP: ‘Join debate on how to fight effectively’
BY DEBORAH LIATOS
OAKLAND, Calif. — Seventy-five people attended a public meeting here
Aug. 26 sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party, many of whom had
joined in anti-racist protests in San Francisco a few hours earlier.
The meeting was part of a special weekend hosted by the SWP that
included participating in actions against racist attacks in San
Francisco and in Berkeley the next day.
Two dozen party members and supporters were in Oakland from around the
country to take part in a meeting of the party’s Walmart trade union
fraction.
The featured speaker was Dennis Richter, a member of the SWP’s National
Committee and organizer of the SWP branch in Los Angeles. Also speaking
was Mary Martin, SWP candidate for mayor of Seattle and a participant in
the fraction meeting.
“We were out in the streets today. We debated and discussed, found
agreement and disagreements, as we stood with the anti-racist
protesters,” said Richter. “We introduced them to books by Jack Barnes
and Mary-Alice Waters, leaders of the Socialist Workers Party, and to
the Militant newspaper. We sold 20 copies of Malcolm X, Black
Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by Barnes, which is the best
explanation of the struggles of the working class, the roots of racism
and the history of the Black nationality.”
Richter noted that President Donald Trump had given a pardon the
previous day to the hated and recently convicted former Maricopa County
Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona.
There is no rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. working class,
said Richter. Arpaio is disliked widely for his anti-immigrant attacks
and abuse, particularly directed at Latinos. He is infamous for
incarcerating arrested immigrants in tents in the sweltering Arizona
desert.
Richter said several participants had argued with him at the protest
earlier that racism is on the rise among working people. “I pointed out
that over 200 working-class counties that Barack Obama won in the 2008
and 2012 presidential elections went for Donald Trump in the last
election,” Richter said. “Did those workers just become racist? I don’t
think so. There were a total of 500 racists who joined a national march
in Charlottesville, Virginia. That’s the best they could do.”
Richter pointed to the 40,000 people who turned out to march against
racism in Boston a week earlier, responding to the events in
Charlottesville. This was a serious protest, he said, describing how it
was in continuity with the mid-1970s battles that took place in Boston
to desegregate the city’s schools. Richter explained that he joined
marches in Boston during that struggle and the SWP was part of its
leadership.
Racism has declined sharply
The working-class mobilizations led by African-Americans that overthrew
Jim Crow segregation changed things forever in U.S. politics, Richter
said. Racism has declined sharply and workers have found it much easier
to work and fight together.
Richter called attention to the attractive seven-panel display at the
side of the room. The displays had first been used to help amplify
political points in talks by Barnes, Waters and Steve Clark at the SWP’s
Active Workers Conference in June. They detail how the working class
bears the brunt of the consequences of the world capitalist crisis, said
Richter.
“Donald Trump called it carnage and he’s right on that,” he said. “But
the ruling rich, the meritocracy and broad layers of professionals are
doing quite well. That is not the case for tens of millions of working
people.”
The fraction meeting of Walmart workers discussed how workers there need
a union to lead the fight against how the bosses are foisting the crisis
of their capitalist system on workers’ backs. Mary Martin explained how
their meeting was recessed so they could join in the anti-racist
protests in San Francisco.
“We’ll do the same thing tomorrow,” she said, “so we can be at the
Berkeley protest.”
More U.S. troops to Afghanistan
A few days before the public meeting President Trump told the nation the
government is increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. “On a world scale
U.S. imperialism remains the world’s strongest military power, but we
see it’s being forced to retreat,” said Richter. “The U.S. rulers have
been unable to win a war since the first Gulf War in 1991. Trump has no
strategy to win a war in Afghanistan. The propertied rulers are trying
to come up with a strategy of how not to lose the war.
“It’s the working class who are the soldiers who are the cannon fodder.
The response to their deaths and maiming will lead to protests, and
their families and young people will be part of them, much like those
turning out across the country at these anti-racist protests,” Richter
said. “Trump’s no more a war monger than Hillary Clinton, actually less.
He inherited this. He’s doing what any chief executive of the U.S.
imperialist government would have to do.”
Richter hailed the not guilty verdicts for Richard Lovelien, Steven
Stewart, Eric Parker and Scott Drexler, who faced frame-up charges for
going to the ranch of Cliven Bundy in Nevada to join the fight against
the government’s seizure of Bundy’s cattle after he refused to pay
federal grazing fees. Two were acquitted and the other two acquitted on
most charges.
“The government owns over 80 percent of the land in Nevada. The Bundy’s
have been ranching there for 100 years,” said Richter, who had attended
the first day of the Las Vegas trial in solidarity with Bundy and all
the defendants. “Other ranchers have been driven off the land by the
federal government, but the Bundys have refused. Hundreds of people
stood with them in defense of their grazing rights.”
During a lively discussion period one participant said he disagreed with
Richter. “I take issue that there is no rise in white supremacy,” he
said. Another said he thought the Bundy family was racist.
“How do you explain that no other political organizations on the left
are interested in the Bundy fight other than the Socialist Workers
Party?” another asked.
“We went to talk to workers at their homes in a neighborhood of Latinos,
Blacks and Caucasians in Las Vegas. They knew about the restrictions
ranchers face from all the agencies of the federal government today. The
ranchers call it ‘federal overreach’ when the government prevents you
from making a living off the land,” Richter said. “There’s an
identification there that’s deep by workers who face all kinds of red
tape, taxes and tickets from local, state and federal governments. They
appreciated information about the ongoing trial in Las Vegas and
expressed support for the defendants. Workers and farmers need to
organize together against the dictatorship of capital.”
Mary Martin detailed her experience covering the Portland, Oregon,
frame-up trial against the occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge in 2016. Bundy’s sons Ammon and Ryan and others were acquitted
there. “The jury didn’t buy the government’s version,” she said.
When supporters of the Bundys came out of the courthouse in Portland, a
Black Lives Matter march was passing by. John Lamb, a chicken farmer
from Montana, joined their march. Some of the participants tried to stop
him, saying, “If you support the Bundys, you are a white supremacist!’”
Martin said.
“Lamb said, ‘No, I am not,’” Martin said. “’We have people of many races
in our group, including African-Americans and Native Americans. I’m
against what the government and police are doing to Black people just
like I’m against what they are doing to the ranchers and the Bundys. He
was welcomed in the protest.”
Richter invited those at the forum to join the SWP in continuing to
speak out and march against racism, and in going with party members to
discuss politics with workers on their doorsteps.
“Race is controversial. We are all workers,” Ysenia Gavila, a
21-year-old receptionist at a fitness center, said in the informal
discussion after the meeting. “The common ground we all have is that
we’re all workers in whatever industry we work in.”
“I do like how everyone here is organized,” said Brian Chavez, 22, a
member of the Glazier’s Union. “The SWP has a good way to get people
together.”
Norton Sandler from the Oakland SWP, who chaired the meeting, made a
fund presentation that netted $1,150. Sandler thanked those in the room
who had housed 25 participants from out of town over the weekend and who
had cooked the fine meal that was enjoyed before the program.
Related articles:
Socialist Workers Party: ‘Protest racist attacks!’
Liberals, ‘antifa’ combine to deal blows to political rights
SWP builds protests, takes discussion to working class
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