| The Political Situation in the United States One Year After the Election of Barack Obama |
| Written by Alan Benjamin | |
| Thursday, 07 January 2010 | |
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One year after the
election of Barack Obama, the situation facing working people and the
poor across the United States has continued to spiral
downward.
Despite all its promises, the Obama administration has failed to improve the economic situation for the working-class majority. There are officially 16 million unemployed workers today (or 10.2% of the economically active population), with 9.3 million more working part-time even though they want and need a full-time job. Among Blacks and Latinos, the percentages are even more staggering: 15.7% unemployed and 13.1% part-time. (The unemployment rate among Black youth between the ages of 18 and 25 is 48%.) Since the beginning of this current recession, more than 8 million jobs have been lost. Only a tiny fraction of these jobs have replaced by Obama's so-called stimulus plans. These are the official statistics. The AFL-CIO estimates, however, that the real unemployment rates are up to 5% higher than the official rates given the large and growing number of workers who have been dropped from the unemployment rolls and cannot find a job. This situation has fueled a growing sense of anguish -- and anger -- among workers. The anger is aimed at the administration for bailing out the banks and Wall Street, the very people seen as having gotten the country into its current mess, while failing to create jobs for Main Street. This anger was visible in the streets of Pittsburgh during the G-20 Summit last September, particularly at a March For Jobs supported by the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) and the United Electrical Workers Union (UE). Demonstrators took to the streets to demand a second stimulus plan; that is, a massive public works program to put millions of workers back on the job. This anger has also been seen in the massive student, worker, and teacher mobilizations in California against the cuts to public education. Everywhere -- in protests, labor forums, letters to the editor in the daily newspapers, on the shop floor -- working people are asking: How can it be that Obama has turned over $4 trillion to Wall Street and the banks (this sum includes funds from the Federal Reserve), while doing little to nothing for Main Street? How can they call this a "recovery," when 16 million are still jobless, and the number is mounting by the day? Who can accept this situation? Add to this the anger that is growing over the rising number of foreclosed homes, mostly among Black and Latino workers, and the yet-unresolved crisis of healthcare, with more than 50 million people uninsured and tens of millions more woefully under-insured. And put all of this against the backdrop of an escalating war in Afghanistan (with still no end in sight to the war in Iraq), and a skyrocketing war budget, and you can begin to see the reasons behind the anger that is building up under the surface. From Joy to Anguish On Nov. 4, 2008, there were torrents of tears of joy from the millions of Black people who had never voted. There were tears of joy from the millions of workers who remembered Obama's promise to enact real healthcare reform, jobs programs, and the Employee Free Choice Act -- and from the activists who remembered his pledge that the war would end and that there would be jobs, justice, and peace for all. On Nov. 4, Latino families celebrated, hoping for an end to the raids and the passing of legalization for the undocumented. Students partied in the streets, believing Obama's election would mean the defense of public education and a better future for all young people. One year later, however, Obama's promises for real change have gone unheeded -- transforming those tears of joy into tears of despair. On the issue of jobs: Obama invited labor and business leaders to the White House on December 7-9 to a Jobs Summit. "You've got essentially a 7 million to 8 million gap between where jobs should be for relatively full employment and where we are," Obama said. But Obama ruled out a second stimulus plan aimed specifically at creating millions of public work jobs -- as the labor movement and sectors of Obama's own party have been demanding with greater insistence. "We just don't have the money," Obama said, noting that the country is now facing a $1.4 trillion deficit. Obama announced instead that he would call upon the private sector to show more "corporate responsibility" and to work more collaboratively with the government to create some private-public initiatives to spur jobs growth. Even the mainstream media noted that this was not likely to create anywhere near the number of jobs needed to close the gap. At Obama's Job Summit, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka presented a five-point plan, which, he said, could save or create millions of jobs in a year. The plan calls for a mass public works program to rebuild the nation's schools, hospitals, bridges, roads and parks. The liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI) also proposed a five-point "American Jobs Plan" that would create at least 4.6 million jobs in the first year, at a total first-year cost of roughly $400 billion. Both of these proposals were rebuffed by the Obama administration. Obama said that such public works plans would add to the deficit. The message was clear: There would be no real jobs program. "Say It Isn't So!" On the issue of the war: On December 1, Obama announced that he will send 30,000 more troops for Afghanistan -- at a cost of $30 billion per year. This decision was hotly contested, even among the leadership circles of the administration. Initially, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, opposed the surge, arguing instead for funds to prop the Afghan army and police and to rebuild the war-torn economy. After heavy pressure from the generals and from Obama himself, the U.S. ambassador acquiesced and expressed his support for the 30,000 new troops. This decision was strongly opposed by the peace activists and organizations that comprised a huge sector of Obama's grassroots supporters. Michael Moore, a staunch Obama supporter, expressed this opposition best in an Open Letter that he sent to Obama on the eve of his speech at West Point. Moore wrote: "If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8 pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so." Similarly, Kathy Smith, a mother of a son who was severely injured in Iraq and who is now an organizer with Military Families Speak Out, told a crowd of labor activists gathered at the National Assembly of US Labor Against the War in Chicago on December 5: "I feel betrayed by the President that WE helped elect. The unions played a huge part in Obama's victory. "My son Tomas, nearing the end of his rehab here in Chicago, sat in the VIP tent in Grant's park with Brad Pitt, Oprah, Tammy Duckworth and the like. He was a member of a group called Vets for Obama. He cried openly because he was a part of the change. He had hope. He truly blamed Bush for not only his being shot in Iraq, but for the halt to stem-cell research. Obama was very clear in saying that he would immediately start bringing the troops home. "I have spoken adamantly all along that Obama just needed a little more time to fix Bush's mistakes. Now it becomes his mess. I am done defending Obama. If 30,000 isn't a big enough number, how about 30 billion -- that is what it will cost to keep those troops in Afghanistan for one year. This could pay for 600,000 jobs at $50,000 per year each. That would go a long way toward fixing the broken economy. I imagine if 600,000 people got jobs tomorrow that paid 50 K a year. they might buy a new car or a new house might be built -- sounds like that would keep some union members in jobs." On the issue of healthcare: Obama has not only turned his back on the only real solution, which is single-payer healthcare, he and the leadership of the Democratic Party have now stated their willingness to drop the call for a public option -- that is, a government-financed insurance program that could compete with the private insurance companies. On December 8, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) announced that the public option was being dropped from the program to appease both Republicans and moderate Democrats. Reid also announced that the "compromise" healthcare bill would include cuts in Medicare and increased taxation on the so-called "cadillac" insurance programs -- which are mainly union healthcare plans. These three key points -- inclusion of public option, no cuts in Medicare, and no increased taxes on union plans -- were pushed adamantly by the U.S. labor movement and by liberal sectors around Progressive Democrats of America. Notwithstanding the heavy lobbying by the unions, the Democratic Party leadership reneged on the pledges made to the labor movement. Similarly, important sectors of the Democrats have allied with the Republicans to include stipulations in the proposed healthcare legislation (the Stupak-Pitts Amendments in the House and the Nelson amendment in the Senate) that would prohibit federally funded healthcare services from covering abortions -- which, in turn, has placed the need for a mass fightback in defense of the right to choose back on the agenda. Right Wing Demands More and More Retreats Indeed, on every front there has been backtracking by Obama and his administration. The Republicans have demanded ever-more concessions from Obama -- and they have succeeded in wresting them by and large. But they are still not satisfied and continue to demand more. On Afghanistan, McCain and the Republicans applauded Obama's decision to send more troops, but they went on to lambast Obama for framing his troop buildup in the context of an "exit strategy" -- as opposed to a "winning strategy." This is a "recipe for failure," McCain insisted. On healthcare, the Republicans denounced Obama for daring to consider a public option. An extreme right-wing movement, the Tea Party, as they call themselves, in fact, took to the streets this past summer and fall to denounce the public option as a "communist plot." They also attacked the proposed cuts in Medicare, using populist rhetoric to exploit a very real failure in the Obama healthcare plan. The Tea Party protesters accused Obama of pushing the "Big Government liberal agenda" and captured media attention with their photos of Obama with a tail (to make him look like a monkey) or with a mustache (to make him look like Hitler). These images were presented approvingly by Fox TV and other media outlets, demonstrating that this extreme fringe is moving more and more into the mainstream of the Republican Party (not without creating major turmoil in that party). The November 2009 editorial of The Organizer explains: "Obama and the Democrats' refusal to heed the mandate for change from the American people on Nov. 4, 2008, has created a political void that the rightwing racists are aiming to fill. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. "Significant sectors of the ruling class are leaning on and fomenting white racism in an attempt to block any progressive change and take back the levers of power. Anti-immigrant, anti-'socialist' mobilizations are multiplying across the country; on Nov. 7, the Neo-Nazis themselves held coordinated rallies. The threat posed by these racists and fascists should not be underestimated." On the issue of the war, as with all other matters of import, the more Obama bends to the pressures from "across the aisle," the more the extreme right-wing elements in the Republican Party, and the Republican Party itself, go after him and ask for more. Rifts Within the Ruling Class This in turn is creating a deep rift within Obama's own base in the Democratic Party. The Congressional Black Caucus, for example, issued a statement on December 10 in which they call upon Obama to "ratchet up its efforts to address Black unemployment." Black Caucus Chair Barbara Lee said that, "as a candidate, Obama said in his speech on race during the Democratic Party, that 'race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now'." Lee urged Obama and the administration to enact minority-specific economic and jobs programs. But at his Jobs Summit, Obama told reporters that there was nothing specific he could do to ease Depression-level Black unemployment because "it's a mistake to start thinking in terms of particular ethnic segments of the United States." This statement outraged Obama's Black constituents. As Glen Ford, editor of the Black Agenda Report noted, "Black lawmakers' constituents have been swamped by the tides of joblessness and home foreclosure. They want their representatives to do something about it -- to at least holler when they hurt. Last week, 10 members of the Black Caucus staged a demonstration boycott of a committee vote on Obama's pitifully weak financial regulations bill, which passed anyway. "'Since last September,' said Los Angeles Congresswoman Maxine Waters, 'we have continuously voted for bailouts and reform for the very institutions that created this devastation, without properly protecting the African-American community or small business. That stops today.' The Black Caucus, said Waters, 'can no longer afford for our public policy to be defined by the worldview of Wall Street.' "Detroit Congressman John Conyers, dean of the Black Caucus, stated publicly that Obama has bowed down to 'nutty right-wing proposals' on healthcare, and that he's tired of 'saving Obama's can'." (BAR, Dec. 10, 2009) At the root of the rift between Obama and the Congressional Black Caucus there is much more than the lack of jobs for Black people or the backtracking on healthcare reform. The Katrina survivors -- predominantly Black -- have not been assisted by and large, despite countless promises. There has been very little funding through the Gulf Coast reconstruction programs for all the damage caused in the poor Black areas of New Orleans or Biloxi, Miss. The "useful" regions of the Gulf Coast -- that is, the casinos and tourist areas -- have been rebuilt, but the "useless" neighborhoods of the Blacks, Latinos and poor whites remain in shambles.
Funds for public
housing promised through Obama's TARP fund have been woefully
insufficient. Many Black activists had hoped, moreover, that the
advent of the country's first Black president would finally bring
justice to Black political prisoners such as Mumia Abu-Jamal. This has
not been the case. Despite the fact that the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other prominent
organizations and individuals have joined the call to demand that
Obama instruct U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to open a civil
rights investigation into Mumia's case, the administration has
refused to budge - at least for now. And the list of unaddressed
grievances goes on and on.
Labor Movement One Year Later What is the situation within the trade union movement one year after the November 4 election? One of the pillars of the Obama presidential campaign was the trade union movement. The unions mobilized with full force, believing that they now had a candidate who would truly fight for their interests. But this has not been the case. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) has now been put on the back-burner. The unions have been told that they will not get the true EFCA that they had hoped for. They will have to accept something less -- that is, EFCA-Lite, without card check, without the ability to turn the situation around in favor of union organizing. They have been told that healthcare reform not only will exclude single-payer, it will not even include a public option. In January 2009, a wing of the trade union movement listened to Obama say that single-payer was not on the table and that it would not even be discussed in Obama's town hall meetings across the country. Presidents and leading officers of local and state unions gathered in St. Louis to launch the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Healthcare. They proceeded to organize a nine-month-long effort that resulted in 74 resolutions being submitted to the AFL-CIO Convention in mid-September in support of single-payer. What is more, the resolution was adopted. This was historic. It was the first time that a national convention of the AFL-CIO called for getting rid of the private insurance companies and putting single-payer healthcare on the national agenda. A month after the federation's national convention, when the vote in the House of Representatives on the Obama healthcare bill was about to come to the floor, the national AFL-CIO leadership took one step further and published an ad in the Capitol Hill newspaper urging the Congress to support the Wiener amendment, which called for removing the main provisions of Obama's healthcare plan and replacing them with a single-payer system. This, too, was, unprecedented. The Weiner amendment was withdrawn at the last minute by Congressmen Weiner, Conyers and Kucinich -- under pressure from Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. This further angered the powerful labor-led single-payer movement. Many labor activists asked: With friends like these, referring to the so-called "friends of labor in the Democratic Party," who needs enemies? Statements such as this one became commonplace on single-payer blogs. Fight for Trade Union Independence At the same time, a growing number of union locals and state federations began to press their leaders to mobilize in the streets to demand a real jobs program. A number of resolutions along these lines were submitted to the AFL-CIO national convention. Most referred to the example of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the largest public works program in the history of the United States. The WPA was enacted by the U.S. Congress in April 1935, almost 75 years ago, in response both to the massive Tent City mobilizations of the unemployed and to the labor strikes in the early 1930s. On the issue of foreign policy, as noted earlier, the AFL-CIO national convention adopted a resolution opposing the coup in Honduras. Based on this resolution, Richard Trumka, the new president of the AFL-CIO, sent a letter to Hillary Clinton urging the State Department not to recognize the November 29 elections, as these were organized by a coup government against the interests of the people of Honduras. Within the U.S. labor movement itself, another significant development occurred in 2009: a fightback arose both within the AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions aimed at affirming the independence of the unions in relation to the bosses and the government. Soon after Obama was elected, Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and leader of the Change to Win coalition (which split from the AFL-CIO in 2005), took the initiative to call a top-level union meeting where he pushed for a speedy merger between the SEIU and the AFL-CIO. Stern explained openly that such a merger was necessary so that Obama would have to deal with just one union federation. Stern gathered two "labor-friendly" Democrats, both close to Obama, to convene the meeting. Stern went on to explain that the main task facing the labor movement after Obama's election was not to put forward labor's own independent demands but rather to "give Obama what he wanted." Stern, however, failed to achieve his (and the administration's) goal of creating a united and merged union federation functioning as an adjunct to the Obama administration, with a corporatist ideology and method of functioning. And this was a good thing. The merger effort did not go forward for the simple reason that Stern's goal and methods were met with fierce resistance within SEIU, Change to Win, and the AFL-CIO unions. In this regard the creation of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) is extremely significant. The NUHW emerged out of the struggle of the largest union in SEIU, which opposed the corporatist policies of the Stern leadership and was thereby placed in receivership and ultimately expelled from the union by Stern. The NUHW leadership of Sal Rosselli explained that Stern's conception of trade unionism had more in common with the corporatist company-unionism promoted by a wing of the bosses than it did with independent unionism. Rosselli took this message far and wide. As a result of this battle for trade union independence and democracy, two of the unions of Stern's Change to Win coalition -- UNITE HERE and the Laborers' union -- returned to the AFL-CIO at the federation's national convention in September. Stern, though, has not ceased to be a major political player today. He has the ear of Obama and is a regular guest at the White House. But his ability to carry forth with his agenda has been undermined by the fightback from below that developed within his own union and that has spread across the entire trade union movement. Ford Workers' Fightback Another significant development within the labor movement in the recent period -- one that also illustrates the growing fightback mood that is developing among the rank and file but also among many elected officials of the local unions -- was the rejection in October by the autoworkers of the proposed contract at Ford. The Gettlefinger leadership of the UAW had joined forces with the bosses to demand that the members re-open the contract to permit further wage, hour and benefit concessions. The contract also banned the right to strike. This was demanded in the name of enabling Ford to remain competitive with GM and Chrysler, both of whose workforces were forced to accept major takebacks when the companies filed for bankruptcy last spring. To the great surprise of Gettlefinger, the first rejection of the contract re-opener came in late August, when rank-and-file anger over the company's new giveback demands was so widespread that even the UAW's national Ford Council -- made up of UAW local presidents -- voted against re-opening the contract to permit more concessions. Despite the concerted campaign by the UAW leadership, the government and the company, the workers overwhelming rejected the re-opener and the demand for more concessions. Gary Polen, a carpenter at Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant, Local 900, said of the concession proposal, "We pay our union for collective bargaining. How can the union negotiate a binding arbitration instead of the right to strike?" Bill Onasch, a longtime union activist, wrote the following about this massive rejection of the contract re-opener: "The historic rejection of Gettelfinger's sweetheart deal reaffirms that the UAW, despite its bankrupt top leadership, remains very much alive." California: Growing Crisis Fuels Fightback Nowhere in the United States is the economic and political crisis more acute than in California. This is a state that has witnessed the most vicious attacks against public-sector workers and against public education, in particular. What has aggravated the crisis in California is a proposition - Prop 13 - that was approved by voters in 1978 that significantly lessened the tax burden on the rich and the corporations, thereby further depleting the public coffers of desperately needed funds for public services. Populist rhetoric was used at the time to appeal to working-class people (particularly white homeowners) and to promise them lower taxes. But the real objective of Prop 13 was to lessen the tax burden on the rich and the corporations. The proposition and the legislation that ensued were written in such a way that only a two-thirds vote of the State Assembly or of the citizens of California through a referendum could overturn Prop 13. For more than 30 years, due largely to the unwillingness of the Democrats to challenge Prop 13, California has been held hostage by this proposition. Little by little, the public services and public-sector jobs have been placed on the chopping block. The state has been unable and unwilling to keep hospitals and schools open, or bus transportation systems running. In response to the billions of dollars in cuts this year alone, students, unions, faculty, and parents have mobilized on college campuses across the state to protest the budget cuts, tuition hikes and overall destruction of public education. The resistance has extended to the state's elementary, middle and high schools. The struggle took a big step forward when more than 800 students, campus unionists and faculty members gathered on October 24 at UC Berkeley at a conference to save public education. They gathered from across the state in response to a call issue by a General Assembly of the 5,000 Berkeley students and campus workers who had staged a mass strike and walkout on September 24. The October 24 conference issued as of its main decisions a call for a Strike and Day of Action to Defend Public Education on March 4, 2010. In the six weeks following this conference, this call has obtained massive support. In early December, the Executive Council of the 2.1-million-member California Federation of Labor endorsed the call for strikes and mass mobilizations on March 4. The California Federation of Teachers is already organizing its members to take action on this date. The Community College division of the CFT, for example, has just announced that faculty will be mobilizing on March 4 to demand an immediate end to the layoffs and fee hikes in the Community College system. This struggle in California is being looked at by workers in unions and students across the country as a vital fightback for all working people. Indeed, the mobilizations in defense of public education in California -- in which activists of Socialist Organizer are playing a central leadership role -- are the most massive and significant protest actions that have taken place since Obama's election. If deepened and broadened, the California struggles have the potential to spark a nationwide resistance movement against the catastrophic austerity measures being implemented across the nation. USLAW Promotes Fight Against War Another important development took place in early December in Chicago at the US Labor Against the War National Assembly. USLAW represents a very sizable percentage of both AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions. Delegates to the Assembly voted to oppose the war in Afghanistan and to demand the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and military contractors from that country. They also voted to support the antiwar movement in mass bicoastal demonstrations against the war on March 20, 2010 -- the 8th anniversary of the U.S. war on Iraq. Also significant, the USLAW assembly approved a work plan for 2010 that mandated the incoming leadership to lobby the top leaders of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, as well as the main Black, Latino and antiwar organizations, to issue a call for a huge mass demonstration in Washington, D.C. at the earliest possible date, to press the demands for jobs, peace, and justice. Union leaders and activists told the assembly that more than ever it is necessary to link the fight against the war -- and against war funding -- to the fight for jobs, healthcare for all, free and quality public education, affordable public housing and an end to foreclosures and evictions, and more. For a Solidarity Day III March in D.C.! In early 2009, Socialist Organizer joined together with leading unionists and activists in launching the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign (WERC). The initial 10-point list of demands of the WERC includes: not one penny for war and for bank bailouts, an immediate halt to all layoffs and cuts in public services, single-payer healthcare, funds for a WPA-type public works program to put all the unemployed back to work, and an immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More recently, the 21-member Interim National Committee of WERC issued a call upon the labor movement and its community allies to join together to organize a Solidarity Day III demonstration in Washington in the spring of 2010 for jobs, peace and justice -- to demand that the mandate of November 4 be heeded! This campaign has now been endorsed by central labor councils, local unions, and community organizations across the country. Filmmaker Michael Moore, echoed this call in his address to the national AFL-CIO Convention in mid-September. Every week new organizations are signing onto this call, realizing that unless the labor movement asserts its independence in the streets in relation to Obama and his administration, there is little hope that things can be turned around in defense of the interests of working people. Union leaders who have embraced the WERC appeal explain that labor must break with its current "inside strategy" of lobbying Obama and the Democrats and making concessions to the bosses. Such a suicidal strategy has turned the streets over to the right-wing fanatics, they say. "It is necessary to reclaim the streets and to push our labor and community demands," said Nancy Wohlforth, a member of the national executive committee of the AFL-CIO and member of the leadership of the WER Campaign. "We must take to the streets, mobilize in huge numbers and make Obama do the right thing," Wohlforth continued. "The only way we can make any progress is to put Obama's feet to the fire, and do what we did in the 1930s, when we made Franklin D. Roosevelt enact the WPA, or what we did in the 1960s, when we organized the Poor People's March for Civil Rights in Washington and forced Lyndon B. Johnson to enact the Civil Rights Act." This kind of discussion is taking place increasingly in union halls across the country, promoted, in part, by the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign. Related to this growing openness to organize a Solidarity Day III March in Washington is a growing willingness to discuss the question of independent working-class politics and independent Black politics.
A number of
activists in the Labor For Single Payer Campaign are beginning a
discussion about rebuilding the Labor Party -- an effort that was put
on hold and has lay dormant since 2001. A movement to promote an
Organizing Committee for the Reconstruction Party is also afoot, with
a meeting planned in Philadelphia in late February to take steps to
build such an organizing committee.
Building Socialist Organizer
It is in this
context, as well, that Socialist Organizer is growing and developing.
We need to work more closely with our allies to build the WERC
initiatives, particularly the call for labor to organize a Solidarity
Day III march and rally in Washington next spring. We need to
structure action committees around this perspective wherever possible
-- so that our campaign does not become a "pressure campaign"
on the bureaucrats, but rather becomes a grassroots organizing
campaign for independent labor politics, a united-front campaign in
which we, as Socialist Organizer, can and must recruit new working
class members to our organization.
We also must
continue our central involvement in the fightback in defense of public
education in California and are actively working to promote the March
4 Strike and Day of Action. These two campaigns -- WERC/National March
-- and March 4 Strike and Day of Action are not contradictory. Indeed,
they are complementary.
We have been
recruiting new members -- particularly Latino youth, who are among the
most affected by the tuition hikes in the California higher education
system -- to S.O. We need to deepen this contact, recruitment and
education work. We need to organize S.O. educational conferences this
spring, publish our new recruitment materials, and paying close
leadership attention to developing new leaders. We have also begun
publishing our newspaper, The Organizer, as a monthly, so that
we can be a factor in orienting these developing struggles and
fightbacks toward independent working-class politics and independent
Black politics. But the fight to publish the monthly newspaper has not
been won. We need to expand the newspaper production team to make this
happen.
All these tasks will
be taken up by the Resident Steering Committee and National Committee
of Socialist Organizer in the coming days and weeks.
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