Talk about democracy, and defend and advance it against capitalism. That will let you talk about everything you need to talk about without using the term socialism.
Bob wrote:
>One speaker pronounced "we need a labor party." It made me think,
>"Well, we already have a Labor Party, but it's moribund."
>I further thought that, as intended by the MWM organizers, this demo
>may be an important opening salvo in the most current phase of class
>struggle. After C-span shifted from MWM to coverage of Bush-Kerry,
>I looked over the program demands of some recent political action
>groups that are worker based. About 1994-5, Labor Party organizers
>began assembling a remarkable package of 'Economic Justice' demands
>that, if enacted, would bring capital to heel and enhance the
>working class. This class-based, economic program was then fully
>adopted by Ralph Nader (with the help of LP head Tony Mazzocchi) and
>inserted in the Green Party platform at its 2000 Denver convention.
>Prior to this, class was only lightly touched on in Green politics.
>I also reviewed programmatic material from U.S. Labor Against the
>War and found that class was deeply imbedded therein, but it
>embodied more of an international dimension than did the Labor Party
>10 years ago. Then I remembered USLAW's national conference on
>10/24/03 in Chicago where I heard Clarence Thomas report on his
>just-returned visit from Iraq (post-'Mission Accomplished') where a
>small USLAW delegation met with Iraqi labor leaders. Thomas' report
>clearly was about class struggle. Many earlier activists/leaders of
>the Labor Party were part of this meeting.
>
>Then I reviewed the "Million Worker March List of Demands" and found
>it to be an update of and complement to the Labor Party program,
>adding important elements re. the environment (thanks to the
>Greens), democracy, civil liberties (thanks perhaps to the ACLU,
>NAACP, etc), etc. MWM demands were domestic, and didn't include
>solidarity with workers abroad, for whatever reason. Nevertheless,
>I see MWM demands as emerging out of lists of demands put together
>by other class-struggle-based, but slightly divergent, sets of
>unionized workers and worker-supportive organizations (not NGOs).
>There is a rapid evolution of programmatic synthesis of the
>importance of class. This is emerging from left logic and human
>necessity, and being expressed in various documentary forms.
>
>But the MWM expressed an element of that logic and necessity that is
>critically necessary, and relatively unique these days: the
>leadership of those who represent the most oppressed and exploited.
I agree with Bob on an emerging synthesis of programs based upon the importance of class and the significance of working-class leadership in advancing the synthesis, as in the case of the Million Worker March.
<blockquote>The Million Worker March's demands:
We Seek to Secure:
- Universal single-care health care from cradle to grave that ends the stranglehold of greedy insurance companies and secures health care as a right of all people in America.
- A national living wage that lifts people permanently out of poverty.
- Protection and enhancement of Social Security immune to privatization.
- Guaranteed pensions that sustain a decent life for all working people.
- The cancellation of all corporate "free" trade agreements, including NAFTA, MAI and FTAA.
- An end to privatization, contracting out, deregulation and the pitting of workers against each other across national boundaries in a mad race to the bottom.
- For workers' right to organize and for a repeal of Taft Hartley and all anti-labor legislation.
- Funding public education in a crash program to restore our decaying and abandoned schools with state of the art school facilities in every community.
- Funding a vast army of teachers to end functional illiteracy in America and unleash the talent and potential of our abandoned children and adults.
- Launching a national training program in skills and capacities that will enlist our people in rebuilding our country and putting an end to both the criminalization of poverty and the prison-industrial complex.
- Rebuilding our decaying inner cities with clean, modern and affordable housing and eliminating homelessness in America with guaranteed housing and jobs for all.
- Progressive taxation that increases taxation on corporations and the rich while providing relief for the working class and poor.
- An end to the poisoning of the atmosphere, soil, water and food supply with a national emergency program to restore the environment, end global warming and preserve our endangered eco-system.
- Creating efficient, modern and free mass transit in every city and town.
- Repeal of the Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Act and all such repressive legislation.
- Slash the military budget and recover the trillions of dollars stolen from our labor to enrich the corporations that profit from war.
- Open the books on the secret budgets of the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies in the service of corporations and banks and the pursuit of imperial war on the poor everywhere.
- Extend democracy to our economic structure so that all decisions affecting the lives of our citizens are made by working people who produce all value through their labor.
- An aggressive enforcement of all civil rights and a national education campaign and mobilization against all racist and discriminatory acts in the work place and in our communities.
- Amnesty for all undocumented workers
- Increase in federal funding for the Arts in public schools
- For a democratic media that allow labor and all voices to be heard and oppose monopolization and union busting of media workers.
<http://millionworkermarch.org/article.php?id=28#dem></blockquote>
US Labor Against the War Mission Statement 2003: <http://uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=4499>
The Labor Party's program: <http://www.thelaborparty.org/a_progra.html>
The Green Party 2004 Platform: <http://gpus.org/platform/2004/index.html>
The Green Party 2004 Unity Statement: <http://gpus.org/unity2004.html>
Nader/Camejo 2004 Platform: <http://votenader.org/issues/index_home.php>
All of the above are putting forward roughly the same pro-working class program, using similar rhetoric, and if we can begin to network nationally, take concerted actions on the movement front to advance it, and build a political party as an electoral expression of the actions on the movement front (either by rebuilding the Green Party or creating a new political party that incorporates it, veterans of the Labor Party, etc. or whatever), we'll be getting somewhere -- hopefully in time for the 2008 elections. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>