New York meeting launches April 9 antiwar action

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Over 300 activists met at St. Mark’s Church in Manhattan on Nov. 6 to launch the United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC) in the Northeast region. People came from up and down the East Coast and the Midwest to begin organizing efforts for the bicoastal demonstrations planned for April 9 to Bring the Troops Home Now. The demonstrations will take place in New York City and San Francisco.

UNAC was initiated at a national antiwar conference in Albany, N.Y., last July, where 800 activists from 35 states unanimously approved the call for the April 9 actions and a comprehensive series of nationwide antiwar events leading up to the date.

Malik Mujahid, founder of the new Muslim Peace Coalition-USA, anticipated the themes to be presented by the nearly 40 subsequent speakers at the Nov. 6 meeting, when, in his keynote address, he said that building April 9 would require “everyday getting connected with everyone who stands for peace and justice for all, not just for some.” Mujahid introduced several antiwar clerics from mosques across the city who were dedicated to mobilizing New York’s Muslim communities for April 9. Some 75 Muslim activists from New York were participants in the Nov. 6 meeting.

Speaker after speaker pointed out that an antiwar movement that is powerful enough to halt the U.S. government’s war drive would need to be one that has overcome the obstacles of Islamophobia, racism, class prejudice, and xenophobia to unify the millions in action.

The alternative was described from the floor by Alicia McWilliams-McCollum, whose nephew was one of the African American men from Newburgh, N.Y., recently entrapped by the FBI and presented to the nation as a terrorist threat justifying war and the Patriot Act. “I see all the people in this room,” McWilliams cried, “and I ask, where were you? We don’t need four people in the court room, we need to stand together in our thousands to deMalik Mujahid: Muslim Peace Coalition-USA feat this new Cointelpro.”

The lesson, it seems, is being absorbed by a broader section of the movement than ever before, as panelists returned (continued on page 11, in “Truth to Power”)

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5) Reduce the workweek to 30 hours with no cut in pay, and cut the retirement age to 55. Provide unemployment and retirement payments at the level of union We propose an EMERGENCY CONGRESS OF LABOR to discuss and take steps 6) To combat inflation: A sliding scale of wages and pensions that matches the 1) Bail out the people, not the bankers! Open the account books of the banks to rises in comsumer prices. To combat high medical costs: A free, universal, public full public inspection. Nationalize the banks to be supervised by workers’ commit7) Immediate citizenship for all undocumented workers. No job discrimination;

2) No foreclosures! No forced evictions! Cancel usurious debt payments, and equal pay for equal work — regardless of gender, sexual orientation, skin color, or reduce mortgage payments in proportion to their capitalist-caused decline in value.

3) Full employment at union wages! An emergency public works program to 8) Nationalize manufacturing, big agribusiness, energy, and transportation coremploy all jobless workers and youth! Employ people to build what we need — porations and place them under the control of elected committees of workers. low-cost quality housing, efficient mass transportation, cheap and renewable 9) To mobilize support for the demands it adopts, the EMERGENCY CONGRESS sources of power, schools, clinics — and to conserve our water, forests, farmland, should organize ACTION COMMITTEES in every workplace and neighborhood threatened by the crisis. These committees can draw up more concrete demands 4) Immediate and full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq & Afghanistan! Close all U.S. bases abroad! No money for the military — use funds instead for public 10) To put all these measures into effect, we need a LABOR PARTY — based on a works! Convert the war industries to making products for people’s needs and to fighting union movement and all people who are oppressed and exploited. For a Editor: Michael Schreiber International Editor: Gerry Foley Canada Editor: Barry Weisleder Socialist Action (ISSN 0747-4237) is published monthly by Socialist Action Publishing Association, P.O. Box 460501, San Francisco, CA 94146-0501. Postmaster: Send address changes to: Socialist Action, P.O. BOX 460501, San Francisco, CA 94146-0501. RATES: For one year (12 issues, 1st-class mail): U.S., Canada, Mexico — $20. All other countries — $30. Money orders and checks should be in U.S. dollars.

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’Tis the season to be jolly, or so we are told over, and over, and over again. It’s also the season to go out and buy! buy! buy! At one time the drumbeat to buy started the day after Thanksgiving. That time is long gone. Now with the rush of the capitalists and retailers to get ever more money, Christmas decorations pop up along with the Hallowe’en costumes.

Sitting down here in the working class, it’s not so easy to be jolly with the constant blaring—whether carols, flashing lights, or commercials—that to buy is to be happy. Buy for your children (at the best quality and highest prices) or they will be scarred for life! You are bad parents if you didn’t spend hundreds of dollars on toys, electronics, or latest video games and system.

A new angle they play in these economic hard times is “we’ve had a rough year, we deserve a little happiness” in our miserable lives. Again, happiness is defined as buying something—which isn’t always possible for the unemployed or those with part-time jobs that pay less than half their former income. On the other hand, folks lucky enough to have jobs are working 60-80 hours a week, and will probably be happy if they can sleep through the holidays.

This holiday that used to be a quiet day of celebration for those of faith—and for us others a nice quiet time with our families—has become a guilt-tripping horror so the rich can get richer.

And in much of the world it is far, far worse. The bankers in the imperial countries demand that the developing countries pay heavy interest on their loans in order to survive. And while they rake in trillions, whole countries don’t have money for elementary A WORKERS’ ACTION PROGRAM TO FIGHT THE CRISIS to implement the following demands — tees. and open space.

combat global warming.

Name Address City Phone E-mail sanitation or development of agriculture to feed the local population. The UN says 240,000 children (the death toll in the atom-bomb destruction of Nagasaki) die of preventable diseases each year—often due to the water they drink, which contains harmful bacteria and protozoa that carry diseases.

While the rich celebrate Christmas in their mansions, feasting on food and drink from around the world, most of the world’s population suffers from a lack of housing, schooling, and food.

But despite all this gloom and doom, dear readers, I do hope hearing the truth might relieve some weight from your shoulders. You are not responsible, you are wages and benefits.

health-care system.

national origin.

than the ones outlined above.

workers’ government!

State Zip • Ashland, Ore.: [email protected] • Ashland, Wis.: [email protected] • Boston: bostonsocialistaction@gmail. com (781) 630-0250 • Carrboro, N.C.: (919) 967-2866, [email protected] • Chicago: P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657, [email protected] • Connecticut: (860) 478-5300 • Duluth, Minn.:

P.O. Box 16853, Duluth, MN 55816, [email protected], www.the-red-raven.blogspot.com • Florida: [email protected] • Kansas City: [email protected] (816) 221-3638 not a bad parent or and uncaring spouse. You are the victim of a system—the capitalist system—that steals from the poor to give to the richest.

There is joy and hope in this Scrooge-like tale. It comes from the promise that we can band together the poor, the working people, many from the middle class, and those abused and tortured by this system worldwide. It is the joy that this barbaric system can be taken down.

We can build a system run democratically by the working class that will meet everyone’s basic needs. It will free the scientists and technicians to work for science and technology—and not profit. Instead of being hated by the world for all the wars and horrors we bring them, people in the United States and other technologically advanced countries will be loved for our doctors, teachers, and builders. Then all the holidays will be our holidays to celebrate as we please in a world of peace and abundance. n Update: Hutchinson for Congress Close to a thousand people voted socialist in Connecticut’s congressional election in November. Socialist Action’s candidate in the state’s First District, Christopher Hutchinson, an art teacher, received 976 votes in a four-way race, including John Larson, the fourth-highest ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives. Five parties held lines on the ballot.

John Larson received 61%, with 139,113 votes (57.7% on the Democratic Party line, and 3.5% on the Working Families Party line). Republican Ann Brickely got 37%, with 84,084 votes, and Green Party candidate Ken Krayeske got 1% with 2565 votes.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, school teacher and labor activist Dan LaBotz, running as the candidate of the Socialist Party, received about 27,000 votes for U.S. Senate.

For info about Socialist Action and how to join: Socialist Action National Office, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610, [email protected], (510) 268-9429 Socialist Action newspaper editorial offices: [email protected] Website: www.socialistaction.org WHERE TO FIND SOCIALIST ACTION • Philadelphia: [email protected] • Portland, Ore.: (503) 233-1629 [email protected] • Providence: [email protected], (401) 419-1706 • San Francisco Bay Area:

P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, Ca 94610 (510) 268-9429, [email protected] • Superior. Wis.: [email protected] • WASHINGTON, DC: [email protected] (202) 286-5493 Socialist Action National Office

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INSIDE SOCIALIST ACTION: U.S. politics turning right? — 3 Class war in Greece — 4

Afghan war loses credibility — 5 Obama finds G20 resistance — 6 Ireland heeds bank demands — 7

Canada news — 8 Latin America coups — 9 Haiti / Teamsters — 10 ’Tis the season to buy, buy, buy!

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