Justice for Eric Garner!

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The horror of Ferguson was repeated on Dec. 3 when a 23-person grand jury in Staten Island, N.Y., failed to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Black man. The cause of death was ruled a ho­ micide by chokehold by the medical examiner. Garner was being arrested for In the cellphone video of the July 17 attack, Garner was heard repeated­ ly crying out, “I can’t breathe!” as Pantaleo choked him and five more cops pinned him down. A peaceful protest of thousands followed on Staten Island.

At Socialist Action’s press time, Dec. 3, hundreds of outraged protesters marched through Manhattan, conducted a die-in within Grand Central Sta­ tion, blocked the West Side Highway, and blocked off Times Square. Garner’s stepfather, Ben Carr, said, “It’s like being stabbed in the heart.”

“I will fight until the end,” Eric’s widow, Esaw Garner, vowed. “I am deter­ mined to get justice for my husband because he should not have been killed in that way.” She also spurned the statement of sympathy released by Daniel Pantaleo following the grand jury’s decision, stating, “The time for remorse More protests are to follow. The Rev. Al Sharpton has announced that he is seeking to organize a march on Washington, D.C., on Dec. 13. n Outrage erupted coast to coast at the grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the white cop who murdered Michael Brown, an unarmed African American youth, on Aug. 9 in Fergu­ son, Mo. Brown, 18, was shot six times, twice in the head. In testimony and in­ terviews, Wilson says he has no regrets.

As the decision was announced on the evening of Nov. 24, an enraged crowd gathered outside the Ferguson police station. Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, pointed to the cops, “Y’all know you’re all wrong!” She continued with tears in her eyes, “Everybody want me to be calm; do you know how many of them bullets hit my son?” Brown’s fa­ ther, Michael Brown Sr., later told CNN, “I feel like they killed him again.”

The announcement of the grand jury decision by Prosecuting Attorney Rob­ ert McCulloch contained too many half-truths and prejudicial statements for people to swallow. Immediately af­ Tony Savino / Socialist Action ter the decision, protests and clashes with police broke out in Ferguson and over 120 U.S. cities, as thousands upon thousands of African American and anti-racist activists, mostly youth, poured into the streets.

Across the nation, major roadways were blocked and bridges seized, some for hours, by protesters stirred to a molten rage by the decision. In New York City, protesters closed down selling single untaxed cigarettes. three major bridges and the Lincoln Tunnel.

Not since the 2012 murder of Tray­ von Martin, a Black teen shot dead by racist vigilante George Zimmerman in Florida, has mass outrage been so deep. Said one protester in Ferguson, “The system failed us again.” A New York driver stuck in a Midtown pro­ test told reporters, “I’m a Black man. I have two Black children—and enough is enough!” was when my husband was living and breathing.”

Veteran New York police brutality ac­ tivist Jose Lasalle, a member of the Cop (continued on page 10, in “‘Amazons’ — One more challenge to the myth of male dominance”)

SA Convention — 2 $15 Now strikes — 5 Women’s history — 9 Immigration / Mexico — 3 Capitalist hype — 6 Film / Cuba — 11 Postal workers — 4 Canada news — 8 U.S.-China on climate — 12

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Socialist Action convention sets national goals queers, national minorities, etc. We support the right of self-determination for oppressed nationalities, including Blacks, Chicanos, and Puerto Ricans. We are internationalists, and Socialist Action is a national organization of activists committed to the emancipation of hold that workers of one country have more in common with workers of another than with workers and the oppressed. We strive to revitalize the antiwar, environmental, labor, anti- their own nation’s capitalist class. We seek to link struggles across national boundaries, and racist, feminist, student, and other social movements with a mass-action perspective. In the to build an international revolutionary movement that will facilitate the sharing of experiences process we hope to bring activists together from different backgrounds into a revolutionary and political lessons. That is why we maintain fraternal relations with the Fourth International workers’ party that can successfully challenge the wealthy elite—whose profit-driven system Recognizing the divisions that exist on the left and within the workers’ movement, we seek to form united front type organizations around specific issues where various groups have Our ultimate goal is a truly democratic, environmentally sustainable, and egalitarian agreement. In this way we seek to maximize our impact and demonstrate the power and society organized to satisfy human needs rather than corporate greed. We invite you to join Socialist Action believes that the capitalist state and its institutions are instruments of the We are active partisans of the working class and believe in the need for independent ruling class, and that therefore they cannot be used as tools of the working class but have to working-class politics—not alliances with the bosses’ parties. That is why we call for workers be smashed. That is why we fight for revolution, instead of seeking to merely reform or work in the U.S. to break from the Democratic and Republican parties to build a Labor Party based within the system. When we fight for specific reforms, we do so with the understanding that in the final analysis real social change can only come about with the overthrow of capitalism, We support the struggles of those who are specially oppressed under capitalism—women, Socialist Action (ISSN 0747-4237) is published monthly by Socialist Action Publishing Association, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610.

Postmaster: Send address changes to: Socialist Action, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610. 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.

Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of Socialist Action. These are expressed in editorials. Socialist Action is edited, Subscribe to Socialist Action By THE EDITORS Socialist activists across the United States and interna­ tional co-thinkers from France and Canada participated in Socialist Action’s 16th National Convention, Oct. 1719, in Minneapolis.

The opening rally, “Imagine Living in a Socialist USA,” was attended by some 75 activists and featured a dozen speakers with whom Socialist Action has col­ laborated.

The speakers included Hakim Guesso, a leader of the Anti-Capitalist and Revolution current in the French New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA); Barry Weisleder, fed­ eral secretary, Socialist Action (Canada); Chris Gray, So­ cialist Alternative; Mick Kelly, Freedom Road Socialist Organization; Fred Magdoff, Monthly Review magazine; and Michael Steven Smith, co-editor of the new Harper Collins book, “Imagine Living in a Socialist USA.” Other speakers were Ricardo Levins-Morales, Twin Cities artist and cultural organizer; Chris Mato Nunpa, Dakota elder and educator; Mel Reeves, African Ameri­ can journalist and organizer; Kim Serrano, Speak Out Now; Linnea Sommer, granddaughter of socialist trade unionist and 1934 Minneapolis Teamster strike partici­ pant Chester Johnson; Sanna Nimtz Towns, social jus­ tice activist and lecturer; and Sabry Wazwaz, Palestinian rights leader.

Heather Bradford, a member of Socialist Action’s Du­ luth branch, spoke for Socialist Action. The enthusias­ tic rally, chaired by Socialist Action’s Stephanie Levi, raised funds to help defray the long-distance transporta­ tion costs of young delegates from areas such as Texas, California, and East Coast cities.

Most rally speakers brought solidarity greetings and expressed appreciation for Socialist Action’s participa­ tion, collaboration, and support in advancing critical so­ cial and political struggles, defense campaigns against government repression, opposition to all U.S. wars—and especially the ongoing Israeli occupation and slaughter of the Palestinian people, backed to the hilt by American imperialism.

The Socialist Alternative speaker expressed apprecia­ tion for Socialist Action’s political and financial support Socialist Action: Where we stand is driving down living standards and threatens all life on this planet.

us in the struggle to make the world a better place!

on the trade unions.

SOCIALIST ACTION Closing news date: Dec. 4, 2014 Editor: Michael Schreiber Canada Editor: Barry Weisleder designed, and laid out entirely by volunteer labor.

Tony Savino / Socialist Action to the 2013 election campaign of Ty Moore, whose im­ pressive bid for a seat on the Minneapolis City Council narrowly lost by some 250 votes.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization leader Mick Kelly similarly expressed his party’s appreciation for Socialist Action’s consistent solidarity work in defend­ ing FRSO and all of the 23 activists who are victims of threatened government prosecution—facing possible federal grand-jury indictments on frame-up charges of conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism.

Socialist Action’s convention featured four major pre­ sentations covering the different sections of the 42-page Draft Political Resolution that had been submitted to the party’s ranks to initiate a three-month internal preconvention discussion and debate. Based on a system of proportional representation of all points of view, conven­ tion delegates were elected from Socialist Action units in a dozen major cities, as well as from smaller units with sufficient members to qualify for delegate status. A portion of the Draft Political Resolution, which will soon be produced in booklet form and at socialistaction. org, was published in the November issue of Socialist Action newspaper. The resolution analyzes the deepen­ ing crisis of the world capitalist system and its ramifica­ tions for U.S. workers and the oppressed. In addition to effectiveness of mass action. the establishment of a workers’ government, and the fight for socialism.

• Ashland, Ore.: damonjure@earthlink. net (Photo) New York SA member Marty Goodman hawks the Socialist Action pamphlet, “Free, Free Palestine!” The convention approved a new set of topical pamphlets to be issued in 2015. detailing the massive attacks on all aspects of working-class life, major foci of the text are on U.S. imperialism’s ever-expanding wars on nearly every continent and on the catastrophic threats to the world’s environment posed by world capitalism’s fossil-fuel-induced global warm­ ing and parallel pollution of the planet.

The resolution noted that despite the anger, frustration, and hatred of oppression and exploitation that broad layers of the working class, especially youth, daily ex­ perience as capitalism imposes unprecedented austerity measures and repression, the level of organized broad and coordinated resistance struggles and the number of significant victories remain low. This was attributed in significant part to the ongoing political degeneration of the traditional mass workers’ organizations and trade unions and the present marginalization of the forces of the revolutionary socialist left.

Nevertheless, delegates across the country noted the growing receptivity of working people—again, especial­ ly youth and oppressed nationalities—to socialist ideas. This has been reflected in Socialist Action’s winning new layers of radicalizing youth to its banner. The adopted Organizational Report set out Socialist Action’s goals for internal education, regularization of branch activities, and a series of national speaking tours of SA’s experienced and emerging leaders. The report also adopted impressive goals to increase the circulation of the party’s revolutionary press and publications, im­ prove party finances, and, above all, to deepen Socialist Action’s efforts to engage in the critical struggles that are increasingly winning the hearts and minds of work­ ers and youth, and to recruit that broadening layer of radicalizing activists to the revolutionary party. The convention was preceded by a two-day education­ al conference that featured discussion on Building the Leninist Party, The Revolutionary Role of the Working Class, The Struggle for Palestinian Freedom, and Wom­ en’s Liberation: A Contemporary Debate. n For info about Socialist Action and how to join: Socialist Action National Office, P.O.

Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610, (510) 2689429, [email protected] Socialist Action newspaper editorial offices: [email protected] Website: www.socialistaction.org WHERE TO FIND US • Portland, Ore.: (503) 233-1629 [email protected]

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VOL. 32, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2014 WWW.SOCIALISTACTION.ORG U.S. / CANADA $1 Outrage at racist grand jury decisions

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