Boston climate march built solidarity in the movement
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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.
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Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of Socialist Action. These are expressed in editorials. Socialist Action is edited, A in Boston constituted the first coordinated effort Dec. 12 rally and march for Jobs, Justice, Climate by New England 350.org chapters to build concrete relationships with economic justice and social justice organizations.
New England 350 developed a partnership with sev eral key Boston-based unions and immigrant rights organizations, gathered the endorsements of more than 140 organizations, and put more than 2000 peo ple in the street to say “no” to the COPS 21 agreement.
In this effort, the activists were inspired by the Sept. 26 televised “launch” of the 350.org strategic frame work called the “Road Through Paris,” in which Nao mi Klein and others motivated seeing the climate cri sis as the opportunity to join with everyone to build a new sustainable economy that was also equitable and just.
The union endorsements included those of the Mas 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: Jan. 10, 2015 Editor: Michael Schreiber Canada Editor: Barry Weisleder designed, and laid out entirely by volunteer labor.
Socialist Action sachusetts Nurses Association, United Food and Com mercial Workers Union, Service Employees Union Lo cals 508 and 1199, and the Vermont AFL-CIO, along with other important multi-union economic justice coalitions.
While the mobilization size was relatively modest in light of the significant endorsements, it was the larg est climate demonstration that the network has orga nized so far. Perhaps more importantly, the speeches were dramatic in what they suggested about the kind of movement and alliances that can and must be built.
The first of two rallies opened with a talk by Derek Pelotte, a young 350 activist and teacher from the working-class and highly immigrant town of Lowell, Mass. Pelotte moved the crowd by explaining that to win on the climate, we must “build the future across movement lines. We will do this together, or not at all.”
Alluding to Cornell West, who said that movement building is really “loving publicly,” Pelotte listed the political tasks facing those who want to create inclu effectiveness of mass action. the establishment of a workers’ government, and the fight for socialism.
• Buffalo, NY: wnysocialist@google. com sive and powerful coalitions to save the planet.
“Loving publicly,” he said, “means acting as witness es in testimony against police brutality, of which poor and minority communities are disproportionately subject...
“Loving publicly means standing with our disgrace fully underpaid service workers, adjunct professors, construction workers, home-care workers, machin ists, truck drivers, delivery personnel, and airport and dock workers, and walking arm in arm to fight for their right to $15 an hour and the right to unionize. Loving publicly looks like standing with our DREAM er allies and declaring that there are no illegal people; there is only racist exploitation of the most vulner able among us.
Solidarity, Pelotte concluded, is a revolution in its own right.
The material basis of this solidarity was brought dramatically home by Black Lives Matter activist Jean Charle, who spoke when the march reached the State Street bank: “It’s not a secret that State Street finan cially supports pipeline projects. It’s not a secret that State Street supports private prisons.”
This theme of solidarity as the key to victory was brought home over and over again as the crowd re sponded throughout the day to the presentations of Karen Higgins, the national co-president of National Nurses United; John Robbins, executive director of the Massachusetts Chapter of the Council of American Islamic Relations; Sherri Mitchell of the Penobscot Nation; Adrian Ventura, director of a New Bedford, Mass., workers’ center: John Harrity of the Connecti cut State Council of Machinists; and many others.
Harrity concluded the day by explaining why cli mate change is a labor issue. “Workers are on the front lines of the consequences of climate change— not just here but around the world,” he said. “We are also on the front of the solutions—ready to manufac ture new technologies, build energy efficient infra structure, and maintain a decentralized power grid.”
We must take the road, Harrity said, to a new world that is “cleaner, more democratic, and economically equitable.” n For info about Socialist Action and how to join: Socialist Action National Office, P.O.
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