The 2016 socialist platform

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... Vote Socialist Action! 1) Abolish the U.S. war machine now! • Bring all troops home now! Close all U.S. foreign and domestic military bases. End all military spending now— not a penny for war! • U.S. out of the Middle East! • No to U.S. overt and covert wars, drone wars, oil wars, privatized death squad wars, sanction and embargo wars or wars for the re-colonization of Africa. • Abolish NATO and all other imperialist military alli­ ances! • Self-determination for all oppressed nations and peo­ ples. • Self-determination for Puerto Rico. No to imperialistimposed austerity in Puerto Rico. Abolish Puerto Rico’s debt to U.S. banks and speculating hedge funds. • Self-determination for Palestine! End all U.S. aid to apartheid Israel. For a democratic, secular Palestine with the right of all Palestinian refugees to return. Solidarity with Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) cam­ paigns. • U.S. hands off the Cuban Revolution. 2) Immediate conversion to 100% renewable power: sun, wind, geothermal and micro-hydro! Keep all fos­ sil fuels in the ground! • Guarantee jobs at top union wages for all fossil fuel workers during and after a just and rapid transition to clean and renewable energy systems. • Rapid conversion to carbon-sequestering agro-ecolog­ ical farming. • Immediate halt to expansion of all new fossil fuel ex­ traction and transportation projects • 100% tax on all fossil fuel corporations. Zero profits for the polluters. Close down and dismantle the fossil fuel industry, from extraction on up. • Dramatically expand mass transit—especially for low-wage workers. Reverse urban sprawl and unsustain­ able development patterns. Remediate and expand our forests, wetlands, and natural eco-systems. • For an immediate cleanup of Native American, Af­ rican American and Latino communities that have been victimized by environmental racism. • No to nuclear weapons. Shut down all nuclear power plants now. • U.S. reparations and zero interest loans to neo-colonial and island nations suffering from climate change due to past practices of the major industrial and imperialist na­ tions. 3) Jobs for all at top union wages! • Shorten the work week by 25 percent with no cut in pay, so that everyone can work and enjoy more free time. Modern technology should benefit the exploited 99 per­ cent, not the boss class one percent. • Create a massive public works program to provide jobs at top union wages through building homes, con­ verting to 100% renewable power, expanding mass pub­ lic transportation, constructing hospitals, parks, schools, (continued from page 1: “Jeff Mackler for president; Karen Schraufnagel for VP A FIGHTING SOCIALIST CAMPAIGN!”) change” imposed by U.S. military power and proxies leaves only “failed states” and is a recruiting tool for those seeking revenge in America and Europe. And these “failed states” have generated 65 million des­ perate refugees looking mainly in vain for some safe place to relocate. “Regime change” is the job of the people of those countries—not the U.S. military. American workers have no interest in wars that serve only our bosses. The principle applies: “work­ ing-class solidarity has no borders.” As we divert the enormous sums spent on war to better use, we will share the “peace dividend” with those who have been victimized by wars of intervention. As the great pio­ neer American socialist Eugene V. Debs said at the time of the First World War—“For us there is no war but the class war.”

Health care for all Socialist Action supports the popular demand for Canadian-style single-payer health care for all as a transitional reform leading to superior socialized medicine—such as won by the British Labor Party de­ cades ago, and the even better system put in place by the Cuban Revolution.

For Fifteen Now! There are two complementary cur­ rents in the mass movement for $15 an hour. It be­ gan with fast food workers striking and demonstrat­ and other social necessities. Priority should be given to projects where they are most needed—especially in Black and Latino communities.

• Raise all pensions, Social Security benefits, unemploy­ ment and disability compensation, welfare, and veterans benefits to top union wage scales and protect them with cost-of-living escalator provisions.

• For $15 and a union now as a first short step on the road to a much higher minimum wage to sustain a quality standard of living.

4) Quality health care, education, and housing for all as basic rights!

• Close down the profit-gouging “health-care” insurance companies and establish a single-payer system in rapid transition to a universal and free national system—that is, socialized medicine.

• Use the savings towards provision of quality health care for all and retraining insurance workers for new jobs.

• Free quality public education at all levels from the cradle to the grave. Cancel all student debt. ing nationwide for “15 and a union,” an upsurge that is not only still growing but that now includes other low-wage workers—even adjunct college instructors. The other component has won numerous victories in establishing state and local minimum-wage increases progressing in stages to $15. Socialist Action has been supportive of both approaches as a modest downpayment toward an adequate raise.

Human and civil rights The American working class is among the most di­ verse in the world. It embraces those whose ancestors were indigenous, others brought here as slaves, and immigrants from many lands. When mutually respect­ ed, these differences can make us strong. But the rul­ ing class stirs up bigotry and suspicions to try to keep us divided and fighting among ourselves.

This also enables them to pay women, workers of color, and undocumented immigrants far less in wag­ es. Segregated communities pay more for rent and mortgages—and even groceries. Whether in “pros­ perity” or recession, African-American and Latino workers are last hired, first fired, always with much higher unemployment rates. Racism and sexism is profitable for bosses and merchants, and they depress wages and conditions for the whole working class.

The poverty and despair among youth in depressed, segregated neighborhoods, which have been articu­ • Void all drug patents to cut public costs to a minimum.

• Cancel all medical debt.

• End all home foreclosures. Establish and expand rentcontrol to combat the mass-displacement of poor and op­ pressed communities through gentrification.

• Massive government funding to repair, modernize, and build homes – starting where need is greatest.

5) End the racist, slave labor for profit prison-indus­ trial complex!

• End the racist school-to-prison pipeline. Build schools, not jails.

• Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Oscar Lopez Rivera, and all political prisoners.

• Abolish the racist and classist death penalty. Rapidly empty the prisons while immediately organizing quality, humane rehabilitation facilities to rebuild ruined lives.

• Prosecute and jail killer cops • De-criminalize all drugs. Take the profit out of drug trafficking. End the racist “war on drugs.” Massive in­ (continued on page 10, in “Old South”)

lated by movements like Black Lives Matter must be­ come the concern of all.

Women workers deserve equal pay for work of equivalent value. We need to fix the inequities of So­ cial Security that leave many widowed or divorced women penniless in old age. Socialist Action sup­ ports employer-paid quality, professional child care for working mothers and public funded care for those looking for, or unable to work. We fight against the sometimes violent attacks by the theocratic right on women’s access to birth control.

We applaud the judicial victory allowing same-sex couples to marry if they so desire. But even that ad­ vance is facing attacks by religious bigots in public office. The same “social conservatives” have stirred up fresh targeting of transgender people with the so-called “bathroom laws.” And violence against LGBT Americans has continued, as we were reminded by the mass killing at the Pulse club in Orlando. For a labor party Socialist Action is part of the historic tradition that works simultaneously for a revolutionary socialist party and for a party based on the foundation of our only class-based mass organizations—our unions. We think that a labor party will come about as the out­ growth of a reborn democratic, fighting union move­ ment. A labor party will be a giant step forward to­ ward breaking the ruling-class political monopoly and will work toward putting a government in power that is run by and for the working class. n Get involved in the Socialist Action campaign! For more information, see www.socialistaction.org.

SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 2016 7

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smuggle shipments of Chinesemade FN-6 shoulder-fired weap­ ons over the border from Turkey, and Saudi Arabia sent thousands