We stand in solidarity with the workers of TN and the workers throughout the world who are standing for their rights



from the Memphis Socialist Party

Nashville- Members of the Memphis SP and activists from the Memphis/Mid-South area joined over a thousand in Nashville and rallied on the plaza in front of the Tennessee capitol building in protest of legislation designed to break the backs of unions in a bid similar to those in WI, OH, and elsewhere. Labor activists and union members entered the Senate Commerce Committee meeting to express concern over the anti-labor bills. After the committee stalled for over an hour, people began to chant, “Union busting has got to go”. Seven activists, including Memphis Socialist Party members Sally Joyner, Bennett Foster, and Paul Garner, were forcibly removed, detained, and arrested by TN Capitol Police and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. They were not being heard, and when they raised their voices, they were silenced by the state.

The Memphis SP stands in solidarity with our comrades, and with all those whose voice is silenced by the business as usual violence of capitalism rolling on. We stand in solidarity with the workers of TN and the workers throughout the world who are standing for their rights."

more info can be found at: http://tennesseelabor.blogspot.com/ and
http://memphissocialists.blogspot.com/






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We hold on to the hope inherent in socialism that even in the darkest moment of disaster, a better world is possible.



by Andrea Pason and Billy Wharton, co-chairs Socialist Party USA

March 15, 2011 - The Socialist Party USA extends its most sincere wishes of sympathy and solidarity to the people of Japan as they suffer from the greatest tragedy since World War II. We have watched in horror as the deadly Tsunami wiped out whole towns, killing tens of thousands of people. Even areas that were left untouched by the direct devastation are now suffering from shortages in the most basic and vital supplies to ensure people’s health and welfare.

We support the efforts of International relief organizations who are responding to the crisis. We also call for the substantial resources of the US government to be used in the initiative to relieve the suffering of the Japanese people. It is moments like this where we recognize, and others should realize, how important the
kind of global connectedness necessary to create an international system based on solidarity and mutual cooperation is most necessary.

Political statements seem out of order given the depth of human suffering. However, we are also quite concerned about the potential dangers facing the Japanese people and people around the world from the damaged nuclear reactors. Though the storm was a natural phenomenon, the dangers inherent in nuclear energy, not to mention nuclear arms, are not; they were created by human hands.

We pledge and hope others will as well, to redouble efforts to end the “Nuclear Renaissance” currently underway in the US and hope other countries will do the same in ending the use of nuclear energy and the elimination of nuclear arms stockpiles worldwide. This is especially critical now as we see first hand the added devastation from the release of unknown amounts of radiation from the meltdown of possibly multiple nuclear power plants. We can only guess at the added cost of life, and fear the unknown effects on future generations.

Only a program of green renewable energy forms can meet the long-term demands for energy while ensuring the safety of the world’s population.

Today, we stand together with the Japanese people who are struggling to deal with this most terrible tragedy. There are no words that can effectively convey our sincerest sympathies to the people of Japan at this dark devastating time.

We hold on to the hope inherent in socialism that even in the darkest moment of disaster, a better world is possible. We hope that our simple message of solidarity to the people of Japan and to the family members here and around the world dealing with loss of loved ones may contribute in some small way, to raising the spirits of those in despair and to building greater links of friendship in the future.



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The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA stands in solidarity with the people's movement for democratic rights in Libya.




by Socialist Party USA, International Commission

March 17, 2011 - Although we are barely two months into 2011, tumultuous revolts have already made history in the Middle East and North Africa. Masses of people, from all walks of life, broke free from their respective authoritarian governments to protest and fight for freedom, democracy, and better living conditions. We have seen two of the region's most entrenched dictators brought down from power: Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. The successful people's revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, though nowhere near finished, inspired similar mass movements all across the region; from Morocco to Iran, Yemen to Syria, and even in U.S. occupied Iraq.

In Libya, a mass movement by the Libyan people to end the 41-year authoritarian rule of Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi has been murderous state-sponsored violence against unarmed protesters.

The United States, however, remains the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, conducting two wards in the Middle East and supplying many dictators, including Qaddafi, with the weapons to suppress their own people. The U.S. has no credibility to intervene in Libya on humanitarian grounds, nor can the international community credibly sit in judgment of Qaddafi while turning a blind eye to crimes of the United States.

The popular uprising in Libya began with a protest in Benghazi against the inhumane imprisonment of Fathi Terbil, a Libyan human rights activist. Within two days, on February 17th, a Day of Revolt resulted in the deaths of at least a dozen protesters. Within days, what was a small protest erupted into a mass movement against Colonel Qaddafi and the Libyan government. Despite Colonel Qaddafi's statement that he would “die as a martyr” and an onslaught from loyalist soldiers and war planes, the revolt only became more defiant and grew in strength and numbers. Now protesters control several key cities and regions, leading many to fear the outbreak of civil war. The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA stands in solidarity with the people's movement for democratic rights in Libya.

While the international response should be one of unity and solidarity with the Libyan protesters, the response of western nations has instead been marred by underlying imperialist goals and tactics that blatantly do not work. Until now, Libyan oil has served as a bribe between the Libyan government and several European nations, most notably Great Britain, in exchange for peace with Colonel Qaddafi and indifference towards his authoritarian regime. Now, the imperialists in the United States and Europe have deemed that Colonel Qaddafi's fall will benefit them more than continuing to support his authoritarian regime.

The United Nations Security Council decided unanimously to impose sanctions on Libya, a tactic that has found very little success elsewhere and has historically only increased the economic strain on the working class. More troubling is the fact that the United States has positioned naval war ships and Marines near Libya, in the event that they deem it in their best interest to invade Libya and forcibly remove Colonel Qaddafi from power. This was a blatantly wrong move in Iraq that only created widespread suffering for the Iraqi people in the interest of achieving larger oil profits, and it is a blatantly wrong move now. President Obama has refused to rule out military intervention, instead declaring that all options remain on the table. In reality, the United States has already intervened in Libya by arming the Qaddafi regime under the imperialist banner of the “War on Terror”. The blame for the bloodshed in Libya does not only fall on Muammar Qaddafi, but also on the American government. Imperialist military intervention is the exact opposite of what the Libyan people want and need.

As with protests in Tunisia, Egypt, all across the Middle East, North Africa, and the planet as a whole, the Socialist Party USA stands firm in our support for all mass movements that aim to better the lives of the working class and to create a more democratic society. We strongly condemn the use of violence by the authoritarian Qaddafi regime to prolong its inevitable collapse. We also strongly oppose any imperialist intrusion on the freedom or democratic rights of the Libyan people, both in the present and after Colonel Qaddafi is out of power. We call upon the compassionate people of the United States to join us in protest against war, imperialism, and militarism on April 9th and 10th. For more details on our upcoming actions, please visit http://socialistparty-usa.org/campaigns/anti-war.html.



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Our democracy is not contained within the Assembly Houses and State Capitols; we build it in the streets!



by Andrea Pason and Billy Wharton, co-chairs Socialist Party USA

March 9, 2011 - It has just been reported that Wisconsin Republicans have approved the provision in Governor Scott Walker’s Budget Repair Bill that strips public employees in Wisconsin of their collective bargaining rights. Collective Bargaining is necessary to the functioning of trade unions and is a right that should be held by every worker in both the public and private sectors. As socialists, we condemn Governor Scott Walker and the Republicans in Wisconsin.

We call on students, workers and all who are opposed to this decision to converge on Madison tomorrow to protest. We support the resolution passed by the South Central Federation of Labor (Wisconsin) that calls for a general strike of all workers in the region. We support the immediate formation of strike committees by all union and non-union workers in the state. We support all acts of civil disobedience and non-compliance to protest and reverse this Bill.

Workers and students shut down Wisconsin! As popular movements throughout the world claim their democratic rights, Walker and the Republicans have trampled on workers in Wisconsin. By building on the spirit of Tahrir Square, Madison can be the site where a new militant worker’s movement is built. Our democracy is not contained within the Assembly Houses and State Capitols; we build it in the streets!

For a General Strike of all Wisconsin Workers!
Kill the Bill!
Build Democracy in the Streets!



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...masturbation is obviously the most ethical act short of chastity.




by Lawrence Rockwood

Our society needs to stop selling sexual love, marriage and having children to the general population. Society should go back to encouraging monasticism as in the West one thousand years ago and among some Buddhists societies even today, even for atheists. As socialists, our blindness to material cost to individual members of our society resulting from romanticizing of sexual love leads us to support some of the most socially destructive laws and policies as a social good. Capitalism has everything to do with sex, love, and marriage. It is no coincidence that the most socialist social compacts historically were monasteries, regardless of the religious traditions involved. The greatest crime in the history of human relations was the dereification of sexual love from a physical thing to a romantic plane by mostly men that were not getting enough sex on this plane. As socialists, we do not sufficiently address the fact that the most catastrophic material events in many individuals’ lives is often directly related to falling in love and, therefore, often the most regretted.

In Volume I, Part 1 of Marx's Capital, he discussed the all important concept of “commodity fetishism” as a “mystification” of market stimulated human relations that have become degraded to the point that they are objectified as a material relationship between commodities (things) and capital (money). In his earlier and more humanistic works, Marx related "fetishism" to materialist approaches to origin of religions, especially Ludwig Feuerbach's. Marx would have been much more successful if he focused on the more earthly core focus of commodity fetishism in human affairs – sexual love.

I think the main reason for this was his extremely atypical relationship with his wife Jenny. He loved her dearly, gave her very little of the materialist symbols of the commodification of romantic love, and worked her to an early death. Their relationship would have been completely extraordinary if they had not been extremely poor. The commodification associated with sexual love has always been associated with power and class since the days of the Pharaohs when the women of the highest position wore dearly expensive make-up to give them the appearance of being in heat.

The success of capitalism in increasing the material possessions of even the lower classes in the world’s most exploitive nations until the 1970s enabled billions of less affluent women to be able to buy products to make them look like they are also in heat. Today the entire content of so-called “womens'” magazines and the economies of entire sections of our major cities are fascinatingly and wholeheartedly pure in their commitment to this ancient mission. The imperfect professional social, economic, and professional advancement of women over the last century as done nothing to stem the advancement of this core sector of our economy, quite the reverse.

For a women to appear to be in heat is for the general purpose of increasing the likelihood of sexual contact with a preferred partner or at least for a secondary advantage of appearing to be so preoccupied. It is also said that even males engage in economic behaviors toward similar ends (enough said on that score). But, the intended result, the act of sex itself, is not always the problem. In this I follow Red Emma Goldman and not Andrea Dworkin. In fact, just as a sex act that does not spread disease is a more responsible than unsafe sex, the most ethical kind of sex is sex that is not tied to romantic love, marriage and childbirth. Even in the case of the later, wanted children are much more likely to consume far more the earth’s resources than unwanted children and, therefore, the decision to have them is more irresponsible. Or in more striking Marxian terms, they are more likely to be class enemies. Therefore, in summary, masturbation is obviously the most ethical act short of chastity.

And yes, almost as problematic as the dereification of sexual love is the glorification of parenthood. To provide for one’s natural offspring is not virtuous. If it is, is a virtue characteristic of being a good mammal rather than anything specific to being an ethical human being. What is greed other than desiring the material well being of oneself and one’s own at the expense of others? To expand this desire of material well being from one’s family to any larger group that does not encompass the entire human race is the very essence of fascism. For example, a nationalist is nothing more than the point on the evolutionary scale between a mammal and a human.

How do our romantic and family based sentimentalities lead us, even as socialists, to take the wrong positions on some of the most materially significant issues in our society? Here are just a few examples:

1. The industries associated with providing services to those most affected by the consequences of romantic love and parentage are some of the most rapaciously exploitive institutions in our capitalist society. For example, the divorce and child custody industry gives the prison and war industries a run for their (or our) money in their exploitation of the human condition. If there is the moral civilian equivalent of war criminals, they are to be found in this industry. As socialists, we often defend the former because it its association with public institutions. The same logic should hold for the latter.

In fact, the most common form of violence in our society is not war; it is violence from a sexual partner, a former sexual partner, or a parent. The so-called professionals and institutions who have fiduciary obligations to assist such victims should be most ethical; too often they are the least ethical in our society.

2. Can you imagine living in a society where they pay people thousands of dollars a years to have children for no other reason except that they have reproductive organs? What is worse, socialists often support such policies even when they are not tied to economic need. The least insightful child knows the world does not need more people and only “national socialists” are interested in increasing one human population at the expense of another. It is true that in the early 20th century that socialists like Margaret Sanger were publicly tainted with psuedo-science of eugenics. But to ignore the scientific evidence of the chief source of human suffering on earth is an even more inhuman extreme. The human preoccupation with sex has led the successful increasing generation of the human species as an end in itself, an end that is no longer desirable.

3. As socialists, we fight for the right of every human to socialized medicine. But what kind of medicine? The glory of American “for profit” medicine is the many brands of miracle meds to artificially give a man an erection. The race for an equivalent for women is severe. This is based on the reality that the erection, or sex drive, is the fundamental totem of our capitalist society at large. Conservatives attack socialized medicine because they claim it may provide these meds to certain groups like child abusers or undocumented immigrants. We should dispel them of this worry. On a planet where the poorest billions die in agony for not being properly maintained on pain medications, a technology 10,000 years old, no one should be provided “boner” pills. One area the military was more socially advanced than civilian society at large was in the fact it used taxpayer funds to provide saltpeter, however unwillingly, to its soldiers.

4. As socialists we often fail to defend a woman’s reproductive rights as a social instead of a liberal right. It was once argued that slavery was a necessity, it was not and neither is sex (the technology of the swab and the test tube has arrived). But while slavery could be ended by an act of state, sex cannot. Regrettably, as sex is a somewhat irresistible choice for most, abortion at this point in history is a necessity. Because most people will not take my sage advice and become monks, the human race must live with the consequences of the sexual act and the state must allow people to mitigate those consequences. The state can no more end abortion than it can end sex, it can only make them illicit. The “right of privacy” in Roe v. Wade is misread by liberals as a “personal choice.” If you read the actual text of the decision, abortion is a human right contingent on current technology and access to it provides a social right based on necessity and not a liberal right based on mere personal preference.

The state never has a right to do what it does not have the power to do. This is also true of other human behaviors that the state can only criminalize, but not end, whether drinking, drugs, the sex industry, or suicide. The state can, however, criminalize behavior based on the “intentional” victimization of others, like the sexual exploitation of children and other violence. That is why if it could ever be proved (and it cannot) that the intention of a particular sex act was an abortion, that act should be illegal. In the same way, it should be illegal to intentionally deprive others of the fruits of their labor, which can be proven (and that fact is what makes us socialists). That is why the democratic socialist position to law and government should be based on a socially pragmatic “libertarianism” and not the subjective idealist “libertinism” of liberals.

In conclusion, I am a socialist because I am against war. War is the consumption of 70% of the world’s natural resources on an annual basis by the most materially endowed top 20% of the world’s population while the bottom 50% consumes less than 5%. We need an international democratic socialist revolution. In the mean time, the most revolutionary thing we can do is to keep it in our pants.



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in communities like La Vega, known for its large African descendent population and oral traditions, hip-hop’s emergence there seemed only natural.






by Lainie Cassel

This short video documents a hip-hop school in the large and overcrowded barrio of La Vega in the hillsides of Caracas, Venezuela. Filmed in the months of July and August in 2010, it features interviews and performances by those involved in the school known as EPATU (Popular School for the Arts and Urban Traditions).

Hip-Hop La Vega. Caracas, Venezuela from Caracazo Media on Vimeo.

The two main performances by the students, which are not translated due to the poetic nature of the lyrics, are summed up below.

In the first performance, 19-year-old Karine discusses the exploitation of women and the violence caused by gender inequality. In the second song, 12-year-old Alejandro performs for his first time in front of hundreds of spectators. The song, which he wrote just weeks after joining the school, is called “The Empire” and discusses the systemic poverty caused by imperialism. His chorus is a call for others to keep their heads raised and struggle against the inequalities.

While I was the editor, the youth often took charge of the camera and some of their footage is incorporated into the short film. Below is an article that better explains the background behind the nation-wide movement known as EPATU.

Hip-Hop lives on in Venezuela

It is 7:00 on a Wednesday evening in Caracas’s southern barrio known as La Vega. In a small classroom lined with worn-out wooden desks, youth of all ages sit and listen to a local DJ talk about the historical roots of hip-hop culture. After the discussion is over, the youth quickly disperse and hip-hop beats begin blasting as dancers practice their footwork and emcees prepare to show off their latest rhymes.

Caracas may be further then a stone’s throw from hip-hop’s birthplace in the Bronx but in communities like La Vega, known for its large African descendent population and oral traditions, hip-hop’s emergence there seemed only natural. Allowing for youth to express themselves, while connecting them to their ancestral roots, hip-hop has become a way-of life for many.

Thanks to a program called EPATU (the Spanish acronym for Popular School for the Arts and Urban Traditions), Venezuelans as young as 2 and as old as 76 are experiencing a growing hip-hop culture first hand. So far over 30 hip-hop schools have opened in 15 states around the country, mobilizing a new generation of youth through music.

However, for EPATU organizers starting a hip-hop movement in a country largely consumed by salsa and reggaeton music has not come without a backlash from community members. Karine Esparragoza, a 19-year old emcee who attends classes at EPATU in La Vega, admits that her family members are not comfortable with the hip-hop culture. “They associate hip-hop with drugs and violence”, she told me in an interview, “but I’m here because I strongly believe that is what we are fighting against.

Overcoming the negative stereotypes of hip-hop is one of the biggest challenges facing organizers and one in which the participants are trying to change. They do so by targeting those most likely to get involved with violence – young males and children living on the streets. Hip-hop’s counterculture appeal draws the youth in while also giving them an alternate way of expressing themselves.

In La Vega, EPATU has had numerous successes, attracting anywhere between 20 to 50 kids on any given evening. Their school is located in a park at the bottom of a road that leads up to what were in the past some of Caracas’s most notoriously dangerous streets. “The point” as the park has been named, is the original headquarters of hip-hop in Caracas and has survived the ups and downs of a decades long movement.

As La Vega-based rapper “El-Ega” claims, “hip-hop in Venezuela, like around the world, was born as a cry against the oppression we faced in our communities and as a call for protest”. In the 90’s, hip-hop music had clashed tremendously with the ruling government, a trend that changed when President Hugo Chavez, himself a hip-hop fan, took office in 1999.

While hip-hop was less mobilized in Chavez’s initial years in office, it saw a rebirth with the rise of a nation-wide collective called Hip-Hop Revolucion (HHR). HHR, which since 2005 has held an annual International Hip-Hop summit, was born out of radical movements in the barrios of Caracas. The collective is home to a number of well-respected artists and has grown to include members from around North and South America.

It was from HHR, that EPATU was born. A project that had been on the backburner for years and a dream of many of those hopeful to pass hip-hop music on to future generations, EPATU was officially launched on the 18th of January in 2010. Before its inception, organizers from around the country worked tirelessly through workshops and conferences in preparation.

Each individual school operates according to the needs of the communities in which it resides but all are expected to incorporate political formation into their coursework. Generally, one day a week is devoted to discussions and workshops that cover topics anywhere from racism to consumerism and cultural imperialism. Other nights are saved for the four elements of hip-hop (breakdancing, emceeing, graffiti and DJing).

Before the official commencement of EPATU, HHR put out a statement that reads

“We realize that the struggle of our movement begins within ourselves; we must try to destroy our individualities and understand that alone no progress is possible. Our culture is collective from its roots, for this reason we look beyond the four elements of our movement, we view our cultural creation as an act of freedom that can neither be bought nor sold, traded nor negotiated; it is simply for living and building.” (Read more)

In a country undergoing radical political change known to many inside Venezuela as the “Bolivarian Process”, EPATU organizers hope to keep the movement autonomous of state as well as private institutions. As the national lead organizer, Julia Mendez notes, however “We are a 100% revolutionary organization and we fully support the [Bolivarian] Process.”

President Hugo Chavez has given support back and has gone so far as to invite numerous hip-hop artists from HHR onto his well-known Sunday television program, Aló Presidente. As La Vega coordinator, Tirso Maldanado argues, however, “our allegiance is not with the government nor with the President but rather with our community.”

EPATU recently formed a relationship with the Ministry of the Communes but many of the promised resources have yet to arrive at the schools. As a result, national coordinators promote local projects to help sustain each individual EPATU school. Encouraging schools to do their own fundraising or begin their own businesses, organizers want to see EPATU last long-term, independent of who is in office.

The movement of course is not without its own contradictions. While the main coordinator of EPATU is a female, the schools are overwhelmingly dominated by males. In a country known for its extreme machismo, however, the movement has arguably made strides in allowing women to express their own frustrations with the current status quo.

And while coordinators try to promote politically conscious music, youth often have a difficult time differentiating between corporate rap from abroad and music coming from their own communities. Images of flashy cars and scarcely dressed women give false illusions to youth about what the music represents and makes the work of the coordinators that much more difficult.

Yet, despite the obstacles EPATU continues to grow. Finishing off its first year, it has been successful enough that hip-hop artists from abroad have used it as a model for their own communities back home. Most importantly, though, it has set a standard for so-called conscious hip-hop artists to live up to their own lyrics by putting their work as community members and educators ahead of their individual careers. While in the United States, artists have gone so far as to claim the death of hip-hop, in the barrios of Venezuela its legacy lives on.

***
Lainie Cassel is an independent journalist based in Caracas, Venezuela and New York City. She can be reached at Lainie.Cassel[at]gmail[dot]com.


from Venezuela Analysis

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'I am a Wobbly.'... I refer less to political orientation that to political ethos, and I take Wobbly to mean one thing: the opposite of bureaucrat.




Charles Wright Mills (August 28, 1916, Waco, Texas – March 20, 1962, West Nyack, New York) was an American sociologist. Mills is best remembered for studying the structure of power in the U.S. in his book The Power Elite. Mills was concerned with the responsibilities of intellectuals in post-World War II society, and advocated relevance and engagement over disinterested academic observation, as a "public intelligence apparatus" in challenging the policies of the institutional elites in the "Three" (the economic, political and military).

There has long been debate over Mills's overall intellectual outlook. Mills is often seen as a closet Marxist because of his emphasis on social classes and their roles in historical progress. Just as often, others argue that Mills more closely identified with the work of Max Weber, whom many sociologists interpret as an exemplar of sophisticated (and intellectually adequate) anti-Marxism and modern liberalism.

While Mills never embraced the "Marxist" label, he nonetheless told his closest associates that he felt much closer to what he saw as the best currents of flexible, humanist Marxism than to its alternatives. He considered himself as a "plain Marxist", working in the spirit of young Marx. In a November 1956 letter to his friends Harvey and Bette Swados, Mills declared "[i]n the meantime, let's not forget that there's more [that's] still useful in even the Sweezy kind of Marxism than in all the routineers of J.S. Mill put together." There is an important quotation from Letters to Tovarich (autobiographical essay) dated Fall 1957 titled "On Who I Might Be and How I Got That Way": "You've asked me, 'What might you be?' Now I answer you: 'I am a Wobbly.' I mean this spiritually and politically. In saying this I refer less to political orientation that to political ethos, and I take Wobbly to mean one thing: the opposite of bureaucrat. […] I am a Wobbly, personally, down deep, and for good. I am outside the whale, and I got that way through social isolation and self-help. But do you know what a Wobbly is? It's a kind of spiritual condition. Don't be afraid of the word, Tovarich. A Wobbly is not only a man who takes orders from himself. He's also a man who's often in the situation where there are no regulations to fall back upon that he hasn't made up himself. He doesn't like bosses –capitalistic or communistic – they are all the same to him. He wants to be, and he wants everyone else to be, his own boss at all times under all conditions and for any purposes they may want to follow up. This kind of spiritual condition, and only this, is Wobbly freedom." These two quotations are the ones choosen by Kathryn Mills for the better acknwoledgement of the nuanced thinking of C.W.Mills.

Mills clearly understood his position as being much closer to Marx than to Weber, albeit influenced by both, as Stanley Aronowitz argued in A Mills Revival?. Mills argues that micro and macro levels of analysis can be linked together by the sociological imagination, which enables its possessor to understand the large historical sense in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. Individuals can only understand their own experiences fully if they locate themselves within their period of history. The key factor is the combination of private problems with public issues: the combination of troubles that occur within the individual’s immediate milieu and relations with other people with matters that have to do with institutions of an historical society as a whole. Mills shares with Marxist sociology and other "conflict theorists" the view that American society is sharply divided and systematically shaped by the ongoing interactions between the powerful and powerless. He also shares their concerns for alienation, the effects of social structure on the personality, and the manipulation of people by elites and the mass media. Mills combined such conventional Marxian concerns with careful attention to the dynamics of personal meaning and small-group motivations, topics for which Weberian scholars are more noted. Above all, Mills understood sociology, when properly approached, as an inherently political endeavor and a servant of the democratic process. In The Sociological Imagination, Mills wrote: "It is the political task of the social scientist -- as of any liberal educator -- continually to translate personal troubles into public issues, and public issues into the terms of their human meaning for a variety of individuals. It is his task to display in his work -- and, as an educator, in his life as well -- this kind of sociological imagination. And it is his purpose to cultivate such habits of mind among the men and women who are publicly exposed to him. To secure these ends is to secure reason and individuality, and to make these the predominant values of a democratic society."

from Biographicon</a>



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a hope that socialist feminism might make a return to its roots by making a powerful critique of the oppression faced by poor and working class women



Editorial, The Socialist Issue 2, 2011

Searching for the radical edge of the women’s movement is no easy task these days. Women’s rights activists have moved far from the heady days of the late 60’s and early 70’s when notions of a distinct feminist politics intersected with the countercultural impulse toward social experiments. Radical feminism brought movements on the communes and the campuses to life. Socialist-feminists always had a complicated relationship with these efforts. The possibility of challenging patriarchy in a radical way was attractive, yet these movements often shifted away from the class-based roots of our movement. Today, decades after the 60’s wave has crested, a new radical feminism is being born. This time it is growing in workplaces throughout the country.

Immigrant women workers have been busy at doing the organizing work necessary to create a new class-based feminist politics. All over the country, nannies, house cleaners and other caregivers are standing up to their bosses and demanding their rights as workers who provide for the physical and emotional well being of others. Their organizing has transcended immigration status, linguistic barriers and cultural norms. A look at a few of these organizing projects will provide an inspirational note of resistance for annual International Women’s Day celebrations.

In New York City, the Domestic Worker’s United (DWU) stands as one of the most successful working women’s organizing projects in the country. Last year, DWU won a major legislative victory by forcing New York State to recognize the labor rights of domestic workers who had previously been excluded from the legal statutes. This victory was built upon the successful person-to-person organizing the group carried out over the last few years. DWU uses direct action to ensure employers pay agreed upon wages and has made major inroads into Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities in the city. The group combines the functions of a trade union with features of mutual aid and community organizing.

When a group of Brazilian immigrants, 10 women and one man, found their way into employment in the Boston-area cleaning industry, they realized that changes were needed immediately. The worker’s were demoralized by the low wages and several had become ill as a result of industrial chemicals. So, they struck out and formed the Vida Verde worker’s cooperative. This worker-run, worker-owned cooperative now controls wage levels, is committed to only using green cleaning chemicals and is a vibrant part of the local community. Vida Verde stands out as a model in an industry where many working women are subject to low wages, illness and worksite abuses. Socialist values of worker self-organization, ecological balance and female worker empowerment are alive and well here.

Meanwhile, in Northern California, the women’s organization Mujeres Unidas y Activas combines the best of feminist social process with immigrant rights campaigning. Formed in 1989 as a result of an influx of immigrants from Central and South America, the group looks to break down the isolation that is built into immigrant life, especially for those who arrive without papers. Women’s circle support groups are combined with job training and community political action in support of immigrant’s rights. The project taps into the positive tradition of the feminist movement by encouraging women facing oppression to speak out about their experiences and receive support from a community facing similar challenges. The community organizing aspect of Mujeres Unidas y Activas has led to concrete improvements in the conditions for immigrant working women. The group successfully pressed to save prenatal care programs for undocumented women and has used popular theatre techniques to tackle community problems such as worker’s rights, health issues and immigrant’s rights.

These are three of the many groups of female immigrant workers carrying out the struggle for worker’s justice in the US. It is unlikely that any would consider themselves in any formal way as socialist-feminist. Some might even refuse the tag of feminist. However, their collective activities among working people offers the best hope for a revival of the kind of militant working class feminism that motivated the creation of International Women’s Day by radical women in 1911.

Just like their predecessors from the 20th century, socialists of today need to be involved in these projects that fight for justice for female immigrant workers. There is much to learn from their new techniques of organizing and from the energy they bring to the class struggle. So, as we prepare to celebrate International Woman’s Day 2011, we share a hope that socialist feminism might make a return to its roots by making a powerful critique of the oppression faced by poor and working class women and by initiating campaigns aimed at relieving the burdens faced by these workers.



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Insider strategies won’t work any longer. Lobbying and collecting donations won’t put an end to the attack by the right wing.



by Andrea Pason, Co-chair Socialist Party USA and Kristin Schall, Chair NYC Local

Access to high quality, affordable healthcare in the US continues to be an obstacle for many Americans. Amidst this, Planned Parenthood has been a haven for a diverse community of women seeking women’s health services. From birth control to prenatal care, Planned Parenthood has been at the forefront of offering women access to all aspects of family planning as well as cancer and STI screenings. This is a vital resource for all women and losing access to these services will affect all women.

What makes Planned Parenthood work so well is precisely the qualities that would make a full socialized medical system work. Planned Parenthood doesn’t discriminate. Everyone is provided equal access. People receive the care they need and no one is turned away. Instead of cutting back, we need to expand these values to all parts of the US medical system.

The recent vote in the House of Representatives to end federal funding of Planned Parenthood is yet another attack on the poor and working class. The Right has used their majority status in the House and Senate as a vehicle for pushing through regressive legislation in the guise of spending cuts, which has been used to cut back social programs and put forward an agenda that is rooted in racism, sexism and homophobia. The proposed cuts to Planned Parenthood is just the latest in a string of bills that chip away at the needs of poor and working class Americans.

The Socialist Party USA opposes the cuts to Planned Parenthood. We believe that access to a broad range of reproductive choices is a right of all women. This includes safe, affordable and on demand access to abortion, as well as access to birth control and prenatal care. We recognize the vital role of Planned Parenthood in providing these services to women who might otherwise not be able to access them. If this defunding bill is approved, it will be disastrous to women’s access to healthcare. For many low-income women, Planned Parenthood is the only available option for women’s health services.

As socialist feminists, we see the cuts to Planned Parenthood, not only as an attack on women’s rights, but as part of a well planned strategy being initiated by the right in the form of budget cuts being enacted across the country. We oppose any and all legislation that would result in cuts in services to the poor and working class or job loss. Instead, we call for a Single Payer healthcare system that would provide quality healthcare to all regardless of their ability to pay. We also call for full funding of all social services as well as a system of full employment. We see these things as fundamental to creating a more equitable and humanitarian society.

Insider strategies won’t work any longer. Lobbying and collecting donations won’t put an end to the attack by the right wing. Our movement for women’s rights needs to learn some lessons from the Madison protests. Strategies of mass protest building towards civil disobedience and other forms of noncompliance are critical tools for changing the political culture in this country. By using this strategy, we can not only defend the rights we have, but also push forward to expand them. If you want to get involved, contact a Socialist Party organizer today!

No to the Attack on Women’s Rights!
No to Austerity!
For Full Access to Reproductive Services!

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It is up to us to create a nurturing socialist society for women, children and men, for everyone.



by Harriet Fraad

As a woman and a socialist who is a founding mother of what was then a decidedly socialist “Women’s Liberation Movement” I look at our many triumphs and some tragedies as well. Our triumphs have been that we won some positions of equality. We wanted equality in the labor force and as far as our percentage of the labor force goes, we have equality. We are half of all US employees. However, we have achieved equality within a system of gross inequality. Our vision as socialists was that if we on the bottom rose up, we would bring everyone with us. That has not happened. The reverse has happened.

The quality of life for both male and female workers has degenerated. The United States went from being the most egalitarian nation in the Western industrialized world in 1970 to the most inegalitarian nation now. Wage differences between rich and poor have vastly increased. CEOs, who were paid about forty times more than average employees in the 1960s and 1970s, now make about 400 times more money even as they drive their corporations into the ground. Work hours have increased for all Americans, women included. Americans work 20% longer hours than do our compatriots in the rest of the industrialized world.

We now earn 77.1% of what men earn for comparable work. Men still have 22.9% wage supplement for being male. That is a big improvement over the 59% of men’s wages we earned at the beginning of our movement in 1968 when men got a 41% financial bonus for their maleness (Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Sept. 2010). Sixty-seven percent of us are still concentrated in pink collar jobs in social service work, and the health care and food service industries (Lindell, Dec. 17, 2010). These industries are low wage industries. However, they are the industries that are growing while typical male stereotyped, more testosterone driven jobs are increasingly outmoded. Construction, heavy machine operating and finance jobs have been decimated. Managers are increasingly female. Female skills in social relationships, teamwork and connection building are in greater demand than the aggressive confrontational behavior that conforms to a machismo stereotype.

Our rights as independent women have expanded. Our personal lives have radically changed. We are no longer constrained to stay home, nor are we able to. We need to be financially independent because men can no longer support us. White men used to be bread earners able to support dependent wives and children on sufficient wages. Minority men and single women never received a family wage, even though, they too supported families. Women maintained domestic, physical and emotional well-being for men and children within households while, as in the case of white men, men supported women financially. Women provided emotional support for each other as well as for the rest of the family. We still do domestic and emotional jobs at home in addition to our paid work outside of the home.

We have adjusted to the need for our paid labor in the marketplace. We also had a movement to support us in that economic role. Men have not made a similar adjustment or commitment to share domestic and emotional. Women still do 70% of the housework and 82% of the childcare labor (Fraad, Resnick, Wolff 2009, p.17-70). We are also rejecting marriage. For the first time in US history most women are single and most divorces are initiated by women. For the first time since the US began collecting statistics in 1880, most people of prime marriageable age, from 18-34 years old, are not married. Fully 40% of US children are born outside of a marriage. Marriage has broken down. Half of young people of marriageable age think marriage is obsolete (“New Vow: I Don’t Take Thee” Wall Street Journal, 9/29/2010, “Marriage Rate Falls to About 50% As People Say Institution Is Obsolete” Bloomberg, 11/18/2010, and “Recession Rips at US Marriages, Expands Income Gap Associated Press, 10/20/2010).

The US women who are at greatest risk are mothers (Lerner, 2010). There are scant social supports to help the mass of working women who have children. We are the only Western industrial nation that does not provide paid maternity leaves to working mothers. We are the only nation that does not routinely provide free medical and maternity care (UNICEF 2007). Consequently, one of the best predictors of poverty in the US is having a child.

The women’s movement created equality for women within a nation of inequality. The mass of women have been freed from restrictive roles within the home. The failing US economy and our wish to be part of a fuller life, have combined to propel us into the labor force without the social supports that would give us the time to enjoy our fuller lives, our partners, or our children. Our personal lives are overwrought, overworked and desperate. Men are in trouble as well. Their jobs are even more precarious and more easily outsourced. They are losing their wives and children who were once their emotional anchors. Only privileged women can afford to stay married with the domestic relief and child care provided by other women poorly paid as maids, nannies, daycare workers, etc.

In order to achieve the socialist goals of the original Women’s Liberation Movement, which were full, productive and loving lives for all women, we would need to mobilize our government to expand the domestic and child care supports that permit us to participate in the labor force and also enjoy our lives, have sharing partnerships with our husbands, wives or lovers and nurture our children. If we embraced socialist programs, that would be possible. Funds for the free quality childcare and health care enjoyed by other nations are available. We need to tax the rich, stop costly endless, wars, and create: quality child care centers, after school and summer programs, low cost attractive quality restaurants, free quality universal medical care and mandatory paid vacations. The nations that best provide the lives we need are not as rich as the United States. The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and France are either governed by socialists or
have powerful well organized socialist and communist parties. It is up to us to create a nurturing socialist society for women, children and men, for everyone.

Bibliography
Fraad, H. Resnick, S. and Wolff, R. 2009. “For Every Knight in Shining Armour, There’s A Castle Waiting to be Cleaned: A Marxist-Feminist Analysis of the Household.” In Class Struggle on the Home Front. Ed. G. Cassano. New York: Palgrave.Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Sept. 2010.
“The Gender Wage Gap: 2009-Updated Sept. 2010. Washington, DC: Institute for Women’s Policy Research.Lerner, S. 2010. The War on Moms. Hoboken, NJ. Wiley and Sons.Lindell, R. Dec. 17, 2010.
“Pink Collar Jobs Spare Women from Recession.” Global Banking Alliance for Women.




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...ageing is gendered, in the sense that the meanings attributed to age are different for men than they are for women



by Kartika Tamara Liotard, Member of European Parliament & Sophie Rosseels, Senior Policy Advisor European Parliament


Connecting Gender and Ageing starts from the premise that gender and ageing are connected. This connection should be understood in terms of gender and age exerting their influence on social organization in a combined way, often reinforcing each other’s impact.

As such, it is implied that gender and age are not just variables, but rather determinants in that they fundamentally alter social organization.
Notwithstanding, its combined impact on social organization is rarely given any attention (in research). The aim of the editors is therefore, to develop and apply a theoretical framework that allows researchers to uncover the impact of gender and ageing on social organization.

This paper first discusses how ageing is gendered, in the sense that the meanings attributed to age are different for men than they are for women (section 2, p.4). Next, the particularities of possible theoretical frameworks connecting gender and ageing are discussed (section 3, p.7). The paper then describes the outcomes of studies which have attempted to connect gender and ageing: in retirement (section 4, p.9), in informal care (section 5, p.12) and in relationships in later life (section 6, p.15).

Throughout the paper, findings from Gender and Ageing are included. This book, published as a follow-up of Connecting Gender and Ageing, focuses on changing gender identities in later life. It takes a closer look at how roles and relationships change over the life course. It does so from a gender perspective, paying attention to male experiences as well (without renouncing the often disadvantaged position of older women).

Read the entire paper:
CONNECTING GENDER AND AGEING IN EUROPEAN POLITICS




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The rally represented one the most attended and resolute demonstrations of
worker solidarity in recent Connecticut history.



by Jim Marra, Secretary, SPCT

State Capitol, Hartford, February 23, 2011, Noon

The Socialist Party of Connecticut participated in the Wisconsin Solidarity Rally in Hartford on February 23rd. It attended in support of workers who are valiantly fighting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s and his Republican Party’s shameless attempt to deny workers their collective bargaining rights. The SPCT joined its union and activist brothers and sisters to call for complete economic, political, and social equality for all. It added its voice to the many demonstrators who demanded secure collective bargaining rights, pensions, health-care benefits, and social security not only in Wisconsin and Connecticut, but for all workers throughout America.

The rally was held at the Connecticut Capitol’s ornate West façade overlooking Hartford’s expansive Bushnell Park. It began promptly at Noon and drew a crowd numbering in the hundreds. In attendance were Union representatives from AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers, the United Auto Workers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, among others. A number of Connecticut socialist and social activist groups joined in strong solidarity including ANWSER CT, Central CT State University Professors for Progress, and CT Socialist Action. The throng was as passionate in its call for an end of all union-busting legislation as it was peaceful and vocal. Chants of “We are One!” and “Shame on Walker!” were enthusiastically shouted and grew louder as the event went on into the afternoon.

The rally represented one the most attended and resolute demonstrations of
worker solidarity in recent Connecticut history.



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I reached out to my incredible female friends and asked them: What does Feminism mean for you in your life? - Mensen

...a similar space for free-spirited civic engagement outside the control of either the right-wing or Democratic party agendas is still an open question.



By Rebecca

After police, Union reps and Democrats convinced the 50 or so people remaining in the Capitol to end their occupation last night, the most highly visible and sustained direct action against the Walker/Fitzgerald/Koch regime came to an end. As it turned out, those occupying the Capitol since February 14 were there with the tacit consent of the Department of Administration and the Capitol Police. Until Judge Albert's decision came down yesterday, not a single order was issued to remove people from the building. Those who left did so of their own free will.


The "no arrest" policy was confirmed today by Mike Huebsch, Secretary of the Department of Administration, in a joint press conference with Capitol Police Chief Tubbs. When asked why the Department of Administration did not move to evict protesters before yesterday, Huebsch replied that "the organic expansion of people, organization and settlement" took them by surprise, as did "the spontaneity and size of the crowds." Decisions about how to control the movement of such large crowds of people were complicated by the ongoing business of the Joint Finance Committee Hearing, the Assembly Democrat-sponsored, "quasi, though not officially sanctioned hearings" which lasted for several more days through the wee hours, followed by the three-day long session of the Assembly during which AB 11 was being debated. Huebsch said that the DoA respected the constitutional provision which states the the building must be open when there is business being conducted, and
did not order people out of the building for that reason.

Secretary Huebsch thanked Judge Albert a number of times for the court order issued yesterday. He said it allows the DoA to require people to vacate the Capitol during non-business hours, and gives them the authority to implement a "capacity management plan" in accordance with Administrative Code 2. This plan currently involves the continued presence of a large number out-of-jurisdiction police officers, public access restricted to two doors only (either the North and South entrances, or the East and West entrances), security pat-downs, loss of electronic key access to Capitol employees until the DoA is satisfied they can "gain compliance from all employees" with rules of use, and a long list of sanctioned and unsanctioned items and behaviors allowed in various parts of the building. The plan is subject to minor changes at any moment depending upon conditions, but will not be substantially re-evaluated until all protests have come to an end.

Both Tubbs and Huebsch reiterated that their role was to "enforce the laws and protect the lives and property of people." Their methods for doing so involve "gaining control of the building" as well as depending upon "the cooperation and deferential attitude toward law enforcement" of protesters. Huebsch highlighted his appreciation of protesters' cooperation a number of times, saying how much he appreciated the fact that the people of Wisconsin can "disagree without being disagreeable." In an eerie summation of the events of the past few weeks, Huebsch said, "the occupation of the Capitol was an historic event. I'm not sure we'll see it again for some time."

After witnessing the intense pressure that was brought to bear upon the protesters by members of the Democratic Party, AFL-CIO and the Police to voluntarily leave the building last night, and the way in which many of them succumbed to it, it was probably for the best that the protesters left. A dozen or so understood that this was the moment to make the choice to enact the civil disobedience they had been training for over the previous two weeks precisely because there was finally an order that they could disobey. However, they realized that unless a critical mass of the group decided to do it, the action would not have been effective. Their numbers had been whittled down by the crackdown earlier in the week, and up until the court order and the announcement by Chief Tubbs that the police were going to enforce it, the protesters were simply pushing their luck. When push came to court-ordered shove, the majority decided to not be disagreeable, pick up
their belongings and leave.

The Democrats' and Union reps' line of attack was to tell the protesters that they were hurting "the movement" by continuing their occupation, and that they would damage the peaceful, compliant image of "the movement" by choosing to get arrested. They argued that arrests would play into the hands of Scott Walker by giving Fox News images of unruly people being dragged out of the the Capitol, and that the Capitol occupation no longer played any significant role in "the movement." They also mentioned that the 14 Democratic Senators would not take their abandoning of the Rotunda as a lack of support.

As a way to lift their spirits, a Democratic staffer told protesters that they had achieved something that hasn't been achieved in decades: the reinvigoration of the progressive wing of the Democratic party. She additionally explained that "all of this information we've been collecting from all of you is to activate you in our upcoming campaigns."

All of this raises many difficult and personally challenging questions, the foremost among them being the nature and definition of "the movement." It is clear the the Democratic Party and national and international Union reps have very particular ideas about this, and are attempting to direct the extremely diffuse, intense and disorganized energy of the grassroots into their programs. The largest of these programs is the mobilization to recall 8 Republican Senators. This would enable the Dems to vie for their seats in a matter of months. If successful, the Dems would hold a majority in the Senate which would serve as a check on Scott Walker's lust for power, but wouldn't alter the basic direction of state policy vis-a-vis funding of public sector institutions or material support for vulnerable and needy people.

Another question is our individual relationship to formal power, our needs to be perceived in a particular way, and how those two things inform our actions. Scott Walker's use of intimidation tactics and displays of force are consciously targetted at the Wisconsin public's deferential attitude toward law enforcement and our desire to be perceived as nice, reasonable, civil, law abiding citizens. We need to study the deeper meanings of civil disobedience and non-violent action against injustice, get over our desire to be liked and approved of by authority figures, and find ways that we can demonstrate our outrage at the Walker/Fitzgerald/Koch regime that don't involve having to prove we're patriotic by glorifying militarism singing the Star Spangled Banner, or continually thanking police officers for enforcing unconstitutional orders.

We must step up our efforts to learn about and understand the forces propelling our state, country and planet toward a future in which the vast majority of people work and suffer to support and enrich a few in whose hands material resources and decision-making power is concentrated. Coming from an informed place, we need to decide how to resist these forces and create more humane conditions in which to live and work. Now is also the time to begin figuring out how we are going to take care of our friends, relatives and neighbors whose lives will be turned upside-down in the event that this budget and "repair bill" come to pass as policy.

The Capitol Occupation created a space for people to "organically" come together and discuss ideas, strategies, hopes and fears in light of the draconian policies hanging over the heads of the people of Wisconsin. It also facilitated direct access to our legislative representatives in a way that most people had not imagined they would ever need or want. I have never had as many meaningful, thought-provoking conversations with strangers as I've had inside the Capitol Rotunda over the past 3 weeks. The killing of the spirit of the "Rotunda Community" by administrative crackdown and control is a tactic calculated by the Walker/Fitzgerald/Koch regime to break up the concentration of energy and the central organizing point of this diffuse yet intense opposition to it's heartless, cruel and greedy agenda. That we allowed this to happen is not a victory. That we can re-establish a similar space for free-spirited civic engagement outside the control of either
the right-wing or Democratic party agendas is still an open question.



from Solidarity

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the world while created good is essentially fallen and that while redeemed in Christ, can only progress toward goodness and perfection...



by Dave Eaton

An Orthodox Christian Socialist Perspective

Since the mid to latter 19th century, it has been common to think scientifically of evolution as both a physical and social process. Organisms develop over time to an ever increasing degree of complexity, each previous stage of development a premise for the next stage which is more advanced than prior stages. Both the physical world and our social environment are considered to progress in such a fashion. Historically as Socialists we analyze the part played by labor in the transition through these developmental periods. We have primitive hunter gatherers, nomadic warriors, sedentary agriculture, slave/serfdom, feudal economies, theocracies, kingdoms and monarchies, constitutional reforms, parlimantery government, simple capitalism, industrial capitalism, capital globalization, imperialism, post-industrial service economies, socialist mixed economies. Each stage characterized by increasing use of tools, machination, assembly line organization,
manufacturing and IT systems - economic and political complexity arising from less organized social formations.

The idea of unrestrained progress which can be scientifically deciphered using principles of economic determinism, is a hallmark of scientific or Marxian-Socialism. Historical Materialism with its Hegelian movement from thesis to antithesis to synthesis, betrays this underlying Idealistic presupposition that history marches ever onwards toward systemic perfection: feudalism - petty-bourgeois society - industrial capitalism - monopoly capitalism, each historical stage requiring the previous stage as a point of natural progression to the next. The relations of production driven by the means of production toward a crisis point, in which the dominant social class of the epoch seizes the reigns of political power and advances society to the next stage.

Leninism with its emphasis upon understanding State formation and revolutionary process, argues that eventually the Socialist State [highest stage of historical development] will whither away and a classless society will emerge from the ashes of capitalism. Requisite for this process, however, is a dictatorship of the proletariat that will stop society from degenerating into a previous evolutionary stage, by hindering residual class elements from forming reactionary social forces. Leninist theory understands Communism/Communist party as a vanguard of the masses and representative of the working class.

Party is identified with class, class with historical epoch. Democratic Centralism prevails within the Party to ensure against revisionism and each level of hierarchy the will of the Party Structure from below. All power resides in the Central Committee and Party Chairman - now the Central Committee represents the Party which represents the working class which is formed in a dictatorship of the Party. The dictatorship is to be maintained at all costs and by any means necessary. To argue against the Party is to betray the Revolution. Stalinism with its extreme organization institutionalized this process in a form of State Capitalism and Social Totalism. Party leadership becomes the People, the individual is lost to the collective.

Differences between Marxism-Leninism and Evolutionary Socialism adhere in that the latter believes each historical epoch will naturally progress to the next without the need for social insurrection, while the former understands social development to mandate class seizure of the means of production. Inherent in both positions, however, is the belief in unhindered social progress as the basis for historical development. As an Orthodox Christian Socialist such a dichotomy is untenable. Current Evolutionary theory is non-Darwinian incorporating insights from quantum mechanics, relativity and field theory, cybernetics, holographic information processing, constructivism, DNA science and Lamarkian Teleology.

Inter-species development has been rejected in favor of mutation and variety within species and parallel evolution, complexity does not necessarily emerge from simplicity [David Boehm's theory of implicit and explicit universes], genetics now teaches that encoded in all cells is a master blueprint for development prior to that development itself - nature does not select, the universe programs nurture.

This suggests that while there is a teleology to physical evolution, most likely tending toward ever greater development of the brain so as to manipulate the environment proactively, there is no necessity for a determined social evolution based on progress. Arguments from economic determinism are reductionist and historical-materialism contrary to the idealistic nature of universal purpose. The Orthodox Christian understands this purpose as the mind of God underlying reality. The Christian message scientifically based upon basic evolutionary teleology but primarily grounded in a special revelation of Christ incarnate in history.

Even Trotsky in his writings on permanent revolution, discusses the reality of history skipping stages of development as a fact of modern political theater. Laws of combined and uneven economic development, a Leninist-Trotskyist concept, imply that different geo-political entities will undergo change at varying rates of development and with varying levels of political sophistication. The first and second worlds coexist with the third and fourth worlds. The economic disparity is profound, as are the differences in world political systems: Islamic Theocracies, Parlimantary Democracies, Constitutional Monarchies, Fascist Dictatorships, Socialist Countries, Communist States. Society slips into political entropy and economic decline as much as it progresses toward mutuality and sustainable development.

Development appears cyclical rather than linear and there is no guarantee of a Socialist Future. Modern History suggests that progressive Left-wing political movements either degenerate into Fascistic Party Conglomerates or revert to ever expansive non-sustainable capitalist ventures. Consider the Soviet Gulag, Kampuchean Killing Fields, N. Korean Juche policy, the Maoist Cultural Revolution. Also Post-Soviet Federalist Russia, Modernist China and the global sellout of American Labor to foreign controlled multinational corporations. What a Socialist Society envisions is more of Castroism without Fidel or a Eugene Debs/Roosevelt style New Deal.

Evolutionary or Revolutionary Scientific Socialism is a false dichotomy to the Orthodox Christian Socialist. An Orthodox Christian understands that the world while created good is essentially fallen and that while redeemed in Christ, can only progress toward goodness and perfection but never arrive until the Second Coming of our Lord. The hard reality is that as Orthodox Christians we are called to repentance both individually and socially, to the New Testament vision of the Apostolic Community where all possessions were shared in common, but in full and sure knowledge that Evil is an ever present reality with which we contend daily. The Gospel of our Lord is social as well as personal and the socialist vision is one that the Orthodox Christian embraces.

As Orthodox, we can affirm the Marxian insights of class analysis as a factor in determining social awareness and of the dialectic between the means and relations of production. That is to say, we accept the obligation to stand with the disenfranchised, to help organize Trade Unions, to agitate by civil disobedience and the ballot box. We understand that unrestrained, developed Capitalism by definition is un-Christian and sinful. That Nationalism beyond federated decentralized communities and Internationalism defined as One World Government, are an abomination [the one denying the neighbor and the other coercing the individual]. We reject, however, the myths of unrestrained social progress and scientific socialism.

Socialism is a social not natural science, as much a matter of Faith as is Orthodox Christianity. Both require an initial verdical experience and corresponding decision or choice to act on that existential encounter. Orthodox Christian Socialists do of course accept the fundamental Marxist formulation, that Capitalism and the need for Socialism are defined in the nexus between the private accumulation of capital and the social needs of the economic infrastructure. The productive forces exist to provide for the economic needs of society: adequate food, shelter, clothing, medical treatment, education, household items, asundry merchandise but in a society based upon wage labor and the private accumulation of capital, these needs are eclipsed by self aggrandizement [Corporate Owners, CEO's, Sr. Management, Dividend Shareholders, Venture Investors]. The needs of production are in logical conflict with the relations of production. Capitalism pushes against
the very social fabric which it is meant to serve. Only the move to a mixed economy with a sustainable capital base and limited private ownership, under the mandate of guaranteed individual and social rights [Bill of Rights, Helsinki Declaration of Universal Human Rights, SP-USA Platform] and a multi-party, multi-tendency radical people’s democracy, can achieve a truly sustainable and viable Socialist vision. As Orthodox Christian Socialists we are called to live toward this reality and refashion the world, understanding that such a transformation will take one step forward and two steps back only reconciling itself in the new world of Gods coming Kingdom.

How does the Orthodox Christian Socialist understand the use of violence in establishing a just Socialist future? As Christians we are called to transform our swords into ploughshares, to turn the other cheek, to place the needs of the other before ourselves. On an individual basis and within the Body of Christ [Church], it seems apparent that God calls us to radical pacifism. It has, however, been the Tradition of the Church since Apostolic Times that in certain circumstances violence was justified but still sinful. In other words, it may be necessary in pursuit of a just cause to use violent means against violent persons and institutions but it is only a necessary evil, not a righteous act [Just War Theory]. Personally, I will not use violence to protect myself other than minimal deflecting blows but I will use violence to protect others. This seems to me the standard of appropriate Orthodox Christian conduct.

Socially, the Orthodox Christian may serve in the military during times of peace and war - this is viewed as an unfortunate but necessary reality and civic responsibility. For the Orthodox Christian Socialist this reasoning must also be extended to non-state actors. Socialism is a just political system that will only be achieved by the use of the ballot box, non-violent civil disobedience, personal witness, union strike, mass action and in some cases direct revolutionary insurrection. Revolutionary violence should always be a last resort, should as much as possible be against property rather than persons, and against those in Police Uniform rather than the average citizen.

Acts of traditional political terrorism targeting property, the State, and Political Leadership are allowed but only when all other means have been utilized and found wanting. Physical violence, public insurrection and acts of terrorism are never right but only justified as a lesser evil, when the suffering of the people represented by the action is at an extreme. This is not the situation today in the United States, Europe, Japan, Korea, China, Russia and other developed countries. In such locales as the Sudan, Somalia, North Korea, Haiti, Guatemala, Burma, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Bosnia, Mexico, etc..., the situations with lack of food, shelter, medical care and political redress are so severe as to mandate armed insurrection and guerilla activity.

Even Mother Maria Skobtsova - the Dorothy Day of Russian Orthodox Christianity, a one time member of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party, mayor of a Green Territory Province, tonsured Orthodox Nun and candidate for Sainthood - advocated the assassination of Leon Trotsky when he betrayed the SRP and declared the Party defunct after the collapse of the Kerensky Government and the routing of the Mensheviks. The SRP was the majority people’s party and militantly left-wing but not Bolshevik. The will of the Russian people was decimated under the terror of the Red Purge and Trotsky was to blame.

Only the requests of party comrades kept her from acting and she later emigrated to Paris, France. Only, however, after being brutalized by both Red and White Army detachments. In Paris she devoted herself to caring for the poor and dispossessed, living Gods call to sell all and serve those in need. Mother Maria died at the hands of the Vichy Nazi Government when she was interred in a concentration camp for hiding Jews. The Orthodox Action Movement, similar to the Catholic Worker Movement, is her legacy to contemporary Orthodoxy.

Today in the United States the situation is similar but different, we need to advocate and agitate for universal medical care, food rations, pensions, education, childcare, infrastructure development, workplace democracy and a multi-party political system. The electoral process, civil protest actions, and limited civil disobedience against corporate property are all justified. In some instances of the severely disenfranchised and hardcore poverty striken communities, individual acts of violent demonstration or attacks on property [eg. breaking into a grocery store for food, fighting the police when they attack your neighbors for racial reasons] are the lesser evil of watching your family and community perish. Violence is never a right choice but it is sometimes justified as the correct option for the Orthodox Christian Socialist. Sometimes love for the neighbor means directly fighting for their basic human dignity.

As Tolstoy has observed in his essay on the State and Church, the State and State Sponsored Religion are violence personified. Standing armies as an implement of enforced government policy, either through a National Guard that controls civilian populations or a National Army that enforces international policy, are instruments of terror. They repress individual rights and the freedom of disparate communities to chart their own political course. This can be seen today in the controversy over the United States war in Irag and the ongoing Russian/Chechyn civil war, as well as China’s occupation of Tibet and Chavez’s sponsorship of Colombian FARC narco-terrorists.

In the Socialist vision, Standing Armies would be reduced to a national protective function only. They would not be sent overseas unless part of a UN sanctioned peace plan. Peace Corps style programs would again be the brunt of our international service effort. The United States would no longer need to police the world, we need to worry about our own community first and let other countries do the same. We can assist internationally but not dictate political policy. In this circumstance, the Orthodox Christian Socialist dilemma with regard to violence and military service would not go away but would be more clearly defined and morally manageable.

Tax resistance is another topic of historical salience for the Orthodox Christian Anarcho-Socialist and requires brief address. Traditionally, payment of Government sponsored tax initiatives has been viewed as a form of tacit cooperation and funding for repressive social regimes. In Fascist and totalitarian societies this is a solid argument. In the muddied reality of modern capitalism the situation is not so clear cut.

Educational institutions, roadways, civic centers, community medical clinics, job programs, unemployment and government human service ventures are all funded through general taxes and bond initiatives [property tax]. To simply stop paying taxes fails to recognize the good stewardship of our money as well as the bad. We may not desire to finance war initiatives but there is no way to distinguish how each dollar of our tax money is utilized. As long as we use social services and every modern person does to some degree, we are civically obligated to pay tax. We may argue the amount and demonstrate against the tax system but we need to pay Ceasar his due.

In a Socialist Economy the situation is more clear cut. Since productive means are owned by the workers in that trade union shop, capital is directly socially reinvested or appropriated by the worker/owner in salary. Human services are funded by taxes, most likely more so that at present, and most probably along a progressive tax structure. Since the State does not own the productive apparatus, it is owned and managed by worker democracies/councils/unions, taxes raised go back directly into community ventures not anonymous Government coiffures. The depth and breadth of community services would dramatically increase [eg., mandatory 6 month paid childcare, paid worker vacations, free higher education, guaranteed pensions and increased social security, housing subsidies] so that available discretionary income would be not be a severe issue. In this circumstance, absolute tax resistance would be reactionary.

Orthodox Christianity advocates death to the world: death to passions and personal attachments, death to self-centeredness and greed, death to participation in institutions of repression and usury, death to an unjust social system as much as to a self alienated from God. We die to the world that we might be born again in Christian Charity and relationship to a personal God. Our mandate is to love others as we would ourselves, to refashion society after God's likeness but to be aware that His image may only be attained in the Kingdom of God not the society of man. As individual believers we seek the advancing world of the second coming but we live in this world of sickness and disease. Our faith is a mandate to social action and personal transformation which can heal the brokenness of our history. Orthodox Christian Socialism is a Faith based commitment to radical social discipleship not the atheism of an arid materialism falsely called scientific but
in reality nothing more than empirical positivism.

Our faith is not in the Party and its ideology but in the transformative power of the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of men. The Party, its platform and principles are tools for translating our commitment into a coherent socialist vision, they are not Socialism itself. Eventually history will eclipse itself in a final political conflagration and all countries or even One-World Government, will collapse into social entropy. Socialism, as proud a tradition as it is, has no ground from which to continue and will fall alongside other political communities. Only the Socialism that is implied within the Kingdom of God and the re-establishment of the world that will come after the end time tribulations, will endure unto eternity. Judgement on the world will be final, God will take our time and existence into himself and reconstitute the world and our humanity in his image.

Socialism as a political system can only approximate the fullness of Gods Kingdom, never directly translate its reality. The Socialist vision is an Orthodox Christian vision for making God’s rule present on earth and we will be judged not just on the orthodoxy of our belief but on the orthopraxis of our social discipleship. Nevertheless, this state is transitory and will pass into the dustbin of history, as God ushers in the revolution of his own second coming and the end of days. Socialism can only but prefigure the reality of this new world order.

The Following is a suggested 14 Point Orthodox Christian Socialist Manisfesto:

1. To Love God is to Love Your Neighbor as Yourself.

2. Love is political and economic as well as interpersonal.

3. Radical Christian Discipleship implies social activism as well as personal witness.

4. The Gospel is both personal and social.

5. The Early Church was a Christian Socialist Community.

6. All persons have an inalienable right by creation to adequate food, shelter, clothing, medical care, education, employment, personal liberty, self-expression and freedom from abuse. These rights are not just within us but between us. Rights must be socially enacted not just proclaimed.

7. Violence is never righteous but sometimes just and necessary to overcome greater evil.

8. Absolute Nationalism and Internationalism are social sins. Decentralized federated communities should be the norm.

9. Private property beyond ones household and limited land holding is a form of social theft, as is usury.

10. Radical Worker/Farm/Student/Union democratic structures are essential embodiments of the people’s right to associate & organize for justice - as is the people’s right to a multi-party multi-tendency system of democratic decentralism where minority positions are guaranteed a place in government, alongside the more prevalent majority grouping.

11. Capitalism, Communism and Absolute Monarchy are essentially fascistic systems based on greed and absolute power elites and therefore sinful.

12. People should always come before profit.

13. In secular society a pluralism of positions and diversity of beliefs is to be accepted, tolerated and encouraged. Laws should maximize alternate lifestyle options but encourage heated civic debate. Religious Ecumenicism implies acceptance and tolerance of difference not agreement to those differences.

14. The Orthodox Christian World View is both Religious and Socialist. We preach Death to the World of personal and social sin.


In Christian Socialist Solidarity;

Dave Eaton
Dallas, Tejas
JAN 2011



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