Obama, capitalist economic crisis

Workers World Party conference focuses on new situation

By Monica Moorehead
New York

WW photo: Gary Wilson

The historic election of the first Black U.S. president, Barack Obama, and the deepening capitalist economic crisis have become the center of worldwide dialog and debate in the broad, progressive movement. Many are asking if these two unprecedented developments will lead to a revival of the class struggle inside the U.S., ultimately resulting in a socialist future.

These important questions and more were raised at a timely conference entitled “The New Situation in the U.S. and the World” held in New York on the weekend of Nov. 15-16, sponsored by Workers World Party. WWP members from around the country attended, along with key activists and allies as well as the youth and student organization Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST).

The conference included plenary sessions where WWP speakers gave a Marxist, working-class analysis on the multifaceted political and economic crisis that permeates every sector of society. They projected genuine optimism regarding the openness by the masses to an anti-capitalist, pro-socialist orientation. There were discussion groups including a question and answer period and also a dialog on strategies and tactics for local and national organizing.

FIST held a workshop on Saturday that attracted activists from around the country to discuss a fightback program for young people. The FIST panel included Caleb Maupin, Namibia Donadio, Karina Schechter, Jaimeson Champion and Larry Hales.

At several points during the conference, summaries of 25 international messages of solidarity to the conference were read.

What’s behind the new situation?

The Saturday morning plenary session was chaired by Miya Campbell, a FIST organizer and spoken-word artist from Boston, who moved the conference with a highly creative and political spoken-word presentation based upon a poem by Langston Hughes. Then Judy Greenspan from San Francisco, a long-time fighter for prisoners’ rights and an LGBT activist, formally gave a welcoming talk. Following her welcome three talks were given by WWP Secretariat members Larry Holmes, Teresa Gutierrez and Fred Goldstein.

Holmes focused a great deal of his talk on a 1950 thesis written by the late WWP chairperson, Sam Marcy, that explained how imperialist economic development would eventually change the social and political character of the working class here and worldwide, making it more multinational. This phenomenon was essential in Obama winning the presidency. Holmes also motivated the need to hold actions on the 80th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday the third week in January to demand political and economic equality.

Gutierrez, a leader in the May 1st Coalition for Immigrant and Worker Rights in New York, spoke on the capitalist crisis, the immigrant rights struggle and the potential for building classwide unity among all workers—with a special emphasis on May Day 2009.

Goldstein, the author of the newly released book, “Low-Wage Capitalism,” explained why socialism is the only solution to both the current phase of the economic crisis and the general crisis of capitalist exploitation and overproduction that sacrifices human needs for profits.

Jerry Goldberg, a retired Detroit auto worker and a leader of the Moratorium Now! Coalition Against Foreclosures and Evictions in Michigan, compared the current crisis to the 1930s Great Depression and the need to go directly to the workers and oppressed with an independent, fight back program in their interests.

The struggle at home

Bev Heistand, a retired nurse and co-chair of the second plenary session, which focused on the struggle at home, shared with the audience a description of the declining living standards where she lives, in Buffalo, N.Y., especially in the area of health care. The other co-chair, LeiLani Dowell, a FIST organizer and Workers World managing editor in New York, spoke on the political and economic crisis facing young people.

Monica Moorehead, a WWP Secretariat member and Workers World managing editor, addressed the contradictions of the Obama victory in relationship to the struggle against racism and national oppression.

Dante Strobino, a Raleigh FIST member and UE union organizer, and Martha Grevatt, a longtime auto worker from Cleveland, reviewed the changing character of the working class in North Carolina and Ohio that led to Obama winning those states on Nov. 4.

Kris Hamel, a co-founder of the Detroit Action Network for Reproductive Rights, and Phebe Eckfeldt, a leader of the Women’s Fightback Network in Boston, spelled out the political and economic challenges facing working-class and oppressed women of all ages.

Imani Henry, a trans activist and co-founder of Rainbow Flags for Mumia, described the organized mass anger in the streets resulting from the passage of the bigoted Proposition 8 that overturned same-sex marriage in California on Nov. 4.

John Parker, a Los Angeles International Action Center organizer, analyzed the significance of the general crisis in California that led to the formation of the Labor-Community Coalition.

Sharon Black, a founder of the Baltimore All Peoples Congress and a health care worker in New York, explained why it is important to reach out to workers and oppressed peoples with popular propanda.

The struggle abroad

Tyneisha Bowens, a FIST organizer from Philadelphia, chaired the third plenary session on the struggle abroad and gave opening remarks on her experiences in socialist Cuba in 2007.

Sara Flounders, a WWP Secretariat member and an IAC co-director, presented an overview of the global crisis of imperialism and a call for revolutionary defeatism as a form of supporting the right to self-determination.

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan-African News Wire from Detroit, highlighted the ongoing economic, political and military oppression of Africa by imperialism and explained why the U.S. movement must extend a hand of solidarity to African workers and peasants.

Joyce Chediac, a Lebanese activist and writer in New York, reviewed the reactions of various political forces in the Middle East to the Obama victory and said that the liberation struggle will continue in the region no matter who is in the White House.

Berta Joubert-Ceci, a Mundo Obrero editor from Philadelphia, reported on revolutionary developments in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially the struggle of people of African descent and the Indigenous in Colombia.

David Hoskins, a FIST member and trade union organizer in Washington, D.C., described the armed struggle that overturned the feudal monarchy in Nepal and the socialist process that is beginning there.

Tasks of a revolutionary party

Gloria Verdieu, an IAC organizer and Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition leader from San Diego, chaired the plenary session on the challenges facing a revolutionary party and gave a firsthand report on the superiority of the health care system in Cuba based on her own experience when she was hospitalized there.

Deirdre Griswold, a WWP Secretariat member and Workers World editor, talked about the opportunities opened up for imperialist exploitation by the collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe and how this delayed, but could not prevent, the current resurgence of class consciousness. She pointed out how Goldstein’s new book, “Low-Wage Capitalism,” builds on the Marxist analysis of these questions developed by Sam Marcy’s books “High Tech, Low Pay” and “Perestroika.”

Larry Hales, a Workers World contributing editor in New York, spoke on why a party must win youth to its ranks with a correct ideology.

Gloria Rubac, a leader of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement in Texas, and Mike Martinez, a FIST organizer from Miami and member of the Mundo Obrero staff, urged serious attention to the Workers World Party’s fall fund drive and the need for deepening the influence of its revolutionary newspaper, respectively.

Steve Kirschbaum, a founding member of the United Steelworkers Local 8751 school bus drivers’ union in Boston, explained the role of communist trade unionists in the struggle against racism.

John Catalinotto, a Workers World managing editor, informed the conference about the WWP’s fraternal relations with global movements.

The conference ended with a summation by Larry Holmes and the singing of the International, followed by spoken-word selections by Miya Campbell and Mike Martinez. Philadelphia hip-hop artist, Tha Truth, and his partner, Colleen, also performed during the conference.

WW will be publishing excerpts from the plenary talks in the coming weeks. Go to www.workersworld.net to see video podcasts of the talks.

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