Fightback conference will unite the struggles

Following are excerpts from a Dec. 29 statement issued by the organizers of the Bail Out the People Movement. Go to www.bailoutpeople.org to register, endorse and donate to the conference.

In 2009 more and more lives are going to be devastated by the biggest global economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. What we do, or fail to do, will prove decisive to the coming battle over whose interests in society shall prevail—the needs of the people or the greed of the super-rich few who insist that their profits always come first.

The Bail Out the People Movement invites you to come together in New York City on Sat., Jan. 17, and help plan the fightback. If you live in the western part of the U.S., we invite you to come to our West Coast Fightback Conference in Los Angeles on Sat., Jan. 24.

How fitting it is that we meet on the anniversary of the 80th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If ever there was a time to remember King’s legacy of struggle against war, racism and for economic and social justice, now is such a time!

That Barack Obama will become president on Jan. 20 realizes a measure of King’s dream. But depression-level joblessness, evictions and foreclosures made worse by cutbacks, war, bigotry and racism are not a dream but a nightmare.

The nightmare is borne out in the numbers: $1 trillion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $8 trillion to bail out the biggest and richest banks and bankers, while millions lose their jobs, homes, healthcare, ability to go to school and sink into life-threatening poverty.

There is the promise of a “stimulus program that will create or save some jobs.” But the stimulus will be a drop-in-the-bucket; it’s expected that one million jobs will be lost per month in 2009 in the U.S.

It is up to the people to fight for the right to jobs or a living income, along with a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.

No election or president, however historical and inspiring, can be a substitute for a mass movement in the struggle against war or for social and economic rights.

Let’s take inspiration and example from the Republic Glass and Doors Co. workers in Chicago who occupied their factory to fight for their rights, or the workers at the Smithfield meat processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., who fought for and won a union. Or the students at New York City’s New School who held a successful sit-in. Or the youth in Greece who are fighting police terror and economic oppression. Or the Palestinian people heroically resisting the genocidal U.S.-backed Israeli war in Gaza. The lessons of these struggles are that we will need to utilize both mass action and direct action in the fightback ahead of us.

Join with activists in New York and from across the country: If you are an anti-war activist, a union organizer, a student activist or someone who first became excited about politics because of Obama’s campaign, or if you face losing a job, a home, the ability to go to college, healthcare or a pension—and you are ready to unite and fight back—let’s come together and determine what we can do to help give birth to a desperately needed fightback movement.

Some of the issues to be raised in workshops and breakouts include: Stop the war on Gaza—defend the Palestinian liberation struggle; the role of youth and students in the fightback; uniting the community with organized and unorganized workers; the anti-war movement and the struggle vs. the war at home—forging a new relationship; they say cutback, we say fight back—the growing struggles against cutbacks, tuition increases, transit fare hikes, layoffs and more; creating an army of organizers; and immigrant workers’ rights—fighting racism is the key to solidarity.