Shuvu Bhattari takes recent developments in the Palestinian national liberation and US electoral politics into account in Part II of his article “Unite the Pro-Party Wing to Revolutionize the DSA”, calling for a United Socialist Front for the 2024 Presidential Elections.
Since about 2006, Israel’s strategy of oppressing the Palestinian people has been termed “mowing the lawn”, where they continue ruthlessly in their violent settler-colonial project, displacing more and more Palestinians, herding them into a tighter and tighter space, making their living conditions unbearable so that inevitable resistance by the Palestinian people is used as an excuse by the Israeli regime to lead to a further increase in military violence and deeper inroads into Palestinian territory. Major attacks by Israel have taken place in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2021, and now, roughly every two years.
The excuse of the Israeli regime for these attacks has been to wipe out the “Hamas terrorists”. Hamas, a Islamic militant faction of Palestinian resistance that has control over the Gaza Strip, has been used as a bogeyman by Israel to justify all sorts of atrocities, such as the execution of over 250 unarmed protestors including children by Israeli snipers during the 2018-2019 “March of Return”. Despite decades of humiliation and occupation, the march showcased the indomitable spirit of the Palestinian people, who marched by the thousands despite the risk of death to demand their right to live in their ancestral homes, a right to live without occupation and with dignity.
Their phoenix spirit was shown starkly to the whole world in the latest round of resistance where the vanguard of the Palestinian people, the Palestinian armed resistance, humiliated the Israeli regime. While Israel “mowed the lawn”, it inadvertently tilled the soil with the seeds of its own destruction, with every act of injustice creating more and more fighters who embarked on the path of armed resistance and trained constantly for the cause of liberation, for the goal of a Free Palestine.
The United Palestinian Front
Hamas, and other military factions of Palestinian resistance have grown rapidly in light of this fact. Contrary to the propaganda of the corporate media and Israeli/US military-intelligence of a feeble and helpless people held captive by “terrorists”, the vast majority of Palestinians support armed resistance, with a slim majority holding a positive view of Hamas. Also contrary to bourgeois lies, it is not just Hamas but a United Front of Palestinian liberators that is engaged in this war. As Kei Pritsker of Breakthrough News reports “The day the counteroffensive was launched every major political party and faction in Palestine wrote statements calling for an intensification of resistance on all fronts. Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestine’s People’s Party, the Lions Den, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. While some of these groups are religious and some are secular, some are socialist and some are nationalists, all of them are united by the fact that they want to end the occupation.”
Palestinian resistance takes place on two primary fronts, the West Bank and the Gaza strip. The former is controlled by the Palestinian National Authority, a puppet regime of the United States, and Israel. The latter is the largest open air prison in the world where the flow of food, water, electricity supply, and commodities is controlled by Israel as is access to the sea with Israeli military surveilling the coasts. Its border is also locked by Israeli fences and Israeli armed forces. It is one of the most densely populated areas in the world and the most surveilled, with drones constantly monitoring the area, and with periodic bombardments by Israel. Since 2005 Gaza has been under a brutal blockade by Israel and Egypt which closed off Gaza’s only channel of export/import of goods, and after the election and consolidation of power in Gaza by Hamas in 2006, the blockade has been imposed indefinitely.
In order to complete its settler-colonial project, as Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu clearly showed in September of this year at the UN General Assembly, where he flaunted a map of the “New Middle East” that erased all Palestinian territory, Israel has intensified its violations of international law by violently displacing Palestinians out of the few remaining settlements in the West Bank, prompting the growth of new Palestinian armed resistance from 2021 onwards.
In the Gaza Strip, this new wave of resistance has taken the form of increased unity, with the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad building a National Liberation Front with the dominant power Hamas. In the West Bank new formations like the Jenin Brigades and the Lions Den have developed, growing organically from the Palestinian masses who see little choice but to resist and take up arms for freedom.
A Third Intifada was inevitable and thus on October 7th 2023, a Hamas-led group initiated Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, marking a profound turning point in a great war of national liberation against the last vestige of settler-colonialism on Earth. Hamas, which has ties to and received arms and training from more powerful regional forces, launched an unprecedented multi-pronged attack, firing thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel, opening firing on Israeli boats, and initiating clashes between Palestinians and IDF forces in the eastern section of the Gaza perimeter fence. 2500 militants infiltrated Israel from Gaza using trucks, motorcycles, bulldozers, speedboats, and paragliders. Israeli military bases were captured, hundreds of IDF soldiers killed alongside settlers and hundreds taken prisoner. Hamas senior military commander Mohammed Deif issued a call to arms, calling on “Muslims everywhere to launch an attack”. This call has been heeded, with the Palestinian people in the West back engaging in heroic acts of resistance, eliminating and pushing back IDF forces.
This act of resistance from the oppressed, which overpowered an enemy with far superior technological and destructive capabilities, will surely make its mark in history as a great rebellion of the oppressed, like that of Nat Turner’s Rebellion or the Tet Offensive.
The regime, in absolute terror of the Palestinian resistance, has enacted collective punishment on the whole of the Palestinian people and shown clearly to the world what a cowardly, duplicitous, and pathetic entity it is. It has cut off all essential supplies, food, water, and electricity. It has launched a relentless bombardment, partly with US-supplied arms, and murdered well over 4000 people, and displaced well over a million. The fascist entity has bombed hospitals and churches as part of its counterattack Operation Swords of Iron, and subsequently gaslighted the entire world with the “Big Lie” that it was the fault of Hamas, which has repeatedly been proven false. However, in today’s age of instant communication and social media, the world has witnessed live images and videos of genocide in real-time by the Zionist occupiers; the Israeli regime has been thoroughly exposed.
Internally the regime is completing its transformation, since the election of Netanyahu in 2021, to become a full-blown fascist military dictatorship. It passed a law in July that abolishes the Supreme Court’s ability to review government actions. After the Al-Aqsa Flood Netanyahu has created an emergency unity government, with judicial overhaul and all other non-emergency legislation and policy indefinitely suspended. Basic journalism is also being criminalized and persecuted.
The offensive that the liberators have advanced is leading to a broad and long-waged war between Israel/US Imperialism and allies and Palestine/Iran and allies, and will inevitably pull in other major world powers as Israel pushes forward, with US backing, on a massive ground invasion.
It will become a full-scale war that is likely to engulf all of West Asia in turmoil, with Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amiradollahian warning “The continuation of war crimes against Palestine and Gaza will receive a response from the rest of the axis. And naturally, the Zionist entity and its supporters will be responsible for the consequences of that”. Already, foreign actors are beginning to get involved on the ground. A US military carrier alongside aircraft is parked right off the Gaza coast, with a second carrier on the way, alongside thousands of marines. Israeli cities and settlements on the border of Lebanon have been struck by Hezbollah and missiles and drones from Houthis in Yemen have been intercepted by the US navy. Iraqi forces have also targeted US military bases in Iraq and Syria. The pro-Palestine forces have strategically amassed forces on Israel’s borders and are all part of the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance”, which was spearheaded by the Iranian military genius, Qasim Soleimani, and continues under the loose leadership of Esmail Qaani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force. This effort was essential in providing Hamas and other Palestinian liberators with the training and equipment to launch such a striking blow to Israel.
With this new war erupting, and the US’/NATO’s ongoing proxy war in Ukraine against Russia and its allies, it is clear that humanity has now decisively entered into the period of World War III, with a declining US and European Imperialism aggressively attempting to hold on to and expand its global hegemony under the context of a rising China and the Global South, and is thus is forcing the rest of the world to choose a side either for or against. The war has already led to China and Russia further strengthening their ties, and tilted towards being explicitly pro-Palestine. A Brazilian led UN security council resolution calling for temporary ceasefire to deliver aid to Gaza was rejected by the US. An amendment to the resolution advanced by Russia calling for a full ceasefire, release of all hostages, aid access, and save evacuation of civilians received “five votes in favor (China, Gabon, Mozambique, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates) and four against (France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States), with six abstentions (Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Malta, and Switzerland).” China, in a show of force, has also deployed six warships to the Middle East.
In breaking from their prison and attacking the Israeli state, the Palestinians people have ignited the aspirations of freedom for the toiling masses of the world at large. The unyielding spirit of the Palestinian people was shown by the words of this man who survived an Israeli airstrike to declare “Tonight, I will sleep inside my demolished house. I will never leave. Look, I came out from underneath the rubble. Look, Biden! All your rockets and missiles, your aircraft carriers, which came to Gaza to kill us. I came out from under the rubble.”
This spirit of resistance has ignited the toiling masses of the whole world into movement. Tens of thousands of people in West Asia have held demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian people, in the largest wave of protests since 2011, with chants of “The people want the fall of Israel. The people want the fall of the regime”. Hundreds of Egyptians rallied by the Egypt/Gaza border, bringing with them humanitarian aid and demanded that the border be opened.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, one of the heroes of this struggle, released a statement laying out the tasks for those who wish to advance Palestinian liberation, writing that “the free people of the world, and international sympathizers to organize stands in front of the enemy’s embassies, embassies of countries participating in the aggression, and international institutions worldwide, to denounce the crimes of the occupation and to reject international bias and collusion with the zionist entity.”
All over the world, even in the centers of empire, it is clear that there are numerous people who are up to this task, including in the United States of America. The socialist movement, sections of organized labor, and the anti-imperialist movement, ie. the forces which stand in unflinching solidarity with the oppressed masses of the world, have organized large demonstrations to make it clear that even within the borders of the most militaristic and violent empire on Earth, there are hundreds of thousands of people who will raise their voice and risk their safety for the cause of liberation of a people who live on the other side of the planet. This enormous pressure from the world’s masses has forced US Imperialism and Israel to change its posture, allowing for humanitarian aid to enter through the Rafah crossing as an effort to maintain legitimacy.
However what they will not budge on is revealing the truth to the world, that the so-called “terrorists” are actually the heroes of this war. The liberatory Palestinian offensive has been marked as a terrorist act by all sections of the ruling class and the corporate media. What is implicit in the statements of President Joe Biden, and of 424 out of 435 members of US Congress, who had signed on to the resolution “Stand with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists”, condemning “Iran’s support for terrorist groups and proxies, including Hamas”, and stating it “stands ready to assist Israel with emergency resupply and other security, diplomatic, and intelligence support” is that all those who support the right of the Palestinian people to defend themselves and fight for their dignity are terrorist agents. And in a sense, they are right, because for the ruling class nothing is more terrifying than the liberators and the liberation of the oppressed.
Liberals with one foot in the socialist movement and the rest of their body with the Democratic Party leadership, ie with the neoliberal bourgeoisie, such as Bernie Sanders, AOC, almost all of the Democratic Party have denounced the Palestinian people for their ongoing attempt at liberation, with AOC going so far as to denounce a pro-Palestine rally. These elements are now attempting to distance themselves from socialists and anti-imperialists in order to appease the ruling class. They have adopted toothless calls to “peace”, denouncing “both sides”, willfully ignoring and obfuscating the fact that the Palestinian liberators have been forced into the position of taking up arms and pushing back the Israeli invaders because all avenues of “peaceful resistance” have been exhausted. When babies are murdered on a daily basis, when the Palestinian people are constantly displaced, raped, and humiliated, when the settlers watch from the sidelines and cheer as bombs rain down on Palestinian homes, these liberal bootlickers decry the just military tactics of Palestinian resistance. When facing an enemy with far superior resources, the oppressed are justified in utilizing the tried and true tactics of guerilla warfare, of taking hostages, of fighting fiercely in battles that result in civilian casualties, they are justified in using whatever means to push back the occupier and win their freedom. The Palestinian people, the caged tiger, have no choice but to break free from their prison and either devour their captor or force them to flee in terror, not because it is evil but because it needs to survive, and all attempts to denounce this act of righteous violence is an attempt to turn back the wheel of history and to peddle a fantasy of peaceful coexistence with a genocidal regime.
However, while the left Democrats play a particularly insidious role by erasing and slandering the efforts of the Palestinians liberators, it is through them that a great opposition among the masses in the US to Israeli genocide is being led, through a rallying of liberal forces under the U.S House Resolution of “Ceasefire Now!” that is being spearheaded by Left Democrats Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib, Andre Carson, Summer Lee, and Delia C. Ramirez, with 16 other lawmakers signing. The resolution “urges the Biden administration to immediately call for and facilitate deescalation and a cease-fire to urgently end the current violence; and calls upon the Biden administration to promptly send and facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza”. With Biden already committing to the latter, it is the first part of the resolution, the cease fire that is of the essence. The resolution was written as a counter to another resolution that has been endorsed by over 390 members of Congress, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul and Ranking Member Gregory W. Meeks that gives full carte blanche support to Israel. It “urges full enforcement of the Taylor Force Act and other restrictions in United States law to prevent United States foreign assistance from benefiting terrorists, directly or indirectly”, thus opening up further repression on anti-imperialists at home, and commits to more aid to Israel. It is absolutely clear that this draconian and militaristic resolution will pass resoundingly. In this context, building up resistance to US military aid to Israel and calling for an end to the horrific bombardment and siege campaign on Gaza is a sign of a great anti-imperialist awakening among the US masses, with 66% of voters agreeing with the demand.
However, the left Democrats cannot be allowed to maintain leadership of the growing anti-imperialist sentiment among the masses, which is being directed at begging Biden to change, while Biden seeks $105 Billion for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and “border security” on a bill that will inevitably pass. The left Democrats have no perspective or will to drive the growing anti-imperialist movement towards independent working-class organization and methods of mass resistance, which is ultimately what it will take to fight the US imperialist machine, on all of its fronts, in the workplace, in housing, in the streets and in public office.
As Hamas starts to release hostages and the US advises Israel to hold off on the ground invasion, whilst simultaneously building up its forces in the region, it is a sign that a long, protracted war will be taking place in the region, with both sides carefully playing out their options. This war is not going anywhere anytime soon and will be a crucial point of debate on the 2024 Presidential Elections, with both Democrats and Republicans advancing a pro-Israel, militarist line. The oppressed of this country desperately need an alternative viewpoint and an alternate method of resistance!
I would like to thus humbly advance a proposition for the reader, and to the leaders of the US socialist movement, as to what can be done to shift leadership of the anti-imperialist movement towards a path that relies on the collective agency and power of the toiling masses. The proposition, under today’s breaking point conditions is as follows: A United Socialist Front for the 2024 Presidential Election.
The United Socialist Front
The breaking point conditions of the United States and the world at large, with the unbearable and combined conditions of mass poverty, mental illness, climate destruction, destruction of democratic norms, racism, sexism, transphobia, xenophobia, etc. is taking place during the 2024 Presidential Election campaign, where the masses are posed with the question of how the whole of society should be changed so that their suffering can be eased, through the election of the most powerful individual position in the world. The ruling capitalist parties, the corporate media, and the intelligence agencies are determined to limit the socio-political debate to terms entirely acceptable to their interests. The Democratic Party has banned debates and clearly rigged the primary so that the senile octogenarian Biden can serve again as figurehead unopposed. Donald Trump of the Republican Party has emerged as the clear frontrunner in the Republican Party, with the Republican debates merely serving to field his next Vice President or a replacement in the off chance that he is somehow rendered incapable of running.
The “Independent” candidates given the attention of primetime media, Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Dr. Cornel West are both farces and clowns, and act in effect as agents of the ruling class designed to absorb the historic disapproval of the two party system and the willingness of voters to break from it, into a controlled and safe channel.
RFK JR ran for independent after it became clear that he had no chance of seizing the Democratic Party nomination. He was the biggest primary competitor to Biden, once polling close to 15%. He is the personification of the saying “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds”, while holding the “liberal” position of being for abortion rights and decriminalization of drugs, he is in full-throated in support of Israel, supporting unconditional aid to the apartheid state and peddling the conspiracy that COVID-19 was a Chinese bioengineered virus that targets white and black people. Since his announcement of running as an independent, he immediately raised over $11 million dollars, mostly from capitalists who had formerly donated to Trump. At present his run is sapping votes away from Republicans, though it remains to be seen whether he will be absorbed by the Republican party as a Vice Presidential candidate. Recent polling suggests him to be at 14%.
Dr. West, on the other hand, had a brief moment, when he ran under the Green Party line with a “United Front” message, to be a great champion of the oppressed, already consistently polling at over 5%, with the potential to run on the ballot in all fifty states, and potentially unite the scattered socialist, worker, and anti-imperialist movement under his anti-imperialist, pro-worker, and pro-democracy platform. He stoked the hopes of many, including myself, but the facts have become clear. Since his hiring of former Hillary Clinton staffer and longtime Democratic Party operative Peter Daou, the campaign has spectacularly imploded. West broke from the Green Party with the sorry excuse of wanting to be “laser-focused on the people as opposed to the party process” and asserting that dealing with the democratic nominating process of the Greens consumed too much of his energy and time, despite the fact that he was the clear frontrunner, with rank and file Greens sharply energized by his run, and would have to only attend a few campaign events. By breaking, he ensured a loss of ballot access in several key states like California and broke away from the very people who would do the grunt organizing for his campaign. The organizational break has been compounded by a clear exposure of his impotent pacifism, when he equated the violence of the liberators to that of Israel. He has adopted a position equal to Sanders and AOC, did not even show up to the pro-Palestinian rally right in NYC where he lives, and recently told Harvard students that they lacked “nuance” for not mentioning the “brutality” of Hamas simultaneous to the leveling of Gaza by Israel. Furthermore, all language of the United Front, his campaign’s attempt to bring together forces of liberation, and even basic volunteer mobilization have all been halted since his organizational shift.
Why the campaign imploded as it did (and whether US Intelligence was involved in a wrecking operation) history will tell, but what is immediately clear is that an individual who is afraid of being accountable to his base, who disdains the discipline of a party, and who does not decisively side with the oppressed cannot in any instance be its unifier.
In fact, by continuing his run, he will be a disorganizing factor, funneling votes into a campaign that is not tied to the necessity of building independent working-class organization and stressing the agency of the oppressed, ie “the self emancipation of the working class”, as my dear friend and comrade Peter Ross wrote in his critique to my letter placing hopes on the West run. However, where Peter is wrong is his belief, common among the socialist movement, in the hopelessness of Presidential runs as a tool of mass organization (however, he is absolutely right that it is not an individual but a movement of the working people that will decisively change conditions). In this, the Presidential Election and a movement of the oppressed need not be in contradiction. The Presidential Election can itself be an extension of the movement of the oppressed, and if led by socialists can be utilized to build independent working class organization.
It is under these social and political conditions that we are witnessing the ongoing escalation of repression of the socialist and anti-imperialist movement after we dared to organize and show up to the streets, after we unflinchingly declared our solidarity with the Palestinian liberators and the Palestinian people in mass demonstrations around the country. At this juncture, we pose a genuine threat to the internal stability of the United States because we are the also same people who are organizing and democratizing our workplaces and communities, winning elected office, and fighting in every sphere of public life, putting our lives on the line so that all of us, all of the oppressed can gain agency over our destinies and create a world of solidarity, peace, and love, for all!
As US imperialism moves forward with its joint offensive against the Palestinian people, they will and already are pushing repression and marginalizing the voices for Palestinian liberation here internally.
The capitalist-controlled mass media outlets are clamping down on voices that are sympathetic to the Palestinian people and are rapidly spreading dangerous lies. “Fake news” originating from the Israeli Defense Force about Hamas beheading 40 babies was spread by a pro-Israel journalist, and repeated uncritically and without verification by the US President, other figures with mass followings, and the most prominent news outlets around the world. Claims of Hamas forces raping and mutilating enemies, orginating from Israel have been repeated and continue to be repeated uncritically. Mouthpieces for Israel are given numerous hours of screen time everyday with “journalists” that barely muster up any sort of accountability or critical questioning. The aim is to dehumanize the Palestinian people along the lines of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who stated “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly”, and to erase their struggle for liberation entirely.
The imperialist disinformation campaign has stoked fascistic violence, with a landlord recently murdering a 6 year old Palestinian-American boy and wounding his mother, and other incidents of violence are on the rise. FBI and police around the country have ramped up security and are increasing surveillance of pro-Palestine and anti-imperialist activists.
On the political front, the Democratic and the Republican party are launching a full-scale effort at the national, state, and local level, through their president, congresspeople, governors, mayors, and other electeds to normalize support for Israel and drown out the voices of the Palestinian people and their cause of liberation. DSA member, Congresswoman and Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib, is facing a censure motion in Congress from a GOP representative and has received several death threats for asserting that the path to peace must be “dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance”. Mayors and city leadership in Democratic Party strongholds of Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, and every major city, and every state has released statements condemning Hamas and expressing support for Israel.
The issue of solidarity with Palestine has separated the wheat from the chaff. It has split organized labor, for example, with entrenched and pro-imperialist labor bureaucracies in the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and AFT siding with corporations like Starbucks in condemning the Palestinian liberators as terrorists, and definitively siding with Israel. My union, the United Federation of Teachers (AFT Affiliate), has sent emails to every single member siding with Israel and erasing the voices of the Palestinians. This level of propagandistic support is being pushed forward by most major unions in the United States, but is facing clear opposition from the its anti-imperialist wing, such as Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), United Electrical Workers Union (UE), Graduate Employees’ Organization at University of Michigan (AFT Affiliate), rank and file caucuses like Movement of Rank-and-File Educators, ie. the elements of the labor movement led by socialist organizers.
In the US, all of the Socialist movement has come forward in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), The Green Party USA (GPUSA), Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Socialist Alternative (SALT), and various other formations, have declared their solidarity with the oppressed. US Imperialism and its agents are well aware of this fact, with the Anti-Defamation League explicitly naming our allies.
A popular saying in the trade union movement is that “the boss is the best organizer”. For US socialists, the boss of the oppressed is US Imperialism. This “boss” is now putting us in a position, through the ongoing repression within all spheres of public life, where those of us who stand on the side of the world’s oppressed must come together and unite to spread the message of liberation and collective organization to the country’s masses. The persecution of the “Uhuru 3” by the US Department of Justice, three members of the socialist Uhuru Movement for allegations of “disinformation” and acting as “unregistered agents of the Russian government” for simply voicing their political beliefs, underscores the urgency of our moment. This case opens the door for the mass persecution of socialists in their opposition to, say, US support for Israel. The leaders of US Imperialism, well aware of the threat that we pose, also released a statement denouncing socialism in “all its forms”, which was passed by a bipartisan supermajority of the House.
US Imperialism has made clear that it is haunted by a specter–the specter of Socialism. All of its conflicting powers have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this specter: Democrat and Republican, Fox News and CNN, the Intelligence Agencies and the Fascists. Where is this party of socialists? Where is this opposition that has not yet loudly declared, against the Democrats and Republicans, loud enough for all the people to hear what they are fighting for?
Two things result from this fact:
- Socialism is already acknowledged by the US Empire to be itself a power
- It is high time that Socialists should unite and openly, in the face of the US Empire, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet the empire’s fantasy bogeyman of Socialism with a United Front of the whole, actual Socialist movement.
To this end, US Socialists of various shades must unite under a vehicle that declares our goals, the goal of world liberation, clearly to the oppressed people of the whole world.
The vehicle for this unity can be a Socialist ticket for the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the United States. There is only one such ticket, with reliable candidates forged out of class struggle, under the discipline of a mass party organization that is in the running, the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s (PSL), Claudia De La Cruz and Karina Garcia.
Claudia and Karina are running as explicit socialists on a platform that is agreeable to all of the socialist movement in the country of:
- Seize the Biggest 100 Corporations, Create a New Economy for the People
- Overthrow the Dictatorship of the Rich–Build a Democracy that serves the Working Class
- End the Rule of Money and Lock up the Corrupt Elite
- Cut the Military Budget by 90% – Peace, Not War With China and Russia
- End the War on Black America!
- Defend Women’s Rights, Full Equality for LGBTQ People
- Save the Planet from Capitalism
Especially in this critical moment where the forces of imperialism will put enormous pressure on all political voices to support, either directly or implicitly, its efforts, the PSL has proven repeatedly that it will not bend an inch to the anti-imperialist principles on which it was founded.
After West dropped out of the Green Party, that too sharply and without notice to leading Greens, they are now in the process of trying to figure out how to orient themselves in this critical moment. However, the West run did bring an influx of funds that will enable the party to attain ballot access in some incredibly difficult states, such as Arizona. The PSL has run candidates on the Green Line previously, with both parties finding common ground on the principle of independence from the two parties of capital, and the Green Party needs to run a presidential candidate to maintain its ballot access.
The Green Party USA (GPUSA) itself has undergone a gradual but stark internal socialist transformation of its politics. The rise of revolutionary figures like Ajamu Baraka, from the Black Alliance for Peace, within the party is a clear expression of the GPUSA’s developing socialist politics. In 2016, they were the first to champion the eco-socialist Green New Deal on the national stage with the campaign of Stein/Baraka, which was taken in by Left Democrats, diluted and rebranded. Despite facing an enormous red-baiting and Russophobic campaign after the conclusion of the 2016 Presidential Elections from the Democratic Party, with Stein being called a Russian agent by Democrats, the Greens have not softened their anti-imperialist stance but dug further in, calling for an end to NATO after the beginning of the Ukraine/Russia conflict. This election cycle, the Greens have ballot access in many states, including some of the most difficult, like California. It will take enormous amounts of resources away from other activities if the PSL were to take on the ballot access fight alone. Why do the Greens and the PSL not work together in this election, freeing the latter from the ballot access fight in many critical states and gaining on-the-ground allies from Green Party activists?
Of course, unity should not be limited to just those two but bring in the entire socialist movement, and a pillar of this movement in the US is its largest socialist organization: the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which is now directly confronted with the weight of the contradiction of running on the Democratic Party line while advancing liberatory politics during this period of World War.
Part of the offensive from the Democratic Party leadership has been to ramp up its efforts to marginalize, slander, and purge the Democratic Party of socialist and pro-Palestinian elements. After chapters around the country were releasing statements of support and spreading the word about the Pro-Palestine rallies, the NYC-DSA and its electeds in office have been explicitly denounced by leading Democrats, with Governor Kathy Hocul calling it “abhorrent and morally repugnant”. The New York State Democratic Party released a statement saying that it “strongly condemns the ‘NYC-DSA’ whose support of a rally that sought to justify the wholly unjustifiable acts of wanton violence, terrorism, kidnapping and murder that was perpetrated on the people of Israel this weekend”, with similar denunciations from other Democratic Party locals.
After the backlash from Democrat party leadership against the DSA, and many DSA electeds’ condemnation of Palestinian liberators, the DSA leadership, the National Political Committee (NPC) is currently deliberating on how they should advance forward. On the one hand, holding their electeds to account to side with the DSA’s professed solidarity with the Palestinian people would lead to alienation and desertion of many electeds from the organization. On the other hand, backing down from their statements and support for Palestine would alienate the organization from the broader socialist and anti-imperialist movement. Enormous credit must be given to the Marxist Unity Group and Red Star factions of the DSA, whose NPC members have put forth a call for the organization to “Call upon our Congressional elected officials to vote against all military aid to Israel and reassert that voting for military aid violates the organization’s democratically-decided principles and is grounds for disciplinary measures.”
The primary debate of the organization since 2016 has been on the question of breaking from the Democratic Party, but it is clear that any consistent and unwavering support for anti-imperialism will mean the imposition of the break from the Democratic Party.
Holding the DSA electeds to account and supporting the run of De La Cruz and Garcia will mean a decisive, irreversible, break from the imperialist colonizers and an irrefutable declaration of political independence, not by words but by deed!
The 2023 National Convention of the DSA has led to a shift towards class independence within the organization that opens up the space for the organization to, for the first time in its history, endorse and campaign for an independent socialist candidate for President of the United States. The convention led to the election of a “left-wing” majority in the National Political Committee, with all of the left wing professing the need to break from the Democratic Party. Key resolutions that were passed point towards this fundamental shift, which when combined with the heightened repression from the Democratic Party leadership, make the break more and more likely and, an absolute necessity.
Several resolutions that were passed at the convention, if applied to our present conditions and present political climate dominated by World War and the 2024 Presidential campaign, will lead to the conclusion of supporting an independent socialist candidate for the Presidency of the United States. “Act Like an Independent Party” adds the following section to DSA’s National Electoral Strategy:
WHEREAS the key to defeating the far right and beating the Democratic Party lies in presenting a third, democratic socialist alternative for working-class people that is organizationally, strategically, and visibly independent of the Democratic Party
“Defend Democracy Through Political Independence”, which was passed by a supermajority of DSA members, adds:
The core task of U.S socialists is to build the independent socialist organizations and working-class institutions like unions that enable us to fundamentally break the ‘impasse’ we find ourselves in and durably defeat the Right. However in practice both capitalist parties oppose those independent working-class institutions. In order to combat the Right, we must resist being subsumed into the capitalist Democratic Party and it’s NGO apparatus
Any DSA endorsement of a Presidential candidate must be submitted to a membership-wide vote and passes by a simple majority
It must be stressed, once again, that in the 2024 Presidential Election Cycle, there is only one independent socialist ticket in the running, that is attempting to popularize and bring to the masses a socialist platform that more or less aligns with that of the DSA, and not-so-coincidentally our comrades in the PSL are the ones who, out of all socialist groupings, are most deeply tied to Palestinian liberation organizations, like Students for Justice in Palestine, Within our Lifetime, Al-Awda, etc and are working together with them to organize mass demonstrations throughout the country. Comrades at the PSL must also be given enormous credit in countering Israeli propaganda, through outlets like Breakthrough News which has many PSL cadre as contributors. Their organization of mass demonstrations runs parallel to that organized by the liberal forces centered around the Ceasefire Now resolution, which includes the DSA. United front work with PSL can help bridge the gap and introduce masses of earnest liberals towards an explicitly socialist position.
As the DSA, of which I am a member, faces more and more repression from the ruling class, we must dig deeper and build ties with the Wretched of the Earth, with our allies and comrades whose dedication to anti-imperialism and to socialism is unbreakable. In this effort, a push must be created within the DSA to endorse and campaign for Claudia/Karina 2024.
With the DSA’s experience in running multiple successful electoral campaigns on the local level, a United Front with the PSL candidate for President would massively increase the ability of the campaign to reach the masses and for all of us to spread a socialist message to the American people, build the forces for socialism among the working class, and also further build the DSA. Furthermore the ties built by DSA members within the organized labor and tenant movement would mean that a DSA endorsement of De La Cruz and Garcia would add pressure for sections of labor to break from the Democratic Party and support an independent socialist candidate for President.
Of course, the socialist movement in the United States is far broader than the DSA, the PSL, and the Greens, but the beginning of serious discussion for a United Socialist Front behind the PSL Presidential ticket will inevitably put pressure to draw in other formations such as Socialist Alternative, the CPUSA, etc. Comrades, all of us recognize the urgency of the moment. The ruling class is preparing and is moving forward with a massive wave of repression on the anti-imperialist and socialist movement. We must respond to this not by retreating and hiding behind our own formations or towing the line of the ruling class, but by starting the process of socialist unity, reaching across our formations, to treat each other as the allies and comrades that we are, to work together while debating in good faith our differences, to learn from each other, to unite socialist leaning media, to organize massive rallies, to build a ground-breaking campaign for socialism that takes over the streets and the ballot box. We must seize the moment, rapidly build the forces for socialism, and get people organized in parties and unions over this election cycle to build an effective resistance to the capitalist drive for World War.
We must learn from the Palestinian Liberators, take inspiration from their United Front, as they bear the brunt of genocide from Israel yet still advance forward in their Intifada. Despite their various differences all of the resistance groups in Palestine recognized the absolute necessity of merging their efforts in a United Front to strike at their captors and lead the charge for freedom. They have broken their cages and despite all odds will continue to push forward in a protracted people’s war. When will the oppressed of the United States break out of our cage? We all recognize the common enemy, US Imperialism and the two-party system. We are all in the streets, risking arrest and fighting together against this oppressive machine, and we are all organizing together in our unions and other working-class institutions. We all recognize the absolute necessity of an independent socialist alternative from the two ruling parties. We all recognize the repression that is about to come. Let us take charge, unite our forces, and build the United Socialist Front for the 2024 Elections. In this, let us take to heart a chant that we have yelled together through all the protests in support of the Palestinian people “From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada!”
