T.O. 130 – Jamaal Bowman Lessons / France & Mexico Elections / Int’l Youth Conference
The ORGANIZER
Supplement – July 3, 2024
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IN THIS ISSUE:
• U.S.: Key Lessons of Jamaal Bowman’s Defeat at the Hands of AIPAC … And What Way Forward?
• FRANCE: Workers Party Communiqué on Outcome of First Round of Legislative Elections (June 30, 11 pm)
• MEXICO: Open Letter to President-Elect Claudia Sheinbaum
• YOUTH: Please Support the International Youth Camp Against War and For Revolution
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Key Lessons of Jamaal Bowman’s Defeat at the Hands of AIPAC … And What Way Forward?
By Mya Shone, on behalf of the Editorial Board of The Organizer
AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, pummeled New York Congressman and DSA stalwart Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary. The questions before us, as always, are what lessons have been learned and what next?
The AIPAC Super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP)*, along with the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) and other AIPAC allies, outspent Bowman’s community supporters 8 to 1. By the end of the race on Tuesday, $23 million had been spent to unseat Bowman, with more than 60% coming from UDP.
It was no surprise that AIPAC had Bowman in its sights. AIPAC announced early in this election cycle that it would devote $100 million to remove “Squad” members and other “progressives” who have not paid obeisance to the Jewish state.
AIPAC failed to eliminate its first target, Summer Lee in Western Pennsylvania. It spent $2 million in the Democratic primary and then added a million plus dollars to Republican efforts when it came to the election itself. While it seemed to most as a large amount for a congressional race, it now stands as a paltry sum compared to the Bowman effort, the most expensive congressional race in U.S. history.
AIPAC went after Lee even though she “absolutely” respects Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state. While that is sufficient for organizations such as J Street to endorse her, it isn’t for AIPAC which demands absolute and unconditional fidelity. Nine days after October 7, Lee joined other House progressives in calling for an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza. Then she voted against the $14 billion military package for Israel, and last, but not least, Lee considers it essential “to protect and stand up for Palestinians.”
AIPAC was not going to lose again
AIPAC wasn’t going to lose again and launched a much more concerted effort against its next target, two-term NY Congressman Jamaal Bowman. Bowman, like many Squad members, has strong community credentials. He worked as a middle-school teacher, dean, and principal in Bronx public schools for over 20 years. In 2020, he rode the tailwinds of Black Lives Matter to oust the leader of the Democratic Party’s New York State Congressional delegation, the 30-year incumbent Eliot Engels.
Bowman sailed through his re-election in 2022 with backing from then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the endorsement of his former union, the Civil Service Employees Association, CSEA-AFSCME, the largest public employees union in New York state.
Bowman denounces Gaza Genocide
But Bowman has been outspoken since October 7 against Israel’s genocidal attack in Gaza. Moreover, he has evolved since 2020 to support the BDS movement, call out Israel as an apartheid state, and focus on the root issue of Zionist settler colonialism. (see excerpts from a Bowman interview below).
With a large Jewish population in the 16th Congressional district, which encompasses Westchester County suburbs with only a sliver in the northern part of the Bronx, Bowman may have seemed an easy target, but AIPAC still did not take chances. Polls show that the vast majority of Democratic voters (83%), including a majority of Jewish voters, support a permanent ceasefire, one of Bowman’s primary positions.
Democrats throw Bowman under the bus
Here is where the true story unfolds. While Summer Lee stayed within the confines of a loyal opposition and broadcast photos of herself with Joe Biden, not so Jamaal Bowman. The Democratic Party apparatus, along with some union leadership that support it, aligned itself with AIPAC to throw Jamaal Bowman under the bus and, in so doing, send a piercing message to the Squad and its DSA supporters about the very narrow limits of its “big tent” party and their opportunities to function within it.
AIPAC’s first step was to recruit George Latimer, a stalwart of the Democratic Party who like the Party itself, expresses unequivocal support for the Jewish state and defers to the Biden Administration on the conduct of Israel’s genocidal war and U.S. funding of it.
Above all, Latimer has never lost an election and knows the Westchester County community like the back of his hand. He served 12 years in the Westchester County Board of Legislators, 13 years more in the NY State Assembly and Senate and has been the Westchester County Executive since 2018. His endorsements were a who’s who of the Democratic Party apparatus including almost every Westchester mayor and most state legislators representing the district. CSEA, Bowman’s union, switched gears and became the first union to endorse Latimer. Various building trades and firefighters unions then followed suit.
The icing on the cake came when Hillary Clinton weighed in with her endorsement even though Chappaqua where she lives is outside the 16th Congressional District. Clinton’s statement, which aligned with AIPAC’s messaging throughout the campaign, portrayed Latimer as a “principled Democrat” who will “fight for President Biden’s agenda — just like he’s always done.”
AIPAC’s primary message that filled New York’s television airways, social media, and mailers was fundamentally that Bowman could not be trusted. He had demonstrated disloyalty towards Biden when he voted against the massive infrastructure bill, the economic priority of Biden’s Administration. Bowman could not recover from the flood of messaging. The reason for his “no” vote — that the original package of bills had been scuttled with the essential legislation funding child care and other social services jeopardized — was of no consequence.
Peter Feld, a political consultant told Mondoweiss, that the Democratic Majority for Israel had used the same method against Nina Turner in Ohio in the 2021 special congressional election. “They focus on things, Feld remarked, “that are not Israel.”
AIPAC on the rampage yesterday and today
With Bowman out of the way, AIPAC and its allies will focus its resources on ousting Cori Bush (D-MO) in the August 6 Democratic Party primary race where she faces St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell, who promises to “make sure the United States remains Israel’s strongest ally.”
AIPAC functions as a powerful agent of the Israeli government even if it isn’t officially registered as such. Its reach is far and wide. Founded in 1954, after Israel’s massacre of Palestinian villagers in Qibya sparked international condemnation, AIPAC primarily exerted influence as a lobbyist even as it ousted politicians. Foremost among them was Paul Findley, a moderate Republican from Illinois who had served in Congress for 22 years.
Notably, Findlay had been the first to integrate Congressional staff by having a Black page appointed — the first since the Reconstruction era. He was an early critic of the Vietnam War and crafted the 1973 War Powers Act. Findlay, however, became AIPAC’s target after he called for developing U.S. relations with the Arab world and, particularly with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
AIPAC failed in its first effort to oust Findlay in 1980 and tried again in 1982 as Israel was laying waste to Beirut and Palestinian refugee camps. It promoted Dick Durbin, a relatively unknown Democrat, as the candidate to support. Money poured into Durbin’s campaign coffers from the Jewish community after a former AIPAC president called Findley “a dangerous enemy of Israel.” Durbin squeaked in by 1% in what had been the most expensive congressional race in U.S. history until surpassed in June by the full-bore attack against Jamaal Bowman.
While today Bernie Sanders is a staunch critic of AIPAC, he sent a message supportive of Israel to its annual Policy Conference in Washington DC when he ran for president in 2016 (March 21, 2016 message).
“Clearly, the United States and Israel are united by historical ties,” Sanders stated. “We are united by culture. We are united by our values, including a deep commitment to democratic principles, civil rights and the rule of law. Israel,” Sanders asserted, “is one of America’s closest allies and we — as a nation — are committed not just to guaranteeing Israel’s survival, but also to making sure that its people have a right to live in peace and security.”
Democratic Party leaders go on AIPAC-funded junkets to Israel. They accept millions of dollars from AIPAC donors and now directly from AIPAC’s super PAC, the UDP. Politico reported that House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass) and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-CA) received more than $3 million from UDP since 2021 when it started doling out funds directly to candidates. Jeffries alone accepted more than $1.5 million from UDP in the last election cycle along with its endorsement.
Noting this, following Bowman’s loss, organizations including Our Revolution, the Sunrise Movement, Jewish for Peace, and NYC-DSA called upon Jeffries to “reject AIPAC’s endorsement and contributions.”
Bowman’s loss “is not about leadership”
Bowman’s loss “is not about leadership,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters who confronted her outside the Capitol on Wednesday. With this we disagree. In this capitalist political system, big money and now dark money is inevitable. It is a hurdle we must always overcome. Would AIPAC have been able to launch and then sustain a campaign with such fervor if Bowman had the backing of his party – if Joe Biden, Hilary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi made room for dissenting opinions and worked towards Bowman’s re-election?
As in our union struggles where we confront the might of the corporate bosses, we retain the power of our numbers and our labor.
There was an outpouring of community support for Jamaal Bowman with door-to-door visits as well as an effort at TV and social media broadcasts. Major labor unions such as the UAW, National Nurses United, and SEIU 1199 endorsed. Organizations such as the Working Families Party stretched their budget spending $506,000 on advertising. Combined, Bowman-allied groups spent $1.75 million, no match for even one of UDP’s ad buys.
Organizations opposed to the genocide in Gaza alongside Palestinian solidarity activists made the campaign a central focus, too. In fact, the Free Palestine activists brought as many people to Bowman’s last rally as did the campaign itself.
The Democrats were not just complicit
This effort should encourage rather than discourage activists. In our opinion, a conclusion must be drawn. The Democratic Party was not just complicit with AIPAC in bringing down Jamaal Bowman; it played an integral role.
The Bowman campaign remained within the confines of the Democratic Party whose apparatus turned on Bowman before the race had begun. It didn’t matter that Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the House Democrats, gave Bowman a token endorsement and recorded one robo-call. He didn’t call off the Democratic Party wolves or call out the troops to support Bowman. We knew beforehand that Jeffries sustains both the wars in Ukraine and the genocidal war against the Palestinian people. As exposed afterward, Jeffries is beholden to AIPAC.
How many lessons will it take?
How many lessons will it take before the militant unions that endorsed Bowman — the UAW, NNU and SEIU 1199 — along with devoted activists who seek social change and liberation for all, who strive for a socialist society, come to the realization that to build political power, the working class and all oppressed peoples must work together to forge a political organization of our own, independent of the ruling class?
A resolution adopted by the October 2017 national convention of the AFL-CIO affirmed that, “whether the candidates are elected from the Republican or Democratic Party, the interests of Wall Street have been protected and advanced, while the interests of labor and working people have generally been set back.” A second convention resolution concluded that, “the time has passed when we can passively settle for the lesser of two evils politics.”
Here we are in July 2024, almost seven years later. To our union sisters, brothers, and siblings we say: it is long overdue for labor to walk the walk and break with the Democratic Party. If not now, when?
Let us harness the collective effort that was devoted to the Bowman campaign to take the next steps to build labor party caucuses in our unions along with labor-community coalitions which can be building blocks for political power that serves our interests.
To those who remain in DSA we say, Bowman’s loss was inevitable within the confines of the parties of the capitalist ruling class. To those who have realized already that the Democratic Party is a straight-jacket and have left DSA, we ask you to engage with us in Socialist Organizer and participate in Labor and Community for an Independent Party.
Notes:
•The United Democracy Project, according to The Nation magazine is funded by “a who’s who of investment bankers and financial services powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, Elliott Management, and the Capital Group Companies.”
• Democratic Majority for Israel and its political action committee were formed in 2019 by Mark Mellman, a Democratic Party pollster along with other Democratic Party strategists, former White House Communications Director Ann Lewis and Biden’s now Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
• Paul Findley published “They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby” in 1985. It became a bestselling exposé of AIPAC’s influence and how it weaponized anti-Semitism to shape U.S. politics.
• Nina Turner had deep-rooted Ohio connections. She had been a member of the Cleveland City Council, a member of the Ohio Senate, had been the Democratic Party’s nominee for Ohio Secretary of State in 2014 (race that she lost to the Republican incumbent), became president of Our Revolution in 2017 and had been the national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.
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Jamaal Bowman Interview – Excerpts
(youtube with Olurinatti who youtube channel has 85.8k subscribers early June)
I’m not going to support a genocide. And it was very evident very early on that that is what Netanyahu was trying to do. It was either going to be ethnic cleansing which means move them all the hell out of Gaza so he can annex Gaza, and in his mind, annex the West Bank.
He wants Palestinians gone. That’s through ethnic cleansing or what’s happening now, which the ICJ called a plausible genocide — whether it is with missiles or it is with famine. They’re using both to kill the Palestinians, not just Hamas, the Palestinians.
So, there was no way in the world, especially based upon in the last few years from what I learned in Congress, that I was going to support what Israel was doing right now. And when the ceasefire resolution came to my desk, led by sister Cori Bush as lead.
Of course, I signed on as an original co-sponsor because the other resolution that they were pushing was a complete AIPAC written resolution. One of the first lines was to condemn Hamas for this unprovoked attack.
I stopped reading at that point. If we’re calling this an unprovoked attack, that means we are going to ignore 18 human rights organizations calling Israel an apartheid state. And, we’re going to ignore 75 years of military occupation which is illegal or 700,000 settlers expanding into the West Bank, which is also illegal.
I am not justifying the killing of civilians by Hamas on October 7th . There is no justification. It’s just an explanation of what the circumstances were that led to October 7 th . And I believe then,
and I believe now if you want to end extremism, then we need a free Palestine.
So, don’t talk to me about a two-state solution, but we’re not doing anything to build a Palestinian state.
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FRANCE: Workers Party Communiqué (June 30, 11 pm)
On July 7 not one vote for the far right, not one vote for the capitalist parties!
For a working-class break with the capitalist system of exploitation and oppression!
June 30 represents a major defeat for [French President] Macron. His cabinet ministers have been defeated, with his congressional candidates swept aside. It is a total rejection of his anti-working-class policies, his reforms of retirement pensions, his unemployment insurance and his privatization of education. It is a total rejection of his war policy, with its hundreds of billions of euros in a war budget for war in Ukraine and the arming of Israel, which is continuing its policy of genocide. It is a rejection of his racist “immigration” law, which opens the way for the French far-right party, the “Rassemblement National” (RN).
Macron’s defeat has been accompanied by an unprecedented rise in support for the far-right Rassemblement National. Why is this?
Macron’s presidency is part of a continuum that saw the left-wing parties — those that now make up the New Popular Front — come to power for 24 years, starting in 1981. These were 24 years during which they refused to take the path of breaking with the capitalist system of exploitation and oppression. They refused to break with the plans dictated by the European Union.
A section of the population has concluded that the Rassemblement National could open up another perspective. This is a fatal illusion. The Rassemblement National’s policies are worse than Macron’s policies; they are policies against workers, public services, secularism and pensions, with the added bonus of blaming immigrant workers and French people of immigrant origin for all ills.
This stance encourages racist attacks, which go hand in hand with the growing number of attacks on union activists and their meeting halls.
Workers and young people cannot make any concessions to this divisive rhetoric, which only serves the bosses.
– No concessions to those who want to pit one sector of the working class against another sector of the working class on the basis of their origin or religion.
• No concessions to those who seek to divide the working people into a patchwork of communities.
There is only one working class, only one youth, united in their righteous and indivisible rights.
By taking part in the election in large numbers, workers and young people have expressed their determination to prevent the Rassemblement National from making any headway, particularly in working-class neighborhoods.
On July 7, the Rassemblement National can and must be defeated! Not one vote for the Rassemblement National, not one vote for any of the capitalist parties (RN, Macronists, the Républicans)!
We can already hear leaders of the left calling for a united front with Macron and the right against the Rassemblement National. It’s not the first time. They did it to us in 2002, and again in 2017. In 2022, they called on us to vote for Macron to block the far right. The result: Far from stopping the far right, voting for Macron paved the way for Macron’s policies, which in turn paved the way for the far right.
Workers want to block the road to the far right. They will do so in their own way, on their own ground. By rallying together in support of their demands, with their independent trade union organizations.
Blocking the way to the Rassemblement National, yes! To do that, we urgently need to implement a genuine break with the past. Breaking with the past is not just a mere phrase in a program.
A break with the past means a general pay rise, a freeze on prices, a sliding scale for wages and the restoration of lost purchasing power. It means confiscating war budgets, capitalist profits and dividends paid to shareholders and allocating them to housing, schools and hospitals.
Breaking with the past means repealing all the government’s reactionary reforms. It means not one penny, not one weapon, not one man or woman for the war in Ukraine! It means severing all relations with the genocidal State of Israel and stopping all arms deliveries.
It is the action of the workers themselves and their mobilization that will make this break possible.
For the Workers Party, defending democracy does not mean defending the institutions of the Fifth Republic, or electing every five years a President of the Republic who concentrates all the powers in his hands, with a National Parliament that is powerless, padlocked.
Democracy is for the people to define its forms and social content, by scrapping the Fifth Republic and electing representatives to a sovereign Constituent Assembly.
The Workers Party is in favor of a workers’ government, a government without NATO, without the European Union, without the European Central Bank — a government without bosses and without Macron. This is why the Workers Party did not join the New Popular Front.
Past events show that the very people who today use the word “break” are only paying lip service; they are the same ones who have been turning their backs on a real break for half a century.
But we know that the millions of workers and young people who voted for the New Popular Front on June 30, and who will do so again on July 7, will do so for reasons that we have in common: like us, they want a real break with the past.
We are and will be with them — Communist, Socialist and France Unbowed members and voters, trade union activists of all persuasions — with the aim of building a united front for a workers’ break with exploitation and oppression. Saving and winning back democracy will be achieved by the working class and the youth themselves.
On July 7, not one vote for the far right, not one vote for the capitalist parties (RN, LR, the Macronists)!
On July 7, while not endorsing the program of the New Popular Front, but unconditionally, the Workers Party calls for a vote for candidates from the labor movement parties put forward by the New Popular Front!
In a nutshell: Out with Bardella, Out with Macron, For a real working-class break!
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MEXICO:
PEN LETTER CALLING FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MANDATE AND FOR THE APPROVAL OF THE REFORMS THAT BENEFIT THE PEOPLE AND THE WORKING CLASS
[reprinted from Tribuna de los Trabajadores, June-July 2024)
• To the elected president Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo
• To President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO)
• To the elected deputies and senators of the MORENA-VERDE-PT Coalition
The people of Mexico have decided to continue the Fourth Transformation (4T) project; Claudia Sheinbaum has been elected president by more than 35.7 million Mexican men and women.
Millions voted for them to build the “second floor of the transformation”; they responded to the call to win “Plan C” – that is, win a majority in the chambers of Congress to approve the constitutional reform initiatives presented by AMLO on February 5, 2024“.
The massive vote has given them an overwhelming majority in the Congress of the Union and a majority in the Local and Statewide Congresses.
We, the undersigned, address you because you have the responsibility to respond to this mandate of the people, to reverse the destruction of social rights and the loss of sovereignty and the plundering of our wealth and natural resources. With the majority obtained, there are no legal obstacles that prevent you from carrying out the reforms that the country needs. Acting otherwise would be a betrayal of the people of Mexico.
The message from the population has been clear, they rejected the PRIAN [the PRI and PAN political parties and their institutions] and what they represent: corruption, impunity, repression and the neoliberal project. The right-wing opposition has been defeated; it represents a tiny minority in the country.
We, the undersigned, call on you to approve the reforms in the first weeks of the next legislative session. There is nothing to negotiate with the opposition; the people of Mexico have given you their support.
For us, the undersigned, the most urgent reforms that needed to be implemented are the following:
• The reform of the judicial system – a new system is needed that allows the people to elect judges and that eliminates the current clique that has collaborated with neoliberal politics.
• The reduction of the work week to 40 hours.
• The increase in salaries above inflation, for everyone in the countryside and in the city and for employees with collective bargaining agreements.
• The pension reform, to ensure a decent pension and reverse the reforms of 1994 and 2007.
• Access to housing, education and universal medical care, scholarships and social programs.
• The right to water as a human right and measures to avoid its exploitation and privatization.
• The ban on fracking and other practices that destroy the environment.
All these measures were proposed to “bury neoliberalism” by President AMLO on February 5, 2024.
We, the undersigned. also consider that the current situation allows us to go further in the dismantling of neoliberalism, which is why we propose as a first step to put up for discussion: a reform to recover what has been privatized and strengthen public companies, to recover our sovereignty in the sectors of energy (oil and electricity); mining, roads and railways.
We trust that you will comply with the mandate of the people, and we emphasize that “what the people have given, the people can take away.”
For our part, we will carry out mobilizations in the streets, workplaces, and wherever necessary to fight against the de facto powers and the oligarchy. For this we will begin the construction of unity committees against neoliberalism and for compliance with the mandate.
First signatories:
Chiapas: Fernando Serrano Monroy, Srio. General del SITAACOBACH; Muriel Ernesto Gómez Alvarado, Daniel Gómez Meza, Luis Hernández Martínez, Marbin Jordán Samayoa Ruedas Alejandra Escobar Molina, Jorge Iván Espinosa Nuricumbo, Susana Castro Pérez, Ana Yuridia Hernández Grajalez Osiel Roblero López, Secc. 40 CNTE; Ulia Nova Sánchez Roblero CNTEMS; Roger Cerda Medina, Russell Aguilar Brindis, Rosendo Vázquez Hernández Jorge Manuel Arcia Najera, Concepción Juana Hernández Méndez, Moraima Torruco Quiñones, Jubilado Secc jubilados Secc. 7 CNTE; José Luis Jiménez Domínguez y Lamberto Espinosa Aguilar moto taxistas, Ana Lilia Escalante Orantes, Parte del comité integral de salud, Gilberto Montes Vázquez militante de la LCI-CORCI, Roberto Martínez Morales, asesor jurídico de la CROC, Pascual Yuing, Periodista, Daniel Martínez microempresario.
Baja California: Juan-Carlos Vargas, Junta promotora de la Nueva Central de las y los Trabajadores, Edgar Alonso Gameros, profesor COBACHBC, Marco Morales Rojo Unión Nacional de Trabajadores por Aplicación (UNTA), Liliana Plumeda Aguilar Comité Obrero Internacional, Catalina Miranda Navarro, profesora, SNTE sección 37, Irma Moran, Resistencias Unidas de Baja California, Raymundo Blas Trabajador de la construcción militante de la LCI-CORCI, Joaquín Torres, Comité de Vecinos en defensa de los servicios públicos Villa del Álamo Tijuana, Fernando Marques, (Delegado del sindicato UAW local) 2865, Riverside, Jessica Pacheco Solís docente afiliada a SNTE sección 2, Edna Duarte Hernández, médico, Luis Carlos Haro Montoya, docente, Jonathan García, Maestro de educación básica, Oscar Rivera, profesor UABC, Raúl Ramos Sánchez y Luis Armando Salcedo Mascareño estudiantes de UABC. Andrea Isabel Valladolid Jimenez, trabajadora CDMX: Gloria Miroslava Callejas Sánchez, periodista; Wendy de la Rosa, Román Ramírez y Armando Chulín integrantes de la Coordinadora Primero de Diciembre.
Guanajuato: Israel Cervantes, Activista sindical Generando Movimiento.
Nayarit: Jesús Casillas Arredondo, Psicólogo Sinaloa: Javier Daniel Alarcón Mares, estudiante de la UAS. Yucatán: Mauricio Macossay Vallado, Kolectivo Rebelde
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INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY YOUTH CAMP
Please Support the Gathering of Young People from All Over the World in the Fight Against War and for Revolution
Dear comrades and friends,
In a world marching toward war, French youth activists have decided to organize an international camp of young revolutionaries from all over the world. Those present will include young people from Russia, Ukraine, Palestine, Morocco, Azania, the United States, Portugal, Mexico, Morocco, and many more (list in formation).
“It will be a meeting, where young revolutionists can share their common experiences and learn how to organize together against the governments that want to pit the youth and the workers of different countries against each other. It will be a meeting for the fraternization of workers and youth against war, for the workers’ revolution.” (excerpt from the Call)
This meeting will take place from August 28 to 30 in central France.
Please help us raise $5,000 to enable us (1) to send five youth from the United States to this youth camp and (2) to contribute to the general travel fund for youth from poor countries. Please fill out the coupon below. To date, we have raised $2,100. With your support, we hope to meet our goal.
The five activists are listed below. You will also want to read the statements of the three Ujima Peoples Progress Party activists.
1) Paul Flowers, member, Black Alliance for Peace; lead organizer of Pro-Palestine encampment at SUNY New Palz campus (New York)
2) Sarah Walker, union organizer, New York, N.Y.
3) Roger Evans Jr., member, Ujima People’s Progress Party (Maryland)
4) Petros Bein, member, Ujima People’s Progress Party (Maryland)
5) Brandon Walker, member, Ujima People’s Progress Party (Maryland)
We are asking you, our friends and supporters, to make a donation of $25 (or more, if possible) toward this fund drive. Please fill out and return the coupon below.
I SUPPORT THIS FUND DRIVE!
[ ] I will send $25 toward the youth camp fund
[ ] I will make an additional contribution of _____ .
NAME:
CITY:
(fill out this coupon and send it to theorganizer@earthlink.net. Send your check or money order to The Organizer, P.O. Box 1782, New York, N.Y. New York, NY 10025 or donate through PayPal at www.socialistorganizer.org.
We thank you, in advance, for your support to this urgent and vitally important fund drive. For more information about this gathering, you can contact us at <theorganizer@earthlink.net .
Yours in Struggle,
NNAMDI LUMUMBA
Organizer,
Ujima People’s Progress Party
(Baltimore, Maryland)
Co-Sponsor, U.S. Support Committee,
International Revolutionary Youth Camp
ALAN BENJAMIN
National Organizing Committee,
Socialist Organizer
(New York, New York)
Co-Sponsor, U.S. Support Committee
International Revolutionary Youth Camp
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Why We Are Traveling to the International Revolutionary Youth Camp in France
I am eager to participate in the summer study in Paris with my comrades because it will significantly enhance my organizing efforts both locally and globally. As an active organizer at Clopper Mill Elementary School and with Young People for Progress in Montgomery County, Maryland, this opportunity will allow me to gain invaluable insights from French organizers and their approaches to class struggle. Engaging with their perspectives will deepen my understanding and effectiveness in my work with the Ujima People’s Progress Party. Additionally, this will be my first visit to France, offering a unique chance to witness firsthand the working class’s response to the heightened contradictions of imperialism. Observing and learning from the Parisian context will provide fresh perspectives and strategies that I can bring back to my community.
–Petros Bein
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When I first started organizing during the pandemic around housing in Baltimore, my scope was limited to the conditions I saw locally in my community. As I began to study it became clear that tenants all over history and every part of the world at some point recognized that their situations as tenant-workers were untenable and that something drastic had to happen to force a change in their conditions. While we haven’t achieved the goal of housing no longer being a commodity (a reality that will only occur with, first, the destruction of Capitalism) more people are awakening to the reality that another world is possible and it’s our goal as organizers to help to create it. Having the opportunity to learn and train with revolutionaries from all over the planet and connecting local housing struggles to global ones will greatly help build a militant working-class tenant movement. I look forward to drawing on the experiences of my fellow comrades as well as engaging in rigorous study to sharpen my analysis.
-Roger Evans Jr
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Uhuru Sasa (Freedom Now)!
I would like to participate in the conference to become more familiar with the gathering of kindred spirits in struggle and forge a bond around the world, including in the country where I reside. My interest(s) in participating is to gain hope and genuine connections with political forces and inter-communal relationships from our respective communities, nations, and countries. I am seeking the importance of allyship in the certainty that when you feel disconnected from others around you in the fight against global imperialism, you can reference the power of connecting to others who are deeply committed to a common struggle while building within our respective organizations and institutions.
– Brandon Walker
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Socialist Organizer 