Chicago, IL – On Thursday, March 30 Brandon Johnson and Bernie Sanders held a joint “Chicago for All of Us” rally at the Credit Union 1 Arena, drawing a crowd of more than 4000 supporters. The event comes after Sanders’ endorsement of Johnson for the April 4 mayoral runoff election. The event included speeches from Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa; Representatives Jonathan Jackson and Delia Ramirez; president of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten; Martin Luther King III, and Senator Bernie Sanders.

The event brought together progressive activists, union members and students from the nearby University of Illinois Chicago. The Johnson campaign is an example of the sort of rainbow coalition Chicago hasn’t seen since the Harold Washington campaign of the 1980s, and the crowd showed it. An integral part of the rainbow politics of the 1980s, Reverend Jesse Jackson, civil rights activist and leader of the Rainbow-PUSH coalition was also present.

Senator Sanders spoke on the connection between the movement and the Johnson campaign, stating, “He understands what you and I understand: that racism and bigotry are all about the ruling class trying to divide us and what we are about is bringing our people together to fight for a city, fight for a nation that works for all of us not just the few.”

The arena was filled to the brim with whites, Blacks, Latinos and Asians united to fight the reactionary and corporate backed Paul Vallas campaign and build the people’s movements.

Representative Ramirez praised the diverse nature of the crowd and its representative strength of the people’s movement in Chicago. She shared advice from her mother: “Dime con quien andas, y te dire quien ere” (“Tell me who you are with and I’ll tell you who you are”).

On the stage, students from the Little Village Lawndale Highschool Fightback Organization stood behind the speakers. Earlier that same day the students had led a walkout of hundreds of mostly Black and Latino students to denounce Paul Vallas and his attacks on public education while he was in office as the superintendent of Chicago Public schools. These included refusing to open Little Village Lawndale High even after parents from the community went on a 19-day hunger strike to demand a high school in their community.

Representative Jackson contrasted this shameful record with Johnson’s experience as a former public school teacher and member of the Chicago Teachers Union, saying Johnson is, “A man who starts his career going into a classroom on behalf of the children will no doubt end his career working for the elevation of every human life.”

Finally, Brandon Johnson took the stage to thunderous applause. He spoke against the reactionary attacks on his campaign by stating: “They have tried to make us feel bad because we believe in collective bargaining and unionism, let me make this clear: the last time I checked Chicago is a union town. And if you are an enemy of labor, you are an enemy of the people!”

Throughout the night the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. was invoked, especially by Rev. King’s son who reminded the crowd that election day on April 4 would mark the 55th anniversary of his father’s assassination. King III highlighted the historical significance of the current mayoral election for Chicago, especially as it relates to housing, an area his father led key struggles in. King III recognized that the movement backing Johnson worked in the same spirit as his father. “Johnson is the one to make the dream real for everyone. To have a decent quality of life, a decent job, to have healthcare and to have justice.”

On April 4 Chicagoans will go to the polls with a real choice. On the one hand, of a progressive supported by a coalition of working and oppressed people, opening the door for the people’s movements to win real lasting victories. On the other a reactionary corporate-backed Republican who would put those same movements on the defensive and put forward a program for privatization and a racist police crackdown.

#ChicagoIL #PoliceBrutality #BernieSanders #BrandonJohnson

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Coalition to March on the Democratic National Convention.

On April 8, Senator Bernie Sanders suspended his 2020 Democratic primary campaign. The Sanders campaign has inspired millions of working class and oppressed people, including an overwhelming majority of young people. The movement-building emphasis of the Sanders campaign is what truly sets it apart from anything seen in the U.S. since perhaps Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition in the 1980s.

What Sanders’s candidacy demonstrated again in 2020 is that working and oppressed people in the U.S. want more than what they’ve been afforded under the current system. His candidacy has solidified the fact that the change that people here so desperately need cannot come from the electoral arena. The ruling class who is in control of these mechanisms will not allow a self-proclaimed socialist to attain the highest office in government. However, this exact thing is why Sanders’ insistence on a mass movement of people is so significant.

History has shown that only when masses of people have united around demands, organized themselves into movements, and demonstrated for their causes in workplaces, on campuses, and in communities across the country have they ever been able to win change. The Coalition to March on the DNC exists to bring together as many of those progressive movements as possible in an effort to demonstrate the kind of future that is necessary for the masses of working and oppressed people in the U.S.

We have always sought to build the broadest possible coalition, whether that means revolutionary organizations, non-profits, labor organizations, or any other element within the people’s movements. Most of our points of unity can be connected to the types of things that Bernie has been promoting for his entire life. The Coalition to March on the DNC is a natural landing spot for his supporters who want to keep building the people’s movements.

Defeating Donald Trump is going to be on the minds of most people heading into November. Doing this in a practical sense can take a number of different forms. While some will look to the ballot box as the only option, others will work to develop broader networks, building stronger bases in their workplaces, communities and schools, and seek to challenge Trump and his reactionary policies more directly.

Bernie has always been clear about one thing: regardless of who it is that occupies the White House, without a mass movement at the grassroots level, nothing meaningful will be accomplished. The Coalition to March on the DNC as a temporary alliance of the various people’s movements serves as the most immediate extension of this call to continue organizing.

The start of the DNC has been moved from July 13 to August 17 due to the coronavirus. The Coalition intends to lead a mass demonstration within sight and sound of the Fiserv Forum, including a rally with many speakers and a march. The event will begin at 10 a.m. on Monday, August 17, the first day of the convention. All progressives, socialists and people’s movements are encouraged to make plans to join the Coalition to March on the DNC in Milwaukee this summer. For more information, please visit the Coalition’s website at www.marchondnc.org.

#UnitedStates #US #PeoplesStruggles #Elections #BernieSanders #DonaldTrump #CoalitionToMarchOnTheDNC #2020Election

Minneapolis, MN – After days of delay, the results are in: Bernie Sanders won the most votes in Iowa, leading in both the initial vote, as well as after the second round where weaker candidates in each caucus are dropped. As this became clear Tom Perez, chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) called for a ‘recanvass’ of the caucus voting because of the chaotic reporting of results and the long delay. Ironically, this was caused by a new voting app developed by a small company founded by a former staffer of the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign.

During the delay, the corporate media consistently declared Pete Buttigieg the winner, based on getting the most State Delegate Equivalents in the complicated Iowa caucus system. Most articles did not even mention that Sanders won the most votes.

A winner in the Iowa fiasco was Donald Trump, who crowed about the Democrats’ problems in counting the votes. The clear effort by the leadership of the national Democratic Party, the corporate media and the inept, leftover Clinton campaign staffers to deny the progressive candidate the win that he got is a replay of the 2016 campaign where they went all out to deny Sanders the nomination. Their favorite, Clinton, then went on to lose the election to Donald Trump.

The logic of ‘electability’ flies in the face of the fact that the moderate Clinton lost in 2016, and now the moderate ‘favorite’ and ‘front-runner’ Joe Biden was crushed with a weak fourth place finish in Iowa.

Many activists who are angered by the DNC leadership have organized the Coalition to March on the DNC to protest in Milwaukee where the 2020 Democratic National Convention will be held in July. The march on the DNC will take place July 13, with demonstrations gathering at 10 a.m. For more information go to their web site at marchondnc.org.

#MinneapolisMN #PeoplesStruggles #Elections #BernieSanders #IowaCaucus

Philadelphia, PA – On July 25, thousands gathered and protested at the opening day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

The first rally and march of the day, called by The Equality Coalition, started at 10 a.m. Activists and their groups began gathering despite warnings of the extreme heat that was going to hit Philadelphia. The banners and signs varied from loyal pro-Sander supporters to militant calls for revolution. However, the one consistent message that day – down with Hillary Clinton.

Speakers consistently brought up Clinton’s long history of corruption, from her warmongering to her recent participation in the scam primary elections.

Members of different left and progressive organizations were handing out literature regarding the elections and their views of Clinton and Sanders. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization handed out two of their statements on elections and the recent police killings.

Dave Schneider, a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, summed up the general views of the people protesting that morning, “The people out here protesting the DNC understand that both major parties represent the class of billionaires that rule this country. Frankly, we're not buying what these politicians in both parties are selling anymore.”

The march began at 2 p.m., as over 800 protesters began a four-mile trek to the convention center to make their voices heard. Chants from “Hey, hey! Ho, Ho! Hillary Clinton has got to go,” to “Feel the Bern” kept the marchers up beat and determined in the 99-degree heat.

Once the first march reached the convention center, the second event, March for Our Lives, called by Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, began at 3 p.m. Hundreds gathered once more in front of City Hall to listen to a wide range of speakers, such as Cornell West and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. “Don’t vote for the lesser evil, but for the greater good,” said Stein.

The march started soon after Stein finished speaking, and the protesters joined the others at the convention center.

Schneider, who will be more protests at the DNC, said, “In the coming days, I expect more people to join the protests outside the DNC, including many of the Sanders delegates. The Democratic Party, like the GOP, loyally serves Wall Street.”

#PhiladelphiaPA #DemocraticNationalConvention #DNC #Socialism #Elections #BernieSanders #HillaryClinton #JillStein

While Trump is an unabashed advocate of capitalism and greed, many of the rich and powerful are nervous about handing him the keys to the White House. They see him as erratic and unfit to run the empire they have built. As for the people of this country, most reject Trump’s reactionary agenda.

Hillary Clinton is a known quantity; she is a faithful servant of Wall Street and a war criminal to boot. An enemy of low-income women, she backed welfare ‘reform’ which plunged millions into deeper poverty. Why do big bankers and financiers host her speaking events and pay her big sums of money? Clinton tells them what they want to hear. From the coup in Honduras to the U.S./NATO attack on Libya – she is a candidate with a track record of leaving a trail of blood in her wake.

If anything shows the bankruptcy of the money-dominated two-party system, it is the presumed candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties – Trump and Clinton. Monopoly capitalism is an exploitive, failed and dying system, whose principal political representatives are worthy of the Jerry Springer show. Both are apologists for police crimes and terror. They have no claim to our respect and support. This is not a call to boycott elections. The point is this: the unelectable Trump is an insufficient reason to organize support for Clinton.

The outpouring of support for Bernie Sanders represented a rejection of the way things are and a yearning for something better. There is a profound dissatisfaction in this country with the billionaires, Wall Street and capitalism. Millions of people are attracted to the idea of socialism. There is the potential for this broad, progressive political current to contribute to a growing struggle against the ruling elite.

Things in the country have changed. Everywhere people are in motion. Every major city, and many of the small ones, have been rocked by protests against police crimes. This country is a prison house for the oppressed – Africans Americans, Chicanos and Latinos, Asians Americans and Native peoples. The spark has been struck and the fight is on for equality and liberation.

When the students of Chicago shut down Trump, they signaled the way forward. Every city the bigot Trump shows his face in, he should be shut down. We are building a movement against everything he stands for.

In the months ahead it is vital that the people’s movements are in the streets, advancing our demands. The billionaires have bought and paid for politicians from the two parties to represent their interests. We need to fight for our own.

The epidemic of police terror, rampant inequality, attacks on our standard of living, and endless wars serve as indictment of a system that is guilty as hell. We can do better than this. A country where things are radically wrong cries out for a revolutionary solution. We need to end the rule of the wealthy, to break the grip of the billionaires. It is not going to happen tomorrow – but in the long run we get what we fight for. Working and oppressed people need the political power and control of the economy to remake society in our interests. Capitalism must go and socialism will set us free.

#UnitedStates #CapitalismAndEconomy #US #Elections #BernieSanders #DonaldTrump #RNC2016 #HilaryClinton #USElections #Elections2016

Since the 2008 financial crisis, socialism has become more popular in the U.S. Young people increasingly express support for socialism. According to a 2015 Gallup Poll, 43% of people ages 18-to-29 report a positive view of socialism. Nearly half the country says they would vote for a socialist presidential candidate (Gallup, 2015).

My coworker is part of that 43%. He's a big Bernie Sanders fan and plans to vote for the self-described 'democratic socialist' in the upcoming Florida Democratic Party primary. He's drawn to Sanders because of his fight against income inequality, his refusal to take Wall Street campaign money, and – importantly – his support for legalizing marijuana. At the same time, my co-worker is not particularly pro-union. He is also not actively engaged in the ongoing shop floor struggles with management. Socialism and class struggle should go hand-in-hand, so suffice to say, it's complicated.

There's no doubt that working people in the U.S. would benefit a lot from many of Sanders' proposals. Medicare for All, free college tuition and a $15 per hour minimum wage would be steps forward. Sanders' call to break up and heavily regulate banks is a welcome contrast to Secretary Hillary Clinton's record of loyally serving Wall Street. For all his talk of a “political revolution,” however, the Sanders brand of democratic socialism actually fits quite comfortably in the capitalist system.

For many commentators, 'socialist' simply means 'government spending.' The problem with this definition, is that it sidesteps the question of class. At its most basic, the state is a weapon for one class to dominate another. In capitalist countries, banks, corporations and a wealthy oligarchy – in other words, the 1% – hold economic and political power. To protect their wealth, the ruling class exercises its power through the state, which is made up of laws, police, the courts, legislatures and more.

Under capitalism, the state takes a variety of forms, ranging from social welfare states (Sweden, Denmark) to open fascism (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy). While today most capitalist states hold elections, they are actually dictatorships. They are ruled by a tiny minority class of monopoly capitalists. Just look at the U.S.'s campaign finance system, which is dominated by corporate-funded super PACs. Although the U.S. holds elections every few years, the candidate with the most money wins 91% of the time, according to the Washington Post.

Sanders draw much of his political vision from the New Deal policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Many of the laws and reforms passed during the New Deal did improve the lives of working people. However, these gains weren't handed out by the U.S. government voluntarily. In fact, Roosevelt ran on a moderate pro-business, free trade platform when he was first elected in 1932. Even the first New Deal policies pushed by Roosevelt did very little for poor and working people. This only changed because of an outbreak of militant strikes and protests by working people fed up with the poverty and suffering created by the Great Depression. It was the working class, not politicians that forced Roosevelt to enact progressive reforms, like Social Security and child labor laws.

These gains made by working people are always under attack by the ruling class, especially during times of economic crisis. In the U.S., both Republicans and Democrats have attacked New Deal-era reforms like Social Security and the right to organize unions. Countries across Europe like Greece and Ireland forced deep budget cuts on people's pensions, health care and other social programs.

Capitalist attacks on reforms won by workers even happen in Scandinavia, which Sanders also looks to for inspiration. Because of the global economic crisis, Denmark cut unemployment benefits and reduced early retirement plans for seniors. Sweden has slowly privatized hospitals over the last two decades. In 2015, Sweden's unemployment rate reached 8.5%, despite its large social safety net.

Socialism is not a set of policies or reforms introduced to capitalism. It is not massive government spending on health care or infrastructure, either. The ruling class can enact these reforms one day and take them away the next without ever threatening the class dictatorship of the 1%. Political and economic power still rests with the banks and corporations. The vast majority of people – the working class – have no wealth or political power under the capitalist system.

Instead, socialism is a system in which the working class holds political and economic power. The working class holds political power and is able to assert its will. The working class controls the economy and uses it to meet the needs of the people, instead of increasing the wealth of the 1%. Socialist economies guarantee universal health care, free college education, paid maternity leave and free child care, along with countless rights unimaginable under capitalism. Countries like Cuba, for instance, guarantee full employment and provide free or affordable housing to all citizens. A socialist system puts ordinary working people – the vast majority – in power instead of a handful of billionaires. This makes socialism far more democratic for the vast majority, than anything capitalism has to offer.

My coworker and I continued talking for the rest of the shift. Our conversation about Sanders led us to the importance of unions under capitalism, especially in a workplace like ours. The fact that Sanders' campaign money mostly comes from unions and working people – not corporations and banks, like his rivals – serves as a good jumping off point to talk about class power and politics. But we have to be clear: Socialism with real political power for the majority will come from the revolutionary struggle of the working class against capitalism, not reforms and laws passed by politicians.

#UnitedStates #Socialism #Elections #BernieSanders #2016Elections

Senator Sanders has also been a critic of Wall Street and the most blatant displays of the richest 1%’s domination of elections. He wants to overturn the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that ended restrictions on corporate donations to political candidates. Sanders has also fought hard against the right wing and oil and gas industry’s opposition to any action on climate change.

That said, we cannot support the candidacy of Mr. Sanders. As senator, Sanders supported the 2010 Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill that included more militarization of the border, more temporary workers, cutting legal immigration from Africa in half by the elimination of the so-called diversity visa, and cutting back on family reunification visas. Sanders has said almost nothing about the ongoing police occupation of oppressed nationality communities, and the plague of police killings that target young Black and brown men.

While Sanders has been a critic of the Pentagon, he does so from the perspective of pinching pennies, not from an opposition to U.S. intervention in countries around the world. Sanders has supported sanctions on Russia that are part of the U.S. strategy for ‘regime change’ in former soviet countries to isolate Russia. Even worse, he has been a supporter of the brutal Israeli attack on Gaza, which massacred over a thousand Palestinian civilians and hundreds of children.

For those of our readers who see change coming through elections, there is (unfortunately) no major candidate to the left of Senator Sanders. He is certainly better than Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party mainstream, having opposed President Bill Clinton’s welfare reform and having endorsed the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s campaign for president in 1988. But for those of us who see that “change is in the streets,” we will be putting our time, energy and meager amount of money into organizing on campus, in the community and at our workplaces, not into the election campaign of Senator Sanders. We invite you to join us.

#UnitedStates #Elections #BernieSanders #2016Elections