Build a Movement to Drive Trump Out! Socialist Alternative Year’S Election

Build a Movement to Drive Trump Out! Socialist Alternative Year’S Election

ISSUE #57 l OCTOBER 2019 SUGGESTED DONATION $2 WORKERS AND YOUTH FIGHT BACK INSIDE DEMOCRATS BEGIN IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS BUILD A MOVEMENT TO p.3 subscription addresssubscription box DRIVE TRUMP OUT! WHAT WE STAND FOR WHY I JOINED SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE FIGHTING FOR THE 99% in rehabilitation, job training, and living-wage Following college, I worked as a caregiver J Raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an jobs, not prisons! Abolish the death penalty. for a couple years in my home state of Ari- hour, as a step toward a living wage for all. J Defend immigrant rights! Immediate, zona. I have always been passionate about social justice but this experience changed J Free, high quality public education for all from unconditional legalization and equal rights for my perspective profoundly. I was confronted pre-school through college. Full funding for all undocumented immigrants. with the sheer callousness of the capitalist schools to dramatically lower student-teacher J Fight sexual harassment, violence against system and its total inability to take care of ratios. Stop the focus on high stakes testing women, and all forms of sexism. our most vulnerable community members, and the drive to privatize public education. J Defend a woman’s right to choose whether either by meeting their basic material needs J Free, high quality health care for all. Replace and when to have children. For a publicly or in respecting their right to autonomy and the failed for-profit insurance companies with funded, single-payer health care system self-determination. I was making $9/hour a publicly funded single-payer system as a with free reproductive services, including all and had to go on food stamps while working step towards fully socialized medicine. forms of birth control and safe, accessible full time. Rapid turnover of staff due to lack J No budget cuts to education and social abortions. Comprehensive sex education. At of training and low pay lead to an unstable services! Full funding for all community least 12 weeks of paid family leave for all. For situation that left our clients vulnerable to needs. A major increase in taxes on the rich universal, high quality, affordable and publicly abuse. I advocated the best I could within and big business, not working people. run child care. the company for the needs and rights of my J Create living-wage union jobs for all the J Fight discrimination and violence against clients, but was told that due to underfund- unemployed through public works programs the LGBTQ community, and all forms of ing there was “nothing we can do” to improve to develop mass transit, renewable energy, homophobia and transphobia. their quality of life. I felt helpless on my own Alycia Lewis infrastructure, health care, education, and MONEY FOR JOBS AND EDUCATION, and so left, discouraged, to find new work. My experience as a caregiver taught me affordable housing. NOT WAR Seattle, WA J For rent control combined with massive how vitally important every single “reform” J End the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. public investment in affordable housing. under capitalism can be to the people who that a better world is possible if you’re willing Bring all the troops home now! need them most. So when I moved to Seattle J A guaranteed decent pension for all. No cuts to get organized and fight. It also showed me J Slash the military budget. No drones. Shut and found out about the work that Kshama to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid! that big business is prepared to go all out to down Guantanamo. Sawant’s office- along with Socialist Alterna- J A minimum guaranteed weekly income of protect their interests- as they’re trying to do J Repeal the Patriot Act, NDAA, and all other tive- was doing, it immediately made sense $600/week for the unemployed, disabled, right now by wielding an unprecedented $1.7 attacks on democratic rights. to me. As an individual I had been powerless million in corporate PAC money to defeat stay-at-home parents, the elderly, and others to help the people I cared about. But by join- unable to work. BREAK WITH Kshama Sawant’s re-election campaign. ing a movement fighting for things like $15/ If we are going to protect any of the J Repeal all anti-union laws like Taft-Hartley. For THE TWO PARTIES OF BIG BUSINESS hour, affordable housing, and taxing the rich improvements we make to the lives of work- democratic unions run by the rank-and-file J For a mass workers party drawing together to pay for vital social services- I could make ing people, it’s going to require challenging to fight for better pay, working conditions, workers, young people and activists from an immediate material impact on the lives of the power of the 1% head on and a complete and social services. Full-time union officials environmental, civil rights, and women’s countless people. socialist transformation of society. There’s a should be regularly elected and receive the campaigns, to provide a fighting, political The series of inspiring wins in Seattle- lot of work to do but I’m a socialist because average wage of those they represent. alternative to the corporate parties. from raising the minimum wage, to divert- I no longer believe I’m alone in the fight for J No more layoffs! Take bankrupt and failing J Unions and other social movement ing city funding from a new police bunker to justice. Instead, we have the power to come companies into public ownership. organizations should stop funding and affordable housing, to divesting from Wells together in common struggle for better lives J Break the power of Wall Street! For public supporting the Democratic and Republican Fargo in solidarity with NODAPL- showed me and a better world. J ownership and democratic control of the Parties and instead organize independent major banks. left-wing, anti-corporate candidates and Comprehensive Rent Control Bill Introduced in Seattle J Shorten the workweek with no loss in pay coalitions as a first step toward building a and benefits; share out the work with the workers’ party. Eva Metz “Taxing big business to build the affordable unemployed and create new jobs. SOCIALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM social housing we need cannot come soon ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY J Capitalism produces poverty, inequality, On September 23, over 250 people joined enough!” J Fight climate change. Massive public environmental destruction, and war. We Socialist Alternative’s Seattle City Council- Rent control is taking off across the investment in renewable energy and energy- need an international struggle against this member Kshama Sawant and renters’ rights country, from victories this year statewide efficient technologies to rapidly replace fossil failed system.No to corporate “free trade” organizations to pack City Hall demanding in Oregon and California to key protections fuels. agreements, which mean job losses and universal rent control. The meeting featured in New York State to strengthen and extend rent control. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria J A major expansion of public transportation to a race to the bottom for workers and the Sawant introducing rent control legislation to Ocasio-Cortez are both calling for national provide low fare, high-speed, and accessible environment. be discussed and debated. rent control. Now, Washington is the only transit. J Solidarity with the struggles of workers and Dozens of renters, workers, and com- munity leaders spoke in support of the draft state on the West Coast without any form of J Democratic public ownership of the big oppressed peoples internationally: An injury to one is an injury to all. bill for rent control. A barista named Chris rent control! If Seattle leads with a landmark energy companies, retooling them for rent control policy, citywide and free from J Take into public ownership the top 500 explained that she came to the meeting socially necessary green production. A corporate loopholes, we can set a powerful corporations and banks that dominate the out of “desperation” because her rent in a “Just Transition” for all workers in polluting example to renters and activists across the U.S. economy. Run them under the democratic shared three-bedroom home had risen $500 industries with guaranteed re-training and country, just like with the $15 minimum management of elected representatives over three years: “This has to end, and rent new living-wage jobs. wage which was first won in Seattle in 2014 of the workers and the broader public. control can stop landlords and big developers due to the leadership of Kshama Sawant and EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL Compensation to be paid on the basis from pricing us out of our homes.” the grassroots 15 Now campaign. J Fight discrimination based on race, of proven need to small investors, not Rents in Seattle have soared 69% since As Councilmember Sawant explained, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, gender millionaires. 2010. Studies show that when the average rent in a city increases by $100, homeless- "building a powerful movement that can identity, religion, disability, age, and all other J A democratic socialist plan for the economy forms of prejudice. Equal pay for equal work. ness increases by approximately 15%, often overcome what will be fierce opposition based on the interests of the overwhelming higher. With renters accounting for nearly from the real estate corporations" will be the J Black Lives Matter! Build a mass movement majority of people and the environment. For a half of Seattleites, these sky-high rents have "most crucial part of winning rent control.” against police brutality and the institutional socialist United States and a socialist world. pushed thousands of working families out of Our campaign for rent control is off to an racism of the criminal justice system.

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