Wednesday, November 06, 2024

 Ukraine

Strength comes from within

Tuesday 5 November 2024, by Oleksandr Kyselov


Only by developing a publicly-owned defence infrastructure, socialising critical infrastructure, and managing Ukraine’s resources for the benefit of current and future generations can we hope to protect our freedom. People ought to have a stake in the country’s future, and respect for human dignity must be at the core of a society that asks its members to risk their lives for it.

Unfortunately, nothing like this can be seen in Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’, which has finally been revealed to the nation. On the contrary, the plan draws attention for its disproportionate reliance on the West. In this way a shift is quite remarkable, from earlier emotional appeals to solidarity to luring support with access to our natural resources and promising to outsource our troops for the EU’s security. As far as this vision is from our dearest dreams about re-joining “the European family”, this might be a sober approach, given pervasive hypocrisy in international politics. But what feels even more humiliating is being turned down almost immediately. While previously, relentless pressure—bordering on intrusiveness—achieved the unimaginable, today’s shifting political environment signals that those limits have been reached.

This dependence on external actors to solve our problems is symptomatic of the chosen political course, which has taken our own people for granted and resulted in barely concealed internal fragility. “Sotsialnyi Rukh” demands a sincere dialogue with society on how we arrived here and what can realistically be expected. Militant rhetoric from the government raises expectations, but failure to act on them by uniting the entire society and mobilising all resources for defence only deepens distrust and disappointment.

After 970 days of war at the time of writing, tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands wounded, and millions displaced, the toll is immense. Few families remain untouched by this devastation. Earlier hopes, sparked by a successful offensive in Russia’s Kursk oblast, have given way to anxiety and uncertainty with a slow retreat in the East. Russian forces threaten to capture Pokrovsk, potentially cutting off the main source of coking coal and crippling our metallurgical industry. Exhausted soldiers, often fighting in understaffed units without proper rest and recuperation, are outraged by the government’s plans to allow legally buying an exemption, at least temporarily, from military service and are demanding clear service durations. Some can no longer bear it—nearly 30,000 cases of AWOL have been registered in the first six months of 2024, according to the media.

The question remains open: who will replace those on the frontlines? Aware of the conditions in the army, civilians no longer queue at draft stations but actively evade mobilisation. Reported cases of draft dodging have tripled since 2023, and polls consistently show that nearly half of respondents view this reasonable. Appeals to civic duty ring hollow when the state openly declares that it owes nothing to its citizens - with the minister of social policy Oksana Zholnovich stating that “"We need to break everything that is social today and simply reformat from scratch the new social contract about social policy in our state.” and the chair of the social policy stating “we are not a ministry of payment, Ukrainians should be more self-sufficient and less rely on the state“. The brutality and impunity of draft officers, who press-gang men off the streets, only exacerbate the issue. Over 1,600 complaints have been filed with the Ombudsman in 2024, but the results are yet to be seen. Meanwhile, reports from the battlefield, which describe how unmotivated, untrained, and even unfit recruits, endanger the rest, make the result of increasing coercion questionable.

The broader picture suggests a deliberate choice by the ruling elites to shift the burden of resisting aggression onto ordinary people. Skyrocketing prices, meagre wages, and social austerity go hand in hand with restricted collective bargaining, increased taxes on low- and middle-income earners, and continued corruption—even in defence matters. What makes this worse is the political class’s preference to disregard the chance for unprecedented unity we all experienced once the invasion began. Instead they opt for sowing divisions by exploiting fears of traumatised society and fueling suspicion by constantly singling out new internal enemies: Russian speakers, “victims of colonial thinking”, followers of the Moscow priests, collaborants, Kremlin agents, or queer. Ukrainians on the front are pointed to the ungrateful in the rear, who in turn should blame those “comfortably” sitting abroad.

This brings us back to the President’s ‘victory plan,’ which, despite its emphasis on strength, only exposes our weaknesses. Some argue this may be Zelensky’s final ultimatum to the West—destined for rejection—before a complete turn-around toward a forced compromise with the enemy. It is not entirely without grounds, as polls suggest that more than half of the population would be willing to negotiate or freeze the conflict if Western support is withdrawn.

But what are the chances that a deal with Russia would lead to sustainable, let alone just, peace? Even assuming Putin is willing to negotiate in good faith, which is not given, such talks might be prone to failure, result in a stillborn deal, or be a temporary pause before the fighting resumes.

Recognition of the annexation of occupied territories is obviously out of the question. For Ukrainians, they remain occupied, and there is no way to cushion that reality. Leaving Ukraine without security guarantees especially when Russia keeps investing in their military strength would be an open invitation for renewed aggression. In Ukrainian society, 45% see unjust peace as a betrayal of fallen compatriots, and 49% would take the streets to protest the compromise. The only deal with a chance of being supported, by a slight margin, includes de-occupation of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, combined with NATO and EU memberships.

On the other hand, nothing short of capitulation and submission seems to fulfil the Kremlin’s objectives in this war of aggression, which was reiterated by Putin himself before the BRICS summit in Kazan. Moreover, the recently adopted three-year budget plan in Russia ramps up military spending to a record high. Therefore, the greatest mistake would be to pit diplomatic efforts against military support. Without meaningful solidarity, Ukraine and its people will fall—if not now, then later.

While there are no easy or ready-made solutions, honesty is essential for preparedness. Should a ceasefire occur, it may not last long, but every day it does must be used to strengthen our society’s resilience. Exposing our ecosystem, already weakened by years of predatory exploitation and Russian eco-terrorism, to foreign investors is not the answer. Inequality, alienation, and disenfranchisement will not bring us resilience. The invisible hand of the market—commodifying everything, plagued by short-termism and profiteering—will not make us stronger.

The root of our problems is that too often, the interest of those whose invisible work actually keeps the country running has been ignored. Hopefully, this time, we’ve learned the lesson. This is why “Sotsialnyi Rukh” publicly declares our readiness to cooperate with other forces to build a political movement that ensures the voice of the people is heard in the corridors of power. As soon as the elections are held, they may decide our destiny for years to come.

23 October 2024

First published in Danish Solidaritet, original in English.

 

Source: Jacobin

I recently toured an Amazon fulfillment center; anyone can do it. From what I can tell, they mostly give tours of their robotics sortable facilities, the newer ones dominated by Kiva robots and other automation technologies, to give the sense of a company doing what was barely imaginable a decade ago.

And to Amazon’s credit, it is a truly impressive affair. In the three-million-square-foot fulfillment center I toured, conveyor belts ran the length of the facility. From one end of the building, you could barely make out packages moving along them as any more than little specks. On many levels, stowing and picking stations surround a fenced-in center area dominated by Kivas, all carrying 2,000-pound stacks of goods, ready at the click of a button to move to the closest picking station to fulfill an order. For the moment, the robots are mostly separated from the people for safety reasons, but the new autonomous Proteus robots will soon change that.

I heard many impressive facts on the tour, but there was one that really stuck with me: this facility had been open for a year, and it was running at about 30 percent capacity. If the facility were pumping out 300,000 packages per day outbound (I didn’t catch the exact number, but it’s a reasonable estimate for a sortables facility of this size), it could handle a million. This apparently is not an uncommon situation: Amazon reserves extra capacity at its fulfillment centers for peak season, roughly from late October through Christmas, when it can sometimes see more than twice the normal volume demand.

From a labor organizing perspective, this is a terrifying situation. It means that, for most of the year, if you did the hard work of organizing a strike by the thousands of workers at any given Amazon fulfillment center, it would hardly register on Amazon’s radar — not because the company has the resolve not to flinch in a labor dispute, but because they could so efficiently reroute order fulfillment to other facilities that it would likely not slow down their operation in any noticeable way.

Fulfillment Centers, especially the highly automated sortable ones, are huge capital investments, but they are also highly immune to disruption. Amazon recently executed a regionalization strategy to cut down on long-range order fulfillment, but before that, roughly 40 percent of orders at a fulfillment center were going out of region. If need be, Amazon would not hesitate to let the long-range fulfillment percentage creep back up again.

This kind of situation contrasts markedly with that of the ports, where shippers and carriers can and move volume around when they anticipate disruption — as they did, for instance, during the recent East and Gulf Coast port strike — but where their ability to do so is extremely limited by existing capacity. Compared to the massive Chinese ports, American ports currently don’t have a great ability to cope with great volume shifts. This is to the decided advantage of the longshore workers’ unions, but it only further highlights the precarious position of Amazon fulfillment center workers.

Now this might make the prospect of organizing Amazon warehouses appear somewhat bleak, were it not for two additional considerations: First, Amazon operates many other kinds of facilities, ones that are either far fewer in number than the fulfillment centers or much more place-based than them. Not everything is fungible in Amazon’s distribution network, as I explain here, and we do ourselves a disservice to think about Amazon logistics solely in terms of fulfillment centers (indeed, given the tours it offers, as Amazon itself appears to want us to think about it).

And second, there is one opportune time every year to make Amazon really feel the pressure, and that is the holiday season that’s just around the corner. Transport geographer Jean-Paul Rodrigue  illustrates the dramatic package volume increase between Thanksgiving and Christmas in the chart below.Amazon is in the process of trying to hire a quarter of a million people in preparation for the holiday season, at which point its logistical operation will be in full swing. Peak season is a uniquely vulnerable time at Amazon: they need workers, and they’re as close to operational capacity as they’re going to get. The holiday season is, of course, a busy time for all retailers, but this fact is particularly pertinent in the case of Amazon because it is the one time during the year when certain components of its distribution system are vulnerable to disruption.

To organize a corporate behemoth like Amazon, the labor movement must understand the interrelation of the different elements comprising Amazon’s network, each of which presents its own vulnerabilities, but it must also take advantage of timing. Thus far, to my knowledge, only episodic coalitional campaigns like Make Amazon Pay have attempted to do so on a broad scale, relying on independent groups of workers to participate in international days of solidarity. Such campaigns are good awareness-raising mechanisms, but they are flashes in the pan without deep organizing and institutional roots.

In the United States, any serious campaign to organize Amazon is going to require the central coordination of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which has public organizing efforts at multiple delivery stations and Amazon’s central air hub, KCVG. These efforts must be massively scaled up to meet the challenge of Amazon, and they must also exploit the key stretch of the calendar year that is upon us.


 

Source: African Arguments

From a distance, anti-oil protests in Uganda might not make much sense. After all, the country has discovered “black gold.” Big multinationals with world class expertise and global clout have offered to build a huge pipeline through neighbouring Tanzania, from which super-tankers will carry the oil to buyers around the world. The resulting $15 billion project, the government says, will make a poor landlocked country rich. Everybody wins, right?

Not exactly. Our seven-month investigation into the “Kingfisher” oil project uncovered a litany of abuses that are making local residents much worse off. They continue to call for the project to be halted.

Located along the shores of Lake Albert, the Kingfisher project and the larger Tilenga project – also the sight of serious human rights violations – are jointly owned by TotalEnergies (56.67%), Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (28.33%), and the Uganda National Oil Company (15%). Along with the Ugandan government, these companies are responsible for everything that happens at Kingfisher. These responsibilities include adhering to Ugandan law, respecting human rights, compensating those harmed by the project, and taking action to ensure accountability for violations. They are failing on all counts.

Kingfisher has been, and continues to be, the site of forced evictions, inadequate or non-existent compensation for land and other assets, coercion and intimidation in the land acquisition process, reduced standards of living and impoverishment, violations of labour rights, and sexual and gender-based violence.

Consider the story of Solomon* from the village of Kiina. Along with his family and neighbours, he was abruptly forced from his home by soldiers to make way for the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). “By 6am, the village was swarming with 30 to 40 military personnel,” he says. “The soldiers declared: ‘we don’t want you here’. People protested that they had nowhere to go, prompting the army to start shooting. Some shots were fired into the air, others aimed to scare. The villagers began to flee. I immediately entered my house, told my wife we are leaving, closed the house and the shop, and directly left.”

Joseph* from the village of Nzunsu B said CNOOC agents threatened him with losing everything if he persisted in his refusal to sign a “voluntary” compensation agreement for his land. “I was not happy and didn’t want to sign at the beginning,” he says. “But [CNOOC] told me that if I didn’t sign, the land would be taken freely.”

CNOOC has committed to adhere to International Finance Corporation Standards on Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement, but the reality has been far different. Ugandans living near the Kingfisher project can be forgiven for wondering just who will benefit from the oil. With billions of dollars at stake, many fear state and elite capture of the profits by a government renowned for  corruption. According to Henry*, whose family was evicted from their home, “we have one meal per day, the same for everyone in the family. Sometimes even that meal is missing, and we take only tea.”

Community members who have sought jobs with CNOOC’s subcontractors meanwhile report poor treatment, including excessive hours, low wages, hazardous working conditions, failure to provide employment contracts and pay promised wages, and demands for bribes to obtain jobs. Women described sexual threats, intimidation, or coercion by Ugandan soldiers in the Kingfisher project area. Climate Rights International also received reports of sexual violence by managers and superiors within oil companies operating at Kingfisher, including one involving a CNOOC employee. According to one woman, “if you refuse to sleep with your boss, you can be chased away very fast”.

The development of the Kingfisher project has also led to the degradation of the natural environment, including through land, water, and air pollution. Fisherfolk report seeing oil slicks and dead fish in the lake, and a drastic reduction in fish in the project area. Two whistle-blowers who worked for the CNOOC subcontractor in charge of drilling activities told Climate Rights International that they were instructed to dump oil and chemical waste directly into the lake as well as on land, where it subsequently flows into the lake.

The entire project is a disaster for climate change. An analysis by the Climate Accountability Institute  concluded that Uganda’s oil would produce around 379 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions over 25 years. Peak annual emissions would be more than double the current annual emissions of Uganda and Tanzania combined. Like all new oil and gas projects, its development is incompatible with the  Paris Agreement’s targets and a liveable planet.

African Arguments contacted the Ugandan president’s office and CNOOC for comment on the allegations but did not receive a response.

A growing anti-oil movement

Large numbers of people regularly engage in public protests in Uganda, but face harsh repercussions from a government with a long record of repression and abuse. President Yoweri Museveni has barely hidden how he views things, declaring in 2016: “[That’s] my oil. I won’t allow anybody to play around with it.”

In June 2024, Stephen Kwikiriza, an environmental observer with the Environmental Governance Institute, was abducted, interrogated, beaten, and disappeared for several days by Ugandan security forces. Kwikiriza had documented the environmental devastation and human rights violations suffered by his community from the Kingfisher project. He is just one of many campaigners against oil projects targeted by authorities.

Activists who make up the #StopEACOP campaign – referring to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) that would transport Uganda’s oil through Tanzania – have long been arguing that the Ugandan government and oil majors behind the project should end it.

They may have no choice. Major banks and insurance companies based in Europe, Japan, and North America have publicly ruled out support for EACOP. It’s time for all banks and insurance companies, whether in China, the Gulf States, Europe, Africa, or elsewhere, to join them in publicly rule out any continuing or further support for the project.

While the Ugandan government is now desperately seeking additional finance, aside from South Africa’s Standard Bank Group, few appear willing to take the reputational hit. Although his government has practically begged China to come to its rescue, Museveni appears to have come back empty-handed from a recent trip to the country.

Beijing has become increasingly sensitive to negative local public opinion as its brand has eroded across Africa due to predatory economic behaviour. Chinese authorities have to be careful in weighing their allegiance to an aging autocrat versus a young population that is likely to remember which side it was on. One only has to look at recent events in Bangladesh to realise just how fragile even seemingly stable autocratic systems can be.

The Kingfisher and Tilenga projects, as well as EACOP, are not only a dangerous carbon bomb, but also a human rights disaster. As the world faces the crisis of climate change, international donors, financial institutions, and multinational companies considering investing in Uganda should focus on renewable energy instead of oil and gas.

The Kingfisher project is bad for people, bad for the environment, and very bad for climate change. CNOOC and TotalEnergies should clean up, pack up, and go home.


*names changed

 

Source: Common Dreams

Making the oil and gas industry pay for climate impacts is ranked as the favoured policy choice, according to a survey conducted in eight countries across five continents by strategic insight agency, Opinium.[1] The study, commissioned by Greenpeace International, is published as the organisation steps up its global actions to defeat Big Oil’s attempt to silence opposition in courtrooms from London, to Paris, Rome, and North Dakota.

Abdoulaye Diallo, Co-Head of Greenpeace International’s Stop Drilling Start Paying campaign, which commissioned the survey, said: “This research shows how taxing the wealthy polluters in chief – companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, Total, Equinor and Eni – has become a mainstream solution among people, cutting across borders and income levels. As governments debate how to finance climate action, they can be confident that making polluters pay is not only fair, but also far more popular and effective than placing the burden on ordinary citizens for a crisis for which they bear little or no responsibility.”

Key insights from the report include:

Consensus on Big Oil’s role in climate change

  • Asked about who should bear the most responsibility for climate change impacts, the most popular option across all eight countries in the survey was making oil and gas companies pay, with high-emitting countries and global elites ranked second and third.
  • 60% of all surveyed countries see a link between profits of the oil and gas industry and rising energy prices.

Indignation about Big Oil

The survey also finds a majority in the surveyed countries is angry about:

  • CEOs of oil and gas firms taking home huge bonuses whilst their business decisions are making climate change worse (73%).
  • Risk and impacts on health and well-being, pollution and environmental impacts that come from oil or gas extraction (71%), as well as the historic and continued expansion of new oil and gas fields despite clear evidence that this makes climate change worse (66%).
  • Disinformation shared on climate change in an effort to delay climate action and constant lobbying and influence over politicians and lawmakers (67%).
  • The historical and ongoing role of oil and gas companies in conflict, war and human rights violations (66%).

Global concern about the climate crisis: a Global North/South divide

The survey reveals 80% of respondents are worried about climate change. A large majority of people are worried that it would harm them personally and an even greater majority of people worry it would harm future generations.

At the same time, the survey also reveals wide gaps between Global North and Global South countries regarding the exposure to the climate crisis. People surveyed in the Global North are twice as likely to have no personal experience with extreme weather events than those in the Global South (43%, 19% respectively).

This finding is in line with data on the high vulnerability to climate change of some of the countries which have done the least to cause it.[2][3]

Imposing a fair climate damages tax on extraction of fossil fuels by OECD countries – proposed by the charity Stamp Out Poverty and supported by 100 NGOs, including Greenpeace International – is one example of a tax on big polluters. This could generate USD 900 billion by 2030, based on a low initial rate of USD 5, rising USD5 each year thereafter. This would be key for annual climate-related loss and damage costs, estimated to be between USD 290-580 billion by 2030 in low-income countries, as well as for reducing the emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and adapting to the impacts of the climate crisis in all countries.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has previously confirmed that more than a century of burning fossil fuels has been a key driver of global warming of 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels.[4]

The survey’s results demonstrate public support and sentiment across countries for the “Make Polluters Pay” policy principle, in line with other public opinion studies published this year, such as the Earth for All 2024 Survey.[5]

Greenpeace International commissioned this study for the Stop Drilling Start Paying global campaign, which is working with millions of people to stop oil and gas companies from expanding, resist their intimidation, and force them to pay for the climate damages already felt by people across the world.

Disaffected Voters May Want to Consider What Decades of Right-Wing Minority Rule Could Bring

Donald Trump will not last forever, but if he wins his far-right Republican Party’s system of minority rule could be here for decades. The damage they would inflict on the people of this nation—and the world—is horrifying to contemplate.



November 5, 2024
Source: Common Dreams

It is widely believed, including by experts, that this presidential election could be one of the most important in U.S. history. And polling data still marks it as too close to call. Various groups of voters who might normally vote, but decide to sit this one out, could decide the outcome.

On the Democratic side that includes a significant number of people who will not vote for the party’s nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, because of the support that the Biden administration has given to Israel’s current military campaign. This support includes about $18 billion in weapons shipments from the United States to Israel.

More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its military operations in the Gaza Strip on October 7, following a Hamas attack from there that killed about 1200 people, mostly Israeli citizens. Public health experts have stated that the Palestinian death toll is likely considerably higher.

The majority of Palestinians killed have been women and children, often in Israeli bombings of civilian areas which include hospitals, schools, aid distribution points, emergency services, residential buildings and tents. American surgeons working in Gaza have documented multiple cases of pre-teen children killed with a single bullet to the head. The World Food Program warns that just 20 percent of the required basic food aid is being let in by Israel. The food situation is so bad that the Biden administration issued a complaint to Israel over the issue; Israel responded by banning UNRWA, the main source of humanitarian aid in the strip.

“Israel’s Imposed Starvation Deadly for Children” is the headline for a report from Human Rights Watch, one the most prominent human rights organizations in the United States.

Israel has banned foreign media from entering Gaza and has killed so many local reporters that the Committee to Protect Journalists has called it the “deadliest period ever for journalists.”

One place where there is a large number of voters who feel strongly about this is Michigan. It has more than 300,000 people of Middle Eastern or North African descent. It is one of the three swing states (along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) that together would provide Harris with the most likely path to winning the electoral vote and therefore the presidency.

Current polling shows Michigan too close to call right now, so the Arab-American vote could make the difference; NBC Newsnotes that recent polls show this vote “breaking roughly evenly between Harris and Trump, while they have typically broken closer to 2-to-1 for Democrats in recent elections.” And more than 100,000 voters in Michigan last year voted “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary, protesting Biden’s support for Israel’s military in Gaza.

It is not only Michigan where Democratic voters are horrified by the mass killing they see in Gaza and now Lebanon, where at least 1800 people have been killed by Israeli forces in the past five weeks. There are millions of people throughout the United States who feel the same moral revulsion. And it could cost a close election in another swing state.

But Trump would be worse. Most importantly he has a Congressional and powerful funding base—including a billionaire who has contributed hundreds of millions to him and the Republican Party—that would continue to push him to support violent extremism. His political base would put much less, if any, pressure on him to end the war; or even to stop it from expanding. And his likely cabinet choices would also be less willing to bring about a negotiated solution to the conflict.

Trump’s return to the presidency would also consolidate and allow for the expansion of minority rule in the United States. Under this system, Democrats need more than 40 million more votes to get the same 50 seats as Republicans in the Senate. And then the filibuster means they need 10 more for most legislation.

Our system of minority rule has also allowed two presidents since 2000 (George W. Bush and Trump) to take office after losing the popular vote. The election of 2000 brought us the Iraq War, which was found to be based on lies, took the lives of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and led to further avoidable violence in the region.

Trump and his Senators abused their power to get a 6-3, hard right-wing majority on the Supreme Court. A Court with unprecedented corruption. And a court that took from women their right to control their own bodies.

Trump will not last forever, but his party’s system of minority rule could be here for decades, as the Republicans continue to use their control of the Supreme Court and much of the judiciary, state legislatures, and the executive branch to tilt the electoral playing field further—through voting restrictions, gerry-mandering, and attacks on organized labor, with a focus on swing states.

All this does not diminish this urgent moral imperative of putting an end to the mass killing of innocent civilians in the Middle East, and our own government’s support for the attacks. But our ability to stop this and other crimes in which U.S. foreign policy is involved, is being eroded every day as the United States becomes less of a democracy.

So, for those who believe in the sanctity of human life and our shared humanity with people of different nationalities, religions, and ethnicity, it is clear that we have a big stake in tomorrow’s election. We have a dire need for a new foreign policy that shares these basic human values. This election may well determine how much we can make progress towards this goal—immediately as needed in the Middle East—and in the foreseeable future.



Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He is author of the book Failed: What the "Experts" Got Wrong About the Global Economy (Oxford University Press, 2015), co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and has written numerous research papers on economic policy.




DSA Statement On the Presidential Race
November 5, 2024
Source: Democratic Socialists of America




Workers deserve more than Trump vs. Harris.

Every four years, working people are faced with the same “choices” for president: a conservative Democrat, a deranged Republican, and a gallery of self-promotional minor party candidates. For many people, voting doesn’t seem worth the effort.

If re-elected, Donald Trump would be a terror on the working class. As described in “Project 2025,” the extreme right wants to consolidate power under a Trump presidency through the expansion of authoritarian executive action. He would aim to repress fundamental democratic rights, stoke violence and discrimination against immigrants and trans people, and throw into chaos essential federal regulations on labor, corporate profit, and the environment. His administration would also want to target organizations like DSA for repression.

Harris is not the alternative we deserve. She’s embraced Trump’s border wall and Biden’s support for genocide in Palestine and would repeat destructive policies carried out under previous administrations like mass deportations and global imperialist warfare. She’s highlighted the most depraved Republicans as her core supporters, like Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales, who carried out and defended the torture and abuse of thousands of Iraqis. Her allegiance to the capitalist class has already tempered any supposed interest in progressive reforms and sows the seeds for future right-wing demagogues. The risk of a Trump presidency has grown because of her deliberate strategic choices. If Trump wins, the blame will lie squarely with Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party establishment.

Both candidates oppose an arms embargo on Israel – the only policy that can bring an end to the ongoing genocide of Palestinians and prevent yet another horrific war in the Middle East.

This choice is why so many people are rejecting the two major parties and are hungry for a political alternative.

Many of our members are committed to defeating Trump and will vote tactically to that end. Others are committed to rejecting the human horrors and hollow principles Harris represents, so they will vote for a third-party candidate or leave their ballot blank. What’s most important is the organizing we do after Election Day and our ability to fight the capitalist class by strengthening our unions, mobilizing millions of people to fight injustice, and electing socialists to all levels of government.

That’s why we are running democratic socialist candidates for office across the country, like Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston, Georgia State House candidate Gabriel Sanchez, New York Assembly candidate Claire Valdez, Louisville City Council candidate JP Lyninger, Congressional candidate Devin Davis and many more.

As democratic socialists, we refuse to be limited by the Democratic and Republican factions of the ruling class. They would like working people to stay alienated from each other and competing amongst ourselves for scraps – but we refuse that, too. We choose solidarity. We understand that only a mass movement of the working class can fundamentally change our lives for the better. We must organize mass strikes, issue campaigns, boycotts, protests, sit-ins and marches, all of which will require powerful labor unions, tenant unions, student groups, parent groups, and community coalitions. It will also require running more candidates for office that want to build a new working class political party.

DSA is building a party that fights for democracy, dignified jobs and wages, Medicare for all, education for all, housing for all, a livable planet, an end to the U.S. war machine, a free Palestine – and the eventual transformation of our economy from capitalist exploitation to collective liberation. Read more about our platform Workers Deserve More: 2024.dsausa.org.

In 2024 and beyond, workers deserve more. Workers deserve a party of our own. Join DSA to build it. Find your local chapter or start one today!