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International Socialist Organization
Why we're taking action on March 8
March 8 is International Women's Day, but this year, it will also be an international day of action in more than 30 countries. Organizers of the massive Women's March on Washington on January 21 are among the supporters of a call by prominent scholars and activists for a women's strike that will organize resistance "not just against Trump and his misogynist policies, but also against the conditions that produced Trump, namely the decades-long economic inequality, racial and sexual violence, and imperial wars abroad."
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation and a member of the National Planning Committee for the International Women's Strike USA, talked to Socialist Worker about what March 8 could bring to the new resistance.
Why the call for a women's strike on March 8?
Taylor: There are many reasons. The first and perhaps most important reason is that the election of Donald Trump as president has unearthed a tremendous outpouring among women in opposition to his regime and agenda.
This was most palpably demonstrated on January 21, when an unprecedented outpouring of protest overwhelmed cities across the country. Where thousands were expected to demonstrate, millions of men and women clogged the streets around the country to show the deep revulsion and opposition to Trump.
The outpouring was surprising, but the sentiment of opposition and resistance was not.
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Keep up to date on activities, demonstrations, events and initiatives.
Why you should defend abortion rights and Planned Parenthood
Jen Roesch on why you should defend abortion rights and Planned Parenthood—in a debate in New York City with an anti-choice activist. Watch a full playlist of videos from the day’s events here.
Registration for Socialism 2017 is now open!
The ISO—publisher of Socialist Worker/Obrero Socialist newspaper—is a proud cosponsor of Socialism 2017, a four-day conference which will take place July 6-9, in Chicago. Visit the S17 website to register and get info about our student and early-bird discounts, free on-site childcare, and the latest updates about speakers and talks. For a sense of what you can expect at Socialism 2017, visit the archive of talks from Socialism 2016 at WeAreMany.org.Read more
The Anti-Inauguration: Building Resistance in the Trump Era
On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017, over a thousand people gathered at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington DC to hear Naomi Klein, Jeremy Scahill, Anand Gopal, Owen Jones, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor speak on what resistance should look like in the age of Trump and what kind of positive program we should be fighting for. An ebook of the speeches from this event is available for free here. The event was sponsored by Verso Books, Haymarket Books, and Jacobin Magazine.
From KXL to DAPL: The Fight for Indigenous Rights
Also read—“The Challenge at Standing Rock”—by Sara Rougeau, Ragina Johnson, and Brian Ward, at SocialistWorker.org.
ISO news
Take action on International Women's Day
Wednesday, March 8 is International Women’s Day—and an important next step in building the resistance against Trump and the fight for women’s liberation. Below are some of the meetings, speakouts, rallies, and marches that the ISO will be participating in across the country. We encourage you to join us!
Be sure to read why we’re taking action on March 8 and why you should oppose the smears against the women’s strike .Read more
March issue of Socialist Worker out now
The March issue of Socialist Worker is out now and available from ISO branches around the country.
The front cover, with the headline “Donald Trump’s cruel war on immigrants,” highlights some the many stories of undocumented immigrants caught in the administration’s dragnet. Inside are several related stories, including, “A declaration of war on immigrants” and “Will Trump get his anti-Muslim ban?”
The back page features the struggle to defend abortion rights, with a roundup of reports about the Planned Parenthood counterprotests and an article on the lessons of...Read more
Resistance and Reaction in the Age of Trump—International Socialist Review Issue #104 is now out!
Issue #104 of the International Socialist Review is now out! The ISR is offering new subscribers a 50% discount off their normal rate. Enter discount code “DUMPTRUMP” at checkout to take advantage of this offer.
Below we are publishing the new issue’s editorial—“Resistance and reaction in the age of Trump.” Visit the ISR’s website today to subscribe and view other newly released articles.
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Resistance and Reaction in the Age of TrumpUS politics in the past months has experienced, to quote the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, “an abrupt turn in the objective situation.”
Very few of us on the left expected that the next president of the United States would be a corrupt, narcissistic billionaire swindler, an open sexist and self-confessed serial abuser, and a man the Far Right hails for his open racism and nationalist xenophobia. Donald Trump successfully positioned himself as a right-wing populist, anti-establishment candidate who would tear up free trade, deport immigrant “job-stealers,” and restore good jobs for “real” Americans.Read more
We had to organize to keep the clinics open
The Reagan years were an era of intensified attacks on women's rights, but resistance built from the grassroots stood up to the anti-choicers, writes Elizabeth Schulte:
An anti-abortion Republican in the White House, the U.S. Supreme Court within one vote of overturning Roe v. Wade, and anti-choice zealots attacking women's clinics--in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the stakes were high for women's right to choose abortion.
And the battle was taking place in the streets of many U.S. cities, after hundreds of anti-abortion protesters descended on clinic facilities, determined to shut them down.
Randall Terry, leader of the extremist anti-choice organization Operation Rescue, claimed the crusade used the peaceful disobedience tactics of the civil rights movement in the interest of "saving unborn children."
But there was nothing "peaceful" or "civil" about their movement--or their goal of reversing women's right to abortion and making decisions about their own lives.Read more
Why we need protest to stop the anti-choicers
Opponents of a woman‘s right to choose abortion are taking aim at funding for Planned Parenthood. Lichi D'Amelio makes the case that we can't let them go unchallenged.February 7, 2017
Anti-abortion groups have called a nationwide day of protest at Planned Parenthood clinics on February 11 to support defunding the women‘s health care provider. They intend, according to their website, “to call on Congress and President Trump to strip Planned Parenthood of all federal funding and reallocate those funds to health centers that help disadvantaged women without destroying human life through abortion.”
It should go without saying that the bigots behind this mobilization, such as the Pro-Life Action League and Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, care not one iota for women, “disadvantaged” or otherwise. They’re part of a long, right-wing tradition of harassing and shaming women entering clinics and imposing legal restrictions on abortion that make access to services increasingly non-existent for the majority of women in the U.S.
Thankfully, women around the country have instinctively responded by starting up Facebook pages encouraging people to counterprotest the bigots who will be showing up at Planned Parenthood clinics.Read more
Recently at Socialist Worker
News and opinion published by the ISO—monthly in print and daily on the Web at SocialistWorker.org.
Tuesday, March 14th
Comment: Lee Sustar
Is there a pro-Putin clique in the White House?
The continuing controversy over the Putin-Trump relationship points towards a deeper debate over the decline of U.S. imperial power.
Zionists and anti-Semites unite?
New York is still a tale of two cities
We have to punch together
Cultivando resistencia
Monday, March 13th
Comment: Danny Katch
American horror stories
Trump's outbursts about being wiretapped and the like are shocking and stupid, but they're in keeping with the right wing's message for years.
What happened at the Middlebury protest?
Trump's threat to transgender youth
Building a feminism for the 99 percent
For a general strike against autocracy
Friday, March 10th
Comment: Alan Maass
Marxism and democracy
Socialists have always fought for the widest possible expansion of democracy and political rights as an essential part of the class struggle.
Our hope is in ourselves
Thursday, March 9th
Analysis: Pranav Jani
Why are South Asians facing a wave of violence?
The recent attacks on Indian-Americans are a new and deadly chapter in a long history of racism in the U.S. against immigrants from South Asia.
The movement needs to invite debate
This VOICE tells racist lies
Five days that ended an empire
Racism is horrifying
Wednesday, March 8th
Comment: Elizabeth Schulte
Raising our voices for women's liberation
The celebration of International Women's Day this year will bring protests, forums and strikes--a tribute to the relevance of this socialist holiday.
Can you be a feminist and anti-abortion?
Will school end early in Chicago?
A new women's resistance is emerging
Solidarity with Aporrea.org
Tuesday, March 7th
Comment: Eric Ruder
How the movement brought down a president
Trump's crisis-ridden presidency has people asking: What would it take to force him out? The Nixon era shows what it takes to topple a president.
The foxes tear down a flimsy henhouse fence
On the same side as Peña Nieto?
She stood on the barricades
Featured at the International Socialist Review
Trump's victory and the necessity of solidarity
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Haymarket Books, 2016), and assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. The widely-acclaimed book surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality, arguing that this struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation. Activist and scholar Cornel West called her book “the best analysis we have of the #BlackLivesMatter moment.” The movement, which emerged under the first African-American president, faces a new situation with the election of an openly racist and xenophobic president, Donald Trump. Ashley Smith interviewed her in late November to discuss the legacy of the Obama era and the prospects for struggle under these new unexpected circumstances.Read more