What follows is an in-depth explanation of why Marxist feminism, embodied in a revolutionary party, is the contemporary answer to the crisis of capitalism. Drafted on behalf of the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) National Committee, this political resolution was adopted at the party’s July 2010 convention. It incorporates additions put forward by the FSP membership…. Read more »
history
Behind the US demonization of North Korea
The Cold War between capitalism and communism got very hot when the Korean War erupted in 1950. Few living Americans know much about that war, which aborted Korea’s revolution, gave the U.S. a military and economic foothold in the Far East, and was used to justify the anti-communist crusade. Three million North Koreans and one… Read more »
Book Review — Walking toward freedom: stories of the Black migration
In 1955, when I was five years old, I took a trip across the country from California with my mother and siblings on a Greyhound bus. When we got to Memphis, I noticed signs over the drinking fountains declaring them either “white” or “colored.” Perplexed, I asked my mother what the signs meant. She told… Read more »
Defendiendo los Estudios Étnicos: conversaciones con Rodolfo Acuña y Roberto Rodríguez
Acababa de salir de la imprenta la ley antiinmigrante SB 1070 de Arizona, la cual exige que la policía realice un perfilamiento racial, cuando la gobernadora Jan Brewer firmó la HB 2281 en mayo de 2010. El proyecto de ley, el cual se hizo efectivo a finales del año, prohíbe cualquier curso que “promueva el… Read more »
Standing up for Ethnic Studies: Talks with Rodolfo Acuña and Roberto Rodriguez
The ink was barely dry on Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB 1070 requiring racial profiling by police when Governor Jan Brewer signed HB 2281 in May 2010. The bill, which took effect at the end of the year, bans any courses that “promote resentment toward a race or class of people,” “are designed primarily for pupils of… Read more »
The general strike in US history: What it is and why it’s still needed
Read our more recent article on the subject of general strikes: “The General Strike: vital tool of workers’ power” During a protest on the evening that Wisconsin’s state senate passed its notorious union-busting bill, many union members and their supporters chanted “general strike!” They were not just venting about assaults on wages, benefits, and union… Read more »
Janet Sutherland, 1933-2011
Janet Sutherland, born in Bellingham, Wash., on Oct. 12, 1933, was a lifelong working-class partisan and a valued Freedom Socialist Party comrade for 33 years. She died in Seattle on May 9. A high school English teacher for four decades, she was revered by many students long after graduation. A core staffer of the early… Read more »
FBI persecution of the Black Panther Party: An interview with political prisoner Eddie Conway
At its Black History Month celebration on Feb. 26, the Seattle Freedom Socialist Party sponsored a forum entitled “The FBI’s war on the Black Panther Party: the fight is not over!” Eddie Conway, author, Vietnam vet, former Panther leader in the Baltimore chapter, was the featured speaker — from behind bars. Below are excerpts from… Read more »
PAGES FROM FSP HISTORY — Blacks, Women, Revolution — and the political demise of the Socialist Workers Party
When the entire Seattle branch of the Socialist Workers Party split and formed the Freedom Socialist Party in 1966, Melba Windoffer (an SWP member since 1936) became one of the founders of the FSP. The following text is a portion of her presentation at an educational retreat in December 1974, describing the reasons for leaving… Read more »
Leon Trotsky and the power of ideas
Marxists are often accused of being crass materialists because they emphasize material reality as the foundation for everything else: social relations, culture, individual psychology, and so on. Still, Marxists do believe that ideas can change the world. It helps if they are the right ideas! The more correctly ideas explain the world, the more power… Read more »